Reading through the manual booklets for my new car and one of the brochures inside has a pretty cool cover design that I thought I’d share with you.

(This is also my first post testing the Android WordPress app)

I’m a big fan of car logos and the requirements that come along with an auto manufacturer identity.

What’s your favorite car manufacturer logo?

I’ve noticed a trend on freelancer’s websites lately where the designer presents viewers with their current “work availability” , or the months that they are “available for hire”.

This goes against every bit of sales training I have ever had. This is not good business and here’s why:

1. Numbers game

   Everyone wants leads. Everyone wants a lot of leads. The more leads you get, the more sales you make. Sales 101. This applies to any contractor / freelancing business, and mostly every other type of business also. Why would you ever give a reason for someone NOT to become a lead for you? Sure, you’re busy and you may not be able to work with this client right away if they contact you, but isn’t it better that they do actually contact you?

2. Relationships

   The potential client doesn’t contact you because your website says you are “Only taking on new jobs starting August 2010″. Client moves on. They don’t bookmark your site, they don’t click through any more of your pages, and they probably never think of , or find you again. No relationship. Ever.

   Now imagine you didn’t show your “availability” on your website. The client likes your work, your style, and decides to contact you about a project they have in mind. They are reaching out to start a relationship with you! It doesn’t necessarily have to turn into a monetary one right away to make it a worthwhile relationship. You might have to respond by thanking them for contacting you, ask them a few details about their project, and let them know that you would be able to start working with them by August 2010…. Showing an availability calendar is negative. It says to the user “I can’t work with you right now”, whereas the response to an initial email from a client is positive, saying that “I can work with you in 2 months”.

   You can also add a note asking if they would like you to keep in touch with them through your newsletter where you provide free helpful tips, articles etc… Now, you have another email newsletter subscriber, and you can start building a relationship with this new contact. Oh, and you also could get a new twitter or facebook follower. All streams that allow you to build a stronger relationship with this potential client.

   Then guess what happens. In a few months times, after they chose to work with someone else and the project failed, they contact YOU because they now feel like they know you from your regular newsletter, seeing you on Twitter, or enjoying your awesome comic and they know that you are extremely experienced (because you show off your work in your newsletter, right? ). Also, now it’s August 2010! Hoorah! You now have available space in your schedule to work with them and take their project on.

   All positive. That is what good sales is, and good sales is all about relationship building. Whether it leads to an immediate or future sale should not determine your investment in it.

3. Stats, Advertising etc

   All of us invest time/energy/money into promoting our freelancing services or design firm. You hope that these efforts pay off. Whether they do or don’t, you want to know what is working and what isn’t. That’s where statistics , lead tracking and other information gathering comes in.

   You can use a service like Google Analytics to see information about your website visitors, where they are coming from , what content they look at on your site, how long they stay and much more.  You can also enhance your contact form on your website to tie in with Google Analytics using “Goals” to see when they are met, and to see specific data attached to each goal.

   Why is this important and vital to your success? Well, by generating leads from your contact form, and having “goals” set up in Google Analytics, you can determine where your visitors are coming from and what percentage of each source is likely to fill out your contact form. For example, let’s say you advertise on CNN.com with a banner ad, and also on Facebook. When you receive contact form submissions, you can see number of visits from each site, and match that to how many leads each source generates for you, and see whether your money is being spent in the right places.

   Information like this is what ensures that your advertising expenses/blogging efforts etc are working as efficiently as possible.

   However, if you have an availability  calendar on your website, you probably won’t hear from a lot of people that found your site, and wanted to work with you. Fair enough you are happy to lose that lead, but you also lost more vital information about your advertising and promotion efforts.

4. You’re worth waiting for, aren’t you?

   You want the client to contact you. No matter what. The client is excited to possibly work with you, and why shouldn’t they be. You’re awesome at what you do, right? So, when you have to tell them you won’t be able to start their project until August 2010, you help them understand why you are worth waiting for! Often, you will be able to convince them that the best way to invest their money for this project is with you, and only you. Hey, what’s the worst that can happen? They move on and work with someone else? At least you gave it a shot. You’re not even in the game if your “availability calendar” turned them off from ever contacting you in the first place.

What are your thoughts? For or against this trend of freelancers displaying their “work availability ”? Elaborate on why you think either way is best.

Two simple check boxes…..would spare many people a lot of hardship. (that’s right, hardship.)

After a few weeks of thought, I’ve decided to turn my PC hat in (not that I ever really wore it, nor was I proud of it and in it’s place I will be taking a big bite out of the Apple.

I don’t for one second think that being a Windows or a Mac user determines your abilities as a designer, or your levels of creativity, but things like productivity, reliability and ease of use seem to come into play. All of the Adobe products are the same whether you’re on a PC or Mac, so it is up to the designer to make use of them, and being on a Mac doesn’t make anyone a better designer whatsoever. Switching to a Mac based setup seems to the right choice for me as there are some apps I would like to use that are only available on a Mac, and the general work flow of a Mac will probably sit better with me.

I am currently looking into purchasing a Mac Pro for my main desktop, and a Macbook Pro for when I’m out of the office. Even though I am sure the Mac “genius” at the Apple store will be able to help me with some questions I have, I am more than confident that you, and many of my regular site visitors, will be able to give me much more valuable and insightful advice.

So, if you’ve got a few moments to spare, and have been using Mac’s for at least a year or so, I would be delighted to hear your advice on what apps to use, what works for you , what doesn’t etc…

Also, anything you think would be helpful to know as a Windows user going to Mac would be great also.

I just published an article over on my company’s website that you may be interested in. I found it interesting to see how successful Norton were with their branding on a recent “Celebrity Apprentice” episode, and decided to share it with our company site readers, clients and of course, you.

Read the post here (opens in new window)

What other examples of subtle branding have you seen lately? I’m interested to hear what your thoughts.

I was driving home earlier today from a client meeting, and I had a moment of a type of self-awareness that I’ve never had before.

I realized that sometimes I allow myself to fear success. Even if it’s for only a few minutes.

This might sound strange to some, but it is definitely something I imagine affects others. As you grow in your career, and bigger opportunities come your way, you can either jump in with bags of confidence or hesitate a little , fearful of not being up to the task.

When I meet with new, bigger clients (not talking about their midriff circumference, but company size & budget) , I sometimes procrastinate just a little and up until today, I never really knew why.

It sort of makes sense, right? You get taken out of your comfort zone a little with greater challenges, and if you are in a mood of feeling weak, or lacking in confidence, you hesitate. And hesitation is one of the characteristics of failure.

The more I thought about this, I realized that while I might feel that slight hesitation off the bat, I quickly snap out of it, and start taking steps to ensure I take advantage of these bigger opportunities, embracing the challenges rather than fearing them.

Everyone knows there’s leaders and followers in this world. I think those that follow are the ones that allow this fear and this hesitation to take control of their actions, and thus, they are always following.

I’d be interested to hear from you in the comments if you’ve had a feeling of “fear of success” like this in the past.

I don’t usually post the Seth Godin style article, but it seemed appropriate today.

Now that 2010 is just starting, many web designers have to update the copyright year on their own websites, and their client’s websites.

Many end up doing it manually and waste a lot of time with this tedious task, but some use a better method, and it’s as simple as one line of PHP.

Copyright <? print(Date("Y")); ?>

No longer do you have to manually edit the footer of your websites with each year that passes!

David Airey just posted this meme and thought I’d add mine to it. URL ABC was started by Tim Van Damme—just type a letter in your browser’s address bar, then list the first URL that appears. (Works best in Google Chrome….FF seems to look anywhere in the URL or title tag for the letter and I got a lot of duplicates)

A. Allsaveenergy.ie – (my Uncle in Ireland’s website, he’s a BER Ratings Assessor)
B. brianyerkes.com – (I should visit this link a lot more often…perhaps the admin side ;/
C. coders.me – (I recently used Sexylightbox for a project, grabbed it here)
D. davidairey.com – (staple)
E. experts-exchange.com – (can’t remember what I did on this page)
F. facebook.com – (everyone, please stop playing mafia wars/farmville/apps etc! Stream of updates on FB is becoming useless these days)
G. google.com – (I love big G)
H. hotels.com (I think Google Chrome suggested this…don’t think I visited this site)
I. Google Search Results Page – (invalid file specification object acrobat pro)
J. jimmyjohns.com – (“Freaky fast delivery!”)
K. BBC – Football fixtures – (looking who’s next to beat Liverpool)
L. login.facebook.com
M. BBC – Man Utd page – (glory, glory)
N. news.bbc.co.uk – (I get my Global news from European sources even though I live in the US. Tell you something?)
O. order.1and1.com – (I had to edit a client’s domain name. 1and1.com is a horrible service. Stay away my friends)
P. pandora.com
Q. qvc.com (another one I think Chrome suggested)
R. realtor.com – (checking out real estate market info)
S. .screamingmonkeys.org – (was looking at the work of Tim Novinger)
T. twitter.com – (rarely visit it, but I do sometimes to check out trending topics)
U. usps.com – (US postal service – had to forward my mail recently)
V. verizonwireless.com – (looking at the droid)
W. wordpress.org – (most of us owe these guys a lot….)
X. xbox.com – (another from Chrome I think. I’m a PS3 guy)
Y. youtube.com – (most will have this I’m sure)
Z. zillow.com – (searching for some real estate to invest in for 2010)

Have a go yourself and post a link in the comments!

Some of my most popular articles have been about my career, starting as a freelancer and then starting my own business, from 50 reasons why you won’t make it as a freelancer, to 3 reasons why clients don’t choose you, and 5 things clients say and what they really mean . I am always happy to see this information prove useful to those starting out in a design career, and even those already enjoying success. Just recently, I found a great site to go along with the topic of providing resources, advice etc to designers, developers, writers etc.

“The Freelancer Feed”, is a new website developed by Grace Smith , and is proving to be a wonderful resource for those hoping to one day become successful freelancers. The resources on this site are also extremely helpful for those of us who own and manage design studios.

The links are all hand picked which ensures the high quality of information provided and this is one site that I will definitely be subscribing to.

Check it out here

*this is not a sponsored post of any kind, I just think this website will prove extremely useful to my RSS subscribers and anyone else wanting to learn more about how to have a successful career as a freelancer.

What other websites do you visit regularly to learn about freelancing? Please discuss in the comments below, thanks!

I’m always excited to be able to offer my readers some excellent free content, whether it is in the form of a post-it note Photoshop tutorial or a list of 50 reasons why you won’t make it as a freelancer.

This time, thanks to Mike at GUERRILLA, I am happy to offer “10 High Quality Concrete Textures” for you to download for free.

Mike Smith is a full time blog designer at GUERRILLA and also blogs about marketing and freelancing on Guerrilla Freelancing. You can keep in touch with Mike on Twitter and Flickr

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Download Links:

Rapidshare: http://rapidshare.com/files/304751585/10-high-quality-concrete-textures.zip
Mediafire: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?5hzwaevzhiq

Image sizes: 3648×2736
ZIP size: 36.2MB

Have fun using them in your designs and let me know if you do use them, I will feature your design in this post. You can also share these textures by clicking on the social media links below (click here if you are reading this via RSS or email)