
How Doing Less Work for More Money Saved Client Work - joshuacc
http://joshuablankenship.com/blog/2011/08/27/how-i-finally-became-a-professional-designer/
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sgdesign
I've reached about all the same conclusions myself, except for the "only work
with one client at a time" part. Ideally it would be great, but I've found
that design work is often an ongoing process, where you might need to invest
tons of hours into designing a home page at one point, and then just spend a
couple hours on a widget redesign the next month.

So I need multiple clients just to fill in the gaps when some of them don't
need my services that much.

If I applied the "1 client only" rule, it would prevent me from having that
flexible long-term relationships with my clients, and I think the quality of
my work would suffer from it.

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blankenship
Absolutely agreed. If I was doing 40+ hours a week of client work, I'd have
the margin (and financial need) to work with multiple clients in any given
season. But in addition to a full-time gig, I just can't swing it.

Most the work I take on is shorter design/direction gigs with 1-3 week
timeframes. In the gaps I take my 15 hours and use it for personal work. But
again, all unique to my situation.

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bglbrg
great read. Designers perennially bitch and moan about difficult clients, but
when I review my last year of consulting, I can agree with Joshua that the
difficult experiences have been _my_ fault. I get to pick my clients, and it's
up to me to set expectations and manage the process. It's very true that all
the skills and talent one has developed can be rendered meaningless by a lack
of professionalism. And sometimes the very definition of professionalism means
not getting into something at a price / timeline / term of agreement your
integrity can live with.

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bo_Olean
_You’re supposed to be the professional, remember?_

I do.

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jmmcd
> I don’t want my reputation and talent to take me where my integrity can’t
> sustain me (and it will, if left unchecked).

It must be tough having so much reputation and talent. If you can learn to
control your talent the world will truly be a safer, if duller place.

~~~
MJR
Without the context the quote seems very egotistical. With the context I think
it makes perfect sense. Your comment draws a completely different picture.

 _I can’t juggle. I definitely can’t juggle multiple clients and serve them
well on the thin time margins I’m keeping. I’ve always failed when I tried. I
know my limits. I don’t want my reputation and talent to take me where my
integrity can’t sustain me (and it will, if left unchecked). It damages my rep
and renders my talent meaningless in the grand scheme of client services.
“He’s real talented, but he doesn’t do what he says” is a massive failure
unless my goal is to be known as an unprofessional, out of work, real talented
guy. I’d rather serve one client to the best of my abilities than multiple
clients simultaneously, mediocrely._

