As a small business owner, you’ve already dealt with the basics of getting started. You’ve gotten an EIN from the IRS, figured out your target market, and optimized an online presence.
Chances are, you’re trying to do much of the legwork yourself. This keeps your expenses low and maximizes your control of what goes on with the company itself.
At some point, though, it may be the right time to consider investing in a graphic designer. Hiring a pro is a smart step unless you have the time, equipment, knowledge, and talent to design a logo and all the content that will show your brand.
The question isn’t if you’ll need someone to help you; it’s, “When is the right time to find one?” If you’re sitting on the fence debating the issue of hiring a graphic designer, these tips will give you the nudge you need to make the decision.
Table of Contents
1. You’re Ready to Get Branded
As entrepreneurs, we tend to start out slow, which is a good idea. It’s better to go a few inches deep and a mile wide, perfecting what you do and ensuring it’s all high-quality.
Over time, you’ll add more to your brand. You’ll find a voice that matches your business goals. You’ll join more social media platforms, and you’ll create printed material and social media content.
Everything the public sees is part of your brand. It needs to be professional and consistent. It’s time-consuming to create and market your brand and keep your website optimized.
And if you’re not trained in bringing in traffic, using funnels, and other marketing musts, you’re working harder, not smarter.
When you find yourself immersed in the graphic design aspect of your business instead of running it, it’s time to hire someone to do the job.
2. You Know Your Content Isn’t Top Quality
Take a serious, hard look at your website and images. Then, compare them with your competitors’ content.
If you were your target market, which company would attract you more?
Look Through the Eyes of Your Audience
When your content isn’t top-quality, it may seem “good enough” to you, but to your customers who have a choice, they may not think so. Content that looks amateurish or unprofessional deters most people. They’ll go elsewhere for their needs.
In the world of e-commerce, there are a few services that pay for themselves and then some. A skilled graphic designer is one of these.
The return on your investment when you attract the right clients to your website more than covers the costs, not to mention the time and stress you save.
3. You’re Burning the Candle at Both Ends
So you have the skill, know-how, and software to create your own graphic design content. Yet, is that what you intended to be doing when you started working for yourself?
The goal of every entrepreneur is to be successful. When your customer base takes off, do you want to be spending your time creating content or expanding your business?
Hiring a professional designer to handle your graphics gives you the ability to focus on doing what you do best. And, since they have the tools and expertise you might not have, the content you get is more sophisticated, too.
4. You Have a Marketing Budget
Your profits are growing, and you finally have a marketing budget but aren’t quite sure how to use it. Instead of randomly targeting different ad venues, your first step should be to find a graphic designer.
Professional designers turn your company into a visual representation of what you offer.
Why Branding is the Key to Success
Try to imagine major corporations like Google, McDonald’s, or Starbucks without connecting the name to the logo. It’s hard to do, isn’t it?
That’s because their names are so intricately tied to their brand that they’re basically indistinguishable. It took a lot of research and expert graphic designers to pull the job off. However, it was obviously worth the investment.
You might not need the same level of brand creation yet, but it can’t hurt to be ready for success!
Take the marketing budget you have and let a graphic designer help you create visual text and turn your concepts into images. Then, you can use the finished product to actively target your ideal audience, get their attention, and funnel them to your site.
Conclusion
The dilemma of investing in a graphic designer versus keeping your costs down can be a tough decision to make. At some point in every growing business’s life cycle, it becomes the necessary next step.
Is it time for you to bring in the professionals to help you design your content and grow your company? If all of these signs sound familiar, bringing in a graphic designer is the smart direction to take your business.
