How to Educate Your Clients Part 2 – Industry Standards

This is Part 2 of the 4-Part series, How to Educate Your Clients, where we will examine the important role that education plays in your Freelance Illustration business.

(Update: You can also download an audio version of this popular series here.)

Industry Standards

Educating yourself, and your clients, about Illustration industry standards is extremely important to your long-term success, not to mention your mental health.

Having a good knowledge of standard practices, ethics, and rates will help you to operate as a true professional, command the respect of your clients, and protect you from being taken advantage of.  For the purposes of this series, we’re going to focus on its value in making sure that your clients understand the Illustration market that they’re entering, as well as what is expected from both parties.

Where Can You Acquire This Knowledge?

As stated earlier in the series, in order to pass knowledge on to others, you must first educate yourself. Luckily, there are many ways that you can learn about the Illustration Industry.  Here are some places to start:

• Design organizations such as the Graphic Artists Guild and AIGA
• Resource books such as Pricing and Ethical Guidelines and Breaking Into Freelance Illustration
• Business organizations such as SCORE
• The guidance of your fellow Illustrators
• Your own experience

How Do You Present This Knowledge to Your Clients?

While you may often find yourself educating your clients about industry standards in order to lay the groundwork for a project, justify your rates, or even protect yourself from wrongdoing, it is a good idea to present the information as one who wishes to share knowledge.  In other words, make education an intrinsic part of the services you offer, in addition to Illustration and Design.  This will help you to gain the trust and respect that will allow you the freedom to do your job and ask for the compensation that you feel you deserve.

As an example, I’d like to share my own personal approach.

I generally arrive at my initial meeting with a client with some key materials at the ready.  If I am meeting a potential client about a book Illustration project, for instance, I try to show up with printed industry standard rates for book Illustration from the Pricing and Ethical Guidelines book.  This not only helps them to understand the general prices they should be expecting from a professional, but it also helps to add credibility to whatever price I end up quoting for the project.  In addition, I typically quote slightly lower prices than those printed in that resource, especially if the client is self-publishing or only producing a small print run, so this has the added effect of making them feel like they are still getting a good deal.

I also make sure to let the client know what they can expect to receive for this price, how long it typically takes, what their usage rights, are etc.  To accompany this information, I like to give them any printed material that supports these ideas.  Keep in mind that I’m not weighing them down with paperwork or overloading them with information.  Rather, I’m only imparting the knowledge that I feel is useful and relevant to their needs.  Generally, clients are grateful that I take the time to do this, and they are therefore more likely to work with me now and in the future.

By coming to the meeting prepared in this way, I present myself as a professional, validate the price quote before revealing it outright, and show the potential client that I am willing to be transparent about my profession.

The Shared Benefits

If you make education a regular part of the services you offer, you will not only gain the trust and respect of your clients, but you will also benefit the Illustration community as a whole.  Many of the problems and frustrations that we all experience as creative professionals come from uneducated clients who either act inappropriately or try to take advantage of Illustrators.  I encourage you to help to raise the overall quality of services that we can provide by educating your clients about the standards of our industry.

Do you take the time to explain industry standards? How do you justify your price quotes? I invite you to share your thoughts in the comments below.

Read more of How to Educate Your Clients

Related Posts:

• 10 Tips on Contracts and Clients
• How to Spot a Problem Client
• Things to Consider When Pricing Your Work
• Is Your Art Rep Doing Anything For You?

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