LA Graphic Designer Influences Influencers

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

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How do you reach out to celebrities, influencers, or anyone out there that you want to work with? Imagine there's somebody out there and you're like, "I want to work with that person. "I want to do some design work for them," or whatever the service might be. How do you actually do it? Well, sometimes it's by doing something for them proactively.

Like not just pitching yourself, but actually saying like, "Hey, I made this thing," or, "I found this thing that could improve the work you do," or whatever it is. Now, of course, this can be a risky strategy 'cause you're basically working for free for a bit. But in this listener success story, actually it comes from one of our listeners who's been part of the show for a while, an LA graphic designer reaches out to an influencer she follows on YouTube. She reaches out to this person who has millions of followers, a famous fashion beauty vlogger, and it actually works out really well for her. From that contact, she goes on to build a full-fledged design agency, drawing in $10,000 a month, and with several other famous or well-known clients.

Now, this story also includes a throwback to MySpace, the greatest network of all time. Do you remember MySpace? Well, some of you don't, but you may have heard of it. The story also reminded me of how I met my longtime developer, Nicky Hajal. Just about 10 years ago, he pursued a similar approach with me.

And since then we've worked on more than a dozen projects together, including nine years of WDS. He actually reached out to me and said like, "Hey, there's something about your website that I don't like, so I made something better." And here it is, take a look. He really got my attention, and all these years later, all those projects, it was a result from following the same strategy that I'm going to tell you about today. So, LA graphic designer influences influencers. That story is coming right up.

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Graphic designer Dawn Lee had an eye for style from a young age. When she was a kid, she loved watching Disney shows like "Lizzie McGuire" and "That's So Raven." After watching episodes, she would sketch animations and GIFs to post on MySpace for friends to share. MySpace, just in case you've never heard of it, was the largest social network in the early 2000s before Facebook came along. Dawn had no idea that she was creating a future reality for herself from a young age. She then began the traditional path that many follow, graduating high school, going to college, and earning a four-year degree.

But then, rather than taking the first available job she found, Dawn chose to travel for a while and figure out what she really wanted to do. She had a design degree and thought she could at least do something with her skills until she figured out what was next. During this phase, she earned a living through freelance design work, making graphics and business cards to support her lifestyle until she found a real job. But despite applying for various positions, that real job would never come. After listening to an episode of "Sidle Soul School," that's us, that's our podcast, Dawn learned about the world of merch by Amazon and began designing t-shirts to sell.

Between her full-time freelance gigs and the t-shirt business, her schedule was full. But still, none of these projects felt sustainable. Like many millennials, Dawn found herself spending a lot of time on YouTube, watching how-to and tutorial videos from top influencers. One day she was on her favorite YouTube influencers channel and noticed a disconnect between the content being presented and the graphics that were used. And she started seeing this as a trend with many top influencers.

They had millions of followers sometimes, but their graphics still had a homemade feel. That's when she saw a new opportunity arise. What if she could create better, more brand-suitable graphics and offer them to top influencers? On a whim, Dawn whipped up a sample design for her favorite celebrity, Jin Im. Jin is a Korean-American fashion blogger with more than two million subscribers and emailed it to her.

She told her she wanted to make her brand stand out more by creating visually stunning graphics. And to her surprise, she received a response within 15 minutes. Just like that, Dawn had her first client. She began doing graphics for Jin Im. on the side while continuing her other freelance work.

Startup costs were extremely low, exactly $53 a month for Adobe Creative Cloud and $20 a month for website hosting. It wasn't long until she started receiving inquiries from other YouTube influencers asking for design help. Within three months of doing this on the side, Dawn believed this could be a full-time career. She began to wrap up those other freelance jobs and focus her time and energy on growing her YouTube work. Within six months, she was dedicating her time solely to this audience.

When she first started, she was bringing in an extra $1,500 per month. And then when she went full-time with it, it shot up to $5,000 a month. Her client base began to grow with more and more top influencers on YouTube. She's now earning $10,000 a month in profit and recently hired a full-time business development partner and part-time creative staffer. Of course, as with many new ventures, it wasn't always smooth sailing.

As a creative person in a business setting, Dawn realized that she wasn't prepared for negotiations, proposing contracts, or setting boundaries in place so that clients didn't take advantage of her. She occasionally found she was losing time and money by allowing clients to request numerous revisions without charging extra in return. So through trial and error, she was eventually able to create a system that worked for her. For anybody out there wanting to launch a similar business or freelance model, Dawn recommends setting a limit on the number of revisions you will allow from a client. And if they request more outside of that range, charge extra.

Make sure you protect yourself so it's not endless work for one job and also understand that everything is a work in progress. So over time, you'll know what's working or not and can adjust your terms accordingly. She also encourages you to be bold and reach out to who you want to work with. Don't wait for them to find you because they won't. Take some time to create a design or pitch that fits your ideal client's style or brand and then send them your mock-up.

Give them something to look at rather than just sending your website and portfolio. Show them that you have value to offer in some way that they might not otherwise know. That's what she did. In those days, watching Disney shows, posting to MySpace have paid off. [Music]

Well, I often say that anything is possible.

You know, there's no guarantee that a strategy like this is gonna work. You know, you could end up doing something and not hearing back or just hearing back, you know, thanks, but no thanks. But then again, you know, she's built a six-figure business from it. And like I said, it reminded me of the story of working with Nikki, my developer. I'm still working with him after 10 years in many projects.

So I'm so glad that he reached out. Now, Don's advice is just to recap on this point, create something that speaks to the client's vision rather than sending a generic portfolio or website. I think that really is key. I also went to look at her website and she has this very strong design style. It is really specific.

I mean, it looks just like, you know, the kind of thing that you would see going over really well on YouTube with these fashion lifestyle bloggers. So she clearly understands that aesthetic and is incorporating it, but also kind of adding to it as she goes. So a clear vision, well executed, and you never know. Maybe there's a risk that you need to take, a small risk, of course, not telling you to go and quit your job, but maybe there is some small risk you can take that would lead to great advancement. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better.

Today's show notes, we're gonna link up Don Lee's work. Anything else that I mentioned, Adobe Creative Cloud, I don't know, whatever else I talked about in the episode, it's all gonna be at sidehustleschool.com/826. Episode 826, oh, MySpace, of course. I'm gonna link up MySpace just in case you don't know how to find it. It's all gonna be on that show notes page.

And I will be back again tomorrow with the weekly recap. Thank you so much. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]

From the Onward Project.