Web and Graphics Design: How to Be Profitable in Your Business

Web design is not just about creating beautiful websites. In my experience, there is a business side of being a web designer, web developer, entrepreneur, or a freelancer, especially if you want to grow your business.  It involves many aspects of marketing, branding, social media, search engine optimization, and much more. 

In this article, I will share with you what I learned from the Profitable Project Plan business training and mentorship program, and the wealth of knowledge I gained in the first 90 days, and what made it worth it to me to continue my subscription.

When I started, I had no idea about running the business side of a web design until I found Profitable Project Plan. It taught me everything I needed to know about marketing my services like finding quality referrals, branding, SEO, social media, email marketing, and much more. The course gave me all the tools I need to start getting paid for my services every time I interact with my current or previous clients, without feeling guilty.

In reality, you don’t need to be an expert web designer or graphic designer to start making money in a web design or graphic design business. Web designers and graphic designers who want to run a profitable web design service should learn about marketing, branding, SEO, social media, content creation, and website analytics. These skills will help you understand your customers better and improve your conversion rates.

What is Profitable Project Plan

The Profitable Project Plan is a business training and mentoring program designed specifically for web designers, graphic designers and entrepreneurs who want to learn how to build profitable digital businesses. It teaches you everything you need to know about building successful businesses online, including marketing strategies, pricing, sales, customer service, and much more.

“Profitable Project Plan saves years of expensive trial and error, provides a structured approach to revenue growth, and accelerates the upleveling of your business without sacrificing your sanity, health, or relationships“

Jen Bourn, Project Creator

What did the Profitable Project Plan program offer?

The PPP offers a free trial period of up to 90 days. After that, if you don’t like the service, you can request a refund within 90 days without any questions asked. The program will help you create a profitable business plan. It will guide you through the process of creating a business plan, which includes identifying your target market, developing a marketing strategy, and writing a sales pitch. You will learn how to write a business plan that makes sense and is easy to understand. Here is a snapshot:

• Contract documents
• Lead magnets
• Cold calling scripts
• Customizable email templates
• Customizable educational books

• A step-by-step process for creating a project plan, along with templates for each phase of the project lifecycle.
• Worksheets to help you in setting up your website, creating a marketing strategy, and finding quality clients.
• Facebook Community
• Recorded sessions so you can replay, or revisit missed sessions

It saved me a lot of time and relieved me from stress to think about and start all these things from scratch. Thankfully, the project creator of PPP prepared all of these customizable tools and resources.

In this program, I was able to create my own system and processes to build my business and increase its profitability. I was able to understand the important things in building my own brand to:

• Generate Leads
• Make Sales
• Manage Clients/Customers
• Organize Projects
• Create Recurring Revenue Systems

What made me join and stay with the PPP?

1.    Customer Reviews 

People love to talk about products and services online. They write reviews, post videos, and share photos. This information helps potential customers decide whether to buy a product or not. It also helps companies learn what works and what doesn’t. What people say about a product or service most often sway me to buy not to buy a product or service. So, the first place I go whenever I want to buy something on Amazon is the customer reviews section. I trust that the majority of buyers are genuine in their comments, and I want to hear their pains or gains about the products. I feel the same way about PPP; after reading what others have said about the program, I immediately realized that this is exactly what I had been searching for. Then, I immediately went to the pricing section to find out how to make a purchase.

“I raised my rates and I gained the confidence to work with bigger clients. Profitable Project Plan is by far one of the best investments you can make in your business.”

A PPP Attendee

2.    90-day guarantee 

Another amazing thing is that they give you a trial period of 90 days, and if you are not satisfied in the first three months, you can get a refund. No questions asked. Good thing is that I had no reason to cancel my subscription and I was truly excited and eager to learn more. 

3.    Lifetime access 

I am not sure who benefits more from this incentive than I do. I was initially keeping up with the program lessons and homework until personal issues got in the way and I started falling behind. I was relieved when I realized that I could have lifetime access to the lessons. The best part about the course is that you get lifetime access to all the lessons. You don’t need to worry about paying again next year because you can just log on and continue where you left off. Plus, you can come in any time and take advantage of the new lesson material. You can go through the lessons over and over again. You can take your time and learn at your own pace and you won’t feel pressured to finish everything before moving on.

What I learn from the Profitable Project Plan program

In this program, I learned about things I have discussed plus major tricks and tips below:

• Confidence about yourself and your products/services
• Finding quality leads and referrals and be bold to say NO to leads that don’t fit
• Getting quality revisions from satisfied clients and customers
• Setting up reliable systems and dependable revenue/cash flow
• More freedom and fun in growing the business

I learned not to simply give up on a prospective lead that initially said, no. You get scripts to follow up prospective leads such as: 

• A prospective client said no, and I want to find out why
• A prospective client said no months ago and I want to see if they still need help
• I want to reach out to leads that didn’t convert with a year-end opportunity
• A client said no to website support, but it’s been a while and I want to offer it again
• Plus, dozens of scripts on client management from onboarding to offboarding, and to clients support. You’re never without a help at every step of your interactions with a client. 

Clear Vision

More importantly, the Profitable Project Plan program taught me how to make my own business plan. It helped me to understand the importance of having a clear vision and mission statement. It gave me the confidence to start my own business. The Profitable Project Planning Course taught me how to run a successful online business. It provided me with the skills I needed to create a successful website and build a strong client base.

After years of working as an environmental engineer, I decided to start my own web design business. I was really passionate about the work, but I had very limited experience on the business side. 

Worthwhile Investment

Pricing projects, writing proposals, managing clients, and so on, were not things I knew anything about. I spent countless hours researching online, but it was hard to find useful information that wasn’t buried behind a paywall, and even when I found it, it was often difficult to understand.

Eventually, I realized that I needed to invest a bit more in some business training in order to grow my business, then I found PPP by chance through Chris Lema who interviewed Jen on his meetup session. Jen simply told him how she had been struggling with her business and wanted to learn how to make money online. So, I decided to check out PPP on her website and I signed up without hesitation.

The course was really comprehensive, and it taught me how to generate leads, price my services, write proposals, manage clients, and a whole lot more! I would definitely recommend this course to anyone who is thinking about starting their own business from scratch.

Successful Implementation

Thanks to the program, I am now putting these important things into practice:

• Building confidence about my own brand.
• Mastering critical money matters when making sales.
• Attracting quality leads and giving them great customer experience.
• Ensuring recurring revenue or cash flow; and
• Creating profitable and sustainable business.

The Bottom Line

The Profitable Project Plan is an 8-month slow-paced online workshop designed to help web designers and graphic designers launch profitable projects. It’s a great way to learn how to start your own business while getting paid to do it. You get access to all the tools and resources needed to build a successful business, plus ongoing support from Jen and other entrepreneurs like you on their Facebook Group. I could go on and on about the benefits of the PPP, but I don’t want to make this post too long. If you’re on the fence, don’t hesitate to shoot me an email at info@djwebdesigner.com or book a Zoom appointment so I can share my experience a bit more. Plus, I’ll be returning for year two of the Profitable Project Plan, and I hope to see you there too!