Let's hop in the DeLorean, shall we? We'll set the year to 2003. That's about when my journey in web design began. The web was a strange and wonderful place, powered by table layouts, 960 grids, and system fonts. Yet somehow, websites were more creative than those of today. I cut my teeth with a fine blend of Mountain Dew, curiosity, and Dreamweaver. I loved those early days! Even if I don't miss Dreamweaver.

Along the way the web grew up, and so did I (mostly). I worked 10+ years doing web development for a university and an agency. All the while, the pull to freelance full-time kept calling. In 2022, I dove into the deep end and started Craft and Function. I have a feeling a lot of designers and developers have a story like mine.

To be fair, I'm not exactly a risk taker. I have a wife and 4 kids. I have no interest in struggling to put food on the table. So it helped that I had a nice base of clients. Thanks to freelancing nights and weekends, and contract work with an agency, the leap didn't feel all that crazy.

Even with that safety net, it hasn't always been smooth sailing. Before I got started I asked a good friend who ran a successful business for some advice, I'll never forget what he said...

"Andy, some people are cows. They like the security of grazing fenced-in land and knowing there's always grass to eat. Other people are wolves, there are times when they eat great, and others that are lean. You have to decide if you are a wolf, or a cow."

I laughed until I cried. I had no idea how good that advice was when I first heard it. I think I like the idea of the wolf better than the practice. Kind of how I feel about camping.

Through the ups and downs, I've learned a lot in these last 3 years. Here are a few things I've taken note of...

Being a good salesman is more important than being a good developer

This one pains me to even write. I pride myself on thoughtful, quality work. In many ways, that was enough to land projects back in the day. But the landscape has changed thanks to the advent of site builders and AI.

To be clear, quality work is still a selling point, and getting new leads and clients via word of mouth remains undefeated as the best marketing strategy, but for new clients you have to be able to sell your expertise.

As someone who isn't exactly a natural born salesman that's a tough pill to swallow. But with practice and a plan, that's a soft skill even I can improve. In the end your portfolio matters, but your ability to clearly communicate your plan and your value is wildly more important.

Position yourself as an expert

If you found yourself relating to that last point about being a bad salesperson, then let's talk about positioning yourself as an expert. It's a nice little buffer for our poor sales skills. It's another way to foster trust.

When I ran my old design blog. I would write articles and tutorials on design. I would interview other designers and network that way. Those touch points opened up a tremendous amount of doors.

Same thing when I started to be active in the Silverstripe community. Which remains a great CMS, even if it didn't gain the popularity of say WordPress or Drupal. I would blog about it, write in the forums, create modules, etc... That definitely helped open up opportunities for me.

The point is, you can build trust and network by communicating the stuff you are good at. That makes the sales thing a whole lot easier.

Diversify

As a kid, I loved collecting baseball cards. To this day, I have box after box in my closet collecting dust. My brother and I were convinced we'd be millionaires by now, but turns out everyone in the 90s collected cards. And when they print a bajillion of each, then no card is special, and no card has value.

To that end, my favorite player was Will Clark. Don't ask why, I still don't know... But I had a whole book of Will Clark cards. I probably should have diversified a bit. If only I grabbed more Ken Griffey cards along the way.

It's the same sort of thing when running a design or dev business. When you have ongoing work with one big client, or consistent work with an agency, it's really easy to become complacent. Resist that urge! Keep putting in the time and energy to nurture your business and other relations. If (or should I say when) the bigger client/agency work dries up, you'll want that base to fall back on.

Back to the future

Oh, and there's more. But everyone's story is different. And experience is the best teacher. It's not time to dust off Dreamweaver, thankfully! It's time to look forward, using new tools, and learning from our mistakes.