Well, in the world of marketing small businesses, there is often no talk of a product manager for our graphic design business.
As a self-employed graphic designer, I am here to help you. I will talk to you about how you can build a successful business of getting clients to step at your door and actually knock on it. Oh, wait, that wouldn’t be enough. They would have to come in and actually have a tea with you (or maybe coffee, if that’s what you are serving).
Who is a product manager and what does he/she do?
Atlassian defines product manager as “the person who identifies the customer needs and the larger business objectives that a product or feature will fulfill, articulates what success looks like for a product, and rallies a team to turn that vision into a reality”.
This is quite a good definition for the term; however, it’s only true if we consider the word “product” a more general term. The scope of the term should be bent, in my opinion, to include services too, in this particular definition.
What can a product manager do for a graphic design business?
Graphic design is, in its shortest definition, a practice of making visual and textual content out of ideas. There are two kinds of graphic designers, in my opinion. One that works as a graphic designer and runs a business, and the latter is someone who is just interested in designing.
When you are running a business as a graphic designer, you should aim to sell your services. Moreover, the number of parties partaking in your design practice is doubled to a minimum of two. Let’s go back to the definition of “product manager”. You need to identify the needs of your client. You, also want to be the service provider that fulfills those needs. Additionally, you want that process to be repeated for a profitable sustainable business. Let’s also consider that you are a freelancer, working alone.
The benefits of having a product manager for your graphic design business
To market your business, you need to have a product to sell. In this case, you should consider your business, a product. More importantly, when you introduce your service as a product, you will be able to manage it. And by managing it you will achieve personal branding much more easily.
Let’s look at some examples. When you bring together a series of services as a package, you are selling a product. It becomes easier to market that. People don’t need only one banner for their website. They need much more than that. They are not going to go through a dozen of designers to get what they want. The tension wouldn’t allow them to calmly build up their branding. Another example would be the graphic designers who sell ready-made designs.
Treating your services as products might give you more unique ideas on how to market your skills.
Do I need to outsource product management in my graphic design business?
The short answer is no; however, you can’t deny facts. Outsourcing not only product management, but also other portions of your practice will help you. A professional product manager would even draw up your process, which would give you and your client a much smoother experience.
The competition in the graphic design industry is mind-blowing. You have an opportunity to give yourself an edge by going out of your way to make things smoother for your clients. Test your abilities. Prepare a flowchart of what the process will be. See how people react to how you present your services. Whether you decide to go with outsourcing this or not, you can make strides by designing a product.
Final words
The essence of treating your graphic design service as a product acts as a game changer. The more definitively you make a product out of your services, the easier people will grasp it. Hire a product manager today, and set the course of your graphic design business into a smoother one.
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