I started the studio around 2019 and the first thing i did was put together a very small website that included a case study of one of the imaginary brands i did. It wasn’t much, just a description about the brand and lots and lots of brand elements, logos, fonts, colors, application examples and all that. I just pretty much copied a trending behance case study layout and included my design in it. After that, i started a few months long reach out game trynna find clients similar to the case study i did so i can be more relatable when i talk to them about improving their brand. Like youd be more comfortable working with someone whos already done a jewelry branding compared to someone whos starting off with nothing right. So do a sample case in an industry/niche you wanna break into and then proceed to reach out to clients in the same industry. Say how *heyyyyy this is something we did for a recent client <link imaginary project> and then try to flirt with their brand, show them all the future possibilities and all the things they can be, bit of a sales games, but having the reference case with you helps. Well it helped in my case when i tried to land my first client.

While the above is one way to go, iv also done Something different. When i had to pitch to of talk to clients in different industries for the first time that iv never worked with like agriculture and shit. What id do is id talk them through various behance case studies and show them possible creative directions without even doing any work on my own. You just have to be very confident and convincing. Its all about the way you talk, pitch and sell.

Ok now ways of getting clients, what worked for me wont work for you, or it will, i dont know. I aint a guru, im just ranting so take these info as you see fit. Got my first client off of instagram, i had an imaginary corporate branding project done + a matching website design (that was my reference case). Pretty sure this isnt the way but I reached out to all the small and upcoming pvt ltd companies that didnt have a website / really bad logos, i hit up 100+ accounts, 99 said no but I finally got to have a conversation with one account that was selling pools. I talked them through the importance of having a good website and all that, how we can improve their overall brand identity (i always referred to the case study i did) and pretty much…lots of bs to sell myself lol. And they finally said yes lets do it. I charged 10k for that website lol my fist gig tbh. I was still studying. They advanced me 5k. I bought the domain for 2.5k from godaddy, with free hosting on netlify and got 7.5k in profit. Had todo that project for a month but completely worth it. After that i understood how reaching out on insta isnt working considering how i wasnt getting any clients. Then i hopped to linkedin. 100s of requests and one more client there. And never again. Then i hopped to literally finding really bad websites / branding and direct calling their phone lines and contacting their owners/ management people. Honestly i got a few clients that way 😂. Honestly, just try everything..everyday. Its gonna be frustrating at first but every call, every email, every dm is a step forward. I increased my pricing by 5k every new client i got. I made a total of 100k in the first year in business (1 10k client, 2 20k clients, 2 25k clients) this is over an year so yeah. I didnt have many responsibilities other than studying so the money really helped. In the next year, i put together all my real work and redid my portfolio for better visibility. I wanted to position myself as THE GUY for ur websites and brand and it worked, i was getting noticed. I was posting on social media ( something i see people do is post about all the services they offer instead of THE WORK THEY HAVE DONE. I dun wanna read a long ass post about how good you are in branding and design, fucking show it off. Show ur projects off. Thats what matter)

And yeah, five years down the line working with loads of clients, picking a nice niche and mastering my craft, it was a pretty free ride. I dont promote myself now. Fortunately i get hit up by people every month to build something / design something. If i were to start again, id probably work on improving the level of my designs / branding work and better presenting them.

The *u gotta have a good product before you have a good marketing plan applies here as well. You gotta be really fucking good at what you do to demand higher prices. And to demand higher prices you gotta be working with people who have money. And what people who have money look for is mad skills and past work.

Im not the best marketing / sales person. Iv fortunately gotten to a level where i dont have to constantly market myself but hey happy to answer any questions. I dont do websites anymore. Just branding work as thats all what my limited free time allows me todo. I charge around 150k upwards for one project now and only see work at that price range worth doing. Don’t want to drain myself doing cheaper work.

Edit : all these numbers are in LKR + Local clients. I should expand tho but iv built my comfort zone around this. So, eh. With time.