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Introvert designers: stop pushing your business uphill
Mediocre work requires constant sales and marketing to maintain momentum. Exceptional work sells itself.
Would you rather have an average product with excellent marketing or an excellent product with average marketing?
Off the top of your head, what would you pick?
The perfectionist in me would choose the latter, and I would usually be wrong.
The answer to this common business question frequently refers to the battle of Nikola Tesla vs. Thomas Edison. Tesla was undoubtedly an exceptional inventor: alternating current, radio, radar, x-rays, wifi, and all kinds of other crazy stuff that was way ahead of his time. But he died penniless with little success.
Edison was also a good inventor, but a great businessman and salesman. He understood the power of IP and marketing. His inventions were less visionary but he knew how to package them for commercial success.
Tesla was an excellent product with poor marketing. Edison was the average product with excellent marketing. History says that Edison won that battle easily.
Does that mean that marketing is always more important? For some products in certain markets, yes. But for the service of design, no. In fact, if your service is good enough you don’t need marketing at all.
Do you feel like you have to constantly sell yourself?
Like you’re struggling to push a ball uphill, against the grain, to keep finding more new clients all the time? Does your freelance “design” career feel like the design work has become secondary to the marketing and sales that keep your business afloat?
For introverts — which many great designers are — this is a stress that puts people off entrepreneurship completely. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
You feel that way because you're offering an average product. And the only way to make an average product success is to market the hell out of it.
