Are Design Pitches Worth While?

Pitching can be time-consuming, confidence-shaking, and unprofitable. Here, we’ll try to answer the question, “Are pitches worthwhile?”

For most designers – freelance or in-house – generating new business can be a dreaded part of the job. But it necessary to maintain and sustain growth and find new clients. When it comes to finding design work, is there a best way to find jobs? Do you pitch for new business or rely on other methods to find work?

Reasons to Pitch for New Business

There are so many places that freelance designers can pitch for new business, including job boards, and content or design networks, or marketplaces. Some designers may pitch on social media as well.

But is it worth your time to post in these places to generate business?

For some designers, the answer is, “Yes.”

Pitching requires you to think about the type of work and clients you want to take on. This can be a valuable exercise that helps you grow your business strategically and with the type of work you want to do. If you plan to pitch, create specific pitches that respond directly to postings, avoiding generic “I can do any type of design” pitches.

Pitching works for designers that want to know exactly where they stand with projects and don’t want to deal with the management of them. Most pitches you submit in response to a job board or marketplace post will detail a specific design need, timeline, and payment for that work. You know everything up front and don’t have to negotiate terms or deal with scope creep. For freelancers with limited time, this can be an ideal situation.

Pitching can help you find an “in” with new clients and turn into long-term work. There are plenty of designers that have found good projects through Behance, Dribbble, and Upwork.

Pitching might be the only way for a new designer to build a strong portfolio. Depending on the stage of your career, this type of work can help generate clients, relationships, and projects that can lead to more work later.

Whether responding to ads and sending pitches is the right choices depends on you and the stage you are at in your career. It’s not for everyone, but for some designers, pitching can be totally worthwhile, and work better than cold calling or trying to generate new business in other ways.

Reasons Not to Pitch

Some designers hate pitching and find that the time spent looking for new business doesn’t generate enough income to support itself. That’s the top reason not to pitch. If you aren’t bringing in work with pitches, it could actually be costing you money. Analyze pitches sent, responses received, and clients you are actually working with. How much time do you spend on pitching versus revenue generated from actual work from pitching?

If the math doesn’t work out to a sustainable hourly rate, pitching might not be the best option for you. It can be a lot of work, without a large return.

When it comes to responding and pitching for projects, there’s almost always a “middle” company or organization that gets a cut of the payment for the job. If you can generate new business own your own, why pay that fee?

Sometimes pitching can feel spammy or doesn’t help you build more business. Are you cutting your worth to respond to a pitch? Are you charging less or doing work that you’d never put in your portfolio? If the answer to either question is yes, then pitching is probably not for you.

Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2019/07/are-design-pitches-worthwhile/