James Barnard: Transparency is so crucial on social media and being genuine because you can't sort of maintain online persona that kind of isn't you And so if you don't know something be truthful and just own up to the fact and I do this all the time I found a new tool in illustrator the other day that's been out for 10 years didn't know about it.
I use it every day and that software and it's quite embarrassing I just owned up to the fact and yes there are a lot of people in the comments that said how could you not know that it's right there but then half the comments were like I didn't know this either that's mind blowing. So you will help people no matter what you kind of put out there, just, you know, don't be afraid to correct if you get it wrong, which does happen.
Chris Do: My next guest that's featured on our podcast today is someone I've met in person at least twice now. And we started in an auspicious way. We have a mutual friend named Dave Clayton and he said, Hey, one of my friends wants to meet you. And I'm like, okay. And I'm in Australia. So I'm in Brisbane on a kind of Australian tour, multiple cities.
I'm like, yeah, sure. I'll meet your friend. And it turns out it's James and James is on the show. And he's like, Chris, before I go, I'd like to do a little skit with you. I'm like, okay. And then James slaps me in the face or something. It's like, what are we doing? I don't know. It was crazy. But that goes to show you-
James Barnard: You signed a book for me, Adobe Max and Dave Clayton gave it to me. And in the book, the inscription was your TikTok suck. Try harder, please. So that was me getting you back for that horrible comment you made in the book. Obviously in jest, but yeah, thank you for playing along and being part of that. That was fantastic.
Chris Do: Yeah, but you know, if you're gonna slap somebody slap Dave Clayton, he's the one who told me to say something mean spirited to you. And he gave me some prompting there, I will say, and I just fulfilled my end of the bargain. But it just shows a sense of your, your humor and your style. And I think it's come very much to the surface on on your Instagram and your TikTok.
And there's one thing we're gonna start off today kind of strange. I have to ask you this question, James, you have a awkward signature pose. I don't know if you would consider that, but the old thumbs up and then sometimes you bite your lower lip for some reason. Yeah. It's like, Oh, I'm going to do it. Tell me where that came from.
James Barnard: Oh, it's my personal brand, Chris. This is me, you know, signing off my Instagram posts and reels with a signature sign off. No, I don't know where that came from. It was just some stupid goofy face I pulled and someone said, that they'd liked it. And I've just kind of kept doing it as one of the few things that I kind of have that kind of keeps the content just reminds people it's me when it starts off.
So I'll say designers at the start of a video, and that is kind of like one of the greatest hooks. It not only tells the audience exactly what this content is about to be about and who it's for, but it's just like a lovely little sonic trigger that when people come to my account and they hear that line and then the little goofy thumbs up face at the end, kind of synonymous with me now.
So I've kind of made that my brand. So much so that I'm starting to get stickers printed with that thumbs up and that's goofy smiley face on it. And you can also replicate it with, you know, a couple of emojis as well. The little drunk face emoji and the thumbs up. So it just works in so many ways.
Chris Do: My interpretation of that and tell me you're barking up the wrong tree, but my take on it is I think there is a general, I don't want to say stigma, but of creators, designers who then go on creating content that all like, who does James think he is now?
He's taking himself seriously and he's trying to be a big influencer and that's your wing to the audience. Like, yeah, I know this is weird. Yeah, I know I'm doing this because I'm trying to grow my audience and You're in on the joke with me. Is that the case?
James Barnard: I guess so. I don't think I really see it like that. But now that you've put it that way, that kind of does make sense. Like, yes, you all know that I'm using social media to further my business and I'm teaching you what I know to try and win more clients as a logo designer. But at the same time, we can all have a bit of fun and be a bit jokey and a bit funny.
And I just found like a little bit of humor in the content goes a long way and it makes people relax and also kind of removes a bit of the pretension from graphic design, which is unfortunately, it's something, a bit of an issue in our industry. People are afraid to ask questions, afraid to share simple things that they deem to be simple, just for the fear of being called out as a basic graphic designer because you don't know a simple fact. I just like to have a little bit of fun with it. So I think that's why that kind of goofy face and a little bit of humor has worked for me.
Chris Do: I like it and I think it's working well for you. James, before we go any further, for people who don't know who you are, can you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit of your backstory?
James Barnard: Basically, I'm a logo designer that kind of teaches everything I know online. So I'm 39 years old. I have two children. I live on the gold coast of Australia with my wife and young family. And, but I'm from the UK. I immigrated from London in 2021, right in the middle of a pandemic and had to do two weeks of quarantine when I get here with my daughter, who was two at the time, which was awful, but I live out here with my tiny little home studio doing freelance graphic design for brands and businesses all over the world. So i'm sort of old enough to have had a bit of experience in our industry but young enough that i'm still up with the cool kids and I can still be on instagram making You know social media content and just about pass for popular, well, not popular, but we'll you determine that. Basically at some point in, I think it was 2022 I had my first viral moment on TikTok where I shared something online. I was pretty proud of, and I had something like 3 million views instantly got something like 70 leads in a single day for my logo design business.
It was like, wow, like, why have I not been doing this? sooner. So these days I split my time between creating content for social media and doing client work. And at some point last year, I think it was my revenue split. The percentages tipped over from making more money as a content creator than actually from the logo design side of things.
It's close, but it ever so slightly tipped into the sort of content creation side of things. So, you know, you and I both are friends with the guy called Jamie Brindle and he talks about how half your time should be spent on marketing your business and the other half of your time should be spent on your client work.
And I totally see this social media content creation as marketing for my business. It's a way for me to generate leads. It's a way for me to get people to my website to book me for. For jobs and the simple fact that it actually helps people at the same time is a massive bonus and really fulfilling, but I am using this, um, you know, lead generator for my business. I'm trying to win more clients and this is how I do it now.
Chris Do: All right. I think it's an important moment in your business life, your professional freelancer life that all of a sudden now this thing that started out as a curiosity probably as it is for most people when they start creating content like, oh, let me try. It's not going to hurt. Just try something. And you said for the first time in your business life, the content part of it has generated more than 50 percent of the revenue in which you kind of take home. First breakdown for us where that revenue comes from? Is it sponsored deals? Is it Instagram and TikTok actually paying you? Where is that money coming from?
James Barnard: It's predominantly sponsorships and paid partnerships. Yes. So the split looks like this. So 42 percent of my business is paid partnerships. 40 percent is logo design and traditional graphic design clients. 15 percent is digital products. So selling things like online courses and, you know, bits and pieces that way. And 3 percent is public speaking and affiliates. So going to places like Adobe Max, doing summits around the globe online and doing talks for those. But yeah, 42 percent is paid partnerships now. So that's working with people and clients around the globe, promoting their services online in a way that fits in with my content as best as possible.
One of the biggest ones, obviously, is Adobe because I am in their software all day long. Basically, the majority of my content is teaching you how to be a better graphic designer, hidden software tips and tricks. So things like how to go faster in Adobe Illustrator, and then how to be like a better freelancer or how to be a better graphic designer.
So a little bit around like design principles or, you know, your daily workflow, that kind of thing. So the logo design things, they're, It's obviously massively in there and I love that because it is keeping me on the ground. It keeps me, you know, in the trenches doing the client work and actually tackling those daily problems that we face as graphic designers. And I take all those problems, bundle them all up and regurgitate them online in my videos to help, you know, the next generation of designers.
Chris Do: And I must say, I'm not just saying this because you're on the show. I follow you. I watch your videos on Instagram, and I find them to be helpful. And you are showing me the, the nooks and crannies I've been using. I don't want to say Illustrator longer than you've been alive, but I've been using it for a really long time. 32 years.
James Barnard: Okay. Yep. You beat me there.
Chris Do: Yeah. Right. Well, you're 39. I mean, I'm getting close to using it longer than your life. But what I wanted to say is that an old dog like myself is, is using illustrator like version one or two, and there's constantly new improvements, tools that they sneak in there. Different ways, more efficient ways of doing something. And I enjoy the way that you present one simple lesson, a quick trick, and you do it kind of in a funny, humorous way. There's a style of which that you use that other people use, but I really enjoy. It's like, here's something super technical, but the old way is like, oh, you're going to talk me through every step and I'm going to fall asleep during the thing you're doing cutaways to a reaction like, Oh, ah, frustration is some kind of emotion. And then you just do it without dialogue most of the time and you just fix it. And it's hard to tell a story without dialogue.
James Barnard: Well, actually, those are the videos that kill because they're kind of, they don't rely on language. So globally, they're more popular immediately because you're not having to explain. I do a lot of content that is, that goes into more in depth stuff. And I talk on camera and I get into that. But you're right. The videos that tend to go viral are the ones where it is like reaction based problems that I'm facing in graphic design, like, and like horrible reactions to that problem that I'm facing and then fixing it with a simple software trick.
And usually the simpler, the better. And if you set that to sort of like an absolute banger of a track and put a bombshell Adobe Illustrator tip in there, 16 million views later, you're absolutely laughing. But the greatest thing is, is that, yes, the Adobe Illustrator that you started out with doesn't exist anymore. It's evolved over time, and there's this plethora of graphic designers like my age who learned maybe 15 years ago how to use the software, and updates have come along, and they might have missed them, and it's hard for Adobe to kind of you know, You get those updates in front of people's faces other than on the little wizard that comes up when you open up a new software The simple fact is that I can discover something new teach it to these graphic designers Who've been using the software for a long time and to them it's mind blowing.
I do get a lot of comments from younger designers Like, how did you not know that? This has been out for like three years. How did you not know? I'm sorry, I learned a long time ago. And the software has evolved around me. Luckily, I did a bit of research and found out about it and shared about it. So, half the people in the comments are like, how did you not know that? The other half are like, mind blown emojis and how this is incredible. So, you know, it's a bit of a mixed bag.
Chris Do: Look, you could share some tip and trick that just dropped or one of these most archaic ones where you have to be like 75 years old to know what that trick is. And someone in the audience is like, yeah, I knew that all the time. See, there's always somebody and that's totally fine. Okay, I want to get into the business part. But before I do, I want to make a request of you if you've done this or not. I remember going to Max a couple of years ago and it was a super nerdy session that was, hosted by engineers from Adobe. They said, hey, you know the default typeface and the default point size and lighting? You can change that, you know, and you can have it stick. I think you did something similar to this, yes?
James Barnard: I did. I actually have a course about this, like going faster in Adobe Illustrator by changing those little defaults that you have to revert around all the time. So something like when you draw a new shape in Adobe Illustrator, it automatically sets it with a one pixel black stroke and a white background, which you always have to switch off the stroke, change it to the color that you want.
You can change that default. It's a little bit fiddly, annoyingly. So that's where I come in and help you out, you know, how to do that. But things like shortcuts, keyboard shortcuts, defaults and templates, workspaces using actions and macros. That kind of stuff is what I kind of pride myself on is going faster in the software.
And I've always been a designer that is really efficient, might not be the best designer, but I'm definitely the one that works fast. And when I was in this sort of agency space as a freelancer in London, I was rolling because I could go so quickly and turn work over so fast. I was getting booked left, right, and center purely for the fact that I could sit down at an agency.
Turn on Illustrator, change a couple of things. And 10 minutes later, I'm busting out client work for them in absolutely no time. So when I went freelance, it really helped that kind of efficiency and speed in the software. So that's what I'm trying to teach now is to get people to go faster so they can turn over more things like more logo projects, because the simple fact is that they're going faster in Adobe Illustrator. They can get more clients through the door. That's, that's really sort of helping people and it's made the content sort of really kind of popular and people love it.
Chris Do: Yeah, you're uh, what I would consider a power user, one who comes in and changes all the defaults, the keyboards, the mouse, the preferences, and it takes a minute to set up on each computer, and I'll tell you the story from the other side, as one who employs freelancers, I always am kind of blown away by the people who bring a little hard drive, they set things up, it takes them a few minutes, sometimes they bring in their own keyboard, monitor setup, and chair even. And that's how, you know, like this person is ready to work and whatever they do in the time in which you book them, it's going to run circles around the other people who are literally just working with one hand the whole time.
Just, I consider them like mouse jockeys, you know, they just can move the mouse around a lot and like, you know, you have two hands. You're allowed to use your second hand and use keyboard shortcuts and things like that to make your workflow more efficient. I just want to give that for our audience.
Number one is if you want to be booked consistently as a freelancer, which is something, you know, a lot about come and be prepared, be a professional, be ready to go and optimize your workflows that most of your processing power, your mental processing power is on creativity, thinking through the problem, looking for new ideas as opposed to fighting the software.
And if you learn one keyboard shortcut, multiply over how many times you do that over the course of your professional life. You're talking about days, weeks, if not months off of your life that you get back, and I think that's really cool. Now, I know that you do a bit of work with Adobe, and so do I. So, Adobe, if you're listening to this podcast, I'd just like to make a request for non technical people. It should just be in their preferences that we can just change everything about illustrators default, that we don't have to rely on guys like James to show us the weird backdoor hack on how to change all these things. Cause. It's a little intimidating to go in there and just like, man, why can't I change this? And most software you can change these things.
James Barnard: Yeah, true. But if they do do that, then I'm out of a job. So Adobe, please don't do that. Keep it the way it is so I can keep my content going. That's a very selfish thing to say. I know. I know. Sorry. Adobe Illustrator is massive though. It has something like, I think it's like more than 20 tools on the toolbar alone. And then obviously like hundreds of subsets of menus and preferences and all the things that can do, it's a behemoth of a platform just alone, Adobe Illustrator, you know, it's like probably like 75 percent of my content because I can just talk all day about it just goes on and on and on.
But when you think about the entire suite of Adobe packages and all of the things inside Photoshop and Premier Pro and all the little bits and pieces. The content it's endless. You can just create content all day long about going faster or tips and tricks inside the software packages. So the simple act of just teaching this brings, certainly brought me more followers and that's obviously diversified my income stream. So it's a complete win win.
Chris Do: Let's do some of the business stuff. But in case you're just joining us today on my podcast, I have James Barnard. He's based out of the Gold Coast in Australia by the way of the UK, and he and his family moved there. He describes himself as a logo designer, design educator, and a proud freelancer. Yeah, so I'll have to talk to you about the proud part later, but let's get back into the business part of it, okay? What is the average deal size for a sponsor? Like you have a lot of followers on Instagram. You have 500,000 plus and you have 250,000 followers on TikTok. So about half of your your IG followers. That's a lot of followers. You're an influencer, bona fide, certified. What kind of deals can someone get as a creative person with a highly specialized niche? You, drawing logos with AI, Adobe Illustrator? What can the sponsor deals look like?
James Barnard: So there's like bands of sponsorship deals and typically upwards of like half a million followers, you can start to charge in the five figure range for that kind of thing. And obviously like the content is super niche, really, really specialized. But because of that I've actually got a really kind of dedicated following and a real community around sort of what I do. And I've, I've worked really hard on that, making sure that the content is very specific and focused. And ideally, you know, just used to drive leads to my business, but it helps the next generation of graphic designers like you do.
And because that content is so niche and so focused, when a brand does reach out to me, they can do such targeted sponsorship posts that you can, you can charge a little bit higher. So yeah, typically it's, it's, it's recently in the sort of five figure range, which is unbelievable and so fulfilling as well because I'm, I'm actually being paid to create content, which I love doing.
It's such a rewarding job. I love this side of the business, actually putting these videos together and digesting and dissecting this information and regurgitating it in a way that people can understand and simply as possible. And I think I'm pretty good at that. This kind of funneling the complex into something that's meaningful and understandable.
And then the partners like Adobe come along and my content just sits in harmony with their offering. And when they come out with things like new software updates or packages or releases, I'm the perfect guy to go to for that. So yeah, Adobe has been my my little cash cow for the last couple of years, I don't know how long that will continue for, but along may it rain.
It's, it's, it's brilliant. And I love being a part of, you know, being a partner with those guys. They're a great company. I think would be a great company to work for. They've got a really culturally diverse group of people there. They're all very friendly. They're all really professional and timely and they pay well. And I absolutely love it. So yeah, hopefully I'll do more with them in the future.
Chris Do: Yeah, one of my goals in life is every company I give money to, meaning services I buy or products that I pay for, I want them to eventually give me my money back to give me the products for free and to, to thank me for the experience. And it's a wonderful feeling that the first time you get a decent size sponsor's check and you're like, dang, I would have done this for free. And now, now I'm getting paid for it. Okay. So I'm going to ask you this question. It's a weird question. What is the most you've ever been paid for? In a sponsored post and you don't have to tell us the client or anything. I'm just curious, like what is the biggest score on that sponsored thing? Because 42 percent of your income, that's a lot.
James Barnard: Obviously that's not from like one or two single posts, but something like 12 and a half thousand USD, but that increases every single time I go up to, you know, when my following increases. So the minute combined with TikTok and Instagram, it's upwards of 750,000 followers. That's, that's getting up there in the sort of the big leagues now, and I'm starting to turn away sponsors. You know, a year ago, I would never have done that. I would have taken anything that you sent my way. I'd have done a sponsored post for 500 quid or a freebie, which I often still do. You know,
Chris Do: give me a keep for a hemorrhoid screen.
James Barnard: Yeah, well, maybe not, you know, but it's something that's in line with my content. Like it's really cheeky. Like I really wanted a new office chair and I couldn't get that uh, sponsored posts with a, um, a brand that just wouldn't do it. It costs them slightly too much. They got to the point where I was like, you could just send me one and I'll, you know, it'll be in the background and all the videos and even then they wouldn't do it. So I had to buy my own office chair, which was disappointing, but you know, we get into that point where I can start to kind of be a bit cheeky there and actually get a few freebies sent my way, but yeah, it's great.
The more the following. increases, the more I can start to charge for this. And the value sort of goes up with them as well. It's about the trouble is, it's about you get to a point where you start getting worried about like views on videos rather than the content that you're actually displaying. So if a video posts and it flops, that's a bit embarrassing considering they've just paid you five figures for a brand deal. So there's sort of highs and lows between those, those partnerships.
Chris Do: Do you think there's a problem when you post so much content about creative workflow that the companies like Adobe. I'm like, he's talking about AI, Adobe Illustrator all day long. Why would we pay him now? He's already doing it organically.
We're getting that reach and exposure anyways. That's always one of these challenges I hear from people. So that's why they genericize everything. Because if they give the space for free, then what would compel a company, a brand to give you money to continue to do what you do? Do you find that to be a conflict? What's your take on that?
James Barnard: I mean, they haven't really had an issue with the concept, I guess it's mainly they can kind of control a little bit of the messaging when they want to put something out into the world. So if they, if I was going to do it for free, that also means that I could slam it if I didn't like it and absolutely rinse on this new software that I didn't agree was, you know, good or, or efficient.
I guess if they have a campaign that they're running and. It's about sort of saturation of social media with them. You notice when Adobe Illustrator, Adobe launched something new, every designer that you follow on social media, suddenly posting at the same time about this, this product or feature. And that's kind of really impactful for them. They can control the flow of that sort of social content. And it comes in like a wave where you kind of then can't miss it. And I think that's one of the reasons why it's about timing and messaging for them.
Chris Do: I recently met a couple of agents who manage creators. And it's kind of interesting what they do for people, and they negotiate much better deals, they get you the brands that you want to work with, and they help you to kind of control the amount of, I guess they help you to get a level of autonomy so that you're not like, oh, you want me to change that one thing, huh? Okay, I don't want to do that again. Is that something that you're looking into or consider?
James Barnard: I've been approached by a few people offering to do that for me. The trouble is they take 10 percent and that's a huge cut when it comes to like, if you're dealing in the sort of hundreds of pounds or sorry, dollars range, it's a lot of money to kind of put on the table. But by being a freelancer for all these years, I've kind of learned to sell myself. I've been a freelancer for something like eight or nine years now. So I'm getting pretty good at selling the value of what I do. And it's exactly the same with the social media side of things. I have been able to command pretty big deals.
Maybe I might have gotten more if I'd had an agent or someone representing me. But I want to learn this process. And I like the fact that I have one on one communication with these people. And if there's any problems, I don't kind of need to go through an intermediary for it. And I take the whole package as well. I don't have to put any, no one takes a slice for themselves.
Chris Do: I can almost certainly guarantee you'd get paid a lot more money if somebody else is managing it for you. I run into the same problem. I don't have an agent or a manager, but I have a team, and oftentimes I like to keep church and state separate so that I'm going to deal with the creative stuff.
I want to be considered like good cop, and then bad cop, my business manager comes in and is like, you know, I'm taking this out, we're removing this, and you need to pay him this, and we're not bending on this. Because they know if they backdoor that conversation to me, backchannel it. I'm like, eh, yeah, I'll just do it, whatever. And so that's why what I'm getting paid is way far more than I would if I were negotiating myself. And you know, I do have a reputation as being a negotiator. So it's just being able to objectively say someone else is managing that. It's really out of my hands. You got to get them to approve it. Otherwise, I can't move forward. And it's nice to be able to have that, whether they work for you or they're an independent contractor, just putting that out there.
James Barnard: Yeah, I'm sure that would help. I, um, in the infancy of this whole thing, though, this is very, very new to me. It's only the last sort of couple of years or even 18 months, really, where this has all kind of taken off for me. It's been a huge explosion. So I am going through some growing pains with it. And definitely, even within my freelance business, there's, there's ways I could improve. I'm not the best converter. I'm not very good at converting leads into sales and I need to work on that. But the social media side of things has kind of helped that. So yeah, I probably would do better with an agent. So maybe that is something that I need to address in the next year or two.
Chris Do: Yeah. Okay, let's do this because I want to talk about more important things, but there's still three more categories that just want to quickly go down. Maybe we could just give me the number or the number that you're not comfortable with. That's fine. So I looked up your course, it's called turbocharger logo design and it's 99 dollars pretty reasonable price. And you have a hit list of who's who, like everybody I know on social media has given you a testimony on it. It's like, no, I follow them. I talked to them. I interviewed them. I just met them. You know, it's everybody on there. It's pretty impressive. What is lifetime sales for your course right now?
James Barnard: Oh, I only launched it in December last year. It's my very first
Chris Do: Recently?
James Barnard: But actually it's not my first course. Yeah. It was my first or foray into digital products. And like I said earlier, it's something there's a chunk of change. It was 15 percent of my income for the year came from that one course. So it's not to be sort of sniffed out. It was, it was really good. I think I probably could have done better with the sales. It was around about 45,000. I think I took home from that course, which is in the grand scheme of things. That's incredible. But it was a lot of work. I've put my heart and soul into this course. I took two months off. It started out six weeks of client work, which I planned to, I ended up being two to three months. I did everything myself. I filmed it. Edited it, I'd set up the website, launched Kajabi, set up that whole system to sort of host the course.
I did it alongside with Skillshare, so it was a kind of joint launch with them. Marketed it myself, all of my own social media, did my own email marketing, and I don't have much of an email list either, so it was a huge undertaking, and I was so burnt out by the end of the process. It's great to have it there under my sort of arsenal, but it was really, really full on.
Chris Do: That's a lot to do.
James Barnard: Yeah. It was hectic as hell, but yeah, it was great return on investment. It was definitely worth my time. And that's such a steep learning curve. I learned loads about doing it. So the aim of the game is to try and do more of that this year and kind of diversify that stream a little bit more, change that pie chart into a little bit more of sort of digital products versus the client work, maybe take on bigger and better clients, but fewer of them and do more digital products and courses sort of going forward. But yeah, I'm at a huge inflection point right now with my business. The social media side of things has really taken off just over the last 18 months. And now I can start to maybe use that following to help you generate a little bit more income outside of the client.
Chris Do: It's impressive that you took on all this work by yourself. I want to say congratulations. 45,000 is not a small amount. That's like a BMW three series, I believe with some options. So, I mean, sometimes we get numb with the numbers, you know, where it's like, oh, it's just that, but I'm like, well, what is it that you can exchange that money for? So it's pretty cool.
Plus, you're building up a library, and over time, the library generates more money for you. Maybe somebody starts off as being a fan using the tools, but then they become a client somewhere because they tell their boss, their boss tells their boss, the next thing you know, you're in through the back door. Okay. Logo. 40 percent of your income comes from logo design, bespoke custom work. Do you have a minimum size of engagement?
James Barnard: So yes and no, I have a floor price. So I made a massive mistake a few years back on my website. I put my floor price on my website because I was kind of getting so fed up with people asking me to do a logo for 50 quid. The admin alone of trying to sort of back those proposals and leads coming through, it was kind of annoying. So I put my floor price of like a few thousand dollars on my website and I got no leads in two months. People came to the website, saw that floor price, didn't see the value that I was providing, you know, with my services and just bounced off to a competitor.
And I did everything to kind of sort of stem the flow of the cashflow problems that I started to face. I half the price on the website to see if that would work. I put some paid advertising towards my website to try and drive more leads. That was an absolute disaster. I didn't know what I was doing, wasted money until eventually I took those prices off my website and got the ball rolling again with the leads coming through to the point where I can sort of massage out those juicy leads.
But yeah, I do have like a minimum sort of level that I will, I will personally take on and that will kind of fluctuate depending on whether I think the client is cool or not, how long a lead time we have in the project, those kinds of things. So yeah, there's definitely a bit of leeway there, but I do have a kind of a bit of a rule about who's coming on board.
Chris Do: So if somebody is listening to this or watching this video later on and they're like, I love his work. I want to work with them. Let's set the bar. It's like prices start at otherwise, please don't call me wasting my time.
James Barnard: Pass on that one because it might stop people from getting in touch. Sometimes that's a bit of a barrier to people. People might feel a bit embarrassed about getting in touch and considering, you know, that I might want to work with them if the client is cool. So I'll often do jobs that I'll do really cheap just because I really want to do the project. Things like badge designs for motorcycle clubs in Texas, designs for motor racing teams, you know, that kind of thing, like that kind of stuff really floats my boat.
And I would probably do those jobs for like a few hundred quid if I had the time. So, you know, I don't want people like that to not get in touch. And that was really interesting when I did put my prices on my website and no one got in touch via my website. I got a couple of leads through other channels like Reddit because they hadn't seen the prices and they reached out with, can you do a motorcycle badge for our Texas motorcycle club? Was like, yes, please. That's a cool job. I really want to do this I think I did it for something like 500 quid at the time. This is years back now. You know, I never would have got that job had they gone to my website and i'd have missed out on that opportunity So i'd like to get the lead first check out their job check out who they are then I'll go back to them with an initial offering.
I'm just to give them an idea immediately of what the sort of budget range is. But these days, when people go through my website, there's a form there that says, what is your current budget range? And there's ranges that they can select. So I have at least have an idea of what they're looking to spend. So that kind of gauges that first conversation that could help me.
Chris Do: What are the ranges they can choose from?
James Barnard: So 0 to 1,000 dollars, 1,000 to 5,000, 5 to 10, and 10,000 plus. And obviously everybody selects zero to one because
Chris Do: Seriously? They really do?
James Barnard: Yeah. Something like, yeah, it's a huge amount. I guess by the nature of me being a freelancer and not being an agency and the types of clients I work with. I work with small, you know, SMEs, the middle of the road people. And I like that. I like being able to help people that might want to invest just a little bit more in their business. Sort of trying to help their business in sort of early stage. So I got a lot of startups come to me, especially like tech startups from places like California, that they'll come with a little bit more money to spend to kind of take this process seriously.
I have the occasional like whale will come through 10,000 plus, which is fantastic. And they're mainly coming to me these days because of the sort of clout of social media. I run a lot of case studies on my social platform. And that's kind of a freebie. Then what's the exposure? Yeah, I call it, I used to call it tick clicks.
I'm going to stop calling it that. It's TikTok client logo case studies. So anytime, you know, I finish a project, I'll go through how I worked with this client, showing the rounds of revisions that we did and how we got to the final product. And that's really cool because it helps designers and shows them the process of logo design and how we got to that. But it also showcases to a client, you know, this is how it might work for you and what it's like to work with me as an actual service provider. So yeah, having those case studies is really, really sort of powerful and really, really helps the sales as well.
The Futur: It's time for a quick break, but we'll be right back.
Chris Do: When I started my motion design company Blind in 95, there was a lot I didn't know, so I tried reaching out to other business owners and professionals for help. What did I find? Many saw me as competition, and those who didn't, weren't able to give advice that made sense for my line of work. Thankfully, I was able to find my first and only business coach, Kier McLaren, who mentored me for 13 years.
I also learned that my story isn't unique, many entrepreneurs feel like they're left to figure everything out on their own. It's why I created The Futur Pro Membership, a community I wish I had when I first started. And I'd like to invite you to check out all that we have waiting for you inside at thefutur.com/pro.
The Futur: And we're back,, welcome back to our conversation.
Chris Do: If memory serves me correct, there is a French designer who does a lot of raceway motorcycle logo stuff, hand painted work. It's beautiful. It goes, I think it goes by the BMD Design. He does excellent work. It's like if I had something that had that kind of aesthetic, I would just hire him to draw and paint and he can paint and we'll talk about your inability to draw and sketch yourself, but we'll get there.
Okay, so there's a philosophical difference between you and I and the proud freelancer. And I'm like, what is the difference between a freelancer and an agency? And why is it that an agency can do this and a freelancer can't? And I didn't bring you on the show to debate with you, but I'm just curious.
You're like, okay as an agency owner, previously, currently retired, I want to put up barriers so that people don't call me and waste my time. And I want to make it feel, you just can't afford this. If you, if you're worried about money, don't call me. And here's the fundamental belief I have, and I'd love for you to opine on this, is If someone wants to work with you, money will not be a problem.
They will find a way. And I've, I'm talking about like 20 plus years working in the advertising space. We've never lost a deal because of money. We lost a deal because it wasn't the right creative for us. We didn't come up with the right creative. It was uninspired, whatever it was, or there was a personality conflict.
It's almost always one of those things. That's not because they couldn't afford it. Because if two parties want to work together, they will find a number. My theory is this, that motorcycle brand, here's this podcast and looks at your work. It's like, man, we really want to work them. I don't know. Would he take 2,500 dollars for four grand?
They would call you and you'd float a number and you would work it out. And then maybe they were like, you know what? We can give you like 14 leather jackets and we'll give you the 2,500. Would you consider? And you're like, yeah, I'll do it for that. Come on. That's my theory. I want to make it difficult for people to come and buy from us because I only want to talk to a handful of people. I don't want to talk to 50 people and find out it's not a good fit. Your take on this, please.
James Barnard: Well, I'm in the infancy of this success as a freelancer, think that's one of the key things to note here is that this is an early stage for me. Yes, I'm 39 years old. And yes, I've been designing for more than 15, 15 years. In terms of actually selling my wares, it was you who put me on to how to charge more. And I started following you years ago, and as a freelancer, I started taking things more seriously and charging differently packaging up my offering. The main problem with me is that I'm such a control freak. I've controlled the process for so long that I like being part of almost everything in the business.
And it's something that I've really had to deal with as a freelancer is actually relinquishing some control. And I recently hired a couple of people. And it's the first time I did that was last year. I had an assistant to help me do things like roll out logo exports for clients, help me with presentations and do brand guidelines documents.
I have a copywriter now helps me do my newsletter and helps me with the sun to help me route with the copy on some of the presentations and the brand guidelines documents, that's the plan anyway. So yes, I would love to be at that point where I'm acting like an agency and putting up barriers and walls so that.
You know, clients can't speak to me. And eventually maybe I'll even get an assistant to do all my inbound leads, which I'm currently totally controlling and checking out. But at the minute, it's just, I'm right there. I'm at this inflection point where the success is just happens almost overnight for me in the space of the last couple of years, my business, my 2023-2024 financial year closed 217 percent higher than the year before I started teaching on social media.
It's exploded overnight. So, but there's been a lot of learning curves with it and a lot that I've had to deal with personally to kind of come to terms with this fact and, and how to kind of keep more cash out of this situation that I've got myself into now. But it's, it's ludicrous. Like it's, it's happened so fast that I'm just sort of, you know, I've got a few growing pains to deal with.
Chris Do: You're already technically no longer a freelancer because you're allowed to, I don't think you were ever a freelancer to be honest, because you run your own independent studio, you work on your own time, your own machines, and theoretically you're not even billing hourly, so an independent business owner just so happens that previously you were a company of one, but now you're, you have a writer, you have an assistant. So it's like a junior designer, somebody helping you already. So it's now, it's not even just you anymore. A freelancer technically sells their time. I don't think you're selling your time. So as you continue to grow, you're a studio or something. Yeah, it's a small studio?
James Barnard: But maybe that's the personal branding thing that I need to address because I evolved into this from an actual freelance role. I was a gun for hire when I left publishing in the UK, something like eight or nine years ago, I went into the freelance space and I went into agencies all over London and sat down at a desk and was, you know, a higher by our professional and then COVID hit and we all started working from home less of the agency work more of the sort of client direct work and that's evolved into this logo design space and at some point after, you know, watching all of your videos during the early stage of COVID I dumped all of this sort of generic graphic design work from my portfolio started focusing only on logo and visual identity.
And that has morphed into this new business that I have now. And I guess, yeah, I've just kind of always called myself a freelancer because I do, I feel like a freelancer because I'm doing my own thing. It's just me in this business. Well, it's not anymore, but realistically, you know, I'm in this office that you see before you all day long by myself and the pains that you have as a freelancer and the peaks and troughs of business and all that kind of things that go along with running your own offering. And that's just the way it's kind of felt. So maybe, yeah, maybe I need to do an overhaul of my personal brand and brand myself as an agency and change the name of the company. And who knows?
Chris Do: No, no, no, it could still be exactly the same. You just have to present yourself a little bit differently. You and I have a lot in common, actually. I'm in my own studio. I'm here all by myself, me, myself, and I. But I don't consider myself a freelancer. I have not considered that since, like, the first year of being out of school. Now, I'm just sitting here thinking, I'm gonna make a bold prediction, James. By the end of 2024, you will no longer be displaying Proud Freelancer. You might call it something else.
James Barnard: By the end of this podcast, I'm going to be no longer displaying Proud Freelancer. I'm deleting it from my linkedIn right now.
Chris Do: It might be like reformed freelancer turned agency studio owner business extraordinaire, something like that. And I want to just reinforce this thing because there's a lot of people in our community, our audience, our collective audience, yours and mine, who are going to be thinking to themselves, like, gosh, does this specialization thing actually work?
And I believe you just said that. So I just want to reinforce it to everybody. You used to do lots of things. You're like, you know, one day you're like, I don't want to do that. I just want to be the logo guy. I want to be really fast. I'll be really good. And I can do amazing things without even knowing how to sketch. Is that the case? Have you benefited by specializing?
James Barnard: Unbelievably so. Yeah, it's quite insane how much my life changed when I stopped becoming this generic graphic designer in a world saturated with graphic design jack of all trades people. I have a vast experience in graphic design. I've been a graphic designer for 15 years, worked in publishing. I've done everything from digital layout, websites to print the little bit of animation, flash adverts back in the day, email newsletters. Like I can do it all, but by focusing on the logo design things, side of things, it meant that immediately just from like an SEO perspective, it was easier to attract clients that way when people typed in, that was one of the things that immediately changed things for me is that I changed my website, removed all the generic graphic design work off my website, focused it on visual identity and logos, and then wrote a couple of landing pages just targeting the keywords freelance logo designer London. And within the space of something like two months, I was number one. So if you search that term, I think I still am now. I think if you search that, I come up as like at least up the top somewhere.
Chris Do: I'm gonna do right now. Go ahead.
James Barnard: It might be because, you know, I was based in London when I was doing those searches, but I think I tried it in Australia the other day and I was still pretty close to the top. So that was crazy.
Chris Do: Now you're at number one. Look at that.
James Barnard: There you go. That wasn't hard to do and I basically did a few changes to the website up the headline on my site and got a few leads coming through that way. Something like seven to eight leads a week, which was not to be sniffed that that was decent for, you know, the offering at the time.
Chris Do: That's a lot. Yeah. People would kill for that kind of,
James Barnard: Right, right.
Chris Do: Action.
James Barnard: Yeah. Unbelievable. And that was just from, you know, a few small changes to the way I was selling myself and what the way I was displaying myself online, the social media side of things. When that came along, the number of leads now through social media is something like 85 percent through social media. And considering that I teach graphic design to an audience of graphic designers, the number of clients that I'm getting through from social media or my content marketing is beyond ridiculous.
And I need to work on converting them because I got a lot of leads through and there's still, you know, some work to do. They have to kind of eke a bit more out of that in terms of percentages of closing those deals. But it's wonderful. I've been booked out something like three months solid ever since that first viral TikTok video because of the volume of those leads that are now coming through from the business. So yeah, if I could offer,
Chris Do: Which video was that?
James Barnard: Okay. So the first video that went viral, it was pure luck. Okay. I got three logos accepted into this book called The Logo Lounge and I bragged about it on TikTok virus stitch. It was really lucky the way it worked out. The stitch was something like, give me an example of a niche flex that means nothing to the whole world, but to you, it's a big deal.
And I just showed that my logo has got into this book and that's a prestigious book. And I think you were a former judge on this book, actually, the logo allowances, Bill Gardner's. And one of my logos is on the cover of this book now. So I was bragging about this book, getting into the book. And then people were like, well, show us the logos.
Then I was like, okay. So then another video came off the back of that. And then I got started it. People started asking me questions in the comments. And initially the content was basically me just responding to the questions. Like, how do you do this? How do you use the shape builder tool in Adobe Illustrator?
And then noticed immediately that people were kind of loving this explainer based, value based content. So like for the longest time, my social media was just me showing off my portfolio. Like here's a new logo project I did. Here's this, here's that. When I started providing value and teaching, on the platform my follower account just exploded to the point where about six months later one of my videos about the pencil tool in Adobe Illustrator, the most niche thing you can possibly imagine hit 15 million views on Instagram. And my Instagram account went from like 8,000 followers to 120,000 followers in two weeks because there was like a plethora of other sort of design education based content behind it. And since then, it's just, it's just not stopped. I've just kind of kept this, this hype train going.
Chris Do: That's awesome, man. And that goes to dispel another idea that people keep thinking, if I create tutorials or content to help other people like myself. Well, clients don't want that and you've just proven that theory completely wrong. Because as far as I know, you've not created anything that's like, Hey, come hire me. This is what I do and talk about your wares.
And the significant change that you have, which I've observed myself too, and I don't think we're breaking new ground here. This is not like Anderson Cooper breaking news or Wolf Blitzer on CNN. You're basically saying the minute I stop talking about me, my portfolio, my work, and I made it about them, you, because you know, no one wants to read a headline. They want to read the things that they're interested in. As soon as you do that, everything changes. And I think this is a perfect segue for us to talk about your public speaking and the things that you're going to be doing more of. I saw you at Adobe Max recently. I was pretty awesome, sat in the audience while you're working through your talk.
James Barnard: Yeah, thanks for that. That was nerve wracking. Just to let everybody know, Chris Do, you're a hero of mine, I've followed you for years. This was my first big foray into the public speaking world, and in my rehearsal, Chris walks in and sits in the front row and stares at me during my 15 minute talk, when there was nobody else in the room, so I was absolutely breaking it. So that was a kind of baptism of fire into my world of, uh, you know, public speaking, but you gave me some pointers there and it totally helped for the actual thing. And then, and then the next day I've got to stand front of the line to go into your talk and learn even more. So that was brilliant. But yeah, the public speaking thing is new for me.
Chris Do: I love seeing creatives take their art and craft, find a way to make it meaningful to an audience and watching that journey. It's a beautiful thing to witness. And I can say years later, Man, I was there when that guy was just reading his notes and it was like a little stiff and he got through it. And now look at him, global superstar you. Okay, well you have some new ideas you're gonna drop on us. What is the new thing that you're interested in talking about?
James Barnard: Well, this whole platform of teaching what I know on social media has led me to a bit of a discovery in that the more I teach, the more I'm actually retaining this information. So, you know, the very nature of my content is explaining what I know on social media. And I got to a point where I was actively starting to look for new ideas and to learn new things because I basically covered most of the topics that I knew about. Just being a graphic designer for a number of years.
So things like optical illusions within graphic design, how to deal with sort of overshoots that typical things like why we don't use red and green, red, green and blue print ink and printers, answering those kinds of questions and actually going out there and actively learning led me to the realization that while I'm teaching this on my own platforms, I'm actually remembering this information and I was on an Adobe live stream a few months back where I got asked the question live on the stream, like what's the difference between like mathematically aligned and optically aligned? And I just went off in this like absolute tangent about optical illusions and I was like reeling off.
Well, there's the overshoot, there's the Poggendorf illusion, there's the Irradiation illusion and the next comment along was like, how do you know all this? And I was like, because I've taught it. And this realization of this sort of see one, do one, teach one approach, which was sort of synonymous with the medical industry, has been mind blowing for me.
So I think it was like during COVID, I was like watching reruns of ER and Dr. Green is showing Dr. Carter how to do this lumbar procedure. And he says, see one, do one, teach one. And it was this kind of like, what? Like, what do you mean see one, do one, teach one? This is crazy, like, this is an actual medical practice that was founded in the late 1800s. I've looked this up since, it was, I think it was a guy called William Halstead who was like one of the founders of Johns Hopkins University. This is a practice that they put into approach was that, he would show someone how to do a procedure, they would do it immediately afterwards, and then straight after that, teach it to a junior resident.
And the act, the simple act of passing that information on, something about it hardwires that information into your brain. So, There was a study about something called The Protege Effect. And it was like in 2009, a group of people were given some material to learn. So a group of students were given the same material to learn with the intention of being sort of tested on it later on.
They split the group in half. Half of the group was told at the end of this session, you're going to be tested on this material. The other half of the group was told you were going to teach this material to another member of this study. So you're going to have to present this information in a way that they can understand.
But in reality, at the end of the test, they tested everybody the same. They just gave everybody a test. And they found out that the people that had been told they were going to have to pass this information on and teach them, retained the information better in a more engaging way to them and did better on the tests.
So the simple act of actually knowing that you're going to have to pass this information on hardwires it into your brain and there's something called called enhanced encoding. So by reorganizing information in a way that We envisage we're going to have to explain it to somebody else. Our brains make connections between what we already know and the new information, which helps us remember it better.
It's wild. Like, so I found, like, I'm actually, you know, with clients now, I'm finding that I'm more articulate with clients. I'm better on camera with them. When I'm, when I'm having to rationalize my designs and defend them, I can use fancy terms and technical terms that I've remembered because I've taught it to my audience.
And it's so powerful. It makes me more confident when I'm speaking to them. But also another benefit is, is that by teaching this information, I'm blowing up my, my own social media and I'm creating value for another audience, which builds community and then fosters the spread of information within the design industry. So I just wanted to share that, I thought it was awesome.
Chris Do: I like that. And many years ago, before I went on this public teaching journey that I'm on today, my friend and mentor at that time, Jose Caballé said, Chris, you know what the best way to learn something is? I'm like, no, he's like, to teach it. And I was like, are you being a prick right now?
Like you're saying, I don't know how to do something. So the best way I can learn how to do something I don't know how to do is go teach someone. And there was some brilliance in what he said there, because when we know we have to teach somebody, it's like, okay, what do I got to do? I got to do some research.
I got to read up, I got to figure this thing out and I got to remember it in a way that I can explain it to someone simply, non technical way just so that they can retain it. So the better expression that I've come to discover later on is one teaches to learn. So it's a play on words. So one teaches to learn something, but there's one teacher, but there's two students.
Which is kind of interesting. It's not just the person in front of you, you're learning by explaining it to them. And I've found the same thing. The biggest confidence booster I've ever had in my life was my journey into education back in the early 2000s. So, when you have to explain something to a room full of people, they're going to ask you questions that you didn't think you even knew the answer to.
In that moment, it's like trial by fire. You either have the answer or you don't. If you don't, you just say, I don't know. Good question. It's going to require a little bit more thinking from me or a little research to get back to you. And if you know it, something really cool happens. You discover something about what you knew, which most people don't ever have that inner dialogue where they're like, what do you know? So it's not until someone extracts it from you that you're like, oh, I knew this. That's kind of cool.
James Barnard: It's a confidence builder, isn't it? As well, like when you suddenly find that you can answer a question. It can be. Yeah, that feels great. Another great thing is as well, is that by having to disseminate that information and then kind of regurgitate it in a simple way, it lends itself to creating content on social media so well, because you're actively having to digest this and explain it in under a minute, or at least you used to on TikTok.
Having to, you know, explain something that's maybe quite complex, like Gestalt principles in graphic design. I did that in like a minute and a half. And that's like a vast array of things that Gestalt covers. It's huge. I managed to kind of cover that in about, you know, a minute and a half video, which was, which was really challenging.
But at the same time, while doing that, I was having to sort of simplify everything down and it helped me sort of retain that information so much better. The personal benefits alone to it are just unbelievable I'm having more fun in my work by doing this by by actively learning and spreading this wealth It's so fulfilling to teaching is fulfilling as hell.
Um, I've sort of like I said before I'm delving into the sort of digital product space now and this is slowly starting to become my job and it's really rewarding. But now that I am sort of teaching a little bit more. I started to worry that I'm a glorified high school teacher with absolutely no qualifications to do this.
Okay. So at some point last year, I took the Adobe certified exam and became Adobe certified in Adobe Illustrator. And that was not an easy exam, right? It's quite involved, but I passed it with almost the perfect score. And one of the questions on the exam. Was something that I just recently taught on my social media about subtractive and additive color models. Like, why don't we use red, green, and blue ink in printers? I've made a video about that maybe a month prior, and it was one of the questions on the exam. So I thought that was just a lovely little, that's an easy one.
Chris Do: Come on.
James Barnard: Well, you know, to you, but I'm not embarrassed to say that I can't always recall those facts, but the act of me having recently taught it was just such a, I thought it was a lovely little, you know, callback to this, uh, this sort of teaching thing that I've got going on now.
Chris Do: I'm just being a D bag in case people are like, what the hell is he doing? He's trying to rain on James' parade.. I'm just messing around, just joking around with James. Most people don't know what that is. And luckily you prepared. Unwittingly prepared for a question that came up. I know people are certified Adobe instructors.
They tell me like they have to read that to prepare because every year you have to take the test again because new things change and you have to be up to speed. Every two years you have to redo it. Yeah. And there's some like archaic things that they'll ask you. It's like, do you know this thing? And how do you, you know, oh my gosh.
So they really make sure they don't just hand that out to any Tom, Dick or Harry. Okay. Okay. You're preaching to the choir here. Okay. You know, saying you need to be a teacher. I'm like, duh, but that's you and me because we're both teachers doing things and we're making a living doing that. If someone's listening to this or watching this, all right, you guys, are you saying everyone should be a teacher and is everyone gifted at it?
The answer is no and no, because clearly if everyone was gifted, you and I would have five followers. So the question for you is, I'm hearing this as the audience member, I want to be a better teacher. I want to speak at Max. I want to speak on the big stages. I'm going to have half a million followers. I want to make thousands of dollars with my sponsored content and get seven leads a week. I want all that. Give me, give me, give me. What can I do? Top three tips on how I can become a better teacher.
James Barnard: Okay. Well, it depends where you work. So, I mean, I guess these days we're all working from home. So the simple solution is social media and your own content marketing. So getting on camera was one of the things that absolutely helped me in the early stage.
And that's harder for some people. I certainly struggled with that when I first started out on social media. So one of the top tips I would give out is to write a script for your content on social media. You can just read off a script to a camera and then cut those sections together. And it looks like a lovely articulate piece of prose when in reality, you're stuttering and stammering through your doing loads of takes in front of the camera, doing claps and like cutting the footage together, just write a script so that you can succinctly say what you want to say, read it back and cut those clips together.
That's what I do. You'll hear from this podcast. Actually, I'd say I'm an R all the time. I say words like regurgitate when I don't mean to. And you know, it means that I actually have. can edit that and make it look like I'm, I'm kind of more sort of succinct than I actually am in real life. So yeah, writing a script was huge. And don't be afraid to share what you think might be basic to an audience, because if it's new to you, it will be new to other people. I find this all the time. People come out and I might get my facts wrong, or I might say something that they think is a little bit basic. What happens is the audience kind of corrects you.
So the community that you build, let's say I put a tip out, I did this recently, I did an Adobe Illustrator tip about how to combat the irradiation illusion when white designs on a black background can often look really bloated. And to do it, you have to shave a little bit off the design to kind of thin it out slightly to stop it looking fat.
And you can do this in a number of ways. The way I showed was to use the shape builder tool to kind of cut the edge away after adding a stroke. And someone went Just use offset path and then the comments started coming in like use offset path. Why are you not using offset path? I'm like, what is offset path?
I've never heard of this. I learned from my own audience and they taught me something. So I was just really transparent about the fact that I didn't notice. I made a follow up video saying, guys, I was wrong. Look at this. The audience showed me how to do it and that transparency went so far with the audience. They loved the fact that I was owning up to the fact that I didn't know it having, you know, 15 years in the industry. And I just credited the people that gave me that information. I was like, look, these guys have told me. And I put in the video, like screenshots of the comments and look, everybody knew this.
And it just made for such a lovely little kind of turnaround on things. And that really helps build the community. So you don't be worried about if you're embarrassed about getting facts wrong or something that's a little bit basic or just. Putting stuff out there that you think people might kind of crap all over you'll find out pretty quickly what's popular and what's not and just don't be afraid to sort of share that first time.
Chris Do: I like those tips that you gave if I'm listening correctly here you're saying that you can get over your fear of not knowing what to say and stammering your way through using a lot of filler words and rambling on and not being coherent if you just sit down and write an outline then create a script from it and then use that as your training wheels That makes a lot of sense.
There's a danger to that, but maybe I can get into that. The danger is in real life when you're on stage and doing a fireside or a podcast, you're a horrible communicator. So I think it's good to do that at the beginning, but you need to wean yourself off the scripts and be able to speak off the cuff. And so start to master public speaking. And I think that's a skill worthwhile in terms of getting good at. Number two, I said it a little differently, or I wrote it down differently than the way you said it, which is basic is best. I had a conversation with one of my staff, and her name's Carrie, and Carrie's like, Chris, is it important for me to tell a story about like where I was and how I learned at the beginning?
You'll be surprised, Carrie, when you tell those stories, we're gonna get a ton of people who are really interested, because there are more people out there that are in that place than there are people who are like trying to like figure out their life and business where I'm at. There's way more of you than there are of me.
Please do that. Basic is best. Don't be afraid of those fundamental things that you've learned, that you've taken for granted, because people will eat that stuff up. It's oftentimes those are the videos that pop up on the internet and go viral. Number three is learning, teaching is collaborative. Don't be afraid of that. You will learn from them. They learn from you. It's a good exchange. If you're not a total jerk about it, because if you're like, no, I always know the right way, then that's going to come back and it's not going to age well. Right? That's like instant karma for you. So those are the three things I got. Was there something that I missed?
James Barnard: No, I think I think you summed it up pretty perfectly. I mean, obviously, we're doing this is like to further our social media and they have to teaching online totally helps, but there's other ways you can do it. You don't have to just be using it for your own content marketing. I mean, I used to work in a company where knowledge sharing was really, really important.
So every Monday morning we would meet. for half an hour, a team of six designers to share something cool that we found that week and the simple act of having to sort of come up with something that we'd learned or something that they might not know and have to present it in a sort of five minute slot that was really powerful.
It furthered the team as a whole cause we all learned from each other and we got ideas from it, but at the same time, Your public speaking gets a little bit better. You actually break out of your comfort zone and start speaking to people in a sort of semi public forum and get used to having those conversations around design, which totally will help with dealing with clients in the future.
So you can start doing things like that now within your teams, if you're, if you're working within a team of graphic designers, but yeah, if you're on your own, it is going to be your, your social media and which will then inform your, your content marketing. And you can write articles about the same thing, which then leads to great SEO. And there's all sorts of benefits. It's great.
Chris Do: One thing that you've mentioned but not talked about specifically with this question is I think the thing that makes someone go from being average or okay to being good to great is they're willing to do the work, to research, to read, to learn themselves. So every time there's a question, they're not just winging it.
They're not just giving you their uninformed opinion about stuff. You'll go and research the Gestalt principles or like why circles need to be a little bit bigger than squares or triangles have to go beyond the cap height line or something like that. Because the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, they've already figured this out a long time ago, where if it's perfect, it doesn't work.
It looks off. And so they correct for like, how we perceive things. So do your research, everybody, be prepared to speak about the things that you want to speak about. And the good news is if you don't know something, you Don't just wing it. Just say, you know what? I don't know. Darn it. That's a really good question. If somebody here knows the answer, please tell me and be wiser for it. And that way you all grow together.
James Barnard: Transparency is so crucial on social media and being genuine because you can't sort of maintain online persona that kind of isn't you. And so if you don't know something, be truthful and just own up to the fact.
And I do this all the time. I found a new tool in Illustrator the other day that's been out for 10 years. Didn't know about it. I use it every day and that software, and it's quite embarrassing. I just owned up to the fact, and yes, there are a lot of people in the comments that said, how could you not know that it's right there. But then half the comments were like. I didn't know this either. That's mind blowing. So you will help people no matter what you kind of put out there. Just, you know, don't be afraid to correct if you get it wrong, which does happen.
Chris Do: You're doing this spirit of teaching and helping other people. It's done as an act of generosity. So people want to get all bent out of shape. That's really their issue, not yours. And so as long as you don't take it too seriously, you'll be fine. Well, I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of that potential talk as you're kind of just beta testing those ideas. I think it's a wonderful idea to share with people, especially because it's good for your content. It's good for SEO. It's good for generating leads. It's good for yourself, your own personal development. There isn't really a bad way to do it, except for the people who just wing it, and there's lots of people out there who do that, and those are the ones that make me bristle a little bit like, ugh, what are you doing?
Learn a thing or two before you go out there and try to pretend like you're an expert. Or just say, I'm just learning this. I don't know what I'm doing. If you enjoy a wacky commentary with, it's probably the dumbest way to do things, welcome aboard. And then you're forgiven for everything because you just disclose, Hey, this is why I'm doing it.
James Barnard: Right. You're self deprecating and being transparent right up front. And they can't kind of shoot you down for that, can they?
Chris Do: I really enjoyed our conversation, James. Thanks for coming on the show. And for people who are interested in more about what you do, maybe they want to take a course or look into potentially working with you from a client side.
James Barnard: So my website is Barnard.co. So you can find my portfolio there inverted commas, portfolio uh, with links to all the places that I, I hang out on. So I'm on Instagram at at Barnardco, TikTok at Barnardco. So yeah, you'll be able to find me there.
Chris Do: Wonderful. Thanks so much.
James Barnard: Thanks, Chris. I'm James Barnard. And you're listening to The Futur.
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