Shifting my mindset to embrace pitching
I’ve been thinking about my mindset change over the past 5 years of freelance life.
What’s important.
Where I need to spend my time and money.
How I want to move forward.
When I first started freelancing I bought into the mentality that you ‘need to invest in yourself to prove this is a real career’ not just a hope and a wish. Whilst I do believe investment is key, I’ve come to the realisation that money is not the only thing I can invest. My time and energy is just as - if not even more - important when choosing where to spend.
Having moved to Bristol, and left my lovely full time Childrenswear design role in London back at the very start of 2020, I thought what better time to jump in to a full spectrum design course. Fab, I’ll learn all the extra tips and tricks to design gorgeous patterns AND the industry know how to pitch and earn an income from them. I enrolled in Bonnie Christine’s Immersion course full of hope it would give me the winning formula and I’d be on my path to success in no time. Now while I did take away some great tricks to speed up my workflow and I loved having the design community, some of whom I’m still talking all things design with now, I didn’t come away earning big bucks, or even little bucks, as I’d dreamt.
Of course a global pandemic shortly after I launched into freelance didn’t exactly help, as the world shut down and businesses - along with their customers - re-assessed their buying habits.
I don’t think that’s the only reason the course didn’t work for me though, when I got really honest with myself I realised I saw it as a transactional situation where I was, in essence, paying to get clients and work. Which, obviously, is not how these courses work.
I need to put the work in to get results. Nothing teaches you that more than the freelance life. Getting up and pitching for work day after day, when all you want to do is create gorgeous artwork and have clients fall into your lap, is hard! So rewarding when it works out and you meet fantastic new clients, build relationships and see your work on products and people out in the world, but not an overnight success as I had dreamt.
In house design is fantastic in so many ways, the team around you to bounce ideas, the structure, and not to mention the monthly pay cheque and I genuinely don’t think I appreciated this to it’s full when I was in it. It’s hard to see the wood for the trees when your days fill up with work politics, meetings and management duties and as they say the grass is always greener.
I’ve spent time building my own freelance versions of these benefits and while its not always been easy - and I did dip back to the safety net of full-time inhouse work for a couple of years - I think I’m finding my path, and even enjoying pitching.
Partly down to the excellent mindset shift from Liz Mosley and the 100 rejections challenge - pitching for 100 opportunities in 6 months. Giving me the, well overdue, lightbulb moment, if I don’t pitch and shout how will anyone know I’m here?
In short, I’m refocusing my investments to be time and energy driven rather than financial. Focusing on creating customer specific portfolio pieces that speak to brands and clients, instead of fiddling for days on a website people might not even find.
So, whilst you’ll still find me sketching, creating, pulling mood boards and obsessing over print lay outs; I will also be networking, pitching and unapologetically shouting about what value I can bring to my dream client’s brands.
Using my energy to create positive change for my business instead of trawling the internet for THE ANSWER when I know it’s ‘put the work in’.
If you’re looking for unique customer specific artwork for your childrenswear brand or need some freelance design support with your next range during the busy season, get in touch. I’d love to grab a cuppa and talk all things design with you.
