7 Ways To Alienate Your Designer & Go From Client to Contract

How to Make Your Designer CrazyIn a perfect world, working with your designer would be a perfect partnership of creativity, communication, and collaboration — at least that is what designers strive for. But that’s not always the case…

A designer begins every project excited about what they will create and about bringing the client’s vision to life — they wouldn’t have accepted the project is they weren’t.

They are excited about solving problems, helping their clients succeed, and building a new relationship or strengthening an existing one. They value their client and look forward to becoming their long term creative partner.

You should know that designers have so much pride in their work and so much invested in their clients’ success, that they will often bend over backward, throw in extra work, and go above and beyond your contract just to make sure the final result is as good as it can possibly be. Mainly because the success of your project puts their reputation on the line.

But occasionally, a switch gets flipped, and the dynamics of the relationship change

Something happens, or several things happen, that cause a designer to shift the way they view a client and a project.

Get 8 tips you can use to alienate your designer

Want a Design Job? 9 Tips to Get Hired at a Creative Agency

How to Get a Design JobWhen I graduated with my degree in graphic design from Sacramento State University, California, finding the job I wanted was tough.

I worked mostly full-time through college for an amazingly talented woman with 3 children who owned an advertising agency she ran out of her home (Hint: Inspiration for starting Bourn Creative). By the time I graduated, I had completed four internships and several intern/student projects — yes, I’ve always been a driven, over-achiever.

Upon graduation I wanted to work at a big agency, I dreamed of working my way up the agency ladder to Creative Director — and I was willing to do the work to make it happen. Then reality hit. I began looking for a job in my last semester of college. I researched the creative companies in and around Sacramento, researched who was hiring, researched who their clients, were, what their mission, was, what they stood for and represented. I figured out who I wanted to work for and why … then I applied.

Get 9 Tips on how to get hired as a designer or developer at a creative agency

One Profound Question That Can Drastically Improve Your Marketing

Improve Your Benefits-Based Marketing With This One QuestionI’ll bet you started your business to follow a passion, to do something you love, or to create your own future.

And yet, marketing is what you find yourself wrapped up in all the time.

After all, you need leads, clients, and customers, and no one can hire you, buy from you, or learn from you if they don’t know that you exist!

Why Marketing Is So Hard

You’re good at what you do. You know it. In fact, you’re brilliant at what you do. But unfortunately, for most of us marketing isn’t what you do best.

Learn the one question that will make marketing with benefits easy

WordPress Web Design: Four New Genesis WordPress Sites Live

Sacramento WordPress Website Design

With business events, entrepreneurial conferences, software conferences, our local Sacramento WordPress Meetup group, and a few WordCamps, Brian and I have been traveling a lot the past few months. Then when you throw in all our normal client work, and running our own business, things get a little crazy and the hours behind our computers get a little long.

Luckily we LOVE what we do — and we LOVE the Internet.

In the past four weeks, we have taken four different Genesis WordPress sites live — Cool right?! Here they are:

WordPress Web Design Examples

Making Decisions Based On Where You’ve Been vs. Where You Want To Go

Decision Making Mindset

The ability to make decisions in business is critical to your success — as long as you’re using the right frame of reference, and frame of mind for your decision-making.

For the sake of this article, I’ll assume that you are not a business owner satisfied with the status quo, but an entrepreneur striving to improve, evolve, and grow.

The Wrong Decision-Making Mindset

There is a popular phrase often tossed around by business coaches: “What you focus on expands.”

With that belief in mind, one surefire way to stay where you are and stunt your business growth is to focus on the past — what has happened before, what was true before, what worked before — and let it hold you back.

Focusing on where you’ve been will result is staying where you are.

The same is true for your decision-making mindset. To move your business forward, continue to grow, and achieve your goals, it is imperative that you stop making decisions based on where you have been.

Learn The Right Decision-Making Mindset For Success

Start A Sales Conversation With Your Marketing Message

Jennifer Bourn and Ali BrownRecently I flew to LA for Thrive Live, Ali Brown’s Elevate member event. The two day event, was mainly taught by Elevate coaches James Roche, Joy Chudacoff, and Sue Painter (as Ali is very pregnant with twins!), and was focused on basic business concepts like your mission, your marketing message, and your business model.

One of those areas caused some serious grief and stress for many of the attendees… and the exact same thing causes several of our clients who are newer to business ownership to freak out a little. Can you guess which one it is?

It wasn’t understanding and communicating their mission, and it wasn’t choosing a business model.

It was figuring out a marketing message and how to communicate what you do in a way that is clear, easy to understand, and in alignment with your mission and values.

As I sat in the room, I couldn’t help but think that if this many business owners at this event were struggling with crafting their marketing message, then imagine how many others around the world are struggling with the same problem … Yikes!

Learn what a marketing message is used for and get a step-by-step formula to write your own marketing message

FREE Tone-on-Tone Scalloped Edge Circle Social Media Icons

FREE Tone-on-Tone Scalloped Edge Circle Social Media Icons

Our scalloped edge circle social media icons are perfect for adding a feminine touch to your website without overdoing the “girly stuff.” And if you liked those, you’re going to love our tone-on-tone scalloped circle social media icons for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and RSS.

Plus, get them in 48 different colors, at 5 different sizes (32×32, 48×48, 64×64, 96×96, 125×125), all as transparent PNGs so you can use them on any color website background, with the HTML and CSS code to show you exactly how to use them and how to add a cool opacity effect on hover!

Download 1680 Free Tone-on-Tone Scalloped Circle Social Media Icons

1680 FREE Scalloped Edge Circle Social Media Icons

1680 FREE Scalloped Circle Social Media Icons

It’s time to get fancy. In this free social media icon pack we combined the simplicity of the circle with a feminine scalloped edge to bring you what my daughter calls the “fancy circle” icon pack that adds just the right amount of femininity to your social media icons without overdoing it.

Get our scalloped circle icons for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and RSS in 48 different colors, at 5 different sizes (32×32, 48×48, 64×64, 96×96, 125×125), all as transparent PNGs so you can use them on any color website background *#8212; and get the HTML and CSS code to show you exactly how to use them and how to add a cool opacity effect on hover!

Download 1680 Free Scalloped Circle Social Media Icons

Genesis SEO Settings Guide

WordPress Genesis SEO GuideAt Bourn Creative, we build our custom designed WordPress websites exclusively on the Genesis Framework by StudioPress.

The reasons behind our choice to develop our custom themes on the Genesis Framework are numerous, but a few we often highlight are that the Genesis Framework is very flexible/customizable, coded extremely well, and has been built with SEO as a priority (SEO — the art and science of being found online through organic search).

After all, a beautifully designed website means nothing if consumers and search engines can’t find you.

Genesis already has most SEO requirements built into the framework. As a result, a separate WordPress SEO plugin isn’t necessary, which means one less plugin to manage, and keep updated.

Get Our Genesis SEO Settings Guide & Instructions

FREE Tone-on-Tone Flower Shaped Social Media Icons

FREE Tone-on-Tone Flower Social Media Icons

Let’s continue the girly icons!

If you liked our original flower social media icon pack, you’re going to love our tone-on-tone flower social media icons for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and RSS that match your brand and your color palette for a more cohesive look.

Plus, get them in48 colors, at 5 different sizes (32×32, 48×48, 64×64, 96×96, 125×125), all as transparent PNGs so you can use them on any color website background.

And we’re giving you the HTML and CSS code to show you exactly how to use them and how to add a cool opacity effect on hover!

Download 1680 Free Tone-on-Tone Flower Shaped Social Media Icons