Need your opinions

thematthewbrennan

thematthewbrennan

Member
Ok guys, so basically I have been freelancing for a while now 1-2 years and want to progress a little by changing from using my personal name to a company name. Now I have two choices to make when it comes to the website. Do I:
1. Appear as a small agency, with a site full of portfolio work.
2. Have basically an online shop where people can purchase graphic design services, much like sodacloud.net.

Now I know each have there pro's and con's. I know the agency/portfolio site would attract higher end companies, but thats also a hard market to compete it, after all, im not a massive agency. Where as the shop would allow people quick graphics, which is an easier market to break into but obviously at a lower cost.

What do you guys think?
 
thematthewbrennan said:
after all, im not a massive agency
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Then you shouldn't act like you are, or you could potentially attract the wrong sort of customer for your business. There's no shame in using a company/studio name but explaining in your About section that you're just one person. Many large agencies use a name or surname, as they once started out with just one person and have grown. They didn't drop the name though, because it has a good reputation.

As for option two, I'm just imagining a site where you can buy fixed price design? These to me just seem cheap and tacky, and I often associate most of them with poor work.

A lot of businesses are looking for freelancers because they don't actually want to have to work through an agency, or feel an agency will "over charge". They can simply hire one person and get the job done.
 
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What's to stop you doing both? I see a lot of people doing this. You would have Brennan Design or whatever as your main site, then the other site as a sideline
with a completely generic name. I can't see the other business making enough money on it's own.
 
I don't see the need to set up two companies, but you might want to take some legal advice for that.
 
If you're registered as self employed you can run as many businesses as you like without issue (its the person who's registered as self employed not the company). For example, my other half runs 2 small businesses under different company names, invoicing is separate for both companies but payments in and out come from one account in her name. As long as the tax man can has his cut, there's no issue.

I would however question the logic in running two identical businesses offering the same services but at 2 price points. If one of your 'premium' clients finds out you offer the same service at half the price under a different guise, he'll not be a happy chappy.
 
I would be looking to set up a company bank account, just to keep things seperate.

I can see the logic in this, plus the premium clients have nothing to worry about.
One is a LOCAL premium process, where meetings are involved, proofs, etc. The other is for a quick hit so to speak, people who need graphics quickly ie. for newspaper ads etc, but dont have the time to wait, or get involved in the whole design process (Yes, there is a market for this working previously for a newspaper design agency). So the price is lower because they are getting less time into the project.
 
In which case they'd be complementary businesses rather than identical so my previous concerns wouldn't really apply.
 
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