Why ‘De Artwork’ Not Working!
- Writer for DDI on Medium
- 1 hour ago
- 4 min read
What’s the single most important thing you need to communicate about the service you provide?
If your business is younger than 3 years old, you likely don’t know yet. Between 3 and 5, you probably can’t articulate it clearly.
I experienced both problems when I started TheBrandTUB.
My workaround? I kept listening for that distinct message that reflected the service I provide for my clients, and became devoted to understanding the transformation through their eyes to communicate it more clearly.
It wasn’t easy.
1 year into starting my business, a 6.9 earthquake wrecked half my house right around ‘banga season’(as we put it in Trinidad and Tobago). With only $3,000 left in the bank to keep the business afloat until I got new clients, I now had to find money to repair the damage, too.
Many times I felt like giving up.
De artwork wasn’t working — fish weren’t biting. No one wanted graphic design services — no one wanted to buy something they felt they could get anywhere in Trinidad and Tobago. Meanwhile, the damage to my floor kept getting worse.
One fateful day in 2019, after barely making a profit selling a laundry list of services, I made $8,000 in a matter of minutes with one-day projects.
I’ve since been paid $6,000, $10,000, and $15,000 (more than once) for the type of design projects I like. My illustration of the cut-out heads of those using AI to think is now pop culture online, and my spiritually rooted point of view on AI is now a well-known talking point!
Here’s what I got right.
OWN THE CALL, DELIVER THE CROSSOVER…TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE
If you want your ideal client to clearly see what’s different about your services, productize it. Just doing that (running a business in Trinidad and Tobago), you’re already like a sore thumb! But it also brings into focus your key message, and for the right person, it helps them self-identify with the purpose of the service.
Once you’ve articulated the benefit of your services, fixing the sign that will attract who it’s for in preparation for that message becomes easy.
Remember Moses and the Burning bush?
Now, the voice always follows the sign, but it's also accompanied by a way—the process that supports how you accomplish what you claim you deliver on.
Long before the cut-out heads of local service providers using ai to think, and humbling mentions on Instagram, I simply doubled down on my process. Something service providers, desiring more clients but not being in a position to hire staff, take for granted. No manpower to handle people ready to buy now risks credibility. Processes protect it so you can remain a 1–3 man show.
You could say this perspective paved the way for The Vocal Cavity Framework. Remember the story of Hansel and Gretel? The children, on account of their hunger, willingly “followed a wonderful scent that grew stronger and more delicious.” The more I understood who I was creating TheBrandTUB way for, the deeper my insights carried me. There are 4 resonators through which The Call flows. 1 helped me earn $8,000 in minutes; that project is now $6,773.00. 2 resonators helped me land my first and second $10,000 projects, and 3, helped me land my first and second $15,000 projects. Seasoned by the voice, all 4 is like a brew drawing the client directly to you.
One of those clients was Cru Nonpareil.
IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHO YOU ARE, WHAT “INFORMATION” ARE YOU SHARING?
As with my own situation, I appreciate ‘the message’ argument: our purchasing public doesn’t care about design. Whether it’s AI or human- generated, it won’t fix a business that doesn’t know where its value lies. But those people do need a sign that the information was created for them.
Service providers think all a prospect wants is information, but deeper than that is what we talk about, and beyond that is how it’s communicated.
Messaging is a work of art, too!
Creating it starts with the client’s story before you determine how you punctuate it visually without discrediting your position as a brand.
Local business owners cut corners here. They’ll agonize over “the target market seeing the information,” just not how it’s received, who it’s received by, and how it supports their stance.
And at one time, I too, treated information as messaging, but it’s not.
So AI or not, if your artwork isn’t working, it’s because you either don’t know who you are or you’re not leading with it. This is the code I cracked that opened the floodgates for me that fateful day in 2019; this is what contributed to my ability to fix the damage to my family’s home after that earthquake.
Determining the problem being solved and identifying the approach, with an emphasis on unmasking key vocal issues holding the voice back from standing out, are the aims behind the work I do with my clients before finally fixing the wrapping to throw off the people that suck the joy out of providing that service.
Does this sound like the situation you’re in? If it does, book a 15-minute call with me to determine if you're a fit for my services.
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