Finding Your Tribe with Uncool Designer, Anna Dower

Finding her tribe with her Uncool Designer podcast, designer boss lady Anna Dower has created an international community hub for freelance designers.

We talk about the start of her journey, from producing information resources for her clients as a freelancer. Leading to one-to-one coaching and then supporting larger numbers of people through online courses and Facebook community groups.

With her focus on using “ten years worth of mistakes” to help her fellow graphic designers succeed in their own business. She has established a formula of priceless advice that is easily portable across many freelance work sectors.

Links

• Anna Dower
• Uncool Designer Podcast
• Designer Boss Summit

Transcript

Martin Franklin 0:18
Feels good to be wearing headphones again. So one of things I wanted to talk to you about in this episode was my experience of identifying the topic of this podcast. I just kind of thought through what what is what is it? What is the bit that I’m really interested in. And now I’m on episode three, I finally realized that the heart, the heart of it, for me is about people. And people who have found a way to do interesting things on the internet that involve other people. So the creation of online communities or, like in my last episode with Kirby Ferguson, he’s not only done that, but he’s actually found a way to leverage other producers that like his work online, and let them help him make make his ongoing series of amazing movies that you should, you should check out if you are not familiar with his work already.

Martin Franklin 1:27
So that brings me to the topic of this week’s podcast, which is an amazing person who does amazing things online with communities of people.

Martin Franklin 1:42
Anna Dower is someone I’ve known for a little while. And the thing, which I really like about Anna is that she is an absolute font of practical, actionable information. And her focus is enabling other people in the design world in her case, to do what it is that they want to do. So she’s turned her own expertise into insights into a particular group of people that she wants to sell her services to. So she supports online communities, she produces a podcast, she produces an online summit event.

Martin Franklin 2:26
She’s a mentor, and works in that kind of area, basically, dispensing information and advice that she’s gathered throughout her career in the design world, to enable other people to take a step up. So it’s a really altruistic approach to take when constructing a business. So in this conversation, she talks about what she does, how she does it, how long it’s taken her to do it.

Martin Franklin 2:55
And in the process kind of gives me a few little little insights and takeaways for my own work as well. So let’s jump into this chat with Anna Dower, designer, boss, uncool designer, and all round amazing person.

Martin Franklin 3:11
What I want to talk to you about was two strands, really, the first one was an interest in online businesses and the development of digital communities around that. And then the second sort of strand of questions was particularly about podcasting and the, the space that occupies in your business. Okay, from what I know you’re much loved as a as a mentor, and community community leader, indeed, a goddess among designers is, is what I’ve heard,

Anna Dower 3:48
I’ll take that title

Martin Franklin 3:51
As well, as producing your your own content and mentoring other designers. You know, you got this whole business in that field. And I was curious about how did that develop? What were your first kind of building blocks of that as a business?

Anna Dower 4:07
Well, when I started out, I basically just had a design business where I was doing client work, designing, branding, logos, websites, all that sort of stuff. When I had that design business, I created kind of a sales funnel. It sounds like a sleazy word. But it was basically a freebie for my ideal client. And that freebie was a digital magazine for female entrepreneurs. And in that magazine, it had articles that basically solved problems for my ideal client. Now this digital magazine was a freebie and like I said, a sales funnel. The whole point of it was to attract my ideal client. And I did it almost too wellbecause it became a business in its own right,

Anna Dower 5:02
I ended up doing a podcast for that digital magazine. It ended up being on all of the Virgin Australia planes on inflight entertainment. We ended up doing retreats and dinners and lunches and all that sort of stuff. And with that exposure from that magazine, people started asking me, will you mentor me?

Anna Dower 5:26
Like, teach me Your ways, I want to do the same thing in my own business, basically.And at that point, they weren’t necessarily designers, they were just women in business. And I said, Yes.

Martin Franklin 7:27
I’ve been approached by a few, you know, who want to do ‘agents unleashed: the podcast’

Anna Dower 7:48
Yeah, I spent the first 10 years of my career designing real estate ads, and they were absolutely the worst people to work for ever.

Martin Franklin 7:58
I find it’s this sort of quality where, because they’re so sales driven, you know, they identify you as basically, just walking money rather than a human has needs to be met. Yeah, you’re just a tool. Alright, so you grew from being a, you know, being a designer and a producer to then diving straight into mentoring? Did you have any, any sort of previous experience in that mentoring field ?

Anna Dower 8:28
I’m not really, I guess that’s why I call myself a mentor instead of like a business coach, because it kind of felt a bit safer. And I explained that to my clients that I’m only talking, guiding knew from my own personal experience. And once I started mentoring designers, and had the kind of feedback that what I was telling them, what I was giving them was really helping them and kind of gave me the confidence to keep going and doing it.

Martin Franklin 9:00
So that sort of passion for connecting with individuals and helping them do what they want to do is obviously sort of carried through and amplified that in your current business.

Anna Dower 9:13
Yeah. And then from there, I kind of just built it out. Then I created an equals. I’ve got a couple of Facebook communities have got a paid membership of our podcast. And then yeah, I just built it out around supporting other designers and helping them succeed in their businesses.

Martin Franklin 9:37
What sort of time period are we looking at, to evolve that kind of breadth of engagement?

Anna Dower 9:43
Probably three to four years. Yeah, I would say in terms of the, the maintenance of that now, how much time do you have to spend to keep the communities ticking over and stuff. Now, I could probably just work 15 hours a week, and I’d get it done. And that’s what I wanted. Like everyone who sells their own business says they, they’re doing it for freedom and flexibility. And that’s exactly where I’ve ended up now. And it’s been intentional that way. I used to do one on one mentoring, but I just didn’t want to spend that much time working anymore, which sounds bad. I just feel like I can help more people with E courses in one here, then actually working with people one on one now,

Martin Franklin 10:38
Do you have a thought about how you construct all of those different opportunities for people? So do you have a kind of idea of like an entry level? And then the sort of higher tiers?

Anna Dower 10:52
Yes, definitely, I think it’s important to like, sit down and try to map out the steps of how someone’s going to work with you. Like the starting point for everything is free resources, basically. And all the stuff that I do for free to support graphic designers like my podcast, like things that I can download from my website, my free Facebook group, and then it goes into like a low paid offer, which is under $50. And then it goes from there, it kind of builds on from there, it is important to have it so that you’re warming up your leads, rather than just jumping on them cold and saying buy from me, I’m the best because that will not work.

Martin Franklin 11:39
Yeah, what would you say is like the, the essential step in, in that whole system?

Anna Dower 11:52
The free resources. It’s really, really important to provide a solution to a problem your ideal client has for free. And I’m not talking like giving them a solution like a 30 page ebook, because no one’s gonna sit down and read that I’m talking about like an instant gratification solution, as in, you know, a checklist or something that’s going to give them an answer to a problem they have straight away.

Martin Franklin 12:24
That’s a really interesting point you made there that the sort of volume of the free content, you know, it can be a negative thing that if you give like a two comprehensive resource paper, we just go No, I dont have time.

Anna Dower 12:38
No. And I think ebooks are done. Like, these days, people don’t hand over their email address just for anything. It has to be really valuable to them. So the more specific it is, the better. And if it’s instant gratification, it’ll be a winner. Just, for example, I’m just trying to think of one. Oh, yes, I’ve got one.

Anna Dower 13:05
So a lot of designers asked me, What questions do you put on your brief? What questions do I ask my client when we’re starting a process, and I just created a freebie, which was a brief cheat sheet. And I had every question on it, that I asked in my own design brief. And they loved it. It was like, I can just copy that and paste it and use it in my own business. And it solves the problem straight away. And I’m allowed to do it as well. Yes, that’s right. I’m giving you permission. And that’s essential.

Martin Franklin 13:39
All of this information that that you’re, you’re showing this is really like hard earned intelligence, really,

Anna Dower 13:47
Yeah.It’s like 10 years worth of mistakes. 10 years of, you know, getting sidetracked. And, yeah, it took a lot of refining. But you my end goal is for them to succeed. So I’m happy to be generous to ensure that happens. Do you have any strategies in place that help you manage your time and how much time you give to different projects? Yes. I like for example, perhaps, you know, if we rewound the clock five years, I would have done a lot more talking for free, I probably would have done a lot more one on one client stuff for not much money, but these days, I really value my time. And basically, what I try to give my best stuff to the people that are paying me but that being said, I do give a lot of free stuff, but it’s kind of stuff where I’m just touching on the tip of the iceberg like you could maybe try to figure it out. Got yourself. But I saved the best stuff for the people who are paying me.

Martin Franklin 15:05
Definitely. Yeah. Well, it makes sense that you can go deeper and more more specific with people who you have more time with. So, yeah, I think that’s one of the things that certainly in terms of, you know, what I know of you from your podcast, the thing which distinguishes that is just amazing generosity of giving, giving advice, and you know that, yeah, the harder and nature of that advice to, so that in itself, I think is valuable.

Anna Dower 15:35
Yeah. And kind of people who pay for you are the ones that are truly committed as well. Like, I could spend a lot of time and effort trying to help people in my free community, but they’re not necessarily going to be as committed as someone who pays me to help them. Yeah, sorry. It’s kind of a, it’s a mutual deal kind of thing.

Martin Franklin 15:58
Yeah. I think from my experience, even on a, on a personal level, that journey that you’re talking about of attributing your your own value, is very difficult for some people to kind of realize that they are the premium products and should Yes, you should be charging accordingly.

Anna Dower 16:18
Definitely. Well, I tell my designers, the only thing that you should be giving away before someone locked you in for a project is a 15 minute phone call that is it. Anything above that, you need to charge for it?

Martin Franklin 16:34
Sorry, you’ve just you’ve just hit a nerve for me. I find there’s so many things that you say I’m like, yeah, yeah. And, you know, interestingly, it’s, it’s almost like, you know, hearing somebody else say something that you kind of know is right, gives you that extra impetus to go, yeah, I’ve got this client who, you know, who just keeps asking for conference calls with me and his staff all the time. This is getting a little bit out of hand, but he still hasn’t paid the final.

Anna Dower 17:06
Okay, you just need to make it clear from the outset. Like I tell designers in your packages say that there’s a 30 minute call included, but anything above that it’s going to be invoiced.

Martin Franklin 17:19
Yeah. Cuz you got to, you got to earn the money, you know?

Anna Dower 17:22
Yeah. And if you don’t even want to talk on the phone, don’t make it clear at the beginning that you are an online business that your primary way of communication is via email. And I be upfront about it. And then it’s basically take it or leave it.

Martin Franklin 17:40
I love that. Fantastic. Thank you. Mentoring session. So your your latest kind of evolution of the online community for designers is the digital summit, which you held a couple of months ago. Yes. And that seems like a really bold undertaking to you know, to put on. Do you want to just talk a little bit more about the the origin story of the digitaldigital summit?

Anna Dower 18:09
Okay. Well, actually, at the beginning of 2020, which feels like forever ago, I was actually asked to speak at a digital summit. And that was the first time I had really experienced, like a digital summit format. And the woman who was hosting it was super organized. She was like the queen of the summit’s. And I did my presentation did all that stuff, I made a bunch of affiliate money without even really trying. And I gained a bunch of followers. So then I kind of said to Mr. Who is someone that I work with, in my business, I said we should do one of these. Because when you’re selling anything, really, when you’re selling services, products, e courses, the most important thing is list building. So basically having the opportunity to warm up potential clients. And the idea for a digital summit came from there, basically just to list built so that we could hopefully bump up our email lists, maybe by a couple of 100. And yeah, get more awareness, marketing, all that sort of stuffbefore you kind of embarked on the you know, devising the program and what what themes and topics you already had. The the goal in mind of this is this is why we’re doing this.

Anna Dower 19:42
And that was our only goal, really. So we started. We started asking speakers, people were really excited. Yeah, and then we did. It was way more successful, but both of us could have imagined we ended up gaining to that. 1000 subscribers each, which is massive, like, if you were going to list build, you know with an ebook, it will take you years to get 2000 people to subscribe. So we did that in one hit, we made a bunch of money. I think we made $25,000. Our speakers earned money as well. And it will just turn out to be really successful.

Martin Franklin 20:26
Do you think that sort of volume of growth? Is that connected at all to the time based nature of the event like it’s happening at this time? Not whenever you like, you know, it’s people have to be responsive to get in on it?

Anna Dower 20:41
Yes, definitely. And it was all a lot about the urgency. Like, the way we made money was basically the ticket was free to attend to. But if you wanted to have the recordings available for a year, and you wanted a bundle of resources from the speakers, you had to pay X amount of dollars. And even when we offered up that bundle, it had a time deadline on it. So for the first 20 minutes of the bundle, you could get it for under $100. But then after that, you had three days to purchase that for, you know, $150. So that sense of urgency definitely had a big part in it. Right.

Martin Franklin 21:27
So what what can you see is the next sort of step in your, in your online Empire?

Anna Dower 21:35
Well, we’re actually going to be doing a summit podcast, which we will need your help with. And we’ll be working on the next designer boss digital summit for February 2021. So that’s what we’re working on. Now. That’s all I really have planned for the future. I feel like my plate is pretty full right now.

Martin Franklin 22:05
I can imagine I mean, I know from from my own experience that organising events and you know, the overhead of dealing with lots of people is is massive. So even to do that, and keep your existing business running is pretty good going.

Anna Dower 22:21
Yeah, it’s pretty full on. But Emma nd I make a really good team. And we kind of just share the load, which is really good. In the past, I had a habit of just continuing to load up my plate with ideas and things that I wanted to do. But I’ve tried really hard over the years to kind of get out of that habit, because it’s super distracting. And you lose focus on what the end goal is basically. So I do my best to keep it fairly simple.

Martin Franklin 22:54
Could we just sort of move, focus a little bit and talk about your podcast, The Uncool Designer podcast, and how that fits into into your portfolio of, of activities. So let me ask you to just talk about when did you start that and what was the kind of initial impetus?

Anna Dower 23:14
Okay, I probably started over a year ago. I call the the uncool designer, because when you talk to designers, so many of them feel uncool, but have never said it out loud. Because designers and creatives have kind of like this cool club were the ones that follow trends and have fancy haircuts. And I never felt like that I felt like the daggy on cool designer. Now I thought I’m just gonna say it out loud. And then I did. And I found my people, they go find your tribe.

Anna Dower 23:53
And they all kind of came out and said, Hey, I feel like and I’m an uncool designer too. And it was really just an opportunity to market myself again, to make myself accessible to people without them having to pay a way for them to actually get to know me, my personality, put myself out there. Let them connect with me. And if they liked me, hopefully they would hang around, join one of my Facebook groups and then eventually buy an ecourse. But yeah, it was definitely a marketing tool. And a way to actually find my people. Like when you just put it out there who you really are authentically, you will piss some people off. Some people will be like, I’m not into it. But other people will be like, Oh my god, she’s been what I’ve been looking for. And they’re the people that you want to hang around.

Martin Franklin 24:53
Definitely I think you know, you just use that word or authenticity, which I feel personally is a it’s a massive thing in any of these digital strands where you’re visible or Audible, because people can tell if there’s an agenda behind it, but that sort of authenticity. That’s the kind of thing that makes people stick around. I think they feel it’s, it’s real. It’s not a, it’s not an act that you’re putting on. So what can we just like cycle back to that idea? Yeah. That you talked about early on of the, the niche and kind of target person. So you had you already established that kind of thinking with when you produce the podcast?

Anna Dower 25:36
Yes, definitely. I had already had equals is basically that I was selling to designers. And yeah, I just, I had had a podcast in the past. And it’s kind of just a new way to reach people. It still blows my mind when people are like, I found you through your podcast. I love it. I’ve listened to every episode. And I hear that all the time. And it’s crazy. It’s amazing. Yeah, and I’ve got, I’m currently doing my equals round. And I’ve got clients from all around the world. And those people are usually found me via my podcast. Wow,

Martin Franklin 26:15
wow, that’s an amazing success story of, you know, this is what everybody wants really to, you know, pull that audience closer and, you know, engage them in your kind of more business oriented products. So do you do any promotion for the podcast as as itself?

Anna Dower 26:31
Honestly, I don’t, I feel like I could do more. I don’t I kind of just do it and put it out there and hope and pray that people listen to it. I do talk about it in my Facebook groups and to my email list, but I don’t necessarily market it to cold audiences

Martin Franklin 26:53
So, that audience is that you’re reaching through it, they’re purely sort of organic.

Martin Franklin 26:58
Yeah. You know, people who’ve just thought, Oh, that’s a good title. Let me give it a listen and found this amazing font of wisdom that, that you are on the podcast?

Anna Dower 27:08
Yeah. And honestly, I could probably like, do it more consistently, marketed more, but it’s just a kind of just slots in for when I can do it, you know?

Martin Franklin 27:22
Yeah, at this point. And I think that’s, you know, you have a roughly fortnightly schedule, which I think is good. I get fairly regularly people sort of asking me about whether they should ramp up the production to as much as every day. And I yeah, I really strong each fighter, put people off because I just think, you know, if you if you relate it to yourself, it’s like, How much time do you think people are going to give just to you, like they’re going to devote half an hour of their life to you every day? Without any formal kind of relationship? Yeah. happening. It’s it’s very ambitious. I think that fortnightly is a seems a good balance to me.

Anna Dower 28:06
Yeah, I think so. I couldn’t do more than that. Definitely not.

Martin Franklin 28:11
How do you source your your topics on the show?

Anna Dower 28:16
Well, the thing is, I have this free Facebook community, with nearly 4000 designers in it. And I basically just stalk them and see what they’re talking about. Because they’re in there asking questions of each other, supporting each other, complaining about crappy clients, all those things, and I just basicallywatch them.

Martin Franklin 28:40
You just harvest those questions and say “I know listen to me. “

Anna Dower 28:44
Yes. Yeah, that’s exactly right. And then I just give them the solution in the form of a podcast basically.

Martin Franklin 28:54
Or Anna Woodworth. Thank you so much for making the time to talk to me and share all your insights there. It’s been really, really good. My pleasure. Thank you, man.

Unknown Speaker 0:08
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