When you are starting your own business, you need to put your best foot forward right from the start! You will have very limited time to get someone’s attention and earn their trust. One problem many small businesses have is that they look small and amateur. How many times have you seen a store or a flyer and it looks cheap and unprofessional? How do you feel about spending money there? If you’re like me, I generally have a bad feeling or I don’t even bother. When you go on a sales call or an interview, you dress nice right? Then your logo should look good. One of the first and easiest ways to achieve a professional look is having a professional logo, flyers and business card.
“There’s an important phrase that we use here. I think it’s time that you all learned it: Act as if. Do you understand what that means?”
I love this quote. Remember when you’re starting your business, you need to act as if you have been doing this for a while. It is more than an air of confidence. If you look good, that will show in your business. Hopefully you have bought into the idea that you need a logo, now I will show you some great resources to get one done for a LOT less than you would expect. I have seen plenty of advertising agencies spending hundreds of thousands dollars working on logo designs for customers. I saw a bill the other day that an agency charged $170 dollars just for sending images to someone to design a facebook fan page! JUST FOR THE EMAIL! Yes there is a lot of though and over-thinking that goes into these, but who is to say that you can’t do any better? That was my thinking when I started out to get my logo designed for this website. I knew there were people who would charge me a lot less than $150 an hour for a design.
How to do it?
First you do need to take some time and think about what your business is going to represent. Then decide what your logo should also represent. Using a theme usually works well. Here are a few questions to help get you thinking:
1. What do you have or think is a vision or mission statement for your business?
2. Think about the description of the product or service you provide to customers. Do you want people to visualize that in a logo?
3. What competitive advantages does your company hold over your similar market competitors?
4. What image do you want people to think of when they think of your business?
Great, now you’re thinking! Now, how do you get a logo? Hold a contest! Why have just one person working on your logo when you can have a bunch of designers working at it.
Getting Designs
There are a couple of ways you can get a professional logo designed cheap!
Logo Design Guru
This site is pretty sweet. Yes, on the front page is the guy who won the first apprentice (um…not really sure what happened to that guy since he is on this site). They offer 6 different packages, ranging from the basic 2 concepts and 1 round of revisions, up to 12 concepts and unlimited revisions. I really like that these site development, business cards, brochures and some hand holding for teaching you about your logos and how to use them correctly. They really go above and beyond in their offerings of service and support. They might be a little more expensive than some others, but I see great value here. My recommendation would be the Executive package. You get 10 concepts, revisions, business cards, stationary, envelopes, you name it all for $349. Thats great value if you ask me!
99designs.com
This is an interesting concept. You basically put out a contest and offer a reward for the winning concept. The more money you offer, the more entries you are likely to get. Designers submit designs in real time and you review what you like and don’t like. The nice thing here is that you can give real-time feedback and watch the logo’s change. One con is that its similar to ebay where you might work with someone for a few days and at the end a lot of people try to jump in and steal ideas of the designers who have been working the entire time. I have a bit of a problem with that, and like to reward the individual who worked with me the most! They also have an option where you can pick a ready-made logo for $99 and they just change the name in it. Thats pretty cheap! The only issue with that is I expect you might run into other people with the same logo, just a different name in it.
So at the end of they day, there are a few options out there. My recommendation is the Logo Design Guru. I really think there is great value in the packages for just a few dollars more then hosting a competition. I found that in the competitions, you need to offer at least $250 plus the administration fee just to have a contest with reasonable amounts of submissions. If you want a really cheap simple logo, then get a $99 logo at 99designs.com
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