Checkout this Real Billboard in Mumbai — First there was Jet Airways, then Kingfisher responded to Jet Airways by putting up their own Billboard and then it was GoAir which responded to both.

Really creative advertisements and media buy. =)

PS - The ONLY Photoshopping I’ve done is to add watermarks to the image and resize it. So Please STOP making stupid comments that the URL is a proof this is Fake.

Stay Beautiful! =)

No designer’s arsenal is complete without a Rolodex of Stock Photo Sites. Here’s my list of Top Sites –

Free Sites -

SXC.hu - The Big Daddy of Free Stock Photo Sites.
MorgueFile.com
ImageAfter.com
FreePhotosBank.com
FreeMediaGoo.com
OpenPhoto.net
UnProfound.com
ImageBase
FreeRangeStock.com

yotophoto.com - Meta Search Engine. Credit - Eli.

Nearly Free -

iStockPhoto.com
stockxpert.com
dreamstime.com

Got more? Post em below.

I’ve been hiring and working with freelance designers since 1999 and there is something which has always amazed and shocked me.

Even though every freelancer has a unique style and taste but there is one starking similarity in them — hardly anyone of them uses the most effective tactic to double or triple their profits instantly.

I am talking about tactics popularly known as Up-Selling — the art of selling addon products and services

Yeah yeah, I know you don’t do it as much for the money as for your passion for design. However, you have bills to pay and that BMW to buy.

The most perfect example of Up-Selling is when you order a burger at McDonald’s, you are always asked if you’d like fries with that. Yes, we are talking about giving the user to purchase additional services / products from you when they order something.

Now whenever a client comes to you for a design, they probably have just one thing in mind — they want a website for their business. Most of the times they haven’t decided on the webhost they are going to go with, the internet marketing strategy they are going to follow and, sometimes, not even their domain name.

They just know that they need a website and they need a designer to create one. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is an excellent opportunity for profit.

SO, what all can you resell with webdesign? Here are a few ideas –

1. Web Hosting. Sure you can’t have a website available to the world without having a webhost. So rather than confusing them by recommending 10 different webhosts who offer 50 different packages, buy a reseller hosting account and sell hosting to them yourself.

With a reseller account, you can charge your client anything and pay a wholesale fees to the ISP. And interesting thing is that they will never know who actually is hosting the site and will have the comfort of dealing with a real person. For you, it’s extra profit.

One host which I fully recommend is HostGator. I had an account with them for over two years before I moved to a VPS and was very happy with their services. I am sure that you will be too.

2. Marketing Services. You can offer managed internet marketing services to your clients. And to make it easier for yourself, just subcontract them. If you are interested, I run a company which offers reseller plans for web designers and consulting firms. Just give me a buzz at lord@lordbrar.com and I’d send you the details.

3. Domain Names. You can offer consulting services for helping to find a good domain name and you can even register a domain for your client on their behalf.

4. Annual Maintenance. Offer your customers an annual maintenance service where you can offer to do minor tweaks and updates on the website for an annual fees. It doesn’t involve much work and can be a great stream of income.

5. Backup Services. You can easily sell your customers a data backup service just in case something goes wrong. If your client’s site uses databases or other dynamic stuff then it’s even better. Remember, the fear of loss is worse than hope of gain.

All that said, it is important that you don’t upsell the stuff to the client that he or she doesn’t need. They are trusting you for good advice and great service — give that! The happier the client, the more business and recommendation he or she will give to you.

In the next post, I am going to talk about another very important strategy for increasing your profits — Repeat Selling. Until then - Rock on!

Heya Folks!

I am Lord Brar and I am your new host at DesignersMind. When Tyler offered me to takeover the site, seeing how exciting this opportunity could be, I jumped on it right away. Now, it’s time to get the ball rolling - once again!

A Brief History of Mine

It all started on the servers of a free hosting provider and a 14.4 kbps dialup link. I had just turned 14 and my dad thought that I could do better things than keep trying to crack shareware software (though I was never able to crack a software all by myself but hey it used to be an intoxicating feeling when I was able to get my hands on the full version of that $29.95 software).

So that’s the story of how I got an Internet Connection. Since I could never understand what people found interesting in talking to strangers on ICQ (does anyone still remember it) and Yahoo! Chat and not being the gaming kind, and being a bit geeky, I started learning, by myself, how websites are built.

Then one day I stumbled across AOL Press – a free WYSIWYG web-editor. And I still remember what a pain in ass it was to download that 1.5 MB file. But when I installed it I screamed so loud in excitement that my neighbors actually called to ask if everything was okay.

Boy! I could finally create my own web pages. And, I had just found an ISP offering 10 MB free space with 100 MB bandwidth free. That was the starting of my “Yahoo-Killer” – no one knew what Google was back then.

In 2001, I found a service called Community Architect which could allow me to become an ISP myself and offer free web hosting to people. This was when I registered my very first domain – isownerof.net. Yeah, it was a crazy name but it allowed me to have a site like lord.isownerof.net. Don’t visit it because I had let the domain name drop.

Even though all I ever got was like just 15-20 members – the first site I had hosted there was of a wreath manufacturer, go figure – but this was my very first serious website and for the very first time I learnt that I could make money online by showing ads.

Fast forward to today and I own a rather large network of sites making me a pretty decent income. I also am working on a very secret plan to take over the internet. No, I am not kidding. And yes, the plan is evil. No! Actually, it is very-very evil. =D But let’s leave that for sometime later.

The Future of DesignersMind

You can expect the same great quality content that Tyler has worked so hard to produce here - however, a lot more frequently. We will also be rolling out a few community features very soon.

Basically, we will be working our arses off to make DesignersMind “The Place to Hangout” for Designers.

Now that I am done introducing myself and talking about my plans, I have a More Important Question for you. I would love to know what type of content do you want us to cover more. Are you more interested in General Design Topics, Business of Design Topics or Design Techniques.

If you have any more ideas or suggestions, feel free to post them below in comments. You can also email me at lord@lordbrar.com. =)

See you around!