Learning to say no - Branding Expert Bhavini Lakhani
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Learning to say no - Freelance Branding Expert Bhavini Lakhani
After her first round of maternity leave, Bhavini was hit with a blow. Her graphic design role was no longer available; she could either retrain as a web designer or take voluntary redundancy. She chose the redundancy and landed her first freelance client soon after.
“I never wanted to be freelance. I wanted that steady paycheck, the regular nine-to-five where you leave the office and can just switch off. But life had other plans for me. And the freelance work just kept coming in. Everything fell into place and I fell in love with it.”
Finding clients as a freelance designer
For several years, Bhavini got by on enquries and referrals from ex-colleagues, friends and family.
“I didn't start looking for clients because I didn't know how to do that. And I didn't start looking for a job because I was so busy with the baby and the freelance project that I was working on. As my first project was coming to an end, somebody else had been given my contact details by a friend, and that's really how work has gone ever since. I had no website. No Instagram or Behance. No business cards either. It was just my mobile number being passed on. I’d share work on my personal Facebook page. That was the extent of my advertising.”
After she moved to Milton Keynes in 2015 and started attending networking events, Bhavini realised that she’d need to make some changes if she was going to make a serious go of it.
She built a website, revised her prices and began developing a professional profile online.
Ten years in, most of her work comes via word of mouth or LinkedIn.
“The stuff that I share on LinkedIn is very me. I don't really have a hard and fast strategy, I just share my work, testimonials, things I like and stuff that I'm proud of. I show the person behind the business.”
Work-life balance as a freelance parent
As a mum to two school-age girls, Bhavini loves the flexibility of freelance life and does what she can to protect her family time. She tries not to work weekends and sticks to working school hours during the week.
“If a client calls me on a Saturday afternoon I hit decline. I won't answer it. I'll send a message back saying "I don't work weekends, I'll call you on Monday," and clients are fine with that. But if I'd tried doing that at the start of my freelance journey, I would have been really scared... What if they think I'm not taking this project seriously? What if they don't ever want to work with me again?”
Managing clients as a freelancer
Bhavini says she learned the hard way that it’s better to ask for payment upfront.
“I take 50% upfront and I won't schedule anything into my diary until that payment has been received in my account. I send watermarked PDFs for anything that I do and I only send stuff to print once the client has made the final payment.”
When she realised she was saying yes to work she didn’t enjoy doing, Bhavini knew something had to change.
“I needed to make sure I was charging enough for the work I enjoy doing so that I wouldn't feel the need to say yes to all of the other stuff. When I realised that, my thinking, pricing and way of working changed.”
Bhavini developed design packages a year ago, partly to save time during the enquiry process, and they’re selling well.
“I was spending an hour talking to somebody on the phone and then sending them prices. And then I was being ghosted. It was wasting a lot of my time, and I figured, "If I can put some packages together, I can direct people to the website or send them a PDF with all the details on. It gives potential clients an idea of what they'd be looking at time- and investment-wise.”
And the one thing Bhavini would tell her younger self about being freelance?
To hear Bhavini’s story in full along with more useful tips and insights on being freelance, listen to the episode in the player above or find it on your favourite podcast app.
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Podcast transcript
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and Branding Expert Bhavini Lakhani
Transcription by humans at Rev - try them for yourself!
Steve Folland: As ever, how about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Bhavini Lakhani: Okay. Well, I'm going to start by saying I never wanted to be freelance. It was never even on the horizons for me, I wanted that steady paycheck, the regular nine to five when you leave the office at five o'clock and you can just switch off and not worry about work anymore. Life had other plans for me, and when I was due to go back to work in late 2011 after my first round of mat leave I was told that my design role was no longer available. So it was a case of you either come back as a web designer and we will provide any training you need, or you take voluntary redundancy, and I went for the redundancy.
Steve Folland: Ouch.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah. It was a real blow, and when I said I'd take the redundancy my idea was... so I was living in North London at the time, travelling into Liverpool Street every day for work. The idea was I'll just find a design job closer to home. It'll be easy. And then somebody that I used to work with where I got made redundant from had moved roles, and she asked if I'd do freelance work for her new company. I said yes, and that's how everything started. That was in like late 2011, and I haven't looked back.
Steve Folland: So despite not wanting to do it, have you not looked back because work just kept coming in, or did you eventually start to enjoy it?
Bhavini Lakhani: Work just kept coming in. I loved the freelance project that I took on. If I remember correctly, it was brochures and exhibition design for a marketing department in central London somewhere, and I loved it. I loved that I could set my own hours. I loved that my one-year-old was either at nursery for a couple of hours or playing next to me while I was working on my laptop. I could wait for an hour and then take a break for an hour. And it just, I don't know, everything just fell into place and I fell in love with it.
Steve Folland: That first job came to you. What happened next. As you were doing that, did you think, okay, well, I'll just get back to looking for a job, or did you start looking in earnest for clients?
Bhavini Lakhani: I didn't do either. I didn't start looking for clients because I didn't know how to do that. And I didn't start looking for a job because I was so busy with the baby and the freelance project that I was working on, I actually didn't have time to job hunt. As that first project was coming to an end somebody else had been given my contact details by my friend who then said, "Could you just do this quick branding project for me, please?" So obviously I said yes, and that's really how work has gone ever since, if I'm honest with you.
Steve Folland: Nice. Now I know now that you trade a company name.
Bhavini Lakhani: B81 Designs. Yep.
Steve Folland: Did you start trading just as Bhavini? I don't mean just as Bhavini... As your name or did you start using a company name quite early on?
Bhavini Lakhani: No. It was just me. I had had no website. I had no social media presence. I had nothing. No business cards either. It was just my mobile number being passed on.
Steve Folland: That's so good, though, in so many ways.
Bhavini Lakhani: It was the best way. Well, I mean, at the time, obviously, I was a bit panicked. One-year-old, home, no job and freelance You panic a little bit, but I feel like it just happened so organically, which is the best way for it to unfold, I think.
Steve Folland: At what point did you get a website, for example?
Bhavini Lakhani: 2016.
Steve Folland: You're kidding. Really? So for five years, what about social media? Was there anything else. Was there any way that you were putting yourself or the way that your work looked out there into the world?
Bhavini Lakhani: On my personal profile, yes, on Facebook. I had no Instagram, no Behance or Adobe portfolios or anything like that. It was literally just me putting up on my personal Facebook profile, "Oh, look, I've done this project for so-and-so. If you know anybody who might need a graphic designer send them my way. That was the extent of my advertising.
Steve Folland: And that worked for five years?
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah.
Steve Folland: Now is that because, I mean, obviously you must've been good at what you did.
Bhavini Lakhani: I hope so.
Steve Folland: But who were you connected to? Do you know what I mean? Was it just friends and family, then, recommending you. Or on Facebook, had you spent years working in businesses where actually you collected a load of people and they'd all moved on to different businesses. I'm just intrigued. People might be listening and they're thinking, "Wow, okay." Five years without any real pushing yourself out there. How does that work still come to you? What are those connections which are knocking into each other?
Bhavini Lakhani: There weren't any.
Steve Folland: There must have been.
Bhavini Lakhani: No. So the first connection of an ex-colleague having worked with me and then moved on got me a foot in the door at this, this first freelance project that I took on. After that, it was people I'd grown up with, or friends I'd made over the years who are living in London recommending me to their friends.
Steve Folland: Wow.
Bhavini Lakhani: And so on. There was no actual business network, so to speak.
Steve Folland: So that meant you must have regularly shared, he says. I'm not taking anything for granted any more in this interview. Were you regularly sharing examples of your work or saying, "Hey, if anybody needs a graphic designer," was that a regular thing that you would say on Facebook?
Bhavini Lakhani: No. Sorry, no.
Steve Folland: I love it. Oh my God.
Bhavini Lakhani: No. I would share things sporadically. I had a real... Obviously in the beginning stages of freelancing, as well, my portfolio consisted of work that I'd done from the place that I got made redundant from and my job prior to that, and they didn't want to be sharing the stuff that I'd done for them. So you're kind of in a bit of a bind. I'd not been doing any side projects either at that time, so I didn't have a hell of a lot to share. I think it was just sheer faith of friends and family that they were then passing my details on to others. And then, obviously, once I'd done a bit of work for somebody else who wasn't a friend of mine or wasn't a member of my family or extended family or social circle, they would then recommend me to their friends and colleagues. So it just snowballed from there, really.
Steve Folland: In which case, at what point did you suddenly think, right, I'm going to build a website. And was that when you suddenly became a company name? I'm wondering what the switch was.
Bhavini Lakhani: I moved to Milton Keynes in 2015 and started going to networking events. And what happens when you go to a networking event? The first thing somebody is going to say is, "Oh, do you have a website? Do you have a business card?" and I was saying no to both of those. So that gave me a bit of a kick and made me realize, actually, "Do you know what? I can't just wing this anymore if I want to make a serious go of it," and I decided to try and build my own website, I was trading as B81 designs for a while before that anyway. I don't know. I guess I just felt like it made me seem a little bit more professional rather than just my name at the time.
Steve Folland: How come you suddenly started going to networking events? Hang on. Can I guess?
Bhavini Lakhani: Go on.
Steve Folland: Okay. So you moved to Milton Keynes which, because people listen to all over the world, is probably, I don't know, an hour and a half north of London? Like it's, would you say two?
Bhavini Lakhani: It depends. If you go by train it's 35 minutes and if you drive, depending on how fast you're driving, you can do it in about 45 minutes.
Steve Folland: Wow. Okay. So it's even closer. So anyway, it's not that far out of London.
Bhavini Lakhani: No.
Steve Folland: All of your contacts seem to be online anyway, but something triggers you going networking. I'm wondering if that was because suddenly your kids were both in school or something like that.
Bhavini Lakhani: One of them was in school, and the other started. My eldest started school in 2015 and the other started nursery the same year. So all of a sudden I had way more time on my hands. I'm not the kind of person who can sit at home and do nothing. I get bored really, really quickly, and I just figured, "Do you know what?" Although I grew up in Milton Keynes, when I moved back, I didn't really know anybody who was living here at the time, so I felt like networking would be a good way to actually meet new people, and if I get a bit of work out of it, that's a bonus.
Steve Folland: Did anything change from how, for example, you might have been pricing projects when you first started across those years?
Bhavini Lakhani: Yes. I started being a bit more sensible with my pricing. I wasn't very sensible with my negotiating skills, still, at that time, so in terms of what I was charging when I first started working and what I was charging in 2015, there was a big difference but I think I was still undervaluing myself. I wasn't doing myself any favours.
Steve Folland: How did that change?
Bhavini Lakhani: It was only, I would say, two years later that that probably started changing. I started doing work where I wasn't necessarily happy with the kind of projects that I was taking on. It was a case of, well, I need the money, so I'm going to say yes to whatever comes my way and that sort of put me in the trap of doing projects that actually I didn't enjoy.
Bhavini Lakhani: I thought, do you know what? No. Something's got to change. I need to actually look at a) what I enjoy doing, and b) make sure I charge enough for what I enjoy doing, and that actually... I don't feel like I need to say yes to all the other work that I didn't enjoy. And as soon as I realized that, I think that was the moment that my thinking and my pricing and my way of working changed.
Steve Folland: Did you feel like there was a change, by the way, when you started working with a business name? You said that happened before you went to Milton Keynes.
Bhavini Lakhani: It happened before, mainly because people couldn't say my name. People can say my name and it just seemed a little easier, I guess, to have something that people could say that wasn't so hard to pronounce. I don't know whether that had any impact on work or not, if I'm honest with you because, at the end of the day, it's still me that people are working with. I make it very clear that it is just me. It's not a big business with 10 employees or anything like that.
Bhavini Lakhani: I am very clear about the fact that it is just little old me, but yeah, it does have its benefits, and with things like social media, it meant that I could really separate my personal Facebook page and my work Facebook page and things like so that I didn't have my personal profile so public, you know? There are clients who sometimes add me as a friend on, on Facebook or like my page. I didn't want too much of a crossover.
Steve Folland: So given that when you started, though, a lot of your work came from Facebook, where would you say most of your work comes from now, ten years in?
Bhavini Lakhani: LinkedIn and word of mouth.
Steve Folland: What kind of stuff are you doing on LinkedIn?
Bhavini Lakhani: Stuff that is very me. It's sometimes probably not very LinkedIn inappropriate, but it's me, so I share it. The kind of stuff that I used to do on Instagram, really, I guess. We're always sharing testimonials, work, bits and pieces of the person behind the business, I guess. I will admit, I don't really have a hard and fast strategy, but I just share my work. I share things I like so lots of ice cream posts and just stuff that I'm really proud of.
Steve Folland: You spent all of his time without a website, but these days, obviously, there's a lot to it. I know. For example, you have packages. When did that come about and how does that work for you?
Bhavini Lakhani: That was a long time in the making. I'd always wanted to do it so that... I was spending an hour talking to somebody on the phone and then sending them prices. And then I was being ghosted. It was wasting a lot of my time, and I figured, "Do you know what? If I can just put some packages of what I know somebody needs, I can direct people to the website or I can send them a PDF with all the details on," and it's just better in terms of time for me. That was why they came around and they've gone down quite well, to be honest. I launched them maybe about a year ago, and in the space of that year, I've taken on three clients for the Bells and Whistles package, and I've taken on four or five clients for the Essentials package, and then a couple of additional clients for that package where we've tailored it to suit their needs if their budget won't stretch to it.
Steve Folland: That's the great thing. So you've just got two packages.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yep.
Steve Folland: Obviously people can go and take a look. There'll be a link at beingfreelance.com. It says a price, but it says what's included and then a sort of timeframe, but not only has it got you that work that you just mentioned, but also it could have put off the people that actually you want to put it off.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean that in the nicest possible way. There are certain people who won't be able to work with me and that's absolutely fine. If somebody came to me, and this is what I've done with a couple of clients. They've looked at the packages and said, "I really want to work with you. However, I don't think I need everything in your basic package. Can we revise it and revise the cost?" I'm happy to do that, but at least the packages give potential clients an idea of what they'd be looking at time-wise and investment-wise.
Steve Folland: Obviously, I introduced you as a freelance branding expert, but when you said you got made redundant, that was from a graphic design job. When you first went freelance were you're just doing any graphic design?
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah. Anything and everything. I was even doing things like kids party invites, wedding invites, which, you know, they're a little bit more creative, I guess, but actually I never enjoyed them.
Steve Folland: So at what point did you start to refine what you were offering?
Bhavini Lakhani: About two-and-a-half, three years ago, so not overly long ago in the grand scheme of things. I was still in that mindset of occasionally having to, "Oh, I've got to say yes to everything." When I put my foot down in, I don't know, late 2015, early 2016, maybe? Yeah, that sounds about right. I just knew I had to stop doing things that didn't bring me joy.
Steve Folland: And so you decided to focus on branding because you enjoyed that.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah.
Steve Folland: What was that transition phase, I guess, like, when you decided, "Actually I've got to start saying no to things?"
Bhavini Lakhani: It was all right, to be honest. If I had any non-branding stuff on, I finished the projects off. I didn't give up on them. And then when other people came to me to ask if I would do a wedding invitation, "No. I don't do that anymore. I'm really sorry, but I can refer you to somebody who specializes in wedding invites, or specializes in party invitations." It was really easy. It was surprisingly easy.
Steve Folland: When it then meant that you were doing just branding, though, did that mean that you needed to cast a wider net and be known by more people to bring enough work in?
Bhavini Lakhani: Yes. I ramped up the amount of networking events I was going to. I was going maybe once a month to some really informal networking events because I don't like, without offending anybody, I don't like the early breakfast meetings, BNI, and things like that where there's a lot of pressure on referrals and stuff, so I stuck to the really formal ones. And although I didn't work directly with the people I met at the networking events, eventually I started making a name for myself at these events, and the people I met there were referring me to people they knew or clients they were working with, and that's when the really good projects started trickling in
Steve Folland: You wouldn't, for example, speak at these events? It was purely hanging out and chatting to people, conversations?
Bhavini Lakhani: Hanging out, having a coffee or two, eating some brownies and just mingling, basically. It was brilliant. My kind of networking event.
Steve Folland: Did you start introducing yourself as a freelance branding expert?
Bhavini Lakhani: It took a while to do that. I was, "Oh, I'm a graphic designer," was what I went in with initially. that then changed to, "I'm a graphic designer specializing in branding and marketing collateral," which is a bit of a mouthful. And it eventually got to the point where I was a bit more comfortable with saying, "Yeah. I'm a branding expert," or I'd say, "I work with business owners to make sure their visual identity is spot on for their audience." I don't think I ever really said, "Oh, my name is Bhavini and I'm a freelance branding expert." I don't think I ever really introduced myself in that way.
Steve Folland: Well, there we are. If we ever get to meet people in person again...
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah. Oh, I know. Can't wait.
Steve Folland: Another thing I wanted to mention from your website, as well, was you have these glowing client testimonials. Are they something that is part of your process to ask for them?
Bhavini Lakhani: Yep. Always. At the end of a project, I will always either pick up the phone to the client or send an email and just ask if they could leave me a Facebook review or Google review or a LinkedIn recommendation, whichever they prefer. I will send out a couple of questions that they can base their review on, if they'd like to. Nine times out of 10 people don't answer the questions. They just write how they feel the project's gone.
Steve Folland: That's so good. And then you put them on your site.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Folland: How about your other processes? How do you work with payments?
Bhavini Lakhani: I take 50% upfront. I won't schedule anything into my diary until that payment has been received in my account. I've learned the hard way to take that payment upfront. The first few projects I did, I didn't take a deposit, and a few things went wrong as they always do in the start of a freelance journey. So yeah, 50% upfront. And then the remainder is always paid before I send anything out to the client, or anything to print. Again, learning the hard way.
Steve Folland: So in your line of work, that would mean you'd send low-resolution type stuff or stuff with your watermark on it.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah. Exactly. Watermarked PDFs for anything that I do, and then, like I said, I'll only send stuff to print once they've made a final payment.
Steve Folland: But you say you learned that the hard way?
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah. Very, very early on in my freelance journey, I would do a project, not get paid for it and then find out that the client is using the logo I designed on their website and, "Hang on. There's something not quite right here."
Steve Folland: How did you deal with those moments?
Bhavini Lakhani: Not very well. Got very angry, got very upset, as you would. Emailed them so that I had it in writing, but I was asking them to not use it until they paid me. Didn't get response and kind of just let it go.
Steve Folland: So sometimes you would just let it go.
Bhavini Lakhani: Well, luckily the using my logo on their website only happened once. I think I was so timid when I first started out in my freelance career that I just said, "You know what? Just let it go. It's fine. Doesn't matter."
Steve Folland: Yeah. Sometimes the negativity of it all can undo you more than it's worth.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah. exactly. Exactly.
Steve Folland: How about the way, obviously, you became freelance and were enjoying being able to work around your kids. That's how it all began. How is it these days? What's your work-life balance like? You said you were somebody who liked to switch off at five and then not worry any more.
Bhavini Lakhani: Oh yeah, I don't do that anymore. I definitely don't do that anymore. I try to make sure that I don't work on weekends at all unless it's something that I'm doing for myself. And even then it's once the kids have gone to bed.
Bhavini Lakhani: I work school hours, so from 9:00 'till 3:00. Well, I say 9:00 'till 3:00. 9:00'till 2:30. The school car park is such that you have to get there early in order to get a space to park, so I just stop working at 2:30 and go sit in the car park and read a book. I like the way life and work is balanced at the moment because I've got really good quality time with the kids. I pick them up from school and I'm with them doing either homework or playing with Lego or puzzles or whatever else they want to do. And once they've gone to bed, that's my time. I try not to work. And yes, it's mainly the core hours of 9:00 till 2:30ish that I'm working.
Steve Folland: That's great, though. So you do manage to... it can sometimes make you more focused, that restrictive.
Bhavini Lakhani: Absolutely. I put a little Pomodoro timer on my phone. It helps me focus so that I don't get lost down the Instagram rabbit hole or whatever, and just focus really. It is amazing how productive you can be when you know, "Well, actually I've got to down tools at 2:30.
Steve Folland: Yeah, definitely. I love that... It feels like you're almost fiercely protecting that family time, I guess, but also time for yourself.
Bhavini Lakhani: Absolutely. I mean, I'm never going to get, with the kids, I mean, you know how quickly it goes. I'm never going to get that time back, so the fact that I can spend afternoons with them or go and spend the day watching them do their sports day, obviously, not recently, but last year, at the drop of a hat and not worry about work is amazing.
Steve Folland: And I must admit, I liked, when I remember emailing you at some point and getting an autoresponder.
Bhavini Lakhani: I absolutely love them. I don't have it on during term time, but in the summer holidays halftime because any school holidays, my autoresponder is the first thing that I make sure goes on. I don't really like receiving those really standard, "I'm not at my desk. If you need to get hold of somebody in an emergency call this number," that number, whatever. I always try and make sure that my autoresponder is a bit more human.
Bhavini Lakhani: It usually tells people who've emailed me what I'm spending my time doing and the amount of people that then reply to that autoresponder going, "Oh, my God, this is awesome," knowing they'll get another auto-response is amazing. I've worked with the local council and even they've... I had my autoresponder on over Christmas and they came back to me and were like, "This is absolutely brilliant. It's so nice knowing that you're human."
Steve Folland: I love that, especially because sometimes we can feel guilty about not being available.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yep, absolutely. I'm working on a project at the moment where the client ends up trying to call me on a Saturday afternoon and I hit decline. I won't answer it. I'll send a message back saying, "I'm really sorry. I don't work weekends." No, I don't even say I'm sorry, actually. I'll just say, "I don't work weekends. I'll call you on Monday," and clients are fine with that. But if I'd have tried doing that at the start of my freelance journey, I would have been really scared. Now, what if they think I'm not taking this project seriously? What if they don't ever want to work with me again?
Steve Folland: Now you've got that confidence.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah, definitely.
Steve Folland: When you first started you didn't have a plan.
Bhavini Lakhani: No.
Steve Folland: But are you somebody who does now? Are you somebody goals, and they're like a vision sort of thing?
Bhavini Lakhani: No.
Steve Folland: There's nothing wrong with that.
Bhavini Lakhani: No. Absolutely not. Do you know what? I saw somebody talk when I went to the Freelance Heroes Road Show in 2018. She was a graphic designer who now owns her own design agency. She's done so well for herself, and she would give really inspiring talk. I then had a chat with her saying, "But what if you don't have those goals of wanting to go from freelance design to owning in your own agency and employing five other designers and that kind of stuff?" And she said to me, "It doesn't matter. You don't have to want a massive agency in your name to be successful," and it's just stuck with me. I really love where I am in my career at the moment. Design is what I love doing, so there's no way I'd want to just swap that for anything.
Steve Folland: You said that you get bored really quickly. What do you do when, well, maybe there's never periods, but are there periods where you don't have work on, but it's a workday, if you see what I mean?
Bhavini Lakhani: Yes, there are. I will do something for myself. You know what it's like when you run your business, right? There's always a little bit of admin that needs to get done that you put onto the bottom of the client list, or it's not a priority until you've not got any projects on. So that keeps me ticking over. Or I'll use that time to go and, I don't know, sit in a coffee shop and have a coffee and people-watch, or I will go for a walk around the local lake and listen to a podcast. I'll find something to do. I can't just sit there and do nothing.
Steve Folland: That's great, though, in that you're not, equally, you're not sitting there feeling like you're doing bits of work. Well, maybe you don't because you don't do it, but it's possible just to sit there and feel like you're busy and you're doing work because look at me doing my work. But, actually, I've been doing the stuff, I've done my LinkedIn. I've done the networking. I'm going to go walk around the lake and chill out since it's not busy.
Bhavini Lakhani: It's brilliant. And that's the beauty of being freelance and working for yourself, isn't it? That you can do that. Whereas if I was working for somebody in the nine-to-five that I craved so badly, I would have to find something to do, wouldn't I?
Steve Folland: If you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Bhavini Lakhani: Don't be afraid to say no. That is my ultimate, I think, because the minute I started saying no is when... I think that's when the magic started to happen. So don't be afraid to say no. It's not a bad thing to do.
Steve Folland: I meant to ask you… Okay, so there's no plan.
Bhavini Lakhani: No.
Steve Folland: Are there, I don't know, other people who you've since met within the freelance world, within the business world, because you go to a lot of networking events, where you've picked up what you're doing business-wise?
Bhavini Lakhani: Yes and no. I think business-wise in terms of certain processes. So, you know, making sure I'm sending out proper terms of business and contracts and things like that, I've picked up over the years from others that I've met, and I'm making sure I'm doing all that kind of stuff properly. As for everything else, no, not really. Because the way somebody does business isn't necessarily going to be right for me and vice versa. I feel like I've just got to find my own path and my own way of doing things, and it hasn't steered me wrong so far.
Steve Folland: As ever, how about we get started hearing how you got started being freelance?
Bhavini Lakhani: Okay. Well, I'm going to start by saying I never wanted to be freelance. It was never even on the horizons for me, I wanted that steady paycheck, the regular nine to five when you leave the office at five o'clock and you can just switch off and not worry about work anymore. Life had other plans for me, and when I was due to go back to work in late 2011 after my first round of mat leave I was told that my design role was no longer available. So it was a case of you either come back as a web designer and we will provide any training you need, or you take voluntary redundancy, and I went for the redundancy.
Steve Folland: Ouch.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah. It was a real blow, and when I said I'd take the redundancy my idea was... so I was living in North London at the time, travelling into Liverpool Street every day for work. The idea was I'll just find a design job closer to home. It'll be easy. And then somebody that I used to work with where I got made redundant from had moved roles, and she asked if I'd do freelance work for her new company. I said yes, and that's how everything started. That was in like late 2011, and I haven't looked back.
Steve Folland: So despite not wanting to do it, have you not looked back because work just kept coming in, or did you eventually start to enjoy it?
Bhavini Lakhani: Work just kept coming in. I loved the freelance project that I took on. If I remember correctly, it was brochures and exhibition design for a marketing department in central London somewhere, and I loved it. I loved that I could set my own hours. I loved that my one-year-old was either at nursery for a couple of hours or playing next to me while I was working on my laptop. I could wait for an hour and then take a break for an hour. And it just, I don't know, everything just fell into place and I fell in love with it.
Steve Folland: That first job came to you. What happened next. As you were doing that, did you think, okay, well, I'll just get back to looking for a job, or did you start looking in earnest for clients?
Bhavini Lakhani: I didn't do either. I didn't start looking for clients because I didn't know how to do that. And I didn't start looking for a job because I was so busy with the baby and the freelance project that I was working on, I actually didn't have time to job hunt. As that first project was coming to an end somebody else had been given my contact details by my friend who then said, "Could you just do this quick branding project for me, please?" So obviously I said yes, and that's really how work has gone ever since, if I'm honest with you.
Steve Folland: Nice. Now I know now that you trade a company name.
Bhavini Lakhani: B81 Designs. Yep.
Steve Folland: Did you start trading just as Bhavini? I don't mean just as Bhavini... As your name or did you start using a company name quite early on?
Bhavini Lakhani: No. It was just me. I had had no website. I had no social media presence. I had nothing. No business cards either. It was just my mobile number being passed on.
Steve Folland: That's so good, though, in so many ways.
Bhavini Lakhani: It was the best way. Well, I mean, at the time, obviously, I was a bit panicked. One-year-old, home, no job and freelance You panic a little bit, but I feel like it just happened so organically, which is the best way for it to unfold, I think.
Steve Folland: At what point did you get a website, for example?
Bhavini Lakhani: 2016.
Steve Folland: You're kidding. Really? So for five years, what about social media? Was there anything else. Was there any way that you were putting yourself or the way that your work looked out there into the world?
Bhavini Lakhani: On my personal profile, yes, on Facebook. I had no Instagram, no Behance or Adobe portfolios or anything like that. It was literally just me putting up on my personal Facebook profile, "Oh, look, I've done this project for so-and-so. If you know anybody who might need a graphic designer send them my way. That was the extent of my advertising.
Steve Folland: And that worked for five years?
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah.
Steve Folland: Now is that because, I mean, obviously you must've been good at what you did.
Bhavini Lakhani: I hope so.
Steve Folland: But who were you connected to? Do you know what I mean? Was it just friends and family, then, recommending you. Or on Facebook, had you spent years working in businesses where actually you collected a load of people and they'd all moved on to different businesses. I'm just intrigued. People might be listening and they're thinking, "Wow, okay." Five years without any real pushing yourself out there. How does that work still come to you? What are those connections which are knocking into each other?
Bhavini Lakhani: There weren't any.
Steve Folland: There must have been.
Bhavini Lakhani: No. So the first connection of an ex-colleague having worked with me and then moved on got me a foot in the door at this, this first freelance project that I took on. After that, it was people I'd grown up with, or friends I'd made over the years who are living in London recommending me to their friends.
Steve Folland: Wow.
Bhavini Lakhani: And so on. There was no actual business network, so to speak.
Steve Folland: So that meant you must have regularly shared, he says. I'm not taking anything for granted any more in this interview. Were you regularly sharing examples of your work or saying, "Hey, if anybody needs a graphic designer," was that a regular thing that you would say on Facebook?
Bhavini Lakhani: No. Sorry, no.
Steve Folland: I love it. Oh my God.
Bhavini Lakhani: No. I would share things sporadically. I had a real... Obviously in the beginning stages of freelancing, as well, my portfolio consisted of work that I'd done from the place that I got made redundant from and my job prior to that, and they didn't want to be sharing the stuff that I'd done for them. So you're kind of in a bit of a bind. I'd not been doing any side projects either at that time, so I didn't have a hell of a lot to share. I think it was just sheer faith of friends and family that they were then passing my details on to others. And then, obviously, once I'd done a bit of work for somebody else who wasn't a friend of mine or wasn't a member of my family or extended family or social circle, they would then recommend me to their friends and colleagues. So it just snowballed from there, really.
Steve Folland: In which case, at what point did you suddenly think, right, I'm going to build a website. And was that when you suddenly became a company name? I'm wondering what the switch was.
Bhavini Lakhani: I moved to Milton Keynes in 2015 and started going to networking events. And what happens when you go to a networking event? The first thing somebody is going to say is, "Oh, do you have a website? Do you have a business card?" and I was saying no to both of those. So that gave me a bit of a kick and made me realize, actually, "Do you know what? I can't just wing this anymore if I want to make a serious go of it," and I decided to try and build my own website, I was trading as B81 designs for a while before that anyway. I don't know. I guess I just felt like it made me seem a little bit more professional rather than just my name at the time.
Steve Folland: How come you suddenly started going to networking events? Hang on. Can I guess?
Bhavini Lakhani: Go on.
Steve Folland: Okay. So you moved to Milton Keynes which, because people listen to all over the world, is probably, I don't know, an hour and a half north of London? Like it's, would you say two?
Bhavini Lakhani: It depends. If you go by train it's 35 minutes and if you drive, depending on how fast you're driving, you can do it in about 45 minutes.
Steve Folland: Wow. Okay. So it's even closer. So anyway, it's not that far out of London.
Bhavini Lakhani: No.
Steve Folland: All of your contacts seem to be online anyway, but something triggers you going networking. I'm wondering if that was because suddenly your kids were both in school or something like that.
Bhavini Lakhani: One of them was in school, and the other started. My eldest started school in 2015 and the other started nursery the same year. So all of a sudden I had way more time on my hands. I'm not the kind of person who can sit at home and do nothing. I get bored really, really quickly, and I just figured, "Do you know what?" Although I grew up in Milton Keynes, when I moved back, I didn't really know anybody who was living here at the time, so I felt like networking would be a good way to actually meet new people, and if I get a bit of work out of it, that's a bonus.
Steve Folland: Did anything change from how, for example, you might have been pricing projects when you first started across those years?
Bhavini Lakhani: Yes. I started being a bit more sensible with my pricing. I wasn't very sensible with my negotiating skills, still, at that time, so in terms of what I was charging when I first started working and what I was charging in 2015, there was a big difference but I think I was still undervaluing myself. I wasn't doing myself any favours.
Steve Folland: How did that change?
Bhavini Lakhani: It was only, I would say, two years later that that probably started changing. I started doing work where I wasn't necessarily happy with the kind of projects that I was taking on. It was a case of, well, I need the money, so I'm going to say yes to whatever comes my way and that sort of put me in the trap of doing projects that actually I didn't enjoy.
Bhavini Lakhani: I thought, do you know what? No. Something's got to change. I need to actually look at a) what I enjoy doing, and b) make sure I charge enough for what I enjoy doing, and that actually... I don't feel like I need to say yes to all the other work that I didn't enjoy. And as soon as I realized that, I think that was the moment that my thinking and my pricing and my way of working changed.
Steve Folland: Did you feel like there was a change, by the way, when you started working with a business name? You said that happened before you went to Milton Keynes.
Bhavini Lakhani: It happened before, mainly because people couldn't say my name. People can say my name and it just seemed a little easier, I guess, to have something that people could say that wasn't so hard to pronounce. I don't know whether that had any impact on work or not, if I'm honest with you because, at the end of the day, it's still me that people are working with. I make it very clear that it is just me. It's not a big business with 10 employees or anything like that.
Bhavini Lakhani: I am very clear about the fact that it is just little old me, but yeah, it does have its benefits, and with things like social media, it meant that I could really separate my personal Facebook page and my work Facebook page and things like so that I didn't have my personal profile so public, you know? There are clients who sometimes add me as a friend on, on Facebook or like my page. I didn't want too much of a crossover.
Steve Folland: So given that when you started, though, a lot of your work came from Facebook, where would you say most of your work comes from now, ten years in?
Bhavini Lakhani: LinkedIn and word of mouth.
Steve Folland: What kind of stuff are you doing on LinkedIn?
Bhavini Lakhani: Stuff that is very me. It's sometimes probably not very LinkedIn inappropriate, but it's me, so I share it. The kind of stuff that I used to do on Instagram, really, I guess. We're always sharing testimonials, work, bits and pieces of the person behind the business, I guess. I will admit, I don't really have a hard and fast strategy, but I just share my work. I share things I like so lots of ice cream posts and just stuff that I'm really proud of.
Steve Folland: You spent all of his time without a website, but these days, obviously, there's a lot to it. I know. For example, you have packages. When did that come about and how does that work for you?
Bhavini Lakhani: That was a long time in the making. I'd always wanted to do it so that... I was spending an hour talking to somebody on the phone and then sending them prices. And then I was being ghosted. It was wasting a lot of my time, and I figured, "Do you know what? If I can just put some packages of what I know somebody needs, I can direct people to the website or I can send them a PDF with all the details on," and it's just better in terms of time for me. That was why they came around and they've gone down quite well, to be honest. I launched them maybe about a year ago, and in the space of that year, I've taken on three clients for the Bells and Whistles package, and I've taken on four or five clients for the Essentials package, and then a couple of additional clients for that package where we've tailored it to suit their needs if their budget won't stretch to it.
Steve Folland: That's the great thing. So you've just got two packages.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yep.
Steve Folland: Obviously people can go and take a look. There'll be a link at beingfreelance.com. It says a price, but it says what's included and then a sort of timeframe, but not only has it got you that work that you just mentioned, but also it could have put off the people that actually you want to put it off.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean that in the nicest possible way. There are certain people who won't be able to work with me and that's absolutely fine. If somebody came to me, and this is what I've done with a couple of clients. They've looked at the packages and said, "I really want to work with you. However, I don't think I need everything in your basic package. Can we revise it and revise the cost?" I'm happy to do that, but at least the packages give potential clients an idea of what they'd be looking at time-wise and investment-wise.
Steve Folland: Obviously, I introduced you as a freelance branding expert, but when you said you got made redundant, that was from a graphic design job. When you first went freelance were you're just doing any graphic design?
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah. Anything and everything. I was even doing things like kids party invites, wedding invites, which, you know, they're a little bit more creative, I guess, but actually I never enjoyed them.
Steve Folland: So at what point did you start to refine what you were offering?
Bhavini Lakhani: About two-and-a-half, three years ago, so not overly long ago in the grand scheme of things. I was still in that mindset of occasionally having to, "Oh, I've got to say yes to everything." When I put my foot down in, I don't know, late 2015, early 2016, maybe? Yeah, that sounds about right. I just knew I had to stop doing things that didn't bring me joy.
Steve Folland: And so you decided to focus on branding because you enjoyed that.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah.
Steve Folland: What was that transition phase, I guess, like, when you decided, "Actually I've got to start saying no to things?"
Bhavini Lakhani: It was all right, to be honest. If I had any non-branding stuff on, I finished the projects off. I didn't give up on them. And then when other people came to me to ask if I would do a wedding invitation, "No. I don't do that anymore. I'm really sorry, but I can refer you to somebody who specializes in wedding invites, or specializes in party invitations." It was really easy. It was surprisingly easy.
Steve Folland: When it then meant that you were doing just branding, though, did that mean that you needed to cast a wider net and be known by more people to bring enough work in?
Bhavini Lakhani: Yes. I ramped up the amount of networking events I was going to. I was going maybe once a month to some really informal networking events because I don't like, without offending anybody, I don't like the early breakfast meetings, BNI, and things like that where there's a lot of pressure on referrals and stuff, so I stuck to the really formal ones. And although I didn't work directly with the people I met at the networking events, eventually I started making a name for myself at these events, and the people I met there were referring me to people they knew or clients they were working with, and that's when the really good projects started trickling in
Steve Folland: You wouldn't, for example, speak at these events? It was purely hanging out and chatting to people, conversations?
Bhavini Lakhani: Hanging out, having a coffee or two, eating some brownies and just mingling, basically. It was brilliant. My kind of networking event.
Steve Folland: Did you start introducing yourself as a freelance branding expert?
Bhavini Lakhani: It took a while to do that. I was, "Oh, I'm a graphic designer," was what I went in with initially. that then changed to, "I'm a graphic designer specializing in branding and marketing collateral," which is a bit of a mouthful. And it eventually got to the point where I was a bit more comfortable with saying, "Yeah. I'm a branding expert," or I'd say, "I work with business owners to make sure their visual identity is spot on for their audience." I don't think I ever really said, "Oh, my name is Bhavini and I'm a freelance branding expert." I don't think I ever really introduced myself in that way.
Steve Folland: Well, there we are. If we ever get to meet people in person again...
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah. Oh, I know. Can't wait.
Steve Folland: Another thing I wanted to mention from your website, as well, was you have these glowing client testimonials. Are they something that is part of your process to ask for them?
Bhavini Lakhani: Yep. Always. At the end of a project, I will always either pick up the phone to the client or send an email and just ask if they could leave me a Facebook review or Google review or a LinkedIn recommendation, whichever they prefer. I will send out a couple of questions that they can base their review on, if they'd like to. Nine times out of 10 people don't answer the questions. They just write how they feel the project's gone.
Steve Folland: That's so good. And then you put them on your site.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah. Yeah.
Steve Folland: How about your other processes? How do you work with payments?
Bhavini Lakhani: I take 50% upfront. I won't schedule anything into my diary until that payment has been received in my account. I've learned the hard way to take that payment upfront. The first few projects I did, I didn't take a deposit, and a few things went wrong as they always do in the start of a freelance journey. So yeah, 50% upfront. And then the remainder is always paid before I send anything out to the client, or anything to print. Again, learning the hard way.
Steve Folland: So in your line of work, that would mean you'd send low-resolution type stuff or stuff with your watermark on it.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah. Exactly. Watermarked PDFs for anything that I do, and then, like I said, I'll only send stuff to print once they've made a final payment.
Steve Folland: But you say you learned that the hard way?
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah. Very, very early on in my freelance journey, I would do a project, not get paid for it and then find out that the client is using the logo I designed on their website and, "Hang on. There's something not quite right here."
Steve Folland: How did you deal with those moments?
Bhavini Lakhani: Not very well. Got very angry, got very upset, as you would. Emailed them so that I had it in writing, but I was asking them to not use it until they paid me. Didn't get response and kind of just let it go.
Steve Folland: So sometimes you would just let it go.
Bhavini Lakhani: Well, luckily the using my logo on their website only happened once. I think I was so timid when I first started out in my freelance career that I just said, "You know what? Just let it go. It's fine. Doesn't matter."
Steve Folland: Yeah. Sometimes the negativity of it all can undo you more than it's worth.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah. exactly. Exactly.
Steve Folland: How about the way, obviously, you became freelance and were enjoying being able to work around your kids. That's how it all began. How is it these days? What's your work-life balance like? You said you were somebody who liked to switch off at five and then not worry any more.
Bhavini Lakhani: Oh yeah, I don't do that anymore. I definitely don't do that anymore. I try to make sure that I don't work on weekends at all unless it's something that I'm doing for myself. And even then it's once the kids have gone to bed.
Bhavini Lakhani: I work school hours, so from 9:00 'till 3:00. Well, I say 9:00 'till 3:00. 9:00'till 2:30. The school car park is such that you have to get there early in order to get a space to park, so I just stop working at 2:30 and go sit in the car park and read a book. I like the way life and work is balanced at the moment because I've got really good quality time with the kids. I pick them up from school and I'm with them doing either homework or playing with Lego or puzzles or whatever else they want to do. And once they've gone to bed, that's my time. I try not to work. And yes, it's mainly the core hours of 9:00 till 2:30ish that I'm working.
Steve Folland: That's great, though. So you do manage to... it can sometimes make you more focused, that restrictive.
Bhavini Lakhani: Absolutely. I put a little Pomodoro timer on my phone. It helps me focus so that I don't get lost down the Instagram rabbit hole or whatever, and just focus really. It is amazing how productive you can be when you know, "Well, actually I've got to down tools at 2:30.
Steve Folland: Yeah, definitely. I love that... It feels like you're almost fiercely protecting that family time, I guess, but also time for yourself.
Bhavini Lakhani: Absolutely. I mean, I'm never going to get, with the kids, I mean, you know how quickly it goes. I'm never going to get that time back, so the fact that I can spend afternoons with them or go and spend the day watching them do their sports day, obviously, not recently, but last year, at the drop of a hat and not worry about work is amazing.
Steve Folland: And I must admit, I liked, when I remember emailing you at some point and getting an autoresponder.
Bhavini Lakhani: I absolutely love them. I don't have it on during term time, but in the summer holidays halftime because any school holidays, my autoresponder is the first thing that I make sure goes on. I don't really like receiving those really standard, "I'm not at my desk. If you need to get hold of somebody in an emergency call this number," that number, whatever. I always try and make sure that my autoresponder is a bit more human.
Bhavini Lakhani: It usually tells people who've emailed me what I'm spending my time doing and the amount of people that then reply to that autoresponder going, "Oh, my God, this is awesome," knowing they'll get another auto-response is amazing. I've worked with the local council and even they've... I had my autoresponder on over Christmas and they came back to me and were like, "This is absolutely brilliant. It's so nice knowing that you're human."
Steve Folland: I love that, especially because sometimes we can feel guilty about not being available.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yep, absolutely. I'm working on a project at the moment where the client ends up trying to call me on a Saturday afternoon and I hit decline. I won't answer it. I'll send a message back saying, "I'm really sorry. I don't work weekends." No, I don't even say I'm sorry, actually. I'll just say, "I don't work weekends. I'll call you on Monday," and clients are fine with that. But if I'd have tried doing that at the start of my freelance journey, I would have been really scared. Now, what if they think I'm not taking this project seriously? What if they don't ever want to work with me again?
Steve Folland: Now you've got that confidence.
Bhavini Lakhani: Yeah, definitely.
Steve Folland: When you first started you didn't have a plan.
Bhavini Lakhani: No.
Steve Folland: But are you somebody who does now? Are you somebody goals, and they're like a vision sort of thing?
Bhavini Lakhani: No.
Steve Folland: There's nothing wrong with that.
Bhavini Lakhani: No. Absolutely not. Do you know what? I saw somebody talk when I went to the Freelance Heroes Road Show in 2018. She was a graphic designer who now owns her own design agency. She's done so well for herself, and she would give really inspiring talk. I then had a chat with her saying, "But what if you don't have those goals of wanting to go from freelance design to owning in your own agency and employing five other designers and that kind of stuff?" And she said to me, "It doesn't matter. You don't have to want a massive agency in your name to be successful," and it's just stuck with me. I really love where I am in my career at the moment. Design is what I love doing, so there's no way I'd want to just swap that for anything.
Steve Folland: You said that you get bored really quickly. What do you do when, well, maybe there's never periods, but are there periods where you don't have work on, but it's a workday, if you see what I mean?
Bhavini Lakhani: Yes, there are. I will do something for myself. You know what it's like when you run your business, right? There's always a little bit of admin that needs to get done that you put onto the bottom of the client list, or it's not a priority until you've not got any projects on. So that keeps me ticking over. Or I'll use that time to go and, I don't know, sit in a coffee shop and have a coffee and people-watch, or I will go for a walk around the local lake and listen to a podcast. I'll find something to do. I can't just sit there and do nothing.
Steve Folland: That's great, though, in that you're not, equally, you're not sitting there feeling like you're doing bits of work. Well, maybe you don't because you don't do it, but it's possible just to sit there and feel like you're busy and you're doing work because look at me doing my work. But, actually, I've been doing the stuff, I've done my LinkedIn. I've done the networking. I'm going to go walk around the lake and chill out since it's not busy.
Bhavini Lakhani: It's brilliant. And that's the beauty of being freelance and working for yourself, isn't it? That you can do that. Whereas if I was working for somebody in the nine-to-five that I craved so badly, I would have to find something to do, wouldn't I?
Steve Folland: If you could tell your younger self one thing about being freelance, what would that be?
Bhavini Lakhani: Don't be afraid to say no. That is my ultimate, I think, because the minute I started saying no is when... I think that's when the magic started to happen. So don't be afraid to say no. It's not a bad thing to do.
Steve Folland: I meant to ask you… Okay, so there's no plan.
Bhavini Lakhani: No.
Steve Folland: Are there, I don't know, other people who you've since met within the freelance world, within the business world, because you go to a lot of networking events, where you've picked up what you're doing business-wise?
Bhavini Lakhani: Yes and no. I think business-wise in terms of certain processes. So, you know, making sure I'm sending out proper terms of business and contracts and things like that, I've picked up over the years from others that I've met, and I'm making sure I'm doing all that kind of stuff properly. As for everything else, no, not really. Because the way somebody does business isn't necessarily going to be right for me and vice versa. I feel like I've just got to find my own path and my own way of doing things, and it hasn't steered me wrong so far.