Exhibition Designer Rebecca Shipham - Revisited
About this episode…
EXHIBITION DESIGNER REBECCA SHIPHAM
Rebecca first shared her freelancing story on the Being Freelance podcast in October 2015.
Here we are, eight years on - time to hear what happened next, through the challenges and rewards of working directly with clients, her strategies for attracting and maintaining clients, the impact of the pandemic on her business (as exhibitions closed down overnight!), but the positives that emerged from it too.
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More from REBECCA SHIPHAM
Ships & Pigs website
Rebecca on Threads
More from Steve Folland
Transcript of the Being Freelance podcast with Steve Folland and exhibition designer Rebecca Shipham
Steve Folland: So normally I start by saying, how did you get started being freelance? Obviously there's a whole episode that people can go back and listen to, but that was in 2015. I think you'd been freelance for about six years and you were a freelance exhibition designer. I just described you as the same.
So that's a good start. But yeah. What happened next?
Rebecca Shipham: Well, when I spoke to you, I'd just won the IPSE freelancer awards thing and then because of that, I'd moved into being a limited company. Cause it just felt like. I kind of grew up, if you like. So I think when we spoke, that was the point I was at where I'd gone limited. I'd started getting some bigger clients as a result of the award.
But essentially the job that I was doing has stayed exactly the same, which is. Designing exhibition stands for clients all around the world. So I've been doing that now for 13 years, which is unreal.
Steve Folland: That's right. So you're trading as ships and pigs. That's your business name, but you don't pretend to be like an agency.
You're proudly. It's me. And you were getting clients via build agencies for exhibitions or creative agencies . Has that changed at all?
Rebecca Shipham: I still do a lot of work for build companies who haven't got creative bones in their bodies and need to outsource the creative and also to other creative agencies who are just stacked with work and need an extra pair of hands. But I guess what has really changed since when I spoke is that I've got quite a few of my own end clients now who are attending exhibitions and need design support. And for whatever reason, they wanted to use freelancers and smaller companies like myself, which is great because that is always what I wanted to do - to deal with clients myself and it just started happening around 2017 time. I started getting calls from these end companies and I thought, where are you all coming from? I haven't really done any specific promotion, but yeah, that's kind of the biggest change in that I've now got a good balance of working for companies that just need an extra pair of hands versus being treated as almost like a little design agency, even though it is just me.
Steve Folland: Has that made a difference to the way you deal with those clients? So previously there would be a middle man to the end client. So how are you finding dealing directly with them?
Rebecca Shipham: Oh, it's just like 10 times easier because I haven't got the middle man who might get, you know, the Chinese whisperer's effect.
I can almost manage the end client's time a bit more. If they say they want the design doing, I can say, okay, well, that will take two weeks as opposed to the middleman who might tell the same client that they can have it back tomorrow before checking with me. So it does make it easier in that way, but it can also be a little bit more stressful because you haven't got anyone that's going to kind of back you up.
If you do something wrong, you've got to face the music if the client's not happy. but it does make you feel a bit... it just makes me feel better, I think, when I'm dealing directly with a client, because I know that I'm being respected and taken seriously by the person that's making the final decision, which is a nice feeling.
What I do have, and it kind of keeps it safe, is that I've got some really good build teams, because I've worked with build teams for so long, builders. I know who's good and who I want to build the stands for me. I'm very transparent with my clients and I say, look, I don't build the stands.
I don't build exhibition stands, but this is the company that will build your stand. So you deal with them direct when it comes to making payments for the bigger build , bigger budget jobs. The client pays me for design. And then I say, right, here's the builder, sort out the payment between the two of you.
And then it stops me becoming the middleman because that's the last thing I want to happen. So yeah, in terms of how I do my business, it's still very much: they pay me for design and that's it, which keeps things simple.
Steve Folland: And how do you keep those relationships alive? So after they've come to you that first time...
Rebecca Shipham: I always do a social media post afterwards and tag them in and, you know, Pick them up and say, you must check out this company, they do X, Y, or Z. And I think it's just a case of keeping that communication just through casual conversations online. It doesn't need to be a hard sell email of I see you attending this show next year, let's connect. I'm not really that kind of business person. I'd rather just keep it friendly and personable and there's nothing to stop them going elsewhere in future years, that happens a lot.
But up to now, I've had repeat business from these clients, so I must do something right.
Steve Folland: And there was the small thing of the COVID pandemic, right? Basically exhibitions wouldn't have happened. So how did you get on with that?
Rebecca Shipham: It was awful. It was awful for everybody, I wasn't the worst affected. And because I'm a small business, i. e. just me, I don't really have many overheads. I could kind of ride out the storm. I switched to website design, brochure design, social media management, you name it. I just said, yeah, I can do that. And I didn't earn anywhere near as much money, but it was enough to just keep momentum and just keep your brain active to actually be in the mood to work.
I think we all kind of got a little bit lazy. I know when there was talk of events coming back, I was thinking, I don't think I've got it in me to go back to work. And we obviously soon got over that mindset and got back into it. But yeah, it wasn't the easiest. I don't know. A lot of the big exhibition companies did really struggle, it was a very hard time because there was just nothing, absolutely nothing.
Steve Folland: You say it like it was easy, oh I sort of pivoted to doing this, you know, website design, graphic design, anything design. But how did you do that? And, and have you since let it go? I
Rebecca Shipham: I think people felt sorry for me because I went onto what the website formerly known as Twitter and poured my heart out and said, you know, this is awful and my industry's gone.
And who knows if it will ever come back. And I think I have quite a good connection on a good bunch of people on Twitter and also in Hull, it's a big city but everyone's quite close knit and everyone kind of knows each other. And I think they just sort of said, oh well, we could do a new website Becky, why don't you do that?
Oh, we need a new brochure, why don't you do that? And I think part of it was just that they felt a little bit sorry for me, but then I did a good job so they came back for more. So it just kind of built from there. And I still do... I've got website clients that I built in that time that I still manage their website for now.
So it was a little sidestep, but it's meant long term I can offer that service as well.
Steve Folland: Well, I'm glad you got through it. That reminds me though, actually, you did talk about. When we spoke eight years ago about Twitter, you were saying how important it was, you know, mainly it was that you felt quite isolated and you found this community.
Rebecca Shipham: I don't like Twitter anymore. It's become really toxic. And I'm sure lots of people would agree. There was a really good community of designers on there, and they're probably all still there, but I can't see them through the fog of everyone being so angry, politically.
So, I'll post something all shiny and happy about a design job I'm doing, and it goes unnoticed, but if I tweet something about The Tory party, everyone will go, yeah, you're right, and get on it. And I'm like, oh, for goodness sake, can we talk about something else? So I've locked my Twitter account now.
I'm going to still call it Twitter, even though it isn't. And I've moved on to Threads, which is very quiet right now, but it means that you can just kind of start afresh and just talk about work and leave the politics and the angriness to other people.
Steve Folland: And what about, so, I must admit, right, I went to search for you on LinkedIn ...
I look. I search for you, I couldn't find you. Are you not on LinkedIn?
Rebecca Shipham: I'm not on LinkedIn. I deleted my account. Because I never got any work out of it. I must have been on there six years and I never got one lead. Nothing. And, to be honest, I find it quite a boring platform. No one talks.
They just talk about themselves. Everyone just talks about themselves and says how great they are. And I think, where's the humour and the chat? There isn't any of that, so I deleted my account.
Steve Folland: But you're mainly getting clients because you already exist and have existed for so long and have such good relationships and reputation in your niche?
Rebecca Shipham: I think so, and I do pay for Google AdWords as well. So that helps. I get customers to leave me reviews on Google, which gets you bumped up the page.
Keep my website up to date. Good SEO on there. Well, as good as I can do on my own. And yeah, I think it's just word of mouth. Obviously 13 years in industry, you do get the same people that have maybe moved to a different company that kind of take me with them if you like and recommend me. But then there's new clients coming all the time and I can only put that down to Google and just making sure that that's up to date frequently and, and social media I think does help 'cause it gives a personality to that brand.
It's often the first thing I do is. Look on someone's social link on their website to see kind of what they're posting about and what they're talking about Yeah, I think that's kind of as a package how it works and how I continue to build clients.
Steve Folland: So With Google AdWords, it must help that you've got a really defined niche?
Rebecca Shipham: Yeah, it's very niche.
When you google freelance exhibition designers, you haven't got much competition. Which does mean you don't have to spend a fortune - I think I spend something like £30 a month, it's nothing. And it does obviously come back with jobs, which is great. But once the advert's set up, it's just set up, you can go and tweak it if you want to, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it, basically.
That advert that I've got running now has been running for about five years, so I'm not gonna touch it. I'm not gonna do anything, it's working,
Steve Folland: And that would be an ad that comes up if I was to search for a freelance exhibition designer. So it's not like appearing on other blogs, that sort of ad. It's a search term.
Rebecca Shipham: Yeah, exactly, just, you Google it and I'll appear,
Steve Folland: And with that in mind do you like blog on your website? Do you regularly update your portfolio?
Rebecca Shipham: I don't blog on it I did start that but I I just find them too much It's quite time consuming to blog and to think about what to say and make it interesting Like I say, I keep my socials up to date and I'm forever updating the work on my website to make sure that my portfolio is constantly changing and up to date.
Otherwise it starts to just be the same and I get sick of it. I get sick of my own website. So I constantly change that and keep the the work on there up to date. And then it, again, it just helps with Google because I've got loads of images on there now when you search for. freelance exhibition designer.
Steve Folland: How much time do you set aside for that, because I speak to some people and they find it hard to find the time not necessarily for this podcast, I just mean freelancers in general, they find it hard to find the time to maybe change their portfolio at a case study or whatever.
Rebecca Shipham: Yeah, it is, I understand that, it is quite time consuming and I know Many of the designers that, because we kind of enjoy it when I think, I think I might start a new portfolio and then before you know it, it's two in the morning.
I use, I use Squarespace to build my website and they're really, really good for quickly being able to put together like a carousel of images or a gallery of images. And it looks. You don't have to spend too long perfecting it, because it's kind of already done for you. So that's how I do it, because then I know that the work's out there, it's quick, it looks passable, it looks nice.
And it saves me a ton of time of trying to make it perfect myself, because that's what we all do, right?
Steve Folland: The last time we spoke You were, I think you were partly sometimes working from home, by the by, we're years down the line.
Yeah. How's that changed over the years?
Rebecca Shipham: Still in the same place in that I've got this studio space, but I also have like the flat that's just Through that door. So, it's kind of working from home, but there's like a retail unit attached to the front of our flats. So, it kind of feels like you're going to work even though you're just going through a door.
It feels like it's got a different feel to it. It's very handy. So, that's how I have this nice big office. Even though it isn't part of my home, I don't really have to commute. I just walk through a different door.
Steve Folland: But does it feel like a mental commute?
Rebecca Shipham: Yeah. Massively. Massive mental commute. The biggest challenge is leaving that door.
Because once I'm in here, I get stuck, I start working and I start to enjoy it and I think I must actually go out that door.
Steve Folland: Do you find it hard to switch off or do you not care?
Rebecca Shipham: I find it easier to switch off now than I used to. I used to, it wasn't an obsession, but because I enjoy my work, I would work late and kind of not feel it.
And I think COVID, that's the legacy of COVID is that it made me think, hang on a minute, I can get by on less money. I don't have to take on every single job. I can actually allow myself to have time for myself. So that's the positive side of COVID is that it's maybe take a step back and think, well, Do you know what?
Let's stop work at six and go out for a walk or do whatever else I want to do. That's not, it makes me sound like I've got really good discipline. There are many times that I'm still sat here at eight or nine at night if there's a deadline, but generally speaking. I'm quite good at taking a step back and stopping if I need to
Steve Folland: Have you picked up, like, hobbies?
Rebecca Shipham: Yeah, I play piano. I've been playing piano. I played piano as a child and then stopped when I was about 16. Picked it up again about 10 years ago and now I've Got grade eight, piano, learning a bit of jazz. So that's good because I have a lesson every week. So it's like discipline, discipline gets me away from the desk and to do something fun.
And then other than that, just walking. I like to walk and go out for food.
Steve Folland: Two excellent hobbies. so cool about the piano.
Rebecca Shipham: Yeah, I enjoy it. It's good fun. Yeah, I'm not very good at performing. I get too nervous, but that's the next challenge. Get out there and take on the ivories in front of people.
Steve Folland: Excellent. Right, I'll come back in eight years. And just before you headline the Royal Albert Hall. But do you look to the future you or do you like quite happily? You know, just keep going, doing the do.
Rebecca Shipham: I do sometimes think about the future and whether or not I'll still be doing this in 30 years. I can't think of doing anything else really.
I do think about my younger self, like young, young freelancer. And I think, God, like, I didn't know anything. Yeah, I look back at some of my. early invoices and think they got value for money. Big style. So, I, I think, maybe I, maybe I wonder, because I've learnt so much in the last 13 years, I wonder how much more I'll learn.
Yeah, I think the biggest challenge I'm learning now is sticking up for myself. So
Steve Folland: Is that brought on by the fact that you're dealing with clients more directly?
Rebecca Shipham: No, they're, they're easy. It's, it's sticking up for myself with the middle man. Oh, right. Yeah. It can be hard sometimes to be, I think we touched upon this when you did a, a space thing.
Oh, yes. And we also, you, you spoke to a few people and they all said as freelancers, they'd feel like a sort of part time member of someone else's team that they can just chuck stuff out. And I know a few people said that when I listened to it. So you've got to stick up for yourself as a freelancer. Say, no, I'm running my own business here.
I'm not an extension to your team that you can just throw stuff at when you feel like it. So, yeah, that's, that's a challenge that I'm currently trying to overcome is sticking up for myself a bit more.
Steve Folland: Do you have business, I don't know, buddies, co mentors, coach, like, any of those sort of terms, or do you just figure everything out yourself?
Rebecca Shipham: No, I've got two, two besties, Laura and Steve, who are both freelance designers as well, and we speak every single day. And we will send each other work and say, what do you think to this? And sometimes we just do it just so that we can give each other praise. Because we already know it's good. But we just want that affirmation from someone else to say, yeah, good job.
Send it off. Or just someone to say, well, have you thought about doing this or changing this bit? And it's really helpful because it can be, it can be really lonely, freelancing. So I would say that's a big thing if you are freelancing anyone. Try and find someone that's maybe in a similar line of work to you and don't treat them as competition.
If you're in that kind of industry, like someone that you can have as a mentor or a buddy or whatever you want to word it as. Yeah, it stops that isolation for sure.
Steve Folland: Amazing. Rebecca, It's been really really lovely catching up and all the best continuing being freelance!
Rebecca Shipham: Thankyou!