A design studio’s guide to working 

with clients 
A guide and illustrations by HAWRAF 
 
 
Prelude 
 
We’re HAWRAF. HAWRAF is an interactive design and technology studio making things that 
engage people in new and interesting ways. We’ve done it for Fortune 500 companies and 
startups alike. Along the way, we learned a few things about working with clients and setting up 
successful relationships, so assembled this guide of of our best learnings and practices. 
 
Despite our (thus far, mostly) successful track record, we should note that while this is how 
*we* do things at HAWRAF— that doesn’t mean that this is the *only* way, let alone the *best* 
way. It’s simply a way. You should experiment to see what works best for you. Similarly, what 
works for you today might not work for you a month, year, or decade from now, so keep 
experimenting. (We will, too.) 
 
xoxo, 
Carly and your friends at HAWRAF 
 
 
Contents  
 
1. Understanding Your Value 
2. Screening Clients 
3. Following Up 
4. Deciding Whether You Should Do This Project 
5. Writing the Proposal 
6. Following Up (Again) 
7. Sealing the Deal 
 

   
1. Understanding Your Value 
 
Calculating What it Costs To Be You  
The first step to a healthy value exchange is understanding what your value is, in terms of what 
you have to offer, as well as what you need. Let’s start by doing the math on what it costs to be 
you.   
 
- Calculate how much money you need to make each year. Include living expenses, meals, 
rent, insurance, taxes, et cetera. Give yourself $10k for a vacation, and a cushion for 
unforeseen emergencies. (It’s a good rule of thumb to try to maintain 3 months of living 
expenses.) 
- Give yourself a base number (your bare minimum income needed to survive), a target 
(what you’re aiming for, a comfortable, livable wage), and a goal (more than what you 
need, but something to aspire to). These are your income benchmarks. 
- (Lewis Weil’s A ​ n artist's guide to financial planning​ is a helpful reference when it comes 
to creating a more comprehensive financial plan.) 
 
things you eat + things you wear + the place you live + insurance + taxes + (3 months living 
expenses) = $Income 
 
 
Calculating What it Costs To Run Your Business 
Beyond living your life, there are costs that go into running your business. Let’s calculate those 
now.  
 
- Calculate how much money it costs to operate your business each year. This includes 
office rent, work insurance, self-employment or business taxes, as well as cost of labor, 
internet, software, office supplies, advertising and marketing expenses, legal and 
professional fees, et cetera. 
- Add these onto your base, target, and goal incomes. These are now your revenue 
benchmarks. (​Income​ is revenue minus the cost of goods sold and operating expenses.)  
- Cost of living increases by 1.5-3% annually, so repeat this exercise every year. If you have 
employees, you’ll need to account for merit raises, bonuses, and scaling expenses. 
 
$Income + $Business Expenses = $Revenue 
 
 
Calculating Your Hourly Rate 
Once you know what it costs to be you and run your business, you can work backwards to 
calculate your hourly rate—or how much time you must spend working to achieve your desired 
lifestyle. 
 
- Calculate how many days you and any additional members of your team will work. Start 
with the earthly limits of one year (365 days), subtract weekends, holidays, vacation, and 
sick days.  
- Multiply that number by the number of hours worked each day, subtracting the time 
spent on non-billable or administrative tasks (i.e. taking out the trash, checking email, 
sending invoices, eating food). This is your number of annual billable hours. 
- Divide your annual base, target, and goal revenues (aka your income plus business 
expenses) by your annual billable hours. This is your hourly rate.  
- Cross-check this number with any number of other rate calculators online (​1​, ​2,​ ​3​). 
 
$Annual Revenue / Annual Billable Hours = $Hourly Rate 
 
- At minimum, you need to charge your base hourly rate. That’ your economic reality. 
Anything less and you are losing money. To live comfortably, you’ll want to charge your 
target and if you have an opportunity to charge your goal— that’s more in the bank. 
 
 
Figuring Out What Your Services Cost 
Now that you have your hourly rate, you know what you need to survive. Here, we’ll calculate how 
that correlates to the services you offer. 
 
- If you haven’t already, list all the services you offer through your business.  
- Track your time to understand how long it takes you to perform these services. There 
plenty of time-tracking tools (​1​, 2​ ​, ​3,​ ​4​). The best way to get better at estimating how 
long something takes is through diligent tracking and experience.  
- Multiply your newfound hourly rate by the time it takes you to complete each service. 
This should give you an understanding of what it costs you to offer these services. 
 
 
A Quick Argument Against Hourly Rates 
At HAWRAF, we’re not big fans of charging an hourly rate. Instead, we charge flat, value-based 
fees for each project. A few reasons: 
 
- Charging hourly rates means we’re in the business of selling our time versus our work 
and all client conversations eventually circle back to that. 
- Charging hourly limits our ability to growth. The only way to increase revenue when we’re 
at capacity is to add more people (hours), complete the work in less time (efficiency), or 
raise our rates.  
- Additional reading: Teehan+Lax (pre-Facebook-acqui-hire) wrote on ​getting rid of their 
hourly rate​ in lieu of ​tiered value-based pricing​. Dan Mall, founder and director of design 
collaborative SuperFriendly, wrote a great book called P ​ ricing Design​. Femke wrote 
about v​ alue pricing specifically for freelancers​. 
 
 
Pricing Your Services Base On Their Value 
You should charge based on the value of what you’re offering. You add value through your 
education, experience, skills, process, and other things you bring to the table. The end result of 
what you have to offer is more valuable than simply your time spent. 
 
- So, what are your services worth? Ideally more than it costs you to perform them. Scale 
your service cost depending on variables such as:  
- Is the client an individual, small or medium sized business, or mega corp? 
- What will the project do for them? Increase their bottom line? Improve efficiency? 
- Are you interested in the project? Can you leverage it in the future? 
- At the core of ​value pricing​ is understanding the value to your client, which is difficult 
without a specific client in mind. You can understand the market value of what a website 
is worth to most people, but there is a drastic difference in the value of a website meant 
to secure the data of 1.86 billion monthly active users versus one to share hours for a 
local ice cream shop. 
- It also helps to determine competitive costs for your service in your industry and region. 
Ask others what they’re charging. (Cis white men are a great benchmark.) 
- You should also know what the next best alternative to your service is. (Say, if you make 
custom websites, how do they compare to Squarespace?) 
- Not every client will agree with the value you place on your services. It is your 
responsibility to communicate your value. If you can’t come to an agreement on value 
for the services being rendered, it is unlikely to be a good working relationship. 
 

2. Screening Clients 
Now that you know what you’re worth, you’re ready to do work and be compensated for it. 
And—what’s that? You just got an email from a potential client. Time to set up a great working 
relationship. 
 
 
Setting Up A Call or IRL Meeting 
Informational calls let you screen a potential client before investing too much time. Depending on 
the information you have already, you can choose to skip straight to an IRL meeting. 
 
- Depending on the scope of the project or the level of bureaucracy entailed, this might be 
followed with an(other) IRL meeting, where you meet other decision makers. 
- Set a date, a time, and expectations around who will contact who and via what channel. 
Send an invite. Send a confirmation email the day before. 
- Come prepared with as much information as possible. Determine: 
- Who is the client? Where are they based? How many employees do they have? 
 - Do they have investors? ​How much funding do they have​?  
- What is their annual revenue​? Sales projections? ​Recent press​? 
- What is the role of the person you’re talking to? How long have they been there? 
What is their expertise? 
- This can help you estimate how much money they have (team size, investment, sales), 
what they’ve done so far, as well as give you some conversational banter. 
- How you handle this initial meeting can foreshadow the rest of the project. Set 
expectations for the client relationship you want to have. 
 
 
Having The Conversation 
This is your opportunity to gather the information necessary to decide whether you want to do this 
project and at what rate. It’s also an opportunity to sell yourself and your services. 
 
- Ask any questions you still have, such as:  
- What is the challenge?  
- What are their biggest concerns? 
- What are the expected outcomes? What does success look like? 
- Have they worked with [whatever it is you do] previously? How was that? 
- Are they talking to anyone else for the job? If yes, who? What will be the biggest 
deciding factor? When are they trying to decide by? 
- Dan Mall has a ​great article on pre-qualifying clients​. 
- This is also an opportunity to educate this potential client on what it is you do and why 
they should work with you. You should talk about your knowledge, skills, abilities, 
process, experience, and anything else that demonstrates your value. 
- Now, having communicated your value and with a knowledge of their project and its 
challenges, ask what their budget and timeline is. They will likely say one of these things: 
 
(A) They give a number and it’s way too low or the timeline that is way too fast. 
- If the number is lower than your base number for what you can do the project for 
without losing money, tell them. You’re not doing anyone any favors by saving the 
conversation for later.  
- Potentially, they have no idea what this work should cost. Better yet, they have 
budget elsewhere that they can apply to the project. Better to find out now. 
 
“Oof. That’s pretty low for a project of this scale. Is there additional budget for this 
anywhere else in the company?” 
 
- If it’s low but not heinously so, then you can begin the conversation about how 
you would reduce the scope or increase the timeline to make it work.  
 
 “Ah, that’s a bit low for a project of this scale—is there any wiggle room there? No? Well, I’ll 
have to talk to the team, but we’ll likely have to reduce the scope or increase the timeline 
to make this work.” 
 
- If the timeline is way too short, you can either over-extend yourself or hire more 
people to help accomplish the work in that shorter window. Either way, you 
should increase your rate.  
 
“Whoa! That’s a speedy one. Any wiggle room? No? Well, it’s not impossible, but we 
typically charge an expedition fee to cover the additional manpower needed to get this 
done in time.” 
 

 
 
(B) They give a budget and a timeline that are pretty reasonable. 
- Nice! You have a potential client seems educated in market rate and average 
timelines for the service you might be providing. 
- Get any additional information you need, then let them know next steps. 
 
(C) “There is no budget.” or “We were hoping *you* could help us with that.” 
- This is the most common answer. Perhaps they genuinely do not know, or they’re 
hoping that you’ll come in lower. Either way, there is always a budget. (If there 
isn’t, end the conversation as quickly as possible.)  
- Now, you’re going to try to get a number. A few approaches: 
 
1. Give a number. This is scary because you might be leaving money on the 
table, but you know your worth. This isn’t about getting as much money 
as possible, it’s about enabling you to live your life and run your business. 
Try something like, “A project like this typically starts at $65k.” You’ll get 
an immediate reaction on whether this is unrealistic for them.  
2. Give a range. “Our pricing for a project like this tends to run $50k to 
$100k. Is that comfortable for you?” 
 3. Offer a few price points to force sticker shock. This is another page from 
the book of D
​ an Mall​. Say, “So are we talking $5k, $50k, or $500k?” 
Usually, they’ll say, “Definitely not $500k!” “So, how does $50k feel?” “That 
sounds about right.” Fantastic. 
 
- We avoid agreeing to anything during this conversation. Even if it sounds like a fit, we 
review everything as a team (off the call) before committing.  
 
“This sounds good to me, but I’m going to have to check with the rest of the team and get back to 
you.” o
​ r ​“We have a few things up in the air at the moment, so let me check where those are at 
then let you know.” 
 

3. Following Up 
We usually try to follow up on these calls within 48 hours. Otherwise, details are forgotten 
forever. 
 
- Aside from getting everything out of your head, a quick follow up email provides a 
shared reference to keep everyone on the same page. (This can be helpful if any legal 
issues arise down the road.) 
- This email also sets expectations around what comes next— be that additional details, a 
decision, a proposal, or when they should expect to hear from you. 
 
“Stewart! Excited about this. It sounds like you’re looking for an ecommerce site with a launch 
date in early October. On our end, we’re going to put together a proposal given your budget of 
$100-160k. Let me know if anything changes, otherwise you’ll hear from us by the end of next 
week.” 
 
  

4. Deciding Whether You Should Do This Project 

You’ve gathered a lot of information. Give yourself some time to reflect on what you discussed, 
what they want, and what you need. Ask yourself: 
- Do you want to do this project? 
- Does the budget align with your economic realities? If not, are there ways you can 
get it to? (Fewer rounds, more creative freedom, or something else?) 
- If not, do you need this project? Is working at a loss better than missing out on 
the project altogether to invest that time elsewhere? Say, your website or writing 
emails to potentially better paying clients? 
 
  
 
Upon deep reflection, you arrive at one of these conclusions: 
 
(A) You decide not to do the project. 
- This is hard, but one of the hardest things you’ll learn is when to say no. You 
arrived here after thoughtful deliberation, so you be confident in your no. Feel the 
no. The no is you giving yourself room to say yes to other things, and so on. 
- Explain why you won’t be taking the project—be it timeline, bandwidth, budget, or 
some other white lie to maintain the relationship: “​ This is just not a great fit for us 
right now.” ​Hopefully they get it, and you can move on. 
- If you’re feeling generous and you didn’t turn down the project because it sounds 
like absolute hell, refer it to someone else.  
 
(B) You decide you’ll do the project, but only if… [more money] [fewer deliverables] [you can 
extend their ambitious and absolutely impossible timeline] 
- These conversations tend to work best as calls, but depending on your 
bandwidth and comfort in having that conversation, sometimes you can prattle 
off an email that explains what you need to make this project happen. 
- If you’re able to find a comfortable middle ground, move on to​ ​Writing the 
Proposal​. 
 
(C) You decide to do the project. 
- If the project met your target budget and timeline with an achievable scope of 
work, move along to ​Writing the Proposal​. 
 - In the chance that it did not, have the internal dialogue necessary to let you sleep 
at night or justify it to your team (​“But this is going to look *great* in our portfolio,” 
I say to Andrew over and over again...). Then move on to W ​ riting the Proposal​. 
 

5. Writing the Proposal 

Fantastic! You have a potential project that you are willing and able to do. Now it’s time to get it 
in writing. 
 
Making your proposal 
- This comes in many forms. At the very least, it should include: deliverables, budget, 
timeline, contact information. 
- It can also include: your background, team, approach, awards, an outline of each phase, 
individual check-in or handoff dates.  
- The scale and competitiveness of the project should dictate the amount of time and 
effort you put into this. Meaning, if it’s a low budget or your chances of winning it are 
unlikely, don’t spend the next 3 days making a proposal for it. 
- We add copy that says we arrived at the number based on the client needs and budget, 
and we work with our clients to create scopes and budgets that work for them. 
- Never say something is negotiable. This signals that you aren't confident in your pricing 
or the value you offer. If they need to negotiate, they will.  
- Send proposal, including any next steps: 
 
“Michelle! Back in your inbox with a proposal based on the pieces we discussed. Give it a spin 
then let's chat. Would love to find a way to work together.” 
 
 
Sitting in your silence  
- Sit in your silence and in your power of knowing the the number you’ve given is one that 
is competitive to the industry and accurate to your own economic realities.  
- Give them time to think. They’re making a big decision, too. Chances are, they have a lot 
of other things on their plate. Give yourself a week before following up. 

6. Following Up (Again) 
You sat in your silence and now you’re getting antsy. You’re trying to run a business over here. 
Time to get this show on the road.  
 
- Send an email checking in. I’m an avid fan of the ​“just jumping to the top of your inbox” 
line because it’s quirky and cute. Others might go with a: ​“following up to see if you have 
any updates on this?” 
- If necessary, get on a call to walk through the proposal and answer any questions. 
 
(A) They say no. 
- Perhaps they ​“decided to go in another direction”​ or just ghosted you entirely. 
- Regardless, follow up. We do a postmortem in case there’s anything we can learn and 
apply to our process in the future. If they won’t get on a call, send a short survey. 
(Thanks for the idea, ​Cameron​. :) 
 
(B) They want to do the project with you, but only if… [less money] [more deliverables] [you can 
meet their ambitious and absolutely impossible timeline] 
- Go back to D​ eciding Whether You Should Do This Project​, ​and repeat. 
 
(C) They decide to move forward. 
- Yay! Get on a call to discuss the proposal and make sure you’re all in agreement. 
- Discuss payment schedules. We charge an initial payment, another ¾ of the way 
through, and a final amount once we’ve handed off all deliverables.  
- Net-30​ and 45 are pretty standard, but we try to do Net-15 whenever possible. 
- Tell them to expect a contract from you and invoice for initial deposit.  
 

7. Sealing the Deal 

Now that you’ve agreed upon a budget, timeline, final deliverables, payment schedules—and 
whatever else you negotiated, now is time to seal the deal.  
 
- If you don’t already have one, there are many resources to cobble a contract together. If 
you’re a creative human, AIGA has a ​Standard Form of Agreement for Design Services​. 
- The most important thing to include is the budget, timeline, and deliverables—as well as 
any payment schedules, and exit strategy should everything go horribly awry. What 
happens if there’s a missed deadline? Is there a k ​ ill fee​? Make sure it’s crystal clear. 
- Disclosure: We are not lawyers and you shouldn’t rely on our recommendation as sound 
legal advice. If you can afford a lawyer, get one. 
- Send it. Get a signed version. Counter-sign it. Send it back to them. Meanwhile, confirm 
upcoming dates. 
- Ta-da! You have a client. 
 
 
   
Headshot 
 
Download: ​https://drive.google.com/open?id=1NOQ5BdOY4f_p2zzQThD0EEEdnH_QTOvJ 
 
Photograph by J​ ulia Robbs​, with added illustrative elements by HAWRAF. 
 
 
Bio 
 
Carly Ayres is a foundering partner at HAWRAF, a design and technology design studio that 
engages audiences in new and interesting ways. Co-founded with Andrew Herzog, Nicky Tesla & 
Pedro Sanches, the studio is f​ ull-service and media agnostic​, covering branding, design, 
development, marketing, and execution. 
 
From generative identity systems for orchestras that react to sound to mirrored selfie posters 
for dental startups, HAWRAF creates interactive communications for consumer-facing brands 
that help them have more meaningful, authentic interactions with their end users. 
 
They do it well, too. Andrew was named as one of P ​ rint Magazine’s 15 under 30 New Visual 
Artists​. In 2017, Carly was listed as one of the ​100 Most Creative People in Business by Fast 
Company​. Together, they’ve spoken on conference stages in London, Stockholm, Belfast, and 
New York City. Nicky was named Best Musician in high school. He was in the jazz band. 
 
All four are alumni of the Google Creative Lab, where they collaborated on a range of projects 
from interactive web applications to physical installations. There, they worked on projects that 
humanized artificial intelligence​ and e​ volved the Google logo​. And now they’re here.