Premium Designer Academy

You’re a talented designer pouring your creativity into every project, but your income isn’t reflecting your true value. Late nights juggling multiple clients, struggling to set the right prices, and feeling lost in a sea of competition can be incredibly frustrating.

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way.

Imagine transforming your design business into a thriving, profitable venture where you attract high-paying clients effortlessly. No more burnout, no more undervaluing your skills. Just a clear, actionable path to scaling your income to $10k-$20k/month and beyond. You deserve to be recognized and rewarded for your talent.

Introducing The Premium Designer Academy

In just 12 weeks, The Premium Designer Academy will guide you through a transformative journey designed to elevate your design business:

→ Clarify Your Niche: Discover the specific market that needs your unique skills and where you can truly stand out.
→ Create High-Ticket Offers: Develop irresistible packages that reflect the true value of your work, making it easier to attract premium clients.
→ Master Premium Outreach: Learn proven strategies to consistently connect with and secure high-value clients who are ready to invest in your services.
→ Automate Lead Generation: Streamline your processes to maximize efficiency and ensure a steady flow of quality leads without the constant hustle.

Why Choose PDA?

→ Personalized 1:1 Coaching: Get tailored guidance that addresses your unique challenges and goals.
→ Templates and Resources: Access tools that make implementing strategies straightforward and effective.
→ Supportive Community: Join a network of like-minded designers who are on the same path to growth and success.

Don’t let another day go by feeling stuck and undervalued. It’s time to take control and build the fulfilling design career you’ve always dreamed of. Join The Premium Designer Academy and start your journey to business success.

Connect with me to learn more or book a free clarity call.

Founder

Huw Davies Consulting

I'm the Founder of Six Figure Designer, helping Solopreneur graphic and web designers to achieve their business goals without stress. 

With my guidance, I have helped many clients grow their yearly revenue by 40%. I offer personalised coaching and mentoring to help you get seen and get organised so you can build a profitable business that makes you happy and fulfilled.

Online Business Coach, Brand Strategist & Mentor for Graphic Designers

adplist.org

Giving back to the graphic design community through mentoring.

Mentor, Visual Communication Design

New Co. Brand Design

Helping entrepreneurs grow their business online. 

Branding | Shopify | Email

Book a FREE 30-minute Strategy Session.

Working as a freelance senior graphic designer - short-term and long-term contracts - with various well-known brands in Melbourne.

- 7-Eleven Australia (6-month contract, in-house designer, brand and packaging specialist)
- Glanbia Performance Nutrition (3-month contract, in-house designer, brand and content specialist)
- Stanley Tools (3-month, freelance, brand and marketing specialist)
- Moose Toys (4-month, freelance, brand and packaging specialist)
- Officeworks (4-month, freelance, brand and marketing specialist)
- many others...

Freelance Senior Graphic Designer

BNI Yarra

A referral networking group of business professionals. 
We meet every Wednesday from 6:45-8:30 am via ZOOM. Visit today!

*all members of the BNI Yarra chapter contribute their time and energy on a voluntary basis. We all work together to build and grow our networks, leading to more referrals and closed business for our businesses.

President (volunteer role)

Feast-or-famine months wear down good designers. 
I teach a simple LinkedIn system that helps freelance creatives — graphic, product, web, UX, motion, and brand — land their first (or next) $5K client in 60 days. 

Most do it working just a few extra hours a week.

I spent two decades inside agencies watching studios charge five times my freelance rate. The fix wasn’t more effort. It was packaging the value — not the hours.

After years of testing, I boiled everything down to four moves:

1. Position yourself as a specialist clients remember — not a spare pair of hands
2. Turn your LinkedIn into a client-facing offer page that pre-sells you
3. Post short insights and start low-pressure, value-first conversations
4. Guide those into a simple sales call — and close at $5K+ without discounting


This system works across every design discipline:

- Riley jumped from $70/hr to a $10.5K brand strategy project in 7 days
- Amanda doubled her rate and booked a $5K branding gig in 60 days
- Taskia flipped an $850 website into a $7.5K retainer

Who it’s for:
Designers who’ve done at least one paid project and now want consistent premium work — without cold pitching or race-to-the-bottom job boards

What to do next:
Send me a DM with “First 5K” and I’ll reply with a short case study and the link to apply for the next 60-Day Sprint cohort.

Huw Davies
Premium Designer Academy
40+ designers served · $500K+ in client wins

#DesignBusiness #LinkedInForDesigners #PremiumClients #FreelanceDesign #UXDesign #BrandStrategy #MotionDesign

Huw Davies

3 weird ways designers actually get clients on LinkedIn 

(that no one talks about)...

All things I've seen work with my clients:

1. Comment on your ideal client's posts BEFORE you DM them
Stop commenting on other designers' work and start commenting on startup founders, CTOs, and marketing directors.

Why? When you DM them 3 days later, they recognise your name. You've "warmed them up" by showing up in their world first.

It's the difference between a cold DM and a familiar face.

2. Post the "unsexy" business stuff, not just pretty pictures
Everyone posts portfolio pieces. Zero context. Zero results. Just "here's another one for the folio."

Instead, post about:
• How your rebrand helped a client close their Series A
• The 3 mistakes most startups make with their website
• Why most SaaS companies fail at brand consistency during growth

Decision-makers don't care about your kerning, they care if you understand their business problems.

3. Send 5 DMs every single day even when you're booked
Most designers only reach out when they're desperate, then they panic, then they send shit messages.

Designers making $10k+ monthly? They're in DMs every day. Building relationships.  Starting conversations. Staying top-of-mind.

Your pipeline today = your income in 60 days.

These aren't "sexy" tactics.

No one's going to teach you this in a $2,000 LinkedIn course. But they work.

Because they're not about gaming the algorithm. They're about building real relationships with decision-makers.

—
Want the exact system for turning LinkedIn into a client acquisition machine?
Comment "SPRINT" and I'll send you the details 👊

DESIGNERS & CREATIVE PROS: Booked out but underpaid? Build $5k+ offers, attract better clients, and systemise your business on LinkedIn | See if you’re a fit 👇

Designers: your income isn’t inconsistent because your work is bad.   

It’s inconsistent because your lead flow is bad.  The reality is:  

You post a project → get a couple inquiries → disappear into client work   
Project ends → pipeline is empty → panic   
You say yes to the next random, underpriced job “just to pay rent”  

This is feast-and-famine, and it has nothing to do with talent.  

What I’m seeing on LinkedIn right now (and what I’ve been testing in my own business) is this:  

LinkedIn has gone from a social graph (“my network sees my posts”) to a content graph (“whoever posts what performs best gets the reach”).  

And what performs best?  

Not portfolios.
Not “here’s my latest logo, thoughts?”  

It’s lead magnets + how-to content.  

In my own testing, the stuff that actually turns into booked calls looks like:  

1. Positioning the profile correctly      
• Headline: “I help [specific niche] get [specific outcome] with [your service]”    
• Banner and About section point to one clear offer      
• No random links that distract from booking a call    

2. One simple lead magnet      
• Example: “LinkedIn Client System for Freelance Designers: how to get 3–5 leads/week without Upwork or job boards”      
• Worth at least $100 to your ideal client (this is what I’m seeing work best)      
• Posted weekly with a “comment [WORD]” CTA    

3. A basic DM habit      
• 10–20 messages/day to people who view your profile or engage with your posts
• Casual opener: “Hey, saw you’re also a [role] – what’s your current plan for getting clients from LinkedIn?” 

When designers actually run a version of this for 30–60 days, they go from:  

“I hope a referral shows up” to “I know roughly how many leads I’ll get this week”  

The game is not finding the one perfect post. 

The game is building a simple system that spits out leads every day so you never have to panic at the end of a project again.  

Over the last few months I’ve been using a version of this system myself, and I’m now turning it into a concrete checklist and training specifically for freelance designers and creative service pros.  

I’ve just finished the first version:  

Feast-to-Flow: the 30-minute-a-day LinkedIn client checklist for designers.  

Inside you’ll find:  
- The exact profile layout I’m using   
- 5 plug-and-play post templates for designers   
- The DM scripts that consistently get replies   
- A one-page tracking sheet so you actually see progress  

I’ll be rolling this into my paid coaching offer, but right now I’m giving the checklist away free while I’m finalising the training.  

If you’re a freelance designer or creative service pro and you want early access,  

Comment CHECKLIST and I’ll send it to you.

Last year, I spoke to a designer who was ready to quit freelancing.

She’d made just $1.2K that month.

Was refreshing job boards daily.
No replies. No traction. Just… noise. You know how it goes…

She told me:

“I don’t want to go back in-house. But I honestly don’t know how to make this work.”

We stripped everything back.
Simplified her offer.
Cleaned up her positioning.
Set a weekly system for connecting with leads.

Week 3 — booked her first $4.5K retainer.
Week 6 — added another $5K project.

She messaged:

“I feel like I finally know what I’m doing.”

That’s what the Sprint is for.

If you’re a creative stuck in that freelance no-man’s-land,
→ this is the system I wish I had when I started.

DM me “sprint” and I’ll send the details.

To build sustainable business value, you start with the goal, then earn the reputation that makes it possible.

At Reputation Sherpa, we guide CEOs and leadership teams to work backwards from their growth targets to define the reputation they need to achieve them. Then we help make it real.

Clients have attributed nearly half a billion dollars in added business value to this process.
Because when your reputation is clear, every path to growth gets easier:

--> Clients choose you faster
--> Employees stay longer
--> Investors see greater value

Using our CARAT framework (Credibility, Attention, Relatability, Authority, and Trust) we help turn your invisible wins into visible credibility.

Our frameworks are built on more than 15 years of research, psychology, and results across sectors from professional services to tech and infrastructure.

The outcome is a stronger reputation, inside and out, that amplifies your brand, builds stakeholder confidence, and increases the future value of your business.

If you’re ready to start with the goal and build the reputation that gets you there, let’s talk.

For insights on proactive reputation building, or to start a conversation, let's connect.

Jo Kinner

Any organisation that's thrived for 30 years creates significant value.
But it's so often buried under layers of words no one is reading.

For HCB Group, their reputation was already strong in one market. It just wasn’t transferring into a new geography with a different industry culture. 

After a session with their UK and Australian teams, we surfaced the gems in their offer. Then we created clear, value-based positioning and messaging for their internal team to roll out.

Of course, there’s more to be done. Reputation is a journey. 
Knowing where to start and what to do next makes for an easier climb.

Thank you Jim Harris, Derek Perkins 🇦🇺 and the HCB team. Working with people this kind and committed is always a pleasure.

Take your business further with a higher reputation | We guide you | Founding Partner at Reputation Sherpa

It takes around two months to climb Mt. Everest. 

I must admit that's longer than I thought. (I mean, how hard can it be? 😜 !!)

Some guides offer "fast track" expeditions, but they're riskier. It takes time to acclimatise to a higher elevation.

After weeks of trekking to base camp, climbers ascend gradually, build a higher camp, come back, rest and recover. When they set off again, they're better prepared. And each time they start from a higher place.

It's the same with organisations that succeed long-term. They don't overextend by pushing too hard too soon.

The clients I've helped reach their particular summits 
--> better quality clients
--> new revenue targets
--> first customers in a new market
--> investor confidence
--> a sale or acquisition 
didn't get there in one go either. 

They pushed ahead toward their reputation goal, then paused. When they called me back in (sometimes two years later), they were ready to go again.  

The pause is vital. CEOs and teams need time to acclimatise to internal changes and consolidate their resources. Then they set off from a higher place than before. 

If you're aiming for your next peak and are promised a rapid ascent to the top, think about the risks of overextending. 

Why is it that we always chase the promise of fast results, when we know a controlled climb is the best way to get where we're going?

----
I'm Jo from Reputation Sherpa. I help business leaders use reputation as a strategic tool to build long term value in their company and brand.

Why are some women reporting a massive boost in reach by switching their profile gender to "male?" It seems the use of AI is compounding the issue.

I dug into this and here's what I found:
--> LinkedIn doesn't filter content by demographics like gender or race
--> Its algorithm ranks and recommends content based on “quality”
--> Higher quality content is then amplified to test for engagement

So the first question is: What counts as "quality" to an algorithm? 
It appears to use leadership signals as filters. It ranks for topic authority, network size, job seniority, engagement levels, and language style.

On a business platform, that makes sense. But there's a problem. 

Algorithms aren't neutral. They absorb social and cultural patterns from the world. Those patterns have bias baked in. 

Research shows the algo rewards a direct, decisive language style. Writing that's more tentative or reflective gets filtered out. Not because readers reject it. Just because they don't get to see it.

AI content is reinforcing this dominant style. 
-->More people use AI to write posts 
--> those posts sound like 'leadership' and get amplified
--> AI tools learn what 'works' on LinkedIn and generate more of it. 

So no, LinkedIn isn’t suppressing content based on a gender switch. It doesn’t need to. The data is encoding what business leadership looks and sounds like and dishing up more of that, whether we like it or not!

Who else has experimented with this? Keen to know what you found.
---
I'm Jo. I usually post about reputation but sometimes deviate.

--> "Reputation is dead!" 
--> "You don't need brand trust."

I've seen some spicy takes on LinkedIn lately.

After my initial 𝘱𝘧𝘧𝘵𝘴, I decided to actually read the posts. The points were valid. They just looked at the issue from a different frame of reference. 

It's true that not all brands need to build trust equally. 
They only need to meet the baseline level of trust for their category. And that baseline varies widely.

You don't need to trust a hammer brand the same way you trust a car brand. And a barber doesn't rely on reputation the same way a financial adviser does.  

For low-involvement categories, the baseline is simpler: safe, effective, available, fairly priced. 

As price and complexity increase, so do risk and expectations. Expertise, honesty, compliance, and leadership all matter more. So does trust.

The more brand trust and reputation are 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘩 to your business, the more you need to invest in them. 

So when someone says, "reputation is dead," maybe they mean "reputation is less important to some companies than others." But that's not exactly a scroll-stopping hook! 😜

What's been called “dead” in your industry that might just need viewing from a different angle?

----
I'm Jo from Reputation Sherpa. I help business leaders use reputation as a strategic tool to build long term value in their company and brand.

I had a different post planned for today. But after reading the news, I couldn't write about business reputation. 

All day I've been thinking about the reputation of people. 

In particular, individuals willing to stake their personal reputation on the belief that power and privilege will protect them, no matter what.

So they deny, distract, and deflect, waiting for the expected protections to kick in. 

But as my mum always used to say, "truth will out." (Shakespeare might have said it first, but it holds up whatever). 

And when that happens, the repeated lies -- and the arrogance and entitlement that accompanies them -- make everything worse.

I watched the interview the late Virginia Giuffre gave to journalist Tara Brown. 
She talked about that infamous photo of her with the former Prince. She described the room, the girls, the power dynamics, the dehumanisation. It was a hard listen. 

Of course we've all heard the denials: I've never met her, I don't remember, the photo might be doctored, those aren't my fingers. 👀 🫱 Deny, distract, deflect.

Now we see evidence of the pleading for protection, asking others to deny everything, complaining their lives are being ruined. The pattern of believing a title will make everything uncomfortable disappear.

The point is, whether you run a country or a company, your reputation isn't protected by privilege. Reputations are built on trust and protected by truth.

The first rule of crisis communication is: Don’t make it worse.
But those who believe they’re untouchable do exactly that. And their personal reputations, rightly, pay the ultimate price.

Back to normal business programming shortly. 🤨

Open article: 'I can't take any more': Former prince Andrew emailed Epstein for help by abc.net.au

'I can't take any more': Former prince Andrew emailed Epstein for help

A financial services CEO told me their clients didn't care about brand. 

We were about to interview their stakeholders and brand is one of the dimensions we explore. 

Sure enough, the first two clients said "brand doesn't matter." They were happy this firm flew under the radar. To them, a known brand just meant higher prices. 

Interesting, I thought. These were loyal clients in their traditional niche.
-->they already trusted them
-->they knew the quality of their work
-->they'd experienced promises kept 
--> it was a close-knit industry where word of mouth travelled.

They didn't care about brand. They already had the evidence they needed.

Then I spoke with newer clients and referrers in the larger growth market they saw as their future. They loved my client's service, but said:
--> their website didn't look professional
--> they wanted materials to share that explained the firm's value
--> their own clients preferred to deal with a recognised name

This firm was highly regarded and didn't need a major overhaul.
We clarified their positioning, refreshed their visual identity and produced a strong company profile informed by their clients' perspectives. Not long afterwards, they were acquired by a leading player in the new market.

If your current clients “don’t care about brand,” it’s likely because they already trust you. But future clients don't come with trust built in. How does your services firm make its value clear?

This report by Craig Badings and SenateSHJ on the Future of Reputation is timely reading for anyone leading through uncertainty. 

We're moving further into an era where disinformation, polarisation, and AI make it harder to know where to place our trust. And where, as Scott Sayres puts it, "it's never been easier to torpedo a company with half-truths and lies." 

Building an aligned reputation "from within," as Alan Chumley says, gives organisations a structural integrity that can resist many pressures.

The report dispels common misconceptions about what reputation is and isn't, and positions it firmly at the centre of business strategy (where it belongs!)

Thank you, Craig for undertaking this important work and for inviting me to take part. Thanks also to the many leaders featured who've advanced our collective understanding in an area I am passionate about.
Look forward to learning with and from you.

Partner at SenateSHJ, PRovoke Innovator Asia Pacific 2024. Passionate about building and protecting your reputation

What a privilege it has been to interview the 44 global experts on reputation, corporate affairs, communication and risk for SenateSHJ's Future of Reputation 2030 report.  

For anyone in an executive role that touches on communication, culture, risk or reputation, this is essential reading. Here is the link - go to the bottom of the web page and you can download the full report:  https://lnkd.in/gJGHwFji 

Unfortunately, I am limited by how many people I can tag below, but a massive thank you to the experts who took part:
Oliver Freedman, Anthony Larmon, Patricia Santa Marina, Tony Jaques, Stephen Waddington, Gary Davies, Paola Vallejo, Chris Savage, Trevor Young, Peter M. Sandman, Jo Kinner, Mike Abel, Dirk Aarts, Rod Cartwright, Dustin Chick, Kasper Ulf Nielsen, Emmanuel Goedseels, Michael Felber, Basil Towers, Tony Langham, Sandra Macleod, Peter Heneghan, Mark Hutcheon, Amy Binder, Scott Sayres, Lori Turner, Ron Culp, Ralph Jackson, Mignon van Halderen, Elliot S. Schreiber, David McCarthy, Karine Lohitnavy, Lida Citroen, Paul Stamsnjider, Rupert Hugh-Jones, Richard Tsang, Victoria Cross, Alan Chumley, Jason Laird, Helio Fred Garcia, Gerry McCusker, Stephen Thomas, Thomas Fife-Schaw and Will Hetherton

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The Battle

Huw Davies

Jo Kinner

Followers

Posts

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Performance ScoreHuw Davies's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJo Kinner's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Huw Davies

Jo Kinner

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Huw Davies's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJo Kinner's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreHuw Davies's LinkedIn Performance