Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Colleen Gratzer. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Colleen, thanks for joining us today. Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?

It was 2016. I had been a designer for close to 20 years and had had my own design consulting business for 13 years. I was at a point in my business where I felt stuck and miserable.

I was making good money, but I was working all the time. I had clients who I later realize disrespected me because they often paid late, refused to pay late fees, bullied me or felt entitled.

I found it hard to get work from new clients, and I desperately wanted new (and better) clients.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do something else entirely or what. But I knew I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing. I felt so out of control in my business.

I was bullied as a child. I was a people pleaser. I felt like if a client didn’t like my policies or questioned them that it must be me. I must be doing something wrong. I wasn’t confident. I always overanalyzed decisions I made. I didn’t trust myself.

I was afraid to charge more. I took on bad clients. I didn’t set boundaries with clients. My business was at the whim of my clients. I really wasn’t in charge.

I listened to the wrong people for advice, people who weren’t business owners and told me to “suck it up” because clients paid me.

No wonder I was miserable!

I did a few mentoring sessions with a coach and put some policies in place, which was difficult for me to do. I wasn’t confident about doing it because I knew I’d face resistance from certain clients. Although I hated how some of them made me feel, I was also afraid some would leave.

This entire time, I continued to mull over what else I would do if it wasn’t having my creative business and doing work for clients.

I had the idea to start a paid mentoring community. I was a great designer and I could help other designers enhance their skills and become better designers, so they could be more confident and charge more.

I ran the idea by a coach I consulted with for a short time, and she thought it was a great idea. But I didn’t know where to start, so I didn’t do anything about it.

Right after that, I joined a paid course and community at the recommendation of a colleague. That helped me with some additional business issues I was experiencing. I started to realize that most of my business issues actually stemmed from my own personal issues.

On a totally separate note (but which you will see plays a major factor later), a local business owner who provided accessibility services to the federal government, who knew of me from a local email list, reached out to me about taking one of her accessibility classes.

I admitted to her I didn’t even know what accessibility was. She said she was trying to get some designers into it and thought I’d be good at it because she knew of my strong design and technical skills (that I could code websites too).

I thought, OK, sure, I’ll take the course and see where this goes. None of my clients had ever mentioned it, so I thought it might just be a fluke.

In the meantime, I was still part of that course community. A lot of designers there were hiring small teams to help them with their workload. I had always worked by myself in my business but thought this could help give me some time back in my business.

The problem was I was doing every type of design work you can imagine—anything print or for the web. I didn’t have enough work for two different people with two different skillsets—a designer and a web developer.

So I consulted with someone who was known by this community who had a hiring business. I told him of my issue—I wasn’t sure who to hire and for what. I didn’t have enough hours to give to two people.

Suddenly in that conversation, he asked, “What do you really want to do? What do you really want to be paid to do?”

I said, “Well, it’s funny you ask, because for a couple years now, I’ve had the idea to start a paid design mentoring community to help other designers enhance their design skills.”

He recommended I go read the book Built to Sell and then schedule another call with him.

This was so strange but in a good way. Here, I had contacted someone about potentially hiring someone in his business to help me, and he’s asking me what I want to do with my life and to go read a book.

I read the book and had another call with him. He said he could tell I was serious and told me that no one knew who I was as a designer other than my clients. So to build a new audience, I should podcast.

I was like, “Oh, no. Podcast?! That’s on my list of 3 Ps, things I don’t do: podcast, planes and public speaking.”

Plus, why would I want to podcast? Put myself out there for others to criticize? No, thanks. I had had enough of that in my lifetime. Not only that, but I didn’t know anything about audio or video. I did know one thing: I definitely wasn’t ready for video!

But I realized that my fears were not as strong as my desire to help other designers. So I learned from Pat Flynn’s website about microphones and bought myself a Rode.

When coming up for podcast topics, I thought, you know, I actually have much more to share than just design-related matters. I could even talk about my own journey and what I’ve done well and what I wish I had done differently.

Soon after publishing the first few episodes of the podcast, I braced myself for criticism:

“Oh, her voice! I can’t listen.”

“OMG. I can’t believe she’s been in business this long and still putting up with bad clients.”

“What kind of advice is this?!”

I didn’t hear anything like that. In fact, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive! I couldn’t believe it!

I soon realized podcasting was a full-time job and I would need help with my other business to be able to do client work and podcast.

I immediately hired a designer to help me—on a contract basis though, not as a part-time designer.

Later that year, I worked with a coach one on one for several months. We did a lot of business work and mindset work. She had me do a lot of uncomfortable things like get rid of certain services and approach the bad clients. I even cried at the thought of getting rid of the services but am so glad I did do that.

She told me I made good decisions and just needed to trust myself.

I gained a lot of clarity and confidence. I started snapping out of this bad mindset I had had for years.

So in a period of two years, I had these tremendous business and personal discoveries, gained a new mindset, thought of a new business idea and started a podcast.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have always been creative. I was constantly drawing as a child. I loved art.

We got our first family computer when I was 10. My father taught me DOS. I also played some games on the computer.

When it came time to think about what I wanted to do for a career, it was natural for me to think about graphic design. It merged my love for art and design with the computer.

In high school, I met with a guidance counselor, who told me if I wanted to study art in college, I needed to learn French. This sounded strange to me because my two favorite artists were Spanish—Dalí and Miró—but I figured she must know better.

I was already taking Spanish and loved it, so I wasn’t about to drop it. So I added French.

When I went to college, I decided on a double major: graphic design and foreign languages.

Ironically, by the time I graduated in 1997, I had only the foreign language degree. I didn’t finish my graphic design degree. But because I had gotten a job prior to graduating that I started right after graduation, I took the one degree and the job. I started working as a designer for a nonprofit.

I ended up also working for a couple publishing companies and a design firm, but I had always wanted to work for myself. So I freelanced from the beginning in addition to having a full-time job.

My former places of work would hire me as a freelancer to help them out with overflow work, and my former colleagues would hire me a freelancer when they went on to other jobs.

I became known as a designer for nonprofits because of my first job out of college and all the referrals I would get from people who knew that organization and then those who became clients, who also referred other nonprofits to me.

In 2003, I made my creative business, Gratzer Graphics, an LLC. In 2004, after working a full-time job and freelancing for seven years, I left the job to work for myself full time. After all, I was making more money on the side than at that job.

I was offering all kinds of design services, from branding to print and websites.

In 2016, after learning accessibility though, I started talking about that with clients. Even though none of them had ever mentioned it and most weren’t interested in it at first, I started getting the work little by little—from those who did know they needed it. It snowballed from there.

Since then, I’ve gotten so much of that work I decided to start specializing in it. So we provide accessible branding, accessible document design and layout, accessible website design and development, accessibility audits and remediation.

Many clients have a legal requirement for accessibility. Others simply want to do it to be more inclusive.

I like accessibility because it helps the end users—people with and without a disability. It helps 20% more people access the content of your work. Your design work gets better results because it’s more effective and it reaches more people.

I think it’s a design fail when people with a disability cannot access the content—either because there is too little contrast for the text to be readable against the background or because the file was not set up the correct way from a technical standpoint.

Ironically, accessibility also helped my business. It gave me clarity after struggling for years what I should niche in. It gave me confidence because I feel like a real, trusted and respected expert when talking to client. I also gained a competitive edge over 99% of other designers.

It’s been a game-changer for me.

I started my other brand/business, Creative Boost, in 2018. This is the brand through which I have the Design Domination podcast and had planned to start the mentoring community.

I happened to also have created a web accessibility course in 2020. I hadn’t planned to market it to that audience at all. I didn’t think they would be interested in it.

Ironically, I did market it to them. I got them interested in accessibility as well as created two other courses: one on accessible branding and design and another on creating accessible PDFs from InDesign.

My accessibility courses have not only made designers aware of this very important aspect of design, but they give designers confidence and a competitive edge in a crowded marketplace of designers.

I love that, because I know how it feels to not have confidence in your business, to not get the respect you deserve, to lost out on jobs to other designers.

I help designers change their business through accessibility.

Remember that paid mentoring community idea? Well, I never did it, because accessibility took over both businesses and brands.

I’ve since become a pretty well known speaker at many international conferences, speaking events and podcasts. (That is another P crossed of that list—public speaking!)

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

With Creative Boost, my mission has always been to help other designers. Initially, my intention was with their design skills.

I’ve stayed true to that. But what’s funny is that what I teach and mentor on is exactly the lessons and skills I’ve learned throughout my journey.

So my mission has evolved to also include accessibility as part of that, along with gaining confidence and a competitive edge.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

Speaking, which is something I was absolutely terrified of doing, has definitely helped me build a reputation in this space, especially with designers.

I have provided accessibility training at the U.S. Department of the Interior.

I have provided training at several CreativePro events.

I have spoken on numerous podcasts.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://creative-boost.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/design.domination/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/creativeboostco
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gratzergraphics/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/creativeboostco
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3-Xh46C1I2jFjxSxk4LGLA
• Other: https://www.facebook.com/groups/designdomination https://medium.com/design-domination

Image Credits
Headshot copyright Nicole Fine Photography