How I'd build a successful motion design business in 2025

[00:00:00] Hayley: This is how I would start my motion design business from scratch if I started it today. Now for context, I’ve actually been in the motion design industry for 16 years, and I’ve also been self employed since 2015. So I’m going to break this up into two parts. I’m going to break it into, if you’re starting completely from Scratch and you have a zero clients, or maybe you’re not even freelance yet.

[00:00:22] And then the second half, I’m going to talk about what I’d do if I had some clients. But maybe I felt like there weren’t quite the right type of clients I really wanted to work with, or maybe I didn’t have enough consistent income or regular clients. So if you’re in the second camp, feel free to zoom ahead in this episode.

[00:00:43] So the first thing I would do if I was starting completely from scratch, and I wanted to build a successful motion design business, is I would actually make friends with people in the motion design industry. It sounds kind of weird, like We’re just going to make friends with people and then that’s going to help us get clients.

[00:00:59] But I really, really think that this is really valuable. And it really, really helps to have a peer support group as well in the industry. So you need to find your community of motion design friends. Now, how I’ve done this in the past is when I was actually working full time as a motion designer, I would say, What I did was I created a project called BingoMation.

[00:01:21] Now this was a project where I got together 90 animators to make animations based on bingo calls. So what was great about this little project that actually lasted for about 4 years, so in hindsight it wasn’t very little, is that I got to meet a ton of motion designers and animators. And I wasn’t just going out there saying, Hey, can you chat to me?

[00:01:44] You know, I need help, all of that kind of stuff. I was actually offering them some value by offering them a mini project that they could take part in and that would give them a deadline. And there was a personal project so they could share it on their showreel or anything like that. And it was just a lovely collaborative project, and I really, really recommend you get involved with these.

[00:02:05] Even if you don’t organize one yourself, do seek out collaborative projects, because I think it’s really great for you to develop your motion design skills, but also make some friends in the motion design industry. Now what’s really great about doing this kind of thing is that is you meet some people that potentially are freelancers, yes, and potentially could hire you if they have overflow on a job, but also you’re probably going to meet some people who are working in house as well.

[00:02:34] Now, the great thing about that is when a producer or a creative director, um, asks people in their company who they could work with as a freelancer. Hopefully your name is top of mind if you’ve made friends with these people. Now sometimes it’s easier to get access to people who are maybe motion designers or junior motion designers or even senior motion designers.

[00:02:58] Then it is to get access to art directors, creative directors, producers, because they’re constantly getting hit up for work. So I really recommend that if you are starting from scratch, you’re maybe not sure about the type of clients that you want to work with. Really just reach out to the community, make friends.

[00:03:17] And even if you’re looking for a job as a motion designer, I think this is a really, really valuable thing that you can do. Is find your peers and really make genuine connections and relationships with these people. And hopefully some work will come out of it. Another little quick tip for you is meeting in person builds trust right away.

[00:03:38] So if I was brand new in the industry and I was starting from scratch, I would go to as many events and conferences as I possibly could. I would go to local events and I would go to international events because then you are putting yourself in front of people from all around the world. And it really helps to build trust quicker and don’t just go there and try and hand out all your business cards.

[00:04:00] cards. Really try and build genuine connections and relationships with people. People always appreciate this and I think that it will really help you to get some work. I recently attended Camp MoGraph and I had a wonderful time. I met a lot of people from the U. S. I’m based in the U. K. myself and I just really had a good time, made genuine connections.

[00:04:22] No one was trying to sell themselves too much. And people built really nice, lovely, genuine relationships. And I think this is really, really important. And I’ve actually heard since that people have gotten work from going to this event. So I highly recommend it. You don’t just have to go to this one. Of course, there are other events available.

[00:04:41] But I really recommend trying to go to international events if you can, or at the very least, go to events in your local area. And hey, if there isn’t an event in your local area, then you could be the person to create one. Now remember, this is if you’re starting out from scratch and having no clients.

[00:04:57] Later, we’re going to talk about what I’d do if I wanted to build a successful motion design business. Right now. And I already had a few clients and I wanted to get more regular, consistent and high paying clients. So stick around for that. So step two of, if you’re really starting out from scratch with no clients is to build a strategy so that you can stay top of mind with the people that you meet.

[00:05:21] Cause this is really important. So it’s all well and good going out there, networking, meeting people, becoming friends. But if you don’t remind them of your existence, then they’re probably not going to remember when they have a project come up or when someone in the company has a project come up. Right.

[00:05:37] So what we need to do is build a strategy around this. One thing that I do when I meet people in person is I add them to LinkedIn straight away and I ask them to add me. Then what happens when I’m posting on LinkedIn is I’m actually popping up in their feed and I’m reminding them that I exist. So this helps me then to stay top of mind with them.

[00:05:59] And you don’t just have to post every day. That’s actually really hard to do. I recommend that you just start out by posting once a week. If you need help with knowing what to post, we have a social media guide with 52 posts so that you can create content easily for the whole year. Now I’ll leave a link for you in the show notes and just let me know how you get on with that.

[00:06:20] You can tag us anywhere at Motion Hatch. So the next thing you need to do to stay top of mind is to build a CRM or a client relationship manager. If this was like one thing I could just tell myself when I first started out is have a CRM. Most of your work is going to come from past clients. So the sooner you start.

[00:06:40] Start to build out your CRM regular, stay in touch with people and stay top of mind, the better really. So I recommend just starting with an easy spreadsheet or a notion template. We do have a notion template we made specifically for motion designers inside my course client quest. So I’ll leave the link in the show notes, if you would like to check that out.

[00:07:01] So why I recommend starting out with ad agencies and animation studios and really building connections within the industry. is because those people already understand that they have a need for motion design, they know what it is, and they understand that they need a motion designer. Where I think there’s a really a lot of opportunity are people who maybe they don’t even know what motion design is.

[00:07:26] You know, direct clients, there’s a whole world of people out there who could potentially hire you as a motion designer and for motion design services. But the problem is when you say I’d like more direct clients, really, that could be absolutely anyone. So we really need to figure out. Who your ideal clients are and how to attract them.

[00:07:47] So let’s go on then to how I’d start a motion design business right now. If I already had a few clients and I was looking to get more regular and consistent clients and also make more revenue. The first thing I would do is if I started Out today. And I was going to make a successful motion design business is I would figure out who my ideal clients are, because I probably mainly want to work with the direct clients.

[00:08:15] And even if I’m thinking about studios and things like that, I probably need to know who they are so I can figure out who to attract them. So this is really important for everyone, but I think when you’re first starting out from scratch, you definitely need. To just work with anyone first, figure out what you like, what you don’t like, and then move on to this stage.

[00:08:35] So, I want to tell you a little story first. When I was a freelance motion designer, I saw lots of people struggling with how to charge their clients, how to, uh Pricer work and really how to talk about money and also get work and all that kind of stuff, which led me to eventually start Motion Hatch. But how I figured this out was really because I really enjoyed the business side of things, which most people don’t.

[00:09:02] And I thought about how I loved motion design, but I also loved the business side of things, and I really enjoyed freelancing. And because this was something that not a lot of other people enjoyed, they weren’t really as willing to talk about it. So this is why I started Motion Hatch, and this is why I’m talking to you here today.

[00:09:23] So if I hadn’t combined My passion for business with my passion for motion design, I would have never created this business, which really has changed my whole life. So what I’m going to encourage you to do next then is think about your passions outside motion design, because this can really help you to figure out.

[00:09:41] A really unique business that works for you and that you absolutely love the clients you work with. So I want you to answer the following questions. What are your passions outside of motion design? And what are your unique skills? This could be inside motion design or also outside motion design. And also what are your unique processes within your business?

[00:10:05] Because also this can be a selling point as well. And if you watch our video with Kevin Rapp, where he explained how he made 500K in his first year of freelance, you’ll understand that if you have a unique process to sell your clients, it can be extremely lucrative. So I’ll pop that link to the video in the show notes.

[00:10:26] So you can check that out after this one. So the next thing that I would do, if I was building a successful motion design business right now is I would create my client personas. Now a persona is basically figuring out who your clients are, what their problems are and where they hang out. Now, this is really important because if you understand what their problems are, you can also talk to them directly.

[00:10:51] On emails, on social media, show them that you can help them to solve their problems, which is really what all business transactions are. It’s just one company helping another person solve their problems. This is true of B2B transactions and also B2C transactions. So once you understand your idea, Deal client.

[00:11:11] And you know what problems they have and where they hang out. It makes it so much easier to attract them. So next you’re going to create your ideal client persona. Now, how you do this is to start with, we’re just kind of, kind of make it up. And if you’re struggling, you’re going to think about a past client and base it on them.

[00:11:30] And then what we’re going to do afterwards is then come up with your new ideal client. So you’re going to come up with a name for your client. It doesn’t really matter. What name that is, you know, it could be Spike, it could be John, it could be Casey, it doesn’t really matter. Pick any name you like, then what you’re going to do is you’re going to write a little bio for them.

[00:11:52] Now this is why I recommend starting out with a past client first because this just really makes it easier and then you can go on to build your dream clients after that. So, for example, Casey might be working for this charity that helps plant trees. She might also be making shoes on the side with apple leather.

[00:12:11] And she also really, really cares about climate change and the environment. And then we can figure out Where might Casey hang out? Maybe she hangs out at climate change conferences, charity conferences. These are a lot of in person things. Maybe she’s on LinkedIn, maybe she’s in some private communities where they talk about marketing.

[00:12:34] And this just really helps you to brainstorm who your ideal client is, what their problems are. Where they hang out. And this is really, really important. If you’re going to figure out how to build a successful business, because then you can talk more about their problems more clearly on social media. And the more you understand someone’s problem, the more that you really look like you can help them to solve that problem.

[00:12:58] And then when we move on to the next stage, we’re going to start doing some research calls. Now, the main. point of these calls is actually to find out if our ideal client really has the money to work with us. Because one of my students recently had an ideal client in mind, but when she started having calls with them, she realized the demand for animation wasn’t there and they really didn’t have the budget.

[00:13:23] So it wasn’t worth her pursuing this niche really, because it wouldn’t really be as lucrative as she really hoped it would be. And it would be difficult to get them to sign off on budgets. So this is main reason why we do research calls, but also it’s because it actually gets you in front of these people really easily.

[00:13:43] If you say, Hey, I just want to do a research call. I’m starting this new business. I’m not going to sell you anything. I just really want to learn more about you and what you do. It’s a much easier pitch. Then if you’re like, Hey, let’s jump on a discovery call or a sales call, because then people’s guards are up straight away.

[00:14:02] Whereas if you have a connection as well with that person through another person, for example, and you say, Hey, I’m just looking to do some research. It’s much, much easier to get them on the call. And then if they’re interested in your services, you can always say to them, Hey, let’s book another call later.

[00:14:18] And if you want to go advanced mode on these client personas or avatars, you can also break them into external problems and internal drivers, which really means what are their problems on the outside, but really what are their desires on the inside and what are their hopes and dreams. And things that they really want, because the more you understand the client, the more you can really help them.

[00:14:43] And the more they’re going to come back and work with you again. And again, if you’d like me to do a future podcast on client personas and a deep dive into that, then please comment on the podcast, or you can always email us at hello at motion hatch. com. Or find us anywhere on social media at Motion Hatch.

[00:15:01] And just let me know. I’d love to hear from you. Because this isn’t easy, I really recommend that you don’t start finding your niche and then changing your website straight away and changing all of your LinkedIn because we might not even know what works yet. So there’s no point in driving ahead into that next stage when we really don’t understand who our clients are and what they need, which is why we do these research calls.

[00:15:24] But what you can do is start putting your offering online. Out online and almost doing like this build in public model. One of my students, Luke Stanley posted about his new business doing motion brand guidelines on LinkedIn. He’d never even had a client in this industry, but he wanted to share that he was really passionate about it, why he thought it was important.

[00:15:47] And he shared a mini example of a personal project he did. That was some motion brand guidelines. After he did this one post, he managed to get a couple of clients doing this type of work, which is a pretty amazing response and not really what I was expecting. I thought it would take him a lot longer, but it shows you the power of building in public and.

[00:16:09] Sharing really what you’re passionate about and what you want to do online. He didn’t have a website. I think he said he’s only recently created a website around this business now that he’s doing it full time and he’s not working with any other clients. So this is really powerful stuff. And I recommend that you think about this.

[00:16:27] Brainstorm, don’t put too much pressure on yourself and just start putting out there the things that you love and enjoy and any business ideas or offerings that you have and see what the response is like. So the next step is to listen to the feedback that you get from people and adjust your offering based on that.

[00:16:47] So you might actually come up with more of. A kind of product that’s a motion design product that really serves a specific type of client. It might not be, it might still be custom work, but you really need to listen to what people are saying about this and adjust your offering or services accordingly.

[00:17:06] Then next, once you crafted your offering, you’re going to follow up with all the people that you had research calls with. And this is great because you’ve already built a relationship with them and you can say, Hey, based on what we spoke about. This is what I’ve come up with. I’d love to hear what you think about it.

[00:17:23] And then hopefully they love it so much that they really want to work with you. It might not happen straight away, but at least you’re continuing to build this relationship with them and showing them that you’re passionate. about the things that they do and solving their problems. So I want to tell you a story about my friend Holly Arnett.

[00:17:41] She’s a brand designer and also an illustrator and she was in an entrepreneurial community with me and a lot of other entrepreneurs and creators. She came up with a fantastic offering for the people in this community. And because she was one of us and she was contributing a lot over there already, it didn’t feel too salesy and people really wanted to work with her.

[00:18:05] Even the host of that community mentioned her on his podcast. And now she’s working with lots of creators there and really having fun and working with her ideal clients. So it shows you how powerful it is to really be meeting your clients where they already hang out and really be seen as one of them.

[00:18:25] So I highly recommend that you do some of this work, even though it can seem quite tricky and hard sometimes I’d love to hear what you’re working on, what niche you’d love to work with, or what ideal clients you’d really like to work with, you can always tag me at motion hatch. Comment on this podcast. I would absolutely love to hear from you.

[00:18:45] So in part two of this podcast, I’m going to talk about how to build financial stability in your business. Cause that’s a really important part of making a successful motion design business. Having steady income as a freelancer can seem at times impossible. It’s really hard when you’re just relying on referrals and for clients to come to you.

[00:19:07] And sometimes you probably feel like you don’t have much control over that. But today I’m going to share with you my strategy on how you can avoid dips in your freelance work and how you can make more money. I want to share with you my financial forecast later and some tools for you to use to make sure that you can create a steady income as a freelance motion designer.

[00:19:28] So make sure you stick around for that. But I want to share with you why I think a financial forecast is important. This is so important. You need to know exactly where your money is coming from, how much you’re making and where those potential gaps are. So a little quick story for you. When I first started Motion Hatch, I was working full time as a freelance motion designer and working on Motion Hatch as well.

[00:19:52] It started out as a podcast, but then quickly grew into courses and resources. So this provided a small amount of income for me as well on the side. And I was, to be honest with you, getting quite burnt out with doing full time motion design freelance stuff and also Motion Hatch. So what I did was I created a financial forecast and this really helped me to see whether I could feasibly, in the future, go ahead.

[00:20:20] Full time on motion hatch. And I really wanted to do that because it was really helping a lot of people as it still does today. So I’m really happy that I made that decision. And by doing the forecast, I was able to see that I could go all in on my business. Now, maybe you’re in a similar situation if you’re working full time at the moment and you want to go freelance.

[00:20:42] So this is why. I think a financial forecast is vital for whether you’re looking to go freelance, whether you’re already freelance, or even if you have a studio, you need to see if you have capacity to hire more people as well. So I’ll go through a pricing toolkit with you later and a financial forecast, but let’s first jump into why it’s important to have a steady stream of clients and how you can do that.

[00:21:09] To create a stable income and avoid dips in your work, you need to have a consistent stream of clients. Sounds easier than it is, right? And this does not happen by accident. You need to build systems and processes so that you know which lever that you can pull when you can see potential dips coming up in your work.

[00:21:30] Now, as I said earlier, if you create a financial forecast, You will also be able to predict these dips coming up. Then if you do that and you know when it’s coming up, you can actually put more into your marketing systems and you will know how to get more clients doing that, and then that will actually fill these gaps, meaning that you have steady income, which is amazing because then that means that you don’t have downtime and you can actually make more money.

[00:22:00] So how then do we make this system for consistently getting clients? Well, we have this two pronged approach. The first prong is actually getting in touch with clients. You need to make them aware of you, which makes sense. They can’t hire you if they aren’t aware of you. Once your clients are aware of you, The second approach is you need to stay top of mind with these clients.

[00:22:26] We need to build an inbound strategy and an outbound strategy. So an outbound strategy would be where you’re doing outreach and you’re making clients aware of you. And then the inbound strategy is where you’re attracting clients. to you. But the great thing is, is you can actually use these two systems in tandem with each other.

[00:22:50] And it means that you know exactly how to get your clients. You have two strategies going on, but they also complement each other. So let’s dive a little bit deeper into these strategies. So first off, let’s talk a bit more about awareness. So obviously your clients need to be aware of you so that they can hire you.

[00:23:11] And then the next stage is once they’re aware of you, how do you even stay top of mind? So let’s talk then a little bit about social media first. Now, I’ve worked with many, many freelancers, and a big thing that they usually do is do a lot of cold emailing. So when someone comes to me, what they’re normally doing is sending hundreds of cold emails to potential clients.

[00:23:35] And that’s it. Usually they’re not getting much reply, right? So what I would advise them to do, and I advise you to do, is to really reduce the amount of people that you’re trying to attract. And it sounds counterintuitive, right? Bear with me, because I think it’s really, really important to warm people up and to really, really personalize your outreach.

[00:23:58] We have all got those cold emails where we’re like, You don’t know who I even am, and you don’t know what you’re talking about. The other day I got a cold email that said, Hey Margaret, it wasn’t even, it didn’t even have my first name on it. And I know that you’re not doing these type of cold emails, but you’re still probably not warming the clients up enough.

[00:24:21] And they’re probably still ignoring most of your emails. So the better thing to do is to actually warm them up. And we can do this via social media. It’s not the only way of making clients aware of you, but it is a tool that most of us have at our disposal. So you want to post different types of posts based on awareness, attraction, action, and advocacy.

[00:24:44] And this is how we’re going to warm our clients up and draw them in to us. I’m not going to go through this in too much detail because you can actually download our guide and you can see some examples in there, but basically. In awareness, you want to create posts that have a wider reach to make people aware of you.

[00:25:04] In attraction, you want to post more about the behind the scenes of your work, a bit more about your process. And in action, you want to do those posts where you’re sharing your website and your reel and you’re giving people a call to action to work with you. And then advocacy is something that is often missed, which is how can I create advocates or fans?

[00:25:26] of mine through my clients. So, you can really do this by sharing testimonials, sharing the results that your clients got and they can really help you by giving you those kind of things in the advocacy section which means you can share them on social media and this just proves to other people that you’re a great person to work with.

[00:25:47] That you solve people’s problems and you get them results. And I think this is really valuable and it’s really often missed. And what I loved some of my students have done before is actually animate some of their client testimonials. So you’re showing you’re a great person to work with, but you’re also showing off your skills.

[00:26:04] And I think this is a really smart way to do that. So using social media we can create an inbound system that we know helps us to attract clients. Now I really recommend that you think about the types of clients that you really want to work with and you adjust your posts to directly speak to them because now it’s really hard to stand out on social media but by being very specific about who you want to work with and using this system you can get some great results.

[00:26:34] And then we’re going to talk a little bit about the outbound strategy, which would be more to do with staying top of mind. So how do we stay top of mind so we can create a consistent stream of work? So the first thing you can do to stay top of mind with your contacts and even your past clients Is to create a CRM or a client relationship manager.

[00:26:55] Now this is super simple. You can just start with a spreadsheet, but I do recommend that you also use our framework of awareness, attraction, action, and advocacy. Cause it’s going to help you to know which stage your clients at. in the freelance funnel framework. And this is actually from our course ClientQuest, which has a CRM in there for you already built.

[00:27:18] So if you’re interested in learning more about ClientQuest, I’ll leave the link in the show notes. So once you’ve built your CRM, the main thing is that you’re going in there regularly, You’re checking it and you’re seeing who you need to follow up with. And this is one way that you can stay top of mind with your clients to really create a system where you have consistent projects coming to you.

[00:27:40] Another way you can do this, and this is a tip that I really love is when I go to an event where I’m like, What I do is I meet people at the event and I say, let’s connect on LinkedIn. And that means that when I’m posting on LinkedIn, which I do regularly, I’m going to be staying top of mind with them.

[00:27:57] And even when you’re not posting on LinkedIn, even if you post a comment. or something like that on someone else’s post, it’s gonna show up and say, Haley commented on this post. So this is an easy way to stay top of mind too. So these seem like pretty simple systems, and they can be, but I really, really recommend that you take time to set them up, and you also make it specific.

[00:28:22] So let’s now move on to how you can create a financial forecast and how it can really help you to avoid dips in your work so that you can make more money and have steady income. So the first way a financial forecast really helps you. To create a steady income is it means that you can actually predict what’s coming up.

[00:28:40] So if you do this year over year, you will actually see that certain months maybe are a little bit slower for you. And if you’d built a system and a strategy around your marketing, as we said, in the first part of this, then you will know what lever to pull to really fill that gap. So for example, let’s say we find out that January is going to be a slow month for us.

[00:29:03] For most freelance motion designers, it’s probably the case. So what we can do then is we can concentrate in Q4 around November, really filling in that gap. So really going onto our systems and really increasing the activities we do there so that we’re better. bringing in some client leads for projects in January and February.

[00:29:25] So you can see how you can be proactive in this approach. So now I want to go through our perfect your pricing toolkit, which includes a financial forecast that you can use to create steady income in your motion design business. So on the homepage, we actually have financial goals. What are your monthly targets that you need to get there?

[00:29:44] We also have an income snapshot. So essentially how well are you doing so far? You can see this based on month to month, and you can also see a lovely chart showing you how much money you made this year. And we’ve also got a chart next that showing the income goal. So what you’re actually aiming for right next to it.

[00:30:03] So you can really easily see the difference. And then we have some pricing resources. So in the resources, we have a section on how to work out your day rate, and we have a little calculator in there. We also have a section on how to work out a project fee. We actually have a number of calculators in there based on whether you’re a solo freelancer, or you’re also including hiring a team.

[00:30:26] Then we have the financial forecaster, which is really, really important. So if you continue to fill this in year after year, it’s going to really help you to see how much money you’re making, where you’re progressing, what clients are paying you the most. Also how much you’re making compared to your goal.

[00:30:44] And this can really help you to spot opportunities and really know where you’re making money in your business and how you can make more money. So if we go down then we’ve also got an expense tracker. Often I find that I’m spending money on things that I no longer use and I’ve managed to save up to 200 a month before by cancelling some of my expenses.

[00:31:06] That are really I’m no longer using and this really is helpful if you’re running a business and you really want to make more profit is to keep an eye on your expenses. Then we’ve got some extra resources around are you charging enough and also around negotiation. Hop over to motionhatch. com forward slash pricing to check it out.

[00:31:26] I really appreciate you listening all the way to the end of this podcast. If you have any feedback or you want to post about this, you can always tag us at Motion Hatch or get in touch at hello at motionhatch. com. I appreciate you. See ya.