Educating your customers

Ok so for the most part the average small business owner has no idea what goes into good design. Including the process, the target, and the implementation. This is the Designers main job to educate the customer as to what is effective and what is not. Now dealing with this is one of the hardest jobs of the Graphic Designer.
How exactly to you effectively communicate what is and is not Good Design.
Most customers will have no clue as to how a pallete is chosen. Or how thoughtfully to arrange text to formulate a cohesive message.
Many Customers have seen ideas that they like, but do not know how or if the samples they like will effectively communicate their message.
Things to remind clients:

• Your marketing materials are your business. If your business is Dog Care. Your images should correspond with Dog Care. This is simple but you will inevitably find the client who wants to use ambiguous photos or graphics that do not fully communicate the fact that you run a Dog care business.
  
• The most effective design strategy is to quickly engage the consumer in what you do. Studies say that you have approximately 2 seconds to grab someones attention. Your cover design should encourage a potential customer to read your materials.
• The average consumer skims and does not read. Your headings should be well crafted with pertinent information that they will in some capacity retain.
  
• The overall look and feel of the brochure should correspond to the type and style of business that the client operates.
• Many clients will say things like I would like a bold vibrant design when in actuality this is not what they like or desire. Clients can be confused as to what they actually like and sometimes it becomes tricky when you are knee deep in a layout for them to decide that what they actually want is a very subdued layout. Take a deep breath, bang your head on your keyboard and start over.
  
• The average client usually can not communicate effectively what they want. I said average because I have dealt with some very creative and knowledgeable clients in my graphic design business. This makes our job easier.
  

• If your client wants something that you are not comfortable with feel free to direct them to one of the many P.O.D services that will print what ever they want. Don't feel as though you have to put your name on a product that is not of a quality you believe in.
  

Hey really Graphic Design is an art. You go to a doctor when you are sick, You go to an artist when you need art. When your company requires the incorporation of Art and text in artful way you go to a Graphic Designer. Any old person can slap a bunch of images into something and call it a design. Doing it well is a designers job.