Templates have so many benefits. Some people love them, some people hate them and some people just don’t know what to do with them. Let’s dig into why you should love them and what the pros to using templates are:

1. Ermergersh – it saves you so much time. Or at least they can.

2. Minimal effort. Swap colors, swap photos, plop in your content and hit publish.

3. They can make you look professional, or at least more professional.

4. It’s a great start for beginner entrepreneurs until they’re ready to outsource design.

5. Less excuses to prevent you from getting your content out there.

6. They can build consistency within your brand (both well developed and beginning brands).

In regards to #6, large companies and corporations use some form of templates within their brand standards and brand designs. The difference there, is they have a team of marketers and designers within their business, so their ‘templates’ or guides are specific to only their brand. Don’t diss the templates my dude – they’re great assets for any business at basically any stage. Each stage just looks different, as budgets vary and brand development varies too.

Rainbows and skittles aside, let’s talk about the cons to templates:

1. It’s not 100% unique, as others can buy the same templates to use in their business.

2. If you’re not focused on what you need or what you’re looking for, templates can be a time suck and end up costing you more.

3. If you aren’t familiar with the software of what’s needed for said templates, it could require a large learning curve which can lead to frustration and more expenses.

4. You might be limited as to what you can do with them.

5. In regards to website templates, there could be more maintenance than what you anticipated.

6. Templates are DIY, so they’re going to require your time.

I personally LOVE templates. I use them within my business and brand, and I help create them for my clients. Within my business, I’ve bought templates for welcome guides, invoices, service guides, and social media. Heck, I’ve even bought website templates at the beginning stages of my biz for CK Design.

If you’re unsure on where to start or how to use templates, my biggest piece of advice I would give you is to have a very clear understanding on the purpose of said template(s) you’re looking for. Are you needing a template that’s heavier on content, imagery or perhaps a template that’s about presentations and statistics? Understand the main goals of your project, so when you’re looking for templates you know what key things will have a priority. You can always change the fonts, you can change the images and you can change the colors. Don’t let those items distract you of what you can or can’t do within the templates… instead, focus on the foundation and the build of the templates.

Don’t buy a template that has loads of words, knowing you’re going to spend a ton of time replacing those spaces with imagery. Also, don’t spend money on a template that has loads of imagery knowing you need that space for content.

Just remember, you’re never too good for a template; nor are you ‘less than’ to need to buy a template to help get you started. Templates are the sh!t.