Good, Cheap, Quick

Small businesses and start-ups taking their enterprise to market usually have two things in limited supply: money and time. They need to get selling fast, but they also need to establish their credibility in the market place. They need good, relevant, creative marketing collateral quickly at the lowest possible cost.

That's all very good, but the reality is, you can have good and cheap but you can't have quick. You can have quick and good but you can't have cheap. Of course this observation is relative to the type of service you engage. If you use a freelance such as me, you'll pay a lot less than if you were using a mid-sized agency with its additional overheads.  They'll quite possibly take you to lunch. But with a freelance, you will miss out on the added services and sometimes unnecessary trimmings (that "free" lunch?) that a mid-sized agency can provide. They have not only designers, but marketing experts. People who will help you with strategy, a team of copywriters and designers who will spend time brainstorming your brief. Often they will have two or more teams working on different approaches to your brief. But the time mounts up... and to some extent (remember, it's relative), cheap and quick go out the window.

At the other end of the scale, you can log onto whichever crowdsourcing site takes your fancy and get hundreds of pitches from creative freelances around the world. You could quite possibly end up with good, cheap and quick. Or not. I have previously written about crowdsourcing and have also written about what really goes into a professional design process. Professional design with due process takes time. Time is money. Ignore the due process and you could end up with a lovely (or not) looking piece of design that does nothing for your business.

Good: How to get it.
The ingredients for a good job are many, but the basics are this:

1. Talent. Much like owning a pen does not make you Shakespeare, owning a computer and all the necessary software does NOT give someone talent. You need to be able to see the genuine creative talent shining through.
2. Due process. I can if I wish, knock out an acceptable brochure or flier within an hour or two; buy a couple of stock photos for a few quid, bang out some text, add a drop shadow or two and Bob's your uncle. But I don't. I have a process that ensures what I create does the job it is supposed to. Which costs money. I spend time working on a strategy, then a concept. I spend time crafting the copy. And before I even do that, I endeavour to properly understand your business and your market, because how on earth am I going to effectively communicate otherwise?

Cheap: How to get it
You want to save money, not throw it away:

1. Prepare a decent, detailed brief. If you don't know how to do this, a good freelance will help you prepare one with all the salient points and objectives clearly expressed. Understand what you are buying: the freelance's time, so don't waste it. Have your ducks in a row.
2. Be realisitc. You will not get the same level of service from a freelance as you will from an agency. You will not have an account manager, you will not have a team beavering away in the studio for you. Instead, you will have one hungry, experienced individual who will be in direct contact with you. Don't expect long boozy lunches, though!
3. Pay on time. If you pay late, your next job will be likely to cost more or you'll maybe have to find another freelance, which is time consuming and wasteful of the legacy of knowledge regarding your business your designer will have built up.

Quick: How to get it
You want it fast, so smooth the way

1. Adhere to the above points
2. Become a favourite client. Freelances have to sometimes juggle jobs. Make sure that the guy doing your work wants to make your job a priority.

Copyright © 2009 Paul R Davey. All photographs, text and artworks in this portfolio are copyrighted and owned by the artist, Paul R Davey unless otherwise stated. Any reproduction, modification, publication, transmission, transfer, or exploitation of any of the content, for personal or commercial use, whether in whole or in part, without written permission from the artist is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.

Empire Building - Dangerous to Start-ups

Today, a word of advice to start-ups who have dreams of private helicopters, sports cars and skyscrapers that bear their names.

Many years ago, I did a fourteen month stint as a "Farm Assistant". It was a junior management role for me to get some experience before attending agricultural college. Which I never did. Farming wasn't for me.

The farm I worked on was pretty vast and we grew a lot of different crops - mainly tobacco and maize and we raised cattle. Baboons and bush pigs were a particular problem. Both could lay waste to a significant portion of a field of maize in just a few hours. So we were at war with them, constantly. I used to sit concealed on the side of a small 'kopje' overlooking one of our maize lands armed with an FN rifle, tasked with shooting the thieving animals on sight. To be honest, shooting animals is not my cup of tea. For sure, over time I shot many, but I found it was almost as effective to just fire off a couple of rounds and watch the baboons hastily scarper, the youngsters riding on their mothers backs like comical little jockeys. (The bushpigs, by the way, were delicious, slow roasted in a dixie by the "Rhodesian Boiler's" fire.)

But I also used to watch in disbelief as baboons raided the field. It was a mixture of pure comedy and mindless destruction. The adult baboons, instead of pulling off a single cob of maize (ear of corn) and eating the whole thing, would pull one off, perhaps take a bite and then stuff it under their arm, desperate to move on to the next plant where they would pull off another cob and perhaps take a bite before stuffing that tasty treat too, under their arm. The previous under-arm-stuffed cob would then fall wastefully onto the ground. And so it would continue, with a single baboon thinking he was gathering up lots of maize to enjoy at his leisure, later. Baboons are very greedy. Careless too. - and probably quite disappointed when they see that their collection of cobs is in fact, errr.... one.

How does this baboonery translate into wisdom for small businesses?

I quite often notice the same sort of behaviour demonstrated by the baboons, in start-up businesses. What happens is this: an individual, or more often a pair of partners decide to open a business. Its a very exciting time and usually there's a lot of energy. Things get done. Bank accounts are opened, good intentions are listed, the company name is debated and established, domain names are registered etc. Splendid. They are doing everything right. So far.

But then they get carried away in their excitement and start having too many visions of expansion. Of empire building. When they should be focused on the original concept of the buisness, they get carried away with their vision of the future: a wide ranging group of companies that offers a whole array of complementary services. And that's where the maize cobs start slipping from their grasp.

I have seen this happen so often. A great, singleminded business idea, usually right at the core of the entrepreneurs' knowledge, becomes distracted and diluted as they try to paint themselves into the picture of their now over-complicated vision. I partly blame beer for this, as again, I have so often seen the expansion of the empire plotted in pubs. But its fair to say that it happens wherever two start-up mavericks dare to dream.

First, consolidate your position .

I have nothing against dreams and I have nothing against start-ups aspiring to offer a whole plethora of services that go beyond the scope of the initial business. I do, however, strongly believe that if the energy and imagination that went into plotting the growth of the corporate behemoth went instead into perfecting the original business plan, there would be a far greater chance of eventually having an empire. A strong, respected empire.

As a branding and marketing person, I come across so many brand new "Groups of Companies" that are in fact more of a collection of half thought-out ideas lying partially tasted and semi wasted on the field of dreams. These are weak businesses. They seldom gather momentum and they usually fade away. Why?

Its dead simple: After the exciting dreaming phase, the cold, bony hand of reality firmly grips the shoulders of the entrepreneurs. Bills have to be paid - amongst them, mine (instead of designing one brand identity I have now designed several) . What then happens is that the half formed, poorly nurtured complementary businesses are left out in the cold as the entrepreneurs start frantically doing what they set out to do in the first place. They are forced to focus on their core business. Sadly, quite often, they are also forced to focus on the reality of what their expansionist dreams have delivered: Boxes of unused stationery for this company and that. Logo designs, brochures, uniforms etc. Bills, bills, bills....

What then happens is this: The dreamers find the debt rather alarming, blame me, blame everyone else but themselves and close down. Another needless stillbirth.

Empire building: Don't do it. Not yet.

I think the key to success for all start-ups is to keep it simple. Don't complicate your ideas. Make your dream manageable and focus, focus, focus. Be one thing!

Here are a few rules for start ups that I think should be folllowed. This list is by no means definitive, its what I can think of now. I might add to it, so come back and check:

1. In one sentence write out what your new business will do.
2. In as few as possible bullet points, demonstrate your business process (how you will do what you do and how you will make a profit from your customers)
   
3. In one sentence, write out how you intend to grow in the first 6 months
4. Make a list of 10 objectives to be achieved within the first 6 months
5. Prioritise the list above
6. Think like your client: make a list of 10 things your client/customers will expect from you/your product
7. Prioritise that list
8. Make a list of 10 things that will make your company/product more attractive to your target market than your competitors
9. Prioritise that list
10. In ten bullet points, outline your marketing plan. Prioritise them.
    
11. In ten or less bullet points outline your sales plan. Prioritise them.
    

Take the above once completed and display it prominently in several places where you will often look. Fridge doors work for me because I am an eating machine.

I think that with the global economy as it is right now, it is a great time for entrepreneurs to start up businesses, But it is a time for realists, not fantasists. Go forth and multiply, but do it slowly and carefully.

*****

In other news, this article was written in several short stints between my monstrous headaches. KIP 7-9s. Feel sorry for me. I know I do!

:-)

Keeping the Faith

I seldom have clients complain to me about work that I have done for them. Either they are genuinely pleased (and I think most are) or they are apprehensive about angering 220 lbs of fully grown adult male Zimbabwean (I hope not)! But every now and then I get clients who very nicely, ask me to tinker with the work I have done for them; they are not getting the results they expected and understandably want to put this right.

Now forgive me for sounding arrogant - I do not mean to - but it usually turns out that the work I have done does work if it is allowed to. A common misapprehension clients have is that an ad or a website is all they need to get instant business rolling in. Wrong! Your website is just one of numerous links in a chain between your customer's wallet and your bank account.

When I create a brochure or a website for you, I see them as tools that enhance the prospects of engaging with a new customer. They cannot work in isolation and they cannot be expected to deliver a sudden and immediate rise in business. Sorry.

To see an increase in business, dramatic or gradual, two things are required: Firstly, you have to drive people to your website or business by letting them know that its there by any and all means possible. Secondly, you have to be patient. In most cases, marketing activity delivers a gradual ramping-up of new business. It is also logical that the more marketing activity you do, the more people will engage with you.

Marketing is like hammering in a nail: If you want a sudden and dramatic impact, you need to be able to afford a nail gun. Small businesses seldom have nail gun-size budgets and so have to make do with a hammer that gradually drives their "nail" into the market.

Successful marketing is not difficult and it need not be expensive. In fact, it can largely be free! I generate a lot of business by placing just four ads a day on a free classifieds website, Gumtree.com. It takes me just 10 minutes every day to update the ads (I could choose to pay for them to be automatically updated, or even featured on the site, but I'm happy to spend the ten minutes rather than the money). I also advertise on as many free directories as possible - and the results are both on my web stats and trickling into my bank account.

Its taken me a long time to generate the levels of business that I have. To be honest, I have not done nearly enough (which is why I don't own a Porsche). I should be networking. I don't. I should be attending trade shows. Have I? No! I should be writing articles for my trade press. Not a word. And I should have set this blog up ages ago. Lazy bastard. But as I imagine my bank manager says, something is better than nothing.

The other thing to do is to become a forensic marketing detective. Try to discover where, how and why your customers are being lost. There is a lot to consider on this subject, so I will write more about it another time.

So summing up: Tinker with your marketing by all means, but give it a chance to work. If no one's visiting your website, its not because your website is at fault. Its because they do not know that its there. You need to do something about that.

Getting Paid

As a small business specialist and more particularly as someone who has had his fingers severely burnt in the past, I thought I would air my thoughts on the getting paid side of my business.

I have a simple policy: No credit. Generally, this works fine - many of my clients pay their up-front deposits without arguing and then pay the balance on completion. I like that. And I like them for paying so promptly. Its clean and simple and it allows me to cost less - because believe me, if you wanted to pay on 30 days you'd be paying significantly more for the privilege. Its a trade-off for both me and my client.

So why am I such a hard-nosed bastard? First off, I may seem hard-nosed but I'm not. People who are purchasing my services are not buying them as "stock" to sell on for an eventual profit. They are not waiting for someone to pay them for the service they just bought. Sure, my services are there to help generate business, but lets be honest, they are just part of a whole range of things one must do to attract customers.

Secondly, I have very few clients with a track record long enough - or more importantly, big enough - to qualify for a 30 day account. When a business can demonstrate a continuing habit of spending about 5k a month with me, (and they do not make up a major percentage of my overall income) then I will be astute enough to offer to ease their path with a 30 day account. I will also do other things to earn their love and loyalty: A (genuinely free) lunch or two, perhaps drinks after work on a regular basis... But I will also watch them like a hawk. I do not tolerate 30 days slipping into 60 days...

Thirdly, and I've already touched on this, my clients get to benefit from my many years of experience and my hard-won skills, not to mention talent, for a very reasonable rate. Working as I do with start-ups and small businesses, I have to compete on price with others. If my quote is not attractive in the first place, it is unlikely that prospective clients will hang around to discover my talents.

My cash system seems to be working quite well. I do have the odd hiccup with the occasional client who pays the balance late, but at least I'm still in possession of their work. Also, the balance due is seldom a back-breaking amount. I make sure that it isn't by offering clients a staggered payment arrangement over the course of a big-spend project. But most importantly, I believe that my clients are glad to pay for the work because I deliver beyond their expectations.

I have been using Google Checkout for client payments, but recently I have been getting them to pay directly into my account by bank transfer. Why? Because these days the transfer amount is generally reflected instantly rather than in the past when the banks required four working days for 'clearance'. Google Checkout, I suspect, sits on the cash and earns interest for a few days before crediting it to my account. Not good enough!