His key message was this: forget about creative perfection for the next few months. He argued that clients will be focusing on the bottom line like never before and will want design that delivers on those terms. So if you’re proactive and apply some rigor to your new business efforts you can ‘nip into the gaps’ that less nimble large agencies leave open. This means that you will need to do your homework on the client business in question and approach them with solutions that demonstrate your innovative thinking.
He also gave some tips for running and growing your business:
1. You should have a contacts list and you, the principal should be the one making the new business calls, not a junior employee. Be clinical and find out whether the person you are talking to is a serious prospect. Are they the one making the spending decisions? Tell them what you can do and ask them when you can do it. Go to the meetings yourself and know why you’re bothering to turn up.
2. Become adept at describing what you do in less than 30 seconds
3. Make time for thinking
4. Don’t procrastinate – get on and do things
5. Be aware of your weaknesses – the things that trip you up
6. Reward yourself when you win new clients/finish a difficult job
7. Don’t give your strategic thinking away for free – find a way to articulate what it is on paper and demonstrate to clients why they should pay for it
8. Build your business to sell – think about succession planning. But don’t be seduced by a big bucks offer – too often the strings attached are onerous
9. Nip into a gap – in a recession clients are more open to new approaches (they have time to see you that they might not have had before)
10. Encourage imagination and flexible problem solving – don’t impose rigid processes on people