BoDo dee-Oh!

Designers rejoice, BoDo has arrived to render aid to your business!

Don't bother looking up in the sky, its not a new spandexed superhero, although in a sense, you can metaphorically think of it as one (spandex optional).

BoDo, which is short for Business Of Design Online, addresses the important issues of stucturing, organizing, networking, marketing and other day to dailies on running a graphic design business. It's been my experience that entreprenuers in this industry often forget that they are a business first, designers second. As a result, they make many fundamental key mistakes when starting up and striking out on their own which lead to many hard knocks along the way. BoDo is the perfect one stop resource to not only get one's design business started, but keep it running smoothly and successfully onward.

As they oh-so-aptly describe their services on their site;

BoDo is grass-roots-get-down-and-dirty-love-yo-mamma. We’ll talk about serious subjects such as “When to bring in a PITA clause,” “How to keep your clients” and “How to fire a client.” As well as lighter fare like “Working in your undies” and “How to tell when your down time is up.”

(It's) where vets (some full-time BoDo authors, some visiting), talk about their businesses experiences. Not stopping at their successes, also shared will be mistakes made, lessons learned.

An intriguing perspective that makes BoDo a potential resource hit right out the gate. Not only does it offer the prerequisite tips for success, but also offers the added treat of equally addressing some of the pitfalls design entrepreneurs have suffered as well. Moreover, any site that covers working in your undies definitely has their pulse on the work at home designer.

The lovechild of Catherine Morley of Katz i Design International, Neil Tortorella of Tortorella Design and Jeanette Wickham of Fast Coconut, BoDo’s goal is to provide designers of all walks and levels of experience with a wellspring of practical and useful information, resources and techniques for successfully managing and marketing a creative communications practice.

Take a look around, see what they have to offer. No matter what stage of the game you're in, chances are you can benefit from some aspect of what BoDo has to offer. And if for any other reason, it'll network you with other kindred spirits who work in their favorite comfy undies at home. A win-win situation for your design communications business any way you look at it.

Forum Anecdotal Nuggets—Design Startup in Ten Easy Steps?

In the pursuit of supporting my forum habit, I ran across a poster who asked if it were possible for folks to "cut the ca-ca" as it were and list ten simple steps on starting one's own design business.

First off, I don't think this approach to the question was the best. Simplify the ca-ca of opening a business? How possible is it to break down an entrepreneural process that people devote countless classes and months and years of toil in organizing, marketing, stressing, failing, restructuring and organizing once again in ten sure fire steps? If ONLY it were that easy.

Things may start out well in the beginning. You may already have a few clients and feel, "hey, I can skip a few steps, why form a business plan and market evaluation? Why develop targetted promotional campaigns and attend network functions? I've got a few clients, they'll refer me to a few more..." This is how I started. And for a while, things were great. However my house of cards came crashing down after 9/11 and I had to reorganize, regroup, restructure and start again. It wasn't pretty and definitely not simple. I think the reason why it was so hard to bounce back (among other things) was that I neglected a few basic key business applications that I thought I could afford to skip (which I'll expand on next time). However I learned a harsh lesson as an entrepreneur, in that there will always be peaks and valleys when running your own business. It's a simple fact of life for any business owner whether you own a mom or pop shop or you're an insanely well to do mogul. One of the keys to continued success is preparedness. In truth, my business wasn't prepared to handle the valleys because of it's poor foundation. In hindsight I guess I should've doodled less and stayed awake in my business and economics classes. It could've likely meant the difference between overcoming my obstacles or being trampled underfoot by them.

So instead of culling the proverbial ca-ca in ten simple startup steps, which is darn near impossible if you're a businessman/woman. I'll offer advice. All business tips considered, learn from other's mistakes. Listen to the horror stories, understand them and try not to make them yourself. Not all are unavoidable but if you plan things the right way you'll end up with few valleys that are easier and quicker to weather.

My Mad Mad Marketing Plan: First Dates

Ever play "musical dates?" Sure you have. You know, thats the game where you take a personal project, set a fairly short and sweet deadline, then as other, more important client projects and personal affairs suddenly are added to the mix, you're forced to move your personal project from new date to date, as you try to finish the other priorities. Normally the end result—quite predictably—ends in an incomplete project, forlorn and forgotton on some tenth of never completion date.

I've set my business mid-year promotional resolution. I've researched my content. Now comes one of the most important tasks of the project, setting a realistic date that I can meet. Seems easy for some, but not for me. Like my website, personal projects usually remain a twinkle in the proverbial eye for me. I'll start off strong with what I believe is plenty of time to complete my project, only to have life in all it's unpredictible glory drop a dollup of "reality" that require my immediate attention and force setbacks on it's completion. Dollups like paying work, or personal affairs that I need to focus on and so forth.

I normally used to jot down one deadline date, the date of delivery. Too vague. Conversely, I didn't want to micro-deadline the project, so I concentrated once again on the major phases, adding extra time to hopefully account for any of life's little surprises. Unlike other occassions, this time I decided rather than working forwards, I'd work backwards instead. Because of it's content, my mid-year promotion had to be delivered before the kick off of the Memmorial Day weekend. I had to calculate how long postal delivery would take, then doubled it for assurance. That was my delivery deadline. I then calculated printing and package assembly, then as with postal delivery doubled the turnaround time. That became my project deadline. The time between my research and print deadlines was more than enough time to easily execute the project—approximately three months.

So that's pretty much the method behind the madness. I tried to take care not to overdo the planning process and organize my time and effort in manageable phases to, barring any cataclysms, avoid changing my first dates and maximize success.

Until May!

My Mad Mad Marketing Plan—Phase Two: Scheduling

It's been said that timing is everything. So in my endeavor to organize a time-sensitive campaign that I have to develop, design, output, assemble and mail, it must also be scheduled in such a way that I can temporarily set aside (like last week's post which is now this week's) so that I can address any sudden, shall we say, pressing concerns.

Like any good General, I strategized a plan to divide and conquer. First, still being the web derelict that I am, I mapped the project details on paper (although a PDA or other similarly useful digital media is a fine substitute) to have a clearer understanding of what sort of beast I was up against. I then segmented it into four main phases so that I don't become overwhelmed or side tracked, which also permitted me to establish appropriate deadlines within my limit:

1. Research
2. Execution
3. Printing
4. Delivery

Research.
Essentially brainstorming, budgeting and fundamental concept development. I had to come up with an idea that kept my "eyes on the prize." Best way to do that I surmised was to create a few brief basic criteria.

• It must be "general" enough so that I can use it as a promotional item for potentially any future client.

• It must be something they would want to use or pass on to someone who could use it (never know where your next client will come from).

• It had to be small enough to be portable, or be able to "set aside" on a work desk for example. Anything that was too large that the person had to take it off the table top to make room is a promotional bust to me (there are exceptions, but I digress). If they set it aside on their desk however, it's still within their line of sight and can always be picked up again or be spotted from anyone else who spies it on their desk (again, never know where your next client will come from). Concurrently, I didn't want it to be so small that it gets lost from someone's view.

• Most importantly, the subject matter had to reinforce and associate itself with the brand, in this case, Archetype Design Studio.

It's important to specify your campaign's goals and to outline a realistic timeline to develop an effective promotional concept. For example, I had a bunch of ideas from the onset that may have met some of my criteria, but really didn't meet my most important one, the promotion of my business. They just were good reference tools that I planned to lay out nicely. However how to tie it to my brand? That needed some thought—I felt something sufficiently clever yet simple was in order. I had to set limits because, overanalytical as I am, I've often mired myself in the research phase, literally planning ideas to the ground and beyond before they even had a chance to take off.

I decided, all things considered, that a month and a half of development was ample enough time to finalize the "bones" of this little project. Any less wouldn't have been enough and could've caused setbacks down the road if I wasn't satisfied with it's direction, any more would've been overkill, endangering the fulfillment of my predetermined mid year deadline.

Execution.
It pretty much says it all, I think. This not only includes the computer design, it also includes all of the pre-drafting, scanning and assorted materials gathering as well. Not to be understated, it allows plenty of time for revisions and in the most drastic of cases, the potential to develop another creative direction altogether (also known as "back to the ol' drawing board" syndrome, but if you research well enough, this extreme back pedal is usually not as severe or even necessary). For this project, considering it's scope and that it has to constantly take a back seat to other paying projects, I've given myself three months.

Printing.
The underestimated phase. My rule of thumb is to double their projected turn around time. Quite simply it's to account for output issues that might cause a delay. It happens more often than not, so always allocate extra time if you want to meet any deadline.

Delivery.
Another phase that requires the "printing" rule of thumb, solely because it's the one phase that is totally out of your control—your campaign if it is time sensitive like this one, will be left in the hands of another who may not prioritize it's timely arrival as you would. So it pays to do a couple of things here. Double (or even triple) the estimated delivery time (even if it's next day air) and get a delivery confirmation receipt of some kind (registered, etc) so that you can track your package.

This is also a good time to briefly address packaging. After all, it's part and parcel of your presentation as well, no pun intended. Imagine the difference between a plain shipping box or envelope over something more inviting like this (click on the little arrows). As a designer it'll further reinforce your creative talent in developing appropriate, attractive promotional solutions. And as the saying goes, Style is in the Details.

There is one last consideration, and that's "Murphy's Law," Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. After all your careful plotting from your promotion's completion date on back to ensure success, things can still go so far South that it falls off the proverbial radar, "...best laid plans" and all. Hopefully by structuring a more organized attack plan from the very beginning, it will keep most of your ducks lined neatly in a row instead of splayed all over the street.

Next time: First Dates.