The HeART of Design Business is a five-part series addressing the inner tensions artists feel as they face the creativity-sapping realities of running a business. Part one dealt with matters of money and finances, part two with measuring time, and in this third installment we’ll dig deep as we face the universally despised tasks of […]
Category Archives: Marketing
HOW Design published another of my articles. This one was about ineffective design firm blogs. What should be a compelling demonstration of a design firm’s valuable expertise tends to shift downward to Facebook like updates, which are fine as far as they go, but useless or juiceless when it comes to sales and marketing. But […]
Graphic Design Blender, a newsletter dedicated to helping graphic design freelancers improve their business practices, just published one of my articles. It’s on the subject of narrow positioning–contrasting it to the more common practice of casting a wide net. In the article I give five compounding reasons why broad generalist positioning of a firm or […]
As a part of my marketing process for Rewarding Toil I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn reviewing design firm websites. Sadly, the frequency with which my research leads to 404 page is far too great. Design firms go out of business with sobering regularity.
My latest article on agency and design firm branding has just been published on HOWDesign.com. It’s called “Agency Branding: Time to Hang Up the Beret.”
In my last post I made the case for how sharp, narrow positioning makes all the difference for design firm marketing and profitability. I think that most designers, when they come to understand how this works, would agree that narrow positioning is a more lucrative path. Nevertheless, most firms still seem to prefer broad positioning. […]
“If the iron is blunt, and one does not sharpen the edge, he must use more strength, but wisdom helps one to succeed.” Ecclesiastes 10:10 “Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Abraham Lincoln Many design firms business problems such as financial underperformance, […]
Over the 15 years I owned Newfangled, I made the mistake of hiring a salesperson more than once. The idea of a dedicated employee whose job is to find clients and who operates mostly on commission was too attractive an opportunity not to bite on. But it never worked out. There are many reasons why […]