Remember a couple of weeks ago when I said that I was interviewed for a profile being run in the Tri-Cities Business Review? I just received a blast e-mail from the TCBR and my photo is the first thing I see when I open it up. Here is a link to the article. I don’t have any problem with it other than they have a quote wrong–unfortunately, it is the quote that appears beneath my photo in the e-mail. There is a word or two missing and somehow nobody noticed that the sentence there doesn’t make sense. Great…now I look like a buffoon who can’t string a few words together into a coherent sentence. The best part? The quote is about communication. 

Reading through the article, I think the writer did a decent job, but it’s a little uncomfortable for me to be on that end of the interview/camera. I’m used to being the one asking the questions and taking the photos, so when I’m the subject I get a little self-conscious. Reading through the article there is a quote when I said, “I don’t go out to sell,” he said. “Work finds me.” That sounds a whole lot differently now than it did when I said it. The writer was asking me about how I find work and I explained that I am not a salesperson (I’ve never been comfortable in that role) and I don’t really go out to sell. I have no doubt that I said the words, but as an out-of-context quote they make me sound arrogant. Blech.

I’ve never been comfortable being interviewed. In the winter of 2007, the Saginaw News ran a feature story about me on the front page (below the fold) of the paper. The angle of the article was about an American designer designing the logo for the 2007 Ontario Hockey League All-Star Classic. The article came out great and included a photo of me. At that time I was sporting a VERY full beard–we’re talking Grizzly Adams full. A lot of people recognized me and complimented me on the article and on the OHL work, but one person went a step further (I think I wrote about it in my old blog, actually). She sent an anonymous letter to my home, the letter read:

Hi Shawn,
I saw this picture of you in the Saginaw News on 1-30-07.
I have one question to ask: Don’t you think you are getting to old to have that long dirty looking hair? And that silly hair on your face, you sure could use a razor.
a Reader of the News

Nice, huh? One of these days I need to dig up that letter, scan it and post it here. Until then, I leave you with the full photo that was taken for the article. I was hoping they’d use the whole shot and show off the window graphics, but no such luck.

There was an article in the Bay City Times this week about the Bay City paying a consultant $30,000 to “find ways to get a positive message out to residents regarding the city’s water and wastewater systems.” 

I sat at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast a few months ago where city officials were pleading poverty as to why we can’t repair the streets of Bay City. We can’t afford to fix our roads but we have money to invest in making us feel better about our sewers?

This isn’t the first time that Bay City has used outside experts who came with a high price tag. I don’t have anything against using outside experts when the situation calls for it, but $30,000 to get a positive message out about the sewer?? Really? Really? Sometimes I am not sure if the people running the day-to-day operations of our city are capable of making good decisions. I wouldn’t let them run a bake sale and they’re in charge of the city budget.

Our city is falling apart and I am not speaking figuratively–the streets are actually crumbling. Is this really the best use of $30,000 out of an already overtaxed city budget? I don’t care if the money wasn’t earmarked for street repairs, we don’t need a PR campaign to make the sewer warm and fuzzy. It’s the sewer! If you have thirty grand to throw at a consultant, that’s thirty grand that could go to street repair. Or whatever…just not a PR campaign for the sewer. 

Want a free lesson in public relations? A lot of PR comes at little or no cost–newspapers, tv, town hall meetings, etc. I have nothing against using consultants/experts when it makes sense, but Bay City is too quick to turn to consultants because there is a very low level of expertise when it comes to dealing with PR/advertising. Just look at the city logo that came out a couple of years ago–that monstrosity cost the city nearly $50,000. There are at least ten designers in Bay City who could have done a better job at a fraction of the cost. Hell, there are probably ten fifth graders who could have done a better job. 

Sometimes, Bay City government seems more concerned with looking good than doing good. And that’s a problem. Good public relations come from sound decisions. Spending $30,000 for a consultant’s ideas is not a sound decision in the current economic environment. Quit trying to look good and just fix the city.

I want to be careful here to avoid equating the business of graphic design to, say, selling vacuum cleaners. Obviously, there is a world of difference, but when you distill it down to the essentials, graphic design is like a lot of other businesses in that it’s all about the numbers.

Between the cost of operating a studio (rent, utilities, insurance), staffing the studio, marketing and so forth, there is a number we have to hit every month just to keep the doors open. So, in effect, I know that every month I need to move X units of graphic design. The units vary in shape and size (logo design, brochure design, photo shoot, etc.), but I need to move enough units to pay everybody else and then hopefully have enough left over to pay myself.

I’m a big believer in the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80-20 rule among other names. Basically, the Pareto Principle says that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients. (Note: the Pareto Principle does not apply to just business, but to many other things such as baseball teams–80% of your run production comes from 20% of your players, for example.)

I first learned about this notion while I was a general manager with Kinko’s and it proved itself valid time and time again. The way we applied the Principle at Kinko’s was that we focused the lion’s share of our marketing efforts on the clients who were already loyal (and often major) customers. This is a valid approach and it worked–in about three years I grew my store from about $30K per month to over $100K per month.

The Pareto Principle applies design studios and ad agencies, too, bit that runs straight into one of my worst business fears–having all of my eggs in one basket. I know of several studios and agencies that have gone out of business because one or two big clients moved their business and the revenue loss killed the studio. And I know of many more who lived in mortal fear of it happening to them. Nobody wants to have too much business from any single client, but it just sort of happens over time. You keep doing a good job, they keep bringing you more and more business. Then one day something goes wrong or the client is purchased by someone who mandates that their agency be used and it is all over.

There is one company in the region who, if they were to go out of business or pull all of their business out of the region, would kill a BUNCH of agencies/studios. Maybe not right away, but over the course of a year it would be a bloodbath. The principles would get out okay, but for the studio rank-and-file it would be all over. The Tri-Cities would find itself flooded with designers and copywriters, many of whom would take to freelancing, which would hurt freelancers and other small studios. The trickle-down effect would be devastating on the local design and advertising industry.

To avoid the all-eggs-in-one-basket trap, I have tried to take a different approach by focusing my attention on the 20% side of the Pareto Principle. Not so much the 20% of clients who are occasional clients, but the 100% of potential clients who don’t work with us. Yet.

I make a conscious effort to reach out to a wide variety of clients in a variety of industries. The effect of making phone calls and meeting with potential clients leaves me feeling a little bit like a door-to-door salesman. I’m not trying to sell anyone a logo design they don’t need (although, believe me, there are plenty of people in need of a new logo design–I’m talking to you Sherwin Williams), but there is a degree of discomfort in asking people for new business. 

Discomfort or not, I need to keep making the phone calls and setting the meetings. The more people who see the work 989 Design has done, the more people want to work with 989 Design. A pretty high percentage of our meetings turn into actual work, which is something I am very proud of.

The way I see it, as long as we continue doing great work and keep working the skinny end of the Pareto Principle, we should be in pretty good shape.

The Loons are back in town beginning Thursday, August 7th. It’s only been a little over a week, but it feels like much longer. Compared to the staff—who are at all 70 games per season—I have it really easy. I will shoot around 25-30 games this year. There are only about four weeks left in the season, so if you haven’t gone yet, be sure to get out to Dow Diamond soon.

Anybody recognize this guy? No, he’s not the newest addition to the Great Lakes Loons pitching staff. The past month has been photo filled and I’ve had the opportunity to take photos of a few celebrities, including this gentleman, Mr. Jerry Mathers…as the Beaver. I’ll be writing more about it this weekend, so stay tuned.