Many Australian studios are running flat-out yet wondering why the numbers don’t stack up. The problem isn’t effort — it’s focus. You might be measuring the wrong things.
Most creative agencies chase new work to grow. The truth is, growth starts inside — by auditing profitability, utilisation, and client mix before pursuing new business.
While you focus on craft and visual quality, competitors are talking strategy, outcomes, and business value. They’re speaking the language clients want to hear.
We had the good fortune to have worked through the 1987 market crash, the dot.com boom and crash and the global financial crisis. I say good fortune because it taught us how to pivot.
When we face changes like we are now seeing we can’t do business as usual.
R&D exists in every business; some ad hoc and some structured. Putting design in R&D
Many clients don’t understand branding let alone design. We need to explain it in terms they understand.
Every design business owner knows the importance of keeping their clients happy and satisfied, but very few of us analyse the value that a positive experience will have on our bottom line. We do it very well FOR our clients but we don’t do it TO them.
Every design business owner knows the importance of keeping their clients happy and satisfied, but very few of us analyse the value that a positive experience will have on our bottom line. We do it very well FOR our clients but we don’t do it TO them.
Recent talk about the business of design focuses on traditional ways of doing biz dev, costing, pricing and positioning. That’s so last decade; it’s now about the human side of the business of design.
With half the country working remotely and clients wanting to work from home there has to be a new approach to business development and selling the value of design.
The question is how do you develop a new approach?
In design research you are trying to understand the customers beliefs, experiences, attitudes, behaviour and interactions.
We aim to get recognised and paid for the value we create, not the hours we spend on the project. We want to shift from a cost focus to a value focus.