One thing we never like to talk about is rules – those things that govern how we do things – but they are of course everywhere from the roads to schools to how we are supposed to behave at the pub and at work.

Your rules for running a creative business are no less important – you will have them – it’s just that perhaps they haven’t been defined or listed for everyone in the business to agree. Traffic as an award winning management system is principally based on a set of rules. So what are the rules that we regard as key in getting to the top of running a successful creative business.
We believe that you should have rules for estimating and project management.

Firstly, every piece of work no matter how big or small should be estimated and given a job number before any work is done on it. No job number no one works on it, simple one really.

Always make sure we define who the relevant client or suppliers are for each and every job.

Hold all the correspondence from a client or supplier in one area – whether it be emails, briefs, estimates, specifications or suppliers quotes.

Also make sure all project mangers / account managers or designers who work on a project put all notes in the same place – so you have a full history that anyone can pick up at any time.

Make sure you move a status of a project or job forward. When jobs are progressed they are either pending / accepted / closed or billed.

Another key set of rules should cover estimating practices – all project managers should use simple stages such as Design, Artwork etc. And all descriptions should be listed.

When we set up a job we define a deadline, we always have a team leader responsible for a project, jobs are set up with Job types and every job should have a brief. Once a job is set up we must define which staff will work on what.
The rules for the studio are even more important.

Every member of the studio must enter 7.5 hours of timesheets per day. Timesheets should be entered everyday – and in preference more than once a day. Everyone must take responsibility for time – and if you feel that a job is overrunning then contact the manager and let them know so you can start to do something about it before it overruns.

The key rules in Management are about making sure you have in place the catch all processes. A Monday morning meeting – where are we on jobs. An overrunning jobs meeting – where are we on these? And key a job status meeting – what is open, what’s to be billed etc.

The rules are simple rules. Everyday a Sohnar we speak with creative businesses who are fantastically creative but, no matter how creative – if you don’t adhere to at least the basic rules, and these aren’t lived by every person in your creative agency then the business can only fall short on its delivery to clients, staff and on projects. If you live by your rules and continue to grow with them you will prosper.

Hi,

Last month we talked about the importance of sales and new business to drive your creative company forward, and how this needs to be more than just relying on word of mouth.

Sell, sell, upsell

Part of ensuring the growth of your creative business is going beyond new sales and actively getting more business from your current clients.

Once you get to know a client, you’ll understand their needs and requirements. You’ll become familiar with how they work, what pressures they are under and the style of the team and their business.

For this reason upsell should be easier than new business activity, but in most instances we don’t give it as much focus. You need to get a good rapport – remembering birthdays, facts about their family and other personal details makes your client feel that you care and that they are your most important client.  It’s often that you know this – but if it’s recorded and kept in one place then everyone else can know it too.

It’s just as important once you have a client to pitch ideas – these should be costed and you should take the initiative.  If you are given a yearly budget, put forward a plan.  Your CRM system needs to be robust – you should save as many details as possible about the client team – you never know when someone gets promoted or moves to another area of the business or maybe to another business – your knowledge may prove vital.

Track targets

Now we come to the key part of tracking sales targets, these need to be split between new business and current clients, and also planned and non-planned expenditure – it’s often that you have an activity schedule for the year, for a client – but the real skill here is adding things onto the menu.  It’s about land grab – doing more – over and above the clients initial budget. You can often add another 30% on top of budget by pitching great ideas. For additional spend on activity, if it comes with a robust business case and a convincing ROI for the activity it’s difficult for anyone to say no. So why not try to sell ROI or success based fees.

Get Feedback

Tracking the achieved targets for any activity is key, as is the feedback on a project or job. You should keep a record where you compare delivery against the brief, and success against defined targets. Also how the client perceived the project, as well as feedback from the creative team on the brief, and the account team on their deliverables. All this information should be stored in a central place.  In Traffic we have a ranking system where we rank a job out of 100 based on the delivery of a number criteria against each success criteria. We rank it from the team and then from the client – and then track against the two.  If there are any shortfalls you know about it early, it’s often that creative teams think everything has gone well.

The importance of project management

This therefore brings us neatly into the area of project management – this is the other major factor that helps in retaining clients. Ensuring they have regular and accurate communication, that timelines are given, updated, and delivery is ranked and recorded.

Current project management systems fall into two categories – very complex and time intensive scheduling or programmes that are not specific to the creative process. A key requirement is to break a project into jobs, and within those jobs different stages, and those stages can be further classified into tasks, which are specific to a person.  Also important in management of projects is scheduling events, the things that need to happen, and are not about time based tasks but are factors that need to be completed before you can move to the next stage.  Any project management process needs to work to a framework and scheduling of events and staff activity needs to be easy and simple to record. And to report back as to what everyone in the team is working on.  You need easy Gantt charting – and any changes in the schedules relayed to the client with new information.

Finally tracking all the correspondence related to a client, a job or a project is vital.  It’s important that this is recorded for everyone to see, including emails, and phone correspondence and a history of everything that’s happened on a job.

Thought for the Month

“Good design can’t fix broken business models .”  Jeffrey Veen

Have a great month!

Cheers,

Tracey

By Tracey Shirtcliff -  MD Sohnar

In the current economic climate of bank struggles and consumer nervousness it’s essential that you keep your eye on the most important driver of creative success — your sales pipeline.

We often see creative companies who are brilliant at driving business for their customers but less than savvy at doing it for themselves.  Creative companies tell us the best way for them to get new business is by word of mouth – and yes word of mouth is great – a true accolade that you are really good at what you do – however it relies on your clients knowing other great potential clients to recommend you too.

It’s essential not to leave new business wins and growth of your customer base to chance – you need to do for yourselves what you profess you do for your customers – great creative that drives you business – and from that it needs to be followed up, managed and supported.

So how do we know a successful creative agency?

At Sohnar we can often quickly and easily identify a successful creative business or one that we know is going to grow and succeed.  9 times out of 10 its one that has a defined sales process and someone responsible for new business.  It helps if it’s not just the owner of the business – as this normally means that it’s a part time job and it most definitely is a full time job.

It’s very important to have a sales process in place, that you have mechanisms like brochures, case studies and a portfolio of great work. For starters case studies are key – and clients that will act as references – ask them and then keep them abreast of anyone who may get in contact.

You need to embrace cold calling – we know that no one (except the mad) jump up and down with excitement at doing it BUT having someone who does this and builds a data set of companies that you can target – named contacts – with a record of them and their buying habits.  Knowing who to call to get on the roster – when pitches are coming up and recording this with times to call back, and budgets.  We all know we need to do it but it’s all too easy to not to.  You need a CRM system – something that manages all this data for the company.  Great sales and new business people leave – unfortunately – so it’s essential that if they do – you hold all the key relationship information and all the follow-up times.  It’s what you’ve paid them for.

As a general rule we’ve seen that only 3 out of 10 creative companies have a common place for data or a database with this type of information.
Every person responsible for new business also needs a defined sales target, this can be weekly, monthly, quarterly or yearly.  From our experience a monthly target is best; as it doesn’t leave you to the last few months of the year to focus on it.  But no matter the time scales any target needs to be measured, recorded and tracked. Expected sales against actual is key.  As is being realistic it needs to be something that is achievable and it needs to be rewarded if the target is hit.  And even better rewarded if it’s overachieved.
It’s also our belief that there is no better reward than a financial one – we encourage commissions.  Transparency to see who is bringing in business and who’s not is also important.

It’s also vital to remember that sales is not an island – it needs to be run with the input of everyone in the business - if you can give your account mangers an up-sell target all the better.  If someone finds business out of hours and they are a designer – reward them.  Tell the business about this great person.

Recording of all new business needs to be split between current clients and completely new business so you can track it – and forecast for it.  The most common reason for a creative business going bust is unfortunately the loss of a big client.  Of the creative businesses that Sohnar sees, over 40% rely on one client for over 50% of their billing.  That’s a huge risk to the business, your staff, and the future of your creative company.

There are lots of other important factors within the sales process that we’ve only briefly touched on, up-selling current clients, the use of CRM, and tracking targets and what these would be in a typical creative business.

It’s easy to automatically go into “saving mode” when the economy is bad. However, it is important to remember that now is the time to invest in tools that can make immediate bottom line savings or increase revenues. You need to stay on your toes and move fast to ensure your business remains profitable.

Technology is an invaluable tool in keeping your customers happy and will give you the competitive edge you need. Business management software should be regarded as an investment in growth rather than just a cost. It will improve your level of service, increase transparency and help you keep a close eye on deadlines.

A system helps you keep track of projects so time and cost don’t get out of hand, plus it helps you communicate a lot better with your customers, something they will definitely appreciate.

Some benefits that will help you keep your clients (and bottom line) happy:

• All client/project data in one place
• Consistency
• Control of workflow
• Increased efficiency
• Time & expense management
• Transparency
• No more missed deadlines
• Increased profitability (!!!)

In creative agencies, time is literally money. With the time you can save with a good system it will have paid for itself in a month.

I want to share with you why it’s so important for your business success to have a Traffic creative management system in place. By Tracey Shirtcliff

The goal of any creative business after producing great creative for their clients is to increase efficiency and profitability of their own business.  Whether within an advertising agency, design or marketing company, sustainability of that business is absolutely key.   So how do you ensure that you eliminate false starts, inappropriate job initiation, incomplete information sharing, over- and under-cost estimation, and the need for deadline extensions?   Firstly we need to address the issue. Without a Traffic or creative management system to carefully control and document processes even the most successful agency might find itself in a state of chaos. You have to meet deadlines, stay within budgets and you need to know who’s doing what and when they’re doing it.   The core competency of creative agencies therefore is not simply the production of great creative work. It’s the efficient management of that production. And, most importantly, you have to have the tools to help you to deliver it.   There are many project management options available on the market today. But a Traffic System should empower you to break work down into measurable increments and manageable tasks, making information accessible to everyone within your agency whether working in- or outside of the office. A central system such as this fosters a way of doing business that is much more organised than a paper system. It also makes everyone involved in the process more accountable.  And getting reports or information out is much easier since it’s not trapped in the minds of the very people who are too busy to give it to you.   As the key driver of a workflow system, the Traffic Manager or Studio Manager ensures the consistent delivery of accurate work on time and within budget parameters. This is accomplished through not only the initiation of project work electronically via a document such as a project estimate, project brief, and schedule but through the constant policing of deadlines and financials using such tools as to do lists, work requests, and time sheets.   The Traffic Manager also ensures that work is accurate through the provision of detailed job requirement information to the appropriate parties via progress reports and work requests.  Careful daily monitoring of all jobs through a creative business from inception to their completion is the ultimate responsibility of the Traffic/Production Manager.   A central traffic system, overseen by an employee whose sole responsibility is its ongoing maintenance, can save your agency valuable time. By making client information that was once segregated available to all employees from the convenience of their computers, it makes it possible to increase billable time through increased productivity.   Time and expense management, access to all client communication, and the instant retrieval of job-specific information, are among the many key features of a good creative management system.   Every employee within an agency plays an integral role in its workflow processes. Through the combination of an efficient traffic/ creative system, team commitment and management dedication, your creative agency can experience unparalleled efficiency and profitability.   Now that’s why a Creative management system or Traffic management system is so important.

Last year we hosted a series of phone seminars in association with Design Week. They’ve all been really great talks and covered some important topics so I thought I’d share one of them with you here today.

Richard Mott, Chairman and founder of 20/20 hosted a session titled “Surfing the waves of change – How to survive an economy low”. In today’s economical climate,  I thought this would be a great topic.

So I’m now handing you over to Richard Mott:

Enjoy the article

Tracey Shirtcliff

Surfing the winds of change -
How to survive an economy low

Before I talk about business, I want to introduce an analogy.

When I was 17, I was a surfer. Whenever I could, I would go with a band of like-minded adventurers travelling from bay to bay looking for the best waves.

A wave can be the source of immense excitement, providing a chance for the most fantastic experience of your life, but a wave can also be the most powerful and dangerous force of nature that can throw you off your board, hold you under the water, and turn you over and over while your lungs are bursting.

Surfing and business

Surfing gives me an understanding of waves and how to survive them that I have since applied to business. Out at sea, you are constantly watching the waves. You learn that they come in sets of three and you get to recognise which are the best waves to catch and which ones to leave alone.

You need balance and you need to keep your wits about you. It is the same when you sit on a company board – you look out for the waves, learn how to ride them and how to survive them.

The ups and downs of client relationships are waves to be ridden with skill and balance. The ups and downs of the economic climate are waves to be survived.

For 20/20 it all started 20 years ago in 1988 …

The goal of any creative business after producing great creative for their clients is to increase efficiency and profitability of their own business. Whether within an advertising agency, design or marketing company, sustainability of that business is key.
So how do you ensure that you eliminate false starts, inappropriate job initiation, incomplete information sharing, over- and under-cost estimation, and the need for deadline extensions within a creative business?

Firstly we need to address the issue. Without traffic / creative management – the ability to carefully control and document workflow processes – even the most creatively successful agency might find itself in a state of chaos. You have to meet deadlines. You have to stay within budgets. You have to know who’s doing what and when they’re doing it.

The core competency of creative agencies therefore is not simply the production of creative work. It’s the efficient management of that production. And, most importantly, you have to have the tools to help you do so.

There are many project management options available on the market today. But a Traffic System empowers you to break work down into measurable increments and manageable tasks, making information accessible to everyone within your agency whether working in- or outside of the office. A central system such as this fosters a way of doing business that is much more organised than a paper system. It also makes everyone involved in the process more accountable. And getting reports or information out is much easier since it’s not trapped in the minds of the very people who are too busy to give it to you.

As the key driver of a workflow system, the Traffic Manager or Studio Manager ensures the consistent delivery of accurate work on time and within budget parameters. This is accomplished through not only the initiation of project work electronically via a document such as a project estimate, project brief, and schedule but through the constant policing of deadlines and financials using such tools as to do lists, work requests, and time sheets.

The Traffic Manager also ensures that work is accurate through the provision of detailed job requirement information to the appropriate parties via progress reports and work requests. Careful daily monitoring of all jobs through a creative buisness from inception to their completion is the ultimate responsibility of the Traffic Manager / Production Manager.

A central traffic system, overseen by an employee whose sole responsibility is its ongoing maintenance, can save your agency valuable time. By making client information that was once segregated available to all employees from the convenience of their computers, it makes it possible to increase billable time through increased productivity.

Time and expense management, access to all client communication, and the instant retrieval of job-specific information, are among the many key features of a good creative management system.

Every employee within an agency plays an integral role in its workflow processes. Through the combination of an efficient traffic/ creative system, team commitment and management dedication, your creative agency can experience unparalleled efficiency and profitability.

Now that’s why a Creative management system or Traffic management system is so key – makes sense when you see it like that doesn’t it?