The one new business development tool
you have to use this year.

I’ve spent the past few weeks tracking back and forth across the country working with some great design studios. As a result, I am totally inspired by the growth potential for design in Australia.

I’ve seen a common thread across all the studios.

All are looking for a simple tool they can use to get new business. It has to be something that is scaleable. It has to be manageable, and it has to fit into the capability of the studio (time and money).

I point designers to the Business Model Canvas.

I know that if you’ve done work with the canvas you may be inclined to stop reading …but please read on. I guarantee it will change your business.

If you don’t know about the canvas this video will explain it.

Some designers may have been introduced to the Canvas as part of a design road show that happened a few years ago. The presenter used a traditional approach that I think can be improved for the Australian design market.

I tweaked the base model and incorporated aspects designed for Australian design studios and the Australian design market. I call it the Design Business Model Canvas and since then I’ve seen it used successfully in hundreds of design studios.

What is a business model?

A business model is a different way of thinking about your business and where you want it to go. A design business model describes how a design studio creates, delivers, and captures economic or social value for clients. The process of business model design is part of business strategy. It can be a quick and dirty exercise that helps you think through your business.

Business models are more likely to take the form of a one–page visual presentation and are done before a business plan. The business model is best produced quickly, then rapidly tested with clients and then reconfigured. The model you choose is then detailed in your business plan.

One of the major proponents of the business model canvas is Steve Blank, a serial entrepreneur and originator of the lean start-up concept.

In a May 2013 article for Harvard Business Review, Steve Blank explains that launching any new business has always been a hit or miss proposition. He quotes research by Harvard Business School’s Shikhar Gosh which shows that 75% of all start-ups fail. Blank believes the answer is in the “lean start-up”.

He compares the business model approach to a traditional business plan approach. As he says: the “lean start-up”, favours experimentation over elaborate planning, customer feedback over intuition, and iterative design over traditional “big design up-front” development.

According to Blank, the business model is just a hunch or hypothesis (and so is the business plan). The difference is that the business model can be prepared in a few hours. Blank believes that as a business owner you rapidly develop a business model and then “get out of the building” to test it with clients.

The Design Business Model Canvas

The Design Business Model Canvas is different because it adds a Competitor column and it turns the Key Activities section into Strategies and the Value Proposition into a Design Value Proposition.

You can’t work out your competitive advantage without understanding your competitors. It’s not about trying to ‘knock them off’ – it’s about identifying how you are different and why that difference should be important to your clients.

The Key Activities section in the canvas sets out the strategies you need to get new business. Using this, and the Design Value Proposition, you can identify and target the type of work you want to do.

I have used the Design Business Model Canvas with more that 90 designers as part of workshops and mentoring.

My approach varies from most consultants who help you write the Canvas and then leave you to work out how to implement it. I follow through by helping designers to develop a series of strategies to follow. A to-do list.

The beauty of this approach is that having learnt how to use the Canvas in your business, you can then use it with clients.

One of the studios I mentor now uses the Canvas as the first stage for an identity or branding project. Since starting this approach, project budgets have increased and in one case what had been a one off job has turned into a 12 month project with a client.

Let’s talk

If you would like to hear more about how this works drop me an email and we can set up a time to chat.

Greg Branson
Greg’s passion is the research and development of methods that improve design management and the role of design in business.
Greg has developed a series of processes and tools to help designers manage their business better along with a series of workshops that show designers how to use these tools.

Going back to school.

 

I work solo now, and I love it.

I love the flexibility, I love the control and I certainly love the small overheads.

But I also loved the comradery of a studio. I miss working with and being in the same space as other designers, but if I did it all again I wouldn’t build the same business …

Employee retention is a real problem in a small business. Once you find the right designer, it’s difficult to keep them from exploring the next challenge.

Where we went wrong was in having a stable of loyal clients. For a business owner, holding onto a client is gold but it can be understandably boring for designers. Who wants to design an annual report for the same client for 20 years in a row (me! Me! ME!). Rephrase. What employee wants to design an annual report for the same client for 20 years in a row? Even when you share the love between designers, it’s far from a new frontier.

So, it’s hard to keep the good designers happy – so happy that they want to stay and not move onto the next challenge. Especially hard in a small studio where there’s not really the career growth of a larger business. Everyone wants to feel like they are continually learning and not doing the same thing again and again.

Over the years we’ve talked about various solutions and by-george I think we’ve got it! Let them learn more on the job. Learn more about how to run a studio, using your studio as a test-case. But also let them see that you run a good business and they can have an influence and a greater sense of belonging.

I collaborated with Greg to design a course we would have liked to run with our employees in our studio – the Design Business School (DBS).

We did offer professional development time but it was unstructured and hard to measure the effectiveness. Some designers spent the time wandering around the laneways of the interweb. Others taught themselves a few tricks in photoshop. What I wanted was something that we could do as a team. Something that stretched all our minds and – to be absolutely truthful – something that was of value to the business. Oh, and it had to be flexible.

*Sales speil alert*

The DBS is an eight week, four term program that designers do in the studio and in their own time. It is absolutely flexible. Each term will take about two to three hours per week to complete, and it’s all practical activities, so it’s shouldn’t be arduous. But what happens when you get too much work? Just put it on hold until you can get back to it.

The school includes business management topics that aren’t taught at uni but are valuable to all designers.

It’s a complete win: win. Everybody gets to learn. Your designers will understand your business better, and the better they understand the challenges, the better employees they are. And besides, every designer is a small business – even those long term employees will have some freelance clients on the side.

It’s about understanding your business. Where it fits into the design industry. How you work with clients, how to find clients and how to get more work from the clients you have. This is even more critical if you have designers talking directly to your clients.

Here’s some my favourite content that’s included

• Identifying, as a team, what you do better than others – analysing your competitors and your unfair advantage then an exercise to categorise your clients – that way you can see whether your skills meet their needs
• We all get pigeon-holed, so we’ve included an exercise that helps change the way clients see your business, that way you may be able to get more business from existing clients
• Marketing and new business development – proven methods that Greg used and has since honed as he’s mentored other designers. The value of designers working with you is they can help shape the direction of the studio and that makes for happy employees.
• Topics about making money: how to add value to design, how to develop a pricing strategy, how to get more work from existing clients. It’s being transparent to your team – but the more they know they more they understand the challenges of making money, the more they will understand where the money for a wage increase comes from. There’s an activity that will increase your hourly rate on all jobs.
• Finally, after you’ve identified how design could be integrated into a client’s business, there’s a session on how to write/pitch the business case.

I think the designers we employed would have loved to do the course – they’ve all gone onto bigger and better things and many now run their own studio and I know these skills would prove invaluable.

Carol Mackay

Carol is co-founder of Mackay Branson, a design studio currently celebrating 31 years in business.
Her expertise is in the use of design to package complex content into bite-sized chunks of information that is easy to understand and digest. She does that with clients in the corporate, cultural, government and not for profit sectors. More at mbdesign.com.au

Want new business? Get out of the building.

There are many design entrepreneurs who have set up a design studio and are actively seeking new business by selling the value of design.

The question is how do you get to this stage?

The answer is to behave like an entrepreneur and get out of the building. You meet clients, and their customers. Stop obsessing over pixel perfection in your designs and obsess over client and customer relationships.

Designers can learn how to do this from the Lean Start-up movement. People such as Steve Blank are showing the way – he first used the phrase Get out of the building when explaining his customer development process. He’s also a strong advocate for the business model canvas as a means to rethink a business structure and prepare it for a rapid test in the marketplace. This is the thinking behind the Design Business Model Canvas workshop that shows a process to help a studio rapidly examine the business they have and turn it into the business they want.

The whole idea is that you quickly develop your business model and then you get out and test it with clients.

But my clients just want to see a pdf!
We have allowed the industry to get to a point where many clients don’t want to meet with us. ‘Sorry I’m too busy just send a pdf’.

We need to grab the initiative back. Here’s just a few ways to do it.

Pitch your research
You’ve won the project but the client just wants to see pdf presentations.

This is where you jump in at the beginning and tell the client you want to share with them the insights you gained from talking to their customers during your research phase. Explain that you now understand how potential customers buy, and what terminology they use to describe how the clients’ product or service might solve their problem. And tell your client you have some information about their existing and potential competitors.

Explain to the client you have gathered some ‘artifacts’ as part of your research – competitor or peer materials that work well to reinforce their (the competitors) value proposition.

This is the type of thing you do in your research phase anyway, so why not share it with the client.
What client would pass up on hearing all that?

Personas
Your research also gives you the chance to build customer personas. Gather the physical and emotional details of the customer and put together a persona document that you can walk through with the client.

Develop personas that show who buyers are, what they are trying to accomplish, what goals drive their behaviour, how they think, how they buy, and why they make buying decisions.
Use real photographs and explain the:

• Behavioural drivers – The customers’ goals, what they want to accomplish, their journey to finding your clients product or service.
• Obstacles to purchasing – Describe the hesitations and concerns the customers have. How they view the product or service and its impact on how much information they need to make a decision?
• Mindset – Customers come to the buying experience with expectations and preconceived notions. Are they shoppers who want the thrill of the bargain or do they expect a more refined experience? Selling a weight loss program will be more emotionally charged than trying to sell a tape dispenser.

Explain to the client that you have developed these personas as part of your design research and they have a strategic use for the client.

Co-creation
Use the opportunity of being in front of the client to engage them in co-creation. This is why they’ll ask you back next time to meet face-to-face.

As a designer you have a skill they don’t have – you can draw. You can visualise your ideas – and their ideas.
Sketch out the process in front of them much like an explainer video or strategic visualisation orsketchboarding.
Encourage them to add to your sketches.

All of this engages them in the creation process and has them thinking that the face-to-face meeting is preferable to an emailed pdf.

Tell the story

From the earliest days in design school, designers start telling stories to explain their designs.
Polish this skill. Enhance it by using examples of how you’ve succeeded in past project. Give your own name to colours to make them memorable. Personify typefaces to bring them to life.

Stories have a beginning (your research), a middle (the design presentation) and an end (the predicted results). Use this model and take them through the story, leading up to a call to action – what do you think?

Use your storytelling to give them the words they need to respond to the presentation. By naming colours and personifying type you open up for them to respond. Even if they don’t agree with your choice at least you have a starting point for discussion and collaboration.

No matter what I try they won’t meet face-to-face

There is no doubt that many clients see design as a transaction, much like ordering stationery.

These are not the people you want to commit time to. There is a chance you can shift their thinking over time. But that will be an expensive exercise.

The better approach is to segment the clients into those that want to use design as part of their business; those who want ‘relational’ design rather than ‘transactional’ design.

The reality is that the transactional clients only want design at the cheapest price (and quickly as well). You need a few of them to fill in the cashflow but as few as possible.

The first test with a new client is whether they want to meet with you. If they don’t want a face-to-face relationship they should be categorised as transactional.

Put your effort into the relational clients where you can prove that design delivers value. You can also then move them to premium pricing.

I have developed a workshop that will help you change the way that clients see your business. The Building a business model workshop will show you how to get the business you want.

 

Greg Branson
Greg’s passion is the research and development of methods that improve design management and the role of design in business.
Greg has developed a series of processes and tools to help designers manage their business better along with a series of workshops that show designers how to use these tools.

Developing a Strategy for your studio

Over the past decade I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to devise a method small studios can use to convince clients of the value of design.

In developing the Design Business Model Canvas I have put a strong focus on the design value proposition (dvp) as my way of showing clients why they should value design.

I consider the dvp is the key element for a design studio wanting to show design has value. The dvp describes the value-add services you offer to a client and demonstrates them with an example. These services are often hidden in the way that designers talk and relate to their clients. The process of developing the dvp unlocks those value-adds and gives you the words to describe them to a client. The big question is still ‘how do you put a $ value on the return from design investment?’

Measuring the value of design

The Design Management Institute (DMI) has long been a champion of selling design value but even they admit it’s difficult to define the value of design. They recognise that design is hard to isolate as a function within an organisation and even when you can, the design function operates differently in each industry. That makes benchmarking extremely difficult.

Instead, DMI chose to look at the value of design-focused organisations as an aggregate. DMI and Motiv Strategies, funded by Microsoft, tracked the performance of US companies that integrated design into their business strategy.

The dmi:Design Value Index tracks the value of 15 publicly held companies that met specific design management criteria. They monitored the impact of their investments in design on stock value over a ten-year period, relative to the overall S&P Index.

In reporting on the 2014 Design Value Index results Jeneanne Rea, Founder and CEO, Motiv Strategies said.

“The ability to create compelling products and services that resonate with customers, consistently produce financial rewards, and build brand loyalty has become the Holy Grail for many companies. In today’s consumer-savvy world, design has unequivocally become a critical element towards meeting such goals. In fact, the Design Value Index (DVI), a market capitalization-weighted index comprised of design-driven companies, shows 10-year returns of a remarkable 219% over that of the Standard & Poor’s 500 index (“S&P 500”) from 2004-2014.”

The report showed that there are three corporate design trends:

• UX design dominating growth of the design profession
• Significant investments in design transform business
• New types of design businesses starting up

You can read more about these trends and the overall report here.

The take away point of all this. The dmi:Design Value index is a great source of information that can be used to show clients how design can add value.

Greg Branson
Greg’s passion is the research and development of methods that improve design management and the role of design in business.
Greg has developed a series of processes and tools to help designers manage their business better along with a series of workshops that show designers how to use these tools.

Turning clients into brand guided companies

Over the past decade I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to devise a method small studios can use to convince clients of the value of design.

In developing the Design business model canvas I have put a strong focus on the design value proposition(dvp) as my way of showing clients why they should value design.

I consider the dvp is the key element for a design studio wanting to show design has value. The dvp describes the value-add services you offer to a client and demonstrates them with an example. These services are often hidden in the way that designers talk and relate to their clients. The process of developing the dvp unlocks those value-adds and gives you the words to describe them to a client. The big question is still ‘how do you put a $ value on the return from design investment?’

Measuring the value of design

The Design Management Institute (DMI) has long been a champion of selling design value but even they admit it’s difficult to define the value of design. They recognise that design is hard to isolate as a function within an organisation and even when you can, the design function operates differently in each industry. That makes benchmarking extremely difficult.

Instead, DMI chose to look at the value of design-focused organisations as an aggregate. DMI and Motiv Strategies, funded by Microsoft, tracked the performance of US companies that integrated design into their business strategy.

The dmi:Design Value Index tracks the value of 15 publicly held companies that met specific design management criteria. They monitored the impact of their investments in design on stock value over a ten-year period, relative to the overall S&P Index.
In reporting on the 2014 Design Value Index results Jeneanne Rea, Founder and CEO, Motiv Strategies said.

“The ability to create compelling products and services that resonate with customers, consistently produce financial rewards, and build brand loyalty has become the Holy Grail for many companies. In today’s consumer-savvy world, design has unequivocally become a critical element towards meeting such goals. In fact, the Design Value Index (DVI), a market capitalization-weighted index comprised of design-driven companies, shows 10-year returns of a remarkable 219% over that of the Standard & Poor’s 500 index (“S&P 500”) from 2004-2014.”

The report showed that there are three corporate design trends:

• UX design dominating growth of the design profession
• Significant investments in design transform business
• New types of design businesses starting up

You can read more about these trends and the overall report here

The take away point of all this. The dmi:Design Value index is a great source of information that can be used to show clients how design can add value.

Greg Branson
Greg’s passion is the research and development of methods that improve design management and the role of design in business.
Greg has developed a series of processes and tools to help designers manage their business better along with a series of workshops that show designers how to use these tools.