How Do You Value Creativity?

Expertise, experience, knowledge, ability, execution.  They are all important factors in why a client chooses to hire you rather than another designer.  But in large part, your reputation and your appeal derive from your creativity.  As a designer, that’s a huge plus.  As a business owner, though, it presents a conundrum.  How do you value…

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Is Your Business in Need of Alignment?

To operate effectively and efficiently all the parts of your business need to be working toward the same goals and objectives. From time to time, though, operations can get out of whack, such as when there’s a new hire, change in strategy, or decision to expand into a new line of business or take on…

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Move Your Mindset

All of us have a view of ourselves and of the world that we’ve constructed over the years from our experiences and relationships with others. It is grounded in our values, our beliefs, our aspirations, and our successes and failures. We couldn’t function effectively without it. And yet, if we are not open to new…

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Success May Be Holding Your Business Back

We’ve all heard the old saying, Nothing succeeds like success. When it comes to growing your business, though, success may be what’s preventing you from reaching the next level of success. Growth requires change, and a certain amount of success can prevent you from taking the steps needed to move forward. How might success keep…

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Cash Flow is the Lifeblood of Your Business – Keep it Healthy

When I ask creative business owners what they think they need to run a successful business, they almost always say more clients or better projects. Rarely do they mention help managing their finances. Yet, eight out of ten small businesses run into trouble or fail because of poor cash flow management. That’s right; it’s not…

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Set Compensation for What’s to Come, Not What Was

Year’s-end is just around the corner, and many of us are trying to figure out how to budget for the year ahead while there is still so much uncertainty as to when business conditions might begin to stabilize. Part of that calculation includes whether or not to factor in a pay raise and/or bonuses, especially…

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Gratitude Will Strengthen Your Relationships

Relationships thrive on strong emotional connections. Like a fire, they need to be stoked regularly to maintain their force. Taking time to check in with a family member, friend, client or business associate or to say hi to a neighbor helps to keep those bonds intact. Even better is to let them know how much…

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Do You Have an Innovator’s Spirit?

This past year has been “unusual”, to say the least and yet there are some business owners who have embraced the challenges and looked for creative ways to approach these challenges. How are you creating successes from the challenges you have faced? Remind yourself that design is a problem solving business by nature. Look at…

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Master Your Medium, Then Market

When you’re ready to grow your business, how do you find and attract new potential clients? These days, whether from choice or necessity, that usually involves employing some form of social media. Before the start of the pandemic, about 7 in 10 Americans engaged with social media regularly to share messages and photos and to…

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Document Core Processes and Delegate with Confidence

One of the best ways to ensure your business runs efficiently and profitably is to establish standard processes for common and frequently repeated activities, such as purchasing, billing, project scheduling, and tracking, and contact management. It’s not enough to create those processes, however. You also have to document them in writing so that anyone and…

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