creative briefing

As with every entrepreneur fostering the growth and development of a blooming company, you inevitably find yourself splitting more and more of your responsibilities to other individuals. Ask Evan Carmichael of YoungEntrepreneur.com and he’ll tell you that delegation is one of the key elements to master for any young go-getter. And it’s not so much the idea of taking the load off your own shoulders, but the concept that you should better focus your strengths in one area rather than wear yourself thin that makes delegation a strategic move.

Since the spawn of my creative agency almost 4 years ago, I’ve naturally fulfilled this process by bringing on great partners along the way to take on different faculties of the business such as finance/accounting, IT, and strategic marketing. Whether it was to pass on the responsibility to more experienced hands or to add extra hands to my personal expertise, this growth strategy has worked well for us.

Naturally, the next step in this progression is to branch out our sales efforts. Like most small companies, we’ve believed all along that sales is one of those areas that can be kept within the available stream of people to manage along with everything else (sadly, marketing is thought of in the same fashion for many organizations). However, during an interesting conversation with two of my best friends tonight, one of which happens to be one of the best salesmen I know, I started thinking about the importance of a dedicated sales guy within the roster of any organization. More specifically, I got to contemplating why my business needs a sales guy and why others in the same position would need one (or two, or three…) too.

Here’s what I came up with:

1. Focus on your strengths
   Going back to my point about delegation, focusing your efforts on one or a few areas will always be more effective than spreading yourself thinly across a lot of them. I’m a marketing specialist (so says my degree) with an eye for creative work. As much as sales is related to marketing, they’re not the same. I’m not a salesman and I will probably never be one completely. Rather than working on perfecting my sales skills while also trying to perfect my marketing instincts and creative senses, why not let someone else take it on? For the same reason that you know those all-in-one machines won’t do each task as well as a machine that is dedicated to that task will, dedicating someone to selling will greatly improve your sales strategy and allow you to better apply your area of expertise.
    
2. Sooner or later, referrals won’t be enough
   Our agency has been fairly fortunate up to now and have survived almost purely on referrals and word-of-mouth marketing. But since starting this gig full-time, I’ve realized that with more time comes a work capacity that is greater than what referrals can fulfill. With most freelancers, this is a familiar territory that calls for the need to perform some active sales tactics. The problem is, the more time spent on selling, is the less time spent on other areas, like execution (and we return to the problem noted in the first point). So, if you’re like us and have depended on referrals to maintain your flow of revenue, then get ready to face a dose of reality: you’ll need to do some selling eventually. Who better to tackle this responsibility than a sales guy?
    
3. Keep the pipeline full
   If you’re a freelancer or are part of a small organization that doesn’t have a dedicated sales person, it can be difficult to balance the projects you’re working on and the projects you’re hoping to win. You’re caught in a difficult position because if you don’t fill up your pipeline with upcoming projects you’ll run out of work. Yet, if you spend too much time closing deals, your current projects may suffer. On the other hand, if you had a sales guy, he or she could focus on bringing in the new clients while you can maintain your focus on keeping them happy through quality work. Ah, an equilibrium is reached.
    
4. Have a bigger piece of pie
   Of course, the number one concern with bringing on an extra head is money. “Why would I take a chunk out of what I’m currently earning in order to pay a sales guy?”, you ask. Look at it this way: while the percentage of earnings that you gain will decrease, the amount of total earnings will increase. In other words, you are sacrificing a larger percentage of the pie for a larger pie in general (which inevitably gives you a bigger piece of pie!). That’s the target anyway. It may not be this way at first, but once ramped up, having a sales guy could essentially increase your revenue stream by bringing in more clients and projects.
    

Naturally, adding a sales guy to the team isn’t for everyone. If you’re comfortable with the current flow of work and your capacity is being fully utilized, then you’re probably still okay to not take this route. Otherwise, consider adding a sales guy as part of the next evolution of your org structure for the reasons stated above. I know I will.

Note: the terms ’sales guy’ and ’salesman’ are used purely as a traditional industry term and is meant to include both males and females in sales roles.

Scratch project management. In the long list of skills that successfully get me from one day to the next, I’d say that people management ranks as one of the most valuable skills anybody can have in any profession. Its significance is no less in the creative field. Designers and developers are definitely, for the most part, an ecentric group. Brimming on creative genius-ness and madness (sometimes all at the same time), managing a creative group can certainly take some extra umph.

While I promise to never depict designers and developers as a breed of mad scientists again, you have to admit that people management plays a big role in helping a creative team channel their energy appropriately into effective deliverables. Throw into the mix the fact that you run a virtual company, and you’ve got yourself the weight that sits on my shoulder every day.

I’m certainly no Atlas, but to keep the creative magic flowing, here are a few tactics and values I subscribe to.

Read the rest of this entry >