Last Season (09/10) Sheffield Wednesday beat Blackpool home and away scoring 4 goals across the two matches. At the end of the season The Owls were relegated Blackpool won the play off final and were promoted.  

The moral of this story is obvious: If you want to get promoted make sure Wednesday beat you at least twice in the same season.  

Knowing this football trivia of course does not improve your life or understanding of anything, but there are a couple of other thoughts it might evoke.  

The two Lancashire clubs were promoted, against the odds and despite the twin defeats to the Owls because of one thing – consistency - they just kept on keeping on. A couple of downers didn’t stop them winning enough other matches to put them in the top 6 at the end of the season;.   This attitude, more than genius ideas, more than talent, more than knowledge certified by the highest board of matriculation is the secret of success; well that and getting up again each time you’re knocked down.  

Well…. Both of those plus knowing that even if you never “succeed” in the eyes of others just being on the journey is success in itself.  

You will have heard many versions of this pondering before but when Government cuts are inevitable, the banks still refuse to dig us out of the mess they put us in and your team has just been relegated - I thought it was worth repeating.

Forgivable in one way, as it means we have been too busy to send them out, most of our work comes from longstanding clients; with new business coming via word of mouth referral. On the other hand this comfort zone can, and often has, slipped away just by a confluence of several clients all ending a marketing cycle at the same time, and, you may rightly ask, if we haven’t been prodding new prospects how are we going to buy buns for the elephant?

The other aspect of this situation are the unknown companies out there, wondering where next months work is coming from or too busy themselves to carry out those essential marketing tasks that will keep the work coming in long term.

We have a duty to save them!

So if you are here because you received a letter with the first part of this post making up the body of the text there are two things you should take on board
1) please excuse the anticlimax
2) you’ve just proved something works
I am now open to offers which include meetings in pub gardens.

Thank you very much - I’m here all week (imagine me bowing).

The name was Richard Herring - expect a lecture, a bit of a laugh and hope you don't get the Herring groupies behind you drowning out what the guy was saying - the picture is at the comic historians request...

I like the venue under the City Hall; it has that grass roots feel to it – a non too shabby place to watch the more niche performers; poets like Ian McMillan who was brilliant last year quoting from his “Talking my Way Home” collection.

 “A breath of fresh air” one national called him and they were right. He can’t have come close to swearing more than once and yet everyone spent a couple of hours taking a ride of chortles to belly laughs with quite a bit of pathos in between.

Not that I mind, being known for my lack of adjectives in day to day speech, but having got used to the wall to wall fitted carpet of profanity that has been the foundation of most live comedy gigs since the stone age, it made a change to just be talked to as if meeting a nice humorous guy for the first time in a pub – no one is going to use the more robust parts of their vocabulary until they get to know you better: What’s that unfashionable word in this World of overblown talentless celebrity? Oh that’s it! “Nice”.

Maybe it’s overstating it a bit, or understating Mr McMillan’s renowned talent to say this was a part of what made the evening memorable.

The time before was a Last Laugh Comedy Club night hosted by Toby Foster, who was also for completely different reasons, brilliant; outshining as usual the other comics he was MC for.

Tonight’s Offering is the comic “genius” of Herring (Mick, Phil, Fred cant remember) who I hear will be talking about Hitler’s moustache, but it was booked by the Son in Law mistakenly thinking he was booking for Stewart Lee who used to be Herrings partner in Lee & Herring (see what they did there?) so although not totally ignorant of the lads work, having seen him on Buzzcocks, Argumental and You Tube, it is still a bit of a leap of faith – I’m hoping he continues the run of happy evenings spent in the Memorial Hall but then again I haven’t paid the daughter and hubby for my ticket yet… so I wont need to ask for a refund if he’s crap.

Not that I mind being busy, but have to agree with David Ogilvy when he said:

“The secret of success is to surround your self with genius and let them get on with it”

Pretty sure that was it, can’t be bothered to Google it; but you get the idea.

We are getting more diverse (or perverse) in what we do every day, which is great but despite Sheffield Hallam University chipping in on the research side and all here turning a hand to whatever’s needed, what we really need is more staff, which is where the problems come forth and multiply.

The time to recruit (which is made no quicker, but a lot more expensive, using recruitment agents); the time it takes to organise and install additional kit, the time it takes to show the new guys the ropes and the time it takes to sort out the red tape. Most of which are not enjoyable ways to spend precious hours.

Then there’s the personalities that you have to integrate into the team, I say have to because in a small firm you can’t get away from anybody, you don’t have a hard faced HR department to hive off their problems to or a conference room with an engaged sign to hide in.

In times past there was the girl who seemed to be in tears in any one to one meeting and always said “I don’t know why I’m crying”. The salesman who would slip the odd, totally irrelevant, swear word into an otherwise very professional telephone conversation with someone he’d cold called and then totally deny making the utterance when the potential client queried it (this was also very funny – you had to be there) or the account handler who would literally stamp her foot and sulk for three days when asked to remind a client of an outstanding account - the stories are endless. So I was up this ladder and I was thinking … If you want something doing…

As usual ancillary services in the form of printers, photographers and sign makers will call up to pass on the news and, probably in the hope that we may be able to help replace some of the business (and outstanding invoices) they can see disappearing into the chasm, suggest we contact the bust firms clients.

  We don’t do this for two reasons – firstly because if anything can be salvaged for owners; who are almost always shareholder / manager / designers, and their staff it will only happen if their clients stay loyal to the personalities in the design team and start spending again. Secondly, from a pragmatic commercial point of view, what is the point in approaching clients who have cut marketing spend so much they have collectively condemned their current design house to an early full stop?

  While everyone feels they have to cut back in hard times marketing should be the one area where spending increases – otherwise you are standing still, standing still in sales terms is the equivalent of facing up hill with the wind in your face, while wearing slick skis; having lost your sticks in the blizzard – you’re actually going backwards.

  If this is where you want to be fine; we don’t want your business and your design house in liquidation didn’t need it.

  Best of luck to the talent at D4 and all our similarly suffering colleagues.

One issue which often throws up a few problems when it comes to digital design is screen resolution. With so many people using laptops, notebooks,  IPhones, Blackberrys and now these new Minority Report esque IPads to view the internet, building websites is becoming a challenge.

Whether building websites in HTML or Flash ensuring that the website is viewable to as many people as possible is a constant concern.

  Now the science bit...

  Using Google Analytics we have discovered that the most common resolution is 1024x768 as most offices use 15" monitors. However, following closely behind is 1280x800 and 1280x1024. The first could be interpreted as a laptop resolution due to dimensions ( i.e the length is quiet longer than the height to put it in simple terms ). 

If for example we design a website 1000 pixels wide this will view fine on the laptop but taking into consideration scroll bars ( and the simple fact that some don't view the internet at full screen ) the office monitor would only show maybe 90% of the website. Now imagine the other extreme ( and it does happen cos Google Analytics says so ) someone viewed your website using their 1080p ( 1920x1080 ) 42" LCD Television....

...You can start to see the point of this blog.

It is a poser and to borrow the phrase used in Monty Python's "Now for something completely different"...we have to know "how not to be seen". This is something we have looked long and hard at in recent times due to the progression of technology.

Going back to catering for people's needs there are tricks which can be used in CSS ( cascading style sheets ) which can kind of expand and contract a site' s dimensions but only to within the size of the content. Look at Coca Cola's and Mcdonalds website, and try dragging the window in and out from the bottom right hand corner.  The site constrains but only to where the content is displayed of which the sizes are between 940 to 970 pixels wide. Now ( and stay with me ) if your monitor is 1024 wide or 1280 the content will display bang in the middle and look bootiful, but now imagine it on a screen with a width of 1920 eeek!!

That is the absolute extreme however and anyone who surfs the net on their 42" 1080p TV as apposed to watching Finding Nemo on Blu Ray needs a good talking to.. I mean it's Nemo!!

Joking aside we work to the same dimensions as some of the biggest corporation websites so with us you are assured that your website is safely viewable to the majority of internet users.

The envelope is being pushed further and further, but until the internet revolution occurs and we all walk around with the internet fed into our brains 24/7, wear silver suits and are ceremoniously killed at 30 we must adapt and keep up with the Jones's.

Vive la revolution!!

Ok when the alarm went off at 5.00 this morning it wasn’t the first thing on my mind and even when Chris Evans mentioned it, just as I arrived at the ranch, my first thought was - well it’s only a palindrome if you lose the zero off the front of the month – 01/2/10 not 01/02/10 – so Mr Evans was cheating a bit, but then he’s an entertainer, presentation is everything so lets not get too pedantic about proper form.

 After all, it’s what we do for our clients image or message on a daily basis; taking and tweaking it for best effect – not to be mistaken for “spin” (or lying as it used to be known) no, this is not cosmetic surgery just arranging the lighting for best effect. Not botox injection more healthy feel good massage: Not claiming what isn’t just making the best of what is; and for the better products and services that is more than good enough.

  Happy first of the month.

The four page A5 brochure (full colour printed on 250gsm white art gloss laminated both sides) is titled "Scratch Before You Peck" and aimed at new and potential clients.  

Featured throughout, alongside illustrations of Prize Fighters, Sir Isaac Newton and Eggs, is a nameless chicken; which is where we would ask for suggestions on a postcard please: At least we would if we knew its gender.  

We ( ok I ) thought it was a hen until after the whole thing was done and finished when Marc decided it might be a cock due to its comb - so, despite the eggs we put "Yes we know its a cockerel" in fine print on the back page. Then the brochure went to print, after which, under advisement, Marc decided it might still be a hen as some breeds do have hens with combs.

  Arrrrrggggghhhh!  

Marc is currently developing a relationship with poultry, in a getting scratched, pooped on and chasing them around the garden kind of way - so you might think he should know these things, but no.  

So before you suggest names - are there any experts out there who can suggest a gender? It's too late for the brochures but it might help Marc understand the moods of his new mates.

So, when I got a last minute call yesterday from a long standing client asking if I wanted to join him at an event today, I surprised myself by agreeing to meet him there.

Alright, so it was being held at Hillsborough Stadium and the inaugural speaker was Lee Strafford; SWFCs un-dislikeable Chairman, but still couldn’t see it being my scene.

In the event - the event - was not bad at all really, no one tried to sell to me, (probably because I hadn’t made an effort to dress up) the companies I could offer services to were being kept busy by competitors and the usual gaggle of bankers FIAs and accountants already had targets sorted before arriving.

I discovered later that my name label had been on upside down probably affording even more protection.

Richard and I spent most of the time from Oh My God o’clock to 9.00am talking football and not networking at all, and when we were silent it was only to listen to the speaker who was the complete opposite of the suited and booted usual suspects who populate these dos.

Did I give it a chance to change my mind about structured networking events and business clubs?

I don’t think so – I can’t get comfortable with the idea - I agree this is just another tool in the business armoury, but when a client calls and says “I have a friend whose firm needs something doing, would you mind…” or someone calls and says “I’ve just been looking at your website and…” it just seems a lot less contrived than the network culture.

I know it’s probably just me, being totally inept at schmoozing and false smiles preferring to let the work speak for us, but if I was going along to be entertained by a good/interesting/funny speaker; which, apart from the football banter, was what made this morning worthwhile, I’d probably be up for it, but then I’d be going along to hear someone else offer inspiration not to network. Or perhaps I could justify it by arranging to meet definite people there as I did this morning, but I can do that by asking them round for a coffee or getting a round in, without exposing them to half a dozen competitors.

Hmmm – To Network or not to Network that is the… Discuss.

OK, there are exceptions, but they tend to be massive organisations with locations across all continents – Leo Burnett for example, or that group the Saatchi agency is now part of.

But, if you’re an up and coming small to medium size business, or even larger well established company realising you need to promote yourself more originally to stand apart from the competition, when all else is doom and gloom; you would still be crazy to pay the fees the big boys in creative marketing can demand. You should leave that to International Airlines, booze brands and Her Majesty’s Government.

You would be even crazier to expect to get what you need from the cheap and cheerful end of the business.

Then again it’s not just about the cost – and here you expect me to talk about value for money and getting what you pay for, and I could; but this is about something else - its about finding a design house that can build an image or brand or campaign that shows you are a leader in your market not a follower, and that takes courage.

Courage to recognise a design house that can provide an original presentation of what you offer, the courage to give them the practical input they need to understand where you want to be and then let them have an almost free rein in developing those ideas. It takes still more courage to invest realistically in bringing those concepts to completion; but not so much if you believe in what you are promoting.

Doing that, being that brave, having the vision to appreciate the creatives’ vision always brings greater rewards than simply following what your competitors are doing.

The bad news; (from what I have seen lately of the sensibly priced end of the industry) is there are not many of us out here who have the originality to justify asking for that amount of bravery from a client. The creative marketing companies who should tend to be a bit different themselves, with a different approach and maybe an original brand of their own – Blue Strawberry Elephant – for example :)

It’s back to those winters your granddad told you about before you stopped listening to him and started listening to the hyperbole spinning from your flat screen TV.

Well? It’s as valid a prediction as Global Warming.

Go on then, start screaming at the screen, the icecaps are melting, polar bears are drowning, penguins have to swim further before they can put their flippers up, and Greenland is heading for Sri Lankan type temperatures.

Yea we know:
Eco fascist or Global warming denier; consider only three things:
One: Should we reduce emissions (what we used to call pollution)? Of course - just as we created smoke free zones by switching from coal to coke burning fires in the 60s and campaigned for cleaner rivers in the 70s. This is common sense; but we couldn’t have enjoyed the massive benefits of a clear view of the sky or detergent free waterways without real alternatives to replace the massive benefits the old technology gave us (like affordable clothes cheap food and not freezing to death).

Secondly: Should we cause more pollution by flying political entourages to Bali or Wonderful Copenhagen in their tens of thousands? Of course not – no, stop arguing – these talk fests do no good. Stop spending taxes on researching the effects of alleged man made global warming on the mating habits of the Greater Crested Gerbil and use the resources available to produce the next generation of cleaner technologies; just as, in mans pragmatic common sense desire to constantly improve we have done with each step since the first steam driven engine.

Nothing has slowed the exponential growth and improvement of communication technology because there are no political ramifications (excepting the occasional radio mast protest) but alternative energy technology is still moving like a dinosaur because of the political walls built by well intentioned protestors and politicos on the make; instead of the tax free easy to fund clearways we should be providing.

Thricely: Are the oil companies stopping new companies developing new tech – as one conspiracy theory would have us believe? Maybe; if they are they’re only protecting their business, we just have to give the new guys an unfair commercial advantage as we did for the canal system over the palfreymen (horse borne freight) the trains over the canals and the motorways over the trains – its called progress. I could write for hours on how to improve transport; anyway…

So here’s the design bit:  For those of you who support the aims of – for only one example - the “Plane Stupid” protest group who sit around on runways ruining hard earned holidays; try getting a Degree or even MSc in engineering so you can help invent a hydrogen powered aero engine; and if engineering isn’t your thing stop moaning and start supporting those whose thing it is. This is all we can do; because seriously guys - regardless of cause, with or without interference help or hindrance from mankind; the Earth, this spec of dust in the Universe, as it has done for millennia beyond memory, as it has done again this extended white Christmas, will continue to prove our insignificant species will never be able to predict what it will do next.

Everything that offers the Cinema experience not only has to have the DVD and Blu Ray version but also the interactive game, the internet downloads, the cartoon – sorry - animated version and the 3G updates.

The great unknown, given that the imagination like any other part of the brain is just a muscle that needs exercising to keep in shape, is if this is a good thing for our future creatives. Sure, if the current batch of babies that end up in design studios (because all the street entertainer and Buddhist monk vacancies have been filled) are computer literate before they can toddle that must be a plus for enabling them to handle the speed technology is likely to continue moving at. But you have to remember, because we haven’t got a clue what we would all do if we suddenly didn’t have computers or the internet, this level of technology is still very new.

Despite CAD being around since the early 80s I didn’t interview the first generation of graphic designers to come out of college with complete portfolios produced on Apple Macs until 1995, which is a blink of the eye in terms of the history of commercial art. The first generation to be born into a World where fully functioning user friendly computers were not only accessible but cheap enough to appear on virtually every school desk and in every home are still a few years away from being teenagers – and when we say “every school desk and every home” we really mean in the posh end of every city. We are still a way off coverage being complete; but when it is…

You could take this conversation in a totally different direction at this point surmising if Orwell got the date wrong, but let’s leave that scary thought for the moment and accentuate the positive. The biggest literary hit of the last 20 years has been JK Rowlings bespectacled little lad outselling almost everything else put together and already becoming a phenomenon before Hollywood came knocking. Which was great because every kid who read those books just as every other child who was ever taught to read or was read to or was told tales around the fire at the mouth of the cave, was using the full power of their imagination – only the book jackets gave the JKR generation a clue as to what the Potter boy looked like, the rest of the characters they had to create for themselves: Not just what they looked like but how they sounded, what the buildings were like, how each scene was lit; even with the animals they had to use knowledge picked up from elsewhere to place a werewolf or the flight of a message carrying  owl in the imagined world that was unique to each young mind. Being young of course, when the films did hit the big screen they would have easily accepted the new incarnation of characters and substituted them for their own to use like a tool kit of images ready in their heads for when the next book was released in a blaze of publicity.

This isn’t as easy when you are older. Michael Cain was not how I had imagined the German officer sent to assassinate Churchill in “The Eagle Has Landed”. When you’ve read a book in your teens only to see the film version years later you can resent your characters being deposed by some distant casting director. It’s not as good as the book? Such is the power of the imagination.

My question is, even if hopefully Harry Potter isn’t the last huge success to grab the attention of youngsters using nothing but the written word; when every child is plonked in front of a TV or monitor from the age of three months old not having to imagine what anything looks or sounds like because all that work has been done for them, will their imaginations wither as quickly as their motor skills with a mouse or touch screen develop? And if so when a future client says to three different designers in the year 2035 “give me something original” will they all come up with the same simple version of something already invented in 2009 by an Anime Game programmer? Given the current output from colleges and universities I think I’m already seeing the signs.

I may be completely off the mark here, but something tells me if we don’t ensure kids have equal if not greater experience of the World away from the screen, teaching them that technology is just another tool to help communication and provide channels to express themselves; if we stop giving them paint and plasticine to play with, stop giving them training in manual crafts and skills and the schools carry on reducing the numbers of kids who have access to learning an instrument you don’t plug in or accentuating the mind expanding properties that come from reading pages you turn by hand then future generations may inherit a intellectually grey homogenised world where everyone designs, looks, acts, sees and feels exactly the same.….

Which takes us back to Orwell getting that date wrong.

Design should have been safely parked out of sight behind my right ear not to come out till after the festivities.

Not to be. BBC Breakfast presenters had to review the papers, they couldn’t content themselves with the front pages and, probably due to the need for fillers on a slow news day (although I think there’s a volcano erupting somewhere) had to fold back page 17 of The Times to discuss the header: “Adding a number to an NHS logo cost £6,000 a digit”.

First reaction was – “Well what do you expect if you will employ London firms!!”

New Years resolution: Stop shouting at the television they can’t hear you, idiot.

The article which took up three quarters of a page in the “news” section was written by Emily Gosden, to whom the thousands of design firms not based in the Capital possibly owe a vote of thanks for exposing the rates charged in that there London; although so far I cant imagine every design house from Edinburgh to Exeter, Sheffield to Southampton dashing towards planes, trains and automobiles to raid the Smoke offering rates of a grand a day knowing they can still save government departments at least 20% on what Emily reports they are paying to “leading commercial design agencies” despite it almost being worth the congestion charge to dip your toe in the water. No, methinks there is more to this none story than Ms Gosden could get past the editor.

The hook was how the NHS commissioned, presumably an agency, but reported as one designer and one creative director, to put the number 60 after the standard NHS logo, took 10 days to do it and sent them a bill of £12,000 (possibly not including vat) Shock Horror Probe as we used to say in the 80s.

The likelihood however, with no intention here of defending the designers involved, is that the 10 days quoted in the article was made up of creating a variety of styles and options through to supplying the finished work in various file formats to suit the manufacturing roll out. All of which will have paled in comparison to the time took up by meetings with, perusal of, amendment by and approval through the relevant NHS committee(s). The fact that the chosen version is as it is will not have been the designers’ decision. Any designer who isn’t straight out of college will tell you there is no longer or more expensive process than design by committee.

Whichever way you turn in The Times report from the average cost of developing, re-designing or refreshing government department logos and brands (around £25,000) to the full branding project for FERA at a chunky £153,522 - if you know what you’re looking at – gives you a daily rate of around £1,250 per designer per day working on each project, this takes into account a probable further three weeks x three designers on the FERA job not quoted in the article but likely to be used in simply setting up for print on a project of that size; plus there seems to be a hefty whiff of committee style involvement as with the NHS 60th anniversary logo. But before we get into value for money, or not as the case may be, there’s a couple of really annoying titbits in the report that should get up the nose of any professional design house.

The Tory MP Greg Hands (why this particular elected “member” feels qualified to comment the article doesn’t reveal) is quoted as saying “Surely adding two digits doesn’t need to be outsourced at all. Civil Servants can do this themselves. Modern graphic design packages surely allow anyone with an average brain to design something as good as, or better than what we see in front of us here”

To which I’d like to reply on behalf of the Worlds designers “shut your face and go check your expenses Greg” but as it’s Christmas we should be more charitable and just say “surely anyone with an average brain can be an MP as good as or better than what we have seen in front of us for years”

Mr Hands is MP for Hammersmith & Fulham a constituency which is home to a hundred or so graphic design firms – none of whom should be voting blue at the next election after that quote. Civil Servants should not be attempting graphic design however simple the finished article looks, I’m pretty sure the brief and tendering process wouldn’t have been that simple, they should be administrating infrastructure and checking MPs exes, meanwhile, as a Member of Parliament, Greg Hands should be supporting one of the country’s major industries by explaining to anyone concerned that outside of school and PC World “graphic design packages” are only one part of a profession which these days takes five years to teach in college and university and a further 5 years for a professional design house to turn a graduate into a fully fledged designer.

The other paragraph of Emily’s piece that needs addressing is the quote from the Ministry of Defence that said almost all its logos are produced in house and took an average of 3 days by one designer which equates to £648.

On what planet is that any kind of comparison? (Putting to one side the MOD photo library charging charities working to support ex-servicemen £500 + to use one photograph in promotional leaflets) 99% of MOD logos are based on existing and often very old designs where no creativity is required and given the chain of command in the MOD will circumvent the “design by committee” commercial design firms have to suffer. Having said that if an in house designer at the MOD is on £78,624 per annum plus benefits and a Government backed final salary pension sign me up now!

Throughout the whole article there is not one quote from a commercial designer and the only comment from the NHS on the six grand a digit scandal was, quite rightly, the centrally commissioned design of a 60th anniversary logo was “cost efficient as it avoided local NHS Trusts creating their own designs for the 60th anniversary – preventing duplication and reducing costs” Which is a big part of what any branding project for a large organisation is about.

The stories twisted to show seemingly extortionate branding, logo design and update costs are always going to crop up when the people commissioning the work are public bodies, especially when those complaining or writing about it know little about the skills involved and believe the hype which is pre-loaded in home PC marketing. You don’t get the same impact when exposing the cost of freelance consultants employed by the Government or legal and accountancy fees charged to local councils or universities because the work done is not a graphic you can print next to your article knowing the divisory effect a subjective design will have. Alright, if you have the work done in London or possibly the greater part of the South East you are going to pay 2.5 to 3 times the amount the exact same work would cost in Sheffield, but commercial companies who have shareholders and ruthless executive boards to answer to still have the work done by professional graphic designers because they have full knowledge of the value this work brings to their companies – Government departments – as much as we may wish they were different – need the same image support because that’s just the crazy world we live in.

The politicians made government all about spin and image, in a world where there are so many brands you have to fight, visually, to be seen, don’t shoot the designer for being an indispensable part of the culture. Which reminds me – while we’re on value for money – using the same assumptions of comparative costs reported by Emily Gosden – the manufacturing cost of page 17 in The Times today could possibly be calculated in 100ths of a penny probably including Emily’s wages, the rate card charge for the 25cm x 3column ad that appeared on the same page together with the full page ad that covered the reverse of the page totalled £38,000.00 (+vat) What was that erupting volcano called? Pot ‘n’ Kettle?

Do we need to staff up or plan team time better to deal with the flood of work coming up? (Or plan Time Team better to lose the hats?) Should we continue adding to the diversity of the offering or consolidate around simple principles of core business – and if the latter, wouldn’t that be boring?

Personally, how am I using my time – not just how much work I do but what kind of work? I’m at that age when you want to be doing more of the work you excel at and less of the work that experience means only you can do; knowing there is probably someone out there who could do the bit you will never revel in so much better and enjoy it so much more, killing two birds with one very obvious brick.

Ten minutes of reflection then gets swept away by the next deadline; you will know the feeling, but a view of the future has to be tackled at some point and this year, Christmas falling as it does, is going to be the time to reflect, plan and put in place the next steps (wicked, rest and no are words that jump to mind).

Back in 2008 I was conversing with a guy who had been involved on the management side of creative companies for not quite as long as I have, but he had actually made money out of it and moved on to advise the rest of us how to do the same; there was nothing new in what he was selling but one thing he said stuck with me:

“Creative companies run by creatives are very - well – creative, but don’t make money. Creative companies run by accountants make money but are not that creative”

If you were a potential client looking for design services this should tell you two things
1) If you want the most creative work find a company that is skint
2) If you want a creative partner who is still going to be around to service your needs in 2011 you may have to put up with your image being mediocre.

Now, proving that probable truism wrong is one of those challenges where I can never normally justify the time to grab the gauntlet, but this year it has become more essential to prove your clients can have their cake and eat it than ever before – at least since the last recession. So before we plough into what great new creative gifts we will be bringing to the party called Twenty Ten we have to take a serious look at The Essential Cashflow Question: If we can crack a system that clients can work within, allowing us to plan financially, and not spend valuable Right Side of the Brain time on boring Left Brain stuff then everyone can grab a cake knife.

Why we have to sort this now rather than any time prior (cashflow always being the beast that killed the business) is that up to a point you can cope with a situation where one client likes to pay on the dot, others pay early and one or two drag you into the realms of fantasy – “oh yes we always take 90 days to pay any invoice, we have so many to process we can’t change the system just for you”.

The wind however, has changed: Since the middle of 2009 the clients who were paying on completion have started taking the credit on offer of 30 days and extending that to 45+ clients who always paid on 30 days now take 60+ and so on. There have also been surprises from firms who used to take months to confirm they had had an invoice that are suddenly paying within a week – but it doesn’t balance out the delays.
Its pretty obvious that the unilateral credit extensions going on has a lot to do with the Banks, despite Government pressure and clever TV ads, they are less than useless for the majority of SME needs and that, if we can all work our way into a position where we don’t need that source of support is probably a good thing – although not for the Banks two or three years from now when they want to start pushing for new business. Talking to colleagues across our sector confirms the same story and we know the pattern is being repeated across all the SMEs who have traditionally offered credit terms of 30 days.

So: Suggestions we have had thrown at us are:

A) Add interest to any overdue invoices – got to say I can’t think of many better ways of upsetting existing clients and although we know firms that do this I’m also pretty sure it’s illegal unless you have raised a summons for amounts outstanding. So let’s not go there then.

B) Demand payment up front against pro forma invoices – “hey competition, express delivery of one new client!” or

C) Offer early settlement discounts – this idea goes back a long way and we have tried it before with mixed success. We found that for a hourly fee based business that uses a standard rate the most you should sensibly offer is 2 to 2.5% which to most clients isn’t worth taking the trouble to administer an early payment; a while ago we offered between 5 and 10% and still didn’t get a wholehearted take up, in the current climate I’m sure it wouldn’t be worth even suggesting.

As a creative business we should (and usually do) beat accountants in the lateral thinking league so applying some creativity to this issue is probably the way forward.

Listen up creatives – if you can perfect this idea it may be one of those eureka moments!

Drum roll please…..

Tie hourly rates to credit required and ask the client to choose the rate they would like to pay.

Simples?

OK, example; your local independent news agent works a system called “SPQR” right? Small Profit Quick Return; get the product in, sell it cheap, sell it quick and get an almost instant return – in fact if they have good credit terms with their wholesaler they can sell the products before they have to pay for it – excellent cashflow small profit margin.

The version closest to our industry is probably the instant copy shop unless it’s the Printsomething.com copy shop where the model is more “BPQR” because it is neither cheap nor bearing any resemblance to what you or I recognise as creative expertise.

You may think the idea I’m proposing is no good to the design industry as we sell value through levels of creativity and experience, this you can not sell cheaply or the universe will implode.

However, the principle of the quicker the return the lower the cost to the customer can still apply.

Firstly work out the fair hourly rate you should be paid for your level of expertise and experience, working on the basis that when you’ve done the work you get paid on approval of artwork – remembering that at this point you may already have been working on a project for a few weeks if not a month or so, also remember that the firms mortgage or rent and your biggest expense of staff wages comes around every month so you shouldn’t have clients taking longer than a month to pay you your basic rate in any circumstances.

At the same time we have always worked on the basis of making it as easy as possible for clients to do business with us; we do a lot of value added running around that we don’t get paid anything for (this is where creative companies run by accountants make more money because they charge for everything) and we want to retain that atmosphere of working “with” rather than simply “for” clients.

You have to respect that whatever the size of client they have their own, compatible to you or not admin systems, their own cashflow cycles and their own views on how long they should be “allowed” to pay suppliers (as a designer, don’t you hate it when you get called “a supplier”). This is where this new system comes into its own.

Remember? Tie hourly rates to credit required and ask the client to choose the rate they would like to pay.

You have your hourly rate for payment on approval of artwork, now use a sliding scale of rates a little higher for payment in 14 days, higher still for 30 to 60 days (this catches the traditional payment at the end of the month following the month in which an invoice is received), and higher still for 90 days – although if anyone ticks that box I’d suggest you build in the need for a deposit with order. Obviously, choose your price points (the time period after which the rate changes) and the scale of change that best suits your additional overhead. If a client refuses to commit to choosing their own credit terms apply the rate applicable to the timescale they took to pay their last invoice or the average time they took over the previous six months (not 12 because too much has changed in the last year and you need a current picture to work from) if the client commits to one credit term and then goes over the agreed date you cant send them another invoice for the difference between the term/rate agreed and the term taken, you should however use the higher rate the next time you invoice them, if they then get back to the agreed term you can lower the rate for the next job and so on – just remember to tell them before you do any work what rate they are on and why.

This does two things, it puts the client in control of their costs and covers you for all eventualities – this could literally keep you in business.

The only down side I can find in the system, so far, is the client who is working with you on one project and has no intention of using you again (you will come across those nice folk who trawl for ideas using your brain to kick them off before pinching the IP to produce poor imitations in house, via an unethical competitor or through an inexperienced and therefore cheap freelancer) – in which case they can agree to anything and if they don’t stick to those terms you have no real come back, other than normal debt collection routes; but that would be the case with any system.

Did I say only downside? Here’s another two; if you are not very organised at the outset or you have a large number of low value customers you are going to get into an admin nightmare very quickly. The other, or what we now know as the 3rd downer, is that good creatives tend to like being liked – it’s an ego thing - this doesn’t bode well for sticking to your guns when you should be putting the rate up, but if you don’t stand firm you are beckoning in that same nightmare on admin street. If you do lose the odd client because they don’t see the benefit to them or because getting payments organised raises a previously unrecognised personality clash; don’t worry just work harder on new business – there are enough nice reasonable people out there for you not to have to deal with the rest.

When you are setting the rate scale remember what I said about the lack of take up when we offered 5 to 10% discounts for early payment so don’t undersell yourself, the client deserves a fair price but they also want you to use the latest Macs and the current versions of software. Also, if you are outside the M25, remember there are companies paying design houses and agencies more than twice your current hourly rate just for being based inside the highway to hell without any evidence of superior creativity or expertise; in fact probably the opposite. Those in London who are using Northern rates are competing on price alone and again any client who buys design services simply on price is not worth having.

Suggestion: If you are not getting your head around it get in touch with any queries on how it works; otherwise perfect your own version and let me know how you get on - a hundred lateral thinking creatives are better than one.