Gary wrote:
>Can anyone share their thoughts on:
>
> 1. The whole growing the business thing (strategies, useful tips)
> 2. Where to find decent, qualified people! (I see so many "web experts"
>who know
> virtually nothing about design or HTML)
> 3. Partnerships - should I be thinking of joining up with another person
>in my
> situation, combining forces? Or just finding a successful
>independent guy and
> bringing him on with good pay/benefits/etc.?
Overall, my recommendation, based on my personal experience, is to keep
your business as small as possible, at least in terms of the number of paid
employees. I've freelanced as a one or two person company for years, and
that is the most enjoyable situation for me. At the height (or was it the
lowest?) point in my career, I owned a small ad agency with two partners
and twelve employees.
The main advantage of size is that you can snag the bigger projects and
clients. The disadvantage is that you're burdened with fixed overhead and
payroll, so life becomes little more than an on-going effort to bring in
new business to meet an ever-growing payroll and expenses. Sure, big-bucks
clients can bring in a lot of money, but your overhead will expand to suck
it up as fast as it comes in.
Employees, most of whom will never have been self-employed, come packaged
with a tall list of expectations, things they expect from you simply
because they showed up at the office: insurance, paid holidays, etc. They
have absolutely no grasp of what it takes to meet these expectations and
will feel they "deserve" all those benefits regardless of how little or how
much they contribute to your effort.
What I found as an employer was that I had little time to do what I really
like doing (design) as all my time was taken up by new business efforts,
scrambling to keep the money coming in, writing proposals, managing
employees, etc. I like freelancing a lot better as it allows me more time
to do artwork.
Another disadvantage of size is that managing people is an art, the most
difficult thing I've ever done. Doing it well requires a lot of specialized
training, training which few people get. It's important to remember that
the technical or creative skill you possess which is currently helping you
grow is one thing. Managing people is another skill altogether, and one
which few business proprietors possess. Managing a larger business can be
excrutiatingly difficult. Sadly, the demands of a larger business may
require you to delegate tasks to employees that you previously would have
done yourself (and that your clients hired YOU to do). Riding herd over
employees to get them to do their work as well as you, and similarly to how
you would do it, is a royal pain. Plus, creative and talented employees
will resent your interference.
If you decide to expand, try not to become dependent on one cornerstone
client. Ten years ago, I did a little study and found that ad agency
clients rarely last more than five years. You don't want to put yourself in
the position of depending on one client to make your payroll, as you never
know when that client may go bye-bye. Besides a broad client base, you
should also try to keep enough money in a money market account to cover the
cost of running your business (all fixed expenses and payroll) for at least
six months.
Partners can be a pain. Even if you take on a partner, be sure to maintain
at least 51% of the voting stock so that you can make your own decisions
and maintain some control. Don't ever let anyone else besides yourself have
control over your money. Control over money = control over your business.
Having been there, done that, I realized that design is what I really like
doing, not managing a demanding, larger business. Now I'm content to simply
do what I do best, and on a much smaller scale.
My advice would be to hire as few employees as possible, and farm out work
whenever possible. And if you need talented, experience Web and print
designer, e-mail me -:)
Suz
Suzanne Stephens, Dave Stephens Design; Ashland, Oregon
541-552-1190, 541-552-1192 http://www.KickassDesign.com/
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