Journal

We built a business plan for our client based on the short to medium term objectives of the business. Our work together created infrastructure reduce lead times by 50%, reviewed external language to elevate the brand from its competitors, leading to £120k increased revenue while equally increasing pre-tax by 26%, and defined its niche to transition to bigger projects with better fees, and helped build a strong core team.

The challenge around decision making is really about deciding what to do next, then taking action and doing it. While it seems so simple and straightforward, for so many of us, we can live and work for months in inaction. The reason we do this is because we're afraid. We worry over the what-ifs and the myriad of potentialities that could happen if we make the wrong decision. But not choosing is still a choice. Not deciding keeps us, and our businesses, in a state of limbo, until something external makes the decision for us.

Building a thriving design studio is a far more creative venture than the work it produces. A creative business should not be in a cycle of getting work, delivering work, billing for it; rinse, and repeat. A creative business is a dynamic organism that requires an equal marriage between the commercial and the creative. Both are as important as the other.

In a creative business's early years, you don’t have the luxury of being choosy, but once you start to build that portfolio and build a name for your studio, the ability to choose becomes available, and here is where it often goes wrong for so many studios. This is the stick or twist moment. A choice must be made — plateau or grow.

We developed a business plan for our client taking into consideration the Founder’s lifestyle and ambitions for the future. This included a desire to build a self-funded Art + R&D arm for their business. Our financial model funded research and creative work alongside paid work with a business strategy that was rationalised and sustainable. This led to 30% increased revenue, predictable cash flow and fees, and balanced the creative with the commercial.