The Art of Business: Those Forgettable Fundamentals
There should be some sort of Moore’s Law that reads: The importance of a fundamental principle is inversely proportional to one’s propensity to ignore it. Here’s a review of the business basics easy to forget but worth remembering:
- Think (and act) strategically
During the course of any day, it’s far too easy to get caught up with client demands, technology problems, and tactical issues – to work in your business, rather than on it. But how much time do you spend thinking strategically about your business? Try dedicating one to three hours a week working on studying the best practices of other companies, setting short-and long-term goals, investigating partnering possibilities and investigating new markets. - Architect your company
Here’s a great thought posited by Jay Levinson, the author of Guerilla Marketing and a dozen other pop marketing titles: Imagine your company is going be the first of 1,000 franchises. Under these conditions, it’s crucial that you lay out a detailed and repeatable business plan, which specifies procedures and policies that can be easily shared among employees. Even if you have no intention of setting up branch offices, the technique will help you think strategically and spend sufficient the time on business decisions that otherwise may be made hastily. - Be discerning with time
Time management doesn’t mean packing in more things into a day, it means deleting those chores that can be delegated or postponed. Put the most strategic items on your to-do list first and work backwards toward the most mundane. And now a moment of Zen: when doing something, anything, get into the habit of engaging yourself fully…be the task. - Learn to sell
Why do most creative businesses fail? In most cases, it’s the inability to study, learn, and apply the fundamentals of selling. Selling is the art of discovering the client or prospect’s problem or opportunity and crafting a solution that includes your services. It’s always about the client and her problems or opportunities and only secondarily about your skills, achievements, and awards. Selling is also about qualifying. A good rule of thumb is to spend about 60 percent of your time efforts selling and properly servicing current clients, 30 percent attracting a small set of potential dream clients (see more below), and 10 percent selling to the rest of the universe. - Stalk your “dream” prospects
Funny how we often chance upon clients through serendipity or coincidence. A much more reasoned approach is to spend time identifying a small set of dream prospects through research, and then tailoring your marketing campaign accordingly. This proactive approach to selling will help you land clients who are more profitable and loyal. - Work the phones like a pro
Despite the advent of all e-mail and other communication technologies, the telephone is still the communication king.With prospects, learn how to write a pitch and speak it confidently on the phone. It doesn’t have to be a hard sell. With clients, learn how to use every phone call as an opportunity to sell capabilities or instill confidence. Greatest telephone phrase of all time: “what can I do for you?” - Follow up and follow through
Like great artists, great company owners are relentless. Forget the fear of failure, give up the tepid approach, and work on taking everything to the limit, be it marketing or art. - Surround yourself with genius
Your mother told you to pick your friends wisely. Same holds true for colleagues. Be it employees, employers or partners, hang with the truly gifted, and their brilliance will rub off on you. - Banish mediocrity
Don’t settle for second-best in any aspect of your work. As soon as you improve yourself and your company, improve it again and again. Make excellence your mantra even if you’re a company of one. One of the best ways to get better is to continually educate yourself. The best big companies constantly train their people, from CEO to line workers. Somewhere, someone is offering training on each one of these steps and on all the additional skills you want or need as a creative professional. - Set lofty goals — and reach them
You can’t get there if you don’t know where you’re going. Build short and long-term goals and place them on a timeline, then do your darndest to hit your goals. Think of all the companies and people you’ve worked with no other goal but to slog through the day. Don’t be one of them. - Represent yourself 24/7
Every interaction is a potential marketing moment, whether it’s with a print vendor or a major client. Act professionally, positively and consistently wherever you go and whatever you do. This doesn’t mean losing your personality. On the contrary, it means sharpening your personality and making it work for you every time you meet someone. - Do it with joy
Whenever you find yourself complaining, remember you’re doing what you love and getting paid for it (hopefully). Joy is alluring, infectious and may help to prevent the common cold. What could be better?
This article was last modified on July 11, 2023
This article was first published on January 17, 2005
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