Self Publishing...to commercial design and businesses that fail
Yesterday one of my clients gave me a great article on self publishing. I have regularly bought self published e-books over the web for more than 10 years now, so I guess my views are slightly bias in this respect.
A couple of weeks ago I talked about taking the offroad journey to your goals. Following the regular route is ok, but it's not going to work unless you are in that tiny minority who get picked up. Luck, talent, who you know or just right time right place.
My Masters degree is in Industrial Design and my specialism was New Product Development, something I think I could honestly hold my hand up and say I am exceptional at. But I never practiced it professionally. So how can I say I'm exceptional? I can look back through my sketch books from 20 years ago and many of the ideas and concepts are only just coming out now. Back then I worked in design by day and training people at night.
In the beginning the creatives ran design. They had the ideas and those ideas made money. Then around the 80s, marketing people took over. They knew what sold, they knew the inner formulas. I struggle with marketing because I see it as just watered down design with not a lot of content, just sales pitch. When our marketing and sales people failed to get us work, the creative team were the first ones out the door and made redundant. This seemed so stupid to me, still does. You have one team that is exceptional in what it does and another team that is failing... So we bin the good team. Surely it should be the sales guys who aren't bringing the work in that should get fired first? Then during the recession of the late 80s, the accountants took over. If it didn't work by numbers, we didn't do it. Again the wrong approach. I think for any business to succeed you need a fully committed team in every direction. Great Creatives, great sales people and smart numbers people making sure the bills are paid and we get paid for the jobs we do. Too much weight in any area an the system fails.
In every business I have ever worked in there seems to be this strange mentality that goes on. The business starts failing. The management believe that things will be ok, so don't react to the circumstances. Then it's too late. The business is now financially up against it, and the most obvious way to cut costs is to reduce headcount. The management team usually protect themselves first so the people lower down go, now we have a bunch of chiefs and no indians. One week, some guys are counting how big their comissions might be, the following week they are packing their stuff into cardboard boxes.
Why?
I have been made redundant once during the Gulf War 1. It's the most depressing thing I have ever experienced and it was with the best company I ever worked for.
I have been fired once, when I was the highest earner and most successful salesmen the company had at that time (the owner didn't like me dating the manageress Lucy, the same Lucy I married...smiles). I get that no one is bigger than any business, but if you're turning over £23,000 a week and I was bringing in £15,000-18,000 of that. Might be smarter to keep me, till you have my secret or business picks up. The company went to the wall very soon after that.
I was introduced to the idea of commercial design by my dad when I was 12 years old. My dad was pretty much an idiot savant. He could barely write, never read a fiction book in his life and saw them as worthless, unless they were a classic. He had the complete works of Dickens, even though he never read them. But the books were for my brother and I, we had no TV till I was 16.
But when it came to selling and making other people money the guy was a genius. He could look at your shop, move things around, and it would make a profit overnight. He would look for win-win situations; he started the idea of paying coach drivers to visit woolen mills in Scotland, and be paid a commission on every item sold, including teas and coffees. The mills made more money and the coach drivers earned serious commissions.
So growing up he educated me in how to always look at things from a commercial perspective and understand where things were going wrong. Many times he went into companies and didn't talk to the directors but to the mailroom boys, or the cleaners to get a greater understanding of what was going on. He always looked for a work ethic and would fire people that were lazy. He was tolerated because he turned companies round.
So when I look at things I put his head on. I look at things from a client perspective, a design perspective, a commercial perspective, then I ask 100 questions. These start to unravel the problem for me in my head and give me all the strands. I'm one person.
Imagine taking all the talent out there and before they were ever made redundant, pulling them into a room. You have the ones whose heads are on the block. The company needs to find $X, find a solution. Then see what happens. Some people will give up. They're the ones that you don't want. Then you'll see the entrepreneurs, the strivers under pressure and the survivors coming out. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
In the olden days the King was the absolute power in the land. The smartest Kings kept a naysayer close. The naysayers role was to take the opposite view to the King to try and give him some balance and perspective, ultimately making him smarter and wiser. He also had his go to guys that made things happen.
A couple of weeks ago I talked about taking the offroad journey to your goals. Following the regular route is ok, but it's not going to work unless you are in that tiny minority who get picked up. Luck, talent, who you know or just right time right place.
My Masters degree is in Industrial Design and my specialism was New Product Development, something I think I could honestly hold my hand up and say I am exceptional at. But I never practiced it professionally. So how can I say I'm exceptional? I can look back through my sketch books from 20 years ago and many of the ideas and concepts are only just coming out now. Back then I worked in design by day and training people at night.
In the beginning the creatives ran design. They had the ideas and those ideas made money. Then around the 80s, marketing people took over. They knew what sold, they knew the inner formulas. I struggle with marketing because I see it as just watered down design with not a lot of content, just sales pitch. When our marketing and sales people failed to get us work, the creative team were the first ones out the door and made redundant. This seemed so stupid to me, still does. You have one team that is exceptional in what it does and another team that is failing... So we bin the good team. Surely it should be the sales guys who aren't bringing the work in that should get fired first? Then during the recession of the late 80s, the accountants took over. If it didn't work by numbers, we didn't do it. Again the wrong approach. I think for any business to succeed you need a fully committed team in every direction. Great Creatives, great sales people and smart numbers people making sure the bills are paid and we get paid for the jobs we do. Too much weight in any area an the system fails.
In every business I have ever worked in there seems to be this strange mentality that goes on. The business starts failing. The management believe that things will be ok, so don't react to the circumstances. Then it's too late. The business is now financially up against it, and the most obvious way to cut costs is to reduce headcount. The management team usually protect themselves first so the people lower down go, now we have a bunch of chiefs and no indians. One week, some guys are counting how big their comissions might be, the following week they are packing their stuff into cardboard boxes.
Why?
I have been made redundant once during the Gulf War 1. It's the most depressing thing I have ever experienced and it was with the best company I ever worked for.
I have been fired once, when I was the highest earner and most successful salesmen the company had at that time (the owner didn't like me dating the manageress Lucy, the same Lucy I married...smiles). I get that no one is bigger than any business, but if you're turning over £23,000 a week and I was bringing in £15,000-18,000 of that. Might be smarter to keep me, till you have my secret or business picks up. The company went to the wall very soon after that.
I was introduced to the idea of commercial design by my dad when I was 12 years old. My dad was pretty much an idiot savant. He could barely write, never read a fiction book in his life and saw them as worthless, unless they were a classic. He had the complete works of Dickens, even though he never read them. But the books were for my brother and I, we had no TV till I was 16.
But when it came to selling and making other people money the guy was a genius. He could look at your shop, move things around, and it would make a profit overnight. He would look for win-win situations; he started the idea of paying coach drivers to visit woolen mills in Scotland, and be paid a commission on every item sold, including teas and coffees. The mills made more money and the coach drivers earned serious commissions.
So growing up he educated me in how to always look at things from a commercial perspective and understand where things were going wrong. Many times he went into companies and didn't talk to the directors but to the mailroom boys, or the cleaners to get a greater understanding of what was going on. He always looked for a work ethic and would fire people that were lazy. He was tolerated because he turned companies round.
So when I look at things I put his head on. I look at things from a client perspective, a design perspective, a commercial perspective, then I ask 100 questions. These start to unravel the problem for me in my head and give me all the strands. I'm one person.
Imagine taking all the talent out there and before they were ever made redundant, pulling them into a room. You have the ones whose heads are on the block. The company needs to find $X, find a solution. Then see what happens. Some people will give up. They're the ones that you don't want. Then you'll see the entrepreneurs, the strivers under pressure and the survivors coming out. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
In the olden days the King was the absolute power in the land. The smartest Kings kept a naysayer close. The naysayers role was to take the opposite view to the King to try and give him some balance and perspective, ultimately making him smarter and wiser. He also had his go to guys that made things happen.
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