Sunday, June 15, 2008

It’s business time!

This is a shameless plug, but I don't care. If you've been wondering where I've been for the last couple of months, I've been starting my own business.

Advertising and graphic design has been my career for about 12 years so after some great stints at places like DDB, Metromedia and Ogilvy, I've decided to do things on my own terms. So, everything I've learned from working in London agencies coupled with the mixed bag of stuff I've done here plus how not to do things now manifests itself in my agency:

Brighter
Graphic Design | Advertising | Branding | Web

In the 16 days we've been trading we have picked up 5 clients by word of mouth alone - one being a radio station website redesign. This morning at 8:26am I very proudly listened to our first radio ad and so now wait for it to yield our first callers.

When we were setting up the company, the girl at the bank told us that a loan wouldn't be a problem. Then, after she'd opened our business accounts the news came that they weren't going to give us the money afterall - unless we gave them our house as collateral.

As we were only asking for about the same amount spent on the average credit card, I told them to "Get fished!" or something like that. Really they should prevent their personal bankers (she was a ditzy 22 year old) from commenting on loan applications and raising expectations.

When I asked them how much they would lend us, they said: nothing, zero bucks, nada. I was disgusted. Even more so by a phonecall from a haughty branch manager telling me that it was too high a risk and that many businesses in the area were folding under the economic downturn.

"Are they graphic design businesses?", I asked.
"Yes", she said.
"Well, according to my research there aren't any in the area", I said - and that seemed to touch a nerve.
"Listen", she said "I know about graphic design because my son is in the business."
"I see", I said thinking: BOLLOCKS, just cos your son works in that area doesn't make you an expert, you're a banker.

Anyway to cut a long story short, we went somewhere else, got the money, got better service and are now in the process of moving all our fortune to the bank who gave a shit.

So, those of you requiring big city creative on a small town budget. You know who to call.