MISTAKE #1
Not listening to that inner voice that says, “The time is now!” Despite ever-sophisticated analytics, tell-tale advisors and detailed market reports, I often find the most accurate predictor of what to do, when, is intuition. Unfortunately intuition only works when you respond to its alarm bell. Case in point: we had plans to build four Eat Media tools/products this year for our newly created Lab section. Two of the ideas I sketched out almost 3 years ago. At the beginning of the year, intuition kicked me in the ass, saying, “Time to get started on those projects, Ian,” but my “urgent” list of projects (vs. my “important” list) kept me from completing them.
Here are the results of that waiting:
Project 1 #fail – Three days after buying the URL Slangr.com, the awesome Muledesign launched Unsuck-it.com.
Project 2 #fail – 3 weeks prior to launching Calcium (our vetted conference calendar), Lanyrd.com was launched.
Lesson learned: Ideas are worth very little without prompt and proper execution.
MISTAKE #2
Not bringing up pricing early enough in the conversation(s) Historically we have had 4-5 exchanges (including email and meetings) prior to discussing pricing with clients. Any time a prospective client brought a project/problem to the table I got giddy and immediately started thinking of ways to make things better and then double better. Often this entailed a boatload of research, tests, comps and even sample content. We had more than one occasion in 2010, where I rocked all-nighters and tasked staff with work that I filed under the line item of “research” which really should have been under the line item of “after we cash the deposit.” On one hand, I think we are going to land every client and love finding the solution(s). On the other hand, a solution that doesn’t fit the client’s budget doesn’t solve the client’s problem.
For 2011 we are testing Sliderocket for proposals as well as Proposable. Addtionally, we now discuss price at 2nd, or at the latest, 3rd contact with the client.
Lesson learned: Not providing pricing as early as possible is unfair to us and the prospective client.
MISTAKE #3
Not being able to reel in the best talent For the past 4 years I have art directed most of visual design and/or comps for our clients, but we reached a point at the beginning of 2010 where in order for the agency to grow we needed (still need) to hire people with more talent so that Britta and I can focus on other parts of the business. We entirely underestimated how scarce great (available) talent is in NYC; especially in the web design and front-end development world. To make things exponentially more difficult, we were/are looking for a FT, in-house web design/developer combo which the esteemed UX/CS Karen McGrane told me was like “hunting for unicorns.” We saw this need coming a year prior and should have started putting out feelers in 2009. The days of placing an ad and getting hundreds of applicants has gone the way of the animated .gif.
We are now offering hiring bonuses, referral bonuses and developing a GEO location campaign to lure talent to our agency.
Lesson learned: Craigslist is a waste of time to capture real talent. All our talented friends were snapped up 3-4 years ago.
MISTAKE #4
We should have expanded beyond content strategy/development two years ago Very early on in our business, Britta and I realized that we would, at some point, need to become a full-fledged agency. Since that is a tough sell out of gate, we decided to start with content development/strategy, build up our portfolio and then expand. Some amazing clients kept us very busy with content development/strategy early on but the desire to provide [content-first] design, development and ideation services was driving us. Why didn’t we move faster? Things were good, our staff at the time probably wasn’t as ready for that shift as we were, and frankly I think we were afraid to rock the boat. In retrospect, we should have bellied up to the table sooner and built the business we wanted. Our clients would have been better for it and we would be closer to becoming the agency we envisioned more than 5 years ago.
Lesson learned: Be flexible but follow your original vision. Sacrifice is more than a bad Elton John tune.
MISTAKE #5
The (client/agency) love is gone Half-way through 2010, we let one of our biggest clients go. It was both a very difficult decision and an absolutely necessary one. Unfortunately it was a business decision we should have made at the end of 2009. After more than 3 years working with this client, we hit a massive change management wall and became little more than executors. Two month projects were dragged out over the course of six months. Conference calls had become bloated and unproductive and our strategy and creative services were lost in the mire of middle management approvals and proposal re-dos. We stayed on mostly due to an amazing relationship with our lead contact, but at some point it was clear that we had both lost the love. It happens, we were a small agency in a huge company that regularly burns through small agencies. We had a good ride. Problem was we had so many projects with them it was very difficult to untangle our operations, project management and culture from them. In the end we parted gracefully(ish) and the breathing room helped us finally expand our business (see Mistake #4).
Lesson learned: Once you are no longer getting paid for your ideas, strategy and creative, the clock starts ticking. Loudly.
These are my confessions of a growing agency. What were your 2010 mistakes?
—Ian
Like this article? Check out the Top 5 Mistakes I made in 2009, one of which should be the orange headers.)