My story
The long version
As a kid, the only thing I wanted to do was my "arts and crafts." I had a crafts corner in the basement with every art and craft under the sun. My mother would take me regularly to the art supply store to stock up on supplies, and I looked forward to those outings. My whole body lit up when I went into an art supply store.
I sold my first piece of art at age 10. By 16, I was in business selling character drawings to my parents' friends for special occasions. I was good at art, and I was good at sales. I studied Graphic Design and Photography at Parsons School of Design in New York, The American College in Paris, and the Ontario College of Art and Design. I won several prestigious design awards in school and went on to a 25-year career as a brand strategist, creative director, business development specialist, international speaker, and published author (Know Your Difference, 2011).
April Greiman Internship
In my last year of art college, I got a summer internship with April Greiman in Los Angeles. April is widely recognized as one of the first designers to embrace the Mac as a design tool. That summer, I assisted April in creating issue #133 for Design Quarterly Magazine, a publication of the Walker Art Center and MIT Press. This was an iconic moment in graphic design, and I was there.
My first job as a junior graphic designer was at the Swiss Design firm Gottschalk + Ash International, where I worked on large, iconic graphic design projects. After that, I started my firm with a Swiss-trained type designer whom I became friends with at G+A. I was the person who brought in the business, and we both did the design work.
Thing were going along ok until I decided to have a baby
Things were going well until I decided to have a baby. I thought I could be one of those moms who did it all – not so much! I had a business and a partner who was mad at me all the time because I was too tired to work, and a baby who wouldn’t stop screaming day and night. My partner left and I was left with the office, the rent, the clients and the baby.
The first thing I did was to hire a babysitter. A friend suggested that I try to find a firm to work at and that would be a lot less stressful, so I did some research, chose 10 firms and sent the owners letters. They all wanted to meet me. I landed at Ove Design and Communications, where I was given the role of Creative Director and Business Development. I had no idea what the owner meant by business development, but he gave me his mailing list of 800 names. I called them all and got a ton of business. In my third year, I brought in over a million dollars in new business, and he told me to stop because he couldn’t keep up with the growth.
A call from a recruiter
One day, I received a call from a recruiter who said “every design firm in town wants to hire you to do business development for them. It’s really hard to find people who can do successfully do business development in the creative world.” I realized then that I had something very unique to offer.
I went on to do business development and brand strategy at several other top design firms. I was mentored by the best people in the industry. I even got to work with the great Don Watt.
The Birth of the Business Development Breakthrough
In 2009, after the big economic meltdown, I was laid off and decided to start my own business again. I was doing all kinds of different work, and one day, a creative agency called me and asked me to teach them everything I know about business development. That was when I came up with the idea for my first online course, “The Business Development Breakthrough”. I decided to find an affiliate that had a big list and offer a free Webinar called “The 5 Questions you need to ask your prospect before you even think about a Proposal.”1,000 people registered, I built a mailing list in a day, made $ 40 K and was now on the map as THE business development advisor to creative agencies. I continued to launch online courses and coach creative agencies, large and small, around the world. I’ve been a speaker and trainer for HOW, AIGA, Design Enterprise Skillet in Ireland and DBA, the Design Business Association in the UK.
An approach that works
I’ve combined my experience as a Business Development Professional and Corporate Brand Strategist to develop an approach that works.
My first Client was Katie Osborn, Principal of Via Collective in Brooklyn, New York. She took my course and also booked 4 coaching sessions to complement it. She had started her business with a partner, and her partner passed away suddenly. She was a wayfinding designer and was only winning 35% of the projects she was pitching. After working together for a year, she relaunched her business and started closing 65% of the pitches. She grew her revenue by 500% that year. It’s now 10 years later, and she has a thriving wayfinding strategy and design firm with a team of 10.
What we did was define a clear audience for her. I had her interview her main clients, and we found out the messages that would resonate. When I was doing the corporate brand strategy work earlier in my career, I created a simple method for doing stakeholder interviews that I’ve been teaching as part of my programs.
The next thing we did was to build visibility. We came up with ways for Katie to get visible in front of the right potential clients. She decided that she wanted to start doing some talks, and we came up with speaking topics based on the information we found out in the interviews. The key here was that she did marketing in a way that was comfortable for her (and that’s something different for everyone).
I also taught Katie how to use LinkedIn to build her network. I invented my own way to do it that doesn’t feel pushy or salesy. When I reach out to someone, they want to talk to me. I have instructions and a template that I’ll share with you. I've also got the script for that first conversation down as well as a proprietary proposal format, and a way of pitching that wins.
180K pitch won
Lifestyle Photographer Jeremy Frechette has been a long-time client. He called me last year and said that he was contacted by a big pharmaceutical company to pitch on a series of videos and had no idea what to charge, and he didn’t have much formal proposal experience. We partnered up and booked a call with the client. I acted as his business development person and led the meeting. By the end of the call, we knew their budget, timeline and what the decision would be based on. I then put together a slide presentation, and we presented it together. We won. It was a $180k budget. They said that nobody else asked the questions we asked, and it gave them so much clarity on their end.
Specializing and Thriving
Paula and Steven Adduci contacted me 8 years ago. A husband and wife design team in Northern California, they had been practicing for many years as a generalist design firm and were wondering how to grow. After a deep dive into their business, I learned that she is a medical illustrator and they have many clients in the life science sector. I had them do interviews, and after a lot of discussion (and encouragement on my part), they became aware that they needed to become “A Creative Agency for Science Types”. Now, 8 years later, they have a team of 6 and a thriving business. (I also partnered with them to pitch and win a $200K project two years ago that has led to an ongoing client for them)
My combo of creative and business is unique
My combo of creativity and business development is unique. I’m gifted at helping you create a clear message that stands out and will get the attention of the people whose attention you want, getting you visible and closing new business. I’ve worked with creative and related businesses around the world: Design, Branding, Advertising, Marketing, Public Relations, Market Research, Video Production, Service Design, etc., and they share similar challenges.
Since those early trips to the art supply store with my mom, all things creative light me up. I’m grateful that I have helped make so many creative businesses around the world become more successful. Today’s world presents new challenges, the client landscape is changing fast, and I’ve got ideas about how we can collaborate differently with clients and move into a brighter future. Most of what I see online is still about how to get clients, but there’s more to it now. Join me for the ride. It’ll be a good one!
