Joseph Jaffe (of JaffeJuice.com) explains how through things like customer service, customer experience, dialogue, a proper listening/response strategy, brands can show that they care about their customers. Furthermore, Mr. Jaffe goes on to tell us that customer retention is the new customer acquisition… the process he describes will create a loyal, credible, authentic customer base who will advocate for your brand.
Purchase Mr. Jaffe’s book “Flip the Funnel” here. Video via HubSpot.
In-house designers, believe it or not, have access to things that their counterparts in outside agencies will never have; namely the time to connect with their internal clients. Though, as AIGA.org columnist Michelle Taute points out, the in-house designer might feel like his/her fellow employees don’t even speak the same language at times.
Don’t forget: EPS might be the designer’s “Encapsulated PostScript”, but it will be “Earnings Per Share” to a chief officer.
Taute advises to mirror your client’s communication style and vocabulary. For example, here’s how she suggests to effectively communicate with these groups:
C-level executives:
“Making a succinct business case can help you engage a C-level audience because you’re highlighting what they care about most: the bottom line. Before meeting with a senior leader, practice what you’re going to say and eliminate unnecessary information. Also, be ready to swiftly move to the most essential information.”
“Most marketing and communications professionals have worked with creative staff members before, but that doesn’t mean communication is always smooth. Meet with your marketing peers to make sure everyone is on the same page with a project before you start the first comp. Outline specific goals and objectives that everyone can work toward. What do you want people to do or think when they receive the brochure? What’s most important to get across? How will you measure success?”
Other staff:
“Unlike marketing professionals who may commonly work with creative teams, staff-level professionals in other departments may have little or no experience collaborating with designers. Because of that, it’s useful to spend a little time educating them on the design process, without using jargon or becoming overly technical. A member of your sales team, for example, may have no idea that making changes to a brochure at blueline could result in cost overruns, for example.”
Finally, Taute shares some basic communication techniques for any client:
“1. Always take a team approach. Adopting an “us vs. them” mentality with a client will only make the project harder.
2. If you’re discussing visual styles, use samples to get on the same page rather than descriptors. “Simple” and “elegant” don’t mean the same thing to everyone.
3. Get to know the client and work on building the relationship. Ask about the biggest tasks and challenges they face, and remember to really listen to the answers.
4. Read the trades. If you frequently work with a particular department—for example, direct marketing—read trade magazines to get a sense of the latest developments and challenges in that industry.”
I might add at this point, that I think numbers 1 and 3 are of utmost importance. Don’t forget- as a designer, you are a problem solver and you are there to provide service to your client. Establishing a relationship and showing that you have just as much vested in a project as the client does shows them that you’re committed to a solution!
Via AIGA.org.
The Concrete Goals Tracker, developed by David Seah, is a helpful form that helps you track the work you’ve done over the course of a week. Available in multiple sizes for printing or as an Excel spreadsheet, this form will help you get your productivity back on track. David writes:
“As you accomplish various goal-related items throughout the day, fill in the appropriate bubble to log the points. At the end of the day, you will see how well you did (or didn’t). Each CGT form tracks an entire week, so you will see how you did every day, and week-by-week… and most importantly, what you did to move yourself along your path. Since the items on the task list award points only for tangible results, you will have made actual progress.”
Via Lifehacker and David Seah.
A great article on AIGA.org from Andy Epstein, the co-founder of InSource, an association dedicated to providing support to in-house designers and design team managers. Andy is also head of an AIGA task force on corporate design, where he continues his efforts to empower in-house teams and raise their stature in the design and business communities.
I heard Andy give two talks this past summer at the HOW Design Conference in Austin, where he spoke about this very subject. At the time, I thought I was the only one facing these situations in the workplace; it was a real eye-opener for me (and a load off my mind) that other designers were facing the same challenges. As the sole member of an in-house design team, I always tried to position myself as being very accessible and available to those around my organization (providing service); but sometimes it felt as though upper managers were taking advantage of my expertise and willingness to help out (pushed into servitude).
A fine line that often gets crossed, Epstein shares that:
“For many in-house design teams, service has come to be perceived as an expletive and not as a valued behavior or mindset… The connotation, in this view, equates the meaning of service with such uses as “cleaning service” or “administrative services”—a decidedly tactical and non-strategic definition. This meaning and perception, of course, is the bane of all in-house designers who are trying to elevate themselves to a more strategic role within their companies. Rather than remain order-takers who are viewed by their clients as mere production artists incapable of functioning as strategic partners with powerful insights, most internal creatives are fighting hard to shed the epithet of “service provider.””
Chances are, if you’re a member of an in-house design team, you’re facing similar challenges. Give Andy’s article a read, and take a look at AIGA’s In-House Design Resources for that matter, too.
As I mentioned in a post I wrote a few days ago, the U.S. unemployment rate is now at 9.8%. The image above shows who among us is affected by these numbers and how things progressed; it’s also a nice piece of data visualization, too.
Via Nathan from Flowing Data. View a large, zoom-able version of this piece here. You can check out some of Nathan’s other awesome data visualization projects here.
The short answer is “no”, but if you need more proof, here’s a great infographic from Mint.com. Personally, I tend to lean toward the “we’re not out of the woods yet” mentality, mostly because of what I saw happen to the aviation industry since mid-2007.
Back then (Summer of 2007), our company (my now ex-company), which sells jet fuel and ground services to private aircraft (and in some cases commercial aircraft), had a terrible summer. Then operating at 12 locations, we had our first round of layoffs, and we started to take a closer look at where our money was going.
After that initial flash of panic, there was a small leveling-off for us… until the effects of the recession trickled into our industry. Now, when I say “us”, I’m referring to our industry- not one competitor of ours didn’t feel the effects of this recession. 2008 came and brought bank bailouts, investment scandals, and real estate fallout with it. Its effect on commercial aviation was clear to anyone flying; flights were consolidated through airline code shares, failing airlines merged, on-board amenities were eliminated (or went up in price), and in some cases, flights were cut altogether. Pennies, all of a sudden, mattered.
However, what wasn’t so clear to the public, was the effect on the private (general) aviation industry. Then again, when the presidents of the big-three auto makers flew in separate private aircraft from Detroit to Washington, D.C. to ask our government for bailout money, the reputation (and business of) general aviation (or GA) took a direct hit. This was the worst press our industry could have gotten. All of a sudden, Americans were pissed off, and big companies saw this as a warning to cut back on expenses, and let their customers know that they’re being “financially responsible” by not utilizing their corporate aircraft.
*On a side-note, many (most) of these companies kept their aircraft, but changed their vanity tail numbers (like license plates for planes) and set up separate management companies to keep their fleets in operation. For example, if my company’s name is Ribaudo Enterprises, I might want my company’s initials reflected in the tail number of my aircraft; something like “123RE”. However, I might now want to switch that tail number to something totally unrelated to Ribaudo Enterprises so that my customers won’t get wind that I’m still operating a corporate aircraft. My public relations nightmare has now been averted.
Now I know what you’re thinking: “Oh, it’s just a bunch of rich folks flying around in these planes; who cares about them?” In some respects, I can agree with you, but most of these aircraft are for corporate use- not personal. When Americans saw these stories on the news, they weren’t presented the flip side of this coin. As it turns out, there are a lot of blue-collar jobs supporting GA that have been lost due to the recent negative press and recession:
General Aviation saw its industry reduced to rubble about six months after the government officially declared a recession. The National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) even worked to improve the reputation of GA through a “No Plane, No Gain” marketing campaign (with little results). Elsewhere in the world, Central/South American and European GA were in fine shape, but as time went on, these international aircraft owners/operators started to see the effects of an American economy in recession… which brings us up to mid-2009.
Now as an experienced marketing professional in this industry (there weren’t many of us left at this point), it was extremely difficult to sell jet fuel to aircraft that weren’t flying in the first place. Companies and private owners the like had grounded their aircraft and in some cases, fired their pilots and maintenance staff in an effort to reduce operating costs. You can hunker down and ride out the storm all you want, but how do you attract new customers (or old customers back) to your business if they’re not interested in its products or services to begin with?
I likened this to trying to sell dog food to someone without a dog- they have no need for the product, so there’s no chance of them buying it (regardless of how good the dog food is, or how low the price)… but you have to keep your product available just in case the customer changes his/her mind. After all, people like dogs… and people with aircraft like to fly in them.
So, when people aren’t flying and buying, the FBOs that are going to make it through this mess are going open their eyes and focus their efforts toward the customers that are still active.
It’s simple to do, and this will work in most industries: when it comes to marketing, shift the bulk of your resources to improving customer service (or the “customer experience”)- after all, it’s usually free (or cheap) to do so. Set up recurrent training, spend some time each day getting to know more about your customers (their needs and their businesses), and work with people on pricing. Know which customers spend the most money, and make sure that retaining their business is a top priority. This is where data acquisition and a solid customer database really proves its worth. When the economy turns around, you’ll find that the seeds you’ve planted during the recession will have yielded you a dense crop of very loyal customers (and the word will spread).
After more rounds of layoffs than I care to remember, my position in the company was eliminated; I had made it more than two-and-a-half years into a recession in a struggling industry. (I’d also like to take this opportunity to wish luck to friends and former colleagues that are still working in GA.)
So, are we there yet? Not by a long shot.
We’ve learned that the economic demeanor of General Aviation usually trails that of the national economy by about six months (on the way down). In times of economic recovery (and we have a long way to go to get back to 2005-numbers), this process could take another two years. Industry experts aren’t even sure that GA has hit bottom yet, and that a leveling off is still far way.
Think about it- if jobs in other industries come back, then consumers spend money on goods and services, and the companies that produce these goods/services get more revenue and might expand their businesses geographically. This might then warrant a need for a quicker way for key personnel to be transported to these satellite branches, and if it’s financially feasible, an aircraft might be purchased, pilots/maintenance/scheduling personnel are hired, and fuel/ground services are purchased when the aircraft is in operation. The company’s business benefits from the use of the aircraft, the company continues to grow and hire more people, and the process will repeat itself… of course, this is a best-case scenario.
On a national scale, I hope that things are on the way up sooner rather than later… but a 9.8% unemployment rate (me being part of that) doesn’t exactly make me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Personally, I’ve had to relocate myself back to the Northeast to look for work in my field (marketing/creative); companies just weren’t hiring where I used to live. I’m confident that the changes I’ve made will afford me the opportunity to find something soon, and hopeful that the optimists’ predictions on a quick recovery come true.
Via the New York Times’ Corner Office feature, Ford’s President and CEO, Alan Mullaly shares this story:
“One of my favorite stories is an analogy where this reporter stops by a construction site and he interviews three bricklayers. He asks the first bricklayer, “What are you doing?” And he says, “Well, I’m making a living laying these bricks.” The reporter says: “Oh, that’s great. That’s very noble.”
He asks the next bricklayer, “What are you doing?” And he says, “Well, I am practicing the profession of bricklaying. I’m going to be the best bricklayer ever.”
And the reporter asks the third bricklayer, “What are you doing?” And he says, “I’m developing a cathedral.”
There is technical excellence and professionalism, but we all want to contribute to making a cathedral. And the more we feel that and we know what our part in it is, the more I think you can take the team performance to a whole other level of excellence.”
Mr. Mullaly goes on to offer some career advice:
“Don’t manage your career. Follow your dream and contribute. Think about just exceeding expectations of every job you’re being asked to do. Continually ask for feedback on how it’s going. Ask everybody involved what you can do to do an even better job, and the world will beat down your door trying to ask you to do more and more.
I’ve never laid out a career. I never said I wanted to do this job and this job and this job, and frankly, I’d propose that you really don’t know what a job is until you’re in it. The most important thing is that you are open to really understanding what is expected, and also where you can make the biggest contribution. The more humble you become, and the more honored you are to serve, it allows you to really understand what you can do to make a bigger contribution.”
It occurred to me just a short time ago that as a graphic designer, my résumé should reflect my creativity and not be something that would camouflage itself in a pile of traditional (all text) résumés. I started out with a 5-column legal-sized page, and wanted to incorporate graphical elements into something that would still communicate my past professional and educational experience. Taking it a step further, my second goal was to highlight my various skills in a fun way that would draw the reader’s eye down the page while giving the reader a good picture of who I am. I’m happy with the way it turned out, but knowing myself, I’ll have a few more smaller changes as time goes on. 
If you or someone you know is hiring in the Boston area, please feel free to pass my information along! You may download a copy (of the above) here, or a plain-text copy here.
An amazing infographic from the New York Times.
Not only is the data itself interesting, but the way that the data is organized borders on mind-blowingly brilliant.
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