What to Do When Everything Changes

“Remember Black Friday? Well, this is Black Monday for you.”

My partner of eight years said it as I took my first sip of coffee — out on that sunny terrace, the artificial waterfall doing its best to muffle the traffic below. With that one line, she was initiating our dissolution. I was in my late thirties. Classic midlife.

She took half the staff and most of the cash. I kept the office, thinking I needed to look stable. In control. Like nothing had happened.

A year in, things were not going well. We were getting by. Just barely.

Then I happened on a piece in the local business journal about a turnaround consultant who’d saved a local company. I called him that day.

Over the next couple of weeks he interviewed everyone on staff and reviewed our numbers. Then, late on a rainy Friday afternoon, he sat across from me and delivered his findings.

“Ted, you’re an amazingly talented designer. A gifted strategist.” He leaned forward. “But you are not a CEO.”

I leaned back. The gray afternoon was getting darker. I found myself wondering what I was going to tell my wife.

“You have an incredibly gifted marketing person on your team. She’ll make a great CEO.”

I could feel tears forming. I picked up his report, thanked him, and left.

The following Monday I fired my marketing person.

Then I started calling clients — asking for time to catch up and show them our latest work.

That consultant did me a huge favor. He scared me into getting off my ass and taking action.

Oh — and I fired him too.

---

Time passed. Business improved. We added staff. Moved uptown. We were doing a bit of everything a good group of graphic designers could do — and making a living at it.

But much of it at thin margins. Something had to change.

I’d long admired the annual reports featured in Communication Arts. Most were designed by celebrated firms in New York and the Bay Area — and they were clearly charging serious money for them. Annual reports were points of pride for major corporations. Beautifully designed ones showed up in CA like trophies.

Getting into that business seemed like the answer to our margin problem. But we had two obstacles.

We’d done a few local annuals, but we weren’t known for it. And the staff hated the idea.

“Annual reports? That’s not creative. It’s just numbers.”

“Why don’t we go after theater posters instead?”

But if we didn’t land some seriously profitable work, we were in trouble.

We tackled the staff problem first.

At our regular Monday meeting I announced we were entering the annual report market. I handed out award-winning annuals and an in-house training manual — and told everyone there’d be a test on Friday. Lunch at noon, test at one, graded results announced the following Monday.

You could hear a pin drop.

That Friday I passed out the tests. An anxious moment. Would they take it seriously? I found myself holding my breath.

They did. Heads down, full effort. Every last one of them.

On the client side, we compiled a list of investor relations officers at every publicly traded company on the West Coast and launched a direct mail campaign — a cover letter and a sample annual. Three mailings in all.

We added two or three new annual report clients that first year. Internally, the objections dried up entirely. The following year, a couple of the annuals we’d designed appeared in CA.

We’d found our footing. Business was good. For a moment, it felt like we might actually have this figured out.

Then Landor opened an office in town.

---

If you work in branding, you know the name. Landor is one of the most celebrated brand creation firms in the world — deep history, major portfolio, household names in their client list. And now they were setting up shop in our market.

Shit.

The newly appointed managing director invited me to lunch. Somewhere between the appetizer and the entrée he leaned in.

“Ted, this time next year, you’ll be out of business.”

Asshole.

I said nothing. Stood up, placed my napkin carefully on the table, and walked out.

Later that day, two of my designers announced they were leaving. They’d taken positions at Landor.

The following Monday I told the staff we were going into the brand business.

“What’s a brand?”

“It’s just another name for a logo. Right?”

Nothing like a good insult to wake up my aggressive side.

I flew to San Francisco, booked a hotel with meeting space near the Landor offices, and spent several days interviewing their strategists — offering each of them significantly more than they were making. They all turned me down.

Back in Seattle, I got word that a Landor-trained strategist at a local competitor was unhappy. With a nudge from my marketing director, we brought her on.

She paired with one of our senior creatives. Together they built a branding presentation. We added branding to our growing mailing list and started sending monthly. The mailings led to speaking engagements. The speaking engagements led to assignments.

Naming. Branding. Just like that, we were in the business.

As it turned out, Landor fired the managing director about a year later. Their Seattle office struggled, and closed within five years.

Three pivots. Three moments where the ground shifted and we had no good options.

Looking back, none of it was planned. Every leap came from fear, or a threat, or the slowly dawning realization that what we were doing wasn’t going to be enough. I used to think good strategy meant seeing around corners. Now I think it mostly means not flinching when something hits you square in the face — and being stubborn enough to turn it into forward motion.

The creative services business is brutal that way. The work that saves you is usually the work you didn’t want to do.

Until you do it.