About the author:
With a professional background in design and extensive experience in business management, Nikki Jason, Executive Director of Jason and Jason Visual Communications, brings unique insight into directing a creative agency. She has delivered impressive results, constantly mapping new directions, and capitalizing on new opportunities. UK born, she has been living in Israel for the last 16 years, and together with Jonathan, her husband and partner, they have 4 children.
About Jason & Jason: The founders of Jason & Jason (J&J) Visual Communications recognized the need to specialize more than 10 years ago. They built their agency by concentrating solely on business-to-business communications and specializing in high-tech, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. This strategy formed the basis of the agency's ongoing success and fuels its constant growth.
J&J today provides comprehensive strategic marketing solutions to an international client base that includes Lucent Technologies, Agere Systems, Business Layers, Compugen, Sun Microsystems, HP (Indigo), NUR Macroprinters, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Radvision, R.R. Donnelley and many more. The company is headquartered in Israel, a leading hi-tech/biotech center after North America and Canada, with a branch office in the Netherlands and strategic partnerships worldwide.
J&J's specialization strategy and its work are internationally recognized and have won numerous awards for creativity and communications effectiveness. The agency's projects appear in Rockport Publishers' "Brochure Design That Works," confirming J&J's place among the world's most established Creative Agencies. A Note from Linda Fisher: Whatever the economic situation, strategic marketing plans connect your services with the needs of the target market sector/ customer. On the brink of disaster, this firm expanded their market as a means of survival by reaching out to customers in foreign lands. They chose the path more difficult but ultimately more promising--to grow to the next level and work globally for US corporations in their specialized market sectors. The critical message in this article: with no plan in place there's a very high risk of making the wrong decisions.
The Jason & Jason story ties together everything we at Design Management Resources have been preaching. Many firms don't understand the seriousness of this challenge--and the inherent opportunity.
If just the suggestion of working with clients globally has you sharing this author's feelings of a "near-death experience" then perhaps the rest of this story will open your mind to dealing with the realities of today. Simply stated, every business needs to develop a strategic marketing plan.
Contact Nikki Jason at nikki@jasonandjason.com.
Contact Linda Fisher 
J&J in Israel
J&J in Holland
---Linda Fisher, President, Design Management Resources.
at Linda-marketing-pr@snet.net.
Business Articles:
Business Articles are by diverse writers, from authors to attorneys to design professionals like you -- words of wisdom from experienced, creative business people. The articles offer secrets, statistics, and proven strategies to help design firms build a solid business.
Business Articles are published monthly and each new story is announced in our Marketing Newsletter (sign up above so you don't miss out!). Past stories will be archived, so bookmark this site now! If you have a success story, a horror story, or some specific advice to share with your colleagues or other professionals in design, request article submission guidelines today!
Steering Your Business &
Maintaining Control
Needed: a strategic marketing plan
By Nikki Jason
rece'ssion (-shon) n. receding or withdrawal from a place or point; receding part of object, recess; temporary decline in economic activity or prosperity ---The Concise Oxford Dictionary
In March 2000, our company would change so dramatically, that by the end of the month, it was almost unrecognizable as the same entity that Jonathan, my husband, and I had founded nine years earlier.
Change is hard enough to deal with when we initiate it ourselves, but inflicted change is truly an unsettling experience.
Based in Israel, we serviced the vast market segment of exporting technology companies. This was an industry so immense that it was ranked 3rd in the world following the US and Canada. The market appeared to be invincible; it was responsible for 40% of Israel GNP. What could possibly go wrong?
Strike 1: The .com Crash
The first blow hit us later than most. We had been so busy with projects for events that had been booked in advanced, that our staff, 18 strong, were working day and night in the studio, and we failed to see what was looming ahead.
Suddenly, orders were beginning to be put on hold and within a matter of days the telephone had ceased to ring. I remember a period of 3 weeks of an eerie silence around the office. No new work on the horizon, long-term projects were hanging in production limbo.
During those 3 weeks, we quickly scrambled, met with our accountants and began to realize that for the last few months, our billings had been lower than in previous months, but I had interpreted this to the project cycle being longer than usual. We were now beginning to understand that the projects being put on hold, were actually being cancelled. We needed to cut back immediately.
We had depleted our cash reserves and had begun to rely on bank credit facilities to keep the business going. We were diving so fast, it was almost hard to breath.
a'ction n., & v.t. 1. n. process of acting, exertion of energy or influence,; take, begin to act; out of, not working. 2. thing done, act. 5. go into, (fig.) start work. 6. committee, group (formed to take active steps) ---The Concise Oxford Dictionary
I look back upon that period today as a near death experience.
As the shock began to pass, we realized that we had to take action. We decided that we were going to stay and fight, and come to the realization that we hadn't invested 9 years in this business to become a victim of circumstance. We began to reassess our offer, and review its relevance to the market and our clientele as it stood today.
In our case, we have always focused on companies that exported technology. Our offer was to help companies create the necessary tools to market their products. But, the strange thing is, when money is tight and the pressure is on, the investment that a company is prepared to make and the quality of the material that a company will produce is negotiable. We found that freelancers and smaller agencies than ours were able to enter larger companies trying to save a few bucks. Now, companies were prepared to compromise on the quality of the packages that they were buying.
So what were we to do? Our deliverables could be bought for cheaper; the client could not really justify spending more to work with our company… It suddenly occurred to us that the clients simply did not see value of our offer… Yes, we do take care of the deliverables, but more importantly we also work with the company to define the core marketing messages, help create and maintain marketing programs together with producing the deliverables, and the logistics and management of global shipping and fulfillment.
We needed to review and repackage our offer in the light of the new economic situation. We began to listen carefully to the market, and the needs of our clients. We undertook the massive task of repositioning our company in the most difficult economic period of our professional career. It became critical that clients would understand our value proposition and then differentiate between our company and its capabilities and that of the smaller competitors, who only provide a small part of the overall package.
We also had to take some serious measures to get our overheads under control--this was no soft fix. Until this point in our 9 years in business, I had never needed to lay off an employee. Each individual is a carefully picked member of our team. The impending negative impact I was about to inflict on valued members of our staff was almost too much to bear.
I also take the blame for the position that we found ourselves in, because I should have read the signs 3 months earlier. There they were, spray painted on the wall in fluorescent ink! Although this was little compensation, I still felt that we were victims of the negative global business climate in general, and not our company specifically.
We layed off 4 members of our 18 staff. The financial balance inside the company began to stabilize.
The Turning Point
In June 2000, we were offered the chance to take part in a pitch for a large multi-national company that was heading up its marketing efforts from The Netherlands.
opportu'nity n. n. favorable occasion, good chance, (of doing, to do, for action, or abs.: find, make, get, seize, give, afford, an opportunity; take the (first) opportunity of); knocks, an opportunity occurs. ---The Concise Oxford Dictionary
Testing The Water
In October 2001, we traveled to the US, met with a consultant in our field, and pitched our idea. Yes, this was a solid and unique opportunity, and our offer was of a high level, but the timing to penetrate the US market was wrong. It was post-September 11; the market was faltering, and even established companies were struggling. We concluded that the best idea would be to start with a European office, and as the market picked up, then target the US. While we were in the US, we took the opportunity to introduce ourselves at the headquarters of the company that we were working with in Holland. You never know!!! We now had our work cut out for us. We would set up European offices, and further expand our offer, bring in a higher rate per project, and help us out of the downward spiral of our local market. But why Holland? The market in Holland had many of the same criteria that had been the foundations for our success in Israel. Primarily, there are companies communicating in a business market for export that is not in their mother tongue. Also, Holland is an emerging center for technology and biotechnology, similar to Israel prior to the crash.How would we do this? I began by talking to all the contacts that I knew in Holland and setting up a pilot trip to understand the dynamics of the local Dutch market. I also identified the leading players in the market, and we conducted a comparison between our company's offer and theirs. We also had to run price checks and see how would we price ourselves in this new market.
The people I met with initially were mostly creatives, but also some people that worked with similar clients in our field. We even managed to arrange a 6 month sublet agreement with one company we met (which also worked with our target clients), so that our affiliation with them could enhance their offer to their existing clients.
Upon deciding that this was a viable venture, I started to consider how to implement it. What would it take initially? We would need a manager/salesperson who would be responsible for generating valuable leads and introductions to potential new clients. We knew that either I would need to start traveling regularly to The Netherlands to conduct presentations, or that we must train our manager/salesperson to present our company. First we had to find her/him!!!
After looking into the Dutch laws, we became aware as employers that The Netherlands affords its employees many rights with which we were unfamiliar. This could have serious ramifications for us, especially in the initial stages of a new venture in a troubled economic climate. We created a profile of the desired employee and distributed this to any and all of the connections that we had made in Holland. Eventually a senior manager we had initially asked for help in finding this employee for us announced that he, himself, would be interested in this position. He truly believed in the offer of our company--and this was from a Dutch national with extensive experience in the local market. He had extensive prior experience working as a client of the companies we had highlighted as being our competitors. He had also worked with our company for the last year, so he understood the offer and our value. He proposed to become a partner in our joint Dutch entity and to be the Managing Director for European operations. He had managed many high level promotional campaigns for Dutch multi-national companies and had much to offer our company in the next stage of growth. This would be the final piece of the puzzle. We would acquire a manager in The Netherlands of a caliber we normally wouldn't have been able to afford. His contribution would be far more than we initially thought we would find.Setting Up
Incorporating a company and becoming familiar with new laws in a foreign land is a complex task. I was lucky enough to find a great Dutch lawyer in Tel Aviv who was able to clearly explain the processes we would have to complete. Together with a local Dutch lawyer, we got all the paper work sorted out and fairly painlessly completed another hurdle. We then got organized. We had office space for the initial six-month period. We began compiling listings of prospects that looked relevant and made some initial calls from Israel to test the water. We found many interested companies that asked to receive further information and we discovered that we were indeed unique in Holland as a company with a strong specialization. The office began to function formally by February 2002. We spent the initial month training our managing director at our offices in Israel. We went to great lengths to standardize our presentations, to clearly highlight benefits to the potential client and to make telephone scripts that would make the initial pitch an easier call. Everything was discussed. We found our first client in the first month. The US-based client that we had met on our earlier trip to the East Coast now wanted to move ahead with a large project.We handled the project management from the Dutch office to allow liaison with their offices in Holland, and we produced all the creative work in Israel. The print production was also completed in Israel, and the client was thrilled with the package.
Next we hired a local salesperson in Holland responsible for setting up initial meetings with potential new clients. Here we spent time talking about the strategy of finding the right type of clients. Once we decided on a direction, we created a core listing of potentials and set about talking to them, explaining who we were and what we did. Here too, the feedback was very positive. We prepared an e-mail promotional campaign we would send out to potentials, and within a short amount of time the meetings were being set up.
It is important to learn a lot about the country and its behavior when setting up a new venture. The sales cycle is very different in Holland than it is in Israel. It takes Dutch clients much longer to decide on a supplier. They start interviewing suppliers months before the project is scheduled to take off. Annual Reports are created about 4 months earlier than they are in Israel (therefore, we missed the first Annual Report season, as our promotional campaign was just too late). You must learn and change pace to get in step with the clients in your new market.
And Then…
In December 2002, the market was still licking its wounds. Budgets already slashed had long been depleted, and we were looking at a very slow end of year--not to mention what would be in store for 2003.
But, we had listened to the market, plotted our path on the map, and moved into stages of implementation at a steady pace. The revenues we secured for 2003 were already promising. We invested and we got significant PR coverage. We were confident that our marketing created a fresh, unique sales position. The market was interested in our offer.
And Today…
Today we have six clients in Holland. We have also closed two very large accounts there in the last month for a type of client that no longer exists in Israel: large multi-nationals that truly value marketing and understand the importance of these efforts to the overall well-being of the company. Yes, the sale took longer, and it demanded a lot more effort on our behalf to seal these accounts. The amount of air miles that I have racked up over the last year in this effort has been phenomenal.
le'sson n. & v.t. 1. n. thing to be learnt by pupil; amount of teaching given at one time, time assigned to it, (in pl.) systematic instruction in subject (give or take lesson in). 2. occurrence, example, rebuke, or punishment, that serves or should serve as encouragement or warning; thing inculcated by experience or study.---The Concise Oxford Dictionary
You have to remember, that you cannot continue to try and sell a package if nobody wants to buy it… whether it is because of the price, or the offer. We still all need clients to buy our services. If we do not go looking for clients, we become victims of what comes our way… we pick the low-hanging fruit. It may be slightly less desirable, but it's nice and easy to get to. Yes, it is harder to go and get the ladder and secure it against a branch that is stable, but up there, the fruit is fatter.
Through constant marketing communications positioning, you are in touch with your audience; you have your finger directly on the pulse. You get a true sense of what is actually happening out there, and then you have to act accordingly.
Take control of the situation. Read the road signs very clearly, even if they reveal things you don't want to see.
conclu'sion (-n-kloo'zhon) n. 1. termination, final result; decision; in, lastly, To conclude. 2. judgment reached by reasoning' (Logic) proposition reached from previous ones, esp. last of three forming a syllogism---The Concise Oxford Dictionary
To conclude, you have to outline your offer clearly in the face of changing market situations. You must invest in the time to research and develop your strategic plan and unique offer. You must plan what type of companies do you want to work with. You must target them in a language they understand with an offer that is attractive to them. If you don't have enough time, hire a consultant to help you get through the investigations. It will be well worth it. Strategic planning has prepared us for the inevitable changes in economic conditions.
We have to go to greater lengths to find these potentials, through solid marketing and sales programs. The days of "word-of-mouth" are over. Review the response to your campaign even when you are in the stages of implementation. Don't be afraid to admit that it may not work, and adjust it accordingly. This is not a sign of failure, but a sign that you are in touch with the market and tailor making your offer to meet market needs.
It may not have been the best time to expand our business, but without the steps and risks that we have taken, I truly believe we would have been barely making ends meet today, with a skeleton staff totally at the mercy of the market. But, by defining a path, we managed to steer our ship and maintain control.
Bookmark
this page!
We'll be adding new articles on an ongoing basis. Read
past articles in our archive:
- Top 10 Tips for Growing Your Graphic Design Studio with Direct Mail Postcards by Martha Retallick
- Do You Have What it Takes to Survive the Dot-Com Bomb? by Martha Francis
- Don't Knock Opportunity: Go Grasp It! A Good Press Success Story by Doug Fuller
- Warming Up to Cold Calls by Doug Fox
- Know Your Rights: Intellectual Property Basics by Jean Perwin
- The Path to the Podium: An Insider Shares Her Secrets for Scoring Prime Speaking Slots on the Competitive Conference Circuit by Lynn Wolff
- Growing Your Business: The Most Exciting Event in Your Life by Herbert M. Meyers
- Are Consultants in Your Future? by Emily Cohen
- Public Relations: The Soul of Your Firm by Elinor Selame
- Dealing with Change and Uncertainty by Jeffry Corbin and Danae Loran Willson
- Referrals: A Valuable Part of
Your Marketing Process by Stew Mosberg - Level the Playing Field with Technology by Allison Cheston
- Building Leadership Through Association by Jaye Donaldson
- Write Your Message; Reach Your Clients by Marc Gobé
- A Crash Course in PR for Design Firms By Steven Morris
- Design Business: A Survivor's Story By Lee Sucharda, Jr.
- Practicing What We Preach: "Branding & Promoting Your Design Firm" By Rob Wallace
- Strategic Public Relations:
The Ultimate Return On Investment By Jerry Kathman & Ann Keeling - Branding, Marketing & Design: Survive, Prosper or Die … The choice is yours! By Bill Capers
- Proactive Marketing: "Staying Alive Today and Tomorrow" By G. Martinez
- "Designed in Taiwan" By Scott Henderson
[
home ] [ services ] [
mission ] [ strategy
] [ resources ] [ results ] [ articles ] [
archive ]
[
contact ] [ workshops ] [ workshop leaders ] [
workshop registration ] [
e-mail ]
Design Management
Resources
Post Office Box 423
Thompson, Connecticut 06277
USA
Telephone 860-377-9696
E-mail: Linda@designmanagementresources.com
www.DesignManagementResources.com