Design Studio Under Water

The Design Studio was underwater - both literally and financially. Recently recovered from a building flood, they were drowning in debt and running their operations much the same as they had been for the past 35 years. The tech was antiquated and the team begging for more opportunities to grow as designers and as a part of this well-reputed team.

Each member of the team had an opportunity to speak candidly about the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats they perceived. They subsequently completed supplementary questionnaires to bring more light to other topics of interest, and the results were transparently compiled for the owners. This report is continually used still to keep them accountable to the changes they committed to.

"Everyone is always surprised to learn we have a shop on Main Street." And when they did stop in, many potential customers were just browsing and left when they were told the price of an item. We updated our marketing message - Do you know we have a store on Main Street? - and work every week on delivering value before the price. 

We had to stop looking at the bills daily in order to start making more significant payments to the right accounts. Once we were able to get our books together in order to get a loan approved, we knew what to pay down and when. Now we only use credit cards for the points, and we  pay off every purchase right away.

At first the team was nervous to change the systems they'd been using for 35 years, but once they realized that we'd be able to access and collaborate on our schedules and files from our phones, anywhere in the world, it didn't take much to gain full adoption.

 Sales are up over 100% and we are debt-free. We have just hired a new designer to start leveraging the founder out of the position of Top Producer.