Gonink - Design & Print

Owning and operating your own business can be vastly rewarding and there’s probably not a person around who hasn’t dreamed of owning their own business at one time or another. Who wouldn’t want to be in charge and answer to no one but themselves? How many times have employees sat in the lunch room making comments such as “If I were the boss” or “Too bad our boss doesn’t know what we actually do out here”. No matter the reason for someone wanting to open their own business, as with anything, the dreams and all of the positive things you can think of also have drawbacks.

As a brand new business Gonink basically has three employees- me, myself and I. So I’m responsible for opening and closing the office every single day. I’m the one who has to take all customer complaints, orders, production, shipping and all of the other necessary needs to run the business. Going in I knew these were the things I would have to deal with and they’re not the “no perks” I’m referring to in the subject line. What I’m talking about are the simple things you can miss out on as a freelancer or solo business owner.

With all of the daily chores it takes to keep a business running, those of you reading and dreaming of your own business might want to think about these little details.

Sick time: Who will cover for you? Do you even have anyone qualified to run the business? I’m thankful enough to have my spouse who can occasionally cover for me, but I can’t have the flu for a week and expect her to run the business while I sit at home drinking chicken noodle soup and watching The Price Is Right. If you work out of your home, well that’s a heckuva lot easier to be sick instead of an actual office that needs to be open for clients.

Taking a vacation: Again, with only one person running Gonink day in and day out, it’s virtually impossible to actually take a vacation day and with spring time fast approaching, it can be very difficult to sit in your office knowing how nice it is outside. As an employee, it might be easier to get half the day off to go golf or garden than it is being a business owner. Now, I know what some of you are thinking – “Well my bosses are always taking the afternoon off to go play golf” and I assure you I’ve had the same kinds of bosses. But again, if you open a storefront or office it’s virtually impossible to just close down and go play out in the sunshine.

And last but not least is getting paid. No, we’re not talking about a weekly paycheck we’re talking about those much sought after overtime hours that many people use for living a little better or saving for a big ticket item. As a business owner (especially as a solo owner) overtime is a thing of the past. During your start-up period you could easily find yourself burning the midnight oil day in and day out and not a single extra penny will show up in your paycheck.

So all in all, starting a business has plenty of perks and some of them just happen to be no perks at all.

All of us are consumers at one point or another whether it is during the day or on the weekends and as consumers we believe we deserve a little special treatment now and then.

Sometimes it’s during the holiday season and we stand patiently in line while waiting to return that horrid gift Aunt Betty gave us or maybe there’s a problem at the register with the cost of an item. No matter the case, pampering your clients is a great asset if not the basic idea that should be behind any business.

Just recently we took a vacation to a very plush and exquisite hotel in Florida where being pampered is top priority. Living in the Midwest, it’s not uncommon to at least get a ‘hello’ from a greeter at a restaurant or the cashier behind the counter. But at this place responses were ‘My pleasure sir’ or ‘Absolutely’ and it at least felt genuine. You were made to feel like a king or queen and your presence was their honor to have you in their establishment.

At Gonink we’re always talking about customer service and making it an experience and this hotel and some of the places we visited had it down pat. Granted our business doesn’t allow us to pull out a chair for our clients or place a napkin on their lap, but we can make their experience as unique as possible. By making our clients feel like they are critically important to us, they’re going to relay that information to others. They’re going to speak of their experience just as we’re speaking of ours with these fancy establishments.

So the next time you deal with a client remember that the experience is everything and your client will in turn remember this returning to be pampered and taken care of again and again.

Any design firm or a freelance designer is always looking for that client who wants to be a partner and why not?

Consider the fact that you as a business owner probably sought out an accountant or a lawyer who just “fit” well with you. Maybe your personalities matched perfectly or you both had interests outside of the business world that made you feel more comfortable.

Having that same sort of connection greatly helps because it opens up a dialogue between both parties involved. By having a better connection you and your designer can solve the problem you came to them for in a much better fashion.

A small group of friends of Gonink just launched a new site known as BoDo which stands for Business of Design Online and can be found at www.businessofdesignonline.com and is a great resource for “newbies”. What may seem as a degratory comment towards new business owners, it is not intentionally to be mean. All that we’re saying is you’re new and not sure how to go about things and BoDo addresses many aspects of being a newbie designer in the business world.

Neil of Tortorella Design, Catherine Morely of Katz-i-design and Jeanette Wickham all worked on the project and have come up with a very good single resource for designers who want to set up their own shop. If your business is not related to design, there are some interesting insights and tips about the business world.