Growing your design business is fulfilling and exciting, but with growth can come challenges. Your firm’s rising success can reveal possible weaknesses in your processes and systems! These weaknesses may cause you to hit a growth ceiling. You feel as if you are working harder, yet your projects slow down, and your profit margins decline.
In short, you feel stuck.
Instead of feeling stuck and struggling with what processes and systems have not kept up with your growth, be proactive! Below are the 7 biggest bottlenecks that can plague a design firm. Identify which of these challenges apply to you and adopt a system to resolve them. By identifying the challenges and putting effective systems in place, you create the freedom for you and your team to focus on the creative design and growth you enjoy.
1. Client Onboarding Chaos
Successful client onboarding not only lays the groundwork for positive results throughout the project, it also builds a long-lasting relationship after the project is completed.
Frustration on both sides can happen with the need for repeated explanations of the process to each client, inconsistent expectations and missed paperwork. Some of the symptoms that result from these challenges come from mistaken or unclear expectations, project scope creep, and unnecessary back-and-forth communication with clients.
What is the solution? Create a standardized client onboarding workflow. This should include an automated welcome packet, contracts, payment schedules, and client education materials. Standardizing the process ensures that important items don’t fall through the cracks. It also means the process will be more efficient, so you will save time in the long run.
2. Design Approvals Dragging On
Another challenge with some design projects is the endless wait for client decisions and unclear approval deadlines. The symptoms or red flags are the missed milestones and delays that then cascade throughout the entire project.
Several helpful solutions include systemizing approvals using digital presentation tools such as Studio Designer, Mydoma, or Gather. In addition, be sure to set clear timelines – in writing and with automated reminders) and also use e-signature tools to keep your projects moving.
3. Vendor & Purchasing Delays
Challenges also can come from the processes you have set up with vendors leading to miscommunications with vendors, tracking PO’s manually and product delays. The symptoms are frustrated clients, reworking the orders and usually lost revenue due to mistakes.
Some solutions to make your life easier and your projects go more smoothly: Centralize purchasing through a procurement system such as Studio Designer, Design Manager or outsourcing, with automated PO tracking, vendor updates and accountability.
4. Project Management Overload
Learning to let go is a challenge in itself for many designers. They often feel they need to do everything or at least have control over everything. That “control” often leads to missed deadlines, no visibility across projects and of course overwhelmed leadership. Delegation and collaboration are qualities of great leaders. The Solution is to learn to let go and delegate but with clearly defined responsibilities to project managers or team leaders. Apply a project management tool such as Asana, Trello, Monday or design-specific platforms. This allows you to delegate responsibilities but still be able to check in when needed without micromanaging.
5. Financial Blind Spots
Though most designers did not go into design to become accountants, identifying and solving financial challenges is crucial to your success.
You are not alone if you have the following symptoms:
- You have inconsistent bookkeeping and are unclear as to the profitability of projects.
- You may find yourself seemingly very busy but broke.
- You have cash flow crunches and are undercharging clients.
What are some solutions to overcome these financial challenges? Build systems for time tracking, job costing and regular financial review. Outsource bookkeeping or hire a fractional CFO (one whom you hire part-time, on a retainer or contract basis) if necessary. Learn to love your financials—just focus on the positives of doing what you love AND increasing your bottom line.
6. Communication Breakdowns
So many challenges inevitably stem from a communication breakdown. You and your team may get overwhelmed with endless email threads, lost details or unclear handoffs. That can lead to team members duplicating work or missing tasks. It can also result in client dissatisfaction and unplaced orders that cause more delays.
The solution to these problems is to standardize communication. For internal communication (within the team), one of the best business messaging apps to use is Slack. At Pearl Collective, we love that we can create a separate discussion channel for every event and department. Slack can also be used for communication with clients with dedicated client portals, offering the ability to provide them with weekly status reports. Just be sure to define rules of engagement for communication–clarifying who gets copied, when updates are sent, etc. Also, make sure you’re using consistent terminology to avoid confusion.
7. Hiring & Delegation Bottlenecks
Challenges can come in this area when the owner tries to do everything. Or the owner may make the positive decision to hire, but hires reactively rather than strategically. This process can lead to owner burnout due to not being able to let go, and inconsistent quality if roles are not effectively defined. Not hiring strategically can mean that the new hire is unclear about their responsibilities and may be a poor culture fit. Also, reactive hiring usually means there is no employee onboarding process in place and no time for growth activities.
The solution here is to create defined roles and standard operating procedures (SOPs) so that new hires easily plug into the system. In addition, adopt a delegation framework (such as “Do, Delegate, Delete”) to remove the owner as the bottleneck in the process.
Start Your Business Breakthrough
A successful design firm starts with building a system-driven firm. Having systems in place helps you to build a scalable business—essential for long-term success in today’s competitive market. Scalability allows you to grow your business efficiently. When you can remove bottlenecks, projects flow more quickly and effectively, your profits increase, and you can move into the role of CEO of your firm.
Don’t rush to fix everything immediately. Identify and focus on the specific bottleneck that is causing you the most pain, then keep building from there.
Don’t be afraid to reach out for help. You don’t have to go it alone in identifying and removing bottlenecks and creating systems to overcome those bottlenecks. Pearl Collective has a reputation for helping many clients achieve success. We can partner with you to help you assess bottlenecks, create systems and build a structure that will make your firm both profitable as well as sustainable. Pearl Collective can become a strategic partner to scale your firm. Beyond just solving single problems, we transform entire businesses with systems and structure.
Are you ready to break through those bottlenecks and successfully systemize your business? Reach out to Pearl Collective today!