|
|
| About Julie Mitchell |
| Grew from $470,000 to $1.1 million in revenues in 2 years (132% growth) ----- From brand strategy, to name generation, to identity design, Parcel Design is about brand creation. We help express your brand with sound strategic solutions for corporate collateral, packaging and virtually any form of print or digital communication. |
Recent Article:
Stick To Your Knitting And Test Your Market
- For more on Julie Mitchell visit www.parceldesign.com
How Parcel Was Started - Parcel has two divisions – a graphic design studio and a gift studio. It’s the gift studio that really takes us outside the conventional promotional merchandise. It’s more innovative, there’s a lot less “Made In China” products, and we develop our own unique items. The gift studio allows us to leverage our graphic design and creative capabilities. Parcel was incorporated in 2002. I had developed a few unique product and gift ideas and there was nobody out there with this service. If you wanted a mouse pad, pen, or baseball cap with your logo that was no problem but what about actually using promotional products that were reflective of your brand?
In the early days I worked for other companies as a freelance consultant. I worked with their creative teams managing their programs. Parcel was in its early stages. I wanted to make sure there was an audience for our products and took small steps to see how the market would respond. I discovered that there was a real opportunity, stopped doing consulting work and focused on building the studio.
Advice For Startups - Stick To Your Knitting - Any new business has to be related to your own personal core competencies. I had graphic design experience and am someone who is very creative. Look at what you’re good at and what you enjoy doing before starting a business.
Secure a Client and Proceed with Confidence - I tell people to take one key client with them when they create their company. Have one contract in the works before you dive into entrepreneurship. For example, if you are working at a large company and want to start an event planning service, get your company to be your client before you leave to start your business. I used to work for The Body Shop and my first freelance project was for the Body Shop. I had the contact lined up before I left the company. Everyone has that opportunity. You can get that first client relationship because you already have it.
Test Your Market - Our growth was very slow at the beginning. I was cautious and it’s important to test things out before you dive right in. Make sure that the idea you have is viable and there is an audience for it. I tested my market informally through talking to a lot of people and formally through a small marketing program which had a positive response.
Make Sure You Have Enough Money - Before starting I made sure that I was financially able to become an entrepreneur. Realize that you might not be able to sustain the same standard of living. I realized that even if my salary was cut in half from what it was working for someone else, I would be fine – I could do it. I didn’t have a massive house payment that relied on my salary. Look at the worst case scenario and accept that you’re not going to instantly get rich.
Get Support - Understand where you can get support. A website like www.evancarmichael.com or something like EO are great sources of information. Always look out for more resources. When the chips are down who can help you? EO has been amazing for me – I’ve been a member for almost 2 years.
Mistakes To Avoid - Plan For Your Growth - When I set up my office I found myself in a location that did not allow me to grow. I had space challenges early on. Don’t lock yourself into a long contract in a tiny space if your goal in a year from now is to be tripling or be doing ten times the amount of business.
Use Effective Marketing - I tried a lot of different things at the start to market Parcel. If I had to do it over again I would recognize how to get to our target market before randomly trying and testing things. I spent a lot of money on initiatives that did not work. We get new business through referrals and when decision makers who use us move to a new opportunity at another company. We’ve recognized that that’s how we get new business and stopped putting ads in a random publication that doesn’t provide an immediate sense of what we do. We’ve found that for referrals it’s important to take it slowly. It’s all about relationships. We are now targeting people who are newly hired in positions who typically use our services, usually Marketing Directors, and send them one of our custom gifts as a welcome present. We are also engaging in product seeding where we identify clients that we want to do business with and send them a customized gift. We’re very touch-point focused and avoid doing anything that is mass marketing. We’ve had ads appear in national magazines and spent $10,000 on those programs. They aren’t nearly as effective as a good referral and relationship strategy.
If I Were To Start A New Business… - As I mentioned earlier, I believe that your business must reflect your core competencies so I would stick with something related to my industry. A challenge with my business is that it’s not scalable. My business is customization which is hard to scale and grow. I’d like to build a product or business model which allows for greater and more rapid expansion.
Stick To Your Knitting And Test Your Market - To learn more about this author, visit Julie Mitchell's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
 | |
 |
No article feedback found. |
| |
Leave Your Feedback |
 | |
| |||
Kim CastleWith nearly two decades in the advertising and design business, with clients like Domino's Pizza, General Motors, Direct TV, Pedigree, Wolfgang Puck, Higher Octave Music, Hollywood Celebrity Products, Disney, and Paramount, as well as thousands of entrepreneurs around the world define, structure, communicate, and position their business for greater profits, BrandU(R) co-creators Kim Castle and W. Vito Montone discovered that entrepreneurs could experience the same power that big brands command for a fraction of the cost with the world's only process-based results-drive Integral approach to business creation. BrandU(R) is helping entrepreneurs grow with the power of extreme clarity from idea...to brand...to market(TM) and helping one million entrepreneurs become successful and whole so that they can make a difference in the world. Are you one of them? If you want to experience clarity all the way to the bank(TM), get started now at http://www.brandu.com. - Visit Kim Castle's Website |
|||
|
To learn more about the Evan Elite Author Program please contact us. | |||
|
|
 | ||
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
 | ||
 |
| Have you written articles that would be of value to entrepreneurs? Become an expert on our site by publishing them! Expose yourself to a wide audience, drive more traffic to your website and get more sales! Click Here for details. |
 |
 |
| Modeling the Masters: Learn the true secrets behind Walt Disney's business success factors & grow your company! Video produced by Phanta Media |
|
|
 |
"Learn straight from Evan how you can Make a Full Time Income (And More) from a Website"
Click Here To Learn More |
|
|
|
|
Get advice & tips from famous business owners, new articles by entrepreneur experts, my latest website updates, & special sneak peaks at what's to come!
|
|
 |
 Internet Marketing Campaigns Instant Flyers ACES Research Report Business Checkup A Clean Desk |
|
 | ||
 |
Top 50 Productivity Blogs
Top Blogs To Watch In 2008 | |
 |
Guide To ERP Software
Business Management Software | |
| ||
 | ||||
| ||||
|
| ||||
| ||||
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||
|
Email us your ideas on how to make our website more valuable! Thank you Sharon from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for your suggestions to make the newsletter look like the website and profile younger entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez and Sean Combs!
|
|
|
