On constant evolution
Do you ever find yourself marvelling at the fact that as a small business owner, nothing is ever quite done? It's mad, isn't it, how the wheels are constantly turning, expectations shifting, standards raising. I've just finished reading a book by Linzi Boyd, and loved this line:
“You can never stand still; you always need to challenge, assess and create to provide your brand with a new way of being a pioneer within your sector. Reach your destination and look for your next challenge”
I find that a really inspiring thought. We get to choose whether we settle or continue to evolve. I'm proud to say that we're pretty well versed in evolution at Ditto; we've successfully transitioned our business from a small-time local design company to a highly specialist agency with international reach. But it's still never quite enough! With every project we'll learn something new that we'll take into the next one. We constantly evaluate how well we performed on each project. And as our clarity of offering and area of expertise sharpens, so too must the message we communicate.
It's all about learning
We've learnt that what makes our business stand out in a sea of branding agencies is our combination of business savvy and design excellence. It's never just about creating a beautiful brand, but about helping our clients redefine their message, define their brilliance and reach higher to make real, measurable differences to their business. And yet ironically, we're not communicating that message as well as we ought to be...
And so to the next phase
It's one thing to observe and another to translate that to action - especially when there are a million demands on your time within one day. I'm currently working in between projects to plan our new website and hone our message. It's quite a process as we're really busy right now, and finding clear brain space (and time!) to work on it is slow. But I'm enjoying the journey of rethinking everything and it's a good opportunity to review everything objectively to make sure it's the best it can be.
I'm making a point of sharing all of this with you for a couple of reasons: firstly to make ourselves accountable to actually revamping everything, and secondly (and perhaps most importantly) to lead by example and show you that everyone, branding agencies included, have to refocus their message from time to time. It's what keeps us all fresh.
I'm excited to see what we do next. We hired a brilliant photographer for a photoshoot last month, and the edited images should be in any day now. We've got a clutch of gorgeous, gorgeous projects to add to the portfolio. And our new service packages truly are brilliant: we've finally cracked it.
In the meantime, now's a really good time to turning attention to your own brand if you're intending to freshen things up for the new year. We're eating up the days at an alarming rate which means we're accepting clients now for projects to launch in time for January. We have a couple of slots available, so please shout if you're interested in snapping one up. You might even be the first to see our new welcome brochure ;-)
