← Daring Creativity
Daring Creativity
How creative businesses thrive through authentic relationships - Emily Cohen & Hunter Vargas (Casa Davka) 🇺🇸
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- [00:01]
Radim Malinic
Before we start today's episode, let me tell you about my latest adventure. Introducing Lax Coffee Company, a specialty grade coffee company inspired by creativity and creatives. The debut range is sourced from some of the best farms in Brazil, Peru, Colombia and Africa, offering beautiful flavors and notes. Our single origins and house blends are roasted every Monday for next day shipping, visit luxcoffee.co.uk and use code podcast for 15% off your first order. And yes, there's exceptional merge too. Luxe Coffee Company is where art meets exceptional coffee.
- [00:51]
Hunter Vargas
I think one thing we always ask our clients and we also recommend to our clients Are you ready for change? We're not saying that you need to change. We're not saying tomorrow. We're not saying we're going to tell you exactly this is what you need to be. But we need you to be ready to change. We need you to be ready to experiment and try things and potentially fail, but also potentially succeed. Like we always talk to our clients about them before they're even our clients, right when we're also in that relationship building stage. Listen, if you want to work with us. If you're not willing to change, it's not worth your money.
- [01:19]
Radim Malinic
Welcome to Mindful Creative Podcast, a show about understanding how to deal with the highs and lows of creative lives. My name is Radim Malinic and creativity changed my life, but it also nearly killed me. In this season, inspired by my book of the same title, I am talking to some of the most celebrated figures in the creative industry. In our candid conversations, my guests share their experiences and how they overcame their challenges and struggles, how they learn to grow as creatives. A creative career in the 21st century can be overwhelming. I wanted to capture these honest and transparent conversations that might help you find that guiding light in your career. So thank you for joining me on this episode and taking the first or next step towards regaining control of your creative life. Are you ready?
- [02:14]
Emily Cohen
My guests today are business partners and consultants and mother, daughter Geo. Working under the name of Kasadavka, they offer customized solutions to creative studios to refine, evolve and elevate their strategies and practices. In our conversation, we discuss how creative businesses can evolve and grow. Focusing on the critical importance of relationship building over traditional selling. This conversation explores how creative business owners often struggle with business development, often focusing on marketing rather than building those relationships that can truly drive business growth. We also dispel and challenge a few other common myths in the creative industry and creative business. It's my pleasure to introduce Emily Cohen and Hanter Vargas.
- [03:01]
Interviewer
Hi Emily. Hi Hunter, how are you doing today?
- [03:04]
Emily Cohen
Great, how are you?
- [03:06]
Interviewer
If someone may not have heard of Casa Dafka or Emily Cohen or Hunter Vargas, how would you introduce yourselves?
- [03:14]
Emily Cohen
Basically we are business consultants for creative professionals, largely small to mid size creative teams, advertising, marketing firms and we help them evolve and grow their business. Anything from looking at their big picture vision, like starting from who do they want to be in a few years and then help them get there. And that looks at things like positioning and specialization, business development strategies, staff, client and project management strategies, pricing the big picture of like where they're going and how and giving them step by step of how to get there. And a lot of our clients are usually like at real kind of inflection points in their business where they've really been in business for five years or so and are doing really well, but they want to take their business to the next level. In other cases they've been in business for a longer time and they really want to keep evolving and see what's next.
- [04:02]
Interviewer
Hunter, how did you come to consultancy? Did you get roped in?
- [04:05]
Hunter Vargas
Definitely a little. It's hard to fight the nature nurture. Not sure which one you could blame. Maybe both now plain, but you could put the fault too. So I grew up in the industry but I always had a similar, I think affinity as my mom does for both creative and business side. She was a designer for a while. I like quickly dabbled in high school and design and I'm like, wow, I can't do this. Being creative every day in that manner was really, really tough for me. While some people come really naturally and they love it, but what I loved is like working with the creatives. So it's a similar sort of anywhere. I realize I love being with creatives, but I thrive more on the business and process and operations and like that sort of like what is it the left? Is it the left and right brain, the other side of things while still like being able to understand the creative mindset and like working with creatives. And so I went to business school and worked within our clients firms essentially who our clients are now as like a project manager, account manager, business developed operations, doing all those things to really get a sense for the inner workings of creative firms and agencies, but still really realizing that I love just being surrounded by creatives and surrounded by creativity and being involved in it without having to be the person to actually put beautiful things to paper.
- [05:18]
Interviewer
So normally I get guests on my show and I'm trying to retrace their sort of first exposure to creativity and how their parents influence them. This time, actually, I can do it live, because I can. Ask Hunter what it was like to be growing up around a creative parent. So what was that like?
- [05:36]
Emily Cohen
She's in therapy now. Just saying.
- [05:38]
Hunter Vargas
No, I think not only like the creative woman, I think I grew up around a mom who is very entrepreneurial, is very passionate about what she does and who she works with. And I think obviously that inspired me in lots of ways and also maybe pushed me in different ways and made me a different person or made me who I am. But I think being surrounded by that was really pretty incredible, Especially, I think, during the. Not to be like. But generationally like a woman owning her business and really being like, one of the top, if not one of the top consultants in the industry was really inspiring and cool. And I think it pushed me to really also be very entrepreneurial and to look for what I really wanted to do and make the niche for myself, even though the niche ended up being a similar niche to what she does. So, yeah, I don't know. It's hard to, like, fully trace it. But obviously she was an influence. But I think I also carved my own path in a lot of ways, and we just happened to have end.
- [06:29]
Emily Cohen
Up in similar areas that was very important to us. Like, she was not groomed to take over my business. She was really just groomed to be who she was and where she wanted to be. But she naturally gets influenced by things as well. And we have very similar. I don't know if you ever taken, like, a behavioral test, but we've had very similar behavioral qualities but very different motivations. So it's been a good combination to have her as part of the team. But I really like that she had her own life way before she joined my business. Like, she had jobs, she worked in the creative field. So she had a lot of experience coming into it. She didn't just come right out of college and work with me, which was very important to us.
- [07:03]
Interviewer
Emily, let me actually take it now a few steps back in your life. So who was your inspiration?
- [07:08]
Emily Cohen
Oh, that's really easy. My father, actually. Yeah, My father owned two bookstores in Manhattan. And he was also very entrepreneurial. A little quirky, but very entrepreneurial. And he lived for his job, but he was an artist at heart, so he really cared about the arts. So I grew up in museums, and really with culture. Everything was about culture. And he pushed me to be an artist more than I even wanted to be. So I went to design school. I went actually Originally for painting, switched to design because I really like money and I didn't want to be a broke artist. And I went to design school, graduated with a design degree. My father was thrilled. And I was a designer for many, many years. Not many years, like right out of school, I think about three or four years until I realized that I wasn't great at it and I didn't have the passion for it, but I loved the industry. So I was involved very, very early on in my career in the aiga. And because I was involved in the industry, I realized I didn't want to leave it, but I wanted to stay in it, but not be a designer. And when I first started my career, there really wasn't somebody that ran design studios other than the principals. And there was no such thing as account managers in design at that time or even studio managers or project managers. It was mostly artists who created design. And so I just asked a bunch of people because I knew so many people in the industry that I just asked them what I should do because I want to stay in the industry. And they all said, you're really good at managing people and clients and really engaging in that way and very business driven, you should run a studio. But there was no positions like that. So I just went to a bunch of studios and offered myself as saying, I can manage your clients and projects. And they were like, that's cool. And I got pretty much seven job offers in a week, almost exactly. And I took the one that paid the highest and ran a studio for seven years and grew them from five people to 50. So I had a lot of experience managing, growing a studio. And then as I was there, I started getting freelance clients from all my connections. So I started working with pretty famous people almost at the very beginning of my career, like Lloyd Zipft, who at that time was the a very famous creative director, Ruth Ansell, Louise Feeley and a bunch of other people that now are much older, but they were pretty influential in the industry and so they had friends. And so the word spread pretty quickly that there was this woman who loved the business side. And then I built up a business basically. And so I ended up quitting my full time job and running a consultancy.
- [09:32]
Interviewer
That's a fantastic story because the way you describe it, you'll be a godsend to anyone, anywhere, anytime, because creative, sort of. I'm speaking from my experience. I have to graduate to be someone who runs a studio and manage my own clients and manage my staff. And you don't really know what you're Doing sometimes. Most of the times. And I think it's that thing when you mentioned you start working with clients of their inflection points instead of when they start growing or when they're stagnating. How do you convince people that they need your help? Because it's that first point of putting your hand up and saying, I need help. Because we kind of sort of delay things with your experience. Is it a hard sell to get someone to actually think differently about a business?
- [10:12]
Hunter Vargas
I don't think so, actually. I mean, maybe it was different when she first started a business, but I think creatives are really realizing, especially ones that run businesses and the ones that want to run successful businesses, not that they need us to run a successful business, but they're realizing that running a creative business is not just design, it's not just creative. Right? You need to do the business side of it in order for it to be successful, in order for you to do the design and the art that you love. And so I think a lot of times people, we don't really have to convince them. They just realize they're at a point where, like, I stagnated with what I've learned and what I know, and I want to bring in an expert to provide support. And I think also why. What really works about our approach and what we love about our jobs. And we're not the kind of like cookie cutter consultants. We're like, here's a, B and C. If you don't do A B and C, you're going to fail. That's not what we do. We like to listen to our clients. We like to listen to their ideas. We like to listen to their pushback. We like to push them. We like to get them to step outside their comfort zone. We like to work through and brainstorm, like, the creative process, right? Like, what will work for them in terms of what they want for their firm. Because not everyone wants the same things to their firms. People have different drivers, different motivators behind why they run their agency or firm. And we really like to work with our clients on that. So I think that's why, like, people particularly work with us and they select us is because we're also humans. And we want to understand their human side and understand who they are as people and how that affects their business and their goals and what types of clients they work for and how they build a SaaS, a model and every little area of their business it touches.
- [11:36]
Emily Cohen
And we also like to practice what we preach, right? So we really preach that we shouldn't ever try to convince people to work with us. And designers shouldn't either, because if you have to convince them, that's going to be a much harder sell. So we really believe in building relationships. So this is how we built a business based on relationships and building the love. I just knew so many people. I was involved in the industry, I showed I cared about, and the word spread really quickly and continues to spread. Right. So we never have to convince people. They mostly come to us, but we also just nurture relationships. Like you. I've met you years ago. Right. We met at a conference we were both speaking at. So I think that happens a lot where I meet people at conferences, they become clients. Hunter meets people, they become clients.
- [12:19]
Hunter Vargas
If someone reaches out to us and they're not, like, at the right point in their business, right. They've just started their business or usually around that time, we tell them, like, hey, we actually don't think this is the right time to work with us. So right now you need to take action. Like, we've created our book to be, like, an accessible resource for people who are more. At the beginning stages, you need to take the action and do things on your own. Come to us in three to five years, one through a little bit, some things more solidified. So we're also, like, very honest with our clients and still building relationships and still being there for people. But I think that's also part of what we do.
- [12:46]
Interviewer
Should we talk more about your process? Because I like what you just said. We don't need to convince them to work with us, just like they don't need to convince their clients to work with them. There's a lot of behavior online out there that people really try to sell hard because of various reasons. And from experience, we all know that as soon as you start tweaking the price or try to sort of, like, go out of your way, you're setting yourself a failure already. Let's talk more about your process. So, like, how you get your clients to not needing to convince their clients to work with them.
- [13:20]
Emily Cohen
Yeah, I think we talk a lot about this with our clients. Like, we spend a lot of time thinking about who they are and what makes them different and what makes them stand out. A lot of designers, they get most of their business through referrals, right? And that's great. That's a great way to get business right, because people love you and they want to come to you, but that allows the people that you already work with to create the direction of your business. So other people are in control of the direction of your business. And so we really talk about why you should be doing business development. So we try to eliminate words like selling and cold calls and business development, we really call it relationship building. And we teach our clients just that it's not about the immediate win and cotton just somebody and expect business to come like in the second flat. Like it takes time. And we usually tell people and designers are so good with patience. As I say sarcastically, it takes business development takes two years from when you meet, when meet with somebody to when they turn into a client. And you just need to be patient and stay in touch with people. Right. So we teach our clients about how to build that connection, how to build that network, how to stay in touch with them, how to nurture that love and nurture that trust and stay relevant and staying like in their eyes. So what does that look like? Designers for some reason they think business development is relaunching their website. Okay, I just need to do a better website. Designers like to design stuff or run a podcast or do a, I don't know, design swag. That's not business development, that's marketing. So, so we teach them the difference and where the efforts should be is more in business development.
- [14:50]
Hunter Vargas
Just to add to that, I think like we also tell our clients to remember that they're experts, right? I think a lot of times because designers feel very attached to their work and they could be very like it's my art even they feel very connected to it, which is great. But it's also a service, a value added service you provide to clients that drives results. Right. It's not just something you're doing to do. It's something that is going to result in an impact for your client. So we push our clients to. Yes, we push our clients to understand that what they do provides value to their clients and so they should position themselves that way and talk about their experts and show and figure out how to prove the results of their work and how to work with clients to think a little bit more strategically about why the kind of the basis of the creative work they're doing. And so I think that also that expertise is like reminding our clients that they are are experts, right. That they have something unique to provide and standing up for themselves and their value. Whether that's in pricing, whether that's in terms of if a client has feedback of change this color, not just changing it, right. Speaking to the client about why you chose this color over the other color. Very, very simple example there, but similar like I Think a lot of our clients are. They used to, they want to roll over for their clients because they think that's the right thing to do. And really they should be standing up for the value and the actual impact their work will have and does.
- [16:06]
Interviewer
Have you mentioned it takes two years to turn a contact into a client? And then you mentioned about patience. You see where I'm going with this? I'm a designer, I run a studio. Do I really want to wait for two years for a client? When people don't look after their systems or looking after new business or business development, it's easy then to have a gap and start panicking. Oh, we do need a new website. That's definitely what we need to do. And it's just a cop out, I think. Is there vulnerability or some sort of like anxiety that we distract ourselves by redesigning our websites, doing all the marketing stuff rather than focusing on business? Is that more about worry?
- [16:42]
Hunter Vargas
I think that's very human. To me that sounds like the most human thing when you think about anyone's to do list. Right. What's the first thing you want to tackle? The stuff that feels like easy and quick. When you know the stuff that's a harder maybe it doesn't. It's not even any maybe it's still quick but it like requires a lot more thinking or it involves engaging with other people or involves leaving your house or whatever it means. I think it's very human for us to just want to go to the things that feel like quick fixes, like the one size fits all solution, when in fact some of the things but the things that are going to have more impact and more value and have longer term reach or impact are those things that maybe are a little bit harder, which includes like building relationships which may seem harder but in the long term they're going to have more impact and potentially take less time than it did to redo your entire website, which would have less impact longer term, most likely.
- [17:29]
Emily Cohen
And the other thing we teach our clients is that business, these relationship building things, it's every day, it's a habit. So the engine's being fed all the time. So that yes, you'll see work coming in more in two years, but there will be some immediate impact as well. And you're still taking on referrals. We're never telling our clients to fire the clients they're working with unless there are some that maybe deserve being let go. But for the most part we're teaching our clients how to build their firm for the future. And we obviously help them also with kind of current challenges, but we also are looking at the future and what can you do. And a lot of people only do business development or reach out to clients when they're slow. And that's why this is a consistent habit. And a role of the principal of a firm is really develop those relationships and to keep them going, because then you'll feed the engine and the engine will feed you back. So it's very much just a habit that we try to teach our clients. So it's not like a game of waiting two years, Right. Almost always when we work with our clients, they see immediate results because now they know that. The other thing is they don't know how to speak about themselves. Right? Because all designers sound the same. They use the same words to describe themselves. So we really try to work with them on what makes them different so that when they can speak about themselves, they're actually sounding as mute as they can in a very, very saturated market.
- [18:44]
Interviewer
Let's talk about that part about how you teach your clients to speak about themselves and what is the sort of thing to look out for and use to get an idea of what is the first step to sound like you should sound. And that makes you sound different to anybody else.
- [19:01]
Hunter Vargas
We'll be back after a quick break.
- [19:04]
Radim Malinic
If you're enjoying this podcast and would like more support and information on your.
- [19:07]
Interviewer
Creative journey, you can pick up one.
- [19:10]
Radim Malinic
Of my books to help you do just that. My titles cover branding, graphic design, illustration all the way to career business advice with ideas how to navigate the highs and lows of the creative process. You can pick up signed paperbacks at no extra cost from my store@nobmberuniverse.co.uk and we are shipping worldwide use code podcast for extra 10% off your order and you can find the links in the show notes. Any day should be a new book day.
- [19:48]
Emily Cohen
So we look at three areas of your position, right? So we always look at what your area of industry, your vertical market is, right? What industries are you going after, who your clients are, right? Because if you're trying to reach everybody, then nobody knows about you and everybody's trying to reach everybody. So really trying to niche down because the more you niche in terms of who you're trying to speak to, the more you can go to those communities and speak to them and tailor your messaging to them. So part of it is looking at your vertical markets, who's your industries? And we don't ever recommend just one. We usually recommend two to three or three to four. Just so you have. You're not just worried about economic trends. You're really looking. And ideally, if they're all related, we also look at services. Can we niche down in terms of services? Can we tighten what we do? Can we think about elevating what we do? What are the kind of core services that we provide? That's not necessarily what's going to make us different from anybody else, but at least what the industries that we're going after need and what we're great at. Right. And the third thing we look at, and this is the hardest part of what we do, is what the differentiators are. That's the kind of softer stuff. So we get really personal with them, deep about their process, their background, their history, their approach, their style, their process, trying to uncover. And this is a lot of the brainstorming part. We do what truly makes them different in how they approach clients, projects, how they work, how they can be interacted with what their personality is like. So we try to combine those three elements into some sort of positioning statement with them. That sounds different. One of the things we always start off with, which is always really fun, is we have this document of all the gobbledygook, call it gobbledygook positioning that's out there. We went to a million websites, we captured everybody's unique positioning, put it all in one document so that our clients could see how everybody sounds the same. And so that really starts them off with understanding that they even sound the same and they need to make it different.
- [21:43]
Interviewer
From top of your head, can you give us some examples of how everyone sounds the same?
- [21:48]
Emily Cohen
We do branding and. Yeah, oh my God. So much. Like, it's a lot around social good and nonprofits. So we purpose driven, mission driven, all those words. Because designers, we care about the world. We're truly empathetic human beings. Right. So that's why I love working with them. But that's what drives us crazy because they all want to work just with nonprofits and nonprofits. Everybody does nonprofits, right? Or restaurants or hospitality. There's certain industries that are more fun to work in or more creative, and they want to do good for the world. So we really try to get them even to further look at that and say, there are companies that do good, that are for profit companies. There are companies that. How can we get deeper into the for profit, into the nonprofits that we lost? Like, what kinds of nonprofits?
- [22:32]
Hunter Vargas
I also think a lot of people, like, think their approach is very unique. Oh, we're a collaborative firm who Approaches things with humanity and curiosity. Okay. Like, we hope so. And we're not saying that any of those words are necessarily bad and that they're not necessarily unique to you. But think about what does curiosity mean? So whenever someone brings up a word like that, when we're brainstorming differentiators and how they want to bring something to clients, like, what does curiosity mean to your firm? What, how does that actually come to life with your clients? Is it your strategic approach? What does that look like? And how can we convey that in a better way? Is it the way maybe you approach design and experimental way? Like, you're always looking at the new tools and the new systems and the new ways to approach branding. Is that your curiosity? So we like to make sure our clients dig deep because at end of the day, while we're all unique, we're also, we can't all be unique. There's always things that are overlapped. And I think that's why, like when we think about language, whilst a vision statement is important, it helps you like solidify like who you are and what you want. Really, it's about those relationships. It goes back to like relationship building, right? What's really going to set you apart from someone who's working in the same industry, working with the same clients, you from someone who is working with the same services is who you are and how the relationship be built with someone you could win if you built trust with a prospect. Let's say you know them before a project even came to happen, or you presented them in a way that wasn't super salesy. When it push comes to shove, if there's things that are coming down to like a budget issue or a scope issue or whatever, you're against someone who is going to be able to do X, Y and Z. When you didn't provide that, they're going to come to you and be like, make this work. Because they love you and they don't love just your positioning or what your expertise is. They love you and they love the way you've built the relationship with them. And while the language is important to kind of like solidify your expertise, it's also the relationship building that's the important part, that's just going to push the client over the edge in a good way.
- [24:20]
Emily Cohen
And we call that building the love. That's our big vision. Like, or philosophy. Like, it's about building the love so that like when they come to you, it's really just a conversation. It's not a convincing, it's not a Sales thing, it's not negotiation. You might be up against people like Hunter said, but they're going to pick you because they love you. And all the other stuff is just a negotiation. And we do the same here. So we are up against other consultants. Right. And we know all. That's the other thing. We also recommend that our clients become peers and colleagues with their competitors, not competitors. Our competitors are my friends. Like, I know all the other consultants out there, and I'm not necessarily socializing. We see each other a lot, we speak to each other a lot, we help each other out. We recommend clients to each other, we scare each other away from other clients. And we recommend that our clients do the same, speak to their peers, know who they compete against, so that what we are competing against is not price. We're competing based on do they like us. And each of us is unique. Each of every designer works differently and has different approaches. So somebody, a client's going to pick you based on who you are and who your team is more than anything else, more than your work, more than your price.
- [25:25]
Interviewer
It's a nice thing you describe it like, because I think you're approaching what you do from a point of confidence. You know, like you are comfortable with what you do. You know your processes, you know what value you can add. Therefore, when you've accepted where you do it, any feelings of comparison, they're not there because you're doing your own thing. And I think this is the element with our creative work and creative businesses. Like, when we accept that we are what we do, obviously this is our work and this is our uniqueness. In a way. We can start looking forward because how easy is to get distracted going like, that looks good, that looks good. Oh, can I be as good as those people can? I'm like, oh, but you're not really modeling your agency from my view. You're not modeling your agency or your creative career and what you really want to be doing, you're just trying to emulate something which might be an easy win.
- [26:09]
Hunter Vargas
Yeah, I think it's funny because a lot of times, especially when people are first coming to us when we're checking in with a client, they've heard for a bit, the first thing they want to know is how other people are doing and what other people are doing and what works for them. And they'll say, the service, killing it. And I want to be like them. And we're like, okay, we don't reveal any of our clients secrets, but we're like, we know what's going on, you don't know whatever is truly going on. Even behind the big agencies you think are, like, the most successful, tackling the biggest brands in the world, you really compare what. There's probably some cliche around comparisons, right? It's like you have to trust and be confident in who you are, and that's how your business is looking to succeed. And we feel that about our business, too. And we always tell our clients that we're saying, yeah, of course, our consulting practice, we carry best practices. We learn so much from our clients and we bring those other clients. But at the end of the day, every firm is unique. You have unique needs, you have unique ways of presenting yourself. And what's going to work for one firm might not work for another. And not that no one's doing as great as they seem, but everyone has their own struggles, everyone has their own opportunities, everyone has their own challenges that are unique to them in comparison. It's not going to help because it's not going to get you anywhere, Right? Like, instead of spending time comparing, spend time focusing on what you want and what your business is. And we do the same for our business. You probably saw our website. It's pretty simple and it's pretty fun. And there's not like a ton of information. It's just sort of like, here's what we do. If you're interested, reach out and we'll talk. And that really worked for us, right? Where there's some consultants, the other websites, like, there's lots of resources and not that resource bad. We have resources, but there's lots of information and lots of numbers and lots of data points and all these, like, things like, this is the percentage you should be going for. But that's not who we are. We're okay with not being this consultant. We talk about it a lot and we're okay with that. And that's why our clients come to us, and that's why they choose us, and that's why they love us. And we recommend the same things for our clients.
- [27:49]
Interviewer
I can definitely relate to conversations I had with some big agency owners, founders. And it looks great, it looks great on the outside. And they have a conversation behind closed doors. You're like, yeah, it's bigger agency, bigger problems. But makes me think of, like, when you were saying, like, our clients want to know how other clients are doing stuff. And I had this great quote by Dan Martel who said, the grass is not greener on the other side, the grass is greener where it's being watered. That's where the grass is greener. That's the part like I think there's a bit of a psychology like how we try to delay the new website because that's the next thing we're gonna do for us, for our business and just not admit that there might be some problems or some failures or some things because what we don't know sometimes doesn't hurt. Right. So it's not that we are always so happy to be self audit ourselves or how to look at our financials like as long as the lights are on, as people are paid and all that that's okay. But are we looking after our growth? We back day things and you're catching up on things that you should have in the first instance because we do this thing because we love the thing and catch up with the business when necessary.
- [28:55]
Emily Cohen
Yeah. And I think that's when people come to us like most people just start their business and they run and they're doing well. Right. They come to us at a moment when something, what they've done is not sustainable anymore or it just got em so far and wants to get how do they get to the next level. So that's when they need like the vision plan, the strategic approach and that's what we help our clients. That's what we love working with our clients on is like where do they want to go and what are the steps to get there. That's really important. So thinking strategically when you first start your business you do not need to think strategically that much. You just want to start your business. Right. But after a while you have to really think about what's the plan, what's the vision. And we constantly do that with our own business. We're always looking at what's next, what's next, what's next, how can we evolve, how can we grow?
- [29:38]
Interviewer
Yeah. So with your clients you talk about relationship building. Lots of people would say oh I'm an introvert. I'm doing this because I'm an introvert. I've fallen into this thing called business, creative business. But you know what, I'm not here for pitching. I'm not here for cold calling. I don't want to go networking. I just want to be quietly a millionaire by doing the thing what I do and make sure that everything's happening smart. My work's great and I don't have to talk about it much. But the world is changing. Right. So how would you get people to push on and actually be more verbal about their work and grow confident and don't Come to that terms that they actually have to start making some business development and make relationships.
- [30:16]
Hunter Vargas
I think what we tell people is like there's like the standard ways you think about business development, right. But you could do those in ways that are comfortable for you. Relationship building is like making friends. Everyone makes friends differently, right? Some people are really good at going into a big party and they immediately find a group of friends. Some people are just really good at maybe like sitting in a park and approaching someone who looks kind. Or some people use apps and that works for them to make friends like everyone or whatever romantic relationships, however you want to phrase this. And you could apply the same things for business, right? Think about what works for you. Is one on one better. Some people like find it easier to enter a room of strangers and some people find it much harder. But there are people who find it easier. So it's like you have to think about what works for you. And we always work with our clients. Figure out that thing. Thing and find a way to build relationships that feels right to you. Even as an introvert, introverts still have friends. Introverts still live in society successfully. And you could do the same thing with your business. And maybe a lot of our introvert clients building expertise, something that really helps them, right? Because. And something an expertise they're like passionate about because then that's something they could speak about and they could go to very tailored things that makes it really comfortable and confident for this because they have an expertise that gets speak on and they're meeting people of similar interests and then they could really have something to latch onto. So that's something we'd like always speak to. I think that's another reason why having expertise as a firm is important. Especially if potentially leadership are more introverted. But I also think we do sometimes reality check our clients and say, you start a firm, that's great. Running a business is no joke. It requires effort. Like I entered in this business and I grew up with an entrepreneurial mom. I thought I knew everything about what running a business would be. All the struggles will be easy. And there's still things that are surprising me every day and things that are harder for me than I thought they would be knowing about it. And so we do talk to our clients like this is what it takes to run a business and we want to find ways that work for you. But there are some things that you have to do and you might have to put yourself in your comfort zone to run the business successfully.
- [32:09]
Emily Cohen
And it's your job. Honestly, I Think a lot of designers want to start their business because they want to not be directed by others or they want freedom and flexibility. But you need to start your business knowing that you're a business person first and a designer second. I hate to say that, but a lot of people, we have to try to tell them that if you want a successful career and if you want staff, if you just want to be like an independent designer, you don't have to sell too much. But if you want to have a team or like a reputation, you have to put some effort into it. And it's always, always the job of the principles to do business development. One of the things that a lot of our clients try to get us to do is say, I just want to hire. We want you to teach us how to hire a good salesperson. And we're like, you are going to be the salesperson and we'll teach you, but you do not need to hire a salesperson. We always talk about how that is such a not the right practice. It always leads to spending a lot of money, wasteful money. Unless you're a huge agency and can afford a salesperson and afford to wait. Because salespeople, it still takes them two years to get a business.
- [33:08]
Hunter Vargas
And I've been in that. Yeah. And you should hire a salesperson. Especially small to mid sized firms, I've been in that role. And it's actually really no one's empowered then because the salesperson is not fully represented or the business developer is not representative of your firm. And your firm is you and the relationships you build. Not that it's not your staff also, but it's about relationship building. It's about the principles, right? It's about the kind of what their expertise is, what their vibe is, what the culture is, all that. And so having someone else do that for you, that person's never going to be empowered enough to build the right connections, the right relationships. And that's not going to last. It's your business. You need to build that from the ground up. You need to be responsible or plant, whatever, like sowing the watering the ground, right? You can't let other people water the ground, water the grass, whatever. I now use ChatGPT for that a lot. I'm like, there's some cliche that involves grass and a fence.
- [33:55]
Emily Cohen
But a lot of our clients, they think that a salesperson, even though that they hire the best salesperson. And we've seen people hire really great salespeople, but they want immediate wins. So they are set up for Disaster because they just want them to win. And winning takes years sometimes. And the people who hire these people don't have the patience to wait two years for them to win new business.
- [34:18]
Interviewer
I'm going to take you back to another quote by Don Martel. Actually. He wrote amazing book called buy back your time, because I'm going to loop it in a strange way and come back to it. But he wrote a book, buy back your time about the fact that you want to do things that light you up and what happens with design studios or creative studios. And I believe that firsthand that I thought that to grow my studio, I needed more people like me to do the work so I can. I can do the business development. Whereas what I should have done, I should have done completely different. I should go to an assistant first, you know, should have got someone that actually I can do the work that I really want to do and have somebody actually has to deal with the admin stuff. They're the things that I've ended up doing as a principal for my own studio. Because no one will sell your creativity like yourself. Like, you can't convince a salesperson to convince your creativity. Because Hunter, you mentioned, like, go to places and talk about your expertise. Because when you talk about your expertise, you are most excited person in the room. This is what I do. This is what I live and breathe. This is what I want to do. And like, you might look a fool to some people. Be like, are you really talking about kerning and this wedding? Absolutely. It's that thing like, if you really believe in this, you talk about it and you have to remember everything. You're not lying. Whereas if you got a salesperson, be like, okay, so yeah, what do we do? And if it doesn't feel genuine, because it makes me think about Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was the salesperson, but also he was the mastermind of everything. Like, he didn't. There were other people on the stage show sort of demos and things, but he was the face of the company, it was the leader. And in some way it's so important, especially now, to elevate these founders and elevate these principles and elevate these people who actually did the source of the creativity leaders, because actually they will convince the other. Is that what they lead is led from the right place.
- [36:06]
Hunter Vargas
Yeah, we agree with that. It's truly the case. And it also should be like, if you think about it logically, if a business is growing and it's your business, you need to be leading that. Whether that's with the Relationships, whether that's with deciding who's on your team, with growing, there's just, you need to be the leader. And if you don't want to, that's okay. Maybe you should take a step back. And I think a lot of our clients, I think about this earlier, like they start businesses, they want to create a better culture. They come from a toxic agency environment, they want to create a better culture. And I get that, that's great. But you also need to have. I think there's another component of that where you want to build a business that provides a service based business that provides some service to clients, that has an impact, that you're an expert in something. And if you want to change culture, maybe you should do that from within. And that's. Otherwise, things are not going to change if we just start opening new businesses with better culture. And we need to like, really think about things more strategically.
- [36:56]
Interviewer
When you mentioned when people hire salespeople, it reminded me of quite a few stories that I've heard when, like, it was time to expand. Let's get a salesperson. The salesperson gets a bit of a bumper of a salary because they're the salesperson. Right. And there's the commissions and stuff. And then the story follows, oh, how's your salesperson doing? Oh, actually we had to let them go. It didn't work out. That's pretty much 99% times. That's what happens. It didn't click because as we just said, like, there's other ways to structure that. You can go out there and sell and actually not even sell. Just present and actually to show what you can do.
- [37:30]
Hunter Vargas
Yeah, I don't know. Having someone else go play football soccer for you to make friends and then bringing those friends to be like, here's someone I think you're gonna get along with, it just doesn't really make sense. Right. When you think about it, you really need to be the one doing that yourself because there's so many other factors that are involved.
- [37:46]
Emily Cohen
The other thing, when you talk about your work, yes, you're passionate, so you talked about all those things, why we should sell it. But the other thing is all the anecdotes, all the little fun stories behind those projects, and that's what sells is like a story and the passion behind it. So the salesperson didn't do the work. They weren't part of those relationships with the clients. So they give a spiel and it sounds like a spiel, it sounds like a canned thing. Whereas if you talk about the work, you're talking from authenticity and you could pivot and talk about a fun story that happened and relate it to how it works with this particular client. Oh, we just solved that problem for this client through this way. We had many stakeholders in this issue and this is how we handled it. So I think those stories and those anecdotes really resonate with clients as well. Like really infusing personality into how you talk about the work. Which is why we don't call it selling. Because when you sell, you're talking from a very canned approach.
- [38:35]
Interviewer
So let me ask you a question. Let's talk about the times when it didn't go so well. When we get people who are stubborn. And quite a lot of designers and creatives can be quite stubborn. Mainly for the sense of identity. The ego is sense of identity. So do you have any horror stories?
- [38:52]
Emily Cohen
Honestly, I would say no. I mean, we do a really good vetting. We teach our two clients this as well, how to vet the best clients. Right. So we look for those Red Hunter and I vibe check all the time and have a strategic way of looking at our clients. What are we looking at? Are they assholes? Are they prima donnas? Are they talk a lot and we adjust our process for them. So we really look at what those red flags are and decide if they're right for us and if they are right for us. We talk to them about this. Right. So if they're stubborn, we call them out on it a little bit. Yeah.
- [39:25]
Hunter Vargas
I think one thing we always ask our clients and we also recommend to our clients, like, are you ready for change? We're not saying that you need to change tomorrow. We're not saying we're going to tell you exactly this is what you need to be. But we need you to be ready to change. We need you to be ready to experiment and try things and potentially fail, but also potentially succeed. Like, we always talk to our clients about them before they're even our clients.
- [39:44]
Emily Cohen
Right.
- [39:45]
Hunter Vargas
When we're also in that relationship building stage of like, listen, if you want to work with us, if you're not willing to change, it's not worth your money. Don't work with us then. And I think also we're the kind of. I'm sure many consultants would be like, why would I do that? You just like a lot of consultants, right? I think there's some like jokes around consultants around, like, no, people just pay consultants to give them their advice they're not going to take. But it's really important for us that our clients do Take our advice and that they see results. And so we accept our clients. We're committed to also your business and seeing results. We want to hear the failures along with the success. We want to hear what's working, we want to hear what's not working. We want to be with you to help fix those things that maybe aren't working as well or to build off things that are succeeding. And I think our clients therefore trust us. And maybe even the ones that are more stubborn or resistant are open to changing because they know that we're also open to hearing feedback and also working with them and working with who they are, whether they're introverts, like, circling back. Right. We're not one size fits all consulting. And we hope that our clients, when we are in that vetting stage and we're talking about our process and our approach, we talk about that and, like, how we're going to push them. And we want them to push us. And we want this to be a collaboration. I think that's super important to us. I mean, we've had some egos. I think one of the hardest things is when there's a lot of egos in the room. I think that's the trickiest thing. But we always find ways to navigate. Or we call people out on their shit, to be honest.
- [41:01]
Emily Cohen
And they call us out on our shit, too. Because I'm actually. I will be honest. I'm one of those people that has a big ego. I'm not going to lie. And so sometimes my clients have to call me out on my shit too, and that's cool. I'm like that. Hunter calls me out on my shit all the time.
- [41:14]
Hunter Vargas
Yeah, we're all human, and we get that for our clients, too.
- [41:18]
Interviewer
The current record is 117 fucks in one hour. But you're not Australian surfer, so I think you're safe. But I had to laugh when you said, when you ask your clients, are you ready to change? And that's a question and answer. I think that's hard bullshit at first. Are you ready to change? Yes. But what does the change entail again? Tell me, because I'm comfortable now. I know I won't change. But do I really want to work for my change? That's the question. So is there a pushback? So how do you convince them? And how do you actually tell them what the change entails?
- [41:47]
Hunter Vargas
Well, I think they'll say, are you ready for change? And are you ready to actually take action and dedicate time to this? Like, we also are clients depending on the engagement, we'll be like, just so you know, this is going to take like X amount of hours per week. And then we're going to add this other stuff to your plate. And we're very honest about that. This working with us is like work, right? You have to treat it like a client project. So not only do we ask that they're open for change and ready for change, I think we also make sure they have the space and the time to take action along with that and to work with us.
- [42:12]
Emily Cohen
I think that once we say that, we don't get much pushback on that, to be really honest, because we also combine it with do you put time into it? But we also talk about how much do you. Are you willing to take risk? Right? Because some of this stuff is experimental. We know what we are doing, right? We provide best practices that work. But every once in a while, there's things that we have to take a risk on if our clients push back. And honestly, they don't have much pushback on us because I think we do such a good job of building that relationship and trust already. And we ask smart questions so that they really trust us already. And so when we ask about change, they're already on board, I think. And also I think the other thing is because we're experts, right? We speak a lot, we've written books, we have proven our expertise. We work with pretty well known clients and successful firms or firms that look successful on the outside, which for the most part they are. I think that gives us credibility also. So they want to get to the next level and they've seen how we've helped other clients. So I think we just, again, that goes back to building the letter. They see that what you're done. This is the thing about capturing metrics. Also, like designers, you do fabulous work, creatives do fabulous work. But do you ever see metrics? Do you ever see success stories? No, it's always about, we chose this font because of xyz, we chose this color palette or. But it's never about, we move the needle by X, Y, Z. We increased brand awareness by 30% or we increase attendance at this event by 20% or even like 4% increase in profit or something like that, right? So I think we do the same thing. We prove our expertise through the stories and through our clients. And designers should be doing the same thing, really telling more resonant stories, like stories that really resonate with clients. We just tell stories that resonate with design. Other designers, we're not telling stories we're not telling other clients how we helped our clients move the needle, how we've really impacted their business.
- [43:58]
Interviewer
When you arrive at your clients and you slam a copy of your book, which is titled brutally honest, no bullshit business strategies to evolve your creative business, it's a statement how your clients should be talking to their clients. Like, what do you stand for? And yeah, obviously what you've created with the book. It's a business development tool. It speaks for you in the room when you're not there. It gives people an idea of what you do. This is sometimes like with the book world, people say, oh, I would like to have a book about myself and with my work and that kind of stuff. In a British Library, there's 13.1 million books. Like, how do you create a book for your people that speak to what thing that you want to do and get that message across? So with the book, which is now out of print, any plans to reprint.
- [44:42]
Emily Cohen
It'S still available in ebook. I would like to say that it something we're discussing, let's put it this way, we're trying to figure out what's next for our business and we're trying to think if that's a book we like community building. So it might be something that an event or an industry something, but it will be something. I personally love the writing of the book. It's a lot of work and so we just have to figure that out.
- [45:04]
Interviewer
I mean, as someone who's writing currently his seventh book, the consumption of books are changing, but I think it's still necessary to have a physical copy. I know as someone who reads a lot of books, but. And as a summer I've got two young children, I read many books when I'm stuck in a dishwasher, when I'm doing a school run, I can't physically read a copy. But is that tactile aspect of having something where you can give it to someone and say, it's page 27, can you please reread it? Because it is information overloaded. Because right now it's a lot to take in.
- [45:35]
Emily Cohen
The reason why our book was so successful, I think was because it was designed for designers. It has nine colors, it has varnish, it has all the bells and whistles design. So it made them read it. It had information graphics. So that kind of book, it wasn't just a black and white book. It was a lot of work to develop. And because of that, it was very successful in ways.
- [45:53]
Hunter Vargas
I think also why we wrote our book is to be a Resource. Right. So our book, while we still reference it for our clients. Hey, read this chapter before we talk. It is meant to be like more for people that are just starting out or just a couple years in. So it's a way for us to give back to the meaning, provide to the community with when they're not at the start, at the point where they need or should have our services because they don't have the time where they don't need to be making these huge changes that we're recommending for other clients. Right. Really they seem to be taking action, building the relationships. So I think for us, what's important about the book and when we look in the future for what we want to do for our business, being there for the industry, providing resources that work for our client base. And I think speaking of what my mom was saying about the book was designed for our audience. Right. That's again, how we position ourselves experts, as our clients should be doing. Right. We were thinking about who our audience is, what they want, what their needs are, what's going to speak to them. And we develop something based on that, which is what also we want our clients to be doing as experts.
- [46:48]
Emily Cohen
And the other thing is that book. Yes, it's a new business tool, but it didn't bring in business until just this year, like last year. And this year, like it took a few years because those people now used our practices, saw the success and now want to go next level. And that's when they hire us. Right. So again, it's that patient. It did turn into business. It just took a while.
- [47:09]
Interviewer
Yeah, I can relate to it. I think if when you have a strategy, what you want to get out of the book. Some books build your authority. I have one book that's done incredibly for us. The other ones are fine. The other ones just built our profile and just did something different. But what I want to talk about before I let you go is how do you on a personal level, you don't live in same country anymore. I think, Hunter, you're a based in Colombia. You're still in America. Do you get time away from work? Like, how do you metabolize this? Because I can see you like, I don't think there's a quiet moment about not talking about work.
- [47:42]
Hunter Vargas
There is because we deliberately make sure there's time. So I think when I officially decided to join the business, I've been involved in the business for years and years and years. When I officially decided to join, what, May 2023, two years ago now, I made it pretty clear that. And I think she was in agreement that our personal was just as important as a professional relationship and that we need to make sure that we balanced and prioritized and thought about both very deliberately. So whether we're virtual or in person, we make sure there's thoughtful time for each. And we try to keep a separation between church and stay here. Like, the kind of. The quickest example is when I'm back in Philly visiting, which I will be in a couple weeks for me, when we walk the dog midday, even though we just finished a client call, usually. And we're going to jump on a client call in an hour and a half. For me, I always say we're not talking business. We're not allowed to mention a client name. This is our time to talk about personal or just be in. Walk and enjoy the walk and be in each other's company and not talk about business. And while she didn't love that initially, I think she's grown to appreciate it because it allows us the balance, I think. So we just make sure. I think we make deliberate time for both sides of the relationship. And we're very different people in terms of how we treat work. And neither right or wrong. So I think it's just we try to find the balance.
- [48:57]
Emily Cohen
And then her living in Columbia isn't really an issue because most of our clients work virtually, but she comes in at least once a quarter to. We're going to Cleveland next week to work with a client. So we always will travel to our clients as needed. And I always go to Columbia at least once a year. I'm told to. So she not only comes to America, but I go to Columbia too. We make very intentional efforts to figure out how this can work, how our personal can work. I have no boundaries between the two, and Hunter has very strong boundaries about it. So has been a tension point. One that's been really good for us in terms of making me a healthier human being in terms of work life balance. Because I pretty much love what I do. And I can work 24 hours and did work 24 hours. I have client calls on the weekends. And my daughter and my business partner, she absolutely does not talk to clients on the weekends.
- [49:45]
Interviewer
Hunter, well done. That's remarkable. Like, we're not talking about clients. Remarkable and healthy. Yeah. To be able to separate it and to actually put systems in place and actually kind of stick with it, I think it's incredible. And just before I let you go now, where do you go outside your work in terms of your headspace. Inspiration, looking for new knowledge, cross pollination of ideas, cognitive diversity. Like, how do you bring just a fresh angle onto what you do?
- [50:13]
Hunter Vargas
I actually feel maybe we have different approaches. I think, like, a lot. I feel like I learned a lot through my, like, friends and people that I know in my life that are working also in different industries. And I just personally too, like, the thing I really love is that all my friends and people I surround myself with are all very different. And I think from that you learn so much. And I think the same thing goes with business. Like, I think bringing in all different vantage points and different points of views and not just living in a certain bubble is really helpful. So for me, I think that's where I get some, like, inspiration, both personally and professionally.
- [50:43]
Emily Cohen
I think you're also recharged by nature. Yeah. No, I think that you also go hiking and need to like.
- [50:50]
Hunter Vargas
Yeah, but I don't think about work by Mik. So I think, yes, it's my place to recharge. Yeah. Yeah.
- [50:54]
Interviewer
I like your answer. When you talk about different vantage points and like that, what I call cross pollination. It's amazing to actually get information from other people, how they overcome their problems, how they do their thing. Because we can really be in a silo chamber in this industry because we have similar problems. Therefore, you find yourself almost trapped in a negative energy because people are like, oh, it doesn't work for me. And someone says it doesn't work for me too, and it's a bit of a moan fest.
- [51:18]
Emily Cohen
Yeah.
- [51:18]
Hunter Vargas
Or you get stuck in the opposite where you're like, oh, this worked for them. Why isn't it working for me? And I think everyone's different. Right. Some people love to read like all these nonfiction books and it gets them inspired by all these different ideas. And that's great. I'm not that person personally. Like, I'm very much like, intuitive. Learn as you do and go and talk to people. But I think there's so many different ways to learn. And I'm sure maybe my mom will speak to her ways of getting inspiration in that sense.
- [51:41]
Emily Cohen
Yeah, I'm a big reader, an exist hunter, but I like reading business books as well. I'm not obsessed by them, so I'm not going to quote every author out there. But I also look at other industries. I think we can learn from other industries. So I used to love reading Fast Company. So now I'm on like, Harvard Business Review. I get their weekly or daily emails. Like, I learn from other industries to pick up their best practices. So I think that's what recharges me. And we also learn from our clients. I honestly say our clients teach us so many great things and we though we share those with other clients, like what works for somebody, if we think it's gonna work somebody else, we'll share that as long as it's not confidential. So I think we learn in lots of different ways. And plus, both of us love to learn. We're both very curious people. And I'm learning Spanish right now, so I think we're always constantly learning in different ways.
- [52:28]
Interviewer
Thank you very much for telling me what you do, sharing that with me, and actually sending more light on what you do because I think in a way it's remarkable. You are both full of passion, full of energy. You are experts, and I think your clients are lucky to have you. And the design industry is lucky to have you because, yeah, someone needs to hold designers accountable and actually improve what we do because you can easily get stuck in our ways and complain.
- [52:55]
Emily Cohen
And I want to say we're also, I hate to use the word, but we're blessed also because we get to work with creatives, right? They are the best clients in the world, honestly. And so we're really lucky to work with the kinds of people we work with because they're really lovely human beings. Despite their quirks and despite their egos, they're just really, truly caring human beings and ones that care about the planet and care about the world. So that's important to us.
- [53:19]
Interviewer
Thank you for your time.
- [53:21]
Hunter Vargas
Thanks for having us.
- [53:32]
Radim Malinic
Hey, thank you for listening to this episode of Mindful Creative Podcast. I'd love to know your thoughts, questions, or even suggestions. So please get in touch via the show notes or social channels.
- [53:43]
Interviewer
This episode was produced and presented by.
- [53:45]
Radim Malinic
Me, Rad and Marinach. Editing and audio production was masterfully done by Neil McKay from 7 Million Bikes podcast and the theme music was written and produced by Jack James. Thank you and I hope to see you on the next episode.
- [54:10]
Emily Cohen
Foreign.
- [54:20]
Radim Malinic
Hey, just a quick note to say thank you for joining me on this episode. If this is your first time or you're a regular listener, please take a minute and rate the show on your chosen platform. A short review helps every show to be more visible to new listeners and provide them with value. So thank you for helping out.
- [54:36]
Interviewer
Thank you.