Webinar: Theory/Practice of Narrowing Your Positioning

How do you actually determine...and then phrase...your positioning in the marketplace? So many firms have a "me too" sounding approach to their firm that their positioning is largely interchangeable with their competitors. Assuming that you don't want to be quite so replaceable, come explore the theory and practice of narrowing your positioning and then stating it in a compelling manner. There will be specific exercises and examples of positioning that work poorly and that work well.

This webinar will be 45 minutes long, including a short period for Q/A. It will be held on Thursday, September 9, 11:00-11:45a CDT.

To register, click the "pay now" button below, where you'll be able to pay with a credit card or your PayPal account. After we receive confirmation of your payment, we'll register you for the webinar and you'll automatically receive log-in information from GoToWebinar (within 24 hours).

The cost is $95 per computer.

Mind Your Own Business Conference

In partnership with HOW Magazine, the 2010 MYOB Conference presents a program packed with expert speakers who know first-hand the challenges marketing firms face; thought-provoking sessions to help you improve your bottom line; and the rare opportunity to network with other creative firm principals.

It’s 3 days of close-up, nuts-and-bolts problem solving combined with big-picture, long-term planning. You’ll look at your work, your clients and your marketing from a whole new angle--and find solutions to some of your toughest business problems.

MYOB is being held in New York this year on October 12-14, in conjunction with AIGA’s Gain Conference. It’s sure to be an incredible gathering of marketing firm principals--don’t miss it!

For more information, navigate to the conference website. Use code MDB10 to get $200 off the individual full-conference rate.

Moving Upstream from Implementation

It might or might not mean that you do less of the implementation, but when you move upstream, you get more time, more money, and more respect from clients, and who can argue with the value of that. But how do you do it, and what changes at your firm in the process? Learn why to move upstream, how to do it, how to present/package it, what clients value and don’t in the process. And ultimately, learn if you have what it takes to stand “naked” in front of clients to sell your thinking instead of the tactile implementation. You’ll leave the session with clarity and energy to do it right. Presented at AIGA's Gain Conference in New York City.

Financial Management: Measuring and Enhancing Performance in a Marketing Firm

With one-third of the content new this year, this one-day ReCourses seminar was developed especially for principals, operations managers, and controllers in marketing firms (advertising, design, interactive, and public realtions), and it is crafted to cover everything about the numbers side of running a firm well. You’ll learn how to construct financial statements properly, how to interpret them, how to avoid common reporting mistakes, and how to understand the same event from the perspective of leverage, profit, and cash. You’ll get a hands-on explanation of several dozen benchmarks (which you can apply to your own statements as we walk through it), how you should work with your accounting firm, how to manage cashflow, and what your software options include. We’ll teach you how to measure utilization (billable efficiency) and how to fix any gaps that the analysis reveals. We’ll look at taxes, legal structure, retirement, insurance, funding growth, employee benefits, open book management, collections, and navigating a downturn.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Seminar: Managing Client Relationships

Only held once per year, this revamped one-day seminar will help you learn how to position your relationship with the client appropriately in order to have a balanced one in which they need you (for the right reasons) and you need them. We’ll examine formalizing that relationship appropriately at the outset, too.

Your role, both in its larger context and in relation to other roles at the firm, will be charted. Then the specific elements of what’s expected of you—and what’s not expected—will be delineated. We’ll examine your own specific approach to account service, tailoring that offering to your individual strengths and weaknesses. We’ll also delve into how to recognize client style and then adapt your approach to be more effective in working with them individually.

You’ll get a primer on strengthening your presentations, a step-by-step guide to conducting the agency tour, and the specific expectations that clients bring when it comes to serving their accounts. Finally, we’ll look at specific tactics to grow the client relationship and solidify it in the process.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Managing Creatives/Creativity

A repeat of our US version, held for the Design Business Association (dba.org.uk). See under "Seminars" for the full agenda.

Webinar: Steadily Generating Prospects

You're probably pretty good at converting interested prospects to clients. If that's the case, what you probably need is just more interested prospects. If your conversion ratio stays the same, you'll end up with more clients simply because you have more opportunities to close them. In this webinar, learn the specific tools to maximize your opportunities and how they work together to help your firm thrive.

The webinar will consist of 30 minutes of packed content and then 15 mins of Q/A. It will begin at 1:00p central time.

To register, click the "pay now" button below, where you'll be able to pay with a credit card or your PayPal account. After we receive confirmation of your payment, we'll register you for the webinar and you'll automatically receive log-in information from GoToWebinar (within 24 hours).

The cost is $95 per computer.

Driving Productivity: Elite Financial Management of a Creative Services Firm

A keynote for the "Driving Productivity 2010" conference in Melbourne, Australia.

Webinar: Justifying Your Ridiculous Fees

You have a prospect pretty much dangling on the line, but you can't reel them in because they're hung up on your pricing. To them it seems ridiculously high. How do you justify your pricing and overcome that perception? Learn about the tools in the third stage of closing new client relationships. Some you'll know about, with a few added twists, but some will be new to you.

The webinar will consist of 30 minutes of packed content and then 15 mins of Q/A. It will begin at 1:00p central time.

To register, click the "pay now" button below, where you'll be able to pay with a credit card or your PayPal account. After we receive confirmation of your payment, we'll register you for the webinar and you'll automatically receive log-in information from GoToWebinar (within 24 hours).

The cost is $95 per computer.

Webinar: Developing a Website for Effective New Business

Websites have become central to the new business process. After reviewing how you get prospects to visit, we'll cover what should be included to extend their visits and keep them coming back as many times as possible. Each element that should be built into your website will be discussed and illustrated.

The webinar will consist of 30 minutes of packed content and then 15 mins of Q/A. It will begin at 1:00p central time.

To register, click the "pay now" button below, where you'll be able to pay with a credit card or your PayPal account. After we receive confirmation of your payment, we'll register you for the webinar and you'll automatically receive log-in information from GoToWebinar (within 24 hours).

The cost is $95 per computer.

Only Three Things that Matter: Making Money, Having Impact, Building Culture

How do you balance the need to make money, the desire to impact the world through the work that you do, and the energy it takes to create and shape the internal culture of your firm? What happens when you rank these differently, and how is each related to the other priorities? Let’s work through this together with a direct and honest approach that anything this important deserves. Presented at the HOW Design conference in Denver, CO (howconference.com).

Taking Your Positioning to Market

After looking at the essential interrelatedness of opportunity, capacity, and confidence in new business, we'll look at how you go about evaluating your positioning, how/when to change it, how to take your positioning to the marketplace so that you retain control over your client base, how to surface the qualification level of prospects. We'll also cover the best, most efficient methods of generating thought leadership content. Presented to the Marketing Communications Agency Network annual meeting in Austin, TX (mcan.com).

Seminar: Resourcing the Creative Process

Only held once per year, this revamped one-day seminar has been developed especially for design, advertising, interactive, and public relations firms, and it is crafted to cover everything about resourcing the creative process (see the complete agenda on page five). This seminar is ideal for principals responsible for setting up the system, or anyone directly responsible for resourcing (traffic, production management, pricing, or even some account service roles if they are combined with this function). The sessions are a mix of presentation, hands-on exploration, exercises, and roundtables.

Resourcing, our name for the nerve center of the firm, includes estimating/pricing, traffic, production management, quality control, yield management, profitability, resource allocation, deadline management, etc. This course, unlike any other available, will look at workflow, roles, procedures, software, staffing, and systems.

The foundation is built on the ReCourses Functional Model (RFM) and our system for a Profit Based Management Environment (PBME). Research underpinning the RFM began in 1998 and continues today.

While resourcing isn’t taught in preparation for a career in the creative services field, it’s a critical foundation for doing work that is effective and profitable, and this seminar is meant to bridge that gap.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Webinar: Developing Thought Leadership

How do you actually develop thought leadership content, and then how do you gain speaking and writing engagements in order to draw increasingly greater numbers of prospects to consider working with you? Learn the secrets behind this method of "free prospecting" and thrive, particularly since you are positioned appropriately at the very outset of the relationship.

The webinar will consist of 30 minutes of packed content and then 15 mins of Q/A. It will begin at 1:00p central time.

To register, click the "pay now" button below, where you'll be able to pay with a credit card or your PayPal account. After we receive confirmation of your payment, we'll register you for the webinar and you'll automatically receive log-in information from GoToWebinar (within 24 hours).

The cost is $95 per computer.

Webinar: Theory/Practice of Narrowing Your Positioning

How do you actually determine...and then phrase...your positioning in the marketplace? So many firms have a "me too" sounding approach to their firm that their positioning is largely interchangeable with their competitors. Assuming that you don't want to be quite so replaceable, come explore the theory and practice of narrowing your positioning and then stating it in a compelling manner. There will be specific exercises and examples of positioning that work poorly and that work well.

This webinar will be 45 minutes long, including a short period for Q/A. It will be held on Friday, April 16, 1:00-1:45p CDT.

To register, click the "pay now" button below, where you'll be able to pay with a credit card or your PayPal account. After we receive confirmation of your payment, we'll register you for the webinar and you'll automatically receive log-in information from GoToWebinar (within 24 hours).

The cost is $95 per computer.

Seminar: Managing Creatives and Creativity

Only held once per year, this revamped one-day seminar has been developed especially for design, advertising, interactive, and public relations firms, and it is crafted to cover everything about the creative director role (see the complete agenda on page five). It is appropriate for anyone functioning in that role: a principal, creative director, design director, art director, or just someone soon to be promoted to a role that includes managing people or the creative process.

You’ll learn what your role should be, whether you are a good fit for it, how to perform that role well, how to adjust for your own strengths/weaknesses as you deal with creatives, how to find and screen good creatives, and how to guide the careers of those in your care.

Most important, probably, we’ll walk you through the choices you’ll have to make in transitioning from doing the work to stepping away from such a hands-on role, and why you need to let your design skills wither a bit and work on your copywriting skills instead.

This year for the first time we’ll be presenting new research undertaken about making the transition to first time Creative Director, all based on a forthcoming book on that subject for RockBench Publishing.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Webinar: Judging the Qualification Level of Prospective Clients

It's discouraging to see how much time you can waste on prospects who really aren't prospects at all but tire kickers. What are the characteristics of the best prospects, and how can you recognize those characteristics early in the process? We'll work through all the options, help you construct your own checklist, and then offer specific questions you can ask early in the process in order to make a fairly accurate assumption about how much time to spend with them.

This webinar will be 45 minutes long, including a short period for Q/A. It will be held on Friday, March 26, 1:00-1:45p CDT.

To register, click the "pay now" button below, where you'll be able to pay with a credit card or your PayPal account. You will then be redirected to the actual registration, where you'll enter your first/last name and email address, after which you'll receive a confirmation by email.

The cost is $95 per computer.

Seminar: Research and Strategy

Only held once per year, this revamped one-day seminar has been crafted to cover the best methods of research and the formulation of strategy for specific client engagements (see the complete agenda on page five). The seminar is appropriate for principals, account planners, account managers, and anyone integral to making recommendations to clients.

You’ll learn the historical background and how that matters, how research, strategy, and positioning of products/services are connected, and the best working definitions of all the key terms.

We’ll give you the right questions to ask and to whom they should be directed, the most efficient research methods and sources, and which ones you might use for any given desired outcome.

We’ll guide you through the crafting of insightful recommendations and how to deliver them as you build consensus along the way.

You’ll learn how to incorporate more process to yield better results and how to build a research and strategy component into your firm (and how to staff it). Finally, we’ll guide you on incorporating this offering into your own positioning through packaged offerings.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Seminar: Managing Client Relationships (WAITING LIST)

Only held once per year, this revamped one-day seminar will help you learn how to position your relationship with the client appropriately in order to have a balanced one in which they need you (for the right reasons) and you need them. We’ll examine formalizing that relationship appropriately at the outset, too.

Your role, both in its larger context and in relation to other roles at the firm, will be charted. Then the specific elements of what’s expected of you—and what’s not expected—will be delineated. We’ll examine your own specific approach to account service, tailoring that offering to your individual strengths and weaknesses. We’ll also delve into how to recognize client style and then adapt your approach to be more effective in working with them individually.

You’ll get a primer on strengthening your presentations, a step-by-step guide to conducting the agency tour, and the specific expectations that clients bring when it comes to serving their accounts. Finally, we’ll look at specific tactics to grow the client relationship and solidify it in the process.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

7th Annual New Business Summit

This is our largest yearly seminar, held in Nashville, TN at the Frist Center for the Arts. All new breakouts, networking opportunities, and lower price with special offer for additional staff from your firm. Join 100 other firms in this annual tradition of starting the year off right with your positioning, marketing, and selling. Faculty include David C. Baker and Blair Enns of Win Without Pitching. It's probably the most impactful of all our seminars--be sure to download the lengthy flyer with extensive agenda details.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Financial Management: Measuring and Enhancing Performance in a Marketing Firm

With one-third of the content new this year, this one-day ReCourses seminar was developed especially for principals, operations managers, and controllers in marketing firms (advertising, design, interactive, and public realtions), and it is crafted to cover everything about the numbers side of running a firm well. You’ll learn how to construct financial statements properly, how to interpret them, how to avoid common reporting mistakes, and how to understand the same event from the perspective of leverage, profit, and cash. You’ll get a hands-on explanation of several dozen benchmarks (which you can apply to your own statements as we walk through it), how you should work with your accounting firm, how to manage cashflow, and what your software options include. We’ll teach you how to measure utilization (billable efficiency) and how to fix any gaps that the analysis reveals. We’ll look at taxes, legal structure, retirement, insurance, funding growth, employee benefits, open book management, collections, and navigating a downturn.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Building and Leading a Staff: The When, How, and What of Growth and Culture

Debutting for the first time this year, this one-day ReCourses seminar was developed especially for principals and managers in marketing firms (advertising, design, interactive, and public realtions), and it is crafted to cover everything about building and leading a staff, including the consideration of growth.

You’ll learn how to evaluate growth opportunities and make sensible decisions as part of a larger plan. We’ll look at how the various roles in this industry interact differently as the firm’s size increases and how to structure them appropriately at various levels. We’ll look at finding candidates to increase the pool of really qualified ones from which you can choose. We’ll look at effective screening methods to apply in working through the pool, and then orienting that new employee to your firm in a manner that sets them on a path with a greater likelihood of success. We’ll look at the intricacies of managing, of rewarding, and even dismissing that occasional bad choice. Finally, we’ll look at building a culture and preserving it, applying the best leadership principles over time.

By the end of the day you’ll have a fairly complete manual that should arm you for years to come, all while applying it specifically to your own firm in a helpful, interesting environment.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Doing Effective Work: Adding Significance to the Strategic Portion of Your Work for Clients

Our most recently developed event, this one-day ReCourses seminar was developed especially for principals, account planners, media planners, account executives, and creative directors in marketing firms (advertising, design, interactive, and public relations), and it is crafted to cover everything about enhancing the strategic portion of your work for clients.

You’ll learn what the role of strategy should be at your firm, what makes a good strategist, how to ask the right questions, how to conduct primary and secondary research, how to turn the research into insightful recommendations, how to build consensus with the client, what a strategy brief should and should not contain, and how and where you can track results. We’ll also examine nine important rules of thumb, explaining which ones are true and which are not. And we’ll end with a discussion of how to build more process into your work and where to continue your self-education on strategy.

By the end of the day you’ll have a fairly complete manual that should arm you for years to come, all while applying it specifically to your own firm in a helpful, interesting environment. Let’s face it—you’ve learned everything in the trenches, so far, but this is a way to leap ahead and build on what you already know.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Resourcing the Creative Process: Managing Pricing, Deadlines, Budgets, Quality, and Capacity

This is one of our newer seminars, and no seminar has ever sold out this quickly. (This is the first year we'll only hold it once.) In spite of that, it has been revamped and expanded to two full days. This seminar is ideal for principals responsible for setting the system up, or anyone directly responsible for resourcing (traffic, production management, pricing, or even some account service roles if they are combined with this function). The sessions are a mix of presentation, hands-on exploration, exercises, and roundtables. Resourcing, our name for the nerve center of the firm, includes estimating/pricing, traffic, production management, quality control, yield management, profitability, resource allocation, deadline management, etc. This course, unlike any other available, will look at workflow, roles, procedures, software, staffing, and systems. The foundation is built on the ReCourses Functional Model (RFM) and our system for a Profit Based Management Environment (PBME). Research underpinning the RFM began in 1998 and continues today. While resourcing isn’t taught in preparation for a career in the creative services field, it’s a critical foundation for doing work that is effective and profitable, and this seminar is meant to bridge that gap.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Managing Creatives and Creativity: Being an Effective and Confident Creative Director

With a significant portion of the content new this year, this two-day ReCourses seminar was developed especially for creative directors in design firms and advertising agencies, and it is crafted to cover everything about being both an effective and satisfied creative director.

Anyone who manages the creative process will find it to be a must attend seminar, whether that person is a principal, creative director, design director, art director, or just someone soon to be promoted to a role that includes managing people or the creative process.

You’ll learn what your role should be, whether you are a good fit for it, how to perform that role well, how to adjust for your own strengths/weaknesses as you deal with creatives, how to find and screen good creatives, and how to guide the careers of those in your care.

Most important, probably, we'll walk you through the choices you'll have to make in transitioning from doing the work to stepping away from such a hands-on role, and why you need to let your design skills whiter a bit and work on your copywriting skills instead.

This year for the first time we’ll be presenting new research undertaken about making the transition to first time Creative Director, all based on a forthcoming book on that subject for RockBench.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Serving Clients Well: Everything You Need to Know about the Account Service Role

A revamped, two-day ReCourses seminar crafted to cover everything about the account service role. Anyone who deals with clients is a perfect candidate for this seminar.

You’ll learn what your role should be, how to perform that role flawlessly, how to adjust for your own strengths/weaknesses as you deal with clients, and how to make the most of the client assets at your disposal.

This will include everything from knowing how to spot good potential clients, formalizing the relationship in a way they appreciate, pricing your work appropriately, and handling difficult situations.

This year we’ll be beefing up the two days with a new focus in four areas: how to safely transition the account from the new business process to client service; growing accounts that you already have, with specific recommendations and group discussion; making good presentations to clients; and solving specific client issues you have, based on some brief homework we’ll ask for in advance.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

6th Annual New Business Summit

This is our largest yearly seminar, held in Nashville, TN at the Frist Center for the Arts (with an opening night reception there as well). With a strict limit of 96 attendees, be sure to register (this always sells out) as soon as you are interested in attending this three day event that covers positioning, marketing, and selling. Faculty include David C. Baker and Blair Enns of Win Without Pitching. It's probably the most impactful of all our seminars--be sure to download the lengthy flyer with extensive agenda details.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Resourcing the Creative Process: Managing Pricing, Deadlines, Budgets, Quality, and Capacity

This was a new seminar last year, and no seminar has ever sold out this quickly. (This is the only seminar we’ll repeat this year.) In spite of that, it has been revamped and expanded to two full days. This seminar is ideal for principals responsible for setting the system up, or anyone directly responsible for resourcing (traffic, production management, pricing, or even some account service roles if they are combined with this function). The sessions are a mix of presentation, hands-on exploration, exercises, and roundtables. Resourcing, our name for the nerve center of the firm, includes estimating/pricing, traffic, production management, quality control, yield management, profitability, resource allocation, deadline management, etc. This course, unlike any other available, will look at workflow, roles, procedures, software, staffing, and systems. The foundation is built on the ReCourses Functional Model (RFM) and our system for a Profit Based Management Environment (PBME). Research underpinning the RFM began in 1998 and continues today. While resourcing isn’t taught in preparation for a career in the creative services field, it’s a critical foundation for doing work that is effective and profitable, and this seminar is meant to bridge that gap.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

A Primer on Controlling Your Client Base with Effective New Business

A two-hour pre-conference workshop for the "Gain: AIGA Business and Design Conference" in New York city (held every two years). More on the Gain conference here.

Transition Options for Principals: Making the Most of What You’ve Built, Now and Later

With one-fourth of the content new this year, this one-day ReCourses seminar was developed especially for principals in marketing firms (advertising, design, interactive, and public relations), and it is crafted to cover everything about your transition options over the short- and long-term.

You’ll learn the various application valuation theories and then construct your own, using our template, while we watch and guide you. We’ll talk about what a valuation says about your firm and how looking at it from the outside gives you a more objective view of your performance and how to fix it with very specific strategies designed to increase its future value and your present enjoyment (one of the few times you can have your cake and eat it too). We’ll look at the eight transition options you’ll be able to choose from, and then we’ll take a much closer look at the three that deserve a closer look: merging, sale to keep employee(s), and being acquired by a larger entity. We’ll then discuss making partnerships work well and then wrap by revisiting an important philosophical outlook.

By the end of the day you’ll have a fairly complete manual that should arm you for years to come, all while applying it specifically to your own situation in a helpful, interesting environment.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Building and Leading a Staff

Debutting for the first time this year, this one-day ReCourses seminar was developed especially for principals and managers in marketing firms (advertising, design, interactive, and public realtions), and it is crafted to cover everything about growth, from the when to the how to the what.

You’ll learn how to evaluate growth opportunities and make sensible decisions as part of a larger plan. We’ll look at how the various roles in this industry interact differently as the firm’s size increases and how to structure them appropriately at various levels. We’ll look at finding candidates to increase the pool of really qualified ones from which you can choose. We’ll look at effective screening methods to apply in working through the pool, and then orienting that new employee to your firm in a manner that sets them on a path with a greater likelihood of success. We’ll look at the intricacies of managing, of rewarding, and even dismissing that occasional bad choice. Finally, we’ll look at building a culture and preserving it, applying the best leadership principles over time.

By the end of the day you’ll have a fairly complete manual that should arm you for years to come, all while applying it specifically to your own firm in a helpful, interesting environment.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Financial Management: Measuring and Enhancing Performance in a Marketing Firm

With one-third of the content new this year, this one-day ReCourses seminar was developed especially for principals, operations managers, and controllers in marketing firms (advertising, design, interactive, and public realtions), and it is crafted to cover everything about the numbers side of running a firm well. You’ll learn how to construct financial statements properly, how to interpret them, how to avoid common reporting mistakes, and how to understand the same event from the perspective of leverage, profit, and cash. You’ll get a hands-on explanation of several dozen benchmarks (which you can apply to your own statements as we walk through it), how you should work with your accounting firm, how to manage cashflow, and what your software options include. We’ll teach you how to measure utilization (billable efficiency) and how to fix any gaps that the analysis reveals. We’ll look at taxes, legal structure, retirement, insurance, funding growth, employee benefits, open book management, collections, and navigating a downturn.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Avoiding Damage from a Downturn

You can't control the larger economy within which you operate, or even the segment of the marketplace to which you apply your unique expertise. But you CAN limit the damage that otherwise would occur by anticipating the pressures you'll face, reacting to them appropriately, and then building some future safeties into your firm's management environment. David C. Baker will present a webinar with some thoughts on these topics for 30 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of Q/A via a chatroom. Held at 3:00p CDT. Free, but you must register here to participate.

Serving Clients Well: Making the Most of the Account Service Role

This webinar will overview the essential things to know in serving clients well as a marketing firm. We'll start with a clear understanding of the control each party brings to the relationship, how to shape your role for increased effectiveness, the essence of your job description, a summary of how your clients wish you would serve them, and growing existing accounts as your focus switches from service to expertise. We'll finish with 15 minutes of Q+A to help apply this to your situation specifically. This webinar features David C. Baker, and is sponsored by Function Fox. To register, click here.

Managing (Right) for the First Time

This is a presentation based on the book by the same title (published by RockBench in the third quarter of 2008, by David C. Baker). It has been researched and developed for first time managers of any type, any level. We'll look at who managers are and how to become one, whether or not you were promoted for the right reason, how to start off right, what you'll discover early on, and understanding the different kinds of managers. We'll also examine how to be effective by assembling the right team, being the kind of leader others want to follow, and how to take advantage of your own management style. Finally, we'll explain the transitions you'll want to make to be effective. This seminar is held at the annual HOW conference in Boston.

Advice to the Young Creative

For the annual HOW conference, this presentation has been researched and developed for those who are managed. Specifically, you’ve finished school and landed your first real job in the field you’ve dreamed about. To date, most of your energy and money have been spent on developing the “craft” side, but what else will you need to succeed in this field? What kind of employees are managers looking for? How do you stand out (in the right way)? Are there some things you could do that will make it more likely that you’ll enjoy a long, rewarding career? Learn how to impact an organization so that you're valued and respected, how to approach your career with balance so that you don’t burn out, and how to be the sort of employee that a great manager wants to keep around.

Managing Creatives and Creativity: Being an Effective and Confident Creative Director

With one-third of the content new this year, this two-day ReCourses seminar was developed especially for creative directors in design firms and advertising agencies, and it is crafted to cover everything about being both an effective and satisfied creative director.

Anyone who manages the creative process will find it to be a must attend seminar, whether that person is a principal, creative director, design director, art director, or just someone soon to be promoted to a role that includes managing people or the creative process.

You’ll learn what your role should be, whether you are a good fit for it, how to perform that role well, how to adjust for your own strengths/weaknesses as you deal with creatives, how to find and screen good creatives, and how to guide the careers of those in your care.

Most important, probably, we'll walk you through the choices you'll have to make in transitioning from doing the work to stepping away from such a hands-on role, and why you need to let your design skills whiter a bit and work on your copywriting skills instead.

This year for the first time we’ll be presenting new research undertaken about making the transition to first time Creative Director, all based on a forthcoming book on that subject for RockBench.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Serving Clients Well: Everything You Need to Know about the Account Service Role

A revamped, two-day ReCourses seminar crafted to cover everything about the account service role. Anyone who deals with clients is a perfect candidate for this seminar.

You’ll learn what your role should be, how to perform that role flawlessly, how to adjust for your own strengths/weaknesses as you deal with clients, and how to make the most of the client assets at your disposal.

This will include everything from knowing how to spot good potential clients, formalizing the relationship in a way they appreciate, pricing your work appropriately, and handling difficult situations.

This year we’ll be beefing up the two days with a new focus in four areas: how to safely transition the account from the new business process to client service; growing accounts that you already have, with specific recommendations and group discussion; making good presentations to clients; and solving specific client issues you have, based on some brief homework we’ll ask for in advance.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Resourcing the Creative Process: Managing Pricing, Deadlines, Budgets, Quality, and Capacity

This was a new seminar last year, and no seminar has ever sold out this quickly. (This is the only seminar we’ll repeat this year.) In spite of that, it has been revamped and expanded to two full days. This seminar is ideal for principals responsible for setting the system up, or anyone directly responsible for resourcing (traffic, production management, pricing, or even some account service roles if they are combined with this function). The sessions are a mix of presentation, hands-on exploration, exercises, and roundtables. Resourcing, our name for the nerve center of the firm, includes estimating/pricing, traffic, production management, quality control, yield management, profitability, resource allocation, deadline management, etc. This course, unlike any other available, will look at workflow, roles, procedures, software, staffing, and systems. The foundation is built on the ReCourses Functional Model (RFM) and our system for a Profit Based Management Environment (PBME). Research underpinning the RFM began in 1998 and continues today. While resourcing isn’t taught in preparation for a career in the creative services field, it’s a critical foundation for doing work that is effective and profitable, and this seminar is meant to bridge that gap.

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New Business Summit (5th Annual)

This is our largest yearly seminar, held in Nashville, TN at the Nashville Convention Center (with an opening night reception at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts). With a strict limit of 150 attendees, be sure to register (this always sells out) as soon as you are interested in attending this three day event that covers positioning, marketing, and selling. Faculty include David C. Baker and Blair Enns of Win Without Pitching.

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In-House Innovation: Discover the Keys to Building and Running a Top Notch In-House Department

Presentation to the annual ECPA Publishing Conference, helping to debut the in-house business track. Session will focus on how to develop, maintain, and encourage a culture of design and innovation; how to get the beset work from your creative department (in-house and outsourced); and the keys to building and running a top notch department.

Live Agency Review

ReCourses is the co-founder, along with HOW, of the Mind Your Own Business Conference (MYOB), a unique 4-day retreat for creative-business professionals. This session will allow the audience to see deeply inside a volunteer firm, as they learn about themselves for the first time, too--in front of the audience.

Structuring Roles

ReCourses is the co-founder, along with HOW, of the Mind Your Own Business Conference (MYOB), a unique 4-day retreat for creative-business professionals. This session will focus on how to structure roles within a creative agency.

What's NEXT If Design is to be accepted among Professional Services?

Affinity session presented at a gathering of 2,500 deisgners in Denver, CO. “Next: AIGA Design Conference” focuses on what is coming next for design, designers, education and society. It is intended to look at what is happening at the forward edges of design, in all its dimensions.

Managing a PR Firm Like a Business

All day keynote presentation to the annual PRGN conference in San Francisco. PRGN (Public Relations Global Network) is an organization of 31 member agencies with more than 50 offices in the United States, Central America, South America, Europe, Canada, the Pacific Rim, South Asia, and the Caribbean.

For Principals of Firms with 22-80 Ees

In Nashville, limited to just 11 firms with strict qualification requirements, we are holding our once-yearly roundtables. It begins on Monday night and end late Wednesday afternoon. You'll be grouped with peer firms from non-competing markets/specializations to learn from each other during expertly guided discussion, followed by implementation accountability and a forum to establish a regular working group. There are three groups to gather appropriate sizes together.

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For Principals of Firms with 8-21 Ees

In Nashville, limited to just 11 firms with strict qualification requirements, we are holding our once-yearly roundtables. It begins on Wednesday night and end late Friday afternoon. You'll be grouped with peer firms from non-competing markets/specializations to learn from each other during expertly guided discussion, followed by implementation accountability and a forum to establish a regular working group. There are three groups to gather appropriate sizes together.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

For Principals of Firms with 2-7 Ees

In Nashville, limited to just 11 firms with strict qualification requirements, we are holding our once-yearly roundtables. It begins on Wednesday night and end late Friday afternoon. You'll be grouped with peer firms from non-competing markets/specializations to learn from each other during expertly guided discussion, followed by implementation accountability and a forum to establish a regular working group. There are three groups to gather appropriate sizes together.

Download PDF with brochure, agenda, registration.

Commencement Address, CCAD

Commencement address for the Columbus College of Art and Design, in Columbus, OH, at 10:30a.