WRONG! How to start a successful business by screwing up: PART TWO

As it turns out, we did a lot things right without knowing. Mostly we did not allow ourselves to be intimidated by that phantom of insecurity that weighs upon someone when they venture off into the unknown. We felt secure enough to move forward and most critically, change when we needed to. Our relocation to Seattle gave us the ability to service our Chicago clients even better with our access to people with hands-on web development knowledge. Since the move, we kept all of our Chicago clients and even added a few new ones. The ability to match your talents with the needs of the public, and change as the times change is the most critical technique of running your business. Period. That doesn't mean you should skip the business section at Barnes & Noble. Every book you read offers a "silver bullet" to successfully run your company, but in actually... they are just one bullet in the machine gun you'll need to keep everything firing. And you'll need a lot of bullets. Read at least one book a month. You'll need the knowledge to curb those critical business killing mistakes that all of us are capable of making. Always be learning, always be working, always keep on top of your game. You'll need it to overcome the obstacles you'll encounter, and there are gobs of them waiting to pounce when you least expect it.

We've fallen into other industries during our time at Boojazz. Most recently, video, in the same manner as the wedding industry. One highly successful project blossoms into an entire new division. Due to our ability to adapt, we discover new needs in the creative industry, and we fulfill that need with the best possible quality of service we can offer. Thirty years in the no-frills Chicago marketplace completely embeds in someone how to be effective, practical, and top-notch. It's the all-or-nothing mentality many of our competitors lacked, and thus our business grew steadily. And we'll still lose a client every now and then, usually in the beginning stages of a working relationship when each other's expectations are a complete mismatch. Recently, we simply could not get on the right foot with another studio, and they chose another vendor. Of course, we've been around the block enough times to know that a bad fit is a bad fit, better to move on before you become embedded with one another and real problems occur, for all parties involved. That's hard to do in the beginning of your business, when every dollar counts. But we've seen piles of start-ups fail by choosing the wrong clients to work with, ones that chew up all of your time energy and valuable resources. But do not panic, many initial mistakes we made led us to the right people later on. That lousy accountant we had forced me to become much wiser about company expenses. Eventually I got out of the office and found another accountant, (by accident nonetheless, as it was supposed to be this referral, but I walked into the wrong building). This accidentally discovered other accountant I had never met and thought it was the one my friend referred but wasn't eventually became one of my most valued graphic design clients. Try explaining that in a book. Of course when I think about it, America was sort of discovered along the same lines, wasn't it?

I simply cannot stress the importance of adaptability enough. Since we planted this seed way back when... Foster's Cafe started as a way to reach out to other advertising firms that wanted to hire me as a freelance designer, and were wary of giving assignments to other full-fledged studios, as another studio can easily steal clients. Foster's Cafe was a nice compromise, not using your real name but still getting your real name out there as a brand. Since then we've grown enough to where people know Boojazz and our solid reputation, but we still keep the two companies separate for the sake of our clients need to keep track of all the things we do. We have four separate divisions within the company. Boojazz covers photography and video, Foster's Cafe does graphic design, and the offshoot of the Cafe division is our fine art department, where we sell our paintings in art galleries across the country. We also like the name as everyone keeps asking, "When does the cafe open?" And it leaves the possibility for us to open a coffee shop / art gallery in the future. Of course we have a children's book and a sit-com (based on our real-life working from home experiences) that we are developing in the meantime. Our diversity has taken us into new directions we never imagined possible as two kids hoping to make a go of it many years ago.

In short, mistakes will be made. And every good business person knows this. You simply cannot win all of the battles, you just need a lot of heart and soul to carry on after disaster strikes. You need to smile brightly even when the ship appears to be sinking. Over the years, sour clients and bad people are going to pound on you. Don't let them drive you down. Once you lose your heart you lose your company. Have a ridiculous amount of confidence in yourself, and if it runs low, just look at how our government is run and you'll instantly feel better. Keep that confidence in check with an equal dose of humility. Have confidence in yourself and your capabilities even if the world has decided you're a complete moron. Besides, the world isn't that smart to begin with. And in the end, do not be afraid of mistakes, do not let the possibility of mistakes intimidate you, just learn from them and move on.