One of the best ways to secure a design deal or contract is to provide the client with a mock-up on the house—be it to exhibit your skills or to get the project started early. Don’t worry about being ripped off. That’s what contracts are for, as well as working with people who are trustworthy and that you like.

Just today I produced a sales newsletter mock-up in just shy of an hour, to a favorable reply. Remember…

• Your demo piece doesn’t have to be completely serious or related to the client’s project (though it helps in some cases)
• Just give the client an idea of what sort of work you are capable of and what time frame you complete work in.
• Feel free to have fun with it.

As I said, this is the result of one hour, from being a complete newsletter designing newbie to a roughly finished product:

Faux Sales Newsletter

Before you begin designing sales newsletters, it’s important to realize most of them are horrible.  If it says anything about the newsletter “industry,” if you can call it that, Charles Trippy’s sales newsletter supposedly “revolutionized” how newsletters are done. Pretty sad if you ask me.

Do you think newsletters are effective or bunk? Can you design a better one?

Just recently, I turned down what was promised to be a full-time job (an incentive I do not want) by a client who needed some rushed designing done. Things didn’t go well with this client because he isn’t the type of person I want to be like, although I love his product. Which leads to the topic of this post…

Credit: flickr.com/danzden

It’s hard to say this and expect everyone to heed my advice, especially given my age and the decades I’ve been in the workforce [sarcasm], but please work with people who you want to be like. You have no excuse to let your life be sent down a path you didn’t want because of the people you surround yourself with.

Seth covered this on his blog just today and this bit really stuck out:

Years ago, when I had ten people working for me at my book packaging company, one client accounted for about half our revenue. They were difficult, constantly threatening litigation, sending lawyers to otherwise productive meetings, questioning our ethics and more. It was clearly the culture of their organization to be at war. So I fired them. I gave them the rights and walked away, even though it meant a huge hit to our organization. Why do it? Because if we had stuck with them, it would have changed who we were, who we hired and how we marketed ourselves going forward. We would have had a lifetime of this.

Pay note to the part in bold. It’s the exact same idea behind hiring employees who are better than you are at their tasks. It’s embracing your own brand equity and investing in it rather than compromising your sense of integrity because it pays the bills better than the other guys.

I think people let themselves work with people they hate or don’t get along with or who would change them into someone they don’t want to be because it can be uncomfortable. Uncomfortable not knowing when you’ll find the job that’s right for you. Uncomfortable turning down work that, according to the books, looks like a great deal. Don’t compromise your happiness people. That’s all you’ve got when it comes down to it. Seriously.

Gary’s right. I have no excuse not to be on Twitter, and neither do you and your business. Follow me!

Credit: http://flickr.com/danorbit/

Seth Godin—otherwise known as one of my heroes—wrote today about how big companies who act big dig themselves into trouble and how companies who act small avoid this. The basics of the idea is that by thinking small a company won’t put itself in situations where its actions will send it quickly to the deadpool. Some examples might be:

• Giving out loans that the debtors cannot statistically repay
• Getting funded by a VC firm when you have no business model
• Producing your tangible product without figuring out distribution

This concept applies very well to the web start up realm. Silicon Valley is going crazy lately because of the economic downturn, when I don’t think it needs to. The problem is that so many companies think they can get by on someone else’s dime without having to worry about providing for themselves, let alone a firm whose business it is to have you provide for them.

So what are some simple things we can do to act small?

1. Know how you are going to make money. Your product can be amazing, but that doesn’t mean it will provide revenue. If it doesn’t make money, it’s a hobby. Don’t take this too literally, but understand you probably made your company to make money while doing something you’re passionate about, so why slack off when it comes to monetizing it? YouTube has trouble making profit. Hulu does not.
2. Don’t buy useless crap. Espresso machines, aluminum die-cut business cards, and extensive phone system, while cool, are not necessary for your company to succeed. If you think you need them, find a cheaper substitute. Set up a permanent chat room for your employees or use voice chat via Skype or Ventrilo.
3. Do your own PR. Look at Gary Vaynerchuk and the things he says. Publish a blog for your company, or a podcast, or a Twitter account, or a Facebook app. Be social and you will bring attention to yourself. A PR firm will just be contacting the same media you would anyways, so why not let them come to you because you stand out and are a remarkable company?
4. Make time for yourself. This contradicts what a lot of entrepreneurs say. Rather than convincing yourself that being passionate is about spending more and more hours on your work, reason with your body and realize that this mentality will still be around even when you have “made it.” Work smart and let things progress on their own schedule. More importantly, make the best of the time you do work. A lot of people can get done in 3 or 4 hours what they spend an entire workday doing. It’s ridiculous. Look to Tim Ferriss for more on this. Companies who act big get lost in themselves and lose scope of who they really are.
5. Resell yourself. The guys at 37 Signals have a book titled Getting Real which they sell in multiple ways. You can view it for free in HTML, buy it in paperback form, or buy the PDF version. Not only that, but they also promote it during conferences and sell higher-price lectures, lessons, etc. related to it. The key here is to not gamble your product by offering it to everyone at one set value. Include as many demographics and price points as you can to include everyone possible. Some people will just never pay a cent for anything, and some won’t pay anything less than $200 for something they want as advice.
6. Tie your personality into the brand. The company isn’t the image anymore. The company is the baby of the founder—it’s how the creator leveraged his personality to establish a brand that is likable and something people want to share or talk about. Don’t act big and treat your company like it’s some monolithic entity that has a mind of its own; rather, tie the brand to your personality and let everyone know it’s something they can relate to or something that they want to be a part of. Steve Jobs does an amazing job with this at Apple. He thinks big but acts small, and that makes people want to be in the party by making his company feel cool, and he lets them in (for a pretty penny at that).
7. Get it done. Acting small means making things happen. Just do it, as Nike would say. If you act small, you’re the game-changer who performs consistently and wins by taking on calculated risks rather than gambling big and either winding up an IPO or going back home. Toyota does this very well by practicing the philosophy of kaizen—small and steady improvements to make drastic changes over time. Making small changes requires dedication and persistence, but it is much more rewarding than making large changes. Ask GM and Ford.

Do you think acting small is the way to go? What other things do you do to act small?

Ten Lessons Startups Can Learn From Superheroes - Get more Business Plans

10 Reasons This is the Best Time to Build a Startup

The great people at NewsCred posted in their blog today a great list explaining, in 10 reasons, why this is the best time to build a start up. I won’t steal their content, so I recommend you go check out the entire list. Instead, I want to discuss three of the points they make—numbers 5, 2, and 1.

• #5 - Have a product - A community is not a product. Your users and friends—the site’s family—must gather for a purpose of some sort. Be it better communication, a product that saves them time, or even to share their appreciation for tee shirts. Have something, service or product, to give people.
• #2 - Have a business model - If you don’t have a business model, your project is a hobby, not a business. It’s amazing how many hobbyists have secured venture capitalism, oft in the millions. And some venture capitalists are wondering how they can stay afloat—I don’t know… maybe invest in people who aren’t a surefire loss? Make it premium, freemium, cost per click, cost per action (affiliate link), cost per user, cost per use, whatever. If you can’t charge people for your product, you should look into doing something else. End of story.
• #1 - Be fearless -As they say in the NewsCred post: “You’re an entrepreneur. You’re whole purpose of being is so that you can take scarce resources, optimize like hell and get maximum output from the least input. This is your time to shine.” Too many “entrepreneurs” are afraid to offend anyone or afraid to leave their safety zone, and they eventually get nudged off the cliff by competitors. Stand your ground and be aggressive. You’re taking huge risk by being an entrepreneur, don’t flounder that risk by playing it safe. The opportunity is there for those who want to take it.

One person I think does a great job of preaching this is Gary Vaynerchuk. He goes into good detail in explaining how he would go about building a business relevant to his area of expertise in a recent blog post, and his keynote speech for the Web 2.0 Expo is phenomenal. Read his blog and let his words sink in, but more importantly, get out there and get your business started.

Do you agree with these three main points I covered? What are you doing now to get your business off the ground in these “hard” time?

PS: If you like Gary’s blog, check out his company, Wine Library and his cast, Wine Library TV.

Bryan, C.E.O. of AntiClothes

Thursday night my buddy Noah over at OkDork posted his interview I set up with Bryan to discuss the start up aspect of AntiClothes. I’ve been doing a little work for Noah’s start up, BetArcade. Check it out. I think Bryan did well in the interview and really established a favorable voice for the brand, which is something it needed. Rather, it needs more of it.

Here are a few of my favorite questions and answers form the interview:

What’s missing in the t-shirt business online now and why do we need another one?
Simple, consistency. So many companies are pushing our fresh designs every Monday, but most are forced ideas. We may move into releasing every week, but right now we wait, pick the best idea, then design. After we design, we filter even more to what we dig the most, and think our customers will like the best. You can’t show up with just one or two good designs, and the rest fillers. You need solid ideas, executed to the T (oh god, puns), every time.

There are many t-shirt companies, how are you going to stand out?
We’re the badass of the group. You’ve got Threadless who focuses more on a designer/art type t’s, and BustedTee’s who focuses on the joke and not the design as much. Both are great companies, but we’re what would happen if you smashed the two together and threw sprinkles on top. Our shirts aren’t novelties, they help our customer stand out. Strangers come up to me and compliment certain designs I wear, and that reaction our customers get as well, will help put us on top.

Biggest challenge and greatest so far?
Designers who flat out suck. We’ve went through a good piece of change with artwork that never came out right, or we just didn’t receive. We need a vast array of styles for our line up, and though you can find one solid designer out of filtering through 10, we needed more than that. What I advise to people is to search outside your niche. This is risky, but will pay off incredibly if you can find someone with raw talent in a similar field, and get them to filter it to yours. We’ve had people who are street designers, comic artists, but they raw talent is there - and once they channeled AntiClothes’ vibe they’ve made us great pieces.

A second challenge has been the fact our competitors have hundreds of designs, when we were starting out with 16, and now we’re up to 20. I’m aiming to get us to around 24-25 within a month and a half, then keep expanding from there. Selection is important, most people appreciate a good amount of our shirts. The more we have, the better a chance of some one finding their clothing match made in heaven.

So here’s a big up to Noah for spotting Bryan the interview as a favor, which in the grand scheme of things happened because I won a free book from Noah way back earlier this year. Again: read the interview!

What do you think of the interview? What about AntiClothes as a brand?

A few days ago, before I came down with a horrible illness placing me in bed—albeit waking up every 45 minutes—from Friday to Monday evening, I posted a piece about an amazingly stylish Ferrari I stumbled across. I have an affinity for pretty-looking cars, and I like to share this appreciation. I think great design transcends any medium, and anyone should be able to appreciate any form of great design. That’s when you know it’s great.

Anyways, here’s what’s important: That entry, as simple as it is, brought my blog just shy of 10,000 visits, which translated into 16,000 page views. That’s heavy stuff, considering my blog had been getting barely 100 visits a day, purely thanks to this Nike image from the old version of my blog which is highly-linked. Problem is I edited the image to include my URL and it has been moved from its #1 spot to who knows where for image-search keywords like “nike slogan” or “nike just do it.” Woe is me.

Google Analytics showing the traffic spike

Okay, so I obviously did something to drive this traffic, right? Absolutely I did: StumbleUpon. We all know what it is by now, and if you don’t, click the “SU” icon below my blog post to learn more. I submitted my post to the site under the car and design categories, and when I woke up the next morning, there was 4,000 visits to the page. That’s incredible, considering my blog is a born-again newbie on the web with zero real back-links. Moral of the story? Use StumbleUpon [with moderation].

Thanks to Dave and Thomas for the link love. Here’s a little link-action for ya’ guys.

Do you think StumbleUpon is worth the effort? Got any other great social applications to share your blogs on?

A while ago—back in late 2005 and early 2006—I was the co-founder of a little car enthusiast site named The Car Showcase. My partner and I figured that since we liked looking at cars, others would as well, and in spite of the absolutely horrible programming we had done, we established a social network for car enthusiasts the world over. We got over 3,000 members in just a month and a half, but maintaining the site was hard since it was so poorly developed.

Rest In Peace TCS

Now I figure I can use the name to represent blog posts when I find a really kick ass car. It’s the least I could do for a great brand that never had a chance. Our users were great; even more enthusiastic than Carlo (my co-founder) and I, and they had great cars and knew so much and the forums were abuzz with topic after topic. Today I stumbled across a really nice car in particular, the Novitec Tunero F430, a modified Ferrari. Anyways, here are the pictures:

Tu Nero F430 Front Passenger Side

Tu Nero F430 Rear Passenger Side

Tu Nero F430 Rear

Tu Nero F430 Driver Side

Tu Nero F430 Rear Driver Side

Overall, it’s probably the most well-made and beautiful car I’ve seen. Coming from someone who favors Aston Martins and Lamborghinis, that says something. There’s something about that finish that I just love, and the overall style looks so well thought out and well-executed. It’s something else…

What do you think? Do you know of any hotter cars?

Sabrina wearing the Pacman tee

If there’s one thing that transcends time and space, and perhaps even logic, it’s old school game icons. Pacman most notably. Donkey Kong and the Galaga posse are popular as well, creating a range of humorous and stylish pieces of art and clothing over the years.

I designed the Pacman Graph shirt for AntiClothes based off of a wildly popular picture floating around the internet, but limited only to the web culture. I wanted to see it expressed outside the web and in “real life” in a tangible form of art and humor. It’s one of AC’s best-selling shirts, and there’s no secret why.

Owah owah owah owah owah

Rumor has it AntiClothes is coming out with another type of Pacman shirt, so keep your eyes peeled! If you’d like to see more gaming-related clothing, make sure to check out Jinx, who is an online shop dedicated purely to gaming related clothes. Cool stuff, even though they’re our competition.

Want to get your hands on Mr. Pacman? Buy it here and use the discount code “kovar” for 15% off!