Wild Apple Design started with a vision of creating great designs, which inspire, engage and educate the next generation. 20 years on and we are still going strong. We love to help others and share our knowledge so have put together some tips and snippets that we have found useful over the years.
We feel our resilience to changes in market dynamics, and the way the publishing industry operates is down to so many factors. We believe that business success is not always about the company’s bottom line, it should be measured by customer satisfaction, service/product quality and a strong reputation. There are so many variables involved in the success or failure of a business, both internal and external, however, intuition and listening to your gut will often get you through. We have learnt that if you put the work in you will get rewarded.
There have been many lesson learnt from our 20 years in business. Keep reading for a few tips which we feel have kept us going:
Our journey brings together invaluable experience, sometimes hard-fought lessons, and we are always looking at what’s next around the corner, to do this, you cannot run a business in a bubble and you need support in all areas to move forward and grow.
Over the years we have had support in different ways, through staff, trusted suppliers, network groups, mentors and more recently with Yellow Tuxedo. As a small team, you need those external influences for a rounded opinion and as a sounding board. There are always going to be tricky decisions to make, and it’s then you need people around you, as you do in a family, to get information and clarity.
Our experience over the last year with Yellow Tuxedo has been one of support and genuine interest in what we do. This is a rare thing - Alan and Emily are always engaging, knowledgeable and approachable.
Our advice is to find your tribe and develop your support network so it’s in place when need it.
Having a strong vision is super important and something that the whole essence of the business hangs on. A strong vision can act as a guide and reminder in times of challenge helping to focus, direct growth and develop.
Being passionate about your business and instilling this into your team can be a force to be reckoned with, a united workforce sharing a vision is a powerful tool. For example, all the team here at Wild Apple share the company’s vision and are passionate about producing designs which will be used to help educate and make someone’s life better.
The ability to be flexible and adapt is fundamental. Flexibility in the workplace means being able to quickly adjust to new circumstances as they arise, both internally and externally. Markets change all the time! You need to find a way to stay relevant and helpful, occasionally thinking outside of the box and revising your service provision to best support your clients. We have found that allowing employees flexibility, encourages; autonomy, freedom and balance, often resulting in an increase in performance, productivity and loyalty.
If you can’t dominate the market in which you operate, then find your niche and be the best that you can be, offering quality solutions. Stay true to yourself as a company and your vision, add value to key services and differentiate yourself from the competition. If you’re going to offer the same as other companies, do it better, if not, then do it differently.
Consistency is key to success in business. Make sure that the products and/ or services you offer are of consistent quality and try to exceed your customer’s expectations, this way, your clients will trust you. Once you have established trust your customers are more likely to remain loyal.
Customer service and an experience that meets and exceeds expectations are essential to success, without your client base you don’t have a business. We pride ourselves on being friendly and hospitable, with open channels of communication to ensure our clients feel they can approach us, as and when needed. Open communication channels like this often mean issues can be dealt with efficiently and effectively, saving both time and money on both sides.
Make sure you know your limits, and be mindful of what you can and can’t offer as a company - don’t offer a client what you can’t deliver. This doesn’t have to mean missing out on an opportunity and could lead to furthering your service offering.
Here at Wild Apple our service offering is quite niche and a lot of new work is from repeat business or word-of-mouth recommendations. But we keep a strong online presence whether we are busy or not - as it is this consistency that we find builds trust.
We post on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn, we would love you to follow what we do! We also have a quarterly newsletter where subscribers can learn what’s happening in the studio, find out what projects we have been working on and learn a bit more about us.
You can also find out more about Wild Apple Design here.
We hope you enjoyed reading our musings above and if any of it struck a chord, then please do get in touch. Likewise, if you have other tips to add we would love to hear them.