Design by Schelfe and Associates | Rendering by Gibson Design Management

Last fall we had the fortunate opportunity to work with Schelfe and Associates, an interior design firm from Raleigh, NC, on a project located 90 minutes outside of Hong Kong, China. The project consisted of converting an existing villa into a high-end boutique hotel, that, when built, will have 6 guest rooms, an owner’s suite, a cinema room, a game room, a karaoke room, a golf simulator room, multiple lounge areas, and more.

Gibson Design Management created four renderings for Schelfe and Associates to present to their clients, helping to better their understanding of the design concept through the renderings and an interpreter. Tim Schelfe, principal at Schelfe and Associates, took our renderings, a plethora of fabric samples and tear sheets, and more for the presentation to his new Chinese client. Upon return, Tim said that the renderings were a hit—they greatly helped bridge the language barrier between his team and the client. The client even said, “I want more pictures!”

Design by Schelfe and Associates | Rendering by Gibson Design Management

Tim wrote the following testimonial about the process:

“Gibson Design Management was instrumental in allowing our firm to organize the creative vision of the project without getting bogged down on preparing our own interior renderings or color boards. With the renderings provided by Gibson I was able to present my client a very clear and precise vision of the finished interior. Our client was ecstatic with our presentation and signed off on our design as presented.”

Design by Schelfe and Associates | Rendering by Gibson Design Management

What happens when you and your client both speak the same language? Should you still use renderings? There are countless times when a client will express his or her wishes using incorrect terms such as “I like modern” when what they actually like is “transitional.” Utilizing renderings can help combat these misunderstandings and ensure that you and your client are on the same page before the room is installed. Furthermore, the level of trust that is instilled once a client sees the renderings is immense—instead of just listening to your description, they can actually see what you mean.

A picture, or in this case a rendering, is worth a thousand words.

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The good people at Beasley and Henley Interior Design wrote a great post on their blog about the day in the life of an interior designer.  I found it helpful to hone my message, and I actually know what designers do.

Click here to read the full blog post from Beasley and Henley.

Interior designers- how do you educate your clients on what a designer does?  If you’re not an interior designer- what misconceptions do you think there are about interior designers?

This martini is featured in our February e-newsletter, The Gibson.  If you don’t receive The Gibson, click here to sign up!

Ingredients:

• 1.5 ounce vodka (top shelf)
• 1.5 ounce Cointreau
• 1.5 ounce Blue Curacao
• Lime slice

Preparation:

1. Chill martini glass.
2. In a large cocktail shaker, combine the ingredients with ice.  Shake until mixed and chilled.
3. Strain the cocktail into the chilled glass and garnish with the lime.
4. Tweet to your heart’s content.
5. Enjoy!

Ondine with Little Bear

We are very excited to be working with Ondine Karady, former set decorator for Sex and the City, finalist in Bravo TV’s Top Design, and acclaimed interior designer.  Ondine was just recently named one of 20 Young Designers by Traditional Home.

We will be working with Ondine on spreading her great design and personality even further through the beauties of social media and online PR.

As part of the 20 Young Designers feature from Traditional Home, the magazine is holding a Reader’s Choice contest.  Please support Ondine and support us by voting for her!

Note:  Make sure that you click on the “Vote!” button and not just the “Like” button to vote!

Also, by voting you are automatically entered to win a complete room design and $5,000 in fabric to outfit the room so there’s some extra incentive…besides your undying love for us.

There’s no better time to catch up on some past due business reading than when you’re snowed in.  If you’re like me, you probably have several books in the rotation, plus a couple that are on your desk or nightstand that are in queue.  My most recent conquest:

Crush It: Why Now is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion (by Gary Vaynerchuk)

I recommend this book.  It’s short and conversational, much like reading a blog.  The content is a good mixture of anecdotes, detailed “how-to”s, and sage advice.  While the social media information is fairly basic, I still felt that it was a good reminder.  Most importantly, this book reinforced the importance of really doing what you love.  I feel fortunate that I do that already, and even more fortunate that now is a great time to actually make a living doing what I love.

The books currently in the rotation:

ProBlogger: Secrets to Blogging Your Way to a Six-Figure Income (by Darren Rowse and Chris Garrett)

While I am only 2 chapters in to this book, I already find it to be very informative.  In fact, I stopped after two chapters so that I could start working on some of their suggested exercises.  This book definitely falls under “How-To” manual.

The Breakthrough Company: How Everyday Companies Become Extraordinary Performers (by Keith McFarland)

I was fortunate enough to hear Keith speak last year at Inc. Magazine’s GrowCo conference.  This book is Good to Great for the smaller guys.  Keith and his team took solid metrics and found a handful of businesses that have not only survived but thrived by breaking through the entrepreneurial phase into the solid, established business phase.  This aspect makes The Breakthrough Company even more fascinating to me than Good to Great as it feels closer to home.

What business book did you just finish reading and what do you have in the rotation?

Leave a comment and we’ll send you a copy of Gary’s book, Crush It!

To my delighted surprise, I was given the opportunity to pull supporting fabrics for one of her projects!  She had a presentation in several days, and could not fit the 5 hour round trip to the design center into her schedule.  She supplied me with the vendor and pattern numbers for the driving fabrics, and a few details about durability needs and budget.  The design center is 15 minutes from my office, and within 90 minutes, I had pulled approximately 60 fabrics from numerous vendors and showrooms, stopped at the FedEx store, and sent them off to be delivered to her doorstep the next day.

Here is a quote from her email:

“You spent half the time that I would have spent and found twice the number of selections.  There were at least a dozen out of the group that were extremely useful for the meeting.  My clients benefit because they don’t pay my high hourly rate and we still have a wonderful selection for them.  As you know, I was skeptical about having someone else make selections for me; after this process, I would absolutely use the service again.”

She was very happy with what was sent to her and was able to scheme for the presentation.  My greatest satisfaction was not that I changed her mind, but that I was able to help her and to exceed her expectations.

“One of the deep secrets of life is that all that is really worth doing is what we do for others.” – Lewis Carroll

Domino’s Pizza catering SMC Chicago event from Andres J. DeLeon on Vimeo.

Read more about how exactly DeLeon is using social media and the amazing results he’s getting from this post on SocialMediaExaminer.com.

Way to go Ramon.  We salute you.

My latest company crush is on a Greenville, South Carolina identity and branding company called Brains on Fire.  I am obsessed with the culture that they’ve created and enamored with the fact that their website shows that culture and personality.  [I especially like their Tequila Shots book which explains the 12 company beliefs; imagine a mission statement minus the boring undertones].

I know that I have this business crush when I think

1.  I want our company to be like that, or

2.  If I wasn’t having so much fun working with my team, I would want to work for theirs, or

3.  I want to be their client because I want to hang out with them.  [Pay for friends?  Hmm, they must be that good].

In the Brains on Fire case, all 3 fit the bill.  Is this crush actually business love????!

Amanda Butterworth, our Director, Creative Services, was lucky enough to meet Spike Jones, one of BOF’s Firestarters, and she said that Spike epitomizes the brand.  It’s always good to know that your business crush is not just smoke and mirrors.

Now that I’ve aired my crush to the world…Who is your business crush?

Before I guide you on which WordPress road to travel, it’s important to know that both the WordPress.com and WordPress.org solutions contain the same core features for blogging and content management. You can create a blog in both. You can create a full-blown website using both.

They are also both free.

The choice boils down to this:

• If you are managing your website and you have no programming experience or desire to learn, WordPress.com is for you.
• If you do not want to pay for and/or deal with hosting, upgrades, and backups, WordPress.com is for you.

Simple enough, right? Aside from techies, who wouldn’t go with WordPress.com? If you dig a little deeper, the decision can get complicated.

While WordPress.com is a robust and fantastic solution, the WordPress.org solution is much more flexible. For example:

1. You are limited to about 70 themes (designs/layouts) on WordPress.com. There are over a thousand themes that can be used with the WordPress.org solution.
2. You cannot install plugins on a WordPress.com site. A plugin is an additional piece of functionality that enhances your WordPress website, which has already been programmed. For example, lets say you want to add a form that people must fill out to contact you. Contact forms are pretty standard on websites. The WordPress.org solution offers plugins that allow you to add a contact form to your WordPress site.
3. The WordPress.com solution forces you to have a web address with wordpress.com (unless you upgrade to a premium account). You can have whatever domain name you want with the WordPress.org solution.
4. You have access to all the code behind a WordPress.org solution, which is not the case with WordPress.com.

There are several other minor differences between the two solutions that I haven’t included, but most of the differences have to do with flexibility.

Going with the more flexible WordPress.org solution does create more responsibility and requires a cost investment though. A hosting plan is required, which typically costs between $7 – $20/month. You also must understand how to install WordPress and create a database in your hosting account. Some hosts, such as GoDaddy, provide you with their own easy to use tools that help you with the set up. Then, if you want to customize themes or plugins, you will need to know how to do that in the code. Keep in mind, that customizing themes or plugins is not necessary to have a nice looking and fully robust WordPress.org powered site, but many people do so they can have a completely custom looking website.

The bottom line is that you don’t have to be a programmer to work with the WordPress.org solution, but you need to be somewhat tech savvy. If you do happen to get stuck and can’t fix a problem or come up with a solution, WordPress.org has fantastic support forums.

You can also contract a developer or firm to do these customizations. There are thousands of resources out there to choose from.

In summary, you can’t go wrong with using WordPress as a blogging platform and/or a Content Management System. It’s easy to use and there are plenty of design options and features. WordPress.com is a great solution for someone who does not have technical skills or resources and does not need complete flexibility over the site. If you want the flexibility, then I encourage you to use the solution offered on WordPress.org. If you have further questions, feel free to email me at todd@businessbullpen.com.