Expanding consultancy, hiring

Design Discussions design employment
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So, My one man show consultancy has been going now for 6 years. I do it all from strategy to to identity design to footwear design, development, web design, marketing, copywriting, POS, graphics, etc. Business has been good.

With a couple of solid clients on retainer and ongoing for the past few years, much of my time is spoken for and I’m finding time for business development, firm PR, and personal project is hard to come by. I’m now looking at the possibility of hiring either freelance, part time contract or full time so that I can better find and take on new work and promote the work I’m already doing, not to mention get things off my plate that I don’t need to be doing myself (graphics production, production and development management/communication, etc.).

I’m currently pretty full on monthly billable time available (subtracting normal time for accounting, etc.), but somewhat think that maybe I would be better off just keeping things as is, or working a few more hours a day to increase output.


I’m wondering how others have gone from a one person consultancy to 1+?

My concerns are four fold-

  1. Since I do such a varied scope of work, how do I choose the one type of person that will have the skills I need? I highly doubt I could find someone that does everything from footwear design to graphics as I do. Currently, I’m looking at considering a graphic/web designer with good organization that can help manage general stuff and pump out graphics and marketing concepts and production work, plus help with my own firm web and portfolio.

  2. While I do have good clients on a steady work schedule, how do deal with the inventible slow periods or ups and downs? I don’t want to have a contract with someone for 6 months only to have them not needed for a month or two a few months in.

  3. Time input vs. Output. The way I figure it, there is always time in training, getting someone up to speed with the ongoing projects, my file systems, etc. How big a drain on resources will this be? It doesn’t make sense to hire someone only to have the net billable time equal to what I’m doing now as I lose time to training.

  4. Frequency/Location. I work from my loft. Do I really want someone to come into my home to work? It would drastically change the work environment for me I know. No more sleeping in if I feel like it, I’d have to clean up a bit more, no more 5pm Scotch breaks on a Tuesday… Also, I’m considering at least initially someone a few days a week. How would that affect project deadlines and the workflow? Do I need to have a dedicated desk and computer available? I’ve just finished the last of the interior design to my loft and adding a desk would really mess with the space. I have the physical space, but then need to move stuff around :frowning:

Thoughts and comments appreciated.

R

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  1. Since I do such a varied scope of work, how do I choose the one type of person that will have the skills I need? I highly doubt I could find someone that does everything from footwear design to graphics as I do. Currently, I’m looking at considering a graphic/web designer with good organization that can help manage general stuff and pump out graphics and marketing concepts and production work, plus help with my own firm web and portfolio.

Hi Rich, I’ve been ging 10 years now, but there has been 2 of us for 9 years. He is my actual partner as well as business partner, but he deals with the back-end stuff - making sure the computers don’t explode, doing tech drawings for outsoles (I trained him but he’s better than me on this), being an absolute whizz on cad (he’s a trained graphic designer), tracing my hand renderings etc.

  1. While I do have good clients on a steady work schedule, how do deal with the inevitable slow periods or ups and downs? I don’t want to have a contract with someone for 6 months only to have them not needed for a month or two a few months in.

Maybe you’d be better off partnering with someone who has their own work? My partner is also a self taught web designer - when things are slow, he goes and freelances that. He also has regular web admin stuff on retainer, also makes posters for theatres and that stuff comes in regularly, so if I’m quiet, there is still stuff to be billed.

  1. Time input vs. Output. The way I figure it, there is always time in training, getting someone up to speed with the ongoing projects, my file systems, etc. How big a drain on resources will this be? It doesn’t make sense to hire someone only to have the net billable time equal to what I’m doing now as I lose time to training.

Because Toby has always had his own work , I just taught him a few of the basics and kind of ‘phased him in’ - does that make sense? When we need to train, we save it for the quiet times, for instance I’m testing my new website which is written in Drupal, so it’s me that needs the training in this case and we spent two days critiquing other websites. We would not have time to do this normally.

  1. Frequency/Location. I work from my loft. Do I really want someone to come into my home to work? It would drastically change the work environment for me I know. No more sleeping in if I feel like it, I’d have to clean up a bit more, no more 5pm Scotch breaks on a Tuesday…

Well do you? It’s an impossibility for us, as liveaboards we don’t have that lifestyle. And for that reason my business will remain small and portable.

Also, I’m considering at least initially someone a few days a week. How would that affect project deadlines and the workflow? Do I need to have a dedicated desk and computer available? I’ve just finished the last of the interior design to my loft and adding a desk would really mess with the space. I have the physical space, but then need to move stuff around :

If it’s an employee then I’d presume so. The great majority of design consultancies I know either partner up with another freelancer, both WFH but regularly meet, or they hire office space somewhere and share the costs.

Good luck, though, it’s a great problem to have. :smiley:

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as an independent consultant for a several years, I always aspired to add another person too but never felt comfortably enough with the workload to do it…

I used to pull in talented students on a project by project basis - students found while teaching a course at a local ID school. Maybe picking up an intern/Jr designer might be the way to go… inexpensive in slow times (but a little bit more work), flexible, & hungry for design experience. If things go well, he could turn into a mid-weight sr. in your consultancy and you could shape his development into someone valuable for your business. If things don’t work out like expected, they have an early design experience under their belt and another student is placed on a good career path. Same could go for your loft space, trying it out and seeing what happens organically

Several times I nearly partnered with people and a company once too (one a graphic designer, one ID, & the company was a small ME outfit in Bangalore. It would have been a little like Shoenista with the GD and ID - They had their own clients & talents, and we could work together… might still happen at some point.

Since it’s related, my uncle is the founder of a successful landscape architecture firm in TX. From the beginning with my consultancy, he always encouraged/recommended that I add employees - he said that’s what took his consultancy (and earnings) to much higher levels