Who’s Got the Best Business Plan

September 30, 2011
Amber Michelle

RAPAPORT…

My business is to help designers grow and prosper anyway we
can,” says Cindy Edelstein, who, 20 years ago, founded Jeweler’s Resource
Bureau, a firm that advises jewelry designers on how to run a business.

To celebrate her company’s twentieth anniversary, Edelstein
is launching one of her biggest projects yet — the Future of Design Contest,
created to find the designer with the best business plan and then reward that
talent with the resources to push his or her business to the next level. The
initial idea came out of a meeting Edelstein had during the New York MJSA Expo
in March with Andrea Hill, chief executive officer (CEO) of StrategyWerx, a business
consulting company, and Kate Peterson, president of Performance Concepts, a
firm also dedicated to developing businesses. As the three consultants compared
notes on conversations they had had with designers, it became apparent that
while the latter have artistic talent, many of them also have big holes in
their business plans.

“By reading the business plans of the ‘newbies,’ we were
able to figure out what would be most valuable to them,” comments Edelstein.
“Based on the business plans, we started thinking who would we pick to help?
That was the seed of the idea to start this competition.”

Designers making between $50,000 and $300,000 annually are
eligible to enter the Future of Design Contest. Along with their designs,
entrants must submit a business plan and fill out an extensive questionnaire
that is similar to a marketing plan. Six semifinalists will be selected based
on their marketing and business accomplishments, as well as their designs. The
six designers will be interviewed by the judges via a video conference call.

Each semifinalist will be awarded a mentoring session with
one of the designers from the competition’s Future of Design “Dream Team,”
which includes such high-profile names as Erica Courtney, Gurhan, Lisa Jenks,
Robert Lee Morris, Penny Preville and Todd Reed. The contestants will then be
narrowed down to three finalists, who will be flown to New York for the final
round of judging during an event at the MJSA Expo on March 13, 2012. The three
finalists each will be given ten minutes to pitch their business plans to
judges Cindy Edelstein, Andrea Hill and Kate Peterson, along with Mendel
Rotenberg of Fusion Jewelry and Jim DeMattei of ViewPoint. The finalists will
then be asked questions by a panel of retailers, editors and industry VIPs at
an event that will be open to all expo attendees. A business-intensive prize
package, valued at $250,000 (see box on page 143), will provide the winner of
the contest with the tools to take his or her business to the next level.

Design Meets Business

Receiving professional help to navigate the often-challenging
path from successful designs to managing a successful business is an invaluable
prize. According to Kate Peterson, the thought process of creative people is
different from that of business people. “Most of the time, it’s a matter of
competing thought processes. Real design talent requires a level of creativity
and expansive, ‘spherical’ thinking that is well beyond the capabilities of
most business people,” explains Peterson. “The problem is that the great
majority of people who can think in those wonderfully innovative — and often
convoluted — ways are typically not the best at organization or at the linear,
logical processing it takes to run a business. I know a lot of tremendously
talented people who are also tremendously broke. If your goal is to turn your
talent and passion into a viable, long-term living, you need a solid,
structured business model as your underpinning. In my experience, without a
plan — and in many cases, without a sensible, linear-thinking guard dog to hold
you to your plan — passion often overtakes sensibility very quickly, and the
best designs and ideas vaporize in the aftermath.”

Future of Design Dream Team designer Lisa Jenks remembers
how helpful it was to her to have a mentor when she graduated from Parsons
School of Design in fashion. “It really helped to acclimate me to business. She
gently corrected me and gave me entrée into the fashion world. When I started
my jewelry business, I did not have a mentor, but wished that I did. It would
have been great to have the perspective of someone who was not involved in my
business, a business mentor to cue me in on marketing and to give me advice.
You can really learn what you don’t know from a mentor. But how do you find one?
This contest is a great opportunity for some designer.”

Andrea Hill observes that designers are classic
entrepreneurs with something special to sell, but the product is only one side
of the business triangle. The other two sides, explains Hill, are customer
management and operations. All three have to perform well in order to just
break even. “In my experience, most designers feel insecure about their ability
to run the business side of their business, but that’s the part that can be
taught. Ultimately, you either have the design talent or you don’t. But the
basics of managing a business aren’t dependent on talent. We’ll be looking for
candidates with the discipline, the drive and the curiosity to manage a
business well.”

Designer Todd Reed, another member of the competition’s
Dream Team, notes that the biggest challenge for him in growing his business
centered on the issues of communication. “Learning management skills to
effectively inspire and grow the team in an organized and operationally concise
style was a challenge. A business plan, in my opinion, is very important. Once
something is written down, it is real and you can show it to people in the
organization so that they recognize the importance of the goals and mission.
Having a business plan is essential; revising the business plan frequently
seems like the best thing to do.”

Keeping a design business going and growing over the long
haul requires a strong business plan, but it also takes a strong sense of your
true identity, says Dream Team designer Robert Lee Morris. “Never take anything
for granted. Always focus on staying true to who you really are and what the
voice is that you have been gifted to use,” he remarks. “Anyone in the arts who
consistently inspires, reinvents and refocuses their expression creates the
long haul into forever and eternity.”

Applications for the contest can be found at
FutureofDesignContest.com. Completed applications are due December 1, 2011.

The Jackpot

Prizes in the Future of Design Contest:
Every entrant will receive a professional critique and advice on his/her
business plan.

The Six Semifinalists Receive: