CC Design Management
CC Design Management was started as a home-based graphic design business after the birth of my 1st child in 2007 with the intention of generating an income, satisfying a creative desire, but primarily to be at home with my daughter during the formative years of her life and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
After spending 10 years employed in Gerry Harvey’s inhouse advertising agency, working at a management level on large retail clients such as Harvey Norman, Domayne, Space Furniture and Rebel Sport; I presumed that the leap to owning my own graphic design business would be easy – after all I had worked in one of the most deadline driven environments with some of the highest print production turnovers in the country.
So with great working experience and skills and a hefty amount of arrogance I started my own business with one client and spent the next 8 months wholly servicing that one client. I was in fact an employee of my client’s business without the benefits of being employed and I spent more time concentrating on my client’s business than my own.
I had lofty ambitions for CC Design Management, none of which could be fulfilled with my lack of business experience or that could fi t in around the commitments to my single client who was benefiting from my experience and eagerness without much reward for CC
Design Management. Through this first client I then gained another client who would have been very beneficial to my business but I lacked the business skills to maintain that client.
It became very apparent to me that even though I was a great employee and a hard worker I lacked the skills to network, attract and maintain clients, negotiate my business into a healthy financial position and I was struggling with major cash flow issues. I was not running a business – it was running me. I was without any formalised or realistic goals and I was working without a business or financial plan.
As a result the very things that motivated me to start my own business were being sacrificed – I was not generating anywhere near the income I had expected, I was not being creative and my family life was suffering as I was not respecting the work/life balance.
This was my starting point for change – I knew I had to focus on what it was that I really wanted to do and where I saw CC Design Management in the future. The Women in Business Mentoring Program came at exactly the right time to make that change happen via the Western Sydney Business Advisory Service (BASI) who have been enormously supportive of my progress and the progress of the other women in the program.
Participating in the Women in Business Mentoring Program has enhanced my business and personal life beyond expectations. The focus, motivation, confidence and experience that I gained from listening to the fabulous other women in the group, the workshop presenters and my business mentor pushed me in directions that I would have previously not been capable of.
CC Design Management’s client base has grown and I am now targeting clients that seemed out of reach just a few months ago. Goals that I set for CC Design Management 6 months ago have not only been met, they have been greatly surpassed and I have now set higher goals and challenges that will see my business grow enormously over the next 6 months. In my first 8 months of business I had only 2 clients.
In only 6 months since joining the Women in Business Mentoring Program, CC Design Management has attracted and maintained 19 clients, increased profits, has formed strategic alliances with several suppliers, has utilised the services of design contractors and developed specific product and services packages for different target markets. The next phase for the business is to utilise my experience in retail advertising to attract larger retail clients.
The financial investment for the cost of the program was recouped 1000% within the first month of the program and I continue to gain confidence, experience and inspiration from what I have learnt in the program and from the support of my mentor and fellow participants. I would highly recommend the Women In Business Program to anyone with a small business – time spent with a dynamic group of businesswomen is an enormously positive and rewarding experience!
CHRISTINA COLEMAN
CC Design Management
ph: 02 8807 5385
m: 0402 087 802