Putting Your Passion to Work

One of the the most common mistakes new entrepreneurs make is to take themselves and their business too seriously. In fact, a light-hearted approach may be just the thing you need to distinguish your company from the competition, win customer loyalty and energize your employees.

When graphic designer Woody Holliman decided to open his own design studio (after several years serving as chair of a college art department, he adopted one of the classic entrepreneurial strategies described by Paul Hawken in Growing a Business: Make It Fun - inject an element of humor or whimsy into a business that tends to take itself a little too seriously.

As a design instructor, Woody often warned his students: "If you're getting bored with your design project, don't just grit your teeth and slog through it. Stop what you're doing! That yawn is the warning light on your creative dashboard, and it means you need to steer your work in a new direction. Because if you're bored, your audience will be too!"

Woody considers it a privilege to have a career in his industry. "This is what I'd be doing if I were independently wealthy, so although I understand how my work benefits my clients' businesses, some part of me still marvels at the fact that they're willing to pay me to have fun!"

The key to Woody's success (as both a teacher and designer) may well be the contagious nature of his enthusiasm for art and design: "When I was teaching, I always brought my freelance work into the classroom so my students could see how excited I was about finding solutions to my clients' problems. Now that I'm a full-time designer again, I try to involve my clients in the design process whenever I can so that they can experience that creative energy and channel it into their own work."

Woody (like many successful entrepreneurs) thrives on creative challenges and throws his heart and soul into every project, large or small. "Being a creative professional is like being a professional athlete - you have to push yourself every day to exceed your own limitations. In some respect or other, every project you complete needs to be better than anything you've done before, a new personal best. It's always tempting to accept the first "pretty good" idea that comes along, but as the philosopher Nietsche warned us: "Good is the enemy of great. Settling for that mediocre idea not only does a disservice to your client; it does a disservice to yourself as well. No matter how much money you make, as a creative professional you can never feel completely satisfied unless you're producing the best work that's in you."

In its first three years of operation. Flywheel Design has grown from a one-person sole proprietorship to a corporation with nine full-time employees and numerous clients throughout the United States. Needless to say, Woody remains upbeat about his company's prospects: "The best entrepreneurial ideas spring from something deep within a person - the business becomes an extension of who you are, something that can't be stolen or successfully imitated because it's uniquely yours. This business truly is an extension of who I am, so I feel confident it will last at least as long as I do."

If you're in an industry which takes itself a little too seriously, you too may want to try this strategy of "Making It Fun." Your customers will love your business, and so will you!

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