As I mentioned in an earlier post, Ghost Communications are a small Graphic Design agency run by just two partners who have worked in the business for over 30 years. However what makes them different to other companies is that they have one based in the UK, the other in Paris. This enables them to work for companies all across Europe and as Paris, and France in general, are always two steps ahead of us in terms of fashion and design, it helps them stand out with a distinctive flair for design that incorporates both the British and Parisian style.
I got the opportunity to meet Gill Laidler, who is the partner based in Wakefield, and shadowed her whilst she went about her day to day routine. I was very interested to see how their partnership worked, as it's something I have not come across before. Gill works from her home and deals with a lot of the client meetings and general marketing side as well as the designing.
To begin with I met her at the Royal Armories in Leeds where she had kindly let me come along with her to a BNI networking meeting to see how she deals with the business side. This was a brilliant insight into how you can spread your name and get the clients, I only wish I knew about this when doing my Enterprise module last year!
The early breakfast meeting started with a sausage butty, so I happily ate my way through that whilst listening to the reason why these meetings were held and the formal introductions of everyone sat around the table.
BNI i
s basically the largest business networking organization in the world and there is a group in Leeds that offers businesses from all around West Yorkshire the opportunity to come together, share ideas, contacts and most importantly, word of mouth referrals to help each other out. An interesting fact I found out was that last year alone 1.5 million pounds worth of business was generated from passing on referrals to other members of BNI! Wow!
There were all sorts of businesses there, from plumbing and joinery, to architecture and tailoring, but there is only allowed to be one business from each sector. There were printers and web designers, but Gill's company was the only graphic design business there.
I found the whole meeting thoroughly interesting as they all get the opportunity to quickly stand and say who they are, what they do and what type of potential clients they are looking for this week, month, season etc. Everybody jots it all down and then hopefully goes away and through conversations with their own clients, or general people they come across that week, they will hopefully come back the following week with a few contact details to pass on to at least one person in the group. 
I was amazed by the amount of referral slips being passed around the room and the amount of potential business that is generated by these meetings.
Each week, one of the members gives a longer presentation and slideshow about their business and I sat in on Hemingway tailors talk about bespoke suits and the importance of handmade tailoring. It's a good idea to do these longer presentations so that members have a clearer idea about what they do so that they can use these details in conversations with others to ensure they come well recommended. They also had a nice little printed hand out that I kept because I liked the layout design :)
It was all very formally done, but everyone was very friendly and willing to chat to me about what I do and I came away feeling more aware of what and how much effort goes into working for your own business. The old saying 'It's not about what you know, it's who you know' seems to have taken on a whole new level of importance to me!
