Lessons From The Ups And Downs Of Our Design Agency [Update]

Lewis Jenkins

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Published: February 6th, 2024

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Lewis Jenkins

Founder, Percept

$110K

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

Percept

percept.com.au

from Sydney NSW, Australia

started July 1997

$110,000

revenue/mo

Founders

Employees

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Want more updates on Percept? Check out these stories:

1. We Changed Our Pricing Structure And We Are Now A $1.5M Branding Agency [Update] (2023) ➜

2. I Bootstrapped My One-Man-Show Branding Agency To $1.2M/Year (2021) ➜

This is a follow up story for Percept. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published almost 3 years ago, check it out here.

Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.

Hey guys, just a recap, I’m Lewis Jenkins, founder of Percept Brand Design Agency, a branding agency in Sydney, Australia.

Percept specializes in rebranding companies for better business performance. We work with businesses on their brand positioning and strategy, story telling, brand identity, packaging design, print and digital marketing communications, and website design.

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We work with start-ups that have grand visions for their future, established companies that want to improve their performance, and challenger brands that want to win market-share from the leading competitors in their industry. We engage the key stakeholders of these businesses to get a true understanding of who they are, what their visions are, and what obstacles their company struggles with.

This enables us to make informed decisions that develop authentic brands that connect with the desired audiences because they are relatable. The brands we create transform those businesses and demand rough disruptive, yet appropriate branding that best represents the company or product it stands for.

Percept is a branding agency renowned for brave ideas and bold design.

Life and business are full of ups and downs. Enjoy the good times, and try not to stress too much when things aren’t the best.

Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?

I’ve got to be honest, this past year was hard. We actually went slightly backward financially with our revenue slipping 9%, but we made progress culturally, so let’s say that’s a break-even result?

Our plans for the year were to consolidate the successes of 2022, continue to deliver top-class strategic branding outcomes for our clients, and see their businesses prosper as a result. As a soft target, this was achieved.

We also had intended to grow the Percept team of brand designers by 20% in the first 6 months of 2023. However, this did not happen. We remain the same size we were this time last year and have since pushed that goal out to the end of 2024.

We were excited about working on new projects and with new clients as our design agency grows. This goal was achieved in the quality of work we have produced and you can see the new work we produced during 2023 in our LinkedIn posts.

Another goal for us was that over the next 5 years, Percept aims to be considered among Australia's top 10 branding agencies. We intend to push boundaries with our strategic branding work and help our client's business performance in the process. We feel that we are still on track for this target, so will keep pushing to raise the bar on our standard of work to earn this reputation.

The final target this time last year for Percept’s vision over the next 5 years is to balance our growth to a $2M yearly turnover with better working conditions for our team so they can enjoy quality and fulfillment in their work/life balance.

Part of this plan includes the promotion of an inclusive and positive studio culture that gets the best out of everyone because they enjoy working at Percept Brand Design. This is the goal that we have found most challenging!

The easy part was improving the culture and giving our team more freedom and flexibility in the work-life balance such as WFH etc. We feel that the team has been afforded these better working conditions and they are much happier for it, which is great! We also feel that the team is producing better work than before so that also is a win for the criteria we are aiming for.

So what’s the problem? We haven’t grown our revenue this year we’ve gone slightly backward, which is frustrating because all our costs have increased too.

However, we have not lost faith in the vision and believe that nailing this goal in the long term will be the key to our business success.

We just need to work out exactly what the contributing factors are that will allow us to ramp up our income while still keeping all the good working conditions that are for the greater good of our people.

We’re conscious that there are still 4 years left on the 5-year plan, so we’ll keep at it. It is important in business to not react too much sometimes when things don’t pan out the way you planned. Commitment and patience go a long way toward achieving your desired outcomes, so stick with what you believe in!

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Keep working towards better and you can guarantee you will be going in the right direction.

What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?

Certainly, our biggest challenge has been financial pressure due to the changes that we have made not paying off immediately. Although cash flow is tight right now, we’re confident in the direction we’re headed and have full faith that we’ll be winning the end-game.

To explain this simply, there are 2 areas which we need to tighten up:

1) Maximizing efficiency and productivity for our team when WFH. They are fully trusted to do the right thing, but we need to work on our processes and platforms used to allow our workflow to run as smoothly as it would when everyone is in one office when they are dispersed across different locations and working hours.

2) Fine-tune our new business development assets to yield a better conversion rate. We have made some improvements to our communications during the sales pipeline and updated critical sections of our proposal documentation a few months ago, and this seems to be getting the results we’re looking for.

Life and business are full of ups and downs. Enjoy the good times, and try not to stress too much when things aren’t the best.

We’ll spend the next 12 months assessing where we can tighten up our processes. Little tweaks can make a big difference to efficiency and productivity if your team is on board with the direction set by the management. We are lucky in that respect as our people are great.

Again, we’re only 20% through a 5-year plan. If you look at it like sport, there’s plenty more time on the clock to turn things around and get a winning result!

What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?

Try to improve continually. It’s never set and forget. There’s always a way to do things slightly better.

That being said if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Keep working towards better and you can guarantee you will be going in the right direction.

It might not happen immediately, so you need to temper your expectations. Be realistic, and be patient. Stay committed. Stay positive.

What’s in the plans for the upcoming year, and the next 5 years?

Basically our plan this year is to give ourselves an extension to keep focused on what we were trying to achieve last year.

Our 5 year plan is now a 4 year plan and we’ll keep cracking on.

What’s the best thing you read in the last year?

I don’t read books, so I’ll have to say that the best thing I consume is entertainment in the form of TV, movies, sports or just socializing with friends. From comedy to deep and meaningful conversations, I believe we are always growing as individuals and that the lessons we learn in life are applied to our approach to business. At least, that’s the case for me!

Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?

Be brave, trust your instincts. It doesn’t have to be by the book. If you believe in it, commit yourself. Think through the process required to make it happen and rip in 100%!