Why being a great designer isn’t enough Sep 7th '10

Introduction

When starting Centation, 3 years ago, I had 6 years of experience with websites but no real life knowledge or experience let alone any business experience. I suppose that’s what happens when you go to University and go straight into business! I had to quickly realise that being able to product great websites wasn’t enough. I had to have the knowledge and skills to be able to bring new work in and also to effectively support our customers. However this doesn’t just apply for the web industry.

If you own a business in any industry you will, at some point, need to get out of your comfort zone and do something that you aren’t used to doing. Being the best person with numbers as an accountant doesn’t mean much if you lack social skills and confidence to bring in the work to begin with. Networking was my skill which got me out of my comfort zone. It forced me to talk to other people about business and to try and dumb down what we did without sounding too technical but still conveying the benefits of using us. It also allowed me to understand customers on a business level rather than a technical level. I quickly realised that companies rarely care about what particular language a website is written in or what your choice of graphics package is, just as long as you provide what they want.

Skills I have learnt

The skills I had to learn whilst starting Centation are as follows. This isn’t an exhaustive list but is based on the skills I had to quickly learn.

• Basic accountancy
• Project management
• Negotiation skills
• Customer service
• Confidence
• Sales skills
• Marketing

As you can see there are many skills that I had to learn to ensure that the company survived its first year.

With this post, I am not saying that I am brilliant at all of these skills, I am merely stating the number of different skills that I have had to learn to ensure that the business survives its first year and continues to grow year on year.

I personally think that the defining factor between a hobby and a business is if you have, or are willing to learn, these other business skills. Until you do its just a hobby.

Written by Oliver Culverhouse

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