Company:
Design Crew Mktg Solutions
Cincinnati, Ohio

Business:
Full service marketing

Staff:
15 full-time + 2 cats

System:
Clients & Profits Classic
Macintosh
AppleShare

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'm a very process-oriented person,"explained Greg Eckel, president of Design Crew Marketing Solutions. "I don't manage people, I manage processes. And when you find a process that works,you teach it so everybody is doing things the same way until it can be improved upon. When I saw Clients & Profits, I knew it would help me manage the process of running this company." That was three years ago when the company was only 6 employees.

A solo designer

Greg founded Design Crew, Inc. in 1992 as a resource for small companies who couldn't afford big agency prices,but still needed agency quality service. As a solo designer, Greg focused on project work: small jobs like a single brochure,logo, or one-time collateral piece.

He managed the business-end of his shop with a mishmash of software: Quark for invoices, MYOB for accounting, and Timeslips for time sheets. "It was really disjointed and time intensive to keep things running," he said. "I would have to select text and change it, then the tabs would get all messed up. It was very frustrating and time consuming."

"I began searching for a comprehensive package that would make my life easier," Greg said. He looked at Adman, but wasn't impressed with what they have to offer. After seeing an ad for Clients & Profits in Communication Arts, his creative director, James Brown, suggested taking a look.

Greg thoroughly evaluated Clients & Profits Classic.

He read several success stories, called some current C&P users for referrals, and gave the demo a trial run. "When I saw Clients & Profits, I saw the worth of the software, and knew I could make it work for us. I could envision the end and how easy it would be to use Clients & Profits. I've grown to love it more as time has gone by."

Selling the sizzle

In 1998, Design Crew shifted focus from project work to marketing solutions and renamed the agency Design Crew Marketing Solutions. Its new tag line: "Marketing Solutions for Growing Companies." Now,Design Crew works with its clients to create and track comprehensive marketing plans. "Clients &Profits is used as a selling tool for our firm," Greg says. "It gives us an advantage because it keeps us on strategy. It allows us to stay as organized as possible, which has made my business a lot easier to manage."

With Clients & Profits, the agency has been able to homogenize their processes so they can do what they do in the best way possible. "Now we sell the service, not just the creative work." Design Crew uses Clients & Profits to standardize their firm's activities, set job milestones, and simplify the communication between clients and the staff members.

The agency uses templates to open new jobs, which saves the time it takes to rekey similar data for every job. Estimating is my favorite function," Greg said, "because it is so easy to do."

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