It was twenty-three years ago today that I established the Murray Creative brand, setting the stage for more than two decades of creative offerings across a wide variety of disciplines.
My decision to launch the brand was motivated by the sudden and involuntary departure from the agency I cofounded with two former colleagues in 1996. The details of this inglorious exit are the makings of an entire story on their own and one, perhaps, which I will eventually relate.
Suffice to say, if you ever plan to go into business with a colleague, acquaintance or friend, get everything in writing! Allow me to emphasis. When I say this, I mean, Get. Every. Thing. In. Writing. And, if your colleague/acquaintance/friend balks at the idea, definitely, get everything in writing.
Now, having cleared up the Why, let us explore the How.
Having departed my former agency in June of 2001, I endeavoured to put together a brand and marketing kit to start promoting my services. The first brand I developed incorporated an illustration of me that was created by a former colleague, Mike Zavacky. I felt that it effectively captured my essence as a serious and intense designer and art director.
With marketing materials in hand, I made the rounds among Ottawa’s marketing and design agencies. My strategy was to approach agencies first as this was my safest entry into a new sole proprietorship.
The first success I enjoyed was a potential relationship with an agency that another colleague had just co-founded.
We had a very productive meeting one morning after discussing a possible business relationship. We were just concluding our business when we noticed that their employees seemed suddenly agitated and started moving toward the door. It seems, someone had heard that a plane had collided with the World Exchange Building downtown and everyone was running outside to catch site of the event.
It was at that point that my former colleague, having pulled up local news on his computer, made the discover that it was not the World Exchange Building in downtown Ottawa — it was the World Trade Center in Manhattan. It was the morning of September 11.
In the ensuing chaos of those days, the contract was never finalized and I moved on, eventually securing enough of my own clients to make a fresh start.
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