The Staufenberger Repository

Wacky update

Yes, it really is their name. It's The Wacky Barber.

But, questionable though it is, the name isn't everything. There are plenty of other things that have a greater bearing on your success.

And the Wacky crew have a few things going for them. They're clearly perky and energetic. They opened with two weeks of free haircuts. They give a free beer or coffee while you wait (not unusual in swankier "salons" but a nice bonus in a barber). And they do their own outdoor advertising (flyers bluetacked around Smithfield).

And this isn't their first branch so they must be doing something right.

Here's to breaking rules.

No business like show business

Staufenberger hangers-on Shuffle have just released their new single,
Listen Love.

It's brilliant. They should be huge. Go buy it.

You don't have to be mad to work here...

Some premises round the corner from Studio Staufenberger are being refurbished for a new venture. This poster is stuck in the window:

Now, we're not usually ones to criticise. But sometimes even we struggle to accentuate the positive. Perhaps we're missing something but...Wacky?

Not that there's nothing wrong with using a descriptive approach to naming a brand. It tends to work best at the budget end of things: Kwiksave, Easyjet, Prontaprint and so on. But this falls foul of the stimulus/response  aspect of successful communication that Steven King and others set out long ago. If you want people to think you're krrrrrrrazy, telling them that you are is probably not the best way of prompting that response.

Let's hope this isn't really the name of their shop/service/brand and just a bit of bad communication prior to launch.

We'll keep you posted.

Springfield Treats

We're currently enjoying the The Simpsons Movie site, especially the create your own Simpsons avatar section.

The Simpsons Movie are also collaborating with Vans, who in turn have brought in various artists to redraw the Simpons characters. These type of sneaker collaborations are becoming a bit old hat but we do like this creation from one of those artists, Mr Cartoon - El Homer de Springfield Gang.

via honeyee.com   

Judge a man by his sneakers

We love sneakers here at Staufenberger, they also say a lot about a man. In fact I only got a job in advertising because I thought I could wear them everyday for work. Then the shock of my first client meeting when I was instructed to go 'suited and booted'. That was years ago, since then everyone seems to have come round to my way of thinking, even the finance guy seems to wear jeans and sneakers to work (well on Friday's anyway).

So now they're work wear we need to keep them clean and for that we have Jason Markk's Premium Sneaker Solution. Beautifully packaged

and safe to use on practically every material.

There's also a helpful 'how to' video.

Now there's no excuse for not having box-fresh sneakers for that all important pitch or meeting with your accountant.

via Hype Beast

Who is John Staufenberger?

We're called Staufenberger, Smith & Butte. But as none of us are called Staufenberger, Smith or Butte people are naturally curious about why we would give our outfit such a name. Here's why.

When you decide to set up a business, the most pressing issue is not the important stuff like backing, premises or clients. It's the name, isn't it? Well, we didn't want to do the groovy, one-word thing. It's already been done really well by loads of other people. We could've put our names over the door, but neither of us are famous enough to get any benefit from naming it after ourselves. So we made up three fictitious partners. Simple.

To help us in our search for the perfect three names we turned to the Kleimo Random Name Generator. It takes names from the US census and spits out names based on the relative obscurity - or otherwise - of every name in America.

At an obscurity rating of about 75, Staufenberger came out as our favourite. We liked Butte because, well, you know, it makes us laugh. And Smith made sense as a foil for the other two.

So there you have it: Staufenberger, Smith & Butte.

We like it because it sounds as if we've been going for decades, like an established New York legal practice. And it probably won't scare any procurement people.

And without realising it, we gave ourselves a name that makes us easy to find on google. Not so easy if you call yourself bingo. Or Amp, say.

And last week a client of ours told us he gave us his business on the strength of that story. Not bad for a bunch of gonzo planners, eh?

Interactive directions on Zooomr and Flickr

Back last summer we posted a photo tour of a trip across London. It used Zooomr's portal function that enables you to embed one photo in another. 

As suggested at the time, it was interesting but, you know, a bit pointless. And it was not immediately obvious what the portals themselves would be good for. Well, we've just stumbled upon a use for them: interactive directions to our new office.

Tucked away in the backstreets of an old part of London, the all new Studio Staufenberger can be a little hard to locate. Solution? A visual guide.

Most of us find our way better if we can picture where we are and use landmarks, however mundane, to place ourselves on our route. So we've snapped a few shots that guide you from the tube - via the traffic lights, the pub, the alley - to the office and stitched them together using Zooomr's portals.

If you saw the previous portal post, you might remember that the functionality wasn't working in Internet Explorer. You would have thought they'd fixed it by now, wouldn't you? A new service with a wizzy new gizmo, it would make sense if it worked in the most popular browser, right? Wrong. I might be doing them a huge disservice, but it isn't working on Yusuf's Dell/IE7 set up.

So in the interest of opening our drinks promotion to as many as possible, we've done one in Flickr too.

Barbican Tube to Studio Staufenberger (Zooomr/Firefox etc)
Barbican Tube to Studio Staufenberger (Flickr/IE)

See you soon, perhaps.

Starting a business

Staufenberger Smith & Butte LLP is 1 year old. Well, it was a few weeks back but we didn't notice.

They say that if you can get throught the first two years you'll be OK. So by that measure, we're halfway there.

Not sure if it's any use, but we thought we'd share our top tips for starting a business, or getting through the first year. No doubt this list will have changed another 12 months from now.

1. It's not about us - no creds on a first date

Since we launched we've only presented credentials once and that was one too many. We quickly realised that it's not about us and what we've each done in the last 10 years. It's about the people we're talking to, their brands and how we can help. Our past work on brands such as PlayStation, BMW, Ocado, 118118 and others is what got us in the room in the first place, that first meeting is about future possibilities not past glories.

The relief is practically visible on their faces when we announce there's no powerpoint to sit through.

2. Don't be afraid to say no.

This one tends to polarise. Do you drop your pants, er costs, to get clients to try your services? Or stick to your guns, say no and risk losing the job?

In principle, we would always go the latter route. But, of course, the realities of setting up a business (without heavyweight backing or a big chunk of savings) sometimes mean that principles like this get ignored.

Thankfully, we haven't had many instances in which we've needed to do so. And we don't like to, because, you know, we're worth it. It costs what it costs. And sometimes that means that you have to say no.

3. Don't be afraid to give it away for free.

This is something we picked up from one of our heroes, self-proclaimed small business marketing guru, Chris Cardell. He's kind of evangelical about it, as a guru type is likely to be, but beneath the motivational hyperbole lies an obvious point: one of the best ways of convincing clients that you're worth it is to give free advice.

And so we see this as the corollary of the previous point (not reducing your rates) rather than a contradiction of it. At first, for an outfit that exists to give advice, it feels like commercial suicide. But in reality it's the consulting equivalent of the crack dealer giving away rocks to get kids hooked. And it seems to work.

4. Don't be afraid.

This is a bit of advice that we were given early on and it's served us well.

You need a bit of recklessness to set up a business in the first place. But the challenges don't stop once you get past the initial jump. Unless you're someone with the profile of Trevor Beattie, say, it's highly likely that you'll face some tough patches after you've got yourself up and running. And the advice we were given, when we were faced with these tough patches, was hold your nerve.

It might sound trite or a bit obvious, but you've just got to hang in there. It will get better. And if it doesn't, then you really are fucked. How can you tell when you should hang on and when you should cut and run? We haven't worked that out yet.

5. Never stop feeding the furnace (or somesuch metaphor).

The reason we had a tough patch was that we got busy earlier in the year and stopped chasing new business leads. Schoolboy error. The projects that had been keeping us busy came to an end in mid summer and we had nothing lined up for the usual late summer/early autumn seasonal lull. And it hurt. We won't be making the same mistake next year.

6. Talk to everyone

And by that we mean everyone. It doesn't matter if they're not obviously in a position to give you work. But you just never know who they might know or what they might hear about. And often you don't realise how they might help until they do.

7. Be nice to people

People like working with people they like and get on with. It's not rocket science. If you're self-important and arrogant, chances are you won't be asked back. So be nice.

So there you have it. There might be a few other points (like, don't forget your VAT returns, that sort of thing) but these have been the recurring themes Chez Staufenberger over the last year.

Anyone else have any others? We love to hear them.

Zooomr through The Portal

*** Update: this might not work in IE. Time to try out Mozilla's Firefox. ***

The Flickr-alike, Zooomr, has just released a new feature called Portals. It's a way to embed one photo within another. You can either scroll around the embedded picture in the window or click to zoom through to it.

I'm not sure if it's really that revolutionary (flickr enables you to add a link to another picture on a notes tag), but the video (on TechCrunch and the Zooomr blog) makes it look pretty exciting.

Anyway, we thought the best way to judge was to have a play. So here's a set of photos of a short journey  we took earlier today across central London.  If you click the picture above it'll take you through to Zooomr where you can follow our route. And I've added some notes pointing out a few planner/bloggers too. (Anyone who wants out, just let me know).

No doubt flickr will be there very soon, which makes you wonder whether things like Zooomr really have a enough distinctiveness to make it in the long run. Or rather, there is distinctiveness in the small things (the language versions, Portals, GeoTagging) but whether that adds up to enough distinctiveness is another matter.

Time will tell.