Who we are

Studio 55 has been doing business for a lot of years… 25 to be precise … and people often ask us what the secret of our success is.

The answer is simple. Before I started Studio 55 I spent 5 years working for other companies and without a doubt I owe my success to them.

Why? Because they inadvertently taught me what not to do.

In fact, working for these companies was the reason I started Studio 55 in the first place. It was obvious that there was a need for a company that managed to work effectively with clients without… pissing them off.

It worked. 25 years later Studio 55 is thriving. We’ve carved out our niche, and we own it.

I never took the customer for granted, not even in my early part-time retail jobs. So it was a big surprise when I first started working full-time to find that many people quite happily take the customer or client for granted and they have no real understanding of what happens as a result.

It may have been due to ego, or lack of awareness. But regardless, the end result was the same… the actions of these people resulted in a pissed off client, and a pissed off client is a client lost. And a pissed off lost client is a client who will share their crappy experience with potential clients.

This irritated me so much that I ended up starting Studio 55 with one clear intent… to do the job so well, every job so well, that the client would end up telling everyone else about their positive experience.

So, during these first 5 years I learned that are 6 factors that go into ensuring that a client has a good experience working with a studio.

I figured out that the key to my success would be to consistently deliver on these 6 things. These key principles formed the foundation on which Studio 55 is built and continue to govern everything we do to this day.

So, what are these 6 things? What did I observe that pissed clients off. What is it that now we do it differently?

Number one… meet the f**king brief.

What a client needs from us can vary from a ‘do it exactly like this’ production job to ‘be highly creative’ or ‘help us work out what we should do to market this project’.

There is a whole spectrum of different things that clients need their agency to provide and I learned early on the importance of correctly understanding what that was and delivering it. Yet time and time again I worked at places where I saw people do whatever they wanted, not what the client wanted. If a client wanted something a certain way for a reason not giving them that is only going to create stress for the client and THAT was never good.

Number two… fast turnarounds.

When I worked in other companies I saw this time and time again. Missed deadlines, taking too long, making excuses. Whining to clients, complaining about their timeframes… Those things are some of the best ways ensure that a client never comes back.

We are not like that.

Being responsive is key. We are set up to handle the tightest client requests, no matter what the deadline, without notice. Call us with the impossible and you will receive a ‘sure, no problem’ response. We have the networks, the capacity and the experience to achieve the impossible. Why? Because that is what the market demands.

Number three is all about flexibility.

If a company is too rigid or set in its ways it is difficult to work with them. And it makes a client’s life harder if they have to fit in with us or jump through our hoops and I am never going to be the person who makes our clients’ lives harder. It’s obnoxious and it pisses people off.

This is where Studio 55 is very different. We deliberately strike that operational balance whereby we have enough structure to function but we’re flexible enough to basically adjust to whatever it is that a client needs.

We go to where you are. That’s where we meet you.

Bruce Lee, he says it best in his philosophy, “Be like water”. “Water is able to adapt to whatever is needed” he says. “When you pour water into a cup, it becomes the cup. When you pour water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle. Water can drip and it can crash”. The point is that water is incredibly adaptable but it is still retains its own integrity. It is still water. I think this is the best analogy when it comes to how we work with our clients.

Number four is called ‘its not about the money’…

We have a mantra… Don’t show me the money, let me show you the value.

We care about value. We care about what we can give, not what we can get.

We are not going to charge for every second, we are not going to entice you with free work only to then lock you in and rip you off.

We are not going to quote stupidly high prices simply because of ego or arrogance. Instead, we aim to be affordable and flexible.

We are always approachable when it comes to discussing budgets. We approach the subject of fees with the view to compromise and genuine win/win.

And once that is done what do we always do? MORE than we are f**king paid for, that’s what.

Number five is about being a solid performer. It is about accuracy in production. It is about being reliable and dependable. Operating with integrity.

When a client calls they don’t want excuses. And they don’t want to have a different experience on every time they work with us. They sure as hell do not want errors in their work. It’s sloppy and it wastes their time and makes the designers look like idiots.

The ‘that’ll do’ attitude or ‘Near enough is good enough’ will only force to the clients into finding another company, one who will actually listen, who will follow instruction, who will double check their work, oh and who can spell.

And lastly, number 6 is to provide a high level of client service.

In 1995 when Studio 55 got its first job, I had one goal, one strategy, and that was to do that job well enough that, that client would end up using us again.

That meant being responsive, providing accuracy in production, meeting the brief, providing fast turnarounds, providing value for money, and being flexible in the way we worked and being aware of the clients situation and requirements.

And it also means don’t be a wanker right?

Clients react well to us because we are friendly. Because we care. Because we can be trusted. We give a shit. We want the best for them and we do not talk down to them, we don’t intimidate our clients. We are not obnoxious. We believe our clients are to be prized. They are not treated as an irritation because they’re not, and we bend over backwards to look after them. We value them.

Gary Vaynerchuk says it best… “The best marketing strategy is to care”.

So, there it is. That’s our 6 reasons why.

This stuff it really matters. No one really asks for it. But when it is not there they really notice it and things just go to hell. It is not slick PR spin but it makes all the difference because at the end of the day we want our clients to walk away saying “wow Studio 55 are really great”, not “we’re never using them again, they are a pack of c***s!”