Paul Boal’s Talk: What I Learnt

Published: May 15, 2024

We had a big deadline at Blick earlier this month, so I am a bit late with this write up of the key things I learnt from our April Blick Academy event with Paul Boal founder of Clever Ghost. Clever Ghost is a branding and design studio which Paul founded in 2018. Paul has done a fantastic job growing his business during a very tough period over the pandemic and in the current economic climate. Paul shared many lessons in his talk, but here are some of the bits I think are most important.

1. Hard work and dedication pays off
An obvious, but important lesson! Paul shared in his talk that he graduated during the recession and at that time you needed 3-5 years experience to get a job! At one stage he had 4 different jobs including working security at night and as a cleaner to make ends meet and he went back to study at Belfast Met to upskill to get the skills he needed to get a job. Paul was a resident at Blick for several years, before outgrowing our space, so I have seen first hand the consistent hard work and commitment he put into his business. Paul was at Blick working on his business consistently every day, which really shows in his success.

2.Make sure people know your name and face
Network, network, network! Get out there and meet people. Paul talked about how he had the realisation that he didn’t know anyone in the design industry so he started networking. Making the effort to go to everywhere and anywhere, including places he felt out of place to meet people and be known and active.

3. Connecting with people leads to chance encounters, which leads to work!
Paul shared how his efforts to network and make connections within the industry, led to chance encounters that led to work. Over time he ended up with more and more people approaching him and asking him if he was available for freelance work and he decided it was time to go for it!

4. You never know what’s going to happen at some stage you just have to take the leap and go for it!
As Paul mentioned during his talk, people started approaching him and asking him about work and without any guarantees, or knowing what would happen he just had to take a chance and follow his dreams and go for it!

5. Find people who know more than you, spend time with them and learn from them
Paul realised during the early stages of working as a freelancer that he didn’t actually know how people got their clients. He figured out he had to use his connections, ask questions and find out. His advice is to ask all the questions to learn and grow.

6. Being creative is a privilege, enjoy it and use it to make the world a better place!
Paul spoke of the power creatives and designers have to change the world and the importance of using their skills outside work to do meaningful work and do good. Paul is also interested in trying to influence positive change within the industry, including addressing working hours and conditions and staff treatment. His plan for Clever Ghost is to become B Corp certified to create a positive impact. Certified B Corporations are leaders in the global movement for an inclusive, equitable, and regenerative economy. Unlike other certifications for businesses, B Lab is unique in our ability to measure a company’s entire social and environmental impact.

7. Take personal responsibility for the skills that you need to develop to achieve success.
Paul spoke of how as well as building his networking and communication skills he has gone back to study several times to build the skills he felt he needed to be successful.

8. Listen to and learn from your clients.
Working with clients who are real life people with different needs and budgets is invaluable. You can only learn so much from education, it’s through working in the industry that you learn the most important lessons.

9. Reply to and follow up emails.
This sounds a simple one, but is so important when working for yourself. Reply and follow up all emails, even if you don’t want the work. Your reputation and reliability are crucial to your success and Northern Ireland is a small place, so it’s important to always be professional.

10. Take every opportunity that comes your way, especially in the early days!
Paul spoke of how important it is to take all work opportunities in the early days. In an ideal world you would cherry pick the kind of work you would like to do, but sometimes you have to accept reality and take on the more bread and butter roles, but also remember to be open to what they might lead to or where ideas will come from!

11. Remember your role as a service provider
As a self-employed creative or creative business owner, it’s important to remember that what you are being paid for is to provide a service. You have to remember the needs of your clients and that there are lots of different messages that need to be told and bills that need to be paid.

12. Offering a good service and being a good person, being reliable, open, transparent and honest is more important than your portfolio and creative work
Paul spoke of the importance of being respectful, offering a good service and treating others well, both clients and others working in the industry. 90% of his work is from referrals! Northern Ireland is a small place and people will remember how you treated them and the service you offered. Be honest about deadlines and processes. Under promise and over deliver, be kind, share ideas, congratulate others and have contracts in place where possible for clarity and to protect everyone involved.

13. When making the transition from being a freelancer to running a company, be clear on your values.
Paul spoke of the importance of knowing and communicating your company values when making the transition from being a freelancer to running a company. As they will shine through and attract the right kind of clients. We have an exercise on the resources section of our website to help you to work out your personal and business values .

14. It’s important to have an understanding of all the roles in your company even if you’re outsourcing them!
Understanding each of the different roles involved in your company helps you to manage your company more efficiently and have better relationships with your team. You will understand the time things take, the processes required and skills and resources needed.

15. Hiring staff changes everything.
Paul spoke of how hiring his first staff member brought about the realistion that he now had to prioritise their needs and think about the needs of the company as a whole, not just his own needs and ambitions.

16. There will always be hard times and work is just work!
Probably the most important lesson from Paul’s talk, but also in many ways the hardest! Paul spoke of the fear he felt during the covid pandemic when all of a sudden he lost all his work. He felt like he had only just got up and running and went from being the busiest he had ever been to feeling like overnight he lost everything. He spoke of the impact the stress had on him physically and how it also taught him an important lesson about how little control we have and to keep boundaries around work and remember we work to live, and it’s important to to keep it that way which can be hard when starting a creative business as it can be all consuming and does require a certain amount of dedication and commitment if you want it to be successful.

Many thanks to Paul for sharing his real-life experiences and wisdom gained during his creative journey!

Our next Blick Academy event is on Wednesday 5th June at 7pm, with Yeo Magazine founder, designer and all round creative Saul Duffin sharing his creative story!

You can book your tickets here: https://blickstudios.org/events/blick-academy-creative-talk-june/

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