Like all growing businesses, improvement and efficiency is absolutely necessary for a company to succeed into the future. And it is especially important with today’s economic trends.

As part of a growing web development business, I have recently been bombarded with advice, recommendations and solutions to help improve my processes and interactions with clients when it comes to designing websites. This may seem like I’ve done things all wrong before, but it’s not true (I promise). In order to grow we must learn, which is what I’ve been doing in abundance.

Coincidentally, I came across an interesting but perfect resource, a book called “A Fortune to Share” by Vash Young. Published in 1931, “A Fortune to Share” recounts the mental and emotional trials of a young insurance salesman trying to make a living during the disastrous Great Depression and the grand fortune he came to inherit. This wealth that he unexpectedly comes into is not money or gold or jewels, but a treasure that multiplies the more you divide it and give it away. It is optimism, courage, dominion over business worries, patience, generosity, sincerity and most of all, honesty.

Even though this book was published two generations before my own, Mr. Young’s ideas still ring true. By focusing on the negative, you will receive only the negative. It will get you nowhere, it won’t make you rich, it won’t make you successful in business. Instead, think of change and evaluation as an opportunity to improve and grow. I’ve always found it exciting, refreshing, energizing to continuously learn and try to make things better and flow smoothly.

I have never been nor ever intend to be a pessimist, but I decided to take his words to heart and have been actively applying them to my designing process and methodology. My first thoughts now when I learn that we have a new client wanting a website is: “I will make the most spectacular website ever! They will be blown away by my skills and will brag about their new site for years to come!” and I let loose an internal roar of challenge and victory soon to be had. I then read through everything that the client wants, research the old site for reference and any other sites that they like, brainstorm the best ways to portray their needs and voila! The first design template is sent off for approval. Step one is complete.

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