Haneke Design

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the vice-president of marketing for FrankCrum, which has multiple businesses across a family-owned enterprise. The main, flagship business is a professional employer organization. It’s a company that combines payroll with workers’ compensation insurance and human resource outsourcing services. We also have an insurance carrier for worker’s comp and general liability insurance for small business, named Frank Winston Crum Insurance Company. We also have Frank Crum Staffing.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What business challenge were you trying to address with Haneke Design?

I’ve been working with Haneke Design for almost a decade. I’ve been with FrankCrum for almost five years, and they are pretty much our agency of record. They also do almost all of our work in both user interface and user experience design for our technology platforms. In the four years I’ve been here, we’ve probably worked on hundreds of projects with Haneke Design.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

For us, they are our go-to branding agency, and they also do our UX and web design work. I believe their market positioning is probably heavier on the mobile app design and UI/UX area, as well as development work. We use them as a traditional branding and marketing firm and for technology design.

They created a complete branding guide for us. They do a lot of logo design, and they set brand standard. All our brochures are done by Haneke Design. They do everything from our letterhead, to all our collateral and all our websites. Essentially, our marketing department is almost completely outsourced. We have three staff people in marketing for the whole enterprise. We work with Haneke Design literally on a daily basis, and we outsource all our graphic design to them.

For the branding work, we were looking for everything but the name and the logo. The name and logo had been refreshed nine or ten years ago. The company went from being called Crum Services to being rebranded as FrankCrum. At that time, there was a different agency who created the logo. The very first website that was ever created for FrankCrum was designed as a hard-coded PHP site. When I came on board five years ago, and began working with Haneke Design, one of our first tasks was to create a dynamic, content managed website.

We created the first WordPress website the company had ever had, and now we have a modern website for all our company entities. So, we started with FrankCrum, then we created a website for Staffing, then we created one for the insurance carrier. That put us into the ticket to play scenario of being in the digital world from a marketing perspective. We’ve built the whole online digital marketing practice that we have today from scratch.

Haneke helped us coin what we call our brand pillars, which are integrity, affinity, and prosperity. We’ve captured that in a series of videos, for which the primary audience was our internal staff, to set the brand standard within the organization. Then we went to work on everything that foundation enables us to do, as far as extending our brand and culture to the outside world, mostly digitally. So, it really started with establishing what our brand stands for, what the Crum family believes, the company value system, how we formalize that, communicate and brand it, and then how we extend it in our external marketing.

How did you come to work with Haneke Design?

I’ve worked with Haneke in three different professional stages. I met Jody Haneke, the owner, when I was managing marketing for a software company called GEAC. I put a bid out for an agency at that time to help us with a new product launch, and I ended up choosing Haneke Design. That was my first introduction. I think they were a two-person design shop at the time, one of whom was Jody himself. We expanded, they expanded, and I think they now have 20 or 30 employees. .

I ended up making a couple career changes along the way, but I’ve always brought Haneke anywhere I’ve gone. They do outstanding work and they keep up with current practices and technologies. They definitely have a partnership mentality. They’re strategists. They’re not just looking for work; they’re looking for ways to partner and really create value in the business world. They’ve always been my agency of choice.

How much have you invested with Haneke Design?

We invest about $10,000 a month on a time and material basis with general outsourced graphic design, so that’s $120,000 a year. Then we have a lot of fixed bid projects like  UI/UX work . In a given year, we might do a fixed bid project once a quarter, and those might run $30,000, so another $120,000 a year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We’ve been working together since I joined FrankCrum in December of 2012, and our relationship is vibrant and ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

I think there are two ways of looking at that. From just a pure play marketing perspective, the move from static to dynamic content was a game changer.  If I had to look at Haneke’s impact from a data perspective, I would point to  metrics like website visits and digital engagement factors. For FrankCrum, the engagement factors would be up to 500%, because we previously weren’t in the digital world. Haneke Design helped us get on the map digitally.

When I think of other projects, like some of the technology platforms they’ve helped us design, there is probably some data there that could be interesting. For example, one of the technology projects that Haneke did was to create a tool we call ‘Quote and Connect’. It’s a quoting platform used by our internal sales people and also outside brokers to drive business to FrankCrum. Previous to that, the process was relatively manual. Now we enjoy significantly less time to market. From the time a request for proposal comes in to the time an actual proposal and pricing goes out is now a day rather than a week. The volume of quotes coming through our business has grown by perhaps 3 times, and that’s just one project. There’s just a lot of technology-enabled projects that Haneke has spearheaded which have helped us to improve efficiency and drive more volume of business and engagement, both for marketing and sales.

How did Haneke Design perform from a project management standpoint?

I’ve never seen anyone perform better in project management, period. These guys fly super-high and super-low. By that, I mean they’re strategists and do’ers. They can come in and just listen, and they can create opportunities and ideas, and those often boil down into defined tasks.  Their ability to manage a project is hinged on the fact that they’re very focused on process. They don’t just go into a project winging it. They have a very refined process that they continue to refine over time.  So, project work, and the project management associated with them, is second to none. I’ve never worked with anyone who does it better than Haneke Design.

They use Basecamp to collaborate. Everything goes on a schedule, and that work gets scheduled with the person who’s going to do the work. It’s easy, efficient, and reliable. It’s rare that an hour would go by without a response to a Basecamp post. It’s fluid all day long, every day.

What did you find most impressive about Haneke Design?

The most impressive thing about them is the combination of people and talent that they bring to bear in everything they do. I don’t know how they recruit and hire their team, but they’re all high-caliber people and professionals. There isn’t any eccentricity that causes bumps along the way. There are no real barriers. When you bring Haneke Design in, everyone who comes to the table is a professional. That doesn’t mean they’re in suits and ties, nor are they “trying to be too hip” ; they’re real people who are good people, and they have the right intentions and talents.

Their culture is definitely one of excellence, and they bring that every time they come. They bring it with the small stuff and the big stuff. I think they have the confidence of knowing they have a ton of experience, processes they rely on, and ownership within their teams. They have that specialization enough to know who’s going to do what, and the project management to get it all scheduled and done. They take some of the hardest things and make them look so darn easy.

Are there any areas Haneke Design could improve?

I really don’t have a lot. At first I was challenged with copywriting and Haneke did not have a solution.  When you’re outsourcing marketing, it’s hard to find people who know enough about your business to write about it intelligently. I started by doing the most of the writing myself, but I recently hired a brand journalist. I realize in hindsight that having the copywriting in-house is the ideal solution.

It’s not to say we’ve never had bumps with Haneke. When we do have problems, we just iron them out. I can’t even remember a problem over the past three years. It’s very smooth, and I really have no criticisms. I would even add that we spend a significant amount with Haneke, but when you consider the depth and breadth of the work they’re doing for us, their pricing is extremely reasonable.

Do you have any advice or recommendations for a potential client?

My advice would be to allow Haneke to participate in the strategy. The details of the project can easily evolve from there. The best work we’ve done with Haneke is when we bring them in early, talk about what we’re trying to solve and innovate together.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the marketing director of Profile Racing, a bicycle parts manufacturing company. We make competition bicycle componentry for BMX (Bicycle Moto Cross) and MTB (Mountain Bikes). BMX products are our mainstay. Our manufacturing is high-end with products made of Chromemoly (Steel), Alloys (Aluminum) and Titanium. Our distribution company also handles some apparel, promotional items and other bicycle brands not in direct competition with us. Profile Racing also manufactures bicycle components under another brand name,  Madera BMX. This was launched 10 years ago to compete against Asian bicycle components whose price points were lower than Profile.other brands. We carry some of our friends’ brands such as ODI and Grip. They’re not in competition with us, but they allow us to sell their products. We have a second off brand, Madera BMX, that’s competing against Asian pricing so we distribute that ourselves for a better margin. We also have sales items. I manage our social media and advertising department.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Haneke Design?

We wanted to promote our business through our website to people who would be potential customers and existing customers. Aside from showing our products, we also wanted to explain how they were used in order to educate our end-users. Prior to Haneke Design's web design, the website was not responsive. That was the reason for our initial contact with Haneke. We also wanted the new site to be a support vehicle for the people who sell our products. We wanted to provide information about our products so bicycle shops could use our site as an online catalog. Our old website would not allow our web presence to be responsive to mobile devices. The challenge faced was taking our products and information about our products and place them in an easy to navigate, state-of-industry, responsive web-design.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We explained to Haneke what we wanted, and they built a new website from from the ground up. In the beginning, we told them we wanted to have a responsive website where people could see our site on their mobile devices (mainly smart phones). They took a look at our present website and started to observe our business, our business mechanics, looking at how we did things, what we did, and why we did them. They learned our entire business in order to represent us in a website. We had a lot of meetings. One of the issues was that we wanted to be able to add, delete and manage the website ourselves. They then discussed using WordPress to build the site so that we could make those changes as needed.

They redesigned the , e-store for us as well, and it is now used by distributors, bike shops, and end customers to see our products. It is truly an online catalog now. We’re also getting ready to launch a wholesale sectiont on the website that will allow bicycle shops outside our Eastern time zone to order online, with the assurance that the product will be shipped the very next morning.

Haneke representatives learned our business, trained our key personnel how to use WordPerfect and continue to maintain our website for updates and any other projects we throw their way for additional functionality.

How did you come to work with Haneke Design?

We were interviewing a bicycle rider that was interested in doing graphic design for us.  I asked him about web design, but he didn’t do that kind of work so he referred me to Jody Haneke [CEO and Founder, Haneke Design]. He spoke of Mr. Haneke and Haneke Design in glowing terms. When I contacted Haneke Design, they sent out a representative and the rest is history. They were able to show us other sites they had done but above all, asked us what we wanted. When the contract was signed, I think it was nine or ten months later that we launched.

How much have you invested with Haneke Design?

We spent in the mid-five figures, and they came in within budget. They knew we were a small business and couldn’t put a lot of money on the site, so they created a business plan and if I'm correct are using that plan as a model for other small business projects. They tried something they haven’t done before, utilizing a down payment with monthly installments. That made a substantial price (for us) palatable and easy for us to get into. We also pay them a monthly maintenance and hosting fee.

What is the status of this engagement?

It is my opinion that Haneke Design and their personnel have become partners or associates with us. We started working with them in January 2015, and the site was launched in October 2015 and we continue to be in communication with them via telephone and email.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The owner of our company said he wanted the best website in our industry, and I think they’ve delivered that. The e-store has doubled in sales volume and has doubled in revenue. They gave us a unique design, and end users are finding it easy to navigate. We kept some of the features from the old site, including the hero slide graphics on the homepage, except Haneke made it better by making it more colorful. There are icons for the different things we do for easier navigation.

We thought that the news page they designed was phenomenal. The features for a news show on the homepage in a quilt-like patchwork of information. It's unlike any other bicycle manufacturers' site. The way they did it, we can add new news items ourselves and the design keeps this puzzle page format without having to move items around. I don’t think there’s anybody out there doing something like this. While it’s static, it changes because we add new feature items just about every day. We get people to keep coming back to the site because there's always something new. A static homepage is death to a website. If you want to go deeper into the news items on the homepage, you can load more and see more items in detail. The whole website can be navigated from the home page. There are team pages as well as information about us and the store. Our support page has measurements, weights, warranty, and contact information. If you go all the way to the bottom of the home page, you can link to our social media pages.

Haneke Design also provided guidance and instruction for our key website personnel. For example, I’m going to be doing a distributor page myself on the site, and I don’t know how to do columns. But I can call our rep, Nathan Hyland and ask him to ask one of the techs for a road-map on how to make columns on a page. I’ll have an answer from them tomorrow, and that is invaluable to me.

How did Haneke Design perform from a project management standpoint?

In the beginning, I was dealing with Nathan [Product Solutions Manager, Haneke Design]. We were in contact every day through email. When the project got more complicated, we communicated through phone calls. We also used Basecamp, and they were constantly updating us on their progress. If there was a change in time structure, they let us know. If there was an issue, they would consult with us and give us options to choose from. We had a lot of input on the site, and it shows. The website is the essence of what our company is about.

What did you find most impressive about Haneke Design?

We weren’t expecting the project to be delivered as fast as it was. Their knowledge was indispensable in putting together a quality website with a high-end store. Believe it or not, one of our bicycle hubs can have 6,842 variations on it, and we had to be able to handle those with the customer, so their design on the store was phenomenal.

Are there any areas Haneke Design could improve?

The first sales person, who is no longer with the company, came in and gave us an indication of what to expect and how much it would cost. But when our designer, Haneke’s designer, and Nathan sat down and talked about the site, they came up with a price that was more than the sales person told us, and we didn’t think we could afford it. The problem was they couldn’t just change our existing site to be responsive. They came up with the business plan to help us with the payments and we were able to sign on.

What tips or recommendations could you share that might increase the likelihood of success with Haneke Design?

I would say to make sure that you know your business in order to educate them. They need to know almost as much about your business as you do. When you don’t have the expertise to build the site yourself, you need to make sure the people you hire to build it for you can translate what you’re telling them into graphic design and an intellectual property you’ll be proud of. Otherwise, it’s just a website.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the CTO of A-LIGN

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

A-LIGN is a technology-enabled security and compliance partner trusted by more than 2,500 global organizations to mitigate cybersecurity risks.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Haneke Design to accomplish?

• Design enhancements to our world-class cybersecurity attestation platform

SOLUTION

How did you find Haneke Design?

Referral

Why did you select Haneke Design over others?

High ratings, Good value for cost, Referred to me

What was the size of Haneke Design’s team?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Design enhancements to A-SCEND, A-LIGN's world class cybersecurity solution. Key deliverables include standard design artifacts and project management.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

• Design artifacts were delivered on time and on budget

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Yes, as noted earlier inthis review.

What was your primary form of communication with Haneke Design?

Virtual Meeting

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

They were clear communicators with great subject matter expertise who delivered what we needed on time and on budget

Are there any areas for improvement or something Haneke Design could have done differently?

no