Entrepreneurs Share Advice on Creative Business Spaces
(Crystal A. Proxmire, Feb. 27, 2024)
Hazel Park, MI – There is a line of advice that I am literally ignoring, just one last time, so I can get this thought down.
It came about as the answer to a question from a small business owner in the audience of a panel discussion about incorporating creativity into the design of a business space.
The panel was hosted by Oakland Thrive and the Madison Heights Hazel Park Chamber of Commerce, and it featured a trio of creative entrepreneurs.
Jon Moses is the Creative Director of Ideation Orange, a firm that specializes in signage as well as interior design. The event took place in their Hazel Park studio/event space. Dwane Adle is an architect whose work includes City Center in Las Vegas, MGM Grand Casino in Detroit, and Baker College in Royal Oak. And Nick Moore-Perez is a stylist and entrepreneur who helped create several area salons, including Alchemy Color Lab in Downtown Royal Oak.
The attendee’s question was for Perez, whose passion and energy have capacity to pull his creative mind in a million directions at once. And it’s a situation that many creative entrepreneurs struggle with. She wanted to know what he does when there’s so many things to do, and he could just go, go, go. Her example being, how would he stop himself from staying up all night painting, and burning himself out. How does he unplug?
“You can’t do everything in one day,” Perez said. His trick – “Find one thing that you can finish. Do that and be done. Even if it’s something simple, like picking up the trash. Pick up the trash, and then leave.”
I caught myself doing taking his advice as I was trying to pull myself away from the many tasks that come from running a local news website. So many nights it’s hard to unplug. But I remembered what Perez had said. I finished something easy, then closed my laptop with a feeling of accomplishment and a clear end to my day.
But then of course I thought, oh, I should write that down.
It’s not a perfect process, but what about entrepreneurship actually is? In fact, much of it is chaos. Trial and error. People exploring their passions and trying to also learn about business.
It may look easy, but entrepreneurship is not. That’s why Oakland Thrive hosts discussion panels, classes, workshops, and networking events for small business owners. The Feb 22 event saw a couple dozen business owners coming together to from the panelists, and from each other.
The panel’s focus was on creating a space that is creative for both customers and employees.
Being memorable seemed like an obvious place to start the discussion.Perez has this concept down, with artistically-designed salons that are created with themes to fit they space they are in. For example, Moasic in Lake Orion is a concept that grew from his first impression of the previous salon’s gigantic, 1980’s styled, cracked mirrors. Another project is Greenhouse Detroit, located in Madison Heights, which is blossoming inside a former nursery.
“You always want your business to be memorable when people leave,” he said.
For Ideation Orange it would have been easy to set up their welcome desk with a logo behind it. Instead they wanted something to make people smile, and get conversations started. That’s why there is a pay phone and a neon sign to greet guests, with brightly lit letters giving a simple message: “hello.”
But – and this is a big but – the design also has to work. As Taylor Bank, who moderated the panel, noted “What is the purpose of design? It’s not just pretty. It helps business.”
It also has to meet the needs of the employees in the business. “If a space doesn’t function, you can be as memorable as you want, but if it doesn’t function, it won’t work,” said Adle.
He said that for any space he’s designing he looks at it through three perspectives – how employees function in the space, how repeat customers flow through a space, and how someone who has never been there before navigates through the space.
Expanding on functionality later in the discussion, Adle added that having a space that serves the needs of employees can make a difference in job satisfaction, performance, and team-building.
“Employee spaces are usually the most boring,” he said. “But if you invest in your employees, they’ll be more likely to have an investment in you.” He used MGM Grand as an example. “The employee dining room is just as nice as the front of house spaces,” he said, sharing that he was proud of working with a team that saw the value in that.
While visual details are prominent in discussions of design, it’s helpful for businesses to think of all the senses that one experiences when coming into the business space.
“Sensory marketing,” is a term that Perez loves. Hair salons in particular have certain smells and certain sounds, so he’s had to take care to balance those out. “You know when you walk into a space, is it all working together?”
Even the room where the panel was held had a scent of eucalyptus in the air. Moses said that an orange scent would be “too much” in the Ideation Orange space, but that this subtle scent is easy to pull off with a machine that goes right into the ventilation system.
Adle is a fan of environmental sounds to make the office a more welcoming space. “When it’s off, you notice it,” he said.
Whatever elements one adds, Moses said “you can implement in sages. If you have a big, overall idea, you can aim for that when you are getting new pieces of furniture as you go along.”
Similarly Perez advocates for a cohesive overall idea. “Start with a clear direction,” he said. “You waste too much time if you’re looking at five different directions. Let the idea sprout and grow, but it needs a solid trunk and the little things can grow from there.”
The panel was one of many opportunities to learn shared by Oakland Thrive. Learn more about this nonprofit that supports small business education and collaboration at https://oaklandthrive.org.
