We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alisa Weldon. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alisa below.

Alisa, appreciate you joining us today. Innovation comes in all shapes, sizes and across all industries, so we’d love to hear about something you’ve done that you feel was particularly innovative.

A company, originally called Charlie’s Angels, came to me. They wanted their brand to be reexamined from the big picture down to small details. My work is about looking at the business, the audience, the reach and the long-term sustainability of an idea. 

My creative problem solving isn’t just about the project in front of me—but how a business operates based on that idea.

The business was a pediatric cancer nonprofit organization, focused on funding and research. I’m always looking for what will relate on a cellular level to the audience it will potentially impact and serve. We helped them develop an action driven name that could also be perceived as a movement. Now they are called Turn It to Gold.  

In the process of developing their materials, I had an idea of how to amplify the message of pediatric cancer awareness. I named it athletic activism.

The idea was leveraging the strongest of kids in the height of their fitness, whether in high school or college, and having them be their biggest fan of a little kid who physically is at their weakest during treatment. It offered big kids a way to amplify and support sick kids and promote the message in the peak of social engagement, high school, and college. It offers a great opportunity to everyone involved: Do you want to be bold and brave for someone who can’t? This message and campaign focus toward the movement was exactly what Turn It to Gold needed. We renamed, rebranded, re focused and but a more cohesive and dynamic brand that would target athletes. But the real energy behind the new name and behind this campaign—aligned even more with the partnerships with major colleges like Texas A&M they already had. That’s the kind of work I love to do and feel great about bringing into the world.  

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I didn’t take a typical path to design. Neither of my parents had a college degree, and my ticket to higher education would be an athletic scholarship as a young competitive tennis player. If only my counselor had reference to art schools or design schools. 

At the forefront of digital innovation, our district and schools were pilot programs for Apple. That landed me in front of the very first graphic and layout programs in which I contributed to designing the first literary & art magazine in High School. My family consists of entrepreneurs and artists. My grandfather was a natural illustrator and he painted airbuses for a living; creativity was present. I just didn’t know the path of commercial art until I fell into it later getting my general studies at Austin Community College. I was immersed in painting the high school musical backdrops, hand illustrating programs, and was awarded an independent study for the last year of High School.

I had tennis scholarship offers in hand when I decided to not share them with my parents and came out of the closet. It wasn’t the best decision to make that the time, but I wanted to live an authentic life and be in an environment that welcomed me. We moved to Austin, Texas. After leaving home, I ended up at Austin Community College paying and working my way through a general studies course load. The first semester there, I discovered their emerging new program called Commercial Art of Applied Science and I was obsessed. I could think nothing more than wanting to spend every morning night, designing logos, and thinking about being paid to draw and design. Luckily my girlfriend at the time had also opened the first Barnes & Noble in Austin and I had full access to new magazines and books – so I dove in. (Remember, this was before the internet offered so much at your fingertips.) Typography was my focus, font types, their personalities, layouts, grid systems, color theory, you name it.

In high school, I worked as a floor merchandiser and when I transferred that job to Austin. What opened my career was being part of the team that opened up the first-of-its-kind concept gourmet grocery store called HEB Central Market. Over my five years, I built and designed sign programs and ended up as a regional Art Director. I learned different techniques and had to be intensely resourceful with the use of all materials. Because photographing images was so expensive (pre digital photography), I had to beg my boss to buy a flatbed scanner for the office so I could throw a live fish on top of it so we could find new ways to attract sales and for salmon promotion! 

Working and going to school full time didn’t allow for much sleep but it did give me the training of doing all jobs and respect to all levels of a corporation. I understood intuitively how fast you can get something sold and intricacies of reading an audience. I also met some of the most amazing people as Central Market became 2nd most popular tourist attraction to our State Capital. We had the first in-store cooking school next to my office on the 2nd level and people like Ina Garten, Paul Prudhomme and Martha Stewart and others would walk through the door to teach classes. It was epic!

As a young woman at that time, it was few and far between to have women-owned advertising agencies. It was still a man’s world, for sure. I had a really great typographer teacher/mentor Linda Schmarzick give me a short list of places I fulfill my internship. Four names topped the list in Austin, Texas at that time Kerry Tate, Gay Gaddis and Yvonne Tocquigny, and Sherry Matthews.

The demand to get into the agencies was high. My persistent requests were denied (or landed in a mailbox unread). I didn’t let that deter me. Next on my list was one of the top illustrators, known for designing the best logos in town. His name is David Kampa. He was notorious for being the one to go to for logo creation. I was told he never accepted interns so I wrote a letter, knocked on his door and made consistent phone calls. His wife who answered the phone Marcelina heard the desire in my voice. I was finally granted the permission to sit along his side and watch him do his work. I was a sponge, respectful, and I listened and learned the smallest of techniques. No one understands what it takes to make a pen tool in Adobe Illustrator work the way he did. And those old versions didn’t allow for automation. It was about a fine hand only after a super tight sketch. His ability to create curvatures and develop shapes like he does was no less than impressive. He could hand draw an almost perfect circle, without a template and that was the challenge with graphic programs at the time. After six months under his study, my hope was to take it all back to Central Market or wherever I might land next. 

My 18-hour school schedule with my 40 hour work week had really tapped me out; I needed a change. Central Market had gotten big enough that they decided to hire an outside agency. I made the decision to leave without another job insight. One woman who had started with the company early in her career introduced me to a job that changed my career trajectory. Gay Gaddis, the owner of T3 at the time had just won the DELL small/medium business account and needed to build a team. They had also just taken on Central Market as a corporate client. I had vast knowledge on the work, the files and how the system worked internally. They brought me in to do some work on Central Market and let me apply for the Art Director position for DELL. I was the youngest Art Director they had ever hired to lead the team, I was 22 at the time. The next two years leading this team was like getting my masters in direct mail, art direction, printing and custom publishing.

I traveled all over the United States doing photoshoots for DELL. This was before the digital cameras and I was in and out of a variety of corporations, designing magazines and print pieces that had multi-million print runs every month. Every detail of that work gave me the value and understanding of how to do large skill corporate work and not miss the details. The work, design and ideation brought creative pride, but even more a business acumen to the impact of “well done” creative work.

I analyzed how the current agency model was working. I didn’t like it. Despite my age & experience – I had a feeling there was a better way. The model had the client buying a premium product and then end up getting a junior team to produce it after four or five layers of communication were disseminated down. The clients desires were filtered and the work could be better. The ‘discovery stage’ kept the pockets filled for an agency and I just felt time was wasted when prototyping and productivity could create efficiencies. My integrity didn’t align. But I’m also passion first, business second (which isn’t always good business sense).

Oh my second anniversary at T3, over the loudspeaker, I was congratulated for making the two year mark and leading the team. Then by 4 o’clock, I was called in by the loudspeaker and then laid off. I was told it was for financial reasons, who knows if that was ever right. But it didn’t matter. I loved the people and I had ideas about how to do the work better. This gave me the permission to launch my own agency.

It was February 1st, 2001 months before the “.com Bust”. I was doing freelance for Microsoft, Novell, Storage Tek and other tech companies because of my DELL experience. While getting my hair cut one morning, I was connected to Scott Staab who was starting a company with two others and needed my skill set. I joined the team and pitched and won the The Scooter Store business. It wasn’t sexy; it was a senior mobility device company.While Scott and the other partner couldn’t trouble the winds of startup, Suzanne Mahoney and I moved forward fast. 

With a big retainer secured, we got the business (VoxGroup) off the ground. It wasn’t but a few months later that the “.com Bust” happened and about 11 agencies in Austin closed their doors overnight. We had hit a sweet spot building a business with a new model at a time of change. We opted to keep our team small and curate a list of preferred partners with key talent for the type of work we won. We collaborated and acted as a team. Our clients weren’t seen as fancy, sexy or trendy, but we did really great work generating creative ROI. That was a new discussion then. With good creative, data, analytics, and smart strategy, I definitely could say that I got my second MBA from my time alongside Suzanne. 

After six years and different desires, Suzanne wanted to head back into the event business and I wanted to continue on the same path. My new agency name called WELL+DONE DESIGN and its been under the new name since 2006. My team fluctuated in size, but I had always had a sweet spot of around six-eight employees and more than 30 preferred partners. The work is solid and timeless. Only 98% of the brands I’ve designed have gone through a redesign. It’s all about connecting to the positive, making a positive impact and bringing ideas to life.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Starting a service-based business with your talent didn’t take much money … but it did take the ability to sell yourself. It’s all about who you know and how you sell your work. But launching a company with a tangible product is a whole different discussion. As a creative agency, I was always designing and selling other others visions. I knew that I could make sustainable money if I had a product of my own to sell. After a decade of publishing experience, I launched a magazine and experiential brand. And, I wanted to be something different that no one had ever seen before.

It couldn’t just be a magazine; it was going to have to be an experience. It would be an idea that would bring people together in a new way. Something that could be left on the kitchen table or in a coffee table and open new lines of conversations and change opinions, especially when those conversations weren’t easily shared. 

Leading with lots of energy and inspiration, my goal was to remove stereotypes and promote inclusivity to changes hearts and minds. The magazine and brand was called L Style G Style.

You could interpret the L as Lady style on one side and G for, Gentleman style … but the audience was Lesbian and Gay. This was a time pre Defense of Marriage Act falling and a concept I drew out on a trip to Portland in 2004.

It would be the first time a magazine would display equal representation of genders; the same amount of stories dedicated to women as to men. Notoriously in the gay community, the men led organizations, hosted the parties and occupied the majority of the clubs. The women (naturally lower income levels) received the left over experiences and defaulted into spaces the men created. Distributed six times a year, I hosted amazing release parties, and generated a huge following for almost a decade. It was game-changing and life savings to some.

But to get this off the ground was no small task. I put it all on the line.

I sold my house and put my entire life savings into the launch. A year of active planning, it had its inaugural release in November 2007. I called on support from every relationship I’ve ever created in Austin to support advertising goals. It was a huge success with more than 1,100 in attendance and major news coverage. At that time, there were 53 magazines in Austin, Texas. We ranked as one of the top five due to quality of content, design, and its consumer loyalty to LGBT friendly business community. It was innovative and off to a great start. I just was not prepared for the great recession and financial crisis of 2008 right after we got our feet off the ground.

Overnight I lost $65,000 in monthly revenue with advertisers pulling out of print publications. Many started to question (for the first time) the emergence of new digital media formats coming to life. I had secured the first software company that offered a flippable and clickable digital online magazine format that felt like a tangible magazine with advertisement links—no one had ever done this before in Texas. Despite the amount of innovation and planning, nothing could have prepared me for this time.

My resilience challenged, I was putting in 18 hours days and my entire team supported me with two companies now, not just one. The creative business from WELL+DONE DESIGN was keeping us afloat and everything was on the line for L Style G Style. It was like robbing Peter to pay Paul with time and effort. What got me through was my intense dedication, my belief in myself, my team and my desire to hustle at every turn.

One advertiser relationship got me through the shift and murky financial waters. He believed in me, though incidentally was the furthest thing from my community, but he saw my drive, passion and talent and above all he knew we had an audience that was loyal to his product line. Together, his business mentorship and challenge took me to the next level. Today, I credit so much of my success to him. Thank you David Stein.

You have to know your audience and you have to know what your customers want in order to make your business succeed. Whether you do it for yourself or do it for a client…. the one thing I can say for sure is that serving your clients is not about what you want from them, it’s what you can provide them to make them want you more.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

Engage your community. Sit locally in hot spots, say hello and when you ask questions, listen…. and connect. And mostly, give back and be civic-minded and heart forward. It hasn’t just worked once, it’s worked my entire career. Kindness, positivity, keep them first and the right business follows.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.well-donedesign.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/welldonedesign
• Facebook: https://www.a.com/alisa.weldon
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisaweldon/

Image Credits
I took all images.