Meet Blaise Lavandero, founder of Creativelair. Creativelair is a driven, diverse and a fast-growing creative agency based in both the Philippines and Australia. Creativelair specializes on building and maintaining only the best-in-class solutions for business’ overall Digital Multimedia to accommodate end-to-end needs of business, big or small.
Hello Blaise, we are thrilled to have you on our platform. Please tell us a bit about what made you decide to become an entrepreneur and tell us about your work.
Blaise: Thank you for having me here as your guest and I am truly delighted. Well, I came from a family of entrepreneurs. Both sides of my family have their own companies and I believe the entrepreneurial instinct was also passed on to us.
My love for art and design started at a young age. I remember watching the movie Lion King and I can’t stop thinking how great the visuals are. From then on, I wanted to be an animator and that’s why I pursued Bachelor of Multimedia Arts at Asia Pacific College in the Philippines.
Fast forward to 2020, I am now a professional multimedia designer and I’ve founded Creativelair, a creative agency that helps businesses grow with our solution through visual marketing. 65% of people around the world are visual learners and I believe that providing an effective visual strategy is the backbone of a successful company. We’ve been around since 2016 and helped a lot of businesses grow from Philippines, Australia, France and United States. Our team provides business solutions from Motion Graphics & Animation, Brand Identity Development, Website Design and Development and Social Media Marketing.
We know that handling and managing a business is a lot of work but what advice can you give to achieve an effective team management?
Blaise: Actually, that’s a good question because a team is your core and each individual have responsibilities that they are linked to. So, 1 distraction can lead to a full-scale disaster that is why team management is something that I’ve always prepared for.
There’s this line from Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group, that inspired me to create a healthy working relationship with my teammates.
He said:
“I surround myself with people who have knowledge and talents in areas where I might not be so well versed.”
When you build a team, you should be aware that you will not be the center of it all. The key to make things work is collaboration and trust. So, what I did was to create a division of responsibilities for each of the team members. There’s a department for Brand Identity and Design, Motion Graphics and Animation and Website Design and Development.
Each individual has their respective duties and I give full trust that they are doing their job right but I just need to have full visibility for all the projects. If it’s good and it works for the client, then I trust their decision and go with it. I need to trust my team for us to create this harmony as long as it’s not damaging for the company.
Entrepreneurs need to understand that everyone is a work in progress including founders. So, I do everything I can do to support my teammates. Being a founder doesn’t mean that you get to be the know-it-all. Sometimes, you need to listen to your team especially if that area is not your expertise. The outcome, we learn to work in harmony and always be reminded to respect each other.
Let us delve in deeper, we want to know your mindset? what keeps you focused?
Blaise: My approach in life has always been the “Sho Shin” mindset or the “Beginner’s mind”. Many CEO and entrepreneurs have used this mindset like Steve Jobs, Jack Ma and other well-known businessman. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, you can discover the world in new ways. In order for it to work, you have to unlearn what you’ve learned. Imagine, if you always think that you already know everything then how can you create something new?
I look at the world in a beginner’s perspective, every journey is new to me and every deals I close is exciting to me. How can you innovate or liberate yourself if you think you’re already an expert to everything? The concept of Shoshin is to let go of previous beliefs or close-minded ways of thinking and learn to live and breathe with openness, a positive attitude, and a sense of respect for what we don’t know.
That is profound and thank you for sharing that. What strategies would you like to share with new business owners?
Blaise: First, figure out what exactly your niche is and what services you would like to provide. Second, you need to plan and have a business model, because if you don’t have any you’ll get distracted easily and you’ll be confused about what you truly want for your company. and lastly, you will need great brand identity and a marketing team for your business.
This is where we come in, so head on to creativelair.co and let us talk and we will take your business sky-high.
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