You have done another great design but it doesn't seem to get the recognition you thought it would. Why is that?

This problem seems to percolate most designers experience, there seem to be a disconnect between designing a finished product and then marketing it. Most designers I've spoken with say it's the marketing that doesn't come easily. The problem of not understanding business and marketing cannot only frustrate you but it can also diminish your individual pursuits. This fact should be taken into consideration as soon as you start to create your next product. As a designer you need to understand the market you're in and you need to understand how to improve your business.

How to grow your business is not obvious to most people, it's a skill that needs to be learned. The great management guru Peter Drucker said: "Business has only two functions -- marketing and innovation". If you look at designers and architects: they are mostly involved in innovation but that innovation has no ground in marketing. This is the problem, without an understanding of core marketing concepts and the fundamentals of why people buy things, innovation becomes invisible in the market. Innovation without marketing, is innovation that nobody cares about.

So where's the focus shift? What are designers missing?

Designers are often focused on their own work, this is good, and it has its own place. But as a designer you also need to understand the market and your marketing. Another crucial aspect to focus on is your team. So concisely, you need to focus on four things:

1. Marketing - Your client/customer
2. The Market
3. Your Team - Your allies
4. Your work - You

Designers who focus and understand these four aspects of business get more recognition. Most designers' works are just beautiful and I say "just" because that seems to be the function of the designer's work. Beauty is fine but it doesn't seem to solve any problem that people might have.

...marketing is not outside your product, it's within it.

You need to get the markets right, You need to get your marketing right, and Your Team must understand how you focus, your work should solve problems that are found in the market. This is your mission as a designer, your design should do this in the form the design takes to encompass the marketing. You do not create the product and then try to market it, the marketing is inside the product not the other way around. This crucial aspect is what many designers fail to understand: marketing is not outside your product, it's within it.

I will write more about the four aspects of the designer's needs to think about when working, so stay tuned. But for now remember that the marketing is inside your product and if your marketing is done right than your marketing takes care of the sale.