In 2006 I made a coffee date with a designer I met online. We were in the same situation: working by ourselves and feeling cut off from colleagues and peers. Little did I know that was the first step in creating a peer advisory group—one that's grown and flourished and sustained me through many ups and downs as a business owner.

Three years later, Kathy Kiely (K2 Creative) and I are sharing office space and the Silver Spring Design Lunch has grown to a mailing list of 20 that meets monthly.

What is a peer advisory group?

A peer advisory group is just what it sounds like—a group of peers that meets regularly to advise each other. In our case, we're all solo designers or creative firms with a handful of employees who work in or near Silver Spring, MD.

From the outset, my bias has been in favor of business owners rather than in-house designers. While I enjoy talking about fonts as much as the next designer, what I really need help with is the nuts and bolts of running a creative business—from pricing jobs to paying taxes to hiring and firing employees. We don't get into this business because we enjoy invoicing, but that's one of the many non-design tasks we must become masters of.

I had a vision of thousands of solo designers like me, struggling with same issues, cobbling together our own unsatisfactory solutions—wondering if there wasn't a better way somewhere out there.

"Why can't we get together and help each other out?" I wondered. "Why should each of us have to reinvent the wheel every time?"

So, the Design Lunch was born.

How it happened

Shortly after Kathy and I met for coffee and decided that we ought to do this again some time, I ran into an old colleague, Ian Delmonte. By strange coincidence, his studio was literally on the next block. I asked him if he'd be interesting in meeting up with the two of us.

Ian, Kathy and I met regularly for about a year before opening up the group to others. I met one of our Lunchers at a cycling fundraiser. She brought in a former coworker from her studio days who had his own business. A few others I found online, through the AIGA list and elsewhere. If they seem liked appropriate prospects, I simply sent them an email asking if they'd like to be included on the Lunch emails.

Like most clubs, we have a core group of about 8 or 10 who can be counted on, and another 10 who say they're interested but seldom (or never) make the time to come to meetings.

Logistics and organization

The group is small enough that I use a simple email list to contact everyone. If members want to email the group, they have to copy everyone on the list.

I try to give everyone a couple of weeks' warning before each lunch and I send a reminder a day or two before. I ask for a head count, since we're meeting at restaurants and I need to know how much space to reserve. Every few months, I move the location to another restaurant for variety. Even I get sick of Thai food after a while.

I usually propose a topic for conversation and often remind members to bring in projects for show and tell. Topics (both planned and ad hoc) have ranged from business development to copyright law to how to fire clients to Facebook promotions to content management systems. We've brought in guest speakers to talk about bookkeeping, web development, and social marketing.

We've mixed it up here and there with happy hour instead of lunch, which is a lot of fun and has a completely different, less formal vibe. However, I don't recommend this as a substitute for a lunch meeting. Meeting during the day creates a sense of purpose—members have to carve time out of their busy work schedules and decide that this is important. You end up with a self-selecting group of people who are serious and dedicated to making it happen.

The critical factor for success is that one person be in charge of organizing events. Design Lunch members often thank me for keeping the group going, but the fact is, I do it largely out of self-interest. I want there to be a group like this I can meet with. And if that means I have to be the organizer, it's a small effort compared to the benefits I receive.

I don't always remember to this, but it's a good idea to send out an email after each meeting recapping what was discussed and especially any useful tips or interesting URLs folks shared. Those who weren't able to attend will still get value from the discussion and also may feel more motivated to make time the following month.

Raising all boats

You might think that 10 designers would end up competing for the same business or becoming territorial about our work, but I can truthfully say the Design Lunch has generated more opportunities for our participants than conflict. It doesn't hurt that the DC area is a big market and we all seem to have our niches.

Regardless, my express goal has always been that we should aid and support each other. Especially since the market crash, I feel that if we stick together and look out for one another, other designer companies might fail but we'll all make it through. If we share knowledge instead of hoarding it, act as partners instead of competitors, we'll all be stronger in the long run.

The few times several of us have bid on the same job, the attitude has been, "may the best man or woman win." When times are lean, we may feel envious that others in the group have more work than they can handle, but what becomes obvious after a while is that work flow is cyclical; we all have our ups and downs.

Tangible benefits

I don't want this to be all about me, so I asked some of my colleagues what specific benefits they got from our meetings. Here are some of the things they wrote:

After some lunches, I'd be inspired to race back to the office and work on my marketing plan or design a mailer to send out to clients. It's a great way to keep on top of these things.
— Ian Delmonte, StudioSpark

I never know if I'm going to learn something or contribute to someone else's learning so I try to come with an open mind. It's nice to develop these colleague relationships because then we can ask for and offer help/advice when situations come up. It's a great support network.
— Anne Kerns, AnneLikesRed

Without coaching from my fellow lunchers, it would have taken me another quarter to let go of [an] inefficient employee. All the ideas, humor and play-acting during one of our lunches, gave the me strength to act and let this individual go much sooner.
— Polina Pinchevsky, Nana Design

Yes, you can!

I hope this article will inspire you to go out and start building your own peer advisory group. If you can find just two other people who want to meet monthly, that's all it takes.

You don't have to be in business for yourself. Sometimes we can be isolated in a large organization because we're the only practitioner of our discipline. Industry groups and associations help fill some of that vacuum but there's no substitute for regular, face-to-face meetings with a small group of like-minded peers.

So, what are you waiting for?

[ Kim Bieler wrote this article and she welcomes your comments. ]