Live Your Dream, Naples SCORE Can Help



Lisa Absher, owner of Absher Design Group

Lisa Absher
Absher Design Group
New York to Naples
Creative energy channeled into Successful Business

Lisa, her husband and two children moved to Naples from NYC where she successfully held positions of Art Director, Creative Director and VP of Marketing for over 25 years at large corporations. Her creative energy directed many design and marketing programs of national private label programs like Jaclyn Smith, Martha Stewart home, Polo Ralph Lauren home, Route 66, Hush Puppies and Russ. What started as a need to stay creative quickly began to grow into a full-service advertising agency, and in January of 2003 Absher Design Group Inc. www.adgcreative.com was born.

While her creative campaigns were receiving rave reviews, her previous corporate experience did not prepare her with skills for running her own small business. That is when she turned to SCORE and counselor Denny Holland. “Lisa is a wonderful creative talent, but was a designer first and a business woman second. As a small business owner she now needed to wear many hats,” Denny observed. Thus began a series of meetings with Lisa and SCORE. The goal was to enhance the business fundamentals of the company without losing its creative edge.

Step one: develop a business plan with clear objectives and well thought out realistic financial goals. Step two: develop a system to manage cash flow and optimize profitability. Step three: develop a method of analyzing income to better understand the contribution of clients and potential clients. Step four: Develop a strong human resource plan by focusing on good people that share the passion for excellence. The key was staying on top of all the details that contribute to the bottom line so that good decisions could be made within each step.

It wasn’t always easy, but Lisa demonstrated tenacity and willingness to learn and grow, character traits essential in successful entrepreneurs. Throughout it all, Lisa has maintained her artistic creativity and desire to make her client’s campaigns successful as evidenced by three years of multiple gold and silver 4th District Addy awards from the nationally recognized Advertising Federation competition.

Additionally, she’s found time in her busy schedule to give back to the community and as part of her volunteering and charity pro bono, she has been a well received presenter at the SCORE marketing workshop for the past three years.

We admire her success and appreciate her contributions.

SCORE's counseling services are all at no cost. SCORE offers counseling sessions on a one-on-one basis as well as workshops. E-mail counseling is offered as well to those who are out of the area, or prefer a cyber-meeting. SCORE is a partner of the U.S. Small Business Administration with close to 12,000 members and more than 350 chapters nationwide.

The Naples chapter ran 13 workshops last year with a total of 303 business people in attendance. Additionally, the chapter counseled 480 clients in face-to-face sessions.

We can be reached by e-mail at score@scorenaples.org or by phone at 239-430-0081. Our Web site is www.scorenaples.org

SCORE Counselor Denny Holland