We’re often asked about how Industrial Brand does business development and find our clients. Good question, but not one that can be easily answered in a short explanation or blog post. One issue that always gets met with raised eyebrows is the fact that we’re sort of picky about the clients we DO work with and often will decline work.
What? Decline work? During a recession? Are we crazy? I don’t think so.
We’ve often felt it was important to consider what our clients, their products, practices, and reputations say about us as their design partners. As we’ve said before, we are defined by our clients.
Things are always so black and white though. It’s easy to say no to a pornography website project, but what about online gambling? We’re confident we’d decline working for a tobacco client, regardless of the revenue potential, but what about drug company?
And can we please be honest about something? Realistically, how often really do designers engage in any real due diligence investigating their potential clients and their backgrounds the way company check our references? Not often enough I’ll venture to say.
So, understanding that we can’t always take super cool, well-paying clients whose companies, products, or service are things we love and endorse, we created a five point grid by which to judge all potential clients and projects. The rules are simple: If as we consider a prospective client or a RFP, or a potential client has contacted us asking for a quote on a project, we ask ourselves five simple questions:
- 1. Portfolio: Is there something about this project that will enhance and leverage our portfolio so we may attract more, similar and better work?
- 2. Profit: Is there potential to make money on this work?
- 3. Ethics: Is this client/product/service something we can endorse and believe in, or at the very least not compromise our ethics?
- 4. People: Are these people we will enjoy working with? Are they experienced enough or at least willing to let us do what we do best?
- 5. Gut: Are there any other factors beyond the above that we need to consider? What does our instinct tell us?
If the answer to these questions isn’t yes to at least three of them, for whatever reason, including gut feeling, we decline the work. Every time. Sometimes this has meant missing out on tens of thousands of dollars of work. But by doing this, we better understand who we are as a design firm, as a company, as individuals, and as a brand. Our integrity is intact and our reputation is unsullied. Well, mostly.
How do you choose clients? How often do you decline work?
Tags: business development, clients, decline, due diligence, ethics, gut, instinct, people, portfolio, profit, reputation
Justin F (December 28th, 2009)
Thank you for writing these words. They needed to be said. We are right now in the process of a long awaited redesign of our website. So, I was trolling the web for inspiration and came across this post. Rather serendipitous as we have recently added a tagline to our company name: “moral marketing online”. It’s not some facade, it’s truly who we are. We’ve been at this for quite some time, and have come to the same conclusion about our morality. We’re not rich, or snobby in any way, but we will turn down many clients for the same reasons you have expressed here. Although our blacklisted industries probably differ, the sentiment is right on.
To further elaborate on your points, it is our belief that the quality of work is directly affected by the moral character of the project or campaign, and especially our moral thoughts in relation. Simply, if we as designers do our jobs well, we should be communicating the honest emotions and intentions of the product and ourselves. Immorality can’t be hidden by a shiny cover.
The time for unconscious design reflecting empty shells of monotony has passed. There are more of us designers listening to our souls every day. Further in a global society filled to the brim with so much falseness and artificiality, there is a movement to follow consciousness taking hold the world over.
http://www.realm9.com/2009/12/do-our-clients-choose-us-or-do-we-choose-them/