Jeff Koke Design Blog

When I am approached and given the opportunity to bid on a graphic design project, inevitably I am asked for samples from my portfolio. I am always happy to provide them, and to point them to my Web site where they can view more, but I wonder if they realize that my portfolio only tells a part of the story.  The samples allow a prospective client to gauge my design ability, but give no insight into my reliability.

Occasionally I get a request for references, but I find out later that most of the time those references are never checked (my willingness to provide them being proof enough, I suppose). But what surprises me is that while I hear many clients complaining about designers and firms that they’ve been burned by in the past, so few of them attempt to verify the reliability of the firm beforehand.

Why is reliability so important for a design firm? The simplest and most obvious answer is that most projects are not one-off isolated events. Many times, a project is simply a first phase in a longer campaign. If you turn out to be a flake, and don’t deliver what you promised on time and within the agreed-upon budget, you are likely not to be retained for the remainder of the campaign, regardless of the quality of your work. A stunning portfolio might bring a client in the door, but consistency and reliability will keep them coming back.

Your reliability is also directly connected to how often and how strongly your clients will recommend you to their colleagues. I get probably 90% of my new business through referrals, and if I started delivering late or going over budget, those referrals would start to dry up. I might not even know the reason why. The phone would just stop ringing.

And thus being consistently unreliable can cause a designer to develop a reputation as a flake, which can haunt them for a long time. In a field as crowded and competitive as graphic design and marketing, a good reputation is vitally important. If you feel you’re developing such a reputation, the best remedy is to become reliable fast. Here are three ways:

1. Schedule Realistically: Only you know how quickly you can turn things around, so be realistic about schedules that you develop. Clients are often impressed when I push back on a timeline that I feel is too aggressive. I’ve turned down lucrative projects that I knew I couldn’t get done it time because ultimately I would be blamed for missing the deadline.
2. Estimate Honestly: If you bid low to win a project and then hit the client with changes in scope and extra fees, they’ll usually pay it, but that will likely be the last money you see from them. Give your clients a realistic bid; try to work within their budget; and don’t accept projects that are below your threshold. You may lose a few to competitors who underbid you, but the ones you do get will be more likely to lead to grateful clients and more work (and the prospect may come back to you after the low-bidders flake out).
3. Do Whatever It Takes: Finally, once you’ve settled on a price and a schedule, do whatever it takes to get it done on time and within the budget. If that means, you have to stay up all night to meet your client’s deadline, then that’s what you do (and you’ll be more likely to plan better the next time). If it takes you longer than you estimated and you end up spending more hours than you’re getting paid for, chalk it up to experience and bill the client what you promised.

Reliability is not a substitute for ability, but ability by itself is not enough to establish a great reputation and keep clients coming back. How you deliver what you deliver is just as important, if not more.

One of the first decisions I made as an independent designer was to create a policy not to do “spec work.”  We’ve been pretty successful at honoring the policy, although there are a few cases where we felt we had to do it to remain competitive.

Spec work is work that is requested by a potential client with no guarantee that you will get the job and be paid for the work. Some designers see it as a way to get new business and write off the effort involved as a sales expense; others do it because they are desperate for work and see it as a way to get their foot in the door of a lucrative client. Some clients have come to expect spec work as part of the process of choosing an agency, so in certain cases, it seems like it’s just the cost of doing business.

I’d like to spend a minute articulating why we have a policy against it, and then explain why it’s a bad idea for companies to request spec work from potential designers and marketing partners.

Why we avoid spec work:

1. It takes time and effort away from other, paying clients: since spec work is always a gamble, what you end up risking is either quality or timeliness of your other work. For me, it’s always better to improve those attributes with an existing client, than to sacrifice them for a potential client. If we deliver better, faster work to our paying clients, we are likely to get more projects from them.




2. It starts a relationship off on the wrong foot: It’s a psychological truth that people value things more when they pay for them, and designers always produce better work when they know they are being paid. We’ve always striven to be an essential, trusted partner with our clients, and that’s difficult to do when we don’t feel like they trust us enough to give us a project based on our experience and reputation. Even if we do end up with the project, and ultimately get paid for the spec work, there is a sour feeling of being abused that is difficult to erase.




3. There are too many gray areas: generally spec work is done without a contract in place. This creates some ambiguity about who owns the work, what you will be paid if your work is chosen, and what recourse you have if the client uses your work without paying you. All these issues can be ironed out, but it can be a hassle, and for us, not worth it for the potential of payment.




4. It starts a vicious cycle: The more spec work you do, the more it is expected of you — and worse, the more you expect it to be part of the process. Time, energy and creative concepts are finite resources, and we feel it’s best to devote them to projects for clients who respect and value those resources.

As you can see, it doesn’t make sense for us to do spec work, but I also feel it doesn’t make sense for companies to request spec work from potential designers.

1. It’s the illusion of choice: Most companies I know who request spec work do it to have a variety of agencies and concepts to choose from. They ask 3 or 4 firms to present their ideas for a campaign and sit back while those companies work for free to create their concepts. This method will not produce the best work from their candidates (see #2 above), and it will dilute the creative process as the client must divide their time and give creative direction to 4 different groups. The ultimate result is 3 or 4 mediocre concepts to choose from.




2. It’s exclusionary: The truth is that there are many firms (like us) who make a point to not do spec work. If you require it for your project, you will unnecessarily exclude some potential candidates. In fact, you will be most likely excluding the best candidates, as those who don’t do spec work feel their portfolio and reputation is strong enough already, and likely are not desperate for work (and thus have plenty of work from their highly satisfied client base).




3. It’s insulting: Although clients may not intend it this way, at the core of a request for spec work is a kind of disrespect. It devalues and commoditizes creative services. We feel that our time, creative thought and past experience has value, and if we give that away without an agreement for compensation, we are essentially devaluing our own work. This will not lead to the best end result.

To break out of the cycle of requesting spec work, I recommend clients do a couple of things to gain comfort that they are choosing the right creative services firm — request additional portfolio samples that are similar to the type of work requested, talk to current and past clients and prepare a thorough creative brief. These simple steps will produce much better results than sifting through a pile of spec work that was created quickly and without compensation.

When I present a design idea to a client, for example a selection of 5 logo concepts, I generally post the concepts to our extranet and send the client a link to view them. Every once in a while, a client will react badly to this tactic, asking why I don’t mount the concepts on black boards and present them to the executive team in person. This usually comes from clients who are used to working with larger agencies, though you sometimes get this treatment from underskilled freelancers.

I refer to this dog-and-pony show as “Selling the Design.” Each concept is given it’s most flattering treatment and then paraded in front of the client, while the designer explains the subtleties of the design. Designs that might have at first seemed obtuse or unattractive are given new life when the designer can explain the reasoning behind the design choices. It works wonders. Clients who are “sold” a design are much less likely to reject it.

There are two reasons that I don’t take this tactic with my work. The first and most obvious is that designs need to stand on their own. I’m not going to be available to explain the nuances of the logo design to my client’s prospects. If part of the logo forms the shape of the first letter of the client’s company name, it better be obvious on the first or second look. Otherwise, what’s the point? I’m not saying a design can’t have subtlety or depth, but that depth better not be essential to conveying the brand qualities, or people are going to miss it.

The second reason is that I don’t have the time to do this for every concept or logo that I have to deliver. I wouldn’t be able to get anything done. That said, I do believe there are a couple of cases where presenting in person (or via conference call) and explaining the design is a good plan. The first is for PowerPoint graphics, which will have someone there explaining the design to my client’s prospects (their sales staff). The second is company names, which usually requires an interactive session, whittling down a large selection of names to just a few candidates. Often, the client does need to know the thought processes that went into selecting each name idea.

Ultimately, selling the design is done for one of two reasons: to make a bad design look better or to impress a client with personal attention. The first is a bad reason, and the second can be accomplished another way. Take them to lunch, and talk about their business.