Fab. That's helpful. And getting all of that detail right strikes me as the kind of thing that is best approached through incremental growth, so that you can polish cases in collaboration with clients. Which, as you said, this market is not well suited for.
That sounds logical if you are doing client work with a defined scope. From personal experience working in the startup world, which I imagine a lot of posters on here are, you don't always know what you are building or what the end game is.
Nah, I'm talking about edge cases Beyond the 99% of cases which I assume they get right, recovery is a cost center.
There's a single potential client (maybe two if you add Facebook) who seems to be showing no interest in getting it right. Not the best business proposition.
Of course there's nothing wrong with it. I want my offices to look nice, too, but I don't need a weeklong branding consultation to figure out what kind of potted plants best complement my company's persona.
I think this is a classic business model problem with consultative services: 60-80% of the work is, in fact, cookie-cutter stuff that can be executed by any barely-competant practioner, and the remaining 20-40% doesn't easily command the premium required to staff an expert firm. So firms pretend that the low-margin 60% doesn't exist.
I don't get why graphic design, alone among all professional service practices, should be exempt from project risk. Some high-end lawyers we've worked with have practically fallen over themselves to offer advice in anticipation of a professional relationship; I've tried to do the same thing with my clients, prospects, and peers.
That is the approach the firm I interview with on Sunday is using..seems to make sense in that he is covering a large set of use cases from the end customer/client perspective.
That is client management issue in my eyes. I prefer working with individuals. I find business often make political and erratic group decisions. This makes client management almost impossible. Any client large or small that understands what they are asking is a good client. I personally find dealing with individuals or coherent groups is the sweet spot.
I'm also more or less done working specifically for others and I'm now pursuing a market that is measured in the 1s or maybe 10s if it's a real success.
I agree specification is better, but the issue is that I am afraid that would limit my clients especially that the first client is the hardest to find. I am working though on trying to be a "general" consulting company with a short term focus on one niche.
Thanks for the post. I still don't completely follow your example of the client you could write for me. Can you recommend any articles that go into more detail on this with examples? The level of abstraction in Roy's article was difficult to follow.
Thanks for the response! esp. for the point about knowing what my clients look like. I have a vague idea, but I think maybe I need to work more on making that image clearer and more focused.
Ha I definitely agree with you there. While impressive from the company's standpoint, I'm not sure it's something I'd highlight either. If anything, learning this would steer me away as a prospective client.
They are also skewed as to the specialties they can effectively place. Their clients seem to over-represent web and mobile companies and under-represent the rest of the industry.
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