Avoiding the “Client as Enemy” Black Hole

This is touchy subject but it’s something that keeps coming to mind as one of the biggest lessons of my professional career. It’s created a 180 degree turnaround in the relationships I have with my clients and the people I work for and with.

For years almost everywhere I worked and the studio I was running there was this strange undertone of our clients somehow being our enemies. There’s this pervasively snarky “they don’t understand design and what we do and it’s our jobs to save them from themselves” attitude. Does this sound familiar?

On top of this there was this constant need to be accepted by our peers in the design and creative community. Strangely enough I constantly found myself colluding with my peers, those who I should be competing against and constantly competing against our clients, those who we should be working with! This is so completely backwards.

For years I subscribed to this approach and it consistently failed me. The people on my team took my lead and felt the same. Eye rolling on calls, and ultimately the lack of respect for our clients ultimately led to a constant rift in our relationship where we felt like we couldn’t tell them what we really thought so we cow towed to what we thought was their desires. Not their best interest mind you, just what we thought they wanted.

This ultimately led to some abysmal work. Not always bad, but generally watered down. And ultimately this ended up with relationships that were unproductive and negative.

So why does this happen?

It all happens at 2 stages of the relationship.

1. The first date: You need to be confident enough to tell it like it is, explain your process, show a genuine interest in the success of their business, tell the truth, seek a connection. Walk away if it doesn’t feel right.

2. Therapy: When you’ve been working with someone for a while and things aren’t going well know well enough when to cut the line and move on. Our job as branders, designers, communicators is to enhance the value of our clients’s businesses and products. To help them grow, and if we’re not doing that we have an ethical responsibility to help them find someone who will do this for them.

So what have I been doing that’s worked so well for me?

1. Listening better:

Rather than trying to come across as the expert I’m trying to ask the right questions. This is about understanding their business not selling mine. My goal is simple now: How can I help? If it’s 20 minutes of free chat time I’m game. My goal is to help people succeed. It’s all about them, not all about my work or my portfolio.

2. Explain and stand up for your process:

You need a system, a process. Brand work is too complex to wing, and if you’re passionate about the science of design your work will reflect a depth that it may not have before. Walk someone through your process, tell them how you work, give them a sense of what to expect when they hire you. Explain how you’ll approach solving their problems. Maybe even dive in a little bit to give them a taste. Don’t worry about giving away the show, if they think you’re capable and smart they’ll hire you. What you’re talking about if you’re good is too complex to steal. If they get bored when you explain process, or ask you to skip over it, then this is a giant red flag. You need a partner to get good work done. And they need to be sold on how you work.

3. Zen Out:

The last thing I changed was to be absolutely calm and understanding no matter how tense things get. Our clients are people, often challenged with the same stressful professional and personal challenges we are. When things get tense it’s usually because of a miscommunication. Don’t be reactive. Stand your ground and work towards a resolution of the problem at hand. Since I started doing this I’ve been blown away by the responses I get. Clients genuinely value someone who they know is stable and can handle the stress of day to day business. Be like water and they’ll lean on you more. Be someone they’re psyched to talk to, so when they have a call with you it’s a highlight to their day, a ray of sunshine and calm, not a stressful battle over minutiae.

I’ve been working at this myself and I’ve seen a huge turnaround in the relationships I have with my clients. I feel like I have partners now, we’re a team, not a client and a vendor (oh how I despise that word). They love my work and it makes sense to them, they feel part of a process and so do I, and I feel blessed to be able to step into their world and learn about their business and what makes them tick.

Steve Jobs’ Conclusions On Why Apple is Excluding Flash Technology From Their Mobile Devices

Read Steve Jobs’ full “Thoughts On Flash” here.

Flash was created during the PC era – for PCs and mice. Flash is a successful business for Adobe, and we can understand why they want to push it beyond PCs. But the mobile era is about low power devices, touch interfaces and open web standards – all areas where Flash falls short.

The avalanche of media outlets offering their content for Apple’s mobile devices demonstrates that Flash is no longer necessary to watch video or consume any kind of web content. And the 200,000 apps on Apple’s App Store proves that Flash isn’t necessary for tens of thousands of developers to create graphically rich applications, including games.

New open standards created in the mobile era, such as HTML5, will win on mobile devices (and PCs too). Perhaps Adobe should focus more on creating great HTML5 tools for the future, and less on criticizing Apple for leaving the past behind.

Why V.C.’s And Designers Are Destined To Partner

I came across this excellent and short Fast Company article regarding the value designers can bring VC’s.

This got me thinking.

One of the greatest values that designers can bring Venture Capitalists is their ability to make the “unreal” into something “real”.

Many of the projects I’ve been grabbed for, especially the exciting ones, are from business people who have an idea. They have essentially what could be described as a business idea and funding, and my job as the brand guy is to make it as real and compelling for their customers, enough to join, buy their product, hire them, visit their restaurant, etc. In the case of a product driven business, that product will do better by seeming real sooner than later, in the case of a service credibility will be the only thing that will attract early adopters without sacrificing on price.

Now the amazing value that a designer has for a venture capitalist is that most good designers are able to see the physical side of what many business people write in their business plan or powerpoint deck. But in reality, when a startup is in its early days credibility is the single most important element. You may not have customers, or a product that’s even available yet. A good designer can help make this challenge go away by bringing that product or service as close to the sense of “real” as you’re going to get.

For example, prototyping a product so that it looks and feels fully functional, instead of presented in powerpoint is one clear way to handle this issue. This moves you from describing something to letting them use it, rapid prototyping is where it’s at. A good designer can do this with a product and a brand.

Developing a brand platform that’s integrated, so your business cards lead you to a website which leads you to follow a blog, which engages you in a product, this is all created by a good designer with a solid strategy.

I had an idea on a hike with a friend of mine the other day, how about an advertising or brand agency with a VC as a CEO. Who better to advise on start-up businesses than an expert on ones that fail and succeed?