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Collaborate instead of dictate
We’ve been in business for 14 years and have a good roster of clients as well companies we partner with on projects. What I can’t seem to figure out is why it takes people so long to actually collaborate on projects rather than just dictate what they want done.
I can understand why clients do this the first few times you work with them. But after the 5th or 8th or 15th successful project, you’d think people would say, “hey…they know what they’re doing, I’m going to collaborate on this.”
Yet…many clients still come to us with VERY specific, unbending ideas about what they want. So specific as to dictate what color every part of a graphic has to be, whether to use cuts or dissolves, whether to use shadows on type or soft reflections on logos etc. etc. And I’m not talking about changes that conform to branding guidelines because few of these folks practice anything resembling true “branding” in their advertising.
We have a reputation in our region for being able to solve client’s problems…for being able to take a project with little focus and turn it around quickly and and at high-quality…for being able to move a project forward without having to wait for a client’s review or approval at every stage. And yet, few of those clients ever get us involved in their project planning. Often, we aren’t contacted until 2 weeks before the project is due. Usually their concepts are visually ambiguous or benign, or just downright looney. All which could have been avoided had we sat down and discussed the project in advance.
It also seems most clients are extremely literal in their approach to ideas, giving little or no thought to story structure (introduce character, character has conflict, conflict is resolved) or compelling visuals. They all start copy pulled from some windy brochure or bulleted list. In fact, many of the images we’re asked to create have little or nothing to do with a brand or concept.
We continually suggest to clients that we get involved and brainstorm about their ideas to help them create better images and sounds, but few clients take us up on it. When they do, the projects are almost always better for it. Some have become long-running campaigns for clients.
So why does it take people so long to trust you when you’ve proven yourself over and over with top quality work?
I can count on one hand the number of really good ideas we’ve been presented with in the past 5 years. Yet on virtually every project where the client came to us asking for input, those projects consistently got rave reviews from not only the clients, but the client’s clients, the client’s competitors etc.
Sorry for the long thread, but I’ve always viewed our company as being a partner with clients, but most clients don’t want you to be their partner. Many don’t want your ideas. I’m just befuddled by this approach. It would be like hiring an interior designer and telling them everything you want done in your room, or commissioning a painting and dictating what the artist paints. Isn’t the point of hiring a creative professional to take adavantage of their knowledge and creativity?
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
18 Replies
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There are some clients who will always dictate, that’s just the nature of who they are. Not much to do about it except deliver what they want.
Just enjoy the clients who do give you creative freedom and decide how many of the dictators you want to keep around.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Owner, Biscardi Creative Media featuring HD Post
Biscardi Creative MediaCreative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital. -
At the end of the day the client is paying you, If they want to dictate every little detail and have you push the buttons it’s their right.
you just need to decide if you want their money or not. If you want it, do what your told. If not, tell them to take a hike and find different cilents.
Scott Cumbo
Editor
Broadway Video, NYC -
There was a production manager at one of the TV stations I used to work at who said that your situation was like being a deli owner who has a customer that asks for a sh*t sandwich. Being appalled at that request, the owner suggests a nice corned-beef on rye or a BLT – but the customer insists on a sh*t sandwich. The production manager said in that case about all the owner can do is ask if he’d like butter on it.
“Would you like butter on that?”, “Pass the butter” or variations on that became code phrases among the crew for bad spots being produced at the insistence of the client.
I feel your pain.
Mark Landman
PM Productions
Champaign, IL -
It has nothing to do with trust. They called ya. That means they trust ya. If they didn’t thumbprint it, they’d not have a job. You can have the most passive client in the world but before showing your product to his boss, he’ll always ask ya to make a font yellow then change it back to whow ya had it first. He’ll then get to go home and tell his wife what he produced that day.
I place a dead dog in every show for this reason.
The Dead Dog Theory, by Grinner Hester:
Art directors and set designers have often clashed after a night of set-making. Legend has it one clever set designer created for many hours and at the end of a long hard night, literally placed road kill in the middle of the set. The next mornign the director walked in with his reaction. “Well the set is perfect but there’s a dead dog in the middle of the floor.” The set designer removed the dead dog and was done.
By this, I now (and have for the last 15-20 years), place a “dead dog” in every unsupervised project for view by the client’s client. It may be a fat old guy in one shot for a contemporary beer video or an obvioulsy mispelled word in a sea of text. It varies. It’s a dead dog though and when the client’s client finally shows up after being on the clock but absent for days on end, they waych and the reaction is always “it’s perfect but can we swap the fat guy for the 22 year old smiling guy?” or “awesome exept we have to spell the name of the company right.
aaand I’m done.
This allows them to be a dictator without changing anything that I created. It’s not about a better product to them. If that were the case, they would have been there during the creation stages. It’s about the thumbprint so they can tell themselves how much they rock. In the end, that’s what we sell in this business. If they really just wanted a video, heck their son has FCP and a camcorder at home.
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I love Grin’s theory. I wasn’t bitching in the original post, and I certainly realize they’re paying for it and we always do whatever the client wants. In fact, we have a long-standing internal code phrase in our facility: “we can do that…we don’t even need a reason!” It’s from a famous scene with Bill Murray in Caddyshack where the groundskeeper asks him in his heavy scottish accent to “kill all the gophers on the golf course” and Murray thinks he says “kill all the golfers.”
I was just basically curious if others with long-standing clients find that they don’t really work with you on projects.
I just believe that in a corporate environment where marketing people are now being asked to do what 4 people were doing 5 years ago they’d come to see that allowing someone else more qualified to create something for them is a huge benefit. And don’t get me wrong, we don’t mind making changes. In fact, we LOVE changes because it usually means more billing. It’s the unwillingness to partner on projects and get us involved early on in the process that I’ve never understood. For me it’s like not getting a builder involved in a large construction project until literally a week or two before you break ground. Or planning a new house and not getting an architect involved until you run into problems.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
[grinner hester] “It’s not about a better product to them. If that were the case, they would have been there during the creation stages.”
On the money, Grin!
Chris, it’s not about YOU, it’s about THEM. At some point in advertising copywriter/art director school the fresh-faced kids are taught that they know everything and their take on anything is always the best and final answer. Then as they gain experience in the real world this must become even more true because, after all, they’ve been “directing” for years.
In many ways with these kinds of clients it comes down to: What else would they do if they weren’t there to “improve” the production? Maybe you should provide a dead dog or two.
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You are one very clever fellow.
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Me, I love the clients that have a clear idea of what they want, who come in telling you exactly where the target is, and what they want to pay for.
Me, I am way more of a perfectionist and will usually, in most cases, do far more than what they want. It helps me get things done far faster when they come in with their expectations, than if I try to hit mine.
I like both kinds of customers: the ones that want to collaborate and the ones that want to tell me exactly what they want.
Both, coincidentally, write checks that spend equally well.
:o)
Sometimes, one is more fun than the other and I would agree that sometimes the ones mired down in minutiae and detail can become almost as big a pain as a grinder.
But as an old salesman once told me: the sweetest revenge is cashing the check. (Though I will admit that there are times when even a check isn’t enough and we have walked a few over the years, but only a few.) 😉
Repeat after me: “Checks are good, better than no checks — and I like the big ones that come from others, best of all.”
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry -
Nick Griffin: Chris, it’s not about YOU, it’s about THEM
Nick…No offense, but I’ve been doing this for 25 years, 14 of it as an owner. I think I realize it’s about the client and not me. I constantly preach on this and other forums that our job is to solve clients problems. But that’s my point with the original post. If a client can save a day’s worth of their time and energy by letting a vendor create something that’s top quality, why wouldn’t they do it?
Don’t get me wrong, we have MANY clients that do just that. There are a handful that almost never come in for edit sessions, instead preferring to have us send them rough cuts at various points via email. Most of these clients make very few changes and they’re great to work with. A couple of these clients are so trusting they don’t even come to shoots.
Again..I’m not bitching or complaining. Like Ron pointed out, their checks all cash. We’re glad to do whatever a client asks of us. But we also feel like clients come to us (especially long-term clients) for our expertise.
So what I have a hard time understanding is the ones that guard their ideas like they’re gold and their unwillingness to get a marketing/production company involved during the idea stage. I just think doing that leads to better end projects.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com -
[Chris Blair] “So what I have a hard time understanding is the ones that guard their ideas like they’re gold and their unwillingness to get a marketing/production company involved during the idea stage. I just think doing that leads to better end projects. “
It does lead to better products. There’s nothing to understand. People are people and there are those who would rather lead and have you push buttons with little or no input. Fortunately for us those clients are few and far between, but when they do come in, so long as we enjoy working with them, we just do what they ask. Those are some of the easiest edits actually because we don’t really have to think, just do.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author.
Credits include multiple Emmy, Telly, Aurora and Peabody Awards.
Owner, Biscardi Creative Media featuring HD Post
Biscardi Creative MediaCreative Cow Forum Host:
Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Motion, Apple Color, AJA Kona, Business & Marketing, Maxx Digital.
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