If something seems too good to be true, then it very often is. Not always, but usually. As we found out not so long ago…
Completely out of the blue, we received a contact via our website from a well known events venue, enquiring about a new website, with a pretty healthy budget and a deadline which wasn’t set in stone, but ideally “as soon as possible”. This contact was quickly followed up by an email from the venue, enquiring as to whether we had received the initial contact. So, pretty keen-ish to speak to us.
Whenever we receive a new enquiry, the very first thing I explain is our circumstances – we no longer live in Didsbury. We work from our home, in northern Istria, where we relocated a few years ago. I explain that it may be useful for anyone seriously considering working with us, to perhaps make contact with any of our other clients and find out, from them, what it is like working with us. We have nothing to hide and we know that being in a different country has not impacted on our ability to design and communicate and grow our business. But we want people to feel comfortable with our circumstances and reassured from the outset, so we encourage them to do a little bit of homework. An email was sent, fully detailing our situation, ending with…
Happy to expand on this further – or go ahead and provide you with more information re your request – but I wanted to make sure that from the very outset you were aware that we weren’t just around the corner.
…and an almost immediate reply came back, advising that this was no problem at all, and could we send over some initial information, based on the initial enquiry form. This was done in a timely manner – I advised that we’d need two to three days to consider what the company wanted, their vision, their expectations etc, but that we would provide a detailed summary of what we could do, with a projected cost. I was assured that this information, in an email, would be more than acceptable, and as promised, a detailed email was sent.
A very positive reply was received, requesting a follow up phone call, and over the next two or three weeks, more calls and emails were exchanged, with the company providing additional information in terms of their ideas/vision. Timescales were again discussed and although not explicitly stated, the implication was that we would be delivering on this project. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was said to suggest otherwise. However, we felt that with the potential scale and scope of this project, we wanted to provide something a little more formal than just an email, however detailed and lengthy, so we prepared a branded document, backed up with examples of relevant design work. This was enthusiastically received and we were advised that the Events Manger, who we had been dealing with, would be meeting with the owners within the week and would come back to me with any questions or requests for clarification. So, we breathed a sigh a relief as we’d done what we could and just waited for the next communication.
And waited. And, waited.
Four weeks later, I decided to just check in and ask if there were any updates. And, without any nod to the fact that we had in fact been tendering for this job, this was the reply…
Apologies for the delayed response. Unfortunately, after long and thoughtful deliberation we have decided to have our branding and website built elsewhere. I would like to thank you & Pete ever so much for all the work you put into getting us a quote and the phone calls you’ve taken with me. It is clear that you have a strong passion for branding and web design. However, after lots of team discussions, we believe that [name of venue] and its demands suit a different company better.
Now, this is maybe what we should have just done. Got over it. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t a massive deal, but a couple of things really, really started to bug me.
Firstly, had we known from the outset that this was a tendering process, or that other companies were invited to quote too, we wouldn’t have involved ourselves at all. To put it quite simply, we have never, ever involved ourselves in this competitive side of the design industry. For us, it’s lots of work and additional pressure that we have to do ourselves as we can’t offload it on someone else – and it ultimately takes us away from design work for current clients. However, because the initial approach did not seem like one where we being asked to submit a competitive quote, and none of the subsequent communications suggested that anyone else was being considered, we felt that this project, in its inception, was very similar to all others we have done. With hindsight, and perhaps we were very naive – but I don’t think so, as we can usually sniff out bluffers and bullshitters – we feel that the potential client wasn’t 100% honest from the outset.
Secondly, the fact a month passed by and I had to chase the person we had been dealing with to see if there were any developments, and to then receive the above response, just really irked me. Had I not chased, I doubt we’d have been high up on the priority list and possibly would not have even been told that we were no longer being considered. Because we do try at all times to treat clients with courtesy and respect and always keep them updated, we found it so disappointing that after establishing what we thought was a growing relationship of trust, we felt totally let down. And, maybe more than a bit foolish that our bullshit detectors hadn’t worked as well as they normally do,
However, seven months later, we are over it, Plenty of new projects are being worked on – and these are ALL the type we like. Work for current clients or work for new clients, who’ve come to us via a recommendation. And, even more pleasingly, knowing that if this company had chosen to work with us, they would most likely have their shiny new website in place, their old fashioned, template website is still up there…