Creative Reaction

Creative Cow magazine has a very astute article on the traits of great clients pages 40-41 of its Dec. ‘06 - Feb. ‘07 issue, which was later repackaged and posted here.

Clients are defined as those who pay well and expect excellent work and with whom relationships are based on mutual trust. They value expertise, they appreciate your attention to detail and they rarely second-guess you.

“Grinders” are at the opposite end of the spectrum. The are suspicious, highly demanding and they micro-manage at every opportunity. They are highly protective of their own money, yet they do not seem to understand that your company needs to make a profit in order to keep providing great service; they haggle, make excuses, and pay late, if at all.

(FWIW, I wish the author could think of a better term for “bad clients”. “Grinders” makes me shudder almost as much as an Olive Garden commercial.)

The author puts everyone else - about 70% of the market (!) - in middle, somewhere along the continuum.

After advising us on how to spot the grinders, we are shown how we can make our relationships with the other groups more profitable, largely based on their perception of quality.

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve come across an article which so clearly shows us the key to a successful creative services business.

After reading the article, you will probably agree heartily with it; in fact, you will probably look back at your career, identifying the grinders in your past. But before you start feeling too good about yourself, having compared yourself to a grinder, take a few moments to think about how you’ve treated your vendors, suppliers, and service providers. Where do you lie along the continuum?

Bob Kodzis knocks another one out of the park in this article written for Create Magazine, where he reviews the best-selling creativity book, “The Medici Effect”.

“By intersecting diverse fields, cultures and disciplines we approach our creative challenges from a surprising variety of directions, making the possibilities almost limitless.”

Download a .pdf of the article here.