Price Wars: Lowest Bidder Wins, You Lose
When a prospect approaches me outright with the statement, “We’re looking for the lowest bidder”, I’m tempted to just let them carry along on their merry way. They’ll find their bargain, because with every other twelve year old hanging out their digital shingle, added to the increasing encroachment of slave-labour rates from developing nations, unqualified people calling themselves designers are a dime a dozen these days.
However, before bidding a polite but firm “goodbye and good luck”, I do try to impart a little knowledge and foresight. Because in the end, these people actually end up paying more for a vastly inferior product – and that’s not good for anyone.
A True Story
I’m not going to bore you with the vague old “you get what you pay for” adage (oh wait, I just did). Rather, I am going to ask you to read through a short, true story. Trust me, you don’t want to learn this lesson the hard way.
Jon* is a 15 year old high school student, hoping to build his portfolio so he can get into a design program. He lives with his parents, has no staff or overhead, and is teaching himself how to use a copy of Adobe Creative Suite that he ‘found’ online. He’s had no actual clients, and his only business experience was a summer job at the snack bar at the local ball diamond. He built a small website for his freelancing business using a free (but very nice) WordPress template. His portfolio has three very nice but unverifiable sample pieces featured.
Jan* is a 30 year old university graduate, with specializations in consumer psychology, research and graphic design. She has over ten years experience creating a myriad of different design solutions for businesses around the world, an expansive portfolio of work, and dozens of testimonials from satisfied clients. She runs a full time design business, supporting a small team of painstakingly selected, experienced designers.
Obviously, the names have been changed… but it should be pretty easy to guess who Jan really is. As for Jon, he had submitted the winning bid for a project we competed for early last year (and I always check out who beat me when the opportunity presents itself). After I contacted him to ask about his background, he sent me his resume and the information above.
An excerpt from the client’s email to me last year:
Fourteen months later, the same client approached me out of the blue, asking if the previous quote was still valid.
It turns out they had spent nearly double the quoted amount with Jon (bringing them well above my quote), who not only turned in more than thirty “terrible” logo concepts, but who was impossible to get hold of between school and his social calendar. They never even got to the brochure, corporate collateral and website that were part of the original RFP.
But that’s not the worst of it.
When the client finally got fed up and decided to “settle” on one of his logo concepts, the graphic used turned out to be a copyrighted trademark belonging to an established multinational company. They are incredibly lucky their secretary stumbled onto the plagiarism before the copyright owners did.
I have to admit a small sense of satisfaction in hearing their story. Not because I revel in the misfortune of others (quite the opposite), but because I was vindicated. On the flip side, I hear too many stories like this one. These experiences sour people on the whole profession.
Yes, our hourly rates are quite a bit higher than Jon’s. But what you should be thinking about is what you actually get within that hour.
It’s also important to note that I only know about Jon’s status as a student with no actual clients or experience, because I bothered to ask him. These are not things that people advertise on their sales collateral. So do your homework when choosing a designer. And always, always read their terms of service in full. If they don’t have any, then my advice would be to run as quickly as possible in the opposite direction.
As for the prodigal client, I agreed to take on the project at last year’s price. They’re now very happy, and a little wiser for the experience.
