Saying “no you can’t have that” to clients is our obligation

Sofia Gkiousou | Friday, March 19th, 2010 | 4 Comments »

Refuse Uploaded by D I C K S D A I L Y on 29 Jan 07, 9.45PM GMT.

All of our beloved designers have the same problem. They end up doing projects that they don’t like because the clients ask for minutely specified things. We sympathise and understand. Not to mention that we enjoy reading a lovely new blog (sorry, in Greek only) detailing some such adventures.

However, we tend to say ‘no’ quite a lot. Manolis reminded me today when we were discussing the possibility of doing a pro bono project for someone we like (more on that one later).

Before we get down and do a project we really, honestly look into who the client is and what are his/her needs. As we say in our process page, we then research and come up with proposals. We then discuss them and the client needs to be happy.

However, there are times that we say no. We see it as our obligation and our responsibility to say when we don’t think something is a good idea and especially when we think it will hurt our client.

Recent example: One of our clients was considering opening a Facebook Fan Page. We went over the audience, the needs, the segments and we as SoMaFusion agreed that there would be no tangible return whatsoever, it was too late (there was a specific deadline, sorry I can’t share more on this) and it would not achieve the desired end result. We discussed this with our client, explained, debated and in the end he agreed with us. And – crucially – he was happy.

Let me stress this for a moment. Our client trusted us to give an opinion as specialists and as people who actually researched the question and responded responsibly. Sure, effectively we said ‘no’. And we are still convinced that we did the right thing – our client agrees by the way.

It once happened that a prospective client did not agree. He approached us with specific (very specific) ideas and laid them down. We tried to debate, we tried to explain but he wanted to do it his way. We turned down the contract. Not out of animosity – not at all, but let me express this as clearly as possible. We like what we do. In fact we love it. We refused so that we could keep on loving it. We remained happy… even though I’m never sure how that prospective client fared.