“What Clients Don’t Know (and Why It’s Your Fault)” with Mike Monteiro at AEA Boston 2013
As always, Mike Monteiro’s talk was intense and inspiring. Here are my notes:
- “These ideas are only as good as you are at going back to your job and selling them.”
- “If you are a designer, you are always convincing someone of something.”
- “You need to take more responsibility for how you do your job.”
- “You cannot put the onus of your job on someone else.”
- Express empathy with your expertise
- “Designers, you are in the service industry!”
- Don’t be that grumpy, rude clerk who waists his expertise on his lack of empathy
- Client service: Don’t be irritated — be empathetic!
- Making things is the easy
- “You’re going to spend 90% of your time convincing people that the shit you thought of in the shower is right.”
- “If it helps you do your job, it’s part of your job”
- The designer-client relationship is not at all a teacher-student relationship
- Learn enough about each others’ businesses that you can successfully work together
- Do not take on clients you don’t respect because you can’t empathize with those you don’t respect
- Clients don’t know when to get a designer involved
- “Eye-rolling is not a design skill.”
- “As long as you insist on acting like a disenfranchised creative, that’s exactly how you deserve to be treated.”
- “Stop waiting for an invitation to do your job”
- “The work does not speak for itself”
- Sell your service, not your work
- Look for the problem that you solved and use your work as a prop to illustrate the idea
- Clients don’t know the best way to evaluate a designer
- Clients and designers find each other via referrals
- “Referrals are the most precious commodity we have.”
- Every job you do is a sales pitch for the next job
- Goods RFPs do exist!
- Parts
- Define problem
- Potential constraints
- Goals
- The solution comes from working together, not from an RFP
- “RFPs may be a client’s way to tell you they’re scared”
- Work together to establish solutions
- If you help write the RFP, you’re in an even better position to get the work
- Help clients define a process that works well for both sides
- RFPs are just another design problem to solve
- Parts
- Don’t just answer your client’s questions, figure out why they’re asking those questions
- “Never work for someone you can’t argue with”
- “Never work from somebody you can’t say ‘No’ to”
- “Don’t make your pricing a secret. Make it a datapoint.”
- “Your process is a mystery to most clients”
- What can you do to demystify design process?
- It’s on you to help your clients understand your process
- “Do everything in your power to be right, but never be afraid to be wrong.”
- When you say “The client doesn’t get it,” you’re saying “I couldn’t find a way to get my point across”
- “Everything that is wrong with design today is your fault.” And that is good news, because it’s your job to fix it.
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willmillar