1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,660 So one of the things you might be wondering about as you put your proposal together 2 00:00:03,660 --> 00:00:08,800 is whether you should do some design mock-ups to show the prospective client. 3 00:00:08,800 --> 00:00:12,320 In fact, you might have even been asked to provide them 4 00:00:12,320 --> 00:00:14,610 as part of the tendering process. 5 00:00:14,610 --> 00:00:18,020 So should you be doing this kind of speculative design work? 6 00:00:18,020 --> 00:00:21,270 Should you be putting all of the effort in up front, 7 00:00:21,270 --> 00:00:23,890 without knowing whether you're going to win the work or not? 8 00:00:23,890 --> 00:00:26,380 Well, my answer is a clear one. 9 00:00:26,380 --> 00:00:28,680 No, you shouldn't. 10 00:00:28,680 --> 00:00:31,350 Well, almost never, anyway. 11 00:00:31,350 --> 00:00:35,380 There may be occasions—okay, if Coca-Cola came to me 12 00:00:35,380 --> 00:00:38,490 with a multi-million dollar project and asked me 13 00:00:38,490 --> 00:00:42,480 to do some speculative design work, then maybe I would be tempted. 14 00:00:42,480 --> 00:00:47,120 But generally speaking, it's just a bad idea. 15 00:00:47,120 --> 00:00:50,750 And not just because of the amount of work you have to put into it. 16 00:00:50,750 --> 00:00:55,000 Ultimately, it costs the client money as well. 17 00:00:55,000 --> 00:00:58,110 What? you might wonder. They're not paying for it. 18 00:00:58,110 --> 00:01:00,740 So how does it cost the client any money? 19 00:01:00,740 --> 00:01:03,640 Well, think of it like this, okay? 20 00:01:03,640 --> 00:01:07,960 Let's say a client comes to you and asks for some speculative design work, 21 00:01:07,960 --> 00:01:11,120 and you do it for them, but you don't win the project. 22 00:01:11,120 --> 00:01:14,540 Then you get another client come to you. 23 00:01:14,540 --> 00:01:17,030 Also asks you for speculative design work, 24 00:01:17,030 --> 00:01:20,010 which you do, and then you win the project. 25 00:01:20,010 --> 00:01:23,740 So that's two pieces of speculative design work that you've done. 26 00:01:23,740 --> 00:01:27,690 You've not been paid for those, so how are you going to recover the cost? 27 00:01:27,690 --> 00:01:30,680 Because you have to. Your business has to be profitable. 28 00:01:30,680 --> 00:01:35,980 The way that you recover the cost is you build it in to the project you've won. 29 00:01:35,980 --> 00:01:39,820 So the project that you've won—the client has paid for their own 30 00:01:39,820 --> 00:01:43,860 speculative design work, but they've also paid 31 00:01:43,860 --> 00:01:47,100 for the speculative design work for the client you lost. 32 00:01:47,100 --> 00:01:52,610 So it's costing them a lot of money, because you won the project. 33 00:01:52,610 --> 00:01:54,740 But that's not the only reason. 34 00:01:54,740 --> 00:01:56,900 It's not just about cost here. 35 00:01:56,900 --> 00:02:01,280 There's lots of other reasons why you shouldn't be doing speculative design. 36 00:02:01,280 --> 00:02:03,570 For start, design is a process. 37 00:02:03,570 --> 00:02:10,479 You don't go into a room and sprinkle fairy dust, and this magical website appears 38 00:02:10,479 --> 00:02:12,720 out of it that looks good, you say it's perfect. 39 00:02:12,720 --> 00:02:16,590 There's a lot of discussion and conversation and backwards and forwards 40 00:02:16,590 --> 00:02:21,280 with the client. How can you do that before you've actually won the work? 41 00:02:21,280 --> 00:02:26,610 Any design you produce isn't going to take into account that process. 42 00:02:26,610 --> 00:02:32,470 Also, design requires a good understanding of the business you're working with. 43 00:02:32,470 --> 00:02:35,470 There's a lot of business analysis that goes into it. 44 00:02:35,470 --> 00:02:37,960 What are their business objectives? Who are their users? 45 00:02:37,960 --> 00:02:44,860 All of that kind of stuff. Again, those kinds of conversations don't happen before they've signed on the dotted line. 46 00:02:44,860 --> 00:02:48,730 So again, any design you work to produce up front 47 00:02:48,730 --> 00:02:51,080 is not going to cover that kind of stuff. 48 00:02:51,080 --> 00:02:55,670 Design should be a collaborative process between you and your clients. 49 00:02:55,670 --> 00:03:00,800 And that collaboration just cannot happen before that relationship 50 00:03:00,800 --> 00:03:04,390 has been established, before there's a contract in place. 51 00:03:06,530 --> 00:03:11,400 At the end of the day, speculative design work can be nothing more than showmanship. 52 00:03:11,400 --> 00:03:15,540 It's nothing more than showing off that you produce pretty graphics. 53 00:03:15,540 --> 00:03:18,380 But somebody can look at your portfolio to see that. 54 00:03:18,380 --> 00:03:24,160 It can never be a true representation of what the final website should be. 55 00:03:24,160 --> 00:03:27,180 And although explaining that to the client is difficult, 56 00:03:27,180 --> 00:03:31,230 in a lot of cases you will actually get respect for doing so. 57 00:03:31,230 --> 00:03:34,190 We've been in situations where we've actually won work 58 00:03:34,190 --> 00:03:38,980 because we said, very up front, that we won't do speculative design work. 59 00:03:38,980 --> 00:03:41,150 And we've explained why. 60 00:03:41,150 --> 00:03:43,780 The client has been so impressed at our explanations, 61 00:03:43,780 --> 00:03:47,850 that they've immediately been cynical about any other web design agency 62 00:03:47,850 --> 00:03:50,750 that does speculative design work for them. 63 00:03:50,750 --> 00:03:56,640 If the client decides that they want that, and if you refuse 64 00:03:56,640 --> 00:04:00,450 and you lose the client, then ultimately it's a great way 65 00:04:00,450 --> 00:04:04,500 of weeding out undesirable clients that are going to end up being 66 00:04:04,500 --> 00:04:08,500 very difficult when you actually do the final work.