Dear Brand and Design Agencies,
Let me say up front that I am grateful. For the years of training and knowledge, for the laughter and the friendships. For the 4am starts in the days when we flew in comfort and understood the power of presenting face to face. For the sense of having belonged to a community of like-minded rogues. And for the consistency of payroll, which I miss. (There’s more that I don’t miss thankfully).
So what I say to you now, I say as an agency-type at heart…
- There’s a dwindling pool of people who can write a decent brief. Please don’t lose this skill as it sets good agencies apart and helps everyone evaluate good and bad strategic and creative work. It also makes it more efficient to work with 3rd parties. You pay us weird freelance types for our skills in getting up to speed in a nanosecond, so a well-constructed brief can only help.
- I worry on your behalf that you’re not making time to think. Clients pay you for this. When I am privileged enough to be working on site with you, I see people running in and out of conference rooms, technology in hand. Then I see them briefly at desks, technology in hand, setting up the next call or video conf. Then debriefing on it and running out of the door, glued to devices in cabs, writing and responding to emails about the next dial-in. These are people with ‘Strategy’ or ‘Planning’ in their title. Sometimes it seems that thinking has become very much secondary to responding. It’s not the same thing. Clients almost never need instant response. They need great thinking and great creative and both of these need time investment. Beware – paper and pen may be involved in the Development of Great Ideas and that’s ok. Breathe.
- Please pay your freelancers on time, according to the terms you have agreed. The bigger the agency, the more of a stumbling block this seems – Big Cheese top of chain not worried about Very Small Amoeba in pond, obviously. If there is to be a delay (why?) to the agreed payment, it’s just really nice to pick up the phone. And be sure there is not a freelancer out there who isn’t aware of the cunning tactics of Big Cheese Accounts departments – phone lines that ring out with no message facility, emails that elicit no response. We will chase and – embarrassing as it is and most of us despise having to do it – we will chase most regularly, until we are paid.
That’s all. I remain in the countryside mostly at my desk in pyjamas, getting better and better at Pop Master. I do hope all proceeds well in town. Please rest assured I have our mutual interests very much to the fore and remain hopeful of the next brief.
Strategic regards,
SJ
