“In order to cement your status in the cultural elite, you want to be already sick of everything no one else has even heard of.”
—David Brooks, NY Times Op Ed columnist

This has, in my ten years of experience, been the prevailing attitude and general temperment in business, amidst a set of people who are constantly standing on the forefront of culture and gleaning bits for their work. I might be bold enough to say that attitude will soon be falling out of fashion. In a post-Obama victory, in an empathy-filled set of hard luck headlines, it’s time for optimism and promise to make a comeback. What can we offer in hope? Are our uncertain times a clarion call for a newer, more hopeful way of thinking and presenting real problem-solving solutions?

Now, I’m not talking about an unrealistic cheeriness that merely sugar coats the struggles ahead, but a bright-eyed, soul-driven willingness to seek and find solutions to problems—both for our world, and for the business that drives it. In these times, this kind of buoyancy is a breath of fresh air, a much-needed emotive undertone communicated to a weary audience. Are these the kinds of concepts and solutions that will resonate with clients and their markets in the coming months and years? I’m convinced that working within this mental framework will change us for the better.

One great example is Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts. They’ve achieved success on the two fronts of corporate responsibility and corporate growth of a high-end luxury brand. In its latest CSR initiative, the Banyan Tree Al Wadi in the United Arab Emirates released a first set of animals, consisting of 18 Arabian gazelles, eight Reem gazelles and four Arabian oryx into the resort’s 60-hectare nature reserve. Other ongoing CSR projects include Seedlings, a group-wide initiative to support communities by building capacities of young people; Greening Communities, to tackle climate change; Resource Conservation, to reduce energy and water consumption by each resort; and a marine lab at the Banyan Tree Vabbinfaru in the Maldives to look into environmental conservation. And, the Banyan Tree group has been supporting Earth Day for five consecutive years.

Founder Ho Kwon Ping attributes the company’s success to excellence in brand building and says idealism and business are not incompatible. “To me, the proudest thing I’ve done (with) Banyan Tree has nothing to do with hotels; it’s the fact that we’ve been able to build, from a relatively small platform, a globally sustainable brand that would have come from Asia, but be able to compete globally.”

There doesn’t have to be a difference between a good businessperson and someone who wants to improve the world. We must act on what matters. Making a difference is what intrigues and moves us forward. There is this rising expectation that business must address our most pressing concerns. Businesses will succeed based on their innovation of purpose, not on selling more products or creating better models for how they handle their business.

Photograph of the small jetty of Banyan Tree, Vabbinfaru by Daniel Laskowski, used with permission.

Previously, we discussed some tips for clients on selecting a design firm, and important considerations before entering into a working relationship. Once you’ve taken that step, it seems like the hard part is over—the design firm is going to do the work after all. Right? Well, it’s not really that simple. The challenge of working with your chosen team to create the best possible project is the responsibility of both design firm and client. On this journey there are some recognizable roadblocks you should avoid, allowing you to get the most out of your working design partnership and the money, time and energy you’ll be investing.

Below are our key points to help you work together successfully:

Have A Destination In Mind
Expectations are the underlying (if invisible) foundation of any good design relationship, and it’s crucial to bring those to the surface right at the start. If you’re going to engage your design firm as partners, you’ll want to communicate your expectations, even if some of them are less-than-obvious. Defining the business goals might be as easy as asking a few questions: What are your goals for the project(s)? What’s the timeline? What is it that you hope this project will do? Drive sales? Build mindshare? Increase web traffic? Get as specific as you can, and in each of these, think about how you (and your firm) will best measure and analyze the results at the end. Will success be defined by internal feedback? (Does the rest of the company embrace it?) Or external reactions? Many companies enter a project with unrealistic expectations of what design can do—a beautifully designed and executed effort still won’t turn a typical product into the iPhone. Great marketing won’t save a poorly-conceived plan. Be realistic and specific, and make sure you designate a target everyone can aim for. It seems obvious to decide on a measure of success before the project begins, but many projects proceed without one, to everyone’s detriment.

There is also another set of expectations specific to you and your organization. Your chosen design firm will want to know: What similar efforts have you undertaken in the past? Which have succeeded, and what would you rather forget? What sort of history do you bring to this project? Is this the 5th time the department has attempted a similar effort? And then, there are the more personal, idiosyncratic factors to keep in mind. Does the CEO’s husband hate the color orange? Whether they’re goofy or financial, from your perspective, what crucial tidbits does your design partner need to know?

Show Them The Money
When a design firm asks “What’s your budget for this project?” it isn’t an effort to squeeze every last cent from your company. It’s a question that will frame the entire effort—what realm of solutions are possible? What set of tools will work effectively within the budgetary constraints? Different services and deliverables have various prices—a set of lookbooks might be a smaller investment than a deep, socially-networked web campaign. There are many ways to attack a design problem and meet the project goals, so it’s important to help your design firm know which tools you (and they!) can afford to use. This will save everyone from building up concepts that you can’t afford to execute, and instead, spending time on affordable solutions to your actual design challenges.

Talk When They Listen—More Info Is Better Info
Give your design team as much ammunition as possible, and as much data, information and perspective as you can. A firm that asks a lot of questions isn’t stupid or ignorant—quite the contrary. The more information you can provide at the outset of a project, the smoother the road to success will be. Customer profiles, anecdotal evidence, sales trends, previous marketing—all of this knowledge your company lives with on a daily basis can be like gold to your partner firm. So, don’t underestimate the power of what you already know. There might be hidden treasure amongst it.

Decide Who Will Be Involved
Give the final decision-making power to one or two people, rather than a conference room full of divergent (and equally weighted) opinions. Committees can (and will) kill great ideas with a thousand little changes—until the end product is as bland as yesterday’s oatmeal. So it’s important to hand pick those few who have the need, the skill, and the authority to make the final call. This is the place where you, as the client, have significant power to keep projects finishing well, allowing them to play out in powerful, unadulterated ways.

Far too many design efforts go awry when the real stakeholders are not present or involved. So, these people need to be identified and swept into the process at the outset. You’ve probably seen it before: A high-ranking executive suddenly appears out of nowhere with uninformed, 11th hour project opinions, killing months of strategic work, sending the design firm and internal team scrambling for a new direction. So make sure that your top people can (and will) make the time to be involved. The alternative tends to leave firms discouraged, money wasted, and clients disillusioned about the process.

Beware of Process Diagrams
Some design agencies employ various patented Process Diagrams to describe discrete “phases” of their working procedure. In our experience, most of these charts are mostly smoke and mirrors. They’re often beautiful flowcharts designed to make concrete, right brain-thinking clients feel better about spending their money. We understand that hiring a design firm for nebulous “creative services” might feel as tangible as tossing money into a black hole. That firm with the Standardized Process might present itself as a safer bet, with the illusion of always-consistent, measurable steps. But in trying to systematize the design process, these diagrams give the false impression that creative output is always linear and straightforward, with predictable results. But what client wants its marketing and design to emerge as predictable and safe? In our experience, clinging to a rigid, one-size-fits-all process ignores the fact that each client (and project) is unique. To shoehorn the design process (which, at its best, is a fusion of strategy, intuition, creativity, and execution) into a standardized chart is insulting to the client and disparaging the work of design.

Every great client understands that design is a non-linear, messy, and sometimes meandering process. There are no quality “design factories” that churn out identical, beautiful, functional pieces of design. Creative problem solving and execution isn’t something that can be automated by punching variables into the Bat-Computer. It’s less akin to hiring an accountant, and more like a sojourn that leads to where business goals and inspired results meet.

Every great client understands that design is a non-linear, messy, and sometimes meandering process.

Don’t Hire A Clone Army
You’re not looking for clones of yourself, so be prepared for some solutions you didn’t expect. Sometimes an in-house team can be too close to the situation, and a complementary outsider perspective is welcome. If you receive exactly what you were imagining, you’re either a creative genius (who should probably be designing yourself) or you’ve put restraints on the creative team you’ve invested time and money into. Either way, you probably didn’t get your money’s worth. Micromanaging your firm doesn’t make much financial sense. You’ve hired them for their expertise, so let it come through without suffocating the process—and all of this will eventually lead you (and your chosen design team) to the promised land of many successful projects.

We are a design firm, and we’re always looking for clients to partner with—organizations who will engage us to work together on projects that bolster and improve their brands. Sounds simple enough.

But clients have told us that hiring a design firm isn’t as simple as it might seem from our side of things. It’s not like hiring a plumber to come unclog your toilet. Enlisting the services of a design firm can be an intimidating process. So, in our first For Clients post, here are some things to consider when you’re on the lookout for someone to work with.

What Kind of Designer Do You Want?
In general, design firms are looking to help you by being part of the process. They bring a wealth of ideas, experience and strategic intuition to bear on your design challenges–and for what you will pay, it’s important that you take advantage of every iota of that expertise. There are many reasons clients head into the wilderness and search for the perfectly fitting Design Firm. To narrow it down, it might help to ask yourself, ‘What kind of help do I want?’ If you want someone to execute your already-baked ideas, you might be better served conserving some of your funds, and hiring a younger designer, design intern or freelance design member to put some polish on your Million Dollar Ideas. If you’re convinced you already know what you want, it could be a waste of your time, money and energy to go through the process of hiring a design firm.

On the other hand, if you have an overall sense of your organizational or marketing goals, but see the need for a partner to help you achieve those things, strategic design firms make a lot of sense. If you want someone to come alongside you and improve your company’s visual presence, the brand’s voice, and to think deeply with you about the company’s true message, then you could use the expertise of a design firm.

What You’re Getting When You “Buy Design”
Occasionally we’ll run into a prospective client who equates purchasing design services with ordering off a fast food menu. In our world, the client isn’t merely getting a deliverable, like a widget or a coffeemaker. You don’t just order a comprehensive brochure set or four package designs and say “Super Size It!”.

In the best-case scenario as a client, when you approve a proposal for a website, a logo, or a marketing campaign, you’re also entering into relationship: You’re getting the experience, the skillsets, and specific viewpoint of your design firm. Good design firms are less like Burger King and more like romances. A good design firm will want to sit down and get to know you (compatibility check), your goals and thoughts about the direction of your organization (dreams and aspirations), your history (past relationships) and all those other nuances, to help craft something that meets each specific, individual need.

“You don’t just order a comprehensive brochure set or four package designs and say “Super Size It!”

How To Look At A Portfolio or Past Work
Sometimes prospective clients have a hard time looking at the work of design firms, because after a while it can all start to seem alike—an endless array of logos, case studies, artfully cropped photos of printed pieces, website links—it can be overwhelming. To help cut through the clutter,simply ask yourself a few questions: What are you looking for? A specific style? Someone with experience in your industry? A fresh approach to your type of organization? The answers to these questions will give you a filter of sort with which to sort out which firms might fit you best in the pool of prospective suitors.

After you’ve decided what you want, there are some additional criterion to use in your evaluations. How do each of the design firms measure up in: Flexibility—do they have a variety of work? Is their expertise transferable to many different types of clients (a diverse set of projects) or are they only strong in one area? Craft—does the quality of their work seem professional? This may feel somewhat subjective, but do their designs strike you as finished and airtight? Is the presentation of their work detailed and thorough? Can they write and think intelligently about the work they’ve done? On a more elemental level, do you connect emotionally with the work they’ve done? Put yourself in the shoes of that target audience—does the work communicate what it should? (And this is much different than asking yourself, “Do I like the work?” The biggest question is, “Would I like it if I were the audience?”)

Is What’s Important To Them Important To You?
In the design firm’s case studies and project descriptions, do you see how they’ve solved the challenges of past clients? Is there evidence that the firm puts client business needs at the top of the list, strategically meeting (or exceeding) business goals? Or are they more focused on just making beautiful “art”, droning on about other less relevant things? Creative execution is a must, but great design firms always harness creativity in the service of something larger—and that something should be your business.

Do People Say Good Things About Them?
This is just part of due diligence. Ask for references. Can they hand those over without blinking? Are they easy to work with? Personable and friendly? Or do they bristle and push back at every chance? How quickly do they call you back? If you’re part of their roster of clients, how important do they make you feel?

Finally, Are You Committed To The Process?
At the end of the day, when you’ve finally settled on your firm, it’s easy to bring a design firm in, toss them a project brief, and say “Have at it!” It’s a totally different experience to sit down, roll up your sleeves, and begin the immersive discussion about your project, goals, likes, dislikes and overarching strategy. By really engaging in the process of design with your chosen firm, you’ll show that you’re committed to great results and thoughtful execution. It will take more work than just handing off the design work and moving on to something else—but the final results will be much more exciting, effective and rewarding when you, the client, occupy that all-important co-pilot’s chair.

In our next installment of this series, we’ll explore Working With A Design Firm.

The above image is used with permission as part of a Creative Commons license.