Whether we are a small design firm or a big media house, creatives
rely on business development efforts to bring in the projects and
sales people rely on the creative to produce the work. This
relationship of mutual benefit along with the division of labor yields
higher outputs than either could produce alone – when each party is
responsible to the other. In my experience in advertising, the
division of work is often unbalanced because the priorities and goals
assigned are misaligned. The system of credit for work performed is
dangerously weighted towards sales at every level – credit for
successes, compensation, benefits, hours of work performed.
Because of this, the quality of output is negligible to the salesman
because his part is done and more business needs to be found and
brought in. Without the proper incentives in place, you can see how
this kind of system can lead to a “smash-and-grab” in which those who
are responsible to the client’s ultimate success are left to pick up
the pieces and look bad throughout the process. “We’ll bring in the
nerds when we need them.”
Business development can ultimately be detrimental to the success of
the firm even when they are successful. If success is solely based on
contract quotes, then there is no reason for a salesman to not just
sell anything for any amount they can get. No thought then needs to be
paid to internal strengths or weaknesses or to projects that have no
recurring use. Developer teams can create and maintain profit and
margins when they can show expertise and reuse functionality.
Implementing new functionalities may be exciting for some firms to
try, but if there is no way to reuse it, then it is ultimately more
costly to agree to, and there is a level of risk that can not easily
be determined.
So, finding projects within a niche that you know your team can
deliver on, increases your firm’s level of expertise in a specific
strength and also provides the client with a higher quality output
than going to another firm that has less experience. So trying to take
on out of your scope means you lose money on the project and so in the
end you have yourself a business developer that is costing you money
rather that bringing it in.
Both sides have silently agreed that high-quality creatives are easy
to come by and are therefore dispensable, leading to lower pay and
less involvement in the introductory levels of an engagement.
Paradoxically, a successful engagement provides sales with assets that
enable them to close more deals, which often directly affects their
take-home pay. How do these residual benefits get translated to
creatives? If the creatives job was done correctly, it directly leads
to the success of every engagement going forward. How is that
reconciled? Usually by continuing to increase the workload of a
creative until they’re too moody to keep around any longer, I guess.
Being able to assess the scope of time a project task will take is a
great way to minimize risk of a new project. Since it is nearly
impossible to predict without some real historical data, and since it
doesn’t much help the sales cycle, a creative can easily be deemed
slow and therefore a disappointment when timeframes of actual time
required doesn’t match up with time budget expected by sales or the
client. It is also very difficult to communicate why some tasks may
take longer than other and so frustration grows. These blemishes only
grow and lead to being fed up to the point that many creative switch
jobs too often continuing the cycle of poor image. The sense of never
being able to be understood leads one to strive to switch sides. As
soon as you know how to communicate the process or methods of the
creative process, you stop doing the work – it’s just not worth it.
Whether you were successful at a project or not means little because
it doesn’t translate clearly into the profit goals of the firm nearly
as directly as sales numbers.
That said, having projects to work on means getting great salesmen to
communicate competency to new clients which is vital to keeping a
service-based business going, so what systems of incentive work to
distribute the work/benefits within a firm more appropriately?
Agree disagree with any of these sentiments?
