for those jobs, and the faster we determine that, the better for everyone. I need to manage the percentage of time I spend talking to leads versus the percentage of time I spend working with the clients to whom I’ve already made commitments. So meeting with every person who contacts us, as much as I might want to, would leave me little time to take care of current clients. To help with this, we’ve developed a set of questions, a screener, to help both parties decide whether we’re right for the job. If the potential project passes the initial screening, then we know it makes sense to devote some precious, otherwise billable time to pursue it. Some of the questions are common to all design studios: goals and necessary capabilities, timeline, and budget. There are several others we have added over the years as we’ve learned what qualities make a better or worse project for us. (I love you guys so much I’ll even give you link to the screener: http://muledesign.com/designbook/screener.html.) The most important thing to keep in mind is that you are evaluating the potential client as much as they are evaluating you. Prospective clients sometimes find this surprising. Those folks aren’t likely to make good clients. As soon as we know that we’re not the right studio for someone, we tell them. But a potential client who comes in from a referral is generally sent to us by someone who’s worked with us before and thinks we’re a good fit to solve this problem, so we’re more inclined to sit down with them right away. After an initial conversation, we may in fact decide we’re not a good fit after all, but we’re going to do our best to refer them to someone who might be a better fit. We like them to leave feeling satisfied and helped. And someday they may have a project we’ll be right for. So even when you choose not to work with someone you want to leave them with a good impression. If you give them a clear, positive idea of what you do, they will then refer you to others. Referrals are the one true path. But surely there are others, right? Well, sure. There are also other tablets besides iPads, I suppose.
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Design Is a Job