What do you do? You don't submit concept sketches. The design industry needs to stand up for itself. Plumbers don't have to fix some of your pipes before you hire them. Doctors don't give you a check-up before you decide if they are worth paying for. And, hey, if you ask the client for some free work before you decide if you want to work with them I'll bet they won't respond with a "Yeah, sure." If you give away your creative ideas for free, why should the client think they should pay for it? If you give something away, it 1. cheapens it, and 2. it makes it much harder to prove it has value.

Posted by: Jason Fried on June 26, 2002 09:13 AM

 

Hear, hear, Jason.

Posted by: MadMan on June 26, 2002 09:32 AM

 

As a consultant, there is a constant pressure from potential clients to prove my expertise in the sales process.

One of the comments to the linked article mentions an approach that I use regularly. I've had sales prospects ask for design concepts, a brief evaluation of their online strategy, or an evaluation of their product. I tell them that the process of creating these things requres that we thoroughly understand their business. It would be premature to perform this work without that understanding.

Posted by: Adam Kalsey on June 26, 2002 10:08 AM

 

In the annual report development process, it has traditionally been accepted for companies to ask design firms to submit comps of a possible direction to head.
Good companies will pay for this work during the RFP process (maybe $5-10K). A lot of companies don't pay, of course.

If the company is interested in working with you, it's not out of the question to ask them for some compensation for the pre-project design.

Things have changed a bit over the past five years but when I worked for a design firm that developed a lot of corporate literature and annuals, this was the approach we took and it worked.

Posted by: jonathan on June 26, 2002 12:11 PM