Clients. I love them all dearly. I’d be scribbling away, by candlelight, under a bridge – pencil on toilet paper – without them, but… every now and then I need a little more direction to produce good work.
Please try to understand that the following phrases allow me to do precisely nothing for a business;
‘Just make it good’
‘Do something crazy’
‘We want to stand out’
‘Anything other than the usual’
‘How about something a bit different…’
‘Use your imagination’
‘We’re not just your standard [insert business type here]’
‘Just do something that excites our customers/clients’
All I ever want is to produce great work for clients (and by ‘great’ I mean both engaging and effective), that achieves all of the objectives they set out at the start.
I hope none are ever offended when, upon hearing one of the above statements, I ask: ‘sorry, have you got a little more information on exactly what you’re looking for from this piece of work?’
Or, to put it another way, you wouldn’t walk into a restaurant and respond to the waiter’s requests to order from the menu with: ‘I’d just like some nice food, please – bring it over when you can’
Specifics. They’re vitally important.