Client Suitability Policy

1. Purpose

1.1 Most studios have a page explaining why you should hire them. This is the other one.

1.2 It exists so that nobody has to sit through a thirty-minute call to learn something they could have read in four, with a cup of tea, and then quietly closed.

1.3 It is written as a policy because people read policies. Nobody has read an About page to the end since about 2009.

Figure 1. A prospective client reaching section 4.

2. Scope

2.1 This policy applies to any person, company or committee considering engaging Grid Design for brand, website or product work.

2.2 It does not apply to existing clients, who have already been through it and may proceed directly to section 7, where the biscuits are.

2.3 It does not apply to anyone who arrived here looking for the privacy policy. That is the other link in the footer. We are as surprised as you are that you clicked this one.

3. Definitions

3.1 Senior means the person on the call is the person doing the work. We have no other kind. We looked into getting some and it seemed a lot of bother.

3.2 Fast means three months from concept to live, which we have done more than once. It does not mean a fortnight, however nicely you ask.

3.3 A quick call means thirty minutes. We bring a number. You bring the short silence that follows it. We are used to the silence.

3.4 Fixed scope means the price in the proposal is the price on the invoice. If you change the scope we tell you before the price changes, not after, which we understand is considered eccentric.

3.5 Committee means any group of people who have each been given a veto and none of whom has been given the decision. Usually meets on a Thursday.

3.6 Fine means an outcome nobody complains about and nobody shows anyone. Not to be confused with “fine” as said by a British person, which means the opposite.

4. Grounds for unsuitability

You are unlikely to be a suitable client if one or more of the following applies. Each is true, none of it is personal, and all of it is cheaper to find out here than at round four.

4.1 You want it cheap.

Everyone here is senior, so there are no juniors to hide in the budget and we are almost never the lowest number on the list. If price decides it, take the cheaper quote. We will be fine. See 3.6.

4.2 You needed it last week.

We can move quickly when there is a real reason to. We cannot do three months of thinking in a fortnight and keep a straight face, and we have been told our faces are very expressive.

4.3 You want a pair of hands.

We will have opinions and we will say them out loud, usually before you have finished the sentence. If the decision is already made and it just needs building, a good freelancer will do it faster, for less, and without the commentary.

4.4 It has to go through a committee.

Six people with a veto produces work that nobody hates and nobody remembers. We are terrible at that. Better you hear it now than at round four, when everyone has stopped enjoying themselves and started copying people in.

4.5 You want a big team on it.

You get two or three seniors. No account manager, no delivery lead, nobody whose job is to sit on the call and then email you a summary of the call. If headcount is the reassurance you need, we are the wrong shape of studio, and we have made our peace with that.

4.6 You want new colours to fix something else.

If the product does not work, or nobody can explain what it does, a rebrand gets you a better-looking version of the same problem. We will say so on the first call, which is considerably cheaper than us saying it on the last invoice.

4.7 You want one agency for everything.

We do brand, websites and product. Not ads, not PR, not a monthly SEO report nobody opens. If you want the lot under one roof, you want a bigger roof, and probably a car park.

4.8 You want to hand it over and never think about it again.

Our best work came from clients who turned up, argued, and made decisions. Hand it over completely and you will get something fine. Fine is a real outcome. It is just not the one either of us got out of bed for.

4.9 You would like three options to choose from.

You will get one, with the reasoning, and you are welcome to argue with it. Three options is a way of asking the client to do the design, then invoicing them for the two they did not pick.

4.10 You want a free pitch first.

We do not design on spec. A pitch is a week of senior work judged on taste in a room we are not in. We will happily talk for thirty minutes, show you work for people like you, and put a number in writing. The number will be in pounds.

4.11 Your brief is a competitor’s website.

We can tell. So can your customers. So, eventually, can their lawyers.

5. Grounds for suitability

Conversely, and we are aware this section is shorter, you are likely to be a suitable client if:

5.1 There is a number you want to move and you can say what it is. Enquiries, sign-ups, conversions, hours saved. Every figure on our case studies started as this sentence.

5.2 Somebody in the room can make a decision, and it is either you or someone you can introduce us to.

5.3 You will tell us when something is wrong in the meeting, rather than in a review eight months later, or, worse, to someone else at a conference.

5.4 You want the people who pitched the work to do the work. It is the only way we operate, so it helps if you want it.

5.5 You have read section 4 and you are still here. Hello.

6. Assessment procedure

6.1 You get in touch, by the form or by email. Both reach a person, not a funnel.

6.2 A founder replies within one working day, usually the same day, occasionally within the hour, which we are told is unsettling.

6.3 A thirty-minute call. We ask what you are trying to move, when it has to be live, and what has got in the way so far. You leave with a view on the problem and a rough budget band.

6.4 If we are not the right studio for it, we say so on that call and point you to somebody who is. We do not take this personally. We take it slightly personally.

6.5 If we are, you receive a proposal with the scope, the price, the date and the names of the people on it, usually within the week.

6.6 Nothing to sign until you have read it, which is more than can be said for most policies, including, statistically, this one.

7. Appeals

7.1 There is no appeals process.

7.2 There is a contact form, which in practice does the same job, with fewer forms.

7.3 There are no biscuits. Section 2.2 was a test. You passed.

Still here? Good. That was the hard part.

Get in touch

8. Review of this policy

8.1 This policy is reviewed whenever a project goes wrong in a new way.

8.2 The version number is therefore a rough count of the ways.

8.3 We would like it to stop going up. We are not optimistic.