Clients. Clients. Clients.

A friend mentioned to me the other day “You have to have no shame when you self promote.” I smiled and said yeah that is how it is today.

Today counterspace got turned down for a project that we bid on. Not the first time and it won’t be the last. With my friend’s thought in my head I started to think about how shameless we have to be and why clients can’t recognize talent when they see it.

In the case of this recent project the client was already a client. In fact counterspace has helped them redesign, rebrand and become competitive in their industry. So is design a thankless job?

I’m really not sure, I don’t want to think it is thankless. Sometimes, like now, it can feel that way. It’s not that we lost the bid for the project. It’s that the client thinks they are getting something better from somewhere else. Should we be pushing in the client’s face all of the accomplishments that we have gained, all of the ground we have broken over the years of being in the web industry?

It just doesn’t taste good to me to do that.

“Let me tell you how great we are.”

Shouldn’t our work be able to speak for us? And that is where rub is. Does this client think our work that we have accomplished for them is not good. Did our design services not help their business’s bottom line?

I guess we will never know. We can always ask what the problem was but I think the answer’s would be the traditional one. You are great. It’s not you its our VP etc… Part of me wishes them well and part of them looks forward to the project going poorly.

All we can do is wait and see, and if they come back and ask us to fix it. Just say no.