I was fortunate to catch Blair Enns in Bristol last year for a seminar called “Win Without Pitching”, organised by the DBA. During the seminar a designer piped up that it was very difficult – sometimes impossible – to resist doing free pitches, such as in the form of council tenders. Blair’s a highly experienced chap. He knows they’re hard to resist, especially when they can bring with them a huge contract as well as a secure foothold in a particular sector. But the principle does not change: the minute you start doing work for nothing the power shifts to the client, who can abuse this – at their will and your peril. At best they will have had a great deal of your time and energy free of charge (amounting to sometimes days of unpaid time on behalf of your company). And at worst, they will have had all this and will ‘borrow’ some of your ideas to pass on to the chosen candidate, should you fail to secure the contract. Should you win the contract, the client will forever assume an authority over you. So far, Boost Multimedia Ltd have resisted the urge to submit free samples of work with proposals. We believe we deserve respect for our time and effort, and most certainly remuneration. I hope we manage to resist temptation… Can you think of any other profession where you would be expected to give your services free to persuade a client to use you?
Entry: Traci Rochester
