Jul 13
the mighty are roaring
And if you doubt they are mighty?
Once upon a time. 2002 to be exact. I worked for a small creative staffing agency and represented several Designer's in the community, print and web. At this agency we tried very hard to keep people working when everything tanked after 9/11, and every marketing and design team was being cut.
A client called asking for "junior" web designer. In my world that was code for, someone cheap. So I grabbed a very talented printed designer who had web experience and told him the scenario. Asked if he had interest. He did.
I submitted him with resume and credentials to the client. They like my candidate and said that another agency had someone about $10 less an hour. Could I match that rate. I said no. The client then proceeded to say, well you know the economy is down and people need work, you can't come down on your rate? Again, I said no. A downturn in the economy does not make things cheaper. I was not going to de-value the talent by lowering the rate. (yes the candidate was in agreement) We didn't want to do this anymore than another company would deep discount their cars or shoes because the economy is bad. I encouraged them to go with the other agency.
Yes, the economy was bad, yes a lot of people needed work. To retain the value of anything you have to retain the value!
From where I sit, creatives get asked to do a lot on spec or for free. An interesting question here;
@Mattg (on Twitter), you don’t see the city asking for volunteers to fill in pot holes, do you? Would that to be acceptable to you?
This is still brewing...I'll be back later on this topic. In the meantime read the links above!!
@jgx
