• The Transcript

Jon:
Welcome to episode 68 of The Digital Life, a show about our adventures in the world of design and technology. I am your host Jon Follett, and with me is founder and co-host, Dirk Knemeyer.


Dirk:
Hey, Jon. Good to be here.


Jon:
Today, we’re going to talk a little bit about a series of articles that you’ve been writing called The Right Way to Hire a Digital Studio. Strangely enough — I don’t know how many years into the digital age we are now, let’s say, I don’t know, 35 years into the digital age — in a mainstream way, it’s still not that easy to engage with a digital design firm, at least, not to the point where a lot of companies know how to do it and do it well. I think that was probably part of the reason that you dug into this topic, but why don’t you queue it up a little?


Dirk:
Yeah, that’s true. Like you said, it’s really hard to hire a digital studio and this series isn’t even going into all of the vectors. We’re working on some other writings that will, but this is really talking about the right way to hire a digital studio. What we mean by that is the right way to engage the studio or studios that you’re interested in engaging. Most companies trying to do the right thing for the right reasons a lot of times are just not engaging in the right ways and the problem is that it sets up for a process that may not get them the best fit partner for themselves and it also sets up a relationship that may not be the best relationship that would be possible if they looked at the problem a little bit differently.


Jon:
Right. Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. There’s an evolution and an evolutionary step going on with knowledge work where we’re getting a better understanding of what it means to work together on some of these projects and processes where the output is whether it’d be software or websites or user experience for another product. I think ultimately, it’s a little bit different from the way that you might engage in other kinds of work whether that’d be more in industrial work or works that you might get for an accountant, or a lawyer, or a doctor. I think the initial part of the series really gets at that. What I am eluding to here is the first article in your series is called Skip the RFP which I am sure at one point in time, there was a really good reason that a company came up with that they needed the request for proposals or the request for quotes, and they created this thing which we all sort of view as this ugly monster, right? Whenever I hear RFP, I cringe. At one point in time, it must have been this great tool for companies to use and I don’t know if it’s kept pace with the advancing digital age, whether that’s problem, whether it was just a flaw of document from the beginning from its origin, but why don’t you tell us a little bit about why you think skipping the RFP is a smart way to hire a digital studio.


Dirk:
Yes. First of all, I don’t think that it ever made sense to issue an RFP. I think it might have made sense from the standpoint of lazy logic which is to say, “I am not going to think about this very hard,” and “Oh gee, wouldn’t it make sense to just send this item out to a whole bunch of people which gives us the most possible choice?”

The problem with that approach is many but to cover a top couple of the points, first of all by sending it out to a lot of people, you are getting back a whole lot of responses and getting into a paradox of choice issue that instead of further refining the people you’re sending it out to and sending it out, doing the research, taking the time for people who are better fits, you are plowing it out there. It’s all kinds of possible providers who in just different ways aren’t the right fit for you. Now, you’ve filled the funnel with stuff that is stuff as opposed to good data to get started on and to take action on. That’s a big problem right there.

Another issue with the RFP is in blasting it out to all kinds of different companies. You’re communicating to all of those companies that they’re not important to you and this process isn’t important to you because you aren’t willing to take the time with all the list down, and have a more targeted relationship. It’s like in fishing that there’s this industrial method of fishing where they scrape a giant net across the bottom of the sea, and they pull up everything they possibly can. In the process, they kill lots of things that they don’t need, and then they take the time to pick through as opposed to the fishermen who are single-line fishing, purpose fishing for the things that they’re actually looking for. It’s very similar in the scale and really the impact.

It’s just silly. It’s understandable why if you don’t put a lot of time and thought into it and just say, “Send out an RFP. We’ll get a whole bunch of things to pick from,” but you don’t want a whole bunch of things to pick from. You want a small number of things to pick from that are within a group that would be potentially a really good fit for you.

Jon:
Yeah. I think, having read many RFPs, I think there’s also an educational component to this relationship building that you want to have happen versus the RFP de-personalized version. What I mean by that is I’ve seen RFPs where what they were asking for and what they probably really needed were very different things. They might be asking for everything including the kitchen sink when all they really need is, I don’t know, the kitchen sink.

Without starting this, and you talked about this in the article, without starting this project scoping in earnest, in partnership with your digital agency, what you’re inevitably doing is saying, “I know best what it is that we need exactly down to the last detail and I am going to expect you to – without really knowing us – provide us with a cost for that.” When in reality, you never go to the doctor and say, “Gee, I think I’ve got this kind of disease,” or what have you, “Why don’t you just treat me for that, and tell me how much that’s going to cost?” Then, you may have something completely different. It’s probably not nice to compare software to a disease but for some, maybe that’s an apt metaphor.

Dirk:
Speaking of diseases, agencies have the “we-can-do-it disease.” If you put out an RFP with all of these different things that need to be done, you’re going to get a lot of agencies that respond. It’s the things that they don’t really do but they know people who could do it, and they could staff up, and they could subcontract, and, and, and, but it’s the “We can do it,” we-can-do-it disease, and you don’t want that.

You want to pick people who do do it. You want to pick people who are experts, and focused, and have proven track records, and when you send out the RFP, you are letting the disease of we-can-do-it spread, and fester, and crop up in your search.

Jon:
Yeah, that’s unfortunate. I think some of that, when you’re running a studio or an agency, I could definitely see the other side of that where you want either to be profitable or you want to make sure that you’re covering all the salaries for all the people who are working there already. It can be hard to say, “No, we don’t do this,” or “We’re not going to bid on this because it’s not right for us.” I think some of the more mature studios and agencies do that which is probably the reason why I think a lot of agencies and studios don’t respond very much to RFPs anymore.


Dirk:
Yeah, we certainly don’t. There are a lot that do but again, I am of the opinion that if an agency will respond to an RFP, they’re probably not the kind of agency you want to be working with. Now, there’s exceptions to that. There’s government organizations that have to send out an RFP. There are situations where it’s forced and mandated, and correspondingly, there’s agencies which exist to service that kind of work but flipping it from the employee side, I sure wouldn’t want to work at the type of agency that is created and organized to respond to RFPs because it’s again, getting into relationships that aren’t focused, that aren’t correct, that aren’t as creative. It’s more at that point … There’s just a lot of problems with it.


Jon:
Yeah. One thing that you dig into in the article is some of the criteria that you think companies should use when selecting an agency. You talked about a number of different vectors, the size of the agency, the location, the services, the vertical experience, and the proof of credibility. Could you expand on those a little bit for us?


Dirk:
Sure. Agency size, there’s reasons to go with small agencies and there’s reasons to go with large agencies but you should make that decision intentionally. You should specifically say, we want a small agency relationship or we want a large agency relationship. Now, what’s the difference?

A small agency, you are going to get more of the time, and focus, and attention of the best people, of the people who founded the agency, of the senior talent, just as a product of scale. There’s some degree of quality, of total – I don’t want to use the word guarantee but I’ll use it acknowledging, it’s not quite precise – of total quality guarantee because that small agency, the person who is going to left holding the bag if they don’t do a good job, and they’re losing project, and not getting money are the people who own the company. There is a level of personal attention in the small agency that is just impossible at the large agency.

Even if it’s a great large agency, even if they’ve got fantastic people on the team, at the end of the day, those people aren’t signing the checks. It’s a one stop in their career, you might have been lucky enough to get with somebody who is wifer or who’s on the upswing of their trajectory but you may not. You may have gotten somebody who is busy looking for the next thing. It’s somewhat of a crapshoot unfortunately. The personal attention at the small agency is really one of the primary reasons to go in that direction.

On the other hand, the large agency, if you’re in a situation where big scale fast is important, then a large agency can be a really good choice because if you have … I am thinking of one thing that we worked on before, the McAfee Total Protection Suite, we had a team of 15 or 16 people on that. We had most of our firm engaged in that massive project. If McAfee had come to us and said, “Hey, we’ve got this second product. We want to get started on a redesign of that, as well right next to it,” we would have had to decline as a small agency. We would not have been able to scale up that quickly, at that largeness.


With a big agency, they’re much more likely to be able to do that and be more plug-and-play. Now, you don’t know how sausage is getting made so the resources that they’re putting on that are perhaps very hastily thrown together. However, they’re able to do it. They’re able to quickly get that, going and scale out their service.

To me, that’s the primary benefit of a large agency. You’re really making a decision around, do we want the highest touch customer service and attention or do we want the ability to really scale and go big if and as necessary?

Jon:
Right. I think another piece of this is you talked a little bit about agency location being important. I was a bit of a believer in the idea that remote teams can work and work well together. It’s funny, as I’ve worked with you and Juhan over time, I’ve come around to the other side of things which says, that may be true for some percentage of the work but it’s really important to have that face time too. Just over time, I’ve seen the value of face-to-face regular weekly interactions at how that speeds along the creative process, but I think with agency location, if you’re choosing a far-flung agency whether it’s on the other coast or at least out of the realm of immediate, less-than-a-day travel, I think you could be setting yourself up for something not so good.


Dirk:
Absolutely. Remote relationships can work. It’s not that they can’t but local relationships are better. If things aren’t quite right, you want to be able to pick up the phone and say, “Look, we’ve got to huddle up on this,” and within 24 hours, to be able to get all the key people in the same room, not far away but looking at each other, hearing the voice, seeing the facial expression. Not knowing, people aren’t looking, and you can mute and do something else, but really engaged, paying attention, really focused on the moment, on the relationship, and getting through this together. It’s just invaluable.

To me, the location, within a few hour drive, to me it’s nice to have. It’s not a must-have but it’s a pretty big deal. To go with the one that’s within the local. Even if one is ahead and one is behind but they’re not behind by too much, if it’s me, I am going to spend my money on the local agency because I am going to really get a lot of extra value out of that.

Jon:
Right. There is another criteria for choosing a digital studio that I felt was interesting which you mentioned which is the proof of credibility. Could you explain that bit?


Dirk:
Sure. It’s really difficult to tell from a company’s website or from their pitch presentation what the hell it is that they do in regard to the digital. The reason is because ultimately, we’re all doing screens. Whether we are doing screens for marketing website, whether we’re doing screens for a massive application, whether we’re doing screens for some intermediate tablet solution, on a website, they all look very similar and they can be packaged in words that make them seem similar. Likewise, even though we’re potentially working on very different things, our client list might look the same.

I would say it’s common that we get into pitches and situations where we’re competing against people who really don’t specialize in things that are all similar to what we do and it’s really surprising for our clients to realize that. Like in the process for that explanation to happen, for them to say, “Geez, of course. Now, that you’re saying this, I can see it very clearly,” but superficially, glancing at websites, we all have similar big clients. We’re all showing pretty looking screens and so, it’s easy to get a little confused by that and not really understand that one screen is not necessarily like the other.

A lot of that is just not paying close enough attention or somewhat superficial vetting process. We all are guilty of it to some degree. I have been myself in terms of hiring service providers and agencies but it’s a big deal. It’s really getting that proof of credibility that the firm you’re talking to is really specializing and enable to do this stuff that you need because if somebody is looking for a website, we’re not the firm to do it. You could go to our web page and you could see a lot of screens that look cool and a lot of new things happening but we’re not in that game. The content management system, the search engine optimization, none of that stuff.

Meanwhile, on the software design side which is the stuff that we do, we regularly compete with people who are trying to expand into that business, who are trying to do that work, but they’re website people. If we’re coming in similarly price-wise, there’s no comparison. We’re a better choice, but it’s often difficult for the customer to get to the point of putting those pieces together and realizing that.

Jon:
Right. When you’re skipping the RFP, I think you mentioned you really want to have this criteria for evaluating the agency. You want to scope the work and then, have some meetings, and get to know each other. Then, in part two of the series, you talked about test projects. What is a test project and what are the benefits of those?


Dirk:
A test project, it can either be real work that you’re intending to be a building block into the bigger work which is the ideal way to do it or it could just be a shorter experiment before you sign a contract for hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars. You should figure out, is this a team that I can work with? Is the way that they work, is the people who are on the team, is the kind of things that they’re producing, are those in line with our expectations? Are those showing the promise and the trajectory of the kind of work that we want to have done?

As a rule of thumb, maybe taking 10% of the overall budget you have in mind and having them work that. It’s scary a little bit. You’re like, “Holy crap. What if it doesn’t work out? I’ll have blown 10% of the budget. I will have lost n weeks. That would be awful.” What would be awful is not doing it and it doesn’t work out, because then you could be in a very onerous contract and a relationship that isn’t good or with results that are totally unlike what you’re looking for. That’s the worst case. It’s really hard to have the discipline to say, “We’re going to wall off this little thing. It may not work out, and it could be a total waste as a result, but we’re going to do this as insurance basically to make sure that we’re investing in the best possible firm.” I am a huge proponent of this. Some agencies don’t like to do it because, of course, they want the big contract. They want the assurance. They don’t want essentially the sales process to continue but in the best interest of the agency and the client, as opposed to just looking at the revenues that can be generated, it’s a total no brainer.

I am a huge fan of this and I would recommend it to our clients, even if they don’t plan for it. Don’t give us the half million dollars. Give us the 50K to bang away on something that we mutually think would be beneficial to you and then depending on how that goes, we can sign the 450K and take it from there. I think it’s just prudent.

Jon:
Yeah. I think there are all kinds of options that crop up once you’ve introduced the idea. Initially, it can seem a little strange but you can find, I think, any number of smaller pieces either of the larger project or elements that might affect their current products align that would be helpful.


Dirk:
Right.


Jon:
Those were parts one and two of the series which Dirk has put together as articles on the Goinvo Blog. Dirk, what are the next two articles in the series?


Dirk:
The next two articles in the series, the first is Culture is Key. That’s talking about the importance of the culture of the agency being not necessarily compatible with the culture of your company but the culture that you needed to be. Whether that’s so the people get along right, whether if so the agency is injecting the right energy into your organization but really evaluating culture in a pretty deep and thoughtful way.

The last one is review the relationships. Just like you would a performance review for employees, there should be steady reviews of where things are at. Not just from a project management perspective but from a high level experiential perspective. Ideally, the agency itself is driving that. If they’re not, you should. Keep with check-ins and then make sure everything is going to be okay.

Jon:
Listeners, remember that while you’re listening to this show, you can follow along with the things we’re mentioning here in real time. Just head over to the Digitalife.com. That just one L in the Digitalife, and go to the page for this episode. We’ve included links to pretty much everything mentioned by everybody so it’s a rich information resource to take advantage of while you’re listening or afterward if you’re trying to remember something that you like.

If you want to follow us outside of the show, you can follow me on Twitter, @JonFollett. That’s J-O-N-F-O-L-L-E-T-T. Of course, the whole show is brought to you by Involution Studios which you can check out at goinvo.com That’s G-O-I-N-V-O DOT com. Dirk?

Dirk:
You can follow me on Twitter, @DKnemeyer, that’s at D-K-N-E-M-E-Y-E-R, or email me Dirk@goinvo.com


Jon:
That’s it for episode 68 of The Digital Life. For Dirk Knemeyer, I am Jon Follett and we’ll see you next time.