The next Likemind Vancouver event will be held at 8am on Friday, April 15th, and hosted by Ethical Bean Café 91315 Kootenay Street (near Boundary & 1st Ave) (Click here for directions).

Free coffee and snacks will be generously provided to those who come early, so come join a group of like-minded creative professionals and start your day with some good conversation over a cup of good coffee.

Remember to confirm your RSVP on the Facebook group page so we can estimate how many people are coming (sometimes more than 50 attendees). If you don’t use Facebook, you can join our LinkedIn Group, or follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on upcoming events.

Invite a friend, and bring your travel mug. See you there!

PS – If you bring your camera along, please upload your shots and share them with the 70 other Likemind groups in cities around the world! Also, please consider sharing your appreciate for our host café by posting to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp, Urbanspoon, or your personal blog!

The next Likemind Vancouver event will be held at 8am on Friday, January 21st, and hosted by Prophouse Café at 1636 Venables St. (one block west of Commercial Dr) (Click here for directions).

Free coffee and snacks will be generously provided to those who come early, so come join a group of like-minded creative professionals and start your day with some good conversation over a cup of good coffee.

Remember to confirm your RSVP on the Facebook group page so we can estimate how many people are coming (sometimes more than 50 attendees). If you don’t use Facebook, you can join our LinkedIn Group, or follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on upcoming events.

Invite a friend, and bring your travel mug. See you there!

PS – If you bring your camera along, please upload your shots and share them with the 70 other Likemind groups in cities around the world! Also, please consider sharing your appreciate for our host café by posting to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp, Urbanspoon, or your personal blog!

The next Likemind Vancouver event will be held at 8am on Friday, August 20th and hosted by Kafka’s Coffee & Tea House at 2525 Main Street (at Broadway) (Click here for directions).

Free coffee and snacks will be generously provided to those who come early, so come join a group of like-minded creative professionals and start your day with some good conversation over a cup of good coffee.

Remember to confirm your RSVP on the Facebook group page so we can estimate how many people are coming (sometimes well over 60 attendees). If you don’t use Facebook, you can join our LinkedIn Group, or follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on upcoming events.

Invite a friend, and bring your travel mug. See you there!

PS – If you bring your camera along, please upload your shots and share them with the 70 other Likemind groups in cities around the world!

We’re often asked about how Industrial Brand does business development and find our clients. Good question, but not one that can be easily answered in a short explanation or blog post. One issue that always gets met with raised eyebrows is the fact that we’re sort of picky about the clients we DO work with and how often we actually decline work.

What? Decline work? In THIS economy? Are we crazy? I don’t think so.

We feel that it is important to consider what our clients, their products, practices, and reputations say about us as their design partners. As we’ve said before, we are defined by our clients.

Things aren’t always so black and white though. It’s easy to say no to a pornography website project, but what about online gambling? We’re confident we’d decline working for a tobacco client, regardless of the revenue potential, but what about a drug company?

And can we please be honest about something? Realistically, how often really do designers engage in any real due diligence investigating their potential clients and their backgrounds the way companies check OUR references? Not often enough I’ll venture to say.

Beyond the important ethics issues, how about a client that has no experience working with a brand strategy firm like ours? Or if the primary contact isn’t empowered with the authority to make decisions for the company? Or even if the company is in a totally different industry or sector where we’ve decided to specialize? These are all important issues worth considering when taking on new clients—for us anyway.

So, understanding that we can’t always take super cool, well-paying clients whose companies, products, or service are things we love and endorse, we created a five point grid by which to judge all potential clients and projects.

The rules are simple. As we consider any prospective client or opportunity, we ask ourselves five simple questions—we call them “The Five Ps”:

• 1. Positioning: Is there something about this client or project that will enhance and leverage our portfolio so we may attract more, similar and better work in-line with our emphasis on serving professional services firms?
• 2. Profit: Is there inherent potential to make enough money with the initial project to contribute to a healthy bottom line and sustain the business? Is this a high risk start up with clients spending their own personal money? Has the client allocated appropriate budgets and is being forthright about those parameters?
• 3. Purpose: Is this client doing meaningful work we can be proud of? Is this client/product/service something we can endorse and believe in, or at the very least not compromise our ethics or doing harm to people, communities or the environment?
• 4. People: Will we enjoy working with them? Are these people experienced working with a strategy-driven brand consulting firm like ours and respect our team and processes, is there a point of contact with authority to make decisions, will we be able to access the key stakeholders and leadership in the organization, and will they trust us to do our best work?
• 5. Perception: Are there any other factors beyond the above that we need to consider? What does our instinct tell us? Can we determine why this client needs a new design firm? Does it feel like they terminated their previous creative partnership for good reasons?

We find we do our best work when all five Ps are aligned, but if the answer to these questions isn’t yes to at least three of them, for whatever reason, including gut feeling, we decline the work. Every time. Sometimes this has meant missing out on tens of thousands of dollars of revenue. But by doing this, we better understand who we are as a design firm, as a company, as individuals, and as a brand. Our integrity is intact and our reputation is unsullied. Well, mostly.

How do you choose clients? How often do you decline work?

Ben’s primary role is to lead the creative process and ensure the output of the firm is exemplary. Involved from the beginning of projects, he forms strategic direction and creative concept.

Ben combines a background in photography and graphic arts with a commerce degree from The University of Toronto. This led to a client services career in the marketing and advertising field, and then in creative and strategic thinking. He acquired his expertise in brand and direct marketing strategy and project management with such Vancouver agencies as Bryant Fulton & Shee, BBDO and Lanyon Phillips Communications working with such clients as Molson, BC Children’s Hospital, HSBC and Citizens Bank of Canada. Ben is a member of New Media BC, ACM SIGGRAPH Vancouver and actively involved in the UofT Mentorship Program. He also supports numerous not-for-profit and charitable organizations such as University of Toronto Alumni Association, is a board member of DOXA, and sits on the planning committee for Canstruction Vancouver.

Read blog posts by Ben.

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