Free work is a terrible idea
Creative industries have long been plagued with free pitching. But truth be known, free work isn’t only bad for agenices, it’s also a terrible idea for your organisation. Remarkable work comes from deep care and collaboration, not from burnt out teams scrambling to win business.
Hi everyone I’m Jodie, I’m the MD at Tiny Hunter. And today, I want to chat about why free work, is a terrible idea. There has been a history of free pitching in the creative industries. Where clients will go out to a number of agencies and say “pitch us your best work.” And agencies toil away and create shiny wonderful things pitch back in the hope that they’ll win. And generally, even the one that does win doesn’t make back the time, effort and cost of doing the pitch fitch, let’s call them ‘fitches’ from now on. Doing the pitch in the first place. Obviously, it’s not great for the agency but today I want to talk about why it’s actually a terrible idea for your business as well.
The thing is, that doing remarkable work requires a lot of deep thought and collaboration. No one knows your business like you do. If we jump straight to the pretty pictures, then we’re cutting out all the important foundational work that is the substance that ensures that the pretty pictures connect with the right audience have the right impact deliver the business outcomes that you’re looking for. Now, you might think I’ll use the pitch to test out the market find which agency I like and then we’ll go through the proper process together. But it’s never quite going to work like that. You’ve already seen a lot of things you’ve already got ideas in your mind in terms of where you want to head and you’re going to be tempted to take some shortcuts.
My point being, free work is not good for you. You need to go through a careful process in selecting the right partner, that you can work with deeply someone that understands your business and what you’re trying to achieve and then you need to create remarkable work together. So be warned. Careful, careful of asking for free work and be even more careful of people that do free work of their own will trying to get something across the line. That’s it from me, it’s time for brekkie.
Written by: Jodie de Vries
Published: March 22, 2023