Putting your money where your mouth is

The clients we work with define how we spend our days

Managing new business for a small creative studio is no small task. In an ideal world, the leads we get at A Hundred Monkeys wouldn’t believe in bidding wars or decision-by-consensus—because they’d know these processes don’t yield the best creative work. They’d be responsive but never in a hurry, and their enthusiasm would be matched by their understanding that hiring people requires having a budget to work with.

But above all else, they’d be people we’d genuinely be interested in getting to know and spending time with over the course of the project. And we’d be working on stuff we felt was thoughtful and interesting—projects the world needs.

Oh and did I mention the inquiries would be naturally staggered so we’d always have work coming in the door when we were ready for it and never get overwhelmed when all the potential clients gave us the green light on the same day?

But we don’t live in an ideal world.

We have historically been tasked with making the most of limited budgets, crazy timelines, difficult personalities, and bureaucracies upon bureaucracies—often all at once.

We have had clients who treated us like faceless vendors instead of collaborators. We have been told there wasn’t enough room in the timeline to give our projects the methodical attention they deserved—then waited while the client took a week or two to give us critical feedback. We have even received a metaphorical metric ton of RFPs (though for the most part, we politely decline them).

At the end of the day, we do what we do because we love language and we value its power. We’re here to improve the quality of brand names and writing that companies put into the world. But we’re also a business. Which means we have often said yes when we should have said no.

Over the last several years we’ve experimented with our approach to new business. We’ve asked big questions about what matters to us as people who run a creative business. As a result, we’ve greatly improved the quality of the projects we work on and grown our studio—by being both choosy and generous.

First, we had to get clear about our goal

Five years ago we realized that a majority of the people who wanted to work with us couldn’t afford our typical rates. So we decided to experiment with a pricing model inspired by the sliding scale. We didn’t exactly go full NOTAFLOF. Instead, we developed a special offering for small businesses and sole proprietors and gave it a price to match.

But our goal wasn’t to work with as many people as possible. Our goal was to work on as many projects we really wanted to work on as possible—with people we really wanted to work with—who really wanted to work with us. Sometimes this means working on projects that don’t exactly pay the bills.

For these clients, the lowest cost we offer still represents a significant percentage of their budget for getting their dream off the ground. Which means they’ve done their homework and think we’re the best. They take the work we do seriously and trust us to guide them to a successful outcome.

Saying yes is valuable

Projects where we break even (or even lose a little money) can be incredibly useful. They’re perfect for training team members, developing long-term relationships, and building our portfolio for the kinds of projects we love.

Most importantly, these projects are learning opportunities. Because of our size and the kind of work we do, we can iterate and adapt at a faster rate compared to other, larger agencies—most of our engagements last about a month from start to finish. Since every single project offers clear lessons for what can be reconsidered or redesigned for the next project, every client we work with helps us to become a stronger studio. Our plan is to always to get better—not necessarily to get bigger.

A few years ago we worked on a project to name a brewery—something we had always wanted to do. Most craft brewers don’t have the budget to work with a creative studio. Often times, their projects are self-funded labors of love.

When Paul Duatschek rode his motorcycle over the Bay Bridge to meet with us in our office with a backpack full of beer he had brewed in his basement, we knew this was a project made for our team.

The fact that we can now drink beer in a place we named Standard Deviant is not lost on us.

Saying no is crucial

While the benefits of saying yes to projects with small budgets have been readily apparent, saying no has been a little trickier. It’s hard to turn away business, especially when the client is ready and willing to pay full price.

But here’s something we have learned the hard way: Some projects are not worth doing, no matter the price.

Over the years, we’ve gotten better at assessing whether or not a potential client is the right fit for us. We’ve also gotten better at tracking whether or not a project is a success in our eyes. After every project we ask ourselves: knowing what we know now, would we say yes again?

Find your true north

We’re not for everyone. And not everyone is for us. We take this idea seriously.

After experimenting for a couple of years, we now have a way to think about which projects we happily sign up for and which ones we turn down. Pricing is a variable but not the bottom line—for us. By adjusting our approach, we’ve been able to work with some of the best clients on some of the coolest projects. We may not work in an ideal world—but we’re getting closer.

My advice for those of you who lead new business efforts is to think about the kind of company you want to be. Chances are, once you have your guiding light, you’ll find yourself saying yes to the right projects and no to the wrong ones.