Learning to say no at the right time can save you and your company time, effort and and a lot of pain. Said at the wrong time and it’ll bring you all of those and more.

We were recently offered a project to work on solely as designers to another agencies project. We’ve worked with these guys before and love working with them and still do. The budget was great and with the business booked out for a whole week it seemed to make great business sense to take it on. We’d already figured that this project alone could easily be used to re-invest in a new mac and all the software plus more for a new employee so there was a great reason to take the project on. But things don’t always run smoothly and in hindsight we should have refused the project from our original gut feeling.

The original brief for the project came in, very much driven by the agencies customer and certainly very challenging for even the best in the industry. It went against all the general rules of design and build practices and we instantly knew this was a project that was impossible to start let alone deliver what they were after. We went with our gut feeling and advised the agency that this was a project that we didn’t fully believe in and that without 100% belief in a project we couldn’t take it on and that maybe they shouldn’t either. They totally agreed with us and went away to the customer for talks and that was the last we heard of it.

Several weeks later we were back around the table talking with the agency and how they had now encouraged the customer to reign in their control on the project and take on board all the advice that had been given (well almost everything). We were still a little concerned simply because of the client and the original brief, but the new approach seemed promising, made sense and we love a challenge. The brief was very open and we knew the style and approach we were going to take, it all seemed to be running smoothly.

We normally offer up one conceptual design, it’s a rule we like to stick too. We feel that you need to be confident in what you are selling and splitting the time into creating two or maybe three can show a lack of this. That one concept has been brainstormed, sketched and well planned and shows a concise thought process. OK sometimes it might not be right first time, colours or graphical elements might need changing or re-positioning but the general layout, copy etc. is 99% of the time bang on, first time. In this instance the original design needed a second approach with the colour scheme and graphical elements. The layout we stuck with, it was strong and communicated the site clearly, but also stuck to the original brief of being modern, funky, cool, clean and cutting edge.

The designs finally went off to the agency and onto the client. Having thought we’d fulfilled the brief the client came back and commented that the designs were not what they had expected. In their eyes funky and modern meant large background photography and early noughties corporate. They had also started reigning in full control of the project again, changing the brief and the direction setting up image light boxes with terribly cliche imagery and very cold copy. We were back to where we had started again when our initial gut instinct told us to steer clear of this project.

Over a few days of discussion we had to make the hard decision to cut ties with the project, it was the only way both us and the agency could move forward. Too much time was going to be needed to get this new brief and direction deciphered and we felt that our time was better spent investing our skills into new more fruitful projects and existing clients. Our heart wasn’t in the project any more and what the client was asking didn’t seem commercially correct.

It’s been a tough decision to make but the company has already made back the lost billings and will continue to grow having learn’t some valuable lessons from this project.

So what advice can anyone take from this? The most important lesson is to know when to say no. The money might be great, the use of that money might be incredibly useful, but you need to trust your gut instinct. Fortunately the experience within the company allows us to recognise this type of client, this time we went against that first instinct and we paid for that mistake. If your heart isn’t in it and you can’t believe in the project 100% know when to walk away. Even if you loose the contract and money, put that energy into finding one that you can believe in.

As a company we have worked with and continue to work with several agencies including this one, but from now on we’ll make sure certain guidelines are set out from the start. We’ll certainly mention that if our design style doesn’t meet the clients then it might not be the best project for us to be involved with. We like to think we are versatile in our approach but sometimes loosing heart in a project is damaging to your reputation and anyone that you are representing.