> Quality Work
> Timely Delivery
> Economical Price
You're ONLY ever allowed to choose TWO.
> If you want quality work produced in a
timely fashion, then expect to pay top-dollar.
> If you want work turned around fast and don't
have any money to spend, expect the quality to be crap.
> If you want quality work and don't have a big budget,
expect it to be attended to whenever the the
service provider has some free time.
It is a maxim of business that you will never escape.
This is true of any profession, and is especially true of both programmers and designers alike.
If you are paying proper compensation, you should never have a problem getting quality work, by a designer that makes delivery of your goods a priority. Perhaps you found a bad apple, and that is unfortunate. If so, then the market should weed them out in time. But you say the designer did great work, and it sounds like they had plenty of good-paying projects elsewhere and you simply got back-burnered (and they were not candid with you, as they should have been). I've seen it happen a dozen times is every line of work.
----------
I forgive you for how you came across in your initial post. I'm also told that I'm a friendly fellow who sometimes comes across as... blunt, in writing.
I had the same kind of experiences as the OP. Part of what I found frustrating is that they don't respect the "2 out of 3" rule (which is mostly for engineers btw). What the designer in OP's case showed was an astounding lack of respect and common sense. I doubt compensation was a factor.
Some time ago I tried to find a copywriter to help me with a marketing campain. I talked with two people, and both were very interested, actually enthusiastic when I told them the concept. Both said (which made me protest and feel rather unconfortable) that they don't want to discuss compensation in the beginning, part because they want to give the project a shot anyways just to see what it looks like, and part because they don't know the amount of work beforehand.
After a week one of them didn't answer my phone calls, and the other sent a couple of texts completely off-topic, and obviously not very worked. I ended up writing the texts myself.
The moral of the story is that it's not a money problem. But that a percentage of "artistic types", in both mine and OP's experience, tend to show less professionalism then desired.
Your copywriters gave you a strong signal as to their professionalism when they did not want to discuss compensation up front. In the future, you should now know that anyone who does not discuss the business contract before rendering any services is either:
1) very inexperienced but may still work out or
2) not someone you'd ever want to work with.
Comments
Draw a triangle.
On each corner, write:
> Quality Work > Timely Delivery > Economical Price
You're ONLY ever allowed to choose TWO.
> If you want quality work produced in a timely fashion, then expect to pay top-dollar.
> If you want work turned around fast and don't have any money to spend, expect the quality to be crap.
> If you want quality work and don't have a big budget, expect it to be attended to whenever the the service provider has some free time.
It is a maxim of business that you will never escape.
This is true of any profession, and is especially true of both programmers and designers alike.
If you are paying proper compensation, you should never have a problem getting quality work, by a designer that makes delivery of your goods a priority. Perhaps you found a bad apple, and that is unfortunate. If so, then the market should weed them out in time. But you say the designer did great work, and it sounds like they had plenty of good-paying projects elsewhere and you simply got back-burnered (and they were not candid with you, as they should have been). I've seen it happen a dozen times is every line of work.
----------
I forgive you for how you came across in your initial post. I'm also told that I'm a friendly fellow who sometimes comes across as... blunt, in writing.
I had the same kind of experiences as the OP. Part of what I found frustrating is that they don't respect the "2 out of 3" rule (which is mostly for engineers btw). What the designer in OP's case showed was an astounding lack of respect and common sense. I doubt compensation was a factor.
Some time ago I tried to find a copywriter to help me with a marketing campain. I talked with two people, and both were very interested, actually enthusiastic when I told them the concept. Both said (which made me protest and feel rather unconfortable) that they don't want to discuss compensation in the beginning, part because they want to give the project a shot anyways just to see what it looks like, and part because they don't know the amount of work beforehand.
After a week one of them didn't answer my phone calls, and the other sent a couple of texts completely off-topic, and obviously not very worked. I ended up writing the texts myself.
The moral of the story is that it's not a money problem. But that a percentage of "artistic types", in both mine and OP's experience, tend to show less professionalism then desired.
Your copywriters gave you a strong signal as to their professionalism when they did not want to discuss compensation up front. In the future, you should now know that anyone who does not discuss the business contract before rendering any services is either: 1) very inexperienced but may still work out or 2) not someone you'd ever want to work with.