Besides having a best coif in the 1970s, the late Vidal Sassoon offered some great freelancing wisdom: “If you don’t look good, we don’t look good.” He’s right. We are doing our best to make you look good—or we risk losing your business altogether.
Sadly, if we do our jobs too well, we may still risk losing your business altogether.
Many years ago, I was hired mid-campaign by a firm who was launching a new food product. According to the 40-page creative “brief,” I was supposed to emphasize the six key ingredients used to make it the best thing EVER! to hit the market. I read the strategy cover-to-cover . . . three times . . . because all I could locate in all that info were five ingredients. Not six. Eek.
My job was to finish the rest of the work—some stuff was already in production—so I alerted my contact and the account exec immediately, to verify with the client and to make any necessary corrections. Though I never heard word back, I finished my part, certain that all was well. Turns out it would be the last job I ever did for the firm.
About a year later, I learned that my contact had been disciplined because he deliberately did not halt production, thinking no one would notice; some of the deliverables got to a point where it was very expensive to make corrections (i.e., re-shoot spots, re-record VOs, printer-proof edits, etc.). My contact claimed to have no knowledge, and the A/E called him out on it since they were both copied on the email I’d sent.
Regardless of whether I’d found it, someone should have read the strategy—several someones, in fact.
Now as freelancers, we have no control over whether our client does their job—but we still need to do ours. In this case, my contact had the opportunity to be the hero, and for reasons I cannot explain, he chose not to. He was quoted after the fact, saying, “I can’t hire Miriam again, because I need my job.” What?? He’s either implying the gaffe was my fault, or he’s insecure that I’m after his job.
In-house designer, editor, copywriter, web producer . . . freelancers don’t want your job. We’re not looking to show you up or make you look bad. In fact, we want you to look good—that’s part of why you hired us, yes? Rest easy. This is win-win, if you stay calm and play nicely.
Thank us when we discover errors, ask questions, and deliver the goods—thank us by hiring us again. Do it for yourself, do it for us, do it for Vidal Sassoon.