Rather than a blacklist, I would like to see companies work hard to be included on a list of Ethical & honest businesses.

Kinda like the what the GoodHousekeeping seal of approval once was.

… I would like to do business with you, but you are not listed on Ethical/Truthful&HonestdotBiz … why not?

This is (believe it or not) my first visit to your blog. Unusual for me top chime in so quickly … look forward to reading more of your writing.

@kirk – good ideas! interesting to hear you’ve had some receptive folks on the pay something up front idea.

@bettina – that…is…ridiculous. how do some people sleep at night?

It can be quite a time/expense/morale drain on a firm to go through a big RFP process only to find that a potential client has returned to an incumbent firm or worse, opted to “not go with a firm at this time”. Yikes, you’re welcome for the free plan.

It’s obviously a case-by-case basis, but I do think asking for a fee up front is completely reasonable, especially if you know the potential client is only looking at a couple firms. Kirk, great point as well on the copyright as a deterrent.

Something to think about.

Unethical companies don’t play fair, and isn’t it time someone held them accountable?

Maybe I haven’t gotten quite enough sleep or I’m letting it all hang out because it’s Halloween, but those are my two cents, because I’m tired of seeing the nice guys get steamrolled.

1) We’ve had some success asking for fees upfront (your first idea) for our strategic and creative thinking. Asking for a fee imbues your ideas and the work it takes to generate them with value. Clients who don’t consider or respect this may not turn out to be good clients. The fee doesn’t have to cover all of your time, but should be high enough to let them know you’re serious. It’s almost a test. But you have to be prepared to walk away.

2) You may want to mark all of your materials boldly with a copyright claim, “(C) 2008 Agency, Inc. All rights reserved.” This serves as a warning and may dissuade them from stealing. May not help, but it can’t hurt.

Having been through your experience numerous times, I don’t think we should stand for it professionally. It devalues what we do.

To Nicole’s point, I think the trick over lunch is to ask them lots of questions, take notes, and tease them with our capabilities, our process, our case studies, our pricing, etc., without actually solving their problem for them.

Sorry to hear your news.

This has been a struggle for me, and in part I blame myself, but how far should I go to without risking losing business to “charitably lunches,” which at some point will be an entry point for me. I am very young and fresh out of college, but at the same time want to show what kinds of ideas I can bring to the table, but not at the expense of my time and talent, (not to sound arrogant, but I think anyone would feel the same way). So what do I do? It’s a very fine line for me, and I am still getting a feel for when who may be serious about next steps, and who is just taking advantage. This has been my biggest challenge thus far.

I know this was a bit of a rant and rave about my personal frustrations, but I think your point is very important, especially, as you said, during a time when everyone is cutting their marketing budgets. There should be line drawn, but what that is? I have no idea. My traditional philosophy is that, if someone or some company is going steal my ideas, then ultimately they are not the type of people I want to work with anyway. The bottom line however, the process and work it takes to get there can be exhausting! So how can we ensure that our hard work pays off? Or is that just a risk we take and time/energy we should expect to exhaust in this business?

Nicole