Clients who don’t share our values
We’re grateful for every client we’ve ever had the opportunity to work with. Seriously, even when it hasn’t always been smooth sailing we’ve learned invaluable lessons. But we’d be lying if we said every one of them has been the perfect fit. The clients who don’t share our values around kindness, collaboration, openness, organisation and creativity can make life tricky. This year, we’ve backed ourselves to be strong enough to say “no” as it’s not good for us, our staff or the client.
Pace and evolution of social and digital media
Adapting to the immediate requirements of changes in the marketing landscape is exhausting. Marketing tactics that worked 6 months ago are no longer relevant. That can certainly be frustrating! It’s really hard to make sure you’re putting your time and efforts into the right places all the time. Do you go for high volume of activity just to “be there” which inevitably leads to lower quality outputs? Do you wait until you’re completely ready and potentially miss opportunities to capture bulk audiences early? This fast pace causes uncertainty and indecision at times. We’ve learned to stand back, take a breath, and assess each new channel in light of our individual client objectives and brands.
That one client who owes us 10s of 1000s of $$$
Yep, a definite pit that really tested us as a business. I’m super proud that we were able to come out the other side of this financially stronger than ever before. Sadly, there are liars in business who will strategically not pay you, despite your great work. We made a huge mistake in letting their debt pile so high. A court ruled (very definitively) that 219 Swanston Pty Ltd owes us A LOT of money and we continue to pursue it. This company owns and operates Red Piggy restaurant in Melbourne CBD. I’m afraid they certainly do deserve you to know how unscrupulous their business is. However, we’ve put new processes in place and become very strict about our financial terms. So yes, another learning (albeit an expensive one).
Suppliers who let us down
You’re only as good as your team, and our suppliers are a valued extension of our team. When they don’t deliver a quality of work or product befitting the littleBIG standard, it lets us down, and worst of all, our clients. We’re implementing a more stringent reference checking and engagement policy to ensure any supplier is as good as our stellar team.
The feeling of disappointing people
I absolutely love the process of meeting potential clients, hearing about their business and their vision and applying our smarts and creativity to proposing the best path forward for them. When those potential future partners need answers from us more quickly than we can mindfully give them, it’s a terrible feeling. But we will always prioritise our engaged clients’ work first. When you’re in the family, we look after you. Most enquirers appreciate that and value it as a sign they will receive the same treatment when they’re on board, but unfortunately they don’t always have the ability to protract their timelines. We understand and we hate to disappoint!
Telling clients things they don’t want to hear
We pride ourselves on doing this but it’s not always an easy conversation. It might sound like: “This is a really sound social media strategy, but it is flatly not going to work unless you improve your website.” Or: “Your new range is really great and people will love it, but it’s not newsworthy and investing in a media relations campaign would not be the best way to market it.” We’d much rather be honest up front than undertake an expensive marketing program that’s not going to deliver against a client’s objectives. We always hope the honesty is appreciated and can work together to come up with a plan that works.
