Just when everyone is saying that 'nothing much happens in the Czech Republic in July and August' we have been inundated with requests for proposals and meetings with potential clients. Today, after five different proposals (yes, five) and two long meetings with what we thought would be a very nice company to work for, we heard that we had failed to get the job. The only reason being that the chosen agency was 'cheaper'. This was quite a strange reason as we hadn't really discussed fees. Only given about a million different ideas as to how the company might promote itself, drafted a couple of PR plans for them and generally made them feel like part of the family.
In order to make myself and the rest of my team feel better, I spent a good part of the morning telling all of them and myself how we probably wouldn't have wanted to work for that company anyway. Hmmph. I wonder if you ever get over this sort of rejection. But, you know, even after such a long time in this business, I do question why we 'service companies' are expected to jump through fire to prove ourselves, meantime handing over for free the very thing that we are selling... I wonder what Czech Airlines would say if I called them and said "could I try you out for a few flights and then, if I like you, I might buy a ticket or two?" At the end of the day, we choose them because they have a good reputation, they are going where we want to go and their price is as reasonable as the rest... why are we service companies so different? It's a funny old life working in a PR agency!
What is even funnier, is that, having killed ourselves for one or two of these potential clients, also today, out of the blue, came an email from someone we worked for a hundred years ago, asking can we do 'x, y and z'. I said yes, and now we are starting work. And being paid! The whole process took about five minutes.
What is the morale of this story? I am not quite sure... but I guess it will come to me soon..
Jo
I think there is too much emphasis put on cost rather than service and quality these days. Obviously we are all looking at saving money but you have to be very careful to be compairing apples with apples.I always take cost out of the factor and ask what are the comparative merits of company A and B. Then and only then will you see the true picture.
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