We’re on a mission to help make the daunting challenge of hiring the right creative team, simple and stress free.

The first part of our guide covered everything you need to create a shortlist of suitable candidates for your next design project. If you haven’t read that yet, we recommend going back to read our tips for creating a shortlist of agencies.

In this section, we’re going to cover the next stages of the hiring process…

Make First Contact

As you might have guessed, the next stage involves picking up the phone and calling a few of the agencies that are on your shortlist. You might think that at this stage it would be far simpler to send them an email, and in most cases yes, it is quicker and easier to write a single email of enquiry and ping it over to several agencies. But, by taking the slightly longer route of calling, you may gain some valuable insights, such as whether they will be a likely fit for your business in terms of personality and ways of working.

It is worth noting that although you are making the initial call, you may have to wait to discuss your needs in detail with the right person at the agency. It’s also worth noting that not all agencies will have a telephone number. Some agencies do not have a publicly available telephone number, and will instead insist that all enquiries come via email. Although this will work for some, it could indicate that contacting the agency if there is an issue could be difficult – which is less than ideal.

Your Call With the Agency

Outline Your Project

Use this initial call to outline the basics of the project. Don’t worry you don’t need to go into excessive detail at this point, but be sure to cover the key details; who you are, the name of your business and what it does, what you are looking for and any project timelines or hard deadlines.

E.g. You are John Smith, you work at Bakery Ltd which is an artesian bakery launching soon. You’re looking for logo design, promotional fliers, embroidered staff aprons and bakery signage. You plan on opening the bakery on 28th May, so would need the fliers before 14th May. 

Personality

Personality goes a long way. And a clash of personalities can make working with an agency difficult at best, and impossible at worst. This call is the perfect opportunity for you to get a feel for the ‘personality’ of the agency, by observing the personality and demeanour of the agencies representative. For an effective working relationship, it’s important that the agency is the ‘right fit’ for your company. For example if your company culture is very much ‘no nonsense’, an agency with the same ethos would be a good match. The personality of the agencies representative and their communication style should also give you a good indication of whether the agency will be pleasant to work with.

Discuss Costs

It’s rare for agencies to disclose costs on their website, so this is the perfect opportunity to ask for a rough cost for the project.

Now, when it comes to costing, some agencies like to play their cards close to their chest. They might insist on not disclosing a rough estimate and instead ask you to wait until they put forward a formal quote. This isn’t that unusual, but it could have implications for you and your business…

The issue here, particularly if you are a smaller or newer business, is that you have no idea if their prices are massively out of scope for your budget. If you are launching a new business, you may only have a small budget, let’s say £500. Imagine giving a rough phone brief to an agency, then spending a few hours discussing your project in detail with an agency, then having another meeting where they put forward their proposal and quote – only to find out that they intend to charge £2,500 – five times your budget for this project. You’ve wasted hours of company time unnecessarily, because they couldn’t give you a rough indication of costs, or advise that prices start from x amount….

Ask About Their Clients

It’s likely that the agency will have a small selection of case studies and testimonials on their website. But it’s worth taking the time to ask for more. Specifically, ask if they have worked with clients in your industry previously. Ask if they have covered many projects of this nature and if they have additional case studies they could share with you. Hopefully they will be able to discuss some recent projects that are of the same vein as your planned project, possibly detailing how successful the project was in achieving it’s aims, and maybe even disclosing some KPI’s.

Meet the Agency

Although you’ve already done a lot of research, and checks on the agency, this stage will give you even more insight and help to confirm whether they are the right agency for you and your business.

Generally speaking, at this point the best option is for the agency to visit your place of business in order to discuss your project in greater detail. This can help the agency to gain a deeper understanding of your business, which in turn means that they can apply this understanding to your project – ensuring that the end design solution is very much ‘on brand’. But of course, if you are not 100% sure that you’ve selected the right agency, or if you plan to discuss your brief with multiple agencies – you might want to visit their business with a view to learning more about which agency you prefer. In this instance, as a courtesy, be sure to mention to all involved agencies that the brief has been discussed with other agencies also.

Go Into Detail

This is your opportunity to not only explain the basics of what you are looking for, but to go over every tiny detail you have. If you’re looking for a new packaging design, don’t just explain that you’re looking for something colourful that appeals to a certain demographic… Give them detail on how you want the product to be perceived. Tell them about products that you’ve seen and loved, and why you felt drawn to those designs. Tell them about the product packaging you’ve hated and why you hated it. Tell them the history of your existing packaging. The more information you can provide, the more likely it is that they will be able to create the perfect design solution for your business.

Challenge is Good

Be prepared for challenge from the agency. They may challenge your plans, aims, or challenge you to re-examine or explain why you think something is a good or bad idea.

Rest assured, this challenge isn’t the agency trying to be difficult, it’s them trying to help you. They may be trying to dig deeper into something you have mentioned as part of your project details, to get more insight on your thought process, or to get more clarity on what you are actually looking for. They may challenge you because they can see that the creative work you have requested doesn’t align with the aims for your project… Challenge is good, so be open and honest.

Ask Them About Their Processes

Ask the agency to walk you through their process. What are the next steps after this meeting? Do they have a standardised process for design projects, and if so can they walk you through it? When will you be able to provide feedback? At what stages of the project should you expect invoicing?

This is also the perfect time to ask them what their expectations will be for you as the client. Will you need to provide them with asset files or images? Will they expect response from you on queries within a certain timeframe? What are their payment terms for invoicing, etc?

Proposal & Quote

Some agencies will prefer to send the proposal and quote via email, and some will prefer to present the proposal to you in person to explain the technical side of the design. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, or to provide constructive feedback. If you’re not entirely happy with the proposal, you should absolutely raise your concerns with the agency.

But if you are happy with the proposal, and of course the costs quoted – let the agency know that you would like to proceed with the project. Keep in mind that you will need to provide the agency with a purchase order before they are able to proceed with any project work.

If you have a design project in mind, and think PHd Design might be the right creative agency to support your business – please get in touch today.

If you find yourself in the market to hire support from a creative team, chances are that you might find the process a little challenging. But don’t worry you’re not alone.

Finding the right creative team can be a tough process – and for good reason. You need a team that has technical skill, artistic talent, who you get along with. Most importantly that you are confident will help to grow and develop your brand further.

We’re hoping to make this daunting process that little bit easier, by outlining a simple step by step guide to finding and hiring the right creative team for your business…

Start with a Project Outline

It’s important that you have a good understanding of what you need, before you start the hunt for the right creative team. Think of the search for the right agency as being like hiring a candidate for a job vacancy within your business. The project outline is essentially the role specification for this vacancy. You need a role specification so that you know what you want from the ideal candidate, and likewise this helps the right candidate to understand what you need from them…

Putting together an outline is simple enough, but if you’re unsure of where to start, here are a few prompts to help;

What do you Want?

Think about what type of design work you need. Are you starting a business from scratch and need a new logo designing? Are you an established business, and are instead looking to evolve and develop your existing logo? Will you need new stationery and business cards once the logo has been completed?

Or perhaps you need signage for a new office location? Or maybe an infographic designed to condense complex reports into a simple to follow visual guide?

There may be some instances where you as a client are not entirely sure which design solution would be the best fit for your needs and aims. But that’s ok, as long as you have outlined the remaining points below, a good creative agency will be able to help you determine which design solution will best fit your business.

What do you Want to Achieve?

Think very carefully about what you want this project to achieve. Are you looking to redesign your drinks packaging to appeal to a younger demographic? Are you looking to redesign your website to achieve more sales for your service-based business? Or perhaps a flyer for a mail campaign to encourage property owners to sell their property via your estate agency? This is without a doubt the most critical part of the outline, as an experienced agency will be able to advise if they think another type of project may be a better fit for what you are hoping to achieve.

When do you need it?

Think about the deadlines for your project. Are you planning on launching a newly designed website tomorrow or in 3 months? Consider whether your deadline is realistic. Very few agencies will be able to create a well thought out and constructed design solution with 24 hours turnaround. Don’t set an agency an overly short deadline just because you can. The more time you can allow them to work on a project, the more likely their end product will be the perfect fit.

What is Your Budget?

Think carefully about the budget that is available for this project. A bootstrap budget may seem like the best option – but remember the old saying of ‘you get what you pay for’.  A reduced budget could mean that you aren’t able to afford to hire a team with the right level of skill to support your brand. Similarly, there is no need for an excessive budget for a small and simple project. Take some time consider the right budget for your project.

But at this stage, budget – even if it’s just a rough figure – will enable you to identify which creative agencies are within scope of your budget, and which agencies are wildly unaffordable.

Now that you have a rough outline of the project’s requirements, you can begin researching and shortlisting the agencies you would like to reach out to…

Creating a Shortlist

The first step in finding a creative agency is simple – run a Google search. However, as a general search for ‘Creative Agency’ will return millions of results, let’s look at a few ways to help narrow down your options.

Be Specific

The term ‘Creative Agency’ is very generalised, so try to be more specific with your search. If you are looking for someone to design and manage paid ads on social media on behalf of your business, your search will yield more accurate results if you search for “marketing agency”. Likewise, if you’re looking for logo or packaging design, the more specific search term like “Graphic Design Agency” would be more effective.

Location, Location, Location

For many businesses, location is irrelevant. After all we live in a digital age, and tools like emails, Skype and more, mean that you can easily collaborate with a business anywhere in the world.

But location shouldn’t be an afterthought. It can make a big impact on a number of areas within your project.

From a cost perspective, an agency located in a big city will likely be far more expensive than one in a smaller city, as their fees will be covering higher overheads and competitive salaries, whereas smaller towns and cities will have lower overheads and more.

From a creative perspective it can be beneficial to work with a local agency. A local agency will be able to visit your business first hand to help gain a deeper understanding of your business. They will be able to meet in person more often, which often produces better creative results than meetings conducted over video. But then of course if there are no local agencies that fit the bill – you will need to expand your search.

Reviews

Google reviews are one of the most trusted review platforms around, and for good reason. At a glance you have a good indication of whether customers are generally satisfied or unsatisfied based on the star rating of the business.

It’s also worth reading through as many of the reviews as you can, particularly the lowest star rating reviews. It may seem negative to start here, but there is a good reason. Generally negative reviews are the result of one of two things – either poor performance of the agency, or a difficult client. By reading the reviews you will be able to judge for yourself in each instance who was at fault. It’s also a great opportunity to learn more about the agency, by reading their response to a negative review. Their response may include key details that the reviewer failed to mention, or it could confirm that the agency is a little difficult to work with.

If you have time to read the positive reviews also, then it is certainly worth it. Some reviews will of course contain more details than others, but be on the lookout for any reviews that mention using the agency for multiple projects over multiple years – as repeat customers are a good indication that the agency are genuinely good at what they do.

Websites

As you might have guessed, once you’ve narrowed down your search results, the hard work begins. Read through the website for each potential agency you are considering. A good website will cover most everything else that you need to know about an agency. It should include a portfolio of their designs, information on the types of project they are able to cover, case studies, testimonials and more.

Now of course if you are looking for packaging design for a new product launch, you can instantly discard any design agency that does not offer packaging design services from your shortlist. And when you have found an agency that does offer these services, you can check whether any of their featured case studies cover this service. This can be a great opportunity to see what their design solutions can achieve. Similarly their testimonials will likely have more detail than a standard Google review, so finding one in the particular area of your project can help shed a bit more light on the benefit of this agency over another…

Next Steps

Now that you’ve read our tips for creating a short list of the right agencies for your next creative project, you might be wondering what to do next. Fear not, our second part of this part will cover the next stages of the hiring process, from initial contact and vetting, right through to hiring.

But in the meantime, why don’t you take a look around our website. Look through our portfolio of works, read our case studies and testimonials. And if you’re looking for support from an award-winning design agency with 30 years of experience, and think we might be the right fit to support your business with it’s next project – please get in touch.