When you’re a small business serving people and organizations, it is tough to say no. Within limits, we do our best to say yes to a customer’s business, timelines, specifications and expectations. We also know that saying no is sometimes why people hire us and we can do that easily too. Two weeks ago, however, I was faced with a tough decision. One of our customers asked us to work with them to crowdsource their brand identity. They wanted to get a greater variety of ideas on a budget and had heard crowdsourcing was a good way to go. For one of the first and few times, we had to say no. (If you haven’t heard of crowdsourcing, click here before you proceed).

Let’s lay the facts out, before I give you my two cents. We were hired to develop a brand identity after having a very fruitful and successful set of strategic planning engagements with our customer. We developed one round of concepts, the customer embraced one of the concepts. We refined it and they were happy. They then showed it to their board. The board thought it was not creative enough and suggested that our customer outsource. At this point, we told our customer that its ok, having multiple rounds of design is not uncommon. We will take their board’s thoughts into consideration and start again. We offered them a discount on the rework in order to stay within their original expectations of budget. Their response? Our board wants to outsource – thats it. We want more ideas on the identity, however they wanted to continue working with us on creating a brand system and collateral.

I am a fond believer in the democratization of talent and information that the internet creates. Throughout the years I’ve even engaged developers in Pakistan and India to support application development projects. I believe that outsourcing just seems like “out” sourcing now, but in reality it is just the first steps in a more important and meaningful global collaboration without borders and nationalistic illusions. (We need to stop thinking of ourselves as Indians, Americans, Serbians, etc and instead as citizens of the earth.)

A brand, however, is an incredibly delicate and powerful thing. It is the essence, the heart, the soul of an organization embodied in the absence of words. (No wonder we take ourselves so seriously here at Blue Daring). Its the one thing that people take away that allows them to recognize your work and your business again and again. That said, you don’t “crowdsource” or better yet, throw to the wind, your identity. Your identity is a careful process of creative and strategic collaboration, concepting, reworking and finally adoption. To allow something so intimate and important to be the subject of a desperate bidding war by out-of-work designers and would-be artists is a failure of vision and lack of responsibility.

Are these the rantings of a slighted vendor? Absolutely not. Not only were we paid for our work to date, but we walked away with a relationship intact. I respected my customer’s wish and they respected ours – they even committed to continue to speak highly of our work and talent. And let’s note… we are ALWAYS open to collaboration and being creative about work in order to get things done. We know that our value as a company is beyond simply design. Brand outsourcing, however, will never, ever, be the right thing to do. It’s the equivalent of having strangers dress you, speak for you and represent you in the course of your day. Needless to say when you are an organization representing tens of thousands of people – that is simply reckless.

Bottom line, I am happy that we did not answer to the dollar. It is never popular and sometimes costly to stand up in what you believe in. However, people who hire Blue Daring, hire us for truth, guidance and good advice. We better damn well have conviction.