Boileau Communications Management LLC

3D=Happy Clients

Lots of elements go into creating a successful outcome for our clients. As diverse as those elements can be, nothing works well if we don’t start with 3D.

No, I I’m not talking about the odd paper sunglasses they give you to wear at three-dimensional movies. I’m talking about three fundamental elements you’ll find at the heart of every successful project: Direction, Decisions and Deadlines.

Sometimes our clients offer a clear direction for what they want to achieve. They’ve thought about it, they’ve got a good sense for where they want to go. At other times clients come to us with a white sheet. They know they want or need to do something, but need some help giving voice or direction to it. Both those scenarios are fine with us. We don’t have a lock on creative thinking, and we appreciate clients with a strong point of view. And when we are given a blank slate it’s fun to turn on the creative energy to see where things go. It’s the middle ground where things suffer, when people have strong feelings for everything they don’t like, but no sense of what they do. The inability to see a clear course is a killer that must be overcome early.

Once the direction is set, a clear decision path is critical. Communicating can be scary. What if we say the wrong thing? Was that the best image to use? Do I really like that shade of green? Those are valid questions, and the important thing to remember is that they might not have just one best answer. They might have lots of best answers because so much of the work is so subjective. That’s why the decision path is so important. Make sure everyone knows who is going to make the decisions, and hold the decision makers accountable for doing their work. Nothing feels more hopeless than a project lost in the wilderness of indecision.

No matter how much you dread deadlines, they’re what keeps the project moving ahead. Without them, a creative project can quickly descend to the bottom of people’s priorities lists. Decisions aren’t made and direction begins to waver as the second-guessing and memory lapses set in. Often, people don’t realize the correlation between project delays and escalating project costs.  When a project needs to be rebooted at each new phase because of absent or lapsed deadlines, time, opportunity and financial costs all begin to increase.

Keep 3D in mind when you set out on your next creative project—it’ll save you at least enough time and money to go see one of those funny-sunglasses movies.