Occasionally I’m asked to jump in on speculative pitches for work. Often these are based around design – a number of different concepts are worked up and presented to a prospective client, along with a spiel on how and why the concepts were created.

These types of pitches seem to be par for the course working in creative services, but they have never sat easily with me.  Years ago I was negotiating a PR contract with a potential client.  They were happy with our credentials, impressed with our client list and confident that we were the right company for them,  then they asked if we’d work for free for a month before signing contracts – just to prove ourselves. [Read more…]