When you’re in business, competition is both normal and healthy. Good businesses have friendly competition, I hope that’s the case with you.
With the creative services business model it’s different. My reason for pointing this out is to help bring clarity to other business owners so you can better understand the environment my company “competes” in to serve you with web design and other creative services. For the most part, we don’t really have competition. Some web designers would disagree but I’ve had this discussion many times with other web and creative professionals, and the consensus is that others share this perspective.
The vast majority agree that we are colleagues and not competitors. I should clarify that vast majority isn’t truly vast majority because of the number and diversity that call themselves web designers. I’m referring to web designers that operate under a truly client focused model. That’s really a minority but among that minority, the vote is unanimous.
The reason is there is much more need than supply. Businesses need our services whether they realize it or not. Speaking personally, a significant portion of my clients have experienced the “other” type of web designers and the disappointment that follows. These web designers are unfortunately the majority because there’s no legal requirement to meet a certain standard to call yourself a web designer. I’m not saying there should be or needs to be because the market always purges itself, and they’ll continue to come and go in a perpetual cycle. They also have a large and steady supply of buyers who don’t know any better or don’t care. Someone needs to serve that market which also comes and goes, except for the ones who get wise and survive.
The qualified and client focused web designers admire and learn from each other. It helps us to do better. There’s no need to be competitive. We’re not dealing with a product that has a fixed value. We’re dealing with businesses of various sizes with a diverse scope of needs. What would be “expensive” to one company would be very “cheap” to another. The cost of failure is what’s expensive regardless of the dollar value attached.
Over my years of experience, I’ve been asked a fair number of times about the competitive nature of this business. It’s a natural curiosity since competition is such an integral part of most business models. This understanding that creative services are not focused on competition, other than yours, will help to answer questions you may have, and offer insight about how our collaboration with other professionals benefits everyone, especially our clients. The bottom feeders don’t understand this concept.
