Your work can be too good

The books range form $30 - $70 depending on how many pages

A religious leader for a large church organization told his communications team to not produce slick well-polished pieces, because then folks will think we have too much money and not give.  We want to look like we need help.

What is sad is that it probably costs more money to produce poor quality than great quality work.  If the work is not of a certain caliber then no one in your targeted audience will digest the content and then it was a total waste of money.

I have been producing two to three minute multimedia packages that range from $2,000 - $5,000 to produce in addition to the cost of travel expenses.  The companies I do this for are used to paying $10,000 to $250,000 for similar length video projects. Since they are so much less to produce the client was doing more of them.

This can cause a problem for the client with the rest of their corporation.  They think based on previous expenditures they are spending lots of money, when in reality they are spending less.

This was also happening for books we did as gifts.  People thought these were tens of thousands when they are often only $30 a book for 10 books.

If you are in charge of projects and you are not aware of this political reality of quality of your products you may be in for a rude awakening in a budget meeting. 

As communication specialists we help tell stories effectively. You also have another role to play of educating your organization about what you do.  They need to have you help them understand the strategy of the communications and the costs.

I would recommend getting someone to help you tell your story.  This could be one of your colleagues in the industry to help you.  I think one of the strangest things I have discovered over my career is how communications folks need someone to help them with their PR campaign.

First of all the PR you do for yourself is not necessarily the same thing you do for others. 

Here are seven things you might want to do:

1. Take your analytics or get some to show how many folks you reach with your messaging.
2. Show where you are getting placed—tear sheets
3. Create a notebook/PowerPoint of these talking points that you are ready to now present to a person or a group.
4. Identify those persons in your organization that you need as your allies
5. I suggest taking them to lunch and sharing with them some of you material showing how you are being more strategic than in the past and how you are being more cost efficient in doing this.
6. Create a comparison chart.  What we used to spend on something vs. today what we are spending. 
7. Maybe give them a framed picture and copy of the story you produced for them or coffee table book and include with it a cover letter talking about the number of hits and responses you have gotten to it.

A strange thing may happen after you have done this with a few folks—you will get more work.  You may also get a larger budget next year.  People are drawn to folks who show business acumen. 

While I have given just some suggestions you may want to help those reading this blog with your tips.  I would love to hear your comments and suggestions.