There are lots of agency listing websites and directories – I have long been a fan of Chuck Meyst at AgencyFinder.com and Tom Holmes’ Creative Brief in the UK.
DesignRush is a nicely designed website for listing agencies allowing filtering by country and skillset.
I found three New Zealand agencies there – none of them competitors for us. But instead of reaching out for our profile and submitting it, I decided not to go that route.
Why??
The main reason is that the site lists agencies with a price per hour as part of the filtering. This is WRONG on many levels.
Firstly, buying creativity is not like buying socks – a commodity.
We sell by value, not by the hour (I’m not a solo-preneur or just getting started)
This encourages viewers to buy based on price and that demeans the whole industry of creative agencies
So thanks, but no thanks for us.
Make your own mind up by answering these situational questions
A client approaches and asks your price to solve a problem situation. You know the answer and how to solve it. Does it matter if you solve the problem in five minutes of 50 hours? Will the client be happy that the problem was solved or unhappy that you did it in 5 minutes?
You are asked to respond to a brief in some detail. You do it with a written proposal which the prospect takes and uses as a bid document to ask other firms to submit prices. You don’t get hired as a result.
A marketing director asks for your credentials and whether you have experience in a particular industry. Does this matter to her – is it an exclusion or inclusion filter? Does it affect your ability to do the work?
Coaching and learning how to navigate the new business development minefield is available.
No related posts.
https://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpg00Rebecca Caroehttps://creativeagencysecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/CAS_Logo_1line_RGB.jpgRebecca Caroe2019-01-07 15:21:292022-12-19 13:51:19Why I'm not signing up with DesignRush
13replies
Chuck Meyst says:
Chuck at AgencyFinder.com says “thanks for the mention!” To continue, I agree with your decision for your stated reason. Nasty, unscrupulous combative agency with lowest rates – are they kidding? Interesting that they take it upon themselves to “rank” agencies as well. eHarmony and Match.com dare not; why here?
We have tried DesignRush and as you mentioned the platform is designed well and it is interesting. As far as I know, the owner is actually from the agency world. However, the thing that I don’t really appreciate is their aggressive marketing approach. When you list your company they start messaging you with these last-minute super urgent emails where you need to put a link back to them so you get featured in their new press release. This is a pretty aggressive SEO strategy and it probably works for them, but I don’t believe this is the way you have to do business and build trust & reputation online.
From my experience it’s young, unexperienced designers who can’t specify their hourly rate, of course it doesn’t work with every project but every professional agency will be able to tell you how much they charge per hour. I agree designrush is agressive with their marketing and most of websites like these are pretty useless buy saying that only unexperienced designers know their hourly rate is wrong
I too have a very bad experience with DesignRush. It looks like they rush in everything and end up losing values. I had a scheduled call with them, and I couldn’t attend for certain reasons.
The next immediate thing their Client Relationship Manager did was to approach my boss and ask if I was a legit employee there. Such a reckless approach from a senior employee is to be taken seriously. Because she has my official email, she didn’t send a reminder, she didn’t even send me an email when I was not showing up for the call, above all, it is the first time.
Later she asked for a reschedule, and I said, never.
DesignRush is a scam. They had us paid $300 for design competition for a total of six entries. One of the entries was a web application which require logging in in order to even determine what the application is about. We receive an email from them with no information on how they did their evaluation. It simply says we didn’t win and that we need ti keep paying every mo to resubmit our entries for a chance to win top designers. We fell for the oldest scam in the book.
Thanks for sharing your experiences and insights. We too sell by value and not by the hour. Design Rush has emailed me twice so I was wondering what their deal is. Now I know!
Do you have an example of the ideal B2B platform in 2023 that can fit your requirements? I am running a custom software development agency and have tried to use every piece of advice since 2022 for leads and sales of my services.
Den, my advice is to find 1) places where your type of client hangs out online. 2) Build a “Founder Brand” giving educational advice 3) start a community to discuss issues where you can showcase your expertise.
We got a bunch of requests from them asking us to place a link on our site “for free” which I immediately because suspicious! FREE? While I believe there are things in life that are free, but this kind of thing should be a RED FLAG. They con (as the original poster mentioned) desperate agencies, asking them to place a link to their site but in return, they put a bunch of NO FOLLOW links on their sites, thus making your “free” listing worthless, but on the other side, YOUR link boosts their corrupt practices.
We went with Find Me Directory https://www.findme.directory for $20/m flat rate. The company is new, but we also saw a lot of good leads.
Chuck at AgencyFinder.com says “thanks for the mention!” To continue, I agree with your decision for your stated reason. Nasty, unscrupulous combative agency with lowest rates – are they kidding? Interesting that they take it upon themselves to “rank” agencies as well. eHarmony and Match.com dare not; why here?
We have tried DesignRush and as you mentioned the platform is designed well and it is interesting. As far as I know, the owner is actually from the agency world. However, the thing that I don’t really appreciate is their aggressive marketing approach. When you list your company they start messaging you with these last-minute super urgent emails where you need to put a link back to them so you get featured in their new press release. This is a pretty aggressive SEO strategy and it probably works for them, but I don’t believe this is the way you have to do business and build trust & reputation online.
Nick – it’s certainly a “style” choice they made which jars with me too. They messaged me about this post asking for a take-down.
Kinda says it all!
From my experience it’s young, unexperienced designers who can’t specify their hourly rate, of course it doesn’t work with every project but every professional agency will be able to tell you how much they charge per hour. I agree designrush is agressive with their marketing and most of websites like these are pretty useless buy saying that only unexperienced designers know their hourly rate is wrong
Yes, Jim that sounds likely. Good insights. Thanks.
I too have a very bad experience with DesignRush. It looks like they rush in everything and end up losing values. I had a scheduled call with them, and I couldn’t attend for certain reasons.
The next immediate thing their Client Relationship Manager did was to approach my boss and ask if I was a legit employee there. Such a reckless approach from a senior employee is to be taken seriously. Because she has my official email, she didn’t send a reminder, she didn’t even send me an email when I was not showing up for the call, above all, it is the first time.
Later she asked for a reschedule, and I said, never.
DesignRush is a scam. They had us paid $300 for design competition for a total of six entries. One of the entries was a web application which require logging in in order to even determine what the application is about. We receive an email from them with no information on how they did their evaluation. It simply says we didn’t win and that we need ti keep paying every mo to resubmit our entries for a chance to win top designers. We fell for the oldest scam in the book.
Thanks for sharing your experiences and insights. We too sell by value and not by the hour. Design Rush has emailed me twice so I was wondering what their deal is. Now I know!
Do you have an example of the ideal B2B platform in 2023 that can fit your requirements? I am running a custom software development agency and have tried to use every piece of advice since 2022 for leads and sales of my services.
Den, my advice is to find 1) places where your type of client hangs out online. 2) Build a “Founder Brand” giving educational advice 3) start a community to discuss issues where you can showcase your expertise.
Thanks for sharing best information
Thanks for sharing best experiences and information.
We got a bunch of requests from them asking us to place a link on our site “for free” which I immediately because suspicious! FREE? While I believe there are things in life that are free, but this kind of thing should be a RED FLAG. They con (as the original poster mentioned) desperate agencies, asking them to place a link to their site but in return, they put a bunch of NO FOLLOW links on their sites, thus making your “free” listing worthless, but on the other side, YOUR link boosts their corrupt practices.
We went with Find Me Directory https://www.findme.directory for $20/m flat rate. The company is new, but we also saw a lot of good leads.