Ballparking and pitches have been an unnecessary evil in our industry for to long and we're working hard to change that with our clients and potential clients.

Ballparking can be just plain nuts. We get plenty of calls and emails looking for a "ballpark" price with one sentence project descriptions. "Hi, how much would it cost to design and build my e-commerce site". Really, what can you honestly do with that? There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution, at least not with us. Let's work together to define your needs and goals for the project (hmmm, sounds like a great test project - more on this below), as well as establish a preliminary strategy or potential feature set. Once the project has some real definition, evaluating (or ballparking) it is a much more exact science.

Pitches can be even more treacherous. A "good" pitch usually represents an incredible investment in time and creative energy on the agency's part (to say nothing of the time investment on the client side to properly assemble a creative brief, sit through presentations, etc.), but rarely result in the best creative product. This is especially true for new relationships when we immerse ourselves in the client, their product and/or service in an effort to learn all that we can. This is typically done in an incredibly short period of time and in a virtual vacuum. With so little client interaction and creative collaboration before the actual pitch is delivered, there's really no way to ensure that the research and concepts are on target.

That's why we have stopped formally pitching. There's a better way to work together. A one or two hour meeting and brainstorming session is what we now rely on. It's an efficient way to see if there's a spark or the right chemistry for a creative and strategic partnership. If the fit is there, we move quickly to get a test (or smaller) project going to put the new relationship to the test! We've found that with both parties invested in the relationship from the get-go, the end result speaks for itself.

Bryan Mahoney - Bryan is Dynamo's Director of Technology, continually breaking new ground evaluating, developing and guiding our sites and webapps, & a pillar in Dynamo's client service front. Co-author of 2 early books on the integration of ColdFusion and Flash, he is an expert in database driven content management and design. Bryan now principally rides Ruby on Rails.