Agencies describe their ideal client

In the spirit of the season, we asked our panel of experts at our Tech Mornings event what their ideal client/project would be. Here, we have Skot Carruth from Philosophie talking about what he thinks makes an ideal client - it's about education and an understanding of the process (by both the client and the agency).

Video Transcript:

Jose Caballer, The Skool: “What’s your wish for the LA community? Like, what does your ideal client look like and what does your ideal project look like?  It’s Christmas time, ask the universe for?”

Skot Carruth, Philosophie: “Well, obviously unlimited budget and unlimited time …unlimited knowledge. Ok, so to be more realistic, I think this type of education is really critical. I don’t know what it is but as someone whose worked with clients in the Bay area and New York and other places that have tech centers, the LA community in digital seems to be somewhat unsophisticated or under educated.”

Jose Caballer, The Skool: “Did you just call us grubs? You elitist San Franciscan! You called us grubs?”

Skot Carruth, Philosophie: I am from here, so this is something I am passionate about. That’s why I’m here. You know, I think what Jose is doing and the reason we are all here is because we are trying to give buyers tools and we are trying to educate ourselves as well on how to make projects go more smoothly, right. So I think understanding digital and the ways that it differs from more traditional design projects or consulting projects and the biggest thing, and it hasn’t been said explicitly, yet, is that it’s a living thing most of the time, right. When you go to print or produce a film, a commercial, a spot. It’s done. You do the final cut, you ship it, and you are not going to change it. But on the web, we have this awesome potential to continually reiterate on whatever we build. We are adding content to it, we are adding features to it, we are responding to data because we have analytics, we are responding to direct feedback from customers that we’ve interviewed. It’s a long-term process and if you can see it that way, see it as a living thing and a partnership, things are going to go much more smoothly. I would say education is very important.

Jose Caballer, The Skool: “Thank you, that is brilliant what you just said. And what you just said is that the process is the product not the website.

Skot Carruth, Philosophie: That’s even a better way to say it, yes. So you are not buying a website. You are buying a team of people who understand process and can help you reach your goals. So defining your projects in terms of your objectives and be willing to see it as a long-term reiterate process. That’s my ideal client.”