Shorter Timelines = More Value?
No client wants a rush job.
So won’t shorter project timelines result in less valuable work?
When I tell people that we deliver entire brands and websites in a 2-day intensive Brandup, many question the quality of the work.
You must be using templates, they say. Or my favorite: It’s not possible to do good work in less time.
This is untrue. In fact, the opposite is true: You can deliver more value in less time if you play your cards right. And I can prove it.
Working Hard or Doing Great Work?
There is a difference between working hard and doing great work. It’s very easy to feel like you’re doing great work when you’re really just working hard and spinning your wheels. And creative work is no exception.
When you’re an artist, you have to let the creative inspiration hit you. Artistic genius cannot be rushed. I know because I’m married to an artist! Sometimes, he literally stares at a canvas for an hour only to make a final stroke and declare it done.
But I wouldn’t suggest this process for building a brand.
Because even creating the most brilliant and unique brand for a client is NOT the same as creating your own art, nor should it be.
And if you think it is, then you are putting your own creative goals ahead of the goals and needs of the client that is paying you.
When it comes to designing a brand, there is no blank paper. There’s no final brushstroke of genius. You are ONLY designing based on helping your client achieve their goals.
Anything else is just background noise. And when that noise gets too loud, you won’t be able to deliver the high value you and your client seek.
How to Deliver More Value in Less Time
Why do I say that less time can yield better results?
Because when you have a process for doing this work, and you clear the time and space to ONLY do this work (which is a cornerstone of my intensives model), you can give your all to it.
You get rid of the time you would have wasted by being distracted by five other clients and projects.
You don’t have to “get back into it” each time you sit down to do the next edit or phase.
You are IMMERSED.
So now, I ask you to imagine doing a client project where it is the one and only thing you are focused on.
Imagine letting the strategy sink in for a couple of weeks and then going into an intensive state with all your future projects.
Imagine not getting interrupted or distracted until you have built the best version with solid reasons to back up your choices.
This approach favors strategy instead of:
A brand that your client keeps asking to see more variations of
A website that is dragging on for months and months because the client keeps disappearing
Copy that has been second-guessed and edited by five different people until it’s a hodgepodge Frankenstein
Intensives are a way to deliver the BEST version, not a rush job, because they give you the space and trust to do your best work.
Can you imagine a workflow where your client gets ALL your undivided attention? Don’t you think you could deliver more value?
Learn more about my intensives strategy in my free course in the No BS Agency Owners Free Facebook Group.