Whatever Happened to Labor?
An excerpt from Seth's Godin's blog:
In a world where labor does exactly what it's told to do, it will be devalued. Obedience is easily replaced, and thus one worker is as good as another. And devalued labor will be replaced by machines or cheaper alternatives. We say we want insightful and brilliant teachers, but then we insist they do their labor precisely according to a manual invented by a committee...
Companies that race to the bottom in terms of the skill or cost of their labor end up with nothing but low margins. The few companies that are able to race to the top, that can challenge workers to bring their whole selves--their human selves--to work, on the other hand, can earn stability and growth and margins. Improvisation still matters if you set out to solve interesting problems.
As a business, we face this on a regular basis. Just yesterday I stumbled onto an ad offering business websites for $125. I had to admit that I was curious to see what a $125 website looked like, so I clicked through. Turns out that one $125 website looks quite a bit like the next $125 website. No attention to detail, no optimization for SEO, not even a unique look and feel appropriate to the brand or company. Immediately the Warren Buffett quote popped into my head; "Price is what you pay, value is what you get." Yes, these folks paid a low price for their websites, but none of them added any value to the business. Each of these businesses missed an opportunity to share their story—to tell their customers why they're here and why they're different.
I've had people ask if this "race to the bottom" in the fields of design and web development bothers me. If I'm honest, the answer is that, yes, it does—but probably not as much as you'd think. The reason that it doesn't bother me that much is because of our team. They do great work, and great work is worth talking about. As Seth quips in the excerpt above, the Ideavise team shows up every day looking for interesting problems to throw their entire selves at. We're blessed that we have clients who have trusted us with their interesting problems.
So I'll make you this promise: We may not always be the cheapest option (though we won't be anywhere NEAR the most expensive, either), but I guarantee that when you hire us you will get an entire team of people who are hard-wired to throw their entire selves at the project. Our goal is not only that you come out of the project with something tangible (a website, brochure, email newsletter, etc.) but also that that you come out of it with a solution—that we've addressed a problem or issue and that your business is better for us having served you. My business partner, Brian, likes to use this phrase; "Show Up. Add Value. Be Findable. Repeat."
If you find yourself needing some creative insight into something, well, creative. We'd love to be considered. Give us a call at (719) 355-3579 or (831) 887-0111.
Thanks for reading,
—Jason @ Ideavise
