Ask Why Before You Build It

An apparel company came to Ryan Blake and me wanting a new Shopify theme. They knew exactly what they wanted, and they were willing to spend $20,000 to get it. So we asked them why.

They were shocked. Why were we even asking that? They'd come in to buy a theme, and the people they were paying to build it wanted them to explain themselves.

We'd already looked at the store they had. There was nothing functionally wrong with their Shopify theme. What we had were questions about the business: what they were offering, who it was for and why anybody should pick them over the next brand. A new theme wasn't going to answer any of that.

When Ryan told that story on my podcast, he named what had happened before they ever got to us. "That means that somebody sold them the silver bullet," he said. Somebody had told them the theme was the problem, and that a new one would fix it.

The request is usually somebody else's sale

Most people who call me already know what they want to buy. A website, some social media posts, a new logo. They aren't wrong to want those things, and sometimes that thing really is what they need. But a lot of the time, the request didn't start with them. It started with somebody who sells that thing.

I learned how hard this is at Hound. We were a brand agency, and we only sold what we did. When somebody came in asking for a website, we'd tell them we build brands, and that we could get to their website if we started over there. It was always a very hard sell. They had walked in with a clear picture of what they were buying, and we were asking them to set it down in the first meeting.

It goes sideways even when the lead sounds perfect. I had one who talked about brand awareness and how nobody in his industry knew who he was. He was using all the right words, and I was thinking this was a good one. Then we got to the strategy work that comes before anything gets made, and the whole thing blew up. He didn't understand why he needed any of it, and he disappeared.

So why keep asking? Because the other option is taking the money, building what they asked for and walking through the whole process when I already know it isn't going to work. That's worse for them than a hard question in the first meeting, and it's worse for me, too.

Asking why is the work

I don't think anybody should pay for creative work first and figure out what the problem was afterwards. You pay somebody to think through the problem, and then the strategy tells you what to make. Asking why is where that starts.

That doesn't mean I won't build what somebody asks for. If I can't see how the thing gets them where they're trying to go, I'm going to challenge it. If they can show me the path, I'm happy to go build it. Sometimes the answer to "why" is a good one, and the store really does need a new site. The question is how I find out whether the website is the problem or just the thing standing in front of it.

It isn't always comfortable. On a recent identity project for a doctor's office, I was asking about money early on: how much they had, what they could spend, what was left over. They wanted to know why I was asking about any of that. I needed to know that when it came time to put the new signage up, they could afford to put it up. When I presented the identity at the end, the owner's assistant was in tears. The questions that annoyed them at the start were part of how we got there.

The apparel company had already been sold the answer before they called us. That happens all the time, and it isn't their fault. They don't know what they don't know.

Somebody will always sell you the thing you asked for. I'd rather be the one who asks why you want it.