We turn down a meaningful share of the work that comes to us. Not because we are busy — because taking it would produce a bad outcome for someone, usually the client.
What we decline
- Requests for a specific thing with no reason behind it. A new logo asked for because the old one feels tired rarely survives once we find the real business problem.
- Budgets that cannot support the scope. We would rather propose a smaller piece of work done properly than a full scope done thinly.
- Projects where we would be the fourth agency in two years without anything having changed internally.
- Work where the measurement is impossible and nobody wants to fix that.
In most of these cases we say what we would do instead, even when that means recommending no agency at all. It costs us the project and occasionally wins us the next one.
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