A New Course On Decision-Making
April 10, 2009 by Dr. Steve Bedwell
Filed under Critical Thinking
Hi Guys,
A quick note to let you know that I’ll be posting the first of a series of articles on how to improve your decision-making later today.
Once you’ve read the article, return to this post and let me know what you think. (I’ll put a link to the “comments box” at the bottom of all the articles)…
Catch you later,
Steve
re: your article about Logoworks and “sunk costs”.
I’m not a fan of Logoworks, but I need to point out that it’s not that unreasonable for the company to keep a $99 deposit (although I don’t know why they call it an admin fee), from the designers’ point of view. It’s extremely difficult for most people to describe their visual wishes well enough for a designer to properly interpret them, so most logos go through several rounds of revisions. To expect any designer to immediately get your concept on the first try, or else you won’t pay anything, even though they may have spent hours on their first sketches, is not really fair. It’s like punishing the person for being unable to read your mind. Now if their concepts had no relation to what you asked for, that’s another story. They should in that case refund everything, since they weren’t following your direction. I’m not clear from your article what the situation was with Logoworks.
Thanks for your comment, and especially for taking the time to click through from another page on my website to give me your views.
“I’m not a fan of Logoworks…” No disagreement from me there
I also agree with you 100% that it’s perfectly reasonable for a designer to request a deposit. That said, 99 Designs is experiencing explosive growth with a different business model. They really offer a “satisfaction guarantee,” if you’re not satisfied, you don’t pay a dime.
The reason I didn’t give more detail about my Logoworks experience is because I didn’t want the article to become a whiny rant about atrocious customer service. It was simply a real-life example to illustrate the psychological power of sunk costs.
Sinking $99 into a project will influence your subsequent decision-making in ways that aren’t always transparent. Which is why, as I say in the article: “…after seeing the initial concepts, rather than leaving my $99 bucks on the table and running fast in the opposite direction…I got sucker-punched (by the psychology of sunk costs) into continuing with the project to the tune of another $300 bucks.”