Meg, and many others, had been let go by Design Reach after a series of client losses. She’d moved cross country to Portland and taken the position of Creative Director with a nonprofit magazine focused on the homeless and the education and mental health issues of the city’s street people. The money was terrible, but she loved the work.
Then one morning she got the email from Jay, her former boss at Design Reach. Jay had also been let go.
The email
Hi Meg,
I expect this finds you well. I’ve heard that moving from designing toothpaste packaging to saving the world has been invigorating for you. Congrats! However, I miss your smiling face and hope to entice you to work with me again.
I’ll be brief; I’ve taken the Chief Creative Officer (love that title!) position with Serengeti Design. You may have heard that the founder, Cheryl Johnson, recently won a huge EU client and is expanding.
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I must confess that I’ve succumbed to the appeal of Cheryl’s vision. As I’ve gotten to know her, I’ve come to realize just how serious she is about only working on projects that make the world a better place. Never thought I’d tire of hustling consumers. You know me. Toothpaste to motor oil, I’ll sell anything. Love making folks grab an’ go! Design as persuasion is my passion. But now my skills are to be put to a new test. I’m persuading for good and I love it.
Here’s the deal, I want you to join us as a group co-creative director – Co-CD with Frank Spade – and help us build our consumer goodness team. We’ve got the clients and they’ve got the cash to make a major expansion in the healthy, goodness world. You may know Frank; he was in fast moving consumables at Silver Design. I say Co-CD because I want the two of you to develop the category together, but with separate teams. Yes, you’ll both be hiring your own support designers and strategists. Compensation will be close to that of the top tier firms and hours, for a change, will be reasonable. Cheryl’s a stickler on that. Solo mom of two kids, she knows balance is critical. She has nothing against making money…just knows that the best work comes from happy people. I mean, I’m only 45 and I’m tired! Those 90-hour weeks at DR got to me.
I’m offering you the position. You’d be great and it fits with your new goody-goody ethic. What about it? No rush but I do need your answer by the end of the month. Needless to say there are lots of designers out on the streets these days.
Your favorite boss, Jay
Time to think
Meg read it, reread it and read it a third time.
Jay had been good. Favorite boss? No, not quite but a nice guy who’d succumbed to the “if you can make it here you can make it anywhere” that Midwest transplants live by in Manhattan. At least he’d never hit on her. A thoughtful email, but simply couldn’t keep himself from throwing in the designers begging for work bit. Jay, Jay, Jay!
Well, what a change! Jay wasn’t in New York anymore. Serengeti was just up the road in Seattle. They’re hot. And they sure had surprised more than a few high rollers in the design biz. I could get into that. And yes, Cheryl is well known for her good works.
Back to the consulting world?
Good cause or not, consulting is far removed from the direct connect to helping poor people. Meg loved seeing the covers she’d designed being sold on the street and the resulting growth. Sales were up both on the street and online. She was at least partially responsible. The street vendors were getting more money and many of them now recognized her. The Portland daily had interviewed her and that had gotten the word out. All good. Actually, it had been thrilling. And the very real appreciation from staff, street vendors and the community felt good. Never had that in New York, even after 90-hour work weeks.
The money wasn’t so good though, only a quarter of her past pay. She’d been living in a tiny apartment shared with a co-worker and her savings were shrinking. Meg had been wishfully thinking that with increased sales the magazine would be able to raise her pay. Probably not realistic anytime soon, as sales only covered a portion of the overhead. What to do?
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Meg’s reply
Hi Jay,
I’m blown away. Great to hear from you and the offer sounds wonderful. Frankly, my time here has been a revelation and departing hadn’t crossed my mind. It’s only been six-months. I guess I had at least a year in the back of my head. I’ll need some time to think.
I haven’t saved the world yet, but I am making progress on my (very) small part of it. I’ve never felt so appreciated and so much a part of something. Sales of the paper are on the rise. Our vendors are all street people and they are seeing their income grow. Best of all they’re getting more respect. I’ve had a hand making that happen. Like you, I thought I’d never fall out of love with the consumer product world but I have. The downside is the pay. So, to your offer:
Who is this Frank? I’ve never heard of him. What’s his story? I’m sure he’s a great designer, but is he a nice person? Solid marriage or bandit? If he touches me I’ll sue. He needs to know that.
Cheryl has a great reputation so I expect the culture is good, but you’re talking about some major people changes. Those can wreak havoc. What are you doing to maintain the culture?
What’s the office like, how’s the neighborhood? I’ve heard some scary stories about working late in Seattle.
I need an office to go with the position, and a window. The title: no Co-anything for me; I’ll team, I’ll collaborate, but I will not be double boxed on anybody’s org chart.
This fifty-hour week thing, will you put it in writing?
Please name the clients I’d be working with. From your note, I expect they will be big corps. Big guys with big egos. You need to know that I need to be treated with respect or I’ll walk. I’m appreciated here and I’ve grown to love it.
Finally, what’s the future, Jay? I love what I’m doing, but I know that there isn’t one here. I’ll have to move on at some point. So what’s the next ten years there look like?
Thanks, Jay, for thinking of me and for the opportunity.
Let’s keep the conversation going. Meg
Meg hit send after a bit of thought and turned her attention to other matters.
Analysis
I recommend against using email to negotiate routinely. It’s always tempting to use email because it distances you from the other party and from the possibility that things won’t go the way you’d like. I understand the temptation and have succumbed to it more than once.
The downside of email is that it doesn’t let you see, feel and adjust your approach in response to the other person.
But, this is different. Meg knows Jay well. They worked closely together in the intense culture of Design Reach. Jay’s familiar tone is instantly recognized by Meg and she naturally falls right into it herself in her reply. Totally appropriate.
What’s dangerous for Meg is that she’ll become too familiar, feeling like this is just like their past and not fully examine Jay’s offer as if it was the beginning of a new relationship, which it is. So far she hasn’t, I’m just putting a word to the wise.
The advantage of email is the opportunity to examine and reflect on the written words and compose a thoughtful response. Email gives you a chance to reflect on the intuitions that naturally come to mind and to make notes as you read. Those intuitions provide the clues to what questions to ask in subsequent encounters.
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Note that Meg leaped on the “co-creative director” issue immediately and questioned Jay. That was exactly the right thing to do. Her strong “no” will get Jay’s attention, remind him of Meg’s confident forceful personality – which probably makes him uncomfortable – but is also why he wants her.
That brings me to Jay’s ending comment “lots of designers on the street.” That one little comment suggests to me that Jay needs Meg much more than the chatty nature his email would suggest. Everything else – the friendly tone, the cynical touches, his honest admission of succumbing to Cheryl’s charms – all seem carefully constructed to say I’d like you to come onboard, but I’m not desperate. That remark suggests to me that Jay is actually anxious that Meg will not be persuaded, that he really needs her. To compensate, he throws in this distancing remark. Doing so felt right to Jay because by making the comment he holds his fear of not being able to persuade Meg at bay. He’s saying, “I’m not vulnerable,” when he is.
My advice to Meg: Extend the conversation, visit the firm, meet Cheryl, talk and Skype with Jay, make lists of questions and ask as many as possible. And what about the magazine she loves? Would Jay and Cheryl be open to bringing the magazine assignment into Serengeti? What would the magazine’s management think of that?
We’ll need to wait for chapter two to find out if Meg will continue to ask for what she needs.
Image: Ted Leonhardt, Margot Pandone