As a marketing company, we sometimes run into businesses that aren’t quite ready to hand over the creative part of what they do to us. Understandable, right? We’ve all been there – you’re working hard every day to manage all the things you have to do – and then someone comes in and tries to take over something that really matters to you. It can sometimes feel invasive, and it’s challenging to trust someone who may not share the same vision as you.
We can relate! We have a close relative that recently moved into a new home, and we wanted to get a one-of-a-kind housewarming gift. After going through a bunch of options, we thought of a long-time friend Marco who makes custom furniture. We checked out some of his beautiful work and decided that was the way to go. It would be a gift that would be unique and meaningful – just what we wanted.
So we got in touch with Marco to get started. We brainstormed on a few different, small pieces of furniture – a magazine rack, an accent table – before settling on a plant stand. We had some specific size requirements, and he got started on some sketches. We picked one with a few tweaks and told Marco to get started.
As we moved through the design process with him, he started to get in touch with questions on how we wanted it to look. What kind of edges did we want? How did we want the wood to look? How should the plants fit into the stand?
Of course, we wanted it to be perfect, so we started talking through some options and looked up some other pieces of furniture to get ideas to give him some direction. Should we do this or that? Should it look like this other piece we love? Would it be better as this type of corner piece? On and on and on, we went.
And then…we said STOP! We aren’t experts on building furniture, we don’t know how to make these artistic decisions, and let’s just be honest, we just plain have no idea what we’re talking about. So in the end, all we told Marco was to keep the wood looking as natural as possible. And that was it! We also decided we didn’t want to see any progress photos – we wanted it to be a surprise for us and the person who would receive it.
And look how beautifully it turned out! Can you imagine if we had a long list of requirements, ideas and instructions? Marco, the artist, would have been lost in trying to meet our vision instead of creating his own. Of course, he met our basic requests, which is always essential, but the added details, the craftsmanship, the final product was ultimately his.
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This experience reminded us that none of us can be experts at everything. It’s just not possible. You have to trust the creative people you hire and let them work through their process – the end result is sure to be great!
We highly recommend Marco’s Designs. Check him out on Facebook and Etsy.