Good. Quick. Cheap.

One of my favourite people in Adland, my old boss and today still one of my favourite creative partners, Steve Jenkinson, showed me this. People in different businesses use it in one form or another. But in the agency game, it’s brilliant.

When a client asks you to look at your prices, you have to put in context of your deadlines, resources and talent. Fact is this… good agencies, don’t have people twiddling their thumbs. At least, not their best people. Being busy is a great sign for an agency, and for a client looking at an agency. Too busy is bad. Busy is brilliant.

So, when asked to look at your pricing, schedule or level of talent that works on a piece of business, if you can’t agree, then you write three words on a piece of paper.

Good. Quick. Cheap.

Then ask the client which two they want. Put the decision in their hands. My solicitor does it to me. Our industry is no different. The real talent is busy and expensive.

So the question is this. Which two do you want from the list? You can’t have all three. You can only choose two.

• Good and Quick. No problem. But that definitely won’t be cheap.
• Good and Cheap. No problem. But that definitely won’t be quick.
• Cheap and Quick. Big problem. It will be crap.

It works. The rule of three.