Money matters (or not)

In my experience, money has a strange effect on people. Rich and poor, happy and sad, there's simply no rhyme or reason.

In England, for example, they don't seem to worry so much about how much money you've got, but more about where it came from. You can blame that on a class system where the noveau riche are often vilified for their supposed vulgarity and lack of taste.

In the United States of America, the combination of their lack of a class system and historical hatred of all things English means that the opposite is true – in the form of the American Dream. Ian Brown, sometime singer with The Stone Roses, summed it up best for me when interviewed last month by The Quietus: "I can rent a convertible BMW in America and drive around, and I'll get homeless people saying, ‘Nice motorcar'. I get one here [in England], and people want to put a 50p up the side of it."

As for Australians and money, it's a very different story again. I've always found the biggest talking point is not how much you have or where it came from, but whether or not it's waterproof.

In marketing terms, understanding the relationship a man has with his money – and, more importantly, how to come between them – is an important one. As much they say "mo' money, mo' problems", no money isn't really a practical alternative for most commercial enterprises.

easyJet, the European budget airline, highlighted this well when they took a new approach to their segmentation of the business traveller market in the mid-90s. Rather than worry too much about the category conventions, they divided the market in a different way by separating those whose company paid for their airline travel from those who paid for their own. As you would expect, a value-based proposition was far more enticing for those who were spending their own money, and that simple insight saw them break the market.

Separating a company from its cash is always serious business, and it goes without saying that you need to make sure you're offering something of value in return – and it's certainly not something I take lightly.

However, I still find myself surprised on occasion by clients who treat negotiations with professional services firms as though they're haggling at an Asian night market.

(At this point, I should apologise if my point of view seems a little one-sided, but I can only write what I know from the benefit of experience.)

When it comes to financial negotiations at the outset of a project, it's worth remembering that logic most often applies, not the rules of minimalist design. In other words, less is not more, less is almost certainly less. Less money, less work. However, the desire to please often leads to the decision to discount – more for less, added value, and so on and so forth. But I can tell you now that someone almost always loses out.

Which I why I was pleasantly surprised to read this little gem recently on a blog called greyscalegorilla – following a link from 99%. (Thanks!)

A good piece of advice if ever I heard one. And, as they used to say in ancient Rome, pro bono.