How do you tell someone that you don't want to work with them? That their work is not what you are looking for? That if they thought you were really impressed by their work, they were wrong? I suppose all you have to do is to just do it.

When we began thinking seriously about our new business, we really had no clear idea of where to look for all the people who would each play a role in establishing the business. We needed good web-designers, packaging suppliers, printers, etc. So, I googled Werbeagentur in our area. I picked three names, and decided to talk to two of them. We met with both a few times... one was more organized, the other more creative; one seemed more professional, the other was artistically haphazard; One gave the feeling of being dull but safe, the other colorful but uneasy. The one I felt safe with introduced a good web-desiner, the artisitc one came up with good packaging. I should also explain that the better organized one never talked about money before we would sign a contract, but the creative one was immediately concerned about charging for the time they might spend doing some work- even before signing a contract.

Maybe it's just me, but in the end analysis I prefer safety to creativity.

The problem is that we may want to buy the packaging, but not the agent, and she is totally offended. I have copy-pasted a sentence she wrote in one of her emails: "Es tut uns leid, wir sind eine Werbeagentur und leben von unseren Ideen und Realisierungen, die wir uns bezahlen lassen und nicht von dem Verkauf von Verpackungen zum Selbstkostenpreis." Now, my German is not all that great, but the angry vibrations coming from that sentence are too strong not to understand.

So, we offered to pay for the time they spent looking for the packaging... She wants 640 Euros plus tax for 8 hours she says they have worked. We think this is way way too much for the three 1/2 hour meetings we had and the completely mediocre web-desinger they introduced. Also, she told me once that her father had been a packaging supplier, and that she knows a lot of them, and this makes me think that she probably spent all of maybe one hour talking to old friends and acquaintances about packages. The only reason we are even considering to pay anything at all is because, well, we live in the same small town, shop at the same stores, sit in the same cafes... we want to be neighborly, and to be fair.

I don't know, maybe we are being hard. But, we are not going to let a "neighborly" feeling dig too deep in our pockets. After all, we are running a business.