No, not really. From my anecdotal experience, which does include many a project exceeding the amounts you cited, it usually goes like this (paraphrased):
Agency's army of spineless sales people [1] spends a lot of time ass licking many people, one of them happens to love his anus tickled in that manner, then he dumps a bag of money to them, they spend 90% of that money pumping ads, and 10% on development of what's supposed to masquerade as a 'marketing campaign'. Anus-tickle-lover still gets a nice spreadsheet at the end of the month ('Yay, profits!') and they all live happily ever after.
Well, not all. In-house developers crook their spine to the will of their masters and get an occassional team-building event paid for, and outsourced developers get eaten alive in the witch's cabin.
[1] It helps if you're a handsome woman. A fact, sir. No citation needed. Desired even.
Heh - I suspect the main difference between your description of the process and mine is that I'm in a "third cup of coffee, should be on my way to the office" timezone, and I'm guessing your in a "finished at the office, savouring the third beer" timezone, and hence we've got slightly different sates of mind and social inhibitions. But I'm sure we both know exactly what each other is describing.
(Surely you have seen the occasional great non-literal-ass-licking salespeople working for genuinely great marketing agencies? And agencies that deliver _spectacular_ word and achive magnificent results for clients? I'm quite proud to have been told I came in second with pitches against a few agencies I'm particularly impressed by in my small space here… But I will beat them one day, Oh yes…)
But no, I don't have office, don't usually drink (can't, destroyed a bunch of parts of digestive system).
occasional great non-literal-ass-licking salespeople
No. To be perfectly honest, no. Not once. They're pretty disgusting to me.
genuinely great marketing agencies
Sure. Rarely, but yes. They don't do FB Ads and AdWords tho.
I'm quite proud to have been told I came in second with pitches against a few agencies I'm particularly impressed by in my small space here… But I will beat them one day, Oh yes…)
I'm happy for you being happy and enthusiastic. I was once too. But, I'll take the liberty to advise you - leave the space. Immediately. It's a sulphuric pit. You don't age well there.
Well, all that doesn't hold water unless you're on of them. Are you?
Shhh, nobody was supposed to know landing huge-ass contracts involves sucking dick. On a serious note, I guess bigiain's point was that freelancers that know better usually have no clue about bringing business value to the table.
Agency's army of spineless sales people [1] spends a lot of time ass licking many people, one of them happens to love his anus tickled in that manner, then he dumps a bag of money to them, they spend 90% of that money pumping ads, and 10% on development of what's supposed to masquerade as a 'marketing campaign'. Anus-tickle-lover still gets a nice spreadsheet at the end of the month ('Yay, profits!') and they all live happily ever after.
Well, not all. In-house developers crook their spine to the will of their masters and get an occassional team-building event paid for, and outsourced developers get eaten alive in the witch's cabin.
[1] It helps if you're a handsome woman. A fact, sir. No citation needed. Desired even.