* Post Update for 2023 – Since the pandemic, Nifty Collab has undergone some change. Stay tuned for updates, new relationships forged and a different model for Sonder Creative partnerships.

After looking back on 2018, we realized just how many people had collaborated on projects with us. Companies that we have loved working with and will continue to send business to. These companies consistently do incredible work and have been committed to a projects that they might only be a small part of. The people on this list are all so wonderful and we wanted to be able to send them more work.

THE PROBLEM:

This thought was timed well with our Sonder Creative brand launch. Along with our quest to build a ‘genuine’ small business that people enjoy working with, we thought there might be an opportunity to include pals that seem to have a similar mandate. We had implemented a new way of thinking that meant we had to change the way we operated as a company. We wanted to position ourselves as industry experts in our offering — because who can feel good about telling a client that they are ‘pretty decent’ at writing? Or that we have done email campaigns a ‘few’ times? — It is much more exciting to be able to say “I know someone who is an expert at this. I will connect you with them”. Operating this way meant that we could no longer offer services that we didn’t consider ourselves to be exceptionally good at.

We now needed these external service providers more than ever and it was important to us to create stronger bonds with them. We put our heads together and came up with a platform for this. A way to formalize a small group of great businesses and fantastic people.

ENTER NIFTY COLLAB:

In one of our many random side-chats at Sonder, we came up with a concept (which I am sure exists 100 times over) that we feel is pretty clever. Being in this industry for a collective 20 years or so we have a firm grasp of all the parties that need to be involved to make a full campaign/brand/product/website launch successful. There are so many optional additions/inclusions that can supercharge whatever the endeavour is. We want our clients to have access to all of this, we just don’t want to provide a lacklustre version.

Nifty Collab allows us to hone in on the services that we are amazing at. It allows us to say (with confidence) that we could provide a solution that is of an extremely high standard. It also means that we are able to offer our clients the best services to complete other components of a project, even if it isn’t Sonder that is completing that component. It allows us to recommend the services of another company with a level of confidence that we previously didn’t have because we know the other company well and have worked with them closely. We know they are committed.

NEXT STEPS:

This collaborative is still in the early stages. We meet on the regular, we share work stories, knowledge and ideas. We are a group of people that already work exceptionally well together and can be rallied ad hoc as a project requires it. Our next steps will be looking closely at the path a client follows through the different providers. We want to keep perfecting and create an experience that feels both wonderful and efficient.

When one of our clients says “Great job on the new website guys! Now what?” we now have a more concrete answer to give them and a clearer direction for their brand.