Do you have Non Disclosure Agreements in place? Does this mean you have loads of clients who have to remain nameless to the outside world? Kehorne are definitely in this category because of the work we do for our marketing partners.
We guard our end clients closely because over the 11 years we have been in business we have been the digital arm for numerous other companies – and we have extensive knowledge in working this way to make our clients lives as easy as possible.
So how do you get around this so you have something to show on your marketing material? This is not an easy thing to answer because you might have many end clients you can’t mention but on the other hand how can you tout for new business if you can’t “prove” who you have worked for.
Sometimes NDA’s lapse because a time limit has run out or situations such as take overs or companies go out of business – then perhaps you can look back over past projects and “advertise” your part in them, but be careful as the NDA is a legally binding document and it could well be enforced in court!
But if not where does this leave you? Unfortunately there is no easy answer to this. Trying to get an intermediate company to agree to you using an end client can be very hard and time consuming, after all you can’t keep on about this and annoying the hand that feeds you.
You could try and renegotiate the NDA so you can use the name of a company without being specific about the project.
Try to gain new business without an NDA being involved.
Overall the situation is legal and complicated and often in the short term there are no easy answers. NDA’s get signed for a reason!
If you have any good ideas on ways around this topic, I for one would love to hear about it! Email me [email protected]
UPDATE – since this article I have had a discussion with an Human Resources expert who looks at NDA’s in a very different way. His first thought is with a slant of the individual having to, or being convinced to, sign an NDA to protect someone or something in a company. A classic example is having someone “paid” to keep quiet about something. This is the sort of thing that often comes out into the press at some point!
