Spec work is not an evolution in graphic design or

Spec work is not an evolution in graphic design or the right way to harness crowdsourcing its essentially a virtual sweat shop.

Here is a quick list of things to keep in mind when considering spec work:

The majority of designers working for you are not being paid. This is the most obvious issue with spec work and the cause of the other problems to follow. Think about it rationally. What other profession has a common practice of build me something custom and Ill let you know if I want to pay for it? Not to mention youre throwing a extra slap in there by saying oh, and by the way, all of your competitors are building this thing for me now too, so good luck. How many people do you know that work for free?
Most designers willing to do spec work are not qualified to build your brand. Before all of the youre an elitist comments, we know this goes against the selling points of spec sites. Yes, everyone needs to start somewhere. Experience is not something you gain, unless you go through periods of trial and error. Do you really want your brand to be built with this baseline? Hopefully your brand isnt one of the errors.
Designers on spec sites are motivated by the wrong things. When you hire a freelancer in a traditional relationship, they are motivated by building a great brand that they can be proud of. They want the ability to tell future prospective clients I designed this amazing brand for this client. This simply is not the motivation on contest sites. The contestants youre trusting with your companys brand are just trying to win your contest for quick cash, bragging rights, and another notch on their contest scoreboard. These arent necessarily bad things, but the idea is to hire a designer that takes your business into consideration when designing your identity. Not a yes man.
On a technical note, you need an experienced designer to give you the right deliverables/source files. If you dont leave the project with files that any other designer, printer, or developer can use, you may have just wasted your time, which is more valuable than the money youve spent.
Even if you arent swayed by all of the please stop devaluing our industry pleas heard by so many designers, know that there are some real concerns as an entrepreneur to consider.