adventuresinclientservice

[adventuresinclientservice]

Why a friend of your youth remains a friend forever.

Every day my Outlook in-box is a virtual tsunami of incoming messages, many of them nothing more than disposable dreck.  I also get a fair number of text messages, and the occasional voicemail message.  But conventional, delivered-to-your 20th-century mailbox stuff?  Aside from an ever-diminishing volume of what best can be described as junk mail, almost never.  Which is why I was surprised to see the note above.

If you’ve read several previous posts – the one here, or here, or here -you already know I am a big believer in the power of a handwritten note to connect (handwritten envelopes always get opened) and communicate (handwritten notes always get read) with a recipient. 

From the envelope’s upper-left-hand return address I know this was a missive from my former assistant, Betsy Pinkus, who worked for me at Digitas when I just was starting my long (and often tortured) journey in client service.

The cover of the note inside had a typewriter on it – fitting, because among her many other responsibilities, Betsy shouldered what was an often-heavy load handling my letters of proposal, presentations, conference reports, and whatever else I needed to keep my clients and colleagues informed.  I’ve thankfully long since graduated to keying all my own material, but in those days it was me, a pen, and a notepad, with Betsy at the ready.

Betsy was writing to let me know that, after 35 years at Digitas – yes 35, years, even longer than my friend Margaret Spurrell, who clocked in at 30 years before sadly departing to the big advertising agency in the sky – she was retiring.  Betsy also wanted to thank me for being integral to her staying this long, even though I departed long before her retirement day.

The snacks she refers to:  only a friend from that era would recall the jar of M&Ms stashed in the upper-left-hand drawer of her desk, something I practically lived on when work evenings extended into late nights then early mornings, as I frantically tried to keep my energy up, rather than going down with the ship. 

My memories remain random, but I do distinctly recall playing wide receiver with her professional football-playing husband during one of the agency’s summer outings, running so much I barely could walk to my car at the event’s end.

When I joined Digitas I barely knew what an Assistant actually does; Betsy, who previously escaped an earlier boss more interested in her fetching her dry cleaning than actually contributing professionally, taught me how to work with her.  I thankfully was a willing student (I picked up my own dry cleaning).

Yet in those early days of near madness, Betsy’s biggest contribution wasn’t about the work; it was helping keep me sane when it felt the wheels were coming off.  No matter how chaotic things became, she remained a port of safe refuge in what were roiling seas.

 We last saw one another more than a decade ago, when I visited Boston to speak at Hubspot’s annual INBOUND conference.  With the help of another Digitas alum, Mary Stibal, I organized a lunch with old friends.  Betsy was among the invited.  What did we talk about?  Not so much about the work, much more about the people.

Why are friends of longstanding so important to me?

To quote the novelist Robert Penn Warren, Betsy is a “friend of your youth,” sharing history that only a few others can match.

If I’m being honest, it’s possible our paths might never cross again.  No matter; Betsy is my friend, always will be, and friends are what makes this lunatic business worth it.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Why I'm glad I'm not a lawyer, a banker, or (God forbid) an engineer.

I was a one-semester-to-go impending college graduate, sitting in the kitchen of the modest Los Angeles home of one of my college roommates, “The Tuna,” filling out a law school application, when I put my pen down. 

I called Philadelphia.

“Dad, I don’t want to go the law school; I want to go to grad school in literature.”

My Dad, instead of being obstructionist, was surprisingly supportive.  “Whatever you want to do, Bobby.”

Why the sudden change, not just of heart, but of career?

It could be I was inspired by the spirited teachings of a professor, A.E. Claeyssens (the most likely reason); or it possibly was a notion fueled and motivated by romantic visions of college life (less likely); or even driven by intellectual pursuits (highly unlikely).  I equally was repelled by the prospect of law school (a grind) and the future of an attorney (beyond boring)

Regardless, my degree in American Studies, instead of prepping me for law school, equipped me with a generalist’s background.  Less concerned with what was being taught, more concerned with who was teaching, I opted for professors who excelled in the classroom, each devoted to engaging me in ways that made me think for myself. 

I learned how to learn, to be inquisitive, to explore the possible, to find my way around a research library, to ask questions, and, above all, to communicate clearly, concisely, and with conviction. 

If you read The New York Times article, “Careerism is Ruining College, “ you see my choice is far less likely to occur these days.  The story’s author defines careerism as,

“pre-professional pressure: a prevailing culture that convinces many of us that only careers in fields such as computer programming, finance and consulting, preferably at blue-chip firms like Goldman Sachs, McKinsey or big tech companies, can secure us worthwhile futures.” 

I didn’t plan on a career in advertising, but that’s where the journey took me.  Instead of being a liability, my generalist’s training proved ideally suited to better serving my clients and collaborating more effectively with my colleagues.  I came to describe myself as, “A mile wide and an inch deep.”

Most people assume it’s pejorative; who wants to be seen as superficial?  That’s one view; the other is about being curious and interested in everything, especially in matters ranging far outside my normal sphere of interest.  Perhaps both describe me, but it’s easy to see which one I prefer.

Could I have succeeded as an attorney?  Possibly, although I imagine hating every minute of it.

As a finance person or consultant?  An epic fail if ever there was one.

As a computer programmer/engineer?  A total non-starter.

All of which prompts a question:  were I a college student today, would I have succumbed to the pressure felt by others, making a not-easily-reversable choice, or would I still have been able to follow a path where there is no path, just random chance presenting often hidden-from-view opportunities?

It sucks to get old – I know firsthand-- but it doesn’t suck to remember having  license to explore far and wide as a last-century college student of the 1960s and ‘70s.  Even more important, to this day my career, though far from perfect, isn’t one I would trade for being a lawyer, banker, or programmer/engineer.

It’s not a matter of money.  And that’s exactly the point.

[adventuresinclientservice]

How a single reader makes a huge difference to a writer.

I can’t describe exactly how it feels when an Art of Client Service reader like Samantha Spaulding or Alena Jain sits down to say something kind about the book.

Elated comes to mind, as does validated, but the thing I feel most strongly is deep and abiding gratitude, meaning I’m beyond grateful when any reader takes the time to buy the book, read it, photograph it, comment on it, then post it on LinkedIn for others to see.

A couple of months ago, when Samantha published her piece – yes, I know, protocol stipulates I should refer to her by her last name, but I now think of her as a friend and using a last name strikes me as awkward -- 33 others weighed in with support. When Alena followed more recently with commentary of her own, there were 22 others who commented. 

Beyond that, these two posts generated more than 1,600 “impressions,” exposing the book to others – I wish my own posts could generate anything close to this activity -- proving the enduring and timeless power of word-of-mouth advertising.

My publisher John Wiley & Sons tells me that to date there are more than 24,000 people who’ve decided the book is a worthy investment and made a purchase.  As I pointed out in a post last month, when the book previously crossed the all-important 20,000-copy threshold, the congrats extended by my Wiley editor Richard Narramore essentially were confirmed by New Yorker author Louis Menand, who claimed,

“two-thirds of the books released by the top-ten trade publishers sell fewer than a thousand copies, and less than four per cent sell more than twenty thousand.”

Research conducted by Thought Legion Leverage founder Peter Winick along with several sponsors isn’t quite so bleak, suggesting the median number of books sold from so-called “traditional” publishers is 4,600.  Better than 1,000 surely, but even so, “a fraction of what authors were expecting.” 

Book sales notwithstanding, the number one stated goal among authors is to “share knowledge,” with 78% claiming this as a priority.   As someone who participated in Peter’s study, it should come as no surprise I am among that 78%.

As I’ve said more than once before, I didn’t write The Art of Client Service to get rich; I surely never will compete with the likes of a Michael Lewis, a Malcolm Gladwell, or even a Simon Sinek.  I didn’t write the book for fame or recognition; I am the furthest thing from a household name.  If you’re waiting to see it in lights, you will need to continue to wait… indefinitely.

Why did I write the book?

I wrote it for Samantha, for Elena, and for those few others who’ve seen fit to let me know they found the book helpful in their work.

And that, for me, is more than reason enough.

Come this Friday Roberta and I will begin serving as Vote Center “Leads” for Napa County, starting with the town to the south, American Canyon, before heading North to St. Helena to oversee that Vote Center through election day.  If previous elections are any indicator, I will have time on my hands. 

Assuming time permits, I’ll post from there, but given this election is unlike any other, there is no predicting how things will go, even in the bubble that is Napa.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Does the long-discredited "broken windows" theory of law enforcement still apply to client service?

Nearly 25 years ago I became a proselytizer for author Malcolm Gladwell, embracing many of his ideas.  Three of his titles – The Tipping Point (2000), Blink (2005), and David & Goliath (2013) – found their way onto my highly selective list of 25 books to read.  As the only writer to have more than one book included, he is the dominant contributor to the list.

One of the Gladwellian ideas I embraced was the “broken windows” theory crime reduction, first espoused by the now-deceased former Harvard University social sciences professor James Q Wilson, citing it in the workshops I conducted, plus blogging about it. 

So what is the theory?  Here is the definition The New York Times included in Wilson’s 2012 obituary:

“….when police emphasize the maintenance of order rather than the piecemeal pursuit of rapist, murderers and carjackers, concentrating on less threatening though often illegal disturbances in the fabric of urban life like street-corner drug-dealing, graffiti and subway turnstile-jumping, the rate of serious crime goes down.”

I got it and thought it right, as did Gladwell, only for the author to change his mind:

“I was wrong…. The idea that crime was an epidemic and that criminal behavior was contagious is correct. But the idea that broken windows and stop-and-frisk were the correct response to a contagion is completely false.”

All credit due Gladwell for having the courage to not defend his position, but instead to change it willingly, and to admit as much.  Gladwell’s reversal compelled me to revisit mine; knowing broken windows no longer applies to crime, is it still applicable to client service?  Is the theory a reality?   

Here’s what I wrote a dozen years ago:

“If you work as an account person, you know how much emphasis your clients place on simple, routine matters.  Stuff like producing a workable schedule, formulating a good budget, issuing conference reports that are succinct and accurate, following up in a timely way, and handling the myriad, often mind-numbing daily details of overseeing an account. “If you perform these ‘broken windows’ tasks consistently and well, your clients will come to depend on you, begin to respect you, possibly like you, and ultimately trust you.  The ‘like, respect, and trust’ you earn over time will stand you and your agency in good stead in the times of discord that inevitably will arise in your client dealings.  “I’ve have been championing the virtues of simple ideas the past couple posts, and what I’m suggesting here – consistent attention paid to routine – would seem to run counter to that.  But the fact is, generating great ideas can be frustratingly hard.  And what happens when the idea well runs dry? “It is far easier to take care of account management housekeeping – to fix broken windows, so to speak – than it is to conceive of an idea that will drive a client’s business forward.   Great ideas might win new clients, but fixing broken windows will help keep them clients.” 

Time to interrogate the witness, with the witness being me.

Prosecutor: 

“Does the ‘broken windows’ theory of account management and client service still apply today?  If it doesn’t, tell me why it no longer works.  If it does, explain why.”

Witness:

“Yes, it does still apply today.  If anything, even more so than when I first subscribed to the theory 12 years ago. “Advertising has changed dramatically since 2012, with traditional broadcast in decline, largely supplanted by the sudden and relentless ascent of social media, enabled by transformative, forever accelerating technology.  “The volume of messages also has increased, as has the speed with which to create them.  The demands placed on advertising and marketing agencies, already stretched thin by the declining ranks of veteran, experienced, get-it-right-the-first-time people, are under more pressure than ever before to produce effective communication on highly compressed time frames. “In this environment, it is critical to at least do the simple, obvious, often-overlooked things consistently well. “So the answer is yes: ‘broken windows’ still applies to client service.”

With that, the witness is excused.  You, the jury, will now decide.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Are too many meetings an obstacle to getting things done?

When my friend of longstanding Lisa Lefebvre proposed I start a blog, my biggest concern was if I would be able to sustain it.  Just about anyone can summon a rant or two when needed, but week after week?  Is that even possible?

Nearly fourteen years in, I’ve pretty well settled the matter. 

Some of what I write is halfway worthy and useful.  Some of it is utterly dismissible, little more than harmless nattering.  Some of it is disposable crap. 

I keep at it, drawing inspiration from what I read – The New York Times, The New Yorker, other publications – and what hear – music mostly – and what I see:  television series, the occasional movie.

Only a few times before do I recall drawing on a cartoon for inspiration (one an almost famous one).  The other day I saw what you see above.

Countless clients have registered a common lament:  “I’m in back-to-back meetings all day; I never have enough time to do my own work!”  Their advertising agency counterparts feel much the same.

At Ammirati Puris Lintas had our share of meetings, but were judicious about it, following what seemed to be an unwritten rule you have only the meetings you need; okay, if you must know, here’s the ones we held: 

Once a month the agency’s senior management met to do a review, including a detailed look at financials, each session designed to uncover trouble before alarm bells sounded.  I attended and participated in those discussions; it was time well spent.  We scheduled these early in the day – at least by agency standards -- so as not to intrude on our “real” jobs:  connecting with clients, collaborating with colleagues, solving problems, seizing opportunities, striving to do the best possible work.

Once a month I would do an all-staff meeting for my Digital and Direct groups, designed not only to recognize notable performance plus uncover any issues, but also to serve as an exercise in team bonding and culture cultivating.  Attendance was optional, but nearly everyone showed up.  I’d like to think it was the content that drew people; not so.  It was the coffee and bagel spread that drew them (I admit I was not above bribing people when appropriate).

Once a week my two groups each held a status meeting, something we viewed as essential, meaning absences were not taken lightly; knowing clients were critical, we urged them to sit in by conference call.  The sessions allowed us maintain pace, honor our project commitments, plus uncover any assignments that were veering off course.  Just about every agency I know conducts something similar.  If your agency doesn’t, it should.

We would gather to review a presentation, a strategy recommendation, research findings, or creative work before sharing the output with our clients.

We also would gather a working group whenever we were pitching new business, mostly to assign responsibilities and assess progress as we worked our way through what usually was an unreasonably compressed schedule.

That pretty much was it, and in truth, was more than sufficient.  Otherwise we would gather only when something seriously amiss and required the collective brain muscle of group problem-solving.

When I tell people that Chapter 14 of The Art of Client Service is “How to Run a Meeting,” I’m usually greeting with derisive, snarky snickers – “Who the hell needs this; it’s a waste of space and time!!” -- but I make this point:

“Meetings are a staple of business – including the advertising and marketing business , in which collaboration is key – but they are notoriously screwed up.”

They surely are that.

I can’t speak to other business categories, but advertising and marketing in all its forms is a combination of the intensely solitary with the highly collaborative.  Achieving a semblance of balance is key; restraint -- meaning   meetings as a last, not first, resort -- is a virtue.

The next time you are about to get a group of people in a room, I suggest you ask yourself a simple question:  Will this meeting help address a client problem, take advantage of an agency opportunity, or ideally do both? 

If the answer is “No,” ask yourself a second question:  do we really need a meeting, or could we address this in some other, less intrusive, disruptive way?

If the answer is “Yes,” you now know what you need to do.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Client service is easy, right?

Client service was all-but-lost in the distant parking lot of my mind when I read a New York Times review of the new movie, “The Outrun.”  The film is a recovery narrative; the drug being abused is alcohol.  You want remote from the work I do?  This was beyond remotely remote.

It remained that way until I awoke to this simple, succinct, and revealing quote from the film,

“It never gets easy; it just gets less hard.” 

The person saying the line is a sober alcoholic, recounting this bit of sensible reality to the movie’s protagonist.  At its core  the movie confronts this question:  If you’re an alcoholic, can sobriety be compatible with a happy life?

I get that, but turning to less fraught, less emotionally loaded matters – something that has absolutely nothing to do with the movie -- what if the subject isn’t alcohol addiction, but instead is about client service, something just about everyone has concluded is easy?

Which reminds me of something said in The Art of Client Service’s admittedly promotionally hyperbolic but largely accurate dust-jacket claim, that,

“Serving clients should be simple, except it isn’t. Solving problems should be easy, but almost never is.  Very few people do these things well, and many do them poorly, which explains why so many accounts go into review, so many client people express profound unhappiness with their agencies, and so many agency people remain bewildered by a business that grows more complex as they become increasingly less able to deal with markets splintering, media expanding, budgets tightening, and schedules compressing.”

Let’s say you’re a person devoted to client service.  You do 999 things right, no one notices; that’s you just doing your job.  You do one thing wrong, everybody notices.  That’s you screwing up.

It matters not if fault lies elsewhere; the  honorable person in you doesn’t assign blame to others; instead, you own it yourself, understanding this is a hard business, with scant recognition and little credit.

So how do you make a hard business “less hard?”

Start by doing the simple, obvious, expected things consistently:  you show up on time; you know when to speak (when necessary); you know when to listen (always).  You follow up, meaning when a client calls, email, or texts, you respond promptly.  You have an in-person or video-based client meeting; a clear, to-the-point conference report follows, capturing next steps and who is responsible for seeing they get done.

Soon you graduate to something more challenging:  a schedule that reflects reality; a budget that’s projectably accurate and honest.

You advance further, mastering the nuanced requirements of writing a compelling letter of proposal, a concise Creative Brief, a convicted point-of-view piece, or a persuasive presentation.

Finally, you achieve a modicum of mastery, best captured and explained  in the presentation I gave at last year’s International Advertising Association’s annual conference, “Why Client Service is an Art,” which tells of my colleague Jane Gardner’s unanticipated, unscripted, in-the-moment brilliance when both client and agency sorely needed it most.

You learn to command these capabilities and skills by staying at it, by being consistent and committed.  As time passes, the “it’s never easy” part evolves to the, “it becomes less hard” part.

Who benefits from the improvement?

Your clients, your colleagues, you of course, and, needless to say, your career.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Chasing the unlikely... or not chasing it.

The always-reIiable Rick English was the only person who took the time to respond to the question I asked at the end of a post of a couple of weeks ago: “How would you approach a prospective client that doesn’t want to hear from you?”

Here is what English said:

“I was just curious—have any of your other followers written back asking, “why bother.”  It was busy enough just responding to clients actually seeking help, and going after the low-hanging fruit, without chasing the unlikely.  Add to that, the best ideas or solutions typically come after in-depth discussions with the client.  Without having met first with a client, how could you know the best path to success?”

I wrote back: 

“Many thanks for getting back to me Rick; as is so often the case, you are the only reader I’ve hear from other than Darren Johnson himself.  “There are two ways to read what I wrote:  “As a step-by-step guide on how to go about this; or, “As a step-by-step guide on how not to.  “Implicit in my instructions is the idea that this truly is daunting, with very, very long odds at succeeding, no matter how brilliant Darren’s idea.   I even make a point of saying, “you might take a pass, knowing the best new business decisions are the ones where you say, ‘Not gonna.’”  “Of course your reaction, ‘Why bother?’ is spot on, but in the spirit of ‘How to,’ I figured exposing Darren’s and my exchange would provide a ‘learning moment’ for readers, especially the more junior ones who might be likely to pursue a similar folly.”

Although worded differently, page 22 of The Art of Client Service essentially confirms my response to English’s note:

“The best decision an agency can make is to not pursue a potential account, especially one that distracts you from a true opportunity you have a reasonable chance of winning.”

Even in the most ideal circumstances --  with the moon in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars -- the time and effort invested in pursuing what, for lack of a better term, I would call “opportunity,” almost certainly would not yield a satisfactory reply. 

The reason the response is “an” answer and not “the” answer is there yet might remain another, more compelling and persuasive way to go about this, one that entails a lesser expenditure of time and effort, with a greater likelihood of success. 

In truth there is no one, perfect “the” answer.  Pursuing any opportunity entails risk, especially one that is unsolicited and likely unwelcome.

That said, if you are someone who has a new, different, and possibly better approach, I would welcome hearing from you.

In the meantime…

Many thanks again to Darren Johnson for raising the issue, and to Rick English for giving this serious thought.  I suppose I could have responded to Darren’s question with the world’s shortest, two-word blog post, quoting Rick:  “Why bother?��

Committed client service people take even a seemingly unserious question seriously, even if the answer, in the end, is more obvious than not.

[adventuresinclientservice]

What's better: convincing a publisher to issue your book, or going your own way?

I just exchanged messages with copywriter-turned-novelist friend-of- longstanding Kim about getting her novel published.  Her manuscript is 190,000 words long – mercifully shorter than War And Peace’s 587,000 words, but daunting nonetheless – making it problematic to find a commercial publisher willing to assume the expense of issuing her book, along with the attendant risk.

Kim knows just how difficult this will be, as do I, recently confirmed by Louis Menand in his New Yorker story “Remainders,” where he writes about just how challenging it is for publishers to offer books people actually want to buy, pointing out,

“two-thirds of the books released by the top-ten trade publishers sell fewer than a thousand copies, and less than four per cent sell more than twenty thousand.”

A couple of years back I wrote that The Art of Client Service passed the 20,000 copies-sold sales mark.  As of last month, make that 24,000-plus copies and counting, putting me in elite company, better than the 96% of authors, most of whom are nowhere close to achieving that number. 

How many published books are there?  Menand actually supplies the number:

“Today, something like three million books are published every year, including self-published e-books that are available only on digital platforms.”

Among this veritable publishing tsunami, Amazon serves as the dominant player, constituting, “more than half of all book purchases in the United States and offering, “something like thirty million different print titles.”

What this tells us is the vast majority of books are perishable; they have a sales-blip moment and then all but disappear.  In comparison, even after eight-plus years, Art endures and copies still sell; why is that?

Menand has a theory:  “Most books are used, not read.” 

That might be it.  With its short, fast-reading chapters and “How To” guidance, The Art of Client Service is designed to be a reference resource, something to turn to when advice on crafting a proposal, presentation, or Creative Brief is needed.   

In working first with Dearborn Press, then Kaplan, and now John Wiley & Sons, I’ve learned what is the hard truth about commercial publishers:  unless your name is Michael Lewis, Malcolm Gladwell, or Jennifer Egan, your publisher, no matter how committed to your book, will perform more like printers and distributors than publishers, expecting you, as author, to shoulder the heavy load of promoting and selling what you’ve written. 

Fiction is but a fraction of the total books published in the U.S. – estimates range from just 30% to 40% -- making Kim’s mission to find an agent then a publisher rife with potential failure.   Would it make sense, then, to simply self-publish, sidestepping the disappointment of one-too-many a rejection letter?

When Roberta and I self-published Brain Surgery for Suits almost 25 years ago, the task was complicated.  Find a book designer.  Find a printer.  Find a book distributor.  Register an ISBN number with the Library of Congress.  The list of tasks seemingly is endless.

These days, self-publishing is vastly easier, with several companies offering to do much of the work for you, Amazon, Xlibris, and iUniverse among dozens of other worthy candidates.  If the cost of printing is a barrier, then do an e-book and avoid that expense.

I’ve written a couple of times before about the challenge facing writers striving to find their way into print – first here, then here -- so I am a realist when it comes to what Kim and other writers confront.  This perhaps explains why so many people say they, “ want to write and publish a book,” when so few actually do.

Kim did an extraordinary job, just finishing what is a mammoth undertaking, but in truth -- assuming it finds its way onto print as a self-published effort or with a commercial publisher – an even bigger challenge awaits:  promoting it.

We’ll save that discussion for a later day.

[adventuresinclientservice]

How would you approach a prospective client that doesn't want to hear from you?

I love questions.  They indicate readers (and others) still value my point of view.  There’s only one problem: I don’t receive nearly enough of them.

Which might explain why I took pains to jump on a question Darren Johnson posed to me. 

Johnson’s day job is publisher of New York’s Campus News.  He also serves as a visiting Assistant Professor of Journalism at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. 

We connected through LinkedIn about a year ago, when Johnson let me know his students read and found value in The Art of Client Service.  We talked about doing a Zoom session with Johnson’s class – I was more than happy to do so -- but scheduling realities intervened, making it a no-go.  Maybe next semester, Darren?

The other day Johnson asked:

“Say you have an idea for an ad campaign for some big corporation you have no relationship with. They probably have an agency of record. How would you approach it?”

I wrote back; my response runs long – apologies – but I wanted to make up with thoroughness whatever was lacking in thoughtfulness:

“It would be helpful if I knew a bit more background, Darren -- say the company category, what their current advertising looks like, what the competitors' work is doing, how the firm is performing -- but absent this and other incredibly useful information, here's what I'd do:

“I'd research contacts at the company, looking to identify one or more suspected decision-makers. “Assuming I'm successful and ID who I suspect is the ‘right’ person, I'd then see if there is some form of ‘connective tissue’ I can leverage: friends/colleagues in common (LinkedIn and Facebook might yield clues), perhaps a school tie (we both went to Harvard), maybe a shared interest (both of us play competitive squash). 

“I'd also see if there's any other background I can use:  a speech maybe, or a recorded interview I can watch.

“I'd then research the company, looking for any weakness in performance I diplomatically can exploit.

“Armed with both types of info, I'd write the world's best overture letter; my call-to-action:  a meeting.

“Assuming I'm able to get a meeting, I'd share enough about the idea to pique interest; my endgame:  a presentation.

“Assuming I’m able to get one, the objective of the presentation:  an assignment and a budget.

“Stepping back from this, I'd recognize this is, at best, a longshot, but if I believe in the idea and think enough of the company to pursue this, I'd invest the time necessary to shorten the odds that an idea might lead to an assignment, and ultimately, an ongoing relationship. “This help?”

Having now had time to think about this, I want to add a bit more commentary to what’s already here, making this even longer than it already is (more apologies!):

First, among longshots, this is the longest of the long.  Just about every client I know is regularly accosted by overtures from people and organizations seeking business.  It explains why some agencies go to extraordinary lengths just to get in the door. It also explains why most clients typically take extraordinary steps to block or otherwise ignore such overtures.

Do they want to hear from you?  They don’t; they don’t  know who you are; if they read your letter at all they likely wonder why you’re bothering them.

Do you pursue this, given the amount of time required, knowing the odds are stacked against you, or do you give up?

I suggest you ask yourself three questions first:

Do you believe in your idea, really believe in it?

Do you think the client you’re about to approach has a problem that needs solving, or an unmet opportunity worth exploiting, one that your idea addresses?

Have you identified the true decision-maker within the client organization, so your message  -- if it does indeed manage to get through -- reaches someone empowered to act?

If the answer to all three of these is “Yes,” and if you’re willing to invest the time, my instinct says, “Proceed.”  If not, you might take a pass, knowing the best new business decisions are the ones where you say, “Not gonna.”

That’s how I would respond, but what about all of you?  If any of you can find time to respond, I’ll share your thoughts in a subsequent post, so all of us can benefit.  Perhaps we can get to a better answer, demonstrating the virtues of collaborating.

[adventuresinclientservice]

When does being competitive turn sinister?

Roberta and I just finished watching a "60 Minutes" special commemorating 9/11, which first aired shortly before its first anniversary.

We were there that day 23 years ago, residents of NYC, living about 10 blocks north of what became ground zero; from the roof of The Textile Building, where we owned a condominium, we watched building six of the World Trade Center complex collapse.

If you've never watched the show, or even if you have, I urge you to view it again, a small gesture of remembrance for the 2,753 people who lost their lives that day.

Here's the link to the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bj6s4WULw64 .

In my early days at Digitas, I was one of two Account people assigned to a couple of accounts, working with a colleague named John.  Neither of us had much experience as presenters, yet at some point we were facing an important client presentation.  John was rightly nervous; I was too, with the only difference between us being my superficial sense of false bravado:

“No need to worry, John, if at any point you get in trouble, turn to me; I will jump in and rescue you.”

Was I being magnanimous?  Supportive?  A good colleague?

Hell no.  I was being a shit, a gaslighter.  Instead of building John’s confidence, my intent, whether or not I fully recognized it at the time, was to undermine it. 

The truth is, we were colleagues in name only; in reality, we were competitors, doing battle in the agency arena. 

At some point later, John was gone, a casualty of an unforgiving environment where only the resilient endure and survive.

I hadn’t thought of this in years, until I read a New York Times story, “The Office Assassin:  What should I do about a friend who deliberately undermined one of her colleagues and then bragged to me about it?”  In a reply to someone asking about an overly competitive and aggressive colleague, the author responds:

“Wow. Your friend sounds like a real piece of work, by which I mean, she sounds pretty awful: manipulative, prone to gaslighting … even abusive."

Which caused me to ask:  am I, or was I, that person?

In the early days, as I adjusted to my first real agency job, I struggled mightily, but I was a relentless worker, focused, disciplined, and determined; in a  mistake-prone, I’ll-get-it-right-next-time way, I slowly, sometimes painfully, gained surer footing. 

As I became more proficient and capable, I found myself at odds with several of my colleagues – many of them college buddies of Digitas founder Michael Bronner -- all of whom weren’t nearly as motivated, and wasn’t shy in letting my opinions be known, often voicing my concerns in a way that let Bronner know where I stood.  When each of the underperformers left, either voluntarily or not, I was not unhappy. 

A question remains, though:  did I have a hand in their demise, or for that matter, the demise of others who I considered competitors?

In truth, I likely did.   

Other questions:  were my actions manipulative or toxic?  Did I gaslight all of them, just as I had with John?  If I had this to do over, would I have behaved differently?

In truth, the answer is “No.”  I am fairly certain my assessments were for the most part accurate, and stand by them, all these years later.

While I am the first to admit I wasn’t always the best or easiest colleague with whom to work, at least I was an honest, reliable, you-can-count-on-me one. 

Looking back on this now, this is one of the things that likely saved me for a career in client service.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Can a junkie teach us anything about creativity?

My mornings begin with a visit to the garage, where I stream YouTube while doing a stint on our Life Fitness X-5 elliptical trainer.  

I finished watching Tom Petty – or maybe it was Sheryl Crow or possibly The Cranberries –when a cover of Lou Reed’s Velvet Underground song “Sweet Jane” gets an airing.  Who is this person singing, I wonder, and what about her band, which sounds amazing?)

The singer is Margo Timmins; the band The Cowboy Junkies.  Maybe my music aficionado friend Ken Ohlemeyer knows them, but to me the alien name suggests a dismissible, drug-addled punk-rock group; they are anything but.  I am sold, immediately becoming a convert to their iconoclastic, impossible-to categorize sound.  Every day I find myself scrolling through YouTube to watch their concerts, of which there are several.

Last week I watched a program called A Beautiful Noise, which featured the Junkies’ music interspersed with short commentary by Margo Timmins, who not only is the lead singer but also serves as the band’s voice.  Leading the group, however, is her guitarist/songwriter brother Michael (another brother, Pete, plays drums).

Near the program’s end, about 50 minutes in, Margo had this to say about Michael’s songwriting:

“… he has no ego; when he writes a song, that’s his expression and when he hands it to me, however I interpret it -- and I’m going to interpret it from a female perspective; that’s my first entry into a song --  it’s okay.   “He never sort of says, ‘Well you know that’s not what I meant; why are you doing it that way?’  It’s my song and he allows me to do it my way and that’s … I think that’s his greatest gift to me.  Because it must be hard sometimes when I take his songs and muck them all up [laughs] and it’s not what he intended.  But he realizes that’s my expression and he has his, which is the actual writing of it.”

I imagined what it would be like if copywriters, art directors, and creative directors approached their work the way Michael Timmins approaches songwriting, devoid of ego?  There’d be no arguments, ever, about the work. Wouldn’t that be great? 

It wouldn’t be great at all.  I want Creative people to own their work, to be invested in it, to believe in it and fight for it.

But by “fight,” I don’t mean a dispute should devolve into a cage death-match.  I don’t want it to choke off discussion and debate, or silence thoughtful, alternative points-of-view.  And I absolutely don’t want it to be so  defensive in  posture it alienates clients and undermines a hard-earned relationship with them.

Chapter 34 of the current edition of The Art of Client Service is called, “Respect What it Takes to do Great Creative.”  In it I point out that,

“While it takes emotional commitment to make creative work, it takes emotional detachment to make it better.”

Given how many absorbing, engaging songs he has written, I have no doubt about Michael Timmins’s level of creative commitment; it’s evident this guy is a serious artist, determined to perfect his craft.  His sister Margo is a singular, distinctive performer; their contract suggests she does not tamper with his writing, and he does not tamper with her singing.

But for those of us not engaged in writing or art directing, striving to make the work better, we need to remember our role as collaborators in the creative process is to “improve the work, not approve it.”

As for putting ego aside to know that buried in a comment is an insight that might make average work good and good work better, now that truly is a gift.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Will you lose your job to A.I.?

When I was in Bucharest last October to speak at the International Advertising Association’s “Creativity 4 Better” annual conference, I got to hear two presenters perform:  DI Mayze spoke on “What’s next for Generative AI and the creative industry?” followed by Seth Dobrin, who outlined “A 9-Step Formula for Safe Generative AI.“ 

Listening to those two made me realize just how inescapable A.I. is for everyone, especially those of us in advertising and marketing.  In fact, there are ad people - staffers working in Strategy, Creative, and Account Management, perhaps you – who wonder if a bot is going to replace them. 

A few would say “Yes;” more would say “Probably;” many would say “Possibly.” 

New York Times Opinion columnist David Brooks would say “No.”

In a recent Times piece Brooks writes:

“Many fears about A.I. are based on an underestimation of the human mind. Some people seem to believe that the mind is like a computer. It’s all just information processing, algorithms all the way down, so of course machines are going to eventually overtake us.”

He goes on to point out that human knowledge is “unconscious and instinctual,” recognizing that A.I. “has access only to conscious language.” 

I’ve been thinking about the implications of A.I ever since Chat GPT seemingly burst on the scene November 2022.  It admittedly is a low bar, but I wondered if A.I. would do a better job writing Adventures than I ever could.  What about something longer?  As I perpetually struggle to find that next book idea, could Chat GPT crank out 50,000 – 60,000 words that readers would like and buy?

After reading Brooks’ article, I (sort of) realized there’s an answer to these questions embedded in what I previously have written, not recently, but from years past, before ChatGPT and other large language models even were a concept.

Chapter 20 of Brain Surgery for Suits, published 25-plus years ago as the precursor to the three subsequent editions of The Art of Client Service, had as its title, “Judgement Overrides any Rule.”  Chapter 34 of the first and second editions of Art had the identical title, as did Chapter 37 of the current, third edition.

The content of the chapter evolved over time, but consistently asserted a fundamental principle:

“This is a book of rules, but an account person works in a world of exceptions.  No rule can accommodate every situation, and no list of rules is exhaustive.  In the end, the only rule you can rely on is this:  judgement rules.”

Among not just Account and client-service people, but also everyone else who works in advertising, it is judgement that defines and differentiates much of what we do, judgment that cannot be replicated, because it cannot be anticipated; judgment that:

Empowers you to say or write exactly the right thing at exactly the right time to diffuse an issue or identify an opportunity. 

Allows you to ask after a client’s children, or to discuss a vacation, or talk ball scores from a recent contest. 

Tells you to pick up a phone or get on a plane when you sense something is not quite right with the work, the relationship, or anything else that might be amiss.

In his story Brooks points out:

“Sometimes I hear tech people saying they are building machines that think like people. Then I report this ambition to neuroscientists and their response is: That would be a neat trick, because we don’t know how people think.”

The brain is a mysterious thing.  My former Digitas copywriting colleague Nancy Harhut has made a business out of decoding it, then writing a book about it. Just about everyone is striving to better understand how the mind behaves. 

No one can predict how things will unfold, and I cannot say how A.I. will evolve, but if you’re lying awake at night thinking about the future, let me reassure you the things that make the mind so elusive are the very things that remain a step beyond A.I.’s grasp.

Wherever you are in your career, whatever your ambition, regardless of the path you choose to pursue, what makes you you is distinctive, singular, and unique, insulating you from the predations of A.I.

My suggestion, then, for that insomnia you might be experiencing:  turn off the light and go back to sleep.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Which is the most thankless job in an advertising agency?

I know many of you are expecting me to say, “Account Management” in response to the question above.  There’s no debate Account Management has its share of dark and distressing moments, but that’s not it. 

A position in Finance and Accounting maybe?  Or one in admin?

Nope.  Neither.

If only by process of elimination, by now you likely conclude it’s Human Resources, so a New York Times story confirming what many of us already know comes as no surprise:

“The H.R. department bugs a lot of employees and managers, and it seems to have more detractors than ever since the pandemic began.”

I might be the exception here, but my experience was different.  In fairness, it was years ago, before Covid struck, before working from home went from being a luxury to an option to a deal-breaking necessity for many staffers.  People had their issues with HR, sure, but nobody was getting shot.  Things were for the most part civil.

At Digitas there barely was a nod to an HR department, and in the early days things were so crazy even the world’s best HR people wouldn’t have a prayer of making them better.  Most of us worried simply about surviving, getting through another day. 

When I escaped frigid and forlorn Boston for the more inviting environs of Foote, Cone & Belding’s San Francisco office, I discovered a much more tenured and capable HR team.  Not much going on here though; my interactions with it remained largely benign, even taking into account I was sued, not once, but twice (a topic for another day). 

What left me with a far greater impression was my time at Ammirati & Puris, where Andrea Sessler oversaw the HR group as its head.

Most agency HR departments were met with a combination of cynicism and suspicion among staffers, who recognized the vast majority of HR people simply served as instruments of management, not as advocates for their interests.   What made Sessler different?

In a word:  trust.

Senior management – in the form of Ammirati co-founder and President Martin Puris – relied on Sessler for a balanced perspective.  While I’m sure there where skeptics and the occasional detractors, many of us working there relied on her as well. 

I recall one instance that demonstrated this management/staff balancing act.     

After I arrived at the agency, it became clear no one knew where to put me – all the corner offices for people of my rank were taken – leaving it to Andrea to figure out a solution.  She did:  the agency knocked down a wall to the office next to the one where I would reside. It wouldn’t a corner, but it would be really, really big – bigger than anyone else’s save Puris’ and Ammirati’s – serving as a form of “no corner for you” compensation.

Now all Sessler had to do is sell me on the idea, then get senior management to agree to juggle staff plus invest some not-insignificant money in construction work.  She succeeded at both.  Not long after I moved into a space that jokingly became known as “the bowling alley.”

Think securing agreement to this from all parties was easy?  I assure you it wasn’t, requiring some serious persuasion skills combined with sensitive diplomacy chops. 

Remind you of anything?

To answer, let me quote Martin Puris, from the precursor edition to The Art of Client Service, Brain Surgery for Suits:

"The job of account executive is the most difficult in the agency business.  It’s an intellectual high-wire act. It’s an intellectual high-wire act. “The two fatal mistakes an account person can make are to become either the client’s ‘man’ at the agency – or the agency’s ‘man’ at the client. “Both fail.”

I previously was unable to connect the dots, not understanding that HR people have more in common with what we do in client service than generally is realized. 

Account and client service people deal continually with the necessity of balancing the needs of clients with the realities of working in an agency. 

HR people deal continually with the necessity of balancing the needs of senior management with the realities of working in an agency.

The next time you find yourself quick to judge the group’s shortcomings, all you need do is substitute "HR" for" Account Management" in Martin Puris’ quote:   “The job of HR is the most difficult in the agency business.”

The ability to forge and sustain trust is what differentiates effective Account Management and client service from others.  More than technical knowledge or tenure, trust is what differentiates Andrea from most of the other HR people you encounter.

And this is what makes her special.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Is it okay to be forgotten?

I recently posted about my Art Director Hall-of-Fame-member Creative Director father-in-law Bob Wilvers – his titles and honorifics are longer than a king’s –  attempting to preserve what has become a lost legacy of achievement.  But while driving to an appointment last week, I heard a “Wild Card” radio interview on PBS, conducted by reporter Rachel Martin with now-retired US women’s national team soccer hero – yikes, another too-long wind-up -- Abby Wambach.  Martin asks:

“So are you comfortable with being forgotten?”

Whoa!  That’s the furthest thing from a softball question; how would Wambach respond?

Like the unflappable, nothing-rattles-me soccer legend she is:

“I am. I am …. Because if I am forgotten, then I know that the game has grown, and the game is better. If I am forgotten, then somebody else has taken my place. And that is the natural order of the world. I believe that records are meant to be broken. I believe that growth, especially 10 years ago, where we were with women's soccer, was required, was necessary, was not just possible but inevitable.”

If you’re a casual fan, a recent one, or worse, not one, you might not recall Wambach as a towering figure in the sport (literally and figuratively; she’s 5’ 11”), playing initially with soccer god Mia Hamm, then serving as a transition to emerging stars Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan, who have since been supplanted by a new generation of players. 

Time waits for no person, but I never will forget Wambach’s contributions to the game’s evolution, just as I never will forget the advertising giants who defined what made this business great.

Ask a young advertising person who is Don Draper or Peggy Moss, you likely will get the right answer.  Ask them who is Jack Tinker, Bill Bernbach, Phyliss Robinson, or Mary Wells, you likely will be greeted with vacant stares.  “Who they?” is the more likely reply.

I have great respect for Abby Wambach and her achievements; I want to preserve her and their memory, not forget them or her, because I believe in the power of legacy. 

I first posted about it roughly a dozen years ago. I have since celebrated with tributes to friends, colleagues, even strangers who have departed to the big advertising agency in the sky. I recognized my friend of many years, Marilyn Loden, as the person who coined the phrase “the glass ceiling.” I wrote about the stellar women largely overlooked by others in advertising, among them my mother-in-law Francine Wilvers.  And of course there’s Bob Wilvers, with whom this piece began.

All in service of setting records straight, preserving contributions worthy of memory, enshrining legacies that should endure. 

Abby Wambach might be right about women’s soccer, the successors replacing her, and being forgotten.  As for advertising…

I don’t want to forget any of these people. I don’t want to forget Jack Tinker, Bill Bernbach, Phyllis Robinson, Mary Wells, and countless others – some contemporaries, so successors; some known, others anonymous – who made advertising what it is, or was:  Jay Chiat, Dan Wieden, Jeff Goodbye, Nina DeSesa, Martin Puris, Susan Credle Alex Boguski, Colleen DeCourcy, plus names of hundreds, even thousands, of others too numerous to mention. 

I say “was” and not “is” because advertising is no longer galvanizing, immutable, and timeless.  Will those days of lost glory return?  Will new legends emerge? 

As long as we treat its history as something perishable and easily dismissed, the giants of the past will remain sadly irreplaceable.

[adventuresinclientservice]

How do you say "No" to a superior (and live to tell about it)?

I was an early enthusiast of the once-obscure-now-celebrated author Adam Grant, first writing about him years ago after reading a New York Times Sunday Magazine article on him. I was sufficiently drawn to his theory that “It’s good to do good by people” to post about him and his then new book, Give and Take.

In truth Grant and I don’t always agree; I took exception when he recommended it is okay to ignore emails, when I consider responding promptly to be nothing short of sacrosanct. But here’s a situation where we do agree:  Grant recently wrote a New York Times Opinion Piece on “The Reason People Are Not Telling Biden the Truth,” where he explains why not bowing to pressure from a superior or boss is difficult:

“It’s hard enough to speak truth to power in an ordinary job. As the management expert Amy Edmondson says, ‘You don’t want to call the boss’s baby ugly.’ Now imagine telling the most powerful person on the planet that the baby might not make it.”

I certainly wasn’t dealing with the President of the United States when I was running a division in the San Francisco office of advertising agency Foote, Cone & Belding, but I did find myself in a similar circumstance with the agency’s Vice Chair, Tom Randolph.

Randolph made an unexpected visit to my office one day.  FCB owned a printing company, Krupp/Taylor, that was bidding on a client assignment my group was overseeing.  Krupp/Taylor was the most expensive bidder, by far, among the three competitors invited to submit quotes; my group was about to award to assignment to another firm. 

Normally kind and decent, Randolph made a not-so-kind-and-decent demand masquerading as a request:  would I give the Krupp/Taylor people a chance to “sharpen their pencils” before I awarded the job to another competitor?

What this really meant:  Randolph wanted me to reveal the winning bid-amount to Krupp/Taylor; it would match it, with me then awarding it the job.

On its face, the “request” seemed reasonable:  the client would receive a price equal to the lowest bid; Krupp/Taylor would get the assignment; FCB would benefit.  Also not to be discounted:  the person doing the asking was the former head of the agency’s San Franscisco office, someone who vastly outranked me in title, tenure, and stature.  Everybody wins, right?

I didn’t even have the luxury of time to think this through; Randolph wanted an answer now, right then, on the spot.  I figure he heard from Krupp/Taylor’s CEO, who assumed I could be persuaded – bullied if I’m being honest – into relenting.

I could have said yes.  I would have scored political points with the agency’s Vice Chair.  I would have helped a subsidiary, and by extension, the agency.  I would be a team player.

How should I navigate this?  Faced with a similar situation, what would you have said?

I didn’t say yes; I didn’t exactly say no either:

“Tom, I can give Krupp/Taylor another shot at the numbers, but I would have to do the same with the other competitors. “Why can’t you do it just for Krupp/Taylor? “Because everyone will know I wired the job to them.  Other bidders won’t be willing to compete for future jobs, not to speak of the client, who always was skeptical of having an in-house bidder; they absolutely will know and won’t trust us going forward.”

I was giving Randolph an out – a way around this -- but he would not relent, trying his best to get me to offer a second chance exclusively to Krupp/Taylor.  When I held firm, he stormed out of my office cursing under his breath, one unhappy person.  He didn’t say another word to me thereafter, ever, so pissed off was he.

Randolph was playing the short game; Krupp/Taylor needed a win and he wanted to play savior.

I, however, was playing the long game, protecting the integrity of the bidding process, honoring my commitment to the client to serve their best interests as their agent, plus maintain my own sense of doing the right thing.

Did I make a mistake?  It’s debatable – I could have followed the easier path -- and it wasn’t easy to hold firm in the face of pressure from someone much more senior and established.

In retrospect, I’m confident I made the right call.

Adam Grant’s piece discusses at length the consequences of people not speaking truth to power; I am not one of those people.  No wonder my agency career ended the way it did.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Most of my predictions about advertising are wrong; this one isn't.

Long before Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell cited his “Rule of 150” to describe how an organization loses its ability to have “a genuinely social relationship” with colleagues, and presumably, clients, Chiat/Day advertising legend Jay Chiat addressed the topic, succinctly posing it as a question:

“How big can we get before we get bad?”

I thought about this as I read Advertising Age’s story headline, “Small creative agencies are winning major accounts—inside the growing trend,” by reporting that:

“GM, Häagen-Dazs and Liberty Mutual Insurance have recently turned to shops with fewer than 100 employees.”

Giant client corporations choosing to work with diminutive, mostly independent agencies?  It might seem new, but actually is old news, given I pretty much said as much 12 years ago in The Past, Present, and Future of Advertising, when I wrote:

“we see the rise of smaller, independent, entrepreneurially driven, and technology fueled firms, encouraged by clients – frustrated with their big agency counterparts and now freed from the confines of media – turning to these new options in ever increasing numbers for solutions, support, and sustained accountability.” 

I returned to this subject a couple of weeks ago, spurred by another piece, this one in ADWEEK, about Liberty Mutual’s switch from large, established, holding-company-owned, full-service agency Goodbye Silverstein to a smaller, independent upstart, Bandits & Friends.  

I hypothesized why Liberty Mutual made the switch:

“Two of Bandits & Friends founders, Danny Gonzalez and David Suarez, previously worked with Liberty Mutual when they were at Goodbye.  When they left that shop to start their own, Liberty left with them.  The client might not have had a strong relationship with Goodbye, but chances are it had a strong relationship with these two Creatives.”

Frustrated and fed up with big-agency life, talented people often decide to strike out on their own with an ambition to grow, knowing the very best big agencies get their start as small ones.  If they succeed, at some point either the agency holding companies or the private equity firms come calling, and with it this dilemma: 

The independent shop gets bought, the founders leave, some (perhaps many) clients abandon them, the agency declines to where it no longer is what it once was.  History repeats itself; the cycle begins anew.

That’s the sad reality behind my former agency Ammirati & Puris’ long, slow descent:  a once (near) great advertising agency sells its soul, trades happiness for money when Interpublic Group buys them, prompting an inevitable slide into mediocrity, with the shop evoking powerful memories for those who worked there and with it, although it sadly no longer exists, having been merged into oblivion.

I did tours-of-duty at three, very large, international, self-described “full-service” holding-company-owned agencies.  In the past I’ve taken such shops to task, yet hold nothing against them or their holding company overseers.  I still have friends and former colleagues who work at them; I want them to succeed.

Most of the predictions I’ve made about advertising agencies are wrong, but if agencies don’t find themselves a means of escape from the predicament in which it finds itself, there will be no avoiding the doom loop death spiral that might well engulf them.

Making this particular 12-year-old prediction tragically right.

[adventuresinclientservice]

How do you know it's time to fold them, rather than hold them?

As hard as it is to deal with this, some people just know when it’s time to quit the pitch.  Take Lionel Messi, international football’s most celebrated and accomplished player;  at 37 – nearly ancient be athletic standards – and now injured, he knows his playing days are soon to be over.  According to a story in The Athletic,

“ At some stage, everything you do becomes the last time. Everything comes laced with heavy finality.” 

Some people don’t know when it’s time to quit the stage.  Take U.S. President Joe Biden.  Until this past Sunday, there was no convincing a fiercely stubborn, “I’m-in-denial” leader, who ignored the many signs of decline, unwilling to do an honest accounting of what was lost and cannot to be recovered. 

Finally, under intense, ever-widening pressure, he (reluctantly, I imagine) relented.  Come Fall, there will be a new and different Democratic nominee, with all signs pointing to current Vice President Kamala Harris. 

Some people remain ambivalent; they don’t know if it’s time, or if it’s not.  Take me; author, coach, consultant, workshop leader, blogger, a 40-plus-year veteran of advertising who has reached a point where email invitations to speak are few, where questions have grown infrequent, where follower no longer pay attention as they once did. 

Has the moment come to say farewell?  Let’s review:

I still have observations to make and opinions to render about this industry (hence this blog). 

I still have coaching clients who need guidance. 

A book I wrote continues to sell, presumably still providing useful counsel to readers. 

I still know how to conduct a workshop or give a presentation on a range of timely yet enduring topics that generally are well received (unless everyone simply is lying to spare my feelings).

Most important of all, I still have heart for this business, still am totally engaged by and immersed in it, much as I was when I started out.

In need of perspective, I do something I’ve not done before:  I turn to ChatGPT, posing a question:

If you are a coach advising someone older who is considering retirement but is inclined to continue their career, what questions would you ask to help them arrive at the right decision?

Among what I receive in return, there’s one question in particular that insists on an answer:

“How do you feel about the changes in your industry or role, and do you still find your work fulfilling and challenging?”

As loathe as I am loathe to do this, I answer the question with a question, asking myself:  

“If you never receive another invitation to speak, or to do a  workshop, or to help in some other way, would you still want to continue?

My answer: 

“Yes, yes I would.”

I am a regular reader of The New York Times obituary page; one of the obits I saw is about the passing of Pat Williams, former head of my beloved Philadelphia Seventy-Sixers basketball team.  At the end of the story there is a quote from Williams:

“when you stop setting long-range goals, that’s when the dying begins.”

Put this way, the decision to fold them or hold them is no decision at all.

Onward.