adventuresinclientservice

[adventuresinclientservice]

Meeting in-person is really hard; that's all the more reason why you should.

Before she dedicated herself to raising a family, my mother-in-law Marilyn Armstrong had been a copywriter, an ahead-of-her-time graduate of the University of Wisconsin who still very much cared about the proper use of English. 

Knowing of our shared interest in language – although I was an Account weenie, I also was an aspiring author who had just published the first edition of The Art of Client Service -- she hunted down a hard-to-get copy of Lynne Truss’ Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, which at the time was published in the U.K. but not here.  We shared a few jokes and stories about our shared love of grammar and punctuation.

I figured Truss’s award-winning book was an anomaly – who gives a damn about fractured sentences and failed punctuation – until I read The New York Times story, “Grammar Fans Flock to a Film About Participles and Gerunds,” celebrating a movie, Rebel with a Clause.  (Wait, that’s a pun right?)  Implausible as this might seem, it’s a new documentary about Ellen Jovin, “who set up a ‘grammar table’” in all 50 states for passers-by to stop and ask her about punctuation and past participles.”

My mother-in-law likely would have loved this movie; when it streams and I’m able to see it, I’m certain I’d love it too, mostly because Jovin,

“schleps her table from Maine to Hawaii and each state in between, dispensing lessons that are precise but not pedantic, engaging in the sort of face-to-face conversations with strangers that are so absent from quotidian contemporary life."

The last part of the line, “face-to-face conversations with strangers that are so absent from quotidian contemporary life” is what struck me, reminding me of a video I also saw in The Times, “3 Charts That Show Students Still Struggle After Covid,” where the author/speaker points out,

“This chart shows how students in grades three through eight were performing in math.  Before the pandemic, things were pretty stable.  And then you got this huge decline…. What do we know about how school closures affected student outcomes? … the more time students spent remote, the more they fell behind…

“Here we are, five years later and we know students haven’t caught up.  If we want students to recover, students need more time in school, not less, or else we’re talking about a generation who could face a lifetime of lost opportunities.”

I get it:  this isn’t about in-person meetings to debate colons vs. semi-colons, or about elementary school, a galaxy distant from advertising or marketing.  If you focus not on the subject but instead on the underlying principle that informs it, you realize face-to-face conversations aren’t optional; they are mandatory to human interaction and discourse. 

I am all too familiar with the excuses many will offer to counter this:  not enough time, not enough money, unwilling clients, unsupportive, bottom-line-focused management refusing to underwrite a much-needed investment in client relationship-building.  Whatever the obstacle, you’ve need to overcome it.  Be persuasive, be stubborn, be persistent; keep at it until you’ve accomplished your mission. 

People aren’t visiting their clients, paying a price hard to quantify but of immeasurable value to relationships that are growing ever more distant and remote.  

“But no one else is meeting in-person,” you say, “why should I?” “That’s all the more reason why you should,” I reply.

[adventuresinclientservice]

When does truth equal trust?

I was going to begin this week’s piece with a (somewhat charming) retelling of a story about my former copywriter/mother-in-law Marilyn Armstrong, but then I had a LinkedIn exchange with Mandy McEwen that deserved more pressing comment.  I asked Marlyn if she would be okay with a week’s delay; “No problem,” she told me, “I’ve waited this long for you to write about me; another week won’t matter”(Marilyn is no longer with us, so this discussion was imaginary).

In a video post from last Thursday -- you'll need to scroll down a bit to find it , McEwen posed this question to her viewers:

“So, any answers on this?  On why it is still an afterthought and why companies are not prioritizing LinkedIn even though it makes selling 10X easier?  Let me know in the comments.”

In response I wrote this:

“Greetings Mandy! “You say that selling on LinkedIn is "10X easier." Is this REALLY true? If it is, do you have data to back up this claim, and if you do, would you mind sharing it?”

McEwen replied:

“Haha oh you coming out to play today. It IS true. There’s no easier way to build relationships fast than LinkedIn. It's impossible to show something like "10X" easier with data. LinkedIn is full of "dark social" proof, making it impossible to actually show. It was an expression to drive home my point.”

To which I observed:

“One of the points I make in "The Art of Client Service" is that people need to ‘support what they say,’ especially in new business pitches, when smart clients challenge assertions made but not backed up by proof. “With respect, that you say it is so does not make it so. “Is there another way to make your case convincingly, without claiming the 10X number, a way that skeptics and cynics (like me 😊) actually can believe? “It might be harder to do, but in the end, will be more credible and convincing. “Best, “Robert”

Sounding ever so slightly annoyed I was challenging her, McEwen wrote again:

“I don’t get caught up on those details. This is how I talk. So people can take it however they want. I think it’s pretty obvious that when you use LinkedIn as part of your prospecting arsenal, you’re going to get better results. I have plenty of proof on my website that this works. www.luminetics.io ." To which I concluded the conversation with: “I agree with your qualitative opinion, Mandy that you might ‘get better results’ using LinkedIn, but I struggle with the quantitative 10X assertion. If you claim it, you need to prove it.  If the proof is on your site, why not say so when you make the claim? “I also understand that you ‘don't get caught up in these details,’ but your clients might. “Best, “Robert”

There are countless qualitative adjectives you could use to describe LinkedIn’s impact, without having to resort to assigning a precise number on it to quantify it; you could say LinkedIn makes it:

Vastly easier; Substantially easier; Dramatically easier; Pointedly easier; Extraordinarily easier; Hugely easier; or simply Much, much easier.

Not all of these are equally elegant, and no doubt there are more and better ways to do this, but I suspect you get the point.  The moment you resort to asserting a number, you move from the land of opinion to the land of fact.  If you say “10X easier,” you must offer proof; you cannot hide behind something as lame as “I don’t get caught up in those details” or “people can take it however they want” simply because it’s convenient to do so.

I infer my McEwen’s responses a healthy dose of “I can’t be bothered” irritation that anyone might dare to question her accuracy.  But someone needs to step up and challenge the 10X claim, even if that person is some old guy who should simply disappear.

Does anyone seriously believe that LinkedIn makes it ten times easier than another approach?  Not twice as good or three times, which strain credulity, but ten times.  If you  choose to believe this, I have a bridge Manhattan to sell you.

McEwen typically is a reliable source of knowledgeable counsel on LinkedIn,  but here she reverts to full hyperbolic sales mode.  Her remarks likely were scripted and pre-meditated, not offhand and careless, leading me to believe she is indulging in what is best described as misleading, something that only serves to erode trust.  Doing so does disservice to both her current clients and prospective ones, to her Luminetics colleagues, and, in truth, to herself.

“Why has this become so important?” you might be thinking, “Why not just let it slide?”

Here’s why:

In a world that has grown accustomed to false claims that range from “alternative facts” to downright bald-faced lies, speaking truth is essential to building trust with clients and colleagues.

This is one of those moments when truth equals trust.

[adventuresinclientservice]

The enduring power of the spoken word in turbulent times.

I planned to call last week’s post “The last word,” but I’ve been writing Adventures for so long now, I always make a point of checking to see if I’m repeating myself.  Sure enough, there it was:  a post from nearly a dozen years ago, about President Abraham Lincoln.  In fact, there are two posts devoted to Lincoln.

How often can a person – that person being me -- tread over the same ground, even when the subject is someone enshrined  among the pantheon of the world’s all-time inspiring leaders?  In normal circumstances, this would prompt me to search for another topic, but circumstances are anything but normal, plus there was a story in The New York Times prompting me to write again.

What spurred Dan Barry to write the story is that it came, “exactly two weeks after a contentious presidential election that seemed only to widen the American divide,” with the situation growing more alarming by the day.  What I find particularly disturbing is the coarsening of discourse led by the lunatic in the White House, who wouldn’t know a coherent sentence if it slugged him the face.

Lincoln’s Gettysburg speech apparently was an impromptu thing, almost an afterthought, 272 words and two minutes brief, both informal and humble in its delivery, following a two-hour keynote by famed orator Edward Everett.  According to the author, even Lincoln himself returned to his seat, “convinced that his brief words had not found purchase.”

The spoken word is a powerful thing.  It can elevate us, as Lincoln once did, or it can debase us, as the current president does daily.  The longevity of Lincoln’s words is such it remains eternally inscribed on the South Chamber wall of Washington, DC’s Lincoln Memorial.  It indeed had found purchase, recognized by Everett himself, who told Lincoln,

 "I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes." 

Everett recognized what Lincoln could not, witnessing language almost biblical in tone, something many if not most Christian believers have committed to memory, much like Psalm 23, or those of Jewish faith know the way they know the Hebrew Shema by heart  

These prayers are more than just words on a page; most Christians know the meaning of Psalm 23; most Jews the Shema.  With “Four score and twenty years ago” I  fear many of us have lost the plot, a victim of the current madness gripping the country. 

Before all of us sink into depths of “this will NEVER end” despair, a March 17 New Yorker story reminds us our country has endured this before, with the virulently anti-Communist “Red Scare” that seized the post-World War II narrative from more rational, less politicized and polarized voices.  It thankfully it came to an end, but the story’s final paragraph levies a warning:

“But to say Trump won’t necessarily succeed in setting off a new Red Scare is not to say he won’t try.  And in this sort of politics, the trying is part of the game…. As Roy Cohn once instructed a young Donald Trump, much can be accomplished by attacking first and dealing with the consequences later.”

We don’t have an Abraham Lincoln to bring the nation to its collective senses, so it falls to us to elevate our voices, harness language as the powerful ally and weapon it can be, then speak out, loudly, frequently, and numerously, to the President and his cronies who otherwise would diminish discourse with a particularly venomous brand of destructive poison.

What we say need not be long; in fact, we should follow the example set by our 16th President.

It just needs to be truthful, spoken from the heart, pulling no punches borne of fear, fueled by the courage of your convictions to proclaim that truth must prevail. 

Will what you say matter?  Will it change anything?  It won’t.

This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

[adventuresinclientservice]

The final word.

I thought I had written about the former New Yorker editor, Tina Brown, but it was so long ago it took a while to find my post on her.  Brown has long since been supplanted by the highly capable, superbly qualified David Remnick – he seems made for the role – but during her time she served as an essential change agent, bold enough to radically remake what had become a stale magazine, then smart enough to hand leadership to Remnick, who she recruited first to collaborate with her, later to succeed her as the head of what is the best edited magazine in the universe (hyperbole, but not by much).

With me in tow, my agency met with Brown, who said two things that have stayed with me all these years later:

“Read what you like, ignore what you don’t.” (Permission granted and followed.) “With The New Yorker, on any subject we choose to cover, our aim is not to be the first word on a subject, but instead to be the last and final one.”  (Mostly true.)

(Channeling Tina Brown for the moment, if what follows bores you to tears, by all means feel free to ignore what’s here, this being a story I suspect she’d skip.)

In the aftermath of my hometown Philadelphia Eagles recent routing of the Kansas City Chiefs to win the Super Bowl, there has been no end to the news stories, television reports, and podcasts dissecting virtually every moment of the team’s victory.  Even to this day, there are recaps on Facebook.  The Philadelphia sports press has had a field day.  I take all of it in with good cheer and gratitude.

When I unexpectedly read the lead story in last week’s New Yorker, “Dreams and Nightmares,” I thought, “The magazine never writes about sports, even the Super Bowl.”  To me a New Yorker story serves as validation of sorts.

I have a vision of the type of reporter I read in the magazine – craftspeople who are incredibly smart, very perceptive, masters of both language and story masters – authors like Even Osnos, Jane Mayer, and Rebecca Mead, among a host of others.  Perhaps I have the profile all wrong, but this story’s writer, Nick Paumgarten, doesn’t  exactly fit the mold.

It's not that he isn’t smart – he clearly is -- but he’s a Deadhead, which alone likely distinguishes him from his peers.  Plus he doesn’t live in Philadelphia – he calls New York home, as I once did -- but remains a steadfastly loyal Eagles fan, memorializing past local heroes Chuck Bednarik and Ted Dean, primary architects of the Eagles 1960 championship victory over the soon-to-be-invincible Green Bay Packers (I was at the stadium two years later to endure  the Packers payback, witnessing a humiliating 49-0 Eagles beatdown).

So loyal, in fact, he traveled to Nawlans (sorry, New Orleans), not just to watch the game in person, but to spend the week beforehand immersed in the entire Super Bowl experience, opting for commentary rather than straight “facts and figures, here’s what happened” reporting, unlike scores of other reporters and pundits covering the game, including the ones I read.  

You get a sense of Paumgarten’s approach from the way he sums up his feeling for the game, admitting:

“I love the sport itself, the complexity of it, the variety of bodies and roles, the grace amid the peril, the sacrifices, the story lines, the religious devotion to the fate of a team and a city that’s not even my own.”

The article runs for several pages, but Paumgarten doesn’t actually get to covering the contest itself until the final page, where he concludes, “The Birds kicked the crap out of the Chiefs.”  No argument there, although like many long-suffering Philly fans, I didn’t begin to rest easy, even when the score was a lopsided 34-0.

As I’ve done many times before, I tried my best to tie this post to a message about Account management or client service, but realized you’d see this for the manufactured, forced overreach it is.  I respect all of you too much to do this, but even so, I’m going to give it a try.

If you know anything about Philly sports fans, you know how much they care  about their teams, most especially the Eagles, for which they maintain an enduring  reverence.  Were they to feel much the same about the accounts they serve, there would be no angry clients, agency dismissals, or unexpected new business reviews.

Too lame?  Apologies then.

To return to Tina Brown for a moment:  did Paumgarten’s “Dreams and Nightmares”  serve as the final word? 

Aside from readers in Kansas City who likely couldn’t bear revisiting their nightmare loss and likely skipped the story, the answer most likely is “Yes.”

For Philadelphians, probably not. 

They’re still dreaming.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Should pharma advertising die?

My Dad had three brothers, each with a different career:  one was an attorney, another an accountant, a third a PHD chemist.   There was one thing, though,  all four had in common:  heads bereft and barren, smooth as bowling balls.  That I still have hair (at my age) came as something of a surprise, until an enlightened doctor told me that hair is maternal, not paternal.  Thank you Mom.

Even so, I am in a never-ending battle with a steadily encroaching, crown-of-my-head bald spot, prompting me to engage in combat with a twice-daily dose of Minoxidil, the generic term for its formal pharma name, Rogaine. 

In its early days Rogaine was a prescribed medication you only could receive with a doctor’s prescription.  Marketing the drug, such as it was, was done largely through sales calls to physicians, until, as my media friend Ellen Wasserman reminds me, it became a pioneer in direct-to-consumer television, among the very first prescriptions of its kind advertised to consumers this way.

At the time pharma advertising was at best an afterthought; most broadcast work was devoted mainly to beer, soft drinks, automobiles, and other durable and perishable goods.  But over time the category grew, with agencies learning to navigate the FDA’s strict, sometimes arcane rules and regulations on what you could claim and what you couldn’t, things like “fair balance” and disclosure of each drug’s lengthy risks and side effects, including a disclosure of a drug’s prescribing information.  Advertising could sidestep most of the rules if it spoke about a disease and not a specific drug, but this trade-off obviously came at a cost.

Back then most general agency staffers – Creatives especially -- couldn’t be bothered with pharma, which explains in part why specialized healthcare agencies emerged to support clients.  Over time the pharma category grew – in 1998 expenditures were a not trivial 1.2 billion; by 2016 it had grown more than four times as large, to $5.2 billion – as many other spending categories stagnated or declined.

How big has the category become?  According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, “Pharmaceutical advertising now makes up a major portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on advertising in the U.S. each year”, last year accounting for, “30.7% of ad minutes across evening news programs on ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC.” 

With jobs becoming increasingly scarce in traditional general, direct response, and sales promotion agencies, I couldn’t help but notice that an ever-growing number of my former colleagues have migrated to pharma shops.  What once was an afterthought has emerged as a central source of job opportunity for agency people, one of the few available in today’s contracting advertising climate. 

Recently, however, I read a New York Times story that quotes the new administration’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert Kennedy, Jr., who, “repeatedly and enthusiastically called for a ban on such ads,” contending that, “’drug ads are steering sick Americans toward useless medications, contributing to high rates of chronic disease in the United States.’”

Knowing my advertising background, at lunch one day a doctor colleague asked how I felt about pharma ads.  In truth, I explained, I’m ambivalent.

Not because of the reasons Kennedy cites  -- he’s more ignorant than informed -- but rather because most of the advertising, at least the commercials I see, are deplorable, weighed down by those necessary but cumbersome FDA rules.  The stuff on social media?  Equally bad,  (Then again, virtually all broadcast advertising, regardless of category, is turgid, devoid of ideas, and dismissible.) 

I’m ambivalent because I have friends and colleagues who would be job casualties if pharma advertising came to an end.  You think it selfish to be so directed?  I might not like the advertising, but I like the people, so yes, call me selfish.  Guilty as charged.

In the end, though, it matters not.  Pharma is a powerful lobbying presence, and this administration, for all its posturing and bluster, pays attention to special interests armed with deep pockets.  It will pay attention to pharma and ignore Kennedy.

Advertising will continue, the same as it ever was.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Let us now praise unknown Account people (the good ones).

My first thought after I reading Jill Lepore’s New Yorker story on editors was, “Who writes about editors?  Writers, sure, but editors?  Does anyone care about editors?” 

Lepore’s opening the kimono on what has been a largely off-limits subject came as a welcome and appropriate addition to the magazine’s commemorative 100th anniversary issue, so much so it prompted me to retrieve a long-ago book inscribed by my now-gone college friend, the writer Jenny Moore:

As a nascent foodie, I knew a little about Claiborne, but Perkins?  Who he?

I hadn’t a clue, and back then there was no website or Wikipedia page to consult for an answer.

Perkins, it turns out, ranks among the most celebrated of editors, having worked with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Thomas Wolfe among others in a long and illustrious career.  He was memorialized in Scott Berg’s 1978 biography, Max Perkins:  Editor of Genius.

Beyond merely being amusing, there was a reason why Jenny cited Perkins in her inscription:  in my college senior year I served as Managing Editor the GW Forum, George Washington University’s “journal of opinion,” responsible for editing a number of the magazine’s writers, Jenny among them.

Before I stumbled into a mostly joyful career in advertising, I got my start as an editor.  Reading Lepore’s story gave rise to a thought:  

Is being an editor akin to being an account person?

Lepore points out, “Most editors remain unsung.  To be unknown is, ordinarily, to be underestimated.”  She continues, “… editors generally try to protect writers.”  They “suggest stories” and also “shape stories,” following this with, “An editor is like a shrink.”

If I didn’t know better, I would think Lepore is describing an often underestimated, take-for-granted Account person working with their Creative colleagues, shielding them from angry, wayward, or misguided clients, advancing their interests whenever possible, diplomatically suggesting possible approaches to creative work, on occasion even advancing an idea or two of their own, and always acting as a sounding board.  

To me, that’s an Account person.  A really good Account person.

Most of us can cite a famous copywriter or two, maybe an art director or Planner.  But many of us would struggle to name a single Account person of note.  As far as I know, there is no shrine dedicated to recognizing and celebrating them.  I’m still waiting for Advertising Age or ADWEEK to publish  its annual “top Account people” list.

I get they might not be known – they’re anonymous really -- but they shouldn’t be unknown either.

As I think back on it, I’ve come to understand, far better than I realized, my training as an editor helped equip me to be an Account person, especially when it came to collaborating with copywriters and art directors.  Becoming a halfway competent editor helped make me a halfway competent Account person.

Lepore’s story mostly celebrates editors, yet ends on an unsettling, ominous, note:

“Editing, though, is a dying art…. in an age of tweets and TikToks and Substack posts and chatty podcasts, a vanishingly small percentage of the crushingly vast amount that is published on any given day has been edited, by anyone.

The author’s point about editors makes me wonder if Account people -- these days many are not trained to effectively serve clients, are plagued by limited skills and experience and as a result are underappreciated by colleagues – might be more than just merely anonymous:  they might be facing extinction. 

Increasingly rare though they may be, experienced, well-trained, capable Account people are critical to advertising’s future; without them, the entire industry is at risk.   

Don’t believe me?  Read the advertising trades about the latest layoffs at agency holding companies, or client after client putting their accounts in review.

Perhaps this will persuade you.

(Leave it to Jenny and her wry sense of humor to "doctor" her book title so it conveys an inside joke between us. Let me know if you want to know the story behind it)

[adventuresinclientservice]

Nine years after.

Friday began like most others, with a regular visit to the gym, first for a weight-lifting session, followed by cardio.  But what began as normal did not end that way; after a three-week hospital detour where survival was at issue, I returned home, grateful to everyone for their hope and help. 

If you’re wondering why I didn’t wait until next year’s 10th anniversary milestone to commemorate my near-death experience, there is no better time like the present.  I plan to post this again next year, and the year after, and the year after that, but not knowing what the future holds, here’s what I wrote, for those who are interested:

Three reasons why I didn’t die.

For the past five-plus years, I’ve made it a practice of posting to Adventures at least once a week and, when an occasion calls for it or minor inspiration strikes, sometimes more.  How do I know?  I looked.

So where have I been these past three-plus weeks?  You might have thought of me as among the disappeared, but there’s a far simpler explanation, best explained as the three reasons why I didn’t die.  The first is about speed.  The second is about competence.  The third is about love.

Here’s the backstory.

Survival belongs to the swift and sure.

Friday, February 26:  off to the gym for my regularly scheduled, 45-minute weight lifting session, followed by a 45-minute, elliptical cardio sweat session.  

I didn’t get past flat bench.  After a warm-up set, then doing 3 sets of 60-lb dumb bell presses, feeling good about achieving, yet again, 3 sets of 12 reps, I backed off the weights by 5 lbs.  After finishing that set, and with only one set remaining, I was ready to move on, except for the minor thing going on in my head.

“It’s nothing” I thought.  ”It’ll pass.”  Except it didn’t.  After a few minutes of waiting for things to “clear,” then becoming alarmed when they didn’t, I realized I needed to find my wife Roberta, who also was at the gym, attacking a treadmill.  As I stumbled from the weight lifting section to the cardio area, a veteran trainer named Judy, along with her manager colleague Cathy, saw I was struggling and had the presence of mind to ask, “Are you okay?”

I clearly was not okay.  Judy and Cathy took charge, found me a chair, sat me down, got Roberta, and called an ambulance.  As I would later discover, their speed and decisiveness would prove a critical difference maker, perhaps the critical difference maker.

The gym we work out at actually is part of the Queen of the Valley Hospital, roughly a block from the hospital itself, allowing the ambulance to show up in minutes.  The ambulance crew arrived, saw I was in trouble, and took control.  Before long, I was strapped to a gurney, then wheeled into the ambulance for the very short trip to the hospital.  

Time elapsed:  the duration felt interminable, but in total no more than 30 minutes passed from the moment I felt something amiss, to my crossing the emergency room doors.

Survival belongs to the capable and caring.

The ICU Intensivist, Dr. Schroeder, was among the first to see me, but it became quickly apparent I am in need of a neurosurgeon.  Serendipity seemed to play its hand here: a UCSF Board Certified Neurosurgeon, Dr, Nguyen Do, was on the scene and participated in my evaluation.  I was of little help, but a cat scan revealed a brain bleed.  I am assuredly no doctor, but I think you would say I was suffering from what most of us would describe as a cerebral hemorrhage. 

These things are scary:  there simply is no place for the hemorrhaging blood to go. Your blood pressure can rise, your heart rate can go haywire, you can destabilize, you can die.

I spent Friday night in the ICU disoriented and in pain.  When the bleed didn’t abate, Dr. Do decided to intervene Saturday by drilling into my skull to insert a drain that would relieve pressure on my brain.  This, I now realize, is what you call brain surgery.

On Sunday, with me still not stable, my breathing labored, my oxygen saturation levels still low, Dr. Do decided to intervene again by re-intubating and re-catheterizing me.  As sick as I was, I fought the decision hard.  But Roberta trusted Dr. Do; I trusted Roberta.  In the end, I went back on a breathing tube.  

On Tuesday the tube came out; that was a relief, but I remained very ill.  What got me through what were terribly dark and uncertain days was the accumulated compassion and competence of the entire – yes, I mean entire – hospital team.  Not just the doctors, who often are the high-profile, thank-you-for-saving-my-life performers, but the nurses and others, who every day quietly go about the mission of keeping patients stable, hopeful, and alive.

I just wish I could summon all of their names, but remember ICU nurse Janie Salinger, who was an immense source of support and steadiness when I was at my worst and Roberta was on her own.  There was Steve, Virginia, Jalena, Lisa, Lori, Keaton, Devin, Mary, Josh, Janet, Judy, Esther, Erin, Rob, Michaela, and Jenna, who each, in their own way, were remarkably steady and capable when I was wobbly and disoriented.  There were literally scores of others who will remain anonymous and beyond the reach of my memory, who made sure I was as well as I could possibly be at a time when my future was anything but assured.

I spent 12 days in the ICU, transitioned to a traditional room for two days before arriving in Acute Rehabilitative Care, where I spent the last week slowly recovering.

Survival belongs to love.

Roberta was on her own for the first two days I was in hospital; they were beyond hard.  The difference maker?  Roberta’s sister Tracy, who flew in from Boston.

Tracy is exactly the sibling you want to have in times of crisis:  always present, always helpful, never someone you need to be concerned with.  She was an extraordinarily calming presence in a roiling sea of uncertainty, where things could quickly come apart.

But it is Roberta herself for whom I reserve the greatest degree of admiration and awe. Without her, I would not be writing you now.  If Roberta’s love were a shield, I would live forever.

What all of this means.

I was released from hospital last Friday, three weeks to the day since I was first admitted to the ICU, and am now on the mend. If you’re simply curious about what happened to me these past three weeks, you can call it a day.  

But you might just as easily say, “We’re sorry you got sick, Robert, but what the hell does any of this have to do with client service?”

When I think of serving clients, I can’t help but think about those nurses who cared for me, day-after-never-ending-day.  It’s not just about their technical competence, which they demonstrated in great abundance.  It’s about their consistency, their compassion, their unwavering support of and commitment to the welfare and best interests of their patients.

If client service people brought the same level of dedication to serving clients as my nurses brought to serving me, there would be far fewer agency reviews and far fewer account shifts, both outcomes of an ever deepening level of trust.

My hospital stay taught me something simple, yet profound.  The lesson? Going forward, I am going to take my cues from my nurses, secure in the knowledge this is what will best serve the needs of my clients.

[adventuresinclientservice]

A "good news/bad news" disclosure about LinkedIn.

I take it as a sign when The New Yorker – the best edited magazine in the world – serves as validation you’ve arrived by including a mention in an article.  Here it is, in a recent edition, in a story entitled “Some personal news:”

“No literary form captures the pathologies of contemporary American work quite like the humble—honored, grateful, blessed—LinkedIn post.”

That’s the good news, although the word “pathologies” serves notice for the bad news that immediately follows:

“In the right light, the social network for professionals is a lavish psychoanalytic corpus, bursting with naked ambition, inspiration, desperation, status-seeking, spiritual yearning, brownnosing, name-dropping, corporate shilling, and self-promotion.”

Desperation?  Brownnosing?  Self-promotion?  Half-buried in the line are labels that struck me not as praise, but instead as indictment.  The story admittedly isn’t about LinkedIn; its subject is the rise of the entrepreneurial work ethic, but no matter.  The line stands, stark, dark, and disturbing.

LinkedIn was founded in 2003; I joined in 2005; according to the classic “adoption of innovation” curve, I was too late to be considered “an innovator,” but I certainly qualified as “an early adopter.”  I signed up relatively soon after its formation because I was drawn to the notion of building an online community of like-minded advertising and marketing travelers interested in forging enduring, trust-based relationships with colleagues, and, most importantly, clients.

For the most part the early LinkedIn worked as intended; I connected with people all over the country – Toni O’Berry, Ken Ohlemeyer, Michael Vancza, Darren Johnson, many others – with whom I forged meaningful connections.  This extended internationally, with my meeting Sofia Sourtzi, Diana Flutur, and several more.  In some cases, workshop opportunities emerged; in others, speaking engagements were proffered. 

The invitations never required shameless schilling for gigs; people read my blog or found me via my book, did some research, and reached out.

In the 20 years since, however, LinkedIn has gone off its proverbial rails.  Despite the honorable efforts of LinkedIn experts like Mandy McEwen, who continually preach practicing a restrained, thoughtful, tailored and individualized approach to prospective clients, the junk emailers have wrested control of the platform from wiser, more reasonable and sane voices.

The result:  instead of forging meaningful exchanges with people, I now find myself carpet-bombed by poorly written, unsolicited overtures that are equivalent to the daily garbage that overwhelmed my mailbox with junk.  I know better than most what this sounds and looks like, given I was born and raised as a 20th-century direct marketer who sees this crap for what it is. 

What was once a community now has devolved into something perverted, validating those well-deserved judgments -- “desperation, brownnosing, name-dropping, self-promotion” – levied by the story’s author.

Things have become so dire, with LinkedIn more abused than used properly, I am all but ready to exit the platform, much as I did when the neo-Nazi Elon Musk acquired Twitter, and renaming and subjugating it to his particular brand of wing-nut venom.  The moment that happened I was gone; not a day goes by where I miss it.

What gives me pause this time around are the noble intentions of many of my readers, who know better than to become part of the mindless horde of junk- email Zombies hellbent on eviscerating what LinkedIn is meant to be. 

I’m not sure who said, “There is no bad publicity” – some people attribute the line to PT Barnum -- but the reality is, sometimes there is.  If you pay close enough attention, you see The New Yorker as its messenger and avenging angel fighting a battle already lost.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Why everyone needs someone who won't give up on them

Some (many maybe?) of my readers know I love police procedurals, with me having written about them years ago.  What most of these shows have in common is a brilliant detective-protagonist with a deeply flawed personal life, usually plagued by addiction, depression, a fractured home life, or a combination thereof.  The television show The Chelsea Detective is true to form, where we meet Detective Inspector Max Arnold, played by the actor Adrian Scarborough.

Arnold is surely an oddity, the antithesis of the stereotypical, modern-day policeman.  For starters, you quickly see he is anything but tough.  His primary mode of transportation is his bike, which he uses to pedal himself, helmet on head, to and from police headquarters.  He lives alone on a houseboat, recently having been estranged from his wife Astrid.

Searching for a way to better describe him, I encountered the perfect summation from Astrid, who Max observes meeting a possible new love interest:

Astrid:  “For the record, Patrick and I are not dating. He was interested in my [art] gallery. I told him it was not for sale.”

Max:   “Take away his money, his good looks, and his charm. What are you left with?

Astrid:  “You.”

Astrid’s mildly humorous, droll (but still affectionate) description is apt:  Max is a man of undistinguished looks, a wanting sense of fashion, and a middling bank account.

Apt, but incomplete:  a look beyond the obvious reveals not just a troubled soul, but a deeply observant, thoughtful, and wickedly smart, dedicated and dogged detective accustomed to unraveling perplexing, seemingly unsolvable murder cases.

How did someone so flawed become so gifted at police work?  Here’s one possible contributing factor, spoken by Max himself, about when he was younger:

“Well, my dad realized there was another reason why I was struggling with schoolwork. I mean, it was hardly ever talked about then, dyslexia, so his solution was to do all my reading for me, which was really annoying. Textbooks, homework, a chapter of a book every night. And half the time, when he was reading, I'd get impatient, struggling to follow the story, the words whizzing by too fast to picture it right.

“But my old man, he persevered. The thing is, the words didn't matter. What mattered was his voice in my ear. Knowing that he hadn't given up on me.”

Those words, “He hadn’t given up on me,” stay with me.  It made me think of the people in my life who haven’t or didn’t give up on me either.  There are many:  teachers, mentors, bosses, professional colleagues, my wife Roberta.  But if I were to single out a single person, it would be my Dad.

I tangentially touched on this last year in a post, but neglected to mention a name. When I was a kid struggling in elementary school, it was clear I needed help.   Money was tight in those days – we were far from wealthy – but no matter:  my Dad paid for a tutor to work with me.  Cost didn’t matter; my getting better did.

The same thing happened again in high school with the same result:  another tutor enlisted to help me.

When I wrapped a car around a parking lot stanchion, denting it, instead of getting angry or assigning blame, my Dad simply said, “I need to do a better job of teaching you how to get around those things.”

As a senior in college, a semester from graduation, I suddenly reversed course, abandoning a lawyer’s career, announcing I wanted to go the grad school in English and become a college professor.  My Dad didn’t know what to think, but didn’t blink.  “Whatever you want Bobby.”

All of us need someone – a parent, partner, spouse, colleague, or friend -- who supports them, believes in them, and won’t give up on them.  That, for the most part, describes my Dad.  At every juncture in my professional career, he was a constant source of encouragement, always supportive, never judging. 

I don’t know if Max Arnold ever got to thank his Dad; I know I didn’t.

We didn’t have an easy relationship, my Dad and me; it often was contentious and full of conflict, in part because we were so much alike.  There was a turning point, however – I was in my 20s -- when we came to an understanding and made peace with one another.

At the far-too-young age of 64, my Dad was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma – kidney cancer – at the time a death sentence.  I was fortunate to be able to say goodbye, but I never thanked him for sticking with me, for persevering, for not giving up on me.  

If he still were here, I would gladly do so now.  If there is someone in your life who won’t give up on you, I suggest you do the same.

Many of you know my definition of “minor surgery:”  surgery happening to someone else.  Physicians rarely call what I am about to undergo “surgery,” preferring the more sanitized term “procedure.”  Regardless, come tomorrow I will be at St. Helena Hospital to undergo a procedure on my heart.  If all goes as planned, and hoped, I will be home Friday, and back in touch next week.  Have a good rest of the week!

[adventuresinclientservice]

Has human interaction become a luxury?

I remember the last time I conducted an in-person workshop:  at the behest of agency CEO and founder George Popstefanov, I flew to Ft. Worth, Texas to meet with his colleagues at the digital agency PMG.  It was April 24, 2019.

If I recall correctly, my day of discussions began with the first of two presentations, Five Ways to Build Trust with Client and Colleagues.  Those who know me knowI am a vociferous and all-in supporter of why meeting face-to-face, not as an option, but instead as essential, which explains why one of those “five ways” is called “Stand Up.”  It extolls all the reasons why meeting in-person is hugely important of building and sustaining trust-based relationships, not just with colleagues, but most especially with clients.  

Leading the workshops that day, what I did not foresee was the looming advent of the worldwide Covid pandemic, which had an ongoing, profound impact not just on what I did, but on what everyone did.  No longer would I be able to meet in-person with clients.

I suspect I know what you’re thinking:  with hundreds of people tragically and often needlessly dying worldwide, the inability to meet is, in retrospect, seemingly trivial.   I get it; you’re right.

Trivial though it might be, many of us still needed to continue conducting business.  If not in-person, then how?

I shared my resulting hand-wringing confusion, in a series of posts, starting with this one, and this one, and finally by this one.

If you’ve read the last of these posts, you see I made peace with Zoom as my video platform, beginning to conduct my workshops from my office desk.

I also found myself rewriting the “Stand Up” section of my Five Ways presentation, now acknowledging the necessity of video platforms, continuing to insist on the preferred primacy of in-person meetings, asking, rhetorically,

…knowing that they do.

I make this claim knowing many clients, beleaguered by too much to do and too little time in which to do it, insist on meeting remotely, even with agency people willing to travel across town or across the country to see them, reaffirming the importance of meeting face-to face:

That’s why I was stopped dead in my tracks when I read the headline of the New York Times story, “Human Interaction Is Now a Luxury Good.”  A luxury?  Seriously??  You must be kidding!

The story’s author was not referring to meeting people in-person; she’s primarily concerned about religious caregivers in hospital settings, but when she says, “technology has accelerated and replaced or bowdlerized a lot of low-stakes human interaction….” I’m thinking of tools like Zoom.  Aren’t these among the types of technology to which she’s referring?

From my Ammirati & Puris days I recall a point made when we crafted advertising for what many would consider a long outdated, old-fashioned product, Philips Milk of Magnesia:  we should not give in to the forces of commoditization, remembering, “There are no boring products; there is only boring advertising.”  The television spots crafted by copywriter Tom Nelson and his art-director partner Tod Seisser were witty, funny, wholly human, and anything but boring.

In a similar vein, just because your agency doesn’t think you have the time or is unwilling to spend the money, or just because your clients say they are too harried to meet, doesn’t mean you have to give in.

Can’t meet at the office?  Everyone takes a lunch break sometime; why not try to have it with your client, even if it’s just for 30 minutes, and even it’s in the company cafeteria.  The client eats lunch at his or her desk?  No problem; brown-bag it.

If lunch doesn’t work, suggest you meet before or after hours, for breakfast, dinner, or a beer.  You don’t have to talk business.  In fact, it’s better if you don’t.

Your clients still resisting?  Are they fans of a particular sport or kind of music, or are fans of a particular artist?  For heaven’s sake get tickets and ask them to join you!

Finally let’s answer the question that began this post:  has human interaction become a luxury?

It never will be that way for me, and it never should be that way for you.

[adventuresinclientservice]

What it means to turn 74.

Faced with advancing years in a business that does not want to hear of it, my  former Bronner Slosberg colleague and emeritus Executive Creative Director friend Mike Slosberg had a clever way to celebrate birthdays:  instead of admitting to an age, say instead you are celebrating the “X” anniversary of your 29th birthday, a time that was thought of as neither a detriment nor a liability.

You might think the music business, especially rock-and-roll, favors the young, much like advertising, with performers in their 20s.  But if this were true, can anyone explain how Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and the many other age-defiers who still run crack tours, still write amazing songs, and still play to sold-out houses and stadiums? 

Conceding there are a fair number of adults taking the rock-and roll stage, it’s got to be true that at least the people who support their tours, the so-called “roadies,” must be kids, given the endurance, stamina, and muscle needed to handle the physical demands of the job.

I assumed as much until I read The New York Times story, “These Roadies Help Stars Rock ’n’ Roll All right. They’re in Their 70s,” where the story’s author observes:

“Funny place, the music business — it devours the young and ignores the old. Or at least that’s how it may appear. Aside from a handful of entrenched executives and a circuit of legacy acts, employment opportunities in the industry for those of AARP age might seem slim. But there’s a fascinating exception: Many of the industry’s most respected and consistently employed roadies, instrument techs and live sound people are well into their 60s and even 70s.”

It turns out,

“Some of the live music industry’s most respected and consistently working roadies, instrument techs and sound people have been on the job for half a century.”

As one roadie put it:

“��I may be 74, but the funny thing is, there’s always someone older.  That’s because the more experience you have, the better shows you can get. When people have confidence and they trust you, that’s like one less thing that they have to cloud their brain. I know this guy will do the job, ’cause he’s done that same job for me 700 times before.’”

In my wildest dreams I never anticipated that rockers would be more enlightened about the knowledge, wisdom, and earned experience of veteran pros than the surprisingly backward and insular advertising business – a business ostensibly reputed to be open-minded and forward thinking -- but there you have it.  In the rock-and-roll business, performers understand experience counts.

When it comes to proclaiming the virtues of longevity, I count myself among the rockers, a recidivist who has written far too many times about the virtues of tenure, experience, and institutional memory, including, here, here, and here.  Lest you think (or maybe hope) otherwise, I intend to write about it as often as there is something to say about the subject, or at least until advertising wises up.

This is not just due to my recently celebrating the 45th anniversary of my 29th birthday; math reveals just how old I am chronologically – if addition gets the better of you, check the post’s headline for an answer -- but certainly not attitudinally.  I am of a certain age, but it has little to do with how I behave, think, and perform.

The rock-and-roll business, to its credit, gets it.

The tone-deaf advertising business does not, and, sadly, never will.

[adventuresinclientservice]

What do Account people do anyway?

If you happen to be among the (relatively) few people who has a copy of my first, self-published book, Brain Surgery Suits – I know my friends Rick English and Ken Ohlemeyer have copies -- I turn your attention to it’s dust jacket, where I answer a question Moms everywhere ask their Account management sons and daughters, “Dear, what, exactly, do you do?” with what was, at best, a pretty lame joke:  “Mom, I do lunch.”

So at a loss was I for a simple, clear explanation, in Chapter 35 of the second edition of Brain Surgery’s successor, The Art of Client Service, I refer to the movie, Wag the Dog, comparing the role of a movie producer to an Account person, both being mysterious and elusive, defying easy explanation.

Speaking of movie producers, I received a confirmation of sorts when I read the recent New York Times story, where the author addresses a question about producers posed by a reader -- “What did they do exactly?” -- by saying,

“You’re confused for good reason: Producers themselves have a hard time describing their job…. Producing is a complicated, underappreciated job.”

The author then takes a stab at a definition: 

"Producers shepherd films from inception to screen. They identify film ideas, sometimes by reading books or news articles, and work with writers to develop scripts. They woo directors. Some secure funding and help find the right leaders for various departments — casting, production design, wardrobe. Producers also oversee budgets, location scouting and scheduling. They consult on marketing campaigns once a film is complete."

The story concludes with a quote from an actual movie producer, Mynette Louie:

“We are not financiers, executives, managers, agents, etc. We are creatives who also happen to be good at leading, organizing, logistics, business and math.” “Please get it straight,” she concluded. “We’ve been doing this for well over 100 years.”

Got it?  Simple it is not.  The same is true for Account management.  In fact, a quick edit of Louie’s description yields a fairly respectable definition:

“Account people ARE advertising people.  We are not financiers, executives, managers, agents, etc. We are doers who also happen to be good at nurturing and facilitating, yet questioning while being supportive, plus performing a wide range of other tasks in the service of creating great advertising. “Please get it straight. “We’ve been doing this, like, forever.”

If you’re a copywriter, art director, or media planner/buyer, describing what you do is easy; if you’re an Account person, describing what you do is anything but, although many have tried. 

My former friend Krist Faulkner compares Account people with orchestra conductors, so varied and generalist are they in their responsibilities.   Colleague and client Tim Pantello asserts Account people, “Have to be the second best at everything,” knowing Account people have to be close to expert and capable in an amazing array of arenas.  I’ve likened Account people to medical general practitioners, overseeing patients’ overall well-being.

I also tend to resort to sports analogies, thinking Account people are like football linemen, largely invisible until they make a mistake, in which case they are called disproportionately to task.  In basketball, it’s the “glue guy or girl,” the person who doesn’t show up in the stats, but does countless things – setting screens, deflecting passes, diving for loose balls – that never show up in the box score.  In baseball it’s the utility player, someone efficient at playing numerous positions with skill and competence.

No wonder advertising Hall-of-fame member, agency co-founder, and legendary Creative Director/copywriter Martin Puris claims the job of "Account executive is the most difficult in the agency business,” a never-ending balancing act of client and colleague needs, wants, and concerns.

You could say everyone one of these attempts is exactly right.  It would be equally true if you said each one is terribly wrong.  That’s one reason I devoted a nearly 300-page book (trying) to explain what Account people do.

Is Account management complicated and underappreciated, a bit like being a movie producer?  You bet.  But if I’m compelled to constrict the description to a single sentence, I would opt for Martin’s: 

"Account executive is the most difficult in the agency business." 

Why?

Because it is.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Why you need to rehearse.

My momentary confusion about The New York Times story, “The Hack That Doctors Should Take From Pop Stars and Quarterbacks” – “What’s this all about?” -- ended as I read its first paragraph:

“Imagine a pro quarterback stepping onto the field without his coach running pregame drills or a pop star taking the stage without vocal warm-ups. In sports and music, such last-minute preparation is generally nonnegotiable. Coaches review and refine performance, address weaknesses and ensure readiness.”

This was advice about preparing to compete, or, to put this another way, about rehearsing to succeed.

The thing is, I hate rehearsing, so much so that on page 146 of The Art of Client Service, I point out:

“… many agency people hate rehearsing and will do anything to avoid it, no matter how much time is in the schedule.  They find rehearsing awkward, embarrassing, or even a little intimidating.   They have a point.  It can be harder to stand up in front of colleagues than in front of clients.”

It’s pretty obvious who I’m describing:  I am describing me.

At some point I came to my senses and realized rehearsing matters; athletes and artists recognize its importance before entering the playing field or heading to the stage.  The story’s authors – there actually are four -- suggest physicians do the same before they perform a procedure or operation, citing research that demonstrates, “Coaching inexperienced clinicians… significantly improved success rates.” 

The first agency at which I worked, Digitas, never rehearsed, with people claiming they didn’t have the time or inclination to do so, the result being most of them just winged it.  It meant those few who were good presenters succeeded, while far many more who weren’t flamed out. 

How did I deal with this? 

So terrified was I of failing, of embarrassing myself in front of clients, of colleagues and in particular my boss, agency founder Michael Bronner, I made a point of rehearsing on my own.  I wasn’t a great presenter – it never was a strong suit for me -- but at least I was a prepared one. 

My second agency, FCB, usually rehearsed for major new business presentations, but client presentations?  As they say in New Jersey – or better said, “New Joisy” -- fuhgeddaboudit.

At the third and by far very best agency at which I worked, Ammirati & Puris, rehearsal was a requirement, formally scheduled and often held several times  before a presentation.  We not only rehearsed, we were coached, by Tony Louw, a professional trainer. Did  coaching help, was it worth the money?  Mostly I would say “yes,” by making our performances sharper, shorter, and more focused.

But even as conscientious as Ammirati was, presentations to existing clients generally were overlooked, in retrospect a mistake, which explains Chapter 27 of The Art of Client Service is titled, “Client Presentations Are as Important as New Business Presentations.”   

Why?  Because they are.

The Times’ authors conclude the story by saying rehearsals,

“…sharpen focus, reduce errors and build confidence….   If coaches in sports and music can find time to fine-tune their teams and performers, surely the same is possible in medicine.”

Physicians are in the business of savings lives; agencies admittedly are in the business of winning or sustaining client business, important, but not a life-or-death matter (although I suppose there are those who would argue otherwise).

Enlightened agencies driven to succeed make rehearsing a requirement, not a suggestion or an option.  They know its absence often means a winning presentation becomes a loss.

If you can’t get others to rehearse, let alone invest in a coach or trainer to help, do what I did at Digitas; rehearse on your own.  Colleagues might not be ready to perform; you at least will not be one of them.

You want to get better at this business?

Find time to rehearse.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Of the 53 posts I wrote this past year, which one is the most helpful?

It is the early evening hours of December 31, and I am about to wrap up the day’s activities by selecting a blog topic for the first post of 2025.  I won’t issue the result until next week; Account weenie that I am, I already am at work on it.

I begin the process by reviewing the articles I’ve archived from The New York Times and other publications, knowing they often serve as sources of inspiration.  I find there is much to write about, but not much to say, given I lack an observation or insight – some form of value-add -- to supplement what’s already on the page.

At a loss for an idea worth posting – for me more common than not -- I turn to what I’ve already written in 2024.  I note last year’s commentary is negative  and critical– not the ideal way to start 2025 – with a fair amount that’s disposable and dismissible. 

I sort though the remaining possibilities, searching for anything positive, possibly helpful, maybe even hopeful, something worthy of the start of the New Year.

There are three posts I like, the first two of which are about music, each making a point about client service.

Although they’ve been making music for 40 years, I never heard of Cowboy Junkies until I stumbled on their cover of the Lou Reed song, “Sweet Jane.”  Ever since I have devoured whatever is available on YouTube.  My post, however, makes particular note about the creative process, expressed by singer/spokesperson Margo Timmins when she was interviewed as part of the television program A Beautiful Noise.  If you’re curious, you can read the original post here.

Unlike Cowboy Junkies, I have been following Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band he formed more than 50 years ago, and am very familiar with many of his hit songs.  So when the documentary film Road Diary was released last year, chronicling the band’s 2024 tour, I made a point to watch.

What spoke to me is Springsteen and his band serving as testament to loyalty, longevity, and live performance; I��ve written before about the impossible-to- replicate virtues of wisdom earned through experience, the spirit of which is captured and fully embodied by the band, prompting me to write about it.  If you’re curious, you can read the post here. 

If I were compelled to select a single item from last year, however, I would opt for something that provide help directly, something useful not just to agencies but also to clients, which explains why if you have time to read just one post from the year that was, I would suggest it be this one.

Relatively speaking, “Five simple, obvious keys for clients wanting the best possible performance from their advertising and marketing agencies”  is what I think is the most helpful among last year’s post.  Looking at this another way -- the absolute way instead of the relative way -- is it truly of value?

I suspect even if agencies agree with what’s in the post, they will claim there is little they can do to influence their clients’ compliance.  As for clients, most will reject my suggestions out-of-hand, saying they don’t speak to the realities of dealing with agencies day-to-day.  They fail the usefulness test.

As I think back on what I’ve written previously and forward to what I hope to write, I realize that advice directed at clients and their agencies, no matter how well meaning, is not constructive.

I conclude counsel given to institutions is of little help; heading into the new year, I will do my best to offer help to individuals a post like this one, for example -- in the hope my readers can derive some  benefit from it.

[adventuresinclientservice]

This holiday season, what does a Buddhist, a basketball coach, and a movie director remind us about client service?

Marco Werman’s daily NPP show is a sporadic listen; I tune in when I travel by car.  Today I caught a snippet of his segment on the world’s “sacred spaces,” paying close attention to the words of Karma Lekshe Tsomo, a Buddhist nun who grew up surfing in Malibu, California and today is Professor Emerita of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Diego.

Werman’s Wikipedia page says he’s a surfer, so it’s not entirely surprising he sought a Buddhist’s perspective on surfing as a sacred space.  Her words were devoted mostly to spiritual matters, but there came a point where she says:

“All happiness depends on serving others; all misery derives from thinking of oneself.”

Listening to that quote, I am reminded of a dinner I had, years ago, with legendary, hall-of-fame basketball coach John Wooden, where he said something along the lines of, “Avoid the highs and lows in life,” which now is enshrined as part of his most quotable quotes:

“All of life is peaks and valleys. Don’t let the peaks get too high and the valleys too low.”

And then, in reading a New Yorker Profile of filmmaker Brady Corbet, I saw his point that a movie director’s ultimate responsibility is to the finished work of art, one that, “requires a truly obsessive level of devotion.”

As December draws to a close, it is a time for reflection, which prompts me to ask, what do you do when it’s tempting to think of yourself first?  What do you do when you become enthralled by what most often are fleeting moments of success, or worse, when you face an agonizing moment of failure that prompts despair?  Or what do you do when you react with indifference when clients and colleagues seek answers from you?

You didn’t ask for my advice and I am loathe to provide it unsolicited, so let me share what I would do when faced with one of these challenges:

To combat the instinct is to be selfish, I would recall the words spoken by Karma Leksho Tsomo.

To combat an extreme response to good news for bad, I would recall the  words spoken by John Wooden.

To combat losing focus, I would recall the words spoken by Brady Corbet.

What ties together these three seemingly random quotes from people who are not anyone’s first choice of authority?  For me, it’s the need for perspective. 

As you look back on the year that was and forward to the year that will be, here is a piece of advice I do want to share:  regardless of how you’re feeling in the moment -- self-centered, elated, discouraged, unfocused -- remember it is that:  a moment, nothing more. 

A moment that rightly should be leavened, and diminished, by perspective, one that help you right the ship and sail on to 2025.

I wish all of you a happy, healthy, and successful New Year!

[adventuresinclientservice]

From the longest of a (really) long sales funnel, a lesson in patience.

I recall receiving an email from PMG agency’s founder and CEO, George Popstefanov, asking about the possibility of my doing workshops for his team.  I wrote back, an exchange of emails ensued, leading to a letter of proposal.  Soon after I was on my way to Ft. Worth, Texas to conduct a day of back-to-back sessions.

Time elapsed from first contact to my boarding a plane:  a relatively fast two months, which in retrospect strikes me as fairly efficient.

The same was pretty much true when Ted Johnson, President and CEO of Hadley Exhibits, reached out; we exchanged emails, leading to my trip to Buffalo to conduct a day of workshops.   Time elapsed from initial email to visit:  about two months, again pretty darn fast.

I get a fair number of overtures like these; most are not nearly as serious as George’s and Ted’s.  The majority are from window shoppers, or people wanting to know how much I charge, or fulfilling a request from one of their superiors. 

Even with these most unlikely of asks, I dutifully respond, knowing most will find their way to the dustbin of, “I’m not really interested,” to “I really have no money for this,” to, “I really don’t have the time to orchestrate this, and my team is too busy to attend anyway.”

In October, however, I received this:

“We are seeking to facilitate a training session for our Account teams and I was intrigued to inquire if this is a service you offer around your book the Art of Client Service and the fundamentals of client service. “I am excited to hear back from you soon.”

I wrote back; again there was an exchange of emails.  Soon thereafter, I conducted a post-Covid Zoom workshop for a group of about 50 agency people, all of whom presumably were interested in getting better at client service.  From inception to session completion took roughly seven weeks, by my standards amazingly fast.

Except, as I later discovered, it was anything but.

As I was establishing new folders for this soon-to-be-workshop-client, I discovered I already had done so, from the very same client, from more than eight years prior.  The person who made the initial contact is no longer with the firm, but the founder/CEO remains.  He apparently was behind the first contact in 2016, decided to not move forward, only to return to this a month ago.

If I hadn’t been the dutiful Account weenie keeping meticulous records, I never would have recalled the events of recent but appropriately disposable history.  Neither, I suspect, did the CEO or the person he empowered to oversee the session I conducted, given both failed to make even a passing reference to it.

I had forgotten, and so, presumably, had they.

There are times when things come together very quickly.  There are times that never come together.  And there are times like this most recent one, where  years elapse, with someone given up for lost suddenly materializes, as if by miracle.

The next time someone approaches you with an inquiry and you know it’s as perishable as spoiled milk, stop and think before you say “No, I won’t.”  An overture might take weeks, or months, a year, on more than eight years to develop, but sometimes the longest of long-term prospects in the longest sales funnel decide “Now is the time.”  You will be glad you did the work you did, even when it seemed pointless.

If there’s a message to extract from this story, it’s this:  patience (sometimes) is its own reward.  This certainly is the lesson here, a perfect, true story for this time of year, where gratitude should be a prevailing sentiment.

If you have traveled this this holiday season or planning to do so, have great ones and travel safe!

[adventuresinclientservice]

For those who ever faced a seemingly insurmountable challenge: a story of defeat, recovery, and redemption.

Last week’s post had a two-word headline; this week’s headline seemingly is in open rebellion to brevity; apologies, but I wrote it this way for good reason.

About a month ago I wrote about my former Digitas colleague and current friend, Betsy Pinkus, which led to a series of reminiscences from our early days at the agency.  In one exchange I recounted when client AT&T asked (insisted?) I be removed from its account.  It was a dreadful moment, given I not only was replaced by a competent and more experienced new staffer, Andi Mayer, but also was exiled from my office and cast into a cubicle, plus had to relinquish Betsy as my very capable assistant.

Betsy remembered this, but differently:  “I thought you were promoted when they replaced you!”

So whose memory is more accurate, Betsy’s or mine? 

Both of us, it turns out.  I’m telling the story in the hopes some of you will derive benefit from it, especially if you ever faced a situation similar to mine, where coming back from a seeming death sentence appeared to be well-nigh impossible.

A humiliating defeat:

To take all of you back a bit, I relocated from Washington, DC to Boston to join what was then a largely unknown shop called Eastern Exclusives that later  became Digitas.  I was to work on an account code-named “Keystone,” not knowing until I joined that Keystone was AT&T.  It was my first agency job.

The client lead, J.D. Chappel, was not an easy person; my own inexperience compounded what was the unmitigated disdain he and his colleagues displayed in every meeting and call in which I participated.

I never actually confirmed this as fact, but after six months or so, either Chappel insisted on a change, Michael Bronner realized he needed to make one, or maybe a combination of both occurred; I would be removed from the account.

I had failed, with failure usually leading to termination; for reasons to this day I cannot explain, Michael decided instead to replace me, not fire me.  

Even so, of all of life’s professional humiliations, this was among the worst.   Every day I would walk into the agency, see Andi in what used to be my office, working with Betsy and the staff that once reported to me.

It was daily reminder of how poorly I had performed; anyone in the right mind would quit.

I chose to stay.

A slow, by no means assured recovery:

Out of this wreckage, Michael did his best to salvage something for me:  he assigned me a handful of small accounts – Digital Equipment Corporation, Bolt Beranek and Newman, Philips Test and Measurement – plus told me I would help with new business.

I didn’t sulk and didn’t let people see the magnitude of what was an embarrassing setback; I put my head down and got to work, this time even harder than before.

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months; slowly, incrementally, almost imperceptibly, I learned how to do my job properly, interacting more effectively with clients, screwing up then correcting my many mistakes, figuring out how to write a decent presentation, an effective letter of proposal, or anything else we needed to support clients.

At last, redemption:

At some point in my first year or possibly early in my second (it was a long time ago), the person who oversaw the American Express account, Stacey Silverbush, announced she was leaving.  Michael needed a replacement.

I was the replacement.  A door had opened.

Not aware of my past failure with AT&T, American Express was much more accessible and welcoming, while I proved to be more capable, with a growing  confidence that I could, in fact, not only meet client and colleague expectations, but exceed them.  

My new responsibilities as account lead prompted Michael to rescue me from my cube.  I relocated to the top floor office, not far from the founder’s.  Betsy recalls the move came with a promotion to Vice President.  She might be right; I was promoted, I just don’t know when.  Later I was elevated again, this time to Senior Vice President and one of two Associate Partners, but would remain in my new office until I left, years later, graduating to run Foote Cone & Belding’s west coast direct marketing agency. 

Faced with my departure to San Francisco, I was offered the opportunity to open and oversee the agency’s soon-to-be-formed New York office with my Creative partner at the time, Christine Bastoni.   Having committed to FCB, looking forward to working for an agency just named Advertising Age’s Agency of the Year, I turned down the offer; still, it felt like a validation of sorts. 

I had made my way all the way back from that early, now-distant disaster.

Why this matters:

If you ever have or are currently facing what appears to be an insurmountable challenge, you might take heart from this story.  Sometimes it pays to leave.  You’ll know if it’s time.

And sometimes it pays to stay. 

I knew what time it was.