adventuresinclientservice

[adventuresinclientservice]

"I grow old... I grow old... I'll shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled."

This is deeply personal -- if you find it inappropriate, feel free to skip it -- but what follows was prompted, in part, by a story I read in The New York Times, “Where Have All My Deep Male Friendships Gone?”  In it the author admits,

“Eventually my loneliness started to eat into my confidence as a writer, and this made me even more reluctant to see my friends. How, I wondered, could they possibly relate to my boring creative problems? I thought about going to therapy, but I’d done plenty of that in the past, and I didn’t have the time, money or interest to go back. I was seriously struggling, and my writing came to a standstill. I started to see myself as an unemployed washout…”

About a month ago I awoke suddenly at 3:00 am, saying to myself:

“I have lost my sense of purpose, and I have no friends.”

I lie awake for two hours before falling back into troubled sleep.

That evening, I share what I’m going through with Roberta, who suggests I find a therapist with whom to speak, offering to research candidates.

Roberta quickly identified a therapist she thinks might be helpful.  I have sought such help twice before – the first when my second marriage imploded in anger and acrimony, the second when I had a crisis of confidence -- so I schedule the first of what has become the first of several conversations.

The conversations are clarifying, in that conversations always are helpful, especially the ones on loss-of-purpose.  I explain to the therapist I haven’t conducted a workshop since late last year.  As for speeches, my last one occurred more than 18 months ago, in Bucharest, at the International Advertising Association’s annual conference, held in the all-too-grand, palatial Romanian National Opera House, before a crowd of 1,000 people.  

A realist, even then I recognized that it might be my farewell time on stage.  If it was, it was a memorable way to say goodbye.

Mike Slosberg taught me something about maintaining purpose:   long after he retired from advertising, Mike continued to write novels.  I will follow his lead and do something similar:  absent workshops and speaking engagements, not one person contacts me to inquire or ask for a proposal -- I write a new book. 

It is called Why Client Service is an Art, a complement to my current book.  I now am writing the required proposal that, if all goes as planned, will confirm I still have an agent (it has been 10 years since he last represented me) who ideally will land a publisher.  Finding a publisher means a host of other activities that will keep me productive, a possible solution to the loss-of- purpose problem.

The matter of friendship is thornier.  I’m an introvert at heart, not by nature a joiner of groups; my few remaining friends from my younger days – Jerry Cooper, Judge Jane, Jodi Greenblatt, Rick Johnson, Jack Carey, my cousin Marsha, my sister-in-law Tracy – live on the opposite coast, many occupied by adult children.   Lunch or coffee just to talk isn’t an option.

I am “friendly” with scores of people, but if I’m honest, I know these are not close to being close friends.  I am not alone; according to a Survey Center study quoted in the Times story,

“17 percent of men have zero close friends, more than a fivefold increase since 1990.”

I feel better, but only just.  I then recall the words of a famous rock band, “I still have not found what I’m looking for.” (My pen pal Ken Ohlemeyer likely knows its provenance; for the rest of you, it’s U2.)

Some of my despair simply might be a function of age:  next year I will turn 75.   For many, it’s well past the time to retire.  I am not the retiring type.

Getting old sucks.  I remind myself of the alternative, feel better still, and vow to keep searching for an answer to having no close friends.  You are welcome to help, if you are so inclined.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Why Judgment matters, more now than ever before.

There was a story in The New York Times a couple of weeks ago, written by Philip Corbett, who announced his retirement as Standards editor, having served at the paper from more than 35 years.

Corbett points out,

“People think there’s a hard-and-fast rule for everything. Many readers, and even many colleagues, seem to imagine that the job of a Standards editor is to know all the rules and make sure they are followed.”

I wish this were true, but it’s not; Corbett goes on to say,

“If only it were so clear-cut. In fact, Standards editors spend a lot of time helping colleagues navigate the gray areas, the competing goals, the close calls.”

He concludes,

“In making those calls, we start with our bedrock commitment to accuracy, fairness, independence and integrity. We consult our guidelines and review previous examples. We think about what our readers need and expect from The Times. We talk and Slack and email and compare possible approaches, and make our best judgment.”

More than 25 years ago, in my first book, Brain Surgery for Suits, Chapter 20 has a title, “Judgment Overrides Any Rule.” In the first and second editions of The Art of Client Service, the same title appears as Chapter 34; in the third, current edition, it appears as Chapter 37.

The chapter’s content has changed little, ending with,

“This is a book of rules, but an account executive 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.”

Brain Surgery for Suits includes 56 such rules; in the first edition of The Art of Client Service the number reduces to 54, then increases to 58 in the second edition before returning to 52 in the current, third edition.  The new book I just completed, Why Client Service is an Art, distills the number to a more manageable and pragmatic five.

No matter the number, large or small, there is no compilation that could possibly embrace every circumstance, challenge, or opportunity that you simply could consult for guidance.  When faced with one of those, “there is no rule” situations – the “gray areas” of which Corbett speaks – how should you, as a client service person, respond?

There is of course no rule to which I can refer you, but I can at least offer four suggestions on how you might sharpen your powers of judgment, strengthening your skill at arriving at the “right” decision:

Learn from your mistakes.  On page 174 of The Art of Client Service I point out,

“the account people with the best judgment are the ones who made mistakes and learned from them.  Their good judgment comes in part from previous bad judgment.”

There is a well-known proverb that goes, "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."  All of us screw up.  The best Account people do not make the same or a similar mistake twice.

Observe others.  Chapter 36 of the latest edition is called, “We Are Smarter Together Than We Are Alone” for a reason.  If there are people in your agency whose judgment you would emulate, watch them and learn from them, adopting their good judgment as your own.

Seek help.  There is value in collective wisdom, so do not hesitate to ask for the perspective of colleagues you respect, keeping in mind that, in the end, the final decision on how to proceed is yours and yours alone.

Think of time as a teacher.  This is all too obvious even to state, but starting out, if I knew then what I know now, many of the thorny situations I found myself in would have been addressed in a different, more appropriate, and less stressful way.  The point:  there is no substitute for wisdom; developing it takes time, so give it the time it needs.

If you want to know why long-tenured people like Philip Corbett are indispensable to The New York Times, and why veteran, knowledgeable Account people are indispensable to agencies of all types, sizes, and geographies, and why they never will be replaced by large-language-model A.I., this why. 

Rest assured things will continue to evolve and change in advertising and marketing agencies; the need for capable Account people won’t.  If you are not yet one of these highly effective, frequently sought-after people – sadly increasingly rare these days, given their decimation by agency holding companies ready to sacrifice them to the bottom line --  your goal, in spite of the obstacles before you, should be to become one.

[adventuresinclientservice]

How to work with clients whose beliefs you do not share.

This will come as no surprise to those of you who are regular Adventures readers:  I’m about to cite David Brooks in yet another post, as I did last week, and I’ve done many, many times before.  When you read a headline, “Can We Please Stop Lying About Obama?” from an avowed conservative –Brooks is a Republican in the traditional sense of the word, thankfully not the disfigured, deformed, and perverted MAGA version – you will see why it attracted my notice.

I’ve written before about how Brooks has disavowed, deconstructed, and then demolished what’s wrong with the deeply damaged Republican party, but here, in the process of correcting the record as it relates to former President Obama’s record during his eight-year tenure in office, he makes one key point:

Many progressive Democrats imagine they can win back working-class votes with economic populism — by bashing the oligarchy and embracing industrial policy — but that’s a mirage. Joe Biden shoveled large amounts of money to working-class voters in red states, and it did him no electoral good. That’s because you can’t solve with dollars a problem that is fundamentally about values and respect.

Putting politics aside for the moment, Brooks has made a larger point, one I agree with, especially when interacting with clients.

I always was careful to avoid any discussion on politics, figuring this only would complicate matters when my remit was to represent their interests to the best of my ability, regardless of their views or beliefs, but I discovered a couple of instances where religion became an inadvertent topic of discussion. 

I recall asking one client where she learned to speak Spanish so fluently; she explained she was the daughter of missionaries, learning Spanish when she was living in a poor community in South America.  It later became clear she was a seriously practicing Evangelical Christian.  Another client, having been raised as a Mennonite, explained the challenges she faced, making her different from virtually all of her colleagues.

I’m Jewish, not so much religiously as culturally, proud of my faith.  Would this prove to be a barrier with either of these clients?

Not at all.  If my clients were to ask me about being Jewish, I would willingly explain why, but this never came up in conversation, most likely because my clients understood and respected my values, much as I did theirs.

Over time, both of these client relationships grew into something approaching friendship based on trust and mutual respect.   If asked, I would explain I am prone to listening to others, not sitting in judgement of them.  Your religious views might differ from mine, but with few exceptions this in no way prevents me from respecting whatever path you’ve chosen.

I refrained from discussing politics with clients, but I suspect many of them hold political views far from mine.  I am fairly certain I worked for superiors who held views vastly more conservative than my own.  Again, this is about values, and respect for other people’s perspectives, which is why, on these matters, I kept my own counsel.

Even so, there were unspoken lines I would not cross:  I would refuse to work with clients who, for example, I knew worked for or with the NRA, or for the tobacco companies, or who was a religious extremist, because these would entail a compromise of my values, not an accommodation of them.

If you work with clients whose views, religious or political, are not ones you share, remember neither of these truly matter in the scheme of things, if what matters to you, above all, are values and respect, especially today, when these are in short supply, and people choose to forget them in the heat of anger and accusation.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Rejection does not mean defeat

A couple of weeks ago New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks wrote about being at Williams College, where a student he encountered there, “made a point that I’d never considered. ‘We are the most rejected generation,’ he said.”

Brooks goes on to say, “He’s right,” citing evidence of such, including admissions rates at universities, competition for student clubs and summer internships, interviewing for jobs, plus a host of other situations to prove his point, thoroughly documenting his rationale for each.  He supports this further by sharing some anecdotal exchanges with students who support the idea of being “the most rejected generation.”

If Brooks and I were seated next to one another at a dinner party (highly unlikely), I would make a point of sidestepping politics and religion – two subjects most people wisely avoid, plus I’d be completely overmatched and outclassed in any discussion with him on either --  given we are on opposite sides of the aisle when it comes to both.  After reading his piece on, “’We Are the Most Rejected Generation,’” I find myself again taking exception.

My reason:  Brooks never worked in advertising. 

I’ll make my case by beginning with the biggest of the big pictures:  I was an early prophet of the decline of the large, publicly traded, holding company-dominated advertising agencies, repeatedly posting about it, starting more than decade ago, then more recently here.

My comments were echoed by consultant Michael Farmer’s post, echoed by Tim Williams; sad as I am to say this, I frankly was way ahead of both of them when it came to what has become a sad prediction.    

The consequence?

The holding companies, in their relentless pursuit of profit and share price, try cutting their way to sustaining bottom-line growth.  People, especially those in higher-priced, more senior positions, get fired.

That’s the big picture but rejection doesn’t stop there; agencies become conditioned to it; every time they lose a new business pitch – page 22 of The Art of Client Service points out “There are no silver medals in the Olympics of new business” – or present a proposal, a strategy, or creative work (“We presented three options; the client rejected all of them”), they frequently see clients dismiss them, resulting in yet another do-over. 

Years ago, before I auditioned to be an advertising agency person, I oversaw a small, in-house marketing group that was part of the pioneering data and information publisher Congressional Information Service.  One of my colleagues was John Beil, who ran the sales team.  Beil was fond of saying his salespeople “thrive on rejection.”

Beil was a salesperson; he didn’t work in advertising.  David Brooks is a New York Times columnist; he doesn’t work in advertising, nor do the college students to whom he refers.  You work in advertising.  You know first-hand what rejection feels like.  At the extreme, you know first-hand what it is like to be a holding company casualty, with your job no more.

If there is any good news to what otherwise is a dark, dismal, and disappointing story, it’s that you thrive on rejection, and surely do not give into it.  You rise above it and carry on, in spite of obstacles and adversity. 

Do you survive it?  You do.  For you, rejection does not mean defeat.

[adventuresinclientservice]

What's better: buying my book, or borrowing one?

Among the many reasons I remain a dedicated daily reader of The New York Times isn’t just that it is a reliable, comprehensive, and trustworthy source of news, it also is because the paper pays attention to covering topics usually overlooked by other news outlets.  One of these is the Times’ well-edited “Obituary” section; another is its weekly The Ethicist column.  I am drawn to it more out of curiosity than anything else.

Many of the questions posed by readers are about “big” topics:  matters of faith, marital questions, borderline behavior, or other seemingly weighty issues.  Last week, however, there was a seemingly harmless query posed by a reader that I found noteworthy:

“Is it ethical to buy used books and music instead of new copies that will financially reward the author or artist? What do consumers owe to producers of art?” 

The cynical part of me wonders if the question is being posed by an author eager to sell more books, but regardless, I agree with the ethicist when he replies:

“Works that circulate widely can enhance the artist’s reputation, whether it’s a book read and passed along, a record rediscovered in a thrift shop or a painting resold at auction. Enthusiastic new audiences, prominent displays and word-of-mouth appreciation can all contribute to a creator’s stature.”

A couple of years ago I made a visit to the local Napa library, two copies of The Art of Client Service in hand, explaining to the acquisition librarian that I’d like to donate them, assuming they could find a place for them.  She graciously and gratefully accepted them, catalogued them, then found a home for them in the library’s business book section.

What prompted me to do this?  Was it altruism, or something else?    

If you’re a regular or even occasional reader of Adventures you might recall I am a big believer in the immeasurable, hard-to-quantify impact of word-of- mouth, having written about it here.

It explains why I give away copies.  It also explains why, on the book’s website, I’ve tried my best to provide all the information a prospective reader might need to make an informed purchasing decision, meaning, “Is it worth the money?”  If you visit the book’s Amazon page you can read what scores of other readers have to say about the book, some of it positive and affirming, some of it critical and condemning, nearly all of it in some way helpful.

Make no mistake, I am very grateful and deeply appreciative of those who buy the book, but – this is an opinion, not a fact – people who buy books with the best of intentions don’t always read them, let alone follow the counsel they offer. 

Those who borrow a book – from a colleague, or by checking the library to see if there is a copy – generally do so with serious intent.  For them the book is not an impulse purchase; instead, they’ve gone out of their way to get a copy, most likely because they want to read it and put it to use, not have it occupy space on a shelf.

So, that question again:  would I like you to buy the book?

Of course.  To me it’s an under-20-buck investment that pays dividends well beyond its cost.

Would I like you to find a copy to borrow?

Absolutely!  What matters most isn’t that you buy it, but rather that you actually read it, putting what you find helpful to use on behalf of your colleagues and clients.

But this is one person’s biased opinion, meaning mine, as author.

What really matters is yours:

Has the book been helpful to you, worth buying, borrowing, and sharing, or not?  Regardless, how can I make it better?

[adventuresinclientservice]

Five memorable lessons from Warren Buffett.

I mainly am a words person, the furthest thing from a savvy financial investor, but after watching  a couple of advisors Roberta and I retained -- U.S. Trust, then Merrill Lynch, and finally the boutique firm AFW – I finally concluded I could do better on my own when it came to investing.  If I failed, I’d only have one person to blame:  me. 

Following the first of several Warren Buffett’s suggestions to which I paid heed -- “our favorite holding period is forever” – I shifted our portfolio to Vanguard, where expenses are much lower than those offered by other institutions, did an assessment of risk (ours:  mostly adverse), made some decisions to diversify (substantially), then left matters as they are, revisiting them only when circumstances require, making my approach to holding periods mirror Buffett’s, meaning forever, or nearly so.    

This might work for investing, but when it comes to client service, applying the principle means understanding that your best new clients are your existing ones, which means nurturing them by building and sustaining relationships that help keep clients as clients, ideally forever.

Buffett retired last week; he left us with some sound advice that was reflected in a New York Times story, ones I do my best to apply to client service.

If the first thing is “our favorite holding period is forever” the second comes when Buffett is negotiating, where he is

“unyielding when it comes to the numbers. When he is involved, rounds of haggling over price are not in the cards; he is ready to walk away.”

The lesson:  when it comes to negotiating on an assignment fee, the only way to maintain a modicum of leverage is to be willing to say “No thanks” when something doesn’t fit financially.  In fact, on page 82 of The Art of Client Service I display a chart that helps navigate the degree of fee flexibility when it comes new business- or letter-of-proposal compensation discussions.

Am I willing to negotiate?  Always, but there are times when the client’s agenda and your own diverge.  That’s when you need the wherewithal to walk away.  I’ve done this when necessary, never regretting the decision I made. 

The third lesson is best described with a quote from “Byron Trott, who was a former Goldman Sachs deal maker:  ‘His ability to distill complexity into clarity, and to lead with humility and conviction, is unmatched.’”

There is a moment in one of my workshops when I share the PowerPoint slide  where I invoke Buffett’s words “clarity and conviction” recognizing these are key to communicating effectively with clients and colleagues.

The fourth lesson concerns honesty:  Buffett is willing to admit his mistakes; according to the Times story, one of them is his “passing up opportunities to invest early in technology giants like Amazon and Microsoft, whose businesses he said he didn’t understand at the time.”  I am with him on this, describing The Art of Client Service not as a book of success, but instead as a “book of failure,” even blogging about it here.

The fifth, final, and most important lesson from Buffett is best expressed by a quotation of his:

“Lose money for the firm, and I will be understanding; lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless.”

To this I say “amen.”

[adventuresinclientservice]

What an insurance broker teaches us about the value of proactive client service.

The other day I received this email about our insurance policy renewal:

“Hi Robert- I remarketed your renter’s policy, only because we just had one of our admitted carriers open up for renters, and I was hoping to get you a lower premium with the same coverage.  Please see attached. “This is an admitted carrier, currently you are with a non-admitted carrier which is why they can charge the state fee and have higher rates. First Cap/Aegis is admitted, I quoted the same limits but with a lower deductible and premium is $XXX. Once you review the quote let me know if you prefer to move forward with First Cap effective 5/8, and we will let your other policy non-renew.   “Thank you. Sarah Dill Account Executive”

Dill’s colleague had just emailed Roberta and me our annual renewal, which showed a significant reduction in our premium, surprising given we live in California where wildfires are a constant threat, driving insurance costs significantly up, not down.

Most insurance brokers would be happy with the lower-cost result and let it go at that.  Having been the surprised, happy recipients of the lower rate, we never would have thought to ask if the number could be reduced further.

I cannot recall another situation where unbeknownst to us, someone took the extra steps to advocate on our behalf, then deliver a result that cut our cost by more than half.

For most, buying insurance is a transaction, nothing more, largely driven by price.  But as I pointed out in a post last year, every relationship includes a transaction, and every transaction presents an opportunity to build relationship.  That opportunity sadly remains unfulfilled, as most transactors are more concerned with moving on to the next sale, treating customers as exactly that – customers – rather than as clients.

Sarah Dill has no idea what I do for a living, that I teach workshops, write weekly on client service and suggest how to do it better, and have authored a book on the subject.  Insurance is a galaxy away from advertising.  Yet she went to bat for us, treating our policy renewal less like a transaction and more in the service of relationship building. 

The result is, the next time we need to decide about insurance, we’ll think less about the product and more about the person with whom we’re dealing, that  person being Sarah Dill.  If you’re a client service person, how do you begin to place a value on this?

It doesn’t matter if advertising is your calling, or insurance, real estate, law, financial services, or one of a host of other categories in the business of interacting with clients, the lesson is:  don’t wait for them to ask; take the initiative beforehand and address a need before it becomes one.

Will your clients thank you for it?  Probably not, and they surely won’t post about it, but that’s not why you do it.  You do it because you believe in the hard-to-quantify, immeasurable power of relationship.

[adventuresinclientservice]

The power of visual thinking in a language-dominated landscape.

Not many of you will recall this – the exceptions might be Adventures’ readers of longstanding, like Rick English, Ken Ohlemeyer, Steve Bartholomew, Clayton Hove, several others I can’t quite summon from memory – but years ago I posted “Why I love police procedurals,” likening them to advertising and marketing in general and client service in particular.  Since then I’ve continued to search for other shows in the category, discovering a trio of programs I previously overlooked:  Murdoch Mysteries, Brokenwood Mysteries, and The Chelsea Detective.

It doesn’t matter if the series is set in the present day or the past, is situated in a big city or in a small town, or is the beneficiary of the latest in crime detection technology or not.  Among other similarities in what is admittedly a fairly formulaic approach, I noticed the three shows have this in common: 

As the detectives grapple with a seemingly unresolvable crime, they begin by affixing a photo of the victim to a whiteboard (or blackboard, if it’s a period piece), then building from there, adding clues as they collect them, scribbling notes and diagrams as they discuss the case, considering possible ways to identify the perpetrator.

The whiteboard is more than merely a repository; it serves as a catalyst in the truest (non-scientific) sense of word, facilitating thinking, prompting additional questions, debate and (sometimes) disagreement, leading to one or several hypotheses. 

Over time, the detectives visually connect the dots, looking for missing clues, sometimes viewing the situation from a different angle to solve a seemingly unsolvable puzzle. 

In an unexpected “connect the dots” moment of my own, thinking about police procedurals reminded me a John Fletcher.

As a strategy consultant, Fletcher was integral to the early success at Digitas, beginning his career at Boston Consulting Group, inventors of the now classic four-box grid, which he taught me to use, mostly by demonstrating its use in client presentations.

The grid’s original purpose was to depict market growth and market share, but I saw how Fletcher made use of its versatility, which prompted me, on page 82 of The Art of Client Service, to use the grid to depict an agency’s degree of willingness to pursue a new business opportunity. 

I re-purposed it again in a workshop I lead, shamelessly borrowing from Steven Covey’s best-selling book, The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, where I advised participants with a way to deal with the overwhelming, often chaotic demands of their jobs.

This prompted me to think of my friend Amy Hall, a strategist who works with attorneys to convert their arguments into persuasive visuals, giving jurors a way to “see,” better equipping them to understand, learn, retain, and care about the case the lawyers are advocating.

I recalled all the times when I abandoned a computer keyboard in favor of a pad and pen to scribble or sketch an idea I wanted to capture, or to work through a problem.  I thought of Ted Johnson, who called to ask, “Who makes the best Creative Director, a Copywriter or an Art Director?” to which I replied,

“I would say both.  What I’m really looking for is a Copywriter who thinks visually and an Art Director who thinks verbally.  The ability to straddle both disciplines is what really matters.  That, and the talent to make the work of others better.” 

I then summoned the people who fit the definition of being both:  Mike Slosberg, a writer by training, but a skilled cartoonist at heart; Christine Bastoni, a writer who doubles as a brilliant visual thinker; and, although I never worked with him, my Art Director Hall-of-Fame father-in-law, Bob Wilvers, who reverted to copywriter mode when he came up with the famed Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz line for Alka-Seltzer. 

And finally, I remembered the scores of focus groups I witnessed when the moderators ask people to draw a situation rather than describe it in words, knowing this was a means to uncover otherwise hidden perceptions and feelings.

My skill as an artist is vastly less than zero, but even so, I still can manage to draw a chart when it helps visualize a problem, depict a solution, or showcase an idea.

If you already are thinking in visual terms, you know how effective it can be.  If you aren’t and still are inclined to think verbally, the next time you’re in search of a solution to a problem or an idea to capitalize on an opportunity, suspend words for the moment and try approaching the idea visually.  It just might serve as the path to arrive at a solution that long eluded you.

[adventuresinclientservice]

How the passage of time can lead to a change of heart.

As I sat down to write this, my first thought was, “No one will read it.”  In truth, no one should read it, given it at best touches only tangentially on advertising.

Even so, knowing how important it is to celebrate those who departed to the big advertising agency in the sky, or to some other final destination – some were friends, a few were colleagues, others admittedly were complete strangers -- I remain committed to writing tributes.  Today’s subject is a case in point:  I did not know this person, but he was notably present at the memorial service for my father-in-law, and this is reason enough for memory and recognition.

My first impression of Rick Levine was far from favorable.

It was three weeks before Roberta and I were to be married; we were at the memorial service for the sad but not wholly unexpected passing of Roberta’s Dad, Art Director Hall-of-Fame member Bob Wilvers.

There were any number of kind, generous, and moving tributes and reminiscences of Bob given that day, none of which came as a surprise, given the room was crowded with a fair number of celebrated advertising pros, many of whom got their starts as copywriters.

Tributes done, the minister presiding over the service opened the floor to anyone who wanted to share a memory.

“Who is this guy??” I thought, as a person wholly unknown to me took the stage.

That guy was Rick Levine.

He was a bit too loud, a bit too assertive, and a bit too judgmental, or so I thought, as he stood before us not to remember Bob as the person who brought us together, but rather to point out that Wilvers’ second wife Francine was overlooked by the various tributes spoken in his memory. Levine acknowledged Francine with sharp-edged recognition and suffusive praise, creating what was more than an awkward moment for those assembled.

I didn’t bother to ask others who Levine was, mostly because I heard more than enough and admit being offended by his remarks, but decided to let the matter pass, knowing this day was not about confrontation, but rather was meant to celebrate Bob’s legacy.

The other day a memory previously exiled to the dustbin was resurrected when I stumbled on a story in The New York Times “Obituaries” section:

“Rick Levine, an award-winning television commercial director who brought a big-screen sensibility to the small screen with widely celebrated spots, including a Diet Pepsi Super Bowl ad from the 1980s featuring Michael J. Fox risking life and limb for love, died on March 11 at his home in Marina del Rey, Calif. He was 94.”

This was news, at least to me, and not just about his passing; it was news because I had no idea just how celebrated Levine is.  I suspect he worked with Francine when both were at famed agency Doyle Dane Bernbach.  He likely intersected with Bob when both did tours of duty at Wells Rich Greene.  If I were to guess, I imagine Levine might have directed commercials for Bob when he was Creative Director.

I’ve written about Francine before, as someone just short of prominent among the pioneering women in advertising, so we at least shared that opinion of her.  But what about that long ago reaction I had to Levine’s remarks?  

Time has a way of bringing a new perspective to old sensibilities.  Where I once thought there was overreach in Levine standing up for Francine – for me the day was devoted to Bob’s first wife Marilyn, mother to Roberta and sister Tracy -- I now take a different view:  he was right to speak on behalf of Francine, who also deserved recognition.

I certainly can’t speak for Roberta or Tracy and their feelings about the matter, but I can speak for myself: the passage of time often has a profound impact on a person’s point-of-view.  If there is any message in my change of heart, it’s offered in a simple piece of advice: 

The next time you’re ready to level an “already made up my mind” reaction to a colleague or client, opinion or attitude – especially these days when just about everyone is ready to react, or worse, over-react -- you might take a step back and withhold judgment, for a minute, an hour, a day, or as it was in my case, years.

Give it time.  The result might surprise you, as it did me here.

[adventuresinclientservice]

Is there a difference between authority and influence, and between influence and power?

The other evening, while en-route to pick up Indian food from a local joint Roberta and I like – as NYC refugees, we prefer carry-out to cooking -- I tuned into my local NPR station, expecting to hear a nightly interview with host Terry Gross.  NPR, however, chose to pre-empt its regular nightly program Fresh Air in favor of a “State of the (Silicon) Valley” live broadcast of David Brooks’ closing keynote address.

I only caught a sliver of Brooks’ remarks; wanting to hear them in their entirety, I found a podcast on YouTube.  I listened, then listened again; part wickedly funny – Brooks has a well-developed instinct for self-deprecating, deadpan humor – it was, not surprisingly, mostly illuminating and perceptive.  If you have 48 minutes to spare, you can give it a viewing here.

About 18 minutes into his remarks, Brooks begins sharing his post-election assessment of what’s amiss with the country’s current leadership (with a few key points in bold):

“What I’m about to say I don’t mean disrespectfully, but I’m just going to try to tell you what this moment looks like to me….

“I’ve known these people all my life.  They are not pro-conservative; they are anti-left .... These people who I watched grow up, they’re my age, they just wanted to tear down wherever the left was in control.  In my view one is a constructive vision and one is a destructive vision. It’s not really about ideology; it’s about attitudes towards power. 

“They see power like money; they want more of it and they want as much as they can, as unrestrained as they can, and so long as other people don’t have any power.  And so when I look at this administration I see mostly the amassing of power.  And when I look at the strategies day-by day, I see attacks on anything that might restrain power…

“And so what I see is a belief, a system, and a group of people who want power with a touch of Nihilism that destroys the belief systems they claim to stand for.

“And if you disagree with my philosophical critique of the Trump administration, I just ask you to consider that maybe these people are not actually good at what they’re doing.  So I just see incompetence.”

This is a small piece of what is a much larger set of observations about what ails our nation, so I urge you to watch Brooks’ entire presentation.

If you work as an agency Creative person – a copywriter or art director – or as a Planner, in production, or in media, you often walk in the door equipped with training, a portfolio (if you’re a Creative), and a defined skill set, with a clear path to leadership.  If you prove you have the necessary skill, knowledge, and experience, there’s a good chance you will emerge as one.

For client service people working in Account management, however, there is little or no agreement on skill set and no clear path to leadership.  Instead, it usually begins with establishing your credentials first as an authority, meaning being a person who has the knowledge, experience, and sufficient technical skill to make them a trusted, go-to resource for others. 

Using me as an example:  long before I became conversant with the needs, nuances, and demands of clients, I immersed myself in print production, typography, and layout design, equipping me to speak knowledgeably with the specialists in these areas.  I was mostly ignorant of media, research, and technology, so I attached myself to those experts so I could learn from them.

While I was becoming more capable in these areas, I slowly mastered the art of presentation preparation, emerging as the agency’s “deck swami,” the person you’d turn to whenever you needed presentation help.

Over time, my growing knowledge and expertise established me as an authoritative resource in the minds of colleagues.   Even more important, as I grew more capable, confident, and accomplished as a client service person, I slowly emerged as a person of influence.  People more senior than me, with more experience and bigger titles came to rely on me as someone to turn to whenever a problem arose, establishing me as my agency’s resident trouble-shooter and problem-solver.

Being an established authority respected by others led to growing influence that transcended rank, leading to more responsibilities and a leader’s job title that accompanied them.  Which brings me to the people currently in charge of our government.

As David Brooks puts it,

“these people are not actually good at what they’re doing.  So I just see incompetence.”   

They haven’t done the work or gained the experience necessary to establish themselves as authoritative, yet they often are supplanting people with vastly greater knowledge, experience, skill, and integrity.  They have influence with one person who values loyalty over competence, who obsessively threatens and bullies people in continuing fits of revenge driven by the naked abuse of power.  He has no concept of or interest in being a leader; he simply wants to dominate.

If you see an administration devolving into chaotic, turbulent disarray, you already know the all-too-obvious reason why.  Power doesn’t confer authority, and influence borne of fear doesn’t ensure competence.

[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.