Posts Tagged ‘small business’

Life in the Small Shop

Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011

I’ve been horrible blogger, posting nothing for some time. But far more important matters have had to come before this indulgence.

I lost my mother last September and am now in “charge” of caring for an almost 96 year old, and still quite sharp, grandmother. (She has stayed with me during the Blizzard of the Century and I now know that constant chatter DOES run in the family.)

My colleague (and BFF) just lost his mother at a very young 71 years. She was the kind of woman I can only hope to be.

In our Small Shop, indulgences are set aside to keep the plates spinning. We are just four people who all possess a particular set of skills, with an army of independent contractors at the ready. There isn’t another person or department to write the spot, shoot the video, design the ad, or file the paperwork. We are each an entrepreneur in our own right, depending on the skills of the other to make it all go. We need each other to survive.

Although I’ve never worked in a big agency, I imagine there may be a lot of time wasted stepping around big egos. Who has time for this? We have customers to steer through a clients door. There are clients who must be led, taught, scolded, loved, and tended to. Whether its in Hooterville or nationwide, is the objective really so different?

So blogging will take a back seat as real life whirls by. We must be accountable to one another because the business plan depends on it.

I’m the cute one on the right.

First one who speaks…

Thursday, November 18th, 2010

…loses.

For years, I have filled the silence with incessant chatter. (The psychology of why I’ve been an enthusiastic blabber mouth will come out in my memoir. If Tim Tebow can write one, so can I.)

When I got my first real job (selling air, aka Radio Sales) my boss told me: “Just shut up already. Ask your customer the question, then wait for an answer. The first one who talks, loses.”

Truer words were never spoken…no pun intended.

Listening is hard. Talking is easy. Listening is work. Especially when you listen to shit you have trouble understanding. (You, IT guy. I’m talkin’ about you.) But when you REEEAALLLY listen, it puts you in the power chair.

You’re thinking. They’re talking. You’re learning. They’re losing.

Being a better listener makes people like you because YOU are paying attention to THEM. Therefore, listening makes you popular and highly regarded. It means making better money, making better friends and in the end, making smarter choices.

Let us all shut up. Now.

Stop Clucking!

Hero, whore, somewhere in the middle

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010

You’re a hero at the end of the month and whore at the beginning.

A car sales guy once told me this.  You bust your ass to make your sales goals, celebrate on the 30th and on the 1st, start all over again.

But what about the middle?

The middle for me is usually quite manageable.

And I hate it.

Manageable means there’s time for a nice lunch with that sales rep I’ve been putting off. Time to clean out a file, tidy up my desk, be at the gym by 5:30.

When you’re in business for yourself, manageable means you’re not making any money. Frantic means you are. It’s hard to relax as you wait for the next “thing”, whatever it is, to happen. I’ve made all the calls, media is placed, billing is out, and creative projects are merely perking, not boiling over. (Not to mention the holidays are almost here. Billable hours slow to a freaking crawl.)

Making the most of the middle, this is my goal. Learning to take advantage of a little down time…without panic.

“Whore”. The term seems a little strong. Perhaps “Paid Escort”?

It’s only the 15th…work the phones!

Selling Stupid

Friday, November 12th, 2010

Over the last several months (hell, maybe years) the performance of those folks who sell local media time and space has become so inept, it’s like a bad sitcom. Imagine the fat, lazy Network TV girl who always asks “What are we running this month?” while she chomps her gum. The radio girl who quite openly uncrosses her legs in front of male clients, hoping to usurp any rational decision.  Then there’s the really obese Cable girl who takes a fiendish delight in pointing out a $2 error. But the really interesting douchebag of recent note is the newspaper salesguy. He’s all passive aggressive, refusing to accept the fact that being the agency means WE place the buy, not his designer pal in the clients office. “You’re not my client. They’re my client.” Really?  His emasculation is on the calendar.

I started by selling radio many years ago…before the FCC screwed the broadcast industry by allowing anyone a license to broadcast. My sales manager preached the problem-solving approach to selling a client. Is there any other way?

So, Dear Time-and-Space-Sales Guys/Gals: Don’t breeze into my office without an appointment.  Do NOT pitch me a 2 by 3 space on the Pet of the Month page. I do NOT want to buy 15 spots during School Safety Week. Do Not tell me EVERYONE listens to your pathetic little radio station.  And DO NOT ever, ever say to me, “You mean you don’t want to put your client in front of the 750 attendees of the Cooking School we’re hosting?”

Just because you’re in Hooterville doesn’t mean you have to sell like it.

6 1/2 weeks

Thursday, August 26th, 2010

We want the billboards back. They were such a good morale booster for our salespeople.

After 6 1/2 weeks of primarily television (with two different offers), peppered with some radio and gratuitous small town (weekly) newspaper ads, the client wants his billboards back in the media mix. At our meeting today, we discussed this.

I was taught that the first person who talks after the question is asked loses. So I asked “Why?” and kept my big mouth shut.

“Our sales people are on commission and they’re used to seeing us on billboards. It helps us boost morale, and it shows we’re “out there” with our advertising.”

OK.  What else? (Morale booster? Really?  Buy ‘em lunch-it’d be cheaper.)

“Well, they haven’t seen our TV commercials.  Sales are flat and it’s such a big change for them to not see our billboards.”

How are sales now compared to a year ago?

“About the same.”

It’s been 6 1/2 weeks since we were asked to place your media. If we could make a significant shift in that amount of time, given your product, budget and competitive set, we’d have the Budweiser account and I wouldn’t be sitting here fucking with you. (I didn’t really say that.)

“Well, maybe we didn’t explain it very well to them up front, about our shift to more television and no more billboards.”

Welcome to the mentality of small towns clients who allow their staff input in areas that are not remotely in their field of expertise, who think that their target audience is “everyone”,  and who expect instantaneous results.

This is a small, regional cellular service. They can’t offer the iPhone. Their coverage area is spotty. They offer too many plans and have a history of changing their message with no consistency every 60 days. When their new Marketing Director was hired recently, she asked us to present a plan and their old agency to do the same. (The budget was reduced, and rightfully so. They were spending a fortune.)  The old agency refuses to participate (WHY?), we present, we win the work, and the Big Cheese who wasn’t at the initial presentation-and should have been-comes back 6  1/2 weeks later and wonders where the billboards are. Huh?

Who is your customer? Why you and not one of the big cell carriers? Let’s secret shop your retail outlets and see just how good your “experts-at-everything” sales people really are. Let’s get the research you’ve commissioned (Thank God) in here to give a peek at what the regional market really thinks of you, and THEN plan accordingly.

It’s like you gave me one shoe, asked me to run the race and wondered why I didn’t win.

This is a LOT more than billboards. It’s a tangled mess of dysfunction. It’s gonna be interesting.

And you wonder why mommy drinks.

Making a call in Hooterville.

Rip it up…

Saturday, July 31st, 2010

We should do more of this.

Start a project, then rip it up and start again…and again…and again.

Until we get it just right.

Unfortunately, we don’t get too many chances to refine here in Hooterville. Time is a premium and this sort of self-indulgent activity isn’t subsidisied by small town clients. And it wouldn’t be appreciated. It’s not that the initial effort is “wrong”… it’s that creative development should be a process. There should be time to simmer, to let you understand and absorb what you’re making. Is it “just right”?  Is this going to make impact with the audience?  How can we write it, shoot it, design it that’s really different than what we did last time? And, once we get a potential customer motivated by the ad we do make, will the small town client not fuck it all up with crappy service or bad store hours?

I can only worry about what we can control. And everytime something goes out the door and on the air, I think of something we could have done better. Because every new day you look at what you’ve done, you see it in a brand new way.     If there was only time.

Via

Stupid Computers

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Computer problems. Everyone has ‘em. There has been, however, this large, gaping hole over us for the last month that is slowly sucking the creative life out of each of us. Very slowly. Eyes are glazing over, we visit the vending machine a little more often and we’re trying to stay positive.

As we near what we hope to Dear Sweet Jesus is the end, designer fired up his new, souped up, 27 inch iMAC. Camera Guy gets ALMOST all the video back from the Retrieval Dudes, who really work magic.  It’s kinda unbelieveable, really, what these guys do. They get paid handsomely, too…but what the hell?  It’s not all there, but most of it is, so let the re-editing begin. DAMN.

And me, I just want my Entourage email to work. Tomorrow, we’ll see just how well Microsoft Service folks perform. (Everyone is skeptical of Microsoft and warning me it will be painful.) Time really is money, and we’ve lost a bunch of it. At least there’s beer in the fridge.

Somebody get me a typewriter.

Agency Review-Hooterville Style

Sunday, June 6th, 2010

We have been given a chance to prove our other abilities with a pretty large regional client. They already took the production away from their ad firm (to call them an agency would be a pretty big stretch) and gave it to us. We’ve been able to impress them with far better creative. Now, their new Marketing Director wants to see how each of us would place media and why.  She’s giving us and the other “firm” the same assignment and will decide who gets it all.

This client is this “firms” biggest account. Told of the assignment, he got pissed off and told her he was not about to participate in this exercise. His good buddy is in Senior Management and a Country Club Pal. He’s had the account for awhile now, so why should he have to screw around with this?

Oh. My. God. Is he serious?

It is every clients right to ask the agency to justify their existence. And clients should. After so much time passes, complacency sets it. Client AND agency start to run on auto-pilot. Nothing exciting happens. Everyone needs a wake up call. “What exactly are you doing to earn your money?” ” Our Return on Investment is…”

So, even if the Good Old Boy Relationship trumps our frugal, targeted media methods, I’m still excited for the chance to bury this moron.

When business is good…

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

We have been busy. Very busy. Pitching new businesses who call us. Handling what we’ve got. So busy I haven’t had a chance to write a thing besides paying work.

“Busy” also comes with the price of the learning curve. We were on a three day shoot for a bio-tech firm from the West coast and equipment problems saved themselves for our last 2 hours. (Only with the exciting, big clients will shit like this happen.) Camera guy figured it out and saved the day. Phrases like “Data Retrieval” and “5 to 7 working days” make my blood pressure spike. Then….hard drive crashing on graphics system=quit screwing around and write the check….get that new iMAC in here NOW.

Why all this happens when business is good must mean the Ad God is looking out for us … testing our patience while cash flow is there to support it. This is how it goes in the small town agency.  We figure it out as we go along and make it right. At least we’re in control of or own destiny … we’re a team in the purest sense of the word.

I’m rolling clothes for the Harley trip that starts tomorrow. Everything will be fine when I get back.   In the meantime, I think I’ll order one of these.  I like it.

Via

Not too shabby…

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

The following commercial didn’t require a story board, long creative sessions, gobs of research, a big time director or producer, union electricians, best boys or girls, sound engineers, or  craft services. It took good listening, absence of ego, and a willingness to do whatever it takes to meet a deadline. Problem is, now the Camera Guy only wants to fly in corporate jets. Watch for it nationally on Swamp Loggers and Ax Men. Not bad for a small shop.