Ten Differentiators.

A good New York plumber knows more about
charging for its services than most ad agencies.

I'm going into my fifth year running GeorgeCo., LLC, a Delaware Company. I don't really have the entrepreneurial gene and never set out to run my own place, though people had been encouraging me to do so for about two decades. However, I liked being part of a big company. For all its ossification, I was hoping to end my days at Ogilvy--as a coach for young-people, a trouble-shooter and a pitch pusher.

As they say when pull out marble slabs in the Morgue, "that didn't work out."

A friend from Ogilvy, she's an ex-Ogilvy-er now, asked me just now how it's going. Here are ten things that make me wish this post-mortem happened earlier, like 20 years earlier.

At GeorgeCo., LLC, a Delaware Company:

1. I only work for people I like.

2. I charge like a consultant. Or a Park Avenue plumber. Because I am a business partner guiding company's business, not just a creative resource making ads for their business. Agencies have commoditized themselves. It's why virtually every commercial in virtually every category looks alike. Conversely, if you can help companies de-commoditize, that is, stand-out, your pricing can stand out.

3. I figured out what I do better than anyone (ok, most people). And I charge a lot for it because no one else can do it like I can.
 

4. I only work with people I like. And I've surrounded myself with people who are like Sabatini's Scaramouche. You know, born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is mad.

5. I only do work I like. And I don't go through 17-meetings to get there.

6. As agencies have become production based, I've built GeorgeCo., LLC, a Delaware Company to be thinking-based. There's more margin in thinking than in producing.

7. Most innovation in this world is coming from companies that are too small for ad agencies. In other words, the interesting companies are sloughed off by most of my competitors.

8. The most innovative companies don't know how to explain what they do.

9. They need me to figure it out.

10. See #2.

I could write numbers 11-20, then 21-30, then 31-101 about things that make GeorgeCo., LLC, a Delaware Company different. But my therapist of 40 years tells me I already give away too many secrets, so I'll stop here.