I had a client call the other morning at 7AM. It was our first substantive meeting, where we talked about work, not how much it would cost, and when I'd deliver. In this meeting we were to talk about the information I needed to do the work they wanted.
To me, it's always a good sign when a client wants a call at 7 in the morning. Especially if some of the clients are out in San Francisco--and they're on the call at 4AM their time. It shows they're not dilettantes. That they want to be there.
When you run your own business--and you're working with clients who don't have giant marketing departments--you look for signs like that. If they're willing to get on the phone early in the morning, it shows they're serious. They regard ads as being important. A value, not just a cost.
If I were a car salesman, I'd look for similar signals. If someone drove in in a jalopy, or with their kids in tow, I'd figure I had a hot prospect. If they came alone in a 2023 Mercedes S-Class with 5200 miles on the odometer, I'd figure I had someone who was just killing time. Likewise if I was a meat-cutter at Katz's, I'd pay a lot more attention to fat people.
Early on in the call, I drew the schematic above and shared it with my client over Zoom.
I was flying solo on this call and to be clear I didn't really know what my new client did or made or provided or offered. But my Account Director had sent them a nice scope and they signed it within minutes of receiving it. Those aren't calls I tend to be dilatory about.
I said to them, all in an effort to wrap my head around their selling proposition, "most things you engage in--or don't engage in follow this chart. Now, I just drew it, so it might not be 100-percent right. But I'm just thinking right now.
"Say point #1 is your new expensively produced YouTube video or the new restaurant you opened up. It starts off pretty good. It's shiny and new and good-to-look-at and people flock to it."
They grasped the metaphor. Another good sign when you're working with me. Metaphors explain life. They're often how we can make visceral the difference a brand or a product provides.
"By point 2," I continued, "most people are bored. You know all those commercials for expensive cars which have a raindrop meandering down a window for 20 seconds with the reflection of a high-cheek-boned model looking for her kids to run in from soccer practice? It looks good for a few seconds but someone--the agency, the ECD, the CCO, the Global CCO, the worldwide Global CCO of the Americas, the Chief Borderless Creativity Officer, someone--forgot that things--even one-liners have to go somewhere. Otherwise, people get bored.
People from Atlanta, San Francisco, Austin and Singapore nodded via Zoom.
"Susan Sarandon, Baseball Annie in Bull Durham, said 'a man will listen to anything if he thinks it's foreplay.' But most messages have the suspense, meaning and payoff equivalent to the instructions on a package of microwave popcorn. They're not interesting."
Again I got Zoom-nodding across 8,000 miles of our planet.
"By point 3, you've lost 97-percent of everyone you started with. Even your spouse and your parents have dropped off by now. You've bored people.
"And by point 4, you're in even worse shape. You haven't just bored people. You've lost them forever. You've pissed them off. You've annoyed them. Shouted at them. Failed to deliver. Lied."
The Zoom was tsk-ing internationally.
"That's what happens in most relationships--with companies, with brands, interpersonally. They don't do what they say they're going to do."
I was warmed up by now and I was cooking with solar-power.
"That's the problem you're solving," I ended. "That's what your company does. You make the things that don't really work despite all the fanfare, you make them work. You deliver the things other people only say they can deliver."
The call ended not long after I finished.
Every once-in-a-while I actually believe I'm good at my job.
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