You Don't Know What You Don't Know

A simple point.

A few months ago I was feeling pretty lost in my job hunt. I’d scored a few good internships at great agencies, I’d learned a lot – but I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have any internship prospects in the offing.

In short, I didn’t know what to do or where I was going. And it was impacting on my job hunting and on my motivation. How do you keep hunting when you’re not even sure you’re on the right track?

But a couple of friends made a suggestion to me that changed everything. Why limit yourself to one country? There are other places to look after all. Even outside English-native countries, there are many where English is the language of business and of advertising. So why not look?

So I did. I contacted every agency I could find, in France and Belgium and Sweden and Germany and on and on and on. Most of them didn’t even reply. I didn’t care – I was sending 20+ emails every day so I was still getting something back all the time.

One of the best ways to get yourself motivated and start really moving things is to give yourself more challenges. I was running out of agencies to apply to in the UK – and just as important, I was feeling run down by all the rejections and missed chances. Giving myself new options was a breath of fresh air. It multiplied my opportunities and took the edge off the rejections.

It all comes down to changing the game, changing your horizons. Broaden your thinking and you’ll find yourself learning all the things you never knew that you didn’t know.

So if you’re ever feeling a bit stuck, whether in your work life, your personal life, or even just a single problem or issue you have to deal with, broaden the picture. Usually you’ll find that the solution was never that difficult to discover. It’s just that it wasn’t in your vision.

Broaden your thinking and suddenly there are solutions everywhere.

Every Ad is Someone’s Baby

A colleague said that to me the other day. It’s important to remember sometimes, when you take a break from the trench warfare that is agency-client relations, that your co-workers aren’t just people doing a job. Whatever your role in an agency, your work is your baby. Still more so as a designer or copywriter. Every line and placed graphic is part of your personal validation, evidence of your ability. And for it to be questioned and picked apart by those around you is no easy thing. You really do have to work to have a thick skin, because your work is both inherently personal and inherently vulnerable.

And that’s a good thing. It would be easy to dismiss what I’m saying as just the prissiness of artistes, self-obsession, unnecessary touchiness. But that’s what makes for great work. Great work, at any level, at any level of ‘importance’, demands personal commitment. If you can’t care, you can’t work – as I’ve said before, if you can’t bring yourself to care, why would your audience?

So care, and fight, and rage against those who want to change what you’re doing. And bend, and compromise, and conciliate. Because those twin impulses are what advertising is about – creativity plus corporate. Practical art.

And as an account handler, with a foot in both the client and the creative worlds, respect your client, certainly. But also respect your creative partners. Because they are the key to making the work that you really want to be a part of. And the ads that you are making are their babies.

A little care and attention goes a long way.

Don't Be Defensive

This is another anti-ego post.

It’s easy when you’re throwing ideas around to become fixated on your own positions and thoughts at the expense of everyone else’s. This is true whether it’s for a pitch or a campaign execution, or whether you get Nandos or KFC for lunch.

(For the record, the correct answer is of course Nandos.)

The point is, if you argue your point, and you’re still out-voted, you have to be able to accept it. Even if you’re the boss – one of the best skills in leadership is knowing how and when to give way, even to subordinates.

And sometimes it isn’t even about outright rejection of your ideas. It can simply be becoming defensive when your ideas are questioned or challenged or tweaked. You can’t defend your original vision to the death.

The most important thing in all this is to remember that your colleagues are competent. Sounds obvious, but in the heat of the moment it’s easy to unconsciously behave as though you’re the only person capable of good ideas. Which isn’t generally a popular or safe opinion to express.

And with that established, you have to then understand that if your ideas aren’t the ones that win out in a discussion, there are two options: First, that you need to step back and work out how to express your ideas in a better, more engaging way, or second, that maybe, just maybe, your ideas weren’t all that effective in the first place. And that perhaps it’s just possible that you only believe that they are great ideas because they are your ideas.

Food for thought.

Although for the record all my ideas are the best ideas.

Taking Things to Heart

This too shall pass.

You’ll find throughout your career that you have good moments and bad moments.

(I know! I was surprised too.)

Consistency is of course a good thing to strive for but it is never going to be a reality. You are human after all (I hope). So there will be highs and lows, great successes and the odd abject failure. And of course everyone around you is human too, so even if it’s only a minor failure in real terms you can find that it is treated by others as piss in their coffee.

Here’s my point:

Don’t take it to heart.

Neither the good nor the bad. Enjoy the praise and the accolades when you get them. Learn from the mistakes and the blame. But don’t dwell, don’t be complacent, don’t think of your character as being comprised of these moments.

You’re not defined by the past but by the present. Jumping for joy over last week’s performance review can lead you to fall right into a pit. And obsessing over an error-strewn Excel sheet can blind you to a new opportunity waiting for you. So look forward, not back.

Don’t misunderstand me – it’s natural and normal to feel down when things go badly, and to feel invincible when things go well. But be mindful, because scientists have found that the leading cause of 78% of screw ups is the belief that you finally know what you’re doing.

A career is a winding road of ups and downs. Just have the patience to see that nothing is permanent, good or bad. The sooner you can adjust to that, the faster you can react and respond, and avoid the traps of complacency or dejection.

Defeat and victory are both impostors. The true goal is just to keep learning.

Being Bright is Not Enough

A lot of my compatriots (read: competitors) trying to come up the rungs – or just get on the ladder – in advertising have a flaw. I know because I also have it. A belief that you are smarter than everyone else. That you don’t have to work as hard. That it can all be effortless for you.

That thought is your single biggest enemy.

It makes you lazy, it makes you superficial. And it makes you lose.

Contrary to popular opinion – and as I’ve said before – good ideas are not that rare in the world of advertising. And smart people are not some rare commodity.

Being smart is not enough.

Even if you truly are an exceptional brain, you have to work to get ahead. No one wants to pay for how gifted you are inside your head if you can’t translate that into results in the real world.

So what’s the real answer?

Being thorough. Being really thorough. Being so thorough it’s boring.

Being thorough is not sexy. But it’s the only way to do well consistently. I had a great teacher at a past agency who drilled into me the difference between good work and great work – not raw cleverness and sneaky ideas, but being thorough.

It might be the single most important quality to learn for any junior member of an agency.

Why? Because it’s the ability to anticipate and fix problems before they become problems. It’s recognition of the need to be humble, to go the extra mile, to support the team. It means always being prepared; to be an expert in any subject on demand, not just willing to do extra research but actively pursuing that knowledge.

From my own experience, I can say how important this is. I used to be nervous about speaking in front of people.

(I mean I still am, but I used to be too.)

I found a way to get past that fear though, and actually present with very little nervousness. How? The 11 Ways of Being a More Effective Speaker Through Yoga? No. Being prepared. Why would you be afraid of speaking, of questions, of making mistakes, when you know the answers? When you’re completely prepared it really limits your ability to mess up.

You might think you’re a good speaker – and that you can freewheel enough to get away with any lapses. You can’t. You will get found out. And there are far fewer second chances in business.

Here’s a strange – but fitting – analogy. Thoroughness is like the difference between flowers in a vase and a flowerpot. Both look good, but only one has lasting power. You need a strong base of hard work and dependability in order to do the exceptional.

It’s nice to be brilliant. If you can combine that with consistency you’ll be on to a winner.

Be Enthusiastic About Vitamin Supplements, Improved Wifi, and Enamel Flooring

This is another post about good qualities for an ad person. In this case though this is a quality that is not just for juniors but applies throughout your career (as far as I can tell).

Be enthusiastic about everything you work on. Even if its objectively boring. As with a lot of these articles the point sounds strange but is also very obvious. You need to be able to find enthusiasm in everything, be it a pan with a new innovative handle, or a slightly improved formula for cake mix.

Now this might sound like I’m just advocating for a glassy smile to make the client happy – I’m not. Being respectful and saying the right things to the client is something you should already know. I mean, come on reader. Get your head in the game.

What I’m saying is you have to find some genuine enthusiasm. Not for the client’s benefit directly. But for the benefit of you, and your work. We all know that we do our best work when we’re enthusiastic about the work we’re doing. But why limit your enthusiasm to the times when you get to work on a beer account or an exciting jewellery brand? Sure, those are a little more obviously interesting. But someone who can only summon up their best work when they get what they want is never going to be more than a mediocre account handler. And you don’t get the great accounts by showing yourself to be unequal to the task when it comes to the more mundane ones.

Let me give an example. This is actually from the creative side. I had a creative director at one of my past agencies who could be enthused by anything. He got excited describing the qualities of a new corporate wifi outlet that one of our clients was releasing. In most other industries having his level of enthusiasm for marginally better wifi would be considered a mild form of delirium. But this is one of the most respected creative directors in the UK. You don’t get to the top through disinterest.

So what does this translate to in the day to day? Simply, it means having a genuine curiosity about life, and about what is going on around you. I hope you do have that (you probably shouldn’t have chosen advertising as a career if that isn’t the case). You have to be able to find a reason to work harder, care more, and take an interest in everything that goes on around your account.

David Ogilvy talked about this, that if your client is a petrol supplier you should spend your weekends at petrol stations talking to drivers. You can’t advance without having the will to learn more.

"Most of the young [people] in agencies are too lazy to do this kind of homework. They remain permanently superficial."

Frankly, it’s a lot easier to do that kind of research and active listening now than it was in his day. Even just searching Google for news once in a while is enough to make a big difference. But you have to be willing to make that effort. And curious enough to keep making the effort even when it eats into your ‘free’ time.

Advertising is the art of driving people to care about goods which often have very little natural emotion pull. How can you possibly succeed in that if you can’t even drive yourself to care about them?

We Interrupt Your Scheduled Advertising Post to Bring You a Post About Job Hunting

Or more accurately, about job hunting cover letters.

For years I was always taught to personalise my cover letter whenever I applied for a job, to research the company thoroughly and make a specific pitch, for myself, to the company.

For years that was my method. And it worked, to a degree. But coming out of university into the big bad world of advertising agencies and realising that the competition for junior roles in an agency is basically a thousand squawking ducks fighting for one piece of bread, a rethink was in order.

So, based on my admittedly anecdotal evidence, I recommend that the best way to stand out and appear creative, interesting and engaged is to have a standard cover letter when applying to agencies, and barely vary it once you have a formula you’re happy with.

A tad paradoxical perhaps. But the reality is that in all honesty, personalisation isn’t that much of a bonus to how you appear to an agency. And why should it? In theory, yes, agencies want you to show personal interest in their company. Commitment. Invested time. But you don’t have that time. You have too much to do. You can’t just apply to one agency, you have to apply to every agency you can find. Because you can’t put all your career eggs in one agency basket- or even ten, or even a hundred.

And in any case, once you have a good cover letter why change it? Too often personalisation to fit a company turns into bending over backwards to seem like what you think that that company is looking for. Not only is that dishonest, and bad practice, it’s also very unlikely to work. Even if you get past the cover letter, you’ll be found out at the interview. And even if you get past that you’ll be found out when you start working there.

And yes, there is no such thing as bad experience. But given the variety of agencies and opportunities out there you might as well make yourself attractive to the ones that would genuinely suit you.

So what does that mean? It means making a cover letter that is the best version of you. Sell yourself, certainly. But sell your real self. Don’t mess things around and pretend to be someone you’re not. Make it interesting. If you think you’re funny, make it funny. If you consider a specific skill or trait to be important to you, make it part of your story. The agencies that see your cover letter and think that you’re the one for them - they’re the ones who have gotten what you offer and recognised it. The ones who read what you have to say and recoil in horror - well, I guarantee you, you never wanted to work for them in the first place.

In a sense it’s a question of putting yourself first. It’s easy to think when you’re starting out that you have to take every chance you can. It’s a tough economy. You’re nothing special. And certainly, junior ad people are not a rare commodity right now. But you can do well. You owe it to yourself to fight for what you want.

And that means writing a cover letter for yourself. Not for an agency. Not for what you think a future employer wants. But for what you want for yourself.

(Within reason, of course.)