All posts by Dan Gershenson
“Do You Have Experience In Our Industry? No? Cool.”
The conversation was going well. We felt like we were connecting at the same level. The prospect had gotten to know me and appeared to feel great about my understanding of his process, goals, etc. Then came the question. I’ve received it many times before. “Do you have any experience in our industry?” Years ago, […]
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Defeating The Energy Vampires
“The Client Is Always Right,” they say proudly. Nah. If the client is a soul-sucking, verbally abusive monster who makes you feel less than dirt, they’re not right. They’re Energy Vampires and you need to kill them. Not literally, of course. I mean fire them. Tell them to exit, stage left, out of your life […]
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Ready To Hire A Marketing Consultant? Here’s 10 Things To Look For.
First, watch this short video on “How To Hire A Marketing Consultant,” from John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing. We think it’ll share a great point of view on ten things you should be looking for in a marketing consultant so you can start your search off right. To John’s points, we’d like to expand on […]
Read More »There’s More To The Brand Story – Finding Your Inner Mike Wallace.
“Jazz It Up” “It’s Not There Yet.” “I Don’t Like It.” “Can I See Some More?” It’s not easy for a writer to hear these. But it’s not that I have a problem with making changes. In my career I’ve probably made more than 25,000 changes. It’s that this kind of feedback is so vague […]
Read More »Agencies Offering Too Many Side Dishes With The Meal
I recently came across a firm that claims supreme expertise in brand strategy, content, graphic design, web development, SEO, advertising, public relations, video and business operations. Oh really. Is that all? Some web development firms say they are also experts in SEO. Fair enough. But oh, by the way, they also do content and graphic […]
Read More »Carnival Barking and Rapid Fire Posting Chaos: Improving Online Communities From Within
There’s a Facebook community I was recently excited to join, led by one of of the people in our industry I truly respect. Within two weeks, I found I had to leave it. It wasn’t largely the group leader’s fault. It was the people who killed it from within. Why? The entire mission of the […]
Read More »You’re Ignoring This Client The Most.
There’s a popular excuse that many agencies make for themselves when it comes to developing their own brand that has to do with “the cobbler’s shoes” and basically how we’re all like a shoemaker who makes shoes for every customer except his own children. I should know. I used to make this excuse myself. But […]
Read More »The Future Favors The Nimble Agency
Big or small, traditionally focused or digitally focused, only one kind of agency will be left standing in the future: The nimble one. There is a grim future for agencies that have a process that looks like so: Writer and designer team get Creative Brief. Writer and designer concept, concept, concept, concept, concept… Eureka! They […]
Read More »Prospecting: Separating The Believers From The Non-Believers
This scene from Mad Men sums up an important point for me about prospect relationship building. There are Believers and there are Non-Believers. The difference is easier to spot than we make it. As Don Draper says when explaining an ad campaign, “You either have it in your heart or you don’t.” Let’s apply this […]
Read More »Telling Clients They Have – Gasp! – a Weakness or Two.
When you’re a position to have to tell a client that they have a weakness or two or seventeen, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to do. Someone asked me that recently: “So, um, what do you do when you have to tell a client that, uh, a few things they’re doing aren’t…quite…good?” […]
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