As some of you may know by following my articles, once or twice a year, I call around to see how my friends are doing. A bunch of them are still in the ad business, but a few have drifted into different fields since such as pharma, manufacturing, healthcare, entertainment, and technology, among many other fields. It’s always interesting to call folks that I went to school with … [Read more...]
Creator Mindset: How We Define Success
Once upon a time, I worked at an ad agency that was special. We will get to why they were special shortly, but first we must look at what it is that defines success for most companies. Most companies define success in two unique ways. One, they define success on how much business is coming in. What the sales are like, how much of their product or … [Read more...]
Creator Mindset: Timing
A few years ago, I had a presentation that I gave to a client about the future of their major soft drink brand. It was a bells-and-whistles presentation. We pulled out all the stops. We selected a posh hotel resort. We catered the meeting. We kept it under an hour so that no one would get bored. We thought of everything under the sun. We even did it on a Friday so … [Read more...]
Creator Mindset: Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable
In the early ’90s, I started middle school. At the time, it was still called junior high. I remember it like it was yesterday … the big school … the multiple topics. It was scary stuff! Up until then, I was in one class with one teacher who taught many different subjects. But at junior high? This was the big leagues. We had different teachers for each class, different rooms for … [Read more...]
Creator Mindset: The Secret of Denial
In my line of work, it seems that I deal with lots of problems. And often. No one ever calls me when things are going well. And it feels as if each one of these problems is unique. After all, every man thinks his burden is the heaviest. So, likewise, every company thinks its issues are unique. It turns out that I have spent most of my career trying to find a unifying … [Read more...]