January 18, 2012

Guest Blog - Frankly Speaking / What Keeps You up at Night?

What Keeps You up at Night?
Are You Staring at a Blank Canvass?
The Power in Saying Hello

This is the third “Weekly Message” from Frank Palmer , Chairman and CEO of DDB Canada. 

“I’m absolutely sure that the answer to this question is very different for all of you. It’s usually a question that’s asked in a interview with a highly accomplished or talented person. The interviewer I’m guessing is that they believe that these business people or movie stars have all the answers we are all searching for or wanting to know? For me I’m always interested in hearing the answers from both business people and individuals. If I was front of a judge and asked under oath I’d have to be truthful with my personal and business answers. When the judge asked: “What keeps me up at night?” Thinking that I will end up living under a bridge in a cardboard box, broke!  I believe that all of us are only two mistakes away from poverty.
In other words, what worries you about your career or your personal life is very different from the next person. 

What worries me and keeps me up at night in business is different than it is in my personal life. But somehow they are both connected. In my career at the agency I’ve always worried about a vast number of things. I worry about losing accounts, I worry that we didn’t get our work in front of the right people who make the final decision.  I worry about not having enough interesting business or career opportunities for our people for their career growth. I worry about why there isn’t enough brave clients that will take a small risk in going with our strategy and creative recommendations. I worry that I failed to deliver the closing lines in a new business presentation that might have made a difference.
I’m sure that each of your have your own anxieties that cause you loss of sleep. I think that the answer to the advertising agency question of “what keeps you up at night?” for the most of us are:  Why didn’t they hire us? Why don’t they like me or us? Why don’t they see our point of view? Or simply, “Why don’t they love us?”
 
I read in a article a super answer to the question of “What keeps you up at night.”  “It was not wanting to die with their music locked up inside them”. Isn’t that a great answer?  It was about people who have a tremendous talent or gift yet allowed it to remain locked safely inside them and they remain locked in a miserable job. They are desperate to escape but can’t make the first step.

I believe that the questions above are the ones that we ask ourselves the most! When we win a new account the client sees something in us that they must have. Our excitement, our passion and our commitment to perform for them shows.  Isn’t our job is to get our clients more sales results through the best sales and marketing strategy’s and creative execution that excites the consumer to purchase their services or products?

Of course it is. When we win they have seen wonder in our eyes and actions. What keeps me up at night is not seeing us win enough and the potential client missing something that I know that we all have.
Frank”

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Posted 1.18.12 at 05:44 am by Roy Osing | Read Comments (0) | Leave a Comment