Adventures in Client Service

I am partial to scripted dramas on streaming services like Netflix, Prime, and Hulu, so I don’t get to the theater much anymore.  I make an exception, however, for director Christopher Nolan’s movies, which explains why I paid to watch last year’s Oscar-winning Oppenheimer, a movie that exceeds the limitations of my wide-screen television.

After reading how Nolan and his cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema all but abandoned CGI in favor of shooting a three-hour epic in an impossibly challenging, analog way, I figured it too deserves a theater visit, so last week I went.

I am not a producer and my technical knowledge is limited, but even I could see The Odyssey as an eye-opening marvel, fully worthy of a 70MM IMAX screen.  

Technical wizardry plus a roster of accomplished, award-winning performers combined with a timeless, classic story should equal a riveting, award-winning result.  The press coverage has been extensive, and social media is overrun with interviews, explanations, and deconstructions of the movie.  Viewers can’t stop talking about the film.

I should be impressed and was… with the production.  As for the performances, in spite of Nolan recruiting and assembling an enormous, all-star cast that includes Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hollan, Charlize Theron, Robert Pattinson,  Lupita Nyong'o, Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, Samantha Morton, Bill Irwin, Elliot Page, and dozens of others, I left feeling strangely detached with what I saw.

I found the script leaden and the actors lifeless, unable to match the film’s production bravado.  I might be a focus-group-of-one contrarian here, but then I read The New York Times story about Emily Wilson, the author of the Odyssey translation on which Nolan based his screenplay.

To quote Wilson, The Odyssey

 “lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal.”

She concludes, “the movie embraced style over substance.”

In fairness to Nolan, he clearly is able to summon Oscar-worthy work from performers – Gillian Murphy won a best actor Oscar for his starring role in Oppenheimer – but here he falls short here with a group of equally talented actors.

By now you’re rightly asking, “What in heaven’s names has any of this have to do with advertising and marketing, Robert?”

What distinguishes a great movie from the rest is performance:  the words that get said and the people saying them.

What distinguishes an agency in a pitch, a presentation, or whatever preserves a current or prospective client is performance:  the words that get said and the people saying them.

Movies can have great costumes, lighting, sound, production design, and cinematography – all the technical stuff -- but if it doesn’t have the right words, with the right people saying them, it will fall short of the mark.

Technically speaking, The Odyssey is a brilliant movie, but is it a great one?  That’s for you to decide, but for me the movie is akin to the proverbial Trojan Horse, with deception blinding viewers to the fundamentals of script and actors.

Your agency might master technical matters, meaning data and analysis fueled by technology, but if you don’t have the right words spoken by the right people, your presentation or pitch will fall short of the mark.

Hardly a day goes by without my inbox being assaulted by some clueless, LinkedIn idiot carpet-bombing me with an unsolicited pitch, but last month there was a note waiting for me among my messages, from someone who clearly did their homework before making an overture.

The author of that message was Jude Agboola, founder of a solo practice called Zenith Consulting, whose LinkedIn profile describes him as an,

“Authority Conversion Systems for Founder-Led Expert Firms | Turning Credibility Into Premium Buyer Perception & Qualified Inquiries | B2B Positioning · Web · Copywriting · AI Concierge | 40+ Client Projects”

In truth I didn’t the faintest notion of what any of this meant, but no matter; for only the second time ever, after reading what Agboola wrote, I said “yes” to his request:

I visited the website demo he had built on spec; what I saw was both as unexpected as it was remarkable -- well written, visually enticing, organized to merchandize what I offer in the best way possible – vastly improving my existing sites, which, if I’m  being honest, I characterize as static and descriptive, more passive than assertive.

Although I’m an account person, I have well-defined opinions when it comes to matters of taste, particularly when we’re talking about choice of typeface and color palette.  Normally I would have input on these topics, but this was far from normal.  I was looking at a nuanced sense of proportion and scale, punctuated by a sophisticated deployment of typography.  I changed not a thing.

I wasn’t just impressed with the work Agboola has done, I was equally impressed with him, his speed, responsiveness, and patience, not to speak of his in-depth understanding of what I’m striving to achieve as an industry practitioner.

As I attest on the site’s homepage, I am in the business of helping others deal with the challenge of behavior change.  Yet I was like the proverbial cobbler’s son, with my own behavior in need of change, starting with what I created on the web, which had grown stale and sterile in the ten years since their inception, in need of a serious refresh. 

The catalyst for all this recent activity is the forthcoming, long overdue December 21 publication of a newly revised, substantially rewritten fourth edition of The Art of Client Service.  The new book signals the need for a new approach, something Agboola saw even before I did.

The new site has a new URL – www.robertsolomon.net -- that ultimately will consolidate all three sites.  Solomon Strategic’s consulting/coaching/speaking/workshop-leading site is still there, as is the book’s previous, third edition; in December, once Wiley publishes the fourth edition of The Art of Client Service, both will be mothballed. As for this blog, for now it continues, waiting to be subsumed into the new site.

To give you a sense of how substantial the changes are, here’s a comparison of the old Solomon Strategic site with the new one.  If you’re interested in exploring further, just click here.

The new site does a vastly better job of explaining how and why I can be of help to you and others.  The opinion that really matters, however, isn’t mine; it’s yours. 

Some readers like The Art of Client Service, some do not, but regardless of what people think, few take the time to tell me.  Hearing from someone is seemingly as unlikely as discovering a beached message in a bottle.

One of those messengers is Ava Pravlik; she was kind enough to reach out to me a message on LinkedIn.  Ava currently is serving as an account management intern at the agency Big Spaceship.  I thought about summarizing her note, but realized it is far preferable for her to speak for herself, so what follows is her note to me, followed by my reply. 

“Hi, Robert! I hope you are doing well. I wanted to share with you a few ways in which The Art of Client Service has helped me in my first couple of weeks as an account management intern at the agency Big Spaceship.

1. "’Improve the work, don't approve it.’" I am currently helping my mentor draft feedback for our creative team on an account that often frustrates our creatives, as the client frequently changes their mind about what they like and what they don't. Your guidance has shaped the way I structure my feedback; I make sure that I find something positive to say about each creative execution before bringing up concerns.

2. “Your chapters on creating briefs and budgets were very informative and have led me to ask some great questions at work. Those chapters inspired me to meet individually with different account and strategy people at my agency in an attempt to understand each individual's approach to these tasks. I believe that this curiosity, along with a baseline understanding of the processes, will help me stand out as an intern.

3. “Overall, reading this book was one of the best things I could have done to prepare for the start of my career in account management. The amount of knowledge and perspective I acquired through reading has given me a noticeable leg up; while I certainly won't claim to know even a fraction of what I hope to one day know about advertising, I find the whirlwind of agency culture to be much more digestible with the foundational knowledge this book provided me.

“A few more lessons from the book that I keep at the forefront of my mind:

“There are parts of humanity that data can't capture. Know when to look it up and know when to make it up.

“If we don't hang together, we will all hang separately.

“The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

“All that is to say - thank you for your wisdom! 😁

“Best,

Ava”

My reply:

“Many thanks for sharing this Ava!  I'm both flattered and gratified you found The Art of Client Service helpful. “When people ask me why I wrote the book, I reply by saying I didn't do it for the money, or for acclaim, but rather for you and others who I want to help as best I can.

“BTW, my publisher John Wiley & Sons will issue a  substantially revised fourth edition of the book on November 25; if you're willing to share a street address -- I could use Big Spaceship's if this works -- I will mail you a signed copy of the new book, with compliments.

“Best, “Robert “P.S.  How are things going at Big Spaceship?”

There is nothing more fulfilling than knowing what you’ve written is helpful; thank you again, Ava, for taking the time to reach out.

Ava is just starting out, so the book likely provided guidance as she unlocks the  mysteries of stellar client service tradecraft.  I also know that more veteran client service people will benefit from the book, if for no other reason than to serve as confirmation of what they already know. 

When it comes to loyalty I have few allegiances; there are a couple of restaurants to which I’m partial; there’s a clothing designer I like; and, needless to say, I’m very loyal to my wife of 30 years, Roberta.   Other than these, I am easily swayed by alternatives.

Given the thousands of options available and numerous reasons to switch from one brand to another – lower cost, more attractive rewards, better service --  it makes the 50 years I have been an American Express cardmember especially significant, important enough to write about it:

“ I remember when I received my first American Express card – it was 1976 – and getting it in the mail was cause for celebration.  I had arrived; it was as if American Express validated me as a responsible adult able to pay his own way.” 

I confess that among other reasons I stayed with the company is I viewed it as “cheap prestige,” far less expensive than other touchstones of affluence, like a BMW or Mercedes.  American Express is an upscale brand with a history of doing right by its members. I know better than most, having served them as a client for the better part of six years.

The other day there was a package waiting at my doorstep: an unsolicited gift from the company, commemorating 50 years of membership.  So far, so good.  It’s not every day you achieve such a milestone.

Expecting something special, I was disappointed with what I  found:  inside was what best can be described as dismissible, disposable, and – dare I say it – sadly cheap.  Not at all like the American Express I used to know.

Instead of feeling rewarded and recognized, I felt dismissed, as if I were just another person with a checkbook, not someone the company knows and values.  Over the years I’ve charged enough on the card to accumulate expenditures running to seven-figures; the company surely profited from them. 

Before you conclude, “This guy should be grateful for ANYTHING he receives as a gift!” I want to suggest an alternative that is far simpler and vastly (at least to me) more meaningful. It requires a bit of time but only costs pennies, not dollars.

Instead of sending a gift that few will use or appreciate, have someone ghostwrite a letter on behalf of CEO Stephen Squeri.  Use it to acknowledge and celebrate the value of the longstanding association between the company and me.  Close with a note of gratitude and thanks.  Have Squeri hand-sign it in a recognizable shade of blue.

A personal letter is a thoughtful act with an impact that far exceeds its cost, which is seventy-eight cents, the price of a first-class stamp.  

This is something Squeri’s predecessor, my former client Ken Chenault, likely would have done.  Chenault was a master when it came to building and sustaining relationships; the company he led for many years reflected this.

I doubt his successor understands or appreciates the value of loyalty the way Chenault does. 

Will a lousy, throw-away gift cause me to cancel the card?

It won’t; in a letter to Chenault in the aftermath of 9/11, when companies abandoned New York City in droves but Chenault committed to stay, I pledged fealty to the card.  I intend to honor that pledge.  The color of the card might change; my behavior won’t.

In my many years as a client service person and more recently as the author of Adventures, I’ve avoided three topics of conversation with clients, colleagues, and what usually gets written as a blog post:  1) politics, given it tends to be divisive and best avoided; 2) advertising, because opinions are subjective, especially in the absence of knowledge about an ad’s origin; and, 3) religion, knowing that matters of faith are deeply personal and respectfully should be off limits.

Normally I adhere to this rule, but a few weeks ago I was in our sanctuary listening to guest Rabbi Neil Sandler, who was about to share a sermon -- in Judaism we refer to this as a d’var Torah, Drash for short -- that explores a Jewish text, often focusing on the weekly Torah portion.  I’ve heard many of these over the years, most of which don’t require further comment; this one does, because it relies less on the week’s Torah text and more on a story.

Rabbi Neil begins by holding up a prop – a uniquely shaped, pink plastic bottle – which leads to him recount a trip he and his wife Susan took to Portugal.  They are in a restaurant; the bottle makes an appearance, leading to a conversation with Miriam, the restaurant’s owner.  Talk turns to the people Miriam hires to serve customers; as Rabbi Neil tells it,

“Miriam said that when she hired someone, she didn’t immediately care about a prospective employee’s skills – she could teach those skills. “Instead, she cared about the person’s nature – about how she interacted with her prospective co-workers and customers. “Relevant skills – Miriam could teach; A pleasant Nature? – You either had it or you did not.”

On November 25 of this year, my publisher John Wiley & Sons will issue a substantial revision of The Art of Client Service.  Much of the material is new, but one item is not:  Chapter 22 covering “What, Why, and How:  The Skills, Qualities, and Capabilities that Define Great Client Service, ” a topic discussed with little change since the publication of Brain Surgery for Suits more than 25 years ago, followed by the three subsequent editions of The Art of Client Service, leading to this most recent, forthcoming edition.

As I tell it, there are there are three things to look for in client service – experience, skills, and qualities – with qualities mattering by far the most.

Experience you gain with time.  Skills you learn.  When it comes to qualities, the book points out that integrity and judgement are key, combined with resilience, consistency, patience, discipline, grace under pressure, a sense of humor, meticulousness, a sense of ownership, a spirit of collaboration, self-effacement, a sense of context, and a service orientation. 

Collectively these are part of what Miriam describes and Rabbi Neil cites as “the person’s nature.” 

As he closed his remarks, Rabbi Neil returns to his opening:

“And this pink water bottle?  “It was an apt symbol of Miriam, her husband and co-workers - a symbol of commitment to their customers and to making them feel special.”

Those who know me know religious I am not, but the Rabbi’s gift to those who heard him that evening was deft storytelling married to an impromptu, unscripted exchange in a restaurant far from home.

My Dad was a mercurial sort, given to unexplained highs populated with joy, wedded to fits of sadness and anger, bewildering to a little boy and later frustrating to a high school student beset with troubles typical of a teenager. 

After I turned 16 and qualified for a learner’s permit, the last thing I expected was for my Dad to serve as my teacher, but there we were, me in the driver’s seat, him to the right, riding shotgun as I awkwardly turned the key and shifted out of “park” as the engine grumbled to life.

At first I was beyond incapable, an awkward amalgamation of unknowing arms and legs, cowled by the need to control thousands of pounds of metal as I crawled through traffic in fits and starts, negotiating turn after turn, rashly accelerating then stopping with a slam of the brakes, all without wrapping the car around the tree or, god forbid, striking the neighbor’s dog.

Overwhelmed and intimidated, I asked question and after question; my Dad, betraying not an ounce of his customary dismissiveness, calmly answered each and every one, even when it meant explaining the same thing a second or fifth time.  If you need evidence of my being a slow learner, well… here it is.

I was really, really woeful, willing to give up; the only person unwilling?  My Dad.  Time and again he took me out for yet another driving lesson, knowing that consistency leads to competence, and competence leads to confidence. 

As days turned into weeks then months, with lesson after lesson, I slowly improved.  What I once found daunting began to feel almost manageable. 

As I became more adept, the driving tests became more onerous.  If you’re familiar with my hometown Philadelphia, you likely know the twists and turns a driver needs to navigate the two lanes on suburban, tight-squeeze Conshohocken State Road.  Even more challenging is to traverse the faster, four-lane Wissahickon Drive, leading to the Schuylkill Expressway, formally known as I 76, informally known among the knowing as the “Surekill Crawlway,” a high-speed, limited-access interstate that is not for beginners or the faint of heart.

My Dad made me drive these routes and many others, doing them over and over until he was satisfied I was in control of the car, the car was not in control of me.  

Finally the day came:  “I think you’re ready.”  

We booked an appointment with the DMV for my driving test.

I passed on the first try.

What strikes me now is how effective my father was.  Patient.  Methodical.  Consistent.  A good listener.  Never angry.  Always steady.  There was no quit on his watch.

In truth, there was no need for him to teach me; I already was enrolled in my weekly high school driver’s ed course; the instructor there could have taught me just fine.  Parents are not required to become teachers.  My Dad thought otherwise; he saw it as his responsibility to serve as my hands-on instructor.    

There’s a good bit of my father in me.  Like him, I could be mercurial, prone to fits of anger, stubborn, more than occasionally difficult to deal with, not the ideal qualities for someone devoted to client service.  I’ve been an account person most of my working life, but this is not where my true capability lies.  Like him, at heart I’m a teacher.

As the advertising world grows increasingly more complex -- more options to consider, more time pressure, more client demands, more opportunities to fail -- sharing what you know has become not optional but essential.  Teaching shouldn’t be viewed as a burden; it’s a gift, a skill that, more than anything else, defines a leader.  No matter how busy they might be, good leaders make time to listen, to answer questions, to demonstrate the right way to handle a problem or a person.

As I look back on my career, I know I wasn’t as good an account person as I needed to be, but I’m pretty sure I was a decent teacher.  Credit goes where it is long overdue, to my father, starting with the day he guided me behind the wheel.

Happy Father’s Day Dad.  Wish you were here.

Call them what you will:  guidelines, rules, recommendations – the forthcoming, fourth edition of The Art of Client Service designates them as “Principles” (there are six) – ever since I published my first book, Brain Surgery for Suits, more than 25 years ago, I have tried my best to collect, catalogue, and codify what make a great account person great.

From the start I recognized no book could fully capture the  breadth and complexity of collaborating with colleagues and connecting with clients, which explains why chapter 20 of Brain Surgery is called, “Judgment Overrides Any Rule.”  The first edition of The Art of Client Service does the same, as does the second and third editions, where again I claim:

“This is a book of rules, but an account executive works in a world of exceptions.  No rule can accommodate every situation, and no list of rules is exhaustive.  In the end, the only rule you can rely on is this:  judgment rules.” 

With the advent of A.I. and large language models, you might think the importance of judgment has diminished if not disappeared; not so.  If anything, judgment has emerged as even more important than before, according to the author of an Op-Ed piece published in last week’s New York Times:

“The most consequential decisions in business have never been about processing information faster or detecting patterns more efficiently.  The most salient concerns are questions such as what kind of enterprise a firm should aspire to be, what culture it should embrace, what risks it should tolerate and how its leaders can plan when the path forward is unclear. These are questions of judgment, and judgment cannot be automated — at least not any time soon….”

The author defines judgment as:

“the faculty we rely on when trade-offs are unavoidable and the right answer is not waiting to be computed. It is a uniquely human skill.”

And concludes by asserting that leaders:

“look for what might be called a generalist with judgment, someone analytical and adaptable who is nimble enough to learn skills and become reasonably conversant in new knowledge. The best candidates share a quality no machine can replicate.”

I am in violent agreement on the importance of judgment as a human skill, not replicable by technology, along with just how essential being a generalist has become, so much so I compare the best account people with physicians who serve as general practitioners, skilled at looking at their patients holistically.

I also recognized that, while being a  generalist, there’s a need to be a specialist, someone who has mastered skills in a discipline -- direct response, retail, shopper marketing; a technology, such as digital, social, mobile, or search; or, an industry, meaning health care, financial services, luxury goods, or the like.

The fourth edition of The Art of Client Service includes two chapters devoted to A.I.:  early on, chapter three is called, “Artificial Intelligence as Ally, not Enemy,” a title meant to reassure readers rather than alarm them.  Near the book’s end, Chapter 29 pointedly asks, “Will I Lose My Job to A.I.?” an often unasked question on just about everyone’s mind.

So, can you be replaced by A.I.?  If all you are is an order-taking account person, the answer likely is, “You can.” 

If, however, you are a resourceful, idea-generating, problem-solving account generalist/specialist, effective at serving clients and collaborating with clients, the answer is, “You can’t,” at least for the foreseeable future. 

I can do little about A.I.’s unrelenting march forward, but what I can do with the book’s new edition is what the previous three editions tried their best to accomplish:  help you become a more capable, competent, and committed account/client service person, something colleagues want and clients need.

After hurting myself this past summer, I needed surgery to replace my arthritic right hip, a problem subsequently compounded by a broken left femur, leaving me with two bum legs, not one. That was challenge enough without my having to then go through Oxycontin withdrawal – I took Oxy to ameliorate pain, but withdrawal was like getting clean from heroin, only with a doctor’s prescription -- that sent me the hospital ER not once but twice.

The injuries had me mostly confined to a walker; later a cane replaced the walker, until recently when I could walk again under my own power.  It has been a not-easy road to recovery, culminating today with my getting on the elliptical trainer lying dormant in my garage.  It has taken a too-long six months to begin the process of recovery.

I make it a habit to tune in to YouTube to watch music as I work out.  Normally my choice would be Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, The Grateful Dead, Springsteen and The E Street Band, Laura Nyro, or some other group from my era (music that is, I’m a little sad to say, is mostly populated by dead people).  This time, however, I chose something different to watch: a video from the Immediate Family, a group of mostly obscure studio musicians, known only to the celebrated performers with whom they’ve played:

“Danny Kortchmar, Waddy Wachtel, Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar and Steve Postell probably have more session and live show mileage than just about any other living players today. Each is known for its prodigious ability to be in the right place and at the right time on an endless list of best-selling and hugely influential recordings over the past 50 years.”

If you’d like to get a sense of just how accomplished all of these performers are, watch Cruel Twist.  Maybe some of you recognize Waddy Wachtel, who played guitar for Linda Ronstadt, or Leland Sklar, who played base with just about everyone (if you watched Cruel Twist, you might have found yourself mildly amused by Sklar’s ad-libbed sense of timing and wry sense of humor). 

Virtually nobody knows the names of these players, but no matter; as much as they play for the small group of fans who recognize their talent, they really are playing for their friends, meaning one another.  You get a sense of this if you’ve watched them between takes.

As I turn 75 today I think of the band; of course I’ve devoted most of my career serving clients as well as I possibly could, but if you were to ask me, truthfully, to describe who I worked for all those long days, late nights, and countless weekends, I would tell you it wasn’t for my clients.  It wasn’t because of competitors.  It wasn’t because of the corner office.  It was for my colleagues. 

At times I think like the author Ray Bradbury, who said, “Writing is like a muscle: the more you write, the stronger it becomes.”   Other times I think like the novelist Rachel Billington, who said, “Writing is like riding a bike; you  never forget how.”  So which is it?  Something you work at?  Something ingrained?  Both?   Neither?

As I sit down to mark the 15th anniversary of the day I began this blog, no wonder I’m conflicted.  Having suspended blog writing three weeks ago, I at first thought I had suffered an acute loss of writing muscle mass, no longer feeling obligated to find subjects suitable for you to read and me to opine.   My excuse:  I have a book to complete on deadline, but if you can’t find time for a 500-word post, how are you going to bring a 50,000-word work to fruition?

On Saturday there was a New York Times story that got me back on the bike and planted at the keyboard.

 In a piece called, “Netflix’s Swallowing of Warner Bros. Will Be the End of Hollywood,” the reporter observes, “The danger here is not annihilation but centralization,” concluding with:

“Hollywood has survived many predicted deaths. But it has never tested what happens when the number of major creative buyers collapses toward one dominant center of gravity. A merger between Netflix and Warner Bros. wouldn’t destroy Hollywood, but it would flatten its creative diversity, weaken its theatrical channel and bring a huge cultural category under the near-total control of a single company.”

Remind you of anything going on in our business?

The merger of Omnicom and IPG won’t destroy advertising , but it surely will flatten its creative diversity, destroy jobs, and end careers.  There are many casualties as a result – employees of all types, tenures, and expertise; suppliers of every stripe; freelancers and gig workers -- but the victims who will suffer the most are the clients, at first not realizing or recognizing the damage, much if it irreparable, they’ve sustained.

What gives me hope are the conversations I’ve had with more than a dozen advertising people as I go about preparing the fourth edition of The Art of Client Service, nearly all of whom do not work for Omnicom/IPG or any of the other overgrown, under-powered, held-hostage-by-Wall Street holding companies.

Hollywood survived the advent of television, home video, the internet,  streaming, and now artificial intelligence.  It will continue, perhaps not in a form any of us can imagine, but surely will prevail.

Advertising also will survive, perhaps not in a form any of us can imagine, but if I were to place a bet, I would place it on many of the people with whom I spoke, and thousands of unknown, unnamed others who will carry on.  In the storm of adversity drowning the holding companies are the very things that will rescue these give-it-a-shot pioneers.

Today I returned to the first post I wrote 15 years ago to launch Adventures in Client Service, where I wrote:

“Working with clients is indeed an adventure, one with no clear outcome.  You arrive at work every day wondering if you will have a client blow-up or meltdown on your hands, or if you will need to solve a problem seemingly without resolution, or if you will get to go home at a reasonable hour, “reasonable” being any time before 9:00 pm.”

That part remains (mostly) true.  In the unlikely event I continue Adventures for the next 15 years – at that point I will be approaching 90, meaning either I’ve lost it, or am dead – I suspect I would make much the same point, knowing the face of agencies might change but the people committed to the work won’t.  When I began this blog I never imagined it would last as long as it has.

Adventures has endured for the very reasons why advertising never dies:  it is about ideas.  Dismissible ideas, disposable ideas, and on occasion, engaging, enduring ideas. 

You can kill Omnicom and IPG by merging their agencies into anonymous oblivion, but the one thing you cannot kill is an idea.

Advertising is here to stay.  For those of you who have been with me as I’ve made this journey, I am glad for your company, and with gratitude thank you for it.

This December 8 will mark the 15th anniversary of Adventures in Client  Service, which I started back in 2010. With few exceptions, each Wednesday I would post a comment – some helpful, some not – until last Wednesday, when I missed.  I suspect most of you didn’t notice, but, in truth, I didn’t expect you to.

It's not that I haven’t been busy; I’m currently hard at work on revising and revamping The Art of Client Service, which my publisher John Wiley & Sons intends to issue as a fourth edition sometime next year.  I’m committed to making the new book better than the nearly 10-year-old, somewhat out-of-date (some would say very) one it will replace.  It’s going to take work, but I am nothing if not committed to seeing this through to completion.

I thought of the proper term I could use to describe my time off, given I’m certainly not quitting, and my absence won’t be permanent. In fact, I wrote about the possibility of calling it a day several years ago and flatly rejected the notion.  In the time since, nothing has changed. 

I still love client service and account management.  I still love this business, in spite of its myriad and multiplying flaws.  I still love what I do.

A leave of absence maybe?  Time off?  A cessation of activity?  A suspension?  None struck me as being quite right.

I then remembered that one of my favored college professors, A.E. Claeyssens, took a six-month sabbatical while I was an undergrad.  I also recalled the sabbatical being taken by our congregation’s spiritual leader, Niles Goldstein.  Most people on sabbatical use the time away to write a book.  I’m writing a book.  Sabbatical it shall be.

The book is due to Wiley the end of March next year, so it’s possible I’ll be gone for more than just a few weeks.  But if I see something that requires a  comment or observation, I know, knowing me, I will be back at my keyboard, doing my best to reconnect with you. 

While I’m away, if any of you have questions – about the content of the fourth edition, about the second book I’ll be writing for Wiley after I submit a final manuscript for The Art of Client Service, about one of my previous posts, or about anything else that’s pressing or top-of-mind for you – by all means reach out.  I welcome your questions, concerns, observations, opinions, criticisms, condemnations, or whatever else is on your mind.  I will do my best to respond, or if necessary, to help.

The movie business is full of famous lines; I even quoted a few in a recent post, to which I’d like to add one more:  “I’ll be back.”

I will be back.  Try not to miss me too much.

Steve Jobs was such a titan in the technology business, I suspect few people recall that, in the 1980s through the early 1990s, Apple wasn’t led by him, but instead by then-CEO John Scully.  There were many reasons why Scully ultimately imploded and Jobs returned to lead the company to glory; the one I recall is his commitment to Newton, what he called a PDA, or “Personal Digital Assistant.”  It was 1992.

If you have an iPhone or a Google Android phone in your pocket, you have a PDA; Sculley was right, but his timing was off.  He was way ahead of the market. 

I was thinking about this as I read Michael Farmer’s succinct, accurate, and sadly deflating C-Suite Blues substack piece, “How did it all go wrong?” last week, where he all but predicts the end of advertising as we know it.

You might view this as new news; to me, it is old news.  In 2012, at the behest of my colleague and friend of longstanding, Gary Beck, I gave a speech at the Yale Club called, “The Past, Present, and Future of Marketing” in which I observed:

“Well, as much as I’d like to tell you otherwise, and as I said earlier, the big agencies are not going away; the Ogilvy’s, JWTs, and BBDOs of the world will remain.  “But they are playing a losing hand.  Caught between the avarice of their holding company parents and the savings-at-all-costs procurement people, they will be forced to cut their staffs, reduce investment in the people they do keep, and watch as more senior clients grow frustrated with their junior agency counterparts, and put their accounts into revolving-door reviews. “What does this picture look like?  That’s right; it’s a doom loop.”

What was I saying here?

I was saying what Michael Farmer is saying, maybe not as elegantly as he put it and certainly not with the readership he commands, but even so.  We might not entirely agree on the “whys” of it, but we pretty much agree on the “whats.”

Michael Farmer has a big megaphone; lots of people pay attention to what he wrote, commented on it, in some cases took exception to it.  I too have an audience, albeit a much smaller one; virtually no one heard what I said, no one commented on it, and if they took exception to it, I was not aware they had done so.  Like the proverbial tree in the forest, it is as if I never spoke and never made a sound.

Regardless, the important thing is someone is out there is signaling an industry sinking under its own dead weight, with holding companies merging themselves into extinction, and with storied, legacy brands erased and soon-to-be-forgotten.

If I have any hope at all, it is that advertising will be like the Phoenix, consumed by fire, rising from the ashes in a moment of renewal.  Surely there are entrepreneurs out there – you know who you are – the ones driven by an idea, motivated to prevail, undaunted and undeterred by risk.

I figure pigs would fly before Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan would concede, "In person meetings still have huge value," but this is exactly what he said in a recent New York Times story.  Too good to be true, I thought, and of course it was, because he followed this with,  “when you and I have a Zoom meeting it will feel like we’re sitting together here in person.”

Hold that thought for a moment.

Zoom and other similar video platforms are a huge step up from the telephone conference calls that preceded them, although many people still sadly opt for telephone over video, even with video readily available on their desktop computer.   If you ever have participated in one of these phone calls, you know the many disadvantages of hearing people but not seeing them, recognizing how much non-verbal communication gets lost.  You also know the more people who are on the call, the less successful it is likely to be.

Then came Covid, with its all-out assault on the world, forcing everyone to think differently about commuting to the office, a disease that could place you in the middle of life-threatening risk.  Meetings once held in-person now were held remotely, with people remaining at home.  Zoom, once a step up from conference calls, became a step down from meeting face-to-face, as it became the only available alternative.

I was sufficiently surprised by Eric Yuan’s point “In-person meetings still have huge value” to ask him why, but I wasn’t the one doing the interviewing.  Yuan quickly moved on -- his job is to promote Zoom, not undermine it – but absent his explanation, I will try to explain why he’s right.

Formal, in-office meetings are one thing you lose and yes, maybe you can replace these with Zoom meetings, although I will go to my grave telling you they are not the same as meeting in-person.  But what about those other, unplanned, unscheduled ones, the meetings you don’t anticipate and cannot schedule?

With colleagues, I don’t know how many times I discovered an opportunity, solved a problem, or forged a relationship not in a formal meeting, but instead in a serendipitous, chance encounter, times when I poke-my-head-in-the-door or over the cubicle wall, connect at the water cooler, or stop a colleague in the hallway, to talk, ask advice, or solicit an opinion.  These are what you lose; losses you cannot quantify, coming at a cost you cannot measure.

With clients, just by being physically present I often found myself pulled into impromptu meetings to grapple with an issue or offer a different perspective, many of which led to a proposal and subsequently an assignment. 

Many of my most productive, illuminating, and relationship-building client conversations take place away from the office.  Sometimes it’s at breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  Maybe it’s a ballgame or a musical event.  It could happen on a golf or tennis court (I confess I play neither, but many of my colleagues do). 

Even if we find ourselves in a Star Wars future, full of hologram meetings and messages, I still cannot imagine a circumstance in which Zoom could come close to approximating “being there” in person. 

Some people might sneer at the prospect of conducting business away from the office, thinking them the domain of empty suits; wise people will not.  They know they won’t learn more things from these out-of-office events, but different things, using the time to get to know their clients personally, in order to build a relationship that can withstand whatever challenge, opportunity, problem, or screw-up that occurs, knowing these surely will happen.  What do you lose?  The bonds that forge a relationship.

Zoom and other meetings conducted remotely are not going away.  People like working from home.  It’s faster and cheaper, with staffers feeling they can be more productive.  True enough, but Yuan’s point that, “when you and I have a Zoom meeting it will feel like we’re sitting together here in person” is not likely to happen anytime soon. Pigs do not need to take flight to prove Eric Yuan’s point, that in-person meetings have huge value.

By any measure, we live in a highly polarized world, full of discord, with contention such that any discussion across the aisle between two parties is a near-impossibility.  For reasons I can’t explain, I thought of this as Roberta and I made a trip East to attend our nephew’s wedding on Martha’s Vineyard.

Post-visit I am scheduled to have my right hip replaced; in the meantime, I used a cane to navigate on one healthy leg – far from ideal, but manageable –until the night before the ceremony, when I suddenly passed out, crashed hard to the hardwood floor, and landed on my left side.  The kill-me-now pain was such that the following morning I announced to my brother-in-law Paul, sister-in-law Tracy, and nephew Aidan I would be unable the celebration later that day.

One-by-one, each of the three rose to give me a hug, telling me they understood.  If ever there was a reason for a grown man to cry, this was it.

Roberta, ever the optimist, reacted differently; she immediately went looking for a walker to replace the cane, found it – not easy on an island -- then brought it  home.  As the day wore on, the pain loosened its grip; I told Roberta if she would get me into my tuxedo – it would be the equivalent of her dressing a three-year-old -- I would give going a shot.

With assistance, I made it into my clothes, then in and out of the car. At the reception, everyone who saw me walker-bound were ready to render aid.  Strangers helped me get around.  To make it to the hard-to-access men’s room, Aidan’s 6’-4” wedding party friends literally hoisted me up then airlifted me down the steep and narrow steps, helping me avoid a certain face plant.  As I returned to my seat, a young woman made her way over to me, asking if she could help.

As the evening progressed, more people I did not know stopped by to check on me. Brother-in-law Paul, ever watchful and prince-of-a-person that he is, subtly kept an eye out.  I felt looked after, not just by family and friends, but also by just about everyone in attendance. 

The return to Napa was an all-day, cars/boat/airplane ordeal, with me limping in and out of vehicles, moving at a snail’s pace.  Everywhere I turned people I did not know and never would see again offered help, whether it was to hold a door, offer a hand, or hang back to accommodate me, proving that even in a hard, unforgiving world, there is a place for kindness among strangers, and reason for hope.

Hollywood is famous for iconic movie one liners, among them “Here’s looking at you, kid,” from Casablanca and, “Badges?  We don’t need no stinkin’ badges!,” from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.  One of my all-time favorites is from the baseball movie, A League of Their Own, where the team’s manager, Jimmy Dugan, played by the actor Tom Hanks, admonishes one of his women players:

Dugan: “Are you crying?” Player: “No…” (sniffling) Dugan: “Are you crying?  Are you crying? There’s no crying! There’s no crying in baseball!”

As enamored of the line as I am, it reminds me of another scene between Dugan and the ensemble movie’s lead protagonist, catcher and team leader Dottie Hinson, played by the actor Geena Davis.  It occurs near the movie’s conclusion; Dottie announces she is leaving the team and returning home:

Hinson:  “Yeah, Jimmy, it is only a game and I don’t need this.  I have Bob, I don’t need this, I don’t.” Dugan:  “If you want to go back to Oregon and make 100 babies, great, I’m in no position to tell anyone how to live.  But sneaking out like this, quitting, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.  Baseball is what gets inside you, it’s what lights you up.  You can’t deny that.”  Hinson:  “It just got too hard.” Dugan:  “It’s supposed to be hard.  If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it.  The hard is what makes it great.”

Yeah, I realize it’s television and not real, but have you ever repaired to the back yard and tried to square up a round bat against a round ball?  Chances are whoever is throwing to you is simply tossing the ball so you can at least try to make contact; now imagine you’re facing someone who throws 90-miles-plus from 60 feet. 

I know of no one who would say otherwise; baseball is a hard game to master, with failure the norm, with players needing to succeed one-third of the time to be a star.

You know another thing that’s hard?  What you do is hard.  I know of no one who would claim being a copywriter, art director, planner,  or a media person or production person is easy.  It wasn’t easy when advertising and marketing were simpler, mostly confined to broadcast, print, and outdoor.  It has become especially challenging these days, with the increase in options available to you and the decline in ways to command audience attention for even ten seconds.

What’s hardest of all is being an Account person.  Everyone pretty much knows what copywriters, art directors, planners, producers, and media people do in advertising; few if any people can readily explain the role Account people perform, certainly not colleagues and most assuredly not clients.  Perhaps this is why agencies such as McCann are doing away with the position. 

McCann and the other shops following its lead remind me of Dottie Hinson in A League of Their Own:  It just got too hard.  She quit and walked away, exactly what McCann is doing, walking away because it just got too hard.

But if you’re like me, then you’re Jimmy Dugan:  It’s supposed to be hard.

Forget McCann and its feckless followers.  You know it’s supposed to be hard, so you don’t quit.    

What you do instead is strive to get a little better every day, at really listening to what others are saying; at asking better, more astute questions; at responding promptly and thoughtfully; at communicating clearly, concisely, and with conviction.

You know it is hard being an Account person, harder than it ever was.  Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean we don’t do it.

When I was a kid, I liked to draw pictures of my favorite heroes on the Philadelphia Eagles, people like tight end Pete Retzlaff or flanker (what we called wide receivers back then) Tommy McDonald.   All my efforts were for naught – my drawing skills were beyond redemption – but it foreshadowed what would become a lifelong interest in art direction and design. 

It led me during the early stages of my working life to develop an interest in typography, color, and texture.  I collected boxes of paper samples in my office.  I would routinely sketch crude comps for the copy I wrote, converting them (badly) into copywriter’s roughs.  I grew accustomed to visiting printers to do press checks and approve press proofs.   When I was lacking an idea, I tried to at least compensate by making the work look good, following the adage, “If you can’t be nice, be neat.”

It likely explains why, when I made the leap from client side to advertising agency, I brought a certain level of visual knowledge and, ideally, taste, to my work as a self-taught, wannabe designer transitioning to account person.  It is one of the characteristics I had in common with Digitas founder Michael Bronner, who brought a sophisticated, one-of-a-kind visual sensibility to a discipline – direct mail -- largely populated by junk.

In truth, everything that choked our snail-mailboxes in those days was discardable crap, giving rise to the notion that, “Shit sells.”  At Digitas we never gave into this, something I took with me when I migrated West to oversee Foote, Cone & Belding’s direct marketing operations, and later to New York’s Ammirati & Puris, a celebrated agency whose rigorous, exacting, and uncompromising reputation for stellar design was overseen by co-founding Art Director and Creative Hall-of-Fame member Ralph Ammirati.

The agency had just won Canada’s Labatt Brewery account – at the time the largest client shift in Canadian advertising history -- a company more accustomed to traditional broadcast than to connecting with consumers by mail, but the senior marketing executives there were open to trying something new, unconventional, and brand differentiating in a category where the chief competitor was Molson. 

We needed something unexpected but effective; for that I called on my then- Creative Director Fred Schwartz, who in turn recruited one of our Art Directors, Elsebeth Thomsen, to collaborate on possible solutions.

Together we wrote a Creative Brief, with a mission to connect with people, foster two-way dialogue, collect research, capture names for database development, plus sell brand-related merchandise, housed in a communication that’s intrusive, cheeky, and irreverent, consistent with and reinforcing of Labatt’s brand ethos.  

The result?  What you see above:  an oversize, stand-out-in-the-mailbox, pay-attention-to-me newsletter/magazine hybrid unlike anything consumers have received before, not just from a brewing company, but from any company. 

Without getting too deeply into the weeds, the piece demonstrates arresting visuals and clever copy married to a sophisticated, ahead-of-its time use of technology, combined with innovative, figure-it-out print production.  Beer the newsletter works, regardless if you simply glance at it, read it, or interact with it in a more substantial way.

It wasn’t junk mail, because it is anything but junk. 

Did it succeed? 

Traditional direct marketers would want to know how much beer got sold or how much merchandise got moved.  These are not the figures I recall.

What I do recall is an effort that went a long way to supporting the Labatt brand, establishing a consumer relationship in a more intimate way than advertising ever could, along with encouraging a deeper sense of sustained customer loyalty.  It was one of the efforts that led me to coin the phrase Brand Relationship Marketing as the form of direct marketing we preached and practiced, because this is exactly what we were doing:  supporting the brand and building the relationship even as we drove sales and enlisted consumers to our cause.

I wondered if we could produce this or a similar piece of craft today.  Our shop had the benefit of supportive, forward-thinking clients, sufficient time and money, plus general agency colleagues who were collaborative rather than combative.  Most agencies these day have none of these things.

Even so, even if your shop lacks the schedule, a budget, or open-minded clients, the message from this is, even if you’re creating something as modest and time-compressed as a banner or a piece of social media/digital content, it still behooves you to bring as much idea-driven resourcefulness as you can muster to make the best possible work you can.

Nothing less is demanded of you, and nothing less is what you should strive to deliver.

When the television series Adolescence first aired six months ago, I avoided it the way most people avoid having a tooth pulled without anesthesia.  Too depressing.  Too painful.  Too unrelentingly disturbing.  But when the show earned six Emmy awards, including Stephen Graham for best actor, Owen Cooper for best supporting actor, and Erin Doherty for best supporting actress, I steeled myself and watched.

All four episodes require an emotional investment to view, especially the riveting, can’t-turn-away episode three.   It unfolds within the Standing Secure Training Centre, a fictional youth detention facility where Jamie Miller (Cooper) is being held. The show focuses on a prolonged exchange between the 13-year-old Jamie and Brioni Ariston (Doherty), the second of two clinical/forensic psychologists assigned by the court to evaluate him.

In episode one we witnessed a murder taking place on CCTV, so viewers already know Jamie stabbed a classmate, Katie Leonard, to death.  Jamie, however, is in denial, “I didn’t kill her.”  Briony is there to make an assessment for the judge.

Brioni is nothing if not thorough, thoughtful, and meticulous.  She is told the first psychologist, a man, needed three visits; this is Briony’s fifth.  When challenged, her undeterred reply is,  “It’s about making the right assessment, not the fastest,” spoken without a trace of defensiveness.  She is going to do this her way, not somebody else’s way.

Before the interview, she gets Jamie a hot chocolate, adding marshmallows, knowing from previous visits he likes them.  The two meet in what looks to be a relatively barren interview room; she offers the drink, then shares half her sandwich. “Cheese and pickle.” 

Jamie doesn’t like the sandwich, then labels Briony as posh.  He accuses her of trying to trick him.  He mimics her.  As he baits her, Briony remains placid and implacable, unwilling to be triggered. 

Jamie’s unease progresses; he asks to see what she’s written about him.   She is firm in her refusal, but again, without a trace of defensiveness.  He continues to try throwing her off her game; undeterred, she remains relentless in pursuing the questions she’s asking, returning to them, repeating them, searching for answers that might reveal insight into someone clearly calculating yet closed off.

As the questions mount, Jamie’s agitation intensifies:  “The other shrink asked much more normal questions; the other bloke was much easier.”  His anger  quickly escalates into a full-on, unhinged rager, with Jamie standing menacingly over the seated Briony, who does not get up and does not respond, other than to say forcefully, “I need you to sit down,” barely raising her voice.

They take a break; Briony exits, then asks a security guard to show her the tape of their conversation, presumably to view Jamie’s verbal assault from another perspective.  That done, she returns to the meeting room.  Soon thereafter, to Jamie’s dismay, Briony brings the meeting to an end. 

Jamie objects, fiercely, but no matter; Briony remains steadfast and unyielding, even as a staffer enters the room to forcefully remove Jamie.

Briony, now alone, expels a deep, seemingly anguished breath, chokes a bit, nearly losing her lunch before regaining her composure.  She gathers her papers and herself, then exits the room. 

Episode over.

Briony was unable to solve the situation – Jamie is a murderer; there is no solution -- but she is able to resolve it; her objective was an assessment of the person she is charged with evaluating.  As sad as this is to acknowledge, she accomplished what she set out to do.

What I’m watching admittedly is a galaxy away from what client service people face from irate clients and over-heated colleagues, but what struck me about Briony was her attention to detail (remember the hot chocolate?), her listening skills (acute), and, above all, her sense of self-control (unwavering).  If I were faced with a similar situation, I surely would have lost it; she never does.

Before I made the blind jump, at the ripe old age of 33, from the client side to an advertising agency, I worked in the marketing department of the Washington, DC-based company Congressional Information Service, a now-gone pioneering firm in the arena of data-driven information management.  Back then CIS briefly owned a subsidiary, a journalism enterprise that published More Magazine.  When I joined the firm in 1978 – yes, it was nearly 50 years ago -- I saw the poster above in my then-boss Howard Goldstein’s office.

Howard is now gone, as is the person to whom I subsequently reported, Jimmy Connolly, but all these many years later I remain in touch with friends and former colleagues Rick Johnson, his wife Susan Fersh Johnson, and my pick-up-basketball-playing friend, Jack Carey.

I’ve lost touch with others, including Liz Cuny – still hanging on my home-office wall is the incredibly droll (and silly) farewell party invite she and Rick created to mark my departure – and Margaret “Molly” Jones, both art directors in our small but mighty in-house group.

I think of them and that headline as I read Nathan Heller’s New Yorker tribute to the author E.B. White, who joined the magazine in 1925, the year of its founding.  Heller is recounting what White wrote about the 1969 moon landing:

“The New Yorker had dispatched Talk reporters to various quarters to watch people watch the landing on TV, but writing a lead piece fell to White. What could measure up to the occasion? His idea was both simple and audacious: a single perfect paragraph.”

Many of you know I am a huge E.B. White fan, naming his children’s book Charlotte’s Web among my all-time favorites, including his and William Strunk’s The Elements of Style on my list of 25 books you should read.

White’s talent is unmistakable, but what really distinguishes him isn’t his writing, but the re-writing he viewed as both necessary and essential to achieving something as close as possible to the ideal.  He labors over this one paragraph, Heller pointing out:

“What followed—his fourth draft—was as messy as his first. He kept working… By his sixth draft, White was making small, startling refinements: changing “couldn’t have foresworn the little” to “did not foreswear the familiar,” adding an “and” in “every great river, every great sea.” With these adjustments, the paragraph fell into focus: it sounded, all at once, like the mind and soul of E. B. White.”  

That’s the point:  this stuff is as hard as it is important, in particular for anyone working in client service/account management.  Among the very few skills that will distinguish you from others and help advance your career, writing with clarity, concision, and conviction ranks at the very top of the list. 

Unless you are the very, very rare exception to the rule – I know of no one like this -- you won’t get to the finish line of the thing you’re writing – a proposal, a presentation, a conference report, an email, whatever -- the first time out or even the third.

How many re-writes will you need?  For E.B. White, it took six.

For you, as many as it takes.

Postscript:  for those of you interested, here is the paragraph White wrote, appearing in the July 26, 1969 issue of The New Yorker: