Recently I whiffed on a freelance assignment. It wasn’t pretty—two rounds of complete failure. I struck out. Dropped the ball. Missed the target. (Feel free to pick your choice of sports failure metaphor.)
It hurt because I pride myself on always nailing it. Always. But sometimes it doesn’t work out that way. I felt bad. Bad as in I’ve-been-exposed-as-a-no-talent-hack-and-will-never-get-hired-again bad.
Fortunately, once I took a breath, I remembered a story from my past that helps keep things in perspective. So sit back for a tale involving freelancing, a hall-of-fame copywriter, and a certain orange–tinged casino owner.
The Roy Grace website
Advertising forgets its heroes.
For an industry that supposedly worships creative work, it’s almost impossible to find the ads of the people who led the way. As we lose more creative giants such as Cliff Freeman and George Lois, there’s almost no way to enjoy their classic work, other than some grainy videos on YouTube and crappy ad scans on Pinterest. So I took it upon myself to fix it for the creative legend (and my first advertising mentor) Roy Grace.
Eric Roberts is my spirit animal.
Now, I realize that Eric Roberts isn’t exactly a top of mind actor. Today, he’s probably best known as Julia Roberts’ older brother. But at one time, he was the hot new thing in Hollywood. For a lot of reasons, his career didn’t go as far as it should have. But now, he has settled into his later career and is keeping very busy—which for an older actor, isn’t easy.
I read an article about him a while back and I instantly recognized myself in it. But it was more than that. I realized we are kindred spirits, soul brothers if you will, because how he stays busy is how I stay busy.
Great Moments in Advertising: Employee Mismanagement
Toward the end of my run as a full time ad agency employee, I had a creative director who was the quirkiest and (not coincidentally) least motivating boss I ever had.
The CD told another friend of mine in the creative department that they divided people into four groups (see my lovely infographic). The A group were both talented and hard working. They were golden. B was people that were talented but lazy. C was people who were hard working, but didn’t have the goods. And D was people who were neither. Their future was not bright.
Fair enough, I guess. But here’s the thing…
Lessons Learned From 3.5 Years of Freelancing
A couple of years ago, I took everything I had learned in my brief freelance career and put it into an article, Lessons Learned from A Year of Freelancing: rb.gy/95yhlx It was one of the most liked, shared and commented-on pieces I’ve ever done, and a lot of people mentioned how helpful they found it.
Now that I’m a couple more years in, I’ve learned some additional things along the way. With a sudden onslaught of new, Corona-caused freelancers hitting the market, I thought it could be of assistance. So here goes round two.
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Treat your ideas like a piece of meat.
If you want better advertising ideas, maybe you treat them like a fine porterhouse.
Here’s why. At some point, as you learn how to properly cook meat, you discover the concept of letting it rest. It’s the technique where you take the meat off the heat and let it sit for 10-15 minutes before serving.
Even though it looks like nothing is happening, trust me, something is happening. Technically, the juices are redistributing and ensuring that the flavor stays in the meat, not the cutting board. But basically, it means that taking a breather makes things better.
In this fast moving, high pressure, get-it-done-yesterday world, don’t you wish we could do the same with creative work?
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Freelance creatives usually outperform the full timers. It’s true. Nothing personal against in-house creatives. They’re not less talented. Or lazy. Or burned out. I know because I used to be one of them.
But now I’m a freelance copywriter/creative director and I’ve found it has one major advantage:
Focus.
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Birth of the BOGO
Attention shoppers, have we got a deal for you. Yes, we’re talking about BOGO and I’m part of the team that helped introduce it into modern shopping terminology.
I used to work on Payless ShoeSource and they had a problem. Well, lots of problems. But one in particular was that their Buy One, Get One sale was getting cannibalized (which is a polite way of saying ripped off). Every other shoe maker had started running the exact same sale. Over time, this made both the offer and Payless less special.
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Adventures in Ageism
My first job in advertising was at one of those huge New York agencies that had over 700 people. I sat on 16, an entire floor of nothing but creatives. One day, an ACD said “Hey kid, look around. How many people on this floor are over 40?” I thought hard and said, “Umm, three?” “Exactly. Where do they all go?”
I never found out. But now I am one of them, and I’d like to do what it takes to stick around. Because let’s face it, ageism is real. You know it, I know it, and that kid who just got hired out of Portfolio Center and seems to be eyeing your office knows it.
If you’d like to stick around too, here are a few watchouts that could help. Feel free to laminate them and keep them in your satchel.
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What kind of corporate ladder is this??
I’ve been in advertising my whole career, so I’m very aware of the churn happening in the industry: ageism, downsizing, clients opting out of the business model. But this weekend, I saw a glimpse of another field that felt scary and eerily familiar.
Last Saturday, after finishing up a freelance gig, I took a Lyft to beautiful LaGuardia Airport. As we hit the road, I noticed the driver was about my age, lived in a nice town in Westchester and was driving a Mercedes SUV. So, I was curious as to how and why he became a Lyft driver.
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Help. I’m OD’ing on cause marketing.
So many brands have discovered a higher calling lately that I can’t take it.
On a recent commercial break, every brand was doing something cause related. (Well, except Dealin’ Doug, our local car dude.) The message seems to be “We’re not selling shampoo, we’re empowering people.” “We’re not shilling processed cereal. Heavens, no! That’d be crass. We’re taking a stand for the mildly endangered malamute.”
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Lessons Learned from a Year of Freelancing
After a career as a salaried employee, I became a freelancer a year ago. It’s been a time of exhilaration, stress, education, and massive growth. During this crash course in successful freelancing, I’ve learned a few things.
Your reputation will haunt or help you.
How you carry yourself has way more impact when you’re effectively looking for a new job several times a year. For better or worse, your reputation catches up with you. It turns out I have a much bigger support network than I realized, because of how I treated people over the last two decades. In fact, I've got as many jobs from account folks and project managers as I have from creatives. Because I always tried not to be a typical creative jerk to them. Of course, I also know some freelancers who are borderline unhireable. Sadly, they set that path for themselves, whether they were nasty or lazy or just plain unlikeable. So be good to people along the way. And don’t forget to tip your waiters and bartenders.
Working Not Working does not work.
Of all the freelancers I have compared notes with, I have only met one person who got a single job through WNW. Maybe it’s great for some, but not for anyone in my fairly wide network. Sadly, it’s the same for LinkedIn. I think these sites are great for business info information: keeping track of the industry and seeing who’s doing what. But in terms of getting freelance gigs, they seem to mainly be good for reminding people who already know you that you still exist. Nothing beats working your network with emails and calls versus trying to connect with strangers online. In the category of “successful freelance job hunting”, the Effie goes to: the human touch.
People are damn busy. Don’t take it personally.
If you reach out with a call, text or email and don’t hear back right away, don’t sweat it. And don’t go to that dark place your therapist couldn’t fix and assume the worst. Odds are they’re not ignoring you, or have developed a sudden hatred of you and your work. One time, I sent out so many emails with no response that I was convinced my email was broken. (And it’s Yahoo Mail, so can you blame me?) But then a couple of days later, I got a flood of responses, good feedback, even a gig. The truth is that when I was an overworked creative director, I know I missed emails that I should’ve replied to. So now I’m just on the other end. (Hey Karma, what’s up?) So please don’t take it personally because people are BUSY. Email them again. Make another call. It’s all good.
It’s crowded and getting crowded-er.
I like to say that the freelance hot tub is pretty full right now. But every week or two, somebody else cannonballs in. Damn, and they’re talented too. Which means there are more people than jobs. So, you’re not going to win if you don’t hustle. (See: Do the Hustle)
Do the Hustle.
Who’s sick of hearing about ‘hustle’? I agree. Nothing personal, Gary Vee, Grant Cardone, Rick Ross, et al. But as tired of it as we might be, here’s the thing. It’s true. You can’t sit back on your couch watching Maury Povich and assume people are going to beat down your door. If you don’t have a job, your job is finding a job. People new to freelancing will hit me up and I can tell they haven’t found that hustle gear yet. There’s an inertia where they haven’t come to terms with this strange new world in which they’ve found themselves. To them I say, get over it. I’ve seen people who hustle and people who don’t. And guess which one is home watching Rachael Ray make a delish turkey noodle casserole.
Outlets over Wi-Fi.
Wi-Fi is pretty easy to find. But power outlets? Those are the holy grail. The four-leaf clover. The rose abloom in the desert. Available power affects where I buy my cup of tea, which public space I work in, the particular booth I sit at. Because I can work without Wi-Fi. In fact, I might even work better without all the distract… hang on, somebody pinged me on Facebook… OK, I’m back. Anyway, as I was saying, I can work better when I focus. But I can’t work without power. So I know where every power outlet is within a 10-mile radius of my house.
There are daytime people.
If you’ve always worked 9-to-5 (or 10-8 for advertising folks), there’s a whole class of people you’re not even aware of. I call them daytime people. These are folks who don’t work the day shift. In fact, they might not work at all. And they walk among us. My first week as a freelancer, I had to set up my phone at the Sprint store and I wound up in line behind a very, very angry man. He was complaining to both the guy behind the counter AND to the Sprint person on his phone at the same time. I looked down, saw a blinking ankle monitor and took two steps back. Daytime person.
Different strokes for different agencies.
For almost a decade, I worked at CP+B, an incredible place that truly did things their way. After a while, it was all I knew. But now, I’ve worked many agencies that do things very differently—different cultures, different briefs, different snacks in the break room. Some things are for the better, some for the worse, but it’s been eye opening to see. At the end of the day, you’ll find most agencies are full of smart people trying to do right by their clients. You’ll rarely get a brief brief, but there are always nuggets of gold in there. And, thanks to having Wrigley as a client, you’ll get the freshest breath working at Energy BBDO.
Gauge success by repeat business.
As a freelancer, my client is the agency, not the client. I now get hired to be an idea machine. But I have no control of those ideas after I send them in. Bon voyage, great ideas. They might get presented, or changed, or killed, who knows? The only way to really judge my success is if people call me back. And so far, so good. In the last year, I’ve had the majority of my clients give me more work, so that’s now my marker of success. Because a satisfied agency is my best customer.
If you need copywriting or creative direction (or want to know how your snacks stack up within the industry), hit me up at allenrichardson@yahoo.com.
Beware the Moat
When is a moat not a moat? When it’s a valuable creative metaphor. Because I’ve learned that if you don’t avoid the moat, you not only wind up soaked, you can wind up with soggy ideas.
In addition to being a creative director/copywriter, I also warp young minds as an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado, where I teach an Intro to Creative Advertising class. Part of helping people new to making ads get better is not just pointing out the great ideas, but explaining why the weaker ideas don’t work. Over time, I’ve developed a couple of shorthand terms, and that’s where the moat comes in.
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Let’s define “better” better.
I’ve decided “better” might be the least helpful word in the English language.
In my career as a fulltime and freelance creative director, I have worked with a lot of very different agencies. But they all had one thing in common: at some point, the top brass looked around and decided that the creative work was a problem.
The work wasn’t as good as it should be. It was the weak point in the agency/client relationship. Or God forbid, it wasn’t winning awards. Inevitably, the team would be assembled and the edict would come down: make the work better.
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