When I graduated college in 1992, I couldn’t wait to put what little I’d learned into play. Fortunately, I had a role model (“Who We Are”/”People”/”Ken Jones”) willing to let me shadow him like a puppy dog twelve hours a day. Before long, I became a pretty solid “ad man”. But it wasn’t the media planning or copywriting that inspired me. It was consulting with our clients. It was listening to their problems and challenges – and finding creative ways to solve them. Problem was, the company I worked for at the time was fat and happy. They had “enough” business to pay for our waterfront office space and their German automobiles.
I thought that mentality sucked.
At the time, I was low man on the totem pole. Frankly, I’m not even sure my status qualified for a head on the totem pole. This was a status I gratefully would never relinquish. Yet, typically it was either me or Ken who opened shop every morning and the two of us would inevitably lock up every night.
After finishing the annual Port of Miami print media plan three months into the year – and by the way, you ain’t lived until you’ve duked out a 12-insertion deal with Inbound Logistics magazine – something strange happened… I ran out of things to do. We in the real estate/mortgage profession can’t even fathom this ever happening, right? I was getting a paycheck every two weeks and was doing absolutely nothing to earn it.
Apparently, my ass-sitting didn’t bother the owners of our ad agency very much. But it bothered the hell out of me. We needed some new clients – and if the owners weren’t going to get off their duffs to find some, hell… I would. Now if you’d known me then, you’d probably be laughing right now. I was barely old enough to buy a beer. I’d literally just gotten my degree. I had absolutely zero business experience. And I was picking up the Yellow Pages and cold calling some of the largest and most prestigious advertisers in the Tampa Bay area. I was too young, stupid and naive to know it wasn’t going to work.
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