January 24, 2005
some more advice from hamish
From the comments of a recent gapingvoid post: Hamish offers Louise, a university student, some more advice about the working world.
Hi Louise,
I hope that you find what you are looking for, although I tend to think that Hugh is right. I would also throw the net a bit broader, and point out something that has struck me very forcefully over the last couple of decades. (I am 39.)
When I left University I was spectacularly unemployable, and so I did what grads did in those days, I looked for someone who would teach me a skill. Now, way back then, i.e. the late eighties, there were graduate training programmes with the big corporations that were actually worth doing. I joined what is now KPMG to train to be an auditor, and left after three months because I hated it, and more improtantly, didn’t have the right attitude for it.
I joined one of the magazine publishers, trade and so on, and sold ad space, which is really bloody tedious as a job, but it paid the rent, and made me ask myself for real why would anyone give me money? Good question to think about an answer to.
Then I could see that this was going nowhere, it was the ultimate rack space, one body fell, and another dropped in without a hiccup. You were given your box of cards and a phone, and expected to figure out how to sell white paper with a couple of afternoon’s training. So I joined the graduate training prohram of one of the big IT companies. And they took two years to traim me to do something useful, and I worked at it, and within a couple more years I left and have had a very successful career with a big ERP software vendor, mainly doing sales, and mainly on the back of what I learnt in the ad sales sweatshop.
Now, here’s the point. Twenty years ago you trained people up because it was the cheapest and most effective way to ensure that you had skilled and useful resource for the long term growth of the company. Twenty years later, get this.
1. There is no long term, the CEO’s next quarter is his/her last.
2. Stealing somebody else is cheaper, and you can do it on demand. This is called right sizing
3. In case the resource you need is scarce, remember that the job market globally has added around 100 million competent people (University grads, experience, speak English, have access to outside world) since around 1990.
So, basically, no-one has any interest in telling you anything about how to do their job because they are already worried about keeping it, let alone telling anyone else how to do it. And so with very few exceptions, the traditional graduate entry points are closed. This is what you need to overcome.
How will you find the network that will get you into the right position? Who is it that you know, or will get to know that will take a personal interest in getting you functional in this business?
If the answer is no-one, then you need to go and find a business where the answer is “someone”, and quick.
Ouch. I remember being a young recent-grad in London, and Hamish brings it all back. Ouch.
100 million extra English-speaking, internationally-minded, competent, suit-wearing, professional corporate types added to the world job market since 1990. Ouch.
Hey Hugh, hey Louise…
I used to be a copywriter, and I’m very glad I was one. I also used to teach copywriting, around the time I started wanting to stop being a copywriter.
Teaching it contributed to my wanting to stop.
The reason I stopped had to do with my adding value to the world. In advertising, no matter what brilliance I created (and as a freelancer for a good eight years, my balls were on the line everytime I accepted a brief), I found that it was transient. The work didn’t have any lasting effects in the real world, and was simply more bumph. Blah. I wanna make art. And that’s what I’m doing. Adding value in my way.
When I was teaching fresh-faced, hyper-intelligent young things, I taught them this:
(1) Make sure that you have your own ethical system in place before you get into an ad agency. You WILL be called upon to fuck with your ethics. Know in advance what lines you’ll be prepared to cross, and be prepared to LEAVE an ad agency if they try to make your cross your uncrossables.
(2) In your first two years of working, make absolutely vehemently violently incontrovertibly certain that you DO NOT STAY FOR LONGER THAN SIX MONTHS at a particular agency. No matter WHAT incentives they offer you to stay. Always offer this in parting: “I’m really still learning, and I LOVE LOVE LOVE this agency. When I’m done learning, I’m going to want to come back here, and I want to keep my doors open. But when I come back here I’m going to be brilliant! And I’m going to win tons of awards for you and your agency and your clients and myself!” They’ll love you, and forget you as soon as you close the front door.
(3) Whenever you move agencies, ensure that the work you’ve done — be it formal work assigned to you by the agency, or extramural work done by you on your own initiative for clients of that agency — is so fucking amazingly awesome, that your salary doubles from agency to agency. Yes. DOUBLES. You have to put in the 150% to ensure that you’re NOT just some silly body shifting from desk to desk in the world that is advertising. If you’re not prepared to be brilliant, and you’re not prepared to double your salary, it means you’re a crap copywriter, and noone wants you except for the crappest ad agencies. And you DO NOT WANT TO WORK for a crap agency. Trust me. I’ve done it. Bloodstains on my pillow.
Something that I’ll advise you, Louise, is this… seriously fix up your written English. I read your letter to Hugh, and it’s riddled with errors. There are a good five or so that I can recall without delving into the missive. You’re NOT making a good start in copywriting if you can’t write.
The place to start in fixing your writing is to read lots. And a variety of things. Fiction, poetry, business books, self-help, biography, are good places to start. I’m NOT KIDDING!!!
Also, be sure to live a little. Try silly odd job type things. Get experience in living. You cannot succeed in advertising if you know nothing about the way business works. (Yes, you CAN be a bushy tailed creative who comes up with good ideas, but that’s not necessarily effective advertising.)
Learn how to sell.
In my career as a copywriter, I have a proud record of only 9 client rejections. This is not by accident.
Firstly, I ensured that I did my homework, sometimes pissing off client service people to the point of tears and resignations because I forced them to do their jobs… liaising with clients to give me ALL the information.
Secondly, I NEVER EVER stopped at the first right idea. My mission was to cover my wall with one hundred ideas, and choose twenty that might have some merit. I’d develop five of those, and mash them around, and create a total of three finished concepts. Always.
Thirdly, I presented my own work. And because I was a salesperson at one point, and because I’m a gifted listener, and because I understand things, and because I’d researched my client’s business, and because I understood what they were trying to achieve, and because I dissected and modified and fixed the brief way before I ever started on the creative stuff, I was in a very good position to crack the right ad, and then to sell it with integrity.
Okay. Too much stuff for you to take in.
And right now, it’s 1:23am by my clock, and I’m producing a tv program starting tomorrow, so I’ll say cheers for now. And good luck. And read Alistair Crompton’s THE CRAFT OF COPYWRITING.
Blue skies
love
Roy
Hello,
I’ve just read all of the above and below and left/right/centre, and I’m not sure if anybody’s interested, but all of this perfectly applies to becoming an architect (hello, that’s me!), too, including the switching firms every six months or so bit. Thinking of that, I suppose it applies to all even only slightly creative jobs, you just need to switch work environments quite often at the beginning (and not only so that your salary increases, I guess it’a a matter of not being stuck into the first thing that came along after you sent out your cv.).
Alright, I’m not adding much to the conversation, here, but that’s all I wanted to say.
I’ll tell you what — I’ll go back to lurking mode.
Ciao!
Hey Hugh, hey Louise…
I read your letter and the various responses from all these marketing gurus and thought;what can I add to benefit Louise?
The result is; if you were my daughter I would suggest you visited http://www.wizardofads.com.
Then if you are still interested I suggest you read one or more of Roy H Williams’ books. After that, you may wish to look at the possibility of attending his course at the ‘Wizard Academy’.
I am not in advertising,in fact I’m not ‘in’ anything any longer as I am too old.And, I don’t wish to bore you with all my history, mistakes and successes.
I have read Roy’s books and feel that they talk a great deal of sense. I have not been on his course but I feel with that much enthusiasm for his work he has to be a good teacher. For a couple of days of your life and a few dollars what have you got to lose?
The rest is up to you.
regards
Graham
Tikkety talking
All these tiny little empires, where to next Mr. Conductor?