Quick Sunday Evening Tip

I received one of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given about 5 years ago now, shortly after I'd joined the Agency where I still am to this day. I was working with a female Account Director whom I'd already gathered had a reputation for being a bit of a ball-breaker. As it turned out, not only was she damn good, but she was also lovely - to be clear though, that doesn't in any way mean that the ball-breaker reputation was undeserved.

I was, in many ways, a typical male account manager. Overflowing with big ideas and impatient for promotion, recognition and some kind of acknowledgement of my own brilliance, I didn't really have time for 'organisation', or 'planning' or any of those other things that I'd already really rather leave to the Account Exec. Needless to say, I was set straight on this pretty sharpish. Frankly, I needed a slap, and I got one.

But that wasn't the advice - that's just a fact of life. As I believe I've touched on once or twice elsewhere, if you're not buttoned down and organised, things will go wrong, and when anything goes wrong, it is your fault, even if it isn't. Because everything is.

No, the advice was much simpler than that - three short words that I've never forgotten, and that served me extremely well as an AM and to this day:

Get in early.

Or, to build on that slightly, get in earlier than your Account Manager, Account Director, or anybody who's likely to look at your desk and wonder where you are.

There are two main reasons for this. The first is practical: 8am to 9am is the best time to get anything done. Your phone is likely to be ringing less (you can certainly guarantee that you won't be disturbed by any creatives or TV producers), and as such you'll be able to get all of the niggly, irritating, admin-heavy work done, which will enable you to spend the day doing the good stuff. (Trust me, having to miss a creative briefing because you need to sort out the billing spreadsheet is not a good result for you or anyone else.)

The second reason is simply that it looks good. It looks good to your AD when he or she has to call ahead because something needs doing and you're there to do it, and it looks good to your Client when he or she calls the Agency at 8.05 expecting to have to leave a message. (Be aware - while a Client's day may often end earlier than yours, it also tends to start at 8am on the dot. And you'd be amazed how much a Client will respect a Suit who's at his or her desk at the same time as them.)

So there it is. Be at your desk at 8am. Sort out the billing spreadsheet. Update status. Do your timesheets. Get all and any admin out of the way so that you can focus on the fun stuff for the rest of the day. Impress people. And, if you really have nothing else to do, read blogs, and learn about ads. Because making room for that in your day is as important a part of your job as writing good contact reports. And 8am is the best time to do it. Promise.

Being A Decent AD - It's All About Swings And Roundabouts

So. You're in advertising. In fact, you've been in advertising for three or four years now: you've got a few campaigns under your belt; you've worked on a couple of pitches; you've started to get your head round managing an Account Exec or two; inevitably, your thoughts start to turn towards promotion - you want to be an Account Director.

So what do you do? Do you start pestering your Head of Client Service, asking when, when, when and when you'll be promoted? Of course you don't. You're better than that. No, you arrange a catch-up with him or her, in which you set out a sensible time-line, and establish exactly what you need to be doing in your day-to-day job to ensure that they can't help but promote you. Because you know, as all wise Suits know, that the best way to become an Account Director is to do the job of one. But that's the easy bit.

What do you do when promotion arrives? In many ways, this is the hardest step you'll have to take in your career. Promotion from Account Exec to Account Manager is exciting, and it's quite right that it should be celebrated, but the differences between the jobs isn't that huge - the role of an Account Manager comes with greater responsibility and there's inevitably wider scope, but it is, at the most fundamental level, more, and bigger of the same. But the step from Account Manager to Account Director is different - not least in the sense that you'll suddenly be asked to lead (or, if you like, 'direct') a rather larger bunch of people than you have before, something that I can tell you from experience can be pretty intimidating.

Fortunately, there's one simple rule that will help you through these tough times:

Don't be an arse.

Now, I realise that probably sounds a little facetious - hell, it is a little facetious. But there's a serious point to it.

You see, I have a theory about Account Directors: that there are two (no more, no less) schools. There's the 'Learn From What You Went Through' school, and there's the 'My Turn Now' school.

The first school are the people who, when working with AMs and AEs, look back on their experience in the roles, remember the good stuff their ADs did and try and do more of it, and remember the bad stuff and try and do less of it. They remember how tough things can get, and they remember how people helped them get through it - they are better at their job because of the tough times they went through.

The second school (and I'm fortunate to have worked with very few of these) tend to take more of an 'I got screwed over when I was an AM - now it's MY turn to do the screwing'. These are the 'I worked late every day when I was an AE - now YOU will work late every day. Just because.' people. Everybody has worked with at least one of these.

The lesson here is a quick one: be the first one; don't be the second one.

There will, of course, always be situations where you have to ask people to do things they're not particularly going to want to do - that's the nature of the job, particularly (although far from exclusively) at a more junior level. But making the effort to put yourself in the shoes of the people you get to boss around might just make it a slightly more pleasant experience for the lot of you. And as an AD, if the experience isn't pleasant, it'll be your fault. Because everything is.

You'll Always Be An Account Exec To Somebody (or, Everything Is Your Fault (3))

It's been a while, but it's time for another one of those fairly-noticed and much-liked-a-bit posts on tips for Junior Suits. Except that this one isn't really for Junior Suits - it's for all of us.

This morning, I was out of the office having a working breakfast (which I know sounds incredibly pretentious, but it's better than 'breakfast meeting', and is slightly different from 'breakfast with colleagues') when I got a call from my CEO. He had a call at 9am, and needed somebody to print out some media schedules for him. Obviously, the traditional process in such a circumstance would have been for me to delegate to some monkey or other, and then order another Bloody Mary - and in circumstances like this, I'm a big fan of tradition.

However, for reasons I won't go into here, there was nobody else in the office on this occasion. And so I hopped up, nipped back to the Agency (fortunately I was only breakfasting over the road), ran out a copy of the media schedules and the accompanying note from Client, popped them on my CEO's desk, and returned to my Eggs Benedict.

And the point is this. Every September a bunch of Junior Suits start, full of excitement and optimism about what their career will hold. Sure, they won't enjoy the 10 week summer holidays anymore, and getting out of bed on a Monday morning is less optional than it has been for the past three or four years, but the glamour and thrill of Life As An Adman will more than make up for it. By now, though, they will already be starting to realise that Life As A Junior Adman involves an awful lot of photo-copying, binding, presentation-tweaking, scanning and general dogsbody-ing. (Although the anecdotes they tell their banking friends will mostly focus on the Soho House lunch they enjoyed with the CEO in their third week.)

But they'll console themselves with the fact that it won't last forever, and that one day they can forget how the photo-copier works, delegate the binding in aeternum and pretend they never knew how to open a job-number. That's what AEs and PAs are for, right?

Yeah. Sorry. No.

One of the facts of Life As A Suit that you just have to accept is that no matter how senior you are, and no matter how long you have been in the business, you will always be an Account Exec to somebody. And whilst you may well have your own Account Execs to delegate to, they won't always be around. And if they're not and you don't know how to un-jam the photo-copier, then even if you're a Head of Client Service it will still, now, then and always, be your fault. Because everything is.

How To Lose A Pitch

I'll do a post one day with advice on how to pitch successfully (advice on how to work within a team, how to structure a meeting, the importance of reception, the importance of the junior clients, etc...). It will be a long post, and it will probably ramble a touch - largely because there's clearly no established set of rules for winning a pitch. And if there were, I wouldn't post them here. I like you people, but not that much.

So this is a post about losing pitches - or, more specifically, how to deal with losing pitches. The fact of the matter is that everybody in this industry will lose pitches. I've been fortunate enough to be on the winning side on more occasions than not (I'm still young enough for that to change...) but show me someone who's never lost a pitch and I'll show you someone who either doesn't work in advertising, or is just lying on Twitter. As you might expect though, there's more than one way to lose a pitch - the small pieces of advice I offer here are designed to help you do it better, and to get you through to the other side.

First up, and this is an obvious one, be gracious. If the pitch is through any kind of intermediary (and most are), you need to stay in their good books - you gain nothing by being sullen or petulant. When you discover who's won, offer your congratulations to the successful Agency. In pitches, as in life, being a gentleman can only bring good things, while moaning or complaining just makes you look like a child.

Feedback is vital, and inevitably hard to take. Whether you're pitching for a multi-million pound piece of business, or a small local client, an enormous amount of emotional investment goes into a pitch - as a result, it hurts when you lose. And the one thing that hurts even more is finding out exactly why you lost: what you did that they didn't like; what you said that they didn't agree with; what you misinterpreted on the pitch brief; whose personality clashed with whose. But you have to swallow your pride, and dive right in. Speak to the intermediary, speak to the client (if you can) and be self-critical - what could you have done better, when could you have worked harder, how could your thinking have been more rigorous? Everything you learn will make you better prepared for the next pitch.

And once you've done that, move on. Wallowing helps no-one. You have to pick yourself up, dust yourself on and start looking for the next opportunity. There will always be another pitch.

And finally, go for a drink. Go for several drinks. The inevitable reality is that when a team wins a pitch, everyone in the Agency wins a pitch. When a team loses a pitch, the team tend to be left alone with their loss. The responsibility of the Suit is to lead that team out to the pub as much as it was to lead that team into the pitch itself. So drink, rant, laugh, realise that you didn't want to win anyway, fall over and move on. You will all be better Adlanders for it.

Every Bathroom Needs A Door

So - picture the scene. It's 6am, and I'm rudely woken by persistent ringing of my doorbell. Somewhat bleary-eyed, I don my dressing gown and make my way to the door, to be confronted by the 6"7 bearded man who has been leading the merry troupe of cowboys that have spent the previous three weeks fitting a new bathroom. Somewhat bizarrely, given that he'd just woken me up, he doesn't look happy.

"Why have you made me come round again?" he asks, somewhat abruptly.

"Erm... Well, I was hoping you'd be able to finish off the bathroom..." I mumbled, in what I hoped was a conciliatory tone.

(From this point on I'll leave out the 'erms', 'ahems' and 'ahs', else we'll be here all day.)

It turned out I'd missed the target with the reconciliation. He wasn't pleased.

"What are you talking about? The bathroom's finished. It's beautiful!"

By now we were striding through my flat, heading for the bathroom in question. Well, he was striding - I was shuffling along in his wake.

"Look! Look! It's beautiful! Look at the shower, and the bath! Look at the tiles! It's beautiful!"

"Yes, but..."

"Look at the heated towel rail - it's a beautiful thing!"

By this point I was starting to grudgingly admire his ability for seeing beauty in the most tediously functional of things - but I wasn't to be swayed.

"Yep, and I love it, but that's not really the point - where's the sodding door?"

And he looked at me, slightly suspicious, slightly crestfallen (presumably because I'd failed to appreciate the beauty of a gaping door-frame) and suddenly sullen.

"We never talked about a door. We never said it would have a door."

And I'll leave the story there, and jump to the point - of course we'd talked about a door. Every bathroom needs a door. My bathroom, prior it its renovation, had a door: the door that was now supposed to be hanging in the (beautiful) doorframe; the door that, it transpired, had been mistakenly lobbed in a skip a week earlier. And because I'm a fastidious Suit, I'd kept record of all the conversations we'd had and emails we'd exchanged, and was able to call his (much less physically imposing) boss later that day, and make him come round the following day, with a new door, which he duly fitted. So don't worry about me or my bathroom - we're just fine.

The point, though, is this: keep notes, follow up calls with emails and however you refer to or structure them, produce contact reports. Because there will come a day (and eventually, believe me, there will come several) when you'll be glad that you did.

Getting The Best Out Of The BACC

Logic demands that I should follow up yesterday's empassioned rallying call in Campaign with a big, bombastic, insightful post on the nature of Suiting. So I'm not going to - instead, I'm going to impart what I have in the way of BACC wisdom.

(Incidentally, I'm stubbornly going to refer to them as the BACC in this post. Whilst I'd heartily recommend using 'Clearcast' when you speak to them (they can get a bit precious), I'll be using BACC in this post because it describes what they do and what they are, while ClearCast, conversely, means absolutely nothing.)

So - onwards. You won't find the BACC on many advertising blogs - and if you do, they will normally feature as a probable justification for an ad not being very good. (They have a lot in common with 'clients' in this respect.) That, I'd venture, is mostly because the only people that really come into contact with them are Suits, and as discussed ad infinitum elsewhere, Suits Don't Blog. So - this is their moment in the sun. I'm not going to tell you how to get illegal ideas past them, and I'm not going to try and tell you what to say to them - each representative will have a different way of working. I'm just going to offer a couple of tips for Suits who have to deal with them, and hopefully a bit of revelation into what they actually do, for a broader audience.

First off, the revelation: the BACC do not hate advertising, and their job is not to ensure that all ads on TV are shit. (I'd reference that quote, but I've heard it far too many times from far too many different people.) The reality is quite the opposite. The BACC need advertising - without it, there's literally no point in them. The reason the BACC exist (and you can write this one down) is to ensure that once an ad is on air, it stays there.

It is the job of the BACC to ensure that when 'Disgruntled of Rotherham' writes to the ASA to complain about the flagrant disregard for public decency in the new tampax ad, or the clearly manipulated emission figures in the new BMW ad, there is a solid, rigorous and inarguable body of evidence to demonstrate that 'Disgruntled' is mistaken, and should get back to complaining about Chris Moyles. It's a thankless job, it's often a fairly miserable job and it's always an extremely admin-heavy job, but essentially they are here to help us, and understanding that makes managing the whole process a hell of a lot easier. Don't think, 'How can we get this through?' - think, 'How can we help them get this through?'

And the rest of it is really pretty straightforward: be nice to them; give them time where you can; anticipate their issues/concerns, and answer them before they're raised; remember they've rebranded, and call them Clearcast; don't just take them out for lunch at the end of a tricky project, take them out for lunch at the start of a tricky project, and stick a celebration lunch in the diary (it's obvious, it's superficial, and it works); and, finally, treat them like human beings. Their job is to worry about the disgruntleds of Milton Keynes, Rotherham and Cardiff so that we don't have to - our job is to help them. And then to take them to lunch.

A Change To Scheduled Programming

Good morning, one and all - and a special hello to those that are here as a result of this morning's Campaign. If you're wondering what the point of this is (and hell, we all have at some point), then you can either read this or this, depending on your mood. If you'd like to be put off being a Junior Suit then why not check this out (or even this) - and, once you've done that, you can get excited again here. Or just browse. Your call.

Hopefully you'll find something of value to enjoy - to be honest though, as I said in my letter, even if you don't, I'm just glad you're here. I believe in the role of the Suit, and I believe that too often it's not done well enough. Debating (and, let's be honest, arguing about) exactly what 'well enough' means is what this blog is for.

Suits Laid Bare - Jamie Elliott

And so - to the first of my posts giving you all a glimpse into the inner-workings of the minds of AdLand's finest Suits. First up, we have Jamie Elliott, erstwhile Head of Client Service and now Deputy Managing Director of Delaney Lund Knox Warren, the London-based shop renowned for the quality of its Suits. Over to him.

1. So - who are you?

I’m Jamie Elliott, presently Deputy MD at DLKW.  I was a grad trainee at Euro RSCG Wnek Gosper in 1998, when Euro was hot (hard to believe now).  I made the board 5 years in, met my wife there, moved to DLKW in 2005 (where I was Head of Client Service for a couple of years) and completed a part-time MBA last year. 

When I started, Peugeot, my main client, didn’t have email, so we did everything by fax and courier.  As an exec this meant that you had thousands of u-matic tapes and wads of fax confirmation papers stacked up on your desk and spent most of your time checking endless tapes.  Everyone smoked like chimneys, by about 10am there was a heavy smog across our floor. And at 6 o'clock, religiously, the booze fridge was opened up.

It sounds fun but it was all a bit 80s, the dying embers of another generation’s fire.  Technological advance makes now much, much more exciting.

2. Single best experience as a Suit? And your worst horror story?

Waking up on 1st December 2000 to find an image from our Commission for Racial Equality ad hogging the front page of The Mirror, was the beginning of my single best day in advertising.

The launch party for the campaign was hosted by Gordon Brown at No.11 that evening. I was 2 years in working directly with Mark Wnek and Brett Gosper on the project.  Being at the heart of what was going on in the national news was an incredible buzz.

My first awkward moment: In a room with two Haagen-Dazs clients and a slightly sweaty account director (Christian Hinchcliffe, now at CHI) pressing play on VHS of a first cut, to find that the tape, that I was supposed to have checked, was completely blank.  There have been other genuine horrors involving nice clients, antsy creatives, ill-chosen words and too much premium continental lager, but let’s not go there.

3. What work have you been involved in that you are most proud of?

Our recent campaign outlining the signs of a Stroke because of this message, “Thanks to this advert being on TV, it has saved my husbands life. We were able to spot the signs of a stroke and dialled 999. Thank you.”

And this Double Decker campaign, which we made without the Client knowing and persuaded them to run.

4. The Inevitable Lunch Questions: (a) Tell me about the best Lunch you've ever had? (b) Who would be present at your dream Lunch, and where would it be?

The best have been on shoots in either Cape Town or Sydney, overlooking the sea.  Great food and everyone feeling relaxed.

It would involve the bone marrow at St John.  With some industry greats:  Nigel Bogle, Lord Bell, Bill Bernbach and Sir Frank Lowe.  Am sure I would learn something.

5. With the rise of Digital and all that it allows, and the arrival of the Global Recession, what does the future hold for Suits (are we as dead as some would have us believe?), and why is it a job that people should want to do?

The latest IPA survey shows that numbers in account management haven’t  really changed for the past 5 years.  So we’re not dying.

But, with fewer (and these are trends) account people as CEOs, in Campaign’s ‘Faces to watch’ and as key industry commentators our influence is definitely waning.  We need to make ourselves over or risk irrelevance.  Look at how the planning star has ascended through appropriation of the blogosphere.

So Mr Adland Suit, I applaud what you are doing.  Because we do need to scrutinise what we do, be more scientific to create some theories regarding what makes us good and raise the general level of debate.  It’s that or the slide towards being no more than a well-spoken, pimped Addison Lee service, ferrying information around, but adding no value to it.

The major areas where we can add value where no other individual/ department can are:

1.  As truffle pigs: in an increasingly project-based world people who can snuffle out income opportunities will be invaluable, we are best-placed to do this

2.  As conductors:  as the orchestra expands to include data analysts, IA, tech, etc etc there is an even greater need for someone to ensure the everyone is playing the same piece and playing in time.  We, present from start to finish of every project, are best-placed to do this

3.  As lovers:  Each individual part of (and person within) the process needs to be loved as well as its glorious sum. We are uniquely place to give this love and it is this galvanising love that puts us at the heart of the client/ agency relationship and which makes the collective heart beat stronger

4.  As climate controllers: someone needs to be ensuring the environment (Client/ Agency relationship) is conducive to the best possible ideas blooming.  We are, still, best placed to do this

6. If you could travel back in time and give one piece of advice to yourself as a Junior Suit, what would it be?

Smile more, son.  Being a ray of sunshine is a massively important part of what you do.

Here's To The Dilution Of Skill-Sets

Don't tell anyone this, but a Suit is often surprised. Beneath the calm, unflappable, pin-stripe (or, increasingly, corduroy) exterior there sits an ever-shifting, ever-reacting mind that deals with each unexpected obstacle or support it comes across. We just don't let it show.

I'm in no way ashamed to admit that it's happened to me on a number of occasions during my career. There was the occasion, early on, when I was a mildly surprised to discover that it wasn't acceptable to wear shorts and flip-flops to work (I've mentioned elsewhere that I arrived in the industry woefully under-educated on the true nature of a Suit). I'll leave you to imagine my reaction when, a couple of years ago, a Creative Director with whom I used to work uttered the immortal line, "D'you know, I sometimes wish this f*cking internet thing had never been invented."

(And breathe.)

More recently still, I was engaged in conversation with another former colleague - this time, a fellow Suit. His background was digital, as they say, having come from a pure-play digital agency (that I won't name) to join my team. On our first day working together, I explained that I would be looking to give him opportunities to do some work in other media - our clients didn't (and don't) delineate themselves in terms of on and off-line, and as such neither would we. More fool me, I expected this to be a positive thing.

But no. This Account Manager looked me in the eye (more or less) and explained that, if I didn't mind, he'd rather not get involved in any non-digital work (be it TV, press, poster, experiential, DM or whatever) - he rather liked being a 'Digital Account Manager' and was worried that working in any other media would "dilute his skill-set".

We'll leave him there - as it turned out, neither he nor his undiluted skill-set were around for much longer.

It is, of course, his turn of phrase that has stuck with me. Just ponder it for a minute, roll it round in your mouth - "diluting my skill-set". Now think of all that time you've wasted at school, at art college, in meetings, on courses, in life. All that time you thought you were 'learning stuff', when you were in fact 'diluting your skill-set' and making yourself slightly 'worse' in the process. Every moment you've spent since birth has been a gradual degradation of that key breathing/shitting/crying skill-set with which we are all naturally endowed. In fact, taken to its logical conclusion, evolution (with, to name but one, its dastardly introduction of opposable thumbs - don't you find they're always getting caught on stuff?) is the greatest skill-set dilution of them all.

And I'll stop the rant there - sarcasm is most unbecoming in a Suit. But once I'd got past the surprise, the phrase, and the attitude it embodies, really angered me - for me, it represents a fundamental misunderstanding both of digital and of the role of a Suit.

Here's a quick newsflash for you, chaps - digital is a channel, not a solution.

I'm sorry if that hurts, but you're going to have to deal with it at some point, and it'll make you better at your job the sooner you start. I'm not talking about Flash designers, QAs or html programmers here - they clearly need to be specialists, in the same way that a Flame operator, a retoucher or a director does. But the job of a Suit is not to be a specialist, it's to provide the best solutions to our Clients' business problems, and then to work with specialists to implement them. That means seeing at least a million and one possible options when a challenge is presented, and knowing enough about each of them to establish the best way to proceed.

Of course the digital possibilities are exciting, and we should all be extremely excited - but not to the point where we dismiss other, more viable, perhaps better options of getting our ideas out there, simply because they're not digital. Because that would just be stupid. I hate to be the one to say it, kids, but there was a time when people were as excited about TV as we all are now about social media, iPod apps and Twitter clients - and trust me, there will come a time when a specialist digital agency is as anachronistic as a specialist TV agency would be today. You can quote me on that.

If you want to be a Suit, you need to understand that you need to know more, and you need to want to experience everything. If you want to be a specialist, then you don't want to be a Suit.

So is learning about new things diluting an existing skill-set? I guess so. But only in the same way that you dilute tonic by adding gin to it.

Bring on the dilution, kids - it's what we're here for, and it's what makes things exciting.

Quick Tuesday Tip

Keep a shoe polish kit in or around your desk. The shoe polish kit is your best friend, because if you turn up at my meetings with scuffed shoes, I will judge you, and you will be found wanting.

In all seriousness, the last minute meeting is in many ways the ultimate test for a Suit, and you need to be ready for anything. It's not quite the same, but quite recently one of my Account Managers turned up for a client meeting in jeans (leaving aside any debate as to whether or not Suits should always be suited, this was definitely inappropriate). Rather than sulk because he wasn't allowed to come to the meeting, he went out and bought a new suit, shirt and shoes. And was judged, and applauded, accordingly.

Everything Is Your Fault - 2

First off, apologies for the radio silence - a rather lovely break turned into, as short breaks are wont to do, the week from hell, so I haven't really had a second to think, let alone write. However, it's Friday - it's time to write. On with the show.

As promised, here's another selection of hints and tips for Junior Account Men - things I wish I'd known, things I was lucky enough to fluke, and things that I will expect you to do without being told should you ever be (un)fortunate enough to work for me. Some have been lifted from the comments on my last post, and some are once again dredged up from my own joyful (and less joyful) experiences.

1. Be in before anyone else. As someone put it in the comments on an earlier post, you should be starting your second cup of coffee while everyone else is brewing up their first (sound advice, even if he did then fail to spell 'privileged' correctly. There are two things going on here: one is practical, the other reputation-driven. The practical point first - you can get a hell of a lot more stuff done at 8am, when you can be fairly certain that you won't be interrupted, than you can at noon when you're fair game. If something has to be finished by lunchtime, make sure it's done the evening before, because if your AD needs you to do something urgently at 11, he's not going to listen to any excuses. The second, reputation-based point is equally important - your AD wants to come in to work to find you already at your desk, your day well under way. Account Management are always, without exception the first department into the office in the morning and the last to leave in the evening - it is absolutely your responsibility to ensure that remains the case. If a creative team are in early working on a pitch brief and have a question to ask, you need to be there when they call. If a planner is in early working on a brief, you need to be there when they call. I've spent whole weekends sitting at my desk simply because a creative team were slaving way upstairs, and the might, at some point need something. Get into this habit now - it will serve you well.

2. If you're lucky enough to be working on a pitch, say goodbye to your social life for the duration. If you manage to get out of the office at a decent time, your mates will still be at the pub - it is not, however, ever acceptable to say, "Yeah, I'd love to stay late, but I'm playing five-a-side football/going to the theatre/going for dinner." You can do all that when you're a CEO (which will happen a lot sooner if you're prepared to stay late...). Nor is it acceptable to leave a traffic/project manager and a creative team sitting up in studio while you bugger off to bed. If they stay late, you stay late - partly because it'll be your fault if the work's wrong, but also because working late on a pitch is a team experience, and it's your job as a Suit to lead that team.

3. I don't want to see you nodding at the Client when he talks in meetings, I want to see you writing down what he or she is saying, ready to send out the contact report within 24 hours. That is your job.

4. Never trust spell check. You should only be using American spellings if you're working in America, and it won't pick up typos ('son' for 'soon', 'be' for 'by' etc.) and if you send something out with typos, it reflects badly on you, which means it reflects badly on me. That is a bad thing. Check it, and when you're done checking it, check it again, whatever it may be.

5. Detail is everything. It is the foundation on which everything else is built - if you can't do detail, you can't do your job.

6. This may seem obvious, but wear a suit for client meetings. Planners can get away with jeans and a corduroy jacket, creatives can get away with pretty much anything, but we are Suits - we are the businessmen of the team, and should carry ourselves accordingly. One of the most chastening meetings of my nascent career was being told by my AD that I was no longer coming to a Client meeting because I was wearing smart jeans and a shirt. (There are exceptions to this - Nike, for example, don't like it, but much better to be gently mocked by the client for wearing pin-stripe than not allowed to go to the meeting because you're wearing jeans.)

7. Take tremendous pride in everything you do, be it status or contact reports, agendas, setting up meeting rooms, sending out meeting requests, or otherwise. In the early years of your career, your exposure to Clients is likely to be minimal - as such, you won't be judged on your charm, your wit or your incisive commentary, you will be judged on the accuracy and craft of the documents you send out and the things you do. And here's a secret for you - Clients read everything. And then judge you on it. It's their job.

And for now, I'll stop there. I have to say, I quite like the idea of a weighty post on a Friday morning - it goes with the strangely masochistic theme that this blog seems to occasionally entertain. Perhaps I'll write something frivolous on Monday about puppies or balloons to compensate.

As always, I hope this is of use - and any further comments, hints, tips, questions or critiques on anything I've written is to be encouraged in the comments. Having a view is one of the most important parts of a Suit's job.

Finding Your Way - A Short But Illuminating Tale

When I first started as a Suit, I didn't really have a clue what I was doing. I knew 'adverts', sure, but 'advertising' wasn't something I'd ever really thought about - as I've intimated in an earlier post, I pretty much fell into it.

Circumnavigating, by chance rather than design, the traditional grad recruitment merry-go-round, I turned up at the door of one of London's top ten Agencies (a fact of which I had no idea at the time) one July morning, ready to start on a Summer School. The Summer School was to last ten weeks, and I was to act as a kind of Account Executive's Assistant on one of the account teams - shadowing the AE, learning how to do what he did from what he did, and hopefully at some point inadvertently picking up enough knowledge to be able to apply for his job meself the following year (or at least learning what 'brand' meant).

Except, of course, on that first day, the AE was off sick and there was a massive presentation to the Client's Board that afternoon. Everything was pretty much in hand, apart from the presentation itself - all typed up in Powerpoint, it just needed to be formatted.

Which would have been fine, had Powerpoint not been one more entry on the list of 'Things I'd Never Heard Of'. Impressive, I know.

So what did I do? I said, with confidence, "Of course I know how to use Powerpoint", and then spent the next three hours bitchslapping the panic and vague nausea that had beset me, working out first what Powerpoint was, then how to use it and, ultimately, making the presentation look good - I found my way. And that, if you're looking for a maxim, is what I've been doing ever since.

You see, finding your way (or finding a way) is a key part of a Suit's job. It's particularly true when you start your career, but a Suit's life is full of doing things for the first time - whether it's formatting a powerpoint presentation, running a multi-million pound TV production, producing a microsite or sending porn to a client. And nobody knows how to do anything the first time they do it - all we can do is find our way. And when things don't go how we expected them to (and God, wouldn't life be dull if they did) then all you can do is find your way through, round or over whatever obstacles have been thrown in your path.

If 'everything is your fault' is one of the most important things to understand as a Suit, then 'finding your way' is one of the most important things to know how to do. And that's another one of the things that makes this job as much fun as it is.

Make Sure Everyone Gets A Balloon

After the slightly negative (but important) titling of my last post, I wanted to focus on the more positive, sunny aspects of the Suit's job today - nobody wants to read about everything being their fault on a Monday. (Though trust me, it still is.)

During my career, I've heard many people try to sum up the precise role of the 'Suit'. Whether it's furiously optimistic Heads of Account Management describing Suits as 'The Team Captain', clients describing us as Bag-Carriers or Creative teams describing bad suits as 'The Client', it's never easy to label what we do, not least because good suits will do a bit of everything.

I think the closest I've come to a satisfactory summation of what we do is the quote that forms the title of this post, that comes from a conversation I once had with a current CEO of one of London's top ten Agencies. "AdLand Suit," he didn't say, "Ultimately, the Suit's job is to make sure that everyone involved in a job ends the day happy – to make sure that everyone gets a balloon."

And dammit, he's right. If upon completion of a project the Client is happy because the work's good and the process was smooth, the Creatives are happy because the work's good (but in a different way), the planners are happy because the work's on brief, TV production are happy because the work's on budget, Digital are happy because of all the things that make Digital people happy... If you can honestly say that everyone got a balloon, then you've done a good job.

And to stress, this isn't just about getting things done correctly, it's also about making things fun. It's often been said that the 15% of time a client gets to spend with the Agency should be the most exciting 15% of his week - that's true now more than ever, and it's not just the case for Clients. If you're running or part of a team that people want to work with, that people want to be involved with, then you're going to get better work out than the account team that just churns it out, that focusses on the negative, that makes it all a bit sodding miserable.

Make sure everyone gets a balloon - if people have ever needed balloons, it's now.

Everything is your fault

Yep, it's advice time. Hurrah! Now, I'm not going to proffer advice on how to get into the industry, partly because that's already expertly dealt with elsewhere, but mostly because I fluked it meself. But we all have to start somewhere - yes, even me. One recurring element of this blog will be quick posts on 'things I wish I'd known before I made myself look a tit in front of the Chairmen'. (I was going to call it that, but 'Everything Is Your Fault' was snappier.)

1. Everything is your fault. Yep, everything. When, in a meeting with the senior client, the DVD that you checked doesn't play on the equipment that you checked, it is your fault. When the cab that you booked doesn't turn up, it is your fault. When Traffic fail to deliver the work that you've chased them on every day for the last week, it is your fault. If you fuck up, it is, obviously enough, your fault. If you remember that everything is your fault, all things will pretty much fall into place.

2. Always have at least £50 in your wallet. Someone once told me that Grey enforced the JAMP system - Junior Account Man Pays. That's unlikely to be the case if you're lunching at Joel Robuchon (unless your boss is what I like to call 'an absolute bastard') but in pretty much every other situation (cabs, bars, pubs, coke/strippers for clients, etc.) you should be the first to reach for your pocket. Whilst it will sometimes be acceptable for your AD (or higher) to pay, it is never acceptable for the Client.

3. Make sure you've got numbers for cab companies in your phone. I still think less of an AM with whom I work because of a time when she didn't know how to call cabs at the end of a client Christmas do. That was three years ago.

4. Status reports matter. Accept that.

5. Make friends with the PAs, the guys in studio and the guys in the AV Suite. At its most basic level, your job is to get stuff done, and these are the people that can help you with that. It's great to be matey with the CEO, but he's not going to help you jump the queue to get DVD before the last overnight courier goes.

6. Check everything before you send it out - from start to finish. A former colleague of mine once, in a hurry, checked the first 20" of an ad on a Umatic (who remembers them?) before it went to client – all good, in the post. It turned out the Soho edit suite they were using doubled as a production house for hard core pornography overnight - which was what greeted the senior client when he sat down to watch his new ad, with his family, on the weekend. If senior Suits can occasionally appear obsessive with their checking, it's for a reason.

7. Do the boring stuff, and do it well. I know it's frustrating, but I can promise you that you are not the first Suit to come out of university and find you have to spend most of your time fixing photocopiers, making DVDs, organising meeting rooms and booking couriers. We've all done it, and it will pass - and only once it's passed will you realise how important those jobs are and how much difference it makes to people when they're done well. You should also never forget those skills. In years to come, you might be the CEO of an Agency, but if the photocopier jams five minutes before a meeting and there are no other Suits around, you're the one who's going to have to un-jam it. Why? Because, as I may have mentioned, it's your fault if the photocopier's jammed.

That's all for now, but there will be more. The job of a Suit is wonderful and varied, which is why I love it. Any thoughts from readers will be hugely appreciated in the comments.