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.

There's No 'I' In Suit. If You Know What I Mean.

Because there is an 'I' in Suit, obviously. But there isn't one in Account Team. And that's the point. Any Account Team is only as good as its weakest member - it doesn't matter if you're the best Board Account Director in the world, if your Account Managers aren't up to scratch, it's all going to go wrong at some point. And it works the other way too - you might be the most buttoned-down, driven and smart Account Manager in the world, but if the drive and leadership isn't coming from the people above you, and you're not getting the support you need from your Account Exec, it's all going to go wrong at some point. And one of the main things a Suit needs to avoid is everything going wrong, at whatever point.

So bear this in mind - it doesn't matter how good you are, or, more realistically, how good you think you are. You can't do it on your own. And I hope, for your sake, that you're as lucky with the people you work with in your career as I have been thus far in mine. Because a team of Suits working together is a beautiful thing to behold.

Almost as beautiful as these chaps:

With thanks to Tom for the original, and questionable, link.

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.

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.