Getting in & Getting on�(European edition)

It IS often hard to get in �(or at the very least, unconventional)

It ISN’T too hard to learn on the job

and get on�(largely, you have to be conscientious & open)

Five ‘Getting in’ tips

1. Listen to Albert

“If I had an hour to solve a problem - I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions”

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Albert Einstein

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2. Consider your opponent

2. Consider your opponent

1. They don’t need you. So how do you make yourself seem indispensable?

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• Prove you can think about business problems – pick one, and think about how you’d use creativity to solve it.

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• Write a (short) presentation and share it with heads of department. The worst they can do is ignore you!

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• Show your personal experience and breadth of experience

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3. Avoid the stupidity of crowds

“Homogeneous groups are great at doing what they do well, but they become progressively less able to investigate alternatives…they spend too much time exploiting and not enough time exploring.”

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James Surowiecki

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Avoid the stupidity of crowds

1. Don’t do what everyone else is doing.

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• Think about how your perspective gives you a unique point of view – perhaps you’ve worked in a particular store…?

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• You are a customer, first and foremost. What did you like, or didn’t like? Why?

4. What are the demands of the role?

“I am like any other man. All I do is supply a demand.”

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Al Capone

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“The very existence of flamethrowers proves that someone said to themselves, 'You know, I want to set those people over there on fire, but I’m just not close enough to get the job done.”

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George Carlin

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5. Attempt to understand your buyer’s motivation

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5. Attempt to understand your buyers’ motivation

1. Why did company X or brand Y do that? Why do you think?

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• Everyone has a motivation for saying what they do – what is theirs? Their agency’s? Why?

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• What a Head of Planning wants will be different to a head of HR. Talk to the former.

Five ‘Getting in’ tips

Five ‘Getting on’ tips

6. Listen, learn (and make lots & lots of notes)

1. Writing helps with your clarity, which is central to being a good planner / strategist.

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• Spend more time doing this than focusing on PPT/Keynote ‘tools’.

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• Lots of people know lots of things in your agency/workplace. Write them down!

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1. Any work you do should aim to elicit a reaction, positive or negative. (Even through a Zoom screen!)

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• This is the time to remind yourself that you aren’t the audience – your busy boss may be thinking about countless other things!

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• Not every piece of work can be a ‘smasher’, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t seek it, however day to day.

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7. Aim For Smashed Windows

8. Own the data

“I don't want to be a product of my environment. I want my environment to be a product of me.”

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Frank Costello / Jack Nicholson

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8. Own the data

1. You’re new to the job. You have more time to learn who buys what, and why.

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• If you know the data backwards, you have the right to be in the room.

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• It provides you with a position of strength in a room full of people who’ve more experience than you!

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9. Don’t be slaves to the machine

“You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You the people have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people have the power to make this life free and, beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure!”

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Charlie Chaplin (The Great Dictator)

9. Don’t be slaves to the machine

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1. Keep time free to think. (Hide behind your senior planner if you must). It’s literally the job.

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• Don’t get too beguiled by new technology – how is it augmenting what people have always done? (That’s the interesting bit!)

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• Write your thoughts down before opening PPT or Keynote. It’ll get you to think laterally.

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10. Remember that ‘this is water’

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.”

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David Foster Wallace, ‘This is Water’

10. Remember that ‘this is water’

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1. Strategy is a great job (perhaps the best job?), but it’s a luxury job that’s not necessary – work gets made without us!

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• However, if you’re able to get into it, take care to not become superior, and to empathise with your audience/s.

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• Finally, do read ‘This is Water’. It’ll make you appreciate where you are, and where you’re going, which is far.

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Finally, a few books you should read �(even if you end up in a different role)

• Agency account handling – Michael Sims
• Truth Lies & Advertising – Jon Steel
• Hey Whipple, Squeeze This! – Luke Sullivan
• Good Strategy, Bad Strategy – Richard Rumelt

Perhaps most importantly, it is a team sport, whichever role you do

Thank you!