Book

Buy These Advertising Books Today

January 29, 2018 By Peter Leave a Comment

Advice: Buy These “Advertising” Books

I first met Paul Arden when I moved to Saatchi & Saatchi London in 1991 to run the J&J account and business development across Europe. Paul was one of Saatchi’s most famous creative directors, had worked on major agency accounts like British Airways, Silk Cut (a cigarette brand) and Fuji. He was a very serious London dude dressed in Saville Row suits and Havana cigar smoke.

Our first argument happened about five minutes into our first meeting on my second day. I think (know) that he had disdain for American ad guys and he presumed that I was a dweeb. Because we had to work together, the head of the office managed our relationship by seating us next to each other at a table in the big Saatchi Wimbledon tennis tournament tent. The kind of big money client event that was standard in those days. We sat down at our appointed places, looked at each other, laughed and decided to like each other.

The next argument occurred when Paul created a rather expensive video (without anyone’s approval) to illustrate the big idea that we presented to Adidas when we were a lock to win their international account and I was going to build my own sports agency to run it. This was a big fucking deal for the agency and me. We didn’t win it. It was the worst advertising pitch ever. Read about it here.

Paul’s Books

I highly recommend Paul’s books. Smart, full of easy to digest insights (you like small books, right?) and rather witty. Buy them and put them on your desk. About $28 bucks will make you look like you have your act together. Reading them will help you get your act together.

It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want To Be.

Here’s the pitch on Amazon:

It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be is a handbook of how to succeed in the world – a pocket ‘bible’ for the talented and timid to make the unthinkable thinkable and the impossible possible. The world’s top advertising guru, Paul Arden, offers up his wisdom on issues as diverse as problem solving, responding to a brief, communicating, playing your cards right, making mistakes and creativity, all notions that can be applied to aspects of modern life.

Whatever You Think – Think The Opposite.

From Amazon:

The inspired follow-up to the international bestseller It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be.

Bursting with ideas, innovations, art, philosophy, science, and brilliantly bad advice from Paul Arden–a cult figure in the worlds of advertising, art, design, and marketing–Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite offers a new way to approach business and life.

Do me a favor by doing yourself a favor – buy these.

My Book’s Video On Ad Agency Pitching

February 11, 2017 By Peter Leave a Comment

My Book On Ad Agency Pitching – And, The Use Of Video To Sell It

A good and smart advertising friend is in the process of marketing his new book, “Rise Up: How To build A Socially Conscious Business”. Writing books is a good thing. He asked for some ideas on book marketing since I’ve published four books – two non-fiction and two photo books – with another on its way.

Here is one big book marketing idea… Create an informational sales video for your book and get it up on your book’s Amazon page and… your book’s sales landing page. I put my video below to give you an example. However, here are a few more points.

Write a book to help sell your agency. Pick a subject that deals with your target market’s ‘pain points.’ My pain point, targeted at YOU, is how to win more new business pitches.
Your book will make you look like an expert and isn’t that what your future client is looing for?
The book does not have to be looooooong. Just, super smart and helpful. Look at how short many of Seth Godin’s books are
Use smart interviews with industry leaders and influencers to create content and make friends. About one-third of book is loaded with highly useful interviews.
Market the book in your inbound and outbound marketing programs. You know how to do this.
Repurpose and leverage the book’s content on your Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, blog pages.
Guest post on big industry websites to gain broad awareness and message reach.
Get your friends, like me, to help promote your book.
Use the book to get invited to speak at conferences. I am in April in L.A. speaking at Hannapin Marketing’s Hero Conference. It is the world’s largest PPC conference. My session is directed to digital marketing agencies: “Is PPC The Smartest Way To Sell Your Agency’s Services? Um, No.”
OK, one more link. here is my HubSpot presentation on why you should write a book …

My ad agency dedicated book, Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. (see above to purchase) just had its best sales month in January. I think that is because agency folks just like you thought hard over the holidays about how to grow your agency. As a FYI, in addition to books sales, I also get a large number of qualified leads for my consulting business at the start of the year. Looks like you guys have some pent up sales needs. Give ma a shout, I can help you get this whole process right.

OK, My Video

I asked Rebecca Armstrong, Managing director of Portland’s North agency to interview me. Easy!

Two Advertising Agency & Client Chemistry Strategies

October 10, 2016 By Peter Leave a Comment

Two Advertising Agency Chemistry Strategies

I have been focused on the idea that interpersonal chemistry is one of the most important decision-making criteria that a client uses when selecting an advertising agency. I also ~~think~~ KNOW that chemistry can be massaged and managed. In fact, if you want to win, you better work on releasing those special business pheromones.

Managing Chemistry

I recently advised an advertising agency on their approach to a pitch that included how to run an interpersonal ‘chemistry’ new business meeting. The agency is one of seven agencies in a pitch for a very large east coast client.

The client asked for a ‘let’s get to know each other’ chemistry meeting because they know that by the time they had narrowed their list from the four thousand agencies out there (yikes) to seven, that much of their decision criteria on which agency to move forward with would come down to likeability and an understanding that the agency had the intelligence to help efficiently grow the client’s business.

The client needed this meeting because…

All Advertising Agencies Look The Same!

Ok, ok, all agencies are not the same. But, I can guarantee you that probably five of the seven agencies are so similar in approach, client base, case histories, skill sets, office furniture, etc. that the client realized that the interpersonal chemistry element was ultimately going to be a critical decision-making factor.

While my agency client and I discussed a range of pitch issues and opportunities, we settled on two must-have’s to make the meeting work in their favor.

Client Meeting Management

First, we discussed how to plan and manage the meeting. If an agency cannot run a smart meeting – especially the chemistry meeting, then the client will immediately begin to think that you cannot run a smart agency client relationship. I am a very strong proponent of the art of meeting management. I suggest that you read this post on how to manage a meeting. Your clients will love you for it. Hmmm, maybe even some of your future clients as well.

Deliver A Trial Run

Since this was a chemistry meeting – a ‘get to know each other’ meeting – I informed agency management that the best way for the agency to demonstrate that they were a good fit for the client was to… act like they already had the account. [Read more…] about Two Advertising Agency & Client Chemistry Strategies

Write Your Advertising Agency Book

May 7, 2016 By Peter Leave a Comment

My Books Make Me Happy

This post was generated by my smiling at Powell’s Books. See why below.

I’ve written two books. Both are self-published on Amazon as a book-book and eBook. The first, Boomercide: From Woodstock To Suicide was my training-wheels book. It is about using suicide as a financial planning tool (OK, and a deep discussion of suicide itself).

The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. (yes you can learn more about it and then buy it at the top of this page) is a best seller in the narrow category of advertising agency business development books. It has worked hard as a business development tool for me and because it has sold well, it generates some cash, too.

That’s two books. I am already thinking trough book #3. Yes, folks, you can publish books too and should think hard about the value of taking the time to write a book as an agency marketing tool. It isn’t as difficult as you think and an agency is perfectly positioned to get that book out the door..

Here are links to a couple of “how-to’s”….

How to Write An Advertising Agency Book. This post includes a video of my HubSopt book writing presentation.

Yes, You Can Write And Publish A business Book In 6 Months. Yes, you can!

Happy At Powell’s Books

So I am cruising through Portland’s Powell’s City Of Books (it’s the largest used and new bookstore in the world, occupies an entire city block and sells over 1 million books.) As a lark, I typed my name into their database and… yup, my book The Levitan Pitch. was listed. This was a surprise because the book is only distributed on Amazon and must have made it to Powell’s as a used book sale. That means that someone in Portland bought the book and then sold it to Powell’s. Cool. Everyone wins.

Here’s what I saw on the screen…

The Business Of Marijuana & Advertising

March 6, 2015 By Peter Leave a Comment

The Business Of Marijuana & Advertising & Publishing

I’ve written a bit about the burgeoning marijuana industry and the new business opportunities for ad, digital, social and PR agencies (see a link to articles at the bottom of this post.)

In Portland alone, there are over 35 medical marijuana dispensaries and each one has driven incremental business for a wide range of suppliers including landlords, contractors, interior designers, security firms, lawyers, accountants, venture capitalists, safe companies (each dispensary has at least one), package and graphic designers, ad agencies and publishers. I have a good take on this business because I am an investor in two medical marijuana dispensaries.

To give you an example of how crazy this business can be. Here is what I did yesterday (and why.)

I was in Vancouver, Washington meeting an illustrator friend for lunch. I then went to take a look at two fully recreational marijuana shops. This means that you can just walk in, prove that you are over 21 and then a buy marijuana as you would cigarettes or wine. What was massively interesting was that one of the stores (on Main Street, literally) had 22 customers at 2PM on a Thursday. There weren’t 22 customers buying wine at a single wine shop at 2PM.

Later in the day, I was in the back room of a Portland marijuana shop photographing the store’s ‘joint roller’ and getting a couple of artisanal ‘art’ joints (like the one above). Yes, joints.

So, now the why…

In case you are wondering, I am not at all a big stoner.

But, I am starting a small publishing entity that will cover this huge and growing market. I am currently shooting photographs for two small books (“Joints” and “26 Dispensaries”). I will add other small books (imagine portraits of bud tenders) and apparel based on a new brand that will be coming to a browser near you. All of this will eventually be used as Kickstarter rewards for the funding of a large book on the industry.

I will keep you posted on my progress.

Marijuana Links & The Start Of A Discussion About This new Billion Dollar Industry

Here are the articles I’ve written on the subject.