Personal Branding

What’s After Advertising?

Peter · June 19, 2018 · Leave a Comment

After Advertising

I am often asked by advertising agency people… what do people do after they leave advertising (or at least, a stay-put advertising job)? Well, to be more specific, what have I done after advertising as in, since I sold my Portland agency six years ago?

I live in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico (built a house/60% cost of living/travel all over/work from anywhere)

I work with advertising agencies around the world on helping them build lead generating business development programs

I am on a global quest to photograph the world’s people (starting here with this 210 portrait series)

Some days I just hang out and I constantly try to satisfy my curious mind.

One way I satisfy my curiosity is to stay in long-distance touch (usually by newsletter) with Faris Yakob…. brand strategist (I guess that is one description) who I interviewed for my book on pitching. Here is the interview. By the way, buy the book and win more business so you can get out of your office.

Genius Steals

Faris can show you a way out of the cube, open office or if you’ve been lucky, an office with a couch.

To get going, I suggest that you sign up for Faris and his wife Rosie’s newsletter and visit their website. Why?

They are very smart and you will learn stuff that should make you a better marketer. From the sign-up page… “Put together by husband and wife creative duo Faris and Rosie Yakob, this weekly email is a source of interesting and fun links from around the web on a variety of topics. The content is expertly curated, and if you can’t find something inspiring in each edition, it will at least make you a more interesting dinner date.”

But, but, there’s more. Faris and Rosie live a nomadic lifestyle. As they say…

“We used to live and work in NYC where we had fancy titles and bars in our offices. It was rad. Mostly. Except there were so. many. meetings. When Faris sold his share in a digital agency he started, he proposed that we quit our jobs and travel the world for 6 months, to take a break, to explore. We both really loved traveling, and the stars aligned, and so we’ve been traveling ever since.”

Read more about them here at Technomadix. Start to plan on how to… get out of advertising. The time will come.

San Miguel de Allende Favors Are Good

Peter · October 13, 2017 · 1 Comment

Favors Are Good – Favores Están Bien

I live in San Miguel de Allende Mexico. It’s a very famous town these days thanks to articles like this #1 city in the world kinda crazy thing from Travel & Leisure. I guess that this is a good thing, a favor to us, but hey, the Centro traffic can get a bit out of control on weekends.

OK, here is my favor request. Come on down and take a photography class from my friends at Seek Workshops. You’ll get two benefits – you will wind up taking better photographs and they’ll give you an insider’s look at San Miguel. From Seek:

Our one-week intensive photo workshops in beautiful San Miguel de Allende, Mexico will challenge you, inspire you, and lead you to new creative directions in your work. Explore our offerings for 2017-2018—ranging from Documentary and Street Photography to the Zen of Seeing— and prepare to evolve. In addition to our workshops listed here, we offer individual mentoring and one-on-one instruction.

As one of the primary benefits of being based here in San Miguel full-time, we can also create a wide range of customized workshop experiences to accommodate your group’s travel schedule.

Head over to Seek’s website and get one more bene… You’ll see a sweet video about Anado Mclaughlin and The Chapel of Jimmy Rae by the National Geo photographer & filmmaker Bob Krist. Yes, the chapel is otherworldly. But, that’s what living at 6,000 feet and drinking lots of mezcal will get you. If you do come down, I’ll do you a favor and I’ll show you a sweet mosaic that Anado did in my house’s courtyard. You also do yourself a favor by actually visiting the Chapel of Jimmy Rae… you will never forget this psychedelic art experience.

If for any reason the video is taken down, go here.

Does Your Thought Leadership Kick Ass?

Peter · September 28, 2017 · 3 Comments

To Be Unignorable, Kick Some Thought Leadership Ass

If you are one of my clients, you have heard me talk about how to be unignorable. That means, do not be ignorable. Which means, do not put forth me-to thought leadership content (copy, videos, podcasts, white papers, books and on and on) that can be easily dismissed by your target market.

How To Stand Out?

Want to get heard and talked about? Be bold. Tell it like it is. Say something that resonates. Have an opinion. Be bold and be quick. Act like Mario Andretti (you know who he is, right?) A quote:

If everything is under control, you are not going fast enough.

Well, L2’s Scott Galloway is not under control. He lets it hang out and… he is NOT ignorable. A sample… his opinion about Amazon, Apple (love this one!), Facebook and Google.

The Biggest Content Marketing Secret

Peter · July 18, 2017 · Leave a Comment

And Ladies and Gentlemen…. The Biggest Content Marketing Secret

Ready, set, go. Shh… Here is the big content marketing secret to delivering brilliant insights, mucho content and a simple way of making you look real smart.

Creating relevant content every week is a bitch for small and medium sized advertising, digital, PR and whateva agencies. The hard part isn’t ‘relevant’, the hard part is doing it consistently.

The Secret

Interview the right, smart, eloquent people that can riff on tight subjets for 15 to 60 minutes. OK, 60 is too much cause you’ll have to edit it.

Do the interview on the telephone, via text-based questions or on Skype (or other Internet conversation platforms). Record the calls. Then, head over to Rev and have them transcribe the audio – overnight.

Easy, right? Yup!

I’ve done dozens of interviews for this blog, for my book (see above) and in guest posts.

Google loves SEO optimized content. Interviews rock.

Then… Amplify It

Every insight / AHA! blog or whatever post must be amplified via one or more of the following (I amplify everything.) I use the Rule of Five – amplify everything at least five ways. Here are some ideas.:

On your site in a very simple resources page or blog
To your current and past clients
To your lists as part of your email newsletter
In white papers
On LinkedIn to your ‘growing’ Followers
To your Facebook Followers
On Twitter (yes, it still works and can be used for targeting your competitor’s followers)
SlideShare (an underused platform)
Commenting (presence on LinkedIn Groups and big blogs)
Guest posting (seriously borrowed reach)
Your zine
And, on…

Need content (and who doesn’t?) Go forth and interview people.

Oh, I get interviewed too.

Here from Mitch Joel’s Six Pixels Of Separation (a master interview website /podcast):

SPOS #569 – The Relevance Of Marketing Agencies With Peter Levitan

Photographs Vs. Brilliant Business Development Insights

Peter · June 27, 2017 · Leave a Comment

No Brilliant Business Development Insights Today

Too busy to pontificate (or bore you) – I am moving homes in Mexico. Going from my one-year rental to my newly built house in the Guadalupe Colonia in San Miguel de Allende. Guadalupe is known for its murals and tranquil vibe.

So to pass the time, here are some photographs from my growing La GENTE photography series. Here is what I say about the project on my photography website:

La GENTE — The PEOPLE is an extensive photographic project that seeks to celebrate the greatness of the people of San Miguel de Allende. My goal is to have more than 400 portraits of young and old from San Miguel de Allende that will be shown through a public art event in 2018. This will be a personal + visusal feast for the city.

La GENTE is my personal ode to my town San Miguel de Allende and its beautiful people. I go out into the streets using a portable white background to make my portraits. My goal is to have over 400 photographs of young and older Sanmiguelense that will be shown via a public art event in 2018. I hope this will be more of a party than a traditional photography show. The whole town will be invited.

Here are some shots.