Is There Life After Advertising? Yes.

FYI: This was originally written in 2015. As of July 2016, I now live in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. This is one of North America’s coolest towns and I can still run my ad agency consultation business c/o the sweet waves of Wi-Fi.

December 22, 2015. Sayulita, Mexico.

This is a personal story.

I’ve been asked about life after advertising by many of my clients. And, why not. Advertising owners (my case) wonder if and how they can sell their agency and then wonder ‘what’s next?’

Ad workers see that they will probably age out of the industry by their late forties (a fucking huge problem for our industry’s brain drain that is exacerbated by the absurd notion that it’s a young person’s industry. However the BIG fact is that the margins are so slim that agencies can’t afford to pay their older employees decent salaries and associated benefits).

In other cases, people just get fried crisp or get fired and want out.

In the interest of speed, here are my two lives after advertising. If you have a few more minutes, check out my It’s Me page to read a bit more about my global and local advertising and client side Internet experience.

Life After One – From Saatchi to Internet

1995 – 2001. I left Saatchi in 1995 to work for Advance Internet, a division of The Newhouse’s Advance Publications. I was an early CEO in the reinvention of online news. I then went on to found and run ActiveBuddy. You might have played with our SmarterChild natural language bot / app.

Life After Two – From Owning Citrus to Peter Levitan & Co.

2001 – today. After SmarterChild (a long story) and 9/11 (I was fairly close to ground zero), my wife and I decided that we’d move to Oregon (Bend and Portland) after I bought the ad agency Citrus. I ran that for 8 years. I enjoyed selling it. The experience reminded e of selling my sailboat. The two best days were the day I bought it and the day I sold it.

I started this advertising agency business consultancy after I sold my agency and was asked by a couple of friends to help them craft a new business program. Citrus had done quite well. I’ve been applying my Saatchi and Citrus knowledge to help dozens of agencies build growth strategies during the past four years.

OK. What’s The Point?

I took my skills and founded a consultancy. I’m not unique. But, people love it when I tell that I can work from any part of the world (thank you WIFI and Skype). I kinda lucked into this new career, but I recommend that you do some planning because… you will have a life after advertising.

Here are some links that might deliver food for thought and guidance.

Smart Passive Income: Check out the guru on the idea of earning passive income. Pat Flynn’s Smart Passive Income is a simply brilliant how to start a live-anywhere make real-money business. He made $108,000 last month! Online! In his jammies! Ok, not that easy but… read him.

Grow Supply: Ali Mese tells you how to succeed and if you go right here you can get links to many many free tools and websites that will help you build your new business.

How To Sell Your Ad Agency: A link to my blog posts on selling your agency.

The Bottom Line?

Take my Corleone Offer and call me up. It’s an offer you should not refuse and a faster path to —– how to make the cash to get to What’s Next.