money

How To Run A Profitable Advertising Agency (1 of 2)

September 22, 2014 By Peter Leave a Comment

How To Run A Profitable Advertising Agency?

Don’t Take My Word For It, Yet…

I’ve been working as a senior executive and owner in the advertising, digital and Internet startup worlds since the golden 1980’s. My global and regional clients and new business wins include General Mills, Harrah’s, J&J, Intel, Microsoft, Nabisco, Northwest Airlines and Nike. And, many smaller regional clients you might never have heard of unless you are on the west coast.

Over the years, I’ve made hundreds of business decisions. Some were brilliant and some were ‘learning experiences’. I’ve decided to share my top 25 business-building lessons with you. No, I am not so crazy to think that these will instantly make your agency the next 72andSunny. But, I do know that most of these lessons represent best practices that, if followed, can help make you be more successful.

The path that got me here included sixteen years at Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising Worldwide as Business Development Director North America, General Manager Minneapolis, European Director in London and Management Director in New York. After I discovered the Internet browser in 1994, I left advertising for seven years to be CEO and founder of two Internet publishing and technology startups. One was one of the first major online newspapers. The other company created technology that allowed people to have meaningful conversations with a computer – Microsoft bought the technology in 2005. If you were online in the early 2000’s you might have talked with our SmarterChild bot on instant messaging platforms. Over 20 million people did.

After my digital sojourn, I moved from New York to Oregon in 2002 to buy the advertising agency RalstonGroup. In the ten years that I ran the agency, we bought the sports marketing agency Citrus, took their name and added clients like Dr. Martens, Legalzoom, Montana Lottery, Nike’s AOR college and Major League Baseball accounts and the U.N.

I understand the advertising industry from the perspective of huge to small agencies and have sat on the client side of the table.

By the way, I now run an agency consultation business that specializes in business development. I help agencies find their positioning sweet spot and build action-oriented business development plans. I just published my second book, The Levitan Pitch. Buy This Book. Win More Pitches. This book is a very detailed how-to about how to manage and create business-winning new business pitches.

My experience as a consultant and the opportunity to look under the hood of many agencies has confirmed that the following ideas can help add value to most, if not all, agencies.

I hope that by now you think that I must know what I am talking about. If so, here you go…

Here are the first 12 of my 25 key lessons I’ve learned over the years. Part two is up tomorrow.

The Kinks On U.S. Tax Day

April 15, 2014 By Peter Leave a Comment

Lets see, I bet that only about 75% of my blog readers know this Kinks song. Am I being muy generoso? None the less… today, April 15, is tax day here in the United States of America.

Therefore a wonderful song from the British Invasion…

The tax man’s taken all my dough,
And left me in my stately home,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.

And I can’t sail my yacht,
He’s taken everything I’ve got,
All I’ve got’s this sunny afternoon.

Save me, save me, save me from this squeeze.
I got a big fat mama trying to break me.
And I love to live so pleasantly,
Live this life of luxury,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.
In the summertime
In the summertime
In the summertime

My girlfriend’s run off with my car,
And gone back to her ma and pa,
Telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty.
Now I’m sitting here,
Sipping at my ice cool beer,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.

Help me, help me, help me sail away,
Well give me two good reasons why I oughta stay.
‘Cause I love to live so pleasantly,
Live this life of luxury,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.
In the summertime
In the summertime
In the summertime

Ah, save me, save me, save me from this squeeze.
I got a big fat mama trying to break me.
And I love to live so pleasantly,
Live this life of luxury,
Lazing on a sunny afternoon.
In the summertime
In the summertime
In the summertime

My take on paying taxes is that it is better to HAVE to pay them than to not make money. Oh, and have a good accountant.

Best Places To Retire (Really?)

October 16, 2012 By Peter 2 Comments

“Best Places to Retire” is one of those standard go-to magazine and website articles designed to capture the dreams of Baby Boomers. I get it. They usually include a mix of criteria like cost-of-living; climate; the economy; health care; recreation and occasionally culture.

Me? I need culture. I need intellectual stimulation not another discussion about someone’s daily hike. Here is a story. I was crossing Broadway on New York’s upper west side a few years ago and stopped to talk with an elderly woman sitting on a bench on the strip that divided the roadway. I asked her why she lives in New York. She said, “I feel free because I can get anywhere on buses or hop in a cab; I can have food and wine delivered right to my door; I have hundreds of restaurants to choose from; the best bagels in the world; the best medical care; I am surrounded by people and energy; I can go to Lincoln Center, the opera, museums, plays all at a discount and people like you stop to talk. Why would I live anywhere else?” By the way, Selma had one big advantage… she lives in a rent control apartment.

You know what? New York is NEVER listed as a best place to live in these articles. Not in US News, Forbes, CNNMoney, CBS News or AARP. What’s up with this? I mean, does living in Utah sound enticing? Guess what? It makes some lists? Have you ever been to Provo? In the winter? Tried to buy a bagel?

OK, New York and a couple of other major cultural centers do make a list. In this case on a smart website from the Milkin Institute’s Best Cities for Successful Aging. Check it out.

Baby Boomers May Opt For Communes (Again)

October 5, 2012 By Peter 3 Comments

I didn’t ever live in a commune. I visited a few in the 1970’s in California, Massachusetts and Vermont. But the lifestyle just didn’t do it for me. A bit too cozy? Too “hippy”? Too smiley? Too many vegetables? Who knows. But, it did occur to me recently that people over, say 60, could actually start to think through the benefits of communal living to share costs, space and to connect. As many people realize, it gets harder and harder to connect once you’ve gotten past college, having kids in school and even moving around the country. It is simply more difficult to make close friends.

So, when I saw the article “Baby boomers may opt for communal living again” I did a Huh! Like, why not?

The article points out that we are witnessing a significant societal shift: millions of people are heading to 65+ (10,000 turn 65+ every day), they don’t live near their kids and they want independence. But, that independence does not have to mean living alone (or, oh shit, in a retirement home.)

Baby Boomers said that they were going to change the world. Well, they are: “By force of sheer volume, the (baby boomers) who in 1968 thought they would change the world by 2028 actually will,” said Andrew Carle, founding director of the Program in Senior Housing Administration at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

What might I want in a communal experience?

Scenario 1: I see myself living in a tropical land (Chiang Mai Thailand?; San Miguel de Allende Mexico) in my own cabin in a chain of cabins that share communal services. Food, gardening, media…. brains, conversation, who knows.

Scenario 2: I live in an apartment in a large house in Brooklyn’s Williamsburg. This one is a bit more about intellectual stimulation.

The bottom line is that my buddies and I could share some universal services, living costs and laughs. Sure sounds better than moving into Happy Acres Nursing Home.

Are Bernanke And The Fed Killing Baby Boomers Via Low Interest Rates?

October 3, 2012 By Peter 1 Comment

It is very hard for most of us to remember the days when your savings could safely grow via double digit interest rates. In the 1980’s you could generate 18%, in the 1990’s 8%. Today? How does 1.05% for a 1 year CD sound?

18% wow. Hey, if you had just $200,000 in savings you would have generated $36,000 per year in cash and add that to say $25,000 in Social Security and you could live real well in Mexico on an annual income of $60,000. I know you can do math. But, I like this one. if you had $1,000,000 in retirement savings then your bank or bond would send you $180,000 per year. Now we are talking France.

Today? Nada baby. Assuming a 2% rate of inflation you are way screwed if you have moved a good chunk of you dough into under 2% yielding fixed income securities. You are running a negative program.

Could the Fed’s monetary policy be killing people? All I know is that suicides by Baby Boomers 65+ is on the increase.