One of them, the CEO of all of BBDO, Charlie Brower, retired with a memo to all of us. “It would be ungracious to creep away without giving my friends a chance to ignore my advice.” He then shared “16 things I have learned in my 43 years in the adverting agency business.” I kept the memo and pass on Charlie’s wisdom this month. It is still timeless.
1. The expedient thing and the right thing are seldom the same thing.
2. The best way to get credit is to try to give it away.
3. You cannot sink someone else’s end of the boat and still keep your own afloat.
4. It is not important to come in early and work late. The important thing is why?
5. If you get a kick out of your job, others will get a kick out of working for you,
6. No one should knock research who has ever been helped by a road map.
7. Chicken Little acted before her research was complete. The competition ate her up.
8. A writer who can’t take it had better win in the first round. (Unfortunately, very little adverting is okayed in the first round).
9. There has never been such a thing as a bad client, as long as he paid his bills.
10. A man of stature has no need of status.
11. Never trust a man who is Dr. Jekyll to those above him, and Mr. Hyde to those below him.
12. There are fewer low-interest products than low-interest writers.
13. You learn more from your defeats than from your victories.
14. Few people are successful unless a lot of people want them to be.
15. Honesty is not only the best policy. It is rare enough to make you pleasantly conspicuous.
16. Many people know how to make a good living. Few people know what to do with it once they have it made.
Amen Charlie.
Happy New Year to all my Morsel readers!
View previous monthly morsels on our Free Marketing Advice page.
