Do you want to show up more creatively for your clients and your colleagues, your family, and your friends?
Do you want to default to thinking about opportunity versus focusing just on problems?
Discovering Hope is full of proactive steps you can take right now, to achieve a more positive mindset or to help maintain the positivity you already have
Getting Positive reveals that more optimism is close at hand
Building Bridges – Proactivity the Safest Way to Build and Protect Business
Many of you that Iām speaking with whether freelancing or working full-time, are talking to me about current client uncertainties caused in large part by U.S. led tariffs.
Until anyone knows the impact of these tariffs, whether you import parts or export finished products, itās hard to invest in anything with confidence, least of all people!
The result is inconsistency of work or budgets being delayed or reduced; This means it’s not the best of jobs markets or times of job security.
If you’re in full-time work, what can you do, (particularly if you have a great relationship with your clients) is support them in their scenario planning. Help them if you can, find ways to protect revenue/and or enhance it! OK, not rocket science advice, but really important to be proactive, particularly when the pressure is on.
Is this a time of economic crisis? No, but it is most certainly (as witnessed by the financial markets) an uncertain moment. True to the dual Mandarin meaning of the word ‘crisis.’ It’s a time both of threat and an opportunity.
Threats often act as a catalyst forcing us to contemplate new approaches.
What might you be able to identify for your clients? A short-term win or bigger potential strategic pivot?
If your freelancing short or long term, think along the same lines. Donāt wait to be asked to help, look at those businesses most exposed and anticipate what a smart next step might nbe.
Now is a golden time to build bridges.
The Beyond Employee
Based on my understanding of career happiness (I’ll leave others to define success) there are some obvious things to get on top of, noteworthy:
Keep learning, (Tech’ yes, but soft skills are more critical than ever, none more so than empathetic ability) learn to be adaptable, focus on relationships, but also key, find time to get perspective, both to understand trends but also to keep in a good mental space!
One other factor to focus on here, personal agency. This is you needing to strategise for you! What are your goals? If you know the answer, you’ll know what your dream working scenario is. Know this and then you’ll know what experience, expertise and connections deficits you have and what you need to work on. Why is this important?
The reality in 2025, we’re all one relationship away from a good or bad year. From making money or not. From working for someone else or not.
If you are currently an employee, what I want to communicate, you should start thinking of youself right now, as self employed. Yes deliver as employee, but also make your employer, ‘work for you.’ Consciously make connections and get experience with a mind to working for yourself. This way, it will be a softer landing when change comes for you.
Agency consolidation is not a new thing neither is job insecuity, but as one accelerates, so does the other. Start to adjust your mindset to it and in so doing you’ll be better prepared to build as a ‘beyond employee.’
All happiness,
Personal Agency – Key to the Achieving Your Goals
First, sorry this is a wordy newsletter, but there are things I just wanted to say and couldn’t seem to edit.
The advertising jobs market is a real mixed bag at the moment. And by that I mean, there are as many people losing jobs as gaining them, although the way I see it, there are certainly more losses at the moment.
Many more of you are also out of full-time employment through choice. And for freelancers/consultants, the purpose of this note is key. I should add this is in part because there are so many more of you freelancing now that freelancing has become much more competitive. Everyone it seems, and for different reasons, client, agency and individual, want more flexibility, which post pandemic, most of us have more of.
The point of this newsletter is not to talk about the overall market but more for individuals either in jobs and feeling āstuckā āunder-valuedā and/or āvulnerable and those actively looking for their next full-time role or freelance gig.
I was recently talking with a long-standing connection, whose pretty well known in the business both by reputation and in terms of their expertise. And, for the results heād help achieve.
Like many, heās been looking for a job/the right job, for a while, but well connected, wasnāt sweating it, and had a meeting lined up with a high-level holding company exec.ā Heād been waiting a month for this meeting but was very hopeful.
Last week I caught up with him having had the meeting and I asked him, how the meeting went.
He told me heād had forty minute in-person meeting.
āIt was great. We caught up on the industry, world chaos and the kids.ā
I was encouraged, it sounded positive.
āWhat elseā I asked, waiting for the punchline role/roles he was going to be considered for or introductions that were being made perhaps as we spoke.
āWhat else? He replied?
āWhat did you ask him for?ā I asked perhaps a bit to stern.
āI didnāt ask him for anything.ā His voice dying away as he responded. Immediately realizing, that the person he āisā in front of clients had not shown up for himself, when it mattered.
I shrugged my shoulders, and politely let him know what I think many of us take for granted.
āMy friend, you āHAVEā to let others know what you want; What you want to be considered for! At the very least, let the person in front of you know, how you want them to help you, even if itās not a job that you want.ā
āYou know this!ā OK, I know I showed a bit of exasperation here..
The point, everyone you know is busy. When you are upset that they didnāt āhelp you,ā think about it. Did you assume theyād know exactly what you wanted or how they could help you? If you did, you didnāt āmake it easyā for them to help you.
So many times, when it comes to āus,ā we donāt ask for something, either because we are complacent and assume by our reputation or resume, others know what weāre right for. While others donāt have enough self-belief to understand that there are times when itās critical to āask!ā
However well-known you are/think you are or arenāt, donāt rely on others telling your story for you, unless you specifically āhaveā someone that gets rewarded to tell your story for you.
If you donāt ask, you canāt expect.
If you donāt steer your own ship, youāll either capsize, run aground or drift aimlessly. Any of these scenarios feel familiar for you?
Take personal agency, āthe act or intervention producing a particular effect.ā Ask specifically for what you want, donāt assume others will act otherwise.
Ideally your ask is with something that will address a need/help the person in front of you. Key, make the ask about something you really want, then youāll come across authentically, or as Andy Wilson recently wrote:
āOur livelihoods and (our sanity) more than ever before, are about doing what we love, with the people we love, for the outcomes we love. This is the good stuff, make sure others know about it!ā
All success in the quest to achieve your goals.
Best wishes,
Stuart
Great Strategy is Based on Client Trust
Bravery is talked about alot in our industry.
‘The quality or state of having or showing mental or moral strength to face danger, fear or difficulty.’
I’m unsure how much ‘danger’ most of you face day to day. However in the event of bravery, whose bravery are we talking about? The agency or the clients’?
The answer might be six of one half a dozen of the other. Truth is, if you’re the agency, while you want to work with committed marketers, you don’t want to rely on them having an epiphany of bravery, you want to proactively help them value great strategic thinking and the cut through creative that comes from it. Yes, there is a ‘right’ time to broach ‘out there’ ideas that will take the clients out of their comfort zone. But when?
At October’s Jay Chiat Awards, Antonio Luccio, ex CMO Pepsi/Visa/HP, clarified that what he wanted first and foremost from an agency was a business partner. He explained that partners communicating an understanding of his industry was key and stressed the importance of making the commercial case for any recommendations. He highlighted also the importance of agency partners communicating an understanding of the client’s stated priorities – All obvious?
What he didn’t say explicitly, when the client believes the agency is committed to making the client successful, then the client is much more likely to pursue bolder recommendations.
Yes, trust is the platform from which to move client and agency forward. But building trust takes time and it is a lack of this that is the greatest threat to the agency business model as we know it.
Perhaps real bravery will come from those prepared to adopt a longer term approach to building brands. A shocking concept!
Best wishes,
Stuart
A Great Strategist Is…
As we approach March 2022, the marketplace for great strategists has never been better, if you’re a strategist!
Buyers Market – The shortage of great strategists, (due to a lack of agency investment in training over the last decade/agency models increasingly focused on project-based work/plus many strategists post-covid deciding to hold back from full-time roles) means this really is a buyers’ market
How to be in demand in a tough job market?
Part of the stress on demand in this jobs market is that not enough strategists have the core skills that are in demand. The key for being in demand at all times (not just this market) is to focus on core habits and skills that make for success, year in year out.
Effective Strategists? – What do those that have achieved long-term success believe makes a strategist effective? We’ve been asking your peers. Some suggested critical thinking, others persistence, a sense of humor, new business expertise. Also highlighted, ensuring that strategy was owned not by the strategist but by the team. Four key themes emerged.
Learning- a desire both to develop your skills and to have the curiosity/belief and love of fresh perspective deeply instilled. (B.Thomas/Meta)
Exciting the audience – However good the perspective, effective communication will always be key. (J.Daly/Droga)
Great EQ – Do you understand and manage your emotions in an optimal way when interacting with others? Real empathy is an elusive ability. (D.Giannantonio/Wunderman Thompson)
Empty your cup – Whatever your understanding or experience, knowing that there is always more to learn allows you to show up as one of your peers suggested, with a ‘radically open mind,’ or ‘Don’t let expert instincts overshadow creative instincts’Ā (A.Raig/ Saatchi)
What do you think is key for career success as a strategist?
For now,
Stuart
Job Opportunities 02/22
If you know of anyone looking for full-time or part-time work, some of the below opportunities are full-time and some temp to perm.
- Director Strategy – SF-based creative agency, Salary >190K
- Director Strategy – SF-based BTOB agency, Salary >200K
- SVP Strategy – NY-based creative agency, 300K
- SVP Strategy – NY based healthcare agency, Salary, 250K
Past Newsletters
Shepley Parkin Award / Kings College London
Congratulations to Nikki Kerderagi Small, the inaugural winner of the Shepley Parkin Award,
for second year medical students at Kings College Hospital London.
For the last several years we at SPARKIN have focused on promoting empathetic ability
in the media business but understanding the perspective of others is key for allĀ areas of society,
one key example, medicine. To that end, we’re excited to announce a ten year commitment of
a thousand pounds per annum to promote the importance of empathy, by rewarding a medical
student that has provenĀ themselves not simply to be bright but truly effectiveĀ when it comes to
hearing/understanding others, so crucial for effective patient care. Read about the award and
recipient Nikki here.
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/kings-student-wins-shepley-parkin-empathy-award