It is no longer about “managing in a downturn,” said Thomas L. Harrison, chairman and chief executive at the Diversified Agency Services division of the Omnicom Group in New York, but rather “leading toward the upturn.”
This is from an article in the NYTimes about what is happening in the advertising industry now. The timing is funny–just yesterday I was talking to a potential client and I told him that I thought things would be making the turn this Fall. As I explained, I’m no economist or anything–this is just my hunch. Then this article appears–maybe I’ll be right.
Regardless, there will be an upturn eventually. For those who are working now at their marketing, they will be better positioned to take advantage of the turn. When the clients start opening their wallets, these people will be top-of-mind when the projects get greenlighted.
What are you doing to be one of them?
I like what CPB had to say in the article–that they’ve never been a company that plays much defense. In my opinion, that’s smart business. You can’t grow if you are too busy protecting. Risky? Yup. But business is risk.
It is also reward. Go for it.
I’ve been preparing for the upturn two years. It was in May 2007 when I decided to start going after business instead of waiting for it to come to me.
Since then, I’ve made thousands of cold calls and warm calls, and guess what? Thousands of people have said no to me! But I’m still here.
Amidst all those nos have been some yesses. Some of them have come from the most lucrative clients I’ve ever had. One of them has even given me the opportunity to do what I most want to do, and that is combine website design with photography.
Oh, I should also mention that there’s a benefit to having thousands of people turn you down. You develop a level of fearlessness that you never had before. You’ll start making contacts you never thought you’d make. The CEOs of major corporations? No problem. The President of the United States? Go for it.