Speaker 1: I'm off my game today. No, you're not. People are
Speaker 1: going to have to start making better content. I think
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about this for a long time.
Speaker 1: When you program for everyone, you program for no one.
Speaker 1: I think it's that we're purpose driven platform, like we're
Speaker 1: trying to get to substance. How was that? Are you
Speaker 1: happy with that? This is marketing therapy right now? It
Speaker 1: really is? What's up? I'm Laura Currency and I'm Alexa Kristen.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Atlantia. Can you believe we're in August? No?
Speaker 1: Where does it go? Anyway? We're going. We're going somewhere,
Speaker 1: somewhere really good. So excited to have Nancy Hill the
Speaker 1: media sharp slash agency sharp slash, just sharp. But you
Speaker 1: need to know, you need to know. So. Nancy is
Speaker 1: the former president and CEO of the four A's, the
Speaker 1: AD industry trade organization, as well as a former executive
Speaker 1: at many of the top UM agencies around the country
Speaker 1: the world. We're excited to have her because she has
Speaker 1: this really broad view of what's happening in the industry,
Speaker 1: from UH female and diversity issues to creativity and the organization.
Speaker 1: The new organizational structure that agencies need to be thinking about.
Speaker 1: So I think that if you're going to take someone
Speaker 1: and all of their experience in a career and be
Speaker 1: able to kind of pluck, you know, key bits of knowledge,
Speaker 1: Nancy Hill is one of those people. Yeah, one podcast,
Speaker 1: Nancy Hill is one of those people that you want
Speaker 1: to have with you doing that. Yeah. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: we talk a lot about old guard, new garden. I
Speaker 1: think it's been interesting UM to see Nancy sort of
Speaker 1: take what she knows and be able to apply those
Speaker 1: lessons now to sort of the next generation of independent
Speaker 1: shops and really helping UM to consult in building their
Speaker 1: model and their staffing structures and their culture quite frankly,
Speaker 1: to make sure that you know, they're not only able
Speaker 1: to bring a new business of course, but also retain talent,
Speaker 1: which as we know has been an ongoing topic on
Speaker 1: this show UM and what drives UM the next generation
Speaker 1: to want to be a part of this industry. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I think we've talked about
Speaker 1: so much is the whole idea of like, don't just
Speaker 1: butts and seeds, don't just staff, don't just resource, both
Speaker 1: on the marketing side, right and on the agency side,
Speaker 1: and what marketers are asking their agencies for look for talent.
Speaker 1: I haven't We've talked about that, like um philosophically, right,
Speaker 1: but I haven't met anyone who's actually helping agencies operationalize
Speaker 1: that and actually take the dream and actually make it real.
Speaker 1: And I think what's interesting is Nancy as a really
Speaker 1: um strong and very clear perspective on what it takes
Speaker 1: to do that and some of the kind of what
Speaker 1: I would say is really simple but balls things that
Speaker 1: agencies have to do to to start enacting a totally
Speaker 1: cultural a bigger cultural change and therefore putting out better
Speaker 1: quality work with that. Nancy Hill up next. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we're back in the studio with Nancy Hill. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the show, Nancy, Nancy, Happy to be here, ladies. Nancy
Speaker 1: is the founder of Media Sherpas, which is a consultancy
Speaker 1: and Nancy is the agency Sherpa. In addition to founding
Speaker 1: Media sharp Is, Nancy has had an epic career in
Speaker 1: our industry. Previously um president and CEO of the Four A's,
Speaker 1: as well as the executive at a number of big
Speaker 1: agencies including big and small, b B d O, T
Speaker 1: b W, A, Shide Day, Donor I've worked in Baltimore, St. Louis,
Speaker 1: l A, San Francisco, and then New York. Nancy, what
Speaker 1: sort of been the biggest change you've seen over the
Speaker 1: course of your career that's been the most notable. I'd
Speaker 1: say the most notable change for me is that we've
Speaker 1: moved from a place where we would have a hard time,
Speaker 1: uh saying we would We would never have a hard
Speaker 1: time saying no to a client, and now we say
Speaker 1: yes to everything. And I think it's really important for agencies,
Speaker 1: especially young agencies, to learn that N and O form
Speaker 1: a word, because they just chased the shiny objects too
Speaker 1: many times and they get themselves into a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1: The second thing, and they're kind of related to each other,
Speaker 1: weirdly enough, is that we used to be an industry
Speaker 1: that we could we had no trouble finding people to
Speaker 1: come into the industry, and now the war on talent,
Speaker 1: which you hear about odd nauseam, I know um, has
Speaker 1: put us in a position where we as an industry
Speaker 1: have to really really work hard to get the talent,
Speaker 1: but even work harder once we get them in our
Speaker 1: doors to keep them because they have so many other
Speaker 1: options and I think if there's anything that I talked
Speaker 1: to agencies about over and over and over again, it's
Speaker 1: making sure that you have a culture that both attracts
Speaker 1: great clients and great people at the same time, because
Speaker 1: they're equally important. Is there the shiny object syndrome though?
Speaker 1: Isn't it based a little bit on like the fear
Speaker 1: of the fee? Right, That's what it's really been predicated on,
Speaker 1: is like, we're losing retainers, We're losing you know, the big,
Speaker 1: the big kind of um agency of record positions. Let's
Speaker 1: go chase the dollars and everything, And if you think
Speaker 1: about it, it's becoming a lot more like the way
Speaker 1: architectural firms work, because if you think about the way
Speaker 1: they work, it's always on a project basis. It's never
Speaker 1: on an architectural firm of record. They've never had that,
Speaker 1: but they've been light years ahead of us. And how
Speaker 1: to make sure that they're getting paid for that and
Speaker 1: get getting paid appropriately. I think, you know, we've always
Speaker 1: compared ourselves to consultancies and to law firms. I think
Speaker 1: we have to really take a step back and start
Speaker 1: to think more along the lines of architecture firms and
Speaker 1: brand design companies because that's the way they've always been hired.
Speaker 1: I think some of the young agency is now because
Speaker 1: they've had to work that way from the beginning, are
Speaker 1: having a much easier time understanding how to work with
Speaker 1: clients that way than some of the bigger agencies who
Speaker 1: are kind of having a retrofit around the whole thing. Well,
Speaker 1: it's positioning, right, It's it's about actually having like a
Speaker 1: real internal compass and having a real positioning for the
Speaker 1: agency outside of a mission statement. That's not it's not
Speaker 1: just a mission statement. It's not just a mission statement.
Speaker 1: But it's also having the courage to say no um.
Speaker 1: I remember working with a creative director many years ago
Speaker 1: who when we were sitting around making a decision about
Speaker 1: a piece of business that could have changed the agency overnight,
Speaker 1: one of the things he said is we have to
Speaker 1: be really careful about what we eat, because a minute
Speaker 1: on the lips forever on the hips. It's the same
Speaker 1: thing about So you recently spoke out in l A
Speaker 1: at the at Age Small Agency Summit about culture. So
Speaker 1: obviously these things you've described in terms of some of
Speaker 1: the challenges like the word know, as well as how
Speaker 1: we're retaining talent sort of fit into how culture might
Speaker 1: be an important part of the mix. How are you
Speaker 1: seeing the change happen in agency culture and sort of
Speaker 1: what is the thing that some of the bigger companies
Speaker 1: might not be seeing that the newer agencies have where
Speaker 1: they're starting to become a magnet for talent. Well, I
Speaker 1: think one of the things that we as an industry
Speaker 1: have done a disservice to young people coming in is
Speaker 1: that because we all worked our asses off, we all
Speaker 1: got paid little money, we just assume that they're all
Speaker 1: going to come in and do their time just like
Speaker 1: we did. And the unfortunate part for us as an
Speaker 1: industry is that they're not willing to do that. And
Speaker 1: if you talk to young people these days about the
Speaker 1: way they want to work, they even define themselves in
Speaker 1: a completely different way than we did when we first
Speaker 1: came into the business. So we have to be mindful
Speaker 1: of that because they're the first generation who's not going
Speaker 1: to bend over backwards to work the way we did.
Speaker 1: We they want us to adapt to them, not the
Speaker 1: other way around. And one of the things that I
Speaker 1: talked about a lot is that burnout doesn't happen because
Speaker 1: of hard work. Burnout happens because you think your hard
Speaker 1: work isn't being recognized and value exactly, and and that's
Speaker 1: where you get burnout. And you can see it when
Speaker 1: you talk to young people in the industry. They almost
Speaker 1: have a dejected look that comes from the top of
Speaker 1: their head down and it'll just wash over their whole
Speaker 1: face when you're having a conversation with them, because they're
Speaker 1: just tired of not being recognized. Now, you could go
Speaker 1: into the whole generational thing about whether they were recognized
Speaker 1: too much growing up or not, but the reality is
Speaker 1: that they're not like us, and they're not going to
Speaker 1: work like us, and we have to recognize that. I
Speaker 1: used to tell an example about a kid that I
Speaker 1: knew who worked for me in San Francisco, and one
Speaker 1: day he walked in and quit. He didn't work for
Speaker 1: me directly, but he worked for the agency. And I
Speaker 1: did a little digging and I said, here's this kid
Speaker 1: who came out of a stellar at program and we
Speaker 1: stuck him in the corner doing spreadsheets. He's excited about
Speaker 1: being in advertising. He doesn't want to go sit in
Speaker 1: a corner and do spreadsheets. We have to be mindful
Speaker 1: about bringing people in and putting them in the appropriate
Speaker 1: jobs for not only the skill set that they bring,
Speaker 1: but the passion that they bring. How do you do that?
Speaker 1: How do you balance groundwork with that passion? Well? I
Speaker 1: think you know, I talked about this a little bit
Speaker 1: last week in the speech that I gave, and I
Speaker 1: think we have to institutionalize some knowledge of what people's
Speaker 1: passions are um and I I think that, Uh, the
Speaker 1: example that I gave is that when I started in
Speaker 1: this business and somebody asked me when I was twenty
Speaker 1: seven or twenty eight years old, what I did, I
Speaker 1: would say, I'm an account person and an AD agency.
Speaker 1: Will you talk to this generation coming into the business now?
Speaker 1: They might say, I'm an account person and an AD agency,
Speaker 1: and I have a fashion blog and I'm a DJ
Speaker 1: on the weekends and photography is my real passion. What
Speaker 1: we don't ask that, we don't know that. So how
Speaker 1: are we going to when we have a pitch or
Speaker 1: some project that we're working on, No, to bring Sally
Speaker 1: in because she happens to be a passionate photographer. We
Speaker 1: don't know that if we don't ask. And I think
Speaker 1: we have to get better at making sure that we're
Speaker 1: bringing letting people bring their whole self, whatever that looks like,
Speaker 1: to the office every single day and not just stick
Speaker 1: them in the corner to do spreadsheets. We've talked about
Speaker 1: this a lot. Yeah, there's been a phrase floating around
Speaker 1: UM that I think all of us are are starting
Speaker 1: to not our heads on. Is this idea of a
Speaker 1: culture ad not a culture fit. I many years ago
Speaker 1: was calling somebody for a reference. And when I got
Speaker 1: this person, very well known guy. In fact, it was
Speaker 1: Bob Jeffrey, who was worldwide um j WT for years.
Speaker 1: I got him on the phone for this reference and
Speaker 1: he said, before we even go any further, I just
Speaker 1: want you to know she is one of those people
Speaker 1: I want in my lifeboat. And I had my whole
Speaker 1: list of questions I was going to ask, and I
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I'm gonna stop right there. That is
Speaker 1: such a perfect way to think about the people that
Speaker 1: you put on your team, because it doesn't necessarily mean
Speaker 1: that they're going to fit in. It means that when
Speaker 1: push comes to shove and you're in an emergency situation,
Speaker 1: that's somebody you can depend on who's going to be
Speaker 1: resourceful and is going to add to that team. That
Speaker 1: has to get you out of whatever it is you're in.
Speaker 1: And I love that notion. Is there a role for
Speaker 1: the marketer the client actually to say, stop staffing my
Speaker 1: business with resources, start staffing my business with talent, and
Speaker 1: make sure that they are well that these are people
Speaker 1: who are not just going home at one am in
Speaker 1: the morning to their community to Connecticut right and getting
Speaker 1: up at four basically and hating their life, but that
Speaker 1: they actually have side projects and side passions that they're
Speaker 1: bringing in. Because I'm trying to get to that generation
Speaker 1: of people anyway, I'm trying to sell to that generation
Speaker 1: of people anyway, So I need their voice, Like, what's
Speaker 1: the role of the marketer here, what's the role of
Speaker 1: the client here. Well, you've seen some of that movement
Speaker 1: with the marketers pushing for a more diverse workforce from
Speaker 1: the agents. You saw certainly what Antonio Lucia did with
Speaker 1: HP and CAN and taking people to CAN to expose
Speaker 1: them and make sure that he was giving them the
Speaker 1: opportunity that they might not otherwise get. So I think
Speaker 1: you're going to have some enlightened marketers who are going
Speaker 1: to push on that. Unfortunately, we still live and die
Speaker 1: by the contracts that we have and filling bodies and
Speaker 1: seats based on f t s and all of those
Speaker 1: other things. And that's the other thing that I like
Speaker 1: to work with with the agencies that I work with
Speaker 1: on getting away from those kind of compensation agreements, because
Speaker 1: all that does is put butts and seats and it
Speaker 1: doesn't let people bring their whole self to work, because
Speaker 1: you're ticking off a box, Alex. I love the transition
Speaker 1: you talk about between resources to talent um, and you
Speaker 1: know something that's been on my mind a lot lately.
Speaker 1: It's just the idea of evaluating people based on the
Speaker 1: percentage of time that they spend on enough business as
Speaker 1: opposed to the value of the work that they're bringing
Speaker 1: to the table. So I'm curious, Nancy. You know you
Speaker 1: obviously worked at the fouries and a lot of them. Sure,
Speaker 1: these conversations around models and change and transition were a
Speaker 1: part of your daily um routine. What about the industry
Speaker 1: do you wish would just go away? And what are
Speaker 1: the things that you think will never learn from I
Speaker 1: think the thing that I wish would go away is
Speaker 1: being valued on a list of f t s and
Speaker 1: some kind of arbitrary rate per hour that's even blended,
Speaker 1: which is the words that that was the blended rate,
Speaker 1: blended rate. It just makes no sense. And we we
Speaker 1: let this happen to ourselves when we got off the
Speaker 1: commission system and couldn't figure out exactly how to get paid.
Speaker 1: I think we have to move back to and I
Speaker 1: know everybody's going to be rolling their eyes saying, oh,
Speaker 1: easier said than done to just make that move, But
Speaker 1: I think we have to have some courage in the
Speaker 1: way that we price what we do with our clients.
Speaker 1: I remember so vividly sitting in a meeting with a
Speaker 1: client and the client asking leek ow how long does
Speaker 1: it take to come up with an idea? And lead
Speaker 1: just sat there for a second, just let the beat pause,
Speaker 1: and said five minutes. The problem is, I don't know
Speaker 1: when that five minutes is going to happen. And that
Speaker 1: gets to your point of the value that a person
Speaker 1: brings that based is based on thirty five years experience
Speaker 1: behind them, that has nothing to do with that hour
Speaker 1: that you're spending at that moment. And I think we
Speaker 1: have to get better at understanding that and getting away
Speaker 1: from well, this person spends percent of their time and
Speaker 1: that person spends thirty percent of the time. How do
Speaker 1: you cut people up like that? You don't. The thing is,
Speaker 1: we don't write because it was all bullshit. It's always
Speaker 1: been bullshit, right, that's exactly. Are there models, Nancy that
Speaker 1: you imagine in this sort of utopia of of the
Speaker 1: agency world, UM, that you think could help address that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: There are, and I UM. I have worked with several
Speaker 1: of my clients and I've worked at the four ways
Speaker 1: and been very public of about them. I think it
Speaker 1: starts with separating what we do into thinking about it
Speaker 1: from a standpoint of idea generation, idea management, and an
Speaker 1: idea execution, which really have very different weights on them
Speaker 1: in terms of long term value to a client. And
Speaker 1: if we start talking to clients about it from that
Speaker 1: perspective and move away from the day to day that
Speaker 1: it really doesn't bring long term brand value to them,
Speaker 1: then we can start talking about the value that the
Speaker 1: idea comes in. But you know, the other question you
Speaker 1: asked me is um one of the things that we'll
Speaker 1: just never learn is to say no UM. And again,
Speaker 1: I think part of it is, you know, especially with
Speaker 1: young agencies, they're small businesses, they're afraid that if they
Speaker 1: say no, that the clients never going to come back.
Speaker 1: They're afraid that if they say no to a proposal,
Speaker 1: that the clients never going to come back. I'll just
Speaker 1: tell you one other quick story. I had a client
Speaker 1: when I was at the four A's who needed to
Speaker 1: have a conversation with me moderating a conversation with one
Speaker 1: of their agencies about something that they wanted in the
Speaker 1: contract that the agency did not. And after that we
Speaker 1: got off the phone, the client called me separately and said, Nancy,
Speaker 1: I just want you to know we've had this. We've
Speaker 1: had that contract in front of twenty six agencies. This
Speaker 1: is the only one that pushed back. And that clause
Speaker 1: that was in that contract was terrible for agencies, and
Speaker 1: it just I think that we're really doing ourselves a
Speaker 1: disservice when we don't value what we do enough to
Speaker 1: be confident about it. I also always took exception going
Speaker 1: back to even to the commission system, that it put
Speaker 1: uh the emphasis in the wrong place. It put an
Speaker 1: emphasis on volume, non quality. We have to get back
Speaker 1: to a place where we're emphasizing the quality that we're
Speaker 1: bringing to the table. And again, I hate to beat
Speaker 1: the architecture model to death. But when you hire an
Speaker 1: architectural firm to do your house or your business or
Speaker 1: you're you're never looking at how much you're paying each
Speaker 1: employee on an hour by hour base. Yes, that's right,
Speaker 1: So what does this actually what could this look like?
Speaker 1: Because when you say courage, I'm like, what does courage
Speaker 1: really mean? You know, largely my practice is focused on
Speaker 1: independence and for independence who may eventually become part of
Speaker 1: the holding companies, but right now they have the ability
Speaker 1: to make those decisions themselves and say no to clients
Speaker 1: um and be willing to take a risk that this
Speaker 1: client is not really the right client for them. If
Speaker 1: that's all the client is focused on, how do they
Speaker 1: go about designing the their mindset right and their process
Speaker 1: to evaluate right and wrong a right client versus a
Speaker 1: wrong client outside of gut, outside of just intellectual right
Speaker 1: like power and chemistry and gut like, what what are
Speaker 1: those things that you're helping them design culturally and other
Speaker 1: things that are prompts for that? Well, I think you
Speaker 1: have to ask a lot of questions. And I'm a
Speaker 1: big believer in and garbage and garbage out and so
Speaker 1: totally if you're not getting the right answers to the
Speaker 1: questions that you have about the brief, about the project,
Speaker 1: about what success looks like, what the budget is. I
Speaker 1: can't tell you how many times clients walk in and
Speaker 1: they don't know what the budget is and they ask
Speaker 1: you to tell them. That is a huge red flag
Speaker 1: because that says to me that they really haven't given
Speaker 1: this the consideration that they really need to in terms
Speaker 1: of not only what they're willing to spend, but what
Speaker 1: they're willing to pay you. Um. And so when they
Speaker 1: get down to the negotiations, the last thing on their
Speaker 1: mind is how much I have to pay the agency.
Speaker 1: It's how much of a I spending in total. I
Speaker 1: think that there are a lot of questions that you
Speaker 1: can ask clients, just like you would a potential employee,
Speaker 1: about what it is that they're bringing to the table,
Speaker 1: just as much as you're bringing to the table. I agree.
Speaker 1: So talking about trade organizations, what's their role today and
Speaker 1: how do they live on in the future. Well, one
Speaker 1: of the things about trade organization sens is it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the utilities. You don't really notice that they're
Speaker 1: not there until the electricity goes off. Um. And so
Speaker 1: many people don't understand what trade organizations actually do for
Speaker 1: the industry. It's it's it's that was really awesome analogy.
Speaker 1: It's very complicated, and even when I got to the Forays,
Speaker 1: it took me a good year to understand everything that
Speaker 1: they did. I there was not a day that went
Speaker 1: by and went we do that. Really, I didn't know.
Speaker 1: And I've been in the industry for over thirty years
Speaker 1: at that point, and so it doesn't surprise me that
Speaker 1: people look at it from the outside and say that
Speaker 1: they're old and they're dusty, and they need to do
Speaker 1: things to stay relevant. So all of that said, in
Speaker 1: terms of their like a utility, there are things that
Speaker 1: they could be doing, I think to reach the young people.
Speaker 1: The fact of the matter is that they're stretched. They're
Speaker 1: stretched on the number of staff they have. They're stretched
Speaker 1: because of the money that they're bringing in every year.
Speaker 1: That's a relatively small budget um for it's a non
Speaker 1: in profit. People probably don't even realize that um and
Speaker 1: so there's only so much you can do. And I
Speaker 1: think that and this is also true of any business.
Speaker 1: I have a phrase that somebody said to me one
Speaker 1: time that I've never forgotten, which is Nancy. Anything is possible,
Speaker 1: everything is not, and when you think about it, it's
Speaker 1: it's really a good thing to keep in mind because
Speaker 1: anything is possible, there's no question, but you can't do
Speaker 1: all of it, and you can't do all of it
Speaker 1: because you don't have the resources, either financially or people wise.
Speaker 1: I think that engaging young people was something that I
Speaker 1: was really focused on. But what happened for me two
Speaker 1: things UM in my last five years at the Four Ways.
Speaker 1: One was the whole discussion on transparency and more personally,
Speaker 1: the whole discussion about women in the in the industry.
Speaker 1: It was personal, it was important UM. I was always
Speaker 1: a champion of diversity and inclusion, but I came I
Speaker 1: became a very loud and vocal voice on the front
Speaker 1: of women UM because I felt like somebody had to
Speaker 1: and I think too many people were too quiet for
Speaker 1: too long, and then we absolutely as an industry had
Speaker 1: our me to moment um. But I think sometimes the
Speaker 1: trade and trade associations can take a stand on these
Speaker 1: things that nobody else can because they have political reasons
Speaker 1: they can't, they have client reasons that they can't. And
Speaker 1: the one thing that the trade associations can do is
Speaker 1: be the voice, and they are. I think they're starting
Speaker 1: to to to do that more. At the IB just
Speaker 1: had a women Visionaries UM conference that was I was there.
Speaker 1: It was impressive, it was exciting and the energy in
Speaker 1: the room it was probably three they were at capacity
Speaker 1: or over capacity at three people, and it felt like
Speaker 1: two people were in the room because the energy was
Speaker 1: so personal when I love what Randall and team have
Speaker 1: been doing over the IB is bridging the gap between
Speaker 1: sort of the traditional players and some of the legacy
Speaker 1: UM speakers that have been on the circuit and up
Speaker 1: and really making I think a great effort to find
Speaker 1: new and interesting UM talent in the space to to
Speaker 1: mix up the conversation. Why, Nancy, do you think the
Speaker 1: trade organizations have struggled to either understand or adapt or
Speaker 1: engage the next generation. Again, it's really hard to be
Speaker 1: all things to all people, and when you have limited resources,
Speaker 1: you have to focus on the big meatya industry issues UM.
Speaker 1: The Forays in particular did try to tackle getting the
Speaker 1: younger generation involved UM and it became something that was
Speaker 1: just beyond our resources. When I was there, UM, I
Speaker 1: think that there's a ground swell right now going on
Speaker 1: in the industry with younger, younger generation. That's basically saying
Speaker 1: I want to be involved, get me involved. And what
Speaker 1: I will say to that generation is, okay, you raise
Speaker 1: your hand. You're about to get called on. Once we
Speaker 1: get to a place where we're breaking down the old
Speaker 1: mentality and I will say white male mentality, because that's
Speaker 1: what it has been. And that's not a bashing of
Speaker 1: white males, but that's just the circle we've lived in.
Speaker 1: Until we get past that, we're never going to create
Speaker 1: an environment where people feel safe having those conversations. Is
Speaker 1: there one thing that you look back at your early
Speaker 1: career self and say, I wish I wish I knew
Speaker 1: this all. I wish I could tell myself this, I
Speaker 1: would have taken better care of myself earlier. It's not
Speaker 1: just about diet, It's about everything. It's about diet and
Speaker 1: exercise and family and travel and reading and all of
Speaker 1: the things that feed my soul and making sure that
Speaker 1: I had time for that because I just worked my
Speaker 1: ass off. Um And while I recognize that as an
Speaker 1: industry that it kind of requires us to, I think
Speaker 1: that even if I had given myself more balance, I
Speaker 1: would have been a happier person earlier. I feel really
Speaker 1: good about where I am now, but it took me
Speaker 1: a long time to get here. Now that you're sort
Speaker 1: of on the periphery, sort of looking and advising the
Speaker 1: thing that's happening, UM at the core of the industry. Um,
Speaker 1: are there things that surprise you looking from that vantage
Speaker 1: point that you didn't realize while you were on the
Speaker 1: inside sort of running agencies. Uh, well, I've I've had
Speaker 1: a lot more honest conversations with clients and the last
Speaker 1: I'd say probably five to eight years because I'm not
Speaker 1: courting them, so I I haven't had to have the
Speaker 1: kinds of dance conversations that you have about I don't
Speaker 1: want to piss this person off because they might be
Speaker 1: a client, so I can ask pointed questions. And I
Speaker 1: think the thing that surprises me is how much agencies
Speaker 1: still to this day don't realize that clients see right
Speaker 1: through them when they either do or say certain things. Um.
Speaker 1: The fact that agencies will walk in and tell a
Speaker 1: client that they're very different because of this, this, this,
Speaker 1: and this, and the client will look at me and say,
Speaker 1: every agency says the exact same thing. UM. And I
Speaker 1: think and that's been going on for as long as
Speaker 1: I can remember, so none of that has changed. You'd
Speaker 1: like to think it has changed, especially with a new
Speaker 1: generation coming in, but clients see straight through that. I
Speaker 1: think one of the things I try to emphasize with
Speaker 1: the agencies that I work with now is don't try
Speaker 1: to bullshir your clients. Be transparent. And when I say that,
Speaker 1: what I mean by that is let them know exactly
Speaker 1: what they're going to get. Let your employees know exactly
Speaker 1: what they're going to get, because guess what, if you
Speaker 1: think you're hiding something from them, you're not. They're going
Speaker 1: to find out. And I think that all of these
Speaker 1: things bode well for the industry as we start to
Speaker 1: move through this next generation. And dare I say the
Speaker 1: next creative revolution that's going to happen, because I think
Speaker 1: everybody's going to be a lot healthier and happier. But
Speaker 1: until we get to a place where people stopped playing games,
Speaker 1: it's just not going to happen. Do you think that
Speaker 1: the next creative revolution is somewhat dependent on this new
Speaker 1: kind of structure that you're talking about in terms of absolutely, absolutely,
Speaker 1: because I think that we have to put ourselves in
Speaker 1: the best position possible to do the best work possible.
Speaker 1: And right now, with the structure that we've had with
Speaker 1: the contractual arrangements with clients, were not in the best position.
Speaker 1: I mean, let's just take the percentage of the person's
Speaker 1: time each week. Okay, you get of this person. Does
Speaker 1: that mean they stop working at Does that mean the
Speaker 1: ideas as big and grand as it could be because
Speaker 1: they just stopped working? It just makes no sense. That's
Speaker 1: like expecting I'm going to stop at the appetizer, Like
Speaker 1: it's not stuff I'm not going to like. Again, that's
Speaker 1: made up. Like have you ever stopped work even though
Speaker 1: you're staffed fIF on someone's business? No? I know. But
Speaker 1: now you've got people in agencies because they have to
Speaker 1: making sure that they're managing scope and and chicking off
Speaker 1: every time that somebody's time sheets are coming in because
Speaker 1: and they're telling people to stop working because they have
Speaker 1: to um and because because they're stretched at that cross
Speaker 1: three or four clients. And it's just impossible to do
Speaker 1: your best work when you're being told that you only
Speaker 1: have a certain amount of time to work on a project. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it goes back to the five minute rule. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: So we're going to slow ourselves down and tell me
Speaker 1: I think restructure. That's really what it sounds like. I
Speaker 1: think we have to so, Nancy, some of the things
Speaker 1: that we're seeing in the market, it sounds like as
Speaker 1: much as things change, they stay the same. Are there
Speaker 1: signals to you of great leaders um, whether leaders of
Speaker 1: years past or or of the future, that you see
Speaker 1: consistent in terms of the qualities or skill sets that
Speaker 1: it requires to go from one creative revolution to the next.
Speaker 1: I think the thing that is most important for anybody
Speaker 1: who's in a leadership position in a creative organization is
Speaker 1: to recognize that your job as a leader in that
Speaker 1: organization is to create an environment where people can do
Speaker 1: their best work. Period. That's your job. I don't care
Speaker 1: what form that takes, because it's going to be a
Speaker 1: little bit different for every person in every rnzation. But
Speaker 1: if you start thinking about the fact that you are
Speaker 1: a servant leader in service to the work, through the
Speaker 1: people that you have employed there and to the clients
Speaker 1: that you bring in, and start making that your focus
Speaker 1: every single day, then there's no limit to what you're
Speaker 1: going to be able to produce coming out of that
Speaker 1: kind of an environment. I say that on the marketing
Speaker 1: side as well, and not just on the agency. I
Speaker 1: actually think on the marketing side, on the client side,
Speaker 1: it's as important in some cases, if not more important,
Speaker 1: because we are so dictating how our agencies show up,
Speaker 1: how they're staffed, what we allow them to come to
Speaker 1: us about, and not because we shut down ideas all
Speaker 1: the time. I think that on the marketing side it's
Speaker 1: um probably even more important that that leaders are are
Speaker 1: are kind of that. Well, it's time to hear from
Speaker 1: the sharper herself what you would kill buy and d I,
Speaker 1: y you are up? What would you kill? I would
Speaker 1: kill all the FTE model yes, check, I would buy
Speaker 1: Facebook stock right now. You would give us down? They
Speaker 1: will rebound. There was no question in my mind. And
Speaker 1: do I why I would say a new network of
Speaker 1: some sort and I don't mean broadcast network, but I
Speaker 1: think some new network that allows for all of the
Speaker 1: creative people, not just in the advertising industry, to work
Speaker 1: with each other on an easier basis. I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that actually may come back and we'll talk
Speaker 1: about that design that one. So, Nancy, if people want
Speaker 1: to have you consult or sharpen them. Where can they
Speaker 1: reach you? So my Twitter handle is at an H. Hill.
Speaker 1: My middle name is Howard. I'm letting that so the
Speaker 1: initial in the middle is an H. Hill and and
Speaker 1: my email address, which is the easiest way to find
Speaker 1: me as Nancy H. At the agency sherpa dot com. Nancy,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Thank you, Nancy. Did you know
Speaker 1: Nancy's middle name was Howard by the way, I didn't,
Speaker 1: But you know, if there's any sharp I want in
Speaker 1: my life, I want to Nancy Howard Hill. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much Nancy for dropping in and sharing all of
Speaker 1: your insight and knowledge with us. And I think I
Speaker 1: hope the industry will take some of her words um
Speaker 1: to good use and put them into practice, because I
Speaker 1: think we'll be better for it. Thank you. Our producer,
Speaker 1: Dana Matt Turk, Andy Bowers, all of our friends and
Speaker 1: family at Panoply at Landia will talk to you in
Speaker 1: two weeks. Full disclosure. Our opinions are our own.