Sunday, July 25, 2004
Things Every Agency Person Should Know - Episode I
As someone who has worked his entire professional life in an agency environment, I’ve had my healthy share of daily annoyances to deal with. I’ve decided to intermittently share some of the random things I’ve learned, starting with this, the first episode of “Things Every Agency Person Should Know.” It’s meant to be a random smattering of ideas that you might identify with. Use the comments link to add your own thoughts.
This episode will deal with finding information, mishaps in pitches, gift ideas, and competitive intelligence.
Permanent Markers
A couple of years ago, I was working with some business development folks from Xerox when, in the midst of a flurry of white-board activity, I realized I had drawn something with black permanent marker. Thoroughly apologetic, I frantically looked around for some whiteboard cleaner so I could try and erase it before the writing dried, and found to my dismay that there was nothing within drying distance. That’s when I learned what I consider to be one of the best lessons ever taught to me: turns out that if you write over the offending permanent marker lines with dry-erase marker, chemicals in both layers bind together, and now can be erased with a normal eraser sponge. Just follow the lines of your original art carefully, and then immediately rub it off—both, the dry-erase mark, as well as the permanent mark will come right off.
Who’s The Competition?
Nowadays, more and more RFPs are coming from the procurement divisions of major corporations, especially when it comes to major marketing initiatives. Typically, these RFPs have multiple attachments, and come in electronic formats. Here’s a tip, if you’re trying to find out if there are other agencies or marketing clients involved: If the document is in a Microsoft Word format, go to File->Properties. The “Author” tab usually has the name of the person who was responsible for the origination of the document, including the company they came from. This is especially useful, if you’re trying to qualify the opportunity, and are not sure if there’s a strong incumbent in place. Sometimes, companies put out RFPs as part of their procurement process requirements, but have no intention of awarding the business to anyone else.
Google Searches
Inevitably, when you’re putting deliverables together, there are going to be times when you need to do a Web search. You may be looking for research material, slides to include, or simple inspiration. Here’s one simple, yet powerful way to search for presentations and Microsoft Word documents on Google: add the term filetype:ppt or filetype:doc to your search entry. It will return results that include the full text contents of those types of documents.
The Invisible Web
A lot of content on the Web resides in databases that cannot be indexed by search engines such as Google and Yahoo! Search. This content has grown to such an extent, that there is now a name for it: The Invisible Web. Most of the invisible web is made up of the contents of thousands of specialized searchable databases that you can search via the Web. The search results from many of these databases are delivered to you in web pages that are generated just in answer to your search. Use this informational portal to explore this incredibly rich source of data in specific fields.
Gifts for Clients
If you’ve forgotten a client’s birthday, or need to express a gift to someone who lives in another city, or want to surprise a client for a new piece of business she awarded you, or want to reward a co-worker immediately for a job well done, I have two favorite resources: Use the “express gifts” section at Red Envelope to order gifts all the way up until 11:00PM and have them delivered by the next business morning, or send flowers directly from growers using Flower Bud.