I’ve gotten this question a lot in the last few months from clients and agencies. Since May I’d been doing an extended consulting gig with one of Hitch’s first clients, McNett Corporation.

McNett is a leading outdoor company based right here in Bellingham.  I was having a ball working with them and I suppose I was offering some real value, because they offered me a j-o-b. In most every other circumstance, I would have run away screaming.  Have a boss?  Go to some building every day? I haven’t worked for someone else for a decade. The answer would have been NO. Hell no, in fact.

Except to these guys.  McNett is a great company with great people and a big vision and all the pieces just fell into place.

So what now? Most of my working life will be consumed as Vice President of Marketing for McNett–but I’m not sunsetting Hitch. I’m not actively looking for new clients, but I’m not turning the lights off either. Why? I’d like to continue to be a resource to clients who are in need.  In some cases, recommendations or questions can be answered without a protracted search, so my email and phone # are available.  In other cases, I will still take limited engagements on a case by case basis.

I’ve sincerely enjoyed working and getting to know all of you.  I’m still running in marketing circles (boy am I) and will continue to work at keeping that network alive. I’ve communicated this to my agency partners and all of my clients, but I’ll leave this page up for now, if for no other reason than to maintain SEO.

I will be blogging here from time to time about marketing things that cross my mind–but much more infrequently.

Now, go outside!

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In the marketing world, Big gets its butt kissed. Big has money, so Big has power–on the client and the agency side. When Big talks, everyone listens.

Global brands need global partners and world-wide reach; no one can argue with that. Your $300 million account needs some earnest eye-gazing and sweaty hand-holding. And for that amount of cash, everyone wants in. It’s a complicated, deal-making world.

But what if your brand doesn’t live in that world? Maybe you’re a start-up, mid-sized or challenger brand. You’ve got no plans for offices in London, Sydney and Mumbai. You don’t need the added layers and expense, the fancy dinners and box seat perks. And your $3 million budget would scarcely get you a returned phone call from Big Agency. How, then, do you get access to innovative thinking and people who can help move your brand and business forward?

Focus your search on the level of talent, not the size of the firm. Small agencies house some of the sharpest minds in marketing today and represent a great value in a cost-conscious world.

What’s small? That depends. Small could be a national level shop of 50 people or it could be the ex-president of one of the Bigs who just started a new two-person firm. Here are some things to consider as you start your search:

• Look at your immediate and long term goals.  You’re looking for partners you can grow with–not just ones who can get those first few projects off your desk, right?

• An agency relationship should be treated with the same due diligence you’d apply to bringing on a new business partner. If you’re not interested in that level of commitment, don’t hire an agency.

• It’s a fact: most small agencies don’t make decisions based on a certain profit margin–but what’s best for the client. You’d never hear that about Big.

• Small agencies are fearless–they take risks that Big can’t.

How do I know this?  I talk to them everyday. I’m in meetings and pitches with them. I’ve watched them face seemingly impossible, complicated challenges and hit it out of the park.

So in your search for the right marketing agency look beyond Big. Consider a smaller agency – they’ re likely a better fit for your budget and your brand. Brilliant marketers are anxious to take your call–let us hitch you up with one.

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I remember my first ad agency pitch. Completely green and new to the agency, I asked Alan, my Creative Director as we looked over our materials “So, what are we gonna say?”

He broke into Rappers Delight.

“I said a hip hop the hippie the hippie to the hip hip hop a you don’t stop the rockin to the bang bang boogie say up jump the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie the beat….”

My butterflies were gone instantly.  We won the pitch.

What’s your funny or favorite pitch story (Client or Agency side). Tell your story in comments or on Twitter #PitchTales.

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In Michael Pollan‘s books, like The Omnivore’s Dilemma and The Botany of Desire, Pollan warns about monocultures. In agriculture, monocultures are systems where a single crop is raised. The upsides are large harvests, automation and minimal labor costs–the modern industrialized farm. The downside is higher incidents of disease and generally just an unhealthy ecosystem. Healthier and better for the land (and the people consuming the food) are polycultures, where diverse, multiple crops are grown. The same is true in marketing.

With the extreme emphasis on social media marketing today, you might think that modern marketing is a monoculture. That if you’re doing social, you’re doing marketing. True, the way we communicate, consume, share and create content is vastly different that just a few years ago. But ignore a holistic and strategic marketing polyculture for a social media monoculture and you risk the disease and ultimately the death of your brand.

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Rich Silverstein spoke at OMMA Global yesterday. I was really looking forward to his keynote but as he finished and walked off stage I first felt let down. I expected some forward looking perspective on our industry but instead left with an uneasiness in my gut. It was only on reflection that I realized what he’d done was brilliant–he delivered what we all needed, even though we didn’t know we needed it.

Silverstein really had a singular point to convey: Let’s try harder. Try harder in making movies, politics, education, our personal health, government, science, altruism, and yes, advertising.

Silverstein wanted us to be discontented and he wanted to transfer some of that discontent to us. He is motivated (and pissed off) by the ugliness in the world, and he examines how things could be done differently.

In the end Silverstein shared a basic truth, the same one Socrates shared thousands of years before: that the unexamined life is not worth living. That simple truth spread across all aspects of our lives not only makes our industry and our work better it has the potential to make our lives  and our society better as well.

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