Posted by Floyd Diebel 3 Comments

Duty Now for the Future

Generally speaking, meetings drive me nuts. I know they are my Duty Now for the Future client, but even so I frequently annoy everyone by whining and bitching about them. I’d rather be getting actual work done, instead of talking about getting work done. Or talking about maybe getting hired, to later get paid to talk about getting work done. Grr.

I’d rather be getting actual work done, instead of talking about getting work done.

Once I get in the meetings though, I’m okay and well… anyway the point. We had a meeting last week with a potential new client. This meeting was the dreaded “interview” – the meeting in which a business who may or may not hire us wants to learn enough about our shop to help them decide if we are the right fit for their company, project, campaign, whatever.

We got there a bit early, so a receptionist had us wait in the lobby. The receptionist entertained us with enough funny conversation that she probably warrants her own post (maybe later on.)

A few minutes pass – a couple of guys from one of the companies being considered for this work came out of the conference room with cables and projectors and a bunch of media-looking stuff. We said our polite hellos because that’s what you do, and I started thinking about our lack of projector screens and PowerPoint presentations.

Our presentation consisted a funky proposal thing I hand made of paper, melamine, and balsa wood, a handful of past work examples, and our brains.

We dumped all the stuff out on a conference table and then just talked.

We dumped all the stuff out on a conference table and then just talked. Everyone in the room was very engaged – it was quite cool.

I’m in no way sure we’ll get the work – the project is a huge endeavor and I think our approach came off as a little avant garde. They may want to error on the side of hiring an agency with a more conservative approach, but I still consider the meeting a success. It’s always really tough to tell your own story…  and I think we did a good job this time.

For our next meeting though, I think we definitely need a corporate anthem.

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