Saturday 27 January 2007

Pay attention kids


Having experienced many knock-backs and “he’s in a meeting” phone calls at the start of my career, I always said that I’d do what I could to help young people get into advertising.

Barely a week goes by where I don’t talk to someone about their folio, who’s a good person to go see, do I know of any jobs for juniors etc.

Let’s face facts. Advertising is a difficult business to get into. Always has been, always will be. Someone once told me that cracking a job as an agency creative was about as difficult as winning an Oscar.

If you’re hawking a folio at the moment, and starting to get frustrated about the lack of opportunity, hang in there. To steal from an old shampoo ad, it won’t happen overnight but it will happen.

It won’t happen though, if you’re not 110% passionate. You have to love the business to be in the business.

If you’re after a bit of inspiration look no further than the ten question interview Guy Kawasaki has just done with Donald Trump.

Whilst he’s not everyone’s cup of tea, the Donald makes some sound points, none more so than this one:

“You have to love what you do. Without passion, great success is hard to come by. An entrepreneur will have tough times if he or she isn’t passionate about what they’re doing. People who love what they’re doing don’t give up. It’s never even a consideration. It’s a pretty simple formula.”