BYOB – Be Your Own Boss

   By Gonzalo López Martí / Atkins López Martí, LLC You started your own business. Welcome to the party. Face the music. And dance. You are on your own now. No more whining. No more excuses. No more finger pointing. You only have yourself to blame. Some assorted pieces of advice. True multiculturalism is all about venturing outside of your comfort zone. Eg. my partner, Lane Atkins, is a baseball-loving Southern gentleman from Greensboro, North Carolina. I am a criollo from Buenos Aires, Argentina. -There are a lot of agencies out there that seem to be too NYC, too LA, too West Coast, too East Coast, too Mexican, too Cuban, too Argentine. Not a good recipe for diverse, disruptive thinking, if you ask me. -You want to have a prodigious memory to remember faces, names, facts & numbers. -You want to be amnesiac enough to forget the myriad times you will be dissed, ignored, overlooked & humiliated. -Calls will go unreturned, emails unreplied. -Keep trying. -Check your ego at the door -Never take anything personal, which is almost impossible for us thin-skinned creatives. Maybe that’s the reason why creatives rarely start or lead agencies and prefer the warm shelter of multinational corporations. -Spread the risk: do not get comfortable or complacent with your existing clients. -Then again, you want to treat every client as if they were the only one. Easier said than done. -Long term relationships & monthly retainers are becoming a thing of the past. -RFCs are great (Requests For Credentials). -RFPs are horrible. A humiliating beauty pageant. A shot in the foot.  A necessary evil. You give away your work for free and devalue the entire industry. Stay away from RFPs as much as you can (easier said than done). -The medium is the message. Hence, we can’t stop at just creating new messages for the same old media. We need to create new vehicles, new modules, new ad units, new inventories. Example: someone had to come up with the idea of selling ad space on soccer jerseys to sponsors. A new revenue stream. In this particular case, if you ask me, an intrusive eyesore, but hey it’s a free country. -Eg. we are helping develop new revenue streams for JustPlayTennis.com, a subscriber-based network that connects tennis players. -Talk the talk, walk the walk, put your money where your mouth is. -Award shows & industry gatherings are good for professionals looking for visibility that could lead to a raise or a new job. Not sure they are the right place to find clients. -Be desperate and show it. -Try too hard. -Let the world know that you are sexy, horny & hungry. -“A married man with a family will do anything for money” Charles M. de Talleyrand. By Gonzalo López Martà /Atkins López MartÃ, LLC 1537 Saragossa Avenue Coral Gables, Florida 33134. T. 305 669 8777 F. 305 669 3977