The Musings Of An Opinionated Sod [Help Me Grow!]

You see as much as we all like to think we’d get paid for our hard efforts and genius, the reality is there are only 3 ways to improve the odds:

1/ Responsibility
[Are you prepared to stand or fall by your decisions and actions?]

2/ Relevance
[Do you offer a skill that is currently in demand, especially from a commercial point of view?]

3/ Relationships
[Do you have – or could you have – key relationships with senior clients &/or management?]

That’s it.

If you don’t have any of those 3, the chances of you earning as much as you want are probably going to be quite hard to achieve.

Now for many of you, this might be obvious, but to me it wasn’t – not even when I started cynic.

You see I was always under the impression that if you worked hard and did good stuff, the rewards would follow – but sadly life isn’t like that – so if you want a company to pay you well, you need to demonstrate how the company will earn more because of you.

The reason I bring this up is that I recently read something about me in Asia’s Campaign magazine that made me feel pretty good about myself.

In the annual ‘agency review’ article, my name was mentioned twice:

In M&C’s overview, it said …

“Meanwhile in China, the departure of Rob Campbell from Sunshine, M&C’s branding consultancy that Campbell launched two years ago, was an unmistakeable blow.”

Whereas in W+K’s overview, it said …

“The big addition in 2010 was the hiring of Rob Campbell as regional head of planning. Campbell’s industry knowledge and innovative approach to planning should sit well within the agencies culture”.

And get this, I didn’t even pay them!!!

The reason it makes me happy is because if Campaign magazine felt my departure/arrival worthy enough of mention, it appears they think I ‘do stuff’ … stuff that has a positive – and commercial – value to companies, colleagues & clients.

I like that.

I like that a lot.

Of course I could be totally wrong – maybe they had nothing else to say or maybe they asked my Mum to write it … however that aside, I like the fact they imply any “success” I achieve/d is based more on what I – and my wonderful band of colleagues – do, rather than on any relationship I hold and that’s very important to me, because it not only validates my beliefs and methods, but it also makes me feel I still have a role to play in this business.

You see here’s the thing.

While I have a very big ego, the thing that drives me most is fear.

I’ve said this before, but I am absolutely petrified I’ll be ‘found out’.

Despite doing this for 2 decades, I just don’t know if I’m any good.

I see all these young guys coming out – and look at all the older guys I hold in high esteem – and I just don’t think I am in either of their leagues.

Hell, half the reason I started cynic was to see if I could pull it off, because I was convinced any praise I’d got previously was due to the brilliant people and agencies I worked with rather than anything I did … and even then my plan backfired because George and Andy were/are so fucking brilliant that everything good that happened to us was directly attributable to their leadership rather than mine.

And then there’s the fact I’m 40.

In the big scheme of things 40 years of age is nothing – however in adland, it’s ancient.

Adfolk have this ridiculous habit of judging a persons ability by their age and they tend to calculate it in a similar way to how people do dogs.

In short, if you’re over 28, you are ready for your funeral.

Now I am lucky that I work at W+K because they value creativity, they don’t devalue age – however I still think the majority of the people I work with look at me like I’m the oldest person alive and they think I should be in the Guinness Book of Records rather than their office.

Maybe.

But at the end of the day, it’s these things that push me.

The fear of not being relevant, recognised or valued is what makes me roll up my sleeves and be actively involved throughout the whole process … they’re the things that ensure I always take on more responsibility than I need … they’re the things that makes me question what I’m doing over and over again … they’re the things that will see me fight for other departments and skill sets and ultimately, they’re the things that ensures a company will pay me enough to keep me in pointless gadgets.

While my ego loves it when I get praised, the reality is I never truly believe what’s being said – and ultimately I think that is a good thing – because the day I do, might be the day I have to start relying on relationships for my livelihood … and apart from the fact I don’t actually know many people who an agency would deem important enough for me to be hired for … the fact is of the folks I do know, I’m perfectly aware they’d make my life a living hell just for the fun of it, so it’s in my interests to ensure I am synonymous with doing stuff rather than just spouting shit.

[This blog excluded. Obviously]

Now whether you believe it or not, this post is not meant as a pat on my own back – it’s actually meant as a bit of a lesson to anyone reading this who is still in the early stages of their career. Or the later ones.

A while back we did a survey that asked people if they wanted their bosses job and a huge percentage of respondents said no.

They didn’t say this because they weren’t ambitious, they said it because they didn’t want to do the ‘other stuff’ they saw their boss had to do … and whilst I can appreciate that, the reality is if you want to receive the benefits you think you are worthy of, you’ve got to prove your worth from more than just your own personal perspective – so whilst I’m not suggesting you should become the agency bitch, you shouldn’t become a self-judicating planning jobsworth either.