Patience in Advertising

10 years ago I walked out of my family insurance business.

I stopped a mobile marketing side hustle. I had no income. A wife. And a newborn baby.

But I needed to start moving toward what I was always gravitating to.

The minute I walked into my first advertising classes at SVA and Adhouse, I knew I had made the right decision.

I knew that this was the first big step toward the dream of becoming an advertising creative.

Two years later, thanks to student spec work, I got my first big client.

It wasn't in insurance or mobile technology.

It was for a pencil.

I figured that if I can sell a pencil, I can sell anything.

I convinced the client to turn a 3k banner ad/email campaign into a 100k celebration of the pencil.

I put together a fantastic team of amazing and passionate people. We rented the art directors club in NY for a week.

The relaunch of the Blackwing Pencil went better than expected.

We did it again in LA and Vegas.

It worked.

It takes courage to take that step.

But it also takes patience.

The space between sentences 6 and 7 above are jam-packed with failures, doubts, and grunt work.

Ten years later, I am an ACD at an amazing ad agency in LA. I'm living my dream.

But wait, there's more!