Jimmy Gilmore

Now more than ever, we agency pro­fes­sion­als can­not afford to have cliche’ agency jerks among our ranks. There’s enough ten­sion with clients and providers thanks to the eco­nomic hard­ships. So please, if you rec­og­nize any of these behav­iors as some­thing you or your col­leagues do, please do your best to put a stop to it.

1. Do you sigh every time a client opens their mouth to offer criticism?
2. Do you say things like, “obvi­ously, you don’t under­stand” when you fail to prop­erly explain the agency’s thinking?
3. Do you pre­tend to under­stand dig­i­tal terms like ana­lyt­ics, UI, and RSS then blow them off as irrel­e­vant or below your pay grade?
4. Do you put more effort in argu­ing about the size of the logo than improv­ing your knowl­edge base?
5. Do you think SEO is some­one else’s job?
6. Do you think web video is just another way to sell your 30 sec­ond TV spot?
7. Do you dis­count the client’s ideas with­out think­ing how to improve them first?
8. Do you spend more time think­ing about how you look than the way your work makes the client look?
9. Do you think pitch­ing the client another iPhone apps makes you cut­ting edge?
10. Do you con­stantly refer to the awards you won dur­ing the last Ice Age?

I am not so sorry to say that you’ve been out­moded. The future doesn’t need you. Please get out of the busi­ness before you bring the ship down with you. The client’s never liked you and they’re begin­ning to fig­ure out they don’t need you, your sporty clothes and fancy way of talk­ing. They need some­one with a deep under­stand­ing of dig­i­tal, social and brand­ing – who wants to be a real partner.

OK. OK. So I’m hav­ing a lit­tle fun. But I’m sure you can name a few agency jerk behav­iors that are hurt­ing our business.