Tesar-Reynes

It is another new year. The pressure is on to develop new resolutions. What a joke; why not just reprint last years. Maybe I am being too hard on myself. A great deal did happen in 2010 that impacts 2001. And I have learned at least one life lesson: about “stuff”.

Last year we decided to downsize from a five bedroom house that we had lived in for over a dozen years into a three bedroom ranch. By any calculations of square footage, our new house was about 60-65% smaller. A great deal of “things” could not make the trip. Here are some lessons I learned.

I had breakfast today with a good friend. Whenever we get together, my brain simmers for a good time after. Our conversation today covered the oil spill, commercial real estate, the attraction of the Catholic Church, the immigrants in Arizona, the Medici’s, Thorstein Veblen and the restructuring of global business. I’ll talk about the last subject and not bore you with the rest.

Starting in late 2008, businesses stopped spending money. The phrase “Cash is King” resounded everywhere. As the corporate sales charts went into free fall, the only actionable strategy left for business was to cut cost. Reduction in staff was the name of the game. People were not necessarily cut selectively: whole departments were vaporized. As an HR director told me, when she walked down the halls, she could hear people humming the theme from “Jaws” or mimicking the …

LinkedIn has become the fourth most important asset for your merchandisability. It nestles in right behind your actual performance, your brand and reputation, and your resume. In general I find that most people gravitate to one of two ways to handle this online asset. They either see it as another wall on which to tack their resume, or they see it as a limitless billboard that is a Facebook sidebar.

Here is my take on LinkedIn. At the barest minimum it must show your business background, what people think of you (references) and a little about your life outside of work. This is a great place to put links to what you are passionate about; articles written about you, pieces that show your best thinking, your creative book and any write-ups about your activities in the community.

Who looks at your …

In the office we have watched a business attitude shift in the last three years that is pretty amazing:

2008 – This is really worse than anyone said. I am going to have to let some people go and weather the storm. I have been through this before and it will be gone by next year.

2009 – Oh my God! I wonder if I can stay in business. Nobody wants to buy anything; if they do they want a discount and are paying late. No one makes a decision anymore. Cut pay and cut more people.

2010 – The worst may be over, but I am not spending any money. If I get any new business I will make do with the stuff I have. No commitments until we have some more money in the bank.

As of the 2nd …

I got a call in the late summer from a guy I placed at a large company back east. He runs corporate communications and advertising. If I remember, the guy is in his mid-40’s and is a certifiable Type A. The conversation started with “I am going f’ing postal! You gotta minute?”

The gist of the explosion had to do with the fact that his three agencies were going in circles with non-relevant off-strategy creative. And the digital shop was the worst. I swallowed hard and asked if it had to do with bad direction. His next 16 sentences were not complimentary to me, my family or the company. His net-net was an entirely different observation: they seemed to keep reinventing the wheel. What was being presented to him either had failed before or was poorly thought out.

I asked him …

A few months ago, I was fortunate enough to sit down and share a couple of beers with a real story teller. He was the kind that keeps me wide awake and ready to order him another round.

He was talking about his old boss and said, “He looked like Gregory Peck after the whale had pulled him under a few times.” Later he talked about a supplier who reminded him of “that gnome in the Middle Earth who was trying to steal the ring.”

People who make me use my imagination and memory really communicate with me because I am forced to do some of the work. I am truly interacting with the speaker. Unless I am forced to contribute, sometimes I can just sit there like wallpaper, which …

We are still in a period where there is an amazing amount of transition. The market is changing as is the consumer. Clients large and small are continuing to test what works and what doesn’t. They thirst for insight.

As this trail continues, once-trusted suppliers fall by the wayside if they do not contribute to the understanding of the future. This means that agencies have to be truly committed to helping their clients through this tough period. It is one of the few times in a client-agency relationship where firms a have a chance to stand out to the client’s corner office and really make a difference.

In some regards, this is not a new investment or a new initiative, but rather a re-commitment to reading the signs that are out there everyday. The winner is the resource that observes, assimilates …

There seems to be a few things that are in common with many of the people I talk to today. They are fearful, frustrated and reinventing themselves.

I just talked to a person who spent many years in the QSR industry and they have honed a new concept store that will be opened by the end of the year.

Recently I ran into another person who is going into personal career training to help Baby Boomers transition into a new way of making a living.

We are dealing with someone we knew years ago who is trying to buy small distressed agencies and grow a local midwestern network. I had lunch last month with an old candidate who has propelled herself up the organization by becoming …

On a fairly regular basis I’m asked by senior management about whether there should be a great deal of space devoted on their resume to their corporate summary or the bullet positioning of their experience and accomplishments. In most cases, these people have agonized over this piece of real estate. They’re unsure how many words to use and how all the key words will be scanned by recruitment software.

My position on this is pretty simple. I never read this part of their resume until after I’ve read the meat and potatoes down below and I feel that this candidate belongs in our database or that they fit a search that I’m working on. Only then will I go back and read a summary and only then will …

I am a natural born optimist and have been looking for something that would show a sign that the economy was turning for quite some time. I think I got my first sign in the second week of May. That’s when our phone started to ring, and we got six new searches or projects in the course of the next seven days. We are not back to full activity, but it’s nice to be busy again.

The one frustration is dealing with a couple of clients that have fought the good fight internally and are now looking for people to join their company. Some of these hiring managers feel that they can get good people for less than market value and that they are doing them …