Agency Newsletters

f. Agency new business team players that actually work as a team; no head-butting egos and no last-minute presentation quarterbacking by otherwise uninvolved agency management.

g. Agency management that not only makes me responsible for "new business development" but gives me the authority to allocate and spend funds.

h. A complete, up-to-date, tantalizing and magnetic AgencyFinder record - and kept that way by our best agency talent!

i. A great on-going relationship with the AgencyFinder folks and ALL agency selector consultants. Love 'em or not, they're often the front door to profitable new clients.

WHASSUP WITH THAT WAL-MART?

Talk about the new business story of the century! It's intriguing at the least. I have mixed empathy for Julie and Howard - what a bummer for both and for everyone affected by the fallout. And talk about disconnections in the agency search process.

Maybe you think we've heard enough already. But for the sake of thousands of small- to-medium

agencies that will never get a chance to even be near a project of this magnitude, we still need answers. Like why didn't or did SRI brief every agency on the strict and almost impossible rules by which Wal-Mart wanted to play? For a consultant that is normally quite involved, where were they when folks were rocking and booze was flowing?

Why does the press quote people who have nothing to do with this review, and would never be involved in something of this magnitude? More importantly, why aren't we hearing from those in the know - like Catherine at SRI, or any of the first, second and third-round agency candidates? Imagine their pain when they didn't make the first cut; then when they learned who did; and later when they read what we all read.

How about checking and reporting what Russ Wohlwerth might have to offer, and while they're at it, get some idea what SRI charged to manage this newsmaker. Explain why the press reported SRI was again hired to manage its upcoming mulligan... "mulligan", as in a golf shot not tallied against the score, or more specifically - a free second shot or pass. In this case, a second free assignment. So why does the press say they were "hired" when SRI probably felt they owed Wal-Mart another round at no-cost?