Good Things Happen to Good People

On one of my last days as a waiter at Blue Plate Café I had a one top table. It was this really cool lady and she made my day. She asked me about the restaurant and how long I had worked there and what not. When I told her I was leaving for an internship oversees she became very excited for me. Before she left she said to me, “thank you for being so accommodating, when I was about your age I was traveling like you’re starting too. My aunt said to me that good things happen to good people, and its been proven true to me time and time again.” She left me a very generous tip that day, but her words are what I remember most.

Its only week three of my internship, but I have arguably learned more about relationship marketing than advertising. The funny thing is that people keep telling me about how different the media industry is here in Wellington than it is in Auckland. Yesterday while I was out to lunch with Steve and a TV rep named Donna, Donna basically said she doesn’t take care of her Auckland clients the same way she does her Wellington clients. It sounds as if media planners in Auckland are more demanding of their media reps, and vice versa.

A heard a similar story today from another TV rep. His name is Andy, and he is basically Donna’s competition. When Andy, Steve, and I were out for coffee Andy started telling me about this media planner he used to know. The guy was from the UK, and he was supposedly one of the best media planners in London. Andy was having a meeting with him one day, and the planner said to him, “this is the rate I want, and it’s the rate you’re going to give me” or something along those lines. Andy was a little appalled, and he thought about it for a moment then he wrote down Donna’s number and gave it to the planner. He told him to piss off and that he didn’t want to do business with him.

I guess the planner from the UK was confused, this had never happened to him before. Andy described him as nice guy, and they did do business together but I don’t think Andy ever went out of his way to help him like he the way he helps Steve. If this planner simply had said to Andy that he needed to impress this client or his boss he would of given him the rate without any questions.

It seems like when Grant, Matt, or Steve try teaching me something it all comes back to relationship marketing. Andy gives Steve a lot of good rates, and in return Steve spends more money on Andy’s network than he has to. Andy’s not the only rep who’s like this either. The other day I did my first brief with a rep, her name is Annabelle, and she works for a company that run’s the New Zealand equivalent of Ebay. I told her about the brief and what we wanted to do. It turns out our budget was too small for Annabelle to make our plan work. Even though she wouldn’t do what we wanted, she emailed me with a couple of other good ideas that can potentially accomplish what we want to do. I suppose any planner would expect this of a rep, but because of Annabelle’s ties with Grant she went out of her way to help us out.

All of this makes me think about ethics. I had a marketing teacher who preached ethics like no other. He even planned a conference about ethical leadership in business. A point this teacher often made was that people succeed in business because of their ethics. Its simple really, people don’t like to do business with other people who aren’t trustworthy or respectable. I would be very interested to hear what he has to say about Andy’s story.

I don’t know if I’ll be a media planner for an agency after I graduate. I had never really thought about that job until I started working for Grant. I like working at MEC, and so far I’ve learned a lot from the guys. If I do find a job back in the states as a planner I hope I can build the kind of relationships that Grant, Steve, and Matt have. I definitely don’t want to be the kind of media planner who has to beat up a rep to get the right rate.

It’s a little weird that I’ve only been here for three weeks and I’ve come to realize this. I don’t know if media planning in Chicago is like Wellington or Auckland, but I know either way what kind of person I am and what kind of ethics I have too.