Oct 8 – Hey Brian, happy birthday. This business isn't making you any younger.

August 26 – You may have seen this in our TopDog Times newsletter, but since the newsletter reaches a few hundred, while thousands of you read The Scoop, we thought we’d repeat it here. The question: Exactly what is it that TopDog does?

This market and this economy have changed what we do for you.

It’s not what we expected nor, we find, what you expected.

We’ve struggled to define it in a clear and simple way. And then it came to us.

We’re a retail store.

Like Nordstrom or Target or Restoration Hardware, we offer a full contingent of quality products, well-designed products, cool and unique products.

If you have project work in marketing and communications, we’re not just a retail store, we’re your only multi-vendor retail store.

First floor, DING! Advertising agencies.

Second floor, DING! Design firms.

Third floor, DING! Interactive resources.

Fourth floor, DING! PR firms.

Fifth floor, DING! Direct response agencies.

Sixth floor, DING! Free agent talent, no company ‘look’ except your own, everything custom made.

Every floor, DING! Looking for solutions? Find them here. One store, one phone call, one point of contact.

Sure, you could make all the contacts yourself, but that’s like having separate conversations with Prada and Polo and Kate Spade and Tommy Bahama and…well, you get the idea.

By going direct, maybe you could get a better deal. Or maybe not. For sure, you’d spend more time and search money in exchange for less assurance and fewer options.

With us, you’ll find one commonality: experienced, credentialed, top dog resources. All of them. All high quality, proven and available with no commitment asked of you beyond the project.

No, we haven’t confirmed availability with every agency, every firm. But we’ve yet to find a group that doesn’t want us to bring them projects.

Does this mean TopDog is no longer in the short-term, mid-length or permanent placement business? No. (More about that in our September newsletter.)

But it does mean you have a powerful, first-time-ever business tool at your disposal. You can do things you couldn’t do last year. You can do things you couldn’t do yesterday.

Really. You can. You just have to do them.

So. Now that dollars are especially tight, how can you get the most from the dollars you have?

Did you hear that latest DING?

That’s the bell that just rang in your head.

July 17 – Sometimes I don’t feel like I’m a top dog. –np, talent.

Ain’t it the truth. It’s especially so when we’re not busy enough, not getting endorsement (as though creative people aren’t paranoid enough already). Check The Art of Possibility by Rosamund and Ben Zander. Ben, conductor of the Boston Symphony, teaches an advanced class in the art of musical performance. At the start of the class, he tells each student that they’ll be getting an A, but there’s one requirement. They’re to write a letter to him in the first two weeks, dated the last day of class and written in the past tense, explaining why he or she deserved the A and what the class accomplished for them. This gives both the student and teacher a recipe for success. A Korean student wrote “In Korea, they tell me I am number 68 out of 70 students, Mr. Zander tells me I am an A. Very confusing. I think about this, discover I am happier being an A instead of No. 68. So I decide I am an A.” So how do you think that student performed? Not a top dog? Don’t be too quick with that.

June 9 – The real question to me is who can you get us that we don’t already know about? dg, agency owner

If your shop is a magnet for talent and your thumb is on the pulse, yes, you will know many of the people we represent; that’s an offshoot of their experience. But we’re more than freelance central. We see people new to the market, people considering a change. teams and groups who don’t normally freelance and people outside your normal offering, such as interactive talent or white paper authors. We can source from out of market, out of state. We work faster than you could and from a larger pool of top-level talent. We do the search so you can dedicate to doing the work.

June 5 – You can get us projects? How much will that cost us? – jc, agency owner

TD – It costs nothing and it’s extremely efficient. A project comes in a clean, defined package. You help determine the sides – target, strategy, timing, budget – and then elevate the work as high as you can. The clients come to you for your expertise, style and level of work. A nice piece of business, a nice hit for both you and the client. Just a project, but who knows where it will lead?

Feb. 29 – Your value prop to agencies needs to be stronger. Agency folks are only interested in getting killer results fast – and fresh is perceived as better. -dl

TD – The key, we think, is in meeting expectations. This means fitting the culture as well as bringing requisite skills. ‘Killer' work entails high risk; not everyone wants to assume that, particularly when time and dollars are short. Strong, solid work may be what fits the bill. We have people who've delivered killer results, but again, this flirts with high risk. Let's define the parameters carefully, together, and in front. And while we're all for ‘fresh,' that too is a judgment call.  Not to be cynics, but really, how much fresh work have you seen lately? Different agencies will have different answers. Let's be sure we're together on the page.