Adman: 'Selling is 90 percent listening'

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He’s not quite old enough to be one of the “Mad Men.” And the setting is Atlanta, not New York.

But Dave Fitzgerald has seen his share of twists and turns in the ad business over the past 42 years.

Fitzgerald, 66, began his career by working at three Atlanta ad agencies before launching his own firm in 1983 after “accounting irregularities” were discovered at his previous employer.

Starting out with three other employees, the CEO of Fitzgerald & Co. built his agency to 100 employees today. Along the way, he attracted the attention of Interpublic Group, the giant New York-based ad and marketing company. It bought out Fitzgerald in 1998, but left him in charge of his firm, which amounts to a “rounding error,” he says, given Interpublic’s $7.5 billion in annual revenue.

Fitzgerald talks about what he’s learned over the years, including the importance of staying current by tapping much younger employees for advice.

Q: What was your childhood like?

A: I grew up on Long Island as the youngest of six kids in an Irish Catholic family. My mother was a homemaker and my father was a banker.

My twin brother, who was born three minutes earlier than me, and I had six adult figures in our lives, including our older siblings.

I was surrounded by strong, caring people. I had a storybook upbringing in a great little town (Rockville Centre) that’s only a short train ride from the best city in the world (New York).

Q: What happened in school?

A: I went to Catholic school — kindergarten through MBA.

The nuns in elementary and high school were all very strong and well-educated. There was a great deal of discipline. I saw a kid get whacked with a yardstick by a very angry woman.

Strong women have been part of my life. Their candor and perspective is palpable. You can’t put anything past them. It helps you grow.

Q: How did you grow in high school?

A: I ran track and loved it. I ran relay and learned that I could not let the team down.

That helped me. Advertising is really a team sport. You’re completely interdependent.

For example, the creative work can be superb, but if it’s not placed in the right medium, you’ve lost.

Likewise, if the media people have found a great, different way of exposing the message, but the creative work is off-target, the team has lost.

Q: Did you have any other important experience while running track?

A: I busted my knee. That got me out of serving in the Vietnam War.

My military draft lottery number was 15. When you were below about 150 out of 365 birthdates, you were guaranteed to be on the Ho Chi Minh trail. But I failed the physical.

Q: What happened in college?

A: I went to the University of Dayton because my older brother went there.

I majored in business and became president of the business fraternity. I remember running on a platform to get rid of the demeaning pledging process. This was a professional fraternity where we were supposed to learn stuff that will help us in life, not a social fraternity.

I got some flak while trying to sell the concept of eliminating pledging. Every existing member had gone through it, so some opposed the change for emotional reasons. “I did it so they should have to do it.”

Bonus questions

Q: What did you learn?

A: I learned about salesmanship from that.

Selling is 90 percent listening, which helped me in my advertising career.

Every consumer purchase decision or business purchase decision is based on emotional and rational factors.

Great advertising happens when you hit both those chords at the same time. Sometimes, the emotional factor is more important, sometimes the rational factor is, and sometimes it’s about half and half.

Q: After getting a bachelor’s degree and MBA from Dayton, you moved to Atlanta. You spent the next 10 years working at three different ad firms. What did you learn about managing people?

A: I learned a lot from the completely different management styles at those companies.

In the first company, I was micromanaged. I was the new kid on the block and I probably needed some micromanaging. But it also was very confining.

Then I went to work for a company with a hands-off, baptism by fire style.

I learned that you have to hire people who are smarter than you and let them do what you hired them to do. Don’t micromanage unless they’re not doing it, and then get in their face.

Q: Why do you start your own ad firm?

A: I had no burning desire to have my name on the door or to be an entrepreneur. Serendipity brought me this job.

The third company I worked for was in financial trouble and there were accounting irregularities. It billed my client, a hotel company and our agency’s largest account, a higher amount of money for services — like those paid to a freelance illustrator — than it was paying for those services.

The hotel company found out about that and fired my company. Then they asked me to start my own agency and said they would be my first client.

So I went into my boss and said I’ve got bad news and bad news. We lost our largest client and I’m going to start my own agency with that client.

Q: What did he say?

A: That can't be printed in your paper.

Q: Early on, what memorable mistake did you make while building your business?

A: I had to spend $75,000 to reprint a brochure that had a typo in it.

I’ve become the best proofreader in the history of proofreading.

It’s very important to pay attention to detail. Not doing that will kill you in this business.

Q: What important change did you make that helped you retain clients?

A: Our industry is famous for churning through clients. Until about 15 years ago, our company sent a 12-page, annual questionnaire to our clients asking how we are doing.

Then we got one back where a client checked that everything was excellent. But we got fired the next month.

So I called them to find out what was going on. They said they had a problem with our creative work, but they didn’t want to bother us with that because we were doing other things so well.

We changed our process after that. We hired a consulting company. Right after we get a job, the consultant interviews all levels of the advertising decision makers at the client, including the CEO if he or she is involved. “What are you looking for?”

Six months later, which is a critical period, the same person goes back to interview the same people. It’s called a “fresh eyes” review. “You said you wanted this, how are they doing?”

You get a lot more information and bad news. You can correct course or discover that a client did not initially say something he or she really wants to accomplish.

At the end of the day, we’re in the expectations management business. If we don’t exceed our client’s expectations, we’re the former agency.

Q: What else have you learned?

A: I'll work with a dumb client who's fearless. I'll work with a fearful client who is not dumb.

But the scariest client in the world is one who’s dumb and full of fear at the same time.

Your creative message is crucial. It has to break through. It’s got to be entertaining and smart. That’s even more important today with the number of media platforms and brands clamoring for attention.

Q: How do you stay current?

A: I have two millennial mentors.

This has to be a great place for millennials to work because this is a young person’s business, especially with the growth of social media.

Most of the people who run this company are baby boomers or Gen Xers. We need to learn about how millennials think.

I meet with my millennial mentors regularly and ask them questions. For example, I thought we were doing a great job on social media to attract more millennials to work here. But I learned we were doing a lousy job.

Q: What’s your best advice for your millennial employees?

A: The classiest piece of communication I've ever seen was Pepsi's newspaper ad honoring (former Coke President) Don Keough. (He died in February.)

Live a professional life so that your competitors take out an ad like that when you die.