When I was 23, I was a freshly promoted account executive. I had just led a very successful campaign for potato farmers across the country. We created Franklin planners for them so they would not only be organized, but have all of the information they needed for controlling weeds, insects, and fungus in their fields. It was for BASF and it was so far out of my wheelhouse (other than I ate potatoes), it wasn’t easy to pretend I knew what I was doing.

But that campaign deemed my promotion and began my “from the farm to the fork” career. I was added to the Bayer Agriculture account to work on horticulture, having oh so much experience through my potato farmer work.

This was when websites were first coming to fruition so you had to include an address, a toll-free number, and a URL to all printed materials. It was my job to work with a trade magazine to write, design, proof, and print an advertorial. It was a big job – it was costing the client $60,000 for this one little piece.

I worked really hard on the advertorial – I wanted my bosses and the client to know that I deserved that promotion I’d just gotten.

And then the advertorial came out. It was gorgeous! I can still picture it. Heck! It’s probably still in a box somewhere in an old portfolio. I was really proud of myself and I knew I had earned that promotion.

And then my boss walked into my office and said, “Did you call the number on the back of this piece?” (more…)