Should you hire a weirdo or two?

You bet! And here’s why.

David Ogilvy once spoke to our heads of agency about where to find good people.

A fashion had come in to hire people with MBA’s.

I don’t think an MBA is worth a light - but David pointed out a nasty fact.

Our clients could afford to pay these bright young sparks far more than we could.

We would only get the left-overs.

"Hire people your clients would would never think of hiring" he said.

This was excellent advice.

Very rarely have I hired a trained copywriter.

I have hired all sorts of others.

A PA had just been fired by my managing director at Ogilvy.

She came to me in tears.

“You used to work in publishing, didn’t you?”

She said yes.

“Well maybe you should try copywriting,” I said.

So she did - and was brilliant. She he wrote a line not long after that I stole and use to this day.

Two years later she was creative director at another agency.

Steve Harrison was running our little library in Soho Square.

He became a brilliant creative director, left to build and then sell his own agency, has written excellent books and is a fine, sardonic speaker.

When I worked at the Franklin Mint an eccentric called Jim Black wrote all their best copy.

He worked in the dark with the blinds drawn and the light on.

My PA Iane was running a hamburger restaurant. She helped me set up a little business school.

My current PA Kelly was a hotel receptionist.

But I discovered that she was much more than the receptionist; she basically ran the place.

Since then she has tried to run me, but with varying success.

The moral?

Don’t go fishing in the same pond as everyone else.

One pond I recommend is ours.

I have an assortment of freaks and oddities hell bent on getting results and coming up with the goods.

They have to - because if they don’t our clients can ask for their money back.

Gerald who manages the creative side here spent 22 years in the haulage industry. Nothing to do with copy.

But he churns out great stuff quickly and for a startlingly wide range of clients.

If you're short of people who get ideas others would never dream of, drop him a line ([email protected]).

Best,

Drayton

P.S. Know anyone who'd appreciate my Bird Droppings? Tell them to sign up to my mailing list here - (dg250.infusionsoft.com/app/form/signup).