Nick Galanides’ Post

Nick Galanides I say this with love: make peace with the fact that no-one owes you anything. And the guys you are expecting to help, can't. I see post after post from creatives saying things like "our mental health is suffering" and "all we want is work" and "why are the big agencies not helping?". The advertising industry is dead. Omnicom and WPP employ about 200 000 people globally. The companies' combined net worth is about $30 billion. Canva employs 3500 people. It's valued at about the same as WPP and Omnicom combined. Please, spend time on Canva. It gives you the power of an ad agency at your finger tips. Why would anyone pay for the ad agency? Especially if it means paying per hour to listen to someone with blue hair, nose rings and neck tattoos preaching about the importance of aesthetics. Sure, like every "purist" creative, I agree that "great work" matters. But the world doesn't agree with that. And life just doesn't work that way - we very seldomly "need" a Michelin star meal. Only one thing will save creatives: make your own stuff. Start selling that book you wrote. Make that short film in your bottom drawer. Find someone on Alibaba to make that beautiful lamp you designed. Become your own client.

Daily reminder you don't need to comment 100x per day, suck up to your guru, or go viral to land high-paying clients. It's a hopeless battle thinking you can predictably get new clients doing this. I've worked with countless freelancers who were taught THE WRONG WAY to get clients... And they only ended up broke, more confused, and lost in the process and sea of other service providers. Fact: You're much better off reaching out to dream clients directly... Sharing wins on social... And focusing more on conversations - not vanity metrics. Something to think about.

The One Decision Multitalented Creatives Must Make To Kiss 'Mediocre Work' Goodbye, Build An Irresistible Skill & 10X Their Income. Read this post and more on my Typeshare Social Blog: https://lnkd.in/dSc7EaiT

What everyone needs is a little more hope and help, wouldn’t you say? Social media platforms are (not so) secretly tweaking their signals to invite more optimism. They’ve identified part of why people are leaving the social landscape is because of the negativity. I suggest we follow suit. Forget punching down commentary on clients or problems. Instead, channel a little Only Murders in the Building charm and live one of Steve Martin’s best quotes “A joke is best when it’s played on oneself”. And let’s leave big-haired, big fisted social media drama behind. What you can do to leverage business optimism during a negative time like inflation years. https://ed.gr/ehbe2 #business #optimism #freelance #biz

There are no million-dollar ideas. Ideas do not crawl out of someone’s head and build themselves, grow themselves, and sell themselves. They do not develop strategies, reiterate, and iterate again. They don’t take the blame for bad quarters or the praise for great ones. Ideas do not generate millions in revenue. People do, and they should be paid for it. Today, the Crooked Media Workers Union staged a walkout after a year of negotiating for a fair contract. We’ve demanded humane layoff protections and competitive wage minimums, and we’ve demanded this not because we hate our jobs, but because we love what we do. Crooked Media has given us so much to be grateful for, that we’d rather fight for it to grow alongside us than dust off our hands and say, “Good enough.” We’re fighting to ensure that our internal policies and practices reflect the values espoused by our products—the same values our audience expects us to uphold. Ever since I stumbled upon Crooked Media in my junior year of college, I’ve sung its praises high and low. Ask anyone I’ve worked with. Whenever we had a brainstorm for branding or new products, the phrase “like Crooked Media” was guaranteed to come out of my mouth. Being on the inside is always different, and while it’s impossible to cling to the sheen of impeachability I held before, what I’ve seen on the inside has only deepened my appreciation and awe for the work this team accomplishes every day. Seeing editors and producers work overnight to deliver content that stays apace with an unprecedented news cycle. Seeing our founders courageously become some of the first progressive pundits to publicly urge Biden to suspend his campaign. Seeing our HR team develop resources to support our mental health as we wade through traumatic news day in and day out. Seeing our community team foster relationships with our audience as they do the same. Seeing our writers somehow turn that traumatic news into punchlines that both heal and encourage. It’s astounding what happens here. Crooked Media isn’t just three guys and a microphone. Crooked Media is no longer just an idea those three guys had. Crooked Media is Crooked freaking Media because it has amassed an unrivaled collective of talented, hardworking staffers who are dedicated to improving the world one bit of content at a time. And if we’re going to change the world for the better—if we’re going to create podcasts and merch and events pushing for a future where we all rise together, that future has to start here. That future has to start with a fair contract. --- If you'd like to support the Crooked Media Workers Union, follow us on Instagram at @/crooked_union for ways to help. #crookedmediaworkersunion #crookedmedia #unionstrong #wga #wgaeast #walkout #fairwages #fairpay #layoffs #layoffprotections #progressivemedia #podcastindustry #podcasting

It’s October. Spooky season is upon us. Here’s the REAL horror show I’m seeing right now: (Aside from unpaid invoices, unread messages lurking in my inbox & the creeping guilt of not being a member of the 5am Club.) Personal branding agencies and freelancers peddling ghostwriting services and account management… Only to shove their clients into an engagement pod. 😖 Think of it as the social media underworld (aka Telegram & WhatsApp groups designed to artificially inflate post engagement.) Eeeew. Big ick. It gets worse. I chat with so many founders who have finally mustered the courage to step into the personal branding game, but they’ve never even heard of these pods before. So when they’re pitched on this “innovative strategy,” they’re sold a feel-good narrative: it’s a Founders Community! How lovely, right? Except… it’s a SHAM. These pods are nothing more than engagement factories. Instead of building authentic connections, you’re stuck in a cycle of meaningless likes and comments. Honestly, founders deserve better than this trickery masquerading as strategy. I HATE writing posts like this, but I HATE hearing about founders being letdown and sold these hollow dreams even more.

As someone who is chronically online (for business and personal reasons), the Washington Post’s profile of the KamalaHQ social team was an interesting read. I’ve watched and shared a lot of its content with friends, asking myself the time old question, “how did they get that approved so quickly?” Turns out, the KamalaHQ team’s approach isn’t revolutionary, but it is a reminder of how uncomplicated social content can be. It is a newsroom-style approach: individual channel specialists creating channel-specific content, efficient layers of content reviews, and trusting the team. These are not new but also not as common as one might think. As someone who has worked in global agencies, in-house, and now as a freelance consultant, I’ve seen clients and brands aspire for this but run into implementation issues. Especially around streamlining layers of review and investing in creating channel-specific content. The KamalaHQ approach isn’t appropriate for every industry, but IMO, it’s a nice reminder to take a critical look at social content aspirations versus process and see if/where those could align better. Gift link: https://wapo.st/4ddo0Zc

Can I hop on my soapbox for one teeny minute? 🧼 For twelve plus years, I’ve watched clients getting solid results come in and change things and expect MORE from the results. And then, inevitably, they’re shocked when the results are far worse. This happens more with paid than other media types, but if we’re getting you 10%, 20%, 25% returns when you KNOW the average is far less than that, why would you come in and dismantle it? Or “tweak this thing” because you think it will perform better? We — and by ‘we’ I mean any hardworking agency or freelancer — got to A++ performance with a lot of data, a lot of testing, and a whole lot of time. Not to mention, you hired US to be the experts and voice of reason … so add heaps of experience to that formula. It boggles my mind sometimes that businesses have all this success but it isn’t enough. And yet, there are other business out there who would kill for just half of what you have. The goal post is always moving. And I’m not saying that’s always a bad thing. But sometimes, just sometimes (and especially now), it pays to be grateful for what you have. 💡 #EntreprenuerThoughts

I had an interesting chat yesterday. I was speaking to a senior marketer about her creative agency as part of a client listening programme. I had been briefed by the agency that the client was unhappy with the agency’s performance and to expect some negative commentary. I quizzed the client on why she was unhappy and asked her what the agency would need to do to turn the relationship around. We were deep into conversation on how to remedy the situation when she came out with this corker…. “I should really fire them and put it up for pitch, but to be honest with you, it’s too much hassle.” Clearly not happy. But not so unhappy as to go through the rigmarole of having to change agencies. Because contrary to what you might think, some clients really don’t want to fire their agencies unless they really have to. It’s a hassle they’d rather do without. To change agencies takes a lot of time and a lot of energy. It’s a long and convoluted process that can require significant internal alignment and stakeholder buy-in to ensure it's the correct course of action. Hassle. If they get the required buy-in, they then need to find a new agency, perhaps via an intermediary and a pitch process, all of which takes time and costs money. More hassle. Once they’ve found a new agency, they’ll have to be onboarded; they’ll need time to staff up, to understand the business, to get into their groove. More time, more resource, more hassle. And after all that time, and all that money, and all that energy, there’s a huge amount of pressure on the new partnership to perform, and sometimes the grass isn’t as green on the other side as you'd hoped. That, I think deep down, was her worry.

I might not be enamoured of Substack, but I love some of the writing there. A case in point: Laura Kennedy’s Peak Notions column. A recent post about social media and what happens thereon hit so many nails on the head that I must share: “... at the heart of every weird, awkward … interaction on the internet there is someone attempting to use another person as a crowbar to jimmy open some door or other. The door to their own self-esteem. The door to their perception of success, growth, fame, attention or relevance. The use of others as marketing tools, emotional venting mechanisms, or targets. The use of others as a rhinoceros uses an obliging tree when its dehydrated, cragged behind gets itchy. Yes! Social media as a crowbar to jimmy open a door. Once you have that image in your head, you can’t get it out - and it places so much of what you see in context. And actually no. I make it my mission, from now on, not to be on social media in that way. Even here, on LinkedIn. You with me? Laura Kennedy’s post: