Lessons Learned #1: You Can't Force Someone to Change

Although the first electronic job ticket was utterly rejected, I could see its usefulness and promise. So I kept at it. What I'd promised would take a few months was now twice that. I'd drastically underestimated how much time this was going to take.

I was still working (if you can call it that) at Computerland, juggling my custom work clients, and finishing up the doomed video store software, QUICK EASY SIMPLE. I was also spending a lot more time at the agency than I'd planned, but the job ticket was starting to work. The agency's owner was happy with it, too, and was getting genuinely excited about using it.

We'd talked often about the frustration he had getting information about the agency out of his staff. While they were all good, competent people, the questions he had about clients, jobs, billings, and profit were not answered quickly and precisely enough for him. And while the agency's business was good, he felt unsure about this profitability and his billing practices. In his years in the business, he'd seen too many agencies crash after being high-fliers because they lost control of the business. He knew that accurate, timely information about the agency was critical to keep it running. And he wasn't getting what he needed.

Together we saw the potential in a management system that could communicate directly with the agency principal about the status and health of the business -- one where you didn't have to rely on a production manager or a bookkeeper. He knew that a system like this would be popular with other agency principals, and volunteered to spread the word once the software was finished. I went a step further and suggested a partnership. Lisa and I would design, sell, and support the software and he'd produce the marketing materials, promote it to the ad industry, and advise me on new features. We'd be in business together, producing the only agency production/accounting system for the Macintosh. He felt absolutely certain we'd have a hit.

Or maybe he was just offering me carrots to get it finished.

In any case, Lisa and I left for San Diego in spring of 1986 ready to conquer the advertising world with what was now named "Clients & Profits." (He persuaded me not to call it QUICK EASY SIMPLE for ADVERTISING AGENCIES. Thank God.) By the end of 1986 the basic job tracking, costing, and billing functions were ready to go. I continued to make monthly visits to Los Angeles to install new updates and train the staff on the software, as well as take complaints and suggestions for improvements from the staff. But by then the agency was having problems and suddenly losing clients.

My calls to the owner begin being passed to others, then eventually to the bookkeeper. I later found out the production manager never intended to use Clients & Profits and continued to rely on her blessed Job Book. Since new jobs never made it into Clients & Profits, the production staff stuck with the white board. And without the jobs in Clients & Profits, the bookkeeper was left to add them herself to track costs and billings. This, of course, became more work than she wanted to do ... you can guess the rest.

By the end of 1987, Clients & Profits was selling well on its own without the help of the agency and its owner. I continued to send updates to the agency for years afterwards, which I think they used for only the most basic accounting. They rarely called for help.

After a couple years I'd read in Adweek about the shop virtually closing, hanging on with just a handful of small clients. But the agency eventually bounced back. In the late 1990's he called about using Clients & Profits after they had heard from some competitors about how the software transformed their business.

By then we had almost 2,000 clients worldwide and Clients & Profits was the best-selling agency management system for Mac and Windows. The owner and I had a nice "long time, no see" chat on the phone. He said he'd been watching our success over the years and was happy for us. His agency was hot again and the work was rolling in, so I pitched him on Clients & Profits for a second time. And, once again, he agreed. So I sent over a complete multi-user Clients & Profits Pro package worth over $15,000.

To this day they've never once called for help. I doubt the box was ever opened.