I’ve been writing and podcasting on a range of subjects for years with the goal of putting some of my practical experience to work for marketing organizations worldwide. The following workshops can condense and expand to fit your needs. They can also be mixed, matched, and combined into one multi-week consultative engagement. Get in touch to discuss costs and logistic considerations.

1. How to write and read a creative brief. This is a good unit for both marketing and creative pros, even if your organization already has a system for briefs in place. A 90-minute slot works well for this. (This unit can also stretch to a 1/2 day during which the team can dig into some hands-on exercises to understand the psychology that comes into play when building a brief that makes the work better.)

2. Evaluating creative work. This unit works well for both creative and marketing folks because creative people need the tools to know if their work is viable. Being able to cull good ideas from those who need work is a valuable skill that saves the team time and energy. This unit can be an hour or 90 minutes. Or longer if we break into teams and look at individual work.

3. Delivering valuable feedback. A good follow-up to Evaluating creative work, this unit covers what to say and how to deliver feedback that will make the work better and not poison the creative relationship. It’s a workshop on building trust and respect in the creative process and directly benefits folks on the client/marketing side. Creatives benefit as well because we all need to be able to deliver better feedback in a range of approval situations. This unit runs 45 minutes to an hour.

4. Evaluating creative work + Delivering valuable feedback. By combining the above two units into one workshop, we are able to understand the theory of what makes a good idea worthwhile and also how to talk about the work that makes it even better. This unit requires a minimum of 90 minutes but is best done as a morning session with breaks and group interactive exercises.

5. The secret cheat codes for finding and working with freelancers. As a freelancer for three decades, working in 38 different creative environments, I’ve had a chance to see great relationships and awful ones. Freelancers are often a different breed and require a different set of rules of engagement than hiring an ad agency or design firm. This unit covers the best way to find a good freelancer, and how to hold onto them. This is a good unit for in-house marketing people, project managers, and creative directors. It runs 90 minutes.

6. How to motivate creative people. Creative folks are wired differently from other people in the business world. This workshop helps anyone who manages creative people to understand the hot buttons hidden inside the creative persona and what we can all do to encourage better creative output. 45-90 minutes

7. Good and bad reasons to fire your creative service firm. For marketing people who are unsure about the relationship they have with their service firm and whether it’s salvageable or not. This is a good workshop for corporate marketers with several product lines or several different agency relationships.

8. The anatomy of an equitable review. Before you engage in a review to choose your next agency, this workshop can help you focus your efforts, save time, and deliver a fair outcome for all participants. It answers the following questions: How many shops should I look at? What are the pros and cons of spec creative? What size agency do I need? Do I need a niche shop? What are the clues to look for in the team? 90-120 minutes.

9. The anatomy of a long-term client/agency relationship. This unit starts by covering the material in “The anatomy of an equitable review” and builds upon it to discuss the working relationship, the importance of partnership, respect, and communication. It also covers how money can mess things up. And more. 90 minutes, expandable to a half-day session.

10. Couples Therapy for agencies and clients. Borrowing content from both “Good and bad reasons to fire your creative service firm” and, “The anatomy of a long-term client/agency relationship” this workshop is best done with a real-world example to discuss. It can be done in front of an audience, or within a client/agency account/creative team setting as a multi-session consultative engagement.