It took some time for Diversified Recruitment Advertising to fully comprehend the death sentence warranted by the Review Journal.  We went through the expected stages – from disbelief, to denial, to anger. 

After a few days, I replied back to Sherm Fredrick, publisher of the Las Vegas Review Journal with a plea for reconsideration.  I requested a meeting, not expecting a response.  Surprisingly, he granted a meeting. 

In the meeting was Sherm Fredrick, publisher, Jack Harpster, Advertising Director, and Randa Todd, Classified Advertising Manager. 

Brief introductions were made and I was asked to present my case.  I started with the history of our advertising agency, dating back to 1995 when Jack had called Ted Stepien to open up a branch office for Classified USA.  I expanded with the history of Ted placing the first help wanted ads in newspapers in 1947 when he opened Nationwide Advertising. 

We discussed the RJ’s history of once recognizing, and then not recognizing, agency commissions.  I emphasized that the offer (and deal) for the ad agency opening in Las Vegas was predicated on the RJ recognizing agency commissions.  We even discussed the promise made by the RJ not to remove commissions as they did back in the 1980s forcing several advertising agencies to close their offices in Las Vegas.

We discussed the extensive relationships that existed between Diversified Recruitment Advertising and our clients, as well as their reliance on our professionalism to ensure their ads were placed properly.

As my presentation proceeded, it was evident that the RJ executives had no desire to change their position; the meeting was simply a formality to say they heard our position.  Finally, I stopped and asked the RJ execs point blank: “Why are you removing the commissions?” 

Their general response was that ‘agencies’ were responsible for the decline of revenue in the classified section of the newspaper and they had no obligation to honor their past promises.  Obviously, they did not want to accept the fact that newspaper readership, as a whole, had been in steady decline and employers were getting results elsewhere.

Just to prod a little deeper, I asked that they expand on their beliefs as to why ‘agencies’ were destroying their business when, in fact, we were the ones managing the relationships and bringing them business. 

The response delivered by the newspaper execs was one that I did not expect.  They went into a 10-minute rant of how there were once only a few agencies, but now the newspaper was doing business with over 350 different agencies, all of which were extended an agency discount.  And now these agencies competed against them for the same business they once controlled.

Knowing that there were not even 350 recruitment advertising agencies in the entire United States, let alone Las Vegas, I voiced my disagreement.  They then read a laundry list of their ‘agencies.’  That list included Manpower, Eastridge, Appleone, Kellly Services, etc. 

I interrupted and attempted to explain that those folks were ‘staffing’ agencies and not advertising agencies.  The RJ execs clearly did not understand, or want to comprehend, the difference.  They stayed on target with their ‘all agencies are evil’ mentality.

Seeing that they were not going to debate me as to the difference between an advertising agency and a staffing agency, I chose to deliver a line of questioning to better understand their overall position.  My next question was as direct as my first, “How can an advertiser (client) that pays you money, be a competitor at the same time?”

The response delivered was actually somewhat logical.  They stated that the agencies competed against their other advertisers for the same applicants.  And because the agencies had sophisticated candidate management systems, they were building a database of all the jobseekers in Las Vegas by simply placing ads in different categories each week, to field applicants from all disciplines and industries.  They would then database those candidates and not have to place ads in those categories as frequently.  And when they did advertise, the ads would not have to be as large, because all they were doing was capturing new candidates that they had not already databased.

At best, it was an interesting conspiracy theory.  However, I really don’t think the staffing agencies have the time to conspire such a plan.  But nonetheless, I knew that if I wanted to salvage the relationship we had with the Review Journal, we would need to prove that Diversified Recruitment Advertising was not a staffing agency, and was not building a database of their readers. 

In a final attempt of resolution, I asked if I could present evidence that would prove that we were simply managing our clients’ advertising budgets.  And if that evidence supported that we were in fact not building a resume database, and not competing with the newspaper, if they would reverse their decision.  Shockingly, Sherm said if we could produce such evidence he would reverse his decision.

Within 2 days I produced a report that detailed each client, their monthly expenditures with the Review Journal and our agency billings that demonstrated that we simply were an ‘advertising’ agency and not a staffing agency.  I felt it was enough evidence for any logical person to understand that a wrong decision was made.

I was wrong.  The response received was:  We stand strong on our position.  Effective January 1, 2002, we will no longer recognize agency commissions.

That day, the death sentence warranted by the Review Journal was confirmed. 

Diversified Recruitment Advertising would die an unnatural death.  During our short life span (1996-2001), we grew to become the leading recruitment advertising agency in Las Vegas and the largest client of the Review Journal in their classified (help-wanted) section.   But it was that growth that killed us.   Not because the growth could not be managed; but because the daily newspaper felt we were encroaching on their territory and were a competitive threat. 

As Diversified Recruitment Advertising was discovering the true solution to Nevada’s critical labor shortages, the Review Journal was discovering that our solution would have a direct impact on their bottom line.  Although we were looking out for the best interests of this community, the RJ was looking out for the best interest of their shareholders (who do not even live in Nevada).

Our discovery of a solution started with the nursing shortage.  Our experimentation with LVNurses.com was providing better than expected results.  Each day we were attracting nurses from around the country, wanting to relocate to Las Vegas.  We found a new supply which is exactly what needed to be done.

Word traveled north to the offices of the Nevada Hospital Association (NHA).  NHA members had been battling the nursing shortage for years and were losing the battle.  Members were recruiting from each other, luring talent with sign-on bonuses and increased wages – which did nothing to solve the true problem, but created a new problem:  a spike in the cost of labor and lower retention levels, leading to a weakened continuity of care.

The nursing shortage was not only a problem in Nevada, but the entire country.  Nevada, however, had the lowest nurse-to-population ratio in the United States.  With a half dozen hospitals in construction or pre-construction stage, something needed to be done.  We had developed the needed solution, one that the newspaper did not want (as they benefit from the ad wars common in critical shortage areas).

Leadership of the NHA approached us to see if we would consider expanding our solution from just Las Vegas, to the entire state of Nevada.  After several meetings, we accepted and began transforming LVNurses.com to NVNurses.com.  A series of seminars were scheduled where we presented our solution to the healthcare community.  At these seminars we would reveal the solution and lead the initiative.   

We also began to expand the idea into other industries, focusing next on technology.  A partnership was formed between Tech Tuesdays, a technology networking event that Diversified Recruitment Advertising started along with TBAN, the Greenspun Media Group (IN Business) and the Nevada Development Authority.  Our technology solution would focus on attracting tech professionals from the Bay area and other tech-savvy cities to Southern Nevada.  Our media event to release this solution was planned – the date:  September 11, 2001.

Needless to say ,when I was meeting with a VP of the Nevada Development Authority on the morning of 9-11 for the final planning and we witnessed the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center, we knew we would need to cancel the event.

On Wednesday, September 12, 2001, as I drove down Las Vegas Blvd. and realized I was the only car on the Strip, I knew that the business of ‘recruitment advertising’ would soon change.  With a fear of travel, which was sure to follow, the casinos would not need the army of workers they had assembled over the years.

My prediction was right, and within a few days the gaming industry laid off in excess of 19,000 workers.  Those layoffs created another round of layoffs in the industries that supported gaming.  When the dominoes stopped falling, we estimate well over 40,000 people were laid off in Las Vegas.

With 40,000 new jobseekers on the street, employers would not need to do the volume of advertising they once did (as jobseekers would be knocking on their doors looking for work) and we knew our advertising agency would be deeply impacted as a result. 

Little did we know – the Review Journal would use the September 11 tragedy to deliver a bomb of their own.  On September 20, 2001, we received a letter signed by Sherm Fredrick, the publisher, himself.  The letter stated something to the effect of…

”There has been a policy change within the classified department of the Las Vegas Review Journal.  Effective January 1, 2002 the Las Vegas Review Journal will no longer recognize agency commissions.”

What did that mean to us?  We would no longer be compensated for the hard work of managing the relationship between the client and the Review Journal.  We would no longer be commissioned to ensure that the ad copy was placed properly and scheduled to run when the client wanted it. 

Bottom line:  The RJ was firing their number one sales person (as we were their largest advertiser).  Without compensation for our work, we could not serve the client like we did, the client relationships would transfer back to the newspaper, the clients would again have to deal with poor customer service and be subject to the brainwashing ways of the newspaper (that results would be driven by larger ads, in more areas of the classifieds, placed additional days of the week, with bold and yellow backgrounds.  And when that did not work, do more of the same). 

Ted Stepien warned me of this exact behavior when we entered our relationship in 1995.  He had experienced the same behavior from the Review Journal in the 1980s when he owned Nationwide Advertising Services (now known as NAS Recruitment Communications) and assured me they would do it again, even though their director of advertising had promised Ted they would not.

What the RJ had just prescribed the ad agency was a death sentence. 

Please note:  This is part ten of a twelve part series.  A new entry will be made each Thursday.  To view the entire series, please visit the Death of an Ad Agency category.   

Diversified Recruitment Advertising (previously Classified USA of Nevada) quickly became the Las Vegas Review Journal’s largest client in their classified (help wanted) section.  You would think that the newspaper would respect that relationship.  The opposite was true.

The RJ continued to refer to us as ‘that company’ who owns the Employment Guide, which we no longer did.  After multiple conversations with upper management about our selling the media group holdings to Trader Advertising (a Cox and Landmark Communications partnership that no longer exists), you would think they would have accepted this fact.  They did not.  In the meantime, we continued to receive what I consider to be the worst customer service in history.  Clients have since reassured me it is no different than how they have been treated for years.

The fight that was brewing between the agency and the newspaper was not one that I could gauge; nor could I project what would happen next.  In the past, I would rely on Ted Stepien (my partner from Classified USA who I had bought out) to fight these battles.  Ted had done so for decades with success, both as owner of Classified USA and Nationwide Advertising Services (NAS).  This time I could not rely on Ted; he had no vested interest in the agency any longer.  As the sole owner, it was my battle and I had to fight it myself.

Undercurrents about our educating clients on the effectiveness of the Internet were always prevalent.  The newspaper felt that our loyalty should reside with them and only them.  Fortunately for our clients, our commitment to excellence and delivering the absolute best service, always outweighed the demands of the newspaper.

The comment “Our client is our boss, not you” became the Groundhog Day (movie) of my life.  The Review Journal’s aggressiveness became an annoyance; one that was met with an increased desire to develop a better solution for our clients than the mediocrity the newspaper offered. 

My non-compete agreement with Trader Advertising forbid me from owning any type of media within a 50 mile radius of Las Vegas.  However, we began experimenting with a concept that combined the success of the Internet and the fact that the talent Nevada needed did not live here yet.  The media website would actually live outside of my 50 mile boundary and market to those who lived outside of it as well.  The concept was a website that we did not put a name to until August 2001.  It was www.lvnurses.com. 

LVNurses would be a blend between a job board for nurses and a relocation portal that would assist a nurse in moving to Las Vegas.  It would address the Las Vegas nursing shortage from a supply-demand perspective and attract nurses from around the country to relocate to Nevada. 

The concept was simple – market Las Vegas as the greatest place to live, nurse and play.  And use the Internet to get the word out.  And of course – encourage our clients to invest their recruitment advertising budget where results were measured and delivered; guaranteeing cost-effectiveness as we always have.

Clients saw the value and began to talk openly about the innovative idea that was being developed.  Budgets were being allocated for the near future and word was out on the streets of the healthcare community.  Major employers outside of our existing client-base began to ask how they could get involved.  

Then somehow, the solution and a spec design of what the website would look like, leaked into the hands of the RJ. 

The animosity we already felt from the Las Vegas Review Journal was just an early symptom.   The two headed snake that Ted Stepien warned me of back in 1996 was about to rear its’ head.   

Stay tuned:  This is part ten of a twelve part series.  The next entry will be next Thursday.  Thanks for reading Death of an Ad Agency.   

Please note:  This is part nine of a twelve part series.  A new entry will be made each Thursday.  To view the entire series, please visit the Death of an Ad Agency category.     

The success of Diversified Recruitment Advertising (previously Classified USA of Nevada) created some rumblings at the Las Vegas Review Journal.  Each time we informed the newspaper that the agency would be representing another client, we could sense their displeasure. 

For years, clients relied on the RJ classified advertising reps to advise them of what to do when their help-wanted ad was not working.   The advice was always the same – make your ad larger to demand more attention, place it in multiple areas of the newspaper for additional exposure, or run it on more days than just Sunday.  The end result was usually the same.  The client would spend more money.  The Review Journal would make more money.  And the additional response could not be measured because there typically was none.

Now employers were calling upon Diversified Recruitment Advertising account managers for advice.  A thorough analysis would be conducted looking at the client’s current and future needs, as well as the demographics for critical need areas.  A report would be provided to the client that detailed out the market landscape of talent and suggestions were made as to where that specific talent could be found.  The suggestions, more times than not, did not include spending as much Review Journal.

Diversified Recruitment Advertising looked at talent shortages from a supply-demand perspective, as they should be.  If a client needed nurses and Nevada had the lowest nurse to population ratio in the country, it was senseless trying to draw blood from a stone. (This also led us to the model that Recruiting Nevada operates today)

With that being said, we began encouraging our clients to place their ad copy in national niche publications and association journals, which would garner them better results.  Unfortunately, that had an impact on the budgets clients had always allocated to the Review Journal. 

Needless to say, we would reduce the client’s budget in the daily newspaper to allocate the amount needed to get the results from other mediums.  The Review Journal would remind us of the contractual obligations the client once had.  As an agency, we never signed contracts for guaranteed expenditures with any advertising outlet, the RJ included.  If an advertising outlet wanted to retain our business, all they had to do was provide good results.  That was what we measured.

Obviously that mentality did not go over well with the Review Journal.  Periodically I would receive calls from mid and upper level management insinuating that we needed to change our position and spend more money with the newspaper.  Reading between the lines, I could see that they were upset that we were educating employers as to what actually works and, more importantly, what works best.  The RJ’s position was that Diversified Recruitment Advertising’s educating clients that the daily newspaper was no longer working for them, was the wrong thing to do.

Being a man of principle I would always respond with comments such as “Our client is our boss.  They pay our salaries.  We are obligated to look out for our client’s best interests, not yours.  If you would like to retain more of their recruitment advertising budget, then simply, find a better advertising solution for them.”

Those statements did not go over well.  I could sense the Review Journal’s frustration with Diversified Recruitment Advertising. 

Knowing the RJ’s disposition, we knew something bad was about to happen.

Stay tuned:  This is part nine of a twelve part series.  The next entry will be next Thursday.  Thanks for reading Death of an Ad Agency.   

Please note:  This is part eight of a twelve part series.  A new entry will be made each Thursday.  To view the entire series, please visit the Death of an Ad Agency category.      

After discovering our new found solution of Online Career Centers and marketing them in newspaper ads as well as all collateral materials, I was eager to share my findings with Ted Stepien, my partner in Classified USA of Nevada.  

Ted also owned operated Classified USA in Cleveland, San Diego, Boston and Toronto.  As the founder of NAS Recruitment Communications in 1947, obviously Ted had a firm knowledge of the recruitment advertising industry.  

Unfortunately, Ted’s knowledge of the Internet and what we were doing with Online Career Centers was just not as strong.  He did not understand.  His train of thought for over 50 years was to just place the ad in the daily newspaper.  If that did not work, make the ad bigger or place it in other newspapers.

Ted and I agreed that Online Career Centers were indeed an effective solution.  We just struggled with the change in the fundamentals of the business model.  Ted was a ‘print guy.’  I was quickly becoming an ‘interactive guy.’  Ted was still using the fax machine as his primary means of communication.  We were using sophisticated computer systems with online collaboration capabilities.

As Ted did not understand my infatuation with technology, I could not allow any resistance in the way of delivering our clientele the best service possible.  Ted and I met in Cleveland and I made arrangements to buy Ted’s shares of Classified USA of Nevada.  Ted would still mentor where he could, but would no longer be involved in the day to day operations.  We were officially ‘Leaving the Nest.’

Along with the change in ownership, came a change in the name of the recruitment advertising agency.  Taking into consideration our mission and position within the market place, I chose Diversified Recruitment Advertising as the new name.  “Diversified” emphasized our mission of diversifying our client’s advertising efforts, to reach more qualified candidates and, ultimately, improve the quality of new hires.

As we assembled our strategic plan to transition from Classified USA of Nevada to Diversified Recruitment Advertising, it was the perfect time to invest in a branding campaign to strengthen our position in the marketplace.  At this point in time, a few competitors had opened a Las Vegas office including Bernard Hodes Group, JWT and TMP. We needed to stand out as the industry and local market leader.

The marketing campaign focused on our new found successes with the Online Career Centers.  We analyzed the results we had with some of our beta-customers and found that many experienced a four to five fold increase in qualified applicant flow due to the extended reach, while simultaneously lowering their overall recruitment advertising costs an average of 60-75 percent.

A series of seminars were scheduled and we began to invite top employers throughout the Las Vegas Valley to learn more about this creative and effective recruiting solution.  The message was quite simple:

• Focus more on employment branding.
• Reduce the size of your current display ads by removing unnecessary job descriptions and only advertise a laundry list of open job titles, telling the job-seeker to visit the Online Career Center to get the full description.
• Reinvest a portion of that savings in other media to expand your reach (and brand) using the same methodology of sending jobseekers to the Online Career Center.
• Use the Online Career Center to reinforce and strengthen the employment brand, providing the jobseeker a complete job description, description of the company culture and an opportunity to learn more about the company including employee testimonials and company tours.
• Gather information from the jobseeker to open a two-way communication and allow the jobseeker to apply online in a digital format.

What many customers did not realize at the time was that an even greater volume of traffic (jobseekers) was being delivered by our online job board presence.  In 1999, approximately 60% of the public had Internet access and the Job Board phenomenon was just getting started when Monster and HotJobs both advertised during the Superbowl.  Jobseekers learned that they could find more opportunities surfing the web and learn more about the companies they were applying for with the click of a mouse than they could reading a newspaper ad.

Diversified Recruitment Advertising was out of the gate and running (or out of the nest and flying).  Within a short period of time, we more than tripled our client base, delivering stellar results to the likes of Valley Health System, Burger King, Merck, Clark County, HMS Host, Boyd Gaming, City of Las Vegas and Fremont Medical Centers, amongst many, many more. 

Each client had specific needs and we serviced each differently.  Some needed to expand their reach into national industry publications while others needed a newspaper that served the Boulder City or Laughlin markets.  Our public sector clients just wanted one point of contact to manage the placement process, gather tear sheets and provide them with a sworn affidavit for ease of use.

We became masters of media buying.  We assembled and managed the most comprehensive list of effective advertising outlets for Las Vegas employers.  Our list included large newspapers, small publications, niche publications and journals, regional and industry-specific.  There were few that we were not aware of and none that we neglected to test and measure their results.  We shared our findings (or best practices) with all of our clients.

What we did not comprehend at the time was that the more we educated our clients as to what works best, the more we offended the Las Vegas Review Journal.  The RJ had worked so hard, for so many years, brain-washing employers that they were the only game in town and that nothing else worked.  And, now many employers were learning different. 

Employers were learning the truth.

Stay tuned:  This is part eight of a twelve part series.  The next entry will be next Thursday.  Thanks for reading Death of an Ad Agency.   

Please note:  This is part seven of a twelve part series.  A new entry will be made each Thursday.  To view the entire series, please visit the Death of an Ad Agency category.     

At Classified USA of Nevada, we had a hard time accepting the Review Journal’s resistance to technology and disinterest in improving the overall process for a client to place an ad.  We just could not understand why they would not want to improve efficiencies and deliver better quality of service to their (and our) clients.

Needless to say, we began to re-strategize how we would improve the process.  Our solution was two fold:

1. Find other advertising mediums that would provide a better quality of response for our clients, educating our clients on the difference between quantity and quality.  This would also extend the reach of their employment brands.
2. Begin to develop “Online Career Centers” for our clients, allowing them to control the ad copy, write more effective and legible job descriptions and make changes to these whenever they would like.

We leveraged our knowledge of the newspaper/publication business to become a better advertising agency.  We knew the strengths of each Las Vegas publication from our previous role in the Southern Nevada Free Publication Association, an association I was president of for 3 years prior to selling the Las Vegas Employment News (Guide).

Classified USA partnered with many of those publishers to introduce them to our clients, and our clients to their readership.  Many of these publications reached minority markets, regional specific areas, or niche markets furthering our client’s overall diversity initiatives.  Each had a unique, and valued, audience that our clients were not reaching through the daily newspaper. 

Classified USA began to buy and broker full page ads from many of these newspapers, creating employment sections that did not exist for some, and expanding classified sections for others.   We designed the pages in-house, using our past newspaper experience.  By delivering the newspaper camera-ready artwork, we could ensure that the copy had been proofed and approved by our clients. 

Very few mistakes were made.  And the savings were passed along to our clients.  Simultaneously, we were strengthening the brand of our clients because they were reaching untapped markets – what we call hidden talent pools today.  (Read a white paper on hidden talent pools here).

As we expanded our clients’ reach, we had to be mindful of their budgets and could not increase them.  To do that, we needed to decrease the amount they were spending in the Review Journal.  Ultimately, this would anger the newspaper and was a contributing factor to the death of our advertising agency. 

While we decreased the size of the ads, we improved their effectiveness.  Again a novel concept – spend less money, get better results. 

The solution we discovered was profound:
We focused more on employment branding in the ad copy, establishing our client as an Employer of Choice, and we encouraged the reader (jobseeker) to learn more about these great opportunities (and potentially apply) online. 

This was done through the Online Career Center that we were mastering.

The concept made sense.  Take a client’s ad copy that once contained the job title and a job description (usually poorly communicated because it was cost prohibitive to be descriptive in the newspaper) and focus more the employment brand. 

The ad copy would contain the company logo, a brief description about their company culture and what made them an “Employer of Choice.”  And finally, it would contain a laundry list of open positions.  The ‘call to action’ was to learn more online at the Online Career Center. 

When a jobseeker visited the Online Career Center, we could reinforce the brand, expand on the company profile and provide a full job description.  And because the Internet offered an infinite amount of space, we could avoid the typical description of:

Need PT or FT emp. w/ min. 2 yr. F&B exp. TAM card req. Pls. fax to.

The most important part was our ability to capture great data on the jobseeker and begin a 2-way communication, something newspaper does not do effectively. 

The increase in the quantity and quality of applicants was unbelievable.  This new found strategy needed to be duplicated. 

Our story needed to be told.

Stay tuned:  This is part seven of a twelve part series.  The next entry will be next Thursday.  Thanks for reading Death of an Ad Agency.   

Please note:  This is part six of a twelve part series.  A new entry will be made each Thursday.  To view the entire series, please visit the Death of an Ad Agency category.    

The early teen years of Classified USA of Nevada were very educational.  The more questions we asked, the more unanswered questions were presented.  We knew that technology was the common answer to our problems; but we were uncertain how to get our clients and vendors to embrace it.

Providing our clients their own AOL screen names was just the first step.  We knew more needed to be done.  We knew that if we could make the entire ad placement process an electronic transfer of data, we could eliminate the most common customer complaint of ‘can’t you just get my ad right.’

Easier said than done; especially when you do not control the final step of the process.  The newspaper does. 

The next problem we attempted to tackle was getting the Review Journal to accept email ad copy for in-column ads (classifieds).  We knew from our past experience of encouraging them to accept display ads via e-mail (rather than a courier delivering camera ready ad copy to be pasted into the newspaper flats) that this would be a battle.

Nonetheless, we began the process.   We scheduled a ‘fact finding’ meeting with the classified advertising management of the Las Vegas Review Journal.  As anticipated, every excuse in the book was used as to why we needed to continue to fax the ad copy and mistakes were just ‘never’ made on their end.  “It was always the customers fault” – and they should pay for it, was their rationale.

Subsequent discussions were held with many of Classified USA’s ad reps, other managers and finally with the RJ’s internal IT professional.  What it boiled down to was the computers used by the advertising reps were just not capable of receiving e-mails.  They were programmed to manually enter line ads and schedule when and where those line ads would be placed (mind you – many times in the wrong category on the wrong day).

The only solution, we determined, would be to have one point person at the newspaper for ad in-take just as what had been established with the e-mailing of display ads.  That point person then would be responsible for the distribution of the e-mails and/or entry of the ads into the system.

We don’t know what discussions went on behind the closed doors of the newspaper, but the end response was – “it ain’t going to happen.”   The message sent loud and clear was – “If you want to do business with the Review Journal, it will be on our terms and you will just need to accept the mistakes we make.  Pass the cost on to your client just as we have done for years.”

I am not a ‘quitter’ so I decided to give it one last effort.  I developed my ‘value proposition’ and paraded into the office of the classified advertising manager and had the recruitment advertising manager present.  My offer was simple – Classified USA of Nevada will (a) buy the RJ a dedicated computer for our e-mailed classified ads, (b) pay for monthly Internet service to that computer, (c) provide any media or storage required to transfer classified ads from that computer to the proper classified advertising reps desktop computer for placement.

The process would be simple.  Open up the e-mail.  Highlight the text of the classified ad for placement.  Hit ‘Ctrl C’ or copy.  Open up a document that would be used to transfer the ad copy.  Hit ‘Ctrl V’ or paste.  Save to disk.  Transfer the disk (media) to a classified reps desktop.  Open up the classified management system.  Copy and paste the ad into the system.  And now the classified ad, as typed by the customer, is perfectly set without any additional efforts or duplication; and most importantly, without errors (and if there were errors – there was a digital trail back to the client.)

With little discussion or consideration, the answer was still ‘no.’

Stay tuned:  This is part six of a twelve part series.  The next entry will be next Thursday.  Thanks for reading Death of an Ad Agency.   

Please note:  This is part five of a twelve part series.  A new entry will be made each Thursday.  To view the entire series, please visit the Death of an Ad Agency category.    

We came to the conclusion that Classified USA of Nevada was not able to grow without my direct influence.  However, I could not let my ownership of the ad agency be known because of my interests in the Las Vegas Employment News which was the only real competition for the Review Journal at the time. 

Fortunately, I had been approached by Trader Advertising Media (Co-owned by Cox Communications and Landmark Communications) to sell our print media-holdings which  included the Las Vegas Employment News, Diversity2000 (a diversity recruitment publication found at every college campus in the United States) and Las Vegas Career Fairs.

Trader owned and operated the Employment Guide in 40+ markets and was looking to expand their network.  Las Vegas was a target city and soon became their twenty seventh acquisition.  Initially I had planned to stay on board with Trader Advertising in a leadership role.  But as I came to understand their publishing goals and philosophies, I knew it was time to exit.  We simply did not see eye to eye.

Diversity2000, one of the first minority recruiting magazines in the country, was dismantled because Trader felt that “diversity” was just a fad, and not a trend.  Next, they eliminated the career fair division because Trader was in the newspaper business, not the career fair business (kind of like the train operators who were in the locomotive business rather than the travel industry when the airplane was being developed – a decision they later regretted). 

The sale of the Employment News and its’ holdings allowed me to redirect my time and energy to the advertising agency.  At first, I attempted to get more involved with Classified USA of Nevada yet maintain the anonymity of ownership that we had previously established.  Ted Stepien would manage the business functions from afar (Cleveland) – we would manage client relationships locally.

But in order to grow the organization according to our business plan, I soon realized that was not possible.  I needed to be actively engaged in the day to day operations and therefore would need to disclose my ownership to the Review Journal and let them know that I was no longer involved with their competitor.  

So I met with Review Journal management and explained that I had sold the Employment News to Trader Advertising Media, oversaw the change of the brand to the Employment Guide brand, but was no longer employed by Trader Advertising.  Instead, I would be focusing all of my energies on Classified USA of Nevada.

At first, I don’t think they comprehended what they had just learned.  And I still am not certain that they accepted that I was no longer involved with the newspaper as they continued to make reference to my ownership years later. 

Next we hired a professional accountant and seasoned recruitment ad agency professionals from other markets.  We re-tooled our business plan and reestablished our goals.  We made an investment in a new office space with new work spaces and computers.  We hired additional graphic artists to add to our creative department and began recruiting the best talent in Las Vegas.  We identified all of the companies we wanted to be doing business with and began introducing ourselves. 

Within months our client list grew to include the likes of Merck, Coca-Cola, Walgreens, MGM-Mirage, Burger King, Fremont Medical Centers, Desert-Inn, Valley Health System, Mpower Communications, Boyd Gaming, Super Pawn, and HMS Host amongst many other major employers.

As we expanded our client base the nagging problem of misplaced and mistyped ads in the classified section of the Review Journal worsened.  The problems just compounded.  Countless hours were spent ‘managing’ problems rather than solving them.

We made it our number one goal to solve this problem.  It was a problem we could no longer tolerate.  The Review Journal needed to be able to accept classified ads in an e-mail format.  This would simplify the overall process, remove all of the duplicate efforts, and most important – remove the errors.

Classified USA of Nevada had a new mission. 

Stay tuned:  This is part four of a twelve part series.  The next entry will be next Thursday.  Thanks for reading Death of an Ad Agency.   

Please note:  This is part four of a twelve part series.  A new entry will be made each Thursday.  To view the entire series, please visit the Death of an Ad Agency category.   

We all remember the pre-teen years – before puberty, but not quite old enough to venture out on our own.  And next to adolescence, they were probably some of the toughest years.  If you don’t remember, here is how one resource describes it:

experiences in building, creating, and accomplishing to gain a feeling of adequacy; Needs encouragement and deserved praise to achieve competence; Needs academic, physical, social, and work skills for healthy self esteem; Needs teachers, parents, and counselors who are nurturing to help children discover and develop special talents and abilities.

Well, this was a challenging time period for Classified USA of Nevada, and one that Ted Stepien and our clients would help us through.  We spent a lot of time asking questions and learning.  We learned very important lessons and philosophies.  The one that rings true in our day to day operations today is “Customer complaints are the school books from which we learn.” 

We learned to solicit constructive criticism from our clients.  We asked what we were doing right and what we could do better.  We learned to evaluate and “solve” the problems rather than just manage them.  This quote is embedded in the signature block of my e-mails today.

Douglas T. Geinzer
President/Publisher – www.RecruitingNevada.com
delivering recruitment solutions for Nevada since 1993
check out our blog: http://employerblog.recruitingnevada.com/
Las Vegas (702) 240-4100  Cellular    (702) 604-5627
Reno         (775) 329-5588  Toll Free  (888) 754-6030
Learn more about:  Socially Responsible Recruiting
“I was put on Earth not to manage problems, but solve them” – DTG

We strived to be perfect.  Did we make mistakes?  Absolutely.  But most importantly, we learned from those mistakes.  Many of our clients were our guinea pigs, or what we continue to call our ‘beta-clients’ today.  Many of those same clients are still with us today – 10 years later.

Where we learned most, was from the mistakes of the daily newspaper.  As we asked our clients where we could improve, many times it was in areas that we could not control; areas that only the daily newspaper could make a difference.  Most of the customer complaints were simple – “can’t you just get my ad right.”  Seemed simple.  But was really quite a challenge.

We took this challenge on by demanding perfection.  Demanding that ads be done right.  Ted would spend countless hours arguing with the RJ reps.  As a silent partner we would just sit back, listen and learn.  Silently, we plotted what would need to be done to ‘solve the problem,’  rather than manage it.  The solution was simple.  It was technology.

Our clients would many times dictate their ads to us over the phone or if we were fortunate, they would fax a copy.  We would in turn, typeset the ad and then fax it to one of our seven Review Journal reps.  That rep would in turn typeset it again.  There were three very evident areas of duplication.  And three areas where mistakes could (and would) be made.

Our first offering of a solution was to provide each of our clients an e-mail address and empower them the ability to e-mail us their ads.  First off, it made communication easy.  Secondly, we would receive ‘first generation’ ad copy that would not require any further typesetting. So we thought.

Keep in mind, back in 1996, e-mail capabilities were rare.  Human Resource Departments commonly shared a computer amongst the entire department, and many times that computer was a hand-me-down from accounting.  Complicating it further, less than 10% of our clients had an e-mail address.  Hence, why we gave them all their own.

Regardless, we drove forward and established multiple AOL accounts, each with five screen names.  Each client was assigned a screen name, provided some simple instructions for use and a communications protocol was established.  We were well on our way.  So we thought (again).

Clients began e-mailing us their ads.  We would spice them up with the recruitment advertising lingo that would get candidates to respond, and remove the irrelevant copy that was many times copied and pasted from an actual job description.  Now it was time to forward the copy to the Review Journal. 

Then we discovered the next problem. 

The RJ did not have e-mails established for their reps and the reps had no way of getting emails from the general email mailbox.  We would have to fax the ads to the newspaper. 

As optimists we looked at this as one step forward.  At least we eliminated 1-2 of the areas where mistakes could be made, leaving only one: the Review Journal. 

Need more be said?

Stay tuned:  This is part four of a twelve part series.  The next entry will be next Thursday.  Thanks for reading Death of an Ad Agency.   

Please note:  This is part three of a twelve part series.  A new entry will be made each Thursday.  To view the entire series, please visit the Death of an Ad Agency category.  

Ted Stepien and I agreed; Classified USA of Nevada would only solicit and do business with top employers in the Las Vegas market.  We did not need to be ‘all things to all people.’  We only wanted to represent (and manage) the best employment brands.  Each week, we would identify key employers who would make an ideal client.  We would introduce ourselves, our services and ask them to partner with us. 

Very few declined and those that accepted never left.  The level of service and results they received could not be found elsewhere. 

Furthermore, Classified USA would only partner with one company per industry, being sure to never create a conflict of interest.  If we did represent two companies within the same industry – it was fully disclosed, with approval of both clients.

Most of our clients were previously being under-served by the daily newspaper, or perhaps a competitor advertising agency.  Many times they were being misled with the traditional approach of – larger ads, means larger response.  Unfortunately, quantity does not mean quality.  Bad fuel in an engine does not make it run more efficient.  It simply requires more resources (personnel) to run it.

With the daily newspaper, many times, it was just placing a client display ad in the proper category and writing a series of ‘tickler’ or ‘referral’ ads that were placed in other categories, sending the jobseeker to the single display ad for more information.  Prior to this revelation, clients had been led to believe they would need to place multiple display ads in all of the categories, exponentially increasing their budget.  Good for the Review Journal.  Bad for the client. 

Another philosophy that Classified USA shared with its’ clientele was the use of advertising outlets outside of the Las Vegas Review Journal.  We educated our clients and taught them that more strategic ad placements, in multiple mediums, expanded their reach.  A more diverse media mix would uncover hidden talent pools and attract a more diverse and qualified applicant base.  Many of our clients had been brainwashed with the ‘dial 383-0383’ commercial for so many years that they simply did not know any better.

Las Vegas was rich with over 60 free newspapers covering every niche including the Hispanic, African-American, Asian, Gay & Lesbian and business communities.  Other publishing groups reached geo-specific markets such as Boulder City, Henderson, Summerlin and Nellis Air Force Base, while some publications such as our Las Vegas Employment News reached the active job seeker directly.  Many of these media outlets became part of the media mix for our clients. 

Although these newspapers did not create great commissions for Classified USA (because of their lower rate cards), they did produce great results for our clients and expanded their employment brand into niche markets they previously did not know how to reach.  And at the end of the day, that was why we were in business… to serve our clients.

Next, Classified USA’s clients were introduced to industry-specific journals, professional association publications, college recruiting, career fairs and most importantly – the Internet.  In the mid 1990s, the Internet had yet to become an acceptable advertising medium and still maintained a national approach.  All of that would change in years to come and we were instrumental in pioneering that change.

Our core value of delivering the most cost-effective recruitment advertising solutions drove Classified USA’s success.  Unfortunately, our strategy of diversifying client budgets to accomplish this end result disturbed the Las Vegas Review Journal and is what ultimately caused the “Death of an Advertising Agency.”