New Trainee

Starting a new trainee today

He’s your basic, overachiever type that we recruit out of school. 3.8 GPA in Marketing and Digital Art, worked every summer, socially involved. Right now he’s in culture shock. All his life he’s been one of, if not the smartest kid in his class, now he’s surrounded by people as smart as or smarter than him…a lot smarter.

First thing I did was hand him a spiral notebook.
“Jim, write your name and today’s date on the cover, when the notebook is full, write the end date on the cover and start a new spiral notebook. This way, if the beer truck runs you over, your replacement will be able to pick right up where you left off.”

The main reason I do this is to constantly drill into a trainee the importance of taking notes, it’s one of the keys to becoming a good account executive. When a trainee is caught without their notebook, they face a barrage of verbal and physical abuse while they run back to their desk to grab the notebook.

Good notes lead to good client contact reports. Good contact reports mean that the agency team knows what’s going on and can react quickly to the clients needs.

One trainee went home over the weekend to visit her parents. Her Mom called her into the kitchen to tell her something and the trainee showed up with a notebook and pen and started taking notes while her Mother was talking. “Wow,” her Mom said, “that new job is really making a difference!”

Jon