#142 Moonlight!!

 http://dennyhatch.blogspot.com/2022/01/142-moonlight.html

 

#142 Blog Post –January 4, 2022

 

Posted by Denny Hatch

 

How to Double Your Income:

Moonlight for Freelance Clients!

 

Alas, David Ogilvy Could Have

Changed My Faltering Career.

 

After I got out of the Army (as a two-year draftee)  in 1960 I had nine different jobs over the next 12 years.

 

I was fired from five of them.

 

Just about every new boss that hired me warned that if I were caught moonlighting I would be summarily fired. In the words of Bill Goring at Meredith: “You’re working for us. We expect absolute loyalty and 110% of your time.”

 

Amazingly, I had acquired a highly marketable skill when I was 15 years old. It would have brought in  glorious extra cash when I was eking out a low-to-mid three-figure-a-week salary and scraping by paycheck-to-paycheck over those bleak 12 years.

 

My First Business Skill

As a kid, I thought I maybe wanted a career in theater. In the summer of 1951, I worked as a paying apprentice (intern) at the Ivoryton, Connecticut Playhouse. Late in the season, the wonderful publicity director—hard drinking, heavy-smoking ex-Ziegfeld Follies dancer Evelyn Lawson—took me under her wing and schooled me in the business of publicity and public relations. ”

 

By the end of summer, Evelyn was tired and wanted to get home to Cape Cod. She assigned me the task of creating a press release announcing the final play of the season—Dream Girl by Elmer Rice starring Judy Holliday, winner of the 1951 Academy Award for Best Actress in Born Yesterday.

 

Evelyn coached me through writing the two-page release, typing the A.B. Dick blue stencil and running it on the hand-cranked inky-stinky mimeograph machine, typing the 14 envelopes, collating, stapling, folding and inserting the release, licking the envelope flaps and stamps and marching them over to the post office.

The following week my press release ran verbatim in the Middletown Press and three other local area papers. I was stunned. My parents were over the moon—seeing their kid in print at age 15. 

 

Best of all, Dream Girl was SRO all week!

 

I became hooked on writing and never looked back.

 

Later I wrote a ton of press releases—for the Army Public Information Office and as part of my first jobs with a succession of book publishers. Over many years I had myriad offers to do freelance publicity.

 

Alas, throughout my checkered career I was scared to death of moonlighting, appearing disloyal and being fired. Yet, I was fired from five jobs.

 

Example of a firing: Walter Weintz’s major account was the Republican National Committee. When the Watergate scandal broke, Republican fundraising tanked big time. Walter lost the account. He had the choice of canning me or letting go his son, Todd. I was Watergate collateral damage. 

 

P.S. Walt Weintz was one of the bosses that flat-out told me I'd be fired if he caught me freelancing.

 

Thirty Years Too Late I Stumbled

Across This Memo from David Ogilvy!

 

Memo to Directors. 

 

January 17, 1973

 

WE ENCOURAGE MOONLIGHTING, PARTICULARLY AMONG OUR COPYWRITERS.

 

It gives them experience.

 

It gives them more sense of responsibility.

 

It increases their income—at no cost to us.

 

I learned this dodge from Dr. [George] Gallup. He paid us miserably but encouraged us to moonlight.

 

Rosser Reeves [legendary advertising copywriter] did a lot of it. So did I. One year I made more—far more—moonlighting than I did at the agency. And it sharpened my wits.

 

Anyone who opposes moonlighting is a pettifogger.

 

Only two rules. Chaps must not moonlight on competing accounts or for other agencies, and they must not be caught doing the work in office hours.

 

  

Takeaways to Consider

 

Advice from Bob Teufel, President of Rodale,

On Freelancing After I was Canned by Walter Weintz.

 

• "If you are good at what you do—and have good people skills—go freelance."

• "You’ll work harder than you ever have in your life, make more money and have more fun than you ever imagined."

 

• "If you get fired, you are still working."

 

• "The ultimate joy: you can fire clients you don’t like."

 

• "Spread out your work. If you promise to meet deadlines too close together, you will miss at least one of them and lose the client."

 

• "Never rely on a single client or customer for more than 25% of your total revenue." 

 

• "Always make time to sell when you are busiest. Lining up new business is hard, tedious work—especially if the sales cycles are long. An individual or company can become consumed by current projects. Once these are completed, nothing new in the hopper can mean trouble ahead."

 

• "Always go first class. Customers and clients like the aura of success. Dress well and entertain them well. The Weintz Agency does world-class work. Walt drives a Mercedes. He frequents the best restaurants. He takes me fishing on his 58’ Bristol Trawler and invites me for trout fishing weekends at the exclusive Megantic Fish and Game Club in Maine. It doesn’t get any better than that!"

 

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