Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Welcome to another episode of the Worst Advice I Ever Got.
I'm your host, Sean Taylor, along with my producer, jb and today our guest is John Follis.
John's an award winning creative director, agency founder and marketing strategist whose work has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Ad Week.
He's helped launch national brands, built bold campaigns and spent years as one of the most respective and inventive voices on Madison Avenue.
But long before all that, he was a college student just trying to figure it all out until a professor pulled him aside and told him he'd never make it in advertising.
Well, today John shares how that moment shaped his career and how trusting his gut instead of following bad advice helped him find the right path. John, thanks for joining us today.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Hey Sean, thanks so much for having me on as a guest.
[00:01:01] Speaker C: Yeah, it's our pleasure. I want to jump right in. What was the worst advice that you ever got?
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Well, that's a very easy answer. The worst advice was from a college professor who basically told me I sucked at advertising and should not pursue it as a career.
[00:01:18] Speaker C: Okay, set the stage a little bit. Tell me a little bit more. Let's go into that a little deeper.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: So this was my junior year, just matter of weeks after I had decided that advertising was going to be my major.
And this was one of the first advertising courses I was taking in my junior year. And about three quarters of the way through the course, the instructor pulled me aside and said, I'm going to give you an opportunity to drop the class because if you don't, I'm going to flunk you. I'm giving you some advice. And by the way, you should not pursue advertising as a career. I did not like this guy. I mean, he was just very, he was just a very egocentric guy. And it was, it kind of became clear to me that doing well in the class was as much or more about figuring out how to build up his ego.
How much of that had to do with it? I don't know, but I'm sure it had something to do with it.
[00:02:15] Speaker C: John, let's back up for a second. So you had made this decision, I want to do this. And this was one of your first classes that was really a serious step in that direction. Is that right?
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And I gotta tell you, the irony of what we're talking about, one reason I ended up at Syracuse, transferred there was because the other college I was going to was just a basic liberal arts college that had very few courses relating to anything creative, that university.
The instructor pulls me aside and says to me, do you know what you want to do when you grow up? And I said, I don't really know. And she said, well, can I give you some advice?
I would really encourage you to pursue your creativity and your talent and find another college or university that would help you explore that talent. And I don't think it's here.
And I said, well, first of all, thanks for the. The advice. Do you have any ideas? And she said, yes, Syracuse University.
So that's how I ended up going to Syracuse and kind of pivoting in a direction to kind of try to realize my or develop my creative talent.
[00:03:23] Speaker C: So you're 20, 21 years old, and you've taken that bold step. You've made a change in your environment, you're going here, and you've got this narcissistic professional professor telling you, either because he doesn't like you or whatever, don't do this. What happened? Like, how did you take that?
[00:03:40] Speaker A: Well, I freaked out.
I freaked out because not only had to complete the course, I had to do really well in it. And when he tells you, drop the course, I'm going to flunk you, you start scratching your head and you say, okay, what do I do now? So I decided for the next semester I was going to give it a shot with. With a different instructor, hoping that the results would be different. And I did. As it turned out, I did extremely well. I mean, it was just the total opposite. So that was a. That was a really important lesson that I learned very early on, you know, even, you know, prior to my career. But that lesson, I think, applied to a lot of situations in my professional career.
[00:04:22] Speaker D: Well, college is not necessarily a cheap endeavor, you know, so when you get somebody who's saying, hey, don't do this anymore, you know, that. What does that next couple weeks look like for you as you're trying to decide your future and what you do next? And, like, who do you lean on?
[00:04:37] Speaker A: What do you do? You'd be a fool not to take it seriously, especially because in this case, this particular instructor was a New York City guy. He worked on Madison Avenue. It's hard to believe that he would take time out of his schedule to come up to Syracuse once a week to teach. Because he was a Madison Avenue guy.
We looked at him as a rock star. Yeah. And you can't. You can't easily dismiss that advice, whether you like the guy or not. You know, I remember having a conversation with my dad at the Time, who I have to say was always a big support of mine and that, that made a big difference. And he was a business guy, he was an entrepreneur. And he also knew, he knew me. He knew that I wasn't a guy who would just, you know, party all the time in college. He knew that I was very dedicated, a hard worker, committed to doing a good job. So when I told him what happened, he said, do you still think advertising is the right thing to pursue? And I said, I think so. I said, well, just give it another shot. You know, he, he just tried to encourage me as much as he could and said, just, you know, just try it again. That was another reason I wanted to do well. I really appreciated his support.
[00:05:43] Speaker C: So you ended up taking the incomplete and bailing, getting out of there, right?
[00:05:46] Speaker A: I had no choice.
[00:05:47] Speaker C: You're still formative. You're 20, you're, you're, you're a young adult. Right. And you're hearing this from, at least in your mind, someone that had, had made it and was a, you know, big shot in what you wanted to do.
[00:05:59] Speaker D: But like you said, the guy being a New York ad executive who's coming down from Madison Avenue, you still, like, you still cared what he think. And obviously you're on a show, you know, 50 some odd years talking about it later. So it wasn't like a nothing comment to you at the time.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:06:12] Speaker D: So with the thing. So as you were sort of moving yourself through the advice and kind of moving through, what did you do next to kind of ignore that?
[00:06:20] Speaker A: I knew that I had to take action and find out if he was right. There wasn't a lot of time to really kind of ponder what to do.
It was clear that I needed to take the course again, kind of, you know what you're asking. It didn't really involve a lot of soul searching. I just knew that I had to take some action, take it again. I don't know what would have happened though, John, if I had taken the course and not done well in that course, then there would have been a real crisis because I would have been, you know, almost done with my junior year. And that, that would have been a really tough situation to be in, let's put it that way.
[00:07:01] Speaker C: I was thinking about timing here, John, actually was. I was thinking about, like when this happened to you, I think, is a really key part of this story. Right. I mean, if this had happened to you two years before that, just some ad exec that knew you, that said, I don't think you'd be Good for that you probably don't even go down. That you probably don't go down the course. And if it had been two years later when you're maybe, you know, already getting some experience, but I mean, it's like, screw you. Like, I'm already past the hard part. So I think the timing of this, right where it was, was very important to your story.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: No, you're right. You're right. Had it been even my sophomore year, I think I would have maybe approached it differently and started looking at some other possibilities to explore as a. As a major and a career.
[00:07:45] Speaker C: The timing when it happened, and then the fact that. All right, I don't have a lot of time to dwell on this to your point. I got to get going. I got to make some moves one way or another. That there's no re. There's no time, that we don't. I don't have the luxury of time to deeply analyze this.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Yep, yep.
[00:07:59] Speaker D: So you graduated from college, then. Then what?
[00:08:02] Speaker A: Then I went down to your town. I went down to Atlanta because I was afraid of New York. Ended up working in Atlanta for the first couple years of my career.
[00:08:09] Speaker D: That went well.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: Yeah. No, it did not go well.
[00:08:15] Speaker C: Second worst advice I ever got.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: Well, you know, looking back now, I realize the first job I had was a terrible job. I probably stayed there. I was. I was there for almost two years, which was probably a year and a half longer than I should have been there. But it's one of the few jobs that I actually quit. And I not only left that agency, but I left town.
I said, I actually had someone in Atlanta. You'll appreciate this. I'm not. Still not sure what it meant, but the guy reviewed my work and said, you have a Yankee portfolio.
Now.
I think what that meant is now with some perspective, there's a genteelness to Atlanta, there's a cordialness, Southern hospitality, politeness to Atlanta that you don't really see. And a city like New York.
And a lot of my work was a little bit edgy.
And so I think him telling me I have a Yankee portfolio was that it's a little bit maybe too wise ass or edgy for a town like Atlanta. So I went to Chicago. I still was afraid of New York, so I said, well, let me try Chicago.
Did that for three years and then finally felt it was time for the big leagues and moved to New York.
[00:09:28] Speaker C: Along the first two years in Atlanta and then over to Chicago where maybe things didn't go as well. You quit one place did you ever begin to doubt yourself? And did this, did this advice come back into your mind? Like if you're having struggles, maybe getting started in your career or at points of your career, did that professor's advice ever pop back in your head as maybe being self.
[00:09:48] Speaker A: You would think, you would think it, it would and it never seriously did because I was getting enough encouraging comments from other people in senior positions at that time to really reinforce the, the feeling that I had deep down was that I was a talented guy and I just had to keep trying to find the right environment and that's why I left town and went to Chicago.
[00:10:14] Speaker C: Yeah, the learnings that you took from the experience in college.
I believe in myself. I'm going to dig deeper, go harder. You, you applied similar approaches to looking for that right place once you were into your career, is what it sounds like.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: Me, when I went up to Chicago, a friend of mine, one of my school chums, said I could hang out, spend a week at her apartment while I was looking for work. And during that week I got two job offers in Chicago. So that was, that was quite a change.
[00:10:45] Speaker C: Turning point. Let's, let's maybe look and dig into where you start to find your home, where you start to find your rhythm, you know, in your career and just maybe touch on just the learnings from this bad advice and how it's actually helped you.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know, even though I was getting jobs at these big agencies, I was not doing well. It wasn't until I pivoted and started picking up freelance work. Advertising is kind of unique in the sense that there's a demand for creative people to come in as needed.
Sometimes it's a few days, sometimes it's, it could be a couple of months if an, if an agency is pitching a piece of business and they need some creative firepower. So there were, there was opportunities for me if I could find them. And I started doing that for a number of agencies and helped a number of these agencies win business.
And that was at that point that I got a call from a guy who was a business development guy who heard about my reputation.
Why don't you work with me?
I'll get some meetings with some clients. Let's pitch some business together and win some business for ourselves and maybe start an agency. And once I started that collaboration with him, Sean, things took in. My career took a whole new turn because within a few months we were winning accounts, and not just winning accounts, but doing great work. We were winning all kinds of awards. And as a result of the business we were winning and the great work we were doing, we were getting press in the New York Times while Street Journal, USA Today. In three years, we got a reputation as being one of the hottest creative agencies on Madison Avenue. So that was a very exciting point in my career.
[00:12:31] Speaker C: Oh, without question. It's interesting, though, you give a lot of credit in that to someone who said, why don't you try this? So clearly your business partner, I assume, saw something in you that you should go do. And, and your confidence soared after that.
[00:12:45] Speaker A: He was a very aggressive guy, and I think because he was very excited about having me as a partner, I think that motivated him even more to try to get meetings and be given the opportunity.
He was a very convincing guy. And he would just say, listen, I'm working with the best creative guy in New York. Just give us a shot at pitching your business. And we were given a lot of opportunities and we won a lot of business and did really well. So it worked out really well. That collaboration, you mentioned that you had.
[00:13:16] Speaker D: Been fired four times. So when in your career was that happening?
[00:13:20] Speaker A: Well, that was, that was at these, these big agencies. You, when people ask me about advertising, they always go, oh, yeah, like Mad Men, that TV show Mad Men, and say, no, no, no, you got it wrong. It's like the show Survivor, that, that, that is what it's like because you're working with a couple of teammates and you're given a task, and if you don't succeed at that task, you're going to get voted off the island. And that's, that's really the best analogy I could say, for what it's like in these competitive, these agencies, because in many situations, if it's a. The assignment is a big campaign on a big client, it's not just you working on, it's you and two or three other creative teams, and only one of those teams is going to win the assignment. And if after a period of time you don't win a lot, you're going to get voted out of the agency. And that's, that's what happened to me a couple of times. Well, four times, actually.
[00:14:16] Speaker C: I want to, I want to go back to something you mentioned to me just a few moments ago about you finally had the opportunity in this freelance environment, and it, you sort of made it sound like it propelled you. Can you dig into that a little bit? What, what was, what was it about finally getting to do that, that just really.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, one thing I didn't mention, and maybe you mentioned it in the Intro One of the things that happened when I was exploring freelance is I hooked up with a couple of young guys who are in their mid-20s, and they had just developed a relationship with a designer that I had never heard of named Kenneth Cole. This was in the mid-80s, and Kenneth was a really cool guy. He himself was, I think, in his late 20s. At the time, he was just starting his business, and he didn't really like ad agencies, but he understood that in order to get his, his, he at the time, he was designing shoes, he needed to get his brand out there, he needed to do advertising.
So he was very open to doing very groundbreaking creative work. The big ad agencies on Madison Avenue, they, they were trying to figure out what agency had this account who was doing this great work. And so it really created a buzz. And I, I, I learned about that because whenever I was hustling my, my portfolio around town trying to get freelance gigs, and they saw this, these, this work in my campaign, they said, oh, my God, you're the one that's doing that work. So feel good.
That was, that was a great, great validation.
[00:15:50] Speaker C: Yeah, it's great when you dig deeper into something that you feel like you're doing a good job and then everyone around you actually just praises you. It just makes you want to go faster and deeper, I would assume.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And of course, my, my business partner was, was my biggest fan.
[00:16:05] Speaker C: Isn't it great for someone to show confidence in you and put you in front of people that they've got a lot of emotional bank account built with and saying, just trust me, listen to this guy. I mean, I had to make you feel great.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, He, I was the product that he was selling. You know, not many account guys got excited about creative work that's just kind of not in their DNA and make their, their job is to please the client.
And oftentimes they would basically say yes to whatever the client wanted. But this guy was a little different in that respect. He felt that if we were going to be a success as, as an agency, we had to kind of break the mold and do the kind of work that was going to get people talking about.
[00:16:51] Speaker D: Seems like what you're saying a lot is balance. Like, that's what I'm getting is like, you get bad advice and you had your dad balance yourself out. You, you get fired, but you got this business partner who's like, I believe in you, putting you in these things. It's like you, you always got to have that other side of the coin helping you out.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: Sure.
Yep.
[00:17:08] Speaker C: Did you ever look up that, Professor?
[00:17:11] Speaker A: I did, I did.
In the ad business, they have these, these big volumous directories that have every agency in the country listed and all the, all the personnel that work at those agencies. I was kind of curious what he was up to, and I think his title was treasurer or something like that at this agency. It wasn't even a creative title. So I, I don't, I don't know what he was doing at the time he was teaching at Syracuse, but at least when I looked him up, he was, he was not in a, in a high level creative position at this agency. And it kind of put things in perspective, you know, when I saw that.
[00:17:47] Speaker D: It goes back to the timing, right? I mean, if you heard that from him now, he's like, hey, you shouldn't do advertising. Like, who are you?
[00:17:53] Speaker A: You're. Yeah, I don't know how he got the gig at Syracuse. He, he, you know, I, you know, maybe it's just the fact that he worked on Madison Avenue, was willing to take a, a shuttle up to Syracuse once a week.
[00:18:05] Speaker D: It worked with you, right? You thought this guy must be an impressive. You know what I mean? Like in, in he. So he had that.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And, and I, and I gotta say, jb most, most of the instructors at Syracuse were really high level. I mean, there were other instructors who, who were Madison Avenue folks who taught at Syracuse.
So, you know, it just, he was just kind of a bad apple. I think he should not have been been teaching. But you know, that, that happens at probably any, any college.
[00:18:36] Speaker C: If you reflect back on it now, what would you tell your younger self about handling bad advice in general?
[00:18:41] Speaker A: Well, you don't realize it's bad advice when you get it, of course. You know, I, I think one, one of the things that I tried to apply and I think is probably good advice for anyone is to trust your gut.
We get that a lot. Yeah. And again, I, I don't know if I would have so easily trusted my gut if I hadn't gotten encouragement from my dad and, you know, gotten some signs from other areas. I mean, again, because there wasn't a lot of lead time between getting that advice from the instructor and having to find a way to kind of challenge that advice with it with a different instructor.
I didn't, you know, I didn't, I didn't really get stuck after hearing that.
[00:19:30] Speaker C: You call it trust your gut, but I'm going to go a step further here. You believed in yourself, and I think that belief in yourself is what helped you overcome all the obstacles that you were facing.
Yeah, you don't know it's bad advice at the time. You get it. But when you get bad advice can profoundly affect and impact you.
And, you know, I think it just taught you to be resilient and having to navigate different challenges. And that's what I hope people would take away from this, is when bad advice comes or just when tough, tough circumstances come. If you double down on yourself, believe in yourself, and be resilient, you could one day be that secret weapon on Madison Avenue that nobody knows who's doing this great work. That's a pretty.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I gotta just say this. I, I'm looking back on that.
I actually am very grateful that I had that experience at that time because as I referred to earlier, there were many situations as I, as my career progressed where I would hit, hit obstacles, come across other personalities who were in senior positions that were blocking my, my path to success. Having overcome that obstacle so early on in my career, I think really helped prepare me as, as I continued hitting these roadblocks and figuring out how to not allow them to deter me.
[00:20:59] Speaker C: Well, that's one of our hopes for this show, John, is that our younger audience, we have a lot of college age students that listen to our podcast and we hope they hear other people's worst advice they ever got and they learn from it and it helps them as they grow in their future without maybe necessarily having to go through the depth of the pain. But thanks for joining us. Thanks for sharing your story and your pain and congratulations on all the success, John. That's a great story.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: Thanks, guys. I think you guys are doing a great service with your podcast, so keep up the good work.
[00:21:29] Speaker C: Thank you, John.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: Yeah, jb When I first heard the title of this one, don't go Into Advertising, I'll be honest, I thought we were in for one of those episodes.
[00:21:38] Speaker C: Right.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: You know, someone told me not to do a thing. I did it anyway, and look at me now.
[00:21:43] Speaker D: Yeah, absolutely. I, I thought the same, but, man, this one's like, so much more layered than that. You know, it's, it's not just a story of, like, defiance. It's like timing and credibility and how much weight we give other people's words.
A time in our life when we're not sure of our own yet.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: This, this is impactful because it's not just some random guy on the street telling John to get out of advertising. And that's, that's. You just brush that off all the time. But it's a Professor at your fancy school, the one you admire, the one you think knows everything. You know, when someone like that tells you this, it lands differently.
[00:22:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:17] Speaker D: He said himself, like, it came at the worst possible time because he's still trying to figure out who he was, where he belonged. And then this person that he respected and, you know, he had a big, fancy Madison Avenue title, told them you don't have it, you know that's going to mess with your head.
[00:22:31] Speaker C: Yep, yep.
[00:22:31] Speaker B: That's where the balance came in. Because for every one person who told him to quit, there was someone else who pulled him forward. His dad, you know, encouraged his creativity. His business partner believed in him.
And, I mean, ultimately, it's his clients.
[00:22:45] Speaker C: That proved these ideas worked.
[00:22:46] Speaker D: Yeah. It makes you really realize, I think we're going to see that in a lot of episodes that you have to have the counterweights. You know, if you. If you hear. If all you hear is one voice, especially in a vulnerable moment, it can really pull you off track.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: And maybe that's the real story here.
[00:23:00] Speaker C: Right.
[00:23:01] Speaker B: Not just ignore the bad advice, but recognize how much advice depends on when you hear it, who's saying it, and whether you have the right people around you to help you interpret it.
[00:23:10] Speaker D: Yeah. Like you said at the beginning of the Rap Beer, you know, this isn't just approve the haters wrong episode. You know, it's a reminder that advice sticks with you. And it's usually about more than the words. It's the moment and the person and all the value that you put into it in the time that you heard it.
[00:23:24] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:23:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And how you respond once you've had a little time and a few better voices, maybe even in your corner. Speaking of voices in your corner, hopefully you look at the podcast as a voice in your corner.
I certainly look at all of the guests we've had as voices in my corner. And you know what? Maybe share this as one of the.
[00:23:42] Speaker C: Quote unquote voices in your corner as.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: A resource to other people that you know who could use something like this.
[00:23:49] Speaker C: Because we.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: The larger the audience for this, more guests we can bring in, the better the episodes can continue to be.
[00:23:56] Speaker C: So tune in.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: Next week, we'll bring you another excellent episode of the Worst Advice I Ever Got.
