This is my first article.

 

So, I'll tell you a little about me and how I got started.

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I began my career as a one-man marketing department for a 17 person company in Farragut Square, Washington DC.

 

It didn't pay much.

 

But I reported directly to the CEO, and I was lucky to have the job. There was an Italian deli

around the corner that reminded me of home, and the White House was only 7 minutes away in case I wanted to pretend I was Jimmy Stewart in a scene from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

 

I had dreams of working in the world's biggest advertising agencies; Ogilvy, McCann, Leo Burnett, you name it. But after failing to break in through the doors, those dreams melted away like snow in June.

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Working "in-house" seemed like a dirty word if you talked to anyone in the industry. Of course, this was a culture that cut its teeth on pulling client all nighters, not 'cutting out' at 5 o'clock.

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But I'd have to wait another day to earn my place. I was going "in-house."

 

At this 17 person company near the Italian deli, there was a nice window that overlooked the park. At first, I'd stare out of it wondering that if maybe I rewrote my cover letter into something of a Shakespeare soliloquy—Ogilvy, would see me as some kind of undiscovered prose artist.

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But, after awhile, that lost its luster.

 

Just like those pigeons that kept flapping their wings and trying to mate outside the glass.

 

At the company, I was the only marketer. I was part copywriter, part graphic designer. I was also the marketing coordinator, email marketer and strategist (but I'm being kind to myself with this last one).

 

Lucky for me, our founder was a rare bird. She led from the only place a founder should lead from and that was from the front. I could feel her intensity for the business. Her feeling of love for the mission. It was raw, it was direct. Sometimes, unfiltered. But boy was it beautiful.

 

I learned all about the product. And I got to understand the people behind it all, like what our employees were really thinking and what customers were actually saying. I even experienced the highs and lows that eventually greeted every company. And I made a few good friends along the way.

 

Suddenly, I felt that in my own way, I was learning how brands are built in ways big agencies could only dream of.

 

And I still had that Italian deli next door.

 

Although, I used to buy pastrami on rye which is actually a Jewish delicacy. But when it comes to lunch meat, I consider myself a citizen of the world.

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But, there's something else you should know about me.

 

Before my move to try and land an advertising job among the monuments of Washington, I was a kid who knew little more than the country roads of "rural America."

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Those two words make people shiver in this industry.

 

Yet despite what most may think, rural America served me well in a career that lives and dies by linguistics, target audiences and human psychology.

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My father was a farmer. And we lived in a farming town filled with Sicilian Roman Catholics that had settled in the early 1900s. I was more likely to come across Jesus Christ himself than come across anyone who's name didn't end in "O".

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But, that town taught me a lot about advertising.

 

It was a Sicilian masterclass. From demographics and values, to why people buy in tribes, and the beauty that comes from speaking to someone in a language that only they could feel and understand (unless it was Sunday, then language was nonverbal, spelled out in durum wheat and topped with red sauce).

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When my time came to an end in my first job away from this home, I was getting ready to move into a whole other world.

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I had just landed my first Fortune 100 contract.

 

I imagine this was the land of opportunity my ancestors dreamed it would be when they decided to leave that town we know today as Campobello di Licata, Sicily.

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But, I learned to leave something behind too. I didn't need my dream at Ogilvy, I just needed a 17 person company near the Italian deli.