I had an interesting conversation a few weeks ago with a partner at an integrated marketing agency here in Portland. I had commented that in my search for a new opportunity, I’d noticed that while I had spent the vast majority of my career in sales, marketing and PR, the interest I’d received was almost exclusively for PR positions. I received almost no interest at all when inquiring about marketing positions. He smiled at me and said quite bluntly, “You’ve spent the past 16

On a new business presentation to a start-up company years ago, we were asked a real softball question: “If you had to describe your ideal client, what would that be.” The prospect was looking for a list of descriptors that would make up our “fantasy” client. And while we almost said, “A client that pays on time,” we decided discretion was the better part of valor and refrained. But somewhat surprising to them was that we actually had such a client: It was a $600 million cons