1:57 and 2:37

YouTube won't let me embed this, but I am such a genius and I love you all so much that I have arranged for you to be able to just click this picture and see the scene.

And even though this whole scene is great, the meat of it for my purposes is at 1:57.

My purposes being to comment on an Ad Age Small Agency Diary piece I saw today about that runaround so many prospects give us where they want us to do some work for free or cheap so that "when it succeeds and the budget is bigger, why then you'll have a bunch of well-paying business!"

Except it almost never works out that way. Maybe they get bigger in part through your efforts and now you're too small for them. Or someone new comes in who really doesn't give a sh** about what his or her predecessor told you, they're going to work with the agency from their old job. Or any number of good or bad reasons.

Point is, it's a crap shoot and even though nobody ever says it out loud, everybody knows it.

As I said in my comment on Ad Age, if you can build their business with a small budget, then why the hell should they ever spend more money?Seriously. Apply that extra cash to the bottom line or something.

There are a lot of things people say to and ask of their agencies or prospective agencies that they seem to think we've never heard before. And "work with me now" is one of them. Except none of them can really answer the question "why the hell should I invest in your business by giving you a discount?" with anything but some vague promise. Unfortunately. there are agencies who will do it. Every time.

And just in case you're lazy or don't have speakers, the line at 1:57 (that is my new favorite movie line - not to mention probably the only one I remember) is:

"If you're good at something never do it for free."

Check out 2:37 too for something we'd all love to say one day.