A Building Year

By Kyle McCabe | May 14, 2009

Time to take a step back.

Time to take a good look at what we’re doing here at RSA. The economy is down – way down, and people are cutting advertising and marketing budgets, big time. Looks like 2009 is shaping up to be a “building year,” right?

Maybe not. The problem is, we’re still as busy as ever, and I guess that’s less of a problem and more a relief. Some might call it good luck; I call it hard work and a passion for what we do. And a passion for having food to eat, there’s also that.

And yet we have been building as well. Since late last year we’ve added new departments, new staff, and new teams. We’ve got a new website on deck, and are partnering with new clients weekly.

A little horn-tooting…

Our CEO just came back from the “Alliance of Bigshot MarComm Pros Conference” (or something like that), where they basically sit around, drink beer and watch baseball (and apparently the game wasn’t the only exhibition in the stadium that night – you’ll have to ask him about that).

Oh, and I guess they talk shop a little bit, too. It’s a group of 8 or so agencies from around the country, and they’ve been getting together biannually for nearly a decade to talk about the industry, new developments, trends, technology, and the meaning of life.

So Robert comes back and basically he tells us we’re kicking ass. That’s a good feeling, especially for a small agency in Rapid City, South Dakota. I mean, who really takes anyone seriously out here in “fly over” country? Well maybe we’re a little big for our breeches, but held up against a national standard – and this group is national – we look pretty good. As Robert put it:

“Our discussions with other agencies validates what we’re doing; we’re encouraged that the skill sets and strategies we’re developing are equal to or ahead of the national curve; and by leaps and bounds compared with the competition in our marketplace.”

All horn-tooting and back-patting aside, however, I have to say it’s been a tough few months – tough in the sense of having to work HARD for what we’ve gained. And that’s the key to getting ahead in this economy: hard work. It pays off in the end – we’ve seen it with our own business, and our clients as well.
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Photo credit | JSolomon

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