a very short post about failure to communicate

Damn, it nags.

Our whole job as creatives is to make work that will solve the client's business problem – smart work, great work, yes, but work that will work. I look at every brief confident that my team and I can not just solve the problem but knock it out of the park. But the work doesn't sell itself when you try to push it across the table at the client; you have to find the key to selling it, thinking about the people whom you are selling it to and their needs. How do you set it up? What theme do you keep coming back to?

Both the work and the selling are essential. Not even Don Draper can sell shit. (Okay, haven't seen every episode; maybe there's one where he is in fact the superhuman creative director.)

And when you apparently can't unlock the key to the brief after repeated attempts, or can't sell what seems to be a great idea or two, then I suppose you re-evaluate, and you learn something, but you make yourself because that's the only way to deal with the fact that you've failed.