A unique feature of Flynn & Friends is that its partners both teach marketing or marketing-related courses at local colleges. From teaching we have learned that we know a lot about the marketing "tool sets" which are appropriate, affordable, and have the highest potential to help our clients succeed.

Some background.

Mitch Flynn, agency President and Creative Director, started teaching at the University at Buffalo in the Communication Design department in 1990. (A major benefit of this was having Barbara Keough as a student; Barb is now Vice President of Operations at Flynn & Friends.) He has since taught courses in Copywriting and Advertising at Canisius College, and small business marketing classes in the evening division at UB.

Marc Adler, the agency's VP of Client Services, started teaching at UB when he helped Mitch with a class in 1996. Today, Marc teaches two full-time undergraduate courses of his own design at the university.

In 2002, Mitch and Marc team-taught classes to small business owners through the UB Center For Entrepreneurial Leadership, an experience which led us to really focus on the marketing needs of the typical Western New York business.

The main lesson we learned is that almost every business lists "marketing" as a primary need but has little idea as to how to go about doing it. Compound that with the "usual suspects":

• Suspect 1: Success in marketing is inherently hard to define.
• Suspect 2: Many businesses get burned with a first marketing experience and shy away forever.
• Suspect 3: It's easy to fall into tactics (the cart) before developing a strategy (the horse).

Before we get into the "how to," let us address the three suspects above. Because success in marketing is inherently hard to define, we typically ask our clients to come up with a quantifiable goal before we start on a project. Even if it's just a ballpark number, it helps focus the creative effort, and lends itself to establishing a budget (a second quantifiable number).

If you've been burned (say by a vague deliverable, poor service, a large bill, or a combination of the three), you're not alone. We've been in business since 1986 and have a number of clients we like to think we have helped "recover" from bad marketing. In other words, we believe we have enough water over the damn so that our clients hopefully swear by us, not at us.

As for tactics and strategy, we work with the media, printers, and other outside vendors but with a critical caveat emptor: marketing tactics and tools such as TV, radio, outdoor, print, and the internet have their highest value when part of a strategic plan. Media or printing sales people typically sell only their own solution. Success in marketing depends on a coordinated effort such as you can get from an ad agency like Flynn & Friends. Think of us as a communications general contractor.

The point of all this is that we can point you in the right direction. We can't guarantee you'll get the sale, but we can say we have an excellent track record of getting you the prospect's attention. We're good at advertising and marketing. The marriage of agency and client works best when the latter is good at sales.

As for "how-to," the basic tools of advertising and marketing (the ones every business should have) are fairly straightforward:

• A logo that's used consistently throughout your paper, location, and electronic identity.
• A capabilities brochure or folder.
• A presentation folder, typically the 9" x 12" with pockets.
• A bank of photography, which can range from basic publicity head shots of you and your employees to professionally photographed and art-directed product or service shots.
• A web site.
• A consistent publicity plan.

(You can see examples of most of these in the Creative Stuff section of this site.)

We offer our clients the forward-thinking insight and skills of artists, the bottom line accountability of business people, and the love of learning of educators. That could help you a lot in the current year and for years to come. Give us a call or e-mail us if you'd like to talk.

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