Almost Cut My Hair

By OOH TODAY believes all voices, not just the loudest, must be heard Last updated Aug 15, 2022

OOH …Here’s One Thing

Almost Cut My Hair

by Jim Johnsen,
Managing Director, Johnsen, Fretty & Company

Where did the lazy Sunday go? Wait. Where did last week go? Come to think about it how the hell are we in August. And then again I’m trying to reminisce how we got from 2019 to right now. Wow. Sorry. Had a senior moment. (But honestly anyone else with me on this?)

Back to the scheduled program. I was listening to a podcast last week and almost spit my coffee when the guy quoted Warren Buffet:

“Would I ask my barber if I needed a haircut?”

Read it twice. Think on it. Warren is genius. But you already knew that.

What he refers to is endemic throughout business in so many ways. False positive re-enforcement. Let me bring it home. “Hey fabricator. We have partied together for the past 20 years. We love each other. You know I would never go anywhere else. Would you fly into Peoria and tell me if this new location I’ve got cooking is worth building?” “Shit Bill. This ones a screamer. I’m mean it’s got a high power utility line cutting through it and it’s in an inside curve so the right hand read is 2 seconds but man from the exit ramp…it kills it. Let’s build.”

Or how about “Hey Dean, Mortimer is calling from J. Walter Thompson (remember them :). They need a showing for Toyota. What should we do? Tell him we have two avails on the 710 which will do the whole job for him. He loves me. He’ll take it”.

Johnsen, what the hell are you talking about? Have you lost your mind? Well, I’ll leave it to this. For the next week every time you find yourself telling the other side of the phone (woops these days it’s the text or email) what you think they want to hear rather than the truth…send your favorite charity $100 bucks. At the end of the week let me know the damage.

Hopefully you are not reading this…but if you are, hopefully it’s from a lounge chair on Nobadeer Beach.

Cheers to bittersweet summer.

Btw, one of the best CSN songs ever:
https://youtu.be/4Lk2KHajp4Y