• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, February 17, 2015

Not that there's really any new insight here from Solange Francois, a young marketer working on the client side who then decided to try out the agency side, but we can all use a good reminder from time to time. The general theory here is that if you experience the other side of anything, you're much more likely to be sympathetic when you go back to your own side.

Francois, who took 15 months off from her marketing-side gig to go to the agency side, offers up 7 insightful tips. In a nutshell, working in an ad agency will make you work faster, it will build up your self-confidence as you sink or swim in a sea of egomaniacal, headstrong prima donnas, it will make you a better client because you'll feel the agency's pain, you'll garner better industry connections, and you'll become better at self-promotion because, well, humility doesn't exist in ad agencies. You'll actually learn the difference between goals, objectives, strategies and tactics -- and finally, you'll learn how to write a brief that an agency can actually work with.

So, yeah, take a break from your cushy client-side gig and join an agency for a while. You will work your ass off and maybe you'll be less of a dick when you're dealing with your agency in the future.