Our regular WHIP cracker, Stan (http://branddna NULL.blogspot NULL.com), is away this Monday. In his place, we’ve asked Michael Skarbek, Senior Copywriter at AJF Partnership (http://www NULL.ajfpartnership NULL.com NULL.au), to wear Stan’s shoes for the day. And what better topic for him to talk about than the threat of new talent nipping at your heels.

One of my favourite points that Stan makes is that good is the enemy of great. It’s easy to forget once you’ve settled into a job and started to get comfy. So if you’ve ever heard yourself utter the words, “that’s good enough”, then put down your pens, pull up a beanbag and listen to this story.
A young team, believing they were the only ones working on a brief, showed their ideas to their Creative Director. The ideas weren’t bad, but they weren’t great either. They were simply the kind of ideas that appear when enthusiasm begins to disappear.
The CD looked at their work, then pulled out a pile of layouts and showed them one. It was an idea for the same brief they’d been given. And it was great, much better than any of their own. It turned out the CD had given their brief to an aspiring team who’d come in the week before, and armed with hunger and passion, that’s what they’d given him.
Needless to say, the team got their enthusiasm back faster than you could say job security.
So if you find yourself settling for ‘good’ instead of pushing for ‘great,’ remember that it’s only a matter of time before someone else’s great work outshines your own.