I want to tell you about a time we almost got fired.

A client was celebrating 100 years. Tight timeline. We brought in a freelancer to help with the overflow, and when the script came back I was too busy to read it properly. I just sent it. BIG mistake.

What they got was a timeline video. A date, then the decades, one after another. The exact thing they asked us not to make.

The call came back stressed. “We’re really short on a deadline and this is nowhere close.”Which is a nice way of saying you’re fired.I asked for the afternoon.I went back through the interview transcripts and rebuilt it around a hook, a conflict and a resolution.

Nothing fancy. Nothing we invented either, people have been telling stories this way for hundreds of years.

She came back with “We’re back in business.”

Structure didn’t make us less creative that day. It’s the only reason we had something to work with.

Also. Read the work before you send it. Holy Moly!