MY CLIENT IS MY FRIEND

The year of 2000 was decisive. That year I got the first “permanent job” in postering with Metropolis, an OOH company. Previously, for eight years I had worked on freelance projects and assignments, from working as a waiter to working on design and theatre play production. I continued my work on freelance projects on a part time basis, but outdoor advertising became my main focus. In Metropolis I cooperated with Dušan Plećaš and led the team of approximately 60 poster pasters.

It was the position where I gave someone the sack for the first time in my life. It’s not a pleasant thing, but it’s inevitable sometimes. When you have a team of 60 people performing physical labour, without rules, there is chaos and, God forbid, injuries.

I can’t miss a thing, because I began as a poster paster and worked almost everything related to outdoor advertising.

I went through the mill, so when somebody tells me that something “cannot be done”, I know it’s not the case. I know which screws are used on billboards, what type of lighting, etc. That’s why I was invited to christening parties of some guys’ children, while I was not very liked by some other employees.

For almost two years I had worked without free weekends, because we had been working on putting up posters. Soon I started working as a media planner actively participating in sales, and that’s still my position in Alma Quattro. Officially, I am in charge of media planning, but unofficially, I am involved in both sales and planning. There is a group of clients I am completely in charge of.

My clients are not my clients only, but also my friends.

When a client calls, a problem must be solved immediately. If you don’t solve a problem at once, it will wait for you eventually, of even sooner. Therefore my primary task was to make friends with every client. And they actually are my friends. Even though they changed jobs and companies, they continued working with us and with me. The entire entertainment team which organises concerts and events consists of our friends, my friends.

You must prove yourself in order to be respected, and it takes time. Then, you can do anything: make an agreement, settle a problem, make a problem and then solve it, etc.

Although our industry seems slow, the sales department of a company is extremely quick. That’s what made me “get hooked” and stay in outdoor advertising for almost 20 years - promptness. We receive 50 to 80 emails on a daily basis and we reply to each and every of them without any mistake or automatic replies. We don’t get up from a desk until we finish the work for that day.

I am a son of a trader and I am a trader.

For these 19 years and almost 7000 days, there have been many stories and I can’t remember all of them.

For instance, the story told by my colleague Milica about putting up a poster in the cage with bison/buffalos - I was at the scene. The poster paster did not want to go into the cage because he had red overalls. I told him to take them off. The guy pasted up the poster in underpants.

The specific thing about Alma Quattro’s personnel is also specific for New York, and that’s a melting pot. Different people with different interests, temperaments, talents, and experiences in one company united with one objective.

Prosperity