I never wanted to start an agency.
I wanted to make ads. I wanted the energy, the travel, the Cannes Lions, the three-martini lunches. I wanted to be part of something that felt alive. Starting a business was never the dream. It was just what happened when I came back to Kansas City after three years at Carmichael Lynch and nobody was hiring.
So I started Meers Advertising. And I made a decision that would cost me the better part of two decades.
I decided to be a generalist.
It wasn’t a stupid decision on its face. Carmichael Lynch was a generalist shop, and they were the hottest creative agency in America at the time I worked there. They’d won the 4As A+ Award, which recognized a body of work, ten campaigns not just one, two years running. That’s the kind of agency I wanted to build in Kansas City.
What I conveniently ignored was everything else I knew.
I had a specialized degree in agricultural communications from the University of Illinois. My first job out of college was building an ag division for Caldwell-VanRiper in Indianapolis because their CEO wanted to go narrow and needed someone to do it. I then joined Fletcher/Mayo, the largest agricultural advertising agency in the nation, managing brands like Ralston Purina, Pioneer, DeKalb, Eli Lilly, and International Harvester.
The signals were everywhere. People pay more for specialists. Specialists win work generalists never see. Specialists build reputations that compound over time.
I ignored every single one of them.
The generalist years were not a disaster. They were something worse: they were inconsistent.
Some years we made money. Most years we didn’t. We’d hire people, then lay them off. We chased whatever walked through the door. Our only filter, if you could call it that, was clients with a pulse and a budget. Any category. Any size. Any problem.
“Mammals with money,” I used to say. I thought it was funny. It wasn’t. It was a business model built on hope.
Twenty years of that. Twenty years of grinding, scrambling, and leaving margin on the table I didn’t even know existed.
Then, in 2008, in the middle of a recession of all times, we landed a project with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City. An innovative initiative using text messaging to generate health insurance quotes. The idea worked. It spread. Over the next eight years, we worked with 27 Blue Cross plans on customer acquisition.
The universe had hit me over the head with a cosmic 2x4.
We took the hint. We focused the agency on insurance and financial services. And something remarkable happened. We didn’t just grow. We averaged 22% profit every year for nearly a decade. No more layoffs. No more scrambling. Clients who actually wanted to hear from us. A media team that walked on water because they knew more about lead generation in healthcare than anyone in the country.
Focus didn’t shrink our world. It clarified it.
Here’s what I’ve since learned about why agency owners resist specialization.
They’re afraid of leaving money on the table. And they will leave some. That part is true. But what they don’t calculate is the opportunity cost of staying general. The pitches you lose because you’re nobody’s obvious choice. The talent you can’t keep because the work isn’t interesting enough. The prospects who don’t return your calls because you’re interchangeable with fifteen other shops.
When you focus, something shifts. Clients look forward to your calls. Prospects welcome a conversation. Your people are energized because they’re becoming genuinely expert at something. And you command higher margins because clients can feel the difference between a vendor and a specialist.
Worried about betting on a category that might disappear? It’s a legitimate fear. I watched it happen to Fletcher/Mayo when the ag recession hit. If that keeps you up at night, focus on an audience or a business problem instead of a vertical. Own Gen Z. Own QSR. Own the conversion funnel for regulated industries. Own something.
Just stop trying to own everything.
There’s a Chinese proverb I’ve been thinking about lately.
The teacher will appear when the student is ready to learn.
It took me almost twenty years to be ready. A recession. A text message campaign. A health insurance client in Kansas City who had no idea they were about to change my business forever.
I don’t tell this story to be humble. I tell it because I’ve spent the last several years sitting across from agency leaders who are exactly where I was. Talented, hardworking, and completely unable to see the trap they’re in.
The lesson isn’t complicated. It’s just expensive to ignore.