Today we’d like to introduce you to Paul Frankel.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Paul. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
After high school, I was a musician. First as a guitar player in the folk clubs and then I played bass in a couple of popular Chicago bands in the early 1980s – The Falcons and Nathan-Coates. We made some records, toured around and generally had a lot of fun, headlining our own shows and opening for bands like The Go-Gos, The Ramones, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and others. Eventually we decided to get off the road and only play around Chicago, which you couldn’t really make a living doing, so I got a job as a guitar repairman at the old Wooden Music on Lincoln Ave. And, considering myself something of a writer, I did freelance journalism on the side, selling articles to various publications.
I moved into a two-flat in Lakewood Balmoral and the couple upstairs were in advertising. The guy ran a small agency called Quill Communications and his wife was an art director at a different agency called Nolan & Company. We became friends and they both started giving me freelance copywriting jobs, which I discovered came pretty easy to me. Advertising copywriting primarily requires two skills; coming up with a good concept to sell a product and then writing the body copy to explain it and convince people to buy. Most writers are good at either one or the other, but I found I could do both really well.
Eventually, I joined Quill full-time, but after a year or so, I went my own way and started my own agency in the mid-1980s, working out of a spare bedroom in my apartment on Magnolia. By always saying ‘yes’ when clients asked if I could do something – video, radio, television – and then successfully figuring it out, my small agency grew pretty quickly from two to four to eventually over 30 people and over $12 million annually in capitalized billing. That was Waters & Wolfe in Evanston.
The business got hit hard in the post 9/11 world and we eventually ended up merging with a “Michigan Avenue” agency called Graziano, Krafft & Zale and I became president of the joined company. But I didn’t like my partners who, to be blunt, were not very bright and less than honest. And I was tired of the mid-size agency grind of always having to make big overhead and payroll, taking on clients that didn’t know the difference between good and bad work. So, in 2005 I left to start my own shop again, back in Evanston, called Origin, focused on smart identity and brand building, creating campaigns for good clients that have products and services that I believe in. These days, it’s all about online branding and search and we are very experienced and knowledgeable in those areas. We’re a certified Google Partner agency and I consult with clients around the country on the key branding and marketing issues of the times.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It hasn’t always been a smooth path. There have been many challenges over the years. We had a fire in 1999 in our high rise offices in Evanston that completely burned us out. My business manager committed suicide in 2002 and left me with over $250,000 in unpaid Federal withholding taxes, which took years to work out. I’ve had unscrupulous clients that have stiffed us on six figure bills. But you keep going, you know? I have a strong work ethic and my response to trouble is never to give up. It’s always, “what can I do to fix this right now?” Maybe it’s just delusional ego, but I believe I can overcome any problem by thinking it through and then persevering. I’m a big believer in the value of persistence.
Please tell us about Origin.
Origin is a small agency that practices integrated marketing; we believe that there’s a large benefit for clients in working with a single agency that serves as caretaker for their brand. We are either responsible for, or actively monitoring all brand touchpoints to make sure that the brand story is told consistently and effectively. These days that mainly involves online media and marketing, web development and sponsored search and SEO. Though we have considerable experience and knowledge in the senior living industry, we work with a wide range of clients and apply the same perspective to every one: defining what makes their brand unique, identifying their true customer profile, finding out where these people congregate and delivering a highly targeted and compelling message that states the client’s value proposition in the appropriate way at the appropriate time. Though that’s easily said, it’s not so easily done. The fact that we stick to that as our guiding principal sets us apart. Our clients will tell you that they like most about Origin is that we talk them out of doing things more often as we talk them into something.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Lying in the grass in my parent’s backyard on a summer day staring at the clouds moving overhead. Time seemed infinite and the world was a mysterious place filled with the potential for adventure.
Contact Info:
- Address: 813 Greenleaf St., Suite One
Evanston, IL 60202 - Website: www.origin-group.com
- Phone: 847.424.1315
- Email: pfrankel@origin-group.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/OriginMarketingConsultants/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel
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