Part Seven: Dashboard, then and now.

As Dashboard turns 10 in January of 2011, Barry Hillier, our CVO, looks back at the company on where we were and where we are going.

Some people are unforgettable…

I remember watching TV and seeing the stock market drop, drop, drop as I began to think that I may have planned that first vacation with my 4 year old daughter and wife to Disney a little too soon. At this stage, it was nerve racking, but no one really knew how bad it would truly become. Regardless, the trip was booked and we enjoyed an incredible week where my daughter was able to actually meet a “real mermaid” and several other characters that had her transfixed with a smile from ear to ear. Returning to the office, I knew that the bliss of the holiday was going to wear away quickly.

We held an offsite to discuss preparations for what was obviously going to be difficult times ahead. Fortune raised its’ head with us twice during the early months of the recession. Prior to September, we were filling up our office with desks literally in the hallways. We had been in the process of negotiating additional space in our building to allow for continued expansion. Thankfully, we didn’t sign to find ourselves with excessive overhead as we managed the business through 2009. It’s a difficult balancing act where you invest for growth but also attempt to properly manage your business in a way that ensures you are lean and nimble. Make the wrong call at the wrong time and you feel the effect. We made the right call. Our second event from good fortune was the return of Brent Wees. We admit that we are hard to forget and in the case of Brent, we never forgot him either. Each of us found ourselves needing the other and timing synced up perfectly. He joined us to manage Toyota at a time where we really needed deep expertise on the account. We weren’t the only business affected by the recession and we needed to work even harder for our clients.

2009 was a tough year with difficult decisions. Clients were pulling back dramatically and revenues were falling. We needed to manage costs and hope that the Spring would bring an end to the recession. It’s incredible how difficult situations bring out the best in people. We, like many companies, had to look at the staff and contemplate lay-offs. We had grown to over thirty people and every client in every category was pulling back. We needed to plan how we would keep as many people employed as we possibly could. Our head of Strategy at the time, John Filipetto, was also an accountant in a former life. He’s a great guy. Smart, funny and a very humble guy. He also was a client at Dashboard, having hired us to launch Axe Body Spray in Canada. He pulled Daryl and I aside and literally threw himself on the sword. He knew what we were facing and he felt that he could save two jobs if he resigned. Incredible! I’m still amazed and feel very indebted to him for that act of graciousness and self-sacrifice. During the worst of it all, he stepped up to help his co-workers. Thanks John.

We still had to face lay-offs, but we worked hard to respect our co-workers and minimize the number as best we could. 2009 was really a depressing year for our agency and for our industry. I read that we had 20% unemployment. After all, clients could reduce their advertising dollars to push money immediately to the bottom line. This couldn’t continue of course, given brands need to advertise to grow themselves and we started to see things improve in late 2009. Through it all, the entire team worked hard and we managed the company well while rebuilding our staff above our pre-recession numbers. I was reminded that the worst in all of the experience wasn’t losing money, but losing good people.