The best brief ever

One of the best requests for work from a new client I ever got was about 18 months ago. I got a call from a COO I had never met before and the dialogue went something like, "Hi Natalie this is [let's just call her] Joan Harris from brand marketing agency [let's just call it] Sterling Cooper. I got your name from my colleague, [let's just call her] Peggy Olsen. Peggy recommended you as a fantastic B2B writer and I was hoping you could help me out. We need someone to write a monthly thought leadership piece for our client, [let's just call them] Lucky Strike. Would you be interested?"

A few great things about that:

1. I was interested and the client liked me from the first article
2. "Sterling Cooper" is a great company and they offered me a great contract for ongoing work
3. They always pay me on time every month
4. I did know "Peggy Olsen" and she knows what I do for a living but we had never actually worked together. We'd met backpacking around Turkey and in recent years have been what's known in the biz as Facebook Friends. 

As great as how all that came about and worked out, it's not the #1 new work request ever.

This is.

 I know Andy Warhol was already a big deal in his own right but he must have been been dancing on his Campbell Soup cans we he got that letter.

I bet he was all ...

Me? I wouldn't have been that jazzed.

Now, if it was a letter from Keith Richards ...

Sometimes you can actually get what you want.

PS This is what Andy came up with.