Informal team lands advertising account worth millions

Individually, they're freelancers talented, independent, and without much clout.

But working together, five Reno freelancers managed to land an advertising account with billings of more than $3 million annually.

And now they're looking for other accounts not a lot of accounts, mind you, but a few to conquer as an informal team.

The group came together about a year ago when Jackie Shelton, who runs Realife Marketing in Reno,was invited to bid on a piece of the advertising budget for InterDent, a Southern California company that manages about 120 dental practices throughout the West.

Shelton began calling other freelancers in the area to pull together a bid.

Joe Hansen signed on to handle the creative work.

Tiffany Frisch agreed to handle media relations.

Connie Weber took on the media buying.

Later, Esther Isaac joined the group as its business manager.

Their pitch last July was good enough to win part of the InterDent account.

In fact, it was so good that InterDent decided not much later to turn its entire advertising campaign over to the Reno group.

A new logo designed by Hansen for the company has been winning advertising awards.Weber is buying television spots throughout the West including major markets from San Francisco to Oklahoma City.

Frisch has been hustling media attention for InterDent as it opens Mountain View Dental and Gentle Dental offices in eight states.And Shelton continues to develop marketing strategies to fulfill the team's pledge to change the public perception of a visit to the dentist.

Along with its professional savvy, the team's pitch to InterDent and other clients is this:Why pay for advertising agency services that you don't need? The group that came together to handle the Interdent account privately, they call themselves "The A Team" shares the cost of a one-person staff.

But otherwise, they handle the Interdent work only when they're needed, and devote the rest of their time to their individual freelance accounts.

As different as the structure is, it requires a different type of management one that relies almost entirely on consensus-building among the participants.

The group shares profits from its projects on a negotiated basis.

"We fight.

But we make up," says Weber.

"We don't want to blow it." Shelton notes, too, that members of the team weren't exactly strangers.

They'd worked together in various combinations through the years, and they also knew each other as leaders of the Advertising Association of Northern Nevada.

Says Isaac, "There's a genuine liking for one another." A strength of the confederation,Hansen says, is this: Each of the freelancers through the years has developed a network of suppliers.

The A Team can use the best of each individual network.