It is not possible not to agree with the observation by Sachin Marya in his Foreword that Agency Adda; The Ultimate Agency Blueprint “isn’t your typical business book”. The book truly is a treatise whose writ seems to run across domains of business and a finer understanding of life in general outside the parameters of commerce. The attribute of this book that first strikes one’s understanding is that it is not possible to read it in the hop-step-and-jump style. One has to keep reading -- line by line, page by page, chapter by chapter. Such is its flow -- executed in a fine diction whose maturity is amazing at countless places in the whole book.

 

The author, Archana Purohit, may have presented the book as sort of a guide for start-ups in service business in the digital domain. She has mingled her own wisdom gleaned from her own experience of entrepreneurial ventures with the general guidelines of launching and subsequent building of organisations -- say, teams -- through the nuts-and-bolts stages and carrying the mantle forward into their stages of maturity some time later. But that time, in the author’s consideration, does not stretch too much if proper care is taken, if appropriate measures are adopted in launching a digital marketing start-up in the extremely challenging times of today. But then, the book really makes that process appear achievable rather successfully by following an orderly thought and action. Any business can attain certain stability in just 180 days, Archana Purohit assures. Those words have a tone of confidence that can trigger the entrepreneurial spirit of anybody who has a dormant seed of the idea. Agency Adda: The Ultimate Agency Blueprint, technically speaking, has a text-bookish persona of sorts, but the manner and method of presentation is absolutely free from any drabness of an academic composition. Its language is racy and absolutely conversational -- interspersed with anecdotes and experiences of the author in her own business enterprises as well as her consultancy operations.

 

The book has been made well -- in its physical build of hardcover keep-sake form, and in its design that makes holding and reading it a happy experience. For the traditional book-lovers, it offers certain attraction in first look. An interesting facet of the book is its illustrations - - simple charcoal drawings with profound message that brings up a crack of a smile on the reader's face. The illustrations do humour the reader, but are hardly humorous as such. What they add to the book’s discourse is a lighter shade with a clear meaning and message -- and of course a happy break in the text as value-addition. The contents are, of course, of a fine, mature kind -- divided in nine neat chapters that begin with ‘Your Agency's Origin Story’ to end with ‘Zen and the Art of Agency Maintenance’. The author also talks of her ‘Path Ahead’ and wordlessly swears that no success comes overnight. There also is a silent spiritual message that the leader of any enterprise has to own up things rather in an unattached manner. This is a very profound point where Archana Purohit touches life in whose containership any business enterprise has to be sown and grown. Agency Adda: The Ultimate Agency Blueprint, thus, can add value to any personal or institutional collection and adorn executive desks -- as a ready reckoner of sorts (not just for start-ups but also for seasoned ones who may have to dart back in time for a possible recall of early days in the arena). ■