Digital SurgeonsDSpresents · What Would Whit Do?

Illustrated walnut desk from above: typewriter, banker's lamp, coffee, memo stock and a fountain pen

MEMO · To: every account lead with an unread email · Re: help

What would Whit do?

A career of client lunches. Ask him anything. He'll tell you the bad news first, then pick up the check.

Slide him an email Join the waitlist Fan wiki

Whit's rule No. 1

“A client who stops complaining has started shopping.”

Whit's rule No. 2

“Never send the email you wrote angry. Send the one you wrote after the soup.”

Whit's rule No. 3

“Walk in with one problem you caught before she did. She'll tell that story at her next board meeting.”

Signature feature

Slide it across the desk.

Paste the client email you keep rereading. Whit puts on his half-moons and sends back a memo: what they mean, how worried to be, and the reply he'd send.

Incoming · from the client187 chars

Interoffice memorandum

FROM: H. Whitcomb · RE: the email you forwarded

WhW

Call today. Skip the email.

What they mean

— "Quick" is doing heavy lifting. Something is bothering them and they'd like to say it out loud, with no witnesses.
— They've already decided to change direction. They're looking for a dignified way to tell you.
— The word "explore" means they've taken a meeting. Possibly two.

Risk reading

Call today

Fine

Keep an eye

Book lunch

Call today

Get your coat

Morning Pour: Gin martini, upCall before five.

Send this

Dana, some things deserve a table. Lunch Thursday, my treat, and bring the list of everything we should've caught. I'll bring the three things we already have.

Plain version · Thanks for the heads-up. Can we meet this week? I'd like to hear what's missing and share a few fixes we're already working on.

Get a memo like this every Monday.

Reserve a Whitcomb Desk →

Illustration of Harlan Whit Whitcomb, a fictional silver-haired account man in a navy chalk-stripe suit and reading glasses — Harlan “Whit” Whitcomb, in the egg chair. Drawn for this site.

The man behind the desk · full fan wiki

Lunch is a meeting with better lighting.

Born 1949 in a snowstorm; he disputes the year, never the decade. Mailroom of a mid-sized Manhattan agency in 1967, partner by 1986, at a shop he declines to name “for reasons my lawyer enjoys.”

Won Pemberton Tire while rotating a tire on the boardroom table. Lost Crestmoor Soup over one vowel, then won it back. Never lost a client he'd had lunch with that month. Delivers the bad news first, then picks up the check.

He reads the subtext

Every veteran interview is tagged by situation: new CMO, scope creep, missed deadline, fee pressure, pitch defense. Whit pulls the passages that match your email.

He names his sources

Every memo carries a credit line to the veteran whose story shaped it. Each one is paid, named and on the record.

He watches the whole book

Connect your inbox, Slack and project tools. Whit sends a weekly client health memo and drafts the replies that matter.

The Lunch Tapes program

Whit learned it over fifty lunches.

Every line Whit writes traces back to real account leads who ran soap, airlines, cars and banks, recorded over lunch and paid for every hour.

Source card · Memo No. 041Illustrative

“When the client says ‘explore,’ book lunch inside a week.”

Whit picked this up from Carol Ann, account director, 1974–2002. Sample quote: final lines are approved by each paid veteran.

Program ledgerPaid in full

veterans in the founding cohort50

At least 40% women, real range across CPG, auto, finance, pharma, retail, travel and tech, plus a few client-side voices and regional shops.

per two-hour lunch session$1,500

Plus lunch, travel, and a companion's ticket for anyone over 80. A $500 follow-up for the scenario round.

of product revenue, three years3%

A founding-contributor pool split across the cohort. Every veteran is credited on the site and inside the product.

cloned voices by default0

Synthetic voice needs a separate written opt-in and extra pay. Every quote is approved by the person who said it.

Course 01

Lunch

Ninety minutes in a private dining room. Two cameras, lavalier mics, a producer, an interviewer. Agency staff stay off the mic.

Course 02

The scenario round

A week later: five anonymized modern situations. A terse email, a surprise RFP, a new procurement lead. Thirty minutes of pure judgment.

Course 03

Distillation

Transcribe, tag to a fixed situation taxonomy, pull out the rules, signals and plays. The veteran signs off on every card.

Course 04

The desk

The system watches your book, flags trouble early, drafts the hard emails and coaches the team after every meeting.

For the regulars

The bottom drawer.

Whit keeps a few things the partners don't know about. Help yourself, then close it quietly.

Pen-and-ink portrait of Bunny Albrecht, a fictional account chief with cat-eye glasses and a pencil behind her ear

Bunny's Card File

Bunny Albrecht cross-filed every one of Whit's apologies. Pull a card.

Whit Wisdom · today's card

“Never let a client see you check the time. Let them see you check the wine list.”

— H.W., card 1 of 14

Pitch Me Like It's 1962

Paste the dullest status update you sent this week. We'll hand it back with the lights down and the curtains drawn.

The waitlist · Whitcomb Desk

Give every account a Whit.

Whitcomb Desk watches the inbox, the Slack threads and the project tools, then sends you a memo every Monday with the three clients worth a phone call.

A Digital Surgeons production · digitalsurgeons.com ↗