This garbage man collected loads of candy on Halloween night.

By Jim Houck

That idea’s garbage. I love it. Let’s do it.

One of my kids wanted to be a garbage man for Halloween. This year, this six year-old has been infatuated with garbage trucks. He can cite the names of all the collection companies that service our community. He knows what color trucks they drive and whether they use front-loaders, back-loaders or even side-loaders. Who knew there was even a difference? He likes front-loaders the best, by the way.

No disrespect to that occupation intended, but my preference as a parent would be that he apply that level of enthusiasm to something a little more, say, ambitious.

Or is it?

Frankly, maybe passion about something trumps apathy about everything any day of the week. Maybe if he’s got a plan he’s set on executing, it’s my job to clean up that “garbage idea” into something workable. Happy kid, happy parent. Right?

It’s kind of like working in public relations and marketing. Company leaders and other non-marketers we work with sometimes can’t help directing what image to use in a piece of creative, what premise to take in a media relations pitch or what tactics to employ in a product launch. And some of those ideas, to be honest, are clunkers (Note I said “some” not “all,” for any clients reading this).

Still, it doesn’t pay to dismiss that input, clunky as it may seem (though I’ve worked with marketers who carry an I’m-the-only-one-capable-of-an-idea mindset). Believe it or not, sometimes non-marketers are actually capable of some brilliance on their own.

Nor is it worthwhile to blindly go along with all ideas – however poor they might be – just to maintain peace and love in the circle. (I’ve also worked with subscribers to this philosophy.)

Rather, the best marketing professionals listen carefully to ideas and help transform them, when needed, into workable solutions. They find ways to get to “yes” without compromising their integrity or the effectiveness of the finished product. It can be the most difficult of the three options, but it’s the most rewarding when executed well.

My little garbage man was so excited to gear-up in his costume on Halloween morning. Heck, he might have even been the first-ever sanitation engineer at his preppy, private elementary school Halloween parade.

But I was proud of him for knowing what he wanted and sticking to it no matter how many way-cooler Star Wars or sports-themed costumes we offered to buy for him. And his insistence on helping out on trash night around the house since this infatuation started isn’t such a bad consequence, either.

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Jim Houck is a senior consultant at Pecchia Communications, an Ohio public relations firm that advances good ideas.