How to get into the advertising business?

Say you have a small photog business and you are conquering your area with portraits and the occasional wedding, and it's going okay, maybe 4-8 shoots a month, but you want to move on to something bigger and better.

option 1: advertise my small business and increase sales, make more money, name gets out to big agencies, I get a call.

option 2: I go out and find these agencies, send them some work, asking for a job?

If anyone has any insight on how this works, I'd be glad to know!

Option 3: Find out who the art director is for the type of work that you think you can do. Make an appointment. Show up with a dozen samples of your best work.
Keep in touch.

Option 4: Some agencies have a day set aside for new reps & vendors to display their work to several ADs at the same time. Ask.

Find out who makes the decisions wherever you're trying to get in.

Then wine them and dine them.

There's a crap-ton of nepotism in the commercial advertising world.

You better be a kick ass photographer with extensive and consistent results.

Dooms_day wrote in post #15359781
Say you have a small photog business and you are conquering your area with portraits and the occasional wedding, and it's going okay, maybe 4-8 shoots a month, but you want to move on to something bigger and better.

option 1: advertise my small business and increase sales, make more money, name gets out to big agencies, I get a call.

option 2: I go out and find these agencies, send them some work, asking for a job?

If anyone has any insight on how this works, I'd be glad to know!

Option 1 seems like an unlikely scenario unless you're doing something photographically that's really special.

Option 2 (while conventional and still difficult) is probably the better choice.