Warren Jolly

Jos Aguiar
Hey guys, today I’m live with none other than Mr. Warren jolly year one revenue of 4 million if his own company, and over 500 million managed for clients and should ask him I spoke to him was good. Six, seven months ago and I noted that Paul, you’re a bad father Miller said, Well, yeah, now what’s what do you guys manage in terms of revenue? adspend?

Warren Jolly
Yeah, so the 500 mil is actually kind of an aggregate number, right? We’re not managing that annually and verify that as well. So there’s no confusion with the audience? Um, yeah, I mean, it’s just it’s representative to representation of just sort of our experience in the paid media space. But, you know, we manage kind of mid seven figures per month in ad spend just on Facebook and Instagram. So we’re one of the larger partners and as a kind of a just, you know, sort of marketing partner for them. And for brands that are looking to drive scale from the channel,

Jos Aguiar
when you say your logic partners, for the companies themselves, or what do you mean by partner

Warren Jolly
for, actually for Facebook, right, because I mean, we aggregate spend on behalf of multiple customers, and we manage that span. So let’s say an advertiser who might have an ecommerce storefront, they might only be spending, let’s say, 100,000 a month, but that won’t get them sort of the level of access or representation, even at that level that we might be able to bring to them through our relationship with Facebook. So you’re talking about social specifically, it’s just, you know, I’m sure a lot of folks who are watching this have experienced this, everything, if you’re advertising, if you’re an advertiser on Facebook, and even if you’re spending, what you would consider to be significant dollars, the only support you can get from them is like an email address, or support ticket so that that tends to be challenging when you’re trying to grow your business and figure out this rapidly evolving ecosystem that we call we call Facebook.

Jos Aguiar
Okay, so you get a little bit more one on one support with Facebook, and they allow you to share that data with your clients type deal. That’s right. Yep. Okay. And she tell us how this all started. What is it that got you to become a Facebook partner? And what were you doing before this?

Warren Jolly
Yeah, absolutely. So I’ve been, yeah, so I’m just full disclosure, I’m 33. I’ll be 34 this year, and I got into internet marketing pretty young. I would say more so out of kind of necessity than anything else. I started when I was about 15 years old, in my kind of my parents living room. My father had just been laid off at the time. And I kind of saw that as a young kid and decided, you know, this is not the life I want to live, he was sort of working 60 7080 hours a week, you know, making kind of less than reasonable wage. And that’s, that’s sort of the time when the internet was really starting to take off, right. So I’m talking about mid to mid to late 90s. And time, there was no Google, there was no Facebook. It was it was like AltaVista and excite and like us, you know, some of you may remember those kind of old school search engines and just through kind of a family friend got really passionate about sort of technology. And initially, I started on the, on the hardware side, I would build my own computers and build for my friends. And then I got really kind of into SEO. So my start was actually in SEO, doing, you know, kind of, again, kind of, you know, early days SEO for brands, my first client was a company called norms TV, they sold that projection televisions online. And then ever since then just kind of never looked back. And I’ve never, never sort of had a corporate job, always been an entrepreneur. And fast forward to 2012 just got really fascinated about everything that was happening with Facebook and the social ecosystem. So I actually decided to launch an agency just because a new agency is, you know, sort of at the time, no one knew what was going on with Facebook, the big agencies were completely confused. At this time, it was all sort of, you know, desktop, right hand side ads. But the point is that anybody launching an agency, we would get some some really interesting access to the ecosystem. And so again, we want to distribute disintermediate what these larger agencies were doing, but also build, build expertise on the platform. And we thought at the time providing services was the best way to jump into that.

Jos Aguiar
And how does your business model work? How do you get paid for your services?

Warren Jolly
Yeah, so our business model is sort of two main main veins, right? We’ve got one, which is we’re charging a cost plus. So basically, we’re charging a commission on adspend. And the other business model is we’re partnering with a few of our customers and we’re actually taking some of the risk and also taking some of the upside. So that would be more on a kind of performance basis. But that’s a very kind of selective business for us and only limited really key strategic core partners, that that, where we think we can create a lot of mutual value. That makes sense.

Jos Aguiar
Okay, it’s pretty cool. So what are the been the biggest challenges along the way?

Warren Jolly
Man, the last challenges?

Jos Aguiar
That’s a big question. From beginning like, yeah, it’s getting to business. I mean, what have you found that personally like, is it staffing is it working and what the heck you’re supposed to do getting clients?

Warren Jolly
You know, I’ve always been sort of a natural salesman, I mean, I’m good at communicating value, I don’t, because I sell, I really do so kind of based on what I know, we can deliver and where I where I believe the ultimate value is in a very concentrated fashion for whomever I’m speaking with, right? Because the more that you’re aligned with your customers goals, the more successful you’re going to be not only in closing the customer, but also keeping them on for the long term. I think for for me, you’ve definitely challenges have been, like many other entrepreneurs, staffing, right, because without great people who are aligned with your vision, I mean, you can only you can only scale so far beyond beyond your own capabilities, if you don’t have great people kind of helping you carry that that torch, if you will. So staffing, is is is I think, you know, it’s an ongoing evolution for us. And I think, again, because what we do is so relatively new and so niche and specialised, it’s tough to find people who have that sort of core expertise and experience, because that’s really, really important to the customers that we service on the on the sort of agency side. So staff has been a big challenge. I think keeping up a Facebook’s been a big challenge. You’ve got the spirit and $50 billion business that’s rapidly changing, rapidly evolving. Yeah, it’s just constantly changing every single week. And I think, you know, for us, fundamentally, it’s, it’s staying really, really focused. Also, I would say, that’s not necessarily a challenge, but it’s something that I’ve always been sort of cautious of, because I’ve got expertise and other channels as well, message channels, I mean, other digital marketing platforms, but the, it’s always like, it’s always sexy to do multiple things. And you know, and be offers multiple different solutions to your customers. But staying focused, has been both a challenge as well as kind of a core focus of ours, if that makes sense. Okay.

Jos Aguiar
How do you find people who are good at Facebook? Do you find them? Or do you train them?

Warren Jolly
nowadays? I mean, we mostly trained them, right. So, again, like, there’s such few, let’s say, for every 100 search marketers, right, there’s probably 123. And then on the second half, no, it’s it’s just for

Jos Aguiar
every 100. Yeah,

Warren Jolly
yeah, exactly. So a lot of those folks, you know, so we’re based like, between LA and San Diego, our quarters, it’s an A, we’re in a place called Orange County. And most of like the really good paid social marketers will be like, either in LA San Francisco or New York. So for us to hybrid of bringing people down, that we can kind of relocate, that want to move out of one of those areas, as well as trading up folks who are really sort of mathematically inclined. Because when you’re buying media on any platform, you really need to understand the numbers first. And then you can partner that sort of math ways with someone who’s, who’s creatively inclined, right. And that marriage really, really, really both itself to being able to able to execute and optimise and make rapid decisions.

Jos Aguiar
Okay, a couple other questions here from other people. Let me just see if I can bring them up. may have seen a few yourself to the moment.

Because questions are how do you set your credibility in the market decided to reach there was still only customers you’re getting? You got some major clients there. Had you come and Mark, they say, Hey, we know we’re talking about and obviously getting that business.

Warren Jolly
Yes, it’s a good question. I think I actually get asked this question a lot. And my answer is always the same. I think it sounds sort of cliche, but at the end of the day, like there’s two things you have to put the customer first, and you have to demonstrate that with with a reputation that if a prospect wants to pick up the phone and call someone who’s a customer that you work with or you work with in the past. You’ve got to be certain that You’ve always done a great job for that customer, and that they’ll give you a positive reference. And I think, secondly, this is probably the most important piece is you have to know what the hell you’re talking about. So in an ecosystem, like what we do, I mean, again, there’s, there’s really, there’s a simple way to look at social media marketing. And then there’s a really advanced way to look at social media marketing. And because we’re focused on larger customers, you know, kind of enterprise fast growing fast growing mid market companies, and venture backed startups, we have to bring a level of expertise to these companies that have significant resources, in comparison to just you know, kind of a family run business, and be able to offer a value add that they can’t find to develop themselves. So be a master of your craft, and really being able to go full spectrum and as deep as possible, is really key. Because if you don’t, you’re talking to a larger company who can who can be a bigger customer for you, they’re going to sniff that out very, very quickly. And in the conversations.

Jos Aguiar
The question we’ve got here is, if there’s anything, if you were to what, what are the biggest obstacles you face once you’ve already answered part? And if it’s anything that you do differently if you’re a doodle over again?

Warren Jolly
Yeah, so I think, you know, for for us, I mean, the obstacles definitely been kind of, it goes back to people again, you know, you have to, you have to have a process and kind of a framework to bring on people, especially when you’re offering services. So I think we would have probably done the the kind of age old recommendation, and I think a lot of very smart business people share, which is sort of hire slow fire fast. And because we grew so quickly, we didn’t have the opportunity to do that. So I think if I did do all over again, I would have hired, you know, a bit a bit slower. But with that being said, I mean, we’ve managed to do pretty amazing. That’s, I mean, honestly, I think we would have I think I think we would have right? It Yeah, I mean, just just to be completely candid, I really do. And I think that it’s, it’s, you know, growth is never sort of, it’s never linear, right? Like, if you look at that chart, there’s always like a zigzag zigzag zigzag. And I think I think you know, you have to be really strategic and how you hire to be able to support not only periods of rapid growth, but also the periods of, of no growth, right, or potential declines. So any kind of gun fast growing startup, that’s, that’s a, it’s it’s really important to manage your cash and your resources carefully. And payroll tends to be the most expensive part of that equation, I think, for most companies.

Jos Aguiar
This is another question right there. You just mentioned that you are a young startup top culture company, I’ve seen your videos and your photos that you do some very youthful group of people, how do you manage that being Managing Director, the person who doesn’t numbers all the time and actually keeping the culture that you want in your company?

Warren Jolly
Yeah, so great. That’s a great question. You know, look, for me, that’s not my, that’s not my strongest area. And what I’ve, what I’ve done is, so I have a business partner, who is actually my younger brother, but three years younger, and he Kenai divide and conquer, right. And I think for most entrepreneurs, if you look at the really, really successful ones, it wasn’t just one person, right? That was at the helm. There’s always kind of, you know, multiple, two, or three or four kind of co founders at all had different personalities and respective skill sets that they would focus on, to help make the overall company stronger. And for me and my brother, he’s very much the culture person and sort of the person who develops leaders within leaders themselves. Right. And so for us, we just focus on different areas of the business. And yeah, I mean, managing millennials, I think anyone will tell you, is not easy, right? As, and there’s a great video I recommend by a gentleman named Simon Sinek. So you’ve probably seen that video because it’s heavily marketed on social but it’s a 15 minute clip that talks about, you know, millennials, and it’s just spot on, right? I mean, it’s it’s something that anyone who’s running a business has to figure out, especially if you’re in digital, because let’s be frank, millennials have, they’ve grown up on social media, they’ve grown up on digital, they actually have from a tactical perspective, the deepest skill sets, so it’s important to figure out how to hire and manage them.

Jos Aguiar
Okay. What will you do for the next one, two or three years to increase your revenues and profits? Where do you see this

Warren Jolly
for us? Yeah, absolutely. So I mentioned earlier like, you know, we we’re not agency guys, I’m not an agency guy, right. I don’t I don’t intend on running kind of a services business interruption maturity. So for us, it’s very much about building our own technology and products that help us to offer what we do at scale, right. So whether that’s some technology that we’re actually in the process of building that’s going to, you know, kind of make the lives of our customers easier, something that we’re incubating internally, with our own team, or consumer facing products, where we’re able to offer a insights and access and content to consumers in a more kind of meaningful structured fashion. We’re very much looking at, you know, kind of the product and tech piece for our future. So, you know, it’s kind of the distinction between cash flow and building cash flow and building enterprise value. And where I’m at in my career is very much focused on the latter, which is, how do we take our learnings? How do we take our services, and transfer that revenue and that knowledge into enterprise value?

Jos Aguiar
The question here from democra Cesky, who is your ideal client, and has no idea of who your ideal clients are changed since you started the business?

Warren Jolly
Yeah, so answer the second question. First, it’s radically changed when we first started, it was, you know, we’ll work with anybody who is looking for Facebook services, or social media services. And now it’s, you know, sort of two and a half, almost three years later, it’s very, very, very focused. And so we’ve gone through this exercise of creating an ideal client profile, which I recommend everybody does. Even if you’re one person, as a solopreneur, you’ve got 500 employees, it doesn’t matter, you really need to figure out who your ideal customer is. Because opportunity cost is such a real thing. And if you take on the wrong customers who don’t appreciate you or don’t, you know, don’t short a good fit for your services, you’re gonna end up losing a lot of time money. For us, it’s very much that we’re looking for customers who are who are already spending or can quickly spend $50,000, a month or more in ad spend on on a variety of social channels, obviously, Facebook and Instagram being the most dominant. But for us, you know, the band is like 50,000, all the way up to a million dollars plus a month, the certain companies that spend those types of budgets on social.

Jos Aguiar
With what, what, what were the biggest, what were the biggest mindset shifts you’ve had, that have helped you achieve the results you’ve had so far?

Warren Jolly
Yeah, for me, I mean, it’s really just about when I was in my 20s, I didn’t understand the importance of managing my time and my relationships. And that mindset, mindset shift for me has been huge. So you know, doing work on myself doing personal development, I’m changing up the makeup entirely of my friends who I spend time with, and just being more rigorous about things that I say yes to. And most of the things that come my way I say no to is, has been really, really important, right? Because I think for a lot of entrepreneurs, it’s about kind of flying by the seat of our pants, right? And the more I was able to move away from that, and do things more consciously, because they aligned with what I was trying to create. I think that that’s helped me, you know, from a, from an outcome perspective, pretty significantly.

Jos Aguiar
Are you married woman or you in relationship? Not married? Have you managed that side of your life? While you’re growing a business?

Warren Jolly
Um, yeah. So I mean, frankly, the girl that I date here, she’s, she’s pretty, she’s pretty busy as am I. So, you know, having having two working professionals is, is probably the easiest way. I mean, I think, again, it’s, it’s, it’s hard though, right? I mean, frankly, speaking, like, doing what I do, I work a lot, and I enjoy what I do so. So, at some time, at some stages, it’s just hard to be balanced. But having people in your life that can be that constant reminder of like, there’s more to life than, than working is really important. And so, yeah, I’ve managed to manage to balance it, you know, by by making sure that the right sort of people who understand what it is I’m trying to do as well.

Jos Aguiar
So some another one from Qian Wang, What’s your why? Why do you work so hard? Why

Warren Jolly
do all this stuff? Yes. So I think you know, my Why is really just about I think, if you think about like what brings happiness, it’s really it’s really relationships with other people. So I really enjoy kind of building and being part of that kind of culture and you go to work and you kind of have a bunch of people that you enjoy spending time with, right, because you’re spending 40 or 50 or however many hours per week with these people. That’s really, really important. I you know, I think no one wants to be the, the wealthiest kind of, you know, Monk by themselves on top of that Himalayan mountains and not have any friendships or relationships to share that with. So for me why why is really just about building those around me, you know, my family, my friends, folks who are part of my organisations, customers, and that gives me a lot of satisfaction. And fundamentally, you know, helping wherever I can other entrepreneurs are just giving back because I feel I feel like I’ve been blessed in my life. And it’s important, it’s important to definitely give that back. So that’s, that’s probably the best way to sum up my life.

Jos Aguiar
What is your sales response from Noah Brewer? What does your sales process look like from a being introduced to client to actually closing the deal? So I guess that would start with? Where do you actually find your clients?

Warren Jolly
Yeah, so we, traditionally we found about trade shows,

Jos Aguiar
we lost you the two seconds, your company

Warren Jolly
or you don’t have a press? Yeah, my back now,

Jos Aguiar
you’re back in the beginning of that sentence.

Warren Jolly
So I was gonna say, I mean, in the beginning, for us, it was pretty much, you know, just tapping into our network and talking to folks who would be a good fit, but Excuse me. referrals, word of mouth, and trade shows were really big for us. And I think when you’re a young company, and no one knows who the hell you are, you know, going to trade shows and establishing credibility in person is can be a really, really powerful thing. So I would encourage everyone who’s watching who’s just starting out or thinking about going out on their own, you know, the don’t don’t discount the power of face to face interactions when you’re looking to secure relationships with customers.

Jos Aguiar
It’s a very traditional approach for a very digital business.

Warren Jolly
Well, absolutely, but I think at the end of the day, what people tend to forget is that they’re still human who’s making who’s making who’s buying on the other side, and they have a family and they have interest, and they have hobbies as well. So connecting with people on a, on a humanistic level, I think now, it just tended to get forgotten. Right. And I think that is it for the foreseeable future. Anyway, I don’t think that that the importance of that’s going to change or go away.

Jos Aguiar
When you say trade shows you talk about a Pacific type of trade show or industry type stuff.

Warren Jolly
I think both right. I mean, a lot of times, it doesn’t have to be industry specific. But let’s say that, you know, for us we do, one of our focus areas is the higher education market, well, you might might want to go for us, we might want to be at a convention that’s focused on higher education, in you know, in a more broader sense, and not focused on digital marketing, higher education, because then our our conversation is more unique and stands out from everybody else, rather than being there in a sea of 10 or 20, or 30. Competitors.

Jos Aguiar
Yes. So what would you say is your most valuable asset, both personally and in business?

Warren Jolly
I think my most valuable asset is probably just my ability to connect and communicate with people. Again, just going back to the earlier comment, you know, you have to be able to make people feel comfortable and trust you. And feel like, especially when you’re in a business, such as digital marketing. There’s they’re making significant commitment to us when they decide to work with our with our firms. So just just quickly be able to build rapport is really important, I think, not only in business, but also in as you’re expanding your network personally.

Jos Aguiar
It’s cool. How do you structure a team to handle growth? So in terms of the actual way, you’ve structured team, team managers, people run the ads, how’s that actually set up?

Warren Jolly
Yeah, it was, it’s, it’s changed a lot. And I imagine it’s gonna continue to evolve. So let me preface my response by that by saying that, but I think, you know, when we started out, it was very, it was very flat, right? We just had folks who were, who were there and who were willing to do that job. And there was a lot of changes, you know, like, one one employee in particular, who I think, I think she was in five or six different roles by the time, you know, in kind of a few year, timespan, right from the time of launch until recently, moving on to that opportunity. And that’s pretty crazy, right for anyone to be able to put up with that. But and I say that I say that jokingly, I mean, she obviously learned a lot in the process. But for us now, we’re structured into more of kind of a pod format, where we have somebody who’s overseeing a group of team members who are all assigned to specific accounts.

Jos Aguiar
Okay. That’s cool. And what do you see a big opportunities in the next couple of years for years in terms of growing growth? What you want to be doing,

Warren Jolly
I think, yeah, I think it’s tough to forecast what the next couple of years, if you think about the next like, three to 510 years, if you just like actually think about that step back for a moment, I think technology is going to evolve at at an incredibly rapid pace as it has, I’m sure many folks just are familiar with the Yeah, the concept of Moore’s law. And I think we try not to think you are, I would say pigeonhole ourselves that far ahead, because we still are a young company. But at the end of the day, I mean, we think social and these, these, these sort of platforms are only going to continue to be more prolific. I mean, everyone’s kind of interested to see what Snapchat does in the next few years. So our focus is to stay is to continue stay focused on on social channels, but, but also be nimble enough to evolve and take advantage of areas where we can create value and opportunities for ourselves.

Jos Aguiar
The question from Carl Aspinall, how many staff do you currently have?

Warren Jolly
25 Target above.

Jos Aguiar
That’s managing said mid seven figures each month. Yep. Cool. Colin, and if you had any advice for entrepreneurs, or even people who are wanting to get the big question today, if someone’s wanting to get their ads managed and taking on an agency, what would you tell them advise them? They should be asking what things should they be looking for in the agencies they work with?

Warren Jolly
Yeah, so I mean, I think, you know, the downside of our spaces. There’s a lot of terrible agencies. And I and I say that publicly, because most, you know, that know that. They know that to be true. I think just really being thorough about that agencies, expertise, and, and really understanding their case studies and what, where they’ve kind of chosen to focus and where their specialty is, is really, really important. And, you know, it’s, it’s always sort of it, there’s, there’s, frankly, there’s like, there’s 10,000 agencies out there, I think worldwide, that are plus 10,000 plus that just offer paid search as a service. So again, I think finding someone who has the industry and the channel expertise that you’re looking for as a as a client, is really, really key. Because again, it goes back to focus, how can they be? How can someone possibly be great at 28 different things, it’s just never gonna be, they’re gonna be the case. So find a specialist for whatever, whatever the key thing is, that’s going to be the most important at the current at this current stage in your business to grow to the next level.

Jos Aguiar
I guess conversely, for the agencies that are listening, it’d be the exact same, focusing on one area of expertise and go after that particular clientele as well as being an expert in your space. Yep, absolutely. Cool. I mean, what are you excited about the moment?

Warren Jolly
I’m excited about the evolution of technology. I mean, just again, thinking about I was just up at Facebook, a couple days ago, in Menlo Park, and you know, very, it’s not my first time at their headquarters. I’ve been there a few times before. But each time I go up, it’s just, it’s just, it’s just very inspiring. I mean, here you have a company that is looking to solve problems and work on initiatives that are 10 years out, right. So if you think about the future of technology, with, you know, sort of bioinformatics, augmented reality, virtual reality, autonomous driving, these are things that, that fascinate me, frankly, and I’m really, really interested in and again, again, I think we’re all sitting here in 2017. And some of us don’t realise that the next decade is going to create more opportunities for entrepreneurs, more opportunities for consumers, more opportunities for businesses, then then, frankly, you know, ever in the history of mankind, so what I’m focused on is just trying to keep a really astute kind of ear to the ground on, on how the space is evolving, and how these opportunities actually come to fruition for consumers. So it’s gonna be interesting to see how technology shifts the landscape for us over the next decade.

Jos Aguiar
So this has been fun. I know it’s getting late there for you. So we’ll leave you on that note. I guess one last question for you What has been the most, I guess, vital piece of advice and most impactful advice you’ve received in your life?

Warren Jolly
You know, I’ve received a lot of amazing advice from many amazing people. I think I think just just just being just being really true to yourself and what your passions are. I mean, I’ve heard that advice in many different distillations from other from folks, but just avoiding the dogma of everybody else and of the media and doing what you’re really, really passionate about. Is is to me, it’s the simplest advice, but it’s also the most impactful and I’ve always kind of, you know, referenced my life my decision making against that. So, yeah, that would be

Jos Aguiar
cool. In that case, enjoy your night and I’ll speak to you again soon. Thanks, everyone for tuning in. We’ll see you later. Few else. Cheers. Bye