Starting a company is no cake walk, it’s much easier. It’s taking it to what it’s worth and be able to make a dent in the industry, is what makes the company and the journey worth it.
“Transitioning from a billion dollar MNC that pampers you tremendously to building your first own team, to build trust with both client and employees has been a transformational journey to say the least.“
So what changes when you manage $100M Ad spent for large customers in US to 100+ clients (mostly SMEs and MSMEs) in India?
Let’s take a look.
1. The Ex-Googler tag remains with you forever.
You thought only saying “I am from Google” could get you meetings? Well, “I am an Ex-Googler” is still on the LinkedIn profiles of many senior leaders as well but it’s not a magic wand that can create clients for you overnight. It does however at least give you a conversation starter and helps you stand out among the 100 other agencies in the market.
2. Hiring the first 3 people in time, is like throwing a stone in the dire and hoping someone will catch it right that second.
Every client needs the work done yesterday. So for you too it’s always ‘need people now’ situation. You guessed it right, you are not flooded with CVs like when hiring for Google, but after much ado, you will find a bunch of enthusiastic young talent whom you are able to build trust with, and who are willing to take the plunge with you. It can take days or even weeks sometimes, but once you are there, you know that blocks are now building up. Five years down, I am proud to call out and acknowledge my 30 member team delivering some path breaking work.
3. Financial management (a fancy term for cash flows) can make or break a company.
Getting clients to pay on time is the pet peeve of all agencies in India? Yeah we heard that too. But you know what, on the contrary, we’ve never had anyone pay us later than just a few days beyond the due date. And that’s consistent despite our working on a monthly retainer model. It is also
because we ensure that we’re directly adding value to sales of our clients, so when it improves their cash flows, it gets us our payments on time as well. The key being – deliver excellent services, and people will automatically pay on time. Always!
4. A good leader is someone who can make more leaders.
Identify your core team and start passing responsibilities and decision making to some of the people in the team, who have demonstrated ownership within their job roles. You will be amazed at some of the new ideas as well as execution capabilities of the rest of the team as well.
5. The adrenaline rush of adding value directly to hundreds of businesses and watching them grow because of your work, is just unmatchable.
- We saw a one crore business become 100 crore business within just 3 years, all through digital platforms.
- Many Small SMEs who were local/ regional players, started getting sizeable business from other geographies, through our effective digital marketing strategies.
- We did media planning for hundreds of businesses across a variety of sectors. And with each sector we enjoyed dealing with its unique challenges and needs.
- We get to meet business owners and entrepreneurs of businesses from all walks of life. Businesses of different sizes, different industries, different markets, online and offline, B2C and B2B, popular sectors (like FMCG, ecommerce, fashion, education, travel and hospitality, lifestyle brands, jewelry) to the not so popular ones (like cement, analytics companies, consultancies, health, events, legal and tech). And it just enriches you more and more.
- And then you meet someone at a conference and they tell you “Yes, we’ve heard good things about Whisskers”, and you know you are a promising brand now.
So, for all those thinking of taking the plunge, go ahead, do it. It’s not going to be easy, but you’ll get used to it, and will start enjoying the madness, to say the least. It’s the impact that you create with your work that makes you who you are. Let’s transform the world together. Cheers!