Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew Palosi, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Ad Leverage, a full-service local service marketing agency & datacube.ai, a data visualization company creating custom data dashboards with beauty AND brains (AI).
It’s an honor to speak with you today.
Why don’t you give us some details about you and your story. How did you get to where you are today?
The path to learning about ones self is paved with a lot of mistakes. I started my professional career by moving from Texas to California to work in a completely new market in my original industry of radio ad sales. I was in a new town with a wife and a newborn and that was more than enough motivation for me to get to work. As I came up through radio, working with advertising partners to expand their reach on shows I helped develop such as the Steve Harvey Radio Show, I realized that I really liked helping those sames clients develop a full funnel branding strategy. With a few clients in hand, I left my radio station position to start my own full-service marketing agency, now called Ad Leverage.
As I was working to expand the agency, I was also interested in delving deeper into product marketing and adding those skills to my marketing toolbelt. After working hard to secure, develop, and import what would be the very first electronic cigarette shown on television, the FDA had other plans. Not understanding the product or market, the FDA instead of taking time to research the product tool all of my in-house inventory, seized all incoming shipments, and effectively shut that opportunity down completely. However, during that time I learned so many valuable lessons I wouldn’t have learned any other way.
To pivot to product marketing, I was required to learn every facet of a business through trial and error – from Customer Support to inventory management to how to deal with a shady business partner. Realizing that without a product the marketing content we developed could go no where, I pivoted back to fully developing out Ad Leverage. When I started this marketing agency, I spent a year or two doing it completly on my own. However, I realized after month of sleepless nights that in order to create more successful client project, I needed to start to bring on other subject-matter experts (SMEs).
Once we had expanded to 10+ people, we got kicked out of my house that we were working from and moved into a office that we still enhabit today. Since then, we’ve added two more offices, a production studio, a podcast recording booth/set, and an additional 90 people – bringing our full employee count to over 100+ people. Ad Leverage now covers marketing topics such as: Paid, Organic, UX/UI, SEO, Social Media, Email, Production, Local Service tools – at our core we are a full service traditional, and digital marketing agency.
I’m sure your success has not come easily. What challenges have you had to overcome along the way?
Where should I start? I have had the benefit to learn from any and every challenge I’ve ever faced. Bad Partnerships, FDA stealing inventory, learning a new market – it’s all its own battle.
However, the most exhausting challenge I’ve have to deal with is Covid. Learning how to pivot, especially with a large portion of our clients in the Local Business sector, was not easy and unfortunately many clients didn’t have our same success. Even national businessed weren’t immune and our largest client closed their doors forever during the height of the pandemic. Covid has been brutal, but even things like taking a mortgage on the house to keep staff is a learning experience in waiting, what matters most is how you respond to that adversity.
What’s your best piece of advice for readers who desire to find success in their life?
Best single piece of advice – craft solutions based on problems instead of pressing your own issues and assumptions based on your own perspective – don’t lose the forest for the trees – listen to the client LISTEN TO THE CLIENT – build based on their needs – what would benefit THEM the most, listen to your clients – actively listen to your team based on REAL problems and not assumptions – align on expectations.
The single best piece of advice I could give readers or anyone in or adjacent to the marketing industry is design and craft solutions based on the actuall problems a client outlines instead of making assumptions based on what perceived business problems
It’s very easy to get into a mode of “look how great we are, look at all of our capabilities” but instead of being so focused on what you can do – focus on active listening – listen to where they’re struggling, listen to their needs and build your action plan based on their actual goals and their actual business problems.
And lastly, align on expectations. Align on the expectations of what’s going to be encountered along the way and what they can expect from the plan that you put in front of them.
Speaking of success, what does the word mean to you?
Success to me is being able to make a positive impact on as many people as possible. This may sounds vague, but it’s a common golden rule across any situation – client growth, team growth, meaningful work and pay – I take it all personally and when I think of success I am measuring it by the KPI of ensuring great lives for my team, clients, and those close to me.
My version of success is in enabling professional and personal growth – as a result, they end up sharing that same value with our clients.
The more we can develop and provide custom platforms and solutions for our clients, the more we all succeed. .
Ad Leverage is an incredible incubator for new ideas and companies. Since we’ve started we’ve filed multiple patents and we’ve developed multiple SaaS businesses, such as datacube.ai, that focus on fulfilling a need or fixing a common problem across our clients. We truly believe in a shared partnership with our clients because it’s only with their insight, help and by empowering our employees and clients that we are able to find those problems and grow our team and products as intelligently as possible.
Media Contact
Company Name: Ad leverage
Contact Person: Brianna Skiffington
Email: Send Email
Country: United States
Website: adleverage.com