cool is that once we Dennis: What’s your team developed our personality as an organization, the like? right people have come Jessika: They’re awesome. to us, so we’ve crafted I’m so lucky to have them. this team that just works so amazingly together. It’s great because that It’s also nice because makes a difference. You can never make someone many of them have had this misfit story, if you care about your brand as will, where they worked much as you do. There’s someplace that didn’t no way they’re going to see their genius because be willing to sacrifice as much as you do. However, they were trying to force if you find the right people something else on them instead of seeing what the who are passionate about what they do, they person’s superpower and kryptonite were. So it’s have this thing that’s not replaceable. You can’t just been great watching them call someone up and have have their redemption story and being able to them kind of fill in that help clients along the way. gap for them, because they’re passionate about Dennis: How did you it. But there was some recruit? learning along the way. I always wanted to hire good people, but I struggled with understanding that I didn’t have to just work with people in our own community—that my team members could work from anywhere. The team I have now is passionate about our mission and in the core of what we really believe about authentic relating— doing what’s right, not what’s easy. What’s been 10
Jessika: Asking a lot of questions and watching actions, not listening to words. Also, not being afraid. At first I was really afraid to let people go when it was time for them to go, because I needed the help, but I’ve learned that you have to cut it off immediately if you see something wrong. You can tell when a team jibes and if there’s someone that’s off, it jacks up everything. So you have to make sure
your team is all on the same page, and it’s not something you can force. We created a brand manifesto saying here’s what we’re here to do and the people we’re here to do it for. Here’s the culture deck of exactly the type of person I’m looking for. I send everyone our handbook before they even have their second interview and allow them to take a peek at our team and what we do on a daily basis. Every team member that you add is either adding culture credit or culture debt. So once we made the shift and got really serious about not tolerating anything but culture credit, more of the right kinds of people were drawn to us. And it’s been just awesome. Dennis: What do you think is the future of online marketing? Jessika: The first thing is dark social, which are private, niche social media communities. In 2019 Gary Vaynerchuk said the future of social is private, and when I look around, I see that everything is headed in that direction. As in
