Inside the Minds of India’s Top Agency Founders | Watch Now! Agency Founders Roundtable - Mumbai

Sam.

So, guys, thank you for being here. For Agency Founder. So Agency Founder is something that the idea of the seed was born around Covid, because, you know, I have my hotel business, and I was running the agency and the hotel business, and the agency was also 100 hotels. So when Covid happened, we realized. That's the first time I realized, oh, my God, you know, my mentor was right. I should have diversified. And we had nothing to do with that's. You know, when cost of acquisition on a webinar was 50, 60 rupees, started doing webinars and talking about different, different things and selling programs. So we were doing extremely well. So at that time, we realized a lot of people. So I was selling a program called Micro Video Mastery to everybody. But then I realized that the people who got maximum value or the people who resonated with me most were agency founders because I was able to tell them things that they were like, how the hell do you know? Because we've been through those pain points, you know, so similar. So we said, okay, we. So agencyfounder.com and everything, we booked and we said, we'll do something someday. So then what happened was recently I started. I was talking to my mom, and I was like, you know, mom. Then, you know, my mom and dad, they're 70, 75, but they're as tech savvy as all of us. Like, you have no idea. So we're just talking about the Instagram algorithm. I said, you know, ask you, date me if I want to look for a particular set of sneakers or, you know, a jade necklace or something as crazy as that. Or now. Or even hoodies like this. You just go and click it too. And thank you. But if our touch has allowed us to go do that, what is next? It's going to be thought. What if thought is already there and we only didn't know about it? That means if I think of something, that thing should be made possible. Now, I don't want to say it's manifestation and all of that, because like we were saying, if you give it a word, then people have different interpretations of it. So let's not give any interpretation. It's just that thoughts are going out. So we said, fine, if I. If Agency Founder was to become successful or whatever, to launch, let me just put the thought out there. And then Elon Musk also said, neuralink is coming with thoughts. So it's all become very machine guys, right? So it's not a big thing Now. Manifestation is on demand. So I said, and then, sure enough, in the next few days, I wanted to talk to you. I'm an agency founder. Can we do something? So we, I. A founding team came together and we said fine, even though we're very busy running the agency and the other business, we'll start something called agency founders and we start consulting with agency founders. Then we said we'll start a one on one program. Then we started a group coaching program. And I realized over a period of time, the first year is always more learning. I think we realized that there are seven basic modules on which agency founders are having challenges like all of us, starting from the mindset to the fitness. Like I said, when I put on weight, it's a direct reflection on my balance sheet. I don't want to go for as many meetings, I don't want to do as many videos. All of those things started happening. Then my known. Then I realized most agency founders when they. So the get known part came when I realized most agency founders said my sales cycle is long because people ask me the same boring 10 questions. Tell me about yourself. This, this, this, this. So why don't they know you about know about you already? You know that These are your 500 prospective clients in the next few years. Why don't you upload? They don't make a custom audience out of it. Run those ads so that they keep knowing about you. So we developed a get known then about leads. So most agency founders said that they don't have a shark tank approach to leads, which means a shark tank investor will come and ask you, tell me how you get predictable leads. Only then I can invest in your business so they don't. 3 leads a day, 15 a week, 60amonth per vertical. 2.5%. 3% will convert. I'll get 2 people every month with 3 lakh rupee retainers. So I'll have 72 lakh rupees coming. In this course, there's no measurability. Okay? So we created a measurability model like that for get sales, get teams, get systems. We understood various problems and we, and then we came up with a tagline which came from, you know, the wisdom of the masses which was say no to no more low paying, rate paying, toxic clients because we think we're doing them a favor. Now the person has already taken us, we've already lost respect by saying I can come at this price. And the most important thing is there are three types of people. One person is selling nails and a hammer. The other person is a carpenter. He's saying nails and hammer I'll get you. Tell me you want a table fixed or whatever. The third person is the architect who said, tell me what you want. 5,000 square feet. You want a room, pocket studio. I'll get the carpenter, he'll get the nails. We'll figure it out. So the architect obviously gets more respect and more money than the carpenter and the person who's selling the nails and the hammer.

So.

But most agency founders I found in that first one year were people who were doing 3, 4, 5, 6, up to 10 crores also, but they were selling features only. When they didn't hear back from the client, they went back and said, that's not the right way of doing it. Because I was always an outsider. I was talking to Akshay outside. I was saying, because I was an outsider, which now I'm proud of. Earlier on, we always, you know, when you start a business, for most people, or at least it was for me, I was trying to fit in. Now I'm not an outsider. I was trying to say agency world and all of that. But then I realized because I was an outsider, maybe that's why I was able to. And plus, the thing is, the desperation for money when I started was a lot. And so I needed to get my first few lakh rupees retainer. So, you know, we had documented proof that we showed on my first. My first few retainers were 1 lakh a month, 2009, 5 lakhs a month. And all of that, it's just because I didn't know any better. But then it's. It just remained like that. And then we like. And we realized the retainers don't happen after that. Everybody is like, what can you do for me? So then we switched and we set a micro niche, understand one business, give a percentage of that. So with all these thoughts, agency founder sort of came about and, you know, we're at a 1 crore rupee per month kind of a level only in our coaching and consulting right now. So that means agency founders are coming and all of that. So this is an initiative to start the first round. We did one in Delhi, first round across India to work with people, understand problems and, you know, being able to give permission to the other viewers to say, this is how you're solving that problem. So everybody gets an answer by the end of the podcast and they can solve their own problems. Agencies and then obviously meeting people in different cities. That's the other idea. And to be able to start agency dinners very soon, which is going to be a BNI Format for agency founders in every single city. So just so that everybody can collaborate, what do I get out of it? Obviously the brand. Eventually I'm going to send my coaching and consulting out of that. So we get the brand out of it. Because Internet, the agency founders dinners are happening under the brand. But if every Wednesday or every Thursday we can do a dinner in every city in the country starting with 15, 20 people in a format like this where it's formatted answers and people get value, I think it will be something which everybody is looking for. So that's my long answer to a very short question like what are we doing here? So now with that we'll get started and after this we'll keep it very unstructured or however it goes. Right?

I already have a domain for that. Yeah.

Get started with that. You know, we talk about. He said that my co founder told me that.

I think that title sailed. Honestly, you know, like I think Covid was horrible for all of us. Right? Like I know people who are getting paid, you know, like 10, 12 lakhs, you know, getting hired at 36 lakhs. Outlandish. It just beats a business modeling in general. I have a specific name. It's called the classic dash model. The dash is to a person who used to work with us and the people always come back because I think that, I think the industry has now matured. So I don't think that that's a problem that we are facing that we're facing anymore. But yeah, yeah, 100 like, I mean I've also had instances that I've called up other agency founders saying boss, he's left in one day.

Perfect. Love it.

You know, and he said no, no, no, no, I don't need the person. I said then all the best, man. I mean I didn't know who you were. I didn't know what you were doing. I have taken the trouble right now, right to just try and say that boss, he's quit salary plus one day, guys, come on man. Like, but yeah, but until all of.

Us don't come together then 100 plus also everything is so angst, you know, but it's good. No, this because I, because my mentor told me if you find angst, you find a community. I know man. Seriously. I also have a website, but it's on the client side. It says they don't pay dot com.

I have a Google sheet. It's not even password protected. It's like anybody who has link and view, please share.

Don't go to these clients. You Know somebody told me that this for mouth.com they don't pay dot com.

Right? Yeah.

But you got saved. So after knowing so much from and starting from, you know like from a level where I had no idea I made every mistake in the book during when Covid finished we had 8 crores and I was angry. 8 crores in the market, only hotels. And I was angry because the hotel because many people took it as a ticket to profit. You know. So anyways, so you either that new model that comes into place which you were talking in the morning with the hotelier group and we were also talking right now outside you get a client. We have clients like that. We get a client where we charge nothing as a percentage on the upside and you have employees who get paid nothing fixed and huge percentage on the upside. Let there be an ecosystem like this and if there's an entrepreneurial mindset, Vala candidate, he will come and kill it and make 3x the money that he wants to make.

But challenge the whole system so unstructured at the moment. Like even between all of us there are various sizes. Someone who's coming out of a college, who's well versed with the Internet platforms is coming and saying I can start an agency tomorrow. And they at our levels with our set of experiences where we unfortunately are competing with that person.

Yeah.

As much as we'd say we'd not take up those clients, they are approaching a larger plus. A lot of us come up with the inhibition over a period of time. Right. We know a lot of us know things in that sense. Right. That and that sort of leaves room for these overconfident under experienced people. I want to use other words but people for to enter the market in the first place and then sort of hustle their way up. And for the client it is not much of a loss because they're spending only small amount of their risk is very, very small, almost negligible. So tomorrow they could replace someone else. What we essentially need to do is have a filtration process, have a way in which every, every industry has its own assigned groups of people. Our entry barriers are so low we really need to start working towards that within the marketing.

But I have a question. I have a question and I'll start with Prateek and then anybody can jump in. Pratik, tell me so my answer to this question on how I've been able to safeguard myself. We're bootstrapped. We're profitable from day one. No co founders. Everybody is a co founder in terms of Hard work they put in, but not on paper. We've gone so deep into understanding one industry and now one or two industries more. So when we go to a hotel, we say for example, if a 300 room, we see what are the lean periods. Lean period. I can give you only 5 rooms extra per day. Such a small promise. It's like one and a half percent of your business. And that average length of room light is 10,000 rupees. Average length of stay is 30, 10,000 rupees. So 30,000 for one customer. You multiply the whole thing. It comes to one crore by my giving him just that much business, 7%. For that I will run whatever. Now that is understanding an industry to such a level. I know that your burgers will sell between 12 and 5 and it will not sell in the evening. And you ask me why. I'll tell you something which only the chef would know. Just a little bit of deep understanding of the industry separates me from the new kids who want to just sell the carpenter vala model or the nails and hammer vala model. They don't want to be the architects. So I think it's upon us to become experts at that level. Otherwise competition. At this level there's less competition because people. One thing that I'm realizing is that human beings don't like to think or. And so if you can think and become an expert in one or two industries, you'll be able to. There won't be competition. What do you guys think? Is that good or is there any other way of doing it?

I'll answer the question. I think. I think competition is my greatest motivator in anything. Right? Like, I think they keep us real, right? Like, do I consume all the content that today's generation is consuming? Absolutely no, boss. I'm done by the end of the day. I have a family. That's where I want to spend time. Am I at that age? Do I understand what their context is? No, I can only pretend to understand that. Right? And 10 years, 11 years, 12 years ago, I was sitting on the other side of the pond. Where, you know, that time. Now we're mature digital agencies, networks, whatever cool words you want to call ourselves. And back in the day they were mainline agencies, right? We were those people, right? But that's where we developed the network model, right? Where we turned around and said department, I have 10 crores of video work. I put 5, 6 crores of people, 2, 3 crores of overhead profit, you know, go home. Very good. Is that the best video team out there? No, you've not built your sink. Entrepreneurial mindset. We all started with an investment mindset, but now suddenly we have gotten back into a corporate mindset of saying, you tell me next year's projection. They said, right, I don't know, the fourth month the person is going to be there. What the hell are you even talking about? And that's why when we switched from this department mentality, because for two seconds, if I can take myself seriously, a lot of these rules that we are discussing, we built. Yeah. Unknowingly we built it, right? Like we unknowingly built it. We did have client servicing people because. Right. And we went and sold digital. You don't need client servicing. You need people who have all skill sets, very good clients bought. We make money. Right? But. But today you need client servicing people, right? That I can turn around and say, hey, there is Foxymoron. Foxymoron. We want to deal with only a certain cadre of clients because today there is a need for somebody who can take you the whole hog also. Right? Which those five, 10 or even those three, four people cannot. We've seen brand life cycles, right? We understand what happens when you go high. We understand what happens when you go down. We know what you need to change. Communication will do what media will do, what PR will do, what Solana will do, what IQA will do, right? But for us to try and get these people into our ecosystem and continue to refresh, what's the brainchild behind building this network we were discussing? We've acquired an agency called the Starter Labs, right? Like Starter Labs, My, my. My business partner, he met them at Bombay gym. They used to play football. One was the captain, one was the vice captain. They sat at him. Singh Kannai Agency. Right? Now we finished acquiring 51% of them. They've grown four, five times, six times, seven times, right? We are learning from them in terms of what's happening new. They're learning from us. Shared resources, shared spaces, shared account, shared finance, shared intelligence, shared business. So automatically, good for them, good for us. Right? And then we're able to go after a collective goal. Right? So I do think this, this barrier though has to be built through unity.

Yeah.

This barrier is never going to be built through people not coming in. I'm so very happy that people. Somebody's coming and told me that, telling me there is Ganji should have. I'll make a face, I'll say, what, what kind of absolute is this? Right? And then, and then somebody will go and sell it and then it becomes a trend. Somebody has to stand up and said, boss, getting listed on social Samosa is not your bloody price. You know, like, I'm sorry but like forget the paid listening boss. Like if you are a, if you are a brick and mortar brand, right. And you know like has made a speech, what the hell do you have to do with it? You know, like so.

But I do have a human. That's the idea.

Correct. Right. So I, I don't.

You're too young to be able to think that agency.

I also do want to go back to the payment point. So we found a lot of views in the whole MSME portal thing where just going and uploading your case and filing a case.

Really? Oh, I didn't know that. Yes. Oh, got it, got it. Okay. That part.

Yeah. Essentially meant by entry barriers was the fact is, I think the reason that I started daiquiri when I did was that I saw a lot of people take the clients for a ride. So by the time a client comes to me, the reason that they set up for a small ticket count, if they're coming to me with an apprehension already agencies, they are coming to me because they have no choice. They need an agency to work with them, but they also don't that the window of trust is built. That's why they are with me on the table. But it's still not 100% there with me because they'll always question the conversation that I'm having. Secondly, we are in an industry where everybody has an opinion, everybody thinks they can start an agency. Everybody thinks marketing. The larger concern here is being able to create a united front, being able to talk about, okay, Meripas, I have a bunch of clients that I work with. I can't have an entire full fledged agency under my wing right now. But we can collectively work together, help each other build that trustworthy ecosystem. Where I can say this is not the kind of client I'm going to take. Maybe you're interested. Like you'd get a lot of people from your.

But starting in the middle of this, we are forgetting one very important stakeholder. Right. It's called procurement. Yeah. I mean I told myself to not be this person but like there is a very big difference between buying cement and brick to make a building.

Yeah.

And to get a service based agency. Right. Much of this, this sub G1D attitude is just horrible. And 9 out of 10, actually 10 out of 10 people don't even understand what we put you.

Yeah. Yeah.

So then they are comparing you and you know, I'M I'm. And you're just sitting on the other side and saying doctor prescription. Right. But, but the problem is that the doctor has, you know, like those 67 letters below his name, you know, and is saying that these are the kind of degrees that I have and for us it's not there. But this united front is generally a requirement. But the problem with united front is that it's a quintessential whole class wanting to do mass. That one person is the problem. One person who makes it on that same day is the actual bog in the field that makes us all look weak. And that's everywhere.

That's everywhere. That's everywhere. But now that we are already on the procurement thing, how do you deal with it? Aggressive, very aggressively.

Like I, I, to start like before, before my pitch cycle only starts. I said it's just a procurement. Right. And that's when the conversation starts. Right. And so it's, it's important to push them back. Right. Because they have this holy grail on top of their head kind of a situation which will also go. Right. Like Nike said, on a long enough timeline, everything.

Yeah.

Equates itself. And it's happening also because today people are asking, saying, hey, I want quality. Right. And I turn around and say, hey, I want money. You know, like, you want the same person to be there three years from today, I need to pay the same person salary.

Yeah.

You know, like, so it's, it's good for pro. And you give me, I give it.

But in that context, you find it easier to deal with the owner of a company on the other side.

But.

Sorry, sorry to cut you. Right. If you ever done a, if you've ever done a, a government tender as an example. Oh, yes, no, I'm saying the weighted average, right. It overly skews you towards cost. Right. So in, in hundreds of the cases that we've been around, they've been like, hey, we want to work with you. Now you make it work with the, with the procurement guys, which is just not possible. It's not possible at my overheads, it's 100. Not possible at my overhead, it's not possible to the kind of people that I'm hiring. Right. You are saying, okay, if my CEO is getting paid a crore and a half, that boss is going to come back to you at some point in time. Right? It.

But tell me, does it, does this, you know, this conversation that we're having, does it hold true for when things are non tangible and we're trying to show them an Outcome or like for example, again, I'm coming back to what I know best, which is hotels. We're going to get you X amount of rooms plus minus 10% x amount of weddings. You're going to convert it 4%. I'm already char percent. It comes to a number, we take a percentage. It does. It's not very difficult. So does it become difficult that you guys are seeing when it comes to brand and creative and all of that?

Yeah.

Right. So can we, can we make them tangible? Is there ways of making things. Call all of them for a roundtable, make them feel important, take them for dinner, break the ice. Right. And then I'll get back to you. Understood. But I just wanted to get back to this question if you can tell me, because this is one thing that is asked on the channel most of the times. How do we make the untangible tangible? Have you figured out in your overall?

I'll quickly touch upon that. So recently we wished for a very large client. We're supposed to design and develop which.

Client and how much did you pitch?

I what's emailing and there are regular clients as well, but one department of Mahindra. So it was supposed to be somewhere about the total cost was somewhere about going to be 35 lakhs. And we knew Charan Georgia proposals again which is somewhere about 30, 35. And I was happy and I was in a meeting and my business head was kind of. She was taking the lead and she mentioned and issued. We still not thrill with the entire proposal cost. And there's an amazing strategy these guys have come up with and you guys will be. I don't know if you guys have come up with you know, phases. So what they did was they called that there is going to be one hour life reverse bidding. And I was okay wedding like you know, this is our final walk away cost and we will walk away beyond if the price goes through then after two hours and it was supposed to start at 12 and end at 1pm she calls me around at 2:30. Sure the bill is still on. What is the lowest we can like like and can you imagine what cost did they signed up for? 5 and a half.

Oh, I think these are all negotiations. No, no they're not.

Then you reach this stage of what she was talking about that everyone is disgruntled. Right. When you throw peanuts, you're going to get monkeys first.

Founders Nowadays founders are working on their own brand precisely for that reason. The reason that founders are becoming a brand themselves is because it's on Their name.

You won't be able to avoid it.

But that's not, I mean everybody, every day in the, in the office is like, why don't you do it? This is what you do for a living, man. It sure, I get it. Like business, business up front and center will do it, can do it. And she's absolutely right. We're only doing it because somebody somewhere, it's not even credibility building, right? Like if I'm walking into an organization today and they said, hey, we know you, we know about you. All of that stuff has already been done. But now for me to establish this over that, over that procurement person to show you, you know, like do you know, come on man.

But we also look at it from a perspective that we are looking at it because we are over all of it. It's been what, close to 20 plus years for all of us almost within our own ecosystems in the marketing field itself. Right. So we are over a lot of these bright and happy, starry eyed communication conversation that we've had because we've already done that, we've done what we aspired to be.

But it's still working and I'm still doing it. Just putting it out.

Awesome. It's just not, it's not, it's not making us as. That's our approach to it rather than oh, are we excited about this thing, right. I mean just to sort of take, take on from what you're saying, which kind of is a space where I think somewhere down the line maybe we've gotten into a fatigue and a mindset.

Where we sort of got thank you for being there. So I'm just saying we go after 5,000 hoteliers, try to close 50 or 45 every year and only those people see the ads or you know, the videos. And 30% or 25% of those meetings, you go first, you give us few selfies and then you say 50% sales cycle, it is working, you know, and 100%. But coming back to this question, I can't let this go because you have such a good panel. How do you make the intangible tangible when you have to numbers?

Yeah, you can. It's not like you can't.

Right.

But also the problem is that the value of the belief on the other side has also become so poor. Right. Like if I, if I throw penny into a bowl for every time I ask somebody, okay, what is it that you want to achieve and what is the budget you want to put behind it? Every person will say, I don't want to give You a budget to restrict your creative.

Yeah.

What are you saying, bro?

Like.

Creative superb NASA scientists also who build it for them. You will eventually restrict me because of your financial constraints. Tell me. Right?

So.

And, and that's the problem. Right? Like, and the problem is that lots of us accept the answer. Say, okay, so let me know when you know because how? What? Like, like legitimately in my. Whatever, 16, 17 years, we've taken the World cup trophy to space. We've done it. Right, Right. Like where I cannot land on the moon yet. Like Elon Musk is not a friend. Like, what do you want me to say? But we've done it, right? Like you want us to make performance campaigns work and do it. You want us to make awareness work and do it. Make awareness. We change, but awareness is sales.

Correct.

Are you hearing yourself?

Right? Right.

Like I need somebody sitting across the table who knows their part of the job as well as they expect us to know our parts of the. So as a quality has deteriorated.

Right. So let's say that status quo remains and say, for example, if this procurement people were to disappear for some time and if you were to connect directly with the stakeholder or the investor or anybody, would you work without a retainer just on a percentage, 100%? All of us.

Yeah.

Because I think that's what we need to do.

I also one more thing that I've kind of to kind of get over the brief thing. Instead of reverse bidding, I've done reverse briefing. I kind of listen to what they're saying. What are your goals? What is it that you're saying? I put that on paper.

They make them feel.

This is what you've. Yeah, this is what you said. Not really make them. Just to make them realize that what they've said is either too vague.

MTFs do. You don't even need to tell them what it means. I'm just going to do MTFS analysis with you.

So I mean I've done that with a bunch of clients but honestly it's.

Worked because give away equity to those people.

I'll tell you why it's worked for me because a lot of people, let's just say we're directly dealing with founders and that's the challenge that we're going to get when we deal with the founders. They don't have time to give me line items. They have the time to tell me what is it that's going on. This is what I want. This is the output that I want. I want someone to do some video for me of this Sort I will tell you what I have in mind. You figure out how do you want to get this done right. If I am able to put what that person said to me on paper which I think all of us can at this point because we have the ability to read in between the lines. That's our edge. If we can tell them this is what you said you want. Do you want to add to this? Yes. This makes my thought more clear. Can I help you? I think lot of our jobs now would be to help the founders get more clearer thoughts.

100%. So you. You like a. Like a good doctor will tell you that why you're doing well. We will you about. He knows more about your body more than you know we do. But tell me with that can this knowledge of being an expert or knowing more and giving you the ROI reading between the lines like she said. Should that be done by an agency founder across industries or should you become an expert? But so. So I'll just go back to that. So can you. So should we do firstly the owner. You connect with the owner. It's always better. Can we put. You can. And all agency founders. I'm very happy to see that we got this on camera that everybody's ready to work on a percentage because you feel. But on the other side they're not a lot of agency founders that I met after Covid who do automated webinars for coaches and then say Joe aye Karl lead Meripad Sahi convert Hoka. I'll know they're making upwards of a crore in revenue and about 60 lakh rupees net profit just by working with a handful of 15, 20 coaches. And I can give you 20 such examples. I don't know how many agency founders are taking home a net profit of 50 lakh rupees a month. And just one coaching industry because he can map the whole journey because the automated webinar is happening and it's coming to him. So there is potential in being able. But then this guy is an expert in one industry. So which brings me back to a hypothesis and you know obviously an hypothesis is to be challenged all the time. Do you think agencies especially when they're starting or they're under a certain level of profit, not revenue should become experts in one field?

I mean it happened to us not by. Not by design. Right. Like when we started out l' Oreal was our biggest plan. Right. Like we block if you asked us filthy boys. Right. Like for everything.

Right.

Like whatever flows down, you know is. Is exactly what you use Right. But yeah, it did. It made us, it made us stand out, it made us experts. But I also saw towards the fag end of that and it was a 12 year relationship. Right. Which again, wow, unheard. When they said, listen, we need to part ways. It was correct. Even we needed to part rules.

Yeah, I know what you're saying.

I. At one point in time, you tell me today, tell me Loyal palace car marketing calendar, right? There is fatigue even for us. There is fatigue even in terms of what you're, what you're going to do. I remember this was 2018 and we were sitting and we were brainstorming for another l' Oreal Paris scam campaign. And at one point in time we legitimately had 60 people in that room to say, throw something to us. And there was one person who was sitting there, was working with us at 10:12, we were saying, done, done, done, done, done. And we just went back and said, boss, there is nothing that we think we've not done. You know, and there's so much of fatigue that has developed as a part of that. So that's one.

Right.

And for me, and for me to keep the agency relevant, right. Different places, the input of creativity from different places really leads you to different.

Right.

You know, really different outcomes. Even for performance marketing. I say this, the lessons I learned in real estate can really help a D2C brand and vice versa. That I continue to believe is the biggest differentiator between you having an in house client team and having a agency. Right. I say this to everyone saying Hawara in house. And I asked him saying, when did this in house team get formed? Yeah, right.

Because it's going to get redundant.

That's the last day that any innovation happened.

100%. 100%.

If 2020 may, you know, programmatic was the big thing. 2035. Programmatic.

Yeah.

You know, so, so that's the, that's the trap that, that I hope we don't fall into and keeps us fresh. But on the film side, there is like we run a sports agency, right. Like I think the last four, five years we've killed it just because we're doing sport right. Like now and progressively started with one team in the ipl, went back to ipl, went to bcci, went to icc, done everything. And now the fact that we're experts in the sports space helps, right? Of course it really helps because now when anybody looks around saying Korn, is.

That a different brand?

Yeah, it's called DCM platform. Right. So it's a joint venture. Two Three companies, events, activation, US rides and bringing those people together also makes sense, right? Like the person who, who owns a majority of the shareholding, he's a guy who's been in sport for 40, 45 years, knows whoever there is to know. And then you.

So you kept a brand separate not only because you had partners, but also because you wanted to say this brand specializes in sports, this one. So if expertise you can do, a founder can go tell different things.

That's why the diversification. In my opinion, again, diversification happens not under your current brand. It'll then have to happen with different procurements. I think that's, that's a larger point where you sort of work with people who are in that space, who are experts in that space. And that again brings us to the collaborative communication where we're looking at working together in the sense, okay, this makes sense to us, this partnership makes sense to us. Can we work towards that in the first place? Plus long term deals, right?

No. You know, on that part of becoming redundant. Because you said 2013 last innovation. Because team, I'm seeing that happening with agencies also. Right. So what we did after Covid, what we had to do was. First thing I did was I built a team of four people and I called, I didn't find an office, living room in Jagati. And those people, what they did in the first one year our team was not able to do. Then we just recently set up a small satellite office in Goa to be able to see, you know, I found a few different. I said, let's see what they can do for the same client of mine. Where we were like, because we are out of ideas and these people came and did something completely different. So keeping them under a separate culture, you know, roof is also, you know, what I see is working.

It.

Why My question keeps coming back because you understood it. Will it trickle down to your team?

It. The consulting model, however, is an actual beautiful bridge between what we're trying to say. Yeah, right. It has a singular brand and has multiple practices. Right. The practice has the practice head. The practice head has a few people. Each of the people have a revenue per headcount target. Right. Then there are floaters sitting right in the middle. Those floaters are contributing back towards, you know, towards those things. Which is somewhat the kind of model that we're trying to build. Right. Like by saying that okay, a consultants get paid great money. We do a lot of people and sometimes to just prove what they said is wrong. But the model is phenomenal. Right. You have a practice Head, that practice head knows everything that there is to know, like yourself. Like you're saying, I understand the hotel industry, I know what the variations can be, I know what the peak can be. Would I like to work on a model like this? Hell yes. But do I know this? No. Right. But if I have different people who run those practices in the past. Right, but they need a central pool of resources who say, performance family can do this. You know, SEO maybe can do this.

I think, I think that's why PwC, Deloitte and all, I see their digital arms coming up. That's exactly what they're doing.

That's exactly, exactly what they do. Yeah, because the biggest pushback that they got was that you're just.

Right.

But the other thing is how many clients are willing to pay for consulting separately? Because as agencies, we all get consulting for free. Now, one way of saying charging you for that is turning into this revenue, this revenue share model. But how many of us have been able to successfully get a consultancy line item on our product course? Kind of.

So I think from a consulting standpoint, we kind of build it into, we don't build it into a line item, we build it into our, we call it our experience. And we say, if you want me, this is the price I come at. And again, going to what Pratik said, isn't that what you'd say, brand building? Because when you're looking at consulting, at some point you have to be looked upon as an expert. We like within our industry, we know each other because we attend so many conferences, we do a lot of stuff around it. Right. Can we break that barrier of the industry and be known outside our industries and then build our own brands in that sense, something. I again, don't intend to throw names, but during my stint with Disney, and then when I'd met Ronnie at that time, post my stint with Disney, I spoke to him and said I've started my own agency. And I asked him point blank, you've done great stuff building your own brand. At the same time, you're talking about utv, Disney and the works around it. He's like, do both. Because it's possible to do both. Today you can't think of UTV or Disney without Ronnie in it, within it. And he's done that beautifully for himself. Try to imbibe a lot of that as much as possible. Yes. Becomes very challenging for all of us to talk about ourselves because we've been taught, be humble, be kind, be nice, talk, let your work talk for you. Unfortunately, we are In a space. We also are doing the same thing. We're amplifying voices.

Sure.

And if we can kind of be comfortable with that, that'll actually add to removal of a lot of our angst.

That we have at the moment.

That'll be more.

That's a good point. And both. I agree. I've also read his book and you know, so that. But tell me this. So just my experience and I'm just trying to validate it or maybe get a different opinion. So we have worked with Marriott, we work with many brands but my maximum money profit that I take home to take care of my lifestyle comes from single hotels or. Right. So then why. I'm just asking then why are we only talking about brands and their procurement team? Because they're not giving money and we've all come to the same point. Why can't. Aren't such smaller and mid sized clients more profitable? Why are we or, or do you think an agency needs to have a few big names or why is that only vanity? Why are we going after the big names?

That's because the smaller, smaller ones are not long term clients. Eventually I mean the longevity of the client then becomes. Because for them at the end of the day again it moves to that.

Because we're doing revenue I think then long term owner, one second accountant, 75 lakhs easiest. So my smallest. Like you know it's 40% of our business.

Correct.

And I just, I, I should have had. Then don't go after the other guys. I'm just, I'm just trying to understand.

The kind of effort. The energy and the resources required to cater to a Marriott eventually are a lot lesser compared to catering to that one.

They're lesser.

Yeah, yeah.

No, because like he was saying. Oh tender.

Because they're very clear with their brief. They're very clear with what they're looking at at the end of the day for smaller brands it completely ties into revenue and we've tried that.

I have a system that is working and it's been working for a while. So those are the system, these small roundtables with prospective clients which I said from smaller owners and we're asking them questions obviously making them feel important and all of that and then showing them what we do and after that just going and doing meetings with everybody so we don't have to go after these people. So I did much more money more than. Only in terms of brand. You tell me a good. What is a good retainer? 5 lakhs a month. Right. If it's A travel agency. Like for example, I work in the hospitalities. It's a travel agency. His package, I go to a travel agency and I see that his package, you know, for curated travel is 5 lakh rupees or whatever. If I can sell 10 extra packages for him. So anybody who can do. For whom I can do 50 lakhs in any hospitality related field or a resort or weddings, which is our biggest business.

It.

No. So I'm just, I'm just thinking aloud with you. The same model works for. If I'm selling an apartment for somebody which I'm not very good at. So that's what I'm saying. No, no. Real estate maybe, right. MBA programs, selling an MBA for education, whatever. Right. Consultants, coaches, all of that just say enough for me to make more money than most agency founders are making. I'm just trying to understand them why we're not going after them. Right? No. So I have the question. Yeah, Sorry. The question is just for myself to understand. Is it that most people are not going here? You said it's an evolving. Because people come from the agency background and they know procurement and big clients. So they do that first. Is it because of that? Because everybody's from agency.

So for us I think it's very different.

Small clients do not work for us, don't work.

So you go for large clients. There are two reason.

Oh, 35, 5 lakhs.

If you pay them, they think.

So you're saying that's an advantage?

No, I think that's it.

That's a different market. That's a different market. There's a place for everyone.

Why is Cricket sponsorship still working? None of the brands over there are going there and saying I want ROI tomorrow. Right. Most of them are saying.

So a smaller agency, like 2, 3 years old, 10, 15 people can also compete with Foxy One on to get.

This kind of a deal 100% they can. Right. Because again today you're coming in by saying, I am extremely hyper focused specialist on being able to do something. Right. I am going to come, I mean in the middle with these lines, I will say we are culture agencies. Okay. Amazing, right? Took me a few months to understand that. And then sure, they had a niche, right. They were able to say that. Listen, boss, are half the job that we do is we sit on YouTube and figure out what people like. Right. Then we try and tell you what you need to do to incorporate that. Is there merit in it? Yes. Is there an objectivity? No. Right. Because at the end of the day, once you're done with that. And somebody will see brand culture, right. It requires thinking. It says, okay, what are my cohorts? Why am I doing it? What are we doing? Okay, my numbers have changed, my metrics have changed. Go back to doing this. You know, sometimes with Khan and the number speak. We had that data. Yeah, right, we had that data. So creativity also has a lot of science to it. But to try and answer that, and it's a conundrum. Today I go separate five ways. A nice consultancy. I'll make a million dollars in profit, boss. I'm, I'll make a million dollars in profit, no problem. Right, but is that what we're trying to do? I mean, a lot of the times we pick up these clients to pay off our overheads. Right?

That, that's exactly my, my question.

We pick up these clients. Sometimes you just, just, just get them in the overheads. Like one for the st and one for what you love to do.

Yeah.

You know, so, you know, so, so, so that's. It's a difficult question to answer because the ambition will be different, I think, you know, 5, 10, 15, 20 people. Agencies are beautiful.

Yeah, right.

Like they're almost pseudo consultancy.

Yeah.

Kind of, kind of shops. Right, right. With a good brand name, less stress.

More smile on their faces, you know.

But, but smaller baby, tomorrow, tomorrow we list, you know, tomorrow we, we sell.

Smile will come later.

It'll come, you know, delayed gratifications also, is, also, is also a thing. It depends on what, what you're, what you're chasing from an ambition point of view today. The good part is that nobody can come and tell me that, can I handle that scale? That question is an answer, right. You please come see the work that we've done. Can I handle scale? Yes. And there are enough clients today who are coming and saying, I don't want to deal with multiple people. And I keep saying this, right? The number of touch points because of digital have increased. The number of people on the client side have decreased. The experience for who we say, our brand managers or, you know, brand custodians has decreased to a different degree first, Right. So that texture has been lost. That texture of, you know, you wanting what your brand is going to do. Simple, just pick up 20 brands, see them on five different touch points on the Internet. I guarantee you'll be a better person to tell you this. I guarantee they don't look the same way, they don't talk the same way.

So, so even if you were to go back 10 years, so you're married, you have kids.

Yeah, yeah.

So if you were to go back 10 years and now you have all of this, you know, you're going to come to all these responsibilities in life, you would still go this route.

Yeah. There's a lot of fun also, right? Like, I think we cry about the. The human resources more than we cry about the work we do, right? We are the rock stars in our groups. You know, like, you know, he has something fun to do, right? We actually enjoy doing it. You know, we are. We are those like. Like I say, the agency owners are like Rafa and Aral. You know, like, they grind it, they break their knee, they break their hand. But when he comes and plays that short line, he gets more satisfaction, right? So would I change anything? No, man, absolutely not. Today I keep saying this to everyone, saying, I am in the best place in life, right? Why am I in the best place? Is that because.

Listening to this podcast, will they take lesser time than you took to reach this stage?

Oh, 100. Yeah, because you.

Because there are people like you to mentor them.

When I went, you know, holding 100 slide decks in digital color, digital color, nobody knew anything, right? And then I got a call back saying, now global team has said it. And then we were also like, man.

My first pitch was Internet moguls. We kept the name for different reasons. And my first pitch was through somebody, and they said, Internet.

It, right? So would I change anything? No, man, absolutely not. Today I keep saying this to everyone, saying, I am in the best place in life, right? Why am I in the best place in life, right?

So upcome time who are listening to this podcast, will they take lesser time than you took to reach this stage?

Oh, 100%.

Because you. Because there are people like you to mentor them.

When I went, you know, holding a hundred slide decks in digital color, digital color, digital, nobody knew anything, right? And then I got a call back saying, now global team has said it. And then we were also like, man.

My first pitch was Internet moguls. We kept the name for different reasons. And my first pitch was to somebody, and they said Internet. So I'm just taking a segue here. Do you find it easier to work with international clients and be able to explain KPIs and all? Because we spoke about owners.

The budget also upfront.

We've been followed into using the mic.

And. And there are instances where you get paid for consulting separately and your execution separately.

A lot of product managers in the companies, so they would come and sit with US and their KPIs are how many agencies have you spoken to and they would come understand what's new in the market for this bull and then they would go and talk to their bosses, keep box etc. So we have now clear checklist identify what is, who is a buyer and who's a one pack.

So, so we, so there's a clear we. We call it the monster customer avatar.

So this is a, this is a web pack. So one PA open. So they will just come take your proposal, understand your camera. So now we have come up with no pitch model. There's no pitch we are giving. If you like what we do, you hire us. Otherwise you know, be part way. So somewhere I think pitch used to work, but for us now we say that look, we don't pitch anymore.

But do you go for the pitch without a pitch or how does that work? I'm just kidding.

So we don't do anything for you?

Yeah.

Say for example, if Netflix comes to us.

Customize me.

Yeah. So we don't customize because there's a lot of. They take the ideas, they will take it from all the five agencies. Sorry. Nowadays there are people who are usually sitting over there and before you, before you leave, they turn around and say guys, just telling you. Huh. Some of these ideas, it's like, it's like cat, mouse, man, like sometimes.

So your reply to that is. I'm not sending you the presentation on email, I'm taking it back with me. No video recording.

But like you know, like see it's a, it's. It's a cost of doing business also. Yeah, right. Like a pitch. Pitch is the cost of doing business. Sometimes during the pitch you also realize, right? Like after this, whatever the hell we are doing now, we're pretending, right? Like we're trying to say, can we do it? Sure, man. Yeah. Everyone can make 30 posts. And I keep saying that you could even 500 bucks a post as a platform keeper. And Instagram, the number of posts that brands will do will come down by 80% because. Right, but free here. And to add to what he is saying, right? Like why are we as Indians in this position? Because we are predisposed to throwing people at a problem.

Right?

I want to build something on my terrace, right. The building is not giving me a permission to make a lift. What will all of us respond?

Value per hour is not appreciated.

People, we keep saying population, population, population. It's in our head. People is never an issue for us. It's not very difficult. Right. Like we don't say 2 billion people have gone to the combination, it's 500, 300 million at a frequency of 6. That's your answer that what is 300 million people for us?

But then the thing is, you know that you're talking to the founder of a company and you like him and you're like, scale that model. Most of us are not able to do it. So that model. So then what stops us from going more international? They're amazing. So we have you started doing it?

I set up a GDC already. That's what we were discussing. What are the five, six things I learned? First things, what is the average salary that we pay? Right. We have all these metrics pack, let's say my average sampling for enemies. 840. Okay. I'm doing 70,000 bucks a month, average salary. Let's say I'm taking 50, 60% overhead. 70% overhead. Okay. We have a cool fancy ass office. How much am I? Am I willing to spend 300 on tools? Answer is no, because that's 33% of the overhead that I'm allocating. A person abroad is getting paid, let's say $5,000. Am I willing to add $300 worth of tools behind them? Answer to the question is yes. Right? I recently had a colleague of mine, she went abroad. She called me saying, hi, Pratik, can I speak to you for five minutes? I said, yeah, tell me, creative person. She said, listen, can you connect me to somebody in your media team? I need to learn media. I said, what is the problem? Why are you learning media? Right. This is the stuff that I used to keep telling you all the time. She's like, no, man, I'm a digital person over here. I need to be able to make a creative on Canva. I need to be able to write copy, I need to be able to run my hands and I need to be able to report it back.

She's overseas.

She's overseas, right? So now what's happened is that there is no expert, there is no missing half. I'll speak to my creator. He'll come back to you. You are the person who knows what the hell is happening everywhere. That's the role that we play. If you think about it like we are playing the integrator's role we are playing. But this is what creative is doing. This is the effect it's had on media. That's the role that we are playing. They are de facto playing that role. Why? Because they don't have the ability to throw 10 people at the same problem.

Right? So the mindset is that if the.

$60,000 salary, that would be $60,000 to the government.

Bo.

It.

Too busy doing what's not working.

I have a twofold answer to why it's happening and why it's not happening. We went international within the first six months of the starting.

Did you use paid ads to get those clients? No, outreach.

My first international client came through LinkedIn outreach. No, I just, I mean it was again the function of being active on LinkedIn and I, I don't do it as much, but that's how my first client was. What also helped was that my founding partner was from Singapore while he was an Indian. It started off that way. The first client that I procured was Yahoo. Their only task to us at that time and the hierarchy was very, very interesting. Singapore was procuring for India, so Singapore was doing an entire thing for Southeast Asia. Right. Reporting office was Singapore. Got in touch. This is what we need you to do. Lost the first set of bit 30 posts a day and etc.

30.

Yeah, that was their thing where they have stuff happening online. Kind of duplicate that use. That's all that they needed us to do. And I, when it came back to us because the person that they'd hired sort of didn't work through came back to us and within that 30 day post and that, that at that time we were just a team of two. So I was able to show them numbers and they were very surprised that organically numbers. And I was like, okay, this is what we do, this is what we're good at. Over a period of time, seven years later, until they were asked to leave the country, they were with us at different capacities. So when it comes to international procurement, it's also about how it comes to you in, in a point where. How do you call yourself international? This technically was an international account. Then went to Singapore, met a lot of people around there. They said, oh, we're looking for someone to support us in, in terms of whatever, come back here, talk to them from here. I don't need to set up an office internationally even if I have. I mean the kind of ROI is the conversation that we are working with. That's great. But all of us go on enough and more international holidays. We can make friends out there and make those friends. I think a lot of large part of my business has become friendship converted to work. And while we are very wary of that conversation of oh, I don't want to mix business and pleasure, please do. Because if I can help my friend, if I look at it from a perspective you have A brand. I can be a support system for you. It doesn't matter what geography you're in. We've done stuff in the US I've set up an entire website, logo, brand building for people in the US and sitting right here if that helps. That also kind of works into the same thing.

Right.

They're giving you briefs, they're working with what you're looking at. Only challenge of why it doesn't happen now and and that's a constant feedback that I've gotten especially from countries like the US because they are looking to hire people from within the country. They want to give those opportunities. The political scenarios don't allow them to hire people from outside. That's the only reason why we choti.

Entity one person with an accent has worked for me.

But correct. Correct. But that also means you without judging.

Everybody'S judging everybody in the world and which is judging is not a bad thing like you know how you dress whatever we all I'm just saying that.

If you want to avoid.

So I've just had this one lady who's great she's working with me for a long time that too part time. She just opens the door and says that somebody wants to talk to you. So when I go as the second person I'm much easily accepted there and so just an accent thing which you know that's one and usme hum I thought we run ads or whatever. So we ran ads that lady worked for us and we just have one person there and we're able to get those leads. And yes it's not 5% yet but whatever percentage it is it is like a better retainer than a you know if it's a 2 lakh rupee retainer we get from a coach that I work with in India then The retainer is $5,000. It's about double the price and so I'm just sharing but the issue still remains.

So if you sort of the same challenge that we face here and I can talk from experience smaller brands will take you to the washers if you don't give them what they want. They are not very clear what they're looking at. And I mean again the good thing was we got to work with Smiak and all of that around it but it was a sublet from an agency for to us so that's one way that it can work where we can get our international work. If you approach international agencies get sublet to you there's still an entity there. You don't need to kind of invest Money. I think a lot of conversations that we've been having is based on relationship building.

Sorry, one question before Prateek, you come in. I wanted to ask do we have as agency founders or people who are watching? Because we're talking to everybody right now, right? So that's why my questions are going back and if something gets unaddressed. So I'm just going back to that. Thanks all of you for your patience. Do, do you people have like a 5, 7, 8 1% budget that you invest into something that you try? Is it, is that a, is it a considered strategy which, where you sit and say opportunity? Because I'm just thinking from what I am, what I was seeing before COVID because co we were hit hard with. You know, everybody said don't stick to one field. And I said I'll stick to one field. And we were hit hard. So we still stick into one field at that in that company when we open another one for another vertical. But what I thought was that why was we. Why you? So we also had every entrepreneur so head down doing what they're doing, solving their problem, saying I know there can be a better future, but right now I don't have time to do it. So does anybody have like something where you, were you answerable to the board or to each other to say?

Actually that's where I was coming at. Right. All of us, you know, like especially in the kind of work we do, we forget that there are structures beyond the founder. Right? I wanted to grow foxy moron to do 200 crores of revenue, right? Because how big is too big before.

You don't even know the name of.

The person who's working on this business. Right there. Very interesting book I read and it's, it spoke about, I always forget. But, but the, but the basic format was that 30 is, is your outermost circle, right? So one of the, one of the hacks for me also was that when I'm form forming newer agencies, I don't need to remember 10 people from the video team. I need to remember rabbit hole, right? Boom, solved. So now I have the ability to make that circle a little bigger and a little lighter. When we went to the U.S. we first were not going to the U.S. right? We were saying, oh, holy grail, $300 billion they spend in advertising, right? So we said, okay, let's see other places then to Dubai. We said What? We said 20% more, 15% more. Best is most people go there, they're only two. That I don't understand the context Right. Like India may be struggling to understand the context of the seven countries inside India itself. Right. So you can't go there and say I get it. But what, what was the, what was the pain point that we started to figure, right. Enough mom and pop shops.

Right? Right.

Right. Enough moment for shops going and knocking on their door to get dollar value.

Right?

Right. They say, cool, we'll work with you. But if I want to scale, then I'm screwed. No, because for me, a 10 billion dollar budget is a poor budget. If I'm a 300 billion dollar addict, a 10 million dollar budget is a poor budget. A good agency is a billion dollar agency. Right here we have two agents, two networks who do a billion dollars a pound.

Right?

Right. So scale. How can you scale? So we realize that boss going there and trying to save Mayor Foxy Moron, it's not good to work. We joined a network of agencies over there called Dawn. Right, Dawn. We went and said, listen, we are the best at what we do in our country and we work with brands that even you guys have known about. Right? But I'm not going to come in here and pretend like I know your context. First. You solve for context, I'll solve for scale tomorrow. If we think that there is a model where I can invest, I can acquire you, etc. Then I'll come three years from today and turn around and say that I can solve for, I can solve for context. Said, okay, not going to solve for context. So we said, okay, cool, let's start servicing this. It took time. We were also in Covid. People were not being able to meet each other. Right. Started to set up, hired this one person, he was on the board of Publicis, knew whoever we've put in about a million and a half, $2 million this time to set this up. Right. And that's what he said that you don't have if you're at a scale, you don't have the cash flow. We got killed because of this cash flow. Right, but. And at some point you were like, right, because you know, we've taken and we plowed it over here in the hope that when it comes, it will come.

Right?

Right. And we just like chal chal chal chal chal. And we felt the cash flow crunch because we've taken a lot of profits. Right. There's no investor, there's no, no debt. So whatever we need, we're putting it back over there and now it's paying back. But what we realized is now I'm doing one Joint venture with a person who is doing allied small SME sort of services saying okay, cool, same. Can I get to a $10,000 a month. Hey, can I set up offices in Hyderabad? Right. Because I have people who know how this system works. The city is equipped to take you 24 hours. Cab services are cooling and the government is giving you incentives and, and whatever the hell is happening over there. Very good. We are part of a network of agencies. We have a single person who's going out there. Right. And then there is Sumil, who's our business partner whose very half job is to run a second clock.

Right?

Right. He's the one who's traveling. So the often. Long story short, right, often what we stop at is that we think we are the bandwidth, we are the question, we are the answer. And we forget this. One plus one equal to five. Sort of a formula. I run 650, 700, 800 people. I don't run them.

You're talking within one agency or network.

A network. Right. So even if I'm doing this gdc, there's somebody else who's running it. Boss, you know, and that's how you're able to grow it, right. Versus we keep thinking my friends, my family. But you are the first, the first point, right? Why not the second point? Why not the third point? It takes a little bit more patience. Hopefully it pays off. It's still not right. Like hopefully it does pay off. And that's the bet we're taking. He said, okay, we go straight to the U.S. i don't think it's, it's, it's that difficult, honestly. Right. Half the people to have gone to what they got cleaned in India, which is Dubai. Right.

India's cleanest city.

Right, Right. But that's, but that's where we've gone. That's the approach that we've taken. And I think that's an approach that that's worked for us. Right. Like it was just Foxy Covid. I mean we were in the middle of the, the edtech endemic, man. Like, yeah, like 25, 30 of my clients, all my investments are behind edtech. Boom. Those 15 days where every edtech had had their obituary, we were also staring at the wall saying yeah, right. And. And then we found ourselves in that, in that difficult spot. If I didn't have the five agencies, I would have probably not. I've probably not even be sitting here.

Yeah. I'd like to now shift to, you know, I wish I had a better.

Term, you know, why.

I wish there Was a better word to this because everything becomes cliche subtitles Subtitles and I'm so glad that you said this towards this part of the conversation because Shurumi Ota the conversation in Yoti. Right. I like that mindset. Definitely I wanted to move to. I wish there was. Like I said, I wish there was a better word because. Because I believe anything that is given a name has a certain way that we judge it. But let's go to AI. So what we got when we did a survey of agencies and we said what are we going to ask people here was some people like are you hiring more with AI talent? Some people said are you firing? And feeling that oh, I'm going to save cost or are you saying there's no hiring, no firing policy, but let's use AI to build and not. So where are we?

It.

Are the same people. My second part of this question. Are the same people in our agencies being able to step up? Some yes, some no.

But it will require a reskilling. So people are able to reskill. Not reskill, but think differently. Right. There's a lot of resistance also.

I know. So is that going to be possible? Like more than 20%.

If you go back in time, there was a camera which was a print and roll shoot at a point.

Yeah, I'm from there you take the.

Print out and at every step there was some color which was involved. If I ask a question that when digitally camera came out, DSLR camera that time a lot of the photographers were insecure. Do at this stage do. Do we think photography has gone out that was in the tool now photographers who didn't upskill them. They are awesome.

Those are the people I want to talk about. Candid conversations. How many people do you think in the industry? Let's not say our own teams because our own teams are also watching for whatever reason. But 20 percentage other log change Karnako.

They are because of that.

I think an example that I can.

That I am seeing because I'm currently hiring there is is your traditional graphic designer role.

Right.

Less and less relevant today. So the ones who haven't upskilled to.

You know, AI first digital.

No, that AI I'm talking about just digital first design and stuff like that. So the same way look, it's an efficiency thing as well. Let me give you a simple example, right? Let's say somebody whose job is writing blogs or writing search ad copy. So things that of course need research, of course need creativity. But a lot of that research and that basic writing can now Be done.

By a. Yeah, by an AI tool.

Right. Now I'm not saying you take that AI output and use it. You have to obviously make it relevant to your audience and all of that. But can you become more efficient if you're using any tool?

Sure.

Can you become more efficient like if you're using Photoshop versus drawing by hand? Yes, you can become more efficient. So eventually there'll be somebody who's figured out how to use that tool in the right manner, could be more efficient.

Than somebody who has.

And they're all sitting and hiring to a large extent.

So we need. So I'm just, you know, I'm just trying to put a number to everything for the audience and so we need 20% in our company who come from context and everybody else who can come from fresh thinking AI first.

Depending on what we're delivering, the percentage will differ. But let's look at AI as a tool that helps you inserting human psychology, understanding what triggers are going to make somebody click on an ad or to read more. I think a human being will still be required there.

So I'm not too worried about AI.

Honestly because I think the creative industry.

Would have the highest proportion of early.

Adopters in general, bulk of our team, even when we've not done formal upskilling sessions. Correct.

They figured it out.

Of course we have our company licenses.

For your ChatGPT and Adobe and they figured it out. I think that is the part where.

We actually should start with some non.

Compete should be added into it. I mean they don't sign it very willingly. So from a resistance IP laws also are messed up.

You called up the client and he was least bothered. So this has happened when you call.

Up, listen, if my, if other agencies are not hiring my people, it worries me. It means they're not good.

So also the fact that this homogenizes from a perspective that okay, we know there are certain set of people who are experts, domain experts, we are at their disposal for a large part of time. Why am I sitting and begging to some creative person some conversation in. In terms of a. Primarily because even if I do have the skills, I don't have the experience that the person has. Hence that person's hired by me. The point is I'm kind of exponentially growing my collective intelligence by hiring that person who's more experienced than me. However, in our ecosystem, and it happens a lot, is that we sort of are at their mercy a lot of time, whether it's our hires, whether it's our agencies that we're Working with collectively right AI, in my opinion, will homogenize that if we look at it from a threat perspective, there will be resistance. If we look at it as a supporting tool from a sense that it's going to help us think more creatively. There's so much going on in our heads at this point of time, it just helps us structure our thoughts. Secondly, again, in my opinion, it'll help us make our pitches a little more simpler in the sense that if I know this client is wasting my time to test that I can do an AI pitch and then probably if that works, we can take it to the next level. I don't spend 15 days preparing a personalized pitch. I spend maybe five hours. Tweak that a little bit. Give them that set of okay, this is how much I'm going to give you right now. You like what you see? Let's finalize our contract, then we'll talk about things further. Gives them the confidence that they know what they're talking about. Helps us personalize for them.

Sure.

And at the same time doesn't go like a generic pot boiler pitch that we're talking about.

Yeah.

But then for me again. So one of the things that changed for me recently and I get fairly. I'm fairly excitable about a lot of things in general. But what I've seen a transition over last 10 years is that I used to get very excited about the B2C brands that I used to work with or media industry brands I used to work with. That was my experience that I came from last two years now especially during post Covid, I've seen a lot of B2B businesses looking for marketing in a certain sense. And that's a space where I see a lot of dearth of people who are looking at it because they find that business very boring.

Right.

Someone said this to me, someone I really look up to. He said the money is in the body boring. So if you see the businesses in general, any business, non digital, non marketing, production business, a lot of that you will see in terms of they're making a lot of money primarily because they are in a boring business.

Sure.

It could be someone who's making that eaglet of a shoelace. For example.

My dad told me, why did you leave real estate and get into digital marketing? So everybody spent 30, right? I know, I know.

Seriously. And some of you were talking about like new razor, like what do you do when clients are not paying? So luckily I think for many years we haven't had any client who's not paid us. So we get bailed on time. And majority of it got B2B because.

You know, like, yeah, like they are.

Making money if you are helping them money.

Or also the owner's J business. He's not questioning it every day. It's just a format. Somebody is giving them money.

Only, only resistance that I see over there is why as I'm a B2B business, why am I doing stuff on Instagram, for example, like platform centric resistance if you're able to give them a legit reason of why you require to be present there if, if that business does need to be there.

That's what I said. Free it. But a lot of B2B businesses are.

Investing in the leading of their key sports people.

Yeah.

Everyone now is willing to spend more on the website.

I think There was a LinkedIn B2B report that came out. Yeah. That spoke about how sort of marketing trends are not catching on the B2B completely.

And podcast in the B2B section. That was something that I, I, I had a, I had a medical professional who said I'm going to, I'm intending to do podcasts. I need to work with international colleagues of mine. Can you help me set that up? And it's interesting to see people coming up with pod. I mean this is an example of itself. But maybe five years ago we didn't really think of podcast being something that's so excitable right now.

No, this whole format we've helped set up people for very good money. And anyway, so you know, because I asked all of you people for two hours, so I'm just going to come to the last two questions and then anybody who has more time, we're happy to stick around.

AI. Is that the problem that I think we're going to face is that the newer generation that's coming in uses AI first? Yeah. Right. So the ability for you to think about what you want has also gone down the drain completely. You are going in and saying, hi, can you do me a favor, can you write me five copies? This guy doesn't even know what the hell I'm talking about and he's just punched it into AI. Even with the people who are doing the same job job are getting two very different outcomes just by the way that they are putting in the information.

So you need the guy for context and the AI first together.

You need that everybody is now for context. What he's saying is you'll in 20 years, if everyone starts with AI, there'll be no one left for Context. Correct. If the, if they contest is built. Train your mind. If I'm writing a prompt to any AI that, that I'm using, I probably will write like one page of a prompt. Right? Thinking Variable, variable, variable, variable, variable, variable, thinking. Okay. This is the limitation I want to put. This is where I want to open it up. This is where I want to do it. But anything that you are doing today with this younger lord, that's my fear. Genuinely it's my fear. Right. That is start with AI.

So that's it. That's what bringing me back to my second last question. And it's a segue. You can, you know, you can continue on this thought from there. That, does that mean that there's going to be a pratikupta AI in your office where you're building for context so that your company can grow from there?

I've done it honestly and it's working. Right. Like, but I've done it only to give answers to the press.

But it starts from somewhere, right?

Yes. Like basically told my team, just put everything that I've ever said. Right. Dump it in my place. Right. And basically over a period of time, training, saying what would Radik say?

Exactly.

Really helps me time.

So everybody in your senior leadership does that. There's a context developer Foxy Moron. And it always 100.

But again, the one thing that we're not taking into account is that more laziness is seeping in.

Yeah.

Discipline is becoming harder. Right. Like in my case also if you would have turned out.

Right.

Right. Like forget.

Sure.

Whatever, whatever I'm going to do. So massive segue. I just had a kid like what, five months ago.

Congratulations.

And I made a 10 star presentation to both parents. Why not? Right. And it's not about what you can do, what you can't do. I mean I, I don't think I, I, I can never say what they should do or not. But, but it was just to give them context of how life has changed. Right? I said that you guys trained us for knowledge, right? Dr. Ranjan Senior Ranja. Why? Because knowledge got paid.

Yeah.

Right. But today knowledge is available anywhere, right? Like everywhere. The exposure limit is how much you want to expose yourself. Yeah, right. That, that, that barrier has been crossed. Now we need to train for being mentally strong, being resilient. Right. Having width as exposure so that you are able to build context. Because. Right. And I think that's the stuff that we need to start to train people for, in my opinion. Right. Because lots of the questions that we want to answer like why were we able to find a cure for Covid so quickly? It was not magic. It was supercomputers working on permutations and combinations. And today with that new Microsoft chip that has come out, whatever like one or two weeks ago, I don't remember the name, which is saying that it can do the computer to a different sort of a degree. The answers to what we think are, you know, the divine will start to come out a lot faster. Right. So what the hell are we solving for? Yeah, you are going to get paid for your ability to have that context which was given, which was for granted. And my fear continues to not be whether I'll hire more people, whether I'll hire new people, whether I'll let go of people. I think survival of the fittest is, has been going on forever. And this is another quick bump in the survival of the fittest that we will see. But if people don't start to understand that their context has value, they will.

Disappear as a, as a, as a human being or in the agency.

No agency is just one example leadership team. And this morning we kind of found somebody and what it finally boiled down to was yeah, curiosity. The person doesn't have to know everything. You know, general intelligence, some amount of logical reasoning and curiosity. That's what's left. You can Google everything, call, get an answer right there.

Right. So just. We haven't tried it to Robins AI. I think it's one of the best. Just amazing. Tony Robbins, his AI, his old chatbot is just fantastic. It's got a free trial going on for the next one week. I'm not an affiliate so also one.

Of the things that I see happen in the. For now in the comments, one of the things that I also worry about and, and we've always, I mean at the cost of sounding ageist, but we've always thought about, we've always heard our parents say that, you know, that kind of stuff. You all are very lazy. We are having similar set of laziness conversations here. We thought we were efficient. Maybe the new generation things are efficient. But with so many tools and the dependency on tools increasing one I fear the creativity will sort of go down. It will become very homogenized right now. And when that homogeneity creeps in, that's when again a lot of creativity dies in the process. Mediums Today we talk about art and mediums around it. We've not seen a lot of interesting stuff happen across the board in a very long time. Second thing that the fear of Being taken over by overconfident idiots.

Sorry.

But overconfident idiots and very hesitant, very hesitant knowledge centric ecosystems that we are very hesitant to talk, get in front of the camera, talk to a lot of things. It might not just be about our own. I keep coming back to this because maybe it's reinforcing it to myself as well.

Yeah.

That it's not just about my own brand building. It's probably to be able to put something out there. A 25 year old or an 18 year old can't come and tell me I'm a life coach. Please live a life before you come and tell me you're a life coach. They are making conversations, they are building products, they're selling themselves as products for stupid amount of prices online. I mean the number of ads that I see about a life coach, transformatory coach and conversations about parasympathetic nerve, everything around it. Right. Your yoga and your, your. All of that. And people are buying it. That's because there's no clarity in terms of what they're looking at today. If I'm talking about yoga, for example, or I'm talking about any subject in that ecosystem. If there's a skill that I'm talking about, it's one aspect. If I'm talking about a digital delivery, I'm sure it helps some people, but do they have the valid experience, the expertise to be able to say that? If there's a counselor or a psychologist, just because they're using digital as their medium of promotion, do they have the expertise, the certificates, the conversation and the probably the right to be able to talk?

So these youngsters will need to do more offline travel to see that the world is there beyond this. And this is not the only expert on the planet, Correct?

Yeah. Yeah.

What's it called?

Apple cider vindo. On a digital influencer who claim to have survived and beaten cancer and she was telling the world on how to beat cancer. Then she never had cancer herself, but.

Because she had the ability to create content. Sure. Like, and for a very long time she actually got away with it.

And real, you know, patients with cancer.

Actually on a fool's Home were. Yeah. If she, if she done something less riskier by saying that if somebody with natural abs would have said I lost 50 kilos, then he would have continued.

Drink the match. This a match of a restaurant in London.

Oh yes.

That was amazing. They basically listed the restaurant. Okay. They got it like some five star ratings. They said Michelin star, three Whatever, bro. Sold out. Okay. Restaurant didn't exist.

There was a line outside and they were making ramen out of the package.

We sold out. But we do home delivery. You can order here.

Basically say, don't believe anything, right?

No. But while we're doing smart tools, are we dumbing ourselves down?

I think traveling offline is going to increase. People are going to be like, oh. Which brings me to the last part because, you know, we're running out of time for this one. Is that we request, we're going to come with a YouTube and a Instagram reel format in front of all of you. We just request all of you people to give us a 90 second reel on what is the message? You know, I request you to talk about. Hey, I'm talking about. Because all these deals are going to help us get people through ads to this episode. This is my name, this is the company I'm from and today I'm at the Agency Founder podcast. And this is my message to agency founders. Whatever is your biggest message to them. Because a lot of people who are not able to talk as freely and they think this is the end of the world and they're going to continue working the way they are working. So the idea to no more low paying, late paying, toxic clients. There is a way out of it. And we spoke about this. So whatever is your biggest message. And yeah, so I'm repeating your name, your company name. You're on the Agency Founder podcast and your message to agency founders in 90 seconds. Thank you very much.