Episode 150: Winning at Business and Life with Tamar Hela

This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.

Thanks so much, Pete Alexander. So my name is Tamar Hella. I'm actually from California and I'm living in beautiful Shanghai, China, and I am the COO of the leading digital agency here in Asia that only deals with LinkedIn marketing and lead generation. So I'm living, I'm living my China dream.

Tamar, it's so great to have you on the show. Question number 2: What's the best thing about working in your industry?

The best thing is that right now there's not huge competition in China. Most people will focus on Chinese social media, but LinkedIn is the only Western social media not blocked here. So there's a huge opportunity, a huge market for it.

That's interesting. I'm sure you're liking to take advantage of that, I would imagine. Oh yes, absolutely. Question number 3: I have a fictitious book. With All the Answers for Business.

What chapter would you think most companies should read right now with the digital renaissance happening and people still not realizing they need to read the chapter on digital marketing with long-term thinking and long-term strategy rather than little tactics or vanity metrics? So it's all about long-term thinking if you want your business to survive and thrive in the new digital era.

I love that. Yes, it's, it's that long-term thinking that helps somebody to be able to have a long-term process for being able to be successful, not just in the short term but in the long term.

Absolutely.

That's great. Question number 4: Other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?

Have a process. Uh, our company is very process-driven. Everything we do has a process. That way, no matter what happens in business, however it transforms, if you have remote workers, like I just shared with you, our team is completely remote. A process helps to keep you on track with your team and even with your clients. So again, it's that long-term thinking. Of making sure that when you do something once and if it works well, don't keep reinventing the wheel. Have a process that clearly lays out how to do everything.

And I assume that that process, it's, it's something that you have documented so that anybody, let's say a new employee or somebody, if they, they know exactly what to follow?

Oh, absolutely. It's task by task. It's all set on our calendar or in our private server They know exactly what to do and when to do it.

Excellent. Question number 5: What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?

Well, I'd be in big trouble if I didn't nominate my CEO, my business partner, Julian. He is definitely— he's the process guy, and I think he's the best one to highlight as far as processes and long-term thinking. So I would like to nominate him.

Excellent. I'll reach out to him. Question number 6, our final question: Please tell me about your first job.

Okay, my first job was in retail, but the one that was the most significant, which was right after that, was actually working in security in retail, and I was an undercover security guard at 18 years old. I think what that taught me was Smoke and mirrors exist everywhere in business and marketing in our own lives. And people thought that I was just a customer service representative, but actually I was kind of spying. I was being paid to spy on them, to listen to people like if they were stealing things or catch people writing fraudulent checks. I couldn't believe that I had that opportunity when I was 18, but It also helped me to take things really seriously, to look out for the company, to have a loyalty to the company. I did get to meet a celebrity who I helped to guard. So that was really interesting. And I think that kind of set the precedence for, again, not that we want to lie or manipulate, especially in marketing, but a lot of what we do has to be more set in our confidence. Especially if we've never done something before. So it's just like being an undercover security guard in a clothing store and looking for what's real and what's not real, I think.

That's a great story. I love it. It actually reminds me a little bit of when I was in retail, there were those secret shoppers who would come into the store and then you would have no idea as a retail employee that they were a secret shopper, and then you'd get this report back, you know, a month or two later that says, oh, was the person nice? Did they seem knowledgeable? Did they, you know, do something wrong? So it sounds like something in the same vogue, but you were specifically looking for something that was supposed to be not proper in the—

Yes, yes.

Tick it once. Yeah.

So, oh yes.

Thank you so much for being on the show. How could people find you?

Well, they can find me on my favorite social media platform, LinkedIn. So just look up Tamar Hella. I don't think there's any other Tamar Hellas in the world, and they'll be able to find me there and connect.

Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.