In this concise 7‑minute interview, host Pete Alexander speaks with Julia Becker Collins, Chief Operating Officer of Vision Advertising, a 22‑year‑old, 100% woman‑owned digital marketing agency. Julia shares what makes her smile—working with her staff and clients—and emphasizes the importance of knowing your Ideal Client Profile (ICP) to drive profitable, emotionally satisfying relationships. She advises leaders to treat people management as a teachable, developable skill rather than an assumed ability, and to view marketing assets—website, social media, photography, video—as revenue‑generating investments, not expenses. Julia recommends fellow executive coach Michelle Mercier as a future podcast guest, recounts her first job babysitting and the early lesson that she didn’t enjoy working with children, and provides her contact information (Instagram @juliarrivka, Vision Advertising Instagram @visionadvertisingrocks, website vision‑advertising.com, and a Facebook page for webinars). The conversation blends personal anecdotes with practical leadership guidance for business owners and marketers.
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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 more 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.
I'm Julia Becker Collins. I am the Chief Operating Officer at Vision Advertising, which means The Buck Stops With Me, a full-service digital marketing agency that has been around for 22 years. We are 100% woman-owned and women-run, and we are very proud of that.
Well, Julie, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. Question number 2: What is something that makes you smile and/or laugh about working in your industry? I—
well, smile and laugh is that I love who I work with every day, my staff. And I love the clients I get to work with every day and conversations with people like you. And maybe that sounds like, you know, fluff, but I do. I love talking to people. I love that I get paid to talk to people all day.
I love that too, and I appreciate that because I— one of the reasons why I do this podcast is the exact same thing. I get to meet some very interesting people like yourself. So thank you for that. Question number 3: I have a fictitious book. With All the Answers for Business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
I really think that most companies need to read the chapter about ideal client profile. I have had so many conversations with huge businesses, small businesses, leaders at all levels of companies, people that are just starting out their businesses that have no— unfortunately have no concept of that you need to know who you're selling to, And that's how you deal with your marketing and that's how you drive your sales rather than here's the product, here's the service, let's market it. So the chapter that the business leaders need to be focused on is ICP, ideal client profile. Who do you want to sell to? Who can you sell to? And who has the highest ROI, not just in how much money you're making, but in emotional ROI, who is not a difficult client.
I love that, especially that last part, because I know in my, my career I've had to fire some clients that were the wrong clients for us. So I'm assuming that's, that's what you're getting at with the emotional side.
Yes, absolutely. I've had to fire clients where we made a lot of money financially, but it was such a difficult emotional relationship for my staff, for myself. It's just not worth it in the end.
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Question number 4: other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and get care for customers, what advice or insight would you give to other business leaders?
I thought about this a lot, and I really think it's two things. One is that you need to invest in people management. And what I mean by that is teach your team how to manage. A lot of times when people are given a promotion, it includes people management as part of the promotion. But the assumption is that that person will just learn how to manage people. It's never taught as a skill. And people management is a skill that needs to be taught. It is a skill that needs to be nurtured. And it's a skill that not everyone is good at. And it's something that should be nurtured and grown. Professional development should be sought after for it. And somebody should be taught how to do it before they're put in a position of direct management of a person. So I wish more business leaders really understood that aspect especially big corporations that just put people into a new role where they were leading people and had no idea that, you know, motivation is different for every person. Not every person's motivated by money. You need to figure that out for your team. There's so many layers to that. And those are conversations I have with business leaders all the time. And I run seminars on that. You could just see people, it's like a light bulb going off over people's heads. Like, oh my God, I didn't realize. That that's a whole separate skill. And then in addition to that, you know, that marketing, social media, website are all assets that you need to think about. Your marketing, you need to think about your photography, your video, your social media, website presence, everything as an asset, and it will pay you back like an asset. And if you think about marketing as an afterthought, if you think about your website, your social media, et cetera, as an afterthought, then it won't pay you back. And then it will be this afterthought. It won't get you everywhere. But if you invest in it and you care for it and you nurture it and you carve out the time to do what is necessary, to do the hard work, whether it's outsourcing it or investing in somebody for your team, then it will pay you back just like sales will. But that is something that a lot of business leaders at all different levels of industry just don't understand.
And I couldn't agree with you more there. I've spent most of my career in marketing, and when the attitude from senior management is that, oh, marketing's just an expense, oh my gosh, then it's just, it's such a waste because you're right, it is, it truly is an asset. So that's very, very wise as well. Thank you for that.
Oh, you're welcome.
Question number 5: What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
Well, this is a really easy one. I would really think the best person to invite on is Michelle Mercier. She is the founder of Create Honesty. She's an executive business coach. She is an all-around rock star. Um, she was previously on the executive leadership board, uh, for me when I was president of the MetroWest Women's Network. That's how I met her. And she has vast and numerous experience in corporate and nonprofit leadership. And she, I think, knows that world better than most and understands how to guide people to make the best decisions.
Wow, she sounds fabulous. I look forward to talking with her. So thank you for that referral. And our final question, question number 6, please tell me about your first job.
This is a great question. I love that we're talking about this because one of my first jobs was babysitting. Babysitting, probably like a lot of women, 14 years old, going door to door in my neighborhood, knocking on doors saying, you know, do you need help with your kids? Because I needed to make money. And by doing that, I learned I don't like kids. It's a really important lesson to learn. So it was good, I made some money doing it, and then I passed.
It sounds very similar to my daughter because she, she got certified in babysitting when she was, I think, yeah, around 14, about the same age. And she had a couple gigs and she said to her dad, "I don't want to do it anymore. I can't stand kids." Exactly, exactly.
I probably had a similar reaction and I was like, "You know what? This is great for now, but as soon as I'm old enough legally to have a real big girl job, I'm all set with this." I love it. I did.
Great story. Julia, thank you so much for being on the show. How could people find you?
You can find me personally on Instagram. I'm @juliarrivka, J-U-L-I-A-R as in Rachel, I-V as in Victor, K-A. I'm usually on Instagram. That's where I like to spend my time. You can find Vision Advertising on Instagram. We're @visionadvertisingrocks because we do. We're also online. Our website is vision-advertising.com, and you can find a full list of all of our upcoming free and very low-cost webinars for business leaders and marketing executives on our Facebook page.
Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Thanks for listening.
