In this concise "6 questions in 7 minutes" episode of the Winning at Business and Life podcast, host Professor Pete Alexander interviews Sanju Ganglani, a Toronto‑based digital‑marketing agency owner. Sanju shares what makes him smile in the industry – the quirky marketing attempts of clients – and emphasizes that a company's greatest asset is its team. He explains his unconventional hiring practice of never looking at resumes, focusing instead on interpersonal skills, motivation, and cultural fit, and describes a flexible, adult‑centric work model that lets employees choose their own schedules as long as deadlines are met. Sanju recounts a lesson from a missed deadline that reinforced the need for autonomy and clear expectations. When asked for advice beyond generic platitudes, he urges leaders not to give up, to stay ethical and authentic, and to recognize the cumulative impact they have on clients and staff. He recommends fellow entrepreneur Adil Rajput of ARC Group as a podcast guest, highlighting shared values and partnership. Finally, Sanju reflects on his formative retail job at Harry Rosen, crediting the customer‑service experience there as the foundation of his entrepreneurial mindset. The episode closes with his contact information – AU4A.com, AskUsForAnything.com, and the @gnlmedia social handle.
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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.
Sure, my name is Sanju Ganglani. Um, I am currently a digital marketing agency owner out of Toronto, Canada.
Well, Sanju, it's an absolute 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 think, um, hearing people's stories of what they've tried to do to market themselves. You sometimes end up with some pretty interesting attempts at things, and you can't help but, you know, sympathize with people and give them credit, right? Because at least they tried.
It is, it's true. I mean, some of those things you got to kind of— are head scratchers, but you're right, they did try. That's a good point. Question number 3: I have a fictitious book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
I, I think it would be around resources, around your team, and around, um, how to handle that internally. And the reason I find that to be such a big focus, and not to be cliché about it, but You tend to find that you are only as strong as your team at the end of the day. You know, you could have a million clients that are absolutely awesome and pay you big retainers, but if you don't have the infrastructure or the team that believes in it, they're as good as nothing at that point, right? So what you really want to do is make sure that you— what I felt at least is, you know, understanding how to work with your team in a way that you treat them in a way that they're more equals and more peers. Versus a bit of a hierarchy. So for example, with us, it's really funny because I've actually never seen the resume of anybody I've ever hired. I don't— I refuse to hire on a resume because to me it doesn't make sense. You can learn skills. What you can't learn is how to talk to people, how to interact with your fellow teammates, how to handle an issue or problem when it comes your way, or to, you know, have that motivation, dedication when you get up in the morning to do what you do because you love it. So, you know, we've taken people from all types of industries or people with zero experience in areas and given them a shot to figure out what they want to do and kind of help them get those skills. But the one thing that they all came to the table with is you talk to any client and they absolutely love the people they work with. Like they wouldn't, most of them wouldn't even sneeze without getting advice from that person first. So it's, I think that's probably the biggest and most important part of running a business is understanding that, again, not to be cliché, but you're only only as strong as the team that you have. And if you don't appreciate that and you don't treat them with that respect, you're going to end up with such churn and turnover that it's, it's only a waste of time and energy. It's just, it's a bad experience for the whole business overall.
That's very insightful. And I absolutely love the fact that you haven't seen the resume of anyone that works for you. And as you're describing it, I'm going to make this assumption that your team has a very high sense of trust as well because they're peers and they, and they, they feel like equals.
Exactly. And what's kind of interesting is before COVID hit, our whole model has always been, you know, I'm sort of the mentality of you're an adult, right? So you want to work at, you know, Saturday night, 2 to 3, but you don't want to come in on Tuesday because you want to watch a movie. No problem. You do you, right? But the main thing is that whatever you have in terms of a deadline or wherever you feel you work best, make sure you hit that, right? And, you know, that's a bit of a funny story because I learned that lesson the hard way where we had a very difficult client on a client on a graphic design project a few years ago.. And finally my designer comes in one morning, he's like, I got it, it's perfect, but I forgot it. And it's like, but why? And he's like, well, I got up at 2 in the morning and I was just drinking, you know, some tea and just hanging out and it just came to me, but then I kind of fell asleep and I forgot it. And to me it was sort of like, well, if you had that thing in you that you didn't have to get up till 10 o'clock, if you didn't want to, you probably would've started working on it and execute on that project and you would've been happier. So that was one of those motivators behind changing the model in terms of how we work and how we operate with the, with the team internally.
That's a great story, and it's just a perfect example of that— a wonderful idea that went into the black hole because they— yeah, that's great. That— well, I shouldn't say that's great. That's very, very important for people to remember. Exactly, for listeners to remember. Question number 4: other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what advice would you give to other business leaders?
Don't give up. I can count on my fingers, my toes, and probably everyone else's toes how many times I've been like, what am I doing? Why am I here? What's the point of this? And, you know, every time that you have those moments and every time that you feel like what you're doing isn't affecting change or isn't going the direction you're going in, I'd encourage you to look at it from the perspective of the things you have done and whose lives you have affected. Like, you don't realize until you have those moments how much your little bit of For example, the flexibility helped your staff be able to take care of their kids and be there for that during that time, or given a client something for free that they needed to get their business going. And if you didn't give them that chance, they wouldn't have been able to move forward, or executing on a project so well that the client, just their numbers went nuts and their revenue went crazy. So I'd say the biggest thing is just knowing that you shouldn't give up As long as you're being ethical and honest and true to yourself, and I know you said not to go cliché on that end, but you know, and authentic to yourself, just know that whatever you're doing is going to get there. And, you know, it may not happen in a day or 3 years or 5 years, but it will get there if you keep at it and you keep at it in the way that makes sense, right, for the business.
Very, very wise words. Yeah, I totally agree with you, and I've seen it in many, many cases where it looked like The, the people gave up right before it was about the pot.
Isn't that crazy?
I know, it's just too many times that that happens. So really insightful, thank you. Question number 5: What other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
So a person in particular I want to acknowledge and bring to the podcast I think would be great is Adil Rajput, and he runs a company called ARC Group, but his tagline is increase profit. So increaseprofits.ca there's the plug. But, you know, essentially, you know, we've sort of grown side by side in the past few years and really partnered together. And what really is awesome about him is that he comes to the table with the same level of service, the same ethics, the same outlook, where, you know, our goal at the end of the day is just to make sure the client is happy and successful. And I think, I think he'd be a great, great person to speak to and just, just an absolutely all-around awesome person.
Perfect. I look forward to talking to him. Thank you for that referral. And our final question, question number 6, please tell me about your first job.
Okay, so I'm not gonna talk about my first, first job because that's a little weird, but what I'm gonna tell you about is the job that I learned the most from and the job that set the foundation for my life. When I— and this is maybe my second job in, um, in school, I used to work retail. Um, I worked for Harry Rosen for a few years. I used to work part-time while I was in school. And, you know, I really, I always tell people that everything I learned about how to treat a customer and how to run a business from a customer service standpoint, I learned in those four walls. You know, I used to see people come back with cashmere coats that had cat hair in them that were 10 years old, and it was like, no problem, we'll take it back. Here's a credit, what do you like to do? And then just that understanding how to make people appreciate and how important customer service was and how important your reputation was, I think set a very, very big foundation in terms of my career as an entrepreneur and as I grew my business.
I love it, and I can totally appreciate that too, because one of my first jobs was in retail as well, and it is really true, you know, about customer service and actually, you know, how challenging it really is to work with the general public. That, you know, people don't realize that as customers when they're they're being difficult to the associate working at the store. That is not an easy job, so, you know, but it's a great example of the customer service that you described. So thank you for that. And Sanju, thank you so much for being on the show. How could people find you?
So you can find me online at AU4A.com, askusforanything.com. You can also find us on social @gnlmedia. And yeah, just kind of find us or just Google me and Google the company and you'll find a whole bunch of stuff to read up on.
Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Get hundreds of amazing business insights from previous guest episodes on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for listening.
