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With this episode, I'm going to Portugal. I'm going to be meeting with our head of marketing, Miguel. Uh really focusing on our content strategy for the next 6 to 12 months. This has been one of the most difficult challenges for me is making our agency appear like a consumer brand. Getting the marketing right. took some time to go to where Miguel lives, uh, fly in a couple of other team members and just focus on an exclusive marketing sprint. A lot of travel. We need to take some time and

00:00:37 - 00:01:35

just focus on making sure that our marketing systems are getting up and running. We're able to grow Porto this week. Next week, I'm with our executive team in New York. Like when you're building a global remote company, it's like really tough to, you know, you don't have that inerson component. So like things get lost, things get missed. So you don't really have the same ability to build momentum or traction. Um so I I find it really necessary for me to be able to do this.

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What do you do here? So I'm the creative lead of the marketing team and I'm helping Lucas and all the team at Dark Room to improve their internal marketing strategy. I'm Asa. I'm our head of special projects here. So I work with Lucas on a lot of special projects. uh a lot of marketing work, sales work, finance, strategy. I come from a background where people like barely say hi to each other, you know, like in my old company, people were just, you know, cussing each other out. And suddenly I come here, you know,

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you know, it's like a we go to Merlin's meeting. We wear costumes. I have a MacBook. You know, I have a MacBook for me. This is like Ramy, you integrated super well. You're like, you know, you don't dress professionally anymore. You're wearing slides like Yeah, I'm I'm I'm trying to accommodate have never figured that you were a finance guy. Rammy leads finance and M&A at Dark Room, Ramy's love language is IBIDA and alpha. So, uh, that's what that's what that's the key to his heart.

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Yeah. The moment Lucas starts telling me, you know, the creative, you know, design, all these, you know, words, I'm just out, you know. He's been at our company, so we're we're creative marketing agency. We sell creative services. I still don't think Rammy knows what we do at all. He's been here for one year. So, I think we'll see. Pro Health is DVD. It's second. [Music] [Music] [Music] So, Asa started working at Dark Room. He was like 20, 19 years old. Super young.

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So, and he would join me on a lot of our sales calls. 29 at the time. I was like, that was what 4 years ago. Yeah, I was like 25. So, I was like, Isa, you need to like look older on these calls. Like, so I was like, you just need to like present yourself a little bit more. And so, the next call he shows up in a in like a suit. He he looked like he was going to like a communion. like like I'm like like is it no this is not the the vibe for reference um I grew up in a very blue color family rural barn color my dad's a mechanic I

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didn't do any of this stuff and then he showed up to one of our events in New York right after he lived we had like a right after he moved to New York we had like a big like gathering and he showed up in the same suit which gathering dude that was Oh yeah. [Music] This Porto trip was exactly what I needed. I mean, it was just a really strong week with the team and then we got to enjoy some time at Six Senses in Doro Valley. Just incredible. Yeah, we have one more day here and then I'm headed back to New York, back to

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back to the grind. The purpose of coming here was just like figuring out the marketing de and demand strategy like we are at a point now where we need consistent demand and the generation to grow. And the lead genen game today is all marketing. It's no longer like a B2B sales game. It's all social. It's all perception. It's all how you're showing up. And we're going to be the best, you know, agency in that space. Like that's why we're investing so much time on like being super

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particular with the standards, the creative. We just we need to treat ourselves like a like like a high taste consumer brand. That's why people work with us. You had coffee already? No. Banana. Banana. All right, let's go. Trying to acquire this company. I don't know if you know. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. The Austin one. Texas one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had this conversation with him last night. I I gave him a very good offer. He wanted basically two and a half times more. Totally out of the realm of of

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possibility. So, what we need to do this morning, I I got to meet with Ramy and basically say, "Hey, how can we get this deal done? Can Can we get this deal done? [Music] basketball. Can we do it? It's like 15 minutes walk. [ __ ] yeah. Let's go. The dad thing. I think it's just talking to early. You do team bonding stuff. It's actually kind of ironic cuz he was like, "Yes, it's very good to hang out in person and be with the team." And then he just misses all of the team

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bonding activities. We're We're going to play some twoon two though. We're good. We're good. Nice deep, Bosco. Let's go. Dude, he's ramp. Oh, wow. All right, Basco. We need to stop here. We got to shut him down. After all these sessions, what I want you to do is figure out like what other resources we need on this team to be able to operating at max output. [Music] Yes, sir. Let's go. Probably send it to New York Knicks or something, you know. May maybe they can draft me or

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something, you know. Yeah, I I'll do anything for the Knicks, man. Anything for the Knicks. Thank you. I sprained my ankle a couple of days ago, but Oh my god. Please. Yeah. Get the ones. No. Nah, it's going to be a good match up. Not a chance, baby. Yes, sir. No, sir. Joining the company has been an extreme challenge for me. I was just talking to to them about like how stressful it is managing finances. So when I came on board, just had to figure things out really quickly. We got the company on

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its legs financially. Now it's time to think about the next steps. I think there's a huge opportunity in the market. There's a pure straight consolidation consolidation play given the fragmentation and small players in the market that needs to be consolidated and all these private equities are looking for someone to help them consolidate the market. They cannot do it on on their own. What I've been learning just through having the acquisition conversations with smaller founders is like it's very hard to like

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actually getting someone to come to the table and and come to the table on a deal is really tough. There's so many different types of targets. They have different advantages for for us. Everyone has like different value they're bringing to the table. Every founder has a different type of uh demeanor. they have different like figures in their head in terms of sale price that they want. Some of which aren't always rational, especially at the smaller agency size. You have to develop a relationship that takes

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months, sometimes even years. So, like I'm starting to realize like saying, "Hey, we're going to make a platform and go out and acquire other agencies." It's like a lot easier said than done. There's a lot of moving parts to it. It requires a lot of mental energy and obviously capital.