Featuring Mbulelo Jili
Join us in this eye-opening episode of the Colours of Social Media Podcast as we sit down with the brilliant mind behind The Local Agency, Mbulelo Jili. From the birth of his agency to the trials and triumphs that shaped its journey, Mbulelo shares the real-deal experiences of navigating the ever-evolving marketing landscape.
[0:00] From Bildx Studios, this is Colours of Social Media, the podcast for budding digital marketers and small business owners who not only believe in digital marketing, but actually practices.
[0:10] I'm your host, Enoch RobotBoy Appiah Jr. This podcast is available on Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts. And if you are listening on Spotify, consider following this podcast so you never miss an episode. And if you love what you're hearing so far, do share with your network.
[0:27] That's the only way to support me. Today's episode is for anyone who has ever thought of setting up an agency, be it a creative agency or a media agency. And in this episode, I'm joined by Embolilo Jili. I call him MJ to help us navigate the agency landscape.
[0:46] MJ is the founder and managing director of the local agency, a sort of campaign agency whose purpose is to handhold businesses into the African market through the construction of data-driven marketing strategies. Some of the tech companies you've come to love and even use came into Africa through their work. And day in, day out, they aim to bring in more tech companies into Africa, starting in the South of Africa. So back to this episode, it will focus on how he was able to build the local agency from the ground up, you know, his ups and downs, and most importantly, the lesson learned along the way, you know, lessons which will be beneficial to you if you're thinking of starting up an agency. From the other studios, this is Color Social Social Media. I'm your host, you know, Papa Junior. Stay with me.
[1:46] Hi, Embolilo. I'm so sorry if I murder your name, but then I'll just stick with MJ. No, that's perfectly fine. So MJ, welcome to the show. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for having me.
[2:00] What's your expectation of this episode? Do you know what we're going to talk about, you know, how to build an agency, how you, you know, you build the local agency from scratch?
[2:11] So what's basically your expectation for this episode? Well, to be honest, what I'm really expecting is for both of us to maybe share some ideas and some insights. Maybe I want to walk away from it, even if it's not a new frame of thinking, but maybe some ideas, or maybe even questions that I could pose to myself that could definitely make me leave here thinking, okay, cool, I can maybe tackle things maybe slightly differently, or even just an idea on how I could better improve the agency, or maybe even just me as a person.
[2:57] Maybe I could walk away with a different perspective or thought on the topics, you know, specifically in the marketing space. It could be across different platforms or channels, or maybe even the way I view traditional marketing or anything. So I'm coming as a blank canvas, mostly just to maybe walk away with a new frame of thinking or any ideas.
[3:22] All right, cool, cool, cool. So I just want to start about your background, right? During, you know, our lobby conversation, we mentioned that you started the local agency. Now, I want you to tell us a bit about your background and what inspired you to start the local agency.
[3:43] Okay, cool, that's perfect. So I'm actually going to give you maybe some back sides into why I actually started the agency. So I've been in marketing now for almost a decade, where I've worked across different industries, from like automotive to e-commerce, so the tech space.
[4:07] And one of our clients for the agency I was with, they were expanding out into East Africa, specifically Tanzania. And the agency had been tasked to come up with like a 360 campaign in order to get more users onto the actual platform. So, you know, myself and the team, we had come up with like some really cool ideas in terms like in how to engage with consumers on the ground and obviously try to get them to sign up and download their app and start using it, because it was an e-hailing app. So we came up with a cool idea and the first phase of the actual campaign was for us to do like a below the line execution. So to explain it maybe to the audience that are listening, a below the line execution, it could be anything from having like a promotion on the ground where promoters or activators or ambassadors of the brand are handing out like pamphlets and stuff to get people to actually engage. So that's what we did.
[5:18] So the first phase of the campaign, they had a team on the ground, they had promoters and we had targeted like high traffic areas inside Dar es Salaam and they were going to hand out these brochures to get people to engage with the brand and hopefully get people to download.
[5:39] So we got guys, we got a thing about a team about 2030, we picked out some like high traffic zones and we gave them we gave them some brochures and their main objective was to educate people about the platform, how the platform actually works and then hopefully we can get those people to convert them into leads. Obviously we set our own targets on our side as a team for how many leads or clients we generate over the period and the first day ended and we quickly noticed that the guys still had a lot of brochures and we were a bit like shocked because we had set our targets, we had spoken to the guys but they came back and they had a lot of brochures and I remember speaking some of the guys and we asked like okay so like why do you guys have so many brochures and the short answer was people don't really speak English and we were like what for too mean they don't speak English you know when we did research we found out hey in Tanzania English is one of the official languages in the country but on the actual ground people aren't really speaking English, people predominantly speak Swahili and I think that's probably the initial spark that actually that went off in my head and I was like you know sometimes we sit in boardrooms and we conceptualize or over conceptualize some of these ideas and these concepts and these ideas and we come up with really fancy copy words to get people to engage with the app with apps and stuff or products but we need to keep things as simple as possible in order to get consumers to engage with us and we also need to put it in layman terms where they also understand and obviously there was a bit of a language barrier between you know our brochures and the consumers on the ground even though our activators spoke in Swahili they couldn't take these brochures back home and get people to stay they wouldn't be able to really fully understand the service or the product unless it was in their own it was in their native language so you know myself and the team we went back to the drawing board and we worked with the we worked with a local copywriter and they put together the copy for us and you know after we we changed the copy and we changed a few things around on the brochure we got a higher turnaround in terms of getting those leaflets out so I'd probably say that was probably the initial spark it happened maybe two years later that I actually started the agency but that was probably one of the initial moments where I thought to myself like there's this disconnect between you know marketers that are sitting in boardrooms and the people on the ground you know we sit and we come up with these smart ideas and unless you're physically there and you present and you know what's happening on the ground or you're not of the culture it's super difficult to to be able to really understand the consumer on the other side and be able to meet their needs all right I mean for every marketing strategy that I've come across since you know being in this industry your audience is key whether be it be traditional marketing or digital marketing you have to take into serious account you know your audience so I mean once you get the audience right everything will just fall in place so yeah that was good thinking out there tell me again uh what uh what industry do you guys operate in um so we are a B2B agency um so my our main main like our primary target audience is people in the tech space so I'm trying to help take brands um be it people that are mostly in the software space so that's our little niche market so the whole idea of the local agency is helping brands that are coming out of the the east or the west that want to play specifically in the southern african market so that be it South Africa Zimbabwe Botswana specifically in these markets um if they want to play in this space and they want to really understand the audience on the ground what are their interests what are their likes um how do they how do what drives they purchasing um where your go-to partner in this space to help you really understand the audience and then once we help you understand the audience through our our marketing research we will then use our brand clarity model to really help you effectively communicate your offerings to to your market all right now uh MJ that is uh you know it's a highly targeted niche and I'm just wondering why did you decide to go in that in that direction in the in the tech space specifically so if you if you understand where most of the investments are going right now so I was actually with um the head of um Africa angel investment fund um she was here about say about two or three weeks ago she was in Cape Town and we had a conversation specifically about where money is going in Africa um and it's going really the tech space so when I thought about the local agency maybe about a year ago I wanted to really find I wanted to make an impact and I thought where would it be best to to serve this and I thought you know the tech space because there's a lot of money going in the tech space specifically I thought this would be a great a great starting point for us as an agency because this is where the money is currently um and we could probably do the most good specifically in the tech space because we already understand our audience you know I've been you know I've been you know I've been working in marketing for close to a decade now and uh I understand the South African audience pretty well so I thought okay cool I can partner up with uh other people in this space in my team and I really think we can really help tech brands that really want to play in this space really understand the audience um another thing that you know that sparked the idea of actually starting local agency uh prior to it going live I was in um I was on holiday I was on holiday in Bali and a good friend of mine had reached out to me and she'd informed me about a client in the UK there they've started like a dating app and um they wanted to really understand the the African landscape so the app is a it's a dating app in the UK it's called NeatQ and they were really interested in expanding into Africa um and they were like okay cool like can you maybe help us with some research really understand we really want to understand the African market I was still working for an agency at the time uh but I was like okay cool like you know I can help you guys with research uh um I know a few freelancers uh they could help me really unpack some of the data and um I can put a package together for you guys um they ended up deciding not to play in African space um because they were still relatively new and I think they didn't have you know the the founder of the company at the time he you know most of the money was coming out of another um another brand that he had been running um so he didn't have the funds at the moment because I told him it's going to be quite an expensive exercise I gave him a couple of different routes of like how we could potentially introduce the product uh after we do the research and stuff but I think you know I think they might still come to South to Africa I don't know yet I don't know but I think at the time they they just didn't have enough funds um or they didn't want to invest the funds interesting let's just hope that they come back all right so let's talk about you know how you got started with uh the local agency I want to know your in it the initial steps you to you know when you decided to set up uh the Lookout agency um but okay cool initial steps um so when I as soon as I had the idea and thought okay cool this I want to come up with uh an agency that's going to help uh B2B brands um specifically in African space where we help companies really localize content I set out and I I took um I think I've got like a uh I still have it actually um one of my diaries I took one of my diaries and I started jotting out like a short business like like a business plan and a diagram of how the actual agency is going to run um so I drew out exactly I jotted out exactly what I want to do so I'll it's going to be myself and then I'm going to have a strategy team and then I'm going to have a research team in different silos um I drew that out I said this is what I'm going to do obviously because when you're starting an agency I don't have a lot of money coming in I don't have a lot of money coming in so what I'm going to do is um I'm going to work with freelancers um good thing I've got a good network of people already in the industry that I know so every job that comes into the system it's going to be uh basically pay as you go so client pays us 50% up front for the job and then I can pay the guys to get started when the job ends and then I can pay the team so that's the that was a business model as simple as possible until we can start generating enough income to start paying salary results um so once first things first got uh drew drew it out exactly what I want to do and I figured out who the one of my core people my team um so I've got a I've got a brother he was going to hit up the research um he specializes in research specifically uh he's actually doing his PhD now um in the Africa and China relationship um so he specializes in in doing research specifically in the tech space cyber specifically in the tech space and cyber security to be exact um and he's also got a good network of researchers in university so I was like okay cool my brother's going to do research he also knows a really good network and anything that's research related I'm going to give it to him he's going to help us put together the research I will then come back to my strategy team we will work together we'll put a concise strategy together and then we can feed it back to clients um so that's the model even until today like that's what we do I've still got a I've got a core team but then I've also got a network of freelancers that we rely on to to get work out um so those were like initial steps yeah you may mention of the team and yeah for every agency the team played hero in every agency if you don't want to rely on your team then you might as well go freelancing by here in case you are building an agency yeah so you start with the team now I want to know how you went about assembling your team are there you know certain qualities that you look out for in you know potential team members yeah definitely um so initially before I even started the agency you know I uh I went on and I thought who would be the perfect people to kind of help me along this journey so because uh you know I've got a good relationship with my brother obviously and I know he does research I thought he'd be the perfect partner to to help me with the research and then obviously Lauren who you know um I'd work with Lauren uh prior uh on a on a few other projects um and I and I knew her history in marketing and I thought okay cool like um we made over coffee twice um you know she me and her bounce some ideas off to each other about like how could potentially you know run things at the agency um and she's also got a really good network um not only in Cape Town but outside Cape Town um and she knows a lot of you know she knows a lot of people in the industry so I thought okay cool she'd be a great person to partner up with and she she could be kind of like head of of relationships um so she can speak to the clients before they speak to me she can you know communicate our services our offerings um you know how we do things at the agency before I take it over um and close the kind of like close the deal and then you know help the then take the clients on the journey in terms of like helping them realize their vision whatever that might be um so yeah so initially the how I picked people out was going straight into my immediate network people I'd worked with in the past people that I trust um and the other people that I've kind of put together as part of the core team um and in terms of the freelancers it's mostly kind of really checking people's resumes figuring out um they they track record um have they done the work before are they aware of what we're trying to do and then also are they really passionate about about the about the work that they do um sometimes it's it's not just skill sets it's more about is this person really passionate about what they do and are they going to show up and do their best you know the one the the one thing I always really struggled with was you know sometimes you know I use upwork sometimes to to get freelancers and stuff but the biggest problem I've found with finding people on upwork is is a lot of them are really just trying to get paid um so and there's not there's no shame in that um but you know when I work with people I really want to work with somebody that's really trying to achieve what I'm trying to achieve so it's not about trying to get paid quickly it's more about like do you believe in what I'm trying to do um and are you going to not just do what you require but go beyond your your role to kind of ensure that you know we we deliver the highest service possible to the clients especially if uh I mean especially since the agency is at this infancy you want to get people who really believe in the vision you know of what you are building so yeah I totally side with you on that MJ yeah now uh you've been mentioned of a networking right for if I'm not mistaken for like 10 times since we started conversation yeah everything networking networking so I want to know uh how important is networking uh how does networking plays in you know building up an agency is it really important in the sense that those of us who don't have any network doesn't mean we can't uh you know set up our own agency well I think you know a network plays a really plays a really important role not just only if you want to build your own agency but with anything that you're trying to do um you know you know I love this quote of uh I've always loved this quote about if you want to you know if you want to go far in life then you gotta go with people right so if you're trying to achieve anything you need to go with people it's there's only so much one individual can do in a day you want to you anything that I take on I know I need a team you know I need people to assist me um and that's where your network plays an important role I think it's super important that you surround yourself with people that are like-minded people that uh share your goals and share your vision especially when you're trying to build a brand um the most important thing is trying to cultivate like a good culture within the agency um so the people are also aligned with what you're trying to achieve um and initially when I started the company you know I had to realize I had to rely on the people that I work with throughout you know throughout my journey and in order to get a network and have good people around you I think it firstly starts with you as a as an individual I think you have to be somebody that's not only transparent but you also need to be somebody that's also willing to give because people give when you you're a giver yourself you know so I think you know you need to you need to be open and you need to be somebody that's also willing to put in the same amount you're willing to receive um and that's how you build a good network and I think if people see that in you they'll want to do the same for you as well um and that's across any across any industry that you're in just in life in general I think treat people the way you want to be treated and give and be open um and people are going to want to work with you I think I put something up on LinkedIn actually recently about uh redefining networking yeah is there a link to in fact if I let me I'll just uh scrap through your post and just add it to the show notes yeah don't worry I'll just get it yeah all right MJ let's talk about client acquisition and you know eventual retention right I believe you have some strategies put in place so I want to know the strategies you use to find the most effective you know you find effective in getting your clients so I think right now we're to get leads we we solely depending on um not I won't say solely depending there's multiple different strategies so um I'd say we're depending heavily on social media and LinkedIn specifically to generate leads so we've got a yeah because you are b2b yeah we b2b so and LinkedIn is a great platform to not only network with other other companies and agencies but also founders and ceos and people that are are heading those departments so we the strategy is quite simple on LinkedIn it's give give give give give and then do a sales pitch so so the idea is if I've got 10 posts that are coming up eight will be where I'm giving great insights uh great ideas into how we might be doing things the agency um maybe and you're also adding some a few personal things that are that I'm currently getting through because people want to feel like you know there's another person on the side of the screen and then out of out of those out of those 10 posts I'll have one which is a sales pitch where I will then promote our services um but even in doing promoting our services we're always going to frame the context of the of the sales pitch as this is how we can help you as a business to achieve what you're trying to achieve so that's the main thing so I use LinkedIn but I also use email marketing um so I work where I use uh I use on LinkedIn there's a path there's a sales navigator so we pull a lot of emails of sales navigator and then I have somebody that uh somebody that helps us with uh sending out cold emails to clients about our services um and then once the email goes out if somebody's interested in we set up a call they either jump on a call with Lauren or myself or somebody from the project management team and they can have a conversation about our offerings and what we do so email marketing LinkedIn um and then obviously people within the network so word of mouth uh once we've done a service with somebody they'll be like oh I work with so-and-so and then we usually take the call and we set up a call but it's usually LinkedIn email marketing and and mostly people within the network so word of mouth yeah so if I get you I mean you have to know what you're looking for yeah right in your case your focus is you know your focus is on business so you have to be a agency yeah so automatically you go on LinkedIn then you give your offer out to you know businesses on LinkedIn yeah anytime hopefully they just you know they just turn to your way all right let's let's talk about you know how you retain you know that client that you eventually before we get to that before we even get to that just I just want to add something else is remember every day when even b2b and then even if it's b2b you still we're still dealing with people so I'm dealing with a person on the other side of the screen so I think that's also very important to always just remember we're dealing with people and irrespective that it's b2b or b2c it's a person on the other side of the screen that you're talking to and that person just wants to feel like they matter and that they're seen and you're genuinely trying to help them achieve whatever it is that you're trying to achieve and I always say you know the most important thing in marketing is is genuinely just caring for your clients and their needs and I think if you go in with that approach being authentic and genuinely trying to solve a problem that they have they will they will see that and they will want to work with you and it might not be immediately it might not be immediately but it might be in the future you know if they have a problem and they think you know you can genuinely help solve whatever issue they have and they're going to want to work with you cool all right let's talk about I mean there's a bit of answer some answer in there when it comes to you know clients retention and then if you want to go you know deeper in you know the approach that you're taking you know retaining your clients out gladly yeah definitely so I think it's the same it's a it's the same motto and strategy really caring you know once the job's done and it's been closed off we we always do like follow-ups and checkups with the client to make sure that they're happy with the service you know I have so the project management team is also a client service team so they are the ones that guide the client throughout the the whole process making sure the client's happy with what we're trying to do so we basically walk them through the whole process hey like are you are you happy with this that we've put together for you please sign it off if you're not happy hey how can we relook this to better align this with whatever vision that you have to make sure when we have a finished product that they are also happy and I think as long as you take your clients with you throughout the process of whatever it is that you're trying to achieve then they feel very comfortable about the part about the end product and even once the product's done and it's out there and you know they've signed it off and they're happy we make sure we check up on them like you know after the project's done you know okay are you good do you need any help with anything else if not it's fine you know even if it all it might be just a once off thing that's perfectly fine but yeah like we we we try to work with them every single step of the way to make sure that they're happy and if you know if they're clients that want to work with us on our retainer that's perfectly fine too that's great yeah yeah like you know they can sign up and we can we can do work for them for you know a full year depending on on the ask and expectations in terms of the amount of work that they might want us to produce we currently don't have any retainer clients at the moment it's usually it's usually we need you for this can you help us with this we do the job and then they come back okay cool for example somebody might come in and they go I want you guys to help us with strategy so we'll do a bit of research we'll do the strats we'll put the strats together and don't be like I really like the strats can you help me now execute the strategy can you help us build the landing page for the customers okay cool let's let's help you build the landing page you're happy with the landing page okay cool can you help us maybe come up with a social media plan now to get people onto the landing page okay let's help you put together the social media plan oh now you want to execute the social media plan how does that look like is it going to be targeted ads on facebook is it going to be targeted ads on twitter or is it going to be a linkedin strategy but we basically that's how we keep most of our clients you know we do um step by step with them we take them to the final depending on on their on their on their needs all right so if you want to get you know the inside scoop of uh this podcast you know their guests coming on what they are going to talk about i have a place just for that i've created a whatsapp channel to serve you with all of these so if you're like me and uh you know who likes to get a premium content you might consider following the whatsapp channel i'll share the link of this channel in the show notes okay so uh welcome back to Collebs social media podcast i have with me in bolulo jilly affectionately called mj and mj is the founder of the local agency south african creative agency whose sole mission is to show you know tech industries those who want to come into africa the ropes you know how to get into the african space and mj has been doing that for you know for quite some time and he's been good at his job i just welcome him on the show just talk about how he navigated you know building an agency you know from scratch we've talked about how he got started how he got started into the scene how he got his team you know built and uh you know how he got his first client and eventually retain them now my next question will be about managing finances so mj you're going to tell me how you handle you know the financial aspects like you know budgeting and most especially pricing when it comes to starting an agency pricing you can forget about the budgeting but most importantly i want you to talk about the pricing okay that's very interesting in terms of like how we price our offerings so it really does depend on um on the ask uh from the clients and how much time it might take to put together the ask for the client so for example if you come into me and you you want to put you know you want research for example done it depends on the kind of research that you're looking for and how long that you're doing for so i'll give an example we charge 800 rand an hour um for a researcher um and depending is this going to be 800 rand yeah i mean can you do a quick conversion to a usd for me um i think it's probably about $35 $35 $30 maybe okay okay maybe it's like $30 yeah $30 an hour that's how much are we i would charge for somebody in my research team um so it's $30 an hour um depending on the amount of research that might be done it might be it might be done in a week or maybe two weeks but that's our standard that's the standard pricing we charge but also we also open to negotiating with clients depending on the on the ask but i'd say that's that's where we start and then if you want to do so the way i normally price things out so if it's research i'll put i'll have the researchers time i'll have the project manager or the account manager that's also helping with the job and then i'll have the the agency fee on the cost so it's the researchers time the the account manager's time the person that's overseeing the process as well as the agency fee which is uh 15 percent of the total cost so that's how we normally cost uh but also we also are open to negotiating with clients and stuff in terms of pricing and stuff depending on the ask and how much research we we need uh because obviously you know if we're working with the freelancer the freelancer also comes with these own rates um and a good researchers time is usually around the the 30 range for an hour an hour's work um but if it's a lengthy project and the the person might take two or three weeks four weeks for the research we always are open to negotiating and we i've got good relationships with some of the researchers so we can relook the pricing but that's how we normally put together a cost for the clients so that's how we normally look at it but yeah cool can you share you know any financial tips for entrepreneurs you know people who are looking to set up their own company yeah definitely i think i think the biggest problem with a lot of entrepreneurs what tends to happen is is you start something um you see a little money coming in and then you start spending i think the most important thing is is every cent that comes in especially while you're still building is really to reinvest a lot of the money back in the agency to try scale it because the more you reinvest in the company the more the company can make long term um most entrepreneurs most companies don't make the five year mark most companies they fold off the five year mark because um maybe in the beginning stages they didn't they didn't reinvest heavily on trying to scale and build a business most guys they see a little money coming in and then they want to get the nice watch or they want to get a nice car don't do that take the money reinvest in the business try scale the business as much as possible and have cash flow sitting for for difficult times you know i can only imagine that i remember when covid hit space especially here i saw so many businesses go under and that was due to cash flow cash flow constraints for most businesses they couldn't afford to keep their lights on because they didn't have cash in the business um so my number one tip is reinvest in the business as much as possible every cent that comes in reinvest it back into the business and put money aside for a rainy day for the company itself and that's how i try manage most things like you know i'm not gonna get the first million dollar contract and then go take that money and go buy myself a nice car i take the money and i put it back into the business and i try scale it so maybe that's getting more personnel or you know getting better facilities for the team so they can work better and easier and faster or investing in maybe programs or software that's going to help us do our jobs a lot more efficiently but my main focus for every cent that comes in is to reinvest the money back into the business so we can do better for our clients cool talking about software and you know tools do you have you know specific tools or technologies that have been crucial for the success of your agency uh tools and softwares that i do use i use um chat gbt a lot um that's what i use chat gbt a lot that that helps me a lot with uh with copy and stuff uh but the thing is with using chat gbt and stuff i always tell people this chat gbt is is a tool like anything um what you put into chat gbt you get out it's super important you're able to actually really use it and chat gbt gives you really good answers and really concise answers if you know how to use it properly so you need to be able to put the right inputs in chat gbt to get exactly what you want you can't write a one-liner help me write a song and think you're going to get a good song you need to be able to to guide chat gbt properly um and tell it exactly what you want and give it examples uh so you can get the best answer so i i use chat gbt i know people on my team also use chat gbt quite a bit um and that's across the board that might be copy date they want to i mean who doesn't use chat gbt i actually don't if you don't use chat gbt now exactly yeah i think it's i think it's really really efficient and then there's another tool we call there's another tool i use power AI um it's also but it's another AI tool uh but specifically for building um presentation decks so i use that to help me build presentations and decks and stuff um i use that quite a bit and then also there's some other software tools like um like photoshop um as well as keynotes and stuff for building decks we use that quite a bit as well for like building like presentations and decks for clients um and that's some of the tools that the creative team uses quite a bit um you know what else do i use a lot that helps me oh there's another one there's a there's a there's a platform called post drip it's a it's a platform specifically for linkedin it helps you craft really good copy i highly recommend it i don't know if you're listening if if you're listening out there like if you're heavy on uh on linkedin which i highly recommend you should be especially if you're starting out um and you want effective copy look into using post strip uh post strip so it's p-o-s-t-s-d-r-i-p post yeah um really great platform really great platform for for copy um especially like and you can literally you know but it's also it's an AI tool so you need to put really good input to get a really good copy out of it but like i find it super efficient to help me craft copy specifically sometimes you know sometimes you have an idea and you know what you want to say but you're gonna just use the AI tool to kind of expand or some of your thinking and some of your ideas um and then once it's giving you an idea it's always up to you to kind of chop uh relook at it to make it as concise as possible yeah so you're able to get your idea out but yeah that's another tool that i use quite a bit yeah cool thanks mj always my next question i mean i was trying to focus on marketing and branding when i was crafting this question but then with marketing you've made mention of linkedin so i don't want to go deeper in there again yeah everybody if you are b2b mj advice that you go on linkedin but then you have to know your audience yeah so that is uh marketing now mj i love your branding i mean it's clean i don't know the color code for your your colors but what i know as an average joe is that it's pink right it's pink yeah so i want you to tell me how did you go about you know creating this distinctive the pink brand image for the local agency yeah so actually you know the the idea for the pink came um i thought to myself like when i when i so i used i was using canva at the time to to help me come up with the font size and idea for the agency i'd come up with it but i was still playing with the fonts um and i i liked the font that i came up with but i was like okay like what's gonna what's gonna pop um so i played around with some colors um and i stumbled on on pink while i was playing with some of the colors and i thought that's nobody's gonna think of a black male you know supposed to be like hyper masculine with the color pink yeah i thought it's a really nice contradiction so when they see my face there and they see the pink um it's gonna it's gonna be catching it's gonna be really eye-catching so somebody's gonna look oh black guy pink that's not something that's common so it's it's gonna be something that stands out immediately when you see my picture and you see the paint next to it it's working magic i must tell you i mean thank you so much i've already told you yeah i've already told you i love the branding yeah so yeah it's working whatever you are doing just keep on doing that uh thank you so much i appreciate it let's talk about i'm i'm sure you've encountered some challenges right in setting up at the local agency i mean you are doing good job but then definitely there there must be some challenges in there and some lessons learned so yeah what are some of the biggest challenges you faced in this relationship and growing the local agency i think so these are some of the things that we're currently still dealing with i think um the biggest some of the biggest challenges that i'm finding is is the communication between clients and my and my internal teams uh sometimes i feel like there's a bit of a broken telephone in terms of getting the ask right and not so you you work in agency right so normally when something happens there's a there's a client sends brief then the the project manager the comp manager has a conversation with the client they then put together a brief for the internal teams for them to start creating the asset whatever the asset is there's a there's a bit of a broken telephone between the project management team and the client and the creator that's actually doing that's doing that's creating the asset so i'd say this is probably one of our biggest problems at the moment is making sure we're not spending too much time going back and forth recreating stuff to get it right for the clients and i think the the biggest challenge is is sometimes the project manager or the account person doesn't fully understand the ask from the clients um and that's also maybe because they're not in the design team or they don't really fully understand the ask um and the way we currently combating this is is is either we put the creative in those briefing sessions so they walk out the session knowing exactly what needs to be done um or what we are doing is i either have myself in the call or i get maybe we record the session and then we go back internally and discuss it before it goes into studio and stuff needs to be produced um so yeah that yeah so that's what we're doing at the moment some of those are some of the challenges um because you don't want to spend too much time going back and forth with the client to get the to get the right output um and then my biggest um one of my biggest biggest challenges is also getting financed um i've been looking at looking getting angel investment for for the company um just so i can scale it and grow it because there's lots of things that i want to do uh but i'm gonna need finances to do it um so it's looking at getting angel investment um or maybe not even angel it could be vc investment as well uh for the agency in itself but i also want i need to create an ip for the agency and that's the easier thing to solve two vcs but yeah we could maybe discuss that on another podcast episode when i finally yeah when i finally tell you what the ip is going to be i already know what the ip is um but i'm still working on it in terms of like trying to get it going chalet more greus more greus to your elbow i mean uh the local agency apart from what you are saying in this conversation what i've seen online you guys are doing good job i mean thank you all the clients and everything so you are doing good job so i just pray and hope that everything falls in place yeah thank you so much yeah yeah i mean let's talk about the future now so uh what do you see the future of the local agency and most especially the industry that you guys play in well you know to be honest um my um asnes is the biggest uh b2b uh agency uh in southern africa um and then also uh i would love for us to expand into east africa and and then uh west africa um because that's where the all the money is currently being invested and take space so southern africa east africa and west africa so kenya nigeria um south africa um that's where the that's where there's a lot of uh investment at the moment so i see us becoming the the biggest b2b uh in southern africa and then we're going to expand to east africa uh hopefully we can have offices i want us to open up offices in in narrowby um and then maybe akra um but that's where that's where i see us in the future that's cool i mean that's a nice perspective so let's talk about in bolillo jilly also known as mj i want you i want us to discuss you know personal growth and most importantly work life balance as the founder of a creative agency this big of an agency i know the way that you guys do so i want to know you know how you balance work against life and still put out this awesome job so now how do you manage your personal growth that is one and you know as a founder then you know what strategies do you employ to maintain a healthy work life balance that's it that's you know that's a very tricky question um no it is a very tricky question because you know i i don't believe my the way i see balance and maybe the another person sees balance is totally different so i work how do you see balance so for example my my version of balance is go super hard um and then when you get a moment you do a break so i don't believe in um get up at eight work until five and then then have leisure time i believe work work until you're finished and then get leisure time so my schedule for most days is i'm up from about 6 a.m and i'm done working at around 11 p.m those that's how most of my days work from about 6 p.m to about 11 or 6 to about 10 i'm working straight out right those are most of my days but if i work a full day if i work a full three four days um and then i i can get a break on a thursday i'll take a break and i'll not work on that thursday so the way i see the way i see work life balances go super hard and then when you get a moment to relax relax like completely shut off for that day or the two days that you do have time off to kind of like um to kind of reflect um and spend time for yourself to kind of really figure out the next steps or the things that you want to achieve i believe if i can i try to do at least one day a week where i try not do any work um and just focus on reflecting for the next work week so if if some days in my phone maybe on a friday my phone on thursday it might fall on a sunday where i can get some time to myself and i can really just decompress turn off completely and then reflect on the work that's been done and things going forward um but yeah i think especially when you're still trying to build it's it's very difficult to find the right balance but that's how that's how i see balance maybe it's on for everybody like work super hard and then take a break um but yeah i know some people are big on like do you know maybe it's eight until five and that's how they want to do things they don't want to spend their leisure time but i believe go hard now and then race later oh well with me it's just typical monday to friday fully working i mean sorry the normal i mean i said with me it's just monday to friday you know working full time but in my weekend it's just you know chilling out you know with the family and everything yeah okay that's amazing i mean i i guess it's different for everybody but yours is actually the first yeah first time of year it's interesting no no definitely i think like if i think work life balance is different for everybody i think like for example i'm taking this call now on a saturday but i see this as work you know as part of the work stuff but i don't but i don't shy away from it i think it's a part of the building process yeah these are things that are that are important um so work as much as you can now and then you get it you get a chance take some downtime and rest yeah but you know but i think that's good for you as well like you're able to rest on weekends it's always good to rest and just reflect and think definitely all right so let's talk about your personal growth you know how to get people up as you know the founder of the lookout agency oh yeah definitely i i spend uh so personally i've got my own goals and stuff for myself and things that i also enjoy that i feel like that i ate myself so i'm also big on like health and stuff so i um i spend at least an hour at least four days a week where i work out um so that's me in the gym working out uh distressing that's my that's my time where i'm not thinking about work so and it's usually early mornings i'm up i'm in the gym um and that's where i spend my time really relaxing even though i'm lifting lifting weights but it's really relaxing for me and then and then and then and then in between that i also do spend some time reading so it might be um it might be on my way to a co-working space or on the way to a meeting i usually have a book in hand and and i'm reading um and if i finish work early you know six o'clock or seven o'clock where i think um i've gotten things done i usually didn't have i've got books you know next to the my bedside table i've got a book in my bag i always have a book with me um and um and i spend time reading and listening to podcasts um especially about topics that really interest me around business around you know family relationships like i said i'm a big fan of the diary of a ceo um and uh and i and i do spend time listening to people that i thought he doesn't be different spaces especially people i feel like can inspire me um but yeah that's how i usually spend a lot of time trying to like develop myself i listen to people that little industry leaders in their own spaces i read their work um and i listen to it and i also work out quite a bit yeah correct all right thanks for that uh at the top of this you know conversation i made mention that uh i asked two questions that in all the episodes i asked these two questions and the first one was the objective of this episode you know and you gave nice and i hope i'm able to live up to it your expectation no different people different yeah awesome awesome right so my second question will be i mean i am in the in the in the quest of getting more friends into my food you know getting people to come on the forecast so yeah would you recommend that are you fight on to the my nice episode yeah i've put you in a fight yeah a tight spot okay very interesting um does this person have to be a person we all know or no no could be anybody yeah anybody oh anybody well look i've actually got a very good uh friend of mine he's uh he's the head of growth of uh ad agency here in katarn as well uh brilliant guy uh he started his own agency um and uh he then closed doors and then he moved on where he's currently now the head of growth and another agency he also had his own podcast it's called um it's called pillow talk um where you also talked to a lot of like industry leaders pillow talk yeah uh we talked to industry leaders uh not only in the advertising space uh you know but across different industries his name is Jason um and i think he'd be a great guest for your show awesome Jason yeah i can go to i can link you guys i'll just go to pillow talks in fact i'm subscribing as uh as as we talk now yeah i can i can definitely like uh link you guys uh link you guys up together and you guys can definitely have a conversation um he's always open to doing different podcasts and stuff yeah awesome mj in bolillo jilly thank you so much we have finally had this conversation yeah definitely it's yeah yeah it's been yeah and i i truly truly appreciate your time i know it's weekend but then you spend time with me i truly truly appreciate it thank you for coming thank you you know i appreciate it so much thank you for having me and i hope your guest got something out of the episode and there you have it guys i hope you enjoyed the genuine insights said by mj if you're feeling inspired or have a burning question don't hesitate to reach out i love hearing from you if you're on spotify make sure to follow this podcast so you never miss an episode until next time my name is Inokubaba Appiah Junior this has been an episode of Colours of Social Media Podcast see you soon