DAVID GLAZA_LONG FORM
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[00:00:00] Corey Quinn: Today, I'm joined by the CEO and founder of Digits, David Glaza. Welcome, Dave.
[00:00:06] David Glaza: Hello. Glad to be here. Really for us, it's showcasing what we do that works. I would tell you how many stories I have of, we'll get a referral. Let's say from a friend, like we live in town.
[00:00:17] David Glaza: So a lot of people know that you're launching into target. They're like, Oh, you guys should do some retail media. And my buddy, Dave leads up this agency. You guys should talk. So we'll talk. And then they'll be like, yeah, sure. I don't want to spend money there. Like I, we're just going to focus in and get on the shelf.
[00:00:29] David Glaza: And then four months later, they email us and say, Ah, we're not hitting our sales targets. We should do something. And then two months later, they're off the shelf. Because the target brings in a lot of new brands, they figure out what works, what doesn't work, how do we get new clients, is really by showcasing the wins that we do have and the return on investment that brands are getting and how are they attracting new customers.
[00:00:50] David Glaza: Using this media can't just stop. Put your product on a shelf anymore and expect that the customer is going to walk down the aisle and go, Oh, that green box didn't used to be there. Last time I came here, let me pick it up and look at it. It just doesn't work. And so you need to find a way to tell your potential customers that you're there.
[00:01:07] Corey Quinn: Welcome to the deep specialization podcast, the show, where we blend focus, strategy, and client intimacy in order to scale and simplify our businesses and our lives. I'm your host, Corey Quinn. Let's jump into the show . Super excited for our conversation. , would you mind just sharing a little bit about yourself and the agency that you work for Digits?
[00:01:27] David Glaza: Yeah, Digits. We are a independent retail media agency. Uh, we've been around now for eight years, actually eight year birthday on Monday coming, um, April, based out of Minneapolis, do a ton of work in grocery Omnichannel retail. Prior to this, I can give you my full background, but prior to this was worked as a merchant and marketer at Target.
[00:01:50] Corey Quinn: Interesting. I know, I know the backstory here, so I think that there must be some relationship between that employment and what you've done here with Digits.
[00:01:58] Corey Quinn: What, just for context for the listeners, what could you share about the agency in terms of number of employees or number of clients or revenue? Uh, anything you're comfortable sharing? Yeah,
[00:02:07] David Glaza: we're independent, so we're still pretty niche. Um, we're at about 15, um, employees at this point. Um, and so we've been, like I said, around for eight years, it started as just me, I mean, when I left and founded it, it was just me, a hundred percent owner, um, and so built it with, you know, sort of one FTE, if you will, and I've sort of scaled it out, um, as our revenues and context have grown, um, kind of, you know, added resources as we've built our business and needed more people to, to do the work, um, and add, add expertise to the business.
[00:02:41] Corey Quinn: Well, let's, let's jump into the, maybe the, the months leading up to starting your agency. You said you were at Target. What was your, what was your role there at Target?
[00:02:52] David Glaza: Yeah, I, so I was at Target a full 14 years. Um, you know, Target hires a lot of people straight out of college. And so I started there when I was a 21 year old kid.
[00:03:01] David Glaza: Um, most of my time there was spent as a merchant. So Target hires new people as business analysts and buyers. So, um, I was a buyer for many years. And then really for me, the flip in my career, the turning point to brought me more to where I am now was, um, internally promoted and got a role over on targets cartwheel team.
[00:03:23] David Glaza: Uh, so cartwheel now called target circle. Um, if the shoppers are familiar, it is their coupon platform. And. 12 years ago now was very forward thinking as far as how to deliver mobile coupons to shoppers. We have a mobile app and then drive it to get your use your feet and walk into the store based on what you saw with your phone.
[00:03:46] David Glaza: Um, and so for me that taught me everything about not everything, but a lot of things about a digital, right? Digital grocery, digital marketing, Um, you know, digital omni channel retail. And so I did that for four years, uh, launched out that program for target, ran it for a couple of years. And then, you know, your time question was, you know, the last couple of months before, you know, starting digits was, you know, I wasn't sure what I wanted to keep doing with my career at target, whether or not I wanted to keep exploring sort of an upward career path at target, but I would say the cartwheel program at the time was so new.
[00:04:23] David Glaza: And was so successful, like we hit our five year plan within the first year and then kept growing that, you know, I knew that Personally had a lot of expertise in something that was new and growing and building And saw a market opportunity to try to build something. Um, admittedly, I would say I wasn't fully sure where it was going to go or what it was, you know, successful, right.
[00:04:48] David Glaza: But it kind of owed it to myself, I think, to explore it. Um, and so that was, that was the mindset, um, kind of right leading up to that spot.
[00:04:55] Corey Quinn: And so you, you transitioned out of, uh, out of target. And at that point, did you just start up the agency? Was it primarily the focus at that time was agency or were you doing something else?
[00:05:08] David Glaza: No, that was the focus that was, you know, that was the promise to myself. Um, and sort of, you know, my wife and family, right. You go from a, uh, a nice salaried corporate role where you get a paycheck every two weeks, right. To zero. Pretty quickly when you're, you know, out as an entrepreneur of one. And so, you know, I started up right away, um, really with the idea of, you know, being super smart on target and digital and on the coupon platform is, you know, how do we, how do I, at the time take that expertise and help others do better, um, within that niche.
[00:05:46] Corey Quinn: And so, um, how did you, when you launched, did you have, um, Confidence that you're going to able, you're, you're going to be able to leverage that, that expertise and those, those relationships to, to land clients or how did, how did the first client come around?
[00:06:01] David Glaza: Yeah. I mean, I, I had good network from kind of my old days, so I had people that I could reach out to.
[00:06:07] David Glaza: Um, and I think, you know, one of the things that I felt really good about was that I knew enough people that I would be able to have those initial conversations, you know, I wrote down a list of names of 10, 20 people that I thought would write me back. And like, if I quit and offer this service, you know, what I, what I get some meetings, right.
[00:06:26] David Glaza: And the first client wasn't necessarily on that list. Right. But like being able to talk to that many people, but what you're building and creating helps you build your business model and your services and your pricing and everything that kind of got the ball rolling.
[00:06:41] Corey Quinn: Okay. Could you, um, help kind of share what the.
[00:06:44] Corey Quinn: Your icp or ideal customer profile was at that time. Like who are the people on that 20 person list? What type of businesses did they represent? Yeah,
[00:06:51] David Glaza: so Again with you know, the model was target digital Um, at least that's the business we're helping to support. Um, so these are CPG companies that are selling products into Target.
[00:07:02] David Glaza: So that's, you know, from the biggest in the world of Procter Gamble, to, you know, a chip brand, to, um, you know, one of our kind of initial clients was a company called Hain Celestial, um, which sells veggie straws and baby food, Earth's Best, um, you know, that sort of stuff. Anybody selling millions of dollars of product into Target.
[00:07:26] David Glaza: would be kind of the people we were going after. And so again, ranging from the largest CPGs in the world to maybe more your midsize or your smaller CPGs, where, you know, we know some people.
[00:07:36] Corey Quinn: And you were able to get them into the Circle program? Was that part of your services or how did that process work?
[00:07:43] David Glaza: The way that the, I mean, the way that that process works is, um, it's kind of eligible for everybody. Like anybody that's a vendor, you know, it's kind of like selling on Amazon. I would say like anybody can go set up a shop and sell on Amazon, but how do you do it right? That's more, you know, we still are.
[00:08:00] David Glaza: And I, at the time was, you know, really good at, of like, Sure, you can, you know, spray and pray type approach and spend a lot of money and hope that it's working or, you know, do you hire an expert and do it really well, um, within that space?
[00:08:14] Corey Quinn: Got it. So I love the analogy of, of being able to sell on Amazon.
[00:08:18] Corey Quinn: Um, and, but unlike myself, who's an amateur at doing that, I've just recently started doing that. Uh, certainly working with an expert who came from that ecosystem on the other side of the table type of thing, and be able to provide that, that level of expertise. That makes a lot of sense. So, um, tell me about the first couple of years as you were growing up digits.
[00:08:39] Corey Quinn: It's been eight years now. What did the first year look like? Yeah.
[00:08:41] David Glaza: So for me, I, the first year I was a one man band, right? So that first couple of months was reaching out to, you know, that list of names that I had, right. And trying to understand who, who would take phone calls, who would have meetings, who, Could help me figure out the right way to bring this to market.
[00:08:57] David Glaza: Um, and maybe which CPG partners, you know, would actually have interest. And so, you know, this was a pre COVID timeframe. This was a pre Google meet and zoom timeframe. So what that meant, um, to me physically was a lot of driving around town. Um, I mean, most of those people live in the Minneapolis area. Um, because again, they're calling into target, which that's target's headquarters, you know, is in Minneapolis.
[00:09:20] David Glaza: So it was a lot of in person meetings, a lot of coffees. Really trying to shape that out and get, you know, those people that would be interested. You know, again, as an entrepreneur, you know, started off with zero contracts, day one, you know, picked up first business in the first couple of months. I mean, I would say at about the six month mark, um, I knew that there was enough interest here, right?
[00:09:40] David Glaza: Like there was enough, um, people and businesses that, um, that could benefit from what, what I was building, um, that it was going to be a winner.
[00:09:49] Corey Quinn: Did you have any local competition direct competition? Um,
[00:09:52] David Glaza: not as much. No, I mean they're Um in our industry There's a lot of brokers if you're in sort of the the grocery space that'll help you get your products and sell them in Um, but they're more about helping you sell in your product helping you manage purchase orders Helping you manage chargebacks logistics distribution I would say the more legacy parts of like physical retail 12 years or eight years ago They hadn't developed expertise around Um, you know, that was considered more I'd say of like an add on or an optional type service.
[00:10:25] David Glaza: And so definitely were the only ones in that space. Kind of when, when we launched.
[00:10:31] Corey Quinn: It's a good place to be. And so at what point did you hire your first employee and what did they do? First
[00:10:36] David Glaza: did it with contractors. I would say sort of like, and not to draw a delineation there, but like we, you know, met honestly, former target friends, um, actually met a couple of target friends that either had gotten laid off or had maybe quit to, you know, raise a family and then we're looking to get back into it.
[00:10:55] David Glaza: And so for me, it worked out really well. Um, to sort of lean into it partway where, you know, somebody was looking to get back in, into, you know, corporate work of sorts and wanted 10 hours a week, 20 hours a week or whatnot. Um, and so my first person, uh, we did that, I think she was about 10, 20 hours a week and really helped me organize even like business development.
[00:11:17] David Glaza: And like reaching out on LinkedIn and emailing people and trying to like put some structure around that where I was probably a little bit more scattershot, um, in that part of the business. And then over time grew to like help out on accounts. Um, so once we had enough business that I couldn't manage all of the accounts, you know, the, that first and then second hire started to do that.
[00:11:37] Corey Quinn: Do you have a salesperson, a full time salesperson on staff today?
[00:11:41] David Glaza: You're looking at it. Um, and so no, um, that has still been more of a founder. Founder function, I would say, um, then like a, a dedicated sales, sales business.
[00:11:54] Corey Quinn: And why do you think that is? You
[00:11:56] David Glaza: know, as starting out as your own, like you are the sales arm, right?
[00:12:01] David Glaza: You're the one that knows it. You know, the business model and a. Content expert or a strategy expert and you know what we're selling. Right. And so in some ways, digits, contracts are contracts with me. At least that's the way they were right over time. It's become more obviously of an organization or bigger.
[00:12:21] David Glaza: And I think yet we just haven't found the right way to translate that into like a dedicated salesperson. So today it's still, it is still me.
[00:12:31] Corey Quinn: Yeah. And I don't have an opinion. Yeah. One way or the other, uh, I talked to a lot of agency owners who are very happily founder led when it comes to sales. I, there's no, there's no challenge in that.
[00:12:43] Corey Quinn: And in some respects they want to keep it that way. They like working with the clients and, you know, in that capacity. So, um, I think that makes sense. I'm curious, how big is your total addressable market? Like how many businesses out there, uh, would, would be, you know, a good target for you to work?
[00:13:00] David Glaza: I mean, I was just at a conference, retail media.
[00:13:03] David Glaza: Yeah. Which is what we do. Yeah. Is a $54 billion a year industry . So, um, that's in Spanish. That now, is that all addressable? Is that all Addressable is a good question, right? Yeah. But like that, that's the industry. Yeah. Um, target, specifically retail media is a $1.5 billion industry now. You know, that's not obviously addressable, but that's the size of the, that's how much money vendors are spending.
[00:13:31] David Glaza: Right. And so what percentage of that would they pay an agency to help them spend it better is a way to, you know, think of it. Um, but that's how much money is in the market now. Um, which has grown significantly versus eight years ago when I started the business.
[00:13:49] Corey Quinn: And so 1. 5 is, is the, sort of the wallet that's, that's what's being spent in me, in target based media.
[00:13:55] Corey Quinn: So it sounds like, right. Okay. And, um, are you able to, to translate that into number of businesses or does that not really make sense? Cause it's based on a product or how do you think about like the, um, I mean, that would be too many
[00:14:09] David Glaza: CPGs. I mean, so there's hundreds of CPGs that, you know, sell into target, right.
[00:14:12] David Glaza: Anything from, you know, It tied, right, as P& G, as I said before, to somebody selling a brand of cottage cheese or, um, a pet toy or whatnot. I mean, if you walk around Target stores, I mean, it's probably a thousands. I don't even, I probably wouldn't have to do the math. But, um, it's at least in the hundreds, um, of, you know, different CPGs, um, that are selling.
[00:14:32] Corey Quinn: Is there a category of those toys? Uh, of those products that are sort of have relatively more spend than others. Like where, where, where are the dollars? Is there a subset of products that represent that? Yeah.
[00:14:43] David Glaza: I mean, for us, it's, it's the national brands. So, um, saying it a different way, like for us as an agency, there's no money helping Target's own brands business.
[00:14:53] David Glaza: So like a good and gather or a apparel business, if you're familiar to Target, they have like a cat and jack brand, right? Like Target manages all that. So that's all sort of out. But business wise food. Food is a great business, um, because it's, they're always launching new products. They're always trying to increase household consumption.
[00:15:09] David Glaza: They're always trying to get, you know, new houses to try their product. So for us, that means those companies always have marketing budgets, right, to try to accomplish those goals. So food's great. Pets is good. Um, Beauty brands, vitamins, essentials, all those companies, you know, have dedicated marketing budgets, um, to try to, you know, launch new products or acquire new shoppers even for existing products.
[00:15:34] Corey Quinn: Awesome. So there's quite a bit of spend there. And I imagine today it's a little bit more crowded than it was eight years ago with regard to this the specialty that you have.
[00:15:44] David Glaza: Yeah, it is. Um, I mean, I mentioned rep groups before, like some of those rep groups have now tried to add on services in the space, but then even for them, like they're not specialists, right?
[00:15:54] David Glaza: They're still doing the 10, 12 things they were doing before and then are now also trying to do this. And so I would say some have been more successful than others as far as building the right capabilities. You also have some You know, we, we talked about Amazon, like Amazon's a huge business of that 54 billion, they're a big piece of it.
[00:16:14] David Glaza: Um, and so there's agencies like ours that may be spun up around the same time, but focusing on Amazon, right? Like you said, you started launching, you're selling something there, right? There are probably thousands of Amazon agencies that could run it for you, right, for a cost and do good work. Some of them have tried to kind of come down market, I would say, or into a physical market.
[00:16:36] David Glaza: into helping brands with Kroger's and Walmart's and targets of the world. Um, so that's, yeah, our competition is sort of those, those two angles have kind of come into our world, uh, within that space.
[00:16:48] Corey Quinn: So if you're talking to a CPG, maybe they have a food product that they want to deploy into, you know, the target based approach.
[00:16:56] Corey Quinn: Um, how do you differentiate? How do you position differentiate in those sales conversations from these other options?
[00:17:02] David Glaza: Yeah, for us, it really is just still our target expertise. And so, um, which works great for us in two ways. One, if they're so big that their target dollars are meaningful, right? Like they're just a really big business.
[00:17:18] David Glaza: And so they're okay hiring a specialist, let's say at target and then a different specialist at Amazon and a different specialist somewhere else, because. Their business is just so big that they need to be the best everywhere. Or, obviously if somebody's only launched at Target. If they're, you know, a smaller brand and let's say Target's really important to them.
[00:17:38] David Glaza: We've struggled more in the middle if somebody like, you know, Does good business at target, but not good enough. And they just sort of want one, one agency for all, if you will. And they maybe realize that that agency isn't as good at everything, but they still only want to talk to one person. Right. Um, and they kind of hire a generalist instead of a specialist that way.
[00:17:58] Corey Quinn: How do you attract new retail media clients?
[00:18:00] David Glaza: Really for us is showcasing what we do that works right. Like I would tell you how many stories. I have of, we'll get a referral, let's say from a friend, like we live in town. So a lot of people don't know, like if you're launching into target, they're like, Oh, you guys should do some retail media.
[00:18:15] David Glaza: And my buddy Dave like leads up this agency. You guys should talk. Right. So we'll talk and then there'll be like, Oh, I don't want to spend money there. Um, like I, we're just going to focus in and get on the shelf. And then four months later, they email us and say, ah, we're not hitting our sales targets. We should have, we should do something.
[00:18:32] David Glaza: And then two months later, they're off the shelf because, you know, target brings in a lot of new brands. They figure out what works, what doesn't work, they get rid of. Um, and so I guess how do we get new clients is really by showcasing the wins that we do have and the return on investment that brands are getting.
[00:18:50] David Glaza: Um, and how are they attracting new customers? I'm using this media. Can't just put your product on a shelf anymore and expect that the customer is going to walk down the aisle and go, Oh, that green box didn't used to be there. Last time I came here, let me pick it up and look at it. Like that's just doesn't work.
[00:19:05] David Glaza: And so you need to find a way to get it. Tell your customers or potential customers that you're there.
[00:19:11] Corey Quinn: Yeah. So, so what's the right way to do that? I'm curious. Uh,
[00:19:14] David Glaza: I mean, it's a different tactic. We have a full flywheel at Target from sending you ads on your phone, like on the bus, right? Like if we know, if you're a shopper that likes to shop Target and we can go find you on your phone or, um, through Target's.
[00:19:26] David Glaza: Own Target has methods, right? Like they've got paid search ads, they've got coupons, they've got digital shelf. So there's, there's about five or six main tactics and we'll. you know, ebb and flow those based on the brand, the budget, um, and kind of the goals of what that person's trying to do.
[00:19:44] Corey Quinn: You mentioned referrals are important.
[00:19:45] Corey Quinn: Are there, are there other ways that people find you, um, in, in their journey to hire a specialist agency? Yeah,
[00:19:51] David Glaza: two for us, um, probably our most, uh, best performing is just LinkedIn. And so having a really robust LinkedIn profile, being active, being as much of a thought leader and commenter and poster as you can be within your space has, you know, I, I've done that for, you know, Well, I've tried to do my best for like eight years, you know, right?
[00:20:10] David Glaza: Like since we launched, I think it ebbs and flows with how active, you know, I am. Um, but you know, that's been our, our best, um, performing marketing channel, if you will. And then beyond that, it's, you know, we just relaunched our website and trying to make sure that that's up and running. Um, but for us, that's a little bit more of a landing page of somebody that's already found us.
[00:20:31] David Glaza: Um, you know, maybe they're searching for target expert agency in Google and it pops up, but not a lot of people are typing that into Google. Um, and so, you know, it's about finding people via LinkedIn and other ways.
[00:20:46] Corey Quinn: Are you finding on LinkedIn? Is it mostly organic? So you're, you're posting content and engaging that stuff.
[00:20:51] Corey Quinn: Or are you also doing ads?
[00:20:52] David Glaza: We aren't doing paid ads. No, I mean, we, we've done a few experiments, but we're not today. I mean, the network we play in as a specialist is pretty tight. Like you're all in like circles of knowledge, like circles of friendship or what, circles of network, whatever you want to call it.
[00:21:07] Corey Quinn: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:21:08] David Glaza: And so. I think it's just putting a lot of content. I mean, most new clients we get will say something like, Oh, I've seen your stuff on LinkedIn for a while. Yeah. Right. Um, And it's not like they might come to us unsolicited, but you know, they saw us post something six months ago that they remember.
[00:21:27] David Glaza: Right. And so it's hard to track it, say that way. Right. Always from like an ROI, cause it's not a direct click type thing. Um, but building your knowledge and expertise within it, especially being so niche, um, has been, what's been most effective for us.
[00:21:42] Corey Quinn: So is it, yeah, you're, you're, you're providing valuable content.
[00:21:44] Corey Quinn: It's obviously related to the problems, specific problems you solve. They, they consume the content, they may engage, they may not. But at some point they, when they have a need, they'll reach out to you. Is that fair? Yeah.
[00:21:55] David Glaza: Yep. Yep. That's at least the way it's been for us. So we, we try to push them as much as we can to get them to reach out, but you can't talk to everybody and not everybody's ready, right?
[00:22:05] David Glaza: Like sometimes the, at least for us, the, the close rate obviously is higher. If somebody comes to you, right. Then yeah, no friction. You're just ready.
[00:22:14] Corey Quinn: Yeah. Do you do, do you have like an email newsletter or any other type of Content that you, uh, or any other channels you leverage?
[00:22:21] David Glaza: Yeah, we do. Um, for the last couple of years, we've had a client newsletter, uh, but that's again, for, you know, for active clients that was born out of COVID to be, to provide a little color, like that didn't really exist.
[00:22:33] David Glaza: And then when COVID came and like upset, well, upset everything, but specifically even like grocery shopping, you know, which is our niche, right. Um, we started sending out, I was like, Oh, I got to use MailChimp or something to start sending out notes to people a lot faster. Right. Then just like normal email.
[00:22:49] David Glaza: Um, and then that's sort of grown into like more of an official newsletter. Um, and then we do have like a prospect newsletter for people that, you know, have expressed interest in digits, but maybe aren't active clients today. Um, so we use that to sort of keep them, you know, from a prospecting point of view, keep them warm, give them bits of information, hopefully, you know, get them to a point that they actually want to work with us in a paying capacity.
[00:23:12] Corey Quinn: You mentioned a conference that you were at recently. Um, how, how important are sort of conferences and associations to your work?
[00:23:18] David Glaza: Um, I'd give them a mid. I mean, we're, we're, I do maybe three conferences a year. Um, and so really for me, it's sort of just about being part of the community, um, and keeping me, uh, a thought expert within this space.
[00:23:35] David Glaza: Right. Um, I mean, within retail media, you know, the, Most active, smartest people in retail media go to the same, you know, two, three, four conferences a year. So,
[00:23:44] Corey Quinn: and every year, right? So you see it year in, year out.
[00:23:47] David Glaza: Yep. So it's socially being part of that community, right? Um, it's learning from the shows and booths and talks, whatever the people are doing just to make sure that, you know, we're staying up tight on all the latest, but yeah, so I'd call it mid, you're not, maybe you're making a contact or two, like similar to the way we talked about LinkedIn that turns into business at some point later down the road.
[00:24:06] David Glaza: But yeah. It's not the kind of industry where you're signing deals at conferences. Um, right. You're making connections that maybe later turns into business. Um, when somebody has a need that you're good at.
[00:24:16] Corey Quinn: I love that. So, um, eight years now in the business coming up on Monday. Congratulations again. It's fantastic.
[00:24:24] Corey Quinn: Um, looking back, what were, what were some of the major milestones? When it comes to growth over these eight years. I
[00:24:31] David Glaza: mean, one of them you already asked on, I think was the first hire, right? Like, how does this go from, you know, I, I just need to replace my own salary type of a point of view to, Oh, we know we're past that.
[00:24:43] David Glaza: And how do we actually turn this into like a, an agency, right? Like a higher, higher performing business that's pulling in more revenue. Um, so that was probably the first couple years was, you know, it was a slower growth, but, um, we were just sort of organically growing and adding staff when we needed to, um, for us, the bigger growth was, um, the changes in digital shopping after COVID.
[00:25:07] David Glaza: And so, um, the way that a client phrased it to me was, you know, pre COVID digital business at target was 2 percent of the business. And so If they wanted to be good at digital, great. You know, they wanted to be good at digital digital coupons, media, whatnot. Like it was sort of a nice to have fast forward to today, actually last month, it was 21 percent of the business.
[00:25:28] David Glaza: Um, and so now, you know, every brand needs to be an expert on digital and because it's, It's 20 percent of the business, and that's transacted 20 percent of the business, not even influenced. If you went influenced, it's going to obviously be more than that, but, so like, everybody needs what we do now, right?
[00:25:47] David Glaza: Whether they do it themselves, or they hire somebody else, they hire us, whatever, right? But like, everybody needs the work that we do today, versus when we started. You know, if they didn't, they weren't going to notice, right? It was more of a future build thing than you wanted to get really good at and be to stand out, but it wasn't maybe going to impact your top line, um, in the way that it does today.
[00:26:07] Corey Quinn: How about finding talent? And when you're, when you're out in the market, trying to, trying to find people with expertise, like how, How do you, how have you approached that and how has that approach changed over the years?
[00:26:19] David Glaza: Yeah, we, I mean when I first started, like I said, it was a lot of, um, almost like, like part timers, you know, for me because, you know, we were growing and trying to remain profitable while growing and you don't want to, like, extend too fast.
[00:26:34] David Glaza: Especially when it's just your, yourself. So, and then, so, because of that, it was a lot of network and a lot of, you know, You know, more of a friend circle type thing or work network friend circle, um, and that was great. I found, I mean, my best people that way, um, and the vast majority of them are all still, you know, part of Digits and become, you know, key pieces of the team.
[00:26:54] David Glaza: Um, more recently, You know, we're not huge, but we're a little bit bigger. And so it's harder to keep finding people that you, you know, have years history with. And so we've had to open it up a little bit more. Um, and so it's really just through posting it on LinkedIn. I mean, I just not to plug them too much, but it's putting jobs on there.
[00:27:11] David Glaza: And then that goes out to your network. Um, I mean, we're still looking for people that have history sort of in our niche. And so. The best people there are the ones that, you know, are kind of already in your circle a bit. We've hired some people that way through openings. Other times somebody sees your posting.
[00:27:25] David Glaza: I was like, Oh my friend, he's really good. It needs, he needs a job. Like I'll, I'll connect you guys. And so like they might not actually officially apply, but that's the trigger right of what starts it out there.
[00:27:33] Corey Quinn: Beautiful. Go LinkedIn. That's awesome. Um, and then, you know, going from a, um, a business owner, a founder who has started the business, pounded the pavement, built the business.
[00:27:48] Corey Quinn: Um, what has that transitioned from being sort of a owner operator to being more of a, of an owner who has other people doing a lot of that work? Was there any challenges or what was that like to, to go through that as a founder?
[00:28:00] David Glaza: Yes. Um, I'm sure it's a very common story, but, um, um, I mean, it's kind of like moving up from a management point of view.
[00:28:08] David Glaza: You no longer try to do everything yourself. Um, and so figuring out the right role for me, I would say. changing and evolving job descriptions for my team, changing and evolving compensation structures for the team, um, is sort of some of the hurdles we've had to jump through, right? Because, you know, the ask of them is different.
[00:28:31] David Glaza: Not only just the ask of me, um, and figuring that out. And so, I mean, I, I have very much noticed that the role that I play with clients that we've had for seven years is different than the role I play for a client that started last month. Right. And so, um, some of that has just happened because now, you know, there's a different onboarding process.
[00:28:50] David Glaza: There's more teams versus maybe I used to run that client myself seven years ago and I don't run them anymore, but I'm still like involved because I used to. And so, yeah, lots of shifts and growing challenges. Um, with that,
[00:29:02] Corey Quinn: how, how would you say or characterize how you've changed as a leader over these years?
[00:29:07] Corey Quinn: I'm
[00:29:07] David Glaza: probably a little bit more status quo or not, maybe that's not the right way to say it, but a little bit less. Um, knee jerky, right? Um, with the understanding that things are going to change, but they never change as fast as you think that they are. And, you know, kind of hurting, not even just hurting people, but hurting messages and trying to aggregate all the messages into sort of what the real story is, in a way.
[00:29:35] David Glaza: Probably more of a centrist, I would say that way, at least from a leadership versus again, when it was me and like two other people, right. He used to sort of be a lot more reactionary.
[00:29:44] Corey Quinn: Do you take a productized service approach to your offering or is it more custom approach every time or somewhere in the middle?
[00:29:50] David Glaza: We try to be as productized as we can. So, um, you know, what we do for a client on retainer, you know, when we're in a, in a pitch session, we'll bring them. This is what we do as a list of services and say like, this is the way that we bring this to life. Um, But, um, at the end of the day, we're still a niche agency, so everything can be customized, um, you know, as much as you need to, um, from a brand side.
[00:30:13] Corey Quinn: How has that evolved over the years? I imagine when you were starting, it was probably less productized, um, versus today. So how did, how did that evolve? And when, when did productization really become important for you?
[00:30:24] David Glaza: Um, I mean, I think the bigger the team gets, right. Um, and so, you know, if you have more people trying to rally around a vision, uh, or a operations process, that process needs to be tighter.
[00:30:35] David Glaza: And so, you know, have we built in more layers and more people that's probably been more true over the last two, three years for us, I mean, on our eight year kind of like bucket
[00:30:46] Corey Quinn: makes sense. Have you ever considered going outside of retail media? Have you ever been like, ah, enough of these? Yeah, these, these CPG folks, I want to work with dentists.
[00:30:56] Corey Quinn: Um. Or has that never, has that never crossed your mind?
[00:30:58] David Glaza: Uh, dentists specifically, no. Um, but I would say the most, like. Adjacent is so, you know, we're really good at target. Um, we have gone past that. I mean, I like if you, if you look at my content on LinkedIn, that's what we talk about the most because that's what we're good at.
[00:31:16] David Glaza: And that's where we win clients. But we have clients where we run Walmart business. We have clients where we run Kroger. You know, so there are brands that are like that have worked with us and really like what we do and say, Hey, I don't just sell at Target. Can you help us other spots? And the answer is yes, we can do that.
[00:31:32] David Glaza: But that's not the way that we win our business, right? We do also some work with regional grocers. So smaller chains like 100 store chains, um, that are trying to catch up in the retail media space. And so that, that to me is almost more like what I did for Target almost 10 years ago, where we like built a lot of this stuff for them and built that strategy.
[00:31:51] David Glaza: So we do that for regional grocers. Uh, the only spot where we've really said no, and we've kind of talked about it a little bit too, is Amazon. Um, where it's just a different ballgame. And, sometimes you get a little bit, um, wanty. Because, like, there's so much mon Like, Amazon's so huge, and there's so much media, that's kind of running through that platform, that you're like, well, wouldn't it be awesome if we were really good at that?
[00:32:14] David Glaza: Um, but, Because it's so big, there's so many agencies, right, that are, that are really good. And so today that, you know, we've even had some clients that are like, Oh, do you guys run Amazon Media? And we've said no. Um, and so today the answer is no, we don't do that. Maybe there'll be a day that the right person will ask us and say, well, if you're willing to be our first client, like we'll do it with you.
[00:32:37] David Glaza: Right. But we'd have to go into it a little bit more eyes wide open, um, both ways. Um, because it is something we, we haven't gone into yet.
[00:32:45] Corey Quinn: That's great. I admire your, your restraint and that, um, you know, there's, there's the old saying, if you say yes to this, what do you say? No, do type of thing. So, you know, but the, in the world of.
[00:32:56] Corey Quinn: Uh, constraints and, you know, uh, unfortunately zero sum when it comes to resources and time. Um, that, that's, that's, um, uh, that's admirable that you're able to restrain yourself in those regards. Uh, we'll see
[00:33:08] David Glaza: if we, if we want to be a couple hundred person agency someday, you know, maybe we have to get there.
[00:33:12] David Glaza: I'm not saying
[00:33:13] Corey Quinn: it's not the right thing. It's just, you have to be clear about what you're potentially saying no to if you say yes to that. Uh, are there any negatives in just, you know, from a, from a sort of a agency growth strategy in taking a vertical approach? Yeah.
[00:33:30] David Glaza: I mean, being vertical in the idea that we're retail media only, right.
[00:33:33] David Glaza: Um, I mean, when I go to conferences, like the, we, in some level, we compete with agencies that do everything. Right? And so we might work on the same brand and maybe we're impacting a million dollars of media for that brand. And they have a different agency that's impacting 50 million. Right? Because they do everything from billboards to Facebook to TikTok to, you know, to, to retail media.
[00:33:57] David Glaza: Right? And so in that world, you know, our addressable market then is smaller to that topic we talked about earlier. Right? And an individual client, if we're not doing everything for them, we can't earn as much revenue for that client. Um, but conversely, Like we've been able to sign clients that there's no way we would do if we were trying to do everything with them.
[00:34:18] David Glaza: So like we work with five of the top 10 biggest CPGs in the world, right? And they, they hire us because we're really good at what we do. Yeah. There's no way we could earn a contract to them to run all of their national retail media.
[00:34:29] Corey Quinn: And I can imagine that that sales process is much different for if you're trying to get the entire like agency of record or whatnot, uh,
[00:34:36] David Glaza: for the product.
[00:34:37] David Glaza: Right. And so like, so, I mean, there's pros and cons that way. Like, um, Yeah, we have probably more clients with smaller amounts of revenue per each than like a big age You know, I'd say a full funnel agency that you know, their roster is shorter, but they have you know They get a lot more revenue for each of them So that that's that's okay.
[00:34:59] David Glaza: I guess there's pros and cons.
[00:35:01] Corey Quinn: Well, I've got two more questions for you as we wrap up here What advice would you have maybe for the eight year old, eight years ago, Dave, who was just starting off or for, you know, a lot of our listeners are going to be agency founders who are maybe generalists, maybe haven't taken a real, a lot of, have not been focused in a specific, uh, market or serving a specific audience and they're thinking about it.
[00:35:26] Corey Quinn: What advice would you have to them?
[00:35:27] David Glaza: Yeah. I mean, for us, I mean, what's worked and I guess the advice I'd give out is just what are you so good at that other people can't copy? As much. And that's, what's worked for us. I mean, we have competitors in the space now, eight years later, it's a much bigger market.
[00:35:42] David Glaza: Um, but I don't, I don't believe any of our competitors do anything close to as well as we do. Um, like we have been experts in that. And so I assume any agency out there is really good at something. And it's like, how are they focusing in on that? Have that be your tip of your spear from a content delivery?
[00:35:59] David Glaza: Um, really. Try to stand out within that niche. Um, I mean media is so fragmented now or even like purchase, you know, b2b type media that within your market, if you're the smartest slash maybe most vocal or hopefully both of those things, um, within that space, Then people that need your services are going to find you or at least, you know, say yes to you.
[00:36:22] David Glaza: So I guess that would be the advice versus being everything to everybody is how are you like the best thing to some people.
[00:36:28] Corey Quinn: I love that. I love that question. What can you be the best in the world at solving? What could that be for you? Last question for you Dave. What's your motivation?
[00:36:37] David Glaza: Um, that's a good question.
[00:36:40] David Glaza: Um, I mean, I, I'd say it was, and still is sort of building something. Um, and I think, you know, again, eight years ago when it was just me, it was building, you know, can I build this business? Like, is there enough money there? Like for me to again, replace my salary beyond that and like, build something that's sort of sustainable in this space.
[00:37:00] David Glaza: I'd say for the last couple of years, I've taken more pride in like, building a team and like building revenue for my team. Um, and that's, that wasn't there years ago, right? Because it was just me and I was trying to make it sustainable. Um, but then let's say the larger it's gotten, um, have probably been more motivated on that of like, how, how are we building something?
[00:37:20] David Glaza: The people on my team, you know, are all like making good money, enjoying what they do, enjoying their work. Um, you know, we've had nearly 100 percent of people staying, you know, at the company. And so being able to build a place where people want to work, enjoy their work, have work life balance, um, you know, and kind of work in the way they want to, has been something that I think has grown as a motivating factor for me, um, and probably will only continue to grow as, you know, the agency keeps growing.
[00:37:48] Corey Quinn: Wow. That's great. I'm excited for you and your future. It sounds like it's going to be very bright. Um, where can people reach out to you if they want to connect with you and maybe continue the conversation?
[00:37:58] David Glaza: Yeah. Uh, David Glosser, LinkedIn, um, would be the easiest way to get ahold of me. Uh, the website is just digitsagency.
[00:38:04] David Glaza: com. Um, and there's forms on there to fill out if you want to contact us, if it's a business interest, but at LinkedIn is easily the best way to go.
[00:38:13] Corey Quinn: Beautiful. Thank you so much for coming on Dave.
[00:38:15] David Glaza: Great. Thank you.
[00:38:16] Corey Quinn: That's it for today. I'm Corey Quinn and I hope you join me again next time on the Deep Specialization podcast.
[00:38:23] Corey Quinn: If you received value from this show, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. Thanks and we'll see you soon.
