Jonathan Heit 6:52
this probably a book of big mistakes that we we’ve learned from? You know, I think when you when you think about your team, and I think, you know, one of the things that I think we learned early on was retention has always been very important to us. Team is very important to us in our business. That’s our product at the end of the day, right? I mean, we’re selling people’s time, you know, for the most part, we do more product, product zation of our services and more digital platforms now than certainly we did 20 plus years ago. But it’s still a big chunk of it is his advisory services and consultancy. And if somebody’s not the right fit, making that decision sooner, and helping them find something where they can be more successful, shouldn’t be seen as a failure. But I think in those early days, it was a a, we’re going to do everything we can to salvage this relationship. And there were people probably that we held on to too long that have gone on to do phenomenal things in their career, but we’re struggling within our organization, startup type of organization isn’t right for everyone. And you know, so you act quickly, you know, acting quickly on that, I think was one of the learnings that I really professed to our teams, to this day, even though we’re certainly are are far from a startup at this time.
Chad Franzen 8:16
Tell me about your company’s growth. As I mentioned, you went from two offices and 14 people and now you’re a global $100 million firm operating in more than 50 markets, kind of take me through that. And maybe some of the roles that you played in it.
Jonathan Heit 8:27
Yeah. When we when we started, you know, we had, again, as I mentioned, came out of a predecessor agency that had core operations in New York, and we acquired the West Coast assets. So that shop, so we were in San Francisco and Los Angeles, we quickly were able to expand it to San Diego, where Scott Allison are our global CEO to this day, had had roots as did another co founder of or Scott Pansky. And so we were really looking at, you know, again, broadening our reach within California and had a non compete with New York as a market for two years. As we got through that first SLOG and really the doldrums of the early 2000s. And really started to work our way out of that. We also saw New York as an opportunity I’d come from that market, we really looked at what can we do there because to really succeed as a communications agency. You have to be in the media capital of, if not the world, certainly, the Americas. So so we quickly set up shop there, had a few folks that were working there, I followed suit and brought my family back to New York early in our in our history. And I think that, you know, having that expanse and then starting to look in other markets and being opportunistic, whether a client needed us in that market, or we felt that that was a strategic advantage for us to have boots on the ground. We instead of just being you know, one central headquarters I think again, that that approach, again, in our business, because it is so events have a relationship, having having those locations in markets, I think was a differentiator for us. Even when we were only about 100 people, we might have had six or eight offices, you know, and then we follow that strategy globally as well, you know, we wanted smaller offices with, you know, connectivity amongst those people. But at scale becomes a large enough organization to really be able to work on whether it’s government accounts within, within California at that time, or large technology businesses that might have had headquarters in New York or San Francisco or large, other companies, that at the time, you might have been in similar markets, where we were we started in those early days. And I think, again, that us, you know, that that focus on people in connectivity, my role being, you know, really, again, you know, some of the larger accounts that we want early on, YouTube became a client early on in our technology practice, it ended up becoming our first million dollar account, and then understanding how to structure those and learning as we went on sort of what works and what didn’t, I think was, again, part of what my role was, and I think part of what prepared me for the role that I play today.
Chad Franzen 11:21
Yeah, that role is a global CEO. Oh, you know, the world is kind of trying to come out of COVID. It’s the work working styles have changed a little bit, but people are returning to the office, how are you guys handling that? You know, throughout your markets? And how are you dealing with employee engagement?
Jonathan Heit 11:40
Yeah, it’s, it’s a constant vigil, right. And I am one of many have a great team of senior leaders throughout this organization. I mentioned a few of the co founders by name, but there’s a global board. And we would meet daily at the time, when COVID first hit, I was actually I had relocated my family to Japan. To be closer to our APEC offices, we have, as I mentioned, we’ve expanded into Asia Pacific and Europe over the last several years. And since then, now into Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. So we’ve got a broad expanse, but but again, you know, being close and on the ground there help me understand what the needs were within, within that individual marketplace. And we’ve really leaned on that allowing the local leadership to make the right decisions, obviously, what’s happening in China in return to Office both during the height of COVID. And today is very different than what’s happening in the UK or in, in Los Angeles. So our approach to that has been, you know, let’s listen to the people on the ground, and then balance that with what we think makes sense. And so over the last year, we’ve implemented two days a week in the office. It’s not for everyone, we lean office first, in a hybrid mode, we still believe that the connectivity that you get from being next to someone in the office, we we really believe that there is especially in our business, where as I mentioned earlier, it’s a people business. So you’ve got to have those relationships trading for junior folks, a lot of that has to happen in person. We’ve had one of our best years in history, doing every, you know, doing most of our work remotely, I do not dispute that we can do very well financially, fully remote. There is more to what we’ve built here, though, than financial gains, and surely, you know, profit motives. We really are trying to build careers, build futures for people. And I think we’ve done a nice job of that. And we believe that that comes from the interaction and the connectivity, we’re starting to really look at it as return to connection as opposed to return to office, because the office is part of that connection. A lot of folks, we want to get folks out go meet with your clients, right? If you spend a week in a market where your client is, that’s as important as coming into the office, if not more. So right? If you’re out on pitches, we’ve been doing a lot more of our pitches in person. So that returned to connectivity. I’m seeing real value of it when I talk to people about it. I think it’ll probably take a while for the world to catch up. But I think there will always be a place for fully remote ventures and they’re successful. It’s just not the way we’re structured. We don’t believe it’s it’s right for the organization that that we’ve built over the long haul.
Chad Franzen 14:43
What kind of inflationary pressure is there on services like yours advisory services and consulting businesses and how are you guys dealing with it?
Jonathan Heit 14:51
It’s it’s a it’s not a unique question from the last one, right? I mean, I think where we see inflationary pressures are in our employees, pocketbooks, right? I mean when when they’re thinking about, you know what it costs for them to get into the office, what it costs for them to buy lunch when they come to the office, what it costs for that. So we’re trying to match that with pay equity and salary considerations to make sure that they can do that. So that a raise doesn’t become simply cost of living increase so that we’re able to make sure that they’re well positioned and in a, in a state of mind where they can they can truly be successful. Right? I think then you’re also getting that from the from the client side, where the inflationary pressures of their business are causing, you know, reductions in budgets or cuts, etc. And then lastly, you know, really just the cost of doing business, right. I mean, as I mentioned, we do maintain and operate dozens of offices around the world. So the cost of doing that has increased, the cost of health care has increased, the cost of everything has increased. So it’s nothing we haven’t been through before, it’s certainly at a different level than it has been over the years. It’s just something you have to you really had to manage through. And we’ve always operated very lean right as an organization. And I think we’ve maintained that blue collar mentality of just roll your sleeves up and get the work done. So. So keeping some of those costs and the system allow us to really invest in in our most important assets, which are our people and the communities in which they serve.
Chad Franzen 16:37
You said earlier that you moved your family relocated your family to Japan, did you personally have a lot of like global experiences moving around the globe throughout your life?
Jonathan Heit 16:48
I have not No, I have. I did start in our start into our Los Angeles office. So I had moved from New York to Los Angeles. So I was used to uprooting and, and from a business sense, and I was traveling. Once we did expand globally, my colleague, Andy Hardie-Brown, or global vice chair, and really the one who developed the Chief Operating Officer role originally, and taught me a lot about that was, had gone out to he really was the driver of our global growth. He’s not as much a client facing leader as he is a pupil leader, he hired me at that predecessor agency hired Scott Allison at that predecessor agency, and many of the top leaders in this in this organization. So he had moved to Singapore previously, and spent three years there helping to build out that network acquired our China presence or Japan presence, and really built Singapore from the ground up with some with some local teams, our philosophy has always been don’t put an expat into the office, very different than a lot of large global agencies where we’ll just put a you know, and Ozzy in and they can run AIPAC, and it’s a very different world, we have a great team in Australia, led by Salgo, good team, but we feel like if you don’t have that local market insight, then what’s the point? Right again, you’d go remote, and have somebody from the UK or the US or Australia lead that remotely. So for us, it was let’s get there. So I had been traveling their time, spending a lot of time in Singapore, spending a lot of time in Tokyo, in Beijing and Shanghai, where we have strong presence. So the idea was, once Andy had come back to the States, was good to have one of the co founders or global partners in that region. So So I offered myself up to go out there, that’d be a great experience for myself and my family, as well on a personal level, but also really to be close to the region gets to work with the teams there. And it really did pay dividends right away as we had a change in leadership in our Singapore office. Although it’s not around the corner, I at least was able to hop down there, you know, a few times over the latter half of 2019. To work closely find the right person to put in place and continue to build relationships which in that corner of the world, probably more than anywhere, those face to face relationships are essential. You can’t really be successful if you don’t if you don’t have that. So no, I personally didn’t have experience transferring to a different global region. But I had transferred into other markets before I had spent a lot of time in the region.
Chad Franzen 19:37
A few more question for you. Who are some of your mentors and maybe what is some some other best advice that you’ve received?
Jonathan Heit 19:44
Yeah, I mean, again, I’ve I’ve been with the same crew now for over 20 years. So I’ve mentioned them by name now numerous times, but but Andy, and Scott really have been incredible mentors to me and teaching me sort of you Some of what they’ve learned in spearheading this business as as to dynamic leaders a lot about mergers and acquisitions and this sort of thing. So I think that that’s been really informative to me. And I’ve been able to be very fortunate where my leadership is, is also a real mentor to me and I think a lot of the Maxim’s that I’ve shared now about learning more from our successes and, and dedicated our people. And I think the one last thing that I didn’t sort of put in words, but but I’d referenced before is, you know, revenue growth is a trailing indicator, right? That’s how we look at it. If you start working towards a number, and you’re only thinking about that number, and you’re making every decision around that number, we have found that you’ll end up making poor short sighted decisions, if you make decisions around long term health of the business, infrastructure, smart investments fail fast. Think about your people first. Invariably, the revenue growth follows. So I think that that really to me has been the lesson that I’ve taken away from the last 20 plus years.
Chad Franzen 21:12
One more question, but first, tell me how people can find out more about Allison+Partners.
Jonathan Heit 21:18
Yeah, sure. We’re in the middle of a rebrand actually as as we speak. So some of our our details may change as we as we evolve into our into our third decade here, but www.AllisonPR.com. Is, is our is our URL, you could find everything you need there about about Allison, a quick search for Allison+Partners will find us or I’m on obviously, on LinkedIn, and always happy to chat with folks about this industry or the work we do.
Chad Franzen 21:52
Right. Hey, Wes question? What are a few of maybe your some daily rituals that you find most important? What’s on a typical day?
Jonathan Heit 22:01
Yeah, it’s interesting, right? I like to make sure when I wake up, if I can, and the weather’s nice, you know, get out for a run, get out. And if not do some some sort of exercise in the morning really sets my day right off and find it, if I don’t do that, my day is just, it’s just not the same, more sluggish. And I just don’t quite have that sharpness, that I might otherwise have. So then you got to get moved, and you got to get your your body moving and get out there. Because it just just really everything obviously is is interconnected. I also, you know, if I’m coming into the city, I live up in North Jersey, I’ve got about an hour commute on the train. I like to get on, you know, clear out those emails, you know, get particularly talking to my team and AIPAC, getting them getting them addressed early. I’ll do that whether I’m home or we’re on the road. But also, you know, it can’t be all work surely were put in long days, but like to get the New York Times crossword done in the morning, maybe a wordle, something like that, you know, a little wordplay kind of gets my brain moving in a in a different direction. or listening to a podcast or listening to a book on tape or, or a tape audible, we’re reading, you know, I find that if you can, and I like to do that night as well. Because if you can, if you can get that part of your brain moving to you know, the same way you get your body moving, I find that it really cuts across everything else, everything else just seems to work better. If I managed to do that, if it’s a day where I wake up, get right on online and spend 12 hours and I’ve done nothing but and focus on on, you know, the day to day the business. It’s it’s probably less effective than eight hours of a day in that in that in that other team.
Chad Franzen 23:55
Sure. Hey, Jonathan has been great to talk to you. Thank you so much for all of your insights and for your time today.
Jonathan Heit 24:02
Appreciate it, Chad. My pleasure. Thanks so much.
Chad Franzen 24:04
Thank you. So long, everybody.
Outro 24:05
Thanks for listening to the Top Business Leaders Show. Powered by Rise25. Visit Rise25.com to check out more episodes of the show and to learn more about how you can start your own podcast.