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Verbatim text
Lee:
Welcome to the Agency Trailblazer podcast. This is an Agency Life episode coming to you every Wednesday and Friday, where we interview an agency owner from around the world asking them the same questions because we’re all different, but we’re all the same. So let’s listen and learn from each other. Before we kick off the show, here is a word from our sponsor.
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Lee:
Welcome to another episode of Hashtag Agency Life. Today, Today, we have on the call Steve Picanza. How are you doing, mate?
Steven Picanza:
I’m doing awesome. I’m thank you for pronouncing my name correctly.
Lee:
Exactly how everyone’s meant to say it, isn’t it? Is this Steve Picanza?
Steven Picanza:
Just like that, Lee. Just like that.
Lee:
Or Call Picanza if you just want to be posh.
Steven Picanza:
Right. That’s posh. It’s very posh on my part.
Lee:
Just love your name.
Steven Picanza:
In fact-Thanks for having me on, man. I appreciate this.
Lee:
Whenever I tag you in things now, mate, because I can never remember if it’s a P-H or a V, I just start typing in Picanza and you come up.
Steven Picanza:
My whole life, that’s basically what people call me. Hey, Picanza. It’s unique enough. Hey, Picanza. That’s me. What’s up?
Lee:
But not quite the way I pronounced it, obviously. I was being an idiot. I apologise to the Internet.
Steven Picanza:
A bit, not a large, but a bit.
Lee:
Apologies. Anyway. All right. You know the format. So are you ready to rock and roll?
Steven Picanza:
Let’s rock and roll, baby. Let’s do it. Yes.
Lee:
Okay. Don’t forget everyone, you can also watch this on agencytribleazer. Com. It’s like YouTube. Can watch this handsome man. He was gorgeous. Right. Okay. So first question is, tell us the name of your agency and what it is you do.
Steven Picanza:
We are Latin & Code, and we help B2B organisations essentially make smarter branding, and in parentheses, marketing decision.
Lee:
You’ve said that a few times.
Steven Picanza:
A couple of times. It’s all about that value proposition, right? It comes down to branding. If you don’t know your position and your value prop, how can you market yourself? How to have that So we’re strategy behind you.
Lee:
Steve is good on this. I first met Steve at a conference where he talked about this exact thing. All right. So if you guys were going to have a big birthday party, we’re all going to meet you over in Italy. I think you’re at the moment. We’re going to maybe do a barbecue and some nice Italian fine wines and all of that stuff. Can you think of when your birthday may be and how old your agency is?
Steven Picanza:
July 11th. So 7:11, right? We’re always open. We’re all over the world. I think we officially Minister of the Agency in 2014. So we are in our fourth year of operation on year number five. And this is this inclination. I had an agency many, many moons ago between ’08 in 2012, but this agency, Latin & Code, since 2014.
Lee:
That’s awesome. So Latin & Code, let’s learn about your setup, and how many people are there in your team?
Steven Picanza:
Great. So the core is really just two of us. So it’s my wife, Melissa, and myself. You’d also hear Melissa on our podcast that we have as well, and she’s always around. But depending on project engagement we have, we will scale up and we will subtract depending. There’s no need to keep a bunch of staff members on our payroll, so to say, if the project is not perfect for them. Our whole idea is really we keep our client list pretty small. We keep it manageable for ourselves. We want make as much impact as we can and add as much value. And so depending on that, engagement is who we will bring on, whether it’s copywriters, other strategists, designers. And then as we need more technical, whether it’s web or whatever it is, we will contact and we have relationships and partnerships with many, many agencies across the States and into Europe.
Lee:
That’s awesome. It’s a really good way of working. And I think a lot of agencies have not awoken, but discovered this new way of working. Instead of having to have a big bricks and mortars, costly office with a whole load of stuff that you’re paying to wait between projects, you can actually do what you’re doing, which is a much more fluid, much more scalable model.
Steven Picanza:
It’s nimble, right? We’re small but mighty. But if we need to be big, we can definitely scale up as we need to be. But it gives us the power and keeps the control with us as opposed to the outside forces.
Lee:
And it also leads into our next question, because what you’re doing enables this thing to happen. The normal question is, do you have an office or virtual set up? And I know you’re about to tell me how you guys operate, which is awesome.
Steven Picanza:
We’re crazy virtual. I think that’s the term we’re going to use. We’re not just virtual, we’re crazy virtual. So our business is registered in the great state of California, but we literally operate around the world. Right now, we’re doing this interview. I’m in Milan, our European office, where I think we’ve I’ve been about four months here this past year just for some engagements that we have, some teaching that I’m doing. And then we also operate pretty fluidly out of Philadelphia, which is another mainstay of ours. But our team members are all over the United States And honestly, all into Europe. And so we are… It’s that modern day economy, right? It’s that modern day way of working where having that physical location doesn’t make sense for us. It doesn’t make sense financially for us. And to be honest, our team members, even if we were in San Diego where our business is registered, we don’t have any team members or clients there. So why even have an office?
Lee:
Yeah, exactly. You guys are absolutely global, and I freaking love it. And I also like following your Instagram, folks. We will make sure we put links in for Instagrams, etc. But you guys are really prevalent on social media, and I love watching where you are and you sharing your evening meals with people, your Instagram stories, all of that good stuff is just phenomenal, and I love watching what you guys are up to. And I’m slightly envious. Okay, so there’s obviously the core team, but also you have the wider team. Like you said, you’re very fluid, you’re nimble, you’re able to bring people on, and And that’s the way they like it, probably as well, because they work with multiple people. But as you’re working with a team, can you describe the culture that you’re trying to foster with, obviously, the core team, but also with anyone else who works with you?
Steven Picanza:
I mean, I don’t want to sound cliché, but open and collaborative is absolutely essential to the way that we work. And we’re in month 12 of a 16 month journey where we’ve just been travelling, right? And we talk about this all the time, how travel creates empathy. Travel allows you to be more understanding. And I think even with our team, it gives us that leg up to be understanding and to try to extract the greatness from all the people people that we work with, because we pride ourselves on working with the best of the best. And in doing so, sometimes ego comes into play. And ego comes into play, especially in the creative world or in the branding world, where it’s very intellectual. And by coming in, and I think from the very first interaction, the very first touch point, and shit, even when you listen to us on our podcast, you’re able to hear that we’re definitely breaking that mould where we are approachable, we’re personable, but we take our extremely serious because the success of our clients, again, not to sound cliché, is the success of us. And so the culture that we’re fostering, really starting with Melissa and I, is we’re able to work, do your best from wherever you want to do your best, and let’s just get the job done.
Steven Picanza:
And I think that that is really the lifestyle that we’re trying to move forward with for the rest of our life, not just for the time being.
Lee:
And spoiler alert, we actually interviewed Melissa just a few weeks ago. That podcast is going live in a few short weeks time, where she shares some of that 16 month journey that you guys are on, where you literally up sticks. And goodbye, house. We are travelling the world stuff in storage, crazy people, but also at the same time. But we won’t go too much into that because #spileralert. Right, let’s talk about your mission. And do you work in any particular in industry or niche? I know the answer to this, but come on, hit us.
Steven Picanza:
The riches are in the niches. And while I have a breadth of experience in so many different industries, it seems to be the ones that are calling us and the ones that are really looking for our assistance are the legacy type brands that operate in a B2B space. So these are the brands that have the relationships, they have some content, they know what they’re doing, but they’re overwhelmed or their marketing department isn’t savvy enough, or maybe even they’re only a marketing department of one. And we all know that that’s not sustainable. And so many clients are coming to us saying, Steven, Melissa, we have this. We’ve done this. We found success. We’ve scaled to $10 million in revenue a year, but we’re losing. And I can feel that we’re losing. So it’s our job to come in and evaluate positioning evaluate, do you know who your audience is? Evaluate, are you communicating and articulating your value to your audience in the correct manner? And so recently, it’s been about troubleshooting and finding those challenge areas within those brands and then assembling the team around to really help solve those problems. And so we’re leveraging this idea of agile strategy of design thinking It’s not just to solve the right problems, because a client doesn’t know what a client doesn’t know.
Steven Picanza:
They might think that, oh, somebody told me that SEO is exactly what I need to grow my business. But is that right? And we look, peek behind the curtains, and it’s not. Maybe That’s a part of it. That’s the component of it. That’s not going to solve their problem. They don’t have a brand strategy. They don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know their goals. They don’t know their vision or their mission. We talked about culture earlier. A lot of times the internal The culture of an organisation is off. If the CEO and the janitor of the organisation cannot excite the same story with the same passion, your culture is broken, and it’s going to permeate through everything that you do, every touch point you put out there, it’s almost going to look like a smoking mirror. And so the clients are coming to us with those issues at hand.
Lee:
I could just literally listen to you talk. That’s how I met you.
Steven Picanza:
I’m a talker.
Lee:
You were on stage, weren’t you, at the conference? And you were the refreshing speaker because I think you crammed in the most expletives I’ve ever heard into any one conference.
Steven Picanza:
You could take the boy out of New York, but you can’t take the New Yorker out of the boy.
Lee:
It was a beautiful experience. That is an awesome niche. I mean, to try and put that into a very simple package, you essentially work with successful brands, but the bit that’s missing for them is they They’ve been able to make it to date using the old school techniques that they’ve always used that have always worked. But now we’re in a different landscape, aren’t we? There’s online, there’s digital technology, all of that stuff. And they know that if they don’t grab hold of that and have someone like you guys helping them do that, then they are eventually going to lose. So that’s a really, really powerful place to be. And I’m loving the fact that you’re being able to help businesses. I know one of your clients and the work that you do with them, it is really inspiring. And they’re also really nice people as well.
Steven Picanza:
It comes down to we’re not going to work with… We have to believe in that purpose of the client. We’re not going to be working with a client who is doing bad for the environment or bad practises or has… We’re really going to vet because we really create strong bonds and strong relationships.
Lee:
That’s why you won’t work with me, isn’t it? So rude anyway, but hey, whatever. All right. So for these clients, I think we’ve pretty much alluded to it. I think it’s pretty obvious. But the question I would normally ask is, what is the main problem that you solve for your clients? Is there any one thing that you could put into a tweet that is about you guys? Sure.
Steven Picanza:
Digital brand transformation. Digital transformation is a huge topic. A lot of brands are looking at this from a IT perspective, from a marketing perspective, and the idea that within large organisations, silos are created where maybe CMOs and CIOs and CTOs, they’re not on the same strategy. They’re not on the same wavelength. And so really what we’ve become good at over the years is being able to, from a high level perspective, a top down view, create strategies that all departments can latch on to that can continuously move the organisation forward and hopefully mitigate risk along the way, because it becomes very risky If your CMO and your CTO are not speaking the same language, it becomes very risky when the brand strategy isn’t necessarily thought out in a manner that can be followed. And so in doing what we call digital brand transformation is really taking this idea of your brand, creating an ecosystem on the back end where all facets are working together, everyone’s talking the same language, and now you’re able to to connect with your audience at the truest form. So that’s really the nutshell. Hopefully, that’s a lot more- That’s a massive nutshell, mate.
Lee:
That was like a bag of nuts. So let me try.
Steven Picanza:
Yeah, please. That’s a bag of nuts.
Lee:
All right, let me try. I think what you guys are doing or the main problem that you’re solving for these brands is you’re helping the brand realise and unpack who they are and what they’re doing and where they’re going. And you’re getting buy-in from everyone in the organisation. So everybody is getting involved and driving that mission forward. Would that be a nutshell?
Steven Picanza:
100 %. Because when we leave, we’re not going to be working with the brand forever.
Lee:
Exactly. Everyone needs to know it.
Steven Picanza:
They have to be sustainable. They have to be able to carry the torque. We’ll teach you how I would drink water, but we’re not going to do it for you.
Lee:
No, exactly. Let’s talk about marketing then, something you’re very good at for your clients. You already explained that you try and keep the client list small. So this isn’t something you do all the time. But obviously, you still need to ensure there is a pipeline. Eventually, the relationship will come to its natural conclusion because they’ll be able to fly the nest, and you can be all tearful and proud of them as they go on bravely into the future together. But how do you guys continue to generate leads?
Steven Picanza:
For us, it’s all about thought leadership. I teach at two different universities, one here in Europe, one in the States at Drexel University. I do a lot of speaking on stages, a lot of blog writing, e-book writing. So the more that behind the pencil on the podium that we can get from workshops to webinars to being on podcasts, the more that our personal brands are going to grow. And no matter… Whatever happens with Latin and Code, we might decide to close Latin and Code doors in a couple of years. Steven Pucante still stays around. So that personal brand, like your thumbprint is unique to you. And so for us, it’s about building that uniqueness from an individual perspective, our personal brand, which then ensures that our pipeline is being always full. Because we’re constantly pushing our stuff out there. We’re constantly having, ensuring that our editorial calendar is up to date, ensuring that our content calendars are up to date and full with some of these accolades, some of these publications that we’re in, as well as the teaching that we’re doing.
Lee:
That’s so cool.
Steven Picanza:
Pencil to podium.
Lee:
Pencil to podium. I like that one. Lots of alliteration going on in that answer, as well as workshop to webinar, however it was. Workshop to webinar, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool. Sorry, you were saying something about me. It sounded really nice.
Steven Picanza:
Yeah. I mean, well, you were… A lot of what I do when I teach is I bring in my friends who are better than me at a lot of things. There’s a lot of people better than me at a lot of things. You are a lot better at me explaining web, explaining WordPress. Oh, yeah, that whole thing. So when I do my class at Drexel, which happens about twice a year, I bring you in Lee to help explain WordPress and help to break down the fundamentals of why WordPress is essential to growing your business.
Lee:
I nearly lost my voice in that. That was like an hour and a half worth last time. And folks, if you want to see that and you’re an agency Trailblazer member, you can actually see that in there. We did a recording and popped it in there for you guys to enjoy. It helps you explain the fundamentals if you wish to your clients and all of that good stuff. All right, so success. How do you measure success? And you can answer that in any way. It could be for you personally, it could be It can be for the both of you, it could be for the business. I don’t care. I’m just interested in your answer, what you think success is for you.
Steven Picanza:
This is something that we’ve had to go through a big pivot recently in bringing the focus back to what we’re good at. And consulting and working with brands is what we’re good at. And for a while, we really put a lot of stock into our sub brand and podcast, which was the Creative Hustle podcast. We still have it. But it dawned on us about a year ago, nine months ago, that it was the wrong path to pursue. We thought success was going to come from there. And one of the things that we do when working with brands and when working with anyone is an internal audit. We have to ask her, just like Socrates says, know thyself, we have to know thyself. And that question of what the success really looks like is something that I thought long and hard about. And it comes down to this idea of my life’s work, my life’s, I guess, purpose in a way. And for me, it’s always been or what I’ve realised recently is I’m an experience maker. I create experiences for the brands I work with. I create experiences for the audience I hopefully can influence.
Steven Picanza:
Hopefully, my teaching is an experience for the students that I’m impacting. And you mentioned even earlier, I want to create an experience if you come over and enjoy a meal with us. So for For me, success is just being able to create experience, just being creative. Obviously, I need to make a living. Obviously, I want money. But I think if I stay true to myself and continuously work on my life’s work and my life’s purpose, the money is going to come. I fear of mind leading, and this is something I’ve actually been thinking a lot about recently is what happens so many people, especially the rat race that is the United States. I’m working towards retirement. I’m I’m working towards retirement. And that word retirement just doesn’t sit well with me. It sounds boring to me. Yeah, it does. And I’ve seen it. I’ve seen so many retirees who right after they’re done working, it’s just a downward decline. And I started deconstructing that. Why is that? And they weren’t doing their lives work. They had a job. And so this idea of creating experiences, I want to be created creative always. I want to be impactful always.
Steven Picanza:
And whether, again, if it’s for a brand, for my family, for my friends, or just for my community, to me, that is success. If I’m getting to do what I want to do, I just happen to get paid for it.
Lee:
Agreed. And I would recommend the four-hour work week just to start to get your mind in the concept of retirement does not necessarily need to be when you are 65 or whatever the country of your birth allows you to. You can actually experience many retirements as it were throughout your life, which is exactly what you guys are doing by spending 16 months travelling the world and working at the same time. You’re creating amazing memories and amazing experiences. We’re coming into land. We’re running out of time. So let’s crash through these final questions then. It’s the confession round. So it’s just you and me and a few thousand listeners around the world. So I’m pretty sure your secret is going to be safe with everybody, we promise. So what is the biggest problem you feel you guys have?
Steven Picanza:
The biggest problem we have is… I’m going to say part of it is time management as well. Right now, it’s time management, and it’s the fact that we are continuously on the move. That’s challenging. And it’s challenging because I very much am one to… I’m a creative. I want to lock myself in a library for about eight hours and just get in the groove. And if I’m constantly on the move, it’s hard for me to get into that mode. So that’s my biggest challenge right now. Time.
Lee:
Don’t worry, Doctor Who has you covered. Just go make friends. All right. So well-being. You just alluded to the fact that you struggle with time. You are travelling an awful lot. And I guess the temptation as entrepreneurs is that we’re always thinking, we’re always doing business. It feels like we’re almost always working. Have you any tips for switching off? Apart from sleep.
Steven Picanza:
Shit. I mean, sometimes Sometimes I’m so good at it, and sometimes I’m not.
Lee:
If the answer is no, that’s also fine because we’re all still learning, mate.
Steven Picanza:
We’re all there. For me, though, when I have a guitar around, that usually helps me when I have a musical instrument. I had a ukulele for a little bit. I left that in the States. I have my guitars back in the States. But while we’re here in Europe, I do not have a musical instrument, so it becomes a little bit more difficult. But for me, it’s music or cooking. Holy shit, how could I think of cooking? Mate, look at my Instagram. That’s the ultimate right there.
Lee:
Look at my Instagram. It’s all covered in cooking. And then based on cooking, then, how do you guys stay healthy? Obviously, I know Melissa is often out for runs, et cetera. But what are the activities you engage with to maintain some health?
Steven Picanza:
We stay in Airbnbs. We don’t stay in hotels. So by having Airbnbs, we’re able to have a kitchen, and that controls our food. And we like to cook. I mean, I love that creative process. And we eat pretty healthy. And Melissa is a little bit of a… She It keeps me on track in that sense. We got to go for our morning walks. We have to have our smoothies. We have to have our teas. She’s rubbing pepper on me if I have a headache. So we keep it natural.
Lee:
Everyone needs a Melissa.
Steven Picanza:
Everyone needs a Melissa. There you go. That’s the title of my book, my next book.
Lee:
I look forward to it. All right. Last question then. And this is important that you stick to the rules. The rules is you’re only allowed to choose one thing, and it can literally be anything. It can be soft where it could… I’m not going to give you any more clues, but it is this. Can you name one tool, one thing that you feel has been essential to your agency’s success and why?
Steven Picanza:
Recently, within the last three months, Asana Boards.
Lee:
Well, I’m with you there. Amazing.
Steven Picanza:
Having the boards is how my brain works. If I use it for lead lists, I use it for our strategy, I use it for planning. I do a lot of work within personal branding. If I’m creating a personal brand programme for a student or a client, I build out an Asana and we are able to look at it, and it changed me a little bit.
Lee:
I’ll tell you what else is helpful, mate. If you look at Instagant and you plug that in, you can actually see an entire critical path of projects or a flow of your idea. It is so phenomenal. It’s ridiculous. Anyway, a brilliant tool, I would agree. You said just one, which is awesome.
Steven Picanza:
I have more, but you gave me- People get around it by saying Microsoft Office.
Lee:
Hey, wait a minute.
Steven Picanza:
Obviously, Google.
Lee:
Or Google G suite.
Steven Picanza:
Or, Hey, wait, that’s not one tool.
Lee:
That’s a suite of tools.
Steven Picanza:
I’ll tell you what, the other one tool is The damn Internet.
Lee:
What’s that? What is Internet?
Steven Picanza:
What is this?
Lee:
What is Internet? Have you seen that? If I remember, which I’ll probably forget, there is a YouTube video from the ’90s and someone’s like, And we introduced this new thing called Internet. They don’t say the. It’s just the entire news article is about Internet. And how will Internet fix the problems of society? Well, Internet is, and it’s just so awkward watching it. But we are at an end. I have to kick you off because we actually have the next person lined up. You are wonderful. I could actually listen to you for hours. I knew it would be very hard for us to try and keep within 30 minutes because we love to talk. I love you, mate. You’re freaking awesome. I want you back soon. And whenever you’re our way, let’s meet up. Have a wonderful day, mate.
Steven Picanza:
You too. Thanks a lot, guys. We’ll see you later. Peace.
Lee:
Cheerio. Peace. See you. Bye.
