IAM1359 – Manager helps different Industries in their digital marketing
Podcast Interview with Joe Sanfilippo
Joe Sanfilippo is a young professional who on any given day can be referred to as a number of different things such as digital marketer, entrepreneur, investor, executive producer, and talent manager. As the Manager of Growth & Partnerships at a digital marketing agency, Today's Business, Joe has helped close millions of dollars in new business, managed award-winning influencer marketing campaigns, and was the executive producer for a docuseries that was named one of the best Sports Documentaries in 2021 by GearMoose.
Joe is also the Co-Founder of Undrafted Ventures which possesses equity in a number of different businesses like the Premier Lacrosse League, Tomahawk Shades, OpenLocker, Gringos Tacos, Chido Tequila Seltzers, Evolution Physical Therapy, and more. On top of all that, Joe Sanfilippo is a Co-Founder of TeamMates Talent Management where he provides marketing and talent management services for professional athletes like Chris Hogan, Grant Ament, Marc Megna, John Shackleton, and countless others!
- CEO Story: Joe started as an Intern in college in health care management where he oversaw agency partnerships. Moving forward, now he oversees multiple departments in Today’s business.
- Business Service: Full-service digital agency. SEO, web development, social media marketing, affiliate marketing, etc.
- Secret Sauce: Keeping things simple. Good quality core values. Having a really good process and a good team.
- CEO Hack: Control your energy, with one coffee a week. App SEMRush – looks at other websites' traffic, authority score, etc.
- CEO Nugget: Get into your calendar to get organized. Self-awareness, be honest with yourself. Figure out where you sit in the market. Find out your strengths and how you differentiate from them.
- CEO Defined: Being a leader, someone that people can look up to and that’s driving the vision of the organization.
Website: joe-sanfilippo-marketing
LinkedIn: joe-sanfilippo
Instagram: joe_sanfilippo
Twitter: JoeSanfilippo30
Pinterest:joesanfilippo30
Youtube: Joe Sanfilippo
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Transcription
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00:24 – Intro
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harker values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.
00:51 – Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Joe Sanfilippo of today's business. Joe, it's great to have you on the show.
01:02 – Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah, thanks for having me, Gresh. Excited to be here.
01:05 – Gresham Harkless
Yes, I'm super excited to have you on as well too. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Joseph, to hear about all the awesome things that he's working on. And Joe is a young professional who on any given day can be referred to as a number of different things, such as digital marketer, entrepreneur, investor, executive producer, and talent manager. As the manager of growth and partnerships at a digital marketing agency, today's business, Joe has helped close millions of dollars in new business, managed award-winning influencer marketing campaigns, and was the executive producer for a docu-series that was named one of the best sports documentaries in 2021 by gear moose.
Joe is the co-founder of undrafted ventures, which possesses equity in a number of different businesses like the premier lacrosse league, tomahawk Shades, Open Locker, Gringos, Taco, Cheeto, Tequila Seltzer, Evolution Physical Therapy, and many, many more. On top of that, Joe is co-founder of Teammates Talent Management, where he provides marketing and talent management services to professional athletes like Chris Hogan, Grant Ament, Mark Megna, and John Seckleton among many, many more. Joe, appreciate you for all the awesome things you're doing. Of course, being on the show, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
[restrict paid=”true”]
02:14 – Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah, no, excited to speak to the community and appreciate the intro there, Gresh.
02:19 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. It's easy to read the intro when you're doing all the hard work. So what I wanted to do is kind of rewind the clock, hear a little bit more about how you got started with all this awesome work that you've been doing, what I like to call your CEO story.
02:30 – Joe Sanfilippo
Cool. Yeah. So I mean, I guess it really started for me back in college, honestly, it did a bunch of internships. My last internship in college was at a healthcare management company where I oversaw agency partnerships. And we worked with about 4 different agencies at the time. One of them was Today's Business, which is the agency that I work for now. So it was about 6 years ago, really hit it off with the team at Today's Business, the executives here, and ended up saying, ended up jumping ship and going over to the today's business team as the company's first-ever sales rep.
I always kind of just grinded, and took on whatever they would really put on my plate. I would never turn it down and just casually grew within the organization and got to the point where I am now where I serve as the manager of growth and partnerships, where I oversee multiple departments at today's business. So our affiliate department, still our business development department, and then our influencer marketing department as well.
I also help with overseeing anything with regard to our own marketing, whether it be case studies or blogs on our site or back-linking acquisition. So that's kind of how I got my start in today's business. And like I said, things kind of just evolved from there. Starting new opportunities came my way and always just put my best foot forward and try to make, try to just really, anybody I work with, whatever interaction I'm in, I'm trying to just make your life a little bit better in any way I can.
04:12 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, I love that. And a lot of times, you know, when you see people when you see the success that they have. We sometimes think that it's a big giant leaf in terms of that happening, but it just reminded me of what you said about trying to be 1% better every single day. And if you have that, as you said, in those interactions you have, you try to improve those people that are around you, provide value, it sounds like, and it sounds like really phenomenal things have come from there.
04:35 – Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah, definitely. Just one step at a time and kind of have a long-term vision. But at the end of the day, break down those individual tasks and get what you gotta get done continuously. We always say, look at one thing at a time, and then a year later, you'll look back and you'll say, wow, I really accomplished a lot. Like just by keeping your head down and executing.
04:59 – Gresham Harkless
Yeah, Absolutely. So I know you're working on many different things. You have many different hats that you wear. I would love to hear more. And I imagine this position in and of itself probably has evolved as well too. A little bit more about what you're doing with today's business. And of course, you've been wanting to touch on the other ventures that you have as well too. Would love to hear that too.
05:17 – Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah, so in today's business, you know, we basically, we're a full-service digital marketing agency. So, you know, we've been around for just over 10 years. And really, we serve close to 100 or so clients. And really what's unique is we touch pretty much every industry you could think of. So everything from healthcare and like all forms of healthcare from physical therapy clinics to orthopedic groups to hospital systems to OBGYN and women's health to luxury real estate to mortgage companies, home improvement businesses such as Cabinets Direct USA, stuff like that.
So anybody that really is trying to rank on Google for a particular product and service within a particular location. That's kind of our bread and butter, but SEO is one part of what we do. We're full service in the sense that we do web development, social media marketing, which is what we were founded on, email marketing, influencer marketing, affiliate, you name it, pretty much done it all. So yeah, it's kind of a background on what we do there.
06:30 – Gresham Harkless
Nice, Well, I appreciate you talking about that. And I imagine, especially with digital marketing, I still feel like you're kind of scratching the surface on the opportunities that come about from that as much more platform technologies and things come about. I imagine that probably it sounds like your role, but I imagine the company has evolved as you talked about it being social, and then adding on to these additional things. At the end of the day, it sounds like, you know, whatever is necessary for the clients to kind of get the goals that they ultimately have.
06:57 – Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah, definitely.
07:00 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So what would you consider to be what I like to call your secret sauce? And it could be for yourself, the business, or a combination of both. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?
07:09 – Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah, I mean, honestly, our secret sauce, I would say is really, it's really simpler than than it would seem. Right. Our secret sauce is keeping things simple, like in our core values, right? It's just like being a good agency is based on having really good quality core values. And at today's business, those values are telling the truth, right? Always tell our clients what we actually like seeing in the market, the benefits of what we're doing, and the downfalls of certain things, like always just being open, upfront, and transparent with our clients. You know, care deeply, care about everything we do, be reliable, take pride in what we do, and seek efficiencies.
Always try to find ways that we can be more efficient than we were yesterday and find ways to get things done faster so that we can produce better results and spend more time doing different strategies and different initiatives. So that's really, you know, our secret sauce is just having a really good process, having a really good team, And it really starts with that process is, you know, the process is everything. Once you have the process down, you can really find the right people that are, you know, train them and get them into a place where they can execute on that process and we could build from there.
So we've spent millions of dollars over the years to perfect our processes. We've worked with consultants, certified Scrum Masters, and people who have helped us create detailed, you know, operational procedures. And then, you know, we created those procedures, we built training documentation and videos around these procedures, and really just building this building out our databases, building out our project management system, so that it's super custom to the way that we operate and that it aligns with our strategies and our procedures. That's really our biggest secret sauce.
It's just years of experience. It's just a good company culture that cares about our clients and treats our clients like family. That's, you know, when it comes to secret sauce, it's nothing that it's not the secret like being transparent, having a good process, and trying to do things more efficiently than you did them the day before. And, you know, we spent enough time and failed enough times and done things wrong enough times where we figured it out at this point.
09:39 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
09:52 – Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah. So I would say in terms of habits, you know, for me, it's about like energy control, right? There's only so much time in the day and there's only so much focus. And for me specifically a lot, like I have to really control that energy. So one thing that I've always done is try to avoid caffeine. A lot of people drink caffeine daily. They're addicted to it. Like my brother, I know people in my family alone who are drinking 4 or 5 cups of coffee a day and energy drinks. So one thing I've always done is just limit that completely. And I actually love coffee. It's fantastic.
I would love to drink it all the time. But what I've done is I really just drink caffeine one time a week on Monday mornings. And that's the only time I drink coffee. And when you get it to work on Monday, and you have a million emails coming in, I got 4 meetings before 11 am. It's really nice to have that cup of coffee that I haven't drank in all week. So when I do drink it, it feels great. And it gets me really, it makes me happy, it makes me ready to start the week. So that's my habit.
In terms of apps, I would say the one we use the most that I think is like a cheat code, especially if you're in affiliate marketing or SEO is SEMrush. SEMrush is awesome. It gives you the ability to just go in and look at pretty much any website you want, look at what traffic they have, what their authority score is, where their traffic's coming from geographically, backlinks that they have, organic research in terms of keywords they're ranking for. For us, that is so important that I don't have to go in and get people's digital or Google Analytics access.
I could just find it on my own through SEM Rush. To me, it's like a cheat code, I would call it. Those are my 2 CEO hacks, I would say, is control your energy, find out what works for you, and use SEMrush if you're in the digital marketing space. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's a big thing for me is have a routine, have a system, and be able to utilize natural energy throughout the day and not have to rely on any type of substances.
12:07 – Gresham Harkless
I love those hacks. And so I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.
12:21 – Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah. No, I mean, I guess it kind of goes back to if I was going to tell my younger self something, it probably would go back to what I was kind of just going through like get into your calendar. If I had done that earlier and understood how to organize my days a little bit better, I probably could have advanced a little bit quicker. So that would be one thing. And then I think just in general, like for my clients and for anybody, it's just self-awareness. Be honest with yourself. Don't try to sugarcoat things. Figure out where you sit in the market.
Do the research. Find out what other competitors are doing. Find out what you're really good at. What are your strengths and how you can differentiate yourself from them? But like just be self-aware. Put in the research, figure out where you sit, and be honest with yourself. And you know, once you've taken the time to do that and understand yourself, understand your customers, your market, then at that point, you can really develop what your selling proposition is and really communicate that to your audience effectively. Yeah, absolutely.
13:28 – Gresham Harkless
No, I love those nuggets because I think it's something that you sometimes can lose sight of, but it's so important to kind of remember the process and remember the journey, which we can definitely lose sight of. So I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Joe, what does being a CEO mean to you?
13:48 – Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah, I mean, being a CEO is being a leader, right? Like being someone that people can look up to, and that's driving the vision of an organization, whether it's a small organization or just yourself, and you got to be, you know, the CEO of your own life. That's usually where it starts with anybody or any company. You just have to be the CEO of yourself, but you have to be someone that people aspire to, maybe not aspire to be, but aspire to follow and aspire to want to be a part of what you're doing. Cause you know, no successful business, especially the bigger you get and the more you want to grow, requires a team. You have to have a good team.
It's just like, it's like, That's why playing football for me was always such a great thing that helped me get into the business world because it was something I could relate to in terms of the characteristics and the discipline and the values that you learn being a part of a team. As a CEO, it's about being a leader and setting an example. It's not just about talking about the vision, but showing people what I do every day and how we're going to achieve our goals. It's about giving people the confidence that the vision is valid and that we're heading in the right direction. And he's shown it to me and I believe in it. So it's, it's being a leader, by example and showing people, not just what you want to do, but how you're going to do it. So that's what a CEO does to me, in my opinion.
15:23 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Joe, truly appreciate that. And again, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people could you get a hold of you find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on?
15:38 – Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah, no, appreciate that crush. Yeah, I mean, I guess anybody out there that's listening, if you're looking for marketing consulting, services or, or monthly retained services, we're definitely, a good, a good company to partner with. You can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and all the social platforms, just Joe Sanfilippo is where you'll find me.
16:02 – Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And then make that even easier. We'll have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. Thank you so much, my friend, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
16:09 – Joe Sanfilippo
Yep, thanks, same to you, Gresh. Have a good one.
16:12 – Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
00:24 - Intro
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harker values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.
00:51 - Gresham Harkless
Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Joe Sanfilippo of today's business. Joe, it's great to have you on the show.
01:02 - Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah, thanks for having me, Gresh. Excited to be here.
01:05 - Gresham Harkless
Yes, I'm super excited to have you on as well too. And before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Joseph, to hear about all the awesome things that he's working on. And Joe is a young professional who on any given day can be referred to as a number of different things, such as digital marketer, entrepreneur, investor, executive producer, and talent manager. As the manager of growth and partnerships at a digital marketing agency, today's business, Joe has helped close millions of dollars in new business, managed award-winning influencer marketing campaigns, and was the executive producer for a docu-series that was named one of the best sports documentaries in 2021 by gear moose.
Joe is the co-founder of undrafted ventures, which possesses equity in a number of different businesses like the premier lacrosse league, tomahawk Shades, Open Locker, Gringos, Taco, Cheeto, Tequila Seltzer, Evolution Physical Therapy, and many, many more. On top of that, Joe is co-founder of Teammates Talent Management, where he provides marketing and talent management services to professional athletes like Chris Hogan, Grant Ament, Mark Megna, and John Seckleton among many, many more. Joe, appreciate you for all the awesome things you're doing. Of course, being on the show, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
02:14 - Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah, no, excited to speak to the community and appreciate the intro there, Gresh.
02:19 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, absolutely. It's easy to read the intro when you're doing all the hard work. So what I wanted to do is kind of rewind the clock, hear a little bit more about how you got started with all this awesome work that you've been doing, what I like to call your CEO story.
02:30 - Joe Sanfilippo
Cool. Yeah. So I mean, I guess it really started for me back in college, honestly, it did a bunch of internships. My last internship in college was at a healthcare management company where I oversaw agency partnerships. And we worked with about 4 different agencies at the time. One of them was Today's Business, which is the agency that I work for now. So it was about 6 years ago, really hit it off with the team at Today's Business, the executives here, and ended up saying, ended up jumping ship and going over to the today's business team as the company's first-ever sales rep.
I always kind of just grinded, and took on whatever they would really put on my plate. I would never turn it down and just casually grew within the organization and got to the point where I am now where I serve as the manager of growth and partnerships, where I oversee multiple departments at today's business. So our affiliate department, still our business development department, and then our influencer marketing department as well.
I also help with overseeing anything with regard to our own marketing, whether it be case studies or blogs on our site or back-linking acquisition. So that's kind of how I got my start in today's business. And like I said, things kind of just evolved from there. Starting new opportunities came my way and always just put my best foot forward and try to make, try to just really, anybody I work with, whatever interaction I'm in, I'm trying to just make your life a little bit better in any way I can.
04:12 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, I love that. And a lot of times, you know, when you see people when you see the success that they have. We sometimes think that it's a big giant leaf in terms of that happening, but it just reminded me of what you said about trying to be 1% better every single day. And if you have that, as you said, in those interactions you have, you try to improve those people that are around you, provide value, it sounds like, and it sounds like really phenomenal things have come from there.
04:35 - Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah, definitely. Just one step at a time and kind of have a long-term vision. But at the end of the day, break down those individual tasks and get what you gotta get done continuously. We always say, look at one thing at a time, and then a year later, you'll look back and you'll say, wow, I really accomplished a lot. Like just by keeping your head down and executing.
04:59 - Gresham Harkless
Yeah, Absolutely. So I know you're working on many different things. You have many different hats that you wear. I would love to hear more. And I imagine this position in and of itself probably has evolved as well too. A little bit more about what you're doing with today's business. And of course, you've been wanting to touch on the other ventures that you have as well too. Would love to hear that too.
05:17 - Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah, so in today's business, you know, we basically, we're a full-service digital marketing agency. So, you know, we've been around for just over 10 years. And really, we serve close to 100 or so clients. And really what's unique is we touch pretty much every industry you could think of. So everything from healthcare and like all forms of healthcare from physical therapy clinics to orthopedic groups to hospital systems to OBGYN and women's health to luxury real estate to mortgage companies, home improvement businesses such as Cabinets Direct USA, stuff like that.
So anybody that really is trying to rank on Google for a particular product and service within a particular location. That's kind of our bread and butter, but SEO is one part of what we do. We're full service in the sense that we do web development, social media marketing, which is what we were founded on, email marketing, influencer marketing, affiliate, you name it, pretty much done it all. So yeah, it's kind of a background on what we do there.
06:30 - Gresham Harkless
Nice, Well, I appreciate you talking about that. And I imagine, especially with digital marketing, I still feel like you're kind of scratching the surface on the opportunities that come about from that as much more platform technologies and things come about. I imagine that probably it sounds like your role, but I imagine the company has evolved as you talked about it being social, and then adding on to these additional things. At the end of the day, it sounds like, you know, whatever is necessary for the clients to kind of get the goals that they ultimately have.
06:57 - Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah, definitely.
07:00 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So what would you consider to be what I like to call your secret sauce? And it could be for yourself, the business, or a combination of both. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?
07:09 - Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah, I mean, honestly, our secret sauce, I would say is really, it's really simpler than than it would seem. Right. Our secret sauce is keeping things simple, like in our core values, right? It's just like being a good agency is based on having really good quality core values. And at today's business, those values are telling the truth, right? Always tell our clients what we actually like seeing in the market, the benefits of what we're doing, and the downfalls of certain things, like always just being open, upfront, and transparent with our clients. You know, care deeply, care about everything we do, be reliable, take pride in what we do, and seek efficiencies.
Always try to find ways that we can be more efficient than we were yesterday and find ways to get things done faster so that we can produce better results and spend more time doing different strategies and different initiatives. So that's really, you know, our secret sauce is just having a really good process, having a really good team, And it really starts with that process is, you know, the process is everything. Once you have the process down, you can really find the right people that are, you know, train them and get them into a place where they can execute on that process and we could build from there.
So we've spent millions of dollars over the years to perfect our processes. We've worked with consultants, certified Scrum Masters, and people who have helped us create detailed, you know, operational procedures. And then, you know, we created those procedures, we built training documentation and videos around these procedures, and really just building this building out our databases, building out our project management system, so that it's super custom to the way that we operate and that it aligns with our strategies and our procedures. That's really our biggest secret sauce.
It's just years of experience. It's just a good company culture that cares about our clients and treats our clients like family. That's, you know, when it comes to secret sauce, it's nothing that it's not the secret like being transparent, having a good process, and trying to do things more efficiently than you did them the day before. And, you know, we spent enough time and failed enough times and done things wrong enough times where we figured it out at this point.
09:39 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?
09:52 - Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah. So I would say in terms of habits, you know, for me, it's about like energy control, right? There's only so much time in the day and there's only so much focus. And for me specifically a lot, like I have to really control that energy. So one thing that I've always done is try to avoid caffeine. A lot of people drink caffeine daily. They're addicted to it. Like my brother, I know people in my family alone who are drinking 4 or 5 cups of coffee a day and energy drinks. So one thing I've always done is just limit that completely. And I actually love coffee. It's fantastic.
I would love to drink it all the time. But what I've done is I really just drink caffeine one time a week on Monday mornings. And that's the only time I drink coffee. And when you get it to work on Monday, and you have a million emails coming in, I got 4 meetings before 11 am. It's really nice to have that cup of coffee that I haven't drank in all week. So when I do drink it, it feels great. And it gets me really, it makes me happy, it makes me ready to start the week. So that's my habit.
In terms of apps, I would say the one we use the most that I think is like a cheat code, especially if you're in affiliate marketing or SEO is SEMrush. SEMrush is awesome. It gives you the ability to just go in and look at pretty much any website you want, look at what traffic they have, what their authority score is, where their traffic's coming from geographically, backlinks that they have, organic research in terms of keywords they're ranking for. For us, that is so important that I don't have to go in and get people's digital or Google Analytics access.
I could just find it on my own through SEM Rush. To me, it's like a cheat code, I would call it. Those are my 2 CEO hacks, I would say, is control your energy, find out what works for you, and use SEMrush if you're in the digital marketing space. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's a big thing for me is have a routine, have a system, and be able to utilize natural energy throughout the day and not have to rely on any type of substances.
12:07 - Gresham Harkless
I love those hacks. And so I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. So this is a little bit more of a word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.
12:21 - Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah. No, I mean, I guess it kind of goes back to if I was going to tell my younger self something, it probably would go back to what I was kind of just going through like get into your calendar. If I had done that earlier and understood how to organize my days a little bit better, I probably could have advanced a little bit quicker. So that would be one thing. And then I think just in general, like for my clients and for anybody, it's just self-awareness. Be honest with yourself. Don't try to sugarcoat things. Figure out where you sit in the market.
Do the research. Find out what other competitors are doing. Find out what you're really good at. What are your strengths and how you can differentiate yourself from them? But like just be self-aware. Put in the research, figure out where you sit, and be honest with yourself. And you know, once you've taken the time to do that and understand yourself, understand your customers, your market, then at that point, you can really develop what your selling proposition is and really communicate that to your audience effectively. Yeah, absolutely.
13:28 - Gresham Harkless
No, I love those nuggets because I think it's something that you sometimes can lose sight of, but it's so important to kind of remember the process and remember the journey, which we can definitely lose sight of. So I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Joe, what does being a CEO mean to you?
13:48 - Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah, I mean, being a CEO is being a leader, right? Like being someone that people can look up to, and that's driving the vision of an organization, whether it's a small organization or just yourself, and you got to be, you know, the CEO of your own life. That's usually where it starts with anybody or any company. You just have to be the CEO of yourself, but you have to be someone that people aspire to, maybe not aspire to be, but aspire to follow and aspire to want to be a part of what you're doing. Cause you know, no successful business, especially the bigger you get and the more you want to grow, requires a team. You have to have a good team.
It's just like, it's like, That's why playing football for me was always such a great thing that helped me get into the business world because it was something I could relate to in terms of the characteristics and the discipline and the values that you learn being a part of a team. As a CEO, it's about being a leader and setting an example. It's not just about talking about the vision, but showing people what I do every day and how we're going to achieve our goals. It's about giving people the confidence that the vision is valid and that we're heading in the right direction. And he's shown it to me and I believe in it. So it's, it's being a leader, by example and showing people, not just what you want to do, but how you're going to do it. So that's what a CEO does to me, in my opinion.
15:23 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Joe, truly appreciate that. And again, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people could you get a hold of you find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on?
15:38 - Joe Sanfilippo
Yeah, no, appreciate that crush. Yeah, I mean, I guess anybody out there that's listening, if you're looking for marketing consulting, services or, or monthly retained services, we're definitely, a good, a good company to partner with. You can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and all the social platforms, just Joe Sanfilippo is where you'll find me.
16:02 - Gresham Harkless
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And then make that even easier. We'll have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. Thank you so much, my friend, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
16:09 - Joe Sanfilippo
Yep, thanks, same to you, Gresh. Have a good one.
16:12 - Outro
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.
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