011: The Transition from Agency Owner to Next Generation Leader – A Journey of Mentorship with Allie Danziger

Danny Gavin :

Hello everyone. I’m Danny Gavin, the founder of Optidge, marketing professor, and the host of The Digital Marketing Mentor. I’m so excited to have Ali Danziger here with us today. I’ve known Ali for a really long time and it’s awesome that she is joining us for the podcast today. So Ali is the CEO and founder of Ampersand Professionals, which aims to close the skills gaps from internships and graduation to actually getting hired. They will also train new hires to improve productivity and retain talent while providing up-to-date tracking on the progress of their coaching. In addition, Ali also started and later sold one of Texas’s top PR and social media agencies, Integrate Agency. Ali, how are you?

 

Allie Danziger :

I am so good. I’m so excited for you and this podcast and so grateful to be a guest with you and excited to chat.

 

Danny Gavin :

Thank you. Why don’t we start with where you went to school and what you studied?

 

Allie Danziger :

I went to the University of Texas and studied public relations. I got a minor in business and a minor in Spanish too.

 

Danny Gavin :

Often people’s experiences in university, you know, is like the beginning of their journey. And So what experiences, both inside and outside the classroom for you were most impactful in directing your path to where you are today.

 

Allie Danziger :

So Danny, you are a professor, so you will not love my answer. But for me in public relations and when I went to school, I really did not get a lot out of my classroom experience. I felt like I learned things that didn’t really seem. Applicable to the real world. And I had to get a job my freshman year like I needed to work, I needed to make money to go to. Sorority parties, whatever. I wanted to do go shopping. And so I decided early on, and with definitely with the encouragement of my parents for that first job, to be an internship, a paid internship in the field that I wanted to go into. I started in school as a journalism major. I thought I wanted to be in broadcast journalism. And then as I took that first intro to communications class that everyone has to take with, you know, hundreds of people all in a giant room, I learned about public relations. I didn’t know what it was before. I just kind of. I’m from the generation that. I know I thought about Samantha from sex and the city as what PR is now kids today are probably watching Emily in Paris and thinking the same thing. But it’s not that easy and it is a lot more of, you know, business strategy. And I fell in love right away with everything that PR as an as an industry and as a field had to offer. And so my freshman year, my second semester, I got an internship with a tech startup doing their public relations. And so immediately I got a feel for like how people actually. Use PR in the real world and it I think that’s just kind of what led me to then get a business minor led me to get that Spanish Minor because I what I was learning in the PR classes just didn’t feel like enough. And I kept interning every single semester after that and every summer in the industry that I wanted to go into. So by the time I actually graduated and started my first job, not only did I have. Opportunities because I had work experience, but I was really clear on what I wanted to do with that degree, what type of job I wanted to go into. And then I think that’s just all part of what led me to my path now.

 

Danny Gavin :

Before we move on to that path, I just wanted to highlight that it’s amazing. Like, if you think about the full circle here, like your first internship was a tech company and then part of your success was going and doing internships. And that’s kind of like when you combine that together, now you’ve found it. It’s basically a tech. Ask Company, which I’m, which we’re going to go into a little bit further, but you also the whole like foundation of it is opportunities and internships and learning and that’s pretty cool right, because like it’s like it was all packed up in a nice little box and then yeah you might have gone the route for a little bit but then you know, it all launched later. I find that like absolutely fascinating.

 

Allie Danziger :

Well, and I think that’s such a testament to a couple of things. One, like I hands down my parents were so supportive in those early days. Have like, yeah, you may not know what you’re doing in this field, but just go get internships, go get experience. And I think not, or I know not everyone has the support of that, their parents or their family or like external sources encouraging them to go get those experiences. So I’m so grateful for that. But then I also think, you know, like. Podcasts like yours and places that you can learn and continue to grow and understand like what other worlds are out there. For 10 years I thought that my that all I knew how to do was PR because that’s all I did and that’s what my experiences were. I think it’s just you know I don’t know for me as I like continue to learn and like do self reflection and work on my business versus just in my business and work on myself to help me learn. Like what have all of my experiences added up to and what do I actually do for a living like. You know, do I actually do marketing and PR or are there other things here? So I think that’s all, you know, really important to anyone to just like keep learning and not just stop at the end of their education experience.

 

Danny Gavin :

Yeah, that’s amazing. So we’ll go a little bit further into ampersand a little bit later in the episode. But before we do, let’s go into mentorship. So, Ali, how do you define a mentor?

 

Allie Danziger :

A mentor can be anyone that teaches you something and keeps you motivated to keep doing it. So often I think we think of. Tours as someone who is higher up than you in the organization or a teacher or even, you know, someone in your community that you see and you aspire to be more like them. And that’s great. And you know, I think we, we’re lucky to have mentors and people in the communities who we see and we aspire to and then give us their guidance so that we can learn from their mistakes or help grow to where they are. But I also see mentors as people that you work with on a day-to-day basis who might even be below you. In an organization or for you like your students who teach you things and inspire you to do different and better things. And so I’ve had the fortune personally of like having a lot of mentors within my company, you know, like people who have worked for me and they come up with great ideas or they ask questions or push back on me in certain ways. And then I wish that I had been more like them earlier in my career. But they mentor me and I mentored them and it’s a symbiotic relationship so what would you say are some of the? Creates of a mentor. Like when you’re looking for a mentor, what are some of the things that you want to find in that person?

 

Allie Danziger :

Someone who’s going to invest time into the relationship because if they don’t actually have time for it and they just show up unprepared for the conversations and that’s, you know, not worth it either person’s time, you know, I think that’s important. And then also someone who knows something that you don’t know, that you aspire to learn or know and can be honest and transparent with you so we can all read books. We can all listen to podcasts and what not to continue our own growth and development. But then hopefully a mentor is going to personalize those learnings for you, tell you how it impacted them, how they grow, grew from experiences or mistakes and just help you build yourself in a different way because you can see those learnings in someone else. So as long as they’re willing to be transparent and honest and take the time, then it’s a it can has the opportunity to be a valuable mentorship relationship. If they’re, if they’re just there for their own egos to like tout how great they are, then I don’t think that’s going to be a good relationship.

 

Danny Gavin :

Let’s talk about some of the most important and impactful mentors in your life. I know you’ve mentioned your parents a couple times. Let’s talk about your mom and your dad. Have they mentored?

 

Allie Danziger :

You, my dad comes from the marketing sales world, and so that. Has been a really interesting mentor for me. Like I’ve learned so much by growing up, going to like take your daughter to work day and seeing him in that environment and from a really young age understanding just kind of like the way that the business world works and the way that promotions are done like early on. And I think it really impacted my early part of my career by seeing him so young and seeing him come home and what he where he had to make sacrifices on the weekends. Or in the evenings to hustle and do his job. And so I learned a lot from there and then from his encouragement basically day one of my career of OK if you fail, just go do it. You’re not going to fail because you have the support of your family and community. It means he’s just been so encouraging from day one that mentorship has been so and confidence boost has been so important to my success and then my mom. Her goal, she didn’t always have the most confidence, I think. And her goal from day one with both of her daughters was to make sure that they had the most confidence that they possibly could. And as my sister and I are both entrepreneurs in totally different fields, I think she did a great job. You know, she really helped to make sure that we had both opportunities, but also. Not too many opportunities so that we had to figure things out on our own and like had to fail and learn from those things and not too helicopter parenting, but just really encouraging of what we’re capable of and then the ability to like go figure that out and see that on our own, I think has been just so impactful.

 

Danny Gavin :

That’s wonderful. And I’m going to say something, I don’t know if you’re going to agree, but I think you and your sister have potentially given her now more strength to be. A better leader and we’re out there. Just i’ve seen her a lot more active and like i think it’s wonderful.

 

Allie Danziger :

Well, that’s where I was kind of stumbling. Looked like she didn’t have that much confidence. I recently told her it is so inspiring. I hope she won’t mind me saying this, but she’s 65 years old and she has completely transformed her life in the past couple of years. She is now like she’s going on this mission trip, completely on her own that she’s raised over 5000$ to build wheelchair. Plants in South America in a couple of months. She just did this like incredible thing with the synagogue, bringing an Astros player there that really like her mission is within the Jewish community is to get young people engaged in events. Like she went up to an Astros player randomly and shook their hand and said will you come to a Hanukkah celebration and my synagogue? And like, she would never do that before, let alone like get up on stage in front of a thousand people and introduce an event. And it’s just I am so proud. Watching her and that alone is inspiring. That who I am today doesn’t also have to be who I’m going to be at 65 years old to see my mom, like, just totally transform and come into her own in a way that I don’t know, that she ever knew and thought was possible for herself. That’s thank you for mentioning that. I was like holding back on thinking that and saying that, but that’s really what I was thinking yeah no, my pleasure. And yeah, it’s amazing that you give and receive and we don’t know which ways it comes around. It’s very special. Let’s now talk about your first boss out of college at Quinn PR. I believe it was Florence Quinn. I believe that she was a big mentor in your life.

 

Allie Danziger :

My first real job out of college was at a small boutique for New York standards PR agency called. Running a company, my boss there, she just was this dynamic woman that had said I only worked there for two years, but she had such an influence on those. The early stage of my career, as well as just think about her often. I sure she doesn’t think about me. She had so much energy, she was full of creative ideas, she worked really hard and it was a challenging time for the company and I got to see her strength through that and I’ve had the opportunity to hopefully emulate that over. The past 15 years or so when challenges have arisen. So I started that job in 2007 there’s a real estate focused PR agency and then in 2008 is when the real estate market crashed. So I was six months into my first job and for you know it started off this is pre Uber. We’re like having these fancy parties with black cars driving everyone there and you know flying in caviar and these real estate agents like unlike before the all these reality shows that would you know sell a 15 million. Penthouse in one day and it just was like crazy money flowing, flying around. We were apart of all of that. Kind of like what you do see in Emily in Paris, I guess a little bit if anyone watches that show and then all of a sudden. Five months into my job and me thinking that this is the reality that I’m is going to be my career, the real estate market completely crashes. And in February the company had to go from 40 people to 20 people overnight. There’s some, you know, seeing the way that she handled those layoffs with grace, seeing the way that she then gave the entry level employees opportunities to grow within their careers without. We didn’t get raises, but we got. Opportunity and like really like how she gave us the you know, she, it was risky to like give a bunch of 22 year olds the keys to the Kingdom frankly. But we had managers as well and there’s leaders. But it was amazing to watch her and to see the grace that she was able to handle the entire situation with where she would go and meet with clients and meet with the media and help and you know, not just be like in her ivory tower. Saying all you people go do this work, it’s really been part of the ethos. Ethos of the way that I’ve now run my company is in good times and bad times of like being a part of the day-to-day and being focused always on lifting up the spirits of my team and making giving them the confidence. Maybe like similar to the way that she did or the way that my parents did, but giving them the confidence to run with projects and challenges and successes as.

 

Danny Gavin :

Well, I know so much about you and just. Hearing about her, it’s like, wow, you really had like the perfect role model, right? To like, yeah, kind of test it out, see how it is, and then jump into your next totally and like she, you know, had these like quirky fun things too, that kept the culture alive and the company fun. And I’ll just never forget the way that she ran that business and still continues to run that business with just so much energy and vigor and everything I wanted to be.

 

Danny Gavin :

So moving now to integrate which I guess would be like the next stage, let’s talk a little bit about starting that agency and let’s talk more about focus on the on the people. There and how you were able to find the right people and to and to grow it.

 

Allie Danziger :

Up with Quinn and Company when those layoffs all happened. And another amazing thing that Florence did is she allowed us all to freelance because she couldn’t give us those raises. She mentored us all of like all the employees through their own freelance gigs. And what’s amazing is what she didn’t realize that she was basically starting an accelerator before that. There was a word for that because twelve of us went off to go start our own. Agencies from there. So like, it’s so crazy what she did. Yeah, because they’re only like 30 something employees at when I left. But anyways, so I started freelancing by the time and we this was in 2008 there was no one doing social media. The opportunity that she gave me at the company that I kind of alluded to was I started the company, social Media Department, 23 years old, had no idea what I was doing and she granted me. This opportunity and entrusted me to do it gave me a, you know, said, I know we don’t know what social media is, but you can go to any conference, take anyone to lunch or coffee, buy any book, whatever you need to do. Let’s build out the social media department. So I did that and I was going to conferences ultimately, like speaking on panels back in 2008 before people really knew what social media was. And so with that started getting some freelance opportunities and started kind of building a name for myself, especially in the real estate community around social media. No one knew what to do with social media. And So what was interesting about the time was rather than trusting really someone who had a ton of experience in marketing businesses and organizations seem to trust younger professionals. Like a 24 year old who’s not going to be jaded by all the old school quote unquote marketing things. Because I’m embracing social media in a way that if you know, if you really know marketing, you maybe wouldn’t have at that time back in 2008 or 2009 And so I got all these really great freelance opportunities and then was faced with the decision of I’m out of time. I’ve used up all my second vacation days. There was no hybrid work environment or anything like that then. And so had to make the decision, do I stop doing the freelance work or do I quit my job, see if I’m really the type of person who will wake up and hustle and do the work? And so I gave myself a little test for a month in New York to see if like, I really could handle it without a full time job. And i could I woke up even earlier when it was for my own work. I worked even later spent every weekend working. And so decided in that moment like OK this is what I’m going to do I guess. I’m an entrepreneur. I didn’t really realize that about myself and but I couldn’t afford to do that in New York. So moved down to Houston where I could live rent free and have little less risk on starting this business. And it really started just by freelancing and then, you know, continuing to build up more freelance gigs until ultimately, like I had to hire people and then I had four contractors at my house and my boyfriend now husband, like, walking around. Like, who are all these people? I think it’s time for you to get an office and then got an office and then hired a full first full time employee and they start asking about like benefits and direct deposits. And I’m like, oh, I guess we need to like legitimize this a little bit and so. From there that was now 2010 when I hired that first employee, 2009 when I moved down to Houston and really set up shop with integrate. The rest is history. We then really kept growing from there and with any service based business, it’s like you get more clients, so then you hire more people, then you get a bigger office, so then you have to get more clients and then you have to hire more people and then you get a bigger office and it’s like a hamster wheel of growth that I loved. I mean I did it for 13 years and absolutely love that world. I am now in a different world. It’s fun to dive into clients, work closely with them, understand their pain points, work with teams to solve their pain points, and then see their businesses change and evolve because of the work that we’re doing. From a team perspective, my very first full-time employee I stay in touch with. All the time text with regularly. My second employee was what you know one of my longest longest term employees because basically a partner to the company although unfortunately I never officially gave her that title. I have recently told her like just tell people you were a partner because she really is what helped build the company. She’s now an investor in my current company as well as one of our you know constant customers with this business. So we have an exceptional. Relationship and it’s been amazing seeing her and now start her own agency and grow her own clients and team and see a lot of the challenges that we had as a business are now dealing with too as every agency deals with all the same stuff. So it’s been really cool to watch her kind of grow her baby now another thing that I think is so important or so valuable about what we created in this culture. So I was hiring, I was always hiring really young. Talent, it’s part of what led to the evolution and the growth and development of ampersand. But because I was hiring such young talent, oftentimes they didn’t have the experience or skills of really what was required in the workplace. We built robust training. We spent a lot of time mentoring throughout the organization and it was hard work, you know, like we had long hours and lots of client work and client demands. And I think with that you build camaraderie among. Team members and so we had three different what I call sets of bridesmaids because they became so such close friends that they were all bridesmaids in each other’s weddings and then you know transition. Some of them transition out and some stick around. Then a new set of like entry level employees come in like 3 to four years later, all become super close, great camaraderie among the team, work together really well to solve clients problems and then a couple of them. Leave a couple of them might stay and then the next group. So saw that happen three different times over the 12 years, 13 years and it’s pretty cool to see them like still on Instagram, all friends and I’ll still staying connected and the various companies that they might be working in.

 

Danny Gavin :

It’s funny because it like ties in. You came from this organization that was like an incubator, incubator and then you actually went ahead and created an incubator yourself. Whether it’s people who having these wonderful relationships and friends or starting their own businesses. You mentioned before about your. Employees and the younger people in organization being mentors to you, how did you open yourself U for that? Let’s say, not necessarily a criticism or just communication so that you could actually like, learn and open up your mind to what they had to say?

 

Allie Danziger :

So I started my business when I was 24 years old. I did not go to Business School. I didn’t, you know, ever take a intro to management class. It took me a long time to even start reading business books. And so because of that, I was just really honest with my employees. Like we have great clients and we have the opportunities. You really good work and there’s not a lot of other places you can do this kind of work. So come on board and let’s do really awesome work together. But I don’t there’s a lot I don’t know like I hope you’re OK with that. And so I would be really transparent with them. And because of that we just had really great open working relationships where they might say like, hey, this is the way that the whole team is feeling about this right now or like when you presented this in the staff meeting. This is how that came across. Or when you added these five new clients to the client roster and didn’t add any new team members, this is how we’re all feeling. And I would explain back like Yep, I get that that’s how you’re feeling. But here’s what I’m dealing with is business owner. You know where i got to make payroll or we’ve got higher expenses now. So help me, let’s get in a war room and let’s figure out how we’re going to solve this. Like, do we increase retainer prices? Do we cut back software costs? Do we add software costs that can help us. More efficient so that we can do more with less and so we would all I would involve them in the problem solving for a couple of reasons like a like I don’t know the answer is be it helped them be more involved in whatever the solution we came up with was and see like they had great ideas so like why not include them in it and so like that authenticity I think really helped like with that two way mentorship also like any friends and I started when I was really young so because I was. Maybe one of the only business owners among my friend group for quite some time, they would come to me when they were having problems with their boss. They would say like, this is happening. And I mean hundreds of those types of conversations as we all do. But I was taking those conversations, yes, giving advice and or like camaraderie to a friend and then also thinking like oh, when they’re posted this is the way that employee saw that. And I need to learn from that as quickly as I can so that if that and like put it into my rolodex, my brain. So that when that situation ever comes up, just keep in mind this is the way that Stacey or Leslie or whoever like saw that situation from the employee perspective. So I think that was and still is something that I do with like anytime someone ever talking to me about work, you.

 

Danny Gavin :

Clearly have plenty of experience finding and hiring talented people. Was that always this way or did you learn it over your career?

 

Allie Danziger:

I feel like maybe I’ve been really lucky with various stages of my career where I’ve hired. Really great people and you like get into that groove with a good team. And then when you have a good team, then the team mentality and culture just breathes. And so then anyone else you bring into that, it’s clear that those are the expectations within the organization. And so then like everyone else kind of does it. And there’s also been times where I don’t have that same team. That’s like the structure of it. So then everyone that you keep bringing in doesn’t fit and you can’t get into your groove and it feels like you’re banging your head against the wall. With challenge. So that that’s just my personal experience. I do think that I look beyond what their experience is, and that has been a key differentiator in my hiring. I have no idea where you went to school or if you even graduated from college. I don’t care. Again, sorry to a professor saying that, but I think it’s so much more about your perception of the world. Are you willing to learn? Are you willing to be coached? Do you want to grow? Do you have that hustle mentality? Is there something you’re passionate about? And if I can figure those things out in an interview, then I’m much more likely to hire you than if you came from my competitor. I’ve never hired someone from a competitor, but like if you come from the industry or an aspirational company like that isn’t what I’ve ever hired for. And I think a lot of people do hire like, oh, they came from X company. That sounds really cool to me. It just doesn’t mean anything to me because I think I started my career with nothing except for like. Regret and my growth mentality. And so that’s always what I’m looking for. And even now with this company and we’ve made some hiring mistakes, more so because we’re a startup and things pivot really fast. And it’s not that the people haven’t been the right people for the role that I thought I needed in that moment. The roles that I need change really quickly. And I’ve made some mistakes of thinking that, like I hired this person for sales and now I need them to go to operational work and maybe they’ll be able to do that. They can’t. Because their salesperson or they’re an operations person, they’re not be able to transition over to the other side. But what I have continuously time and time again found to be successful is hiring people who can easily transition between roles or worlds and are just passionate about the mission and the vision and like they wanted the company to succeed. And then they’ll be with you through the changes, through the transitions, through bad clients or whatever pops up.

 

Danny Gavin :

So now I think it’s a good time that we move towards. Present day, as we’re starting to talk about it already, OI would imagine there were recurring skills gaps that you noticed in new employees that integrate. That helped drive your training programs at Ampersand, when first comes to mind that you knew you wanted to help new graduates and job seekers learn.

 

Allie Danziger :

Well, it was always a big part of our talent acquisition strategy at integrate. Like we were always hiring people right out of colleges. I at least four times a year would speak at different universities as a way to get in front of communications classes and majors to acquire them as talent for either our internship programs or just in hiring entry level. So I’ve always been. Passionate about that and seeing the gaps. Understood that. Like you know how to do a press release but you don’t know how to take notes in a meeting. Because the notes in a meeting and the way that you have the actionable deliverables after a meeting is really different than the actionable deliverables after a class. And like how you then use your notes from that meeting to go study for the test. And so have always. Grappled with that skills gap and worked to train our interns and entry level employees on those things and understood what that gap really looks like and what they’re real and understanding, like what they’re going to come in with knowing and what we’re going to have to teach them. But when COVID hit. Spending a lot. I’m just known kind of in my community that I hire young professionals and like. So when people didn’t know whether they should go back to college, not that everything was going remote, they lost their jobs or internships or like things went on pause. So many people were calling me, texting me, asking for a zoom call just to talk, like what should I do? And I felt like this broken record, saying the same things over and over again. Get off your parents couch, do something and like not physically because you had to get home. Like figuratively. Like do something valuable and interesting with this time simultaneously i’ve always been involved with dress for success, and I was doing some volunteer work with them, editing resumes and like coaching people who are professionals with dress for success. And I always tell people who work for me or people who don’t work for me, think about when time flies by and when time flies by. You’re in your flow and that’s exactly what you should do. And you should build a career around the time of your day that time flies by. And those calls with the young professionals, as I was coaching them, 30 minutes an hour, it would feel like 2 minutes. Or if I’m looking at someone’s resume, I can get lost in the moment and help them build their brand story in the same way that like you do in marketing. To help them be position themselves for the right role or so. All of that is really when the light bulbs started going off, but then in the fall of 2020 got on zoom with ten young professionals as what we now call our pilot. But at the time I didn’t really know it was a pilot coaching them through their internships and so I spent four hours with these young professionals on nights and weekends. I was still running the agency and then about 30 minutes with each business, just understanding like what are the gaps. What do you wish your interns knew? And from there, like, really started to see, like, OK, there’s a massive problem out there and there’s no solutions. We need to solve this skills gap. Or someone needs to and so we’ll do it.

 

Danny Gavin :

So over the last three years, how have the offerings of the ampersand evolved and developed?

 

Allie Danziger :

Originally it was me on zoom with a couple of, you know, guest speakers coming in talking to young professionals, and then we matched them with paid internship opportunities. That was in the fall of 2020 in the spring of 21 realized quickly, like we scaled up to 30 people and said we want to scale this massively, but this isn’t going to work on zoom. We need to do something that can scale much larger than this. And so built out at that point, an asynchronous curriculum, a fifty hours of workplace training. So didn’t know what necessarily what we were going to do with that, but knew that young professionals need that training in order to be successful with their internships. So as we built that out, we also created a way to pull out about 250 pieces of data on every professional as they go through that training. And we built, started with sticky notes here on this whiteboard and we also realized sticky notes doesn’t scale so. We built an algorithm to then connect those young professionals with the paid internship opportunities using the 250 pieces of data we had on the professionals and about thirty five pieces of data that we had on the businesses. So like depending on like what type of inter, what time zone they were in, what experience they had, what experience they need. So it was very complex. But it worked really well. That said, when we went to market with that, businesses basically told us this is great, I love your interns. We placed about 5 over 500 interns. We had over seventy five hundred professionals go through the training and they said like, yes, you have a really talented talent pool. And we see that like these professionals are ready to show up day one, be productive, but we already have our own marketplace of talent or we have 20. Talent acquisition professionals, you’re not going to convince us to like get rid of all those people just to use your marketplace. And so this summer of 2022 we transitioned to just focus on our training. So we are no longer now matching the interns and it allows us to scale and really touch now millions of professionals, entry level professionals, opportunity, youth interns, apprentices, anyone in college students. Now we’re testing things out with high school students like. Anyone and everyone we’ve realized like needs this training in order to start and launch their careers. And so by focusing on the training and putting that beautiful algorithm and dating app experience over on the shelf so that we can really focus in a place where there’s no competitors, there’s no one doing anything like this, which is both good and bad, but from a good perspective. It allows us to really be the market leader in what young professionals need to start and launch their careers, coupled with what businesses need young professionals and entry level employees to need in order to make sure that they’re productive and thinking things the right way and understanding the way that the workplace works from day.

 

Danny Gavin :

One, I can’t say that I’m a customer yet, but I have been in a situation in the past where we did hire someone who didn’t go to university, but they were amazing. They had the skills required but when they came into the workplace, there were just a lot of things, like someone who doesn’t go to college. And not saying everyone goes to college is this way, but especially if you don’t go, there’s certain norms, certain things that just people aren’t used to or trained about. And, you know, for us it was a big learning experience about what to do in the future. And part of that is to, you know, make sure that we hook up with ampersand. But in general, I can see from doing it the wrong way. The need is there. It’s crazy.

 

Allie Danziger :

Yeah, well, and frankly, it has nothing. In my opinion. It has nothing to do with college or not. College isn’t teaching these skills. And I saw that for, you know, my time at integrate. But also COVID impacted young professionals in such a way that they didn’t learn a lot of the like workplace and social norms at the time of life where they usually do. And we were used to young professionals learning and then like testing those things out and internships before in class projects that now they that they just didn’t have that type of experience and now even you know. It continues with hybrid work environments because there’s so much that young professionals and all professionals get from like sitting next to someone and just seeing like wait, tell me how this works or overhearing things. Or like seeing the chatter that happens outside of the conference room as you walk them out to the door, you know, like that’s where that’s where the business really gets done. Or those are. That’s truly where the unwritten rules happen that you just can’t learn if you don’t see it. But not everyone has that luxury of seen in person or being able to see it. And so we break it down for them in the curriculum of like real talk, what happens. And because you’re on zoom, no one may tell you that your boss is going to text you while it might text you while you’re on vacation. And here’s how you respond. Even though the HR protocol and your manager is going to say don’t respond, you need to respond. And here’s how you respond and here’s how you come back, you know from vacation so that you’re not weeks behind on A to do list or when you. Request that time off. Like, you don’t just fill out the HR form, but like real talk. Like you talk to your managers. You start with your team. Here’s the agenda when you sit down with your team, here’s the script that you have to use, here’s the calendar invites you send. And some people say like, well, this is the CHEAT SHEET, they have to figure it out themselves. But like, no like, why? Why do you as the manager want them? To have to go through that and do you want the experience of them not knowing these things? Like just let’s give them, give them a playbook so that everyone can be successful and we can really level that playing field?

 

Danny Gavin :

Yeah, I don’t see why anyone would not want to give that gift to their employees, right. It’s just it’s obvious. So although like we’re looking a lot at the young people who are joining the workforce, but how much of the training is really training the companies, how to be good managers of new talent and interns? Like, isn’t there a part? With that has to be addressed.

 

Allie Danziger :

We pull out about 250 pieces of data on every professional as they go through the training. We were once using that to then match them with talent, but now we use those insights to then give to the managers or HR teams so that they can then better retain their talent with different learning. So by understanding the young professionals motivations, values, learning styles, how much time they’re spending in different pieces of the training, they can then manage them more effectively and efficiently and then thereby retain that talent longer. We all know that gen z is quite quitting and they’re leaving the workplace and they want this feeling of impactful work and engagement with their managers and they don’t know how and managers don’t know how to give it to them. Well, we give them the tools of here is exactly what each individual learner or each individual employee is looking for from you. And then here’s tips of like they want to be recognized in front of the whole team when they do good work or they are motivated by money or they are motivated by promotions and then tips of like. And scripts for them of what to do and how to implement those best practices for each of the different employees because it’s manager training can also not be this like one size fits all like. You cannot manage the same way to every single employee. And so we haven’t built out our full manager training like there’s no 50 hours of manager training or anything like that. There’s other businesses that do that super well right now. And so instead we point them to resources, but we what we do is. We’ve armed them with the data and the insights on their teams that they can manage best to each individual.

 

Danny Gavin :

Absolutely fascinating, and it’s such a wonderful gift. So before we wrap up, I want to talk about your top three books. I know you’re a big reader, and you’ve actually sent me books as gifts in the past, so I know it’s a big part. So yeah, what are your top three books right now that you recommend for our listeners?

 

Allie Danziger :

So rocket fuel is my number one. That’s probably one of the ones that I’ve given you. I used to keep copies of that. In my car. So it is great for any business leader or really anyone. But it talks about the difference between visionaries and integrators. Visionaries are the ones who come up with the ideas and integrators are the ones who bring them to life and make it happen. So it’s super important for me in both of my businesses to have an integrator by my side to help actually like take all the crazy ideas and the squirrel moments where I can get distracted and keep you focused on vision and then bring those ideas to life. But it also shows up in my marriage, frankly, where I come up with ideas. And then my husband brings them to life. And if without him as my like at home integrator, I don’t know that like we would get to do a lot of the fun things or like impactful things in the community that we want to do, that I want to do. But I’m just not great always like actually bringing, not bringing it to life because I like obviously run a business and make it happen. But sometimes I can get overwhelmed and I just the book like breaks it down so well. So that’s one. Number two is the artist way. When I sold my company and knew that I wanted to do something again and bring impact into the world and change people’s lives for the better, I didn’t know how to do that and so I did volunteer work. I joined some boards, but I knew I really wanted to like make the substantial impact and the artist way is an amazing book and framework when you are looking to make a change in your life. So I highly recommend it, but only like it’s a workbook and it’s. I know we will, but it really works and it’s like thirty forty years old, but I absolutely love it. So those are like my two go twos all the time that I literally carry in my car and have mailed way too many times. And then my third, I’m just looking through my audible right now of like what am I reading today, right today I’m reading work quake by Steve Cadigan. That is about the change happening in the workplace right now. And how everything’s been disrupted over the last year and a half. So that’s been a really great one. As well as the Happiness project by Gretchen Rubin. That one is an oldie but a goodie goodie and gives a years long. So 12 specific like actionable tips to think change your mindset around happiness.

 

Danny Gavin :

For those recommendations. So what’s your big goal for 2023 i’m trying to just be really focused. We spend a lot of time well with the. My business goal is to be really focused. Spend a lot of time with calls and conferences and events and like marketing things that like don’t necessarily move the needle for the business. And I love it all. I love what I do every single day and I am in my flow and my time flies by. But it’s not all necessarily the questions we need to be answering and the things we need to be focused on to grow the business to the next level. That’s where I’m trying to stay super focused and I have an amazing assistant who’s like questioning me on every meeting to hold me accountable to that, which is great.

 

Danny Gavin :

I want to just say I’m glad we made that list.

 

Allie Danziger :

Yeah, you definitely did 100 %. I’m so excited to support you on a personal level. I work hard, I wake up early, I work out a lot. I got young kids like do a lot, and I feel like I don’t really fill my cup. Back up all the way every day. And so I’m trying to focus on things that like fill my cup so that I can wake up the next day and like run as hard as I want and expect as much out of like, my body in my life. So like trying to meditate, drink water, eat three meals a day. Very simple things. But it’s day 10 and doing good awesome and I’m sure you’ll do great for the rest of the year. Where can listeners learn more about you and your business?

 

Allie Danziger :

On LinkedIn on our website www.ampersandpro.com and my personal LinkedIn is. With Allie Danziger, I’m easy to find. I try to make it easy to find wonderful well, thank you so much, Ali, for being a guest on the digital marketing mentor. And thank you listeners for tuning into the digital marketing mentor. We’ll talk to you next time.

 

Allie Danziger :

Thank you so much.