Part 1: Growing Pains in Business Operations with James Orsini
Operational Challenges That Small Businesses Can Learn From
James Orsini has been involved with numerous multi-billion-dollar companies and his talents have been sought by countless successful and struggling businesses.
He understands the operational challenges that businesses face on a daily basis and has made a career out of overcoming them.
The methods he has used and the things he has learned can help every single entrepreneur, business owner, and manager, whether you’re managing operations at a leading ad agency or struggling with the challenges of running a small business.
We discussed many of these challenges and techniques during our interview, offering tips for founders, managers, and business owners everywhere:
1. Don’t Be Scared Of Failure
It doesn’t matter who you, what kind of team you have behind you, and how successful you have been in the past, failure will rear its head eventually.
There are two types of entrepreneurs: Those who have failed, learned, survived, and moved on, and those who have yet to taste failure and are blissfully unaware of the inevitability that awaits them.
Failure is not some looming, ominous grim reaper that you have to avoid at all costs. It’s more like a protective parent that picks you up when you fall, dusts you off, gives you a few words of wisdom, and sends you on your way.
Some of the richest and most successful entrepreneurs in the world found success after suffering catastrophic failures.
Simon Cowell is a great example of this. It may seem like an example out of left field, but when most people think of Cowell, they think of someone who has been in the music industry for decades and has achieved endless success.
He’s the King Midas of music and entertainment, at least as far as the general public is concerned.
In actual fact, when Simon Cowell was just 24, the record company he founded folded just a year after launch.
At 25, he tried again, and at 30, he had accumulated masses of debt and filed for bankruptcy.
Two huge failures, both in the same industry, and both no doubt causing endless strife and torment for the young entrepreneur. He had to move back in with his parents, and to all outsiders, it seemed like his career was over.
In fact, many people have been in the exact same situation as Simon Cowell and have given up on their careers or sought new ventures. But he was able to use it to his advantage.
He lost the arrogance and invulnerability of youth and it was replaced by invaluable experience. He used that experience to build a massive entertainment empire and reach a net worth of over half a billion dollars.
Many of the entrepreneurs you read about, the ones who seem to strike gold with their first venture and have everything go their way, actually have histories steeped in failure.
Of course, that doesn’t mean you should seek failure, but rather that you should accept it as a fact of life and try to learn from it.
It’s something that has been instrumental in Orsini’s career and something that has also played a role in mine.
When you’re scared of failure, not only will you never learn from it, but you’ll do your best to avoid it.
As an example, let’s say that you sell herbal tea that you mix, pack, and sell yourself. You realize that you have all the ingredients for your own cosmetics line, and after a little research, you launch a new line and expand your existing business.
The line flops, everything fails, and you pull out, only just saving your business in the process.
It was an expensive failure, but thanks to that failure, you now know just how difficult it is to start a cosmetics line. You have some insight into the industry, its customers, and the supply chains involved, and you may also have a wealth of unused pots, jars, and other useful supplies.
After some time, you realize that the stock can be put to use making and selling candles and home diffusers. You have some understanding of the industry, all the supplies are there, and thanks to your previous failure, you’re now better prepared.
It’s a story told by countless entrepreneurs and businesses. Bill Gates, for instance, failed with his first business and ended up dropping out of Harvard, but the ideas behind that business were used to launch Microsoft.
Walt Disney, an incredibly hard-working man who lived the American Dream and built one of the largest media empires ever, suffered similar challenges. He was fired from a newspaper job because he “lacked imagination”, and his first animation company also flopped.
These struggles didn’t destroy him, they shaped him and made Walt Disney one of the most recognizable names in the world, and one whose fame has continued long after his death.
Think about all the failures and the mistakes in your life and how they made you what you are today. Maybe you lost your job and became the founder of a successful small business, maybe your first business failed and inspired you to go in a new and more profitable direction.
These failures are all part of the process and can often teach you more than success can.
2. Accept What You Don’t Know
Don’t try to be the entrepreneur who does everything, they don’t exist.
It doesn’t matter what you’ve read or what you’ve been told, there are no modern Da Vinci’s, no Jack of all Trades, because it’s not possible to run a successful business single-handedly.
I know young entrepreneurs who claim to do everything. They advertise themselves as a one-person operation and if you read their bios, you’re led to believe that they are a creative team, marketing team, and finance department all in one.
When you dig beneath the surface, you discover a huge team of freelancers.
Is that bad? Of course not, I use freelancers myself, but I don’t claim to be a one-man commerce machine. Like any good entrepreneur or operations manager, I understand that I have my limitations.
If I were to start a new business tomorrow, I could assume control of the e-commerce side of things, but would I oversee the marketing, social media, and customer relations? Probably not.
Every good entrepreneur accepts their limitations and doesn’t try to do too much.
If you’re an author who can write like Wordsworth and draw like a Kindergartner, would you illustrate your own book or hire a skilled illustrator? If you’re a musician who plays a mean guitar but sings like a strangled cat, would you put on a one-man-show or hire a talented singer?
It’s the same with business. Play to your strengths, admit your faults, and hire people to fill those roles as needed.
3. Don’t Get Stuck In Tradition
One of the great things about Gary Vaynerchuk (GaryVee), and something that was instrumental in his success, is his willingness to try new things.
As noted by James Orsini during our interview, GaryVee was in an industry filled with traditionalists, people who were relying on print and TV advertising in an increasingly digitized world.
Rather than conforming to these traditions, he embraced the changing trends and focused on the future, not the past.
It’s something that you see in all industries. Many entrepreneurs and small business owners are stuck in their ways. They dig their heels in and continue doing what they are doing, even though their business is failing around them.
In a recent interview with Gabi from Magic Spoon, I used an analogy of Kitchen Nightmares, a show where Gordon Ramsey turns around failing restaurants.
99% of the time, these restaurants are literally crumbling, and while Gordon complains about the dated décor, the terrible menu, and the aging clientele, you can see that the restaurant owners are not processing a single word he’s saying.
“But it has always worked for us,” they usually say, right before they admit to re-mortgaging their house just to keep things going.
Some of them even complain about his “new” and “fancy” menu suggestions, complaining that by removing their tasteless and uninspiring food from the menu, they will be alienating the few customers they actually have.
Think about that for a moment…
A massively successful chef and restaurateur offers his services to help your failing restaurant and bring enough customers through the door to allow you to pay your bills.
In return, you question his knowledge, reject his ideas, and insist that your way, the way that has thus far been a catastrophic failure, is the best.
It highlights just how stubborn business owners can be.
In many ways, it’s like gamblers who chase their losses and scam victims who keep feeding the criminals in the hope they can recover their losses.
It’s not just the hospitality industry, either. It’s something we’ve seen across all industries and something that is just as toxic in the advertising and entertainment sectors.
When online streaming was in its infancy, Blockbuster Video buried its head in the sand and waited for the trend to pass. When social media sites exploded, TV marketing agencies remained dismissive and insisted everyone would eventually get bored and return to TV.
You don’t necessarily need to be the one initiating the trend, but you should be willing to join it.
In other words, you’re not starting the bandwagon, you’re just jumping on when those wheels start turning.
One of the biggest issues is that businesses are scared of change, especially when the old ways worked so well. There is also a sense of, “We can’t be X because we’ve always been Y”. But that doesn’t mean anything, and it never did.
Amazon used to be an online book store, now it’s an e-commerce behemoth selling more products and generating more daily searches than any other website.
Berkshire Hathaway changed from a textile manufacturer to a holding company; Nokia began in the paper industry, before moving to rubber products and then to cellular phones.
Times change, people change, and if you want your business to succeed, it should be ready to change as well.
4. Understand That Everyone Starts Somewhere
I’ve experienced more than my fair share of operational challenges over the years and James Orsini has joined me for a few of those.
When we worked with Gary Vaynerchuk, the offices were small and cramped, and the company was only just finding its feet.
It was a long way from the marketing and e-commerce powerhouse that it is today.
In those early days, we often conducted meetings and interviews next to a freight elevator.
In my role, I had to interview applicants and would often change the interview location, moving into increasingly uncomfortable and odd locations. My goal was to see if they would be distracted by these locations or if they would focus on the job at hand.
I wanted someone who could work anywhere, someone who understood that the most successful businesses are borne out of the smallest locations and the toughest times.
Amazon, Google, Apple, and even Walt Disney all got their start in garages, and countless others were founded in bedrooms, living rooms, and small office spaces.
If you have a small business, you don’t need a grand office in the city center.
A founder should understand where their priorities life and acknowledge that hiring the best employees and offering the best products and services is more important than having a fancy zip code and a big office.
It might fulfill your Wall Street fantasies of having a grand penthouse in the city, but the success of your business is more important.
Forget what Gordon Gekko said, greed is definitely not good when you’re a small business founder on a budget.
5. Rethink Your Resources And Streamline Your Business
The pandemic has changed the face of business and life as we know it.
It is something that I discussed at length with Matt Higgins and a topic that has been raised in several This Week With Sabir episodes. And not without reason, as what we’re seeing now will reshape the e-commerce world for decades to come. It will trigger massive success and prosperity for some entrepreneurs and teach others a valuable lesson.
For years, e-commerce experts like myself have been predicting the sort of things that we’re seeing now, but we expected these changes would take place in 2045 or later, not in 2020.
One of the biggest lessons learned throughout this process is that most businesses and entrepreneurs are wasting their time and money.
When resources are limited, as has been the case these last few months, you need to get creative. When that happens, you begin to realize just how reckless and overindulgent you have been.
For instance, many businesses have realized that they can operate just as efficiently without an expensive city center office or an additional international operations center. Others have realized that Zoom meetings are just as effective (and much cheaper) than expensive lunches in fine dining restaurants.
In the aforementioned interview with Matt Higgins, he told me how founders and investors were now conferencing over Zoom, whereas before they were flying hundreds and even thousands of miles to have face-to-face meetings.
It was a massive expense for people like Matt, taking huge amounts of their time and their money. It often meant that they spent just as much time in the air and on the road as they did in the office.
The education sector has come to many similar realizations, with private tutors conducting lessons over Zoom and realizing how much easier the process is for all parties.
Of course, a lot of this will change when the pandemic ends, but the vast majority of industries and entrepreneurs will continue with this so-called “new normal”.
If you own a business, there’s a good chance you have already considered making some changes and have calculated how they will impact your business. If not, or if you’re reading this after the pandemic is over (it seems like an eternity away at this point!) consider the following:
- Can your business operate with some or all employees working remotely?
- Is it more cost-effective and reliable to source some of your stock locally as opposed to internationally?
- Do you need daily meetings that last for hours and involve the whole team, or will a simple memo suffice?
- Can freelancers provide the same benefits without the fixed salaries?
- Can you survive with a smaller headquarters/office?
- Do you need that many staff members working that many hours?
6. Always Prepare For Uncertainty
James Orsini’s career began before the internet age, so he has witnessed some huge operational challenges over the years, including the advent of social media, cell phones, and online marketing.
He didn’t survive despite the uncertainty, he thrived because of it. When everyone else is floundering, you need to be the one taking action and profiting.
We can return to the pandemic as an example.
When we first went into lockdown, the e-commerce sector stopped dead in its tracks. Companies panicked. They worried about potential supply chain issues and resource limitations, but more commonly, they worried that the financial uncertainty would cause many customers to tighten their purse strings.
As we now know, the opposite was true.
Consumers spent like they have never spent before and it seems like everything was selling out, from toilet paper and soap to dumbbells and loungewear.
The biggest rush occurred over a two month period. The companies that had stalled were unable to take advantage of this and by the time they got their act together, most of the panic buying was over.
On the flip side, the ones who increased their stock and took a chance were able to prosper, and that continued for many months.
Some companies saw their takings triple on a month by month basis. Their reputations and customer base increased overnight, and as they continued to invest their profits into marketing, that growth didn’t stop.
Throughout much of 2020, the average ROAS for services like Google Ads and Facebook Ads has been at unprecedented levels.
Succeeding as a business is not just about predicting trends and acting upon them quickly, it’s also about preparing for the unexpected.
Many business owners tried to profit from the increased demand during those early months, but as they were getting all of their stock from China, they couldn’t.
They had put all of their eggs into a single basket, and as soon as the bottom fell out of that basket, they had nowhere to turn.
It can take several months for a manufacturer to produce a new product to your exacting specifications, and it can take years before the process moves with the sort of speed and efficiency that your business requires.
The biggest companies prepare for these eventualities by working with multiple suppliers. A company in China may produce 80% of their stock, but an additional 20% is provided by two companies a little closer to home.
That way, if anything happens on the Chinese side of things, they can ask those local businesses to scale up. And while manufacturing from scratch is a slow process, scaling operations is something that can be conducted overnight.
You might pay a little more, but in return, you’ll have a Plan B and Plan C. More importantly, you can proudly state that some of your products are made in the United States of America, and you have more options if one of those suppliers decides to increase their price.
Key Discoveries From Orsini’s Career
When you have spent years working for massive ad agencies like Saatchi & Saatchi, as well as marketing gurus like Gary Vaynerchuk, you pick up a thing or two.
James has had an illustrious career. He has experienced life as a founder and an operations manager. He understands how these businesses work better than anyone and can navigate all financial and operational challenges.
He has a lot to teach founders, entrepreneurs, and small business owners, and in this section, I will go over some of the other tips and techniques gleaned from my interview with James.
1. The Eisenhower Matrix
The Eisenhower Matrix is a time management strategy that has been utilized by countless businesses, and it’s one that played a major role in Orsini’s career. It’s something he touched upon several times in our interview and regularly recommends.
It’s also something that many business owners and managers already know about, but for everyone else, what is the Eisenhower Matrix?
The technique is named after Dwight D. Eisenhower, and the former president is often credited with its invention. In actual fact, Eisenhower was just an incredibly productive guy who used (and spoke about) some of his methods, and these methods were then simplified by author Stephen Covey.
The Eisenhower Matrix has four quadrants, each referring to a degree of importance and structured with a descending degree of priority, which means you should do number 1 first and number 4 last (or not at all).
It looks something like this:
- Important + Urgent: This sector is reserved for the tasks that need to be done sooner, not later. These are the tasks that you should focus on above all else.
- Important + Less Urgent: Although these tasks are also very important, they are not as urgent, and can, therefore, be scheduled for a time when more urgent tasks have been completed.
- Less Important + Urgent: Often described as the “delegation” sector, this refers to less important but equally urgent work that you can delegate to someone else.
- Not Important + Not Urgent: Unnecessary tasks that stop you from doing everything else and simply waste your time.
As an example, let’s say that you are a founder of a small business and have all of the following tasks on your to-do list:
- Sign off on new stock
- Negotiate with manufacturers or suppliers
- Launch the website
- Test the website and look for mistakes
- Run some Facebook Ads
- Create a Google Ads account
- Post some blog articles
- Complete the last level of Red Dead Redemption 2
- Binge a new Netflix series
- Respond to customer emails
That’s a lot to do, and when faced with so many challenges, it’s easy to get distracted, procrastinate, and spend more time on the things that don’t matter.
It’s a trap that many entrepreneurs fall into.
With the Eisenhower Matrix, you may separate the tasks so that they look like this:
- Important + Urgent
- Sign off on new stock
- Negotiate with manufacturers or suppliers
- Launch the website
- Important + Less Urgent
- Post some blog articles
- Create a Google Ads account
- Run some Facebook Ads
- Less Important + Urgent
- Respond to customer emails
- Test the website and look for mistakes
- Not Important + Not Urgent
- Complete the last level of Red Dead Redemption 2
- Binge a new Netflix series
2. Take Action Right Now
Act now, not later, and always seize opportunities when they are presented to you.
James talks about a time in which he was placed in a difficult situation as a relative newcomer in a business. He took control when managers and other high-level members of staff were not available, and he impressed everyone in the room.
One of the people he impressed later left for Saatchi & Saatchi and called James to join him.
It took one meeting and just a few hours, and yet he impressed so much that he was given a life-changing opportunity.
I’ve witnessed this from both sides.
When you impress someone in the business world, they will remember you. And when they need someone to have their back, they’ll call on you and give you a chance.
I’ve been there. I have been the one given the chance and the one giving the chance. As a result, I understand how important it is to be noticed.
Don’t be the one hiding at the back of the room, shying away from the spotlight, and hoping that no one will address you. Be the one that proudly raises their hand, answers the teacher’s question, and makes a mark.
Why do you think some people spend decades in the same job, never getting a promotion and never reaching their goals? Sure, nepotism and bigotry can play a role. Unfortunately, in some industries, your race, gender, and sexual preference can hold you back.
This is not the 1950s, but try telling that to the countless managers and CEOs that somehow still have a place in this world.
More often than not, however, it’s because they haven’t made an impact. They might work hard and have the skills needed, but if they don’t stand out from the crowd, the managers will keep promoting the people that do.
That doesn’t mean you should be a kiss-ass, but rather that you should let your talents, ambition, dedication, and enthusiasm rise to the surface.
3. Hire The Right Team
James Orsini spent most of his life as the right-hand man to ambitious CEOs and business owners.
Throughout that time, he was repeatedly told that he should stop being the number 2 and become number 1 for once.
Eventually, he listened to those suggestions, and what followed was a difficult 3 years filled with sleepless nights, stress, and an unbearable burden of responsibility.
He had an epiphany, realizing that maybe he was best suited to being a number 2.
The problem is, as noted already, a large business can’t succeed with just one person. It doesn’t matter how hard they work and how active their role is, they need a good team behind them.
Think of your business like a football team. You can have the best coach in the world, but if your players are disinterested and untalented, you won’t make it to the Playoffs and you can forget about the Super Bowl.
But if you sign a good Quarterback, you’re well on your way.
You don’t need a big budget to hire a qualified team. You just need a careful selection process and a payroll tailored to the needs of your growing business.
A great Quarterback will get you so far, but as your ambition grows and your budget follows, you’ll need a Cornerback, Linebackers, a Safety, and Wide Receivers.
Grow your team relative to the size of your business, don’t try to do too much too soon, and limit your responsibilities to the tasks you do well.
If you’re struggling to find affordable team members, look for freelancers. You only have to pay them for the work they perform, which makes them the ideal choice for small businesses and ambitious entrepreneurs.
A small e-commerce business operated out of a garage doesn’t need a full-time marketer, writer, designer, or customer support team, but they may need that writer/designer for 5 hours a month, and that customer service rep can answer emails and make phone calls for a couple of hours a day.
Old-school entrepreneurs prefer salaried employees, as they believe they are getting more bang for their buck. But that’s rarely the case.
Freelancers can often make more money than their full-time counterparts, and so the pool of talented freelancers is sizable. Sure, there are many who don’t have the experience or skills, and they actually outnumber the experienced ones, but it’s easy to sort the wheat from the chaff.
More importantly, because you’re hiring them on a fixed-price or short-term contract, you often get their best work during that time. There’s no risk that they will take their foot off the gas, as they’re always fighting for the next contract.
4. Treat Your Business Holistically
Your business is like the human body, with many different parts all coming together to keep it alive. A strong mind can’t survive without a beating heart, and despite playing a comparatively small role, if the kidneys fail, the body will capitulate.
Many entrepreneurs focus on the wrong thing or undervalue the role that certain operations play in their business.
What’s the point in hiring a new marketing team to 10x your sales, if your operations team is struggling to deal with the sales that you have right now?
I’ve seen business owners invest huge sums of money into creating blog content while completely neglecting basic marketing strategies. I’ve seen entrepreneurs get lost in trivial things like which shipping boxes to use and which freelancers to hire, before fulfilling the most basic business needs.
Stop getting so caught up in specific areas of your business and start thinking about how it operates on the whole.
If you’re going to hire a new marketing team and expect an increase in sales, think about how your operations team will deal with the increased orders, how your finance team will manage the increased revenue, and whether or not your customer relations team can handle the inevitable surge of questions and complaints.
One department cannot function without the other, and unless everything is operating optimally, your business is doomed to fail.
The $100,000 Question
This Week With Sabir is all about providing over $100,000 in insights.
For Bernadette Butler, the queen of video testimonials, her $100,000 advice is all about authenticity. For Habib Salo, a B2B expert and GaryVee client, it’s about starting now, and not later.
With James Orsini, like many of the amazing guests I’ve had on this show, we exceeded that $100,000 by a long way.
James is the ultimate operations guru, a finance wizard, and someone whose services have been instrumental in the growth of countless companies. You can find millions of dollars’ worth of advice in this blog and the embedded video, because that same advice has been used to 10x multiple million-dollar companies.
But I still wanted to push James for a little more advice, so at the end of our interview, I asked him what his single best piece of advice would be for small business owners, founders, and entrepreneurs trying to follow in his very illustrious footsteps.
His advice was: don’t be afraid to admit what you don’t know.
If you’re uncertain, admit your faults and find a solution. Don’t power through and blind yourself to the truth. Hire someone who can help.
That’s what Gary Vaynerchuk did when he hired James Orsini. And he is the perfect role model for any founder and entrepreneur. GaryVee achieved massive growth with James’s help, as well as the understanding that he didn’t know everything and couldn’t do it alone.
More Advice For Small Business Owners
James Orsini is the 15th guest I have welcomed on This Week With Sabir. That’s 15 hours of insights from some of the best minds in personal branding, e-commerce, content creation, customer relations, and capital growth.
Information like this is priceless, but in this case, it’s completely free.
It doesn’t matter how big your business is, what sector you’re in, and how much experience you have, there’s a lot you can learn from these interviews.
If you’re establishing yourself as an influencer, for instance, you can learn from the brilliant Joe Yoon, who generated over 1.3 million followers from scratch. For SEO, take a look at my interview with SEO guru Neil Patel.
For general e-commerce, refer to my interview with Matt Higgins on the Manifestor Mindset show. It’s one of my personal favorites and one in which we cover a huge number of points relating to the ever-changing world of e-commerce in 2020.
As always, you can find more This Week With Sabir episodes right here on this site. All shows are streamed live through Restream and are available here and on YouTube.
About Our Guest: James Orsini
James Orsini is President of The Sasha Group a VaynerX company. Working alongside Gary Vaynerchuk, its CEO and serial entrepreneur, Orsini leads the group to help small business reach explosive growth potential. The Sasha Group provides educational, consulting and marketing services for companies from $1 million to $200 million in revenue. Orsini held previous positions as Chief Operating Officer as well as Chief Integration Officer for VaynerMedia a digital agency with social at its core. Working alongside founder and CEO Gary Vaynerchuk James helped manage the agency for success. He was Chief Executive Officer and member of the Board of Directors of Sito Mobile Ltd., (NASDAQ: SITO) A proven leader and author of numerous business articles including Agency of the Future, Guided Exploration, and Let Leaders Lead and Practitioners Practice. Mr. Orsini has also penned white papers The Authentic Network, Reverse 360 Mentoring, Mastering Procurement and Procurements Evolution for Today’s Marketing Service Companies. He has done numerous podcasts including Second in Command with Cameron Herold and Self-made man with Mike Dillard. James has more than 35 years of finance and operations experience across a broad range of marketing and communications disciplines.
James had been Executive Vice President and Director of Finance and Operations for Saatchi & Saatchi in New York, where he worked closely with the CEO to provide strategic and day-to-day direction of all financial and operational functions. Saatchi & Saatchi New York is the largest agency in the 153-office Saatchi & Saatchi global network, part of Publicis Groupe, the world’s third largest communications group. The agency serviced over forty #1 brands in its client portfolio (PUB.FR).
Before joining Saatchi & Saatchi Mr. Orsini was Chief Operating Officer of Interbrand North America, the world’s leading brand consultancy with 40 offices in 22 countries throughout the world. He has traveled extensively throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas, and functions effectively in multi-cultural environments. Interbrand is a wholly owned subsidiary of Omnicom, which trades on the New York Stock Exchange. (NYSE:OMC)
Prior to joining Interbrand and serving first as its Global Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Orsini had enjoyed a great deal of success at various subsidiaries of Saatchi & Saatchi, KPMG Peat Marwick, and Goldman Sachs & Company. When first at Saatchi, Mr. Orsini was CFO of both their International Public Relations Division and later their B to B Advertising Unit. At Goldman Sachs, Mr. Orsini was selected from 30 analysts as the company’s primary liaison to Sumitomo Bank, in a new $500 million limited partnership. He was also one of four CPAs selected for a pilot program which changed the company’s hiring strategy, which is still in effect.
Education
Mr. Orsini graduated Magna Cum Laude from Seton Hall University, with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration. He received the University’s Presidential Academic Scholarship and still serves the University today. He is a licensed New York State Certified Public Accountant.
Personal
He is a Board member of Renovation House of New Jersey / New York, residential substance abuse rehabilitation programs. He has served as a member of the Board of Regents for Seton Hall University and has Chaired a Seton Hall Preparatory advisory board for the Griffin Bridges foundation benefiting academically gifted and financially challenged inner city boys.
Follow James on Twitter @JimmyThePencil.