Meet Nick Skislak , Founder of SS Digital Media

[Transcript]

(00:04):

Welcome to the finding gravitas podcast brought to you by Gravitas Detroit. "ooking to become a more authentic leader? Finding gravitas is the podcast for you. Gravitas is the ultimate leadership quality that draws people in. It's an irresistible force encompassing all the traits of authentic leadership. Join your podcast host Jan Griffiths, that passionate, rebellious farmer's daughter from Wales, entrepreneur, leadership coach, keynote speaker, one of the top 100 leading women in the automotive industry as she interviews some of the finest leadership minds in the quest for Gravitas.

Jan Griffiths (00:48):

In this episode, you'll meet Nick Skislak, a small-town kid who launched his business in 2008 during the downturn. What, how? Well, he learned how to rock Google ad words just like Gary Vaynerchuk. Nick is a millennial, leading a company of multigenerational employees and he embodies all the traits of authentic leadership. One of his favorite quotes comes from Bruce Lee, "the art of fighting without fighting", and you'll learn what that's all about and how it drives him. Let's get into it and continue our quest to find gravitas.

Jan Griffiths (01:36):

Today, I'm with Nick Skislak, founder and partner of SSDM, a strategic communications company based in Troy, Michigan. When I first met Nick, it was about two years ago and he was receiving an award at MSED marketing and sales executives of Detroit. He was a recipient of their platinum award and I had never heard of Nick previously, but what struck me was the presence that he had on stage and more importantly, the support and the love that surrounded him from his team when he won that award, words just do it, don't do it justice. I can't describe what I saw and felt, but I knew that that was a great leader. I knew that that was an authentic leader, so much so that I felt compelled to follow up and have a meeting with him shortly after and we have known each other now for a couple of years and I am thrilled to welcome Nick [inaudible] to find and gravitas. Thank you. That was a great, great intro. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me on this. This is really cool. That's how I felt the first time that we met. That was a fun, fun night front event.

Nick Skislak (03:00):

Really cool.

Jan Griffiths (03:01):

Yeah. And I think at that point, uh, we were not the MSED, we were not announcing the platinum winners. So you didn't, you didn't know that you were getting the award, but just the, the, the warmth and the feeling and every one of your team members were so excited for you and so proud of you. It was just an amazing thing to watch and see and feel that day.

Nick Skislak (03:24):

Yeah, we were, we're close. It's a close a close team. That's what we're trained to train to create here.

Jan Griffiths (03:32):

Yeah, I see that. So, Nick, tell us your story. I, I'm intrigued because you started this business in 2008, 2008. You crazy. So take us back even before 2008. Tell us a little bit about Nick.

Nick Skislak (03:48):

Okay. So I, I grew up on the West side of Michigan, a little town just North of grand Rapids, Sparta, Michigan. It's an Apple, an Apple town. It's a township actually. Um, really, really, uh, kind of poor middle class upbringing. You know, we didn't know it when we were growing up, but you know, just above bottom is what we were both mom and dad work and all good and still married today. Um, graduated high school, moved out to Cal Mizzou, which I thought then was, you know, minus Waban on the other side of the country.

Jan Griffiths (04:25):

Big, big city, right.

Nick Skislak (04:28):

Got my degree. Um, and then moved out here right after college. And so I graduated college in Oh six, um, worked for a couple of big agencies, hated it, hated it, hated the culture. The, I just didn't fit. I didn't fit in. So I thought, Hey, I can do this. I think I can do this. I, I learned a little bit enough about sales. I wasn't afraid to pick up the phone and ask people for money. So I did it. I started doing that and, and it was, it was in 2008 this was the Kwame Kilpatrick days as well. You know, Detroit was a mass, the country was a mess. Detroit was even worse. Everybody was moving out. My parents thought I was crazy to move over here. And the, and when I did, which was in Oh six Oh seven, um, but it was a no brainer move, like to start a biz in Oh eight people always say, Oh my gosh, I can't believe you started it.

Nick Skislak (05:24):

And the economy was just in such bad shape. It's really easy to start a business when the economy is in bad shape because there's no other option. So I was young, um, I didn't have any kids, I didn't have any house, any payment. So I had a couple grand, you know, I had like two grand in my bank account and I told my then fiance that, Hey, let me, I just came home one day, I quit my job and I said, just give me a couple months cause you know, I barely needed any money to survive. And I, I knew I had a couple months to live, to pay our bills and I said, if I can't make what I was making, I'll go get a job. And I haven't got head to get a job yet. So that's, that's pretty fun. So anyways, I, I started the company in Oh eight.

Nick Skislak (06:12):

Um, and it was basically a cold calling operation for myself. Um, asking clients to, uh, get on the first page of Google. Not a lot of people knew what Google was or, or how Google ad words worked. I had a job where I immersed myself in it. I learned everything there was, I was at one point, maybe not so much today, but at one point I was really, really good at buying keywords on Google. And I remember the first time I was in college when I heard that this existed, like you could buy, you could bid on keywords. And it was just amazing to me that centrally the whole English language went on sale to the, to the highest bidder. Uh, and I just started making calls. I started calling a lot of dealerships, car dealerships, and uh, one person hired one guy, two guys, three guys.

Nick Skislak (07:08):

Um, today we are a strategic communications company. Uh, most majority of the stuff that we do is digital, but we specialize in creating content for in house sales and marketing teams. You sound a bit like Gary Vaynerchuk is, isn't that his thing? He talks about buying Google AdWords for the wine business. Oh, Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And there were millionaires being made and up until, you know, it's harder now today, but even when we started 10 years ago, like no one was doing it. You didn't have to have a great website. You just needed a website. You didn't have to have great advertising. You just had to be there. So that first page you get on first page, it was changing guys' life, people's lives. One of my old buddies, um, web developer back in the early two thousands built a Halloween costume website and basically churned it up to doing a couple of hundred grand every October.

Nick Skislak (08:03):

He had that little game going all on Google ad words. I mean, Halloween costumes, him and a buddy out of a closet pulling in a couple of hundred thousand dollars a year on a Halloween website in a F, you know, they were spending 50 grand in Google ad words and the time. And that, that's what I lived through. A lot of those guys kind of that no one ever heard about that were making a big, big impact all because they figured out this little Google thing and now it's caught on and everybody's doing it and it all kind of came back for us to, as an agency to see how it, how it's evolved in those early days. You didn't have to have a great website, you didn't have to have, you just had to have a website and with what the, the uh, landscape looks like today, like that's not enough anymore, right? It's not just having a website. You have to tell a great story. You have to have kind of this all encompassing content strategy or content play to like brand matters more now than I think it's ever than it's ever had in the past. This idea that consumers are having a relationship now with, with brands, it's not just a product or a service that these phones have made it. So we can really engage, communicate two way communication with, with influencers and brands and celebrities and artists and athletes. And it's just, it's amazing.

Jan Griffiths (09:34):

So you've grown this business to a, you have 20 people now in this business. When you starting, you're an entrepreneur and you're doing everything yourself. So you have to learn to bring people in, bring in the right people, the right skill set. You have to learn to trust those people and you have to let go. Uh, lessons learned that you could share,

Nick Skislak (09:55):

man. Yeah, I think, um, it was the Michael Gerber, the marketing E myth revisited a great, great book that I've read probably 10 times it was getting away from in his whole, the whole shtick is working on the business, not in the business. So I'm very familiar with that. That, uh, that was hard. I mean, I think it's still hard today, um, for, for me and you know, our other partners here of really looking at, at your day and saying what is important and what's not important, being specific is to be brave, right? To be specific and say, Hey, this isn't something I should be working on. That's kind of a pain in the neck sometimes. You know, like you don't want to admit that, Hey, I probably believe shouldn't be logging in to the backend of my eCommerce site every single hour to see how many sales we got.

Nick Skislak (10:53):

Even though it's really fun to look at that stuff. Probably not the best use of my time. Uh, we, we asked that of our clients, you know, and we asked that over ourselves and I think that has been a big kind of learning curve for me. As you, as you get more people that are better at the thing, um, my expertise or, or the impact that I'm putting on this organization is much different. Where I was much more in the weeds of, I could do the tactics, I could build a website, I could build the Edwards, I can build the campaigns and be in charge of every single thing. Uh, as you continue to grow and you get people, you surround yourself with, people that can do that, honestly better, better than I can do it. Um, the, the impact that I have isn't necessarily to do the work anymore, but it's to create an environment that allows them to do really, really good work.

Nick Skislak (11:48):

And so it's, uh, it's different, but it's much more rewarding. It once you learn how to shift your kind of internal, uh, reward satisfaction that you get out of it because it was, you know, in those old, in the early days of managing the account and, and managing the clients and all that stuff, like there was no better feeling than getting out of a really good meeting with a client like that was, now I don't get to do it as often. Right. I don't get to talk to every single account the same way that I did in the early days when it was just me. So like, I, the team gets to do that now, so I have to, I get to be the one that listens and helps and mentors, you know, and help guide. Uh, but it is, it's a lot different than, than it was in the beginning. Is that how you see your role as somebody to help mentor and guide? Uh, I, I am here. So it's, it's, um,

Nick Skislak (12:52):

great question. I think that's part of it. That's part of why I'm here. I am like a, uh, I just read you brought up the Gary V thing and uh, one of his operators was on a podcast that I listened to and Gary V calls himself a moldable dictator. So foldable, dictator, moldable dictator. So what he says goes, but you have influence over him. You can influence him. Uh, I, I wouldn't certainly think of myself as a dictator or that I don't know, these guys know more about this stuff than I do. But I do think part of my job here is to make sure that everybody's moving in the right direction. We talk a lot about safety and comfort and you know, the, the team that we have here, uh, it's not always comfortable here. Like, I'm not always a comfortable guy to have a conversation with.

Nick Skislak (13:54):

I have hard conversations with my people, but one thing that you can never take away is that this place, me and SSD SDM is very, very safe. You're going to be safe here. Like, it's crazy out there, but here there's stability and the stability comes from transparency. It comes from not being afraid to talk about the tough stuff. It comes from, I don't want to say argument, but certainly there's a level of passion here in the company. I'm pretty passionate myself and I think that probably breeds out there a little bit. Um, but we're not afraid to have those kind of tough conversations. And I, I think, uh, because of that, that safety versus comfort thing that when we, when we can share that with people and talk about that, Hey, you're not going to be, you're not going to be able to just come here and like put the headphones on and do your thing and kind of sneak by. Like we're really open and upfront about that. So now that everybody knows that's not what it is, we can move on, right? And now we can start doing stuff. Now we can start getting better and, uh, this kind of repetition and flexing the muscles of the brain muscles of these conversations that we have of getting better. Uh, I think it builds trust.

Jan Griffiths (15:12):

You talk about radical transparency on your website, and I can tell that that's an important value to you and the team here, but how do you practice that? Can you think of an example where perhaps somebody has come in and maybe it is not used to that environment? Because in many cultures, you know, knowledge is power, right? And in some cultures people will hold on to information because they've, they makes them feel safe that they have information and they don't want to share it or they'll only share it with certain people. How do you, how do you get past that? Can you give us an example of what radical transparency is here?

Nick Skislak (15:52):

Yes. I think, um, so there's conflicts that arise in any office, in relationships and working relationships and home relationships. And you know, especially when you got a job that you're trying to do or a goal that you're trying to achieve, roadblocks happen. Issues come up and people bring those, it people create those issues. One thing that, um, what we try to do is that here you have a duty. If you have an issue with someone, you have a duty to let that person know about that issue. It does no good for someone to come to me about an issue they have with someone else. Only until you've brought it up to that person. You've dialogued with them about it and you've hit a roadblock where you guys can't come to terms at that point, then we can mediate something. Right? Then we can come in and try to help.

Nick Skislak (16:45):

But that radical transparency to me, what it means is, uh, Amanda and I, we're super, super tight here and Mike us three. When I have beef with Mike, I don't go to Amanda about my beef with Mike. I go to Mike with it. Same with Amanda. When I have beef with Amanda, I go to Amanda about it. I don't go to Mike to try to gain. I think one of the biggest things that people try to do, and this is what am I, old jobs. This is why the culture was so toxic for the places. I think the Lord that I didn't like it and this happened because if I liked it too much, I probably would have never started SSD edge. But the whole purpose of this place was to create a place that people didn't dread coming to. And you know, I figured out as time went by that to come here and work every day is not easy.

Nick Skislak (17:35):

This is the gym like, and we've come here. When you come here every day I, you have a trainer, you know, and they're asking you to get a little bit better every single day. You don't get to just go and kinda like hide out and walk around, have to come here and put in the work every day. Which that's what's so great about this place. But it's a, it's a hard thing to, I think for, for guys, specifically big people that came from big corporations of being able to kind of, I don't want to say sneak by, but you know, uh, kind of get by. Just get by was enough.

Jan Griffiths (18:10):

You, yes, you're, you're right. And, and I want to go to complacency in a moment because you speak about that specifically on your website, but just before we go there, you talk about if somebody has a problem with somebody else that they need to address that problem, would that person, and then if they can't get resolution, then they bring it to you. So many times in toxic corporate cultures, you know, that doesn't happen right in the lead. It gets caught up in the middle of it and people come into their office, you know, day in and day out, bitching and complaining about somebody else. And it takes a lot for that leader to say, Whoa, stop. Hold on a moment. You know, let's make this a coaching moment. What have you done to talk to that person directly? So it puts a lot of pressure on you, the leader. And I know that they have to be times where you just don't want to be bothered with it and you just want to go. Yeah, okay. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So how do you, you know, how do you stay true to that value as a leader? It's not easy. I know.

Nick Skislak (19:12):

Oh no. Yeah. It's not at all. And you know, don't get me wrong, I'm like everybody else, I would love, you know, it's appealing, just as appealing to me to roll my sleeves up and try to figure it out for everyone. You know, there's a little endorphin rush when, Ooh, the past. Ooh, a little gossip that's coming in. You know, they, there's something there, but it's gotta be checked. I mean, and that's, that's practice every single day. How is this affecting you? What have you done about it? And usually, you know, if there's nothing, or I get to a lot when people come in, it's, um, well so-and-so feels like this. So it's a deflection move to say, well, I feel like that too, but I don't want to admit that I feel this way, so I'm going to put it off that and kind of stage it.

Nick Skislak (19:59):

Someone else feels this way to kind of give me the pass to talk about it. That happens kind of a lot. And, uh, I, once you notice it, once you notice it's happening, it's really easy to kind of nip right away. And, and check and, and of course the new direction, right? Like start a new habit that this isn't the way I know, maybe at the old spot, that's the way you guys used to do stuff. And there was a lot of talking. We don't do that here. This is how we handle conflict. This is how we handle situations. We just were in a pitch. We had a nice business pitch about a week ago and we had five people in the meeting are people and it's a, it's an orchestra, you know, I mean it's a whole, you know, what a pitch is. Just a lot of moving parts and a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong.

Nick Skislak (20:52):

Uh, one of the greatest things that we do after these pitches is we come back as a team and we all air out our own things that we thought we could have done better and we also air what we thought others could have done better. So it's an opportunity to say, Hey guys, I got a little off track in my spot. Okay, I got a little too excited. I should've stood. I should've sat down earlier. I rambled a little too long. [inaudible] but it's also an opportunity for us to say, Hey Amanda, when you were talking about the strategy portion, two of the guys kind of looked like they were disengaged and you kept going and they didn't really get it and you got to see that they're not getting it and address it. I'm giving an example of this, but those kinds of dialogues, that's what, that's that iron sharpening iron kind of thing that that us three are really good at. Mike, Amanda, and myself. I think that's a lot to do with the success that we've had. We've been, we're really, really good at that

Nick Skislak (21:54):

and I think that shows vulnerability, which of course is a key trait for authentic leadership. And when your right in the middle of that yourself as the leader of this business, then you're showing vulnerability that you're not perfect and you're owning up to areas that you could improve. Then that makes others feel safe in doing the same thing and being more vulnerable. And that is a very difficult thing for many leaders to practice because they feel that they have to be the boss and they have to be perfect and they've got to know everything and be right at all times. And that is absolutely not the case. You know, it took me a long time to learn that and I will openly admit, but I think vulnerability is such an important quality for a leader to have.

Nick Skislak (22:38):

Definitely one of the areas that I need more help in is in I knowingly, I mean that's, this is me knowing that vulnerability is important and still saying that it's an issue for me because it is, I mean, you're, you're at the front, so you have everyone's, you're here for everyone. So you want them to be, uh, confident, right? And you want that to instill confidence as a leader for your team. But no question. Um, the vulnerability is it's very important. It's really impactful and it, it does build trust and it sets the tone. That's what's great about getting new people in here to say, Hey, we don't have all the answers. We do not have. All the answers we, that's why you're here. So don't worry about making mistakes. We're really into like the fail fast, fail hard kind of thing. Like we will not get mad at you for making mistakes. We will if you don't make mistakes and come here. This isn't really a good spot for you.

Jan Griffiths (23:37):

Let's talk about complacency. You say that complacency is not in your DNA. And that reminds me of a Jeff Bezos quote where he says that every day you've got to treat every day like it's day one. Like you're a startup business, like you're hungry, otherwise complacency sets in. And I also read another article that said that a leader's effectiveness starts to die off after about the fifth year. So given those two examples, so talk to us about complacency and how do you make sure the complacency is not in your DNA here?

Nick Skislak (24:17):

Oh man. I think complacency ruins more careers and organizations then, you know, maybe anything else? Uh, one of the advantages I think of the business that we're in S DM is there's no choice. We have to be on the cutting edge of this stuff because it moves so quick. That's just the nature of the industry in the state of the industry right now. Um, I think that in other companies it's maybe easy when you're selling a widget to do it the same way over and over and over and then you get a routine going and then nothing changes because that's just the way things have always. You've always done things. Um, or there is a, there is a, I dunno, a hunger or a worry. Maybe it's a out of worry or anxiety where complacency maybe scares me a little bit. Like when things are a little too good, uh, you want to break it, you know, you want to, you want to kind of mess it up to see how you can make it a little better.

Nick Skislak (25:26):

Um, I do think that's probably been a major driver in these first, you know, 11, 11 years. Uh, there has been a, a fear of not being relevant and I think that pushes you to, to not be satisfied. Uh, I do think that the people that I surround myself with though help me with this a lot. I can't stress that enough. Like in just in this room, I get to sit next to two people all day long that I am accountable to them and they are accountable to me. And they would sit here and say the same thing about me and probably not best buddies. I, we're friends, but they know that I'm always, we're here to make each other better. And all of us know that you've got each other's backs. We got each other. Yes. Cute. Oh, that. Yeah. It is just, and when, I think the exciting thing about growing this has been showing that to other people. Like when you sit down with us three, you know what it is and that only that's started after you've known him for a decade. Yeah. That you can't just make that when you, when us three sit down and we give a little elbow jab and a head nod and the finished each other's sentences and all that stuff. Um, it's great for clients. It's great for employees. It's vendors, partners, everybody wants is gravitated towards. It gravitates towards it because it is, it's a special thing that you can see, wow, these guys trust each other.

Jan Griffiths (26:59):

I do think that this, you know, getting away from complacency is a massive challenge today. And I think that it goes back to fear and safety. You're right in that when companies, you know, enter into that period of being complacent, but it's safe, comfortable feeling, right? It's very comfortable. It's nice and it feels safe even though it might not be, you're sort of fooling yourself. But if you do the same thing over and over again, and after a certain point in time, you know that that's how you get success. So that's how you get promoted. You keep doing the same thing. So now to shift this culture, right, that many companies have known to say, no, you know what? We need to be doing things differently. And you mentioned the word chaos and this idea of organized chaos. You describe it as, um, as SDM is a place where organized chaos and fresh ideas meet.

Jan Griffiths (27:57):

And that reminded me a lot of the Tony Shay from Zappos and his idea of casual collisions. And here's a real departure that I think a lot of companies will have to make in order to get to, to innovation and generating new ideas. And that is you've got to do things that maybe don't make sense. I'll give you an example. If an employee perhaps wants to go to, um, a conference, you know, the typical corporate, uh, line is, well, how does that relate to the bottom line and how does that relate to your job and what exactly are you going to bring back to the company? Right? And that, okay, I can understand why you'd want to ask that question, but that's not it. You know, I went to a Detroit TEDx, I've been two years in a row now, right? It's about this idea of casual collision. It's about changing the way that we think, the way our mind operates so that we can be more open and more creative and therefore more innovative. So, uh, what's your perspective on,

Nick Skislak (29:01):

on all of that? Well, I, you know, I think that has a lot to do with the business that we're in too because we are an ideas company. You know, we are, this is a creative shop, which is a lot of fun in a lot of ways, but it's a lot of work. You have to like, to get the idea, you have to throw out 99 ideas. There's no other way around it to get to a magic gold thing that actually provides value to the people that pay us money. You have to throw out 99 ideas every single time and throwing out ideas is painful and throwing out your own ideas stinks, thrown out other people's ideas, stinks. Other people throwing out your ideas stinks. But that is the, uh, the chaos or the organization of this I think comes to from, this is still kind of this like prospecting, like going out West, the old, you know, frontier days of no one what's out there, you know, Oh my gosh, you want to have, you want to have marketing meetings with salespeople in the room.

Nick Skislak (30:06):

Are you nuts? You want to have salespeople? And you're asking marketing for their input. What are we doing? We got to have the COO and the CEO and the CMO all together to talk about these things. You know, that this, uh, kind of, um, give it a world, try something new attitude. Uh, that's separating, I think the winners and the losers. This is the blockbuster thing. Like blockbuster was sitting around only talking about ways to open more blockbusters. Like that's all that the meetings were, Hey, how can we build more blockbuster locations? And Netflix was this cute little DVD company that was sending DVDs to the store and the people at blockbuster were saying, yet people aren't going to do that. People want, people love going to blockbuster. Like they're always going to want, they're going to have to go look at the DVD case.

Nick Skislak (31:03):

They can't buy a DVD without looking at the VIT, the case. It was these things, these kinds of conversations that, you know, blockbuster didn't know that anything was wrong. They didn't realize they were talking about the wrong thing. And that's the, I think that's what companies, that's what we try to do. We tried to talk about the right stuff for our clients, for people, for our partners and, and that's, that's what makes it interesting. But that's the nature I think of our bid of the business that we're in or the industry that we're in. We're not building a widget and looking for a way to save a 2 cents on every widget that we build. You know, that's, we every time have to throw out the 99 ideas.

Jan Griffiths (31:44):

Well, you mentioned a sales being in the room with marketing, and I know that this is something that you're extremely passionate about. I've heard you speak on the topic many times at the OESA. You gave a keynote at marcomm this year on that very topic. So why, why is this such a, why are you so passionate about this idea? I mean, I love the idea that you, you're breaking down silos and you're getting people to, to integrate and collaborate with each other. But why, why are you so passionate about this? Well, I've seen it work. I think that's the biggest reason I've seen this. I've seen it work. And why don't you see it work? You don't want to do it any other way?

Nick Skislak (32:23):

I think so. I'm a sales guy. I'm a sales guy and I just so happened to have a marketing company and we have really, really great people that are marketing. And I think, you know, sales guys do all the hard work and people get all the glory and uh, those conversations. For some reason marketing people don't think that they need the insight from salespeople to make good advertising. And I say the only good cut, the only thing that you need to be listening to, to create great, great advertisements is listening to your salespeople. Your salespeople understand customers way more than marketers do for the most part. So I have been screaming a lot about that because I've seen it. It transform organizations. When you can start getting insight from more than your marketing team, uh, you can create massive impact. And I've seen it happen and I've, I've seen money be saved, I've seen money be made and I've seen great work be done just to having more people in the room.

Nick Skislak (33:33):

But it's uncomfortable. That's the thing. It's the safest possible thing these guys can do. But it, man, is it a pain in the neck? Right? Oh God. Now there's three more opinions I gotta listen to. Yes, yes it is. And that's the point. That is the point of this. Yeah. You getting people out of, they come out of the comfort zone. Yeah. There's a quote on your website. It's a Bruce Lee quote, the art of fighting without fighting. And when I first looked at that, I looked at a Bruce Lee quote, Bruce Lee quote. And then the more I thought about it, I thought, wow. You know, that really says a lot. It's the art of fighting without fighting. So what's your perspective on that and why did you pick that? One of the things I voted I wanted, um, something about Andy Griffith. I don't know if you remember the Andy Griffith show.

Nick Skislak (34:24):

I was really, I, I know the Andy Griffith show and he is a sheriff in Mayberry. Do you know this? Bernie. Okay. Okay. So Andy Griffith show grew up in Mayberry, small town America. Uh, he was the sheriff and he had a deputy Barney Fife. Andy the sheriff never carried a gun. So it was a great, in all these just little problem is a sitcom back in the shoe, probably 50s, maybe one a long time. But uh, he never carried a gun. And Mike and I love to say how bad of a duty Andy Griffith was to be the sheriff and never carry a gun. And that's kind of what this is as well. Like, it's not about the, the, um, uncomfortableness is not to build walls. It's not to, you know, start building up my wall. You build up your wall and now we gotta just kinda throw haymakers at each other to see who's the last man standing.

Nick Skislak (35:24):

It's about taking him down. It's not fighting, it's, it's, uh, it's having enough trust in one another to have meaningful dialogue in and really know that, that we're trying to make each other better. And I'd go back to these guys. I mean, that's what, no matter what, we will not take that away from each other. There's no doubt in my mind that the people here legitimately are here to make me better and they know I'm here to do the same for them. So when we get into, uh, the, the heat of it, it's to be clear that this isn't fighting. You know, we're not boxing, we're not trying to hurt each other. We're trying to build each other up.

Jan Griffiths (36:05):

Yeah. And it's not about being right or wrong, and I think that's where so many cultures miss the boat. It's not about this aggressive fights. It's not about winning the fight. It's about identifying an outcome and working together to achieve that outcome.

Nick Skislak (36:22):

Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the, I've heard this a long time ago, like it's an, a lot of people disagree with this, but I would rather be nice than be right. Yeah. I would rather be polite and nice than be right.

Jan Griffiths (36:34):

Yeah. I, I would, uh, I would agree with you. Yeah. There's a question that I ask all my guests and that is, you know, what are you doing to attract millennials? But that's kind of funny here because you are a millennial. Yes. So what do you do? Let me just broaden it then. What do you do to attract people regardless of what generation they're in to SSD em?

Nick Skislak (36:57):

I think that we do a really good job of laying out what this is and what this isn't. We in this took a while. I mean, it took us a long time to kind of nail this down, but we're really, really upfront about, about what this job is and what the expectation is. And uh, we then give you the reins. Like I've the new bestie. I have three or four people that are kind of a business development focused and these are people that have had great careers before they came here. Um, don't have to be here, choose to be here. Uh, and all four of them. The pitch was you come here and you do whatever you want. You can come here and I'll let you do whatever you want. And it, it was out of not like, you know, come and party or, you know, not do anything.

Nick Skislak (37:51):

It wasn't that, but that I trust because of the relationship that we have in our, uh, history and where these guys have come from, that they know what to do. This the same with like Patrick and some of these guys that I, they already know the skills, they have the technical skills to do what we need them to do. What we need to do is just create an environment that allows them to do that and that's it. Everything else we kind of stay out of the way for the most part and, and let them kind of tell us where, where things need to go and what things need to look like to make it better for them, make it, make them able to do their job better.

Jan Griffiths (38:33):

They say that leaders ignite fire in people and managers light a fire underneath.

Nick Skislak (38:39):

Yeah. And I think that's a classic example of really igniting that passion, right? Yeah. We, we had that a little bit this morning. We had a sales and marketing meeting this morning. It was a sales and marketing meeting that we had this morning and we did, we had to just light it, light him up a little bit and a year and we had a great year. And, but you had just kind of set the stage of what the expectations are moving forward as important. Yeah. Okay. Good. This might be a tough question for you to answer, but I'm going to ask it anyway. What's your legacy? Oh man, I, you know, I want to,

Nick Skislak (39:25):

I want to create something here that's new. I want to do things differently. I think that's, I hope that in 50 years from now that this place was talked about as man, those guys were doing it, those guys saw an opportunity and they changed the way the ad game was being done. They changed the way organizations engaged with agencies. So I think I'm a, um, that, you know, I like to think of myself as someone who is pioneering a new relationship with not just the, the relationship that clients have with agencies, but also the relationship and users or customers have with brands. Um, that's what I think my, if I got to say, you know, I would love to be associated with that. Cause you know, this, the timing of this, you know, the, the internet and the web and then how agencies have evolved like the, these 500 plus person agencies aren't the thing anymore.

Nick Skislak (40:41):

You know, this is the new thing. This 50 person shop under a hundred, that is what, and they're biting off smaller pieces that they're really, really good at. And I like to think that we're, we're part of that. We're, we're a little piece of that. It's like the, uh, I think of Anheuser Busch, you know, they've been bleeding market share forever and ever. And it wasn't that another guy came in. It wasn't all going to Coors light or to Miller light. It was going to all the independent brewers, all these different guys that are all just taking a little piece. That's us. You know, we're taking a little piece out of, out of this big, big pie and I think it's impactful.

Jan Griffiths (41:22):

Well, you've already received many awards. Uh, 2019 bronze tele is that Italian award? Is that, um, small interactive marketing of the year and then Metro Detroit's best and brightest place to work. I mean you would seem to me that you're well on your way. You're clearly an authentic leader. I've known that since the very first moment that I met you. So here's the question, what is gravitas to you, Nick? What is that irresistible quality that pulls people in that they just will do anything for you? I seen it, but describe it in your words please.

Nick Skislak (42:02):

My thing is, and you know, call me the kid that grew up in the farm town or you know, small town, whatever, my number one leadership style or what I deem is to be most effective leadership is leading by example. There's nothing that I would ask these guys to do that I won't do myself. And I know a lot of people say that, but that is true. That is the dishes in the sink that is running the dishwasher, that is seeing a piece of paper on the floor and picking it up and someone dropping their pen and saying, here you go. It's saying please and thank you. And it's, it's uh, taking the phone calls on nights and weekends and on the way to work in heaven, making sure the doors not just open all the time, but there's a come on in, come on in, come on in. There's an invite. It's not just the door open, it's, it's inviting people in and that's what us three I think are really good at. Like there's no, there's no secret that we roll up our sleeves every single day and try as hard as we possibly can. We don't, we don't cut corners and we, you know, we're not sneaking out the back, get three in the afternoon and putting it on everybody else. We're there. We're arm in arm and that's, I think to this point, God done us really, really well.

Jan Griffiths (43:38):

I would say so. And I wish you much continued success. Thank you very much for your time today. It's been an absolute pleasure. Yeah, this is great. This is a lot of fun. Thank you. Thanks for having me.

(43:53):

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