240: Italian Soccer Player takes his Digital Marketing Company Stateside (Rocco Baldassarre of Zebra Advertisement)

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Background on Rocco Baldassarre of Zebra Advertisement:

Rocco Baldassarre is the Founder and CEO of Zebra Advertisement. Rocco is the only marketer and the youngest person globally to have ever been awarded an MVP by Microsoft. He is the youngest Google Partners All-Stars Winner. He is also included in the Forbes 30 Under 30 for Marketing and Advertising (Class of 2018). Other nominations and awards include the CSM Awards, the European and the US Search Awards, the SEMY Awards, and the Stevie Awards. Zebra Advertisement was named “One of America’s Most Entrepreneurial Companies” by Entrepreneur Magazine and was featured on the Entrepreneur 360 List.

In 2011, Rocco Baldassarre founded the digital marketing firm, Zebra Advertisement, in college. The company has since grown to reach over 13% of the world population with online advertising. The company has been named “One of America’s most entrepreneurial companies” by Entrepreneur Magazine. Clients who seek digital marketing expertise come to Rocco to scale up campaigns and increase their ROI (return on investment) and ROAS (return on ad spend.)

Time-Stamped Show Notes:

  • [1:04] Rocco provides a brief introduction to his company, Zebra Advertisement, which is a digital marketing agency.
  • [2:45] An example or case study on how Zebra Advertisement is different from its competitors.
  • [7:12] Another case study on how Rocco and his company were able to successfully help a client.
  • [13:34] For another client, Zebra Advertisement implemented a 5-year plan, where the client gained 500 thousand subscribers and had tremendous growth.
  • [19:12] Zebra Advertisement accepts all types of clients, as long as they have the right mindset.
  • [21:25] Rocco was born and raised in a small town in Italy.
  • [22:23] At 14 years old, Rocco was already playing professional soccer.
  • [24:46] From 16 to 19 years old, Rocco was managing dance clubs.
  • [26:14] In college, Rocco took up Marketing and Finance under a double degree program.
  • [27:30] After college, Rocco started his first company, which is Zebra Advertisement.
  • [28:00] The first few months of Zebra Advertisement was disastrous for Rocco so he had to change his strategy.
  • [29:07] During the early days of his business, Rocco used Upwork and he became one of the top providers of the platform.
  • [30:41] Rocco continues to share his experience on Upwork.
  • [34:05] When Rocco started his plan to move to the US, he lost a considerable amount of money in Paypal.
  • [37:31] Being a solution-oriented person, Rocco didn’t freak out, even though he lost $100,000 to a hacker in Pakistan.
  • [41:12] The American Embassy in Rome denied Rocco his visa because they thought he was too young to make that amount of money and his parents were helping him.
  • [42:50] After moving to the US, things didn’t work out between Rocco and his wife and it cost him about half a million dollars to divorce her.
  • [44:18] Staying in Miami for 2 years, Rocco was able to buy 2 commercial real estates and he ended up being in the Forbes cover.
  • [46:17] Since he knew that digital marketing is a very volatile industry, his goal has always been to own other businesses.
  • [48:24] There were only 2 people that Rocco had to fire throughout his business career.
  • [50:45] Rocco is on his way to becoming a US citizen. It took him 5 years to be qualified for a green card.
  • [53:00] One of his biggest accomplishments is taking care of his two dogs, five cats, two guinea pigs, and one rabbit.
  • [54:47] As the boss of the company, he likes to give everyone their freedom because he wants them to feel happy at their work rather than feel obligated.
  • [56:20] Rocco emphasizes the importance of being strategic about your work.
  • [57:40] Having a routine is key to not lose any momentum for Rocco.

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Fabulous 4 Questions:

  1. 📖📚 Favorite Books? All my college books
  2. 🙌😎 Favorite Amazon.com purchase? Alexa Speakers
  3. 🌱💸 Favorite Tool that's GROWN your Business? Freshbooks, Google Suite, Teams
  4. 💭💡 BIGGEST Challenge keeping your Business from GROWING? Finding more of the right clients: Large businesses in need of strategic marketing consulting

Key Point from the Interview:

  • “Always make sure to be strategic about your work. Ninety percent of the work in any business is not about how well you do your job, it’s about how strategic you are about it. And the implementation is the easy part. So, getting the strategy right is 90% of what is going to bring it to success.”

Resources Mentioned:

 

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