Penji Advertisement
Speaker 1: This podcast is brought to you by Penji. Penji is a creative subscription service that gives you access to pre-vetted, easy-to-train creatives from all over the world. From graphic design to illustrations to social media management and web development. It’s all included for one monthly price. It’s time to say goodbye to the hassle of searching for top-notch creative talent. With Penji, you get quality and consistency delivered right to your inbox every day. Carefully crafted for you by humans. So meet your new creative team today. Head over to Penji.co for more and enter the coupon code located within the podcast show notes.
Introduction to Fully Managed Podcast
Shannon Penji (SP): Alrighty. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Fully Managed Podcast, the podcast where we discuss marketing and business tips to help assist you on your business journey. I’m your host, Shannon Penji’s Partnership Coordinator, and I’m joined here today with a very special guest, Mike Arteta from Servo Media Group. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Mike Arteta (MA): Thanks for having me.
SP: I appreciate it. Could you start by telling us a little bit about yourself? Anything that you think is relevant for the audience and how you got to this point in your professional career and starting Servo Media?
Mike Arteta’s Background and Transition to VR
MA: Yeah, sure. So I’ve been in digital out-of-home advertising marketing space for the better part of about 15 years now, and as of lately, well, we are planning for the transition into the VR space as opposed to the traditional marketing space and offering advertising real estate in there and excited about it. We have a real cool project that we worked on for the better part of 2024 and going into this new year now, and we’re really excited about what we can offer and some advice to individuals and companies.
SP: That’s really exciting. I haven’t really heard a lot about that. I talk to media companies a lot and VR is something that hasn’t come up a lot. So could you go into that a little bit? Can you tell us a little bit? I know maybe the project’s confidential, I don’t know. But if you could tell us a little bit about the transition to that and you know about it.
MA: I my history of those past 15 years, as I previously spoke about, was working in social media optimization, SEO optimization, and starting that during MySpace and all of the kind of tools that are utilized today. I was doing that a long time ago. So being an innovator then and trying to be able to navigate that now and not have so much competition, that’s how we can get to the VR point and try and create and emulate what was done then, now and now for the future in VR.
SP: Well, it’s really cool to grow up in that space to where social media started and where media started in general to see it now and how it’s become such a, I guess, glamorous, maybe that’s the word. It’s so something that we probably would have never been able to imagine, which is something that’s so cool. But it’s really interesting to be able to almost pioneer that space. You’re doing something that no one’s done before. Well, what you said about competition, I think that’s really interesting because no one else is doing this. So you have the ability to start it and be the best at it before anyone else is. That’s really, really cool. But what are maybe the difficulties that come with that? Because you have no family to look to for how to do it. So how are you?
Challenges of Innovation
MA: Yeah, that, that is the problem. As you know, that was one of our main problems with working with Pandora’s Box, is because you know that the equipment that we used to film it, if you can imagine, was a 300-degree camera, 360-degree camera. So there’s camera lenses that go in the circle and the cluster. And then it was man-made by a Chinese manufacturer and so, you know, they didn’t really have the information kind of English based for yet, though our DP was able to kind of work within and then help the segway that the literature to where it could be utilized across multiple languages and that was just like one of the hurdles that we had to overcome. And, you know, that was one of the main reasons why no one wanted to kind of take on that kind of project. And but, you know, that comes with innovation, right? Like, no. And this is always a work in progress until you find the right R&D to what you’re trying to do. Yeah. And once you have the vision, you can set the standard, you know, So, you know, first of all, no one wants to be in competition, right?
Innovative Approaches to Advertising
MA: Yeah, it’s I really don’t. I mean, I pay attention to what other people are doing, like I said, in terms of how they’re utilizing what they’re doing, but I might not necessarily utilize it the same way that they are. An example is QR codes. Several years ago, 2000 and early 2000, QR codes were similarly popular, but they weren’t being utilized in a way to like they were just being utilized to drive traffic to websites primarily. That’s what I was seeing. We dealt with a TV company a few years ago and we started integrating QR codes on television screens before Amazon started doing it, before, you know, all the bigger companies started implementing them into commercials because, you know, you see a 30-second commercial. You got to remember whose commercial it is, what it is that you like. The daily and so on and so forth. And there was only so much information that a person can retain within those 13 seconds to 30-second ads. You know, why not be able to just put the QR code right there? You scan it with your phone and then it goes directly to like emergent checkout or right to the product description page. And that’s how we were analyzing it, because we have the technology and it’s fairly simple, has been around for years. At that point, it just no one had gone about utilizing it in that in that manner. And we just we do that a lot to a lot of different things that, you know, might not even be used for the average ad space, but we turn it and make it in the advertising space, much like the VR, we built the whole production around contemporary classical music. But our environment that we built in the contemporary space is a whole cyberpunk style environment with ads like New York, billboards all over in the background. When we did that on purpose so that we can allow advertisers to buy real estate on those billboards to the VR consumer.
SP: That’s really smart. I like that a lot. I wouldn’t even think about something like that because the advertising space will build as the VR space builds and to be able to incorporate it into the VR spaces. Why?
MA: It’s insane. And that’s the main reason why I was like, Oh, like everything we’re doing right now is all we need. So I think it’s what we do with our rubidium UI in real fast. Like, yeah.
SP: No, it’s really better.
MA: Yeah.
Adapting to Technological Advancements
SP: Yeah. How fast things are advancing and to try to catch up. I mean, you’re clearly starting early, which is something that I think most innovators are trying their best to. I think that a successful business has to constantly look forward to be able to expect those changes and see what’s maybe not so popular now might be popular very quickly as technology advances that people adapt to these different things. People are wary of new technologies. Yeah, like ChatGPT took a little bit time to for people to actually incorporate into their lives. But now my parents use it sometimes. They I didn’t even think they would be able to conceptualize how to use that, but they can. And I think that and also simplifying it because obviously a lot of times when something’s put out like a product is put out, that’s it’s hard for people to understand and simplify it in their minds of how to use it or incorporate it into their lives. But the more that something is adapted further, the more people can understand it and be accustomed to it.
MA: Absolutely. I mean, you know, just we wouldn’t be where we are today in a society if we didn’t have those people that were pushing innovation. And I mean, you look at how communication and how far communication has come, you know, like we started with the Pony Express in delivering mail, which lasted for like a year because the Telegraph came right behind it, you know, and then after the Telegraph, there was an opportunity for the person that created that to be able to to, to jump on board with the telephone, which he wasn’t so on board with the telephone but there was that phone that can’t you know, like it’s either you have to adapt or you know, you kind of get left behind. And you’re absolutely right as well. No one knows exactly what is going to hit and what the wall as well.
Overcoming Fear and Finding Motivation
SP: Are there any fears that you have having been like being a part of something so new?
MA: No. As an entrepreneur, I’ve never really had I’ve always been a two feet jump in the end of the career. I have money, don’t have money, with the kind of guy, you know, I’m in my forties and I started my first business when I was 19. And, you know, it was just a hopeful, and, you know, all I’ve done from that point is just understanding how beings operate and how to hustle smarter and, you know, be more savvy about the things that I’m doing. And yeah, because the fear is just going to hold you back at the end of the day. I mean, you learn from failing. So at least I do.
SP: You know, I do sometimes. Too much. Yeah.
MA: Yeah.
SP: But. Well, that’s great to hear. I think that’s not common. I think a lot of people are scared of a lot of things, but I think that’s really interesting because you’re able to push yourself forward more not being so concerned over those kind of things because, yeah, I mean, if it does fail, then you try something different. That’s okay and that’s I think a lot of people are too afraid of failure to even try. And I think that’s definitely an important point that you make.
MA: Yeah, you got to keep going. I mean, that’s that’s how you get to where you want to go, because if you stop after you sell one time, then you know, maybe you’re not supposed to do it. But if you have the passion and the drive to keep going, then you know there is no sell. You just keep going and eventually you’ll get the results you want against you continue to strive to to work in a positive manner. Of course you can’t work backwards, but.
SP: Well, okay, so then what keeps you inspired to take on these larger projects or these projects that are unfamiliar to you? Like what keeps you motivated to want to do these things even when you fail?
MA: I have a really good self-motivation. Like I said, I don’t really see failure. I just see a better way or a better approach to doing it. You know, there was a time in my life where frustration was a pretty serious point in there. And even in my frustration, I’ve, you know, learned to just take a step back, relax, give it some time. I’m back to where and I asked in times when you take a different approach to it, knowing you can get the result that you want. And once you get that result and you know, that’s kind of like the motivation that you like, Oh yeah, well, you know, I keep doing that to do it, you know? But frustration definitely was a setback, and learning how to overcome that was a challenge, which I’m still working and I haven’t perfected, as we are women. You know, we weren’t being burned now like.
SP: We’re not all we can expect to what we expect from ourselves, from others also. And yet a really hard thing to.
MA: Yeah. So, you know, that’s that’s what keeps me kind of animated. And then also you know just the kind of spiritual components to it as well. You know, you live one life and I keep my faith in God as well. You know, he directs my path in everything I do. So, you know, I have surety in that there is a plan for me to get it done. Otherwise, it wouldn’t came the way that he did and for me to execute the way that I did.
SP: You know, I think that’s a great way to stay inspired. All of the reasons that you listed, I think that that’s something that a lot of people have trouble with. The frustration I think is a big one. I think when you are trying very hard to accomplish something and it doesn’t work the way you want it, it is only human to be upset. It’s only human to have all the elements that go into that that might fail to lead to that. And I think that everyone that as a business owner experiences this, and I think that it can kind of trap them if they don’t go beyond it and try to figure out what else they can do or something different that they can do. But I think that’s something that a lot of people face. So on the other side, what you said inspires you. How do you, well, what inspires you to take on these projects? But what how do you choose the projects that you want to collaborate on? Like, is it something do you choose it based on what inspires you or do you do it based on? Clearly, I don’t know if it’s experience because this is a completely new project. Like how do you choose those? What, what, what makes you want to get involved in these kind of things?
Project Selection Criteria
MA: Yeah, that’s a really good question because that’s something that we’ve kind of developed over the last year and the prior years. We kind of were taking on all of them. And then our plate got really, really full. And it’s all part of the whole organizing and starting to see what we’re going to do in October was part of our onboarding process of the projects that we’re going to take on for the next year. And in that process, we’ve decided that we really only work on like five projects a year, and that’s this because we put like 1,000% in everything that we do. And most of the things that we’re doing are either disruptive or something innovative, and giving that best guess would have been, you know, that’s why it has us to only focus on five projects and as to how we choose. There’s really two different criteria that we go by. One is if it fits kind of like what our business and our business model like, whether or not they have a budget or don’t have a budget. By the way.
SP: It’s not a necessary fact.
MA: Yeah. That some companies don’t want to take on projects that don’t have budgets, and that doesn’t necessarily scare us if we can see a pathway for us to be profitable in it because we’ve allocated it on our team and allocated years of experience and network and connections and a lot of our network, if they see the potential in it, are more than just the potential money, then don’t invest in those projects. We just have to kind of, you know, that I’m out before. And so that’s the first one. And then the second portion of that is just if or if it works out more percentage wise to benefit our company is is how we choose as well. And then there’s like some micro standards in there. But for the most part, those are the two ways on how we choose our projects that we’re going to take on. And, you know, the successful list of what those could look like and, you know, the time it will take to to work on, you know, those kind of micro beings, like I said before, is, yeah, I know we choose.
SP: It’s nice to have that balance between taking on projects that inspire you, but also, you know, have profitability and for that everyone wants to have that perfect dynamic. But it is really interesting to take on, I think every company or agency or whatever it may be gets to this point where you realize that you will not only want to do great work because everyone, I’m sure, does. I hope that you want to do your absolute best. And what you said you put like 1,000% into be able to manage those projects well so that you can put in as much work as you want to and think you’re capable of to make sure that that project is everything that you want it to be is really awesome because I think that a lot of people shrug over with maintaining that standard for themselves. Like you said previously, you had taken too many people on. I think that’s something that people struggle with a lot because taking more people on equals more money. But sometimes you’re not proud of your work or you’re not as proud as you could be. Like, Yes, maybe this was on paper successful, but it wasn’t. You thought it could be much more. And that disappoints people who, you know, have higher standards for themselves and want to do their absolute best, not just good.
Work-Life Balance
MA: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. I mean, it can become very daunting and stressful and, you know, everything’s we take on an approach that everything is going to kind of work for us. And what that means is that we still want to live life we love. Or, you know, it’s in our blood. We love business, but we also love our families. And, you know, we have a vacation this and everything else. So, you know, we want to live our life because you only get one. And I don’t want to spend it all on your projects. You gave me love.
SP: No, that’s definitely fair. I think everyone deserves that. You should be able to if you work really hard, you should be able to enjoy your life outside of work. Even if you enjoy work. Work is still work. Well, there you go.
MA: Yeah. And we very much in anyway. And not to say that the projects that we work on it doesn’t take anything away from that. You know, we still keep like you said, a good balance of those and which is a whole nother kind of topic of work-life balance. But, you, know, we for us, our balance is the five-part project. And, you know, we’ll put it 1,000% in as opposed to, you know, dividing ourselves, you know, then because, you know, honestly, if you’re successful with one goal and then everybody else is going to come regardless.
SP: You know? Well, I think that is a perfect note to end on because we are actually out of time. But I think that that was I it’s good that you value not only your customers because you want to do your best work, but you also value the time that you’re putting into it. Because I think that that is what everyone, I hope again, strives to get to at some point in their business. So it’s good to have a standard for yourself because that not only shows respect for yourselves, but also for your clients to know that like that is the reason why you only take on so much because you want to give them everything.
MA: Yes, definitely. We we we do that. We I assure them that they all look fantastic, will be completed and everything and more is what they’ll receive. Definitely.
SP: Well, I hope that I talk to more businesses that say the same thing because I think what’s really important and vital for pleasing your clients, but also being happy with what you’re doing and your work, because I think that everyone should be proud of what they do.
MA: Absolutely. In your work.
SP: You should be proud of it. You’re good. What’s the point of working if you’re not? I mean, I guess to get money. Money’s important too. So, you know, be happy with what you’re doing for others is, I think, important for, you know, being not only successful but being, you know, happy with yourself and what you’re doing.
MA: Definitely.
Conclusion
SP: Thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate. I’m sorry to cut it short. I hate cutting off the conversation.
MA: I don’t want to.
SP: Thank you so much for joining me today. I think you’ve provided a lot of really useful information to our audience and, you know, some inspirational things in the time as well.
MA: We thank you for inviting me. It’s very much a pleasure speaking with you at the end. And I really enjoyed it.
SP: Thank you. I’m happy that you enjoyed it. I hope this was a fun podcast and I hope this was fun for all of you listeners. Thank you so much for helping or watching. And please don’t forget to like and subscribe to see more. I appreciate your participation and thank you so much for coming on me today. Again.
Speaker 1: You’ve been listening to Fully Managed Brought to you by Penji. Check out the show notes to learn more about today’s guest and to learn more about Penji, the human-first creative subscription service. Head over to Penji.co. And by the way, if you’re still listening, it would mean the absolute world to us if you were to share this podcast with a friend and of course, subscribe.
