Scaling a digital agency can feel like an endless grind—but it doesn’t have to. In this episode, I sit down with Ivan Vislavskiy, CEO and co-founder of Comrade Digital Marketing Agency, to explore what it really takes to grow a profitable agency without burning out. Ivan shares how he scaled his agency from a two-person team to 75+ team members across multiple locations—all while staying true to his mission, building a strong team culture, and prioritizing ROI-driven systems.
If you're a digital agency owner navigating the challenges of hiring the right team, reducing client churn, building systems that scale, and trying to escape the fulfillment trap, this episode will resonate deeply. Ivan unpacks how focusing on operational clarity, client fit, and automation transformed their growth trajectory. We talk about leadership strategies for agency owners, how to identify bad revenue, and why saying no is often the fastest way to scale.
Whether you're part of the GoHighLevel ecosystem or scaling a niche digital agency, this conversation is packed with actionable insights you can apply immediately to build a more sustainable, systemized, and profitable business.
Connect with Ivan Vislavskiy
Visit IvanVislavskiy.com to connect with Ivan directly. Whether you’re a digital agency owner looking for ROI-driven marketing strategies or seeking insight on leadership and scaling, Ivan shares practical value you can apply right now.
Books Mentioned
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. William Attaway (00:00):
I'm so excited today to have Ivan
Vyslovsky on the podcast.
Ivan's the CEO and co-founderof Comrade Digital Marketing
Agency.
He leads a respected digitalmarketing firm with prominent
locations in Chicago, miami and.
Austin, recognized for hisvisionary leadership.
Ivan steers the company with astrategic focus that keeps it at
(00:21):
the forefront of industrytrends, while consistently
exceeding client expectations.
With a rich portfolio boastingover 400 successful projects, he
possesses a deep expertise incatalyzing significant client
growth.
His passion for creativitypermeates the company's culture,
promoting an environment whereambition and innovation flourish
(00:45):
, enabling the development ofpioneering in-house projects.
Ivan, I'm so glad you're here.
Thanks for being on the show.
Ivan Vislavskiy (00:52):
Bill, thank you so much for having me.
Once you went over my bio, Iliterally wanted to hire myself.
Dr. William Attaway (01:00):
It's pretty impressive, and that's really
where I want to start today.
Intro/Outro (01:06):
It's pretty impressive, and that's really
where I want to start today.
Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help
leaders intentionally grow andthrive.
Here is your host, author andleadership and executive coach,
dr William Attaway.
Dr. William Attaway (01:22):
I would love for you to share some of
your story with our listeners,particularly around your journey
and your development as aleader.
How did you get started?
Ivan Vislavskiy (01:32):
Sure thing, I'll start all the way when I
was 19 and I had an opportunityto move from Russia to US in
pursuit of that American dreamNice Russia to the US in pursuit
of that American dream.
Ever since I came to the US, Ihad an opportunity to work in
multiple marketing agencies invarious roles.
(01:53):
I started as a web designer.
I then worked on development,both front and back.
I was promoted to be a projectmanager.
I handled staff of otherspecialists and then I was
promoted to be a project manager.
I handled staff of otherspecialists and then I was
promoted to other managementroles.
Eventually I knew I'm going tohave my own business one day, so
(02:15):
I was trying to soak up as muchknowledge from the management
layer on principles of how doyou properly do HR, operations,
finances, legal hiring and so onand so on.
In 2008, together with mybusiness partner, we started the
agency.
Initially.
The first projects we worked oncame from our network marketing
(02:38):
web projects.
Our goal was to provide stellarquality of the product and that
led us to sort of word of mouth.
That led us to other projectsand very quickly we became
extremely busy and we startedhiring helpers.
So that's when we had our firstspecialist, second specialist,
third specialist by roughlyaround 2011, we already had
(03:00):
three full-timers working for usand the business was finally
taken off and we decided it wastime for us to fully focus on
the growth of the business.
So the two of us quit our dayjobs, went on to work for the
agency or work on the agency,rather and we started growing
from there.
Since 2011, we grew our agencyto about a size of 75, 80 folks
(03:26):
across our three offices and ouroverseas location as well, and
we're truly blessed to be wherewe are right now.
We have very ambitious goals,obviously, and there's a lot
that happened since 2011 until2025.
Dr. William Attaway (03:44):
Of course I mean.
I'm thinking during thattimeframe you have COVID,
Something that demolished somany businesses and a whole lot
of marketing agencies,Navigating through a season of
growth and then encounteringsomething that's completely out
of your control.
How did y'all navigate thosedays?
Ivan Vislavskiy (04:03):
Well, I'll start out by saying that we've
been a generalist agency sincethe inception of your control.
How did y'all navigate thosedays?
Well, I'll start out by sayingthat we've been a generalist
agency since the inception ofour company.
But then about five, six yearsago, we started niching down and
the two niches that wespecifically picked were legal
and home services.
So legal, through the COVID,time really didn't change much,
(04:24):
because if it's a personalinjury, you could still get it.
If there's a wrongfultermination, you still need a
lawyer.
There's different familymatters that you still need to
attend to, so lawyers werepretty much essential at the
time of COVID.
Now, home services was acompletely different story.
Obviously, there was a lot ofyou know, market was not moving,
(04:45):
the houses were not really sold, so that definitely impacted
this area of the business.
But oh no, I think it allstarted out by us, deep in maybe
10, 15%, losing some clientsthat were legacy clients, that
were not specificallyrepresented in those two
industries.
So we freaked out for a second.
(05:06):
But then, little by little, itstarted normalizing and, with
the additional funds beingrolled out by government, we
actually started flourishing.
We started bringing more andmore clients and at the end of
it all, I think we came out as amuch stronger agency.
We had an opportunity toimprove our processes.
(05:27):
We fully switched to a hybridmodel.
We weren't able to work fromthe office completely.
A lot of good happened from it.
Dr. William Attaway (05:36):
Yeah, you know, leading through difficult
seasons like that can be reallychallenging, because you can't
always see around the corner.
You don't know what's ahead.
Were there times during thatseason where you felt like man,
I am not sure how to lead well,through this, I think especially
(05:57):
at the beginning, there wassome doubt as to what to expect,
and this uncertainty is whatbothers me.
Ivan Vislavskiy (06:06):
I'm confident in my leadership skills, I'm
confident that I can lead myteam well and as a team, we can
get to the place which we aspireto go to.
But it was just thatuncertainty that you know
difficult, difficult tounderstand.
Where do we go from here?
(06:26):
Are we going to exist as anagency?
Are we going to exist as ahumanity?
Because, as you remember,there's a lot of messaging, a
lot of noise, specifically thatparticular part of the journey
right, covid.
There were other sort of.
We started the business at 2008.
It was a financial crisis.
Right, the business in 2008.
It was a financial crisis.
We started the business in thepeak of the first crisis and we
(06:51):
successfully navigated.
We can say we navigated twocrises at this point it's true.
Dr. William Attaway (06:57):
In the midst of that, innovation is one
of your big values.
What is it about innovationthat really captivates you?
How do you try to manifest thatwhen you're serving your
clients with what I describedearlier as exceeding their
expectations?
Ivan Vislavskiy (07:15):
Absolutely so.
When we started this agency,our mission was to help small
businesses grow and achieveamazing results.
We decided that our agency isnot going to be just another
marketing agency, but we will betruly ROI-focused agency.
Our goal was to showtransparently to our clients
(07:36):
what kind of results ourmarketing campaigns are
generating for our clients inthe way of showing them how many
marketing qualified leads we'regenerating, how many sales,
what the conversion rate of itall is and many other things
right.
So innovation is definitelyconnected to our ability to
generate the true ROI service toour clients, because with the
(07:59):
innovation, we can save up someof the hours that we otherwise
would spend if we do workmanually without automating some
of the hours that we otherwisewould spend if we do work
manually without automating someof the processes and so on, and
we can pass that savings on toour clients.
I like that.
It was yeah go ahead, no, goahead, no.
It was also important to buildinnovation that will allow us to
(08:23):
scale up quicker.
Important to build innovationthat will allow us to scale up
quicker, Scale up in the waywhere we wouldn't have to add
more buddies, more specialists,as we grow as an agency and we
serve more clients.
So we're very excited aboutthat and for the last two years,
we've been building up a lot ofthe internal projects and
(08:43):
automations within ourproduction department and many
other departments sales,internal marketing and so on
that allow us to scale up prettyrapidly.
Dr. William Attaway (08:55):
So talk about that for a minute, because
scaling is a significantchallenge for a lot of agencies
and businesses.
They got to a point of successbecause they're good at what
they do, but scaling is adifferent skill set and it
requires different thinking.
What are some of the thingsthat you've learned that have
enabled your company, youragency, to scale to the degree
(09:15):
that it has?
Ivan Vislavskiy (09:19):
When we started the company as a small business
, we were truly inspired bygrowth at all costs.
This was our big desire.
How do we add to the toprevenue as much as possible?
How do we grow month over month, quarter over quarter, year
over year without trueunderstanding of what it means
(09:39):
to the bottom line of ourbusiness?
I guess the first challengethat we had, and first thing
that helped us understand how toscale properly, is proper
financials, truly understandingtransparent financial reports as
to what does it mean if we makea decision to hire someone or
to make any changes in ourbusiness.
What has it been to our top line, bottom line and scalability of
(10:02):
our agency?
This is something that we weremissing at the beginning.
Now, if we're designing a newservice, if we're thinking to
bring a new type of client,we're first running financial
analysis to understand howprofitable it's going to be for
the business.
How scalable is it going to be?
Is it just a shiny object or isit truly an opportunity for us
(10:25):
to get to the next level?
So that was first Secondmistake, or I guess what we
learned along the way that ledus to scalability was hiring the
right talent.
Again, it was connected to ourlimitations as a small business
not to be able to hire andretain A-type players, because
(10:49):
you just can't.
Your company is so small andmostly when you're thinking to
bring A-type players, they'relooking for a lot more ambitious
growth, which you don't haveyeah, that's true.
Which?
Intro/Outro (11:01):
you don't have.
Ivan Vislavskiy (11:02):
Yeah, that's true, in most cases we were okay
with hiring mediocre talent,which led to a lot of mistakes,
a lot of issues along the way,and you don't grow that by doing
so.
You can only grow when you haveproper talent in the proper
places that you can use as thebuilding blocks in your
(11:23):
foundation.
Right, because as you scale up,let's say, you know, when we
started the agency, I was aspecialist.
Then we had our first let's say, four or five specialists.
I became a manager.
Then, once we had morespecialists and we had our first
managers, I became manager ofmanagers.
So the managers that you'remanaging are the foundation of
(11:44):
your business.
If you don't have the rightmanagers, then everything is
going to crumble, you're notgoing to be able to scale up and
then Bill very quickly.
The third pillar of our abilityto scale was saying no to
customers.
In many cases, clients wouldcome to us and say hey, guys,
(12:04):
you're doing SEO really, reallywell.
We see results, everything isworking well.
Can you also do so-and-so,let's say branding aspect, or
can you also run TV ads or helpus with newspaper ads?
Our desire to satisfy andplease customers would usually
lead to us saying, at thebeginning, saying yes and then
(12:24):
in some cases it would derailour relationship completely.
So only later we realize whatour true specialty is and that
saying no is totally okay, butsaying it in the proper way,
explaining that you're trulyexpert in so-and-so capacity and
capabilities.
You can do this probably betterthan anyone else.
(12:45):
But outside of those capacitiesI'm sorry we can't provide the
service, otherwise you're goingto be disappointed.
Dr. William Attaway (12:53):
Was that difficult to turn down potential
revenue?
Ivan Vislavskiy (12:58):
It still is difficult At the end of 2024, we
designed what our ideal 2025 isgoing to look like.
One of the things on that listwas to let go some of our old
legacy clients that no longerfit the criteria of good clients
for us, and we executed on it.
(13:21):
So it's almost end of thequarter and we're already
churned out.
Well, it was a voluntarilychurn right.
About 15% of the bad feedingclients were a little behind our
right and so so it's a bad.
It's.
It's a revenue, but it's a badrevenue.
It stops us from scaling up.
It actually puts constraints onour top talent.
(13:43):
And we had to continuallyprovide services to the clients
in the way we're helping them asmuch, right?
For instance, I'll give you anexample there was a really,
really good e-commerce client.
They were growing fantasticallywith us, but we made a
conscious decision and they'vebeen with us for five, six years
.
We made a conscious decisionand they've been with us for
(14:05):
five, six years.
We made a conscious decision togo after legal and home
services, so e-commerce does notfit that criteria at all.
If you want to continuallyprovide better care and amazing
ROI to your e-commerce clients,you still need to develop your
expertise and your practice inthat area.
You still need to develop yourexpertise and your practice in
that area.
You cannot do this well enoughin legal, home services and
(14:27):
e-commerce, which is radicallydifferent.
So it was difficult.
It is difficult, but we'resticking to our plan and I think
at the end of the day, we'llfinally realize that it was a
good thing to do.
Dr. William Attaway (14:40):
You know, I love that you made the
distinction between good revenueand bad revenue, because I
think for a lot of businessowners it's just revenue and OK,
if I've got to work longer orthe team has to pivot and create
custom stuff or customprocesses or whatever, well,
it's still revenue.
But the cost there is a cost tothat kind of revenue.
(15:00):
The cost there is a cost tothat kind of revenue and I think
what you and your team havedone has been wise in saying
we're going to stay in our lane,we're going to do what we do at
a world-class level and we'regoing to say no to anything
outside of that.
That is rare and I would say,based on almost 30 years of
working with clients, that thatis something that I don't see
(15:23):
very often, that type ofsingle-minded focus.
I believe that is a hugecomponent of the success y'all
have experienced.
Ivan Vislavskiy (15:32):
That's true.
That's why most of thebusinesses never step out from a
threshold of a million $2million in top revenue.
It's because you're stayingthat focus on pleasing this one
client or two clients orwhatever many clients you're
handling.
It's not scalable at the end ofthe day.
Dr. William Attaway (15:50):
That's it.
That's exactly it Building ateam from just a handful of
people just you and yourbusiness partner at the
beginning, and then adding a fewteam members and a few team
members, and now dozens anddozens of people that are part
of your business.
You have to have learned somethings about hiring along the
way, and you've alluded to thisand mentioned a few of these
(16:11):
things.
If you were to name the top oneor two lessons that you've
learned about hiring over theseyears, what would you say those
one or two things are?
Ivan Vislavskiy (16:22):
Really depends on who you're hiring.
If you're hiring a manager or aspecialist, that's, to begin
with, truly understanding whatthe impact of their work is
going to be to your companyright and clearly understanding
what they're going to beresponsible for and what their
KPIs are going to be.
That's number one.
Number two you have to clearlyunderstand what kind of talent
(16:46):
you can afford.
Larger agencies with largerfinancial budgets are able to
afford a Thai player.
So strive for the best that youcan find for your money,
because the best that you canfind will help you once again do
things right, especially ifyou're not an expert in this
(17:07):
area area.
You definitely have to have anexpertise.
Now, if you're a smallercompany and let's say the top
talent is 2x than what you canafford, then do the other
approach hire a good, promisingcandidate that can potentially
grow and add a coaching layer toit.
(17:28):
Hire a coach that can spendmaybe an hour a week, two hours
a week, and help them developtheir own mentality, their own
leadership skills, help them inthe gaps they're currently
experiencing.
But that's a far better way foryou to develop that talent.
Have that talent to begin withand then develop into
(17:51):
potentially an A-type player.
But then you got to be surethat you can sustain that right,
yeah, absolutely.
And transparency.
Transparency is, from thebeginning, explaining what, what
your, what the idealrelationship might look like.
Right, because the relationshipbetween you and team member we
don't call them employees, bythe way, we call team members.
(18:13):
We call them, um, our, you knowour specialists and managers
and so on um, the truerelationship is like a true
business, a true personalpartners let's say husband and
wife right, you have to findyour compromises, you have to
find win-win situations, butit's all designed for the
greater good of the company andthat individual.
(18:34):
So, ideally, you want thecompany to grow with their help,
but you also want thatindividual to grow with your
help.
And if you combine that all, ifyou can clearly explain it to
the individual you're hiringthat it's the best fit, then no
doubt they'll stick around andthey'll help you grow and
they'll do it properly.
Dr. William Attaway (18:55):
I love that , and I love that you call them
team members and not justemployees.
I think words matter and Ithink you're being very
judicious with your words therein helping people understand
that they are part of a team,that they contribute to
something larger than justthemselves.
Ivan Vislavskiy (19:11):
Yep Team aspect is one of our core values so we
stick to it.
But I'm glad you actuallysingled out my way of calling
them.
We actually also don't say wedon't call them doers as well.
We call them specialistsBecause in our eyes they
specialize in something right,like they truly create something
(19:32):
, as opposed to they just dosomething.
So I think in their eyesthere's a tremendous amount of
respect we have for them.
Dr. William Attaway (19:40):
You know, I think that's what increases
retention.
I think when people feel seenand heard and known and valued
in a company or in an agency oron a team, if they feel seen and
known and heard and valued,they lean in and they stick
around.
Has that been your experience?
Ivan Vislavskiy (20:01):
I'll add one more thing Really good culture.
Part of our interview processis a cultural interview, where
the key members of our teaminterview an individual that
we're hiring to ensure thatthere's a cultural fit, because
if there's not, it's really,really easy to destroy the
(20:22):
culture you've built.
Yes, and our, our team members,and I'm truly glad to see it.
Um, I moved from chicago, whereour headquarters is, and most
of our team members are there.
They're coming to the officestill a hybrid uh situation
right now, you know post-covidand so on but I'm truly glad to
(20:42):
see how, while they enjoy beingamong themselves, we actually
don't have any restrictions orlimitations or even any rules on
how many days they have to bein the office.
They decided they designedtheir own culture from now on
because we built that pillar, webuilt that foundation for them,
so we now carefully preservethis culture.
(21:02):
So sometimes and I actually Iread a book Working Backwards
about Amazon principles, not toolong ago.
And I really, really like one oftheir principles, which is say
no to an individual that'spotentially a really good fit on
skill level but a bad fit onthe cultural level.
Dr. William Attaway (21:24):
Yes, and level up.
Your job as the owner is toprotect the culture.
You guide the culture and youprotect the culture.
No one else is going to do thatfor you.
You can't delegate that.
You either have a culture thatyou created on purpose or you
have a culture that you did notmean to have.
In either case, every team,every business has a culture.
(21:45):
It sounds like you have beenvery intentional about crafting
the culture that you have andyou have not stopped learning
how to make it better, evenreading like you're describing
about the amazon, for instanceabsolutely.
Ivan Vislavskiy (21:58):
My desire from the beginning of this, when we
started this company, was tobuild the culture, was to build
a company where I would enjoygoing to every day.
I would enjoy starting my daythinking that I can achieve a
lot of great things.
I truly enjoy my team, I trulyenjoy what we do and where we're
going, and that's why theculture was just my foundation,
(22:23):
my personal foundation of who Iam as an individual, because
otherwise you're not going tofeel like you're fitting in
within this culture.
Yeah, the next level, although,is when we get bigger, stronger
and once we start focusing onother things that we have plans
within the next three years.
Eventually, we'll have to bringa CEO to the agency that will
(22:47):
be able to take some of theresponsibilities from me, and
what would be interesting iswould this CEO fit the culture
that we're looking for, or wouldthe CEO start transforming it?
And that's going to be a veryinteresting part of the journey,
but it's still down the road.
Dr. William Attaway (23:05):
It is, but the fact that you're already
thinking about it really speaksvolumes into your visionary
leadership.
You're not just focused on whattoday is, you're not just
reacting to the circumstances oftoday.
You're already proactivelythinking about the next chapter
and the next one.
Have you always been like that?
Ivan Vislavskiy (23:24):
For the most part, my business partner and I
were very ambitious.
We have goals for the next 10years.
We have a big vision.
We have big goals for fiveyears, three years and then this
year as well.
So part of this big ambitioncomes with.
What do we need to do?
How can we be ahead of the game?
One step, two steps, threesteps, so that we can scale up
(23:47):
faster.
And it's not always workingthat way, unfortunately.
Sometimes you have toexperience some challenge in
order to grow as well.
That's part of the journey too.
Dr. William Attaway (23:59):
It is, that's right.
Ivan Vislavskiy (24:00):
But we're constantly.
We have coaches and advisorsthat help us in our growth as
well.
We're constantly asking themespecially believable people
that done that, that been therewhere we, you know, aiming to
achieve like what would you doin our place?
How would you avoid thechallenges?
How would you grow faster?
That helps us to sort of beahead of ourselves.
Dr. William Attaway (24:24):
Well, that leads into my next question.
Your company needs you to leadat a higher level today than it
did five years ago, and thatsame thing is going to be true
five years from now.
How do you stay on top of yourgame?
How do you level up with thenew leadership skills that your
team, your business, yourclients are going to need you to
have?
You've mentioned coaches.
(24:46):
You've mentioned advisors.
Are there other ways that youare focused on personally?
Ivan Vislavskiy (24:50):
Yeah, are there other ways that you are focused
on personally?
Yeah, there's obviouslytremendous volume of information
you can gather from podcasts,webinars, business books and
(25:14):
that's what I've beeninterviewed on a podcast and
it's your ability to share yourstory, to sort of think about
what led you to a certainsuccess and outline next steps
or even hear some next levelideas and so on.
But what also I started doingrecently?
I organized my own managementcourse.
I realized that many of ourmanagers that sort of became
(25:35):
managers organically.
They were specialists initially.
Then they were promoted to bemanagers because someone had to
manage the teams and they werethe best fit for it, but they
never had any official training,so they lacked that foundation.
So I organized a managementcourse course.
I started from the verybeginning.
What is our true foundation?
(25:57):
What are our core values?
What are the key successfactors for each of our
departments?
What are the key apis for eachdepartment?
Do we measure them or do we not?
What does our process look like?
We broke down down the processinto small micro steps and so on
.
Do we have templates?
Do we have SOPs for each partof the process and do we have
(26:17):
key success criteria for eachdeliverable?
And if not, then we created alist with priorities on what we
need to work on and so on.
And by organizing scores, itactually taught me a lot.
And by organizing this course,it actually taught me a lot
because I recognized that thereare a lot of gaps within the way
how we raise our managers tothe next level and in my own
(26:43):
leadership skills as well, whereI did not have a clear
understanding of a few thingswhich I had to learn, which I
had to consult with the advisorsadvising us with.
Dr. William Attaway (26:59):
And it was truly transformational for me.
I love that.
I love the intentionality ofthat and how you are not afraid
to dive that far in and make itbetter at that level, because
you know that's going to rise tothe level of your success.
You are consistently growing.
This is something that I thinkto rise to the level of your
success.
You are consistently growing.
This is something that I thinkhas probably been true of you.
Your whole life You've justconsistently been learning and
growing and asking how do Ibecome the leader that I know
(27:22):
I'm capable of?
That's my goal certainly hasthere been a book that's made a
big difference in your journey,as you do that.
Ivan Vislavskiy (27:30):
Quite a few.
I think the bits, I think thebits.
I definitely grab bits ofinformation from different books
that I read, and I read all thetime.
My absolute favorite would beExtreme Ownership by Jekyll
Willink.
Jekyll Willink yeah, it was anamazing book, truly
transformational for me.
Let's see Pursuit of Happinessabout Zeppo's story.
It's a great book, amazing readas well.
(27:52):
Working Backwards that Imentioned recently was a big
eye-opener for me.
Definitely a few really, reallyinteresting concepts.
Let's see what else comes tomind.
Profit First, of course.
I can't forget this one.
Yeah for sure.
I actually re-read the secondedition of the book.
I read the first edition yearsand years and years ago and it
(28:13):
didn't quite apply to ourbusiness as much as it applies
now.
So it was interesting.
Probably a few others, but wecan stop here.
Dr. William Attaway (28:22):
That's fantastic and I think that
illustrates you know so manydifferent things.
I mean one that you neversettle.
You want to continue learning.
You want to continue growing.
I'm sorry, I have the dogsbarking.
Give me just a second.
No problem, that happensUsually.
My family is home and theyhandle this, and everyone is
gone today.
Intro/Outro (28:43):
So I get it, it's just it's.
Ivan Vislavskiy (28:49):
Happens all the time.
You know what's my favoritehappens all the time.
You know what's my favorite?
When you have an episoderecording or very important
interview and someone storms inyour office like they really
need something from this place,like seriously, I'm having a
conversation here, exactly,totally, can relate to that, my
goodness.
Well, it looks like your dogsare having a good time.
(29:11):
Oh, she's having a blast, she'shaving a that, my goodness.
Dr. William Attaway (29:12):
Well, it looks like your dogs are having
a good time.
Oh, she's having a blast.
She's having a blast All right.
Okay, let's give it a shotagain.
So you know, just listening tothat list of books that you
shared, it illustrates that notonly are you a continual learner
, but that sometimes you readsomething that is not for you
yet.
You know it's not time for thatyet, like you said about Profit
(29:33):
First, but you go back andyou're like, hey, I think this
is going to be something that'sgoing to help me in this season
that I didn't need previously,and I think that teachable
spirit has been a huge componentto your success as well.
Would you agree?
Ivan Vislavskiy (29:48):
100%.
Unfortunately I didn't do itearlier, but I started actually
recording.
I have a journal all the littlethoughts that I have from
reading the book and I startrecording them in my journal.
So once in a while I go throughmy journal and I review the
notes, because sometimes youwould have a note that was not
(30:13):
important back then, but incertain part of the journey it
finally hits you like, oh,that's what they meant, this is
why they said so and so.
So I think not only reading thebooks is important, but also
rereading them and reevaluatingthe various concepts and so on.
So rereading them andreevaluating the various
(30:34):
concepts and so on.
But then on the concept ofcontinuous education, books
definitely help, but alsocoaches.
I think coaches are extremelyimportant and finding that next
coach that can get you to thenext level, yeah, super
important.
In my early days I started, Ihired my first coach, who was
(30:54):
exceptional.
I mean, it was, you know, eyeopening for me.
But if I would talk to thiscoach today, I'd be.
I would say you know, there'sabsolutely nothing new that he
can, you know, bring to me,because I just outgrew that
mentality.
I grew up as a coach, so youconstantly have to level up with
the next level of people thatcan help you get to the next
(31:18):
level.
I think that's truly important.
Dr. William Attaway (31:21):
And I think it illustrates the fact that we
do operate in seasons.
In some seasons, certaincoaches or certain books or
certain learning experiences areexactly what we need, and in
some seasons, we have grownbeyond that and that's fantastic
.
I've been coaching leaders foralmost 30 years.
My goal is not to have clientsthat stay with me for 30 years.
Everything has a season and mygoal is to add as much value to
(31:44):
clients as I can during theseason that people are with me.
My average client's with me forabout 34 months right now.
Right, and during that seasonwe're going to add value as much
as possible.
But I don't expect that seasonto last forever because there's
going to be a next chapter and Ithink that's important for the
leaders who are listening.
Understand the season thatyou're in matters.
(32:06):
The choices that you make inthat season need to be focused
on where you are and where youwant to go.
That's what I hear in yourstory.
Ivan Vislavskiy (32:15):
Bill, I love how you put it.
I'm actually going to record itin my little journal, but it's
exactly like you said.
Seasons truly matter anddepending on what season you're
in, the perception of theinformation may completely
change.
So understanding thatdefinitely matters.
Dr. William Attaway (32:37):
I can continue talking to you for
another hour.
There's just so much wisdomthat you have shared today from
your journey so far, and I'm sograteful to you for sharing it
so freely with our audience.
I know people are going to wantto continue to learn from you
and stay connected to you.
What is the best way for themto do that?
Ivan Vislavskiy (32:56):
Definitely you can email me and my.
Actually the best way toconnect with me would truly be.
I totally forgot, but I nowhave my own personal website,
which is IvanVyslovskycom.
It was just recently built bymy marketing team because I was
getting a lot of this type ofquestions and it was not
appropriate to lead them to mycompany website.
(33:17):
Just whenever you have aquestion about business that
you're in and you need somemarketing help, or if you have
some questions about personaldevelopment and development as a
leader, definitely hit me up,let me know.
I'll be happy to help.
Dr. William Attaway (33:33):
We will have that link in the show notes
, ivan.
Thank you again for your timetoday.
Thank you, and for yourgenerosity.
Ivan Vislavskiy (33:39):
Really appreciate this conversation,
definitely enjoyed it.
I think we had a lot of trulytransformational discussions and
hopefully it'll be beneficialfor someone.
Dr. William Attaway (33:48):
Thanks for joining me for this episode
today.
As we wrap up, I'd love for youto do two things.
First, subscribe to thispodcast so you don't miss an
episode, and if you find valuehere, I'd love it if you would
rate it and review it.
That really does make adifference in helping other
people to discover this podcast.
Second, if you don't have acopy of my newest book,
(34:10):
catalytic Leadership, I'd loveto put a copy in your hands.
If you go tocatalyticleadershipbookcom, you
can get a copy for free.
Just pay the shipping so I canget it to you and we'll get one
right out.
My goal is to put this into thehands of as many leaders as
possible any leaders as possible.
(34:33):
This book captures principlesthat I've learned in 20 plus
years of coaching leaders in theentrepreneurial space, in
business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church
.
You can also connect with me onLinkedIn to keep up with what
I'm currently learning andthinking about.
And if you're ready to take anext step with a coach to help
you intentionally grow andthrive as a leader, I'd be
(34:54):
honored to help you.
Just go tocatalyticleadershipnet to book a
call with me.
Stay tuned for our next episodenext week.
Until then, as always, leaderschoose to be catalytic.
Intro/Outro (35:08):
Thanks for listening to Catalytic
Leadership with Dr WilliamAttaway.
Be sure to subscribe whereveryou listen to podcasts so you
don't miss the next episode.
Want more?
Go to catalyticleadershipnet.
I'm so excited today to have Ivan
Vyslovsky on the podcast.
Ivan's the CEO and co-founderof Comrade Digital Marketing
Agency.
He leads a respected digitalmarketing firm with prominent
locations in Chicago, miami and.
Austin, recognized for hisvisionary leadership.
Ivan steers the company with astrategic focus that keeps it at
(00:21):
the forefront of industrytrends, while consistently
exceeding client expectations.
With a rich portfolio boastingover 400 successful projects, he
possesses a deep expertise incatalyzing significant client
growth.
His passion for creativitypermeates the company's culture,
promoting an environment whereambition and innovation flourish
(00:45):
, enabling the development ofpioneering in-house projects.
Ivan, I'm so glad you're here.
Thanks for being on the show.
Ivan Vislavskiy (00:52):
Bill, thank you so much for having me.
Once you went over my bio, Iliterally wanted to hire myself.
Dr. William Attaway (01:00):
It's pretty impressive, and that's really
where I want to start today.
Intro/Outro (01:06):
It's pretty impressive, and that's really
where I want to start today.
Welcome to Catalytic Leadership, the podcast designed to help
leaders intentionally grow andthrive.
Here is your host, author andleadership and executive coach,
dr William Attaway.
Dr. William Attaway (01:22):
I would love for you to share some of
your story with our listeners,particularly around your journey
and your development as aleader.
How did you get started?
Ivan Vislavskiy (01:32):
Sure thing, I'll start all the way when I
was 19 and I had an opportunityto move from Russia to US in
pursuit of that American dreamNice Russia to the US in pursuit
of that American dream.
Ever since I came to the US, Ihad an opportunity to work in
multiple marketing agencies invarious roles.
(01:53):
I started as a web designer.
I then worked on development,both front and back.
I was promoted to be a projectmanager.
I handled staff of otherspecialists and then I was
promoted to be a project manager.
I handled staff of otherspecialists and then I was
promoted to other managementroles.
Eventually I knew I'm going tohave my own business one day, so
(02:15):
I was trying to soak up as muchknowledge from the management
layer on principles of how doyou properly do HR, operations,
finances, legal hiring and so onand so on.
In 2008, together with mybusiness partner, we started the
agency.
Initially.
The first projects we worked oncame from our network marketing
(02:38):
web projects.
Our goal was to provide stellarquality of the product and that
led us to sort of word of mouth.
That led us to other projectsand very quickly we became
extremely busy and we startedhiring helpers.
So that's when we had our firstspecialist, second specialist,
third specialist by roughlyaround 2011, we already had
(03:00):
three full-timers working for usand the business was finally
taken off and we decided it wastime for us to fully focus on
the growth of the business.
So the two of us quit our dayjobs, went on to work for the
agency or work on the agency,rather and we started growing
from there.
Since 2011, we grew our agencyto about a size of 75, 80 folks
(03:26):
across our three offices and ouroverseas location as well, and
we're truly blessed to be wherewe are right now.
We have very ambitious goals,obviously, and there's a lot
that happened since 2011 until2025.
Dr. William Attaway (03:44):
Of course I mean.
I'm thinking during thattimeframe you have COVID,
Something that demolished somany businesses and a whole lot
of marketing agencies,Navigating through a season of
growth and then encounteringsomething that's completely out
of your control.
How did y'all navigate thosedays?
Ivan Vislavskiy (04:03):
Well, I'll start out by saying that we've
been a generalist agency sincethe inception of your control.
How did y'all navigate thosedays?
Well, I'll start out by sayingthat we've been a generalist
agency since the inception ofour company.
But then about five, six yearsago, we started niching down and
the two niches that wespecifically picked were legal
and home services.
So legal, through the COVID,time really didn't change much,
(04:24):
because if it's a personalinjury, you could still get it.
If there's a wrongfultermination, you still need a
lawyer.
There's different familymatters that you still need to
attend to, so lawyers werepretty much essential at the
time of COVID.
Now, home services was acompletely different story.
Obviously, there was a lot ofyou know, market was not moving,
(04:45):
the houses were not really sold, so that definitely impacted
this area of the business.
But oh no, I think it allstarted out by us, deep in maybe
10, 15%, losing some clientsthat were legacy clients, that
were not specificallyrepresented in those two
industries.
So we freaked out for a second.
(05:06):
But then, little by little, itstarted normalizing and, with
the additional funds beingrolled out by government, we
actually started flourishing.
We started bringing more andmore clients and at the end of
it all, I think we came out as amuch stronger agency.
We had an opportunity toimprove our processes.
(05:27):
We fully switched to a hybridmodel.
We weren't able to work fromthe office completely.
A lot of good happened from it.
Dr. William Attaway (05:36):
Yeah, you know, leading through difficult
seasons like that can be reallychallenging, because you can't
always see around the corner.
You don't know what's ahead.
Were there times during thatseason where you felt like man,
I am not sure how to lead well,through this, I think especially
(05:57):
at the beginning, there wassome doubt as to what to expect,
and this uncertainty is whatbothers me.
Ivan Vislavskiy (06:06):
I'm confident in my leadership skills, I'm
confident that I can lead myteam well and as a team, we can
get to the place which we aspireto go to.
But it was just thatuncertainty that you know
difficult, difficult tounderstand.
Where do we go from here?
(06:26):
Are we going to exist as anagency?
Are we going to exist as ahumanity?
Because, as you remember,there's a lot of messaging, a
lot of noise, specifically thatparticular part of the journey
right, covid.
There were other sort of.
We started the business at 2008.
It was a financial crisis.
Right, the business in 2008.
It was a financial crisis.
We started the business in thepeak of the first crisis and we
(06:51):
successfully navigated.
We can say we navigated twocrises at this point it's true.
Dr. William Attaway (06:57):
In the midst of that, innovation is one
of your big values.
What is it about innovationthat really captivates you?
How do you try to manifest thatwhen you're serving your
clients with what I describedearlier as exceeding their
expectations?
Ivan Vislavskiy (07:15):
Absolutely so.
When we started this agency,our mission was to help small
businesses grow and achieveamazing results.
We decided that our agency isnot going to be just another
marketing agency, but we will betruly ROI-focused agency.
Our goal was to showtransparently to our clients
(07:36):
what kind of results ourmarketing campaigns are
generating for our clients inthe way of showing them how many
marketing qualified leads we'regenerating, how many sales,
what the conversion rate of itall is and many other things
right.
So innovation is definitelyconnected to our ability to
generate the true ROI service toour clients, because with the
(07:59):
innovation, we can save up someof the hours that we otherwise
would spend if we do workmanually without automating some
of the hours that we otherwisewould spend if we do work
manually without automating someof the processes and so on, and
we can pass that savings on toour clients.
I like that.
It was yeah go ahead, no, goahead, no.
It was also important to buildinnovation that will allow us to
(08:23):
scale up quicker.
Important to build innovationthat will allow us to scale up
quicker, Scale up in the waywhere we wouldn't have to add
more buddies, more specialists,as we grow as an agency and we
serve more clients.
So we're very excited aboutthat and for the last two years,
we've been building up a lot ofthe internal projects and
(08:43):
automations within ourproduction department and many
other departments sales,internal marketing and so on
that allow us to scale up prettyrapidly.
Dr. William Attaway (08:55):
So talk about that for a minute, because
scaling is a significantchallenge for a lot of agencies
and businesses.
They got to a point of successbecause they're good at what
they do, but scaling is adifferent skill set and it
requires different thinking.
What are some of the thingsthat you've learned that have
enabled your company, youragency, to scale to the degree
(09:15):
that it has?
Ivan Vislavskiy (09:19):
When we started the company as a small business
, we were truly inspired bygrowth at all costs.
This was our big desire.
How do we add to the toprevenue as much as possible?
How do we grow month over month, quarter over quarter, year
over year without trueunderstanding of what it means
(09:39):
to the bottom line of ourbusiness?
I guess the first challengethat we had, and first thing
that helped us understand how toscale properly, is proper
financials, truly understandingtransparent financial reports as
to what does it mean if we makea decision to hire someone or
to make any changes in ourbusiness.
What has it been to our top line, bottom line and scalability of
(10:02):
our agency?
This is something that we weremissing at the beginning.
Now, if we're designing a newservice, if we're thinking to
bring a new type of client,we're first running financial
analysis to understand howprofitable it's going to be for
the business.
How scalable is it going to be?
Is it just a shiny object or isit truly an opportunity for us
(10:25):
to get to the next level?
So that was first Secondmistake, or I guess what we
learned along the way that ledus to scalability was hiring the
right talent.
Again, it was connected to ourlimitations as a small business
not to be able to hire andretain A-type players, because
(10:49):
you just can't.
Your company is so small andmostly when you're thinking to
bring A-type players, they'relooking for a lot more ambitious
growth, which you don't haveyeah, that's true.
Which?
Intro/Outro (11:01):
you don't have.
Ivan Vislavskiy (11:02):
Yeah, that's true, in most cases we were okay
with hiring mediocre talent,which led to a lot of mistakes,
a lot of issues along the way,and you don't grow that by doing
so.
You can only grow when you haveproper talent in the proper
places that you can use as thebuilding blocks in your
(11:23):
foundation.
Right, because as you scale up,let's say, you know, when we
started the agency, I was aspecialist.
Then we had our first let's say, four or five specialists.
I became a manager.
Then, once we had morespecialists and we had our first
managers, I became manager ofmanagers.
So the managers that you'remanaging are the foundation of
(11:44):
your business.
If you don't have the rightmanagers, then everything is
going to crumble, you're notgoing to be able to scale up and
then Bill very quickly.
The third pillar of our abilityto scale was saying no to
customers.
In many cases, clients wouldcome to us and say hey, guys,
(12:04):
you're doing SEO really, reallywell.
We see results, everything isworking well.
Can you also do so-and-so,let's say branding aspect, or
can you also run TV ads or helpus with newspaper ads?
Our desire to satisfy andplease customers would usually
lead to us saying, at thebeginning, saying yes and then
(12:24):
in some cases it would derailour relationship completely.
So only later we realize whatour true specialty is and that
saying no is totally okay, butsaying it in the proper way,
explaining that you're trulyexpert in so-and-so capacity and
capabilities.
You can do this probably betterthan anyone else.
(12:45):
But outside of those capacitiesI'm sorry we can't provide the
service, otherwise you're goingto be disappointed.
Dr. William Attaway (12:53):
Was that difficult to turn down potential
revenue?
Ivan Vislavskiy (12:58):
It still is difficult At the end of 2024, we
designed what our ideal 2025 isgoing to look like.
One of the things on that listwas to let go some of our old
legacy clients that no longerfit the criteria of good clients
for us, and we executed on it.
(13:21):
So it's almost end of thequarter and we're already
churned out.
Well, it was a voluntarilychurn right.
About 15% of the bad feedingclients were a little behind our
right and so so it's a bad.
It's.
It's a revenue, but it's a badrevenue.
It stops us from scaling up.
It actually puts constraints onour top talent.
(13:43):
And we had to continuallyprovide services to the clients
in the way we're helping them asmuch, right?
For instance, I'll give you anexample there was a really,
really good e-commerce client.
They were growing fantasticallywith us, but we made a
conscious decision and they'vebeen with us for five, six years
.
We made a conscious decisionand they've been with us for
(14:05):
five, six years.
We made a conscious decision togo after legal and home
services, so e-commerce does notfit that criteria at all.
If you want to continuallyprovide better care and amazing
ROI to your e-commerce clients,you still need to develop your
expertise and your practice inthat area.
You still need to develop yourexpertise and your practice in
that area.
You cannot do this well enoughin legal, home services and
(14:27):
e-commerce, which is radicallydifferent.
So it was difficult.
It is difficult, but we'resticking to our plan and I think
at the end of the day, we'llfinally realize that it was a
good thing to do.
Dr. William Attaway (14:40):
You know, I love that you made the
distinction between good revenueand bad revenue, because I
think for a lot of businessowners it's just revenue and OK,
if I've got to work longer orthe team has to pivot and create
custom stuff or customprocesses or whatever, well,
it's still revenue.
But the cost there is a cost tothat kind of revenue.
(15:00):
The cost there is a cost tothat kind of revenue and I think
what you and your team havedone has been wise in saying
we're going to stay in our lane,we're going to do what we do at
a world-class level and we'regoing to say no to anything
outside of that.
That is rare and I would say,based on almost 30 years of
working with clients, that thatis something that I don't see
(15:23):
very often, that type ofsingle-minded focus.
I believe that is a hugecomponent of the success y'all
have experienced.
Ivan Vislavskiy (15:32):
That's true.
That's why most of thebusinesses never step out from a
threshold of a million $2million in top revenue.
It's because you're stayingthat focus on pleasing this one
client or two clients orwhatever many clients you're
handling.
It's not scalable at the end ofthe day.
Dr. William Attaway (15:50):
That's it.
That's exactly it Building ateam from just a handful of
people just you and yourbusiness partner at the
beginning, and then adding a fewteam members and a few team
members, and now dozens anddozens of people that are part
of your business.
You have to have learned somethings about hiring along the
way, and you've alluded to thisand mentioned a few of these
(16:11):
things.
If you were to name the top oneor two lessons that you've
learned about hiring over theseyears, what would you say those
one or two things are?
Ivan Vislavskiy (16:22):
Really depends on who you're hiring.
If you're hiring a manager or aspecialist, that's, to begin
with, truly understanding whatthe impact of their work is
going to be to your companyright and clearly understanding
what they're going to beresponsible for and what their
KPIs are going to be.
That's number one.
Number two you have to clearlyunderstand what kind of talent
(16:46):
you can afford.
Larger agencies with largerfinancial budgets are able to
afford a Thai player.
So strive for the best that youcan find for your money,
because the best that you canfind will help you once again do
things right, especially ifyou're not an expert in this
(17:07):
area area.
You definitely have to have anexpertise.
Now, if you're a smallercompany and let's say the top
talent is 2x than what you canafford, then do the other
approach hire a good, promisingcandidate that can potentially
grow and add a coaching layer toit.
(17:28):
Hire a coach that can spendmaybe an hour a week, two hours
a week, and help them developtheir own mentality, their own
leadership skills, help them inthe gaps they're currently
experiencing.
But that's a far better way foryou to develop that talent.
Have that talent to begin withand then develop into
(17:51):
potentially an A-type player.
But then you got to be surethat you can sustain that right,
yeah, absolutely.
And transparency.
Transparency is, from thebeginning, explaining what, what
your, what the idealrelationship might look like.
Right, because the relationshipbetween you and team member we
don't call them employees, bythe way, we call team members.
(18:13):
We call them, um, our, you knowour specialists and managers
and so on um, the truerelationship is like a true
business, a true personalpartners let's say husband and
wife right, you have to findyour compromises, you have to
find win-win situations, butit's all designed for the
greater good of the company andthat individual.
(18:34):
So, ideally, you want thecompany to grow with their help,
but you also want thatindividual to grow with your
help.
And if you combine that all, ifyou can clearly explain it to
the individual you're hiringthat it's the best fit, then no
doubt they'll stick around andthey'll help you grow and
they'll do it properly.
Dr. William Attaway (18:55):
I love that , and I love that you call them
team members and not justemployees.
I think words matter and Ithink you're being very
judicious with your words therein helping people understand
that they are part of a team,that they contribute to
something larger than justthemselves.
Ivan Vislavskiy (19:11):
Yep Team aspect is one of our core values so we
stick to it.
But I'm glad you actuallysingled out my way of calling
them.
We actually also don't say wedon't call them doers as well.
We call them specialistsBecause in our eyes they
specialize in something right,like they truly create something
(19:32):
, as opposed to they just dosomething.
So I think in their eyesthere's a tremendous amount of
respect we have for them.
Dr. William Attaway (19:40):
You know, I think that's what increases
retention.
I think when people feel seenand heard and known and valued
in a company or in an agency oron a team, if they feel seen and
known and heard and valued,they lean in and they stick
around.
Has that been your experience?
Ivan Vislavskiy (20:01):
I'll add one more thing Really good culture.
Part of our interview processis a cultural interview, where
the key members of our teaminterview an individual that
we're hiring to ensure thatthere's a cultural fit, because
if there's not, it's really,really easy to destroy the
(20:22):
culture you've built.
Yes, and our, our team members,and I'm truly glad to see it.
Um, I moved from chicago, whereour headquarters is, and most
of our team members are there.
They're coming to the officestill a hybrid uh situation
right now, you know post-covidand so on but I'm truly glad to
(20:42):
see how, while they enjoy beingamong themselves, we actually
don't have any restrictions orlimitations or even any rules on
how many days they have to bein the office.
They decided they designedtheir own culture from now on
because we built that pillar, webuilt that foundation for them,
so we now carefully preservethis culture.
(21:02):
So sometimes and I actually Iread a book Working Backwards
about Amazon principles, not toolong ago.
And I really, really like one oftheir principles, which is say
no to an individual that'spotentially a really good fit on
skill level but a bad fit onthe cultural level.
Dr. William Attaway (21:24):
Yes, and level up.
Your job as the owner is toprotect the culture.
You guide the culture and youprotect the culture.
No one else is going to do thatfor you.
You can't delegate that.
You either have a culture thatyou created on purpose or you
have a culture that you did notmean to have.
In either case, every team,every business has a culture.
(21:45):
It sounds like you have beenvery intentional about crafting
the culture that you have andyou have not stopped learning
how to make it better, evenreading like you're describing
about the amazon, for instanceabsolutely.
Ivan Vislavskiy (21:58):
My desire from the beginning of this, when we
started this company, was tobuild the culture, was to build
a company where I would enjoygoing to every day.
I would enjoy starting my daythinking that I can achieve a
lot of great things.
I truly enjoy my team, I trulyenjoy what we do and where we're
going, and that's why theculture was just my foundation,
(22:23):
my personal foundation of who Iam as an individual, because
otherwise you're not going tofeel like you're fitting in
within this culture.
Yeah, the next level, although,is when we get bigger, stronger
and once we start focusing onother things that we have plans
within the next three years.
Eventually, we'll have to bringa CEO to the agency that will
(22:47):
be able to take some of theresponsibilities from me, and
what would be interesting iswould this CEO fit the culture
that we're looking for, or wouldthe CEO start transforming it?
And that's going to be a veryinteresting part of the journey,
but it's still down the road.
Dr. William Attaway (23:05):
It is, but the fact that you're already
thinking about it really speaksvolumes into your visionary
leadership.
You're not just focused on whattoday is, you're not just
reacting to the circumstances oftoday.
You're already proactivelythinking about the next chapter
and the next one.
Have you always been like that?
Ivan Vislavskiy (23:24):
For the most part, my business partner and I
were very ambitious.
We have goals for the next 10years.
We have a big vision.
We have big goals for fiveyears, three years and then this
year as well.
So part of this big ambitioncomes with.
What do we need to do?
How can we be ahead of the game?
One step, two steps, threesteps, so that we can scale up
(23:47):
faster.
And it's not always workingthat way, unfortunately.
Sometimes you have toexperience some challenge in
order to grow as well.
That's part of the journey too.
Dr. William Attaway (23:59):
It is, that's right.
Ivan Vislavskiy (24:00):
But we're constantly.
We have coaches and advisorsthat help us in our growth as
well.
We're constantly asking themespecially believable people
that done that, that been therewhere we, you know, aiming to
achieve like what would you doin our place?
How would you avoid thechallenges?
How would you grow faster?
That helps us to sort of beahead of ourselves.
Dr. William Attaway (24:24):
Well, that leads into my next question.
Your company needs you to leadat a higher level today than it
did five years ago, and thatsame thing is going to be true
five years from now.
How do you stay on top of yourgame?
How do you level up with thenew leadership skills that your
team, your business, yourclients are going to need you to
have?
You've mentioned coaches.
(24:46):
You've mentioned advisors.
Are there other ways that youare focused on personally?
Ivan Vislavskiy (24:50):
Yeah, are there other ways that you are focused
on personally?
Yeah, there's obviouslytremendous volume of information
you can gather from podcasts,webinars, business books and
(25:14):
that's what I've beeninterviewed on a podcast and
it's your ability to share yourstory, to sort of think about
what led you to a certainsuccess and outline next steps
or even hear some next levelideas and so on.
But what also I started doingrecently?
I organized my own managementcourse.
I realized that many of ourmanagers that sort of became
(25:35):
managers organically.
They were specialists initially.
Then they were promoted to bemanagers because someone had to
manage the teams and they werethe best fit for it, but they
never had any official training,so they lacked that foundation.
So I organized a managementcourse course.
I started from the verybeginning.
What is our true foundation?
(25:57):
What are our core values?
What are the key successfactors for each of our
departments?
What are the key apis for eachdepartment?
Do we measure them or do we not?
What does our process look like?
We broke down down the processinto small micro steps and so on
.
Do we have templates?
Do we have SOPs for each partof the process and do we have
(26:17):
key success criteria for eachdeliverable?
And if not, then we created alist with priorities on what we
need to work on and so on.
And by organizing scores, itactually taught me a lot.
And by organizing this course,it actually taught me a lot
because I recognized that thereare a lot of gaps within the way
how we raise our managers tothe next level and in my own
(26:43):
leadership skills as well, whereI did not have a clear
understanding of a few thingswhich I had to learn, which I
had to consult with the advisorsadvising us with.
Dr. William Attaway (26:59):
And it was truly transformational for me.
I love that.
I love the intentionality ofthat and how you are not afraid
to dive that far in and make itbetter at that level, because
you know that's going to rise tothe level of your success.
You are consistently growing.
This is something that I thinkto rise to the level of your
success.
You are consistently growing.
This is something that I thinkhas probably been true of you.
Your whole life You've justconsistently been learning and
growing and asking how do Ibecome the leader that I know
(27:22):
I'm capable of?
That's my goal certainly hasthere been a book that's made a
big difference in your journey,as you do that.
Ivan Vislavskiy (27:30):
Quite a few.
I think the bits, I think thebits.
I definitely grab bits ofinformation from different books
that I read, and I read all thetime.
My absolute favorite would beExtreme Ownership by Jekyll
Willink.
Jekyll Willink yeah, it was anamazing book, truly
transformational for me.
Let's see Pursuit of Happinessabout Zeppo's story.
It's a great book, amazing readas well.
(27:52):
Working Backwards that Imentioned recently was a big
eye-opener for me.
Definitely a few really, reallyinteresting concepts.
Let's see what else comes tomind.
Profit First, of course.
I can't forget this one.
Yeah for sure.
I actually re-read the secondedition of the book.
I read the first edition yearsand years and years ago and it
(28:13):
didn't quite apply to ourbusiness as much as it applies
now.
So it was interesting.
Probably a few others, but wecan stop here.
Dr. William Attaway (28:22):
That's fantastic and I think that
illustrates you know so manydifferent things.
I mean one that you neversettle.
You want to continue learning.
You want to continue growing.
I'm sorry, I have the dogsbarking.
Give me just a second.
No problem, that happensUsually.
My family is home and theyhandle this, and everyone is
gone today.
Intro/Outro (28:43):
So I get it, it's just it's.
Ivan Vislavskiy (28:49):
Happens all the time.
You know what's my favoritehappens all the time.
You know what's my favorite?
When you have an episoderecording or very important
interview and someone storms inyour office like they really
need something from this place,like seriously, I'm having a
conversation here, exactly,totally, can relate to that, my
goodness.
Well, it looks like your dogsare having a good time.
(29:11):
Oh, she's having a blast, she'shaving a that, my goodness.
Dr. William Attaway (29:12):
Well, it looks like your dogs are having
a good time.
Oh, she's having a blast.
She's having a blast All right.
Okay, let's give it a shotagain.
So you know, just listening tothat list of books that you
shared, it illustrates that notonly are you a continual learner
, but that sometimes you readsomething that is not for you
yet.
You know it's not time for thatyet, like you said about Profit
(29:33):
First, but you go back andyou're like, hey, I think this
is going to be something that'sgoing to help me in this season
that I didn't need previously,and I think that teachable
spirit has been a huge componentto your success as well.
Would you agree?
Ivan Vislavskiy (29:48):
100%.
Unfortunately I didn't do itearlier, but I started actually
recording.
I have a journal all the littlethoughts that I have from
reading the book and I startrecording them in my journal.
So once in a while I go throughmy journal and I review the
notes, because sometimes youwould have a note that was not
(30:13):
important back then, but incertain part of the journey it
finally hits you like, oh,that's what they meant, this is
why they said so and so.
So I think not only reading thebooks is important, but also
rereading them and reevaluatingthe various concepts and so on.
So rereading them andreevaluating the various
(30:34):
concepts and so on.
But then on the concept ofcontinuous education, books
definitely help, but alsocoaches.
I think coaches are extremelyimportant and finding that next
coach that can get you to thenext level, yeah, super
important.
In my early days I started, Ihired my first coach, who was
(30:54):
exceptional.
I mean, it was, you know, eyeopening for me.
But if I would talk to thiscoach today, I'd be.
I would say you know, there'sabsolutely nothing new that he
can, you know, bring to me,because I just outgrew that
mentality.
I grew up as a coach, so youconstantly have to level up with
the next level of people thatcan help you get to the next
(31:18):
level.
I think that's truly important.
Dr. William Attaway (31:21):
And I think it illustrates the fact that we
do operate in seasons.
In some seasons, certaincoaches or certain books or
certain learning experiences areexactly what we need, and in
some seasons, we have grownbeyond that and that's fantastic
.
I've been coaching leaders foralmost 30 years.
My goal is not to have clientsthat stay with me for 30 years.
Everything has a season and mygoal is to add as much value to
(31:44):
clients as I can during theseason that people are with me.
My average client's with me forabout 34 months right now.
Right, and during that seasonwe're going to add value as much
as possible.
But I don't expect that seasonto last forever because there's
going to be a next chapter and Ithink that's important for the
leaders who are listening.
Understand the season thatyou're in matters.
(32:06):
The choices that you make inthat season need to be focused
on where you are and where youwant to go.
That's what I hear in yourstory.
Ivan Vislavskiy (32:15):
Bill, I love how you put it.
I'm actually going to record itin my little journal, but it's
exactly like you said.
Seasons truly matter anddepending on what season you're
in, the perception of theinformation may completely
change.
So understanding thatdefinitely matters.
Dr. William Attaway (32:37):
I can continue talking to you for
another hour.
There's just so much wisdomthat you have shared today from
your journey so far, and I'm sograteful to you for sharing it
so freely with our audience.
I know people are going to wantto continue to learn from you
and stay connected to you.
What is the best way for themto do that?
Ivan Vislavskiy (32:56):
Definitely you can email me and my.
Actually the best way toconnect with me would truly be.
I totally forgot, but I nowhave my own personal website,
which is IvanVyslovskycom.
It was just recently built bymy marketing team because I was
getting a lot of this type ofquestions and it was not
appropriate to lead them to mycompany website.
(33:17):
Just whenever you have aquestion about business that
you're in and you need somemarketing help, or if you have
some questions about personaldevelopment and development as a
leader, definitely hit me up,let me know.
I'll be happy to help.
Dr. William Attaway (33:33):
We will have that link in the show notes
, ivan.
Thank you again for your timetoday.
Thank you, and for yourgenerosity.
Ivan Vislavskiy (33:39):
Really appreciate this conversation,
definitely enjoyed it.
I think we had a lot of trulytransformational discussions and
hopefully it'll be beneficialfor someone.
Dr. William Attaway (33:48):
Thanks for joining me for this episode
today.
As we wrap up, I'd love for youto do two things.
First, subscribe to thispodcast so you don't miss an
episode, and if you find valuehere, I'd love it if you would
rate it and review it.
That really does make adifference in helping other
people to discover this podcast.
Second, if you don't have acopy of my newest book,
(34:10):
catalytic Leadership, I'd loveto put a copy in your hands.
If you go tocatalyticleadershipbookcom, you
can get a copy for free.
Just pay the shipping so I canget it to you and we'll get one
right out.
My goal is to put this into thehands of as many leaders as
possible any leaders as possible.
(34:33):
This book captures principlesthat I've learned in 20 plus
years of coaching leaders in theentrepreneurial space, in
business, government, nonprofits, education and the local church
.
You can also connect with me onLinkedIn to keep up with what
I'm currently learning andthinking about.
And if you're ready to take anext step with a coach to help
you intentionally grow andthrive as a leader, I'd be
(34:54):
honored to help you.
Just go tocatalyticleadershipnet to book a
call with me.
Stay tuned for our next episodenext week.
Until then, as always, leaderschoose to be catalytic.
Intro/Outro (35:08):
Thanks for listening to Catalytic
Leadership with Dr WilliamAttaway.
Be sure to subscribe whereveryou listen to podcasts so you
don't miss the next episode.
Want more?
Go to catalyticleadershipnet.
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