I sat down over the weekend with Filip Boksa, the founder and CEO of Sassy Egg Inc. which helps businesses grow and increase their ROI.
Filip is the owner and creator of several multi-million dollar companies and has been praised by Forbes Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine and Inc. Magazine. We had an interesting chat about his journey as an entrepreneur, his businesses, his philosophies and his best tips for other entrepreneurs.
Here’s the excerpt.
What problem does Sassy Egg Inc., solve, and why is it important?
Being an owner, investor, and advisor to several multi-million dollar businesses before starting Sassy Egg Inc., I had my fair share of experience with marketing companies, none that I can give a good compliment to. Most of them want to sell you on whatever it is that you are looking for, without giving you a professional’s opinion.
For example: when you call a marketing company asking them to run Facebook ADS for your company, they shouldn't encourage that just to gain a sale, knowing that without a landing page your company will just blow through your budget.
Instead, that company should strategically think everything over and based on their experience, and what is working in the marketing today, they should sell you on why your idea will not work as well as the one they are proposing. They are the marketing professionals, anyways right? It should be their job to create a strategy based on the company budget to help your company excel.
That is the exact problem I wanted to solve because no one did that for me when I started and I hired well over 10 marketing companies in my day. I wanted to build a marketing company that accepts clients that we know we can dramatically help and make successful through our marketing ideas, services, and experience. We refuse to take companies that won’t take our advice when we know their idea will not be as effective because that only hurts us and our potential, and in the end, what does every company want? They want to be as profitable as possible.
How did you come across this idea and what motivated you to start? (as you know most people don't take action on their ideas)
Starting things for me is not a challenge. I’ve had an unbelievable mindset from a young age and I know that if you don't take risks, you will never achieve anything in life. With this level of thinking, taking action is a normal part of my routine to success. I’d rather go broke or fail over and over again than not take action.
If I believe in something, if I find value in an idea, I will bring it to life one way or another. Sassy Egg Inc. was something I believed in and found immense value in. I thought about it even while I ran my other companies, I was just waiting for a better time in my life where I was more financially stable to bring it to life.
As I mentioned before, I struggled finding quality marketing companies, so this idea always lingered in my mind. But knowing that people won’t hire you without experience, I started to build a portfolio where I could show potential clients what I’ve accomplished and the kind of work ethic I possess. Once I did that and I had a stable paycheck, I opened up Sassy Egg Inc. and got the ball rolling.
Who’s your target audience (who do you help)?
My mentor once told me that if you want to play in the big leagues, you have to go after them and show them that you can play with them, and I'm very competitive so I want to go and play with the big players, the top dogs and with that being said, Sassy Egg Inc. was built to help companies with a large budget that want to go all the way to the top and be the best in their industry. I don't want to work with someone that only wants to make an extra $1,000… I want to work with someone that wants to be the best, much like how I do. This helps me become the best and it helps the company become the best.
So our primary target is to gain 1 client per industry that has a budget and wants to grow to the top with us. We then place a team that takes care of that company and we build an infinite relationship with them in order to get them to the top.
Today we added an investing side to the business where my company helps ideas come to life (in other words, people who don't have any money to invest in their ideas or have little to no knowledge in starting a business). I did this to show others how good my company really is at what we do.
This year, we invested in five different companies, and if you enjoy watching things evolve from the very beginning and like learning, I would highly suggest you follow their journey. We invested in FytPack, which is a subscription model business in the fitness industry; Diamond Deeds, which is a technology based painting service starting out in Chicago, IL; Zolenos an upcoming luxurious sunglasses company; 1prcnt a luxurious lifestyle blog/Instagram channel; and lastly Kreative Junkies, an art, music, fashion, and photography based blog.
How did you acquire your first customer and how long did it take?
I’m very big on social media and email marketing, and after studying marketing for several years these 2 things are capable of doing remarkable things for your business.
Acquiring a high end client is not an easy task and there are a lot of pieces that you have to get right in order to capture a client which would take a while to get into detail, but in short, we used social media to capture an email and sell our first client.
How many hours a week do you work and could you tell us your schedule start to finish?
Currently I work around 50 hours a week and the remainder of the time I spend it all on myself. I go to the gym 5-7 times a week since staying fit and healthy is a huge part of my lifestyle, I do a lot of activities that help me improve myself and I think a lot about how I can make an impact on the world.
My daily schedule looks like this:
Monday - Friday:
Office from 9am to 7pm
Gym till about 9pm
Personal Growth time until I go to sleep (usually around 1am).
Saturday/Sunday:
Gym (optional but I almost always go) - 9am-11am
Taking care of responsibilities (meetings, emails) 12pm - 7pm
Rest of the day it depends on what is happening (party, family time, or I may even go to sleep early and get some extra rest).
What are some hardships to overcome in the beginning?
1. Know you're in it to win and promise yourself you will not quit no matter how hard things get.
Things will get tough and when things get tough, you question yourself and your idea. In order to over come this you need to stay busy and let it go away. When you work hard, things happen, unexpected things and you gain confidence in yourself and in your idea, but if you don't do anything and you just think about the situation you're in, it makes it harder. Avoid that at all costs.
2. Carry yourself with positive attitude and know that you are untouchable.
This creates confidence and it attracts people that you will want on your team. A strong team is one of the hardest things to assemble and without believing in yourself you will never sell anyone on joining you on your journey.
3. Look to turn every situation into a positive one.
This ties back a little bit to our point earlier but I'm mentioning it again because I notice that a lot of people spend money or do something, get crushed by the results and walk away, but that’s not how your supposed to look at it if you want to win. No matter what you did or what you spent the money on, there will always be a lesson learned, sometimes you just have to dig deep and really think about what you can get out of that situation but there will always be a positive outcome. The faster you learn to look at everything from a positive view, the faster you will be able to apply what you learned and be successful at whatever it is you're doing.