Pop Quiz, Monday with Lany Blanco, Founder at Editorial Link
The Pop Quiz, Monday is a fun little exam that we love to give to savvy business owners. The examination is not a surprise after all since the interviewee already knew about the questions in advance. However, we can always pretend and have fun with the scenario of a young entrepreneur sitting in class nervously biting on their pencil. They are ready to take a pop quiz on a chapter that they were supposed to read the night before. Instead, they played Metroid all night on their SNES (Oops, this was me in high school). The real purpose of the pop quiz is that this is a fun way to introduce business tips from real-world experiences that you can not learn in a classroom. We want to thank our entrepreneur for being a good sport and volunteering their time to answer a few questions to help our community grow from their knowledge.
I want to introduce you to our guest today who will be taking our Pop Quiz Monday.
1. Can you please tell everyone your name?
Lany Blanco
2. Tell us about your business and what you do?
Editorial Link is a media monitoring agency that was launched 6 years ago. What does that mean, you ask? We monitor print and digital media in Latin America for luxury brands. Some of our clients include: Chanel, Cartier, Tag Heuer, Bulgari and Mont Blanc. These brands want to know who is talking about them, what magazines are writing articles about them, what celebrities are wearing their products or what kind of coverage they received from their last event. We provide our clients with reports and competitive analysis measuring their PR coverage.
3. Why did you want to become an entrepreneur?
I was working in the corporate world and saw a need in the market. I put together a business plan and made the jump. I come from a background of entrepreneur’s and had the support. It just seemed like the right time. I saw the demand in the market and couldn’t let it pass. I knew that someone was going to create the business eventually and didn’t want to later in life say, “I should have”.
4. What are the challenging aspects of running a business?
Wearing all the hats of the business while growing the business is the most challenging. Some days I am a sales person, a marketing strategist, an accountant, human resources and running to Target to buy paper. Managing all this and staying focused on the growth of the business is the challenge. Setting aside an hour each day to focus on sales and growth has helped. I create this time as an appointment in my calendar and knock it out.
5. What do you love most about your job?
I love what I do and look forward to coming to the office. It helps that I’ve built a great team and work with some talented, awesome people. What really excites me is closing deals and building relationships with new clients.
6. How do you have fun at work (team building, pranks, etc..)?
We are a team of 5 and each day one of us is DJ for the office. We bring in chocolates and treats to share with each other along with lots of great life stories. We take time to talk and laugh and then get serious to focus and work hard. We also do exercise activities after work and motivate each other to push a bit harder, run faster and meet our fitness goals. Chocolate and Fitness don’t go together, but we make them a perfect match.
7. What would one piece of advice that you give to a new business owner?
Invest in employees and retention and build a dream team that believes in your mission and has the passion. Hiring and training can be exhaustive and extremely costly.
Vision, Goals, Focus!
Thank you for taking our pop quiz today. You get an A+ for effort. You can learn more about our interviewee and their business by visiting them on the web:
@editorial_link
