From Mission to Metrics: How to Build a Scalable Growth Engine

Speaker A: If your go to market strategy isn't anchored in mission, you're not building a company. You're just chasing numbers. You've got leads, you've got product market fit. But if your team is still solving for KPIs instead of customers, you're not scaling, you're spinning. Hi there, I'm Carrie Curran, B2B Revenue Growth Executive advisor, industry analyst and host of Revenue Boost, a marketing podcast in From Mission to Metrics, how to build a scalable growth engine. I sit down with Ollie James. He's the CEO of UM Ad Distribution, a rev ops driven leader who has rebuilt his company go to market strategy from scratch. In this episode you'll learn why growth without clarity just creates chaos. How onboarding became his number one revenue lever and the POV model that turns trial buyers into long term partners. Most teams chase KPIs, but Ali flipped the question what problem are we really here to solve? And that's the blueprint for growth that actually lasts. Stay tuned to the end where Ali reveals how his proof of value Strategy wins over CFOs, aligns go to market teams and filters out the noise. If you get value from this episode, hit follow, drop a rating and send it to someone in marketing, sales or the C suite who needs to hear it. Let's go. M so welcome Ollie. Please introduce yourself and share your background and expertise.

Speaker B: Brilliant, thanks. Hi Carrie. Thank you so much for having me. Um, I'm um, Ollie James. I'm the CEO of Attribution. Um, and I started my journey in the uh, marketing and uh, advertising and tech industry in UH 2002 working for the um, affiliate network Trade Doubler. Swedish, uh, Swedish company that we flew floated on the uh, on the stock Swedish stock exchange in 2005. So I was a technical account director and then technical director um at Trade Doubler. And my career has sort of evolved from the technical side through to uh, marketing, sales and uh, revenue operations through um, E commerce business. So m, uh Route 1. I was their head of digital uh for around six years. So that was looking at their sort of big um, e commerce platform, men's fashion, um and then I moved around to uh, some different places and made the final shift into uh, programmatic, working for a company called Cool, uh here in Bristol in the uk. I'm British, as you can uh, probably hear from my accent. But I hail from Bristol where I am now. Um and um, that company Cool was looking at how you make contextual video advertising work um, over YouTube players and banner ads. So that was combining A technical kind of focus with ah, um, kind of create a new category essentially within the industry. Um, and yeah, I bounced around. I worked for WPP product development agency, um, here in Bristol. So that was where I learned, sort of cut my cloth in um, product development and agile and gave me a big um, an understanding of how to communicate with agile teams and with engineering teams and customers and um, colleagues alike. So um, yeah, it's been a pretty cool journey um, now with Attribution. So we're a programmatic data company selling audience data into the big marketplaces such as the Trade Desk and live ramp etc. And selling identity, um, data to people with a pretty serious um, data capability in house. So that's where I've uh, kind of found myself. And again thanks for having me.

Speaker A: Yes, thank you Ali. Very excited for our conversation today. So yeah, you recently moved up to the big seat, the CEO of Attribution and with your background in um, marketing and from product marketing to account management to Revops to CRO. What, how, what has that shift been like? How, how have you adapted and kind of what, what were the first things you wanted to tackle?

Speaker B: Um, okay, well it's been. I, I've had quite a broad background so I've sort of bounced around and I've managed to kind of top up that journey with uh, uh, the kind of, with educational side of things. So I got my higher national um, uh degree. So it's equivalent to like a master's degree in the UK with Data Driven Marketing because I wanted to understand more of the theory behind it and I picked up some, some other sort of technical qualifications along the way. But um, I've gone from you know, uh, from tech into sales into marketing into rev ops as you've said. And I was always worried that that was giving me a too broad a backgr because you read things that people say, okay, you should specialize in something and you should hang your hat on something. But that broadness has actually given me quite a good platform to make the shift into, into being that CEO. And it's given me an opportunity to put some of the things into practice that I have. Either solving problems that I've seen go wrong or um, be able to just start to test some of those theories because I think the key difference is knowing what I wanted to do and versus being able to do them. Um, so in a previous company I was talking about, I talk a lot about mission, vision, values and I was talking to this about my former CEO. Ah, and he said okay, fine, you and the sales director. Why don't you go off and come up with this for the company and report back to the business what our mission, vision, values, what our goals are. And it was um, a very strange thing to do because I think that process should be collaborative and everybody should be on board with that. So I was lucky enough that the former leadership team had put together a fantastic product attribution, um, and they were just at the stage where they're ready to go to market before they kind of uh, brought me in to take, to take that next journey forward. So I've had a bit of a blank canvas really um, in order to. I've been at the company nine months, um, so I've really had a blank canvas just to start and put my stamp on it.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, I love that. And uh, again I love how you're tied all of the different strengths of your background and having that. I um, can relate to that of the uh, Jack of many trains trades or Jane of many trades. And I hear you on that. A lot of people think you need to specialize. The fact that you've brought your expertise and your data driven um, perspective and the understanding of the broader picture I'm sure just makes you a stronger CEO. So tell me, what was the go to market strategy like when you started?

Speaker B: Well, it was, it didn't really exist. Um, we didn't really have, we didn't really have one that was, that you could um, that was collaborative or that everyone was bought into. In fact, we didn't even have one that was just nailed to the wall, which is often what some companies do, as I alluded to.

Speaker A: Whether or not they use it. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker B: Whether or not they use it. So I had a very good opportunity just to start completely from scratch. Um, just based on my, you know, based on what I knew worked and what I thought might work that I, and I was excited to get the opportunity to start to put some frameworks, uh, and some strategies in place that I knew would work for us. And I've been proven right on some and maybe not on others. But that's part of the, that's part of the whole thing. And that transition has been, I find it very hard to transition, um, into the CEO. Uh, that's been my kind of toughest challenge, personal challenge I think since I joined because I was very much a doer. I like to see, I doubled, I uh, doubled in as a product lead, as part of an Agile team in a previous agency and I really like to get my sleeve rolls up Rolled up and stuck in. And I've, I think what I've finding that I'm having to do more is to try and take a step out of the business and sit above it and be the guy that goes out there and talks and evangelizes about our product uh, rather than the guy that's sitting there running the reports and analyzing the data and feeding back. And I found that I still find it very difficult um, to make that, to let the team get on and do their job and not meddle too much or I find that it's a daily challenge for me still.

Speaker A: Yeah. Especially when you see there's jobs to be done. But it, I totally get that. So how, uh, now that you're the CEO and you really can roll out a top down mission vision values, um, across the, across the organization, how have you researched your company history and, and what exists and where you want to be to kind of to build that and then to share that across the organization?

Speaker B: Well, we've got, we've got the people and we've got the drive and we've got the motivation and we've got an eager hungry young team uh, that are willing to, that are willing to kind of pull together. We're across different um, geolocations. So we're European and UK and us. Um, so we've got, we've got that as a sort of a challenge. But I think we work very well over using the industry standard tools to kind of connect everybody. But as I say there wasn't anything really. We were kind of muddling through um, under a uh, very kind of wishy washy set of objectives. We were very sort of KPI focused and I wanted to change and to start solving for customers rather than KPIs. Um, and that's kind of where this whole kind of mission MVV mission vision values approach kind of comes in.

Speaker A: Yeah. And so what can you share the mission vision values that you've rolled out for attribution?

Speaker B: Yeah. Um, so if we start with, we start with the mission. I think that for me is really about focus. I think when you're chasing revenue you can get sort of pulled into these like shiny objects. Um, and I'm still guilty of this, right? With new channels, new verticals, growth, HAC, etc. But I think the mission needs to become, has become, I hope our filter. It's like the clarity check. So rather than sort of running around with all of these things, it keeps you true to the question of what problem are we here to solve. And for who are we here to solve it for? And I think if you can be clear on that, then the sort of, the growth efforts from performance to sales outreach, they all ladder up to something meaningful. So I think if they don't, if we don't have that clarity, and we didn't have that clarity again, we start solving for KPIs instead of customers. And I think that growth, uh, you're not going to get many people that are going to say this, I don't think on, on a growth revenue boosting podcast, but I think when growth can sometimes become noise, um, and it can distract you and it's all about the growth and you'll take these, whatever is put in front of you. Um, but I think when your mission is front and center and even the tactical decisions feel more intentional, um, because everyone knows why they're doing the work in the first place.

Speaker A: Yeah. What's holding back your growth isn't effort, it's misalignment. I'm Kathleen Booth, SVP of Marketing and Growth at Pavilion, and this is why we created GTM 2025 to help B2B revenue leaders stop spinning their wheels and start working as One GTM Motion. We're bringing together 1000 plus operators across marketing, sales, CS and RevOps to build real alignment and real momentum. No panels packed with buzzwords, just tactical sessions with people actually doing the work. Join US in Washington D.C. head to attendgtm.com to register. No, I can see that because you're really laying that foundation that becomes the gut check for those decisions. So to your point, you're not chasing the quick win, um, in exchange for the longer term, um, outcome. So definitely get that and building those out within your mission vision values. I can see how that really does drive the company culture which is so strong going forward.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think that when you go on to vision then you'll start to talk about direction and then it, and that's, and I think that's the big driver of long term revenue growth versus those quick wins. I'd say that was our uh, kind of North Star in a way. And it keeps the business on course, it tells the team and the customers and well in the market, most importantly perhaps where you're going and why they should come with you. Without that, um, I mean you can hit your numbers during the quarter but you can end up in the wrong market or with the wrong product within 12 months. So I think if you bake your vision into that go to market strategy, it helps you make sort of smarter bets. And we're making bets. Right. I don't have a crystal ball, but it helps us kind of tell a more compelling story. It helps show prospects not just where the product is today, but where it's heading. Um, and that's how we kind of, that's how I like to sort of sell the journey. So it's not just a feature set, um, but it's what sort of builds durable growth.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. And how are the values rolled out as well?

Speaker B: Well, I think that, I think values is actually where things become a bit more tangible. Um, because the values shape the culture and the culture is what drives the consistency and what drives the trust at scale. Um, and it's easy to say, you know, we want to grow revenue, but I, uh, think it's how you grow the revenue that's most important. Um, are you growing through partnerships that are built on transparency? Are you selling in a way that reflects an empathy and expertise? Are you prioritizing long term customer value? Um, I think what I try to do is make, and this is hard and I don't know that I've achieved this, but whether you try to make values more than just an HR language because not everybody is buy. Can buy into this depending on your role within the business. Business. Right. So, but we should make. We try to have it guide us when we're, when we're actively hiring, um, with our messaging and even the kind of the customers that we choose to work with. And we're in a quite a good position. We can choose our customers. We're not, we've gone past break even. We're into profitability. We're not looking to raise cash. I don't have vc, um, investors that are pushing for anything. I do really have the very lucky to have, you know, a board that kind of supports and doesn't push me to um, deliver the quarterly or the quick wins that we sort of discussed earlier. Um, and actually we're in. I love this, the phrase. And I forget who was talking about this the other day that was talking that we're in an age of human to human rather than B2B or person to person. And I think if your values can shine through all of those, every touch point, then that's when the trust kicks in. And I think trust is the ultimate multiplier in any revenue strategy. I mean, because fellow humans need to know that your story is authentic.

Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. Ollie, I 100% agree. And it's again, those foundations and the fact that you're evangelizing those from A top down perspective that uh, to your point of really setting your um, company up for that long term sustained scalable growth. So I love that. So thank you for sharing that with us. So talk about um, how have you taken your background from the rev ops and the product marketing and CRO and really built up your own company. Um, I believe you don't believe in calling it a funnel. Tell me about what you call it and how you um, set it up for success.

Speaker B: I used to work with a wonderful lady called Bryony Thomas who's an author and she uh, wrote the book Watertight Marketing and she drummed into me that um, the uh. If you, if you insist on using a kitchen implement as a, as a business tool then let's use, let's use the analogy of a sieve rather than a funnel because a funnel necessarily means that everything you put into the top comes directly out of the bott bottom. Um, so a sieve is a much more um, descriptive and true uh analogy when it comes to that. Um and I think that there are a number of kind of tools that you can use within that um, in order to deliver. There are a number of, there are a number of different areas you can focus on. Obviously we talk about the top, middle and bottom again as you would with the funnel. And the same thing applies. Um, so the top of funnel you're looking, you're talking about awareness and engagement. Um so in a digital business um, your kind of high on your website, your high bounce rate or low click through on landing pages and you need to understand what the causes of that are whether it's off off site, off target traffic or mismatch messaging, weak call to actions. Um and then there are a number of different things we look at. It's not m. Because we're not an E commerce business. It doesn't really, it's not really that kind of relevant for us. But you can, you could start to sort of tweak by looking at your landing, you know performance page by traffic source and messaging and campaign and that kind of stuff. So I think mid funnel, you know uh, in an E commerce journey is about the you know people are adding products to carts and they're not, they're not signing up or they're not, they're not converting. And you can look at, I mean that's probably UX or poor lead nurturing or your value proposition is not clear and I think that's true with us. I think I've articulating our value prop is something we spent a Lot of time kind of working on and getting the team built into. Um, and as you get through, I mean I would, Bryony and I used to talk about being um, starting from the bottom up. So go back to the sieve, fix your leaks, um, and then at the bottom is your, is your customer retention and customer loyalty. So there's no point in adding lots of things to the top of funnel and spending a load of budget on, you know, up there if you are, if you are hemorrhaging customers, um, out of the bottom. And there's a number of things we, I would as a, as a, I used to run onboarding in my previous company, customer onboarding. Um, so creating a smooth onboarding experience was something that I focused on almost instantly because we were getting quite a lot of inbound leads. And I go to different trade shows. I think I've been to three or four this year. I've got another, another coming over to the US for um, Prague, IO in, in New York and staying for ad week. Um, so we do quite a lot of in person, um, advertising and we do get the inbound leads but we struggle with uh, our onboarding. I think most people in our kind of businesses do because that's the intersection of your sort of onboarding team, your technical account managers, your engineering team, sales and marketing. Because the sales guys, they're the hunters and they're throwing their kill over the fence. It's landing and then you're like, okay, what do I do? What do I do with this? And that is the first, that's when your customer gets their first touch point. That's when they really start to understand with what it might be like to work with you and they can pull out at that stage. Lots of people have, you know, we'll do a six month trial or we'll do a poc, a proof of concept. And I said, well let's do, let's try and shift that. Let's do a POV and call it proof of value. Um, and it's something actually that the whole team can get behind because everyone from engineering to the technical account management to sales to the senior leadership team all understand that to bring a customer on board, a new customer on board is really important and everybody's happy to chat and play their part in that conversation. Whereas talking about lead gen or talking about customer loyalty programs doesn't necessarily feel like it involves everybody within the organization. So I think that, you know, step two, smooth onboarding is uh, that needs to be consistent across your channels. So whether it's web, mobile chat, email. If you talk about omnichannel communications, you need all of those touch points with your customers. You need to have the continuity because that deepens your trust and speeds resolutions because things go wrong, um, especially when you're trying to prove concepts and value.

Speaker A: So um, yeah, so what was the um. I first of all I love the sieve example and I'm picturing each of those little holes to your point being either a bad landing page or a missed kind um, of mark on communication and messaging all the way to a disconnect in the transfer from marketing to sales. Or so I, it makes so much sense and it does paint the picture of there's so many, I always call them levers but there's holes to fail to fix to build that momentum. But I think where you're really spot on as well is the onboarding. Um, I've been talking about this a lot. I looked up the stat over 50% of uh, customers choose whether or not they're going to ah, renew at the end of the contract in those first 30 days. So to your point, so smart in investing in that onboarding and again just something else you brought from your background and experience. Talk about what was that like at attribution before you got there and how have you really um, improved that since then?

Speaker B: Yeah, it didn't really have any kind of structure to it and that created quite a lot of pinch points between marketing, sales, mhm, technical account management or onboarding, um, engineering, the cfo, the it because there's no. Everyone wants to get involved but everybody is too, is kind of too busy to working on their own in working on their own silos and all that work is valuable. But it gave us focusing on that one part as a priority gave us as I said, something that we could all come together on because everybody has a role to play under that banner. So it wasn't um, it's not something that we were able to sort of visual that had been visualized or conceptualized or communicated well. Um, and it gave us a very good footing to go to kick off with because as I say it involved the engineers. The engineers don't get consulted or brought into high level decision making and high level products necessarily because they're focused on product and that's that with the chief product officer or product lead. Um, and they are, they are quite rightly primarily concerned with the product and the fact and getting it to work and making sure that it's making that product market fit and it's solving for problems, et cetera, et cetera. But, and they kind of trust other functions within the business to be focusing on their bit and they assume that, that other people are making sure that we're not losing customers and coming, you know, anywhere out of the bottom of the sieve. So it was quite nice to have something to go to them with and create a narrative with and create a connection with rather than, you know, because how does a CEO create a connection with his engineering team? Quite often he puts the chief product officer in the way and then tells the chief product officer that he wants this ready by the middle of next week or that we're going to pivot because I've heard something that we should be doing this. Oh yeah, we're selling data on an open marketplace. Are we building an identity graph? Are we doing you know, are we doing um, data onboarding offline to all of these different things that you could do, um, within our type of business. But um, it's great to try and keep that singularity or simplicity. And again I come back to what I was saying at the beginning and not being bounced around by new, by shiny new things. So if you focus on the customer and not what's going on necessarily in the marketplace and hey, you know, we want to touch on, we need to be aware that the AI is um, very much um, front uh, of mind for a lot of people and we're using LLMs. I don't know whether I would say it was call it AI just yet I could do. But I think we all kind of know that um, you know, what's going on behind the scenes. I don't want to make um, uh, too much of an issue of that. But we're adopting technology where it makes sense for us and we are lightning workloads and driving efficiency through the business where it makes sense to. But I wouldn't go out to market and say hey, we've got an AI driven platform that use. We don't have a platform actually. Um, so it's ah, you're buying data, raw data, um, from us that is, that is clean and that is high efficacy and that is privacy safe. And that's kind of where we, we hang our hat.

Speaker A: Yeah. And well and to your point too, if you're not set up after onboarding, your programs aren't, you're not going to, your clients aren't going to really maximize the potential of your relationship of the data that you're infusing into their program. So it's, it makes so much sense and to your point, you mentioned value, um, um, as part of that, that you're proving the value at the end of the onboarding so that they do feel good about their um, decision to work with you and the partnership. So all um, so many smart examples here.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that you should prove the concept way uh, before you're actually onboarding a customer. Because if everyone takes the approach that hey, this is a poc, a proof of concept, um, we're not sure if it's going to work, um, I think you should have dealt with that mindset way before you get to signing um, documentation, um, way before you start actually exchanging data or working things out. Because you're not going to convince your head of engineering to invest the team's resources improving your concept as easily as you are as proving the value that it will generate for your customers. And I think for us. Another thing that I've tried to implement and was an advocate of in previous roles is getting some kind of financial commitment from, from a, um, potential customer to, to embark on a journey with you certainly by signing um, you know, some sort of documentation at, you know, a POV agreement, but to actually it cost us quite a lot of money to test, to test data, um, and to test our solutions. And I think if you can get, if the person who's buying from you who's gone to their CFO and got a sign off for say, I don't know, $5,000 to do a 30 day uh, proof of value test with you, then it shows that they've got commitment and it shows they've got some skin in the game. And that I found is an invaluable way of cutting out the. I think we could tire kickers. I uh, don't know if you have that phrase in the US Maybe we borrowed it from you, but yeah, and that then makes it, that makes it more efficient and you get much better engagement and much higher success rate if somebody's put that effort in. I mean we will do some free, some free testing especially if there's a value exchange from the partner where they can say okay, well we've got something that's interesting for you guys, whether that's a uh, product or whether that's a data set and we can partner on something to make something better. And there's a value exchange in that, that respect. But I think there always has to be that exchange, whether it's monetary or via, via data or product.

Speaker A: Um, yeah, definitely. And so Ollie, one of the biggest challenges across go to market, especially when it comes to the more upper funnel or nuanced driven initiatives is, is convincing the CFO of the, um, the investment and the value, um, you're putting forth. So talk a bit about how you've developed, um, your narrative for communicating the value of marketing and your other initiatives to your cfo.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think you still haven't cracked the code. Well, I mean the CFO does. I think I don't want to be a, uh, sort of be uh, a cfo a disservice, uh, and saying somebody, they just want results. Um, but I think you need to start with, you need to lead with the business outcome with the cfo, because that's what he's interesting. Right. So I always try and start with the. So what I put myself in that position and I look at myself drably in the mirror and say, uh, I don't care about your AI model, I don't care about your LLM. I care that it shortens the sales cycle or it reduces my customer acquisition cost. Um, and the same with the cmo. They don't want to hear about the data structure. They want to know if it improves, I don't know, targeting efficiency and whether it makes the budget go further. I think you have to clearly articulate the impact that your audience will achieve. So don't bury the message behind like method or context. Um, I think it works because leaders in general gravitate towards clarity and relevance. So if you can tell stories that are tied directly to business goals, then you're going to boost their uh, alignment and commitment. So, I don't know, you can say, here's how this change will result in, I don't know, reduce churn by 15% in six months and boost, you know, customer long term value by 200 grand. So that's got your CMO, uh, kind of happy at least, at least unless they can see straight through you, obviously. Uh, but you've got it, so you've got to be authentic.

Speaker A: Right? Yeah.

Speaker B: And then follow up to trust, like

Speaker A: you were saying earlier.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And that's about the follow up. I mean that's what I would say to salespeople. It's fine you go out and meet somebody at a conference, but it's all about that follow up. And I think that follow up in this context has got to be following up with like a, a succinct, um, narrative that illustrates how the outcome was achieved. And ideally, if you're talking to a cfo, you want to use numbers, um, and then for, for a CMO testimonials or case studies. I think starting there sets your table out, um, sets your stall out in terms of your emotion, emotions and strategy. Um, and use I guess relatable analogies. I love an analogy, um, because I think they act as that sort of um, like narrative bridge. So it turns um, it turns something that can be quite abstract into something that they can mentally kind of see um, and feel. So and I think there's a lot, there's a power in simplicity as well. And I think an analogy helps simplify complex topics which these are. Right. We're talking about a new age of um, data and technology. Um, so I think you need to try and help people grasp these concepts by comparing them to something familiar. So back to that human to human again. Um, so we've got a platform. If we had a platform, we're building a platform. So I would say like hey Mr. CFO, think about or as a prospect. We'd say think of it like as a smart autopilot for campaigns. It's constantly course correcting to hit your targets. Um, because I think that just kind of helps them um, grasp the, kind of um, grasp the function without needing the tech spec m. And then I think probably finally uh, you've got that risk and reward that the CFO any, but any C suite, um, and prospect. You can, you can connect the cross prospect and your customers to your C suite because they're all as, they're all going to interrogate this um, with the same kind of ferocity as each other. Um, so I think talking about that risk and reward and sort of frame it in terms of what's at play on both sides. So um, tie your feature in. It's either how you mitigate risk or you unlock new opportunities and new revenue because different people care about different things. And whether that's I can sort of, that would be my kind of summary. And I think if you can focus on those two things then you'll tick one or other of the two kind of psyches box. Um, yeah, if that kind of makes sense.

Speaker A: So smart. No, it definitely does. And to your point you need, you need your executive team to understand and the value of what you're putting forth. So this has been really um, great examples um, that more people can use going forward. And Ollie, I think you've proven the uh, case point of why someone with a go to market, marketing, sales, customer success background would make an excellent CEO. Um, but for the CEOs or the new CEOs out there that don't have your depth of background, what do you recommend that they make sure they don't overlook as they're looking to grow their businesses,

Speaker B: the most important thing that you can do and what your mantra and your job is to not let your business run out of money. And, uh, I know that's probably not what you were driving at in terms of the question. Um, but it just popped into my head and that was something that one of my, my mentors has told me in the past. And it was like, you cannot let this company run out of money. And that has been the biggest stress point I've seen for former CEOs and for former leadership teams in, in any industry. Whether you are running a, um, uh, startup business, whether you're scaling, whether you've got investment, whether you haven't got investment, it doesn't really matter. That will be that topic. And that prop challenge will haunt you. Whether or not you'll break even or whether or not you've got 10. Uh, you've just taken investment of 10 million doll, Will. That will is the one that's going to keep you up at night and, and you've got to be really, really strict with yourself and you've got to be frugal and, and not be careful with your bets and try and stay. And stay within, stay within your means. Um, and I'm not, I'm not saying don't back yourself, and I'm not saying don't invest in yourself, and I'm not saying place bets, but you've got to keep that, um, you've got to keep that front and center because you are going to be pulled in lots of different directions and there are going to be lots of shiny things and you are going to have to make some tough decisions and you are going to get it wrong. Um, and I'm still getting it wrong. And I've got loads of stuff wrong since I joined this business and I haven't hit quite the revenue targets that I was supposed to hit. And we talk about this, the CFO talk, me and the CFO talk about this road to, um, our financial targets, and I slipped up a couple of times and I tipped my eye off the ball and don't think for a second that I, I've. That I've sold for all of this and that I, and that I don't find it challenging and that I don't make mistakes, um, because it sounds like I've got these, you know, these great answers and strategies and ways that we should do things. But, um, so you need to be to know that you're not um, that not everybody, um, not everybody. We all make mistakes, we all get it wrong. Um, and I think there are loads of different, there are loads of great resources out there and there are loads of communities. So I've been really lucky. There's the ad tech chat community which is a whole bunch of WhatsApp groups that John, um, Walsh has created. There are thousands and thousands of people um, in these chats and he's made one for AI and he's made one for Connected Television and Identity and I think um, he creates one for every single event that we go to, the industry event. So there was one for Cannes lions that we've been to recently and they've helped me sort of no end in terms of understanding. It's almost like a filter from the, all of the other content that's get, that's getting pushed out on LinkedIn or these other social media channels. Um, so I've joined, I think my advice would be go and join one of these type of communities like within your industry because I know that your um, listeners and viewers are not just from this sort of ad tech and marketing space. So that community led can act as a good filter and make you make it much more efficient because you've got a whole bunch of people that are all cutting through the noise and presenting um, what they have found and what is most relevant to you. Um, I think I benefited from the, from the good old fashioned degree courses, from that uh, from going and getting qualified, um, I've always been quite a fan um, of that. So don't. I know it's not as fashionable now you think? Well I don't. That universities are struggling on their intakes, not everyone's getting a degree and I wouldn't, I certainly wouldn't discount hiring somebody that didn't have a degree. I mean God, God forbid, but I think there is value um, in those old, older, more, not old because they are, they are sort of keeping up. I think they are keeping up with the pace more than people think they do. But those, those red brick, those more established um, um, education establishments still hold a lot of value in my view and I'd like to see that they're sort of supported a bit more. So.

Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. Well thank you Ali. You've given us so many things to think about to get stronger with our business and I love the networking um, advice there at the end as well because I too and education because I've found both aspects extremely valuable. As everything in this industry evolves so quickly. So thank you so much for sharing all of your expertise with us. How do people get in touch with you and learn more about, um, attribution or you yourself?

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. Um, I'm on LinkedIn. LinkedIn. Ollie James. Because I've been there so long that my first and second name was still available, uh, when I signed up for my, for my account. So, yeah, um, hit me up on LinkedIn. It's AttributionAd. Attribution.com. um, it's Ollie Attribution. Send me an email. Um, I will try and respond. Um, any further questions. If I can help anybody, then I'm always there. So, yeah, please do reach out.

Speaker A: Sounds good, Ollie. Thank you so much. And we'll put that all in the show notes as well. Um, thank you and hopefully we'll talk to you again soon.

Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a pleasure. Thanks. Kerry.

Speaker A: Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of Revenue Boost, a, uh, marketing podcast. If today's conversation gave you fresh perspective or sparked an idea you're ready to run with, don't keep it to yourself. Follow the show, drop a quick rating or review and share this episode with someone in marketing, sales or the C suite who needs to hear it. For more revenue building strategies, frameworks and insights, head over to revenuebasedmarketing.com and if you want to stay in the loop with what I'm learning and sharing, connect with me on LinkedIn. Just search. Keri Curran until next time, let's keep scaling smart. We'll see you soon.