Future Moves with Lisa Mandell, Founder of JOLT
Future Moves is here to ask business leaders and experts all the big questions on brand-building for tomorrow's world. Brought to you by us, Jess + Nat, award-winning founders of brand consultancy, Mac+Moore.
Hey Future Movers,
Spooky season is upon us and Halloween is a week away. Hope your pipelines are full of sweet treats and not covered in cobwebs. Not sure if you fell victim to the LinkedIn curse this week where valued connections disappeared mysteriously into the night?
It was a stark reminder for us that although we put so much time and energy into that platform as one of our main forms of marketing ourselves… we don’t own the connections we make there. If LinkedIn disappeared like a ghost tomorrow, how would it affect your business?
For anyone new to the party, Future Moves is here to ask business leaders and experts all the big questions on brand-building for tomorrow's world. Brought to you by us, Jess + Nat, award-winning founders of brand consultancy, Mac+Moore.
Let’s dive in…
Lisa Mandell, Founder of JOLT
💫 What can the world of politics teach us about shaping a successful career in the tech and marketing world?
💫 What makes a founder "formidable," and why are these leaders crucial for driving the businesses of tomorrow?
💫 Is there a winning formula for crafting a distinctive and defensible value proposition in a crowded market?
💫 How can the "1% gains" mindset help businesses thrive during challenging economic times?
Regular readers of Future Moves will probably have recognised by now that we are both impressed and inspired by all of the guests we interview.
However, I don’t think any of our interviewees have made such a seismic personal impact on our own business, Mac+Moore, as Lisa has.
We met in deepest darkest COVID, our business was struggling (as so many were) and Jess was 8 months pregnant and about to go on maternity leave. We decided to throw the last bit of cash we’d got into a workshop with Lisa to uncover where we could make adjustments in our proposition, service offering, pricing and vision.
And I’m not overstating this when I say the impact was transformational.
The business we have today is very different to the one we turned up with on that boiling hot day in 2021. So we wanted to pick Lisa’s brains for other words of wisdom we could share with you all during what has been, for a lot of people, another tough year so far.
The value that Lisa can add to a business from a commercial perspective can literally be the difference between growth and stagnation.
Let’s get stuck in…
Nat: Hi Lisa, thanks SO much for agreeing to feature in Future Moves. Can you start off with a bit of background about who you are, how you've gotten to where you are, and the journey that's taken you to where you are now?
Lisa: I started by being really interested in entrepreneurship and the creative industries, as well as politics. Being young and idealistic, I got into politics and worked in DC for Joe Biden, then in Westminster with Ian Austin and Tom Watson, Labour MPs. It was an amazing experience, but I realised it was quite tribal and I was more commercially minded.
I moved into strategic comms at Chime (a marketing services group), doing my graduate training scheme there. It was an amazing place to work - I learned lots about the industry and worked with big clients and brands on major issues. But with new technologies like Facebook launching, I wanted something more dynamic and fast-paced.
I ended up moving to a startup in Shoreditch (before it became trendy). It was a social media agency fueled by technology - services powered by software. I helped launch their commercial team, and in four years, we exited to Experian. It was a super fast growth journey where we learned a lot about how to move from startup to scale-up.
From there, I became a founding member of Quill, a content marketing agency. Again, it was services fueled by software. We raised $10 million in funding and exited to Webedia, who merged with Jellyfish. My role was very much on the commercial and operational side.
After I had my daughter, I flipped over to being an advisor and joined Waypoint in 2017. I used my experience and "war scars" to advise other founders. Once I got over the imposter syndrome, I realised this was great - you can really help people go from vision to value.
I started my current business, JOLT, during COVID. The premise was: how do we work with these exceptional but formidable outlier founders in my domains of expertise - marketing, tech, digital, and ESG - and help them think about how they scale? How do they become more strategic? How do they drive better profitability? But really with the core purpose of achieving what they're trying to do personally and strategically for their business.
Nat: With that formidable founder label, why does it matter to have more successful formidable founders who can create more impact?
Lisa: I think it's a combination of having change-makers and visionaries trying to inspire the next generation of talent. These are people trying to do things differently. They don't accept no, but they're also thinking about how to turn crazy dreams into something that can help the masses. They have a growth mindset and are thinking about things unconventionally to do things differently. These people are really important because without them, the world would be very boring and stagnant.
Nat: What are some of the big crossovers between the world of politics and the commercial world that you've taken from your starting point?
Lisa: I like someone like Alastair Campbell and his book "Winners." It's brilliant because he talks about these formidable leaders who have made such a significant difference by being ruthlessly laser-focused on their own strategy and approach to winning. People like that are fantastic. But there also can be a fine line between formidable and crazy. I tread quite carefully here. The majority are trying to do something good and positive for our world, whether it's economically or socially. Sustainability is thankfully so much on the agenda today, but now it's about how we turn it into a reality. We're going to hope that there are some good people out there trying to make that happen.
Nat: With your services at JOLT, how have you developed your service offering to give these formidable founders exactly what they need?
Lisa: For me, it's about value creation. I try to follow a format of thinking about the client's pain, the client's need, what's the impact if they don't get it right, and where's the value that helps identify what products are needed in the world.
For me, value creation is about getting an outsized exit. That always depends on things like growth, the ability to work both on and in the business. One of the core things that most businesses struggle with is how to grow - how to sell more to new customers, grow existing customers, and have the knowledge and capability so it doesn't rely on one person to be a superhuman.
Nat: Have you noticed any trends when you first start working with a client - things they're either not doing that they should be, or are doing that they shouldn't?
Lisa: You can bucket them, but some common ones are:
Not working on and in the business - people often use the word "busy" as an excuse.
Not building an effective leadership team to help them.
Lacking a clear vision or North Star that they can rally their team around.
Not having a clear strategy of how to achieve their vision.
Having weak propositions and not being able to articulate their value.
In the agency world especially, there's a "sea of sameness" - it's crucial to be distinctive and defensible.
Not measuring their value, which makes it hard to resurface in conversations.
Nat: What makes a really distinctive, defensible proposition, and what's the big risk if you don't clearly define your proposition?
Lisa: If you don't have a clear proposition, it's really hard to win. It's difficult to win new customers and stand out. People find it hard to understand who you are and what you do. You get lost in the noise and become reliant on luck to win. It comes back to being able to think about how you keep yourself tightly aligned around who you are, what you want to be, who you're doing it for, and servicing those needs of your clients and the market. If you don't get that right, you find it very difficult to grow. Equally important is knowing who you’re not like, this helps you recognise a true point of difference. April Dunford’s Obviously Awesome is a great guide in figuring this out.
Nat: What's your advice to businesses who are finding it tough this year and feeling like it's quite relentless?
Lisa: It's very unkind and feels very hard. Just doing more is not always the answer, and burnout is something to watch out for. Try to take a breath. The key things are being laser-focused on what will make a difference and moving from motion and planning into action. Those incremental 1% gains from things like asking a client for a referral, asking a partner for an introduction, putting yourself out there on LinkedIn, or attending a networking event can make a significant difference. Keep that growth mindset as you do it.
Also, try to manage your cash flow tightly and be sensible with what you're investing in. Don't be shy to go to your client base and ask how you can work together, whether it's restructuring payment terms or finding new opportunities. We need to be a bit more American in our approach, rather than polite and British.
Nat: What excites you about the future of agencies? What do you think that landscape might look like in five to ten years?
Lisa: I'm pretty excited. I think the combination of people, product, and within that, innovation and technology layers are really important. The workforce is going to change - there's still a huge opportunity within remote working and collaboration with people across borders. That's an exciting and hopefully inclusive place to be.
We're just at the very beginning of our AI journey. As someone who's dyslexic and always struggled to put pen to paper, it's kind of an early-day saviour for me. I'm excited to see how we start connecting the dots there, but in a way that allows people to focus on the really high-value pieces of work, especially in the creative industry. How do we get to the things that are really high value? I think the combination of these things will be exciting and interesting, but hopefully, we can still keep some of the humour and fun as well, which are the things only human beings can do (for now).
How We Move Forward
Which book, podcast, or cultural movement has made you think differently?
"Atomic Habits" by James Clear. It's so simple and so obvious, but we just don't do it. We don't stack habits on a daily basis. If you really want change, you have to do things differently. It's about moving from motion to action and building that change mindfully into how you want to approach working. There's so much in there that I think is brilliant, and we're now trying to apply it very much to the new business and sales work that we do with our clients.
Which future technology or application of existing technology are you optimistic for?
AI, definitely. Tools like Claude and Zapier can really help you scale yourself. I'm excited for the day that people build billion-pound businesses with just one employee. That's a bit scary, but I do think it will happen.
What is your hope for creativity in the future?
I hope we still spend time off screens and outside because that's where you can get your creative influences from. While the metaverse is obviously exciting in a different way, I think investing in our schools and young people so that they come with a place of authenticity that is true, not just dominated by a world of TikTok, is crucial.
Who do you follow online for ideas, inspiration, and advice?
Benedict Evans. He's a VC and has his own Substack. He has great macro trends and interesting insights that make sure you stay in reality of where the world is going.
Where can people find you online?
You can find me on LinkedIn. I try not to spend too much time on other channels, as I prefer to spend my downtime off-screen and outside/with my family.
One word to describe your hope for the future?
Impact.