Executive Voice
How Jason Wojo Went From Flipping Pokemon Cards In Culinary School To Being One Of The Most Respected Digital Marketers in the World
Digital Marketer Jason Wojo is someone who’s always wanted to live by his own rules.
Some time ago, Jason set out to gain freedom from the conventional methods society imposed on him.
He started by flipping everyday items such as Pokemon cards and backpacks on Facebook.
Today, Jason is the proud CEO of Wojo Media, a digital marketing firm that helps businesses scale and achieves success!
In this article, we learn, from Jason himself, how a change in mindset and perspective helped him become the man he is today.
1. Tell me a little about yourself
Hi, my name is Jason Wojo. I’m 22 years old, and I’m the CEO of Wojo Media.
I’m from a small town in New York called Walden. I grew up with my two parents and my older sister, Megan.
My journey started in Culinary School. In my freshman year, I had no clue what I wanted to do, but what I did know was that I wanted to make a lot of money.
Who doesn’t?
I dropped out of Culinary School after realizing that working 15+ hours a day (90 hours a week) wasn’t the ideal lifestyle for me.
I concluded moving back home and went to business school where I still didn’t learn much, but my journey from this point on took me on a whole new business adventure.
While I was in Culinary School, I started flipping Pokémon cards from my dorm room.
I would wait till all my roommates left the house to steal printer ink from my downstairs roommate, Alyssa.
I used the ink to print shipping labels to ship the cards. That’s what you call hustle and cutting costs!
I had a bigger smile on my face making $5 per Pokémon card than barely making $18/hour flipping food that I didn’t care about.
I just wanted to eat it. Who doesn’t love food?
So I moved back home and went to business school.
I was setting myself up for a new journey, and I was nervous but EXCITED at the same time!
I knew this was my place in the world- I am meant to be the guy that others feared because I didn’t just want to be great; I wanted to be the GREATEST!
My mindset changed once I got to Sophomore year. At this point, I HATED SCHOOL!
I was currently working at a Life Insurance Company, where I was pushing data and meaningless papers to get enough money to do something for myself!
I later got a job at a financial firm where I helped revamp their whole website, record economic commentaries, and more digital advertising.
I had to save enough money so that when school was over, the red light turned green.
The light turned yellow, though.
I met my mentor, Greg Berry, months later. I was first starting Wojo Media- my full-spectrum Digital Marketing Agency!
(Greg is in the middle here, Troy Ericson on the right, Me on the left)
Greg found me on Instagram when I was posting 3x motivational videos a day, and my account was blowing up fast. He also saw the Instagram stories I was making for my brand, and he wanted them too!
He invited me to drive to Connecticut to have lunch with him. And also see what my couple of clients’ results were with the videos I was making and then decided to hire me on the spot.
Greg was the underground Tai Lopez. He never came on camera and preached his intelligence. He was more about sticking to himself, making his money, and not being “famous.”
I learned a lot from Greg, but most of it took a while to stick in my head.
I was a little egotistical because I was running a pretty decent company at my age, considering my schoolmates and people that surrounded me.
I had a real company: Employees, business license, retainer clients, and I was sort of happy!
The one thing Greg would always say to me was, “You need to slow down. You’re hopping on a trend, not a business. Ads are where the money is, NOT social media management and IG stories.”
These words drove me to go above and beyond content creation and use that content to get brands and local businesses MORE CUSTOMERS!
Because that’s what made the world go round- money!
Also, while working with Greg, he put me in touch with Troy Ericson.
Troy is one of my best friends to this day. I trust him with most of my projects because of the work he did with us at Hustle Island. He is also one of the best copywriters I knew. We are very close to this day, and I recently just hung out with him for three days in Chicago. (pic below)
Moving forward, I knew businesses needed new customers, and I wanted to be the middleman. Greg decided to take me under his wing and build an empire that he still has to this day. We were able to get over 200,000+ leads and 24,200+ paying customers in under 12 months!
Just like that, I was in the game, and my life changed forever from here on out!
I now was in the Digital Marketing game: Getting clients, knowing how to drive results, and most importantly, I was happy!
2. How does Wojo Media help businesses out?
My agency, Wojo Media, takes a different approach than most digital marketing agencies.
Wojo media has an approach for everyone, no matter if you’re a local brick and mortar looking for more customers or an e-commerce brand seeking metric results like sales, leads, and high customer retention.
We drive you the results, but at the same time, we compass you towards building a brand, not a business!
Businesses make money, but brands withstand economic hardships.
We use creative, high-quality content that most agencies can’t afford to make and don’t have the creative mind to do so because these contents overcomplicate most advertising rules we abide by to get businesses more customers:
- Grab attention
- Give them value
- Solve their problem
- Make them emotionally attached to the product/service
- Build common-ground credibility with the potential customer
- Then give them an offer they can’t deny
- All without being too salesy and greedy
3. What inspired you to venture into entrepreneurship?
When I came back home after dropping out of Culinary School, I watched Gary Vee like most people watch Netflix… a lot!
I saw how happy he was doing his own thing, the way he talked about school, the “system,” and following your passion, because you have one life.
Why waste it doing something you hate?
I wanted to own my own thing!
The thrill behind doing what you want when you want to appeal to me more than others because I was always a rule breaker.
I hated rules- Bedtime, texting in class, cheating on tests, project requirements, even driving laws.
I wanted to be responsible for the successes and failures in my life, and that’s the #1 thing Gary instilled in me! I call it…. Passionate Accountability!
After consuming his content for about five months, I finally had the will to start learning, so I got into content creation because that’s all Gary Vee talked about.
CONTENT! CONTENT! CONTENT!
If the demand was high to make more content and businesses needed more content, then why can’t I help them?
I took action and did just that!
4. What values and principles led to your success?
Gratitude: I’m always thankful for those I’ve met, the things that I have, no matter the size and monetary value.
When you thank God for the small things, and you ask for more, God will let you know when it’s time for you to receive more. He knows you’re ready when you’re willing to be thankful for the things he’s already given you!
Persistence: Never let anyone say NO!
If you know there’s real value in what you do, then keep going at it. When you accept a NO, it means you’ve given up.
People will tell you to move onto the next, but I’ve observed that longer-lasting relationships develop after someone tells you NO.
Persistence builds a relationship of mutual respect. Once respect is earned and distributed equally, you’ve won them over!
Relationships: Your network is your net worth. It’s just that simple. You need to know people, or you will be alone to achieve your success. No one ever achieved success alone!
Confidence: You need to have a little bit of an ego to have your own back on projects or new ventures you’re embarking on. If you are confident, people will believe you.
Confidence is also attractive. It brings success and helps to connect well with others, and you generally feel 100% happier knowing that you’re okay with your whole authentic self!
Innovation: Being innovative doesn’t always have to do with technology. Being creative in a business mind has to deal with being able always to pivot and be open to change if need be as long as it’s going to help your organization grow.
You always need to be aware of trends, patterns and being able to see the next “big thing,” and when you catch a trend, you ride it until you’re self-aware enough to see the next one!
Consistency: When you can do something over and over again with no room for error,r, you can then focus on quality (next point) and auditing ways to make the results even better.
Consistency develops over time,e, so be patient with your craft and know that the more you do something, the better you get at it.
Kobe Bryant wouldn’t have his legacy if he stopped shooting 2,000 shots a day. He would’ve been average!
Quality: Now that you have your sales process or product, you can now either complement your product with more additions or give quality to other parts of your business.
Quality is something that takes time also. Whenever you find the right quality of something that works, never change it!
The same goes for content creation: better graphics, better video editing, better audio, and more eye-appealing quality content.
Once you up the quality, then you can focus on quantity and then scaling that with consistency throughout all your platforms will allow you to brand your company better and climb to the moon!
5. Words of advice to individuals wanting to make something out of their lives but can’t find the motivation to do so?
I’m going to keep it real with you… 1% is 1% for a reason. We take risks, we go against the grain, we motivate ourselves, and we believe in ourselves. No matter what challenges come our way,y, we smack them in the face and keep moving.
For the 99%, you have one life to live.
Why waste 40-50+ years of your life working for a salary that barely goes you, and you still get taxed the same?
Why are you going to spend your whole life building up a 401k or waiting for your pension to help you in retirement?
Entrepreneurs never retire. We are driven by real legacy, and we will always stick around, and our stories will tell themselves.
The reason why you haven’t found motivation is that you haven’t looked enough for it.
You may have too many distractions in your life, and you’re probably making too many excuses about why you can’t do “that thin.”.
You’re too insecure about the way you’ll be looked at if you quit your 9-5 and start an online brand because who does that?
The last problem could be that you don’t have any work ethic to put that motivation into action. Stop dwelling and start doing! The last thing you want to experience when your 85 years old on your deathbed is regret.
Regret is death in another form, but more miserable!
6. We want to keep in touch with your journey; please list out all your contacts.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-wojo/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejasonwojo/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jasonwojoo
