Today we’d like to introduce you to Lisa Jammal.
Lisa, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I have always been someone who has walked their own path, testing new limits, approaching things differently, fearless with challenges, positive attitude, and very open minded. For me, to have been able to get where I am today, the key to my success has been my half glass full mentality on anything and everything I have been challenged with. You really need a great foundation of love, patience, values, forgiveness, self love, courage, a great sense of humor, and I am probably leaving more out but that is the root, and it always started with my family, my mother Evelyn especially!
When I graduated from Gilroy high school in 1999, (nominated as wildest and craziest) my passion was always to move to Los Angeles and work in the entertainment industry. I was obsessed with the industry, I mean without knowing, I had binders of press clippings of my favorite talent, which I would eventually find out were part of a press kit, I was that girl that had a camcorder in high school and brought it to all the parties and produced videos with clips for all my friends, my room was decked out in movie posters, and yes i saw Titanic over 30 times in the theater! When I was getting close to graduating, my mother told me that I would be incredible at Public Relations and said to go look online and read more. I flipped! I could represent talent or movies, and or work for a big motion picture studio! For a small town girl, that was inspiring to know all the opportunities, but also knew I had no personal relationships out there to get my foot in the door and had watched enough movies to know some of those quick ways to get there, haha, not for me, not doing that!
As I began college at Loyola Marymount University, there was never one semester that I did not have an internship in the entrainment industry, but the story of how I got my foot in the door was great. I was luckily on the Sunset Strip after Globes, and met the incredible Rob Marsala, manager at the time at the Bauer Co. and spearheading Kylie Minogue’s massive breakout! He offered me my first internship! I loved that moment and love you Rob forever, that was a great moment. He said he would give me my first shot by interning with him and if all went well, he would get me into one of the best PR Firms as an intern. A few months went by and not only did I love that experience in watching the management side of talent, but I would then be interning at IDPR! I was in heaven.
IDPR was truly one of the most incredible and memorable experiences I would ever have as an intern, as they represented massive talent and it was always very very busy, so my opportunity to watch, listen, and learn, was a dream. I remember after being there for a couple of months, CEO and Founder Kelly Bush said that I could work with her for the day. Basically, just watch her in action and if she needed anything to be ready for it, but that was rewarding to be spotted out like that and to feel like maybe what I was doing, it was being seen. She was incredible to watch in action and do you know how many calls a publicist is on everyday, OMG! The multi-tasking, the patience, truly awesome to have that moment, even for one day, learned so much! Thank you, Kelly!
Now while doing all this, I decided to start taking classes at UCLA extension, to get a certificate in Entertainment PR, another way to learn about all the different areas and responsibilities, but also I was being taught by like massive studio heads, and publicists, so another great way to get my foot in the door! That was incredible, and if they still offer those classes, I highly recommend it.
Other internships I got myself into were Directors Guild of America PR and Events department. I got to plan screenings, work with the directors and their panels, recognize another part of what I love is the movie-making and creative side. I also was passionate about the creative side, passionate about storytelling. I did get to meet a wonderful director at a screening who allowed me to come on set one day for the show The Guardian, and shadow him and got to even say ACTION! That was amazing.
Then came SONY! I met the legendary and still to this day a great friend of mine, Jaime Geffen (formerly Krupnick) at a bar. Yes, a bar. She basically started calling me her minime by the end of the night and offered me an internship, and I was like YES!!! So then I was at Sony for a good while! Loving the events department. Learned so much about events, production, talent management in this capacity, it was incredible. Jaime is a natural and just turns any event into an award-winning event, she is so good at it, it’s mind-blowing. She has her company now Geffen Events, that still does award winning events.
I then went back to publicity and interned for Screen Gems at Sony Pictures, where I was given the title head intern and awarded the opportunity to put together a grassroots campaign for “Stomp the Yard”! I was really so proud of what I did and recognized for that work in supporting and bringing more awareness to colleges and students to come see the movie! I learned so much from this, I was also so proud of myself, this was the internship of where I learned about having to be thick-skinned, learning about managing a team, taking responsibility for the team, and at that level, it was a truly defining moment.
Last Sony internship was back in production – see what I mean, I like to get my hands in knowing all the different parts of making movies, the creative, producing, and storytelling! That is where I met the amazing and still good friend Scott Shooman. Thank you Scott! Scott is an incredible producer, still doing big things!
So after college, I moved to NYC, worked as an assistant for Nancy Seltzer and Associates. She represented talents like Sean Connery, Whitney Houston, Jeremy Renner, Sean Ashmore and many more. I loved NYC, wanted to continue to stay there but there were no opportunities to keep moving forward and I wanted more hands-on. I flew back to LA for opportunities as an assistant at three of the top PR firms representing talent and was offered all three.
David Lust, Former Partner at Patricola Lust Public Relations. My dearest David. I chose you because you and I had a connection, and you promised me that you would let me fly and excel and teach me. You saw my drive, passion, and potential, and for that, I will always be grateful for you and hold you close to my heart. David recently past away, and I want to thank him for all the moments we had together and everything he taught me. You were an incredible publicist and teacher. I loved working for you and all the challenges we had to face together, you let me lead and learn from my mistakes, but we always came back soaring. Love you forever, David!
While working with David, as an assistant, I started signing my own clients. Heather Matarazzo was the first client I signed, thank you Jamie Freed for this opportunity, and it was the most defining moment at the time of my career! I love you, Heather, and thank you for trusting me and being still to this day an incredible friend and talent. We did great things together and will continue too!
Moving forward, I decided to just start my own company LJAM PR in 2007. I was known as this go-to gal, still representing Heather and the awesome Max Lugavere and Jason Silva, but also producing music events around the city, and overseeing red carpet events. I did a lot of different things in representing talent, films, events, brands, music events, but I loved it!
In 2011, I was asked if I knew how to do social media Facebook/Twitter). Of course but it was still something that was new. Long story short, I was brought on by Kiehl’s to run on site social media for their Earth Day event in Santa Monica, and I was a natural with the process in planning, and while being on-site, I brought in everything I knew and had experienced with working with talent, taking photos on-site at events, publicist approvals, etc. I was so inspired by this event, I quickly decided I needed to turn this into a business.
I started the Tweet Squad in November of 2011. I sent a massive blast on Linkedin introducing my company and titled the email blast GO TO SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM, and the day after I had calls from Monster Cable and Condenast Ideactive, and I was signing my first clients.
There was so much to learn how to run, manage, and work in building a business. I have so much I could go into regarding this but its beyond challenging! WOW! I could give a whole essay on business building, all the mistakes I have made, all the lessons learned, and still to this day the thank you and apologies I still make to all those that have been there for the good, the bad, and the learning curves. I never did get a loan to build my business, just my parents and their unconditional love and support and patience.
While running the Tweet Squad – I was also working for Mission Media, a UK based agency that was also located NYC – and was offered to be their head of West Coast. While being able to work on globally known clients like Montblanc, Belvedere, RED, and NOKIA, it was wonderful to be part of an agency that had new ideas, tactics, and approaches outside of the traditional PR space. I was also able to incorporate The Tweet Squad into our campaigns with Mission. It was great, we got to work on major campaigns for Nokia Music and that was awesome!
Finally, in 2014, I officially changed the name of The Tweet Squad to Social Intelligence Agency and focused all my attention to building this. Yes, I wanted to be in the CIA, and yes my whole branding and vibes and energy with my agency was to have some fun and play off of the CIA language and terms. We are covert, onsite, behind the scene agents. We have missions every day, right, we have secret files on our competitors, we have our on-site agents looking sharp, we are Men in Black, we are Mission Impossible, but we kick ass with our ideas, energy, creativeness, experience, talent, and results. I am LJAM 007!
Social Intelligence Agency to date is a leading agency all over the world. We work with clients in hospitality, fashion, entertainment, lifestyle, and tech. I have the most incredible team and so proud of it all. We have been featured in Forbes, Vanity Fair, E!, Business Journals, and many more. The agency has been nominated for many social media awards, and just the recognition is everything to me! My team continues to excel and grow and be incredible leaders and storytellers as well for brands, talent, film, tv, and everything!
As a side note, I am a #momboss, single mom to two-year-old twins, Finn and Zoe. My life, I love doing it all!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
I have never shared this out loud, maybe out of embarrassment and my own pride, but as I was launching SIA, my investment fell through and there were some fraudulent measures not associated to me but with my investor. There were some start-up costs that I was paying out of pocket but at the end cost me over 50K in damages, which I fully paid back in time to all those owed, as I could never EVER let this break me down and or this dream of mine. I was heartbroken, gave up a lot of stuff, and it was truly life-changing moment to choose to own up and handle it or just give up.
I never wanted to share that out loud, it’s like saying everything I have ever done or experienced to get to this point is not valid – no way! All of my incredible successes in building brands, talent, sales, all of my campaigns I have overseen, all of that are my hard works achievements, including all those who helped me and work with me. Not only that, my network, I have made the best and impressionable relationships in my career. I am proud of all that, no need to brag who I know, I just am proud of all that and want the best for them!
Social Intelligence Agency – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Our talent, work ethic, energy, the experience is what separates us. I know that with myself being incredibly brilliant at PR and integrating that to social, we work great with bringing that into any clients campaigns or projects, thinking outside of just the traditional social space. The talent of my agents I bring into the agency, they must be all-around positive vibes and passionate. Not just in social, but I look for diversity.
Knowing that we work with brands in film, tv, music, fashion, hospitality, lifestyle, and tech – it is important to make sure you have team young, these kids are brilliant at social and what’s cool and identifying with their market. They are great with ideas but teaching them how to develop them into a campaign is important, but they can really keep us older generation educated.
Then with the more experienced – they are great leaders and handle business with a good attitude. Working with us every day, you will always here great energy, it’s refreshing.
I am so proud of the results we bring our clients. I am proud of the reputation of the agency and the credibility it has. I am proud of our clients and all the new opportunities coming through and how insane this space is growing. It’s mind-blowing to be in this industry of services, you get to dabble into everything and I love geeking out and keeping up with how this space is constantly growing and changing. I love it all and SIA is always on top of those things!
What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Success to me can be big or small. Balancing work life and personal life is a success. At home, being a single mom of two year old twins and just being able to get through the day with work and those two rascals is a success. If you take a minute before you go to sleep, and can recite out loud the top 10 things that were great that happened in your day, that is a success. If you can get to 10, that is a success. Making dinner is a success for me.
At work, seeing that my team is growing and working together is a success. When our clients, talent, and team are all working collaboratively, that is a success. When our clients are happy that is a major success.
Now as a business owner, getting new clients and growing is always a success, but for me, it’s that fight to get the right client that as an agency truly believes in and are passionate to work with. We have turned down clients that are not a fit for us, and that is a success too – you have to be smart and sometimes the next best client is around the corner, even if you turn one down. You want to keep the energy in your office good, or at least inspired, so having the right clients is important for us!
To be able to do what I love everyday is the best gift of all.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.socialintelagency.com
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/socialintelagency/
Image Credit:
Adam Concannon – first image
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