Interview with Catalin Adam - Founder of TUYA Digital

Catalin Adam is the Founder and CEO of TUYA Digital - a leading SEO and Digital Marketing agency from Romania. Catalin and his team delivers top-notch marketing solutions for 12 years already and enjoy a top position in the market. More about business, productivity, and success we will talk with Catalin in this exclusive interview for TechBehemoths. 

Hi Catalin, welcome to TechBehemoths! Please tell us a little about yourself. Your background and how did you come to this point?

My background is a mixture of management, leadership, legal knowledge, and marketing that brought me to this point in my career, each one practiced over many years, each one with its ups and downs, with successes and failures altogether. 

As a digital marketer and entrepreneur, I can only say that it's better you know a little of each of the above than only the basics or the advanced of your industry. You need to know a bit about the law, as you will rely your business on contracts. You also need management skills, as you are going to manage your staff, but on the other hand, you need leadership qualities, as they will make you lead the teams to success. 

And there is no magic formula here, only hard work and creativity. If you have them both, you have all the necessary to succeed. Of course, you'll not head straight for success, and neither of us will. The most important thing is to move forward, learn from your lows and gain the most of your accomplishments.

When and how did you start your business? Is there an interesting story here?

The marketing business I started more than ten years ago. At that time, I was optimizing websites for Google Algorithm updates. It was much easier to do that back then, and I did that by myself. 

When the clients kept on coming, I started subcontracting other freelancers to help me with my tasks. And at one moment, I decided to start the agency. I did that when I was still collaborating with some freelancers, and I learned one important lesson: it's better you have your in-house team.

What happened was that I had this client who had a habit: from time to time, say, each other day, he would call me and ask for minor improvements on his website. I had his suggestions sent to the developer, at that time a freelancer, and I was waiting for the freelancer to accomplish the task. It was always something minor, such as changing the color of a specific area. But my freelancer was not always at his laptop. Sometimes he was with his dog in the park, at the shopping mall, or driving, and you name it. He was so 'efficient' that it would take him two days in a row to adjust the color of a CTA.

Now, if you don't know that already, I am telling you this: after the client asks for a task to be completed, he'll refresh his website so many times that he'd look like a professional CS player in action than a CEO, to make sure that particular task is completed. After a few months of Counter-Strike action at his laptop, the client would finally give up on my services. 

At that moment, I decided to start an agency with full-time employed staff dedicated to our work and the clients. That’s when TUYA Digital was set up.

What do you think you’d be doing right now if your business didn’t exist?

I think I'd still be a digital entrepreneur. I have always dreamt about having my product, and I think I would've developed something like this. I would focus one-two years to create an excellent product, and I'd sell it. An outstanding SEO analysis software to help you rank your projects faster. Or a perfect tool to help you analyze your competition more quickly. 

The advantage of having a product like this is that you build it today, and you sell it forever. Of course, updated regularly, but still - you'd mostly have to sell an already developed product. It's pretty different from selling services, but I would enjoy every bit of building and selling that product.

What’s your technique for staying productive throughout the day?

I'm a workaholic. And that explains I work around the clock. I really enjoy my work. All my colleagues know that all my clients know that, and I am available (though hard to believe, but it's true) even during weekends. I have regular online meetings on Saturdays or Sundays with my clients overseas. I think it's what you have to do, especially as an entrepreneur having clients on all continents, from all cultures. An example and, at the same time, a piece of advice for any young entrepreneur out there: when taking clients from the Middle East, you'd better get ready to be available during weekends as well. Their working week is from Saturday to Thursday, with only Friday off. If your relationship with them is only from Monday to Thursday, as these are your matching working days, they'll feel you work with them or for them only four days a week, while they have an almost six-day working week. You have to consider this when you take clients from other cultures.

How do you define “being successful”?

You are being successful means being recognized as a reliable professional or agency in your domain. If clients or peers look at you as an authority in your field, based on your past and current results, it means you are successful. 

I would also say, in other words, that you are as successful as your results in your domain are. That’s how I define being successful. 

So, please notice that I didn't say anything about turnover or profit margin. Money doesn't define you as being successful; results do. Yes, good results bring along good profit, but not always. So, don't judge an agency by its annual turnover; judge it by its past and current results. 

What do you like to do when you’re not working?

When I'm not working, I'm reading. Mostly news from the digital marketing industry or a good book about entrepreneurship or communication. I like Malcolm Gladwell; he's one of the best in finding out the reasons behind being viral or flourishing, which is mandatory these days in marketing. I also like Martin Lindstrom, a profound observer, and analyzer of human behavior, and his Buyology is one of the most recommended books for all the marketers out there.  

I also like watching sunsets and walking through the parks; it offers me a feeling of communion with nature. But I also enjoy going to fast food and having a burger or some fried chicken; this sends me back to my childhood instantaneously.

What are your recommendations for a business or developer novice?

Oh, this is quite hard. Business novice…it means they are at the very beginning of their career, right? I would advise the marketers who just established their marketing agencies; this is something I can talk about for hours. But I would focus on just one aspect, and I say that: disregard what your client asks from you; his ultimate goal is more leads and conversions.

I cannot emphasize that enough, and I am offering this advice wholeheartedly: no matter what your client says he wants, he really wants more clients. Don't ever forget that!

And I am offering my story for everybody to learn from: when I was at my beginning, I was offering only SEO services. That was all. And I was happy that my clients' websites were getting more traffic. And I would call them from time to time to tell them their websites grew that much last month, which was a good sign. I was surprised at that time to find out my clients dropped me despite my excellent results. And I wanted to find out why. 

What I found has defined my approach to marketing to this very day: my clients didn't care about their organic traffic. They hired me because they hoped for more clients following the increase in organic traffic. So I've learned that SEO is nothing without sales. And I started focusing on lead generation and CRO - Conversion Rate Optimization. And there's no point in offering SEO to a client without providing lead generation and CRO. 

This applies to all the marketing services. Let's take social media. Do you think clients are happy with only likes and shares? One thousand shares don't equal the happiness of one sale. He'd instead swap those shares for ten sales. 

Always take care of the sales. If your client sells more, then he is happy. 

 

Thanks for this insightful interview Catalin. I am sure that our audience will enjoy reading and learning from your expertise and proven track record! We wish you and TUYA Digital good luck and  painless Google core updates! 

Catalin Adam is the Founder and CEO of TUYA Digital - a leading SEO and Digital Marketing agency from Romania. If you like the interview with Catalin and think that he and his team can help your business grow faster and get more exposure, feel free to contact him on TechBehemoths or directly on TUYA