Episode 43: Jake Malishkevich: Adwords, Process, and the Tireless Optimism of an Immigrant’s Entrepreneurial Journey
Born in Russia, Jake Malishkevich and his family immigrated to the United States when he was three years old; they had only $500 to their name. With his aunt as their sponsor, they lived in a one bedroom apartment with another family of four.
Fast forward, and a young Jake Malishkevich grows up, learns to sell, and discovers he excels at it. In 2006, he joins Axiz group, a promotional products distributor. Realizing there is huge potential for online business, Jake convinces the company owner, Joel Gross, to make a small investment. With this investment and a borrowed book on HTML coding, Jake launches a website that lands a $10,000 order on the first day the site goes live. Within two years, Promodealer is generating over $5,000,000 in annual revenue with a 90% reorder rate.
In the past 11 years, Promodealer has grown from 1 employee to 15, and works with clients such as Warner Bros, MillerCoors, 5 Hour Energy, the Super Bowl Hosting Committee and many more.
We sit down with Jake to learn about his journey and mine the lessons he has learned, including:
- The importance of Google AdWords then and now
- How process is the most important part of a new salesperson’s training (and a distributor's growth)
- Navigating the online world of trendspotting with products
- How Amazon and Wal-Mart entering the industry is a non-issue