Yes, it happened again. Jolos rose to the top for the seventh consecutive time – and the ninth time overall – as the Agency of the Year in Event Marketing at Estonian ad awards Kuldmuna (Golden Egg). On this occasion, we sat down with the Growth Manager Jaan-Georg Tischer and Head of Sales and Account Manager Kadi-Liis Allen.

How many agencies in Estonia actually have their own sales team? Jaan-Georg and Kadi-Liis form such a unit at Jolos. The former has been with the company for seven months and is completely fresh in event marketing. The latter is coming up on nine years at Jolos this summer. Together, they work to sell event marketing services abroad.

“Things have been going well so far, but there’s still a lot ahead,” says Tischer, who joined the team last September. “It’s like building a small start-up: a lot of freedom and responsibility, and constant pipeline building.”

Does winning the Golden Egg Awards Agency of the Year title make your sales work easier?

Jaan-Georg: It’s recognition for our people for outstanding work, but it’s fairly Estonia-centric. It’s hard to explain abroad, even though the information is in our email signatures. It’s visible, but it doesn’t close deals. That’s still on us.

Kadi-Liis: Unfortunately, the significance of Golden Egg Awards is virtually non-existent outside Estonia, and there’s no sign that anyone has ambitions to change that. It could be a great overview of who does what in Estonia, but there’s no coverage in English whatsoever. So if anyone abroad happens to be curious about the Golden Egg Awards, the information is incomplete.

Within Estonia, though, Golden Egg absolutely works. For us, it matters that the team feels they’re doing good, meaningful work. In that sense, the title works really well. It is still the most anticipated event of the year.

I understand your sales work is focused on export. What does that actually look like?

Kadi-Liis: First, you need to align on vision and goals with the team, and build a very precise strategy around that. We start by defining exactly what kind of client to go after. Our foundation is a highly specific strategy. From there, it’s essential to know your service inside and out.

Our collaboration works well. Jaan is a great networker who knows how to get a foot in the door. I have over ten years of experience in the field and know the service in depth, so I know how and with what to come to the table.

A very large part of the work is preparation. We know which client we’re approaching and what we’re offering them. We never go in with a vague proposal or ask whether they’d like to buy a conference, a Christmas party, or a summer retreat. We come with a very specific idea or event.

That’s our strength – we know who we’re going to, what their pain points are, and what service they actually need. The client is ready to meet us because we tell them exactly which specific problem we’re solving.

Jaan-Georg: Yes, the value proposition has to be so precise and compelling that the client wouldn’t even think of turning to another agency. The timing also has to be right. Your proposal needs to be like a puzzle piece that fits the company perfectly.

In reality, you don’t go abroad to sell. You go to build relationships. You can’t force yourself on anyone. If someone approaches you in a shopping centre trying to sell you something, you don’t want to engage with it, and that logic is the same for us.

Kadi-Liis: Over the years, we’ve built strong experience serving large, internationally fast-growing brands. These organisations live and breathe differently from the conventional corporate world. That’s a very strong advantage we have over many foreign competitors, and it helps us open some of the world’s most sought-after doors.

Jaan-Georg: I’d encourage other agencies to ask their clients why they chose them specifically. Don’t be afraid of that question. It helps you develop and improve your service. It also helps enormously in mapping out your value proposition.

There are certainly many agencies that think about exporting but don’t know where to start. How do you find new clients?

Kadi-Liis: It varies enormously and there’s no single right answer. You should start by thinking about what your value proposition is in a global context, and why it’s better than what foreign competitors offer. In other words, you need to build not just an export-oriented sales function, but the service itself. The world is so vast that if you do even one small corner of it better, more efficiently, or more innovatively, you have something worth telling people about.

We can’t share every detail, but we have mapped out the companies we want to approach. Our dream clients are identified, and around each one we build a separate strategy for how to reach them.

So there’s very thorough groundwork for every client?

Jaan-Georg: Always, tailored to each client. Even at networking events, the preparation is significant, and we decide in advance who we want to speak with. Lately there have been a lot of business trips where I travel to a location and spend just five minutes talking to someone.

How often do you need to reach a client for the work to be done well? Every day? Every week? Every month?

Kadi-Liis: That’s really hard to say. Some sales cycles last two months, some seven. It depends on the company’s internal culture and decision-making process. Our new slogan is world-class events for ambitious brands. We’re looking for ambitious companies, but their growth stages vary enormously. Sometimes we get in contact quickly, but the next steps can take months.

Jaan-Georg: It’s a marathon. We’re not selling a standard product, but a highly personalised service. We need to understand the company’s culture, its financial situation, and whether they already have a partner in place. That means a lot of groundwork and information gathering.

Is that information hard to obtain from Estonia?

Kadi-Liis: Ambitious brands tend to be very open. From Instagram and LinkedIn, you can usually tell whether a company genuinely cares about its people and wants to offer them something new, or whether it’s a buttoned-up corporate business that offers employees nothing beyond a base salary.

We look for leaders who truly understand that a team grows stronger by spending time together. If we can’t find information about a company, that’s a clear signal for us that it’s not a direction worth pursuing. Finding contacts isn’t the hard part. The hard part is catching them at the right moment.

Are employees valued more abroad?

Jaan-Georg: In every way. The culture in Western Europe is different and people are more open. There are a lot of ambitious young people building something new. Generation Z is at the forefront driving this culture. The shift is happening – European startups are raising at record levels and no longer looking west for validation, that opens doors for us across the continent.

Kadi-Liis: The best globally available talent is building world-changing scale-ups – wherever they happen to be. At some point, you need to bring them together to grow the culture and energy. That’s the problem we solve.

Simply put, we’re dealing with young leaders who value their employees. They want to step away from digital communication and engage with people in person. In some ways we have a niche product, but it resonates with the Gen Z entrepreneur.

They’re willing to invest in their people. However they do it, they invest in their people. When we read a client’s brief, every third word is “team.”

Is there room for Jolos to grow in Estonia, or is international expansion the only realistic path?

Kadi-Liis: We absolutely welcome all Estonian clients, but our team is approaching 40 people. We constantly need to find new clients, and inevitably the Estonian market alone isn’t enough. There are several world-class brands in Estonia, but their number is limited. But honestly, we’d be thrilled to have more Estonian clients.

Jaan-Georg: If you just sit and wait, no clients will come. We’re actively searching. If we want to keep growing at the pace we have been, it’s important that we keep our foot on the gas across Europe.

Kadi-Liis: We always say with pride that our headquarters is in Tallinn. We don’t hide abroad that we’re Estonian – on the contrary, we stand tall and bring it up at every opportunity.

Jaan-Georg: Digital Estonia’s reputation is well known across Northern and Western Europe. People know it, and perhaps even imagine a bit more than the reality is.

Should every Estonian agency have a sales team like yours?

Jaan-Georg: You don’t always need a whole team. Sometimes it’s enough to have one person who goes out and looks for opportunities.

Kadi-Liis: If an entrepreneur is thinking short-term, just a year or two to see where things go , there’s no point hiring a sales person. Entrepreneurs who want to achieve something over the long run should definitely think about it, whether part-time or full-time.

The main thing is having someone who actually dedicates themselves to it, because it’s incredibly time-intensive. You can’t do it for an hour every Monday. Results only come when you have a clear goal.

Sales can be learned, but a deep knowledge of your own service is crucial. We don’t have a factory product, we have a very people-driven service. When Jaan joined, we gave him three months to go to meetings and calmly get a feel for what our service actually is.

Having a sales team is largely a question of mindset. We have an ambitious team that wants to work on exciting projects. As an employer, you have to enable that for them to stay inspired and motivated.

We’ve been very lucky that our founders, Martin Rauam and Tanel Lillepalu are ambitious people who know how to set a vision and lead people toward growth.

Growing and taking risks is painful, but so is just trying to survive. There’s really no middle ground: it hurts either way.

Author: Siim Kera, TULI

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