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OhHello - Jody Rones
70 Plays2 years ago
Jody Rones is a proven revenue leader and team builder. Jody recently took the position of CRO at Gamurs Group, one of the leading publishers in the gaming, eSports & entertainment industry where he will be building out their monetization engine and partnering with marketers to connect them to the more than two thirds of Americans who game regularly. Prior to that, he was the SVP, Head of Brand Partnerships at Leaf Group. During his time there he oversaw all the departments within brand partnerships including Sales, Programmatic, Account Management, Integrated & Brand Marketing, Branded Content, Video and Design and drove substantial revenue growth. He was also Chief Revenue Officer at Thrillist where he led revenue, partnerships and sales strategy for the leading lifestyle publisher. Additionally, he served as SVP, Group Publishing Director at Group Nine Media, the no. 1 mobile-first publisher, for Thrillist and Seeker. In that role, Jody ensured connectivity between the written and video editorial strategy and advertising partnerships. Those partnerships included bespoke branded content, sponsorship of editorial programming and experiential activations. He also led the team responsible for bringing advertising solutions across Group Nine and Discovery, Inc. to market. Prior to Group Nine’s formation in late 2016, he spent more than 10 years building Thrillist Media Group overseeing advertising sales, solutions and events. Before joining Thrillist, he held roles at Weather.com, Zenith and Initiative Media.
Jody is excited to be a mentor/expert within the OhHello.io tribe!
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Transcript
Reunion in Florida
00:00:11
Speaker
We're going 96 now. Great! Perfect!
00:00:21
Speaker
What is up, Jodi? How are you? I'm doing great. How are you doing, Jeremy? Oh, hello. I'm doing great.
Introduction to Jodi Rhones
00:00:30
Speaker
It's great to see your face. Really good to catch up, coincidentally just
00:00:37
Speaker
in all places in the world, bumping into you for the first time in years, seeing you outside of both of our homes, bumping into each other at our in-laws complex at relative to the wind down in Florida. So it was fun seeing you. Why don't you tell me, I know who you are, but the Oh Hello podcast, the viewers, the listeners, they might not necessarily know who you are.
Entering the Gaming Industry
00:01:06
Speaker
Who are you? Why are you here? Yeah, well, I'm here because I enjoy hanging out with you. And it was great to see you after so long. But I'm Jody Rhones. I have been a sales and revenue leader in the digital media space for a long time. I was one of the initial people at Thrillist, where we crossed paths for the first time and built that business into Group 9.
00:01:33
Speaker
um, beyond for, for a long time. And, uh, and then have been doing a few other things since then was at leaf group for a few years and, uh, just taking on a new, uh, new gig in the gaming space, which I'm really excited about. That's super exciting. Yeah. Gaming. Esports. It is such a hot category, such a great space to be into. I'm excited for you for what you were just telling me about before we started the podcast. Yeah. You know,
00:02:02
Speaker
You see, you learn a lot through your kids and having a, my eight year old who is already addicted to the gaming space and so into it and, you know, barely any tools to play them, but he has figured it out and you just kind of, your eyes open up and then you see over two thirds of Americans play on a regular basis. So it's pretty amazing how quickly we've all gotten captivated in space.
Passion for Problem-Solving and Mentorship
00:02:27
Speaker
Well, I'm captivated by what you were telling me earlier and just about your excitement going into this new role. What defines you? What defines you as a dad, a husband, a sales lead, a media mogul? You know, I think what's always defined me is probably my personality, my ability to, you know, I love talking to people. You know, I'm not necessarily made for the Zoom world because I like being out and about, but
00:02:55
Speaker
I love talking, meeting people, understanding people. And really, I think the core value that I've always felt to find me is problem solving. I think in all types of business, you're trying to problem solve. Whether it's internally building a business, there's a lot of problems that come up. And if you enjoy solving them, then it's fun. If you are someone who harps on them, it can be tedious. And so I've always enjoyed the ability to solve those. Same thing is within the marketing space.
00:03:24
Speaker
go out and talk to clients, you're working on their problems within the market. Where do they need to connect to consumers? What do they need to do to sell more of their product to connect more? I really look at the world kind of holistically as your whole day is solving problems. What do I need for breakfast? That's technically a problem. Hopefully, it's an easy one to solve. I hope it's an easy one. Some days, there's not a lot in the house. It might be a harder one, but for the most part, we make it through.
00:03:50
Speaker
If you take that on and you approach problems as the fun part of life and solving them as the joy, then it's a lot easier to get through things.
Mentorship and Team Building
00:04:00
Speaker
So problem solving is also so relevant when it comes to mentorship, when it comes to what Oh Hello is doing, when it comes to our community. Being able to share that skill set of being a problem solver, being able to mentor,
00:04:17
Speaker
different individuals, different personalities, different characteristics of people of all ages, religions, colors, creeds, ethnicities. So help me understand, help our audience understand a little bit more about just your skillset and what you've done throughout your career and just what excites you about mentorship. Yeah. I mean, look, I think, I mean, it's amazing what you're doing and mentorship as a whole because yeah,
00:04:42
Speaker
We all have problems. We're all working through things. We all need guidance. And often solutions take knowledge. And sometimes you don't have yourself the knowledge to solve the problem on your own. And so you do need to seek out help. And I think that's where mentorship can come along.
Advice to Younger Self
00:04:59
Speaker
Experience is a great piece of knowledge generation. And so getting in touch with people who've experienced similar things,
00:05:07
Speaker
very very rarely is something being done or happening for the first time holistically but it often is happening the first time for you and so the more you can kind of build those shared understandings and tap into others experiences and build on that the better it can be I think in terms of where you know I hope to help look my favorite thing is building teams so we got to know each other
00:05:30
Speaker
You know, I love working with salespeople, working with, you know, other managers, helping them grow and build their teams. How do they, how do they work with their teams? That's something that I can, I think add a lot of guidance, but going out and talking to clients, you know, sales is a no game, right? We've all been through that. And, uh, it's not always easy getting told no all the time, but you got to persevere and figure out a way to find yes and then scale that success. And so, you know, I think as it pertains to.
00:05:57
Speaker
leading, building, or managing a sales process, whether it's just generally kind of working with teams, dealing with that. I always said managing a team of 45 men dealing with 45 people's problems. And any manager, whether you have one report or 20, you have to deal with that. And you become part worker, part boss, part psychiatrist. And so there's a lot to be learned in that process.
00:06:26
Speaker
Well said, well said. When you were managing, whether it's one person, 25 people, 45 people, 100 people, and outside of writing the prescriptions for them and helping them with that, with the guidance of problem solving, looking back at your career, looking back at just what you've done throughout your career, what would you tell yourself if you were 10 years younger, 15 years younger?
Lessons from Mentorship
00:06:52
Speaker
You know, one, you know, you could say you like to problem solve, but
00:06:56
Speaker
You get caught up in problems all the time, everybody does. I think one is, it'll work out, enjoy the ride. I think that to me is one thing that we all have to be more focused on is that each day is part of the journey and we need to enjoy it. There isn't some, where we met, there isn't some grand destination at the end of all this, where we recently met. It's all about enjoying every day and that through process. So that's one piece of it. The other thing I think I'd tell a younger version of myself, and not that I don't think I knew it then,
00:07:25
Speaker
The harder you work, the earlier in your career, I think the better off you become. And so I think keeping your foot on the gas pedal as long as possible and as quickly as possible, I would say that the most successful people I know work the hardest, earliest in their careers. And that just probably continues on. I think hard work always pays off, but it's especially important in the early days of your career. I entirely agree with that sentiment. And I've seen it for both of us.
00:07:55
Speaker
Who are some mentors that have had or people that have had a profound impact on you, Mr. Rhones? Yeah, look, there's a lot of people, you know, I don't think that I've ever, I would say it was five. Yeah, no, look, I don't have, you know, one or two like key mentors, other than I would say my parents, my dad, especially, he continues to be just an amazing mentor guide.
00:08:19
Speaker
and person to bounce things off of. I'd say the other thing that I've always taken from mentorship angle is this ability, and someone told me once, but make sure you learn both what you like and don't like from people. And so I think,
00:08:32
Speaker
You know, for a while in the early days thrillers, there was a lot of people in and out the door. A lot of different people that I reported to that I learned a lot from. Some of it was learning things I wanted to do and wanted to grow from and be like, and others were things I didn't want to do and didn't want to. But it made me, if you look at it that way and you say, I'm going to take the good and bad and learn from both, then everybody can be a mentor. And you're just kind of weighing in on it. I think that's the important thing because you honestly want to be learning in every facet of what you do.
Altruism and Personal Causes
00:09:02
Speaker
Yeah, continued education is important. And throughout the journey, we pick up a little bit of spice and seasoning throughout different people, throughout what they offer. Well said. You know this, that within the Oh Hello platform, within our community, we really believe in altruism, we believe in giving back
00:09:28
Speaker
mentorship goes full circle of the charities that are going to be integrated that are integrated into Oh, hello. What's charity that's near and dear to your heart? Yeah. Look, first of all, there's an amazing amount of great charity. So kudos on building such a great platform that can give back to so many great causes. Thanks, John. For me, I think, you know, I identified the American Cancer Society
00:09:53
Speaker
My mother passed away when I was in college from cancer. It's been, you know, I think it was very formative in my career. It built my vision for enjoying every day and not knowing what's coming the next day. And so with that said, you know, hopefully other people don't have to go through it. And the American Cancer Society has been just amazing at building
00:10:12
Speaker
you know, different cures, medicines, obviously, there's no like singular cure, but we've made so much
Closing Remarks
00:10:17
Speaker
progress. I think I read in the last 15 years, the average survival rate has almost doubled for cancer in the US. So, you know, we just keep keep fighting that fight. And they're a great charity. So love to support them. Awesome. Well, and in memory of your mother, I appreciate you. We appreciate you. Thank you for being on the pod today, Jodi.
00:10:41
Speaker
Congrats on the new gig. We're excited to have you be part of the Oh Hello community, one of our mentors. I wish you the best, my man. High five. Yeah, man. Congrats on this amazing platform, and we're looking forward to being part of it. Thank you, Jodi. Hi, everybody. Thanks so much for listening. Bye.