How a Disabled Army Veteran Built a Category-Defining Agency

intangible skills that employers were looking for. But somebody who was head leadership that was well organized, that knew how to accomplish goals. But you have to sometimes take a step back

in your career to advance it. - Tom Ayelo is a distinguished military communications expert, entrepreneur, and the founder and president of March Marketing. Drawing from his decades of service and experience,

supporting military and veteran communities, he has dedicated to creating meaningful impact for those who serve and their families. - We're a marketing, advertising agency. Military is great.

- We have a great sense of humor. Some people feel it's off-color, but if you can tap into that in a way that's okay for larger consumption, you really strike a cork. And it makes people laugh, it makes people sort of connect.

- Yeah.

“- And I think when you do that, the receptive to what you have to say.”

- There's no agency that's focused on

these 20 million Americans that have worn the uniform.

I've got an idea. This will work, and so we went out there, and it spans the globe, like a super high school, internet Elvis, really high school. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.

- It's not over, I'll tell how we're-- - The living your legacy podcast, for those who live to leave a legacy. - That's insane, man! - That's awesome, though, man!

- Oh, that is sensational to open. Check out what was the way you said, Paul, is the box that's not on the planet. - You can live your dream. - Hey, welcome back everyone to another episode

of Living Your Legacy Podcast, where we get to talk to some of the best entrepreneurs around the country. Also, we have a show called Operation CEO, where we talk to veterans who transitioned into this

civilian lifestyle, and yeah, use entrepreneurship and have become a great success. And today, we've got another great veteran here. Yeah, introduce yourself. What's the name, where you from, and what's your business?

- Yeah, Tom Ayelo, a US Army veteran from Chicago, Illinois, originally from Huntsville, Alabama, and my company's March Marketing were a marketing advertising agency. - Yeah.

- Not like Tom Aurelio, the guitarist, from-- - Yeah, you get a national hand here now. - Hopefully, we'll get him sitting here one day.

But yeah, so you got this amazing marketing agency, right?

But let's talk first about, give us some insight into your military background. Where you come from? What would you do? Where you stationed anywhere, what was going on?

- Yeah, yeah, so I went to West Point. So for your college, kind of got me ready to be an officer, leader in the military. And then when I joined, I became a combat engineer. So basically means we built stuff and blew it up, right?

And how well were you when you're blowing stuff up? Young, there was like 22, 23 years old.

“- So that's how big of a talk about blowing stuff up.”

- It was a lot. And it's interesting, you're 23 years old, and you're responsible for 50 men's lives. - Yeah. - And a young age, that's a lot of responsibility.

- Yeah, of course. - So I was in first-cavery division, again, combat engineer, and station out of Texas, right near Austin, which is great as a young guy growing up. Austin, Texas, pretty fun place.

- Yeah, and just deployments to Panama, Korea, and of course, the Middle East. - Okay, well, well, we didn't even get into you were in Korea also. - Yes.

- Oh my God. And then, so you're in Panama? You know, what was it again? You were fighting riots. - Fighting riots, right?

- Yeah, yeah. - And then you were in Korea, and then also the Middle East. But the biggest life-changing event happened right here in America.

- Yeah. - Talk us through what happened. - Yeah, so we were in a training exercise out in California and when the military trains, like we train really, really hard.

So when you're in combat, you're not faced by that. So we're out there, we're training month in the middle of the desert, huge battlefield. And in the middle of that, we're doing this exercise where we haven't slept for 48 hours.

And my driver, we're in a Humvee, my driver's driver's and long pitch black. He doesn't see a 20-foot tank ditch, and he drives the Humvee we flip over. - Yeah.

- Into the tank ditch, I'm thrown from the vehicle, my seat belt fails, and I'm sort of crushed against the side of the wall of the tank ditch against the Humvee. And so, super scary moment.

My first instinct is how's my soldier, you know,

'cause he was on the other side, so I'm thinking the worst. - Yeah. - So I start crawling over to the training's kicked in. - Yeah, okay, okay, you got to check everyone, right?

- Yeah, take care of my men, and so I go over there, and I see, and I'm screaming, you know, my low, but all it comes out is my low, 'cause I don't have any air in my lungs at that point.

“But you need to realize that at that time.”

- Now, you're saying my low, it's like, oh my God, I guess I have no voice now. - Yeah, it's just full adrenaline kicked in, right? - Dremlin, but I was literally as crawling, I was in bad shape, so I was crawling over

to try to check on my low, he comes around, he's okay. He's a little shook up, but he's fine,

And so I'm sitting there quickly, the Paltoon shows up. They start taking care of me, but of course at that point, the Dremlin starts to throttle back, and the shot comes in. All the blood, you know, leaves your extremities, goes to your main body, you get light head,

“and you start shaking, and I know it's in bad shape, right?”

I had all kinds of stuff was locked up, a lot of pain, so they quickly get me, they're prepped me for air meta back, and they literally cut my uniform off, put space blanket on, strap me down, and then get me on a helicopter to a field hospital

to get cared for. - Yeah, that's insane, yeah, the training, wasn't gonna thank you for your service to all that, right?

I think so, but I always got to say that.

It's kind of a beautiful thing about our country, you know, we do thankful, be thankful for that. And it's one of the things that doing operations CEO, I'm even more thankful of the service that these guys and what they go through, right?

But, yeah, during the interview, I had to take a step back, I was like, wait a minute, you weren't California, I was like, are you on the front lines of Afghanistan? Like, what's going on? You're like, no, this isn't California, I'm like, oh, oh, yeah.

So, yeah, a lot of things that we don't understand, as civilians, what you guys are going through. So, yeah, you get airlifted out, and then you make a full recovery, right?

“And then your transition into civilian life, after a few jobs, right?”

Actually, walk, walk us through that, because that's so important for a lot of veterans sitting to this. How was that transition, you know, you got your military skills? How does that transition into, you know,

the afterlife into being a civilian? Yeah, you know, it's interesting is the military teaches you so many great intangible skills that employers were looking for. So, that was really my sort of goal was just to kind of communicate whether it was, you know, to how to run a factory,

or how to, you know, work at an ad agency. And you kind of have to understand that. And then you can change how we talk as a veteran

in those first job interviews right after the military.

And it's important, because if you get communicate that, you're not going to get that job. But that was really, you know, what they were looking for was somebody who was head leadership that was well organized, that knew how to accomplish goals.

And they could put me in front of the advertising, say, okay, go do that, right? And I could figure that out. And I actually got my MBA at Kellogg Business School to help sort of get the classic training.

But a lot of that just OJT on the job training, just working in JT, yeah, and you literally, you know, I'm leading, you know, so many men as an officer. And then I go to an ad agency. And I'm on an assistant account executive, you know,

but learning advertising for the ground up for production and planning all the things you do in an ad agency was great because I was at the most basic level doing those things. So as I moved up to the ranks, became a vice president and eventually run my own agency,

I knew how to do all those things. And I think you have to, you know, if you're coming to the military, you know, I'm all big, and I've done all these things.

“I've let all these men, but you have to sometimes”

take a step back in your career to advance it. Yeah. And so you grew all the way up to vice president. Is there like, because when you're in a corporation or an agency setting or any kind of job, right?

You've got that competition of, you know, climbing off the ladder, right? But when you're in the military, you kind of just like, you know, someone says, okay, we're gonna make you the next sergeant

or the next position, right? I don't know if there's that kind of competition for those positions. Well, when you're in the military, can you kind of speak to that of it?

Yeah, you know, it's interesting is when I came out my peer group at the ad agency were much younger. You know, it's like you've ever seen happy Gilmore when he's in the classroom. Maybe it's all the little kindergarters, that's kind of how you feel.

Like you're an older guy, sitting there with all these youngsters. But what happens is, because of the skills, those intangible skills I talked about, your career goes like this, what their career goes like this. And there's a point out here where they intersect at some point,

like five, six years down the road. But so it's not really about competitive. 'Cause in the military, it's all about what the team's trying to accomplish. So that's I think it's good because sometimes the industry

or corporate America can be cut throat. But generally, veterans are approaching things, like, how do I help you be more successful? How do I help us be more successful? And if you're doing it that way,

people are gonna know you're a good agent, right? You're gonna be good and they want you to move up in their organization. They want you on your team. Hey, Tom, I'm pulling over here.

We're doing new business. I want you on this team. 'Cause I like what you bring to the table. And so it's less about cut throat. It's more about doing what you're capable of doing.

And people will notice, especially early in your career. You know, that's really what they're looking for, if people they can make it happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So talk about your business, right?

You got a marketing agency, but you have a special niche, right?

We always say here that the riches are in the niches,

and then some people say, isn't it niche?

So you get it, okay? Yeah. But yeah, talk to us about your niche. Yeah, I was sitting there and I was in the add industry. And I'm looking at all these specialty agencies.

There's for African Americans, Hispanics, marketing to women, these specialty agencies.

And there's no agency that's focused on these 20 million

Americans that have worn the uniform. When you include their families, it's like 40 or 50 million, a trillion dollar spending power. Get there's no, I mean, this smaller than the Hispanic community and bigger than the LGBTQ.

“That's how, that's the size of this audience.”

And the no agency, so I'm thinking, I've got an idea. This will work. And so we went out there. And what's great is you take a gamble

and then the clients start coming. Yeah. And it first, it was some nonprofits. Then it was universities. Then it was retail and products and services.

Then we got pulled into health care and health care is our biggest line of business these days. Okay. And it's, you know, we're a full service ad agency.

We do research, strategy, creative development,

media buying and planning, the whole thing. Okay. And it's really, you know, it's at secret sauce of understanding this community in ways where our approaches, nobody's doing what we do.

Right. These companies specifically come to you to target and reach the military audience. Yes, exactly. Okay.

And that military audience is huge. It's very big. Yeah. So yeah, when people say niche down, right, it's just choose a specialty.

It doesn't have to be so niche where there's not a large audience because sometimes that large art.

“And there's probably a niche within the niche, right?”

Yeah. But yeah, that's a great niche and that was a great way to kind of carve out your own specialty, right? Yeah. And so yeah, so these corporations,

they come to you. You even worked with Spotify, I guess, right? And some of them are my serious sex and radio. Okay. serious sex and ARP, countless medical device companies,

medical service companies, medical insurance companies, we've worked with products, retailers, countless non-profits. A lot of the work we do with non-profits, it's not very profitable. But what we find is the relationships we build there,

we can bring over, working with our for-profit clients. And we can create scale in great, great solutions for them by leveraging those relationships. So it's really cool. Some of the things we can pull together,

we've done a purpose marketing partnerships between like craftsmen and IAVA, sleep number, beds, and blue star families. I mean, that's what I'm gonna get into, because when you say some of these things,

“it doesn't sound like the sexiest kind of thing, right?”

But agencies are about creativity, right? And so when you're talking about some of these non-profits or some of the companies that you work for and veterans, right? Talk to us through some of the creativity that you get to bring in, you know,

that kind of brings the job more fun and more passionate about, right? When you come up with that ad, right? That campaign. And then you think, okay,

and then we get to put this campaign into several ways to slice it up, right? Yeah. Talk to us about some of that creativity that you bring. Yeah, I mean, it's one of the most fun part of my jobs.

And I never thought I would be creative

and there are far more talented people at my agency to be clear. Yeah, yeah. But sometimes that creativity is a more serious note. And it brings in something that is real, you know, authentic.

And it touches people in a way. Sometimes it's finally like we have this one client that wanted to get the attention of decision-makers at the Pentagon. So we put an ad in the Pentagon,

Neutral Station and DC, and it said, we're kind of like the Pentagon only bigger. You don't know how, this is a single ad and how much attention that got our client, right? So the creativity can come in and what's the medium,

what's the message? But it always, it always, any military is great. We have a great sense of humor. Some people feel it's off-color.

But if you can tap into that in a way that's okay for larger consumption, you really strike a chord. And it makes people laugh. It makes people sort of connect. Yeah.

And I think when you do that, the receptive to what you have to say, right on. And so yeah, I mean those, those like, 'cause you also have a great mission, right? So talk to us about your mission.

Yeah, when we started, and this is from the very beginning in 2011, mission is to improve the lives of military and veteran families. And that means is the clients we take on in some form of their service, their product,

what they're doing, they have to help the community. And we turn away more clients than we take. Yeah, because a lot, there's a lot of predators out there. There's folks that are, that are lenders that are not doing well by the community.

There's folks that are out there trying to help

but they end up keeping the money. I just want to go back to those impostas, right?

“I mean, who are these lenders that keep on texting me?”

I never signed up for any of that, right?

Like, come on, if any of those people listening, just stop them, stop it, just get out of here, man. But yeah, who else are these other impostas that are kind of like, yeah, victimizing or coming in and taking advantage?

Yeah, you know, around VA home loans, a lot of effort, there's universities that are sort of for profit. And some are good, but a lot, they don't really care about the veteran getting their degree. And so we look at those sort of things

and determine, hey, they do well by this community. Yes, we want to partner with them, or no. They're not really doing well by the community, and we'll just find a tactful way of saying, we can't work with them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, what else, man? Like, so a lot of VA, I lot of veterans, right? They talk about VA services, and how to tap into. Have you tapped into any of those services?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm a disabled veteran myself. You know, I obviously have a spinal cord injury while I was serving. And I mean, there's so much, you know,

there's the health care, and then there's the other benefits. There's getting a VA home loan, which is huge. I mean, for a lot of families, that sort of puts the whole family on another trajectory that they wouldn't otherwise have been able to get.

So it's huge, and I encourage so many veterans, 'cause, you know, if you're working with the community,

you're always gonna be talking to different veterans

and military families and those spouses and children of veterans, and I encourage them, like if they haven't got a disability rating with the VA, I encourage them if they were injured to go do so. A lot of times they're like, oh, I don't.

And there's other people that are heart-worse-off than me, and I just encourage them to do that, because it brings peace of mind. It gives them if something goes bad, they know that they'll be cared for, and that's important.

And so yeah, it's really important to just encourage people in the community like that. Yeah. So I asked everyone on the show, like, what do you most excited about?

It could be personal, but yeah, talk about business, you know, maybe your industry, are you on the forefront of anything that's going on or what are the big projects on the horizon?

“Yeah, yeah, I think one of the things right now,”

and again, it's funny because we got kind of pulled into health care when it wasn't on our like goal list, but it's one of the most profound ways we can make a difference, and there's this huge movement right now where the VA is,

they're not people say the VA's outsourcing to community providers like hospitals in your community here in Miami, but it's not that, it's giving veterans the option to choose, I can go to the VA or I can go to a local hospital, but if I want to, or local doctor,

and that shift is huge, okay. I mean, literally is trillions of dollars of care for veterans. And what I'm excited about is helping organizations, healthcare systems connect to that. Because if they do, there's so much better care

that's gonna happen for military veterans, and it gets me excited, like literally we're now working with multiple hospitals, and that could just scale nationally. Then expertise we've developed in working with the understanding what are the stumbling blocks,

what are the obstacles, what are the providers and hospitals need to know, and then also,

“how do we educate the veteran community to connect?”

And again, I think that is like that could be like nothing that really sets our agency apart, and is kind of like a legacy I'd love to have to give back to the community. And then you gotta think back to that creative part,

is how do you put this into a campaign that clicks, that connects, that just doesn't get scrolled past, or driven past, but like sticks, how do you get that message to hit, right? Do you have any techniques when you have a client

that comes with you and you sit down? Of course, as agencies are all about SOPs, right? And then there's an onboarding of the client, right? And then after you get that client, do you guys have like, you meet in the board room

and there's some blue sky ideation or is it one person,

first they take their ideas, and then they present them?

- Yeah, I think there's kind of two big areas of ideation. One is on the strategy and creative. And so to really get great creative and great messaging, you have to start with research.

And so we'd love to go to our audience. We have a huge network. If we need to talk to Belleter's spouses, or veterans over 50, or recently separated veterans, we can go talk to different audiences.

- Gotcha. - And understand it, and that's where the real magic happens, because it's not just insights, you may get something that isn't an idea for an ad, from those conversations.

Again, we were talking about military families and getting dental insurance.

you know, we thought we could just get away with not doing it.

And now, my kid has to have surgery. But you don't know what we're gonna do, when they have to go get sort of relief loan from a charity. And so there's these really big insights you get and things that you uncover that are really profound

and that really help shape a compelling strategy and how you communicate something in an authentic way. Now, also on the media side, like we've done literally hundreds of campaigns

to this community. So we know from that past experience, a starting point. What we're trying to accomplish for the client, what we're gonna do. But then we're like,

there's so much emerging in the media front now with AI and other forms of media and different approaches. So we were like, okay, here's where we would start. Now, what is new that we can use? And we're constantly looking to bring in new technologies

and things and bring them to bear for this audience. And so when you can do that, I mean, it's really, really exciting and you bring these innovations to clients that are not doing it.

And like, the innovations occurring on the military veteran target, which is really cool. So yeah, those are some of the things we do early on in an engagement to really make it pop.

“- Yeah, 'cause the agencies that they're very creative, right?”

But they don't know everything. It's just, you gotta take a step back and say, hey, look, let's talk to that target market that we're trying to reach and say, hey, what's important to you guys?

What's important? What messaging do you wanna hear about, right? If you had this in mind, like, what do you think, right? And get that feedback first before jumping in it 'cause it could open a whole bunch of ideas, right?

- Yeah, and it's important, too, that we have so many veterans, military members, military spouses in our agency. - Yeah. - 'Cause there are a second line of defense, right?

So we're working through stuff. We think we've got the insights, right? We're working through it and all of a sudden, somebody goes, that's not right. - Yeah, yeah.

- That's not true, that's not authentic. And so before it even gets to the client, we've put it through so many, many different levels that it really, really is insightful. It's compelling, it's motivating.

It's arresting to the audience and it really works. - Yeah, one last thing, do you have any clients

that are always like, okay, there is your campaign, right?

And then you've got, okay, the final, right? And then it's final version two, final version three. And is that not okay, does it ever stop, right? How do you kind of deal with that kind of client? - Yeah, I mean, I think it's just,

good what we call client management, right?

“The account management where you need to really effectively”

upfront understand all those inputs. And if you can do that, you can use a creative brief because when the clients review and creative, they can do what you just said. You're like, keep changing.

- Oh, I don't think that's right or I want to change this. - Oh, I showed it to this manager now. And they kind of had something to say. And it's like, oh, I thought you were the person in charge. And we already finalized this.

Oh, yeah, but then this person. - Yeah. - So what you do is, is that an initial creator brief, before you even start creative development, that creative brief really aligns you and the client

on what are the insights we're gonna leverage? What does it have to do? - Yep. - And so that becomes your rubric. You're judging it against that.

And when you show the creative, you start, you ground them in that. And then you show them how it delivers against that. And if you do that, and if we have to go through revisions,

we always come back to the brief because it grounds them.

And sort of keeps that sort of variance off where it's like, oh, we're thinking over here now. It's like, no, no, no, no, no, remember the insight, the strategy and what we're trying to accomplish. And if you can do that, you can really manage it

against a lot of that. - It's like, you may not think so, but the target market that you're trying to reach, you know, we got all the data that backs it and this hits.

- Yeah. - Yeah. - All right. So the people that show it to the manager

“is that maybe we'll give you a version two final, right?”

But anything past that, no, we'd done, right? - Yeah. - Yeah. - All right. Well, how do people find you?

- Yeah. They can go to MarchCorp.com. That's M-A-R-C-H-C-O-R-P.com. - Okay, great. And then you've got your socials on there, I'm sure. And you know, a lot of testimonials,

I'm sure videos and campaigns, right? All that. Yeah, reach out. We'd love to have a conversation. Perfect, perfect.

Well, thank you so much for joining us today on the show. And yeah, for your session as well. And yeah, you guys got, you know, this is just kind of like the tip of the iceberg. You've got a tune back into his episode when it airs.

Operation CEO, he goes into a lot of details that we didn't discuss here. But yeah, if you're into, you know, veterans, but how these people kind of take their skills that they learn in the military

and use entrepreneurship and really launch businesses and take skills that you thought that maybe they weren't, you know, I don't know, like, they're completely different skills, right? But yeah, you guys got to keep on tuning.

Every, every episode. But thank you for joining us. And thank you guys for joining us also. Cheers, everyone. (upbeat music)