Click here for Part I & Part II

Forecasting the next decade of global opportunities and challenges in emerging technology

Thomas Sanchez and Anthony Shop are the CEO and Chief Strategy Officer, respectively, of Social Driver, a digital agency based in Washington, DC. Social Driver provides its clients with a range of digital services that include social media strategy, web development, video, and brand design. The company has worked with industry giants such as Honda, Sprint, the Motion Picture Association of America, Computer Sciences Corporation, American Hospital Association, and more. Since starting in 2011, Social Driver has grown at a blistering pace: it’s currently the 7th fastest growing agency in the US. The company has earned the DC Chamber of Commerce’s DC Small Business Champion award, as well as the Academy of Interactive and Visual Arts’ Communicator Award of Distinction. Additionally, Thomas has been named an Innovator of the Year (DC Hispanic Chamber of Commerce) and Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year (Capital Area Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce), while Anthony has been listed as one of the Washington Business Journal’s 40 Under 40.

Thomas Sanchez and Anthony Shop spoke with citybizlist publisher Edwin Warfield for this interview.

EDWIN WARFIELD: Social Driver has won numerous awards and worked with leading companies around the world. How would you describe what separates Social Driver from other digital strategy and communications firms? Is there a certain mindset or value system you espouse that has led to the extraordinary success you’ve seen?

THOMAS SANCHEZ: Social Driver works with clients all over the world. Several years ago, when we were first getting started, one of our first major websites we launched was for the Lutheran Church—the worldwide Lutheran Church. We worked with them to redesign their website. They have sub-churches in over 50 countries around the world, and we had to think through the different languages and the different needs of those sub-churches as well. So, that’s always been baked into our work: while we’re headquartered in Washington, DC—and we have an office out in the Seattle area—our clients are going to be all over, so we need to make sure we have the tools and the mindset to work with clients, whether they’re here in DC or they’re halfway around the world and we’re going to link up over video. If I had to describe Social Driver, I would say we definitely work with clients nationally and globally.

ANTHONY SHOP: We’ve had, yes, some really great accolades: Coolest Company, 50 on Fire—number of those things. We like to say that 21st century culture looks different from 20th century culture. It’s fast, it’s flat, and it’s fun—kind of like a sports car. We’ve tried to design a company that matches 21st century culture. So, how can we be collaborative? That’s why we have an open office environment that looks a little different from traditional offices, even in our same building here in downtown DC. How can we be a little quicker in terms of trying new things and achieving results? And then: How can we match the culture around us? Work and play are blending in today’s world more than ever before because we all carry devices around us, where we might check our work email at home at night, or we might get a Facebook notification during the day… [A bell rings.] So, we have to respect that.

I just heard the bell ring, and that usually means we sold something by the way, in case the microphone picked that up. We try to do fun things like that: having a bell hanging in the office so that we can celebrate achievements together. I think company culture is really a very important thing for folks to think about, whether they’re business owners or leaders of the department: What kind of company do you want to have? What kind of culture do you want to have and recruit to that so that people feel like they are working with the people that they share the same values with?

THOMAS SANCHEZ: And being an agency where we have clients, clients are paramount. We spend a lot of time focusing on their needs and how we can help them achieve their goals. In that environment, it’s easy sometimes for your culture to not necessarily be the most empowering for your team. You have to take a moment in the week to spend a little bit of time thinking about who you are as a company and what you want to be, because you’re spending every other hour of the week thinking about your clients. And so this has been a tradition that we’ve had a Social Driver since the very beginning: on Fridays, at 11am Eastern, we have a meeting called “Recharge,” and the entire team comes together and we spend that one hour talking about who we are, where we want to go, peer nominations of essentially an employee of the week—and we call that “Victory Lap,” and at the end of the meeting we select somebody from the team to receive the Victory Lap. We play “Chariots of Fire” and they run around the room with a trophy, giving people high-fives. Our entire team from around the country joins up over video to participate in that meeting, and it’s just time to really focus on our values, where we’re going, the culture we want to have. You know, it was probably a long week working on lot of deadlines, and next week’s going to be a long week with a lot of deadlines, but we take a moment in that to recognize each other, to recognize the hard work we are putting in, and to recognize where we want to go. I think that’s so important, and if I was giving advice to an entrepreneur today who is starting out, say maybe a three-person company or a four-person company, I’d say, “Take time to build those traditions now, because it’s so hard to build them once you’re 40 people.” You have to start doing it today.

Connect with Thomas and Anthony on LinkedIn

Sponsored by:

Founded in 1969, KatzAbosch is one of the largest CPA and business consulting services in the Mid-Atlantic region. Our mission is to provide the highest quality accounting, tax, financial and management consulting services to our clients. We understand the needs and challenges of our clients and we have made it our obligation to create, grow and protect asset value. The experts at KatzAbosch offer a full service solution while maintaining a tradition of ethics and incorporating the latest technology and unique business practices. Excellence in an industry often begins with how those closest to the company—its clients and employees—feel about it. For these individuals, KatzAbosch is a place where people and businesses excel and prosper. Our advisors can meet all of your service needs including; Audit & Accounting, Business Valuation & Litigation Support, Consulting, Estate Planning & Administration, Financial Institution Services, Forensic Accounting & Fraud Examinations, State and Local Tax (SALT), Taxes & Planning.

Edwin Warfield, CEO of citybizlist, conducts the CEO Interviews.

If you're interested in reaching CEOs, please contact edwin.warfield@citybuzz.co

Connect on LinkedIn