In this value-packed episode, Pualena chats with marketing powerhouse Victoria Hajjar, founder of Ugli Ventures, about how to grow your business with small, strategic improvements. Victoria shares her four-step framework for building a scalable marketing machine, emphasizing the importance of creating ROI-driven systems and embracing leadership as a business owner.

Discover how to streamline your marketing efforts, track meaningful metrics, and hire the right team to help you grow. Victoria also highlights how to break free from “DIY burnout” and embrace a mindset shift to focus on high-level strategy and growth. From actionable tips on conversion optimization to navigating the tricky “in-between” stages of scaling, this episode is a must-listen for entrepreneurs at every level.

Victoria’s approach makes marketing approachable, fun, and, most importantly, effective. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by marketing, hiring, or data, this conversation will inspire you to build systems that work beautifully for your business.

About Victoria Hajjar

Victoria is the founder of Ugli Ventures, a marketing consultancy specializing in building scalable marketing systems for growth startups and scale-ups. With over a decade of hands-on experience in marketing and sales, Victoria has transformed the “trial by fire” challenges of her own entrepreneurial journey into actionable frameworks for her clients.

Her mission is rooted in helping business owners, especially women entrepreneurs, turn the overwhelming and often chaotic aspects of marketing into streamlined processes that fuel growth and creativity. Recognizing that marketing can feel “ugly” and daunting, Victoria provides strategies and systems that transform this critical business area into a source of confidence and excitement.

Resources discussed in this episode:

Marketing Resources: https://www.ugliventures.com/resources

Contact Pua Pakele | RBL Media:

Contact Victoria Hajjar | Ugli Ventures :

Transcript

Victoria 00:00

Business doesn't work like; it's very rare that it's like a windfall happens and, like, the next day you've got, like, a multi-million dollar business, right? It's just these little 1% changes, like each and every week, or each and every month, that, really, at the end of the year, compounds to be something that's very powerful.

Pualena 00:26

Victoria, Hajjar, did I get that? Amazing.

Victoria 00:31

Yes, you got it.

Pualena 00:33

We've been chatting for like 20 well, actually not 20 minutes, because I had major technical difficulties, but we've been chatting for a bit. And I was like, gosh, we just need to record. You are so fun. I cannot wait

Victoria 00:47

This is a joy. I’m so excited for us to keep talking and digging in. And I think it's going to be a good one. So.

Pualena 00:52

It’s gonna be so good we've already talked about employment versus running your own business. We are in agreement there. Running your own show is way more fun. And I'd love, okay, so we, right before I hit record, I was like, okay, and your business is, uh, and you're like, Ugli. And I was like, Are you sure it's not like ooglie? Depending on who you talking to, to be fancy.

Victoria 01:18

Like a loop on top of the I.

Pualena 01:21

Yeah, tell me about Ugli Ventures.

Victoria 01:25

The story. Well, you know, it's interesting because I think, as you were saying before we hit record, you know, a lot of us sort of fall into business. You know, there's a good there's two camps of kind of entrepreneurs, but for most business service providers, many of us kind of evolve into, like, waking up one day being like, I have a business or I have an agency, and so my experience is pretty similar. My road to building my my Ugli Ventures as it is now really came from just being a marketer, just like getting my hands dirty, working in marketing, working up the ranks little by little. And I sort of became, went on this path to create an agency like I thought that was my model. And for anyone who's built an agency, it really hard. Agencies really, really hard. And it was through that experience. And I love to say, like a lot of my marketing training has been like trial by fire. So, I have actually found marketing to be and sales to be really ugly. And so my whole career has been marked by, you know, trying to discover how to make this really painful part, which is usually the part where people struggle the most in their businesses, how to make it something that actually is beautiful, right? So, I'm Ugli Ventures because business can be ugly sometimes, a lot of the time, but with marketing systems in place and sales systems in place, that's really the key to turning all of that ugliness and stress and anxiety about sales and revenue or whatever, into something that you can get excited about, something that's actually a beautiful part of your business, and that's been my mission. My major mission for now about 10-plus years has been helping women to build what I call scalable marketing machines in their businesses. Right? How do we get things flowing and pumping in a way where we're not totally overwhelmed by marketing all the time, that we have a system to manage it, and it can be a part of our lives, where our creativity comes to life, and we can get excited instead of what most people feel when they think about sales, marketing, which is pain, ugly. Which I'm sure you are keenly aware of, with clients you've worked with, and maybe inside your own business, it's ugly, sometimes.

Pualena 03:52

Absolutely or like, sometimes it's like, oh, you're kind of cute. I'm excited about you today, and then that day passes by, and you're like, I'm going to do this every day for 30 days and build this habit, and then tomorrow, you're like, I don't, I do not want to touch that. And that's how.

Victoria 04:10

Why am I like? I think if, if you're not questioning, like, Why the hell you're in business at least a couple times a month, you're probably not doing it right. Because it is hard. And the the thing that's very true because I work primarily with businesses that are growth startups and scale-ups, and the phrase new level, new devil is complete. It's so true, because in marketing, especially, like, as soon as you find something that's like, working right, and you've got, like, your team and your systems in place, like, sooner or later, everything's going to break. And actually, that's part of the growth process. One of the founders and mentors that I that I've worked with, Dan Martell, always used to say, you know, if all of your systems are not breaking every six months. You're not actually growing. You're not getting to the next level. And I really have seen that in practice with a lot of the businesses that I've worked with. You know, if you're trying to, you know, and it doesn't matter if you're trying to build like a lifestyle business, but you want to reach that revenue level, or if you're trying to build an empire, that growth process, like every year you're on business, you're gonna learn more, you're gonna get better. But just because you're getting better doesn't mean that it's like smooth sailing and funnel time.

Pualena 05:32

This is very reassuring. And so you mentioned, you were like, Okay, so you've got your team, you've got your systems, and things are kind of like, you're feeling good, and then things will break. In my experience, I feel like people to get from the point where you're like, doing everything yourself and feeling like, okay, something's got to give, or else I'm going to just play bankruptcy and throw the towel to the point where you have a team in systems like that's a very big it doesn't have to be a long period of time, but it is a heavy chunk of time where there's a lot of like, what exactly am I doing? Who am I supposed to be hiring? What am I supposed to be off-boarding? I am too much of a control freak to let anything go. What do you have to say to people who are like, sort of navigating that space right now?

Victoria 06:26

Okay, well, this is my absolute specialty. So the, and this is the this, I think, is the critical pass for anyone that's trying to get to another revenue level in their business. So, this is a critical pass. Let's first talk about what everyone usually does that makes them want to pull their hair out. So what everyone usually does is they look at like their frazzled agenda and their frazzled systems and all of the stress and anxiety that they're under, and they're just like, I need some help. And they just kind of, like, start hiring some people to just do stuff in their business, without a real strategy behind it, and without any real habits and systems in place for kind of, like, getting everyone on the same page and understanding, you know, if people are kind of doing what they're supposed to be doing, like no real, like, management system in place. So this is where a lot of women come to me, and they're just like a lik...