This past week I had the opportunity to interview Likeable Local CEO Dave Kerpen for a school project. The interview was filled with an overflow of knowledge, helpful hints and advice geared towards anyone with CEO aspirations.

Kerpen, who founded his first company Likeable Media in 2006 with his wife Carrie, is a social media marketing guru; having executed successful marketing ventures for clients such as Verizon Wireless, 1–800-FLOWERS, GrubHub, Neutrogena and a plethora of other major brands across the country. In 2013, Kerpen created Likeable Local, a company dedicated to transforming small businesses into “Likeable Businesses” through strategic social media campaigns and targeted consumer interaction.

But transitioning from a sales rep at Disney to the head of one the fastest growing companies in the country was not an overnight process. Kerpen discussed this and the three most important aspects of being a CEO with me as the first guest in this fall’s EntrepreneurTalk series.

Tell me a little about your early beginnings and what led you to creating Likable Local?

I studied Education in school and thought I wanted to be a teacher when I grew up. But I fell in love with sales and marketing while working at the ballpark vendor at Fenway Park in the Boston Gardens. After I graduated from college, I took a job working in sales for Disney. I was the number one sales person in the country until this woman started working at my office and she dropped me to number two. So I knew I had to one, marry her, and two, go into business with her. A few years later when we got married we couldn’t afford a traditional wedding, but we wanted a large one; I wanted to invite anyone I’d ever met. So we created a promotion with the Brooklyn Cyclones, a minor league baseball team, and got married at the end of a baseball game and created a sponsored event and raised 100,000 dollars from our wedding event vendors 1–800-Flowers.com, Smirnoff and David’s Bridal. We raised 20,000 dollars for charity and the event was awesome because I got married to the love of my life but it was a very successful marketing event as well. We were on ever major TV network and thousands of vlogs. Back in 2006, vlogs were the main focus of social media. After the wedding, our vendors said ‘This was great. What are you guys going to do next?’ And we couldn’t get married again so we started a company instead. And that company was our first company Likeable Media and that grew year after year. I became more and more passionate about working with small businesses and building companies more scalable so three years ago I launched Likeable Local. And my wife continues to run Likeable Media, our first company, while I focus on Likeable Local.

I read an article about your first meeting with angel investor and entrepreneur Dave McClure and the famous orange shoes, what was it about that initial impression that led to him investing in your company?

The orange shoes work because they get people’s attention in a positive way and I think Dave was looking for bold entrepreneurs and you basically have to be bold to wear bright orange shoes everyday. So I think that got his attention and kept it long enough for me to get to know him a little bit better and for him to get to know me. Which obviously led to the investment.

When building your brand for Likable Local, as well as when you and your wife were building Likable Media, what were some obstacles and setbacks you ran into?

Well most obstacles are either people related or money related. So I’ll start with people because it’s all about having the right people around you in business. And as hard as you work to try and have the right people, sometimes you make mistakes and you bring in the wrong people. Or you bring in the wrong people for a particular job or task. So our biggest challenges have been hiring the wrong people and then figuring out what to do afterward; how long to keep them, what to have them do, how to let them go that sort of thing. And money, I mean obviously it takes money to make things happen. And if you don’t have it, there’s only so much you can do. Making sure you have enough money in the make is a key challenge as well.

What were some ways you and your wife overcame some of the initial setbacks when creating Likeable Media, whether it was with people or finances?

Right after our wedding, I was teaching at the time and Carrie was working in sales. When we started the business we were both still working. I remember I was off during the summer and she said to me, ‘If you can get the first three clients over the summer then I will leave my job and we can go into this full speed ahead.” And we did. So I think a lot of people think entrepreneurs are risk takers. But ultimately its about mitigating risks as much as anything else. It’s about figuring out how you can reduce your risks by getting some guarantees. There’s really no replacement for just hitting the phones, hitting the pavement and getting sales and getting money in the door yourself. That’s the best thing to do. The most important skill that any of us have really is sales and know how to persuade others to give you money.

What is the hardest aspect of being the CEO of a social media marketing corporation?

Well, it’s all hard [laughs]. But I would say just keeping people happy and motivated. There’s really only three jobs of a CEO. One is setting the overall vision and strategy of the company. Second is making sure you hire the right people in the right seats working there. And third is making sure you have enough money in the bank. That’s pretty much it. If you do these three things, everything else is going to work itself out just fine. And I’m pretty certain that applies for all CEO’s.

Thus far in your career, what has been the most exciting marketing campaign you’ve worked on and why?

I would say one of the early campaigns that we won an award for. It wasn’t a lot of social media back then but it was a campaign but it was a promotion we did for a shopping mall in Queens that was struggling to get traffic. So they needed more people there and it at a time when the economy was in a really rough spot and we were right in the midst of a recession and they were talking about a stimulus package to stimulate the economy. Well, we created our own stimulus package. The name of the mall was Atlas Park and we created what we called the ‘Atlas Solution’ to the recession. We said this mall is going to give away ten thousand dollars in cash in the streets of New York and we asked people to come visit the mall, spend their cash and win more cash at the mall. And furthermore, we said if every mall owner in the country did the same thing, that that would stimulate the economy and save the US from a recession. That was a maybe a little outlandish but that claim generated a lot of press and running around the streets of New York giving out cash was pretty awesome and crazy too, as you could imagine. We had a van that we could just pull up and dole out cash and stickers to get people to come to the mall. It was really exciting and won us an award. And although it was a long time ago now but I always think back to that as one of my favorites.

Where do you see social media marketing being in 10 to 15 years from now?

Well, I’ll tell you, its hard enough to predict one year from now. Ten to 15 years is a long, long time so really no one, maybe Mark Zuckerberg, but just about no one could’ve predicted where social media marketing would be even ten years ago. But I’ll do my best to answer. I think devices will be less important. Concepts like Google Glass will continue to grow where people are looking into glasses or their watch, like Apple watches. We’ll just be able to use our wearable’s to talk through the internet, control stuff and communicate with one another. AR, augmented reality and virtual reality, will continue to grow. Like if I want to have a meeting with you, instead of meeting over the phone, basically one of us will have a hologram of the other right in front of them talking to each other. And I mentioned Mark Zuckerberg; I think that he’s the most brilliant entrepreneur of our time by far and I trust his big bets on the future. So they’ve bought WhatsApp, they’ve bought Oculus in terms of virtual reality. And I think if you continue to monitor the direction that Facebook goes in, it’ll give you a very good clue as to what’s coming five to 10 years from now.

What advice do you have to individuals looking to enter the social media marketing industry?

I would say just be as active as you can. Read, read, read. Write, write, write. And connect, connect, connect. If you just keep doing those same things and providing value for others. It’s been surprising to me how few people really step up and just try to meet people. The thing is, you saw how easy it was for you to go from tweeting me to having an interview with me. It’s not that hard. So if you just take those chances and put in the work, you can get anywhere! Social media has connected all of us better than anything. We’re all so connected; so you can reach anyone you want and connect with them, learn from them and provide value for them.