Women Entrepreneurs: #10 Nancy Lazkani

In May 2000, Icon Media Direct Inc. rose from the embers of Nancy Lazkani’s former company – a doomed, three-year partnership. The dissolution of the previous firm involved what she alternately refers to as “a bad marriage” and an “ugly divorce.” “A very ugly divorce,” she continued. “One that could’ve killed me or made me. I decided it was going to make me.” Icon deals in direct response advertising. The acrimonious demise of her prior company left her professionally bruised but not broken. With two children to raise, the single mother parlayed the $10,000 apiece reserved for their college fund and a credit card into igniting Icon, which took off after four months. Those first three months she didn’t take a paycheck. Lazkani said she believes she was able to launch her company because of her “history of good results and good work ethic, building trust and relationships.” She prides herself on holding onto her major clients across Icon’s past 18 years. “We have long, long relationships with our clients,” she said. A couple of accounts proved crucial to establishing Icon: Now-defunct juggernaut Hooked on Phonics and Space Bags. Aussie Nad’s non-chemical competitor to Nair hair removal products was another early campaign. When she started Icon, she employed just over a half-dozen people. Today, her payroll tops 100. In 2000, Icon reaped $10 million in gross billing; it now grosses $300 million. “It was a gradual growth,” she said. By placing call-in commercials on television stations and cable channels, Icon has boosted such iconic brands as Proactiv, TrueCar, Nutrasystem and OxiClean to market dominance. However, finding the right combination of ad runs can entail trial and error, and Lazkani has experienced both. “Through those campaigns, I developed amazing relationships,” she said. “This is especially a business for the brave. I’ve had more failures than successes.” In her work, there can be a thin dividing line between failure and success. “You just never know,” she said. “The more failures, the more I saw what levers work or don’t work. It’s really all about the data. Sometimes what hurts the most is when clients don’t believe their own product could fail in the marketplace.” ‘Prove you wrong’ Since the #MeToo movement’s birth last October, Lazkani does not think horror stories are as common in her profession as elsewhere. She notes that there are a lot of powerful women in media, and if she experienced any gender bias, it proved fleeting. “‘I’m going to prove you wrong’ — that’s always been my fuel,” she said. “Earlier on in my career, I may have felt intimidated but now people look at me as an expert. I enjoy being in a room of smart men, sometimes arrogant men.” She belongs to CEO groups such as Tiger 21, comprised of 650 high-worth individuals. As one of only two females, she enjoys being “the crusader for women,” she said. Raised in Sylmar by a grocer father and waitress mother, Lazkani was very close to her father, who passed away in January 2000, just months before Icon launched. “He looked at me with such a deep set of eyes,” she recalled. “That gave me the courage (to form Icon). I had an amazing relationship with my father. My father was my hero, my mentor.” Lazkani dropped out of the University of Utah and got married. At 22, she had her son and couldn’t complete school. “I had a different education,” she said. “I read a lot of books. I became street-smart.” In 2015, Lazkani found closure on the college experience when BNP Paribas bank selected her to attend its first-ever all-women’s business class, taught at Stanford University by a professor who had taught Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. “That was a highlight for me,” she said. At Stanford, Lazkani got to live in a dorm room and make good friends as one of only 23 women chosen for the program. The two week-long course among her peers — from places as far-fetched as France, Taiwan and China — not only reinforced her business skills and strategy, but something much deeper. “It (was validating),” she said, inspiring a feeling she had intuitively done something right. As a Valley success story, Lazkani recommends the book her father gave her: “Swimming With the Sharks” by Steven Metzger. “I used to work for some big agencies at the time,” she said, “and he wanted me to understand how to survive in the business world.” Lazkani emphatically believes that her father did witness her success. “He sees it,” she said. “He’s in the room right now.” – Michael Aushenker