Conquer Local Podcast

Welcome to Season 4 of the Conquer Local Podcast.

Our host, George Leith, wants to share a special message to all of our listeners. Happy New Year, Conquerors!

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Farewell, goodbye, adios, cheerio, see ya later, don't let the door hit you on the way out 2020.

As we say so long to 2020, we bring back Brendan King, co-founder and CEO of Vendasta, to wrap up this insane year. We review what a forcing function COVID-19 has been for small and medium businesses to adopt e-commerce. In the last episode of 2020 and season 3, we look at the necessity for remote work, accelerated online e-learning, and what predictions Brendan has for 2021.

Intense, boisterous, imaginative. Brendan is the innovative force of the company. Responsible for providing the vision, thought leadership, and business strategy, Brendan’s ability to focus on the big picture while maintaining quality on the finest details facilitates Vendasta’s success.

Prior to co-founding Vendasta, Brendan proved his worth through many business ventures, including founding two other successful companies, one of which was nationally franchised. He also provided the entrepreneurial force behind Point2 Agent, a real estate software, where he grew its membership to over 165,000 agents and brokers in 85 countries. Brendan and Vendasta are almost synonymous. Both are governed by four core values: drive, innovation, respect, and agility. Brendan is extremely passionate about upholding these core values while leading Vendasta down a path of innovation to become the number one provider of essential brand management products.

The company has been recognized for its steady growth by Deloitte Fast 50 (Canada), Deloitte Fast 500 (North America), Profit 500, and Branham 300 programs and as a Local Visionary in marketing by Street Fight Magazine.

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It's that time of year when we reflect on our successes and our misses. It's time to move forward into the New Year with your Big Hairy Audacious Goals. 

Now that 2020 is coming to a close, our host, George Leith, discusses how to create Big Hairy Audacious Goals. To put it simply, a Big Hairy Audacious Goal—a term coined by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their book, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies—is a long-term, 10 to 25-year goal. But it’s more than just a goal. We’re talking about a challenge that is so audacious, outside-the-box, and hairy that it might feel as if you’d never achieve it. We’re talking about a ‘put a man on the moon’ level goal here.  

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As a business owner, you understand the value of each of your clients. However, not every arrangement turns out to be mutually beneficial, and at some point, you may find it necessary to say no to a client who isn't your Ideal Customer.

Janice Christopher, Founder of the Janice Christopher Agency and Executive Coach—also known as The Queen Bee of Marketing—is this week's guest. Janice brings her fiery personality to share with our listeners that it's ok, smart, and necessary to say no to potential customers who don't fit your ideal customer profile. Janice shares her stories about when she had to say no to a potential client and why it was imperative.

Janice Christopher is no stranger to marketing, with 30 years of sales and brand management experience. Formerly a Certified Financial Planner, Janice decided to spread her wings and become a marketing​ consultant for small- to medium-sized businesses. As a business owner herself, she knows how to listen to clients, identify their needs – and then develop a strategy to help them WIN. Janice is competitive, relationship-oriented, and smart – out to sting the competition and get customers swarming to your door. Known as the Queen Bee of Marketing, Janice’s sweet-spot is taking the mystery out of marketing strategy and bringing the buzz to her client’s brands.

Coffee talk: Bulletproof is best

Pet peeve: Dusty dashboards

Never leaves home without: Fashionista accessories

Ideal holiday: A tropical island with an umbrella drink

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Digital Ad Spend is a vital piece of the new marketing stack for local businesses—and therefore, a must-have service to offer as a marketing agency.

 Zach Johnson, Founder of FunnelDash, co-host of the Rich Ad Poor Ad Podcast, and author of the book Rich Ad Poor Ad, joins George Leith this week. Zach is here to talk about Digital Ad Spend. Zach sheds light on how to best prepare clients for the outcomes based on their budget. He wants to share the message of understanding the core messaging behind your product/service before you throw money behind it on an advertising channel. Make sure the rest of your online presence ducks are in a row, and keep them in that row for your advertising leads to fall into that purchase funnel. No single tip will work for every business, as every business is unique. The best thing to do is test, track, rinse, and repeat to unlock that "secret advertising sauce" for you and your clients.

Zach Johnson is the Founder of FunnelDash. Under Zach's leadership, FunnelDash has grown to over 5,350+ agency partners managing over $1 Billion in ad spend across 51,000 ad accounts. Zach's private clients have included online influencers, SaaS, and e-commerce brands such as BigCommerce, Dr. Axe, Marie Forleo, Dan Kennedy, Dean Graziosi, to name a few. Zach is a noted keynote speaker co-author of the book Agency Growth w/ Ryan Deiss @ Digital Marketer.

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There is no possible way to scale, manage, and optimize every channel to ensure a company’s story is being told without a dedicated content marketing team.

What does a content marketing team look like? Dan McLean, Director of Content Marketing at Vendasta, knows a thing or two when building one. Dan has not only developed a content marketing team in one organization but four organizations. He often sees stories getting lost when creating content because there has been a focus on content specifically based on SEO value. Dan makes a shift in the organizations he has worked with to tell the story that solves the problem. A content marketer needs to be purposeful, understand who they are writing for and the objective they are solving. Writers can lose sight of the audience; he reminds teams to deliver value, not a pitch. 

Dan's words of advice, give a damn about what you do. Don’t think something is good enough, always do the best work you can do.

Dan McLean is the Director of Content Marketing for Vendasta Technologies. He is a seasoned communications professional whose previous experience as a content and corporate marketer includes stints at OpenText Technologies, Intelex Technologies, Rogers Communications, and Cisco Systems. Dan has a 25-year career in information technology as a journalist with IDG and the Globe and Mail, market researcher with IDC Canada, and executive communications manager who worked with the Canadian CEO for Cisco Canada.

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A stellar LinkedIn Profile contains five key areas: Profile picture, job title, about description, experiences, and endorsements. From picture quality to endorsements representing you, your professional brand is the key to all new opportunities to build your brand and set yourself up for success.

Morgan Hammer, Relationship Manager, Mid Market - Sales Solutions at LinkedIn, joins us from Chicago's windy city to talk about how to rock your LinkedIn Profile. Morgan shares how to create a LinkedIn profile that brings your personal career story to life, whether you’re just starting, seeking to advance, or making a career change. Morgan offers tips on tailoring each section, starting with the key insight that a LinkedIn profile is unique and shouldn’t be approached exactly like a resume.

Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, Morgan has been living in Chicago, IL, for the past 5 years. Her LinkedIn journey was not a typical one, as she was a nontraditional hire coming from a retail background. Prior to LinkedIn, she managed several different shoe departments at Nordstrom throughout the Midwest. This is where she found my passion for working with other people in a sales environment and ‘style flexing’ to learn what makes each person happy. In Morgan's current role as a Relationship Manager at LinkedIn, she gets to help clients revolutionize their selling process to optimize their time and capitalize on all potential revenue. My priority is to help each client build their process through our leading-edge technology, embedding social selling as part of their sales cultures and processes. She loves learning about her clients' goals and how they can create a plan in place to achieve them. When she isn't working, she is trying out new restaurants in Chicago and playing with her adorable 6-month old Covid puppy, Max.

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A macro conversion funnel is the most important part of any sale procedure on any website. In fact, the macro funnel conversion is almost the final step before a sale is sealed. 

The Conquer Local Podcast is in sunny San Diego this week to talk to Frank Cowell, CEO at Digitopia Agency and author of Building Your Digital Utopia. He found his passion for technology in the 90s, creating a webspace on AOL and built an information superhighway. His passion is sales and marketing, so he knows when to get technical in a conversation with a potential customer. Frank takes us through what a macro conversion funnel should look like, obsessing over the bottleneck in your conversion funnel, and how to get the testimonial from your customer. 

With 20 years of digital marketing experience, Frank regularly works with executive teams who are looking to create amazing brand experiences while accelerating growth. Frank is the author of Building Your Digital Utopia, which details a concept he pioneered to help brands create digital experiences that systematically accelerate growth. Frank regularly presents an energetic and entertaining speaker to regional and national organizations on topics related to revenue operations, business strategy, and digital marketing. When Frank founded his first agency in early 2004, his primary focus was website development and Internet marketing. He started by developing a successful website content management system (CMS) from the ground up. Over the past 15 years, he has helped his agency morph into a digital marketing agency that works in the areas of digital strategy and execution. 

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MSP Marketing troubles start with not knowing how to spend their allocated marketing dollars to make the real magic happen. 

Ayan Adam, Founder of CX Atelier, joins us this week to discuss MSP Marketing troubles. Marketing for MSPs requires a different approach and a deep understanding of the industry and technology trends. Ayan offers her insights on technology-focused marketing support to answer the MSP capabilities' prevalent gap to execute marketing activities in-house. Ayan's specialty focuses on the customer experience and cultivating relationships with the MSP and the world of marketing. In this episode, you'll learn why the IT reselling service layer is important and how they become the most trusted asset you can add to the products and solutions you offer. 

For the longest time, channel marketing was the "poor relative" of all marketing branches, cookie-cutter campaigns and activities, and very little focus on the end customer experience. Meanwhile, the B2B landscape is shifting dramatically, and buyers now expect high-quality digital services when making a B2B purchase.

Ayan Adam is an experienced leader in the B2B IT Technology industry. She designed industry-recognized brands and delivered high impact marketing and branding campaigns for IT industry leaders. She has a deep understanding of the B2B technology space both from the OEM’s standpoint and at the VAR and MSP level. She is passionate about fulfilling the promise of digital marketing for B2B technology companies and meeting the next wave of digital transformation with customer-centric and experience-focused marketing. 

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Time is the biggest obstacle when it comes to inside sales training programs, but we can look at proven sales training best practices to help make sure that your team is set up for real success.

We hop the pond to talk to the newest Vendastian: Ian Jones, the VP of Sales Training and Enablement at Vendasta. Ian brings his vast knowledge to the listeners on what it takes to build an inside sales training program. His approach is widely adopted in the learning development of the 70/20/10 model. We dig into the forgetting curve and what information sticks in a 24-hour period, why it's important to walk through the journey with new hires and what it takes for them to become a sales rep, and how crucial it is to apply consistent training company-wide. This means having a repeatable and scalable training model. You can't scale suck.

Ian is an experienced sales leader with a track record of delivering transformation and change across a wide range of functions, including Sales, Operations, Training and Enablement, and Digital. He acquired his broad range of experience and knowledge working in a variety of industries over the past 20 years, including insurance, finance and banking, consultancy, media, and tech. Ian has a passion for people development and has led the development and implementation of a number of significant sales talent development programs for frontline sellers and sales leadership. To prove that he practices the personal development mantra that he preaches, Ian is constantly looking for opportunities to develop himself. In recent years, he completed an Executive MBA at The University of Cranfield and became a member of the Chartered Management Institute in the UK.

Join the conversation in the Conquer Local Community, and keep learning in the Conquer Local Academy.