Conquer Local Podcast

If businesses don't Adapt to Digital now, they may not be able to survive the long road ahead. The pandemic is the catalyst for businesses to make the switch to digital.

Conquer Local travels to London England so we can speak with Paul Plant, Co-Founder & Director at BigFive Digital. Paul is one of the co-authors of Aftershocks And Opportunities: Scenarios for a Post-Pandemic Future, it explores four core themes; Critical Shifts, Society and Social Policy, Government and Economy, and Business and Technology. In this episode, Paul and George dive into why organizations who were reluctant to adapt to Digital are trying to follow the small businesses blueprint to be agile and quick to act. Paul also makes a few predictions around the airline industry, Darwinism, and why a country within Africa could be the world's first "cashless" country.

Paul Plant is an experienced Strategic Marketeer, Digital Thought Leader, Entrepreneur, and Change Agent. He has been privileged to have worked with some of the world's largest media and telecoms companies. His approach is to apply strategic market and customer insights, aligned to a strong commercial focus, to bring about sustainable and profitable change to companies of all sizes, regardless of industry or sector. BigFive Digital has been created to champion technology adoption within the local small business sector throughout Africa & The Middle East. They aim to provide meaningful news, networking, and business development partnership opportunities for the diverse range of media and technology companies delivering Search, Social, Mobile, Location, and Payment solutions to SMEs.

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

Reviewing your team’s sales call, or your calls can be cringe-worthy. We learn why and how we need to get over it.

This episode of the Master Sales Training Series, we dig deep into reviewing your sales call. We have special guest Brent Blazieko,  Founder of Soundlounge by Tbone, AND Conquer Local’s very own Audio Engineer. George and Brent use their past careers in radio to discuss how and why to listen to your personal sales calls and not just your teams. They discuss best practices, how to give feedback, and what to look for when listening to yourself.

Brent is an audio engineer and producer, taking him from radio station imaging to theatre sound design, from production sound recording (on set for films, tv, and documentaries) to in-studio post-production mixing for advertising agencies. Music, sound, and, most importantly, listening have become his focus for work and life. Dedicated to the art of audio engineering, Brent will give your ideas the attention it deserves. Brent proudly produces many podcasts, including “Conquer Local” for George, Colleen, and the Vendasta Team.

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

Different segments of digital marketing can work independently, but adding a video marketing strategy can enhance and make them stronger.

We speak to Brian Albert, Founder and CEO of Videobolt, in Florida this week. Videobolt has a history of helping businesses grow by producing high-quality videos and pass it along to SMBs who can't necessarily afford it. Brian shares the two questions you should ask yourself before hitting the record button on your camera to create a video for your brand. He explains how to overcome objections, how to use video to your advantage during the pandemic, and why turning on your camera is a must for remote meetings.

Videobolt.com is the leading provider of spokesperson videos to businesses of all sizes, as well as an innovator in the personalized video space. Brian also founded thelaw.tv, a pioneer in lawyer video marketing. Prior to entering the business world, Brian was a television news reporter and anchor in New York and Florida (where he interviewed multiple presidents and Fortune 100 CEOs), as well as an attorney. He has more than 25 years of programming experience and is a skilled video editor. Brian is a graduate of Columbia University, where he played on the ice hockey team and the University of Miami School of Law.

Join the conversation in the Conquer Local Community, and expand your knowledge in the Conquer Local Academy.

The Lighthouse Strategy is all about how companies can hone in on a particular niche that they aim to serve. Their niche could be anything ranging from restaurants to dentists to real estate agents.

Dennis Yu, CEO of Blitz Metrics, is our guest this week on the Conquer Local Podcast. One of the most requested topics for the podcast is how to acquire new leads. When it comes to lead generation, this is the strategy Dennis recommends to all agency owners, regardless if you've got an established business or are just starting on their own. It's called The Lighthouse Strategy.

Who is Dennis Yu? Dennis is an internationally recognized lecturer in Facebook Marketing and has spoken in 17 countries, spanning 5 continents, including keynotes at L2E, PibCon, Conversion Conference, Gultaggen, and Marketo Summit. He has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, LA Times, National Public Radio, TechCrunch, Fox News, CBS Evening News, and co-authored "Facebook Nation" - a textbook taught in over 700 colleges and universities. When he isn't spreading his expansive breadth of knowledge, he can be found eating chicken wings, playing ultimate frisbee, and spinning wild metaphors with the enthusiasm of a thousand raging fires.

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

By creating a culture of always serving the customers, hiring around customer-centric is an easy way to tell if the candidate is the right fit.

Wayne Bischoff, CEO of Mediamark, joins us on the Conquer Local Podcast all the way from South Africa. Wayne's sales career started at the age of 7 when he began selling pencils on the playground. He shares how his background in sales prepared him as the CEO to create a customer-centric organization. Hiring amid pandemic has been a significant theme on the podcast. Wayne explains when he is looking to hire new reps, and he focuses on how they are motivated. If a potential employee says they are motivated by money, he doesn't want them to be a part of his organization.

Keep the conversation going in the Conquer Local Community, and expand your knowledge in the Conquer Local Academy.

Wayne is a dynamic natural leader with nearly three decades of extensive experience in the sales, marketing, and advertising industry, both in South Africa, Sub Saharan Africa, and Europe. This experience covers the full media landscape from Print, TV, Radio, OOH to Digital and gives me a strategic birds-eye view of the fast-evolving disruptive media and advertising space. His senior leadership roles cover MD, Executive, and Directorships, including a board member of the Advertising Media Association of Southern Africa. Wayne's strengths involve creating high-performance sales cultures with a sharp focus on customer-centricity. He is exceptionally well equipped to drive digital transformation within legacy organizations.

Mediamark is a leading multimedia sales house that ensures brands derive maximum value from their advertising spend through tailored multichannel solutions. Mediamark is a specialist media solutions company comprising Mediamark Radio, Mediamark Digital, Mediamark Events, and Mediamark TV.

Did you know that Conquer Local has its very own Digital Marketing Academy? It's a game-changer because the SaaS industry changes under our feet.

We have Jacqueline Cook (Jackie), Chief Strategy Officer at Vendasta, on the podcast to discuss the strategy behind the Conquer Local Academy. After some research and listening to digital marketing agencies and entrepreneurs from different areas of the world, there was a realization that there was a need in the space for a digital marketing academy. It needed to be all-encompassing of various digital solutions that intertwine frequently. The Academy is built into a culture that embraces a community that agencies and entrepreneurs can grow and learn in. People learn differently; some learn by reading about it, and some want to watch videos at 2 am. The Academy was created to accommodate different learners in the way they want to learn, and on their time.

She works with the CEO to shape Vendasta's long term strategy and to align both the culture, organizational design, and company metrics toward those long-term objectives. Jacqueline works across a number of diverse teams to execute cross-functional initiatives, collect and share key customer insights, and test new initiatives to drive Vendasta's growth levers. She is also the General Manager of the of Vendasta's high-growth mid-market customer segment, which currently contributes over half of the company's revenue and includes marketing, sales, success, support, and four product teams. Most recently, Jacqueline played a major role in Vendasta's $40M growth funding round, which marks the single largest technology investment in the prairies since the Canadian Venture Capital Private Equity Association (CVCA) started collecting data in 2013. Jacqueline is an alumnus of The Next 36 Entrepreneurial Institute, Canada's premier entrepreneurial leadership initiative. During the program, she co-founded and was CEO of Triumf Mobile Rewards: a tablet and Smartphone-based platform for small and medium-sized businesses to customize their own loyalty rewards programs. She has been a speaker at events such as Tejo Talks, sponsored by Canada's Embassy to Portugal as part of Web Summit, TEDx UofS and WE DAY, and has represented Canada at the 2010 G8 and G20 Summits, the 2010 APEC Summit in Japan, and at the 2011 G20 Young Entrepreneur Summit in France.

Jacqueline has been a recipient of CBC Saskatchewan's Future 40 under 40 and a YWCA Women of Distinction Award and serves on the board of Co.Labs, Saskatchewan's first technology incubator. She was recently named as one of Betakit's Canadian women in tech worth watching.

Keep the conversations going in the Conquer Local Community.

For marketing agencies and salespeople alike, we must put the local business first. We have to be able to present a buyers journey to a client because whether we try to empower them or not, they are always in charge.

We have Jeff Koser, the spirited founder and CEO of Zebrafi, who is at the helm of the podcast this week. Jeff and George dig deep and analyze how the customer journey is shifting into a buyers journey. Jeff is the award-winning co-author of Selling to Zebras - How to Close 90% of the Business You Pursue Faster, More Easily, and More Profitably.

Jeff has more than 25 years’ experience in leadership roles in operations, sales, and marketing. In 2010, he was recognized as one of the best sales authors of all time in the book, The Sales Gurus. Zebrafi is the Guided Selling Cloud for the Enterprise, where sellers are guided to great fit prospects, armed with presentations that are automated and collaborative on a live platform that guides both the buyer and the seller, leading to value-based and business-issue focused discussions.

Keep the conversation going in the Conquer Local Community, and expand your knowledge and learn for industry experts in the Conquer Local Academy.

If you are ready or not, the pandemic is a Forcing Function for Digital Transformation that local businesses need to adopt.

Marty Fisher, President of Sherpa Marketing, is our guest this week; Marty started Sherpa Marketing in 1996. Since the global pandemic hit local businesses hard he started an initiative called Adopt a Business. He has a passion for local businesses, and when he saw the effects the pandemic would on the economy he knew Sherpa Marketing needed to step in. George and Marty discuss how the pandemic has been a forcing function for a digital transformation, they explain that now more than ever the importance of e-commerce on a website and being able to update their online listings in an instant.

Owning and managing Sherpa Marketing since 1996, Marty brings “Big Idea” thinking, marketing intelligence, and business acumen to every customer interaction. Providing solutions that deliver value is not an objective that can be met without a strong commitment from the leadership of a company. By encouraging the team to embrace this philosophy he ensures that all customers receive the full benefit of Sherpa’s capabilities. He tries to prove repeatedly that his breadth of knowledge and expertise affect positive outcomes for his clients. His experience with all types of technology allows him to offer the most current solutions to his client’s challenges. His belief in technology “as the great equalizer” means he is hard-wired to always think of ways to integrate marketing tactics. A commitment to uncovering the most effective and measurable communication strategies is one of Marty’s passions. He is not content to “phone it in”, He challenges himself and the Sherpa team to do more and find incremental value. Clients receive the benefit of this drive - successful projects with tangible and measurable results.

Keep the conversation going in the Conquer Local Community, and to learn more take a course in the Conquer Local Academy.

What if organizations can emulate intrapreneurship within their walls? What would that mean in terms of growth for the employee and the organization itself?

We welcome Dr. Chitra Anand, an advisor to high growth companies, she has recently received her doctorate of business in intrapreneurship. No, that isn't a typo—What is an intrapreneur? An intrapreneur is an entrepreneur within a large, complex organization: a startup within a company. Dr. Anand explains how organizations need to embrace intrapreneurship in employees to stay agile and to promote drive within. This includes risk-taking, running experiments and micro experiments, looking for constant opportunities, and allowing the ability to have the time to try and fail. Dr. Anand is also an author and published her book in 2019, the Green House Approach, which is now a required read for the Forbes School of Business MBA program.

Chitra Anand is an award-winning communications & marketing executive. With over 20 years in the technology industry, she has spent time as the head of Communications for Microsoft Canada, Director of Marketing at TELUS Corporation, and Director of Operations at Open Text. Projects she guided at Microsoft and TELUS have been awarded IABC Gold Quill Awards, Canadian Public Relations Society Awards of Excellence, the Corporate IT Hero award by the Information Technology Association of Canada, and the Business for the Arts Awards. Anand is at the forefront of an important new movement in the workplace: intrapreneurship. Intrapreneurs are the people within your organization who possess an entrepreneurial spirit, driving innovation, creative thinking, and new ideas. She is a doctoral researcher, innovation & culture change keynote speaker, professor, author, and advisor to high growth companies.

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

There is a lot of confusion about the difference between branded content and native content. Wundervue defines branded content as any sales or marketing initiative that uses content to engage a user, and that is paid for by a client.

Jared Merves, Founder of Wundervue, explains how to succeed through storytelling. He believes that branded content is the silver bullet that provides publisher partners a path to revenue and profit growth and the sustainment of quality local journalism. Jared explains how branded content is a full customer journey program that lives in the top-to-middle of the marketing funnel to measure awareness and engagement. A successful branded content initiative is connecting the client to their target audience to demonstrate the value of what they have to offer. 

Jared Merves is a digital marketer, local advertising expert, and entrepreneur. Jared has more than 13 years of experience driving digital innovation for many of the nation’s largest local media companies. At Wundervue, Jared and his team develop turnkey branded content solutions designed to connect local brands and local audiences. Prior to founding Wundervue, Jared was Chief Digital Officer at Belo+Company, an 80-person digital agency in Dallas, TX. Jared has also held digital leadership roles at The Dallas Morning News, TEGNA and Cars.com. Jared is a featured speaker and panelist on local advertising topics and has served on the Local Media Consortium’s steering committee and Cars.com’s Affiliate Board. He lives in Colorado with his wife, Lisa, and their children, Jack and Birdie - and Crosby, their 135lb Great Pyrenees.

Join the Conquer Local Community to take part in the conversation and ask your questions directly to Jared Merves.