Executive Conversations

In this week’s episode, we chat with Sara Stella Lattanzio, anti-buzzword marketing strategist and marketing manager at 1plusX—the company behind the fastest AI-powered marketing intelligence platform for marketers.

 She started with 1plusX as the sole member of the marketing team for a year, focusing on events and other low-cost ways to successfully promote the company.

If you’re trying to expand your marketing team, or maybe find ways to integrate their everyday tasks with the rest of the team’s, then you don’t want to miss this!

Sara explains her process for doing just that, as well as a couple of tips and tricks on vetting new recruits to see if they’re the right fit for your team.

She also touches upon the importance of a marketer’s capacity to really do marketing, beyond just throwing around different buzzwords with minute differences between them. 

In this episode we talk about:

• The importance of establishing a secure brand image and vision before strategy
  
  
• Keeping the marketing department in communications with the rest of the business, specifically customer success, sales, and product teams 
  
  
• How to accept ideas from people in different departments and the differences in idea generation in smaller businesses versus larger ones
  
  
• Why marketers should take advantage of LinkedIn as a platform
  
  
• The problem with buzzwords in marketing today

Timestamps

00:18 - Introduction to Sara Stella Lattanzio

00:47 - How Sara’s changing things up at 1plusX

01:23 - How she took 1plusX’s marketing team from zero to global

04:02 - Planning events during the pandemic 

04:39 - Attracting audiences to webinars with zero marketing budget and no team

06:16 -The importance of branding in B2B and the challenges for a one-person marketing team

08:28 - How to align the whole business with marketing

09:57 - The 1plusX content strategy from the beginning and why they’re focusing on revenue

11:32 - Why you need to get your marketing team to interact with the rest of your company

13:53 - The benefit of keeping the sales team updated on the marketing strategy 

15:33 - How to deal with too many people having opinions on the marketing strategy 

16:29 - Why publishing on LinkedIn as a marketer is important for your personal brand 

18:25 - Sara’s aversion to marketing buzzwords 

Check out Sara’s movement against buzzwords in marketing on LinkedIn.

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“I made every mistake one can possibly make. I took the long way round and now I’m just hoping that If I can help give people a shortcut to success, save somebody a headache, and most importantly give them their time back, that to me is an incredible feat in itself.”

Hello hello! The Flying Cat Marketing interview series is back after a short summer break and we can’t contain our excitement for the amazing interviews we have in store for you in the coming weeks!

Joining us this week is the very talented and successful Julie George, author of ‘Million Dollar Host’ and now a renowned consultant in the short-term rentals Industry. 

She went from listing a single property in 2016 to managing over 130 properties within three years and complied her experiences into a bestselling book. ‘Million Dollar Host’ is the personal story of how she built a property management portfolio using Airbnb, and why she now aims to help others achieve this kind of success. 

In this interview, we talk about Julie’s experience of growing a property management business through her own special methods and about the importance of building a team with the right people, sharing the vision of the business—as well as the profits. 

If you’re running your own business and looking for inspiration on how to take it to the next level, we’ve got you covered. All you need to do is watch this episode and thank us later :) 

In this episode we talk about:

• Julie’s experience of listing properties on Airbnb 
• How she went from 1 property to 130 properties in a few years 
• The success of her book, ‘Million Dollar Host’
• Building trust and delegation in a company
• Profit sharing within a business
• Potential gaps in the short-term rentals industry  

Timestamps 

00:10 - Introduction to Julie George

02:35 - Julie’s journey towards success

06:43 - Going through the growing phase

09:38 - Establishing delegation and trust

15:34 - Deciding on profit sharing within a business 

19:52 - The success and impact of her book - ‘Million Dollar Host’

23:39 - The trick to becoming an expert in the STR industry 

30:01 - Julie’s opinion on tech in the vacation-rental space

You can connect with Julie George through her LinkedIn. You can also check out her website right here. 

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“From a very personal perspective, I’ve got a big interest in being inclusive. My dad set up a company 40 years ago and it was all about creating technical and communication aids for people with difficulties. Even when I was 12, I was writing reports for school about how we can create technology that’s gonna support people who are physically challenged. This has always been a part of my blood.”

Hello hello! Welcome to an all new episode of the Flying Cat Marketing interview series. Joining us this week for a very insightful conversation is Kelly Odor, Marketing Director at Bookster.    

Bookster is a property management software for holiday rentals. It works as a tool to help you create your own website, take bookings, take payments, manage bookings, and market your properties.

Kelly talks about her journey of having worked in different industries and how that helped her take bits and pieces from each industry and continue to transfer those skills wherever she has worked. 

In this interview, we talk about promoting inclusivity through work, branding efforts at Bookster, different types of feedback and its process, the importance of email marketing, and much more!  

The idea of inclusivity is something Kelly has been passionate about since childhood. She has always aimed to incorporate technology to support people with special needs and that's something she aims to prioritize at Bookster as well.

Kelly also shares the key to creating an effective company newsletter by sharing her own process and some secret recipes that have been helping Bookster achieve a higher response rate on their newsletters.  

If there was just one key takeaway from this episode, we would mention it right here but there are just so many wonderful insights that you’ve got to check out the full episode right away! 

In this episode we talk about:

• Kelly’s journey
• Inclusivity at work
• Getting valuable feedback
• How Bookster stands out 
• Importance of email marketing
• Getting newsletters right   

Timestamps 

00:06 - Introduction to Kelly Odor

00:38 - Kelly’s background in the industry 

01:58 - Skills that Kelly took forward in her career 

05:19 - Working on increasing inclusivity 

08:31 - Taking initiative on inclusivity   

10:52 - The journey of the property listing tool

12:39 - The Bookster way of getting feedback  

18:33 - How Bookster is unique in the industry

21:35 - Approach to email marketing 

27:13 - Key aspect of Bookster’s newsletters 

You can connect with Kelly Odor through her LinkedIn. You can also check out the official website of Bookster here. 

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“Outbound marketing is more like a search team with flashlights. You can see what’s in front of you but you’re going out in a certain direction to try and see what people are in that direction. So you have to play a quantity game up front and then a quality game as you go forward.”

Hello everyone! Welcome to another exciting episode of the Flying Cat Marketing interview series. Joining us this week is Adam Lambert, Director of Marketing at RevBoss.    

RevBoss is a sales prospecting company that helps its customers get customers. They help marketing agencies, SAAS companies, and other such firms convert more leads. 

In this interview, we get into a detailed discussion on what the company does best, and that’s outbound marketing. We listen to Adam talk about the process of outbound marketing and share his perspectives as well. 

We talk about his role as director of marketing; recent involvement in onboarding and educating; customers on outbound marketing; and plans for the near future with the company.  

If you’re interested in understanding outbound marketing and its process, then you’ve landed at the right spot. Find out more in this episode!  

P.S, Buddy the flying cat makes his cameo after a long time by trailing around in this episode...or should I say ‘tailing’ around?

In this episode we talk about:

• Outbound Marketing
• Inbound vs Outbound
• Adam’s role as a director of marketing
• Social media platforms that Revboss focuses on
• How important is content in outbound marketing?    

Timestamps 

00:09 - Introduction to Adam Lambert

00:15 - What is RevBoss? 

02:24 - Inbound vs outbound marketing 

03:17 - Outbound marketing in detail

10:10 - Adam’s role in the company

12:10 - Main channels used by RevBoss  

19:37 - Adam’s journey of becoming a marketing director

21:34 - To dabble between channels or focus on just one? 

23:18 - Importance of content in outbound marketing

27:25 - Keeping it casual in the cold emails 

You can connect with Adam Lambert through his LinkedIn. You can also check out the official website of RevBoss here. 

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Hello, hello! Welcome to the Flying Cat Marketing Podcast Summer Edition. During the month of August, I'm republishing some of the earlier conversations I've had and post clips from them on our social media channels.

Today's replay is with  Hostfully's Co-founder & CEO, Margot Schmorak. Hostfully started off as a free, personalized guidebook for vacation rental guests, then pivoted twice, before becoming a powerful SaaS company for vacation rental hosts.

There’s a reason why Ross Geller’s “pivot...pivot...pivot!” moment in ‘Friends’ became so iconic. We bring you an episode that talks about the journey of a company that pivoted their way to success.

In today's episode, we chat about how:

✅ Building a brand is a long-term commitment

✅ Hostfully's pivots were necessary for growth

✅ Listening to customers helped drive their decisions

✅ Customers know what they want - you just have to ask them

Timestamps 

00:58 - Introduction to Margot Schmorak   

00:35 - Challenges while pivoting 

02:04 - Beginning at Hostfully  

05:53 - One thing they could have done better

08:22 - Biggest takeaway from this experience 

10:09 - Role of content in the Hostfully’s growth 

13:22 - Understanding customer needs

15:22 - Barriers faced as a woman in a male-dominated industry

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Hello, hello! Welcome to the Flying Cat Marketing Podcast Summer Edition. During the month of August, I'm republishing some of the earlier conversations I've had and post clips from them on our social media channels.

Today's replay is with  Inna Shevchenko, CMO at iGMS. We talk about how she grew iGMS from a 1-person marketing team with a very small budget to the highly trusted property management software they are today. 

Launched in 2015, iGMS now helps customers from over 49 countries oversee the management of almost 90,000 property listings worldwide.

In this interview, we discuss:

✅ How iGMS used their blog to generate leads

✅ How search intent guided their content strategy

✅ Why higher traffic keywords aren't necessarily better

✅ How to make sure your content truly resonates with customers

✅ How they got direct feedback on their content and product

✅ Why you always need to segment your audience for success

Timestamps 

00:58 - Beginning of iGMS   

03:25 - SEO strategy applied by the company

07:15 - Horizontal internal process at iGMS 

10:39 - Hiring people aligning with the goals of the organization

13:04 - Communication between teams for better user experience  

16:10 - Regular research and feedback

21:24 - Effective ways to prioritize marketing efforts  

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Hello, hello! Welcome to the Flying Cat Marketing Podcast Summer Edition. During the month of August, I'm republishing some of the earlier conversations I've had and post clips from them on our social media channels.

Today's replay is the one and only Dot Lung, the Mother of Social Media Dragons about how to build your personal brand to turn it into your greatest lead generation tool.

It doesn't matter if you're a freelancer or the CEO of a 500-person tech company. Your personal brand matters and people want to do business with people.

In this interview, we cover:

• Why and how to build your personal brand
• What a personal brand can do for your company
• Why you should support your employees in building their personal brand
• How to set up a culture that creates brand ambassadors
•  Dot's DRAGON formula for branding via social media.

Timestamps 

00:08 - Introduction to Dot Lung

03:45 - Global social media

05:19 - Getting into details of personal branding 

13:15 - Possible outcomes of personal branding

16:29 - Encouraging people to build a personal brand 

21:29 - Importance of a good work culture

26:43 - Personal branding: your own vs the company’s 

29:04 - DRAGONS formula course

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Hello, hello! Welcome to the Flying Cat Marketing Podcast Summer Edition. During the month of August, I'm republishing some of the earlier conversations I've had and post clips from them on our social media channels.

Today's replay is with Vanessa de Souza, Rentals United co-founder. 

Rentals United, now a market leader in the vacation rental tech world with $6.5 million in Series A funding, once began as a small B2B company with zero budget. 

In fact, before they were B2B, serving short-term rental operators, they were B2C - competing with OTAs. 

They were a completely bootstrapped property management agency. When Airbnb was born and scaled to the Goliath of a company it is today, they realized their marketing budget just wouldn’t be able to compete. 

So they changed models and became the channel distribution manager that we all know and love today.

Vanessa had a background in content marketing. She knew the value that a blog can have on lead generation. But she faced a challenge. Nobody knew who they were. Why would they care about what they had to say?

Her strategy? Talk about other companies in the sector.

In this episode we talk about: 

✅ How focusing on helping instead of selling led to more sales

✅ What kind of content they created to become a trusted authority

✅ How they grew their brand with zero budget to start with

✅ What happened when they changed market segments

✅ How they changed their content to match high-level, professional hosts

✅ What their content strategy looks like today and how you can model it

Timestamps 

00:06 - Introduction to Vanessa de Souza

00:45 - Rentals United: How did it all start?

03:57 - SEO mistakes

05:00 - Cold calling days at Rentals United

07:15 - Marketing to help, not to sell

11:05 - PMS quiz that went around

13:21 - What performs best with the new audience?

16:46 - Providing value to a high-level audience

21:50 - The content team at Rentals United

26:30 - Aligning marketing with sales in an organization

Hello hello. Before we dive into today's episode, I have a quick announcement:
During August I'll be taking a summer break, where we won't be recording any new episodes.  But I'm excited to republish some of the earlier conversations I've had and post clips on our social media channels. 

If you've been enjoying this podcast so far, you will definitely enjoy these old/new conversations. 

And now, let's start with episode #50!

We’ve made it to the 50th episode of the Flying Cat Marketing interview series! For the ones who have been watching or listening to us, and have been a part of this journey, a big thank you to all of you.  

Joining us this week on the new episode is Raul Galera, Partner Manager and Chief Advocate at ReferralCandy.    

ReferralCandy is an app that allows brands to turn a customer base into their marketing team by the method of referral marketing. The company helps in getting more customers by incentivizing referrals. 

In this interview, we get into the details of referral marketing. The strategies involved, the different kinds of affiliate & referral programs, the types of incentives available, and much more.  

Raul mentions what it’s like to turn your customer base into a marketing team and how it always works best for a business when the process of achieving incentives is made easy for the customers.  

All we can say is, refer to this interview to know everything about referral marketing! 

In this episode we talk about:

• Referral marketing programs
• Incentives for customers in referral marketing 
• Different kinds of affiliates involved
• Building customer loyalty
• Turning customers into your marketing team  

Timestamps

00:08 - Introduction to Raul Galera

00:45 - How to specialize in referral marketing? 

01:44 - Best ways of incentivizing 

03:17 - Referrals incentives in B2B businesses

05:25 - Working with affiliates in marketing

08:45 - Optimizing customer experience for better referrals    

11:57 - Basics of referral strategies for a business

17:12 - Discounts or Cash; the better incentive?

19:22 - Turning a customer base into a marketing team

You can connect with Raul Galera through his email and LinkedIn You can also check out the official website of ReferralCandy here.

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“I always think of brand messaging as the backbone of marketing. The message strategy is at the core of what any business is. Things like your vision or brand purpose aren’t really messages that you’re gonna slap on your homepage because it doesn’t really resonate with the customer.”

Hello hello! What happens when a Flying Cat meets the Lion Words? A great podcast episode of course! 

Joining us this week on the latest episode of FCM Interview series is a woman of many skills & talents: Diane Wiredu. She’s a brand message strategist, a copywriting expert, and she’s also the founder of Lion Words. Oh, and she’s also fluent in 4 languages if that wasn’t inspiring enough already.

Diane offers various services through her website which includes creative copywriting as well as market insights, along with a research-driven process to help businesses connect with their audience.

In this interview, we talk about understanding the value of brand messaging and how it’s a core aspect of marketing for a business. We also discuss the ‘voice of customers’ and the importance of businesses aligning their values and product/service with them accordingly. 

Diane also mentions the ‘five stages of awareness’ approach inspired by a book called Breakthrough Advertising, which she regularly applies for the conversion copywriting process. 

If there’s an episode that can add more clarity in getting your brand messaging and copywriting right, this is the one for you. 

In this episode we talk about:

• Understanding the process & details of brand messaging
• Aligning brand messaging with core values 
• Voice of the customer 
• Awareness in copywriting 
• Conversion copywriting

Timestamps 

00:07 - Introduction to Diane Wiredu

02:13 - Getting to know brand messaging 

05:34 - Brand messaging as a driving force 

08:32 - Voice of the customer 

14:12 - Stages of awareness in copywriting 

23:11 - Tips for conversion copywriting 

You can connect with Diane Wiredu on LinkedIn. You can also check out the official website of Lion Words here.

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