REACH OR MISS - Entrepreneurial Marketing Success

The biggest failure vs. the biggest success - what leads successful entrepreneurs to the highest breakthrough?

It was September 15th, 2008. I was in Zurich, on my way to a big annual exhibition with one of my startup clients.

I got a call from my bank’s manager. A big payment of 25,000$ that was to be deposited into my bank account that day had been canceled. It was the day of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy; the financial landscape changed forever that day.

Over the next few days, two of my biggest clients cancelled their contracts.

My company was less than nine months old. I carefully built it step by step with clients I knew and could trust.

After 10+ years of experience working in various firms, ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, having also some entrepreneurial ventures in between, Ovi jumped full time into the startup world with nugget (acquired) and is now focused on SocialBee.

He has experience in building and managing software development teams; building SaaS and mobile products; creating ROI-positive social media; marketing and product launches.

He is passionate about helping startups succeed in building great products, finding the appropriate launch sequence, and the best levers to grow. He’s also an idea machine and can really help with brainstorming.

His imaginary friends say he’s a fun guy.

“…Being hungry and wanting to win is very important. But all that ambition should be equally balanced with patience... and patience is hard”.

Being more patience means plying the game for the long run. It means being customer focused, listen and react to markets’ needs and changes. There is so much noise all over, the journey is so hectic, and many entrepreneurs just jump on any new opportunity or challenge.

One of the first questions I ask my guests on the Reach or Miss podcast is what would be their best advice to entrepreneurs regarding customers’ focus, marketing and sales.

On this episode I collected five of the best advice from my guests; market leaders and successful entrepreneurs.

Hi, Reachers,

In a fascinating and thought-provoking interview with Mark Schafer, whom I see as the leading marketing experts today, he said:

“The question I’m wrestling with now is that everywhere I go, marketing seems to be stuck. There are a few symptoms:

1. People are overwhelmed by technology in marketing

2. They are overusing technology in marketing

3. They’re stuck in ineffective patterns

Many of the companies today, either big or small, have social media departments that were established in 2010 to 2014, and I can assure you that almost none of the output these teams are producing have been updated. So much has been changed with social media during the last years.

Mitch Joel is Founder of Six Pixels Group - an advisory, investing and content producing company that is focused on brands, commerce and community.

He has been called a marketing and communications visionary, interactive expert and community leader (he prefers the title "Brand Hacker"). He is also an entrepreneur, author, journalist, investor, trusted advisor, and passionate speaker who connects with people worldwide by sharing his insights on business transformation and marketing innovation. He has been named one of the top 100 online marketers in the world, and was awarded the highly prestigious Top 40 Under 40.

Prior to Six Pixels Group, Mitch spent close to two decades building, running and (eventually) selling his business. He was President of Mirum – a global digital marketing agency operating in 25 countries with close to 3000 employees. Mirum is owned by WPP.

Andy Crestodina is a co-founder and CMO of Orbit Media, an award-winning 38-person digital agency in Chicago.

Over the past 18 years, Andy’s provided guidance to 1000+ busi-nesses. He speaks at national marketing conferences, writes for big marketing blogs and hosts a little podcast.

Andy has written hundreds of articles on content strategy, SEO, in-fluencer marketing, conversion and Analytics.

• Top 10 Online Marketing Experts, Forbes

• Top 50 Marketing Influencer, Entrepreneur Magazine

• Top 25 Content Marketers, Express Writers/Buzzsumo

• Top 10 Social Media Influencers, Social Media Explorer

He is also the author of Content Chemistry: The Illustrated Hand-book for Content Marketing.

Jeremy Liddle: Entrepreneur for 16 years. Co-founder & Exec Director of CapitalPitch. President, G20 Young Entrepreneurs Alliance (YEA) Aus-tralia for 5 years. Represents Australia in youth employment and entre-preneurship at the United Nations. Published author on startups and TEDx speaker.

“I've been an entrepreneur since before I knew what the word meant. Af-ter 17 years of founding and growing businesses, I realized that entre-preneurs solve the world's problems but a lack of access to capital inhib-its too many from changing the world.

I cofounded CapitalPitch to solve this problem. CapitalPitch is a Digital In-vestment Firm that accelerates founders for impact on the world by helping Pre-Series A tech companies and sophisticated, professional and institutional investors; providing a capital raising platform, Venture Capital investment funds and advisory services from Seed to IPO or acquisition.”

Justin is a co-founder of Blocknauts, a blockchain growth advisory & me-dia group. Justin is a keynote speaker & advisor for over 12+ blockchain companies, tokens & Dapps. Prior to founding Blocknauts, Justin has been content creator in the growth marketing space. He has collaborated with the Wall St Journal, CES, NASA, NASDAQ & been sponsored by Samsung, Intel, New Balance.

Lee Odden is a digital marketing strategist, author, international speaker and CEO of TopRank Marketing.

His work integrating search, social, content, and influencer market-ing has been recognized by the Wall Street Journal, The Economist and Forbes.

By combining a "best answer marketing strategy" together with "do well by doing good" values, he's attracted top industry talent and clients including SAP, 3M, Dell, LinkedIn, Oracle and GE Digital.

Odden is a prolific writer as the author of the book Optimize and as editor of TopRankBlog.com where he has published over 1 million words on digital marketing topics.

Is there one key success factor most successful entrepreneurs have? Or is the key success factor is unique to each entrepreneur?

At the end of every interview on the REACH OR MISS podcast, I ask my interviewee what their key success factor is and what works for them.

You will be amazed at what I found.