REACH OR MISS - Entrepreneurial Marketing Success

By Hayut YogevBusiness Entrepreneurship Marketing

REACH OR MISS - Entrepreneurial Marketing Success episodes

December 20, 2021Ep. 246 – Parham Albadvi: “You need to develop relationships and build trust rather than always looking for a transactional relationship.”
My name is Parham Albadvi. I’m a copywriter and brand strategist serving conscious businesses.
I spent my formative years in Iran and moved to Canada eager to work for purpose-driven tech and B2B companies, but soon became disillusioned…
I love working with conscious entrepreneurs - people who share my values and vision for the world. Clients that I feel energetically aligned with, and who believe in making profit and impact.
That’s why together with my partner, I founded Mocho and Co, the first full-service digital agency exclusively for conscious businesses and disruptors.
I’m committed to helping businesses of all sizes realize Fred Kofman’s vision of businesses “conscious of inner and outer worlds… taking into account body, mind and spirit in self, culture, and nature.”
But we can't do it alone. We need a vibrant community of conscious, aligned entrepreneurs - people like you, who know their skills are better served somewhere else... somewhere they haven't found yet.

Most passionate about
I'm leading Mocho and Co, which is an integrative digital agency serving conscious businesses—businesses that truly see business as a force for good. At this point in our journey, we are taking a reflective break for December to think about how we've served our customers so far and how we'd like to serve them moving forward. We're at the stage of reflecting and taking more conscious action forward rather than taking many steps forward in December.

Parham’s career and story
I was a lost 20-year-old boy who had just graduated university and had a lot of passion. I wanted to work for technology companies, and in my university years, I had been in the sales and marketing world.

Initially, I wanted to be more independent in my own business. I wanted to determine my own schedule. I wanted to visit my family that I had back home and in Europe. From there, I noticed that working in corporate was not a long-term solution for me. So, I initially had that itch of going completely freelance and starting my own business and building from scratch.

I started with freelancing, taking on clients that were in the conscious space and that were using business as a force for good. After seeing them coming back to us with stories about how they'd been able to grow their business from 10K to 40K per month, and above and beyond, we were really motivated to serve as an extension of their marketing team to be growth partners. That's what shifted into me starting Mocho and Co.

Best advice for entrepreneurs
I think it comes down to taking conscious steps forward as an entrepreneur and realizing that you can't do everything—rather, really putting out the most minimum viable product that can make the maximum impact.

The biggest, most critical failure with customers
I don’t personally view it as a failure, but I do think at the time it was easy to label it as a failure. One that comes to my mind was when I was working at Vidyard. I was doing business development at the time and I noticed that, for a lot of our prospects whom I was reaching out to, I was not getting a high conversion on the outreach.

What I noticed was the power of personalization and your approaches—not approaching customers to sell anything, but just approaching them to add value. Value itself will play a big role in your relationship with a potential customer. You need to develop that relationship and build that trust rather than always looking at it as a transactional relationship.

Biggest success with customers
24 min
December 13, 2021Ep. 245 – Tim Cakir best advice: Be obsessed with the problem not the solution; if you obsess about the problem, the solution will change over time, getting better and better.
Tim Cakir is a growth consultant who helps companies, entrepreneurs and students achieve fast and consistent growth.
Working with 17 startups to date, some of his best achievements include helping two startups receiving 1.7 million euros in Horizon 2020 funding, increasing MRR of one startup from $80k to $300k in less than 18 months and completing projects such as implementation of OKRs, building company dashboards, rebranding and product launches.
In addition to that, Tim’s passion for helping people realize their potential to bring their ideas to life means that he also teaches Bachelor and Masters programs at two universities in Barcelona, ESEI International Business School Barcelona and Geneva Business School.

Most passionate about
I'm very passionate about education at the moment. About 30% of my professional time, I dedicate to teaching. I teach in two master's programs in two different universities. I usually teach around digital marketing, online growth, and some business intelligence.

I really love any kind of high-tech, deep-tech startup, trying to solve some of the problems that must be solved by technology. That's where my passion lies.

Tim’s career and story
When I was about 17 or 18, in California, I sold Turkish and Persian-made carpets. It was a bit of telesales, a bit of door-to-door sales, trying to book appointments with people who visited Turkey before. In California, I would visit them and try to sell them carpets. This was, I think, my first business venture.

When I moved to London, I really got into creative marketing, media marketing. I helped a few publishing companies digitalize their magazine offerings from the offline world to the digital world. That's where I switched myself, big time, to digital marketing. I was lucky enough, about five or six years ago, to move to Barcelona, Spain, where I'm residing right now.

I became a sound engineer. I studied media production, concentrating on audio technologies, and found myself in the music world, which was always a passion.

Best advice for entrepreneurs
My biggest tip would be to focus on the problem. Why does that customer have a problem? What is the problem?

Don't be obsessed about the problem, because if you obsess about the problem, the solution will change over time. The solution will get better and better, what you're building. But if you focus a lot on the solution, that's where you're not innovating anymore. You get stuck on the solution that you've already come up with.

The biggest, most critical failure with customers
I'm going to look at the perspective of when we targeted the wrong customers. In one of the businesses, which was the B2B SAS, we had a technology for e-commerce businesses and targeted the wrong segment. We targeted big e-commerce shops. We were closing deals, but it was very slow.

I think the biggest mistake that I've made was not thinking about different customer segments or testing or experimenting with the messaging to different people.

Biggest success with customers
One of the greatest successes that I was involved with in a company was when some drama happened in the world – actually a major problem around the world. We had an e-commerce and we were setting products in America.

There was a bigger movement of Black Lives Matter, as you're aware. We donated some money to certain charities or projects that we believed in. A percentage of our client base suddenly turned a bit racist and we started getting hate messages, hate...
33 min
December 06, 2021Ep. 244 – Brian Fritton best advice: “Don’t be afraid to narrow. The fastest and highest-quality way is by focusing first on a smaller group of people who will love your and represent your product”
Brian Fritton is the founder of Havoc Shield, which is a cybersecurity program as a service where he brings the founder’s perspective to cybersecurity in an increasingly complicated and risk-filled environment.
Brian has built products and led engineering, design, and IT teams at companies with credentials such as Fortune’s 500 Fastest Growing Companies, the Inc. 5000 List, and Entrepreneur’s 100 Most Brilliant Companies.

Most passionate about
I built Havoc Shield, which is a cybersecurity program as a service. It helps you holistically protect your business from attacks as well as win new business with security-conscious customers like government organizations or larger enterprise businesses.

At the beginning of 2020, we went through an accelerator called Techstars and, about this time last year, raised a $1.5 million round. Right now, we are selling primarily into financial services but really our goal is to protect other founders and small business owners.

Brian’s career and story
I've always been a little bit of a nerd, I guess. I taught myself how to program. I was very fortunate to have a computer pretty early as a child and taught myself how to design websites and to program. I was always very interested in the security side of things.

I had a website design and development firm that was doing other websites for small businesses. Through that, I learned how to manage clients, price my products, manage my time, and all of that sort of stuff.

Most recently, I started a startup with my brother called Patch of Land, which was a real estate crowdfunding investment business. We took the Kickstarter model of investing fractions, little small amounts and larger projects, and applied that to giving normal people the ability to invest in real estate. We recently sold that business and I moved back to Chicago from Los Angeles, where I was at the time.

I took a job with a data science software maker in Chicago. They work very heavily in the political space. When I came on as the VP of engineering, I quickly inherited it and got put in charge of cybersecurity in front of the midterm elections in the States in 2018.

Trying to put together a professional cybersecurity program that would protect us and help us win new customers was a really difficult thing to do. I left that job and started Havoc Shield.

Best advice for entrepreneurs
For a while, we were trying to sell to what I would call Main Street businesses—less technical companies. We explored very technical startups, but more broadly than any one industry and a couple of other things.

Don't be afraid to narrow. You want your business to grow and do more. I think the fastest and highest-quality way is by focusing first on a smaller group of people who will love your product and represent your product, whom you can speak very clearly to.

The biggest, most critical failure with customers
In businesses in the past, I've certainly spent less time than I should have on listening to people whom I want to solve a problem for—understanding how painful the problem that I think I'm solving is for them and what problems they have that are related to it and that may actually be more top of mind for them. Without listening carefully, without interviewing people whom you're trying to serve, it's very difficult to build the right thing. And that is how companies die.

Biggest success with customers
The managed plan is driven by our internal client success team, which uses a very well-oiled,...
29 min
November 29, 2021Ep. 243 – Scott Turman’s key success factor is tenacity; never give up. Failure was never an option!
Scott Turman is an IT expert and entrepreneur that has been writing code and cryptographic systems for the last 25 years for the likes of NASA, the Department of Defense, Disney, and other Fortune 500s. He is the founder and CEO of BrightRay Publishing, an all-in-one writing and publishing service for busy entrepreneurs like himself. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.

Most passionate about
About a year ago, we started a company called BrightRay Publishing. We're the writing partners for CEOs, founders, and anybody trying to build their brand. Typically, the book can be a vector onto podcasts, interviews, and the news.

We've been doing this for about a year now. We've hired our ninth employee and things are going swimmingly.

Scott’s career and story
Twenty-five years ago, I started my career at NASA, as a software engineer. I have a history at NASA. My father was an engineer during Project Mercury, which was America's first foray into space.

I started my consulting company. We grew to 25 consultants and that was great. Then, about a year ago, I realized I was sick to death of technology. I was absolutely done with it. I wanted to start something more interesting.

I was writing a book on negotiating for nerds – “A Nerd’s Guide to Negotiating.” I'd been trying to write it for 10 years but I just could not get it done. My daughter’s friend was a writer, so we started working together during the pandemic, via Zoom. We got the book done pretty quickly. When I published it, friends asked, “How the heck did you get a book published with how busy you are?”

Then someone said, “Hey, would you write my book?” We took the same process. And then we did another one, and another one. And here we are, a year later.

Best advice for entrepreneurs
At every point in your journey, make sure the customer is first.

Entrepreneurially speaking, my advice would be to start now, fail quick. The quicker you get to it, the quicker you understand the challenge. Start all those things that it takes to run a business as quick as possible. Having great ideas and not executing is like not having ideas at all.

You have to just start.

The biggest, most critical failure with customers
In the last 10 years, I started a consulting company called BrightRay Consulting. We would have these projects involving two or three engineers. If you're not trying to please the C-level executives at a company, you're going to fail no matter how happy the senior management is.

It's just a matter of time. In the past, I really can't tell you who, but there was a fortune 500 top company, where everybody was just thrilled with us, except the C-level managers. The problem was not reporting correctly. We were not sharing our successes correctly with them. And as a result, we shuttled out of there.

Biggest success with customers
It was the birth of BrightRay Publishing. We started with one client and then two and then five and then 10.

I handled new customers correctly. As a result, we've exploded in growth.

Scott’s recommendation of a tool
HubSpot
It allows you to send emails and have the right people in your house.

It's definitely changed my life. I'm able to sleep at night because I know that we're following up. Everybody is notified, and everybody knows where we are at a given moment.

...
15 min
November 22, 2021Ep. 242 - Brian Roland: “As an entrepreneur wherever you are, you're looking for gaps and thinking, ‘How can I fill that gap? How can I bridge that gap?’”
Brian Roland is a Social Entrepreneur and Founder of Abenity, the 6x Inc. 5000 Company that’s powering corporate perks for top brands including U.S. Bank and MasterCard.
And while Abenity provides millions of subscribers with private discounts, the company’s social mission is fighting extreme poverty with every program they deliver.
Abenity recently exceeded a million dollars of total giving and hired a CEO to accelerate growth with their fully remote team.
Brian lives in Scottsdale with his wife and 3 daughters and is investing his time in efforts that help like-minded entrepreneurs establish a social mission of their own.

Most passionate about
In 2006, my brother and I built a SAS company (software as a service) that helps large corporations offer employee perks and benefits to their people.

We've negotiated discounts on everything from pizza and the zoo to movie tickets, oil changes, car rentals, and hotels. We put it all in one spot for our clients and brand it to look like the company and the employees saved coupons all over the United States and travel offers across the world where they can enjoy special corporate perks.

When we founded our business, we really wanted to stand for something outside of our industry. So, we built our business with a social mission. There was an output to our cause for every input into the business. That is what gives me the most passion and mission at this point in my career.

Brian’s career and story
As a third-grader, I was making laminated folders because my folders would tear apart.

I started playing the trumpet when I was young. It teaches you to be the entrepreneurial solo artist, where you're running the show and everybody's looking at you. It teaches you to be a team player, where you're sitting in the symphony and blending in so that nobody notices your contribution, but they hear it, they see everything. That led to teaching trumpet lessons, which led to making a CD and moving to Nashville to go to school, which led me to sell cell phones—having the a-ha moment that the music industry is actually not that entrepreneurial.

In that role, I discovered this gap: Companies would love to offer perks and benefits to their people but they had a hard time finding the perks to offer and vetting the purchase to make sure they were good.

That's how we built Abenity. We've probably built five or six businesses inside of it. This is what led me, two years ago, to realize that the business had grown to a certain level of maturity where the number of businesses that I could launch within Abenity reached its peak in terms of what the team could have accomplished in a healthy way.

There was this moment when it was like our business didn’t need an entrepreneur anymore. It needed people to help execute and set standards and focus on growth. Those are areas that fell outside of my passion areas. So, there was time to put the right people in place to take the business to the next level. And that's what we did. Today I'm kind of the chief evangelist for the brand, which allows me to be available here talking to you.

Best advice for entrepreneurs
As an entrepreneur, you're really in a testing experimental process all the time. This means you have to be really sensitive to what is, and isn't, working. You have to be really present to what people's needs are.

Part of the discovery process of becoming an entrepreneur is looking for gaps and thinking, ‘How can I fill that gap? How can I bridge that gap?’ Wherever you are, you're looking for gaps. That's the makings of entrepreneurship. When you see a gap, how do you fill it? Think about how to fill it and
37 min
November 15, 2021Ep. 241 – The Most Important Law of Marketing
There are a few reasons why so many entrepreneurs fail. I believe that lack of marketing is the biggest one. And that’s also what entrepreneurs think. According to CBInsight Post-Mortem research, 42% of the entrepreneurs who failed said the number one reason for their failure was ‘No market need.’
Finding the market need is, as I see it, the first and most important role of marketing. It always starts there. It’s all about where is the biggest market opportunity at the current stage of the company. Any company. Otherwise, you might try to go in the wrong direction.
OK. Let’s admit it. What would you say if I asked you what is marketing? You would probably tell me it’s lead generation, social media, building a brand, or the like.
And you are right.

Marketing is everything you need to do to get customers and build your brand. In order to succeed in doing so, you need two things. First, you need to understand who your target audience - your potential customers are... Second, comes the most important law of marketing; The law of Focus.
There is an old legend about a farmer that went to the market and bought a golden hoe. This hoe has the power of digging 100 holes in the ground. So the farmer took the hoe and drilled one hundred small holes all over his farm. Instead, he could use the golden hoe to dig in one place, and then he would have a deep excavation where he could build a swimming pool or another room to his house.
The same is with marketing activities; you can try and do hundred different activities to different audiences with different messages, and you will get zero effect. But you can do a few larger activities for your most potential customers with the correct message and create a most successful company and brand.
In our episode today, I chose to focus on three entrepreneurs that chose to focus on one direction and won the game.
Michael Nemeroff saved the financial future of the family and says: “We do one thing—quickly. That’s our success.” It called focus!
Michael Nemeroff is the CEO and co-founder of RushOrderTees, a fast growing eCommerce custom t-shirt printing and apparel company. Founded in 2002 when Michael was only 17 with his brother and sister, RushOrderTees specializes in screen printing and embroidering services for everyone from teams to small businesses to Fortune 500 companies.
Over the past 18 years, the company has focused on the customer experience by streamlining the entire process with its innovative design studio, incredible service, and the quickest deliveries in the industry.

Michael’s career and story
This is probably the third business that I started.

It was like a combination of being on the computer, being a fast typer, and getting lucky that my brother took the first design course, didn’t want to do his homework, and gave it to me.

I turned it into affiliate marketing. I had a need to make money because that’s what we needed to survive.

My dad was kind of done, shutting down his business with my mom and Ben, his friend said to him, “You’re a great sales guy. Come on the road with me door to door. We’ll sell shirts to pizza shops and restaurants. I’ll show you exactly how it works, where to get the shirts, where to get them printed, and you can be making money this week.”

Initially, my dad didn’t have the mindset to do it but then my brother pushed him to do it. And he actually got in the car with them. In the first two days, they sold three different places. I think it was like making about $1,500.

I launched a website...
41 min
November 08, 2021Ep. 240 – Michael Cannavo – Super73: One of the biggest tools that have worked for us has been our organic engagement on social media.
Michael Cannavo started his career on social media. He was able to infuse his own understanding of viral content, social platforms, and demographic interests into Super73, causing it to accelerate the growth and visibility of the company.
As the company grew, so did his social media presence. With 500,000 followers online, Michael has been able to pull back the curtain on what life is like within Super73, how the company has succeeded, and where it is going next.

Most passionate about
My passion comes from creating things that haven't been created. Whether that's through marketing or products, it's all about bringing something new to the table and looking at it with a fresh set of eyes.

Michael’s career and story
We founded Super73 back in 2016. It was built on the ashes of a couple of failed businesses. It was about finding the right product for the right time.

Here we are five years later. We just crossed over a hundred employees.

Over the last year, we've been working to release new products that fit more parents and grandparents—kind of expand that range. Right now we're seeing anyone from 14 years old up to 94 years old. It's been a blast.

Best advice for entrepreneurs
I think our connection to the customer has helped us. We sell directly to the consumer.

We don't go through dealerships or retail stores too much. One of the biggest things that have benefited our company is that we actually hire from the community. So, we hire customers all the time.

The biggest, most critical failure with customers
I think it’s a matter of really understanding what they want.

Early on, we had this idea of what we wanted to do, and we kept trying to insist to our customers, “Hey, this is what you want. This is the product for you.” We were missing a few key features.

We heard that directly from the customers and I think it has really changed the way that we view our products, from designing to prototyping to testing it. We really engage with the customers now.

Biggest success with customers
We recently released a bike called the ZX. It's not necessarily too remarkable of a product, but it is a perfect product for a demographic that was asking for it for a long time. We really took into account what customers were saying in the comment sections, what they were saying on reviews.

That really created something so magical because it was exactly what our customer was looking for. When we released that bike, it was positivity across the board. Everybody was so happy. The customers were happy. Our design team was happy.

Michael’s recommendation of a tool
One of the biggest tools that have worked for us has been our engagement on social media, downloading all of the apps.

I wanted to grow our TikTok presence. TikTok is an app that is primarily for Gen Z. It's about 94-95% Gen Z.

Michael’s one key success factor
I would say it is our ability to understand where we've misstepped. It's our ability to go back to the drawing board and say, “Hey, we could have done this better.” What I love about this company is that there are no egos here.

It's this constant evolution of growth. And I think that has been a massive success factor in our company. Anybody can come in with any idea. And it's a valid idea that we're willing to listen to.
19 min
November 01, 2021Ep. 239 – Yaro Starak: “You have to actually meet your customers where they are… Then present an alternative pattern or way to solve their problems.”
Yaro Starak is the co-founder of InboxDone dot com, an email management company with a team of 25+ serving clients including restaurant owners, venture capitalists, accountants, doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, car retailers, online coaches and more.
Yaro has made 30+ angel investments in tech startups including Steezy, LeadIQ, Fluent Forever, FitBod and Nutrisense, has property investments in Canada and Ukraine, and in partnership built a 3.6MW solar farm.
During the mid-2000s Yaro sold his first company, BetterEdit.com, then built an online education business, Blog Mastermind, selling over $2 Million of his books and online courses, as he traveled the world, living in 26 different cities.
Yaro has been featured in SkyNews, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, Huffington Post, Business Insider, Foundr and hundreds of media outlets and events.

Most passionate about
I'm passionate about my own company right now, InboxDone. I'm also passionate about angel investing, which is something I've done more of recently. It's exposure to great ideas and great people.

I have a podcast as well. I love doing podcast interviews with exciting and interesting people.

Yaro’s career and story
When I was 18 years old, I entered university. It was the dot-com boom.

I already knew I don’t want to have a job, a boss, an alarm clock that would force me to wake up at a certain time, a cap on my income potential. I just wasn't sure how to make enough money to survive given that I didn't want those things. So, I knew that entrepreneurship was the likely path.

With the dot-com boom happening and me entering university, I was given access to the internet. I was constantly exposed to ideas on digital space. So, I started a website. It was more of a hobby about a card game I played called Magic: The Gathering.

I made some money from advertising. Eventually, I had a little e-commerce store selling the cards and learned a lot.

After graduation, I started what I call my first real business. It was called Better Edit and it was an academic editing service that grew into a full-time income for me. Most importantly, it was a digital business that I could travel with. Basically, I could do what I had always dreamed about—not have a boss, live where I wanted, and be independent.

Best advice for entrepreneurs
Even today, with our current business, it’s about the customer and figuring out not just what they want, but the psychology behind how they're dealing with that problem.

You have to actually meet your customers where they are, then present information that gets their attention. Secondarily, you have to present an alternative pattern or way of doing something to solve their problems.

The biggest, most critical failure with customers
I had a company that I didn't mention in the story because it was a failure.

It was an advertising management company that I started as a proper startup. I got two co-founders and we were attempting to essentially build a platform that would help us.

We started building a software platform but I didn't really realize and understand what the customer base needed. They were just so far away from being capable of doing that. Ultimately, we couldn't help them solve the problems and we didn't have a workable business.

Biggest success with customers
To me, meeting the need of helping the customer break free and delegating is the biggest customer success. Talking about the business too. It's not always the nuts...
30 min
October 25, 2021Ep. 238 – Serioja Glorie – Sergei’s best advice for entrepreneurs: “There’s just one simple rule and it’s never, ever give up. You just have to keep going.”
Serioja Glorie is an enthusiastic Serial entrepreneur. He has a wealth of knowledge on e-commerce that can be quite beneficial to every business owner.
His automation service journey started because of his personal success & demands by others to tread similar paths that yield positive results. He broke a lot of barriers and utilized an ever-evolving landscape that has helped to grow and establish a new formula.
Serioja has launched the first Multi-Market Automation Service and thereby proffering solutions to problems that are encountered by entrepreneurs.

Most passionate about
I'm basically trying to provide the freedom of financial independence.

It's financial freedom, which we try to provide through e-commerce. E-commerce automation means you can own your own e-commerce store on Amazon or Walmart without having to manage it or handle it.

Sergei’s career and story
I've been a salesperson my whole life. Really, I was a door-to-door salesman. I was an insurance salesman. I was a car salesman. I had tens of companies, if not a hundred companies, little startups that I was always trying. I sold LED screens. I was in construction, myself, working in construction. I tried real estate.

I didn't want to think about money or success anymore. I wanted to think about filling my emptiness inside. So, I packed my stuff and moved to Thailand.

I started a kebab business. I started wine distribution. I mean, I had my own club. There were so many things I tried. And so many things still didn't work for me. I tried the MLM thing too, which obviously didn't work. It brought me to Forex trading.

Finally, I started to take a break from Forex trading and opened my very first personal Amazon store. That was basically when my e-commerce journey started.

I had a team of five running my store, doing $50,000 a month, making $10,000 in profit—which I paid them a share from, of course.

I started posting that on Facebook. Before I knew it, someone was asking me, “Hey, can you manage my store too?” I told them, “Why not? Let's just do 50/50 and give me a thousand bucks.”

Best advice for entrepreneurs
There’s just one simple rule and it's never, ever give up. You just have to keep going.

If you have that kind of mentality, that kind of mindset, that no matter how many times you fail, you will learn from it, you will not get discouraged. You will just keep moving or try something else.

The biggest, most critical failure with customers
I had already approved 50 clients and was making money for them. But for me, personally, it took 10 months. So, people complained to me: “I’m not getting approved in two weeks or one month.” Well, like I said, they basically gave up before they even started. These are some of the challenges that I face for customers.

Biggest success with customers
There's a client I had, I just posted something. This client made $29,000 in a single month. Obviously, that is a very big achievement for us. We did over $250,000 in sales in one month. But what people don't realize is that this client needed more than $150,000 to be able to process all these sales—basically, to make that money. So, there's a challenge to that, but I would say that this kind of success is incredible.

Sergei’s recommendation of a tool
I don't micromanage because I have a pretty big organization already. I just use FaceTime, Skype, WhatsApp, or Messenger.
32 min
October 18, 2021Ep. 237 – Toccara Karizma’s key success factor: “For me, it’s mindset. I don’t ever believe in chasing money. I chase joy, and money naturally follows.”
Toccara Karizma is a digital marketing consultant and business growth strategist. She is the CEO of Karizma Marketing, a full-service digital marketing agency dedicated to growing elite eCommerce brands online through email marketing, social media marketing, PPC, SEO, website conversion optimization, and more.
Having built her own successful eCommerce business back in 2007, Toccara is now considered one of the world's top eCommerce marketing experts. Her out-of-the-box approach to digital marketing and expertise in the online business growth space is why I've asked her to join me today.

Most passionate about
I own a seven-figure digital marketing agency with a heavy focus on e-commerce clients.

I had grown that business to be an international company and it was quite successful. I have a background in business economics, so I knew that my place was in scaling brands and that I could do it very well. That is where I got my start.

What I'm most passionate about is building e-commerce brands. I love figuring out how to scale them.

Toccara’s career and story
I'm the daughter of two entrepreneur doctors who worked very hard and taught me that I could do anything I wanted.

I realized that I didn’t want to work for anyone else. I just don't like fluorescent lights and being in a cubicle. And I knew there was more for me out there.

I got pregnant with my son and decided, like many other entrepreneurs listening today, that I wanted to solve a problem: I couldn't find cute clothing for my son. So, I had to create it myself.

There was so much when it came to the inventory, the output of money in advance of sales, and those types of difficult decisions that every entrepreneur has to make. I realized that there was a different business model here that I knew really well, which was a very low fixed-cost business model: I spend money only after I've received it versus prepaying for things.

Four years later, officially being an ad agency, as a single mom and with an excellent team behind me, here we are at seven figures. So, that was the journey.

Best advice for entrepreneurs
My best advice about what has worked really well for me is getting on those one-on-one calls with your potential clients, especially if you're selling a high-ticket service, because they need to hear from you.

Really listen to them and their problems. Be fully transparent and honest. Tell them whether or not you think it would be a good fit. They so appreciate it when you give them free advice and tell them, “I think this would be a better option for you.”

The biggest, most critical failure with customers
I have a two-fold failure.
The biggest failures are taking on clients without the bandwidth, without the support system that I need. We are in demand and are blessed to be in demand. At some points, we want to take on clients when we just don't have the right support team in place. And that's not a fair thing for us to do because when we do that, we don't give them the best results or the best client experience with us. We want to be the Four Seasons of ad agencies.

The second failure would be taking any client, especially when you’re newer. That was when we failed because we weren't working with a partner that had everything in place. It was kind of like putting a Ferrari engine in a VW Bug.

Biggest success with customers
I stand for full reporting. When we talk to our customers, it's almost...
28 min

About REACH OR MISS - Entrepreneurial Marketing Success

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The REACH OR MISS podcast is about the customer focused entrepreneur. Hayut Yogev chats with Guy Kawasaki, John Lee Dumas, Michael Stelzner, Kate Erickson, Chris Brogan, Mark Schaefer, Joe Pulizzi, Marcus Sheridan and more successful entrepreneurs and opinion leaders about their Customers Approach and Focus.

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REACH OR MISS - Entrepreneurial Marketing Success

REACH OR MISS - Entrepreneurial Marketing Success episodes

About REACH OR MISS - Entrepreneurial Marketing Success