Storytelling & Digital Marketing - Takeaways from our Discussion With Matthew Carpenter-Arévalo

Matthew Carpenter-Arévalo is a Canadian-Ecuadorian entrepreneur, author, & digital marketing strategist. Above all else, he is an incredible storyteller. Matthew has a knack for relating complex ideas with real life situations, and articulating his thoughts in a digestible manner.

As an excellent storyteller, it’s only natural that Matthew has an incredible story to go along with his skill. Matthew started out in New Brunswick but is now based in Ecuador. He went to UNB, STU, and then went to Oxford university on a Rhodes scholarship. He has worked in Europe, North and Central America throughout his winding career path. Matthew has experience as a founder, a CEO, and has been a manager at Google, Twitter, and the World Economic Forum. He also writes about technology, culture, and politics, both in English and Spanish.

Matthew’s story, and experience playing numerous roles, has given him a breadth of knowledge that is incredibly valuable. Thank you Matthew for taking the time to share your insights with us! Here are our key takeaways:

1. Storytelling

The origin of Matthew’s marketing philosophy comes from when he was a teacher in Ecuador. On the long bus rides to and from work each day, people would try to sell the riders various items. Usually, the salespeople would have a story to go along with the small items they would sell, and they would often attempt to pull at heartstrings or drive an emotional response. The items became more than just simple things, they then were part of a story that a rider could relate to. This would often drive sales. 

The stories behind the products proved that if you have a compelling story and a captivated audience, you get the opportunity to create a market. Depending on how you tell that story, and how relatable that story is, you can determine your market size, price, and potentially numerous other outcomes.

2. Lower Resistance to Buy

On the bus, the salespeople would often engage in a marketing practice by putting products they were selling in the hands of potential buyers, and then immediately following up with a story behind the product. Once in the hand, the resistance to buy was greatly diminished.  Consider your own personal experiences where you may have become more invested in a product or service with the opportunity to get to get a demo or take it for a test drive. Now reflect on your own storytelling technique, and ask yourself, do you have your own “candy in hand moment”? What can you do to overcome customers’ initial resistance to potentially consider a purchase?

Even if you’re not a marketer, chances are you will be “selling” something at some point. The worst thing you can do is just try to pitch to a room full of apathetic people. Instead, start by asking for opinions from the people you hope to convince. This helps move a person from being an audience member to being a co-author. If you can get some people on your side and allow room for their contributions, then you will be working alongside someone who may just become a cheerleader for your solution within the organization.

3. Cultural Capital & Trust

A lot of people are hyper-focused on physical money as capital. However, an often overlooked aspect of doing business is social and cultural capital. You need to build legitimacy with a new market in order to get a foot in the door and have an opportunity to sell. Especially in lower-trust societies, consumers are far more likely to remain with brands they know if a new entrant to the market who may seem out of touch with their community.

By not investing in building legitimacy and establishing your brand in a new market, it will lack trust with prospective clients. Without this, any content published to increase awareness of your solution will potentially drive them to purchase from the leading brand instead.

4. Consistency is Key 

In inbound marketing, potential customers are unaware that they have a problem until they are made aware of a solution. At any point in time, parts of your target market may not be fully problem or solution aware, so it’s important to often repeat your key messages. It’s crucial to remember that there will be people who start following your brand in the future who wouldn’t have necessarily heard all of your key messages.

Even if it seems repetitive, creating content and pushing out key messages consistently is an organizational muscle that needs to be constantly worked. Whether you are making blog posts for SEO or Instagram posts, if you’re aiming to be #1 on Google, you will have a couple years ahead of you throwing ideas against the wall and seeing what sticks when it comes to content. Just remember, the best digital marketers are consistent.

Thank you again Matthew for sharing your experience with us!

Marketing Strategy and Team Building - Takeaways From Our Discussion With Patrick Edmonds

Patrick Edmonds is an experienced digital marketer, with over 10 years of hands-on and leadership experience in the field. Currently, Patrick is the Chief Marketing Officer of Finexio, an AP payments-as-a-service firm that eliminates manual payment processes for finance teams. Before his time at Finexio, he spent several years as the CMO of Proposify, where he built the marketing team, and helped the firm grow from 2,000 to 10,000 customers and increased revenue ten fold.

Patrick has dealt with the questions of who to hire, and how to hire to build a solid team. His experience has made him a true expert in his field, and he was kind enough to return to speak to our cohort about his learnings from being a CMO. Here are some of our key takeaways:

1. Understand Your “Revenue Engine”

The “revenue engine” of a firm encompasses all of the go-to-market functions responsible for revenue growth. Sales, product, and marketing all work hand-in-hand to generate revenue, so it is critical that you know who your peers around you are. The interdependent nature of the revenue engine means you can’t just stay in your own lane, you need to be able to understand your peer’s priorities and communicate your role to others. This mutual understanding will allow you to play on each other's strengths to grow strategically.

2. Explore New Channels

The channel you use to reach new customers needs to match your product. In addition, the types of channels that work for each product is entirely circumstantial. For example, AirBnB found a way to hack Craigslist to enable growth, but Craigslist may not be suitable for a financial services firm. It’s important to brainstorm what would work best for your organization.

Keep in mind that some channels have caps, you can only buy so many ads in a newspaper. Therefore, you should always be experimenting on other channels that could be your next growth avenue. If you’re stuck on where to start, you could explore if you can find a niche in the same channel as your competitors. Just make sure that you put enough effort into testing a new channel before you move on to the next.

3. Building a Team

No one is good at everything. When building your team, look at your staff as a  “T-shaped marketer”. Hire someone who has expertise in one column of marketing, but with a broad enough skill set elsewhere to be an effective peer communicator. Ideally, you should look at your own T-shape, and hire around that to build a team that compliments your skills. Hire to support what you may be lacking, and together you will excel.

At an early stage, you won’t be able to fill all the gaps, but consider the goals of your organization and hire to compliment the talent you already have.

Another area of consideration is knowing the time to hire. Plan your hiring around stages of growth, and be strategic with your hires. You may feel swamped doing administrative work, and then hire someone to take that load away from you. However, when hiring space is limited, it is more advantageous to hire someone who challenges your team to create better work.

4. Becoming a Leader

As you move to a leadership position, work on moving your T-shape to an I-shape. Don’t aim to be a jack of all trades, because unicorns do not exist. Grow some skills for your professional development, but own your pillar of expertise, and be broad enough in the rest of marketing to keep the ball rolling. You can be an excellent leader as an I-shape, possessing a great depth of knowledge in some fields but with enough breadth to coach other marketers.

Thank you again Patrick for sharing your valuable insight in this discussion!

Try it, Refine it, Scale it! Takeaways From Our Discussion With Kirk and Candice Munroe

Kirk and Candice Munroe are data enthusiasts with extensive experience in data analytics and presentation. Both Kirk and Candice are Dalhousie Pharmacy graduates, and while those degrees may not seem applicable to their current positions in the data world, their science background gave them problem solving skill sets and inquisitive natures that they bring to every challenge presented to them in the business world. 

Kirk has a lengthy background in marketing and product management with 21 years in analytics. Most recently, he has become an author. Candice was a pharmacist, and transitioned through pharmacy data to her career now, where she is a 3x founder, including her startup: Paint With Data. Currently, they work primarily in visual analytics coaching, helping companies build a data analytics culture.

Their scientific natures lead a natural segway into the topic that they discussed with our cohort last week: using an experimental approach in business. Here are some of our key takeaways:

1. Use the Scientific Method

When analyzing your data, you should ask it questions. You can’t just wait for the data to tell you something, you need a hypothesis to test. Don’t just make a simple observation or apply a general rule either, ask yourself: what do you want to achieve? What are the things you need to know from your data? Then, use those questions as a framework to develop a hypothesis to test. Afterwards you can move forward with analyzing your data.

Getting started, you don’t need to wait to find out what your burning questions are either. At the start, come up with basic questions pertaining to your goal, and then those answers will lead to deeper questions as you move through the data refining process.

2. Try it, Refine it, Scale it!

There are numerous ways to run tests in business. No matter the type of test you do, you should set a goal you want to reach, and then try an experiment on a small subset of your business first. Then, after trying that and measuring its success against your goal, you can decide whether or not you want to scale it out.

Why should you do this testing? There are countless benefits, but primarily it gives you data to guide business decisions and back up claims. Marketing is a department that is often scrutinized for their spending. If you are going to be making a proposal of some sort, it will be better to have already done testing and have data to back you up.

3. ‘Paint With Data’

As a marketer, you can’t just distill your data and present it. You need to tell a story with the information you find in your data to whoever your audience is. Keep in mind, you are the one who knows your audience, and you will need to tailor your data presentation to suit their needs.

A practical application of this is “executive selling”. Many, more senior executives may be accustomed to going with their judgement. However, these same executives won’t ignore data when it is presented to them in a thorough, meaningful way. You can’t show a spreadsheet to individuals like this because it won’t sway their minds. Visually presenting your findings is more likely to do so, as it will cause an emotional response that will leave a greater impact than just numbers.

Thank you Candice and Kirk for your valuable insight!

Marketing From the Inside Out - Takeaways From Our Discussion With Sarah Flynn

Sarah Flynn is a dynamic leader with a reputation for building relationships and implementing top-notch marketing strategies. She has a broad skill set that comes from her 20+ years of experience in advertising, marketing communications, business management, and numerous other positions both on the agency and client-side of the business. Today, Sarah runs her own consulting practice, Sarah Flynn Consulting. She works with clients on brand, culture, and creative as well as helping clients decode how their HR and Marketing practices connect within their organization.

Sarah was kind enough to share her valuable insight about marketing from the inside out - the internal and external effects of having a solid brand and story behind your business. Thank you Sarah!

Here are our top 3 takeaways from this discussion:

1. Vision. Mission. Brand.

A vision statement is a company’s road map, indicating what the company wants to become. A mission statement is a declaration of the company’s core focus and purpose. They differ in the sense that a mission is the cause and the vision is the effect. Your organization’s mission can thus act as a litmus test to see the types of things you want your organization to do.

While vision and mission help people come together as a company, it does not tell a story externally. Brand answers the question of why you are different from competitors and why the consumer should care. In other words, the brand is written to influence how your audience perceives you. A clearly articulated brand provides a road map for how the brand is experienced at all points, both internally and externally.

2. Avoid Narrative Void

A narrative void is caused by a lack of a clearly defined brand, and it occurs when there is no consistent story behind an organization’s practices to keep everyone aligned. This void can cause issues internally, like a weak corporate culture and disengaged employees. That leads to external problems, such as poor customer experiences and brand confusion.

Why fill this void? Companies who rally their activities around a central brand story end up telling a better story, which benefits the firm internally by creating a clear corporate culture with passionate employees who share values. In turn, it leads to a clear direction externally. All employees need a consistent story to understand and communicate to others.

3. Brand and Culture

Culture is your brand brought to life inside your organization. Many people think brand is solely marketing’s responsibility and culture is HR’s, but they actually need to come together for an organization to thrive. When customers are invited to a magnificent story, it creates engagement. The same is true for employees. 

Especially in today’s competitive labour market, attracting and retaining talent in a sleepy organization is incredibly difficult. A good brand story keeps your frontline engaged. To push a consistent and engaging story out, you should hire those who share values with your mission. Consider how you want your brand to resonate in the marketplace, and hire accordingly.

Thank you again, Sarah, for sharing your experience with us.

12 Ways to Establish a Thought Leadership Position

When asked to name the CEO of Tesla, most people would answer without any hesitation: Elon Musk. If you are one of these people, there’s a good chance that you are one of Musk’s 74.3 million Twitter followers as well. To put that number in perspective, that’s a little over 22 million more than CNN.  

Now, if someone instead asked you who the CEO of General Motors is, you might struggle to come up with a name. The answer, by the way, is Mary Barra, whose Twitter account clocks in at around 61,500 followers.

So, where does this difference of 74 million come from? GM certainly sold more cars than Tesla this past year. What enables Elon Musk to reach 20 million more people than CNN through a simple click on his phone? How can innovative and skilled leaders like Mary Barra grow their audience to their fullest potential?

Well, simply put, he engages people with his content. He’s funny, outspoken, occasionally controversial, but above all, he has established himself as a Thought Leader in his field

Allan Gates, Co-Founder and President of Bonfire, spoke to our cohort last week about how to establish yourself as a Thought Leader using P/R and Content Marketing. We’ve highlighted the 12 key takeaways from his talk, including effective tactics, along with pitfalls to avoid.  

To start things off, you might be asking... 

 What Exactly is Thought Leadership?

Thought Leadership is when an individual or organization establishes themselves as a leader within their field by demonstrating expertise, insights, and innovative thinking. C-Suite executives are inherently intertwined with the corporate brand, which means that their personal brand can be leveraged as a way of driving brand awareness, consumer engagement, and ultimately sales. Establishing a Thought Leadership position is the key to leveraging your personal brand to meet broader organization goals and enhance the corporate brand. 

How/Why Does it Work?: 

First, as all marketing should, it enables differentiation. It gives a sense of expertise that makes leaders stand out and in a manner more effective than advertising. We are so cognitively overloaded by ads nowadays that we’ve trained ourselves to avoid them. Thought Leadership leverages peer-shared content and media coverage to demonstrate expertise in far more influential ways.

The key caveat: thought leadership requires authenticity and a proven track record. Too many self-proclaimed leaders and gurus can be found on LinkedIn feeds promoting themselves as Thought Leaders, but it doesn’t feel real. Why? They haven’t put in the work, they don’t have anything to back it all up. 

If you have put in the work and want to establish a Thought Leadership position, here are 12 effective tactics as recommended by Allan Gates:

12 Ways to Establish a Thought Leadership Position: 

1. Stand Out with your POV (Don’t Play it Safe) 

Having something substantial to say is essential to being a Thought Leader. Safe, corporate P/R talk doesn’t offend anybody, but it also isn’t memorable and it doesn’t start a conversation. This is why some leaders can’t establish a significant following, their POV tries to appease everyone and ends up attracting no one. As Allan likes to tell his marketing students, there is no general public; your target audience is not anyone. Figure out your audience, find your POV, and start a conversation.

Curious about the best ways to reach your audience?

2. Social Media 

A bit of an obvious answer, but that’s because social media is unquestionably a great way to build your personal/corporate profile and share your POV. Choose sides on a topic and add value to the discussion within your industry. Engage with established thought leaders or media. Focus on platforms relevant to your audience: Twitter and LinkedIn are most effective for polished corporate content; Instagram and Tik-Tok to engage youth with fun and social content.

Speaking of content..

3. Blogging, Podcasts, and Video Content 

Blogging is still a cornerstone of any content marketing program. It allows you to publish and share content without going through someone else (editor, etc.); it is your voice and your voice alone. Allan stresses the importance of not just doing it for SEO purposes. There’s a lot of keyword-ridden, low-quality content out there that was clearly written for the sake of SEO but amounts to nothing more than noise. Remember to be authentic.

Not a good writer? Podcasts and video content are effective alternatives. The world doesn’t need another podcast, but you will find an audience if you have an engaging POV. An added benefit of podcasting is the ability to add to your perceived expertise by having established Thought Leaders as guests. Guests with a big social media presence also means more listens. But remember, guests who add value won’t help much unless you add value too.

4. Develop Media Relations 

Third-party media coverage evokes a sense of credibility that can’t be easily replicated on your own. But how do you develop the necessary relationships with journalists and media publishers needed to get coverage? Seek them out. Regional coverage and niche publications that cover your industry are good places to start. Find beat reporters relevant to your field; they’re looking for stuff to publish and will be drawn to you if you do interviews, respond quickly, and give them good quotes. 

On that note, remember that media relations are supposed to be mutually beneficial, you have to give them something that their readers will care about. Too many companies forget that even the most groundbreaking news to them is not necessarily newsworthy to anyone else. If you develop relationships and provide good content, media coverage can be very effective for establishing yourself as a Thought Leader. Make sure to share everything on social media for the full effect.

5. Embrace the Criticism 

The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s apathy. Criticism is a good thing because it shows that people are paying attention and care about what you’re saying. Any substantial POV will naturally attract some critics, so embrace it. Some people are negative for the sake of negativity, and they may go as far as attacking you. Don’t let the trolls stop you from sharing your POV. People will defend you in the comments if you add value to the community discussion. That being said, obviously you don’t want everyone to hate you. You just have to be smart: don’t go out and pick fights, don’t be overly obnoxious or humblebrag, but above all, don’t give in to criticism.

6. Seek out Awards 

It’s true that awards are self-serving, but the reality is that Thought Leaders win awards. Awards shape how people think about you and do wonders for your perceived credibility; not to mention they make for excellent social content. Unfortunately, even if you deserve it, winning awards isn’t a guarantee. Just like media coverage, awards will come by easiest if you seek them out yourself. Scan for regional, national, and international award opportunities and nominate yourself or get someone to nominate you.

7. Contributed Articles, Op-Eds, Guest Blogs 

Thought Leaders have something to say that people want to hear. To maximize who hears it, consider additional channels to put your voice out there. Write an op-ed and publish it in the paper, they’re always looking for content and this is a great way to reach an older demographic. Write a guest blog with someone with a bigger audience, it’ll add to your credibility and attract people back to you. Contributed articles in industry publications, business news, and even general media are great opportunities to expand your audience; don’t forget about these channels. 

8. Speaking Opportunities 

Whether virtual or in-person, speaking opportunities are fantastic for demonstrating your expertise and establishing a Thought Leadership position. You’re likely going to have to pitch yourself to event organizers when you’re starting off, paying a sponsorship fee might be needed as well. Speaking opportunities bring on more speaking opportunities, though, so that initial cost can be well worth it. A good tip from Allan is to record yourself at your first few speaking opportunities to use when pitching yourself for bigger events later on.

9. Cross-Promote your Efforts 

To make the most of these tactics and maximize your impressions, be conscious and consistent in thinking “How else can I get this out there?” Publish a blog? Share it on LinkedIn. Speaking at a conference? Mention it on your podcast. Don’t be afraid to do “In Case You Missed It” posts from time-to-time to make sure your efforts are getting recognized, just avoid being obnoxious. 

10. Don’t sell Directly 

Even if the end goal of Thought Leadership is to drive sales and achieve organizational goals, you need to focus on being informative and creating conversation, not selling. Remember, this isn’t advertising, you don’t want people to assume it is (you’ll scare them away!) To boost conversions, ask people if they want to learn more about your company, or perhaps if they’d like to try a product demo, but never sell directly if you want to seem authentic.

11. Be Consistent, but Pick your Spots 

Consistency is key, but don’t try to use all these tactics at once. Too much and you’ll overwork yourself and saturate your personal brand. Think about who you are, who your audience is, and the channel to reach them. From here, pick a few appropriate tactics, focus on doing them as best as you can, and others will follow as you become more established as a Thought Leader.

12. Stick with It 

It takes a lot of time and effort to build a Thought Leadership position, it’s not something that can just happen overnight. Make sure you don’t get careless, stick with it and maintain your focus on doing it well. Be authentic and consistent, add value to the industry discussion, demonstrate expertise and innovative thinking, find an audience that your POV speaks to. It can be intimidating at first, but if you do it right it will be well worth the work. 

If you want to drive the conversation in your industry and become recognized as a Thought Leader, using these Content Marketing and PR tactics can facilitate the growth of your personal brand, giving you the opportunity to engage a wider audience with your expertise and POV. Thought Leadership will make you sought-after for speaking opportunities, media coverage, and contributed articles. It will push your social following to the next level and add an aura of significance to your opinions and ideas. The impact on your personal brand will be reflected on your corporate brand, allowing you to reach individual and organizational goals.

Meet Marketswell’s Newest Team Member: Rob Gautier

Rob Gautier - Marketswell Marketing Coordinator

Hi, my name is Rob Gautier. I am a fourth-year Marketing student at St. Francis Xavier University and the new Marketing Coordinator for Marketswell. Being on the verge of entering the workforce is a stressful time for a lot of new grads. I am lucky to be working alongside two professionals with decades of marketing experience as I make this transition into the “real world”. In order to make the most of this opportunity, it’s important to track what I learn along the way; after all, you only have a beginner’s mind once. Through this blog, I will chronicle my experience: the lessons learned, my personal victories, a few surprises, and track my overall progress. Hopefully, my shared experience will benefit future new marketing grads in the same position as myself. 

Here are my three key takeaways from my first week at Marketswell: 

The Importance of Experiential and Applied Learning 

The conceptual knowledge gained from university education is inherently important, don’t get me wrong. However, knowing how to ace an exam is not the same as knowing how to develop a marketing strategy or help execute a marketing campaign. The fact of the matter is that there are aspects of authentic marketing situations which cannot be replicated on a test. This is why experiential and applied learning settings are so valuable. I remember learning this first-hand from my first marketing internship last summer. I realized I learned the most when my decisions had real-life outcomes that were far more ambiguous than a simple right or wrong answer. Talking to our coaches about how Marketswell provides relevant, applied knowledge to cohort members reiterated to me the importance of experiential and applied learning. 

Focus on Executing at First 

When presented with an opportunity to ask our experienced coaches for advice, the first question on my mind was one that hangs over every new marketing grad: what are the best skills I can develop to prepare me for the modern marketing landscape? This led to me being introduced to the analogy of marketing like a sniper - highly-targeted, precise, sophisticated marketing efforts that land a direct shot on your target. Being a sniper requires developing a well-rounded marketing skill set and focusing on the ability to execute. A lot of eager new grads overlook the sniper phase and wish to become the general: the one calling the shots and driving the strategy. While it is important to be ambitious and grow your creative and strategic mindset, honing your ability to execute when you’re starting off will provide a greater understanding of how specific actions lead to success. 

Marketing is Everything 

Though most marketing students understand that marketing is more than just advertising and PR, a lot of us are unaware of how marketing extends into every aspect of an organization. This notion becomes pretty obvious when you think about how almost every decision made within an organization impacts its image and its relationship to key stakeholders in some way. This includes prospects, customers, employees, prospective employees, partners, shareholders, analysts, board members, and the list goes on. The omnipresent nature of marketing is becoming more evident as the digital sphere continues to evolve, with marketing technology (MarTech) budgets rapidly growing in most organizations. Our coaches have stressed the importance of understanding this at the executive level in order to fully capitalize on your company’s marketing capabilities. Acquiring this understanding early in your career will allow new marketing grads, like me, to truly understand and appreciate the scope of a marketer’s impact. 

In closing, if you asked me what I learned in my first week as a new marketer, I’d say: 

1) Seek out experiential learning opportunities 

2) Refine your skills and become a sniper 

3) Understand the impact of every marketing decision 

Marketing in the real world is a lot different than textbooks and case studies. There are no right and wrong answers; more like learning opportunities. These are the lessons I know any new marketing grad could make use of. 

Graduating university is exciting, somewhat terrifying, and one of the biggest transition points in our lives. I hope sharing my experience with you over the next few months will help take some of the weight off both of our shoulders.

The Top 3 Takeaways From Our Discussion With Matthew Carpenter-Arévalo

Matthew Carpenter-Arévalo is a Canadian-Ecuadorian entrepreneur, author & digital marketing strategist. Matthew is the founder & CEO of Centrico Digital, a managed marketing services company serving clients across North & Latin America. He is a Rhodes Scholar and former manager at Google, Twitter, and the World Economic Forum. Matthew also writes about technology, culture, and politics in both English and Spanish. He has contributed articles to TechCrunch, TheNextWeb, and Gk. City.

Matthew was kind enough to share some valuable insights about doing business in Latin America with our Marketswell CMO Accelerator cohort last week. Thank you Matthew!

Here are our top 3 takeaways from this discussion:

1. Trust

A truly great brand is a promise kept. For example, a can of Coke in Cuba is the same as one in New Brunswick. While Coca-Cola is a massive brand with international recognition, the same can be said for any business. You have to earn the trust of your client. Unfortunately, the process of earning trust is not consistent around the world - there are high and low trust societies.

Canada and the USA are high trust societies, meaning that there is a general feeling of trust between the public and the government, businesses, and others around them. Latin America on the other hand, is a low trust society.

A prime example of this is how in Silicon Valley, it is very common for two strangers to sit down together, have coffee, and next thing you know they’re co-founders of a startup. Latin America is different, chances are a startup would be co-founded by relatives. Roughly 80% of businesses in Latin America are family owned and operated.

2. Storytelling

Everyone in marketing talks about storytelling, but rarely is it ever properly defined. According to Matthew, here’s what it is:

Brands that have high recognition are ones that have a backstory. Think of Apple. Most people in North America could see the Apple logo, and know that it was founded in a Californian garage by Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, and then later Steve Jobs got fired, and then he came back and made the iPhone. In order to grow, you will be constantly telling your story to provide context behind your brand and build trust. The main talent for storytelling in marketing is knowing the right questions to ask to find out what the customer needs or wants to hear.

3. Different Markets, Different Expectations

Trust and storytelling are key components of marketing throughout the world. However, in a low-trust society, the attitude that working with family and friends is a safer bet continues on past just business ownership. Customer behaviour works in a similar way, they’re often wary of newcomers. Having a solid backstory may not be enough to sway people to buy from you. What helps with breaking into a new market is contracting out into reseller partnerships. The localized resellers will understand the business culture and the customers of the new market, and give you access to an already existing customer base. As your brand gains more trust in the market over time, you and your reseller may explore options including an acquisition to formalize the function internally.

Thank you again Matthew for taking the time to share your experience!

The Top 3 Takeaways From our Discussion With Ed Sullivan

Ed Sullivan is a Partner Professional with over a decade in Silicon Valley as a senior leader & executive. He has managed all aspects of ecosystem & partner development and driven millions in revenue to his employers. Ed is a seasoned executive with proven results in building and leading successful teams. His primary expertise is starting programs from scratch or fixing broken partner programs. Throughout his various roles, Ed has managed: channel development, GSI/SI and managed services providers, agencies, tech integration, ISV ecosystems, corp dev, and business development (BD).

Ed was kind enough to share some incredibly valuable insights from his experience with our Marketswell CMO Accelerator cohort last week. Thank you Ed!

Here are our top 3 takeaways:

1. Ecosystem Development

You would never market without a marketing plan, so why would you build your partner ecosystem without a strategy or plan. In spite of that, companies often jump in and immediately build partnerships just to see what “sticks against the wall”. This can cause superficial agreements that don’t bring much benefit to either side of a partnership. Before running to market, it is crucial to do some ecosystem mapping in order to find natural allies to the company. This will create more intuitive partnerships that don’t waste time and resources, and will foster a relationship that is more productive. Working with partners should be easy and seamless because your ecosystems should have some sort of natural alignment.

2. (Partner)ship

There must be mutual gain from a partnership or else it's a waste for both sides. In spite that, many companies make the mistake of creating a huge list of partners that don’t have much context behind them. These agreements often don’t produce any real value to either party involved. While it can look impressive to have a huge list of partners on your company’s website, keep in mind that having five meaningful partners is better than having a hundred that don’t do anything for you. At the same time, it is also important to not rely too heavily on one partnership. Some partnerships may work incredibly well, and you may see a high percentage of your sales coming from that one partnership. While that is great for business, it can be dangerous, because losing this partner would be incredibly detrimental.

3. Be Honest

The mutual gain that will come from a partnership comes from execution. You need to be willing to step forward and be honest with your partners, and communication is much easier when you don’t have an abundance of superficial partnerships. Every partner who will be co-selling with you will only have a limited amount of time and resources, which will not be entirely devoted to your partnership. Keep in mind that in a successful partnership, it must be easy for your partners to work with you, and for them to sell your product without wasting either side’s time and resources. If that’s not the case, it may be time to reevaluate your relationship. 

As Ed has even more valuable information to share, we will be hosting a follow up session on July 28th. Thank you again Ed for taking the time to share your experience, we look forward to meeting with you again shortly!

The Top 3 Takeaways From our Discussion With Caron Hawco

Caron Hawco has spent 20 plus years in the oil and gas industry as an independent consultant. She has worked with multiple startups, with many in the oceantech space. She was kind enough to share a few insights from her experience with our Marketswell CMO Accelerator cohort last week. Thanks Caron!

Here are our top 3 takeaways:

1. Blending online and real world relationship building coming out of the pandemic.

Many companies had to embrace online relationship building when the pandemic hit and travel ground to a halt. For the companies who had already embraced content marketing approaches prior to the pandemic, to this transition was a somewhat easy one. For those who hadn’t - many traditional resource-based industries fell into this category - the switch had many of them learning from the ground up. Now that we hopefully are approaching the end of the pandemic, what will the blend be between online and offline? Caron reminded our cohort that being some of the first companies to get back to reigniting relationships face-to-face, and in informal settings, could be a key differentiator.

2. Government can play a number of key roles.

For startups selling a product or service that could be utilized by a government department - whether municipal, provincial, or federal - being able to line them up as a reference customer could help a startup get off the ground, especially in the early days. Understanding the procurement process or working with someone who does is key to making sure that the effort spent is balanced with the possible opportunity.

Another avenue often forgotten is the use of trade commissioners to help get new export business. Trade commissioners are there to help make introductions part of their role. Consulates have developed networks in their host countries and are often happy to connect you to possible leads. A suggestion would be generating a list of desired leads, sorting them by country, and sitting down with your regional trade commissioner to develop a plan.

3. Keep an eye out for smaller, fast growing markets.

History shows that startups often tend to focus first on the largest markets like the US, Canada, Australia, the UK, and major EU countries. This is often the best strategy. However, depending on the type of product or service a startup is selling, sometimes smaller markets provide opportunities to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. For example, Caron mentioned that Guyana is one of the fastest growing, oil-based economies in the world. At the same time, they are also a rapidly developing nation, meaning the requirement for expertise and corresponding solutions is quite high. Caron mentioned that with her help along with others, a large number of Newfoundland companies now do business in Guyana and are experiencing healthy growth because of it.

Thank you again Caron for taking the time to share your experience.

The Top 3 Takeaways From our Discussion With Chris Weir

Chris Weir is the Customer Development Director at Mariner Solutions. Native to Saint John, New Brunswick, Chris has benefited from his family’s fishing and farming roots to learn entrepreneurial skills that have stayed with him his whole life. He wakes up each morning excited to help enable success in others through sales excellence, education, teamwork, and resiliency so that he leaves the world a little better than when he found it.

Chris spoke to our cohort about marketing compared and contrasted to sales; here are three key takeaways from Chris Weir’s discussion:

1. Pay. 

Not all salespeople are the same. Some salespeople aren’t necessarily doing the work for money, but rather they’re doing the work because it's part of who they are and aligns with what they believe in. If you hire correctly, you will get individuals who love new ideas, who chase new things, and who are excited by meeting new people. These salespeople are the ones who will demonstrate the behaviour you want, but not because you want it, rather because they want to do it. The most powerful motivators are intrinsic.

This begs the question; why do you have to pay for that behaviour if they’re going to do it anyway? You need to pay well to attract talent, but there comes a point where paying well will show diminishing returns.

2. Partnership.

Sales and marketing are two important and interconnected dials that drive revenue for a company.

In most cases, marketing tends to lead the buying process by generating attention, interest, and gathering leads. That is then sent to the sales team where they help buyers make a decision and take action. Sales is like a secret weapon to marketing. The sales department excels at building relationships, making it more likely that customers will become brand advocates. Marketers are the starters and salespeople are the closers.

3. Purpose: Understand Your Why.

In sales, you need to begin with the customer in mind; salespeople should strive to make the customer believe that they’re (salespeople) in it for them (the customer) first and foremost. The best salespeople have a better purpose than money; they operate loosely through the idea that you can make the world a better place by helping your customers do better.

The best work is derived from a commitment to do something for something other than money - these are the people you should hire.

The Top 3 Takeaways From our Discussion With Kate Mercer

Kate Mercer is the Digital Marketing Platform Manager at Corteva Agriscience, with 14 years of digital marketing expertise under her belt, including strategy, content, eCommerce, digital advertising, marketing automation and more. She has spent time in a range of industries from hospitality, to health and wellness, but the majority in agriculture.

Kate spoke to our cohort about digital advertising; here are three key takeaways:

1.1st Party Data.

New data privacy legislation and broad-sweeping moves from tech giants like Apple have made it more crucial than ever to have 1st party data on customers, rather than relying on advertisers or other platforms to reach customers on your behalf. Brands need to build a platform that allows them to collect high-quality customer data. Live customer data, like knowing how customers interact with your brand’s ads, or whether they attend your webinars, gives the ability to have a 360 degree view of their customers. The more you know about someone, the better you can satisfy their needs with your offerings and the less at-risk you are for using 2nd and 3rd party data to connect the dots.

2. Smallest visible audience.

The more we know about our customers, the better we can serve them. If we have enough knowledge about our customers, including their buying habits, browsing activity, channel management, etc., we can target them much more effectively, helping them convert faster. Focus on narrowing down your audience as much as you possibly can; create contextual and customized content, follow the customer journey, focus and measure, and remember to incorporate exclusions in targeting to remove irrelevant audiences.

3. Quality over quantity.

No matter how sophisticated your targeting is, if your ad copy is not engaging, your audience is not going to convert. Prioritize fresh, engaging content and visuals and use the native testing tools to help decide what is converting for your audience. Build with a mobile-first approach and then take the time to expand and reformat sizing across the board to reach all of your audience.

These days, consumers are relying heavily on product (or service) reviews when going through the research and buying processes, making it important for brands to prioritize transparency and creating fresh content for search providers (like Google) to pick up.

The Top 3 Takeaways From our Discussion With Patrick Edmonds

Patrick Edmonds is the Chief Marketing Officer of Proposify, the proposal software that gives control and insight into the most important stage of your sales process, the close. Since joining Proposify in 2016, Patrick has helped grow 2,000 customer companies to over 10,000, $1M in annual recurring revenue to almost $10M, and has seen a team of 10 grow to over 100.

Patrick spoke to our cohort about some key learnings from his experience being a CMO; here are three key takeaways from Patrick Edmond’s discussion:

1. Deeply understand your revenue engine.

How does your company actually make money? Defined by SiriusDecisions, a revenue engine is “all the go-to-market functions responsible for revenue growth: sales, marketing and product.” 

In order to have a revenue engine, and to be able to scale your revenue, you need all of these things to be true:

If you’re missing any of these components, you may be able to still generate revenue, but you won’t be able to scale it.

2. Understand where your growth is coming from and scale it out.

Who’s buying your product? Where is the traffic coming from? Double down on the channels that are bringing in the traffic. Understand that you won’t be able to be successful in every channel, especially with limited resources; however, it is important to experiment with different channels to see what’s working and what isn’t. 

You need that revenue engine in order for growth to happen. 

3. Building a marketing team.

As a one or two person marketing team, your marketers will have to wear big hats and have a basic understanding of each marketing function; they will need to learn or decide to outsource the areas they are not familiar with. Without the resources to dramatically grow your team, you have to figure out how to leverage the team that you do have, and once you are able to grow, know how you can improve it. 

Patrick recommends the idea created by Brian Balfour that marketers should be shaping themselves into T-shaped marketers. This idea essentially means that you have a broad understanding of the basics, and the benefits and disadvantages of each channel, yet you have a deep understanding of a channel, or two. Being a T-shaped marketer will set you apart from the rest. 

However, when hiring, look for capital I shaped marketers - someone who has a broad skill set yet an area where they particularly excel. You don’t necessarily want your team to be built of all specialists (T-shaped marketers); you want people who are really great in an area you are weak, yet they have an additional set of broad skills that enable them to be a key contributor.

The Top 3 Takeaways From our Discussion With Ray Gracewood

Ray Gracewood is the President of Myomo Consulting Group, a marketing and strategy advisory located in Saint John, New Brunswick. Over the past fifteen years, Ray Gracewood has focused his attention on building national brands in exciting consumer-focused industries, tapping into the consumer psyche, and understanding how corporate objectives trickle down to disruptive marketing tactics.

Ray spoke to our cohort about some key learnings from his personal experience as a marketing leader around the executive table; here are three key takeaways from Ray Gracewood’s discussion:

1. As a marketer, you have certain responsibilities around the executive table.

You are responsible for owning strategy. Take the lead on how product and brand interrelate.

You are responsible for humanizing the business. Ensure that your consumer’s priorities are taken into account, make decisions through the lens of who’s buying the product.

You are responsible for overcoming fear. People are scared of what they don’t know… in some cases, the team may not fully understand strategic marketing. Figure out what makes your team members tick and find ways to integrate their goals with marketing goals. 

2. Prioritize your portfolio strategy.

The relationship between your product strategy and branding strategy is important here. To maximize your portfolio strategy, consider the role your product development plan plays to get your brand where you want it to be. How can you structure your current branding for success? 

3. Partner relations and briefing.

Briefing is not only important during onboarding… your creative teams, agencies, consultants, etc. need to know the problem you are trying to solve. You will lose sight of your goals if your team is not on the same page. Once you find people you can rely on, don’t let them go. 

Not everyone around the executive table understands the relevance and power of marketing, or brand building, making it even more important for you, as the marketer, to step up and take responsibility.

The Top 3 Takeaways From our Discussion With Beth Richardson

Beth is the owner and event producer of Pretzel Productions. Prior to opening Pretzel Productions in 2002, Beth worked as the Event and Sponsorship Specialist for an international software company, planning and managing their worldwide event and trade show programs. The position gave Beth an opportunity to create and manage corporate events and tradeshow appearances for the company from Australia to Amsterdam, and all stops in between.

Beth spoke to our cohort about event marketing; here are three takeaways from Beth’s discussion:

1. People do business with people they like.

Ultimately people will choose to do business with people they like and feel a connection with. Intangible products (such as software) can be very hard to sell unless you can get in front of people and demonstrate value - so face-to-face interaction is very important. Event marketing builds brand awareness, generates qualified leads and builds existing customer loyalty. It allows you to personally connect with your audience and gives you the opportunity to build many relationships, especially with key decision makers, in a short period of time.

2. Be creative and find ways to adapt; the future is hybrid. 

COVID-19 has changed the event marketing game. Now, more so than ever, it is critical to adapt and find ways to creatively reach your consumers. Virtual and hybrid models of event marketing are here to stay for the foreseeable future, making it critical for companies to find ways to connect in engaging and meaningful ways your audience, even if it is virtually. Check out 2020's best virtual event platforms.

3. Meaningful content and unique experiences are needed for your audience to come and stay.

Event marketing is a very powerful tool that can yield great results. Brands can use content to improve reach and engagement. Make it useful and meaningful and customers will look to you as a thought leader. Look at building unique experiences you can align with your brand and your customers will want to be part of.

The Top 3 Takeaways From our Discussion With Matt George

Matt George is the Founder of the Unsettled Media Podcast Network and Unsettled Media.  His fundamental excitement is how the world works and that includes the incredible leverage that the internet allows, human movement & immigration, and economic development (micro more than macro!).  Whether you're an entrepreneur, a start-up, an established business or even a government agency, Unsettled Media is proving that a podcast can be an incredible tool in your digital tool-kit and a remarkable tool to achieve leverage.  

Matt spoke to our cohort about podcasting; here are three key takeaways from Matt George’s discussion:

1. Webinar fatigue is real.

Webinars are becoming more and more tired in today’s world; they struggle to keep viewers attentive and engaged. Podcasting is a great way to eliminate webinar fatigue while still delivering valuable information to your audience. Listeners can stream podcasts during work commutes, workouts, or even while cooking dinner  - making this form of communication extremely flexible, and allowing a larger audience to tune in. 

2. Tons of content can be derived from podcasts. 

Once you have an incredible hour of audio, the derivatives are basically infinite. You can take the audio and transcribe it; allowing you to put together blog posts, newsletters, one-pagers - anything you want. A great podcast tool to check out is the social app Headliner. This app gives you one minute of audio, has a headliner, an image and tons of impressions.

3. You want to get 1000 true fans.

Don’t go into podcasting with your expectations too high; expecting a turnout like Joe Rogan or Michelle Obama recieve on their podcasts simply isn’t realistic. Rather, focus on getting 1000 true fans. In order to do so, you need a niche goal and a specific form of leverage.

Check out Unsettled Media to learn more about podcasting.

The Top 3 Takeaways From our Discussion With Allan Gates

Allan Gates is a co-founder and president of Bonfire, a full-service integrated marketing and communications agency. Based in Saint John, New Brunswick, Bonfire offers brand storytelling services to a growing roster of clients in the United States and Canada. 

Allan spoke to our cohort about thought leadership and the role of PR and Content Marketing; here are three key takeaways from Allan Gates’ discussion:

 1. Pick your spots. 

Start by focusing on a few thought leadership tactics and work on doing them well - the rest will follow suit. Stick with the tactics that make sense for your brand; that could mean focusing on media relations, blogging, and speaking opportunities rather than focusing on podcasting or awards. Social media is a tactic that almost every brand should leverage – it allows you to build a two-way communication channel with your audience.

 2. Have a point of view.

Having something to say is what builds your brand’s following. Although having a point of view will always run the risk of attracting some negativity, if you don’t have a point of view you are not interesting or relevant to your audience. That means you won’t stand out - that is a bigger risk. Don’t be afraid to call out bad decision making but do so in a constructive way. Pick the right horse and expect critics. 

 3. Is it news?

Too many brands issue press releases reasoning that if it’s important to them, it will be important to the media. Often, it’s not. Make sure there is news value in your announcement before going through the process of developing and issuing a press release. Is the news important to an external audience? Will it get covered? Is there a better way to share this news? Sometimes a blog post is better or consider offering the news to a journalist as an exclusive. 

 To build your thought leadership position, be informative and add value to your audience, have a point of view to stand out, and always be consistent.

The Top 5 Lessons Learned From Greg Hemmings

Greg Hemmings, filmmaker and founder of Hemmings House, leads from the heart, making the world a better place one story at a time. His work connects individuals and the world, celebrating the universal in the particular, and exploring how our collective human narrative is unfolding against the particular backdrop of these interesting, accelerated times. Greg is building a movement of change, empowering others to become leaders in their own ways, in their own communities. 

Here are 5 lessons we learned from Greg’s discussion on the use of video and movement making:

1. Serve your audience with content that will make their lives easier. 

As an organization, you want content that captures people’s hearts and imaginations. It’s not always about solving a business problem; it’s an emotional buying journey - provide them with valuable content. Put your audience first; selling your product comes second. 

2. Support a movement that aligns with your audience. Help make the industry or space you operate in a better place.

Organizations have the power to make a difference. They have the ability to put a spotlight on movements that make the world a better place. Every organization should have a mission they are passionate about.  Show your audience what the world could look like if they moved forward with you.

Check out what these companies are doing:

Ben & Jerrys Corporate Social Responsibility over the years

Patagonia Impact Films

3. By placing an unexpected focus on something, you have the ability to inspire other people to get on board.

Stories are a way of creating movement and differentiation in a noisy market. Using storytelling to put a focus on something, a potential movement that could be born or one that just needs some love, can give it an incredible lift. The act of actually filming something encourages viewers to see the importance of it. 

Check out these Hemmings House projects:

Code Kids

Sistema Revolution Case Study

4. As an organization, you need both Integrators and Visionaries. 

Greg refers to the book Traction, when discussing the importance of both integrators and visionaries. Visionaries are defined as the “dreamers” within an organization. They are creative, passionate and are known for their creative problem solving skills. They tend to serve on emotion more so than on logic. On the flip side, Integrators are key in order to maintain tranquility. Integrators are those who can put the visionaries’ creative ideas and aspirations into action; they are the glue that keeps the team motivated and intact.

5. Be in the moment; go into projects without knowing what the outcome will be.

Greg believes the best parts of storytelling are the humans and the inspiration. Being in the moment and going into projects without knowing what the outcome will be can lead to some of the best stories. Serve your audience with a storyline that makes them feel lighter; you want them to walk away believing in something bigger than themselves.

Inspire others through the art of storytelling. Serve content that adds value to people’s lives. Give your audience something bigger to believe in.

Find Greg Hemmings on LinkedIn, on Youtube, or at hemmingshouse.com.