Growth Everywhere | Entrepreneurial Stories | Business Lessons

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Welcome to Growth Bites, a shorter format of Leveling Up, where Eric provides daily insights to help you step up your game. In this episode, we talk about why copywriters are the best hire you can make, the contributions they make to your business, and where to find the best ones in the business. Be sure to tune in today! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:41] Before we jump into today’s interview, please rate, review, and subscribe to the Leveling Up Podcast! [00:52] Why Eric believes the best hire you can make is a copywriter. [01:18] Hear about some of the skills that copywriters have.  [02:11] Eric’s positive experience of working with copywriters. [03:25] Some of the best copywriting books out there, according to Eric. [03:53] Words are what help products to sell. [04:25] Advice for those looking to find the best copywriters out there.  [05:30] How to get your hands on the first chapter of Eric’s upcoming book.   Resources From The Interview:   Marketing School Podcast Agora Financial  

Email productivity ranks highly on the list of desirable outcomes for business owners, and today we have Rahul Vohra on the show, the brains behind the fastest email experience available, Superhuman! Rahul explains the philosophy behind the company and why the product has created its own buzz, more than anything. We get into some of the early periods of their story and the work that Rahul did before founding Superhuman too. Rahul does a great job sharing some of the secret sauce that has gone into the success he and his company have experienced, giving a detailed rundown of their marketing funnel and the important conversations he had with customers early on. We touch on the power of word of mouth, gaining the attention of the right investors, and how a history in game design has informed the way that Rahul thinks about email. Their tool is such a great example of finding a need in the market and servicing it with almost pinpoint accuracy, and the way that Rahul and his team have gone about this is truly insp

Today we have Melanie Deziel, the founder and chief content officer at StoryFuel, a company that equips marketers, creators, and sales professionals with the skill and strategies that they need to tell better brand stories. Because human beings are storytellers by nature, we connect far better with stories than cold, hard facts, and Melanie helps people to leverage brand narratives to promote their businesses by speaking to people’s emotional side. For her, good content marketing is audience-centered and focuses on their needs and wants, so you should consider content that educates or helps them through a certain process – that’s why good DIY videos get so many views! In this episode, Melanie talks about her background working for large media brands, why she decided to go on her own to pursue entrepreneurship, and the different ways they teach brands about content marketing. She dishes out some tips for finding inspiration and creating captivating brand stories and how they help people to get past their limit

Today we have Timothy Sykes on the show! Tim is the CEO of TLC Media, which is an educational community that allows members to interact with the best traders online. Their philosophy is one of transparency and so the experts on the platform, including Tim, show all their wins and losses. Our guest is also the co-founder of Karmagawa, which is a social charity, dedicated to improving living conditions and the environment around the world. Tim currently funnels all of his stock trading profits into this cause and one of his main goals is to inspire and help others to give more! Tim tells us about his approach to the aspects of his life, from being real and leading by example, to differentiating yourself in a market. We also get into some thoughts on going viral and Tim's attitude of experimentation for his wide-ranging ventures. He explains his commitment to playing to his strengths and outsourcing the rest, before we discuss a long term attitude towards success and putting impact over profits. Tim urges listen

Joining us on Leveling Up today is the CEO of kovai.com, Saravana Kumar! Kovai is an enterprise software company, and we get to hear from our guest about their past, present, and exciting future! Saravana is an amazing person and an excellent entrepreneur, who has a number of balls in the air. Apart from his main work at Kovai he is also dedicated to helping the community and spreading skills and wealth to people beyond himself! We talk about establishing a community in a niche market, something that Kovai has done so well in the last few years before we get into their customer acquisition strategies and how they make money. Saravana also unpacks important moments in the company's evolution, such as the move to India from the UK that was made in aid of scaling. We finish off this great chat with our usual questions, with Saravana sharing his favorite business book and tools, and how these have helped him up his game. So for all of this and a whole lot more, make sure to tune in with us today! TIME-STAMPED SH

Joining us for this episode is Erik Kostelnik, the co-founder and CEO at Postal.io, a leading B2B offline engagement platform that automates direct mail and gifting in the sales and marketing world, helping businesses to improve their customer acquisition and better engage with prospects. While their customer base might seemingly tell a different story, this company has been operational for only 78 days and has achieved remarkable growth amid the pandemic and the economic crisis facing many other companies. Erik shares how their technological advancements have allowed their customers to achieve unusual results, explaining that regular mail is often better received than email and, since it has been proven that the coronavirus cannot live on mail pieces, it has remained a trusted form of communications between businesses and their customers. Postal.io works on a subscription basis that caters to a range of customer needs, from the most basic $19/mo package to a comprehensive one for teams of plus-minus a thousa

In this episode, we have Pete Lamson, the CEO of JazzHR, an SMB-focused recruiting software/applicant tracking system company designed to streamline the hiring process. Unlike most of their competitors who are focused on the mid- and enterprise market, JazzHR serves small businesses of anything between 50 and 500 employees, offering a solid product that they continue to improve as well as delivering industry-leading customer support. Pete discusses why customer retention is such a high priority for them and how, during the height of the COVID pandemic, they remained laser-focused on getting results for their customers and investors. As part of their customer experience strategy, they offer free onboarding services that allow their customers to get comfortable and confident with their software so that they can get the most out of it – just one of their many strategies for offering top-class customer support. Switching the topic to his role as CEO, Pete discusses his recruitment by JazzHR four years ago and how

In almost all situations, the more personalized the piece, the more you will have to pay, and the waiting time for made-to-order is months, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Today’s guest is Christiane Lemieux, Founder and CEO of The Inside, an online furniture store that provides custom made, on-demand furniture that remains exclusive by utilizing technology. Christiane is a creative tech entrepreneur, and today we talk to her about what this means while exploring her journey launching Dwell Studio, The Inside, and what is in store for the world from her new company, Lemieux Et Cie. Christiane gets into the business models of her different companies, how she bridged technology with creativity at different stages of her career, and her strategy and vision for the launch of Lemieux Et Cie. She weighs in on the innovations the technology-powered, furniture on-demand model at The Inside brings to the world of made-to-order e-commerce. Christiane shares about how she is taking her products a tier higher with Le

Today, we are going to talk about seven years of operating lessons from taking over my ad agency! This is a multi-part series that talks about the most powerful lessons learned throughout the journey. This is part 3 of the series! When I first started running the business I didn't listen to the team and employees were leaving left and right. When I finally dropped down to one employee, I decided it was time to make a change. These are the lessons that helped me turn my business around and if you put them into action they can help you too! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most people create the product they have in mind and then try to build a brand around it, but not Mario Nawfal, the CEO of the Athena Group of Companies. What has led to Mario’s success is his business philosophy of first testing a range of products to see which ones do well, and then to begin building out a brand around a product that is already on the consumer radar and trending. For him, it is all about leveraging the momentum of a popular product or service and getting your timing right. Just take 2020 as an example. Those who have become millionaires by selling PPE and hand sanitizers would have been nowhere the year before. In this episode, Mario talks about his group of e-commerce and agency companies, sharing how the avant-garde growth hack strategies developed by the latter are used to boost the business of the former. And while service-based businesses such as agencies are not easily scalable, Mario shares how they are still getting great value out of these organizations and using them to benefit th

In the 70's the Patels from India created a method for acquiring motels and in time earned a massive fortune that could take care of their entire family. In this clip we do a book summary of one of my new favorite books, The Dhando Investor, and discover how you can mitigate risk in your investments and create massive wealth! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we talk to Henry Schuck, Co-Founder and CEO of ZoomInfo (formerly DiscoverOrg) about best practices for steering the ship of a startup and scaling it until it goes public. ZoomInfo provides subscription-based sales and marketing intelligence to its clients in the form of accurate B2B content and company information to accelerate the growth of their marketing teams! Henry starts by summing up his education and career, sharing the story of co-founding DiscoverOrg, wearing multiple hats while scaling it to the point of going public, and then acquiring ZoomInfo. From there, we get into some of Henry’s habits that took him from startup CEO to public company CEO. He talks about mastering the skills needed to see DiscoverOrg through its first five years, how to let go of staff who served their purpose but are now holding the company back, and how bringing on investors changed the internal dynamics of the firm for the better. Henry also gets into his ‘pebble in the shoe’ method for aligning his teams with his v

From an airplane designer to a marketing expert, today we are joined by Guy Yalif, the co-founder and CEO of Intellimize, a company that automatically optimizes websites to drive revenue and customer acquisition using machine learning. After making the unusual leap from a career in aerospace engineering, Guy accumulated considerable marketing experience by working in the startup space as well as for big brands like Twitter, Yahoo, and Microsoft. In this episode, he talks about the value that Intellimize offers its customers, including the unique ability to personalize the web experience for each user while also providing useful insight that can be leveraged to refine their messaging. Their sophisticated software gathers and interprets data to make suitable suggestions to site visitors, thereby boosting conversion rates and making a big difference in the sales department. In general, their customers are seeing a remarkable 46% improvement on the metrics they care about since Intellimize is all about focusing o

This is a special bonus episode where we take a sneak peek into our virtual event and share a portion of one of the talks from the event. In this episode, we're sharing the mic with investing legend, Roland Frasier, who goes into detail about how to buy an existing business with no money down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Although marketing has evolved a great deal over the past 100 years, the same principles still apply because human psychology has not changed. This is why is, no matter how complicated the marketing landscape gets, simple copywriting remains the most powerful. No-one knows this better than today’s guest, Craig Clemens, an exceptional copywriter, brand-builder, and positioner. As co-founder of Golden Hippo, a leader in direct-to-consumer marketing that builds innovative health, beauty, and pet care brands, Craig knows that it takes to connect with customers effectively. In this episode, we dive into Craig’s fascinating marketing journey, including some of the profound sales and life lessons he learned from his time as a telemarketer. We also gain insights into Craig’s copywriting process, where he highlights the importance of market research. He does not believe in selling products but instead offering unique solutions to people's problems. We also hear more about Golden Hippo and its distinct approach to buil

Today, we are going to talk about seven years of operating lessons from taking over my ad agency! This is a multi-part series that talks about the most powerful lessons learned throughout the journey. When I first started running the business I didn't listen to the team and employees were leaving left and right. When I finally dropped down to one employee, I decided it was time to make a change. These are the lessons that helped me turn my business around and if you put them into action they can help you too! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The more agile companies can be in the current volatile landscape, the better. Smartsheet is a collaboration software platform that helps companies optimize functionality and one of the things that makes it different is that it is not purpose-built. With 2572 documented use cases to date, Smartsheet possesses the kind of wide applicability that companies need to stay light-footed enough to keep up, and all without having to write a line of code! Today we have its CMO, Anna Griffin, join us on the show to talk more about how the software works as well as speak to the things that make her tick and how she got to be where she is today. Anna gets into her journey into the B2B space and what feeds into her out of the box approach to marketing. We turn our attention to Smartsheet next and hear from Anna about the platform’s fluidity and how they approach marketing it when the product does so many different things. She makes a case for how well the software lends itself to bottom-up adoption, and then we hear a few

Business travel may not be happening as frequently anymore due to the COVID pandemic, but that does not concern today’s guest, Avi Meir. He is CEO and Co-Founder of TravelPerk, a ground-breaking business travel platform that offers companies of any size a one-stop-shop to book all of their travel in a single space. Avi is a travel industry veteran with fifteen years of experience. In this episode, we learn more about the platform, including the pain points they look to solve, how they generate income, and the ways they are reimagining business travel. We also learn about Avi’s choice to base the business in Barcelona, an unconventional destination for a tech company. Not only does the city offer a great quality of life, but Avi also believes that it influences their ability to attract top talent. Naturally, the conversation goes to COVID and how TravelPerk has been impacted. Avi shares the remarkable decision they have made to not let anyone go, and how they have used a combination of government relief and ou

What does it take to be successful as a new CEO? Whenever you're joining a new company, it's important to avoid rocking the boat at the beginning. In this session we discuss ways to have a successful transition into any company at the executive level. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices