How to Be Creative in Growing Your Business

How to Be Creative in Growing Your BusinessAllen Gannett is the founder and CEO of TrackMaven, a marketing analytics platform whose clients have included Microsoft, Marriott, Saks Fifth Avenue, any many other well known names. He has been on the “30 Under 30” lists for both Inc. and Forbes. He is a contributor to FastCompany.com and is the author of the new book The Creative Curve, on how anyone can achieve moments of creative geniu

In this episode, Allen talks about how he attracted early investments in TrackMaven, got initial customers from referrals, and grew the company using paid advertising. He also gives tips on how companies and entrepreneurs can become more creative in marketing by leveraging consumer psychology.

“When you’re trying to raise money, it’s more about identifying the right problem to solve in your market, rather then coming up with the perfect solution right away.”

 

– Allen Gannett

 


Reference:

thecreativecurve.com
allen.xyz
trackmaven.com
Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin


Reference

Soundwise: innovative podcast publishing platform that helps you capture, keep and convert listeners

 

How To Have Customers Line Up At Your Door On Launch Day

How To Have Customers Line Up At Your Door On Launch DayMelissa Biggins is the owner of Sweeter Hue, a popular bakery in Washington DC’s Shaw neighborhood. In this episode, Melissa talks about what it’s like to start a brick-and-mortar business in a very competitive industry, and what she did to make sure she had a successful launch day and beyond.

 

“If you’re in an industry that has a lot of competition, that means there’s a lot of demand also. You’ve just got to set yourself different.”

 

– Melissa Biggins

 


 

Sweeter Hue
Facebook

 


Reference

Soundwise: innovative podcast publishing platform that helps you capture, keep and convert listeners

How to Build Your Business Brand Online And Offline

How to Build Your Business Brand Online And Offline Elise Crawford is the founder of Ringlet Studio, a digital marketing agency in Washington DC that helps women entrepreneurs build their brand online.

As an expert in online marketing, branding, and event hosting, Elise has a lot to teach entrepreneurs and small business owners about marketing. In this episode, she talked about her own entrepreneurial story and how to build a consistent brand image for your business online and offline. She also gives plenty of tips for Instagram and event marketing.

“Instagram is a long game. It took us about a year to see a translation from social followings to clients.”

 

-Elise Crawford

 


Ringlet Studio
Instagram
Planoly


Reference

Soundwise: innovative podcast publishing platform that helps you capture, keep and convert listeners

How to Launch And Grow A Food Business

How to Launch And Grow A Food Business Kim Bryden is the CEO and founder of Cureate, a company that helps emerging food and beverage businesses grow and scale, and also helps big brands and institutions connect with their target audiences through local food and drink. In this episode, Kim talked about how she started her consulting business focusing on the food industry, and the common mistakes entrepreneurs make in launching and growing a food business.

“Getting local and granular in your launch strategy is super important.”

 

-Kim Bryden

 


Cureate
Cureate Connect
School of Food

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram

 


Reference

Soundwise: innovative podcast publishing platform that helps you capture, keep and convert listeners

How to get and keep customers for service-based businesses

How to get and keep customers for service-based businesses Mina Fies is an award-winning designer, remodeler, and the founder and CEO of Synergy Design & Construction. She is also the author of the Renovation Roadmap system. In this episode, Mina told the story of how she started a business in an industry that she had little prior experience in, how she built a successful business by really focusing on the customers’ needs, and gave lots of tips on business development and networking.

“You can’t be in entrepreneurship for the money alone. You have to have the passion and see the vision ahead of you. That needs to be fuel for everything.”

 

– Mina Fies

 


Reference:

Synergy Design & Construction

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Linkedin, Youtube, Google Plus, Houzz 

Renovation Roadmap system

Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram

Resources:

SCORE

BNI- Business Networking International

Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business

Rocket Fuel: The One Essential Combination That Will Get You More of What You Want from Your Business

Soundwise: innovative podcast publishing platform that helps you capture, keep and convert listeners

From One-Man Shop On eBay To DC’s Best Place For Work

From One-Man Shop On eBay To DC’s Best Place For Work Joel Holland is the founder and executive chairman of Storyblocks, a subscription-based online platform for high quality stock media.

Joel has won numerous awards for his work with StoryBlocks. His company has been listed on the Inc 5000 list six consecutive times and was named one of Washington. D.C.’s best places to work by Washingtonian magazine.

In this episode, Joel tells the story of how he started the business selling videos he made himself on eBay, gradually built up his customer base, and bootstrapped the company to what it is today—an online digital media subscription service that offers millions of royalty free videos, audios, and images.

“Until people are voting with their real dollars, you don’t know how customers are gonna behave.”

 

-Joel Holland

 

StoryBlocks
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Linkedin


Reference:

Soundwise: innovative podcast publishing platform that helps you capture, keep and convert listeners

How to find your business’s unique positioning through continued experimentation

How to find your business’s unique positioning through continued experimentationAlex Hastings and Mike Galyen are co-founders of Guerrilla Vending, a company that creates custom curated vending machines, in collaboration with local Washington DC businesses.

 

In this episode, Alex and Mike talked about how they started Guerrilla Vending with a refurnished vending machine they found online, and how they discovered their business’ market sweet spot by constantly experimenting with different products they could carry and learning from their own mistakes.

“We had too many ideas (about what to put in the vending machines). We had to see what worked and what didn’t. There was a lot of trial and error.”

 

-Alex Hastings

 

guerillavending.com
Facebook, Twitter


Reference:

Soundwise: innovative podcast publishing platform that helps you capture, keep and convert listeners


How To Grow A Business Through Low-Cost, Grass-Root Marketing

How To Grow A Business Through Low-Cost, Grass-Root Marketing

Robert Kinsler is the founder of DC Fray, a company that’s on a mission to make living in DC more fun through organizing social sports leagues, special events, and scouting out the coolest things to do in the city.

In this episode, Robert talks about how he started DC Fray as an informal passion project, and grow the business through grass-root marketing with low or no cost.

“I woke up every morning thinking ‘how can I make sure 100 more people know about [DC Fray]’s skee-ball league today?’ Literally grassroot (marketing) to the nth degree.”

 

– Robert Kinsler

 


dcfray.com

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin

 


Why Investing In The Local Community Will Get You More Customers

Why Investing In The Local Community Will Get You More Customers

Lisa Wise is the founder of Nest DC, a boutique property management company that has a strong social mission.

In this episode, Lisa talked about how she started Nest with little industry experience, acquired customers through engaging with the local community and relentlessly focusing on customer service, and why investing in social mission has a positive impact on the bottomline.

“We try to position ourselves as community experts that offer property management, rather than property managers that might know a few things about the city.”

 

– Lisa Wise


nest-dc.com
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram


Soundwise: innovative podcast publishing platform that helps you capture, keep and convert listeners

Content Marketing Tips for Local Businesses

Content Marketing Tips for Local Businesses with Chris Marentis, Ep 48

Chris Marentis is the founder and CEO of Surefire Local, a software platform that helps local businesses generate new customer leads by getting discovered online.

Chris originally started the company to provide consulting services to local businesses who want to strengthen their online presence. Their services got so popular that Chris decided to build software to automate their methodologies. In this episode, Chris shared many useful tips on how local small businesses can use content marketing and other organic methods to build their online reputation and attract more customers.

       “Your blog posts need to be answering questions your typical customers have.”

         

        -Chris Marentis

             

 


surefirelocal.com
Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google Plus, Youtube