This Kiwi began his career at an early age and now he’s an expert in blogging, social media and digital marketing.  He is passionate about brand building, company culture and entrepreneurship by leveraging digital technologies.

Being associated with several digital start-ups, he has gleaned tons of experience navigating the digital landscape. In this interview, he will share nuggets of wisdom exclusively with our readers. We welcome Tom Reidy on Branex Talks.

Branex: Your career is a blend of success and failure. Would you like to share career highlights along with the lessons you learned from your failures?

Tom Reidy: Success is the easy part of life throughout my career I have had the honor of working with some of the biggest brands, from Audi to Colgate Palmolive, helping them to build their brands and reputations online.

But through failure is when we learn and grow. Don’t get me wrong I have learned plenty working with large brands, but I have learned far more in the hard lessons in life. Some of my greatest takeaways would be:

• Choose your staff wisely, they will make or break a business. Surround yourself with people that believe in your vision.
• Learn from those who have gone before, wisdom comes from experience, so pay attention to people who have it.
• Test, learn, test and test some more. All too often, we have great ideas, but they may not actually turn into a business. So, test the ideas out, beyond your friends, make sure you have an audience and people who are willing to pay.
• Ask for the money, following on from my above point, don’t be shy, if your product or service provides value, make sure you ask a fair price for it.
• Love and passion are awesome and should always be part of the vision, but don’t work for free, love and passion don’t pay wages.
• Make sure you and your clients have the funds to pay for services.

Branex: Tell us about TAG The Agency, how did the idea pop up and from where did you start?

Tom Reidy: This brand is a result of the ever-evolving world of digital advertising, I’ve always been in the industry of tech and marketing/advertising, so it was a natural progression that fed my creative skills.

Branex: Digital storytelling is typically a new terminology among marketers. What do you think are the key elements of digital storytelling?

Tom Reidy: New term, same game. It’s just how and where we tell stories that have changed. In my view, the key elements are:

• To learn and adapt fast
• Test and try as new platforms are always coming out
• Don’t predict the future but be ready and aware to evolve
• To repeat myself so it’s crystal clear – Always be prepared.

Branex: You have multiple startups under your belt, share with us the lessons you have learned so far in establishing them.

Tom Reidy: All ideas are good and easy. It’s the execution and market development that is hard. Do your research and plan for the end game, not just the small steps to get you going. This way you will reduce surprises and cost escalation.

Branex: You emphasize a lot that B2B businesses should leverage content as a marketing strategy. Which type of content is truly engaging for the audience, can you share a few examples?

Tom Reidy: B2B is still about people and connecting to what inspires and resonates with them. I always prefer video as the medium as we are able to quickly connect to audiences. In the case of B2B, we look to see who the decision-maker is and work to influence their decisions, from content that nudges them to direct engagement. It sounds simple but can be a long game, so research to make sure you know your audience and where they consume content.

Branex: What trends do you anticipate in the digital world especially about social media in 2020?

Tom Reidy: Be ready, change is constant, so predictions are just guessing and looking at the wrong thing. Watch your audience, follow the trends and lead them through the platforms they choose. Then constantly test your content before launching into a bigger campaign.

Branex: Would you like to mention a few names who have inspired you in the industry? The ones who have contributed to your professional and personal growth.

Tom Reidy: Chris Bunce from 3Skye – Fintech visionary, friend and mentor. Chris has always been around to provide wise worlds and motivation to push for the next step.

Andrew Butel from EndGame – Tech genius, also a friend and mentor. Andrew has always been a support, from business mentoring to working through some of my biggest challenges with me.

Branex: How much do you believe in work-life balance? How do you balance both and why do you think it’s important to keep these aspects in equilibrium?

Tom Reidy: Work and life are not a separate thing when you hire someone, you are hiring a person and not a machine that can switch on and off. So work and life needs to balance themselves. For example, I have four kids, so I need to be able to provide them the attention they need to become successful humans, so rather than separating my job from my family, they are welcomed in and become part of the workday. Start times and end times can be flexible as ideas don’t happen between 9 am and 5 pm so my approach to work is also flexible.

For more on this, I wrote a book on company culture, here.

Branex: Being an avid marketer, our readers would like to see your workstation picture. Could you please share one.

Tom Reidy: Sure, it’s pretty simple, just the things I need.

Branex: Branex is one of those agencies which are facilitating brands globally with its digital solutions. Do you have any piece of advice for us?

Go hard, experiment and keep communication open and strong with clients, they are part of your success, which makes them part of the team, not a thing that pays the bills.

The post Tom Reidy Discusses The Importance of Leveraging Social Media & Digital Storytelling appeared first on Branex Official Blog.

Today on Branex Talks, we are privileged to have such a gentleman with us. To date, he has helped businesses and startups founders scale their business. He has extensive experience working with various professionals in 70+ countries, including Taiwan, Spain, Ireland, the US and the UK.

Aufray is passionate about boosting organic traffic, increase conversions and enhance ROI by data-driven strategies. He has helped multiple companies like Voodoo.io, SeeLevelHX, Zeneduc with lead generation and improves revenue with growth hacking.

Without further ado, let’s welcome Jonathan Aufray, chief executive officer of Growth hackers.

Branex: You have traveled to many countries across the globe, which notable differences have you witnessed in business practices and workplace cultures until now.

Jonathan: I lived in 7 countries (France, US, UK, Ireland, Spain, Australia, and Taiwan), traveled in many more and worked with businesses from more than 70 countries. There are a lot of differences between places, cities, countries, and continents. For instance, when I was doing business in Ivory Coast, I could notice that time management is very different from other places.

In Japan, things are very formal during the day when doing business, but at night it completely changes where you will go out to eat drink (And even doing Karaoke) to sign business deals. For the US, business relationships are less formal and more friendly.

Every place is different but the most important is to stay yourself while respecting the local culture. For instance, in Taiwan, there’s a specific way to give your business card and people appreciate when you do it their way (Handing out your business card with two hands)

Branex: In an interview, you stated that “startups need fast execution and iteration, even more than SMBs”. What are the tools and techniques which can eventually lead to the growth of startups and what’s the right way of scaling it?

Jonathan: For startups, SMBs or SaaS businesses, it’s important to have a lean startup approach where you want to launch your product sooner than later. Why? Because you want to test your products with “real” users, gather feedback and data to see what people like, what people don’t like, optimize your product and make it more user-centric.

I met many entrepreneurs that developed products for many months without gathering feedback as they wanted their product to be “perfect”. Eventually, when they launched, they found out that there was no market for the product they built.

I usually recommend entrepreneurs to invest 50% of their time and money on product development and 50% on growth.

There are many tools and techniques startups and more mature businesses can use to grow and scale. The most important isn’t the set of tools or tactics but the process and systems put in place.

Branex: Growth hacking is one of your most prominent areas of expertise. How can marketers working with startups embrace the magic of growth hacking and skyrocket their growth?

Jonathan: As I just mentioned, growth hacking is a process rather than a set of tools or cheap tactics. There are a lot of things that are being said on growth hacking such as:

• Growth hacking is unethical
• Growth hacking is cheap tactics to get millions of users
• Growth hacking is just a buzzword for marketing

Actually, I have a different opinion of what growth hacking really is. I believe this is a mix between marketing, product development and data. Before working in growth hacking, I worked in marketing for multiple companies and I always found that the marketing department and the product department were not linked and were not working together.

I believe growth hacking makes the connection between these two departments. The goal of growth hacking isn’t just to work on user acquisition. The goal is to grow your marketing and grow (Improve) your product. This is why the AARRR (Acquisition – Activation – Retention – Revenue – Referral) metrics are used in growth hacking.

Branex: Is constant learning necessary for success? When it comes to startups and SMBs, how a culture of learning and continuous development can be promoted?

Jonathan: Constant learning is essential for business success. I’m learning every day either by reading books or blog posts or by testing new tools, new strategies or processes. The best way to learn is by trying new things, making mistakes and learning from these mistakes.

The culture of learning can be promoted by showing real-life examples of successful entrepreneurs who keep learning and succeeded doing it.

Branex: Do you have a checklist for novice growth hackers before they embark on the journey to make businesses succeed?

Jonathan: Launch Fast – Test – Gather Feedback (And most importantly act on it) – Optimize your product accordingly – Promote – Scale – Repeat.

Branex: How do you see the future of marketing in light of rising dependency on artificial intelligence?

Jonathan: AI is going to take most industries by storm, marketing being one of them. I believe that thanks to AI, more and more tasks will be automated such as chatbots mimicking human interaction. Hyper-personalization of messages and accurate segmentation will be done by AI in marketing making the user experience much better.

Branex: Any nuggets of wisdom you would like to share with aspiring young entrepreneurs who small businesses trying to make it big in the digital economy?

Jonathan: Don’t keep your ideas for yourself. A lot of entrepreneurs are scared to share their ideas because they believe it’s going to be stolen. An idea is worth nothing, execution is everything. Focus on execution.

Branex: Being a marketing ninja, which influencers do you follow in the industry and who are a true inspiration for you?

Jonathan: Not sure if I’m qualified to be dubbed as a ninja or even if I was in Japan last month. Here are a few influencers, fellow marketers and entrepreneurs that I follow:

• Joel Gascoigne (Buffer CEO)
• Ann Handley (Content Marketer)
• Mike Quindazzi (PwC)
• Paula Piccard (Cybersecurity)
• Elon Musk (needs no introduction)

Branex: Branex is a web/app development, a digital agency that has helped scores of startups and established businesses navigate smoothly in the digital marketing sphere. What is the one piece of advice that you would like to give agencies like us?

Jonathan:

• Create content answering the questions/problems your target audience is facing and, then, promote that content.
• Focus on customer experience and success.
• Actively ask for referrals.

The post Interview With CEO of Growth Hackers: Jonathan Aufray appeared first on Branex Official Blog.