Growth Everywhere | Entrepreneurial Stories | Business Lessons

Being focused on the profit might keep you out of harms way, but will it make you rich? Probably not. The massive advantage companies like Amazon have is how they redeploy their profits into the company. By reinvesting your margin into creating new and better products, you will leap ahead of your competition by a long shot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can you really afford to NOT be an influencer in today's digital world? In this episode, Eric shares some of the insane advantages you can have by creating your "one man" media brand, and how to leverage an audience to achieve your wildest goals. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Most legacy HR software is complicated, costly, takes forever to get up and running, and worst of all seems to neglect one of its primary concerns – people. Zenefits changes this by bringing everything HR into one radically simple app, including the human element. Today we chat with Kevin Marasco, CMO at Zenefits about its unusual growth story, while also digging into his accidental journey into marketing as well as his favorite hobby – ultra-marathons! Kevin starts out by telling us how he switched from engineering to marketing and software development as a student, thereafter stumbling into what became a 15 year-plus path through multiple exits with different high growth SaaS companies. From there, we get into the tumultuous and controversial story of Zenefits, touching on its pivot from an online insurance broker to HR SaaS platform and Kevin’s take on its 2016 scandal. Kevin takes us on a deep dive next into what exactly Zenefits does as an HR platform built for people, weighing in on its quick onboarding

Are you looking for creative ways to monetize your audience? Even if you have a small audience and are just starting out, these tips can help you think outside of the box and start generating revenue from your efforts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Acquiring new customers is one thing, but keeping them is entirely another. Today we have Sunil Thomas on the show to speak about his company, CleverTap, a leading customer engagement and retention platform that helps brands maximize user time value. CleverTap tracks groups, segments, and data, and helps brands use it to market to their customers. For Sunil, what makes CleverTap unique is that they take a holistic view of customer retention by serving four categories: behavior analytics, segmentation, marketing automation, and individualization, using a mixture of manual and automated approaches to service delivery in each. Sunil shares details about some of CleverTap’s main clients and the verticals they occupy, before weighing in on why their customers who offer subscription models get the best out of their offering. We talk pricing structures and growth metrics for CleverTap and hear more on what their journey from idea to evangelization and product-market fit looked like. Our exchange covers the user expe

Do you think you deserve a raise? Great! Here's how you can actually negotiate to make it happen! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Joining us on the show today is multifaceted, entrepreneur's entrepreneur, Jim Mckelvey! Jim is currently developing his project, Invisibly, which aims to revolutionize the ways that consumers interact with advertising on media platforms. He is also the co-founder of Square and has started seven companies in total! His recent book, The Innovation Stack is compiled through his experience and research into what has allowed the most successful companies to create their own lane, and in it, he notes the common factors of the most innovative business in history. Jim explains how he learned the important skill of surrounding himself with more experienced and intelligent people and complimenting this with the ability to support and strengthen their work. We also get into the opportunity of calamity before discussing the need for humor and bravery in the life of an entrepreneur. For all this and a bunch more thought-provoking conversation, listen in with us today! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:21] Before we jump in

If you hustle hard enough, is it worth it? Only to a point. Tune in to this episode as we discuss how you can out perform almost anyone with leverage, not hustle.  What is leverage in the first place, and how does running a smart business give you more leverage? In this episode we'll find out! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are joined on Leveling Up today by Aaron Hirschhorn, the founder and CEO of Gallant, a new company specializing in regenerative medicine for pets! They aim to help pets have a better and longer, high-quality life and they are providing this through stem cell banking and therapy. Aaron explains how this is an untapped section of the market and how he has applied the ongoing research into stem cells to help pets and their owners! He gives us some examples of how their service works, which begins with the procurement of stem cells during a regular vet visit at a young age. From there a veterinary professional can treat future age-related health issues using that sample as the means. Our guest does a great job of simplifying how stem cells relate to aging and the potential advancements we will likely see in the field in the near future. He breaks down some of the components of the new business and how they have approached marketing and customer acquisition. For all this and a whole lot more from an exciting co

Yesware is an all-in-one sales software that provides users with everything necessary to prospect, schedule meetings and follow up, all from the comfort of the inbox! Here to talk about the company and his role as CEO is Joel Stevenson! Yesware has raised $47 million as well as acquiring a host of companies along the way and we wanted to bring you the lowdown on how they have done it all. We hear from Joel about his journey from SVP of Sales to COO of Marketing and finally to CEO of the company! Joel explains his relationship with Matt Bellows, the co-founder and former CEO, and a lot of our conversation is spent unpacking the transitions the company has gone through and how they have grown and evolved. Joel started in sales and tech and he is kind enough to look back at his early career and the common motifs that have run through all of his work. We also talk about leadership techniques, Yesware's belief in executive mentorship, and how they go about communicating in the company. So, for all of that and a wh

What does it take to build wealth? In this episode, Eric shares his insight on the many stages of wealth and how to climb the ladder to the next stage. Discover why products and software can be more lucrative than services, and why the harder the level is, the bigger the reward will be! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today on Leveling Up we welcome Andrew Fischer from Choozle. Andrew is the co-founder and CEO of the company and he shares some of their story and what makes the business tick. Choozle is a digital advertising software platform that leverages detailed consumer data to power programmatic advertising campaigns across multiple platforms. They do this through one, intuitive interface and this model has proved very successful for Andrew and his team, having raised over $14 million since they began work in 2012! In our conversation, we chat about the service they provide to their clients and what sets them apart from other advertising services in the space. Andrew gives us a few interesting statistics and breaks down some hiring numbers before we talk about customer acquisition and adapting to the new world in a post-COVID landscape. We chat about the future of media and the increasing trends away from cable television, so to hear it all, make sure to tune in! TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:21] Before we jump into

we discuss four underrated SEO strategies that will help you boost your organic traffic. Updating your content and keywords, removing old dates from your URLs, and using power and pillar pages effectively will all contribute to reviving your organic traffic. Tune in to hear about the tools that will get you to your traffic goals.    TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES:   [00:25] Today’s topic: 4 Underrated SEO Plays That Will Double Your Organic Traffic.  [00:39] Upgrade your content regularly.  [01:01] Consider your top performers and explore new keywords to update them.  [01:30] Boost your traffic by removing dates from your URLs.   [01:45] Write long-form pieces of content and consolidate different pieces together.  [02:04] Consider what Animalz does with their power and pillar pages.   [02:24] Turn your content into videos and put them on YouTube.   [03:01] That’s it for today! [03:02] To stay updated with events and learn more about our mastermind, go to the Marketing School site for more information.  

Zapier CEO and co-founder, Wade Foster, joins on us on Leveling Up today to discuss his business, remote work and the vital importance of building a company culture! It became apparent to Wade quite early on in the journey of Zapier that if they were going to grow in the right way and continue to scale what they were doing, a well-suited company culture was necessary. This led to the development of their ethos and core values and these steps have served the company immensely in recent years! We get to hear from Wade about some of the financial aspects of the company, including their freemium model and the way they lay out their pricing plan. He also comments on leadership, with particular reference to the challenges posed by a crisis. The global pandemic has provided many challenges for us all and Wade weighs in on his approach to these and making the most of the connected opportunities. The conversation also covers the utility of podcast appearances, hiring practices at Zapier, and profit-sharing! Tune in an

You don't need a college degree to make 6 figures, even during this year's uncertain times. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Offering a SaaS product that services agriculture presents unique challenges for growth and today we chat with Allison Kopf, CEO of Artemis, about what this process looks like. Artemis is a cultivation management platform that enables growers to manage people, processes, and compliance all in one place while creating a virtually risk-free operation. Allison starts by telling us about her background in energy and what drew her obsession towards enterprise-level management and infrastructure in the agricultural industry, weighing in about how software can optimize farming and supply chains to streamline operations, bring growers closer to distributors, and more. We turn our attention to why Artemis services high-risk specialty crop farmers, and how the company makes money while encouraging compliance by using a subscription model that charges by acreage and complexity. From there, Allison talks metrics for growth rates before speaking to Artemis’ customer acquisition strategies and how direct to farmer lead gen

In episode #1432, we are going to be giving you seven game-changing tools for marketers on a budget. This great session covers Eric and Neil’s famous self-made tools for optimizing traffic and SEO, getting more views on YouTube, tightening up your copy, and so much more! Tune in and find some tools that should accelerate your growth and which you can either get for super cheap or better yet, absolutely free!   TIME-STAMPED SHOW NOTES: [00:25] Today’s topic: 7 Game-Changing Growth Tools for Marketers on a Budget. [00:30] How good and cheap Ubersuggest and Neil’s offerings are for SEO. [01:00] Using Content Decay to identify and maintain parts of your site that are losing traffic. [01:38] Making the most of your content by streaming it to multiple sources. [02:18] Getting way more traffic from YouTube using vidIQ! [02:36] How much more effective you become as a writer using Grammarly. [03:18] Connecting all marketing sources in one place using Google Data Studio. [03:53] Using fast-growing Zapier to

With the explosive proliferation of SaaS products, it can be difficult to keep up to speed with developments such as pricing trends. While there are review sites for products, these have largely become an extension of marketing and sales rather than objective information for customers. Capiche is looking to turn this model on its head, and CEO, Austin Petersmith, joins us to share insights into the exciting platform. Capiche is a secret society for SaaS products, showing pricing data for a variety of companies. We kick off the episode by learning more about Austin and the company. With a background in journalism and experience in tech startups, Austin saw the flawed software development review ecosystem that comes from a pay to play model. He realized the need for elevated conversations, which set the wheels in motion for the creation of Capiche. We then move to discuss the pricing data the site has available. With pricing asymmetry and opacity as the biggest problems, by making data available, Capiche puts u

Today, we are going to talk about seven Jeff Bezos frameworks that will supercharge your growth. These are frameworks that not a lot of people talk about, but when you think about business growth, when you think about longterm business, Amazon is the perfect example of that. No matter how much crap people talk about Amazon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How many CEOs are running a million dollars a month, ad to webinar? Tanner Chidester is one of them and he joins us today to talk about qualifying calls and what it’s like grossing $12 million annually at 28 years old. Tanner is CEO of Elite CEOs and Fit Warrior, two high ticket coaching businesses that offer one on one mentorship in the fitness and entrepreneurship spaces. We hear from Tanner about how he went from playing D-I football to dropping out of college to pursue entrepreneurship following the advice of a mentor. Tanner weighs in on how he built Fit Warrior’s high ticket coaching service and used that business as a platform to start Elite CEOs. He talks about how his businesses make money, shares metrics about his staff count and monthly revenue, and also speaks to the resilience of the high ticket coaching model in this time of the worldwide pandemic. We hear more about Tanner’s business model which stresses many touchpoints between coaches and clients, and he talks about their subscription lengths