I’m so excited to introduce my guest today: Michele Floriani, Chief Marketing Officer at Sequoia Consulting Group. And I should note: Zander Media has had the pleasure of working with Sequoia over the last several years to produce a variety of videos about the company.

Sequoia started out as a benefits broker 20 years ago, but has morphed into a full service provider, bringing HR tools and services to companies from early stage startups through to enterprise companies. 

Michele comes from a fine art and business background, and he blends these in his work today leading brand and marketing at Sequoia. 

That kind of wide-ranging product array could lead to unfocused branding, but in this episode we learn how Michele and his team maintain a strong sense of company identity.

Some of the great tips Michele shares include using one logo for all your products and solving the problems you have now, not trying to solve the problems you think you’ll have later. Michele’s wealth of experience and deeply caring approach to his work are a beacon in a rapidly changing world. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did!

My guest today is Aaron Beashel, Founder of Attributor and former Head of Marketing at SafetyCulture and Campaign Monitor. Aaron is passionate about getting away from the venture capital funding model and the world-changing moonshot mentality that it mandates. In this conversation, he shares a wealth of ideas for how to build and sustain a company that’s NOT aiming for a billion dollars in annual revenue and a global reach. How do you gradually grow a company that supports your lifestyle goals? 

Aaron is a master of his craft, and we’re lucky that he’s turned his attention to smaller, simpler projects. His vision for sustainable company culture and work-life balance is inspiring. We’re definitely all about this type of business and growth at Zander Media, and it’s a real pleasure to sit down with such an experienced marketer to hear about how he makes a bootstrapped business work for him.

My guest today is Allison Baum Gates, a General Partner at SemperVirens Venture Capital and a lecturer at the Business School at Columbia University and the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. Allison got her start working in finance and investing, but quickly saw that technology was changing everything about her work and our world.

So Allison decided to go into tech, and to focus on investing in the technology that would be doing the disrupting in 5 or 10 years. She spends her days talking to startup founders and cultivating SemperVirens’ ecosystem of forward-thinking startups. Allison is making an incredible impact with the companies in her portfolio, and her passion for people and growth is clearly a guiding force in her work. Today Allison shares some razor-sharp insights about brand, culture, and how to effectively build a company. We also dive into the history of venture capital. I hope you enjoy this fascinating conversation as much as I do.

Hello and welcome back to The Marketing Podcast!

My guests today are Gia Laudi and Claire Suellentrop, co-founders at Forget the Funnel, which helps software companies dramatically improve performance through customer-led growth.

Whether in SaaS - software as a service - companies or beyond, Claire and Gia believe that by prioritizing customers and understanding the customer journey, companies can transform their growth and retention.

While leading up marketing at Unbounce, Gia realized that a customer’s entire experience could be mapped and measured, not based on metrics, but instead on the customer’s own sense of success. Similarly, while leading marketing at Calendly, Claire discovered a research process that helps uncover a customer’s motivation for buying. 

In 2017, Claire and Gia launched Forget the Funnel, and their own methodology for leveraging customer insights to qualify customer value, and then optimize the entire customer experience.

There’s a ton to be learned in this conversation about understanding your own customers and their journey. Please enjoy this interview with Gia Laudi and Claire Suellentrop.

Max Thalheimeris is a young entrepreneur building Earnz, which is a platform looking to level the playing field for independent bars and restaurants. This interview was recorded as part of a conversation with Max focused on helping him work on his business marketing and strategy.

Max and I were introduced because I have owned and operated an independent restaurant, and Max is building a platform serving just that audience. Earnz is looking to disrupt the traditional model of connecting customers to restaurants. Companies like Yelp scrape new restaurants and add them to the platform, and then customers can review those businesses. Yelp’s revenue comes from companies paying Yelp for their business profiles to be highlighted.

Instead, Max and the team at Earnz are trying to build customer loyalty within specific regions - likely beginning in the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area - by connecting those customers to specific, independent companies who are able to offer customer loyalty discounts.

The core challenge within any two-sided marketplace - but especially a company like Earnz that is serving small businesses - is building loyalty. We explore Earnz marketing strategy and their path forward through this podcast! If you’re interested in a similar conversation with me for your brand, please contact me at zandermedia.com.

Enjoy!

My guest today is Graham North, head of Brand Camp at the iconic ad agency of Goodby, Silverstein, and Partners, the team behind Got Milk and many memorable campaigns. Graham just won “Strategic Planner of the Year,” and Jeff Goodby has said, “Graham is spearheading a new way of thinking and approach to clients’ problems.”

Graham North has worked as the CMO of companies, as a strategic consultant, and within agencies - and personally I’ve benefited from his expertise at Zander Media! I have witnessed first hand his ability to distill the essence of an organization into a tangible organizing principle which then determines the path forward.

In this interview, we dive into how Brand Camp got started, and the tactics that they use today with many of the biggest well-known consumer-facing companies in the world. But at its heart, Brand Camp helps executives of these companies do brand therapy, and we discuss why this is so important in organizations today.

Graham is also the creator of Real Talk, which is both a card game and an application for Slack, which allows that same authenticity of individuals that Brand Camp provides for companies.

Hello, and welcome back to The Marketing Podcast. In this conversation, I sit down with Forest Pond, the founder of Never Home Music. Never Home’s tagline is “Never stop moving, never stop making.” They have made sound for some of the biggest brands in the world. If you go to neverhomemusic.com, I guarantee that you will be blown away by the quality of their music and their sound.

Forest and I dive deep into sonic branding and how organizations can utilize sound to define their business, connect with their audience, and get results.

Hello and welcome back to The Marketing Podcast. My guest today is Meredith Kendall Maines, Marketing Partner at Lightspeed Venture Partners. Lightspeed is an institution in Silicon Valley venture capital. In today’s conversation, we discuss Meredith’s role in venture capital. She works with Lightspeed's more than 200 portfolio companies and founders to tell compelling stories. She takes us through the nuances of business-to-business versus direct-to-consumer marketing, and strategies for founders to target their time and energy in growing companies.

Please enjoy!