Growing a digital marketing agency from China – JOSH STEIMLE | DMR #174

Today I'm joined by a man who failed at business through most of his career running a digital marketing agency and nearly went out of business in 2012. But now he's a TEDx speaker, has written over 200 articles for publications like TechCrunch, Forbes, Mashable, Time, and Inc, his agency has grown to 25 staff, and he's the author of the new book Chief Marketing Officers at Work. Welcome to DMR, Josh Steimle. [You can find Josh at JoshSteimle.com]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rLyTAzQOpM





On this episode of Digital Marketing Radio we discuss growing a digital marketing agency from China with topics including:

How did you turn it all around?
Why China?
And are all your staff based in China?
How has your business benefited from moving to China?
And what have you found most difficult about doing business in China?
Where are most of your clients based?
So from your perspective, what does it take to run a successful digital marketing agency today?
What makes a successful client/agency relationship?
What’s been your biggest learning experience in growing your agency?
How do you grow an agency quickly?
What prevents growth?
If you were to advise someone who was thinking of starting their own agency, what are the essentials to get right to begin with?

[Tweet ""Empathy trumps just about anything else you can do when it comes to marketing." @joshsteimle"]
Software I couldn't live without
What software do you currently use in your business that if someone took away from you, it would significantly impact your marketing success?
Google Docs [Online document creation and sharing]
What software don't you use, but you've heard good things about, and you've intended to try at some point in the near future?
HipChat [Team group chat]
My number 1 takeaway
What's the single most important step from our discussion that our listeners need to take away and implement in their businesses?
It's empathy I think. I recently had the opportunity to interview 30 CMOs from huge corperations - Paypal, Spotify, GE. And one things that came through to me from all these interviews that I did was these people really understand their customer. And in marketing if you 'get' your customer - you understand what motivates them, where they're coming from, why they buy, then you'll get all the right 'tactics'. You'll figure out how to connect with them, how to sell to them. So I think that empathy trumps just about anything else you can do when it comes to marketing.