We were lucky to catch up with Aaron Wolpoff recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Aaron thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When you’ve been a professional in an industry for long enough, you’ll experience an industry-wide U-Turn, an instance where the consensus completely flips upside down or where the “best practices” completely change. If you’ve experienced such a U-Turn over the course of your professional career, we’d love to hear about it.

As a marketing consultant, advising and supporting companies through an outside perspective, you have to cover a lot of ground. Fortunately, I’ve done some of everything in this field: brand development, marketing automation, sales funnels, corporate communications, strategic positioning and more. This wide range of experience enables me to get thrown into companies of all shapes and sizes and get things moving for them. The nice thing is that I now have full-service solutions under Double Zebra, which I didn’t have early on, so I can now stay involved in implementation along with providing advice and action plans. This works very well for my clients because they have everything they need under one roof.

Aaron, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’ve worked with huge companies and I’ve worked with run-as-fast-as-you-can startups. Typically the companies I work with now are somewhere in between. They have achieved a certain level of success – maybe even a lot of it – and they are ready for what comes next. How do they gain a stronger competitive advantage? Out of all the opportunities on the table, which is the best path forward? I typically come in and start breaking apart these big questions into answers and plans. Then everyone is assigned a role and responsibilities in seeing these objectives come to life. When that happens, I’m typically involved in the implementation, whether overseeing or providing specialized services through my company Double Zebra. Even large established companies need someone on the outside asking “what if” and creating new paths forward. That’s the unique value we provide.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

I enjoy regular check-ins and dialog with clients to set expectations, and to create a shared vision of what is accomplished from one week to the next. But I think the best collaborations give each other room to think, concept, and strategize independently also. Steady communication is a must. But I’d rather be leading the team and doing the work vs endless meetings and Slack messages about doing the work. At some point, you just have to jump in, come up with something you think is amazing, and then bring it back to the client for validation. And good clients understand the responsibilities expected of them, and they hold up their end of the equation to keep things moving forward. Our clients really enjoy this collaborative approach because it makes everyone accountable, it puts the work front and center, and it lets all involved feel ownership of the results.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

What I had to unlearn is the tendency to say yes to everything. Now, if the owners / investors are too emotionally invested and controlling, or I’m not feeling the business model, I will share insights and be helpful, but I won’t take them on as a client. There are certain rules of engagement that have to be followed. Otherwise all we can do is spin our wheels.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://doublezebra.com
• Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/in/marketingaaron/