We recently connected with Angelo Ponzi and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Angelo thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Too often the media represents innovation as something magical that only high-flying tech billionaires and upstarts engage in – but the truth is almost every business owner has to regularly innovate in small and big ways in order for their businesses to survive and thrive. Can you share a story that highlights something innovative you’ve done over the course of your career?

After ten years of working both in advertising agencies and on the client side of the business, I decided to launch my own marketing company. Unlike others, my goal was to be a resource to other agencies, a hired gun, so to speak. With a solid qualitative and quantitative research background, I had a way to differentiate myself from others.

I worked with many advertising agencies over the next five years. Still, over time, I started generating interest from companies to work directly with me, and as a result, I started my agency.

With a background in research, I was able to open doors, unlike a typical marketing firm, and get hired to conduct a variety of research projects for companies ranging from financial institutions to computer companies and medical, to name a few. But one company changed the trajectory of my business.

It was a retailer of tween and teen apparel emphasizing action sports. While I didn’t have a direct background in the industry, I was hired to use my talents in research, and over the next 9 years, I traveled around the country conducting focus groups among young men and women to better understand their involvement in or how action sports influenced them in their decision to purchase hard and soft goods.

Over the years, traveling with the executive team, I had the chance to meet many of the leaders in the emerging action sports industry, and if I heard it once, I heard it one hundred times, “We wish there was more industry data on this industry.”

As a marketer looking for insights, I realized I was getting a glimpse into an industry begging for more data. With that in mind and the encouragement of my retail client, I founded a new research company called Board-Trac, which focused on the action sports industry.

Over the next twelve years, Board-Trac became the leading insights provider to endemic and non-endemic brands pursuing the action sports lifestyle.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I have spent my entire career in marketing. Whether it was working for advertising firms, for clients, or as a consultant, my goal has always been to help brands identify a better way to differentiate themselves from their competitors and stand out in the market in which they are competing. At the core of everything I do is market research. By understanding the needs and wants of a customer, I help identify and define strategies for companies to help them create a unique position in the market and differentiate themselves from their competitors. And at the core of this is my use of market research.

Using research at the core of everything I do has allowed me to work in a variety of industries over the years. By understanding their needs, wants, motivations, and behaviors, I help companies better position themselves for success. And using research has been a key to this.

By understanding the market in which a company competes (i.e., competition, audience, shopping, or purchase behaviors), we can better position them for success. No guessing. No sitting around a table with executives talking among themselves, but speaking to the actual customers or companies that make the buying decision into the conversation.

Research and analytics have been a core discipline of mine over the years and are still at the heart of my business as a fractional CMO.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

Ultimately, it’s doing great work. However, I believe it was staying true to my core competencies. Using research was and is at the heart of everything I did and do. Whether it was for the companies and agencies I worked for or my own consulting or research businesses.

I believe that using research to gather the insights necessary to build a strategy, new product, expand markets, etc., you need to understand the markets in which you’re going to compete. No guesswork. But getting the information directly from the people you will ultimately sell to or consult with. After all, as a consultant or Fractional CMO, I’m not buying or using all of the products and services I market, but I do need to understand the motivations and behaviors of those who will. That is why I have found research to be a powerful tool over the years.

Since the very beginning of my career, research has been a strategic tool or weapon for me. Whether I was using it to build a new product, reposition an existing one, better understand the motivations and behaviors of a buying audience, or look for ways to position my clients from the competition better, market research has been at the heart of everything I do.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Get out of your office and network. If you’re waiting for the phone to ring or an email to show up in your inbox, you might be waiting a long time.

Over the years, business came from people in my network. Whether direct or referral, you have to put yourself out there in the market and get people to know and like you so they’ll refer to you.

I wasn’t always good at that. I used to attend marketing and advertising networking meetings primarily attended by my competition.

But, as I progressed in my career, I focused on networking meetings that were not advertising or marketing-focused. This allowed me to meet business owners, for example, and discuss their business, not just marketing or advertising folk sharing stories.

I also got involved in these organizations for recognition and opportunities to stand out.

In addition, they allowed me to build relationships where people could refer me to potential clients because I was not competing with (e.g., other marketing companies). I also joined the leadership of these groups to allow me to be visible to the members.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.craftmarketingandbranding.com
• Instagram: aponzi58
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angeloponzi/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHdLKsy9H-VAhEdyXurlQJA

• Podcast: www.businessgrowthcafe.com