Ajax Union B2B Marketing Podcast

“I think it’s important, with anything, that whatever you read, you become. So I try to get a variety of different sources...because one viewpoint that aligns with what you already think is not going to challenge you”

Company: The Elephant Pants

CEO: Nathan Coleman

Website: http://www.theelephantpants.com

INC5000 Profile: http://www.inc.com/profile/the-elephant-pants – 2017 Rank 80 // 3-Year Growth 4582% //Employees 11 // 2016 Revenue $5 M

Nathan Coleman is founder and CEO of Elephant Pants, a $10 million business Determined to put an end to the exploitation of elephants around the world, created to help save them by... you guessed it: Pants!

Not just any pants, but the most comfortable pants that anyone has ever worn!

The company was recently featured on The Shark Tank and was awarded funding by Daymond John to continue their great work and saving elephants around the world.

Listen to what Nathan Coleman did to grab a spot on the INC5000.

Like what you heard? Listen to new episodes as they launch by subscribing to the B2B Marketing Podcast on iTunes.

Company: OpDecision

CEO: Drew Polin

Website: http://www.opdecision.com

INC5000 Profile: http://www.inc.com/profile/opdecision – 2017 Rank 1032 // 3-Year Growth 415% //Employees 11 // 2016 Revenue $2.1 M

Drew Polin is the President of OpDecision, a leading provider of corporate wireless expense management services.

OpDecision is the one-stop resource for optimizing cellular plans and dramatically reducing wireless costs.

Tune in and listen to what Op Decision did to grab a spot on the INC5000.

Like what you heard? Listen to new episodes as they launch by subscribing to the B2B Marketing Podcast on iTunes

“To be successful, you need good people. You need them working as a good team and every time you let there be a chink in your armor, it’s the wrong thing to do.”

Company: Strata Company

CEO: Jeff Sammak

Website: http://www.gostrata.com

INC5000 Profile: http://www.inc.com/profile/strata-company – 2017 Rank 2709 // 3-Year Growth 127% //Employees 32 // 2016 Revenue $11.4 M

Jeff Sammak is the President and Founder of Strata Company, a boutique marketing technology and services company.

Strata builds custom technology to resolve issues that larger businesses face in marketing communication. They fulfill these needs on an end-to-end basis.

Listen to what Jeff Sammak did to grab the a spot on the INC 5000.

Like what you heard? Listen to new episodes as they launch by subscribing to the B2B Marketing Podcast on iTunes.

Pete Lamson is CEO of JazzHR, who has raised the bar in the recruiting software industry. JazzHR is the first company to put powerful, yet easy-to-use recruiting software in the hands of startups, growing companies, and even presidential campaigns. Listen to what Pete Lamson did to grab the a spot on the INC5000.

Website: http://www.jazzhr.com

INC5000 Profile: http://www.inc.com/profile/jazzhr – 2017 Rank 3390 // 3-Year Growth 94% //Employees 350 // 2016 Revenue $5.6 M

Intro: 00:00 We were in the right place at the right time and we got our sales strategy right and got our marketing strategy right.

Intro: 00:05 All the while you must tell your story and you must be focused on serving them. It's not really necessarily outcome with the knowledge that you gained while you're facing these issues, we get so caught up in trying to do everything at once. Where success is simultaneous, not sequential.

Show Overview: 00:21 Welcome to the Ajax Union B 2 B marketing podcast. On this podcast, we interview ceos and the fastest growing companies in the US. Our goal is to find out what they did to grow so fast, what business and marketing strategies they used to have explosive growth. And now your host for Joe Apfelbaum, CEO and founder Ajax Union, a B 2 B digital marketing agency in Brooklyn, New York.

Joe Apfelbaum: 00:49 Curt Bashford is the CEO of GD, formerly general devices, a medical device and software technology company whose core purpose is to improve the health and well-being of the public at large. Curt shares with us what he did in order to secure him a spot on the INC 5000 this year. I'm really excited to have a fellow EO member join me on this episode. Let's begin this amazing episode and find out how Curt grew his business. Welcome to the Ajax Union B2B marketing podcast. As you know, we're interviewing dozens of ceos and leaders of INC 5000 businesses and your business was featured on the INC 5000 to the year as number 2503. Congratulations. That's amazing.

Curt Bashford : 00:49 Thank you. Joe, Appreciate that , Kinda at the halfway mark there.

Joe Apfelbaum: 01:37 The halfway mark. You're in good company, so it shows that your 2016 revenue was 6.1 Million which is three year growth of 142 percent. That's a pretty incredible growth for business.

Curt Bashford : 01:51 Yeah. Yeah. Now the trick will be sustaining that, right?

Joe Apfelbaum: 01:54 Yeah. We'll talk more about that. I'm so glad that you can join us here today. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us about your business, your growth, your marketing strategies. Are you ready to share some insights on this program?

Curt Bashford : 02:05 Ready to roll.

Joe Apfelbaum: 02:06 All right, let's do it. So you mentioned earlier about getting out of your comfort zone. Do you feel like you get out of your comfort zone when you talk about your business? Like when you tell the story of your business?

Curt Bashford : 02:15 I used to, um, not so much anymore. You know, it's, it's a muscle memory a little bit. I'm wondering what I could do it in and can just roll in and talk. I think about it too much. It's harder.

Joe Apfelbaum: 02:28 So let's try to test some of that muscle memory. Tell us a little bit about your business. What do you do and why do people do business with you?

Curt Bashford : 02:35 Right. So, so, you know, is uh, y, you know, we also needs out there for hospitals and emergency medical services. So we created some invasive innovation where, which we call response innovation to solve problems and help those two entities communicate better. Um, ultimately to save time, save money, certainly for, to save lives and help healthcare.

Joe Apfelbaum: 03:01 That's awesome. So you're supporting hospitals by creating technology that helpS them be able to do what they need to do faster and better

Curt Bashford : 03:10 ambulances, emergency medical services communicate with those hospitals better patient care.

Joe Apfelbaum: 03:16 so what do you attribute your growth over the past four years? Do you have something specifically that you did? I mean, because you where your business was founded when I was born.

Curt Bashford : 03:26 Yeah. ANd I've been here, this is my thirty first year here now. So I started when I was two w we've gone through a few different evolutions. I'm probably the biggest pivot point. Um, you know, we went through and we went from becoming a design manufacturing from a design contract from into a manufacturer that was one pivot back in about 1990. Um, and then we had our own products, but I mean we're, we, we had some moderate growth but we were kind of really a operationally centric company. I'm an engineer by background. The founder is an engineer, so we're very engineering technically order oriented, which means we make cool stuff, how to sell it,

Joe Apfelbaum: 04:08 which is a comical stuff, but you don't know how to sell. So what changed? How did he start selling it

Curt Bashford : 04:12 to um, you know, w we had some processes and we did well in, in some niche, you know, territorial markets and such like that. Um, but we, we hadn't broken that ceiling if you would, um, in [inaudible] I'm founder retired and myself and my two partners for you could say his exit strategy that kind of opened the door for us to make another pivot. You know, there was a good Compan...