Ep. 120 – Resa Gooding: “In less than a year, I became number two in the market. It happened because of one tactic I did, and it’s always being helpful.”
Resa Gooding Show Notes
Resa is the Co-Founder and Client Relations Director of Cacao Media, a HubSpot Certified Platinum Partner Agency with offices in Tel Aviv, New York, and Nairobi. With the CRM and Marketing Automation processes she and her team set up, startup companies, as well as traditional companies, spend more time closing deals instead of being bogged down by administrative tasks.
Originally from Trinidad and Tobago, she currently lives in Israel with her husband and kids and when not assisting her team and client can often be found at various co-working spaces giving advice and assistance to anyone who requests.
Most passionate about
- I’m originally from Trinidad and moved to Israel following my love. I studied Statistics in the university. I worked in statistics with the government here.
- When I came to Israel, I was not sure which business direction should I take and decided to focus on marketing where I can combine two of my skills, statistics with my English.
- So, I got involved with marketing. Worked with the big brands like Motorola and Apple on their in-store marketing throughout the world. I did it for eight years.
- With time, I saw the shift and the need among startups to get online, so I started to help them. I became a specialist mainly by partnering with HobSpot offering companies to use their platform for marketing automation and online marketing.
- I started to learn and follow all the marketing gurus like Mark Schafer (who was a guest on this show), Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, and the like. So, I learned what it takes to build a business and a brand online and translated it and started to work with agencies for the last five or six years. Two years ago, I established my own agency – CacaoMedia.
- Today we help companies with their marketing automation and CRM working as partners of HobSpot. Our customers are both startup and traditional companies. You will be amazed how many companies are still working with Excel sheets and are not very open to marketing automation.
Resa’s best advice about approaching customers
- I’ll answer this question with three parts, regarding the world of marketing automation which I focus on. The first part is for a company to be able to decide when (and when not) to have a marketing automation system. It’s not a chip system, most of the systems cost between $800 to $2000 and you are expected to work on an annual basis.
- The stage you are ready for a marketing automation system is when you have a need of reaching multiple audiences in multiple destinations, and your team is based in different locations.
- The second part of the decision whether to start working with marketing automation is when you have the content for attracting your prospects and engaging with them. A marketing automation system can’t be effective without content. So, they need to first create the relevant content.
- The third and very important part is the ability to clearly see what works in terms of online marketing. Many startups, as well as some of the traditional companies, make decisions about what kind of online activities they should focus on based on guesswork. So, they actually don’t know how to allocate their budget. Therefore, they are not maximizing their money and loosing potential customers.
Biggest failure with a customer
- I have had quite a few failures along the way. One of the things I used to forget is showing the value. I can sell an HobSpot system to a prospect, and I found that too many times, I focused on the amazing features or benefits of the system and did not focus on showing the value as my prospect cared about.
- Other failures were the result of not setting correct expectations at the beginning of my relations with new customers. And then, they get frustrated after one or two months. Because they are functions of all the great things I promised them, but they don’t understand and I didn’t explain them clearly enough how long it would take to reach meaningful achievements.
Biggest success due to the right customer approach
- One thing I realized that helps me in improving my engagement and success rates with my customers is finding a champion within the company to work with me. With the help of this champion, I was able to thoroughly understand the products and culture and then match the system services to their need.
- As an agency coming from the outside, not only we don’t completely know the company’s products, we also don’t know the culture of that company.
Resa’s most recommended tool
- For me, it’s about going back to basics. I’m competing with 17 other agencies, and in less than a year, I became number two in the market. And that didn’t happen by chance. It happened because of one tactic I did, and it’s always being helpful. I offer many free classes and events as well as one on one calls to always be helpful. At the end of the day, people want to work with you because they appreciate what you have done for them.
- You have to always focus in relationships.
Resa’s key success factor
- I think it’s my ability to be charismatic and personable, I get alone very well with everybody. I don’t judge people; I give everything and everyone a chance. This is probably my biggest strength and my superpower.
Resa’s Mountain
Since we believe that the best way for entrepreneurs to get a fast, big, and sustainable success is by leading your (new) market category, and the entire entrepreneurial journey reminds me of mountaineering, or conquering the mountain; I want to ask you if there is a mountain you dream of climbing or a mountain you have already climbed.
- I’m not much of an outdoor person so I’ll answer with the metaphorical mountain which I’m in the processes of climbing right now. One of my biggest goals is to really become a solid guru in the European, Middle east and Africa. I want my agency to be world known I want us to be the Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk but for EMEA. And I’m setting things in place to make sure we get there be there within 3-5 years.
The best way to connect with Resa:
A special offer for Reach or Miss listeners:
More resources for Entrepreneurs
- Don’t Miss – Customer Focus Strategy & Execution: Market Analysis for Fundraising
- Hayut Yogev’s Latest post: How to choose what kind of entrepreneurship you should start?
- Former interview: The golden touch of real-estate entrepreneurs. If you are looking to become an entrepreneur, Should you become one of them?
