If you think of waiting for the right time to trust your dreams and build your own business, you might find yourself waiting forever. Alexi Venneri, our guest today, was freshly out of a job, getting ready to become a mother and with a house torn down when she finally decided to trust her vision and experience and build her own company from the ground up. Because of Alexi’s leadership and vision, Digital Air Strike is now an award-winning social media, intelligent lead response, and consumer engagement technology company and a pioneer in digital response and social media technology. Digital Air Strike improves consumer engagement for over 7,700 businesses nationwide and was named to Inc. 5000’s list of Fastest Growing Private Companies. Listen to today’s episode of The Jake Dunlap Show and get inspired to stop wasting time and start working on transforming your dreams into reality!
If you think of waiting for the right time to trust your dreams and build your own business, you might find yourself waiting forever.
Alexi Venneri, our guest today, was freshly out of a job, getting ready to become a mother and with a house torn down when she finally decided to trust her vision and experience and build her own company from the ground up.
Because of Alexi’s leadership and vision, Digital Air Strike is now an award-winning social media, intelligent lead response, and consumer engagement technology company and a pioneer in digital response and social media technology.
Digital Air Strike improves consumer engagement for over 7,700 businesses nationwide and was named to Inc. 5000’s list of Fastest Growing Private Companies.
Listen to today’s episode of The Jake Dunlap Show and get inspired to stop wasting time and start working on transforming your dreams into reality!
Time stamps:
00:56- Meet Alexi Venneri, founder of Digital Air Strike and Queen of Customer Experience;
01:52- Learning respect and ethics from stories about her grandfather and his entrepreneurial endeavours;
05:31- Her love for people and travelling guided her towards a career in tourism;
09:50- Graduating from the University of Calgary with a B.A. in Tourism, Marketing and Business, working with Tourism Victoria and getting recruited by Clipper Navigation; getting the chance to visit the whole United States;
11:28- Transitioning from Marketing to Sales- managing the ballpark marketing and guest relations for the Seattle Mariners;
16:44- Working for "Who's calling", getting noticed by Dealer Track and getting into the Automotive industry;
20:37- Writing a best-seller (“Balls! Six Rules for Winning Today’s Business Game”), losing her job because of the recession and founding Digital Air Strike literally on her kitchen table;
26:14- It's never the right time!
30:32- How customers' perspective on AI and machine learning has changed- finding new ways to use technology to really help consumers;
36:19- Embrace technology! Find what better fits your company and build relationships between your business and the consumer.
Quotes
“Lovely Cottage was an Irish horse that was like a thirty to one odds, that was the only Irish horse running in their version of the Kentucky Derby, but it was in UK (...) Every Irish individual little farmer put money on this horse and my grandfather, it was illegal, had bookey shots. (...) Lovely Cottage horse won and my grandfather, the legend says, is the only bookey that paid out. He mortgaged his home, he took out loans and paid every last dollar back and when the other bookeys went out of business, he became the bookey to go to.”
“No matter what business you’re in, it’s the people, it’s the employees that you have and building that culture that makes a difference in your business. And then also connecting with your consumers or your clients, you know? How do you show value and be earnest in that approach.”
“And for the first time in my life, I was out of a job. It like never happened, no. Truth be told it was about a day, literally, I think the next day I had some folks in the industry that heard that we closed the agency and I immediately started consulting for some amazing folks in the industry.”
“And that’s when Digital Air Strike started. I just always believed in what we wanted to do it was actually freeing to start something from scratch even though it was a crazy situation. And then on top of all of that, I got pregnant. And I didn’t think I could have kids. So, my belly’s growing, the house is still torn up, and I’m trying to grow a business. That is basically where it started.”
“It never is a good time! The one thing that did work in our favor is there were no jobs and there were all these amazing, smart college grads coming out that couldn’t even get jobs working at a fast food restaurant. So I believed in just finding the smartest people, even if they didn’t have a lot of social media or technology experience, and we would work together to figure this out.”
“I think one benefit of COVID is, think about all the grandparents now that learned to zoom, or learned to use chat even in a video call or are now a little bit more tech-savvy (...) to let them say, you know, I’d actually chat with a bot if it’s a smart bot if it’s going to let me schedule an appointment, if it’s going to let me do something, I’d rather not talk to a human.”
“I believe in embracing the challenge! You know, when times are great, people aren’t so innovative, but when times are tough, that’s when you can truly come up with the most incredible solutions and just have the right mindset. Not every day is easy but (...) look for those opportunities and find new ways, and (don’t) be afraid to try new things.”
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Mentions:
1946 Grand National- horse race won by the horse “Lovely Cottage”.
Victoria Royals- Canadian major junior ice hockey team based in Victoria, BC.
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Seattle Mariners- an American professional baseball team based in Seattle.
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a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate;
he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields.
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