Striking Out On Your Own & Building An Agency with Laura Johns - Episode #147

Laura Johns is the founder and CEO of The Business Growers, a marketing firm serving the B2B telecom, SaaS, IT, and cloud-services industries. For 18 years, Laura managed marketing efforts for companies ranging from tech startups to global, multi-billion dollar businesses. She spent nearly half her career serving as a corporate marketing executive in the telecom industry before starting The Business Growers.

Her career focus is developing marketing strategies for tech companies that lead to tangible success. Today, The Business Growers serves over 50 clients in 15 states. Laura has been honored as “Top 50 under 40” and “Top 50 Leading Women in Business” in her home state of Mississippi. Today, she is a member of the Leadership Mississippi program, an honor bestowed on a select by the Mississippi Economic Council. She is also the co-founder and host of “The Home and The Hustle” podcast for working moms and “The Know, Grow and Scale” videocast and podcast for entrepreneurs.

Questions and topics we covered Include:

• What made Laura decide to strike out on her own
• What Laura wishes she had known before starting her agency
• The 3 consistent marketing priorities for a B2B tech company (regardless of company stage)
• How to grow your business without a full-time marketing team
• Two key ways to identify your company’s brand
• What conditions need to be met for a business to consider outsourcing its marketing?
• Qualities to look for when hiring new team members
• How marketing has evolved…
• The #1 marketing challenge The Business Growers is facing this year.

And more!

You can connect with Laura through LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurapickardjohns/

And you can also connect with me through LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kennysoto/

Past guests of The People of Digital Marketing include April Dunford, Amanda Goetz, Melissa Rosenthal, Bill Macaitis, Miruna Dragomir, Andrew Capland, Erik Newton, Andy Crestodina, Sarah Bedrick, Michael Wieder, Dan McGaw, Kathleen Booth, Foti Panagiotakopoulos, Tommy Walker, Lea Pica, Maya Grossman, Sara Pion, Margaret Kelsey, and more.

Music for this podcast comes from www.davidcuttermusic.com