Talking Strategy with Ted Teele

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Once upon a time before I started Crystal Media, I had the honor of working with Ted Teele. My mentor and friend Ted are here today to share his wealth of wisdom. Ted is a Harvard BA and MBA and an expert in digital marketing. In this episode you get a snippet of his brilliant business mind with information on marketing, building a business, and the importance of strategy.

Building and growing a business starts with the foundation. At the most basic level, you have to make sure you pick the right industry, hire the right people, communicate effectively, allow for mistakes, and most importantly have a strategy for growth. The best time to strategize is at the beginning. Ted compares formulating your business strategy to The Scientific Method. Your strategy is your hypothesis, and you have to test it, analyze the data, and modify and repeat. It’s key to remember this idea that business is a science and do not be tied to your theories!

Know your industry and know where you and your business belong. Ted shares that too often people try to move in the wrong direction, and unfortunately, you don’t know what you don’t know when it comes to other industries and their buyer needs. If the competitors are totally different in that market, it’s not a good idea to keep starting over and rebuilding. Know what is possible for your business and the market that you are in. That being said, it’s impossible to build a business without taking risks. Just be sure you are taking moderate and incremental risks. Be intellectually honest and build your risks in a direction that’s growing your business.

What grows your business? Reaching buyers and consumers. That’s where marketing and strategy is so important, you want to find people that are interested and you want to make it easy. Ted works with orthodontists, so he provides the example that if their goal is to get people to make appointments, it should be easy to make appointments. Whatever it is you’re doing, make it easy for your interested consumers to find you and do what you need them to do.

I could listen to Ted talk for hours, he is such a great source of information and knowledge! At the end of our episode, he shares a few excellent tips for consuming content in a convenient way and some special advice on building a strong business with a happy team. If you take on Ted’s challenge to write down what you learned after listening to today’s episode, let me know!