Anika Jackson: Amplifying Your Brand Power
On this episode of the Scouting For Growth podcast, Sabine VdL talks to Anika Jackson who wears many hats with enviable finesse. Currently, Anika is professor, a VP of operations for Full Capacity Marketing, a full-service agency dedicated to uplifting workforce development and educational institutions.
Today, Anika will share with us her insights about growth, drawing from her multi-faceted experiences and achievements.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Everything changes every day with digital. AI has been around for 20 years, but only last year its popularity rose for everyone to understand what the technology is & start utilising it for marketing or efficiencies in our systems & processes. We have to keep on top of everything. My students range from 20s-60s & they want to learn how to manage everything thatās happening.
- Podcasting is the only omni-channel marketing that we have nowadays; you have video content, audio content, you can create blog posts, thought-leadership pieces, hundreds of pieces of content for social media. There are so many ways to utilise each episode. Not only that, itās business development, every time Iām on a podcast or have a guest on my podcast not only do I learn something new from them but thatās another person I can now call on in my network.
- Iāve leaned into learning more about a lot of different things so I can better advise people on how to make the best use of their dollars. Especially for small businesses, itās not easy to get financing unless you have someone already backing you ā most small businesses donāt. We at the Intuit Small Business Council are going to speak to Congress in a couple of weeks about AI & small businesses & making sure they have access to tools ā digital equity.
- A lot of people donāt want to use their own voice, but in this day & time everybody wants to know who are you? Iām buying into you as a person & a founder. Yes, you have the product thatās going to solve something, but I want to know about the person, the authenticity factor. You have to believe in the person & that their solution is really going to solve your problem. Donāt think about it as āyouā, think about it as youāve got something people need to hear because what you have to offer & the solution youāre providing is going to help revolutionise things, help with access to something, or change somebodyās life thatās really important to them at this time. Take the ego out of it.
BEST MOMENTS
āWho are you & what are you doing here? That needs to infuse everything that you do. It helps people decide if they take a job, can work with you, if youāre aligned with them. ā
āIām learning as much as Iām teaching.ā
āThis is a world where you have to think omni-channel, you have to be integrated, & you canāt be siloed, you have to work together, thatās the world we live in.ā
āReserve all of the names across the socials but donāt scatter your attention, really be focussed and niche down.ā
ABOUT THE GUEST
Anika is a mother, community volunteer, philanthropist, marketing and communications professional, podcast host, and graduate adjunct professor at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. As a marketer, she has done it all including experiential marketing/ event production, launch marketing, public relations, digital, and influencer throughout her multiple decade career.
ABOUT THE HOST
There are over 140,000 FinTech ventures out there, including FinTechs, InsurTechs, HealthTechs, and WealthTechs. And the number keeps on changing every month. One statistic remains the same: 25% of these ventures have received investment and support from the financing world. 75% of these businesses still seek financing support from institutional and corporate investors alongside value-creating commercial collaboration opportunities with Global Fortune 500.
Through this podcast series, I would like to demystify the world of corporate venturing, including how corporations collaborate with growth ventures, how venture capitalists and corporate venture capitalists make investment and collaboration choices in ventures and give tech founders and entrepreneurs, the strategies, tactics, tools, and techniques to build, grow and scale their business by understanding how those with financing power think. So, listen in, share and comment as you see fit.