20A – Growing Your Social Capital

Domain Expert: Dayana Falcon

Who They Are: Sales Marketing Leader at The Walt Disney Company

Background: Dayana Falcon grew up in Miami and was the first in her family to attend college as a Latina woman with Cuban roots. She chose The University of Florida where she majored in advertising. Dayana has been described as energetic, forward-thinking, and enthusiastic, and her greatest strength is her ability to network. She began her career in analytics and digital media planning for clients such as Lifelock, Logitech, Pandora, Hyundai, and Kia during her time at Initiative Media. Shortly after, she was relocated to NYC to join the CEO of IPG Media Brand’s global team. Dayana’s responsibilities ranged from global business development, marketing, and operations. Today, Dayana is the sales marketing manager at Disney advertising sales at The Walt Disney Company. Dayana has experience in putting together all the pieces of the puzzle of a fully integrated marketing ecosystem, with a side of innovation. She is also deeply passionate about all things around diversity and inclusion and is involved with various organizations to impact change.

Slot: Domain Expert
How the person fills the spot: Dayana Falcon fills the slot because she engages in the same type of business activity as I would like to be, a sales marketing leader. Sales and marketing leaders are responsible for researching and developing marketing opportunities and planning and implementing new sales plans. They also manage both the marketing and the sales staff and will perform managerial duties to meet the company's operations goals. Their responsibilities are to promote the company's existing brands and introducing new products to the market, maintain relationships with important clients by understanding their needs and anticipating new marketing opportunities, and implement new sales plans and advertising strategies. Sales and marketing leaders use a wide variety of skills, including leadership and the ability to work in a team. Project management skills are also beneficial, as they are often in charge of multiple projects at once. Advertising skills are crucial in this role. Aspiring sales marketing leaders should look to refine their knowledge of the advertising industry in their education and entry-level positions to fill this spot.

How I found and contacted the person: Dayana Falcon was the guest speaker for my ADV3403- Branding class that I took in Summer A 2019. She gave a talk on college and career advice include the fact that it’s alright if you’re unsure of what to do next within your career, taking what you’ve learned and applying them to your next job or duty, and doing what you love and not following expectations placed on us by social media. I was able to find and contact her through LinkedIn, because she left her contact information with the instructor. After her talk, I connected with her on the social media platform because as entrepreneurs, we are always interested in growing our networks and LinkedIn is the ideal platform for that. On LinkedIn, you can find just about anybody that might be a prospect, partner, or maybe even just a good person to know in your industry. When I found out that we had to contact a person that is a domain expert in our industry, she was the first person that came to mind and I was able to message and contact her, due to being connected on it.

Nature of the exchange with the person: Dayana Falcon taught me that it’s crucial to not only major or find a job in something that you’re passionate about, but also to not listen to obligations found on social media, such as having to respond to an e-mail within minutes of receiving it. When she mentioned that it’s alright to take time to yourself and that you don’t have to get back to e-mails or respond to social media immediately, that resonated with me and I experienced something similar when I was an officer for an organization on campus. These lessons were helpful to me because they taught me that you don’t always have to be perfect within the workplace and that there’s constantly new opportunities opening up. For example, right after going to Los Angeles, Dayana Falcon got hired, and has worked in many areas of advertising and marketing, such as being a digital media planning specialist and working with analytics within initiative media. I will apply this advice in my own career path by striving to accomplish what’s best for me and keeping my opportunities open.

How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity?

Including Dayana Falcon in my network will enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity because building a relationship with the person providing the information will result in the person making a referral in the future. The people in your LinkedIn network can help make future connections, refer you for a job, provide advice and more. LinkedIn is focused on building relationships in the form of connections. A LinkedIn profile is a resume of skills and achievements to effectively target or attract prospective clients. A meaningful connection is one that creates value for both parties involved. Such connections can easily blossom into lifelong relationships, but for a meaningful connection to last, it has to be a two-way street. With connections, offer to do something for the new connection as early as possible in the relationship. If you can slide a favor offer into the connection invitation yourself, it shows  the other person that you can immediately be of value, encouraging them to not only connect with you but to also put in the time and effort it takes to create an ongoing relationship. It also gives you the opportunity to start getting to know the person.

Market Expert: Eder Holguin

Who They Are: Founder and CEO of Ideal Media
Background: Eder Holguin left a frightening home life and lived homeless in the streets of Medellin, Colombia during the time of the Medellin cartel, when violence and drug lords ruled as a child. He chose Universidad de Antioquia where he majored in business. Eder Holguin is an award-winning Serial Entrepreneur, Digital Sales and Transformation Expert with more than 20 years of industry expertise helping companies scale revenue, optimize sales and marketing processes and improve productivity. His clients range from brand name Fortune 500 companies to innovative start-ups. Eder served as Chief Revenue Officer at Integrate, a multi-channel marketing platform. Prior to joining Integrate, Eder founded OnDemand Research, which was later acquired by Zeta Interactive, where he served as Senior Vice President of Sales. He is currently active in the online industry speaking circuit and serves as an Executive Advisor to several privately held companies, including Recruiter.com and OneQube. He is an entrepreneur who understands how to get progress on projects and developed a system that gets views through advertising and the audience amplification network as a knowledgeable professional who is helpful towards businesses.

Slot: Market Expert
How the person fills the spot: Eder Holguin fills the slot because he is someone who is targeting my market with similar product services and knows a lot about conducting customer research in your area. As a serial entrepreneur, he is continuously coming up with new ideas and starting new businesses. A serial entrepreneur will often come up with an idea and get things started, but then give responsibility to someone else and move on to a new idea and a new venture. Once a particular business is established, serial entrepreneurs delegate the responsibility of running operations and move on to other ventures. They may even sell earlier businesses. Serial entrepreneurs often experience windfall gains when their companies are sold at high premiums or continue to generate profits without much effort on their part. This is a good thing if the individual has lots of unique ideas and is the best one suited to get each one started but can be a bad thing if the individual stops putting time into a company that needs his or her help, on moving forward.

How I found and contacted the person: I found Eder Holguin through a LinkedIn search for experts in my market, which involves both advertising and entrepreneurship. I was fortunate enough to attend one of his virtual workshops in the past, where I learned that it’s crucial to differentiate yourself through being authentic, who you are and what you do will put you ahead of your peers. Vulnerability is having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. By taking the initiative and showing vulnerability, it can become one’s greatest strength by revealing one’s authentic or true self, instead of hiding behind a façade to appease others. Within the workplace, opening up enables stronger levels of hope and trust, improving employee performance. It also develops a culture of forgiveness, by having workers analyze and learn from their mistakes, as opposed to receiving punishment for them. This benefits a company’s productivity, and you’re still in the game because you want to help people and improve yourself shamelessly. Success doesn’t happen overnight; it takes time and experience through failure and trials.

Nature of the exchange with the person: Eder Holguin taught me that you’re not competing with someone, it’s actually your authenticity that beats competition, frequent failures are better than one large success because you’ll get better in the game, and it’s not what you’ve done, it’s what you’re doing that matters. Taking the risk and putting yourself out there, accepting the potential risk of failure, and showing vulnerability requires significantly more courage and strength than staying quiet and doing nothing. By taking a risk, there’s a chance of failure, but it’s better than missing a once in a lifetime opportunity. By having passion and guts, the process of putting your ideas out into the world have many opportunities to fail. However, the fear of failure is one of the biggest obstacles to innovation, creativity, and a willingness to take a risk. One must acknowledge that by having passion and guts, they must venture outside their comfort zone into the unknown. Constant learning is displayed through failures, and we can utilize the experience to make ourselves better. Taking initiative means standing out, raising your hand, and going ahead and doing tasks not assigned to you. It’s not just about doing big projects, but also small and personal gestures as well in which we take full ownership of our initiatives and actions.

How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity?

Including Eder Holguin in my network will enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity because he is very knowledgeable and can help your business just by following some of his revolutionary leads. Thinking like an entrepreneur will help you right from the beginning, and by having a connection with a serial entrepreneur, it will help you to think about what you’re doing and why. It will help you to know where you would like your business to lead you, and what risks you’re willing to take to succeed. If you know the answers to these questions, you’ll be ready to tackle all the challenges your new business throws at you. Eder Holguin is also a digital sales and transformation expert and over the past few years, social selling has gained the attention of sales professionals looking to succeed in the altered customer purchasing landscape. Social selling is when salespeople use social media to interact directly with their target audience. Successful social sellers can be regarded as thought leaders by prospective customers as they provide value through industry insights, sharing expertise and offering solutions to common consumer questions through creating or sharing insightful content. This gives someone the opportunity to develop connections.

Supplier: Ronin Revenue

Who They Are: Privately-Held Global Marketing Company
Background: Ronin Revenue is a privately-held global marketing company focused on empowering clients of all types to expand their reach and improve ROI. As a full spectrum engagement provider, Ronin Revenue leverages global strategic alliances, depth of expertise and the proprietary ad delivery system to relentlessly outperform expectations. Founded on the dedication to sophisticated and efficient quality services, Ronin Revenue employs scalable brand protection and assurance control processes enabling Client confidence and security. They are a premium boutique agency with media suppliers that gain access to high paying campaigns that are difficult to secure within a variety of verticals. Ronin Revenue is selective in their approval process and partner with suppliers who follow best practices while working with them to deliver a quality audience. They focus on competitive rates, bonus payouts and exclusive campaigns, securing advertising campaigns which accept a variety of media while offering high payouts, diverse creatives and multiple ways of sending traffic. Dedicated media buyers work closely with their suppliers to review and improve quality while driving consistent volume. Their self-serve ad management platform and customizable reporting system enables their suppliers to maintain a real-time view of media and make adjustments on the fly which is convenient.

Slot: Supplier
How the person fills the spot: Ronin Revenue fills the spot because they are a privately-held global marketing company that sells products and services to other organizations and or firms in the advertising industry. They are composed of digital marketing experts with a passion for data and design that connect their clients to the audience with innovative messaging and positioning. Digital marketers are in charge of driving brand awareness and lead generation through all the digital channels, both free and paid, that are at a company's disposal. These channels include social media, the company's own website, search engine rankings, email, display advertising, and the company's blog. The digital marketer usually focuses on a different key performance indicator, KPI, for each channel so they can properly measure the company's performance across each one. Digital marketing is carried out across many marketing roles today. In small companies, one generalist might own many of the digital marketing tactics described above at the same time. In larger companies, these tactics have multiple specialists that each focus on just one or two of the brand's digital channels. They also utilize push and pull marketing tactics in the industry.

How I found and contacted the person: I found Ronin Revenue through a Google search for important suppliers to my industry, which involves both advertising and business entrepreneurship. The fundamentals of marketing are founded on following a consistent pattern of approach. It starts with a clear understanding of the end result and the steps needed to achieve the goal. At Ronin Revenue, they hear their clients and the needs of the audience, building strategies to interact with consumers at key points during the decision-making process. As a privately held global marketing company, they focus on empowering qualified consumers to connect with clients through innovative messaging and careful positioning using the latest mobile, social and omnichannel technology. Analytics rule all decisions and by reviewing each creative, placement and key performance indicators they re-balance each aspect of the marketing campaign on a consistent, recurring basis. Ronin Revenue is an out-of-the-box total advertising solution that helps their partners efficiently improve their performance and grow the bottom line. They have roots that extend back to the last century and offers a fundamental understanding of the migration of traditional media and the explosion of the connected online and mobile experience through media.

Nature of the exchange with the person: Ronin Revenue taught me that integrity, respect, and heroic courage are crucial when working with others. Be acutely honest throughout your dealings with all people. Believe in justice, not from other people, but from yourself. To the true entrepreneur, all points of view are deeply considered regarding honesty, justice, and integrity. Mutual respect also plays a critical part in the workplace, encouraging mutual respect enables reduced workplace stress, conflict and problems. An increase in workplace respect will help to improve communication between colleagues, increase teamwork and reduce stress as peace in the workplace soars. It will also increase productivity, knowledge and understanding. As mutual understanding and respect increase, the exchange of ideas will rise which will increase company knowledge and innovation. Reducing the amount of pettiness and workplace politics will also assist in increasing productivity. The goal will shift from one-upping a colleague to focusing on the company as a whole. Sincerity is also important because it helps to build trust, people who are perceived as being sincere in their manner and words generally have an easier time getting others to believe in them and to trust ideas or plans, they want to implement.

How will including this person in your network enhance your ability to exploit an opportunity?

Including this privately held global marketing company in my network will enhance my ability to exploit an opportunity because in a company with healthy connections, information can be exchanged more quickly, people are able to understand concepts more easily, and there is a greater level of trust. This makes it easier for the business to initiate changes and adapt to the market. As a person who develops relationships that bring value to others in one’s network, it brings value to the connector directly as a piece of new business or a repaid favor. Connecting in business is about being present, being available, and being unselfish. For organizations, social media represents both opportunity and risk. On one hand, social media provides a platform for brand enhancement. Connecting with customers, promotions, customer service interactions, all this is a new concept. But on the other hand, it has caused a shift in the balance of power. Most consumer-facing companies have acknowledged this shift and begun to adapt their organizations in response. No business can afford to be complacent, social networks will continue to change the way people act and make decisions, and business leaders need to determine how their companies should respond. This is done through networking through sites like LinkedIn.

Reflection: This experience will shape how I participate in future networking events by enabling me to connect with others, learn and experience new opportunities, and take a break from my usual routine. Networking events give you the opportunity to refine your message and methods of selling yourself to the job market, as a place to home in on your mission statement and really help you definitively determine what you stand for. The amount of first-hand connections you make at networking events is incredibly valuable, and it is easier and faster to establish a connection in person. Not only can you ask and answer questions as they naturally arise, but you can also use visual cues, such as changes in body language, to adjust your approach. Targeted networking is critical to one's ultimate success, the best way to increase your number of contacts is by way of informational interviews. Such networking meetings, moreover, are not solely the purview of recent grads and other newly minted members of the workforce. Rather, informational interviews can prove invaluable tools to building connections with important insiders who have the potential to influence hiring decisions. This is done through goals, strategies, and plans.