Celebrating International Business Women's Week with 7 Of Our Favorite Female Podcast guests
It’s the third week of October, which means it is National Business Women's Week! As a company with a female founder, we hope that honoring and appreciating the women who make our brands work is near and dear to everyone throughout the entire year. Still, we're not going to pass up the important and worthwhile opportunity to shine the spotlight extra bright on all of the amazing women that continue to create, innovate and bring great ideas, products and services into the world.
It's in that spirit we'd like to take a moment to focus on key women-led episodes of our DTC Growth Hacking podcast. We started this podcast to give a platform to a variety of individuals from the DTC business world, for them to share their origin stories, trials and tribulations, greatest successes and their advice for others who are on the same journey. No surprise then that many of the most insightful and impactful conversations have been with women who live and breath their work day in and day out. We’ve chosen 7, one for each day of this important week, for you to listen to. We think each one lends a unique perspective and teaches us important lessons not only about the future of DTC and the digital revolution, but about the pivotal role women play in developing and defining the terms of this new world of eCommerce. So without further ado, let’s get started
1: Prairie Rose of Bit By A Fox
Let’s start with our most recent episode of the list, and maybe the most personal. Prairie Rose is everyone’s favorite drinks writer, blogger, and podcaster. She’s a trained sommelier, spirits educator and her blog - Bit by a Fox is a winner of Saveur Magazine’s Readers’ Choice Award for Best Drinks Blog. She’s also now the commerce editor at Liquor.com. AND she has a book coming out this month, called Mixology for Beginners, that is available for pre-order on Amazon right now.
Prairie has created a niche brand in a very broad market that embodies cocktail culture and beyond. In this episode she shares her journey, what she’s gleaned along the way, and dives into the creation, marketing, and consumption of great adult beverage brands, as well as the challenges faced when you become a brand of your own. It’s well worth a listen!
2: C.C. Boyce of Boyce Studio
The next episode is another highly personal one, and one that dives deep into the world of customer relations and connection while dealing with the extremely touchy subject of the death of a loved one. In this episode Rob checks in with woodworker C.C. Boyce to discuss the success she’s found with her latest creation, the Planturn. Their conversation focuses on what it is really like for a grassroots brand to make it in today’s DTC world, and the roles that advertising and marketing can play to elevate great products and ensure that customers know about them.
This episode is especially of interest to those taking the small business DTC journey, and how hard work and marketing prowess can help achieve the success makers are hoping for.
3: Sarah Wagman Ellenbogen of DigiFresh
Third up we have an episode that showcases a woman at the forefront of brand transparency and honesty with your customers, pushing the envelope of ethical consumption models and showing the world that it is possible to build a successful brand without misleading your customers or leaving them in the dark.
Sarah Wagman Ellenbogen is the co-founder and CEO of DigiFresh — who have created tools that allow for the merger of traceability and accountability with marketing and storytelling — in a way that feels organic to the brand and entertaining to the customer. After a career for building amazing partnerships between brands and technology organizations like Revver, YouTube, and Google, Sarah has now turned her focus to helping consumer brands tell their stories, and ultimately, witness them gain more trust and grow their customer relationships.
If you’re interested in how the origin stories of goods are becoming more important for driving consumer decisions, what future awaits us, and how “good” is always the side to be on, then dive in and listen. She and Rob will take you there.
4: Allis Markham of Prey Taxidermy
Your company's brand should be deeply personal, and what is more personal than doing what you love? This episode explores just what it means to turn your hobby into a business and find massive success in the process. Allis Markham is an award-winning master taxidermist based in Los Angeles, California. She’s the founder of Prey Taxidermy, who works closely with museums all over the globe.
She’s also a former professional marketer, transitioning from marketing to taxidermist after a highly successful career which ultimately led her into the executive ranks at Disney. Her brand is a carefully executed version of “her perfect self”, and she’s been featured in countless publications and is the subject of the feature documentary “Stuffed”, which is available for download on Amazon.
In her episode, Allis and Rob dive into how brand and persona intersect in today’s world of DTC marketing, and how carefully curated brands need to be -- especially when they are an extension of an actual person.
This is an amazing tale of a person leveraging DTC to manifest their perfect scenario, and highly inspirational.
Go ahead and give it a listen.
5: Dr. Aimée Gould Shunney, Doctor of integrative and naturopathic medicine
Have you ever thought about how the eCommerce revolution has expanded beyond the confines of DTC? Well Dr. Aimée Shunney is here to discuss this in depth. She is a top-rated naturopathic physician practicing in Santa Cruz, California, has been providing medical services for the last two decades, launched her own cleanse product into the market, and has been a spokesperson for a number of top supplement and CBD companies. In this episode Rob and Dr. Shunney dive into what it’s like to be a doctor in today’s DTC landscape where doctors have become brands and the rules aren’t absolutely clear.
It’s a conversation you won’t want to miss if you want to get a full picture of the future of digital branding and business.
6: Leanna Creel of Vuse
Leanna Creel has been a fixture in the LA media scene as long as she can remember. With a rich history in front of and behind the camera - as an actor, filmmaker, and production company founder - she’s seen it all. Now she’s taking her experience to put the video in Vuse, a new platform co-founded with former Sotheby’s International COO Julie Leonhardt, designed to help realtors get the most out of the media tools contained in their smart phones.
This episode is a great one to listen to if you’re interested in learning more about how legacy industries like real estate are adapting to the new digital world, how a person can make huge shifts within their career and still land on their feet, and is just a fun conversation that you’re sure to love.
7: Lior Root & Sophia Trunzo of Paradigm Media
Last but not least we have one of our first episodes with some of our favorite players in the CBD space, Lior Root and Sophia Trunzo.
These two are the dynamic co-founders of Paradigm Media, a power agency built from the ground up specifically to help CBD brands maneuver the ever-changing-playing field of internet advertising. In this episode they sit down with Rob to discuss the challenges CBD companies face and how platform policy is defining how, and where, brands can engage with consumers. It’s a very informative conversation if you are in the CBD space or considering getting into it, and illuminates not only the challenges faced by these brands, but how these two women have developed powerful and effective solutions to overcome them.
We hope you enjoy these podcasts as much as we enjoyed making them! These women’s stories are so compelling and so powerful, we know that everyone will find something to relate to or learn from within these 7 episodes.
We'd like to end this week's article by recommending that each reader think of one or more women in business, whether a boss, a co-worker...a friend, colleague or relative, and find a way to celebrate them this week. And then find ways throughout the year to keep showing them that appreciation.