Episode 4: More Sales - It’s All About the Customer with Joanna Griffiths and Aneela Zaib

ABOUT THE EPISODE

“In a service-based company, customer experience and relationship building and managing is pivotal to success.” – Aneela Zaib, EmergiTEL

We’ve all heard the classic rule of sales: always be closing, but is that really the key to getting more sales? In this episode of The Go-To, we explore how two companies – one product-based and one service-based – have put their customers and clients at the centre of their decision making. Hear from two experienced founders, Joanna Griffiths of Knixwear and Aneela Zaib of EmergiTEL as they share how listening to their customers has seriously changed the game for their businesses.

In this episode:

Joanna Griffiths shares how important it is as an entrepreneur to say “no”
Discover how Knixwear pivoted their sales model to an e-commerce platform all due to understanding their customers
Aneela Zaib share two key factors that allowed her service-based business to expand operations
Learn what three things a service-based business NEEDS to care about to thrive

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“Umm... I Missed That”

Entrepreneurship is a world of its own, which means the some of the lingo used might get lost in translation. Don’t worry, we’ve got your back. Here are a few of the key terms you’ll hear on this episode of The Go-To and what they actually mean.

Daily Active User (DAU): total number of people who open and engage with an app or website in a day.

Market landscape: the environment that your industry operates in and the factors that can impact it. This includes competitors, economic forces, industry trends etc.

Scalability: the ability to adapt and grow over time. For businesses, this could me having proper operational pieces in place or having the financial means to take advantage of momentum.

Meet Our Guests

Joanna Griffiths, Founder and CEO, knix and knixteen

Joanna Griffiths is the Founder and CEO of knix and knixteen, a brand that is reinventing intimates for real life. Since launching the company in 2013, Joanna has built knix into a global leader in the intimates’ category while building a community of women who are passionately taking on life by breaking down the taboos and boundaries that get in their way. A knix item is now sold every 10 seconds, and the company has shipped over half million orders in the last twelve months alone.

In 2017, Joanna launched knixteen, the first line of period proof underwear designed just for teens. Periods are one of the top five drivers of stress amongst young girls and knixteen wants to help empower young girls to be the boss of their period from cycle one.

A marketing disruptor, under Joanna’s leadership, knix was the first intimate apparel brand to showcase real women in their campaigns. Over the past six years the brand has photographed over 700 of their customers, ranging in age from 21 to 70, and sizes 0 to 22. In October of 2018, Joanna pioneered the brand’s Faces of Fertility campaign. The campaign was inspired by Joanna’s own experience having had a miscarriage on Mother’s Day. The campaign to-date has received over 1600 uses of the hashtag #FacesOfFertility and expanded to include a weekly podcast that Joanna co-hosts.

Joanna’s Go-To Resources:

Shopify and Shopify Plus
Customer research - surveys, interviews, online forums, and just talking to your customers

Find Joanna on Instagram at @joannaknix and knix at @knixwear and @knixteen

See knix’s many products and explore online business model at knix.ca

Aneela Zaib, CEO & Founder, emergiTEL

Aneela Zaib is the Founder and CEO of emergiTEL, a growing recruitment agency that has become the go-to source for hard-to-find skills in the telecommunications and IT industries. emergiTEL has been ranked twice in PROFIT 500 as Canada’s fastest growing companies and 3 years in a row (2016, 2017 & 2018) as Canada's Best Managed Company ranking by Deloitte.

Aneela is regarded for her entrepreneurial spirit and emphasis on values in the workplace. Under her tenacious leadership emergiTEL re-invented the way traditional recruitment occurred in IT and Telecom sectors. She has made is more efficient and effective for both employees and employers, by injecting the technical expertise in to the recruitment and professionalizing the qualification process. Her approach is so effective that in short period of time emergiTEL has become the top preferred staffing partner for two of the largest Canadian ICTs. Aneela's clear vision, solid strategy and go to attitude has brought in a class in recruitment industry. emergiTEL continues to grow in to financial and management consulting sectors as well as across the borders.

Aneela’s Go-To Resources: