Wayne Jagoe – Founder & Chief Idea Officer, Enacity Digital Intelligence
You won’t find anyone more passionate about marketing than Wayne Jagoe, founder and chief idea officer at Enacity Digital Intelligence. What makes Enacity different? They are the“un-agents”– they enthusiastically help nurture existing marketing ideas as well as generating new ideas for their small to medium sized business clients – providing innovation and ideation.
With the benefit of a fresh perspective on their side, their role isn’t to replace anyone. They believe everyone needs a spark now and then and this is their sweet spot.
Wayne’s clients are situated all over the U.S. and Canada – restaurateurs, clothiers, non-profits – it’s a broad spectrum of clients and generally quite entrepreneurial. Wayne specializes in concept development and innovation, bringing passion & energy to any project and an entrepreneurial mindset to any corporation or organization.
One entrepreneur, Matt White of Sussex Beard Oil Merchants, describes Wayne best,“as the guy you bring in during the last quarter, half or period of the game and you need something to spark you and your team to win.”
I began our conversation by asking Wayne to tell me about the biggest challenges that he’s been asked to provide solutions for …
A: Actually, we find the challenges easier now. When our customers serve up whatever marketing challenge they have, we can turn to our dashboard that helps measure website analytics, social media and other important information about our client’s business. This dashboard makes it easier for our customers to see what’s actually happening using their sales and marketing data.
Q: Tell me more about the dashboard.
A: As you know, there’s just way too much data out there. We reduce all that data down to digestible bites. People want all the data, but then when they see it all, they’re like a deer in the headlights. It can be overwhelming. The biggest problem we’re were finding is that there’s all this data, but what does it mean? For example, you have an online customer and an in-store customer. What’s their experience and how does that tie to the web? Are they the same customer? Then you have a younger generation that wants everything now, instant gratification. They aren’t loyal – they want the best price.
Q: How does that affect traditional business owners?
A: That puts traditional business owners in a real tough spot because they provide exceptional service, an excellent product but now the world is quite small and anybody can get anything. So where does customer loyalty lie and where does the customer experience lie? What does that young person really want you to help them with?
Q: How do you streamline the data into something digestible?
A: We bring all that data together to create eureka moments for our clients. We create executive summaries from all the data and review quarterly so our clients can see the needle move on their bottom line – or when the needle doesn’t move, they know to tweak the marketing. Now they have a gauge to measure the results.
Q: Tell me more about the process of setting up a client to ensure they have relevant data.
A: We start with goals and a strategy. What are they going to do to get to success or what is success in their eyes? What are their goals this quarter? What are the goals in six months and a year?
You have to know where the client wants to go and then help keep them focused on where they want to head by serving relevant data that’s important to them at that point in time. There’s an ebb and flow of day-to-day business but long-term, we keep our clients focused on where they want to be headed.
Q: How do you determine what will work best with a client?
A: Often, a client will assume certain things will work. It’s not always right. It’s really about testing it. Everyone thinks there’s a magic bullet, a cure, but you have to assess using split testing. We do it all the time. It helps you determine how you make an impact.
I know people want that home run in their business, but you score more runs when you hit singles as opposed to trying to hit a home run every time. Expectations are so emotional.
Q: How do you go about finding customers all throughout North America while being based in New Brunswick?
A: It’s all through referral and word of mouth. That’s how we’ve always grown the business. We were fortunate a number of years ago that one of our first clients was part of a peer group – they invited us to come in and talk to their group and it had a domino effect.
Q: If you had one piece of advice for an aspiring entrepreneur in the Atlantic Canadian region, what would that be?
A: You’re going to fail at something. You’re going to fail at that presentation you’re excited to give to a potential client. A customer is going to return something because it’s defective. You’ll hire a staff member you think is going to be great, but they aren’t. Conversely, you’ll have great staff, you’ll have great customers and you’ll have great products and services. You’ll have ups and downs. Some of these things are controllable. Some are not. A lot of things will happen that will really get you down. You will have these failures, big ones and little ones. It’s that stickto-itiveness to be able to get out of bed knowing you’re on the right track and not to let anybody dissuade you.
Q: What kind of impact can your business life have on your personal life?
A: It’s so hard to separate business from personal. It wears you down. It’s mentally exhausting, especially when cash flow is tight. You’ve got to build the ability to persevere – it has to be deep within you to keep going when things are tough.
Q: How would you complete the following sentence,“A leader’s job is to … ?”
A: A leader’s job is to create a shared vision – nurturing, coaching and supporting at all times. It’s easier to lead when things are going well, but true leadership is needed when things aren’t going well and even more so when the future looks bleak.
I believe a leader instills confidence. They have to be the first to stand and show the way to staff, customers, ownership and shareholders. You can never lead from behind.
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This article published in the Telegraph-Journal on Saturday, April 1st, 2017.