Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
I hail from Italy. It’s hard to know when everything started or how everything is connected. Since childhood, I have been curious about the reasons behind things. When I was 13, I got electrocuted from one of the charger ports at the soccer field I was playing on, which sparked my interest in electricity. This led me to pursue a master’s degree in Electronic Engineering in Italy and Germany. After completing my studies, I landed a job in Switzerland for over six figures a year. However, I had a spiritual awakening in Switzerland and decided to open my heart to Jesus. This prompted me to move to the US to attend Bible College. After graduation, I had to make a tough decision to stay in the US with my then-girlfriend (now wife). To do so, I opted for an investor visa, set up a marketing consulting business, and hired people immediately. This is how my journey began.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?
Honestly, I can’t call any mistakes funny. I believe I would have done things differently, like hiring a salesperson as my first hire. I would have planned my investment differently, and I believe this would have helped me not find myself at the bottom around my first-year anniversary. But in the end, now, I can think like this only because I learned that getting to the bottom means that I am grateful for anything that happened.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
If I had to think of someone, I would probably think of my parents, who told me to just keep going and trust God that everything would come together. I had many other people who would enter my life for a short time to give me the knowledge and wisdom that I needed at that time and then leave. For this reason, I can’t call anyone my mentor.
Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Books are where I find most of my answers, and the main one I read fully every year is the Bible. Every time I read it, I can find new revelations and solutions for what I am going through right now. Some other books that made an impact on my life would be The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco and Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It. The second one I really needed it when I understood that even if I was able to bring leads I was not able to make sales. It helped me understand the psychology behind sales, and in less than 3 months, I went from closing 10% of the leads to over 70%.
Are you working on any new, exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?
I am working on my Podcast called Unlike Marketing. It will be a way to help free small businesses by sharing how I grow so fast and how all the guests I will have in the podcasts did the same. I will also answer questions from my guests regarding marketing, which I am sure will help everyone who will follow us.
Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about Digital Transformation. Digital transformation can mean many things to many people, from your perspective, how do you define digital transformation in your industry?
My company is focused on Digital Transformation. We are now working on digitalizing old marketing solutions like word of mouth.
Which companies can most benefit from a Digital Transformation?
Anyone that is trying to reach the highest amount of people outside of friends and family than needs to go through at least a partial digital transformation
Has integrating Digital Transformation been a challenging process for some companies? What are the challenges? How do you help resolve them?
Because we understand that can be a challenge, we have built a team that will take care of the transformation while they will train you and your team to understand and keep growing.
Based on your experience and success, what are “Five Ways a Company Can Use Digital Transformation To Take It To The Next Level”?
1 . Encourages Employee excellence — Many companies fail after 2 years because they don’t hold their employees accountable for excellence. Digital solutions, like Agile solutions or software like Monday.com, are already being created to encourage employee excellence.
2 . Faster Time to Market — Obviously, with the growing number of digital marketing solutions and the fact that about 80% of the US population prefers to shop online, leveraging digital marketing will definitely create a faster way to market. As a digital marketing company, I center my work on helping the company bring its market digital and optimize it for the digital world, seeing an average of 40% growth in less than 90 days.
3 . Improved customer engagement — Without digital transformation, we don’t have a way to nurture our clients and increase our LTV (lifetime value) by having them buy again and again. The experience I had is that many companies believe that by having a great product, people will keep buying. It is not true. People are shown to prioritize a good product with excellent customer service over an excellent product and bad customer service for repeated purchases.
4 . Improves future digital growth — Mostly after COVID, the world has been growing digitally, and deciding not to be part of it means only researching a lot smaller number of people, which will just keep getting smaller.
5 . Increased revenue — there are more people online, which means you can sell your product and service to more people. Obviously, that automatically means that you can increase your revenue by reaching more people.
In your opinion, how can companies best create a “culture of innovation” in order to create new competitive advantages?
Learning from other companies and investing in a good CTO or fCTO that can help bring new technology and train people internally
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
2 Thessalonians 1:11–12
11 Therefore we also pray always for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling, and fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power, 12 that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you, and you in Him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
The work I do is to glorify God, and that is why I center my work on helping people improve their businesses and also their lives.
How can our readers further follow your work?
Podcast: Unlike Marketing
For Help, contact me at: https://quarataconsulting.com
Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!