Overview

When it comes to learning about marketing strategy on the internet, there is one guru who stands above the rest – Gary Vaynerchuk. GaryVee’s success with VaynerMedia and VaynerX companies has turned him into a superstar in the marketing world. His companies have changed the way many giant corporations approach marketing; with the addition of The Sasha Group and the VaynerMentors program, he is now changing how smaller businesses approach it, too.  

Just consulting with a Vayner company can cost anywhere from tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Therefore, when a high-ranking member of the organization makes a webinar appearance to talk about Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) strategies, it is an incomparable business bargain! 

#ThoughtLeaderThursday 

This was the case on Thursday, August 26, 2021, for the latest of DTC marketing agency Script to Screen’s #ThoughtLeaderThursday webinar series, “The VaynerMedia Approach to Direct-to-Consumer and Growing Your Business.” The event was hosted by Script-to-Screen Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer Ken Kerry and had as its guest Mirabel Lara, Senior Vice President of The Sasha Group.  

Our Guest 

Maribel Lara is a native New Yorker and Latina who spent the first 8 years of her career focused on student development at the college and university level. After completing her MBA program in 2009, she shifted careers to marketing with a focus in social media. This move was considered laughable by many at the time because social was in its infancy and had yet to prove itself as a worthwhile marketing tool.  

Maribel is currently the SVP, Consulting Lead at The Sasha Group, a VaynerX company. She has been within the Vayner world since 2014. Over that time her role included reporting to and partnering with CEO Gary Vaynerchuk to execute initiatives tied to the strategic growth of the agency, launching a diversity and Inclusion initiative called Vayner Allies, and working with Fortune 100 clients to align marketing strategies with business objectives to deliver meaningful results. 

Maribel is committed to mentorship, a practice she has held onto since her time working in college student services.  She is particularly passionate about serving as a support and at times inspiration to Latinx women and other women of color who, like her, may not see many examples of success that resemble them and their experiences,  

She sits on the advisory board for Luminary, a community and collaborative space for women and is a trustee of Central Queens Academy, a tuition free charter school serving one of the most diverse communities in the country. She mentors by sharing her personal story, which is one of overcoming poverty and personal loss by keeping love as the central focus in all that she does.  

The Sasha Group 

The Sasha Group is the latest company launched by Gary Vaynerchuk under the VaynerX holding company umbrella. Infused with Gary’s entrepreneurial DNA and drawing from 10 years of experience of servicing some of the largest companies in the world, The Sasha Group is a small business solutions provider. Their mission is to educate, mentor, brand and market entrepreneurs, fund startups and mature small to medium size businesses looking for meaningful and explosive growth. The name Sasha is an homage to Gary Vaynerchuk’s father, as The Sasha Group’s mission is to focus exclusively on brands with revenues between $1-100MM, while providing value back to their small business roots. The Sasha Group provides marketing services, in addition to education (4Ds - Daily Digital Deep Dive) and consulting with VaynerMentors. 

VaynerMentors is an exciting new program. It works with smaller businesses worth between $3M-$25M to unlock meaningful growth and scale their companies. Script to Screen first interacted with VaynerMentors and The Sasha Group on a joint project. The Sasha Group was looking for a way to tout VaynerMentors’ success after having rapidly turned around the financial fortunes of a small cosmetics company, Young Nails. Script to Screen worked with both companies to produce a testimonial video highlighting the success, which you can see here. 

 VaynerMentors Strategy 

“We neglect the things that are important and not timely” Mirabel said. “It is usually the things that are important and not timely that are going to help us grow most effectively in a way that is sustainable.  

“The way that early-stage businesses often grow is the way that they started off business doing,” she continued. If you’re selling a product, then it’s often introducing new SKUs or finding more clients that have an interest in that product.  It takes time to think about what else that you could be doing. Do you actually have production capacity for something that is in a completely different category, but you have all the materials in-house to make it? Are you taking the time to pay attention to how consumer demand for that product is changing? 

According to Mirabel, continuing to monitor real world trends after a product has launched is as important as the launch itself. It is not just about getting a product to market; it is about keeping it sustainable there. 

“If you have anything tied to color, style, those are trends that change. If you are not catching those trends early enough, you are going to find yourself out of the game. You might have done all of the research prior to launching your company and it made total sense – it was the right product at the right time. But it doesn’t mean it’s always going to be the right product.” 

 Our Next Webinar 

Telesales are often forgotten about in a world of digital sales, but they can be an incredibly profitable source of sales. The question is do you know enough about them to profit? The way telesales work has changed drastically even in the last few years. You need to have the latest information to succeed. 

Join us on #ThoughtLeaderThursday, September 30, 2021 at [2:00] PM ET/[11:00] AM PT as Script to Screen Co-Founder Ken Kerry talks with telesales expert and NexRep CEO Teddy Liaw about how telesales can strengthen your DTC revenue stream. You can register for our next webinar here.