Elijah Schneider is the CEO & Founder of Modifly, a social media agency that focuses on DTC/ ecommerce business growth with the goal of building meaningful marketing via meaningful connections.
We caught up with Elijah to find out more about his role at Modifly, his career so far, and marketing in a pandemic.
Please describe your job: What do you do?
As the CEO of Modifly, I do a lot. This includes anything from internal/client management and marketing, to the back end elements of the business. However, I’d say my main role at Modifly is to help grow the businesses we are currently working with and to expand Modifly itself.
Spending a lot of time with clients and potential clients, I’m an ear to bounce ideas off and to assist them with their overall business issues, as well as helping them grow professionally and personally.
Modifly puts a lot of emphasis and value on being a good person, both internally and externally. We care about everything you’re doing so we try and provide benefits to our clients that go beyond our scope of work.
How has your typical day been impacted in the short term by the pandemic?
It’s become much busier. Work life balance is completely gone for me personally now as working in the same place that I live has made it hard for me to turn it off. I also have a lot more emergency type calls as things are popping up daily.
What are your favourite tools and techniques to help you get your work done at the moment?
Right now, my favorite tools have been some of the basics, Slack and Asana. I really enjoy how much these two have helped me lead my team without having to set 5+ calls a day. In addition to this, I’ve utilized a few new timing techniques. Meaning I’ll work for about an hour / hour and a half, then take 20 minutes to myself. It makes me much more productive than sitting down and going at it for hours at a time.
Which companies have impressed you since the outbreak?
A lot of companies have impressed me but the ones that have impressed me the most are the small businesses out there making it work. A great example of this are Bauer Hockey who have pivoted from making skates to medical face shields. The diligence and work ethic that these people have shown is amazing. They should be congratulated no matter what happens. Covid-19 has been a small-business killer unfortunately and both those who make it and those who don’t have worked hard.
What changes are you making to help your brand connect with how people are feeling and experiencing the pandemic?
We’ve not changed that much due to the fact we’re a B2B business. However, we’ve instructed our sales team not to push. Now’s not the time to be selling. This is a period to come together and help people. If we can assist those who are struggling with advice, or a little work that’s what we are trying to do. We don’t ever want to be seen as a pushy company. We want to be known as one that helps people be as successful as possible.
What trends have you seen in the last few weeks in your sector?
During the last few weeks I’ve seen a lot of trends on Instagram Live. Personally, I don’t see how it is helping, however. If you’re going to spend that much time creating content for social, I would recommend Instagram Stories over Live unless you have a large Instagram following with a high engagement rate.
What advice would you give a marketer right now?
Focus on building long term relationships over sales. Creating this with your client, customer and partners is going to help you and your business much more in the long run than being sales focussed and following the ABC model.
