Paul Guenther is the Founder and CEO of Knowledge Hub Media, a company that specializes in B2B advertising and marketing services. Other than that, Knowledge Hub Media takes pleasure in educating its users through relevant business articles, case studies, marketing research to help them increase their knowledge and everyday productivity.
Leading with Excellence
Being a Founder and CEO has always been an interesting journey for Paul. His clients have a specific solution, or group of products, that is targeted to a very specific audience. For example, enterprise software solutions used by IT people, marketers, sales teams, HR professionals or finance professionals. The targeting gets a lot more granular than that, of course. And then, not only are the job roles unique, but the types of companies targeted are also unique to each client.
Being at the helm is always interesting for Paul because he is faced with a new challenge almost every day. Not just from a standpoint of sales (managing clients), but also marketing (to their user base), operations, finance and handling their technology infrastructure. “There is truly never a dull moment,” says Paul.
Before Paul founded Knowledge Hub Media, he used to work for a similar company that offered lead generation services. It was there, he learned the whole process that runs behind all the segments of this industry. Soon, he gave up the job and started his own company based on the experiences he had gained. According to him, his initial motivation was just to find one steady client to be the seed to embark on his long-awaited journey.
Knowledge Hub Media
Knowledge Hub Media offers diverse solutions as their very nature. Their core competencies fall in the areas of demand generation and content syndication. They promote their client’s white papers and webinars to generate and deliver highly targeted, highly qualified b2b sales leads. As each of their client’s have different products, solutions, and services, they each target different segments of people (and companies).
The offerings are customized, fully-tailored to target people within the right job roles – at the right companies – who are typically already in the buying cycle for their client’s solutions. Generally speaking, the leads that they generate originate from companies that are, at the very least, currently researching the solutions offered by their clients. In most cases, though, they are in the process of evaluating vendors and getting ready to make a purchase decision. This is where Knowledge Hub Media comes in. By promoting to very targeted groups of people, they line their clients up with the perfect buyers, at the perfect time. That is, companies that not only have a need and budget for the products and services that their clients offer, but that are also ready to pull the trigger and make a purchase decision.
Battling Covid
Similar to most companies, the COVID-19 pandemic was a roadblock in Paul’s journey. He believes that the pandemic certainly impacted their industry a bit though to a much lesser extent than many other industries. Sectors like retail, hospitality and travel have really taken a beating over the last couple of years. Paul considers himself to be very fortunate to be where they are today.
As part of an industry that is driven mainly by technology. When the world stopped in March of 2020 and everyone started working from home, companies had to step up their technology infrastructure. They had to take meetings virtual, manage remote workforces, and transition conventions almost overnight in many cases. For this reason, B2B technology didn’t take too much of a hit during the pandemic. As a trickle down effect of this, companies like Knowledge Hub Media – that promote B2B technologies – were also spared the brunt of the storm.
While advertising and marketing spend are the first things that some companies cut in recessionary environments, they were fortunate enough to work with clients that saw the bigger picture. They also benefited in that they were already largely remote before the lockdowns started. Only physically being at the office a few days per week, for a few hours per day. “We have always had a very flexible, appealing “work life balance” at Knowledge Hub Media. For that reason, the sudden transition from “mostly remote” to “fully remote” was rather seamless for us,” added Paul.
Advice for Young Leaders
“If you are going to run an effective company, you probably have to work longer and harder than everyone else,” states Paul. He further added that you really do not want to be in a position where you are relying on anybody. Even if you think you can (and hopefully you can). Failure cannot be an excuse – because you never actually fail at anything until you decide yourself that you’ve failed. If you can’t get things done one way, you try doing them a different way.
Paul suggests taking responsibility for everything, auditing your time, and treating everyone with respect. “Treat your employees the same way that you would treat your clients. Treat your vendors the same way that you would treat your employees. Everyone plays an important role in the business, and everyone deserves the same level of respect, politeness and encouragement.”
Looking Forward
While talking about the future, Paul explained that he doesn’t make any attempt to forecast the future or assume any specific type of growth trajectory. “Our industry is inherently based in technology, and as such, it is always changing. For this reason, we too, are always changing and innovating,” he mentions.
Knowledge Hub Media has experienced annual revenue growth – year over year – in 12 of their 13 years in business. But Paul’s vision for the future is never revenue- or sales-based. He likes to think that in five years, they will be at least “five years more advanced” than they are now as a company – just as technology advances each and every year. Optimistically, though, he likes to think that they will be closer to 10 years more advanced in five years – Staying ahead of the curve, just as they have been since inception.
