In Interview with Elton Kuah – B2B Marketing Expert

“I can make a difference with my effort and my attitude.”

Hi Elton, today we would like you to give our community a glimpse into your life as a B2B marketing expert with over 10 years of experience.

Happy to have you here.

Maybe at first, can you give us a short introduction about you?

Elton: I am Elton, a B2B market researcher, digital marketer, design thinker and data analyst (Abbreviation of 3D person). My expertise in digital marketing is related to content marketing insight and B2B lead generation methods. I am certified Google Specialist, General Assembly with Marketing Standards Board Certified.

I am the USA YSEALI Professional Fellowship Program where I have been attached to the Blue Startups Accelerator Hawaii where I was helping out for the promotion of the event East Meets West (EMW).

I have deep expertise in market intelligence, marketing automation and connecting with tech and entrepreneurship communities (hence my volunteering activity around events such as RISE (biggest tech conference in Asia), Google Developer Fest etc.

For more detail, can view more about myself at www.eltonkuahconsulting.com

What have you done before you become an expert?

Elton: I graduated with an Engineering degree and worked as an engineer who worked in oil and gas companies for almost 5 years before striking it out on my own.

Before I started my own business, I was learning basic internet marketing skills (travelling back and forth from home to learning center on a weekend basis for 9 months). This is pre-entrepreneurship experience as I am coming from a traditional background (engineering) to another field of media.

On the journey, I was travelling to the USA (in 2004) as a camp counselor where I was taking care of young children under YMCA (some came from broken families). At that time, I didn’t really know what internet marketing and the opportunity that comes around it was. The first time I heard of internet marketing and personal development idols were Blair Singer, Robert Kiyosaki and T Harv Eker.

How did you become a marketing expert and what is your expertise?

Elton: These are some milestones on my way to become an expert:

• Learn the skills and knowledge prior to my resignation from my full time job for almost 1 year
• Worked on previous projects (such as becoming Marketing Manager in Varlinx and beauty and education agency projects). Some projects worked out and some didn’t worked out and hence, I have learnt of what makes the campaign successful and what’s not.
• Undergoing certification for Google and Marketing Standard Board framework (as per below attachment)

• Be practicing and seeking feedback from mentors on how to refine my marketing models. One of them is Pat Flynn, owner of Smart Passive Income Blog and an expert in building passive income.
• Written content on my Linkedin and Website Blog which have reached around 130,000 views  (within a period of a few months).

To get even deeper: What makes you unique as a professional?

Elton: My uniqueness as a professional is that I will brainstorm with communities to get better marketing ideas and execution.

I am putting also practices of design thinking, digital marketing and data analytics in my work. I am experimenting with Artificial Intelligence style to fit into my current digital marketing method funnel. Thus finding a better way to obtain better return of investment to generate better profit for clients.

Sounds awesome. So, why do you like to work in the field of marketing and what inspires you?

Elton: I am passionate about building intelligence and cross-collaboration with communities, mentoring younger marketers.

What inspires me would be someone’s life story, my mother’s dedication to provide the best environment at difficult times and how someone provides good deeds for others (i.e. like frontliners at below picture).

For the mentoring program, I have helped out in programs such as Linkedin China as their Volunteer Coach to mentor young professionals in their career.

Rather than sharing my expertise to the students or young professionals, especially, I am also learning from them on how they enthusiastically pursue new career opportunity such as live-streamers, digital marketer, rather than traditional industry such as engineering, doctor or lawyer for better life.

With your background, what else are you passionate about outside of work?

Elton: I am passionate about volunteering, immerse in different cultural experiences, food and travel. The ideal holiday that can integrate all these hobbies would be life zen-lifestyle. There is a Chinese  saying of “riding horse, looking at flowers”.

For my end, I have traveled to the USA (Hawaii is one of my favorite places), UK, Hong Kong, China, Thailand, Indonesia and Singapore.

How do you motivate yourself in weak moments? Do you have a personal mantra that helps you to become the best version of yourself?

Elton: My motivation now comes from understanding my well-being (especially during pandemic), connecting with support groups (much more during pandemic), on mental health, or support groups on business strategy and ways to connect.

My mantra is based on saying Buddha Siddhartha Guatama Shakyamuni and the Theosophists, that goes: “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

Let’s learn a bit about your work. What type of projects have you worked on?

Elton: I have worked on e-commerce sites, software review, Airbnb Experience Online marketplace as ambassador and data analytics. I have listed them on the platform under market opportunity, https://eltonkuahconsulting.com/marketopportunity.

I also do mentoring with students and aspiring professionals under universities and organizations such as Linkedin China Time Donation Program to up-skill career potential.

For the digital marketing certification, I have got my certification from Buyer Persona Institute LLC (for buyer persona) and Growth Master from Growthackers.com for better employment/consultancy opportunity.

What is the project you are most proud of?

Elton: I would say that the Linkedin Time Donation Program would be the project that I am proudest of, as it is an event where it is nationwide China initiatives and I am one of the very few people who are outside from the country that are involved as a mentor.

Also, I am awaiting for upcoming opportunity of Project Collab with Quaranteam, a community formed by entrepreneur whiz and Smart Passive Income, Pat Flynn (which is a project to help each other in communities)

What does your dream project look like?

Elton: The dream project would have all components of My Ikigai passion, mission, vocation and profession.

Did you have any step-backs in your career?

Elton: Yes, basically due to my lack of working exposure in companies such as Google for example. I would be happy to look up the Linkedin Profile of the professionals who have worked in such companies and how they got into the companies.

I did share my experiences as an entrepreneur in Asian Entrepreneur Magazine here (just picking the extract below from the magazine: https://www.asianentrepreneur.org/elton-kuah-founder-of-enrich-social-media/)

“At the beginning, there wasn’t enough awareness of my company. The other interesting thing I noticed is that in the beginning customers usually took a long time in deciding whether or not to purchase the packages we offered. I supposed this ties in to the awareness of the company.

However, in my opinion, there is also another contributing factor and that is market perception of social media”.

There was also a challenge in funding as well. This is usually a challenge for most businesses but for me this was an interesting one. You have to see it in line to what I’ve just said about how people were not really picking up our services in the beginning.

How did you overcome these challenges?

Elton: I overcome these challenges by working with mentors, developing “purple cow” concepts of my services that create the ‘wow’ impact for prospective customers.

For the COVID-19, I would be giving massive value to the target audience such as building use cases, grab unique certification in relation to my industry and collaborate with global marketers worldwide.

What tools do you use regularly?

Elton:

• SEO: SE Ranking, Morning Score
• CONTENT MARKETING: Article Insight, Textmetrics
• ANALYTICS: AI, Google Analytics
• SOCIAL MEDIA: Social Insider

What are your career goals?

Elton: My career goals are to be working together with transformational companies, for example Bytedance or Amazon or growing my venture to be some level to be involved with them.

I am attracted by Amazon’s mission statement of “serve consumers through online and physical stores and focus on selection, price, and convenience”, and this would be something of a mantra that I am constantly referring to how my company, employers and customers can benefit from a similar vision of Amazon.

My vision is to work with global professionals and collaborate with visionary entrepreneurs around the world and live a meaningful life. Hence, having an opportunity to be interviewed by ExpertMap is an honor for me.

What was the funniest / unusual moment in your career?

Elton: I was told that I was being bald at the end of my career, however realizing of my current work and constant use of hair treatment gels, I may lose hair earlier.

However, some girls would say to me that being bald is sexy nowadays. They made that reference to Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.

Which three steps / ways do you think lead to success?

Elton:

1. Write down and execute your goals. The first thing you do in the morning will determine what your day is going to be like. The important thing for me is to think in the event if there are many tasks to do within a day, what would be the important outcome to achieve for that day?
2. Create a Powerful Belief System. Ask any successful person what their number one rule for succeeding is and practice gratitude day.
3. Invest in yourself (and the team) to grow

What is your favorite motto?

Elton: The motto as entrepreneur that I am aiming for are:

• “I can always improve.”
• “I persevere when I am frustrated.”
• “I don’t run from mistakes; I learn from them.”
• “I am inspired by people who succeed.”
• “I can learn anything I want to.”
• “I can make a difference with my effort and my attitude.”

Thanks so much for your time, Elton. We wish you good luck with your upcoming marketing projects, but before I’ll let you be creative again:

Do you have any tips / recommendations for the next generation of remote-workers?

Elton: Up-skill yourself in the industry you are interested in, as one of the things is digital marketing skills without going into industry is a red ocean.

Also it would be advantageous to research clients who can provide the remote work that you are looking for. For example, if I am doing content writing jobs, I would research platforms such as Problogger, Blogging.org Content Marketplace or Bloggingpro Job Board as examples to see the demand and supply of the jobs.

Also, if there’s opportunity to live in multiple countries, please grab opportunity to do so as it increases chances of entrepreneurial success.

Learn more about Elton on his ExpertMap Profile

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