Interview With Tom Lavecchia | The President of X Factor Digital Marketing

1. First of all, thanks a lot for coming on my blog, you made my day by accepting my interview request. Tell me something about yourself & your educational background.

I’m born and raised in New Jersey to Italian immigrants from Italy. I hold Bachelors in Business Management Degree from Rutgers University.  I also have a Master’s in Business Administration in Marketing from Fairleigh Dickinson University

2. How did you enter into digital marketing? Any motivator behind you?

I wanted to leave the corporate world (I know it sounds cliche), but my career was disrupted after a merger.  I decided to go into Digital Marketing because I felt (and still feel) clients are either over paying for what they are getting or paying good money and getting nothing in return.

3. Are there any blogs and marketers you follow?

I really like:

• Gary Vee for just plain getting kicked in the butt when I need it
• Grant Cardone for Strategy
• Jeremy Ryan Slate for podcasting advice
• David Brier, the Branding Whisperer

4. What is your biggest success in making money online?

We launched a website dedicated to Male Plastic Surgery about 5 years ago when men only made for 5-8% of the market.  We worked closely with the founder of the site, Dr. Douglas S. Steinbrech out of NYC as he has recently launched Male Plastic Surgery LA and has plans go even bigger.

We work with him on both the strategy and execution of his overall strategy not just Digital.  This was at a time where the Plastic Surgery market only focused on females so what we did at the time was considered extremely cavalier.

We also launched NewTheory.com a blog site dedicated to Lifestyle and Business for Gen X, Y, and Z, although it is not a large money maker, we’re growing our viewership every month and it’s extremely exciting to create content that people willingly consume (and it’s yours:).

We also started a podcast which does about 10,000-12,000 listens / downloads a month. The podcast is my passion and we’re growing that as part of the brand build.

5. How you are building relationships with your customers? How you make them stick to your platform?

We’re old school in a sense as we’re boutique looking for clients who are serious about their business / career and willing to partner with the right firm. In order to get them to stick is easy to say and hard to do. Just continue to provide value and they will stick around.

6. How important is social media and SEO for someone’s business to succeed in today’s competitive world?

SEO and Social Media, depending on the space, are probably the most important marketing / sales channels available.  Google rules the roost and you must have a strong digital presence in order for prospective clients to find you. Social Media is the current word of mouth and is a close number two to SEO in importance in my humble opinion.

7. How to get prepared for next google updates and stay safe?

We follow the rules, create good and clean content.  Don’t cut corners so we don’t worry about as we’ve yet to be be penalized

Also, read our other interview:

• Interview WIth Blogvault Founder: The Man Who Keeps Your WordPress Backed Up
• Emanuel Cinca STM HEAD Talking About How STM Forum Achieved Success
• Tom Claflin How He Started Facebook Advertising Business and Scaling It To Next Level
• Itai Izur on How To Scale PR Marketing Business & Link Building Strategies

8. How you invest your money you earned. What is best investment advise you would like to give?

It’s tricky as an Entrepreneur because of the volatility of income. So I haven’t been investing as much as I would like for my future. But I’m restructuring which will hopefully provide better cash flow as I really like the slow and steady blue chip stocks through dollar cost averaging.  It sound boring, but if you pick a few of the right horses, your money will compound over time.

9. Do you read books to motivate yourself. Which books you read for encouraging yourself?

Reading Gary Vee’s crushing it as well as David Brier’s Brand Intervention.  I haven’t been reading as much as I have in the past, but in addition to those two, I also like the Power of Broke from Daymond John.

10. If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?

Either get into the Entrepreneurial arena much earlier and take the risk or if you’re older, stay at your current gig until you have some money behind to weather any possible storm.  Being an Entrepreneur in your 40s is tough because you need to feed your kids during an extremely risky period in your career.

You can check me out here:

• Tom La Vecchia, MBA
• Agency Site: http://TheXFactorTeam.com
• Blog Site: http://NewTheory.com