The Launchpad is Leading the Tech Industry with Innovative Matchmaking Services

NY Weekly Staff on July 19, 2022

For businesses to compete in today’s world, having the right technology is essential. But with so many available tech solutions, it has become more difficult than ever for companies to research, identify, and engage the right IT vendors.

Thanks to The Launchpad, they no longer have to worry about finding the right tech solution. Because at The Launchpad, the work is done for them.

Led by CEO Tonya Turrell (recently named one of Orlando’s Women of the Year), The Launchpad serves as a tech matchmaker, seamlessly bridging the gap between IT buyers and sellers – a winning model for both sides. They recently announced the release of a new MQL subscription plan, which will make it even easier for companies and vendors to connect in meaningful ways.

The MQL subscription package is one of the newest offerings in a robust line of services offered by The Launchpad. For vendors, it means only connecting with companies that have already been thoroughly researched and have expressed needs that fit the vendors’ profile. For companies, it means finding exactly what they need, when they need it.

“For most companies in this marketplace, the MQLs that they are getting are not truly qualified leads. They might be someone who searched for a particular technology, or downloaded a whitepaper, or visited a booth at a trade show,” Turrell says. “Our MQL subscription is different. These are conversation-ready, qualified and loaded with purchase intent data to arm sales reps to best serve the needs of their customers.”

Where The Launchpad truly stands apart is their ability to match the right vendors to the companies that need them most. Because of their industry expertise and ability to invest considerable time and resources into researching both the company and the vendor, their matchmaking service delivers a connection that is guaranteed to provide value for both the buyer and the seller. The real value of their MQL subscription offering is consistency, predictability, and reduced risk.

“With this subscription, our clients are set up to receive a consistent and steady flow of leads,” Turrell explains. “Marketing can spend less time creating, building, and setting up campaigns and sales receives a high level of coaching and support related to the engagement of their MQLs.”

Clients also have predictability in lead flow, can easily increase or decrease lead flow as needed, and have more accurate forecasting with this subscription offering.

It has been a remarkable year for The Launchpad, which continues to emerge as the leading resource for tech matchmaking and IT solutions. They were recently certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council as a Women’s Business Enterprise. For 25 years, the WBENC has been the largest certifier of women’s businesses in the United States and a leading advocate for business owners, leaders, and entrepreneurs.

In addition to their new subscription model, The Launchpad has several different programs that Turrell says will continue to help tech companies and IT solution providers.

“We are pivoting away from traditional appointment setting and lead generation for our tech clients and more toward partner recruitment, partner enablement, and recruiting channel partners. So, the value is exponential,” Turrell says. “We will soon be releasing a training subscription to help companies learn how to develop leads and nurture that relationship.”

With their transition into a more subscription-based model, The Launchpad will serve as an ongoing resource for vendors as well as businesses that want to improve their processes with technology. This will be welcome news to companies across the country that need tech solutions but don’t know where to turn for guidance and expertise.

For companies and vendors who are tired of scouring the digital landscape for the right partners, The Launchpad has a simple and effective solution. And the best tech matchmaker in the industry is only getting better.To learn more about The Launchpad, visit www.launchpad-tech.com.

Which is the Most Adventurous Destination for Trekking in the World?

NY Weekly Staff on July 19, 2022

Trekking takes you on a journey that will change your life in ways you’ve never imagined. You get to know the people who live in the areas you visit. It brings us closer to discovering the natural world’s wonders and mysteries. Trekking is a popular activity, although not all of the world’s most well-known treks are as spectacular as the ones mentioned here.

For your consideration, we’ve compiled a list of some of the most incredible treks around the globe that have yet to be discovered. Please continue reading if you’re ready to embark on a trekking adventure.

Everest Base Camp Trek, Nepal

Trekking to the world’s tallest mountain base camp is an experience like no other. It’s the best hike in the world, in our view. Base camp is reached after a 12-day journey over the Himalayas. The amount of days spent at a high altitude makes this climb challenging. The remainder of the journey involves ascents of more than 4000 meters, beginning with a day-long rise from Lukla.

However, if you take your time and go at your own pace to the Everest Base Camp Trek, this journey is well worth the effort. Trekking over high mountain passes, surrounded by the world’s tallest mountains, is an awe-inspiring experience.

Kanchenjunga Trek, Nepal 

This mountain, which stands at an altitude of 28,169 feet, is the world’s third-tallest peak (8,586 meters). It is located in the eastern Himalayas and is one of the most famous mountain treks.

Our walk to Kanchenjunga Base Camp takes 26 days, with 21 days spent on the trial. Excellent acclimatization can be achieved with the slow rise.

Despite this, the journey itself is arduous. A climber’s body must be prepared for the strain of wearing a large backpack for three weeks by training with one.

Annapurna Circuit, Nepal

As of 1977, this ancient trade route has been open to foreign hikers, making it a world-class destination for nature lovers. You should expect to spend anything from 15 to 25 days traveling the route’s overall distance, between 100 and 145 kilometers.

Thorung La summit pass, at approximately 18,000 feet, and Poon Hill, with its spectacular sunrise across towering peaks, are two of the trip’s high points.

If you don’t have a tent, don’t worry; there are plenty of budget motels along the way.

Base Camp on K2, Pakistan

The Baltoro Glacier is known as  the “Throne Room of the Mountain Gods,” and the foot of the world’s second-highest mountain are all included in our Ultimate K2 expedition. A 360-degree view of 7,000- and 8,000-meter peaks, including the impressive K2, has captivated trekkers and mountaineers for decades.

Trek to the Tour du Mont Blanc, Chamonix

Trek to the Tour du Mont Blanc is an 11-day long round-trip, but it can take longer or shorter depending on one’s health and fitness. It’s not a walk in the park by any means, but the views from the top are well worth the effort. In most cases, walkers begin in the Chamonix Valley and cross into Italy and Switzerland before returning to France for the second half of their journey.

Kailash Circuit, Tibet

Known as one of the world’s most challenging and beautiful religious pilgrimages, the Kailash Circuit is located in the Himalayas. The Brahmaputra and the Indus are two of India’s most important rivers, and their source in the Himalayas. There is a long history of pilgrims making the journey, with some claiming it will free them from the cycle of rebirth.

Final lines

There are hundreds of options in which you can expand your horizons by embarking on one of the world’s most grueling and rewarding treks among which Everest base camp Trek is the most famous and adventurous.

There is an incredible adventure for everyone, with varying difficulties but slight variation in the quality of the memories you are guaranteed. 

Chef Darren MacLean Presents a Year-Long Endeavour to Further Global Culinary Connectivity Through Inclusive Exploration of Culture, Food and Industry

NY Weekly Staff on July 19, 2022

World-renowned international chefs will visit Canada as part of Cultural Chef Exchange, an initiative of celebrated Canadian Chef Darren MacLean.

What is Canadian cuisine? To answer that question, an exploration of Canadian fare will see world-class chefs visiting Canada to collaborate one of Canada’s top chefs. Chef MacLean will guide them from field to fork, sourcing local ingredients from farms, foraging seasonal indigenous, fishing, and hunting, before creatively coming together to experiment in the kitchens of his acclaimed restaurants.

Chef Darren MacLean is one of Canada’s most notable and outspoken chefs, restaurateurs and environmental advocates. His three Calgary restaurants, Eight, Nupo and Shokunin are all listed in Canada’s 100 Best of 2022. Canada’s sole contender and a finalist on Netflix’s global cooking competition ‘The Final Table’, he uses his profile to showcase Canada’s culinary scene to international audiences.

MacLean is passionate about sustainability and the food building community.

Inspired by all the cultures of Canada’s indigenous and multi-ethnic mosaic, MacLean’s appreciation for diversity leads him to travel extensively, further developing his unique perspective on food and the culinary experience. Believing in the power of food to bridge cultures, he welcomes global chefs to his country and kitchen and travels often to collaborate with others, from Mexico City to Tokyo.

The Cultural Chef Exchange showcases his philosophy in action for food lovers interested in world cuisine, and Canada’s emerging culinary identity in particular.

Chef Darren MacLean shares his vision of the program. “We aim to create and nurture a local-to-global culinary network to share talent, exchange techniques, encourage cooperation, advance tourism and tackle sustainability issues, to the benefit of those living, working and visiting Canada. Our country has so much to offer, it can be both teacher and student of meaningful ways to connect around food.”

Each month, a different influential culinary professional will visit Canada to collaborate, learn, help define Canadian cuisine and carry their stories and experiences back to their countries. In addition to promoting Canada’s rich culinary background and cross-cultural character globally, visiting chefs will enlighten Canadians about the culinary cultures of their nations, regions and cities.

Among the culinary elite bound for Calgary are chefs from The World’s 50 Best Restaurants, Michelin-star chefs, and more. Visiting chefs include:

Chef Colibri Jimenez of MARIA RAIZ Y TIERRA in Merida, Mexico)

Chef Alberto Landgraf of OTEQUE in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Chef James Knappet of KITCHEN TABLE in London, UK

Chef Aaron Bludorn of BLUDORN in Houston, USA

Chef Sam Tran of GIA in Hanoi, Vietnam

Chef Amninder Sandhu of BLISS FOOD EXPERIENCES in Delhi, India

Chef Nathan Gould of SHELTER in Martha’s Vineyard, USA

Chef Aishling Moore of GOLDIE in Dublin, Ireland

Chef Shane Osborn of ARCANE in Hong Kong

The chefs will partake in an immersive five-day program to gain an appreciation of Canada’s natural beauty, food resources, indigenous peoples, and local terroir.

The Cultural Chef Exchange is supported by Nespresso, ALT Hotels and Square. More information can be found at https://thekiti.com/membernews/worlds-top-chefs-are-canada-bound-for-the-nations-first-cultural-chef-exchange-program. Follow along on Chef’s Instagram @chefdarrenmaclean

Best Practices for E-Commerce: Industry Expert Danielle Hixenbaugh of Bloom Digital Agency Tells All

NY Weekly Staff on July 19, 2022

Danielle Hixenbaugh founded Bloom Digital Agency after her first experience in print media when the digital revolution was just getting started falling in love with digital marketing, becoming an expert in retail and e-commerce, and finding her home at Bloom.

Bloom Digital Agency has been a transformative force within the e-commerce marketing space. They are shattering assumptions about the ways in which an agency can relate to their customers and deliver on sales promises.

“I wanted to build an agency that does what it says while providing a supportive space for our team and partners to thrive each day,” Danielle explains.

Bloom is home to a team of passionate experts, who specialize in multi-channel e-commerce marketing. These specialists leverage their partners’ assets to create exciting and beautiful ad campaigns across Google and social media in order to reach customers via effective email and SMS strategies while leading them through the conversion funnel.

Bloom’s creative experts enjoy doing great marketing for e-commerce and creating long-lasting relationships with their partners. As a result, their partners have reaped the rewards of their unconventional strategies and decisions, one of their partners saw an increase of over 1000% in email marketing subscriptions and a 60% growth in revenue in just a few months.

Ready to learn how Bloom achieves such great returns? Danielle Hixenbaugh shares with us some of the best practices in paid media, email, and SMS marketing that have helped Bloom enhance their partners’ marketing strategies and achieve phenomenal results.

Test and Monitor All the Time

Long gone are the days when there were stable guidelines to follow in order to maximize ad ROI. Nowadays, artificial intelligence causes algorithms to consistently remain in flux.

Consequently, according to Danielle, the best practice is to continue monitoring the performance of your ads to determine what is working at a particular time and in a particular context.

“If an ad starts taking off and you’re not watching closely to push more budget into it, you’re gonna miss an opportunity,” she explains.

Furthermore, A/B testing is still an essential part of ROI growth, but should be done in a sensible way. “Testing multiple variables at the same time is silly. You’re gonna end up with an unreadable matrix of data,” explains Danielle. 

“The way to do it is to test different copy with the same ad sets or the same copy with different creatives to understand what’s working and what’s not,” she illustrates.

Content is Still King

If there is anything certain in the world of paid media, it’s that content is still king. Content is directly related to the experience that your customers have with you, which is why you must leave the best impression after every interaction.

Danielle urges her partners to realize the value of quality media by saying, “You have to spend money, or at least time, on quality photography and video because wonderful ads come from wonderful assets.”

She explains, “People who are buying online can’t fully experience your product, so you need to fill the ‘gap of the senses through videos and photos.”

Be Present & Engaged on Every Channel

Content isn’t only your ads and copy. Content is anything your customers see on the Internet related to you. This includes your website, social media, blog, or YouTube channel.

You must maintain an attractive and consistent image and keep sending content their way across all available channels.

“Customers have become savvier. If they see your ads, they’ll want to see your Instagram, Facebook, etc., because they need that social proof. If you haven’t posted anything in three years, that’s a major red flag for them,” explains Danielle.

Reach Your Customers Across the Web

Imagine the typical journey of your customers when they’re online: they see your ad, click on it, and it takes them to your website. Then, they receive a text message, get distracted, remember they have to call somebody else, and you lose them completely.

98% of your potential customers do not convert the first time they see your ads or even the first time they visit your website. “People don’t just click on your ad, go to your website, and buy from you. They get distracted or aren’t fully convinced, so you need to retarget,” explains Danielle.

You must connect with them again and meet them wherever they are digitally.. This means deploying an effective campaign across all relevant channels: Facebook, Instagram, Google, etc.

“Maybe people who see your ads on their phone from Facebook will go totheir desktop to Google search for you because they find it easier to shop that way. If your competition is bidding against you on Google,  then your customer is gonna end up at your competitor’s website,” Danielle says.

Email and SMS Are Anything but Outdated

On the topic of retargeting, who said email and SMS were a thing of the past?

Danielle clarifies, “If you’re not getting at least 30% of your revenue from email marketing, you’re leaving money on the table.”

Email allows you to talk to your customers directly in their inboxes and connect with them in a personal way. It not only allows you to nurture prospects that provided you with their email, but also those you want to reconvert and buy again. 

Danielle explains that customers crave an emotional connection to a purchase, especially after COVID by saying, “People have grown more concerned about small businesses and consider where their stuff comes from.” Reaching your customers via email allows you to earn their trust by delving more into what makes you stand out in ways they appreciate.

On the other hand, “SMS is for your VIP list,” Danielle says. These VIPs are the people who really want to hear about you or your perks. Their conversion rates are much higher than those of any other channel, but you need to use this line of communication wisely.

“Do not annoy them. Only use SMS for important stuff, things they’d really like to know about, like discounts or repurchases, because SMS is really intimate. So, talk to them like a friend,” she recommends.

Samantha Myers from Let’s Dress Up shares pandemic survival tips and how they plan to thrive in the post covid era

NY Weekly Staff on July 19, 2022

Let’s Dress Up is a fairy tale themed play and birthday party space for kids located in Manhattan. By skill, luck and maybe a little magic, we survived Covid and actually just opened a second location last Spring. Through the roller coaster we learned a few valuable lessons we will take with us into the next pandemic.

1. Stay in your lane. A dramatic shift in business model as a reaction to a crisis is likely not the answer. Of course there are exceptions, but for most businesses, staying true to what made you successful in the first place is a better course of action. Try to be flexible and adapt, but keep the main thing the main thing. Our business is focused on the in store experience. During the pandemic when we were mandated to be closed, we pivoted to online events, but they just could not replicate the in store magic. And that’s okay.

2. Keep overhead small, growth slow and steady. Especially in a market like New York City, overheads can get high pretty quickly. Be mindful of necessary expenses, and having extra cash on hand. If you are growing, don’t get ahead of yourself. Do take calculated risks and have lofty goals, but don’t put yourself in a situation where everything has to go perfectly in order to succeed. We have a small retail location that we often wish was bigger, but I firmly believe the small footprint of rent and staffing is what allowed us to weather the storm. Now we are poised to not just survive, but thrive.

3. Create a local community. Make friends with other small businesses. It is extremely helpful to have people to collaborate, brianstorm and share information with. Take advantage of community resources like your Chamber of Commerce, Community Boards and other local organizations. Make social media work for you. Stay in touch with customers and join industry groups. During Covid, things like this allowed us to rent our space to a displaced small business, keep up with grant opportunities and share ideas with local business leaders.

As a women owned business centered around dress up and tea parties, we are very often underestimated. We firmly believe in sharing our experience and any information we can with the next generation of small business owners in hopes that it may be useful.

From Bartending to Owner of 6-Figure Businesses: How 33-year-old Brayan Leverage Turned His Life Around

NY Weekly Staff on July 19, 2022

Article written by: DOĞA ULUDAĞ

Founder of Leverage Cap Solutions Brayan Leverage did not have a standby college fund or a hefty savings account to fall back on when he set out to fulfill his childhood dream: becoming a business owner. With right intentions and wise ambition, he achieved to thrive financially & personally and brought a whole new approach to business. Now, along with his own plans of growing his investments, he is eager to train anyone aspiring to become their own boss. On his website leveragecapsolutions.com, he offers elaborately illustrated and detailed courses on how to fix your credit, get 0% APR funding and get your business to the next level.

As a Colombian born immigrant, Brayan Leverage is well aware of the hurdles one needs to go through to get approved for a credit while your credit score is below average. On one side, you have to keep working hard to stay afloat while on the other you cannot afford to be indebted to a bank. “Most of my folks are afraid of owning a credit card because they have constantly been taught that credit cards leave you in debt,” says Brayan. However, there is a way out of this. Brayan Leverage believes that starting with the right strategy to bombard your credit and building a strong foundation from the bottom, then setting up a strong team and operational structure that will ensure your business scales at the optimum level is basically the remedy to such financial anxiety. In other words, Leverage Credit Strategy (LCS) entails the opportunity to leverage your business and supply the necessary tools to assure its growth while you do not touch your own pocket. Thus, optimizing business results in maximizing return.

About two years ago, Brayan Leverage underwent a personal transformation that ended up enhancing his life as well as his business. The 33-year-old entrepreneur is a strong believer in surrounding yourself with whatever is good for you, picking and choosing who to have in your circle of friends, watching what you put in your body and how you treat it. In his opinion, this positive shift in lifestyle will directly reflect on your business. Brayan Leverage says this holistic business method has worked the best for both his personal and financial life. The gist of his philosophy is to always look for the bigger picture, recognizing the concealed ties between seemingly unrelated parts. In the same vein, Brayan Leverage applies this same philosophy to his courses where he endorses an extensive understanding of starting a business; realizing the necessity of giving significance to each step equally in order to leave room to scale. Therefore, although his training begins with immediately taking care of your credit and funding, it does not come to a halt there. Optimization techniques for maximum return

follow as the next crucial step. Consequently, thanks to such a smart strategy, credit does not become a burden as you once might have feared.

In this faced paced environment making big financial decisions sure seem scary and risky. But Brayan Leverage says he is ready more than ever now to venture out, invest in bigger projects. Planning to visit 30+ countries in search for new business opportunities, Mr. Leverage does not want to stop ever growing and evolving.

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