#TTGSparked with Paul Sullivan
From finance chameleon to a top ranked social media influencer in the U.K and beyond, we caught up with our first #TTGSPARKED guest, Paul Sullivan, CEO of Modedaweb to talk about his transition into inbound marketing, plans for the future and how he’s growing his following by thousands.
Tell us how you came to this stage in your career..
My background is originally in corporate finance - investment banking. I worked for JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley - both of them I worked for a couple of times and from there I went on to run operations for a Japanese investment bank. I didn’t really like anything about it except when I was doing projects - so anything that has got to do with automation through technology or processes. I really love that kind of work.
What are the highlights of your career so far?
One of my achievements is that most investment banks run Graduate schemes so most other senior managers would be graduates and I’m not a graduate. So for me, that’s really really good. After that I started publishing a magazine. I quickly dropped the magazine and became a website development agency! I ran that company for three years and in December 2013 I called up all the clients that I wanted to keep and told them that I’m going to rebrand and did they want to come with me and it worked.
What exactly is inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing is a process that enables a marketing agency to build a complete and complex multi-channel digital strategy for a client. Most large businesses go out and choose traditional agencies based on reputation and the differences between an inbound agency and a traditional agency is that an inbound agency will specialise in a particular business sector for example, I specialize in finance and tech.
What year did you start Modedaweb?
2013. It’s two years and seven months.
What sets Modedaweb from it’s competitors?
There are a high number of inbound agencies around right now but in the UK there aren’t that many in finance. We also work with the construction and property industries as well as travel and hospitality. We only work in industries that we’ve got clear experience in and in the travel sector, we actually have the UK’s 5th largest travel company as a client. We know where we can offer the best value.
How does one become a great social media influencer?
I’m very clear on my messages and also very clear on the fact that it’s virtually impossible to only put out your own content so part of my strategy is to share other peoples relevant content. To really make sure that I’m going to have the right people follow me, for example from FinTech (financial-tech), my tweet will always have the FinTech hashtag in it. I’m trying to add value all of the time.
If image is everything, how do you describe your personal style?
I’m very bespoke. I like tailored suits and shirts for corporate but I’ve got a very relaxed casual style.You can catch me in a tracksuit as much as in a pair of good jeans and a t-shirt. I’ve got a really varied style. Some days I look like a rock n’ roller with all black clothes and some days I’ll be in chino shorts looking very preppy!
3 U.S Brands that you’d love to work with and why?
Morgan Stanley, American Express and MBNA because I have the most experience in those sectors.
3 US Magazines you’d love to be featured in.
GQ, Vanity Fair and Forbes.
What’s next for Modedaweb?
Over the next few years we want to establish ourselves more in the UK but we’re also looking at opening up a New York office. We really want to be able to service clients both in Europe and the US. We want to build out our client base, up our retainers and deliver some really good marketing campaigns, websites and apps. I’m also going to build out my own public speaking which I do quite a bit of at the moment to talk about how the financial-tech industry can move forward and think outside the box.
For more info on Paul Sullivan and Modedaweb, please visit www.Modedaweb.com. You can follow Paul on Twitter and Facebook @Modedaweb
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