Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
You’re a marketer in one of the most competitive industries.
You may be tired of trying, over and over, to use the same marketing strategies that you read about online or learned about in school - but is that really going to move the needle?
We all know the big brands - Booking.com, American Airlines, The Points Guy, Royal Caribbean, Marriott, VRBO, and Hertz... but what about the emerging brands that have found their path to scale?
The Travel Marketing Podcast is about sitting down with successful marketing professionals in the travel, transportation, and tourism industry to learn what has worked for them, what they’ve learned along the way, and what new trends they’re noticing.
We are Propellic, and we’re on a mission to create more diversity in thought for the planet. We’re doing that by helping brands - specifically travel, transportation, and tourism brands - increase their reach through intelligent marketing that travels further.
The Future Of Connectivity
Lauren A. Koenig
CELITECH
This is the Travel Marketing Podcast, brought to you by Propellic, bringing you the news and insights and what's working and not working in today's competitive transportation and tourism landscape. From emerging brands to the most established professionals, these lessons of intelligent marketing will help your marketing plan travel further.
Brennen Bliss (BB): I'm really excited for this one today because it's a new segment for us. We're going to be talking a little bit about B2B marketing rather than B2C marketing. And this is really a B2B2C company. They're in the eSIM issuing space and they are a wholesaler of eSIM cards that work specifically with travel.
So I've met Lauren Koenig, I think it was Phocuswright 2022 in Arizona. And then we ran into each other again at Phocuswright in Barcelona this year, and we've stayed in touch. I'm excited to dive in really deep today because it's a channel where every single relationship makes a difference.
CELITECH offers connectivity and it's about 205 different countries and regions now so that they have global reach and are working with some of the biggest travel companies like Kayak on delivering seamless mobile connectivity experiences, where it can even say Kayak in the top left corner of the phone as the as the carrier.
So excited to interview Lauren.
Thank you so much for joining me today. It's super exciting to talk to you. I know we've spent a good amount of time with each other at a couple of conferences and getting you on, on this podcast today with some big news from your camp is something I value and appreciate.
So thanks for joining me today.
Lauren A. Koenig (LK): Thanks for having me. I'm super excited.
BB: So you're now I guess part of your title is CMO and Co-founder of CELITECH, right?
LK: Yeah actually it's official. So I'm now a part of the founding band, as we like to say it. So Chief Marketing Officer and Co-founder. So it's been really wonderful to work with my two partners, Rich Bratton, Al Fares over the last year, and I think when you realize you've just got something magical going, you need to lean into it, right?
You know, when you have a rock star band, like, CELITECH is our company, our brand is connectivity that rocks your world, and so everything that we do is you know, musical related, rock related, we just want our customers and their travelers to just go hardcore and have their trip, be more magnificent. We've got something magical between the founding members and you got to lean into that.
And so we made that official. That's kind of how we operate now. And I'm really excited to just be fully vested into the company.
BB: And speaking of rock stars, I am very, very inclined to make the podcast cover a picture of you wearing a wig and not actually your hair. And I'd like to formally request your approval for that right here and right now.
LK: Well, I mean, I did kind of prepare a very…
BB: Oh she is putting it on, this is a very unfriendly podcast experience right now, just because nobody can see us, but let's...
LK: That's okay. That means they have to go to the conferences and they have to see the rock stars in person.
BB: Exactly. We'll dive right in and talk a little bit about CELITECH and what you're doing because it's definitely, so in, in terms of the types of companies we talked to on this podcast, this would be like in the 30 percent that are B2B generally and I think it'll be really interesting to hear about your B2B marketing strategy, particularly, you know, front loading conferences and diving deep and wearing a wig to conferences, which you can take it off when it starts being sweaty.
LK: Are you taking me seriously right now? It is so hot right now. I'm dying.
BB: But let's talk about, let's talk about what CELITECH does. So y'all are in the eSIM space, the electronic SIM card space. Can you tell me a little bit about what that means and how it's revolutionizing the travel industry?
LK: Absolutely. So eSIM is here to stay. It's not going anywhere anytime soon. And so those physical plastic chips that you used to put in your phone called SIM cards are no longer being produced. Why? Because the phone makers have more space and they can do more things with it, aka make a more wonderful camera. Or, you know, Apple's probably got lots of plans because that's a significant amount of space of how, how big a SIM card actually is. And then the carriers, it's just more affordable to not have to make these, these chips, right? So it's a win, win, win, and then even the consumer, the end traveler doesn't have to be swapping out SIM cards in their phone, which is, you know, kind of exhaustive and cumbersome.
So the SIM space, you know, eSIM stands for embedded SIM, not electronic. So it's a, you know, a digital, a digital SIM per se. And so you can have about 10 eSIMs in your phone.
So you can have about 10 eSIMs at a time as well as two active at the same time. So this just makes it super easy for travelers to flip, you know, local data on and off at the switch of a button. And saving, more, better rates, better service. I mean, it's just that it's a win, win, win for all, and with 7 billion people on this planet, there's a huge space for the eSIM to revolutionize a lot of different industries, not necessarily even just travel.
BB: So I know that there's a number of providers on the market of what I now know is an embedded SIM. That's new information for me.
That's why I introduced it as an electronic SIM. So there's, there's the resellers, there's people that issue them. I know that there's, you're one of just a couple in the non reseller camp. Can you talk a little bit about your model and how you differentiate yourself?
LK: Absolutely. So this is a great question because it is, I don't want to say it's a saturated market, but there's a lot of eSIM players in the space.
And when I advise clients or potential clients, when they're doing research into an eSIM company, it's like, you know what, just take some time and do some research into who you're actually working with, right? So there's two different types of companies in the eSIM space. You're going to have the reseller of the eSIM and then the creator of the eSIM and CELITECH actually falls into the creator category. And so we are the only U.S. hosted and U.S. made eSim company in the world, and this is a really big deal for a lot of clients and people that we speak to. I find it interesting and I don't want to go on a tangent here, I find it interesting for those companies that don't care about security. And then I find it interesting for the companies that do because that is their number one priority, and I have a lot of respect for companies like that. So we are hosted in Washington D.C. and with that being said, we are able to customize every single eSIM for every single traveler's specific itinerary.
And so, because of that, it gives us a lot more flexibility in what we do so we work with the telecom providers but we are a wholesaler so we're not affiliates, there's no commission, it's like we are wholesale. You're going to the root, so we give you a wholesale price.
We have volume discounts and you're able to mark up as you see fit. And we help you with that depending on who you're selling to, how you're selling to them, the traveler, and then what market you're in. But it's pretty a wonderful add on. For the travel space. When I say travel, I mean, we're talking OTAs, Airlines, travel agents, I mean, it's such a large industry. So there's a lot of deep, deep cracks in the space. But with this you know, with our API first mentality, right? So we're not a B2C company, we're B2B2C, so we understand the end consumer, but we work with our client partners.
And I say client partners, not clients, because we want to, if they win, we win, right? It's a partnership, but we're an API first company, so we're flexible and we can work with your needs because what we're seeing is most of the, you know, while we're out doing sales and business development. Each client has a specific need. It's not a one size fits all, and we have that since we're grounded in our API, that is kind of our focus.
BB: So I think, you know, just going through the customer journey and understanding where you would fit in, obviously on the B2B side, they're making a wholesale purchase, but I, obviously the one of the best places for this is an ancillary part of multiple stop or multiple item itinerary booked through an OTA, right? And would you like to add connectivity? You know, you get that right at the end of the checkout process. I know you've got a couple of partners that we'll talk about in a minute that you're already doing this with.
But just to clarify so that the OTA would be buying a bulk purchase from you and then every time they need to issue one, they ping the API and pull the actual QR code or information for that specific SIM that they've created for that traveler.
LK: Yeah, absolutely. And they don't necessarily need to bulk buy if they want to for, you know, just a pricing break but we can reconcile transaction per transaction. And so that's exactly what happens, and so our value proposition is one click connectivity for global travel. And so we have multiple patents around the world that allow us, our patent is in the checkout in the confirmation page where our API needs three endpoints to give you exactly what your customer needs. So we have the start date, the end date, and then we have the destination of where this traveler is going. And that's all we need to then turn around and pass a customized eSIM for that traveler's trip experience, etcetera, right? So there's a lot more features that are on top of the API and things like that, but that's all we need. So the customer doesn't need to do anything. It's already filled out.
BB: It’s like a hotel booking is.
LK: Exactly, now a lot of companies utilize eSIMs for many different reasons. They use it as a customer acquisition tool, giving it away, they bundle it, right? So they'll bundle it inside of a package.
They will add it as a straight up ancillary, so we're talking to lots of loyalty companies, credit card companies you know, airlines. I don't want to appreciate their, you know, the IP users and also a lot of companies, you know, OTAs are giving it away as a customer acquisition tool because they'll give a one eSIM away per booking, not per person, because what's the most important part of our user's journey?
Getting their luggage and finding their transfer. There's a lot of different mines, like little minefields that happen in a journey when you travel, and so when you travel, there's, like I said, there's just so many different opportunities for an issue and having an eSIM just mitigates the drama that can happen when you travel being connected, right?
BB: Yeah, so it makes perfect sense the value prop. What I would love to do is let's dive a little bit into the marketing and go to market strategy, because obviously you're in a situation where this is not something that's been around for, you said six years is when, you know, if your phone was made in the last six years, so you're entering a market, you're creating a space.
Tell me about your go to market strategy, how you're getting this into the end user's hands.
LK: Conference time is usually heaviest in the beginning of the year, and so our strategy for the company was to, we call it our conference blitz and what we did is took our passports and got on the road and did our road show for a good solid six months. And so we call it our world tour, right? So this tour of 2023 is called our premiere tour.
So we're premiering out, we have our t-shirts, where we're going internationally. Like it's a whole thing. And it's fun because this is what we have to wrap our heads around. If we need to be on the road and meeting people and answering these questions and so much of this is relationship building.
We know this. And especially when you have to get to the decision makers and help them understand the benefits of an eSIM. And honestly, people in the travel space, I've spent my entire career in travel technology, people want to work with cool people, right? And so getting to know people, breaking bread with them, sharing a glass of wine you know, our clients are all over the world.
So we are in different time zones every single second of the day I feel like, and just getting to know our clients and really listening to them. Emotional intelligence is really important, hearing what they want and then saying, hey, we know you can't do the optimal, you know, API integration right now or etcetera, etcetera.
Like, let's grow together, we're here to support you. And so being, you know, we always joke, like we have a rockstar team, but really we're just the cowbell players, you know, our clients are the rock stars. They're the ones at the front of the stage that we help shine the spotlight on them and their travelers, right? We're just here to support.
BB: The tambourine people, right?
LK: Right.
BB: For helping people out that are maybe entering the space and maybe trying to figure out the B2B landscape of travel. How would you, or what conferences would you recommend? What have you been to?
What's been successful for you?
LK: There's so many out there. And I think really understanding the vertical that you want to attack first is going to be really important. Like you can blow a lot of money on conferences, being creative in how you can sponsor different things, cocktail hours and you know, really understanding your placement. Is it just a logo blast or are you trying to do something more intimate or having a select target of who you want to talk to. So there's a whole strategy on just being able to go to conferences and business development and sales and things like that, right? But in terms of the actual conferences, you know, I have a list that I'm constantly adding to, but the ones that I find very successful and it also depends on scale, right?
Even if you've got 100,000 people like at ITB and going with, you know, three people, four people, it's going to be really tough and you're going to be tired and be clocking 20,000 steps a day. So you just need to make sure how much power you have behind you, but also having a presence in letting people understand who you are and that you're in the space is going to be important.
I found FTE the ancillary conference in Dublin to be extremely helpful because people are coming there looking for ancillary specifically, you know, and that was just such a refreshing conversation because these are people that actually wanted to do business with you. It wasn't like you're trying to be creative or sell an idea or like, hey, do you guys need, you know, connectivity or eSIM?
It was like we were going straight to the source so it was a really beneficial conference for us and I really hope to be able to attend next year, specifically they have multiple different conferences, but specifically their ancillary conference, which I believe is in Dublin next June of 2024.
And so then also Phocuswright is a must have. It's a staple, I believe in the industry they do such a wonderful job in the conference that they put on year to year and I actually find it one of my favorite weeks of the year. So it's like the end of the year, right before Thanksgiving and all the decision makers are there and you just end up.
Around Labor Day is like, hey, are you going to Phocuswright? Hope to see you in Miami, hope to see you in Arizona. You know, it's a place that, you kind of need to be if you want to be taken seriously. I believe in the travel technology space and the Barcelona/Amsterdam conference is beneficial for European, those that are interested in the European market as well. I also am really excited It hasn't happened yet, but I'm excited about the World Aviation Festival, which is, you know, specifically an airline conference in Lisbon this year in just a couple of weeks, September, and then WisTech, which is a student organization in Lisbon as well in just a couple of weeks. And that's just nice…
BB: You were on the road, goodness gracious.
LK: Oh yeah, we've done about, I've clocked 138 days outside of New York City this year.
BB: Yeah, I'm still recovering from ITB, walking that much. I didn't even know you were there. Next year we'll have to hang out. I just got my ticket
LK: You didn't see me in the wig. See this thing, I can be a little incognito. It's my alter personality.
BB: When there are a hundred thousand people in a million square foot conference facility, you don't necessarily see everybody, but that's super helpful.
Thanks for walking through some of those conferences.
So I would assume these B2B relationship, very different from a B2C relationship, right? So just noting, if you acquire one customer, that could mean millions of dollars versus a 7 dollar commission. So tell me a little bit about, I know that you've got some big partners, you're working, I believe, with Kayak right now. Did those types of introductions, how did those come about? How did your current clients, how did you acquire them?
Relationship building is really finding people that want to work with our team that already have relationships in the industry. Hiring within the travel vertical and then the specific travel vertical is important for them to understand the very non sexy, crazy, antiquated back end of travel.
So I feel like the gap continues to get larger, we've got very tech forward companies and those that are still left in the dust and they're constantly catching up, right? So that's, it's very exhaustive and travel is anything but sexy, anything but sexy. And so being able to find people in the industry that have these relationships that can call the decision maker versus, you know, campaigning you know, where you're just kind of throwing a whole bunch of spaghetti up against the wall, being a little bit more calculated, I think is important and, and finding those incentives for how people can bring you into the family.
Kayak, you know, again, that's relationship building. That's something that, you know, one of our partners has, is deep, deep in with Kayak for a long time. And this shows to… hey, we want to do business with cool people. You have to have a great product. You have great pricing, all that has to matter. But at the end of the day, I think the last decision is like, You know, do I want to be a partner with you, not a client, because we need to work together to make this super successful.
BB: People buy from people, right? Not from companies so…
LK: Exactly
BB: With Kayak or with any of your current clients, what type of feedback have you been getting about the product and the service?
LK: You know, I don't want to, you know, toot our own horn, no pun intended but…
BB: I think this is for
LK: Right, right. They really love it. You know, they find it very useful and here's the thing, I know we're B2B, but I have to focus on the C for them to understand the value proposition. Because, you know, if you've got a company that's focused on the future or Gen Z, you have to be investing in eSIM. If you're not investing in eSIM, you're not investing in the future, and that means you're not investing in Gen Z. And in four years Gen Z will take up one third of the American population, 100 million Gen Zers will be on this planet and they've never lived life without a cell phone. So if you're not investing in connectivity, you need to rethink your strategy, right?
Because that connectivity is going to allow your traveler to do so much more. So it's really important to be focusing on, you know, a couple of years down the road. And I always ask clients like, Hey, Do you really see yourself not having eSIM technology in a year? And then they stop and they're like, huh, okay.
So the feedback with certain clients and whatnot, when they utilize the eSIM themselves so we're having 50 to 60 executives in Dubai, I just said 30 executives, you know, some eSIMs in Paris. And when they have all of their, you know, exact team using an eSIM, which by the way, I haven't spoken about the branded eSIM. They lose their marbles.
So two things. One, we support fully, you know, almost like a white label function. So you can sell this technology, sell this, you know, connectivity, this eSIM with your brand on it. And, why are we so over the top with security and QA and quality?
It's because your name is going to be in it. It doesn't have to be, but a lot of clients prefer that. So when you're looking down at an eSIM and you buy an eSIM from Kayak, that network name is going to say Kayak. And so now we can deliver 400 mobile impressions per day per traveler to see your brand's name in the network name. Very, very cool, so you've got these executives for an airline per se and we send, you know, 50 eSIMs to Amsterdam for a retreat and they've all got the airline name as a network. They're all the coolest things in sliced bread, especially employees. We do a lot of employee appreciation, a lot of employee benefits. We can work with companies to make sure their employees get a better rate and having that brand ability perks, things like that. Because roaming is so expensive and eSIMS are the discrepancy of the quality of eSIMs out there is very large. So one thing I'd like to point out is that CELITECH, we only offer LTE and 5G and I cannot reiterate this enough.
We do not throttle your service. We do not put a cap on it. And we do not offer anything less than LTE and 5G, our competitors will throttle and they will show to 3G, what can you do with 3G? You cannot even post an Instagram story, and I think it's deceiving and scammy to a lot of the end consumers because they think they're getting a big bang for their buck, and then they get to a destination and they can't eject shit.
And so we work on that, like we're about the premium quality, and when you put your brand on something, we make sure it's the utmost of quality.
BB: And that right there is the piece that I wanted to talk about because when you talk about branding the network name for instance mm-hmm, let's say it says Kayak in the top left corner of your phone.
LK: Yes. Yes.
BB: There's two components there. Number one, yes, absolute brand impressions. You said 400 a day. The other piece is there's a bit of reputational risk with them saying, okay, we're gonna take on the name of the network so somebody has an issue with the network, they're gonna say, Kayak had an issue with the connectivity.
So when you talk to an organization about the exchange between the value of 400 impressions a day versus taking on that reputational risk. What is the end result typically? Is it that the marketing value overpowers or the customer retention value overpowers the reputational risk, or is it vice versa?
LK: Yeah. A hundred percent the first one, right, so the clients, you know, they need those marketing dollars. They need, you know, those brand impressions, because here's the thing. If you're sitting there on your phone and you're looking, let's just say like an online, you know, OTA, whatever I'm not going to put any company name on it, but you're looking at it and all of a sudden you see Booking or you see Kayak or you see Goda, or you see Turkish Airlines or whatever on the upper left hand corner of your phone.
Now you remember where to go when you want to buy something else or to check in or a push notification, right? So it's allowing you to remember that you have this app to go and be upsold to and there's lots of many other things, in the future that we can work together with the client in terms of push notifications and allowing them to offer better products and services.
But it's a reminder because, I mean, we're all basically developing digital ADD, I mean, that's what's happening. I mean, what?? It's like my brain is just constantly on fire and I find myself to be a very focused person and I think there's, you know, with all these apps and the app fatigue, you know, we have to be very calculated.
And so when you have a client that sees the value in that. They're either, 100% on board or they're just like, hey, just not yet because they just want to get integrated first or something like that. So it doesn't fit every client, but most clients are very excited about it because it's a noisy space and everything counts.
BB: Is there ever a situation where you think it would, the expense eSIM? Through CELITECH or however they decide to do it. Is there a point at which it could just be part of the marketing budget and they could issue them for free?
LK: Oh, wait, that's already happening.
BB: Really?
LK: Yeah, customer acquisition cost.
BB: That's super interesting. So I want to talk a little bit about the unit economics there. Just saying like wholesale price, are you able to share with me what it would cost for a seven day sim?
I'd probably want to keep that under wraps for just right now. And we're happy to share that information to anyone that wants to contact us.
But you know, the comparables that you see around, it depends on if you're dealing with a wholesaler or a reseller, right?
BB: If I go to the market today and I'm a reseller, what am I going to pay for a 7 day eSIM?
LK: Well, you're probably going to pay something, you know, for 7 day eSIM, so you'll probably need 3 gigs and if you're going to the U. S., you're probably going to pay 15 bucks or something like that. You know, 15, 20, maybe even less. But the thing is, are you getting 2G or 3G? Yeah, you know, it might be like 10 dollars with one of our clients or us. I think it just depends because we're not going to throttle that.
So we get a lot of comparables and we're not, we're very much in the space of the pricing as our competitors, for sure, there are a few destinations that we are improving consistently on. And people will ask, but then I'm like, well, do you see that the reason why they're trying to be better in other regions is because they're offering, you can just see, I'll just point it out when they send me the pricing and the clients, I'm like, are there competitors?
I'm like, see, it 2, 3, 4G like we don't offer that, I can give you a 200 gig eSIM to them to Italy for 20 bucks.
BB: Yeah. Okay. So I guess the takeaway is, if I'm an OTA and I'm going to put my brand on it, I need the connectivity to be strong, I need the 5G or LTE.
That's really interesting. So just going back to let's pretend I own an OTA and I know that I'm going to spend 20 dollars on a three day eSIM for my commission on their booking was 40. So I'm taking 50 percent of that gross margin and putting it right back into right back into the future customer acquisition cost.
And let's say I get an additional 40 dollar commission on a further purchase on another flight or on an experience purchase, whatever it may be that brand impression or those 400 daily brand impressions that investment did result in an outcome. So that makes perfect sense.
LK: It does but just to go back, we're a wholesaler and that's before the markup so being able to buy something from CELITECH can get down into the single digits, that's that's the point.
Yeah, it's very inexpensive because here's a thing even if you offer, a lot of clients for example could even offer just a gig, right? So they'll offer one gig and then the client will top up and they make the money on that.
BB: What happens at the end of the top up process, how does that work with the API or how, like, so I get a eSIM issued and I use my one gigabyte.
What happens then?
LK: Yeah. So you, within, so for when you're working with a CELITECH client, you, the client gets an email when they've used about 70 percent of their data. So there's a web hook in the API and then we send them to a top up, a white label top up area. So the customer can then just top up and then our customer gets the payment from the traveler, right? Because again, it's a markup.
BB: If that's missed by the traveler, let's say, because you mentioned digital ADD. I'm not growing that, I have that, I have ADD across the board. So let's say I missed the email and that is a very likely outcome for me and I use a hundred percent of my data as a customer.
What happens then?
LK: Well, your service stops working, but we also have, like I said, we have a web hook that can ping on the actual phone, right? So there's like a web based app. It's not an app per se, I'm forgetting the name right now and I apologize to our CEO. But basically it’s on the phone and we can just pop up on the phone.
BB: Essentially, you send a web hook back to the rather than them pinging your API, you're essentially pushing a notification to the OTA.
The OTA sends a notification in the app saying like, okay, you're at 70%, you're 80%, you're at 95%.
LK: So let me, so really quickly, and that is, this is all very relevant. Because we're so just taking a step back because CELITECH is the one click connectivity, we give back to the customer, our API pushes back the recommended amount of gigs that you need for your trip duration because of the data that we see, we rarely have clients that need to top up.
BB: Wow.
LK: So we do all the work for you. This is why we're like API, API, one click, one click. Like it's just easy. We've already finished the basket. We put a bow on it. And all your customers do is hit, you know, purchase, or you fold that into the cost of your flight or eSIM plus wifi. And it's already folded in and we just push that to you. And then the customer, it's just a very seam, it's seamless, right? It's a hike. We're seeing 10 percent plus conversion of our ancillary.
BB: The value prop is a hundred percent there. So just before we run out of time, I have two more marketing specific questions for you. Number one awards overall wireless broadband solution of the year, you won that. How do you use that in your marketing?
LK: Well, I think it's about customer and market validation, right? I mean, there's nothing more important than market validation. When there are people in the industry that know what they do and then they recognize you for it, there's nothing better. So, we don't plaster it everywhere, but it's definitely something that, you know, we have in some of our marketing materials we have on our website.
We bring the award to some of our conferences because that is a big deal. We also did win People's Choice Runner Up at the Phocuswright conference past November in Arizona which is my second award in my career with that people's choice with my company prior.
So that's very prestigious award that I believe really matters because there's just so much press around that. So it's important to highlight it for sure. There are a lot of pay to play awards out there, though, and so I refuse our company culture. We're not going to pay to play. There's a lot of pay to play marketing, and that's not genuine.
I believe. So when you're being recognized, I think it needs to be something because of the work that you've done, not because of the money and how deep your pockets are.
BB: Just buy your $3,600 Phocuswright ticket and pay 10, 20 grand for a sponsorship. And the award shows free to participate in.
LK: Exactly. Exactly. There we go.
BB: Very cool. Last thing, what's the most successful thing that you've done in marketing or a strategy that's worked for B2B marketing for you that you'd like to share?
LK: Oh, my colleagues are going to kill me and everyone that works with me because that's all I do is sing this song but branding is everything. Because here's why it still matters in B2B. And some people are like, oh, if you don't know the consumer, if you don't work at C or it doesn't matter, it's all about just your product. And it's like, no, because your brand is the emotional intelligence of your company. That is what that is saying.
And if you don't have a strong brand, then your CMO and your marketing team, they're working way harder than they need to. So we, I took our company as a holdup. Stop. Hold up. Wait a minute. I was like, we need to fix our brand because it's not speaking to the soul of how we function and what we believe in.
So we did some major work-shopping for five days locked in a room focusing on what we care about. You know, what is, what is our mission? What is our vision? What is our value prop? What do we do? Having hard conversations, lots of back and forth. It was very difficult. It was difficult conversations, but it brought us together as a team. We got into the heart and soul of what we believe and what we feel. And now that we have this strong brand our product truly is connectivity that will rock your world. And that is based on everything that we do. And my job is so simple now because I have a brand that works for itself.
And so in B2B marketing, I think this is overlooked 99% out of a hundred times. Because guess what? You're still selling to humans. You don't think that the wigs don't work at these conferences. Some people might think we look silly. Most people take pictures with us. You know what? It's memorable. It breaks the ice.
And these conferences are stuffy and obnoxious and slow and tiring. And we're tired and we're jet lagged. And it gives us something to laugh about. Because you know what? We're fucking human. And it's fun. And I want to have, I want to have fun with my job. You know, we're passionate. We care about these things.
And I think it shows that we're lighthearted. But we do take ourselves seriously. Like, rock stars work their ass off. And I know my band does. And we do it for our clients and partners. And I invite anyone to give me a call or email on lk@celitech.com. You can find us on the website, celitech.com. I'll give you a free eSIM. I'll give your company a free eSIM. We'll blast out a hundred eSIMs to your executives, whatever you need. Try our product. It kicks ass and it just makes, it's just table stakes. Connectivity is table stakes nowadays. For traveling, and I have lived my entire career in travel technology.
And when it comes to eSIM it is something that every company really needs to start looking into, whether it is customer acquisition, loyalty, benefits, connectivity, ancillary. It's just, again, this add on that is more important actually than in the, in the day to day than travel insurance, right? So it's like, take it seriously, look into it and.
And you work with rock stars. It's easy.
BB: Love it. I love it. What's next for y'all? What's on the horizon? What's exciting going on?
LK: Hey, our premier world tour isn't over my friend. So I'm on the road to WisTech in Lisbon and then I'm home for a week back in New York, then back in Lisbon for the World Aviation Festival. We're going to be sponsoring in, working with both of those conferences and in various ways, speaking, offering eSIMs, things like that. So we have some cool creative stuff. And then we're at Phocuswright Miami, which we're very excited to be the connectivity sponsor for Phocuswright. So if you're going to Phocuswright, get your free sim through us and then just trying to keep up with integrations and clients. So it's a busy fall.
BB: So I'm not going to see you at Skift?
LK: You won't because Skift decides, Skift, this is for you. They decided to change their dates last minute to overlap World Aviation. So we were going to go and I'm right here in New York, but you know, I won't be, I won't be going. You can stay in my apartment if you want.
BB: We'll make sure to tag you in the podcast.
LK: Seriously, they changed it like in June. And there were like 10 of us in a bar at Phocuswright. We're like, who do you mean they changed it? Like, we were so bummed. I was like, ah, c'est la vie. It is what it is. Can't make them all.
BB: I hope my flights are still for the right dates. Well, thank you so much for doing this with me. I really appreciate it. An awesome conversation around B2B marketing to two last questions for you. Number one, is there anything that you want the listeners to know outside of our conversation today?
LK: Outside of our conversation today, not necessarily, but hey, if you need anything from CELITECH in a non partnership mentality, great, give us a call. If you see connections or anyone that we're connected to on LinkedIn, or you're just curious about anything or knowledge, you want to share, you know, a glass of wine in New York City or wherever our founders are across the world. We're always looking to meet really cool people. So, I love networking and I love my job and I'm, my whole career is dedicated to travel technology. So anyone in this space we're here. It's not all about how we can land you as a client. It's just about building and meeting really cool people.
BB: I can testify to that because I had absolutely no value to you or the future of your company and we still became friends. So yes, I can testify to that. Last question. I know you've got a lot of travel for work. Where's your next personal trip?
LK: I leave in six hours to my family's summer home in Canada in Kashi Lake.
I grew up in Canada every summer my entire life, so I'll be up there for three weeks and so I'll be working from the cottage and I have to, this is a plug, but I literally siphon data from our own eSIM to do my Zooms because our Wi Fi is so bad in the middle of the bush. That's true.
BB: That is a full circle comment right there. Wow. All right, Lauren. Thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. I hope you have a great rest of your day and good luck continuing with the go to market strategy.
It's super exciting. Everything y'all are doing at CELITECH.
LK: Thanks, Brennan. Rock on.
For more empowering ideas, visit Propellic. com. We're on a mission to create more diversity in thought for the planet, and dedicated to helping brands, both large and small, increase their [00:34:00] reach through intelligent travel, transportation, and tourism marketing. P R O P E L L I C. com