[Top Agency & Israel Business Series] Transforming Startups: Orit Oz on Dropping Global B2B in Israel and Beyond

Orit Oz is the founder of OzGlobalB2B, a full-service global B2B agency headquartered in Israel. Established in 1996, Orit transformed the company from a design studio into a global powerhouse in B2B marketing. Orit and her team work closely with their customers to create world-class brands from strategy to implementation. A certified HubSpot partner, OzGlobalB2B also offers comprehensive inbound marketing and marketing automation services.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• [14:23] Insights on branding and its key role in marketing
• [16:21] The importance of delivering consistent branding across global markets
• [16:48] The evolution and impact of digital marketing
• [21:02] The necessity of marketing strategy tailoring for both large and small companies
• [21:23] The importance of strategic problem-solving in startup cultures
• [14:10] The role of marketing materials in tech-driven products
• [14:23] Rebranding to keep companies relevant and competitive
• [16:48] How digital marketing supports growing businesses.
• [21:02] The advantages of combining branding capabilities with digital marketing
• [21:23] Insights into Israel’s innovative startup culture

In this episode…

In this episode of Inspired Insider Podcast, join host Dr. Jeremy Weisz and Orit Oz, founder of OzGlobalB2B. Orit shares how her company has been instrumental in promoting Israeli industry in the global marketplace across multiple sectors.

Due to Israel’s limited market size, Orit highlights the necessity for Israeli companies to think globally. The conversation delves into the specifics of B2B marketing for various verticals where Israel has strengths, including water technologies and agri-tech companies.

The discussion sheds light on the importance of Israeli companies understanding global markets and employing specific marketing strategies for technical products and medical devices.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Orit Oz on LinkedIn
• Dr. Jeremy Weisz on LinkedIn
• Oz Global B2B
• Inspired insider Podcast
• Rise25

Special Mention(s):

• Kevin Hourigan on LinkedIn
• Spinutech

Related episode(s):

• [Top Agency Series] Navigating a Merger and Becoming an End-to-End Digital Partner With Kevin Hourigan of Spinutech on Inspired Insider Podcast

Quotable Moments:

• “Any startup, any company that starts in Israel always understands that their potential will be in the global market.”
• “We’ve been instrumental in promoting Israeli industry in the global marketplace.”
• “We work closely with our customers to create world-class brands from strategy to implementation.”
• “We have a global mindset — our understanding is the global mindset.”

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:01

You are listening to Inspired Insider with your host, Dr. Jeremy Weisz.

Jeremy Weisz 0:22

Dr. Jeremy Weisz here founder of inspired insider.com. I talk with inspirational entrepreneurs leaders today is no different. I’ve got Orit Oz of OzGlobalB2B.com and before I formally introduce you, I always like to point out other episodes, people should check out other podcasts. This is part of my top agency series, but also my top Israel business leader series. So there’s a couple of COP agencies I’ve had. Kevin Hourigan started his agency this, you’ll relate to this.

Back in, I think 1995, he had an agency, right. And so Orit has been doing this, I’m not going to age you for several decades as well. And he talked about the evolution, the landscape and everything else. So that was an interesting one. With Kevin Hourigan of Spinutech. On the Israel business leader side, I had Luis Navone of mobile ion, and he talked about how mobilize journey of getting acquired to buy Intel for $15.3 billion. But what kind of struck me with that conversation? Or it was that he had to go back to his family at certain points and tell them you know, we can’t eat out anymore. We can’t do the niceties anymore, because there’s ups and downs.

There’s a lot of sacrifices that need to be made. So that was interesting. Also, you as fellow EO Israel, member nears of aro we talked about his book. Fuck the Slides, I guess I’ll swear on this, because that’s the name of his book. But it’s, and we talked about some of those, how he came to create that book, and some of the lessons also your yo Israel member a meet as director of extras and genie and how he lost all of his customers overnight, not once, but twice, and what he did. So check those out, and many more on inspiredinsider.com. And this episode is brought to you by Rise25. At Rise25 we help businesses give to and connect to their dream 100 relationships. And how do we do that we actually help you run your podcast, we’re an easy button for a company to launch and run a podcast and we do the strategy.

The accountability and the full execution, you know really are kind of the magic elves that work in the background to make it look easy for the host in the company. So they can develop great relationships create great content, and we do everything else. You know, for me, I’m always looking at ways to give to my relationships. And over the past decade, I found no better way than to profile the people and companies I most admire and share with the world what they’re working on. So if you’ve thought about podcasting, you should if you have questions, you can go to Rise25.com. To learn more, and I’m excited to introduce.

She is founder of OzGlobalB2B. And she established us back in 1996, and transformed the company from a design studio into a leading full service global b2b agency. And, you know, I like I was saying before the past few decades, as has been instrumental in promoting Israeli industry in the global marketplace, but they work beyond Israel as well. And they work closely with customers to really create world class brands across multiple sectors. And they cover the entire spectrum of b2b services from strategy to implementation. They’re even a certified HubSpot partner. So they offer a comprehensive inbound marketing, and then marketing automation services as well. So Orit, Thanks for joining me.

Orit Oz 3:41

Thanks for having been here. 

Jeremy Weisz 3:44

Start off and just tell people a little bit about OzGlobalB2B and what you do.

Orit Oz 3:39

So I actually your introduction was really good. And we, as you said, we are a company that operates with companies that have a technological product, and sell it in the world.

We work with a wide range of companies, and we help them from the brand strategy, through creating the identity, the visual identity, creating all marketing materials they will need in order to sell around the world and helping them also with the digital marketing. So this is what’s happening today. We didn’t start from there. We started from actually creating marketing materials, marketing, communication, and really helping Israeli companies sell their product in the world.

Jeremy Weisz 4:40

Walk through some examples and how that works. Because I think it’s instructive of any company. Going global like you, you’re forced, obviously, when you live in a small country to go global because there’s the market. You can’t just serve only the market in Israel if you want to get bigger and bigger and bigger. So have you helped some of these companies? They keep could be anywhere but starting in Israel and go global what let’s what’s the best example to start with of going from Israel and going global?

Orit Oz 5:12

So first of all, I, you, as you said that Israel has a very, very small company country. And so I think in general, we have a global mindset, because the Israeli market is too small for these products. Any startup, any company that starts in Israel always understands that their potential will be in the global market. That’s, that’s, I think, one thing. The second thing is because we, I expertise is business to business. That means that really the products that we that we help companies sell, or they are usually in verticals that are that Israel is very good.

And we have a lot of companies from water technologies, filtration companies, companies that to, you know, smart irrigation, or the agri tech companies like that. So, in general, we look at these Rayleigh markets as as like the better sight from the day that the product is ready, we will be looking at the global market. And I think that’s one of the things that I’ve seen over the years, as you’re speaking to agencies in Germany, or in the US, they’re very, they really know their market. But then, but we from the minute we started, you know, our understanding is the global mindset.

I think that that is something that’s interesting. We have quite a few companies that have medical device, which is also filled, that Israel is very strong in all different kinds of monitors, and very, very technological products that will you know, like a motion controller that will sit inside the one of HPs printers or things like that. So very technological products. It’s a specific way of marketing, you know, the people that you walk it to are professional people, that sort of what we do for our day to day. Yeah,

Jeremy Weisz 7:12

I mean, we’ll talk about I know that your company has gone through different evolutions throughout its lifetime. But I you know, you mentioned the water filtration, and water technology. One of those is I think it’s Maytronics. Right.

Orit Oz 7:32

So yeah, so Maytronics is, it’s actually a really, really great company. They are the company that invented the robots that clean the swimming pools. So it’s not they’re not from the agriculture side that they are from cleaning water. And they focused on the day, they started on cleaning swimming pools, over 50% of the market, the world market, which in general, is something that always I always feel so unbelievable, we have so many companies that in their niche in their place, they are really market leaders, they could be number two, number three in the world.

But I think that’s something that happens a lot in Israel, that you come out with very, very good product many years ago, a lot of the companies we work with, has been around for many years, Maytronics I think just had 14 years for the year anniversary. So Maytronics, it’s a great example, they produce robots that clean swimming pools, but as they sell in the world, they sell through partners. So if you think about we started working with them about 15 years ago, so that all their marketing was through the partners through distributors, something that’s very happens a lot.

Jeremy Weisz 8:50

If you’re watching, if you’re listening, there is a video here and we’re at globalb2b.com, right here, but you could see here is what we’re talking about. This is the right one. Yeah, yeah.

Orit Oz 9:04

And you can see the case study in our website. So I think what I really like about the Medtronic story is we started, we started working with Maytronics after they acquired the company in France. And the project was actually branding the acquisition of two companies and they expanded the proposition and it was the first time anything for the company, a technical company, who really liked them really understood the power of the brand as being something that can can connect employees and connect employees from all around the world and also become a very, very strong brand outside.

So we work a lot one way if if we talk about what we do, when we build the brand strategy, the brand promise is actually the tool that will connect all the employees to you know to why we why Get up in the morning, what we want to do in Maytronics was two simple words exceptional experience. And I think those two words are exceptional Spence has been, since really something that that with the values of the company and with the promise being something that really drove the company forward. 

The company has grown is now in the Tel Aviv exchange, Stock Exchange and one of the 15 biggest companies in Israel, they grew very much over the years, we created all their all their marketing materials. And now as they grown they brought in are they brought in the services in house because they’re already very, very big. And we just helped them with things that they need. But we were really the ones that create with them the brand and you know, something that talk

Jeremy Weisz 10:49

about some of those things, and read that you did with them? You know, the evolution of okay, you started with like you said the brand, but what are some? What are some of the things you had to do? Because I think it’d be instructive for anyone.

Okay, here’s what they did. And there may be other companies that want to go more global, even if they’re in the US, and they want to go outside the US, right? Obviously, it’s a big market in the US. So some people aren’t even thinking about going global. But there’s obviously that expands the market there. So what are some of the things you did? What did they want initially, when, when they first came to? So

Orit Oz 11:24

that I think the big question was, how a company that started in Israel in a kibbutz and is growing, and is becoming global? How do we keep the spirit? And what made the success when we become global and become big? Because in the end, you it’s okay, when you have, you know, all Israelis, they all get it, they understand the culture. Now you have employees in France, and you have employees in Germany, and you have employees in the US, and how do you connect them all together to one brand. So that was I think that that was the point where they, they understood that we need to have something that will connect everyone, the project we did was a global project, we did it with the global management.

And actually, after we after creating the brand promise, and after creating the values, there was like a roadshow going from country to country, that we gave them the tools and the management went from country to country and did workshops, and that we help them with it. And actually, you know, bring so that everyone, if you’re an employee Maytronics You all have the same language. One of the points where we knew we we succeeded was when the manager of Maytronics, Australia, found that the manager in Israel and I said, Listen, my one of my employees came to me and said, Listen, we have to change something we’re doing. It’s what we’re doing here isn’t an exceptional experience, it’s really bad, we have to change it.

And we said, Okay, we that’s what we wanted, we wanted that the you know, the everywhere where you are in the world, you understand that? If your electronics worker, and if you producing Maytronics products, it will be an exceptional experience. Now, what you’re showing here is what I’ve been talking quite a lot about the internal, but at the same time we have, we have the brand we have, we want all the marketing materials all around the world to look the same. And later on, when we talk about digital marketing, we can talk about the challenge of building a global brand, when you know, in social media, each country is very, very different. And that’s something that we’ll talk about later. Because it really connects us to how the marketing is evolving.

And the challenges it brings that when we did Maytronics you know, there were trade shows, There were shops, where there were the you show the things and you saw the things and everything was the same look the same. We used to create the materials and distribute them all around the world and building really a strong, strong brand. So you can see and the website,

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