Member Since 2017
Fortress Consulting
Chicago Area
Joel Mathew is an entrepreneur with a background in media and technology. He spent several years in Chicago media working for both the television and radio industries, before founding his own digital focused agency, Fortress Consulting. Fortress Consulting is a digital marketing agency, headquartered in Chicago, that bridges the gap between creative and technology. Fortress clients range from new startups to billion dollar global corporations including All State, Nike, Acura and more. In addition to his expertise in advertising and technology, Joel is also a partner in several ventures in a variety of verticals including legal, fitness, cybersecurity, publishing and more. Joel graduated from Northern Illinois University and holds a certificate from Harvard Business School. He frequently lectures to organizations and universities on various topics including entrepreneurship and digital marketing.
During difficult economic times, “layoffs” are often one of the first fears that enter professionals’ minds. Whether it’s a sudden economic downturn or a looming recession, many business leaders resort to laying off staff in a desperate attempt to keep their companies afloat. Even successful tech companies and large financial corporations sometimes exercise this type of cost-cutting measure.
When an employee succeeds at work, leaders should make sure that employee feels recognized for their efforts. Rewarding your staff members for a job well done not only motivates them to continue to work hard, but it also inspires others to reach the same goal.
Maintaining a positive relationship with your clients is important for both your business and theirs. However, there are times when your team and your client may disagree about how a project or initiative is being carried out.
Business plans are often considered an essential tool to help set a new entrepreneur up for success. This document typically encompasses the vision for your company, including your mission statement, while also pinpointing your target audience, sales projections and growth goals.
When you're looking to impress potential employers and business peers, it can be difficult to show off your personality on the limited pages of a resume or job application. Thankfully, LinkedIn provides a great opportunity to get more personal with your network.
The first few years of a company can be the most critical for its overall growth trajectory. This early stage will set the tone for the business and determine how potential pitfalls will be handled.
The relationship between you and your clients shouldn’t be solely focused on business transactions. Deeper client relationships start with a willingness to get to know your customers on a personal level rather than as a number on your invoice.
Self-doubt is common among entrepreneurs. When business owners are overcome with these doubts, it can hold them back from achieving their goals and reaching their full potential.
With so many duties to juggle and schedules to maintain, executives simply can’t do it all themselves. To remedy this, many companies will hire executive assistants to help.
Is your brand in need of a makeover? While it may seem as simple as something like changing your company’s name, rebranding is a complicated process with many moving parts.
Workplace stress levels continue to climb across all professions, resulting in increased burnout and decreased productivity. But just because employee stress is common does not mean it should be ignored.
Every business needs to market its products and services, but there's a lot of competition out there. When you're creating a content marketing campaign for your brand, the last thing you want to do is use precious time and resources to create content that doesn't measure up to your direct competitors'.
Whether it’s about a job offer or a potential business partnership, every professional will find themselves negotiating at some point in their career. The secret to achieving a positive outcome for both parties doesn’t have to be a mystery, however, and the key is often in thorough preparation and knowing some effective negotiation strategies.
Business advice can come from anywhere, even from those who have never owned a business. But if you’re a new entrepreneur just starting out, you tend to soak up all the information that you can. The most significant problem is there’s no simply way to tell the lousy advice from the good advice. Sometimes experience is the only way to figure out the difference.
When a client signs on with your business, they have certain expectations about what your performance will be. The best way to end up with a happy client, however, is to manage these expectations early on. If you don't, and a client feels as though they should have gotten more from your business but didn't, their testimony could severely damage your future business and your reputation. To ensure you don’t end up in this situation, 12 experts from Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) share their insights on the following question:
Every day, new devices pop onto the scene promising change and innovation. For an entrepreneur who's focused on the expansion of their organization, staying up to date with the latest technology that can support personal and business growth is essential. Whether it’s in a simple or a major way, some of these technologies carry with them the power to change how we do business altogether.
You can't avoid the occasional upset customer, but you can quickly and effectively smooth things over.
Entrepreneurs share their favorite tools, apps, and software for managing and interacting with customers.
Establishing a personal brand is something many professionals do to get noticed by the right people and make themselves available to the right opportunities. Unfortunately, with all the different information sources out there, it's easy to get confused about how exactly to do that. Where one source would advise you to do one thing, another article may recommend the complete opposite.
Communication is one of the most essential skills that a business leader needs to master to be successful. Great leaders may develop their communication skills early on in their careers, but they also have created and maintained habits that help them communicate more effectively.
Leaders should seek out ways to consistently express appreciation and ask for feedback.
You may be surprised at all the parallels between school sports and business success.
A great digital marketing strategy can drive potential customers to your website. But high traffic doesn't always translate into revenue. Once you get people on your site, you need to ensure they have a reason to follow through on their purchase. To help you do this, we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council how they optimize and convert web traffic into real dollars. Their best tips and insights are below.
Today’s consumers demand transparency and honesty in brands they buy from. They expect their voices to be heard, which means attracting and retaining customers is all about listening to your audience. It’s important to consider the interests of your consumers and, more importantly, implement their feedback into your products or business model. To help you do this, we asked a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members for their best advice on how to truly listen to your customers. Their best responses are below.
Competition among companies can be fierce, especially those in the same field with similar messages. With so many other brands out there, it can be difficult to make your story stand out among the crowd. However, you need to identify that “something special” about your business that truly makes it shine. To help you, we asked 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members how to captivate customers through the art of storytelling. Here’s how they recommend crafting a brand story that captures attention and engages your target audience.
Don't settle for poor quality because of a lower price tag.
Make sure to establish a relationship built on trust before having anyone market on your company's behalf.
Fortress Consulting Group uniquely combines the creative strengths of a full service advertising agency with the technological savvy of a cutting edge digital media firm to create engaging brand experiences. As our interaction with technology evolves and our digital media consumption grows, brands need to have a compelling digital presence that captures the attention and hearts of consumers. Our digital strategies provide businesses with a significant competitive advantage in reaching their goals. Digital isn't all we do. At Fortress, we strengthen your brand's identity not only in the digital space but consistently across multiple platforms and anywhere you can potentially interact with your target market. We stand apart from the crowd because we can take your digital strategy one step further by developing and integrating full and comprehensive marketing plans that incorporate television, radio, local customized promotions, and much more. We don't take shortcuts. We do business the right way. Our clients aren't just clients, they are a part of our Fortress family and we do what it takes to help them achieve their goals.
Marketing & Advertising