ValuClarity

Your customer value comes from your differentiation. Tom Brady, VP of Business Development for Flow Pharma and I talked about Flow's differentiation, which is pretty powerful. We explored what customer outcomes can be achieved using that differentiation, and then what markets/customer groups most desire those outcomes. Flow is building a business exactly along those lines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rhys Ryan leads Ekkobar, who leapfrogs social media analytics. Where analytics can tally clicks, likes, shares, seconds on a page etc., Ekkobar's social media insights figure out what people are thinking about you, how bad that misstatement was -- or wasn't -- and what they intend to do about it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Peter Voss is the founder and CEO of Argo, whose AI has upped the chatbot interactions that companies can have with customers. We talked about what AI currently does, and what AI can't yet do that makes AI so artificial. We also talked about how AI helps clients provide value to customers better than chatbots. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I've been ruminating lately about the challenge of helping big organizations sell and price value more effectively...vs. the challenge of helping more agile companies become more holistic in their pursuit of customer value. There's a huge difference. Doing the first is straightforward and pays well. Doing the second requires searching for that rare company who's ready to do something special - which is simple in concept, but hard to implement in a company who is tied to convention. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Darrell Amy and I are kindred spirits who believe in the importance of customer value. He co-hosts the Selling From the Heart Podcast, and his book "The Revenue Growth Engine" is on my bookshelf -- extolling how to coordinate sales and marketing functions in your organization. We help somewhat different clients: he likes working with companies who sell a repeated purchase that is differentiated by how the customer is sold to, where I like helping clients who are looking for a trusted consultant to help them make a better buying decision. It turns out that sellers are the X factor in both situations. Great stuff! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Newman has released his newest book, "Do It! Selling" (the latest in his "Do it!" series of books). David is an old friend, and serves speakers, coaches and consultants who have strong intellectual property, but who aren't confident in their ability to get more of the right clients at the right prices. This latest book is a home run for those audiences, but is a great sales primer for anyone launching out in the world of sales. We talked about his book, and our shared passion for selling -- and pricing -- more value. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tim Rohrer wrote and published "Sales Lessons of the World's Greatest Mentor" as an homage to the most influential person in his career. This was a work of love, and shares lessons in story format -- super impactful, and a super easy read. This is a highly recommended book! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Julie Roehm has held positions with some of the world's greatest companies, most recently as Chief Experience Officer with Party City -- is there anything more "customer experience" than a company that helps the world celebrate stuff? Julie and I talked about some of her very sophisticated -- yet simple -- innovations that she drove. What an incredible interview. Thanks, Julie! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Keith Dorson owns Win-Win Investments, a financial planning firm. He's not the first financial planning professional on the podcast, but he's the first to call his clients owners; they own their lives, their journeys, their stories. Keith treats them like that. It's pretty cool to hear him share his approach to practicing customer intimacy. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Carl Kwan is the founder and head of Kwan Multimedia, and helps his clients produce video content that reinforces your value and moves customers through their buying process. He has over 18 years (since the infancy of YouTube), plus years before that as am image coach, making video content that does precisely that. We had a great conversation about not only the (obvious) importance of video, but the importance of well-crafted video messaging. Pretty impactful stuff. Thanks Carl! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TIm Hyde's company helps its clients avoid having a customer journey get stuck by understanding various customer journeys and building your sales/marketing activities and asset help customers through those "stuck spots". TIm and I are kindred spirits and it was a pleasure getting his perspective. Thanks Tim! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sky Cassidy founded and runs MountainTop Data, a data company that sells leads -- but differentiates by selling 1) guaranteed lead quality 2) a la carte: that is, you buy (not rent) a certain number of leads without an ongoing contract commitment. Seems simple, but that's the beauty of it. We talked about some of the practices in his industry, and the large competitive white space some major competitors have constructed for him. Thanks, Sky! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Depending on how it's measured ("at least one goal met" vs. "most or all goals met"), about 50-70% of projects, especially software projects, FAIL. Holy cow. Joe Pusz leads the PMO Squad, and is a national leader in promoting great project management -- which he defines as "meeting client goals", rather than "successfully installed". What's that worth to you? Thanks for a super-educational conversation, Joe! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marc Appleman has had a stellar career in the sports and media space. He's currently in a venture that is leveraging a vast trove of historic sports articles and photographs, but he was also the CEO of SABR, the Society of American Baseball Research (an offshoot of SabreMetrics, of "Moneybag") fame. Marc transformed SABR into a thriving community of people passionate about baseball, and we talked about what that looks like...and how it applies to any business or association. We also talked about how he's turning a historical archive into vibrant memories and celebrations of our shared past. Inspiring stuff, Marc! Thanks. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brion Crum is an executive with Caliber Investments, one of the country's fastest growing companies, and a business who differentiates by bringing quality real estate investing to groups who seldom have access to the kind of deals that big institutional investors are able to take advantage of. Caliber partners with experts in specific markets, and specific project types to bring a diversified flow of investment opportunities for its investors. Brion articulated this differentiation pretty clearly for me, and talked about how Caliber gets everyone in the company aligned around delivering great outcomes. Give it a listen! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

TIno Go founded and leads Baru (hellobaru.com), an innovator in the furniture and cabinetry business. He partners with companies around the country (there are quite a few of them) who have purchased computer-aided manufacturing equipment for furniture and cabinetry -- machines that only run a small percentage of the time (almost all of those). This means that these items can be manufactured thousands of miles closer to where they will be installed -- a cost and time savings in shipping and packaging. Of course, these are all built-to-customer-spec, and can use higher quality materials, so they're custom. The owners of these machines earn more revenue using an expensive yet underutilized asset. It's amazing! And furniture and cabinetry are just the beginning for Baru. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Park Howell believes, just like I do, that customers buy outcomes from doing business with you. He helps his clients compose stories that light up the limbic brain, or as Park calls it, "the movie theatre of the mind". I'm a big fan of how he simplifies the story format...by studying the art of story from experts in moviemaking, novel writing, and yes, marketing, he's distilled the art of story building into a simpler formula than I have ever heard. Give this great episode a listen! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nelson Griswold leads Next Gen benefits, a consultant-to-consultants who teaches benefits experts how to deliver better healthcare to employee populations at lower cost. We talked about how he does that, how so much of his effort is devoted to selling through a channel of healthcare consultants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Loren Fogelman consults to accountants and financial professionals, focusing particularly on weaning them off of the "hourly rate trap". She has a great process for helping accounting professionals understand their value, build value-based programmatic pricing, and have great sales conversations with their clients. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daniel Hammond's practice is centered around what he calls customer-driven leadership. In addition to leading a company with focus on customers. This includes the real, external customer, but also internal customers. I loved that perspective Daniel is passionate about building high-performing organizations with a customer focus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Olle Ljundqvist is a founder of the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) society. ERAS is a collection of small changes to patient care, pre-, during-, and post-surgery. As Olle points out, most hospitals are already practicing several of them...just not as consistently as they should, not as measurable, and of course, not the rest of them. Getting a healthcare provider to increase compliance to 75-or 80% yields huge improvements in patient recovery, wellness, pain, and freedom from complications. Sounds great, right? Yeah, but the real problem is change management, and getting buy-in from administrators to nutritionists. It's been an interesting journey for ERAS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rod Collins is an author and keynote speaker whose work in organizational effectiveness is focused on changing organizations from hierarchies to self-guided teams of peer-to-peer networks. Democratizing work like this is the way of the future, according to Rod. I worked in a famous example of this kind of culture, and we discussed it in some depth. We also talked about how much more effective it is to have such teams focused on customers and customer value. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Adam Kipnes has provided strategic consulting for his clients for many years. He believes in involving everyone in the process, but also in a very simplified strategic document, so that people use and live up to the strategies they develop together. We talked about the value of a strategic approach that works because it gets used, and also spent some time talking about his "100 day sprint" that clients are finding compelling and actionable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mark Stiving is a kindred spirit -- and we always have great conversations about selling value. This time, we talked about how Mark has captured some of his wisdom in his book "Selling Value. How to Win More Deals at Higher Prices". We talked about the book for a bit (I recommend it, as I got the chance to comment on one of his draft manuscripts), but we also talked about how important value selling is in today's world. Thanks Mark! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jac Arbour is exceptional, personally and professionally. He's an author and philanthropist, all pursuits that derive from his excellence as a comprehensive financial consultant for his clients. His approach is to really know what drives each person he serves so that he can become a genuine partner. What a refreshing difference from other financial advisors who really sell point solutions, under the guise of "full spectrum". Jac and I had a great conversation about what it means to be a true trusted advisor. Good stuff, Jac! Thanks.. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bill Baer runs Baerclaw Productions, a video production company. As a former news-guy, with crews drawn from the news business, Baerclaw is driven by high quality, but has a production mindset. Bill and I talked about how he helps his clients figure out which videos they should produce themselves (and how to produce them better) and also helps them understand why and when they need professionals doing it. He gave some great stories about how he works with his clients -- not declaring he's done until the customer says it's done. Inspiring customer focus, Bill. Thanks! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jeb Blount's new #1 Best Seller responds to our current rising prices environment with timely tools and research meant to help sellers and sales leaders achieve price increases without losing business, and while causing minimum harm to the relationship. Jeb shared some of his thinking about several types of price increase, and how to approach each one. Great Stuff, Jeb! Thanks for stopping by the ValuClarity podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael Walters is an old friend who I've attached climb in the Commercial Real Estate Business for a few decades now. I was in a business adjacent to that for one of those decades, and I've always found it interesting. This is a very relationship-driven business, but I wanted to unpack that term "relationship driven". So many people think that it's about personal affinity or the "liking" in "Know, Like, and Trust". We explored how much more important the other two are...kind of. It's far less important that they know you. You have to know their business, their aspirations, their situation. And credibility...the trust part, is critical. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mickey O'Callahan has been building sales and commercial excellence in companies for decades, and Oceaneering International brought him on board to do it for them as an insider, not a consultant. Since coming on board just over two years ago, he's been applying his expertise to a widely diversified global company. We talked about his journey, and what's next. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jennifer Blowers has left the comfort of corporate America to start her own consultancy. I Her energy and passion for changing things in the healthcare industry comes right through the microphone (the sound quality is my fault, sorry!). She also realizes that market access teams can't be a simple product push function, but need to be full service change management consultants. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tina is a long-time therapist who helps clients in all fields master their stress levels to perform at their highest. We all have a level of stress we can handle and perform well under. We also each have an overload level of stress, at which we start shutting down, and no longer perform well. Tina helps clients raise their "overload level". We talked about that, mindset, and more during this great episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Every once in a while, someone shares their skepticism that everyone in a company can be made to understand how their job connects to customer value creation or realization. I wanted to share my experience, which states that it can in fact, be done. In fact, achieving this goal means that you can achieve something even more important: an entire sales force who is expected to sell at an elite level of value selling, and that nothing less is acceptable. This flies in the face of normal management dogma that you are always ever going to get 15-20% elite sellers. I've experienced an organization that threw such dogma out the window. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mediocrity isn't bad...it just isn't good either. It' good enough...for some. I have become a student of mediocrity in the workplace, and will be shepherding a book on sales leadership mediocrity to the market at some point. In this episode, I tackle four major areas where I see mediocrity in sales and sales leadership. Training, use of scripts, "show up and throw up" demos...and discounting. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Denise Meridith led the Bureau of Land Management as the first black woman the Bureau had hired back in the day. Her journey has given her a unique perspective on leadership. In addition, she used her job as an opportunity to build Arizona's economy by using public lands as resources for tourism. Her expertise in managing diversity has been sought by companies like Hewlett Packard. Listen to her perspective on the future -- heck, the new reality -- of leadership. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cristina DiGiacomo, philosopher, and I spent some time talking about mediocrity in the world an workplace. There is no area of human endeavor safe from the corrosive effects of "doing just enough", or being satisfied with average...or even someone else's strategy which we label "best practice". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Eric Mulvin owns and operates Pac-Biz, a provider of outsourced customer care services. That means he operates a call center in the Phillipines with customer service agents for a couple of industries. He helped me see that his business model helps elevate his clients (he has a heavy concentration of taxi companies around the world) customer service by bringing CX domain expertise into an industry where customer service isn't often viewed as a differentiator. Eric shared how he's structured his service to maximize service rather than minimize costs. Outstanding episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Buchanan is the CEO of Voith Paper in the US. His company is a full-spectrum supplier for paper makers, making complete paper mill machines, parts, services, engineering, supplies, wear parts, etc. This a tight-knit industry with a stable universe of customers, but one that is capital-intensive, and very technologically intense. Voith is a premium supplier that supplies more reliable, efficient paper mills. Hear how Voith turns that differentiation into a way of doing business. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ken Flood looks at sales like a change management engagement, which is true...when the customer is buying something they feel is new, risky, or complex. Thus, we end up agreeing about a lot of things, but coming at them from different directions, which I find refreshing. I hope you agree. This conversation went almost 50 minutes, so I cut it into two episodes. Here's part two. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ken Flood combines sales expertise with change management consulting experience. He looks at sales like a change management engagement, which is true...when the customer is buying something they feel is new, risky, or complex. Luckily, that's my world too, so we end up agreeing about a lot of things, but coming at them from different directions, which I find refreshing. I hope you agree. This conversation went almost 50 minutes, so I cut it into two episodes. We had a convenient break right in the middle, so here's part one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jose Palomino consults with sales and marketing clients, helping them focus on their differentiation. Because his approach is so similar to mine, I wanted to share his thoughts on differentiation and value. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Richard Steinau leads all customer-facing everything for Bellwether, a major events house. He's been in the business for decades, but came to Bellwether, because they were one of his favorite companies to work with before, and he's learning why. WE talked about how his company positions itself as trusted experts -- really only taking business with customers who value what they do best. We also talked about his new primary KPI: employee morale. Think about it: the leader of Sales, Marketing, Branding, Customer experience, being focused more on internal morale than funnel metrics...It turns out that happy, engaged teams give customers such a great experience that the funnel pretty much takes care of itself. Definitely worth a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tom Williams is a published co-author of two great sales books, is a successful sales consultant, and has held positions including CEO of a hospital. He's been on the selling and the buying side of major B2B transactions, and when Tom talks about purchasing/procurement...make some time to listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Marcus Cauchi (Pronounced COW-key) is an irreverent expert in sales and marketing. He and I always have great conversations about marketing, sales, and here...selling value. I hope you enjoy this talk as much as I did. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike Groeger is Vice President, Group Commercial & Specialty Sales at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona. While employee healthcare benefits may seem like a pretty standard commodity, I learned that small differences can drive big differences in customer outcomes. During "the great resignation", benefits can impact employee retention, a huge concern for companies, helping customers make that connection can be a huge value mechanism. I so appreciated Mike articulating that for us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Morgan is the Dan of the School of Career and Technical Education for Yavapai College, a community college in rural Arizona. They have programs for 3D printing...houses. They have cutting edge virtual education to keep some of the country's best educators working from where they want to live, to where Yavapai's students are living. They have implemented new curricula for employer needs in a matter of weeks. I was blown away by what's possible in higher ed, and even more, because it all comes from a small community college in Prescott, Arizona. Listen and be inspired. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Craig Jackman Is the CEO of Paragon IT professionals, who is a tech recruiting and contract outsourcing firm. That means Craig is in the middle of the great resignation, and all of the tech employee issues in today's market. We talked a lot about Paragon's differentiation, which is interesting, but we talked about something every company leader needs to be aware of: the many hidden costs of replacing an employee, and all of the "thousand cuts" inflicted by poor leadership. What a great episode if you want to develop your skills in understanding the upstream and downstream value impacts a single value proposition can spawn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Julie Cane is the CEO of a young financial company, Democracy Investments ( www.democracyinvestments.com) offers the Democracy Fund (Symbol: DMCY.). In a mind-numbingly crowded universe of Global Index funds, DMCY has done something different: They have taken the vanilla global fund, but have weighted investments in the fund by how democratic the home country of a company is. Think of taking a vanilla global fund, then removing the "authoritarianism risk" from it. There could be patriotic reasons, national security concern reasons, or simply a desire to de-weight a portfolio away from investments that could become radically devalued based upon a foreign government's arbitrary action. This is a great example of how one small feature can turn into a series of very significant outcomes for a customer. Julie and I discuss it here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Webcheck Security helps clients protect themselves, and in some cases, win new clients. Greg Johnson, the CEO, focuses his company on translating tech speak like "penetration testing" into customer outcomes. We talked about the importance of that kind of translation for the success of even the most technically advanced business. I was impressed with how well his company does at that, and am thrilled that we could share that with you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Krister Ungerbock was the CEO of a successful technology company, but after leaving the company, realized that while he successfully articulated a vision, he didn't successfully attract followers. He's learned that what leaders do to be effective is centered on what leaders say, and the questions they ask. We talked about his Talk Shift principles and applied them to leadership, sales...and life Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doug Gordon is an experienced executive in the financial services industry. In our discussion, Doug shared some of the lessons he learned over a career of building businesses. While he shares some sales tactics, he has a lot to say about leading an organization make sure that everyone is focused on delivering great outcomes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Barry Neal owns and runs the House of Flavors Restaurant/Ice Cream Parlor in Ludington, Michigan, a beautiful town on the shores of Lake Michigan. House of Flavors isn't just a local ice cream parlor. It's a multi-generational family relationship with a loving community of friends/customers. You can't fake the love that people have for HOF, and the relationships built over generations. Barry believes in selling an authentic relationship disguised as an ice cream cone. Listen to Barry's approach to being the chief happiness officer for his company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices