Podcasts about b2c

John Horn is the CEO of StubGroup, a digital marketing agency and Google Premier Partner. StubGroup has generated over half a billion dollars in revenue for over 2,000 clients spanning many verticals, including ecommerce, lead generation, B2B, B2C, local services, SAAS, and more. John has taught marketing to over 100,000 students via online courses. The videos he creates through StubGroup's YouTube channel have received millions of views and have helped make StubGroup the #1 resource for fixing Google Ads suspensions.Connect with John here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnjhorn1/https://www.facebook.com/StubGroup/https://www.instagram.com/stubgroupadvertising/https://stubgroup.com

Roundtable CAST AI episode: Serving LLMs in Production: Performance, Cost & Scale. Join the Community: https://go.mlops.community/YTJoinInGet the newsletter: https://go.mlops.community/YTNewsletterMLOps GPU Guide: https://go.mlops.community/gpuguide// AbstractExperimenting with LLMs is easy. Running them reliably and cost-effectively in production is where things break. Most AI teams never make it past demos and proofs of concept. A smaller group is pushing real workloads to production—and running into very real challenges around infrastructure efficiency, runaway cloud costs, and reliability at scale.This session is for engineers and platform teams moving beyond experimentation and building AI systems that actually hold up in production.// BioIoana ApetreiIoana is a Senior Product Manager at CAST AI, leading the AI Enabler product, an AI Gateway platform for cost-effective LLM infrastructure deployment. She brings 12 years of experience building B2C and B2B products reaching over 10 million users. Outside of work, she enjoys assembling puzzles and LEGOs and watching motorsports.Igor ŠušićIgor is a founding Machine Learning Engineer at CAST AI's AI Enabler, where he focuses on optimizing inference and training at scale. With a strong background in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Recommender Systems, Igor has been tackling the challenges of large-scale model optimization long before transformers became mainstream. Prior to CAST AI, he worked at industry leaders like Bloomreach and Infobip, where he contributed to the development and deployment of large-scale AI and personalization systems from the early days of the field.// Related LinksWebsite: https://cast.ai/~~~~~~~~ ✌️Connect With Us ✌️ ~~~~~~~Catch all episodes, blogs, newsletters, and more: https://go.mlops.community/TYExploreJoin our Slack community [https://go.mlops.community/slack]Follow us on X/Twitter [@mlopscommunity](https://x.com/mlopscommunity) or [LinkedIn](https://go.mlops.community/linkedin)] Sign up for the next meetup: [https://go.mlops.community/register]MLOps Swag/Merch: [https://shop.mlops.community/]Connect with Demetrios on LinkedIn: /dpbrinkmConnect with Ioana on LinkedIn: /ioanaapetrei/Connect with Igor on LinkedIn: /igor-%C5%A1u%C5%A1i%C4%87/

In this episode, we're joined by the brilliant Mark Ritson - marketing professor, columnist and founder of the MiniMBA in Marketing. We talk about the underestimated power of consistency in marketing, his “Bothism” approach to strategy and why insights from B2C marketing also work in B2B. 

Vender en el mundo B2B no es cuestión de cerrar operaciones rápidas, sino de construir relaciones que pueden durar años. Para Hernán Cid, fundador de Lay Us Agencia, el gran error de muchas empresas es intentar aplicar lógicas del B2C a procesos que son, por naturaleza, más largos, más complejos y con tickets significativamente más altos: "No son ventas que se cierran de una sola vez, sino que tienes que tener un sistema o proceso que te haga llegar al objetivo, que es la venta", sostiene nuestro invitado. Antes de diseñar cualquier estrategia comercial, Cid plantea que es fundamental entender en qué tipo de modelo se está jugando: "Hay dos grupos dentro del B2B. Uno es el industrial, que venden mucho volumen con menos margen. Y luego está el de servicios, donde sí hay altos márgenes. Cierran 5 contratos al año y con eso cumplen con las expectativas de ganancias". Esta diferencia cambia completamente la dinámica comercial: mientras algunos necesitan volumen constante, otros pueden sostener su rentabilidad con pocos contratos bien trabajados. A diferencia del mercado masivo, el B2B permite un conocimiento mucho más profundo del cliente. "En B2B manejamos menos clientes… pueden llegar quizás a ser 30 y tenemos la posibilidad de conocerlos mejor, entender su ciclo de ventas, sus problemas, etc. Y eso es bueno para poder adaptarte a la realidad del cliente al que le quieres vender", declara nuestro experto. Esa cercanía abre la puerta a relaciones más estratégicas, donde el vendedor deja de ser un proveedor ocasional para convertirse en un socio que comprende los desafíos del negocio. El eje central de su propuesta es ordenar la cartera y dejar de vender de manera improvisada. Para lograrlo, trabaja con cuatro cuadrantes que obligan a mirar todo el mapa comercial y no solo la prospección. "Los de arriba son A y B que representan a los clientes actuales; y los de abajo son C y D, que son los 'no clientes'", describe Cid. En el grupo A están los clientes actuales a los que ya no se les puede vender más, por lo que requieren un plan de fidelización. En el B están los clientes actuales con potencial de crecimiento, donde se diseña un plan de fidelización y escala. En el C aparecen los clientes perdidos, que necesitan un plan de recuperación. Y en el D están los que aún no conocen la empresa, para quienes se desarrolla un plan de conquista. "Poner el foco solo en un grupo, es un error", advierte. En la etapa de prospección, la estrategia también debe ser integral. "Uno puede hacer un contacto con el cliente más básico, como llamar por teléfono o mandar mails, o ser más estratégico, usando herramientas de IA y usar distintos canales, como LinkedIn, que es súper importante actualmente para B2B. Si estoy prospectando no recomiendo ir por un solo canal", recomienda nuestro invitado. La combinación de tecnología, distintos puntos de contacto y seguimiento sistemático es lo que permite generar oportunidades de manera constante. Cuando se trata de crecer, muchas veces la respuesta está dentro de la propia cartera: "Cuando llegamos al plan de crecimiento, en general vamos a encontrar dinero más rápido porque son clientes actuales. Si vamos con las técnicas adecuadas, es bastante probable que podamos subir las ventas en un corto plazo". Trabajar con quienes ya confían en la empresa reduce fricciones y acelera resultados, siempre que exista una estrategia clara. Sin embargo, Cid remarca que el vínculo no debería limitarse al momento de la transacción. "A veces nos vinculamos con los clientes solamente en el momento de la transacción, pero es mejor verlo desde un lado diferente y tener interacción desde otro lugar, para conocer el proyecto del cliente, sus desafíos… Es algo que no se suele hacer, pero es algo positivo para el desarrollo comercial", afirma nuestro experto. Esa visión relacional fortalece la confianza y abre nuevas oportunidades a mediano plazo. Incluso los clientes que se fueron representan una oportunidad desaprovechada: "Cuando no recuperamos clientes es porque ni siquiera lo intentamos. Ahora, cuando hacemos un plan de recuperación podemos recuperar al menos el 20% de los clientes". En lugar de enfocarse únicamente en captar nuevos prospectos, revisar la base histórica puede generar ingresos más rápido de lo que muchos imaginan. Para Hernán, la clave no está en vender más por impulso, sino en vender mejor a través de un sistema. "Cuando definimos cuadrantes, vendemos un plan de prospección y luego vamos a un plan de crecimiento. Vamos a cambiar nuestra realidad en ventas en sólo 2 o 3 meses", subraya Cid. El orden, la segmentación y la estrategia transforman un proceso incierto en un mecanismo predecible, capaz de sostener el crecimiento en el largo plazo. LinkedIn: @hernan-cid Instagram: @hernancidb2b

Text us your thoughts on the episode or the show!In this episode of Ops Cast, Michael Hartmann sits down with Jacqueline Freedman, CEO and Founder of Monarch Advisory Partners and Global Head of Advisory at The Martech Weekly, to discuss where modern marketing outreach has crossed the line from helpful to harmful.Jacqueline brings experience across B2B and B2C environments and challenges one of the most uncomfortable truths in marketing today: much of what we call cold outreach is still spam, just better branded. The conversation explores how incentive structures drive volume at the expense of trust, why deliverability issues are often symptoms of deeper misalignment, and what leaders need to rethink about how they show up in buyers' inboxes.They also discuss the difference between compliance and consent, how fragmented sending erodes inbox credibility, and why marketers cannot subject-line their way out of systemic problems. Along the way, Jacqueline shares what B2B can learn from B2C about respecting attention, and what B2C can learn from B2B about discipline, governance, and durability.What you will learn: • Why cold email fatigue is an incentive problem, not just a messaging problem • The behaviors that quietly damage deliverability over time • How to know when it is time to bring in specialized deliverability expertise • Why serious tone does not equal credibility in B2B • How to distinguish real thought leadership from polished noise • What responsibility operators have when narrative drifts from realityIf you care about sustainable growth, brand trust, and long-term deliverability, this episode will challenge how you think about outreach and accountability.Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review Ops Cast, and join the conversation at MarketingOps.com.Episode Brought to You By MO Pros The #1 Community for Marketing Operations Professionals We're an official media partner of B2BMX 2026 — the B2B Marketing Exchange — happening March 9-11 at the Omni La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, CA. It's practitioner-focused with 50+ breakout sessions, keynotes, and hands-on workshops covering AI in B2B, GTM strategy, and advanced ABM. Real networking, real takeaways. And because we're a media partner, you get 20% off an All-Access Pass with code B2BMAOP at checkout. Head to b2bmarketing.exchange to grab your spot. MarketingOps.com is curating the GTM Ops Track at Demand & Expand (May 19-20, San Francisco) - the premier B2B marketing event featuring 600+ practitioners sharing real solutions to real problems. Use code MOPS20 for 20% off tickets, or get 35-50% off as a MarketingOps.com member. Learn more at demandandexpand.com.Support the show

En este episodio respondo a todas las preguntas que me hacen habitualmente sobre la venta consultiva.Sigue siendo un tema que causa muchas dudas entre vosotros y quiero aclarar algunos términos que creo que son importantes Si este tipo de venta te interesa, seguro que vas a descubrir cosas importanes.Por cierto, ya he abierto mi agenda para dar charlas y conferencias para eventos y equipos de ventas. Aquí tienes toda la informaciónY aquí puedes conocer los servicios de mi patrocinador de esta temporada:El mejor hosting en español

This episode was sponsored by AskJeremy.ai   LightSpeed VT: https://www.lightspeedvt.com/ Dropping Bombs Podcast: https://www.droppingbombs.com/ In this must-watch Dropping Bombs episode, Ancestry.com co-founder Paul Allen teams with sales psychology expert Jeremy Miner to reveal how AI is rewriting sales forever. Jeremy—founder of 7th Level, the world's largest B2C sales training company and ranked #1 sales trainer globally—joins forces with Paul who now runs 15 AI companies through Soar.com. Together they launched AskJeremy.ai, and it just saved a $6 million deal in two minutes.   Paul and Jeremy break down how AI rescued a wire transfer going dark, the exact tools letting salespeople close deals they'd normally lose, and why most AI hallucinates garbage answers instead of truth. Plus, Paul exposes why founders lose control, the conspiracy theories that are actually true, and how open-source AI will transform communication and business forever.    If you're an entrepreneur, salesperson, or just love real talk about building (and losing) empires — this episode will blow your mind.  

The Secret to Post-Click Psychology: Turn Eyeballs Into Loyal Buyers Smartpandalabs.com About the Guest(s): Shamir Duverseau is the Managing Director at Smart Panda Labs, a technical marketing agency. With over 15 years in marketing and leadership roles, Shamir has worked with major brands like Southwest Airlines, The Walt Disney Company, and NBC Universal. Previously the Senior Director in digital strategy and services for Marriott International’s Vacation Club Division, Shamir co-founded Smart Panda Labs to harness his expertise in both marketing and technical spheres, aiming to improve the post-click experience for consumers. Episode Summary: In this engaging episode of The Chris Voss Show, Chris welcomes digital marketing expert Shamir Duverseau to discuss the intricacies of technical marketing and the importance of the post-click experience. As the managing director of Smart Panda Labs, Shamir delves into how his company helps B2C enterprises optimize user experience on websites to convert traffic into loyal customers. The conversation spans topics from post-click psychology to technological marketing adaptations, highlighting the necessity of understanding customer behavior and simplifying complex shopping experiences online. The duo explore the vast potential that lies in improving the ‘post-click experience’, underscoring how businesses can unlock conversion opportunities by making their digital customer interactions seamless and intuitive. In discussing the common pitfalls in digital marketing strategies and MarTech stacks, Shamir explains how Smart Panda Labs assesses and addresses gaps in client operations to create robust sales experiences and strategy roadmaps. With insights into optimizing advertising spend and improving ROI through savvy digital experiences, Shamir shares practical advice while drawing from his vast experience in working with significant industry players. Key Takeaways: Post-Click Psychology: Engaging customers effectively after they click on an ad is crucial to converting them into buyers, primarily by minimizing friction and simplifying interactions. Importance of Seamless User Experience: Simplifying the complexities of online shopping can lead to better conversions and repeated business. Leveraging MarTech Stacks: Many companies underutilize their marketing technologies, running at just 20% of their capacity, leaving room for significant improvements. Tailored Strategy Roadmaps: Building a customized roadmap helps companies maximize their digital potential by outlining clear paths and methodologies for enhanced customer experience. Focus on Customer Satisfaction: Excellent customer service and experience can significantly impact repeat business, as seen with brands employing thoughtful, personalized touchpoints. Notable Quotes: “The internet brings an interesting mix of the creativity of marketing, the technical aspects of IT, and the product aspects of what you’re selling.” “If something has to be complicated, let’s not make the things that don’t have to be complicated, complicated.” “On the corporate side, I found that marketing people tend to be very creative, which is great. But they also tend to shy away from anything that’s technical.” “If you’ve got, if you spent the money to get someone to the site, it only makes sense to spend money where people are spending the majority of their time.” “When those two things collided. So was born Smart Panda Labs.”

LOUISALORANhas led transformative growth across some of the world's most respected companies—DIAGEO, MAERSK, and Google. A strategic mind with a human lens, she has shaped industries by combining technological foresight with the courage to act before the path is clear.At Google,Louisalaunched a billion-dollar supply chain solutions business, doubled growth in a global industry vertical, and led strategic business transformation At MAERSK, she co-authored the strategy that redefined the brand globally and doubled its share price, helping pivot the company from traditional shipping to integrated logistics. Across more than two decades and all continents,Louisahas worked across B2B, B2C, and global tech— bridging commercial impact with human-centered change.Louisaalso serves on the boards of Copenhagen Business School and CataCap Private Equity and is the author ofLeadership Anatomy in Motion, published globally by Fast Company.  Bringing clarity and alignment, she advises boards and executive teams through strategic transitions—shaping both direction and dynamics to unlock value and stay relevant. Known for turning complexity into decisive direction, she is a trusted advisor and sought-after speaker. 

If your podcast has 10,000 downloads and only two sales meetings, Jason's take is blunt: you're doing everything wrong. In this solo episode of Pipe Dream, host Jason Bradwell breaks down why most B2B podcasts become expensive therapy sessions for executives who like hearing themselves talk, and more importantly, how to fix it. Jason's core point is clear: downloads don't pay salaries, pipeline does. Most B2B podcasts fail commercially for four reasons. They borrow strategy from B2C entertainment instead of building revenue assets. They optimise for vanity metrics because that's what vendors sell. They exist in a silo with no connection to sales motion or funnel stages. And the generic interview format doesn't map to the buyer journey. The problem isn't production quality or download numbers. The problem is that marketing makes the show, sales doesn't know it exists, and when sales don't use it, it's just an expensive content theatre. One 45-minute conversation with a random influencer doesn't help a prospect at the consideration stage trying to figure out if you can actually deliver results, or help a champion sell your solution internally to their CFO. Instead of downloads, impressions, and social shares, here's what actually matters. Leading indicators like enterprise guests booked from your ABM lists, meetings created attributed to podcast touch, and accounts touched. Commercial outcomes like deal stage acceleration, rep usage in sequences and discovery calls, and pipeline influenced. That's the difference between vanity metrics and revenue metrics. One makes marketing feel busy, the other moves the business forward. Jason shares a real example. A B2B tech company ran a podcast for 18 months with 40 episodes, a few thousand downloads, and zero pipeline influence. They interviewed random influencers because "that's what podcasts do." Their sales team had never heard of the show. B2B Better killed the influencer strategy and started interviewing their own clients, CTOs and engineering leaders who'd worked with them but would never sign traditional case studies due to compliance constraints. They packaged content as battle cards and sales enablement artifacts, not social clips. Within 90 days, sales used clips in 60% of discovery calls, influenced £3 million in pipeline, and improved outbound reply rates by 34% when reps included a 92-second client clip in sequences. Same production effort, completely different outcome. The only difference was strategy. Here's the process. Audit your funnel gaps to find where deals actually stall. Map content to that stage. Design multi-segment episodes that serve different funnel stages, not one 45-minute interview that does nothing particularly well. Package for sales with battle cards, objection handlers, and committee packs. Measure commercial impact through meetings created, accounts touched, pipeline influenced, and deal velocity, not downloads. If you can't answer "which specific deals will this help us close," you're not ready for a podcast. You don't have a content problem, you have a strategy problem. Stop trying to be Joe Rogan. You're building a revenue asset, not an entertainment show. Chapter Markers 00:00 - Why downloads don't pay salaries, pipeline does 01:00 - The word podcast has become a red herring 02:00 - Four reasons B2B podcasts fail commercially 03:00 - No connection to sales motion equals content theatre 04:00 - Revenue metrics that actually matter 05:00 - Real example: Zero to £3 million pipeline influenced 06:00 - The process: Audit, map, design, package, measure 07:00 - Multi-segment episodes serving different funnel stages 08:00 - Most teams shouldn't have a podcast yet 09:00 - The activation test: Ask sales if they've used it Useful Links Connect with Jason Bradwell on LinkedIn Listen to Pipe Dream Podcast on Podbean HubSpot ABM reporting guide for tracking accounts touched Explore B2B Better website and the Pipe Dream podcast 

Rodrigo Fontes is the VP of Marketing at QuillBot, a company that develops AI-powered writing and productivity tools to help users create and communicate more effectively. With over 15 years of experience in marketing and consumer tech, Rodrigo has helped scale globally recognized brands and was instrumental in expanding Tinder's presence across Latin America and leading its global marketing team. Originally from Brazil, Rodrigo's career has spanned education, telecommunications, online dating, and now generative AI, giving him a unique perspective on both B2B and B2C marketing dynamics. In this episode… In today's crowded marketing landscape, many wonder if there's a way to blend creativity with the effectiveness of business-to-business strategies. Can B2B marketing be as engaging and memorable as its B2C counterparts, or is the approach fundamentally different? What does it take to bridge the gap between these two worlds? According to Rodrigo Fontes, a seasoned marketing leader, the key is attention. Whether it's B2B or B2C, the challenge remains the same: how do you capture and keep your target audience's focus? In his view, the emotional connections that drive B2C success aren't exclusive to consumer products. Professionals, after all, are people too, and they consume media just as actively across platforms like TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube. If B2B brands can tap into this dynamic and blend fun with professionalism, they can set themselves apart in a competitive field. In this episode of the Revenue Engine Podcast, host Alex Gluz is joined by Rodrigo Fontes, VP of Marketing at QuillBot, to discuss the intersection of B2C creativity and B2B effectiveness. They explore the evolving role of AI in marketing, how to grab attention in a noisy market, and why B2B marketers need to experiment more. Rodrigo also shares insights on building brand awareness in the AI space and the importance of educational content.

Podd #247: Tillväxtmodellen I detta avsnitt av Sälj- och marknadspodden dyker Lars Dahlberg och Anders Hermansson djupare in i vad som egentligen krävs för att lyckas med tillväxt i det moderna B2B-landskapet. Med inspiration från en färsk undersökning bland VDar och tillsammans med insikter från David Tegenmark, diskuteras de vanligaste frustrerande hindren för tillväxt – och, viktigast av allt, hur man överbryggar dem. Avsnittet presenterar en modern tillväxtmodell som bygger på två maskiner: en för att skaffa nya kunder och en annan för att långsiktigt utveckla lönsamhet och värde i befintlig kundbas. Genom hela samtalet betonas vikten av samarbete mellan sälj, marknad och produkt – ”treenigheten” som måste jobba mot samma mål för att skapa verklig affärsnytta. Lyssna om du vill få grepp om… – Vad Lifetime Value (LTV) och Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) egentligen innebär för hela affärsmodellen. – Hur tydliga funnels och mätbarhet kan optimera sälj- och marknadsinsatser. – Varför verklig tillväxt kräver att sälj, marknad och produkt trivs och samarbetar. Missade du att mäta det som faktiskt skapar tillväxt i din egen verksamhet? Då är det här avsnittet för dig! Boka ett möte för en GAP-analys. Vi sa 15 minuter i podden, men det är värt att lägga 30 på detta! Läs transkribering Lars Dahlberg [00:00:06]: Hej och välkomna till ännu ett avsnitt av Sälj- och marknadspodden. Det här är podcasten för dig som vill ha ny inspiration och kunskap om hur man marknadsför och säljer till den moderna business-to-business-köparen. Jag som sitter i studion idag heter Lars Dahlberg och med mig har jag min kära vapendragare Anders Hermansson. Anders Hermansson [00:00:26]: Tja Lasse! Lars Dahlberg [00:00:28]: Det är spännande. Vi ska göra ett nytt spännande avsnitt ihop, du och jag, kring lite nya tankar och idéer. Anders Hermansson [00:00:36]: Ja, exakt. Vi har gjort en undersökning där vi pratade med vdar om deras frustration kring tillväxt och nu har vi klurat här och kommit fram till hur man ska lösa hela problemet. Lars Dahlberg [00:00:49]: Precis, så vi har kallat det här lite grann för någon sorts modern tillväxtmodell och vi ska väl också nämna att det har varit en annan viktig person inblandad i det här arbetet som heter David Tegenmark som driver företaget Certus Growth. Så mycket krudos till David här kopplat till de tankar och idéer som vi tänkte vi skulle ger. Om vi skulle rulla tillbaka lite till den här undersökningen, den här rapporten, så landade väl den egentligen i att det var tre större, vad kan man kalla det för, frustrationer. Det ena handlade väldigt mycket om att vdn var i någon sorts epicentrum kring den här tillväxtfrågan och hade väldigt svårt att hantera den situationen. En annan handlade mycket om det här med att man inser att den här intäktsmaskinen eller tillväxtmaskinen är väldigt oförutsägbar. Och den tredje delen av den här rapporten handlar mycket om att det finns en massa strukturella hinder för att man ska kunna skala och driva tillväxt som man vill. Och det är mycket inspiration nu från den här undersökningen som ligger till grunden för att ta fram det här. De här tankarna och idéerna kring den här tillväxtmodellen som vi ska prata om nu och som du också har nämnt i början. Lars Dahlberg [00:02:03]: Så jag tänkte så här, vi börjar väl lite med, vad är egentligen rotorsaken, Anders skulle du säga, till att det här är ett problem? Anders Hermansson [00:02:15]: Ja, jag tycker så här, jag försökte knåda de här resultaten av den här undersökningen och det jag tycker man kan härleda saker till, det första är att det liksom inte Man ser inte på det här som en riktig process på samma sätt som till exempel en onboarding process med kund. Det är nog en ganska standardiserad process där många olika personer vet vad de ska göra för att det ska bli bra i slutänden. Men man har liksom lite grann känslan av att sälja marknaden nästan som en experimentlåda där man gör saker lite grann med goda avsikter såklart. Man har inte fått till en process. Lars Dahlberg [00:02:55]: Nej, exakt. Det har vi pratat om många gånger att det är för lite process på marknaden. Även på produkt skulle vi vilja säga att det inte finns någon riktigt bra sammanhållen process som involverar alla de här tre parterna för att man ska kunna få fokus på de här tillväxtfrågorna. Anders Hermansson [00:03:13]: Nej, precis. Och sen är det väl det här. Det stormar ju där ute med massa erbjudanden och massa quick fixes. Folk lovar guld och gröna skogar med massmejl. Oj, genererade wow-saker. Det finns mycket shiny objects där ute att testa. Och det gör att det blir ännu rörigare. För man vet inte, man har liksom inget bra sammanhang att sätta in de där små olika testgrejerna. Anders Hermansson [00:03:41]: Vissa grejer kan ju vara jättebra, men just när det bara är en massa lösa tester av grejer som man kör en gång och inte är tillräckligt uthållig för att veta om de egentligen är något nytt eller inte, då blir det ju väldigt svårt att få ordning på saker och ting. Lars Dahlberg [00:03:54]: Ja, jag skulle vilja säga också att det är fortfarande väldigt märkligt, men det är en viktig orsak till de här problemen är att man tänker alldeles för mycket inifrån sig själv istället för att tänka utifrån och in och verkligen anpassa sig efter det, utifrån perspektivet både produkt, marknad och sälj. Och det kanske låter märkligt när vi har pratat om det så många gånger i den här podden, men det är väldigt mycket fortfarande ett grundproblem. Anders Hermansson [00:04:22]: Ja, men jag tror det. Det känns som en mänsklig grej. Det är väl det som håller igång typ 70 procent av all konsultverksamhet. Att det är svårt att se sin egen verksamhet utifrån. Man är liksom, man älskar den och man är ett med den. Och då blir det rätt lätt ett internt perspektiv. Lars Dahlberg [00:04:41]: Och sen var det ju också väldigt tydligt i de här undersökningarna att det här världsläget vi befinner oss i och den här konjunkturen och allt sånt där skapar en väldig massa Massa stress som gör att det blir utmaningar med de här grejerna. Och du och jag pratade bara om det här om dagen, att det faktiskt ser ut som det finns lite ljusglimtar på himlen, i alla fall för det svenska näringslivet. Så det känns ju lovande, för det var länge sedan man hörde. Anders Hermansson [00:05:08]: Verkligen. 2,26 tillväxt under 2026. Det är stor skillnad. Det vore kul om konsumtionen kom igång och att det tripplar över på bit-och-bisidan. Vi får väl se. Lars Dahlberg [00:05:21]: Jag tror ändå att det handlar om att vänja sig vid det här röriga, osäkra läget. Höga risknivåer kommer att fortsätta ändå, även om det ser lite ut och lutar åt rätt håll när vi spelar in den här podden i början på februari 2026. Men du, ska vi hoppa in lite grann på det här med hur man gör då? Det finns ju ett grundläggande tänk här som är väldigt viktigt och som väldigt många inte riktigt har tänker på, tänker jag. Anders Hermansson [00:05:50]: Vill du börja? Om man ska slänga en massa akronymer, men alltså livstidsvärde för en kund, LTV, Lifetime Value och sen hur mycket det kostar att få in en ny kund, alltså Customer Acquisition Cost eller CAC som man då slänger sig med ibland. Min erfarenhet är att det kommer in långt i efterhand så att man inte ser vad det blev, om man tänker så. Istället för att ha det som utgångspunkt i sin strategi och planering. Man måste ha en ekonomisk syn på hela den här processen, vad den ska leverera för någonting och vad den får kosta. Och hur mycket cash den kräver för att hållas igång, så att säga. Det handlar ju om att man ska ju naturligtvis generera nya kunder så man får en ny sån här vad heter det, om man nu har en abonnemangsaffärsmodell så man får in månadsintäkter, årsintäkter, monthly recurring revenue och så. Och sen så handlar det om en annan viktig nyckelpost som har mer att göra med kundbasen, nämligen hur växer intäkten på en kund av sig själv, alltså det här net revenue retention då. Det vi pratar om här är en modell för att… Anders Hermansson [00:07:02]: att man ska få tillväxt. Så det handlar inte bara om nya livs på nya kunder utan det kan mycket väl vara så att den största potentialen man har det är att öka sin net revenue retention, att få mer försäljning på befintlig kund som gör att man växer. Sen så kommer man ju alltid behöva skaffa nya kunder naturligtvis, man har en viss churn såklart. Men det är liksom en första grundläggande sak att man börjar i den änden, i den ekonomiska änden och försöker modellera saker där utifrån. Lars Dahlberg [00:07:29]: Jag brukar säga att det handlar om att tänka att det är två olika maskiner. Den ena som ska skapa nya kunder och som har en kostnad för att göra det. Som också ska generera intäkter kopplat till nya kunder. Och en lönsamhet kopplad till nya kunder. Och det ska finansiera att du skaffar dig nya kunder. Sen när du har kunder. Då ska du ha en annan maskin som skapar lönsamheten i bolaget och hanterar alla andra kostnader i bolaget som utvecklar kunder och utvecklar värdet med kunderna över tid på något sätt. Det kan bli rätt sunt att tänka så. Anders Hermansson [00:08:10]: Och där finns det ju tricket kan man säga. Det är inte en lösning för alla bolag. Men just om man säljer stora komplexa lösningar så är det väldigt intressant att se om man kan få fram en instegsaffär. Och det man ska tänka på prissättning på den här instegsaffären. Den ska täcka kacken. Kostnader för att få in den här instegsaffären. Så att man får plus minus noll resultat där. Man behöver inte gå med jättemycket vinst på den. Anders Hermansson [00:08:36]: För sen måste man ju ha en gedigen process för att konvertera då kunder som har köpt Instex affären till full kunder så att säga så man får den här Lifetime Value som du pratar om och tjäna pengar på sikt. Lars Dahlberg [00:08:47]: Därför att det är det här som väldigt mycket blir grunden i att skapa en ökad lönsamhet i bolaget och att kunna bevisa att man har en process som gör att man kan ta hand om fler kunder in och utveckla fler kunder för att skapa mer kunden över tiden. Och som då i sin tur också på något sätt driver värdet av bolaget. Anders Hermansson [00:09:14]: Nu är det inte alla bolag som är ägardrivna, men jag tycker det finns en sundhet i att tänka som ägare. Att varje kund vi får in här som kommer att växa av sig själv är värd så mycket och beroende på P-tal och andra saker så sätter det ett värde på bolaget. Kan man dessutom först visa att man har en lönsam verksamhet som växer Och sen kan man visa att den gör det på grund av att man har en skalbar modell som går att beskriva och inte bara beroende på att ägaren springer runt som en gallning och gör allting. Då kommer värderingen på bolaget att gå upp väldigt mycket. Lars Dahlberg [00:09:54]: Och det här är väldigt mycket grunden till framgång kopplat till den här modellen nu som vi kommer att prata mer om. Men för att man ska kunna landa i det här som vi precis har pratat om så gäller det att göra ett jobb med sitt erbjudande så att man har liksom ett erbjudande och produkter och ett erbjudande som gör det möjligt att göra det på det här sättet som vi precis har beskrivit. Det har vi pratat om i många andra avsnitt och är en väldigt viktig grund. Man är väldigt noga med att definiera sin idealkund baserat på var man kan addera max värde nånstans. Definiera de personer som man behöver påverka för att det ska bli en affär för en. Och förstå vad det är för grundläggande problem som vi kan lösa med hjälp av en första affär eller instegsaffär. Där vi kan bevisa oss, skapa maximalt värde snabbt och se det mera då kunna ha en grund i att utveckla kunden ifrån. Och det är också liksom en väldigt viktig princip att man tänker så när man då ska leverera sin första affär, sin instegsaffär, att den ska inte bara leverera ett värde utan den ska ju också skapa behov av att vilja köpa mer så att man har goda förutsättningar att kunna utveckla kunden och värdet av kunden långsiktigt över tid och ha en låg körn, alltså en lågt antal förlorade kunder helt enkelt. Anders Hermansson [00:11:24]: Det kan man säga är någon sorts test på om man har lyckats med den här matchen mellan sitt erbjudande och sin ICP-persona. Om man har misslyckats, det vet man, om man ständigt är utsatt för enorm prispress och det är väldigt många konkurrenter som hävdar att de kan erbjuda precis samma sak som dig, då kan man säga, då har du inte gjort ditt jobb när det gäller din målmarknad ICP och ditt erbjudande ur ett värdeperspektiv. Lars Dahlberg [00:11:47]: För att laborera lite runt det här erbjudandet, det är ju en paketeringsfråga. Du har din produkt eller din tjänst och den kanske är samma många gånger när du ska leverera, men du paketerar den på ett väldigt attraktivt sätt och gör ett erbjudande av den. tydligt kopplad till kombination av ICP-personer och tydlig problem och verkligen lägger manken till att få det här att bli så bra och attraktivt som möjligt så att du ska kunna så lätt som möjligt vinna rätt typ av kunder med minsta möjliga motstånd om man säger så. Anders Hermansson [00:12:24]: Exakt. Lars Dahlberg [00:12:25]: Så att det här hur man gör det här och alltihopa ska vi inte doktorera i nu men det är återigen viktiga grundparameter för att få hela den här modellen att fungera och att kunna göra den här typen av beräkningar som vi precis pratade om nyss då med KAK och NetKak Payback och LTV och de här olika kombinerna. Anders Hermansson [00:12:45]: Exakt. Lars Dahlberg [00:12:47]: Ja Anders, nu har vi pratat lite om grunden här och vi har varit inne på det här med erbjudandet lite. Jag tror att det är dags att vi kommer in på en annan väldigt viktig princip för att man ska få den här moderna tillväxtmodellen att fungera och det handlar om att man behöver implementera ett koncept som vi kallar för fandels och man behöver skapa tydliga fandels och de här måste jobba ihop mot samma mål och målet i det här fallet är ju då att styra mot det vi verkligen vill det vill säga att få till de här inställnings affärerna och få till våra nya kunder kopplat till dem för att vi ska kunna utveckla dem så att Det är det det handlar om, men jag tänker att vi kanske måste beskriva det här med Fannes lite närmare först. Hur skulle du definiera det, Anders? Anders Hermansson [00:13:37]: Den stora skillnaden tycker jag är att man… Man tänker efter innan om vad saker och ting ska leda till i nästa steg. Det är ju ganska ofta man hör talas om att man faktiskt är med också. Ja, nu måste vi köra Google Ads liksom. Och så slänger man upp Google Ads och kastar pengar på det och skickar folk till första sidan på webben. Ganska värtlöst. Och man tänker inte på vad som ska hända i nästa steg. Och samma sak också, nu är vi på mässa och så träffar vi folk och sen åker vi hem och glöm bort att vi var på mässa. Anders Hermansson [00:14:09]: Alltså det är så här som här med funnels, det handlar om att rita upp flödet väldigt grafiskt, snyggt och prydligt så man förstår vad en aktivitet ska leda till i nästa steg. Ända till så att det står pengar på banken. Då får man riktiga flöden som man kan laborera med och exekvera på. Det är själva konceptet. Lars Dahlberg [00:14:34]: Vi kan komma in på lite mer exempel sen när vi har pratat om det här lite mer. Du pratade om en sak i inledningen på den här podden och det du då sa det var så här att många provar och hoppar på olika grejer och testar sig fram. Det här blir mer liksom tydlig metod att vi har ett antal olika funders som ser ut på det här sättet och som fungerar på det här viset och de hänger ihop på det här sättet och ska leda till det här. Och så jobbar man som tålmodigt med att se till att de faktiskt fungerar och leder till det vi verkligen vill inte hoppa runt och prova hit och dit utan ett mer systematiskt approach. Anders Hermansson [00:15:14]: Absolut. Man kan ha experimentfunnels. Det är klart att man ska testa nya grejer, men då ska man veta vad det är man testar och förstå hur länge man behöver testa någonting för att veta om det funkar eller inte. Och man ska redan innan man sätter igång och testar definiera om det där funkar. Vad betyder det funkar? Lars Dahlberg [00:15:34]: Just det. Och då kommer man in på det att varje sån här funnel i sig behöver mätas, så man behöver kanske sätta mål på den. De olika ska vara med och bidra på olika sätt och summan av vad fandeln ska bidra till ska leda till målet. I den bästa världen har man x antal olika fandeln som jobbar ihop och man optimerar var och en för sig för att skapa en effektiv helhet. Och då behöver man också kanske sätta lite budget på de här grejerna och förstå vad det faktiskt innebär kopplat till kostnader och sådana saker och vad man förväntar sig att respektive ska resultera i för att man ska kunna slå ihop allihopa och att det ser det mer ledigt i de mål vi har satt upp och som vi har gjort beräkningar runt när det gäller vår kost och hur vi ska konvertera nya kunder på det här och så vidare. Anders Hermansson [00:16:29]: Man blir ju mer mer avancerad naturligtvis börjar ju inte och mäta allting och definiera allting och så där, men vartefter man vänjer sig vid vid att jobba datadrivet kan vi säga och får igång sina processer på ett vettigt sätt, då kan man bli mer och mer avancerad i och hur noga man är och mäter saker och ting och det gör ju att man får ju olika kakt då beroende på olika funnels och då vet man ju efter ett tag vad de här olika investeringarna i både sälj och marknadstid ger i ROI, så att säga. Så då kan man optimera sin resursallokering efter det. Lars Dahlberg [00:17:07]: Ja, jag tycker att många jag har träffat genom åren som håller på och jobbar och försöker själva för att få ordning och fart på sin affärsgenerering och marknadsföring, försäljning och så vidare, att man helt plötsligt inte har koll på vad som faktiskt är orsak och verkan och vad som driver och ger rena och ger andra och så där och man har helt enkelt oordning så man har inte gjort det här jobbet med att rita upp sina fannas och strukturera upp det på det sättet som vi beskriver så struktur här är ju liksom A och O och då gäller det ju också att ha liksom det som sitt fokus och det är ju så det finns ju väldigt mycket teknik och tech och olika typer av grejer runt det här Så man kan tänka sig testa. Det viktiga är att man har koll på strukturen först och sedan så får man se vad man ska applicera för teknik på den, tänker jag. Anders Hermansson [00:17:58]: Exakt. Man ska inte gå på alla löften om alla fantastiska teknikplattformar kan göra och sedan försöka modellera sin process efter det, utan tänk till först, designa flödena först och sedan applicera den teknik som kan hjälpa dig att uppnå det du vill. Lars Dahlberg [00:18:14]: Ja, men sen en grej till, jag tänker att vi skulle lägga till lite kring det här fannestänket, för det är väl ändå här kanske det rör hemma bäst, det är att när man så att säga skapar sin kommunikation och ska driva det här, att man tänker mer B2C än B2B, att man ska träffa människor i maggropen, snarare än att det ska vara relevant utifrån företagets perspektiv som den här specifika personen vi kommunicerar på jobbar på. Anders Hermansson [00:18:40]: Just det, för det är så många som lovar saker som är lite glider unna lätt, alltså mer lids eller kortare tid här, spar lite tid där. Ja, men egentligen, om jag nu känner att jag vill spara tid, då är jag antagligen för att jag är jättestressad eller något sånt där. Då vill man hellre bli av med sin stress, så att säga, istället för att det är lite grann akademiskt att spara tid. Lars Dahlberg [00:19:07]: Ska vi ge några exempel på några vanliga funnels inom Svenska mindre medelstora bolag som jobbar med programvaruteknik och tjänster och sånt. Anders Hermansson [00:19:21]: Ja, men man kan väl… Det finns lite olika sätter att gruppera på, men det finns ju funnels som är direkt to offer. Om man har en sofistikerad marknad som letar efter det man har att sälja, då kan man ju faktiskt ha funnels som går direkt till offer. Lars Dahlberg [00:19:41]: Ja, och för att komplettera det då så kan vi ha en founder som går direkt till någon form av lidmagnet, någon form av väldigt värdefull content man har satt upp som man vill marknadsföra och får man människor bli intresserade och inspirerade av det där och tycka att det är kul så kan ju det sedumera då leda till ens offer, till exempel. Anders Hermansson [00:20:01]: Ja, då kallas det för en indirekt founder. Lars Dahlberg [00:20:04]: Ja, det är väl två exempel. Anders Hermansson [00:20:08]: Vi kanske ska Det är bra om vi tar fler exempel som har med säljare att göra. Det som säljare gör, till exempel en LinkedIn funnel, när man som säljare går ut och letar reda på folk på LinkedIn och försöker skapa dialog och bygga förtroende där, som sedermera då bör leda till möte där man Ja, kanske starta en säljprocess eller göra en discovery meeting eller något sånt. Så det är ju lika mycket säljaktiviteter som också ska beskrivas i den här, i form av funnels. Så man kan mäta konvertering i olika steg i den processen. Lars Dahlberg [00:20:47]: Exakt, det tycker jag också var ett bra exempel du tog upp där, för det är någonting som man gör för lite av, den här typen av relationsskapande funnels. som väldigt ofta är långsiktigt. Ja, här skulle vi kunna sitta och dra massa exempel. Jag tänker att vi går vidare lite grann, för att vi har en väldigt viktig punkt kvar kring det här, som handlar om det här med hur man definierar roller, ansvar och process då, runt hela tänket som vi har pratat om här nu. För lyckas man inte med det, då kommer man inte att nå resultaten, helt enkelt. Anders Hermansson [00:21:23]: Ja, just det, exakt. Så man kan ju säga så att de De tre discipliner som vi ser är väldigt centrala i den här processen för att skapa nya affärer. Det är ju säljmarknad och produkt. Produktutveckling i ett tjänstebolag, tjänsteutveckling, tjänstepaketering, vad det kan vara för någonting och de som knåpar på själva företags erbjudande. Det som man ska leverera för att skapa värde hos kund. Så produkt, sälj och marknad är som en trenighet som måste definitivt gå i takt. Det finns lite utmaningar med det här för att de här tre olika har vant sig vid att tänka lite olika tidsperspektiv när man tänker olika långsiktigt. Det är inte för att någon är bättre än den andra utan det är för att deras traditionella jobb ser ut så. Anders Hermansson [00:22:09]: Men här behöver de här tre komma ihop sig. Lars Dahlberg [00:22:15]: Ja, verkligen. Och det är också när man kombinerar de här tre kompetenserna som man verkligen kan få till också det här som vi har pratat om tidigare, det här med ICPS-personas och verkligen definiera vassa erbjudanden och sådana saker. För den man behöver, den kombinationskompetensen för att lyckas få till den biten skulle jag säga också. Det finns ingen snack om den saken. Man måste beaka att man har olika typer av erfarenheter och kompetenser som behövs. Säljarna vet ofta väldigt mycket om kunderna. Marknaden vet mycket om hur man kommunicerar och skapar bra erbjudanden på många sätt och produkt kan ju faktiskt erbjudas enligt grundprodukten som ska paketeras. Ja, men vad ska man säga så här? Det är liksom lite två huvudprocesser, va Anders, eller? Anders Hermansson [00:23:02]: Ja, exakt. För vi kan ju säga så här, nej men se till nu att produkt, sälj och marknad jobbar ihop. Ja, det var ju lättare sagt än gjort så att säga, eftersom alla de här tre har ju sina viktiga jobb inom sina discipliner. Men om man tittar på, man försöker liksom skära det här på andra ledden, då finns det två huvudprocesser egentligen som vi diskuterar här. Och det är i de här processerna som de här tre disciplinerna ska samarbeta. Och det är då vi kan ta dem i ordning kontent processen alltså den process där man ska ta fram det kontent som krävs för att föda alla fanns som man har designat just det. Lars Dahlberg [00:23:39]: Och kontent hade ju verkligen din vida bemärkelse. Allting egentligen som man behöver för att kommunicera med alla aspekter i alla faser. Anders Hermansson [00:23:48]: Ja precis och det är ju man kan ju säga att majoriteten av digitala assets då det kan vara filmer det kan vara text och lite allt möjligt, men även då om man kör live-webinars så är det ett content och så vidare. Så att allting, precis som du säger, och det här ska vara ett samarbetsprojekt för just när de här tre disciplinerna samarbetar kring det här, det är då man får till den här riktiga kvaliteten i content som krävs för att det ska liksom göra någon skillnad och engagera människor. Så det är den ena processen om man kanske inte behöver gå in vidare på den, men det finns liksom en poäng med att Den här är en lite fristående process som jobbar i batchvis, så man inte hela tiden jobbar med knivet på strupen och bara måste få ut någonting till nästa nyhetsbrev som ska ut i Marbitti, utan man har liksom artiklar på lager och så vidare i bästa fall då. Så det är en annan, så att säga, puls kring den här content-processen. Den andra processen är då promotion, alltså hur man får ut detta content med en massa olika kanaler enligt definitioner som man har gjort i sina funnels. Och där kan man ju säga att där ligger ju tyngdpunkten av arbete på marknad och sälj. Men det finns många sätt, beroende på bransch, det finns många sätt som produkt också kan vara med i promotion processen. Ett exempel är att man till exempel bygger in funktionalitet om man nu är en SaaS. Anders Hermansson [00:25:10]: att man bygger in funktionalitet i produkten som informerar befintliga kunder om nya funktioner till exempel, då är ju det en growth hack då som där produkt är synnerligen involverade i att skapa en möjlighet till promotion. Lars Dahlberg [00:25:25]: Och sen tycker jag det är viktigt att se det här lite grann som att promotion är det som skapar behov av content. Så man skapar content kopplat till de behoven som man definierar kopplat till det där. Inte bara skapa content på någon sorts random sätt. Anders Hermansson [00:25:40]: Exakt. Lars Dahlberg [00:25:41]: Utan det är liksom det som är grunden till behovet. Exakt. Och därmed också förstår man ju också mycket mer om vilken takt och vad som behöver komma ut först och vad som behöver komma ut sen när man väl har bestämt sig för hur man ska jobba med sina fannels och hur de ser ut så att säga. Anders Hermansson [00:25:56]: Ja exakt jag vet när jag pratar med David om det här på Certus så pratar man om att dimensionera upp sin content-maskin baserad på hur många fannels man har och hur intensiva de är så att man vet att man ska producera flera bloggposter i månaden till exempel för det krävs för att vi ska få ut vårt nyhetsbrev och sådana där saker och det ska Så man är väldigt målinriktad på det här sättet då. Det är också så att, det har ju vi märkt du och jag, eller erfarit under alla åren Lasse, att contentprocessen är lite såhär styrmodigt behandlad. Man klämmer ur sig någonting när man har tid typ. Nu krävs det en stor förståelse för att om den där contentprocessen inte funkar, då kommer maskinen att stanna. Lars Dahlberg [00:26:36]: Ja, och om man gör allt det här rätt från grunden och använder AI på ett smart sätt så blir det ju också lättare att producera det här innehållet med bra kvalitet faktiskt, så att man ska kunna klara av att hänga med med produktionen av det innehåll som faktiskt behövs för att stötta det här. som är en väldigt viktig framgångsfaktor. Men när man sen tänker sig vidare, så vi touchar lite grann på den med optimeringen av själva fanden, så optimeringen av själva processen. Vi måste också tänka optimering med sitt content och mäta och se hur content faktiskt fungerar. Och sen så behöver man ju också optimera erbjudandet hela tiden. Och inte bara ligga på latsidan där, utan hela tiden ifrågasätta hur man ska utveckla det och förbättra det och vässa det och skapa kanske nya då som man kanske måste testa och sådär. Anders Hermansson [00:27:29]: Exakt, och det här är viktigt att säga då, kanske sagt det förut, men erbjudandet är ju inte själva produkten. Tänk att man löser några olika problem med sin produkt så omvärlden och livet hos den här ICP eller personen som man vill hjälpa. med sin produkt. Deras verklighet förändras ju, så det kanske är något nytt problem som dyker upp för dem som de prioriterar högst numera. Vi kanske inte var för ett halvår sedan, men nu är det jätteviktigt med compliance helt plötsligt. Ja, då är det ju det problemet vi då lyfter fram i vårt erbjudande. Även om vi har kunnat lösa det hela tiden så var inte det högst prioriterat förut, men nu är det det, så att säga. Man måste hitta olika vinklar för att träffa rätt på ett högt prioriterat problem som man kan lösa hos sin ICP-person. Lars Dahlberg [00:28:23]: Ja, att mäta vad datadriven, det har vi ju pratat om i många år kopplat till det här, men det är ju verkligen A och O för att man ska lyckas och implementera den här modellen. Och går man tillbaka då och tittar på sina beräkningar som man då har gjort kring CAC och NETCAC, Payback och hur man ska utveckla Customer Lifetime Value och sådana saker, så är det ju några grejer som är jätteviktiga. Man måste ju kunna simulera vad man har för konverteringsgrader från en första kontakt på något sätt till ett lid. Man måste förstå vad det kostar att skapa ett lid. Man måste förstå vad det är för konverteringsgrad från ett lid till en steg dessutom kanske till ett första möte och se det med den enda framtiden på sin instegsaffär så att man kan förstå effekten av det här och hela tiden justera sina beräkningar så att de stämmer mer och mer överens med verkligheten. För när man gör det här från första gången då blir det mycket antaganden och sånt förstås. Men sen när man kör på riktigt så lär man sig vad det är för data som det blir och vad man sen då måste kunna räkna med. Anders Hermansson [00:29:31]: Och nu har du sagt en massa saker som man måste göra här och grejen är den att. att prata med någon häromdagen. Jag sa det att om man nu vill ha reda på om man har feber eller inte. Då måste man göra sig omaket och köpa en febertermometer. Alltså investera i någonting som gör att man kan mäta. Och sedan måste man stoppa in den där jäkla febertermometern i fritt valt hål för att sedan använda den så att man kan mäta. Det här gäller samma sak här. Man måste investera så att den här processen blir mätbar och sedan fortsätta investera i de resurser som krävs för att ständigt mäta det här. Anders Hermansson [00:30:05]: Annars är man i det där landet igen när man testar och kastar bollar och lite åt alla håll och kanter, liksom, och ser vad som träffar. Lars Dahlberg [00:30:13]: Ja, i princip kan man säga så här, om du säger att du är vd och lyssnar på det här, som är någon sorts ytterst ansvarig för den här verksamheten, om man inte kan liksom mäta det här och visa på hur det ska leda till de resultaten vi vill, så är det ju faktiskt ingen idé att hälla på en massa pengar på det. Anders Hermansson [00:30:28]: Nej, det är ju väldigt stor chansning då. Det är ju hög risk att man häller pengar på fel ställe. Lars Dahlberg [00:30:35]: Och sen är det liksom en arbetsmetod för att driva processen framåt med lite olika typer av möten. Det här bör man inte nödvändigtvis exakt implementera på det här viset, men det här är i alla fall ett sätt att implementera det på som kommer kunna fungera för väldigt många. Vi har pratat om David här och han har ju varit mycket involverad i att definiera den här grundprocessen. Och den skulle jag säga, den börjar ju med någonting som är extremt centralt. Det är att man tänker growth meeting. Och man verkligen har ett möte som tydligt, så att säga, tittar på hur den här maskinen är designad och hur den fungerar. Och vad den levererar för resultat för att identifiera de områden där man måste göra någonting annorlunda för att få den att fungera bättre. Och den här personen har liksom på något sätt då det övergripande ansvaret för att de här tre ska funka ihop, det vill säga produkt, sälj och marknad och att man hela tiden ska optimera sig i rörelse mot målen. Anders Hermansson [00:31:45]: Ja, precis. Och det här mötet är ju inte ett strategiskt möte, utan det är ner Ner och kolla på dashboards och ner och grotta runt i data och sedan så bestämma hur man ska förändra då en funnel eller lägga till en ny exponent funnel till exempel till sin karta och driftsätta den och man har de här mötena typiskt varje eller varannan vecka. Lars Dahlberg [00:32:10]: Just det, och sen pratar vi om det här med content och att det är så himla viktigt, så man behöver ha kanske ett eget forum då, där man pratar om det och har väldigt mycket fokus på det för att se till att man producerar det som, det som så att säga, maskinen behöver då. Och det kanske man behöver också ha en gång eller varannan vecka, beroende lite på. Anders Hermansson [00:32:31]: Ja, det är också om man ska producera content världsvis, då kanske det är så att man får på något sätt Beställningar från Growth-teamet då som har Growth-mötena, sen kan det vara samma individer, det behöver inte vara en hel horde med människor, men man liksom lägger upp to dos när man har Growth-mötet för att man måste ha ett visst behov av content. Sen kan det ju vara så att den här content-processen som sagt att man gör saker i batch, då kan det mycket väl vara så att ett sådant här content-mässan, det är en synnerligen kreativ session, där alla som ska vara med sedan och skapa content brainstormar tillsammans om hur man ska kunna hitta olika vinklar och sådana där grejer. Och sen så går man ju åt varsitt håll då och gör, producerar texter och andra saker. Men den här processen är ju supercentral för att, som vi sa förut, att maskinen inte ska stanna. Så det gäller att ha kontinuerliga möten. Det är en mötesdriven process det också. Lars Dahlberg [00:33:26]: Sen skulle jag säga att man behöver ha ett mötesform som man kan kalla för Sales Execution Meeting. Beroende lite på vad man har för förutsättningar med halvkomplex till komplex B2B så är det otroligt viktigt att titta på processen från första Discovery Meeting till order förstås. Men det kan också vara att man måste titta specifikt på processen från att ett lead uppstår tills det att ett lead är kvalificerat och det blir ett discovery meeting. Alltså leads management hanteringen. Det är det sak man måste prata om separat och jobba med separat för att få till rätt process och rätt beteenden hos dem som ansvarar för att göra det här. Anders Hermansson [00:34:10]: Ja, jag skulle komplettera det här med att om det är så att man har en outbound, vad heter det, aktivitet som säljarna ska göra, till exempel hänga på LinkedIn eller vad om ni ska göra kallringar för den delen, så ska man gå igenom även de aktiviteterna här så att folk gör det de ska i den volym som krävs och med den kvalitet som krävs då för att se vad man kan skruva på även i den processen. Lars Dahlberg [00:34:33]: Sen är det någon form av styrgrupp eller advisory meeting där man verkligen tittar på de övergripande målen, om de behöver justeras och hur vi lever upp till dem. Själva strategin i sig, erbjudandet definitivt om det behöver skruvas på eller läggas till eller ändras på och att man håller sig inom de givna budgetramarna man har satt upp. Anders Hermansson [00:34:57]: Det här är ju typiskt ett möte som man har lite mer sällan skulle jag säga kvartal kanske och här är det superviktigt att man är med och synka med produkt planerna. För det kan ju vara sådana konkreta saker som att det är någonting som ska lanseras till exempel. Eller vad det nu kan vara för någonting som gör att det kan till exempel vara så att nu ska vi gå in mot ett nytt segment och då kommer ju det om man tar det seriöst och inte bara måla läppstift på grisen utan då kanske det innebär att man behöver tweaka saker i sin produkt. Så det här måste ju synkas naturligtvis. Precis. Lars Dahlberg [00:35:32]: Och om man då skulle försöka sammanfatta det här lite grann. Vad är det egentligen som är är kanske mer viktigt att ta fasta på som är annorlunda nu när vi beskriver det här mot vad många kanske tänker sig att man ska göra eller kanske gör i viss mån för att få det här att funka. Vad skulle du säga Anders i någon sorts sammanfattning på det som är verkligen annorlunda. Anders Hermansson [00:35:56]: Jag tänker mer konkret blir en skillnad rent konkret blir till exempel att man designar sina funnels och beskriver dem utgår från den här kartan när man diskuterar sälj och marknad och hur man ska skapa nya affärer helt enkelt. Det är en väldigt konkret annan aktivitet jämfört med förut. Lars Dahlberg [00:36:20]: Och sen verkligen ta det här med att sätta, på något sätt det är säkert produkt och marknad och sälj. ihop lite grann på något vis, men att man verkligen tar det på allvar och sätter alla i samma process och driver allting gemensamt på samma mål och utnyttjas i gemensamma kompetenser. Det har ju många år pratats om att sälj och marknad inte sitter i samma båt, men här är det ju liksom verkligen också att införa produkt och att se till att det är en verkligt viktig del i att få det här att funka. Det är som tre enheten som är en kritisk som inte många tror jag kanske tar på riktigt allvar. Anders Hermansson [00:36:58]: Ja just det och lösningen på det där ständiga problemet just det är ju att skära den här processen på andra ledden kring en promotion och en kontentprocess då så att det handlar inte om en marknadsprocess, en säljprocess och en produktprocess för det har man ju redan. Det här samarbetet handlar om att skära på andra ledden så att alla blir engagerade i de här två grejerna istället. Lars Dahlberg [00:37:20]: Sen skulle jag nog säga att det för väldigt många är väldigt annorlunda att tänka kring erbjudandet på det sättet som vi beskriver här med en väldigt tydlig instigsaffär som ska lösa ett väldigt tydligt problem för en väldigt tydlig ISP och persona och skapa värde och sedan generera intäkter, absolut, som ska återinvesteras men som framförallt ska skapa grunden för att kunna utveckla rätt kunder med en lönsamhet och en tillväxt över tid. Anders Hermansson [00:37:48]: Och det här med erbjudandet kort bara det är ju om man ska tänka vad betyder skillnaden där och vad är skillnaden med skillnaden? Det är ju ofta så när man tänker på sitt erbjudande så tänker man man börjar meningen med vi har. Om man tänker istället du får så har man kommit en liten bit på vägen i alla fall när det gäller paketering av erbjudandet. Lars Dahlberg [00:38:06]: Precis. Ja, det är väl en bra sammanfattning på de viktigaste skillnaderna. Som vanligt, det kanske låter lite självklart, men det är ju alltid det kritiska framgångsfaktorn i själva exekveringen. Att se till att sätta de här grejerna på plats, men sen att också jobba med att exekvera det konsekvent och fördela roller och ansvar för att få det här att hända. Anders Hermansson [00:38:31]: Och inte gå totalt bananas från dag ett och bara tro att man ska mäta allting i minsta detalj. slänga allt gammalt över bord och sånt utan det här är en förändringsprocess. Det är ett lite nytt sätt att tänka och det kluriga med det är att det finns alltså den stora förändringen och skillnaden här det är liksom små nyansskillnader i tänk. Det är inte något helt nytt revolutionerande. Ungefär som när vi började läsa när man gick liksom från vad heter tejprulle och sax när man höll på med marknadsföring till digitalt. Det var så det var så här det är väldigt binärt. Antingen är man digital eller inte. Här är det inte lika tydligt. Anders Hermansson [00:39:08]: Det finns ett antal nyckelaktiviteter och nyckeltankar man ska ha i huvudet för att det här ska flyga. Lars Dahlberg [00:39:17]: Ja, och jag skulle säga så här att det här med att de som oftast är svagast på ett bolag kopplat till ett procestänk, det är ju ofta marknad, sälj och produkt faktiskt. Jag tror kanske produkt kanske är bäst när det gäller process. Men det är en utmaning att att stöpa det här i liksom ett process, strukturerat process, tänk. Men det är ändå extremt viktig framgångsfaktor att få till. Anders Hermansson [00:39:48]: Om man skulle faktisera vårt erbjudande så är det så här, vi har en metod här, en modell, men du får alltså sinnesro och lite kontroll, lite koll på läget helt enkelt, om vad dina olika marknader och sälj, vad heter det, investeringar ger för utfall och du får liksom ett beslutsunderlag och och kunna styra det här på ett professionellt sätt helt enkelt? Lars Dahlberg [00:40:12]: Ja, vi brukar försöka kläcka ut oss något så här konkret tips att göra. Vi tänker lite spontant tänker jag. Jag tänker så här att det gäller att samla produkt och marknad och sälj såklart. Och då är det ju liksom den här grundsynen på det här med hur vi bygger ihop mixen av det här med idealkund, persona, produkt och erbjudande. Att vi har samma syn på det. Det tror jag ändå är en grundparameter på något sätt. Anders Hermansson [00:40:43]: Ja precis, vi har ju faktiskt en assessment eller inventering man kan göra om man vill boka ett kort möte med oss så kan vi gå igenom hur man tar tempen på nuläget helt enkelt. Vad man har de här olika sakerna som bör vara på plats, om de är inte alls på plats eller om de är lite på plats eller om de är fantastiska. Då får man en liten startpunkt för vilken ända man ska börja. Lars Dahlberg [00:41:08]: Precis. Kan du höra av er till oss så kan vi hjälpa er med temperaturtagningen. Ska vi göra som vanligt då att vi ska försöka tipsa dem om det där vi alltid brukar tipsa dem om när vi avslöjar. Anders Hermansson [00:41:24]: Vi har ju ett riktigt bra tips. Lars Dahlberg [00:41:27]: Det är ju det vi alltid kör på. Men vad ni än gör där ute så ska ni vara relevanta. Anders Hermansson [00:41:34]: Hej då! The post Podd #247: Tillväxtmodellen appeared first on Business Reflex.

#329 | Dave is joined by Emma Robinson, Head of B2B Marketing at Canva, and Kristine Segrist, Global Head of Consumer Marketing at Canva, to break down how Canva is scaling growth across both enterprise and consumer audiences. They talk about how Canva balances brand-building with pipeline accountability, how they turn bottom-up product adoption into enterprise deals, and why brand investment is a long-term growth lever. Emma and Kristine also share how their team structure, data science investments, and creative bets like the Love Your Work campaign help Canva scale without losing the brand identity that made them famous.Timestamps(00:00) - – Intro (03:21) - – Canva's marketing org structure (06:21) - – Blurring B2B and B2C (11:21) - – How Canva measures marketing impact (16:21) - – Turning free users into enterprise deals (21:21) - – Data science's role in marketing (24:21) - – Balancing brand bets with ROI (30:59) - – Inside the “Love Your Work” campaign (37:59) - – How Canva executes large campaigns (41:59) - – Building enterprise credibility and trust (44:59) - – FedEx case study on brand governance (48:59) - – Lessons from Google and Meta (52:59) - – Why creativity is a marketing superpower (54:59) - – Closing thoughts Join 50,0000 people who get Dave's Newsletter here: https://www.exitfive.com/newsletterLearn more about Exit Five's private marketing community: https://www.exitfive.com/***Brought to you by:Knak - A no-code, campaign creation platform that lets you go from idea to on-brand email and landing pages in minutes, using AI where it actually matters. Learn more at knak.com/exitfive.Optimizely - An AI platform where autonomous agents execute marketing work across webpages, email, SEO, and campaigns. Get a free, personalized 45-minute AI workshop to help you identify the best AI use cases for your marketing team and map out where agents can save you time at optimizely.com/exitfive (PS - you'll get a FREE pair of Meta Ray Bans if you do). Customer.io - An AI powered customer engagement platform that help marketers turn first-party data into engaging customer experiences across email, SMS, and push. Learn more at customer.io/exitfive.  ***Thanks to my friends at hatch.fm for producing this episode and handling all of the Exit Five podcast production.They give you unlimited podcast editing and strategy for your B2B podcast.Get unlimited podcast editing and on-demand strategy for one low monthly cost. Just upload your episode, and they take care of the rest.Visit hatch.fm to learn more

Listen now on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.—Berkay is a UX researcher with over eight years of experience, mostly in e-commerce and banking, working across both B2B and B2C. He has a bachelor's and a master's degree in product design and design research. His focus is on turning research into actionable insights, improving research processes and helping teams make user-centered decisions. Basically, reducing uncertainty. He also co-founded UXR Playground, Turkey's leading UX platform, where he runs trainings, workshops and mentorship programs. In a past role, he built and led a ResearchOps team, creating systems to make research more efficient and scalable.In our conversation, we discuss:* The eight-step framework Berkay uses for smooth, ethical participant recruitment, built from actual interviews and field work.* Why many researchers are flying blind with recruitment and how junior researchers often end up as accidental call center reps.* The most common screw-ups in screener surveys and how to write questions that don't sabotage your study before it starts.* How Berkay built a participant panel inside a 30-million-user company without a budget, and with legal breathing down his neck.* Why most panels fall apart after setup, and what to actually prioritize if you want yours to last longer than three studies.Some takeaways:* Ethics aren't optional. If you're collecting personal data, you're responsible for what happens to it. Berkay shares how one company got sued after leaking participant emails. It's not a footnote, it's a risk. Build ethics and legal compliance into your process from day one, or you'll learn the hard way.* Most companies are bad at recruitment and fixing it takes more than tools. Berkay got so fed up with watching junior researchers waste hours cold-calling participants that he turned the whole thing into a research study. The findings? A total lack of structure, zero shared frameworks, and a ton of internal guesswork pretending to be process.* Bad screener surveys kill good research. Asking “Do you use this app?” is a great way to recruit liars. Berkay shares simple but smart ways to avoid bias in screeners like using multi-select questions, hiding the research topic, and adding duplicate questions to sniff out lazy responses.* Building a panel sounds smart until you have to maintain it. Setting up a panel is the easy part. The real challenge is keeping the data clean, staying GDPR-compliant, and making participants feel like they're still part of something. Regular outreach (like quarterly surveys) and strong ties to your data team are non-negotiable.* A good panel is a cross-team operation. Berkay didn't just build a landing page and hope for the best. He brought in product, customer support, PMs, and data science from the start. If you want a panel that works across research needs and methods, it has to be owned across the company too.Where to find Berkay:* LinkedInStop piecing it together. Start leading the work.The Everything UXR Bundle is for researchers who are tired of duct-taping free templates and second-guessing what good looks like.You get my complete set of toolkits, templates, and strategy guides. used by teams across Google, Spotify, , to run credible research, influence decisions, and actually grow in your role.It's built to save you time, raise your game, and make you the person people turn to—not around.→ Save 140+ hours a year with ready-to-use templates and frameworks→ Boost productivity by 40% with tools that cut admin and sharpen your focus→ Increase research adoption by 50% through clearer, faster, more strategic deliveryInterested in sponsoring the podcast?Interested in sponsoring or advertising on this podcast? I'm always looking to partner with brands and businesses that align with my audience. Book a call or email me at nikki@userresearchacademy.com to learn more about sponsorship opportunities!The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views, positions, or policies of the host, the podcast, or any affiliated organizations or sponsors. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.userresearchstrategist.com/subscribe

At ITEXPO / MSP EXPO, Doug Green, Publisher of Technology Reseller News, sat down with Rick Mancinelli, CEO of C3 Complete, along with Tim and Tasha of Nerds To Go, to discuss a new partnership designed to accelerate MSP growth and expand service capabilities across a national franchise network. C3 Complete, a multifaceted technology, telecom, and cybersecurity provider with 16 years of industry experience, has partnered with Nerds To Go to help strengthen and scale its managed services model. Nerds To Go, a franchise-based IT services brand that evolved from a break-fix concept into a managed services provider, is focused on expanding both its B2C and B2B footprint. The partnership brings additional backend support, broader product offerings, and operational depth to franchisees looking to move upstream into larger, more complex accounts. As Mancinelli explained, the goal is to “complete their product portfolio and allow them to bring a total solution to each and every one of their customers.” Through C3's telecom, data center, and advanced services capabilities, Nerds To Go franchisees can now pursue opportunities that previously exceeded their internal bandwidth. At the same time, the franchise network provides C3 with boots-on-the-ground coverage in markets where local presence is critical. The collaboration reflects a broader industry trend toward partnership-driven growth. By combining franchise scalability with enterprise-grade backend support, both organizations aim to increase margins, enhance recurring revenue streams, and enable franchisees to confidently say “yes” to larger opportunities. As the group emphasized during the conversation, this is not a vendor-client relationship but a mutual growth strategy built on shared opportunity. Visit C3 Complete: https://c3-complete.com/ Visit Nerds To Go: https://www.nerdstogo.com/

In this conversation, Vassilis Douros and Marc Binkley delve into the complexities of measuring ROI in marketing. They discuss common misconceptions about ROI, ROAS, and MER, emphasizing that these metrics often lead marketers to focus on short-term efficiency rather than long-term effectiveness. The duo highlights the importance of collaboration across teams to ensure that marketing promises align with operational capabilities, ultimately driving sustainable growth. They advocate for a shift in focus from mere ratios to understanding the broader implications of marketing investments on future cash flow and customer relationships.If you're being measured purely on short-term efficiency metrics, this conversation will change how you think about growth.ROI isn't a marketing number. It's a team sport.TakeawaysROI is often misunderstood as a measure of efficiency rather than effectiveness.Chasing high ROI can lead to short-term thinking and limit growth.Marketing success requires collaboration across teams, not just within marketing.The promise to the customer must be memorable, valuable, and deliverable.Focusing solely on financial ratios can obscure the true health of a brand.Long-term ROI is built on consistent delivery of promises to customers.Marketing should be viewed as a growth driver, not a cost center.Incrementality is crucial to understanding the true impact of marketing efforts.Operational efficiency is key to fulfilling marketing promises.Winning in marketing is a team sport, requiring alignment across departments.Chapters00:00 - Understanding ROI in Marketing03:00 - The Dangers of Chasing High ROI05:57 - The Importance of Team Collaboration09:55 - The Promise to the Customer11:58 - Shifting Focus from Ratios to RevenueSources:Ambler, T. (2000). Marketing Metrics. Business Strategy Review, 11(2), 59-66.Binkley, M. (2024). 35 Factors that Affect Marketing ROI. Quatical Fractional Marketing Leadership.B2B Institute & WARC. (2024). Making a Promise to the Business Customer: Why Customer Promise Campaigns are Even More Effective in B2B than B2C. LinkedIn.Calgary Marketing Association & Stone-Olafson. (2024). Shaping Success: Alberta's Marketing Landscape and the Trends Influencing ROI.Duhigg, C. (2012). The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. Random House.Kaushik, A. (2023). The Best Marketing ROI Formula: Incremental Net Profit ROI!. Occam's Razor.Martin, R., & B2B Institute. (2023). Making a Promise to...

With excitement, we are announcing the birth of AIXD.World, a subsidiary of 10PlusBrand.com. Learn what AIXD (AI experience design) is all about (hint: it is not anti-AI, but pro-human.) AIXD is not the same as UI and UX. UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) are terms often associated with app design. As Google famously explains: if a digital product were a house, UX is the structure and wiring (how it works), while UI is the paint and furniture (how it looks). AIXD goes further. It is both the architectural blueprint and the interior design—but custom-built around real human needs. AIXD precedes UI and UX by grounding AI development in what end users actually want, not what technologists assume they want. By anchoring AI to human psychology, emotions, and lived experience, AIXD helps organizations avoid waste, reduce friction, and design AI that truly serves people. In an era of AI over-enthusiasm, rushed adoption, and “white elephant” AI projects, AIXD fills the critical gap between human end users and AI developers. It reframes success away from hype and toward outcomes that matter: usefulness, satisfaction, dignity, and trust. AIXD asks leaders the most important question before building any AI system: What human experience are we creating—and for whom? AIXD is not anti-AI. It is pro-human. AIXD is user experience. User experience is brand experience. What is AIXD (AI Experience Design)? How is it Related to User Centered Design and Brand Experience? AIXD (“AI Experience Design”) is the design of AI-assisted, AI-enabled, and AI-led user journeys—created explicitly for the convenience, satisfaction, and wellbeing of human end users. It is the human-centered design of AI models, applications, workflows, products, and services. Ultimately, AIXD is the be-all and end-all of human user experience.

Wybierasz platformę e-Commerce dla swojego biznesu home decor? Zanim wydasz setki tysięcy złotych, policz total cost of ownership.W tym odcinku wyjaśniam, kiedy SaaS wystarczy, a kiedy powinieneś postawić na open source - i jak to policzyć.W tym materiale dowiesz się m.in.:➡️ jak obliczyć prawdziwy koszt posiadania platformy e-Commerce (i dlaczego „500 zł miesięcznie" to mit),➡️ kiedy wdrożenie pilotażowe na taniej technologii ma sens, a kiedy to wyrzucanie pieniędzy,➡️ dlaczego logistyka w home decor (transport szkła, ponadgabaryty, palety) wymaga specyficznych algorytmów,➡️ jak obsłużyć trzy grupy klientów — B2C, projektantów wnętrz i dystrybucję B2B — na jednej platformie,➡️ i co zrobić, żeby nie płuć sobie w brodę po pół roku z technologią, która Cię ogranicza.To trzeci i ostatni odcinek z serii o e-Commerce w branży home decor. ⏳ Rozdziały:00:00 Wstęp01:57 Pilotaż vs. technologia docelowa — kiedy co wybrać?05:50 Dlaczego logistyka w home decor jest tak skomplikowana08:16 Trzy modele biznesowe na jednej platformie09:23 SaaS vs. open source — prawdziwe koszty12:40 Podsumowanie i co dalejPoprzednie odcinki o branży home decor:▶️ https://youtu.be/RMIs7NjI5aY?si=twYRqZa-XBSiZvDK▶️ https://youtu.be/ekdwcaHaiHk?si=pzwu4xSgC6QfO7s4

In this episode of Torsion Talk, Ryan Lucia breaks down a timely article by Joseph Roberts (AQUED) titled “At a Crossroad Again: Navigating the Transitions Shaping the Garage Door Industry.” Ryan walks through the three core pillars of the article and adds his own real-world perspective from the dealer side, including what he agrees with, what he challenges, and what he believes is coming next for the garage door business.Ryan opens with quick industry updates, including a behind-the-scenes look at his new studio build, early signals that steel pricing may rise due to supply and demand pressures, and what he's seeing in marketing performance as clicks continue to shift in an AI-driven search landscape. He also shares plans for Markinuity and GDU at the IDA Expo, including a booth presence, potential live podcast recording, giveaways, and a private event.From there, Ryan dives into the first pillar: market segmentation and specialization. He discusses the push toward residential-only or commercial-only strategies, why he doesn't fully agree that doing both automatically makes you a generalist, and how seasonality and revenue stability can make multi-segment operations smarter when structured correctly. He also explains why he split his commercial and residential websites, how Google rewards specialization, and what it takes to market effectively to B2C homeowners versus B2B commercial buyers.The second pillar is where Ryan goes deepest: the growing tension in dealer and vendor relationships. He addresses consolidation at the manufacturer level, the shifting OEM-dealer dynamic, and why dealers must stop accepting one-sided arrangements. Ryan talks candidly about sales rep performance in the industry, the real costs dealers absorb when manufacturers miss on quality control, shipping, or accuracy, and why multi-manufacturer sourcing can protect a business. He gives credit where it's due by highlighting manufacturers he believes are doing things well, while also calling out common operational breakdowns that create expensive dealer-side problems.Finally, Ryan ties in the third pillar: ownership changes and exit strategy. He explains why succession, private equity, and acquisition timelines should influence marketing decisions, budgets, and business strategy. Ryan closes with a blunt but optimistic view of where the industry is headed, why the “purge” and consolidation are real, and what focused dealers must do now to compete, execute, and win in the next 5–10 years.Find Ryan at:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://garagedooru.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://aaronoverheaddoors.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://markinuity.com/⁠Check out our sponsors!Sommer USA - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://sommer-usa.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Surewinder - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://surewinder.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stealth Hardware - ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://quietmydoor.com/⁠

What actually sticks the morning after the biggest media night of the year? We gathered the Campfire team to break down Super Bowl 60 through a marketer's lens. The ads, the halftime energy, and the strange alchemy that turns a 30-second spot into a real cultural moment.Instead of tallying celebrity cameos, we dig into why some ideas pulled people off the couch and into the experience, while others faded the second the game came back on. From Coinbase's polarizing karaoke moment that engineered participation, to the growing use of AI, de-aging, and digital resurrection that left many viewers uneasy, we explore where innovation worked and where it missed the human mark.We also spotlight ideas built for utility and momentum. Liquid I.V.'s bathroom blitz, Ring's lost-dog rescue, and brands that extended beyond the broadcast with puzzles, takeovers, and lead-up campaigns that turned Sunday night attention into Monday conversation. The halftime show sparked its own debate, reminding us that when millions are watching with divided attention, clarity beats complexity.The takeaway is simple. Whether you're planning national or local, B2C or B2B, the brands that win are the ones that build for participation, design ideas that travel, and respect the medium they're showing up in. Sometimes the message matters less than how people experience it together.If you enjoyed the conversation, follow the show and share this episode with someone who loves marketing, media, sports, culture, or all of the above.Enjoying this content? Text us your thoughts! (if you want a response please include an email address in your text)Learn more about Campfire Consulting Visit the Responsibly Different™ Shop where 50% of all profits go back to nonprofit organizations. Wear your spark on your sleeve.

Rachel Knutton, founder and CEO of Alluvia Studio, shares how a 30-year healthcare journey—from hospital marketing and public relations (PR) at HCA Healthcare to medical device commercialization, product launches, and sales—shaped her belief that everything in MedTech ultimately comes down to storytelling. Rachel explains how her “been there” experience in hospitals, cases, and value analysis environments helps her create messaging that's compelling, compliant, and built to endure. She also opens up about becoming an “accidental entrepreneur,” discovering unexpected fulfillment in leading people, and building an agency culture grounded in authenticity, humor, and joy.    Guest links: www.alluviastudio.com | www.linkedin.com/rachelknutton | www.linkedin.com/alluviastudio  Charity supported: Sleep in Heavenly Peace Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at theleadingdifference@velentium.com.  PRODUCTION CREDITS Host & Editor: Lindsey Dinneen Producer: Velentium Medical   EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Episode 073 - Rachel Knutton [00:00:00] Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world. [00:00:09] Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them. [00:00:15] Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives. [00:00:28] Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives. [00:00:38] Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives. [00:00:42] Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Leading Difference podcast. I'm your host, Lindsey, and today I'm delighted to welcome Rachel Knutton. Rachel is founder and CEO of Alluvia Studio, a strategic medtech marketing agency based in Tennessee that supports some of the largest medtech brands in the world. Her experience in healthcare spans 30 years, including hospital marketing and PR for HCA Healthcare, as well as various roles in medical device commercialization, sales and marketing. Right. Well, welcome to the show, Rachel. It's so nice to you for having me. Of course. I would love if you would start off by just, uh, telling us a little bit about yourself, your background and what led you to medtech. [00:01:36] Rachel Knutton: Yeah, so I actually have a pretty interesting background and I bet I'll cover a little bit more of it as we go through the discussion, but currently I have an MedTech marketing agency. We have 16 employees. been in business technically since 2011, so 14 years. And just really focused on this industry. My path to getting into MedTech actually came through HCA Healthcare. I started working in hospital world back in 1996. And actually it was accidental. I, you know, I was pretty new outta school, a couple years outta school and I'd answered an ad and I dove right into a really exciting world. It's, you know, of course headquartered here in Nashville. Learned all about hospitals. I supported I think eight different hospitals at that time that were in region, the Nashville region, doing marketing and public relations, walked into my first open heart surgery case, helped feed employees at midnight, handled all kinds of interesting PR events because we're hearing Nashville, a lot of country music stars might get hospitalized. And I did that for about 10 years. And then I ended up moving into devices a recruiter, and it's when Kimberly Clark Healthcare had gone into the medical devices arena through the purchase of Ballard. so honestly I really didn't know much about it. But I had, you know, I did have my MBA, I had been working in healthcare, which sort of met the qualifications at that time. And I got a early start in marcom. Learned so much, got back into the hospital through that role from the other side of the coin and I had the chance to do product management, launch a product, and then I moved into sales and sold the product a whole bag and then got back into the hospital, you know, working through the whole value EIS ecosystem and working with physicians and being in cases. So it's been a very interesting path for sure. [00:03:37] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. And so I'm curious about a lot of things, but I'll start with this. So what do you find are some of the differences and similarities between marketing and PR for the hospital side of things versus the device side of things? [00:03:55] Rachel Knutton: I mean, certainly I think PR piece is a much bigger aspect, the community aspect. Um. Every hospital is such an important part of the community. So there's a heavy weight there on that. And then of course, the regional aspect of it. So whereas in the device world, you know, all targeting like very large geographies, maybe either the US or outside of the US. And so in the hospital world, that tends to be more regionalized. I would say. That's like one of the big differences for sure. And then honestly, hospital world, it's more business to consumer. is a lot of physician related marketing as you're trying to drive preference to, you know, using your hospital for surgeries or trying to recruit physicians, but it's a lot more B2C in the, medtech world. world. [00:04:44] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, so you mentioned know, you responded to an an ad and that led you to was sort of like, well, a say, um, synergy, whatever you wanna say. that was was marketing and communications something that you always had a passion for or what led you to kind of pursue that? [00:05:05] Rachel Knutton: Yeah. Well actually I was a little bit more of a writer. would say telling stories is origin story. So I wanted to work in magazines. This is back when we still did print and newspapers and things like that. And always wanted to work in the magazine um, industry and I, and it started out writing for a business magazine. Started working for an agency for Ford, doing writing for a sales focused magazine. And so it just sort of morphed into that. I would say in the marketing and PR world, we were telling stories about patient stories, pitching those to newspapers. We were telling stories about physicians doing new types of procedures employees, you know, trying to promote them within the hospital world. That's also important to that ecosystem. And so I think that's kind of where that transition happened. And I would say that's still what I do today. So it's taken a lot of different forms and product management and working in Excel files and figuring out demand forecast isn't really about telling stories what it is, right? Everything is about telling a story in the end. [00:06:06] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah. So it sounds like you have the strategist side, the analytical side, and the creative side, which doesn't always, you know, align. And so tell us a little bit about your approach maybe to, say, there's a client of yours that is interested in bringing a product to market, and story tell to help them achieve their goals, and within compliance, because obviously that's a component. [00:06:35] Rachel Knutton: yeah, I mean, that's certainly in our industry, you know, figuring out are the guardrails. course in marketing, I always think, you know, we, know the rules. But we're also going to make sure that we're not self-limiting within those rules. So I let the regulatory people and the legal people push back. But I know what not to risk, right? So I think one of the things that's very helpful is having sold devices, having launched devices myself, having worked in the hospital system, I spent a lot of time on the floors watching how devices are used. I spent time in ICU collecting data. I think really having been part of that environment helps feed the story building process. It's almost like a natural part of what goes into building that story. So because of that experience, because I've walked those halls, I've been in those shoes, I kind of know what some of those limitations are and that just automatically configures into the storytelling process. I know what the product managers are up against when they're trying to launch a product. And theoretically, I should know the right questions to ask and how they got to the product that they have today and how they've, you know, customer feedback has fed into that. And then how do we take that and make sure that the messaging meets the same requirements? Like you have a, you know, you have design requirements, well, your messaging should have the same requirements and achieve a goal. So I think that's the analytical side is making sure, does the message achieve the goal? Are we being very committed to what's the business objective? How is the marketing objective supporting that? And then is the, how is the messaging fitting into that? I think that's a very important part of the discipline. We also are very familiar with, you know, claims matrices and the importance of having, you know, data and research to support claims. And so kind of knowing that framework, I think is helpful when you're building messaging because helps you think through like, okay, here's how the client is going to need to organize the messaging. Here's how they're gonna have to reuse the messaging. You know, how can we be very consistent in how we roll that out so they're not having to go back through and through their approval process every time. It's really important part of the discipline in the medtech world that we have to deal with that industries as well, of course, but it's certainly very important in ours. [00:09:01] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah. I, I really appreciate that insight and I think, you know, it's so interesting to see-- you're totally speaking my language about the consistency of, it's something I've, I've preached so much is you have to be consistent with your messaging and your branding. And it's not like everyone has to have the same cookie cutter language, but when you're aligned, that really translates. [00:09:25] Rachel Knutton: And it works. this is, you know, I, think this is a little bit of a, it's not a pet peeve, it's a passion project rather of mine is to get people to be consistent because I think what happens is internally, people get tired very quickly of their messaging or their creative. And I do think you need creative variability. We know with AI you need some of that, like that's gonna be important. But probably your customer, your target audience isn't tired of it and they might not have even seen it yet. And it's that very old, like nine times someone has to hear a message. And so my favorite clients are the ones that work very hard to get the messaging right in the first place. They go through the discipline process of doing it, knowing why we're doing it, getting full buy-in from an extended team, and then just keep with it, with some obviously refinement and tweaking when you get customer feedback. But you know, sadly, I'm sure we've all had this instance where it's like, "Oh, Dr. like this ad. We need a new ad campaign." And it's like, "Well, that's okay. I'm really glad he noticed it." You know? That's all right. That, might be okay. So, it, I think that the best companies are consistent and, you know, one of our clients is um, intuitive Surgical, and one of the things that we see is like, of course there's fresh creative. Of course there's brand evolution, but the overall message is very consistent and that's, it's fun to see how fruitful that consistency has been for them. [00:11:06] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. Love that. So you worked for other companies and then you took a leap and became an entrepreneur and a leader of your business. What was that like? Were you prepared, so to speak? I'm not sure anyone's actually prepared to be an entrepreneur, but you know, how did that go for you? [00:11:24] Rachel Knutton: Yeah. was certainly an accidental entrepreneur. Some lifestyle choices, particularly marrying someone in the military at the time when we didn't do Zoom calls forced me to look at my career path and go, you know what? I'm not gonna climb the corporate career ladder moving. At that time, it wasn't a thing. And I thought, you know, I'm gonna need to do consulting in order to, you know, support family and then keep my business going. So I had lifestyle reasons that I became an entrepreneur and wasn't really sure how it was gonna work out, to be perfectly honest with you. And, you know, felt like a lot of people say, "Well, I'm consulting," which just means they don't have a job right now. And I, I know, you know, nothing bad about saying that, that can be very true, but for me, I was like, this is actually something I'm gonna need to do. And I did it as a as a solo consultant for several years, and then when I, we finally settled down and stopped moving said, "Well, it's time for me to get some help." The thing that was really interesting to me is I never really wanted to manage people even when I was in the corporate world, I just wanted to do great work. I wanted to, you know, I, felt like people slowed me down. You know, I just, I'm like, "Just let me go. I'm a star player." And it was really nothing that I was interested in at all. And now I have, you know, all these employees and I spend a very large portion of my time managing people. And the thing that has been so surprising is how gratifying that is, how fulfilling it is. One, to, you know, go beyond your comfort zone and find, I've learned so much. I've made a lot of mistakes. I've thought about other leaders that I've been lucky to work with in the past and follow what they do. And maybe some people who had some tendencies that I try not to do or I'll check myself and go, "Oh, am I, you know, am I doing that?" But I think managing team, developing people is the most exciting piece of it. always loved helping clients, so as I started out in this venture, I had a couple of offers to go work full time for those clients, but at that point I had been helping a few people and I was like, "Well, I can't say no to to the guy at this company, I can't say no to her because she needs my help. And if I have a full-time job, I'm not gonna be able to do that." So I really just wanted to help as many people as possible and I felt like owning my own business will allow me to do that. Now that I have a team, we are able to help so many more people and that is really gratifying. The other thing is. Where I am, my community is outside of Nashville and we're a micropolitan, which means we're kind of just far away for our commute to Nashville to be impractical. We have a local university here, and so one of the things I wanna do early on was work with the local university talent for people who wanna stay in this upper Cumberland area and have a great profession. And it's somewhat limited still. It is growing, but there's not a lot of big corporate jobs. So what I love to do is I bring that corporate experience into my small business in terms of professional development, evaluations, how we coach people. And then I try to get rid of all this stuff that I didn't really care about working in the corporate land, you know, and increased flexibility. Let's not have politics and things like that, and so that people can just grow and flourish. And so it is, I'm very passionate about it. I love helping clients and I love helping my team, and so it's really like the best of both worlds for me. [00:14:58] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Excellent. So you have an interesting name for your company and I would love if you would share a little bit what led to that? [00:15:07] Rachel Knutton: Yeah. Thank you for asking about that, actually. So when I was the first name for my company was called Good Day Marketing, and when I realized I was really going to stay in medtech, at that time when I launched it, I was like, well, maybe I won't do medtech. Maybe I'll just do other marketing. I was like, "Well, medtech is where people want me. This is what I know. I have expertise. This is where I need to be." It made a lot of sense. I was like, okay, I need to rebrand, and I had gone through a period of testing. And so I'm a Christian and I'm familiar with scripture. You know, where you're like, you get refined in the fire, you're refined like silver and like gold. And I was like, "Okay, I need to have something about gold." And I discovered there's a type of gold called alluvial gold. And it's the kind of gold that you find in riverbeds. And soil in uh, riverbed is very, very rich because you have so much, you know, marine life and you know, plant life flowing over it, but then there's gold deposited there, and I was like, "That's we do, right?" Like when we're working with medtech companies, there's so much rich content, there's so much intelligence and innovation baked into what they're doing. Our job though, is to find the pieces of gold that will really help them tell that story and distill that, right? And like purify it. And it goes through a refining process to make sure the message is really clear. leave the extra behind. And then once we get it into a good spot, we shine it and we just like make the best part of that messaging, pull that forward. So it just made a lot of sense for the agency to be called Alluvia Studio. [00:16:42] Lindsey Dinneen: That's, that's perfect. That's such a great story too. I love the intentionality behind it and the thought process of it. Um. So yeah, so you have some core values with the company, and I'm assuming this also derives from yourself, and three me were the values of authenticity, joy, and humor. Can you speak to those and how you came up with that? [00:17:06] Rachel Knutton: Sure. Well, authenticity is, I, I just can't not be authentic. So one of the things you and I had talked about before is, I have a hard time talking about myself. just am naturally a little bit humble and I have to ask other people to tell me what I'm good at, right? And they're like, "Well, such a thought leader. You know what this industry so well, you're so great at telling this story." And I think just being able to say, "Hey, I don't know how to frame myself is something that's just innate to me." [00:17:40] Lindsey Dinneen: Hmm. [00:17:42] Rachel Knutton: I think I wanna work that way with people. It means that if you need to have a tough conversation with a client, you can have it. something doesn't feel right, I wanna pick up the phone and say, "Hey, this didn't feel right to me. I don't like how this conversation went. I don't like how this project's going 'cause I don't, I sense that you're dissatisfied, I wanna talk about it, I wanna understand it." from the client side, that's how authenticity works. And then with my team as well. So, for me, their personal lives are very important. I know we all bring our personal life into our work. If we say that we don't, we're lying. And so I ask that, you know, if someone's having a rough day or going through something as much as they're comfortable, at least just let us know so that other people aren't impacted by maybe, you know, a down day or, or take it personally because you know how we all do that, right? We read into it, go, "Oh, did I do something to upset them?" "No, I'm just, I'm not here today." And so I just think it's really important one, and I want people to feel comfortable with them, to feel themselves. And I think it helps with like diverse perspectives well. And then fun. So like humor, fun to me are lumped together and I just think when you have fun at work, you do your best work. And reminded of a couple of stories with our clients. So a lot of times we think in medtech, like everything's so serious. Everything, you know, and it is, it's a serious business. We're doing important things. There's nothing flip about what we do. However, we're all human beings. And we all need to have fun while we're working together. So we like our clients to have fun working with us, and I like sharing things that are fun about me. I had someone just this week who is from a very high level financial position in a big company comment that he loved that I had a roller skater in my LinkedIn profile. Now, I never would've thought that, right? I never thought that person would have really appreciated that, but that just goes to show that we all need to have fun. And even if we're working hard, we just like work hard, play hard, like let's just, and when we're stressed, let's just laugh it off and keep going. [00:19:58] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, and the joy aspect, just curious because that is, uh, the huge core value of mine, and so I would just love to hear your take on it. [00:20:06] Rachel Knutton: It is my purpose life. I have identified that. I got go through a leadership development class about 20 years ago with Kimberly Clark, and we identified our purpose, and bringing joy into other people's lives was mine and what that means for me-- it is funny, early on in my career I, didn't think I was gonna work in medtech. I thought it was more in like hospitality, tourism, something, you know, that's fun, you know, obvious fun. But what I really realized is that joy, um, joy comes from completing a project, feeling very good about what you do. We are often a very important part when people are presenting about themselves. So they do a lot of presentations. They're presenting to their boss or to a board. We wanna make them look good. We wanna make them feel very confident and relieving that stress is a joyful experience for them. So for me it's very personal. know, as much as we can, we want to help them feel that and experience that, and that comes down to how we communicate with them. You know, let's laugh a little bit. Our job is to look good. We, this business is not about Alluvia. This business is about you, and we are here to be a partner with you in that process. [00:21:29] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Oh my goodness. Yes. That resonates very much. Um, yeah, so, you know, you've you've had an amazing career and you've worked, like you said, on the hospital side, you have had the device side and now your own business. Are there any moments along your journey that really stand out as affirming to you that "Yes, I'm in the right place at the right time?" [00:21:52] Rachel Knutton: Definitely. When I started my consulting business, I wasn't sure that I was going to be in medtech. So I had been in the hospital world for about 10 years and I had been in medtech for about 10 years, and I thought, "Well, am I supposed to be doing something different?" You know, that's that's a nice time to like, and my relationships and my reputation drew me back in. So it was almost one of those like. I'm meant to be here because I do have the experience that people value and I do have a way of thinking that's very helpful for people and it's a unique perspective that help. And so through my consulting business, I ended up launching two more products through very large publicly traded companies. And I thought, "Well, okay, obviously I'm supposed to be doing this." [00:22:48] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. Yes, and I think makes sense too because it's, it's also rather niche, you know? So, so having the skill sets really play a good part into-- it's, it's-- basically what I'm trying to get at is it's not an necessarily an easy path. So it's helpful to have had that background to, you know, you've got the communications and the marketing, but also the nitty gritty of, you know, I remember when I first joined, you know, somebody would say a sentence and it was like, half of it was acronyms and it was, it's just such a steep learning curve, [00:23:21] Rachel Knutton: Yeah. Mm-hmm. [00:23:21] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. [00:23:22] Rachel Knutton: It's, it really, and it still is. I mean, there's no way to know about every specialty in the world or all of the, you know, technical or clinical issues that our clients customers need to deal with. But being able to figure out which parts you need to understand and which you don't, I think is good. Like, what do you need to filter? do you really need to go in order to help them communicate their message is. Is helpful. And I think having that experience does provide that filter. And you know, it's funny because I was thinking about your podcast and I love what you're doing with it. Like I love that you're trying to shine a light on our community and it is about so many people trying to help people and save lives. And yes, I mean, I work so heavily with the investor community and startup community that sometimes it starts to feel a lot like it's about money. think money follows great ideas, right? Because there's an economic value to an innovation that's gonna save our healthcare system money, save lives and outcomes and, things like that. So I think it's all important. One of the things that I've thought about though is. Our unique position is we help people that help people save lives. So, you know, we are not on the frontline innovating new devices. We are not really on the frontline working with the patients. But if they don't tell their story, if there's not awareness of their solution, if it's not implemented correctly-- we think, I think a lot about that at the at the sales level, having been in, in those shoes-- if those things aren't done correctly, then the patient's not gonna be helped and making sure that we make that as easy as possible. people don't really wanna think about marketing, right? Like they wanna think about the clinical aspect. They wanna think about the innovation and the know, technical issues that they need to solve. And new product development, but the marketing piece is really important. All [00:25:28] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah, and it's just a fun, well, it's really a special role to play, I think. And I've always felt really grateful for that because, right, if somebody doesn't know that it exists, then they can't buy it. And so even though my role is small in comparison to maybe the scientists and the engineers and everything like that, I still get to play a part, and I think that's just delightful. Yeah. [00:25:55] Rachel Knutton: Yeah. Yeah, it really is. And it's really helpful too. So, you know, running an agency, I have a lot of creative people. Well, in our industry, we don't get to be quite as creative as other industries, right? Because as you mentioned, you know, we have regulatory reasons and it's a slightly more conservative industry for sure and should be. We're always looking to figure out how do we inject that joy? How do we inject that fun and authenticity into something that still feels as professional, as innovative, and as buttoned up the product is, as the quality process has been, as the clinical study has been, but still, how do we have a unique voice within that? And so that's really helpful with my creative team too, to say, right, like our guy boundaries are a little bit different, but what we're doing is so much more important than selling a consumer product. Maybe like a luxury item or jewelry or marketing a, I don't know, something sexier, you know, like a vacation. I don't know. To me that'd be like the ultimate, send me around the world and have me market a travel. That'd be very good. [00:27:05] Lindsey Dinneen: You go. [00:27:06] Rachel Knutton: But at the end of the day, like it, it's making a really big impact and I think that's really helpful to help people in that. We're always looking for ways to try to get that experience. Like I'm always looking for ways to get experience from my team to be able to do that. I think that's probably my next big goal is like, how do I get them into the hospital? How do I expose them to what the day-to-day life is of a sales rep? You know? think that's really important in our industry to have some sort of exposure to feed on the streets in the hospital setting, how it works, what the sales rep has to go through to get the product implemented, how long it takes for it to actually succeed, right? Because it's not just one sale, it is a long process, a long journey, and an ongoing journey to make sure that that it sticks and that people understand how to use it. And I think having that like empathy or at least point of view can be really helpful to anyone marketing in our industry. [00:28:10] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah. I I really like that. That's, that would be a really helpful thing for anyone, especially if they're newer to the industry, to have that sort of boots on the ground, this is what it's actually like, kind of experience. [00:28:24] Rachel Knutton: Yeah. [00:28:25] Lindsey Dinneen: So, okay, so pivoting the conversation just for fun. Imagine that you were to be offered a million dollars to teach a masterclass on anything you want. It could be within your industry, doesn't have to be, what would you choose to teach? [00:28:39] Rachel Knutton: I think it would really be about this, like how to find joy. Like how to find joy in everything. You know, how do you cultivate a joyful outlook on life so that even when you're sitting in traffic or doing something you don't really love to do, how can you integrate that? You know, I think that one thing that's really important to me is my faith. So my values, I'm, Christian, and I really believe the only true joy that we have is when we have a relationship with Jesus Christ. And so that's not part of my business, that's part of my life mantra, but like if I could help people get to the real joy, that would be like the ultimate goal, right? If I can't get them there, if I can get them to, you know, experience joy in the day to day or experience joy in their trials, think that would be something worth, I'd do it for free. I don't even need a million dollars. a million dollars would be great. [00:29:34] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Right. Excellent. Excellent. Yes. Okay. And then how do you wish to be remembered after you leave this world? [00:29:43] Rachel Knutton: I think it's that point I just made there, right, is that, maybe, I mean, it's so cliche, but I left things better than I found them. I left people better than I found them. And, you know, and ultimately, you know, if I lead them to Jesus, that is like the ultimate goal for me as a Christian. So for me, that would be a metric that if it was, you know, one person, if it was 1 million people, it doesn't matter. That's the goal. [00:30:13] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Yeah. And then final question, what is one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it? [00:30:22] Rachel Knutton: It is my business. It really is. I mean, okay, obviously my family and my pets and things like that, but I really love coming to the office. This, we have our own building. Every time I come here, my spirits are lifted. I love seeing my team members and I love working with the clients and just hearing from them and building those relationships. Everything about this is so deeply personal to me that the money piece of it is like the very last thing that I think about. It's the last way that I run my business. It's the last way that I measure success. It's the last way I hire. It is really just follows that, that positive feeling of making an impact and having fun. I, it's just, I know it sounds crazy. We keep saying that, but I think it's really fun to do what I do. I'm [00:31:18] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. I love that answer. That's that's wonderful. And it, I think that's one of those affirmations that yeah, you are in the right place at the right time because you're having fun and you're joyful. I love that. [00:31:30] Rachel Knutton: Sometimes it's temping to work from home, and then I work from home, and then I come to the office. I'm like, "Why did I wanna work from home? It's so much lighter here. We have a disco ball here and I don't have a disco ball at home." [00:31:40] Lindsey Dinneen: Oh. Brilliant. I love it. Oh my goodness. Well, this has been such a fantastic conversation, Rachel. I so appreciate you and your time today, and I love the way that you bring joy and fun into medtech and into the lives of the people that you touch. And we're excited to be making a donation on your behalf, as a thank you for your time today, to Sleep in Heavenly Peace, which provides beds for children who don't have any in the United States. So thank you for choosing that charity to support. Again, thank you so much for everything you're doing to change lives for a better world. [00:32:18] Rachel Knutton: Thank you. This is a great interview, so I appreciate it. You made it easy. [00:32:23] Lindsey Dinneen: So glad to hear that. Alright, well thank you so much again, and thank you also to our listeners for tuning in and if you're feeling as inspired as I am right now, I'd love it if you'd share this episode with a colleague or two and we'll catch you next time. [00:32:40] Dan Purvis: The Leading Difference is brought to you by Velentium Medical. Velentium Medical is a full service CDMO, serving medtech clients worldwide to securely design, manufacture, and test class two and class three medical devices. Velentium Medical's four units include research and development-- pairing electronic and mechanical design, embedded firmware, mobile app development, and cloud systems with the human factor studies and systems engineering necessary to streamline medical device regulatory approval; contract manufacturing-- building medical products at the prototype, clinical, and commercial levels in the US, as well as in low cost regions in 1345 certified and FDA registered Class VII clean rooms; cybersecurity-- generating the 12 cybersecurity design artifacts required for FDA submission; and automated test systems, assuring that every device produced is exactly the same as the device that was approved. Visit VelentiumMedical.com to explore how we can work together to change lives for a better world.

Businesses don't win by selling more features or even better experiences anymore. In this episode, Joe Pine explains why the real value today comes from selling outcomes and guiding customers toward meaningful transformation. We unpack the transformation economy, how it differs from the experience economy, and why charging for outcomes changes pricing, guarantees, and business models. You will learn how both B2B and B2C companies can productize transformation, align messaging with real results, and help customers become who they want to be. Today we discussed: 00:00 Why Transformation Matters Now 11:43 Productizing Transformation 14:00 Pricing and Outcome-Based Models 16:48 Messaging Around Who Customers Become 20:16 How to Start a Transformation Strategy 24:28 Connect With Joe Rate, Review, & Follow If you liked this episode, please rate and review the show. Let us know what you loved most about the episode. Struggling with strategy? Unlock your free AI-powered prompts now and start building a winning strategy today!

Summary Are your rising customer acquisition costs eating into profits while your NPS surveys gather dust? Discover Earned Sales Growth (ESG)—the game-changing customer experience metric that tracks how much revenue comes from customers you've earned through loyalty and referrals versus customers you've bought through advertising. In this episode of the Customer Service Revolution podcast, customer experience expert John DiJulius reveals why traditional surveys are broken (response rates now in single digits) and introduces the Return on Experience (ROX) Dashboard—a proven system that directly links CX investments to measurable revenue growth. What You'll Learn: Why NPS is failing: Survey fatigue has crashed response rates, and founder Fred Reichheld now advocates for Earned Growth Rate instead The ESG formula: How to calculate what percentage of your revenue comes from repeat customers and referrals vs. paid advertising Real results: How injury attorney firm Carter Mario increased earned growth from 30% to 68% in 5 years—slashing advertising costs by half Hot vs. cold leads: Why referred customers (hot leads) close faster, spend more, and have zero price sensitivity compared to ad-driven prospects Implementation guide: The CRM requirements and tracking systems needed to measure ESG by department, location, and individual employee The 3-lead framework: Understanding cold (outbound), warm (ad-driven), and hot (referral) customers and their dramatically different close rates Key Takeaways: "Discount is the tax you pay for having an average experience. Are you a coupon away from losing your customers?" - John DiJulius Companies spending 6-7% of revenue on advertising could cut that to 3.5% by focusing on earned growth Top customer experience companies consistently outperform the S&P 500 in stock performance Every employee should know their personal ESG score and be held accountable to it ESG works across industries—even businesses without repeat customers (injury attorneys, funeral homes, car dealers) can leverage referrals Perfect For: Customer Experience Directors and VPs Chief Customer Officers Marketing leaders tired of rising CAC CEOs and CFOs seeking measurable CX ROI B2B and B2C service businesses with CRM systems Featured Resources: Customer Experience Executive Academy (CXEA) 12-month certification program Return on Experience (ROX) Dashboard framework ROX Template Interview with Fred Reichheld on "Winning on Purpose" Carter Mario personal injury attorney case study Stop measuring intent. Start measuring impact. Learn how to build a business that compounds in equity, not effort, by tracking the one metric that proves your customer experience is actually working. Links: The DiJulius Group Methdology: https://thedijuliusgroup.com/x-commandment-methodology/ Company Service Aptitude Test:  https://thedijuliusgroup.com/c-sat-forms/individual-c-sat/ Schedule a Complimentary Call with one of our advisors:  tdg.click/claudia Ask John!  Submit your questions for John, to be aired on future episode:  tdg.click/ask Customer Experience Executive Academy: https://thedijuliusgroup.com/project/cx-executive-academy/ Experience Revolution Membership:  https://thedijuliusgroup.com/membership/ Books:  https://thedijuliusgroup.com/shop/ Contacts:  Lindsey@thedijuliusgroup.com , Claudia@thedijuliusgroup.com   Subscribe We talk about topics like this each week; be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss an episode.

Armin Molavi spent 20 years working in agencies before transitioning to client-side marketing at Hilton, then building a successful fractional CMO practice serving private equity-backed companies. Currently, he's the CMO at Instructure, which makes the ubiquitous learning management system Canvas."25 years of B2C, and this is my very first B2B gig, so I've been learning a lot," Armin says. "What's the saying? Like drinking from a fire hydrant?"But at a fundamental level, he explains, B2B is not so different from what he's spent most of his career doing."At the end of the day, I have to convince people that if they give up their budget for what I have to sell, it's going to make their life better at work," he adds. "That's what marketing is."Today on Building Better CMOs, Armin and Greg Stuart discuss what marketers should know about working with private equity firms, why agencies and clients both need to be better partners to each other, and the life-changing career advice he received from Kellyn Kenny. They also discuss why marketers need to drop the jargon and start connecting their work to enterprise value if they want a seat at the table. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Full transcript⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LightningPod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow Building Better CMOs in your podcast app⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Rate and review the podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Armin's LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Greg's LinkedIn

Send us a textMarketing has quietly shifted to the ends of your funnel stream, are you shifting your efforts?In this Office Hours episode, Danny breaks down three structural shifts that will separate profitable growth from expensive wheel-spinning in 2026: why AI references matter more than rankings, why trust forms in communities you don't control, and why connecting paid media to your CRM is the difference between guessing and knowing. An Optidge "Office Hours" EpisodeOur Office Hours episodes are your go-to for details, case studies, how-to's, and advice on specific marketing topics. Join our fellow Optidge team members, partners, and sometimes even 1:1 teachings from Danny himself, in these shorter, marketing-focused episodes. Get ready to get marketing!Episode Highlights:Performance has moved upstream (discovery and trust happen before the click) and downstream (ROI is decided after the form fill), leaving most teams measuring the wrong middle.AIO (AI Optimization) means structuring your content so clearly that AI systems can confidently reference your brand as the authoritative source.Micro-communities on Slack, Discord, and Reddit are forming buying decisions before your ads ever appear, making trust earned sideways more valuable than polished campaigns.CRM integration reveals which campaigns drive actual revenue versus those that just look good on platform dashboards, turning emotional optimization into clear decisions.The full buyer journey now looks like: community exposure, AI validation, ad click-to-act (not to learn).Episode Links: Optidge The Digital Marketing MentorThe DM Mentor on InstagramOptidge Case Study LibraryFollow The Digital Marketing Mentor: Website and Blog: thedmmentor.com Instagram: @thedmmentor Linkedin: @thedmmentor YouTube: @thedmmentor Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family: Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations. ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business's digital marketing strategy.

In this coaching episode, Lindsay and Nora work with Amanda Chils, a trauma therapist who created "Exhale and Release," a private podcast program specifically designed for first responders dealing with complex trauma. Amanda faces a critical decision: should she sell directly to individual first responders or pursue corporate contracts with Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) that could reach hundreds of thousands of people? Discover the stark differences between B2B and B2C messaging, the corporate compliance challenges that can reshape your entire offer, and why sometimes the most impactful solution isn't always the most scalable one. Topics CoveredThe challenge of serving first responders through traditional vs. corporate channelsKey messaging differences between EAP decision-makers and individual first respondersCorporate compliance requirements that can fundamentally change your program structureWhy live coaching components may be incompatible with EAP licensing agreementsHow to position audio content as a delivery advantage rather than just a preferenceThe importance of stats, facts, and stories in corporate sales presentationsPrivacy concerns and utilization tracking in corporate mental health programsLinks Mentionedhttps://www.exhaleandrelease.com/home131191?_atid=SsKhfRWlibD7LR0sornVhMVqhoxCo2More from Hello AudioGrab a free trialYoutubeInstagramFacebook Group Subscribe and ReviewIf you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review! Thank you so much for tuning in to Launch Your Private Podcast.

Turning Customer Experience into Customer Transformation  Shep interviews Joseph Pine, best-selling author of Experience Economy, speaker, and cofounder of Strategic Horizons LLP. He talks about his new book, The Transformation Economy, and how businesses can go beyond creating memorable experiences to guiding customers through meaningful transformations that help them achieve their aspirations.  This episode of Amazing Business Radio with Shep Hyken answers the following questions and more:    What is the transformation economy?  What is the difference between selling a product and creating a transformative customer experience?  How can businesses guide customers to achieve their personal or professional aspirations?  What are the benefits of customizing experiences to meet individual customer needs?  What elements contribute to a robust customer experience?  Top Takeaways:    The transformation economy is about how companies can help customers change. It is about how your business can help them achieve their aspirations.   Businesses create more value when they focus on selling the end rather than the means. Go beyond selling products and services to understanding why customers buy and use that knowledge to help them reach their goals and achieve their aspirations.  Transformation is not a one-size-fits-all. It must begin with truly understanding where the customer is starting (from) and where your customers aspire to end up (to). Carefully identify the customer's current situation, needs, and aspirations to tailor experiences that produce meaningful outcomes for them.  Sell transformation, not just products. For example, people don't buy a treadmill because they want the equipment. They want to be healthier, have more stamina, or feel better about themselves. Whether you're selling a physical product, a service, or something else, shift your mindset to the customer's desired result.   In both B2B and B2C, businesses should become trusted partners, not just vendors. That means understanding clients' deeper goals and helping them achieve success, even if it occasionally means recommending solutions outside what you sell. The focus is on the customer's outcome, not just the transaction.  In the transformation economy, companies should charge for what customers value most: outcomes. Companies are moving away from pricing based on time, materials, or products. It is focused on results.  Transformative change for customers doesn't come from a single transaction. It spans the entire journey, including the preparation before the event, reflection afterwards, and ongoing integration into daily life.  Plus, Shep and Joe share insights from The Transformation Economy and discuss companies that are putting customer transformations first. Tune in!  Quote:   "Transformations are built on top of experiences. We change through the experiences that we have. "    About:    Joseph Pine is a bestselling author, speaker, and cofounder of Strategic Horizons LLP, celebrated for guiding Fortune 500 companies and innovative startups alike. He is the author of The Experience Economy, Mass Customization, and Infinite Possibility.  Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and host of Amazing Business Radio.    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In "Home Delivery World: The Future of Fulfillment", Joe Lynch and John Beasley, General Manager of Home Delivery World, discuss he critical strategies and emerging technologies redefining the high-stakes journey from the warehouse to the consumer's front door. About John Beasley John Beasley, General Manager of Home Delivery World, has been part of the HDW team since 2021. With over 8 years in the events world, his goal is to bring innovation to the event and foster a community where attendees can make meaningful connections and drive their businesses forward. His background in sales, business development, partnerships combined with a degree in Operations Management with a specialization in Supply Chain Management has come full circle and has been instrumental in building Home Delivery World into the most important last-mile event in North America. About Terrapinn Terrapinn events have been sparking ideas, innovations and relationships that transform business for over 30 years. Using our global footprint, we bring innovators, disrupters and change agents together, discussing and demonstrating the technology, strategies and personalities that are changing the way the world does business. Home Delivery World is Terrapinn's premiere event in America and HDW is the leading event redefining the future of ecommerce logistics and supply chain strategy across North America. The event continues to be the go-to platform for big-box retailers, DTC shippers, grocers, manufacturers, and ecommerce brands seeking innovation and transformation in the last-mile. Key Takeaways: Home Delivery World: The Future of Fulfillment In "Home Delivery World: The Future of Fulfillment", Joe Lynch and John Beasley, General Manager of Home Delivery World, discuss he critical strategies and emerging technologies redefining the high-stakes journey from the warehouse to the consumer's front door. Laser Focus on the "Final Mile": Unlike general supply chain events like Manifest (which Joe calls the "Super Bowl of logistics"), HDW is a niche, specialized event. It focuses specifically on the journey from the warehouse to the consumer. If your business revolves around B2C delivery, middle-mile logistics, or white-glove service, this is the dedicated "world" for those specific challenges. The Delivery Team as a Brand Extension: A critical takeaway from the interview is that the delivery person is often the only physical point of contact a customer has with a brand. Whether they are a third-party contractor or a direct employee, their behavior—from wearing shoe covers to their attitude at the doorstep—can either solidify customer loyalty or ruin a multi-thousand dollar purchase in the "last 50 feet." Rapid Evolution of Delivery Technology: The "Future of Fulfillment" isn't just a buzzword; it's actively being deployed. The podcast highlights the shift from experimental to practical use of: Drones: Solving issues like "porch pirates" by delivering to backyards. Robotics & Autonomous Vans: Navigating the transition from diesel to electric and automated fleets. Inventory AI: Managing complex stock levels across multiple social commerce channels like TikTok and Instagram. Logistics as a Competitive Business Strategy: Logistics is no longer just a back-office cost; for ecommerce companies, it can represent up to 20% of revenue. The interview emphasizes that "free shipping" is a strategic business choice, not a logistical reality. Companies must attend these events to find regional carriers that offer better rates or services than national giants like UPS or FedEx. Managing Consumer Expectations: Unlike B2B deliveries, home consumers are not industry pros; they have extreme expectations and often want products almost the moment they hit "order." This necessitates a shift from traditional bulk shipping toward highly strategic inventory placement to ensure seamless same-day or next-day delivery. The Rise of Big & Bulky White-Glove Service: Fulfillment is moving beyond small parcels. A significant portion of HDW is dedicated to "Big and Bulky" items (like Pelotons, sofas, or outdoor fireplaces). These require specialized equipment—such as pallets with handheld brakes for steep driveways—and specialized services like in-home assembly, which are becoming major revenue drivers for retailers like Wayfair. Education Through a Diverse Ecosystem: The event serves as a massive "live classroom" where 200+ industry leaders from brands like Wayfair, Ulta Beauty, and Albertsons share what worked and what failed. It bridges the gap between massive "big dogs" (JB Hunt, Maersk, Amazon) and three-year-old startups, fostering a community where the most important connections happen between the shippers and the solution providers. Learn More About Home Delivery World: The Future of Fulfillment John Beasley | Linkedin HDW | Linkedin HDW HDW: Register Here HDW Agenda OneRail's Winning Strategy for Final Mile with Bill Catania Drone Delivery is Here with Tom Walker The Logistics of Logistics Podcast If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a positive review, subscribe, and share it with your friends and colleagues. The Logistics of Logistics Podcast: Google, Apple, Castbox, Spotify, Stitcher, PlayerFM, Tunein, Podbean, Owltail, Libsyn, Overcast Check out The Logistics of Logistics on Youtube  

Send us a textIn this conversation, Ryan and Riley delve into the intricacies of marketing, focusing on the art of offer creation, the psychology behind effective marketing strategies, and the unique challenges faced in high ticket health sales. They explore the allure of the info space, discussing both its potential and pitfalls, while emphasizing the importance of nuance in health advice and marketing practices. The discussion highlights the need for marketers to understand their audience deeply and to craft offers that resonate on an emotional level. In this engaging conversation, Riley Lamont and Ryan explore the importance of having a mission in life, the impact of obsession on personal and professional growth, and the evolving landscape of health and wellness. They delve into the potential of platforms like WAP and the role of AI in business, emphasizing the need for creativity and mastery in a rapidly changing world. The discussion highlights the significance of unique perspectives and the necessity of stress testing ideas to achieve success.Chapters:00:00 The Art of Offer Creation03:02 Understanding the Core of Marketing06:00 The Emotional Drivers of Buying09:04 Navigating High Ticket Sales in Health12:05 The Allure and Challenges of the Info Space15:04 The Importance of Nuance in Health Discussions31:38 The Role of Bias in Health Testing36:42 Energy Production and Gut Health41:40 Personal Experiences with Health Protocols49:11 The Importance of a Mission in Life52:10 Navigating Business Challenges and Finding Passion58:33 Evaluating New Platforms in the Health Space01:01:17 Navigating Market Chaos: The Rise of WAP01:04:10 The Evolution of Education and E-commerce01:07:30 Embracing Failure: The Path to Innovation01:10:50 Mastery Over Quick Wins: A New Generation's Challenge01:12:19 The Importance of Stress Testing Ideas01:19:14 AI's Role in Shaping the Future of Work01:25:01 Curation and Creativity in the Age of AI01:30:53 The Acceleration of Change: Embracing New TechnologiesTakeawaysOffer creation is an art that goes beyond just selling a product.Mastering copywriting often leads to a deeper understanding of the offer itself.A good offer combines both transformation and mechanism.The health market presents unique challenges compared to business offers.High ticket health offers require a deep understanding of emotional resonance.The info space is filled with both ethical and unethical practices.B2B info products can be more straightforward than B2C due to sophistication levels.Nuance is crucial in health advice, as one size does not fit all.Many marketers struggle to disconnect from their own biases when selling to consumers.The rise of lifestyle marketing in the info space can lead to a race to the bottom. A mission is essential for personal and professional growth.Obsession can drive success and prevent self-destructive behavior.Blind faith in your mission can help you overcome challenges.Curation and taste are becoming more important than raw intelligence.AI is accelerating change in various industries, including marketing and creativity.Stress testing ideas is crucial for continuous improvement.Unique perspectives can lead to innovative solutions.The health and wellness industry is evolving rapidly.Platforms like WAP are changing the landscape of education and business.Mastery in a field requires dedication and a willingness to fail.Connect with Riley!  Connect with Us!https://www.instagram.com/alchemists.library/https://twitter.com/RyanJAyala

Mastering the "why" behind your audience's actions is the only way to break through the noise in an increasingly automated world. In this episode of Content Amplified, host Benjamin Ard sits down with April Grudier, a seasoned marketing leader with deep roots in both B2C and B2B, to explore the shift from surface-level demographics to belief-level audience insights. April reveals her "scrappy" methods for uncovering what keeps your customers up at night and explains why PR is no longer just "fluff"—it is a critical tool for teaching AI models who your brand is. Inside this episode:Belief vs. Demographics: Why the best content connects with what people value, protect, and prove, rather than just their job title. The Scrappy Researcher's Toolkit: How to find deep audience insights without a massive research department by leveraging sales calls, AI-summarized reviews, and niche media consumption. The Content Filter: A strategic approach to mapping content to the buyer's journey while ensuring every piece serves a clear purpose of awareness, engagement, or conversion. The PR Renaissance: How PR is shaping modern discoverability by feeding the large language models (LLMs) that power AI searches. Structuring for AI: Practical tips for formatting press releases and partner content to ensure your brand surfaces in AI-generated answers. About Our Guest: April Grudier is a versatile marketing leader who transitioned from a background in education to a prolific career in B2C and B2B marketing. Having held nearly every marketing role imaginable at major brands like Staples and BJ's Wholesale Club, she now brings her expertise to the payments industry. She currently serves as a marketing leader at BlueSnap (recently acquired by Payrock), where she focuses on global growth and integrated content strategies. Connect with April:LinkedIn: April Grudier Company Website: PayrocText us what you think about this episode!

Episode 413 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Scott Savitz, Founder and Managing Partner of Data Point Capital and Founder & former CEO of Shoebuy.com which is now known as Shoes.com. In my opinion, Boston doesn't give itself enough credit, especially when it comes to consumer brands. It's the home to consumer icons like Bose, SharkNinja, Dunkin, TJX, and many more. But if you look at the footwear category, it is a powerhouse with leading brands like New Balance, Converse, Sperry, Keds, Rockport and next generation companies like NoBull, Oofos, and BRUNT. So, maybe it comes as no surprise that one of the first companies to sell footwear online was headquartered in Boston and yes, that is Shoebuy. This was back in 1999, when buying shoes online wasn't a thing and even Zappos was just getting started. Thus, I was excited to break down this major eCommerce success story that completely disrupted an industry on so many different levels. Today, Scott is a Venture Capitalist and his firm, Data Point Capital, invests in revenue-stage technology companies across both B2B and B2C categories. The firm's portfolio includes DraftKings, Rent The Runway, Resident, Black Kite, Jebbit, and others. In this interview, we cover: * Scott's background story and early professional experience in the mortgage and banking industry. * What it was like building a company in the early days of eCommerce and ignoring the naysayers. * How Shoebuy won over the brands and the details about their - at the time - innovative virtual inventory model. * Strategies around customer acquisition combined with a focus on capital efficiency to scale the business. * The story of the acquisition to IAC. * What led Scott down the path of starting Data Point Capital and what they are targeting for investments. * And more

In this episode, we're joined by Liubomyr Pivtorak, Chief Product Officer at Hily, one of the world's fastest-growing dating apps with over 40 million users worldwide.Liubomyr has spent the last 10 years in B2C mobile, including 8 years in the hyper-competitive dating industry, leading products that scaled to 10M+ and 30M+ users globally.He'll take us behind the scenes of how Hily grew in a red ocean market, competing against giants like Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble — by running 100+ in-app experiments every quarter and obsessing over data, user behavior, and retention.You will discover:✅ The experiment-driven framework that powers Hily's growth (100+ experiments every quarter)✅ How to grow in a red ocean market like dating apps✅ What actually worked vs what failed — real growth experiment stories✅ The data-driven mindset behind scaling from millions to tens of millions of users✅ How to compete with giants like Hinge, Bumble, and Tinder using smarter experimentsLearn More:Try Hily → https://hily.com Connect with Liubomyr → https://www.linkedin.com/in/liubomyrp/You can also watch this video here: ⁠⁠https://youtube.com/live/rUiISNtS3ssGet training, coaching, and community: https://appmasters.com/academy/*********************************************SPONSORSGot tons of freemium users who won't upgrade? Encore turns free users into paying customers and reduces churn by adding smart, curated affiliate offers at key user moments. Everyone wins with Encore.Learn more at https://encorekit.com/*********************************************Still designing, resizing, and uploading screenshots manually? AppScreens lets you pick from hundreds of high-converting templates, generate for every device size and language in minutes, and upload automatically to directly to App Store Connect and Google Play Console. Trusted by more than 100K developers and ASO experts worldwide.Try it free: https://appscreens.com/?via=am*********************************************Follow us:YouTube: ⁠AppMasters.com/YouTube⁠Instagram: ⁠@App MastersTwitter: ⁠@App MastersTikTok: ⁠@stevepyoung⁠Facebook: ⁠App Masters⁠*********************************************

If you're stuck between having a startup and having something investors actually want to fund, this episode is for you. Our guest, Kevin Nesgoda—CEO of OutPaged and recent Founder Institute grad—dives into the messy middle of startup life, where great ideas often die without the right pressure, feedback, and mindset shift. After years of daydreaming and building but still feeling stuck between "interesting" and "investable," Kevin joined an accelerator to stress-test everything. Hear what broke, what shifted, and what finally clicked—plus his advice on resilience, determination, and what's needed to push through.  Topics Covered; Why most founders aren't actually fundable yet and how accelerators like Founders Institute expose the gap (and what they want in return) What surviving cancer taught Kevin about building a startup  How OutPaged went from "cool product" to investable business The mindset change that happens when you stop pitching and start pressure-testing your model Why early founders misunderstand what investors are really evaluating The B2C vs B2B framing decision that can make or break your raise What mentors and investor reviews reveal that you can't see from inside your own startup Why the solo-founder myth slows momentum and increases risk How team design becomes a signal of scale readiness What rejection teaches you when you treat it like data, not failure How accelerators prepare you for capital, not just Demo Day The difference between building something exciting and building something fundable Guest Bio Kevin Nesgoda is the CEO at OutPaged and a recent graduate of The Founders Institute. OutPaged is the platform that turns books into living, breathing worlds. It uses AI to pull apart character arcs, emotional threads, and world logic, then rebuilds them into immersive experiences through AR and XR. Kevin has talked to over 100 publishers, authors, and media founders. Everyone feels the same thing: it is time for a new chapter in storytelling. Download the app here.    About Your Host Jayla Siciliano, Shark Tank entrepreneur turned real estate investor, excels in building brands, teams, and products. CEO of a bi-coastal luxury short-term rental company, she also hosts the Seed Money Podcast, where she's on a mission to help early-stage entrepreneurs turn their ideas into reality!    Connect: Website: https://seedmoneypodcast.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaylasiciliano/ Subscribe and watch on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@seedmoneypodcast/    Subscribe, Rate, & Review Please rate, follow, and review the podcast on https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/seed-money/id1740815877 and https://open.spotify.com/show/0VkQECosb1spTFsUhu6uFY?si=5417351fb73a4ea1/! Hearing your comments and questions helps me come up with the best topics for the show!   Disclaimer The information in this podcast is educational and general in nature and does not take into consideration the listener's personal circumstances. Therefore, it is not intended to be a substitute for specific, individualized financial, legal, or tax advice.    

In this Health Moonshot Update, StartUp Health community member Christopher Jue of CAREgivers Insight joins Unity Stoakes to share how empowering caregivers can prevent crises and save the system money. Christopher draws on his own family experience and fresh pilot data to explain why caregivers should be treated as essential members of the care team. In this episode, they talk about: What four preventable hospitalizations taught him about the cost of underused caregiver insight How Caregiver Views turns everyday observations into clear, shareable trend lines Why pilots with Cancer Services of Midland achieved an 85% recommendation rate The strategic shift from a B2C mindset to payer and Medicare Advantage partners An AI roadmap that starts with summaries and moves toward real coaching for untrained caregivers How the Caregiving Health Moonshot is becoming a doorway into every Health Moonshot at StartUp Health This is a must listen for anyone building in value-based care, supporting an aging population, or caring for a loved one at home. Are you ready to tell YOUR story? Members of our Health Moonshot Communities are leading startups with breakthrough technology-driven solutions for the world's biggest health challenges. Exposure in StartUp Health Media to our global audience of investors and partners – including our podcast, newsletters, magazine, and YouTube channel – is a benefit of our Health Moonshot PRO Membership. To schedule a call and see if you qualify to join and increase brand awareness through our multi-media storytelling efforts, submit our three-minute application. If you're mission-driven, collaborative, and ready to contribute as much as you gain, you might be the perfect fit. » Learn more and apply today. Want more content like this? Sign up for StartUp Health Insider™ to get funding insights, news, and special updates delivered to your inbox.

Alex Tsepaev, Chief Strategy Officer at B2Prime, shares how the firm is scaling global crypto and TradFi operations under a unified compliance model. Topics include licensing in six countries, embedding DORA controls, B2C onboarding, AI automation, and launching crypto spot and perpetual products in the Bahamas.

#760 What if your favorite form of procrastination could be the key to your next million-dollar business? That's exactly what happened to Jacques Hopkins, an electrical engineer who turned his frustration with traditional piano lessons — and his love for a better, simpler way to play — into Piano in 21 Days, an online course that has generated millions in revenue. In this episode hosted by Kirsten Tyrrel, Jacques shares how he went from building circuits to building a thriving course business in a non-money-making niche. You'll learn how he found his unique value proposition, why you don't need to be the top expert to start teaching, and his three-phase method for creating not just a course — but a full-fledged course business. We also explore how to overcome imposter syndrome, build an audience the smart way, and design a business that supports the lifestyle you want! (Original Air Date - 6/1/25) What we discuss with Jacques: + Turning hobbies into businesses + Unique value proposition importance + Teaching without being an expert + Online course validation strategies + B2B vs. B2C course models + Building a course business + Avoiding the learning loop trap + Audience-first content strategy + Why focus beats many offers + Creating systems for freedom Thank you, Jacques! Check out Piano in 21 Days at ⁠Pianoin21Days.com⁠⁠⁠⁠. Check out The Online Course Guy at ⁠TheOnlineCourseGuy.com⁠. Watch the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠video podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ of this episode! To get access to our FREE Business Training course go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠MillionaireUniversity.com/training⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ To get exclusive offers mentioned in this episode and to support the show, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠millionaireuniversity.com/sponsors⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Everybody talks about creativity, but very few are willing to measure it. The real advantage comes from combining imagination with obsession.That's the lesson of MrBeast, the YouTube creator who turned data-driven storytelling into one of the most powerful media brands in the world. In this episode, we explore his marketing playbook with the help of our special guest Rodrigo Fontes, VP of Marketing at QuillBot.Together, we break down what B2B marketers can learn from engineering audience retention, building repeatable content formats, and investing just a little more effort to create work people can't look away from.About our guest, Rodrigo FontesRodrigo Fonte is the VP of Marketing at Quillbot. He is a strategic marketing leader with over 15 years of experience building and scaling brands across both B2C and B2B markets. Rodrigo is currently driving growth in Generative AI and consumer tech at QuillBot (Learneo). He's also leading the global marketing organization behind one of the world's most widely used AI writing assistants, overseeing Brand, Media, Influencers, Social, SEO, ASO, Content, Product Marketing, and International Expansion.What B2B Companies Can Learn From MrBeast:Obsess over audience retention, not just reach. MrBeast doesn't just aim for views, he studies exactly where attention drops and rebuilds content accordingly. Rodrigo says, “His data-driven customer obsession on every detail to make things work, I think that's such an amazing thing for us marketers today to think [about].” B2B teams should move beyond impressions and focus on where prospects lose interest and why. Analyze content the same way you analyze funnels. Retention is the real signal of relevance.Show people something they've never seen before. Originality is MrBeast's core advantage. He doesn't just execute well, he starts with ideas audiences haven't encountered. Rodrigo reminds us, “The fight for attention is brutal today.” If your content looks like your competitors', it's already invisible. Massive budgets aren't required to execute original ideas, as MrBeast proved in his early viral videos. Novelty is a priceless strategic asset.Use culture as a creative multiplier. MrBeast often revamps formats by tapping into existing cultural moments (e.g., Squid Game, Willy Wonka). Rodrigo points out, “He can really revamp a format if he adds culture to [it].” B2B strategy doesn't have to reinvent the wheel. Tie your ideas to what your audience already cares about instead of forcing attention from scratch.Quote“ Go deeper on what really, already has the attention of your target audience, instead of starting from scratch. What are they paying attention to already?”Time Stamps[01:03] Meet Rodrigo Fontes, VP of Marketing at QuillBot[02:13] Why MrBeast?[09:07] Why His Content Works[16:58] The Power of Effort and Originality[22:05] Repeatable Formats and Serialized Content[29:20] Lessons from Branded Content and Influencers[42:45] QuillBot's Content Strategy[47:56] Advice for Marketing Leaders[51:12] Final Thoughts and TakeawaysLinksConnect with Rodrigo on LinkedInLearn more about QuillBotAbout Remarkable!Remarkable! is created by the team at Caspian Studios, the premier B2B Podcast-as-a-Service company. Caspian creates both nonfiction and fiction series for B2B companies. If you want a fiction series check out our new offering - The Business Thriller - Hollywood style storytelling for B2B. Learn more at CaspianStudios.com. In today's episode, you heard from Ian Faison (CEO of Caspian Studios) and Meredith Gooderham (Head of Production). Remarkable was produced this week by Jess Avellino, mixed by Scott Goodrich, and our theme song is “Solomon” by FALAK. Create something remarkable. Rise above the noise. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Send us a textIn this episode of Navigating the Customer Experience, we sit down with Mark Fithian and Jeff Rosenberg, cofounders of WideOpen, a strategic customer experience (CX) consulting firm, and authors of the book The CX Imperatives: Five Strategic Practices for Renewal of the Customer-Centered Enterprise. With more than 30 years of experience each, Mark and Jeff bring deep insight from working across industries including healthcare, technology, automotive, consumer goods, and professional services.Mark and Jeff share their professional journeys and the “red thread” that has guided their careers: a commitment to understanding customers as humans, not just data points. From early roles in marketing, operations, and consulting, both authors describe moments when they realized organizations often make decisions without considering how customers truly experience them. That realization ultimately led to the founding of WideOpen and the development of the frameworks outlined in their book.The conversation centers on The CX Imperatives and its purpose as a practitioner's guide for CX leaders and professionals who already care about customer experience and want to embed customer centricity across the enterprise. Rather than focusing on one-off “wow moments,” the book emphasizes creating consistent, meaningful experiences across the entire customer journey that align with business strategy and drive growth and innovation. Importantly, the authors stress that the principles are industry-agnostic, applicable to both B2B and B2C organizations of all sizes.Mark outlines the book's five strategic CX practices:Insights – deeply understanding customers as emotional, human beings, not just metrics;CX Strategy – aligning customer insights with business objectives to focus effort where it matters most;Blueprinting – translating strategy into operationally actionable designs;Operating Model – enabling cross-functional collaboration through roles, processes, and shared accountability; andCulture – ensuring employees understand, believe in, and are equipped to deliver the intended experience.Through real-world examples, including healthcare, Mark and Jeff demonstrate how engaging frontline employees and embedding CX into culture can generate both tangible outcomes (cost savings, growth initiatives) and intangible benefits (employee ownership, sustainability, and trust).The discussion also explores the connection between internal culture and external customer experience, with both guests agreeing that consistently poor CX is often a symptom of internal organizational challenges. They share practical advice for CX leaders navigating varying levels of leadership support, emphasizing the importance of meeting stakeholders where they are and addressing resistance with empathy and clarity.To bring CX to life, Mark and Jeff each share standout customer experiences—from thoughtful airline journey improvements to an unexpectedly empowering healthcare onboarding experience—illustrating how intentional design can transform how customers feel.The episode wraps with personal insights into the tools, books, and mindsets that inspire them today, reflections on why this is an exciting time for the CX discipline, and where listeners can connect with them and learn more about their work, workshops, and book.This episode is a must-listen for leaders and practitioners looking to move beyond surface-level CX and build customer-centered enterprises that deliver sustainable value for both customers and the business.

In episode 104 of Venture Everywhere, Scott Hartley, co-founder and managing partner at Everywhere Ventures, talks with Kat Garcia, co-founder and co-CEO of Ground, a startup building the AI revenue system for autonomous revenue generation and retention. Kat shares how she left BCG Digital Ventures to work for free with B2C companies, uncovering that operators didn't need more productivity tools—they needed technology that could autonomously generate revenue on their behalf. She discusses how Ground's AI ontology transforms static metrics into actions that drive up to 10% more top-line revenue, moving companies from dashboards to agentic commerce.In this episode, you will hear:Unlocking unrealized revenue potential in fragmented tech stacks.Autonomous revenue generation beyond productivity tools.Real-time commerce ontology that learns and acts.Proving autonomous systems in high-churn e-commerce.Democratizing enterprise capabilities for mid-size brands.Learn more about Kat Garcia | GroundLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kat-garcia-online/Website: https://joinground.com/Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4zuhbqKwF34X0wqDXa1Lsx?si=91da32c586844f1aLearn more about Scott Hartley | Everywhere VenturesLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scotthartley/Website: https://everywhere.vc

What's on your mind? Let CX Passport know...B2B customer experience is often treated like B2C with bigger contracts and longer sales cycles. That shortcut causes real problems. In this episode, Rick talks with Kári Thor Runarsson about why B2B CX needs its own thinking, its own metrics, and far more attention to relationships that quietly drift long before renewal.Kári has spent his career in B2B, including startups and non-tech industries, questioning borrowed frameworks and shallow measurements. The result is a grounded conversation about silence, contracts, commoditization, and why experience is often the only real differentiator left.Key TakeawaysB2B decisions involve multiple stakeholders with competing success metricsSilence is one of the strongest churn signals in B2B relationshipsNet Promoter Score breaks down quickly in complex B2B environmentsCustomer experience becomes decisive as industries commoditizeStartups often overestimate how well they understand customer dissatisfactionCHAPTERS00:00 Introduction and first Iceland-based CX Passport guest 02:00 Marketing and CX are more fluid than organizations admit 04:50 What B2B leaders misunderstand about customer experience 07:45 Silence, contracts, and how churn really starts 10:40 Stakeholders, misaligned objectives, and missed signals 14:20 CX maturity across regions and markets 16:00 First Class Lounge 20:30 Why CX matters most outside of tech and SaaS 24:20 Where B2C thinking hurts B2B CX efforts 27:00 CX advice for B2B startups 28:50 Where to find Kári and closing thoughtsGuest LinksKári Thor Runarsson on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/karithor/Cliezen: https://www.cliezen.comListen: https://www.cxpassport.com Watch: https://www.youtube.com/@cxpassport Newsletter: https://cxpassport.kit.com/signupI'm Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The views and opinions expressed are those of the hosts and guests and should not be taken as legal, financial, or professional advice. Always consult with a qualified attorney, financial advisor, or other professional regarding your specific situation. The opinions expressed by guests are solely theirs and do not necessarily represent the views or positions of the host(s).

How do you keep in touch with old leads and old customers in your database? Or, how do you keep in touch with your family and friends? Our guest today is CEO/Founder of Warmstart, Dave Sifry, who has created a solution to help all of us do a better job of keeping those relationships with the people we care about.TODAY'S WIN-WIN:Missionaries or Mercenaries, decide which one you are and find others that are aligned with you.LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:Schedule your free franchise consultation with Big Sky Franchise Team: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/. You can visit our guest's website at: https://warmstart.ai/Attend our Franchise Sales Training Workshop:  https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/franchisesalestraining/Connect with our guests on social:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dsifry/ABOUT OUR GUEST:Dave Sifry is the founder and CEO of Warmstart, a platform built to help founders and executives grow through reconnecting with the people who know and love them, but haven't heard from them in a while! Warmstart centers on one idea: people move faster when their network works for them, so the product makes it easy to build and surface warm paths into customers, investors, and partners. Dave is a nine-time founder. He created Technorati, the world's largest blog search engine, and was an executive at Lyft and Reddit. Based in San Francisco, he has built multiple B2C and B2B companies, and has raised multiple rounds of venture funding, scaled teams, and led products used by millions. He has also been through hypergrowth at 3 different companies, giving him a view of how organizations succeed as they grow, and how relationships shape opportunities at every stage.ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/.The information provided in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered financial, legal, or professional advice. Always consult with a qualified professional before making any business decisions. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host, Big Sky Franchise Team, or our affiliates. Additionally, this podcast may feature sponsors or advertisers, but any mention of products or services does not constitute an endorsement. Please do your own research before making any purchasing or business decisions.

Send us a textWhen evaluating the CRM category, our analysis intentionally moves beyond CRM modules embedded within ERP systems and instead focuses on best-of-breed CRM platforms and the full spectrum of capabilities that define modern customer engagement. This includes not only core operational CRM functions such as sales force automation and pipeline management, but also upstream marketing automation, downstream customer experience and service workflows, contact center operations, events, search, and the increasing convergence with CMS and website capabilities that anchor the digital customer journey. While vendors may brand these pillars as Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, or reposition them around AI- and agentic-workflow narratives, the underlying architecture remains consistent, and strategic orientation matters: some platforms are designed for specific micro-verticals with tightly integrated suites, while others pursue broad horizontal coverage. These choices materially affect extensibility, process design, and long-term fit, particularly across B2B versus B2C use cases, where many CRM systems struggle with complex B2B sales cycles—driving continued demand for low-code and no-code customization and deeper integration across CRM, eCommerce, and CMS ecosystems.In this episode, our host Sam Gupta discusses the top 10 CRM systems in 2026. He also discusses several variables that influence the rankings of these CRM systems. Finally, he shares the pros and cons of each CRM system.Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBLUBdDuWQcRead: https://www.elevatiq.com/post/top-erp-systems/Questions for Panelists?

Jason William Johnson, PhD, Founder of SoundStrategist, is driven by two lifelong passions: creating and teaching. Through SoundStrategist, Jason designs AI-powered learning experiences and intelligent coaching systems that blend music, gamification, and experiential learning to drive real skill development and engagement for enterprises and entrepreneur support organizations. We explore Jason's journey as a musician, educator, and business coach, and how he fused those disciplines into an AI-first company. Jason shares his AI for Deep Experts Framework, showing how subject-matter experts can identify an industry pain point, envision a solution, brainstorm with AI, leverage AI tools to build it, and go after high-value impact—turning deep expertise into scalable products and platforms without needing to be technical. He also explains how AI accelerates research and product design, how “vibe coding” enables rapid MVP development, and why focusing on high-value B2B impact creates faster traction with less complexity. — Turn Your Expertise Into Software with Jason W. Johnson Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here, the Founder of the Summit OS Group, developing the Summit OS Business Operating System. And my guest today is Jason William Johnson, PhD, the Founder of SoundStrategist. His team designs AI-powered learning experiences and deploys intelligent coaching systems for enterprises and entrepreneur support organizations blending music, gamification, and experiential learning to drive real skill development and engagement. Jason, welcome to the show.  Thanks for having me, Steve.  I’m excited to have you and to learn about how you blend music and learning and all that together. But to start with, I’d like to ask you my favorite question. What is your personal ‘Why’ and how are you manifesting it in your business?  I would say my personal ‘Why’ is creating and teaching. Those are my two passions. So when I was younger, I was always a creative. I did music, writing, and a variety of other things. So I was always been passionate about creating, but I’ve also been passionate about teaching. I've been informally a teacher for my entire adult life—coaching, training. I've also been an actual professor. So through  SoundStrategist, I’m kind of combining those two passions: the passion for teaching and imparting wisdom, along with the passion for creating through music, AI-powered experiences, gamification, and all of those different things. So I'm really in my happy place.Share on X  Yeah, sounds like it. It sounds like you're very excited talking about this. So this is quite an unusual type of business, and I wonder how do you stumbled upon this kind of combination, this portfolio of activities and put them all into a business. How did that come about? So Liam Neeson says, “I have a unique combination of skills,” like in Taken. I guess that's kind of how I came up with SoundStrategist. I've pretty much been in music forever. I've been a musician, songwriter, producer, and rapper since I was a child. My father was a musician, so it was kind of like a genetic skill that I kind of adopted and was cultivated at an early age. So I was always passionate about music. Then got older, grew up, got into business, and really became passionate about training and educating. So I pretty much started off running entrepreneurship centers. My whole career has been in small business and economic development. SoundStrategist was a happy marriage of the two when I realized, oh, I can actually use rap to teach entrepreneurship, to teach leadership skills, and now to teach AI and a variety of other things.Share on X So pretty much it was just that fusion of things. And then when we launched the company, it was around the time ChatGPT came out. So we really wanted to make sure we were building it to be AI-first. At first, we were just using AI in our business operations, but then we started experimenting  with it for client work—like integrating AI-powered coaches in some of the training programs we were running and things like that. And that really proved to be really valuable, because one of the things I learned when I was running programs throughout my career was you always wanted to have the learning side and the coaching side. Because the learning side generalizes the knowledge for everybody and kind of level-sets everybody.Share on X But everybody’s business, or everybody’s situation, is extremely unique, so you need to have that personalized support and assistance. And when we were running programs in the entrepreneurship centers I were running and things like that, we would always have human coaches. AI enabled us to kind of scale coaching for some of the programs we’re building at SoundStrategist through AI. So with me having been a business coach for over 15 years, I knew how to train the AI chatbots. It started off as simple chatbots, and now it's evolved into full agents that use voice and all those other capabilities. But it really started as, let's put some chatbots into some of our courses and some of our programs to kind of reinforce the learning, personalize it, and then it just developed from there. Okay, so there's a lot in there, and I'd like to unpack some of it. When you say use rap to teach, I’m thinking about rap is kind of a form of poetry. So how do you use poetry, or how do you use rap to teach people? Is it more catchy if it is delivered in the form of a rap song? How does it work? So you kind of want to make it catchy. Our philosophy is this: when you listen to it, it should sound like a good song.Share on X Because there’s this real risk of it sounding corny if it's done wrong, right? So we always focus on creating good music first and foremost when we’re creating a music-based lesson. So it should be a good song. It should be something you hear and think, oh, between the chorus and the music, this actually sounds good. But then, the value of music is that once you learn the song, you learn the concept, right? Because once you memorize the song, you memorize the lyrics, which means you memorize the concept. One of the things we also make sure to do is introduce concepts. The best way I could describe this is this, and this might be funny, but I grew up in the nineties, and a lot of rappers talked about selling dr*gs and things like that. I never sold dr*gs in my life. But just by listening to rap music and hearing them introduce those concepts, if I ever decided to go bad, I would have a working theory, right? So the same thing with entrepreneurship, and the same thing with business principles. You can create songs that introduce the concepts in a way where if a person's never done it, they're introduced to the vocabulary.Share on X They’re introduced to the lived experiences. They’re introduced to the core principles. And then they can take that, and then they can go apply it and have a working theory on how to execute in their business. So that’s kind of the philosophy that we took, let’s make it memorable music, but also introduce key vocabulary. Let’s introduce lived experiences. Let’s introduce key concepts so that when people are done listening to the song, they memorize it, they embody it, and they connect with it. Now they have a working theory for whatever the song is about.  And are you using AI to actually write the song?  No, we're not. That’s one of the things we haven’t really integrated on the AI front, because the AI is not good enough to take what’s exactly in my head and turn it into a song. It’s good for somebody who doesn’t have any songwriting capability or musical capability to create something that’s cool. But as a musician, as somebody who writes, you have a vision in your head on how something should sound sonically, and the AI is not good enough to take what’s in my head and put it into a song. Now, what we are using are some of the AI tools like Suno for background music. So at first, we used that to create all our background music for our courses from scratch. We are using some of the AI to help with some of the background music and everything and all of that so that we can have original stuffShare on X as opposed to having to use licensed music from places like Epidemic Sound. So we are using it for like the background music. But for the actual music-based lessons, we're still doing those old school.  Okay, that's pretty good. We are going to dive in a little bit deeper here, but before we go there, I’d like to talk about the framework that you’re bringing to the show. I think we called it the AI for Deep Experts Framework. That's the working title right now, but yeah, we're still finalizing it. But that’s the working title. Yeah.  But the idea—at least the way I'm understanding it—is that if someone has deep domain expertise, AI can be a real accelerator and amplifier of that expertise. Yep.  So people who are listening to this and they have domain expertise and they want to do AI so that they can deliver it to more people, reach more people, create more value, what is the framework? What is the five-step framework to get them there?  Number one: provided that you have deep expertise, you should be able to identify a core pain point in your respective industry that needs solving.Share on X Maybe it’s something that, throughout your career, you wanted to solve, but you weren’t able to get the resources allocated to get it done in your job. Or maybe it required some technical talent and you weren’t a developer, or whatever, right? But you should be able to identify what’s the pain point, a sticking pain point that needs to be solved—and if it's solved, it could really create value for customers. That's just old-school opportunity recognition. Number two: now, the great thing about AI is that you can leverage AI to do a lot of deep research on the problem. So obviously, you're still going to have conversations to better understand the pain point further. You're going to look at your own lived experiences and things like that. But now you can also leverage AI tools—using Perplexity or Claude—to do deep research on a market opportunity. So whether or not you have experience in market research, you can use an AI tool to help identify the total addressable market. You can brainstorm with it to uncover additional pain points, and it help you flesh out your value proposition, your concept statement, and all of those things that are critical to communicating the offering. Because before we transact in money, we always transact in language, right? So pretty much, AI can help you articulate the value proposition, understand the pain point, all of those different things. And then also if you have like deep expertise and you haven't really turned it into a framework, the AI can help you framework it and then develop a workflow to deliver value.Share on X So now you have the framework, you have the market understanding, and all of those different things. AI can even help you think through what the product would look like—the user experience, the workflow, things like that. Now you can use the AI-powered tool to help you build that. You can use something like Lovable. You can use something like Bolt. You could use something like Cursor, all different AI-powered tools. For people who are newer to development and have never done development before, I would recommend something like Lovable or maybe Bolt. But once you get more comfortable and want to make sure you're building production-ready software, then you move to something like Cursor.  Cursor has a large enough context window—the context window is basically the memory of an AI tool. It has a large enough context window to deal with complex codebases. A lot of engineers are using it to build real, production-ready platforms. But for an MVP, Bolt and Lovable are more than good enough. So one of the things I recommend when building with one of these tools is to do what's called a PRD prompt. PRD stands for Product Requirements Document.Share on X For those who aren’t familiar with software development, typically, and this is not even really happening anymore, but traditionally with software development, you would have the product manager create a Product Requirements Document. So this basically outlines the goals of the platform, target audience, core features, database, architecture, technology stack, all of the different things that engineers would need to do in order to build the platform. So you can go to something like Claude, or ChatGPT, and you can say: “Create a PRD prompt for this app idea,” and then give as much detail as possible—the features, how it works, brand colors, all of those different things. Then the AI tool—whether you're using ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini—will generate your PRD prompt. So it’s going to be like this really, really long prompt. But it’s going to have all of the things that the AI tool, web-building or app-building tool needs to know in order to build the platform. It’s going to have all the specifications. So you copy and paste.  Is this what people call vibe coding?  Yeah, this is vibe coding. But the PRD prompt helps you become more effective at vibe coding because it gives the AI the specifications it needs and the language that it understands to increase the likelihood that you build your platform correctly. Because once you build the PRD prompt, the AI is going to know, okay, this is the database structure. It's going to know whether this is a React app versus a Next.js app. It's going to know, okay, we're building a frontend with Netlify. The stuff that you may not know, the AI will know, and it will build the platform for that. So then you take that prompt, you paste it into Lovable, paste it into Cursor, and then you can kind of get into your vibe coding flow. Don't let the hype fool you, though, because a lot of people will say, “Oh, I built this app in 15 minutes using Lovable.” No—it still requires time. But if you can build a full-stack application in two weeks when it typically takes several months, that’s still like super fast. So pretty much, on average, you can build something in a couple of weeks—especially once you get familiar with the process, you can build something in a couple of weeks. But if this is your first time ever doing this, pay attention to things like when the app debugs and some of the other issues that come up.  Start paying attention because you’re going to learn certain things by doing. As you go through the process, you'll begin to understand things like, okay, this is what an edge function is, this is what a backend is. You’ll start learning these different things as you’re going through the process, right? So you get the platform built. Now the next step is you want to distribute the platform. So obviously, if you’ve been in your industry for a while and you have some expertise, you should have some distribution. You should have some folks in your space who are your ICP that you can kind of start having some customer conversations with and start trying to sell the platform. One of the things that I always recommend is going B2B and selling something for significant valueShare on X as opposed to going B2C and selling a bunch of $19.99 subscriptions. And the reason for that is a couple of different things. Number one, when you have to do a lot of volume, your business model becomes more complicated. And then you have to introduce things to manage that volume. Whereas if you’re selling a solution that’s a five-figure to six-figure offering, like 10 clients, 15 clients, the amount of money that you can get to with less complexity in your business model. So I always say go B2B, at least a five-figure annual offering, because I know most of the offerings that we offer are at least high five figures, low six figures—subscriptions, SaaS licensing, or whatever. And that way it just introduces less complexity to your business model, and it allows you to get as much revenue as possible. And then as you go to market, you’re going to learn. So the learning aspect, you’re going to learn maybe customers want this or this feature. We thought the people were going to use the platform this way, but they’re actually using it this way. So you’re always learning, always evolving, and adjusting the offering. Okay, so let's say I have deep expertise in some area—maybe investment banking or whatever. I want to use AI. I identify an industry pain point that I've addressed or maybe I personally experienced. I visualize a solution, then I brainstorm with ChatGPT or Claude or whatever, figure out what to do, and then I leverage AI tools like Cursor, Lovable, or Bolt. I set the price point. I go B2B. Is this something that, as a subject-matter expert, is efficient for me to do myself because I have the expertise and the vision? Or is it better for me to hire someone to do this?  It depends on what your bandwidth is. I mean, pretty much I’m of the firm belief that like these are skills that you probably want to unlock anyway. So it might be worth going through the process of learning the tools, leveraging them, and everything, and all of that. And that’s kind of how you future-proof yourself. Now, obviously, if you have bandwidth limitations, there are firms and organizations that you could hire, et cetera, et cetera, that can do it for you. Obviously, developers and things like that. But the funny thing about a lot of developers is, even though they're using AI, they're still charging the prices they charged before AI, right? They’re just getting it done faster, and their margins are a lot lower. So you're still going to pay, in a lot of instances, developer pricing for a platform. Those are the things that you have to consider as far as your own personal situation. But me personally, I believe these are skills worth unlocking.Share on X Because one of the things is, if you get very senior in your career—let's say you've been there 15, 16 years, 20 years—we all know there's this point where you either move up to the C-suite or you get caught in upper-middle-management purgatory, where you're kind of in that VP, senior director space, et cetera, et cetera, and you just kind of hover there. At that point, your career moves tend to be lateral—going from one VP role to another VP role, one senior director role to another senior director role, right? At that point, your income potential starts to get limited. So unlocking one of these skills and becoming more entrepreneurial is something I genuinely believe is worth developing personally. And what would you say is the time requirement for someone to get competent in vibe coding?  Three months minimal. You could be pretty solid in three months.  But three months full-time or three months part-time?  Three months part-time.  So three months. That's about 143 working hours in a regular month. So that's basically around 420–430 hours if you were full-time.  If you spend weekends working on your project, learning how to build it, taking notes, and actually going through the process, you can get pretty decent in a couple of months. Now, obviously, there are still levels as you continue and to progress and things like that, but you can get pretty solid in a couple months. Another thing you want to consider is who you're selling to. You obviously wanna make sure that your platform security is really well, is really done. So even if you build it yourself and then you have an engineer do code review, that’s cheaper than having them build it. I think if you spend three months, you can get really good at building solutions for what you need to get done. And then from there, you just get better and better and better and better.  How do I know that, let's say I hire someone in Serbia to do a code review for me? Let's say I learn the vibe coding thing and create the prototype, then I have someone to clean the code. How do I know that they did a good job or not?  You really don’t. You really don’t know until the platform’s in the wild, and it’s like, okay, it’s secure. So there are some things that you can do to check behind people. Let's say you don't have the money to do a full security audit or hire someone specifically for a security review, a developer for security review. One of the things that you can do is you can do multi-agent review. Like you take your codebase, have Claude review it, have OpenAI Codex review it, have a Cursor agent review it. You have multiple agents do a review. Then they kind of check each other’s work, if you will.  They kinda identify things that others may not have identified, so you can get the collective wisdom of those three to be able to be like, “Okay, I need to shore this up. I need to fix this. I need to address that.” That gives you more confidence. It still doesn’t replace a person who has deep expertise and making sure they build secure code, but it will catch common issues, like hard-coding API keys, which is a risk, right? It’ll catch those type of things that typically happen. But let’s say you do have a security, a code review, you could just kind of take that same approach also to check their work. Because they shouldn’t find any major vulnerabilities. The AI agents that come in after it shouldn’t really find any major vulnerabilities if it was like done securely securely. Another thing to consider is that a lot of these tools use Supabase for the backend and database. Supabase also has a built-in security advisor, including an AI security advisor, that points out security issues, performance problems, and configuration errors. So like you do have some AI-powered check and balances to check behind people.Share on X  Interesting. So basically, I can audit their applications, and the AI will check the code and tell me what needs to be improved?  Yeah. And they can make the fixes for you.  Yeah. Wow, that’s amazing. It still sounds a little bit overwhelming. It’s basically a language, a new language to learn, isn’t it?  It’s not really — it’s English. That’s the amazing thing about it—it’s English. I mean, you literally talk to AI in natural language, and it builds stuff for you, which is, if somebody is like, had a idea for a minute, because I mean, pretty much running entrepreneurship centers, I’ve known so many people who’ve had ideas that they were never able to launch or build, and then they see somebody build it later. If you learn these skills, you get to the point where anything that's in your head, you can kind of start bringing it to life in reality.Share on X And even if you've got to bring somebody in to make sure it's secure and production-ready, it's way cheaper than having them build it from scratch. And then another thing that you’ll find also is if you’re able to build something, let’s say you want to turn it into a startup or something, right? It’s a lot easier to bring in a technical co-founder when they don’t got to build the thing from scratch, and then they also see that you were able to build something, they’re able to see your product vision, et cetera, et cetera. It becomes a lot more easier to recruit people who actually have that expertise into the company because you’ve already handled the hard part. You got something and it works. And all they got to do is just come in, make it safe, and make it work better.  Yeah, that is very interesting. It feels analogous to writing a book yourself or having a ghostwriter. Because essentially, you are vibe coding with a ghostwriter, right? You tell the stories, and then the ghostwriter writes the book for you. Probably now you can use  AI to do that. Yep.  But that's a skill. Not everyone has the skill to write it themselves, and then they need to go to the ghostwriter, but still is their book, right?  Yep.  So it sounds a little bit similar. That’s fascinating. So what’s the path to launching an MVP? So let’s say I’m a subject matter expert, and I want to launch an MVP within a few weeks. Is there a path for me to go there?  Once you get good with the platform, once you get comfortable with the tools, yeah. So for example, we're launching an AI platform. It's an AI coaching platform, but it's also a data analytics platform. Basically, it's targeted to entrepreneur support organizations and municipalities supporting small businesses. So on the front end, it's an AI-powered advisor — it's a hotline that people can call 24/7. But on the back end, the municipalities and entrepreneur support organizations get access to analytics from each of those calls. We built this in two weeks. We’re already talking to customers, we’re already having conversations, and all of those things. We literally brought it to market in two weeks. So the thing is, once you kind of get caught up with the tools—and I'm not a developer, I'm not a developer by trade at all. I had a tech startup before, but I was a non-technical founder. I just know how to put together a product. But once you get good with the tools, that's very conceivable. And then you just go out there, and you go in the market, you start having conversations with your ideal customer profile.Share on X As you’re going through that process, you’re learning, okay, maybe this isn’t my ideal customer profile, this is their pain point. Or maybe instead of this being the feature they want, this is the feature they want. And the crazy thing about it is in the past you had to really get that ICP real tight and the feature set real tight because it cost so much money to go back and have to make tweaks and changes and to get it to market in the first place. Now, you can get a new feature added in the afternoon. It allows you to go to market a little bit faster. You don’t have to have the ideal feature set. You don’t have to have the ICP figured out. You get out there, you learn, and then you’re able to iterate a lot faster because the cost of development is super cheap now, and the speed in which like new features can be added or deprecated is a lot faster. So it allows you to go to market a lot faster than in the past.  Okay, I got it. You can do this, you can code. What do you recommend for someone who’s starting out? You mentioned Lovable, Bolt, and then Cursor. Is Cursor like an advanced product?  Cursor’s a little bit more advanced, but if you want to build production-ready software, it's something you're going to eventually have to use. But can you convert from Lovable to Cursor?  Yes, you can. Yep. So what you typically do — and I still do this to this day — is every time I launch a product, I build it in Bolt first. You could use Bolt or Lovable, either one's fine. I use Bolt because Bolt came out first, and that's what I started using. Then Lovable came out like a month later. But I use Bolt. I’ll spin up the idea in Bolt. And the reason I like doing it in Bolt or Lovable is that it's really good at doing two things. It's really good at quickly launching your initial feature set, and then spinning up your backend. Your database — it's really good at that. So I start off in Bolt, then I connect it to a repository.  For those who aren't familiar with GitHub, there's a button in Bolt or Lovable where you can easily connect it to a GitHub repository. So then once I kind of get the app to a point where the basic skeleton is set, then I go into Cursor. Then I pull the repository into Cursor and do the heavy work. The reason Cursor has a learning curve is because there are still some traditional developer things you need to know to spin up a project. Your initial database — it's a lot harder to spin up your initial database and backend in Cursor. It's also harder to identify your initial libraries and all of those things. If you're a developer, it's not difficult. But if you're new, it is. Bolt and Lovable abstract those things out for you. So you start it off in Bolt or Lovable. Basically, since they're limited in their context windows, when you're trying to build something complex, eventually they start making a whole bunch of errors. They basically start getting stup*d. That's when you know it's time to move to Cursor, because Cursor can handle the heavy lifting. So if you build in Bolt or Lovable until it gets stup*d, then you move to Cursor for the heavy lifting.  And then is there a point where Cursor gets stup*d as well? No. Cursor has a couple of different things that allow it to extend its context window, which is his memory. You can put documentation into Cursor. For example, whatever your PRD prompt was, you can save that as a document in Cursor. You can also set rules. One of my rules in Cursor is: I'm not technical, so explain everything in layman's terms. And then as you’re starting to build code, you can save that code or you can point it to that repository. So there's some more flexibility with Cursor as far as managing your context window.Share on X But with Bolt and Lovable, the context window is more limited right now. So I start off in those, and then once I kind of get the skeleton up, then I move to Cursor. And at that point, a lot of the complicated things like spinning up your dev environment and all those things are kind of abstracted out. Then you can just jump in and use it the same way you use Bolt and Lovable. Fantastic. Fantastic. So, Jason, super helpful information for domain experts who want to build an application that will help them promote their product or manifest their ideas in product form. I think that’s super powerful. So if someone would like to learn about SoundStrategist and what SoundStrategist can do for them in terms of learning and experiential products, incorporating music, or building curriculum, or they would just like to connect with you to learn more about what you can do for them, where should they go?  Jason William Johnson, PhD, on LinkedIn, or www.getsoundstrategies.com.  Okay. Well, Jason William Johnson, you are really ahead of the curve, especially connecting this whole idea of vibe coding to people who are subject matter experts and not technical. And you know it because you don't come from a technical background, yet you've mastered it. I’m living it. Everything I’m sharing—this is not like a theoretical framework. I'm living all of this. So everything I’m saying. Super authentic. And especially coming from you—you understand what it's like to not be technical person, learning this, applying this.  So if you'd like to do this, learn more, or maybe have Jason guide you, reach out to him. You can find him on LinkedIn at Jason William Johnson, PhD, or visit www.getsoundstrategies.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, make sure you follow us and subscribe on YouTube, follow us on LinkedIn, and on Apple Podcasts. Because every week I bring a super interesting entrepreneur, subject matter expert, or a combination of the two—like Jason—to the show, who will help you accelerate your journey with frameworks and AI frameworks in that gear. So thank you for coming, Jason, and thank you for listening. Important Links: Jason's LinkedIn Jason's website

A single email can cost millions of dollars. Not because of what it says, but because it didn't reach the right people at the right time. Most companies treat content as marketing fluff until it fails spectacularly. Then suddenly everyone realizes it's the invisible infrastructure holding together every digital experience.Join hosts Chuck Moxley and Nick Paladino as they sit down with Rafael Carranza, who's spent his career proving that content isn't just words on a page. Starting at a wire service during the dot-com boom when thousands of websites suddenly needed live content, Rafael moved to Microsoft where he helped open their content platform to publishers. He then went to Amazon building decision-making systems for thousands of sellers navigating complex rules, and now to PitchBook where data trust drives financial decisions. We explore why trust is the foundation of all content operations, why Microsoft pivoted from being a media company to becoming a platform, and when content stops being marketing and becomes integral to the product itself. Rafael argues that frictionless isn't about improving processes or deploying better technology, it's about how deeply you understand the customer on the other side.Key Actionable Takeaways:Build content governance foundations before implementing AI - Clean your content libraries, audit outdated information, establish clear tagging systems, and align terminology across departments; LLMs can't generate accurate responses from messy, ungoverned dataTreat content as product infrastructure, not just marketing - Critical information about rules, procedures, and product usage directly impacts customer success and costs real money when missing or wrong at decision-making momentsPrioritize quality gates over speed when stakes are high - Create intentional friction through approval processes and pushback mechanisms to maintain quality standards; moving fast without accuracy can trigger legal issues, government involvement, and million-dollar failuresWant more tips and strategies about creating frictionless digital experiences? Subscribe to our newsletter! https://www.thefrictionlessexperience.com/frictionless/ Download the Black Friday/Cyber Monday eBook: http://bluetriangle.com/ebook Rafael Carranza's LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/rafaelcarranza Nick Paladino's LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/npaladino Chuck Moxley's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chuckmoxley/Chapters:(00:00) Introduction(02:43) Journalism origins(03:15) Wire service dot-com boom(04:30) Microsoft partnership(05:30) Learning user trust(07:15) Trust across organizations(08:35) Microsoft media pivot(09:45) Platform over content(10:30) Content as product(11:15) Amazon seller information(12:30) Operationalizing at scale(13:15) Governance structures(14:30) AI hallucination risks(15:15) Content accuracy guardrails(17:15) Windows to Linux journey(18:15) Business adoption limits(20:00) Human-AI collaboration(21:30) Innovation vs trust balance(22:00) B2B vs B2C content(23:30) Right content right time(24:30) When content fails(25:30) Million-dollar mistakes(26:45) Intentional friction benefits(27:30) Quality over speed(28:45) Biggest misconception(29:30) Conclusion

Become the Brand Your Customers Feel Great About Have you ever wondered why you are fiercely loyal to certain brands while ignoring others that offer the exact same thing? It's not about the price, and it's rarely about the features. It is about brain physiology and how it interacts with our decisions when it comes to brands. Today, we are diving deep into the science of emotion with Kevin Perlmutter, the pioneering strategist and author of the groundbreaking new book, Brand Desire. Kevin is here to reveal that the secret to business growth isn’t “selling”—it’s “solving.” We are going to explore his “Limbic Sparks” approach, a method rooted in behavioral science that helps you stop chasing customers and start magnetically attracting them. Whether you are leading a Fortune 500 company or building a personal brand, you will learn how to tap into the instinctive, emotional part of the brain that drives our decision-making. In this episode of A New Direction, we are moving beyond the old-school 20th century branding like “Unique Selling Proposition.” Kevin will walk us through his proven “Focus, Connect, Evolve” framework, showing us how to align your business with what people actually care about. We will discuss why traditional marketing language is dead and how you can earn loyalty by making your customers feel seen, heard, and understood. Join us live on A New Direction as we uncover the blind spots in your current strategy. If you are ready to stop shouting into the void and start building a brand that people don’t just buy from—but truly desire—this is a conversation you cannot afford to miss. Kevin Perlmutter’s book, “Brand Desire: Spark Customer Interest Using Emotional Insights” is the absolute essential book for today’s brand leaders.  This is a book that is founded solidly on research both from the brand researchers and his own research working with different companies. For most of us we are still stuck in the 20th century branding ideas of persuasion. We are talking about all the great things about ourselves and what WE THINK we do for the future customer, but here’s the problem…how do your customers feel about your brand.  Because at the end of the day it is all about how they feel about you. This is an important, because as we know we, as humans, do not make logical purchasing decisions, not matter how big or how small.  It also does not matter if you are B2C or B2B, every human makes a decision based on emotions triggered by the limbic system and then justifies it with logic. And Kevin Perlmutter’s book, “Brand Desire” helps solve the problem. Kevin Perlmutter, helps us understand the 3 Steps to creating a brand that resonates with customers and makes them come back for more…Focus, Connect, Evolve.  That is doing the right research asking the right questions, then creating a message that emotionally is in sync with the organization and the customer, and then how you are seen how you are heard, and does the message really something the customer cares about. Amazing book, one that will change you as a brand leader whether you are on a one person show, or a corporation looking to increase profitability. Click here to get your copy of Brand Desire! Linda Craft Team, Realtors for more than 40 years they have been helping people make a life transition.  Wait! What? Think about it, every place you have ever lived has been a transition in your life.  And since 1985 they have been helping people reduce the stress and making that transition easier for thousands of people. Unaffiliated and independently owned and operated they can recommend the best real estate professional to help you sell your home or buy your next home anywhere in the world. That is because they are not attached to a national company, they are attached to what is in your best interest. So before you buy or sell start with the “Legends” at Linda Craft Team.  Just click on over to www.LindaCraft.com Here is the truth: You tune into A New Direction because you want to grow. But consuming content and executing strategy are two different things. If you are leading a company between $5M and $50M and you feel like you are hitting a ceiling, the problem isn't a lack of information. It's likely a “human” bottleneck. I am Coach Jay, a Behavioral Strategist who specializes in fixing the friction that kills profit. I don't just look at your P&L; I look at the psychology of the people driving it. I recently helped a stalled mid-market firm save $3 Million and secure new capital—not by firing people, but by realigning their behavior. Stop guessing. Let's find the millions trapped in your org chart. Reach out for a discreet conversation: 919-369-2121 or visit TheCoachJay.com.

Send us a textWhen there's no handbook for building a career, you rely on tenacity, positivity, and education. David Gavin learned retail marketing the hard way: by watching, asking questions, and looking for the white space everyone else ignored.In this episode, Danny sits down with his uncle, David Gavin, a worldwide sales and merchandising consultant who went from navigating apartheid-era South Africa to becoming a strategic force in North American jewelry retail. David shares how focusing on what competitors aren't doing beats racing to the bottom of price, how mentors who throw you in the deep end can change your career trajectory forever, and how the true mark of a salesperson isn't the sum of a set of soft skills, it's how you connect with people.Episode Highlights: Success comes from identifying white space, the opportunities competitors overlook, rather than fighting over what everyone else is already doing.PowerPoint presentations aren't just sales tools; they're strategic frameworks that help clients see concepts they couldn't articulate themselves.Calculated risk-taking means being willing to leave comfort behind when you see a bigger opportunity, even if the path isn't clear.Mentorship often looks like being thrown into the deep end with people who believe you'll figure out how to swim.Retail success requires understanding both the corporate and independent sides of the business, and being willing to walk into stores and observe what's actually happening.Episode Links: David Gavin on LinkedInDavid Greg WebsiteRapaport Magazine: The Rise of Desert DiamondsFollow The Digital Marketing Mentor: Website and Blog: thedmmentor.com Instagram: @thedmmentor Linkedin: @thedmmentor YouTube: @thedmmentor Interested in Digital Marketing Services, Careers, or Courses? Check out more from the TDMM Family: Optidge.com - Full Service Digital Marketing Agency specializing in SEO, PPC, Paid Social, and Lead Generation efforts for established B2C and B2B businesses and organizations. ODEOacademy.com - Digital Marketing online education and course platform. ODEO gives you solid digital marketing knowledge to launch/boost your career or understand your business's digital marketing strategy.

In this episode of Mastering eCommerce Marketing, host Eitan Koter sits down with Jason Greenwood, founder of Greenwood Consulting and host of the eCommerce Edge podcast.Jason has spent over 25 years working across eCommerce, with a sharp focus on B2B. The conversation centers on why B2B commerce has followed a very different path than DTC, and why many manufacturers and distributors are only now taking digital seriously.They talk about how COVID accelerated change, why marketplaces are one of the fastest-growing B2B channels, and what modern B2B buyers actually expect from suppliers today. Jason also explains why traditional KPIs like AOV and conversion rate don't tell the full story in B2B, and what metrics matter more.The episode also covers change management, sales team resistance, and how technology should support people instead of replacing them. Toward the end, Jason shares his take on when DTC brands should start thinking about wholesale and distribution, and what happens when they wait too long.Website: https://www.vimmi.netEmail us: info@vimmi.netPodcast website: https://vimmi.net/mastering-ecommerce-marketing/Talk to us on Social:Eitan Koter's LinkedIn | Vimmi LinkedIn | YouTubeGuest: Jason Greenwood, Founder & Lead Consultant at Greenwood ConsultingJason Greenwood's LinkedIn | Greenwood ConsultingWatch the full Youtube video here:https://youtu.be/luahzCh6-fATakeaways:• B2B e-commerce is significantly behind B2C but is catching up rapidly.• The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the need for digital transformation in B2B.• Sales teams often resist digital changes due to traditional practices.• Change management is crucial for successful digital adoption in B2B.• B2B relationships are long-term and require a human touch.• Digital channels are essential for B2B growth and efficiency.• AI can enhance B2B operations but should not replace human interaction.• D2C brands should consider B2B as a growth channel once stable.• Understanding KPIs in B2B is different from B2C due to higher AOVs.• Technology plays a vital role in the future of B2B e-commerce.Chapters:00:00 Introduction and Background01:00 Understanding B2B E-commerce08:58 Digital Channels in B2B13:48 Change Management in B2B Transformation17:49 Key Performance Indicators in B2B22:13 Technology Building Blocks for B2B25:21 D2C Brands and B2B Opportunities31:18 Personal Values and Closing Thoughts

Every company wants better market insights, but up until AI's entrance, results have been highly speculative.   How is AI upending tried-and-true market research methodology?  Kate O'Keefe, CEO and founder of Heatseeker, joins SaaS Half Full to explain why traditional surveys and customer-led insights are no longer cutting it, and how behavioral data and AI-driven experimentation are providing marketers with data they can actually trust. In this episode, Kate outlines how brands can move beyond speculative research by leveraging live market experiments, first-party data, and synthetic personas to uncover real customer signals in real time. She also shares how leading B2B and B2C brands are using these methods to test ideas before launch, build stronger campaigns, and give marketers the confidence to push bolder creative decisions backed by quant-driven insights.  

Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Dr. Cameka Smith. Founder of The BOSS Network, from Money Making Conversations Masterclass: Purpose of the Interview The interview aimed to: Highlight The BOSS Network’s mission to empower women of color through entrepreneurship, career development, and community support. Share Dr. Smith’s personal journey from layoff to leadership, inspiring others to embrace entrepreneurship. Discuss strategies for business success, funding opportunities, and mentorship for Black female founders. Key Takeaways Origin of The BOSS Network Founded in 2009 during the recession after Dr. Smith was laid off from Chicago Public Schools. Initially started as local events in Chicago; now a digital community reaching 200,000 women nationwide. Mission: Bringing Out Successful Sisters (BOSS)—promoting small business spirit and career growth. Impact & Achievements Invested in 100 Black female founders through grants. Trained 50,000 women on business strategies. Coached 10,000 women on starting businesses. Created Boss Business University, offering mentorship and digital programs. Pivot During COVID Shifted from 35% event-based revenue to 75% digital. Launched Boss Impact Fund and Invest in Progress Grant: $10,000 grants + 4-year scholarships for recipients. Combined funding, mentorship, and marketing support for sustainability. Challenges & Mindset Entrepreneurship requires planning, resilience, and community support. Dr. Smith saved money before leaving her job and leveraged relationships for growth. Quote: “Entrepreneurs will work 80 hours for themselves but don’t want to work 40 hours for someone else.” Top 3 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make Lack of research: Understand your industry, competitors, and market. No revenue model: If you’re not making money, it’s a hobby, not a business. Ignoring relationships: Networking and partnerships are key to success. Unique Marketing & Partnerships Dr. Smith built direct relationships with brands, bypassing agencies that offered “pennies on the dollar.” Created a dual revenue model: B2B (corporate partnerships) + B2C (community engagement). Core Philosophy Motto: Believe, Plan, Win. Quote: “Those that show up, go up.” Success is rooted in faith, persistence, and leveraging community. Notable Quotes “I was born to be an entrepreneur. My mother told me, until you become your own boss, you have to follow the rules.” “Less than 1% of Black women get VC funding—so we created our own fund.” “Relationships are your key to success. When social media goes away, your audience remains.” “If you have a business and you don’t have money, you’ve got a hobby.” “God will not birth anything inside of you that He will not give you the tools to deliver.” #SHMS #STRAW #BESTSupport the show: https://www.steveharveyfm.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.