Podcasts about CSP

What if the biggest obstacle to your productivity isn't your schedule, your tools, or your willpower, but the stories you've been telling yourself without realizing it?In this episode of Productivity Smarts, host Gerald J. Leonard sits down with Owen Fitzpatrick, CSP, social psychologist, keynote speaker, and author of Inner Propaganda, to explore how the hidden architecture of belief drives behavior, performance, and transformation.Owen introduces the concept of belief leadership, the idea that people don't follow plans, they follow beliefs, and explains why most productivity struggles trace back to a single limiting story we've bought into about who we are. Gerald and Owen dig into how the brain operates as a prediction machine, filtering the world through only 40 bits of the 10 million bits of information our eyes take in every second, and why that means we often see the world not as it is, but as we are.The conversation moves into Owen's time in North Korea, the origin of the term "inner propaganda," and how the same mechanisms nations use to indoctrinate citizens show up in our own heads, in advertising, and even in how AI systems learn to persuade us. They close with a discussion of antifragility, and how reframing failure as fuel can help you build an identity that gets stronger under pressure rather than breaking down. If you're ready to challenge the subconscious stories running your life and your leadership, this episode is packed with insight you can apply immediately.What We Discuss[00:00] Introduction[02:01] Guest introduction: Owen Fitzpatrick[05:28] Belief leadership: why people follow beliefs, not plans[06:07] Not enough hours and the myth of the "unproductive person"[08:02] How the stories we sell ourselves become our beliefs[08:49] The smoker story: expanding your identity to make change possible[11:30] 10 million bits vs. 40 bits: how little we actually perceive[12:10] The brain as a prediction machine[13:12] Why the brain optimizes for survival, not productivity[14:24] Seeing the world through the lens of our own stories[15:51] North Korea and the origin of "inner propaganda"[17:56] Rambo, Rocky, and everyday indoctrination through media[20:12] Tribalism, vilification, and the price of belonging[21:41] Reading from the book: "The Brain Always Wins"[23:27] Predictive processing and the neuroscience of belief[24:08] Lisa Feldman Barrett and how emotions are constructed[26:24] Priming, expectation bias, and running into walls[27:44] How beliefs set us up for self-sabotage or success[30:08] Antifragility: getting stronger from adversity[32:01] Blending identities: jazz, productivity, and reinvention[33:34] Where to find Owen and his book[34:39] Final thoughtsNotable Quotes[08:12] "The stories that we sell to ourselves, not necessarily just tell ourselves, but sell to ourselves, they become the beliefs that we buy." – Owen Fitzpatrick[10:24] "An identity is just a story we sell to ourselves about who we are... and because it's just a story, we can sell ourselves a new story." – Owen Fitzpatrick[12:11] "The brain is a prediction machine." – Owen Fitzpatrick[13:46] "Your brain does not optimize for productivity. It optimizes for survival and it optimizes for stability." – Owen Fitzpatrick[16:30] "The exact same mechanisms that the state uses to propagandize are the same things that my brain uses." – Owen Fitzpatrick[21:59] "The brain is a gambling addict that bets on reality. It doesn't wait for information. It guesses what should happen and adjusts when surprised." – Owen Fitzpatrick[27:57] "We can completely distort a situation based upon our beliefs or expectations, because that's how we get into mental health struggles... that's how we sabotage ourselves." – Owen Fitzpatrick[30:17] "The opposite of fragile is not resilient... antifragility is when you expose something to adversity, it gets stronger as a result." – Owen Fitzpatrick[30:54] "Every single time you're wrong, it helps you to learn and grow and improve." – Owen FitzpatrickResource and LinksOwen FitzpatrickWebsite: owenfitzpatrick.comLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/owenfitzpBook: Inner Propaganda Book Website: innerpropaganda.comPodcast: Inner PropagandaNewsletter: Inner PropagandaProductivity Smarts PodcastWebsite - productivitysmartspodcast.comGerald J. LeonardWebsite - geraldjleonard.comTurnberry Premiere website - turnberrypremiere.comScheduler - vcita.com/v/geraldjleonardKiva is a loan, not a donation, allowing you to cycle your money and create a personal impact worldwide. https://www.kiva.org/lender/topmindshelpingtopmindsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In this episode of Pro Mindset® Podcast, host Craig Domann sits down with former D1 runner, high-performance executive coach, best-selling author, and Mentally Strong Institute founder, Dr. Cindra Kamphoff. They explore the power of letting go of rigid expectations in sports, coaching, and everyday life. From navigating the shift toward athletic flow state to protecting high performers from the pitfalls of over-coaching, anxiety, and robotic perfectionism, Cindra's insight on body awareness, internal competition, and core discipline provides a vital playbook for growth.Cindra shares her experiences with building intentional athletic habits, the critical role of accepting failure in long-term success, and why ignoring personal flow can derail an athlete's dream of reaching their full potential. She emphasizes the importance of adaptability, managing internal mindsets over short-term mechanical fixes, and maintaining mental clarity in high-stakes environments. Cindra also highlights the vital role of individual feel over rigid technique and embracing the lifelong journey of mastering your craft.In this conversation, Cindra balances her mental performance expertise with years of deep collegiate, international, and elite coaching growth. Her mutual respect with Craig shines through this conversation. It's a reminder that Craig entered this business not to guard territory, but to help people achieve their goals and dreams — and Cindra's collaborative approach to building elite mindsets is living proof of that.Episode Takeaways: 

Step into the future of professional speaking with Sylvie di Giusto, CSP as she breaks down the trends every speaker must understand to stay relevant. This episode of Speakernomics uncovers what it truly takes to deliver value beyond what AI and technology can offer.* Why speakers must turn the lens on themselves and adapt to megatrends affecting the industry* How audience demographics and decision-makers are rapidly changing* The new reality: knowledge is free—experiences are what matter* Ways to create transformative, must-attend experiences for live, hybrid, and virtual audiences* Shifting your sales approach toward selling unique experiences, not just informationBecome an NSA Member! https://nsaspeaker.org/join/#membership Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Company culture is not a soft HR expense - it is a high-yield strategic asset that directly drives bottom-line profitability and enterprise value. In this episode of Behind the Numbers, host Dave Bookbinder sits down with Brett Hoogeveen, co-founder of BetterCulture and seasoned angel investor, to explore how organizational culture impacts business valuation. Together, they unpack why poor workplace environment quietly drains corporate cash flow through toxic management, quiet quitting, and high turnover. Key Takeaways & Strategies: Culture as a Value Driver: Shift the executive mindset from viewing culture as an expense (like office perks) to treating employee behaviors and attitudes as revenue-generating assets. Stars vs. Vacuums Framework: Learn how to shift your organization's performance distribution curve by protecting superstars, upskilling the middle majority, and removing energetic drains. Protecting Good Talent: Why leaders have a strict obligation to protect the right of top performers to work alongside other good employees, even when forced to confront toxic high-producers. The Accidental Manager: Bridge the decade-long gap between when employees are promoted into leadership and when they receive formal management training. Strategic Culture Planning: How to build a continuous improvement plan for culture that scales as your business expands beyond its early stages. Assuming Positive Intent: Lower internal friction and eliminate subtle innovation-killers by training teams to default to trust and curiosity. To protect your bottom line and build long-term value, stop treating people as line-item expenses and start actively managing your corporate culture as a strategic priority. About Our Guest: Brett Hoogeveen, CSP is a nationally recognized leadership expert and co-founder of BetterCulture, a leadership development and technology firm that helps companies build better leaders, stronger teams, and thriving workplace cultures.  Brett helps organizations turn culture into a competitive advantage - using practical tools, proven strategies, and a contagious belief that better culture = better business. Over the past decade, Brett has trained thousands of leaders and partnered with  hundreds of executive teams - from scrappy startups to Fortune 500s - on practical strategies to create winning cultures. One of fewer than 900 Certified Speaking Professionals (CSP) worldwide, Brett delivers engaging and actionable keynotes on leadership, culture, and workplace performance. He is also the host of The BetterCulture Podcast. Here is the URL to the free resource that Brett is offering listeners of this show.  The resource is a complimentary AI-driven Executive Culture Strategic Plan.  https://betterculture.com/behindthenumbers About the Host: Dave Bookbinder is known as a trusted provider for independent business valuations, corporate asset appraisals, and exit planning advisory and he is the person that business owners and their advisors reach out to when they need to know what their most important assets are worth. Known as a collaborative adviser, Dave has served thousands of client companies of all sizes and industries.  Dave is the author of two #1 best-selling books about the impact of human capital (PEOPLE!) on the valuation of a business enterprise called The NEW ROI: Return On Individuals & The NEW ROI: Going Behind The Numbers.  He's on a mission to change the conversation about how the accounting world recognizes the value of people's contributions to a business enterprise, and to quantify what every CEO on the planet claims: “Our people are this company's most valuable asset.” Dave's book, A Valuation Toolbox for Business Owners and Their Advisors: Things Every Business Owner Should Know, was recognized as a top new release in Business and Valuation and is designed to provide practical insights and tools to help understand what really drives business value, how to prepare for an exit, and just make better decisions. He's also the host of the highly rated Behind The Numbers With Dave Bookbinder business podcast which is enjoyed in more than 100 countries.

Andrew Pla sits down with TJ Turner at Microsoft's TechMentor conference @ Microsoft HQ in Redmond, Washington, for a conversation about PowerShell, career growth, and the parts of working in IT that don't show up in the documentation. TJ traces his path from infrastructure through K-12, finance, and retail to his current role as a Cloud Evangelist at TD SYNNEX, along with his early days using PowerShell v2 and v3, competing in the Scripting Games, and helping start the Philadelphia PowerShell User Group. They also dig into real-world automation wins, including a PowerShell workflow that helped validate thousands of systems before a holiday weekend, plus burnout, community, asking for help, and what years of broken demos and IT mistakes can teach you about staying prepared and learning to adapt. Key Takeaways: · What got you here won't get you there. TJ's career moved from hands-on infrastructure into distribution, cloud, and technical evangelism, and none of those moves were necessarily part of the original plan. Staying open to new roles, skills, and opportunities has been a big part of that growth. · PowerShell changes how you think, not just how you work. TJ shares examples of using PowerShell to validate thousands of systems, automate VMware update workflows, and collect detailed system state information. Over time, that automation mindset became part of how he approaches problems, even as his career moved beyond day-to-day infrastructure work. · Community and communication are technical skills too. Whether it's recognizing burnout, asking for help, meeting someone at a conference, or admitting you don't know an answer during a presentation, the ability to connect with other people can have just as much impact on your career as knowing the technology. Guest Bio: TJ Turner is a Cloud Evangelist at TD SYNNEX, one of Microsoft's largest distributors in the CSP and partner channel. His background is in infrastructure, with experience spanning K-12, financial services, retail, and other enterprise environments. TJ got started with PowerShell during the v2 and v3 era, competed in the Scripting Games, and helped found the Philadelphia PowerShell User Group. Today, his work includes Azure, Microsoft 365, security, GitHub, DevOps, and helping partners grow their businesses. Resource Links: · TD SYNNEX Microsoft Partner Programs: https://www.tdsynnex.com/na/us/Microsoft/ · PDQ Connect PowerShell Scanner: https://www.pdq.com/powershell-scanner/ · PDQ PowerShell Scanner Blog Post: https://www.pdq.com/blog/the-powershell-scanner-has-arrived-in-pdq-connect/ · PDQ Community PowerShell Scanners Repository: https://github.com/pdqcom/PowerShell-Scanners · TJ Turner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/people/?keywords=TJ+Turner+TD+SYNNEX The PowerShell Podcast on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ce9vxdkzDbo  

Don’t miss this massive channel shift! Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this episode of the Ultimate Partner Podcast, host Vince Menzione sits down with Alexandra Zagury, Corporate Vice President of Channels at Microsoft, to explore ecosystem shifts, partner-led growth, and AI transformation. https://youtu.be/9jrSGX5bM90 Key Takeaways Microsoft’s telemetry and propensity data offer unprecedented insights that many partners are currently failing to unlock. Partners must evolve past basic licensing models and build comprehensive managed service stacks across the entire customer lifecycle. Establishing an AI Center of Excellence on the Microsoft platform is critical for capturing future market share and technical intensity. The modern tech ecosystem demands a shift from product-led growth to true partner-led growth driven by multi-partner collaboration. Renewal engines targeting 110% to 125% retention require an always-on motion starting well in advance of contract expiration. Investing in sales readiness and precision velocity training ensures that end sellers can effectively articulate the value of the Microsoft platform. If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Key Tags Microsoft, telemetry, Hyperscalers, channel, small medium enterprise, telcos, hosters, SSPs, Cisco, CSP, agentic GTM, propensity data, SPX, PUPP, cloud descent, MSPs, managed XDR, Agent 365, skilling, co-sell, renewals, flywheel, AI Center of Excellence, enterprise Transcript Alexandra Zagury Audio Podcast [00:00:00] Alexandra Zagury: One of the things that I think is the best kept secret at Microsoft is the telemetry that we offer our partners. [00:00:08] Vince Menzione: You can feel it happening. The ecosystem is shifting beneath us, the way Hyperscalers are partnering, how AI is remaking the channel and what it means to win in 2026. Welcome to the Ultimate Partner Podcast. [00:00:22] Vince Menzione: I’m Vince Menzi, own your host, and each week I sit down with leaders at the intersection of technology. Partnerships and outcomes. The voices shaping how ecosystems actually work. We talk about what’s real, what’s changing, and what it takes to lead in this era where the partner channel isn’t just part of the strategy. [00:00:41] Vince Menzione: It is the strategy because being in the room changes everything. Let’s [00:00:46] Guest: start. [00:00:50] Vince Menzione: I am thrilled because I get to have a leader that is somewhat new in role and is the corporate vice president of channels for Microsoft. And so Alex is here to, is joining us for the first time at Ultimate Partner. I’m thrilled to have you. Thank, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Welcome, welcome. [00:01:14] Vince Menzione: Thank you. Thank you. You and I are gonna be in the center seat in the middle. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. We wanna. So I am thrilled. Um, you’re relatively new in your role at Microsoft. [00:01:24] Alexandra Zagury: Seven months. [00:01:25] Vince Menzione: Seven months, [00:01:26] Alexandra Zagury: yes. [00:01:26] Vince Menzione: Wow. That’s a, that’s a crazy. So take us through, ’cause for those who don’t know you, but a little bit of an introduction, your title, your role, CVP, and uh, your remit. [00:01:37] Vince Menzione: Let’s talk about that and what your organization is focused in, in your mission. Yeah. [00:01:41] Alexandra Zagury: So hi everybody. Really exciting to be here. Thanks for the invitation, Vince. I always love to be with partners and with the channel. So my, I came to Microsoft to lead a new role, which we call Global Channel Sales, and it was part of the strategy of Microsoft to really bet on the growth in small, medium enterprise. [00:02:04] Alexandra Zagury: With the channel partner led growth. So my remit is really to lead our managed partners, but also to lead the strategy when it comes to the channel. Very specifically looking at the telcos, the distributors, the hosters. The sis and, uh, the SSPs of course. And, and so my role can be summarized in one word growth, and that’s what we do every single day is map our ambition to your ambition and figure out how we actually conquer this age of ai. [00:02:40] Vince Menzione: It’s a pretty big role. It’s a pretty, you know, I forgot about hosts ’cause we don’t, we don’t talk about them as much these days in the cloud. [00:02:48] Alexandra Zagury: Still a lot [00:02:48] Vince Menzione: of opportunity. You’ve got, and you’ve got all the telcos as well, which are pretty significant organizations, right? Lumen Field, just around the corner. [00:02:56] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. Right up the. Right up, I said across the river, but it’s across the pond in Seattle. And, uh, what does that look like from an organization perspective in terms of dollars? Are you allowed to disclose numbers? [00:03:08] Alexandra Zagury: No, we [00:03:08] Vince Menzione: don’t talk numbers. Okay. And, but you have a long career in this type of environment, in this role. [00:03:15] Vince Menzione: 10 years at Cisco, right? [00:03:17] Alexandra Zagury: Mm-hmm. [00:03:17] Vince Menzione: Tell us a little bit more about your background, [00:03:18] Alexandra Zagury: please. Yeah, sure. Um, well I started out as a, a sales leader. Uh, actually I started out in banking, if you wanna go all the way back. Um, but I fell in love with the channel actually, when I was at Yahoo, believe it or not. Wow. [00:03:32] Alexandra Zagury: Because it was the first interact sales model that I had the privilege to operate in, and I really understood. Stood the power of going through a channel. And then I was at Blackberry where I, I, I also, um, well had various sales leadership roles, but our model was all through, was all through the channel. [00:03:51] Alexandra Zagury: Yes. Um, some startups and then help [00:03:54] Vince Menzione: in those days too, right? [00:03:55] Alexandra Zagury: Yeah. It was all sps and I learned from Jim Balze the channel fundamentals. So, um, and then ended up, of course, at Cisco the last. Nearly 11 years, which I think is also one of the greatest channel companies. Yes. And really has thrived in a partner, partner led growth, and in a partner led model. [00:04:12] Alexandra Zagury: And so when, when Microsoft called, I mean, this was just the opportunity of a lifetime. To lead the channel during an era where we’re all getting disrupted, we’re all having to blueprint new systems, new ways of working, where go to market is getting identified, and we’re all having to figure out how to become customer zero ourselves, but then also how to go to market. [00:04:36] Alexandra Zagury: With, with agents. And so this was the, the most exciting time that I could think of to join the Microsoft ecosystem and really take us to the next level. [00:04:44] Vince Menzione: Well, your background is perfect for this. I, I, Rodney Clark is a friend, has been a guest on the podcast and in, in the studio, and I think of Cisco is the quintessential channel company. [00:04:56] Vince Menzione: Like when I think about how channel got created and how it worked well, it was always Cisco that did it. So give us like your perspective now, like seven plus months and like how does this feel like you’ve You’ve got a big remit and, uh, various, uh, routes to market. We’ll call them, uh, channels to market. [00:05:14] Vince Menzione: So take us through a little bit of that, like Yeah, sure. [00:05:16] Alexandra Zagury: Describe [00:05:16] Vince Menzione: the transition, what it’s been like [00:05:18] Alexandra Zagury: for you. So one of the things we’re focused on is supporting the channel through the transformation, and we look at it in a couple of lenses. The first lens is really helping the channel become customer zero. [00:05:29] Alexandra Zagury: We really believe that the partners that invest in. Actually identifying their own processes and their own go go to market are the channels, are are the partners that it can actually win because if you are using it, you’re gonna be able to sell it. The second layer is all about technical intensity, and I’m very passionate about this because I see it from two lenses. [00:05:51] Alexandra Zagury: One is. I would like each and every of our partners to lead in building an AI Center of Excellence based on the Microsoft platform. It is a unique opportunity. I can give you lots of numbers, right? We’ve all heard about the trillions of agents that are gonna be here by 2030. We’ve all heard about the tam. [00:06:12] Alexandra Zagury: I mean, our TAM is going from 777. Million to over a billion, uh, to over a trillion. I, it’s, the numbers are just enormous, insane, right? Over half a billion of customers in our base that are using, that are, that are based already on the Microsoft platform. So all the goodness of our IU IQ platform can be unlocked with all the services that the partners can build. [00:06:36] Alexandra Zagury: So investing in that technical skilling and building those practices are gonna be, is gonna be essential. The third part. The third pillar is all about ag agentic, GTM. So once you’re actually using, uh, the Microsoft platform, you’re gonna have to reimagine all your business’s pro processes, your sales processes, and the more that you are integrated into how we do, how we do things. [00:07:00] Alexandra Zagury: One of the things that I think is the best kept secret at Microsoft is the telemetry that we offer our partners. Yeah. I mean, it’s unbelievable. I’ve never seen the quality of propensity data. And now I’m gonna give you the ABCs, which is please, A SPX, which is where we get all our copilot data, PUPP, which is our proposal upsell, uh, planner, right, cloud descent, where you can actually get your next action directly to your sellers. [00:07:27] Alexandra Zagury: There is just so much goodness that we give, which is part of our, our investment in partners. Which takes me to the fourth pillar, and that is all about value alignment and one of the things that I’m very focused and I bring with me from, from Cisco and the work that I did with MSPs is really thinking through what is that value exchange between us and the partner. [00:07:49] Alexandra Zagury: I believe that I’m in the business of earning your trust. Earning your preference. And, and, and we do that by really mapping that value alignment. So not just, one of the things that the whole industry has copied from Microsoft is really looking at our incentives across the customer lifecycle. Yes. So really mapping the value alignment across the customer lifecycle, not just at the point of the deal. [00:08:13] Alexandra Zagury: ’cause that was the whole purpose of CSP. That’s right. The investments we make in tele telemetry, the investments we make in our go-to-market assets and having those bi-directional feedback loops so that we can be continuously improving. So those are sort of the things that I’m thinking about every day. [00:08:29] Alexandra Zagury: There’s a couple of others as we lead and support you in this transformation. ’cause I think of my job as to supporting and driving growth with you so that we have that joint ambition. But also supporting the transformation that both of us are on this journey. [00:08:44] Vince Menzione: And Microsoft was the first with Jay McBain was with us yesterday, and we talked, we’ve talked about this before, but you were the first company to take and look, get rid of the old metal systems, right? [00:08:55] Vince Menzione: The bronze, silver, gold, mm-hmm. And move to basically a point system for partners so that they can come at it from a kind of a global perspective on how they drive success. What was, um, what did you learn about this partner community, your first months that you didn’t expect? [00:09:12] Alexandra Zagury: Can I say something controversial? [00:09:14] Vince Menzione: Absolutely. Okay. [00:09:14] Alexandra Zagury: I love, [00:09:14] Vince Menzione: we love controversial, [00:09:15] Alexandra Zagury: so I think one of the things that I was surprised was that I didn’t see all the partners really unlocking the value of CSP. Yeah. What do I mean by that? When Microsoft moved to the Point System, and I was on the other side, really, I was so jealous of CSP when I was running managed services. [00:09:34] Alexandra Zagury: Here’s an offer that is for partners, for Partner that gives you that initial. Guarantee in terms of the margin that helps you throughout the customer life cycle with all the incentives and, and programs that we have. And I didn’t see, I mean there are some partners, but I was surprised not seeing more partners really building their value stack and their services across the lifecycle. [00:09:59] Alexandra Zagury: And I think there’s such a great opportunity now to do that. That was one of the most surprising things I thought. Oh my gosh, there must be so many, so many services stack, so many people really unlocking, unlocking that, that value. That was a, that was a little bit surprising. [00:10:14] Vince Menzione: Why? Why do you suppose, why do you suppose that was happening? [00:10:17] Alexandra Zagury: I think some of the things that we were listening here, there’s some, sometimes complexity. There are things that we still have to. Get better on, and I’m one of the first ones to say that like our partner experience, we have, um, you know, a lot of focus right now on partner center and ensuring that we’re identifying it. [00:10:36] Alexandra Zagury: I don’t know if I can say it, but, you know, one of the things that we’re looking at is replicating internally. We have Agent J. That supports our sellers through the sales process. Nice. We’re looking at having something similar for our partners. Very cool. Getting some claps there. So, yeah, so, uh, I think, you know, that I, some, there are some lockers that we, we have to acknowledge a lot of them are operational and comes with being a 50-year-old company. [00:11:02] Vince Menzione: I, I’ll give you my perspective too. I wanna get your thoughts on this. ’cause I got to, I’ve gotten to know this MSP community, which is a, you mentioned managed services and that, um, I think that some of them, well, I think Microsoft is leaning in, in a much bigger way. Um, we had Jose on stage yesterday and just the, the energy around the room, there he is, he’s back here. [00:11:23] Vince Menzione: The energy in the room around the MSP community is palpable and it maybe it wasn’t there a few years ago. Maybe some people got off the bus, so to speak, like they weren’t really paying attention mm-hmm. To all the change and all the investments. That you men, you’re mentioning or being made to support this, would you, what would you say about that? [00:11:42] Alexandra Zagury: Yeah, I’d say that that that is correct, but I’d also say that what I learned, you know, leading MSP at Cisco was that. All the stars have to be aligned, right? And if one thing is not right, if you don’t have product market fit, if you, if you, if you don’t have a good way to, uh, consolidate your offer, if you don’t have that investment in practice development, like there’s a series of things that we need to get right. [00:12:07] Alexandra Zagury: And I think Jose and I spent a lot of time thinking through those things and we’re, we’re ready to, to welcome the community and specifically around security. I mean, that was the second thing that I was really surprised because I lost so many deals on the other side to Microsoft, and I was like, and then I come on this side and I’m like, there’s all this opportunity everywhere. [00:12:28] Alexandra Zagury: I look underneath this chair, this opportunity, and I’m like, why are people not going after it? There is the opportunity to build managed XDR solutions, the opportunity to reinvent the song. There’s, there’s just so much opportunity and I think people get so stuck in the. Just thinking of it from a licensing model and not thinking it from the, the full on end-to-end value that you can then unlock through the best licensing model on the planet. [00:12:55] Alexandra Zagury: And so, look, we’re here, we’re, we’re ready to talk to all of you and, and really figure this out ’cause we are gonna place really bet big bets next year on ensuring that we’re growing with the MSP community. [00:13:08] Vince Menzione: So what are you personally focused on in changing Microsoft to drive this. [00:13:13] Alexandra Zagury: Well, uh, I don’t know. [00:13:14] Alexandra Zagury: Changing is a, is a, is a big word. Well, I like evolution, change, [00:13:17] Vince Menzione: evolution, evolving. [00:13:18] Alexandra Zagury: You know, I [00:13:19] Vince Menzione: transition. [00:13:21] Alexandra Zagury: I think there is, there is a couple of things that I’ll say that one of the things that I, I’m really focused on right now, the first one is skilling. We’re at a time of such transformation. That investing in skilling, and if you look at our skilling model, it has four pillars. [00:13:37] Alexandra Zagury: The first pillar we’re best in class, in which is certification specializations, and making sure that our ecosystem is certified to go to market. The second one, which we call project ready. It’s sort of how we help you, uh, technically skill the folks that sit in your practices. And there’s more work to do there, and there’s more that you can learn about how we can actually help you. [00:13:59] Alexandra Zagury: And then the middle part I’m obsessed with right now, which is sales ready and tech sales ready. So it is ensuring, because AI is new for everybody. Yes. It’s a muscle, it is a proposition that you have to sell it’s value that you’re selling. I, I love what the gentleman from Lenovo was talking about. It’s, it’s that CSB always on motion. [00:14:21] Alexandra Zagury: Yes. And so really getting very crisp to the end seller at the, at the reseller. For example, at the end, seller at the partner about why Microsoft. Why now, how do I sell and how do I win? And giving them the assets, the competitive battle cards, the, the, the ability to end objection handling all these. Great, we have them. [00:14:45] Alexandra Zagury: I mean, the amount of content we have, but it’s about doing it at what I call precision velocity. [00:14:51] Vince Menzione: Precision [00:14:51] Alexandra Zagury: velocity, right? Which is this concept of how do we get very precise at a persona level. So that we get the velocity of impact. And so I’m, I’m very obsessed with that right now. And there’s two other things I’m very obsessed with, right? [00:15:04] Alexandra Zagury: The other one is this practice building, ensuring that we are together building these AI centers of excellence, um, especially for all our managed partners. This is something that I’ve put on, uh, every single PDM in our org is gonna, is gonna be talking about that. And then the third one is one that I find super interesting, which I think all of us. [00:15:25] Alexandra Zagury: Have a lot of work to do, which is partner to partner. [00:15:29] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:15:29] Alexandra Zagury: If we look at a customer outcome, thank you. A customer outcome is built of many partners, right? There’s so many different touch points. I think some folks talk about seven partners in, in a customer outcome, and so how do we actually. Use agents, use agent solutions to suddenly unlock this opportunity because most of the time you’ll see an SSP with an si, maybe an ISV in the middle of a transaction to deliver on that customer outcome. [00:16:04] Alexandra Zagury: Yes. So what can we Microsoft do? And I’d love ideas, right? I haven’t cracked this. I don’t think the industry has completely cracked this. It’s more of a, a science than, than, well, more of an art than it is a science today. So that’s the third thing that I, I, I’d love to really improve and, and get better at. [00:16:20] Vince Menzione: I wish you got to see my slide earlier. ’cause I had the seven seats. I had this, I had the seven partners surrounding the customer. Customer is able to make their decisions now because with their cloud commitments [00:16:31] Alexandra Zagury: mm-hmm. [00:16:32] Vince Menzione: They’re in the, they’re in the seat where it used to be. I would rely on the partner to tell me what to do. [00:16:38] Vince Menzione: I, I’m cobbling together the best solution for my organization. Based on the trusted partners, to your point, those seven seats, and that’s partner to partner action. And Jay McBain was here yesterday and he took us through a great example. It’s AstraZeneca, that Microsoft won AWS, thought they were gonna win the deal, and then there were Microsoft partners in involved. [00:17:00] Vince Menzione: And the, the decision was made in December, but the deal didn’t happen until July. And that whole process was because all these different partners showed up. And influence the decision and the solution areas for that customer. [00:17:12] Alexandra Zagury: Yeah, that’s the best example of PLG partner led growth in action, which I think, again, that is the other thing that I’m super excited about is that actually p proving in the AI era that it’s about PLG as partner led growth, not the other PLGI. [00:17:31] Vince Menzione: I love that. I love that. Instead of product led growth, it’s partner led growth. So I understand there’s three layers that you’re very interested in that you want, you were gonna take us through today. Okay. Do you know about this, [00:17:44] Alexandra Zagury: the layers [00:17:45] Vince Menzione: of we have, uh, copilot chat. Oh, yes. 365 and, and agents. [00:17:49] Alexandra Zagury: Yeah. [00:17:50] Vince Menzione: From a product perspective, I thought maybe, [00:17:51] Alexandra Zagury: yeah, sure. [00:17:52] Alexandra Zagury: This is, I mean. This is the, uh, advantage of choosing the market Microsoft platform. Yeah, so as you look, look at it, there’s, there’s definitely different options, but when you look at Microsoft, what’s really, really interesting is that we have all the, all the layers. There’s no AI without data, and we’ve got that data foundation. [00:18:15] Alexandra Zagury: We also have the intelligence data foundation, right? Then we’ve got the, the layer of actually building those AI agents, and then the last layer that we have is actually the experience or the application layer. So when you look at our platform is a completely integrated platform with the different choices. [00:18:35] Alexandra Zagury: We are not behold, beholden to one LLM or another LLM. You’re actually able to bring your data and, and bring the LLM that you want to deliver on the, on the outcomes that you need. And I think that is very, very unique about our proposition. Yeah, I [00:18:50] Vince Menzione: agree. [00:18:50] Alexandra Zagury: But the other thing that is unique, it’s the most exciting product out there. [00:18:55] Alexandra Zagury: Agent 3, 6 5, our own oh oh seven. It really is a differentiated proposition that every single partner can build services around. Starting with your advisory services, tell me customer, what is it that you are thinking of? Then you actually move on to thinking about security because again, just like there’s no AI without data, you have to start with that data foundation. [00:19:24] Alexandra Zagury: There’s no AI without security and no security without ai. And so really thinking through how, uh, agent 3, 6, 5, I love it. I get these claps once a, I love, love really thinking about how Agent 3, 6 5 really unlocks, not only. A security budget, but an observability budget because you can do both. You are talking to both, uh, folks at the customer, right? [00:19:47] Alexandra Zagury: You can actually start talking about how you’re gonna actually govern all of these agents, manage all of these agents, but also there’s the observability layer, which is gonna tell you what actually can you do? How can you actually deliver on the outcomes that we all want from ai, which is productivity. [00:20:05] Alexandra Zagury: Experience and efficiency and all the other things. So I think this is the biggest opportunity this channel has ever seen, and every single partner is gonna have to make a choice on what platform they’re gonna lead with, and we believe it should be ours because it is completely integrated across these three layers with our very own oh oh seven. [00:20:30] Vince Menzione: I wanna get your perspective, but it feels like many of these partners in the MSP community are stuck at that CSP level. We were having this conversation about getting through that, coaching ’em through it. What would your be your perspective on that? [00:20:44] Alexandra Zagury: Um, I’d say, uh, use this moment to unlock that opportunity. [00:20:50] Alexandra Zagury: First off, invest in your skills. Get your, get your team skilled and, uh, on Microsoft, build your center of excellence. Map out your strategy where actually you’re gonna monetize and use all the different assets that we have. And if you are being really, um, I mean, most of them are serviced through a distributor. [00:21:12] Alexandra Zagury: Make your distributor accountable for supporting you in packaging the offers and giving you the, uh, information that you need in terms of skilling. And then in terms of co-selling, again, distributor has a lot of tools that can help you understand how to unlock the co unlock, the co-selling opportunity with Microsoft. [00:21:35] Alexandra Zagury: I think that’s another really big competitive advantage that Microsoft has. When, uh, Microsoft changed what it started by, by, by changing its strategy. I think clarity is kindness. We were very, very clear that where we want, we wanted partners, of course, to play an enterprise with a services stack, but we were very clear that we were betting on a partner led growth in small, medium enterprise, right? [00:22:03] Alexandra Zagury: And so we’ve built our whole operating system. Around that. And so I think it’s really about finding the information that you know you want, planning your strategy, getting skilled and go to market with us. Our co-sell Advantage is very, very unique. It is one of the only companies that has the sales teams completely aligned because CSP is our hero motion. [00:22:29] Vince Menzione: So being with a customer through the journey on CSP, but also renewals are a big component of growth. Talk to us about that. [00:22:36] Alexandra Zagury: Yeah. Renewals are, uh, a machine and an engine that is just absolutely beautiful. It’s your [00:22:42] Vince Menzione: flywheel. [00:22:43] Alexandra Zagury: It is your flywheel. Um, and it is the gift that keeps on giving. We, of course, have a very focused, um, and in fact, one of the things that I’ve done since. [00:22:52] Alexandra Zagury: Uh, since we’ve started, it started a very focused motion in terms of looking at our renewals. We have very specific targets. We, we like to see a renewal at 110% at the moment of renewal. And then we like to see a motion, t plus three, T plus six. That gets us to that a hundred and and 25%. But what we’ve also found out is that this needs to be an always on motion. [00:23:18] Alexandra Zagury: So one of the things that we’re doing is using this concept of precision velocity becoming very rigorous. ’cause we have all the data. Yeah. In terms of what is that next action, and really looking at starting that renewal process, we see that the partners that are able to reach the targets are the ones that start at T minus. [00:23:36] Alexandra Zagury: Six, maybe T minus three, you’re cutting it, but T minus six. And really building that constant motion, getting out in front Yeah. With the customer is really important. And then of course, we now even have these amazing go back motions, uh, with, with our partners where we actually, after the renewal, we go and. [00:23:56] Alexandra Zagury: The renewal was not at the target. We just constantly keep on going. Uh, going back with the, with the partners and we’ve unlocked a, a bevy of data. We, our operating model, we call it the pods, where the PDM sits at the center and orchestrates it with all the different roles that we have. And so we now have a very systematized moment, uh, motion of how to do the renewals. [00:24:18] Vince Menzione: So for the partners in the room, what’s one investment that they should make and what should every partner in the room do differently? Going into, uh, July 1st. [00:24:27] Alexandra Zagury: Well, I think the first thing, remember, CSP is our hero motion, so really for, uh, real, really focused on that. But the one investment, can I say two? [00:24:38] Vince Menzione: Please, please. [00:24:38] Alexandra Zagury: Your time. The, the first one is skilling, right? This is the time. [00:24:43] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:24:43] Alexandra Zagury: Technical intensity is super, super important, and really making those investments in skilling not only from a practice perspective, your your, your technical practice, uh, teams, but also from a sales readiness perspective. [00:24:59] Alexandra Zagury: This is a new muscle. It’s we’re all learning how to truly sell outcomes, and so getting your sales teams ready. Is is really important. And then the second one very tied to that is building your AI Center of Excellence based on the Microsoft platform. Because as we go into FY 27, you will see that the partners that prefer and grow with us are the ones that will see the investment come to them. [00:25:28] Vince Menzione: So I want to use the term front. I I, I’ve been avoiding the term frontier firm, but I think it is super critical. Everything I’ve heard today, like you need to be customer zero. You need to get in train, advance on it and go build against it. [00:25:41] Alexandra Zagury: Absolutely. Well, if you had, let me a third, I would’ve said customer zero. [00:25:46] Vince Menzione: You have it? Alright. We have less than a minute. Would you be okay if we ask for like maybe one question? Yeah, absolutely. We’ll do like one, maybe two. So good to have you by the way. Thank you, Vince. So nice to have you here. [00:26:04] Vince Menzione: I think we did such a good job. Oh, here we go. Here’s, here’s fun. A mic is coming your way. [00:26:20] Vince Menzione: Thank you. Here we go. Okay. [00:26:22] Guest: So we’ve been very keen on, um, skilling our people, and I still find it very hard to get all of the information out of Partner Center to get a complete global view. Are you and your team thinking about maybe having an MCP server access and having a real portal working with that data? [00:26:41] Alexandra Zagury: You just touched on one of our areas of improvement. Absolutely. In fact, um, thank you for, stay tuned for holding us accountable to that. That is definitely one of the things that we’re working on is how to integrate skilling hub into partner center. Right. As most of you will know, there are it Qs, and so that’s one of the things that we are definitely prioritizing, but thank you for holding me accountable to that one. [00:27:09] Vince Menzione: Awesome. [00:27:13] Vince Menzione: We have one more back here, David. I see. We wanna see how fast they can move that microphone across the room. Relay system here. The relay team. There we go. [00:27:25] Guest: That was excellent, Alexander. Thank you. And welcome. [00:27:28] Alexandra Zagury: Thank you. [00:27:29] Guest: Can you point to a specific example? ’cause I think it’s so critical what you highlighted just the skill piece and the customer outcomes piece. [00:27:35] Guest: Right. Can you point to a specific example of a story that you really love that highlights, uh, customers lighting it up with ROI. [00:27:44] Alexandra Zagury: Yeah, I think, you know, we’re, we’re, we’re a platform, so I just saw a win wire. Like at Microsoft, we get these win wires all the time about how an SSB actually won a, a deal against one of these big AI only companies. [00:28:00] Alexandra Zagury: And it was really about selling the full platform, right? Yeah. Because if, if you, if you put a full platform against an LLM proposition, I mean, the full platform really stacks up because it’s completely integrated. It’s not behemoth to one, you’re not making a bet on one company. And it really highlighted our mantra around trust and intelligence. [00:28:24] Alexandra Zagury: The customer was able to see, they, they were an M 365 customer, so all their iq, all their intelligence was already there. They knew that they, there were guardrails against it. They had a problem with shadow ai and by actually standardizing on copilot and going on that journey from copilot paid to agents, they sue the, they saw the full, uh, value proposition. [00:28:49] Alexandra Zagury: And so we won that deal and it was one of the. First E seven deals that we won, so it was great. [00:28:55] Vince Menzione: Fantastic. Great. Congratulations. [00:28:57] Alexandra Zagury: Thank you [00:28:58] Vince Menzione: Alex. I am so honored and thrilled that you got, you chose us to be your I I would say the first big Yeah, absolutely. Presentation in front of the partner community. [00:29:07] Vince Menzione: I’m so excited to have you. [00:29:08] Alexandra Zagury: Thank you [00:29:09] Vince Menzione: guys, and hopefully many more times ahead with us. [00:29:10] Alexandra Zagury: Absolutely. Invite me at anytime. [00:29:12] Vince Menzione: Okay. Well, thank you [00:29:13] Alexandra Zagury: so much. [00:29:14] Vince Menzione: Thank you. So great [00:29:15] Alexandra Zagury: to have you. Thank [00:29:16] Vince Menzione: you so much. Thanks for listening to The Ultimate Partner Podcast. If today’s conversation resonated, share it with a partner leader in your network. [00:29:26] Vince Menzione: Subscribe where you listen, and head over to the ultimate partner.com. For show notes related content and the resources for this episode. And if you haven’t already, now’s the time to register for the Ultimate Partner Live Event in Reston, Virginia, October 26th through October 28th. Until next time, keep showing up in the rooms that matter because being in the room changes everything.

Il y a 70 ans jour pour jour, le 13 août 1956, la Tunisie adoptait son Code du statut personnel, l'un des textes les plus progressistes du monde arabe pour les droits des femmes : interdiction de la polygamie, divorce judiciaire pouvant être aussi à l'initiative de la femme, consentement obligatoire de la femme au mariage. Aujourd'hui, alors que la Tunisie célèbre sa Journée nationale de la femme, que reste-t-il de cet héritage et quels sont les combats des féministes tunisiennes ? Hela Ben Salem, secrétaire générale de l'Association tunisienne des femmes démocrates, répond aux questions de RFI. RFI : Le Code du statut personnel a 70 ans, est-ce que les avancées qu'il avait permises sont menacées aujourd'hui ?  Hela Ben Salem : Le Code du statut personnel a été en 1956 une décision politique et réformatrice qui a profondément transformé la situation des femmes et la société tunisienne de manière générale. Sauf qu'aujourd'hui, lorsqu'on parle des droits des femmes, on ne peut pas les dissocier de la situation démocratique générale, du recul des libertés, de l'État de droit, de l'indépendance, de la justice, de la liberté d'expression et évidemment les droits des femmes de manière générale.  Quels sont les acquis les plus fragilisés aujourd'hui selon vous ?  C'est la structure et la symbolique du CSP principalement qui est en danger. Les tentatives de noyer les femmes à des rôles traditionnels, de remettre en question l'égalité et les acquis obtenus au cours de décennies de lutte. Ce qui est préoccupant, malheureusement, c'est qu'il y a des discours conservateurs aujourd'hui, malheureusement en Tunisie, et ces discours ne sont plus uniquement marginaux. Lorsque les institutions de l'État et les espaces religieux officiels ouvrent leurs portes à des discours réactionnaires et discriminatoires, nous devons nous poser la question : quelle est la position de l'État dans la protection de ces acquis ? Le Code statut personnel est en vigueur depuis sa promulgation en 1956, et évidemment, une grande partie des réformes ont été portées à l'époque par la volonté politique, surtout après la révolution. Nous avons eu des acquis depuis toujours attendus et portés par le mouvement féministe. Et depuis 2019, malheureusement, nous n'avons eu aucun acquis de ce gouvernement, de ce pouvoir politique, et le risque est de voir le discours conservateur se réinstaller, et se normaliser et devenir progressivement acceptable dans un silence complice de l'État. Du pouvoir, tout simplement.  Quels sont ces thèmes conservateurs qui reviennent sur la place publique ?  C'est principalement ceux qui sont relatifs au statut des femmes. Donc la polygamie ou encore le statut de chef de famille. On ne parle plus non plus de l'égalité en matière d'héritage. La bataille est éminemment politique. Elle n'est pas moins importante que celle pour les libertés individuelles et collectives, parce que, pour nous, en tant que femme démocrate, en tant que féministe, il n'y a pas de démocratie sans égalité. Il n'y a pas d'égalité réelle sans État de droit. On ne veut pas seulement protéger le Code du statut personnel contre tout recul, mais nous voulons poursuivre et approfondir ce projet. Car 70 ans après, les discriminations, les violences, la pauvreté et la précarité persistent.  Quelles sont les réformes que vous défendez, en particulier ?  L'égalité dans l'héritage, l'égalité dans la responsabilité des familles pour abolir l'institution du chef de famille, le droit de la famille de manière générale, parce qu'il y a aujourd'hui des dispositions, par exemple, qui maintiennent encore des différences de traitement entre les femmes et les hommes. Le père est toujours le tuteur des enfants, même en cas de divorce. L'inégalité successorale, c'est l'une des formes de violence économique. C'est important aujourd'hui qu'on consacre des textes pour mettre la femme sur un pied d'égalité avec l'homme, en matière justement d'accès à la terre, d'accès aux ressources, d'égalité dans l'héritage. Tout cela. Quels sont les courants politiques, par exemple à l'Assemblée, qui mettent en danger les droits des femmes ?  Le discours de certains députés à l'ARP, pas mal de députés qui ont proposé la réforme du Code du statut personnel pour des raisons démographiques, chose qui est étonnante. Chose qui est choquante parce que les femmes ne sont pas des machines de reproduction. Donc, il faut respecter aussi la dignité des femmes, leurs corps, leurs droits sexuels et corporels. Parce que la Tunisie, qu'on le veuille ou pas, possède un héritage réformateur réel. Le Code du statut personnel a profondément transformé le droit de la famille dès 1956. L'espoir aussi dépend d'une chose essentielle, c'est d'être toujours vigilants et vigilantes en tant que citoyens et citoyennes tunisiens. Après 70 ans, nous ne voulons pas seulement protéger ce qui a été obtenu, mais nous voulons aussi poursuivre le projet d'émancipation et faire de l'égalité une réalité pour toutes les Tunisiennes, tout en sachant que les combats des femmes se poursuivent depuis plus de 36 ans, même au sein de l' ATFD, [l'Association tunisienne des femmes démocrates, ndlr] , depuis sa création. Donc, de génération à l'autre, ce projet et ce combat est porté par toutes les générations et peu importe le pouvoir politique en place.  À écouter aussiMaroc, Tunisie, Liban : où en est l'égalité hommes-femmes?

Want the playbook, not just the conversation? Subscribe for deep-dive, actionable breakdowns from every episode at unchurned.substack.com.Proofpoint had no named accounts. No digital motion. No success plans. Two years later, they've got an AI assistant wired into every customer's data, and an early warning system that catches churn risk a year out.Mark Vovsi, Senior Director, CS Operations - GTM Automation & AI at Proofpoint went from building the CS foundation at Proofpoint to reinventing his own job around AL. This episode isn't a highlight reel. It's Mark walking through what actually got built, in what order, and why. In addition to the debate every CS leader is about to have about where AI-driven insights should even live.---What You'll Learn• Why Proofpoint's CS org started with zero named accounts and what it took to fix it• The 4-stage AI maturity curve: generic AI → connected assistants → automation → predictive risk• How role-based AI assistants get wired into customer 360 data (and why generic ChatGPT falls short)• How Proofpoint auto-generates and auto-refreshes success plans for every customer, every quarter• What an Al-powered early warning system for churn actually looks like under the hood• The headless vs. cockpit debate: should CS insights live in the CSP, Slack/Teams, or Claude/MCP?• Why data hygiene (not AI) is still the real blocker for most CS orgs• How the CSM role is about to change: wider coverage ratios and "jack of all trades" expectations• What Mark looks for when hiring for Al-era CS ops roles---Timestamps0:00 - Preview & Intro2:00 - Meet Mark Vovsi (Proofpoint)2:38 - Building CS from scratch at Proofpoint3:52 - Overview of Proofpoint & It's CS org5:28 - Fixing the data before fixing anything else5:58 - What actually worked: top-down alignment + early adopters6:28 - The shift to Al: from CS Ops to AI/GTM strategy8:52 - Proofpoint's AI maturity model, stage by stage9:30 - Role-based AI assistants wired into customer 360 data10:50 - Auto-generating success plans at scale13:50 - Building an early warning system for churn risk15:00 - Headless AI vs. the CSP cockpit: where should insights live?18:24 - The 12-month vision: catching risk a year out20:00 - How the CSM role and CS hiring is about to change---Josh is writing a book on building customer relationships. Follow his journey and insights at www.joshschachter.com---Where to Find the GuestMark Vovsi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vovsi/---Where to Find the Hosts: Josh's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jschachter/Unchurned Substack: https://unchurned.substack.com/

What does modern web security mean for JavaScript developers in 2026, and where should we begin when securing a new application?Recorded during the GDE Europe Summit 2026 in Berlin, this episode opens our new podcast series dedicated to JavaScript security.Dariusz Kalbarczyk, co-founder of NG Poland, JS Poland, and AI Poland, talks with Jakub Andrzejewski, Senior Frontend Engineer at Storyblok, Google Developer Expert, Nuxt Ecosystem Team member, and ambassador for Algolia, Cloudinary, and Supabase.In this first part of the conversation, we explore topics including:Why frontend security matters more than everWhat OWASP means for JavaScript developersThe purpose of Content Security PolicySecurity differences between SPAs, SSR applications, and static websitesWhat a practical CSP setup can look likeCommon misunderstandings around CORSSecurity headers and rate limitingHow much protection frameworks should provide automaticallyLessons learned from building Nuxt SecurityNew risks introduced by AI coding toolsWe only scratched the surface. This episode begins a broader series in which we will explore everything surrounding security in the JavaScript ecosystem, from everyday best practices to emerging threats and real-world vulnerabilities.Subscribe to the JavaScript Master Podcast and join us for the next episodes!#JavaScript #WebSecurity #FrontendSecurity #Nuxt #OWASP #ContentSecurityPolicy #CSP #CORS #CyberSecurity #WebDevelopment #GDE #JSMP #JavaScriptMasterPodcast

Convenience-store retailers, suppliers and more traveled to Rancho Palos Verdes, California, for three days to learn and network at CSP and Informa Connect's Outlook Leadership event.  In this episode of “At Your Convenience,” CSP Group Managing Editor Hannah Hammond and CSP Editors Chuck Ulie and Diane Adam sat down at the conference to discuss what they had learned so far. They discuss the ways consumers are behaving amid an uncertain economy, how convenience retail is shifting from speed to emotional connection and which c-store chain won CSP and Intouch Insight's 2026 Mystery Shop. 

AI is forcing every customer experience leader to choose: chase efficiency at any cost, or scale service without losing the human heart. Jeannie Walters sits down with Vincent Davis, Chief Customer Officer and SVP of Customer Experience at PG&E, to unpack what it takes to build empathy, accountability, and trust in a world where automation is everywhere and customer patience is thin.We dig into Chewy's approach to empathy at scale, and why values beat hype in an AI strategy. Customers don't feel your intentions, they feel the experience, especially during outages, service interruptions, and billing issues. We look at crisis readiness through United Airlines' handling of irregular operations, then dig into PG&E's work across digital channels, contact centers, billing, and insights. Vincent explains how an IVR named Peggy boosts containment and satisfaction while freeing agents for higher-impact work. We also cover customer obsession, employee experience, process simplification, and why customers measure every brand against the best they've had, from Amazon to Uber.If you care about customer experience strategy, AI in the contact center, proactive communication, and building trust when things go wrong, subscribe, share this with a CX leader, and leave a review with your biggest question about empathy and automation.About Vincent DavisWith more than two decades of experience in the energy industry, Vincent Davis leads with the conviction that customer experience is not one department's job, but a standard for the entire company.As Chief Customer Officer at PG&E (https://www.pge.com/), one of the largest customer experience organizations in the utility industry, he leads a team of roughly 2,000 coworkers, overseeing more than $22 billion in annual revenue and a portfolio of programs and products spanning everything from smart meters and billing to digital channels and customer service.Davis is the driving force behind Customer at the Heart, PG&E's award-winning initiative that has changed how the company approaches customer experience, with the mantra that the company will build trust by delivering a 10 out of 10 experience in every interaction. He believes customer trust is earned by being present in the communities PG&E serves and ensuring customer voices are reflected in business decisions. Davis's path to this role has taken him through nearly every part of the customer function, from leading PG&E's Energy Efficiency Programs group to directing a $1 billion demand-side management portfolio and spearheading an $850 million Advanced Meter Replacement initiative.Earlier in his career at Duke Energy, he led the Envision Charlotte program, a public-private sustainability partnership recognized by the Clinton Global Initiative.He holds a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of South Carolina and an MBA from Queens University of Charlotte. He has executive management certifications from Stanford and UNC Chapel Hill. In 2022, he received the Leadership Excellence Award in Energy at the Energy Inclusion Conference.Follow Vincent on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincent-davis-6436a01Articles Mentioned:- Chewy's CEO Is Chasing ‘Empathy at Scale' (Inc) -- https://www.inc.com/stephanie-mehta/chewys-ceo-is-chasing-empathy-at-scale/91358987- Amazon Connect Customer Brings Live Sync and the Agentic CX Designer to CCW – Here Is Why That Matters (CX Today) -- https://www.cxtoday.com/ai-automation-in-cx/amazon-connect-customer-brings-live-sync-and-the-agentic-cx-designer-to-ccw-here-is-why-that-matters/- KeyBank modernizes its digital experience with customer relationships front and center (CX Dive) -- https://www.customerexperiencedive.com/news/keybank-modernizes-digital-experience-customer-relationships/823575/Resources Mentioned:Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.comExperience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.comEnjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us. Leave your review at ratethispodcast.com/xact.Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Send us Fan MailDave Madaras, CSP, CHST,  is a United States Marine, (a survivor of the 1983 attack in Beirut, Lebanon) Football Coach, President of the Chesapeake Region Safety Council, and author of the book "Safety Is A Team Sport". In it, he talks about how his life experiences have shaped his approach to occupational safety and health management. Dave Madaras, also knows as "Coach Dave" is an excellent keynote speaker, and has spoken at many corporate events and conferences. For more information on his presentations or for bookings see www.chesapeakesc.org or at dave@chesapeakesc.org"Safety Is A Team Sport" is available on Amazon.com.Fowl Players Radio can be found at www.fowlplayersradio.com or YouTube.com/@fowlplayersradio.com. Please hit the like and subscribe button!!#michaelspedden #davemadaras #coachdave #safetyisateamsport #chesapeakeregionsafetycouncil #fowlplayersradio #fowlplayersofperryville #safety #occupationalsafetyandhealthwww.fowlplayersradio.comwww.thefowlplayersofperryville.com#michaelspedden#fowlplayersradio#fowlplayersofperryville@fowl_radio@SpeddenMichaelwww.youtube.com/@fowlplayersradiowww.patreon.com/fowlplayersradiobuymeacoffee.com/fowlplayerw

CSP instruyó llamar Paso de los Pueblos Indígenas a Paso de Cortés, en Puebla, porque éstos pasaron antes que el conquistador español. 

What role do athletics play in the formation of future church workers? Coach Matt Beisel (Head Cross Country and Track & Field Coach – Concordia University, Nebraska) and Coach Josh Schumacher (Head Football Coach, Concordia University, St. Paul) join Andy and Sarah for our Set Apart to Serve series to talk about their respective positions and why they love being coaches, how sports have been a key part of their development both physically and as a whole person, the importance of the physical development of a person for their future vocations, how stewardship of the body and physical health impact how a church worker serves, and their philosophy/theology when they coach men and women at our Concordia universities. Learn more about CUNE athletics at cune.edu/athletics and CSP athletics at cspbears.com. Christ's church will continue until He returns, and that church will continue to need church workers. Set Apart to Serve (SAS) is an initiative of the LCMS to recruit church workers. Together, we pray for workers for the Kingdom of God and encourage children to consider church work vocations. Here are three easy ways you can participate in SAS: 1. Pray with your children for God to provide church workers. 2. Talk to your children about becoming church workers. 3. Thank God for the people who work in your congregation. To learn more about Set Apart to Serve, visit lcms.org/set-apart-to-serve. Have a topic you'd like to hear about on The Coffee Hour? Contact us at: listener@kfuo.org.

You can do great customer experience work and still lose the budget conversation if you walk into leadership meetings with the wrong proof. We're tired of being asked to defend CX ROI with scores that don't match the company scorecard, and we're even more tired of watching smart CX leaders “white knuckle” their way through budget season. This conversation is about changing the starting point so ROI becomes obvious, credible, and repeatable.We talk through why proving return on investment is so hard when the work begins with tactics and ends with rationalizing the spend. Instead, we start with organizational goals and translate them into what executives already track: more revenue and fewer expenses. We break down how words like scale, growth, market share, and even workplace of choice can become measurable outcomes, and how a simple blueprint helps you identify the leaders who need buy-in, the levers you can pull in the customer journey, and the behavior changes you expect to see.Then we get practical about customer experience metrics. NPS and CSAT can be helpful feedback indicators, but they're not enough on their own. We dig into behavioral metrics and analytics that connect CX strategy to business impact, including retention, churn, conversion, friction points, complaint trends, and operational cost to serve. If your goals don't mention “customer,” we show you how to stop worrying and start proving how customer behavior drives every business result.If you want more funding, more trust, and a stronger CX business case, listen through and then write down your top organizational goals and start there. Subscribe, share this with a fellow CX leader, and leave a review so more people can find the show.Resources Mentioned:Article: ​​Want Greater CX Success? Build Your CX Success Blueprint -- https://www.experienceinvestigators.com/how-to-build-cx-success-statement/Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.comLearn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.comExperience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.comEnjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us. Leave your review at ratethispodcast.com/xact.Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Apologies on the slow post with this one CSP and CSBK friends.. Football, travel, kids, blah blah blah.. Anyways here's the show. Happy CTMP week!! We have another shown coming out Tuesday and a CTMP preview/discussion Wednesday/Thursday. Thanks for listening!

What if the moment a boss dismissed your vision was the exact moment your career truly began? In this episode, Chris Rodgers, founder and CEO of CSP Agency, shares how a psychology major turned phone salesman found his way into SEO in the early days of pay-per-click advertising in Chicago. A meeting with a senior executive who didn't believe in what Chris was building gave him all the clarity he needed. He walked out, enrolled in a master's program, flipped his 401k, and never looked back. Fifteen years later, CSP Agency is helping B2B and e-commerce companies navigate one of the biggest shifts in search since Google launched: the rise of generative engine optimization and the AI-driven conversational web.   [00:04:00] What He Does and Who He Serves Founder and CEO of CSP Agency, a human-first AI-enhanced SEO and GEO agency Serves B2B and e-commerce clients from funded startups to Fortune 100 companies Specializes in generative engine optimization, helping brands get found in AI-driven search [00:06:00] What Inspires Him Right Now The search and SEO landscape is going through the biggest shake-up in its history Launched CSP's first paid GEO client in October; most competitors are still figuring it out Brands that move now will be positioned far ahead when the dust settles [00:07:00] The Future of Search: A Conversational Web AI overviews and AI mode are already changing how people find information The traditional ten blue links experience is going away Google is launching informational agents this summer that will do research on your behalf Visibility in this new world requires a completely different strategy than traditional SEO [00:10:00] How He Got Here Started selling popcorn door to door for Boy Scouts; always loved talking to people Became a psychology major and worked as a patient activity director for a clinical trials company Moved into sales at R.H. Donnelly in downtown Chicago and discovered pay-per-click advertising Became the top rep for integrating and executing PPC across the division [00:14:00] The Accidental SEO Discovery Noticed that profile pages sending traffic from PPC were ranking highly on Google Started optimizing those pages on sales calls; it was his first hands-on SEO work Saw how much business he was driving for small companies and got completely hooked Decided he wanted to be a practitioner, not just a seller of services [00:16:00] Client Impact Helped a New York executive assistant recruiting firm expand from local to national A neighbor saw their growth and sent a referral; that is when Chris knew the work was speaking for itself Has helped enterprise clients grow organic value from $9 million to $25 million a month [00:19:00] The First Relationship That Changed Everything: The Executive Who Said No Went to a senior executive at R.H. Donnelly to pitch a role change into SEO product development The executive listened patiently and then said: I don't see how this helps your sales numbers That response hit like a lightning bolt; Chris walked out knowing he was done He enrolled in the master's program, flipped his 401k, and launched his first startup [00:22:00] The Second Relationship: His Manager Who Opened the Door His manager at R.H. Donnelly left to start an SEO agency when the company disbanded its SEO department Chris went to him and asked not for a sales role but for an SEO execution role His manager said yes, brought him in as a contract senior SEO analyst, and pointed him toward who to follow to learn That was the real beginning of Chris's professional SEO career [00:25:00] The Impact He Got to Make Has created jobs for people at every stage of their careers, from interns to veteran SEOs His first intern worked for school credit, graduated, and became the lead SEO in the organization People have left CSP with resumes that got them into senior roles at major companies Helping people grow in their careers has been one of the most meaningful parts of building the business [00:28:00] Where to Find Them Website is csp.agency; a complimentary strategy session is available on the site The team will audit current SEO performance and run the brand through multiple LLMs against competitors They show exactly where the brand is or is not showing up in AI-driven search responses   KEY QUOTES "When the snow globe gets shaken up and things aren't solidified, you've got a way to move up through it so that when it comes back down and solidifies, you're in a much higher place than before." - Chris Rodgers "Where there's change, there's opportunity. There is an opportunity to get ahead of it right now." - Chris Rodgers CONNECT WITH CHRIS RODGERS Website: https://www.csp.agency Strategy Session: https://www.csp.agency/complimentary-strategy-session LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/seo-dub   Thanks for tuning in! If you liked my show, please LEAVE A 5-STAR REVIEW, like, and subscribe! Find me on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeart Radio | Stitcher

"We value your feedback.” “Thanks for your patience.” “We apologize for any inconvenience.” Most of us have heard these lines so many times that we can feel our skepticism kick in before the sentence even ends. That reaction isn't cynicism for no reason. It's what customers learn when the message sounds caring but the experience doesn't match the promise.We get honest about how organizations "fib" to customers without meaning to, from org charts dictating the customer journey to feedback that vanishes with no follow-up. We also tackle the biggest expectation gap of all: overpromising, and why the goal isn't perfection, but believable, honest CX leadership that keeps the promises we choose to make.Subscribe, leave a rating and review, and share it with a teammate who owns messaging, handoffs, or service promises.Resources Mentioned:Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.comLearn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.comExperience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.comEnjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us. Leave your review at ratethispodcast.com/xact.Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

In this episode of “At Your Convenience,” CSP Executive Editor Hannah Hammond talks to Rene Dacosta, vice president for food, beverage and QSR at Brake Time Corner Market (BTCM). The Houston-based chain of more than 240 convenience stores was featured on the cover of CSP magazine's July issue. Brake Time Corner Market is No. 35 on CSP's 2026 Top 202 ranking of convenience-store chains by U.S. store count. BTCM has grown its store count significantly through new builds and acquisitions over the last few years. Now, it's looking to up its foodservice game with Dacosta's help. In this podcast, Dacosta shares how he got into the convenience-store industry after working at pizza companies, and what consumers' impressions are of c-store food.  

Don’t miss this massive SMB partner shift! Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX: https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this pivotal episode, we sit down with Jose Gomez Cueto, Microsoft’s SMB leader for the Americas, to uncover the monumental shifts happening within the partner ecosystem and the $20 billion cloud opportunity currently on the table. The discussion dives deep into Microsoft’s commitment to the CSP channel, the explosion of AI agents, and why shifting from traditional headcount growth to outcome-based results is critical for survival. From navigating the complexities of the marketplace to the urgency of becoming “Customer Zero” with AI tools, this conversation provides the roadmap every MSP needs to thrive in the new era of technology. https://youtu.be/QE-1w7GeyPM Key Takeaways Microsoft operates a $20 billion cloud revenue business in the Americas alone, with 80% driven by the channel. The Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program is now Microsoft’s primary hero motion for the fourth region. The currency of SMB growth is shifting away from headcount and moving directly toward AI-driven outcomes. MSPs must transition from traditional IT outsourcing to strategic business process consulting to survive. Failing to proactively adopt and secure AI tools creates massive liability and shadow AI risks for organizations. IT providers are urged to become “Customer Zero” by deploying and testing Copilot and autonomous agents internally before selling them. If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Key Tags CSP, Agent 365, SMB cloud revenue, outcome-based selling, Copilot for business, Defender for business, shadow AI risks, AI agent deployment, Purview data security, Marketplace API integration, autonomous agents, Customer Zero, Microsoft Americas segment Transcript Jose Gomez Cueto AUDIO PODCAST [00:00:00] Jose Gomez Cueto: And, and you know, if I might say something that is confidential, avid Vince, uh, to be quite honest, please, please, uh, by definition, a marketplace is eliminating intermediaries. [00:00:11] Vince Menzione: You can feel it happening. [00:00:13] Vince Menzione: The ecosystem is shifting beneath us. The way Hyperscalers are partnering, how AI is remaking the channel and what it means to win in 2026. [00:00:23] Vince Menzione: Welcome to the Ultimate Partner Podcast. I’m Vince Menzi, own your host. And each week I sit down with leaders at the intersection of technology, partnerships and outcomes. The voices shaping how ecosystems actually work. We talk about what’s real, what’s changing, and what it takes to lead in this era where the partner channel isn’t just part of the strategy. [00:00:45] Vince Menzione: It is the strategy because being in the room changes everything. Let’s start. [00:00:55] Vince Menzione: I am absolutely thrilled for our, our next guest. Um, some of you heard me talk about this maybe earlier or in various pockets of conversation. Um, I believe both the SMB market is an, is an incredible opportunity. We’ve called it the Acre of Diamonds at Ultimate Partner at previous events. And then the MSP community, which I want to thank so many of you to for coming, coming on board now. [00:01:25] Vince Menzione: ’cause we’ve had some MSPs that have come to all our events. And doubled, tripled, quadruple the sizes of their business. From what they’ve learned in these rooms. And so we invited our next guest to come. Oh, Jose, come on up. Jose Gomez Cuerto is the leader of Microsoft’s SMB business for the Americas. Come on. [00:01:43] Vince Menzione: Come on over. Come on over. Sit down with me. And I was so thrilled to get this gentleman to come join us. His team is doing incredible work. I got to meet some of his team actually earlier this year. And we know each other for many years ago. [00:01:56] Jose Gomez Cueto: We do. [00:01:56] Vince Menzione: When I was at Microsoft, right? Yeah. So, so great to see you again. [00:01:59] Jose Gomez Cueto: It’s a pleasure to be here. Uh, thanks for the invitation. I’m thrilled to be here. And thank you all for making time, uh, or traveling here. Uh, this is the best time. To be in the industry. [00:02:10] Vince Menzione: It’s an incredible time. [00:02:11] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah, [00:02:11] Vince Menzione: it’s an incredible time. So sit down. Yeah, sit down. Let’s, yeah. So let’s talk about you and your organization. [00:02:17] Vince Menzione: Um, let’s talk, well, I, I, I wanna bring this up because it was like, the noise I heard in the room when I was, I went to Interven earlier this year. Yeah. Is, does Microsoft Care about this market? And, um, I was at Microsoft many years, we worked together when I was a, a gm. And, uh, it was run differently back in the day. [00:02:37] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And there’s been a lot of changes to what we call the SME and C business now. Mm-hmm. Uh, and the SMB business, which you run. So let’s talk a little bit about your organization, where you sit in the organization, and then I want to kind of dive in a little bit about what’s changed. ’cause a lot has changed for the better. [00:02:54] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah, it’s a great question and I think that that’s what a lot of people think about, uh, SMB and, and who’s SMB and, and who’s at Microsoft and who do I talk to. So, [00:03:02] Vince Menzione: yes. [00:03:02] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, even though I know a lot of, uh, friendly faces in the room, I think it’s a great, uh, starting point. Vince, so. Basically, uh, I am responsible for what we call the small and medium business, uh, segment. [00:03:15] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, we can also call it small and medium enterprises. Uh, I would say that it is not a monolith. Uh, we do have, uh, subsegmentation, I think that our friend Jay was talking about up to 20 subsegmentation. Uh, we think about it for simplifi simplification purposes on three. Uh, so we have, uh, the smaller organizations, the medium-sized organizations. [00:03:36] Jose Gomez Cueto: And then what we call top point manage, which is basically large enterprise that we simply don’t have an account management team, uh, assigned to. And we are the happy recipients of many of those, uh, every year. Uh, so I would say that, uh, a best definition would be also anything that is unmanaged and is primarily driven through the channel. [00:03:54] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, we run in the Americas approximately more than $20 billion of revenue, uh, on cloud. Uh, that’s [00:04:01] Vince Menzione: crazy. [00:04:01] Jose Gomez Cueto: So, and 80% of that is done. Through companies that are here, [00:04:05] Vince Menzione: $20 billion of business. [00:04:07] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah. So, um, the, the Americas region that I’m, uh, representing and under my responsibility includes basically three sales units, the United States, Canada, and Latin America. [00:04:18] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yes. Latin America is more fragmented because we have multi-country and multi, uh, subsidiary, uh, structure. Just to recap a little bit of what you asked me rewinding on what has happened in the last two or three years. Yeah. We brought basically, uh, probably something that you might remember from you were there. [00:04:36] Jose Gomez Cueto: I, yes. Uh, which is bringing the segment, uh, with the channel together. So, uh, I think that, um, uh. Earlier in the morning, uh, Steven was, uh, talking about it, what we call S-M-U-N-C, which is, uh, this segment with the channel. And the main reason is to drive, uh, that synergy, uh, and making, uh, a very bold statement that many of you might remember in the last two years, uh, Judson and Ralph, uh, heter or, or new, uh, president for this, uh, fourth region. [00:05:05] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, ’cause we call it fourth region. Yeah. ’cause the other one is our enterprises. [00:05:08] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So Asia, Americas Exactly. And, and EMEA. Then you’re the fourth region. [00:05:13] Jose Gomez Cueto: We’re the fourth region. So, so, um, making CSP, uh, our hero motion, and that is fantastic news. I, I started, uh, part of my journey, uh, in, in the channel, uh, way earlier in distribution in the year 2000. [00:05:30] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:05:30] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, and fast forward, I would say 2011, we were launching the first commercial SaaS offering, which was Office 365. Um, I had the privilege to be, uh, leading the launch globally for that. Uh, but then we, the first thing we did was build a channel, and that was called syndication. And basically the precursor of that, uh, became CSP, basically putting, uh, the partner or customer in the middle, the partner around it for the, not only the, the opportunity, but also the responsibility to serve the customer. [00:06:04] Jose Gomez Cueto: 360 from, uh, presales all the way to, uh, uh. Upsell cross sell, and in between deployment, uh, things, uh, around, um, servicing, bundling offers, uh, troubleshooting and support, et cetera. So, uh, back to your question was, this is a very important thing because we’re basically, uh, making our channel the scale and, and the vision that we have is, is that we are gonna be continuing to scale through the channel. [00:06:33] Jose Gomez Cueto: So, um, one last thing I say, uh, in terms of the organization that I think is important for everyone to understand, and I’m gonna go a little bit into more org structure, is that we, we have these three sales units that are geographic. But, uh, what we’ve done this year is to have, uh, more depth on the solution area. [00:06:50] Jose Gomez Cueto: So you might remember that, uh, we’ve simplified them, uh, same as we used to have 8, 13, 13 areas. Now we have only three Oh yeah, same, same, uh, in the solution area. So we have, uh, the AI business solutions. Uh, cloud and AI platforms. And then, uh, security and my team basically mirrors that structure. And we have, uh, team members, uh, primarily, um, our partner, solutions specialists that are, their job is to work with companies like you. [00:07:17] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, some few we do, uh, direct in others. What we do is work with, uh, our top distributors, and I think we have, uh, in the room many of those. I think Google is gonna follow up, uh, for PAX eight, and that’s, uh, how we’re going to market now. [00:07:31] Vince Menzione: So just a little bit of context too for me. ’cause I, I, I had heard this at another event. [00:07:36] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And I just wanted to share this. Um, when I was at Microsoft, we, we did not put the right emphasis and energy and resources in the s and b market when I was there, or, or it was fragmented. Every group did it differently. You remember those days too, right? Well, with public sector, we didn’t necessarily have a team focused, and every business did it a little bit differently. [00:08:00] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. And I think one of the contexts you, you mentioned Ralph and being in Ralph’s organization. Yeah. Pulling that all together and creating the fourth region created a lot of focus that didn’t exist. And consistency in terms of execution. I think that’s what you’re talking about here. Right? And then also the fact that like, we didn’t, I don’t think we had a sep, an SMB leader back in, back in the day. [00:08:22] Vince Menzione: Like we didn’t have somebody that we can go to to think about the MSP community the way we do today. Mm-hmm. Right. We were just, they were just almost like unmanaged entities out there. Yeah. Was that, would you, would you agree with that? [00:08:32] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah, I, we went through several iterations that, uh, you might argue, uh, were painful or not. [00:08:38] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, ultimately what we’re committed is to simplify the partner experience. And make that the same for the customers. But what we have is now one center of gravity, uh, a global SMB organization. We have three area leaders. And uh, and that helps us, uh, to be quite honest and in confidence. And you and I talked about it, Jose, this is a forum for, uh. [00:08:58] Jose Gomez Cueto: Speaking the truth. Uh, we, we, we have to fight the gravitational force of the managed space. The company has a big enterprise footprint, so, uh, many of us have become, uh, the chief agitators, uh, to fight the good fight, uh, for SMB. Uh, try to under unpack, uh, in every single conversation with senior Execut. [00:09:17] Jose Gomez Cueto: What is an MSP? And no, it’s not data consulting or one of the large, uh, global design. Uh, and then we explain what they do and then what is a two tier channel, how do distributors work? And, uh, and what about this and what about that? So I think that that has been, uh, a great, uh, progress and a lot of that can be reflected, uh, into how we’re, hopefully everyone in the room is seeing it in how we’re going to market. [00:09:40] Jose Gomez Cueto: I’ll give you two examples. [00:09:41] Guest: Yes. [00:09:42] Jose Gomez Cueto: Um, for, for quite some time. We, we have very limited, uh. Product truth. That’s what the lingo that we use internally, uh, related to offer that were targeted to SMB. And I would say that, uh, business premium, uh, for M 365, uh, was the fact to offer. But now we’ve been able to in, uh, increase, uh, the not so not only commitment, uh, but also the investment that we’re doing as a company into launching offers. [00:10:08] Jose Gomez Cueto: So we have a co compiler for business that is. At a lower price point that has, uh, the same capabilities at the enterprise, uh, that we’re, uh, doing that we also have some security, uh, offers, uh, that are now unattached to business premium, which is our hero motion for sub 300 space. So you start to see, uh, an important trend and it’s great to have jobson at a CEO, uh, of the commercial business capacity because, uh, we’re making things happen. [00:10:34] Jose Gomez Cueto: So what I would say is that I love coming here to these forums. A lot of my team members are here. We’re here to learn. We’re the learner. All we, we, we don’t know much. We need to learn more. Uh, and, and just keeping us honest in terms of bringing that, uh, ethos of, of the customer that most of you are serving and, and, and things that we can improve to get better to deliver value. [00:10:58] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And the speed at which you’re moving has been pretty fast. It’s been very nimble. Like I, I, I’ve been watching this progression. It’s really like you, you’re really leaning in. I was actually hoping because I could ask you a bunch of questions. Yeah. But we have such a great audience and for the first time we really have opened it up to a lot of MSPs in the room. [00:11:18] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And I know you, you wanna get some interaction with some of these folks as well. I thought maybe we would open if you’re okay with this. Yeah, absolutely. I’d rather than I go off script a little bit. I’d rather open it up to some of the MSPs in the room. We’re sitting here eager to learn how and, and what Microsoft is going to do to help. [00:11:35] Vince Menzione: Because I think the opportunity, I personally think the opportunity is huge right [00:11:38] Jose Gomez Cueto: now. Yeah. Let’s do that and well, we get, uh, warmed up. I would say that. [00:11:43] Vince Menzione: So we need some mics. Yeah. [00:11:43] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, something that I’m, that I’m seeing, uh, Vince, and, and, and a question that many of you might have is why now? And, and why this an, an exciting, an exciting time. [00:11:54] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:11:54] Jose Gomez Cueto: Um, and I would say that, uh. Right now we’re seeing, obviously Jay talked about it and, and the big transformation, but it’s a once in a generation or one in a lifetime. Yeah. Uh, shift of the entire platform. Uh, and, and a lot of the scenarios are even maybe scary, but what we see is huge opportunity. And from an SMB perspective, uh, the biggest thing that excites me is moving from, um, something that was. [00:12:23] Jose Gomez Cueto: More related to size, and now we’re moving to outcomes. So, so think about the future of SMBs, uh, with agents and things being measured on outcomes. And, and what this leads to is, uh, Jay talked about it as well, and sorry Jay, it’s such a good job that I keep quoting you. Um, we do that a lot. Uh. You got it. [00:12:49] Jose Gomez Cueto: So you talked about, uh, I noticed that Bill Gates when he said, you know, uh, uh, a pc, uh, in every desk and what we see is every human empowered with agents. Yeah. Especially in work. And what does that mean, that the currency changes being, because what you’re gonna be able to, to envision. Not in the, in the, in the near future, but now is an agentic explosion where then, uh, the currency is outcomes? [00:13:14] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yes. So if you think of an SMB growing, it’s not growing on, on, on full-time employees or headcount. It’s growing on the ability to do more through agents. So, so I think that’s an important thing and, and that’s something that we’re working very closely with our all, all our channel and the offerings that we’re launching to market as well. [00:13:32] Vince Menzione: I also think about the MSPs as being perfectly positioned because what you described, the new, the new model, the future customer and the outcomes is gonna require hands on the steering wheel at all times. [00:13:44] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yes. Yeah. So on that one, and still waiting for some, uh. Someone that is not shy to ask questions, but we’ll, we’ll keep going in the meantime. [00:13:52] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, I, I think that, uh, we are learning, all the [00:13:55] Vince Menzione: MSPs are lined up over here. I’m marching them all. [00:13:57] Jose Gomez Cueto: We, and, and I almost know by name all everyone in the first two rows. Yes. Uh, so, so, uh, I might pick on them. Uh, they’re too shy, but, but we’re learning together. Uh, Vince, uh, the important thing is, is the transformation, uh, and the opportunity, but also the risk of, uh, not acting. [00:14:17] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, what we were seeing, uh, for the first, uh, year or two was kicking tires, people testing, uh, ai. And now what we’ve seen is basically, uh, a full adoption. Uh, of the agentic technology, not even adoption of the tools, but embracing the technology. So I, I want to give you, uh, two specific, uh, examples or data points we have, uh, just in the Americas, more than almost 9 million, uh, people using copilot chat. [00:14:49] Vince Menzione: Wow, that’s amazing. [00:14:50] Jose Gomez Cueto: So imagine, uh, the, the potential that is there for people that are actively using the tool. Yeah. Uh, to en enable new scenarios of doing things. Uh, another example, and I think I have, uh, someone in my team here, is Amber in the room. Amber Kinney? No, she left. Okay. So Amber runs, uh, cloud and ai, uh, uh, or Azure platform. [00:15:12] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, her team has deployed, uh, more than, uh, 11 agents internally for our partner solution specialist, uh, from. Simple agents that will, uh, tell is if a specific deal is eligible for a pre-sales or post-sales program. And comparing all the complexity of our programs, oh my [00:15:29] Vince Menzione: goodness. [00:15:30] Jose Gomez Cueto: All the way to, to, to managing a pipe more effectively of opportunities. [00:15:34] Jose Gomez Cueto: So what we’re seeing is real. This is not something that people are just kicking the tires. It’s like this is the opportunity. So back to, to the point of m ms. P uh, is, is about learning together on how to transition. To, uh, a model that is gonna be based on outcomes. And, and we were discussing, uh, I was with some of our distributors, uh, many of them in the last two months in, in a specific partner advisory, uh, councils and, and some people were just sharing their experiences. [00:16:04] Jose Gomez Cueto: Oh, I decided to charge X amount for an agent. And how do you come up with that number? I don’t know. We’re just testing. Okay. And what about their current revenue? Uh, and, but what about the tokens? What if, uh, the agents start to consume and they’re gonna do the metering? So, so I think that we’re learning together in this space. [00:16:22] Jose Gomez Cueto: Um, but what it is important is just to think about the important, the, the, the critical role that the MSPs are gonna have in leading. And the biggest challenge that we’re seeing and, and we see it over and over and over is, uh, the part about scaling. [00:16:38] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:16:39] Jose Gomez Cueto: The skilling is not, uh, about learning how to use the copilot tool or to do, uh, some, uh, you know, tuning and that, because thankfully our, at least our, our technology as a platform, uh, pretty much carries the same, uh, security, uh, and compliance configurations that you have in your Microsoft 365 tenant. [00:17:00] Jose Gomez Cueto: But it is more the, the, the skilling about understanding how to do. Customer outcome conversation. What is your AI strategy? What [00:17:08] Vince Menzione: that’s scaling? Yes. [00:17:09] Jose Gomez Cueto: What really matters? Not [00:17:10] Vince Menzione: the technical skill. It’s, it’s really the approach that they’re taking. [00:17:14] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah. [00:17:14] Vince Menzione: With the organization. I, it seems that MSPs for many years were down in the weeds. [00:17:20] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah. [00:17:20] Vince Menzione: They were turning the, the wrench, so to speak, in the organization, and yet now it seems like this. Kevin Piker, your old boss used to use this term. The, the CIO. The CEO is the new CIO. In other words, you need to be selling upstream. You need, you need to be having the conversations in the organization that are strategic [00:17:40] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah. [00:17:40] Vince Menzione: To that organization. [00:17:41] Jose Gomez Cueto: So, two, two twofold on, on that, uh, point, which is very important. One is, uh, not our, a lot of our MSPs are equipped right now. [00:17:49] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:17:49] Jose Gomez Cueto: To have a, a conversation about business strategy. Because traditionally has been more outsource it. [00:17:56] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:17:56] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, we started with, you know, managing the networks, then adding services, support tickets, et cetera. [00:18:03] Jose Gomez Cueto: So being able to have that conversation is important. Uh, we, we see through a lot of our tooling that, uh, the shadow AI is everywhere. And what I always tell in any MSP conversation that I have is risk security. You’re on the hook if something happens. That’s right. So if you’re not acting. Uh, then it is a liability. [00:18:22] Vince Menzione: You’re letting things take off in your own organization. Yeah. People are using [00:18:25] Jose Gomez Cueto: philanthropic on their own. The company can go, uh, bankrupt or get sued or get, uh, if they’re in a regulated industry, they can be taken out, et cetera. So, so that’s an important point, uh, related to, to that transformation. Uh, and, and the other part of the skilling that you mentioned that is super important is being in the weeds. [00:18:45] Jose Gomez Cueto: That is where the innovation is happening. Yeah. The later research that we have is being in the front line because it’s all about, uh, reinventing those processes. So I think that it’s a, it’s a good combination that if we have the MSPs, um, and we’re working, uh, not only internally but with our distributors to develop the right skilling around those other type of, uh, consulting skills. [00:19:07] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, data skills, uh, business process, uh, redesign and flows. Uh, that is where, where we see the big opportunity. [00:19:14] Vince Menzione: So it’s balancing out the technical skills with the business process skills, the consulting skills. Yeah, exactly. I think we have a question over here. Yeah. [00:19:22] Guest: Good afternoon, Vince. Good. Sorry. Thanks for the great content. [00:19:26] Guest: The question is around small medium businesses and the cost around cybersecurity. So. Basically, as new tools are coming up that are AI based, such as co-pilot for security, defender for AI, are also consumption based, is there a risk that SMEs will be left out under that cybersecurity poverty line? [00:19:52] Jose Gomez Cueto: I don’t think, uh, it is, uh, a risk to being left out, uh, in the country that the, the SMBs, I would say are more help is needed. And, and the way we think about it from a perspective of, of ai and specifically I’m want to talk about agents, uh, it was mentioned by Steven in, uh, in the morning, and I’m gonna talk a little bit high level and then I’m gonna try to bring it down to, to more tangible is this concept of intelligent and trust. [00:20:19] Jose Gomez Cueto: So on the intelligence, what, what we’re, what we’re trying to say here is that your AI is not just generic stuff that you just prompt and you get like anything that is on the web, but there’s contextual. Data, and, and that’s what we do, uh, with what you might be familiar with, which is the iq. Uh, so we have, um, iq, uh, also in Foundry and on our different data products. [00:20:40] Jose Gomez Cueto: So basically bringing the context of your work, of your contacts, of the people you interact, uh, of the meetings of, of the emails, of the SharePoint files, but also important connectors that are in line of business applications that you can bring to copilot. And then. That intelligence, uh, is relevant and that that basically increases innovation. [00:21:01] Jose Gomez Cueto: And the part about trust, uh, uh, not exactly in cybersecurity, but, but related is basically, uh, agent 365. Uh, can I see, show of hands, who’s aware of Agent 365? Maybe like [00:21:14] Vince Menzione: in the front two rows, [00:21:15] Jose Gomez Cueto: 20%? Yeah. So, um, that is basically, uh, an, an amazing opportunity for our MSP channel because it gives you opportunity to. [00:21:25] Jose Gomez Cueto: Basically observe, uh, govern and apply security to the, the agent activity that is happening. So we think in the context of ai, I think that that’s a, a, a super important, uh, aspect to mitigate any risk of, of what can happen if there’s not, uh, the right, uh, posture. Uh, and then, uh, on, on, on the other part of security, I would say that something, I mentioned something about offers. [00:21:51] Jose Gomez Cueto: We brought the capabilities of the enterprise, uh, SKUs and solutions into these add-ons to N 365. So I would say that with, uh, defender for business, uh, plan two, and sorry to go into the SKU language, uh, it, it is important to, to understand that you have those advanced capabilities. And then another one that we’re pushing, uh, hard and, and is had great receptionist, um, uh, purview, uh, and purview. [00:22:15] Jose Gomez Cueto: What allows you is just to really do everything related to data. Data security policies of what data should be prompted by the model, what information to stay or, or, or not stay. Uh, and I think that’s, that’s also a good opportunity that we’re seeing to bring those, uh, advanced capabilities into the SMBs. [00:22:33] Jose Gomez Cueto: The challenge that we have is how do we get them faster, uh, to everyone, especially when there’s, uh, you know, competing, uh, so solutions around it. [00:22:44] Vince Menzione: We have one more question, and I think we’re probably gonna have to break after that. I know we’re over time already and you’ve got a busy rest of your day. I got, well, we got one back there and we’ve got a mic up here, so, so we have two questions. [00:22:57] Vince Menzione: Yeah. We’ll do Tim first and then we’ll get the [00:22:59] Vince Menzione: mic up. I’ll go for the first 30 minutes and we’ll go from there. Yes. Long time listener. Great to see you again. Jose. Um, business premium, we did E seven. We talked about getting a voice from the MSP space. To build out a business premium, like additional offering. [00:23:13] Vince Menzione: Is there any context to that you have any vision in your crystal ball for October? [00:23:17] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, I cannot say or, or deny. Uh, but yeah, I think that what, what you I love it in, in all seriousness team. Uh, thanks for the question. Uh, I think that what you should expect is, uh, I call it product truth, uh, more, uh, SMB built purpose built for solutions. [00:23:35] Jose Gomez Cueto: So an equivalent of, of any seven as well. Yeah. [00:23:40] Vince Menzione: You still have, we have another question in the back? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. [00:23:43] Guest: Yeah. Uh, Jeremy here with Integral, um, there’s this kind of idea going around that while CSP has been very successful for many of us as MSPs and, and since the beginning, it’s been a great program that was focused on s and b and it’s come up now. [00:23:57] Guest: There’s this kind of shift saying, and CSPs and you think about being marketplace companies where CSP is, the plumbing and marketplace is, is the lead. If that is true, or maybe you comment on that, that idea. How does marketplace strategy playing into kind of, I guess I’m plugging serials piece now from behind, but how does marketplace strategy then play into the s and b market if CSPs are focused on that marketplace mechanism? [00:24:21] Guest: Where CSPs now are and the, and the modern work and all the things that we’ve been doing really well for a long time become, maybe plumbing is too far down the stack, but really marketplace being a focus, is that a strategy piece that we should be thinking about for CS p strategy overall? [00:24:36] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah, it’s a great question and I’ll try to keep it brief. [00:24:39] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, I think you need my v The vision that we have is we’re doing both. Uh, we’re empowering, uh, and customers to find what they need. Uh, in the marketplace. Uh, zero talked about also the opportunity for resellers to get enrolled and start to add services and other things. There’s also, another part of the is, is multifacet, uh, to work with ISVs to make it easier and recruit them to bring the right offers. [00:25:03] Jose Gomez Cueto: For SMBI would say that the feedback that we need is to make sure that the right SA ISVs are the ones that serving SMV are represented. Then from another front, I would accept that yes, we have some, uh, plumbing work to do because right now, uh, some part of the billing is not really that nimble for a two tier model if you’re working through a distributor. [00:25:23] Jose Gomez Cueto: So we made some great progress. Uh, we, we, uh, have, uh, announced something and Ignite, if you missed it, I think we might talk about it, uh, soon. Uh, but we have that, that connection via APIs with, uh, the four largest, uh, global distributors. So we’re making progress towards something that will be seamless. Uh, but I think that the biggest opportunity that we have is, is to crack the code, uh, for marketplace. [00:25:46] Jose Gomez Cueto: And, and, you know, if I might say something that is confidential, avid Vince, uh, to be quite honest, please, uh, by definition a marketplace is eliminating intermediaries. So that’s the dilemma. How do you bring the channel in between to help you expand, [00:26:02] Vince Menzione: right? [00:26:03] Jose Gomez Cueto: That that is really the, the, the, the, the holy grail, if I may use those words. [00:26:07] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, but that’s something that, that we’re working towards. And I think, uh, we have a great opportunity ahead and, and you should expect, uh, more announcements as we head into the summer events on how we’re gonna make that more seamless. [00:26:19] Vince Menzione: And REO really lit up the channel Yeah. In, in a big way. ’cause that a hundred percent, that was a blocker before. [00:26:24] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah. [00:26:24] Vince Menzione: Yeah. But CSP is also an incredible opportunity if it, you know, I know, I know there’s other sessions and conversations around it. And it does feel, and I’ve heard this before, like I wanna buy from my MSP because they’re the ones I trust. [00:26:37] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yes. [00:26:37] Vince Menzione: But yet I go, I have to go around the system in order to transact my Microsoft licenses. [00:26:43] Vince Menzione: Right. Yeah. And that’s, [00:26:45] Jose Gomez Cueto: I think the scenario getting the gentleman was mentioning is related to marketplace. But yeah. Vince, uh, uh, I just wanted to perhaps close, uh, please. Because I think we’re outta time, right? Yeah, we [00:26:54] Vince Menzione: are. [00:26:54] Jose Gomez Cueto: Yeah. Uh, just in terms of what to expect, uh, we are continuing to be, uh, partner centric. [00:27:01] Jose Gomez Cueto: You should expect as we go into the next fiscal year, uh, more refinement into the customer subsegmentation, we have this concept of above 300 and below 300, uh, working even closer with our distributors to help us scale and amplify the efforts that we do around recruitment, scaling, go to market, uh, co-sell, et cetera. [00:27:22] Jose Gomez Cueto: Uh, and then, uh, obviously expect, uh, we, we, a call to action that I have for everyone is become customer zero. Vince, I’m gonna put you on the spot here. How many agents did you use today? [00:27:37] Vince Menzione: None. [00:27:37] Jose Gomez Cueto: Okay. [00:27:38] Vince Menzione: I, I’ve been in the room leading the room today, [00:27:41] Jose Gomez Cueto: even with more reason. [00:27:42] Vince Menzione: No, I, in, I need to do [00:27:43] Jose Gomez Cueto: more. Put your autonomous agents. [00:27:44] Vince Menzione: I do. [00:27:45] Jose Gomez Cueto: I’m not kidding you and I didn’t, I need to be [00:27:47] Vince Menzione: more of [00:27:47] Jose Gomez Cueto: a frontier for myself. The answer I get usually is like one hand raiser, by the way. Uh, but, but, uh, jokes aside, uh, I think. Becoming customer zero is critical. We cannot be deploying and selling what we’re not using. Uh, we have, uh, great tooling for low-code scenarios, uh, in, in, in, now, I don’t wanna say like in a few months now we have no one, uh, people that have zero knowledge and coding already developing and deploying agents into a secure environment. [00:28:19] Jose Gomez Cueto: It is happening. [00:28:20] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:28:20] Jose Gomez Cueto: So, uh, then, uh. Copilot. It is not a competitor charge, GVP or cloud. It is a platform we have both included. [00:28:29] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:28:29] Jose Gomez Cueto: Do we have multimodal, we have iq. That is everything, uh, closed in terms of, uh, your intelligence. It is secure by default. Uh, and then allowing you to, to do, um, agents and then agents 365 to manage it. [00:28:41] Jose Gomez Cueto: So basically those three stages, customer zero. Uh, copilot agents and Agents 365 as your tool to, to manage them [00:28:50] Vince Menzione: and don’t go rogue and start doing your own things with anthropic and setting up your own instances because you’re gonna compromise your, your instance in your environment. [00:28:59] Jose Gomez Cueto: Well, actually, uh, if you do it in the copilot interface [00:29:02] Vince Menzione: Oh, well, I’m saying do it. [00:29:03] Vince Menzione: Yeah. I’m, I’m at RO going off, off, off, uh, [00:29:06] Jose Gomez Cueto: off. Yeah. Yeah, [00:29:07] Vince Menzione: yeah. Great. Well, thank you, sir. Appreciate you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Ultimate Partner Podcast. If today’s conversation resonated, share it with a partner leader in your network. Subscribe where you listen, and head over to the Ultimate partner.com for show notes related content and the resources for this episode. [00:29:29] Vince Menzione: And if you haven’t already, now’s the time to register for the Ultimate Partner Live event in Reston, Virginia, October 26th through October 28th. Until next time. Keep showing up in the rooms that matter because being in the room changes everything.

Calling empathy a “soft skill” sounds harmless until you see what it does to your customer experience and your retention numbers. We dig into the uncomfortable pattern where leaders say they want people to feel heard and valued, then invest almost all training time in systems, process, and compliance. The result is predictable: frontline teams feel unsupported in the moments that require judgment and compassion, customers sense the disconnect, and both groups walk away.From inconsistent experiences that erode brand trust to the steep cost of attrition and lost institutional knowledge, we connect “soft skills” investment directly to business outcomes. If you're ready to turn customer experience into a winning business strategy, listen now, then subscribe, share this with a leader who owns onboarding, and leave a review with the one “human skill” you want your organization to take seriously.Looking for more help with CX strategy? Contact Experience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.com/contact/Resources Mentioned:Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.comLearn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.comExperience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.comEnjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us. Leave your review at ratethispodcast.com/xact.Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

In this episode of “At Your Convenience,” Melissa Vonder Haar, managing director of TradeWorks for iSee Store Innovations and chair of CSP's C-Store Cannabis Board, talks to Diana Eberlein at the inaugural CSP Cannabis Forum. Eberlein is the chair of the Coalition for Adult Beverage Alternatives and chief communications officer for emulsion supplier Vertosa. The two discussed the urgent threat facing hemp-derived THC products due to a Nov. 12 federal deadline that could effectively ban most products on the market. They also emphasized the need for convenience retailers to educate consumers and legislators about the category's legitimacy and the industry's desire for proper regulation.The Cannabis Forum took place March 23-25 in Lombard, Illinois. For more information, visit informaconnect.com/c-store-cannabis-forum/.

In a recent edition of CSP's "At Your Convenience" podcast, our team talked to industry experts Dan Razowsky from R-Marts and Rick Schepp from GTI and Rhythm, discussing the current trends, challenges and opportunities for hemp beverages in the Chicago market.As the hemp beverage market continues to grow in Chicago, the podcast highlights both the challenges and opportunities of this emerging category. Retailers must remain adaptable to changing regulations and consumer preferences while leveraging partnerships to enhance brand visibility. For consumers, the increasing availability of hemp beverages in familiar retail spaces offers a welcome introduction to the world of THC products. Here are the brand assets to share about the campaign to save hemp beverages: https://brandfolder.com/wswa/save-hemp-bevsLink to take action: https://wswa.quorum.us/campaign/SaveHempBevs/

Opening Bible verse: Jeremiah 29:11-14 Ramit Sethi recommends the following breakdown for your monthly take home pay: Fixed Costs: 50-60% Investments: 10-15% Savings: 5-10% Guilt Free Spending: 20-35% You can find Ramit Sethi's Conscience Spending Plan (CSP)Here: https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/podcast/ Scroll to the bottom to enter your email address and receive a blank CSP for you to fill out. IF YOU ARE A NEW LISTENER, WELCOME! BEGIN HERE: This year we are doing my group coaching course together via this podcast! It's free and it only gets better as the year progresses.  In January we began with God at the center of our day and our home. We worked to build the habit of a morning prayer routine. I highly recommend the rosary. It's only about 20 minutes and you'll meditate on the whole life of Jesus. February is the month of decluttering. Saturday episodes have been added to focus on decluttering in the kitchen. Each month will have a different focus area and the Saturday episodes will help you focus on one small section of that room.  In March we decluttered your wardrobe. In April we are moving into budgeting for food. Our Saturday episodes will still be about decluttering. Our declutter focus area for April is your bedroom. In May we dreamed big! June brings us to one of the most useful topics in my group coaching course…meal planning. Ah, the feel of knowing exactly what's for dinner is the most stress-free feeling in the world! Our declutter focus area for June is Hallways/Landings. July is a much anticipated month of money/budgeting. Our Saturday episodes (otherwise known as the declutter episodes) will focus on decluttering TOYS! Give this first episode of 2026 a listen to hear where to begin: 316. Your 2026 Life Overhaul Plan: Faith, Clutter, Debt, Diet and More!  If you've never prayed a rosary or you want to see how you can incorporate it into active decluttering, here is the first episode of my rosary declutter series from last summer. 288. Summer Declutter Series Week Just getting started on your decluttering journey? Give this episode a listen before you begin: 322. Guidelines to Decluttering ***Are you so overwhelmed with clutter that you find yourself unable to make any decisions? Do you plan on decluttering only to find yourself standing in a room confused about where to start? Are you hoping motivation will strike and you'll get it all done in one weekend? If this sounds like you, let's work together. Book a one hour virtual coaching session via Zoom. Together we craft a decluttering plan and I walk you through the process. You'll complete much of the decluttering on your own time at your own pace. I just give you the roadmap and the accountability. Cost $77 per hour. Virtual Coaching Schedule   Not sure what you need? No problem! Book a complimentary 15 minute clarity call. We'll meet via Zoom and see if working with me would benefit you.  Email me at: tightshipmama@gmail.com to schedule a time.   Looking for community of like-minded women? Join the private Facebook community here: Facebook Group Prefer to receive a weekly email with the monthly freebie like a group rosary, group declutter, or budget Q&As?  Join my mailing list here: Monthly Newsletter   For any other inquiries or guest appearances, please email me at: tightshipmama@gmail.com    

Episode 52 - Megan Van Hoorn - Pediatric Enteral Nutrition Q&A: Community Questions, Clinician Answers In this episode of Nutrition Pearls: the Podcast, Jen Smith and guest host Lisa Cooley speak with dietitian Megan Van Hoorn MS, RD, CSP, CD, answering CPNP questions on pediatric enteral nutrition. Megan is a Senior Clinical Dietitian at Children's Wisconsin and is a Certified Specialist in Pediatric Nutrition through the Academy of Nutrition & Dietetics. She has 15 years of experience working in outpatient pediatric GI. She has cared for patients requiring enteral nutrition for many conditions, including tube dependence, pediatric feeding disorder, pediatric malnutrition, intestinal failure, and inflammatory bowel disease. Along with her colleagues, she helped publish “The registered dietitian nutritionist's guide to homemade tube feeding” and has also helped develop the Enteral Nutrition training module at her institution. Nutrition Pearls is supported by an educational grant from Mead Johnson Nutrition.Resources:Escuro AA, Hummell AC. The Registered Dietitian Nutritionist's Guide to Homemade Tube Feeding. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2017;117(1):11-16. doi:10.1016/j.jand.2016.02.007Produced by: Corey IrwinNASPGHAN - Council for Pediatric Nutrition Professionalscpnp@naspghan.org

Looking for proven ways to end bullying in your unit? Join the co-hosts as they welcome expert Renee Thompson for a candid, practice-focused conversation on bullying in the nursing workforce. Renee will also be presenting the keynote presentation at the 2026 AMSN Convention in September.     To learn more about the 2026 AMSN Convention OR to register, visit: https://amsn.org/Events/AMSN-Convention   SPECIAL GUEST   Dr. Renee Thompson, DNP, RN, FAONL, FAAN, CSP is CEO & Founder of the Healthy Workforce Institute®. She is a sought-after speaker, bestselling author, consultant, and leading authority on creating healthy workforces by eliminating bullying and incivility. With over 30 years of experience as a clinical nurse, nurse educator, quality manager, and nurse executive, Dr. Thompson spends the majority of her time working with healthcare leaders who want to cultivate a healthy workforce. Renee is the CEO and Founder of the Healthy Workforce Institute and has been repeatedly published, interviewed, and awarded for her work to eradicate disruptive behaviors in healthcare. In 2020, Renee was invited by the Joint Commission to become a member of their Workplace Violence Technical Advisory Panel, has been published in numerous nursing journals, and is a frequent invited guest on radio, podcasts, webinars, and online social media platforms. In 2016, Renee received the Nursing Excellence award as a nurse entrepreneur, honoring her work to eliminate workplace bullying. She received the first Outstanding Nursing Alumni for Excellence in Leadership Award and Distinguished Alumni recognition from her alma mater, and was a finalist in the Healthcare Heroes Awards as a Healthcare Provider. Her blog has won numerous awards as a Top Nursing Blog "must-read" by the online nursing community, and her anti-bullying videos are viewed by healthcare organizations around the world. Renee is one of only 30 nurses in the world who have achieved the prestigious Certified Speaking Professional designation. In 2018, she was recognized as one of LinkedIn's Top Ten Voices in Healthcare for her contribution to their global online healthcare community and in 2022 was identified as one of the top 5 Nurse Influencers on LinkedIn. Also in 2022, Renee was inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing for her work to eradicate disruptive behaviors in healthcare and in 2024 received the Safe Spaces award from the Florida Nurses Association. In March 2026, Renee will be inducted as a Fellow of the American Organization for Nursing Leadership for her sustained contributions to the specialty of nursing leadership, commitment to service and influence in shaping health care by addressing disruptive behaviors. Renee has a Master's degree in Nursing Education and a Doctorate of Nursing Practice from the University of Pittsburgh.   MEET OUR CO-HOSTS Kellye' McRae, MSN-Ed, RN is a dedicated Med-Surg Staff Nurse and Unit Based Educator based in South Georgia, with 12 years of invaluable nursing experience. She is passionate about mentoring new nurses, sharing her clinical wisdom to empower the next generation of nurses. Kellye' excels in bedside teaching, blending hands-on training with compassionate patient care to ensure both nurses and patients thrive. Her commitment to education and excellence makes her a cornerstone of her healthcare team.   Marcela Salcedo, RN, BSN is a Floatpool nightshift nurse in the Chicagoland area, specializing in step-down and medical-surgical care. A member of AMSN and the Hektoen Nurses, she combines her passion for nursing with the healing power of the arts and humanities. As a mother of four, Marcela is reigniting her passion for nursing by embracing the chaos of caregiving, fostering personal growth, and building meaningful connections that inspire her work. Hayley Sweetser, MSN, APRN, AGCNS-BC, MEDSURG-BC, CPHQ, WTA-C is a Clinical Nurse Specialist in Newark, Delaware who provides support to patients and caregivers within the Acute Medicine Service Line at ChristianaCare. She is working towards reducing overall patient harm events within the service line through collaboration with bedside nurses, physicians, and other specialties. Hayley has a strong passion for medical-surgical nursing and has spent her whole nursing career in this specialty. She strives to advance medical-surgical nursing practice by encouraging alignment with evidence-based practice.   Eric Torres, ADN, RN, CMSRN is a California native that has always dreamed of seeing the World, and when that didn't work out, he set his sights on nursing.  Eric is beyond excited to be joining the AMSN podcast and having a chance to share his stories and experiences of being a bedside medical-surgical nurse.   Sydney Wall, RN, BSN, CMSRN has been a med surg nurse for 5 years. After graduating from the University of Rhode Island in 2019, Sydney commissioned into the Navy and began her nursing career working on a cardiac/telemetry unit in Bethesda, Maryland.  Currently she is stationed overseas, providing care for service members and their families.  During her free time, she enjoys martial arts and traveling.  Trish West, DNP, MSN, CMSRN, PCCN, CEN, NEA-BC, FAMSN is a passionate nurse leader whose career reflects both expertise and a heartfelt commitment to advancing patient care. Trish's credentials include being a Certified Medical Surgical Registered Nurse, Progressive and Emergency Nursing, Nursing Executive Advanced, and most recently, induction as a Fellow in the Academy of Medical Surgical Nursing. She enjoys spending time with her husband Mark and their five children. Her favorite motto, "Never underestimate the difference you can make," truly captures the spirit with which Trish approaches both professional and personal endeavors.   

CSP legend AJ Staxx returns yet again and we jump into fatherhood talk, top chicken wing spots, video game stress, music and of course, the CSP shenanigans!

On episode 302 of EHS On Tap, Scott DeBow, CSP, ARM, Director of Health, Safety, and Environmental at Avetta, talks about recent research findings on the state of workplace safety. This episode is sponsored by Avetta.

Consistency sounds boring until you realize it's the fastest path to trust and the easiest way to spot what's broken. In this CX Pulse Check episode, Jeannie Walters is joined by Nick Westergaard, host of the On Brand podcast and author of Brand Now and Get Scrappy, to look at what actually moves the needle in customer experience (CX) and brand building when attention is scarce and expectations are high.We dig into why major brands point to reliable basics as the key to their turnarounds: better training, smoother checkout, smarter inventory, and fewer “almost good enough” moments. Nick shares a simple mental model for this kind of work: stop chasing one huge “wow” and start raising the floor everywhere. When customers know what to expect, they don't just come back, they give you more grace when something goes wrong.Then we zoom in on neuroscience and cognitive load, the hidden force behind friction. Customers live in constant partial attention, and every extra step, confusing choice, or unnecessary question drains their mental energy. We talk about why simplification often beats adding features, how AI customer service earned distrust through bad early experiences, and what it takes to use automation without getting in the way.We close with brand storytelling and cultural moments, including what we can learn from campaigns that hit at the right time and why even a small change like a Spotify icon can spark big feelings in a deeply personal product. If you want a sharper CX strategy, better customer journey design, and a clearer brand experience, hit play, subscribe, and share this with someone who owns a form, a flow, or a brand decision. If you have a question for the podcast, leave a message at askjeannie.vip.About Nick WestergaardNick Westergaard (https://www.nickwestergaard.com/) is an author, educator, and speaker. He's spent his career building standout brands at organizations of all sizes—from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies to President Obama's Jobs Council. Nick teaches at the University of Iowa's Tippie College of Business, where he leads the Story Lab program. He's the author of the books Brand Now and Get Scrappy, a contributor to the Harvard Business Review, host of the popular On Brand podcast, and a Moth StorySLAM Champion. An in-demand keynote speaker at conferences throughout the world, his work helps those struggling to stand out in our crowded, distracted world.Follow Nick on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/nickwestergaard Follow Nick's Podcast – On Brand - https://www.nickwestergaard.com/on-brand-podcast/ Follow Nick on Instagram - https://instagram.com/nickwestergaard Articles Mentioned:- Why 3 major brands see a consistent experience as key to their turnarounds (CX Dive) -- https://www.customerexperiencedive.com/news/3-major-brands-consistency-key-turnaround-efforts/822944/- Rethinking CX: The role neuroscience plays in developing the customer experience (Retail Customer Experience) -- https://www.retailcustomerexperience.com/blogs/rethinking-cx-the-role-neuroscience-plays-in-developing-the-customer-experience/- Every Brand Has a Story to Tell — CMOs Decide How and When to Tell It (Variety) -- https://variety.com/2026/biz/news/walmart-cmo-nfl-spotify-loreal-cannes-lions-variety-1236788926/Resources Mentioned:Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.comExperience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.comEnjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us. Leave your review at ratethispodcast.com/xact.Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

In a recent episode of CSP's “At Your Convenience” podcast, Drew Walls, sales director for retail media at Broadsign, discussed the challenges retailers face when building retail media networks. Walls said retailers often focus on deploying screens first without considering monetization strategy, leading to missed revenue opportunities."We are still pricing the screen and not necessarily the moment," Walls said, noting that a 7 a.m. coffee run represents different shopper intent than an evening cold vault visit. He advised retailers to maintain control over audience data, direct brand relationships and measurement methodologies while leveraging hybrid approaches that offer flexibility.Walls stressed the importance of commercial separation and optionality in retail media architecture, allowing retailers to adapt their technology stack as business needs evolve without losing critical data or demand pathways. Listen to the entire conversation above.

In this episode of “At Your Convenience,” CSP Editor Chuck Ulie talks with Liza Salaria, senior vice president – category management and foodservice, at Chicago-based W. Capra, about crafting promotions with purpose.The two spoke at CSP's Foodservice Forum on June 11 in Schaumburg, Illinois.On the podcast, Salaria offers suggestions on which strategy or strategies to use when promoting an item.“If you find yourself in a situation where maybe transactions are soft and trips are down in your store, you may elect to run a heavily discounted product, like maybe fountain, with the sole purpose to drive incremental trips into the store,” Salaria said.In addition, if customers are visiting a c-store less often, “We need to get them to buy more when they are in our stores, and that's called increasing the basket size, and there are certain promotions we do to particularly accomplish that,” she said.Retailers also need to get creative on how to develop new daypart missions, Salaria said.“How do we create new reasons for customers to break in the middle of their day, get away from their computers and come to the local convenience store for maybe something unique, like maybe it's a smoothie, or it's a hot cookie, or some new reason?” she asked.“At Your Convenience” brings industry experts and analysts together with CSP editors to discuss the latest in c-store news and trends. From mergers and acquisitions to foodservice and technology, the podcast delivers the story straight to listeners in short-format episodes, perfect for the morning commute or a quick break at the office.

Most leadership advice assumes you already have the mandate, the budget, the buy-in, and the seat at the table. If you lead customer experience, you know that's often fiction. We're expected to react to requests from marketing, ops, and whoever our dotted-line boss is this week, then we're judged on outcomes we didn't have the power to drive.Showing up as a customer experience business leader, not just a CX advocate, starts with momentum. When we deliver visible wins that make other leaders' lives easier, we build authority even without the title. We talk through how to reframe “influence” so it's not about pleading for support, but about connecting to the moments and priorities that already matter inside the organization.From there, we get practical with a simple framework of mindset, strategy, and discipline. Mindset means building a CX mission that is a win-win for every leader you partner with. Strategy means improving the world your executives live in, like reducing service calls to increase efficiency or tying journey fixes to retention and revenue. Discipline means stopping the cycle of short-term reporting and instead linking what we do every day to long-term organizational goals.Measurements are not outcomes. The leaders who get funded become “translator-in-chief,” turning customer insights into clear business outcomes like cost-to-serve reduction, growth, churn prevention, and market advantage. If you're ready to build momentum without a mandate and use the second half of the year as a reset, hit play, then subscribe, share this with a fellow CX leader, and leave a rating and review so more people can find the show.Resources Mentioned:Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.comLearn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.comExperience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.comEnjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us. Leave your review at ratethispodcast.com/xact.Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Join host Thom Singer, CSP as he interviews Hall of Fame speaker John Register, CSP, CPAE on how to stand out, build authentic relationships, and elevate your speaking career. Get straightforward tips and real-world advice to grow your network, boost your business, and overcome disruption.* Why authentic human connections matter more than ever in an AI-driven world*Concrete networking strategies to deepen relationships with clients, speakers, and industry pros*The value of mastermind groups and NSA exposure for accountability and growth* How to get back on track and stick to the basics when business gets tough* John Register's “Strike Point” framework for transforming disruption into advantageBecome an NSA Member! https://nsaspeaker.org/join/#membership Join us at Influence! https://influence.nsaspeaker.org/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of “At Your Convenience,” CSP Conference Content Manager Rachel Gignac talks to Arjun Chakravarti, managing partner at Cogknition Analytics, Chicago.Chakravarti discusses critical factors affecting consumer behavior and strategies for convenience-store retailers navigating uncertainty in today's rapidly changing economic landscape. In this podcast, they examine the current economic environment, consumer spending patterns, labor market dynamics and the implications of tariffs on convenience retailers. Chakravarti will report the latest economic factors at CSP's Outlook Leadership conference, which takes place Aug. 4-6 at Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.One key takeaway is that while the economy appears uncertain, there has been a notable increase in consumer spending, particularly among wealthier households. This spending boost is not uniform across all sectors, highlighting the need for retailers to identify their target demographics and tailor their offerings accordingly.

Ever wondered how to make sales from speaking, webinars, or by sharing your story? In today's episode Colin Boyd is going to share exactly how you can do that...  Grab Colins book here: https://onepresentationawaybook.com/  Connect with Colin on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/colinboyd  Colin is an international speaker, trainer, and coach. He's been running his Speaking business since 2017.  Originally from Australia, he moved in 2017 with his wife of 16 years, Sarah and 2 little toddlers to Newport Beach, California. He primarily now runs his flagship program Sell From Stage Academy® which helps people turn every presentation into a money-making machine.  He coaches some of the biggest names in the industry including Amy Porterfield, James Wedmore, and Carrie Green to name a few, and thousands of other speakers and coaches to sell from the stage (without being pushy and slimy). He is a CSP, Accredited ICF Coach, holds a Bachelor of Commerce and certifications in Behavioral DISC profiling and Neurolinguistic Programming. Connect with Niyc on social media:  Instagram: www.instagram.com/niycpidge  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/niycpidgeon Website: www.niycpidgeon.com  Download my FREE Positive Psychology Sales System here:  https://niyc-pidgeon.mykajabi.com/the-positive-psychology-sales-system  Grab The $27 Positive Psychology Sales Stack here:  https://niyc-pidgeon.mykajabi.com/positive-psychology-sales-stack 

Cumberland Farms owner EG Group files confidential plans with the SEC for a market listing, Kroger announces it has expanded its customer rewards program, and CSP names the finalists and opens voting in its Retailer Choice Best New Products Contest.

What if the key to greater confidence, stronger relationships, and more success isn't avoiding awkward moments—but embracing them? In this re-release episode of the Live Greatly podcast, Kristel Bauer sits down with Henna Pryor, workplace performance expert and author of Good Awkward, to explore how stepping outside your comfort zone can help you build what she calls your "social muscles." Tune in to learn practical strategies to navigate uncomfortable situations, develop greater confidence, strengthen your connections, and unlock new opportunities for growth both personally and professionally. Key Takeaways: Why awkward moments can be valuable opportunities for growth How to build confidence through action Practical ways to strengthen your social muscles Strategies for creating deeper and more meaningful connections How discomfort can become a catalyst for success ABOUT HENNA PRYOR Henna Pryor, CSP is a dynamic Workplace Performance Expert who speaks and writes about performance mindset, interpersonal dynamics, high-impact communication, and embracing bumps in a world that keeps optimizing for smoothness. She's a regular Expert Columnist for Inc. Magazine, 18x award-winning author of Good Awkward, and an in-demand global keynote speaker. Her playful personality and insightful talks blend 2 decades of working with corporate leaders and teams, with a fresh, science-based approach to taking more strategic risks and boosting social and mental fitness for success at work. Connect with Henna: Order Good Awkward: How to Embrace the Embarrassing and Celebrate the Cringe to Become The Bravest You LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hennapryor/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hennapryor/  Website: https://pryoritygroup.com/  About the Host of the Live Greatly podcast, Kristel Bauer: Kristel Bauer is a corporate wellness and performance expert, keynote speaker and TEDx speaker supporting organizations and individuals on their journeys for more happiness and success. She is the author of Work-Life Tango: Finding Happiness, Harmony, and Peak Performance Wherever You Work (John Murray Business November 19, 2024). With Kristel's healthcare background, she provides data driven actionable strategies to leverage happiness and high-power habits to drive growth mindsets, peak performance, profitability, well-being and a culture of excellence. Kristel's keynotes provide insights to "Live Greatly" while promoting leadership development and team building.   Kristel is the creator and host of her global top self-improvement podcast, Live Greatly. She is a contributing writer for Entrepreneur, and she is an influencer in the business and wellness space having been recognized as a Top 10 Social Media Influencer of 2021 in Forbes. As an Integrative Medicine Fellow & Physician Assistant having practiced clinically in Integrative Psychiatry, Kristel has a unique perspective into attaining a mindset for more happiness and success. Kristel has presented to groups from the American Gas Association, Bank of America, bp, Commercial Metals Company, General Mills, Northwestern University, Santander Bank and many more. Kristel has been featured in Forbes, Forest & Bluff Magazine, Authority Magazine & Podcast Magazine and she has appeared on ABC 7 Chicago, WGN Daytime Chicago, Fox 4's WDAF-TV's Great Day KC, and Ticker News. Kristel lives in the Fort Lauderdale, Florida area and she can be booked for speaking engagements worldwide. To Book Kristel as a speaker for your next event, click here. Website: www.livegreatly.co  Follow Kristel Bauer on: Instagram: @livegreatly_co  LinkedIn: Kristel Bauer Twitter: @livegreatly_co Facebook: @livegreatly.co Youtube: Live Greatly, Kristel Bauer To Watch Kristel Bauer's TEDx talk of Redefining Work/Life Balance in a COVID-19 World click here. Click HERE to check out Kristel's corporate wellness and leadership blog Click HERE to check out Kristel's Travel and Wellness Blog Disclaimer: The contents of this podcast are intended for informational and educational purposes only. Always seek the guidance of your physician for any recommendations specific to you or for any questions regarding your specific health, your sleep patterns changes to diet and exercise, or any medical conditions.  Always consult your physician before starting any supplements or new lifestyle programs. All information, views and statements shared on the Live Greatly podcast are purely the opinions of the authors, and are not medical advice or treatment recommendations.  They have not been evaluated by the food and drug administration.  Opinions of guests are their own and Kristel Bauer & this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests.  Neither Kristel Bauer nor this podcast takes responsibility for possible health consequences of a person or persons following the information in this educational content.  Always consult your physician for recommendations specific to you.

What if everything could change in just 3 seconds?Sometimes the difference between staying stuck and stepping into your next level isn't a year-long plan… it's a specific moment of awareness and a new choice.Join me Tuesday, June 23rd from 11:00 AM–12:00 PM EST on The Kim Jacobs Show as I welcome the incredible Edie Raether, MS, CSP — bestselling author, multi-TEDx speaker, and internationally recognized Neuro-Behavioral Strategist.Edie is known as “The Maestro of Mind Mastery” and is the creator of the groundbreaking 3-Second NeuroShift™ , which is a powerful approach that teaches us how to interrupt old patterns, rewire our thinking, and reclaim our ability to choose what happens next.If you're going through a new season of your life or rebuilding your life after challenges, or simply preparing for your next level…This conversation will remind you:Your next breakthrough may be only 3 seconds away.Watch us LIVE and be part of the conversation!Subscribe on YouTube: YouTube.com/c/Kimjacobsshowand turn on notifications so you don't miss a moment!Interested in starting your own virtual show -reach out quickly Kimjacobsshow@gmail.com or call 704-944-3534 to grab your seat in the next training.Looking for a way to contribute to The Kim Jacobs Show? Let us know you supported and we will shout you out during the live episode.PayPal: paypal.me/KimjacobsincVenmo: @ThekimjacobsshowZelle or Apple Cash: 704-962-7161Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-kim-jacobs-show--2878190/support.

AI is moving fast, but customer trust is moving the other way and that should make every customer experience leader pause. We've all seen the rush to deploy chatbots, automate support, and squeeze more efficiency out of service operations. The problem is that customers don't grade you on “AI adoption.” They grade you on whether they can get the job done, feel respected, and leave the interaction confident they were heard. We dig into why so many people say they “hate AI” when what they really hate is a broken experience: circular chatbot loops, unclear paths to resolution, and zero way to reach a human. We also talk about the less obvious wins, like AI that helps customers find answers inside an app, makes shopping easier, or offers proactive guidance at the right moment. When AI is designed around the customer journey, it can earn trust the same way humans do by showing up with the right help at the right time. To make this practical, we share three questions you can use this week to evaluate any AI in customer service or generative AI initiative: Is it working for the customer? What should this moment feel like? Can they always reach a human? We also make the case for human-in-the-loop support for nuanced situations and for transparency as a non negotiable trust signal. If you want AI that scales without sacrificing the experience, start here, then subscribe, share this with your team, and leave a review so more CX leaders can find it.Resources Mentioned:Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.comLearn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.comExperience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.comEnjoyed the show? Subscribe, share with your team, and leave a quick review to help others find us. Leave your review at ratethispodcast.com/xact.Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie Walters, CCXP, CSP on LinkedIn!)

Mark Hunter, CSP, known globally as “The Sales Hunter,” is a renowned sales expert, keynote speaker, consultant, and best-selling author who helps organizations transform how they approach sales. With more than 30 years of experience in sales leadership, he has worked with companies around the world to help sales teams identify better prospects, build stronger relationships, and close deals with confidence and integrity.Before launching his company, The Sales Hunter, Mark spent nearly two decades in the sales and marketing divisions of Fortune 200 companies, leading large sales teams and developing high-performing sales strategies. He is the author of several influential books, including High-Profit Prospecting, High-Profit Selling, and A Mind for Sales, and is widely recognized for his practical insights on prospecting, mindset, and building trust-based sales relationships that drive long-term business success.SHOW SUMMARYIn this episode of Selling from the Heart, Larry Levine and Darrell Amy welcome renowned sales expert, author, and keynote speaker Mark Hunter, known around the world as "The Sales Hunter," to discuss his latest book, Integrity First Selling: How to Create Better Sales with Better Customers.Mark challenges conventional sales thinking by reminding listeners that sales is not about moving products—it's about serving people. He explains why the most successful sales professionals focus on helping buyers achieve outcomes they never thought possible rather than simply chasing quotas, commissions, or quarter-end numbers.The conversation explores what it truly means to put integrity first in sales, including aligning with the buyer's journey, building trust through transparency, and playing the long game even when short-term pressure tempts salespeople to do otherwise. Mark also shares practical insights on prospecting, pipeline development, leadership, accountability, and why many organizations mistakenly create the very buying behaviors they complain about.In a marketplace increasingly crowded by AI-generated noise and transactional selling, Mark makes the case that trust, authenticity, and consistency remain the most valuable competitive advantages a salesperson can possess.This episode is a powerful reminder that sales done with integrity doesn't just create better customers—it creates better careers, stronger relationships, and lasting success.KEY TAKEAWAYSSales is fundamentally about serving people, not selling products.Integrity-first selling requires joining the buyer's journey rather than forcing your own agenda.Long-term trust always outperforms short-term sales tactics.End-of-quarter discounting often trains customers to delay purchasing decisions.Healthy pipelines eliminate desperation and create better customer experiences.Sales leaders should focus on creating opportunities, not simply closing deals.HIGHLIGHT QUOTESSales is serving people. It's not selling stuff. The products we sell are simply the medium we use to help people.Closing without integrity creates revenue today and regret tomorrow.The easy sale isn't the one you get. It's the one you deserve.Desperation at the end of the quarter is usually the result of poor pipeline discipline at the beginning of the quarter.Being the same person at work and at home makes life simpler and sales more effective.ADDITIONAL RESOURCESExplore the secrets of heart-centered leadership and thriving workplace cultures with Culture from the Heart Podcast! Nominate a visionary CEO at www.culturefromtheheart.com!Listen to Larry Levine's Bestselling Book: Selling in a Post-Trust World! Now available on Audible! Transform your sales approach with insights that matter.  Subscribe to The Selling from the Heart Podcast Youtube Channel! Stay updated with the latest episodes and leadership tips: Selling from the Heart YouTubeGet Your Daily Dose of Inspiration:Click Here for Your Daily Dose

On this episode we breakdown a list of projects and concerns for each month of the so called off season, otherwise known as summer.   We discuss clover varieties and management, vetch, cow peas, and soybeans. Also some CSP projects that we are working on to reclaim some early successional habitat on our farms.  You will hear about a couple of clover varieties that you might not be aware of, Q red and Dynamite from our friends at GoSeed.  Check them out and see the difference for yourself.     https://goseed.com/ https://mossyoakgamekeeper.com/ https://wmsoutdoors.com/  

Cybersecurity Today host David Shipley reports that the FTC says Americans lost $3.5 billion to imposter scams in 2025—nearly triple 2020—with social media tied to $2.1 billion in losses and total fraud reaching about $16 billion, while the FBI estimates cyber-enabled losses nearer $21 billion and potentially far higher. Security researchers, including Katie Moussouris, argue the U.S. government's forced Anthropic model shutdown over an alleged guardrail bypass was hasty and largely about prompt phrasing, with Axios citing personality differences as a driver. The DOJ seized deepfake pornography sites cfake.com and sock.com under the Take It Down Act after a three-country operation involving Italy and France. Finally, Varonis details "SearchLeak" (CVE-2026-42824), a now-fixed critical Copilot attack chain enabling one-click data exfiltration via prompt injection, a sanitizer race condition, and CSP bypass through Bing. 00:00 Today's Cyber Headlines 00:29 Imposter Scams Surge 01:29 Fraud on Social Platforms 02:47 Anthropic Jailbreak Debate 04:15 Export Controls Fallout 05:05 DOJ Seizes Deepfake Sites 06:44 SearchLeak Copilot Attack 07:36 How SearchLeak Works 09:18 Why Old Bugs Return 10:08 Wrap Up and Sign Off

Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich talks to J and Ana, a couple in their early 40s with three children who have built nearly $4 million in net worth through decades of hard work, saving, and real estate investing. On paper, they are in an incredible financial position. They have around $4.8 million in assets, more than $1.2 million invested, $136K in savings, and a net worth just under $4 million. But despite all of that, they still don't feel free. J applied because he feels like they've had their foot on the gas since they were teenagers and don't know when they're allowed to cruise. He wants to relax, travel, and enjoy the life they've built. Ana wants that too, but her fear of debt, her desire to protect their kids, and her instinct to keep building make it almost impossible for her to stop. What looks like a conversation about rental properties, credit cards, cars, and spending is really about safety, identity, immigrant family scripts, and learning how to enjoy money after a lifetime of working. In this episode we uncover: • Why J and Ana still feel stressed despite having nearly $4 million in net worth • How decades of hard work and real estate investing shaped their money dynamic • Why J feels ready to slow down, but Ana struggles to believe they have enough • Why selling one house feels like both a financial decision and a family decision • How credit card spending, shoes, cars, and hobbies became recurring conflict points • Why J feels like he has to justify his spending • The parent-child dynamic that shows up in their money conversations • Why Ramit challenges them on changing the CSP numbers • How immigrant family history shaped Ana's relationship with work, money, and worry • The question of whether multiple properties are still part of their Rich Life • How becoming more decisive may be the real work ahead Chapters: (00:01:44) Meet J and Ana (00:03:34) “Our foot is stuck on the gas” (00:04:28) Ana doesn't know when it's time to sell (00:05:21) Why they are never on the same page about money (00:07:11) The credit card statement fights (00:08:44) Ana's dream: take away the card and pay off properties (00:10:14) Shoes, cars, and spending guilt (00:13:04) The parent-child dynamic in their money conversations (00:14:47) Looking at the Conscious Spending Plan together (00:18:08) Income, rental properties, and CSP confusion ( 00:30:32) The family house they can't agree on selling (00:34:12) Why making more money hasn't made them feel better (01:38:30) Ana's challenge: learning to spend on herself (01:42:53) Ramit's final warning: they need to become decisive together This episode is brought to you by: DeleteMe | Get 20% off all consumer plans when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/ramit and use promo code RAMIT at checkoutNetsuite | Get the free guide “Demystifying AI” at https://netsuite.com/ramit Superhuman Mail | Turn your inbox into momentum. Sign up at https://superhuman.com/ramit. Fabric by Gerber Life | Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to protect their family. Apply today in just minutes at https://meetfabric.com/ramit Factor | Head to factormeals.com/ramit50off and use code ramit50off to get 50 percent off and free daily greens per box, with new subscription only, while supplies last until 09/27/2026. (See website for more details). Connect with Ramit • Get my new book, Money For Couples • Get Money Coaching with Ramit  • Download the Conscious Spending Plan • Listen to my book—now on Audible • Get my New York Times best-selling book • Get my no-numbers journal • Other episodes • Instagram • Twitter • YouTube Apply to be coached for free on this podcast at https://iwt.com/apply

Most people think business success and personal wellbeing live in separate worlds. Amy Vetter thinks that's exactly why so many leaders are burned out.In this fascinating conversation, Amy Vetter https://www.amyvetter.com/ shares her journey from accountant to partner, from burnout to balance, and from classical violinist to electric rock performer. Along the way, she discovered that fulfillment isn't a "soft skill"...it's a business strategy. In this episode, you'll discover: Why work-life balance is actually a leadership issue  The surprising connection between fulfillment and business results  How burnout often starts long before your career does  Why Gen Z isn't "lazy", they just need something different  The hidden cost of never disconnecting  How learning something new makes you a better leader  Why Amy now plays electric violin from the keynote stage If you've ever wondered whether success has to come at the expense of joy, this conversation might completely change your perspective.Because sometimes the path to better leadership isn't working harder—it's learning how to reconnect with yourself first. Want more from Amy?@amyvettercpa - all socialhttps://www.amyvetter.com/https://www.businessbalancebliss.com/Amy Vetter, CPA, CSP, Yogi, Musician, a dynamic keynote speaker and CEO of The B³ Method Institute. She uniquely blends her expertise as a business leader, CPA, yogi, and wellness practitioner. Through her innovative B³ Method®—Business + Balance = Bliss—and Fulfillment ROITM measurement system, she demonstrates how well-being directly drives business success.  Drawing from over 25 years of finance and technology leadership experience and her training as a certified health and life coach, Amy empowers organizations to achieve sustainable growth through connected leadership. Host of the Breaking Beliefs podcast and author of "Disconnect to Connect," she continues to transform how leaders create thriving, purpose-driven cultures.Anne Bonney your host is a keynote speaker and emcee who helps organizations lead through change by building resilience, emotional intelligence, and courageous communication.

Data is everywhere in manufacturing. Competitive advantage comes from turning it into action, where the work happens.In this episode of the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast, Jan Griffiths and Tom Roberts sit down with Tom Luttrell, CIO of CSP, to discuss what it takes to modernize technology inside an automotive manufacturing company and why the future belongs to companies that move beyond systems of record and embrace systems of action.With more than three decades of experience leading technology transformations across automotive manufacturing, Tom shares how he approached his first year at CSP by listening first, understanding business problems before technology solutions, and building a roadmap centered on simplification, automation, and employee empowerment.The conversation explores the realities of disconnected systems, fragmented workflows, and siloed data that slow execution across manufacturing organizations. Tom explains why modern ERP platforms, AI-powered workflows, and agentic technologies can place critical information directly in the hands of maintenance technicians, operators, and frontline teams when they need it most.Rather than focusing on technology for technology's sake, Tom emphasizes a people-first approach. Success comes from making employees' jobs easier, reducing friction, improving decision-making, and creating tools that respect human expertise while accelerating action.In the latter part of the episode, QAD's Tom Roberts reflects on the shift from systems of record to systems of action, the role AI plays in uncovering the "why" behind operational issues, and why technology leaders must communicate in business terms rather than technical language.Themes Discussed in This EpisodeWhy manufacturing leaders must move from systems of record to systems of actionBuilding a data-first culture that drives execution, not just visibilityModernizing legacy technology without disrupting the businessUsing Agentic AI to put knowledge in the hands of frontline teamsEmpowering maintenance technicians and operators with real-time decision supportMaking manufacturing execution systems work for the people doing the workDesigning technology around human behavior and user adoptionEliminating friction between data, decisions, and actionBalancing cybersecurity, productivity, and business outcomesLeading enterprise transformation through trust, relationships, and business alignmentThis podcast is powered by QAD RedZone.Featured GuestName: Tom LuttrellTitle: Chief Information Officer at CSPAbout: Tom is Chief Information Officer at CSP, bringing more than 30 years of experience leading digital transformation, ERP modernization, cybersecurity, and business growth initiatives across the automotive and manufacturing industries. Prior to joining CSP, he held CIO leadership roles at RealTruck, Shiloh Industries, and Masco Cabinetry, where he led large-scale global technology transformations, ERP integrations, and operational improvement initiatives. He holds degrees in Computer Information Systems and Business Administration and continues to advance his expertise in cybersecurity and risk management.Connect: LinkedInAbout Your HostsJan GriffithsJan is the host and producer of the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast and The Automotive Leaders Podcast. A former automotive manufacturing and supply chain executive, Jan is recognized as a Champion for Culture Change in the automotive industry. She brings direct, grounded conversations to leaders navigating execution, disruption, and transformation across the global automotive ecosystem.Tom Roberts (Co-host)Tom is Co-host of the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast and Vice President of Strategic Industry Development at QAD. He works closely with automotive and industrial manufacturers to close the gap between insight and execution, helping leaders move from visibility to systems of action that drive real operational outcomes.Episode Highlights[02:17] Building a Data-First Culture: Tom explains his mission at CSP: modernize the technology foundation, create a data-first culture, and make it measurably easier for employees to do their jobs.[03:23] Listen Before You Lead: Technology transformation begins with understanding the business. Tom spent his first ninety days assessing systems, processes, talent, and trust before making changes.[06:40] From Systems of Record to Systems of Action: Traditional ERP systems capture transactions. Modern systems sense issues, trigger action, and help teams respond in real time before problems escalate.[08:30] AI for the Frontline: Instead of searching through hundreds of documents, maintenance technicians could use AI-powered tools to instantly access answers and solve problems faster.[10:46] The Point of Impact: The greatest value comes when critical information reaches the person closest to the problem, enabling faster decisions and better quality outcomes.[12:18] Reimagining the Shop Floor Experience: Tom outlines his vision for manufacturing execution systems that provide real-time visibility, automate routine transactions, and simplify work for operators.[13:46] Technology That Works for People: Whether through automation, scanning, image recognition, or AI-driven workflows, technology should remove friction rather than create it.[15:39] Speaking the Language of Business: One of Tom's biggest leadership lessons was learning to frame technology initiatives around business outcomes, not technical specifications.[17:42] Cybersecurity Without Creating Friction: Security matters, but successful technology leaders balance risk mitigation with maintaining productivity and enabling business operations.[21:08] The Power of Systems of Action: Tom Roberts explains how AI can move organizations beyond reporting what happened toward understanding why it happened and what action should happen next.Top Quotes[02:52] Tom Luttrell: “ The reason why I came in was to modernize our technology foundation for the company and to build a data-first culture, and to make it measurably easier for our employees to get their jobs done.”[10:55] Tom Luttrell: "You're putting the information in the hands of what I would call the point of impact, which would be the maintenance tech at that specific press looking at that specific problem."[16:20] Tom Luttrell: “ You have to primarily come at things from what problem are you trying to solve from a business perspective.”Follow the Auto Supply Chain Champions Podcast for real conversations with leaders who are making hard choices, focusing their bets, and leading with intent.

Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich talks to Sebastien and Hope, a married couple in their forties who have been together for 20 years, married for 16, and have a nine-year-old son. They earn around $195,000 a year, have $674,000 in assets, $129,000 invested, just $11,000 in savings, and $437,000 in debt. On paper, they are not broke, but emotionally, Sebastien still feels like they are constantly scrambling, while Hope believes their personal finances are in the best place they have ever been. Both recently became business owners, with Hope running an architecture firm and Sebastien running a wine importing business, but the risk of entrepreneurship, debt, low emergency savings, and under-investing for retirement has left them stuck between optimism, fear, and avoidance.   In this episode we uncover: • Why Sebastien still feels broke, even though their finances are stronger than they used to be • How Hope's optimism clashes with Sebastien's fear about the future • Their combined income of around $195,000 a year • Their assets of $674,000, investments of $129,000, savings of $11,000, and debt of $437,000 • Why having only one month of emergency savings puts them in a risky position • How both Hope and Sebastien became business owners after buying existing companies • Hope's architecture business and Sebastien's wine importing business • Why Ramit says they are talking around the numbers instead of confronting them directly • How their current retirement projection could give them only around $35,000 a year • Why Hope's $130,000 retirement dream requires a much more aggressive investing plan • Why their guilt-free spending and fixed costs are squeezing savings and investments • How one final credit card payment could drop their fixed costs from 67% to 52% • Why their grocery spending becomes one of the first practical areas to tighten • Ramit's math mistake in the episode and why the overall lesson still stands • Sebastien's need for a clear business runway and decision point • Hope's realization that she was not being fully honest with herself about their finances ⏩ CHAPTERS (00:00:53) Introduction: is it too late to be successful with money? (00:02:40) Sebastien and Hope's financial snapshot (00:04:11) Their annual “executive household planning retreat” (00:06:01) Ramit asks if their planning system is actually working (00:08:02) Sebastien's fear about his wine importing business (00:11:31) How they each became business owners (00:15:31) Feeling broke vs actually being broke (00:16:47) Ramit reads Sebastien's application back to Hope (00:20:08) Assets, investments, savings, debt, and net worth (00:21:21) Ramit pushes them to say: “It's not enough” (00:23:20) Their projected retirement number (00:25:31) Ramit points out they only have one month of emergency savings (00:33:31) Their CSP: fixed costs, investments, savings, and guilt-free spending (00:34:24) Breaking down their $437,000 debt (01:01:22) The $45,500-a-year investment target (01:15:59) Sebastien's business plan and runway (01:24:20) Ramit's final advice: redo the CSP and lock in the numbers (01:25:46) Hope's follow-up (01:27:40) Sebastien's follow-up (01:29:22) Their updates: increased IRA contributions and Vanguard investing This episode is brought to you by: Netsuite | Get the free guide “Demystifying AI” at https://netsuite.com/ramit LMNT | Get a free LMNT Sample Pack with any order at https://drinklmnt.com/RAMIT Factor | Head to https://factormeals.com/ramit50off and use code ramit50off to get 50 percent off and free daily greens per box, with new subscription only, while supplies last until 09/27/2026. (See website for more details). DeleteMe | Get 20% off all consumer plans when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/ramit and use promo code RAMIT at checkout Get 25% off my programs until Friday May 15th at iwt.com/programs with code RESET26. Connect with Ramit • Get my new book, Money For Couples • Get Money Coaching with Ramit  • Download the Conscious Spending Plan • Listen to my book—now on Audible • Get my New York Times best-selling book • Get my no-numbers journal • Other episodes • Instagram • Twitter • YouTube Calling LA couples: Apply to be coached for free on this podcast at https://iwt.com/apply

Todd Caponi, CSP® is the author of two award-winning books, The Transparency Sale, and The Transparent Sales Leader. His third book, Four Levers Negotiating, will be released in early 2026. Todd is a multi-time C-Level sales leader, a behavioral science and sales history nerd, and has led at two companies through successful exits. He now speaks and teaches revenue organizations and their leaders on leveraging transparency and decision science to maximize their revenue capacity as Principal of Sales Melon LLC.  https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddcaponi/ http://instagram.com/saleshistorian/   Connect with David www.davidihill.com Get 14 Day Go-High-Level Trial https://www.gohighlevel.com/?fp_ref=david-i-hill-training25 SOCIALS: Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/davidihill/ LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidihill YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DavidHillcoach Youtube: ringleader-ai-crm TicTok: www.tiktok.com/@davidihill Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidihill X: https://twitter.com/davidihill   RING LEADER AI DEMO CALL 617-882-7788 www.davidihill.com/crm   PODCAST SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-persistent-entrepreneur/id1081069895   #DavidHill #DavidIHill #PathToSalesMastery #ThePersistentEntrepreneur #PersistentEntrepreneurPodcast #SalesTraining #SalesCoach #SalesLeadership

Welcome to the land podcast, a platform for people looking to educate themselves in the world of land ownership, land investing, staying up to date with current land trends in the Midwest, and hearing from industry experts and professionals.  On today's episode, we are back in the studio with Steve Hanson. We discuss: Shed trespassing is becoming more organized. Social media helped identify the trespasser quickly. Trail cameras are changing trespassing enforcement. Many landowners view sheds as personal property. CRP rates have softened in recent years. CSP funding appears stronger in the new Farm Bill. Habitat-focused CRP projects can benefit both parties. Water quality is becoming a bigger conservation focus. Forestry incentives may become more important nationally. Iowa land prices appear stable after major growth years. And so much more! Thanks again for all of the support from our partners—none of this would've been possible without them! - Buck Land Funding: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.firstbankers.com/bucklandfunding⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -Hawke Optics | Use Code WHTL for 15% off:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/hawkeoptics_⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -OnX:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/onX_Hunt⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ -Painted Arrow: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠bit.ly/PaintedArrow⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Latitude Outdoors: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.latitudeoutdoors.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Whitetail Master Academy ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.whitetailmasteracademy.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Use code '⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HOFER' to save 10% off at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.theprairiefarm.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ - Massive potential tax savings: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ASMLABS.Net⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

What if the key to customer loyalty isn't about creating memorable, delightful moments, but about being utterly forgettable in the best possible way?Agility requires more than just rapid campaign execution; it demands a deep-seated ability to re-evaluate and re-engineer core processes in response to shifting customer expectations.Today, we're going to talk about the powerful, and perhaps counterintuitive, idea that the greatest predictor of customer loyalty isn't satisfaction or delight, but simply how easy you are to do business with. We'll explore why reducing customer effort is a critical competitive advantage and how enterprise brands can identify and eliminate the points of friction that drive customers away.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, David Avrin, CX Keynote Speaker and Author at Ridiculously Easy International, and keynote speaker at CRMC, taking place June 1-3 in Frisco Texas. About David Avrin One of the most in-demand Customer Experience speakers and consultants in the world today, David Avrin, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow, has shared his content-rich, entertaining and actionable presentations with enthusiastic audiences across North America and in 28 countries around the world. David helps organizations better understand and connect with their changing customers and clients to help future-proof their businesses. David's insights have been featured on thousands of media outlets around the world. He is also the author of seven books including the acclaimed: It's Not Who You Know, It's Who Knows You!, Why Customers Leave (and How to Win Them Back), The Morning Huddle, and his newest book, Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With.  David Avrin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidavrin/ Resources Ridiculously Easy International: https://www.davidavrin.com/ This episode is brought to by CRMC. Drive your customers to new horizons at the premier retail event of the year for Retail and Brand marketers. Learn more at CRMC 2026, June 1-3. https://www.thecrmc.com Drive your customers to new horizons at the premier retail event of the year for Retail and Brand marketers. Learn more at CRMC 2026, June 1-3. https://aglbrnd.co/r/d15ec37a537c0d74 We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658 Get the book: Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With by David Avrin: https://share.google/iwUGAonakI63ZU2vR Ridiculously Easy Intl. website: https://www.ridiculouslyeasy.com/ Get the new research report David mentioned: The Frequency of Customer Friction: https://www.ridiculouslyeasy.com/research Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3 Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What if the key to customer loyalty isn't about creating memorable, delightful moments, but about being utterly forgettable in the best possible way? Agility requires more than just rapid campaign execution; it demands a deep-seated ability to re-evaluate and re-engineer core processes in response to shifting customer expectations.Today, we're going to talk about the powerful, and perhaps counterintuitive, idea that the greatest predictor of customer loyalty isn't satisfaction or delight, but simply how easy you are to do business with. We'll explore why reducing customer effort is a critical competitive advantage and how enterprise brands can identify and eliminate the points of friction that drive customers away.To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome, David Avrin, CX Keynote Speaker and Author at Ridiculously Easy International, and keynote speaker at CRMC, taking place June 1-3 in Frisco Texas. About David Avrin One of the most in-demand Customer Experience speakers and consultants in the world today, David Avrin, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow, has shared his content-rich, entertaining and actionable presentations with enthusiastic audiences across North America and in 28 countries around the world. David helps organizations better understand and connect with their changing customers and clients to help future-proof their businesses.  David's insights have been featured on thousands of media outlets around the world. He is also the author of seven books including the acclaimed: It's Not Who You Know, It's Who Knows You!, Why Customers Leave (and How to Win Them Back), The Morning Huddle, and his newest book, Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With.  David Avrin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidavrin/ Resources Ridiculously Easy International: https://www.davidavrin.com/ This episode is brought to by CRMC. Drive your customers to new horizons at the premier retail event of the year for Retail and Brand marketers. Learn more at CRMC 2026, June 1-3. https://www.thecrmc.com Drive your customers to new horizons at the premier retail event of the year for Retail and Brand marketers. Learn more at CRMC 2026, June 1-3. https://aglbrnd.co/r/d15ec37a537c0d74 We're proud to be a media partner for #MAICON26 - Oct. 13-15! Learn how AI can power your marketing and business and help you grow smarter. Use code AGILE150 to save! https://aglbrnd.co/r/7fe458ced0f04658 Get the book: Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With by David Avrin: https://share.google/iwUGAonakI63ZU2vR Ridiculously Easy Intl. website: https://www.ridiculouslyeasy.com/ Get the new research report David mentioned: The Frequency of Customer Friction: https://www.ridiculouslyeasy.com/research Enjoyed the show? Tell us more at and give us a rating so others can find the show at: https://aglbrnd.co/r/faaed112fc9887f3 Connect with Greg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregkihlstromDon't miss a thing: get the latest episodes, sign up for our newsletter and more: https://aglbrnd.co/r/35ded3ccfb6716ba Check out The Agile Brand Guide website with articles, insights, and Martechipedia, the wiki for marketing technology: https://www.agilebrandguide.com The Agile Brand is produced by Missing Link—a Latina-owned strategy-driven, creatively fueled production co-op. From ideation to creation, they craft human connections through intelligent, engaging and informative content. https://www.missinglink.company