Podcasts about Monster Worldwide

Need financing for your next investment property? Visit: https://www.academyfund.com/ Want to join us in Tampa on Janary 28th? Visit: https://www.10xvets.com/events ____ Tom Aiello is a seasoned marketing executive with over 25 years of experience in corporate and entrepreneurial ventures. A West Point graduate with an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, he has led marketing initiatives for major brands like McDonald's, Kenmore, and Craftsman. He held leadership roles at Monster Worldwide and Sears Holdings before founding MARCH Marketing, specializing in products for military and veteran families. In 2022, Tom launched Operation Good Boy, a military-inspired dog products company. He also serves as Chairperson of the Board for OnComms, a veteran-owned mobile telecommunications company.   In this episode, we discuss: How Tom incorporates military principles and leadership strategies to marketing, advertising, and running a business. How his experience at a major advertising agency taught him valuable lessons about consumer psychology, integrated marketing, and turning client criticism into opportunities. How his personal experience caring for his sick dog showed him the parallels between the loyalty and selflessness of dogs and military service members, inspiring him to start a military-inspired pets products company, Operation Good Boy. Operation Good Boy's rapid growth from zero retail presence in 2023 to commitments for 3,000 stores by 2025, including major retailers like Walmart and Tractor Supply, driven by their premium supplement formulations and military-themed product line. Their strategic pivot from a subscription box model to allowing customers more control over their orders, which dramatically increased average order value and demonstrated the importance of "failing fast" and learning from customer feedback. The critical importance for consumer brands to have a presence on Amazon along with customer reviews for securing retail distribution deals, and how proper Amazon optimization requires specialized expertise and strategic investment. Operation Good Boy's mission to transform pet health in America through education and premium products, while giving back to military working dog organizations and veteran support initiatives. How Operation Good Boy leverages military precision in product development, partnering with an airborne ranger veterinarian to ensure their supplements, treats, and toys exceed market standards for quality and effectiveness. Connect with Tom LinkedIn Email: info@marchcorp.com March Marketing Operation Good Boy If you found this episode valuable, please share it with a friend or colleague. If you are a Service Academy graduate and want to take your business to the next level, you can join our supportive community and get started today. Subscribe and help out the show: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts & Spotify Leave us a 5-star review! Special thanks to Tom Aiello for joining me this week. Until next time! -Scott Mackes, USNA '01

This episode features an interview with Dan Levi, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Clear Channel Outdoor. He leads the organization's marketing strategy and connects brands and consumers through innovative advertising insights and solutions. Prior to joining Clear Channel Outdoor, Dan held positions at Captivate, Zoom Media, Monster Worldwide, and MTV. He has a proven track record of driving significant revenue growth, developing brands, and creating opportunities for B2B and B2C organizations.In this episode, Kailey and Dan discuss understanding consumer journeys, the role of out-of-home advertising in driving conversions, and the need for adaptability to optimize brand performance.-------------------Key Takeaways:Balancing technological advancements like AI with the inherently human aspect of marketing, ensures that relationships and trust with customers remain central to marketing strategies.With consumers now relying on digital tools for navigability, advertisers should consider journeys and audience behaviors rather than just proximity to locations. When out-of-home advertising is combined with other channels, marketers are able to drive performance, brand awareness, and direct conversions.-------------------“Advertising, especially one that is such a local business, people, relationships, they're really important. I think there is a very big risk in trying to move too fast to embrace automation in a way that undermines the strength that we have. Which is we have people on the ground, in our local markets, working with our customers.” – Dan Levi-------------------Episode Timetamps:‍*(02:49) - Dan's career journey*(05:38) - Trends impacting customer experience*(21:05) - The role of AI in Clear Channel's strategy *(30:21) - Challenges on the customer engagement journey*(35:33) - How Dan defines “good data”‍*(42:14) - Dan's recommendations for upleveling customer experience strategies-------------------Links:Connect with Dan on LinkedInConnect with Kailey on LinkedInLearn more about Caspian Studios-------------------SponsorGood Data, Better Marketing is brought to you by Twilio Segment. In today's digital-first economy, being data-driven is no longer aspirational. It's necessary. Find out why over 20,000 businesses trust Segment to enable personalized, consistent, real-time customer experiences by visiting Segment.com

Host Jon McLachlan sits down with Craig Goodwin, Co-Founder and CEO of Bleach Cyber. Craig shares his remarkable journey from military intelligence in the UK to leading cybersecurity roles at major corporations like Monster Worldwide, CDK Global, and Fujitsu, ultimately founding Bleach Cyber. Discover how Bleach Cyber aims to simplify cybersecurity for small businesses, making top-tier security accessible and manageable. Craig also dives into the human element of cybersecurity, the challenges of startup life, and the importance of resilience and simplicity in both business and life. Tune in for a compelling conversation filled with insights, practical advice, and Craig's vision for the future of cybersecurity.

The returning guest in HRchat 529 is Matt Charney, Talent Acquisition Practice Leader at HR.com and former Executive Editor at RecruitingDaily.We are big fans of Matt; not only is he a leading global expert and influencer in the talent and technology space, he's also an authentic and warm pro!Matt has extensive expertise within the recruiting and HR technology industries, with nearly 20 years of marketing leadership experience at global talent organizations such as Monster Worldwide, Cornerstone OnDemand, Talemetry, and the Allegis Group.Matt began his career in corporate talent acquisition as a sourcer and recruiter for companies such as Warner Bros. and the Walt Disney Company.Questions For Matt Include: You're Talent Acquisition Practice Leader at HR.com. Tell us about Talent Acquisition Excellence Magazine and your role.How has hiring changed since over the past few years? How have processes changed as a result of the pandemic and remote hiring?What are yoiur thoughts on the role of hiring based on culture fit?Any tips for HR leaders looking to fill gaps and supplement departments with contingent workers: what are the benefits and negatives of developing a blended pool of people resources with Gig workers? We do our best to ensure editorial objectivity. The views and ideas shared by our guests and sponsors are entirely independent of The HR Gazette, HRchat Podcast and Iceni Media Inc.   

On today's episode we hear from Rick Marini.  Rick is a serial entrepreneur with 25 years of operating and investing experience in the technology space. He founded and successfully sold 3 companies (Tickle, BranchOut and Talk.co). He is an active angel investor in 50 tech start-ups including 17 unicorns (including Snapchat, Reddit, Opendoor, and AngelList).  In 2018, Rick was named a "Top 50 Angel Investor" by Forbes. Rick is also the Co-founder & Managing Partner of Catapult Capital - a private equity firm that focuses on transactions in the Internet, advertising, media, consumer and broader technology sectors. Full buyouts include Grindr and JibJab. Rick currently serves as the COO of Grindr and on the Board of Directors for JibJab.Rick was the Founder & CEO of BranchOut, the largest professional network leveraging the social graph with more than 800 million professional profiles. BranchOut raised $49 million in funding from Accel, Redpoint, Mayfield, Norwest and Floodgate. In 2014, BranchOut was acquired by a publicly-traded recruiting company.Rick was Founder & CEO of Talk.co, an enterprise messaging app. In 2014, Talk.co was acquired by Hearst Corporation. Rick ran the Digital Innovation Group at Hearst from 2014-2016.In 1999, Rick co-founded Tickle.com, one of the largest social media sites on the Internet. In 2002, Tickle won the “Rising Star” Webby Award as the fastest growing site on the Web. Tickle grew to more than 200 million registered users and was a top 20 Internet site. In 2004, Monster Worldwide acquired Tickle for $100 million.Beyond Rick's depth of knowledge and experience, he is an amazing human being - he generously gives his time to coach and mentor early-stage companies and is a huge advocate for new founders looking for advice, support, and investment in Silicon Valley.------------------------------------------------------------------------This episode is brought to you by Exitwise:  https://www.exitwise.comExitwise helps business owners create the exits they deserve by assembling the best teams of industry specific, M&A experts, who will help maximize the sale of each business.How Does It Work:1. Schedule A Call:  Schedule a call with one of our M&A Advisors and we'll walk you through the entire process of selling your business, from market valuations to M&A expert fees and from due diligence to the signing of your purchase agreement. We're here to answer any questions you may have.On this call, we'll want to learn about the history of the business, your financial performance, your management team and listen to your thoughts and requirements for selling the business so we can make sure to find the best M&A experts to help maximize your exit.2. Review Top Experts:  Once we've had a chance to process all your business information, we'll share with you, our top choices for investment bankers, M&A attorneys, and tax accountants to help maximize the sale of your business.We'll present each M&A expert's transaction history, estimated valuation range for your business and their fee structures. Then we'll talk through the pros and cons of each choice to help you prioritize and make the best decisions.3. Negotiate & Hire:  Finally, when we've narrowed it down to your top choices, we'll negotiate your engagement letter with each M&A expert to make sure fees and terms are fair for everyone. We know what to look for and we know how to keep everyone incentivized for your optimal outcome.Once your M&A experts have been selected and you're ready to move forward, we'll collect signatures and get everyone to work.

Steve Pemberton is currently the Chief Human Resources Officer at Workhuman. Previously, he's also held roles as Chief Diversity Officer at Walgreens and Monster Worldwide. Steve is also the author of A Chance in the World, which became a best-seller and was made into a movie. Steve is also the husband of Tonya and the proud parent of 3 children. Before all of his professional success in his adult life, Steve was an orphan and a foster child. For 11 years, he was abused mentally, physical and emotionally by his foster parents. Eventually, he told his social worker about the abuse and was able to escape his foster parents. In this interview, we talk about: - Steve's childhood and living with foster parents who physically, emotionally and mentally abused him for 11 years - How Steve gathered the courage to tell his social worker about his parents' abuse and got the opportunity to leave his foster parents - Steve's thoughts on the foster care system and his advice to kids currently in the system - Going to Boston College - How Steve managed to create a great personal life - getting married and having 3 children, despite all the trauma from his childhood - How Steve grew to become a C-Suite Executive at Monster, Walgreens and now Workhuman __ Steve's Socials: Website: https://www.stevepemberton.io/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/iStevePemberton Latest Book “The Lighthouse Effect”: https://www.amazon.com/Lighthouse-Effect-Ordinary-People-Extraordinary/dp/0310362326/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&qid=1617308084&refinements=p_27%3ASteve+Pemberton&s=books&sr=1-2&text=Steve+Pemberton Time Stamps: 0:00 Intro to Steve 1:00 Steve's childhood 3:06 Any piece of advice you would give to someone currently in the foster care system? 7:43 What made you tell your social worker about your foster parents' abuse? 10:01 Are there any signs that a foster child is being abused that a teacher could spot? 12:06 How did you continue perform so well in school? 15:57 Did you ever consider suicide? 18:11 How did you remain faithful? 23:31 Did you have nightmares after you moved out of your foster home? 26:08 If someone is struggling with resolve, is there something you would say to them? 31:18 How was adjusting to Boston College? 35:32 How was love for you since you didn't have a frame of reference? 39:57 Did you ever feel unworthy? 42:14 How did you approach BC mentally? 44:10 Any thoughts on working in higher ed? 46:35 Any love advice? 53:12 How much did you tell your eventual wife about your past? 58:38 How honest were you with your kids about your past? 1:01:22 Did you fear anything negative happening to your business career as a result of your books? 1:03:28 Did your past ever trigger you? 1:09:40 What lessons have you learned to become a C-suite executive? 1:16:30 What's best way to support you? Grateful Living Info: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9Bo0LHtRJJNJBUYIceg27w Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3Hn4ttttmbWfVqAhWh4Jhi Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1503185956 My Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aroy81547/?hl=en Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/gratefulliving4 Medium: https://gratefulliving4.medium.com/

Pete Kazanjy (LinkedIn, Twitter) is a serial founder, and seasoned early stage Saas executive, advisor, and investor. Pete founded TalentBin, a category-defining talent search engine and recruiting CRM, which exited to Monster Worldwide in early 2014. Pete currently is the founder of Atrium, a proactive sales performance analysis solution, author of Founding Sales, the definitive Startup Sales Handbook, and founder of Modern Sales, the nation's largest sales operations, leadership, and enablement community. At TalentBin, Pete went from product and product marketing founder generalist, to first sales rep, first sales manager, first VP of Sales, all the way to leading new product sales for 600+ sales reps at Monster worldwide. After Monster, he wrote a book on startup sales for founders and other first-time sellers, Founding Sales, documenting all the mistakes he made along the way, and solutions to them, so future founders can accelerate their go to market acumen. Pete also founded and runs the canonical invite-only nationwide sales operations and management peer education community (Modern Sales), featuring 13,000+ members from a who's who of sales operations, enablement, management, and leadership from 5k+ leading sales organization's. Additionally, Pete is a well known expert in early stage go to market and “founder selling” - helping organizations figure out their early critical positioning and selling activities. He has done substantial speaking and writing on the topic, including being a frequent contributor to First Round Review and Saleshacker, and advises a number of enterprise software companies on establishing and optimizing their sales and success motions.  Most recently, Pete founded a stealth HR Technology company in the performance management category, seeking to bring data centricity to the world of performance instrumentation and management. Prior to TalentBin, Pete worked in product marketing and product at VMware, having graduated from Stanford in 2002. This Episode is brought to you with the support of Netsuite and Shopify.  --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/uncharted1/support

Nicole Torgersen is Vice President of Design at Dialpad. She's been working in digital design since the late '90s working with a range of industries including cloud collab and storage at Dropbox, retail at Gap, and recruiting at Monster Worldwide. A Design craftsperson by trade, Nicole has been a leader most of her career, building teams by way of leveraging empathy and vulnerability in the balance to find business impact while mentoring individuals.In this episode, we talked about:Nicole's role in DialpadHow did Nicole get into design?How to become a leaderHer career at Monster Worldwide, Gap and DropboxHardest transitions in Nicole's careerNicole's learnings and insights in her career adjustmentsAnd MUCH MORE!Links and Resources: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ntorgersen/ How to Win Friends & Influence PeopleMaking Ideas HappenTara Brach

Rick Boyce is the Multifamily Sales Lead at Villa Homes, California's #1 builder of Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs). Rick and his team help multifamily property owners add ADUs to their parcels to increase revenue, NOI, cash flow, and property value. Before Villa Homes, Rick held executive sales positions at companies including Quantcast, Monster Worldwide, IGN Entertainment, and Lycos. Rick has also been a guest lecturer at Washington State University, his alma mater, where he taught a course that provided foundational tools and training to help students land jobs after graduation. In this episode… What is an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU), and why are they becoming so popular? As someone who's leading ADU sales, Rick Boyce is here to share all of the details on these secondary, on-lot homes. According to Rick, the state of California wanted to engineer a breakthrough solution to the current housing crisis. In 2020, laws went into effect stating that any property owner in California can add an ADU to their backyard under specific guidelines and regulations. Now, people across the state are building these units to shape multi-generational homes and generate affordable housing options.  In this episode of Watching Paint Dry, Greg Owens and Katrina Stephenson talk with Rick Boyce, Multifamily Sales Lead at Villa Homes, about the process of building and owning an ADU. Rick discusses the benefits of creating these affordable living spaces, the #1 reason why people want an ADU, and how ADUs minimize waste and maximize property value. Rick also shares tips to determine if an ADU is right for your property. Stay tuned!

In today's episode, we will be talking with our good friends, Corey White and Craig Goodwin. They are the co-founders of Cyvatar (www.cyvatar.ai), a cybersecurity-as-a-service firm that is truly doing disruptive things in the ecosystem. Corey White (https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreydwhite) is a proven security industry veteran with more than twenty-five years of success managing security practices and consulting teams. His work encompasses virtually every industry, including government, critical infrastructure, finance, healthcare, and manufacturing. Corey has created Cyvatar.AI to enable vendor partners to deliver reliable, repeatable, and measurable business outcomes to clients. Corey also served as the SVP of Worldwide Consulting and Chief Experience Officer at Cylance as well as the Southwest Director of Consulting for Foundstone & McAfee/Intel Professional Services. Craig Goodwin (https://www.linkedin.com/in/craiggoodwin) leads product strategy, product management, and engineering functions as a member of Cyvatar's senior leadership team. Prior to that he has spent 20 years in the security industry, starting with the intelligence services in the United Kingdom, he then went on to hold the role of Global Chief Security Officer (CSO) for a number of large public and private sector organizations including Fujitsu, Monster Worldwide, Wolseley Group PLC and CDK Global. Craig has spent his career driving real business outcomes from his security organizations, positioning security as an enabler for digital trust and transformation rather than a hindrance. Craig is a Certified Chief Information Security Officer (CCISO) and a Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP). At Tech & Main, we want to be YOUR technology partner. Let our 20+ years of expertise help you achieve the outcomes that are best for your business: cybersecurity, cloud, SD-WAN and data center. We have engineers and project managers available to assist you. Call our office at 678-575-8515, email us at info@techandmain.com or visit us at www.techandmain.com. Thanks for listening! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/techandmain/message

Modern Therapist's Consumer Guide on SimplePractice Curt and Katie talk with Howard Spector, CEO and Diana Stepner, VP of Product for SimplePractice. We look at how SimplePractice has been envisioned, the company values, and the details of the product, so you can decide if SimplePractice is the Practice Management System for your private practice. This is the Modern Therapist Consumer Guide, a series of special episodes to help modern therapists navigate products and services specifically designed for therapists and their clients. We dig deeply into the companies, the people, and the products and services so you can make smart decisions in building your practice and serving your clients.   Interview with Howard Spector, CEO and Diana Stepner, VP of Product, SimplePractice Howard is the CEO and Co-founder of SimplePractice. Howard has over 20 years of experience in the information technology industry. He is proud to have earned his MA in Counseling Psychology with an emphasis in Depth Psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Diana joined SimplePractice from Pearson where she was the VP of Innovative Learning Solutions, a portfolio of products that provide value anytime, anywhere for learners by increasing confidence & outcomes associated with a specific learning activity or skill. Previously Diana headed up Future Technologies and Innovation Partnerships at Pearson. She also worked in Emerging Media at Razorfish and User Experience at Salesforce.com. In addition, Diana led Product Management in Western Europe for Monster Worldwide. She has a MIMS from UC Berkeley and an MBA from Boston University. When not doing Product, Diana can be found exercising, listening to podcasts, nutrition / health / wellness, and travel (someday). She lives in San Francisco with her husband and attack puppy.   In this episode we talk about: Interview with Howard Spector, CEO, SimplePractice 2:12: How did the vision for SimplePractice (SP) come into being? 4:17: What is the trajectory for SimplePractice? 6:25: How does SP take in feedback and remain true to their principles and values from which it began? 9:12: What is SP's response to feedback about customer service? 15:31: How does the team atmosphere and culture play out for customers? 19:41: How does SimplePractice support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion? 22:12: What is in the future for SP? 23:18: What is Howard most proud for about SP? 25:10: What does Howard want everyone considering SP for their practice management system need to know? Interview with Diana Stepner, VP of Product, SimplePractice 26:32: What does it look like when someone signs up for SimplePractice? 28:54: What are the strongest elements of SimplePractice? 30:24: What are SP's paperwork customization features? 34:04: What is the professional website feature? 35:07: What is Monarch? 38:01 What are some areas SimplePractice is looking to improve? 40:17: How has SP taken suggestions from the community and incorporated them into SimplePractice? 41:56: Who is SimplePractice NOT right for? 44:35: What is coming up next for SimplePractice's development? 45:54: How do you sign up for SimplePractice? (includes information on our special offer) 46:19: How would you recommend people investigating if SimplePractice is a good fit for them? Curt and Katie Chat – Our review of SimplePractice 47:31: Who would we recommend SimplePractice for? 52:05: Who we think would not be a good match for SimplePractice 53:19: Our recommendations and the special considerations for using SimplePractice to get the maximum benefit   SimplePractice Special Offer: Running a private practice is rewarding, but it can also be demanding. SimplePractice changes that. This practice management solution helps you focus on what's most important—your clients—by simplifying the business side of private practice like billing, scheduling, and even marketing. More than 100,000 professionals use SimplePractice —the leading EHR platform for private practitioners everywhere – to power telehealth sessions, schedule appointments, file insurance claims, communicate with clients, and so much more—all on one HIPAA-compliant platform.  Get your first 2 months of SimplePractice for the price of one when you sign up for an account today. This exclusive offer is valid for new customers only.  Go to www.simplepractice.com/therapyreimagined to learn more.  *Please note that Therapy Reimagined is a paid affiliate of SimplePractice and will receive a little bit of money in our pockets if you sign up using the above link.   Relevant Links: Howard Spector on The Modern Therapist's Survival Guide: Investing in Yourself as an Entrepreneur SimplePractice Facebook Community SimplePractice Community Forum     Connect with us! Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group Get Notified About Therapy Reimagined Conferences   Our consultation services: The Fifty-Minute Hour Who we are: Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making "dad jokes" and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: www.curtwidhalm.com Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt's youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: www.katievernoy.com A Quick Note: Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We're working on it. Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren't trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don't want to, but hey.   Stay in Touch: www.mtsgpodcast.com www.therapyreimagined.com Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapist's Group https://www.facebook.com/therapyreimagined/ https://twitter.com/therapymovement https://www.instagram.com/therapyreimagined/   Credits: Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/ Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano http://www.crystalmangano.com/   Full Transcript (autogenerated):   Curt Widhalm  00:01 This is the Modern Therapist's Consumer Guide, a series of special episodes to help modern therapists navigate products and services specifically designed for therapists and their clients.   Katie Vernoy  00:11 We dig deeply into the companies, the people, and the products and services so you can make smart decisions in building your practice and serving your clients.   Announcer  00:21 You're listening to the Modern Therapist's Survival Guide, where therapists live, breathe, and practice as human beings. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.   Curt Widhalm  00:37 Hey, Modern Therapists, I'm Curt Widhalm with my co host, Katie Vernoy. And this first episode of the Modern Therapist's Consumer Guide is on SimplePractice. Simple practice is an all in one practice management system. And this episode is for modern therapists who would like to know more about this company, and or who are researching electronic health records and practice management systems.   Katie Vernoy  01:00 We have a ton of good information on simple practice in this episode, feel free to listen to our interviews as well as our review at the end. Or if you have specific questions, check out the show notes where we're going to have timestamps, so that you can get specific pieces of information for whatever decision that you're making. You can also check out the show notes on our resources page for a special offer from simple practice to our listeners.   Curt Widhalm  01:24 We're gonna be joined today by Howard Spector, the CEO of SimplePractice, and he's going to be discussing the vision for where they've been, where they started, and where they're going to go. And we're also going to spend some time to discuss some of the features of their system. Take a listen.  We are joined by SimplePractice, founder and CEO, Howard Spector. And this is such a phenomenal company, having seen it be able to grow, I remember back when you were coming around to little neighborhood therapist meetings, and just really starting to bring out the idea of what simple practice can be and what it was going to be. But can you tell us how your vision for simple practice came into being?   Howard Spector  02:16 Yeah, well, first, thanks for having me. It's always great talking with both of you. I do remember those meetings, they were local CAMFT, Chapter meetings, and I would get up in the morning and, you know, get all of our marketing stuff. And it was, you know, I look back on that kind of fondly, like where it started what I had to do to get this business going. But anyway, was the question again? how did how did the idea for simple practice come into being? Okay? So, the short answer is that I went back to graduate school later in my career, to become a therapist, and I went through the, you know, I don't know why people know, the whole story of I invented this product called TrackYourHours to track all my training hours. And that did pretty well. And when I was almost done with all of my training, I started looking at practice management products, because I wanted to find something that I can use to run my practice. And, you know, at the time, there just really wasn't something out there that I felt really connected to, that would really serve my needs and how I wanted to run my business. So that really was plant the planting of the seed where I thought maybe I could build something that would be more in line with how I want to work. And that idea just kind of rattled around in my unconscious for a while. And then one day, it just kind of came out and hit me like, Okay, I think I know how I want to build this. And I partnered up with someone who was more on the technology side of things, and we just started, you know, wireframing the product out and figuring out how we wanted it to work, and just sort of building it. So it was really one of those things where the motivation behind starting this business wasn't because I thought, Oh, I want to build a business and make a lot of money or make money. It was really, I just needed a product that I could use for myself. And I thought about a lot of the people that I did training with, and went to school with, and I just to me it was like, Well, how can I build something that they would really like and enjoy it as well and make it easy for them to run their practices. So that was really the beginning of this whole journey.   Katie Vernoy  04:16 And it started with some I'm assuming pretty basic and has grown into a all in one product. Talk a little bit about what the trajectory is what what simple practice is right now?   Howard Spector  04:28 Well, I'll tell you where it just really briefly where it started and how it started. So I made a lot of really, I made a lot of assumptions, You know what they say about assumptions. You have to start with something and my initial idea for this was we're going to build a practice management system, very simple for solo practitioners only. And for folks that only take cash or don't take insurance basically. So no groups, no insurance. And so we built that and we launched That. And we very quickly realized a couple things. One was, that was a mistake. Because there was a lot of folks that really, that were that had group practices, whether that just means two people or more, that really liked what we had built and wanted to be able to use it and couldn't. And the other thing was, there were a lot of people that were taking insurance. And they, you know, didn't like the fact that we couldn't process that through our, our platform, our product. So what happened was, we launched it, we got some customers, it was great. And we started getting feedback immediately. And so we basically, I was so naive, I thought, I will launch this, and we'll be on our way. But what it really happened was, you know, we're eight years into, you know, continuing to develop this platform, it's nonstop, you know, there's always new things to do. When you first arrive first thought about it, I thought, well, you know, scheduling, billing and payments, how hard can that be? But what I really realized as like, you know, as a mirror to life, right? There's, it's all about the nuance, it's all about those details. And, you know, you don't really know a lot of those things until you start embarking on that journey. And, again, we started getting more feedback, we started learning more things about how people worked and what they wanted. And then you need this, you need that. So it really has, it's been a constant journey of development since 2012, when we first started the company.   Curt Widhalm  06:24 And you're getting that kind of feedback, and growing and managing an ever growing team, as you add on things like the insurance, billing, and even new divisions like simple practice learning. How do you take that feedback yet and stay true to your principles and values from where you started?   Howard Spector  06:46 First and foremost, you know, I want to please everybody, which is the recipe for success from the you know, I mean, you hear someone they want something, you want to add it, because if you don't, they're gonna be mad, and I don't want to have people mad at me, right. So there's a lot of, you know, therapy sessions, you can tie into all this, for me, just figuring out how to create boundaries and stuff. But we, you know, we have a very vocal customer base. And that's a great thing. I mean, cuz companies would, like, really, they really want that. But it's hard also, because people are pretty relentless. But we're here to serve them. And we're here, you know, people pay us a monthly fee, because our job is to continue to iterate on this all the time and evolve our product for them, not just, hey, we deliver a static product, and we're done. But keep paying us anyway. So we get a lot of feedback through a lot of different channels, you know, we have a Facebook community page, which is, you know, gets a lot of, you know, activity, we have another whole community forum area, we have through our customer success team, you know, there's a lot of feedback that comes into them. And so there's, there's a lot of inbound information that then. And we look at all of it, and we have a user voice, it's a product that allows people to post ideas they have they want to see in the product, and other people can vote on those things. So as you get feature requests, or things that have a lot of votes to them, you know, those can you start looking at those more seriously. And you want to be able to do everything, but you can't, and that what part of the challenge is explaining to people why you can't do something, what they say is, well, it's just a button, just add this button, you know, what they realize is there's a whole complex, it's like, talking with someone that's got, you know, some serious, you know, challenges in their life. And you're saying, well, just, you know, go start running, you know, that'll fix it, or whatever. So to solve it. Yeah. So there's, you know, it's hard, because, again, we're here to serve people, and they don't want to hear excuses. And we don't want to give them excuses. But the reality is, we want everybody to be happy. And we want to give everyone what they want. It's just impossible to do. And if we built everything that everyone asked for our product would be an absolute mess. So it really is a matter of us really looking at the requests that are coming in through all these different channels, and deciding, you know, which ones are the most urgent, right? And then also which ones are going to have the greatest impact for the most people. And that's, again, I'm simplifying the process. But that's so some way that we go about, like going through all the the incoming feedback and figuring out what to do or what not to do.   Katie Vernoy  09:12 One of the specific pieces of feedback that seems to plague simple practice is this idea that there's not solid customer service. And we've actually talked about this before when you came on to the podcast previously. And we can link to that in the notes here. So people can learn about your kind of business prowess there. But there's certainly feedback on customer service. So I'd love to have you address that. And there's also other types of feedback that comes through you. I think you use the word relentless. What are your responses to those? Because I think that there's the cific things that seem to keep being kind of a thorn in simple practices side, especially around customer service.   Howard Spector  09:55 Well, so I'm not sure it's hard for me to answer that because I would be more specific information because then you simply don't have solid customer service. Because I'm what I think about is, we have, like, we have these things called CSAT scores, or customer satisfaction scores that are collected by when people do get support, they're allowed to rate the support, our cset scores are consistently in the mid 90th percentile, which is pretty remarkable. And that, you know, that is consistent over time, even during when the COVID pandemic started, and we saw a massive increase in the amount of people that were signing up, we maintain the scores, we also have what we call NPS scores. So people get these emails or messages from us, that basically say, hey, how likely are you to recommend simple practice to a friend and it's on a scale of like, one to 10. And it's like, it's, it's a, it's broken up into, like, you know, I think seven to 10 are promoters, and people that will promote civil practice, etc. So, our NPS scores are also like in the 60s and 70s, which is remarkable. For any kind of business. I mean, those are massively high scores, because the scoring goes to like negative 100, to 100. So there's always going to be a time where people aren't happy with certain things, and what happens typically, especially on Facebook, which is why I deleted my facebook account, you get, you know, it's like the squeaky wheel, you get one person out there that's unhappy with something, and then you get the whole barrage of people kind of, you know, tail tailing on that thing, and then it escalates into this whole shitshow of complaints against something. And most of the time, there's, the complaints are based upon erroneous information, you know, or limited information. And I think that is important for what I would love to be able to tell everyone is like, you know, we're here for you, it's like, our intention is to, like, do good and help you and do the right thing. And so many times, it's really fascinating to me, and it makes me angry, just on a human level that people default to the negative, like, what are they trying to do? And why aren't they doing this and like, like, we're out to get them in some way, which is completely opposite of what we're all trying to do. So I know that there's, we can always do better in everything, you know, personally and professionally. Believe me, I my focus is like I'm the worrier. And chief here, I look at all the things that we can do better, with customer success, which is what we call our group not support, we call it customer success. I think the biggest issues that have come up that I've been aware of are these talks about the ability to have phone support. Yeah. And to me, that's a recurring thing that comes up. And there's again, this this erroneous narrative, it's perpetuated from some of our competitors, that we don't have phone support, which is not true, we do have phone support, it's just it's not 24, seven on demand inbound support, it's something where you make an appointment, someone on our team will get on a video share with you or like, you know, screenshare, whatever they need to help you with what you need to do. And I know it sounds defensive, but it's not. It's the reality, like if we went and if we provide phone support, and I think we will provide it at some point, we're looking at some things right now, we want to make sure it's a good experience. Some of our competitors provide phone support, but we call those lines and you sit on hold, saying you have it just to say you have it is not how we want to operate our business, we want to have integrity around what we do, not implying they don't, I'm just talking about us, we want to have integrity around what we do. If we provide something like phone support, for example, we want it to be a really good experience. And for the low price point of which we charge for simple practice. It's unrealistic to think that we can support 10s of 1000s of customers with on demand 24, seven inbound phone support. It's just unsustainable, in some ways, but again, we're looking into things right now, hopefully, we can provide something in addition to make an appointment at a time that's convenient for you. And somebody will work with you directly to help you out. We also have chat, that happens a lot. So you don't you're not on the phone. But you can live chat with people and a whole bunch of other ways that we do support. So I think our support, it's one of the most proud things I am about our company. I've worked a lot of companies in my life. And customer success or customer support in most businesses is usually this cost, you know, this cost center that's relegated to the back room. It's this part of the company that is an afterthought for a lot of people. And I never thought that way about it for this for this business. Because, you know, our customers are the most important thing. So, you know, we've really been intentional, you know, mindful, thoughtful about that team, that that group on our team, and who we hire, you know, how they work what they do. That's something that I believe we have a world class customer success team, despite the fact that people are going to be annoyed at sometimes that's just the nature of business and it's going to happen, but it's an unbelievable group of people. I wish that I could let people that are complaining about things no, like, each one of these people's an individual that comes to work every day, like, deeply cares about the mission that we're on the work that we're doing to support our customers. It's hard sometimes to see the shit that they take from people that are frustrated. But what I tell them is, hey, look, a lot of our customers are they work solo, you know, their job is to kind of be a container for their clients. And they're holding a lot. And like, sometimes we're just in the line of fire for to help them kind of unload some stuff.   Curt Widhalm  15:31 One of the things that Katie and I have, we're both simple practice users in our practices and have been for quite a while. We've obviously known Howard for quite a while we've known several of his staff for several years, and we've developed some of those personal relationships to actually see some of your employees on that more personal level. For those of us who aren't Katie and I, you really do create this warm, welcoming space, and as your company has evolved, you're so really able to keep that personal touch going, how does that team atmosphere really play out for the customers that makes it to where it's a really integrated flow from you as a very personal CEO, out to the solo therapists that's, you know, maybe in the middle of nowhere, who's able to still feel that care and comfort.   Howard Spector  16:29 I think that we've worked very hard here. And we always do. And it's a nonstop ongoing process to create a great culture. And a lot of companies talk, like they use the culture word. They say, yeah, we have a great culture. But what does it mean? You know? And do you really and how, how committed to it, are you we spent a lot of time talking about culture, we have a whole culture and values deck that we require people to read while they're interviewing with us to understand so they can understand what is it like to work here? Like, what are our what are our culture and values. And these aren't things that are just written on a piece of paper. And I think that's one of the things that differentiates us, at least in my experience, and other companies that I've worked out. It's, we believe in all this stuff, we update this culture and values deck, you know, we, because some things we realize maybe weren't communicated the right way or something's wrong, whatever. It's an iterative, ongoing, document, the living document. And I think I really believe that because we care so deeply about the culture here, to provide a place for people to work that is supportive and collaborative, and human, you know, that, that just ends up translating to our customers. It's amazing to watch, like, how, like, during the pandemic, when everything first hit, and we got slammed, how people stepped up to help each other. They want to cry right now. It's like, it's like, there's such a sense of camaraderie and helpful collaboration with the people at this company. And it's just who they are. And so that, to me, that just gets translated to everything we do. And part of my job is to make sure that as we grow, you know, it's a slippery slope, once you start letting one thing slide, you're done. Right? Yeah. So it's, it's like an ongoing process of hyper vigilance, I say, it's like, you're just making sure that even down to the language in some cases, like how we talk, how we talk with one another, like what we do and how we think about, you know, our marketing materials, and what are we trying to say, it's showing our customers, the people here, and being able to say, when you are part of our community, when you're, you know, we using simple practice, you've got all these people that work at this company that are working for you, you know, that's a pretty cool message that I love that image, it's like, Look, while you're sleeping, while you're doing something else, we're working to help make your life better through through how you manage your practice. And I totally believe that it's in the DNA of this company. And you know, when you have, I think, when you really believe that and you really act on that on an ongoing moment by moment basis, you know, it translates out and it filters out to our customers.   Katie Vernoy  19:14 I think that's so important. I know that in times when I've worked in other organizations that did not have that type of clarity on culture, or the culture was really toxic. I think that does translate out to clients customers, like I think it it's hard for that not to be kind of transmitted along and and I really appreciate that. And I like the thoughtfulness with how you've put that together. One of the values that that Curt and I have infused into our business and our work is is in looking at the team and looking at how you put things together and the thoughtfulness that you're describing. There's diversity, equity and inclusion. And so narrowing a little bit into that specific arena, how do you support diversity, equity inclusion throughout simple practice?   Howard Spector  20:05 I've always been very proud of you know, if you go to our team page and look at our team page, you're gonna see a wide variety of people, we've got an amazing mix of people here. And I'm incredibly proud of that. It's not by overt, like, we didn't go out and say, we've got to go do this. It's just, you hire great people, and great people come from all different backgrounds and experiences. So I've, it's always been just that, yeah, just be open to any any anyone who's a good person, regardless of all those other things. And I think that when the whole George Floyd thing happened, which I know that that was just one representative moment in a much, much larger, longer, you know, thing, but I don't mean to minimize it by using that word, you know, that really raised the conversation in the company. And there were people in the company who were actually newer in the company, who were, who actually came in during the pandemic, so they really hadn't been acculturated in the way other people had. They said that we need to do more, you know, there weren't enough, you know, Black people in the company. And we could do better. And my answer is like, Okay, well, yeah, of course, we can always do better, you know, how, let's talk about the specifics that we can do around that. So for example, that one of the things that I thought about was, you know, are we looking for candidates in places in different places? Like, where, where do we post jobs? What kind of recruiters do we work with? How do we basically improve the diversity of the candidates that we're getting, so the pool that we're at, basically, choosing from is more more diverse. So there's things like that, and there's more that we're working on internally, as a company to make sure that we're really paying attention to these things, I guess, less unconsciously and more like, consciously. But, you know, again, to me, it's like, I've just always felt like we're very open and inclusive company, and we want to hire really great people. And it doesn't matter the color of your skin or anything, it's just come work here with a bunch of great people.   Curt Widhalm  22:12 We've seen simple practice, grow. Where is simple practice going from here, what's in the future for simple practice?   Howard Spector  22:20 There's actually some things right now that have gotten me incredibly excited, and almost re energized for the business, because of the next evolution of what we're doing. And how we're supporting our customers, there's some really important things we're going to be rolling out that are going to help people with their practices. But aside from that, there's constant work that needs to happen to the existing, you know, the platform the way it is, I think there's a lot of what I call product debt that we've developed over the years, that we're in the process right now of, you know, our workflows, as intuitive as they can be. Not all of them are, you know, there's some things in the product that are confusing the people that we know about, you know, at some point, you look back, you sit back, and you're like, wow, you know, that's, that's getting a little crazy, we got to we got to, we got to come back and, and, and reorder some of these things in the settings area, and stuff like that. So we're investing a lot of time right now in that, in addition to just adding new things, and some other things as well.   Katie Vernoy  23:18 What are you most proud of?   Howard Spector  23:20 I think I'm most proud of the culture and the company that we've created here, just again, to watch how the people here work, how they work with each other, how they support each other, how much they're bought into the mission of our business, which is to support, you know, health and wellness professionals, that most proud of that, when I see you, we have a meeting every Friday with a whole company, and different folks from different groups in the company present things that they're working on, or things that they're doing. And I just stand back kind of in awe of watching all these amazing people digging so deeply into the work that they're doing to try to make everything better for our customers. That is, it's an unbelievable, because in the beginning, it was just me and me and Ralph, you know, it's like me and Ralph and Fletcher, and then me, Ralph, and you know, Jessica, then me, Ralph, Fletcher, Jessica, and Will, you know, so it's really, it's been amazing to watch the evolution of the business. And now we're at 100. And I think 70 or 180 people in this company, which is unbelievable to me. And watch how deeply everybody cares not just about one another, but about our customers. That's the most proud of. And also, I think just on top of that is, you know, when I sit back and I think about the clinicians of professionals out there that are using simple practice, and what they're dealing with on a daily basis, and they were there hopefully to help them and in our small way, do the work that they're doing, which is, you know, healing the world kind of one patient client at a time. That's a pretty awesome, pretty awesome thing to think about in terms of you know, we've built This platform that helps people do that work, or run the business so they can do the work that they're doing. That's pretty awesome to me to think about that.   Katie Vernoy  25:09 So what do you want everyone considering simple practice for their practice management needs... What do you want them to know?   Howard Spector  25:17 We're a group of with people that are very dedicated to the success of our customers, you know, and to support them, and to build out products and services, to help them do the work that they do. We do our best to do that. And I would just to be honest, because I feel like I have to be honest and say that, like our platform isn't for everybody. There's a lot of choices out there, which is, I think, a good thing. And I think that I always encourage people to try ours, try some other ones. And really ask yourself, you know, which one of these Am I going to want to spend time with to build my business? Hopefully, you know, we'll find that simple practices, the right fit. Not always. And that's cool. You know, we work very hard for our customers all the time. And we have an amazing team of people that are here support everybody.   Katie Vernoy  26:06 Switching gears a little bit, let's dive deeply into the specific features of simple practice.   Curt Widhalm  26:12 And we are joined by Diana Stepner and she is the Vice President of Product at SimplePractice. And thank you for joining us and sharing some of the cool things that you've got going on over there. Yeah, really excited to be here. Thank you very much for having me on the podcast.   Katie Vernoy  26:28 Yeah. So excited to have you here. So the first question that I want to dive into, because I think there's a lot of, there's probably a lot of folks that are looking for their practice management system, their electronic health record, like they're, they're just getting started. And so if we could get an overview, like the benefits and options included in the simple practice, practice management system, kind of the basics, as well as the upgrades that would be helpful, just so folks have a base idea of what are we looking at when somebody signs on to simple practice?   Diana Stepner  27:04 Great. Yeah, so our entry level product, our basic product is called essential, we have an amazing calculator that's on the simple practice comm slash pricing site. So folks can get a great understanding of you know, what's included, and the configurations that go from there. It's awesome in regards to all the features that a solo clinician would need. And so it's got online payment, it has free appointment reminders, it's got diagnosis and treatment plans, it has unlimited clients, there's a client portal, there's paperless intake, and all of that is, you know, focused on helping the clinician be as successful as they possibly can be, and not have to worry about all the backend operational aspects that simple practice powers. We also have upgrades. So we know people are very interested in telehealth. So that is an upgrade that's available to you can also add on Wiley planners, if that's of interest to people. And then the professional website is available, as is monarch, which is our new marketplace that launched recently. And then for folks that are looking for, you know, multiple clinician access or additional capabilities, we have a further plan, which is called professional, it's there for those who want to, you know, have more capabilities available for them or have a larger practice more clients that they're seeing already. And in all cases, you know, the focus of simple practice is to enable the clinicians throughout their career. And so we also have offerings, you know, that align with the pre licensed clinicians, and all the way through to ongoing education and areas that they want to explore just to keep their their learning on par, for example, through SimplePractice Learning,   Curt Widhalm  28:53 What are the strongest elements of the simple practice platform, how you really stand out compared to the rest of the crowd?   Diana Stepner  29:01 And it's actually what brought me to simple practice, I mean, simple practice is designed very thoroughly. And the focus has always been on giving customers the ability to work in their own workflows, and not be stuck in one set process. So to truly be the best that they can be. And it's fully integrated. So the capabilities are all available in one simple practice offering. It's HIPAA compliant from the telehealth opportunity to which is an amazing advantage. And then when it comes down to features, we're really strong on the features the client portal with secure messaging, as well as paperless intake and online booking. And the ability to manage multiple clients and their care through one single log on. So we think all of that in an integrated experience really makes it beneficial and stands out from for clients who are seeking an opportunity that fits with them. The other pieces we offer free appointments and appointment reminders As we know, clinicians appreciate the convenience of the appointment reminders, especially when they're starting their practice.   Katie Vernoy  30:06 I know that appointment reminders definitely helped me with my attendance. Right. So I think that's great that that's included. I think sometimes there's, there's opportunities for organizations or platforms to kind of nickel and dime folks. And so having it all integrated, is really nice. One of my favorite things on simple practices, that paperwork customization, I use that all over the place. Can you tell us a little bit about paperwork? customization?   Diana Stepner  30:34 Yeah, I'm really excited that you like that. That's a great feature. And yeah, so it allows the clinician to be able to incorporate more elements about their practice to be able to stand out. And it really helps them again, adopt the paperwork to their workflow, as opposed to have to rethink how they're used to running their practice or want to run their practice.   Katie Vernoy  30:56 Yeah, there's both documents that you have within that people can edit. And you can also import your own documents. And then the thing that I think also stands out, maybe this isn't paperwork customization, but I've created a checkbox progress note, and I can design different custom progress notes, and it makes my paperwork much much quicker.   Diana Stepner  31:16 That's wonderful. Yeah, that's awesome to hear. And yeah, besides the paperwork, customization, which we know you guys are a fan of, there's also the comprehensive billing, you know, especially the insurance billing, that includes payment reports, as well as secondary claims, which is amazing. And then yeah, the streamlined client care also stands out, you know, the client portal, having all the capabilities which reflect and help people have that more polished online presence. So gets everybody started and looking good. And then yeah, just being able to take your practice on the go. I mean, we know people may not be going out as much as they used to, but people will always want to have their mobile device with them be able to go back and forth between the desktop and the mobile experience, which is where simple practice stands out with mobile apps for iOS, as well as Android. And then yeah, the online booking is a really a good feature that a lot of people rave about too. And having the initial screener in or, you know, using that as an initial screener interview just helps people be able to move to a paperless process.   Curt Widhalm  32:17 One of the things that I really like is the whole calendar system, both clients being able to book sessions, but also the two way integration that it has with other calendar programs. And I use this in in a few different ways, I give parents a little bit less, or a little bit shorter opportunities to speak with me on my calendar than having them book out full sessions, and I'll be needing to talk for 10 or 15 minutes. And I love that my personal calendars can help block out some of those sessions if I'm not able to get into the app too. But I'm sure that I am not even doing this part of it justice.   Katie Vernoy  32:57 I was thinking Kurt, are you actually using all of that cuz I, I have a doubt that you're using all of those things. I love the calendar. But I also, I just wanted when you were talking about kind of the mobile app, I have clients who are doing the telehealth with a mobile app. And then I also I was going to take a selfie, I might have to do this, but like I was out and about ready for my walk and talk session. And I got to the meeting spot early. And I was able to review my note on my phone, I didn't have to like plan ahead or any of that kind of stuff. So I think there is definitely a utility that I think a lot of other platforms don't have if they don't have an app.   Diana Stepner  33:39 Yeah, that, again, is the benefit of bringing all the pieces together in one place. And that provides more control for the commission. It allows catering to you know, whether they're growing their practice, you know, for example, and want to be able to use monarch to do so or they're managing their existing clients. And they're happy with the state that they're in today. And so again, the benefits of bringing it all together allows for that, that flexibility.   Katie Vernoy  34:03 Well, those are a couple of newer things: the monarch network as well as the professional website, so maybe you can tell us a little bit about that, because those are newer to us. And we're just getting started with those.   Diana Stepner  34:16 Yeah, no problem at all. And so I'll start with the professional website. So that was designed to provide a simple, clean foundation for clinicians to be able to tell the story about their practice and better engage with their client base. And it's fully integrated functionality. And so it offers ease of use by reflecting information from their simple practice account that they already have set up so they don't need to duplicate that effort. And it's a modern one page design that translates beautifully onto the web, as well as to mobile. And so that means you're always available and can you determine the connections that you want to have with your clients. And the new feature is available now for people To be able to use and it's part of the professional plants.   Katie Vernoy  35:04 That's great. And it like a month ago or less -  and I guess when we put this out, it'll be a little bit longer -  Monarch launched. And so what is that?   Diana Stepner  35:15 Yeah, so Monarch is where you can see clients online. And so you can see the availability, you can share the availability that you have with prospective clients, and then that enables easier booking right from one place. And so we learned that having that availability, visible to prospective clients was one of the critical ways that clinicians wanted to manage their their practices. And also from the client side, they wanted to know when they could connect with their clinician what times were available, instead of having to go that back and forth over email or chat to seen that in one place gave them great insight, so they can quickly make an appointment. And so we wanted to bring that to light, and be able to fill that gap between the client and clinician by offering that continuity of care. And so whether the therapy seeker wants to find a clinician or the clinician wants to be able to, you know, see individuals or actually may be at capacity and wants to refer individuals to another practice, all that is available within the monarch marketplace to be able to see those opportunities. And so monarch is looking to, you know, help address those issues in the community. In regards to how we define it, it's characterize as an online network, that's reimagining how clinicians connect with therapy seekers, and even their colleagues. And it's completely integrated into the clinicians existing simple practice account. So again, makes it easier to take advantage and just an extension of what they've already set up and are familiar with, within simple practice.   Katie Vernoy  37:00 So you don't have to like enter things 27 million times, if you put it into your profile, you already have your calendar that allows for scheduling if you're on one of the higher plans. And so you can basically have it as a front end marketing opportunity, so people can schedule with you, and they're scheduling directly into your simple practice calendar.   Diana Stepner  37:21 Yeah, that's an excellent, excellent way to describe it. And so we you know, from from all the feedback that we've received so far, and how it was thoughtfully designed, I mean, its goal is to simplify the sourcing of prospective clients, and then be able to help clinicians to maintain control over their online presence, because we know that that control is extremely important and want to ensure that that remains in the hands of the clinicians. And with the emphasis on what makes their practice unique being part of what's displayed on monarch, it also gives them the right presence, and helps ensure their correct matching, or the ideal matching between the client and the clinician.   Curt Widhalm  38:00 What are some of the areas that simple practice is working to improve?   Diana Stepner  38:05 Yeah, and so within the areas that we're looking to improve, we know with telehealth there was, you know, areas of opportunity that we wanted to make the product even better. And so there is a fresh new design. You know, speaking about mobile, we want to make sure that the mobile experience remains easy. And so there are improvements we've made with the mobile app that they're coming soon, as well as just the online experience. We've also introduced new in call features. So giving people have the ability to toggle between a grid and the speaker view helping them have more of that presence and have more control over how the telehealth session runs. The real time pre call network status just helping people understand what they're not at network status is so they have a better understanding if they need to move to another place or maybe turn off video because their network may not be at the optimum level at that point in time. And that goes back into even more areas of improvement around the call quality and the performance just helping to make the online the telehealth experience even better than it has been. Yeah and with with customer success, you know, we're providing customers a phone number to call in to receive automated guidance you know, for example, if they're having problems logging in, as well as we're providing phone numbers depending on the issues raised and a solution is practical over the phone so we want to make sure that it's the right right connection for a phone conversation. And we also do have live support so people can reach out over chat on Mondays through Fridays   Katie Vernoy  39:41 And there's you can schedule like a video call to like it seems like if you're not getting resolved through the you know, the pre recorded videos, the chat or a phone call like it seems like the option for screen share has been really great to getting a video screen share call.   Diana Stepner  39:59 It's a really good way To help see things from the clinicians perspective, and then be able to help them navigate, because if someone is doing it themselves, then it helps remain in memory. And then it's more likely they'll be able to just quickly navigate on their own the next time.   Curt Widhalm  40:16 One of the things when it comes to some of those customer feedback is also the communities that simple practice has Facebook on your customer suggestion site, how have you taken some of those suggestions in the past and incorporated them and it's not just out there listening to people, or Hey, complaining, but there is ways that you really do tap into the community here too   Diana Stepner  40:43 Definitely, I mean, other improvements are on billing, as well as insurance. And you know, there's feedback that we received directly from the community on Facebook. There's also a lot of information that comes through Instagram, we have user voice. And so billing recently updated the client billing page to make it a lot easier for people to see things at a glance, you know, specifically the billing status for each appointment, we also improve the design to be able to scan just a page and see in a matter of seconds, whether the client or the insurance is owing money for each of the appointments. And that was driven directly by feedback that came through the community. And then also on the insurance perspective. And the coverage reports, as well as the eligibility is an area of improvement for us based on your customer feedback coming through the community. And so clinicians can set expectations with their clients easily easily in regards to what their insurance plan will cover. And so yeah, the feedback has been really helpful to ensure that we're making the changes that the community needs and helps us then follow out connect with the community. And they give us guidance as we go through the designs.   Katie Vernoy  41:56 So I found simple practice, especially helpful for me and even my consulting clients. Because I feel like it's it's a way to kind of launch in get your practice going, you can basically get a client on Monday and see them with everything in place on Tuesday. So I find it very helpful. But I know that simple practice is not for everybody. So if people are considering different electronic health records or practice management systems, who is simple practice, not right for.   Diana Stepner  42:23 Yeah, and I think it's a really good question. I mean, simple practice is a product where I do recommend you try it, we have the free trial. So it's an amazing way for people to get familiar with simple practice and see if it's right for them. For folks that are looking for, you know, I think what will be referred to as more of a force workflow, so I need to go from step a to step B to step C or guided from one to two to three, then there may be a different product that's right for them, we allow a lot of flexibility in regards to how people want to approach their practice, because again, simple practice was built, you know, with the clinician in heart. And so we know individuals have different workflows that they like, we know people have different rituals that they follow. And we want to ensure that they can incorporate those into their practice. So we have a lot of flexibility. But if individuals are being looked for looking for more of a guided step by step, then maybe something else is for them. But we still recommend, you know, using the free trial learning about simple practice, because it is it is designed specifically with clinicians at heart.   Katie Vernoy  43:33 And I would think that that would probably be most relevant, as far as, you know, kind of these forest or, or very streamlines very specific systemic kind of planning, it seems like that would be more for like, large group practices versus individuals or small group practices, because it seems like there's when you really need to get very specific with your systems is when you're having to leverage it across multiple sites, tons of clinicians. So so with, you know, shorthand, is it potentially larger group practices that would really need to make sure that simple practice was aligned with the systems that they already had in place?   Diana Stepner  44:12 Yeah, I think that's a great description. And we do have large group practices on simple practice, but it is, yeah, simple practice was designed originally for the solo and for the smaller practices. So as you're saying, you may get to a size of, you know, 500 clinicians where you need to have those forced workflows just to be able to manage that, that group of individuals. That makes sense.   Curt Widhalm  44:34 So I know, with any tech company, you can't release too much of what you've got in development. But sir, anything that you can share of what's coming up next.   Diana Stepner  44:45 Yeah, and so from a recent product development perspective, we're looking at improving client billing even more areas of the overview page as well as automating the closing pay periods, as well as you know, aspects from telehealth So again, a lot driven by the community and feedback in regards to areas that you know, our clients, customers want to see improvements in the other areas on the professional website, we talked about it. And it's an amazing product that's has a lot of potential. And so we want to continue with updates there too. And being able to make it as simple and clean foundation for the clinician to tell their story about their practice and better engage with their client base. So that is going to continue to evolve the monarch. Again, it's new. So we'll continue to make improvements to monarch in regards to offering improved ways to match with clinicians and clients. And yeah, from there, I think we'll just continue with improvements to the product and areas that the community identifies. Yeah, we will, we should focus on. So how does someone sign up? Yeah, so someone signs up, simple, easy process. And so if someone wants to go to WWW dot simple practice, comm slash therapy reimagined, we actually have a promotion that's going on. So if you sign up, you'll receive a free 30 day trial plus one additional month free after you become a paid subscriber.   Katie Vernoy  46:17 Yay. And we are paid affiliate with simple practice. So we will get a little bit of money in our pocket. So thank you very much. If someone's wanting to take advantage of this offer, we'll put the link in the show notes. How would you recommend them kind of going in and kind of investigating if simple practices for them.   Diana Stepner  46:36 So I think the free trial is an amazing way to get started, we also have steps that guide people through how to get started. So I do recommend following those steps. There's in the first step, you set up your practice, and we have videos that help you get an overview of the features and functions within simple practice. From there, you're guided to be able to set up your your website presence, so that you can put your your sign out on the internet that you are available, and then walking through how to manage, you know, an actual client. So we have a client that's in there as a demo account to be able to help you work through all the features before you're ready to open your door. And then from there, yeah, being able to have conversations with you know, that focus on onboarding can help people get started to the within the couple of steps that get people up and running. It's a great way just to learn more about simple practice and make sure there's a fit. There's a lot that's happening within simple practice. So appreciate having the opportunity to share. Yeah, a lot of the highlights with you. Thank you very much, Diana, for joining us. Thank you.   Katie Vernoy  47:50 Okay, so we were able to listen to Howard's vision for the company. And for the product. We talked about the specific features. And so now it's our turn. And so I guess the the way we start this Curt is Who do you think simple practices for like, who are the modern therapists that you would recommend simple practice to?   Curt Widhalm  48:10 simple practice is definitely for the tech minded therapists, those who are really starting out in their practice wanting to build an ecosystem around having everything all in one place. And I can speak from my own experience on this, doing this from the very beginning. If you're getting out there and launching into your practice, I know that I have I had pushed simple practice away for years I had my own kind of in the office thing set up. And it took me a little while to fully transition things over and one of the biggest regrets that I have from my career is not having done this sooner, because it is kind of a learning curve to move things over get things set up. And if this had always just been the way then it would have been a lot easier to move into and not as difficult as time consuming to move everything over.   Katie Vernoy  49:07 Yeah, I think that's a good point. So I think what you're saying is definitely there's there's an element of tech savviness that's needed there's there's videos throughout on how you set things up. But there's there's a there cannot be a fear of technology   Curt Widhalm  49:20 Right   Katie Vernoy  49:20 that may be true for all all electronic health records but because I think simple practice relies on a lot of demos and and videos, you're going to want to not be terrified by it. I think the other thing and Howard spoke to this is that it was originally designed for solo practitioners who were private pay, and I think that definitely is still probably the strongest choice but I definitely know for myself that insurance billing is a breeze and so I would I would say for folks who were insurance billing, private pay or hybrid solo practitioners -  unreserved recommendation.   Curt Widhalm  49:59 Totally   Katie Vernoy  50:00 As long as you are tech savvy, or at least comfortable with learning new technology.   Curt Widhalm  50:05 I'm a group practice owner, I have a small group practice. I know a lot of other group practice owners and have heard some of their desires to use other sort of platforms. And Howard also spoke about this too, coming from that place, and just watching simple practice grow of being a company that was designed for private practitioners, for the way that I have my Group Practice set up, simple practice works just fine. But I know that I don't run my practice in the same way that everybody else does. And I know the simple practice continues to grow. They talked about ways to give them feedback and have their community be able to push new things to their design team to continue to add new features. And I think that they've done so with group practices largely in mind over the last several years. But for those people who need some of the other functions, there are some limitations on where simple practice is when it comes to managing a group. And it's something that you should evaluate if you are interested in simple practice to see if what their features currently are those that meet the needs of you and your team.   Katie Vernoy  51:13 And I do some consulting with group practice owners. And I think that there are potentially some reports that you want to check out to see what's there and what you would recreate. I think there's functionality that simple practice has that other electronic health records do not as far as just overall practice. And so I think, identifying what your needs are. And size of group, number of clients seen, I think sometimes some, some practice management systems are by number of users, some are by number of clients. So you just want to see what's going to make sense for you. But I think, overall, I think we're saying solo practitioner, absolutely check it out, see if it aligns with how you think about things. For group practice owners check to make sure it has the functionality you like and need for the way that you run your group practice.   Curt Widhalm  52:05 Katie, anyone that shouldn't use simple practice?   Katie Vernoy  52:10 I think the people who are terrified by technology and really want to have somebody on the phone with them walking through things that this may not be the practice management system for them. I think that there's a more of a I don't even know what the right word is. But there's there's there are some folks that really desire the on demand phone support, they want to have that type of interaction. I know we've all talked about the different ways that you can get support with simple practice. And they think chatting and screen sharing and setting up meetings and going by email, sometimes that works for folks. And sometimes it doesn't. So I think being able to really understand that elements, there's potentially a lot of setup, there's a lot of customization, which makes it amazing, but then that means that you have to actually do it. And so there are there's like this little cottage industry of people that help a simple practice. So we won't mention that here except to say that there are there is assistance if you love the system, but then feel a little bit overwhelmed by learning it or setting it up. But for folks who don't want to spend extra money setting up simple practice, and who are afraid of technology, I'd say this is not the right system for you. So the final piece that I think is important is how to get the most or special considerations for using simple practice. And you and I talked about this at a time, and you kind of mentioned it, it is the amount of time it takes to set it up. I would say that if you start with it, it's very helpful because your clients are just rolling right into the system. And there's not really set up, it's just each client does their own their own file, they do all the stuff. There's some customization you want to look at. But it doesn't have to be a huge setup. But if you've already got a practice in place, with all your forms already created, getting that setup takes some time. The other consideration is a lot of folks will get started with it, but they won't use all the functionality. And I think that's the part where, especially if you're on the pro plan, and you have all the functionality use it, it actually makes everything very streamlined. If you don't use all the functionality, it's not necessarily the right i think system for you. So making sure that you actually put the time aside to set it up I think is important.   Curt Widhalm  54:23 Absolutely. And there are new features or features that have always been there that I fully admit that I don't use. And so it does make it worthwhile when you investigate what's actually there and the portions of simple practice that I do use. I find her very worthwhile investment for me and my practice. And knowing that there's more out there makes it easy thing for me to say. Yeah, check it out. Go ahead and use it if it works for you and make sure that you give it a fair shake and a full evaluation. So you can check out our show notes about this episode including timestamps to specific questions at MTS g podcast.com. And thank you for joining us on this adventure through our first ever modern therapist consumer guide. And until next time, I'm currently at home with Katie Vernoy.   Announcer  55:21 Thank you for listening to the modern therapist Survival Guide. Learn more about who we are and what we do at MTS g podcast.com. You can also join us on Facebook and Twitter. And please don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any of our episodes.  

Brad is the founder & CEO of TalentBurst. He founded TalentBurst in July of 2002 with two colleagues from Monster Worldwide (parent […]

Matt Charney, new Head of Industry and Product Marketing at SmartRecruiters and partner in RecruitingDaily is the guest in episode 286. Listen as Matt shares tips for HR leaders looking to hire contingent workers. Matt also offers his ideas about what hiring gig workers says about a brand and he talks about the improvements made to the talent tech stack over the past year to ensure the long-term success of remote hiring.Matt is one of the top experts in the world when it comes to talent and technology. He has extensive expertise within the recruiting and HR technology industries, with over 15 years of marketing leadership experience at global talent organizations such as Monster Worldwide, Cornerstone OnDemand, Talemetry and the Allegis Group. At SmartRecruiters, Matt works closely with product and business leadership to deliver compelling core messaging, packaging, pricing and go-to-market campaigns for SmartRecruiters’ core platform, point solutions and marketplace programs. Matt is also a partner in RecruitingDaily, where he served as Executive Editor. More About Matt CharneyMatt has been recognized as one of the top HR Technology influencers by publications such as LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Forbes, the Huffington Post and HR Magazine, and was recognized by the Society of Human Resources Management as an “HR Gamechanger” for his contributions to talent technology. He was also named by WordPress as one of the world’s top business bloggers; an in-demand speaker, Charney has keynoted dozens of industry conferences and events all over the world, including South by Southwest Interactive, RecFest, Collision, SHRM Annual Conference, Unleash and the HR Technology Conference, and, of course, six Hiring Success conferences in both the US and Europe).

Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Sales Enablement PRO podcast. I am Shawnna Sumaoang. Sales enablement is a constantly evolving space and we’re here to help professionals stay up to date on the latest trends and best practices so that they can be more effective in their jobs. Today, I’m excited to have Susan from Monster join us. Susan, I’d love for you to introduce yourself, your role, and your organization to our audience. Susan Savona: Fantastic. Thank you so much Shawnna for the invite. My name is Susan Savona, I am currently the VP of global sales enablement at Monster Worldwide. Currently, I am managing a team of people across the globe who support our sales organizations and all things related to their knowledge, to systems, tools, coaching, things of that nature. With over 25 years of experience within enablement, development, operations, leadership, and coaching, this role really allows me to use all of that great information in order to help our sales organization be most successful. SSu: Well, I’m really excited to have you join us today, and you and I have known each other for a few years now, in fact, you spoke at our Sales Enablement Soirée event when we were still doing things in person in Boston last year. You actually spoke about the importance of carefully choosing where sales enablement dedicates its time and its efforts and doing so by establishing a sales enablement charter. Now, to dig into that, how do you determine what initiatives will be the most beneficial for sales enablement to take on within an organization? SSa: Oh, Shawnna that such a great question. Because sales enablement, I really believe, is a way to bridge a gap and look at product and marketing and sales and other areas of the organization, it’s very important from my perspective that we really look at the initiatives for the most benefit for our sales organization. So, I use a phrase all the time with my team and with my people, which is what is the business issue that we’re trying to solve? Let’s really think about business impacts to make sure that we are focusing our time and energy in the right areas. It’s very important to look at things like, what are the goals of the company at a macro level? Are there any new tools or processes that are going to be required for sales in the coming year? Understanding what the key goals of an organization are. What is the sales organization looking to do again? What is product going to be doing as well? Are there new products that are coming to market? Are there large updates that are happening as well? So for us and for me and for the team, it’s really, really important to understand what are those key corporate initiatives and areas of focus so that we, from an enablement perspective, can help ensure that we are building the right programs to effectively enable the sales organization to execute on those goals. SSu: Absolutely, and in that explanation, you mentioned quite a few other departments. In what ways should cross-functional collaboration play a role when it comes to establishing your charter? SSa: For me, I think cross-functional collaboration is the absolute key. Sales enablement, can’t do things completely on their own. We really need to understand what are those goals, as I said, and initiatives across sales, product, marketing, even HR, and other areas of the organization. From my perspective, if you don’t have that cross-collaboration and really working with other groups, we’re missing the full story for sales, we’re missing the full explanation as to why we might be doing a particular program or what’s the benefit for our customers or making sure something as simple as the message that we want the sales organization to use with their customers is the same, has the same look and feel, the same content or similar content that marketing is using also. So for me, I truly believe that that cross-collaboration is integral to the success of the enablement organization. As I said, I think it’s the hub. We really liaise very, very closely with all of the functions that support sales and we, as a sales enablement function are able to take all of the different things that all of the different groups are doing and making sure that we can tie that into the right program, the right story, the right enablement activities that we want the sales organization to do, in order for us to be successful as a company and to support our overall corporate goals. SSu: Absolutely, and I think that that’s fantastic that you guys are looking left and right across the organization, but how about laterally? So when creating a charter, what are some of the ways that sales enablement can ensure that executive leaders are involved? Both in the process, as well as just bought-in generally? SSa: Again, Shawnna, great, great questions. For me, again, it goes back to what are the business issues that we’re trying to solve, and what are the business issues that are important to them? For me– and I coach my team all the time as they’re managing different projects and programs– is make sure that you understand the language of that particular group. So whether that’s a return on investment or different product features and functionality or increasing productivity, things of that nature, ask the same questions internally that we’re expecting our sales organization to ask externally. I mean, if we think about it, we’re also kind of sellers from an internal perspective and we really need to make sure that we are having the right conversations with our stakeholders in order to make that the most impactful for the sales organizations. I really believe also that if sales isn’t successful, and enablement I think plays a key role in that, then we’re not going to necessarily have parts of the other organization or the organization in general to really be able to thrive. I like to use this example, if product says, ‘Oh, we’ve got this wonderful new product that we’re going to market’, and, you know, marketing has all of the material and they’re ready to go, if we as an enablement function haven’t been a part of what are the business issues that we’re solving for our customer and what kinds of conversations do they need to have, what kind of material is available, then we won’t be able to properly position the product. So even if it’s the best in the world, it might not work and have the business outcome that we would like because we haven’t properly enabled the sales organization to have the right conversations with the right material that will really help their customers and ultimately drive business. SSu: Absolutely. Now, I want to click into this because you’ve now mentioned this a few times, the importance of aligning enablement initiatives with the big strategic goals of the business, but how can you ensure– and for those that in organizations where maybe they haven’t had to do this, or they haven’t had the opportunity yet– how can sales enablement practitioners ensure that their sales enablement initiatives and goals align with those big business objectives? SSa: Again, great questions. I will say sometimes it’s really difficult. Sales enablement in general, sometimes it can be really hard to quantify the business impact that we’re having. So again, my statement or my broken record statement of really understanding what the business objectives are, what is the business issue that we’re trying to solve? If we can really answer that question, then the goal would be to be able to tie a metric to that success, whether that’s an increase in particular types of activities, whether that’s an increase in revenue of a particular product. Whatever that output happens to be, I think it’s really important that we think about what is the business issue, because if we can really align to that, then we can look to measure the types of outcomes that we’re looking to find. The other thing too, is, I stress very much, to ask lots of questions. So many times– and I’ve been in the business for a long time– I’ve had many sales leaders through the years come to me and say, ‘Oh, well, my team just needs more training on, pick a subject. They just need to more training on Salesforce or a particular product or a particular solution’. But again, if you ask questions of, ‘Okay, well, what education might they need or what business issue are you’re trying to solve, or what is the impact that by not having this program is impacting the business’? If you can start to ask more questions, you’ll get more information, because I’ve had many experiences where if you can really dig to understand what those objectives are, you can put together an appropriate program and really tie that back to a return on investment. Or I’ve also been in situations where it has nothing to do with a training or an enablement program, maybe it’s process change that needs to happen, a field needs to be updated or something like that. So, it doesn’t always have to have a big enablement program. We as enablement practitioners really need to understand what the business impact is so that we can put the right kind of measurements in place, and also really ask questions, really dig deeper and get to the why. SSu: I love that and get to the why that is fantastic advice. Now, for those practitioners that, you know, maybe aren’t as experienced as you are, I’d love for them to understand how can they effectively demonstrate success to their key stakeholders, whether that’s cross-functionally or laterally up into their executive stakeholders? SSa: Again, it’s really key that we’re creating programs that solve the appropriate business issues. So, maybe it’s that we need to increase time to sale, or looking at KPIs that need to be met or the number of users successfully completing an e-learning, or as I said earlier, maybe it’s just an increase of sales for a particular product. I think the more quantitative we can get in terms of the ROI on a particular program, the easier it will be to tie that success back to the particular enablement activities that are happening. I always ask my team whenever we’re doing a particular program – I talk to key stakeholders as well – what will success look like to you once this initiative is done? And again, that really gets back to and articulates the business issue that we’re trying to solve. That allows us to be able to answer the question of how will we measure success. As I said, sometimes it’s a difficult question to answer, but if we can tie it back to the business issues– so are we seeing an increase in particular steps? Are we seeing an increase in sales? Are we seeing an increase in KPIs or a decrease in a particular area? What are those business issues?– and whenever you’re putting together a program, for me, it’s extremely important to really outline the business objectives. So, at the end of this program, ‘You will be able to do A, B and C’, then the metrics and the demonstration of success are, have we seen the lever move on those A, B, and C? SSu: Absolutely, I love that. Susan, thank you so much for joining us. I want to pivot just a little bit for our closing question, if you don’t mind, because you have been doing sales enablement, for some time and you’ve seen it evolve. So, how do you see the future of sales enablement? In what ways will the scope of sales enablement expand or change in the near term? SSa: Oh, wow. What an amazing question, and something that I have certainly thought about, not only just in terms of the years that I have spent from an enablement perspective, but really more importantly, over the last six months, just given the state of our world right now. We’re seeing– and I think it’s going to be a trend moving forward– things like remote selling. So really trying to increase some of the sales skills that are going to be coming in with remote selling. I’m seeing a lot of changes happening within roles and responsibilities, meaning are there other types of rules that are supporting the sales organization? So, things like customer success and even more types of roles, inside sales, outside sales, things of that nature. I think those types of scope and the types of education that are going to be needed for those roles are going to change. And I’m also thinking more and seeing more in places like AI and analytics. So how can we use some of that data from a sales perspective to help them? So, are there particular types of buying profiles that the sales organization might need to start looking at? How can we use some additional analytics to understand more about our customers, how we might need to talk with them, how we might need to sell with them? Because again, what I’m seeing more is really all around a focus on that customer journey. What are the customers doing? What are they buying? How are they buying? I think that’s been one of the bigger changes that I’ve seen, that customers can get a lot of information on their own without sales really providing them with a lot of information. So how do we then enable the sales organization, maybe to have different types of conversations with their customers? I’m doing a little bit more understanding about how they’re buying, where they’re buying, what they’re buying, as well as using some of that AI and analytics to really give a much more of an understanding of if a customer is looking for, you know, these types of products, they’ve got a greater propensity to do something different or add more products to it, things of that nature. I think those are some areas that I am seeing where enablement expands, and gets much more involved with those types of areas in the business in order to help the sales organization, which I think is still going to be our core function is to help the sales organization be more productive in terms of their knowledge, their skills, tools, things like that. SSu: I love that. Thank you so much, Susan, for joining us today, I really enjoyed our conversation. SSa: It was wonderful to be here. Again, thank you so much for inviting me and it was really, really a pleasure to speak with you. SSu: To our audience, thanks for listening. For more insights, tips, and expertise from sales enablement leaders, visit salesenablement.pro. If there’s something you’d like to share or a topic you’d like to learn more about, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you.

Pete Kazanjy is the Co-Founder @ Atrium, the startup providing proactive, always-on insights for sales operations, managers, and leaders. Stop asking questions. Start getting answers. Alongside Atrium, Pete is also the Founder of Modern Sales Pros, a community of 15,000 focused on sales operations and sales management. Pete is also the author of Founding Sales, the canonical writing on early-stage startup sales. Prior to founding Atrium, Pete founded TalentBin, culminating in their exit to Monster Worldwide in February 2014. Finally, before TalentBin, Pete founded Honestly.com building the world's first professional reputation clearinghouse and raising funding from CRV and First Round in the process.   In Today’s Episode We Discuss: How Pete made his way into the world of SaaS and how he came to be one of the leading figures on sales operations and management that he is today? Why do founders have to sell the product themselves at the start? When is the right time to hire their first sales reps? What profiles should founders look for in these first reps? What are the most common mistakes founders make when hiring their first reps? How should they structure their comp plans?    How do the best onboard their sales reps? What can be done to minimise ramp time of new reps? How is the documentation used most effectively? How can sales calls be used for new rep onboarding? How does Pete think about optimising payback period on a per rep basis?  What are the leading indicators that a sales rep is successful? What are the core metrics founders should measure to determine the effectiveness of their reps and sales teams? How does this differ between SMB and enterprise? What are the challenges with enterprise given the long sales cycles?  Pete’s 60 Second SaaStr: Hardest element of Pete’s role today with Atrium? What would Pete most like to change in the world of SaaS? What sales leader does Pete most respect and why? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Pete Kazanjy

Attention people geeks! It's my absolute pleasure to have Raleen Gagnon as this week's guest. Raleen and I talk about the big picture issues that talent executives are facing right now, such as:how remote work is the new currency when it comes to recruitingwhy labor isn't getting any cheaper in the COVID era, despite record unemployment how employers should rethink childcare and flexible work now that offices are reopening As Vice President, Global Market Intelligence at ManpowerGroup, Talent Solutions, Raleen Gagnon oversees a team that is responsible for market, business, and competitive intelligence for workforce analysis, including the collection and analysis of trends related to the availability, cost, regulation, and productivity of workforce skills/resources across 80 countries globally. In this role, Raleen is responsible for the delivery of Global and Regional Quarterly Market Reports, the development of the Total Workforce Index, a cutting-edge global insights portal and other market intelligence solutions. Her team provides consulting services to clients seeking insight into market trends, compensation strategy, and workforce alignment. Raleen was previously the Director of Strategic Marketing at Monster Worldwide, where she collaborated with sales leadership to develop strategic programs and initiatives for the Staffing Industry, Global Sales and Public Sector. She has a background in consulting and previously served as Research Director and Practice Lead at Fuld & Company, managing consulting engagements for Fortune 50 clients. Raleen has a marketing degree from Bentley University and teaches certification courses for the Academy of Competitive Intelligence in Cambridge, Miami, and London.

This week on OA on Air via social distancing we have 3-2-1 GO with Cosmo and Cayenne where AIS CEO and President Bruce Platzman joins to speak about their new "Sew the Masks" campaign. Then we are joined by Scott Gutz, CEO of Monster Worldwide Inc. In 2 Minutes with Tom he talks about what the office will look like once we begin to reopen.

Louis Gagnon is the CEO of Total Brain, a mental health and wellness platform offering monitoring and support. He is Advisor to TPG Capital, a top-tier US private equity firm who named him CEO of Ride, a portfolio company that he restructured. As a corporate executive, Louis held dual Chief Product Officer and Chief Marketing Officer roles at Audible/Amazon, Yodle and Monster Worldwide. As an entrepreneur, Louis created and led 5 business and social enterprises on four continents, many of which were in the field of reproductive health. He received a Bachelor of Business Administration from Laval University in Quebec City and a Masters of Science in Marketing from HEC-Montreal. His career has been awarded by his alma maters and his work has been featured in a number of management books and magazines including The Economist.

Due to COVID-19, like it or not, all non essential employees have been sent to home offices to work remotely. What impact has that had on our Facility Managers? What risk are our companies experiencing as a result? And how can we engage our employees virtually in the meantime. Join Debbie Benjamin, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and Mary Pattison, Monster Worldwide as they walk through their best practices.

Louis Gagnon is the CEO of Total Brain, which is a mental health and fitness platform powered by neuroscience. Total Brain was founded in 2000 by a leading neuroscientist, Dr. Evian Gordon, and its mission is to improve mental health and fitness through brain-based self-awareness and training. Today it is used by large consumer groups and Fortune 500 companies that benefit from lower mental healthcare costs, improved productivity, and critical insights on what drives their organizations. As a corporate executive, Louis held dual Chief Product Officer and Chief Marketing Officer roles at Audible, now part of Amazon, Yodle, and Monster Worldwide. He is also Advisor to TPG Capital, a top-tier US private equity firm who named him CEO of Ride, a portfolio company that he restructured. Stew and Louis talk about the development of the Total Brain company and its mission to help solve the mental health crisis at work with an assessment tool based on research in neuroscience. Louis describes how this app helps people develop a better understanding of four essential mental capacities and the markers for each. Armed with this knowledge, individuals are more capable of understanding the strengths and liabilities unique to their brains. And when this information gathered by this app is aggregated within organizations, after being made anonymous, it can be used to direct resources to mental health needs of the workforce. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

“Talent Market Update for Both Individuals & Hiring Managers” Supply Chain Now Radio, Episode 125 Hosted by Arnall Golden Gregory LLP Learn more: www.agg.com Today's episode features Jessica Clayton and Joanie Courtney. Joanie Courtney serves as Chief Workforce Analyst and RemX President with EmployBridge. As Chief Workforce Analyst, she oversees the forecasting of talent and workplace trends to operationalize success for the nation’s largest industrial staffing company. She is committed to enhancing the talent and customer experience across the company’s portfolio of commercial, professional and franchise brands. In her Chief Marketing Officer role, she also leads EmployBridge’s integrated marketing efforts, including branding, digital marketing, public relations, thought leadership and competitive positioning. As RemX President, Joanie oversees the professional staffing division’s growth strategy, including sales, marketing, operations, recruiting and employee development. In 2016, she launched RemX Contact Center Solutions, the industry leader in delivering workforce staffing solutions to large U.S. call and contact centers. An acknowledged expert in staffing and the U.S. job market, Joanie regularly shares her insights on workplace trends affecting both employers and job seekers. A frequent keynote speaker, she has appeared on ABC, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and PBS. Joanie is also a regular contributor on Maria Bartiromo’s morning program on the Fox Business Network. In recent years, she has been quoted in national media, including: The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report, and Forbes. In 2016, Joanie joined EmployBridge with more than twenty years of experience in professional and commercial staffing, including executive leadership roles with two of the world’s largest employment firms. Just prior to joining EmployBridge, she spent three years in the digital recruiting industry as senior vice president of Global Market Insights at Monster Worldwide. In 2017 and 2018, Joanie was named to the Women in Staffing Global Power 100 and North America 50 by Staffing Industry Analysts. She graduated with highest honors from the State University of New York. Learn more about EmployBridge: www.employbridge.com Jessica Clayton is Founding Partner of TalentStream. She is a cum laude graduate of Clemson University with a Masters Degree from The Citadel. Jessica grew up in the staffing industry and worked for a national staffing company before launching TalentStream in 2013. In addition to leading her company, Jessica enjoys giving back to the Greenville (SC) community and spending time with her husband and three children. A former Teacher of the Year in South Carolina, she has served as a volunteer leader at a wide variety of organizations, to include Ronald McDonald House, Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, and the Red Cross. Jessica serves as Chair of Career Development on the APICS Industrial Crescent Board of Directors, where she’s been instrumental to launching Supply Chain 101 in the Upstate, an education enrichment program aimed at spreading awareness of the Supply Chain industry in elementary schools. Jessica also maintains active professional memberships in SHRM Greenville. A member of Christ Church of Greenville, Jessica serves on the Annual Giving Cabinet, as well as the Children’s Ministry committee. Learn more about TalentStream here: www.talentstreamstaffing.com This episode was hosted by Scott Luton and Greg White. For more information, please visit our show page at www.supplychainnowradio.com/episode-125

Jamie is PredictiveHR’s founder and CEO. Jamie noticed-year after year, job after job - an industry wide HR data problem and attacked it with a clear vision and talented team. With 20 years experience, Jamie launched PredictiveHR in 2016; combining HR domain expertise, cutting edge technology and extreme business acumen. Jamie’s success with Fortune 500 company, Monster Worldwide and innovative technology companies, Altisource and Novo Nordisk A/S were pivotal in establishing Jamie as a leader. With rich reporting, visualization capabilities data analysis and interpretation, PredictiveHR distinguishes itself with consulting services and a dynamic HR analytics solution platform that is unmatched in the HR arena. In two short years, PHR has tripled in size and is on target to triple again in 2019.

Guest Matt Charney joins our hosts Peter Cappelli and Dan O'Meara on this episode to give us an update on how companies are hiring in today's job market.Matt Charney is the Executive Editor for Recruiting Daily, whose flagship property, RecruitingBlogs, is the world's largest social network and content sharing platform for recruiting and HR professionals. Matt oversees editorial strategy and content marketing for Recruiting Daily's portfolio of online properties. Prior to joining RecruitingBlogs, Matt served in marketing leadership roles at leading HR technology companies like Talemetry, Cornerstone OnDemand & Monster Worldwide. Matt began his career as a corporate recruiter for such companies as Walt Disney and Warner Bros. Matt has been named as one of the top 25 influencers in recruiting by publications like the Huffington Post, LinkedIn and Glassdoor, and has been recognized as one of the 2014 Recruiting & Staffing Watch List by HRMarketer, 2015 HR Trendsetter by HR Magazine/SHRM,, the 2015 HRO Superstar for Analyst Excellence and the 2015 Social Recruiting Chair for the Talent Management Alliance and chair of the 2015 North America iTalent Awards presented by the HROA.Learn More about Matt Charneyhttp://www.mattcharney.comLearn More about Recruiting Dailyhttp://www.recruitingdaily.com See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In case you missed it, Google For Jobs launched in 2018 and is quickly shaking up the way your candidates look for jobs. In fact, 73% of all job seekers start their job search on Google. But, if you’re like most employers, you’re still missing this massive opportunity to engage directly with highly qualified candidates. Unfortunately, the process for posting jobs to Google For Jobs requires deep coding expertise and access to the page code for every job post. Until now. Based in Woburn Massachusetts, Jobiak created the industry’s first AI-based recruitment marketing platform specifically for Google For Jobs. Jobiak’s platform scans your job posts, identifies the attributes that Google requires, and structures the Google tags—all without touching the underlying code. Jobiak is the brainchild of Founder & CEO Venkat Janapareddy. Previously, he founded Gozaik, the social jobs platform which helped employers engage with job seekers on Twitter & Facebook. Monster Worldwide acquired Gozaik. In this 20-minute conversation, Venkat reveals everything you need to know about Google For Jobs and how to get the most out of this powerful & free resource.

Victor is a Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Insight Equity.  The firm has over $1B of equity capital under management and his current, primary responsibility is overseeing four of Insight's current portfolio firms as their Chairman as well as leading Insight's transaction efforts in aerospace, defense, machining, and technology.   Before co-founding Insight Equity, Victor led product development at Military Advantage, a venture-backed Internet company sold to Monster Worldwide in 2004. Prior to that, he was a senior manager at Bain & Company where he focused on merger integration and operational improvement cases. In the early nineties, Victor worked in the mergers & acquisitions department of Lehman Brothers where he was responsible for company due diligence and transaction execution, as well as working overseas in the Middle East advising the Saudi government on business investments.   Victor received his MBA from the Harvard Business School where he was named a Baker Scholar for graduating in the top 5% of his class. He has also received a Master's Degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and earned a double major BA in economics and political science from Stanford University.   Victor currently serves as the Chairman of the Board of Micross Components, MB Precision Investment Holdings, Dustex Holdings, and VirTex Investment Holdings. He also serves on the Board of the general partner of Emerge Energy Services LP, Versatile Processing Group Holdings, Plasman Group, Panolam, and Riverbend Foods.   Additionally, Victor served 20 years in the U.S. Navy Reserve, retiring in 2014 as a Commander (O-5). In 2017, Victor became the 12th American to complete the "Explorer's Grand Slam" which requires climbing the highest peak on all seven of the world's continents including Mt. Everest, and skiing at least 100 kilometers to both the North and South Poles. He is also an instrument-rated, multi-engine jet and helicopter pilot.   00000326 00000323 0001C55E 0001C55E 000F3305 000F3305 0000853D 00008531 0005D4C1 0005D4C1

Pete has 25 years of experience in leadership roles with high growth companies, spending the majority of his career with technology solutions designed for the global small business community. Prior to joining JazzHR, Pete was Senior Vice President of Global Sales at Carbonite where he was responsible for all revenue and led the company's expansion into the SMB market, which grew to exceed 100,000 paid small business customers. Pete was a member of the Carbonite IPO leadership team. Previously, Pete served as SVP & GM for NameMedia’s SMB-focused Domain Marketplace, the largest of its kind in the world, and Chief Operating Officer of Monster Worldwide's consumer relocation division, helping small businesses convert new movers into lifetime customers. Pete is a graduate of Middlebury College and Harvard Business School.

Asia VC Cast explores the minds of the experienced venture capitalists and seasoned entrepreneurs to navigate the sophisticated but exciting world of venture capital.  Daniel together with a special guest each week present unique perspective and insights to startup investing & fund-raising across different countries in Asia. This week’s special guest is Mike Kim from Google.  Mike is currently leading APAC Partnerships for Google for Entrepreneurs and is the Interim Head of Google Campus Seoul.  Prior to Google, he led Global Business Development for LinkedIn's Profile & Higher Education product teams. He also served as Senior Director of Corporate Development for Baedal Minjok ( 배달의민족 ), Korea's largest mobile food ordering application, and spent time leading business development for Monster Worldwide and social gaming giant Zynga.  Mike is passionate about empowering and supporting the next generation of entrepreneurial pioneers in Asia.  So please join me in welcoming Mike Kim from Google.  

Karin Bootsma is Vice President of Marketing at RiseSmart, the leading provider of contemporary career transition services, which combines services with technology to help impacted employees move into new jobs faster – while proving HR with full support during workforce reshaping events. Bootsma has two decades of technology and human capital management marketing experience at public and private companies. In her role at RiseSmart, she is responsible for global marketing, including product marketing, demand generation, sales enablement, branding, communications, and customer advocacy. Prior to RiseSmart, Bootsma had global responsibility for Product Marketing, HR Alliances, and the Talent Management Suite product line at Monster Worldwide. Bootsma holds an MBA from Santa Clara University, Leavey School of Business, and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from UOP.

Steve, CEO of Avention, has more than 25 years of management experience in various global leadership roles. Previously, he was the chief revenue officer at Vocus and the CEO of ClickFuel. He also served as the president of Monster.com and group president of Monster Worldwide. Sponsors Organifi: An easy-to-use superfood powder that takes the best mother nature has to offer and fits it to your busy lifestyle. Visit Organifi.com and enter promo code FIRE to get 20% off your 30-day supply – PLUS, Organifi will ship you your own Freedom Journal as a special bonus! M1 Finance: If you’re looking for an online broker who will let you customize and automate your investments, visit m1finance.com/fire and get 6 months of service for free!

Rick Marini is a serial entrepreneur and angel investor with over 45 investments in early stage startups. Some of Rick's investments include the likes of Snapchat, AngelList, Luxe and Nuzzel, just to name a few. Prior to his prolific angel investing career, Rick was the Founder & CEO of BranchOut - the largest professional network leveraging the social graph with more than 800 million profiles. BranchOut raised $49 million in funding from Accel Partners, Redpoint Ventures, Mayfield Fund and more. BranchOut was acquired in 2014 by One-Page. Previously, Rick was also the Founder & CEO of Talk.co. Talk.co was acquired in 2014 by Hearst Corporation. Prior to BranchOut and Talk.co, Rick was the Co-Founder, of Tickle. Tickle operated as a profitable company with almost $40 million of revenue. Tickle was acquired in 2004 by Monster Worldwide for $100 million.  In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Rick made his way into early stage investing from founding and exiting 4 companies? 2.) What is Rick's approach to pre-investment value add? Should investors hold it back and wait until the term sheet is signed? What have been some of Rick's biggest lessons from Naval @ AngelList? 3.) Naval Ravikant says, 'you need to make 30 investments before you know what you are doing'. Does Rick agree with this and can this be applied to the venture ecosystem? 4.) How does Rick approach the common angel problem of dilution? What are his thoughts on getting squeezed out by VCs and growth investors in later rounds? 5.) How does Rick measure his success and value as an angel? What are Rick's biggest concerns when viewing a  prospective investment? Items Mentioned In Today’s Episode:  Rick’s Fave Blog: Mattermark Daily Rick’s Fave Book: Hero With A Thousand Faces Rick's Most Recent Investment: True Facet As always you can follow The Twenty Minute VC, Harry and Rick on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. The Twenty Minute VC is proudly sponsored by Luma, Luma is the world’s first ever Surround WiFi system that brings speed, security and control to the home network. And Unlike traditional routers, Luma comes in a pack of two or three sleek devices to place in different rooms in your home. Luma then creates a mesh network that work together to create an outrageously-fast, ultra-secure Surround WiFi network.  Lastly, Luma’s app lets you easily see and control which devices, users and content are on your network. To buy your Luma, simply dead to getluma.com or amazon.com. So many problems start with your head: stress, depression, anxiety, fear of the future. What if there was some kind of exercise you could do, that would help you get your head in shape. That’s where the Headspace app comes in. Headspace is meditation made simple. The Headspace app provides guided meditations you can use whenever you want, wherever you want, on your phone, computer or tablet. They have sessions focused on everything from dealing with stress and depression, to helping you eat more mindfully. So download the Headspace app and start your journey towards a happier, healthier life. Learn more at headspace.com/20vc. That’s headspace.com/20vc.

Margaretta Noonan is the founder and CEO of noonanWorks, a firm devoted to helping companies and individuals  “reach remarkableTM”.  noonanWorks is proud to be a certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Margaretta had a long career as a senior corporate executive where she helped lead a high-growth organization (Kohl’s), an acquirer of over 100 firms (Monster Worldwide), a Chapter 11 bankruptcy (Best Products), a company closure (Carter Hawley Hale), and a successful public-company spin off (Hudson Global Resources). Margaretta speaks and writes regularly on topics such as generational issues, women in the workplace and corporate culture and leadership.

Affiliate Convention is one of the largest trade shows and conferences for the affiliate marketing industry. It is an advanced event that covers some of the most up to date forms of marketing and technology. Michael Aronowitz has served as both a vendor and marketer within the interactive marketing space. Before joining Saveology.com®, he was most recently at eBay, Inc. where he launched and then managed GigaMoves.com, a lead generation service for Rent.com and eBay Motors, which was eBay's entry into the lead generation space. Previously Mike was at Monster Worldwide, while at Monster, Aronowitz spearheaded development of "cost- per-lead" acquisition, under which companies pay for online prospects only after the lead has filled out a survey or qualification card on the site. Over his career he has worked at the DMA, the world's largest interactive non-profit trade group, overseeing search, e-mail, multi-channel, wireless and iTV councils. Prior to that Michael founded Zmichaels Inc., a direct mail agency, and ran its Salesoutlet.com unit, which provided turnkey e-tail and marketing offerings to the business-to-business-to-consumer community.