Podcasts about rfp

Send us a textArun Saigal is the Co-Founder and CEO of Thunkable, the no-code platform where anyone — from students to startups to enterprise teams — can build powerful, native mobile apps. With an intuitive drag-and-drop interface and integrated Gen AI tools, Thunkable empowers creators to go from idea to real, publishable app without writing a single line of code. Arun has an S.B. and M.Eng. in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from MIT and has held various leading roles at technology companies, including Quizlet, Khan Academy, Aspiring Minds, and Google.

Send us a textJoin hosts Alex Sarlin, Ben Kornell, and guest co-host Matt Tower from Whiteboard Advisors for a back-to-school edition of Week in EdTech, covering market shifts, Big Tech's push into education, the GPT-5 rollout, and the rising challenge of deepfake abuse in schools.✨ Episode Highlights:[00:03:40] Back-to-school funding uncertainty and “back-to-basics” mentality[00:06:40] B2C vs. B2B: consumer learning grows while institutions tighten[00:09:31] Big Tech moves from infrastructure to competing in applications[00:13:40] GPT-5 rollout backlash and prioritization of B2C users[00:17:34] Rethinking schools' role: raising the floor vs. raising the ceiling[00:19:52] School choice and flexible student pathways through ESAs[00:20:58] Proposal for an AI user Bill of Rights[00:27:36] Media panic: critiques of AI in education from major outlets[00:34:19] SoftBank executive buys stake in UK university[00:38:10] Workforce training gap: Google and Microsoft invest billions[00:39:12] Google's Gemini leads in image and video generation Plus, special guests:[00:49:18] Evan Harris, President of Pathos Consulting Group, on deepfake abuse in schools and crisis response[00:56:02] Becky Keene, author of AI Optimism, on AI literacy for teachers and classroom integration[01:03:47] Max Spero, Co-Founder and CEO of Pangram Labs, on building future-ready schools with emerging tech

According to research from Salesforce, 69% of sales reps say they’re overwhelmed by the number of tools they must use. So, how can you reimagine your tech stack and GTM strategy to maximize efficiency across your teams?Riley Rogers: Hi, and welcome to the Win-Win podcast. I’m your host, Riley Rogers. Join us as we dive into changing trends in the workplace and how to navigate them successfully. Here to discuss this topic is Kate Curtis, senior product Marketing manager of Enablement at Kevel. Thank you so much for joining us. Kate, I’d love if you could start just by telling us a little bit about yourself, your background, and your role at Kevel. Kate Curtis: Great. Yeah, so I’m Kate Curtis. I’m based out of Boston and working with enablement here at Kevel, which is a retail media cloud service platform, and I just recently came on, but I’ve had a very diverse background in terms of working in different companies in different verticals. I actually got my start out of college working in a box office for nonprofit arts, anywhere from opera, theater, dance, you name it. I think it was a masterclass in doing everything with nothing and it. Gave me the ability to think about how to sell things in a way that aren’t naturally able to sell when you can actually sell artistic creativity by showing people the possibility. That was one of the first lessons I got that got me hooked into enablement, and so how do we talk about things? Whether it’s about a product you’re selling or something, you’re convincing somebody to read a book. How do you talk about things in a way that catches them, that enlightens them, that brings value to them? It was a grassroots kind of situation where you had very little, very little money and had to get creative, and so I took those skills and. Started making my way into advertising, working for other ad tech companies like Criteo, Amazon, and now here at keval. And the uniqueness of it is everybody struggles with the same things no matter what your business is. RR: I love how you connected the dots from beginning to end working in a nonprofit initially and an arts focused nonprofit. You learn to be scrappy. You learn how to communicate with people well. You just have to. So I think part of the reason we’re excited to have you here is you have a really great wealth of experience. Kind of across a lot of different disciplines that we’re very excited to dig into. And on that note, we kind of have a lot of ground to cover today. So excited to jump right into it. So first question for you, as a marketing leader, what are some of the key go-to-market initiatives that you’re focused on driving for your business? KC: Yeah. If you ask any enterprise leadership, they’re going to say, sell, sell, sell. Get it out there. Get it in front as many people as possible. Get those dollars. A, B, C. Always be closing to me as somebody who comes from a background, particularly I am a child of two public school teachers. It starts with education. You can’t sell unless you believe in it yourself, unless you understand how it works. And that gives you the capability to be able to take a story to the table and solve for a customer. Tell them not just how the features and functionality work, but so what? What is this gonna do at the end of the day? So the real priorities for go to market is let’s start with educational foundation, and that’s whether you are building something out yourself internally, whether it’s coaching or you’re building out playbooks. Finding something to be able to reach a myriad of learning personalities so that they feel confident. Being able to understand themselves and tell their own story versus read off of let’s say a sales script or speaker’s notes on a deck. From there, it’s being able to give them something that they can take to a customer that isn’t built from within. And I say that by meaning. How do we keep whatever our content is, whether it’s a video, it’s a one pager, it’s a deck, what have you, how do we ensure that we are showing the value of product? But that’s not where the conversation starts. The conversation should start from how do we. Have those conversations with people to find out why we’re actually meeting today, and then being able to work backwards into the functionality of the platform where that. We bring in the education layer, right? That’s where we bring it in. We can sit here and talk hypotheticals of what you can solve for for a customer, but at the end of the day, you’ve gotta be able to show the proof. So if being able to allow people to feel confident to talk about something that they can solve for understanding a customer’s needs, and then being able to provide them that proof. Is something that we’ve really focused on. So how do we make sure they have the education? How do we make sure they have the go-to market right materials? And how do we make sure that they stay aligned and then continuously learning from them, from the data of did it work? ’cause we’re all making assumptions about what the market is like and who our customers are and what they’re struggling with. But if you don’t lean into the data and validate and challenge things, then it that go to market time is just gonna get longer. And less impactful. And at the end of the day, that dollar is gonna take much longer time to come in the door. And so really starting from the basics. RR: Yeah, I really admire that education first approach. I think that’s a great philosophy, but I know that it’s also kind of, it’s hard to drive at scale. You’re trying to do a lot of things to build confidence, to build that alignment, to get reps ready to go and sell meaningfully. And so I know that’s a big challenge that I’m sure you and literally everyone else is dealing with. So I know that one of the ways that you’re kind of combating that challenge is through. Go to market efficiency. I’ve seen you frame it as operating leaner, faster and smarter. So I’d love if you could walk me through the building blocks that you and any other GTM team would need to kind of bring that philosophy of efficient execution to life. KC: Yeah. Again, starting from. Getting it right from the start. So we started off, we’ve had enablement surveys running for the past couple of quarters internally to be able to understand where people are struggling, not just with content needs, but where they are lacking in feeling confident about certain messaging or products or ICPs. Really understanding across the board what are the big gaping holes, what are the areas that we can lean on the little less into, and. Starting off with something like that, to be able to kind of add that data to again, be able to not only just understand, but measure quarter over quarter is incredibly helpful to how we kinda got started in isolating what’s the biggest areas of opportunity versus long-term goals. And from there it was about, I heard loud and clear when I came in. I can’t find anything. I don’t know if it’s up to date. I don’t understand how to talk about it. I can’t find answers to my questions. And again. Tale as old as time. Everybody has that problem no matter how big and how much money you have in the bank. And so that’s where I lean into tools and that’s where I brought in Highspot, is the idea is like we need to start from a clean slate before we can even go to market. Otherwise we’re just gonna keep repeating the same issues over and over. So this was a great opportunity for us to kind of start clean and enter into a tool. I know that everybody and their mom has a thousand tools across the business, and the names just get funnier and funnier the more you adopt them. But the idea of this is what I was trying to impress upon them is we have so many rich channels of content, whether it’s discussions happening in Slack or it’s things that are happening in HubSpot, or you know, all this rich content built by multiple different departments living across the ether. And they’re so rich in what they can provide and insight and education and just quick answering of questions and being able to help our teams become strategic advisors versus salespeople. And so being able to ingest that into one tool rather than replicating another tool was a great opportunity to say, I’m gonna help you find what you need faster. That, and then as my customer got ’em. They said fantastic. And I’m not saying it’s easy as that to get a hundred percent adoption, but that the fact of the matter is of being able to give them back time into their week to do their job was problem one that we were solving for. The next was finding my champions. So finding those people. That’ll drink the Kool-Aid with me, and so I had a lot of one-on-ones, which is exhausting at first, but as we say in sales juice, it’s worth the squeeze. After we got started doing the one-on-ones people, it was like they saw the light, specifically looking at digital sales rooms, being able to have something that didn’t just benefit the salesperson but became an effective tool to help them. At when the deal was closed, to be able to hand that over to the existing business team and everything’s there, and they’re able to then build upon that and it becomes this one stop shop for a customer lifecycle versus these different stages that we see customers in. It becomes a partnership versus just a deal commitment. And then. I’m a mom, I realize I get my kid to do things when I, you know, reward them. So I actually started building out some spotlights. So most recently called out some of the, the salespeople that got really creative in the digital sales rooms about not just taking the. Templates I built out with some of our standard content, but really thought about it and really engaged with the tool. And out of the digital sales room was the first one they built 60% of the material was engaged with by customers. And to be able to see something like that where we’re still building materials in real time was incredibly. Informative and helps like to feed how we should start rebuilding these rooms. So showing their other sales team members look what they’re able to do and look at the conversations they’re able to elevate. Cited that little bit of competition with their other salespeople. But I, the, I created an award called, I Got 99 Problems, but a Pitch Ain’t Won. And now that is my enablement award I give out for spotlights that are all hands when I’m calling out people for certain things. And as cheesy as it is, you know, it brings people back into the conversation and people actually text and said, how can I get the next one? So it’s, it’s a lot of different ways of looking at it. Again, at the end of the day, yeah, they’re my teammate, but they’re also my customer. How am I gonna make them successful? What are the same discovery questions we ask? And then as I’m doing that, being able to champion that out. It’s being seen by other members of the business and they want their stuff seen too. So you’ve got product in there with like release notes, which, so we build out an RSS feed, so all the release notes are constantly feeding in there. Everybody is getting a benefit from it, depending on what. How they’re engaging with Highspot and we’re unsiloing all of this information and helping people find the answers, speak more confidently in real time, using AI to help make things faster and learning with data. ’cause data doesn’t lie. RR: Amazing. I love that you’re kind of marrying the functionality with the fun part of it, because that’s how you kind of drive adoption is you need to prove, hey, this helps your workflow and then also. You get a benefit by using it, and maybe it’s a little silly, but it’s also fun. I kind of wanna touch on something interesting you said, which is the struggle that so many teams face of dozens of tools with increasingly ridiculous names that your sellers all need to keep track of, click into, figure out. So I’d love to know a little bit more about what. The difference a unified platform makes for your team. So could you talk to me a little bit about how that centralized source of truth is improving efficiency and helping you better drive your initiatives? KC: Yeah. Great example is we have another tool that we use for our RFPs. So whenever a request for proposal comes in, there’s a whole other separate tool that most people don’t even know about and it actually is managed by a team of some of our engineers and it has over 2, 400. Questions asked by customers and RFPs with validated answers anywhere from the high level down to the nitty gritty. And so what I’ve done is I’ve connected that tool into Highspot, and so using copilot. People can go in and say, you know, what kind of ad formats can I use? And that’s probably not in a deck. It’s probably not in a one pager or maybe not into the detail or granularity you need. But because it can scrape that, it is able to scrape that data, give the information the answer back to the person in real time, and then point to the source. So if they need to dig in a little bit deeper, and what I like about that is the recommendations as well. So even if they’re answering a question, if I’m on a call with a customer. I guarantee you, no one on this team, unless they’ve been here for a while, could be able to answer that spitfire. The idea is that I’m enabling that person to find that question without having to go to a Slack and give that little intermission of time. That could be more conversation with the customer. They can find it in real time. They can provide the answer of the most basic level, and because it makes recommendations of other content that’s related to it, it helps them continue and evolve on that conversation In terms of discovery. So, okay, you’re looking for the different formats. Where do you typically like to serve your ads? What kind of ads do you like to serve? How do you like to do targeting? It helps to really drive the conversation and then at the same time, give you those things that you could put into the digital sales room. ’cause you know that that was impactful and maybe informative to them. So really thinking about where would I go for certain things that. Either people know about. So Slack, we are getting a little hacky and we are exporting some slack threads that are specifically around questions that come to our support teams. And so. As we can get that content in. It’s a little dirty because it’s an export from Slack, but the amount of conversations that are happening in there and dialogues about our customers and things that they’re asking about or struggling with, it’s such rich information that standardly wouldn’t exist in an enablement platform. And while it is not a deliverable, it is a resource. And so, you know, as people are having conversations, they’re able to find answers. They’re able to at the same time, educate themselves. Uh, in a self-service fashion, and it’s interesting to us to be able to go into those search channels and be able to see what people are asking so that we, it again helps us better understand where our content gaps are. Being able to reduce the amount of things that are open for you to be able to find what you need in a way that we keep it in controlled chaos, as I like to say, has been incredibly helpful. We were able to get answers to an RFP within the first week of launching Highspot. So it’s the idea of thinking out of the box of what this tool is meant to do in standard form of how we make sure people find content. I think it’s about how we make sure people find what they need. In real time and ensure that they’re confidently able to understand it and that we’re constantly looking for other areas to help feed into the platform and give them something that maybe they didn’t even know they were looking for. RR: Those are such great examples. I really enjoyed hearing about how you have created a space for so many conversations. That maybe would just happen in a little bubble, but now the entire organization has visibility into that, which is just incredible and I’m sure saves your engineering team and your support team a lot of time and a lot of slacks we’re working on it. I think that actually feeds very well into the next question, which is, you know, a key part of efficiency is alignment and synchronized collaboration. So I know you’re working closely with, like you said, product engineering, sales teams all across the organization. So beyond maybe what you’re doing so far in the platform, what are some best practices that you have for aligning GTM KC: teams? I think a really specific thing is kind of going back to what I mentioned at the beginning, is I did a road show before we signed and after we signed with key stakeholders from these teams, and none of them knew what Highspot was. So I was able to come in from an approach of what keeps you up at night, what are you struggling with, what can I help you with? What will make you look good? Again, the same thing. I would go to a customer. It doesn’t matter if it’s a car, if it’s hammer, if it’s software. The only reason I will come on board if it’s something that provides value or impact to me. So it was going to those teams and finding out. What are they struggling with? And a lot of it was they have so much documentation and so many things they want to get to everyone. But much like everybody, it lives on Google Drive or it lives in a doc portal that people don’t log into. It doesn’t give room for context or clarity. So again, like going to product and, and them saying, we have all of this stuff that’s out there that. Roadmaps and release notes that really could impact renewals or really could change the game in terms of customers that maybe didn’t think we were in the place right for them previously. But now we have all these things that we didn’t imagine. It’s being able to have those kind of things out there that help elevate the products and work that they’re doing. Going to our marketing team. I mean, you know, marketers, they are content churning themes. They are writing and delivering so much stuff and it just, you know, unless it’s through social channels or through campaigns, you don’t really have any data on that. So how can we start leaning into what’s working in marketing and not just elevate that to make sure it’s getting used, but get that feedback and more importantly. These are often the unsung heroes, right? The, the people who are creating content. There’s never a name on there that says Kate created that. They churn out the piece of content. It goes out there, it does what it does. And if it does well, then we celebrate as a team, which is great. But at the end of the day, I think we all like the validation of the work we do. And so I started another award called, um, I’m not just a Player. I crush a lot. And that’s for our content creators. And so it’s being able to go in and look at the content that, specifically I’m looking at digital sales rooms right now. One piece of content is being used very frequently and it’s being engaged with majority of the time. And it’s something that’s not even new and it’s actually a URL from our site, but it’s a blog post. And so being able to. Elevate that to that person who did that work a while ago that was probably long and forgotten and say, Hey, it’s still kicking and it’s doing well, is a really great opportunity for me to have that kind of buy-in from them too. Then the sales side. Honestly, getting that reporting metrics with pitches in digital sales rooms was the carrot on the stack. We are, you know, we’re in our, our business specifically is remote first, so we don’t have a sales floor. We have basically a tight network of salespeople that are extremely talented and very close knit, but they are across the world, and so being able to have. Something that they could learn off of each other and be able to get a little bit of a better understanding of how to direct their conversations. A better understanding of what works for different personas or markets to expedite that go to market and closing, uh, of deals faster that, I mean, it’s something they’ve never had before. It’s something that helps them become leaders within their own groups and being able to show them that value again, like. What keeps you up at night? The deal you’re struggling to curl? Yeah, let’s work on that. Let’s give you some space to be able to create a unique environment for your customer that becomes a collaboration and gives you insight and intel to how to better gauge the next conversation or prioritize your book of business. So really at the end of the day, it wasn’t about selling Highspot itself as a platform. It was about starting from how can I help you do better? What are you struggling with? And then mapping it back to the functionalities of Highspot and building out use cases for them and being able to say, we can deliver on this. And we do. And we are. RR: I gotta say, I love, as you’re explaining this, hearing the marketer brain churning of like, what stories am I gonna tell these folks to get them bought in? What is the value for you? How am I gonna tell this story? I see how it works. KC: It’s, it’s not rocket science. I wish I could come with a magic secret, but really we’re humans at the end of the day, and really, we are looking to, to prove our value and to excel at what we do. And so how can we find the unique ways to help people do that? RR: Yeah, and I think it’s that kind of empathy, that human first approach of like, I know that you’re just, you just wanna do a good job, and I’m here to help you do that. That’s gonna win. You buy in every single day more than any other strategy. KC: It’s the credit. I’m not coming here. To try to force this down your throat or make you do another tool. Let’s think differently about this. This is a partnership with us because when you do well, we all do well, which is cheesy as it sounds, but it’s true. RR: Yeah, absolutely. Switching gears a little bit, you kind of touched on this a little earlier, but I’d like to kind of dig into it because you know it wouldn’t be the Win-Win podcast if we didn’t talk about ai. So I’d love to know, a lot of businesses are, of course, using AI to improve efficiency, and I know that you’ve started to dabble in that a little bit with Highspot. So I’d love if you could kind of walk us through your current AI strategy and some of the ways that you’re using AI in Highspot to support your teams. KC: Yeah, we’ve just started again. We launched about end of June and then I went on vacation for two weeks ’cause that’s how you successfully kick off a new software. Um, but we launched in June and we launched with a very big launch event of a new product that we were rolling out with. So the timing was quite nice. And the idea behind this was, again, trying to, to show to the team that this isn’t a. Content repository. It’s not a dam, this is not a folder. Like this is going to be something that is we’re going to build on and teach as well. At the same time you’re gonna teach it. We started with leaning into, uh, just the search bar functionality, and that’s where I came in and started asking people in the surveys like, where do you go when you have a question? Don’t tell me a person’s name. Where do you go when you have a question? And really starting to source that kind of information to, to live out there. And sometimes it was. As we’d mentioned before, another platform that maybe this content lived in our support software, what have you, or maybe it was a Wiki, how do we start finding that information to be able to provide at the same time and answer those questions? And so starting really simplistic with that, it really is you got to breadcrumb people into a new platform. Otherwise they’re drinking from the fire hose and they’re not absorbing anything. To be able to solve for X pretty quickly. Was a nice way to start in. A, getting people to adopt the AI functionality of being able to surface information or content. B. Start teaching it. Vernacular and start giving the feedback of whether answers were right or not and start building that at scale. I then opened up into the full copilot feature and started showing them it’s smarter than chat GPT, because it’s really honed in only on us. So you know that your messaging is in there. And I was, don’t just ask a question of saying, what is yield forecast? Get that and say, okay. You can also do this, you can say, write a message to a retail persona, because we have our personas built into the platform, content across the board with bullet points of what the value props that are important to their outcomes. And in real time during the demo, it built the template for it. It was completely on point. I said, copy, paste that. Go BDR, go. And then from there it’s, it’s about leaning into where the AI copilot is within the tools itself. So. You know, if I am coming on board to Keble and I’m starting off, oftentimes people are gonna point you go look at these slides, go look at these PDFs, da, da, da. But having that copilot feature there to be able to ask a question rather than have to go to my manager and ask questions and it scrapes the content to be able to provide me an answer, is such an efficiency for that person to be, again, like self-service enabled, but also takes that kind of. I don’t wanna call it low value opportunity for a manager. It’s, it’s obviously they’re there for questions, but this gives it space for when they do have their one-on-ones to go into really distinct questions and really distinct trainings and coachings they need to be focusing on versus understanding a platform solution. And then from there that having that knowledge check that’s in there as well. Like that’s to me, another thing I don’t have to build out. As another training tool, like that’s a just off the bat kind of training tool. Those are the kind of things we’re currently leaning in. Again, we’re only almost two months in, but the fact of the matter is, is it’s already proving its value in terms of elevating what we are ingesting into the tool, into something that is solving for a problem. That has been on every single enablement survey since it started as one of the biggest issues is I need an education I can’t find. What I’m looking for. RR: Well, as you’re kind of iterating down the line, ’cause I know as you said, only like two months or so into this and there’s always room for improvement, figuring things out, all of that fun stuff. I’d like to know if you could share where you’re going. What do you think may be the next step in you and your AI vision, and how do you think that strategy might evolve over time? KC: It’s a really great question. We, as a company use AI to drive efficiencies at scale without taxing our teams. So finding business efficiencies, being able to build something more into AI within Highspot, that becomes almost like another me or another presence of a product engineer or you know, a sales. Guidance tool, which I know you guys are working on, I think soon we’ll be delivering. But how do we replicate support networks or feedback or guidance or recommendation? How do we elevate that and again, iterate? How do we constantly build on the value of this tool and how we are creating a smaller gap between the first start of a customer conversation? To not just closing of a deal, but how do we get smarter about what we’re saying? How do we get smarter about discovery questions? What are the hidden gems of things that we should be bringing up? How, how are we using AI to elevate our conversations, to onboard people faster, to really make sure that we are leaning in the right direction with the customer? And at the end of the day, showing the value. And you know, it’s sometimes hard in these situations to show value. It takes time, but what are the ways that we can show value? And I think a lot of the features that the AI even currently are doing are really starting to check that box. But I’m constantly, I am a self-proclaimed nerd. What more can we do? How can we get hacky with it? What are things that we can think about that are existing that we could think about from a different lens? And I really do think it’s about. Thinking in a world where I think a lot of us are still working remote or hybrid and we don’t have that sales floor, we don’t have our manager sit in two seats down. Product is not, you know, on the second floor, how do we create a situation where we can create a digital office or digital network where we’re able to have whatever content or information or what have you. ’cause we all know you can pretty much put darn near everything into a Highspot. How do we make it so that. It takes it off the paper. And how can AI help us with that? RR: Well, I really enjoyed that vision. I think you’re thinking about it from like every angle. I think you and the team are obviously doing some really cool things with Highspot so far that I feel like I haven’t heard from too many of our customers. You’re creating a really wonderful digital office, and so I can’t wait to see kind of how it evolves and gets more connected over time as you bring more things in. I would like to maybe, you know, we talked a little bit about the future and we jumped ahead. Maybe walk back a little bit into the past because. You know, you’re still early in your journey, like you said, but we’ve heard some really great things from your account team so far. For instance, after launching Highspot, you had it just one week. You had already driven 83% adoption. So I’d love to know, and I’m sure our listeners would love to know too, how did you do that? How did you drive such early adoption? How did you get reps excited? I know you touched on it a little bit, but if you have maybe like a, a step by step or anything for us. KC: So I will be completely honest that this is not my first rodeo. I actually, in working at Criteo, which is another ad tech company, I started off in sales there. I was an account strategist and we were working with large books of business and we were working with complex software that was constantly evolving and. Again, tale as old as time. Oh, this deck is outta date. God, you know, it’s, it’s that same thing, and I worked my way up into creating a head of enablement role for the idea that the same premise I began with is we need to declutter. We need to lean in technology that doesn’t duplicate, that uns silos and provides that layer of education, provides the clarity of the message and provides the trust in what you are sharing is accurate up to date and you feel confident in doing it. And so I rolled it out there. I think we had like 1200. People using it at that space that included more than sales. ’cause I will say I don’t see this as just a sales enablement platform. This is a unified space for a business. As I said, the adoption goes beyond the salespeople using it. It goes into the business. Aligning and using this as a single source of truth for how people are going to be approached with information or finance answers. And so that started there as well. And then, uh, my most recent company I work with was a company called Tulip. They are into another services software, and they had the same, it’s the same issue. It was a very complex product that was very niche for each customer, and it was a little wild west in terms of what content was being built. It wasn’t that it was wrong, it was just how are we learning from it? What if so-and-so’s got a deck that’s killing it and we’re not using it? And so being able to come to them and say, let’s create this as a collaborative space versus let’s, you know, it was a much smaller organization, so less of like wrangling the cats and more of like, let’s learn from each other and let’s, then that’s where the digital sales rooms really became key because there was so much information provided. How do you keep tabs on that? And again, here at Kevel it was, we’ve got a lot out there we’re, it was kind of a combination of the two actually. We’re a very niche platform that is wonderful in the fact that it’s flexible and allows the customer to do a thousand different things to solve for their problem, but that also means there’s a thousand different things you need to understand. So how do we get our hands around the thing and how do we learn from each other because we’re a smaller group. And so I think both from a background of sales. From a background of learning, those were the situations very different in terms of what we were going against. But at the end of the day, it really came down to that value prop is what keeps you up at night. And I know it sounds really simple, but I will constantly lean into that. It’s hard to do at scale, but I think you can find a couple of things, particularly looking at the larger business working at Criteo. It’s not different. How much money is in your bank, how, how, you know big your business is. We’re all going to try to service the same customers and we’re probably all struggling with similar things. So what can I do for you? That’s primarily been, and it’s, it’s, it’s a lot of upfront work, but once you get ’em, you get ’em and they believe in it, and then they become your champions. You’ve got a product that’s there for life. RR: Yeah. Well, thank you for breaking that down for us. I think, you know, sometimes with problems like these, it’s like this is such a big issue. I have no idea how I can even wrap my head around it. But just having that, what am I dealing with? Why is it an issue? Where do I wanna go? And just being able to walk through that kind of thought experiment is so helpful. KC: And don’t do it alone. Get that champion. I’m a one woman team and I have a kid, and she’s, she’s needy, so don’t do it alone. Find those champions, find those people that you know are trusted in their internal teams and have them be boots on the ground. RR: Absolutely. Aside from, you know, one week immediate, it feels like success for you guys. I’d love to know, since implementing Highspot, what. Business results have you seen, do you have any wins that you could share or accomplishments that you’re particularly proud of? KC: Yeah, our sales cycles are a little long, so it’ll be a little bit before we actually see kind of attributed revenue to things. But what I can see in looking at the data is I am seeing that people are engaging with multiple pieces of content that has never been engaged with before. We’re learning a lot from it. Primarily, I’ll say, being able to see the information from certain digital sales rooms of what customers are engaging with. And so we’re looking at those, not just the view through rates, but the multiple times viewing and the downloading. It’s giving us the ability to move faster in terms of, okay, they’re at stage one. This is what was impactful at stage one, everybody. Stage one. Let’s use these pieces of content to have these conversation. Okay, stage two, these are really helpful here and. Perfect for emea. I think without being able to present numbers quite yet, I can physically see these sales teams collaborating more and understanding what’s impactful at each stage to each customer to be able to. Streamline their conversations a little bit better to be able to have a little more outcome focused or feature focused ways of what’s important to them right now and what kind of collateral do they want to ingest at this point in the sales cycle. And I think ultimately my prediction is that this is going to help expedite the time to close of sale is because we’re going to get smarter about who cares about what. How they want to see that information. And then from there, being able to lean more into what actually moves along to a sale. Additionally, we’re from at least an internal standpoint, we’re seeing the engagement by the teams in terms of the content and how often they’re logging in. And we’ve seen a 25% increase in time spent in Highspot month over month. At this point. We know that there will be business results. But we know it’s not just about that. So we’re working our way there, but at the same time, while people are adopting it and we’re seeing that, we’re also still able to get those little learning insights that are going to help drive the business in incremental ways. And that’s been incredibly helpful to show to leadership as well, to be able to show them that they’re using the tool, customers are engaging in the tool, and we’re able to get that intel and be able to have these more fruitful conversations. And we’ll start seeing the benefits of this. The more we engage, the more we sound, the more we we dig in. RR: Well, I’m really glad to hear that you’re seeing those early wins that will over time compound into some of those things that you’re looking for, and you’re seeing those successes that you can take back and be like, look, we’re doing what we want to. It just takes a little time to build there, so we’ll have to check back with you down the line and see how things are going. I’ve just got one last question for you, which is that I’d love to know if you could share the biggest piece of advice you would have. For other marketing leaders who are looking to improve GTM efficiency and maybe find those hacky solutions for it. KC: Again, I’m not gonna blow your minds with this, but I think a lot of us tend to not engage with people so much as more as we used to when we were in offices, and I found that. People are most often, I mean, we’re always willing to talk about ourselves, right? And we most often will go to the negative of things that we are struggling with. And it really was sitting down with these either key stakeholders or these who I consider the sales team my customers. It’s really sitting down and having conversations with them. RR: Amazing. Well, I think, you know, you said it’s not mind blowing advice, but I think sometimes that’s what you need. You need the reminder that these are the things that work. Do them. Yeah. So I think that’s fantastic advice to close with. I have to say thank you so much for joining us. It has been such a pleasure to chat with you. Thank you. To our audience, thank you for listening to this episode of the Win-Win podcast. Be sure to tune in next time for more insights on how you can maximize anything that success with Highspot.

Send us a textDrew Bent leads Education as part of Anthropic's Beneficial Deployments. He also co-founded the tutoring non-profit Schoolhouse.world with Sal Khan. Prior to that, he wrote code at Khan Academy, taught high school math, and has been tutoring students for over a decade. Drew has degrees in physics & CS from MIT, and an education master's from Stanford.

In a couple of months, the American Association of Municipal Executives will be launching an online directory that will allow candidates to rate and review executive recruiters and recruitment firms. Under the current system, there is no mechanism or vehicle in place to give candidates a voice or to allow their concerns to be raised or addressed. By creating this directory, the AAME will be able to communicate the concerns of its members to HR directors and elected officials as they go through the RFP process and help influence their decision making process. The ultimate goal is to help create a recruitment process that compels the recruiters to treat candidates better and punish those that do not give the candidates the respect and professional courtesy they deserve. SHOW NOTES Link to fundraiser and benefit auction Facebook page for Roxton, Texas city manager Janet Wheeler. Flyer includes QR code for Venmo donations being collected by Monica Helm or you can Venmo here: @monicahelm Link to GiveSendGo fundraiser for Scott Whitaker's legal fund. He is the former town manager for Summerfield, North Carolina. AAME MEMBERSHIP: To join the American Association of Municipal Executives (AAME), sign up at this link: https://community.aame.org/ AAME JOB BOARD: The AAME has a free job board exclusively focused on executive and senior level local government recruitments. To post a job, go to: https://jobs.aame.org/ SUPPORT THE PODCAST: Subscribe to my FREE weekly newsletter hosted on LinkedIn. It is called the "City Manager News & Job Board" newsletter and can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/city-manager-rtrs-job-board-7164683251112992768/ If you would like to support the podcast by making a donation, please use the "Buy Me A Coffee" link. Please rate and review the podcast on Apple or your preferred platform if you enjoy the show. It helps tremendously. But more importantly, refer your friends and peers to podcast through personal conversations and posts on your social media platforms. Joe Turner's LinkedIn Page Note: Page may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Steven Forth is the founder and CEO of Ibbaka and by far Impact Pricing's most frequent guest. He's currently developing ValueIQ, a set of agents for pricing and value advisory work that will soon be available for broader use. In this episode, Steven discusses his recent research comparing agent strategies across four major pricing software companies, explores the fundamental question of how many agents is optimal, and reveals how AI is transforming both the buying and selling process in ways most companies aren't prepared for.   Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn how the four major pricing software companies (Pros, Vendavo, Zilliant, PriceFX) approach agent development differently. Discover the key difference between role-based and task-based agent design strategies. Understand how AI will fundamentally change B2B buying processes and what that means for pricing.   "Start using AI to get a deeper understanding of how your customers are buying. Because if you don't understand how your customers are buying and buying using AI, you're not going to be able to price properly." – Steven Forth   Topics Covered:  02:07 – ValueIQ introduction: Steven's new agent platform for pricing and value advisory work  06:34 – Defining agents: The difference between true agentic AI and wrapped LLM functionality  10:49 – Sales agent complexity: Breaking down the many tasks salespeople perform and agent granularity 12:35 – Pricing agents vs. features: How to decide between individual pricing and bundling strategies  15:55 – The future of pricing models: Why "good, better, best" packaging may disappear in 2-3 years  21:05 – AI's role in B2B buying: How AI intermediaries will transform RFP processes and vendor selection  25:06 – Understanding AI-powered customers: Why companies must learn how their buyers use AI in purchasing decisions   Key Takeaways: "When I saw that PriceFX announced that it had more than 125 agents... I thought, huh, that's kind of a jaw-dropping number. I don't think I could generate 125 agents for pricing software." – Steven Forth "The role of AI in the buying process is more important than the role of AI in the sales process." – Steven Forth "You're going to be creating more content, not less. But that content is primarily going to be consumed by AIs." – Steven Forth "I think that many of the common packaging assumptions such as good, better, best are going to dissolve away over the next two or three years." – Steven Forth   Resources Mentioned: Michael Mansard's 14-factor model: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelmansard/    Connect with Steven Forth: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenforth/  Email: steven@ibbaka.com   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com  

Send us a textJulia Stiglitz is the CEO and Co-Founder of Uplimit, an AI learning platform helping companies equip their talent with the skills of tomorrow. She previously was a Partner at GSV Ventures, where she invested and partnered with some of the most innovative entrepreneurs in edtech. Prior to GSV, Julia was one of the first hires at Coursera and led many groundbreaking initiatives, mostly notably as Vice President of Enterprise, where she founded and led Coursera's enterprise business, growing it from concept to over 1400 organizations across the globe.

Send us a textJoin hosts Alex Sarlin and guest host Claire Zau of GSV Ventures as they unpack a huge week for AI in education, major edtech mergers, and new funding opportunities.✨ Episode Highlights:[00:00:00] Claire Zau on AI tutor memory, personalization, and data contamination risks[00:01:58] Google Guided Learning Mode vs OpenAI Study Mode – Socratic AI tools compared[00:14:07] Google Classroom integration and the personalization edge from LMS data[00:15:16] Instructure and OpenAI partnership as a counter to Google's advantages[00:25:20] GSV Summit and BETT merge to create the world's largest edtech events network[00:27:35] Acquisition roundup: Curriculum Associates, Top Hat, Alpha School, Torch[00:31:44] VR and AI content creation with Praxis Labs, Torch, and Google Genie 3Plus, special guests:[00:34:04] Derwin Sisnett, Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Cambiar Education and CEO of Adaptive Commons on Cambiar Education's Thrive Big Ideas Challenge[00:54:39] Dr. Alan Bekker, Co-Founder and CEO of eSelf AI on scaling AI English tutors in Israel and building guardrails[01:15:22] Andrea Pasinetti, Co-Founder and CEO of Kira on Kira Learning's approach to AI-powered STEM education

In this episode of Elixir Wizards, host Sundi Myint chats with SmartLogic engineers and fellow Wizards Dan Ivovich and Charles Suggs about the practical tooling that surrounds Elixir in a consultancy setting. We dig into how standardized dev environments, sensible scaffolding, and clear observability help teams ship quickly across many client projects without turning every app into a snowflake. Join us for a grounded tour of what's working for us today (and what we've retired), plus how we evaluate new tech (including AI) through a pragmatic, Elixir-first lens. Key topics discussed in this episode: Standardizing across projects: why consistent environments matter in consultancy work Nix (and flakes) for reproducible dev setups and faster onboarding Igniter to scaffold common patterns (auth, config, workflows) without boilerplate drift Deployment approaches: OTP releases, runtime config, and Ansible playbooks Frontend pipeline evolution: from Brunch/Webpack to esbuild + Tailwind Observability in practice: Prometheus metrics and Grafana dashboards Handling time-series and sensor data When Explorer can be the database Picking the right tool: Elixir where it shines, integrations where it counts Using AI with intention: code exploration, prototypes, and guardrails for IP/security Keeping quality high across multiple codebases: tests, telemetry, and sensible conventions Reducing context-switching costs with shared patterns and playbooks Links mentioned: http://smartlogic.io https://nix.dev/ https://github.com/ash-project/igniter Elixir Wizards S13E01 Igniter with Zach Daniel https://youtu.be/WM9iQlQSFg https://github.com/elixir-explorer/explorer Elixir Wizards S14E09 Explorer with Chris Grainger https://youtu.be/OqJDsCF0El0 Elixir Wizards S14E08 Nix with Norbert (Nobbz) Melzer https://youtu.be/yymUcgy4OAk https://jqlang.org/ https://github.com/BurntSushi/ripgrep https://github.com/resources/articles/devops/ci-cd https://prometheus.io/ https://capistranorb.com/ https://ansible.com/  https://hexdocs.pm/phoenix/releases.html https://brunch.io/ https://webpack.js.org/loaders/css-loader/ https://tailwindcss.com/ https://sass-lang.com/dart-sass/ https://grafana.com/ https://pragprog.com/titles/passweather/build-a-weather-station-with-elixir-and-nerves/ https://www.datadoghq.com/ https://sqlite.org/ Elixir Wizards S14E06 SDUI at Cars.com with Zack Kayser https://youtu.be/nloRcgngTk https://github.com/features/copilot https://openai.com/codex/ https://www.anthropic.com/claude-code YouTube Video: Vibe Coding TEDCO's RFP https://youtu.be/i1ncgXZJHZs Blog: https://smartlogic.io/blog/how-i-used-ai-to-vibe-code-a-website-called-for-in-tedco-rfp/ Blog: https://smartlogic.io/blog/from-vibe-to-viable-turning-ai-built-prototypes-into-market-ready-mvps/ https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/eragon-by-christopher-paolini/246801 https://tidewave.ai/ !! We Want to Hear Your Thoughts *!!* Have questions, comments, or topics you'd like us to discuss in our season recap episode? Share your thoughts with us here: https://forms.gle/Vm7mcYRFDgsqqpDC9

What if you could quote thousands of lanes in minutes, respond to shippers in under two, and still have time to grow your customer base? Let's welcome Tabi Connect's Dan Hellmann back to the show to explain how quoting automation, RFP modules, and lightning-fast rate delivery are changing the game for freight brokers and carriers! We discuss why speed is your biggest competitive advantage in today's market, how data-driven sales build trust with shippers, and why honest onboarding beats over-promising every time.  Dan covers more topics to help you automate smarter, execute flawlessly, and deliver more value than the competition, so keep tuning in!   About Dan Hellmann With a career spanning 19 years in the transportation and logistics industry, Dan Hellmann is a dynamic and results-driven leader. Currently serving as the Chief Sales Officer at Tabi Connect, he has been at the forefront of the company's success for the past 3.5 years. In this role, Dan leads sales, marketing, account management, and customer success, driving the company's growth and ensuring client satisfaction. Dan is deeply involved in industry associations, serving as a Board Member for the Logistics and Transportation Association of North America (LTNA), an active member of the Young Executive Committee for the Transportation Intermediaries Association, and serves as a Board Member for the Denver Transportation Club.  A true veteran in the brokerage field, Dan Hellmann has accumulated invaluable experience in sales leadership, P&L management, and strategy. His journey includes successfully starting up a brokerage for a former customer, steering it to an impressive $50 million in revenue. Dan brings a wealth of knowledge and practical insights to industry events. His passion for innovation, strategic thinking, and commitment to excellence make him a compelling voice in the world of transportation and logistics.   Connect with Dan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-hellmann-ctb/  Email: DanH@tabiconnect.com  

In this episode, Jack Cochran and Matthew James are joined by Ben Hills, Founder and CEO of Iris, to discuss how to scale presales teams effectively while avoiding burnout. They explore the difference between healthy high performance and unsustainable overwork, the role of AI in streamlining repetitive tasks like RFPs, and practical strategies for building scalable processes that enhance rather than replace human expertise. To join the show live, follow the Presales Collective's LinkedIn page or join the PSC Slack community for updates. The show is bi-weekly on Tuesdays, 8AM PT/11AM ET/4PM GMT. Follow the Hosts Connect with Jack Cochran: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackcochran/ Connect with Matthew James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewyoungjames/ Connect with Ben Hills: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminhills/ Links and Resources Mentioned Join Presales Collective Slack: https://www.presalescollective.com/slack Iris: https://heyiris.ai/ Timestamps 00:00 Welcome 04:04 Iris 05:14 Ben's background 14:29 Healthy high performance vs burnout 21:55 Common scaling mistakes and the headcount trap 29:14 Effective AI tools for presales teams 35:04 The future of AI-to-AI RFP processes 37:46 Final advice on embracing AI Key Topics Covered Understanding Burnout vs. High Performance Why burnout isn't just about hours worked The importance of connecting work to larger purpose and outcomes Creating time-bound periods of intense work with clear endpoints Scaling Without Adding Headcount The "mythical man month" problem in presales Building playbooks and processes before hiring Separating "in the business" vs "on the business" work The Rocks, Pebbles, Sand Framework Planning for big quarterly tasks (rocks) Managing predictable weekly activities (pebbles) Handling unexpected fire drills (sand) AI Tools That Actually Work RFP automation and response generation Call transcript analysis for product feedback Demo automation with synthetic data Why AI SDRs haven't lived up to the hype The Future of RFPs and AI Model Control Protocol (MCP) for AI-to-AI communication Maintaining personalization in automated processes The buyer's perspective on RFP proliferation  

What's really going on in freight brokerage right now? Why are rates stuck, and how should we position ourselves as brokers for the next market shift? Together with our guest today, Ken Adamo of DAT Freight & Analytics, we dig into the supply-and-demand imbalance that's keeping rates flat, the impact of tariffs and interest rates on shipper behavior, and why DAT's acquisition of Convoy's tech could change how we approach automation! Plus, the reality of cold calling in a stagnant market, how shorter RFP terms make sense right now, and why consistent service still beats chasing margin in building trust with shippers! Hear all these and more from today's episode!   About Ken Adamo Ken Adamo, Chief of Analytics and Vice President of Strategy and Business Development at DAT Freight & Analytics, leads strategy, customer engagement, and industry analysis. He played a key role in DAT's acquisition of Trucker Tools, strengthening the company's visibility solutions. A recognized expert in freight market trends, Adamo has helped customers navigate shifting conditions by translating complex data into practical insights. He has led key strategic initiatives, advanced predictive analytics, and serves as a trusted resource for industry analysts, customers, and journalists. Before DAT, he led pricing and decision science teams at FedEx, developing forecasting models to optimize decision-making and profitability. He was named a 2025 Pro to Know (Rising Stars category) by Supply & Demand Chain Executive and has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal and trade publications. Ken holds a bachelor's degree in Finance from the University of Akron and an MBA from The Ohio State University.   Connect with Ken Website: https://www.dat.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-adamo-8481611a/ / https://www.linkedin.com/company/dat-freight-and-analytics/  

"Innovate with us. Don't just issue an RFP—explore the art of the possible." — Dino Trevisani, Senior Vice President & Head of the Americas Region, Tata Communications In this in-depth conversation with Technology Reseller News Publisher Doug Green, Dino Trevisani outlines Tata Communications' strategy to deepen its U.S. presence by leveraging the company's expansive global infrastructure, deep industry expertise, and focus on end-to-end “digital fabric” solutions. Trevisani clarifies the scope of Tata Communications' business—often mistakenly conflated with other Tata Group companies—highlighting its capabilities across subsea fiber optic cables, cloud interconnectivity, IoT, security, customer interaction services, and live media streaming for global events such as Formula One and NFL Thursday Night Football. Looking at mid-2025 trends, Trevisani identifies three major forces shaping CIO priorities: Global supply chain and manufacturing shifts — Companies relocating or expanding operations require complex, compliant, and secure communications networks that span multiple countries. Network rationalization — Enterprises are seeking to consolidate and secure disparate networks, driving down costs and complexity. Edge computing and AI readiness — Preparing infrastructure today to support robotics, AI, and real-time applications that will demand near-100% network uptime. Trevisani's U.S. growth strategy targets companies with more than half of their operations outside the country—where Tata Communications already has dominant market presence—and those seeking to simplify complex, multinational communications environments. He stresses that the company's collaborative global leadership model and innovation-focused acquisitions position it as a proactive partner for clients facing rapid technology and market changes. The discussion also touches on opportunities in rural and underserved areas, the critical importance of subsea cables to the global economy, and the need for programmable, intelligent networks that can adapt to future technology shifts without costly infrastructure overhauls. Trevisani's advice for enterprises: fully understand your current network assets, anticipate where your market is heading, and work with innovation-minded partners to design flexible, resilient infrastructures. To learn more about Tata Communications' U.S. and global solutions, visit tatacommunications.com.

Send us a textAmir Nathoo is CEO of Outschool, a marketplace for live online classes for K-12 learners, and an advocate for expanding education access.  Previously, he led product development at Square and co-founded Trigger.io, a platform for creating native mobile apps. Amir holds an MEng in Electrical and Information Sciences from The University of Cambridge and lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children.Justin Dent is the founding Executive Director of Outschool.org. Justin was previously the Founder and Executive Director of Ethos, a nonprofit that provided career education to 18,000 low-income, first generation, or minority students annually. An active voice in the dialogue around education equity, Justin's writing has been featured in the Wall Street Journal and he's appeared on Fox Business, CNBC and Cheddar.

#30: Lisa Sauve, CEO and Principal of SYNECDOCHE, joins us to reveal how her Detroit-based architecture studio won a major cultural project in a new market by pushing back against the original RFP.PS - If you're a growth-minded firm owner or leader, apply to join us inside The Studio - https://growthitect.com/studioLearn more about SYNECDOCHE: https://www.synecdoche.design/ Here's what you'll learn in the episode: → What no-portfolio strategy got SYNECDOCHE invited to pitch for a major cultural project in a brand-new market?→ The unconventional RFP move that helped them stand out, and why it flips the standard approach on its head→ Why Lisa believes your problem statement can win you work, even if your portfolio doesn't→ The surprising way architects can challenge vague RFPs without burning bridges→ The truth about how relationships actually win you projects→ How SYNECDOCHE priced a project with almost no details, and why the client still said yes→ What happens when you admit, “We've never done this before”, and still win the job→ The behind-the-scenes interview moment that tipped the scales and sealed the deal→ Why focusing on smaller scopes and radical honesty built a client relationship that lasted far beyond the project(05:04) Building trust to get invited(10:05) Estimating fees with limited info(12:08) Why architects should lead with problem-solving(16:50) How one RFP reshaped the entire program(21:04) Sizing up client-consultant fit(23:10) Talking openly about money(27:03) Planning projects in bite-sized pieces(29:42) Helping clients prep for a capital campaign(32:51) Making architecture more accessible(35:29) Embracing honesty and realigning goals(39:10) How authenticity fuels creativityGROWTHITECT RESOURCES→ Apply to join The Studio - https://growthitect.com/studio → Join thousands of architects on the free Growthitect newsletter - https://growthitect.com/join STAY CONNECTED→ Follow on LinkedIn→ Follow on Instagram→ Subscribe on YouTube→ Follow on Twitter

Choosing an employee advocacy platform? Don't get lost in the buzzwords. In this episode, Lewis Gray (Senior Marketing Manager at DSMN8) takes the mic solo to guide you through the entire RFP process for employee advocacy software. Whether you're launching a new program or replacing an outdated tool, this practical breakdown will help you avoid mistakes and make confident, informed decisions.Lewis covers the key steps to a successful RFP, how to build your internal team, define your goals, and weigh up vendor responses without getting overwhelmed. With advice from past podcast guests, including real-world input from Nissan and Talkdesk, this episode is packed with strategic insight and field-tested tips.This is essential listening for social media leads, procurement pros, and anyone looking to future-proof their advocacy strategy. If you're stuck between platforms or want to ensure you're asking the right questions, this episode will point you in the right direction.Want to take your employee advocacy strategy to the next level? Get your FREE Employee Advocacy Health Check to find out how you compare with your competitors: here.Resources Mentioned in This Episode:Download the Free RFP Template:https://dsmn8.com/blog/how-to-run-an-rfp-for-employee-advocacy-software-template/Explore the Employee Advocacy Benchmark Report:https://dsmn8.com/employee-advocacy-benchmarks-report/Swiss Post Case Study: https://dsmn8.com/portfolio/swiss-post-enterprise-employee-advocacy-case-study/Episodes Referenced in This Podcast:From Pilot to Powerhouse: How Nissan's Brad Nevin Scaled Employee Advocacy:https://dsmn8.com/blog/nissan-scaled-advocacy-program/ Talkdesk's Jordan Tenenbaum: Maximizing LinkedIn Engagement with Employee Advocacy:https://dsmn8.com/blog/maximizing-linkedin-engagement/ 

Send us a textKaty Knight is President and Executive Director of Siegel Family Endowment, where she leads bold, systems-focused philanthropy at the intersection of technology and society. Since 2017, she has advanced equity, flexible funding, and inquiry-driven grantmaking grounded in the scientific method, and centered on reframing big questions and learning alongside grant investments. Dr. Allison Scott is CEO of the Kapor Foundation, leading work at the intersection of racial justice and technology. She drives research, programs, and advocacy to expand equity in tech and entrepreneurship. A national PI on major CS equity grants, she also co-leads CSforCA, advancing access to K-12 computer science across California.

Send us a textJoin hosts Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell as they break down a pivotal week in EdTech, from AI breakthroughs to Roblox's education push and the future of personalized learning.✨ Episode Highlights:[00:00:33] Quizlet report shows 85% of students and nearly 90% of teachers using AI, with different adoption patterns.[00:02:24] International Math Olympiad highlights AI's reasoning advances, earning a gold medal and raising assessment questions.[00:11:16] OpenAI agents and AI-native browsers signal a major shift in tech workflows and task automation.[00:16:58] Roblox launches a centralized learning hub featuring educational games from Google, Sesame, and others.[00:20:55] Pearson unveils an AI and XR innovation lab, sparking debate on whether incumbents can truly innovate.[00:29:13] U.S. Department of Education outlines new AI funding priorities for instruction, tutoring, and career navigation.[00:36:12] Preply challenges Duolingo with “Better Duo” campaign, framing human vs. AI tutoring as a key market battle.[00:37:31] McGraw Hill IPO and new funding rounds for Honor Education and Galaxy Education mark a busy week in EdTech finance.Plus, special guests:[00:39:50] Brad Carson, President of Americans for Responsible Innovation on AI policy and its impact on education.[01:04:44] Ryan Trattner, CTO and Co-Founder of StudyFetch on personalized learning tools and their rapid user growth.

Andrew Leto shares his journey from Navy veteran to successful freight entrepreneur, revealing how he built Global Tranz from zero dollars into a half-billion-dollar business by spotting opportunities in the eBay shipping market and creating an agent-based model that revolutionized LTL freight. • Starting with no money but securing prepayment from customers while getting delayed payment terms from carriers created instant working capital• The agent model allowed rapid growth by recruiting sales reps who brought their book of business for higher commissions• Building 10-4 Systems as a visibility platform that was later acquired by Trimble in 2017• Creating Emerge as a procurement platform that offers shippers a free RFP system while generating revenue from carrier participation• Napoleon Hill's "Think and Grow Rich" provided the mindset foundation for success through belief and visualization• AI will transform freight by potentially eliminating 70% of current jobs while creating new opportunities• Investment strategy focuses on knowing the industry deeply and finding undervalued assets like Roadrunner• Future freight brokers will need to operate on 5-6% margins as AI creates price transparency across the marketIf you have an interest in entrepreneurship, Leto recommends reading "Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill, which he considers more valuable than a college degree for anyone seeking success.Follow The Freight Pod and host Andrew Silver on LinkedIn.*** This episode is brought to you by Rapido Solutions Group. I had the pleasure of working with Danny Frisco and Roberto Icaza at Coyote, as well as being a client of theirs more recently at MoLo. Their team does a great job supplying nearshore talent to brokers, carriers, and technology providers to handle any role necessary, be it customer or carrier support, back office, or tech services. Visit gorapido.com to learn more. A special thanks to our additional sponsors: Cargado – Cargado is the first platform that connects logistics companies and trucking companies that move freight into and out of Mexico. Visit cargado.com to learn more. Greenscreens.ai – Greenscreens.ai is the AI-powered pricing and market intelligence tool transforming how freight brokers price freight. Visit greenscreens.ai/freightpod today! Metafora – Metafora is a technology consulting firm that has delivered value for over a decade to brokers, shippers, carriers, private equity firms, and freight tech companies. Check them out at metafora.net. ***

Welcome back to What's New at CFI on FinPod! In this exciting episode, we're joined by Paul Barnhurst, The FP&A Guy, as he introduces CFI's brand-new course: FP&A Tool Selection.Are you an FP&A professional struggling with chaotic Excel models, disconnected reports, or overwhelmed by the sheer number of available planning tools? This course is your ultimate guide! Paul walks us through why choosing the right tool is more strategic than ever and how to navigate the exploding FP&A software market.In this episode, Paul reveals:Key signs it's time to upgrade from Excel: When do broken models, collaboration issues, and countless budget versions signal a need for a dedicated FP&A tool?Navigating the 150+ FP&A tools: Frameworks to narrow down your options based on desired functionality (spreadsheet-native vs. complete replacement), company size (small to enterprise), industry focus, and platform capabilities.The critical groundwork for tool selection: Why building robust requirements, writing a solid problem statement, and managing a rigorous RFP process are essential to avoid the "wow factor" and ensure a good fit.Paul's personal must-have productivity tools (beyond Excel!): Discover his favorite non-FP&A tools like ClickUp, ChatGPT, and Claude, and how he leverages them for productivity, research, and even devil's advocacy in decision-making.This course is a must-have for anyone evaluating new FP&A software or seeking a smarter process for optimizing their finance tech stack. Learn from the expert and make informed decisions to empower your finance career!

Send us a textVijay Thakkar is a visionary entrepreneur, educator, and the CEO & Co-founder of FotonVR. He's transforming the way children learn by bringing immersive Virtual Reality experiences into classrooms around the world. With a deep passion for innovation in education, Vijay has pioneered immersive Virtual Reality solutions designed specifically for school learning. Nisha Panchal is the Head of Global Business Development at fotonVR. With a strong focus on international business development and global expansion, Nisha plays a pivotal role in bringing fotonVR's innovative classroom technology to schools across the world.

RFP - 'The Male in the Head ' by Holland et al., discussed by Sheila Jeffreys & Julia Long.A live webinar recorded on 27th July at the WDI International Conference 2025 in London, UK.

Send us a textJoin hosts Alex Sarlin and Claire Zau, a Partner and AI Lead at GSV Ventures as they explores the latest developments in education technology, from AI agents to teacher co-pilots, talent wars, and shifts in global AI strategies. ✨ Episode Highlights [00:00:00] AI teacher co-pilots evolve into agentic workflows.[00:02:15] OpenAI launches ChatGPT Agent for autonomous tasks.[00:04:24] Meta, Google, and OpenAI escalate AI talent wars.[00:07:38] Privacy guardrails emerge for AI agent actions.[00:10:20] ChatGPT pilots “Study Together” learning mode.[00:14:40] Teens use AI as companions, sparking debate.[00:19:58] AI multiplies both positive and negative behaviors.[00:29:11] Windsurf acquisition saga shows coding disruption.[00:37:18] Teacher AI tools gain value through workflow data.[00:42:48] DeepMind's rise positions Demis Hassabis as key leader.[00:45:32] Google offers free Gemini AI plan to Indian students.[00:49:39] Meta builds massive AI data centers for digital labor. Plus, special guests: [00:52:42] Matthew Gasda, a writer and director, on how educators can rethink writing and grading in the AI era. [01:13:30] Marc Graham, founder of Spark Education AI, on using AI to personalize reading and engage reluctant readers.

In this episode of The Rainmaking Podcast, Scott Love speaks with Andy Buyting, author of Double Sales, Zero Salespeople, about how professionals in service industries can gain a competitive edge by strategically researching the competition. Andy breaks down a detailed, data-driven approach using platforms like SEMrush to analyze traffic sources, keyword effectiveness, and competitor performance—distinguishing between direct and aspirational competitors. He emphasizes the value of identifying non-branded keywords (those not tied to a specific company name) to capture inbound traffic from prospects searching for solutions to existing problems. Andy also shares compelling examples of companies that unlocked untapped markets by targeting overlooked search terms, such as “landlord insurance” or “how to write an RFP for a firetruck.” He encourages professionals to think like their prospects and align website messaging with customer fears and motivations. Key action steps include analyzing competitors, getting creative with keyword strategy (even bidding on competitor names), and refining website content to convert traffic effectively. The episode concludes with an introduction to Andy's firm, Tulip Media, which offers digital marketing and custom publishing services for professional firms. Visit: https://therainmakingpodcast.com/ YouTube: https://youtu.be/z__ttxX8JZU ---------------------------------------

According to research from Revenue Grid, organizations see a 25-40% increase in average deal size and win rates with better coaching. So how can you build a strong coaching program that helps your team win, especially with the support of new technologies like AI? Riley Rogers: Hi, and welcome to the Win-Win podcast. I’m your host, Riley Rogers. Join us as we dive into changing trends in the workplace and how to navigate them successfully. Here to discuss this topic is Carrie Kuhrt, who leads sales enablement in the Americas for FCM Travel. Thank you so much for joining us. Carrie, I’d love if we could just start by talking a little bit about yourself, your background, and your role. Carrie Kuhrt: Lovely to be here again. My name’s Carrie Kuhrt, based in Denver. Most of my professional journey has been within sales, whether that’s inside sales, outside sales. Been with FCM for nearly six years now, and just for over two years, I’ve been in the enablement function for the Americas region. Just been an adventure for the last six years with FCM, and I am just all team enablement now. RR: Awesome. Well, we’re so excited to have you here, especially knowing that you’ve kind of bridged that gap from sales to sales enablement and can bring that dual perspective to this conversation. So I know before your current role as an enablement leader, as you mentioned, you worked in sales at FCM Travel, so can you share a little bit about how you made that transition into enablement and then how that background maybe shapes your enablement approach today? CK: Yeah, well, kind of a funny story. I actually rejoined FCM after the pandemic the same day Highspot was rolled out with FCM. So it was just really kind of funny timing, how it’s all come really full circle. So I’ve always found myself wanting to help others succeed, and I have just a really big — like, I just really love all of the enablement tech stack and thought it just is an absolute game changer for the selling role and found myself always helping or always wanting to lend a helping hand to my peers.And so when the opportunity came up to join the enablement team, I eagerly embraced it, wanted to help fine-tune our sellers and using that enablement tech stack that the business has invested in. RR: Amazing. I love that take, and I love that this full-circle moment. I’m so happy you could join us and kind of bring this story almost to its conclusion.I’d love to maybe double-click a little bit into your approach and talk specifically maybe about how you develop your teams. So I know you lead the development of training and coaching at FCM Travel, so I’m wondering if you could talk to us a little bit about some common challenges you’ve faced when creating effective learning programs and then maybe some solutions you’ve created to address ’em. CK: Yeah, just knowing myself as a learner, we all learn in a different way, so I wanted to make sure that when creating something, it’s important to incorporate all the different learning styles that people have, whether that is through videos for people who’d like to watch, or people who like to read, or just a little bit of a mixture, and then including the hands-on approach.I really like the knowledge checks that you can do where it’s a little bit less test-centric and a little bit more of just making sure everyone is understanding that information and having it kind of connect the dots in their mind. So I think that’s always really good to incorporate in having like a welcoming and affecting learning environment for everybody.Just knowing that not every single person is the same. You wanna be able to have the ability to kind of touch everybody in the way that they need to help understand any initiatives. RR: Yeah, I think one of those biggest challenges too — any sort of learning program — is the assumption that one-size-fits-all works.It never does. I love that approach and that acknowledgement that everybody learns differently, and in order to get where you need to go, you need to meet them where they are. I think definitely a very actionable take that listeners can take away.Shifting gears a little, I’d like to touch on an aspect of enablement’s role that I think maybe goes a little bit unspoken, which is that in addition to creating effective programs, enablement is often tasked with building a culture of ongoing learning and development. So do you have any best practices for creating that culture and driving that culture of ongoing learning? CK: Yeah, I like to talk about it as kind of like an internal sell.So having that sales background kind of comes into play here, and we’ve actually branded our training and coaching as Take Flight. Being a travel management company, we love the puns. It worked perfectly. And so with Take Flight, we have created logos that you’ll see everywhere within Take Flight, as well as the same imagery over and over again, just kind of helping to reinforce this is where you go to learn, to upskill, to onboard, whatever it might be.And so using those on all of the training materials, helping everything remain consistent, it helps kind of guide your users to where they need to be for that training and coaching, because training and coaching — sometimes people might be like, oh, I don’t wanna do that — but Take Flight sounds so much more fun.I mean, who doesn’t wanna take a flight, hop on, and go somewhere new or learn something new? So that’s kind of the approach we have taken. RR: Yeah, the internal sell. I love it, and I love the branding. That’s so much fun. Your sellers are your customers, and I think you’re serving them well.I’d like to maybe chat a little bit about how you’re using technology to support programs like these.I know that in May, actually, you joined us here in Seattle for a workshop in the Highspot office. We chatted about real-world coaching capabilities, and you shared that you’re working on a pilot program to roll some of them out to your teams. So can you talk us through how you’re developing this pilot program and how you plan to leverage these capabilities to help with that ongoing learning culture? CK: Yeah, so we like to roll out all of our initiatives through pilot programs. We are leveraging Highspot across all of our sales organization globally now. And so having the peers involved — for my customers, our internal sellers — it’s really helped involve them and being able to be more impactful and engaging, understanding they are in the seat, they are utilizing it, and so using those pilot programs to help reinforce what’s gonna work best and being able to kind of test things out before full rollout globally.It’s just incorporating even those champions, as we like to call them, in part of the training so they’re able to talk about their experiences during the pilot testing as well. RR: Yeah, that sounds like a really thoughtful approach to a pilot program. You know, you build buy-in with a few, and then that kind of disperses out, and then all of a sudden you’ve won over the entire team.I’d love to know a little bit more about that like early getting-started phase — so how you’re planning to identify and select users for your pilot, and then maybe once you have selected those soon-to-be champions, how you enable them on your new approach. CK: Yeah, so we tend to select champions based on those who use the platform quite a bit.So our top users, they help guide us. And for the meeting intelligence pilot that we’re working on right now, we’ve chosen about five champions in different roles within the sales org and each region to start using the feature. So they’re gonna collaborate with myself and my partner in enablement that sits in Europe to help navigate those best practices, figure out what does work well, where we can improve, and like just sharing the feedback on the process because it is something brand new, something that we’ve never done before.But why not have like a test phase to work out those kinks before you roll out something globally? Just wanting to make sure that we have everything sorted and ready to go to make it as easy of a change as possible with — I mean, change management being key. It’s a new feature. Not everybody’s gonna be comfortable with it. You’re gonna make some people a little uncomfy, so why not bring in people who are in their same role, who can help kind of drive the value of it home? RR: Yeah, again, because you know when you are making that internal sell, you do need that evidence. And so when you have people in those roles speaking to it, you have a little bit more validation than just you kind of top-down being like, “Hey, let’s do a thing.” So I love that approach. And it seems like you and the team have obviously put a lot of work into this new strategy.So I’d love to know, maybe as you’re progressing, what outcomes you’re hoping to see and then what success looks like for you. What, at the end of the day, would make you be like, we did what we needed to do? CK: Yeah, I think for kind of the initiative, initial purpose is — as we all know — technology is fantastic except when it doesn’t like to play nicely.So working out those bugs is a huge part of it. That’s not something that might need our attention, but we carefully check and make sure all the platform integrations are working smoothly, kind of working those out beforehand, even before the pilot group even starts.To be completely honest, I’ve been within meeting intelligence since I could — I mean, just trying it out so I can figure it out, understand it, ’cause I am that hands-on learner, kind of talking back to how we approach that. But making sure that we have everything for the AI part of it — we are very much invested in AI. We have an AI Center of Excellence here within Flight Centre Travel Group, and so really leaning on that and making sure that the results that we’re getting do work for our business, as well as kind of those topics that meeting intelligence does use, making sure that we have everything listed that makes the most sense.And until we have users actually in-platform using it, we won’t know that. And so that’s kind of where we’re looking to make sure everything's — all the boxes are checked, that it’s gonna have the most impact on that feedback portion, because at the end of the day, that is what it’s all about — being able to get that feedback from an AI perspective to then have their manager come in and help drive home that feedback. RR: Awesome. Well, I think you guys are looking at all of the things you need to, to set yourself up for success, and I'm excited to check back in a couple months and see how things are going and see, you know, kind of the early wins you’re achieving.But speaking of success and wins, I know you’ve actually found quite a bit already. For instance, we’ve heard that you’ve already achieved a really impressive 67% active learner rate in Highspot, so I’d love to know how you’re driving that adoption. CK: Yeah. Again, I think this goes back to that branding aspect of Take Flight. Everybody knows where to go, and having it in like one centralized spot — just knowing that. But also, we do a lot of group enrollment for courses and things of that nature so that it’s everybody globally is doing it. It’s not just singling out certain people or certain regions — everyone is taking part of it.And I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a sales role where every one of my peers doesn’t have that competitive spirit. So we do throw in some contests in there — some incentives. Salespeople love the incentives. So when we can make it a friendly competition, it even helps drive it home, ’cause it’s like, I wanna beat you.Like, you have that competition, and it helps really drive that end result of getting people involved in the training and the coaching, the lessons, all of that adoption. I mean, I know our adoption across Highspot in general is really, really high, which I think kind of talks about what the platform has done for us as a business. RR: Well, amazing. I love to hear that. And so what I’m taking away is that adoption is purely just a combination of branding and competition. That’s what you need to get your salespeople activated. CK: You can make it more complicated than that, but at the end of the day, they need to know where to go and who to beat. And so I think that really plays a huge part of it, for sure. RR: Wonderful. I love it. Well, aside from, you know, the impressive active learner rate that we just chatted about, I’d love to know what metrics you’re looking for when you’re evaluating the success of an enablement program — and in particular, down the line as you’re evaluating the success of your new real-world coaching program.You know, as you were saying, you wanna make sure the metrics are working towards what the business is looking for. So what will you be looking for when you’re making that call? CK: I think a huge thing — and it’s something that I got to see back in Seattle in May — was the initiative scorecard. To be able to link what we’ve rolled out as an initiative, whether that be training and coaching, or the meeting intelligence and that real-world feedback — being able to see that directly reflect.We finally worked out all the kinks with the Salesforce integration to making sure everything is linked. So now we can see, all right, based on this date and this initiative rolling out, we can see those wins populating and compare it to where we were last year.So being able to see the just direct correlation between the two and positively influencing our conversion rate equals won business. RR: Awesome. So it’s that tracking activity all the way through outcome — so important to prove your impact as an enabler and really tell that your programs are doing what you hope they will.Again, excited to see how in a few months, as you’re setting that up, how it goes. We’ll certainly have to check back and see how things are going.Thinking a little bit — we’ve been talking about the future — but let’s talk about the present maybe, which is, I’d love to know how, since launching Highspot, how things are going, what results you’ve seen, any key wins, notable business outcomes you could share? Anything that you and your team have accomplished recently that you’re super proud of? CK: Yeah. To be completely honest, Highspot has been a game changer for us at FCM. It’s made a remarkable difference, saving our sales team so much time. I won’t talk about other platforms, but they can find things a lot faster than they used to be able to, and so they can pull information in 30 seconds if they’re on a call with someone or they wanna share that information with a prospect — they can do that very, very quickly and find what they need.And I think that’s like a collaboration between sales enablement and marketing to make sure all of that is housed and easy to find for our sellers. I think it’s also really helped us connect more on a global scale. We can see what’s going on in other regions instead of being siloed between regions with the time zone conflicts and all of that. It’s just made an enormous difference.And then the other thing, which we’ve rolled out — I’d say probably in the last six months or so, maybe even… maybe it’s almost been a year, gosh, time flies — a lot of our RFP submissions, so our business proposals, if it’s not through a specific platform, we utilize Highspot. And that is a differentiator.Because we like to say we are not just another vendor for our clients. We are a true partner. And so we can actually put forth our proposal and have that partnership show through — whether it’s the co-branding of our logo with their logo. Sometimes we get a little fun and have a little bit more of that collaboration in terms of the coloring and things like that in the Digital Room.It’s definitely marked us as a clear differentiator. We’ve heard feedback from our — previously prospects, now customers — that it is something that has made a huge difference because it does show that we want to partner with them. We don’t just want to be another vendor. We’re not just another contract for them to sign. We truly have a partnership with our clients. RR: Amazing. I love to hear how Highspot kind of fits into your goals as an organization to be that partner, and I’m so happy that we can kind of help along the way where we can.Just one last question for you. So to wrap up, what is one, maybe two pieces of advice that you would offer to enablement leaders who are looking to build successful coaching programs? CK: I think there’s no necessarily need to reinvent the wheel. A lot of us already have a lot more of that material — the training materials — in our arsenal. It's existed.We haven’t been able to onboard people without having training and coaching. It exists. And so being able to just improve upon it — having gone through and recently taken just our very static playbooks for onboarding and turned them into courses and lessons just to make it more interactive and not just as stagnant — but keeping kind of those playbooks in place so that they can refer back to them whenever they need to.But like, not having to reinvent the wheel. You have the wheel. Let’s just grease it up a little bit and make it run a little bit smoother. Just to be clear, thoughtful, and driving the impact that you have with that feature. It just — it makes things so much easier, and you are able to see the exact results from it when you’re able to transition it from just viewing, okay, how long has someone viewed a playbook, to seeing them actually understanding the information to be able to present it back.One of the big things that we’ve used is that recording option within a lesson, so I’ve been able to have new hires go through, learn about FCM, to then present back their elevator pitch — and being able to help guide them and help them improve upon it.And we kind of revisit it a lot. So we have them do it six months later — how has it changed? How much more have you learned about the business?So just — you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. It already exists. RR: Just improve it. Amazing. I think that’s fantastic advice. And also I think advice everybody wants to hear — you don’t need to build more things from scratch. You already have them. Just use them to your advantage. CK: Yeah. We don’t have time in enablement. We know — I know very well that you are very limited in the amount of time in a day. Unfortunately, we can’t make that change for people, but we can improve upon what we have. RR: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Carrie. It’s been so wonderful to chat with you today, and I think I speak for myself and our listeners when I say that it’s been really delightful to learn from you.To our audience, thank you for listening to this episode of the Win-Win podcast. Be sure to tune in next time for more insights on how you can maximize enablement success with Highspot.

Today's guest is Bryan Willett, Chief Information Security Officer. Bryan discusses how organizations can shift security from a reactive compliance task to a strategic advantage by leveraging AI partnerships and transparent communication. He explains how proactive security packages and AI-driven tools streamline vendor due diligence and RFP responses, reducing bottlenecks and improving cross-team collaboration. Bryan also emphasizes the importance of evaluating vendor development hygiene and maintaining developer awareness as key components to managing evolving AI-enabled cyber threats. This episode is sponsored by Aquant. Learn how brands work with Emerj and other Emerj Media options at emerj.com/ad1. Want to share your AI adoption story with executive peers? Click emerj.com/expert2 for more information and to be a potential future guest on the ‘AI in Business' podcast!

Benivo is revolutionizing how enterprises manage their global workforce through HR technology focused on Global Mobility teams. With $30 million in funding, the company has evolved from a failed Airbnb competitor into a thriving B2B platform serving major clients like Google, Microsoft, and Bayer. In this episode of Category Visionaries, we sat down with Nitzan Yudan, CEO and Founder of Benivo, to explore the company's dramatic pivot, their "sell-first, build-later" methodology, and how they've built a lean go-to-market engine that leverages AI and community selling to compete with established players. Topics Discussed: Benivo's dramatic pivot from an Airbnb competitor to enterprise HR tech The "sell-first, build-later" methodology that became company DNA How they closed Google with "the ugliest page in the history of Internet pages" Building relationships with enterprise decision-makers through weekly Saturday emails The costly mistake of trying to create a new category versus meeting buyers where they are Community selling strategies including LinkedIn Live shows and industry recognition campaigns Using AI to create efficient go-to-market operations with a team under 10 people Custom AI tools for sales coaching, RFP responses, and prospect management GTM Lessons For B2B Founders: Always sell first, then build: Nitzan's core principle is "sell-first, build-later" - a methodology born from their Google deal where they sold a solution using "the ugliest page in the history of Internet pages" and delivered manually for six months before building the actual product. This approach validates real customer demand and reveals what actually needs to be built versus what founders assume should be built. Enterprise sales is about selling yourself, not your product: Success with major clients like Google, Microsoft, and Bayer came from building deep personal relationships with decision-makers. Nitzan describes knowing the names of his prospects' children and their preferences - emphasizing that enterprise buyers are investing in people and relationships, not just features. One client relationship was maintained through weekly Saturday evening emails for months before an opportunity materialized. Match your messaging to how buyers actually buy: Benivo initially tried to create a new category by positioning themselves as a "two-for-one" solution replacing multiple industry layers. This confused buyers who didn't understand how to purchase within their existing procurement processes. When they repositioned to match existing category terminology that buyers recognized, RFP invitations and sales began flowing. The lesson: don't let category creation ambitions override buyer convenience. Leverage community selling for efficient go-to-market: With only 7-8 people in their entire go-to-market team, Benivo built a powerful community strategy including a LinkedIn Live show hosted by an industry luminary, annual "Top 100" recognition campaigns, and a 200-person "Change Maker Network" that includes prospects, customers, and even lost deals. This approach builds trust and allows enterprise buyers to engage with the company culture before making career-impacting decisions. Build custom AI tools for competitive advantage: Rather than relying on expensive purpose-built sales tools, Benivo creates custom AI solutions using basic tools like Gemini and Make.com. Their system automatically transcribes sales calls, scores deals using their MEDPIQ methodology, coaches salespeople on next steps, and generates follow-up emails. They've also built AI tools that reduce RFP response time by 70-80% by training models on their best historical responses and client-specific strategy documents.   //   Sponsors: Front Lines — We help B2B tech companies launch, manage, and grow podcasts that drive demand, awareness, and thought leadership. www.FrontLines.io The Global Talent Co. — We help tech startups find, vet, hire, pay, and retain amazing marketing talent that costs 50-70% less than the US & Europe.  www.GlobalTalent.co   //   Don't Miss: New Podcast Series — How I Hire Senior GTM leaders share the tactical hiring frameworks they use to build winning revenue teams. Hosted by Andy Mowat, who scaled 4 unicorns from $10M to $100M+ ARR and launched Whispered to help executives find their next role. Subscribe here: https://open.spotify.com/show/53yCHlPfLSMFimtv0riPyM 

Send us a textTammy Wincup has served for over 25 years as a business executive at the intersection of technology and education. Tammy is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Securly, the leading digital safety and wellness company serving over 22,000 K-12 schools globally to keep students safe, secure, and ready to learn. Before Securly, Tammy was a partner at Rethink Education, an impact venture fund investing in global education technology. For almost a decade, Tammy was the Chief Operating Officer (COO) at EVERFI, a leading education technology company. She also served as the President of Revolution Foods and the Founding President of Protocol, a media company covering the intersection of technology and policy.

Send us a textJoin hosts Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell as they explore the latest developments in education technology, from AI showdowns to immersive learning pilots and funding updates.✨ Episode Highlights:[00:02:00] OpenAI announces $28M K-12 AI training initiative with AFT, UFT, and Microsoft[00:04:34] Gallup-Walton poll reveals 68% of teachers lack AI training despite high usage[00:07:11] OpenAI takes a bottom-up approach as teachers criticize Google's AI rollout[00:23:41] Meta forms Superintelligence Labs, aggressively hiring AI talent across the industry[00:36:17] Senate blocks AI regulation ban, states retain power to legislate AI in education[00:37:31] Higher Ground Education files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, prompting edtech funding debate[00:42:05] Honor Education raises $38M to enhance asynchronous social learning[00:42:45] Teaching Lab merges with Relay Graduate School of Education to scale AI-aligned PDPlus, special guests:[00:44:17] Josh Reibel, CEO of Dreamscape Learn and Dr. Jennifer Cruz, Superintendent of the Pendergast Elementary School District discuss VR and immersive learning with Dreamscape Learn[01:46:15] Eduaide.Ai founders Thomas Thompson and Thomas Hummel on empowering teacherpreneurs with AI

Guest: Ray Meiring, Co-Founder & CEO at QorusDocsScaling a SaaS business from consultancy roots to enterprise success requires more than just great tech—it takes ruthless focus, smart go-to-market choices, and a deep understanding of your buyer.In this episode, Ray Meiring, co-founder and CEO of QorusDocs, joins host Ken Lempit to share the lessons learned on his journey from South Africa to the U.S. market and how QorusDocs carved out a winning niche in AI-powered proposal automation.We unpack: ✅ Why founder-led sales can't scale—and how to move beyond it ✅ The trap of chasing SMBs after funding (and what to do instead) ✅ How QorusDocs found product-market fit through one anchor customer ✅ What every SaaS CRO and CMO should know about RFP response teams ✅ The critical role of marketing in driving pipeline (not just sales)Ray also shares the moment venture funding pushed them off course—and how doubling down on their ideal customer profile helped them reset, rebuild, and grow more efficiently.If you're a SaaS CMO or CRO scaling into enterprise, navigating founder-to-function transitions, or wondering where AI really moves the needle, this episode is packed with firsthand insight.---Not Getting Enough Demos? Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

Responding to a Request for Proposal (RFP) can be a powerful way to win new business—but only if it's the right opportunity. RFPs often demand considerable time, resources, and cross-functional coordination, so blindly responding to every one can lead to wasted effort, low win rates, and team burnout. Look up your RFP win rates as Scott and I question, Should You Respond to an RFP? and other magnificent musings on Episode 677 of the Winning at Selling podcast. Episode 675 with Jason Talley - Quote vs. Proposal and RFP's Our next book – The Power of Purpose by Mitch Larsonhttps://www.amazon.com/Power-Purpose-guide-discover-yours/dp/1960111280/ref=sr_1_1  Bill Hellkamp – See my LinkedIn profile and send me an invite Visit my website: http://www.reachdev.com/ Scott “Professor Plum” Plum – See my LinkedIn profile and send me an invite Visit my website: https://www.mnsales.com

Discover how Mark Shriner, CEO of Breeze Docs, is transforming small and mid-sized businesses with AI-driven RFP solutions—saving time, boosting wins, and reshaping sales processes.00:35- About Mark ShrinerMark is the CEO and co-founder of Breeze Docs. He's the author of a book titled The Inside Game: How to Become a Top Performing Salesperson and Enjoy Every Step of the Way.

Send us a textIn this special episode, we speak with the founder of Edthena and five outstanding educators who were honored as 2025 Teacher Leader Impact Award winners. Each guest shares how they're shaping the future of professional learning, using technology in smart and supportive ways, and leading from the classroom and beyond.

Send us a textSam Whitaker is the Senior Director of Social Impact and Institutional Development at StudyFetch, an all-encompassing AI learning platform for students. His primary focuses are bringing advanced AI education to underserved communities around the world and developing safe and responsible K-12 AI solutions.

RFP - 'The Stronger Women Get, the More Men Love Football' by Mariah Burton Nelson, discussed by Jo Brew and Dorothea Annison.A live webinar recorded on 13th July 2025 at 10am UK time.On Sundays (10am UK time), our webinar series Radical Feminist Perspectives offers a chance to hear leading feminists discuss radical feminist theory and politics.Attendance of our live webinars is women-only, register at https://bit.ly/registerRFP

Send us a textJoin hosts Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell with guest Jacob Kantor as they explore a transformative Week-in-Edtech, from Google's AI-powered classroom revolution to major political shifts affecting schools nationwide.Episode Highlights:[00:03:17] Google launches 50 AI tools for educators through Classroom and Gemini[00:05:47] Startup funding threatened as Google expands free AI features[00:13:41] Google solidifies K-12 dominance, pushing out AI competitors[00:24:51] OpenAI and Microsoft fund new AI training hub for 400,000 teachers[00:33:22] Survey finds 60% of teachers using AI, saving nearly 6 hours per week [00:36:22] Federal government freezes $6B in school funding, including EL programs[00:38:17] ICE raids linked to 30% rise in school absences among Latino students[00:43:32] Families turning to private edtech as school trust declines[00:46:49] ISTE highlights include Amplify, Brisk, Quizziz rebrand, Meta's school mode[00:50:34] Edtech Insiders WhatsApp group emerges as top source for breaking newsPlus, special guests:[00:51:36] Matt Dalio, Founder of Endless Studios on teaching real-world skills through student-designed video games[00:53:56] Anne Trumbore, author of The Teacher in the Machine, on AI, learning platforms, and the future of teaching

How to Scale SaaS with AI-Powered Digital Labor | Aaron Godby - SaaS FuelWhat if AI could replace repetitive work and give your team superpowers?Aaron Godby, founder of Green Irony, shows how smart companies are scaling with AI-driven “digital labor” that never forgets, works 24/7, and delivers consistent results.In this episode, we break down:How to find low-value tasks in your SaaS and automate them with AIWhy ChatGPT isn't a toy—it's your next top performerWhat makes Agent Force a game-changer for SaaS opsHow to rethink hiring, team structure, and leadership in the AI ageWhy most AI tools fail to drive real results—and how to fix itIf you're serious about scaling your SaaS without hiring a huge team, this is essential listening.Key Takeaways00:00 - What tasks waste your team's time?03:06 - The key to making AI and humans work together04:15 - Lessons from Carson Aslam & Scott Cate (past guests)05:20 - Meet Aaron Godby, founder of Green Irony06:33 - What is Agent Force?08:07 - How to ensure consistent AI performance09:25 - Real-world productivity boosts using AI11:23 - Why AI agents outperform new hires13:06 - The power of context windows in AI14:21 - How Aaron spotted the AI opportunity early16:14 - The toughest challenges in building an AI consulting business19:12 - Example use case: automating RFP responses21:03 - The business model behind Green Irony24:33 - Key lessons from building Green Irony26:09 - Should you diversify or specialize in tech ecosystems?28:07 - How to stay nimble with APIs30:05 - Bootstrapping vs VC funding in AI SaaS31:32 - Cutting through the AI hype to find what works34:34 - Leading AI teams with clarity and purpose37:02 - What the future of digital labor means for SaaS38:34 - The key question SaaS founders should ask their ops teamsTweetable Quotes"If AI isn't saving you time or making you money, you're using it wrong." — Aaron Godby"Digital labor doesn't call in sick, doesn't forget, and scales instantly." — Aaron Godby"The biggest gains come when humans and AI collaborate, not compete." — Aaron Godby"Stop chasing the next AI tool. Start solving real problems with the tools you already have." — Aaron Godby"Bootstrapping makes you focus on outcomes, not hype." — Aaron GodbySaaS Leadership LessonsDon't automate for automation's sakeFocus AI on the tasks that save time, increase revenue, or improve customer experience.AI agents are like new hires—but betterThey learn fast, never forget, and work 24/7 without burnout.Context is the secret weaponThe bigger the context window, the smarter and more useful your AI gets.Most SaaS teams treat AI like a plugin, not a pillarThe winners build AI into the core of their operations and org design.The future team is hybridHuman creativity + AI execution = exponential scale.Guest ResourcesEmail - aaron@greenirony.comWebsite - https://greenirony.com/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aarongodby/Episode SponsorSmall Fish, Big Pond –

Send us a textMatt Miller is the CEO and Co-Founder of OKO Labs, an innovative EdTech company developing human-centric, pro-social AI to power collaborative learning in K-12 classrooms. With a background as CTO and VP of Labs at Amplify Education and VP of Product at Flatiron School, Matt brings deep technical expertise and a passion for leveraging technology to solve real-world educational challenges. Holding BS and MS degrees in Computer Science and Intelligent Systems from Columbia University, Matt co-founded OKO in 2020 to address the critical need for scalable, engaging, and equitable small-group learning solutions, starting with a focus on math intervention. He leads OKO's mission to foster not only academic growth but also essential skills like teamwork and communication, driven by a commitment to evidence-based practices and rigorous R&D. 

Understanding Entrepreneurship, and Innovation with Branden Doyle Founder and CEO of Violett Sponsors The Jason Cavness experience is brought to you by Breeze Docs. Request for Proposals AKA RFPs, can be very challenging for Small & Medium-sized Businesses. Breeze Docs, the RFP response platform of choice for SMBs across North America, uses AI to help companies quickly complete RFPs, security questionnaires, and other important business documents. If you'd like to start winning more RFPs and reduce completion times by up to 80 percent, visit breezedocs.ai to book a demo.  By mentioning the Jason Cavness Experience, you will qualify for a free upgrade from Breeze Solo to Breeze AI+ valued at $6,000. Follow the Breeze at www.breezedocs.ai Sign up for free upgrade here https://www.breezedocs.ai/rfp-response-software-jason-caveness Branden's Bio Branden Doyle is the Founder and CEO of Violett, an air health technology company founded in 2020 and with products in market since 2023. Violett is the global leader in eliminating viruses and other pollutants from the air, helping hundreds of nursing homes, schools and workplaces keep their people safe and healthy. Starting with a launch of the Violett M portable product, Violett is now launching solutions in the built-environment and collaborating with strategic partners to gain sales and manufacturing scale. Violett has also developed the ability to detect and differentiate between different pathogens and pollutants in the air, and is working to develop and commercialize this technology with a university partner. Branden is the father of 2 young children, resides in Gig Harbor, and spends available time focused on fitness through weightlifting, running, cycling, and SUPing.  We talk about the following and other items The World of Standup Paddleboarding Powerlifting vs. Regular Lifting Balancing Fitness and Life The Importance of Proper Form Nuclear Engineering Career Insights Nuclear Safety and Security Innovations in Nuclear Technology Entrepreneurship and Innovation The Birth of Violett Challenges and Adaptations in a Post-COVID World Validating Product Requirements Defining Innovation Creativity in Engineering Balancing Speed and Caution Redefining Success The Importance of Mentorship Ethics in Engineering Productivity Hacks Taking the First Step Pride in Personal Achievements Proving Product Effectiveness Navigating Market Entry The Value of Patents Target Markets and Partnerships Balancing Tech and Marketing Maintaining Quality Control Personal Well-being and Productivity Parenting and Entrepreneurship Unique Technology and Air Quality Innovative Air Quality Technology Real-Time Air Quality Database Ionization and Spectroscopy Explained Challenges in Air Quality Monitoring Daily Productivity Tips Balancing Partnerships and Profits Mental Health for Founders Fundraising Challenges in Seattle The Future of Technology and AI The Importance of Clean Air Branden's Social Media LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandendoyle/ Company Website: https://www.violettuv.com/ Branden's Advice "You've got to just get out there and try. I've met so many people with great ideas who never take that first step. So put yourself out into the world and talk to people, test your ideas, and build something you're genuinely passionate about. That first step matters more than you think."

RFP - 'Ecofeminism' by Vandana Shiva and Maria Mies, discussed by aurora linnea and Lierre Keith.A live webinar recorded on 6th July 2025 at 10am UK time.On Sundays (10am UK time), our webinar series Radical Feminist Perspectives offers a chance to hear leading feminists discuss radical feminist theory and politics.Attendance of our live webinars is women-only, register at https://bit.ly/registerRFP

Send us a textJoin hosts Alex Sarlin and Ben Kornell for a thought-provoking summer edition of Week in Edtech, featuring headline debates on AI in education, a rare look into PBS KIDS' funding crisis, and grassroots innovation in ocean learning from Ecuador.✨ Episode Highlights:[00:03:16] MIT study raises alarms about AI's impact on student thinking[00:07:42] AI cheating scandal hits national debate championships[00:12:33] Teachers vent frustration as AI disrupts classroom dynamics[00:14:45] Educators face a crossroads: ban AI or embrace it as a teaching toolPlus, special guests:[00:19:09] Sarah DeWitt, SVP & General Manager of PBS KIDS, on funding cuts, educational media, and AI experiments in public broadcasting[00:41:38] José Francisco Ochoa Ordóñez, Co-founder of Academia del Oceano, on democratizing ocean education through hybrid EdTech in Latin America

Send us a textJerome Pesenti is the founder of Sizzle AI, an AI-for-learning company whose mission is to make learning amazing for everyone. Jerome has worked in AI for the past 25 years, including as VP of AI at Meta, co-CEO of BenevolentAI, VP at IBM Watson, and co-founder of Vivisimo (sold to IBM).

RFP - 'Women against Violence against Women' (Section 2), ed. by Rhodes and McNeil, discussed by Sandra McNeil.A live webinar recorded on 29th June 2025 at 10am UK time.On Sundays (10am UK time), our webinar series Radical Feminist Perspectives offers a chance to hear leading feminists discuss radical feminist theory and politics.Attendance of our live webinars is women-only, register at https://bit.ly/registerRFP

Scaling with Heart: Francisca [Kika] Escobar Bascur Escobar on 2X/3X Growth, Shopify, and the Power of Connection Sponsors The Jason Cavness experience is brought to you by Breeze Docs.  Request for Proposals AKA RFPs, can be very challenging for Small & Medium-sized Businesses. Breeze Docs, the RFP response platform of choice for SMBs across North America, uses AI to help companies quickly complete RFPs, security questionnaires, and other important business documents.  If you'd like to start winning more RFPs and reduce completion times by up to 80 percent, visit breezedocs.ai to book a demo.  By mentioning the Jason Cavness Experience, you will qualify for a free upgrade from Breeze Solo to Breeze AI+ valued at $6,000. Follow the Breeze at www.breezedocs.ai Sign up for free upgrade here https://www.breezedocs.ai/rfp-response-software-jason-caveness CavnessHR: Seattle's Got Tech on Wednesday, July 30 at Seattle Chamber of Commerce.  RSVP: https://lu.ma/v8ihldrg  Go to www.thejasoncavnessexperience.com for the podcast on your favorite platforms Kika's Bio  Kika helps businesses sell more and scale smarter. Founder of The Kickass Company and Sell With Kika, she's trained over 250,000 people and is one of the top voices in eCommerce across Latin America. Kika is a leading voice in eCommerce and Business throughout Latin America. She's the Co-Founder of TheKickass Company, a strategic business partner for brands that want to build or create an eCommerce business that actually works (not just in theory). Through this work, she has helped dozens of companies expand their footprint, grow their sales, and scale smarter both in local and international markets. She's also the founder of Sell With Kika, her U.S.-based consulting brand focused on eCommerce strategy, business development, and connecting U.S. companies with Latin America's growing market. In addition to this, she also co-founded Loadingplay, a tech company that automates the omnichannel experience, and led the creation of MDA (Market Development Associate) an initiative built in collaboration with Shopify to develop and strengthen the local eCommerce ecosystem in Chile, with more than 3.000 people participation in over 26 in person events. A Business Engineer with over 19 years of experience in commercial strategy and sales, Kika has advised hundreds of businesses and trained more than 250,000 people through workshops, masterclasses, and public programs. She also teaches eCommerce at the MBA Tech Program at Universidad Andrés Bello (UNAB) and at eClass, where she helps professionals and business owners take their digital strategies to the next level. She believes that when a business knows “How to Sell”, everyone wins because selling more creates opportunity, jobs, and momentum. Her approach is simple and powerful: know your customer deeply, show your product as the solution they're already searching for, and make it easy for them to buy from you. Kika is a TEDx speaker, author of the handbook “How to Build an eCommerce” for the Santiago Chamber of Commerce, and a frequent speaker at top industry events like eCommerce Day, Fashion Online, and Digitaliza tu Pyme.  Who is Kika Escobar Her latest recognitions include being named “Genia del Año en eCommerce 2023” and receiving the “Emprendedora de Impacto” award from UDD in 2024, acknowledgments that reflect her impact, passion, and leadership in shaping the future of eCommerce across the region. We talk about the following and other items Kika's Passion for Sports and Travel The Kickass Company: Building Shopify Websites Choosing the Right Sales Channels Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in E-commerce The Art of Selling Knowing Your Customer Public Speaking Tips and Overcoming Fear MCing the Korean Startup Group Event Exploring Business Opportunities in Seattle AI in E-commerce Personalization Advice for Aspiring Entrepreneurs Emerge Lab Women's Initiatives Chilean Culture and Misconceptions Favorite Places in Chile Chilean Startups and Entrepreneurs VC and Investment Landscape in Chile Business Advice for US Companies in Chile E-commerce Trends in Latin America Balancing a Busy Schedule Dealing with Entrepreneurial Highs and Lows Social Media Strategy Future Plans and Goals  Kika's Social Media LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mar%C3%ADa-francisca-escobar-bascur/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kikaescobarbascur The KickAss Website: https://thekickass.cl/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kikaescobarbascur/ Company Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thekickass_co/ Kika's Advice “Screw it, let's do it. Take action instead of overthinking. Ask, “What's the worst that can happen?” and plan how you'd handle that outcome. Shift from Gap to Gain (Dan Sullivan's The Gap and the Gain): Gap: Comparing yourself to an ideal keeps happiness out of reach. Gain: Measuring progress against where you started builds confidence. Daily Gain habit: End each day by writing three wins big or small (e.g., waking up early, finishing laundry). Gratitude rewires your brain to spot opportunities, not deficits.  See life as a bowl of opportunities. Treat every success or setback as a chance to learn and grow. Mindset is a personal choice, open to everyone no matter their starting point.

Send us a textNonprofit grant applications can be time-consuming, complex, and discouraging, but they don't have to be. That's exactly what inspired Gauri Manglik to co-found Instrumentl, an all-in-one platform that simplifies grant discovery, tracking, and strategy.In this Season 2 encore episode of The Nonprofit Podcast, Cara sits down with Gauri to talk grant application techniques that save time and increase your chances of success. Whether your organization is just getting started or scaling its fundraising efforts, this episode delivers insights and strategies that remain effective today.If you're trying to decide whether to prioritize grant funding or Giving Season campaigns in the second half of the year, this conversation will help you plan with clarity and purpose. It's full of guidance for nonprofits at every stage of growth and development, especially those looking to build a more intentional grant strategy in Q3 and beyond.Learn how to spot right-fit funders (and what not to waste time on)Hear why relationship-building with grantors is just as crucial as it is with donorsGet clarity on when grants should not be your first fundraising strategyDiscover what makes a strong proposal, and how to build one that funders trustAnd walk away with a smarter, more doable approach to planning your grant calendarResource List:The Ultimate Grant Writing Resources Collection: features over 100 pages of grant writing resources ranging from grants calendar guides to RFP evaluation tools.Grant Writing Classes On-Demand: 50+ hours of free grant writing education that can be watched by any grant writer regardless of skill levelSuccessful Grant Proposal Examples: The Ultimate List: successful grant proposal examples to show how you can start winning grant funding for your organization.49 Grant Writing Resources: The Ultimate List: the most comprehensive list of grant tools and grant writing resources for nonprofits.Listen now and refine your nonprofit grant application strategy with confidence.Don't forget, our new season launches July 3 with even more tools, tactics, and practical fundraising insights.What makes Donorbox the Best Nonprofit Fundraising Platform to Achieve Your Strategic Goals?Easy to customize, available in multiple languages and currencies, and supported by leading payment processors (Stripe and PayPal), Donorbox's nonprofit fundraising solution is used by 80,000+ global organizations and individuals. From animal rescue to schools, places of worship, and research groups, nonprofits use Donorbox to raise more funds, manage donors efficiently, and make a bigger impact.Discover how Donorbox can help you help others! The Nonprofit Podcast and a wealth of nonprofit leadership tutorials,  expert advice, tips, and tactics are available on the Donorbox YouTube channel. Subscribe today and never miss an episode:

Today's defense landscape is chaotic and fast-moving. Drones, AI, autonomy, and cyber threats are reshaping how wars are fought…and how the Pentagon spends.  For companies and CEOs, the barrier to entry has never been lower. Any startup with a pitch deck and some funding can say they're in “defense.” But actually succeeding in this market? That's never been harder. Small businesses get lost in red tape, big businesses lose their edge chasing shiny objects. Most companies looking to break into the defense space still pitch like it's 2005, leading with tech specs, chasing every shiny RFP, and assuming that great engineering sells itself. It doesn't…not in today's environment. So what's the right strategy in this market? How do companies set themselves up to win?  In this episode, I sit down with Gemo Yesil, founder and managing partner of Bastion Atlas, to unpack why so many well-funded startups, savvy CEOs, and legacy contractors are falling flat, and what it really takes to win in today's high-stakes, high-complexity market. Gemo knows the DoD world inside and out. An MIT-trained aerospace engineer, Air Force veteran, and founder of a fast-scaling fractional BD firm, he's seen firsthand how companies of all sizes struggle with the same fundamental issue: a lack of clear, executable strategy. Gemo explains how defense acquisition has evolved from lumbering legacy programs to fast-moving, software-driven warfare. He shares why the real differentiator today isn't tech specs or connections, it's clarity: about your market, your business model, and what “good” defense revenue actually looks like. You'll also learn: The biggest misconceptions companies have when trying to sell to the DoD Why most “strategies” aren't really strategies and how to create one that's tangible and repeatable What it actually means to define “good business” in the defense sector The risks of chasing large contracts that don't align with your long-term goals How Bastion Atlas approaches fractional business development and execution Why understanding the DoD's operational context is key to communicating product value The growing shift toward treating AI and software as major weapon systems Why traditional consulting is fading and how fractional BD is becoming the new model How to win with process, patience, and a long-term perspective   Guest Bio Gemo Yesil is a combat veteran, aerospace engineer and founder and principal at Bastion Atlas. He is a Global Defense Business Development executive with 20 years of experience, and a dual-rated U.S. Air Force pilot, who has flown Combat Rescue helicopters and Tactical Airlift jets in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, and South America. After managing Fortune 500 engineering teams on multiple $2B+ programs at Sikorsky/Lockheed Martin and scaling his EdTech startup nationally, Gemo has served as CMC Electronics' Global Sales & Strategy Director, Gecko Robotics' Head of Defense Business Development, and HABCO Industries' VP of Sales & Marketing. He launched Bastion Atlas in 2024 to assemble a team of revenue growth experts and scale their impact across the global Aerospace & Defense industry. Gemo remains proudly connected to his alma mater (MIT), retains an active security clearance, and — as a personal passion — continues to manage national STEM Education initiatives. To learn more, visit https://www.bastionatlas.com/ and connect with Gemo in LinkedIn.    About Your Host Craig Picken is an Executive Recruiter, writer, speaker and ICF Trained Executive Coach. He is focused on recruiting senior-level leadership, sales, and operations executives in the aviation and aerospace industry. His clients include premier OEMs, aircraft operators, leasing/financial organizations, and Maintenance/Repair/Overhaul (MRO) providers and since 2008, he has personally concluded more than 400 executive-level searches in a variety of disciplines. Craig is the ONLY industry executive recruiter who has professionally flown airplanes, sold airplanes, and successfully run a P&L in the aviation industry. His professional career started with a passion for airplanes. After eight years' experience as a decorated Naval Flight Officer – with more than 100 combat missions, 2,000 hours of flight time, and 325 aircraft carrier landings – Craig sought challenges in business aviation, where he spent more than 7 years in sales with both Gulfstream Aircraft and Bombardier Business Aircraft. Craig is also a sought-after industry speaker who has presented at Corporate Jet Investor, International Aviation Women's Association, and SOCAL Aviation Association.    Check out this episode on our website, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and don't forget to leave a review if you like what you heard. Your review feeds the algorithm so our show reaches more people. Thank you! 

In this episode, Lisa and Brea explore the phenomenon of low ticket offers and how they can be a game-changer for your business. While high ticket items often steal the spotlight, we believe that low ticket offers have their own unique magic that can help you build relationships and grow your business. Plus, we have a special invitation for you! Make sure to listen to the end for an exciting new opportunity to connect with other listeners, ask questions, and get support as you implement what you learn. Let's unlock the potential of low ticket offers together! Work With Us to Decide on Your Low Ticket Offer BREA Roper Communication | Woo | Activator | Futuristic | Connectedness If you need a Strengths Hype Girl for yourself or your team, connect with Brea at brearoper.com. She's ready to deliver an inspirational keynote, empowering training, or transformational workshop. If you're looking for an expert guide to support your internal Strengths efforts, reach out today! LISA Cummings Strategic | Maximizer | Positivity | Individualization | Woo To work with Lisa, check out her resources for independent coaches, trainers, and speakers. Get business tools and strategy support with her Tools for Coaches membership.   Takeaways on Using Low Ticket Offers In an Independent Coaching Practice   The power of the no-brainer factor. Low ticket is a strategy for creating offers that your audience can't resist, making it easy for them to say "yes!" ●      Transform Browsers into Buyers: By offering low ticket items, you can convert freebie seekers into paying customers. This shift not only establishes a business relationship but also increases the likelihood of repeat purchases in the future. ●      Creative low ticket ideas: Steal some of Lisa & Brea's favorite low ticket offerings that you can implement in your coaching practice. ●      Leverage Existing Content: Coaches can create low ticket offers from existing materials, such as recorded webinars, activity guides, or coaching templates. This allows you to monetize content you've already developed, making it easier to generate income. ●      Build Trust and Value: Low ticket offers can help establish trust with your audience. When clients see the value in your lower-priced products, they are more likely to invest in higher-ticket items down the line, creating a sustainable business model.   Take Action to Build a Low Ticket Offer Strategy ●      Define Your Low Ticket Offer: Determine what your low ticket offer will be. Remember to make it a “no-brainer” for potential customers. ●      Repackage an Existing Asset: Look through your existing materials (like recorded webinars, handouts, or coaching questions) and package them into a low ticket offer. Aim to create something that provides value and can be easily sold, such as a workbook or an activity guide. ●      Ask For the Sale: After you create a clear offer, it's time to communicate it to your audience. Remember, people who have bought from you before are more likely to buy again. ●      Automate Your Sales: Consider exploring ways to automate the sales of your low ticket offers, such as through email marketing or online sales platforms, to generate income while you focus on other aspects of your business.

Cody Brown CEO Security Research Group Sponsors The Jason Cavness experience is brought to you by Breeze Docs. Request for Proposals AKA RFPs, can be very challenging for Small & Medium-sized Businesses. Breeze Docs, the RFP response platform of choice for SMBs across North America, uses AI to help companies quickly complete RFPs, security questionnaires, and other important business documents. If you'd like to start winning more RFPs and reduce completion times by up to 80 percent, visit breezedocs.ai to book a demo.  By mentioning the Jason Cavness Experience, you will qualify for a free upgrade from Breeze Solo to Breeze AI+ valued at $6,000.  Follow the Breeze at www.breezedocs.ai Sign up for free upgrade here https://www.breezedocs.ai/rfp-response-software-jason-caveness CavnessHR: Seattle's Got Tech Sign up to demo your tech and win prizes for being the best tech  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdBV98Am90oAoP08vWaS870Uk7Zp7WVDCwF6PALwlJf5NgmWw/viewform?usp=header Go to www.thejasoncavnessexperience.com for the podcast on your favorite platforms  Cody's Bio Cody Brown is a cybersecurity leader with over a decade of experience delivering strategic solutions for enterprise security, offensive cyber operations, and compliance. A former Navy CTN and DoD security expert, he has led national-scale projects for agencies like U.S. Cyber Command and the Army Research Lab. Cody is the CEO of Security Research Group, specializing in military-grade cybersecurity solutions. He holds a Master of Information Technology from Virginia Tech and a B.S. in Cyber Operations from Dakota State.  We talk about the following and other items Cody's Hobbies and Interests Understanding Cybersecurity Individual and Business Cybersecurity Threats Detecting and Responding to Hacks Ransomware and Extortion Tactics Common Cybersecurity Misconceptions Hacking Methods and Social Engineering Dark Web and Internet Infrastructure VPNs and Internet Privacy Starting a Cybersecurity Company Military Grade Cybersecurity Government vs. Private Sector Cybersecurity US Cybersecurity Ranking AI in Cybersecurity: Hype or Reality? Explaining Cybersecurity to Non-Techies P roudest Achievements and Business Challenges Advice for Aspiring Cybersecurity Professionals Career Paths in Cybersecurity Hiring and Vetting Cybersecurity Talent Private Sector's Role in National Cybersecurity Trends and Threats in Cybersecurity Importance of Multi-Factor Authentication Password Managers: Are They Worth It? Cybersecurity Myths and Realities Ethics in Cybersecurity Starting and Running a Cybersecurity Business Networking and Business Growth Balancing Technical Skills and Customer Service Personal Hobbies and Background Founding and Naming the Company Customer Recommendations and Implementation When to Prioritize Cybersecurity Employee Recruitment and Retention Navy Experience and Education Daily Prioritization and Work-Life Balance Early Interest in Technology and Career Path Future of Cybersecurity AI Platforms and Data Security Government Contracts and Bidding Process Evolution of Cybersecurity Company Focus and Insider Threats Cody's Social Media https://securityresearch.us/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/srg-sec/  https://www.linkedin.com/in/cody-ross-brown/  Cody's Advice   I'll just emphasize it the last time, if you don't have multifactor authentication enabled on your accounts, definitely just go and do that right now.

Syed K. Jamal Founder & CEO Board Member Ford Fellow Executive Producer WTIA Alum Measures what matters On a mission to transform education with creative economy Sponsors The Jason Cavness experience is brought to you by Breeze Docs. Request for Proposals AKA RFPs, can be very challenging for Small & Medium-sized Businesses. Breeze Docs, the RFP response platform of choice for SMBs across North America, uses AI to help companies quickly complete RFPs, security questionnaires, and other important business documents.  If you'd like to start winning more RFPs and reduce completion times by up to 80 percent, visit breezedocs.ai to book a demo. By mentioning the Jason Cavness Experience, you will qualify for a free upgrade from Breeze Solo to Breeze AI+ valued at $6,000. Follow the Breeze at www.breezedocs.ai Sign up for free upgrade here  https://www.breezedocs.ai/rfp-response-software-jason-caveness CavnessHR: Seattle's Got Tech Sign up to demo your tech and win prizes for being the best tech  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdBV98Am90oAoP08vWaS870Uk7Zp7WVDCwF6PALwlJf5NgmWw/viewform?usp=header Go to www.thejasoncavnessexperience.com for the podcast on your favorite platforms Syed's Bio Syed is an Indian-American entrepreneur and strategic advisor, focused on empowering young people to make informed career decisions and fostering meaningful cross-cultural collaborations. As the Chairman of the Tacoma-Kochi Friendship City Committee, he leads efforts to strengthen film and educational partnerships between India and the United States. An executive producer at 222 Pictures and a trained filmmaker (Mass Communication Research Center, Jamia, New Delhi), Syed serves on the Board of Advisors for The Way Home: Journey of Family and Faith, a documentary exploring the resilience of three generations of Tibetan women striving to preserve their cultural heritage. Syed is also on the board of Tasveer, the only Oscar-qualifying South Asian Film Festival in the world. In this role, he is excited to build film institute partnerships to inspire and engage young people through film production and storytelling. With a dynamic career spanning media, higher education, and nonprofits in both India and the US, Syed brings a unique blend of creative vision and strategic expertise. He actively volunteers with the World Trade Center Tacoma as its India Ambassador, serves on the Board of Directors of the World Affairs Council of Tacoma, and mentors aspiring entrepreneurs through Bridge for Billions.  Additionally, he curates transformative impact projects for Collegey.com and evaluates student initiatives for Rise, a prestigious global talent program by Schmidt Futures and the Rhodes Trust. As a leader in organizational strategy, Syed drives innovation, builds high-impact partnerships, and ensures measurable client outcomes. His professional journey includes pivotal roles in media, academia, and international education, underpinned by his personal experience as an International Ford Foundation Fellow pursuing graduate studies in international affairs. This global perspective informs his vision for initiatives like Collegey and Branta, both of which aim to inspire and support the next generation of changemakers. In 2011, Syed joined the Fulbright Commission to advance the US Department of State's public diplomacy efforts through EducationUSA.  As Communications Manager, he led groundbreaking digital outreach campaigns, cultivated strategic partnerships, and conducted recruitment programs and workshops in collaboration with US Foreign Service Officers. Since transitioning from EducationUSA, Syed has consulted for leading youth and higher education organizations across India/South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. In 2015, he founded Branta, a consulting firm that bridges global education and youth networks in the US and youth-centered initiatives in emerging markets. Syed's expertise lies at the intersection of the creative economy, public diplomacy, social entrepreneurship, and impact-driven programming. His passion for fostering global citizenship, project-based learning, and cross-cultural innovation continues to shape his contributions to the education and creative economy sectors.  We talk about the following and other items Syed's Background and Journey The Importance of Poetry and Nature Biking and Favorite Poets Cultural Differences in Poetry Empowering Youth in Career Decisions The Future of Higher Education The Role of College Tacoma's Transformation and Strengths The Creative Economy in Tacoma The Role of Nonprofits in Tacoma Becoming a Filmmaker The Power of Camera Angles in Filmmaking The Impact of Lighting on Perception Changes in the Filmmaking Industry The Evolution of Storytelling Humanizing Homelessness The Role of South Asian Film Festivals The Importance of Social Capital Religious and Cultural Practices in India The World Trade Center and International Trade I nnovation and Creativity Immigrating to the United States The Cost of Private Education The Value of Public Schools The Impact of Socioeconomic Disparities Originality and Courage in Creativity India-Pakistan Relations Introducing Grid City Studio Building Tacoma as a Creative Hub Engaging the Community  Syed's Social Media LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/skjamal/ Personal Website: https://www.gobranta.com/ceofounder Syed's Advice   I am not very good at giving advice. I would say just, think about your story a lot. You have a story. Don't underestimate your story. Your story is a collective story of your parents, your neighborhood, your neighbors, your books. It's all part of your story, so don't underestimate your story. Please tell your story, talk about yourself, talk about, the environment you grew up in, things that bothers you. Talk about it. It matters a lot when we talk about our personal things. A lot of people, a lot of time people shy away, they avoid talking about themselves because they think it's showing off.  I don't think it's showing off. You are at your most authentic self when you just talk about your story as your story. So please don't underestimate your stories. We might pick up one of your stories and make a movie out of it.

Technical brilliance is table stakes. Influence is the multiplier. In this episode, Hakeem Adebiyi sits down with Francie Jain—CEO of Terawatt, the coach-matching platform—to unpack:Google's Project Aristotle: why psychological safety outperforms raw IQA Colorado hospital that saved $32 M per year by embracing group coaching“Opposite-Strengths” teaming: pairing your weakness with someone's superpowerThree quick wins STEM pros can start today to boost executive presenceHow Terawatt lets companies RFP a coach the way you'd book a room on AirbnbHit ▶, then follow the show so you never miss an episode packed with actionable leadership science.