ValuClarity

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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

JIm Dickie is the co-leader of Sales Mastery a research and advisory firm serving companies who sell business-to-business (B2B). Sales Mastery just introduced their survey of B2B buying behavior. We shared some of the insights his firm uncovered, and what that means to selling…now and in the future. Some highlights: Salespeople are not viewed favorably by customers, and that decreases the quality of 1) selling and 2) more importantly the quality of buying decisions.

Jim also stays close to developments in machine learning and artificial intelligence, and had some positive news regarding some new tools that help sales people have meaningful customer conversations about outcomes…in contrast with some current automation tools which simply accelerate a cycle of sales mediocrity.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices