Disruption / Interruption

Our guest today works with architects, engineers, farmers, and city planners to create buildings that come alive and are a source of food for people living in the area. But growing thousands of plants indoors with building restrictions and putting together all the stakeholders quickly complicates things. 

Enter disruptor Dawn Parks, CEO & Owner of The Alternate Edge Consulting, who is also a conductor of these big projects. She knows how and when to engage the different stakeholders to make food sustainability a reality.   

 Key Takeaways: 

• Nearly 19 million people in the US don’t live near a grocery store.   
• For funding, people rely on the government agencies, which are very limited in what they can provide in terms of funding.   
• The main ingredient for disruption is thinking outside the box and looking for technologies that could fit together which haven’t been thought about before.   
• The government agencies have to provide an ROI back to the government, prove the budget every year and not get cut off.    
• Status Quo of food sustainability remains its location/geographic specific. Because of the history of the low-income area, high crime rate or lower socio-economic area, a lot of retailers/grocery store owners don’t move in and/or take a risk doing so.    
• The problem also remains with getting food to the consumer’s location in the US. In other cases like sending food outside the country, the food has to go through aid agencies that get caught up in a political situation where the food never reaches the people it’s intended for.    
• Climate change also contributes to the problem and impacts the vegetation which has an impact on how the crops grow and what needs to be fed to the live stocks.    
• Technology along with data can help make better decisions for everyone to be more productive and profitable.   
• How’s the disruption happening now? Understanding the core problem, the local community and their needs and working towards what’s needed help to overcome the food deserts. 

Quote of the show: 

7:34 to 7:55 

“The grocery stores aren’t moving in and those that do move in are taking bigger risk. Because there isn’t a lot of retailers, might be higher crime rate, might be a socio economic area, so then if you have $40 and need to feed 5 people, it’s easier to go to McDonalds’ than go buy broccoli and lettuce. “  

Links: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dawnparks/ 
• Company Website:  https://edgesustainability.com/ 

 Ways to Tune In: 

• Amazon Music - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/eccda84d-4d5b-4c52-ba54-7fd8af3cbe87/disruption-interruption 
• Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/disruption-interruption/id1581985755 
• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6yGSwcSp8J354awJkCmJlD

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our guest today, Jesse Woodbury is a disruptor in SaaS sales and a host of a successful podcast show SaaS Sales Players.  

High dollar SaaS sales tend to involve at least half a dozen stakeholders with crazy competition and them being educated about the industry. Enter Jesse Woodbury, he has created 2 frameworks that help providers close over 7 figures in ARR. 

  Key Takeaways:   

• The SaaS market currently growing by 18% each year and is expected to grow to 22% by end of 2022 and is being considered to transform the IT industry from a cost centre to a value centre.  

• SaaS adaption in the Health care industry is growing at the rate of 20% per year.    
• The main ingredient for disruption is being a thought leader while creating and putting out content regularly which roughly equates to making 100 cold calls or sending 100 emails a day.    
• Content can be repurposed and packaged up in a way that your buyers consider you a thought leader in their industry.     
• He also changes his mind-set and considered being a consultant or a partner instead of a salesperson as the main prospects are executive-level buyers like CEO, COO, CTO, CFO etc. which in turn increased the deal sizes and time.    
• Tips for frontline SaaS salesperson – read and compile relevant articles to your industry and take snippets that might be relevant to your buyers. Package and share them with your potential clients, even in the middle of buying/deal cycles. This helps you build credibility, and value and position yourself as a partner in their business. 

• Status Quo of SaaS Sales – One had to fix an appointment and sell the hardware or servers on company premises, usually a large multi-million dollar complex deal.    
• With a lot of market automation techniques and more than 20,000 SaaS companies trying to sell their services, there is a lot of noise. Executives aren’t sure which tool is valuable and supports their business.      
• Being in SaaS sales is an incredibly lucrative game if you play the game right. The best sellers have been figured from implementing content.   
• Being a sales rep in a high ticket SaaS company, the role is to create valuable content for buyers. It can be specific about which tackles/handle a problem.    
• With the current status quo, the average tenure for a Sales VP in SaaS companies is 18 months, and even shorter tenure with frontline reps, resulting in huge financial losses and potential revenue. 

• Even if you have a small subset of your reps posting relevant content to your buyers, word gets around that they are available to partner with your business and solve problems.    
• Jesse's advice to the sales rep is to “find the medium, platform or channel that works best for you, some people that are tweeting, for others it may be LinkedIn. As for me, I like recording podcasts. I know a lot of reps who have found success with video content.”   
• The status quo was to update your name and numbers in the sales force and inform your manager about the next steps to close the deal. Jesse suggests making the deal more conversational and collaborative, that’s how you know make your deals more predictable and have more span of control.       

Quote of the show: 

18:40 – 19:12   “Being in SaaS is an incredibly lucrative game if you play the game right, but if you’re not playing the game effectively. Sales is the highest and the lowest paying job in the planet. Sales is very much what you kill and if you can’t do that because you’re sticking to the status quo, then how you do continue hitting you’re numbers and continue on with the profession. So that’s been the challenge and that’s why the shift has to happen more broadly” 

  Links: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessewoodbury/ 
• Company Website: https://www.kustomer.com 

 Ways to Tune In: 

• Amazon Music - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/eccda84d-4d5b-4c52-ba54-7fd8af3cbe87/disruption-interruption 
• Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/disruption-interruption/id1581985755 
• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6yGSwcSp8J354awJkCmJlD 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matthew Owen has been solving problems as a Fractional Chief Technology Officer for 25+ years and is a Digital transformation leader, specifically with disruptive innovation of facial recognition. He is also a Twitter enthusiast, using it to ensure success at large scale events to gain valuable real-time consumer service feedback on new technology being implemented while it’s being experienced by the consumers.   

Key Takeaways 

• The main ingredient for disruption is extreme customer focus, taking into account the customer experience and their journey.
• Twitter could be a major feedback tool, where customer voices their opinion and experience about your product & services.
• Facial recognition technology is controversial but when used correctly can be incredibly useful.
• Facial recognition technology can help solve certain types of problems.  Example: A Football stadium or a concert – 60 odd thousand people are trying to get in with an even smaller army of people helping them to get in, creating a bottleneck. Adding COVID to this mix makes it more challenging.  Implementing Facial Recognition based express access or iPass allows fans and staff workers touchless access. 
• Status Quo with Events and what consumers expect after COVID – Change is constant, with COVID regulations easing out consumers are confused with overlapping rules thrown by the authorities. Each event has its own set of rules & regulations, making it challenging for fans and employees alike. 
• User education plays a pivotal role in making this technology scalable. The problem with educating the masses is that they are desensitized to marketing emails and half a short attention span.
• A proper protocol is followed with multiple layers of screening and judgment to ensure peace of mind and public safety. 
• The challenge with this technology in the States is the regulatory environment. With privacy advocates for the consumers, the country is governed by laws making it difficult to navigate around them and still make sure the technology works for the consumers.
• The future of Facial recognition technology is going to be ubiquitous, inevitable and can be deployed at every location for the good of the customer.
• Part of the challenge is the myths surrounding the privacy and security of the technology – Consumers don’t really care as long as it’s convenient and saves them the Hassel. The real bottleneck it educating the end-users and making them aware of such technology. 
• The major challenge is budgeting – who pays for such a tech? Because it’s a cross-functional tech, getting all departments to agree to possess a greater challenge, which slows down the process.
• It’s all about the consumer experience. When it comes down to it, any technology which is developed whether B2B or B2C, ultimately affects the end consumer. In the case of Facial recognition, it affects directly.  

Quote of the show: 

6:43 “The technology can it used for good or evil, just like any other technology we’ve invited as mankind. It’s incredibly useful if used correctly, there are things you can only do using facial recognition, like scanning a crowd of 66,000 people and picking out 3 people that shouldn’t be there”  

Links: 

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mowenranger/ 
• Company Website: http://6bpartners.com 

 Ways to Tune In: 

• Amazon Music - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/eccda84d-4d5b-4c52-ba54-7fd8af3cbe87/disruption-interruption 

• Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/disruption-interruption/id1581985755 
• Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6yGSwcSp8J354awJkCmJlD 

Links 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6923281101763268608 

YT snippet: https://youtube.com/shorts/ADMv9X0IysE?feature=share 

YT episode: https://youtu.be/5TadziWMP84 

Podbean: https://www.disruptioninterruption.com/?s=%23+029 

Amazon Music - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/eccda84d-4d5b-4c52-ba54-7fd8af3cbe87/disruption-interruption 

Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/disruption-interruption/id1581985755 

Google Play - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cub21ueWNvbnRlbnQuY29tL2QvcGxheWxpc3QvODE5NjRmY2EtYTQ5OC00NTAyLThjZjktYWI3YzAwMmRiZTM2LzNiZTZiNzJhLWEzODItNDhhNS04MDc5LWFmYTAwMTI2M2FiNi9kZDYzMGE4Mi04ZGI4LTQyMGUtOGNmYi1hZmEwMDEyNjNhZDkvcG9kY2FzdC5yc3M= 

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6yGSwcSp8J354awJkCmJlD 

Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/show/disruption-interruption 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dave Dein has been in logistics, trucking and now education for 30+ years. He has been in all positions in trucking, a driver, management and now is a CDL (Commercial Drivers License) instructor with Patterson High School, California

The trucking industry has been changing drastically over the years. Supply chain, logistics, technology, training but especially recruiting. Today, we have an enormous shortage of truck drivers.

Key takeaways 

Quote of the show:

4:22 “I have been in trucking since 1988, there is always been a demand for well-trained drivers. The problem is we have a driver’s shortage and an ageing workforce. 25% of our current drivers getting close to the age of retirement.”

Links:

 Ways to Tune In:

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.