#KatieTalks

In this insightful episode of #KatieTalks, I sit down with Zora Artis, a globally recognized expert in strategic alignment, brand experience, and leadership. Zora shares her wealth of knowledge on how leaders can drive meaningful change by aligning purpose, vision, values, and brand promise across their organizations.

We kick off with a memorable story from Zora’s stay at the Four Seasons Hotel, where a thoughtful gesture turned a routine stay into an unforgettable experience. Zora explains how leaders can cultivate a culture where employees are empowered to go above and beyond, creating lasting loyalty that justifies a premium for the brand.

We also explore Zora’s groundbreaking Three C Plus model, designed to help organizations embed purpose and values into their daily operations. Zora illustrates the power of strategic alignment through examples like Bon Jovi’s brand loyalty, Queen’s iconic Wembley performance, and Taylor Swift’s perfectly orchestrated concerts. These examples provide a powerful blueprint for organizations striving to achieve the same level of cohesion and impact in their brand experience.

Zora also shares her research, which shows that only 13% of organizations are truly aligned, and discusses the barriers leaders face in achieving alignment. Finally, we explore the intersection of AI, leadership, and wisdom, and how leaders can maintain a balance between curiosity and experience in a rapidly changing world.

**Key Topics Discussed:**

1. **Creating a Culture of Exceptional Experiences:**

   - How a thoughtful gesture at the Four Seasons Hotel provides a lesson in building lasting loyalty through unforgettable customer experiences.

1. **Strategic Alignment in Action:**

   - How aligning purpose, vision, values, and brand promise can empower leaders to create brand experiences that resonate emotionally with customers and stakeholders.

1. **The Three C Plus Model:**

   - How Zora’s innovative model helps organizations embed purpose and values into their daily operations, ensuring alignment across all touchpoints.

1. **Lessons from Bon Jovi, Queen, and Taylor Swift:**

   - What leaders can learn from Bon Jovi’s sustained brand loyalty, Queen’s iconic performance, and Taylor Swift’s perfectly orchestrated concerts about creating cohesive, impactful brand experiences.

1. **Overcoming Barriers to Alignment:**

   - Why only 13% of organizations are truly aligned and how leaders can overcome the significant barriers to make alignment a core strength.

1. **The Role of AI in Leadership:**

   - How leaders can balance a beginner’s mindset with wisdom to guide their organizations through technological and cultural shifts.

**Tune in to discover:**

- How to foster a culture where above-and-beyond experiences become the norm, not the exception.

- The importance of alignment in driving meaningful change and creating unforgettable brand experiences.

- Insights into overcoming alignment challenges and the role of AI in shaping modern leadership.

In this episode of #KatieTalks, I sit down with Bec Dyce, a highly credentialed expert in digital marketing and social media, particularly in the B2B space. Bec shares her insights on how it’s critical for B2B marketers to adapt to the ever-evolving digital landscape, with a focus on leveraging platforms like LinkedIn, TikTok, and podcasts to create meaningful engagement and long-term success.

We explore the profound shift in how users interact with search engines, with many now relying on zero-click searches, and what this means for B2B strategies. Bec also emphasizes the importance of delivering real value to collect first-party data as the digital landscape continues to shift.

Bec shares a compelling case study from our recent collaboration on a graduate recruitment strategy for a consulting firm. With a modest $1,600 investment in a TikTok campaign, we achieved a 300% increase in views and applications. We discuss the importance of understanding platform demographics and how to maximize ROI in a B2B context.

Key Topics Discussed:

1. The Impact of Zero-Click Searches on B2B Marketing:

• How the rise of zero-click searches is changing the game for B2B marketers and what strategies they should employ to stay ahead.

• A case study on using TikTok to drive significant engagement in a B2B setting, resulting in a 300% increase in views and applications, and why this platform shouldn’t be overlooked.

• How B2B marketers can harness the power of LinkedIn, TikTok, and podcasts to stand out and build lasting connections with their audience.

• Strategies for maintaining personalized marketing efforts while respecting user privacy in a rapidly changing digital environment.

Tune in to discover:

• The latest trends and opportunities in B2B social media marketing.

In this episode of #KatieTalks, I’m joined by David Imber, a strategist whose unparalleled expertise in crisis management and communications makes him the trusted advisor behind the scenes for some of the most distinguished brands, organizations, senior leaders, and C-suite executives. David isn’t the face you see in the media, but those who are in the spotlight—and the boardroom—rely on his insights to navigate the most complex and high-stakes situations.

We delve into the often misunderstood value of conflict and how it can actually serve as a catalyst for innovation and strategic clarity. David presents a masterclass in crisis management, where he underscores a crucial truth: crises aren’t about protecting your own image—they’re about being in service to your clients, customers, and stakeholders. He makes it clear that in a crisis, silence isn’t golden; it’s a perilous void that others will fill if you don’t. This episode is brimming with the kind of insights that only someone with David’s extensive experience—working with brands, senior leaders, C-suite executives, and organizations who set the standard—can offer.

Key Topics Discussed:

1. Rethinking Conflict in Business:

• David discusses how conflict, often viewed as a negative, can be harnessed to sharpen decision-making and drive meaningful outcomes.

• David breaks down the critical missteps that leaders and organizations often make during crises, from poor information flows to the damaging consequences of a leader’s reluctance to apologize.

• David explains that the most effective crisis communication strategies begin long before the crisis hits—with strong feedback loops, robust internal processes, and clear decision-making frameworks.

Referenced Material:

• David’s recent blog post, Crisis Communications: Five Top Tips, where he elaborates further on these strategies.

Tune in to hear more about:

• How to approach conflict in a way that strengthens your strategic decisions.

In this episode of #KatieTalks, we dive into the compelling theme of curiosity with our esteemed guest, Susannah Goddard. A trusted advisor to board and executive-level stakeholders, Susannah has a career that spans various sectors, driven by her insatiable curiosity and dedication to understanding complex environments. Recorded after our encounter at the IABC Global Conference in Chicago, this conversation explores the nuances and significance of curiosity in both personal and professional realms.

Guest Bio: Susannah Goddard is a seasoned advisor renowned for her work with organizations that prioritize impact and innovation. With a T-shaped career that cuts across multiple sectors, Susannah excels in translating complexity and inspiring engagement. When she's not leading teams on meaningful projects, she indulges in her passion for reading.

Main Talking Points:

• Introduction to the episode’s theme and why curiosity matters

Interesting Quotes:

• "Knowledge is power, but it is also empathy, imagination, innovation, invention, and creation."

Additional Resources:

• SXSW Sydney’s Theme: The Future Belongs to the Curious

For more insights on the power of curiosity, subscribe to #KatieTalks on your favourite podcast platform, and don't forget to follow us on LinkedIn for updates and behind-the-scenes content.

The night before her 33rd birthday, today's guest Elle Sproll had just finished a half marathon in Hawaii, returned from a work trip to New Zealand and was about to meet a friend for an early birthday dinner (featuring plenty of rosé and karaoke).

Then, she found a lump in her breast. It turned out to be Triple Negative Breast Cancer: very rare and very aggressive. Definitely not the birthday present she had hoped for.

Elle was young, fit and excelling in her career as a Senior Marketing Leader at a Big 4 bank.   We discuss some of what followed and how Elle, ever the deep thinking cstomer centric marketer, came to form Own Your Health, supporting women on their journey back to health from cancer & career burnout.  We also cover:

• The chemo care kits that Elle has created.  They include the products that by by trial and error she found to be the most helpful to combat some of the horrific chemo side effects.

You can read more about Elle's coaching and buy her chemo care kits here https://www.ownyourhealthcoach.com.au/

Hosted by Katie Bennett-Stenton, who you can find at www.linkedin.com/in/katiebennettstenton or [email protected].

Katherine Newton is a CEO doing impactful important work. 

Some of the key topics we cover are:

• When people stop doing things that they love, this can be an indictor that they're struggling

One insight that Katherine shared that particularly struck me as a marketer and mental health advocate was that when she's wearing the bright yellow RU OK tee shirt people approach her and want to talk.

Hosted by Katie Bennett-Stenton, who you can find at www.linkedin.com/in/katiebennettstenton or [email protected]

If you're limping towards the end of 2021, in need of some recharging and downtime, this is the podcast for you.

This is an extremely insightful conversation with a professional whose superpower is helping humans and workplaces slay the energy vampires that cause burnout, crush creativity and stifle inclusion.  We discuss the elusive concept of balance and Sean talks us through three very specific practices to put in place to set boundaries and manage our energy. 

Listeners are encouraged to document how they will implement boundaries to manage:

• Technology and email: what time you'll put devices away and when you'll pick them up again, and when you'll open your first email of the day and what time you'll send the last one.

People's access to you: embrace your chronotype (what most people understand as being an early bird versus a night owl) and share this information with colleagues.  Protect your optimal deep flow working time in your diary and  ask your team mates and respect those boundaries.

As I round out a second year in my beloved Melbourne, when we became the most locked down city on the globe and we hopefully farewell home schooling forever, I was really energised by this conversation.  It has given me lots of food for thought, which I plan to noodle over while I'm having a summer break.  I hope that you feel similarly inspired. 

Thanks for sticking with #KatieTalks over this most frenetic of years, wishing you a wonderful festive season and I look forward to being back in your ears in 2022.

Hosted by Katie Bennett-Stenton, who you can find at @KatiebMarketing on Twitter or [email protected].

Disclaimer this podcast is a personal passion project, not associated with my professional role.

My guest today, who provides a great deal of food for thought about the impact of Covid and how we emerge from it is formidable psychologist Leah Fogarty.

We cover a lot of topics including the work that Leah has done supporting mental health as people grapple with Covid.  When the global pandemic was first impacting Australia last year, Leah developed a program for patients to support them in really uncertain times, which we discuss at length.

Leah's work is influenced by the fact that she is a former elite athlete.  A lot of her practice supports current athletes and we talk about this and some of the influences that we can all benefit from, irrespective of level of fitness.

We are hearing a great deal about how much mental health is suffering at the moment and we explore the post-traumatic stress program that Leah has created.  There are some incredibly beneficial messages that I took from this discussion and continue to adopt in my own life.

One of Leah's comments that has particularly stayed with me is that humans are the only species to judge things to be good or bad and that nature has designed us to see the negative.  This is a constructive message for many people to ponder.

We also explore some positive learnings from the impact of Covid, which has stripped back our needs.  Leah guides us that life should be designed, not a default we've fallen into.  Excellent food for thought. 

Katie Talks is hosted by Katie Bennett-Stenton, who you can find at @KatiebMarketing on Twitter or [email protected].

Disclaimer this podcast is a personal project, not associated with my professional role.

This is an enriching conversation with a deep thinker who does a lot of work advising Boards and CEOs.  Or as her bio says she "gets sh*t done for equality and inclusion."

We explore a number of themes that Michelle focuses on with leaders.  She talks me through a common question that she asks about whether leaders would build an organisation the same way again, the answer is frequently intriguing.  In exploring this theme, Michelle invites leaders to think about the person they care most about and whether they would want that person to work with their organisation.  More often than not, asking senior people to think about a time about when they had no influence is the 'ah hah' moment that precedes a more diverse approach.

A key area of focus for Michelle is coaching clients to examine  how be thoughtful and create high performing teams while working remotely.  We discuss the fact that people feeling included, valued and respected are absolutely key in attracting, retaining and advancing all parts of a diverse workforce.

We talk about careers that 'soar' and the global platform that Michelle is establishing to support professionals who don't have access to women's leadership training program.   This is a really inspiring listen which really energised me seven months in to working from home and home schooling during this global pandemic.

Katie Talks is hosted by Katie Bennett-Stenton, who you can find at @KatiebMarketing on Twitter or [email protected].

Disclaimer this podcast is a personal project, not associated with my professional role.

If you're feeling the need to turbocharge your motivation as you settle into month sevenish, dealing with Covid, this is the conversation for you.  My guest has 14+ years pedigree of Fortune 500 companies and advises organisations and leaders on creating environments where smart, self-motivating, innovative individuals thrive.

We discuss the concept of interconnected, distributed teams which  is an interesting concept.  It is also critical to the way that we're working now as many of us have lost that regular 'in person' way, incidental communication with our colleagues. 

We cover a lot of interesting topics, but most inspirational for me was our discussion about the five levels of distributed teams.  This concept was created by Matt Mullenweg who founded WordPress.  You can read more about it here.   https://ma.tt/2020/04/five-levels-of-autonomy/

While change is a constant, this has been a year of greater than normal change, with COVID-19 disrupting our personal lives and work in a way not seen in recent history. This has created some lasting impacts but also some opportunities for the better.  Hiam talks about the way that workplaces are taking time to think about the value they create in the world and she is  starting to see some of this in her work, reigniting passion in their people, really connect back to that core piece.

Katie Talks is hosted by Katie Bennett-Stenton, who you can find at @KatiebMarketing on Twitter or [email protected].

Disclaimer this podcast is a personal project, not associated with my professional role.