Inspiring connection in a hybrid workplace is going to be key for fostering a culture of connection. Many of us have gotten used to learning, living, and leading from home. While this has created flexibility and autonomy among teams, this can also create a sense of disconnection and isolation. Demonstrating empathy for the changes we are all going through and understanding ways to restore energy and team member interaction are critical. Today we’ll chat with our guest Mark Ostach as he provides us with ways to reignite human connection in a hybrid workplace leaving you filled with newfound courage to connect.

Mark Ostach

CEO, Leadership Coach & Facilitator

Mark Ostach is on a mission to help professionals, teams, and leaders connect with themselves, each other, and their collective purpose. Ostach’s goal is to restore energy and focus to organizations and individuals battling modern life’s non-stop pace and growing sense of disconnection. A wellspring of energy and born empath, Ostach holds degrees in business, psychology and technology with an interest in behavioral neuroscience.

A recipient of Crain’s Detroit Business 20 in Their 20s and Oakland County’s 40 Under 40 awards, he is determined to remind the world that human connection is the most powerful connection we have. A nationally recognized speaker on Digital Wellness and a frequent contributor to USA Today, Ostach has done two TED talks and spoken to thousands of people all over the country, encouraging them to embrace a culture of digital wellbeing.

Show notes, resources & links available at amawestmichigan.org/ep34

‘Data-driven marketing’ is a broad term referring to the process by which insights from data analysis are used to build targeted marketing campaigns. This process is both art and science. It blends the logical disciplines of data extraction and analysis with the out-of-the-box creativity of which data to unearth, which types of clues to search for within the data mounds, and how to use those insights to your advantage.

Key Takeaways

-Understanding the basic philosophical concepts behind successful data driven marketing, and that they often have very little to do with the data itself.

-Recognizing that there are many aspects to a successful data driven marketing approach that require constant assessment and refinement, rather than just one cookie cutter playbook.

-Recognizing the early warning signs that your data driven marketing campaign may not be on track.

Keith Brophy

COO, ADHD Online

Keith Brophy is a West Michigan-based entrepreneur with a background of building various nationally-focused businesses.Keith is currently COO at ADHD Online, one of the nation’s leading ADHD telehealth providers.Prior to this, Keith launched and served as Director for Business Lab at Emergent Holdings. He has served as State Director of the Michigan Small Business Development Center, CEO of Ideomed, General Manager of Enterprise Services at RCM Technologies, and CEO of Sagestone, among other endeavors. Keith has been on a range of for-profit and nonprofit boards for some of the region’s leading organizations.

He is a past Ernst & Young Michigan Entrepreneur of the Year, and companies he has led have received national accolades in areas including growth and innovation. Keith has been a speaker on future trends including testimony before state and national government bodies on business innovation, and has highlighted emerging marketing trends at the Latin American Marketing Association annual conference, among others.

Show notes, resources & links available at amawestmichigan.org/ep33

As the world goes digital, marketers are inundated with data about customer behavior. To avoid being overwhelmed we need to have extreme clarity on the business outcomes we are seeking and the analytics that will guide them. Today we’ll talk about best practices to achieve clarity on those objectives, how to find, and use the right analytics to measure success.

Key Topics

-Assessing Objectives

-Determining Relevant Analytics

-Interpreting The Data

Joel Ombry

Owner, Veracity Mine LLC

Joel Ombry served in various roles including market intelligence, strategy, and analytics at Amway Corp. for over 26 years. Most recently he was a Lead Data Analyst in Digital Analytics in the Technology organization. Prior to Amway, he served as an Intelligence Analyst for the U.S Customs Service. He hails from Michigan and attended the University of Michigan and George Washington University in Washington D.C.

Show notes, resources & links available at amawestmichigan.org/ep32

The majority of our AMA programming focuses on marketing, innovation, and problem solving for the organizations at which we work.  In this podcast we flip the script and put ourselves in the spotlight, discussing personal branding strategies and storytelling for a rewarding career.

How often do you think about where you want to be in 5, 10, even 15 years? How can you create a network and surround yourself with colleagues that will challenge and inspire you to grow? What types of ongoing education, training, and certifications can help take your skillset to the next level? How can you keep your resume and portfolio updated with not only a laundry list of past responsibilities but a proven track record of success and accomplishments? 

Today we’ll chat with Angie Callen, Founder and Principal at Career Benders Inc, a Certified Professional Resume Writer, Certified Professional Career Coach, and host of the new No More Monday’s Podcast about how you should plan for the long term on your most impressive asset, yourself!

Key Topics

-Personal Branding

-Career Planning

-Professional Development

-Networking

-Job Seeking

-Resume Writing

-Interviewing

Angie M. Callen

CPRW, Founder & Principal at Career Benders Inc. 

Angie Callen is the Founder and Principal of Career Benders, Inc., a full-service career and business coaching company providing personal branding, job search strategy, career change, and solopreneurial coaching for clients across the country. 

As a former engineer, Angie takes a practical, action-based approach to coaching, which has helped hundreds of clients progress their careers, land amazing new opportunities, and seeing their entrepreneurial dreams come true. Angie has always believed people deserve to be happy in their lives and careers, despite society's continued acceptance of mediocrity. By inspiring confident professionals, Angie and her team help people rise above this norm, build confidence, discover their value, and align these elements for future purpose and satisfaction. 

Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, Angie has called the Colorado Mountains home for nearly 13 years. After spending six years in Boston between college and Colorado, Angie admits she's still got some east coast tendencies that are tempered by a life of adventure in the outdoors. When she's not logging hours on Zoom, you can find Angie, her husband, Jim, and their four-legged kid, Foster, whitewater paddle boarding, fly fishing, backpacking, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, or enjoying whatever the mountains have to offer. 

Angie is also a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) accredited through the Professional Association of Resume Writers and Career Coaches (PARWCC).

Show notes, resources & links available at amawestmichigan.org/ep31

Agencies and marketers alike are addicted to storytelling. The advent of so-called content marketing has been the equivalent of a speedball coursing through the craving veins of marketers who think that every problem can be solved by telling a better story. Soon they are going to miss a window of opportunity that will quickly end up in someone else’s portfolio. If marketers and agencies don’t come to terms in a hurry with the structural factors that have set the stage for experience-driven brand building, CEOs are going to tap other resources to do it instead. Experience design is the next frontier for brand-building.

Key Topics

-Experience Design

-Customer Experience/Service

-User Experience

-Solutions vs. Products

Russ Klein

CEO, The American Marketing Association

Russ Klein has quarterbacked teams for many of the world’s foremost brand names—holding top marketing and advertising posts at Dr Pepper/7UP Companies, Gatorade, 7-Eleven Corporation, Burger King Corporation, and Arby’s Restaurant Group. He has held leadership positions with Leo Burnett and FC&B advertising agencies. Russ serves on the board for PopSockets LLC listed as #2 on Inc. 5000 fastest-growing companies in America.

His Burger King body of work, where he served as CMO/President, was recognized by ADWEEK as “The Advertiser of the Decade” for the 2000’s…a distinction belonging to Nike and Budweiser in previous decades. Klein was again recognized as a seminal influence behind Burger King’s recognition at the 2017 Cannes ad festival for marketing creativity; referencing several of his most popular campaigns including: Burger King’s groundbreaking digital campaign, “Subservient Chicken” Ranked as the 6th greatest campaign of 21st Century by Ad Age Digital Ad of the Decade by the Wall Street Journal - Klein was responsible for “Whopper Freakout” Highest recalled advertising campaign ever measured by Nielsen’s IAG Research among all advertisers

Klein’s innovation teams have generated billions in annual revenue including Keebler Soft Batch Cookies, Kleenex Softique Tissues, Burger King; TenderCrisp Premium Chicken Sandwich, Angus Steak Sandwich, Chicken Fries, Apple Fries, and Arby’s; Hot Turkey Platform, Beef Brisket Platform, and King’s Hawaiian alliance.

Klein’s impact on business performance as a CMO is unrivaled; being the only CMO to lead marketing for three major LBO-IPO consumer product deals that have garnered returns to shareholders of 447%, 442%, and >10,000%; each shattering records at the time for growth and shareholder return, over the course of his career. Under his marketing leadership Burger King same-store-sales grew at a 5.2% CAGR for almost seven straight years without a single negative month, while worldwide revenue grew over 45% during that same period.

As CEO for the American Marketing Association, Russ is charged with the historic transformation of the AMA to become the essential community for marketers.

Klein was nicknamed “Flamethrower” by an industry publication for his managerial risk-taking and provocative advertising; but he now aspires to be the torch bearer for all marketers.

Klein is also architect of the seminal theory, Brand = Experience Story aimed at advancing the discipline of Experience Design for businesses. His work on “Tension in Advertising” is taught around the world as an educator resources from the Marketing Science Institute. He writes and teaches as one of the leading experts on building brands through experience design.

His vision for the future of marketing is “A world in which everything is bought, and nothing is sold.” Klein also consults enterprises on marketing capabilities and strategic planning. He is a graduate of The Ohio State University and Harvard Business School Advance Management Program.

Show notes, resources & links available at amawestmichigan.org/ep30

You have to pitch for money for your business or project. You have to tell your boss you deserve a raise. You have to explain why your project is going to be successful. In order to get to X ( the numbers), you’ve got to explain Y (the why).

In this discussion we’ll talk about how the numbers tell the story AND how the stories tell the numbers. 

We’ll also discuss:

-How the numbers can tell a story

-How to tell the story without boring people

-How to get your audience to feel something

-How the story AND the numbers make the ultimate impact

Key Topics

-Pitching Your Ideas

-Data Collection

-Assessing the Impact

-Storytelling

-Relating to Humans

Melanie Spring

International Keynote Speaker & Brand Storyteller

Working as a brand strategist with businesses of all sizes - from big brands like Five Guys to brand new entrepreneurs - for the past two decades, Melanie once drove 7,000 miles in 3 weeks on the Live Your Brand Tour to find out why great brands work. The HUMANS were at the center of everything.

Along the way, she noticed that every human had a personal story to share along with their brand story. Diving into the methodology of writing branded talks, she saw an even bigger pattern - people wanted to write their talks, yet focused on what they had to do at their "real job" instead of their bigger impact in the world. She knew she had to change this.

As an international keynote speaker, brand storyteller, and public speaking trainer, Melanie took all of her corporate & personal branding experience and created a safe place for Kickass Humans to write the talks they needed to write so they could share it with the world through her course, SPEAK With Confidence.

Melanie & her Crew travel the world creating branded experiences for humans like you to find your stories, build your confidence, and amplify your voices through their corporate public speaking and pitch trainings.

When Melanie’s not playing with speakers & corporate folks or rocking the stage, she's living the vacation life - bouncing between Denver, a lake in Western New York, and coastal Florida chasing sunrises with her husband and her pup.

Show notes, resources & links available at https://amawestmichigan.org/ep29

The truth comes with every phone conversation, every email or text received: your customer base is more diverse than ever. And nowhere is this new reality experienced more than in your brand’s marketing efforts. A marketer’s ability to navigate the shifting cultural landscape plays a crucial component in your organization’s ability to forge long-term success.

With an ever changing marketplace, organizations who are considered to be the leaders in employee and customer engagement understand that opportunities to connect with new customers and increase marketplace presence are endless - but building these relationships take time. The dividends, however, are both tangible and sustainable.

Key Topics

-Cultural Competence

-Multiethnic Marketing

-Diversity

-Inclusion

Skot Welch

Skot is the Principal/Founder of Global Bridgebuilders (GBB), a firm focusing on Organizational Development, Cultural Transformation and Inclusion. Global Bridgebuilders is an international team providing services to enterprises across the globe. GBB bases its work on the core belief that inclusion is a business discipline and that it should be leveraged across all that the enterprise does. To gain this leverage, the firm applies a continuous improvement model, anchored in metrics.

Skot has been a global bridge builder long before he founded the company in 2006. Growing up in a military family gave Skot a unique perspective on diversity that he still carries and a passion for helping organizations tap into the vast experiences of their employees to create stronger businesses.

Full show notes, resources & links available at www.amawestmichigan.org/EP27

Back in April, we planned to discuss how organic engagement reached an average low of .07% in 2019 and how can one ensure their message is being seen, but more importantly, heard, using digital media without the constant pay-to-play model?

Since then, the pandemic hit and marketers have helped to shape how we communicate with audiences and bring new content, videos and events to life in virtual formats. How can we as marketers, in an age of digital content saturation, reinvent and find ourselves pushing to move our brands to the top of a sea of samesies?

What we do is not unique, but how we do and share it can be. The key is to capture attention, amplify our message and keep our audience coming back for more. Ultimately, we are becoming a destination that attracts the right leads to your message without the constant need to spend more money on ads.

Key Topics

-Best practices to turn your followers into true fans, your clients into advocates and your community into collaborators without an ad budget.

-The art of capturing attention organically and the flywheel formula and tools it takes to keep it.

-How to take your message and become the "stand out" brand.

Jeff DeHaven, President & CEO, Digital Mitten

Jeff DeHaven’s passion for digital marketing began right after he graduated high school in 2003. At that time, Jeff launched the first social media agency in the Flint/Saginaw region. He specialized in training and consulting for MySpace.

Over the years, DeHaven has served as president of Social Media Club, Vice President of Social Media Association of Michigan, producer of Michigan’s largest social media conference, and was the founder of Geek Breakfast.

Today, Jeff works tirelessly to remain one of Michigan’s most known and referred to social media resources. His company (Digital Mitten) has had the opportunity to help clients utilize digital platforms, to raise awareness and revenue, from all over the state and beyond. Some of these companies include: TLC Television Network, Bavarian Inn Restaurant, Purdue University, Pioneer Sugar, and many more.

In his spare time, DeHaven is honored to serve as the social media contributor to his local CBS, NBC, and Fox News Radio affiliates. He also produces a podcast series, maintains an online educational community, stars in an award-winning YouTube Series (“Digital Mitten”), and is currently working on finishing his first book.

Full show notes, resources & links available at www.amawestmichigan.org/EP26

As we’ve all experienced, disruption can come quickly requiring nimble thinking and the ability to pivot. As we continue navigating these unchartered territories, marketers must remain resilient and focus on adaptability and reinvention. But, with all the change, it can be hard to know what direction to take and what strategies to put into place to adapt to the ‘new normal’. That’s why this year we’re focused on “Resilience and Reinvention” with programming designed to help marketers adapt to rapid change and find creative solutions to reinvent the way we do things.

Key Topics

-Adjusting & Adapting Marketing Strategies

-Marketing Challenges

-Marketing Strategies

-Virtual Networking

-AMA WM 2020/2021 Programming

Ben Kaluski & Adam Clarke

We’re excited to have with us two of our very own AMA-WM board members, Ben Kaluski and Adam Clarke. Both Ben and Adam are going to share with us a little about our upcoming season as well as how they’re seeing resilience and reinvention play out in the marketing space.

This season, we’re welcoming Ben as the new AMA-WM President – he’s been with AMA for three years now and has served on the board helping with sponsorships and collegiate relations. In his day job he is the Director of Business Development for Freshwater Digital, a Grand Rapids digital signage and media company.

We’re also excited to have Adam, our VP of Programming back with us this year and on today’s podcast. Adam is the President at 1 Bold Step, a Marketing Operations Agency in Grand Rapids.

Detailed show notes, links and resources can be found at:

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP25

The marketing metric of the next decade will be trust. There will be no more effective - nor more critical - way of building a brand than building a community who trusts you enough to advocate on your behalf.

With trust in brands and advertising at an all-time low, there will never be a better time to build a human-centered marketing strategy. The tactics of this decade - data collection, tracking, endless ads - will not work in the next.

Your customers are already telling you how to connect with them in a way that will grow your business. Are you ready to listen?

Key Topics

-Trust

-Privacy

-Personalization

-Zero Party Data

Cliff Seal

Cliff is a Principal Designer at Salesforce, helping build world-class customer experience tools. Through talks and workshops given around the world, he helps companies become customer-centric by leveraging proven research and design strategies.

He lives in Atlanta where he co-organizes amUX, a morning meetup for the city's user experience community. He also co-hosts TuneDig—a deep-dive music podcast discussing music history, theory, and culture.

You can usually find him tinkering with ideas, standing at a concert (before COVID-19), biking, snowboarding, or defending the Oxford comma.

Detailed show notes, links and resources can be found at:

www.amawestmichigan.org/EP24