Predictable B2B Success

Jim Barnish is the Founder and Managing Partner of Orchid Black (OB), a boutique firm designed for tech-forward, growth-stage companies seeking to grow smart and grow fast.

Spanning 400+ years of combined experience and more than $35B in combined value creation, OB’s team of highly skilled operators has repeatedly driven success across all stages of business from growth to exit. 

Jim has 15 years of leadership experience in global and integrated operations, M&A, and strategic go-to-market planning including deep operational and investment experience at startups and scale-up businesses.

Through those experiences, Jim has created and curated a collection of proven, data-driven processes and methodologies to help companies build scalable and fundable VC-ready solutions—accelerating organic growth.

In this episode, Jim shares how we can create a predictable revenue stream that rapidly drives business growth. Insights he shares include:

• Jim's obsession with growth and exits (acquisitions)
• Agile, but focused planning process to drive results
• Should creating a predictable revenue stream be tied to a founders exit strategy
• What does value creation in light of creating a predictable revenue stream look like
• How to create a predictable revenue engine
• Common issues found from Jim's experience in creating a predictable revenue stream
• How to scale a business quickly and safely
• The best way to mitigate risks while making big growth bets that pay off
• Scaling via direct and indirect organic growth
• Talent challenges as companies scale
• and much much more ...

Jarod Spiewak's interest in writing led him to discover Search Engine Optimization (SEO). All of his clients were looking for SEO-prioritized content and eventually, he was tasked with writing an article on how to do SEO.

That led to a revelation that he could take on clients of his own and that is when he decided to build Blue Dog Media. and now Comet Fuel.

In this episode, Jarod shares his insights on how to craft a trust-based data-driven marketing strategy that drives growth.

Insights he shares include:

• The difference in being data-driven vs data-informed
• The benefits of using big data in marketing
• Why businesses don't really so much on data to inform their marketing strategy
• How to educate people around using data to inform your strategy and bring about a change in approach
• Easy to implement data sources that any business can use
• How to pick the right tools to leverage data for your business
• How to build trust in what you say and do
• Examples of data-driven marketing strategies and results obtained
• The best ways to collect data around experiences and empathize with customers
• How to craft data stories
• and much much more...

Alisa Meredith is a Pinterest Product Specialist at Tailwind, a social media scheduling tool for Pinterest and Instagram that helps your content get real results in less time.

She’s also the founder of Alisa Meredith Marketing in which she delivers traffic and leads to businesses with content, social, and especially visual marketing. She believes sharing ideas for how Pinterest can grow a business is thrilling and loves helping businesses that don’t have much time to spend on their marketing.

In this episode, Alisa shares how we can use Pinterest for B2B marketing to drive growth predictably. Insights she shares include:

• Why Meredith considers Pinterest to be more of a search engine than a social network.
• Why should B2B businesses consider Pinterest marketing
• How should businesses decide if Pinterest marketing is right for them
• How Pinterest can help you meet your business objectives.
• What type of content Pinterest creators are adding to the platform
• Whether Pinterest followers really matter
• How you should be thinking about story pins today
• How you should be divvying up your time creating content for Pinterest
• How to optimize for lead generation
• How to grow your follower base
• Examples of poor Pinterest B2B marketing and good Pinterest B2B marketing 
• And whether repinning is still a thing
• and much much more ....

Ian Moyse is the Chief Revenue Officer, OneUp Sales, is also an industry cloud social influencer and is widely published on matters of Cloud and Sales Leadership.

Ian moved from a sales role to a management role at age 23, developing over the years into a Sales Leader, in the Cloud Industry.

He is experienced in cloud & software sales/marketing - Successfully scaling sales, creating and managing high-performing sales teams & opening new markets. He has experience of a wide range of sales disciplines - building direct, indirect & inside sales teams across UK, EMEA & USA, As well as 10+ years experience in leading direct selling teams

In this episode, Ian shares how he has found success as a sales leader by building his personal brand. He shares ways to use personal branding for business owners and executives to drive growth. Insights he shares include:

• What is personal branding for business owners and executives
• Personal branding for business owners and executives vs business branding
• The role and place of a personal branding audit
• Establishing your personal brand strategy
• Personal branding for business owners and executives - The elements required
• Do you need a brand identity
• Challenges/mistakes in building out personal branding for business owners and executives
• The role of being the guide in your personal brand
• and much much more ...

Ho Yin Cheung is a serial entrepreneur with an 8 figure Amazon business, a mobile agency, and also a $1M ARR B2B SaaS company.

He has over 7 years of experience building remote teams and has worked with Fortune 100 companies like Nike, Best Buy, TJ Max, SunGard, Cardinal Health, and Kaiser Permanente.

His new venture is Remo which has rapidly grown to over 100 employees in 25 countries. It is a next-gen video-first virtual space for event organizers and distributed teams. 

In this episode, Ho Yin shares his perspectives and insights into hybrid events and things we should consider when launching hybrid events to drive business growth. Insights he shares include:

• Virtual events tend to be a one-to-many form of interaction, how many to many is the key to engagement and achieving your goals
• Are there elements of virtual and in-person events that we could leverage for hybrid events
• Why your engagement is so low, and how to create authentic conversations that lead to successful events
• What are hybrid events and is it hype or real?
• Why use content as a teaser for events
• How to facilitate small group interactions for virtual and hybrid
• How to conduct hybrid events properly so participants gain value and are engaged
• and much much more ...

Paula Thomas is an independent loyalty marketing consultant, writer and podcast host.

Paula has been studying and writing about how to drive loyalty in the convenience retail industry and has now published a book entitled “Driving Loyalty in Convenience Retail”

She is a former judge for the UK Loyalty Magazine Awards.

Paula found her passion for loyalty schemes while she was working as a Marketing Manager for a major airline 20 years ago. Since then she’s worked on world-leading loyalty schemes for brands including Avios, O2 Ireland, AIB, and The Entertainer Group. 

In this episode, she shares how we can create powerful b2b customer loyalty programs that drive growth predictably. Insights she shares include:

• What is a B2B customer loyalty program
• The difference between B2C and B2B loyalty programs
• The role of the founders mindset
• B2B loyalty programs: challenges and opportunities
• Examples of the good B2B loyalty programs
• Good practices for B2B loyalty programs 
• The best B2B loyalty program rewards that work
• Why NPS is a good indicator of customer loyalty data
• and much much more....

Dan Gingiss has led marketing teams in nearly every marketing channel — from direct mail to email to social media for over 20 years.

He also served in multiple customer service and customer experience leadership roles. Dan combines his professional experience at brands like Discover, McDonald’s, and Humana with tons of real-life examples from B2C and B2B companies of all sizes to recommend actionable, profitable CX solutions.

Dan speaks from his experiences of life “in the trenches” at a company he has worked for. He understands those dynamics and challenges and provides unique credibility, including leading a team that won the J.D. Power Award for Customer Satisfaction.

In this episode, he shares how we can create a digital customer experience strategy to drive growth predictably. Insights he shares include:

• Why is spending your marketing budget on attracting new customers wrong
• Is creating a remarkable customer experience the best sales and marketing strategy
• Why Dan decided to write the book - Experience Maker
• Digital customer experience vs. customer experience
• Managing the digital customer experience
• What is the WISER framework and why use it
• Common misconceptions about digital customer experience
• Do remarkable customer experiences need to be expensive
• How content can impact the creation of remarkable digital customer experiences
• and much much more....

Shep Hyken, CSP, CPAE is the CAO (Chief Amazement Officer) of Shepard Presentations. As a customer service and experience expert and keynote speaker, Shep works with companies that want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees. His focus is on delivering amazing customer service, customer engagement, managing the customer experience, and creating customer loyalty.

He is also a hall of fame speaker (National Speakers Association) and a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author.

In this episode, Shep shares how we can build customer trust and loyalty to drive business growth. Insights he shares include:

• Do culture and branding need to be reflective of a companies customer loyalty ethos
• How do we transition companies that have customer loyalty programs that are more of a sales gimmick to something that is meaningful
• Lesson learned from the biggest customer service/loyalty turn around example you know about
• Metrics to use as we build customer trust and loyalty
• Is the best measure of customer loyalty word of mouth referrals
• Customer service only exists because we have broken processes that need fixing - true or false
• Are we better off with just having customer success instead
• How do we get customers involved in building loyalty beyond discounts and points so that they feel a sense of ownership
• People tend to seek out 5-star reviews should we really do the same
• Are review sites the best place to raise our social proof or are we letting other forums and organizations determine our social proof
• and much much more ...

Julius Geis is the founder of ‘Āina, a strategy office that won the 2020 iF Design Award. He is an identity expert who has created brand strategies for over 40 companies. He is the creator of Identity Built Branding™, a new branding process that builds brands from the inside out, guides companies to happiness, and connects people with people.  

In this episode, Julius shares even more insights into how successful companies go about creating brand development strategies for growth-driven B2B marketing. Insights he shares include:

• The mistakes businesses make with building their brand identity
• How Julius finds clients given the intangible nature of his business
• What has been a driving force in creating predictable business growth for Julius
• What sort of stories should we ensure everyone in the organization knows
• What sort of stories should we ensure everyone outside of the organization knows
• How should we relate the relationships and brand identity with visual components that most people tend to associate with branding
• Is there a correlation between identity branding and community building
• and much much more....

Julius Geis is the founder of ‘Āina, a strategy office that won the 2020 iF Design Award. He is an identity expert who has created brand strategies for over 40 companies. He is the creator of Identity Built Branding™, a new branding process that builds brands from the inside out, guides companies to happiness, and connects people with people.  

In this episode, Julius shares his insights into how successful companies go about creating brand development strategies for growth-driven B2B marketing. Insights he shares include:

• How best to define branding
• What are branding identity and brand development strategies and why use them
• How Julius facilitates a mind shift to occur with companies he works with
• Is branding identity creation also an exercise in developing empathy
• How to deliver brand development strategies that create a meaningful experience that also match client expectations
• How brand development strategies can build an emotional connection that compels customers to want to repeat the experience.
• The impact of branding identity on companies
• and much much more....