Did you know that there will be over 120,000,000 podcast listeners in the US by end of 2021? And that we are closing in on 1.7 million active podcasts? It's true. What does this mean for Customer Experience? If you think about it a company podcast is one of the best ways to get closer to your customers. They can see you not as a vendor of theirs but someone they listen to for advice and ideas and help once or twice a week. That is very powerful! On this episode I speak with Jason Cercone who helps businesses develop, design and establish their own podcasts. SPOILER ALERT: it is not as hard as you think.

You might want to take a listen to this episode and see that you too can do it, like I did and a million more have done.

To get in touch with Jason you can go right to his website at www.jasoncercone.com.

Also, we prepared the SketchNote for you to get more information from and one of those exciting exercises we give in each episode.

Join me on this quest to see if Conversation AI is just hype or the real deal. In this episode, I chat with Indrek Vainu. Indrek runs Alphachat.ai, an AI company automating customer experience through chat. He is an experienced entrepreneur having previously managed a 70-person machine learning company. Indrek holds a degree from Harvard University and is a frequent speaker at technology events.

Here is the Sketchnote we developed to help you better understand the concepts from Indrek.

Head over to alphachat.ai for more information on Conversational AI.

As Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders, we often have to make decisions that are beyond our comfort zone or in our expertise wheelhouse. That is just the facts! But, we need to become fluent in the language of those area or we can fall victim of those we seek help from.

Join me on this Episode as I interview Aman Y. Argarwal.

Aman is the Founder and President of SANPRAM Transnational, an executive education company, and a passionate teacher and writer.

He was formerly an engineer, building self-driving trucks in Silicon Valley.

Besides engineering, he has also been a B2B sales executive at two tech companies worth over $1 billion each.

Here is a great read to understand the critical need for us to have technical fluency as business leaders. Click here:

To learn more about Aman and his company head over to https://sanpram.com/

Trust isn’t something we typically think of as having an economic value. But scratch the surface behind the numbers appearing on any company’s balance sheet and trust — or a lack of it — appears everywhere. When trust increases, so do output, morale, retention, innovation and loyalty. Conversely, a lack of trust is a company’s single biggest expense. 

At the core, problems are never about leadership, communication, sales, marketing or even finances. Every issue falls under one or more of the “8 Pillars of Trust.” These pillars correspond to eight specific traits that the most trusted leaders, brands and organizations have in common. The good news is that trust can be learned, practiced and profitable — with astonishing results. 

Join me as I speak to David Horsager, the CEO of Trust Edge Leadership Institute and we learn why "TRUST" is one of the often overlooked reasons of problems in business today.

The Sketchnote from the episode.

Ways to get in touch:

WEBSITE: www.trustedleaderbook.com

SOCIAL MEDIA:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhorsager/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/HorsagerLeadership

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/trustedgeleadershipinstitute

Twitter: https://twitter.com/davidhorsager

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidhorsager/

Some great links:

• Trusted Leader Book Site
• David Horsager Speaking Website
• Trust Edge Leadership Institute Website 
• Trust Edge Coaching Website

Every once in a while, we stop and think to ourselves, "how much is enough"? I am talking about, how to balance Human-Interactions, Epic Cultures and Digitization. Most companies today have embarked on a journey of Digital Transformation and are trying to digitize as much of their world as they can, but how do you step back and really take a look at "The Balance" of these things? Eric Michrowski, CEO of Propulo Consulting stops by the ScienceOfCX Studios and we tackle just this issue.

Once you listen to this episode, you will understand the delicate balance that needs to exist in order to get Digital Transformation right. How the Human-To-Human Interaction will always exist and just how important it is to be intentional with how that works.

Our Sketchnote for this episode can be accessed here:

To get in touch with Eric or Propulo please use the following ways to connect:

-Propulo Website: https://www.propulo.com

-Eric’s Website: https://ericmichrowski.com

-LinkedIn (Eric): https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericmichrowski/

-LinkedIn(Company): https://www.linkedin.com/company/propulo/

-YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/propulo

-FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/propuloconsulting

-Twitter : https://twitter.com/PropuloInsights

Join me on another great episode of Science Of CX as Jesse Purewal, stops by for a chat.

Jesse Purewal is a storyteller whose empathy, curiosity, and wit empower people to tell their own stories in inspiring, influential, and compelling ways. An expert in building brand, marketing, and CX strategies in high-technology categories, he is the lead of the Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Sector at Qualtrics.

Jesse and I got into some great discussions around how to build a great brand, how to drive your company's brand relevance, developing emotional connections and connecting your employees to your brand. This is a must listen to episode as there is so much in it. Almost too much to list.

Jesse Purewal is a storyteller whose empathy, curiosity, and wit empower people to tell their own stories in inspiring, influential, and compelling ways. An expert in building brand, marketing, and CX strategies in high-technology categories, he is the lead of the Technology, Media, and Telecommunications Sector at Qualtrics. Prior to joining Qualtrics, Jesse was a Partner at Prophet, where he worked with the leadership of B2B and B2B2C tech companies to drive growth through brand, marketing, and CX. He also originated and led the firm’s annual Brand Relevance Index, a global study of 50,000 customers that informs the drivers of brand relevance—and the most relevant brands—worldwide. Jesse is on the Board of Room to Read, a global nonprofit based in San Francisco. He has an MBA from Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, and a BS in Mathematical Methods in Social Sciences (MMSS) with a Minor in German Language from Northwestern University

Here is the Sketchnote of this Episode with Jesse's Exercise on it.

Get in touch with Jesse:

https://www.jesse-purewal.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jesse-purewal/

Please join us for a very informative episode with Sydney Wong of VenturX in Montreal, Canada. We covered so much in this episode from venture capital to driving better CX to increase your business's value.

Sydney Wong is an author as well as the Founder and CEO of VenturX. Her literature work, written under the pen name of David Adams, focuses on helping others be more productive and efficient. Sydney’s successful journey of her professional accomplishments have been shaped around one thing: balance. She likes to do yoga and cook to relieve her stress and take a break from her work life. Her core values consist of excellence, altruism, and drive, all of which have helped her be successful. With the current events happening and the world being on lock-down, Sydney has been committed to helping others stay on top of their game by coming out with How To Have A Good Day, a book which guides individuals on how they can keep up their routine while being stuck at home. Furthermore, she shares her best practices on her Medium blogs and through guesting on podcasts that share her values of excellence, altruism, and drive.

https://venturx-team.medium.com/what-to-include-in-an-investment-package-b6287630183f

https://venturx-team.medium.com/5-emerging-startup-and-technological-trends-in-2021-7efa56160d2a

https://www.kobo.com/ww/en/ebook/how-to-have-a-good-day-8

Please join Steve in the Studio as Jeff Tobe drops by to talk about Coloring Outside the Lines to Create a New CX.

Episode Sketchnote:

Certified Speaking Professional Jeff Tobe’s credentials are impressive. Insider Magazine dubbed him “The Guru of Creativity” and readers of Convention & Meetings Magazine chose him as one of the top 15 speakers in North America. He is a creativity and customer experience expert, professional speaker, and bestselling author who works with companies and organizations who want to increase their bottom line by changing their customer experience and retaining great talent. Tobe founded Coloring Outside the Lines in 1994 and since then has worked with hundreds of clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to ones with less than 20 employees including Microsoft, PepsiCo, PNC Bank, Sonny’s BBQ and many more! Jeff Tobe’s most requested programs focus on

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE, CREATIVITY/INNOVATION, and EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT.

His high-energy, high-fun and high-content programs create the ideal presentation for any kind of corporate or educational forum. His articles have been read in hundreds of publications and he is the author of the hugely popular book, Coloring Outside the Lines. He is the co-author of three other books and his newest book, ANTICIPATE: Knowing What Customers Need Before They Do is quickly becoming one of the hottest business books on the market. He is also the creator of ACX, the Associate of Customer Experience, online certification program.

Find Jeff on LinkedIn

On Twitter

And on Youtube

Join me as we set out on a Digital Marketing Journey with Monique Idemudia, Founder of Dragon Digital Marketing.

This was a great interview and Monique was such a generous guest by giving us some great tools below:

A great Buyer Persona Template here and

How to effectively set and measure your marketing goals

Marketing goals are specific objectives described in a marketing plan. These goals can be tasks, quotas, improvements in KPIs, or other performance-based benchmarks used to measure marketing success. When explicitly set, measurable goals are key to be successful.

Once you have your goals, don’t forget that measurement is key. Do this yearly, quarterly, weekly, and get your entire team involved. Set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which provide metrics to evaluate success factors enabling you to track progress.

You can also create custom goals in Google Analytics to fit your company’s unique needs. Tracking how each marketing campaign or piece of content contributed to these custom goals empowers you with the right data to prove and improve your marketing strategy.

It’s helpful to have the marketing funnel in mind when setting your goals.

I’d like to introduce you to the goal setting methodology that I successfully use in my own business.

The OKR methodology:

O = objective

KR = key result

How it works:

Assign objectives and key results (OKRs) to every part of your marketing funnel rather than assigning them by channel.

As a small business owner, you likely don’t have someone working on every marketing channel. It’s faster to build one channel at a time than multiple channels at once. Plus, you can move one community to another once you have loyal fans and customers. Remember: Focus and finish is better than say and spray.

How to get started:

Your objective (O) is a qualitative goal.

Your key result (KR) is a quantitative measurement you use to track your progress on your objective.

Next, you define marketing tactics to reach your KRs.

Now, you align the marketing channels and your resources to hit your OKRs.

For example:

O = I want to increase my brand awareness.

KR 1 = I need to reach 20 PR placements in relevant media publications.

KR 2 = I need a 10% increase in my social following on LinkedIn.

KR 3 = I need a 20% increase in traffic to my blog content.

Tactic 1 = I need to reach out to 45 publishers in my industry next week.

Tactic 2 = I need to engage more with people’s content on LinkedIn that are in my target audience. I need to share 10 posts a week, comment on 15 posts a day, react to 20 posts a day and private message 5 connections a week to build deeper relationships. I need to post more often and higher-quality content on LinkedIn and in addition to posting on 9AM on Mon and Wed, I’ll post on Fridays too.

Tactic 3 = I need to promote my blog articles more. I will include a link to one blog post in every other email newsletter of my weekly newsletters and share one blog post a week on each of the social networks I am on. Additionally, I will boost these posts for $10 a day for 28 days.

Implication = I will invest 40% of my marketing budget to reach my objective of getting more brand awareness which serves the awareness stage of the funnel; of which I will invest a third each in the tactics that serve my KRs.

The top 4 marketing goals small businesses like yours have:

1. Building brand awareness and engagement
2. Generating a high volume of qualified leads
3. Establishing thought leadership
4. Attributing marketing activities to revenue generation

To reach Monique by email

By LinkedIn