SIMPLE brand With Matt Lyles

In this week’s episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with innovation expert, Sara Frasca! 

If you’ve been following me for a while, then you likely know that I preach “Innovating to stay ahead” as one of the key behaviors that goes into creating simple experiences. But there’s a challenge that most people face when it comes to innovation.

Most people make innovation much harder than it has to be. Most people think innovation is confusing, complicated, intimidating, complex. Most people think you need a special degree or training to do innovation right. Or they think that only certain people - an elite few - are capable of being innovative.

And not only do most people think that they’re not innovative. They also think that they can’t be innovative.  Most people don't recognize their ability to be creative and they don’t understand how to exercise or hone their creative thinking skills.

If you’re like most people, then I want to bust this myth wide open for you.

The truth is, coming up with innovative, creative ideas isn’t a talent you’re born with. Anyone can do it.

But at the same time - you can’t just wake up one day and flip a switch and say, “Oh! Now I’m going to be creative. I’m going to come up with something innovative today.”

You have to learn how to have the right innovative mindset. You have to learn how to have the right innovative habits. You have to learn HOW to be innovative.

Thankfully, Sara Frascahelps you learn how to do just that. 

Sara is a keynote speaker, global business coach and innovation expert. She helps leading organizations cultivate human imagination, build a culture of innovation, and solve complex problems in creative ways - all while helping teams recognize their ability to help all of their employees develop and strengthen their creative muscles.

Some of the topics we discuss include:

• Creativity being one of the most sought-after job skills by employers
• How creativity has been stifled in corporate employees
•  How the crazy idea of painting cows to look like zebras helped save $2 Billion in the Japanese cattle industry
• Why borrowing ideas from outside of your industry is a valuable way to innovate
• What holds most companies back from being creative and innovative
• How creative habits help increase creativity
• The core mindsets that are common across the most creative people
•  How to keep your composure in the face of distractions

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE

• Sara's site
• Point Northeast site

In this week’s episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with Tim Schurrer, author of The Secret Society of Success: Stop Chasing the Spotlight and Learn to Enjoy Your Work (and Life) Again!

When we think about success, there are a number of messages that have been given to us that say, “If you want to be successful, you have to step into the spotlight, you have to climb the ladder, you have to become the boss, you have to be ambitious, you have to hustle. You have to focus on and chase success, or else you won’t reach it.”

But what if there’s another way? What if there’s something different we should focus on and be chasing?

That’s exactly what Tim Schurrer teaches. 

 Tim is the former Chief Operating Officer of StoryBrand where he worked alongside New York Times bestselling author, Donald Miller to launch and operate two brands, StoryBrand and Business Made Simple.

 Today he’s the host of the Build a Winning Team podcast, where he interviews top business leaders to bring you actionable advice to help you improve your leadership. 

 And Tim’s the author of The Secret Society of Success - it’s out this week!

 Some of the topics we discuss include:

• Why what we've traditionally been taught about success may not be right
• How our culture's primary message around success we hear makes us exhausted 
• What the spotlight mindset is and how to avoid it 
• The value of surrounding ourselves with others whose strengths complement our liabilities
• The question we should be asking ourselves instead of "What's in it for me?"
•  The value of recognizing people who report to you, and people who you report to, for their work 

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE

• Tim's site
• Tim's book - The Secret Society of Success: Stop Chasing the Spotlight and Learn to Enjoy Your Work (and Life) Again
• Tim's podcast - Build a Winning Team With Tim Schurrer

In this week’s episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with Darrell Amy, author of  Revenue Growth Engine: How to Align Sales and Marketing to Accelerate Growth!

When it comes to revenue, most businesses don’t appear to have a true revenue growth strategy or the processes in place to even drive growth. Outside of that,  some companies are really good at focusing on driving revenue through new customers while others are really good at cross-selling to existing customers. Unfortunately, very few appear to be good at doing both.

But it is possible to focus on and be good at both. And If you can drive simply reasonable growth in net-new business while also cross-selling your current clients, then you can actually double your revenue in less than 3 years.

But it does take an intentional strategy and it does take the right alignment between Sales and Marketing.

And this week’s guest is here to help you learn how to do just that. It’s Darrell Amy.

Darrell’s the author of the best-selling book Revenue Growth Engine: How To Align Sales and Marketing To Drive Accelerate Growth. He’s the host of the Revenue Growth Podcast on the C-Suite Radio Network and the co-host of the Selling From the Heart podcast. And he’s a member of the Forbes Business Council and a C-Suite Advisor. Darrell and I discuss his lessons around aligning your Sales and Marketing teams, growing your revenue aggressively yet realistically, and the number one way to differentiate yourself among your competitors. SPOILER ALERT: It’s all in the experience you deliver.

Some of the topics we discuss include:

• The law of exponential revenue growth
• The value ratio of net-new customers vs existing customers
• How the experience we deliver drives whether customers continue to buy from you
• The difference between a customer and a client
• How to break down the Sales and Marketing silos
•  How to ensure all your teams view everything from the eyes of the customer
• The importance of having your frontline team members understand what it feels like to receive the level of experience that your customers expect
•  Darrell and I discuss a hypothesis on how the identity given to your team members empowers them in delivering your customer experience
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RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE

• Darrell's site
• Darrell's book - Revenue Growth Engine: How to Align Sales and Marketing to Accelerate Growth

In this week’s episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with Pamela Slim, author of  The Widest Net: Unlock Untapped Markets and Discover New Customers Right In Front of You!

Pamela’s a best-selling author, business coach, and co-founder of the Main Street Learning Lab in Mesa, Arizona along with her husband, Darryl.

Pamela’s the best-selling author of Escape from Cubicle Nation, Body of Work and her latest: The Widest Net.

In The Widest Net, Pam teaches us how to build strong diverse relationships, identify and connect with new partners, expand markets, generate leads, and find new customers in places we may never have considered. And she shows us how to connect with potential clients and customers using the true breadth of the marketplace, which she calls an ecosystem of living connections.

Some of the topics we discuss include:

• How. to search outside your own "lens" to target your ideal customers
• How to more authentically learn about your customers
• How you and your customers can help each other grow through a trusted reciprocity framework
• How to build a community of customers and partners through relationship-building
• How to simplify your marketing and content strategy by focusing on a "beacon" - one primary communication vehicle
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RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE

• Pamela's site
  
  
• Pamela's book - The Widest Net: Unlock Untapped Markets and Discover New Customers Right in Front of You
• Pamela's book - Escape From Cubicle Nation: From Corporate Prisoner to Thriving Entrepreneur
• Pamela's book - Body of Work: Finding the Thread That Ties Your Story Together

In this week’s episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with Brittany Hodak! 

I think a fanbase is absolutely key to momentum and growth. Fans are not just loyal, they're devoted. They’ll consume whatever it is that their favorite artists or teams put out. 

Fans are advocates. They'll visually show their support with branded clothes and merchandise. 

Fans are evangelists. They'll tell all their friends about their favorite things and try to show them why their friends need to be fans too.

But what if your customers could be fans of you and your brand. Not just loyal customers, but actual SUPER FANS. 

It’s totally possible. And it can happen. But it takes a lot of work on your part. It takes you delivering the right experiences to them that helps them turn into super fans.

That’s why I had such a fun time talking with this week’s guest - Brittany Hodak.

Brittany’s an international keynote speaker and award-winning customer experience leader. She’s been a regular contributor for Forbes, Adweek, and Success Magazine. And she’s been featured on ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox News, and more.

Brittany’s been named in Advertising Age’s 40 Under 40 list, and Inc. Magazine’s 30 Under 30 list, and she was awarded Most Disruptive Marketing Entrepreneur at the UN’s Empact Awards.

 And Entrepreneur Magazine calls Brittany an “expert at creating loyal fans for your brand,” and she’s widely regarded as the “go-to source” on creating and retaining superfans.

Of course, your goal for your brand should be to deliver an experience that creates loyal customers who come back again and again. That’s a given. But then your goal should be to take that even further. You want to deliver experiences that convert customers into DEVOTED SUPERFANS — repeat clients who will always advocate for your brand without you even having to ask. And in this week’s episode, Brittany gives us lessons on how to do just that.

Some of the topics we discuss include:

• How being customer-centric means never resting on your laurels
• What we can learn from superstars with engaged fanbases and instill those lessons into our brands
• How a conversation with 16-year-old Taylor Swift turned into a lesson around creating a two-way street relationship with your customers
• Your competitors are happy to treat your customers the way they deserve to be treated if you won’t do it
• The definition of a superfan and how they can be the best marketing for your brand
• Brittany’s five-step framework for creating superfans
•  Why every employee is in both the Experience and Sales departments
• Why your customers are comparing you to every great experience they've had, not just your direct competitors 

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE

• Brittany's site (you’ll also get access to Brittany’s Superfan WAVE video course here!)

In this week’s episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with Annette Franz, author of  Built to Win: Designing a Customer-Centric Culture that Drives Value for Your Business!

Recently a CapGemini study showed that “while 75% of businesses believe they’re customer-centric, only 30% of their customers actually agreed with that.”

So you can say that your brand is customer-centric all day long,  but if your customer doesn’t agree with you, then you’ve got a big problem. And that problem is even bigger when you’re oblivious to it.

Delivering a truly customer-centric experience is pretty simple. It may not be easy, but it is simple. And it starts with your culture. It starts with you recognizing that your customer experience will not improve until you have an understanding of your customer and their needs instilled into everything that everyone across your organization does - not just those teams that are customer-facing. 

A truly customer-centric experience starts with having a truly customer-centric culture.

I don’t think enough leaders are talking about how to truly accomplish this, but this week’s guest is - it’s Annette Franz.

Annette’s the founder and CEO of CX Journey Inc., a customer experience strategy consulting firm that helps clients ensure that the customer is at the center of all they do.

As a seasoned Customer Experience veteran with over 30 years of experience, Annette’s held CX leadership roles at some of the top brands in the country including J.D. Power, Fidelity, and Mattel.

 And her latest book was just released this month! Built to Win: Designing a Customer-Centric Culture That Drives Value for Your Business.

While lots of experts talk about the value of customer-centric experiences, there aren’t enough lessons out there on how to build a customer-centric culture in your organization and how to ensure that the customer is fully ingrained into your organization’s DNA. And that’s just what Annette focuses on in Built to Win, and we take a deep-dive discussion into those lessons.

Some of the topics we discuss include:

• The difference between being customer-focused and being customer-centric and the value of a customer-centric culture
• The barriers to creating a customer-centric culture
• The value of defining both behaviors and anti-behaviors that tie to your organization’s values
• Why your employees should come “more first” [that’s not a typo!]
• How to ensure your customer experience thinking is outside-in vs inside-out
• How to apply the Platinum Rule to your customer experience

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE

• Annette's site
• Annette on LinkedIn
• Annette's book - Built to Win: Designing a Customer-Centric Culture That Drives Value For Your Business
• Annette's book - Customer Understanding: Three Ways to Put the "Customer" in Customer Experience (and at the Heart of Your Business) 

In this week’s episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with Jeremy Miner, host of the  Closers Are Losers podcast!

When I was in college twenty-plus years ago, a handful of us loved watching the movie Glengarry Glen Ross.

And we absolutely LOVED Alec Baldwin’s scene where he’s teaching his lesson to on closing deals. At one time, some of us could even quote his monologue verbatim.

 Always Be Closing.

Now whether that way of selling truly worked or not was up for debate. What isn’t up for debate is that method (even if it did work at one time) is completely outdated.

Today’s consumers, today’s customers, today’s buyers are different. With the tools and information they have, they’re savvier than ever. They have the ability to take their money and give it to someone else quicker than ever.

The way they research, the information they have available to them, the way they interact with (and choose to interact with) sales reps - has completely changed.

But too many brands aren’t recognizing this change. Too many brands aren't recognizing the need to change their approach to selling. And they’re starting to fail and become completely irrelevant to their customers. And when that happens, they can’t figure out why. They can’t figure out how to adapt.

Thankfully, this week’s guest has the lessons and strategies to help brands adapt to these changes - it’s Jeremy Miner.

Jeremy is the Founder and Chairman of 7th Level, a Global Sales Training company. He’s been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc, Entrepreneur, and lots of other publications.

Jeremy and I talk about his lessons on being able to influence and sell to anyone today. SPOILER ALERT: it’s all about being a problem finder AND a problem solver... NOT a product pusher.

What’s great here is that you can apply these lessons in most any aspect of your career or business. Whether it’s client relationships, whether it’s your leadership, whether it’s other teams you collaborate with, whether it’s your customers -  If you’re wanting to influence someone else to take action - this discussion is for you.

Some of the topics we discuss include:

• Why we need to become problem finders and problem solvers, not product pushers
• How to find customers' problems through questions
• Why no one trusts you when you say you’re better or even the best
• Why top marketers and top salespeople are collaborative
• The value of learning psychology and human behavior in order to sell more
• How dialogue is the most persuasive form of selling
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RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE

• Jeremy's free Sales Revolution group - [LOTS of great resources here!]
• Jeremy's podcast: Closers Are Losers