StrategyCast

“Brands in the coming years are going to have to increase their emotional intelligence.”

Heather Larrabee is executive vice president of marketing for GoSpotCheck, a platform that is reimagining how the mobile workforce works. Their software helps teams perfect merchandising, increase sales, reduce labor and expenses, ensure safety and quality, and improve profitability from the field. Heather is motivated by an intrinsic desire to make things better, easier, or more productive for others. She looks to free people from the mundane so that their true talents and abilities can shine forth and benefit the organization and those it serves. Heather is known for being hyper systems-intelligent and she’s created enterprise systems and tools to meet deep business needs. She is first and foremost a mission-driven leader who finds authentic joy and fulfillment in galvanizing high-performing teams to achieve innovative results for businesses who make a difference on the planet.

Listen And Learn:

• Tips and tricks to creating a customer-centric brand.
• How to incorporate an earned approach into your marketing mix.
• The important difference between “an audience and a person.”
• Delivering full-funnel solutions that help customers choose your brand.
• How to reach the Gen Z audience.
• Working with micro and macro influencers.
• The importance of having empathy for your customers.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT GOSPOTCHECK, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND HEATHER LARRABEE ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

Call LORI JONES and the team at Avocet today to learn about Influencer strategies. 303-678-7102

“The winners in today’s marketplace tend to be better at execution and faster to move.”

Allen Adamson, NYU professor and co-founder and managing partner of Metaforce, is a noted industry expert in all disciplines of branding. He has worked with a broad spectrum of consumer and corporate businesses in industries ranging from packaged goods and technology to healthcare and financial services to hospitality and entertainment. With his perspective and depth of experience, Allen helps his clients understand and activate strategies that enable them to shift ahead of the market and the competition, generating long-term value and increased brand equity. He is the author of Shift Ahead, a book that explains how the best organizations recognize when its time to change direction, and how they pull it off while bolstering their brands. Allen is also the author of several other books, including BrandSimple, BrandDigital, and The Edge: 50 Tips from Brands That Lead, and has appeared on Nightline, the Today Show, CNBC’s Squawk Box and The Closing Bell, and on Fox Business Network. He is often quoted in publications including The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Advertising Age, USA Today, the Washington Post, and Forbes.

Listen And Learn:

• Why every brand needs a visionary at the top.
• Lessons learned from the Kodak and Blackberry companies.
• The mindset of an effective leader.
• The danger of entrepreneurs and leaders getting stymied by “analysis paralysis.”
• Why all leaders need to reimagine and reinvent in order to stay relevant.
• How to “stay the best in a fast-changing environment.”

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT NYU, CLICK HERE.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT METAFORCE, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND ALLEN ADAMSON ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

A Colorado native and proud Walmart associate, Emily Barrett is a senior marketing manager who has worked on Walmart’s Grocery Pickup & Delivery business for over four years. She has taken the program from a two-city pilot to a national offering. She is now spearheading Walmart’s Grocery Delivery program, which will be in over 1,600 stores and 200 markets by year-end. She has a passion for marketing and understanding her customer, which allows her to use her analytical and creative side to deliver successful campaigns.

• How to balance the need to drive trial while focusing on repeat customers.
• Delighting the customer at all points in the sales funnel.
• Using data to refine marketing initiatives.
• How content impacts an integrated marketing approach.
• Taking advantage of your customers’ “idle time.”

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WALMART eCOMMERCE, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND EMILY BARRETT ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

Joni Huffman is senior vice president of sales and marketing at Healthy Food Ingredients, LLC. She brings more than 20 years of experience in development of ingredient sales in previously held positions including director of specialty sales for Ardent Mills and director of business development at ConAgra Mills. She has spent her career working in complex matrixed organizations to develop a strategic vision for new and existing commercial ingredients. Her focus is helping leading food manufacturers to develop new products and apply Healthy Food Ingredients’ unique portfolio and technology to develop long term supply relationships. Her emphasis is on leading teams to think more strategically about opportunity development and execution. Along with this comes great facility with agreement negotiation as well as cross-functional team leadership.

Listen And Learn:

• Tips for productive communication with customers.
• Planning for disruption.
• How she embraces innovation while maintaining brand quality in an ever-changing marketplace.
• How to bridge the gap between sales and marketing.
• The importance of taking on a consultative mindset versus a sales mindset.
• The value of “the feedback loop between sales and marketing.”

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HEALTHY FOOD INGREDIENTS, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND JONI HUFFMAN ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

Christopher Smith is the director of CloudLink & Wide Area Networks Product Marketing & Business Development for the Zayo Group. He is a technology leader with a passion for leading cross-functional teams to solve complex business problems. Christopher specializes in a customer-focused approach to building strategic alliances, channel partnerships and enterprise services design, delivery through customer experience (NPS/CSAT). He has a unique background having navigated and excelled in larger more established organizations like EMC and launching a startup with VCE. During the latter, he co-founded the company and helped drive a $250 million business to become the fastest company in the history of high tech to reach a $1billion run rate while growing 42% year over year and achieving 50%+ market share.

Listen And Learn:

• How the sales channel changes for each persona.
• Aligning your messaging’s voice to your corporate brand and with what customers expect.
• The importance of developing audience personas, especially when launching a go-to-market product launch.
• Accelerating the customer journey.
• Why it’s important to not talk about what you do, but to talk about why you do it.
• Why brands shouldn’t get too technical too quickly.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ZAYO GROUP, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND CHRIS SMITH  ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

As CEO of Brightpearl, Derek O’Carroll is responsible for the overall company strategy and for delivering on Brightpearl’s mission to automate retail. Brightpearl is a scalable cloud platform designed especially for high-growth multi-channel retailers wishing to automate and integrate their e-Commerce and accounting operations. He has spent his career developing a highly successful track record of creating value to IT companies in EMEA Specialties including building exceptional teams and creating winning environments, simple messaging, zero ambiguity, and a train for excellence. In 1994 he founded Adnet, Ireland’s first online advertising agency building database driven websites and offering SEO services. In 1999 he founded Vordel, which became a leading provider of XML security solutions and was sold to Axway in 2012.

Listen And Learn:

• Why 35% of shoppers say that they are less loyal to brands than they were a year ago.
• The perfect direct-to-consumer retail experience defined.
• Defining customer friction and how to avoid it.
• The secret to successful direct-to-consumer retail strategies.
• What gets buyers to return to a brand and spend more on their second visit?
• The importance of establishing empathy.
• Why the human element matters in direct-to-consumer retail marketing.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BRIGHTPEARL, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND DEREK O’CARROLL ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

Stephanie Scapa is CEO and founder of WEYV, a platform that allows users to listen to music, read magazines, and soon, listen to podcasts – all in a single app experience. While competition is fierce with established brands like Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon, Stephanie is on a mission to unite friends and family through shared access to all entertainment and quality content that binds them together. Not only is she leading efforts surrounding the development of the app, but she is also at the forefront of establishing deals with major record labels and publishing companies to offer their content to consumers via WEYV.

Listen And Learn:

• Shares her strategies for competing with the Goliaths in the industry.
• Why she chooses not to go head-to-head with the competition.
• How she focuses on messaging WEYV’s unique offerings.
• The importance of testing and scaling, and then adjusting strategy accordingly.
• The importance of broad and honest communication, both internally and externally.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WEYV, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND STEPHANIE SCAPA ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

Kasim Aslam, a self-described “digital ninja,” is the founder and chief strategist of Solutions 8. His background is in custom application architecture and development. He has built custom web and software applications for organizations in a myriad of sectors such as the banking industry including the largest privately owned bank in the United States, the healthcare industry including the oldest TPA in the country, and the nonprofit industry as a consultant for a branch of The Gate’s Foundation. Kasim has been a technology spokesperson for Intel and has worked on a contract basis for the United States Army. He has been published in numerous publications, including CRM magazine, Search Engine Journal, and Social Media Today. Kasim has lectured on the topics of Search Engine Optimization, marketing automation, and digital marketing, and has served as a guest speaker alongside Mavenlink CEO Ray Grainger on project management for small businesses. He is the author of the Amazon bestseller, The 7 Critical Principles of Effective Digital Marketing, and his company is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, a Google Partner, and was recently named a Top 10 Agency by Expertise.com.

Listen And Learn:

• About the 7 critical principles of effective digital marketing.
• Why empathy is the most powerful facet of marketing.
• How to create buyer personas that hit at the heart of customer behavior.
• The importance of giving value first…and last.
• Always learn, apply, and innovate.
• How to create “living plans.”

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT SOLUTIONS 8, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND KASIM ASLAM ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

Elizabeth Barry is known as the Great Positive Change-Maker. Her private business consulting and corporate workshops have wowed hundreds of leaders across the U.S. for over 15 years. She is the author of The Kind Communicator, and she is a master TEDx curator with over 17 events on her resume. Her portfolio boasts hundreds of brand launches and relaunches, both for companies and for leaders who wish to transform their personal brands. Throughout her career, she's run a six-figure marketing agency working with famous artists and entrepreneurs, and badass entrepreneurs. Elizabeth was named Leading BrandPreneur by Leading Women Entrepreneurs in 2017, Top 40 under 40 in Digital Marketing in 2016, and the first Women in Business of the Year in 2012 in Hoboken. She empowers people through her LinkedIn articles, and she is sought after for her masterful advice on leadership and building a tribe with authenticity.

Listen And Learn:

• Her nine-step approach to creating an authentic and charismatic personal brand.
• What it takes to be a charismatic communicator.
• The importance of sharing your truth with the world and authentically telling your story.
• The power of “vulnerable coaching.”
• How to build a leadership legacy.
• Looking at obstacles through a different lens.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE ELIZABETH BARRY CONSULTING AGENCY, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND ELIZABETH BARRY ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

Vivien Conway and Tasha Meys, the dynamic duo that is Viv and Tash, are Instagram experts and co-founders of Instagram specialist company, Ace The Gram. They are millennials on a mission: to help everyone reap the infinite benefits of nailing Instagram. Viv and Tash have over 200K net followers on their personal Instagrams and have worked with clients from 70 followers to 1.9 million followers across Australia, the U.S., and New Zealand. They have discovered firsthand how building a dedicated Instagram following can significantly accelerate the success of your personal brand or business. Tash uses her skills in content creation to create thumb-stopping creative Instagram pictures for brands’ Instagram platforms. Viv successfully built her own sportswear brand on Instagram. Through her own experience, Viv learned the best techniques for influencer marketing and has grown multiple accounts from zero to 30K in less than a year. 

• How to ensure that each of your social media strategies is targeted to each of your audience profiles.
• The most important element of Instagram messaging.
• The importance of investing in good visual content and creating engaging captions.
• How to build your Instagram following, and build it quickly.
• Creating enticing – but simple – giveaway strategies.
• The top three “must-dos” when creating powerful influencer campaigns.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT  ACE THE GRAM, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND VIVIEN CONWAY ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND TASHA MEYS ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

Want to know how to capitalize on the power of Instagram? Call LORI JONES and the team at Avocet today at 303-678-7102 to learn more.