What does it mean to optimize the employee experience at your company? 

While many corporations spend money and time marketing their business to consumers, can that same effort and intention be applied to making your workplace a suitable and appealing place to be?  

Beyond this, what does it look like to lead a team well, affirm their stories, maximize their potential, and equip them with the tools to succeed? 

Shawn Nason speaks with Cheryl Whiting-Kish on today’s episode to discuss her beginning as a Hooters Girl, the leadership experience she gained on the way to becoming HOA Brands’ current Chief of People Officer, and more.  

In This Episode

What We Learned From Cheryl

Notable Quotes

[04:47] - “If you want to get the results that you’re going for externally, then we have to make it just as much fun, just as appealing, just as exciting as we would to the external customers.” 

[05:17] - “Experiences drive beliefs, and beliefs drive behaviors.” 

[07:22] - "What really drives us as human beings is knowing that we're part of something bigger than ourselves."

[20:18] - “We cannot lead if we don’t start with self first.” 

Our Guest

Cheryl Whiting-Kish is the Chief People Officer at HOA Brands, which operates and franchises close to 400 Hooters restaurants in 38 states. With a background in consulting and leadership, her focus is identifying talent and giving team members the space and freedom to shine, grow, and become whomever they want to be, wherever their path leads them. 

Resources & Links

Cheryl Whiting-Kish

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cheryl-whiting-kish-0ba7b01

Shawn Nason

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

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/manonfiresocial

Website: https://shawnnason.com/

MOFI: https://www.mofi.co/

The Combustion Chronicles Podcast

Website: https://shawnnason.com/combustion-chronicles-episodes/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does product marketing have to do with customer experience?

It’s not enough that customers are aware of your brand’s existence, as a marketer, you have to know your product really well, experience the end-to-end process, and figure out a way to make the consumers fall in love with what you do.

In this episode, Shawn Nason and Robin Daniels discuss a marketer’s role in ensuring a good customer experience, leading with positive and fearless impact, and providing magical moments to your consumers.

In This Episode

What we learned from Robin

Notable Quotes

[06:18] - “The best marketers I’ve known, they also take the time to learn the product and stay with it.”

[07:34] - “The best marketing and the best kind of customer experience is about, how do you remove the friction points at every step of the way?”

[11:22] - “I was always more driven by the potential of what could be, than the fear of just staying stale.”

[20:01] - “Experience is such a part of creating a brand that people fall in love with, but also creating very strong word of mouth.”

[29:32] - “If you really wanna see your career take off, it doesn’t happen if you just do the bare minimum. You have to go all in.”

Our Guest

Robin Daniels is a three-time Chief Marketing Officer, and a veteran of 2.5 IPOs, and currently serves as an advisor to fast-growth companies around the world. He spent more than 20 years in marketing and growth leadership roles at such companies as Salesforce, Box, LinkedIn, Matterport, and WeWork. His areas of expertise include product marketing, brand-building, and sales transformation, among many others.

Resources & Links

Robin Daniels

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

Shawn Nason

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

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/manonfiresocial

Website: https://shawnnason.com/

MOFI: https://www.mofi.co/

The Combustion Chronicles Podcast

Website: https://shawnnason.com/combustion-chronicles-episodes/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How can we elevate the human experience in healthcare?

COVID-19 has immensely affected the healthcare system, but how can it shift from the changes brought by the pandemic? Hospitals and systems really need to think about the experience of the patients, especially today in this new generated focus.

So what is the role of Chief Experience Officers in breaking down these silos in healthcare? Is there still a space for collaboratives? How can we keep the human experience at the forefront?

Join Shawn Nason as he talks to Cassandra Crowe to learn more.

In This Episode

What we learned from Cassandra

Notable Quotes

[08:25] - “Our job is to make sure the work is meaningful and connected to a bigger strategic objective.”

[16:27] - “In the healthcare space, letters behind your name mean a lot to certain people.”

[17:29] - “If you’re not sure where I fit, then we won’t ever get to success.”

[23:01] - “You don’t have to have a title to be a leader, you have to have heart for people.”

Our Guest

Cassandra Crowe serves as chief experience officer at Sharp HealthCare, her latest stop in 20+ years of leadership in patient experience and service excellence. She is a dynamic professional with a proven track record of elevating the human experience through collaborative relationships, and high-impact strategies and initiatives.

Resources & Links

Cassandra Crowe

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

Shawn Nason

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

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/manonfiresocial

Website: https://shawnnason.com/

MOFI: https://www.mofi.co/

The Combustion Chronicles Podcast

Website: https://shawnnason.com/combustion-chronicles-episodes/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you want to build an outstanding Experience Ecosystem™, understanding your customers is critical.

But this is often easier said than done. Data and research can be difficult to mine for the right insights. Monitoring the metrics of a product life cycle can take your focus away from the end consumer big picture.

Company leaders need to learn the importance of keeping their focus on the needs of the people they serve, finding the right problem, and designing the solutions for it.

What are the principles of a priceless customer experience? How can you understand your customers more? Is there a place for maverick-minded people in the financial industry? Shawn Nason talks to Greg Boullin to learn more.

In This Episode

What we learned from Greg

Notable Quotes

[07:55] - “If you get more participation from engineers, product managers, executives, the investment follows.”

[10:23] - “It’s time for doing well by doing good to become business as usual.”

[14:57] - “Ultimately, you need to be focused on what delivers value for the end consumer.”

[17:40] - “Maverick mindset allows us to accelerate vitality for the business.”

[22:00] - “Get experiences of lots of different cultures and that will accelerate your learning and your career potential as it relates to leadership.”

Our Guest

Greg Boullin is the Senior Vice President of Experience and Innovation at MasterCard. Greg and his team are charged with de-risking the introduction of new products and services through customer-centric research and insights in close collaboration with experience design, engineering, and product teams.

Resources & Links

Greg Boullin

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

Shawn Nason

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

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/manonfiresocial

Website: https://shawnnason.com/

MOFI: https://www.mofi.co/

The Combustion Chronicles Podcast

Website: https://shawnnason.com/combustion-chronicles-episodes/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you get the human experience right, you’ll get the numbers that you need.

Customers and employees should never be disconnected in any way, shape, or form, no matter what industry you’re in. It is crucial for leaders of organizations to think about how they can create delightful experiences for human beings that engage with their brands.

The question is, what is the secret sauce for designing for humans? What does it mean to have an outside-in approach? How do we pull the three concepts of employee experience, customer experience, and brand experience together?

Join Shawn Nason and Aarthi Murali as they discuss all this and more.

In This Episode

What we learned for Aarthi

Notable Quotes

[06:25] - “I've been very much on this mission to connect the dots and make sure that when we think about experiences, it's human experiences and designed for humans.”

[09:14] - “It's incredibly important that the (Experience Officer) role is empowered, has complete decision rights and has full empowerment to drive the change.”

[12:31] - “Experiences are a set of choices that you allow the customers to make that delight them.”

[15:29] - “It is very important for every single employee in that journey from front to back to connect to understand their piece of that journey.”

[22:11] - “One of the things I would say is incredibly important in any role, especially for this role, would be to have an incredibly open mind and a growth mindset.”

Our Guest

Aarthi Murali is M&T Banks’ first Chief Customer Experience Officer. She focuses on enabling teams across the enterprise to design delightful end-to-end experiences for customers, while building out capabilities to support them.

She is a customer fanatic at heart and in practice, and believes that taking an outside-in approach is key to making a difference in people’s lives.

Resources & Links

Aarthi Murali

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aarthi-murali-0a6b90/

Shawn Nason

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

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/manonfiresocial

Website: https://shawnnason.com/

MOFI: https://www.mofi.co/

The Combustion Chronicles Podcast

Website: https://shawnnason.com/combustion-chronicles-episodes/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A consumer’s first exposure to the brand is always important. With every new generation that comes up, brands should never assume that these people already know what you’re offering to them.

How do you create that first touch in trying to bring a customer into the fold? How do the three pillars of content, messaging and value work together to build the right experience? What is an “experience toolkit,” and how can you use it to strengthen multiple verticals across your entire Experience Ecosystem™? 

Join Shawn Nason and Fred Gerantabee explore all this and more.

In This Episode

What we learned from Fred

Notable quotes

[06:49] - “If it is something where you are bringing consumers into a new category, how do you convince them that it’s the right time to enter and it’s the right product to meet?”

[09:48] - “The success of things that I look to bring to the market are not solely mine.”

[12:03] - “It’s for me to work with my colleagues and create those relationships that we embark on together to say, to achieve these things, we need to do all of this together congruently.”

[21:33] - “The evolution of your brand is not just about yet another campaign or another stunt. It is about creating the coolest products that you can put out in a number of channels in the market.”

[23:56] - “To be a CXO, you have to definitely be a generalist in many senses. You have to understand how the different pieces come together.”

Our guest

Fred Gerantabee is the CXO of FGX International, which is part of eyewear giant EssilorLuxottica. He is an award-winning technologist, author and executive whose career has spanned the client, platform, and agency worlds across a variety of verticals.

During stints at Walt Disney Internet Group, WPP, and FGX, Fred has focused intensely on leveraging digital platforms, product development, and brand to create amazing first-touch experiences for consumers.

Resources & Links

Fred Gerantabee

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

Shawn Nason

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

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/manonfiresocial

Website: https://shawnnason.com/

MOFI: https://www.mofi.co/

The Combustion Chronicles Podcast

Website: https://shawnnason.com/combustion-chronicles-episodes/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the many important things that businesses need to learn is to have the right discipline in knowing your signature identity as a brand. Are you the disruptor, or are you being disrupted? If your answer is neither, that is going to be a big problem.

How do you build an experience-based brand? How do you make your employees and leaders more productive? And most importantly, how do you weave purpose into leadership?

Join Shawn Nason as he talks to trailblazer and acclaimed futurist, Antonia Hock.

In This Episode

What we learned from Antonia

Notable quotes

[07:23] - “When you think about an experience-based brand, that is a leadership team that is thinking about the consumer first and building it into everything they do.”

[10:01] - “More and more businesses are exploring this concept of purpose. That's another great consumer behavior trend.”

[16:19] - “If you're going to embrace a maverick, you have to be ready for what they're bringing in their toolkit.”

[19:23] - “Invest in great skill development and in portable things that make your employees more productive and leaders more productive.”

[20:42] - “Leading with the purpose behind the work gets at the root of a lot of things that teams are really looking for right now.”

Our guest

Antonia Hock is a trailblazer and acclaimed futurist in the world of organizational transformation, leadership excellence, and building experience-based brands. Her career is rooted in building cultures of customer-centricity, implementing game-changing leadership strategy, and innovating customer experiences, all with an emphasis on tangible results and lasting impact. 

Before launching Antonia J.A. Hock & Associates as a global consulting firm focused on transformational leadership and innovation, Antonia spent six years as the Global Head of The Ritz-Carlton Leadership Center. Her FutureForward™ program is a practical and actionable approach focused on leadership development, the future of consumer behavior, and how to navigate disruption.

Resources & Links

Antonia Hock

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antonia-hock/

Shawn Nason

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

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/manonfiresocial

Website: https://shawnnason.com/

MOFI: https://www.mofi.co/

The Combustion Chronicles Podcast

Website: https://shawnnason.com/combustion-chronicles-episodes/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you went to two different coffee shops that both had the same quality of coffee for the same price, which would you choose over the other? And more importantly – why? 

It all comes down to the customer experience – and being able to answer “why” is the key to any company’s CX. Join Shawn Nason and Gene Lee to discover how employee trust, culture and buy-in impact CX, why good CX is more human-obsessed than customer-obsessed, how to start figuring out the answer to your business’ “why,” and more.

In this episode

What we learned from Gene

Notable quotes

[05:09] - “Once you have the trust, the who, when and how, becomes a lot easier.”

[05:33] - “You gotta build your trust with your peers, stakeholders, and partners.”

[08:03] - “Don’t fall in love with the tool and try to convince the organization, use it and show them the value of it.”

[21:05] - “Bring the customer in as you concept and co-create. Be closer to the customer.”

[23:13] - “You have to go slow to move fast and really understand the problem and understand what areas of experience that we can move the needle.”

Our guest

Gene Lee is the Vice President of experience design at Autodesk where he leads a talented, multidisciplinary team responsible for delivering a seamless end-to-end customer experience across the entire digital customer lifecycle.

Previously, he served as chief experience officer at Mailchimp, and also had the opportunity to work at Sony PlayStation, Nickelodeon, Scholastic, Landor, Y&R, among many other great brands.

Resources & Links

Gene Lee

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gene337/

Shawn Nason

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

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/manonfiresocial

Website: https://shawnnason.com/

MOFI: https://www.mofi.co/

The Combustion Chronicles Podcast

Website: https://shawnnason.com/combustion-chronicles-episodes/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In every industry, there’s always more than one type of person, customer or title that helps shape the Experience Ecosystem™. In healthcare, it’s been known as “the patient experience” – but now, as leaders begin to look at the way providers, employees, patients and their families all  impact a hospital’s ecosystem, the human experience has become more apt. 

Why is focusing on the human experience critical in every industry? How do you measure the value and ROI of such a subjective thing in a metrics-obsessed world? What do you need to know to leverage the human experience in your company’s ecosystem? Join Shawn Nason and Nicole Cable to learn more.

In this episode

What we learned from Nicole

Notable quotes

[06:02] – “The one thing that we did religiously was our team members always came first. So I am of the mindset that if you don't take care of the team members, they're not gonna take care of a patient.”

[13:24] – “The saying that I hear all the time is ‘Nothing about me without me’. Don’t do anything for me without my input and I feel like that’s important from a patient experience perspective.”

[24:33] – “Don’t ever have a fear to speak up because what you give us may be the differentiator for everything that we do. No idea is a bad idea, and all voices are welcome and heard.”

[25:57] – “I think you have to be willing to go out there and do things that some people might think you’re crazy for doing it, but if it’s the right thing to do, you need to stand by it.”

[27:00] – “You have to be willing to humble yourself to know you don’t know everything cos no matter what they say I am, I am still learning and growing in my world.”

Our guest

Nicole Cable is the Chief Experience Officer of CareMax, Inc., which is a network of value-based clinics providing primary care, dental care, social services and more. Previously, she served as the Chief Experience Officer of InnovaCare Health. 

Resources & Links

Nicole Cable

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

Shawn Nason

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

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/manonfiresocial

Website: https://shawnnason.com/

MOFI: https://www.mofi.co/

The Combustion Chronicles Podcast

Website: https://shawnnason.com/combustion-chronicles-episodes/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A company’s Experience Ecosystem™ can be a vast and complex thing. But where exactly does the employee experience fit in, how does it impact the overall environment – and what can leaders do to shape an employee experience that works in tandem with the rest of the ecosystem? 

Join Shawn Nason and Mark Rickmeier to explore how remote work has altered the employee experience, why experiences are more impactful for employees than fancy offices and other perks, and what employers can do to start going beyond basic DEI initiatives and shape a truly effective Experience Ecosystem™.

In This Episode

What we learned from Mark

Notable quotes

[08:32] - “You need to have everything easily accessible to improve transparency and equitable access to everyone.”

[10:40] - “Unlearn and let go of some of the things that historically worked to experiment and find new things that work.”

[27:00] - “The most important way to learn is through admitting and owning up to failure.” 

[28:52] - “Your time as a leader is not just when you’re busy doing a bunch of things.”

Our guest

Mark Rickmeier is the Chief Executive Officer at TXI, a product innovation company. He has created more than 100 mobile apps, custom-built web applications, and intuitive user experiences for clients like the Field Museum, Roger Ebert, AccuWeather, and Tyson Foods.

In 2014, Mark founded the Kermit Collective, a high-trust community of leading software companies, to help get new ideas and insights from outside of his own bubble.

He is the author of the Sticky Note Game and created a concept called the Inclusion Meeting Card game.

Resources & Links

Mark Rickmeier

Website: https://markrickmeier.com/

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

Shawn Nason

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

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/manonfiresocial

Website: https://shawnnason.com/

MOFI: https://www.mofi.co/

The Combustion Chronicles Podcast

Website: https://shawnnason.com/combustion-chronicles-episodes/

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices