“Strategy is a fancy word for making informed choices to meet your business objectives.”

Nag-Bushan Odekar, vice president and head of marketing/individual markets for Great-West Financial, is a marketing executive with superior analytical/problem-solving skills, creativity, strategic agility, and entrepreneurial drive. He began his financial services career at Fidelity Investments in 1999. Nag also has prior experience as the co-founder and CMO at ForeverCar.com, an online retailer that enables consumers to purchase and finance automobile warranties. Prior to ForeverCar, Nag was vice president of consumer marketing at Aviva (now Athene), a leader in indexed life and annuities, where he led the company’s innovation pipeline and brand strategy.

Listen And Learn: 

• How connecting to a brand means offering a solution.
• Why statistics might be interesting, but they don’t necessarily mean that they will change buyer behavior.
• How to know the difference between objectives, strategies, planning, and tactics.
• How to create your brand’s narrative.
• The importance of creating emotional connections.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT GREAT-WEST FINANCIAL CLICK HERE.

TO FIND NAG ODEKAR ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE. 

“Humans are emotional buyers.”

Jeffrey Shaw is the author of LINGO: Discover Your Ideal Customer's Secret Language and Make Your Business Irresistible. Jeffrey helps his clients understand the "lingo" of their ideal customers they want to reach and the audience they want to impact. Jeffrey believes that to understand the lingo of those you want to attract is to know their essence, their values, and what emotionally triggers them so that you stand out, and that to build a successful business is not about education or even skill set. It's about understanding the culture, mindset, values, and the way of being of those you want to serve.

Listen And Learn:

• The five emotional triggers that form the basis for lingo.
• How familiarity is the most powerful of emotions when it comes to connecting with your customers.
• Why it’s vitally important to deeply and empathetically understand whom you want to reach and to build a business from their perspective.
• His ultimate goal when it comes to customer connection.
• The importance of understanding your audience’s “secret language.”
• How personas and avatars only go so far.

TO FIND JEFFREY SHAW ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

“78% of people will actually touch Amazon at some point during their purchase cycle. That means that every brand needs to consider Amazon as part of their marketing plan.”

Jeff Cohen is chief marketing officer at SellerLabs, a cloud-based tool for e-Commerce businesses to source, sell, and provide customer service. Jeff’s goal is to empower small businesses with the tools they need to succeed, provide excellent support and service, and always push to make things better.

Listen And Learn: 

• The four quadrants of achieving success on Amazon: search, page conversion, advertising, and reviews.
• How to create “discoverability” and relevancy for your brand on Amazon.
• The three most important elements of your product’s searchability on Amazon.
• How to get customers to your product detail page and entice them to make a purchase.
• How Amazon reviews help with product refinement

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT SELLERLABS, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND JEFF COHEN ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

“User experience is where fingers meet technology.”

 Scott Kincaid started at Usability Sciences 20+ years ago with a lofty goal to make the world a little more intuitive, one bit at a time. As to be expected in small companies, he has worn many hats including researcher, operations manager, sales engineer, salesforce.com admin, and executive. In his time of user research consulting, Scott has worked for a wide range of companies including Salesforce, Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, and Dell.

Listen And Learn:

• The importance of knowing your target market’s tech knowledge.
• Why your customers need to know “what’s on the other side of the wall.”
• How to listen differently and without prejudice.
• The importance of gathering data in the moment, as opposed to focusing on questions about what a customer might do in the future.
• Why it’s important to target your indirect competition.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT USABILITY SCIENCES, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND SCOTT KINCAID ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

“It’s never about the technology and it’s never about the shiny stuff.”

George Karayannis is vice president of CityNOW, Panasonic North America, where he leads a high-performing team providing sustainable community solutions to municipalities and private developers. He is passionate about providing sustainable solutions, emerging technologies, and working with ultra-high performing teams. He has led sales, marketing and BD teams at F100 firms and leading-edge wireless startups, and is an expert in supply and demand-side energy management, selling Smart Grid (DR, EE & RE) and Smart City solutions. 

Listen And Learn:

• Bridging the social and equity divides with Smart Cities.
• How keeping ahead of emerging technology to “navigating Class 5 rapids in a dense fog.
• How to create a team where the members join to be part of the vision you are creating.
• The importance of embracing ambiguity and uncertainty.
• Why your early customers will always be your best salespeople.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CITYNOW, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND GEORGE KARAYANNIS ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

"Sometimes we have to have permission from someone else to uncover our own special kind of genius.”

The eQuilter 15,000 square foot warehouse is located in Boulder, Colorado, and has the largest online selection of high-quality quilt fabrics and related products, with over 22,000 products online and in stock. Luana Rubin, who founded the company with her husband Paul, has a 35+ year background in art, design, and retail. Her eye for color and design – and most especially for identifying trends in the industry – has earned her a coveted membership in the Color Marketing Group and turned her into a world traveler. She has worked in New York and Hong Kong, and been a guest speaker on color and design trends at shows and conferences in Thailand, Japan, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, Mexico, France, England, and Canada. eQuilter's charity program has raised $1.5 million, and eQuilter has helped to organize and distribute over 12,000 donated quilts for disaster relief, orphans and cancer patients around the world.

Listen And Learn:

• About the myth of the “overnight success.”
• The importance of mentorship.
• Why asking, “what’s next?” is crucial for a creative entrepreneur.
• How she has built her subscriber list to 125,000.
• The importance of brand standing.
• How she creates loyal customers.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT EQUILTER.COM, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND LUANA RUBIN ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

“No matter which strategy you take, you still have to have a lot of one-to-one conversations with investors.”

Jenny Kassan has been an attorney for social enterprises for 22 years, and is a certified transformational coach, social entrepreneur, investor, and finance innovator. She specializes in helping mission-driven women entrepreneurs raise capital from like-minded investors. Her formula for mission-aligned capital raising has helped diverse entrepreneurs raise millions of dollars on their own terms. She is the founder and president of Community Ventures, a nonprofit dedicated to community economic and social development. Her new book, Raise Capital on Your Own Terms: How to Fund Your Business Without Selling Your Soul, is a guide to finding investors aligned with your business goals and personal values.

Listen And Learn:

• How entrepreneurs can find mission-driven investors.
• Why you need to make sure that the way you are raising money is legally compliant.
• Her six-step strategy for raising money for your business.
• The importance of knowing your non-negotiables.
• The value in defining your ideal investor at the outset.
• How to read the queues and know when you might be losing a potential investor.

TO FIND JENNY KASSAN ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

Products don’t sell themselves. It takes marketing to differentiate and establish a need. Call Avocet Communications TODAY at 303-678-7102.

“Be a glass box, not a black box.”

Geoffrey Colon, senior marketing communications designer at Microsoft, works at the intersection of tech, design, media, human behavior, popular culture, trends, and product innovation. He defines himself as a dreamer + doer + thinker. He is the author of the 2016 book DISRUPTIVE MARKETING: What Growth Hackers, Data Punks, And Other Hybrid Thinkers Can Teach Us About Navigating the New Normal. At Microsoft, Geoffrey explores and executes creative data-driven communication and design solutions in the emerging world of media. He is the producer of the weekly marketing podcast for eccentric minds, DISRUPTIVE FM, and has been featured on Cheddar TV, Success magazine, The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, “Marketplace” on NPR, Entrepreneur, Search Engine Journal, Fast Company, Adweek, and Business Insider.

Listen And Learn:

• Being “flawsome” should be a goal.
• Why businesses that are trying to provide solutions with quick and easy answers are missing the point.
• Going beyond the utilitarian to the emotional.
• The intersection between marketing and product development.
• Why we need marketers that understand and celebrate fringe ideas and things that are weird.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT MICROSOFT, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND GEOFFREY COLON ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

It’s not about WHAT you do, it’s about WHY you do it. Call Avocet Communications TODAY at 303-678-7102 and we can help you define YOUR why!

“It does not matter how great your content is if the Google bots or any of the others can’t properly crawl your site.”

As a marketing veteran, Ashlee Colliver has worked with well over 70 organizations during her 15+ year career. In her career, Ashlee worked to move an entirely offline company to a nearly 100% digital operation increasing revenues with the move by 152%. She also drove a campaign that resulted in fully funding the build of a not-for-profit Hospice House in Harrison, Arkansas, the only one of its kind in the United States. In the past five years, she’s worked inside the e-Commerce space exclusively. Within Classy Llama, Ashlee launched and continues to lead the marketing services team providing marketing expertise to multiple merchants.

Listen And Learn:

• How to optimize and secure your organic traffic.
• Her multi-phased approach to planning for and launching a website.
• The recommended tools for boosting SEO.
• The importance of “stage crawl.”
• Why making changes, especially during the staged phase of your website launch, can negatively impact your organic search at launch.
• How to set up an improvement plan during the post-launch phase.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT  CLASSY LLAMA, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND ASHLEE COLLIVE ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

“People everywhere have some very common goals. People want more truth and they want more love."

Bill Graebel was appointed the chief executive officer of Graebel Companies, Inc. in 2007, and in 2018 was named as chairman of the board of directors. Under his leadership, Bill has evolved the family-owned company into a multi-national, global workforce and workplace mobility solutions provider for some of the world’s top companies. Today, the company manages nearly 80,000 annual mobility initiations across 165 countries, employs nearly 900 people worldwide, and has become synonymous with the highest quality relocation and workplace services. Bill has been awarded several honors including, “Global Mobility Professional of the Year,” “Maverick of the Year,” and was a finalist for “Corporate Responsibility CEO of the Year.”

Listen And Learn:

• How authenticity, transparency, and a values-based style are vitally important to success.
• The three elements of his leadership and communication style.
• The importance of having your values on display.
• How he has positioned his company to be the employer and customer of choice with his team and his suppliers.
• About the company’s human-centric values.
• How the company has adapted and evolved over the course of its 60+ -year history.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT GRAEBEL COMPANIES, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND BILL GRAEBEL ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

"Whatever your brand principles are, you have to repeat them till you are blue in the face, and then repeat them even more.”

Sandro Roco is the director of strategic initiatives at Bombfell, a stylish subscription service that helps men keep their wardrobes updated and relevant. He was the second hire on the company’s business team back in a time where, as he says, “paper clips and chewing gum were our primary tools for keeping things together.” Over the years, he has served in various different roles throughout the company, including marketing, customer experience, operations, and data analytics. He deploys a variety of digital, offline, PR, and OOH strategies and helped lead the company’s 20X growth between 2014-2017.

Listen And Learn:

• How simple storytelling can grow a brand.
• The importance of customer reviews and the power of influencers.
• The value of strategic partnerships.
• The integrated strategies needed to drive e-commerce traffic.
• Why customer retention and reactivation is just as important as customer acquisition.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT  BOMBFELL, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND SANDRO ROCO ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

“Taking a ‘spray and pray’ approach puts you in danger of, at best, being ignored by the wrong people, and at worse, the right people opt out.”

Annie Wissner runs marketing for Hexagon Mining, where she has helped transform the business into the first enterprise solution for mines. She has 20+ years in the B2B technology industry, and is a high-energy maximizer with certified project management skills. Both deadline and metric driven, Annie holds herself and her team accountable for delivering results that impact the bottom line. She proudly stands at the forefront as the lines between marketing, sales, and IT disappear and is guiding her team to take the lead in process and technology decisions for the business.

Listen And Learn:

• Her strategies for communicating and engaging with multiple audiences.
• How she listens to her customers and focuses on their buying journey.
• Ways to approach A/B testing that are not expensive or time consuming.
• The importance of developing personas of your ideal customers.
• Creating relevant and timely content.

TO FIND ANNIE WISSNER ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HEXAGON MINING, CLICK HERE.

“Change is inevitable; progress is a choice.”

Dean Lindsay is a top business keynote speaker that has been entertaining, educating, and engaging audiences worldwide for years. He has helped build engaged, progress-based sales leadership and customer service cultures at companies such as New York Life, Ericsson, Golds Gym, Aramark Canada, UCLA Anderson School of Management, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and Haggar Clothing. His books, How to Achieve Big PHAT Goals, Cracking the Networking Code, and The Progress Challenge, have sold over 100,000 copies.

Listen And Learn:

• Establishing having “goal conviction.”
• Why many businesses fail to commit to their goals.
• The “Six Ps to Progress.”
• How to inspire a longing for progress in your team.
• Defining “Progress Leadership” vs. change management.
• Why businesses need to continuously build upon their “why.”

TO FIND DEAN LINDSAY ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

“It’s the connective tissue that separates good organizations from great organizations.”

Matthew Clark leads Premier Farnell's global digital marketing and e-commerce team, delivering $700 million in yearly e-commerce sales through more than 40 websites serving the Americas (Newark.com), EMEA (Farnell.com) & APAC (element14.com). Matt has held e-commerce, sales, marketing, and customer service positions at Dell, PCM, Saturn, and EDS. In addition to strong commerce efforts, Premier Farnell also has an industry leading online community of more than 500,000 design engineers and tech hobbyists, and was nominated for Internet Retailer's B2B Player of the Year in 2015 and 2016.

Listen And Learn:

• How e-commerce is still all about serving the customer just as you would off-line.
• Ways to make your site easy to find, easy to use, and compelling to convert.
• Trends in voice and natural language processing in organic search.
• Ways to approach a content strategy from a community and a commerce perspective.
• How to improve site conversion rates and traffic.
• How transactions build brands.

TO FIND MATTHEW CLARK ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT  PREMIER FARNELL, CLICK HERE.

“Failure is fuel. It is what propels us onward and upward.”

As AlloSource’s Chief Financial Officer, Raime Leeby Muhle oversees all of the finance, accounting, and information technology needs of the organization.

With over 18 years of experience, Raime’s background spans emerging high growth businesses to large and mature organizations. She has held various senior leadership positions with finance and operational responsibilities. Prior to AlloSource, Raime held key leadership positions at Galvanize, Arrow Electronics, and Level 3 Communications.

Listen And Learn:

• Why diversity is important when hiring.
• How, as a leader, she works to empower her teams.
• Ways to work around the natural friction between the sales, marketing, and finance teams in any organization.
• The importance of listening, open dialogue, and collaboration between the sales, marketing, and finance teams.
• Her definition of a true partnership.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT  BRILLIANCE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND RAIME LEEBY ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

“’Content is king’ is a very clichéd phrase because it’s true.”

Larissa Murillo is the marketing manager at MarketGoo, an SEO application for businesses looking to optimize their websites for search engines. Larissa is a marketer with a focus on research, growth, and resource optimization. At MarketGoo she is responsible for boosting company profile, profit, and for driving acquisition no matter the resources available. Her focus was previously on mission-critical software for the financial sector and is currently on the SEO SaaS market.

Listen And Learn:

• The strategies that help connect the sales-driven vision of executive leadership to the more creative components of marketing.
• About the importance of building a solid connection and encouraging communication with the technology and development team.
• How social sharing signals SEO that you are creating something of value.
• Why you can’t afford to not be on social right now.
• The importance of addressing communication roadblocks early and often.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT MARKETGOO, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND LARISSA MURILLO ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

“No one believes it when you say you're cool. But, when someone else says it, everyone believes it.”

Brad Smith is the COO of Jack Grace, a premier golf footwear company specializing in high-quality saddle golf shoes with unique saddles you can swap. Brad has a diverse background in marketing, customer service, strategy, politics, and international retail. Before joining Jack Grace, Brad was at Skullcandy, a hyper-growth consumer lifestyle brand, where he worked on numerous projects to move the company forward, including the company IPO, a strategic rebuild of the customer service department, and overseeing the $10M marketing budget through a major corporate restructuring. He has spent his career diving into problems to get them resolved with short-term and long-term solutions.

Listen And Learn:

• Why every “idea guy” needs a good “operations guy.”
• How a brand’s number one focus should always be on the customer.
• Navigating a very crowded marketplace.
• Explaining your value proposition, telling your story, and responding to your customers.
• His philosophy and strategies for building brand credibility.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT  JACK GRACE, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND BRAD SMITH ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

Everything rises and falls on leadership. In a business, you need systems, you need people, and you need leadership.

 Howard Partridge is an international business coach, #1 Amazon bestselling author, and an in-demand conference speaker. He grew up on welfare, started his first business out of the trunk of his car, and went on to create a multimillion-dollar, turnkey enterprise. He has owned nine small businesses, and for two decades has helped small business owners revolutionize their businesses and have more freedom in their lives. His new book is The Power of Community: How Phenomenal Leaders Inspire Their Teams, Wow Their Customers, and Make Bigger Profits. It includes a proven, step-by-step approach to transforming your organization — by tapping into the human need to connect and feel valued by others.

LISTEN AND LEARN

• How every organization, large or small, no matter its service or product, depends on one critical element for success: its people.
• Partridge’s six key elements to leverage the power of connection.
• The three keys to phenomenal leadership: Support, encouragement, and accountability.
• How to support your employees and help them reach their goals.
• How to be a servant leader.

TO FIND HOWARD ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND HOWARD’S BOOK: THE POWER OF COMMUNITY: HOW PHENOMENAL LEADERS INSPIRE THEIR TEAMS, WOW THEIR CUSTOMERS, AND MAKE BIGGER PROFITS, CLICK HERE.

SHOW NOTES

Jeremiah Smith is the Cofounder and CEO of SimpleTiger, a boutique digital marketing agency that specializes in SEO for entrepreneurs. For 11 years, Jeremiah has helped companies like Segment.com, Shopify, NBC, MTV, E*Trade, LG, and Sports Illustrated see significant gains in their search results, organic traffic, and revenue. During his time growing SimpleTiger, Jeremiah has seen first hand how clients have been unnecessarily burned by other agencies in the past or confused by misleading SEO strategies.

The SEO industry is plagued with a lot of smoke and mirrors, blackhat techniques, and a lack of transparency. Jeremiah’s mission is to open up about what many other SEO marketers and agencies won’t share - the practices and frameworks that actually work. Why share this? Because transparency is much needed in an industry where sharing is typically frowned upon.

Listen and Learn:

• How to combine marketing and sales efforts for maximum result
• What the difference between SEO and SEM is
• How goals can be achieved with Jeremiah's three-part framework
• What negative SEO is
• Why keyword stuffing should not be part of a website's SEO

TO FIND, JEREMIAH ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT SIMPLETIGER, CLICK HERE.

SHOW NOTES

Annie Eaton is the founder and CEO of Atlanta-based immersive experiences company, Futurus. She leads a team of developers and creatives to produce interactive virtual and augmented reality content. In 2017, Annie was named the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) Young Professionals’ Technologist of the Year.

Listen and Learn:

• What the impact of virtual reality is on marketing
• Why maintaining the perfect mix of strategy is crucial
• The differences between 360 videos and computer rendered virtual reality
• How to make a personal connection with your customer
• The importance of having other entrepreneurs as your support system

TO FIND ANNIE ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT FUTURUS, CLICK HERE

SHOW NOTES

Tom Schwab knows how to build an online business. Marketing at its heart is starting a conversation with someone who could be an ideal customer. Drawing on his engineering, corporate, and e-commerce inbound marketing experience, Tom helps thought leaders (coaches, authors, speaker, emerging brands) get featured on leading podcasts their ideal prospects are already listening to. Then he helps them to turn listeners into customers. Tom is the Author of PODCAST GUEST PROFITS: Grow your business with a targeted interview strategy Founder of Interview Valet, the category king of Podcast Interview Marketing.

Listen and Learn:

• How to grow a brand and increase ROI
• Why podcasting is a powerful marketing tool
• How podcasting can integrate your internal teams
• Why your brand needs a podcast
• What are the benefits of being a podcast guest

TO FIND TOM ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND TOM'S BOOK: PODCAST GUEST PROFITS, CLICK HERE

SHOW NOTES

Listen and Learn:

• What makes a dashboard and a report different
• How to really listen to your clients
• Why your report needs to tell a story
• How to let your customers guide your marketing

TO FIND MIKE ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT PANAMPLIFY, CLICK HERE

SHOW NOTES

Kim Tracy owns and operates The Career Agent, a boutique personal marketing firm that specializes in guiding US-based professionals through career transition. She has helped hundreds of seasoned professionals move forward in their careers. Listen to this episode to gain insight on taking a second look at your internal processes.

Listen and Learn:

• How to implement a "result only work" environment
• Why your millennial team members need to be built up
• How to increase communications and productivity in the office
• Where the B2B tech industry is headed
• How to integrate your teams

TO FIND KIM ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

SHOW NOTES

Kathleen Quinn Votaw is founder and CEO of TalenTrust. After over 18 years in the staffing industry, Kathleen realized that the traditional business model was broken, was outdated, and didn’t always act in the best interest of companies or job candidates. She founded TalenTrust in 2003 and resolved to completely disrupt the status quo and address the weaknesses of traditional staffing/recruiting. She envisioned much more than a typical search firm. Ten years later, TalenTrust has become a nationwide provider of strategic outsourced recruitment and retention and grown to a team of 20+ people with annual revenues growing aggressively each year.

Kathleen is a true champion of entrepreneurship. In addition to her specific entrepreneurial ventures in launching and growing TalenTrust, she is an active supporter of entrepreneurship and business growth in Colorado through her extensive leadership and involvement with Vistage, ACG Denver and Colorado Companies to Watch. She seeks meaningful ways to connect entrepreneurs with the people and ideas to grow their businesses.

Listen and Learn:

• How companies can build a culture that will attract and grow great employees
• Why defined values are so important for your business
• How to hire the perfect employees to reduce turnover
• Why culture should be at the heart of your business
• What it takes to maintain a high retention rate

TO FIND KATHLEEN ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

TO LEARN MORE ABOUT TALENTRUST, CLICK HERE.

SHOW NOTES

Dr. Rick Brinkman is a leadership and communications expert who teaches Conscious Communication® for leadership, teamwork, customer service, and effective meetings. Since 1987 he has conducted more than 4,000 programs in 17 countries, sharing his insights on human behavior and strategies for practical communication.

Rick is known for Educating through Entertainment, using humor and storytelling to make learning memorable. A popular keynote speaker, his clients range from the Astronaut Corps at NASA and the FBI to Merck, Adobe, the Federal Reserve, and IBM. His newest book is Dealing With Meetings You Cant Stand: Meet Less and Do More.

Listen and Learn:

• Why meetings can cause problems in the workplace
• How to transform your meeting with a five-step process
• What two things should be on every meeting agenda
• How utilizing visuals can cut your meeting length in half
• Why you should add a speaking order to your meeting

TO FIND RICK ON LINKEDIN, CLICK HERE.

TO FIND RICK'S BOOK, CLICK HERE.