Brianna Caza is with us today to share insights and strategies for getting into freelancing. We spend a good deal of our time talking about how to avoid the “boomerang” effect that sends so many beginner freelancers back to the company they left.  In This Episode What to consider before leaving an organization. Data from Briana’s research. The importance of autonomy and variety in work. How freelancing is positively impacting wage disparity for women. Self-management skills for freelancing.  How to brand yourself. How traditional employers can respond to the rise in freelance work ..read more

Josh Bernoff is the author of a stellar book called Writing Without Bullshit: Boost Your Career by Saying What You Mean. The book is focused on making everyone a better writer in business. Most importantly, due to Josh’s background in the technology sector, he has a lot of history with an industry that produces arguably the most jargon, poorly written emails, blog posts, and messaging of any business sector.  This episode centers on different examples of how people can improve their business writing, report writing, and emails, alongside many other great writing topics. In This Episode J ..read more

Thomas Steenburgh is a business professor at the Darden School of Business, with a focus on sales management and B2B sales processes. We discuss the launch of new products by sales teams, as well as some of the challenges that accompany these product launches. In addition, we cover the types of people who do the best at selling new products, the “shiny new thing” problem when selling to customers, and other gems that will make any company better at selling new products. To cap off the show, we talk about how B2B and sales topics have largely been ignored as a subject within academia.  In ..read more

Today’s guest is Ron Carucci, Cofounder and Managing Partner at Navalent, a company that works with CEOs and Executives who are pursuing transformational change. His Harvard Business Review article “Executives Fail to Execute Strategy Because They’re Too Internally Focused” put him our radar and led us to his fantastic book, Rising to Power. We tackle both the book and the HBR article in this interview. The crux of the episode--to borrow Ron’s phrase--is the ‘altitude sickness’ that all "rising" executives come across. Examples of this altitude sickness are: ineffective use of power, effective ..read more

If you don’t take care of your data, your marketing campaigns will have a lower ROI, sales teams will be starved for leads, and your company will miss it’s revenue targets.   On today’s episode, I chat with Ruth Stevens, who has spent the last 20 years helping enterprise and mid-market companies take better care of their data. Ruth has also co-authored an excellent book on the subject named B2B Data-Driven: Marketing, Sources, Uses, and Results.    Ruth and I chat about several important topics.    First, we tackle the challenge of data degradation. When the ..read more

Organic reach on Facebook has plummeted over the years and B2B marketers need to adjust.  On today's episode, I chat with Peter Reitano, the Co-founder of Abacus, a digital marketing agency that specializes in leveraging Facebook and Instagram in a B2B context.  We discuss the challenges of finding organic reach through Facebook, the importance of vertical video and the importance of thumb stopper creative. Peter also shares useful tips on how you can create an emotional punch with your Facebook and Instagram campaigns, even if you're a more "boring" B2B brand.  In This Episode ..read more

Today I’m speaking with Sydney Finkelstein, an expert in leadership and the author of the well-researched book, Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Must Master the Flow of Talent. We first discuss the main archetypes of different superbosses (the iconoclasts, the nurturers, etc.) through a number of different examples of well-known business leaders. Then we get into various factors that make superbosses tick alongside some sentiments that are tantamount to treason when talking to a superboss. Sidney also shares how superbosses almost always leverage the apprenticeship model when it comes to g ..read more

Trust in B2B sellers is eroding. B2B buyers are increasingly looking towards third-party sites and influencers for reviews. Additionally, your sales and support teams may not be set up for success in building long-term trust with buyers. In this episode, Todd shares his extensive experience and tactics for building trust with buyers and ensuring mutual success. Radical transparency in B2B sales can qualify deals more quickly, shorten sales cycles, improve win rates, and keep customers happier. Todd Caponi is the author of The Transparency Sale: How Unexpected Honesty and Understanding the Buyi ..read more

Kristin Kelsey, an expert on modern office design, joins the show today.  Kristin provides great insight into why your office looks like it does today and where it’s headed in the future. She also discusses biophilic design, the “third space”, and array of positive and negative trends in office design throughout the years. But the end of the episode I’m sure you’ll be looking forward to the future Kristin posits. In This Episode How the 50's and 60's changed the overall paradigm of office design. What the “action office” was and how it impacted modern office design. Kristin’s take on the ..read more

Martina Bozadzhieva, Managing Director and Head of Research at global market research firm DuckerFrontier, joins the podcast today. Martina’s expertise comes from direct experience navigating business dynamics in the turbulent European market. If you’re in headquarters or a country manager and if you do business in the UK, France, or Germany, this is one to listen to. In This Episode: Brexit: current business trends and challenges in the UK, and which companies are set to benefit the most with a “hard” Brexit. Unique EU regulations that impact B2B businesses. Germany’s current economic state ..read more