Unleashed - How to Thrive as an Independent Professional

In this live event hosted by Umbrex in November 2023, Ron Lumbra, a member of the CEO & Board of Directors Practice and Partner at Heidrick and Struggles, discusses how to get on a corporate board. He shares insider knowledge about the process. The event was recorded as a streaming event, with approximately 300 people signing up for the session. The discussion was facilitated and included questions from attendees. Exploring the Landscape of Board Roles The discussion focuses on the different types of board roles, such as Fortune 500 companies, other public companies, PE-owned portfolio companies, and family-owned companies. The top of the pyramid is the public company corporate board, which is the most sought-after and difficult to join. People often serve on various types of boards, such as large-cap corporations, smaller publicly traded companies, private companies, family businesses, and nonprofits. These boards have similar structures, committee structures, and skills matrix, making them valuable ground training experiences for those looking to join corporate boards. A board is a group of experienced business people who are responsible for running and governing a company. It is not just a group of smart people, but specific roles that a board seeks to fill. He identifies the difference of a philanthropic board. When searching for a board member, companies often seek specific skills, such as financial experts with experience in China, supply chain, or being female. Ron talks about a typical board structure and defines the importance of what a candidate can bring to the board. The board consists of about 10 people, with four or five members fit into the CEO club or those who have run a big business club. The number one in demand skill set is financial experts, with three seats focused on audit and finance committees. The number one skill set is CFOs, while the other three are controllers, treasurers, VPs, SVPs, or audit partners from one of the big four. Companies are also looking for leaders in certain fields at specific times. Generally at present, their expertise in cyber and AI, supply chain, and ESG areas are in demand. Supply chain has seen a surge in demand, especially during the pandemic. Boards are looking for people who can lead, guide, and help with challenges they may face. They create a skills matrix to identify the various skills needed, which is more than the number of seats. People who can check more boxes credibly tend to be more attractive board candidates. The Benefits of Being on a Board Ron explores the reasons people want to be on a board and the benefits they receive. Operating executives with a day job often go on boards to expand their skill set, gain an outside perspective, and learn from others in different industries. As they age, they may consider a different career path and seek ways to contribute, give back, stay engaged, and stay relevant. Age plays a significant role in the decision-making process, as board directors are not employees and are not discussed in the proxy board. Boards typically have a mandatory retirement age of 72-75 years, which varies by company. People usually go on boards in their late 50s or early 60s and have a decade or more of tenure before they age off. Ron also discusses the reality of being on a board in terms of time and commitment. Being on a board is different from being an operating executive, as it is intense and socially intensive. Board culture and how the board functions come together and go apart are important factors, both experience, personality and cultural fit are all factors considered. Board meetings are usually held five times a year, with committee meetings often occurring around them. Ron shares information on payment for board members and how to position oneself to get on a board, particularly at the non-finance 500 level. Securing a Invitation to The Board He explains that the supply side of the board opportunities is what attracts candidates, and understanding one's skill set, industry expertise, strategic acumen, and expertise is crucial. Ron also highlights the private placement market, where 40% of corporate directors are placed through relationships. This can be an advantage for candidates, as they are paid to introduce competition. However, the private placement market is less competitive and more about networking and making oneself known. Joining a board is akin to joining an elite country club, where applicants must demonstrate their knowledge and expertise. Networking is more about making yourself present and well known, rather than trying to make a sale. It's important not to take it personally, but rather to understand how the game works to get on board. Ron encourages people to focus on networking, letting people know their skill set, and having the courage to differentiate themselves. Many people answer yes to every question and bring various skill sets, but this may not be memorable or distinctive. People who hav

In this interview, author Jill Stoddard and Will Bachman discuss the concept of impostor syndrome. Jill defines the experience as a state where individuals question their competence and legitimacy, even when there is objective evidence to support their accomplishments. The fear is that they will of be outed as a fraud. The phenomenon was officially identified in 1978 by Pauline Clance and Suzanne IMEs, who believed it only existed in high-achieving women. However, culture rebranded it as a syndrome which Jill addresses. The Background on Imposter Syndrome Jill believes that the imposter phenomenon has been around for a long time, with prevalence rates averaging between 40 and 70 percent. She suggests that it has been present in early humans, who, when part of a tribe, had a survival advantage due to social comparison and fear of being ousted from their tribe. Early humans engaged in social comparison to ensure they didn't get kicked out of their tribe, which was often a life-or-death situation. The modern world, with technology and social media, has created a context where this issue has been amplified. Jill calls for a cultural rebranding and a redefining of the impostor phenomenon or impostor experience. This phenomenon has not been extensively researched, and it is important to know that most discussions focus on hypotheses rather than empirical questions. However, research suggests that these impostor thoughts and feelings are positively correlated with success, making the more successful an individual, the more likely they are to have these feelings. Jill discusses the complex reasons behind this phenomenon, including the assumption that others are more competent than they are, the Dunning Kruger cognitive bias, and social and cultural influences. She mentions that in the 70s, when this phenomenon was thought to only impact high-achieving women, it was rebranded as sexism. Her hypothesis and others have suggested that people who have experienced marginalization, such as being told they don't belong in male spaces, or being told they don't belong in white spaces, are more prone to experience imposter syndrome. Understanding Imposter Syndrome Jill asserts that it is important to recognize that the more we know and the more we believe others are competent, the more likely we are to feel impostor syndrome. Additionally, it is essential to acknowledge that the stigma surrounding this experience is often perpetuated by those who have experienced marginalization, such as women, people of color, and gay individuals. Jill mentions that impostor syndrome can negatively impact career success, and that it is important to recognize that this is a systemic and organizational issue rather than an individual problem. She believes that individuals should be given tools to manage their feelings and self-doubt, such as psychological flexibility, to overcome this state of mind. Psychological flexibility involves being present in one's life, aware of and open to all internal experiences, emotions, physiological sensations, urges, and thoughts. This allows individuals to make choices based on their deeply held personal values and who they want to be. The goal is to cycle and build psychological flexibility by identifying your values, recognizing the way thoughts and feelings get in the way of you heading in that direction, and changing your relationship to these thoughts. Additional approaches to dealing with impostor syndrome include seeking advice from others, such as talking to other speakers or CEOs, and understanding why they feel that way. Jill shares a strategy for book authors. Approaches to Dealing with Discomfort Jill discusses various approaches to dealing with anxiety and self-doubt, including comparing oneself to others, enjoying one's position, treating failure as an opportunity to test something out, and accepting that we are built to avoid uncertainty. She emphasizes the importance of learning to be okay with uncertainty and taking risks in order to spread their message. Jill explains the loop that people get stuck in, and that our brains overestimate the likelihood of bad things happening, and underestimate our ability to cope with it. She suggests testing out new experiences and being willing to do hard things in the presence of pain. She also emphasizes the importance of treating the imposter experience as a learning experience and acknowledging that most people are not paying attention to you. The key takeaway from the conversation is to get comfortable being uncomfortable and to stop letting thoughts bully you into behavior. She suggests getting clear on your values and how you want to live and work. She uses the metaphor of a ship on a journey, where the fog of thoughts and feelings can be dangerous but can be overcome by dropping anchor and waiting for the fog to pass. Jill suggests using a lighthouse, such as a beacon, to guide you forward even when the fog of painful thoughts and feelings is present

William Magnuson, a professor at Texas A&M Law School and former Harvard University professor, discusses his book For Profit: A History of Corporations. The book covers eight different corporations throughout history, illustrating different facets of corporations. William chose these eight corporations because they were relevant to the modern world and their importance in shaping society. He aimed to explore the origins of corporations, focusing on foundational moments in corporate law, such as ancient Rome's tax-gathering entities, and the Medici bank. He talks about how studying corporations over 2000 years brought to light trends and why today's citizens are more impacted by corporations than at any other time in history. William considered including the Soviet Union, which was one of the world's great experiments in trying to structure and economy without corporations. However, he did not include any consumer packaged goods or retail companies on the list. He also considered researching other major tech companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft, but ultimately chose not to include them. He also considered adding Japanese corporations, as there is a long history within corporate law scholarship that has similarities with US law but also some major differences. He highlights the importance of understanding the legal concept of corporations and the evolution of their features over time. He also acknowledges the potential for further research into other cultures and corporations, such as Japanese corporations, which could provide valuable insights into corporate law scholarship. Common Characteristics of the Modern Corporation The concept of a corporation has its roots in various ancient cultures, including the Incas, Chinese, and Japan. Europe was largely based on the Roman model, which outsourced government services to private individuals or organizations. This model was copied in Renaissance Italy and eventually moved up to the joint stock era in the 1600s. Japan has a long history of large conglomerate organizations, which are family-oriented and have evolved over time. The American corporation is largely based on the European tradition. Some common characteristics of modern corporations include limited liability, professional management class; single entity operation, and immortality, where a corporation never dies or ceases to exist, unlike partnerships, which end when one partner dies. This is important because historically, partnerships ended when one partner died, which was problematic for tax gathering in ancient Roman republics. Corporations are immortal, meaning they continue to exist even after the death of a single member or stockholder. The Birth of the Corporation The Roman Republic's Fabian strategy, which involved avoiding set battles and using private enterprise, played a significant role in the creation of corporations. In 218 BC, during the Punic War between Rome and Carthage, the Roman commander Cornelius Skipio wrote to the Senate, asking for supplies to continue the war. The Roman senate ran out of money, they made a plea to Roman citizens for support, and in return they asked for several terms, and this led to the idea of private enterprises as a solution to the problem, and legal rights for specific entities. In the Roman Republic, corporations had to have certain institutions in place to function effectively. These institutions included the Senate passing laws, corporate attorneys, banks, and other infrastructure. The rule of law was crucial for these entities to thrive, as it allowed them to enforce contracts in court. This rule of law was a key factor in the rise of the corporation in Renaissance Florence, where fragmented policies and conflicts between duchies, barons, kingdoms, empires, and city states were prevalent. The Medici bank, for example, created a rule of law within the city of Florence, creating separate entities with 15 branches, each serving as its own entity. This allowed them to create a rule of law in a world that didn't have it. Cities and Religious Organizations as Corporations Religious organizations, such as monasteries, were also considered corporations, but they were not in the same line of business. Cities, on the other hand, were outliers in the history of corporations, as they sought to protect their liberties and rights. Cities were able to benefit from incorporation, as they were protected by the Magna Carta. Corporations are flexible entities that can be used for various enterprises. William explains the element of limited liability, which is a fascinating element of corporations. It provides risk protection for owners, allowing them to gather capital and launch larger enterprises. However, the concept of limited liability was not always clear, and some statutes are still ambiguous. For example, the East India Company, which was one of the first corporations to adopt limited liability, was a case study that illustrates the importance of limited li

In this episode of Unleashed, Will Bachman talks to Scott Ratliff, who is a principal at the search firm Beecher Reagan. Beecher Reagan is a specialty retained executive search firm that works across three industries: professional services, digital and technology services, and private equity. As a principal at Beecher Reagan, Scott leads the commercial excellence sales and marketing practice, focusing on growth roles across these industries. Scott talks about commercial leaders within professional services, specifically in three forms: true Hunter BD people, who are responsible for going out into the market, setting meetings, driving revenue, and bringing in new logos; a hybrid, who owns client relationships, farming large accounts, finding new lines of business within those accounts; and a commercial operations type of role, who sets up and builds out a sales structure, identifying the right people to process technology to build or develop a sales culture within a firm. Depending on the size of the firm, its growth journey, and the talent available, firms may have specific roles specific to one of these verticals or firms looking for someone who can come in and play across. Scott explains that some types of professional services firms have people who are separate from the actual delivery teams brought in as commercial salespeople effect. The traditional model in consulting involves starting as an analyst and working your way up to the manager level, where you shift into being commercially wired and focused. However, there has been a spike in commercial leadership in several places, such as the lower middle market, high growth, emerging market, and larger firms looking to build out new functional capabilities or geography. In addition to selling services, commercial leaders should also understand how to sell services specific to that functional area. This helps firms continue to supercharge growth and drive revenue. The Roles of Hunter/BD People in High Growth Firms Scott discusses the roles of Hunter/BD people in high-growth firms. He explains that these roles can range from five to $10 million firms looking to grow organically to $25 million and potentially leverage M&A. The role involves understanding prospective clients, targeting companies, gathering data for an effective approach, outreach, scheduling meetings, and creating a lead generation engine. The Hunter BD person's role is crucial in identifying potential clients and building relationships with them. They are responsible for taking initial calls, developing relationships, and deciding whether to bring in a partner or subject matter expert. Different firms have different compensation structures, with some expecting the sales leader to close business and the delivery team to execute or the role may be to generate meetings. There are two types of Hunter BD profiles: those who understand the business well enough to take the sales cycle from start to finish, build relationships, understand the selling proposition, and close deals. Another version of the role involves supercharging what partners do well, pitching services, and understanding the problem statement of potential buyers. Scott suggests that the effectiveness of each role depends on the business's needs at its current stage of growth and the resources available. It is important to consider the business's staffing and talent requirements when choosing between meeting setters and sales leaders. Sales Success Strategies Scott emphasizes the need for a combination of strategies to achieve success in sales. First, a strong strategy is needed. Second, having the right technology in place to generate strong leads is crucial. He shares a few steps and mentions how important relationships are in selling services. People who have worked in the industry and built up a network can leverage their network to sell directly to potential buyers or introduce them to potential buyers. The best salespeople are not only doing one or the other, but also setting the engine, pursuing cold outreach, getting their story out there to the right people, and leveraging their own network and relationships. The typical background of successful salespeople is in the digital and technology services space, where they have exceptional sales training programs. However, when hiring commercial talent into professional services, it is important to see their experience in selling services and speaking to different types of customers. In conclusion, a combination of strategies, including cold calling and cold outreach, is necessary to achieve success in the sales world. It is essential to find individuals with a strong sales DNA and experience in both sales and professional services to ensure a successful transition into the industry. Evaluation Process for Sales Candidates Scott emphasizes the importance of communication skills and the ability to quickly connect with people within an organization. He also emphasizes the importanc

Show Notes: Will Bachman talks to Ammad Ahmad, founder and managing director of Atheneum, a top global expert network that works with management consulting firms and provides access to niche industry experts, and offers research as a service (RaaS). These experts have spent 20-25 years in a particular function or industry and can provide tacit knowledge and insights from industries. They help clients understand challenges when implementing AI-related solutions in healthcare, due diligence cases, or when a PE firm is looking to make an investment. Atheneum has about 11 offices across the world, ranging from San Francisco to Tokyo, with roughly 500-600 SDEs around the world, and they offer one-to-one expert calls, surveys, quantitative surveys, and reports. The majority of their business comes from the expert session side, where many clients want to meet the experts in person. Ammad started the firm in 2010 after working as a management consultant in Washington, DC. As a management consultant, a large part of his work was research and sourcing expert networks, and vetting the experts. When he moved to Germany, he contacted former colleagues from the consulting arena and suggested setting up a firm to help consulting firms access the industry experts they needed with the primary research required for each project. Founding and Scaling Atheneum Ammad and his co-founder Mathias set up in an incubator where they had access to laptops and interns and were able to get down to business. By week two they had secured projects from their old consulting firms. Every week they were getting requests for experts in Europe or the emerging markets. As time went on, word of mouth spread and they earned more and more clients. Today, Atheneum works with all of the top 10 management consulting firms, many private equity and corporates, and pharmaceutical companies. Atheneum's core focus areas include healthcare, with offices in New York, San Francisco, Santiago, Berlin, London, Lahore, Pakistan, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Korea. When they were setting up their firm, they found that there was a lack of insight and intelligence into many of those ex-U.S. markets. They recruit experts in the local language. They custom recruit on many projects. This allows them to better screen for quality and match experts for clients, and the expert database themselves are fresh and engaged, and meet requests in new markets. When COVID hit they were inundated with requests for experts which enabled them to differentiate and scale. Managing Client Relations Ammad discusses the importance of staying ahead of client needs and staying informed about their needs. He suggests that independent consultants should stay in front of clients and work hard to understand their needs and provide them with good solutions. He shares his thoughts on staying agile in solutions and products and on top of clients' needs. He believes that staying ahead of client needs and keeping them informed of possible problems and solutions they may face is crucial for a successful go-to-market plan. This can be achieved through thought leadership pieces, informal meetings, or casual notes about industry trends. This helps the firm be perceived as knowledgeable, has the network and relationships that can offer support, and willing to go the extra mile. Using AI in Sourcing Experts Ammad believes it's too early to tell how AI can help companies and expert networks, but he does mention that Ai can help provide better quality matches to clients, to ensure the expert is who they say they are, and perform better screening. AI can also be used internally to find the best experts in their network by using semantic search and searching through a broad array of research resources on a larger scale that allows the firm to build a larger network. Ammad's firm provides interview training to many clients, guiding them on how to conduct expert interviews, what to look for, and how to gather and triangulate data. He emphasizes the importance of researching the individual and providing guidance on the types of queries that may come up during a conversation. He discusses the increasing trend in questions and trends in different industries, such as AI in healthcare, ESG, and broad use cases of AI in industries such as automotive. He mentions that, over the last decade, corporates have started utilizing external resources for short-term project needs. This shift is driven by the need to innovate across various industries and seek external insight and information. Managerial and Leadership Skills When it comes to managerial and leadership skills, Ammad emphasizes the importance of understanding people's motivations and incentivizing them correctly. He believes that providing context and transparency around decision-making is crucial for helping moving people together within the firm. In his morning routine, Ammad wakes up early and takes advantage of the quiet and head space to organize his thoughts and th

Show Notes: In this episode of Unleashed, Will Bachman interviews Nancy Mackay, founder of MacKay CEO Forums (MC ACO), a peer advisory group that provides confidential peer support groups for CEOs and business owners across Canada. The group aims to populate the world with inspiring leaders by offering confidential peer support groups to hundreds of members. Nancy states that, in today's challenging fast-paced business-world, and with a growing mental-health crisis, leaders need more peer support and trusted advisors. The Mackay community includes over 1200 CEOs, executives, and business owners from various industries across Canada, participating in over 114 person peer learning groups. Over 60 consultants have been trained and certified to offer peer learning support to members, and the leadership team is focused on supporting form Chairs who offer peer learning support. Nancy started her group over fifteen years ago and still Chairs the group. Her group has 14 CEOs from various industries, with revenue sizes ranging from 5 million to 5 billion plus. Most of the groups are for entrepreneurial, privately held individuals who want to grow their businesses. The meetings are confidential, non-competitive, and require six meetings a year for a day, and they hold a 2-day annual retreat. Each meeting features a one-hour speaker, followed by confidential updates where CEOs discuss their biggest issues, challenges, and opportunities related to business, family, and personal. They place issues they want help with on the table, and after the issues are discussed, the group encourages sharing experiences. A Forum that Helps CEOs One of the biggest objections to joining a peer group is the lack of time. However, the reality is that everyone can make time, and having a group of 14 CEOs with a growth mindset can save time and provide support for all issues, including business, family, and personal. All the forum Chairs at MacKay are modern, trusted advisors with extensive experience working with CEOs, executives, and business owners, playing a crucial role in Chairing meetings and retreats, creating a confidential space for CEOs and executives to be vulnerable and succeed in their careers without sacrificing their health and important personal and family relationships. Nancy shares examples of how peer groups have helped individuals navigate their transitions, such as selling their business, scaling their business, finding talent, and recession and succession planning. Nancy highlights the importance of segmenting peer groups, with specific groups catering to different types of CEOs, CFOs, HR Rows, and cross-functional executives. These groups ensure that each member's background experience is taken into account, ensuring that everyone is a best fit for the group. The group also address personal and family issues, allowing members to discuss their challenges and successes without sacrificing their health or family relationships. Members can build lifelong friendships and support networks to help them navigate their careers and personal lives. Three Tips to Being an Effective Chair of a Peer Learning Group To be an effective Chair of a peer learning group, Nancy shares three key tips: not being the "star in the room", it should be all about the members. The second tip is to ensure that you create a space of vulnerability where members can share their experiences and mistakes, and remembering that no-one is the "smartest person in the room." The leadership philosophy is about judgment-free and sharing experiences, helping CEOs and executives become masterful at telling stories and being vulnerable; the third tip is to remember that being a Chair is focused on helping people and not just being nice. It's more about challenging them and holding them accountable. In conclusion, peer learning support provides valuable advice and mindset shifts for CEOs and executives, helping them navigate their transitions, find talent, and build successful cultures. By taking a step back and focusing on the members, Chair members can create a supportive environment for their peers and achieve success in their respective fields. Nancy explains who could apply to become a Chair with the organization. Chairs must have had their own independent consulting practice for at least three years and have over 18 years of experience working with CEOs, executives, and business owners from various industries. The most successful Chairs are partnering with the MacKay CEO Forums and signing up for their certification program to build world-class peer learning groups for CEOs and executives. The MacKay CEO Forums have launched over 100 groups and are constantly evolving and improving. The best fit Chairs have a proven roadmap to success on how to build these groups and achieve Chair mastery. The certification program is experiential learning, not a bootcamp approach, and includes one-on-one coaching, pure learning on a weekly basis, observation, co-Chairing,

In this episode of Unleashed, Will Bachman and Pam Fox Rollin, author of Growing Groups into Teams, discuss the concept of a team and its benefits. Pam opens the conversation by defining what a team is. She emphasizes the importance of a shared promise and a commitment to coordinate to fulfill that promise. A team is not just a group of people who report to the same people but are a group of people who are committed to accomplishing a shared goal for their customers, whether internal or external. Pam also discusses the challenges faced by executive teams, where they may not be a team at all. For example, if a sales team is independent and not collaborating with other departments, it may not be considered a team. Instead, the best teams are clear on their promises and partner with each other to achieve them. The Importance of Diversity in Team Building Pam reveals what common beliefs about teams she disagrees with. She shares research on diverse teams and why it's not always productive to work with the smartest people. Pam emphasizes the importance of diversity of thought and cognitive diversity on a team. She explains that diversity doesn't necessarily mean being smart or not smart, but rather diversity of thought and perspective. This can come from different undergraduate majors, cultures, and cognitive backgrounds. Racial and gender diversity is also important, as it helps to create a more inclusive team environment. For example, women are more perceptive about power structures, while people of color are more perceptive about power structures. Responsibility and Accountability in a Team The conversation shifts to the concept of responsibility and accountability. Pam believes that responsibility involves taking a promise seriously and taking responsibility for the success of an event. This includes ensuring that everyone on the team understands what success looks like and can communicate with others when necessary. However, there are some problems with accountability, such as not being accountable to a promise you never made or not being able to recover the promise. In conclusion, diverse teams are essential for success in various industries, including sales, marketing, customer service, engineering, and more. They also require a balance between responsibility and accountability, as well as a willingness to learn and grow from each other. By embracing these values, teams can create a more inclusive and effective workplace environment. Pam talks about a chapter in her book, "When the Team You Need Doesn't Exist" and goes on to share a unique story of working with teams to diagnose issues and help them improve. She started her career at Bain and Company, where she met the people at Accenture's Healthcare Strategy Group. She fast-tracked to an associate partner, got married, decided to leave her job and become an executive coach. Altus Growth Partners Pam shares the genesis of Altus Growth Partners. The firm runs various engagements, including executive team work. Much of Pam's work takes place during a big change to the business, such as an acquisition or a new CEO. This opportunity allows the executive team to restructure their work and set new guidance for the organization. The practical work involves working with the executive team as their coach, often working directly with the CEO. Altus Growth Partners has been in the process of transforming from solo practitioners to a team, working on decision-making processes and building teams at various levels. She shares a case example when Altus worked with a healthcare organization with a new CEO coming in. Coaching for Organizational Development Pam emphasizes the importance of rigor and a model in coaching and the saying that "low trust leads to slow change" in organizational development. Trust is critical for decision making, and building trust starts with oneself. Pam shares a chapter about a CEO blocking team success, where she discovered that her job was to ensure everyone was on the same page about the promise, where they are going, what they're part of, and what they're accountable for. She also emphasizes the importance of delegating and getting people on a path to a common promise, rather than pretending to know more than they know. The conversation then moves to the topic of leadership, and discussing the book "Growing Groups into Teams". The book is about real-life stories of people who get results and thrive together. Timestamps: 00:15 Team definitions and common misconceptions 04:59 Team diversity and its impact on project success 09:37 Team dynamics, diversity, and accountability 17:23 Career transition and teamwork in consulting industry 21:31 Leadership development and team coaching for a healthcare organization 26:54 Building trust and decision-making in teams Links: The Company Website: https://altusgrowth.com/ The Book: Growing Groups into Teams CONTACT INFO: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamfoxrollin/ Unleashed is produced by Umbrex

In this episode of Unleashed, Will Bachman interviews David A. Fields on how to work with industry associations and other types of groups to build businesses and create value. He touches on the concept of trade associations, and how we should view the trade association as a source of prospects. It's important to consider other types of associations that have a large group of prospects in their tribe, such as software platforms, data providers, headhunters, and journalists. Data providers often need the help of consulting firms to ensure their data remains relevant and useful. For example, data providers can provide information on social media trends, transportation logistics, and more. In conclusion, trade associations can be a valuable tool for firms to connect with prospects and build their business. They can also serve as visibility partners, helping firms reach out to potential clients. David talks about connecting with visibility partners and what you can do to raise your profile through that relationship. For small firms with no specific focus, it is important to find the right group by focusing your business on a few industries and engage with associations or other providers to find potential partners. This approach makes it easier for the firm to find prospects and be more valuable to them. David shares examples of clients who have successfully worked with data providers as visibility partners. One example is a consulting firm in Virginia that has grown from about $1 million to $15 million through targeted visibility building with data providers. The firm has done research work with the data provider to demonstrate the importance of creating value for both partners and their clients. Connecting to a Visibility Partner To get started with a visibility partner, David suggests reaching out, offering to meet, building relationships, and staying right-side up. For example, a consulting firm might have worked with multiple clients using data from a data provider and had a history of complaints about the data. By introducing the firm to their contacts to help the data provider improve their service, they can help address the client's concerns and also improve their visibility. David discusses how to increase visibility by getting on a podcast. Will suggests reaching out to the host of a podcast and posting a summary on LinkedIn to tag the host. This approach is often overlooked by hosts, but it can be a great way to reach potential clients. David stresses that this is a long-term relationship building strategy, and not a quick fix. Furthermore, he encourages people to get involved in small podcasts, new podcasts, and podcasts with only 12 listeners, as they are more likely to have a smaller audience. This can lead to better targeted discussions and better results. David talks about the pros and cons of tapping into alumni associations for businesses. For example, Procter and Gamble's alumni network is a strong example of how alumni networks can help businesses grow. Working an Industry Conference For industry conferences, it is important to determine who's going to be there, who you want to meet ahead of time, and set targets for attendees. Additionally, commit to attending the conference for three years, as it allows you to build relationships with potential clients. Will suggests using LinkedIn to create a list of attendees and send connection requests to potential attendees. This will help you connect with potential clients and build relationships with them. When it comes to messaging a potential contact to secure a meeting, Will and David discuss possible approaches. David also mentions various methods of connecting with industry recruiters and securing visibility through content development. David mentions his next practice accelerator, which is sold out but will be held in 2024. In summary, David emphasizes the importance of visibility partners and the need to consider the tribes they overlap with when promoting a firm. By focusing on these strategies, consulting firms can increase their visibility and attract more potential clients. Timestamps: 03:23 Leveraging industry associations and other groups for business growth 05:27 Partnering with visibility partners for consulting firms 12:22 Partnering with data providers for visibility 19:59 Networking strategies for professionals 26:18 Networking strategies for a conference 30:57 Consulting firm visibility partners Links: David's website: https://www.davidafields.com/ David's Books: https://www.davidafields.com/books/ David's Blog: https://www.davidafields.com/blog/ Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes Davina Stanley, a consultant and author, has recently published the book Elevate: How to Lift the Quality of Thinking in Your Team's Board Papers without Rewriting them yourself. She spent 15 years at McKinsey and coached consultants for 15 years. Her core work involves understanding the stakeholder environment and structuring messages based on the Minto pyramid principle. She brings her public relations and communications background, McKinsey Consulting experience, and her original background as a kindergarten teacher together to help people engage senior leaders and boards. ClarityFirst Communication Program Davina works with mid to senior level executives, often one-on-one or in small groups. She typically works with groups of 15 to 25 people. She helps build skills by giving them homework to do and working through the process together. She talks about how she works with senior executives and how she offers a structured program that can be tailored to budgets and ambitions. For groups with technical backgrounds with a fairly modest project, she might offer a three-hour workshop where they work through the process together and think through summarizing and synthesizing data and context. For groups with deep technical backgrounds, she might offer a six-week workshop with learning in advance. This allows the group to practice and learn, ask questions, and interact with the material. She explains how she structures the courses, why she adopted the drip model, and why she started teaching online. Davina currently offers books and online courses as preparatory work for people to use in their own work. Rise. Ready. Iterate. Settle Embed. Davina identifies key points that people should take away from her sessions. She focuses on two streams of work: collaborating to get the final messaging and document right, and getting the actual messaging right itself. She emphasizes the importance of clarity and quality of insight in structuring messages, beginning with understanding who this is for and what the core message is. Davina suggests that one message per slide should be embedded in the title of the slide, and other key lessons to be learned include understanding the stakeholder environment, getting ready to understand the communication strategy, iterating around the message as a one-pager to nail it with stakeholders, settling the document, and embedding learnings form both the process and outcome Clear Communication Skills for Leaders Davina's book, Elevate, helps leaders build their own foundations in understanding the importance of clear communication. She suggests that leaders should build their own foundations by thinking differently about their communication, lifting their own skills, and elevating the team. She talks about the importance of leadership involvement in building quality communication. She states that leaders should first lay foundations by understanding why it matters and learning their own approach to building clear communication. Davina defines the skills that she'd like participants to take away from her course, and how she helps them through the course. Davina talks about the design of her book. She wanted to create a visually appealing book that reflected her teaching principles and was designed with a clear vision in mind. Her goal was to create a book that was user-friendly, with plenty of whitespace and a mix of slide design, PowerPoint design, and book design. The book's shape was designed to be both visually appealing and easy to read. The book's layout was a mix of slide design, PowerPoint design, and book design, with a focus on illustrating concepts and making them relatable to readers. The portability of online books is important for the visceral experience of having a book, but she also believes that physical books are wonderful for having something on their desk as a reference. She talks about the difference between typesetting and book design. Her first book, The SoWhat Strategy, was written with Jared Castles and is targeted at senior leaders and boards, focusing on more complex stories. Davina has built a list of 10,000 email addresses through her marketing coach, who helped her learn Facebook techniques. She has kept building this list and has been sending out weekly emails to help people with their communication. She talks about the emailing system and tools she uses to link systems together and create online modules. For listeners interested in learning more about her practice, Devina suggests visiting clarityfirstprogram.com, which offers various resources, such as her podcast, Cutting Through, and her free course, Emails Basic. To subscribe to her thinking, visitors can visit the website and sign up. Timestamps: 01:53 Working with leaders 02:22 How Davina's coaching business serves executives 06:51 The process of preparing for a coaching session 11:26 The structure of a good communication plan 16:43 Embedding the operating rhythm 21:37 How the book was designe

Show Notes: In this episode of Unleashed, Dr. Michelle Drapkin, author of The Motivational Interviewing Path to Personal Change: The Essential Workbook for Creating the Life You Want, discusses her book and her work as a Board Certified Clinical Psychologist and behavioral scientist, focusing on cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Michelle is known for her work at Johnson and Johnson and the Veterans Administration, and she shares science-based techniques on how to change behaviors beyond intuition or folk knowledge. CBT and Motivation Michelle explains cognitive behavioral therapy and her motivational interview technique. Her area of focus within psychology is the common sense approach of using intrinsic motivation to drive behavior change that aligns with an individual's values and goals. She also emphasizes the importance of aligning these values and goals with the context of the organization. Michelle addresses myths about what motivates people and how to overcome them. One myth is that simply telling people what to do is enough, but it's not always the case and doesn't always endure. She also discusses the importance of fostering a supportive environment and setting clear expectations. She believes that a supportive environment can help individuals feel more comfortable and confident in their decisions, leading to more effective behavior change. Discussing the McKinsey Change Model Will and Michelle discuss the McKinsey change model, which consists of four parts: understanding and skills, commitment, leadership modeling, and accountability. They agree the McKinsey model is mostly right, but Michelle also mentions the missing motivation component. She talks about the Combi model, which combines capability, opportunity, and motivation to achieve behavior change. However, the accountability mechanism and measurement are missing in the McKinsey model. She offers an example to prove the point. She suggests that the McKinsey model might not be the best fit for organizations, as it may not be suitable for adopting new habits or habits that require a different approach. She suggests using motivational interviewing, which is a more compassionate and empathic approach that helps people connect with their internal intrinsic motivation to change. Michelle explains what motivational interviewing is and how it was developed 40 years ago as an alternative to confrontational approaches in the addictions field. It is a gentle, compassionate approach that meets someone where they are at and helps them connect with their internal intrinsic motivation to change. By using motivational interviewing, organizations can help individuals change behaviors for themselves or at least for their own benefit. Michelle talks about the importance of self-compassion, the best-self, and various exercises and strategies for enhancing team alignment and organizational effectiveness. She suggests exercises on how to connect with the best-self and emphasizes the importance of motivational interviewing in behavior change, as it encourages people to talk about their reasons for change and commitment to change. This has been scientifically proven to result in the change. How to Prioritize Values She discusses the importance of prioritizing values, which can be challenging to identify. She suggests that individuals should first identify their values and then narrow them down to about 10, and then prioritize one value. This offers a map to their North star(s). These are the building block to purpose, and helps in making decisions about how to manage competing values and navigate conflicts. She talks about the importance of recognizing and valuing different aspects of an individual's life, such as their time and family, and how they can prioritize these aspects. They emphasize the importance of understanding and valuing different aspects of oneself to better understand and manage competing values. By focusing on positive experiences and addressing barriers, individuals can become more likely to make changes and improve their overall well-being. Michelle talks about chapter two in her book which focuses on finding their why which leads to the what. She helps them identify and prioritize what they want to focus on driving towards before identifying what needs to change. She moves on to explain how she motivates change and introduces the process to consolidate motivation to make change and then commit to the action. She stresses that this approach is not telling people why they should, convincing, persuading or cheerleading. What Is Motivational Interviewing The concept of motivational interviewing (MI) and its four components: focusing on motivation, consolidating motivation, consolidating commitment, and empowering employees. MI is different from other approaches as it is not persuasive but rather evokes motivation from inside the individual. It is important to consider the individual's needs and desires when making changes, as well as their abilit

Show Notes: In this discussion, Joe Pope, the Partner and Director of Business Development at Hinge Marketing, discusses cold outreach. He explains that it is crucial to understand the key issues, topics, and channels that target audiences in order to effectively engage with them. The old method of folding dialing and outsourcing has developed a reputation for not seeing ROI or benefit from the time spent on it. Joe suggests that when developing an approach to cold outreach, it is essential to focus on understanding social media cadence, marketing strategies, the target audience's industries, key issues, and subject matter expertise. This will help avoid falling victim to the sea of sameness and ensure that the message is tailored to the specific needs of the target audience. Joe offers an example of an independent consultant who wants to expand their circle of clients. They have 15 years of experience in strategic sourcing and procurement. They may have already reached out to past clients and people they know but now want to expand their circle. Joe suggests making sure they know the title of the contact and ask questions around directly relatable topics and issues. Linkedin should be used for commenting and sharing on posts or connection requests. Connection requests should only be used if you can offer valuable services, but InMail messages tend to be a waste of time. Joe explains the type of messages and messaging that work and what doesn't work, including to avoid spam, use a slightly warm connection in your connection request, such as mentioning a secondary or third connection. If you're cold, make a reason why you're reaching out, such as having a secondary connection in common or being in an industry that you just created a presentation for or something of value.. Joe discusses reaching out to people to work together on content creation on email rather than InMail, but you should identify the value to them. It's also a good tactic to use connections from your college or business school, former colleagues, or other relevant sources to move the needle closer to potential clients, and likewise, following the same topic feeds as potential clients and commenting on posts they read. Joe talks about the importance of subject lines and email length in cold outreach, highlighting that they can lead to positive ROI. Subject headlines should be short, around six to eight words, and tied to a resonating topic such as events. This approach has been successful in generating responses and open rates. Short, personalized subject lines should avoid using emojis, as they may not resonate with the intended audience. Event-related subject lines can be used to reference specific services or resources that resonate with the target audience. For instance, a firm could send a targeted list of people in industries that resonate with database decisions or artificial intelligence. By referencing the company's name, the message is personalized and relevant to the recipient. For resource-based subject lines, it is important to focus on the topic and the information being conveyed. Joe does not recommend offering a guide in the subject line, but he does mention the importance of referencing something in the first outreach email to get conversations going and provide value propositions. He offers suggestions on how to encourage engagement depending on where the client is on the funnel. Email Content Sharing Tips Joe emphasizes that cold outreach emails are not the most effective for top of the funnel and/or sharing content because they make people take more steps than just communicating or responding to you. Instead, he suggests using targeted text messages with a focus on a specific topic or deliverable. He recommends setting up an intro call to discuss how they can help with the issue. He suggests using a set list of available times and blocking them in their calendar for the outreach process. Instead, the best use of content distribution is to spend that time and effort on areas with larger visibility range, such as getting the guide referenced in editorials or guest publishing. Best Time to Send Outreach Email Joe identifies the optimal wait time between emails, which is typically three to four days. The optimal time for sending emails is usually in the mid mornings, as it allows for better open rates for consistent content like research studies or webinars. The best time of day for sending emails is 9:30 a.m. or 10:00 a.m., as it allows for better eye screening and engagement. He touches on the importance of testing different email formats and timings to ensure they don't blend in with other emails. The second follow-up email, which should be a reply to the first one, has been found to have a better open rate. He also touches on the use of calendar links in emails, which can be overbearing and may hinder connection with recipients. He also talks about using a separate email domain to counter being marked as spam. Email Respo

Richard Langlois, author of the book The Corporation and the 20th Century: The History of American Business Enterprise, and Will Bachman discuss the transition from entrepreneur-led businesses to modern multi-unit businesses. Richard talks about the drivers behind this transformation, including antitrust, which led to unintended consequences such as making coordination between firms illegal, and the shift from vertically integrated businesses to modular corporations. His book highlights the impact of the depression, which eliminated many financial institutions, making it possible for internal capital markets to function and fund innovation. His book also explores the issue of price controls and government interference with markets also interfered with market mechanisms, making it difficult for smaller businesses to coordinate resources. From Entrepreneur-led Businesses to Multi-unit Businesses Richard explains that the rise of large companies and far-flung enterprises in the mid-20th century required conscious management and professional managers who weren't also owners, and that transactions in a market require market supporting institutions, such as financial markets and legal systems, which can be provided in a decentralized way or within the firm. He argues that the success of large, vertically integrated corporations is partly due to the lack of success of alternatives to these structures. Antitrust also plays a role in this transition, as it made it difficult for firms to engage in complex contracts and do things internally. He talks about how the transition from entrepreneur-led businesses to multi-unit businesses was driven by factors such as antitrust, the Great Depression, World War 2, and the New Deal. Richard offers a few examples of antitrust in action with the concept of block booking, where movie studios pre-sell entire blocks of movies to cinemas without allowing them to preview them first to ensure the studios could recoup costs of production. Another interesting aspect he cites is the leverage theory. Taking us back to the 1930s, he talks about IBM who used control over proprietary punch cards to sell their mechanical computing equipment to maintain quality control and price discrimination, which is charging high prices to those who want the product and low prices to those who don't. He goes on to explain how this became the "one lump of monopoly theory," and what this means. The History of Leasing Machines and Government Opposition Richard defines the concept and history of leasing machines, which began in the early industrial revolution. In Britain, the textile industry was highly vertically disintegrated. Entrepreneurs could rent equipment to get into manufacturing products. This allowed entrepreneurs to lower upfront fixed costs and easily enter the business. However, the federal government's antitrust policy made it difficult for companies to lease their machines and wanted them to sell them. This led to lawsuits against them from the entrepreneurs who, once they knew how to use the manufacturing equipment, decided they wanted to break the lease to rent cheaper equipment from a competitor. However, manufacturers enforced long leases and prevented customers from buying cheaper equipment elsewhere, and breaking their original lease. This practice was seen as anti-competitive, as retailers couldn't compete on price, but manufacturers wanted retailers to compete on quality, service, repairs, and service rather than price. Resale Price Maintenance In the early 20th century, companies would charge high prices for complex products like vacuum cleaners and washing machines, which required hard salesmanship and servicing. This discouraged customers from visiting full-service showrooms and purchasing cheap products online. Resale price maintenance is a strategy to prevent resellers from freeriding on services, but the antitrust authorities argued it was anti-competitive because it wasn't allowing resellers to compete on price. This was partly intellectual and partly thinking that businesses tend to be anti-competitive, and partly in the interest of consumers. He talks about management consulting and the role of scientific management and how it is all about learning through trial and error, and coming up with new theories. Regulating the Corporation and Controversial Opinions One view on antitrust is that it is driven by what profit opportunities there are in the world and what relative prices are. He believes that part of the reason the large corporation got torn apart into much more specialized corporations was in part that market supporting institutions had come back to life, capital markets were working again, and external capital markets were more effective than internal capital markets and firms. Regulations were impending innovation, and so there were profit opportunities for entrepreneurs who could pressure Congress and the executive branch to try to undo some of the regulations that mad

Jon Cobb, a LinkedIn expert, shares his unique style of posts, which are short, concise, and impactful. His biggest post this year has received 236,000 likes and almost 18 million impressions. It highlights the importance of leadership and culture change, which resonates with many people due to the timing of layoffs and the appreciation for empathetic leadership. Jon also shares a few of the most popular posts, including one that emphasizes hiring someone with the right mindset over someone with the right resume, emphasizing the importance of understanding the motivations behind an individual's interest in a job. He shares posts that suggest people should focus on long-term growth opportunities rather than just the most lucrative job offers. Jon talks about his company called Jon Cobb Coaching, and an app he built called the Job Search Boot Camp. The app helps people identify mistakes they might be making in their job search process and adopt a more strategic approach. He advises people to step back, think more strategically about their job search, and focus on networking before applying. He encourages people to apply for companies they truly want to work for, as this will lead to a full-quality application. Jon's app includes an audio course that walks people through these stages, such as networking correctly, reaching out to new connections on LinkedIn, building a compelling resume, and interviewing effectively. By following this structured approach, people can increase their chances of success and happiness in the long run. Job Search Boot Camp offers resources, resume templates, cover letter templates, negotiation letter templates, and a community forum for users to connect with the author. The course is affordable and designed to help people get hired faster and make more. He left Deloitte consulting a few years ago and focussed on business consulting. He works with people across different elements of their life and challenges they face. He now runs a life coaching practice, helping entrepreneurs, relationship challenges, and developing a mindset of success, and career coaching is a significant part of this practice. Best Practices on LinkedIn Posts Jon's approach to LinkedIn posting began with posting on topics that matter to him. He has found that success involves trial and error, experimentation, and understanding what matters to you. He began posting about work culture and personal and professional progress, and over time, refined his voice by focusing on what mattered to him. He found that the overlap between what he cared about and what he had to offer was what resonated with people who appreciated it. When he committed to posting, he started using square image posts with quotes, which are thought graphics that are larger than text. This allows for more real estate on the LinkedIn scroll feed and makes it easier for people to read what they have to say. Additionally, making the idea or thought easy for people to quickly identify with is crucial. LinkedIn is not the place for long, complicated posts, but it is not as limited as Twitter, so it is important to make it easy for people to like, react, leave comments, or follow the author quickly. Jon shares how posting on LinkedIn has helped him grow his following. He tried different formats and polls. His goal is to post twice a day, but sometimes misses days due to lack of inspiration or commitment. Consistency is a key aspect of success, but it's not the number one priority in his life. Jon emphasizes the importance of nurturing posts and responding to comments within the first hour after posting. The first 20 minutes are the most important and recognised by the algorithms. He sets aside an hour after the post goes live to interact and respond to people, as the algorithm evaluates how much people are interested in your post. To avoid LinkedIn's algorithm evaluating links that take people off the platform, Jon recommends waiting five to 10 minutes after posting to leave comments or links to avoid lowering the exposure the post is given. When a post performs well, Jon uses a lesson learned from the value ladder from Russell Brunson of Clickfunnels to stay in touch with people, get them to sign up for newsletters or apps, and build an email list. He also suggests using lead magnets, such as offering free resources or digital books, to build an email list. He acknowledges the importance of collecting email addresses, as it allows you to control access to the audience and avoid penalizing you for marketing posts. He plans to launch webinars on digital courses and one-on-one coaching. Another way to collect emails is on your LinkedIn profile, where you can put a link to your best posts or other content and encourage viewers to sign up for the posts. This will help you stay connected with your audience and build a strong online presence. The ROI on LinkedIn Success Jon has gained 17 million views and is now reaching a steady stream of clients. However, th

In this episode of Unleashed, Will Bachman and Huijin Kong discuss her new book, Positive Influence, The First and Last Mile of Leadership, co-authored with Tsun-yan Hsieh. They talk about the basics of influence and how to present different influencing techniques. Huijin's book emphasizes the importance of focusing on both task outcomes and relational outcomes, as well as the impact of one's own heart and soul on others. Huijin emphasizes that people are influenced more by how they feel about the task and their purpose in influencing others. She explains that traditional consulting can be more powerful if professionals spend more time on mindshare and their own heart, rather than just defining and laying out the task. The book lays out three aspects of influencing: personal qualities that are universal, such as courage, care, and compassion. Courage helps us face difficult situations and fears, while care involves caring about people's experiences and challenges, rather than just the task itself. Compassion is crucial in challenging times, as it builds the basis for being more open to what people are resisting and why. Humility and curiosity are also central to creating a powerful common ground for discussing difficult issues. By focusing on these qualities, professionals can create a more powerful and impactful influence on their clients and clients. She also mentions 'state' which deals with composure and being present. It is important to align your state to your intent. These two-thirds can mean the difference between being a good influencer or a great influencer. Defining Influence Pathways Huijin talks about the importance of being deliberate in influencing others. Huijin emphasizes placing focus on positive outcomes and the importance of considering the context and pressures in higher stakes situations, in addition to the starting attitude of the people who need to be influenced. This intentionality allows for the development of an influence pathway, which involves guiding each person to think, feel, and do differently than their natural current inclination. She qualifies that being deliberate is not like military planning, but rather requires being conscious of how your influence attempt is going and how the person is responding to your actions. This allows you to adjust your strategy and align your being, state, and emotions with the person and desired outcomes. She also states that it is important to be open to changing outcomes and updating your own understanding of desired outcomes. Changing a Leader's Influencing Approach Huijin shares a case example of helping a leader change their influencing approach by coaching them through role plays. The example involves a transformational project where the key leaders' relationship has become a barrier to constructive participation. To help the leader change their approach, Huijin explores several angles, such as the degree of care one has for the project and the importance of setting ambitious influence outcomes. Huijin gives examples of the choices the executive has to move forward and understand the degrees of freedom in influencing situations, such as defining one's role as defining the technical solution or pointing out where the leader needs more leadership. This can be done in one-on-one or small group situations. The book also discusses the use of the deliberate conscious influencing process in MBA programs, where participants go through real-life situations and role play to learn how they show up in the heat of the moment. By adopting this conscious influencing process, individuals can internalize it and apply it in various situations, both in school and beyond. Expanding the Toolbox of Influencing Huijin emphasizes the value of building common ground and shared objectives. Engaging the person about them and not just their thoughts about the task at stake is highly effective. This is important in situations where people's motivation is in doing the difficult work. To build a strong connection with the client, it is essential to delve into their feelings about themselves, identity, attitudes, and inspiration related to their work and the task at hand. Another underused tactic is confronting, which involves acknowledging that they may not feel the same way about something, they may have different beliefs. Asking them to tell more about their point of view helps build a deeper foundation of shared understanding and feelings, and enables a stronger foundation on which to deal with difficult situations or tasks. Setting High Ambitions Huijin talks about Linhart's high challenge, high support model. This model involves setting high ambitions for oneself, which can apply to influence effectiveness, leadership, sports, parents, and business situations. High support often comes in the form of quality feedback, real-time feedback, as it helps improve self-awareness and confidence. She also mentions potential sources where freelancers can get high support.

Show Notes: Soren Kaplan, author of Experiential Intelligence: Harnessing the power of experience for personal and business breakthroughs, talks about his book, his experience as a consultant, and the software company he founded, Praxie.com, to digitize his consulting processes and help other consultants and Fortune 1000 clients scale their processes. Soren decided to scale up his experience in executive education, leadership development, and innovation and strategy work, which led him to create the no-code software platform he uses to digitize his own consulting work processes and create annuity revenue streams. SaaS as a Service Business Model for Consultants Soren's team has done extensive work in work process digitization, and they realized that the best scalable way to do this is to create a platform that anyone can use to do it themselves or help others do it in a fast and easy way using no-code software. Soren talks about the first application and use case and how it helps consultants to access templates and processes, and streamline workflow. Soren's innovation consulting experience led him to create a platform for running the innovation process for a large steel manufacturing company. He shares how the team has their customized process digitized in a workflow that their entire team can now use in a repeatable way. He explains that the software is a SaaS software as a service business model, combining consulting with work process design. Soren explains the innovation process: idea generation, validation, and implementation. The process involves evaluating the different dimensions of the first phase, selecting which ideas to move forward, and then evaluating the results. The process then moves on to validation, where the user evaluates the assumptions and moves them to the next phase. The digitized workflow allows individuals or teams to view their entire portfolio as a dashboard, showing pipeline, portfolio maps, and financials. Teams can work through their own product ideas and provide access to the dashboard for reporting. The application also includes tools for execution and dashboard elements for reporting. A Branded SaaS App for Consultants Soren talks about the low cost of the digital application, as it digitizes hundreds of tools and templates. For example, a PowerPoint or Excel file can be converted into an interactive template online, making it more cost-effective for clients. The sales process is the engagement process, with the cost depending on the level of customization. The Praxie tool is similar to SaaS software, with a monthly fee per user. He explains how a consultant can use the platform to develop their own business process software, and how the pricing model is adapted to the user and the customization. The business model is being built with tools which allow consultants to build their own branded processes within it. Soren explains that the platform is built in the Google Cloud, which allows for easy security and billing. The platform also provides an annual fee for consulting clients, which includes technology and consultative support. The revenue share is determined by the number of users and the different apps available. Consultants can quickly build their own SaaS application for their branded processes and tools, and sell them. This becomes an ongoing, billable opportunity, making it profitable for the consultant. Soren believes that having a software platform or application that supports best practices with clients is an opportunity to sustain the relationship. He suggests checking in quarterly or annually to check in on the process, modify and update it, and using the software to help build and sustain client relationships. Soren talks about developing a robust portfolio of work, which now includes writing for Ink Magazine, Psychology Today, Fast Company, and books on creating a culture of innovation and leadership for innovation. He also engages in consulting, developing business strategy, and creating innovative portfolios of products and services for companies. His speaking engagements often lead to consulting and sometimes a day or two-day stay with the leadership team. Experiential Intelligence Explained Soren explains the concept of experiential intelligence and how it combines IQ, EQ, emotional intelligence, and experiences. It is the intelligence gained from our experiences, which are broken down into three components: mindsets, abilities, and skills. Experiential intelligence is a combination of IQ and EQ, which are essential for leadership, change management, and alignment in organizations. In today's fast-changing world, the combination of these factors is not sufficient. Soren's book highlights the importance of experiential intelligence, which is the combination of IQ and emotional intelligence. Experiential intelligence is a key factor in today's disruptive world, as it helps individuals develop their skills and abilities, as well as their ability to live wi

Show Notes: James Agres is the founder of 2nd St Strategy, an independent consulting firm focused on private equity and commercial due diligence work. He has experience in various industries, including software, industrial, and healthcare. James discusses the importance of market sizing in commercial diligence projects. In this episode, he talks about the importance of market sizing varies project to project, and how it helps businesses understand the size of opportunities available to them. A large market can represent a large opportunity, while a small opportunity may be more limited. James explains that understanding the market's competitive dynamics, market share, and growth drivers is crucial for businesses. James shares the different terms for market size, such as total addressable market (TAM), serviceable addressable market (SAM), and serviceable obtainable market (SOM). The total addressable market is the total population of the town, the number of haircuts, and the price of the haircut. The serviceable addressable market is the percentage of the town represented by men in a certain income demographic or willing to spend a lot on haircuts, and the serviceable obtainable market is the percentage of the town represented by men in a certain income demographic or willing to spend a lot on haircuts. Determining Market Size James explains that to reach the desired audience, businesses must advertise to the entire town or reach specific demographics and geography within the town. He talks about various market sizing approaches, including price times quantity and quantity times price, by segment. He explains that the most basic market sizing framework is price times quantity, which can be applied to dental practice management software. The market size is about half a billion, with 138,000 stores in the US and a close-to-100% adoption rate. He offers another example of software used to manage reservations at state, national, and local parks in the US and Canada. The market size can be estimated using various methodologies, such as the p times q methodology, which uses data on visitor numbers, pricing, and vendor percentages. The state parks and target organizations can also be used to determine their market share and percentage charges. James presents various market sizing approaches, including price times quantity and quantity times price, to analyze the market size of various industries. By utilizing these methods, he aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the market size and competitive landscape in the dental practice management software market. Estimating a Company's Market Share The second method involves estimating a target company's market share based on their revenue. This method assumes that all competitors operate similarly to the target company. This method can be applied to the rest of the market, as well as to the target company's market share. The third method involves estimating the adoption rate of a product or service. For example, the market for waffle service is a complex one, with 680,000 restaurants in the US and a significant number of hotels and restaurants. To estimate the percentage of restaurants serving waffles, various methods are used, such as industry interviews, menu data, and analysis of menus. The adoption rate of about 10% is crucial for market size sizing, as it is often the hardest variable to determine when considering price and quantity. James advises that, In the context of due diligence, it is essential to gather data and make critical assumptions to determine the pricing of a target. This can be achieved through various methods, such as talking to customers, analyzing restaurant and hotel data, and contacting competitors or market participants. Where to Get Good Quality Data In industries where the quantity is not well-known, such as the number of dentists, it is possible to get the quantity side of the equation by using good quality data. This can be obtained from sources like the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, when the quantity is not available, different methodologies can be used, and James shares the various methodologies and software that can be used. James also explains the importance of understanding market size in nascent or new markets, and growth markets, such as the market for vocal biomarker software. This technology is used to detect behavioral health conditions and cardiovascular diseases, such as respiratory distress during the COVID-19 pandemic. He talks about the need to understand the actual use cases for technology, the different routes to market, and potential users of the technology. Pricing Strategies and Technology Usage in Market Sizing James talks about the importance of asking questions about pricing, such as competitors' pricing strategies or other clever ways to get people comfortable responding. Overall, he emphasizes the importance of understanding market size and the need for a well-rounded approach to understanding and

Show Notes: Brian Ortiz talks to Will Bachman about their use of various tools and CRM systems to manage their LinkedIn presence which has 70,000 followers. Brian talks about his history in marketing, his move into real estate investing, his purpose on LinkedIn, and the CRM tools he uses. Brian explains how he manages the actual inflow of messages, especially when dealing with heavy volume. He talks about an interesting system where he can reply quickly by using specific keywords or dates in their replies, and how he uses LinkedIn's data system which allows them to sort and segment by different criteria. Brian explains that he initially lost 50-60% of messages in the shuffle, but now he has a system where they can filter and sort messages into as granular groups as possible. He also has assistants who go through the CRM and spreadsheets to maximize the volume and ensure no important messages are lost. Using AI and CRM Tools to Manage Message Flow Brian talks about using AI and what he looks for when investing in projects. He also offers advice on how to manage viral posts and the volume of inbound messages has increased quickly. Brian shares the tools he uses based on the type of post or his schedule for the week. He mentions LeadDelta, and the features this system offers. He also mentions FOLK, a system that is similar to Google Sheets, to manage contact information. Another go-to CRM system is Raindrop, which allows him to save messages in the system and it has an extension in Chrome. Brian explains how you can use LinkedIn to download and manage messages. He shares some inside information on LinkedIn's messaging algorithm. He shares important tips on consistent patterns when messaging in large volume and the benefits of manual messaging. He also offers working insight into LeadDelta to avoid violating LinkedIn's rules of engagement and how it competes with LinkedIn's services. Brian shares how he manages his large volume of connections and why he keeps 400 open slots. He talks about the LinkedIn loophole he found and the value of messaging and not just following. Frequency of Posting Content Brian initially was hesitant to post content, but with 73,000 connections, people send him lists of investors to him. He uses tools like Tap Leo, which shows other people's highest engaged content to see what is popular and engages a high volume of views. If a gated post generates two or three million views, Brian sends a quick message to the creator, asking if they want Brian to share it. He also still posts investing or startup contrarian posts on LinkedIn, and follows around 100 people. He has trained his virtual assistant to recognize high-velocity posts and repurpose them for different content. He combines high-velocity posts to create unique insights into high-demand topics, and the engagement process improves monthly. Brian's philosophy is that the time of day when posting is irrelevant. High-quality A+ content will go viral, and the algorithm will start determining how people are interacting with the post. The first hour after posting, the algorithm determines if the post is good, and the time of day is irrelevant. Overall, engagement will be similar regardless of the time. Brian suggests posting three or four times a week, allowing high-volume, high-engagement posts to fully extend. People expect a certain volume, but excessive posting can decrease perceived value. Brian also talks about flubbed posts and what to do to increase the reach and engagement of your content, and also the two worst-performing types of posts, and the cost of a self-congratulatory post. Timestamps: 06:49 Managing viral Linkedin posts 10:53 Managing the volume of messages 15:31 How do you use Linkedin other inboxes 20:09 How to deal with connection requests 24:41 The content strategy Brian uses 28:18 Time of day to post and frequency 33:05 The problem with patience and patience 37:44 Sticking to a general topic area CONTACT INFO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianvortiz/ Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes: LinkedIn has become a powerful platform for professionals to connect, share insights, and build their personal brand. But how can executives effectively leverage LinkedIn to maximize their content strategy? To answer this question, Will Bachman talks to Justin Nassiri, founder of Executive Presence, who conducted a comprehensive analysis of client posts on LinkedIn. Justin talks about software his company uses for data analytics to see valuable data on engagement and trends and how to use it. The Power of the Hook One of the most significant insights from Justin's analysis is the importance of the hook in LinkedIn posts. The hook refers to the first line of a post, which aims to capture the reader's attention and entice them to engage further. Nassiri emphasizes the need for a bold and provocative hook, stating, "The first line of a post really determines its success." By taking an extreme stance or making a surprising statement, executives can stop the scroll and compel readers to delve deeper into their content. Justin advises executives to avoid generic and overused hooks, such as "I'm humbled to be featured by Forbes." Instead, he suggests crafting hooks that are concrete, surprising, and contrary to common beliefs and offers a few examples. Furthermore, Nassiri highlights the importance of formatting the post to make the hook stand out. By using line breaks and creating distinct lines, executives can make their hooks more visually appealing and increase the chances of capturing readers' attention. The Visual Advantage Another key finding from Nassiri's analysis is the significant impact of visuals in LinkedIn posts. According to the study, posts with photos receive 115% more views than those without any visual content. Graphics, on the other hand, result in a 28% increase in views. He emphasizes the need for original and relevant visuals. Stock images are not effective in capturing readers' attention and should be avoided. Instead, executives should use their own photos or graphics that directly relate to the content of their posts. For example, if the post discusses leadership, including a photo of a team or a relevant graphic can enhance the post's impact. Justin also offers a few tips on how to generate ideas for visual content. The Power of Data Analysis Beyond the specific findings, Justin highlights the broader value of LinkedIn as a tool for data analysis, and how executives can use LinkedIn to gain insights into the topics and ideas that resonate with their audience. By analyzing the performance of their posts, executives can identify their "zone of genius" and focus on topics that generate the most engagement. He encourages executives to view LinkedIn as a platform for testing and refining their content strategy. LinkedIn provides a data-driven approach to understanding what content is valuable and to whom. This data-driven approach allows executives to refine their messaging and focus on topics that truly resonate with their audience. The insights from Justin's analysis have significant implications for executives looking to enhance their presence on LinkedIn. Looking ahead, it is essential for executives to continue evolving their content strategy on LinkedIn. While certain tactics may become overused or lose their effectiveness over time, the fundamental principles of effective writing and storytelling remain timeless. Executives should strive to provide valuable insights, educate their audience, and create engaging content that resonates with their target audience. Frequency of Posting on LinkedIn Another important aspect of LinkedIn thought leadership is the frequency of posting , the type of post, and the audience. Justin explains how the post is displayed, breaks this down line-by-line, and emphasizes the need to post consistently and frequently, recommending two to five posts per week. He highlights the significant impact of increasing the frequency of posts, with a three and a half times increase in monthly views and a 3.7 times increase in monthly likes when going from two to three posts per week to five posts per week. He also suggests posting at 7am local time, as this allows for maximum visibility and engagement. Content Development Tips In terms of content, Justin advises against using articles, links, and reposts. Outbound links and reshared content tend to receive significantly fewer views compared to original posts. However, Nassiri provides two workarounds for including links in your posts. One option is to publish the link as the first comment in the post, while the other is to add the link after the first hour of the post. He talks about how short-term fads can be exploited but should not be relied on as evergreen content. Justin recommends ending your posts with a statement rather than a question. According to his analysis, posts that end with a question perform 30% worse than those that end with a statement. This suggests that people may be fatigued by the ove

Show Notes: Will Bachman welcomes Alex Boyd, the founder of Revenue Zen, a B2B organic growth marketing firm. Alex talks about organic growth marketing and how it is simply sharing knowledge about a product or service through platforms like websites, forums, and social media without relying on paid advertising. Alex's strategy works because clients are drawn to the content and reach out to him. He is now helping other B2B companies achieve success through organic growth marketing. Developing Organic Content for B2B Markets Alex Boyd works with B2B clients who typically have an average order value of at least 20k to 50k or more. He helps them to find their voice, clarify their thought process, produce content, get it out there, and watch that turn into leads and pipeline. His clients are usually software companies, consultancies, and other service providers who sell digitally and have a higher than average ticket size. By writing LinkedIn content that is well targeted and speaks to their audience and producing blog posts that are targeted to niche, lower volume keywords, his clients can see a huge ROI with just a few leads. Alex talks about how they help software companies create content. He explains how they have a structured interview with the founders of the companies to understand their needs and goals, and draw out their expertise. Then, they create content that focuses on the specialty of the company as well as how technology can be used as part of the process. He emphasizes that the founders may not be social media writers, but they can provide valuable insights on how to implement the solution. Alex offers a sanitized case study of a software client. Most of his clients receive targeted, well-written content that they can post themselves. Alex's business helps clients craft effective social media content that can help them generate leads. He advocates for a structured interview process to draw out the client's expertise, and then they can coach them or produce content that the client can edit. Alex shares a few interview questions that help draw out valuable information on the company that helps build engaging content that yields results. He identifies the type of content that works. Tips on Creating Engaging Content He suggests starting with an origin story, as it helps the client's network to understand why they started the business. He also suggests asking about the client's favorite interview questions to draw out the information. Alex believes that making up content for social media does not work, and that it is important to draw out the expertise and knowledge of the client to create effective content. He emphasizes the need to be short and insightful in content marketing. Alex explains how to manage reaction and engagement to social and content posts, and how to transition from commenting on someone's posts to having meaningful conversation. He offers tips on backlinks, messaging and responding, and how to prep the groundwork for posts. Alex said that the majority of the 135 engagements he has brought in from his LinkedIn posts and comments have been inbound. He suggests that the best way to have a conversation with someone is to have a natural conversation that doesn't have a direct lead into one's service but is still relevant. Will asks for tips on how to move from commenting on someone's posts to having a live conversation. Alex suggests providing a targeted note expressing interest in talking and engaging in meaningful conversations that don't lead to a sales pitch. He adds that the best conversations are those that don't lead to a sales pitch but are still relevant. When engaging potential customers on social media, it is important to be mindful of how you approach them. Instead of leading directly into a sales conversation, it is best to demonstrate your expertise by asking questions that show your credibility. To do this effectively, ask questions related to the topic that you know about, and make sure they include your expertise. For example, if your expertise is in SEO, you could ask questions about backlink distribution and content production. Pretend you are giving a micro-consulting engagement and think about the value you can provide. This will help you create questions that demonstrate your expertise without feeling like a sales pitch. How to Gain and Engage with Clients on LinkedIn Alex explains how to choose questions that demonstrate your knowledge, and how to comment on a LinkedIn post. In addition to using a Sales Navigator account in order to highlight posts from those people, he suggests using a bookmarking system or a spreadsheet to track the posts, and how focusing on a smaller group of potential leads is the best way to comment on relevant posts. Alex also suggests engaging with other people in the same space, such as influencers, consultants and software companies, as this can be more effective than engaging directly with the prospects. To find these people, Alex sugg

Show Notes: Chris Heivly and Will Bachman discuss the concept of startup communities and the importance of building them. Chris is the co-founder of MapQuest, which was sold to AOL for $1.2 billion, and the author of the Build the Fort. His second book, The Startup Community Builder's Field Guide, focuses on how five simple lessons learned as a 10-year-old can set entrepreneurs up for startup success. Chris defines a startup community as a set of people involved in innovative activities in a particular geography. He explains that startup communities can be incredibly powerful in helping entrepreneurs to succeed and should be proactively built by providing resources, mentorship, and capital. The Benefits of a Startup Community Chris talks about the concept of startup communities and how they are no longer geographically bound. He believes that networks are essential in order to develop a successful startup community, and that all members of the community, such as corporate innovators, investors, founders, researchers, and university students, should work together for the greater good. Additionally, he mentions that the concept of startup communities applies to industry-specific communities as well, and not just geographically bound ones. He believes that the key to advancing technology is through startups and corporate innovation, and that these networks should be utilized to the fullest extent. Chris points out that it is important to rely on people outside of one's geographic network to build a successful community. He explains that it can be difficult for founders to invest time and energy into the community due to the amount of tasks they have to complete in their business. He mentions that it is important to build meaningful connections in order to make a successful community and connect with venture capitalists, local investors, and to get involved in the local economy to make sure that it is thriving, and that one will gain knowledge and potential customers by doing so. Chris suggests startup lawyers, marketing experts, economic development professionals, and people from universities want to ensure the success of startups and help create a vibrant local economy, and he shares a case study on a startup community he was involved with. The Advantages of a Local Tech Scene Chris talks about the advantages of being in a local tech scene, rather than working in a virtual space. He adds that the local physical advantage is that one can easily access mentorship and advice in a formal sense. He notes that this may come in the form of attending events, or engaging with other startups in the same building. He also points out that networking with local resources can be beneficial for finding answers to questions, and finding the right attorney for legal needs. He explains the importance of providing resources, such as programming and co-working spaces, to help new entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground. Chris emphasizes the value of what they call gear, or ad hoc advice and mentorship, as an invaluable resource. These resources can be found through serendipitous sparks, such as running into people at coffee shops or events. Chris suggests that the best way to create events and activities that will engage the community is to listen to what the people want and find a leader who is motivated to make a change. He encourages grassroots-style initiatives that come from the bottom up, and to move forward with the goal of helping or supporting others. The Three A's that Help Build Local Community To help the local community, Chris suggests that it can be done in various ways, such as running a Little League team or getting involved in the arts. He recommends getting involved in the entrepreneur community and how it can have a great economic impact. Chris talks about the three A's framework in his book which stands for actors, activities, and attitudes. This framework is designed to make the ecosystem more inclusive and inviting for everyone to play a role. Actors can range from economic developers, government bureaucrats, university people, corporate members, founders, investors, and more. Activities vary depending on the maturity of the ecosystem. Attitudes are the most forgotten part of the framework and are important in creating a collaborative, supportive, and inclusive mindset. Chris encourages everyone to adopt a better attitude and behavior in order to create a better ecosystem. He offers a few steps to drive this forward. To build an active network that you can lean on, Chris suggests introducing two people from your network who don't know each other, and having a 'gift first mentality' by reaching out to others without expecting something in return. He shares a story from 2009 to 2010, where he ran around doing 275 connections in five months, and at the end asked a simple question: What can I do for you?. He encourages people to ask what keeps them up at night, and what their challenges are, so that t

Show Notes: In this episode, Will Bachman talks to Adam Braff, a former McKinsey partner who specializes in data analytics. Adam has been using chat GPT to explore how this powerful tool can be harnessed for data analysis. He explores the implications and potential impact of this innovative approach. The Quest for Analyzing Quantitative Data The ability to analyze quantitative data using generative AI has long been a holy grail for many data scientists. While Chat GPT and other language models have proven their prowess in generating text and even creating visual content. Adam talks about how to tackle the challenge of applying these tools to analyze large datasets problems and uncover potential solutions. Adam outlines four key aspects of the problem at hand. First, there is a need to upload data into the Chat GPT tool, as the existing training data may not encompass the specific dataset of interest. Second, an intuitive interface is required to facilitate a conversation with the tool, allowing for iterative exploration and analysis. Third, the ability to visualize the data in various formats, such as tables and graphs, is crucial for understanding and validating the results. Lastly, incorporating up-to-date contextual information about the world around us is essential to gain insights into correlations and patterns within the data. Uploading Data: Bridging the Gap To address the challenge of uploading data into Chat GPT, several options have emerged. One approach involves integration with popular spreadsheet tools like Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel. Users can interact with the data by writing formulas and commands directly within the spreadsheet software. Another option is to paste data directly into Chat GPT, as long as it fits within the context window. This approach allows for a quick overview of the data and initial exploration of its contents. The ability to have a conversation with chat GPT is a significant breakthrough in data analytics. Adam highlights the emergence of third-party plugins that enable users to interact with the tool directly. These plugins, such as "chat with your data" and "chat with G sheet," bring us closer to the goal of conversational data analysis within the chat GPT environment. Additionally, separate startups have leveraged APIs to connect with open AI models like GPT 3.5 and GPT 4. These startups, such as seek.ai and data DM, provide an alternative approach to interact with the data, although they operate outside the chat GPT window. Code Interpreter: The 800-Pound Gorilla Among the various solutions, Chat GPT code interpreter stands out as a powerful tool for data analysis. As an official open AI product, it offers a native and robust interface within Chat GPT. By activating code interpreter, users gain access to a chatbot-like interface where they can upload data, ask questions, and receive answers in real-time. The code interpreter translates user queries into Python code, allowing for complex data manipulations and analyses. For example, if a user wants to analyze the correlation between variables or observe trends over time, code interpreter can aggregate and analyze the data accordingly. While the current interface may require users to refer back to the original spreadsheet for column names and other details, it provides a promising solution for non-technical analysts to engage with data. Unleashing the Potential: A Case Study To illustrate the capabilities of code interpreter, Adam conducted an analysis using three datasets: daily credit card spending on fast food brands, weekly food spending in various categories, and macroeconomic data from the Federal Reserve. The goal was to explore correlations between fast food spending, overall food spending, and economic conditions. By uploading these datasets into code interpreter, Adam engaged in a conversation with the tool, asking questions and receiving insights on trends overtime. The analysis aimed to uncover potential drivers of spending on fast food brands and identify correlations with broader food spending and economic indicators. Adam explains the various types of analysis and data the tool can deliver and how it can be delivered. Accessing a Python Interpreter For those unfamiliar with Python programming, Braff provided guidance on how to access a Python interpreter. He suggested using platforms like Replit, which allow users to create a free environment for running Python code. Additionally, he mentioned that AI language models like ChatGPT can generate Python code for specific tasks, making it easier for non-technical users to experiment with programming. He emphasizes the importance of hands-on experimentation and encourages individuals to explore these tools to enhance their data analysis skills. Navigating the Landscape of AI Tools Adam talks about the landscape of AI tools and their potential applications in organizations. He talks about how he experimented with scraping. He stresses the need for a prob

Show Notes: Keith Durst runs Friends of Chef (FOC), a consulting firm that works at the intersection of hospitality and real estate. Keith has worked on major projects in 15 different states, and he lists several projects they have worked on in New York City, such as Rockefeller Center, Lincoln Center, the Whitney Museum, and Blackstone's corporate headquarters as just a few of his projects. Reimagining the Rockefeller Center Keith uses Rockefeller Center as a case study to explain the different stages and services his firm provides to their projects. The initial phase of the project involves understanding the needs and goals of the developer or owner. He talks about researching the market, designing the concept, and bringing it to life with construction. Finally, they help with the launch of the project and ensure its success. The goal of the project at Rockefeller Center was to create a place where New Yorkers would want to spend their time, rather than focus on it as a tourist destination. To achieve this, the development team looked at what was missing and why and how they redeveloped the area to be more open and accessible to New Yorkers. He talks about the changes that were made and how these changes have made the area an attractive destination for locals to visit. Keith explains the specifics of how to do a needs assessment for the Rockefeller Center, including assessing the local community. They wanted to create an authentic New York experience on the campus, so they didn't rely on the competitive set. The goal was to create different levels of food and beverage, including bakeries, breweries, cafes, and sit down seating that would give people working at Rockefeller Center the ability to stay in the area to socialize and make reservations at popular places, but also that it would attract a wide demographic. In the end, Keith hopes that the changes will give people the time and energy back to spend more than one day in the area. The Friends of Chef Mission and Vision The goal of the FOC team is to create an environment that is welcoming to all kinds of people from different parts of the city. The team also plans out different day periods to maximize the restaurants' potential and manage flow periods. Keith explains why the balance between destination restaurants and quick lunch spots is important. He emphasized that it's important to bring in businesses that understand throughput and have efficient POS and under periods. Once customer needs and establishment needs have been assessed, the next step is working with the team and their engineers and leasing people to ideate and figure out how to make their plans a reality. Viable Financial Planning for Restaurants Keith talks about the process of developing a space for a restaurant. The first step is to conduct an assessment and determine which types of restaurants would be a good fit for the space. The next phase is financial underwriting, which involves understanding the costs from both the developers and operators point of view of pre-opening and building the space, as well as developing a critical path to open the restaurant. Keith talks about the importance of having a partner mentality when working with landlords in the restaurant industry. Keith explains that a good deal cannot be done with bad people, and vice versa, and that the landlord and operator need to have a solid relationship. He adds that the two parties need to come up with a plan that works for both, and that the developer needs to have a vision that will make the property worth more. Keith then explains that when developing a financial plan, the team identifies the type of restaurant that will work in the specific location to achieve buy-in from all parties involved. Finally, he mentions the need for sign off from the executive committee of the company. Key Factors when Designing a Restaurant Keith explains that when designing a restaurant, there are a few key considerations: the developer and superintendents should have a thorough knowledge of the building, engineers who can ensure all electrical and plumbing needs are professionally installed; a kitchen designer to monitor the essential health and safety needs of a kitchen are met, a health and safety official, a designer to work with Keith's team and the operator, and finally, the developer to sign off on designs. This is all before the final fixtures, furnishings. He explains why the menu should be an early part of the kitchen design to meet specific culinary requirements and that, as such, the chef often plays a key role in the kitchen design. The Development of FOC Keith shares how his firm started. Keith gained experience opening and running high end restaurants in New York City. He was approached by a hotelier who needed help getting their food and beverage program set up. Initially, he worked on it alone, but soon realized he needed a team to be able to execute and grow the business. He now has a partner who has extensive ex

Show Notes: Oscar Trimboli is the author of How to Listen and the host of the podcast Deep Listening. He talks about the importance of listening in the context of an initial discussion with a client, and highlights the importance of being present and mindful in the conversation, and to focus on understanding the other person's perspective. Oscar stresses the need to be aware of underlying emotions, and to be patient and respectful during the conversation. He concludes that having an open dialogue and listening to the other person's point of view is paramount to building a strong relationship and achieving successful outcomes. How to Improve Client Projects Oscar talks about the importance of listening during the context call with a client on their project. He emphasizes that listening should not be limited to face-to-face conversation but should include pre- and post- conversation activities as well. As an example, he mentioned his own pre-interview question to the client about the audience in attendance. Oscar suggests three questions to ask prior to entering the room. By posing these questions, you can gain a better understanding of the client's needs and desires and be better equipped to lead the conversation. Oscar explains how to best approach a context conversation for a potential project by asking these three questions, which should include the characteristics of a great listener: curiosity, flexibility and openness. In email introductions, Oscar explains how to add three bullet points to an email introducing the project, which should include mentioning three common issues the project may have, and how to refer to these issues to position yourself as knowledgeable while also gaining information. These questions can also position you as a problem solver and not just as a gaining a client for your business. The Importance of Listening to what Is not Said In order to be a great listener, one must understand the science and art of conversation. Oscar talks about the importance of listening and the gap between thinking speed and speaking speed. Oscar suggests that we should be conscious of what is not being said in a conversation and offers some ways to self-assess. An effective listener should focus on both what is being said and what is not being said. A speaker typically speaks at 125-150 words per minute, but can think in a range of 900-1600 words per minute whereas you can listen up to 400 words per minute. Paying attention to what the speaker hasn't said can help create a more meaningful conversation and create a more positive experience for the client. As a result, referrals should increase as clients feel heard and valued. What to Avoid When Mirroring Clients Oscar talks about the best way to ask questions when trying to understand a project from a client's perspective and the importance of mirroring the client's specific language and vocabulary during a meeting. He suggests that the consultant should be careful and cautious when using language related to the future, as the client may not be able to believe in such a distant vision. He also suggests calibrating the language to the client's time horizon and paying attention to the type of language the client is using. For example, are they speaking in stories or statistics? Are they big picture or linear? The consultant should be matching the client's level of abstraction in order to have a successful conversation. Oscar highlights the importance of using mental models to recognize code words, and listening to different perspectives. He expands on the advisor's role, giving an example with a client he worked with in the pharmaceutical industry to demonstrate gaps in listening and understanding, which degraded performance. How to Improve Listening and Comprehension in a Meeting To improve listening, Oscar introduces the 70/70s squared approach, where roughly 70% of the way through a meeting, a person can ask a question to understand what has been heard. He offered a few variations of this question, like asking to summarize the last 30 minutes or asking what questions the CEO would ask if they were in the room. Ultimately, these questions help people to step back and rethink their approach, considering the perspectives of people in authority or in other areas of the business. Following Up after the Meeting Oscar stresses the importance of being mindful of how one takes notes during a meeting and the purpose behind it. He suggests that it may be beneficial to record the conversation and to state your actions clearly. After the meeting, it is important to generate artifacts such as what happened in the conversation and supplemental materials. Within 24 hours, it is beneficial to ask the client if anything has popped up since the conversation or if anything was not covered during the meeting. To follow up after a meeting, Will suggests sending a recap email as a way to show that the listener was paying attention and to provide a summary of the discussio

Show Notes: Will Bachman and John Horn talk about competitors and how they should be taken into account when formulating a strategy. John points out that lowering the price is an easy response to a new product or market entry, which can prevent success. He suggests that understanding the competitor's mindset is a key element to predicting their next move and positioning oneself for success. He also emphasizes the importance of being aware of the competitors' strategies, as it can influence the success of any new idea or product. A Framework to Understand the Competitor's Mindset John states that companies should pay attention to both their customers and their competitors depending on the type of market they are in. For established markets, such as toilet paper, companies should focus on competitors and their pricing, product innovation, and market entry challenges. For newer markets, like AI, companies should focus on customers since customers may not know what they want and the market is open and wide. John believes that it is important to have different departments that focus on each aspect since customer and competitor focuses require different approaches. However, it is essential for companies to be aware of both their customers and their competitors in order to remain competitive in the market. John talks about the importance of competition intelligence in developing an organization's strategy. He explains the Blue Ocean analogy-- the idea of swimming in uncharted waters to find success. He emphasizes that one must understand why the competition is not in the blue ocean before considering it as a viable option. He then outlines his four-step framework for gathering competition intelligence: reviewing public communication and actions; assessing competitor assets and resources; considering the human factor; and predicting, observing, and adjusting. This framework can help organizations build a picture of their competitors' mindset and ultimately develop a successful strategy. How to Gather Competitive Intelligence John offers advice to a growing company that wants to build a competitive intelligence function. John recommends gathering information from companies that scrape and gather information from publicly available sources such as SEC filings, the company's website, and social media. He notes that the most valuable information comes from within the organization, and suggests running WarGames, which are business simulations that involve setting up players, choices, and a timeframe to unlock competitive insight. John gives a few examples of questions that should be asked. Companies can use a CRM system to gain better insight into their competitors. The idea is to start with one question, such as Who do you talk about? and then gradually add more questions to the CRM form to prime sales agents to ask about competitors. This will help the company track which competitors are discussed in different geographies and customer types, and what pricing, product portfolio, partners, etc. are discussed. This data can then be used to identify which sales agents have reported the most about a particular competitor, and to ask them for more information. This will make it easier for the company to collect information that may already be in the heads of their staff. Collecting Data to Understand Competitors John talks about the value of collecting data to understand competitors. He suggests that data should not be collected by marketing or finance unless they are strategically focused and deliberate, as it may not receive enough focus. He adds that asking questions up and down the supply chain can be a great way to collect information, but there can be challenges in how it is implemented. John explains that competitive insight functions are cost centers, meaning that they don't directly drive revenue, so it can be difficult to get buy-in from the senior level team. He explains the best way to ensure competitive intelligence is properly implemented. When using competitive insight to make strategic decisions within an organization, it is important to start small and focus on one or two competitors at a time. It is also important to identify which teams within the organization need what type of information. John also stresses the value in using anecdotes and using story over data to gain support from senior leaders. Investing Competitive Intelligence John highlights the value of focusing on the competitor's USP to gain valuable insight. He explains how to convince senior leaders of the need for a competitive insight function. He suggests using stories to demonstrate the value of CI and its ability to help prevent costly mistakes. He also suggests that if senior leaders are convinced of the importance of CI and can see its value, they will continue to invest in it. He gives an example of a company where the CI function had such strong support from senior leadership that anyone making a strategic presentation to the CEO had

Show Notes: David A. Fields talks about the purpose of outreach emails and how to ensure they are effective. The purpose of outreach is not to sell, but rather to create conversations. He talks about both 'cold' outreach, which is to contacts who you don't know and 'cool' outreach, which is sending emails to people who the sender knows, but who have not been in contact in a few years. He also covers developing a tracking system, and follow-up calls.Regardless of the type of outreach, the goal is not to sell, but rather to create conversations that may lead to relationships and opportunities. David talks about the importance of creating meaningful conversations instead of transactional ones when reaching out to potential clients. He states that jumping right into "Do you need my help on anything?" or selling, can ruin a relationship. He suggests using the 111 Email approach which has been found to be extraordinarily effective. Instead of focusing on oneself, the email should be about the recipient and what they are interested in. This approach can get a response rate of 40-50%, which is a very high rate for cool outreach. David explains that the email should include only one line and one focus question. He gives an example of a 111 Email and emphasizes that the focus should always be on the other person and not on trying to sell something. David emphasizes that even if the person is not a client, it is still beneficial to talk with them as it increases the chances of business finding their firm, and that the more conversations one is a part of, the more likely it is that business will find their firm. Emails Questions that Engage Clients David shares an effective approach to continuing the conversation. One tip is to give a link to schedule a time for a call, and decide that it would be better to simply ask the other person if they would like to catch up. When asking someone for a quick catch up, conversation, or call, he suggests to not be too business-like and to keep it simple by starting with Are you up for a quick catch up? Follow up questions should include: "I'm gonna have my assistant scheduled something," "What about these times?" "How's next week?" etc., to make it easier for the other person to respond. He also suggests not asking too many questions on the email, but to keep it simple with the goal of getting the other person on the phone or into a Zoom call. David discusses the importance of using live conversations, as opposed to email or other messaging apps, in order to create better relationships with clients. He provides examples of how to transition from email conversations to live ones, such as asking if the client is open for a quick conversation and catch up. David also advises against using humor in emails, as it can often be misinterpreted and can put one at risk. The goal of the email is to get the client on a call. How to Contact People for Networking Purposes David talks about the best ways to contact people for networking purposes, including categories of emails people should use, such as job related, comments on LinkedIn, and questions that ask if an email address is still valid. He also talks about the frequency of emails and suggests sending them once every two to three months, and tracking the responses in a CRM system. He also offers tips on how to approach a person on LinkedIn who seems to be an interesting contact, but with whom you have no prior connection and suggests a few ways to reach out in a cold contact situation such as explaining why you are reaching out and how the contact could be beneficial to the client. Additionally, David recommends researching the person to get an understanding of their background and interests, and how the contact could be mutually beneficial. He suggests making the message personal and concise, and also including a call to action. To connect with potential clients, David suggests using personalized connections as a way to make a connection, such as referencing an affiliation they might have. He gives examples of successful email outreach and follow up messaging and timeline. Cold Leads in the Consulting Industry David talks about sales tactics for cold leads in the consulting industry. David recommends the Ben Franklin approach, which is asking for help with a project such as being interviewed for a podcast instead of trying to sell directly. He also suggests an aggressive reframe, where the consultant takes an opposing stance from the norm and then offers a solution. He offers examples to demonstrate how this works. He talks about how emails help improve lead generation. When asked if a direct approach like saying "here's what we do" is helpful, David responds that he has not seen it work and identifies the type of email content and approaches that are ineffective and questions that fail to engage. He also talks about the importance of crafting a personalized subject line. David explains that his team focuses on having a clear, one-topic

Show Notes: Will Bachman and Ashlee Horn spoke about her practice, which focuses on coaching new sales leaders. Ashlee outlines the problem she is trying to solve that 50% of new sales leaders fail within the first year. She speaks about the lifecycle of a sales manager and why sales leaders are so important to an organization. She explains that she focuses on those who are new to frontline sales management or director roles. She works with star performers who have made the leap into leadership, and star managers who are now trying to manage teams of teams. Ashlee provides coaching for these roles to help them drive sustained behavior change. Training Sales Leaders Ashlee outlines her approach to promoting new sales leaders. She has identified six key areas of focus: building relationships, holding people accountable, multiplying themselves, creating a culture of execution, developing their team, and driving strategic planning. She stresses the importance of building relationships based on trust and value, as well as the need to be able to articulate what makes them successful. Additionally, she emphasizes the need for leaders to be able to hold people accountable and have candid conversations. Lastly, she highlights the importance of creating a culture of execution, developing their team, and driving strategic planning. All of these areas are essential for successful leadership. Ashlee recommends that salespeople prioritize the highest revenue generating activities, focus on effective communication, simplify complex topics, and use data-driven decision making. She has experience working with technology sales and service sales, specifically SAS sales. Time Management for Sales Managers For frontline salespeople, she recommends they focus on facetime with clients, build pipeline, and take care of customer service activities. For frontline sales managers, she suggests they prioritize their time and get six to ten people motivated to make changes to their daily habits that will lead to success. A good time allocation for a frontline sales manager with eight reps at a tech company may include focusing on individual team member goals, mentoring and coaching, analyzing data to make decisions, creating and executing sales plans, and managing customer relationships. Ashlee talks about the importance of reverse engineering a sales manager's priorities. According to Ashlee, the majority of the manager's time should be spent on coaching activities that improve customer retention, as this will be the highest revenue generating activity. This includes one-on-one meetings with the team members, team meetings, and individualized programs. Additionally, Ashlee suggested that the manager should spend 70% of their time with the team, observing calls, preparing for calls, and reviewing deals. The remaining 20% should be spent on broader team activities such as setting the vision, having internal meetings, and working with their VP or director to understand their marching orders as a sales leader, and 10% should be spent on understanding clients. Motivation Coaching for Sales Leaders She talks about assessing the motivators of their team members in order to come up with the best solutions for them, including looking at examples of mindsets other than the mindset of the sales rep who was promoted. She suggests looking at the broad category of growth and fixed mindset. This involves understanding how people respond to challenges, failure, and success, as well as their attitude towards change and effort. This can help sales managers come up with a roadmap for understanding different categories of motivation and how to best approach each person. Ashlee identifies different mindsets that salespeople may have and how to address them to develop an effective coaching strategy. The first mindset is the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset, where the growth mindset individual believes they are in control of their own success and the fixed mindset individual believes external factors determine their success. The second mindset is the individual who is not money motivated and does not want to be competitive. To address this mindset, Ashlee recommends focusing on uncovering what motivates the individual. Ultimately, it is important to understand the mindset of the individual in order to help them be successful in sales, and how to overcome the reluctance to sell to people who don't want to take the call or listen to the pitch. Accountability in Sales Management Ashlee talks about the concept of accountability in sales management. Ashlee points out that in order to hold team members accountable, managers should be explicit about expectations upfront and use data to ground conversations in facts and ensure objectivity, and that conversations should take place early and often. Moving on to teaching managers to scale their impact, Ashlee suggests that it begins with simplifying the complex and getting into habits that allow

Josh Leibowitz spent 13 years at McKinsey and was elected partner in New York. He then moved to Miami and grew the office there before joining Carnival, the largest leisure company in the world. He talks about the ideas behind Parenting MBA, a book that aims to help parents give their children the skills they need to be successful in life. Josh joined the cruise line Cunard as Chief Strategy Officer, and eventually became president of the luxury brand Seaborne. Post COVID, he was tasked with supporting the relaunch of the line, and made it his goal to ensure every employee was back to work. This spring, Josh left the company after bringing back 4,000 employees and launching a new expedition division. Josh explores misconceptions people have about the cruise industry, explaining that most people don't appreciate how special of a way it is to see the world, as it's 70% water. He added that Seaborne specialized in three different kinds of places: big cities, secondary cities, and remote expedition destinations like Antarctica and Greenland. During lockdown, as a father of three children, Josh had more time to reflect on how much time work took from family life. He reflected on how his experiences from work could be used in parenting and decided to write the book, Parenting MBA, which applies the principles of success in business to raising and preparing children for life as an adult. He stresses the fact that he is not a parenting expert and that the book merely puts forward points that he has found to be successful in his life. An Inside Look at the Book, Parenting MBA The book is divided into three sections: getting the vision right, managing the day-to-day, and long-term performance. The first lesson of the book is to act as a mentor to your children and show them unwavering support. Josh believes this can help you raise incredible human beings. He provides a case study example from Harvard, in which a student suggested that rather than firing an employee who was underperforming, they should mentor them instead. Josh reflects on their own experience with mentors who overlooked mistakes he made, and how mentorship helps people develop and achieve goals. Josh talks about what it takes to be a mentor. Josh explains that the first characteristic of being a mentor is having an unmatched belief in the mentee and what they can do. Even as an adult, it can be difficult to believe in oneself and thus having a mentor who has an unmatched belief in the mentee is special. The second characteristic is having close and meaningful interactions. Mentors often know more about the mentee than the mentee knows about themselves. Trust and honesty is a key component of the relationship, and the mentor should also be demanding, providing encouragement while also pointing out errors. Management and Branding Techniques Applied to Parenting Josh talks about the concept of applying management techniques to parenting, including: setting a vision, creating patterns, building trust and honesty, and helping children overcome barriers. One of the points, defining a brand, is the idea of linking marketing and branding to a child's self worth and understanding of what they are all about. He focuses on the concept of helping people, and especially children, understand themselves and their brand better. The idea of a brand having two sides is presented: the intrinsic side, which is the brand values, and the extrinsic side, such as what the brand delivers or what skills the child has. He proposes three intrinsic values for consideration, starting with being a good person, then striving to reach one's full potential, and finally, finding one's voice. The idea is to encourage children to find their own brand values and to use them to become successful people. He suggests talking with children about their favorite brands and asking them what they think they stand for. He also discussed the balanced scorecard to manage the day-to-day challenges, which is used to evaluate the performance of a company, and suggested applying this to parenting by looking at the child's core skills, activities, relationships and good person attributes. Being a Vacation SuperHero and a Lifelong Learner Josh is curious about the concept of taking vacations seriously and conducted a global study with over 100,000 respondents and focus groups. He believes that being a vacation superhero is important and gave a TED talk on the topic. He shares a story where he was at a resort in Miami with his wife and family, in the pool with the kids but still distracted by work. The idea behind being a vacation superhero is to treat vacation time as seriously as one would treat work time, in order to gain the most out of the experience. Josh talks about the concept of the indispensable complex and how it can be used to better balance work and play in our lives, and the idea of focusing on taking time off and treating it as seriously as one would treat work because this is often when th

Show Notes: Mahan Tavakoli is a consultant, leadership coach, and host of the podcast Partnering Leadership. He talks about his podcast, the incredible guests he has had on his show, and his time at the Dale Carnegie Leadership Institute. Mahan has been an avid podcast listener for over a decade, and he decided to launch his own podcast in 2020. His podcast focuses on the journey of CEOs and leaders in the Greater Washington DC region. He has interviewed some impressive names and his show is now in the top 1% of podcasts in the leadership category. He credits the pandemic for allowing him to make his podcast more antifragile, as he is now able to reach a much wider audience. Promoting a Podcast and Crafting a Compelling Story As the host of the podcast Partnering Leadership, he has conversations with CEOs from the Greater Washington, DC DMV region on Tuesdays, and leadership book authors on Thursdays. He has interviewed authors such as Seth Godin, Ken Blanchard, John Kotter, Stephen Covey, and Ciaran. He offers tips on reaching out to authors, including using the momentum of the podcast being in the top 1% of podcasts, and often the agents for the authors who want to promote their book reach out to help promote the book. CEOs he interviews are often people he knows well enough to invite on to the show. He shares what he has learned from the CEOs he has interviewed and notes that they have a tremendous sense of humility and confidence, as well as a growth mindset, and are constantly looking to learn. Mahan talks about the importance of storytelling for CEOs. He believes the key to a great story is to focus on one moment in time and draw inspiration from Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. He suggests that the leader be the guide of the story, not the hero. He also sends stories of successful storytelling to CEOs, so they can learn to do the same. This will help them communicate their story both internally and externally, which can strengthen the organization. Podcast Promotion, Content Development, and Distribution Mahan and Will discuss strategies for promoting a podcast. Mahan offers valuable tips, including creating micro content, posting on other places, and getting guests to send out notes. He also suggested posting on LinkedIn as a way to raise awareness. He suggests creating multiple pieces of content from each episode to promote over a six month period. His team focuses primarily on promoting on LinkedIn, but also shares content on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Mahan discusses how he has focused his content development on LinkedIn to get the most traction. He also explains how videos from his interviews go up on YouTube, even though less than 1% of his audience actually watch them. He shares a story of when he got a great client, where he believes they discovered him from his website, podcast, and personal relationships and networking. Overall, he has seen great benefits from his podcast, including building relationships and learning new things, as well as landing new clients. He explains how his team repurposes content to post on social media over a six month period, and how this is important to reach people who like to consume media in a variety of different ways. From Salesperson to Chief Strategy Officer at Dale Carnegie Mahan shares his experience of working for Dale Carnegie, emphasizing the importance of sincerity and genuineness when building relationships with others. Mahan has found that his podcast has helped build his reputation and credibility throughout the business community and has received many referrals who know him as an authority in business leadership. He is currently working with CEOs and senior leadership teams. His practice also involves individual coaching sessions and consulting services. Mahan started as a salesperson but eventually moved up to helping start franchises internationally as his board of directors sought to expand their operations. Despite the busy travel schedule, Mahan was able to successfully contribute to the CEO's strategic vision and was eventually promoted to Chief Strategy Officer. Through this position, he has been able to lead the organization in constant reinvention and adaptation. Success As a Business Executive As a business executive Mahan was constantly on the road, but he realized that his values of family could not be seen in his lifestyle. As a result, he decided to stay in DC, and he started a youth-serving organization to help underserved youth gain access to college and internships. Mahan believes that it is important for the right people to take the right kids to work, so that they can see the opportunities available to them. He has dedicated his life to providing these opportunities to young people and inspiring them to look at the world differently. He has also been active in the regional community, serving on the board of directors of the Greater Washington Board of Trade and the executive committee of Leadership Greater Washington. H

Show Notes: John Driscoll is the President of Walgreens Boots Alliance and the co-host of the second largest healthcare podcast on YouTube, CareTalk. In this episode, host Will Bachman welcomed John to the show. John has extensive experience in the healthcare industry, having played a leading role in creating successful companies like MedCo, Surescripts, Oxford Health Plans, and Care Centrix. John discusses topics such as monkeypox, mask mandates, baby formula shortages, Silicon Valley Bank's failure, and healthcare related topics. He also shares his opinions on a variety of healthcare issues. The Future of Pharmacies John started his career in health care after being influenced by his mother, a nurse. After college, he developed housing programs for homeless and mentally ill people. He then became a management consultant, before moving to Asheville Health Plan. He has worked in multiple parts of the health industry spectrum, gaining experience in Medicare and Medicaid. He has found his career to be full of big and challenging problems, but is motivated to improve the world and create successful businesses. His main initiatives involve investing in Village MD, Summit, and Espadin Shield Specialty Pharmacy to show how an integrated pharmacy and clinical model can improve outcomes at lower cost. Walgreens is also working with health plans and has 9000 stores and 90,000 clinicians to provide access and convenience, trust, and traffic. Their goal is to become essential in healthcare by leveraging their expertise in retail and pharmacy services. He discusses how pharmacies can become better partners to health plans by taking advantage of their advantages in brand marketing, trust, convenience, and patient specificity. He shares a specific example of how a large regional health plan achieved a return rate of three times greater on colorectal screenings than before they partnered with the pharmacy. The pharmacy was also able to increase the rate of colorectal screenings up to 51% in underserved areas due to the support of non-clinical personnel in their stores. Additionally, the pharmacy is partnering with health plans to reduce admissions to nursing homes by 20% through nurse visits, follow-ups, and care navigation. The system leads to better patient and contact information. Overall, the pharmacy is providing an invaluable service in helping health plans lower costs while improving outcomes. He explains how his company invests in bespoke automation machines to allow pharmacists to spend more face-to-face time with patients, and how pharmacists could be more involved and take on more responsibility in the treatment of patients and how this would expand access to more care in an overburdened health system. Pharmaceutical Healthcare, the Pandemic, and Value-based Care John reflects on health regulations and restrictions and also the risk taking and flexibility that came into place under the COVID pandemic. He confirms how important it is to prepare for pandemics in terms of vaccine supplies, communication, and pre-deploying and integrating national and state employees in operations. He also notes the critical role of pharmacies in crisis situations. He tackles the issue of employee burnout and the current pharmacist shortage and the steps Walgreens is taking to solve the problem across states. On value-based care, he explains how it is the future, especially in the U.S. where healthcare is more expensive than any country in the world, how this is unacceptable, and how this should be approached to address health issues earlier to avoid hospitalization. The CareTalk Podcast John talks about the inspiration and intention of his podcast, what the content is and what has surprised him throughout the conversations. Guests that have been on his podcast include Andy Slavitt, Zeke Emanuel, Tony Cosgrove, and Amy Abernathy. When asked what he learned from his guests, John shares that he was surprised to find out that even though healthcare is very complicated and people are in silos, there is still room for novel and provocative opinions that can be explained. He also found out that everybody knows that drug costs are too high, but there are practical ways to bring them down without destroying the biotechnology industry that is creating new drugs to cure aging and extend lifespans. The podcast explores various issues surrounding health care and how to best address them. Toby Cosgrove from the Cleveland Clinic brought up the importance of creating heart-centered care in a large inner city hospital. It was noted that there are a lot of people working on solutions to healthcare problems, such as telehealth and AI to solve labor shortages. He also touches on the potential for AI and Chat GPT to be used in health care. While it is still early days, he mentions that there have been some companies experimenting with using these tools. Health Care and AI John talks about the impact of artificial intelligence on healthcare. He believe

Show Notes: On May 12, 2023, Chad Oakley, CEO of Charles Aris, a top retained search firm in the US for placing former and current management consultants, spoke to members of Umbrex about the current state of the job market for consultants. Chad gave an introduction to Charles Aris and spoke about their strategy practice. He encouraged attendees to ask questions to make the conversation interactive. The conversation focused on the job market for consultants, including the current state of the market, the opportunities available, and the strategies consultants should use to navigate the market. Chad offered his perspective on the job market and provided insights for consultants looking for positions. Charles Aris, Executive Search Firm Charles Aris is a classic executive search firm that has been in business for 54 years and has 90 team members located across 15 states. They specialize in bespoke searches and their five main areas of focus are strategy, corporate development, finance and accounting, engineering, operations and supply chain, and sales and marketing. Their client base is split between private equity firms and non-private equity organizations. They also produce monthly newsletters about their searches and offer reports and compensation studies. Charles Aris has the largest strategy recruiting practice in the United States and their practice is headed by a former consultant from Deloitte Consulting and Wharton MBA. They specialize in placing current and former strategy consultants from firms such as Bain, BCG and McKinsey in various positions from pre-MBA level to partner level. Increased Demand for Management Consultants Since May 2022, the United States experienced unprecedented economic growth during the past year and unprecedented numbers of employees leaving current positions which led to a shortage of staff in many firms. As a recruiting firm, Charles Aris was overwhelmed with search requests and had to implement a 40-day delay on all new searches for the first time in its 54-year history. A pullback started in December, and interest rates were raised to tame inflation, even if that meant driving the economy into a recession. We are now in the middle of a transition from a 100% candidate-driven market to a 75% company-driven market. Despite this, mixed messages are coming from the market causing confusion; major corporations such as Amazon are announcing sizable layoffs, while the monthly labor reports are robust and unemployment rates have fallen. Chad explains what is behind the conflicting reports between the numbers. He goes on to explain how this has impacted the consulting sector, how numbers of hires have fallen dramatically compared to the previous year. He mentions how major consulting firms are rolling out their playbook, how they are managing people out, and promotions are slowing, taking on fewer hires, and he identifies a common lie amongst top-tier consulting firms when it comes to promotion, and what many firms are offering in terms of "transition payments" to accommodate moving people out of the firm. Areas of Demand for Management Consultants However, he also talks about what firms are looking for in terms of remote or on-location hires. He talks about the areas of consulting where there is an increase in demand for transformation skill sets. He explains that companies want to reduce their cost structure and are in need of transformation and cost containment experts. Companies have built up investments during the hay days and now need help unwinding them. Companies need assistance in cost containment as they look to their future and realize they likely won't hit their revenue targets. These transformation and cost containment services can help them reduce their cost structure, allowing them to be successful in the coming years. Private equity firms are facing a challenging time right now, as the cost of capital has increased and deal flow has slowed. To make up for this, private equity firms are investing in their existing portfolio companies to make sure they reach their full potential. There is a spike in demand for individuals who specialize in areas such as transformation and cost cutting, finance and accounting, talent professionals, and operations and supply chain. CFOs are the hardest positions for companies to fill due to a demand and supply imbalance. He recommends that independent consultants should specialize in a few areas to ensure they are able to take advantage of the current market demand with Finance as the highest area of demand. The Demand for Specialists over Generalists In the current economic downturn, companies are less likely to take risks on hiring generalists and more likely to hire specialists for projects. Companies want to make sure that their money is being spent in a way that will yield a strong return. Therefore, it is important for people to identify their true specialties and market themselves aggressively as a specialist in those areas. T

Show Notes: Evan Polin, founder and operator of Polin Performance Group, talks about how his firm helps professionals in the service industry build their businesses and grow their practice. He helps them get in front of their ideal clients, make sure they're not giving away their expertise for free, and qualify opportunities more quickly. He also helps them take a strategic approach to problem solving and use their expertise to close more business with the kind of clients they'd like to work with. Evan provides professional services firms with sales and business development advice. He starts with a diagnostic, using the Harver behavioral-based assessment tool. This gives him a 35-page report on the client's strengths and weaknesses in sales and business development. He asks about the client's goals and what kind of practice they want to build, how much revenue they'd like to develop, and what their mix of clients should be. He then puts together a customized business development plan to help the client reach their goals. Strategy to Leverage Your Contacts Evan helps individuals and businesses reach their goals by breaking down the process scientifically. He typically starts with helping them understand how to get in front of the right opportunities. He also helps with issues such as people feeling like they are being used for free consulting, and those not getting as many referrals as they think they should be. He helps them leverage the relationships they have already developed, and figure out the most effective way to use them to get introduced to the right people and focus on the right opportunities. To get in front of opportunities, he advises clients to first sit down and think about what their ideal client looks like and whom they need to target within an organization, and what the engagement looks like. Furthermore, he suggests leveraging their relationships and current context to start by downloading their LinkedIn connections into a CSV file. This file can then be separated into three categories - A list, B list, and C list. A list contacts are those who are more likely to get back to the consultant within a week. The B list is composed of contacts who may take a bit longer to respond, while the C list includes those who may not respond at all. Cold Outreach Tips and Using Sales Navigator Evan talks about reaching out through telephone calls and emails. He explains how to be successful with cold outreach, and suggests that it is better than making a cold call but cautions not to set expectations too high as the response rate would still be low. Common best practices include sending a message that introduces the person and their role, and mentioning any connections they might have in common. Evan explains how to use Sales Navigator to manage the outreach list of contacts. Evan suggests sending messages to carefully selected prospects, and paying attention to who is looking at your profile. He also suggested filtering out those with less than 500 connections, as they are likely not active on the platform. Polin highlights the importance of understanding the psychology of sales and marketing, and how it can be used to target the right people. He also mentions that if someone views your profile, but does not respond, it is worth reaching out again in a week or so. Evan suggests ending the message with an open question in order to get a response rate. Evan added that he often sends a short version of his elevator speech, which outlines the biggest challenges he helps people with and then inquires which of those things the other person is running into. This is done to see if the contact is responsive and to see if they are a good potential prospect. Reaching Out to Past Contacts Evan talks about how he reaches out to people he served in the past in order to get referrals. He suggests to start by reconnecting with them, asking how they have been and what has changed. He also suggests sharing what he is currently working on, and to ask them if they know anyone who could be a good introduction for him. Evan also suggests that if someone has referred him in the past to remind them of how they first started working together. When it comes to following up, Evan suggested to follow up two to four weeks later and to keep a spreadsheet with the date of outreach and the result of the outreach. He has found that, recently, a call is regarded as more personal and people are more likely to respond. He also talks about reaching out through email and effective subject lines. How to Leverage Relationships for Referrals Evan explains that most people don't ask for referrals. If it's a current client, he suggests asking how satisfied they are with the service provided. He finds that if he shares information about his business, it allows him to present a broader range of services and plant the seed for future referrals. He also suggests the kinds of clients that would be a good fit. He also puts a timestamp on the conversa

Show Notes Sarrah Rose is an executive intimacy coach who runs the firm CEO on Fire. CEO on Fire helps senior level executives optimize their lives. Sarrag works with clients to help them achieve personal growth and spiritual development. She has been working in this field for the past 10 years, and rebranded to CEO on Fire to focus on executives specifically. Sarrah works with primarily male senior executives to help them balance their personal and professional lives. She looks at their relationships, sex lives, and other aspects of being human to give them more fun in life. Some of the challenges of working with senior executives include having less time for family, travel, and the specific personality type needed to become a CEO. ADHD is common among executives and can be both a superpower and a challenge. The benefits include hyper focus, the ability to see the bigger picture and from different perspectives, there's also a lot of sexual energy. Sarrah introduces her clients to tantra which helps them use and channel this sexual energy productively. She has noticed that many clients are self-made and grew up in a more impoverished situation. This change in their lives often leads to a disconnect with who they were and who they are now, and how they are perceived. Rose helps her clients overcome these difficulties and create a balance between their personal and professional lives to better enjoy their lives. Relationship Challenges of Senior Executives Sarrah talks about the challenges that high-powered male executives face in their roles as fathers and in their relationships with their significant other. Sarrah explained that presence and empathy is one of the biggest areas that executives need to focus on to provide for their children. They need to be able to give their children their undivided attention and love, safety, and belonging. Sarrah explains that the process she takes her clients through helps them develop these skills. Will asks Sarrah how executives manage to shift roles from boss at work to partner at home. Sarrah explains that it depends on the relationship. She talks about the initial attraction to the partner is a combination of nature and nurture, and that the attraction is often tied to wounding. To navigate this, Sarrah helps her clients understand the layers of attraction, create more intimacy, and be aware of the different seasons of relationships and how to intelligently navigate the changes and the tough times. Sarrah believes that one of the challenges that these executives often face is understanding the difference between men and women, and how to seduce their partners and maintain a state of heightened arousal. To help her clients, Sarrah suggests flirting through text throughout the day and engaging in roleplay and fantasy before you enter the bedroom. She also emphasizes the importance of leaving business talk out of their relationship and engaging in more light-hearted and fun conversations. Sarrah also mentions the importance of maintaining friends outside of one's work life. Some have stayed connected to people from their past and have maintained those long lasting relationships, while others have not. Strategies Used in Executive Intimacy Coaching When she starts working with a client, Sarrah starts off with an introductory call with her clients and then follows up with a diagnostic session. During this session, Sarrah gets to understand what her client is looking for and engages on a personal level. When it comes to exercises and tips, Sarrah explains that communication is the most important and also the most difficult area for her clients to master, especially when it comes to discussing intimate sexual and emotional conversations. She offers a few questions to help explore and connect on a deeper level. Sarrah notes that the first and most important area to focus on with clients is their relationship with themselves, including patterns of self-sabotage, trauma, and triggers. Throughout the program, Sarrah explains that they use four main strategies that begin dealing with the nervous system, including breath, sound, movement, and focus, which can be combined in different ways. By using these strategies, clients can release stress cycles and better understand their own needs and desires. Additionally, Sarrah helps clients focus on what one desires to create in life and then looking at where there are fears, resistances, and self-limiting beliefs that need to be worked through in order to move forward. By understanding oneself and engaging in self-reflection, it is possible to build a strong relationship with oneself and achieve one's goals. Sarrah adds that sleep is a common issue among senior executives, who often struggle to fall asleep due to the demands of their job and the inability to turn off their minds; she suggests specific questions and practices to help address this issue. CEO Case Study and Dating in Today's World Sarrah talks about how high-powered CEOs

Show Notes Author Jimmy Soni kicks off the conversation by explaining why the PayPal mafia is more noteworthy than other large startups. Soni explains that he wrote the book to document not only the business successes, but also the personal stories of the founders. He explains that the market has been good and that people can learn a lot of new things from the book. Soni reveals that his favorite thing about the book is learning about the inventiveness and innovation PayPal had. The Birth and Growth of the PayPal Mafia Jimmy and Will discuss the phenomenon of the PayPal Mafia, the group of entrepreneurs who emerged from PayPal's success and went on to found some of the most successful companies in Silicon Valley. Soni explains that the PayPal Mafia is a unique phenomenon because the founders were relatively young when PayPal was successful, they had faith that businesses on the internet could be successful, and they supported each other's ventures. PayPal alumni invested in and supported each other's companies, and they hired alumni as their first employees. This mutual support and collaboration was key to the success of the PayPal Mafia, and their success has been a major factor in the success of Silicon Valley. He shares how PayPal was able to succeed in the early 2000s due to their right timing and how important that was, the selection of very talented people, and the nurturing of their employees. They were able to take advantage of the increasing ubiquity of email addresses and the platform of eBay, which hadn't yet sorted out its payment infrastructure. They also managed to survive the .com burst and make a successful IPO. This was due to their selection of very smart and entrepreneurial people, and their experiences of putting a company together from scratch and having it be a success. He mentions how the book The PayPal Wars by Eric M. Jackson shows how messy real companies can be and how PayPal started out as two companies, Con Finiti and X.com, that merged and began toying around with the idea of beaming money from one palm pilot to another. Building a Startup Jimmy reflects on his experience of studying the formation of PayPal and how it taught him about Silicon Valley strategy and the messiness of how companies actually grow. He emphasizes that building a company from scratch is much harder than most people think and that things that seem inevitable can often look ridiculous at the start. He demonstrates this by using the example of the Palm Pilot that was labeled one of the 10 worst business ideas of the 1990s but that company became PayPal. He emphasizes that researching the book has made him more aware of the difficulty of creating something and has taught him to not to dismiss ideas that seem silly or take for granted the companies that occupy our lives. The creation of PayPal was a "dogfight" that required a lot of hard work and effort. The biggest challenges in making it successful were to convince people to use the payment system and make sure that people were not taking advantage of it. Jimmy talks about the uncertainty and anxiety that comes with being involved in a startup and the do or die moments that can arise and that there are often one or two decisions that are crucial to survival. He noted that CEOs usually only make six important decisions per year, so it's important to go into a startup with eyes wide open and know that these moments will arise and that the company could go under at any point. He also talked about how chaos can be beneficial for a startup, as it can bring about new ideas, but also can just be chaos. His insight from the story of PayPal is that a lot of what appeared to be chaos from the outside was actually a controlled chaos that was directed towards the right problems and issues. The Elon Musk's Pressure Cooker Leadership Style Will and Jimmy discuss Elon Musk's recent acquisition of Twitter and his ability to lead a tech company. Jimmy explains that he and Musk never spoke about social networks, and that they only discussed payment networks. He noticed that Musk's management style and that Musk used the term 'maniacal urgency' to describe it, and believes that Musk's intense approach is necessary for the success of a startup. Jimmy goes on to explain that this style of management has been consistent from Musk's first venture, Zip Two, to his current companies Tesla and SpaceX. Elon Musk's leadership style is one of prioritizing urgency and setting unreasonable demands for his employees. This was the case in his experience with PayPal, and is now being seen at Twitter. An engineer from X.Com shared that during this period, Elon worked longer hours than anyone else and that it was an energizing environment for engineers who wanted to build something quickly, get rapid feedback, and keep moving towards a big goal. This style is not for everyone and can be difficult to understand, but it has been successful for Musk in the past. Through his research, it became c

Show Notes: David Newman is a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), marketing expert, speaker, and founder of Do It! Marketing. In this episode, Will Bachman and David discuss his new book, Do It Selling. The book is organized with 77 instant action ideas that can be used to land better clients, bigger deals, and higher fees. The book is divided into micro chapters which focus on topics such as understanding the sales process, creating an ideal customer profile, building relationships with potential clients, using content to create credibility, and closing more sales. Additionally, the book includes many stories, case studies, and advice from David's own experiences. The goal of the book is to help independent consultants learn how to market and sell their services effectively. David talks about the fact that many consultants and professional services firm principals love the work but not the sales aspect. David explains that one needs to upgrade their sales brain to be successful in sales. The idea is to replace the words 'selling' and 'sales' with invitations to conversations and reframe the idea of selling to connecting. Lead Generation and Client Communication Ninja Tricks He encourages people to change how they view sales to be less focused on chasing and persuading, and more focused on the qualifying, sorting, and filtering business rather than chasing and persuading. He encourages a shift from taking an inferior vendor stance trying to persuade the client of your value to that of a casting director for whom the clients are auditioning. He moves on to the idea of targeting the clients you want and launching intentional and specific relationships to open doors rather than "taking what comes." This puts the seller back in control of their lead generation and prospecting, and allows them to be more proactive and hold better conversations. The crux of this approach is to lead the client to want what you do. David talks about the current approach to cold calling and prospecting when generating leads, and how the approach should be more about serving before selling and helping before pitching. He suggests making an "active 20" list and gives tips on how to reach out to and warm up those contacts and avoid your proposal landing in a black hole. David offers tips on how to connect with clients through being where they play, write where they read, and be where they attend. He talks about checking into trigger events in the industry you are targeting such as upsizing, downsizing, mergers and acquisitions etc. This entails doing thorough research on the client and understanding the clients' situation to ensure your communication relates to their current situation. How to Reach Out to Cool Contacts Will and David discuss tactics for reaching out to cool contacts. David suggests apologizing for the lack of communication and to follow with a direct and authentic request to catch up on where they are and where they are going – but not to sell. He also offers a few ninja tricks on how to encourage a follow up conversation. The goal should always be to build a rapport with the customer or client, and to show that your company cares about their needs by demonstrating thoughtfulness, relevance, and value. David offers examples of each to clarify these three points and how this approach works for reaching out to past, present, and future clients to ensure you are perceived as a trusted advisor. Revenue Acceleration and Business Growth David divides his clients into three buckets: Zero to Hero (consultants who have just left a corporate role), Hero to Superhero (those who have gained experience in their industry and are looking to take their consulting to the next level) and Superhero to Intergalactic (those who have a lot of experience and are looking to take their consulting to a much higher level). For those in the zero to hero stage, he helps them with lead generation, prospecting, sales, and sales processes. Those in the hero to superhero stage are looking to double or triple their current business and need to make changes to do so. Finally, those in the superhero to intergalactic stage are looking to scale their business to reach the million dollar mark. David focuses on helping them with scaling strategies, such as hiring a team, licensing, and digital programs, to help them become the CEO of their business. David discusses how consultants can reach the 500k plus plus level, by building infrastructure and focusing on revenue multipliers. He explains that businesses need to make money even when the consultant takes time off or goes on holiday, and emphasizes the importance of setting up systems that can make this happen. Recommended CRM System Will Bachman and David Newman discuss the advantages of using a CRM system over just a spreadsheet for tracking conversations and action items. David recommends One Page CRM, as it has powerful features on the back end and is simple to use on the front end. He also recommends

Show Notes Greg Fincke is a Managing Director at Equiteq, a global sector focused investment bank that works with entrepreneurs in the IT services and management consulting sectors to create exit strategies. They have offices in London, Singapore, New York with smaller outposts around the globe. They typically advise on companies with 3-25 million EBIT range, and revenue up to $200 million. The firm has 70 members around the world and did 20 transactions last year with an aggregate value of a billion. An expert in M&A deals, Greg discusses how the big deals are typically handled. What it Takes to Build a Sellable Consulting Firm The conversation focuses on the question of what it takes to build a sellable consulting firm. Greg suggests that one of the key factors to consider is key person risk; if a potential buyer is looking at a buy versus build situation and the equation starts becoming too expensive for the buy, it may be difficult to close the transaction. To build value and reduce the risk, it is important to have multiple people who can drive the business forward. Other factors to consider include developing a strong brand, having a good network of clients, a diversified client base, and a good mix of services or products. Additionally, it is important to have a good relationship with other consultants, vendors, and potential buyers. Finally, it is also important to focus on long-term goals and invest in the growth of the firm. Greg explains that when looking at the financials of the firm gross margin is an important factor. Buyers typically want to see firms with a gross margin of 40% and discounted when under 40%. When thinking about valuation, you're looking at how the business looks financially and what they do. Greg talks about gross margins for consulting firms when the owner is selling the business. He explains what the two types of gross margins are and how to calculate partner cost, and typical multiples are for a consulting firm. Scaling a Consulting Firm This conversation focuses on the difficulties of scaling a consulting firm. On one side, there is the need to acquire new clients and promote the services of the firm, and on the other, there is the need to create, onboard and teach new consultants. Achieving a balance between these two elements is crucial, as buyers are looking for firms that can deliver services that scale, on both supply and demand, and are willing to pay a premium for it. Greg talks about buyers' preferences, suggesting that they would rather work with firms that have good web traffic and reputation and are able to generate inbound leads, rather than those that need to grow the sales side and bring in clients. He explains why they consider IP an important factor of consulting services. He talks about talent recruitment and retention, and the value of a firm that offers a strong career plan and training and coaching systems as this demonstrates the ability and control to scale with in-house talent instead of relying on recruiters to find talent which can be unreliable and expensive. Beyond Corporate and Private Equity According to Greg, the best options in firm valuation in management quality are how well companies are run, retention, sales and profit growth, and who your clients are and how you engage with them. Fortune 500 and private equity are the two most valuable in the market, and vertical specialization. From a delivery model, being able to deliver fixed fees on good margins is most desirable. Smaller consulting companies are seen as less valuable because their financial spend is significantly lower. These companies tend to engage in one-off consulting projects and do not have a consistent spend on consulting, making them less desirable to broker deals. Greg states that the buyers for deals have changed over the last five years and shares a few examples of company M&A his company has facilitated. What Partners Can Expect when they Sell the Firm Greg shares what partners can expect in terms of a percentage and timeline. The numbers vary widely depending on the buyer. He explains what can happen to the team after a sale, and how it often inspires an entrepreneurial spirit. He mentions that often buyers are looking for a new service line and that the synergy between companies should accommodate this growth and value, in this scenario the team stays independent, in other cases, there may also be an integration of teams. Greg reflects on how clients move forward after selling a firm; often they take a role in the management team of the larger company, and some have retired from business to sail around the world, or just retire, but he hasn't encountered any who regret the sale or decide to start a new business. He talks about the advice he gives companies when the founders are not quite ready to sell such as having a goal for the sale, this entails examining what the bottlenecks for growth are, whether that is client or talent acquisition. Greg helps them focus on th

Ulrich Riedel and Will Bachman discuss Ulrich's unique cold lead generation process via LinkedIn. Ulrich advises to respect the leads and to be careful to select only candidates who would benefit from this process and to be careful not to spam. He shares why he chose to find leads this way and explains why there is more upside than downside to his process. He explains that the process involves several aspects such as researching the prospects, creating a message, and following up. He also suggests focusing on building relationships and emphasizing the value of the offer. Finally, he stresses the importance of tracking results and being persistent. Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to Contact Leads Ulrich offers three pieces of advice on how to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to reach out to potential leads. He stresses the importance of your investment in time and money investments to ensure the leads are super targeted, as sourcing too many leads that do not fit the needs of the company will be a waste of the time and money invested. He emphasizes that real expertise and external help are needed to set up the process. Hiring an Expert in Lead Generation Ulrich discusses how he hired an expert to help him with his lead generation process. The expert used a Sales Navigator, which is a powerful search tool, to look for leads and contacts, and then organize them in groups and tag them to make sure none were duplicated. Ulrich created the messaging, but they were responsible for sending out initial connection requests and any follow-up messages. Once a prospect accepted and engaged, the expert would set up a call in the prospect's calendar and then hand the contact over to Ulrich to handle. Ultimately, the expert helped Ulrich to find, organize, and contact the leads, which saved him time. He talks about his direct and concise communication technique that helps him build a connection with suitable prospects. Reaching the Right People through LinkedIn Sales Navigator Ulrich helps reduce implementation risk and increase project value for large complex projects and strategies. He has been doing this since 2004 and has found that his initial connection requests were not reaching the right people. He now targets Senior Vice Presidents and above in companies with $3 billion or more in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. His current connection requests are clear and direct, stating his goal to reduce risk and increase project value followed by an offer to explain how he would achieve this for the person he is reaching out to. Once he has secured a lead, Ulrich transfers the client from LinkedIn Navigator to his own CRM system to keep track of communications, campaigns, and status etc. He explains how and when he makes first contact, how he follows up with them, often using GetEmail and RocketReach to find emails of his clients, and how he schedules meetings. Most importantly, Ulrich focuses on authentic and respectful communication. He stresses the importance of patience and persistence, and that following up with clients on a regular basis to remind them of the benefits they will receive from Ulrich's expertise pays off. He finds that out of 100 connection requests sent, usually 20 will connect. He sends the 20 a longer message and roughly five will reply. Out of five, he will secure one client. Ulrich shares when and how he follows up with the other potential clients. He checks his CRM system daily and explains why he uses Outlook Contact instead of Hubspot. Timestamps: 04:15 Exploring Strategies for Effective LinkedIn Outreach 05:05 The Benefits of Utilizing Expertise for Lead Generation 08:38 Maximizing Project Value Through Risk Reduction 10:51 Exploring the Benefits of a Custom CRM System for Lead Tracking 12:41 Lead Management and Prospecting Strategies 18:56 Building Professional Connections on LinkedIn 24:56 Networking Strategies for Building Trust and Connections 28:37 Utilizing Sales Navigator and CRM Systems for Lead Generation 30:13 Leveraging CRM Systems for Business Growth Links: https://www.drulrichriedelconsulting.ch/ CONTACT INFO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/DrUlrichRiedel/ Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes Ulrich Riedel and Will Bachman discuss Ulrich's unique pricing model for independent consultants. Rather than being paid upfront or daily rates, Ulrich gets paid a percentage of the value he creates for the client at the end of the project. To make this type of pricing model possible, Ulrich needs to make sure certain conditions are met, such as creating value for the client, measuring the value, and convincing the client of the value. He also needs to make sure that the client will be willing or able to share in the risk associated with the project. Ulrich has learned how to do this through experience, and was willing to share his knowledge with Will and the viewers of Unleashed. What to Consider with an At-risk Pricing Model Ulrich Riedel explains that there are four main themes to consider when using an at-risk pricing model. First, the offer needs to have unique value to the client. Second, the individual must be willing to accept risk. Third, the client must be open to the at-risk pricing model. Fourth, the approach to project generation must be tailored to the at-risk pricing model. He suggests that the network may not be enough for project generation because many close relations may not be able to accept at-risk pricing. A solution to finding suitable clients, may be to develop cold lead generation through LinkedIn might be helpful. He also suggests partnering with people who have contacts to potential clients and projects, and what he found most helpful is to establish oneself as an expert to increase trust. Pricing the Project Ulrich specializes in large, complex projects that are worth more than $100 million that involve many functions, hierarchies, global reach, different countries and cultures, change management with hesitancies and conflicting priorities, and the list goes on. He analyzes the entirety of the project, helps implement it, and generates an added value of 8-15%. Ulrich discusses a project they are working on with a client to shape the future. His role is to provide insight and advice on the strategy and execution of the project. He recently worked with a small company with a few $100 million turnover to help them optimize three main projects. He is also responsible for talking to many people in different hierarchies to collect data and figure out where value is hidden and how to create an intervention and implementation plan which could generate much more value. Prospect Generation Ulrich studies the mentality of the client and the company and talks to people in all hierarchies to gather in depth information from all levels, including employees at the water cooler or the factory floor during the night shift. Once he has an implementation plan in place, he sits down with the client to discuss two main variables: volume and cost. Ulrich also talks about how he determines his fees, and the search time for finding projects, and how long projects typically take. Timestamps: 03:54 Exploring At-Risk Pricing Models: Strategies for Generating Projects and Establishing Trust 06:05 Exploring Value-Based Pricing for Large Complex Projects 06:25 Consulting on Building a New Business Model with a Hybrid Technology 11:46 Value Creation and Compensation for Consultancy Services 14:39 Exploring the Long Sales Cycle and Prospect Generation Links: https://www.drulrichriedelconsulting.ch/ CONTACT INFO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/DrUlrichRiedel/ Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes Tony Martignetti and Will Bachman discuss the importance of maintaining energy and excitement as a solopreneur or independent professional. They talk about taking an assessment of the tools and different parts that you have been working on for your business. It is important to check in with yourself and ask what it is that you really want and what you are driving towards. It is necessary to determine which tools and activities are providing you with energy and which are draining you of energy. They also discuss how to tap into inspiration and creativity. Martignetti recommends getting out of your current environment to experience awe, which can't be done while sitting behind a desk. Tony shares a few activities where he found inspiration, including climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro. Priorities and Values in Leadership Tony talks about the concept of grounded leadership and how to achieve it in the context of executive coaching. Bachman asks for the first step to take to become more grounded. Martignetti responds that it is important to first be thoughtful, clear on one's priorities and values, and that all decisions should be based on these. From there, one can focus on creating calm within the chaos and help others to do the same. This could involve creating a plan to keep oneself grounded, such as setting reminders to pause and check in with oneself, or reflecting on values and purpose. Ultimately, it is important to remember that everything should be done with these priorities and values in mind. Tony talks about the importance of understanding the foundation of one's values, mission, and purpose in order to make decisions. Will and Tony discuss the STOP method, an acronym for Stop, Take a Breath, which is a classic mindfulness practice that can help in moments of stress and when one is triggered. Taking the pause allows them to slow down and not react. This method encourages people to take a moment to reflect on their values and ask themselves questions about why they are doing something. Dealing with Difficult Situations Will and Tony discuss maintaining mindfulness using the Stop, Observe, and Proceed method of dealing with difficult situations, which involves taking a moment to understand what emotions are coming up, and why. Will mentions the importance of not sending emails when annoyed and suggests making a phone call instead. Will talks about his executive coach's question, "What are you currently avoiding?". The conversation ultimately emphasized the importance of taking time to understand and process emotions before taking action. Questions Used in Coaching Tony talks about the questions he uses in his coaching practice. Tony's first question is, "when you look at the week ahead, what do you look forward to the most?" He then moved on to the question of "what is one conversation that you are putting off that you really need to have." This helps to identify any areas of avoidance and to move forward with life and work. He suggests taking note of what you are tolerating. Will asks Tony what sorts of responses he gets from his clients to the question of avoided conversations. Tony responds that he typically gets a variety of answers, ranging from fear of failure to fear of rejection to lack of clarity on how to approach the conversation. Tony tells Will where he found inspiration for his book, Climbing the Right Mountain, and how to think differently about success, and how to determine the right mountain for you. He talks about his coaching practice and workshops, and how many of his clients feel stuck or want to grow in a new direction. Timestamps 03:03- Assessing Business Activities to Maximize Energy and Productivity 04:43- Evolving and Inspiring Yourself as an Entrepreneur 07:30- Reflection and Inspiration for Business Growth 10:12- Experiencing Awe and Climbing Kilimanjaro 13:41- Exploring Human Experience: Tips for Training for Kilimanjaro and Experiencing New Things 15:08- Expanding Consciousness and Grounded Leadership 16:52- Grounded Leadership 18:30- System Two Thinking and Executive Coaching 20:53- The Benefits of Establishing a Foundation for Decision-Making 24:17- Incorporating Questions into Coaching Practice Links: Climbing the Right Mountain https://www.inspiredpurposecoach.com/ CONTACT INFO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonymartignett1/ Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes: Nick Shevelyoff is a cybersecurity expert who recently left his role as Chief Information Security Officer at Silicon Valley Bank to pursue consulting services. In the mid-1990s, Nick Shevelyov began his career in technology. He soon became interested in cybersecurity and went on to work for a boutique security consulting firm. Shevelyoff later spent years working in Enterprise Risk Services at Deloitte, specializing in cybersecurity and data privacy. In 2005, he joined Silicon Valley Bank as the chief security and chief privacy officer. During his 15-year tenure at the bank, Shevelyoff became CIO and then chief information security officer. Throughout his career, he has been interested in understanding cyber risk from a holistic perspective. The Book on Cyber War and Peace Nick discusses his new book, Cyber War and Peace, which explores how organizations can learn from lessons from history and behavioral science to improve their cybersecurity posture. In his book, Nick covers a wide range of topics related to cybersecurity, from the history of technology to the importance of risk management. He highlights how ancient civilizations such as Babylon and Rome dealt with technological challenges and draws parallels to modern cybersecurity concerns. He also emphasizes the importance of knowing oneself in order to effectively defend against cyber attacks. Nick enjoys reading about ancient Greece, Rome, and the Napoleonic Wars, among other periods. He draws upon lessons from these periods in his book, specifically around the importance of practice and preparation. To get a sense of a company's current level of preparedness, Nick recommends asking questions about the company's existing investment, business outcomes, and risks. He also suggests using a framework like the National Institute of Standards and Technology critical security framework to measure the organization against that framework and understand where the gaps are. Executive Planning for Investments and Technology The need for business executives to properly plan ahead when considering investments and technology cannot be overemphasized, and Nick suggests that it is important to understand the existing conditions, the age of the company, the outcomes they are looking for, the risks they may face, and the value of the data they have. He recommends a Z-shaped relationship to connect the goals to the risks, and to understand the unique risks facing the organization. Nick also suggests that it is important to consider the volume, variability, and veracity of the data, and the layers of control that can be used to manage the uncertainty. Bespoke Security Models for Organizations Nick and Will discussed the process of creating a bespoke security model for an organization. Nick suggested using a commonly accepted framework, such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology Critical Security Framework, to measure the organization against and identify gaps. Additionally, Nick suggested considering the Mitre Attack Framework to assess how an organization is susceptible to different types of attacks and the OWASP Top 20 to identify any potential application vulnerabilities. To further understand the current security state, Nick suggested conducting vulnerability scans, penetration testing, and application security assessments. He also talks about leveraging tactical conformance checks to assess an organization's cyber health. Nick provided insight into the criminal business world of hackers today, which is an industry run by criminals who attack organizations, steal data, and sell it on the dark web. This hacking as a service has become operationalized and victims of ransomware attacks, where malware is deployed on networks and locks up their systems, are all too common. He discussed the ongoing cyber war, where foreign governments are encouraging and supporting hacking of US and Western companies. He also mentioned that cyber risk is a reflection of geopolitical risk, and that organizations should always be investing in the right risk posture. Nick is now offering consulting services to help innovators and entrepreneurs all over the world improve their probability of success. He is also working as a fractional Chief Information Security Officer. Timestamps 09:58- Exploring Risk Management Strategies for Business Executives 12:16- Exploring a Bespoke Security Model for Organizations 14:00- CYBER HEALTH: Leveraging Tactical Conformance Checks to Assess Organizational Risk in the Criminal Business World 17:06- Cybersecurity and Cyber Risk 22:22- Fractional CFO and CISO Services 27:13- Developing a Security Program for Organizations 30:17- DevSecOps and Risk Management Links: https://www.nickshevelyov.com/ https://www.amazon.ca/Nicholas-Shevelyov/e/B09BDGQD22%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share https://authorhour.co/cyber-war-and-peace-nick-shevelyov/ CONTACT INFO: [email protected] https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasshevelyov/ Unleashed is produc

Show Notes In this episode, Will Bachman explains how independent consultants can set up and use a paid CRM system. While a spreadsheet is a great place to start when setting up a CRM system as it is free, and can help you understand which features of a paid system you would like to have, Will explains why, at one point, you might want to upgrade to a paid CRM system, and how CRM systems offer advantages over spreadsheets when tracking contacts, opportunities, and projects. Advantages of a CRM System over a Spreadsheet One advantage is that you can add documents to the categories mentioned in the previous episode: contacts, company and/or opportunity. Other features can include the ability to add notes from discussions to keep track of customer interactions, automated reminders, and tracking customer feedback. The CRM system provides the ability to attach documents, such as resumes for potential subcontractors, and add notes from conversations. It also allows for a photo of the contact to be attached, as well as other fields like name, title, employer, education, location, and LinkedIn profiles. Custom fields can also be created to track newsletters, gifts sent and received, and who introduced you to the contact. Will explains how CRM systems sync with the user's emails and the contacts' emails, making it easier to track emails from multiple addresses. Using a CRM System for Opportunities The CRM system also allows the user to track and easily see all the project opportunities associated with your contacts. Additionally, the user can tag contacts, opportunities, and projects with an industry tag, or functional tags, or skill-based or discreet defined tags, making it easier to categorize and track these elements. Using a CRM system to Manage Tasks Using a CRM system has several advantages. One of these is the ability to easily manage tasks. This can be done by adding task tags to contacts or projects and then viewing them all in one place, whether that is to follow up with a contact or submit a proposal, and you can easily mark them as done or change dates etc. Another advantage is the ability to easily manage opportunities. It is possible to have a visual view, with columns for the status of each project, and have the ability to drag and move the tiles. A third advantage is the ability to customize the names for the stages of an opportunity. These stages include identified opportunity, completed context discussion, submitted proposal, and finally whether the project was 'lost' or if it is '1 Active', or '1 Completed'. Additionally, when a project is moved from one stage to another, a pop up will appear asking for the reason. You could also add other stages such as 'On Hold' to remind you to follow up at a later date, and you could add a 'Future Opportunity' tab to remind you to follow up about it. You can also add documents to opportunities to keep all that information in one place and easy to access. Another useful feature is to add reports to give insight into projects won and lost. You can also easily add other users to give easy access to team members, but you also maintain control over the system to ensure no-one accidentally deletes or changes information. Researching CRM Systems Will also explains how to set up a paid CRM system, such as choosing a provider, setting up user roles, and integrating the system into your workflow. Lastly, he talks about the importance of finding the right CRM system that suits your needs. Will recommends starting with a spreadsheet to get an idea of how you need to structure the information you need, and then look into resources on Umbrex.com where you will find information on CRM systems used by members. Timestamps 00:01 The benefits of using a purpose-built CRM system 02:38 The benefits of a CRM system for tracking contacts 03:49 Creating custom fields 04:57 The benefits of a CRM system for tracking opportunities and projects 07:36 Stages of opportunities in a CRM system 11:18 Adding users to the CRM system Links: Notes on using a purpose-built CRM system: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SfVS9cB_YtmTgtRoBb1hWAxo-qy1vbC6BqiOKtTpEFo/edit?usp=sharing

Show Notes In this episode of Unleashed, Will Bachman explains how independent professionals can use a spreadsheet as their CRM system. A spreadsheet can be an effective first step before investing in a paid CRM system, and for independent professionals, the most fundamental use of a CRM spreadsheet is to keep track of the people, organizations, and project opportunities, in addition to confirming new projects, but the first step in setting up a CRM system should be to create a spreadsheet of all your contacts, and another tab with all your past projects. Ultimately, using a spreadsheet as a CRM system can be a great way to get started and gain familiarity with the features of a paid CRM system before investing, but when you do, you'll be able to upload your spreadsheet into the CRM. Will walks you through setting up a CRM system. The initial tabs discussed are 1.contacts, 2.opportunities, and 3.companies. Using a Spreadsheet for Contacts When setting up the contacts tab, a few fields are recommended, including: info about the person, like employer and title, name, pronouns, ID number URLs/links/social media links Physical address It's also recommended to have separate columns for first name, middle name, last name, maiden name, and nickname. It is also recommended to include the option to track if the contact is a connection on LinkedIn or not. When it comes to tracking contacts, emails are essential, and often, the preferred method of communication. It may also be helpful to track physical address, how the contact was originally met, the strength of the relationship, the level of decision making power, whether they are a client or potential partner, the industry they are in, the date of the last contact, the time interval between points of contact, if they are subscribed to your newsletter, if they are on your holiday card list, what gifts have been sent, topics of interest, the name of their executive assistant and their contact info, and the next action to be taken with the contact. Additionally, it is helpful to also track notes from interactions with the contact. Will suggests creating a separate tab for notes on each conversation, and to filter it for any given individual. However, the drawback of using a spreadsheet is that it is not as great as a relational database. Using a Spreadsheet for Opportunities For opportunities, the fields suggested to track are: Current pipeline Project/opportunity ID, title, associated company/organization Client executive name, billing contact, and any other names related to the opportunity A description and stage of the opportunity Source of opportunity Will learned this system from David A. Fields and he talked about it in episode 172 of Unleashed. David's three stages are: identified opportunity, but not yet talked to the client; completed context discussion (which entails live interaction with client), and finally, submitted proposal. If you have several projects in the pipeline, you could also add several stages such as: 'in contract phase'. Will suggests adding two stages for a contract: '1 active' - for current projects, and '1 complete', for the final stage. It may also be useful to add a stage for 'lost' and/or 'on hold' and 'possible opportunity' for potential opportunities on the horizon that you may want to follow up on in a few months. You could also track the dollar size of the opportunity and likelihood of closing. By tracking 'likelihood to close' you'll gain a better understanding of your ability to your accuracy in estimating potential opportunities, and dates of each stage. And most importantly, columns to include are your next action(s) and action due date(s). Using a Spreadsheet to Keep Track of Organizations Company ID, website, LinkedIn, industry All the projects you have done for the same company Who else works at the same company Be able to see all the projects you have done for the same company Who else you might speak with at the company Will also suggests adding if you have a service agreement with the company, termination dates, payment terms, and any other key contractual terms, such as a non-compete agreement, and invoicing instructions. While the former company details may not be necessary if you have the details of the company contact in place, the latter is particularly useful if it's been a few years since you worked on a project for the company. A link to a downloadable spreadsheet template has been added in links to to help you customize your own spreadsheet. Timestamps 00:01 Using a spreadsheet as a CRM system for independent professionals 01:49 Tracking contact Information for professional relationships 09:27 Tracking conversations and opportunities 16:21: Tracking contact and contract information on organizations Links: Notes on using a spreadsheet as a CRM: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PQssMvenlu4EPVaLevbRNWGlgppIWc8IXFatU4RG5sY/edit?usp=sharing

Show Notes Will Bachman and Niul Burton discuss procurement and strategic sourcing. Procurement is the function of acquiring goods or services as inputs to a company's operations. Strategic sourcing is a subset of procurement that focuses on the sourcing of goods and services in order to maximize value and efficiency. Niul explained that procurement involves identifying, negotiating, contracting, and working with suppliers on an ongoing basis. He also discussed the importance of understanding the needs of the company, the market, and the supplier in order to ensure that the best deal is being offered. Finally, Niul stressed the importance of building relationships with suppliers in order to ensure successful and long-term collaborations. Functions of Procurement Procurement is the process of buying goods and services from external suppliers. Strategic sourcing is a subset of procurement that takes a big-picture perspective to maximize value from spending. Other functions within procurement include contract negotiation and purchase to pay, which is the day-to-day operational execution of requisitions, purchase orders and invoicing. Third party risk management is an evolution of procurement that includes managing risk for external suppliers, licensees, and distributors. Strategic Sourcing to Drive More Value Strategic sourcing is an evolution of the procurement function to drive more value for an organization. Historically, purchasing was simply a department that executed purchase orders. Now, strategic sourcing is focused on creating value, as more than 50% of an organization's revenue goes out to their supply base. To manage costs and drive value, procurement and the relationship with the suppliers creates a tremendous opportunity. Procurement is now also doing more supplier risk management, which is a subset of third parties. Strategic sourcing is focused on understanding the current market, developing the right supplier relationships, and creating a competitive environment to drive the best value for the company. The process typically includes conducting a market analysis, negotiating with the suppliers, and implementing a contract. Strategic Sourcing – A View on Spend Strategic sourcing is a way of taking a new view on how money is spent. It involves centralizing contracts and purchases, standardizing specifications, and creating competition in the market. A former client of Niul was a big manufacturing company which had 36 different agreements for different sites, each with different terms and conditions and pricing. Strategic sourcing enabled them to look at the situation from a bigger picture view, and negotiate a commercial relationship with the supplier which was worth $1.5 billion over five years. Some of the levers used to create more value included consolidating skews, reducing the number of vendors, and having one standardized contract. Other strategies included aggregating volume, aligning to industry specifications, creating new competition, and process improvement. Timestamps 00:01 Procurement and Strategic Sourcing 101 02:07 Exploring the Different Functions of Procurement 08:12 Leveraging Value Creation Through Process Improvement 09:25 864 different strategies that can be deployed in strategic sourcing 12:13 Assessing the Procurement Function 15:47 Category Management 30:59 The internal process 39:38 The difference between RFI RFP and RFQ Links: https://www.beroeinc.com/podcasts/niul-burton-procurement-digitalization-journey/ CONTACT INFO: [email protected] https://www.linkedin.com/in/niulburton/ https://niulburton.com/ Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes Jessica Magoch is a jazz musician and sales expert who has put her two skills together to help others. She started her sales career when she was auditioning for college musical theater programs and realized that the best job for her would be one with flexibility - sales. She quickly excelled in the field and went on to work for a company that she helped build from zero to 100 million in revenue. After leaving that company, she started her own consulting and coaching business, where she helps women-led social enterprises learn how to sell. How to Improve Your Sales Technique Jessica explains that people who are successful in sales often have an inexplicable thing that cannot be taught. This is because they are able to connect with people emotionally, which is something that can be learned. She explains that music is the fastest way to affect someone's emotions and that using it in a sales conversation can make a difference. The conversation explores the idea that people make decisions based on emotions and then back them up with logic. The idea is from the study of emotional intelligence. The study found that information travels through the amygdala first before it hits the frontal cortex. The amygdala is where emotions happen, and it is also where gut reactions are. The study also found that the information in the logical part of the brain is very limited. The conversation then discusses how to incorporate these insights from music into sales. One way is to start with your scales, which are your sales frameworks, your sales techniques, and your processes. Another way is to bring artistry to it by looking at the dynamics of music and applying it to sales conversations. The salesperson's main role is to help the customer take action, and musicality can help with that by adding emotion and creativity to the conversation. Musicality can also help salespeople be more creative in general. Building Confidence in Business Jessica talks about the importance of performance in all aspects of life, from music to sales. The idea is that sometimes you have to access different parts of yourself in order to be successful and that this is not a bad thing. Beyonce is cited as an example of someone who has an alter ego that she calls upon when she needs to be fierce on stage. In business, it is often important to be able to sell oneself and one's ideas confidently. One way to build confidence is to develop an alter ego or character who is comfortable with selling. This can be helpful especially when cold calling, as it can be difficult to remain confident when speaking to someone who may not be interested. Outbound Sales Strategies Will Bachman and Jessica Magoch discuss the importance of outbound strategies that involve phone calls. Jessica says that cold calling is often ineffective because people feel like they are just a target on a list. Bachman and Macgoch agree that cold calling is not a pleasant experience. In order to make a cold call warmer, it is important to do 15 seconds of research on the person you are calling. This will help you to better understand them and get their attention. It is also important to ask permission before continuing the conversation and to be specific about the problems that you are solving. Timestamps 2:06: Making decisions first emotionally and back them up with logic. 7:24: How to incorporate music into sales? 11:14: How to teach creativity in sales. 15:38: How to be creative in the moment. 20:51: Eliminate the emotion from objections by eliminating the objection. 29:08: How to avoid cold-calling. 34:02: How to personalize your call? 38:06: How to get your voice to be dynamic. Links: https://www.jpmpartners.com/ CONTACT INFO: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicamagoch/ Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Nate Kievman is the founder of Linked Strategies, a company that helps create better relationships between businesses and their ideal buyers. Link Strategies has been in business since 2010 and has evolved over the years into a full-service digital agency. Link Strategies Will Bachman is the host of Unleashed, and he and Nate discuss the services that Link Strategies offers. Link Strategies works with companies of all sizes, from one-person consulting shops to large enterprises like BlackRock and NASDAQ. The company typically works with companies that are looking to scale beyond their current referral- or network-based sales models. Nate discusses the lead generation industry, and how it is highly competitive and non-consolidated. He describes how there are many firms that claim to be able to generate leads, but in reality, most of them use spammy tactics and are not very effective. The book The Outsiders explores how companies like Salesforce have disrupted traditional businesses by using technology to their advantage. The book argues that companies that are able to use technology to their advantage will be the ones who succeed in the future. The book has had a major impact on the business world and has inspired many companies to adopt similar strategies. The book states that companies that are able to use technology to their advantage will be the ones who succeed in the future. Lead Generation Strategies They talk about how there is a low barrier to entry for anyone who wants to start a lead generation business, and how there are many firms that do this with very little experience. They also talk about how recent changes in spam detection have made it very difficult for companies to get their emails delivered, and how this has caused many companies to reevaluate their lead-generation strategies. Nate explains that the key to getting a response from a busy executive is to respect their time and give them enough information to make a decision about meeting with you. He also notes that it takes experience and knowledge to craft a compelling email that will engage the reader. Finally, he cautions that companies often fail at outbound strategies because they don't commit to the process. Cold Outbound Strategies Nate discusses how cold outbound strategies are designed to generate leads, appointments, and conversions, and how companies often fail to properly utilize them. He argues that companies should invest in their partners and salespeople in order to properly execute these strategies and maximize their potential. The conversation discuss tips for sales conversion on cold outreach meetings. They mention that it is important to think of these types of campaigns as a short, mid and long term pipeline development, and that most companies get into it as a tactical buy. They also mention that it is important to understand the nuances of all the facts in your current business, and that contracts should be for a year or more. The salespeople at Kievman's company are focused on finding out the challenges, goals, and gaps of their potential clients. They want to assess whether or not they can help solve the gap before going into their sales pitch. This is important because Kievman's company offers dynamic and customizable solutions. Timestamps: 1:51: Categories of competitors in the appointment setting and lead generation space. 3:57: The book "Predictable Revenue" 8:52: What's happening in the world of email deliverability. 14:15: How to get into the psychology of the executive office. 20:25: When you're sending emails out to your email accounts, who are you sending them to? 25:42: What are some of the archetypes of copy that you use? 30:18: The importance of being a growth partner and not a lead generator. 35:17: The importance of having a candid conversation with your prospects. 40:51: If you had 100 really good friends, how many of them would work with you over the course of two or three years? Links: https://www.amazon.ca/Predictable-Revenue-Business-Practices-Salesforce-com/dp/0984380213 CONTACT INFO: https://linkedstrategies.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathankievman [email protected] Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Show Notes: Unleashed has been running for six years and has 335,000 downloads. In episode 500 of the podcast, host and creator, Will Bachman wants to share three things: the deep personal history behind the podcast, what listeners can expect going forward, and the impact it has had on him. An Interest in Journalism Will began his publishing adventures in junior high school when he started the Henry James Herald, a photocopied newspaper he sold or gave away in the lunchroom. He tried to start an alternate to the school newspaper in high school when he found the school paper to be a little less interesting than what he thought it could be. Despite not having the opportunity to pursue his initial dream of starting his own newspaper in high school, his passion for journalism continued in college when he joined the Harvard Crimson. He became a photographer and learned how to develop film and print photographs, spending around 30-40 hours a week as a photo editor. He enjoyed this experience immensely, as it gave him a sense of being in the know and being able to see his photos in print. From College to McKinsey Will discussed his experiences in college, the Navy, and business school related to publishing. During his time in the Navy as a communications officer, he created a bulletin designed to keep the crew informed during a tactical readiness exam. In business school he created an elaborate cheat sheet for his fellow classmates to use in their exams. One day when walking into the exam room, he was thrilled to see almost 80% of the room using his cheat sheet. And later in his career at McKinsey, he had a dream of gathering together a collection of resources, but never had the time to execute it. At McKinsey, Will had the idea of getting the whole business analyst class together every Friday morning to share tips and tricks they had learned from their projects. The Birth of the Book After being an independent consultant for four years, Will had an idea to write a book about how to thrive as an independent consultant. This was the birth of a book called Unleashed where he could share his experiences as an independent consultant. He designed a cover for the book with a dog leash and a dog jumping off the page which eventually became the logo for the show. Looking back on his life, Will realized that he'd always wanted to talk to people and then share what he'd learned, and that is the purpose of the show: to share practical lessons learned so people can apply them in their professional lives. Timestamps: 05:26 Taking cheat sheets into Business school 07:26 The birth of an idea at McKinsey 09:21 The creation of the Unleashed logo 11:06 Interviews that address a specific need 12:47 What Will has learned from the podcasts 13:27 Authors interviewed 15:10 The importance of having a podcast 18:49 David Fields episodes

Show Notes John Livesay is the pitch whisperer - he helps people calm down and deliver a winning pitch. He believes that the best way to win more sales is to tell a story that includes your own personal story, a company story, and then turning a case study into a case story. He was approached by Anthem insurance to be their sales keynote speaker and ended up staying for their improvisation session to help people with their pitches. Ink Magazine dubbed Jordan a pitch whisperer after she gave an example of how she helped a client tell a better story. She was working with Olympus medical, who had a piece of equipment that could make surgeries go 30% faster, but they couldn't understand why more doctors weren't buying it. Jordan explained that people buy emotionally and then back it up with logic, and then she asked the client some questions. The client told a story about how their equipment had helped a doctor at Long Beach Memorial put a patient's family out of their waiting misery. The other doctor saw himself in the story and decided he wanted the equipment. The client was amazed and said they had never thought to make the patient's family a character in the story. 4 Steps to Effective Pitches John Livesay talks about his process for pitching and how he uses a four step structure to make his pitches more effective. He gives an example of how he used this process to pitch for an airport renovation project. He first paints the picture with the who, what, where, when. Then he highlights the problem and the stakes involved. Next, he provides a solution. Finally, he brings the story to life with dialogue that allows the listener to see themselves in the story. The speakers discuss the importance of focusing on the problem statement when seeking independent consultants. They tell a story about a fictitious client, James, who needs the caliber of consultant found at a big firm like McKinsey or Bain, but without the full team. James exhausts her personal network and then has trouble finding the right person. The speakers argue that this is a problem that their company, UpWork, solves. Pitching Tips for Independent Consultants In this conversation, John Livesay discusses some tips for independent consultants who are pitching their services to potential clients. He stresses the importance of selling yourself first, as people are more likely to buy into your energy than anything else. Additionally, he talks about the importance of using stories to connect with potential clients, as this will help them to see themselves in your experiences. Will Bachman and John Livesay discuss the importance of finding a mentor, and how to go about finding one that is a good fit. They advise against simply posting a request for a mentor online, and instead recommend reaching out to people you know personally or have worked with before. They also suggest stacking multiple problems to solve, in order to make the mentee more attractive to potential mentors. Cold Email Subject Lines John Livesay, a sales trainer, recommends focusing on empathy, listening, and storytelling when making cold calls or emails in order to build an emotional connection with the person you're trying to reach. This will help you earn the right to have a meeting or conversation, rather than be seen as an annoyance. The conversation discuss tips for writing cold email subject lines and John Livesay shares his tip of funneling potential contacts on LinkedIn. He believes that by staying connected with potential contacts, it won't feel like a cold email when you do reach out. Links: https://johnlivesay.com/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChWp7P-2gv2a-nppJpXswoA https://www.amazon.ca/Successful-Pitch-Conversations-Invisible-Investable/dp/0982285353 https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-successful-pitch-with-john-livesay/id982063571 https://www.joinbytext.com/ Timestamps 0:01: What is a pitch whisper? 4:18: How to find the right story to sell. 9:15: The importance of telling the best story. 11:55: How did you get into the field of consulting? 18:50: How do you find the right person? 23:34: How to open your email with a compelling pitch? 28:07: What's a great open? Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Peter is an energy industry thought leader, and consult and international keynote speaker and co-founder of NorthBridge Energy Partners LLC, an independent consulting organization with expertise and perspective on US energy markets. Peter has worked with and advised companies as large and established as GE, Nike, and SunPower while also helping numerous start-ups navigate the challenging path to success, and he is the author of "The Energy Switch: How Companies and Customers Are Transforming the Electrical Grid and the Future of Power." You can learn more about Peter and his work at www.peterkellydetwiler.com. Key points include: 06:02: Current challenges faced by the energy system 13:25: Energy storage and the energy grid 39:02: The future of consulting for the energy industry Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Jonas is a media and entertainment executive with a passion for innovating in the on-demand content ecosystem. In 2019 he was named one of British Columbia's 40 under 40. As a co-founder of Bumper, Jonas uses his 20+ years of experience in the on-demand content space to help podcasters grow their audiences and return on investments. Previously, as the Director of Strategy at Pacific Content, Jonas helped clients achieve success in branded podcasting. Pacific Content is an award-winning podcast agency working at the intersection of brand strategy and high-quality audio storytelling. Learn more about Jonas and his company on Bumper. Key points include: 05:54: The range of requests and services 11:23: Podcast strategies 21:17: Reviews and vanity metrics Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Todd Cherches is a visionary leader with experience as a consultant, trainer, executive coach, TEDx speaker, keynote speaker, panelist, professor, author, blogger, and thought leader in the field of leadership and visual thinking. In this episode, he talks about his patented VisuaLeadership® approach. You can learn more about Todd and his work at www.toddcherches.com or www.bigbluegumball.com. Key points include: 06:18: How to host a creative meeting to drive growth 11:43 Exercises in visual leadership 24:07: The origins of visual leadership Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Jonathan Paisner has worked with B2B Fortune 1000 companies to evolve and implement their corporate brand to adapt for the changing needs of their business. He has held leadership and senior consulting roles at DeSantis Breindel, CoreBrand (now Tenet) and Siegel & Gale, and previously, he created and ran the brand licensing division of A&E Television Networks. In this episode, he shares his expertise in brand architecture. You can reach out to Jonathan on Linkedin or through his company website BrandExperiencedGroup.com. Key points include: 02:32: Brand architecture as a window to the overall business strategy 11:51: A case example of brand building 21:06: Securing alignment between teams and departments Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.