Author: Fotis Georgiadis

Data-Driven Work Cultures: Amit Rapaport of Compete On How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take Your Company To The Next Level

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Employer branding. It makes sense to start with employer branding. In practice, this means focusing on the capabilities of an organization that goes beyond the bits and bytes of what it sells. Instead, it’s about showing the values driving the business.

As a part of our series about “How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take Your Company To The Next Level”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Amit Rapaport.

After many years working across most HR roles in the tech and more specifically the cyber sector, Amit Rapaport left her job to address the biggest pain point that she had experienced throughout her career, namely a lack of visibility into real-time compensation data.

Now the CEO & co-founder of Compete, a fast-growing early-stage company, Amit is dedicated to solving this daily problem affecting all tech companies of every size. Compete provides hundreds of tech companies with immediate insights into complete compensation package data — at the click of a button.

Amit’s happy place is working with her talented Compete employees to transform the way compensation and benefits are done.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Compete came from my personal pain as an ex-HR executive at Palo Alto Networks and SentinelOne. I had no idea what constituted a ‘good’ package for candidates and employees. Of course, this wasn’t a daily challenge, but the lack of in-depth granular insights covering the total compensation package was incredibly frustrating. It was then that I decided to step out of my comfort zone and create the solution.

Fundamentally, gaining visibility into common compensation and benefits practices is a must for developing workforce management strategies. I wanted to give organizations an effective way of taking the “guess” out of guesswork and giving them immediate insights into complete compensation package data, including parental leave, work-from-home policies, and health benefits.

For us, the focus is on providing access to real-time benefit benchmarks compared to the market and empowering decision-makers with the right insights to attract and retain top talent.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

During the recent COVID-19 pandemic, like so many others, I held most of my meetings over Zoom. As such, I had a ‘cheat sheet’ for pitching. Once lockdown ended, I had an in-person meeting with a VC. Unfortunately, I struck a complete blank. I literally tried three times to pitch Compete but failed. Fortunately, I still managed to get the investment despite the disaster.

I learn some valuable lessons from that experience. Firstly, VCs can see through your pitch presentation. For them, it’s a case of examining your character and reading between the lines. Another thing is to never rely on cheat sheets to do your pitching. Only ever rely on yourself. That way, you have as much control as possible over the situation.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

When my parents were 40, they decided to pivot and make a huge change. They relocated our entire family (we were three children) to a new place. Their courage to start from scratch and their decisiveness had a lasting impact on me. In fact, that’s probably what gave me the extra push I needed to take the plunge myself and launch Compete.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about empowering organizations to be more “data-driven.” My work centers on the value of data visualization and data collaboration at all levels of an organization, so I’m particularly passionate about this topic. For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what exactly it means to be data-driven? On a practical level, what does it look like to use data to make decisions?

The future of work has become virtually impossible to predict following the events of the past two years. We’re seeing the creation of an almost perfect storm with the combination of a talent war, more free capital becoming available for growth, and the great resignation taking place. This results in organizations having to think differently about their approaches to retaining talent.

The central theme behind this is having a better understanding of the data points that govern staff churn, new talent acquisition, and what differentiates compensation packages between competitors. An example of this is how data shows there’s a weak correlation between an employee receiving an annual bonus and using that as incentive to improve their performance and engagement.

For Compete, being data-driven is about bridging the trust gap between employees and employers. We provide organizations with real-time benchmarks that empower them to be transparent and efficient when it comes to attracting and retaining top talent for the business.

Which companies can most benefit from tools that empower data collaboration?

The majority (70%) of a company’s budget goes to its people. This means that every business that wants to efficiently plan its headcount, retain its MVP employees, and understand where it stands in relation to the industry can benefit from using tools that empower data collaboration. Furthermore, organizations that seek to be transparent and operate ethically and those that want to narrow the gender gap and promote diversity can all take advantage of data-driven decision-making.

Using these tools that drive data collaboration also staves off the risk of overcorrection when it comes to having a knee-jerk reaction to external events. In turn, this mitigates against the risk of layoffs and salary reductions. Now, more than ever, it is critical for companies to turn their focus toward becoming more efficient.

Additionally, employees expect and require continuous updates and transparent communication, especially in times of crisis. This has become even more evident in the post-pandemic world as a strategy to reinforce collectiveness and motivate people to keep their focus on the long-term picture.

We’d love to hear about your experiences using data to drive decisions. In your experience, how has data analytics and data collaboration helped improve operations, processes, and customer experiences? We’d love to hear some stories if possible.

Equal pay for equal work makes sense. But how aware are organizations of any imbalances that may exist around their own wage structures? Of those employers surveyed, only 28% believed that pay inequity exists within their organizations. However, 82% of organizations have had to adjust pay because of a pay equity audit.

This is why taking a technology-driven approach is so crucial. The only way to do wage transparency right and smart is by integrating levels of technology that bridge the gap internally of where people stand within the company. Data cannot be biased. The facts are the facts. Once the truth is outlined when it comes to wages, those employers willing to reinvent compensation packages will be able to shine and differentiate themselves from competitors.

From now on, using a platform that provides immediate insights into complete compensation package data and enables organizations to develop more effective workforce management strategies will be crucial. It must be able to perform analysis on virtually every benefit available and deliver real-time benchmarking data, advanced analytics, and tailored insights to support hiring decisions, identify risks, improve retention, and develop informed compensation policies.

Has the shift towards becoming more data-driven been challenging for some teams or organizations from your vantage point? What are the challenges? How can organizations solve these challenges?

We’ve been fortunate in the sense that our customers embrace data and are actively looking to employ cutting-edge solutions to help them become more efficient. From our perspective, there aren’t that many challenges.

The shift that’s taken place has brought a new opportunity for HR leaders. They are now playing a more strategic role in the organization and are leading major processes that are driven using insights generated by the Compete platform.

More broadly, we’ve seen some rumblings in the market regarding wage transparency. However, this does provide HR professionals with a brilliant way to take a leadership role and position themselves in the debate on the merits of wage transparency. Ultimately, we all want an equal environment and a workplace culture that encourages excellence while still promoting the well-being of people. The data-driven environment makes these discussions easier to have as they are underpinned by real-time statistics and insights on what’s happening in the market. Those who embrace it are in pole position to create a competitive advantage.

Ok. Thank you. Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are “Five Ways a Company Can Effectively Leverage Data to Take It To The Next Level”? Please share a story or an example for each.

Data can be leveraged using a variety of interventions and approaches to create a competitive edge for organizations. However, it’s an evolving process. Organizations must never think data approaches can be set in stone or that there’s one way to prepare themselves for the future world of work.

Remember, recruitment is not just about interviewing and making a job offer to a candidate. It begins with people’s perceptions of your brand.

1. Employer branding. It makes sense to start with employer branding. In practice, this means focusing on the capabilities of an organization that goes beyond the bits and bytes of what it sells. Instead, it’s about showing the values driving the business.

2. Candidates are customers. Seeing candidates as customers can introduce more creativity into the recruitment process. It also provides the organization with the necessary impetus to be transparent at every stage of the staff acquisition strategy. Working with the marketing team can also yield strong results, especially when the company conducts SEO activities to drive talent to the organization.

3. Candidate experience. This becomes the holy grail for taking the organization to the next level for many businesses. When a candidate has several offers, they’re usually quite similar in their components. What will make the candidate choose a company is where they will feel that they’re in the right place and have the best fit with the people. It’s for this reason that the business must put a greater emphasis on how candidates experience the organization.

4. Awareness. It’s also important for the company to increase awareness of its brand and its role in the industry it’s involved in, especially when it comes to a candidate’s perceptions. It’s important to appear in press articles, participate in podcasts, and organize meetings and conferences for relevant stakeholders to position the business as one for future potential recruitment.

5. The strategy. Organizations also need to think about how they approach recruitment drives. Data-driven insights are vital as they will quickly highlight the types of candidates that are required, the experience they need for specific roles, and how businesses can potentially upskill and reskill existing employees to fill any gaps.

The name of this series is “Data-Driven Work Cultures.” Changing a culture is hard. What would you suggest is needed to change a work culture to become more Data Driven?

It all boils down to being transparent. This is as important for future candidates as it is for existing employees. People want to know where they stand in the market and how the organization values them as contributors to the growth of the business.

To accomplish this, companies must reposition themselves as data-driven organizations that understand entirely the compensation packages currently available. Compete has a rich set of HR data available, spread across points that range from gender, tenure, and role, to salary, signing bonus, annual bonus, and equity. It also factors in dozens of benefits, including maternity and paternity leave, 401K policies, vacation policies, commission plans, and health benefits. The data available is in-depth and tailored according to the level of seniority and job roles. Using these insights, decision-makers can arm themselves with the right data to understand how to change the work culture and become more data-led.

Using a wealth of data points means the business can shed significant light on the competitive environment of an industry sector. In today’s world, talent is everything, and decision-makers are looking for any edge they can get. Becoming more data-driven is essential to achieve this.

The future of work has recently become very fluid. Based on your experience, how do you think the needs for data will evolve and change over the next five years?

Our analysis of market trends shows that in 2021 companies paid extra attention to employee benefits, with compensation packages becoming more holistic. As companies moved to work from home, some of the building blocks for the future of work were designed during the past year. Part of this has been companies needing to pay extra attention and pitch their talents about their different benefits. As employees work in a hybrid environment, they care more nowadays about a holistic offer.

This year we’ve already seen how important data has become to equip organizations to improve their decision-making processes in the areas where they need to become more attractive to future talent. I anticipate that data in the HR process will become thoroughly integrated into the rest of the business.

Companies can no longer appoint talent based on the ‘gut feel’ of recruiters. Instead, it comes down to analyzing the data at hand, understanding more about the candidate as a person, and determining how that individual will fit into the organization’s culture. Moreover, it’s a case of creating an environment using data-driven insights that focuses on the employee holistically. For instance, mental and physical health, their family drivers and motivation, the skills they bring to the business, and how the organization can create a more symbiotic relationship with the individual.

Does your organization have any exciting goals for the near future? What challenges will you need to tackle to reach them? How do you think data analytics can best help you to achieve these goals?

The war for talent has intensified to an unprecedented level. Thankfully real-time compensation data is no longer a challenge, thanks to the tools that Compete has built. We’re committed to empowering our customers with clear, immediate insights to help them win the talent competition.

Throughout this journey, incorporating data analytics in all steps of the process has become critical. Organizations need the best talent to help them grow. They will only get the best talent if they understand how to structure their compensation packages and how to identify the right candidates for the job. This is a continually evolving process. We’ll continue to innovate and leverage our platform to help companies gain the competitive advantage they need. As more decision-makers start thinking differently about their talent acquisition strategies, they will rely more on data analytics. And that’s where we’ll be available to help and position them for the next phase of their organizational growth.

How can our readers further follow your work?

They are welcome to check out our Web site and our social platforms — Facebook and LinkedIn. We regularly update our pages with content relevant to the HR sector and anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of the future of work.

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!

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Data-Driven Work Cultures: Amit Rapaport of Compete On How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Another strategy for building a strong brand is identifying your target market. You can do this by creating an ideal customer profile. Who is your target consumer? Where do they live on and offline? How do they communicate?

As part of our series about how to create a trusted, believable, and beloved brand, I had the pleasure to interview Danilo Diazgranados.

Since leaving his native Venezuela more than a decade ago, Danilo Diazgranados has been a successful independent investor, with a focus on the consumer goods, real estate and financial sectors. With a deep sense of responsibility to “pay it forward,” Danilo mentors young entrepreneurs, supports vocational culinary/hospitality education programs, and contributes his time, expertise, and resources to a variety of other philanthropic pursuits.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I was lucky enough to be raised by an entrepreneur. My father was a physician, and the founder of Metropolitan Polyclinic, a healthcare organization in Caracas. So, from a very early age I was enamored with the idea that someone could build the career they wanted from scratch.

My path from child in Venezuela to international investor and entrepreneur can be divided into three chapters: early entrepreneurship, a successful career in finance, helping businesses find their footing.

To some, this may not seem like the straightest possible path, and they aren’t entirely incorrect. But, for me, each of these chapters have built upon each other, allowing me to create and leverage the experience necessary to succeed at the next step.

Can you share a story about the funniest marketing mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I founded my first business, a travel agency, while I was an undergraduate at the University of Miami. So, I am sure I made all sorts of mistakes–some of which may be funny in retrospect. But, the most important lesson I learned during that time was to always keep trying.

Perfection is impossible, especially when you’re just starting out. What matters more is that you don’t give up when something inevitably goes wrong. Every misstep is an opportunity to try something different.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

Whenever I begin a new business venture, I always consider–and ensure that my partners have considered–how the community will be impacted. Sometimes, that community is the employees or the neighborhood where the organization is located, but it can be as large as a region or even the country, depending on the brand.

For example, when opening a restaurant, you must consider the diners you’ll be attracting. Will these people be taking up residents’ street parking? Will the atmosphere include loud music or result in people wandering around late into the night? Do the prices prohibit your neighbors from dining with you? What can you do to be a good neighbor?

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

To me, there is nothing more important–or exciting– than investing in the future.

For the past few years, I have supported a training course at the INFOTEP School of Hospitality, Gastronomy, and Pastry in the Dominican Republic. At the end of this 5-week program, one standout student is selected to carry on their studies at the world-renowned Basque Culinary Center in Spain. There have been two winners so far, and we just kicked off the latest iteration of the course.

And this year, we also expanded our initiative stateside, and established a scholarship with the Culinary Institute of America, which will be awarded to a student who is planning to use their degree to give back to their community.

I could not be more thrilled to work with these esteemed institutions and help provide opportunities for young people who are passionate about the culinary industry. Every recipient has an amazing career ahead of them, and it’s an honor to be part of their journey.

Ok let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)? Can you explain?

In simple terms, brand marketing is how a company presents itself as a whole to the world and, more importantly, its customers and core audience. This could include strategies that increase brand awareness–like establishing a social media presence–opportunities tell the company’s story.

Product marketing is how a company positions and builds awareness of a specific product or service–such as a commercial or contest — with the goal of generating sales.

Both are important to a company’s success, and they need to be able to work together cohesively. For example, if one of your brand pillars is sustainability, a massive direct mail campaign may not be the best way to promote your flagship product.

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?

You should never let someone else decide your company’s story, mission, or value proposition.

Whether you invest in branding or not, your company will be subject to the perception of your audience, so it’s important to have an active role in shaping that impression. That work starts from within–what is your corporate culture? What do you stand for? How are your employees describing your organization? What steps can you take to establish your identity in the market?

Once you strategically build your brand, investing in marketing and advertising will ensure you reach the right audience and loyal customers who will help your company grow.

Can you share 5 strategies that a company should be doing to build a trusted and believable brand? Please tell us a story or example for each.

There are many strategies that can be used to build a trusted brand, but I always start by defining a company’s identity. One way to do this is to spend time creating a purpose and mission. Be sure to include your reason for existing, how you serve your customers, and what makes you different from your competitors.

Take, for example, luxury powerhouse LVMH’s mission:” The world leader in luxury, LVMH has since its founding in 1987 deployed a business model marked by creative momentum and a constant quest for excellence. The Group drives long-term momentum to develop its 75 Maisons, respecting their distinctive identities. Throughout the world they are all ambassadors of our vision of a refined art de vivre.”

This statement succinctly says how they see themselves, what they do, and how they operate. Most importantly, what they’re communicating is unique to them, and cannot be easily imitated.

Another strategy for building a strong brand is identifying your target market. You can do this by creating an ideal customer profile. Who is your target consumer? Where do they live on and offline? How do they communicate?

Speaking of communication, the third strategy is to nail down your company’s voice and tone. This will help your marketing and advertising efforts. One way to do this is by researching brands your ideal customer loves and diving into how those companies communicate. Note what you like and don’t like, as well as what your company is currently doing and what can be done better.

For example, if you are looking to launch a new gin targeted at millennials, you may want to look into how Ryan Reyenolds advertises Aviation Gin. Of course, unless you are also a Hollywood A-lister you will not be able to replicate his efforts, but you can certainly gauge the success of his tactics and tone.

While you’re researching competitors, take note of ways to differentiate your company–which will help develop a unique brand that sets you apart in the market. For example, Delta Airlines differentiates itself from other carriers by focusing on customer service, including superserving business travelers, whereas Southwest prides itself on transparent pricing and minimal fees.

The final strategy I would recommend is communicating with your current and potential consumers even when you aren’t selling to them. Informing, affirming, and entertaining your audience helps build awareness and trust among customers. One great way to do this is content marketing through platforms like a company blog or YouTube, which also helps your company’s search ranking. For example, you’ll see during the upcoming holiday seasons that many brands will take this opportunity to reach out to their customers just to offer warm wishes.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job building a believable and beloved brand. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

I am constantly in awe of the José Andrés Group (formerly the Think Foods Group).

José Andrés has taken his mission to “change the world through the power of food” and executed it at a global level. His portfolio of restaurants is diverse, both in terms of cuisine and price point. And, despite the fact that some have grown to become international chains, they are known for their quality and consistency–which goes a long way in cultivating and maintaining long-term customers and ambassadors.

But, it is the philanthropic work that Andrés does through the World Central Kitchen that puts the believability of his brand over the top. Any time there is a major disaster, consumers see this world-renowned chef on the front lines–be it in the aftermath of a catastrophic storm or a nation on the brink of invasion–to ensure people are fed. He is literally living his mission.

For many brands, this scale and commitment may be out of reach. But, consistency and delivering on one’s mission are important for every organization.

In advertising, one generally measures success by the number of sales. How does one measure the success of a brand building campaign? Is it similar, is it different?

To put things bluntly: nobody will buy from you if they don’t know who you are. And that is why brand building is so important.

One critical measure of a successful brand building campaign is awareness–which can be tracked via social media mentions, website traffic, media impressions, and search engine rankings. While none of these metrics can be tied to dollar amounts, they tell the story of an organization’s current and potential customer base by determining how and where people are interacting with a brand, and what they are saying about it.

These insights can then be used to make adjustments to the brand and/or inform sales initiatives.

What role does social media play in your branding efforts?

Social media is a powerful tool, but I am a firm believer that a company should not get involved with social media unless it has a sound strategy based on real objectives and audiences. For example, an all-inclusive resort may be more likely to reach its target consumers on Instagram but not LinkedIn.

So, I would say that social media can play a very important role in branding efforts–but it may not be for every brand. And there is certainly no single “best” way to approach it.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

At this point I may sound a bit like a broken record, but I truly believe thinking locally should be a tentpole of any organization.

So, if I could inspire any movement, it would be that every company would find a way to become involved in its community. Of course, this must be done in a way that makes sense to the brand. For example, a hotel may make its ballroom available to local charities to hold fundraising events. Or a restaurant may partner with a shelter to provide meals, excess supplies, or jobs to residents.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Luck is not a business model.” — Anthony Bourdain

Don’t get me wrong, I am a firm believer in luck–and no one can succeed without at least a bit of it. And I have been fortunate enough to experience a bit of luck in my career, so I know how hard it can be to resist the assumption that one’s salad days are here to stay. But, this quote helps remind me that a sustainable business cannot be built on the hope of chance or good fortune. Instead, you need to create a strategy that you believe will generate results and enjoy any luck that comes your way as an added bonus.

We are blessed that very prominent leaders in business and entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you would like to have a lunch or breakfast with? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂

I would say Heston Blumenthal–and not just because he may be inclined to make the meal. Heston has done an incredible job of becoming a very successful public figure. But, what is more impressive is that he has done so in a way that hasn’t diluted his food or his talent–which is something that is becoming increasingly difficult for celebrity chefs. And while I get the sense that Heston would scoff at anyone admiring his personal brand, I very much do.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

I am on Twitter (@diazgranadosd) and Instagram (@danilo.diazgranados), and you can also follow me on Medium where I write about wine and food–among other things.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

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Danilo Diazgranados: Five Things You Need To Build A Trusted And Beloved Brand was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Hire people smarter than you at the tasks you want to most succeed in. Don’t be afraid of surrounding yourself with successful people. And, the corollary, don’t believe you have to do it all yourself. You will be surprised by how much of your success is the product of other people’s work.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Juli Lee of JULIANNA RAE.

As is the case with many successful entrepreneurs, Juli Lee of Julianna Rae started with a mission to find a solution to a common problem, to fill in a gap in the market. Asking a simple question like “Why isn’t there any (fill in the blank) in today’s market” led to a lot of research and experimentation and finally a concrete vision. Leveraging her stellar professional pedigree and leaning into her time-honored connections, Juli was able to create Julianna Rae, an instantly recognizable lingerie, sleepwear and loungewear brand for the modern woman. Julianna Rae’s Founder and Chief Designer, Juli Lee, had previously developed and delivered product for some of the industry’s major brands, including: Victoria’s Secret, Saks, Gorsuch and Nordstrom.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I was born in Taiwan and we moved to the US when I was still a chubby child. I grew up a stereotypical Asian child: thick glasses, a bad bowl haircut, always carrying a violin. I, of course, grew up with an older sister who was a super achiever — excellent student, National Honor Society President, French Club President, editor of the yearbook, a pianist and cellist — so well rounded she was spherical. I, on the other hand, was a little nerdy — OK, really nerdy, and either had my nose in a book, screeching on a violin, or was figuring out things like how quickly you could thaw a frozen turkey in the clothes dryer (answer: it takes a long time, the meat texture comes out terrible, and it does make the dryer very messy!) But, I did like to draw and often drew ballerinas (I was obsessed with tutus and pointe shoes!) and copied the fashion illustrations from department store ads that used to be on the 3rd and 4th pages of the Sunday paper. Still, we (my family) all thought my sister would be the creative one — she went to Stanford, and I would be the logical engineer — I went to MIT. Here it is, years later, and she is a lawyer and I’m a designer.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“You don’t get paid for being smart. You get paid for being effective”.

The first time I read this, I was dumbstruck by just how true it was (unless you’re a Jeopardy contestant), and how, time and time again, I’d seen it play out in life and in business. Since then, it has served me as a guide, reminding me that getting things done — and done well — is ultimately what’s important, not how many degrees I have or what my test scores were. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a big fan of “smart.” All else being equal, I’ll hire smart. But more often than not, all other things aren’t equal, and the other things count as much. Am I clear about what I want? How much work am I willing to put in? How can I bring other people into the mix and leverage their talents? Am I responsible, reliable and ethical? Can I stick it out for the long haul? All these count. Whether I set out to run my first 5K or launch a company. And in the end, it’s what I do (and how I do it!) that determines how successful I will be at everything.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Oh my goodness — there are so many books that have had an impact on me at different periods of my life. But, that is why I am going to talk about Love in the Time of Cholera by the great Gabriel García Márquez. I am going to oversimplify and call it a great love story where the passionate “hero”, Florentino Ariza and “heroine”, Fermina Daza, fall in love but when she marries a prestigious and safe (eg, logical and predictable) man, Florentino pledges his eternal love for the death of her husband to reunite with her her — 51 years, 9 months and 4 hours. I put “hero” I quotes because Ariza doesn’t necessarily have what one would consider heroic qualities. I first read this book in my twenties and thought: a) passion is the way to go and b) persistence will get me over every speed bump. I then re-read the book ten years later and then ten years later again and what I got out of the book was completely different each time (though passion and persistence still rock!). I absolutely loved the book each time, but I had such a different take on the characters and the situation and even the title of the book. It really drove home how my own life experience had completely colored my reading and perception of the book and of course was doing the same to how I approached my own life situations and decisions. While that seems quite obvious, I realized that I also had to treat other people and my interactions with others with that same lens. This experience with this book and re-reading it several times has taught me to be more holistic when trying to solve thorny or difficult issues or at least have much more tolerance towards others when encountering angry or ill-informed people. Come to think of it, it is time for my next decade reading of this book!

By the way, having selected a book, a shout out to podcasts! I am so glad they have come into their own and they are such a great way to learn new things or catch up/go in depth on things I once read/heard about. I have so many favorites that, well, they defy the meaning of “favorite”.

Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

Julianna Rae started with this question, as many good ideas do, from a group of us just sitting around: “Why isn’t there any fill in the blank?” In my particular case, the blank was “lingerie and sleepwear for us gals in our 30’s and 40’s” (and as it turned out, 50’s 60’s, 70’s and so on!). Having worked at Victoria’s Secret, I hadn’t thought about the question because we owned the market and sold so much — who cares if we weren’t the perfect answer for everyone. So I went shopping. Everywhere. A lot of miles put on my car.

Many good ideas are about filling a gap in the market. These days, it is much easier to find out if that gap exists — the internet will allow you to go shopping far and wide — to see if that gap is really there — whether it is a product or a service. When you start typing in the search, if others are looking for the same thing, that search or other forms of the phrase will pop up. That will tell you others are searching for the same thing. I didn’t have the luxury of a well populated/searched internet when I was starting the business (“google it” was not in our lexicon yet) so I had to do a lot of asking of friends. The next piece was to test this with disinterested parties: fellow strategy consultants and the investment community. What were the holes and was the idea good enough to fill them or compensate for them. Here’s where numbers matter and I would say be very careful about launching a good idea without a good sense of the numbers. That’s your reality check. So, in the end, it was a balance between maintaining enthusiasm and realistically beating your idea up. At some point, you just decide to go forward or not.

Once I decided to go forward, I called a lot of people to ask on the actual how-to’s to start a business. I used my alumni group, contacts that my work colleagues knew (I was lucky, I worked at a strategy consulting firm and had also worked in M&A at another large company) and called other successful entrepreneurs out of the blue. Most entrepreneurs know how hard this is to do so are happy to share war stories and give you advice. In addition, my alma mater has a great mentoring program for anyone connected to the school who wants to start a business. Many schools will have this now so that is another great resource.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

For filling in a gap, these days there is the internet. But maybe this is the wrong question for a product or service that no one knows they want (Amazon, anyone?).

It would be thrilling to have such an idea and bring it to fruition. Most ideas — even great ideas — exist within a framework where someone has done something similar before. So, I’d say put that aside; it’s irrelevant. But what IS important is to not think that just because you have an idea that it’s a good idea. You have to turn the telescope around. Start with who you think wants what you have to offer, or (as anyone would tell you) what need or desire is being met that isn’t now being met fully. I created a line of apparel…nothing new in that! But what I recognized (with instigating help from enquiring friends) is that back in 2004, our segment had only one recognizable brand with enormous market share. And that brand told a very specific story, that spoke to a very specific demographic. So, I identified the segment(s) that weren’t being served and the needs that weren’t being met. Interestingly, it wasn’t just a product gap, it was the messaging gap that was most glaring — and it’s taken almost two decades but that messaging gap has become well recognized. Today’s women wanted to purchase sleepwear and lingerie for their comfort and their satisfaction, and back then, the primary message they were getting was just the opposite. So, again, I’d say don’t worry about whether an idea has been tried out before, focus on who think your customer is, what you think they’re missing and then test that.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

Oh dear — I am going to be a bit of a disappoint here because I did not file a patent, I had the BEST sourcing contact, and a big part of our idea was to go direct to consumer with what was a nascent channel at the time, the internet. Part of our appeal, at the time, was that we were so exclusive, you couldn’t find us at a retail store! But, steps:

1. Make a storyboard or prototype so you can communicate your idea well enough so you can get to step 2. Have a name for it — but it doesn’t have to be set in stone. But it helps whoever you have to communicate your idea to if you can call it by a name and start planting seeds in other people’s heads.
2. Who will make it — go to trade shows for your particular idea — if it’s food, go to food trade shows. If it’s apparel, go to clothing trade shows. If it’s luggage, go to a travel trade show (or think outside of the box — go to a funeral trade show. Companies that make caskets probably do or can make luggage!) There are trade associations for every manufacturing process, product, and service. Their job is to promote that industry. They will also be happy to help you. And then, there are many online platforms that will help you with this today. Now, I did say I had the BEST sourcing contact. Remember when I said to use your alumni group? It turns out the man who was the pioneer of what we call offshore production also went to my school. I called. He answered. He was invaluable in getting me my first few sources. Once we had the business running, a lot of manufacturers will call because they want to supply you.
3. Get some money to make a few pieces of your idea: if it is a physical good (and not a service), once you have a few, take pictures. These days, it’s all about pictures. If it’s a consumer good, Instagram it. Tiktok it. Etsy it. Facebook it. If it’s an industrial good, get a website right away (if it’s not for consumers and doesn’t have to be transactional, this will be really quick) and put up some pictures and some copy and create a youTube video. You will then have links to point any potential customer, investor, media outlet.
4. Figure out how you will distribute it — if it’s retailers, these same retailers will go to the same trade shows so you can definitely do some networking there. Once you do have product, it is common to set up a booth at a tradeshow to get retailers to pick up your brand. You can parallel track this with a DTC channel on the internet. That means building a website. There are so many off the shelf website building platforms now that are fairly inexpensive and will get you up and running in no time.
5. Get the word out. Advertising is expensive so is your idea one that you can get some conversation going in any of the free channels? So many outlets need content these days — can you interest any of them to write about your idea? If you are doing a tradeshow, many of the tradeshows now have online presences and need to keep their website fresh. Can you get them to highlight your piece(s)?
6. Get more money if you need to do paid advertising. If you have sold any yet, you will have achieved proof of concept (someone will pay for this! Okay, it was my mom, but she valued it… !) Do try to get someone who is not related to you to purchase — that tells a potential investor that they are only giving you gas money. Which gives them more of a chance of recouping or making money on their investment.

I am leaving out all sorts of steps like think about the branding, packaging, how you will service the customer before and after purchase, how you will actually get the item to the customer. All these things are important, but can be done along the way.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

1. Make sure your investors’ vision of your company and how you think you need to grow are aligned. You are the one who has to show up every day and make it happen. It can be like a marriage. Just like you would have the discussion about whether you wanted a children or not with your partner, make sure you have those critical discussions with your investors before you take their money. For example, we had one major investor who’s early goal for us was profitability. Our early goal was growth and then profitability. I think we spent too much precious time early on trying to straddle both goals when we should have been focusing on growth.
2. Carve out time from running your business to continue to “sell” your idea and your passion. Whether that’s to the press or to the investment community or to the trend setters or your customers, you should invest in getting and staying in front of the groups that will expand your idea.
3. Understand the cash flow profile of your business. In our case, inventory is critical; having it in stock, financing it and moving it (converting it back into cash). Each of these plays a great role in how much flexibility you have to operate and to grow. Remember when the crash of 2008 came? We had a lot of inventory come in right before the crash and every time we walked by those boxes, we had an unpleasant reminder that all our cash was sitting in those boxes. If we were going to continue this business, we needed to move those boxes, however we could (yay, flash sale sites!).
4. Hire people smarter than you at the tasks you want to most succeed in. Don’t be afraid of surrounding yourself with successful people. And, the corollary, don’t believe you have to do it all yourself. You will be surprised by how much of your success is the product of other people’s work.
5. It’s not always going to be fun but it shouldn’t be painful. Make sure to build joy into your business and a mission beyond profit into your success. We have created a culture where we all like being at work — we are happy to help each other and fill in for each other when necessary — and this culture comes through for our customers. They often write physical letters to (as well as email) us and leave reviews to how helpful and pleasant our customer service associates are. We even had one customer leave us a singing voicemail!

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

This might seem a bit repetitive:

1. Make sure you have or can create a market.
2. Develop the concept to the point where you can pitch it.
3. Build a case for why it will succeed.
4. Let others in. Let disinterested parties shape your concept and find its weaknesses.
5. If you’ve gotten this far, then try figure out the money; you’ll need the money but don’t bring that question in so early that you stifle your idea.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I’m sure every case is different but I would recommend only going to a development consultant for answers to critical issues that would prevent you from moving forward with your idea. An example in my industry might be sourcing expertise for a particular fabric or manufacturing capability. While we didn’t need help sourcing our manufacturing and fabrics, it would be perfectly reasonable to hire an expert to help you find your way through the many options out there, especially when China and India alone have thousands upon thousands of options.

Other than that, while you’ll never get everything right you should have a deep enough understanding of your idea and how to implement it to rely first on your team, your network and your own resources.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

I don’t think I have much to offer that one wouldn’t get in a textbook on entrepreneurship. What I can tell you is that you have to pay very close attention to financing. In starting Julianna Rae as a direct-to-consumer, internet-based luxury apparel company in 2004, I naively assumed that with access to a global retail market we would only need a very small SOM (ahre-of-market) to grow rapidly. This, along with our having very good margins, led us to the belief that in a relatively short period of time we would be funding growth from operations. What we underestimated is the cost of getting yourself in front of the right people who want your product, and the cost of building a brand that made selling your product that much easier. So, we bootstrapped and then we sought outside capital. We were fortunate that the combination carried us to the point where we are today, a business that can manage its financing through sound operations and treasury functions. But, it’s no surprise that most businesses that fail early in their lifecycle do so because they underestimated their funding requirements. So, if you can fund it yourself, great! But do your homework and be realistic. If giving up a chunk of the company is what you need to see it through, consider it. One piece of pie is better than no pie at all!

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I’m not sure that I have to any great degree. As a company, we probably stop at simply making people happy, often around a special event or around a meaningful time in their lives. Fulfilling a wish or helping make a special moment that much more special isn’t much but we take great pride in it.

Perhaps, from a broader perspective, we did specifically set out to design styles that appealed to an older customer with a more mature body shape and size which we felt most lingerie and sleepwear companies ignored. Some of our early photo shoots used older models that didn’t have model-esque figures and we did not re-touch the photographs. The backlash from potential customers was quick and severe. But that was back in 2004 so we are glad the world has changed quite a bit since then. We did also only use natural fibers and craft products that are meant to last, the virtual antithesis of “fast fashion,” believing that our customer was looking for something to last and keep them happy for a long time. Closer to home, we’ve built and kept a team that enjoys the ride and can participate in the success of the company.

Is that “making the world a better place?” Not for me to decide.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I would like to start a movement that would convince people to lay down their arms, at both the personal and the geopolitical level. There are so many problems to solve but stopping violence or slowing our tendency to resort to violence would do the world…a world of good. I once had the idea of starting with 1 minute. If everyone and every government laid down their weapons, or took their fingers off the button that sends the missle for just one minute, I believe there would be a shared palpable sense of relief that might trigger a move towards 2 minutes, or 5, or … once they feel that relief, wouldn’t they want that feeling always?

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Narrow it down to one… Wow. That is really tough because there are so many interesting people in the world. But, I would love to meet Hilary Clinton. She has been a partner to such a well known, influential person and she is so brilliant and accomplished in her own right, I wonder what she thought her biggest role was at the time of the Clinton presidency and how she navigated between supporting the President, doing what she thought was important to do, and managing the expectations the rest of the world had for her (which almost seemed like an invisible cage). And now, I would love to pick her brain on what she think is her most important project today, what she wants her legacy to be, and what she thinks are the most critical things have to be done (not necessarily by her) right now and not wait.

IG HANDLE: @shopjuliannarae WEBSITE www.juliannarae.com FB HANDLE @ShopJuliannaRae

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Making Something From Nothing: Juli Lee Of JULIANNA RAE On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meet The Disruptors: Lily Chan and Derrick Chen On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Startups are Hard and Messy! Don’t Forget to Take the Time to Enjoy the Journey.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lily Chan and Derrick Chen, Cofounders of Cenports.

Lily Chan is the Chief Revenue Officer and Cofounder of Cenports, having over 17 years of experience in startups with a passion for all things eCommerce. Her extensive eCommerce knowledge comes from first hand experiences in both DTC and B2B companies. She is a 2 times ’40 Under 40’ recipient in the Home Furnishings Industry and formerly the Chief Operating Officer at EuroStyle and Director at ShopLadder, a top 500 online retailer.

Derrick Chen is the CEO of Cenports and has over 20 years of tech and eCommerce experience, including the founding and successful selling of an eCommerce company making over 10 million dollars in annual sales. Derrick understands the challenge of scaling retail sales globally and created Cenports to provide a streamlined solution for all things eCommerce.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Lily : Since the beginning of my career, with all the different roles that I’ve worked in, I noticed a common goal. The goal was always to help people and their businesses uncover their true potential. The ability to continue doing this is what gets me up in the morning.

After I graduated from NYU in 2006, my first job was at an eCommerce company with around 200 websites where we were selling products. My job was to identify potential vendors and to help them to understand the strength in selling their products online instead of only selling on the traditional brick and mortar model. Can you imagine the pushback that I got? There were so many people who thought that this was a joke or were nervous about it.

But I was determined to get vendors to start embracing eCommerce because the world was becoming more digitally connected by the day.

I have this story and it’s one of my favorite moments of my career.

I once met a mattress company that has been doing business since 1873. Old school as they come and had no idea on anything about eCommerce. It took a long time to get them to see the future of retail but I was eventually able to get them to come around to see the potential that eCommerce has for their business. Now even after 16 years, their company has grown significantly and eCommerce has been part of that success. Their CEO continues to share that they would’ve never been able to get into eCommerce if it wasn’t for my help.

From that moment it was obvious to me that this was something huge.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

Lily:

Rewind to the year 2000, eCommerce only accounted for 1% of sales. Fast forward to 2022, eCommerce dominates nearly 20% of sales and is nearing to become a $1 trillion industry. Yes, this massive growth was heavily driven by the pandemic. I appreciate eCommerce leaders like Amazon, online shopping experiences have been streamlined and it almost feels like it’s been ingrained into our daily lives but it’s not just about Amazon anymore. Other retailers are catching on to provide the same convenience and access to the products you love. With all that in mind, a lot of us forget or don’t know about the work that happens behind the scenes to get your purchases to your door.

Now, onto the topic of how Cenports is disrupting the eCommerce industry.

As one can imagine there are 1000’s of decisions that need to be made with just as many touch points to manage. This can be daunting for any entrepreneur that wants to sell their items online. What Cenports has created is the first ever tech driven ecosystem (patent pending) that enables our customers to develop their own eCommerce business from start to finish.

Our software enables seamless Integrations with major retailers like Amazon, Wayfair, and Home Depot. Our team will also work with the business owners to identify their pricing and product strategy to help build success quickly. In addition, we also run our own fulfillment centers.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Derrick:

Here’s a funny story.

During the pandemic, like all of us, we moved over to Zoom to connect with our leads and clients. One day, we had a vendor that was interested in working with us. They were a furniture company that was looking to start their eCommerce journey in the US but there was one problem; their brand name.

I’m not one to judge a book by its cover or to turn anyone down but we had serious concerns about their company name being “Titi Skin” |Ti — Tee|. I remember bringing this up to Lily and she immediately shut it down.

This was a really good experience though. We realized that these types of conversations are necessary, especially for international clients. Some linguistic nuances may not be the same in other cultures.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

Lily:

I love this question! I’m a firm believer that anyone can become a mentor as long as they have the empathy and patience to understand your perspective. A mentor can have a similar experience as you and can also have no idea what your industry is.

Recently one of my mentors, who has owned a very successful cafe in San Francisco for over 30 years, came to me and shared advice that she’d give to her younger self which was to show up everyday and take the small steps to do the work.

I loved this advice because the entrepreneurial journey is tough and sometimes you don’t see the rewards on a day to day but to not give up and to just show up for your team, your clients, and yourself even if it’s in small doses is the key to the journey..

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

Derrick:

Disruption, both negative and positive, feels linear but I think the intention is what defines which camp the disruption resides in. I firmly believe that industry disruptors are the innovators that drive change. In a democratic sense, whether positive or negative, the consumer or people decide on its adoption. Many may fail but as long as the intention is for the better then I’m all for it. The biggest threat to innovation is the fear of challenging the status quo and complacency. What we may know might work but we should always be thinking, “how can we make it better”?

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

Lily / Derrick:

1. Startups are Hard and Messy! Don’t Forget to Take the Time to Enjoy the Journey.

A personal reminder of mine. I often think back to a time where my team and I were working on a massive project that we’ve been planning for months. A bunch of late nights and stress, we were able to pull through but what I remember most is that I was able to experience this challenge together as a team. Now, I look back and know that I wouldn’t trade this journey for anything in the world.

2. “Don’t look at any aspect of your growth as happening in a silo, your eCommerce platform, marketing campaigns, and customer support efforts all need to work in harmony for your online sales to reach their full potential.” — Kathy Kuo

This is actually a quote from a friend of mine and this couldn’t’ be more true. Working in tandem with all activities creates a flywheel that can help build on new momentum.

3. Slow down, give it space.

I used to think that I’m supposed to have it all done yesterday but I’ve learned since, that sometimes decisions are best made with time. Forcing something to happen that might not feel entirely great could cause you not to see the full picture. But instead if you slow it down and write down all the pro’s and con’s and ask for feedback from the other party, that can make an even stronger product or process. My new goal when it comes to work is to create flow as a creator as well as a participant within a team.

4. Unitasking is the key to success.

Especially when it came to building our software, our team needed to stay focused on one feature at a time before jumping to the next. Mullt-taksing is a myth. Giving your full attention on what’s most important.

5. Data, Data, Data

From your business’s financial health to staff performance, measuring the right metrics are key. Understanding and tracking data can help give you clarity.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

Derrick:

So here are some exciting things we’re working on right now.

• Expand into new markets such as Europe. Currently we have a strong focus in the US, Mexico, and Canada markets but we are working to get our footprint growing in Europe with targets on the consumer markets of Germany and the UK.
• Officially launching our app that connects all of our products directly with Shopify websites, can be found here. https://apps.shopify.com/andtribute-for-dropshippers
• For the first time ever, we are starting our fundraising journey and decided to embrace a crowdfunding campaign to let our friends and clients be the first to invest. https://wefunder.com/cenports.commerce.inc

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

Lily:

Good Anxiety

I’m really enjoying this book right now titled Good Anxiety by Dr. Wendy Suzuki and it talks about everyday anxiety and how to become aware of the underlying causes and to reframe anxiety to being a sign for things to look further into.

Derrick:

0 to IPO

What this book taught me is to never give up. This book gave me great insights into the entrepreneurial journey and a glimpse into how tough and lonely it can be. But if there’s one message that I’d like to share with all of you from this book is to never stop asking questions.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Derrick:

“Success is going from failure to failure without the loss of enthusiasm.” — Winston Churchill — I’ve failed a few times but I’ve also succeeded in starting my own company. Even with all the challenges that I’ve faced in starting my own company, it was all knowledge; expensive knowledge but what I learned from the past is invaluable to the success of Cenports.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Lily:

Hmm… Great question!

If I were to start a movement, I want to have people focus more on themselves. Too often we forget to take care of ourselves for the sake of success but self compassion and care is just as important if not more important than making that extra dollar.

For 3 years straight, I became my own guinea pig and bullet journaled in a spreadsheet to understand my thoughts and emotions.

A bullet journal is where you track your own physiological and/or mental health.

This helped me understand when I wasn’t feeling okay and being able to pinpoint things I can do to feel better or at least sit with it. As a partner, entrepreneur, and team player people depend on me and knowing that I’m not always going to feel great and understanding why has given me the chance to get to know myself so I can lead with honesty and care.

I believe that if more of my fellow entrepreneurs took the time to delve deeper into themselves they can uncover gems that can help themselves build companies and teams with honesty and intent.

How can our readers follow you online?

Lily: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lily-chan/ @andmakers

Derrick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derrick-chen-561ba3 / @cenports

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

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Meet The Disruptors: Lily Chan and Derrick Chen On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

When you engage diverse teams, you help prevent blind spots. At GRAV, we are a consumer brand, and we have to be very thoughtful and intentional in our branding. We’ve had numerous instances where a team came up with an idea for a campaign or design, but it wasn’t until we went to the broader team for input that we were able to identify aspects of that idea that were culturally insensitive. This happens all the time with advertising campaigns that really miss the mark. We’ve all seen an ad campaign and turned to the person next to us and asked, “how did that get approved?” The answer is usually a lack of diversity in the approval process.

As a part of our series about “How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Brandon Miranda

CEO of GRAV, the world’s premier weed accessory brand and champion of outlaws and underdogs, Brandon Miranda is a leader and strategist extraordinaire. With roots in both the art and tech startup worlds, Brandon’s blend of creative and analytical thinking, in combination with his business integrity and relaxed demeanor, has enabled him to accelerate GRAV’s growth while keeping the company’s soul intact.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive into the main part of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you share a bit of your “backstory” with us?

I started my career in the arts. I spent half a decade in the music industry working as a sound engineer and producer. I really loved these years, but I found that trying to turn art into business took all the passion away, and I began to fall out of love with the work. I’ve always loved building things, and I was drawn to the tech startup world. I spent a decade rapidly growing and scaling teams at startups. I was fortunate to join companies that experienced hypergrowth, which afforded me tons of experience and upward mobility. I learned a ton about the stages of growth and the operational challenges that come at each stage. After a few successful exits, I decided to leave the world of tech. In parallel, my lifelong friend, David Daily, had founded and built GRAV into a fantastic company with tons of opportunity. As GRAV reached a stage where it could benefit from someone with my experience, Dave and I saw an opportunity for rapid growth without outside investors and on our own terms. And as they say, the rest is history.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us the lesson or take away, you took out of that story?

I wouldn’t say this story is funny, but it was definitely a learning experience. Early in my career I was head of accounts for a high-growth startup. Our CEO was a multi-time founder who already had some successful exits in his career, and I had a lot of faith in him. One day I received an email from our CEO asking for my opinion on what would happen if we “hypothetically” acquired a specific competitor. I replied with all of the details I assumed my CEO wanted — we could stop giving any discounts on pricing, we could stop development on some product features that were only to compete with this company, we could raise prices for new customers, etc. Flash forward about a year, and our company did end up purchasing the competitor. The DOJ launched an investigation to see if this acquisition created any antitrust violations. Saving all the excruciating details, there was a brief period of time when if you googled my name, the top result was a copy of emails between me and my CEO that had been seized and published during the DOJ investigation. We eventually lost the DOJ lawsuit and had to divest the acquisition. The tough lesson I learned was two-fold. First, I learned the importance of the phrase, “should we take this conversation offline?” And second, I learned that no matter who is asking the question or giving instructions, you should always use your own judgment and not assume that folks with more experience know better.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you tell us a story about how that was relevant in your own life?

The quote that guides my life more than any others is “never make a decision based on fear.” We all feel fear. It’s a normal part of life, and it’s not something we should try to avoid. But unless you’re being chased by a bear, letting fear into your decision-making is only going to cloud your judgment. If we don’t do things because we are afraid, then we will never be bold and put ourselves out there. Fortune favors the brave. That doesn’t mean we should be unnecessarily risky. What it means is there is a difference between assessing risk and being afraid. Cus D’Mato, Mike Tyson’s former boxing trainer, once said, “There’s no difference between a hero and a coward in what they feel.” The point being that we all feel fear. It’s what we do with that feeling that matters. I’ve been very fortunate to have experienced a lot of success in my career. I have worked hard and had a lot of great people provide me with opportunities, but I think it was my willingness to take big risks that has led to the most success. I’ve always been willing to put myself out there, to try new things, and to seek out challenges that get me outside my comfort zone.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?

The reality is none of us achieve success on our own. There are dozens of people who have helped and supported me throughout my life. But for me, it all goes back to my dad. My parents split very early in my life, and I was raised by my dad. My dad grew up extremely poor and saw education as a way to escape poverty. My dad didn’t have the means to pay to send me to college. He had trouble keeping a steady job and ended up in bankruptcy the year before I graduated high school. Paying for me to go to college just wasn’t a possibility. So, my dad did research night and day to help me find grants and academic scholarships. I applied for every scholarship we could find that I was eligible for. When I made it to interview rounds, my dad would take off work and drive me to my interviews. In total, I applied to 52 scholarships. The process was grueling, and I was rejected 50 times. But in the end, I was awarded two scholarships. Those two scholarships covered the cost of my education. Not only was I able to get a college degree, but I was able to do so without taking on any student loan debt. It would have been easy for us to give up after I had been rejected a few times — or even a few dozen times. But the lesson my dad taught me in this experience is that the no’s don’t matter. All that mattered was persistence and perseverance to eventually get to a yes. It’s easy to get discouraged or to even want to quit when we come across obstacles, but what I took from my dad is the attitude to keep trying and never give up.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

GRAV is a truly unique company. We have been operating a business that serves the weed community since 2004, and we are based in Texas. We have a rebellious outlaw spirit that attracts people to our company. We celebrate the countercultures that are oppressed and villainized by mainstream culture. Our community is filled with artists, activists, felons, queer and trans people, immigrants, and people who are targeted and villainized simply because they don’t have pale skin. In addition, we are a bootstrapped and profitable company. There is not an owner in the company who is not a current or former employee. This enables us to run the company on our own terms. We can focus on our consumers and making products that people love. While most companies are focused on returning profits to shareholders or hitting the next milestone for their investors, we can prioritize impact and our mission of helping create a just, equitable, and responsible weed space.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

Recently, we collaborated with Gypsy Sport for LAFW, which was an exciting opportunity to unite the fashion and cannabis industries, but more importantly, we got to work with a company dedicated to the same ideals we are: inclusivity, accessibility, diversity, and creativity. Going forward, we have several partnerships and collaborations in development at that intersection of creativity and innovation. Opportunities like this are optimal for spreading our message of inclusivity, and I can’t wait to announce and share the results with everyone.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

When thinking about having an impact on the world, many times our default is to think about the entire world. But there are almost 8 billion people in the world and having an impact at that level is daunting and overwhelming. For me, I think about bringing goodness to the world that is around me. That starts with the employees of GRAV and the friends, family, and loved ones of our employees. It’s important that we pay our people well, that we cover the majority of our employees’ healthcare premiums, that they have generous vacation time, and most importantly that they are able to fit their work to their life instead of their life to their work. Impact is embedded in our company mission, and we focus on impact at the community level. We invest roughly 1% of our top line revenue in impact initiatives. We don’t really spend much of this in donations to non-profit organizations. Instead, we invest in individuals who are personally helping create a more just, equitable, and responsible weed space. Sometimes these are entrepreneurs and small business owners, and other times these are folks who are simply bringing joy to their communities. Most recently, we [fill-in recent support. Maybe DAWA?]

Ok. Thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main part of our interview. This may be obvious to you, but it is not intuitive to many people. Can you articulate to our readers five ways that increased diversity can help a company’s bottom line.

The first thing I think about when it comes to diversity is how it helps with informed decision making. At GRAV, we have a specific process for making decisions at the leadership-level that is designed to take advantage of having a diverse team. We break decision making into two phases: information gathering and making the call. When gathering information, we go broad and wide. We want to hear from as many folks as possible and really understand their perspective as an individual and their perspective in terms of their position within the organization. Instead of having one or two executives make all the decisions, we break this process up and spread it across the company. For each area of the business, there is a workgroup designated to make decisions for that area. If we need to make a decision about pricing for a new product line, the product work group that is responsible for making that call. They will gather input from across the organization, synthesize it, and present it to a team of 3 who will arrive at the final decision. When you make sure everyone has a voice and you spread the decision-making process across the team, you end up with a much more informed and engaged team.

Secondly, when you engage diverse teams, you help prevent blind spots. At GRAV, we are a consumer brand, and we have to be very thoughtful and intentional in our branding. We’ve had numerous instances where a team came up with an idea for a campaign or design, but it wasn’t until we went to the broader team for input that we were able to identify aspects of that idea that were culturally insensitive. This happens all the time with advertising campaigns that really miss the mark. We’ve all seen an ad campaign and turned to the person next to us and asked, “how did that get approved?” The answer is usually a lack of diversity in the approval process.

Attracting diverse talent who are interested in our industry and listening to that talent helps us better understand the diverse landscape of people who engage with weed and cannabis. If we want to be able to speak to the diverse communities that engage with our products, then we have to have those communities represented within our walls and engaged in our decision-making process.

Diversity is important, but you won’t get any of the benefits of diverse teams if you don’t have a company culture that is both equitable and inclusive. The kiss of death for any company is when a new hire joins the team and has to ask themselves, “who do I need to be to be successful at this company?” The moment your new hire is being anything other than their authentic self, all your benefits of having a diverse team go out the door. Unfortunately, this is all too common. The worst position of all is when companies hire diverse talent but don’t have an inclusive culture. The “diverse” hires are going to feel unseen, unheard, and not valued meaning the team is going to have a false sense that it is gathering diverse perspectives when making decisions.

Lastly, I’d like to address the benefits of having a diverse team for leaders themselves — which in turn provides benefits to the company. Too many leaders center themselves as the most important person in their organization. That means one of two things, either they aren’t doing a good job of hiring great people or they’re putting their ego’s needs above the needs of the company. Hiring fantastic people with diverse perspectives and life experiences, it creates a culture that values equity, inclusion, and authenticity that engages people across the company in every level of decision making. The result is an organization that is greater than the sum of its parts. GRAV is not me. It’s not our founder, Dave. It is Micah, Maria, Madi, Red, Nene, Travis, Maximus, and everyone who works here. It is all the communities we come from and all the communities we serve.

I don’t want to give the impression that I or GRAV have it all figured out. Diversity, equity, and inclusion is a process, and we are committed to the process and continuing to challenge ourselves to be better every day.

What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees to thrive?

When I was in the music industry, I used to think my job was to get the best sound out of each artist I was working with. Then one day, I listened to an interview with the famous producer, Rick Rubin. The interviewer asked him to explain the job of a producer. Rick’s answer was that the job of a producer is to help the artist understand who they are and fully express themselves in their art. It completely blew my mind and changed the way I looked at things. I had always thought that as the producer and engineer I had knowledge and experience that I needed to share with the artists — a very similar mentality to most first-time leaders. But that thinking was all wrong and made it about me. The same goes for managing and leading teams. Our job as leaders is to find amazing talent and then help them express who they are in their work. We have to tap into the human in each role of the company and find what makes them great. And we have to train our frontline managers not to be like me when I was a sound engineer and producer. It’s not about getting their team to be more like them. It’s about helping your employees to fully express themselves through their work.

What advice would you give to other business leaders about how to manage a large team?

The larger the team, the more important it is to have clarity of vision and a great leadership team. Clarity of vision is important so everyone across the company knows what is most important right now and how what they do contributes to these goals. This is important in all organizations, but it becomes more and more important as the team grows. The vision comes from the top of the organization and is reinforced by all the leaders and managers. At GRAV, we spend a lot of time with the leadership team making sure we all know how to bring out the greatness in each member of our team. We’re not interested in homogenous, high-producing clones. We want individuals who are working to express themselves through their work. Scaling this in larger teams means putting in the effort to make sure the leaders understand this and know how to put it into practice.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this 🙂

That’s a tough question, but since I already brought him up, I’m going to have to go with Rick Rubin. Rick is a creative force, and it’s hard to find music today that hasn’t been influenced by him. I mean, come on; a sampling of his work includes Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Jay-Z, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nine Inch Nails, Johnny Cash, Lady Gaga, and Wu-Tang Clan. His work is inspiring, but more than that I just love his thoughtful approach to how he works with others.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

I don’t really put a lot of content out there. If you want to check out what I’m working on these days, come check us out at GRAV.com.

Thank you for these excellent insights. We wish you continued success in your great work.

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Brandon Miranda Of Grav On How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Disruption is always painful, and always carries both positive and negative aspects. But do the positive long-term benefits to society outweigh the short-term pain from the distribution itself?

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ricardo Amper, CEO and Founder, Incode Technologies

Ricardo Amper is the founder and CEO of Incode Technologies, started in 2015 in San Francisco with a vision to transform the digital identity marketplace and the ways humans experience their identity journeys. By fueling digital trust in the identity ecosystem, Incode’s cutting-edge identity solutions are solving global security challenges and elevating human interactions with data, products, and services — at all levels.

A big data developer with a passion for technology, Ricardo has over 20 years of experience as a serial entrepreneur and founder of companies across multiple industries. Ricardo currently lives in San Francisco, from where he continues implementing Incode’s vision of One Identity Everywhere to facilitate people’s access to services, contribute to reducing inequalities within societies, and provide freedom, and opportunities for growth while preserving the fundamental right for users to control their identity information.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I started my entrepreneur journey early on. At 19 years old, before Facebook existed, I started a social media network company in Mexico called La Burbuja Networks.

In 2003 I co-founded Amco Foods, a functional beverage startup that was acquired by Bimbo Group, one of the biggest consumer goods companies in the world.

I also served as the CEO & CTO of my family’s business, Amco Group. It was a chemical distribution company that I later repositioned as the “Bloomberg of Aroma Chemicals”. We developed proprietary big data and machine learning systems as a competitive advantage and sold the company to the Brenntag Group.

I moved to the Bay Area in 2015 to start Incode. It began as a photo-sharing company, where we shared photos automatically with facial recognition and eventually pivoted to the identity industry. Today, Incode offers the world’s most advanced and accurate identity verification technology.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

Most of our healthcare data depends on a piece of paper or plastic, that paper ID was an invention of Egyptians 3000 years old. Today, it’s often humans who verify us, but it’s nearly impossible for human beings to see if it’s a fake ID due to bias, fatigue, etc. So, we’re on a mission to eliminate those paper IDs and get verified automatically with AI. We make the verification processes much safer.

We are reinventing the way humans verify and authenticate their identity through a simple, secure, and fast AI-based platform to power a world of trust. We work with different industries such as government, financial, healthcare, travel & hospitality, and retail. We provide companies with innovative identity solutions that help them reduce fraud while providing users with a privacy centric experience.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

My father was my mentor until the day he died. At the age of 13 he introduced me to the business world. I learned a lot by sitting and listening in on every meeting he had. During high school, I worked for my father’s business. One of his greatest lessons was pushing me to trust myself more and to dare to dream big.

Now I have a mentor/coach who is based in Jerusalem. He is an Israeli rabbi, psychologist, and businessman who helps entrepreneurs. He is one of the most impressive people I’ve ever met in my life. Our sessions have made a huge impact, they have helped me align my purpose with my values.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

1. Disruption is always painful, and always carries both positive and negative aspects. But do the positive long-term benefits to society outweigh the short-term pain from the distribution itself?
2. The use of paper and other physical objects to establish identity has certainly withstood the test of time. The paper ID is an invention of Egyptians 3000 years old. Yet the mere perseverance of a way of doing things does not mean that it is the best way of doing things. As we move toward a digital society, is it truly beneficial to continuously verify our identity at every bank, hotel, hospital, and stadium?
3. I believe that society will benefit by implementing one identity everywhere, in which a digital identity can be verified once and authenticated in multiple locations. The distribution from changing from physical, manual systems to digital, automated systems will support better scalability, improved accuracy, and a better protection of individual privacy.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

The book that I’ve found useful is called “Now Discover your Strengths” by Gallup. It’s an outstanding book that teaches you how to succeed using your most powerful talents. In life we are often taught to work on our weaknesses, but Gallup helps you understand why you should focus on your strengths instead.

It is a great business book; you will learn how to manage people with their natural talents and create a strengths-based culture. I’ve learned that the best performers focus on their strengths, which is why at Incode we encourage our employees to focus on their superpowers and strengths rather than their weaknesses.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“The limit is a decision.”
It means two things: First, you decide where your limit is in terms of where you want to go. Second, you decide where your limit is in terms of things you are or aren’t willing to do.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I would be inclined to inspire people to think big, to not limit their dreams, to always strive for more.

How can our readers follow you online?

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amper/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/incode-technologies
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/incodetechnologies/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/incodetech/?hl=en
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/IncodeIdentity

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

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Meet The Disruptors: Ricardo Amper Of Incode On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Make sure you have a great marketing plan. Do your RESEARCH. It’s expensive and most times you’re promised things that don’t come to fruition.

As a part of my series about “Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years” I had the pleasure of interviewing Debra Artt.

Debra Artt, the creator of children’s video game, The Guardians of Peace. Artt is a mother and grandmother that is committed to her family and supporting causes she believes in. Having never previously been involved in the video game industry, Artt took her passion and commitment to love and kindness and channeled that into the idea that took shape as The Guardians of Peace video game for children.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you please tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

About 3 years ago, I was tired of all the violence in this world, particularly the growing number of children using guns in school shootings, and the drug epidemic. Prior to that time, my daughter Jenna had suffered from the depression; I took her to many conventional doctors, and nothing helped. After not seeing progress with overcoming her depression, Jenna turned to meditation and learning about energy healing, and I was able to see firsthand how powerful and effective it could be. She taught our family about Qigong and energy healing so we could use it in our lives as well.

Seeing that change in her was transformative, and I knew I wanted to get this knowledge out into the world. I believed, and still do, that if we teach children how to calm their minds and learn about the energy they possess, they can harness it to grow their inner strength and use those tools to divert behavior that hurts themselves or others. This was how The Guardians of Peace was born.

I felt that video games were a great way to spread that message and get it in front of as many children as possible. I had never been involved in creating video games or the industry, but I jumped in headfirst and worked with other talented individuals to make that dream a reality.

Can you please share with us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

We have been so blessed to have the involvement and support from many people, including many celebrities asking how they can help. I would say the most interesting experience I’ve had since starting on this journey was co-hosting with Dr. Oz on his show in 2021. My daughter Jenna got to be there with me to talk about our journey creating the game, and we were able to share it with Dr. Oz’s audience.

Which principles or philosophies have guided your life? Your career?

I’m always trying to show gratitude for everything in my life. If you’re giving thanks for everything, how can you be angry or upset? I truly believe we are here to learn lessons, to make us better spiritually. I also am sure that we can manifest anything. If you TRULY believe and it’s for the greater good, it will always work.

Ok thank you for that. Let’s now move to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?

My big idea is more than just the game itself, it’s about the idea that we can shift the culture of violence that is impacting our youth and communities, and channel it into something positive. By reaching children through video games and other popular media, we can instill lessons and teach them simple meditations and coping techniques that I believe will change the amount of violence in the world. I also want to teach them about how we are all connected energetically. And with that being the case, how can there be any prejudice when we’re all a big family?

Having that diversity represented in the game was another important element for me that I think stands out. I want the characters in The Guardians of Peace to be mentors and the new superheroes, so children can see that people who look just like them can be leaders and work together to save the world.

How do you think this will change the world?

If I can get the children to start doing these meditation and mindfulness practices at an early age, they’ll be more equipped to handle challenges throughout their lives. And if they’re able to better handle challenges, they won’t need to resort to drugs or violence, or struggle with depression.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this idea that people should think more deeply about?

NONE. I’m never negative. That is why what I manifest is always successful. It’s going to work. Period!

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story?

No. It was just a story that I couldn’t get out of my head. God definitely had his hand in this. It was a message that needed to get out into the world and for some reason I was chosen to make that happen.

What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?

Visibility. If we can get the game in front of children and their families, I know that the game will change lives.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why.

There’s only one. Make sure you have a great marketing plan. Do your RESEARCH. It’s expensive and most times you’re promised things that don’t come to fruition.

Can you share with our readers what you think are the most important “success habits” or “success mindsets”?

Don’t live in fear. If you truly believe, I mean with everything you have it will happen.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Our children are born with all the spiritual knowledge they need, inherently inside them. We make them forget a lot of those natural lessons when they get to school age. We just need them to remember. If we can do that, and they have the skills they need to cope and manage their emotions, there will be a less violence, depression, and drug use. That’s my goal.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

We’re on all the major platforms — Facebook, Instagram. The game can be downloaded through the Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and Xbox platform.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

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The Guardians of Peace: Debra Artt’s Big Idea That Might Change The World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Non-Fungible Tokens: Martin Mobarak On The 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Highly Successful Career In The NFT Industry

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

How to buy, sell and create an NFT and the costs associated with the transactions.

Many have observed that we are at the cusp of an NFT boom. The thing is, it’s so cutting edge, that many people don’t know what it is. What exactly is an NFT and how can one create a lucrative career out of selling them? To address this, as a part of our interview series called “5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Highly Successful Career In The NFT Industry”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Martin Mobarak.

Mr. Mobarak is the CEO and Founder of Frida.NFT, a pioneering and innovative blockchain technology platform reforming the charity industry to increase transparency, donation frequency, and donor incentive.

The wearer of many hats, in addition to founding Frida.NFT, Mr. Mobarak is a public speaker, an accomplished businessman, and a passionate advocate for charities that improve children’s health, fired up by his own personal experience in fighting rare children’s diseases as a parent.

Mr. Mobarak’s vision is to introduce Frida’s work into the metaverse and leverage her powerful likeness to bring together a community of collectors, creators, and art lovers on a mission to merge the traditional art world with the expanding potential of the digital worlds in art and immortalize humanities story.

He is committed to create a unique GFT NFT to help solve the problem charities need to help the less fortunate as well as fight for domestic violence against women, and support parents of children with debilitating diseases. He is a recognized business leader, being named as one of the country’s top CEOs, and philanthropic entrepreneurs by Exeleon Magazine.

Strong believer in conscious-minded leadership, he is active in several cause-based charities, such as the Association of Children with “Crouzon syndrome”, Association for Children with Autism, The Autism Society, National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Ronald McDonald House Charities.

As an art alchemist transforming physical art into digital gold, he supports the Frida Khalo Museum of Coyoacan in Mexico, the Palace of Fine Arts,in Mexico, and the National School of Plastic Arts in Mexico City.

Mr. Martin is an innovator, business leader, financier and a talented entrepreneur recognized for his product and technology innovations, leadership talents, business formulations skills and focus on crypto and NFT investments.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-mobarak-b8b41033/

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

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?

Growing up in a Mexican City, I was someone who was introduced to the works of Frida at an early age. I was fascinated with her paintings and the cultural impact Frida had in extending the history of Mexico.

The legacy of an artist can often be determined by the impact and influence their art holds across generations, across communities, and across geographical boundaries.

Renowned as Mexico’s most popular painter — Frida Kahlo was an example of excellence whose artistry continues to have an impact in our lives and in our society.

Her artistic legacy molds into the form of an incredible biographical narrative in which, using drama and rich symbolism, Frida shares the story of her intimate experiences, her despair, her beliefs, and her values.

As I grew up, my understanding of art expanded and simultaneously my appreciation for Frida’s work and her life beyond.

I grew up in a Lebanese/Mexican household with a strong influence of Lebanese culture. For me, Mexican food, music, and art were a different world altogether. I discovered Mexican culture as I started my high school years.

Through my school trips to cultural sites, I grasped more understanding of the country’s rich history.

I recall my first visit to the Museum of Frida and getting introduced to her artworks. It was a very typical field trip to every school in Mexico. But to me it was extraordinary as I was immediately fascinated with her paintings, like love at first sight, even though I visited the museum several times during my school years, each time was like a first time.

My involvement with arts increased during my high school years, when I signed up for artistic shop classes and plastic arts school.

One of my best friends was a prominent painter, and a teacher in Mexico City in the school of Plastic Arts, which is how I got more serious with art and education myself in the school.

I eventually moved to a different state, pursued college, and started my professional journey. However, I brought my love for admiring and collecting art with me in this journey.

Throughout my professional journey as an entrepreneur and business leader, I have also been a passionate visionary of technology.

I owned one of the first ISP providers in Anchorage Alaska. I was involved in the development of the Internet between 1993–1998. I’ve always been involved in technology.

Moreover, when I was introduced to the burgeoning blockchain technology and Bitcoin in 2009, I became obsessed with the potential of the industry. This led me to start my own cryptocurrency AGCoin, which is a silver-backed crypto.

AGCoin is the first crypto platform to invest in Silver, and it’s the next generation precious metal tokenization model with continuous access to liquidity and availability. Creating a silver-backed tokenomy while tokenizing vault deposits, we have attempted to produce innovative solutions that address customers’ needs but also provide consistent support.

I learned about blockchain through various different conferences in Dubai and the US, while in the last year, I have learnt all about NFTs.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

The only movie that resonated with me was Green Mile. It made me realize , we need to be more aware of our humanity, and things around us. Nothing is as it seems. Incredible story, that made me rethink life, and how we can touch each other’s life. John Coffey is an innocent man accused of raping and killing two girls. He tried to save those girls, but instead he got prisoned and jailed for death row. It is about human suffering , and how we are responsible for each other’s actions. He did not know he had a gift, and he just used it to help others . He uses his gifts only to help others, but not himself. It affected me at a deeper level to understand the ripple effect of our actions.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in this new industry? We’d love to hear it.

I realized the potential of the NFT market and how the technology can be leveraged to bring forth a change in the charity space. This prompted me to introduce Frida.NFT.

Frida.NFT’s vision is to create the bridge between the traditional art world and the expanding potential of Web 3.0. This community-driven initiative has a vision to introduce Frida’s work into the metaverse and leverage her powerful likeness to bring together a community of collectors, creators, and art lovers on a mission to merge the traditional art world with the digital art world’s expanding potential and immortalize humanities story.

Like a Phoenix rising from its ashes, this collection of 10,000 NFT’s represents the rebirth & immortality of a timeless piece by Frida Kahlo “Fantasmones Siniestros or “Massive Sinister Ghosts.”. This piece will be transformed to live eternally in the digital realm.

Valued over $10,000,000, I have decided to take this to be the first perpetual royalty charity initiative.

The mission for me and the team is to create a consistent donation stream to charities, while rewarding the ones who are willing to be a part of this journey.

Each Fantasmones Siniestros NFT grants the holder membership to our exclusive art-driven charity foundation along with a host of ever-evolving benefits including, but not limited to, access to luxurious amenities, unique experiences, and exclusive events around the globe.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?

Giving back to society is an integral part of my value system. My personal experiences with my daughter have given me this unique perspective “It is bigger than me, you, and Frida would have understood it if she was alive.”

During my early years living in Alaska, my first daughter was diagnosed with a rare congenital disease and due to this I had spent countless sleepless nights in the hospital, broken and helpless. This was 30 years ago. And that changed me completely.

I was myself in need of a place to stay, and these financial and logistical difficulties, as well as the broken health system in this country, made me want to take things into my own hands, just like Frida had done. Years later, when I became wealthy, I helped countless patients, their parents whenever I was in the hospitals, this time for my second daughter Elektra (now 11 years old) who was diagnosed with Crouzon Syndrome. Anytime, I see a person in need in the broken health system I had to interfere. Therefore the proceeds from the sale of all the NFTs will go to the Charities that are dear and near to my heart and very important for my family.

I saw a number of other families who were facing this struggle to afford the care they needed. I tried to help them in whatever capacity I possibly could. Along with my daughter’s battle, I prepared myself to combat the broken healthcare system of the country.

While my daughter had surgery after surgery (21 surgeries in total) and recovery of 3 months each time….it was difficult, but I managed, I got help from a loving family and other giving people. There are many families in need of help all the time and not enough resources.

This impacted me to make a bigger difference. Through Frida.NFT, I am dedicated to bringing forth a disruption that contributes to the overall welfare of the industry and the society at large.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When I got into the cryptos I had a big time life changing mistake. When I started investing in silver goal mining, I believed silver and gold would be unbeatable, and I kept investing, and it brought no real money at the beginning. The funny thing is I had the opportunity in silver crypto mining, but I did not. I just did not believe in it back then. But If I did invest in bitcoin, I would have made all the money, more than on the actual physical mining of the gold and silver. I got blinded by it, by the gold. That is in the crypto world. It is a true life story where I had the opportunity. It showed me gold is not what it appears to be..The lesson I learned is “ to believe in your instinct not logic”. Since then, I always believed in my instinct. I was caught up by Blockchain. But on a little later side.

If crypto ever got to the same level of gold, it would be something very valuable, and not believable back then.. And it did.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Yes, I have an amazing mentor who was an amazing pilot, captain and a talented businessman who helped me become who I am today, who believed in me and my potential as an entrepreneur. And that is Mr. Dave Harrison, one of the amazing Flying Tigers that I met by coincidence while I was in South Florida.. Dave was a client of a shop where they fix planes, and where I used to work to help fix planes. One day David landed and told us his plane was broken. He came to the shop I was working at. His plane’s landing gear was broken. It was Sunday, but I told him I could help him fix his plane even if it was Sunday. I took it inside the hangar and fixed it and even painted it, then I called him back to tell him the plane was ready, and he was very impressed by this act. This was the start of our relationship. He took me out to dinner that night, and then he kept coming to the store to have conversations with me. Over a period of 6–7 months, Dave felt he could give me business advice about an opportunity that was near us. An air aviation business was going out of business, he told me and insisted that I buy it. Not only did I not have the money, I was very skeptical and I kept refusing to buy it over. Finally one day I went to talk to the business owner who gave me a tour of his facility, and I realized he was troubled by the debt he incurred. Dave kept insisting and pushing it on me. I kept politely refusing it. Finally one day he introduced me to his financial adviser at Merrill Lynch who was managing his will, and money. His manager’s name was Peter. With Dave’s insistence I had a meeting with Peter who had a half million dollar check ready to be given to me in an envelope. Peter told me even though he researched about me and he does not know anything about me, he trusts Dave’s judgment and he told me to take this money, and consider it at least to please Dave and that I could bring it back anytime. Peter said; “Martin, take the check, buy the business. Mr Harris must have seen something in you and he is almost always right.. You do not need to pay it back. “ He convinced me to really look into that business in detail to buy it. I did go to the place, checked the finances of the bankrupt aviation business, and I also realized it was a good but badly managed business. I went back to Dave with the check in my hand to find out his terms of payment. Dave said:” I expect nothing in return. Just do it”

I ended up buying the business, and I turned it around to be a very profitable business. Later on, 8 years later I sold it to a hedge fund firm in NYC for $4 million. Dave believed in me and he saw something in me that nobody did, including myself. I owe him my career, my success. He was a true mentor and a great person. I am very grateful to have met him.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Yes, we are working on the follow up event of the Frida.NFT. This event follows as a continuation to grow our network of NFT members and to bring additional valuable masterpieces to our collection. I am committed to create a unique NFT to help solve the problem charities need to help the less fortunate as well as fight for domestic violence against women, and support parents of children with debilitating diseases. I am a strong believer in conscious-minded leadership, therefore I am active in several cause-based charities, such as the Association of Children with “Crouzon syndrome”, Association for Children with Autism, The Autism Society, National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Ronald McDonald House Charities.

As an art alchemist transforming physical art into digital gold, our NFT supports the Frida Khalo Museum of Coyoacan in Mexico, the Palace of Fine Arts,in Mexico, and the National School of Plastic Arts in Mexico City.

We will organize more exclusive events to the community we created through the FRIDA.NFT project. It will be exclusive to Frida.NFT holders and will feature a plethora of masterpieces. More incredible paintings are coming soon to the metaverse and shared with the world. We have big plans for the Metaverse and a few big surprises, such as benefit tiers, different rewarding sponsorship levels, and other potential surprises. For that, and also to get a hold of Frida.NFT, you need to go to www.fridanft.org

Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. I’m sure you get this question all the time. But for the benefit of our readers, can you explain in your own words what an NFT is, and why people are spending so much money on them?

An NFT is a non-fungible token, which means that it is an item that is so unique that it can not be interchanged with another item, versus for example a dollar being equally interchangeable with another dollar. This uniqueness gives NFT’s their value. People spend a lot of money on them because they don’t want to miss the boat. In our case, there is no actual “Fantasmones Siniestros” painting by Frida Kahlo anymore. Why? Because I burnt it! Frida herself would have wanted it to do the same, to ultimately help end the suffering of the children and women, she would sacrifice her own painting, I know that. After I burnt it, my team and I converted it into an NFT. That is why people are in line to buy the limited number of NFTs for this piece of art. And this art keeps giving back. It is a gift that keeps giving back to the community.

The NFT industry seems so exciting right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry? If you can, please share a story or example for each.

1. Potential for the technology to be used as unique identifiers for people removing the ability to create false identification documents

2. Gaming/metaverse — using NFT’s as collectibles in video games which can be sold once the player is ready to move on from the game. Currently gamers cannot do so. Example — Axie infinity

3. Art — Artificial intelligence is creating incredible art in the form of NFT’s and transforming art into an NFT like Frida’s immortalizes it and shares it with the world

What are the 3 things that concern you about the industry? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

1. Scams -Due to lack of education, on where to buy , search for the legitimate ones. Public needs to be careful before jumping into any transaction. Just do your homework.

2. Liquidity on the value of an NFT asset

3. Copyright infringement- Nike lawsuit is a good example to that.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about NFTs? Can you explain what you mean?

Just like you listed some of the myths in this article at https://medium.com/coinmonks/top-5-myths-about-nfts-1b91e448ed56

I also believe that “NFT is just too harmful to the environment.” statement is just a myth. Any new technology and innovation can be used to benefit the community, environment and charities. And that is what I am trying to do to kill this myth. FRIDA.NFT ‘s value is on the smart contract that guarantees anytime the NFT is traded it keeps contributing to the charities.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they enter the NFT industry. What can be done to avoid that?

Lack of education, research and believing in the myths created.

How do you think NFTs have the potential to help society in the future?

I personally believe that NFT holds the key in revolutionizing the entire charity industry! Blockchain technologies are the answer, if managed correctly to raise capitals for many industries, why not charitable ventures? It’s a very viable solution for a possible perpetual pipeline of funds, transparent and secure.

Over the last decade, I have collected timeless pieces of history. As the current owner of the paintings, I have a vision of creating perpetual donations to multiple organizations for the needy with royalties from the NFT sale and collection.

My goal is to make an impact by providing donors full transparency of foundation funds, increasing donation frequency through perpetual donations, and dramatically increasing a much larger incentive for the community to donate.

The charity industry has struggled to keep up with the advancements in technology and digitalization, thereby prompting the public to take notice. Inefficient bookkeeping, unpleasant user experiences, and distrusting donors make for an industry that is quickly losing public interest.

Owing to scandals surrounding mismanagement of donors’ gifts and general lack of transparency, public confidence in charity leaders has seen a sharp decline in the last decade.

According to the Give.org Donor Trust Report, 32 percent of respondents trust charities less today than they did five years ago.

Through Frida.NFT, I hope to share the artworks of Frida with the world, instead of holding it in my possession while making a global impact.

Ok, fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Highly Successful Career In The NFT Industry?”

It’s very tough to settle on just 5 in such a growing industry, but if I had to choose it would be:

1. Understand what is an NFT and the underlying blockchain technology.

2. Understand what a smart contract is and how it works.

3. Understanding how to evaluate a quality NFT project.

4. How to buy, sell and create an NFT and the costs associated with the transactions.

5. Understanding the verticals NFT’s can be used in and how (Games, Social media, Metaverse, music, etc.).

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

As a Mexican Native, my vision is to bring the work of Frida Kahlo into the metaverse and bring together a community of collectors, creators, and art lovers.

Frida had an impactful presence in my growing up years. As I learned more about her life of pain and suffering, it impacted me to take notice of her struggles and how she conveyed these emotions through her paintings.

Frida Kahlo lived a tumultuous life to say the least, from Polio, to being told she would never walk again after a terrible bus accident, to marrying a notorious womanizer Diego Rivera, Frida painted her emotions and life until her painful death.

I share her feelings of pain in this material world, and yet, still not giving up helping the needy and trying to fix the broken system. In my case it is the health system and the people that suffer from it.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Michael Jordan. He is a great businessman, and also a great athlete who showed a lot of strength and determination in entrepreneurship, teamplayer. He had no scandal; he is just a correct, and transparent strong figure in society to me.

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!

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Non-Fungible Tokens: Martin Mobarak On The 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Highly Successful… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Non-Fungible Tokens: Jay Kurahashi-Sofue of Marketing at Ava Labs On The 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Highly Successful Career In The NFT Industry

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Start reading and educating yourself on the topic. Whether it’s NFTs or something similar, knowledge will excel your understanding and minimize mistakes in the future.

Many have observed that we are at the cusp of an NFT boom. The thing is, it’s so cutting edge that many people don’t know what it is. What exactly is an NFT and how can one create a lucrative career out of selling them? To address this, as a part of our interview series called “5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Highly Successful Career In The NFT Industry”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Jay Kurahashi-Sofue.

Jay Kurahashi-Sofue is the VP of Marketing at Ava Labs, a Web3 organization building Avalanche. Prior to Ava Labs, he was the Head of Marketing at Fluidity, focused on products like AirSwap and Factora, and also was a strategist at Ogilvy, where he co-founded its first blockchain marketing group. Jay is also the co-founder of BlockMarketers, a virtual and in-person community for marketing executives in the blockchain industry. Outside of Ava Labs, Jay is a photographer, music producer, and angel investor.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?

I grew up in Westchester County in New York (basically moved all around the area). I’m a twin and was really interested in all different types of hobbies and activities: skiing, soccer, tennis, horseback riding, and computer games. The general outcome of all of these things led to me being highly competitive, as well as hyper-interested in all things tech.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

As cliché as it is for a tech person to say this, I really found Aaron Sorkin’s movie The Social Network to be quite profound. Prior to the film, Facebook was one of the most revolutionary products to take over the world–going from 0 to 2.3 billion users in 15 years. Seeing this emotionally provocative film was a pivotal moment in my life as it encouraged me to chase an entrepreneurial, tech-focused career path.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in this new industry? We’d love to hear it.

In 2015, I decided I wanted to work in crypto full-time when my interests started to come closer to my professional career, which was at Ogilvy, a global ad agency. There was a moment when I looked around with the crypto “experts” within the marketing field and noticed that I knew much more about this tech than the others. Of course, this was my opportunity, and I decided to pursue it.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?

Since starting this career, I can think of countless interesting stories–lucky for me, crypto is innately interesting, so I don’t have to try too hard to think about this. A recent story is that the events team at Ava Labs was recently in Seoul, South Korea for Korea Blockchain Week and the Formula E race. When we arrived a few days prior to produce a 2-day event, the worst storm in 100 years hit all of South Korea. A day later, the South Korean government called us saying that unless the flooding waters subsided, we could not go ahead with the event. To make matters worse, North Korea then lifted their dams to relieve flooding pressure from their region, which raised the water levels even more. Although a solution seemed near impossible, the team came together and made it happen with a ton of help from the local community, friends at Formula E, and a little bit of magic.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

One of my biggest mistakes was when I first started and was getting used to running all the different parts of the marketing function. One of the functions I led was the social media capability. I, for some reason, knew what I needed to do to publicize an event and went through with teasing the event through our Twitter. Unfortunately, what I had failed to realize is, unlike my previous endeavors where I was the leader, I actually needed to consult my co-founders about the campaign plans prior to execution. It wasn’t funny so much then, but I look back to it now and definitely laugh. Luckily, I never made the same mistake again.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

“Self-made” is one of my least favorite terms that is mentioned when talking about success stories. To be able to credit just one person is also tricky. I have many people to thank: my family, career mentors, close friends, and team members (past and present). The list is so long it’s hard to mention them all!

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I’m excited about all of Avalanche’s environmentally friendly initiatives such as Bye Bye Plastic, a non-profit organization working towards eliminating single-use plastics from events; the World Economic Forum; and Nori, a Web3-enabled carbon removal marketplace. All of these efforts extend Avalanche’s brand values of being an environmentally friendly company. To bring this to life and actually see its impact beyond the digital space is incredible and inspiring. I hope we can continue to do more here.

Ok, super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. I’m sure you get this question all the time. But for the benefit of our readers, can you explain in your own words what an NFT is, and why people are spending so much money on them?

An NFT is a unique, verifiable digital asset or token. It’s like a file format like GIFs or JPEGs. It’s not just limited to those functions but can do amazing things if used in the right context. For example, NFTs can serve as simple digital collectibles or can help create permanent single sources of truth for important documents like property deeds or contracts. People are spending a lot of money on them because there is currently a lot of mainstream hype around them. This type of hype can happen in any market that is new and exciting for people.

The NFT industry seems so exciting right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry? If you can, please share a story or example for each.

The 3 most exciting things in NFTs are art with NFTs, physical NFTs, and music NFTs. The art world has persisted within the physical world for centuries. What’s interesting about digital art NFTs is that it not only creates a permanent way to store this art, but it also gives it an easier means of trade. Prior to digital art NFTs, it was much more difficult to trade digital art for other digital goods without intermediaries.

With physical NFTs, you’re seeing an emergence of NFTs being used to add utility to physical goods. There’s a company called Legitimate that’s currently working on creating chips that have NFTs embedded within them for high fashion brands. What’s really cool is the underlying utility is that these NFTs can now completely eliminate the counterfeit market. What’s likely going to resonate most with people is the storytelling that can be embedded in these NFTs. When you buy a unique bag, for example, you can scan the chip to see what materials were used to create the bag, stories related to the brand, and any other information you want to include within that NFT.

Music NFTs is the least mature but as a huge music fan, I’m super passionate about trying to leverage NFTs or blockchain tech to revolutionize this industry. The biggest challenge is teaching the everyday music listener, who’s used to listening to music for little to no cost, to buy NFTs for music consumption. Likely, the earliest use cases will be tied to physical collectibles tied to NFTs or limited digital collectibles that resonate most with the musician’s fanbase.

What are the 3 things that concern you about the industry? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

Speculation, greed, and bad user experience are what concern me most. Speculation and greed can be coupled into the same category. Because this technology is often tied to a token, it attracts anyone interested in making money fast. Of course, short-sightedness is not great for the long-term growth of an industry.

User experience relates to how these products are created. Web3 aims to revolutionize how the Web is run from the protocol level all the way up to the application layer. It is extremely complex and to create amazing products with strong user experiences requires an extraordinary team and vision.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about NFTs? Can you explain what you mean?

The easiest “myth” to tackle is the statement that “NFTs are a scam.” An open, rapidly growing market will always have scams but to label the entire category as a scam is a bit closed-minded, if you ask me. As mentioned previously, there are plenty of really cool, impactful innovations with NFTs currently being developed.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they enter the NFT industry? What can be done to avoid that?

The most common mistake is listening to others and taking action without doing any due diligence. Like with any purchase decision, you should always do a little bit of thinking and more importantly, pause, so you can process what you’re interested in doing with the technology.

How do you think NFTs have the potential to help society in the future?

NFTs, like with blockchain, will streamline the need for cumbersome verification processes facilitated by intermediaries. The Lemonade Foundation is currently working on a way to create a direct-to-consumer platform on Avalanche for providing climate insurance to farmers. Because there are no intermediaries, more of the value goes to the farmer and is done in the most efficient way possible.

Ok, fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Highly Successful Career In The NFT Industry?”

The first piece of advice is to start reading and educating yourself on the topic. Whether it’s NFTs or something similar, knowledge will excel your understanding and minimize mistakes in the future.

The second is to start using products like NFT marketplaces, physical NFT chips, etc. You may make mistakes at this stage, but that’s perfectly ok. Using the products means you will begin to learn and form your own opinions about what works and what doesn’t.

The third is to network as aggressively as possible. You’ll need friends along this journey and finding a brain trust of those who can validate or give constructive feedback to your hypotheses is important.

The fourth is to be ahead of the curve. If you feel like you’re an “expert” at NFTs, think again. Oftentimes, a brand-new innovation will likely start to emerge. You should start to create frameworks and narratives in your head to model out potential future outcomes.

The fifth is to have fun with it. The “crypto rabbit hole” is ever-growing, and if you’re not having fun, then what’s the point of doing all of this?

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I would love to continue to aspire to share positivity and a mentality focused on connecting with and helping others as much as possible. If everyone is able to empathize with their neighbor and lend a helping hand here and there, the world would be a much better place.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

One meal I would’ve loved to share was with Anthony Bourdain, an incredibly talented human who touched millions of lives with his love for food.

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!

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Non-Fungible Tokens: Jay Kurahashi-Sofue of Marketing at Ava Labs On The 5 Things You Need To Know… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meet The Disruptors: Tim McConnehey Of IZZARD INK PUBLISHING On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Trust — Without trust, people, relationships, and businesses crumble. Inaccurate information could cause disastrous decisions to be made based on false information. Always tell the truth.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tim McConnehey.

Tim McConnehey has developed Izzard Ink Publishing from a spark of an idea into one of the fastest-growing media companies in the U.S., selling over one million books and developing tech solutions to reshape the industry. Recognized as an international publishing expert, Tim has been featured in Forbes, Inc., MarketWatch, Parade, Dow Jones, Medium, on Fox News Radio, and in other national and international publications. McConnehey draws on a deep background in business, including extensive experience in fintech, business management, and business development, as well as the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program and the 26-month Owners/Presidents Management Program at Harvard Business School.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

In 2010 while working at a fintech company, I read an article in the Wall Street Journal about eBooks. I thought, “I could publish a few eBooks.” I learned about an author who had passed away, and their family asked me to publish new eBook versions of some of his books. We started seeing sales immediately; one title sold a few hundred a week. The fintech company began to downsize, and rumors spread about retiring the product I was working on. On the next round of layoffs, I got the call. What felt like thousands of job applications later, I figured the universe was sending me a message, so I founded and focused solely on Izzard Ink.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

The traditional publishing model is broken, and small publishers are struggling due to operational inefficiencies and adapting to new technology. Izzard Ink’s all-digital platform is structured to embrace technology such as applied A.I., cloud and edge computing, industrialized machine learning, and others. We are building the tech foundation for the future of publishing by working to improve the author’s content, making serious, quality publishing available for more authors.

We help authors build their publishing teams utilizing experienced, top talent from the major publishing houses. With the support of Izzard Ink, first-time author Susan Read, worked with one of the editors who worked on The Hunger Games. Her book Mermaid Tears received great reviews and a coveted Book of the Year award. Susan built her team and owns 100% of the copyright of her story, which is now distributed around the globe.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When I first started, I was testing the idea that getting the best book covers meant working with the best designers. I felt fortunate when I found a designer that claimed to have worked on a cover for a bestselling Star Wars book and the award-winning cover for The Silence of the Lambs. I thought we were dealing with a book cover savant. We engaged him for a couple of our projects. Within a few hours of submitting our cover materials, we received some cover concepts. The color palettes were along the lines of those found in a newborn’s diaper or vomit. Art is subjective, so I figured I was off-trend and discounted my thoughts. We submitted the book cover for various design awards and to bookstore buyers. The feedback was a resounding pass; no awards or shelf space was given because the covers made everyone “queasy.” We learned that we need to vet not only cover designers, but editors and the rest of our publishing team. Today, we only work with the best and develop ongoing relationships with them.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

Many of my mentors have come from business organizations. I’ve learned just as much in these programs from the participants as from the teachers/professors. I learn from fellow business leaders facing similar issues as myself, which has been key to my growth. It was like finding a tribe and going to war to improve your business. I wanted to know if my business was a real business or a hobby business. I returned to the university I graduated from and spoke with Karin Palle. Karin introduced me to the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program. Their modules on processes, finances, legal, negations, marketing, and others gave me the confidence to continue to believe in myself. They helped me imagine what publishing could look like in the future.

Since graduation, the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Voices program has allowed me to share my voice with top elected officials about the needs of my business and our industry. The organization has arranged meetings with my congressional representative and U.S. senators. I even got to shake actor Ryan Reynolds’s hand and hear his views on small businesses — he has a keen business mind.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

Amazon Kindle and others deeply disrupted the publishing world by removing just about every financial and bureaucratic barrier to publishing a book. Anyone can upload a manuscript as a Word document; now, two million books are published yearly. However, content quality has not yet materialized to make it a truly disruptive change. Most authors don’t know the three editing phases, developmental, line/copy editing, and proofreading. They don’t understand how the three different areas will affect their manuscripts. They tend to think they can do every step themselves and still expect a quality final product that can compete — but the vast majority just get lost in a marketplace that’s now crowded with amateur-quality books.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

Humility — Be humble. There are eight billion people in this world, and we can learn something from each of them.

Curiosity — Keep experimenting and learning the hows and the whys.

Creativity — Never stop dreaming and thinking of ways to make a difference.

Collaborative — If you want the best result, learn how to handle feedback and lift others to build the best team.

Trust — Without trust, people, relationships, and businesses crumble. Inaccurate information could cause disastrous decisions to be made based on false information. Always tell the truth.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

Book publishing is ripe to be disrupted and brought into the digital age. We are on the verge of having publishing technology that can help every author tell their story better.

At Izzard Ink, we’re working with machine learning and artificial intelligence to help our editors better evaluate manuscripts. Our team has completed proof of concepts in A.I. analysis for genre categorization, readability, manuscript summary, sentiment analysis, keywords extraction, and stylometry. Authors need to embrace technology — much like doctors have when trying to diagnose cancer and other ailments. Technology improves outcomes. Like doctors, authors need to trust the new technology but still verify it by working with editors and other experts — do not follow A.I. findings blindly. Artificial intelligence will not replace authors and editors, but it’s a tool that will help them tell a better story.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

How Will You Measure Your Life? Don’t Reserve Your Best Business for Your Career, by Clayton M. Christensen, published in the July-August 2010 edition of the Harvard Business Review.

Izzard Ink identifies authors with great potential, and we surround them with the best team to realize their potential. The end goal is not only to publish a book but help the author develop their writing skills and personal growth as a writer, helping make them better communicators.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Think like a scientist, not a perfectionist.

So often, I’ve tried to do things perfectly the first time. It causes too much discouragement — so instead, think like a scientist, using the scientific method in business and testing new ideas and innovations.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Understand the importance of owning your intellectual property. Don’t give any part of it away, especially to a company that has not worked as hard as you.

Embrace having another tool to help you create. In the next 3–5 years, there are going to be some technological advances that will help authors create much better content. These technological advances will not replace authors but will support authors and editors. Work to elevate your content and enhance your skills as a writer.

How can our readers follow you online?

Follow Izzard Ink Publishing on Izzardink.com, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

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Meet The Disruptors: Tim McConnehey Of IZZARD INK PUBLISHING On The Five Things You Need To Shake… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Data-Driven Work Cultures: Marcio Silveira Of e-Core On How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take Your Company To The Next Level

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Companies seeking to truly gain an edge by leveraging data must also utilize an information technology service management (ITSM) platform for customer interfacing activities and analyze interactions data to identify pain points and opportunities to improve efficiency. E-core is recognized by Atlassian — one of the world’s most prestigious software companies — as a Specialized Partner for ITSM, and we have immense experience implementing integrated ITSM solutions.

As part of our series about “How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take Your Company To The Next Level”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Marcio Silveira.

Marcio Silveira is the Co-founder and CEO at e-Core, an information technology consulting firm headquartered in Brazil with offices in New York and Mexico. ​e-Core​ is​ one of the technology industry’s most trusted partners for helping customers around the globe unlock the value of tech​ ​investment​s. ​

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Starting from a young age, I’ve always been driven by an entrepreneurial spirit. At age 13, I entered the business world in Brazil helping my mother sell Cuia (traditional cups for Brazil’s beloved Chimarrão Yerba Mate drink), dishware, and nutritional diet shakes. Working side by side with my mother taught me some key lessons about developing lasting relationships by understanding customer’s perspectives and being responsive to their needs. These lessons would stick with me throughout my career. At age 18, I started my first company, Colors, an express printing business. At a time when printers were less commonly accessible, my company served as the ‘go-to’ for business cards, logos, folders and menus for local merchants, retailers and restaurants, providing my first real exposure to running a tech-focused B2B business. At age 21, I landed a dream job, as a contractor to the international company Hewlett Packard, where I learned to train companies to become fluent in the latest software technologies. After rising through the ranks, I was inspired to launch e-Core with a couple of like-minded colleagues who were also interested in helping clients unlock the value of tech investments and creating a people-centric work culture that challenges its employees and provides opportunities for growth. We began as a three-person software training company, and in 23 years, we’ve evolved into a multinational tech leader with more than 650 highly trained professionals supporting 270 customers in countries spanning Latin America, North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

While I’ve had plenty of missteps along the way that I’ve learned from, maybe the funniest memory from starting out dates back to when I was accompanying my mother on a sales meeting with a “big-fish” client. We had to wait two hours before being ushered into a fancy office, and as I took my seat, I noticed the chair was missing a leg. I didn’t let it distract me or interfere with my mother’s pitch. When she finished, her client said from behind his desk that he would buy from us not only because he was interested in our products, but because I hadn’t complained about being seated in a three-legged chair! That lesson taught me when you’re faced with obstacles in business — no matter how small or large — it’s crucial to remain focused and resilient.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl chronicles one prisoner’s devastating experiences in a concentration camp during World War II who, despite his heartbreaking circumstances, manages to develop a unique brand of psychotherapy based upon purpose and positivity. While his perspectives reflect an extreme form of hardship, we all face adversity in life and in business, and the book’s lessons can be meaningfully applied in many capacities. It is also regarded as one of the most influential works of the last century.

Are you working on any new, exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

The power of education can unlock so many doors, especially in disadvantaged and underserved communities. At e-Core, we’ve heavily invested in our STEM programs and established impactful activities that have supported more than 5,000 students gain STEM-focused education. This is particularly impactful because the technology industry pays more than 2.7x Brazil’s average national income. It’s a game changer for that individual student that can make lasting positive change for generations, and ultimately improve the society at-large. At e-Core, we’ve hired some of these impressive students in full-time positions, donated to scholarship funds, and we regularly encourage our employees to volunteer as mentors so that they can give back to the community and teach their expertise in tech to the next generation of industry pros. Personally, I also play the role of Chairman of the Board at a leading international school in Brazil, an opportunity for me to help our community to inspire new generations of global, life-long learners.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about empowering organizations to be more “data-driven.” For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what exactly it means to be data-driven? On a practical level, what does it look like to use data to make decisions?

At e-Core, we strive to ensure data is used in every capacity to drive decision-making. In selecting and unlocking the value of software to set your business up for success, data is an essential diagnostic tool equivalent to an X-Ray before surgery. It provides invaluable insights that are key to understanding why things are happening at every level of your business from sales to marketing, to talent acquisition and employee engagement. Data can be analyzed, tweaked and ultimately leveraged to reduce costs, speed turnaround times and improve overall customer satisfaction. Immersive data that powers artificial intelligence also helps businesses get an edge on competition by developing sophisticated algorithms to anticipate needs and automate key processes that generate individualized experiences for each customer.

Which companies can most benefit from tools that empower data collaboration?

Companies that have significant employee counts and large customer bases generate the most abundant data. Any sector from banking and finance to healthcare and insurance, higher education, retail and e-commerce can most benefit from tools that power data collaboration.

We’d love to hear about your experiences using data to drive decisions. In your experience, how has data analytics and data collaboration helped improve operations, processes, and customer experiences? We’d love to hear some stories if possible.

Leveraging data is one of the single most powerful tools for diagnosing pain points in any large-scale business, and can play a key role in reducing costs, improving operations and generating new sales.

Has the shift towards becoming more data-driven been challenging for some teams or organizations from your vantage point? What are the challenges? How can organizations solve these challenges?

Of course, every company wants to do things better and faster than they are currently able to. But companies on the precipice of accelerating their growth through data and technology must wade into it with a high-level of curiosity and flexibility in order to truly harness its power. Executing on experiments based upon assumptions in the data often takes time and trial and error before innovations can stimulate ironclad benefits to your business.

Ok. Thank you. Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are “Five Ways a Company Can Effectively Leverage Data to Take It To The Next Level”? Please share a story or an example for each.

To effectively leverage data, companies must modernize applications and migrate to a unified cloud platform such as Google Cloud Computing or Amazon AWS that supports advanced data analysis, search, and business intelligence capabilities. Cloud application migration and modernization are important enabling factors in any digital transformation and have been essential components of business innovation over the last decade. As a Google Cloud Specialization Partner in Application Development — the highest technical designation a partner can reach — we have a demonstrated track record of consistently driving our clients toward success.

One example stems from our work with Matterhorn — a long-time client involved in the multibillion-dollar merger and acquisitions market — in developing a proprietary database and search engine to deliver the deal-changing information Matterhorn’s clients depend on. Rich in legal and financial expertise, but not IT, Matterhorn hired e-Core in 2011 to build the digital tech behind its product idea. The e-Core/Matterhorn partnership continues to this, nearly a dozen years after starting on this venture. e-Core provided backend, frontend and UX designs, automated the deployment process, and created a robust and lightning quick database storing pertinent credit and loan documents for all U.S.-based borrower transactions. The e-Core tool provides hundreds of valuable data points for each transaction, supporting Matterhorn clients in discovering nuanced market trends while deep diving into rich data sources for every unique deal.

Companies seeking to truly gain an edge by leveraging data must also utilize an information technology service management (ITSM) platform for customer interfacing activities and analyze interactions data to identify pain points and opportunities to improve efficiency. E-core is recognized by Atlassian — one of the world’s most prestigious software companies — as a Specialized Partner for ITSM, and we have immense experience implementing integrated ITSM solutions.

In one heart-racing client example, we had to decommission a client’s antiquated ITSM tool in less than 40 days, without impacting internal and external customers. Under budget and on schedule, we developed an impressive ITSM tool involving Incident, Problem and Change Management flows and processes, and by taking advantage of Automation for Jira, we were able to streamline several processes and schedule automated ticket creation for recurrent outlines and activities. This had a significant impact on our client’s operations and performance, and enabled them to take operations to the next level with ease and confidence.

Companies that can integrate spreadsheets and planning data from different tools into a centralized business intelligence platform also have an enormous leg up. These types of leading-edge capabilities allow C-Suite executives to better analyze operations, control costs, integrate new technologies and scale operations. At e-Core, we practice what we preach to clients and we’ve leveraged integration between HubSpot CRM, an ERP system, Google Spreadsheets, Atlassian, and Jira, and integrated those with Tableau dashboards and reports across all key areas of the organization for improved data visibility to inform and guide all of our most critical decisions.

The name of this series is “Data-Driven Work Cultures”. Changing a culture is hard. What would you suggest is needed to change a work culture to become more Data Driven?

Data driven digital transformations can be challenging for any company from the mid-level to enterprise size. People are naturally comfortable doing things the way they’ve always been done and can be resistant to change. This type of hesitancy is common but can be a time-consuming obstacle for the organization. As business leaders, we must set the stage for success and instill in our colleagues the values of being nimble, avoiding complacency and steering clear of barriers that can jeopardize our companies’ vitality and future growth.

The future of work has recently become very fluid. Based on your experience, how do you think the needs for data will evolve and change over the next five years?

Amid unprecedented turbulence provoked by the pandemic, forward-thinking business leaders must take stock of the quickly evolving workforce trends and create a sustainable hybrid model of remote and in-person work. As the environment around us changes more and more, our ability to adapt will be put to the test. To protect our values and our culture, as well as to maintain high levels of performance and trust among coworkers, e-Core established five fundamental principles to guide our company into the future of work.

Hybrid and adaptable

Adopting hybrid work models means having the flexibility to adapt to remote or in-person work based on the context and needs of each team.

Strong culture everywhere

No matter where our team members are, we believe that employees and customers need to live and breathe our culture. We rely on good management practices, genuine values, procedures, and cutting-edge tools to build a strong culture everywhere.

Equal opportunities for everyone

We understand that working remotely or in person doesn’t make anyone better or in a position to deliver more. We have the mindset and the culture to promote fair treatment at work. Here, opportunities will not be restricted to those who work in our offices.

Work-life balance

We are a team that seeks to find a balance between professional and personal life, maintaining high levels of productivity.

Asynchronous communication

It’s true that communication is becoming increasingly asynchronous in remote work environments. Although it comes with greater flexibility, fewer interruptions, and higher productivity, we realize there are potential difficulties and take care to minimize them.

Does your organization have any exciting goals for the near future? What challenges will you need to tackle to reach them? How do you think data analytics can best help you to achieve these goals?

e-Core has established a path of 40% year over year growth, and we’re building on that progress by acquiring new data-focused businesses, including some in the U.S. We’re utilizing advanced data technology to help us identify possible businesses that will be instrumental to expanding e-Core’s global reach, and we’ll form collaborative, integrated businesses with those we admire and we choose to partner with.

How can our readers further follow your work?

Stay up to date with e-Core’s latest updates, news and insights by following us on LinkedIn.

https://www.linkedin.com/company/e-core/

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!

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Data-Driven Work Cultures: Marcio Silveira Of e-Core On How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

“My better is better than your better.”

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Troy Gallo, Director of Brand Strategy at Braintrust.

Troy Gallo has worked with leading brands and agencies across the nation for nearly twenty years. As an industry powerhouse, he creates the organic foundation of a brand identity that unites how brands are perceived both internally and externally. In a time where brands struggle to breakout, Gallo continues to innovate for brands to breakthrough.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Well, I was born and raised in Las Vegas, that’s where my story begins. As I kid, I really wanted to play professional football, so after high school, I accepted a partial scholarship and went down to play in Arizona. After three years of bouncing from school to school and facing multiple doses of reality, I realized that the gridiron wasn’t in the cards for me. I came back home to Las Vegas and finished my degree at UNLV. That’s where I met my favorite professor, Sonny Mathias.

Professor Mathias was the lead copywriter at DDB in his heyday and worked directly with advertising legend, Bill Bernbach. I remember how mesmerized I was by Sonny’s passion for the industry, he really painted a picture about creation that was fun and inspiring. Not to mention, he thought I was a good writer and had natural skill in the art of advertising. That vote of confidence stayed with me and helped steer me to finally find the career direction that until then had evaded me. That led to my degree; which led to my first internship; which led to my first job in Los Angeles at Wongdoody. That’s where I fell in love with advertising.

I love that Wongdoody is where this amazing career path of mine began (shoutout to Tracy Wong and Pat Doody). I worked on a myriad of brands and got firsthand knowledge of what it takes to execute at a high level. It was an agency where creation and ideation were encouraged, so even though I was in account management, it wasn’t long before I was helping to concept and develop ideas with creative leaders. I was incredibly lucky to learn directly from directors, experienced advertising executives, and even the owners themselves. They helped me understand the industry and learn the difference between the forest and the trees.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

My job is to create organic, multi-purpose brand identities for my clients. That doesn’t just mean a new logo, tagline, or a marketing campaign, it means spearheading a foundational shift of the company. That’s rare for someone working at an advertising agency in Las Vegas to specialize in. My work is focused on looking beyond our client’s data and research to discover what I call the “Human Truth” — our instinctual responses to life — and then incorporate those findings into their internal and external communications. My work unites strategies and impacts how brands communicate with their customers and their employees.

I believe that the best brands can connect with anyone, whether or not they’re a customer. Those are the brands that I want to build, brands that go beyond their products and have the flexibility to react to every evolution their company may encounter. What I’m really trying to do is to redefine Brand Strategy in Las Vegas. I want companies from across the country to know that there’s strategic thinking coming out of my city and that my agency can dissect and develop brands with the best of them.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

It happened during my first year at Wongdoody. I was working on five accounts at once and was not sleeping well at home. One day on a call with a client, I dozed off right there in my chair in front of my supervisor and my director. It was maybe only 10 seconds, but long enough for them both to notice. I still get embarrassed thinking about it to this day.

That instance taught me a very valuable lesson — that everything you do matters. It may have been a simple mishap, but it could have easily set a precedent that wasn’t at all true. Was I lazy? No. Did I care about my job? Of course, I did. But if someone heard that story in the wrong context, they could have made an opposite assumption. So, I learned then and there to always be in control of what I do, in order to best control the narrative about me. Another lesson I learned from this — go to bed earlier.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

There are two people who come to mind when I think about my personal and professional mentors. The first is my mother, Debra Gallo. She worked so hard to keep my sister and I happy and safe at a time when she was enduring a lot of physical and emotional pain. She was committed to giving us a life free from struggle and her relentless drive is what empowered me growing up. Professionally, she was the definition of a leader. She has an uncanny ability to cut right through the noise and find the right solution to the problem at hand. As an accomplished lobbyist for Southwest Gas, she’s known for fighting for her bills and caring deeply about her causes. That’s exactly where I get it from.

Second is one of my first account directors, Chris Bruyere. He and I worked together on multiple accounts, and I was able to directly learn how to think beyond the brief and infuse the brand into the work. I also feel that Chris saved my career. When I started, I was a deer in headlights and couldn’t keep up with the pace of the account I was working on. I was struggling, confused, and I’m pretty sure I was about to be let go. But then Chris pulled me onto his accounts and took me under his wing. He showed me how to apply my skills and style to the job, how to see the bigger picture, and how to work out my kinks. I owe so much to him and I am forever grateful. He’s currently leading the brand creative department at Nike, my favorite brand, so I’m also jealous.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

Apple is the best example of true, utter disruption. When they launch a new product, they consistently reset the bar and re-engage their customers with new campaign messaging, new user features, and new innovations to keep their customers chasing after their brand. Cryptocurrency is currently trying to do that with our financial systems, a structure that has 100% withstood the test of time. But that’s the thing about disruption, it requires consistency. It’s not a one-time action; it’s a constant commitment to change shared between those trying to create the change and those wanting to adopt it. And both are necessary to create real disruption.

When an industry or a practice is truly disrupted, it’s altered forever. Netflix didn’t just improve how we watch movies and TV shows at home, they reformatted the way we do it. Disrupting something is like causing an earthquake on purpose to rebuild the entire landscape and reset the guidelines. Is that a good thing? Not for those that succeeded in that landscape and thrived with those guidelines (see Blockbuster). That’s why I don’t think disruption should be measure by good or bad, but instead by impactful/not impactful. Change happens every day but it’s only when that change is felt that it becomes disruption. I mean, Taco Bell can make breakfast all they want but until there is an impact felt in the market or by customers, there is no disruption felt. So, if you’re hoping to really shake things up, you need to do it in a big way that hasn’t been done before.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

• “My better is better than your better.” — Nike Sparq Training Commercial (2008)
• This advice wasn’t given to me, but I love it. In my opinion, it’s one of the best lines ever written in advertising. It’s a simple phrase that’s incredibly inspiring to those with a competitive drive, and it’s something that speaks right to the heart of mine. It reminds me that if I give my best effort, I’m hard to beat. Since my job requires me to put my best ideas forward, whether it’s for new business or a new campaign ideation, I need to keep my belief in myself high in order to deliver my best work.
• “You’re not good enough to throw your clubs.” — Course Golf Pro
• I was golfing in L.A. with my boss, another co-worker, and an older golf pro from the course. On one of the holes, I hit three terrible shots back-to-back-to-back and just chucked my club about 40 yards in frustration after the last one. The golf pro walks up to me slowly and whispers those words of advice to me. They really stuck with me and serve as a smart reminder that put things in perspective. I’m not a professional golfer, so why am I mad? It also showed me that if you care enough about something to get mad about it, then you should put in the work to be good at it.
• If you stay ready, you ain’t gotta get ready.” — DJ Quik
• This is from a song I heard a lot as a kid and it’s a quote that I still use. If you’re prepared, you don’t have to waste time getting prepared. It’s a good reminder to stay sharp and to keep adding more knowledge and insight to my professional arsenal. Think ahead and plan for the things that could possibly come your way.
• “Don’t try and ‘outsuit’ the room.” — Michael Bryce
• This was told to me by my creative director at Deutsch L.A. after I presented a campaign to a client. He pulled me aside in the hallway and he saw that I was really putting on for the client and not being myself. He gave me a lot of good advice, but this quote made an impression and reminds me that I don’t need to be anyone but myself.
• “I don’t get it.” — Josh Baskin (Tom Hanks) in the movie BIG
• This is from the scene where Josh, a 12-year-old boy, finds himself in meeting filled with executives talking about new toys. After hearing a forgettable pitch about a new toy, Josh just raises his hand and states that same line repeatedly. It disrupts the meeting and makes it a little awkward in the room but by explaining what he doesn’t understand, he ends up sparking a conversation that leads to a new, better idea about the toy that everyone loves. That directly applies to what I do in my job — poking around like a curious kid until I find something that feels real and believable within a brand. Maybe I am Josh Baskin…?

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

I want to bring my style of ideation and brand strategy to businesses, big or small, across the country. Every company should have a strong brand that drives everything they do, and I want to a sought-after source for this process that’s known for locating and articulating that soul for any brand put in front of me. I want to evolve how businesses see their customers and their employees through strategic thought that simplifies and strengthens what they stand for. My plan is to become a “Brand Whisperer” that gets them to look within and discover original solutions to their communication problems.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

Absolutely. The book is David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcom Gladwell. It’s a collection of true tales about taking a different look at what an “advantage” really is and finding smarter ways to approach a problem. The bible tale of David vs. Goliath is the primary example of this point. David is remembered as the underdog in that tale but in reality, he had the advantage. He defeated his giant because of his mobility, his tactics, and his strategy, and the book shares many examples of how what seems to be isn’t always what is and how the less likely situation is just as likely to come to fruition. So often we come across challenges that seem insurmountable and we allow them to have this foreboding presence in our minds. This book drives home that if we change our thinking and adjust our perspectives, we can find new and innovative ways to conquer our giants and even change the status quo.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Don’t forget to look up.”

I worked in New York for just under 16 months. Not a lot of time but New York gets you fast. During my time there I remember talking to someone on the subway about how I was new to the city, and he gave me that advice. I’m sure he was just telling to check out the cool buildings and architecture of New York, but the words spoke to me. They help me remember to take a breath and appreciate every moment of life, even small moments like looking up at the sky. It’s been something that keeps me grounded and focused on what’s significant in my life.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

World hunger. People are dying from a lack of food and that’s just stupid to me. I want to inspire a movement that encourages the world to help ensure that no one ever dies from starvation. I’m currently working on a grassroots fundraising campaign to help impact this cause and stop that number of deaths from growing. One dollar at a time. One person at a time. Whatever it takes. I know it’s the hardest problem there is, but if we all commit, I believe it can be done.

How can our readers follow you online?

@Troy_Gallo on Twitter and @officiallytroygallo on IG.

They can also go to troygallo.com to check out what I’ve been up to ☺

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

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Meet The Disruptors: Troy Gallo of BRAINTRUST On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meet The Disruptors: Daniel Hafid Of Daniel Alain On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Build slowly to set your foundation strong. Avoid failure from trying to be too big, too quick. It’s essential to figure out the formula, then scale up from there.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Daniel Alain Hafid.

Entrepreneurism runs deep within Daniel Alain Hafid, whose father, René, was the renowned Parisian hair stylist and creator of René of Paris Wigs — the epitome of fashionable, synthetic wigs in the 80’s and 90’s.

Working alongside his father for 30 years, Daniel learned the detailed craftsmanship of making extraordinary alternative hair solutions for women. He also gained empathy towards women’s emotional connection to their hair and the undeniable truth — whether maximizing the health and beauty of their natural hair or wearing added hair, women undeniably desire extraordinary hair.

A visionary, not content with the look and feel of synthetic hair, Daniel set out to create his own legacy, pouring his heart and soul into fashioning the world’s most beautifully crafted human hair wigs and hair pieces. Daniel launched Follea® International in 2004, setting the highest standard for exclusive 100% European human hair alternative hair solutions. Today Follea holds the reputation as the epitome of luxury, added hair.

The success of Follea and impact his luxury human hair pieces had on women with alopecia or those affected by hair loss from chemotherapy propelled Daniel’s sense of purpose in a new direction — helping women throughout all stages of life attain beautiful hair with an emphasis on hair thinning and hair loss solutions. Daniel invested heavily into research and development in the areas of hair loss diagnosis, treatment response and preventative care.

In 2018, after years of investing and working with leading academics, dermatologists and scientists at the forefront of hair loss research, Daniel brought to market the first and only clinically-proven and patented hair loss technology designed to reduce excessive hair shedding and control hair loss. The science of INTACT provides a proven treatment to take preventative measures against hair loss by retaining and protecting hair.

Today, Daniel is at the helm of Daniel Alain championing women’s hair wellness and hair loss solutions through assiduous research and development projects. Daniel’s passion for beautiful hair and inherent understanding of how hair makes women feel continues to push innovation, artistry, craftsmanship and unmatched quality throughout his portfolio of DA 360 products.

Daniel has touched the lives of many and ardently continues his pursuit to help transform women’s lives by providing exceptional beauty solutions for extraordinary hair no matter where she is in her journey.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

It’s a bit in my blood, but I took the concept further. My father was a hairdresser who became prolific in the 60’s working with high fashion women’s wigs as the Creative Director of Fashion Tress. He later started working with synthetic wigs and founded René of Paris. I started working alongside my father when I was 19 and learned the business from the ground up. Unfortunately, I hated synthetic wigs — I thought they didn’t look natural or glam enough and didn’t do the woman justice. I left the industry when we sold to the Japanese company Aderan’s. Years later, a friend of mine was working making extensions in Hollywood for big name celebrities and sought my help. Long story short, I ended up with a suitcase of 10K and headed to China to nail down the manufacturing at scale. I built the company from 3 employees, to 10, to 600 — along the way finessing all aspects of working with human hair for extensions and wigs. I built an OEM business and eventually expanded to making high quality European human hair wigs under my own brand FOLLEA — sourcing the best hair across Europe and creating processes to maintain consistent, efficient, premium product output. I had a devastating event at the factory with a fire and we lost just about everything. Fortunately, not the hair! We rebuilt stronger, leaner and survived, but the lesson I learned was the need to diversify. That’s when I started to heavily invest in R&D for hair loss in women which led me to where the company stands today as a 360 solution to hair loss.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

Hair loss is a hard and complex topic for most men and women. For many years, there has been little to no new developments in the category. It’s really been quite stagnant. Daniel Alain is changing the landscape and disrupting how to approach the very common issue of losing your hair. Our new hair loss diagnostics offer piece of mind whereas before there was a lot of unknowns and trial and error. We are taking away the guesswork and going personal — introducing tests that are based off your DNA and unique chemistry to determine the best course of treatment to hold onto more hair and get ahead of the problem sooner.

As an example,

There is only one FDA-approved treatment for hair loss in women — Minoxidil — but most people don’t know that it does not work for everyone. The Minoxidil Response Test takes the guessing out of the equation. Our research on Minoxidil is disruptive in the sense that we are educating women to make choices based on their personal chemistry. Don’t blindly take Minoxidil and play the “wait and see” game. Find out if it is likely to work for you, then make choices on a treatment plan that will yield results.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

Three come immediately to mind. My German grandfather was the CEO of Hella, a high-performance vehicle lighting company with a strong heritage of success and perseverance. I used to spend summers in Germany and was highly influenced by his strong work ethic, love of process and running the factory. My French father had a love of life — he faced each day with a smile, positivity, and sense of humor. He had a natural way to make women feel special and beautiful. Lastly Jack Welch — although not a personal mentor. I’m a lifetime learner and I love reading books. His book Winning highly influenced my approach in building my factory and my team, and many of his core philosophies have influenced my personal approach to life.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

Reminds me a bit of the “if isn’t broken, don’t fix it” but that’s far from my philosophy in life. I believe there is always room for improvement and to try for the best. Simply being content with “the way things are” in my opinion does not allow for advances in life — be it new technologies, new therapies, new approaches to make things more efficient, perform better and at a higher level. I am a believer in striving to be number 1 or number 2 in everything in life, or don’t do it. Before DA, there was no European wig products produced at larger scale but still a with luxury craftmanship core. The product on the market was incredibly inferior, fake-looking, “wiggy” and did not do a women justice to walk down the street feeling her best, confident and beautiful. I set out to change that, developing a completely new manufacturing process that had never been imagined before. The result is our hair pieces look and feel so natural they are virtually undetectable and for that, we change women’s lives.

From a business owner perspective, to be disruptive — which oftentimes means to be first to market — comes along with an enormous investment of time and money. It takes patience to go little by little to perfect things, then it typically takes a lot of money to educate and build awareness. That’s if you are looking for the long play and not being a one-time sensation.

All in all, I believe disruption is positive and leads to evolution, which ultimately benefits society.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

1. Diversify your company — don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
2. Build people up and create a family. This creates loyalty and leads to success for the entire team — everyone prospers.
3. Be true and genuine. This attracts the right people, builds a strong foundation and leads to having a strong team that feels secure and shares ideas. From there comes innovation.
4. Give back to society. People will be drawn to the positive things you do. Provide education, give to the community, make your workplace positive. This gives you a strong support of people who will ultimately be there for you in a time of need.
5. Build slowly to set your foundation strong. Avoid failure from trying to be too big, too quick. It’s essential to figure out the formula, then scale up from there.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

Hair loss takes an immense emotional toll on people. It can happen at any age, and often it’s a result of health issues. It is a stressful experience and overwhelming to figure out. Even though hair loss can be managed, or hair can grow back after health issues are overcome, hair loss makes a big impact on confidence and happiness. My mission over the past 10 years with expanding my portfolio of offerings is to provide clinically-proven, patented and first-to-market solutions to help men and women at any stage of their hair loss, and to provide trusted, truthful and unbiased education along the way. Combining science and beauty with a true 360 approach in the category of hair loss has never been done and no one is in a better position to make it happen. We have solutions from the early stage of diagnostics all the way to the last stages of needing/choosing to wear a wig. It’s exciting what we are set out to accomplish.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

Winning by Jack Welch. Be number 1 or number 2 in everything you do, if you can’t you…don’t do it.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Always have a “Plan A, B and C in Life”. Although I learned this the hard way when my factory burned down, it taught me the importance of preparing for anything with multiple, well thought out back-up plans. In all aspects of life, prepare yourself if things go left or right unexpectedly. This lets you think on your toes and builds self-confidence knowing you can navigate uncertainty and change without skipping a beat. Even if Plan A or B goes out from underneath you — you still have Plan C.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I’ve been fortunate in my life and career to have an incredible team around me — but that was not by happenstance. Early in building my company, I was guided by a personal philosophy to build people up. When I started the factory, the workers were coming into the city from the countryside. Most were alone and away from family, not educated — could not even write their name. I built a school, a bright and cheerful dormitory, a best-in-class canteen with an amazing chefs. We had movie nights, took the team on trips, many perks to make them feel happy and secure and that their experiences were building them up as people and contributing individuals. After close to 24 years, I have over 130 employees still with me from the very start of the company. We are a family. Building people up has a ripple effect. It can start small, but over time it builds a community, gives back to society. It also makes you — the individual helping to build people up — a stronger, better person because of the loyalty and positivity that is given back and reflects on you. It’s an incredible feeling.

How can our readers follow you online?

Instagram: @follea

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

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Meet The Disruptors: Daniel Hafid Of Daniel Alain On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Instead of spending an inordinate amount of time working on your weaknesses, doubling down on your strengths will probably yield a higher return. Your strengths are generally based on natural talents and strengths or things you love doing so you invest a lot of time. If you focus on your strengths, life will be a lot more enjoyable. Your weaknesses are someone else’s strengths so leave those things for them to do.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jill Johnson.

Jill Johnson is a nationally-recognized thought leader and trailblazer working to foster an inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem for people from historically excluded populations. Jill co-founded the Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership (IFEL) in 2002 and serves as the Chief Executive Officer for the nonprofit organization. IFEL leverages the power of relationship capital to create pathways to success for Black and Latinx founders, entrepreneurs, and small business owners. Jill is a member of the Women’s Forum of New York, the Women Business Collaborative, and Harvard Alumni Entrepreneurs. She serves on the board of the Horizon Foundation for New Jersey and is a member of the America250 Innovation, Science & Entrepreneurship Advisory Council. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in economics from Harvard University.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I would say the foundation for my IFEL journey began in my teens. For over 20 years, my parents had a newspaper publishing business. This was my introduction to small business ownership up close and personal. My siblings and I were in the office working on different aspects of the company, allowing me to see a small business’s inner workings. There was a lot of upside and glamour to my parents being business owners. They owned a newspaper, and with that came clout, access to important people, and a say in issues that mattered to the community they served. However, I also observed the real issues that business owners face — cash flow challenges, production disruptions, employee management, and long working hours. One of their publications was the Minority Business Journal of NY/NJ, so we had many discussions about business issues around the dinner table. While I grew up relatively comfortably, I learned the value of hard work and sacrifice, as well as how to be an advocate for those unable to advocate for themselves.

Following college, I started my career in the financial analyst program at Goldman Sachs in mergers and acquisitions. It was there that I saw a very different side of business ownership. It was a world where capital and resources were plentiful and allowed entrepreneurs to scale up their businesses. In that world, the goal was an exit and our work included helping entrepreneurs extract the value that they had created which led to generational wealth for their families. In all the years that I had worked with my parents, I had never heard of exiting as an objective. Their expressed vision, similar to that of their peer black business owners, was to pass the business on to the children.

Following my time at Goldman, I worked with my parents again for several years before jumping into the dot com boom scene to write business plans for people raising money. In this world, I observed who was able to raise money with relative ease and who had difficulty. While the tech landscape was new territory, the common thread for black entrepreneurs was capital constraint. I continued writing business plans and doing general consulting work for several years, always wondering what it would take to get more black business owners on the path to wealth creation through entrepreneurship.

Sadly, when my parents decided they no longer wanted the daily grind of running the newspaper after 20 years, they shut it down — no sale, no family legacy, no wealth creation. My father, still passionate about minority business, continued his involvement as an advocate for the black business community. As we continued to discuss the issues, the concept of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership was born.

I would say that IFEL was his vision and I was the one who operationalized it. My father and I worked together for a few years before his retirement at which time I became CEO. He always talked about the power of what’s possible; keeping that in front of me is what has allowed IFEL to move forward in our mission to tackle the most pressing black business issue of our time, access to capital.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

IFEL’s entire mission is about disrupting the status quo when it comes to the lack of inclusion in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. From a purely economic standpoint, it just doesn’t make any sense that investors are forgoing opportunities for returns and profit through the continued systemic exclusion of whole groups of innovators. While the data continues to reinforce that diversity delivers results, people in positions of power and control continue to exclude. Our disruption is forcing a lot of people to come to grips with why the data is being ignored while creating a pathway to change for those who are genuinely interested in inclusion. We have spent too many years talking about the problem of access to capital. I want the result of our work to be that in 20 years, it isn’t something that we discuss in the same way.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Funny enough, during my early days I did not realize that you were supposed to raise money for a non-profit by asking friends, family, and associates to donate. In the African-American community, generally, people are used to contributing to their church, school fundraisers for their kids, youth sports teams, and the like…things that impact them on a personal level. I learned that I had to make the ask of people who are used to writing checks and I had to put in the work to expand our circle of people involved in charitable giving. After 20 years, I now realize that as a nonprofit leader, asking for money is mostly what I’m supposed to do.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

I don’t have a mentor. I have a circle of go-to people I lean on for different issues and from whom I get advice in different situations, but I don’t have a mentor as such. I would consider my parents to be the most impactful people in my life as far as establishing my foundation for both visionary thinking and operational practicality. In my parents’ business, my mother was the practitioner who worked hard and got things done. She taught me to put in the work to produce the highest quality. She is very creative so I also learned how to deliver in a way that stands out. My father has always been a visionary. He always looked at the possibilities, never being limited by what you see right in front of you. His focus was always on what things could look like. My father was also a great connector, he earned people’s trust, and he valued relationships. As a result of my parents’ influence, my vision for the future stems from my focus on possibilities. My superpower is in connecting the dots to move from vision to reality in a way that is creative yet practical. It’s this approach that enables our organization to deliver unique value to our stakeholders. I have my parents to thank.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

I think disruption is good by definition. The only way an industry can be disrupted is if enough people find value in and adopt the new solution leading to a fundamental change in how we do things. If there is the ability to disrupt, then it means that something is not working and needs to be disrupted. In that disruption, there will always be people who lose or are not happy. Generally, they are the ones who most benefit from the status quo. Change is inevitable, so you can either see the change coming and prepare to ride the wave or let the wave drown you. Companies that are creating models around the sharing economy are prime examples. Since the launch of Uber, WeWork, and Airbnb, more people have been able to move about more freely because of disruption to the status quo. We may not like it when disruption causes us to learn new skills, change our behaviors, or divide our pie with others; but yes, disruption is good.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

• Listen more than you speak.

I’m a bit introverted by nature so it’s tough for me to walk into networking events and just start blabbing away. My natural comfort has always been in asking questions. What I have learned is that by asking questions, you put others at ease and give them the license to talk about themselves, which many people like to do. When you learn about others, you are better equipped to drive the direction of the follow-up and ultimately how the relationship develops.

• Focus on your strengths.

Instead of spending an inordinate amount of time working on your weaknesses, doubling down on your strengths will probably yield a higher return. Your strengths are generally based on natural talents and strengths or things you love doing so you invest a lot of time. If you focus on your strengths, life will be a lot more enjoyable. Your weaknesses are someone else’s strengths so leave those things for them to do.

• Surround yourself with people who can do the job better than you.

If you stick with your strengths, it means there is room for others to do what they do best. If you love big-picture work, you need people who love figuring out the details around you. You might love to cook, but hate to clean up. (I would be happy to clean up in exchange for a great meal because I hate to cook.) If you match your yin to another’s yang, you get superior capabilities that would not have been possible on your own.

• Find the opportunity in everything.

How many times do you hear everything happens for a reason or find the silver lining? It’s absolutely true! The challenge to you is to figure out what the reason is. So often we are focused on bad things that happen, that we don’t keep our eyes open for new opportunities. Following a split with a business partner some years ago that put my business in a precarious position financially, I could have become depressed and thrown in the towel. Instead, I used it as an opportunity to reflect and pivot. I emerged stronger and more clear about my vision and purpose. And, today our organization is in the strongest position it’s been in 20 years and I enjoy the work that we do. The breakup was what we needed to push us to pursue bigger opportunities to take our work to another level which has happened. We only got to this point by being open to the opportunity that arose out of a bad situation.

• Act fearlessly.

There was a time when I was invited to play golf with a few other people. I have taken a few lessons but would not categorize myself as a golfer by any stretch. I was comfortable with the situation; however because at least one person was less of a golfer than me and the other two people self-proclaimed that they were awful. Well two days before our date, two people canceled. The person who invited us had his assistant call to ask if I still wanted to play. Let me set the scene, this person was the owner of a sports team and we were playing at his club. For a split second, I was ready to say “no.” Truth be told I was fearful of the embarrassment I was sure would follow on the course. Well, in a split second, I pulled it together and said “yes” realizing that this was an opportunity to have his ear for several hours alone uninterrupted. The day was great. It was like having a private lesson and I did a lot better than I thought. (I did hit 180 balls at the driving range the night before to ensure that I could just get off the tee.) The icing on the cake is that we were able to talk about a business opportunity for one of our clients which led to a collaboration between his group and our client in a coffee house venture. Our golf outing is a shared experience that binds us. I was fearful for sure, but in acting fearlessly I was able to make the most of the situation.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

Through this journey, I’ve found myself more confident in my voice and ability to speak my truth and act on my purpose. All roads along my journey continue to lead to access to capital as a central theme. I am determined to use my energy, talents, and connections to create pathways to capital access that do not currently exist for Black entrepreneurs. Continuing to talk about the problem is inadequate and unacceptable. I won’t be done until we get to solutions.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking?

Good to Great by Jim Collins

4-day Work Week by Tim Ferris

Born a Crime by Trevor Noah

Color Brave, TED Talk by Mellody Hobson

Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

Recently, a college friend told me that she had never met a Black family or individual that made a substantial living from owning a business until we met in 1990. Because my parents interacted with many other black business owners, I never thought of owning a business as out of the ordinary. It was just the path that some people chose or were forced to explore by way of limited career advancement opportunities. My parents had peers in both categories.

When my friend revealed this to me after knowing her for nearly 30 years, I was shocked and saddened. Having a business that is successful enough to earn a living shouldn’t be a rarity in the black community. I felt even more saddened when I thought about the fact that with as successful as my parents had been with their business, they were not able to extract value from the business when they wanted to retire. They simply shut the business down, as is the case with far too many black-owned businesses.

This story resonates with me because it speaks to the reason that I am passionate about the work that I do today. The black community is losing wealth with each business that doesn’t achieve an exit or pass on to the next generation. People are starting businesses, yet no assets are being accumulated and no wealth is being created. This has to change, and I am committed to helping more black business owners understand the options for wealth creation through entrepreneurship.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Everything happens for a reason…while there is a lot in life that is a manifestation of our efforts, there is a lot that we can’t explain or anticipate. Because it is out of our control, there is no use worrying about it. As one of my sons always says, “I can only control what I can control.” Throughout my life, I’ve tried to be very honest with myself about the cause of my successes and failures. Did I prepare the way that I needed to? Did I put in 200 percent effort? Did I plan adequately? Many times in evaluating a failure, my answer was no. Even then, you have to learn, let it go, and move on. Dwelling “in” the problem isn’t productive. When you can say that you did everything you could have done and the outcome isn’t what you wanted, maybe it’s an opportunity to pivot and go in a different direction. In every situation, I think about what I am supposed to take away from the situation. If you use failures and disappointments as learning experiences, you will always come out ahead.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Lucky for me that the work that I do every day is inspiring a movement to remove systemic barriers to entrepreneurial wealth creation for black entrepreneurs. The lack of inclusion in the entrepreneurial ecosystems is something that I have observed throughout my life. My career path has given me a unique lens through which to view access to capital issues at both micro and macro levels. While the issues are complex, at a basic level, inclusion starts with more people knowing more people on a personal level who are different from them. This leads to understanding, empathy, and mutual respect. Our movement starts there. If each person takes action to do this, I believe we will see the needle move.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

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Meet The Disruptors: Jill Johnson Of IFEL On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Be open and transparent: consumers are increasingly skeptical in this day and age. Creating a believable brand means lifting the curtains and take your customers on a journey behind the scenes. By admitting your customers into the creation stage, they would not only feel more involved in the production but also feel a greater pull towards the product. Being open to answering questions and communicating also shows your audience that the company has nothing to hide, therefore, building a stronger sense of trust.

As part of our series about how to create a trusted, believable, and beloved brand, I had the pleasure to interview Xindi Soh.

Xindi Soh is the founder and CEO of By Xindi, a studio offering a complete brand identity and messaging transformation. She prides herself on balancing creativity and data in creating a brand and messaging strategy that helps her clients build their brand authority and increase their profit through organic marketing. She’s taken her clients to multiple 5-figures months by helping them create brands that their target audience trusts and resonates with.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Absolutely! Growing up in a tiny town, I was surrounded by entrepreneurs who broke generational poverty and built a business purely out of their own wit. Despite their successful businesses, the majority of the population were not formally educated so going to a reputable university and joining corporate was always seen as ‘the way out’ or a symbol of success in our society. That was exactly the path I took. I was part of the first generation in my family to experience life across the world. I was also fortunate enough to not only attend one of the top universities in the world but also start employment in one of the top financial services companies in the world. I was living the dream life.

Although I learned major lessons in corporate and had great experiences that will stay with me for the rest of my life, I can’t help but feel a certain itch for more. I started learning about copywriting and thought it would be a cool side hustle. From there, my curiosity led me to learn all about brand strategy and digital marketing. Before I know it, I’m deep in this business thing and I’ve not looked back since!

Can you share a story about the funniest marketing mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

My mistake — which turned out to be funny in hindsight — is my dancing reels. I’m itching to delete everything! When I first started my business, I did not think about my brand strategy and was blindly following all the trends out there promising me more growth and follower. So, I was projecting an image of me that did not feel like me at all, nor was it an image I envisioned for my brand. I was dancing and acting all sassy and goofy because that was what everyone was doing. It’s funny in hindsight and I gained two big lessons from that mistake — going viral is not a strategy and instead of jumping on what everyone is doing, my focus should be on evergreen messaging instead.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

I believe what makes my company stand out is the core values I infuse my business with. Core values is a term that’s often thrown around in the industry without a full understanding of it. We’ve all heard business coaches and thought leaders highlight the importance of identifying your core values. But what comes out of that is people picking random adjectives that they think would be nice to base their business on. ‘Freedom’ and ‘Respect’ are two popular ones. Instead, I believe that your core values are not values you choose but rather, values that came out of your life experiences.

Therefore, what makes my company stand out to my target audience is the values that I’ve distilled from my life that they can relate to. I often get messages from people saying they choose to work with me because they resonate with my past and my story. They choose to work with me because the way I bring my life experiences into my business evoked an emotional response in them because it reminded them of their own.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I’m currently working on building a brand and messaging strategy for a power couple. They are individually highly successful in their industry and have decided to join forces in creating an intimate mastermind for entrepreneurs ready to expand their impact. The program they are launching aims to help entrepreneurs tap into their inner self in order to discover their deepest desire and remove any fear or mental obstacles that stops them from reaching their goals.

I think this is a fantastic program because as entrepreneurs, we often focus on the external — what’s the best business model? The best strategy? Although those are so important, we can only go so far without working on our internal self as well. Mindset, fears, limiting beliefs are all subconscious sandbags weighing us down if we do not acknowledge them.

Ok let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)? Can you explain?

So, the easiest way of thinking about it is that product marketing focuses on influencing perceptions of a single product while brand marketing focuses on influencing what people think of the company that sells that product. An example of product marketing is showing consumers how powerful yet portable the iPad Mini is while brand marketing would show consumers how Apple as a company advocates for style, simplicity and innovation.

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?

One of the biggest misconception business owners have is to that their priority should be marketing and advertising. Understandably so, as these activities have strong links to sales and profit. However, I believe that building a brand should be our number focus as your brand determines the direction of your marketing, advertising and more.

With the amount of competition in the market, consumers are getting increasingly savvy and so, having an amazing product is no longer enough to stand out. Instead, you should build a brand that shows consumers that your business exists for a reason bigger than making profit. As Simon Sinek so famously said, ‘Consumers Do Not Buy What You Do, They Buy Why You Do It’. The goal of a brand is to construct an intangible asset that captures your vision, story and purpose that moves your audience into taking actions. It is a crucial step in earning trust and commitment from the consumers.

Can you share 5 strategies that a company should be doing to build a trusted and believable brand? Please tell us a story or example for each.

1. Reflect on your deeper ‘why’ and build your strategy around that. Consumers want an emotional connection. Having a rock solid foundation grounded in the emotional trigger that inspired you to start your business immediately infuse your company with a higher purpose. This shows your consumers that your focus is beyond profit-making and that you care about making an impact.
2. Tell stories that showcases your core values: now that you’ve identified your deeper ‘why’, it’s time to show the world what you stand for as a brand. Statistics and research are great at building authority, but nothing captures consumers’ attention than the thing we’re hardwire for — stories. Our brains love patterns and stories are easily digestible and recognisable patterns. Finding meaning in stories come naturally to humans. Consumers buy with emotions and justifies with logic. By telling stories, you’re reaching beyond consumers’ logical thinking and into their emotional decision making.
3. Be open and transparent: consumers are increasingly skeptical in this day and age. Creating a believable brand means lifting the curtains and take your customers on a journey behind the scenes. By admitting your customers into the creation stage, they would not only feel more involved in the production but also feel a greater pull towards the product. Being open to answering questions and communicating also shows your audience that the company has nothing to hide, therefore, building a stronger sense of trust.
4. Create trustworthy brand persona: this is a crucial step in building a trusted and believable brand. Building a brand persona injects human characteristics and personality into your company that makes your consumers feel like they’re not dealing with just another faceless entity. Building a brand persona would involve deciding who your brand would be as a human being. Is your brand a fun and witty jester? Or are you a suave and confident ruler? This human side of your brand imbues your customers with an innate sense of confidence that they don’t get when dealing with the rise of large corporate in the last few decades.
5. Stay true to your brand: as a company matures, it’s natural to see changes that comes with growth, whether that’s in the brand attributes or products. As the company expand and evolve, it’s important not to lose sight of the company’s purpose or the deeper ‘why’ when it comes to fostering company culture or brainstorming marketing campaigns.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job building a believable and beloved brand. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

As basic as this example is, I’m constantly amazed by the mass impact Apple has with every launch of their product. Apple’s brand stemmed from their desire to challenge the status quo, to be different. This implies that their brand persona links to the artists and the rebels. And yet, their buyers are made up of people from all walks of life — from a corporate executive who abide by strict rules to a budding artist who seeks to challenge conventions. How do they do it? By understanding their audience to the core and telling stories that evokes the side of them that resonates with the Apple brand. They have built a brand that not only calls innovation and style to mind but also one that inspires their audience to be changemakers. These are all qualities that their audience would love to be associated with. Another sign of Apple’s effective branding? They’ve created a whole group of anti-iOS, Android gang. This is evidence that they stay true to their ‘why’ by taking a stand. They are not afraid of losing sales by staying true to who they are. By taking a stand, you’ll inevitably get opposition but those who stand with you, will be committed to the core.

In advertising, one generally measures success by the number of sales. How does one measure the success of a brand building campaign? Is it similar, is it different?

Measuring the success of brand building campaign is tricky. This is because your brand is an intangible asset associated with how people think of you which is difficult to gain an accurate measurement. Building a brand is also a prolonged process as it requires strict consistency in order to have the message sink into your consumers’ consciousness. On the other hand, advertising directly translates to purchases and sales which can be easily tracked. Having said that, there are some indirect ways of measuring the effectiveness of your brand campaign:

1. Track your social media performance: look at the shift in your analytics. How are people engaging with you? Are they leaving more emotional comments or DMs or are they just sticking to likes? Bearing in mind that emotions aren’t always heavy, it could be something as simple as laughing emojis. Another way to check the efficacy is by looking at how much website traffic is coming from your social media platforms. Lastly, don’t forget other metrics like follower counts, quality of followers (are they your target audience) and how much your content is being shared.
2. Market research: Host a market research and ask people what they think of your brand and what do they associate your brand with. This is helpful as we want to make sure that the message we’re sending as a company is accurately received on the consumers’ end. Asking open ended questions like these can help you deduce what the market thinks of your brand and whether this is a direction your company would like to lean into.

What role does social media play in your branding efforts?

One of the most major roles. To me, social media is one of the best and most accessible way to build a brand. Gone are the days where you have to hire an expensive branding agency and take out a newspaper ad to reach your audience. With social media, your audience is not only a lot easier to reach, but it also brings them closer to us by allowing them to interact with us on an intimate level. Social media is such a great way to open up the doors and show consumers what goes on behind the scenes. It is also a fantastic way to invite consumers into our journey of growth and evolution. I seriously recommend every business be on at least one social media platform if they are serious about building a sustainable brand.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I would create a movement that normalises entrepreneurship as a ‘career’ choice. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not for everybody. But I’ve seen way too many people being miserable in different career paths when they’re born to be entrepreneurs. Just because they think being an entrepreneur means you have to have a ground-breaking business idea and loads of capital to back it up. I think the world would be a better place when more people embark on a path that fits their natural strength, and entrepreneurship is one that many people overlooks.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

‘I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. It’s my time and I’m ready for the next step’ — Denise Duffield-Thomas.

With everything in life, it can be frustrating waiting for your efforts to reach an outcome. With businesses especially, we’re often faced with so many choices and decisions. As entrepreneurs, we obviously want to make the best decisions for our companies so it’s easy to spiral into analysis paralysis at every crossroad. When the decisions did not pan out as we hoped, or when we’re in situations where we are not seeing results just yet, we tend to fall into the trap of comparing ourselves to others who are more successful or criticise ourselves for not doing more. I believe that no matter what happens, beating ourselves up is not going to solve anything. Easier said than done of course. But that’s why I love this quote. It releases me from the negative thoughts and gives me a sense of calm that allows me to forge on with greater wisdom from the lesson learnt.

We are blessed that very prominent leaders in business and entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you would like to have a lunch or breakfast with? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂

I can never say no to Gary Vee. I love how genuine he is and how he’s seriously trying to help others achieve their dreams. He does a great job striking the balance between tough love advice and empathy in the struggles of people he interact with. I truly believe he’s inspiring big changes in the way people think about life and how they actually want to live it. I feel blessed to live in a world where technology gives us access to the wisdom of people like Gary Vee that change the way we approach happiness and fulfilment, and break generational beliefs that might be holding us back.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Instagram: @byxindi

Email: [email protected]

Website: byxindi.com

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

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Xindi Soh Of By Xindi On Five Things You Need To Build A Trusted And Beloved Brand was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Brand Makeovers: Selena Navarro Of AntiDesign On The 5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize Your Brand and Image

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Learning and strategizing for your audience is hard work, but it impacts everything your company does. Once you have defined your brand values, story, and goals you need to be able to effectively communicate it to your customers. Understanding your audience provides insights into unmet needs, as well as a thorough knowledge of the environment in which your product/service is sold. You need to uncover how they think, what they want, and their lingo. Figure this out, and you’ll be able to match their expectations and desires. This allows a business to better develop their product/service offering and selling strategy to meet their audience’s demands.

As a part of our series about “Brand Makeovers” I had the pleasure to interview Selena Navarro.

Selena Navarro is the founder and owner of AntiDesign, a creative studio that specializes in brand strategy, visual identity, and intuitive websites.

Being a mixed Asian-American woman, Selena has a passion for making space for BIPOC-owned small businesses, nonprofits, creatives, boutiques, celebrities, and organizations that promote culture and empowerment. With her experience in these fields, she founded ANTIDESIGN in 2020, a boutique creative collective specializing in a client base of entrepreneurs, small businesses, and community organizations in the arts, culture, and social movement.

Her approach to branding, design, and communication is firmly based on the Emotional Design school of thought, which advocates that humans come to understand the world primarily through perceptions and emotions. In a commercial context, this means that customers primarily want to be enchanted with the promise of a great experience.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I got my start in the design strategy world as the Creative Director for BossBoxx and Wells of Life, and today, I create original cult-worthy brands. But I wasn’t always an aspiring creator… First, I was a Biochemistry major at California State University Fullerton. Yup…I wanted to be a neuroscience researcher. I earned my bachelor’s, only to discover I had a passion for learning. So, I collected a Bachelor’s in Linguistics and Secondary Education.

College is very expensive for a 20-something-year-old. I needed a job that paid for my tuition and worked with my school schedule. I had a knack for graphic design and a passion for helping my community. Pairing my understanding of human emotions and design experience, I started creating brands with an audience-focused strategy. Thanks to the faith and patience of a few local business owners, I was introduced to the world of strategic design.

I have always been passionate about empowering entrepreneurs. I love to help small business owners hone their skills, do what they love, and become their own bosses. As an Asian-American woman, I am passionate about making space for BIPOC organizations that promote culture and empowerment. With the mindset that I could do anything I put my mind to, I started my first design collective offering small businesses the professional, creative, and strategic edge they need against a corporation-saturated market. I have had the honor of being the Creative Director for Wells of Life and Co-Founder & Head of Design for BossBoxx. Today, as the founder of ANTIDESIGN, I work with a killer team to create cult-worthy businesses that confidently attract dream customers with intentional and strategic branding.

Can you share a story about the funniest marketing or branding mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Yes! When I was in college, I signed my first design client. They just wanted a simple logo with their company initials. I thought, “no problem!”. I presented a few designs, and they fell in love with one in particular. Long story short, I was finalizing some of their collateral, and before I send the designs over, I like to print them out. I accidentally printed one of their letterheads sideways, only to see their logo sideways for the first time!!! When the logo was flipped sideways, it resembled a very phallic image. I called the client right away, and luckily we laughed it off. We went with one of my other designs and made sure that when flipped around it wasn’t inappropriate. It was quite a hilarious goof!

The lesson here is to make sure that your logo looks good when flipped in any angle! It is also important to make sure that you have different layouts for your logo so that it can live on different kinds of collateral.

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Is there a takeaway or lesson that others can learn from that?

When I started my first design studio, I offered custom tailored-for-you brand identity packages and fully custom websites. I never said “no” to any project. I took clients that nickel and dimed me. I took clients that insulted and disrespected me. I would quote a 30-day timeline to deliver a fully developed brand identity, with unlimited revisions and unlimited deliverables, if it meant they would help a business succeed. I would take extra calls and think of new ways we could better their marketing and strategy — for free. As I said, I wanted them to have the needed tools, and I trusted them to know their business. So the asks would continue, and I would create and create and create. I would pour my heart and soul into a design strategy, and clients would have me revise it to be unrecognizable. I’ll admit that the branding would often go from strategic and cohesive, to a mish-mash of things my client liked on Pinterest — all because I didn’t respect my own expertise and I let people who aren’t experts, abuse my skills.​

I was burnt out, doing the most, and worst of all I was disappointing my clients.​​​

What happened? I created a “clone” business. I had no boundaries. I offered way too much and undervalued my services. How could I hope to offer my clients a cult-worthy model, if mine was a disaster? It was time to invest in my business.​

I re-evaluated my process. I refined my offerings and created packages that were packed with value, and priced accordingly. I still wanted to help small businesses follow their dreams, but I needed a tried and true system to make my process efficient and valuable.​

I defined my target audience and started only offering services that I loved. I worked on providing as much value for the time and expertise I was providing, but also created boundaries for my personal life and sanity. ​​

I soon found that my dream clients were attracted to my vision — I mean, I created my business tailored to their exact goals, values, and needs, so how could they not? Clients felt supported during the creative process. They respected my expertise. And we were seeing results immediately after launching our collaborations. Soon enough, I had a waitlist of dream clients full of excited referrals. With the exponential growth, I was able to hire an entire team of specialists — jam-packing more value into our offers!

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Working in the creative field, we get to work with the coolest brands. The only limitation is our imagination. I’m not able to disclose all of the projects I’m working on but, I can say some of the more exciting projects I am working on are:

Wells of Life, International Charity: We set a goal to impact 1 million people through clean water this year. I am excited to report that we are only 42 wells away from that goal! This is a major milestone for our charity. One of my favorite projects was working on our commercial with NBC that played during the Olympics! WellsofLife.org (Shameless donation plug).

I am also working with an ABC star, an Asian-American owned modern jewelry organization, and a cult cannabis brand. All of which, prioritize giving back to their communities. It is important to me to uplift and support minority owned-businesses and to also put a spotlight on Asian-American representation in the media. To be able to play a big role in these movements while making a splash in a brand new market is exciting. Years from now, these brands will be remembered as the first of their kind. It gives me the chance to define artifacts of the future.

What advice would you give to other marketers to thrive and avoid burnout?

Know your strengths. Take your weaknesses and automate them, or hire out. You will save so much time and sanity by investing in a good team and automation system. Only offer services that you love, and ditch the ones you hate. Work on providing as much value for the time and expertise you put in, but also respect your personal life and sanity. ​

Define your dream audience. Even if you don’t think your business is in a place to reach your dream audience, try to bridge the gap between your current audience and your dream audience. Build a brand and system that specializes in your exact persona.

Next, re-evaluate your process. Refine your offerings and create packages that are packed with value — price yourself based on your time, expertise, and the value of your product and service.

Once you know your offerings, create a system that can be replicated over and over again. If you have the chance, I suggest reading about how Mcdonald’s success is not in their addictive french-fries but in their innovative, tried and true process that is efficient, easy to follow, and valuable.

Ok, let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)? Can you explain?

Many people are often confused about BRANDING & MARKETING. The easiest way to differentiate the two is to remember that branding DRIVES marketing because branding is STRATEGIC and marketing is TACTICAL.

First, I think it is important to understand the two parts of branding, brand strategy and brand identity. BRAND STRATEGY defines rules and guidelines on how, what, where, when, and to whom you communicate your brand messages. That’s why it is imperative that you start with a brand strategy. Doing things out of order introduces chaos and confusion to your brand. If people don’t know what they’re fighting for, they won’t fight. So be sure to start with your brand strategy and everything else will fall in line.

So how is brand identity different? BRAND IDENTITY or VISUAL IDENTITY is a holistic, compelling visual representation of your brand that draws from a strong brand strategy and resonates with your target audience. It is a clear set of characteristics, benefits, and attributes that define a particular brand — like your logo, colors, and art direction.

A well-defined and executed brand strategy and identity leads to a consistent brand message, a strong emotional & visual connection with customers, and higher brand equity. A brand strategy is a plan on how to help your business connect with its audience. It includes critical things like your mission and purpose, target audience, values, and competitive advantage. Defining your brand strategy first creates a STRONG foundation for your company. It allows you to make informed, strategic choices throughout your business development. It tells your audience what your company stands for and what it stands against.

Marketing is the tool you utilize to deliver the message of your branding. Marketing is goal-oriented and measurable. It will continually change and evolve, just as the products and services you offer will continue to change and evolve. Marketing will be directly and specifically geared towards sectors of your target audience, all while utilizing the foundations that your brand strategy has defined.

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?

Branding builds trust. Branding is a promise to deliver an experience. In the case of a business, branding is a promise that you’ll provide consistent and unique products/services — and then deliver on that promise every time. Your brand should be all about the experience you want your customers to have with your company and its products. If you are selling coffee, for example, your branding could focus on how delicious and original it tastes as well as how easy it is to make at home (or wherever).This might seem obvious, but too often businesses forget this crucial step in creating their brands– they don’t think about what they actually want their customers to experience when they interact with them.

Branding builds loyalty. When people buy into a brand, they develop an emotional connection with it that allows them to feel like part of something bigger than themselves. This feeling of belonging will help encourage repeat purchases from these loyal customers because they feel like they’re contributing to something bigger than just themselves.! Once people know and like your brand, they’re more likely to stick with it even if there’s something cheaper out there that offers similar features or benefits. This means they will continue buying your products or services without having to be persuaded by external factors like price or availability. Even if another company offers a cheaper version of your product/service, chances are that many customers won’t switch just because their loyalty has been established through branding alone!

Branding sets you apart. Building a brand will set you apart from your competitors, build relationships with customers and help your business grow. Standing apart from competitors goes beyond a beautiful logo or an impressive website — which is why it is so important to define your company’s values, story, and goals. These should be strategized for the long-term and with your audience in mind. Creating loyal customers requires guts, because being loved by some means being misunderstood, and even disliked, by others — because it is important to STAND OUT OF THE CROWD. Your company should stand against something as much as it stands for something. BOLD brands are brave, sometimes irreverent, and always unapologetic, and beacuase of this they gain a loyal following that can’t be bought, only earned. If your brand does not have simple and unique differences — it’s time to start investing in intentional strategy.

Branding is a promise

Your brand is a promise to your customers. It’s the key to your business and the reason it exists, so it makes sense that you should invest in branding. A strong brand not only helps you attract more customers but also keeps them coming back for more. When people buy into a brand, they develop an emotional connection with it that allows them to feel like part of something bigger than themselves. Remember, logos alone do not make up a brand. A brand is the culmination of all the communications, exchanges, and encounters a customer has with your goods, services, and personnel. A brand is to a customer the promise of an EXPERIENCE and the EXPERIENCE of that promise being fulfilled. It’s important to nurture this asset over time.

The bottom line is this: your brand is one of the most valuable assets you have. It can make or break your business, so it’s important to take care of and invest in.

Let’s now talk about rebranding. What are a few reasons why a company would consider rebranding?

We’ve seen firsthand how people are happy to pay more for their preferred brand, than less for an unknown brand. This is true for all industries. Rebranding your company is a great way to revitalize your business, attract new customers, and reposition yourself in the marketplace. However, what happens when your brand just is not connecting with your customers? When is the right time to rebrand?

First things first, complete an internal audit, or hire a company to audit for your brand. An audit is a powerful tool for your business to get clear on your audience, reception, strategy, and opportunities. While there is no straight forward answer to this, I have compiled some indicators that the time to rebrand has come.

• You never had a consistent brand strategy or identity to start with. Your business name is very literal and you struggle with pinning down your exact identity.
• You are a “clone” brand. A clone brand is a business that offers the same products/services as their competitors, their most unique quality is their discounted prices. They are not disruptive or unique, and therefor have nothing that makes them cult-worthy.
• You’ve outgrown your brand. What your brand stands for today does not agree with your vision for the future of your brand. Your current brand differs from what your brand aspires to be.
• Your audience has changed, or you never could reach your dream audience. Your brand’s current position does not resonate with your ideal audience. (However, if you find that your brand resonates with an unexpected audience, and it’s working for you, I would suggest reevaluating your brand strategy to resonate with your current audience).
• Your business model, offerings, strategy, and business morals have changed.
• Your industry has evolved and your brand is outdated. (A good example of an outdated brand and rebrand is Herbal Essence).

Rebranding takes time. It is important to invest in good design and intentional brand strategy when rebranding your business. Whether your goal is to introduce your business to a new audience, or save your business from being outdated, it is important to consider a rebrand carefully. Be sure to align yourself with a long-term vision for your brand and always keep your audience at the forefront of your focus.

Are there downsides of rebranding? Are there companies that you would advise against doing a “Brand Makeover”? Why?

Rebranding is not always in your best interest. By changing your company culture, you often run the risk of causing more problems than you solve. Some of the risks you run when rebranding is creating a brand that misses (no one resonates with your brand), trust issues (customers are confused), and reputation blows (crisis management). Rebranding can be a costly initiative that takes lots of time and research. When a rebrand is done for the wrong reasons, you can damage your business and turn potential and even current customers away. Here are some examples of when rebranding your company is not a good idea.

• Your audience is not who you originally intended, but they are loyal. If your audience is loyal to your brand, but they are different from the personas you strategize for — that’s ok! So long as your business aligns with your vision and morals, it is okay to leverage this new audience. I would suggest reevaluating your strategy and see how you can better answer the needs of your loyal audience.
• Your sales are down. Profits will vary every month. It’s easy to go into panic mode when you see a consistent drop in sales. Declining sales could be the result of different things. The first step would be to take an in-depth look at your engagement, financials, and marketing efforts to see where your numbers started slipping. Some easy remedies would be to focus on your customer touch points and ensure that every experience your customer has with your brand is exactly what you want it to be. Focus on the little details of your business a.k.a, your communications, engagement, customer service, marketing efforts, packaging, freebies, and more. Consider how you can answer the wants and needs of your customers. It doesn’t have to be complicated either. Glossier does a beautiful job of consistent, simple branding that highlights natural, clean beauty. Their communications, messaging, packaging, customer service, and free stickers with every order show just how much they pay attention to the little details.
• Your competition rebranded. While it is important to keep an eye on your competitor to see what is working for them, it is also important to be different from them. If you already have a loyal base of customers that love your brand, there is no reason to rebrand. A rebrand would just create distrust and confusion. If it ain’t broke, do we really need to fix it? Probably not.
• You found a style you like better. A mistake many business owners make is they design a brand for themself, not for their customer. I cannot stress how important it is to create a strategy and identity that resonates with your audience, not yourself. Distinguishing between your personal style and the style that best suits your business goals can be tricky. This is where it is best to rely on a professional or your team to decide what the best course for your business is.

Ok, here is the main question of our discussion. Can you share 5 strategies that a company can do to upgrade and re-energize their brand and image”? Please tell us a story or an example for each.

Identify your brand values, story, and goals — and be bold!

BOLD BRANDS value quality and uniqueness. They are run by passionate people who love brainstorming, dream-scheming and creating value for their customers. It’s crucial for companies to give their customers something that they can resonate with, that goes beyond a beautiful logo or an impressive website — which is why it is so important to define your company’s values, story, and goals. These should be strategized for the long-term and with your audience in mind. Creating loyal customers requires guts, because being loved by some means being misunderstood, and even disliked, by others. Your company should stand against something as much as it stands for something. BOLD brands are brave, sometimes irreverent, and always unapologetic and for it they gain a kind of loyal following that can’t be bought, only earned. If your brand does not have simple and clearly defined values — it’s time to start investing in intentional strategy.

Know your audience

Without people, you have no brand. For the most part, brands have three audiences: The people who buy from you, the people who convince others to buy from you, and fans/supporters.

Learning and strategizing for your audience is hard work, but it impacts everything your company does. Once you have defined your brand values, story, and goals you need to be able to effectively communicate it to your customers. Understanding your audience provides insights into unmet needs, as well as a thorough knowledge of the environment in which your product/service is sold. You need to uncover how they think, what they want, and their lingo. Figure this out, and you’ll be able to match their expectations and desires. This allows a business to better develop their product/service offering and selling strategy to meet their audience’s demands.

To further identify with your audience, I recommend using the language of your audience, another reason market research is so important. The more you communicate using the language of your audience, the better. Speaking directly to their pains and pleasures will create effective messaging, trust, and emotional connection.

Invoke Emotional Experiences with your brand, Create Brand Loyalty

We buy based on the way a brand makes us feel, so one of the best things you can do is to determine how you want people to feel when they come into contact with your brand.

Emotion Creates Brand Loyalty.

Brand loyalty goes hand-in-hand with consumers’ emotions. When customers develop a sense of brand loyalty, they’re building an emotional connection to a business. Not only do they feel like they belong, they also get excited to represent a company in some way, as a fan and an advocate.

Human beings can be complex — which is why before you can earn this level of loyalty from your audience, you first need to better understand the psychological side of the consumer-business relationship.

From the company standpoint, you deliver value by crafting a brand that speaks directly to your audience’s emotional needs and delivers a consistent customer experience that they can rely on. Through marketing efforts, consumers start to develop positive associations with your brand and have a clear set of expectations every time they interact with your brand.

This powerful connection comes down to needs and actions, which is where Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Aristotle’s Seven Causes of Human Action come into play.​​

By staying true to your company’s values and delivering high levels of quality in your products and services while serving and supporting your customers well, you earn brand loyalty. At this point in the customer experience, they don’t feel a need to check out your competition because you consistently answer to their specific needs.

The little details matter — Creating Enchantment

I truly believe that the difference between a customer loving a brand, and a customer being a die-hard fan of a brand, lies in the details.

Think about the last memorable unboxing you experienced. What did you love about it? For example, I just ordered from @Glossier, and had an extremely pleasant unboxing. The details of the branding on the box, to the stickers and handy-dandy carrying bag that comes with every order, the experience left me pleasantly surprised and wanting more. These were small details, but they made a big impact — I put the sticker on my phone (free advertisement), and because the box was so pretty I ended up posting it to my social media (even more free advertisement!).

The brands we tend to love and remember the most are those that care about “the little things.” They provide a memorable and emotional customer experience that leads them to tell everyone they know about it. I call this enchantment.

Consider focusing on every touchpoint you make with your customer and make it a memorable and pleasant experience (service providers this is true for you too!). The goal is to invoke a specific emotion from your customer, whether it be security, joy, trust, or surprise. Some areas that you can look at is company messaging, providing value to customers through freebies or value-packed events, stepping up your customer service, creating content that speaks to other goals your customers have, and always creating a strategy that is customer-focused.

Ditch Digital Noise, Creating Intentional Touchpoints

One of the biggest mistakes I see businesses make is creating useless, noisy content. All brands have a distinct brand personality regardless of whether they deliberately build one. But without intention or thought, most brands end up with either a very generic “clone” brand personality or, even worse, a completely bland, forgettable personality. Often, they are one and the same. Suppose you’re a brand that prioritizes providing value for your specific audience and wants to be laser-focused on what makes you an expert. In that case, it’s time to start reevaluating your customer touch points. Quality over quantity is the key here! All touch points should be intentional and well-thought out.

From your perspective, would you rather follow a brand that posted content that resonated with your values, gave tips on related goals, and catered their content to you? Or would you rather follow a brand that just posted every single day without intention? Would you rather communicate with a company that had an automated system for customer service, or a real person? Would you rather support a product that related to your values for a little more or purchase the cheaper option with no values. Intention applies to all aspects of your customer touchpoints. Know your strengths and cut out the excess.

BE CONSISTENT!

The final tip is always to be consistent with your branding. Stick to your values and brand personality. Consistency is the promise you make with branding.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job doing a “Brand Makeover”. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

Nike did an incredible job rebranding in an effort that seeks to highlight its commitment to diversity and equality. The ‘Just Do It’ slogan is still as prevalent today as it was in 1988, although the ad campaigns to go with that slogan have completely changed.

Given that they are already known for producing high-quality goods, Nike’s advertising efforts these days tend to focus on societal concerns that are still important, such as inequality, diversity, and poverty. Customers will remember the company’s principles and desire to purchase its items to support their vision of inclusivity as a result, changing how others perceive their brand. Their commercials no longer center around their products but the movements they believe in. Nike is able to answer more of their target audience’s needs by speaking directly to their values and creating a vision that people want to invest in.

This is a prime example of why it is important for companies to be upfront and proud of what they stand for and what they stand against. People will invest in what you believe in (and just as importantly what you don’t believe in!).

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I am very passionate about education and giving children the tools they need to succeed. One area that I think our education fails our children is teaching them to understand their brains, emotions, and feelings. This is a resource that I think many adults could use too! I would create initiatives to instruct young people on how to feel and sit with their emotions, understand and interpret them, then effectively communicate them. These initiatives would concentrate on fostering empathy, awareness, understanding, and kindness in children from a young age. In order to prevent bullying, I would create programs that provide a secure environment where children can be themselves and receive support for being unique.

I think if we as a species could better understand what makes us tick, we would be more compassionate and loving toward one another. If marketers can leverage human emotion, then the average person should be armed to do the same with themselves.

Another initiative I would start would be to highlight minority children. I think it is so important for children to see adults that look like them in the media. Diversifying the media would not only inspire children to believe in themselves, but also dispels prejudices that hold children back today. This is one reason I am passionate about working with female and minority owned businesses, I want to give them an edge against corporations. I want to highlight more faces and genders representing their uniqueness, and I want children to be inspired by it.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones… It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.” — Confucius

We are all victims of the “all-or-nothing” mentality that modern society advocates as the best strategy for bringing about change. We’ve become so preoccupied with reaching the top that we’ve forgotten what it takes to get there: a steady ascent with patience and perseverance.

Three years ago, I wanted to start my business, but I was too scared to jump in because I felt like I wasn’t ready. However, I realized that I was already doing everything that a business owner does, I just didn’t have the proper processes or documentation. Three years before that I would never have believed that I could even sign a client.

A mountain cannot be moved by charging headlong into it; rather, it must be eroded one tiny stone at a time. Confucius asks us to live by this straightforward philosophy, one that prioritizes steady improvement over sudden perfection.

The secret to sustained, long-lasting change is consistency. Instead of attempting to lift mountains, just move little stones one at a time. Be the tortoise instead of the hare. The race is won by steadiness and pace.

How can our readers follow you online?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/selenacaryn/

https://www.theantidesign.com/

https://www.tiktok.com/@theantidesign

Thank you so much for these excellent insights! We wish you continued success in your work.

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Brand Makeovers: Selena Navarro Of AntiDesign On The 5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

First and foremost, universal design goes way beyond only making things more accessible for people with disabilities; think about curb cuts, originally designed for people with disabilities, but now everyone is using them. Same with text messaging, also originally created for people with disabilities, and is now an ubiquitous communication method for all. When we think about accessibility and inclusion, we are creating an environment that is helpful for everybody.

As a part of our series about “How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Diego Mariscal.

Diego Mariscal is the Founder, CEO and Chief Disabled Officer of 2Gether-International, the leading accelerator supporting entrepreneurs with disabilities. Their work moves us closer to a world where disability is recognized and valued as an asset for business and entrepreneurship. In his role as CEO and Chief Disabled Officer, Diego has collaborated with multinational organizations such as the U.S. Department of State, and corporate companies like Google and Blackboard to help them better understand disability as an asset for startups. In 2017, Diego became the first entrepreneur with a disability, from the US delegation, to participate in the Global Entrepreneurship Summit held in Hyderabad, India. Diego also received the Global Leadership in Equitable Development Award from the World Trade Credit & Risk Summit in Washington, DC. Born with Cerebral Palsy in New Orleans but raised in Monterrey, Mexico, Diego also represented Nuevo Leon in the Mexican National Paralympics from 2004–2009.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive into the main part of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you share a bit of your “backstory” with us?

About 29 years ago, my parents traveled from Mexico to the United States for what was intended to be a short three-day visit to buy baby supplies. However, I had different plans, and surprised them by being born early — at 6.5 months. As a result of this early arrival, I was born with cerebral palsy.

But even though I had a disability growing up, my parents still had high expectations for what I should be able to achieve and didn’t treat me any differently from my brother, who I’m close to in age and who does not have a disability. From doing chores to our education, our parents expected the same from each of us, which certainly contributed to my ambitiousness and independence later in life.

My ambition and sense of independence was furthered when I discovered my love for swimming. I ended up immersing myself in swimming competitions and went on to win the first gold medal for my sport in the national paralympic swimming competition (representing Nuevo Leon in the Mexican National Paralympics from 2004–2009).

In high school, especially because I didn’t see many other visibly disabled students, I wanted to help my peers understand what it meant to have a disability. That’s when I started “Limitless Prepa Tec,” a disability education program in Monterrey, Mexico. Our activities included eating while blindfolded, communicating without speaking and riding public transportation in a wheelchair. These initiatives gave my peers a feeling of what it was like to be disabled. Within four years, the program was in 15 high schools throughout the country, impacting more than 3,000 students, and we were almost 80% corporate funded. To this day, Limitless continues to be one of the largest youth-led programs in Monterrey, Mexico, working to educate students about disabilities.

That set the stage for my current work in the United States, where I moved to attend college. In 2012, I was officially incorporated into a 501(c)(3), and within two years, I left school to focus on my non-profit and began traveling the world to teach people about disabilities.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us the lesson or take away, you took out of that story?

There are so many interesting stories, it’s hard to pick one. But I think failing out of college when I was a teenager (I’m currently back in school at George Washington University to earn my degree) was a moment where I challenged societal conventions by focusing on the organization I was putting together, rather than the traditional classroom route. I had to pull on the skills I developed as a person with disabilities — being creative, resilient and tenacious — to survive. Live continue to use those skills now to thrive.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you tell us a story about how that was relevant in your own life?

A lot of people share the quote and sentiment, “It doesn’t matter how many times you fall, it matters how many times you get back up.” I always think it’s funny when people say that because I have literally fallen — no exaggeration — thousands of times in my life, and have gotten up again each of those thousands of times. So that translates into resilience and tenacity, which I apply to my work now and to all the different projects we take on.

Actually, there is one more quote I’d like to highlight: “I may come as one, but I stand as one thousand.” This reflects the idea that one is successful because one is able to stand on the shoulders of all these other people who came before me. This is certainly true for me, I wouldn’t be able to be where I am if it wasn’t because of the amazing disabled advocates that came before me. Reminding myself of this gives me power and confidence to show up feeling supported in challenging situations I encounter

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?

First off, I want to highlight the overall community of people with disabilities and pioneering leaders in the disability rights movement such as Ed Roberts, Judy Heumann and other pioneer advocates. I wouldn’t have had the access and opportunities I have now if it wasn’t for them. It really harkens back to the quote shared in the previous question.

Also, a game-changer for me in my journey has been going to therapy. I’ve had a great rapport with my therapist. Having my experience validated and completely accepted was a big moment for me, especially as a person with a disability. Even though this experience focused on the personal, it also had a huge impact on how I approached my business initiatives. I learned to trust my skills and my instincts.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

Our entire mission statement makes us unique, but we hope it will inspire similar initiatives across the globe. At this point, 2GI is the only startup accelerator in the nation run by and for entrepreneurs with disabilities. We see a world where disability is synonymous with innovation and creativity and where founders with disabilities have a pathway to success, self-reliance and confidence.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

Yes, absolutely. In October 2022, we announced 2Gether-International’s 2022 BIPOC Cohort Accelerator, powered by Comcast NBCUniversal. The participants, all Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) individuals with disabilities and founders of early-stage, high-growth startups, are immersed in 2GI’s 10-week accelerator program, designed to develop their businesses further. The program culminates in a pitch competition in December, providing the entrepreneurs with an opportunity to be awarded $10K in seed funding for their business.

The Cohort aims to address the employment and entrepreneurship gap for both disability and BIPOC individuals, and help set the stage for visionary founders from these communities to access investment capital.

Not to mention, creating and launching a successful startup is no small feat. Coupled with the lack of opportunity and resources available for entrepreneurs with disabilities — especially founders within the BIPOC community — we saw a critical opportunity to provide business guidance to ensure a pathway for long-term growth and success.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Through my role at 2Gether-International, I have worked to support entrepreneurs with disabilities, create new opportunities and moved us closer to a world where disability is recognized and valued as an asset for business and entrepreneurship.

One billion people have a disability, making disabled people the largest minority in the world and the only one you can instantly become a part of. This diverse and vibrant community, however, is often associated with pity and limitations, which has a direct impact on their acceptance into the workplace. People with disabilities are disproportionately unemployed worldwide. But, at 2Gether-International, we are flipping the disability narrative. We work to unleash the entrepreneurship mindset of disabled people.

Our goal is to bring the more than 1 billion people with a disability together and to “empower and unify disabled people to become actors of change.”

By bringing people with disabilities together, they can have a greater positive impact on one another and help others gain a better understanding of who they are and how to empower them. Personally, it took me years to embrace my disability as part of my identity and it wasn’t until I met other people with disabilities, and we discussed education, employment perspectives, and much more, that I truly understood the value of the disability community. I learned that my disability makes me creative, resilient, tenacious, and I am able to identify opportunities that sometimes other people don’t see.

We at 2GI see disability as a complex, yet competitive, advantage for business, diversity and society at large. To date, graduates of 2GI Accelerators have collectively received about $40 million dollars in funding from investment, revenues and acquisitions.

Ok. Thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main part of our interview. This may be obvious to you, but it is not intuitive to many people. Can you articulate to our readers five ways that increased diversity can help a company’s bottom line?

First and foremost, universal design goes way beyond only making things more accessible for people with disabilities; think about curb cuts, originally designed for people with disabilities, but now everyone is using them. Same with text messaging, also originally created for people with disabilities, and is now an ubiquitous communication method for all. When we think about accessibility and inclusion, we are creating an environment that is helpful for everybody.

What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees to thrive?

It is so important to listen. And to extend your colleagues the respect and appreciation they deserve. I would not be successful as the CEO of the organization if it wasn’t for my team. Their role is just as critical and important as mine, and we are all working together towards a common goal and mission.

What advice would you give to other business leaders about how to manage a large team?

I don’t have a particularly large team, however it is still important to reduce the number of people who report to you directly, so your core team stays around 5 people or less. A smaller core team allows you to maintain the positive company culture that you desire, and that can also be passed down to indirect reports.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this 🙂

Richard Branson would be really interesting, as he credits his disability to his success. It would be really interesting to understand that from him on a more personal level.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Visit https://www.2gether-international.org/ and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Readers can also follow me directly on LinkedIn here.

Thank you for these excellent insights. We wish you continued success in your great work.

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Diego Mariscal Of 2Gether-International On How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Treating team members with respect sets the tone for what expectations we have from our team to deliver to our guests.

As part of our series about the five things a business should do to create a Wow! customer experience, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sharon Arthofer, founder and CEO of Sip Fresh.

Ms. Arthofer is a dynamic business leader whose talents & business prowess were recognized early as Wetzel’s Pretzels first franchisee, where she was instrumental in growing the brand from one store into a national franchise. Arthofer opened the first Sip Fresh after recognizing a gap in the QSR beverage category for fresh and bold offerings. As a breast cancer survivor she is committed to related causes.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Right out of college I was lucky to gain great marketing experience working for well-known packaged goods and publishing companies. The entrepreneurial bug bit me five years later and I started my first of three retail stores in Westchester County NY. Several years ago my husband was transferred to Los Angeles and I sold my business. Soon after, I met two men who had just opened their first Wetzels Pretzels in L.A. They asked me for operations advice- and the rest is history! Four years ago I saw this great opportunity in the beverage space, and Sip Fresh was born. It’s a high quality, fresh fruit-based beverage company that is an amazing sensory experience is every way. We just started franchising and have sold 9 units with additional multi-unit operators signing on soon.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

This isn’t a mistake, it was more of an “ah-ha” moment. We had just opened a new store and I stopped by to check in on how it was doing. I did my usual mental check list as I walked through the store and a guest needed something so I helped her. After the interaction with the guest, a team member came over to me, introduced herself to me and said, “ you are new so let me show you how to make some of our specialty drinks.” I let her “train” me with such pride and enthusiasm, I was very impressed. Eventually during the visit she found out I was the founder of the company and was very embarrassed. I told her I loved her energy and gave her big kudos for her initiative. I am proud of the culture that we are building and really grateful for our team throughout our organization.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

Through my years of building businesses, my husband has been my biggest proponent, fan, and champion. He ran the chocolate and confections division for Nestle, so his insights on best practices and innovation are invaluable. He is also a great marketer so I can bounce ideas off of him and we can get into some pretty passionate discussions.

Thank you for that. Let’s now pivot to the main focus of our interview. This might be intuitive, but I think it’s helpful to specifically articulate it. In your words, can you share a few reasons why great customer service and a great customer experience is essential for success in business?

The guest experience is the foundation to building a successful business. When was the last time you purchased a beverage and remember getting amazing service? At Sip Fresh our model is focused on guest engagement from the moment they walk by our stores. The eye-catching design invites the guest to then sample the high quality fresh fruit juices on display before purchasing. Our team is part of the experience every step of the way, recommending samples, sharing “fan favorites,” and providing suggestions for a better Sip Fresh experience. We like to say the guest “sees it, samples it, and then sips it,” and we interact to provide a memorable experience that will be memorable for our guests.

We have all had times either in a store, or online, when we’ve had a very poor experience as a customer or user. If the importance of a good customer experience is so intuitive, and apparent, where is the disconnect? How is it that so many companies do not make this a priority?

There are a few reasons guest satisfaction and experience take a back seat at many companies. First is the issue of extremely quick service, which doesn’t always provide the opportunity to extend a memorable guest experience. Many quick-service concepts believe it’s all about getting the food to the customer, but at Sip Fresh we believe the journey is just as important as the destination. Other companies feel there is a great value to provide a good customer experience, however they don’t provide the proper training for employees to carry out that memorable visit, nor do they or follow up with appropriate guest interaction. In order to weave the guest experience into the culture, it begins with top leadership consistently setting the example. As you said, it is intuitive, a way of life, rather than the exception to the rule.

Do you think that more competition helps force companies to improve the customer experience they offer? Are there other external pressures that can force a company to improve the customer experience?

I think it depends on the industry and category within the industry. I do believe that post-COVID, we have come to expect less in regards to service. That may be because companies were so grateful that people visited the store during those very stressful times, often understaffed, so service may had taken a back seat in order to get the product out. We may need to get back to basics in order to provide great service again in some industries. As for external influence, when I personally have a great experience I seek out the management and leadership to let them know who and how their team member provided a great customer experience. That goes a long way in reinforcing the value of good service.

Can you share with us a story from your experience about a customer who was “Wowed” by the experience you provided?

At Sip Fresh we have a catering component whereby guests order a gallon or more of any flavor of Fresh Sip juice, and they can also rent our serving barrels and ladles for parties, barbecues, or any event. We had a guest order a couple of gallons for a party last spring and was hooked. She became a regular and ordered weekly for parties and gatherings. She loved our high-quality products and quick response to her order needs. We are happy to be a continued part of her events, parties, and gatherings!

Did that Wow! experience have any long-term ripple effects? Can you share the story?

In today’s environment, social media is a big factor in guests sharing their WOW moments. Fortunately we have many guests who let us know that they had a great experience, even naming their favorite Sipista (The Sip Fresh version of a barista). We are always happy when a guest takes the time to share their WOW experience.

Ok, here is the main question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should know in order to create a Wow! Customer Experience. Please share a story or an example for each.

1. You have to believe in it to deliver it- Great service has to be engrained in you, it’s not an on-again, off- again mentality.

2. Living by the Golden Rule, treat others how you would like to be treated. This will naturally provide great customer experience- who doesn’t want to be treated well?

3. Treating team members with respect sets the tone for what expectations we have from our team to deliver to our guests.

4. HAVE FUN at work. If you like what you do, it is infectious to the team and the guest.

5. If a guest experience goes awry, make it right. My philosophy begins with “I am sorry” and trying to remedy the situation immediately.

Are there a few things that can be done so that when a customer or client has a Wow! experience, they inspire others to reach out to you as well?

Social media is very powerful, we would love to hear from WOW guests any time. They can also reach us at: [email protected].

My particular expertise is in retail, so I’d like to ask a question about that. Amazon is going to exert pressure on all of retail for the foreseeable future. New Direct-To-Consumer companies based in China are emerging that offer prices that are much cheaper than US and European brands. What would you advise retail companies and eCommerce companies, for them to be successful in the face of such strong competition?

You have to continue to find ways to stand out and add value to the consumer that outweighs the pricing issue. This means providing exceptional quality, a key component that we can’t emphasize enough. Also working with consumers to provide reasonable and user-friendly terms such as return policies, etc. We all want it to be “hassle free” and I look at Nordstrom and am still amazed at how well they do this.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Living in Los Angeles, I see the challenges of our growing homeless population. This is true on both coasts and we have not been able to slay this dragon. It seems to get worse annually. Many people begin by getting temporarily displaced, and need help in the short term. There is an opportunity to convert out of service motels along the highway into short-term housing and training for the homeless to get them back on their feet and back into the workforce. Services such as resumes, interviews, job search, etc. would be provided.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Instagram: @sipfresh

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sipfreshjuice

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sip-fresh-franchise/

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

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Sharon Arthofer Of Sip Fresh On 5 Ways To Create a Wow! Customer Experience was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meet The Disruptors: Kolin Ozonian Of Global Premier Fertility On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Vision, don’t get bogged down with day-to-day tasks, don’t forget to think big, that’s where ideas and innovation happen.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kolin Ozonian.

Kolin Ozonian is the Founder and CEO of Global Premier Fertility, an innovative platform that builds, acquires and manages fertility clinics and adjacent businesses with the ultimate objective of helping individuals reach their family planning goals through world-class clinical care and an astounding patient experience. Ozonian’s extensive experience in the healthcare space with an emphasis on fertility care has propelled him to succeed in his current role. Previously, he served as the Executive Vice President of IntegraMed Fertility and was responsible for all Development and M&A across North America. Prior to this, Ozonian held positions at Nobilis Health as Executive Vice President responsible for overseeing the Corporate Development division and also spent seven years growing a division of McKesson Global Consulting, focused on providing M&A advisory services for world-class healthcare organizations around the globe. Ozonian holds a Bachelor of Science in Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of California San Diego and earned his Masters in Business Administration with a concentration in Finance from San Diego State University. Ozonian currently resides in Orange County, CA with his family.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I went to school to be a doctor. I have a Bachelor of Science in Neuroscience Pre-Med from the University of California San Diego. I decided that after working for doctors and hearing their advice, I could have a bigger impact on medicine through the business of innovative healthcare. After receiving my MBA in Finance, I pursued healthcare investing and acquisitions. I started managing a large network of fertility clinics, and along my professional journey, my wife and I became patients of infertility as well. I saw firsthand that the old way of treatments and processes can very damaging and could be improved with new technology and treatment innovation.

My personal infertility experience inspired me to start Global Premier Fertility, an innovative fertility organization that builds, acquires and manages fertility clinics throughout the country. My wife and I had dated for a long time, got married, and decided we were ready to start a family. Starting a family didn’t happen right away, and after two years of trying we were still unsuccessful. We thought maybe we weren’t meant to have kids, so we weighed out our options on what our lives may look like if we didn’t have kids, and that took an emotional toll on both of us. That’s when we decided to give IVF a chance and meet with specialists to make our dream of becoming parents a reality. As we were going through the IVF process, we realized that the process was far more complicating then it should have been. From booking the first appointment, learning about the insane prices, and recommended procedures that invasive, the entire process was complicated and frustrating. It was truly a nightmare experience, and we didn’t feel like the process was going to be successful because it was such a confusing experience with a lot of possibilities in question. Going through the IVF process and experiencing all the complications was the moment I realized this industry needs innovation to improve the patient experience and treatments being offered. If fertility practices had smart business operations and innovative care, the industry could be revolutionized. That’s when I decided I would be the one to revolutionize the industry through innovation and effective business operations that makes the patient experience highly-personalized and seamless.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

IVF was founded in the late 1970s and early 80s. In the early days of IVF, doctors would use five embryos at a time and sometimes two or three of those embryos would stick, which often times created twins or triplets. Fast forward to 40 years later, the innovation with fertility education and technology has become much more advanced that doctors are able to modify treatment protocols that can suit each patient’s needs to reach the goal of creating a healthy baby. What’s disheartening is that there are a lot of practices that recommend the same treatment for every patient, which can lead to frustration, expensive medical bills, and disappointment. If the fertility industry has access to advanced technology and innovative treatments, why not use it to create a personalized patient experience to change the trajectory of frustration and disappointment, providing a much more relaxed and positive experience?

That’s where Global Premier Fertility is disruptive. Working with top fertility specialists with a customer-centric mission to provide highly-personalized, innovative, gold-standard care, we strive to change the industry through each of our clinics around the nation to recommend treatments that are created specifically to each patient based on their needs. There is no one singular model of fertility treatment at Global Premier Fertility, but instead, highly-recognized doctors that build an advanced plan based on the goals and needs of each patient.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I wouldn’t say this is a funny mistake but it did teach me an important lesson. The biggest mistake we made when starting Global Premier Fertility was when we had a Silicon Valley investment group give us an aggressive offer within six months of starting the company, an offer that was almost impossible to refuse. Looking back now, we shouldn’t have entertained the offer, because ultimately they wanted to take the business out from under us, bring in a new CEO, and change business operations that didn’t align with Global Premier Fertility’s mission. Thankfully we did detailed research on the investment group and didn’t sign on the dotted line. What our team learned from this experience was that we must do our due diligence with partnerships and business queries and have our radar up since everyone doesn’t have the best intentions and will try to capitalize on a vulnerable industry.

The fertility industry has such a genuine mission — helping people build their families — but it’s overrun with investors who want to make babies to make a fortune. At Global Premier Fertility, we do everything we can to keep greedy private equity investors away from our business. We learned to never entertain any business queries without doing our research to protect our mission here at Global Premier Fertility.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

My mentors are my Father and Phil Harkins. All have been tremendous mentors in very different ways. With my father, I’m the first son and I’ve always looked up to him. He’s an extremely successful businessperson in real estate and banking, and has been a fantastic father as well. He is the role model I strive to be for my four children, showing that I can be both a successful CEO and an amazing father.

Another mentor, Phil Harkins, is probably the top executive coach for CEOs around the world. He was my father’s coach, and a mentor to me since I was in high school, helping to guide my professional career with lessons like how to lead, implement change, and what career moves to make.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

Disruption is only positive if it leads to better outcomes. At Global Premier Fertility, we’re in the business of positive disruption by providing highly-personalized care to every patient through individualizing each treatment based on their needs and goals. We’re modernizing fertility from both the clinical side and the patient experience side, which is not a common occurrence for other fertility practices across the country. A few ways Global Premier Fertility is being disruptive is through affordability of treatments through a financing platform, and user friendly technology to make the office visit process seamless, such as creating QR codes for more information and payment options.

You may also notice a lot of fertility practices feel old and run-down with those hard, plastic waiting room chairs, mundane office buildings, and older equipment. At Global Premier Fertility, our priority is to make every patient feel comfortable and at ease with every step of the process, knowing they are taken care of as soon as they walk into our office. We aim to feel like a boutique spa with all the modern technology a patient would expect from a top-tier fertility clinic.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

• Persistence, just when you think you have failed, push harder.
• Risk, it’s a perspective, your idea of risk is probably not that risky.
• Vision, don’t get bogged down with day-to-day tasks, don’t forget to think big, that’s where ideas and innovation happen.
• Leadership, you must be an effective leader to lead a team that collaborates together and works towards success.
• Lonely, it’s lonely at the top, learn how to manage that feeling and find a team that believes in the mission as much as you do.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

• Global Premier Fertility is expanding our network nationwide! Most of our clinics are in Southern California as of Fall 2022, but we have plans to expand across the country over the next year and have our sights on global expansion near after! Everyone should have access to highly-personalized and innovative fertility care, and we look forward to taking our mission worldwide to achieve this goal.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

“Everybody Wins” by Phil Harkins has had an enormous impact on my way of thinking, and often times I refer to his insight when working with our successful business model.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life

My favorite life lesson quote is “fortune favors the bold.” I try to apply this quote every day and it has been fundamental to taking the necessary risks to build Global Premier Fertility’s successful business model. For context, a lot of healthcare practices and treatments are very old school. People who run healthcare don’t try a lot of new innovation, because if the treatment works why fix it? From my perspective, “Fortune favors the hold” helps our organization focus on being bold, disruptive, innovative, and knowing that change is necessary to grow and be successful. I continue to preach that and live by that.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I want to inspire improving healthcare through encouraging innovation with the patient experience. We will all be healthcare patients at some point in our lives, and we deserve to have the best experience through innovative treatments and personalized care, which often times leads to referrals on how great a doctor or practice is. Through our work at Global Premier Fertility, we’re helping patients who are building their families have the best experience possible during what can be a very stressful and unknown time in their lives. In healthcare, providing the best patient experience along with innovative treatments should be a top priority for everyone in the fertility industry.

How can our readers follow you online?

Follow our journey on our Global Premier Fertility website to see all the great work we’re achieving and when we’ll be opening up a fertility practice near them!

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

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Meet The Disruptors: Kolin Ozonian Of Global Premier Fertility On The Five Things You Need To Shake… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

The ability to delegate — Naturally, I am that person who feels like I need to do it all — however, this gets very expensive very quickly. It’s always better to delegate.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Vienne Cheung Brown.

Vienne Cheung Brown is the founder of VienneMilano, a luxury hosiery brand dedicated to thigh high stockings that are made in Italy. Founded in 2011, Vienne transitioned her previous work in high-tech product management to designing, distributing, and managing a fashion e-commerce brand. Today, VienneMilano has helped redefine thigh highs as a fashion category. Her hosiery collection offers one of the world’s most extensive variety for thigh high stockings consisting of classic styles, fashion-forward pieces, skin tone matching sheers, eco-friendly stockings, plus sizes, and much more. The brand has expanded from being sold exclusively from VienneMilano.com to distributing to many online distribution channels and brick-and-mortar outlets. VienneMilano has also been featured in Vogue, Marie Claire, Elle, FOX, NBC and has been a popular accessory for celebrities and magazines in photo shoots across the world. www.VienneMilano.com.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

Generally speaking, I have very fond memories of my childhood. That said, the one story that resonates most is when I lived in Hong Kong. At the time, I was six years old and in the first grade. Every day, I took the school bus after school. One day, I overslept and realized this after the bus driver passed my stop. So here I am, all alone in Hong Kong — a city of tall skyscrapers and six million people in the 1980s. I recognized where I was and slowly walked back to safety. To this day, my parents are horrified by this experience. However, I don’t remember a single minute of that day when I was scared; instead, I was focused on getting home. I share this story because it offers a window into where I come from, my experience, and my personality.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

There’s a Chinese proverb: The Foolish Old man Removes The Mountain (愚公移山); this 4th-century story is about an old man who believed the mountains nearby were in his way. When the locals heard his aspiration to dig through the mountains, they thought he was foolish. Paying no attention to the locals, he continued digging — his hard work and dedication impressed the gods, who eventually helped him move the mountains. I like to draw inspiration from this story and also Hannibal’s mentality; “I will either find a way or make one.” I often think back to these two inspirations whenever I need a little encouragement.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

A moment that significantly impacted me years ago was when I had the opportunity to meet the first Asian American woman to climb the seven tallest mountains in the world. My time with her inspired me to take the leap to start my own company finally. Her motivation to climb all seven stemmed from wanting to live a meaningful life. She didn’t want to look back on her life and have any regrets because she always stayed safe. While I was not trying to climb any mountains, I didn’t want to play it slow and safe in my career and look back with regrets. I knew I had aspirations, and hearing her story motivated me to climb my mountain and start VienneMilano.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

I created VienneMilano because I want to help every woman look and feel fabulous with thigh highs stockings. I truly believe that legs are a canvas for creativity and self-expression. However, prior to starting my business, I worked in high tech. At first, starting a business in fashion felt daunting as I had no prior experience in the industry. Still, over time, I overcame self-doubt by focusing on developing the necessary tools and skills for building a business.

The most important lesson I learned while launching my company was to be aware of my weaknesses. Having a healthy acknowledgment of your strengths and weaknesses gives you the opportunity to fine-tune your skills.

Admitting what I didn’t know gave me the chance to grow. To this day, I am still learning.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

Being first to market with a new idea is not the be-all-end-all of starting a business. Competitors can be collaborators as well, particularly in fashion. It’s about how you would bring your concept to creation.

I also recommend talking to (potential) customers to see if their current needs are met with existing offerings. Research the industry and learn how you can make your idea better than what already exists. All the data you need is out there. How you interpret the data and what you decide to do brings value to your business.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

The first step I took was to research the market; what are the existing solutions, and who are the customers? Based on that information, I created a brand positioning for VienneMilano. The next step is I took was to research available suppliers and made decisions based on those who fit the brand.

My most important step is to select a launch date. This may not be the next move for everyone, but giving myself a deadline motivates me. Picking a meaningful date amps up my excitement and creativity, but also keeps me on a schedule. I chose my birthdate as my deadline to leave corporate America and begin my journey with VienneMIlano.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

1. A fabulous pair of shoes (and stockings) — Shoes dictate how you look and feel. The sky is the limit if you are wearing the right pair of shoes and stockings — especially if you are in the business of selling hosiery!
2. A good coffee machine — Need I say more?
3. The ability to delegate — Naturally, I am that person who feels like I need to do it all — however, this gets very expensive very quickly. It’s always better to delegate.
4. Networking — It’s a numbers game! The more people you meet, the more likely you will meet someone who is one in a million (but more importantly, can help your business grow)
5. Take care of your physical health — You don’t need to become a gym rat (unless your invention or business is gym or rat related), but it is essential to take care of your physical health. It’s also a great stress release, as starting a business will never be stress-free, no matter how much you love it!

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

The first step I recommend is to consider the problem your invention or business is trying to solve. Who are you helping, and how many are there? Will your idea help one person or many people? How do you intend to communicate with those who will use your solution? These are key questions to spend time on before starting a business.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

While I have never worked with an invention development consultant before, I had help from a very knowledgeable business partner in the beginning. No one can do it all, and I recommend finding good help.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

It depends on the growth: How much growth do you want to accomplish? Do you view your business as a race or a marathon? Some people, myself included, enjoy the journey, which is why I prefer the bootstrap method.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Humbly, I can’t say I’ve made the world a better place, but I’d to think I’ve made the world a little more fabulous, one leg at a time.

That said, I am on the advisory board of a non-profit organization focused on helping under privilege women.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Early in my career, I was in customer-facing roles. The skills I learned from working directly with clients have been invaluable to my business and its success. I also feel that working with customers helps refine problem-solving skills, thus allowing one to build confidence and relationships.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I have always been a fan of Michelle Yeoh, a woman of style, grace, ambition, education, talent, the list goes on. It would be incredible if I could have dim sum with her — that said, I would be so starstruck that I just hope to remember how to talk!

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Making Something From Nothing: Vienne Cheung Brown On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Measure — You must measure something to know what to improve. If you don’t use measurement tools, then how do you determine if you’re getting better or worse? For Beltone, we have several measurement tools including our Net Promoter Score (NPS), growth in the business, and turnover among employees.

As part of our series about the five things a business should do to create a Wow! customer experience, I had the pleasure of interviewing Beltone President, Mike Halloran.

Mike Halloran is the president of Beltone, the nation’s leading hearing care retailer recently named Best in Customer Service for Hearing Care by Newsweek. An industry veteran with approximately 20 years of experience in the hearing industry, Halloran joined Beltone in May 2020 after severing as Chief Financial Officer and general partner with Audigy Group for almost six years. Prior to this, Halloran was VP and CFO for Action Target, Inc., and VP and CFO for Sonic Innovations, Inc. Halloran has helped lead, grow, and position the Beltone brand as America’s #1 hearing care retailer by implementing innovative technology systems and platforms that help optimize support to Beltone’s expanding network of owners while enhancing patient care.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

I used to work for a big manufacturing company in Salt Lake City that was a Fortune 500 company on the NYSE. A buddy of mine left the company to work for a little startup called Sonic Innovations. Sonic was a private equity backed startup in the hearing industry and one of the very first ones to come out with a digital hearing aid as up to that point they were all analog. They were very quick in becoming a technology leader in the industry and wanted to do a public offering but needed someone with lots of accounting experience, so they hired me to be their Controller. We did a public offering about a year later growing the company from $10 million to $150 million before it was sold off to Oticon over a 10-year period. I started as Controller, then I was a VP, and ultimately became their CFO by the time the sale was finalized. I left the industry for a few years but got back into it when Audigy, a management services company based in Portland, wanted to sell and since I had experience with that process and knew the space and players, they called me to help give them the support they needed. They ended up selling to GN Hearing, which also owns Beltone, and I worked at Audigy as CFO for serval years before becoming President of Beltone in 2020.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

It’s more of a series of events over my career where I learned to accept criticism much better by knowing it’s really being said to make me better versus not actually “criticizing” me. If there is one thing that most people do, including myself, they tend to take everything personally. So being able to handle criticism is a skill and something you learn from. It’s okay if you get criticized, it’s part of life and you get better from it. I find that if I get defensive about it then it doesn’t go well, and I don’t learn anything from it. So, a takeaway I learned and say to everyone is that by accepting criticism you will get better but by being defensive and not listening to it, you won’t be able to improve.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

The CEO of Sonic Innovations at the time I was working there taught me to be a good businessman and a good operator and not just an accountant. He took me from an accountant who focused on numbers to one who also focused on business and operations and eventually promoted me to CFO. He taught me not to just do the numbers but to actually make a change in the business and be a good business partner with someone versus just being their accountant.

Thank you for that. Let’s now pivot to the main focus of our interview. This might be intuitive, but I think it’s helpful to specifically articulate it. In your words, can you share a few reasons why great customer service and a great customer experience is essential for success in business?

People have choices and they are multiplying so to stand out in a very crowded field you must have something whether it’s price, product, or service. I think about Beltone, and we have a great product, but I really pride myself on our service and our Net Promoter Scores and that we are taking care of the patient because, in the end, we change lives. It’s really about that experience, not just about the “widget”, as the service and experience are what change people’s lives so they can be more engaged at home, at work, and with life in general. Great service is what’s essential to making sure customers are happy.

We have all had times either in a store, or online, when we’ve had a very poor experience as a customer or user. If the importance of a good customer experience is so intuitive, and apparent, where is the disconnect? How is it that so many companies do not make this a priority?

A lot of the disconnect is with the people that are hired. It all starts with hiring the right people who are service orientated and developing a process and providing training.

Do you think that more competition helps force companies to improve the customer experience they offer? Are there other external pressures that can force a company to improve the customer experience?

Definitely. Whether it’s an existing competition or even an outside one trying to get in. For the hearing industry with over the counter (OTC) hearing aids coming into the mix, you need to figure out how to differentiate yourself not just from the competitors of today but also from the ones coming in tomorrow. You should also measure internally and have competition within yourself to get better while setting standards within the company and holding people to them.

Can you share with us a story from your experience about a customer who was “Wowed” by the experience you provided?

A Beltone patient named Harold Kroll recently visited our Mobile, Alabama office and left a glowing review of his experience stating, “As always, your attention and service to your clients is superb! I would highly recommend to anyone who might ask me about getting hearing aids to come and talk with you before buying anything else. Thank you for what you do for your customers!”

Did that Wow! experience have any long-term ripple effects? Can you share the story?

Yes, as we were recently ranked #1 for Best in Customer Service for Hearing Care in America by Newsweek, have 30,000 5-star Google reviews, and consistently have outstanding Net Promoter Scores.

Ok, here is the main question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should know in order to create a Wow! Customer Experience. Please share a story or an example for each.

1. Measure — You must measure something to know what to improve. If you don’t use measurement tools, then how do you determine if you’re getting better or worse? For Beltone, we have several measurement tools including our Net Promoter Score (NPS), growth in the business, and turnover among employees.

2. Hire the right people — It’s all about hiring the right people and making sure they are service orientated and providing them with a consistent process and proper training.

3. Training — Set up a process and train employees. And whatever that process is, if the company is consistent in the process, it will be a good experience and can always get better. If you don’t have a consistent process, then you really don’t have a baseline to get better. You really need a consistent process with customer service such as your approach and what you say. When you do that and train everyone on it then you can measure and become better and better.

4. Culture — Establishing a culture around customer satisfaction is key. Be urgent to take care of your customer and go out of your way to help them and make sure to reward employee successes.

5. Take the view of the customer — For example, when you walk into your store, view it as if you’re a customer viewing it for the first time. Walk through with an eagle eye and open eye and see what it looks like and what needs to be done. Realizing what you may be comfortable with may not be comfortable to others is the difference between stepping up your game and being complacent.

Are there a few things that can be done so that when a customer or client has a Wow! experience, they inspire others to reach out to you as well?

We have 30,000 5-star Google reviews as we encourage our patients to post reviews about their Wow! experience at Beltone and send a survey to those who buy hearing aids from us to get their feedback on their experience and if they recommend any improvements.

My particular expertise is in retail, so I’d like to ask a question about that. Amazon is going to exert pressure on all of retail for the foreseeable future. New Direct-To-Consumer companies based in China are emerging that offer prices that are much cheaper than US and European brands. What would you advise retail companies and eCommerce companies, for them to be successful in the face of such strong competition?

In the hearing industry, I believe it isn’t about the product, it’s about the service. The more service and interaction customers have with a professional, the better the experience will be as they will have a better understanding of the product they are purchasing which leads to customer satisfaction. Beltone’s customer satisfaction scores are really high because we have that personal interaction. For example, with the new FDA OTC hearing aid ruling, if you’re just selling a product and you don’t have that personal interaction and experience, there will be a lot of disappointed people which could also lead to returns on products they don’t understand how to use on their own. This in turn, will motivate customers to seek the help of a professional to increase their satisfaction.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

To get people started on their hearing care journey sooner. Studies show that people with hearing loss tend to wait 7–10 years before starting their hearing journey, however, during that time they begin to miss out on interactions and connections with loved ones and at work because they waited too long. So, if I could start a movement, which I am hoping that OTC hearing aids help a little with, is that people start their hearing care journey a lot sooner so they don’t miss out on the important connections and relationships in their lives as that can potentially lead to other health risks including depression, cognitive decline, and social isolation.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

They can follow Beltone on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

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Mike Halloran of Beltone On 5 Ways To Create a Wow! Customer Experience was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

I think so many entrepreneurs get stuck in the numbers of it all. A fellow entrepreneur once pointed this out to me and it really resonated, because I think a lot of us over-analyze everything instead of just diving in and making the product. It made me realize how much time I had wasted in the past, but it also changed the way I approach life going forward.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Carter Williams.

Carter has always been a science nerd and thought he would become a doctor. After college, he moved to New York City to work as a production assistant while applying to medical school. Almost immediately, it was clear the film industry was not his calling. The first company at which he was a founding member was Firefly Mobile, where we made a pioneering product: the first mobile phone for kids. From there, he went to business school (HBS) and started an edtech (educational technology) company with his professor. He then ventured into Private Equity, but realized his true passion was in creating products that helped others — enter Deeps.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I’ve always been a science nerd and I thought becoming a doctor was my natural path. After college, I moved to New York City to work as a production assistant while applying to medical school. Almost immediately, it was clear the film industry was not my calling. In fact, when I showed up for my fourth week of my first post-university job (along with my first job ever in the film world), I learned that the movie, along with my job, had been shelved — indefinitely. I was fortunate enough to find construction jobs to make ends meet until I could find film work again. And this was how it went for some time. On more than one occasion, I’d go without power for weeks at a time after not being able to pay the electricity bill.

The clouds parted when a business plan for the first mobile phone for kids landed quite literally in my lap. As I paged through the plan for Firefly Mobile, I felt like I’d been thunderstruck but in the AC/DC sort of way. A mentor once told me “sometimes opportunity walks by and when you recognize it, you’ve got to reach out and grab it by the cloak and, despite not knowing where it will take you and all the uncertainty, you’ve got to just hold on or it passes you by.” And that is what I did. Essentially prying their door open, I said don’t take my word for it — let me show you what I can bring. I then jumped-in headfirst and set out to prove that I could be a significant contributor. To my surprise and delight, they asked me to join the team. my own.

Ever since, I’ve channeled my educational and professional pursuits toward building meaningful products that fill a whitespace and that directly impact people. Enter Deeps.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

We saw a significant gap in the sleep wellness market. There were three categories of sleep aids writ large: Prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals, non-science based holistic products, and at the bulky center of the market, melatonin in various forms.

Like any industry, new products continue to pop up on shelves, yet, in our view the sleep-aid category was unique in that it was marked by a type of incremental product evolution that could be characterized as one in slow motion. Whether online or in physical retail environments, the lack of innovation and slow-moving product-enhancement incrementalism was observable across the commerce landscape. It was especially evident in the sleep-aid aisles across the brick-and-mortar retailers, large or small. In a store, the sleep-aid section was a wall purple and yellow, consisting of bottles with similar labels. Differentiation was either not apparent or marginal. And when we witnessed product evolution, the product enhancements were incremental and modest and predominantly ‘new feature’ focused. Generally the products were the same but with a slight twist. We observed that new products tended to fall into one of three enhancement categories: (i) different combinations of the same ingredients, (ii) the same product with the inclusion of an additional ingredient (e.g. Melatonin+), and (iii) each of the foregoing offered in several ingestible formats. The biggest innovation to date was the introduction of sleep gummies, an alternative to pill form.

We also noticed there were some negative side effects accompanying many of these types of sleep-aids, which led us to the exhaustive approach we took to the science and R&D of the patch — how it felt, how it fit, how it looked, how it smelled, how it worked biomechanically and with people’s sleep routines and mostly how it performed. We iterated and reformulated more times than I can count. The result features innovative ingredients and sustained-release technology that help you fall asleep faster, and sleep better through the night, without waking-up feeling groggy or medicated.

There is endless research out there supporting the health benefits of sleep, which so many of us overlook. Our mission for the company is to transform the sleep wellness industry by introducing real sleep solutions that are thoughtful, sustainable, emotional, effective, and backed by science. The Deeps Sleep Patch is our first step on that mission.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When we began exploring sleep-focused patch solutions we also used sleep-adjacent categories. One of the first prototypes we developed was a pain patch. A friend’s husband volunteered to try our first prototype. He was actually pretty enthusiastic as he worked on the assembly line at an automotive plant and had been experiencing lower back pain. He reported that he loved the patches…. until he had to remove them. As it turned out, he would invariably forget to remove his pain patch after returning home from work. His user-experience went like this: He would bring a prototype patch with him to work and then apply it to his lower back before beginning his shift. At which point he’d discover that the previous day’s prototype patch was where the new one was meant to go. Located in the small of his back, it was difficult to remove — so he’d just wear yesterday’s patch through his work day. When he arrived home he’d need to have his wife help him rip it off. There were definitely some yelps and suffice it to say, he got a targeted waxing he hadn’t bargained for, so we went back to the drawing board. Many iterations later we came to a product where everything clicked.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

My advice to anyone hoping to achieve success in any industry, is to find a great mentor. Since I was young, I have always tried to surround myself with people who not only inspire me, but who also push me outside of my comfort zone.

In business school, I met one of my greatest mentors, Peter Olson, the previous pioneering CEO of Random House. He started out as my professor, educating me about the fundamental business skills needed to succeed professionally. However, along the way, he has impacted my life personally as well. Years later, we still speak once a week.

His support has helped to give me the confidence that I am more than just my last good idea or business plan. He also has taught me that fear of failure and disappointment is within all of us but you don’t have to show your cards at all times.

My uncle Tod Williams, an architect and a true visionary, also taught me about the importance of mission and passion: The former must always be followed by the latter — both are critical but mission is fundamental. Tod also taught me the importance of details. One time we were walking into a museum that he and his wife designed. Like all of his projects, he took deep pride in every aspect of the space. So, when he noticed a piece of gum on the ground — something nearly every person who walked in had overlooked — I could see how much it bothered him. Without saying a word, he bent down and pried it off the floor with his bare hands. While you always have to make compromises, he believed that the central vision — including even the smallest details — must hold.

This started making a lot of sense in my own professional life when we were in the formulation phase of creating Deeps: Every ingredient had to fit with our mission, including how it was sourced and its contribution to the final product both individually and synergistically.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

I think the answer is subjective. Labels are challenging and disruption can mean a variety of things.

We can think about the Yeti cooler as an example of disruption. Coolers have existed for decades, but Yeti wholly reimagined the category by departing from a utilitarian perspective of the cooler and embraced a new definition. The once humble cooler became a must-have accessory-tool for all types of users and across all manner of use cases, from anglers to adventurers to weekend beach-goers and to Renaissance Fair attendees (into which category I fall). Yeti’s vision challenged other brands to better understand their customer and design something they wanted.

To me, disruption is at once a process and the natural state of things. Think about video conferencing. It has revolutionized the way we do business, and opened the floodgates for a new culture of remote work to emerge. But can it really replicate the magic that happens when people are collaborating in the same physical space?

It’s both boon and bane — a sword that cuts both ways. It positively moves the needle for businesses of all kinds, and has become a tool in the arsenal of almost every working professional’s life. But video conferencing has limitations at best, and consequences at worst.

No single innovation is a silver bullet. It’s exciting to see innovation happen anywhere and everywhere — and to see that the pace of innovation is quickening. To tinker, find solutions, innovate, and perhaps even by accident, disrupt, is a hallmark of the human condition.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

Wherever you go, there you are. To me, the quote is a reminder that we do not have reprieve from ourselves. When that feels heavy, I remind myself of something my mentor Peter Olson often says: “Just be Carter. Carter is your magic.” It helps reset my perspective to where it should be.

Make the concept car. Growing up in Michigan I would go to the Detroit Auto Show every year with my father. Concept cars always fascinated me, as they involved thinking really big while also sitting at the critical intersection of ‘form’ and ‘function’. Year after year, I’d be excited to see the Big 3 unveil their new cars. How could it not be the actual concept car I saw at the show or some version of it? Yet it always seemed what emerged from behind the curtain was the same car as the previous version except the new one had a spoiler. I never understood why they didn’t just make the concept car. And then Elon Musk came along and actually did. The risk clearly paid off and the world is a better place because of it.

Those aren’t orders, those are people. Over a casual lunch one day my first boss, Skip, shared a story with me that had a profound impact on his career. It went like this: He pioneered a consumer product that became a breakout blockbuster hit. Skip was woefully behind on product fulfillment and a stack of purchase orders had piled up on his desk. Lou Wasserman, a seasoned industry sales rep walked-in and asked, “What are those?” pointing to the stack of paper. “Those are orders,” Skip casually replied. Slamming his fist on the table, Lou yelled: “Dammit, those aren’t orders! Those are people!…. And those are promises.” The lesson was completely revelatory to me and something I think of often

Don’t let others get your kicks for you. Andrew Lowenstein, a mentor of mine, offered up this Bob Dylan quote to me on multiple occasions. Basically, so many people have great ideas, but may not take action and end up watching someone else take it to the finish line. If you have an idea, get out there and build it. There is a big difference between wanting to do something and going out there and actually doing it.

Enough with the f*$king numbers. Go get out there. I think so many entrepreneurs get stuck in the numbers of it all. A fellow entrepreneur once pointed this out to me and it really resonated, because I think a lot of us over-analyze everything instead of just diving in and making the product. It made me realize how much time I had wasted in the past, but it also changed the way I approach life going forward.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

I’m a person who is never going to be done until I am in the ground. There is still so much I want to accomplish in the realm of sleep wellness. Sleep patches are just the beginning. We are currently in the development process of some really exciting products that will help people of all ages get the sleep they need and deserve.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

It’s funny. I read so many books and listen to loads of podcasts, only to tap into some of the greatest lessons through my three-year-old son’s books. We read one of his favorites, Fireman Small, almost every night. It is about the only fireman in a small town, who humbly and wholeheartedly shows up to work every day. Whether it’s the smallest things, like rescuing a cat from a tree, or saving a burning bakery, Fireman Small is always there to answer the call.

And he isn’t there for the accolades or the money, but to show up and help people all while treating each person and situation like they are the highest priority, and oftentimes putting others in front of himself. Throughout the story he’s preparing for a good night’s sleep but when the fire bell rings, he’s still out the door. On the last page of the book, Fireman Small finally crawls into bed once more and pulls the covers over his head. I always find myself hoping that he finally gets a night of undisturbed sleep.

I love the message of this story: Fireman Small’s unrelenting work ethic, humility, and selflessness. And, at the end of a day, he reaps the reward of fulfillment and happiness. When it comes down to it, you can make all the money in the world, but nothing is as rewarding as getting to fall asleep at night, knowing that you showed up for your people, answered all the calls, and got the job done.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I have always tried to keep the quote, “A ship in a harbor is safe but that is not what ships are for,” in the back of my mind, especially in those moments of self-doubt. It can be tempting to take the easier, softer road that ends in a predictable future. However, you can’t be an entrepreneur without taking risks. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t plan and prepare for things that could go wrong, but you can’t let fear stop you. The greatest innovators always took their ship to sea, but not without bringing along a lifejacket and other necessary gear.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I would really love to inspire the sleep wellness movement, for people to approach sleep the same way they do diet and exercise. There is endless research that shows that lack of sleep decreases productivity, negatively impacts both mental and physical health, and may even be linked to certain types of cancers and other serious health issues.

Some of the greatest breakthroughs in history came right after waking up and science shows that good sleep improves brain function. Einstein was a power sleeper. He was committed to getting 10 hours each night. Edison, however, was a prodigious napper (albeit a stealth one) who hated long sleeps and who generally viewed sleep as a burden. Perhaps if Edison took Einstein’s view on sleep I wonder if he could have turned out a few more zingers.

Yet, according to the CDC, more than one-third of Americans are not getting enough sleep on a regular basis.This is why Deeps is dedicated to creating products that will encourage not only more, but better sleep.

How can our readers follow you online?

• @Getdeeps
• https://getdeeps.com

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

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Meet The Disruptors: Carter Williams Of Deeps On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

“Challenge yourself to be uncomfortable”

When building a company, you’re always going to be uncomfortable and just have to get used to that. If you can turn being uncomfortable into a challenge, or a competition, and take pride in being uncomfortable, it allows you to accomplish things you previously thought were impossible.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Anthony Santomo.

Anthony Santomo is a financial technology entrepreneur and the Founder/CEO of Ampla, a fast-growing VC-backed financial platform built for SMBs operating across the CPG supply chain. Prior to Ampla, Anthony was one of the first employees at Attentive, a Series E technology company valued at more than $10 billion. Anthony also worked on several high-profile transactions during his time in Leveraged Finance at Macquarie Capital and prior years at Barclays Capital. He graduated Cum Laude from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was an All-American and Captain of the Men’s Division-1 Lacrosse team.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I grew up in NJ and spent my time with a close group of friends competing in sports, in school, and everything in between. This relentless competitive dynamic defined much of my childhood. After high school, I went to the University of Pennsylvania, where I was Captain of the Men’s Lacrosse team and named All American and Academic All American my senior year. I’ve always thrived in competitive environments and appreciate the team camaraderie that athletics bring out in people, and a lot of those principles have carried over to my professional endeavors.

After college, I started building my career at Barclays and Macquarie Capital. I left investment banking to join a fellow alum (now mentor) from Penn who was starting a new company based in NYC. This company is now known as Attentive and is a Series E tech company valued at more than $10 Billion. I was fortunate to have joined as one of the first 10 employees and was the first Account Executive on the GTM team. Similar to Ampla, Attentive services modern consumer brands. Speaking with countless brands at Attentive, I saw how underbanked this segment of the SMB market was and realized that many of the struggles brands endure while scaling can be attributed to a lack of financial support. It’s those insights, coupled with my experience in finance, that led me to build Ampla.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

We started Ampla to help founders and operators scale their business by filling a long-standing gap in the financial solutions space. Our first product addressed the working gap between the large cash outlays for inventory and marketing and when the brands ultimately receive retail and ecommerce payments. Contrary to popular belief, as these brands see more success and scale, this working capital gap becomes increasingly more elongated as they are required to produce and hold more inventory at various locations across the country. I discovered this pain-point while working at Attentive, and I was able to validate this insight by observing my father in-law’s nationwide trucking and warehousing business that predominantly serves the CPG industry. As emerging consumer brands expanded and scaled their marketing spend, they would have difficulty supporting the demand for their product. Without the right financial backing would be either forced to turn down orders or dilute themselves by raising equity.

Some of the more established solutions, like traditional banks, typically don’t have the proper technology to properly underwrite modern consumer brands with multiple omni-channel revenue streams, and therefore cannot provide a meaningful amount of capital to support their future growth plans. Other newer solutions like “flat-fee” MCAs will typically advance cash based on a single ecommerce revenue channel by leveraging POS software. These “flat-fee” MCA solutions make it very difficult for operators to calculate their true all-in cost because they implement a “flat-fee” and “percentage of revenue payback structure”, which leads to unsustainably high annualized costs. This means that the more success a business has in driving revenue, the faster they will pay back the advance, and the higher their annualized cost of capital will be. We view this at Ampla as misaligned incentives.

Ampla removes all of these headaches by providing a funding solution that works across all revenue channels and that is embedded within an all-in-one financial platform.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I prefer to think of this as a learning experience rather than a mistake, but our business was originally named, “Gourmet Growth,” because we were dealing almost exclusively with brands in the food and beverage space. I wanted a name that harkened back to that category, hence the “gourmet.” It turned out that the name wasn’t all that descriptive and many people thought we were a food brand ourselves. There was also a leaf motif going on with the logo that almost made us look like we were selling plants.

As the business grew, and we began to consider raising outside capital and expanding beyond F&B, we knew we needed a better name and brand. That said, we’re not ashamed of our old name or brand at all. The lesson for me here was not to overthink things — we came up with the name “Gourmet Growth” super quickly, and put it out into the world. It worked for a certain amount of time, until we needed a change. I think it’s a great example of not letting perfect be the enemy of good.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

Throughout my career, I have been lucky to have numerous mentors and Ampla would not be where it is today without these mentors. I would never have been able to start Ampla without my experience at Attentive. I was fortunate to be able to learn first hand from Brian Long who I view as one of the greatest technology operators of our time. Brian Long, Brian Malkerson, Andrew Jones, and many others showed me what real 0 to 1 growth looks like.

When starting Ampla, we had key mentors early on that shaped the way we think about our business. In particular, I’d like to call out Matt Grossman, Jeff Mitelman, and Ted Kosev. Each of them were instrumental in the strategy and operating plan early on that ultimately set us up for the success we have had.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

“Challenge yourself to be uncomfortable”

When building a company, you’re always going to be uncomfortable and just have to get used to that. If you can turn being uncomfortable into a challenge, or a competition, and take pride in being uncomfortable, it allows you to accomplish things you previously thought were impossible.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

We have a number of products currently in the works and have an amazing team to build them. We are building an all-in-one financial platform for emerging brands where they can get access to capital, banking, bill pay, credit & debit cards, and more. We plan to expand across the entire supply chain so that all parties can win together. Stay tuned.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

A few years ago, I read a book called Relentless by Tim Grover. Tim Grover was the personal trainer for Michael Jordan, Dwayne Wade, Kobe Bryant and countless others. Throughout the book, Tim recounts untold stories about each of them and the essential traits shared by the most intense competitors in sports but also in business. As I mentioned earlier, athletics played a huge role in who I am today and I try my best to learn from the greats in this book.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“The most prepared wins the negotiation.”

This is a quote from my college lacrosse coach, Mike Murphy, but this applies to everything, not just negotiation. Coach Murph was a mentor to many of us at Penn and set the tone both on and off the field. If you fail to prepare you are preparing to fail. In sports, games are won during practice. In work, the same is true and therefore I take the same approach. At Ampla, we do a tremendous amount of research before building a product, we prepare pre-reads before meetings, and we don’t sign agreements without extensive deliberation over terms.

In negotiations, I do my research to try to understand what the other person is looking for, what they’re after, what I’m willing to concede, what my boundaries are, and from there, the negotiation can be fruitful for both parties. As Stephen Covery explains, it is important to create Win-Win situations that are mutually beneficial and satisfying to each party.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Personal discipline and responsibility. Building Ampla has been an incredible experience but I would not have been able to do this without the habits of personal discipline and responsibility. Only once those habits are established, you are self-sufficient. Once you are self-sufficient, you have the freedom to attack bigger goals, such as building a company or building a family. If you are unable to take care of yourself, you won’t be able to take care of others later.

Build a large network. Surround yourself with the best people because people who don’t pursue their own dreams won’t be supportive as you pursue yours. Being authentic and genuine will make you relatable and increase your influence. Personally, this has helped me build an incredible network of friends and a happy family. Professionally, it has helped Ampla bring on some of the very best talent, attracting folks from financial institutions, consumer brands, tech unicorns, as well as other start-up founders and operators. I attribute much of Ampla’s success to our Amployees, investors, and customers.

Be relentless. “In anything you do, it takes no talent to work hard. You just have to want to do it.” — Tim Grover

How can our readers follow you online?

On LinkedIn as Anthony Santomo, and of course https://www.getampla.com and all the company socials LinkedIn Twitter Instagram

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

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Meet The Disruptors: Anthony Santomo Of Ampla On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Brand Makeovers: Josiah & Meg Mothershed Of Mothershed Design Co. On The 5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize Your Brand and Image

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Spread the word! Promote your new brand on social media, run advertisements, and engage with potential customers. By building brand awareness, you can increase recognition and start building a loyal customer base.

As part of our series about “Brand Makeovers” I had the pleasure to interview Josiah and Meg Mothershed of Mothershed Design Co.

As a husband-wife team, Meg and Josiah are partners in love, life, and business. Having been together for nearly a decade and running a business for six of those years, this dynamic duo has expanded to an international client base and achieved recurring six-figure yearly sales, all while maintaining freedom over their time and a relentless passion for the design field. Josiah and Meg use their unique talents and skills to help small businesses succeed by building brands and websites that stand out, attract the right customers, and drive growth.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Josiah: After years spent working as a graphic designer for agencies and in-house teams, I was feeling frustrated and unfulfilled. Having been involved in every step of the design process, I knew what it took to run a project from start to finish and felt I could do it better. So, in 2016 I struck out on my own and formed Mothershed Design Co. shortly after Meg and I got married.

Meg: At the time Josiah started the studio, I was working as an in-house graphic designer at a nonprofit. While it was a great job as a recent graduate, it left me craving more. Having always wanted to own my own business since I was six years old, joining Josiah at MDCo. was a no-brainer! I quit my job and joined him in the business full time in 2016 and we’ve never looked back.

Can you share a story about the funniest marketing or branding mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Josiah: One of the biggest lessons we learned early on is to ensure all the decision-makers are involved in a project from the start. By doing so, you ensure everyone’s voice is heard and can receive the necessary approvals every step of the way (and avoid any potentially awkward faux pas)!

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Is there a takeaway or lesson that others can learn from that?

Josiah: About four years into business, we really began hitting our stride! This came with the development of our Brand and Website Packages.

Meg: We created these packages based on our small business clients’ needs. We offer several tiers of brand and website packages that make it easy to receive exactly what you need and nothing that you don’t.

Josiah: Prior to developing this new business model, we spent a lot of time quoting custom projects and less time producing great design. As a result of our packages, we’re able to help more small businesses than ever before!

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Josiah: We’re currently working on several rebranding projects for new clients! Rebrands are our bread and butter. We love taking an existing brand that feels outdated or poorly designed and transforming it into one that reflects the value the business provides and stands out from the competition!

What advice would you give to other marketers to thrive and avoid burnout?

Meg: Trying to accomplish too much too fast is a sure-fire way to burn out. While we may experience pressure from outside forces, ultimately it’s up to you to set your own boundaries.

Josiah: Stop worrying about others’ expectations and start with one area of focus and put your time and energy into making that successful, rather than jumping from task to task.

Meg: There’s tremendous power in staying small and going for sustainable growth. Sustainable business growth is focusing on realistic, maintainable growth, rather than going full-steam ahead 24/7 and burning out in the short-term. Businesses that focus on small-scale, sustainable growth can be more adaptable, preserve their autonomy, maintain lower overhead, and have greater potential for profit.

Josiah: By not giving in to the pressure to grow too much too fast, you can hit realistic revenue goals, have the time to weigh business decisions, truly enjoy your work, and avoid losing the passion that got you into business in the first place.

Meg: In our years in business as Mothershed Design Co., we have experienced just how much a small business can truly accomplish working as a team of two from a home office, including expanding to an international client base and recurring six-figure yearly sales, while maintaining the freedom of entrepreneurship and relentless passion for our field.

Josiah: Our emphasis on sustainable growth is what keeps us going and helps us attempt to achieve that all-elusive work-life balance.

Ok, let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)? Can you explain?

Josiah: Think of your brand as your company’s reputation. When your business comes to mind, what do people think of? If the way you’re presenting your business to the world doesn’t match up to how you want it to be perceived, you need to make a change.

Meg: Marketing, on the other hand, uses the brand that you’ve built to develop content that speaks to your target audience and gets your product or service in front of the right people.

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?

Meg: In working with many clients, we know that what worked in the past won’t necessarily work forever. A rebrand can help you reach new audiences and demonstrate the skills, products, and services you’ve refined overtime.

Josiah: Don’t lose business to the competition. Knowing when it’s the right time to take a step back and give your business a hard look is what will ultimately keep you in business. It takes an investment of your time and resources to build something of value that lasts.

Let’s now talk about rebranding. What are a few reasons why a company would consider rebranding?

Josiah: We know what it’s like to start your business with a dream and a shoestring budget. However, as your business evolves, so should your brand! Your products or services may have changed, your audience might be different or more niche, or you may be headed in a different direction entirely.

Meg: If the way you’re presenting your business to the world no longer speaks to your audience or represents the quality of your services or products, it’s time to level up your brand.

Are there downsides of rebranding? Are there companies that you would advise against doing a “Brand Makeover”? Why?

Meg: We would recommend a rebrand to a company that has defined goals and a clear vision for the business they’re trying to build. Without a plan, a rebrand is not likely to get you where you’re trying to go.

Josiah: Typically, we’re working to rebrand companies that have been in business for at least several years, if not longer. These clients have enough years in business to know where they’re going and what they’re trying to achieve.

Ok, here is the main question of our discussion. Can you share 5 strategies that a company can do to upgrade and re-energize their brand and image”? Please tell us a story or an example for each.

Meg: The first two steps to a successful rebrand are to evaluate your company’s positioning in the marketplace and define your key differentiators. Are you speaking to the right audience? What are your product or service’s key differentiators? Why should someone choose your business over another? By answering these all-important questions, you can define your brand’s positioning and stand out from competitors.

Josiah: Next, refresh your logo and update your website to ensure your business not only talks the talk, but walks the walk. With a professionally designed brand and website, you can get more qualified leads to encourage sales, build and maintain your online presence to attract the right clients, and eliminate stress and confusion and get back to growing your business.

Meg: Finally, spread the word! Promote your new brand on social media, run advertisements, and engage with potential customers. By building brand awareness, you can increase recognition and start building a loyal customer base.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job doing a “Brand Makeover”. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

Josiah: The recent Burger King rebrand is a great example of a successful “brand makeover.” Burger King’s refreshed brand has a retro, nostalgic feel that appeals to audiences both young and old. It’s simplified with a focus on taste appeal, which coincides with the fast food chain’s move to using less artificial ingredients. The rebrand is practically universally loved, which is incredibly hard to accomplish with such a well-known brand.

For other businesses looking to replicate Burger King’s rebrand success, I’d recommend a back to basics approach that emphasizes authenticity and appeals to your primary audiences.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Josiah: At Mothershed Design Co., we believe in small, sustainable growth. We have found that’s the key to our success, both professionally and personally. Constantly doing creative work can be both incredibly rewarding and challenging. It’s easy to quickly become burned out doing something you love.

Meg: Our goal as a business is to support other small businesses through branding and web design while maintaining the motivation that made us want to start a business in the first place—freedom over our time and spending that time doing something meaningful.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Meg: Something we constantly remind ourselves is to “be comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

Josiah: As both entrepreneurs and creatives, pushing yourself out of your comfort zone is crucial to achieving your dreams. If you only pursued what you were familiar with, you’d never experience anything new. You would stay in the same place with the same people in the same situations.

Meg: It can be downright scary to go after what you truly want, but life is too short to be left wondering, “what if?”

How can our readers follow you online?

Meg: You can discover our brand and website packages at MothershedDesign.com or follow along on Instagram at @mothershed_design.

Thank you so much for these excellent insights! We wish you continued success in your work.

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Brand Makeovers: Josiah & Meg Mothershed Of Mothershed Design Co On The 5 Things You Should Do To U was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Ruadhan Of Seasonal Tokens On The 5 Things You Need To Understand In Order To Successfully Invest In Cryptocurrency

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Your emotions will betray you. When prices are high, you’ll be euphoric, and you’ll imagine that they’ll keep going up. When they’re low, you’ll be afraid, and you’ll think that they’ll keep falling. If you listen to your emotions, you’ll buy high and sell low. To make a profit, it’s necessary to prevent emotions from interfering with your trading decisions. You can do that by deciding on the prices at which you’ll open and close the trade before you start trading, and then stick to those prices.

Over the past few years, the Cryptocurrency industry has been making headlines nearly every week. Many people have gotten very wealthy investing or leading the cryptocurrency industry. At the same time, many people have lost a lot investing in the industry. In addition, more people have been scrutinizing the ecological impact of crypto mining, as well as its potential facilitation of illegal activity. What is being done and what can be done to address these concerns?

In this interview series called “5 Things You Need To Understand In Order To Successfully Invest In Cryptocurrency” we are talking to leaders in the cryptocurrency industry, as well as successful investors, who share insights from their experience about how to successfully invest in Cryptocurrency.

As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ruadhan.

Ruadhan is a cryptocurrency investor, miner and developer, who worked in physics, cryptography and finance before moving into cryptocurrency development. During his time working in the financial sector as a quant, Ruadhan specialized in automated strategies for trading equities. By combining expertise from multiple fields, Ruadhan has been able to create cryptocurrencies with unique investment properties.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a little about your backstory and how you grew up?

I worked in physics, neuroscience and finance before moving into cryptocurrency development. When I was in academia, it became clear to me that it’s necessary to have your own wealth if you want complete freedom to research the topics you want. When Bitcoin appeared, it was obvious that it was a good long-term investment, because Bitcoins become increasingly difficult to obtain as time goes on. Working in finance and investing in cryptocurrency gave me the freedom to pursue my own projects.

At the same time, studying the Bitcoin source code gave me the ability to use my own software engineering experience to create new cryptocurrencies.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

The Bitcoin white paper had a huge impact on me when it appeared. It was soon after the 2007–2008 financial crisis, and a lot of people, including myself, saw the need for a monetary system that didn’t require trust in financial institutions. I understood cryptography, so I knew that the new system would use digital signatures to transfer ownership of assets, but I didn’t know how to solve the problem of removing trust entirely. I could create a system where people would send each other IOUs for precious metals, but there would still need to be a trusted custodian who held the metals and redeemed the IOUs.

The Bitcoin white paper solved the problem in an ingenious way, using proof-of-work. Instead of being an IOU for something else, Bitcoins are payment in full. They’re not promises that can be broken. The limited supply and the increasing cost of production overtime gave them an investment value and supported the market price. Everything necessary for a complete monetary system with no need to trust intermediaries was there from the beginning, and the code was open-source and already working. Bitcoin was clearly going to change the world for the better over the coming decades. It was a very exciting time.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue your particular career path? We’d love to hear it.

It’s the story of Bitcoin. The rate of production of new Bitcoins gets cut in half once every four years, which reduces the supply over time and ratchets the price up. That’s made Bitcoin a very good investment. I was motivated to start the Seasonal Tokens project almost entirely by thinking about the considerations of Bitcoin investors.

Bitcoin’s price goes through seasons because of the regular four-year cuts in supply. Seasonality is good for investors if they can harness it for profit. Bitcoin alone doesn’t have that capability, so I decided to create a system of cryptocurrencies that did.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When we first started our community on Discord, we had an invite competition to attract new members and reward the people who were helping to grow the community. One of the winners was cheating, using an army of bots instead of inviting real people. We detected him and banned him from the server, but he didn’t like that, and he programmed his bot army to flood our server with rude and insulting messages. It took us a few weeks to find and ban all the bot accounts. It was an entertaining experience to be targeted by robots programmed to insult you.

The main lesson I learned was that there are a lot of scammers and it’s not always easy to guarantee that the members who join the community are real people, but I also learned that building a community can be a very funny experience.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I’m particularly grateful to Sam, our community manager. I’m a technical person, so I was able to write the smart contract code and the white paper and put together the economic and mining infrastructure needed to get our project started, but I didn’t have a clue about how to build a community. He was able to use his connections and his networking skills to build a community of thousands of people, with a talented team dedicated to making the project a success. He clicked his fingers and suddenly we were thriving. It’s truly amazing how quickly crypto communities can grow when the right people are involved.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I’m working on Seasonal Tokens, which is a project with four cryptocurrencies whose prices oscillate around each other over the course of years. Prices that behave that way are very good for investment, because it’s possible to keep trading the more expensive tokens for the cheaper ones, which become the most expensive later on. That lets investors increase their holdings over time without the risk of making a loss, measured in tokens. By always trading tokens for more tokens of a different type, an investor can guarantee that the total number of tokens in the investment will increase with every trade and never decrease.

I think this will help cryptocurrency enthusiasts to invest in cryptocurrencies without gambling. Most people who start investing in cryptocurrencies end up trying to trade for profit, which is very competitive, and most people lose money. It is possible to make a solid return on your investment without taking on a big risk of loss, but it requires patience. There aren’t enough cryptocurrency projects focused on long-term investing.

Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. The cryptocurrency industry seems extremely dynamic right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry? If you can, please share a story or example for each.

1. Institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies is just beginning. Nasdaq has started a push to allow institutions to invest in Bitcoin and Ethereum, and more cryptocurrencies are likely to follow. Regulators and lawmakers are taking cryptocurrency seriously. They’re gradually providing more clarity about what’s allowed and what isn’t, and strategies for protecting investors without stifling innovation are being developed. Until now, the mainstream financial community has been excluded from the trillion-dollar crypto market, but that’s likely to change in the coming months and years.

2. Permission less innovation. Anybody in the world with a laptop can create new cryptocurrencies that everyone can buy and trade, and they don’t need anybody’s permission to do that. Satoshi Nakamoto and Vitalik Buterin have totally transformed the world just by writing code. Changing the world with a good idea has never been easier.

3. Financial inclusion is very exciting too. A huge fraction of the world’s population has no access to banking services, and this is unlikely to change any time soon. Cryptocurrencies can give these people the ability to send and receive payments online, and they can participate in the modern economy using just a phone. Populations in Africa, Asia, Latin America and elsewhere who previously relied entirely on cash now have access to international trade and entirely new career options. It’s a technological development that could help bring billions of people out of poverty.

What are the 3 things that concern you about the industry? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

1. I’m worried that Bitcoin might become a weapon of war. The countries seeking alternatives to the US dollar for international trade are gradually realizing that using Bitcoin is easier than using their national currencies. Russia and Iran have approved the use of cryptocurrencies for international payments. Bitcoin is already playing a significant role in international conflict in the 21st century. The countries facing US sanctions will be able to use Bitcoin for payments, but the West will have greater power to control the Bitcoin price, if they decide that it’s necessary to do that. An end to hostilities and the restoration of normal commerce between Russia and the West would be necessary to allay these concerns.

2. I’m also concerned that authorities in the US and Europe might try to ban proof-of-work mining, without understanding the role that it plays in the economy. When handled well, proof-of-work mining can provide benefits to the economy and does no harm to the environment, but if governments adopt the wrong policies, it can cause economic and environmental damage. I think that regular communication between industry groups and legislators can help to keep the decision-making process informed.

3. Algorithmic stablecoins are worth worrying about too. These coins try to maintain a peg to the dollar or another currency, not by holding collateral, but by creating and destroying specific amounts of individual cryptocurrencies in an attempt to control the market price. These algorithms can work successfully for a long time and then go spectacularly wrong, like the Terra/Luna collapse earlier this year. They can grow to billions of dollars in market cap and then all that wealth can disappear. The regulators are right to express concern that this is a danger to the stability of the financial system. I think a new technical standard for algorithmic stablecoins needs to be introduced, with rigorous analysis of the stability of the system as its main component. This could come from government or industry. Investors would be able to have greater confidence in stablecoins that comply with the standard.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about cryptocurrency? Can you explain what you mean?

One of the most persistent myths is that cryptocurrency can have no real value because it isn’t tangible or backed by anything physical. It’s not irrational for people to believe that, before they learn that it takes work to produce Bitcoins, and that they’re running out.

I think there’s been some confusion generated by the use of the phrase “inherent value” by commentators. It’s an oxymoron, because value is never inherent. Gold is valuable because we value it. The value isn’t in the gold itself. It’s in our relationship to the gold. We know that gold is hard to produce and is limited in supply. The world won’t be flooded with cheap gold tomorrow, so gold is likely to remain scarce and expensive.

That’s also true of Bitcoin. It takes more work to produce a Bitcoin than it does to mine an ounce of gold. Bitcoins are becoming harder to produce faster than gold is. We have to acknowledge that gold will remain scarce and expensive, and we have to acknowledge the same thing about Bitcoin. When we do that, we can see the value in holding gold or Bitcoin today.

How do you think cryptocurrency has the potential to help society in the future?

The obvious example is that people living in developing economies without access to the banking system will be able to buy, sell, and order online for the first time. They’ll be able to make payments to friends and family. Hundreds of millions of people are part of the world economy now, instead of being restricted to their local economy. That will have a great impact on growth and development in the coming years.

Another big benefit of cryptocurrency is that it allows people to invest and save without using depreciating fiat money or investing in stocks. Dollars decrease in value over time, so saving dollars doesn’t make financial sense. Without cryptocurrencies, people need to invest in a business, or in commodities, to avoid losing their purchasing power. They’re forced to speculate or watch their savings lose value. Bitcoin’s limited supply makes it a good unit of account for long-term investment, which makes it appropriate to use Bitcoin for savings. When coins were made of gold, saving money was a wise strategy. Cryptocurrencies can provide a way for prudent people to safeguard their financial futures once again.

Recently, more people have been scrutinizing the ecological impact of crypto mining. From your perspective, can you explain to our readers why the cryptocurrency industry is creating an environmental challenge?

There’s an environmental and an economic challenge created when proof-of-work mining is combined with subsidized electricity. If there was a free market for electricity, then proof-of-work mining wouldn’t be a problem. Only the very cheapest electricity can be used to mine Bitcoins. Competition is intense. In most countries, it will never be profitable to mine Bitcoins, because of the cost of electricity.

It makes the most economic sense for Bitcoin to be mined at power generation plants. A lot of energy is wasted during power generation, and this excess energy can be used to mine Bitcoins and pay for operating costs. The price of electricity sometimes becomes negative, due to excess supply and insufficient demand. Using this electricity to mine Bitcoins, instead of wasting it, makes it cheaper to produce electricity, and does no harm to the environment.

The economic and environmental problems occur when governments subsidize electricity enough to make it profitable to mine Bitcoins. When they do that, some people will start mining, taking the electricity subsidy and converting it into their own wealth. This really does generate excessive demand for energy, consuming natural resources and pushing prices up, while taking wealth from the public to enrich individuals.

From your perspective what can be done to address or correct these concerns?

Ideally, governments would not subsidize electricity enough to make it profitable to mine Bitcoins. That would solve the problem very effectively. Banning proof-of-work mining won’t stop it completely but making it unprofitable will stop it.

For governments who want to keep the price of electricity below that level, the only current option is to ban cryptocurrency mining and spend ongoing resources to enforce the ban. They will be paying for the cost of enforcement, and the miners who remain undetected will be taking money from the public purse.

In the long term, I think the solution is to have approved appliances that can use electricity at subsidized rates. There’s no way to stop everyone from using electricity to mine Bitcoins, and there’s no way to detect Bitcoin mining. The only way to make electricity cheap, but not let people mine Bitcoins with that cheap electricity, is to have refrigerators, microwave ovens, and other household appliances come equipped with a tamper-resistant chip that allows them to make use of electrical power at a cheaper rate. Anything consuming power that isn’t an approved appliance must be suspected of mining Bitcoins and must be charged at a higher rate.

Recently, more people have been scrutinizing cryptocurrency’s impact on illegal activity. From your perspective, can you explain to our readers why cryptocurrency, more than fiat currency, is seen as an attractive choice for criminals?

It’s an attractive choice because you can make payments online without revealing your identity. This is obviously very attractive to criminals, but anyone who thinks that using cryptocurrency will conceal their identity if they commit a crime is mistaken. Bitcoin wasn’t designed to facilitate crime. It was designed to keep a permanent, public record of all transactions so that those who are lawfully empowered to execute warrants can successively unmask every individual in a chain of transactions until they find the person they’re looking for.

If you use cash, there’s no record of your transaction, but if you use cryptocurrency, it’s a matter of public record for all time, and you can be tracked down in the future. In the early days of Bitcoin, there was worry about whether governments would ban it. Satoshi Nakamoto designed Bitcoin well — governments actually welcome it, because it’s so useful to law enforcement for fighting crime.

From your perspective what can be done to address or correct these concerns?

I think these concerns have been handled well by the authorities so far. Governments around the world are accepting and regulating cryptocurrency, imposing know-your-customer requirements on cryptocurrency businesses, and prosecuting fraud. At the same time, they’re using blockchain analysis companies to identify criminals. The vast majority of today’s cryptocurrency demand comes from investors, and crime is a microscopic fraction of the economy.

Ok, fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. What are “The 5 Things You Need to Understand In Order To Successfully Invest In Cryptocurrency?”

1. Your emotions will betray you. When prices are high, you’ll be euphoric, and you’ll imagine that they’ll keep going up. When they’re low, you’ll be afraid, and you’ll think that they’ll keep falling. If you listen to your emotions, you’ll buy high and sell low. To make a profit, it’s necessary to prevent emotions from interfering with your trading decisions. You can do that by deciding on the prices at which you’ll open and close the trade before you start trading, and then stick to those prices.

2. Don’t chase crowds. Too many cryptocurrency rallies are simply pump-and-dumps in which large crowds all buy at the same time, driving the price up to an unsustainable level before it crashes back down again. If lots of other people are buying a coin, that’s a good reason to stay away from it. The only people who profit in these rallies are the very earliest buyers who get in before the price has risen noticeably. People who join in later are likely to buy near the top and lose a lot of money.

3. Invest for the long term. It’s possible to anticipate long-term changes in prices that play out over the course of years. For example, Bitcoin’s rate of production is cut in half once every four years, which makes it very likely that Bitcoins will be harder to obtain years from now. This kind of investing is based on inevitable market forces; you don’t need to speculate because it’s absolutely certain that Bitcoin’s halvings will occur and reduce supply. If you pick a promising coin and bet that it will succeed soon, you’re speculating about what the public will do, and there’s no certainty. The only way to make a big short-term profit is to risk a big loss.

4. Watch out for scams, rugpulls and securities. Anyone can launch a cryptocurrency today, and a lot of cryptocurrency developers intend to defraud the investors and run away with the money. The cryptocurrency market isn’t tightly regulated like the stock market. Make sure that the code has been audited by a reputable security company to ensure that there are no hidden vulnerabilities that would allow an attacker or the developer to steal funds. Even well-intentioned cryptocurrencies can lead to huge investor losses if the SEC later classifies the coin as a security. Proof-of-work coins and tokens that aren’t redeemable for anything else are likely to be classified as commodities, which are regulated by the CFTC, and are safer investments. Cryptocurrencies that entitle the holders to profits based on the work of others are more like shares in a company. They’re securities, and they’re heavily regulated.

5. Don’t trade for the sake of trading. Most people who trade cryptocurrencies for profit end up making a loss. Trading can be profitable, but you need to understand with clarity and certainty which currency you expect to rise in price, and how much, and over what time period. If you’re trading just to stay in the market, you’re likely to lose money. The people who trade and consistently make money always make sure that they have an edge over other investors, such as a better understanding of the technology.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they enter the industry? What can be done to avoid that?

When people start off in cryptocurrency, they tend to be very excited about the prospect of getting rich quick. This leads them to put all their money into a single risky project, and to chase crowds. They end up gambling instead of investing. Gambling sometimes pays off, but if you’ve made a lot of money by betting everything on a single trade, you’ll try it again and again until eventually you make a losing bet.

I think what’s needed is an introductory program for new investors that emphasizes the need for calm, careful research, and that gives people a clear understanding of the distinction between gambling and investing. Cryptocurrencies can be good investments, but patience is the key to success, and excitement leads people to make poor decisions. There needs to be a process that people go through that teaches them to calm their emotions before they put their money at risk.

Do you have a particular type of cryptocurrency that you are excited about? We’d love to hear why.

I’m excited about the possible future applications of NFTs. At the moment, NFTs are mostly used to dubiously claim ownership of intellectual property, which I think is going to run into trouble when an NFT is stolen. The courts will have to rule that stealing an NFT doesn’t make you the rightful owner of the property that the NFT allegedly entitles you to. So, the blockchains aren’t a true record of who legally owns what. The technological applications are much more interesting. An NFT can be used to open a physical door, start a car, decrypt a hard drive, or grant the holder access to a seat on a spaceship. There are applications beyond money and investment, and most of these applications haven’t even been imagined yet. We’ll see exciting developments and new technologies appearing over the coming years, and cryptocurrency technology will be used in every sector of the economy.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

It would be a worldwide movement for responsible investing. Most of the people in the world have no savings, and they’re forced to work for their entire lives just to make ends meet. That’s a tragedy, of course, but it’s not entirely irrational behavior. Saving fiat money doesn’t make sense, because inflation will take away the purchasing power. It’s better to spend fiat money now than later.

With the appearance of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin that have a limited supply and a decreasing rate of production, it’s possible for people to invest without betting on a company’s success. There’s a new way for people to put money aside for their future that doesn’t involve speculation and doesn’t lose purchasing power over the long term. We have an opportunity to create a whole new generation of savers. Prudently saving money for the future is rational behavior once again, thanks to new technology. People can have financial freedom later in their lives, and they can use their savings along with their life experience to contribute more to the economy than they could by working.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

It’s Elon Musk. There’s a very short calculation that fits on the back of an envelope that I’d like to show him over lunch. It derives the conditions under which spiking neurons can be legitimately interpreted as performing rational inference. Neurons in the cerebral cortex appear to satisfy these conditions. I believe that understanding the calculation will make it easier to decipher the signals recorded from Elon’s Neuralink chip.

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success and good health!

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Ruadhan Of Seasonal Tokens On The 5 Things You Need To Understand In Order To Successfully Invest… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Data-Driven Work Cultures: Sarah Nagy Of Seek AI On How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take Your Company To The Next Level

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Data engineering is the foundation that must be laid in order to start getting ROI out of your data, and making the first data engineering hire will set the tone for your data infrastructure for the next several years. I have come across a few companies that made data engineering hires that chose lower-quality vendors or built the data engineering infrastructure with an inefficient architecture. When these mistakes are made at the foundational level, they compound as the rest of the data stack and data team grow. Sometimes, new data hires are needed just to put bandaids on the inefficiencies of this foundation, and it can get very expensive to start all over at this point.

As part of our series about “How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take Your Company To The Next Level”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sarah Nagy.

A former data scientist, Sarah Nagy founded an analytics automation startup, Seek AI, in September 2021. Sarah most recently led the consumer data team at Citadel’s Ashler Capital, and prior to Citadel, led the quant arms at two successfully exited startups and developed algorithmic trading strategies at ITG. Sarah has a Master in Finance degree from Princeton and dual bachelor’s degrees in Astrophysics and Business Economics from UCLA.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

I started out as a researcher in astrophysics at UCLA and Caltech, working with data from the Hubble Space Telescope. When I learned about quantitative finance, it seemed right up my alley so I pursued my MFin degree from Princeton and went on to work on Wall Street doing algorithmic trading. I had always been interested in startups, though, and between that and the growing field of machine learning, I decided to work as a quant/data scientist at a couple of startups. I’m fortunate enough to have worked alongside the founders of those startups so that I could learn from them and apply these learnings to Seek.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

The first day I changed my LinkedIn status to the CEO of Seek, I unsurprisingly received a lot of messages from friends and colleagues, but also some messages from people I did not know. One message that made it into my orbit was from a production company claiming that an A-list celebrity (one that I was a fan of) wanted to interview me about Seek. After doing a bit of research, I learned that the “catch” was that I’d need to pay a five-figure sum to get to interview with the celebrity. Not only that, but I had wasted a couple hours of my time doing research on an opportunity I didn’t even need at that early of a stage, when I needed to focus on… building the product. This experience was the beginning of me starting to block out all the noise surrounding me as a startup founder and focus on the things that really matter.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

I was really inspired by Dorothy Vaughan in Hidden Figures, teaching herself to program the IBM computer and, in doing so, arming herself with this new technology. As a data scientist writing manual code a significant amount of the time–often to answer data questions for less technical colleagues–I frequently felt like a “human computer” working with outdated technology. My prediction is that AI will arm data scientists/analysts with the ability to avoid this manual work and instead be able to focus on the projects that require deep focus and can add a lot of value to the business.

Are you working on any new, exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

We have some very exciting new integrations that we will be releasing early next year in the Seek platform, which I am really excited about. Giving our customers more ways to embed Seek into their workflow is really exciting to me, knowing that I am making it easier for our end-users to access the data they need.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about empowering organizations to be more “data-driven.” For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what exactly it means to be data-driven? On a practical level, what does it look like to use data to make decisions?

To illustrate what it means to be data-driven, I’d like to point out an observation from my career working with data: some organizations may work with data, but not be data-driven. I remember the first time I encountered a research firm that took a traditional approach to working with data, as opposed to a data-driven approach. I was shocked to hear the analyst tell me about a stock price prediction that was first made based on qualitative, not quantitative, reasoning. From there, the analyst had manipulated the data to fit this qualitative prediction. I was perplexed to see this, as it seemed to invalidate the point of working with the data in the first place. Yet, I think that many organizations may encounter this pitfall without embedding their data team’s expertise in business users’ interactions with data. How to make this scalable is certainly a challenge, but the scalability is increasing as data tools increase in sophistication.

Which companies can most benefit from tools that empower data collaboration?

In most business-facing roles, performance is becoming more and more correlated with data accessibility. The higher this correlation is in an organization, the more data collaboration is needed. Companies with the highest correlation include certain verticals–for example, many B2B SaaS businesses live and die by their data. Say a salesperson needs to ask 20 ad-hoc data questions per week in order to accomplish their goals. The better and faster the collaboration with the data team, the more of these questions can be answered, and the closer the salesperson can get to their goals.

We’d love to hear about your experiences using data to drive decisions. In your experience, how has data analytics and data collaboration helped improve operations, processes, and customer experiences? We’d love to hear some stories if possible.

In the algorithmic trading world, from my experience, there are few ways to avoid the truth and win. This is what drew me to algorithmic trading coming from academia, where I was used to letting the data tell me what was true, and not the other way around. As hedge fund manager Ray Dalio often says, “Getting to the truth is essential in order to win.”I believe this applies to every data-driven business, not just in the financial sector.

Working at certain companies, I was appalled to see business intelligence tools show bad data to the business-facing users, who knew little about the underlying data. These business users could have made detrimental decisions for the business by trusting this bad data. Something I think that businesses will realize in the coming years is that giving accessibility to their data is not enough; they must make sure that the data is right.

Has the shift towards becoming more data-driven been challenging for some teams or organizations from your vantage point? What are the challenges? How can organizations solve these challenges?

Similarly to my last answer, one of the biggest challenges for organizations is managing the tradeoff between accuracy and accessibility. On one hand, accessibility allows less technical folks to start interacting with the knowledge wellspring that is a company’s data. On the other hand, what good is a wellspring of polluted water (i.e. bad data)? This is the other side of the tradeoff, which is making sure the data that business users see is accurate. The best data teams are those that manage this tradeoff in the most optimal way possible, and a big part of that is carefully calibrating and vetting any tools that non-technical users can interact with.

Ok. Thank you. Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are “Five Ways a Company Can Effectively Leverage Data to Take It To The Next Level”? Please share a story or an example for each.

In the order of the most basic to the most advanced:

1. Move to a cloud data warehouse.

Despite encountering them frequently, I am always amazed when I meet with companies in 2022 that don’t have some sort of cloud data warehouse. Having entered the workforce in 2014, I have spent my entire career working with cloud-based tools and sometimes forget that there are other options. But, when I encounter alternatives, it is painful to see. The biggest pain point is all of the maintenance that goes into maintaining these databases, when cloud data warehouses do all of that maintenance for you at a low cost so that you can put that money towards something with a much higher ROI.

2. Hire a good data engineering lead.

Data engineering is the foundation that must be laid in order to start getting ROI out of your data, and making the first data engineering hire will set the tone for your data infrastructure for the next several years. I have come across a few companies that made data engineering hires that chose lower-quality vendors or built the data engineering infrastructure with an inefficient architecture. When these mistakes are made at the foundational level, they compound as the rest of the data stack and data team grow. Sometimes, new data hires are needed just to put bandaids on the inefficiencies of this foundation, and it can get very expensive to start all over at this point.

3. Get analytics engineers.

I am really excited about the future of the transformation layer, which is a system that abstracts difficult-to-work-with raw code into simpler, more business-focused code and, in doing so, makes it much easier and faster to get insights. The purpose of an investment in a data team and data stack is to generate an ROI, and this ROI comes from insights that are extracted from the data using code like SQL. This means that the transformation layer will allow organizations to finally get tap into this ROI that they have spent so much capital building towards. We work with many companies that are early adopters of the transformation layer, and the productivity it has given them enables them to explore other high-value projects that their competitors wouldn’t have time to do.

4. Make your data accessible to non-technical users.

Continuing from the above, what good is data if it’s not generating an ROI–and how can a business get this ROI if the business-facing users can’t even see it? This is why it is absolutely essential to give access to as many people as possible (without compromising accuracy, which I will get to in #5). This is where the ever-so-buzzy term “data mesh” can be helpful. It may be buzzy, but I agree with its premise of distributing the data team across an organization to be able to support more end users. While these distributed data teams are smaller than one central data team, with the right automation tools, this type of structure can be incredibly efficient at giving more end-users access to the data they need.

5.Scale your data team’s knowledge.

Regardless of the structure of your data team, you will encounter the challenge of scaling the data team’s ability to serve the end users. Some of this scalability can be achieved with thoughtful conversation around which manual work to prioritize. For example, determining which dashboards or semantic models take the highest priority to build is an essential conversation to have. Another option is to consider automation tools coming on the market, which can store and replicate the data team’s ability to produce these deliverables on-demand. This type of automation can elevate the data team from the depths of manual work to the overseers of a more scalable and sophisticated architecture.

The name of this series is “Data-Driven Work Cultures”. Changing a culture is hard. What would you suggest is needed to change a work culture to become more Data Driven?

To change any work culture, no matter what it is, it always starts from the very top. If you’re a CEO trying to change your company culture to be more data-driven, the first thing I’d recommend is to make sure you yourself are data-driven.

Being data-driven doesn’t necessarily mean knowing how to code, but it does mean knowing how to ask the right questions and interpret the resulting charts and tables. Also, asking follow-up questions can be a very powerful way to hone in on the incredibly niche insights that can really change your business the most. As a data-driven CEO with absolutely no time to code, I simply ask the questions that I have without worrying about the code, and once I get the answers, I make sure to ask follow-up questions to confirm what I think I’m seeing or learn more about any insights that stand out to me.

Once you are comfortable with your own skills working with data as an end user, try showing your colleagues what worked for you and what didn’t. As the saying goes, “When you change yourself, you change the team.”

The future of work has recently become very fluid. Based on your experience, how do you think the needs for data will evolve and change over the next five years?

As more data gets collected from more and more sources, its complexity increases. While this is happening, a data-driven culture will go from a competitive advantage to table stakes, and the real competitive advantage will be in getting the most valuable insights the quickest. I predict that at some point, automation will be needed to accommodate all of this complex data and also provide companies with the efficiency they need analyzing it all.

Does your organization have any exciting goals for the near future? What challenges will you need to tackle to reach them? How do you think data analytics can best help you to achieve these goals?

As a startup, we are growing fast and constantly improving the product. Collecting the right data in order to help the right customers and build the right features into the product is absolutely essential, and the only way for us to hit our ambitious goals is to have a data-driven culture. Our data pipeline is ingesting data from an increasing number of sources that we can use to quantify how well we’re hitting our goals and also shape the future strategy of Seek.

How can our readers further follow your work?

The easiest way is to follow me on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected]. I love meeting new people and nerding out about data. Please drop me a line!

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!

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Data-Driven Work Cultures: Sarah Nagy Of Seek AI On How To Effectively Leverage Data To Take Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Dr Karen Sullivan Of I CARE FOR YOUR BRAIN: 5 Things You Should Do To Optimize Your Wellness After Retirement

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Keep up with meaning making: One of the beautiful things about aging is that what we value becomes clearer. By the time most people are ready to retire, they have been able to figure out what are the most important things in life. Spending time serving those purposes will always pay dividends towards your wellbeing.

As a part of my series about the “5 Things You Should Do to Optimize Your Wellness After Retirement” I had the pleasure of interviewing Karen D. Sullivan.

Karen D. Sullivan, Ph.D., ABPP is a caregiver turned board-certified neuropsychologist and licensed psychologist. She offers evidence-based and compassionate brain health education to the public through the I CARE FOR YOUR BRAIN with Dr. Sullivan program on her YouTube channel.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

Sure, my grandmother began showing signs of Alzheimer’s disease when I was in my early teenage years. Anyone who has been personally touched by dementia knows that the experience is life changing and it sure was for me. After seeing her symptoms firsthand, I developed an enduring desire to provide comfort and understanding to these people and their families. I then spent the next seven years as a caregiver for folks with dementia in my communities in New Jersey and Boston. Over time, I decided that I needed to compliment my real-world experiences with academic knowledge and eventually got my doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Boston University, finished my fellowship in Neuropsychology through Harvard Medical School and became a board-certified neuropsychologist. I still draw on these early experiences to guide the care of my patients now that I am a doctor.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

That’s a hard question because every day as a neuropsychologist is genuinely very interesting. I can share with you one of the most touching things that has happened to me. When I was 19 years old, I moved from New Jersey to Boston by myself with no real plan and nothing to speak of in my checking account! I moved into a less than ideal situation in a rooming house and was struggling. After I was there for a few weeks, I got a card in the mail from a previous patient’s daughter. The patient was a wonderful man who had had a few strokes and needed help in his home. We developed a special relationship up until he passed away a few months before I moved. In the card, she had signed over his tax refund for that year to me which was a couple thousand dollars. I still tear up today when I think about it. It’s a beautiful example of the times in life when we give a helping hand and the times in life when we need a helping hand.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

After I finished my fellowship, I accepted a faculty position at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In my first few weeks, I had a patient walk out of an interview with me without saying a word. I was so confused. I went out into the hall to ask him why he had abruptly left, and he informed me that if I was going to use cuss words that he had no interest in me being his doctor. I honestly could not remember having said any such words! He finally explained that I had said the word “darn” and that this was offensive to him. This was my first introduction to the learning curve in being a person from the Northeast practicing in the South. I learned that I had to watch my words more carefully after that! I also learned the difference in what is considered an offensive word in different parts of the country.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

It really does take a village with all types of support to be able to live your dreams like I have. My longest, and most passionate, supporter is my Mom. She is a social worker who has organized her life around service to those in need. She gave me so many examples of how to support others from developing the first program in our community for women effected by domestic violence to paying for people’s groceries at ShopRite, helping others was an everyday, normal thing. The question was always who will I help, not how will I help? She has always been my biggest fan and still cheers me on today.

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

The most important thing is take quality time for yourself. You can’t give from an empty tank. Taking responsibility for the health and wellbeing of others requires a lot of mental energy. I wouldn’t have it any other way, but it requires that I build in regular breaks that I can count on, where I can fully disengage from my professional identity for a few days at a minimum to remember who I am as a human being and not just a medical provider. Find a special place that you can go without your laptop, without a to-do list, where your only job is to recharge.

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

Increase your emotional intelligence. The research is clear that what people want in their leaders are relationship skills over technical skills or insider industry knowledge. We want leaders who are emotionally aware of themselves and attuned to the mental wellbeing of others who use these insights to develop healthy, collaborative relationships with their team. That’s how we get the very best out of people.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

I have found the quote, “It is always darkest before the dawn” to be true. On the outside, it can look like medical providers live a kind of charmed life. There’s a no doubt many of us have received tremendous opportunities and blessings. But the truth is that there are also many trials and tribulations that come along with trying to integrate as a service-oriented provider into modern day healthcare systems. It is hard work on many levels and there’s not nearly enough positive reinforcement for doing the good work of taking care of people. There have been times where my faith in the system has been completely rattled and I have had a crisis of faith. But consistently, and I mean every time, very soon after my darkest times, I am given an opportunity that moves me closer to my true values and the obstacles move away. The lesson here is to hold on to the faith in yourself tightly and remember that just when things seem the most hopeless, a crack appears, and the light gets in.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, Health/Wellness and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them!

Anyone who knows me knows what this answer is going to be! I would love to have lunch with Jon Bon Jovi at his Soul Kitchen restaurant in Toms River, NJ. It’s he and his wife’s non-profit. It’s run by a team of volunteers and people pay what they can. It supports the community by taking away the stigma of going to a soup kitchen. I was invited to be the first member of his international fan club “Backstage with Bon Jovi” by his mother, Carol. She lived in a part of New Jersey where my other grandmother lived, and we became friends. She invited me into many once-in-a-lifetime experiences that I will never forget. It was a wonderful few years of my life and I am still a huge fan. Bon Jovi has provided the soundtrack of my life and I am so grateful.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

My YouTube channel, I CARE FOR YOUR BRAIN with Dr. Sullivan has over 150 videos to learn from or my website www.icfyb.com.

From your point of view or experience, what are a few of the reasons that retirement can reduce one’s health?

Research tells us that it is the dramatic decline in socialization that is the biggest determinant of health after retirement. Working provides us with many opportunities throughout the day to have rewarding social interactions. These interactions run the gamut from solving meaningful problems together to having someone light a candle on a cupcake for our birthday. At work, we are asked our opinion, we are valued, we are a part of something, we are embedded in a social milieu. Outside of our immediate family, our work family is the major reference point in our lives. We oftentimes see this group of people more than we do our family in a given week and they become central figures in our lives. We have neural networks that become devoted to these people that are reinforced daily and grow strong from our multi-layered interactions with them. Frequently activated neural networks create a healthy, well-connected brain that can better withstand the impact of aging and age-related cognitive disorders including dementia. When we retire, many people’s social network dramatically reduces and they feel it, they feel socially isolated and less cognitively stimulated. For some people, the social losses that come along with retirement take them by surprise and this lack of daily connection can lead to depression and loneliness. These two conditions then create additional risk factors for less-than-optimal health.

A few other things are a loss in people’s sense of purpose. Especially in American culture, so much of how we identify our value is through our work: our role, our title, how many things we are in charge of. When we lose our work identity, we are at risk for feeling adrift and without connection to something of greater meaning.

I think we need to use the term “retirement” in a more progressive way. Instead of looking at it like you are retired from work in the broad sense, it is more helpful to think that you are no longer working in one specific role and that you are transitioning and continuing to work in several other meaningful life roles. These can include hobbyist, family person, music aficionado, hiker, philanthropist, etc. We need to get rid of the notion that retirement means a final ending but rather use it as a term that signals a shift to a new phase of life that can be just as purposeful.

Can you share with our readers 5 things that one should do to optimize mental or physical wellness after retirement? Please share a story or an example for each.

-Stay social: Social health is finally getting its due as a major contributor brain health. We now have indisputable evidence that our social health contributes to all aspects of health: emotional, physical and cognitive. Continuing to find ways to engage with people is critical to optimizing health and wellness after retirement. What matters is that the degree of socialization is on par with the person’s personality and interests. Someone can be a strong introvert and not enjoy large gatherings and still be very socially satisfied with lunch twice a week with one dear friend.

-Keep up with meaning making: One of the beautiful things about aging is that what we value becomes clearer. By the time most people are ready to retire, they have been able to figure out what are the most important things in life. Spending time serving those purposes will always pay dividends towards your wellbeing.

-Return to a loved hobby: A very rewarding part of having a more flexible schedule in retirement is you now have the time and mental focus to return to a hobby in a way that wasn’t possible when you worked a full-time job. This is particularly powerful for brain health because you have multiple networks in the brain that remain all throughout life based on any activity you have done repeatedly even if it was piano lessons in the second grade and these can be reactivated at any time. The stronger and more connected brain networks are the more they are resistant to the impact of most subtypes of dementia.

-Prioritize your vascular health: Heart health equals brain health! Some of the biggest negative influences on brain health are hypertension, diabetes and high cholesterol. They all exert a similar effect in narrowing blood vessels and reducing the amount of oxygen and glucose that can get to brain cells. By reducing these modifiable risk factors for less-than-optimal brain health, you can expect a significant cognitive return on your investment.

-Engage in group exercise: Group exercise offers 2-for-1. You get those vascular benefits that are so powerful to brain health alongside the benefits of socialization. Research also suggests that we exercise significantly longer when in a group. The next time you think about going to the gym, look on the calendar and join a class instead of just going on a machine by yourself.

In your experience, what are 3 or 4 things that people wish someone told them before they retired?

I’ve heard many people say that they wish they would have found a way to keep using their job skills. Our working life can be so demanding and not offer much time for reflection. Once we’re able to slow down and reflect on our life’s work, many people realize just how much expertise they have accumulated, and they see for the first time the enormous value they have to offer. Therefore, it’s so important that people get involved with a vital volunteering experience like mentoring post-retirement and use those skills to better their communities. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if companies offered this as a standard part of a retirement package? That they will provide you with the infrastructure to return 5 hours a week to guide and support the younger folks coming into the company? What a difference that would make for everyone.

Is there a particular book or other resource related to this topic that made a significant impact on you? Is there a resource you’d recommend to those nearing or in retirement?

One of my last jobs before grad school was working for the visionary psychologist Erik Erikson at his Home Care Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was a Therapeutic Companion for older adults with dementia. The philosophy of care we were trained in at this Center was based on the eighth and final stage of his theory of psychosocial development: integrity vs. despair. This stage starts around 65 and ends at death. It is a stage of life when we engage in a very personal process of life review. It is when we reflect on our life’s journey and conclude if we have lived a life of integrity or not. Integrity, in Erikson’s model, means that we have arrived at this stage of life with wisdom earned through personal growth and meaningful accomplishments. If we can’t see more things to be proud of than not, then our inner world is at risk for becoming filled with despair. This despair colors the rest of our days and can cause us to have poor health and low psychological satisfaction.

Erikson first wrote about this theory in 1982 and, luckily, the experience of aging has advanced a lot in that short amount of time. Nowadays, people can have a whole other career after the traditional retirement age. Working at the Erikson Center showed me that the essence how we decide if we have lived a life “well lived” is based on our own judgment. I have carried that with me at challenging points in my career. It’s been helpful to remember that ultimately, I will decide what added meaning to my life and where the important growth happened, not other people.

If you could start a movement related to your specialty that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

That’s easy! I would push the person-centered approach to healthcare movement forward especially for those effected by a brain health challenge. A brain health diagnosis presents a unique, sensitive, and often poorly understood set of human needs that lie between the most tender parts of ourselves: the physiological, the psychological, the cognitive and the social. The standard approach to diagnosing, treating, and supporting people with brain health issues is typically too brief, too emotionally detached and not nearly as empathic and educational as people need and deserve.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!

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Dr Karen Sullivan Of I CARE FOR YOUR BRAIN: 5 Things You Should Do To Optimize Your Wellness After… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

A commitment to diversity attracts the best talent. When a company can show it’s not just part of a job description but is embedded in how the organization operates, it leads to a culture of equity and belonging where colleagues feel they can contribute and grow.

As a part of our series about “How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Wil Lewis.

Wil Lewis is the first-ever Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer for Experian. In this role, Wil strives to build on the company’s global commitment to diversity, inclusion and equity, institutionalize inclusive processes as a key to innovation, ensure every employee and key stakeholders feel connected to the organization and culture, and that talent represents the communities in which Experian operates. Prior to this role, Wil was Diversity and Inclusion Executive and Head of Bank of America’s global disability, LGBT+, and military strategies.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive into the main part of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you share a bit of your “backstory” with us?

I grew up in Chicago and after a career and life that have taken me to many countries, I returned.

When I was younger, I knew I wanted a life that helped people. I didn’t have a specific idea as to how. I studied to become a teacher, educator, and also earned a degree in sociology. I had a great career at Bank of America. Now I’m at Experian and fulfilling my goal of helping people by working with a company that is dedicated to helping consumers achieve their life’s goals.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us the lesson or take away, you took out of that story?

During a cross-country flight, I ended up sitting next to a celebrity. They sat in the window seat. Our only interaction was when they asked me to get up so they could go to the bathroom. When they came back and sat down, they said “Thank you.” I said, “No problem.” They quickly added, “I know you know who I am and I’m not interested in talking.” Of course, I didn’t respond to that comment.

What I took away from that conversation is to remember how you treat people.

The truth is, I may or may not have remembered this encounter had they not said what they did. But now, they are forever burned in my memory. It’s a reminder to be kind to everyone. When I walk into a building, I speak to everyone. I speak to the person mopping floor, the security guard, to anyone I see. I say hello because we’re all just trying to earn a living. Perhaps they also have a family who they’re supporting. They’re aspiring to whatever their goals are. They may have words of wisdom or advice for me because wisdom can come at all times.

We’re all human and should treat each other as humans.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote?” Can you tell us a story about how that was relevant in your own life?

The Maya Angelou quote is a favorite: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” That is so true and it’s why my ambition is to treat with respect and how to help as much as I can.

Early on in my career, in my early 20s, I worked in a building that had elevator operators. I would see these three guys every day. One also managed a little convenience stand at the base of building. Some people who would come into the elevator just stood in the corner and never spoke. Every morning, I would talk to them and I got to know them and their families.

Fast forward 20 years later, I returned to the building to meet someone unrelated to that job. By that point, the elevators were upgraded so the elevator operator job was no longer needed. But one of the former operators was still there, now running the convenience stand. When I walked in, he called out to me, referring to my previous employer. This was 20 years later! He remembered our daily morning chats from two decades earlier, and asked if I was returning to work at the building.

He remembered how I made him feel. He didn’t remember my name or specific conversations, but he remembered it as a light in his day. If we did simple things in life, what a difference it could make. It was heartwarming.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?

I’m really grateful to my former leader, Geri Thomas. She helped instill in confidence in my skills when I wasn’t confident. She was very honest. She gave me coaching. She would remind me of positive things, good things and the impact of my work. I always walked away feeling unique and special. Every interaction felt that way. The truth is, she did that for many people because that is who she is at her core. She’ll tell you exactly what she thinks from a place helping you grow and prosper along the way. For the rest of my days on Earth, she’ll be key to the growth of my professional career.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

I recently participated in the HomeFree USA conference, which focuses on homeownership. The extent of consumer confusion and self-doubt around homeownership is mind blowing. Consumers aspiring to homeownership tell us that their number one blocker is not knowing where to start in the process. Half don’t know who to trust, so it’s not surprising that only a third of aspiring homeowners surveyed said they spoke to an industry professional. Over the course of this next year, I plan to make the increase of homeownership a key path for me. Experian’s already started with features like the ability to bring in rent payments into consumer’s credit profile. We can help not only consumers but also housing counselors who are trying to help people get of their apartments, friend’s couch, or parent’s basement when they’re earning good living and have reached a threshold where they can gain access to homes.

How do I help people bridge the gap? How do I help people gain access to strong financial features that may allude them? By nature of this job and driving financial inclusion, I can help consumers gain access to homes. This is part of a greater purpose in life for me.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

My career journey has connected me with people and causes that align with my values and purpose. Helping organizations understand and harness the value of leaning into diversity, equity and inclusion efforts has led to innovations that are helping underserved communities gain access to financial tools and equity they may not have had before.

I’m also able to serve on the boards of Centers for New Horizons and community organization on the South Side of Chicago and the National Disability Institute and Disability:IN, two organizations advocating for people with disabilities.

The editor has asked that Wil articulate five ways that increased diversity can help a company’s bottom line? Additionally, he requested sharing a story or example for each.

A commitment to diversity attracts the best talent. When a company can show it’s not just part of a job description but is embedded in how the organization operates, it leads to a culture of equity and belonging where colleagues feel they can contribute and grow.

Recently, a young black man who is also a Yale graduate contacted me personally and said he wanted to work at Experian because his personal goals align with our company’s mission. His goal is to develop products to help minority communities. It was thrilling to engage with a young professional in this manner. I’m happy to share that today, he is an Experian employee and works as a product manager supporting underrepresented communities.

Diversity increases productivity. When joining a diverse workforce, it can improve an employee’s sense of belonging and lets them know that their experiences, perspectives and contributions are valued. This can ultimately lead to stronger collaboration and problem solving.

This happens all the time at Experian. Whether through our informal networks like employee resource groups and clubs, to our hackathons, or in a product development sprint, we build upon the ideas and input our colleagues bring with them every day. That energy continuously feeds the enthusiasm that drives our mission.

Diversity can lead to inclusion, which drives innovation. For companies that aim to create products and services to support a wide consumer marketplace, having an employee population that is diverse in nature can give you that input and allow you to innovate for people with various backgrounds. When you’re not only welcomed, but celebrated for your experiences and backgrounds, it drives new ideas that enable you to better support and help your clients and consumers.

Diversity reflects your marketplace. Ultimately as a part of company’s social responsibilities, it should ensure its workforce represents the communities in which it does business. Whether it’s different ethnicities, generations, socioeconomics, veteran status, disabilities and more, representation helps us better serve the communities in which we live and work.

Diversity builds stronger leaders. A commitment to diversity in its workforce, actions and innovations also leads to diversity of senior leaders. Having a team of executives who are diverse helps connect to the communities in which it serve — at all different levels and aspects of diversity. An executive team that has insights from their own lived experiences helps ensure a company continues to focus on growth, and doing it responsibly and in a manner that is inclusive of all consumers.

Experian has what we refer to as a Consumer Council — a group of community leaders who give us guidance and advice on how we should look at our products to better support marketplace. Thanks to the advice of our Consumer Council, we have expanded our relationship with an organization that supports people from underrepresented groups become homeowners. This is just one example of how their leadership is helping us fulfill our mission of financial inclusion for all.

What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees to thrive?

Listen.

There are occasions when people think they know all the answers. But listen to your employees and then take action on what it is they told you as well. The art of listening is underrated.

What advice would you give to other business leaders about how to manage a large team?

You can’t do it all, and you have to learn to trust the individuals around you. The way I like to lead is how theorist Ken Blanchard describes in his books, called situational leadership. He says you don’t manage individuals as core individuals, you manage them based on the situation they’re in, recognizing they may be good at one task but not necessarily another.

Think of it like being at home. Maybe you’re good at building a deck, but terrible at cooking. You don’t need someone giving you advice on how to build deck, but you may need help putting together a vegetable medley.

I’ve surrounded myself with people smarter than I am so I can learn as well. All of us are at different stages in our professional trajectory. I’ll continue to give advice and guidance, and then help us work as cohesive team. Each person has an area of responsibility, but it’s my job as a leader to make it clear, measure progress and success. Also, don’t just share measurements and successes with the higher ups, share them with your team — your direct reports and their direct reports. Make it transparent. There shouldn’t be secrets.

And again, we can’t forget listening. Create forums where people on your team who you don’t talk to every day can give you perspective and feedback because often that’ll lead to your greatest breakthroughs.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this 🙂

Angela Merkel. She led a large country overcoming many real and perceived challenges, commanded power and drove efficacy. I realize there’s something to that, as often being only brown person in the room, there are lessons I can learn from her that I’d like to so I can apply for the remainder of my career and pass it on.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

@diversitywil

Thank you for these excellent insights. We wish you continued success in your great work.

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Experian’s Wil Lewis On Why Diversity Is Good For Business was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

I have learned when planning for meetings is to write out the goal/purpose of the meeting ahead of time. I have so many meetings where I wonder what the point is, or it takes much longer to get to a resolution. If I set the goal at the beginning and refer back to it throughout the meeting., it helps the time become much more effective.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jordan Schindler.

As a Global Thought Leader in HealthWear™, Jordan Schindler is on a mission to simplify health and wellness.

Schindler, the Founder and CEO of NUFABRX®, an innovative technology company focused on the controlled delivery of active ingredients (vitamins, supplements and medication) infused in clothing, has developed and launched a new category of health and wellness products.

Founded in 2011 after Schindler discovered that his acne was caused from not washing his pillowcases often enough, and determined to find a better solution, the idea for NUFABRX was born. After years of research and development in partnership with a PHD formulation scientist, he developed the revolutionary patented platform technology.

NUFABRX is an innovative technology company focused on the controlled delivery of active ingredients (vitamin, supplement, medication) through clothing. Providing all day relief (the compression wear can be worn up to 150 hours) and lasting through 15+ wash cycles, the patented technology is activated by body temperature and moisture so you can feel it working.

Today, NUFABRX is an 8-figure revenue business with national retail distribution including the world’s largest retailer, Walmart and is identified as one of the fastest growing companies by Deloitte, Inc 5000 and in the brand’s headquarters home in Charlotte, North Carolina. The full line of NUFABRX HealthWear has something for everyone with two collections: Pain Relief and Maternity which infused with hydration and shea butter and designed to grow with moms-to-be.

It’s no wonder that Jordan Schindler believes in learning through testing and innovation led by science.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I grew up in Arizona, in a middle-class family. From a very young age, I loved getting into any type of entrepreneurship role I could find. I was that kid on the corner of my street selling lemonade to everyone who drove by. I even sold MP3 players that I purchased from China when I took a trip there in middle school. I was always thinking outside the box! Aside from my entrepreneur side, I also enjoyed keeping active, I played tennis all throughout high school.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Work is 50% of our lives; the enjoyment of that time matters so much. Culture and team are everything and that’s why I like coming to work every morning. We call it our “Core Fibers” instead of core values, with “F” standing for Fun. If we don’t enjoy work, if we don’t get to work with people we like and we don’t get to build something that adds value to the world; then I believe something is wrong. Life is too short to accept anything less.

To that end, I’ve also started to try to put slightly better controls on technology. For example, I use the Freedom app that blocks notifications after a certain time at night. Being always on, working on vacation, and not spending enough time with my fiancée are all things I’m trying to get better at. I’ve learned that ultimately working all the time doesn’t make me a better leader, it just makes me a more tired one. That’s not the life or example I want to set for my team. It has taken me a long time to appreciate that.

Honestly though, call me crazy, but Monday morning is still my favorite time of week to check emails, get back to the grind and continue building.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets by Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, and Kevin Maney. The book tells the story about Category Creation; how Uber established and thus dominated the ride share category, how Salesforce pioneered their own industry. There are clear steps and design stage gates that need to be implemented when building a new market category. As we continue to grow Nufabrx, we’re building an entirely new category of products, HealthWear, at the intersection of drug delivery and textiles. This game changing book has laid the foundation for how we do that. We’re all about the big “lightning strike” events and ridiculous outside the box marketing ideas (cue inserting $20 into every Walmart retail box and PR blitz).

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

It’s definitely not an easy challenge to overcome, but at the end of the day, perseverance is going to be incredibly important along the journey, through all the ups and downs. You have to keep the mindset of constantly trying to swim to the next buoy, get to the next level, etc. Think about bringing an idea to life as planting a seed below the surface. It’ll take 3 years before you see anything happening, but it’s growing. Most importantly, you need to surround yourself with the right team to compliment your weaknesses. You can’t be good at absolutely everything, so find people who can help you get to where you want to be.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

It’s really all about talking to the customers and retailers you want to actually sell and buy your products, and take their feedback seriously as you continue to grow your idea/business.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

The entire process is a lot of fun. You’ll be involved in fundraising, R&D development, regulatory, prototyping, market research, etc. If you’re like me, you’ll enjoy that journey and someday look back and appreciate that moment in time. When it comes to filing a patent, you can actually teach yourself how to do this online! The real challenge begins during the office action stages, and all the back and forth with the examiner. When choosing a manufacturer, find someone you like, and more importantly, someone you trust. It’s all about having a good working relationship. Before making any permanent decisions, consider if you’d want that person or company working fulltime in your organization. These people will certainly be in the trenches with you!

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

I learned that one of the keys to business success is to try and understand what insights/knowledge I have that others don’t. I start with these questions that I ask myself — where do you know more than the average person? And where do you feel most passionate? In my case, it was suffering from bad skin and learning that the cause was that my pillowcase was not clean enough and needed to be washed more often. As a busy college student, doing laundry 2–3 days/week as recommended by my dermatologist, was not ideal nor did I have the time for that so I set out to find a better way. That’s where I found my passion — in finding a solution to a problem. And that’s how my company, Nufabrx, was created and the specialized category HealthWear, delivering medicine through clothing.

I’ve also started to try to put slightly better controls on technology. For example, I use the Freedom app that blocks notifications after a certain time at night. Being always “on”, working on vacation, and not spending enough time with my friends & family are all things I’m trying to get better at. I’ve learned that ultimately working all the time doesn’t make me a better leader, it just makes me a more tired one. That’s not the life or example I want to set for my team. It has taken me a long time to appreciate that.

Another important lesson that I have learned when planning for meetings is to write out the goal/purpose of the meeting ahead of time. I have so many meetings where I wonder what the point is, or it takes much longer to get to a resolution. If I set the goal at the beginning and refer back to it throughout the meeting., it helps the time become much more effective.

Also, I try put myself in the other person’s shoes and think — what do they want, what is their angle? Once you understand that, it’s easier to become focused. Backable (the book by Carlye Adler and Suneel Gupta is a great resource).

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Go build a prototype. It’s so much easier to talk to people and learn once you try to actually build it. What makes what you’re doing different or more unique than what’s already on the market? Where do you have expertise that others don’t? These are the types of questions you’ll want to focus on and ask yourself along the way to be successful at what you’re trying to achieve.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I would recommend trying to do it yourself first. You’ll need to build that knowledge base first to understand what you need and what you won’t. Then if you’re able to, look into hiring a consultant. At that point you’ll at least be better informed about what type of consultant or resources you’ll really need moving forward.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

The main question before making this decision would be whether or not you can make the product without venture capital, or is there a large upfront cost? Map out how much money you think you’ll need, and then make your decision. Keep in mind, things always take 2–3X more dollars than anticipated, so double your numbers!

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

It’s all about simplifying health and wellness for consumers and helping solve for patient compliance. We want to make it easier for people to get healthy, simple as that! We’ve also donated over $2M worth of products to those in need, which I’m very proud of. We also make it a big focus to be carbon neutral and keeping a healthy planet for everyone.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

HealthWear! This movement that Nufabrx is already set out to do uses clothing and textiles as a delivery vehicle to help people live better, healthier lives. Clothing and textiles touch us all day, every day. What if your garment could help fight cancer, or capture carbon from the environment, or even help your pet heal? The sky is the limit on what textiles can do.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I would have to say Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx! As an entrepreneur who pioneered a brand-new category of clothing herself, I’d love to sit down with her and pick her brain, as Nufabrx is on a very similar path.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Making Something From Nothing: Jordan Schindler Of Nufabrx On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Michael Richards of alan: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Confidence — Clearly any leader needs to demonstrate confidence. But that’s not arrogance. The world doesn’t owe us a living so we need to be good to win and do the right things and particularly now, with a few year’s success under my belt, I’m pretty confident that I know what I’m doing. Hopefully this comes through to my team who see me leading from the front and doing the right things for them and our clients through tough times.

As part of our series about the “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Richards, Managing Director of B2B marketing agency alan.

Michael Richards, Managing Director of B2B marketing agency alan. is a transformational business leader; high performance, commercial and inspirational executive with a proven track record in developing winning digital strategies for profitable growth.

He has held senior roles in the world’s best agencies, launched his own successful businesses, ran the UK’s largest digital marketing group, and sold a fast-growing global digital marketing agency.

Michael Richards is now attempting to disrupt the poorly served B2B sector at the helm of alan.

Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Before getting into the agency world, I went to medical school for a few months, but I soon realised it wasn’t for me when I started fainting & throwing up! One of my sisters had a boyfriend in advertising and he was very bright and just loved his job in an ad agency — it seemed so much fun!

So, I started out in the industry as a graduate trainee at Ogilvy in London.

Throughout my career I’ve held senior roles at some of the world’s best agencies, including Saatchi, Grey and VCCP, I founded and sold my own agency and I’ve had great success with several side hustles, including This Girl is on Fire, a female empowerment network for women in business and Water in a Box, a cardboard packaged water brand. But after working in the B2C world for majority of career, I craved a change in scenery.

One day, while advising on M&A targets for another agency, I came across my current agency alan. I felt that there was a massive opportunity to help transform the B2B landscape and thought alan. could be a great platform. I was at that point however, a snob towards B2B and believed the industry boring and beige; I now know that need not be the case.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

I have made a ton of mistakes over the years, but I’ve always tried never to make the same mistake twice!

From being extremely negative about a senior client without realising he was on the conference call; to being threatened to be thrown out of a top floor window by the creative director if I failed to sell a Ford ad; to failing to make the Vision Express pitch presentation when I had all the creative work with me in my car and had a prang on the M25, leaving all my senior colleagues in the lurch at the pitch with nothing to show.

Never again!

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

My first boss at my first agency has always been my work mentor; he gave me a break and my first job and I then gave him his last job as Chairman of my own agency before he retired. He’s always said the right thing and provided a sensible foil for me when my photographer wife got fed up with me asking her for advice!

Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your organization started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?

To make B2B marketing visceral by ‘provoking the truth for progressive B2B brands’.

And this is still very much our vision and purpose now. Through our journalist heritage and ‘research first’ approach we challenge, investigate and interrogate to find the stories that B2B brands must tell; using intelligence, imagination and emotion to tell them in ways that inspire and just can’t be ignored.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion. Can you share with our readers a story from your own experience about how you lead your team during uncertain or difficult times?

I have worked through several recessions and tricky times and learnt quickly that these are opportunities to survive and thrive if you do the right things. For me it’s about complete focus, not chasing shiny new things, managing fixed costs and being flexible where necessary but always confident, ambitious and supportive to clients.

Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the motivation to continue through your challenges? What sustains your drive?

To be honest I’ve never given up anything, except smoking! When I had my own agency, and my house was on the line, I was completely driven by a fear of failure and the thought of letting down my people and family. This always focused my mind and kept me going. These days I’m driven by the joy of growth and winning rather than any fear or financial concern and the fact that I simply love what I do and I’m pretty good at it now!

I’m an author and I believe that books have the power to change lives. Do you have a book in your life that impacted you and inspired you to be an effective leader? Can you share a story?

I love to read but to be honest I have only ever read one business book. ‘Who Moved My Cheese?’ is a very light weight parable demonstrating that change is inevitable but, to survive and succeed, you need to accept that change happens, anticipate it, adapt to it and learn to embrace and enjoy it — or become extinct!

What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during challenging times?

In turbulent times, I think it’s vital for leaders to stay calm and remain visible. We need to be a beacon of stability to our employees, clients, and stakeholders. Even in challenging times, there are always opportunities to be had. When asked my views on how to tackle this, I say head on. It’s just a recurring part of the economic cycle. But not everyone will feel the same. Empathy is also crucial, and as a business leader, ensuring that you’re prepared for any ebbs and flows is all part of the job.

When the future seems so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?

Communicating efficiently with your team and offering support when needed is best to boost morale — especially when facing times of hardship. Business leaders need to remember that it’s not just businesses that are impacted by economic crises, people are too. And it’s the people that keep the businesses going when times are turbulent. It’s never been more important (or so widely talked about) to protect your staff, and we are seeing more and more businesses bringing in initiatives to do so. Transparency is also key to successfully riding the wave of uncertainty. Be realistic and upfront with your team. This will help you be in the strongest place possible to successfully navigate the next challenge — which will inevitably come around sooner than you think.

At alan. we have just introduced an ‘extended leadership team’ to empower the wider team to make the decisions that matter. We’re also about to have an all-agency workshop to help define our values and collective strategies for growth. I can’t wait to hear what they all think!

What is the best way to communicate difficult news to one’s team and customers?

Delivering bad news is tough at any time but breaking bad news while facing economic uncertainty is especially hard. Tough decisions should be made in a considered way but without prevarication and news should be delivered in a transparent and timely manner — your team and customers deserve an open and honest policy. You need to be clear on what’s happening now, but also be able to paint a picture of what’s going to happen next and the plan for the future.

People understand that sometimes bad news is unavoidable, but how you deal with it is the great leveler between good and bad leadership.

How can a leader make plans when the future is so unpredictable?

While the ‘plan’ may change, it’s always wise to go into uncertain times with a clear strategy so everyone on your team is aligned and clear on their roles and actions. This will ultimately help you manage fixed costs well and stay focused on what you’re best at (without getting distracted by the ‘new and shiny’).

As a leader you should always be prepared for these plans to change. Don’t rely on just one plan. Have a backup ready, in case you really need it. Flexibility is key.

Is there a “number one principle” that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times?

I wouldn’t say that there’s a number one principle, but I think survival comes down to just carrying on. Evidence from previous recessions shows that brands which double down on spend increase their market share and those that don’t lose out to competitors and take longer to recover. Recessions don’t last forever and those who stay engaged and visible during a downturn are likely to come out on top. Being organised and having a recession strategy in place will also help, and fortunately businesses still have time to organise this. These times tend to sort markets out and good brands usually survive.

Can you share 3 or 4 of the most common mistakes you have seen other businesses make during difficult times? What should one keep in mind to avoid that?

In my experience, the biggest pitfall for businesses navigating difficult times is straying away from what they’re good at. It’s easy to get distracted by the ‘new and shiny’, but this is not the time to be changing tactics or investing in new things. Stick to what you know and what you’re good at. I have seen a number of agencies fail because the management have been distracted by an acquisition that doesn’t quite fit but the financial model looked good. It’s just madness to take your best people away from what they’re great at to try and deal with something they’re perhaps not best suited to deal with — this happens too often.

Many businesses at the sight of uncertainty cut marketing budgets specifically to cut costs. But we know this doesn’t help in the long run. Marketing throughout hard times is a gem of an investment, and it’s better to work out the best balance for your business through marketing tactics to help maintain client / customer loyalty. When reflecting on the other difficult times, the businesses that came out on top were those who allocated their spending wisely and continued engagement with their consumers. For example, in the 2008 recession, Hyundai’s sales rose by 2%. It listened it what its customers wanted and stuck by the business plan it implemented — as part of this, offering to take back a car that was financed or leased by a worker who had subsequently lost their job during this time. It sent a clear message and provided something that really made a difference to its customers.

Finally, another common mistake that can have a detrimental impact is being too optimistic or too pessimistic of the circumstances. It’s important to carry on business as usual but being overly optimistic can mean you lose sight of reality. Finding the right balance can be difficult, so it’s important to source all the information available in order to make the right decision and find the right tone with your team and clients.

Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should do to lead effectively during uncertain and turbulent times? Please share a story or an example for each.

Focus — I was previously a non-executive director of three different agencies during recessions. When I started with them, I found it frightening that none of these agencies had a plan to manage their businesses through tough times. So, my role was easy, and I managed to make a big difference quickly by giving them a simple and focused plan to help navigate their way through the recession. They all survived and thrived! Equally during the pandemic our agency simply focused on what we were best at and became the best we could — we won everything we pitched for and grew +40% over that tricky and surreal period.

Communicate — stuff happens, decisions are made and business is won and lost. So it’s critical to bring the team with you and keep everyone up to speed with what’s what. In a previous life during the credit crunch all our media clients were losing their credit insurance and we were having to pay for their media deals up front. This was frightening and put enormous pressure on the cash flow of our very profitable business. It was only by bringing everyone in the agency with me, and instilling a Dunkirk spirit, that we managed to get through those frightening times.

Flexibility — Whatever the question is the answer must be yes, obviously within reason! I have found that agencies can come into their own for a client when times are tough. A client’s life is a difficult one and so frankly if there’s anything we can do to help when they really need it, then we should. It doesn’t matter if it’s not something we usually do for them but at least we’ll try to find someone who can. Go the extra mile and be flexible and that positive can-do attitude always plays dividends when the good times are back.

Confidence — Clearly any leader needs to demonstrate confidence. But that’s not arrogance. The world doesn’t owe us a living so we need to be good to win and do the right things and particularly now, with a few year’s success under my belt, I’m pretty confident that I know what I’m doing. Hopefully this comes through to my team who see me leading from the front and doing the right things for them and our clients through tough times.

Listen — The first account I won at my own agency was a big retailer and they loved us and our proposals but would only appoint us if I went on a course to learn how to listen. I did it and I got a little better at it! Ever since then I have made a very big effort to especially listen to what clients really mean and what they really want. This is particularly critical through tough times when budgets are tight and ROI counts like never before. If we listen hard enough, we could find the key to unlock big opportunity and surprise and delight clients who will forever be grateful.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

The one I annoy my children with is ‘Always aim higher’; a simple phrase that my ambitious father helped focus me with as a kid. In my agency life however my single-minded approach to new business has always been that “it’s better to win than be right”. This has always served me well in winning pitches and then taking the opportunity to put the client on the ‘right path’ once the contract has been signed!

How can our readers further follow your work?

Readers can keep up to date with us via our social media (LinkedIn and Twitter) or through our website. We also host a great podcast B2B Marketing: The Provocative Truth, where we share our expertise and advice to the B2B market.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

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Michael Richards of alan: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Em Stroud, Keynote Speaker, Emcee & Corporate Clown Coach On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Work on your breathing, and not just for public speaking. If you only work on your breathing when you’re public speaking, it won’t work. You need to be conscious of your breath on a day-to-day basis so that when you’re standing up and delivering an amazing talk, your breathing will be effortless and will enable you to manage your nerves.

At some point in our lives, many of us will have to give a talk to a large group of people. What does it take to be a highly effective public speaker? How can you improve your public speaking skills? How can you overcome a fear of speaking in public? What does it take to give a very interesting and engaging public talk? In this interview series called “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker” we are talking to successful and effective public speakers to share insights and stories from their experience. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Em Stroud.

Em Stroud is a Corporate Clown Coach for the brave and the curious. Using a vast array of tools from both the personal development world and business improvement techniques, which includes those mastered from the art of clowning, Em encourages businesses and employees to “work well, play harder”. Her clients include a roster of CEOs of SMEs and global businesses for whom she delivers keynote speeches, emcees events and coaches to address staff happiness and wellbeing.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

No, thank you for chatting with me! It’s a pleasure. I grew up in Surrey where I attended an all-girls school and excelled at sports and music.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

As I mentioned, I excelled at sports. That was until I got a back injury, subsequently ending my sporting days. However, this did mean that I found myself on stage. I was given a role in a school play, which was Hard Times, there is one comic role in it, and I got it!

From that moment on, I decided that standing up on stage was for me. I studied Theatre & Performance at university and then went to drama school to study acting professionally.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Back in 2017, I was invited to a fruit-themed lunch. Me being me, I decided to go dressed as a banana. I had to get a taxi with the suit on and the taxi driver refused to believe I was anything other than a banana salesman.

After lunch, I went out to the streets of London. The banana outfit allowed people that would never outwardly talk to me, to talk to me. Following this, I began to use the hashtag #bemorebanana, which led me to think more about how we can have more fun in our life. I then did my first Ted Talk dressed in the banana suit.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Hmm, let’s think. During one of my speaking gigs, I didn’t tell anyone what music I wanted to play when I walked on stage. The conference had a lot of powerful music, so I trusted them! Oh, and they also gave me a Britney Spears-style microphone.

They ended up playing an R&B track, which is so not me, I cannot begin to tell you! I smoothed up to the stage with this ridiculous R&B track and a Britney Spears-style headset on. So, learn from my mistakes. Make sure you have the equipment that’s going to serve you. I like a handheld microphone, it’s what I work with well. Oh, and always make sure you know what music you want them to play, and what works for you.

None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person whom you are grateful for who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

So many people have got me to where I am today. If I was to look at where I am right now, I would say my amazing coach Dr Mandy Leto.

I remember about five, or six years ago, we were sitting in a room, and she asked me a simple coaching question which at the time was humbling. Questions like, where did I want to go?

She didn’t let me answer with what I thought she would want to hear. She pushed and she delved deeper. It was that moment that led me to where I am now.

You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging and intimidating. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?

If you want to become a speaker, trust your stories. A lot of people overthink getting up and just doing it. They overthink that they’ve got to be perfect. None of it is about being perfect. It’s all about practice.

Give it a go. Do some small gigs so you can learn the craft. I’ve been doing the craft of speaking and performing for 20+ years and I’ve learnt that you can’t bypass rehearsal. You need to rehearse without audiences, you need to rehearse out loud, which most people don’t do in business. And most importantly, be kind to yourself.

What drives you to get up every day and give your talks? What is the main empowering message that you aim to share with the world?

This one is easy. I’m talking about my purpose, that is the biggest gift. I’ve always wanted to serve my audience and give experiences to provide them with a sense of some of the things that I’ve learned along the way.

My main empowering message is, I want the world to laugh more, think more and play more, and not sideline those things. This is something people often only do at weekends, if at all and yet they are the three vital steps we all need to do more of to lead a fulfilling life.

You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?

My ‘Laugh Think Play’ movement is launching. We want to make the world feel better. We are just starting, but we are going to have multiple programmes within the group where we will work with businesses and individuals that want to develop that practice. We want a ‘Laugh Think Play’ Festival, where people can come and spend time revelling in these three things. We want to have ‘Laugh Think Play’ publications; we will even have an app! Part of our remit is that 10% of our profits will go to charity too.

I’m also working on getting funding for my film, Reframed. Reframed is my autobiographical story about how I’ve ended up where I am today. Hopefully, it will help other people Laugh, Think and Play and have the courage to look at who they are and reframe their life.

Can you please give us your favourite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favourite ‘Life Lesson Quote’ is tattooed on my arm, and it was the first tattoo I ever got.

It says This Will Change. This quote resonated with me during a 10-day silent meditation retreat, because it’s true, everything will always change. You can feel the saddest that you’ve ever felt or the happiest that you’ve ever felt, and it will always change. On my left wrist, I can always see these three words.

The retreat allowed me to understand that I wanted to become a mother. So, that was a change!

In life, we get so caught up with success and failure. But none of it is permanent. So, for me, this is the most evocative phrase because it reminds me that if we just live in our present, then that’s the best gift that we can give to ourselves.

Ok, thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need to Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker?” Please share a story or example for each.

1. Work on your breathing, and not just for public speaking. If you only work on your breathing when you’re public speaking, it won’t work. You need to be conscious of your breath on a day-to-day basis so that when you’re standing up and delivering an amazing talk, your breathing will be effortless and will enable you to manage your nerves.

2. You need to think about how you want to show up. This is about more than just your content. Normally these are singular, emotive words. For me, my words can be Engaged, Motivate, Fun, Calm, Curious, and Educate. I’ve chosen that this is how I want to show up. It will mean that my voice and body language will reflect on these words, and you must be conscious of those choices as much as you’re aware of what you’re putting into your talks.

3. Less is more. Many speakers try and put so much content into their talks. It is better to be clear and give space to some of your expertise and knowledge rather than trying to put all of it in one. Leave your audience feeling like they’ve taken stuff away. But also let them leave wondering what else he/she/they have. By doing less, you are far more likely to be grounded and deliver your talk in the way you want.

4. Keep things simple. I’ve worked with speakers that can be unbelievably complicated. Be human. What is it that you want to say? What is your core message?

5. Tell stories to demonstrate your point. In a society where data takes priority over words, try building in colour and emotion to drive your message home. Your story is your truth, about your information, that is yours. Other people will then find the human truth and relate to it.

As you know, many people are terrified of speaking in public. Can you give some of your advice about how to overcome this fear?

Firstly, remember that your audience wants you to succeed. There isn’t any audience that I’ve ever spoken in front of that doesn’t want you to be brilliant. So, just remember this to overcome any fear you may have.

Take hold of your breathing, because fear is all in your head. You may think it’s going to go wrong, they won’t like you or you’re not good at this. Just breathe, get back into your body and get back into what you know.

Practice is honestly a massive thing — practice in safe places. Practice with people that make you feel secure. Don’t suddenly throw yourself into doing a gig in front of 1,000 people. Nobody would ever try and run a marathon without training. Maybe even listen to other people’s TED Talks and ask yourself why you like them. Not the content. Why do you like how they delivered it?

You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

The movement I have set up already! The’ Laugh Think Play’ movement is a group that wants the world to laugh more, to think with more kindness to themselves first and then to each other.

Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!

Thom Yorke. His work as the lead singer of Radiohead and many other projects. He has used art and his music to shift and change people.

He uses his platform to get people to think about things from a different perspective. I’d love to meet him because as I’ve grown, he’s grown. I’d love to get his take on ‘Laugh Think Play’.

Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?

You can find me on Twitter @emmastroudldn and Instagram @emmastroudldn. I also have an Instagram for my podcast which can be found at @clowningaroundpodcast.

You can also follow us on Instagram at @laughthinkplay and to join our movement sign up at www.laughthinkplay.com

This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!

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Em Stroud, Keynote Speaker, Emcee & Corporate Clown Coach On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

No one builds a brand on their own. It takes many partners, influencers, stakeholders, collaborations and an amazing behind the scenes team to build a great brand. Don’t just engage someone because they have a huge following. Engage them because they truly love your brand. That enthusiasm and honesty is easy to feel rather than someone who is just a hired gun. It cannot be understated on how great passionate partnerships drive a brand’s success.

As a part of our series about How to Create a Trusted & Believable Brand, I had the pleasure of interviewing Scott Frohman.

After discovering the power of adaptogenic mushrooms, Scott Frohman, founder of Odyssey Elixir, began to meticulously mix and match unique blends into his coffee each morning. The different combinations of mushrooms produced powerful results such as euphoria, mental clarity, and lasting energy. He knew immediately that he had to share these discoveries with the world to support others on their wellness journeys — and 2 years later, Odyssey Elixir was born.

Since the brand’s inception, the mission has always been to create functional mushroom-based beverages that are potent, organic, sustainable and most of all; delicious. Odyssey has carefully combined flavor-forward ingredients like passion fruit, orange, guava and blackberry with potent adaptogenic mushrooms like Lion’s Mane and Cordyceps to create products that are unique in both taste and effect. Together, Odyssey’s beverage line provides holistic support for the body and mind, supporting Energy, Endurance, Focus, Immunity, and Mood.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I’ve been in the consumer goods industry for a while — I left my place on Wallstreet a long time ago to pursue a career path of deeper fulfillment by creating things that excite and help people. The concept of wellness — as it relates to products and a lifestyle — has always been a particularly exciting space to me as I am drawn to the idea of supporting others on their own health journeys since my own journey has been integral to where I am today. This passion eventually led me to the CBD industry where I spent years building a successful business that I eventually exited.

When I discovered the power and potency of functional mushrooms, I know that I had truly found the next frontier of wellness. A friend of mine was early adopter of functional mushrooms and graciously let me in on the secret. I started blending different adaptogenic tonics and the results I started experiencing from my daily concoctions were profound. I knew immediately I needed to share this with the world. After almost 2 years of R&D, Odyssey Sparkling Mushroom Elixirs were born.

Can you share a story about the funniest marketing mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

One of the funniest mistakes we made was making a POS that said, “Super Tasty.” After we started seeing it out in retail, we had realized it sounded corny and inferred there was bad taste to mask when in reality we had cracked the code and were able to create a beverage with mushrooms in it that had zero mushroom taste. So, at the end of the day, we scrapped that POS and we all got a good laugh out of it. I learned to really nail down your brand messaging and not rush to create something that you’re going to put into hundreds of stores.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

In my earliest visions of Odyssey, I knew I wanted this brand to exist beyond the shelf. I wanted to create a purpose-driven company that lived in the hearts, minds, and daily lives of the next generation of creative thinkers, athletes, gamers, musicians — those who are pushing humankind forward in their craft or their sport.

So, since we got started, we have worked hard to bring Odyssey beyond the shelf and into society to create momentum around this idea of “upleveling your life” by cross-promoting our products with lifestyle events such as music festivals, yoga classes, fungi-festivals, and more. I truly believe that Odyssey is so much more than just a line of kick-ass drinks — it’s a mindset, it’s a commitment to thriving, it’s a movement that is redefining how people understand the power of their body, mind, and spirit — ultimately, it’s a reclamation of our health. Our company stands out because of the stellar “all in type of mentality” team we have assembled, the Metatron, which is a symbol of a force for good and our product is the first and one of a kind sparkling mushroom beverage with no detectable taste of mushrooms. We are the new energy drink that the market is demanding, and this generation is ready for.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

At Odyssey we are constantly thinking about the big picture, which means we are always exploring new avenues for innovation. Our brand sits at the nexus of health, functionality, food, and innovation — which pushes us to continue to think outside the box to continue to create cutting-edge products that enhance people’s lives on various levels. We’re fascinated by the cognitive and mood-enhancing benefits of mushrooms and this concept of “biohacking” through food. This is driving our product development to expand our offerings further to allow people to take complete control over their health and wellness through food. As we are a young brand, I am totally focused right now on driving awareness and growth. I am also working on new products to add to our portfolio that are innovative and fill gaps in the market.

Ok let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)? Can you explain?

To me, the difference lies in the end results; with product marketing, you are promoting a specific product, ultimately educating, inspiring and incentivizing consumers to purchase that product based on the core “reasons to believe”. Brand marketing, on the other hand, enables a company to convey the entire essence of its being and identity by connecting with the consumer across various dimensions. Brand marketing brings the conversation beyond the product (the “what”); it explains the who, the why, the where. Together, the two marketing tactics build recognition and trust in both the brand entity and its product line — with the ultimate goal of driving loyalty by establishing an emotive connection with consumers.

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?

Consumers have incredibly short attention spans — their decision-making timeline spans just a few seconds. This means you have a few seconds (at best) to capture the attention and dollar of someone browsing through the incredibly crowded aisle that your product sits in. By building your brand and driving recognition, equity, and loyalty — these decisions become solidified before the consumer even gets to that aisle. They decide how many products of yours they plan to buy and in what flavors before they even reach the store. Brand loyalty lies in your ability to continually deepen your connection with your customer. Consumers are savvier than ever before, and brands need to constantly communicate with their customers using every tool possible to stand out amongst the competition and communicate their unique selling proposition.

Can you share 5 strategies that a company should be doing to build a trusted and believable brand?

1. Authentic, engaging content strategy

We believe that people don’t just want to see or hear about our products repeatedly. They want to see them brought to life because they want to understand where those products can fit into their own lives, so we showcase our products in the wild — with real people doing real things.

2. Consistent brand messaging + presence

This is especially true for a new, emerging brand as you need to build familiarity with your brand, products, and mission. That means being consistent in how you present yourself across all channels.

3. Experiential marketing

Like I mentioned, we bring our products beyond the shelf and into society through interactive, immersive experiences. This helps us to engage with consumers are on a more intimate level. You can find us at yoga and fitness events, music festivals, e-gaming competitions, on the beach, in a restaurant, at the convenience store — wherever our customer is we want to be there.

4. Influencer partnership

No one builds a brand on their own. It takes many partners, influencers, stakeholders, collaborations and an amazing behind the scenes team to build a great brand. Don’t just engage someone because they have a huge following. Engage them because they truly love your brand. That enthusiasm and honesty is easy to feel rather than someone who is just a hired gun. It cannot be understated on how great passionate partnerships drive a brand’s success.

5. Tell Your Story:

What is back story behind the brand? How did it come to be? Who are the people behind the brand? What is the company’s mission and vision? Don’t sugarcoat anything. Talk about the challenges and obstacles you had to overcome to bring your brand to life. Always tell the truth about your brand. Sometimes brands hide or shade the truth or try to be all things to all people. Know what your core competencies are and where you want to play and stay there. Be clear, be proud, be the best at what you do.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job building a believable and beloved brand. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

Celsius is a company that I think has done an amazing job at growing their brand and marketing their products. However, as much as I think they have really hit their stride in terms of building a brand and are clearly a success story in terms of distribution and sales, I also think that there’s a misconception about how healthy their drinks really are, and consumers are beginning to take note of that. To their credit, Celsius struggled in their early years, but then they sharpened their messaging and branding, and it took off. There wasn’t as much competition in the category when they got started. It’s a commendable success story, but I still think that until now, the data was not showing that consumers want less sugar, less caffeine; to be less amped up with copious amounts of stimulants, caffeine, and artificial sweeteners. Now we know for certain the data is clearly indicating that clean label, functional energy, mood, clarity, and focus are top of mind for consumers. They want those benefits in a way that does not compromise their health values with less caffeine and naturally low in sugar and carbs. If they don’t feel good after they drink it, what’s the point? With Odyssey, you feel great and that’s where we see our growth opportunity; making people feel good and do good.

In advertising, one generally measures success by the number of sales. How does one measure the success of a brand building campaign? Is it similar, is it different?

I’d say overall it’s similar in that you want quantifiable metrics to measure your success, but for a campaign, those look more like number of new followers, average engagement levels with your content, impressions, reach, subscriptions, or other metrics that indicate some form of loyalty and visibility from your audience.

What role does social media play in your branding efforts?

Social media is the canvas on which we paint a vivid, vibrant picture of what Odyssey is about. We use social media to express our vibe and show our consumers the entirety of the Odyssey lifestyle — bringing them beyond the grocery store shelf and into the colorful world that Odyssey exists in. We invite consumers to dive deeper into the essence of Odyssey by posting engaging content that welcomes followers to join the journey. Social media allows us to unleash a next-level creativity. It also allows us to test new messaging, new products, and new ideas with our fungi-family by communicating directly with those following along our journey — gathering input, reactions, and feedback along the way. So essentially, social media is both a form of expression but also of intel.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I entered the functional beverage business because I truly believe that food can and should be used as medicine. Health is truly our most valuable form of wealth and it’s important that we always cultivate, support, and enhance our health to step into the best versions of ourselves. This requires us to be so intentional in what we choose to put into our bodies — from the food that we eat, from the dialogues we listen to, to the energy we surround ourselves with. Food can be used to uplevel the energetic frequencies that we all put out — if we so choose to consume things aligned with our highest selves.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Life is not a dress rehearsal.” I always approach things with a “carpe diem” attitude. I thrive on excellence and to inspire others around me to aim for that as well. Mediocrity is everywhere, but even if you fall short of excellence, if you are striving for it, you usually don’t fall far from it. I like to challenge people to be there best and become great leaders themselves. To me, that’s how you build an organization where there is harmony, and everyone has fun doing because they are part of the end result and reap the rewards.

We are blessed that very prominent leaders in business and entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you would like to have a lunch or breakfast with? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂

Yes, Taylor Swift. She’s such an amazing role model and embodies the best of her generation. I love how she speaks her mind and doesn’t let the trends in society rattle her from being true to herself and her values. She has no doubt inspired and empowered millions of her peers with her songs, positivity, and humanitarian efforts. She is as authentic as they come, and I admire that. Yes, please tag her!

How can our readers follow you on social media?

IG: @odysseyelixir

FB: Odyssey Elixir

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

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Scott Frohman Of Odyssey Elixir On How to Create a Trusted & Believable Brand was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Chris Turner Of Sawyer Twain: Five Strategies I Used To Grow My Business To Reach Seven Figures In Revenue

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Be yourself and have your own opinions whether you choose to be vocal on them or not. If you believe in something and are passionate about it, pursue it with everything you have and eliminate any negative energy from friends, family, or peers.

As a part of my series called “Five Strategies I Used To Grow My Business To Reach Seven Figures In Revenue”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Chris Turner.

After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communication from Arizona State University, Chris Turner set out to build on his academic achievements and become a leader in the business world. Self-described as a humble innovator who prioritizes a work-life balance, Turner ventured into the niche market of upscale game room furniture. In 2017 he founded Sawyer Twain, a luxury brand offering unique game room furniture, gaming tables such as table tennis, billiards, and shuffleboard, and home and recreation décor. With annual revenues in excess of $12 million in under five years, Turner credits continually creating successful vendor relationships to the growth of Sawyer Twain, which will help him achieve his overall goal of expanding its offering of high-quality products that customers can embrace.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I moved back from Portland to Phoenix in 2017 after businesses I had owned for seven years failed. I took an absolute beating in trying to salvage the company but was unsuccessful. This was an incredibly low point in my life as I was broke and had no clear direction for my next venture. I didn’t want to think about doing anything. I was incredibly burnt out, the last thing I wanted to do was get a job in the corporate world and I was too financially destitute to give any new business venture any thought. I started researching the E-commerce world in general. Granted I was a big participant in this space, as was everyone. But I never quite grasped the profits/margins of sourcing goods overseas and importing them into the states. This led me to get more familiar with dropshipping. If you’re not familiar, dropshipping is where a seller puts products online and accepts orders with not owning the inventory. After an order is placed, you submit it directly to the wholesaler, who ships it out on your behalf. The more I went down the rabbit hole of getting familiar with dropshipping in general, the more excited I got about fully immersing myself in this space. I had absolutely nothing to lose! It was imperative that I could find something that was not overly saturated in this space (furniture, toys, bedding); the list goes on and on. To be honest all of it’s saturated at this point. It really came down to multiple sellers selling the same products and competing with each other’s advertising and marketing initiatives. I needed to find something unique and hadn’t been overtaken by the big box stores or marketplaces such as Amazon & Wayfair- which by the way, we do business on both platforms today! During my exploration into E-commerce, I ended up befriending an individual in the billiards space. He was already an incredibly successful distributor but was adamant that billiards were starving for an E-commerce solution. He would provide the game room furniture for me to get my feet wet. My brother put 5k in an account, and I was off to the races. I immediately began listing on marketplaces (Amazon, Wayfair, Houzz, Etsy). They take a more significant percentage of your transaction, but your business can piggyback on their platforms to get more exposure at a lower internal marketing cost which makes all the sense in the world — the items Sawyer Twain was selling caught absolute fire online, and started selling daily. At the time not many brands were letting E-commerce companies sell their products online. They were very protective of their brick & mortar stores and, quite frankly, didn’t want other companies in their space. I get it! But at some point, progress had to happen. After all, the fact that the section hadn’t been overly running and saturated was beyond belief. It was a driving catalyst for me internally to work my butt off! Of course, there was another factor as well. The idea of shipping a 900lb class 85 table just seemed like an unfathomable task. Once it was shipped, what installation team would be able to facilitate the setup? They were all very reasonable concerns; had I known; it would have been much more irritating. A standard furniture installer can’t set these up. It’s quite the craft; it must be a billiards technician and team that set these up. Their all 3-piece slate tables, and each piece weighs 220 plus pounds. You can imagine the duress the body takes just moving these not to mention all the other aspects that facilitate the final setup. I was met with several challenges. Companies that sold game room furniture wouldn’t work with me. Some were flat-out rude. But this fed the fuel more to tell me I was onto something and needed to drive harder and scale as fast as possible. The same was said about other brands/companies; they wanted nothing to do with an E-commerce partner. It was inevitable because they didn’t want to upset their internal Brick and Morter base.

Eventually, many of them began to reach out to me…and I onboarded them. Today Sawyer Twain works or collaborates with just about every brand in this niche industry in some capacity. Our installer network is massive, exceeding 200 plus nationally. I’ve also started my billiard lines as well: Nixon Billiards and Doc & Holliday. The future is very bright. We’re fortunate to be in the position we are. It’s much more remarkable to think that it all started with just one company; Plank & Hide. I can’t emphasize how grateful I am to have this as a partner!

Can you share the most interesting or funniest story that happened to you since you began leading your company? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I’m not sure if it’s funny, but I’ve become genuine friends with many of my partners. Not just the owners or senior partners of brands and manufacturers, but the installation teams & laborers. I genuinely enjoy talking to them. They’re some of the hardest workers, period. Unfortunately, I don’t have the bandwidth to catch up and talk shop with them as I once did. But I still keep up with 4–5 regularly that I formed friendships with!

I’m an author and I believe that books have the power to change lives. Do you have a book in your life that impacted you and inspired you to be an effective leader? Can you share a story?

How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie is still tops for me. There are some very elementary lessons that still and will always ring true to me. The four below resonate. I try to refresh the book occasionally as it’s very easy to stray away from the basic lessons below.

1. Always Remember people’s names.I know from my perspective that if someone remembers my name, they instantly gain more respect and attention from me as they obviously value our initial conversation. I think it lets everyone know they matter😊. I always try my best to do this regardless of what the meeting pertains to…work, social, etc.
2. Be Quick to Acknowledge your mistakes. Nothing will make people less defensive and more agreeable than you being humble and reasonable enough to admit your own mistakes. Having strong and stable personal and professional relationships relies on taking responsibility for your actions, especially your mistakes. Nothing will help end tension or a disagreement more than a swift acknowledgment and apology on your part.
3. Begin on common ground If you disagree with someone, you start on common ground and ease your way into the difficult subjects. If you begin on polarizing ground, you’ll never be able to recover and may lose ground with topics on which you agree.
4. Do Not Criticize, Condemn or Complain “Any fool can criticize, condemn or complain- and most fools do.” He continues to say that it takes character and self-control to be forgiving; this discipline will pay significant dividends in your relationships with people.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Yes! Yes! We’ve been very fortunate with Sawyer Twain, enabling us to launch our own billiards and game room brands that are new to the market! Nixon Billiards and Doc & Holliday. Nixon is imported from overseas, and Doc & Holliday is made in the USA. We’re also expanding into furniture that can complement our current offerings.

Awesome! Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Let’s talk about what you are doing now, and how you achieved the success that you currently enjoy. Can you tell our readers about the business you’ve created?

In hindsight, it was hard and took many hours from doing anything else. I was very driven because I genuinely had nothing to lose. I worked 16-plus-hour days, seven days a week. I’m still excited about the industry, and the process of building and implementing new ideas that come to fruition makes it all that much worthwhile. I encourage everyone to insert themselves into something they’re genuinely passionate about. It’s cliché, but it doesn’t seem like work!

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

We’re genuinely E-commerce driven, and it’s incredibly rare for this industry. We just evolved into having our warehouses in the past few months. But they were not existent the first five years. So we were always reliant on our partners to dropship on our behalf. There needs to be a lot of trust to have a successful dropshipping business.

What was your vision when you started this business? What’s the WHY behind the work that you do?

Well, I touched on this in my opening monologue. But I really had nothing to lose! I was financially destitute, and the fear of being in that position was very motivating. It drove me daily. That and I knew I was onto creating an exceptional niche within the national game room furniture market.

We’d love to explore the traits that help you achieve your success. What were the mindset obstacles that you had to overcome in order to reach the place of earning a million dollars? Can you tell us what you did to overcome them?

The biggest obstacle was doing everything by myself. I would work around the clock, which was immensely challenging the first few years. Though we did do over a million in gross sales annually.

What were the external obstacles that you had to overcome in reaching these milestones? And how specifically did you overcome them?

I think to scale and expand; I needed to eventually get help to have people take things off my plate. This is very difficult because getting other people to see your vision or have an inherent passion for your business is tough. This took a lot of time to grasp because I couldn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t partake and share in my enthusiasm. The reality is no one will care about your business as much as you. So there’s always going to be turnover until you find the right individuals who can assist. I can say today I’m thrilled with my internal team, who have taken the lead on a lot of my initiatives!

Was there ever a point where you wanted to give up on your journey to creating a million dollar business? How did you work through that panic point? Please share a story.

I think the actual million in gross sales came so fast that I didn’t even acknowledge it. Granted, it’s cool, but the runway was and is still massive in this specific industry and E-commerce in general, which is billions. I think the fact that I can still see enormous growth gives me a bit of tunnel vision regarding what we currently capture from a monetary sense. Don’t get me wrong; I’m glad we’re fortunate and prosperous. But if I start telling myself a “job well done,” the job is over. The fact that it’s not, makes it much more exciting to keep driving. I’ve never quite understood the benchmark of goals. I think they can discourage and hamstring growth once they’re obtained. The climb or implementation of new products and marketing initiatives is constantly in motion and changing.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Without a doubt, I’m incredibly grateful to Plank & Hide for believing in me to expand their line to a national level in an E-Commerce capacity. Without them, this indeed may not have been possible. As I mentioned they were the only company that initially did business with me, and I can’t thank them enough. My brother deserves a giant thank you as well as many others!

We are sure that you are not done. What comes next? What’s your next big goal and why? What plan have you put in place to achieve it? Why is it a stretch for you? What will achieving it represent for you and for others?

Starting my brands has been incredibly fun and exciting- from creating renderings and concepts to products and beyond. Watching the vision become an actual realization of something you’ve created is cool!

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Be yourself and have your own opinions whether you choose to be vocal on them or not. If you believe in something and are passionate about it, pursue it with everything you have and eliminate any negative energy from friends, family, or peers.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

I have a great family and friends and am very fortunate to spend time with them and do everything above. However, it would be great to have a few frosties with Dave Portnoy, Charles Barkley, or Peyton Manning.

Thank you so much for taking the time to share with us and our readers. We know that it will make a tremendous difference and impact thousands of lives. We are excited to connect further and we wish you so much joy in your next success.

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Chris Turner Of Sawyer Twain: Five Strategies I Used To Grow My Business To Reach Seven Figures In… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Learn how your people are most productive and structure their workflow to suit that. We know that our developer’s work needs are very different from our management team’s needs, so we schedule people’s tasks according to their roles and personalities and never try to make everyone fit inside the same box.

Startups usually start with a small cohort of close colleagues. But what happens when you add a bunch of new people into this close cohort? How do you maintain the company culture? In addition, what is needed to successfully scale a business to increase market share or to increase offerings? How can a small startup grow successfully to a midsize and then large company? To address these questions, we are talking to successful business leaders who can share stories and insights from their experiences about the “5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Scale Your Business”. As a part of this series, we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Chris Harper.

After starting his first business at the age of 17 selling customized light switch covers, Harper went on to found and exit multiple firms, including a cocktail mixer business that gained significant scale in Canada. Along the way, he picked up a patent in distributed computing, and also befriended David Alexander- two developments that would forever change his life. Harper and Alexander went on to found ZippedScript, a first of its kind firm poised to disrupt the worlds of education and employment verification with new proprietary technology. Harper is a passionate problem-solver who loves sales and leading dynamic, ambitious teams. His mantra is “‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ is a terrible saying. If it could be better, it’s as good as broken.’” ZippedScript verifies higher education claims instantly from any institution on the planet, leveraging nascent proprietary technology. With ZippedScript, companies get the most accurate results the industry has yet to see; results are conclusive, on time, and cheaper than ever.

Thank you for joining us in this interview series. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?

I was born, dropped out of college & started multiple businesses. Some failed, some succeeded but one thing is certain: I never stop trying!

I grew up playing sports, which had a big role in molding me into the extremely competitive person I am today. In retrospect, it only seems natural that I’d find my way into a line of business where I believe the best minds on planet earth compete.

You’ve had a remarkable career journey. Can you highlight a key decision in your career that helped you get to where you are today?

Dropping out of college & giving myself permission to pursue a high risk, high reward life. I cannot stress enough how much this decision was right for me. Is it for everybody? Absolutely not. But, I believe there are not enough contrarian voices out there these days asking young people to truly consider whether or not this is the right path- and I mean that all the way down to the debt! For me, college was simply not the way. I think we need to remove the stigma around this, big time.

What’s the most impactful initiative you’ve led that you’re particularly proud of?

I’m currently very proud of the team we curated for my current business, ZippedScript. We made a point of hiring outsiders and it’s paying off. We’re currently working to create a groundswell of important changes within the education verification space. We’re doing a project right now on LinkedIn where users can voluntarily use our tech to verify their degrees. When they do, they get a blue check mark, indicating they’ve participated in verifying their ed credentials. In my industry, this is huge, as we’ll be able to prove that the trend we’re ushering in will be consumer-driven, which will have huge implications.

Sometimes our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a mistake you’ve made and the lesson you took away from it?

Not staying focused on one thing and scaling it. Instead, I would scale to a point and look for another shiny object. When–not if–you hit a roadblock, know it’s to be expected and is typically a sign that you’re on the right path. Don’t get discouraged or jump to another thing. Instead, consult mentors, push harder & develop the new mindset that is required to pass through that temporary roadblock. Keep the main thing the main thing. Your dreams exist on the other side of the roadblocks. Keep going!

How has mentorship played a role in your career, whether receiving mentorship or offering it to others?

Mentorship has played a major role in my journey. Whether it’s mentors I’ve never met in person via a book or video, or mentors I know personally. Learning from others who have “been there and done it” allows you to avoid a lot of mistakes. I’ve heard it said, “A smart man learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from the mistakes of others.” I really enjoy mentoring others as well. Helping a fellow entrepreneur tunnel through what they thought was a brick wall gets me as excited as it gets them!

Developing your leadership style takes time and practice. Who do you model your leadership style after? What are some key character traits you try to emulate?

My leadership style is to be me. I don’t model it after anyone but my life experiences. I realized at a young age if I wanted to get something done I’d need an amazing team to accomplish it. Excitement, direction and transparency attract great people. Constant challenges, growth & empathy keep them.

Thank you for sharing that with us. Let’s talk about scaling a business from a small startup to a midsize and then large company. Based on your experience, can you share with our readers the “5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Scale Your Business”? Please give a story or example for each.

1. Don’t be afraid to make your big idea truly big. From day one at ZippedScript, we started building a global solution. Not every business model needs to start small and slowly grow. If your solution is something people all over the world can use, find a way to reach as many of them as possible.

2. Speed is a great differentiator. If you can deliver in days, or even seconds, what used to take weeks — you have the makings of a truly disruptive product. With education and employment verification every hour a business spends waiting on results can have major implications for both the hiring company and the job seeker — especially in a competitive job market. That’s why we’ve focused on providing the fastest most accurate results in the industry.

3. Learn how your people are most productive and structure their workflow to suit that. We know that our developer’s work needs are very different from our management team’s needs, so we schedule people’s tasks according to their roles and personalities and never try to make everyone fit inside the same box.

4. Don’t assume technology will always make things easier. While the remote work boom has allowed companies to hire talent from all over the world, it has created the need for easier ways of verifying people’s credentials and keeping their data safe. Even as a startup with a few employees, your hiring, onboarding, and data security plans must be well thought out and scalable.

5. Seek out partnerships that will allow you to pass even more value on to the end-user. For ZippedScript, our proprietary technology and LinkedIn’s platform are a great match for offering the consumer a solution where they already are.

Can you share a few of the mistakes that companies make when they try to scale a business? What would you suggest to address those errors?

Don’t just fill positions to fill positions. Spend a majority of your time in the hiring process. It will take longer, but finding great people will strengthen your odds of success. On the flip side, hiring bad people will surely ruin your chances of success.

Scaling includes bringing new people into the organization. How can a company preserve its company culture and ethos when new people are brought in?

You and your management know the culture. Look for people who are a culture fit with how you operate on a day to day basis. Be picky and do however many interviews you must to find the right people. It’s worth it.

In my work, I focus on helping companies to simplify the process of creating documentation of their workflow, so I am particularly passionate about this question. Many times, a key aspect of scaling your business is scaling your team’s knowledge and internal procedures. What tools or techniques have helped your teams be successful at scaling internally?

Our team meets three times a week to go over our tasks. Due to us being heavily focused on engineering we find software developers work best without constant meetings. We meet randomly throughout the week if absolutely necessary. I always ensure our team is aware of the bigger picture and how the task they are doing contributes to achieving that mission. No matter how small or big the task may be. We like to keep everything efficient and that’s reflected in the tools we use. We use few tools, but the ones we use are powerful. Slack, Trello and Github get the job done for us.

Because of your role, you are a person of significant influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most people, what would that be? You never know what your ideas can trigger.

I believe everyone on the planet has a great idea that lingers in their brain. Every now and then they wonder, “what if I went for it?” Sadly, most never do. I would give those people permission and encouragement to pursue their ideas. I believe innovation leads to a better life for all humans. Don’t let those ideas lay dormant in your brain — release them and share them with the rest of the world. We need more great ideas!

How can our readers further follow your work online?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-harper-217426151/

www.zippedscript.com

This was truly meaningful! Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your expertise!

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Chris Harper Of ZippedScript On 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Scale Your Business was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Take time to explore and discover what is really going on in your business, in the market, with your customers and competitors. And not just now, you need to take a mid to long term view. Be customer-centric but be sure not to fall into the trap of scaling to meet the needs of one customer. Know what jobs your customers are in need of getting done and continuously innovate to enable them to do it better, more efficiently, more effectively.

Startups usually start with a small cohort of close colleagues. But what happens when you add a bunch of new people into this close cohort? How do you maintain the company culture? In addition, what is needed to successfully scale a business to increase market share or to increase offerings? How can a small startup grow successfully to a midsize and then large company? To address these questions, we are talking to successful business leaders who can share stories and insights from their experiences about the “5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Scale Your Business”. As a part of this series, we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Kubair Shirazee.

Kubair Shirazee is a startup expert with a history of building businesses to sell on. He uses his wealth of experience to coach individuals and businesses on adopting Agile principles, values and using agile ways of working for defining and meeting outcomes through his company Agilitea. Kubair is also the co-founder of the Peace Through Prosperity charity which enables and empowers individuals from marginalized communities to use their skills for personal and community development.

Thank you for joining us in this interview series. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?

My childhood was spent in Britain, Pakistan and UAE, so I had a rich and varied upbringing. As a teenager I developed a passion for politics, and this has remained throughout my life, however I also focused on academic success and entrepreneurialism and by the age of just 23 I had graduated from City University in London and already launched and sold my first startup — UKGunindex.com — an outdoor sport online portal.

I then founded Ikonami Ltd — a healthcare-focused company that brought a number of successful digital products to market in the UK. Ikonami played a significant part in the implementation of NHS’s Agenda for Change, by introducing Agile principles, values and frameworks to the Department of Health and the NHS.

My business success continued, but in 2010 a personal tragedy pivoted my raison d’etre. My brother Abid was murdered by extremists in Karachi. This tragedy re-awakened a commitment to social justice and a desire to understand the motives. I set about researching the motives and causes of extremism and terrorism through primary and secondary research including interviews with individuals holding extremist views/positions as well as designing and orchestrating the largest survey of marginalised trades (500 interviews) in Pakistan that act as a recruitment grounds for extremist organisations. It was this experience which prompted me to co-found Peace Through Prosperity with my wife Sahar Zaidi-Shirazee — a charity to empower micro entrepreneurs from marginalized groups, to bring about social transformation.

You’ve had a remarkable career journey. Can you highlight a key decision in your career that helped you get to where you are today?

In 2011, a year after my brother was murdered, I returned to work as a co-director of Ikonami, a thriving software business used by the Department of Health as part of their Agenda for Change framework. However, upon return I realized that my environment was not agile, it was not fulfilling its very ethic. I was grieving but was expected to attend sales meetings, I had to stick to someone else’s idea of how I should act, that got in the way of being authentic. So with one of my co-directors I took the decision to sell the business, together with members who were not catering for agile ways of being in their own business. It was one of the bravest business decisions I have made, to sell a successful and growing company and start from scratch, but it is one I have never regretted. I went on to advise colleagues, connections and networks on agile ways of working and being, and realized this is what I was raison d’etre, to facilitate others in their journey of continuous improvement. I have been told that my training, mentorship and coaching has transformed lives. I realized I must make it my life to bring Agility to as many people and communities as possible — so I founded Agilitea. Sometimes the hardest, and what seem the most crazy, decisions, can be the best of your life. Don’t ever be afraid to follow your instinct!

What’s the most impactful initiative you’ve led that you’re particularly proud of?

Together with Sahar, I launched Peace Through Prosperity, an innovation lab for low cost, immediate impact social transformation programs that once validated are open sourced for others to use in alleviating poverty and improving livelihood security.

We started our experimentation to help empower people initially in Pakistan, and have scaled it to Egypt and Yemen too. Peace Through Prosperity’s approach is rooted in systems thinking and spiral dynamics; we take what we know and continue to learn about transforming complex systems — such as large enterprises — and cross pollinate it to transforming super complex systems — such as society!

Peace Through Prosperity’s most successful experiment to date is our mini-MBA program. We engage with participants through pragmatic, interactive content and exercises to bring a number of principles, values, tools and practices to life that enable them to be better owner managers of their business.

Participants learn how to achieve faster, managed growth, improved revenue and profitability, greater clarity over their personal goals, drivers and greater confidence in the future.

The mini-MBA enables participants to build a valuable business that will be a vehicle for them to create their own narrative of social change. Creating robustness and resilience in themselves, their family and community.The approach provides a counter narrative to socio-economic and political transformation than that peddled by extremist organisations.

To date the program has helped more than 2100 micro-entrepreneurs from marginalized communities to increase their revenues on average by 25% and profitability on average by 68% growth in profitability. It has positively impacted more than 13,500 lives, created 265 jobs across 26 marginalized communities in Pakistan, Yemen and Egypt. And the journey continues.

Sometimes our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a mistake you’ve made and the lesson you took away from it?

I certainly can, and it is one that has led to me reevaluating how I recruit and scale teams. When I launched Peace Through Prosperity in Pakistan I recruited from the leading academic institutions. I sought out highly educated and dynamic candidates, the real ‘cream of the crop’ to join our team and bring our programmes to life. My four winning candidates went through three months of training and were all high-flyers, but when it came to entering the communities we wanted to work in, they were too afraid. They could do on paper what they were not willing to do in reality. I needed people not just to deliver the programmes but to understand what life was like for those we were helping and build relationships with those communities as coaches, mentors and consultants. When they realized the localities they would be working in — deprived areas,high crime rates and presence of extremist organisations — all four resigned.

I had to rethink my recruiting strategy. This time I went directly to the communities we would be working in and with. I sought out literate candidates, but more High School level than graduates. I recruited people who not only had the intellectual capacity, but the learned experience of living in marginalized communities. The four successful candidates who joined our team, did and continue to do amazing work, and are still with us 12 years later!

The mistake I made was thinking academic achievements could outweigh experiential ones. That agents of change can be parachuted in as opposed to being nurtured from within. I won’t make that mistake again. It is as much about the person, and their intrinsic motivations as their academic prowess.

How has mentorship played a role in your career, whether receiving mentorship or offering it to others?

Finding and convincing the right individuals to share their valuable time to mentor, coach, guide and be committed is a tall task.Whilst some mentors shied away calling me too ‘free spirited’ others have remained committed over decades and their guidance has proven to be indispensable in my journey.

A good mentor has the courage to have transparent, respectful conversations that remain focused on our continuous improvement. I have been fortunate to have a few good mentors in my corner over the years guiding and facilitating me achieve my target outcomes.

Once you’re afforded the privilege of having good mentors, it is essential that you give back as much if not more. I have been told that my mentoring has been key for many successes my peers have achieved and that makes me immensely proud and privileged to enable and facilitate others to achieve their outcomes.

Developing your leadership style takes time and practice. Who do you model your leadership style after? What are some key character traits you try to emulate?

There is no single individual I could point to! I inspect, adapt and try to learn from the work and life of individuals who have overcome challenges, been true to their authentic self and continue to operate from a place of empathy. I have been inspired by my team members, my clients, family, friends, acquaintances and complete strangers. Leadership is servitude and I make time to learn from any individual I find serving people and communities for the better with selflessness.

Thank you for sharing that with us. Let’s talk about scaling a business from a small startup to a midsize and then large company. Based on your experience, can you share with our readers the “5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Scale Your Business”? Please give a story or example for each.

1. Ask yourself ‘why’?

The key question you must ask is why am I scaling my business? Is it to create/make or compete? And who are we scaling for? Is it for one customer? Or for a growing market? The answers to these questions will be key to creating a strategy and a transformation plan if you are looking to attract people, customers, users, investors and partners.

2. Explore your market.

Take time to explore and discover what is really going on in your business, in the market, with your customers and competitors. And not just now, you need to take a mid to long term view. Be customer-centric but be sure not to fall into the trap of scaling to meet the needs of one customer. Know what jobs your customers are in need of getting done and continuously innovate to enable them to do it better, more efficiently, more effectively.

3. Set target outcomes.

What are your target outcomes to achieve through scaling? Use these to create a plan, and have the discipline to stick to it, and the courage to inspect and adapt it. What does each stage of scaling look like? What is the minimum you need to do to achieve it? And how might you measure it? Use this to create a timetable and assess investments and returns. Then ask yourself, what does good look like? And how might you measure it?

4. Know your limitations, and embrace them.

You do not need to be great at everything, you need to be confident that you can achieve what you intend to do. Explore your own limitations as a leader, explore limitations of your current leadership and teams and identify future skills needed by all people in the business. Then take this information and put in place development paths to keep upskilling your existing teams as you add new people and skills to your talent pool. Don’t forget your people — be loyal and generous and you’ll be repaid in loyalty and commitment.

5. Be Agile!

For me this is key, and a successful business cannot work without an agile approach. I have mentioned loyalty, but loyalty is also honesty. Make time yourself and allow all in your business to make time to reflect, inspect and adapt often. Starting with yourself. Engage in bold experiments and work in small timeboxes, so that you close the feedback loop sooner rather than later.

Can you share a few of the mistakes that companies make when they try to scale a business? What would you suggest to address those errors?

Too many times people adopt what they see as a ‘winning formula’ without accounting for changes in the landscape, be they tech driven or societal. Each organisation’s scaling journey is unique, embrace your uniqueness, build, inspect and adapt your strategy with that in mind.

The most common mistake I see organisations of all sizes make is to equate scale to size!

Align on what is needed to achieve your outcomes, and if that need can be met without scaling! Employ the minimum number of people required to meet your strategic outcomes. Always be thinking what is my ‘minimum viable’ route to achieve my outcomes. Sure you will need to add people and assets as you scale up, however first reflect on how we might better use our existing people and assets. Scaling inefficiency exponentiates inefficiency! Give your people time, resources and psychological safety to experiment with scaling models, don’t force feed a ‘winning formula’ to your teams and people. One size does not fit all, so be agile about it! Inspect and adapt.

Scaling includes bringing new people into the organization. How can a company preserve its company culture and ethos when new people are brought in?

Yes, don’t forget about culture through various stages of your scaling journey. Your organizational culture will change, accept it and have a plan in place to guide and nurture its evolution in the desired direction. Preserve the principles and values that drive innovation and happiness in your people. And have the courage to course correct your evolving culture as when and where needed. I once let go of a CTO who was keeping my operational teams from approaching me directly for 1:1 conversations. He was impeding the culture of equality and openness we wanted to preserve from our early days of being a team of 7 to one of 80+ people. As you grow in size, keep pulse of, and maintain your relationships with your operational teams, that’s where the magic happens!

Know the people you are employing, and what their needs are. Be open and flexible, a diverse team is a rich team bringing many influences, and just because one person cannot work 9–5, or one has personal commitments that mean less days in the office, that does not weaken the team, in fact it strengthens it. A happy person is a more effective team member, and by allowing ten minutes to recover from a stressful inbound commute, or accepting an early finish to pick up children, you instill a sense of value and self-worth in your team members, and they then build better teams. Little things matter, it is as much about the free snacks as it is about having the psychological safety to take frequent snack breaks!

Respect, trust, and be kind to your people; foster a climate of open, honest, rapid, respectful and empathetic communication.

Create and nurture psychological safety for everyone to be able to close the feedback loop, and your people will guide and course correct the culture as you grow.

Many times, a key aspect of scaling your business is scaling your team’s knowledge and internal procedures. What tools or techniques have helped your teams be successful at scaling internally?

The key to success for teams I have built, served and coached whilst scaling has been regular, disciplined reflection, where we paused for a few hours every two or three weeks and reflected back on our list of things to do, what is in progress and what have we got done.

We leveraged metrics to drive improvement conversations, nurtured psychological safety for everyone to be able to voice their thoughts and ideas, and with that created measurable experiments to enact in the coming weeks, and with that we evolved our knowledge, skills, processes and tools incrementally over time. Do not underestimate the transformative power of a purposeful retrospective when followed through properly.

What software or tools do you recommend to help onboard new hires?

For me and my teams it was and remains all about the user experience for our new team members, how effectively we can provide them with up to date minimal viable information to get them jump started with us, and with that bring them to the same spot as us in the journey, making their arrival and engagement purposeful and value adding. And from there how could we make deep diving into their areas of interest simple, easy and fun!

As for tools/software we inspected and adapted them too and changed the ones that no longer fit for purpose. And they key to being able to do this is to go with cloud native tools and focus on open source solutions to prevent you or your data being locked up inside a walled garden.

Same goes for tools/software we used/use to manage our transformation backlog, our OKRs from a portfolio to product/project levels. Use tools for sure they make measurement easy, don’t get beholden to specific tools, inspect and adapt your choice of tools often and don’t shy away from the effort of change.

Because of your role, you are a person of significant influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most people, what would that be? You never know what your ideas can trigger.

Explore how you can play your part in bringing peace through prosperity in communities you live in, engage with or know of. By enabling people to empower themselves, give them the opportunity to build a better future for themselves, their family and their community, by their own hands.

Be people centric, be empathetic towards those you know, those you don’t know and even those you will never get to know. Make time on your way into work or from work to give that homeless person the gift of ten minutes of your time for a conversation. Develop yourself with the view of developing others, be it in your team or your community. Have an open source mindset, share. Share your knowledge, your resources and your wealth to facilitate and enable others to create their own narrative of change. Don’t ever forget your privilege and the responsibility that comes with it. Be human.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

I frequently blog on my personal website, and also add many useful tools on the Agilitea website, through which anyone can contact me. Feel free to grab 15 mins from my calendar to share a virtual coffee/tea.

This was truly meaningful! Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your expertise!

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Kubair Shirazee Of Agilitea On 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Scale Your Business was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Invest in cloud computing technology that will streamline processes and make things as efficient as possible for your employees and customers. We built our proprietary business platform using the Microsoft intelligent cloud and that’s enabled us to run the business with very low overhead and offer the services that we want to offer at scale.

Startups usually start with a small cohort of close colleagues. But what happens when you add a bunch of new people into this close cohort? How do you maintain the company culture? In addition, what is needed to successfully scale a business to increase market share or to increase offerings? How can a small startup grow successfully to a midsize and then large company? To address these questions, we are talking to successful business leaders who can share stories and insights from their experiences about the “5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Scale Your Business”. As a part of this series, we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Adrian Dzielnicki.

Adrian Dzielnicki is a licensed insurance agent and CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) Charterholder. He is also the co-founder and CEO at Nsure.com. Before that, he co-founded Graviton Capital, one of the largest microcap investment banks in Poland. In less than 10 years, he took over 60 companies public on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, raising over 200 million USD. He received his Masters in Economics from Wroclaw University.

Thank you for joining us in this interview series. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?

I started an investment bank in Poland in 2006 during a bull market and it quickly got very successful, but then the bear market came and affected us like everyone else. I ran that business for ten years, through all types of ups and downs. It’s easy to remain positive during good times, it’s how you handle challenges that really sets you apart.

We were starting to do some business in the United States at the same time that I was looking to do something more scalable and bigger. When I purchased my home in Florida and got a car, I had to secure insurance for those assets. I quickly realized that the insurance space in the U.S. was very outdated when compared to Europe. It reminded me of my experience in insurance many years ago, where everything was still on paper and policy changes were made through phone calls.

I looked at the user experience in other industry sectors and wished there was a place online where insurance policies could be compared and purchased quickly. When I didn’t find what I was looking for, I decided to start my own company that did just that.

My experience as an insurance agent in Poland and as a customer in the United States, made me confident I could create a tool that makes the insurance process easier to navigate and understand. That’s how the idea started and we launched Nsure.com in 2018.

You’ve had a remarkable career journey. Can you highlight a key decision in your career that helped you get to where you are today?

As someone who has started several successful businesses, I always look for gaps in industries. What is outdated and needs to be simplified? That’s how I realized that insurance in the United States was ready for disruption. When my business partner, Wojtek, I started Nsure.com. We focused on making a customer experience that is second to none. If you can take something that everyone needs and make it simple and stress-free to acquire, you can build everything else around that. If there’s been any decision that defines me it’s that I choose to use technology to improve experiences for people.

What’s the most impactful initiative you’ve led that you’re particularly proud of?

Creating a product that people enjoy using is one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done. When you’re a startup in a competitive industry, the big legacy companies will try and discourage you from being innovative. People will tell you you’re crazy, or that you can’t do things that way. I’m proud of the fact that I’ve never been distracted by critics. For years, people told me that creating a better insurance shopping process wasn’t possible–if I had believed them, Nsure.com would not be a thriving company with thousands of five-star reviews.

Think of all of the innovative companies that have launched in the last few years in established industries like travel and healthcare. The reasons we can use our mobile devices to do almost anything, book an entire trip in minutes, or consult a doctor halfway across the country through a telehealth appointment is all because of founders who didn’t listen to the critics who were stuck using old systems and models. No matter what business you’re in, build something people love, that makes their lives easier, and you’ll be successful.

Sometimes our mistakes can be our greatest teachers. Can you share a mistake you’ve made and the lesson you took away from it?

Well, my co-founder and I joke all the time that if we could go back in time we never would have started our insuretech company in Florida–probably the most difficult state when it comes to insurance. Florida’s climate disasters, like the recent hurricane, can make insurance so much more complex. However, starting a business in “hard mode” in Florida ended up being the best thing for us in the long run because it literally prepared us for anything and forced us to become insurance experts in every facet of the industry. It certainly made for some early challenges that we had to overcome and that’s made us very confident.

How has mentorship played a role in your career, whether receiving mentorship or offering it to others?

When I was in high school, my first mentor was my mother; she had a very successful career in banking and finance in Poland and always encouraged me to be entrepreneurial. I’ve also read many books about the lives of people like Warren Buffett who have inspired me.

Also, my longtime friend and business partner Wojtek and I have a relationship where we share ideas and are comfortable challenging each other and having difficult conversations when needed. This was a tone that we set with each other from the beginning. We’re both extremely ambitious, so we knew we needed to be able to keep each other in check and confront each other. The best thing you can ask from your leadership team is that they push you every day to be better.

Developing your leadership style takes time and practice. Who do you model your leadership style after? What are some key character traits you try to emulate?

It’s best to study the methods and behaviors of the people you look up to, without getting trapped following any single person too closely. I try to learn from a variety of tech founders, successful entrepreneurs and leaders in economics and finance without trying to copy everything they do. Take some of today’s most successful billionaires for example, there are things they’ve done that are amazing and worth learning from, and there are other behaviors and missteps that should be avoided at all cost. For me, it’s developing the ability to cherry pick the best traits and mindsets of the people that are revolutionizing the way business is done–while also knowing what to ignore.

Thank you for sharing that with us. Let’s talk about scaling a business from a small startup to a midsize and then large company. Based on your experience, can you share with our readers the “5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Scale Your Business”? Please give a story or example for each.

1. To scale you need a large market (the insurance market has over 6,000 carriers across the country with over 1 trillion dollars in premiums written) and you have to have a deep understanding of your customer. I experienced the process of securing insurance as a customer first, so I knew how to create a solution that would fit the market, and be exactly what people were looking for.
2. Invest in cloud computing technology that will streamline processes and make things as efficient as possible for your employees and customers. We built our proprietary business platform using the Microsoft intelligent cloud and that’s enabled us to run the business with very low overhead and offer the services that we want to offer at scale.
3. Whoever controls the data controls the business. Insurance relies on collecting hundreds of data points around customer, his assets and his behavior and their journey during the sales process. We have capability to capture such data, which we use to inform us on what to improve and when to scale. Because we are an intermediary at the intersection of everything going on in the market, we know more than the carriers do. This gives us not only a competitive advantage, but the ability to provide an amazing customer experience.
4. Look to increase the speed and accuracy of everything you do. We focus on scalable, repeatable, processes. Optimization is a continuous process of making small improvements. We focus on the small improvements that will add up to become a big differentiator.
5. Technology is important, but people must always come first. We could be the most technologically-advanced company in our industry (and in many ways we are) but if we were jerks that no one wanted to do business with, that wouldn’t matter. People have to want to work for us and our customers have to recognize what makes us different and feel taken care of–so treating people the right way is always our top priority.

Can you share a few of the mistakes that companies make when they try to scale a business? What would you suggest to address those errors?

Businesses need capital in order to scale, but startups that burn through their investor’s money without making sure there is a clear path to profitability are being irresponsible. I hope that the days of overvaluing large companies that aren’t truly profitable are coming to an end. Companies that buy into their value too much without working on the repeatable, day-to-day processes to become industry leaders are heading over a cliff. I always say “never let anything drive you off a clear path to profitability.”

Also, you have to set big, ambitious goals, but not be so fixed on them that you can’t modify those goals if the data is telling you something different. Businesses that can respond to fluctuations in the market and take advantage of opportunities quickly are the ones that succeed.

Finally, don’t feel like you have to have everything figured out or every process perfect before you launch. There’s never a perfect time to launch and there will always be a learning curve to overcome no matter how prepared you are. Have the confidence to start a company and develop it in an agile way.

Scaling includes bringing new people into the organization. How can a company preserve its company culture and ethos when new people are brought in?

It’s important for the leadership of a business that is scaling quickly to maintain clear and open communication with every employee. When onboarding new employees, set the expectations that things are going to move fast and change constantly. Not everyone is comfortable working in a startup environment where everything is evolving all the time. Every employee needs to know their role, what’s expected of them, and buy into the vision that leadership has for the future. Scaling up can seem chaotic at times, but if everyone knows what the goals are and can understand why you’re doing what you’re doing and where you’re going together, there will be less anxiety. Also, create a culture where everyone in the company is comfortable speaking up when they see a problem. Especially early on, when you have limited resources, you have to be able to address and fix problems quickly. Transparent and effective Internal communication is key to preserving your company’s culture during disruptive growth.

In my work, I focus on helping companies to simplify the process of creating documentation of their workflow, so I am particularly passionate about this question. Many times, a key aspect of scaling your business is scaling your team’s knowledge and internal procedures. What tools or techniques have helped your teams be successful at scaling internally?

Reliable API connectivity has made accessing the data we need faster and simpler than ever. We are a paperless cloud-based company and that has made us very agile and adaptable.

What software or tools do you recommend to help onboard new hires?

We use a lot of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) technology to simplify the onboarding process. Using conversational AI to talk to people in a natural way is the future. We are looking for ways to use that more in place of phone conversations and other legacy processes. Autofill and automize as many routine processes as you can.

Technology should be used in a similar way to simplify the customer onboarding process as well.

Because of your role, you are a person of significant influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most people, what would that be? You never know what your ideas can trigger.

I honestly believe that Nsure.com is bringing the most amount of good to the most people. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be in this business. When our customers tell us that we saved them thousands of dollars, or that we changed their mind about how seamless and convenient getting insurance can be–that’s a great feeling! The perception of buying insurance is that it’s a daunting process that no one enjoys, but almost everyone has to suffer through. We are changing that perception one transaction at a time.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Check out Nsure.com to experience the revolution of this industry in real time.

This was truly meaningful! Thank you so much for your time and for sharing your expertise.

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Adrian Dzielnicki Of Nsure On 5 Things You Need To Know To Successfully Scale Your Business was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Don’t fall for potential — when you’re working with someone, make sure they’ve truly exhibited the skills they claim to possess that you’re looking for. I’ve fallen for potential way too many times than I care to admit, and I suffered greatly for it. If you haven’t seen them deliver what they claim they can, don’t work with them. Having vision is no solution. It all depends on the execution. People will say and do anything to get ahead. Make people prove they can provide results before you go into business with them.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jesse Randall.

Jesse Randall is a writer, director, and producer that primarily focuses on creating LGBTQIA+ content through his production company, JR VISION FILMS. His digital series, The Safety Plan, is now streaming on multiple platforms including Plex TV, Revry TV, and an exciting new streaming service called Mometu! His upcoming film about the homeless crisis, Spare Change, will debut on the film festival circuit next Spring.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I’ve listed the same “childhood backstory” in the past three articles I’ve been profiled for in this publication. So, I’ll tell a different story to mix it up. I grew up in a desolate farming town in North Carolina, and it wasn’t an easy place to grow up as a queer-identifying person. I always longed to get out, but I didn’t have good grades in school due to being relentlessly depressed. I also realized later in life I had some learning issues that I wasn’t aware of when I was younger. All the film majors I knew in North Carolina quickly gave up on their dreams of becoming a filmmaker because they were swamped in student debt and we were too far from the industry. I decided I’d be better off moving to New York or Los Angeles without knowing anyone, or having any money, and figuring it out from there instead of transferring to a university in North Carolina. I moved to New York and studied screenwriting, acting, and directing at the famed HB Studios in the West Village for almost three years. Meanwhile, I independently produced low budget indie projects to advance my film career. Still, life was a struggle without having a college degree. After moving to Los Angeles, I decided to finally finish my film degree while I was producing my digital series, The Safety Plan. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life up to that point, and that’s saying a lot. However, it was worth it as The Safety Plan got me my first major licensing deal, and my short film collection was acquired as well. The Safety Plan continues to get new licensing deals along with my most recent work as well. I’m almost done finally finishing my degree after all this time. It’s an interesting full circle moment as I’m finally returning to close that gap with an abundance of knowledge I’ve gained independently producing content against all odds.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

The quote I always return to is Steven Sondheim’s “Having vision is no solution. It all depends on the execution.” You can have the greatest idea in the world but if you don’t have the skills or discipline to execute it, the project won’t turn out well. You have to do the work. I’m so horrified to continually meet people who are so desperate to get away with not doing the work because they believe cutting corners will be more beneficial in the long run. Just do the work, no matter how long it takes. If you want things for the right reasons, the time you’ve invested will be worth it in the end.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

There are so many films and books that have made a significant impact on me, but the film that immediately comes to mind consistently every time I’m asked this question is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I saw it when I was younger, and I think it made such an impression because it helped me reimagine the mundane aspects of daily life and made me realize how much each moment counts. I love that scene near the end of the film when Jimmy Carey’s character, Joel, is having his final memories of Kate Winslet’s character, Clementine, erased in the bookstore where she works. It seems like such an understated “small” moment at the beginning of their relationship compared to the explosive memories they have together, but it’s the moment that changed everything for the two of them. I think that scene encompasses what makes Eternal Sunshine so great. It’s the moments that we’re fully present, no matter how big or small, that shape us. Every moment in life matters, good or bad, big or small. It’s part of the full human experience. Eternal Sunshine puts life in perspective for me, and that’s the kind of content I want to create as a filmmaker.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

I think too many people get caught up in perfectionism and are overwhelmed by the mentality of “I can’t put it out into the world until it’s perfect.” When I started out on my journey as a filmmaker, I really couldn’t afford perfectionism and I’m not one to live above my means. I didn’t finish college until later in life. So, if I worked on a project that I invested a lot of time in and it didn’t turn out the way I hoped, I had to find a way to make it a beneficial experience for me. I remember my first short film I made when I moved to New York was made on ZERO budget. I had a DSLR and a shotgun microphone. The short film was an adaptation of a ten-minute play I wrote while studying writing at HB Studios. It needed to be re-written to work for the film, but I wasn’t educated enough about writing at that point to know that. Naturally, the film didn’t turn out well. When I was ready to start casting my first 30-minute indie television pilot for a series I wanted to develop, I needed to have something to show for myself in order to cast quality actors who would work for little money. I decided to put the 30-second trailer for the ill-fated short film on the casting breakdown. Every single person that applied said how much they liked the trailer. Fortunately, they didn’t see the full ten-minute film, or I’ m sure they wouldn’t have wanted to work with me on the project. Had it not been for that 30-second trailer I made, who knows where my film career would be now? When you’re independently producing low-budget content, there’s always going to be flaws. But I was able to take the lessons I learned on previous projects to help make subsequent projects better. There were a few projects I made that I shelved, but I released everything that was worthy of being released. Had I waited to make something that was “perfect” I would have never evolved as a filmmaker. A phrase that has helped me minimize my quest for perfectionism is, “A film is never really finished. There just comes a point where you stop working on it.” While I was watching the Fran Lebowtiz docuseries on Netflix, I was shocked to hear her say that her longtime friend, Martin Scorsese, is still angry and embarrassed about the tint of red that appears in Taxi Driver because the studio wouldn’t give him any more money for color correction. Even the greatest filmmakers of all time feel insecure about their work even after it becomes legendary. What I consider to be my worst film wound up getting me into my first major film festival that changed the course of my career. I was so embarrassed to release this film and promote it, but had I tossed it away my career would look a lot different. That experience taught me that you never know how something will be perceived. If you’ve made something as honest as possible, even on difficult projects, I think it’s worth putting out into the world. I think art of any discipline, whether you’re a filmmaker, a sculptor, or even an architect or gardener, teaches us that good ideas need time and practice in order to develop and grow. You have to let go of the idea that you’re going to nail it on the first try. Good writing only comes from numerous rewrites. No one has ever nailed a first draft of any successful film produced. As Steven Spielberg says, “All good ideas start out as bad ideas, that’s why it takes so long.”

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

I actually feel a great sense of relief about the fact that there’s nothing new under the sun. If you’ve thought of it, somebody, somewhere, has thought of the idea as well. I even feel empowered by this notion. It takes the pressure off the need to reinvent the wheel. Essentially, when you break down a story to its bones, every story is the same: the protagonist wants something and faces opposition. The formula of deep structure is the same for every story, but that doesn’t mean all stories are the same. You wouldn’t think a film like The Godfather is the same as Legally Blonde, but at their core, they’re the same story just told in different ways: the protagonists go on a quest in an unfamiliar world that’s initially out of their element in hopes of achieving their goal of a better life. Real life is the same way. We all want the same things: to be loved, to be seen, to be validated. Those are intrinsic desires of human nature, but we all pursue them in different ways. That’s why the deep structure of every story is the same. However, when it comes to developing ideas for business, you have to do your homework. There were two films that came out last year that I loved that have very similar themes to one of my dream projects that I want to develop into a feature-length film: Promising Young Woman and The Power of the Dog. They’re two films you wouldn’t exactly associate with each other, but I see their connection because I explore similar themes in my screenplay that I’ve been working on since 2020. I was excited when I initially saw the trailers for these films, but I was a little concerned they would capture what I was hoping to do with my story. I loved both films after I saw them and was even inspired by them. Those films helped me see how I could contribute to the themes explored, but in my own way. I think when it comes to developing new ideas, you have to find a way to advance the needle in an authentic way that brings a new perspective to the subject. In order to do that, you have to do extensive homework on the idea you’re pursuing. I wouldn’t recommend embarking on a project until you’ve done your homework. I try to watch as many films as possible, even films I’m not interested in, or I’ve heard aren’t good. I need to know what’s out there, and how I can find something new to add to the conversation. The same applies to developing an idea for business.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

1. Extensive research — if you aren’t willing to do your homework, you’re going to find yourself wasting your time. You need to know how to properly patent ideas and make sure you’re creating something that isn’t already on the market. If it is already on the market, how are you adding to this product or idea? You’ll need to know what sets you apart and how to properly protect your work.

2. Extensive planning — Before I start a screenplay, I write numerous versions of the outline for the story. I’m not getting any younger and I don’t have the time to write a 120-page screenplay I realize I don’t like after I’ve finished a few drafts. I’ll still end up doing lots of re-writes on the script, but I do a lot of story revisions in the outline beforehand. That way, I’m certain I really like this story and have a strong grasp on it before I invest a lot of time writing and re-writing the full version.

3. Make sure you’re working with the right people — This can be tricky because I’ve found myself in situations where people are really desperate to be involved with your idea because they believe in it so much, they’re willing to deceive you in order to get it. If something doesn’t feel right when you’re working with someone, it’s a sign. I’ve still had films I sold with people I regret working with, but I found myself in a complicated situation. I worked on one project recently that I invested two years of my life with a collaborator who decided to publicly make up lies about me and sabotage the project because I decided not to share my director’s interview at a film festival with them after I got fed up with their poor behavior. I’ll no longer be promoting the film ever again because I don’t want to promote a project with someone who makes up lies about anyone, and now there’s two years of my life I’ll never get back.

4. Make sure it’s a project you’re pursuing for the right reasons — There’s nothing worse than having to stand by a project you invested a lot of time in that you secretly loathe. I’ve found myself in this situation. In a world ruled by capitalism, everyone wants some sort of payoff for their work. No one pursues a project without a purpose, but really take time to consider why you’re pursuing this project. If you pursue something for the wrong reasons, it’s guaranteed to blow up in your face.

5. Make sure you know who your audience is — Your product isn’t going to be a good fit for every audience. There’s rarely a “one size fits all” product of any kind. Once you’ve identified your audience, you’ll be able to narrow down what market you need to focus on when you’re selling it.

6. Have a great short pitch — The research you’ve done will payoff here. You need to have a long version of the pitch so you can answer as many questions as possible, but you also need to have a five-minute elevator pitch. Potential investors and distributors hear a lot of ideas all day long. They’ll immediately be turned off if you start pitching them a two-hour presentation. Give the “elevator pitch” version of the project first, and have it perfected. Practice it until you have it memorized. Be able to pitch your project in one sentence that hooks people. In filmmaking, we call this a “log line” that summarizes what your film is about in a complete sentence that introduces the protagonist, their goal, their opposition, and what the journey means for them. You should be able to do this for your project as well, to some degree, no matter what you’re selling.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

1. Don’t fall for potential — when you’re working with someone, make sure they’ve truly exhibited the skills they claim to possess that you’re looking for. I’ve fallen for potential way too many times than I care to admit, and I suffered greatly for it. If you haven’t seen them deliver what they claim they can, don’t work with them. Having vision is no solution. It all depends on the execution. People will say and do anything to get ahead. Make people prove they can provide results before you go into business with them.

2. No casual agreements — no matter if you’re working with friends, people you just met, or someone really established, GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING! Explicitly lay out the terms and conditions of the project, what you expect from them, and what you promise to deliver on your end. At the end of the day, there’s nothing “causal” about a project that requires a lot of time and energy. I’ve had one project that I was really proud of completely taken from me because I trusted the executive producer to have my best interest since we were friends at the time, and they absolutely didn’t. I also once collaborated on a film with someone who tried to take credit for all my work on the project because I didn’t have the formal agreements necessary to protect myself and my work. Both of these mistakes were completely my fault. If someone you’re working with doesn’t want to take the formal steps to protect everyone involved in the project, DON’T WORK WITH THEM. Don’t let your guard down when it comes to protecting your work — EVER. If someone you’re working with truly cares about you and respects you, they’ll understand the importance of self-preservation.

3. Fake it until you make it is pure fraud — I’ve never believed in this ideology to begin with, and I was always too scared to try it because I knew it would blow up in my face. However, I’m sorry to say I’ve found myself in situations where I was working with people who have spent their entire lives living by this philosophy and I gave them the benefit of the doubt. Spoiler alert: it didn’t work out, to say the least. I find that most people who believe in this philosophy think that deception is justifiable. I beg to differ. I think if you’ve done the work, even at an elementary level, it will bring you the credibility you’re looking for. Going back to the story I previously mentioned about my first 10-minute short film I made in New York, even though I didn’t make a good film I made a good trailer. I was able to show people my vision and that I had the skills to execute it to some degree. If you do the work, it will pay off. If you are coasting by on fooling other people, you’ll pay for it sooner or later. There’s no way to accomplish something on your own merit until you actually do the work. I’ve also found that the “fake it until you make it” believers are usually eager to benefit from you doing all the work while they take all the credit for it. People can go to great lengths to be deceptive. Sometimes you attract people in your life because you share the same energy and objectives, but sometimes you attract people who are desperate to have what you’ve earned.

4. Don’t work with people who don’t believe in you — No matter how enticing an opportunity may seem, or how “established” the person associated with the opportunity, don’t work with people who don’t believe in you. I’ve encountered various people at all levels who didn’t believe in my work, looked down on me, or didn’t think I was good enough. I made one film where several of the actors in it wanted to distance themselves from the project because they didn’t think it was going to turn out well, or it wasn’t a “positive” representation of the LGBTQIA+ community. It went on to become my most successful project to date. In one of my earlier films, it became obvious that one of the actors I worked with several projects with didn’t really have a lot of faith in my work and it ended up affecting his performance in the final project we worked on together, subsequently affecting the quality of the film. I knew deep down something wasn’t right, and several people discreetly tried to warn me this person’s heart wasn’t in acting anymore. Those people turned out to be right. The actor decided they didn’t want to be an act anymore and went on to work in a completely different field. I don’t think the person I’m referring to meant to cause harm to me or the project. In retrospect, I think they believed they were being loyal by honoring their commitment to be in the film, even though their heart wasn’t in it anymore. Still, their lack of enthusiasm showed up on screen, and I’m the one that got to pay for it since it was my film. That was a big learning lesson for me: when it’s time to let something go — let it go.

5. “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life” is an unhealthy delusional fantasy — I love what I do, but it absolutely feels like work. It’s important to acknowledge that what I love to do is work so I can distinguish when I’m feeling burn out and need some rest. You can’t achieve anything when you’re not in a clear, healthy state of mind. It’s imperative to be able to step back and spend time recovering when you need it. Americans have such an unhealthy relationship with the workforce that I understand why people don’t love to think about what they love as “work”. That being said, pursuing anything involves technical work. That doesn’t mean you have to turn your passion into a soulless 9-to-5 job mentality, but it’s important to realize that every step along the way of creating something isn’t going to feel like fun. One of the most frustrating aspects of independently producing content is that I cross paths with way too many people who want to pursue filmmaking or the arts because they want to spend the rest of their lives feeling like they’re in elementary school recess to access their inner child. Though I love filmmaking, producing a project with someone else’s money is incredibly stressful, and I want the people I’m working with to respect that. That doesn’t mean we have to act like we’re doctors saving lives, or that I’m an unreasonable tyrant, but I only want to work with people who bring honor to their work. If we have fun along the way, that’s great! But there’s a time to joke around and there’s a time to focus. I only want to work with people going forward who understand the difference because I’ve found it’s a disaster otherwise.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

First, ask yourself, “what purpose does this serve?” Nothing exists for the sake of existing. Everything in life ultimately serves a purpose. Second, ask yourself “am I willing to invest the time this project requires in order for it to be successful?” Sure, you can start and stop projects, but as you get older you realize how precious time is. There are only so many hours in the day. Utilizing your time becomes a priority when you get older. Third, ask yourself if you really have the discipline to pursue this project. Abandoning projects isn’t a great feeling. Lastly, if you’ve answered “yes” to all the previous questions — do you have the resources to realistically pursue your project? If not, can you find the resources or work toward finding them? I’m all about dreaming big, but there comes a point where you have to address reality in order for your project to succeed. I think almost anything is possible as long as you want things for the right reasons and you’re willing to do the work to get there.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

Do as much as you can on your own until you’ve reached the end of that road, and then seek help. You can’t accomplish anything entirely on your own. Eventually, you will need people to help you ascend to the next level. That being said, you should try to do as much as you can on your own. It helps you learn your product inside and out, but it also shows potential investors and consultants that you’re willing to do the work in order for your product to succeed.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

Again, do as much as you can on your own before pursuing help. At the beginning of my career, I had to prove to people that I was worth investing in. I had to assemble projects on my own, sometimes with no budget or the little money I was able to save working in bars in restaurants. I had to literally invest in myself because I knew I had no reason for people to invest in me at the time. I wanted to prove I was worth investing in on my own. Because I believed in myself and I proved I was willing to do the work, others were willing to invest in me, eventually.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

A phrase I think about a lot is: be the adult you needed as a child. I try to apply that philosophy to everything I’ve ever made, to some degree. In addition to campaigning LGBTQIA+ representation, I try to tell stories about the lessons I wish I had learned when I was younger. I’ve tried to give my work purpose by creating stories that are honest about my experience as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. My work has received some criticism that it’s not the most flattering depiction of the LGBTQIA+ community at times, but I’m just trying to share my experiences in hopes that others benefit from it. Sometimes it isn’t pretty, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth it. I think a lot of LGBTQIA+ media presents a fantasy that most queer-identifying people wish they had experienced. I think that’s lovely, but that’s not what I’m interested in doing as an artist. Some people go to the movies for escapism and some people go to the movies to re-examine the world we live in. I think of myself as a sociologist first and a filmmaker second. I’m just reporting the world around me as I see it. When I was growing up, I felt like all the adults were gaslighting me, trying to convince me the world was such a perfect place even though I could tell the adults in my life weren’t very happy. I never want to exhibit that quality as an adult. That doesn’t mean I want to be a pessimist about the world, but I feel like we can’t fix the problems our society faces unless we can be honest about where we are. I’ve tried to create content that reflects my ideology, but I’m also excited to promote my most recent project because it explores the homeless epidemic, and that’s a subject I’m very passionate about finding a solution to. I don’t want to become a “cause” filmmaker, but I do want to tell stories about people our society doesn’t normally pay attention to, or perspectives that challenge people to be better in real life.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

On a large scale, I would like to ultimately abolish capitalism, but a more immediate movement I would like to inspire is to find a permanent solution to the homeless crisis. This crisis is a major human rights violation. Housing is a human right. The fact that our elected officials have allowed this crisis to happen by not passing laws to protect people is criminal. Its horrifying to see the homeless epidemic and affordable housing crisis continue to spiral out of control as our elected officials do nothing about it, despite their campaign promises. Getting people to understand the severity and complexity of the homeless epidemic is a dire need in order to resolve this crisis, as well as understanding that unhoused residents are more than just victims. Though the circumstances are tragic, I’m endlessly inspired by the resilience and hope of the unhoused neighbors I’ve met throughout my life. It’s far beyond time for our society to realize that housing a human right and there are more than enough resources to see that every person who exists in this world is housed and fed. Anyone who tells you otherwise is conditioned by capitalism or a thief.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Dolly Parton. Not that I’ll ever be as brilliant as her, but I love how she has dedicated her life to her craft and made the world a better place because of it without being preachy or self-indulgent. Her work has a lot of empathy while still being wildly entertaining.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Making Something From Nothing: Jesse Randall of JR Vision Films On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meet The Disruptors: Terry Carter of Travertine Spa Collection On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Motivation — I love perfumery. I want to get up every day and make beautiful things.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Terry Carter.

Terry is the Chief Perfumer and Founder of the Travertine Spa Collection. Terry brings 30+ years of experience and extensive perspective to the table and is well known for his bold and out the box approaches that succeed. He is an accomplished legal scholar, businessman and a Paris-trained perfumer. He custom formulates fragrance and body care products for the Four Seasons and collaborates with Ritz Carlton properties.He blends bespoke perfumes for celebrities but rarely name drops. Terry’s branded product received the distinction of a Forbes travel product of the year. He has been quoted in the Los Angeles Times, Entrepreneur Magazine, Medium and as a Master Perfumer in HuffPost. Travertine products have been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, BRAVO, FOX, EXTRA and NPR.

Terry speaks English, French and Japanese.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

My work in corporate America was very logical. I started making soaps and lotions as a creative outlet. I made gifts for friends. I started selling to local boutiques. Over time, I built a line of premium body and skin care products and changed careers. Fragrance was a natural extension of the product line. I built upon my aromatherapy skills and developed an acumen in fine fragrance. I solidified this knowledge by studying advanced perfumery composition at ISIPCA, the acclaimed fragrance school in Versailles, just outside of Paris.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

I am disrupting the concept of fragrance. I am making the olfactory experience an expected branding category. To wit, I am working to expand the branding model to include fragrance as a necessary component not an accessory. Olfactive branding is as necessary a component to marketing as is logo, color, font, imagery, social media campaigns and marketing copy. When a branding team is assembled, fragrance (made by a scent designer) must be a part of any successful branding strategy at the outset.

Companies are looking for new ways to brand and market themselves. They completely overlook scent. Our sense of smell is one of our strongest senses, yet it is almost ignored in branding and marketing. Hotels need a signature scent. Restaurants need a signature scent. Athletic clubs need a signature scent.

Do you remember how nostalgic it feels to smell foods that you loved in your childhood? What if you could remember the carefree feeling of that amazing vacation by having the resort fragrance in your home? I’m not talking about the generic lavender and cedar scents from inexpensive toiletries. Rather, something unique to the location that captures the spirit, history and essence of the destination.

As a perfumer, I have the ability to translate these concepts into unique olfactive expressions. Clients seek me out because I am not generic and I bring a global perspective to my craft.

For one luxury client, I spent time at the resort, studied the local history, gathered leaves, greenery, flowers and herbs indigenous to the location. This harvest is combined with the story the client wants to tell. The emotions they want to evoke and what they want to communicate to the client. This is how fragrance makes a branding strategy complete.

For another client, a tech company in San Francisco, I spent time with their staff, attended an all-hands meeting, learned their inside jokes, noted the colors of their logo and the geographic makeup of their headquarters. The company has a team in the Philippines. I incorporated jasmine, the national flower of the Philippines, into the fragrance. I named the fragrance after a term the employees used to describe their motivation. The company gave new hires branded fragrant gifts as part of their welcome kit.

I stayed at a luxury hotel in Asia that had a signature fragrance. Every time I entered the hotel I was greeted with that lovely fragrance. You can even buy the fragrance in a spray parfum or a candle.

This summer, I walked through the lobby of a chic hotel in New York. It was fragranced with a basic white floral that can be bought at the corner store. Not memorable. I didn’t want to spray it on my body or buy a candle. It was just a strong air freshener.

You have a choice. High quality impactful product branding or basic forgettable product branding; there is a difference. You get what you pay for.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I mixed the water ratio incorrectly in a perfume formula. This made the perfume cloudy, which is embarrassing. I learned to neatly write my formula notes and to pay attention to what I put in my beaker.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

My parents were my mentors. They were also entrepreneurs. When I moved back from working in Japan I had two options pending for my career. My father said, “Which one do you want to get up and do every day?” My parents modeled hard work, mentorship, education, sincerity and generosity. I am also fortunate to have very close friends who spur me on, challenge me, give phenomenal advice and answer the phone when I think I’ve made a colossal error. They also celebrate my wins with me.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

I rarely answer in absolutes or superlatives. I can’t say “always good” or “always bad.” Disruption can start a conversation or lead to change. At best it challenges the status quo. At worst it perpetuates the status quo. In my industry there is the old guard to learning perfumery. This is where you study chemistry, work for a perfume manufacturer for several years in France until you are one of the chosen few to attend their perfumery schools. This path is excellent training but most often the chosen few may have a career making fragrances for dishwashing detergent or fabric softener sheets. The new guard, independent perfumers “indies” come from other or related disciplines and are self-taught or learned through apprenticeships. Indies also create beautifully formulated fine fragrances that rival the old guard. This is disruptive to the perfume industry of the past. I welcome new and talented voices. If safe practices are maintained, there should be no gate keeping on creativity.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey?

Motivation — I love perfumery. I want to get up every day and make beautiful things.

Choice — Entrepreneurship is hard. Poverty is hard. Choose your hard.

Drive — I am determined. We sell Travertine products in the Whole Body section of Whole Foods Market stores nationwide. It took over 2 years and numerous submissions to earn this prized shelf space. Most would have given up earlier.

Detail — We pay attention to the stated and unstated desires of client requests. This past summer, I was working on a custom fragrance with a client. She leaned in and confided that she likes to travel with 2ml samples from department stores because they are small and easy to pack. When I completed her fragrance, I also made a 2ml vial of her fragrance and gave her another empty 2ml vial with a pipette that she could fill as she needed.

Focus — I have specific goals. I revise as necessary. Then I act to move towards the goal.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

I’m not ready to reveal next steps yet but of course I have a few things in the works.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

I love the podcast How I Built This hosted by Guy Raz. He interviews entrepreneurs of well-known brands. His interviews resonate with me because they are real and deep. About 90 percent of the interview time is spent on struggles and hurdles. This is the reality of entrepreneurship. The remaining 10 percent is the glory that we are all familiar with. I appreciate the transparency. It reminds me that the hard days are not every day. Glory days happen as well.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“ I wanna to thank me.”

This quote is from Snoop Dogg when he received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. At first blush these words could seem arrogant or self-absorbed. The depth comes from the things that he is thanking himself for. He thanks himself for believing, working hard, having no time off, never quitting, always being a giver, giving more than he receives and doing more right than wrong.

Often, I work and keep moving on to the next project. I rarely stop to appreciate myself and the effort that I expend. I create beautiful products for the luxury wellness market, hire employees, maintain a supportive work environment, develop new business and maintain strong relationships. I’m blessed. I’m also taking some time to thank myself.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I would like to make olfactory education more accessible. This accessibility is good for students and consumers. There is a lot of mystery behind perfumery processes. It is not easy to gain experience and costly to learn. Perfumery is not taught in colleges. Higher education has coursework and majors on the other senses of taste, touch, feel and sound; but not smell?

Most consumers do not know the complexities involved in creating a fragrance. There is a great deal of math involved in this art. Often people ask me to make a fragrance while they watch.

Can I? Yes, because I have decades of experience.

Will I? Generally no, unless I have access to my full organ.

Even then, I am reluctant because I don’t want to perpetuate the erroneous notion that a fine fragrance is something that you add a few drops of 5 essential oils in a bottle and shake with a solubilizer (perfumers alcohol).

It can take several months to over a year to create a fine fragrance. This requires numerous trials and sourcing costly materials. Testing takes time. The fragrance needs time to macerate.

To make olfactive education more accessible, we offer introductory workshops. We also launched a Zoom version. These are fun and engaging. Corporate clients, private groups and cognoscenti attend our workshops. I’ve just completed an intermediate curriculum.

How can our readers follow you online?

I have a professional curated network on LinkedIn. Readers can visit our website and sign up for perfumery workshops at TravertineSpa.com. Our Instagram handle is @TravertineSpaCollection. My branding, consulting and bespoke work is by referral.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Thank you. It was my pleasure.

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Meet The Disruptors: Terry Carter of Travertine Spa CollectionOn The Five Things You Need To Shake… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Brand Makeovers: John Malozzi Of Coley Porter Bell US On The 5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize Your Brand and Image

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Brands need to be as obsessive about their brand identity as they are about their product or service.

As a part of our series about “Brand Makeovers” I had the pleasure to interview John Malozzi, Group Creative Director — USA.

John leads creative at global branding and design agency Coley Porter Bell’s US office, building the design team and creative culture in New York. He has more than 25 years of experience helping global clients bring their brand and business strategy to life through powerful, purposeful visual storytelling. With a wealth of knowledge in corporate and consumer branding, John draws inspiration from the world beyond the office, creating unexpected insights surrounding himself with people of different interests, cultural perspectives, and expertise.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Growing up I had no idea what graphic design was. As a kid, I wrote graffiti, made my own t-shirt, skateboard and record cover designs — mostly to express some social responsibility message to improve “things in society”. Sometimes it was just simply to create something cool that my friends and I could call our own. I’d use words and pictures because I couldn’t draw as well as I wanted to.

My high school art teacher recommended FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology, part of the State University of New York) for graphic design. It was in-state, affordable, and I got to live in Manhattan. I pretty much got accepted to the program with a portfolio full of tags and collages. What was great about FIT — besides being in great location — was that the design faculty was either still working in the field or were masters in their own right (Eli Kince!). While in school, working on projects, I was able to create a good logo from time-to-time and had an aptitude for typography (most likely born from my graffiti days). So, my professors pushed me into the corporate identity world (branding had not become a practice yet). That was over 25 years ago.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

In my early days, I was arrogant enough to think that every branding challenge should be addressed with an academic, Swiss design approach in typography and a rigid grid. Although that worked for some clients, it didn’t work for others.

At that point, I was too focused on what “design should be” rather than what “design could be”. I didn’t take the time to truly understand the personality of the client or respect the language of their audiences (even if I knew it). To a certain extent, I think that’s how design became a commodity and bland — with a universally set aesthetic. Mostly, everything looks and feels the same — a restaurant brand looks like a beauty product that looks like an identity for a fashion label. Without empathy and understanding, there is no real connection being made — no emotion, no soul.

I designed an album cover for a hip-hop group that literally felt like a design manual. It was a wasted opportunity.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

CPB is not afraid to be daring; not afraid to push the client into unfamiliar territory. There’s not one particular story, it’s just our approach. Of course, there may be pushback from the client, but we always take the opportunity, especially in the initial stage of our creative, to introduce ideas that responsibly provoke and challenge the expected.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Yes, I’m working on a few. One is something I’m passionate about personally and I feel honored to be a part of it. Another is a project that will hopefully help to change the perception of a category that some may see as controversial.

Ok let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)? Can you explain?

It’s simple — branding is the creation of a product’s/company’s/organization’s DNA that creates associations and informs experiences. Advertising is one of the vehicles that helps energize and deliver the brand.

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?

Brand is the foundation. With anything that is built, you need a strong foundation to weather and adapt to changing patterns, trends, and perceptions. A well-equipped, thoughtful brand will prepare you for that — near and long-term. You can’t compromise on that.

Can you share 5 strategies that a company should be doing to build a trusted and believable brand?

Create an internal design theme that informs all your creative decisions — for example, American Airlines:

• While brand strategy is always a filter for design, having a design theme informed by the brand strategy moves you closer to creative space that designers (agency and internal) can process quicker — and be a bit more inspired to challenge a conventional creative approach.
• The theme was NOT used externally and informed everything from color to shape and form, materials, lighting, and construction.
• This theme also worked when briefing outside resources such as sign fabricators, architects, interior designers, and onboard designers.

Don’t assume one visual cue means the same thing for your brand that it may mean for another brand — for example, Budweiser/Black Crown:

• Budweiser wanted to expand its portfolio with a more premium product.
• In 2012 the Black Crown was introduced.
• The original idea was to simply swap the red on its iconic label to black.
• The solution was a completely new label design that used “premium” design elements, such as silver metallic inks, condensed typography and die-cuts that were inspired by the points in a crown.
• None of these design characteristics were inherent to the Budweiser brand.

Craft matters

• Brands need to be as obsessive about their brand identity as they are about their product or service.
• This mostly happens with brands that are built on product reputation.
• Apply the same level of craft and thoughtfulness in your color palette and typography as you do for your product.
• It will not only help you to differentiate within your category, but it will also strengthen the reputation of your brand.

Involve the right people

• Always involve people who truly understand the communication challenge.
• Involve people who have first-hand, real world experience.
• Research can only get you so far.
• We worked with employee resource group (ERG) communities for a major tech brand to develop its own unique and meaningful visual identities within the company.
• Each community (including Women, Disability, Military, LGBTQIA+, LatinaX) had a team of representatives that validated the authenticity of the language and imagery that was being used, including what colors accurately represented each group (in real time).
• Nothing was left to people outside of these communities making assumptions.

Your personality should come to life in all your visual assets and experiences

• So many times, when activating the brand, the client wants to use all its assets in concert because it feels it tells its complete story.
• A strong brand is a kit of parts, experiences and associations that could be used independently well as in harmony.
• Thoughtful choices when creating a logo, selecting color, type, imagery, and brand experience principles should all embody the personality of your brand — whether nuanced or deliberate.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job building a believable and beloved brand. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

HODINKEE (always all caps) — a blog and e-commerce site for watch enthusiasts. What impresses me is that this company was created from the passion and personal interest of one person — and it is now regarded as the standard-bearer in horology. The brand is maintained so meticulously.

To replicate what HODINKEE has done, you need to recognize that it came from a place of genuine interest and love for a category — that’s what creates authenticity. And it also had a unique and calculated purpose — changing the view of the “perceived pretension” in the watch industry. No one in the space was thinking that way.

In advertising, one generally measures success by the number of sales. How does one measure the success of a brand building campaign? Is it similar, is it different?

Brand should be measured by the collection of positive associations and experiences one has with that product or company.

What role does social media play in your branding efforts?

Besides DTC exposure, it forces the creative to rethink how the branding needs to effectively function and present itself in such a chaotic environment.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Just to listen people, especially those who do not share your life experiences or interests. You will learn a lot if you allow yourself to.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Stay uncomfortable.” Most of my growth and learning — personally, professionally, and culturally — I attribute to putting myself in uncertain situations or environments.

We are blessed that very prominent leaders in business and entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world with whom you would like to have a lunch or breakfast with? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them.

I wish Anthony Bourdain and Tibor Kalman were still alive. Tina Fey?

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Yes, Instagram @john.malozzi

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

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Brand Makeovers: John Malozzi Of Coley Porter Bell US On The 5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Starting a business is costly. You have to spend money to make money, and you will make mistakes in the beginning while you get on your feet! Roll with the punches and learn from your errors along the way because you will come across obstacles no matter how much you prepare yourself.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Kelsey White.

The Folsedo founder has taken her passion for fashion and her expertise in the industry to launch her bag line that uses luxury materials from Italy but produces them in her native Los Angeles. It was in 2020 when the world shut down that the former lifestyle blogger was able to focus and pursue her dream of starting her own brand, which ultimately launched in 2021. With hard work and determination, Kelsey released the first style, The Bucket, and is growing Folsedo from there.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I grew up in Los Angeles and had an infatuation with fashion at a young age. Everything from clothing to jewelry to accessories. I love the way a person lights up and confidence is gained when they wear something they love. I studied fashion marketing in college and started a fashion and lifestyle blog in 2014. Since then, I’ve worked various marketing positions in the fashion industry building brands. Throughout the years, there was always a little voice in the back of my head telling me to launch my own business. To be honest, I didn’t do it for the reason why many don’t…I was scared and was busy. Fast forward to 2020 when life slowed down a bit, I was able to focus on my career dreams and goals. I didn’t know what kind of brand I wanted to start for a while, but then it clicked — handbags. My grandmother always had the most beautiful handbags that I admired. I love how they are luxurious, ageless, season-less, gender less and beyond. Folsedo was born in 2021. Having grown up in L.A., I knew that I wanted to produce locally and sustainably working with local craftsmen. I didn’t want to miss out on the luxury of European materials, so all of my materials are imported from Italy. I am fortunate to have made meaningful relationships within the fashion industry to help put my line on the map. I hope to continue to design bags that spark joy and last a lifetime.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“When hard things happen you have three choices: let it define you; let it destroy you or let it strengthen you.”

This quote is something I remind myself of every time I’m in a situation that is discouraging or challenging. We all go through hard times, insecurities and pivots in life. If you look at the plot twists as opportunities, you’ll always see the light.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Atomic Habits by James Clear resonated with me because it made me realize how important little tweaks in your daily habits can drastically enhance your life. Baby steps make a big difference when they are all combined together.

There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

If you have an idea, share it with your friends or partner. Ask what they think. Research and gather insight from others and develop a business plan to present. What does your product offer that is unique or is not already available in the market?

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

There’s nothing “new” about handbags. They have been around for a very long time, but I knew I had something powerful when I wore a sample of The Bucket and got stopped in the streets at the grocery store by strangers. The key to making a unique product that already exists is having the magnetism factor and optimizing your marketing strategy. .

Google is your best friend. Research aggressively. Start a spreadsheet with similar products, brands and see what you can offer that sets you apart from your competitors.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

Start a business plan

Open a business account whether it be a Sole Proprietorship, S-Corp or LLC.

Source a manufacturer and make your first sample.

Test your product out in the wild. Get all of the feedback you can.

Once you are satisfied with the product, move forward with your first production run. Get your license and permits — seller’s permit, Tax ID

Decide whether you want to sell DTC or wholesale and structure your pricing around it. Set up an online store through Shopify.

Market your product with social media, your network and PR.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

Starting a business is costly. You have to spend money to make money, and you will make mistakes in the beginning while you get on your feet! Roll with the punches and learn from your errors along the way because you will come across obstacles no matter how much you prepare yourself.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take? There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own? What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

I would suggest starting with bootstrapping. Utilize the power of your own knowledge, the Internet and your network around you. Venture capital is a powerful offering when the timing is right.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I hope to instill confidence and connect women by supporting each other in the #FolsedoFriends community.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

Stay curious. Read more and get off of social media! I can be guilty of this at times, but every time I catch myself, I pick up a book that grows my skill set or opens up my mind. This helps to build confidence and a fresh perspective.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Rihanna. I’ve admired her for years and look up to her original sense of style and business mindset. I think it’s so cool that she was on top in the music industry then decided to pivot into entrepreneurship, which ultimately led her to lead successful beauty and fashion powerhouses.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Making Something From Nothing: Kelsey White Of Folsedo On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Be resilient. Everything I’ve done to date on my entrepreneurial journey ultimately worked out simply because I did not give up. I almost gave up when I had been denied a loan by 12 different banks, and I almost gave up after being told “no” by dozens of Landlords, but I kept at it. My mantra was ‘Failure is not an option.’ My belief then, and now, is that it is not failure until you give up. It might be a whole bunch of painful learning experiences, but ultimately I am a better business person for it.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Amy Nichols.

Amy Nichols has built her career creating new and unique business models, marketing and brand campaigns, and non-profit growth strategies in the pet industry. In 2002, She founded Dogtopia, a dog daycare and boarding business which was successfully franchised throughout North America. After a brief stint with technology start-ups, and several incredible years in animal welfare, Nichols has found herself returning to her pet care roots with Kinship, the technology arm of Mars Petcare. She now serves as the General Manager of GoodFriend, a new platform that allows pet parents to find and book pet professionals in their area.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

As a child I always knew that I would work with animals in some capacity. I had aspirations of becoming a veterinarian which were somewhat derailed in college. I was the kid that would find the injured animal and bring it home, and beg my parents to let me keep and take care of it. I once took care of a baby blue jay and kept it out in a tree, raising it to adulthood and then it would come and visit us periodically. Rabbits, birds, even little baby mice — every animal was precious to me. I spent a lot of time convincing my parents to let me get different pets. At one point I had a dog, two hamsters, and a cockatiel. I was business-minded about it too. I would create presentations on the pet, and how I was going to take care of it. I remember putting a whole presentation together for the cockatiel. I think that story encompasses both sides of me — both my business drive and my deep love for animals.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” — Amelia Earhart

We spend so much time thinking about, and worrying about, whether or not to jump, to ask for what we want, to do the thing we have always wanted to do. When you’ve done your research, and thought through the possible outcomes, take the leap. The rest is about perseverance; it is not failure until you give up.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

When my first child was a toddler, I had a mindset-changing moment while reading The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It’s a fantastic book about being on a journey to find your true calling and that’s what it helped me do. I always had a vision for what I wanted to do, but this book really helped justify my desire to pursue that path. As a mother and a spouse, I was always conflicted with guilt around focusing on myself and my goals when there’s so much to do to care for my family. I read this book after I had my first child and it was all about pursuing your ultimate gift, and how you can contribute to the world. That message really made me internalize the idea that ‘Yes, I am these things to other people in life, but I have my own role to play, and I owe it to myself to pursue it.’

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

It’s a terrible adage, but what comes to mind is ‘How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”’ Ideas can be big and overwhelming, but they become actionable when they’re broken down into bite size pieces with clear next steps towards accomplishing the larger goal.

When I I had my vision for what I wanted to do with Dogtopia and starting that business, I really had to take a step back and say, ‘Yes, this is going to be amazing, but what do I need to do first?’ That usually is the hardest part for people — taking that first step and committing yourself. Ideas without goals and planning will just stay ideas. There’s no lack of good ideas in the world. What we lack is good execution. To me, execution starts with acknowledging what you need to figure out and know before you can even take those first steps.

While working on Dogtopia, I had a full time job and was planning my wedding so I really had to set aside time to start working through those first steps. I was twenty-eight, without a ton of business experience, so I sought out what I knew I was going to need to be successful and just started there. I met with a local SBA business advisor and signed-up for their free “business bootcamp” class. Each week we worked on a different aspect of our business, and at the end of 8 weeks I had a full business plan to start speaking with lenders.

I had very little money of my own when I started, but I was really committed to learning and “testing” my idea by going through a business planning process and soliciting feedback from lenders and business mentors. People tend to skip past that part — you have to put in the work; the research, the interviews, the reading. I feel like there’s this (false) idea that an entrepreneur has an idea and then just goes with it. That will rarely yield a positive outcome. The planning and documentation is so important because you need something to review and look back at to determine how far you have come, or possibly where you went wrong. Plus, if you’re going to get a business loan, you have to have a business plan. Just take it one step at a time — break it down into smaller chunks that are reasonable, and see it through to completion.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

When I first started my dog daycare business, there were a handful of people that had done it so it wasn’t as if I was the first person to ever think of putting dogs in a room to play together or in the case of GoodFriend, to think we should be able to find and book pet services online.

It’s not as much about being the first to have an idea as it is about putting your own twist on it in a unique and compelling way. You can look up any super successful business and see three or four different versions of it, but what made that one stand out? There’s a classic book by Jim Collins on this topic called Good to Great which I highly recommend. It looks at the also-rans or businesses that were similar to successful ones, but didn’t find the same successes and really digs into why. Some of it is market timing, but a lot of it is persistence and strong strategy and decision-making.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

It depends on the situation you are in. If you are at a full-time job, and the product is not related to your work, it’s a very different path than if you’re in a full-time job and it is related to your work. I’m going to answer under the assumption that this project is outside of their normal work, and therefore not intellectual property of the company they work for.

While running Dogtopia, I was always thinking about how I could make the business more efficient, and it kept coming back to maximizing space in the playrooms. A lot of space was taken up by dog crates in our playrooms; about 8–10 square feet each, and in the larger playrooms we had as many as 30 crates. So I came with an idea to easily collapse the crates and fold them up and away from the playroom floor. I called it the Murphy Crate, for the similarities to the once very popular “murphy beds.” I started by sketching it out and then once I felt pretty good about the sketch I had made, I found an engineer online that was relatively inexpensive to create the technical drawings. After some tweaking and thinking, we landed on a unique design that would accomplish my goal of easily and safely store dog crates in our playrooms.

Finding manufacturers is not easy; it’s very challenging, and it takes a lot of time. Depending on your product, it can also be incredibly expensive. Manufacturers are not inclined to do custom designs, and will typically require a minimum number to be manufactured. If you find one willing to create a prototype, be prepared to pay a substantial amount, depending on the complexity of the product. The Murphy Crate was relatively complex and large, making it expensive to manufacture. I had to figure out how I could do a lot with a little and do a small run that would give me samples that I could then pitch to retailers.

If at all possible, try to visit local manufacturers and get a tour, learn as much as you can about the process — you are a future customer after all. There are many differences in manufacturing, so depending on the needs of your design, it could be in a different part of the country or even another country altogether. I would recommend you find out where similar products are manufactured, and then do research on that manufacturer.

Sometimes, to help with the costs,you can get someone to partner with you. They might be a manufacturer of similar goods, or a retailer that is very interested in your design. That’s another path that can sometimes make a lot more sense than trying to do it on your own, and absorbing all those costs. You can also approach a company that already makes similar products. In my case, I could have gone to a company that already makes dog crates and potentially forged a partnership if they saw enough potential for the Murphy Crate.

Meeting with local retailers is also a good place to start. There’s an advantage to working with someone locally; the ability to observe customer behavior, you can stop in to check on how your product is performing, and feedback from the retailer. Before investing significant funds, you need to find a willing buyer. If a local retailer is interested in carrying your product, that is a great first step. Many now very successful businesses started this way; Chobani and Hint being two examples.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

1. Don’t represent yourself in commercial real estate transactions. If you are looking to open a brick and mortar business, commercial real estate, whether a lease or a purchase, is a super important decision. I was very fortunate after about six months of looking, and feeling like I was never going to find a space, I met a real estate broker who took me under his wing. He explained to me why I was not getting return phone calls from landlords, and how we needed to be strategic about it going forward. Whatever funds you need to cover for their fee will be worth ten times that to get you into a well negotiated and fair lease or purchase.
2. Be resilient. Everything I’ve done to date on my entrepreneurial journey ultimately worked out simply because I did not give up. I almost gave up when I had been denied a loan by 12 different banks, and I almost gave up after being told “no” by dozens of Landlords, but I kept at it. My mantra was ‘Failure is not an option.’ My belief then, and now, is that it is not failure until you give up. It might be a whole bunch of painful learning experiences, but ultimately I am a better business person for it.
3. Don’t DIY where it counts. I learned a lot when I attempted to be my own general contractor when we built the first Dogtopia location. Managing all of the subcontractors (and being confident they are not fleecing you on price) was a big and expensive lesson. A good GC is well worth the ten or fifteen percent they’re going to put on top of what the subcontractors charge. What I ended up having to do was manage a whole bunch of separate projects in our building, which likely cost me more in time than it would have to hire a GC.
4. It’s ok to tweak your business model. There’s so many different ways you can go about any business, and I find that one important strategy for a successful business is to be flexible with your business model. I get asked all the time if I would still franchise if I could do it all over again. I franchised because I was really interested in coaching and guiding other people getting into business. If I had been looking at it from a financial perspective, I would have been better off opening more of my own locations. Refine and focus on your personal wealth and creation, prior to immediately looking at expansion options. And if you decide to make the leap, be sure to have studied different business models and speak to professionals in that space if at all possible. I found fellow Franchisors (in different industries) to be very supportive and helpful.
5. Know and understand business regulations in your area and invest in business advisors. It will be worth every penny to have an attorney and accountant that you can call on for even the most basic questions and concerns related to employment law and taxes. If you work through your local SBA office or chamber of commerce, they often have recommendations at the ready for professionals that specialize in, and want to help, small businesses. You don’t want to make a mistake early on that will come back to haunt you later. Find professionals that have experience with your type of business, whether that’s a hair salon or a small technology startup, it’s worth a thousand or so dollars to get their guidance early, so that you’re set off on the right path.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

I think the first and easiest is to start online research because there are so many free resources available online. Start searching based on a description of your product to see if anyone else has tried to develop something similar. Find groups in that profession and join them. There is tons of content for entrepreneurs on both LinkedIn and Facebook. You can also save yourself time down the road by checking domain name availability before registering your business or getting attached to the name. If you perform thorough research and believe what you have is truly unique, the next step is to begin working with a professional in that space. Depending on what it is, whether it’s mechanical drawings, code, or building an app, your first step should be speaking with someone about the practicality of bringing your idea to life.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

There are a lot of factors that come into play, and it depends on what you’re inventing. If we take tech out of it, and focus on a physical product, you can do a lot of research on your own first — including looking into filing a patent. However, if you have very limited funding, going to a consultant could be the best path to helping bring your product to life. They’ll provide guidance on feasibility, patent filing, and potentially help find companies that might be interested in manufacturing your product and paying you a license fee. (you will most likely need a patent in that case). If you have limited financial ability to develop designs and prototypes, this could be the best path forward. If you have a great idea, you’ll probably have another one, so use this opportunity to learn more about the overall process. When that next idea comes, you’ll be ready.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

This really depends on if we’re talking about hard goods like a consumer product, a services business like Dogtopia, or a tech company. Depending on the idea, a tech company might require several million dollars to develop it into something valuable, in which case venture capital may be the best route to get that funding. If you can bootstrap any one of these three types of companies, I’d recommend that you get as far as you can before you bring in venture funding. Venture capitalists have very specific financial goals that may not align with your own. Their goal isn’t necessarily for you to have the business you’ve been dreaming of, but rather, to make a good investment and exit.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Every business has the ability to contribute to their community starting with local opportunities. You can make a huge impact on someone’s life, whether that’s an animal, person, or a child by giving back. There is always a group or individual in need that might benefit from your business directly or your personal skills and abilities.

It was actually giving back that got me to Kinship. I volunteered to mentor pet business startups through Leap Ventures. Leap Ventures is co-run by Michelson Found Animals and Mars Petcare to invest in pet care startups — most are technology-based, but there are also food and pet care businesses. A friend suggested I volunteer as a mentor to help business owners starting a dog daycare, franchising, or just needing general start up advice.I also have a big heart for entrepreneurs, particularly those in the pet industry. With the journey I’ve been on, if I can help someone avoid pitfalls, and save a little bit of heartache, that to me is super inspiring. I really enjoyed being a mentor for the program and it is ultimately how I met Kinship President Leonid Sudakov. Kinship is the tech and innovation division for Mars Pet Care and I was instantly intrigued. Initially my focus was animal welfare, but I have since become the General Manager for GoodFriend. When I’m asked about my shift from animal welfare to GoodFriend, I don’t feel like they are all that different: very similar types of people with similar goals — improved care for pets and better support for the pet care professionals providing it.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

A couple of years into Dogtopia, I read an article about military K9s on how important they had been to our work in the Middle East keeping troops safe and doing important tasks like bomb detection and servings as sentries. However, they were carrying out their duties without access to the supplies they need like medical e-collars, tug ropes, heavy duty toys and doggles to protect their eyes from the sand.

I’ve always been very passionate about supporting the military. My father and brother both served in the military so it holds a special place in my heart. After reading that article, I kept thinking about all these dogs we care for at Dogtopia and how these military dogs are like their brothers in arms. I felt this cause would resonate with our pet parent customers..

It was difficult, but I was able to track down the sergeant who was quoted in the article and asked what they needed. He sent me the list to which we then sent out a call for donations via email to our customer base. Within three days or so our lobby was filled with donated supplies. It was amazing! Then we had to figure out how to ship it, so we held a dog wash to raise money to cover shipping. The event got picked up by The Washington Post, a few local news stations, the Pentagon (military) Channel and even Barbara Starr from CNN came to the event. Our goal was to raise a thousand dollars, and we ended up raising nearly ten thousand dollars. I was blown away by our customer’s generosity and enthusiasm for the cause. We shipped the supplies and that event became the basis for the nonprofit I had started called K9 Support. We turned it into an annual event, and our franchisees participated as well. The program eventually expanded to also help local police K9s and to cover the training expenses for service dogs to support veterans with PTSD.

Years of amazing work came from one article, a call to action, and an outpouring of support. What’s inspiring to me is how eager everyone was to volunteer, spread the word, donate, and support those in need.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Though there are a couple of marketing gurus and entrepreneurs that I would love to talk to, if it was anyone in the world, I’d have to go with Oprah Winfrey. I love how she always incorporated her own personal moral code and curiosity into everything she did. She never fails to think big and uses her influence in really powerful ways, doing amazing work around the world — all while still having an incredibly successful business. She’s broken so many barriers for women in business, and has been a tremendous example for little girls (and boys) everywhere. I think she’s one of the ultimate examples of doing amazing work that helps people, while simultaneously creating and building a one of a kind business. I’d love to have lunch at her house in California and meet her golden retrievers and cocker spaniels.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

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Making Something From Nothing: Amy Nichols Of GoodFriend On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meet The Disruptors: Michael Clark of Beeby Clark + Meyler On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Information is hidden, even under the best of circumstances. Putting time aside for discovery and understanding is crucial to any endeavor, even when it appears that time is of the essence and urgency is all about. Nothing wastes time more than rash action requiring repair.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Beeby Clark + Meyler Co-founder and Principal Michael Clark.

Michael Clark is the Co-founder of the award-winning integrated communications agency for the digital age, Beeby Clark+Meyler. Founded by Modem Media alums Tom Beeby, Michael Clark and Stuart Meyler, BCM is an integrated performance marketing agency that has made a name for itself in the travel & tourism, consumer packaged goods (CPG), beverage, education, B2B, and financial services industries.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

My early career background was in Industrial Engineering, actually. I came to advertising and performance marketing over the course of a 10-year journey through international new product development. Ultimately, all successful new products need to start with the consumer and their values, attitudes and habits. As I became more immersed in the research to understand consumer motivations better, I eventually arrived at media consumption patterns and then advertising.

That’s how I ended up where I am to say. And needless to say, my career in digital marketing has been a great match for my dual interests in tech and consumer behavior.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

“Disruption” is a concept that is in the eyes of the beholder. For many advertisers or performance marketers, the way in which they organize their personnel and measure the business contributions of marketing quickly becomes outdated. There is a need to break the historic compromise between change and efficiency, so that we can achieve both flexibility and effectiveness at suitable ROI levels. Disruption then becomes about constantly adjusting your business approach to remain poised to harvest new opportunities as they appear. Teaching our clients how to build manageable disruption and change into their marketing systems is a big part of what we do.

When most people think about disruption in a business sense, they think about massive, sudden or wholesale changes. When this type of massive change is needed, there is a good chance that you are too late. You’ve waited too long. You’re acting out of desperation. That’s not where we want to be.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I once copied what I thought was a blank presentation template for a short client briefing. It turned out that the presentation template was not blank and another client’s name frequently appeared in my briefing document along with images. Thankfully, my client was very understanding and managed a good sense of humor throughout the embarrassing situation by frequently saying, “what would other client name X do.”

Learning: Check everything twice and one additional time just before the presentation begins.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

I am sure that everyone says that there are too many to name, but in many ways for me, this is true. I came from a family of entrepreneurs. My grandparents and parents each owned their own businesses, as I do today. And as a business owner, you learn a lot about the importance of retaining high-quality talent.

The best method for doing that is through common respect. The big lesson for me is that nearly all team members want to do their very best and want to maximize their potential. The leader’s role is to provide clear expectations, training, and consistent performance coaching. All delivered with respect and honesty. The people that I call mentors all did this consistently.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

This is a great question that we ponder every day as we go about our client work. The very nature of disruption is the fact that consequences are built into the change, many of which are either unforeseen or, more likely, lightly considered or ignored.

In most industries, when one or two players are extracting a vast amount of profits and everyone else is barely hanging on, that is usually a sign that disruption would be helpful — to both consumers and other industry participants and their employees. The idea of monopolies being destructive has been studied since the dawn of capitalism. New industry entrants with new novel ways of doing things generally have positive, restorative impacts on most industries. Industries with healthy levels of profit spread across a wider diversity of players usually result in continued innovation without unnatural distortion to competition and pricing. Unwelcome disruption in these circumstances usually comes in the form of government regulation, bought and paid for by one of the industry participants seeking to extract more profit than they can obtain through normal competition.

The digital media industry has been filled with such examples in recent years. Facebook’s purchase of Instagram and Whatsapp was decried as anti-competitive and Meta has been under continued scrutiny for its acquisition practices. Google’s dominance in search advertising, as well as its leading presence in video (YouTube) and display (Google Display Network), have heralded calls for industry disruption. And yet, there are still only a few browsers, with Chrome (Google, again) and Safari (Apple) accounting for roughly 85% of browser usage.

If you want to be a disruptor yourself, check out Brave (https://brave.com/compare/chrome/). Brave is an advertising-free browsing experience where consumers earn payments for their attention in the form of a cryptocurrency called BAT (Basic Attention Token).

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

Five words of advice that have impacted me are, “Wait for the full story.” This is advice that has always served me well, both professionally and personally. We never understand anything fully at first glance. Perspective matters.

Information is hidden, even under the best of circumstances. Putting time aside for discovery and understanding is crucial to any endeavor, even when it appears that time is of the essence and urgency is all about. Nothing wastes time more than rash action requiring repair.

This advice is highly relevant to the practice of performance marketing, where results in high-stakes programs are sometimes measured hourly. Unfortunately, the pressure to act is overwhelming and pausing to think can be construed as wasting time.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

Most digital marketers are trapped in a situation where they cannot move away from last-click attribution. Therefore, the only tactics in their plans are paid search, SEO and retargeting. This is very limiting and leads to very low growth. Clients need a way to confidently add new digital channels that are increasingly non-clickable (podcasting, video). We are in the process of deploying new modeling techniques that will enable digital marketers to better attribute their investments in non-clickable digital media to business growth.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

The Knowledge Project with Shane Parish is a podcast that I fully enjoy and would recommend to anyone. There is something new and meaningful to learn in every episode. Shane does a wonderful job pulling important lessons from his guests that are accessible to all of us. I appreciate practicality, which is why I enjoy it so much.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Experts make themselves.” This is a quote from the great Ford Harding, author of Rain Making and the founder of Harding Company. It is easy to become paralyzed waiting for someone else to confer legitimacy onto you. If you do the research and write a compelling article, guess what? You’re the expert. So, get started. Do something.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I would probably try and do something around plant-based nutrition. I learned later in life the importance of proper nutrition and I think some degree (any degree) of more plants, less animal products and oils would benefit everyone greatly.

How can our readers follow you online?

LinkedIn is the best place to find and follow me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelkclark/

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

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Meet The Disruptors: Michael Clark of Beeby Clark + Meyler On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

“Failure is part of the process but never the end result”. I used to get quite disappointed everytime something did not work quite as planned in the beginning, but I learned that it is just the way it works sometimes, and you just have to look at the problem a different way and overcome it.

As a part of my series about “Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years” I had the pleasure of interviewing Juan Carlos.

Juan Carlos is a Mexican Canadian entrepreneur devoted to helping people save money while changing the real estate market with his innovative approach. He is the founder of ourpropertyteam.com

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you please tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I became very interested in real estate when I was 25 years old. However, as I learned more, I realized that there were a lot of issues and inconsistencies with the way real estate was sold. In other words, I thought agents were overpaid and that there had to be a more efficient, transparent, and easy way to achieve even better results. This is why I created ourpropertyteam.com. Our goal is to help people keep more of their hard-earned money while selling faster and for more.

Can you please share with us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

My very first Client was a referral from a realtor I met once. These people were her true friends, and she sincerely wanted to help them save money without leaving money floating in the air. I have to admit, I was both shocked and happy she did that. Later their house sold for even more than what their friend suggested it was worth and they were so happy, that one of the owners of the property was an uber driver, and he used to send a lot of people every month. We are good friends now, and our families became close.

Ok thank you for that. Let’s now move to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?

At this point my idea is actually a reality. Our Property Team is changing the way we sell real estate forever! With both, technology and a team of local professionals. We are capable of delivering an incredibly extensive service for a very small flat fee, instead of commissions. Our nature makes us unbiased, and we also have made the whole process of selling your home both easier and more convenient. Our Property Team will change the world!

How do you think this will change the world?

People won’t have to worry anymore about overpaying someone and not getting enough in return. Let’s face it. We are not in the 70s anymore. Everything works in a very different way. So, why are we stuck in such an old model? It is time to move forward in the real estate sector, like we have done everywhere else. An give people a smarter way to sell real estate.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this idea that people should think more deeply about?

None at all. We give work to local businesses in every area, save people money, and create jobs for all people. Including those with the skillset of a real estate agent. It is a win-win for everyone

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story?

I got very interested in real estate when I was around 25 years old. I looked into getting my license and all, but the deeper I got into it. The more I realized how broken and outdated that system was. Look at the world around you. It is completely different from what it was 50 years ago.

We do not need to go to Blockbuster Video just to get disappointed because the movie we wanted is out of stock. Like we do not need to wait in the cold rain while trying to flag down a cab.

Now, we can do everything from the comfort of our homes, and without paying unnecessary fees to a third party.

So why would we be stuck in such an old model in real estate? The world is not the same, and things in real estate work differently.

Back in the 70s selling real estate was all about the realtor’s network, all about the people they knew. And nowadays it is about marketing! Think about it. Now, your house needs to be listed on all major sites, and look and feel amazing, while doing digital and traditional marketing to get the most people interested. So, why would you hire a networker to do the job of a marketer, to begin with? Makes no sense. This is why we have created a system that puts you in front of the right professional right when you need it. No more middle man! And our Savvy Sellers save on average $15,000. On commissions. Not to mention, the whole process is a lot more professional, complete, transparent, and easy.

What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?

We need to keep working hard on reaching more and new audiences. We need to create more free informative content people can use daily.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why.

• “Everyday will be a challenge”. I love being challenged and have to figure a way to make everything work, I hob=nestly would have started my entrepreneurial life at a younger age.
• “Failure is part of the process but never the end result”. I used to get quite disappointed everytime something did not work quite as planned in the beginning, but I learned that it is just the way it works sometimes, and you just have to look at the problem a different way and overcome it.
• “You’ll get a lot of attention” Both positive and negative, it brought a lot of attention to me. Even though I was planning on “flying under the radar” haha.
• “You’ll help a lot of people” I just can not describe the feeling when people celebrate their big savings and start planning ways to spend or reinvest their money.
• “Everything will change” You learn to see everything in a different perspective. My entire life has changed a lot, because of it.

Can you share with our readers what you think are the most important “success habits” or “success mindsets”?

Stay hungry, and Learn to fall in love with the process, more than the end result. Otherwise, you will never be happy. Money will come, don’t worry.

Some very well-known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Remember that time when you could have invested in Bitcoin, Netflix, or Uber in the beginning for next to nothing but for whatever reason you didn’t? Well… Here is your time to jump in with the company that is doing the same to the real estate market.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/juan-carlos-barrera-velez-57588417b/

https://www.facebook.com/juanitocb1

https://twitter.com/OurPropertyTeam

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

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No Commission Realtors: Juan Carlos Barrera Velez ’s Big Idea That Might Change The World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Investing is never easy. You can put your buyer’s mind at ease by offering some type of money-back guarantee, a free trial, or another risk-free way to test drive your services.

As a part of my series about how to be great at closing sales without seeming pushy, obnoxious, or salesy, I had the pleasure of interviewing Megan Smyth.

Megan Smyth is a copywriter for impact-driven entrepreneurs, using her background in psychology and research to craft high-converting sales copy. After realizing three years into her pre-med degree that she was chasing someone else’s idea of success, she decided to start her own business–one that allowed her to make her own rules, empower other women, and most importantly, required zero knowledge of organic chemistry.

Thank you for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us the “backstory” about what brought you to this career path?

Like most entrepreneurs, it’s been a long and winding road! I never intended to work in sales or marketing. My degree is actually in Health Science and I always planned on becoming a doctor. While I was still in school, I started copywriting on the side just for fun, and I absolutely fell in love with it.

I’ve always loved writing, but it turns out copywriting also involves a fair bit of science and research. All those neuroscience classes I sat through came in handy for mastering conversion strategies. Eventually, I left my day job in medical research to pursue copywriting full-time, and I haven’t looked back since.

Can you share with our readers the most interesting or amusing story that occurred to you in your career so far? Can you share the lesson or takeaway you took out of that story?

I still remember the very first sales call I took as a new business owner. I was so nervous, I wrote out a list of potential questions the prospect could ask me and prepared all these scripted answers. Of course, once I got on the call I realized that had pretty much been a waste of time.

Instead, we just started talking like two friends meeting up. We got to know each other, I asked a few questions about the work she needed, and then quoted her a rate that at the time, felt way out of my comfort zone. Her response: “Great! Where do I sign?”

The lesson I took away from that experience is that sales doesn’t need to be stressful or uncomfortable. It’s really just a conversation between two people, trying to see if there’s a fit or not. If there is, great–and if not, it’s not the end of the world.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I’m excited to be working on my first digital product, a series of sales email templates. So many business owners want to get started with email marketing but feel intimidated and don’t know where to start. My hope is that these templates (which will be fully customizable), will help entrepreneurs see how easy email marketing can be.

I want to go a step beyond the typical fill-in-the-blank style templates and explain how each email works and why. Once business owners get over that initial knowledge barrier, email can be a huge money-maker for their business. Not to mention it’s a ton of fun!

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

The person I’m most grateful for is my older sister, Alanna. She’s been my biggest supporter from day one. When I announced I was no longer applying to med school and was instead going to write copy for strangers on the internet, she took it all in stride! She never once doubted I would be successful (even when I wasn’t so sure myself).

I’m now happy to report that not only is the business successful, but I’ve been able to bring my sister on board as well! She’s been an incredible support throughout every stage.

For the benefit of our readers, can you tell us a bit why you are an authority on the topic of sales?

As I mentioned earlier, I worked in the medical field for most of my life, and my approach to sales is very much informed by psychology and neuroscience. As a copywriter, I’ve helped my clients sell out their offers through strategic, research-backed email campaigns, sales pages, and website copy. I’ve worked with everyone from 7-figure business coaches to one of the world’s leading outbound sales companies.

For me, it’s not about being designated an “authority”, but being a continuous student of sales. There’s always something new to learn. What I try to do through my online platform is invite my audience along with me on that journey.

Ok. Thanks for all that. Let’s now jump to the main core of our interview. As you know, nearly any business a person will enter, will involve some form of sales. At the same time, most people have never received any formal education about how to be effective at selling. Why do you think our education system teaches nearly every other arcane subject, but sales, one of the most useful and versatile topics, is totally ignored?

That’s an interesting question. In all fairness, it’s a difficult subject to teach. You can teach someone how to cold call or give them an email script to copy and paste, but without understanding the psychological side of things, that kind of training won’t get you very far.

To be successful in sales, you need to understand how people think and how they make decisions. Some of that can be learned from a textbook, but a lot of it is learned on the job, once you get out there and start talking to people–and more importantly, start listening. Learn to truly listen and you can be successful in any field.

This discussion, entitled, “How To Be Great At Sales Without Seeming Salesy”, is making an assumption that seeming salesy or pushy is something to be avoided. Do you agree with this assumption? Whether yes, or no, can you articulate why you feel the way you do?

Pushiness won’t get you anywhere. Modern buyers are fed up with those old tactics, and it’s not hard to see why. We’re inundated with ads all day long, from social media to our email, TV, and everywhere in between. At a certain point, you start tuning it all out. So not only are those pushy ad campaigns annoying, but they’re also ineffective.

No one wants to be sold to. They don’t care about the features and benefits of your product. What people want is to feel seen, heard, and understood, in a world where that type of connection is increasingly rare. Businesses that understand this will be miles ahead of the competition.

The other factor to consider is that today’s buyers do a lot of research before they make a purchasing decision. They ask their friends for recommendations and read third-party review sites. They aren’t looking to be sold to–they’re looking for the information they need to make an informed decision.

As a salesperson, your job isn’t to convince someone to buy from you. Your job is to give them the information they need, make a compelling argument for your solution, and then step back and let the prospect make their own decision. It may feel scary at first, but in the long run, it’s far more effective.

The seven stages of a sales cycle are usually broken down to versions of Prospecting, Preparation, Approach, Presentation, Handling objections, Closing, and Follow-up. Which stage do you feel that you are best at? What is your unique approach, your “secret sauce”, to that particular skill? Can you explain or give a story?

As a sales copywriter, it’s my job to close the deal. The copy I write, whether in an email or on a sales page, needs to inspire action (usually to click that “Buy Now” button).

Ironically, my favorite approach for this is to tap into the cost of inaction. What’s at stake for them if they don’t buy? What if nothing changes and life/business go on as usual, while that same problem hangs over their head? Often, the idea of things staying the same is enough to provoke people into action.

Lead generation, or prospecting, is one of the basic steps of the sales cycle. Obviously, every industry will be different, but can you share some of the fundamental strategies you use to generate good, qualified leads?

Lead generation, like every part of the sales process, is a conversation. So many people get caught up in pitching or qualifying the prospect that they forget there’s a human being on the other side of the screen. Instead, focus on building relationships and starting a conversation. Let the rest unfold naturally from there.

In my opinion, true cold pitches are rarely effective. You need to work to earn that pitch. Start with research, and make an effort to understand the prospect’s situation. Then look for ways you can provide value. Maybe you have a free resource to share, or you came across an article they would find interesting.

Don’t do it with the intention of asking for a sale–just genuinely try to be of service (people can tell the difference). Over time you can build a great relationship this way, and when the prospect starts looking for a solution, you’ll be the first person that comes to mind.

In my experience, I think the final stages of Handling Objections, Closing, and Follow-up, are the most difficult parts for many people. Why do you think ‘Handling Objections’ is so hard for people? What would you recommend for one to do, to be better at ‘Handling Objections’?

Handling objections is an underrated part of the sales process, and it’s one that commonly gets ignored in written sales copy. People don’t like to talk about objections because they’re afraid of planting those ideas in the buyer’s mind, but in reality, it’s always better to get those things out in the open.

Before you can do that, you need to know what those specific objections are. Do some market research, interview your existing clients, and think back on past sales interactions. The two most common objections are time and money, so be ready to counter those.

For money objections, talk about the potential ROI, or use a money-back guarantee to reduce the financial risk. “Not the right time” is a bit more difficult. In that scenario, what you need to do is shift the prospect’s beliefs to make them understand there’s never a perfect time to invest, but they shouldn’t let that hold them back from taking action.

Second, you need to be proactive about it. Don’t wait for the client to bring their objections up. If there’s a cheaper competitor option out there, don’t shy away from that–explain the extra value your company provides and why you’re worth the money.

Lastly, remember not to push. Your goal shouldn’t be to close the sale no matter what, but to help the prospect see the value in your offer and then make the best decision for them.

‘Closing’ is of course the proverbial Holy Grail. Can you suggest 5 things one can do to successfully close a sale without being perceived as pushy? If you can, please share a story or example, ideally from your experience, for each.

1. Reduce the risk.

Investing is never easy. You can put your buyer’s mind at ease by offering some type of money-back guarantee, a free trial, or another risk-free way to test drive your services.

One method I’ve found really effective is to remind the prospect of payment plan options. For example, your product isn’t $5000, it’s 10 monthly payments of $500. It’s a simple switch, but breaking it down this way makes it seem much more affordable.

2. Make it time-sensitive.

Urgency is a great sales tool. Put an expiry date on your proposal, use a countdown timer in your email, or send a last-chance text message. There’s nothing like a disappearing deal to inspire those last-minute buyers!

3. Scarcity.

Many of my clients have online courses, which they advertise as having limited spots. I always encourage them to take this one step further and specify how many spots are available. 10? 20? 100? Putting a tangible number on it makes it more real. Those spots could reasonably fill up, which inspires prospects to take action before they miss out.

4. Get buy-in on the price.

The proposal should NOT be the first time your prospect is hearing your pricing. Money is the biggest objection for most buyers, and if you avoid this discussion you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

Instead, confidently tell the prospect your price (ideally face-to-face or on a video call), then ask, “How does that sound to you?”. By putting the ball in their court, they can either accept your rate or start the negotiation process.

5. Use future pacing

This is a marketing technique where you use words to paint a picture of what the prospect’s future will look like with and without the product.

For example, a working mom sits at home debating whether to take the leap and invest in a course that will teach her how to work online as a virtual assistant. She’s burned out from the corporate world and tired of missing time with her family.

If she buys the course, a year from now she could have a successful online business. She could work from home on her own schedule. She would have the freedom to work from anywhere, take vacations without requesting time off, and spend more time with her kids. All of that is waiting for her on the other side of this course. As the salesperson, it’s your job to paint that picture.

Although I use this technique in written copy, you can also use it on a sales call. Ask the prospect what they’re hoping to get out of their purchase then let their imagination take over. This is especially useful if the prospect is sitting on the fence, or they’re hesitating to take action and need that final nudge.

Finally, what are your thoughts about ‘Follow up’? Many businesses get leads who might be interested but things never seem to close. What are some good tips for a business leader to successfully follow up and bring things to a conclusion, without appearing overly pushy or overeager?

Follow-ups are always hard. You don’t want to come across as pushy or desperate, but at the same time, you need to show some enthusiasm.

Like the rest of the sales process, it’s best to approach the follow-up with a service mindset. The prospect needs your solution and it would be a disservice to them not to reach out. Chances are, your prospect isn’t ignoring you on purpose–so don’t take it personally.

Start by clearing the air and letting them know you’re not upset that they haven’t gotten back to you. A quick “Hey, life happens, no worries,” can go a long way. Then remind them what the next steps are if they’d like to move forward. Let them know you’re there to answer any questions.

If your offer is time sensitive or you have limited space on your calendar, make sure to mention that. Then reiterate that if now isn’t the right time or this isn’t a good fit for them, that’s okay too.

The last time I followed up with a prospect using this method, she actually thanked me for being so kind in my approach! She seemed genuinely taken aback by the lack of pushiness. This just goes to show that your approach can make all the difference, especially if the prospect is considering multiple options.

As you know there are so many modes of communication today. For example, In-person, phone calls, video calls, emails, and text messages. In your opinion, which of these communication methods should be avoided when attempting to close a sale or follow up? Which are the best ones? Can you explain or give a story?

The best and worst methods depend on who your buyer is and what kind of relationship you have. I’ve personally found voice notes to work well for follow-ups. It’s more personal than an email or text message, but still casual enough that they can listen to it on their own time.

Video calls are great for closing, because you can watch the other person’s reactions in real time and adjust your approach accordingly. Body language and tone of voice are so important in sales conversations, and you want to mirror the prospect’s behavior as much as possible. That’s difficult to do over email. Of course, if you can meet in person then that’s even better!

Ok, we are nearly done. Here is our final “meaty” question. You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the greatest amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I want business owners, especially women, to understand that selling can be empowering. A lot of times, female entrepreneurs hesitate to ask for the sale. They don’t want to come off as pushy or aggressive. It feels selfish to ask for money.

If I could share one message with those women, it would be that sales are not only necessary to grow your business, but the money you make can be used as a tool for good. The more you grow your income, the more impact you can have in the world.

How can our readers follow you online?

You can find me on Instagram @copybymeg or visit megansmyth.com. I could talk about sales all day long, and my DMs are always open for questions or if you just want to say hi!

Thank you for the interview. We wish you only continued success!

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Megan Smyth: How To Be Great At Sales Without Seeming Salesy was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Know Your Customers — With target markets worldwide, Mips has taken a vested interest in understanding our customer base in different regions, and partnering with experts across the globe for deeper knowledge.

As a part of my series about “Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years” I had the pleasure of interviewing Max Strandwitz, CEO of Mips.

Max Strandwitz is the Chief Executive Officer of Mips. Most recently, Max served as Chief Financial Officer of Mips from 2016 to 2019. Previously, he built his career in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry, as the CFO Operations at Cloetta AB and Finance Director at Unilever Supply Chain Company and Unilever Nordic. Max has a degree in Economics from Borås Högskola in Sweden.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you please tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

My career background is very different from the work that I am doing today. Prior to Mips, I built my career in the fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry, primarily within Unilever. In 2016, I was contacted by a friend who was the Chairman of the Board of a very small ingredient brand company, Mips. I had never heard of Mips before, but was soon interested in the company, and especially its product, the Mips® safety system. Since joining the company, I have not regretted my decision, or a single day since I began working here.

Can you please share with us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Mips’ mission is “leading the world to safer helmets,” and it’s always rewarding to hear from our customers about the impact Mips has made.

In my job, there is a lot to be proud of. The most special moments for me are when I get letters from people across the world who claim that Mips made a difference in their accidents. That is something I carry with me all the time.

Which principles or philosophies have guided your life? Your career?

Play hard but fair.

Ok thank you for that. Let’s now move to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?

Global helmet wearing adoption, with an emphasis on helmets that help reduce rotational motion to the head. This goes hand in hand with increased awareness of rotational motion, and its role in causing concussions.

How do you think this will change the world?

There are far too many unprotected heads in the world. Too many people do not wear helmets when they should, whether they be skiing, mountain biking, or on a construction site.

When we fall and hit our head — whether it be on dirt, ice, or the pavement — this almost always occurs at an angled impact. This is the key problem that the Mips® safety system works to address. The low-friction layer inside of helmets allows multi-directional movement of 10–15mm on certain angled impacts, which is intended to help reduce rotational motion to the head.

Pioneer studies from the mid-20th century have shown that rotational motion is a key component in some traumatic brain injuries such as concussions and diffuse axonal injury. The rotational motion causes shearing of the brain tissue, which can cause traumatic brain injuries. After these pioneering studies, more recent studies have supported the prevalence of rotational motion in diffuse traumatic brain injuries.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, an estimated 1.6 to 3.8 million sports and recreation-related traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) occur each year. It’s critical that everyone takes action to protect their heads, starting with more frequent helmet usage.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this idea that people should think more deeply about?

Certainly not, in fact we believe the opposite is true. Increased awareness of both rotational motion and the benefits of helmet usage is necessary to help educate consumers on the risks associated with TBIs, and how they can help protect themselves.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story?

Mips was developed to achieve better protection against rotational motion transferred to the head. We know wearing a helmet can help prevent many of the injuries that would occur otherwise, but our co-founders Peter Halldin and Hans von Holst were convinced that the helmets generally available were not providing sufficient protection. This led to the creation of the Mips safety system, designed to help provide added safety for helmets in many accidents.

What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?

Rotational motion is a common cause for concussions and more severe brain injury in oblique hits to the head. Yet according to a recent survey conducted by consumer survey company Nielsen and commissioned by Mips, about 70% of American and German helmet buyers are unaware of rotational motion.

Oftentimes, TBIs are poorly understood. Educating consumers about the risks of rotational motion, and the role of helmets, is a critical step in widespread adoption.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why.

1. Think Big Picture — Don’t set the bar too low when planning your goals, whether that be for yourself, or your company.
2. Focus On Your Team — Build out a team of trusted colleagues who are experts in their field or specialty, so that you can focus on what you need to.
3. Prioritize Kindness — We’ve worked hard to establish a company culture that centers around kindness and respect, within our business and with our customers. This has created a positive work environment, and I’d advise anyone to implement this as soon as they have the chance.
4. Consider Your Impact — As a growing company, Mips is highly aware of the impact that our work has on the environment and the society, and are taking steps to become more sustainable.
5. Know Your Customers — With target markets worldwide, Mips has taken a vested interest in understanding our customer base in different regions, and partnering with experts across the globe for deeper knowledge.

Can you share with our readers what you think are the most important “success habits” or “success mindsets”?

Say what you are going to do, and do what you say you are going to do.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

They can follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

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Mips: Max Strandwitz’s Big Idea That Might Change The World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

A positive attitude is critical. Negativity is not only contagious, but detrimental to productivity, morale and retention. It’s important to create a space that is open to learning, innovation, taking risks and having fun.

As a part of our series about “How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tulika Mehrotra.

Tulika Mehrotra is a Chicago-based branding and communications expert. With a bachelor’s degree in Finance and a masters in design, Tulika has over 15 years of experience in various sectors and organizations including start-ups working on brand building, digital marketing, and communication. Tulika began with Peterson Technology Partners in 2018 as a consultant, leading brand marketing, communication, and digital strategy efforts across the organization. She manages international teams and all new products and brand launches. In 2021 she was promoted as the first Chief Digital Officer in the company’s 24-year history.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive into the main part of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you share a bit of your “backstory” with us?

Thank you for having me. I started my education with a bachelor’s degree in finance and then went in a completely different direction with a master’s degree in fashion design in Milan, Italy.

This led to a job corporate retail in Manhattan’s fashion district as a buyer for a major retail brand. I caught the entrepreneurial bug during my time in New York and I returned home to Chicago to tap into the emerging online streaming business in home entertainment and content distribution.

Launching and bootstrapping the business was both educational and humbling. While I did everything I could to make it a success, I ultimately decided to shutter the business and move on to join a VC-backed start-up in California. This was a great opportunity because the company was using animation technology to disrupt and elevate content creation. So, I was able to use both my design background and my entrepreneurial experience to drive the company forward.

In my spare time, while living in Los Angeles, I was writing fiction. On a writing research trip to India, I met literary agents and editors in New Delhi and pitched my manuscript. Within a few months, I had an agent and a publishing deal with Penguin India. My first novel debuted the next year and the sequel was released a year after. During this time, I was also writing for magazines like Vogue, Men’s Health, Harper’s Bazaar and India Today covering topics from business and culture to opinion pieces and celebrity interviews as well as radio and television interviews in English and Hindi.

The success of my novels allowed me to reevaluate my career as not only an author but as a business communicator with proven storytelling skills. I started a consulting firm to work with companies that needed help developing their brand voice and digital outreach. Ultimately, one of my client projects, Peterson Tech Partners, became so involved and expansive that I made the decision to dedicate the bulk of my time to that work.

Over the last 4 years, I have been building the creative and marketing team for the company from the ground up. I have had the opportunity to utilize all of my experiences and skills in directing the creation of branded content, developing internal and external communication, supporting diversity hiring initiatives, expanding outreach through conferences and events and leading an international team in various different time zones.

This year I was invited to be their first female executive in 24 years and the first Chief Digital Officer. It’s been an exciting journey and there’s a lot of great work to do as we begin the next phase of the company’s expansion into new businesses and stretch our reach globally.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us the lesson or take away, you took out of that story?

In Los Angeles, I was part of a business development team for a VC-backed startup, and my colleagues were very brilliant engineers, visionary leaders and business advisors. I was often the only woman in the room and I learned to speak up, loudly, to be heard.

The experience was foundational to who I am as a leader today, and I absorbed many lessons that stayed with me and nudged me toward bolder moves in my career. My confidence grew as I learned to stand my ground with the many seasoned business men that surrounded me.

Often, I felt like I had to present a hard shell, but when my dog died the shell cracked. And, the confident persona I presented fell away, revealing how sad I was about this certain loss. To my surprise, our tough-as-nails VC comforted me and rallied our leadership team to get me on a flight within an hour– allowing me to make it home in time to say goodbye to my beloved dog.

This revealed another life lesson — never assume a tough exterior means a lack of empathy. Humanity matters, and kindness is universal. It is always the right move.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you tell us a story about how that was relevant in your own life?

We cannot live in the past; it is gone. Nor can we live in the future; it is forever beyond our grasp. We can live only in the present. If we are unaware of our present actions, we are condemned to repeating the mistakes of the past and can never succeed in attaining our dreams for the future. -SN Goenka

I love this quote because it made me realize how often I veer away from being present. I can get caught up in former slights and future expectations, and this can cause me to repeat habits that don’t serve me.

The week before my first book debuted, I took a ten-day silent meditation course on a scenic hillside outside of Mumbai. Goenka’s philosophy was shared during my time at this retreat, and for ten days I was entirely cut off from the world. Being in retreat insulated me from being involved with the chaos that can come from book launches, so I was not involved in the planning.

Suddenly, it was launch time, and I was knee deep in non-stop promotional activity, which is the opposite of silence. I followed my publisher’s plan without question, and there was no space to think or take things personally. I participated in whatever presented itself from tv interviews, magazine stories, radio spots and signing events. It was a thrilling, extraordinary experience that revealed a world I only imagined.

And then it was over. As suddenly as it started.

Goenka’s quote, and my recent experience with silent meditation, gave me the grace to accept the silence after the tour ended. I returned to normal life, back to my computer to stare at the blank document that was my next manuscript, with no PR team to inflate my ego.

What I learned from that quote, and the time on that quiet hillside, was that everything is ultimately only in the present moment. In leadership, equanimity is an extraordinary tool to ride the ebbs and flows that is business, and I extend this to the culture of my teams… when things are flying high, and especially when they’re not.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?

Vaishali Mathur is a publisher at Penguin Random House India. I met her 11 years ago when she was a commissioning editor who was launching a new line of books for the young professional market. Vaishali is someone whose warmth reaches you before anything else. And, now she’s a powerhouse publisher with many business responsibilities, and yet, she’s personable, kind, generous, and incredibly smart.

Meeting Vaishali was the turning point in my life. In having the privilege to join her roster of authors, I had the opportunity to witness her navigate an artistic industry that is both rigid and traditional. And her taking a chance on me was a lesson in what it meant to take strategic risks and then having to defend those decisions.

I am so grateful for the chance Vaishali took on me over a decade ago and am happy to call her my friend to this day.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

As the first female executive in the company’s history, I can attest to the company’s culture and commitment. Not only to our people, but also to our consultants and clients in keeping their best interests at heart.

When the pandemic started in 2020, most of our clients paused all their projects, stopped hiring and began layoffs. We made a conscious decision to go in the other direction. Due to smart financial planning, we were in a fiscal position to be able to keep all of our consultants on the payroll and, most importantly, made certain not to disrupt access to their medical benefits during a frightening global pandemic.

Amidst global angst, we wanted to offer our team members stability and peace of mind to see everyone through the difficulty. Going against the tide of reactive corporate trends was not a flippant decision, and certainly impacted on our bottom line, but we have been through enough ebbs and flows in our business to know that everything is cyclical. Doing the right thing on a human-level mattered more than the market.

This is an example of Peterson’s company culture. It comes down to our people first. We know that when we take care of our team, the company is stronger.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

We are thrilled to be expanding our business to PTP Global and PTP Consulting. With new executives joining our team, we are positioned to help our clients win the war for talent by supplying them with sources in nearshore options. The labor market is exhibiting surprising dualities that suggest a talent shortage, an abundance of jobs, inflation and a potential recession on the horizon. All of this is leading employers to look for innovative recruiting solutions to continue their critical technology projects. That’s where Peterson comes in to offer partnership and guidance on sourcing the right candidates for every project.

With regards to our consulting practice, we are very excited to be offering end-to-end solutions for cutting edge projects in AI/ML, cloud computing, dev op, salesforce, AWS and others. It’s a tremendous privilege to work with a team with as much experience as our leadership to be able to bring our clients the best practices in their fields. I am excited about this next chapter for Peterson.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I believe we are all a work in progress and we are all doing the best that we can with the resources that we have. As a parent, I am very concerned with maternal welfare and was alarmed at inequality in accessing basics for young families at the start of the pandemic. In response, I started a diaper drive to help families pay for necessities.

I would also add that professional success is not a prerequisite for anyone to uplift their environment or community. Over the last four years, I have focused my energy on bringing moms together to help create a connected network where their daily experiences can be shared, normalized, supported and relied upon. I have found tremendous value in meeting other women who had advice for me, who were able to call on me in a difficult moment, or simply, to share a laugh when things were absurd.

Ok. Thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main part of our interview. This may be obvious to you, but it is not intuitive to many people. Can you articulate to our readers five ways that increased diversity can help a company’s bottom line.

Improves problem solving and decision making. One of my former colleagues, an African American woman, was in a leadership rotation at the same time, I was a buyer on the procurement side of a luxury brand. Our work overlapped with supply chain issues and pricing for every season’s product line. My role functioned as the center spoke of a wheel with creative, logistic, financial, sales and business touch points. It was still early in my career, and I did not have the experience to fully understand how to navigate this very diverse business environment, or how to negotiate difficult conversations to get everyone’s buy-in without stepping on someone’s toes.

After becoming fast friends, I observed how she handled integrating into teams with leaders who may have underestimated her or didn’t give credit to her ideas. She taught me how to listen. To be quiet and assess the situation while others danced in circles. She taught me how to be still in stormy workplace dynamics.

In one such situation, we had a product that was being transported by ship from Asia to California with an unsustainable margin on the product. We were at an impasse on how to fix the supply chain problem with the product price that the customer expected. As leadership considered taking a loss on this item for the benefit of the larger brand, my colleague and I were able to dig deeper into the problem. With our varied viewpoints on the business, we found a flaw in the shipping plan that created an expensive and unnecessary redundancy. When we pinpointed the problem, we were able to escalate to leadership who had the authority to reroute the product that would meet deadlines, orders, and exceed the desired margin.

Problem solving and decision making never have linear formulas. What I learned from my friend was to always investigate things deeply, to listen more often than to talk and to enjoy the times when people underestimate you.

Increases productivity. Productivity has been a hot topic of discussion since the pandemic began with the proliferation of remote work. It has given rise to rampant productivity trackers, which border on invasive surveillance, while bosses manage productivity paranoia. Companies have been experiencing collapses in employee engagement and massive turnover. And, while there is no perfect answer for every organization, there is one antidote to the situation. It’s simple but requires honesty and transparency by all parties.

In my experience as a leader, I found that having a diverse team of subject matter experts made it easy for me to trust their judgment, recommendations and work. I do not micromanage, quarterback or negotiate for the best output.

Recently, in launching a new brand to the market in a matter of four weeks, I assigned each member of my team a massive responsibility that would impact the work of each member of the team and the success of the launch if it fell through. I have found that my implicit trust in my individual team members creates a sense of ownership and pride in the work that I cannot manufacture superficially by tracking hours or forcing work conditions on them. The end result of the launch was a perfectly functioning website that connected users to the product that could be used immediately. And it was done in four weeks.

Expands customer base and revenue streams. When I made the decision to focus entirely on my consulting practice, I had to step up my game to better understand why certain brands struggled with their messaging and outreach. I made a choice to focus my energy on small and mid-size companies who were agile enough to pivot quickly on their branding with my aggressive recommendations.

One of the first clients I took on relied entirely on word-of-mouth marketing for nearly a decade. He brought me on initially to better gauge his marketing appetite in the digital space. After my audit, I created a detailed plan and offered an execution strategy that would require a shift in mindset that would bring in new customers and expand the client base but require a full multimedia reset.

The CEO liked it, in theory, but didn’t want to commit to the plan. He went in another direction, bringing on someone in-house to try a more traditional approach.

A year later, I was invited back to the company to reassess how best to fix the stalled situation. I was impressed by the leadership’s commitment to revisit the initiative and accept the project. My perspective as a writer, branding and creative consultant, woman and person of color gave me access to a deeper well of knowledge and experiences to integrate into the plan. In building partnerships with niche groups, expanding the digital footprint beyond the basics, creating emotionally relevant messaging and content for the brand, I was able to work with leadership to expand the customer base and revenue streams that went significantly beyond word of mouth.

Improves employee retention and acquisition. For companies who commit to DEI initiatives beyond the surface level, studies are showing that they are attracting better talent who are willing to stay longer. In this time of choice and high turnover, workers are not looking to bounce around, but they also will not put up with a stressful environment when better options exist.

When companies already have diverse teams, they attract diverse talent. It’s about creating a safe place for people to see themselves and be able to contribute without fear of exclusion.

At Peterson, we are able to attract the best talent because we adhere to this commitment to diversity. We never waver on talent quality and merit, and have found that when we open the doors, top candidates apply in droves. Women. Minorities. Candidates of every age group.

During this time of unpredictability in the job market, our work was noticed by Crain’s Chicago Business who recently honored us as one of the top 100 best companies to work for in Chicago in 2022.

We believe in honoring human relationships and recognizing that talent comes in every profile. The barriers to entry are low with universal access to education and certifications. And, I am proud to say that Peterson is a shining example of taking diversity seriously and being able to build trust with our employees and consultants that leads to retention and loyalty.

Sparks innovation. One of the most fascinating projects that I have worked on was a tool that would disrupt visual storytelling in a way that could mimic painters and hand drawn illustrations to create long form video content. Every Friday, our team gathered for lunch in our common room and put on an animated film for everyone to watch together. It was a form of story time for grown-ups where the team could study what industry leaders were putting out. It was also a time of connection, quiet contemplation and creative recharge. We had a diverse team of PhDs, graphic designers, production managers, coders, the business team and the executives. The time we spent together often resulted in lively conversation and discussion on strategies that we could try.

This ‘story time’ allowed everyone to come together without hierarchy or pressure and with it came creative output for company growth. One of the best ideas to come out of these sessions was the decision to move forward with an app that users could utilize on their smartphones. Giving this very advanced tool to everyone in the palm of their hand became a major initiative for the company as a whole.

What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees to thrive?

The most important thing in work today is purpose. For employees to thrive, they have to be excited about the work they are participating in, and a paycheck alone is not enough incentive for employees to invest their time with a company.

A positive attitude is critical. Negativity is not only contagious, but detrimental to productivity, morale and retention. It’s important to create a space that is open to learning, innovation, taking risks and having fun.

Encourage stretch projects where employees can pursue exciting ideas or initiatives while maintaining their performance in the current role. This not only offers an opportunity for your employees to learn new skills, but also feel more in control of their goals.

When I have a high performer on my team, I make it a regular practice to appreciate their work personally. I am open, honest and generous with my feedback when a team member delivers above and beyond expectations. Withholding praise is a terrible practice. It’s important for employees to be recognized for their good work and for it to be done regularly.

Finally, I would say the most important thing in creating an environment for your employees to thrive comes down to one simple thing; trust. I do not believe in micromanaging or hovering over my team. I do not quarterback. I have high expectations, and I offer full autonomy for my team to get their work done on their terms. I have learned that trusting my team is a far more productive strategy than trying to manage every detail myself. It is also much more rewarding to work with a team that consistently delivers because you give them the space to do their work without interference.

What advice would you give to other business leaders about how to manage a large team?

There are basic frameworks that I believe are universally transferable. I have managed teams in different time zones internationally, and of varying sizes, and found that success comes from the ability to pivot and be flexible. With larger teams, it’s critical to hire and nurture the best managers. The teams themselves need to have a self-starting, self-reliant mindset and culture in order to deliver without the bottleneck of your attention. I trust my team to have the subject matter expertise to make the best decisions. I remind them regularly that I will not have all the answers, but I promise I will have all the questions. Additionally, goals have to be clearly established with timelines, deadlines and vision right at the onset. Allowing autonomy on a team only works with strong managers and precise parameters on the end game.

Every day, I am constantly switching gears between a dozen high priority initiatives and projects that are ongoing at the same time. Clear communication is vital in my ability to manage larger teams and external partners. I would also recommend that no matter how large the team becomes, that a leader should always remain accessible and available to everyone. It benefits no one if a team member is not able to approach their managers with a fantastic new idea or raise the flag on an obstacle because they’re just not comfortable. It’s not about the person leading the charge, it’s about the open and inclusive culture that is perpetuated by that leader to help drive success.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this 🙂

It would be a joy to sit down with Bozoma Saint John. Her marketing achievements speak for themselves, but I also love the way she continually reinvents her career and personal brand.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

I am quite active on Linked in and often share articles and commentary on trending news.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tulika/

Thank you for these excellent insights. We wish you continued success in your great work.

Thank you for sharing my insights.

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Tulika Mehrotra On How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Jason Averbook Of Leapgen On How To Use Digital Transformation To Take Your Company To The Next Level

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Use data to make better decisions: Technology can take a company to the next level ONLY when they leverage this data to improve business strategy for success.

As a part of our series about “How To Use Digital Transformation To Take Your Company To The Next Level”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jason Averbook.

Jason Averbook is the CEO and Co-founder of Leapgen, the HR technology consultant and digital transformation company shaping the NOW of work. Averbook is a thought leader and leading analyst in human resources, the future of work, and technology’s impact on that future. At Leapgen, Averbook helps organizations shape their future workplace by broadening executive mindset to rethink how to design and deliver employee services that meet the expectations of the workforce and the needs of the business.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

My name is Jason Averbook, CEO and Co-founder of Leapgen.

A little about my backstory: I’ve been in the world of human resources and work technology for the last 30 years. I started implementing payroll, which really helped me understand what it took to drive HR functions, including payroll and back-office processes.

From that point on, I’ve tried to think about how to help HR. How can I help payroll? How can I help finance, automate, so that they can focus on the human side of truly driving their strategy? So I’ve worked for software vendors. I’ve been an HR practitioner on the learning and development side. I’ve been on the services side, building companies focused on strategy. I’ve been on the product side, too, building more products that truly are innovative and how people work. Still, today, I have a massive appetite for trying to make work better.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

That’s a go-live party. It’s the implementation of software where you celebrate and say, “thank goodness, we’re finally live.” I was the head of HR and the CEO of a major insurance company. Through implementing software, we were able to reduce their time to fill a job from 52 days to 37 days. We thought that was a huge win. We reduced 15 days from their time to fill!

Then we went to the CEO, who said, “you have to be kidding me. It takes 37 days to fill a job here.” From that point on, it was a huge lesson; how we measure success in HR is not by our own metrics, but truly by the metrics of the business.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

There are so many people that I’m grateful to that have helped me along the way. I think probably the first and foremost I’d say is my wife. She’s helped me a ton in driving my success, in keeping me focused on what I was trying to accomplish, and always being there as support while raising two boys who are both teenagers today. Second of all, I am very thankful to all of the CHROS, the Chief Human Resource Officers, who are trying to make the HR function more strategic, who are trying to make the HR function more human, and trying to make the HR function more aligned to the business. Those individuals keep me focused every day. I’m thinking about how to stop counting people, and start making people count.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Probably the biggest film that has had an impact on me is Moneyball. The story of Moneyball is all about talent, and what talent can do, but it’s not necessarily about how much you pay for talent. It’s not necessarily about how you manage talent, but it’s about understanding talent. It’s about understanding how talent works together towards an outcome. Watching the process of developing talent, understanding talent, measuring talent, and putting the best talent on the field can help you achieve outcomes. In this case, it was winning the World Series. So Moneyball, for sure, would be the movie I’d say had the biggest impact on me.

Extensive research suggests that “purpose-driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?

When Leapgen started, our vision was to help make work better. That’s it, the vision was to help make work better. As they entered the workforce, I wanted to ensure that my teenagers had a place to work that valued them, a place that they cared about and could be proud of. The work we do today is still focused on that. How do we create the best work experience that closely mirrors the outside world experience? One of our problems is that outside of work, we’re humans, but inside of work, we do inhuman things. That’s a huge problem going forward, especially with Gen Z.

Are you working on any new, exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

Every single thing we do is an exciting project. How do we think they help people? I think they help people by learning that there are no right answers. There’s only right: innovation.

We’re all creating the future of work and what we like to call the “now of work” together. So really, everything we do is exciting. The way we help people is by doing things like this interview, by sharing this knowledge. We share why experience is most important, why transactions are no longer the golden rule, but interactions, and how experiences are the things that truly drive the feeling of excitement.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about Digital Transformation. For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what exactly Digital Transformation means? On a practical level what does it look like to engage in a Digital Transformation?

Let’s think about the concept of digital transformation. What does it look like? Digital transformation is a mindset shift that helps businesses reframe how they operate. Now a lot of people, unfortunately, think of digital transformation as buying technology. Technology might be a component of transformation, but it’s not the only thing. When we think of digital, digital is not just technology, digital is a mindset shift into how things get done.

There are four key components to digital. First of all, how do we understand and develop the mindset to do things differently? We need to be digital, not do digital. It needs to be part of the fabric of how we work. That mindset needs to be part of the fabric of how we work. That mindset has to include key measures of success, and those measures of success have to be business measures of success, not only technology measures of success. The second key component of digital is ensuring that you’re designing for the right audience. In the past, we’ve designed for functions like HR, payroll, and finance. Today, we need to design for the workforce and meet the workforce in the flow of where they do their work. If we do that, they’ll buy into our model of work; they’ll feel engaged, and therefore we will get data from them that we can use to make better business decisions.

The third component is thinking about processes and journeys. In a digital world, processes generate data, but journeys generate feelings, and we need to understand those feelings for people to adopt new ways of thinking. They need to feel valued. They need to feel like it was valuable to them. Therefore, we must think about how to design journeys that work for them, not just processes that generate data.

The last component of digital is technology. What technology do we need to meet our goals, our objectives and our measures of success? So if we think about the four components, mindset, audience, journey, and technology, that’s what digital is. And if we think about transformation, it’s discovering how we truly change work in order to deliver better outcomes to the entire organization.

Which companies can most benefit from a Digital Transformation?

It’s every organization in the world. Every organization in the world must think about transforming. Now, why do I say must? Work has changed, workers have changed, and business has changed. What should the company do, stay the same? That makes no sense. We will be completely out of business if we do that. Every company in the world must think about how they are continually being digital in the way that they think.

We’d love to hear about your experiences helping others with Digital Transformation. In your experience, how has Digital Transformation helped improve operations, processes and customer experiences? We’d love to hear some stories if possible.

Let me just talk about a couple of them. First of all, working with a large nurse organization. This nursing organization had a turnover of 27% for first-year nurses. If those nurses stayed past the first year, that turnover dropped by 5%. Excuse me? Yes, that turnover dropped to 5%! Ensuring we were checking in with people during their first year reduced that turnover from 27% to 12%. Think about that. Think about how much more effective and efficient that nursing ward is because of that drop. Think about patient satisfaction. Think about costs. All of those are results of that.

Another example. How do I quickly onboard people in a world thats short on talent? Working with quick-serve restaurants, we were able to transform how they hire. They were able to interview someone one day and have them start the next day, then have them paid that next day. That’s a process that took two to four weeks in the past. Think of the revenue, and think of the customer dissatisfaction that would happen during that time. Those are some examples of how organizations can truly benefit from transformation.

Has integrating Digital Transformation been a challenging process for some companies? What are the challenges? How do you help resolve them?

Integrating transformation is always challenging for companies. And the biggest challenge is unlearning. We’ve been at this a long time; business isn’t new. What is changing is how we do things. The opportunity to focus on hands, heads, and hearts. Technology’s great at doing hands work. People are great at doing hearts work. So what we need people doing is hearts work.

The challenge is shifting people from doing hands work to doing hearts work, from getting people to trust that employees and managers can interact with tools. It’s getting people to change processes that maybe have existed for 20 to 30 years. These processes no longer have to be that complicated. It’s getting organizations to realize that what they’ve been measuring and doing for the last 10 years no longer matters. These are the biggest challenges, which is why change enablement is one of the most important things that we do, and help organizations resolve those challenges. But this has to start at day zero, it can’t start at the end of a program. It has to start at day zero. Change and unlearning are the most critical components of driving transformation.

Ok. Thank you. Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are “Five Ways a Company Can Use Digital Transformation To Take It To The Next Level”? Please share a story or an example for each.

#1: Develop a mindset shift: Accept the reality of the digital era of work as an opportunity to shift your way of thinking about work completely.

#2 Integrate automation: Efficient implementation of automation will allow organizations to eliminate manual work and old processes to create room for new ones.

#3: Allow HR to be strategic: Efficiently supporting management and all employees through digital transformation is another opportunity for HR to focus on strategy. Give employees and managers the tools they need to get their jobs done. Give the HR function the capabilities they need to be truly strategic, not just transactional data enters.

#4 Focus on employee experience: This is the time to transform the employee experience. This transformation should ensure that your employees want to be there. This is an opportunity to make sure their work engages them, not enrages them.

#5 Use data to make better decisions: Technology can take a company to the next level ONLY when they leverage this data to improve business strategy for success.

In your opinion, how can companies best create a “culture of innovation” in order to create new competitive advantages?

Three things. Number one: accept failure. Introduce flexibility into accountability, and don’t hold people accountable when things don’t work. We have to try. We’re all actors in this movie. Number two: lean on the data from technology. Technology without data doesn’t get us anywhere. Building a solid foundation is so incredibly important. Once you have that solid foundation, you can focus on innovation, but without a solid foundation, it becomes very, very hard. Number Three: be excellent at change. This is how you truly create a culture of innovation.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favorite life lesson quote is pretty easy to choose: never give up. I have no idea who said that first, but in a world where you’re trying to change the world, where you’re trying to do crazy things that people tell you that you’re never going to be able to do, the only thing you can do is stay positive and never give up.

How can our readers further follow your work?

People can follow my work at leapgen.com, @jasonaverbook on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok.

Most importantly, people can follow my work by committing to making work better. You’ll find me there, but it’s not just finding me. It’s taking the knowledge and using it, using it to make your world of work better.

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!

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Jason Averbook Of Leapgen On How To Use Digital Transformation To Take Your Company To The Next… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Alexandra Jankovich and Tom Voskes Of SparkOptimus On How To Use Digital Transformation To Take Your Company To The Next Level

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

… The wrong way is to set up an ‘Innovation Hub’ outside the business and fill it with expensive new people. The right way is to give people within the business the freedom to experiment with what they’re doing, and equip them with digital tools to get rapid feedback data. Then they need to adopt a fast-paced rhythm of testing, learning, and running new iterations of the test. High performing digital businesses are constantly testing every aspect of what they’re doing in one-to-two-week cycles.

As part of our series about “How To Use Digital Transformation To Take Your Company To The Next Level”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Alexandra Jankovich and Tom Voskes, Co-Founders of SparkOptimus.

Alexandra Jankovich and Tom Voskes are co-founders of award-winning digital strategy consultancy firm, SparkOptimus, and experts in the ‘why’ and ‘how to’ of digital transformation. Since launching in 2010, SparkOptimus has worked with global companies and change-makers on over 900 digital projects in 25+ countries. Alongside writer and editor Adrian Hornsby, they have co-authored new book Disruption in Action.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

We founded SparkOptimus over a conversation beside a fish tank in an empty Chinese restaurant — perhaps the most unglamorous spot in the Netherlands! We’d just done a digital project together, and took the leap of faith that this could become a business. Fast forwards 12 years and digital transformation has become one of the most pressing issues in business.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

In terms of gratitude, our biggest debt has to be to each other. We don’t always agree, but by pushing and pulling we make our ideas better — and that’s the best thing co-founders can do for each other.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

It’s perhaps a surprising one, but we’re very fond of the books of C. Northcote Parkinson — especially Tom. For those who aren’t familiar with him, Parkinson was a writer and public administrator in the mid-20th century who wrote humorous books about the paradoxes of bureaucracy. They’re brilliantly funny and timeless because they’re really about human nature which, after all, is what business is too. Businesses are people.

Extensive research suggests that “purpose-driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?

We fundamentally believe that tech should make the world better. We see it in everything — from new, easier ways to order food to better healthcare and education. Our purpose is to help organizations unlock the power of digital to improve things for people and the environment.

We also believe that the future will be defined by those organizations that master tech and data now, and use them to improve their products and services for customers, the environment and society at large.

This was our founding vision, and for over a decade we have been implementing it by working with top global companies and digital pure players — inspiring and guiding them to create disruptive yet sustainable value. We help leaders transform their organizations and unlock that better world.

Are you working on any new, exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

This year we launched refugeehelp.com in response to the crisis in Ukraine. It’s a digital platform that coordinates information about all the different services available to people arriving in the country for the first time. We saw there was a lot of help out there, but it could be extremely hard to navigate, and this was where we could do something. We built the site in collaboration with the Dutch Council for Refugees and a long list of NGOs, and the results have been incredible and uplifting. We had 65k users in the first fortnight alone!

Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion about Digital Transformation. For the benefit of our readers, can you help explain what exactly Digital Transformation means? On a practical level what does it look like to engage in a Digital Transformation?

There is no magic bullet here, and digital transformations can involve many different kinds of initiative — from digital acquisitions to launching e-commerce platforms to full scale transformations of global operations. But the key is the use of digital systems to start improving things for customers. The transformation follows from that, and the digital part is only ever a means to an end.

Which companies can most benefit from a Digital Transformation?

Digital is for everyone. It’s relevant across all industries, and because the landscape is constantly evolving, transformation is an ongoing process. This means all companies have to engage and no one’s done!

We’d love to hear about your experiences helping others with Digital Transformation. In your experience, how has Digital Transformation helped improve operations, processes and customer experiences? We’d love to hear some stories if possible.

There are many ways, but to give an example, we worked with a manufacturer on an app that helped them share information better with their distributors. This improved operational efficiency, but also, by helping them understand their end customers better, they were able to offer more relevant products. The happy customer feedback gave everyone a boost, and that provided the momentum to keep driving the change.

Has integrating Digital Transformation been a challenging process for some companies? What are the challenges? How do you help resolve them?

The biggest mistake is to think it’s all about tech. Digital change is 80% people. Companies have workforces and departments and ways of doing things, and you can’t change all that just by sending round a pdf and some software. Plus departmental leaders become defensive if they sense an intrusion. The most important thing is always to get people on board, and at every level throughout the organization. If you can win the buy-in, you can always sort out the tech.

Ok. Thank you. Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are “Five Ways a Company Can Use Digital Transformation to Take It To The Next Level”?

Stories are super-important — they help people understand what these digital initiatives really look like and how the people side plays out. Our new book, Disruption in Action, is structured around seven inside stories of companies taking on digital. Here’s a sneak preview of five:

• The Acquisition: A global retail company buys a digital start-up, but common understanding is hard to find. Things take a dangerous turn, leading to a rethink of digital, and ultimately of the global company itself.
• The Venture: A large corporate launches a digital start-up, sparking a four-year journey through pivots, downturns and competitor attacks.
• The Pilot or Sandbox: A soft drinks company creates a space for freeform experimentation within existing operations. They test new ideas, but also learn a lot about people, and what that means for getting new ideas moving throughout the company.
• Global Transformation: A flooring multinational is under attack from a digital disruptor. The new CEO rethinks the business model, forms a transformation masterplan, and pulls the trigger. Two years later, he and the chief implementer talk through progress.
• People Change: Personal accounts from people who experience a digital eureka.

In your opinion, how can companies best create a “culture of innovation” in order to create new competitive advantages?

The wrong way is to set up an ‘Innovation Hub’ outside the business and fill it with expensive new people. The right way is to give people within the business the freedom to experiment with what they’re doing, and equip them with digital tools to get rapid feedback data. Then they need to adopt a fast-paced rhythm of testing, learning, and running new iterations of the test. High performing digital businesses are constantly testing every aspect of what they’re doing in one-to-two-week cycles.

Can you please give us your favourite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Digital change is happening and a lot of companies are getting disrupted. We like to say: make disruption work for you.

We make disruption work by helping our clients navigate the impact digital is having on their industries, and turning it into a power. The best businesses are constantly disrupting themselves to get better and better.

How can our readers further follow your work?

By reading our new book, Disruption in Action, and visiting our Insights Hub, where we feature updates about our books, articles, and our CEO Stories — a YouTube series where we interview top CEOs and change leaders on digital disruption.

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!

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Alexandra Jankovich and Tom Voskes Of SparkOptimus On How To Use Digital Transformation To Take… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Non-Fungible Tokens: Jeff Zeller Of Crypto.com NFT On The 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Highly Successful Career In The NFT Industry

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Remain adaptable — Having worked in tech and blockchain and Web3 development, I knew going into NFTs that it’d be a change of pace and I’d have to work fast, but it’s even faster than I thought. As a participant, you are constantly learning and adapting to the market. Even in roles that are non-technical, it’s important to have even the most basic idea of what is going on at an industry level. Both of these lessons have served me well at Crypto.com NFT.

Many have observed that we are at the cusp of an NFT boom. The thing is, it’s so cutting edge, that many people don’t know what it is. What exactly is an NFT and how can one create a lucrative career out of selling them? To address this, as a part of our interview series called “5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Highly Successful Career In The NFT Industry”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Jeff Zeller.

Jeff Zeller is the senior director of NFT partnerships and business operations at Crypto.com, where he is focused on expanding NFT programs with key strategic partners. Zeller joined Crypto.com’s rapidly growing NFT business from ESPN, where he was the director of entertainment partnerships and marketing, working on content properties like “The Last Dance” and “30 for 30,” in addition to managing the licensed merchandise business for the global sports network. He also previously held senior roles at Sony Music and Apple.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?

Of course! I’m in NYC now, but spent the first 25 years of my life in Colorado and California. Sports were a huge part of my upbringing — both as a fan (of any and all sports) and as a player (tennis). Outside of school and sports, I’ve always loved collecting things and over the years have collected coins, sports cards, music, pins, and magazine print ads.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

As far as a book that influenced my professional life, the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson was one of my favorites. I already respected and admired Steve Jobs (and worked at Apple) prior to the book being published and Steve’s passing, but to get more information about how he built a company, managed people, strove for excellence, paid attention to details — those were all approaches that resonated deeply with me.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in this new industry? We’d love to hear it.

While I was curious about NFTs dating back to the earliest days (first exposure for me was minting CryptoKitties), when NFTs really had their breakout moment in sports and pop culture with NBA Top Shot is when I really started paying closer attention. In a lot of ways, the NFT industry operates as a combination of everything I’ve done in my career prior to this, and it’s always nice to leverage the experience you’ve already built.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?

I was able to give a talk at this year’s NFT.NYC conference, which is definitely not something I could have foreseen even a year ago. I do remember paying attention to the fact that the event was going on last year (I live in NYC), and being fascinated by the people I encountered walking on the street talking about Bored Apes, and little did I know I would be speaking to that audience only a year later.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

While I consider myself to be a technical person, I have had to learn a LOT about the underpinnings of blockchains, what actually happens during the minting process, etc. One specific funny story is the number of different hoops I jumped through to set up a specific staking pairing on SushiSwap (many token purchases / transfers from one wallet to another, etc) without knowing that the platform made all of that super simple and I did way more work than I needed to (and paid way more in gas fees). I look back and laugh now, but it’s always a good reminder that we as an industry have a duty to users (especially new users) to make the experience as easy and intuitive as possible!

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I am grateful to the person who originally hired me for my position, Joe Conyers, who I had known from the music industry. I always respected his smarts and entrepreneurial success, and was fortunate to work with him. I also credit my married friends Lisa and Viktor (who both work in crypto) for always educating their friends and family about the space and in general just recruiting more and more people to join the fold. They helped me navigate a lot of the unknown especially in the early days, and specifically gave me the advice that new people coming in have to show that they can and will add value to the overall community and space.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Always! Luckily for me, the projects I work on are primarily sourced and brought in by others who are more talented at sales and sponsorship, but I love it when those projects are passed over to me for execution and I can roll up my sleeves and get into the specifics with the partner on how we can bring something to life. We have several recurring but also brand new projects that I am very excited to roll out in the coming months. I hope that these projects will help onboard more new users into crypto for the very first time through NFTs, similar to how I got hooked. By tapping a passion point for fans, NFTs can be the thing that breaks down any preconceived notions and gives them a reason to learn more, which is what I think our programs will achieve.

Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. I’m sure you get this question all the time. But for the benefit of our readers, can you explain in your own words what an NFT is, and why people are spending so much money on them?

Think of an NFT like a digital collectible. Just like physical collectibles, NFTs can be purchased (directly from a creator or through a marketplace), given away for free (redemption or airdrop), or earned (an achievement or certificate). NFTs have both a visual layer and an informational layer. The visual layer describes what the NFT looks like — whether it’s an illustration, a video clip, a 3D animation, or a drawing of a cartoon ape. The informational layer describes what the NFT is — its attributes, who the original artist is, the history of ownership, and what, if any, access or membership the NFT represents.

People typically buy NFTs for two reasons: (1) they like the art (visual layer) and/or (2) they like the community or experiences that the NFT grants access to (informational layer). Popular NFT collections have remained popular not because owners buy them and then sit on the sidelines. The most successful collections have very active owner communities, who are communicating daily in digital forums (Discord, Twitter), but also looking to meet up in person as well (conferences, invite-only events). As for why people spend so much money on them, as it turns out people really value art and community/experiences, which shouldn’t come as too big of a surprise if we look at the analogs in the physical realm.

The NFT industry seems so exciting right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry? If you can, please share a story or example for each.

I’m very excited that people are experimenting and innovating in the space to see what works and what doesn’t. That to me shows progress. For example within the sports space, I love that participants in the NFT space are evolving their gamification and participation models with things like burn and upgrade mechanisms, so that we aren’t so attached to the idea that the quantity of things is fixed from the beginning and can’t change.

I am also thrilled that big platforms are finding ways to integrate NFTs into the existing social experience. The more integrations for NFTs, the better!

Third, I’m excited that partners like the ones we work with at Crypto.com really want to lean in and evolve their organizations to embrace web3 as a whole. NFTs are just a starting point for many of them, and a good one at that, but they are also talking about the long term vision and thinking, “Ok, how else can we integrate with Crypto.com product and service offerings to benefit our fans?”

What are the 3 things that concern you about the industry? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

I would use the word “challenges.” One big challenge is that anything that operates in the digital realm crosses borders in a way that physical items do not, which brings with it a complex set of different rules and regulations in different territories. If we assume that not every territory will operate in the exact same way, then we as an industry need to make sure that we employ people to help translate from one jurisdiction to another, making things easy to understand for consumers.

Another challenge that is being actively addressed by things like the Ethereum merge is how do we continue to innovate on not just the technology, but also the sustainability of the whole ecosystem. Adopting proof-of-stake was a big step in that direction for a chain like Ethereum with massive adoption. Then you have companies that have made various climate commitments to go along with the overall mission. I think that this culture of always learning and adapting, and awareness needs to continue.

Finally, I would like to keep improving on the challenge of onboarding more new users into the industry without them feeling overwhelmed or unwelcomed. If we have a hyper-focus on the end-user experience, and create a culture of openness vs. competition, that will go a long way to making people feel comfortable from the moment they encounter crypto for the first time.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about NFTs? Can you explain what you mean?

One myth is that NFTs can’t change, that they’re locked in stone forever. Some projects have shown this to not be true with the art itself evolving over time. What’s “permanent” about NFTs has more to do with the blockchain and the history of activity of the NFT (ownership, transaction, transfer, etc) than it does the NFT itself.

Another myth is that you need to be technical in order to have an NFT. There are many platforms, including Crypto.com NFT, that are trying to make buying or claiming an NFT as simple as buying anything else that you would do through e-commerce. While there are more advanced ways to participate in NFTs, at the entry level, it can be (and is) as easy as finding the item you want on a specific website/app, clicking “Buy Now,” and entering payment details. That’s it!

What are the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they enter the NFT industry? What can be done to avoid that?

One big one is participating for the wrong reasons, or bringing in unfair expectations to begin with. In my opinion, it’s better for the space as a whole if someone’s reason for entering the NFT space is due to their appreciation for the art, the collectible or the community that accompanies an NFT and not “to make money.” There are plenty of other ways to make money, and speculation for speculation’s sake imbalances the true supply and demand of the market.

How do you think NFTs have the potential to help society in the future?

I am very excited for a future where NFTs evolve beyond buying digital items, and expand into representations of other things of value in our world (things that are NOT meant to be sold). For example, recordkeeping (birth certificates, house deeds, etc), achievements/certifications, or mementos (digital ticket stubs) are all things that can help society operate more efficiently and more transparently.

Ok, fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Highly Successful Career In The NFT Industry?”

1. Think like a collector, even if you’re the creator — I’ve learned that to be successful in NFTs, you must prioritize and embody the same traits that NFT collectors value. The benefit of NFTs being a decentralized product is that the decision-making power of the community is distributed rather than concentrated, so I’d say the top trait that NFT collectors value is communication. They value and expect frequent, honest, and transparent communication, and they will call you out if you don’t show up and align.
2. Remain adaptable — Having worked in tech and blockchain and Web3 development, I knew going into NFTs that it’d be a change of pace and I’d have to work fast, but it’s even faster than I thought. As a participant, you are constantly learning and adapting to the market. Even in roles that are non-technical, it’s important to have even the most basic idea of what is going on at an industry level. Both of these lessons have served me well at Crypto.com NFT.
3. Retain collector’s attention post-drop — To create a successful career out of creating and selling NFTs, the collection itself needs to have both a visual and informational layer to catch and retain collectors’ attention. Successful NFT creators continue engagement with owner communities post-drop, rather than treating the mint like the end of the campaign. That sign of commitment is what creates excitement to be successful long-term. Because NFTs are easily tradable, demand can be driven by social phenomena. More often than not a successful project is bolstered by its fundamental product/service behind it, but typically also has the x-factor of momentum and community support.
4. Network with other execs, creators, collectors — In NFTs especially, it’s important to find other like-minded individuals from around the world, and add them on Linkedin, follow them on social media, and share their content and comment. Those in the space genuinely love to see people supporting other creators, projects, and communities, especially when that takes the form of adding value without asking for or/expecting anything in return. Once you’ve built up your network doing this, you’ll start to see the return from people in your network doing the same for you. It’s a great feeling to be a part of the NFT community, and I hope to see it continue to grow and flourish.
5. Know that there are many different ways to start — Because NFTs themselves can represent so many things, the great news is that the companies and roles that are utilizing them are also extremely diverse. This means that you don’t need to be interested in pursuing a career purely “in tech” in order to touch and utilize this technology. A great place to start is to figure out where you can add value: what skills do you have and what roles/industries value those skills? What skills do you want to develop and where are you most interested in spending your time?

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Wow, that is a very intriguing question. I guess I need to think bigger with my potential impact! Well as far as something that impacts every person on earth, it’s not a new movement but I would love to inspire continued action to combat and reverse the impacts of climate change. No matter where you live you cannot escape these changes, and without the feeling of safety in your own environment, it’s hard to be very productive at anything else. So the more that every industry, including NFTs, can consider this in their mission, the better off our future humanity will be.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Well I’m a huge tennis fan and my favorite player Roger Federer just retired after an unbelievable career. So in theory he has more time available for private meals with fans and friends now, so I’d just let him know that I’m available whenever 🙂

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!

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Non-Fungible Tokens: Jeff Zeller On The 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a High was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meet The Disruptors: Michael Schrader Of Vaxess On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

When you look at why many people remain unvaccinated, a couple of the main causes are simply that vaccines are either inaccessible, or people have needle-phobia. Because of the work Vaxess is doing, we will show the world that the future of vaccines is injection free, and accessible from the comfort of your home.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Schrader, CEO and co-founder of Vaxess, a life sciences company developing a shelf-stable, sustained-release vaccine patch.

Michael has spent his career transforming complex technologies into transformational products. Prior to Vaxess, Michael spent time at Google and Honda where he helped bring a range of products to market and earned more than fifteen patents. Michael received his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Purdue University and his M.B.A. from Harvard.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

As an HBS student in Professor Vicki Sato’s Commercializing Science class, I wanted to tackle an unmet global health care need by applying my engineering and business skills to a solvable problem. Working with my cofounders, we saw an opportunity to supply much-needed vaccines worldwide without refrigeration or cold storage using silk. During our first year as a bootstrapped startup, Vaxess won the inaugural Harvard President’s Innovation Challenge, as well as several other business competitions. A decade later, Vaxess has adapted and innovated our business model. COVID-19 showed us that to be prepared for the next global pandemic, we need to make a fundamental paradigm shift in the method of vaccine delivery in two major ways, administration of and access to vaccines. Vaxess has moved to a platform vaccine delivery company, owning a new method and instrument of delivery.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

The days of vaccines being associated with making appointments, traveling to clinics, and receiving uncomfortable shots will soon come to an end. Vaxess is working towards a future where vaccines for the majority of illnesses — from flu to COVID — move out of the clinic and into remote locations, ranging from workplaces to schools to the home. Instead of going to a pharmacy or doctor’s office to receive a vaccine via needle and syringe, we envision a future in which you’ll have a vaccine patch mailed right to your door.

Vaxess Technologies, along with teams at Tufts University and The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have developed the MIMIX platform. This technology changes vaccine delivery from a needle-and-syringe to a patch-based format. Patients apply the patch as simply as an ordinary Band-Aid. This means no more needle and syringe injections, no more wasted vials of vaccine, and no more children or adults afraid to get a shot!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Very early on in Vaxess’s history, I made a funny mistake related to our partnerships.

When Vaxess started, there were four companies that we wanted to partner with — two based in the U.S., and two in Europe. For all the American companies, we invited them to meet us in person. When they got to our incubator, they basically said, “You want to do our vaccine formulation work, but you have no lab?” Needless to say, we didn’t get deals with any of the American companies. When we were doing business development with European companies, all the discussions were on the phone. They understood that the science was sound and that we could communicate well on our plans. We ended up getting deals with the European companies because we were in the “Harvard i-lab,” which they perceived to be a lab facility.

The lesson I learned from this was it’s not just the best science that wins the day: It’s the total package of the science, the company, the team, and the way you present yourself.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

I’ve had so many incredible mentors. Here, I’ll just name a couple:

One mentor who’s had a big impact on Vaxess is Vikram Lamba, who was CEO of Zosano when I first met him. When we first started looking at this drug delivery technology, every other player in the space was trying to convince Sanofi, Merck and GSK to work with them. Vikram told us to forget that, control our own destiny, find a molecule that you can bring in house, own outright, and take forward on the platform yourself. It was a totally different vision and approach to operating in the drug delivery space than anyone else I had talked to. It changed the trajectory of Vaxess.

The second is Vicki Sato, who was a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School when we met and is currently on President Biden’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Vicki advised us when we were students, and her support for Vaxess has never wavered. When we’ve had points where the company was on the brink, Vikki’s always been our biggest supporter, doing whatever we needed to help us move forward. She was always our rock, no matter how early we were or no matter how hard things got.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

In the industry Vaxess is in, the need for disruption is clear. Today, more than 1.5 million people globally die each year from a disease that has a safe and effective vaccine. In this case, I’d argue that disruption is absolutely necessary to help bring this 1.5 million annual deaths statistic down to zero.

When you look at why many people remain unvaccinated, a couple of the main causes are simply that vaccines are either inaccessible, or people have needle-phobia. Because of the work Vaxess is doing, we will show the world that the future of vaccines is injection free, and accessible from the comfort of your home.

I respect some of the early comments that Elon Musk made about disruption. He wanted to do electrification so well that every other automaker in the world would want to follow. Our goal is not to say “Vaxess needs to make every vaccine in the world,” but to push forward this technology platform to the point where all vaccine makers understand that the future of vaccine delivery is shelf-stable and injection free.

Can you share three of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

1. Become a cockroach company: I had a mentor advise me to forget about trying to become a unicorn company, and focus on trying to become a cockroach company — meaning a company that simply will not die and continues to find ways to iterate creatively until they find their path. You think of companies in the vaccine space — historically, this was not a desirable space in the venture community, and very few pharma companies were investing in vaccine startups. Then Covid hit, and all of a sudden the vaccine space is a hot and exciting area. Oftentimes, building a successful company is not about racing to unicorn status, but continuing to find ways to keep science moving forward and programs moving forward. Then, when circumstances do move in your direction, you are ready.
2. For entrepreneurship, you have to have a longer time horizon that you might think: When I was first contemplating starting a company before Vaxess, one of my mentors who was an entrepreneur asked if I’d be happy doing this job in 10 years. I laughed, and said “absolutely not.” I hoped to build a product and quickly flip it. He laughed at me and explained that, when you look at startups, the majority go bust within a year or two, and a very small percentage have rocketship takeoffs. The startups that don’t fall into those two buckets grind it out for a long period of time. At Vaxess, we just crossed our 10-year anniversary, and some of our most crucial inflection points have occurred in the last few years of the company.
3. Understand the incentives that motivate prospective investors, partners, and employees: My main focus when I’m engaging a prospective partner, employee, investor, or grantee is trying to understand what motivates the person at the other side of the table. When we were first starting, I would take VC rejections personally. I’d get frustrated, and think, “How can this person not see this is a really big deal?” What I learned over the years is that the individual I was trying to get something from has their own incentives, and oftentimes when they’re declining it had nothing to do with what we were building at Vaxess. It was simply that the incentives they have to pursue — whether it’s a VC with a specific fund priority, or an employee with a certain family situation, or a partner that has corporate strategic priorities that were passed down — did not align with ours. The sooner you can understand the incentives that motivate the people and organizations you’re trying to work with, the fewer headaches you’ll have as an entrepreneur!

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

When you’re developing a new technology, the first step is understanding the first opportunity for applying that technology. For us, flu is a phenomenal first opportunity — we’re very excited to have recently started a clinical trial, and will release results of the trial in the coming months.

Once we’ve proven that the MIMIX patch is safe and immunogenic for the flu vaccine, we will have more to share about applying the MIMIX platform to a number of other vaccines and therapies.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

One book that’s changed my thinking significantly is Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street.

In a startup ecosystem, you simply cannot afford to make hiring mistakes. This book talks extensively about the key things that organizations need to be doing when they’re not hiring, all the way through engaging employees’ networks to interviewing candidates. Who has had a transformational impact on how Vaxess hires.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.” –Michael J. Fox

I simply couldn’t do what I do without the love and support of my family. They’re everything to me, and I do my best every day to prioritize them relative to my work.

In watching many of my peers in the entrepreneurial community grow up, what I’ve seen is you get many shots at a career. People who do not prioritize family, I think, in many cases, struggle with that in the longer term.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

What Covid has made me acutely aware of is that vaccine deniers are few, but they’re very loud. My message to the greater community is that it’s ok to be proud and loud about being part of the pro-science, pro-vaccine community. There’s a lot of people out there that understand the science behind the vaccines, and understand the safety profile behind vaccines is very strong — encouraging more people to be positive and vocal on that would be good for all of us.

How can our readers follow you online?

You can follow me on Twitter at https://twitter.com/TheRealSchrader. You can also reach me on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelschrader/.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

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Meet The Disruptors: Michael Schrader Of Vaxess On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.