On the Brink with Andi Simon

Latest Episodes:

078: TaRita Johnson—What is Your Emotional Intelligence? May 21, 2018

Show notes

Listen now as TaRita Johnson shows us how to build better relationships!

Ever wonder why some relationships at work, home, among friends or family, just don't work out the way you thought? Maybe you need a dose of Emotional Intelligence (EI). What's that, you ask? Take a listen to TaRita Johnson and learn how EI helps you build stronger relationships with better results by pausing, reflecting and changing the way you interact with others. Don't miss it!

People with keen Emotional Intelligence (EI) know themselves well.

Emotional Intelligence is your ability to be self-aware, build and manage fulfilling personal and professional relationships, and appropriately read and respond in various environments. As a corporate anthropologist, this is right up my alley!

People with well-developed EI know their strengths, weaknesses, how they respond to stress and what situations trigger their emotions. They are also able to successfully read environments and understand the emotions of those around them. Because of these abilities, they can build and maintain healthy, mutually-beneficial relationships, and thrive at home and work.

All about helping people improve their relationships

TaRita Johnson is the Director of the Calvin College Career Center and is responsible for its mission to equip students to succeed on their life-long vocational path. She oversees the Center's career coaching, employer relations, events, marketing, analytics and assessment.

Before joining Calvin College, TaRita was a Talent Acquisition Manager for Corporate Recruiting at Meijer supercenter, managing a team of recruiters and overseeing recruitment. Prior to Meijer, she was Vice President of College and University Relations at KeyBank where she developed, executed and oversaw the bank's college recruitment program for all lines of business.

Throughout her experiences in higher education, mental health and the corporate sector, TaRita has created and managed large and small teams, contributing to their success. She holds a Master of Social Work from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Social Work from Miami University.

Want to increase your EI? Follow these easy steps

1. Conduct a self-assessment.

a. What are your strengths/weaknesses? b. How do you respond to stress? c. How do you relax? d. What are your emotional triggers? Things from your past? e. What baggage do you bring into new and existing relationships? f. How do you monitor your emotions?g. How do other people feel about you? h. In what ways do you seek to improve personally?

2. Be your authentic self

a. What does being genuine say about you? b. Grooming and communication. How do you present yourself to the world?

3. Foundation

a. Who is in your support network? Who are your cheerleaders? b. Who are the people who will tell you the truth (even if it hurts) but have your best interest in mind?

4. Develop your ability to understand the people around you

a. The importance of empathy b. Select the people around you carefully

Some reading and listening you will enjoy!

Blog: Developing a Positive Culture Where People and Performance Thrive

Blog: How Storytelling Can Transform Your Culture And Energize Your Team

Blog: Broken Corporate Cultures: Time To Stop Blaming And Start Fixing

Podcast: Gustavo Grodnitzky—Culture Trumps Everything!

Podcast: Ask Andi—How Do You Change Your Culture?

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Download the 1-page synopsis of my book, "On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights" here

077: Scott Beebe—How to Build a Better Business May 14, 2018

Show notes

Listen now to Scott Beebe teach you how to stop working IN the business and get your life back!

This podcast is a perfect complement to so many of the things we do at Simon Associates (SAMC). Our guest today is Scott Beebe, whose specialty is helping small businesses organize themselves better for growth. He says, as do we, that if you don't know where you're going, you'll never get there. Far too often, business owners are so busy working in the business that they forget to stop and reflect on the business itself. Therefore I urge you to pause, listen and learn!

It all starts with the vision

We all know how hard it is to have a strategy, much less the right one. At SAMC, we talk about this all the time because our clients are often trying to answer the same questions (maybe you are too): "Is my vision the right one? Is the business model in need of a revamp? And, what about strategy? Do we have one or is the In Box driving business?"

As corporate anthropologists, the other crucial component we feel that business people really need to understand is their corporate culture. Do you know what your culture is? Is it the one you need to sustain your growing business? Or is it better suited to when you were just starting out? Once you really dig into these questions, you may conclude that your culture is actually holding you back and needs to be overhauled.

Ready to be liberated from the chaos of working IN your business?

Scott Beebe is the Founder and Head Coach of My Business On Purpose, a multi-broadcast platform that equips, inspires and mobilizes business professionals to live out their skill sets. He also hosts the Business On Purpose podcast. His specialty is liberating small business owners from the chaos of working IN their businesses by helping them articulate and implement intentional Vision/Mission/Values, Systems and Processes.

In our podcast, Scott talks about his Four Steps To Business Freedom, a 6-month group coaching experience exclusively for small business owners (under $25mm and less than 25 employees). This program shows business owners how to build the systems and processes they need to get their businesses—and lives—back on track.

This podcast will help you better reflect on:

Your vision—what is it and is it the right one
Your business model—is it an old one from a prior business environment or the right one for fast changing times
Your strategy—are you committed to one or do you let whatever comes your way sustain the business

Some reading and listening you will enjoy!

Blog: How To Get Your Brain To Let Go Of Its Old Bad Habits

Blog: Change: Are You Going To Avoid It Or Embrace It?

Blog: How To Help Your Team Stop Mourning The Old And Love The New

Podcast: Marcella Bremer—Build a Better Business With an Amazing, Positive Culture

Podcast: Dale Richards—Ready to Increase Your Business Revenue, Profits and Value

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Are you ready to change, adapt and thrive?

You might find our unique approach to helping you change your organization of value. We know that change is pain. The brain just hates to stop its old habits of the past and learn new things for the future. But, there is a way.

To learn more about our change management methods, give us a call and we can talk about your needs and how to help you and your organization adapt to the fast pace of today's business environment. We look forward to hearing from you.

Download the 1-page synopsis of my book, "On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights" here

076: Barbara Walters—Your Employees Did What? May 07, 2018

Show notes

Listen now as Barbara Walters explains how to create a culture of respect and inclusion

In our interview with Barbara Walters, President of The HR Advantage, we dig deep into the changes CEOs are facing as organizations must rapidly adapt to today's new business environment. As Barbara tells us, she started out in the male-dominated corporate America of the 1990s. Thankfully, times have changed since then. Or have they? As a highly-experienced HR executive and senior recruitment professional, Barbara has quite a story to tell. Don't miss it!

Possessing an in-depth understanding of human behavior and relationships

With a background as an HR executive in international senior recruitment in large and mid-sized union and non-union environments within multiple industries, Barbara Walters has become a trusted adviser to numerous corporate presidents and CEOs.

She brings 25 years of corporate human resources experience to a large roster of companies, helping them become more profitable by:

creating a culture of respect and inclusion
improving the quality and performance of their people

Prior to leading The HR Advantage, Walters was a Senior Recruiter and Vice-President of Human Resources for one of the largest international search franchises, as well as Director of Training and Organizational Development, serving as the head of the harassment investigation committee for 13 years.

Walters is also the author of "Your Employees Did What? 7 Strategies for Driving Workplace Performance." Called the Mario Andretti of driving employee performance, she puts you behind the wheel as she steers you onto the fast track of transforming your employees' performance and ending workplace frustration.

Barbara received a Master's Degree with Distinction in Human Relations/Industrial Counseling from New York Institute of Technology, and a Bachelor's in Training and Organizational Behavior from the State University of New York. She holds certifications in Harassment and Discrimination Training, Diversity Management, and EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity) Studies from Cornell University.

In this podcast, Barbara Walters and I talk about:

How to improve individual and group performance
How to reduce turnover and replacement costs
How to attract and retain top performers
Ways to enhance morale and increase productivity
Tactics for strengthening client and vendor relationships
How to strategically position your company for growth

For more reading or listening, check out these blogs and podcasts:

Blog: Why Pay Parity is Good for Business
Blog: Why is Culture Change Now the Role of Human Resource Directors?
Blog: How To Get Your Brain To Let Go Of Its Old Bad Habits
Blog: Change: Are You Going To Avoid It Or Embrace It?
Blog: How To Help Your Team Stop Mourning The Old And Love The New
This great podcast: Richard Sheridan: Joy in the Work Place

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Barbara's book: "Your Employees Did What? 7 Strategies for Driving Workplace Performance."
My book: "On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights"
Simon Associates Management Consultants website

Are you ready to change, adapt and thrive?

You might also find our approach to assessing and helping you change your organization of value. We know that change is pain. The brain just hates to stop its old habits of the past and learn new things for the future. But, there is a way.

To learn more about our approach, give us a call and we can talk about your needs and how to help you and your organization adapt to the fast pace of today's business environment.

Download the 1-page synopsis of my book, "On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights" here

075: Ask Andi—Blue Ocean Strategy® Step 1 May 04, 2018

Show notes

Listen now to my podcast about how to find your Blue Ocean Strategy!

Today, I want to talk about Blue Ocean Strategy, the methodology and book created by Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim. This year they launched a new book called "Blue Ocean Shift," an excellent 2nd version of the Blue Ocean Strategy approach to help you see, feel and think in new ways about your business in these rapidly-changing times. And so it seems very timely for me to go through the steps of a Blue Ocean Strategy with you so you can learn how to apply it to your own business, whether it's doing well or not so well and you're wondering what's coming next.

At SAMC we are trained practitioners in Blue Ocean Strategy

To begin, the basic premise of Blue Ocean Strategy isn't to do more of the same, cheaper, or to stay within the same market space, or to compete with others in the same industry that you're in today.

Neither is it about digging deeper into a customer and selling them more product. It's about finding their problem, their pain points, so you can add solutions.

When Renée Mauborgne and Chan Kim did their original research which led to their book, they studied 150 companies, looking for ones that thrived. What they found was that those that thrived did so because of innovative strategies. They were value innovators. They solved a problem differently than others. Not simply cheaper or faster, but they packaged their solution completely differently. They thought about it completely differently.

Some well-known examples of Blue Ocean thinking: Starbucks, Uber, [yellow tail] wine, Cirque du Soleil and Airbnb.

Strategic canvas

So how do you find your Blue Ocean Strategy? The first step is to take stock of where you are now, how you're competing in the industry that you're in, or you think you're in, and what you're offering from the buyer's perspective backward. The tool that helps you see, feel and think about your business in new ways is called a strategic canvas. It's an interesting and simple tool, but often hard to do, because a lot of business people aren't really sure what they are competing on or who their competitors are.

Think of the strategic canvas as an analysis that depicts the way an organization structures its offering to buyers in relation to the offerings of other companies who are trying to solve the same problem in the same way. This will help you clarify whether you're in a me-too position or really out ahead of the pack.

Everybody is wedded to what they know and the new is terrifying

Your job in finding your Blue Ocean Strategy is to begin to see, feel and think in new ways before you go and do anything. In my next Ask Andi, I'll talk about visual exploring. I'll explain the places where you can go and hang out, take pictures, video things, and begin to see what's really happening out in the marketplace, what people are actually doing with your product, what are they not doing, what are the go-arounds. Change and growth are waiting for you. Stay tuned!

In this episode, I discuss:

Who's going to be your customer in three years
Creating your strategic canvas
Identifying key competing factors
Finding new market space you can capture
Looking for non-customers
Think from the buyer's perspective backward
Who could use you who isn't

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Get the full transcript of this Ask Andi episode here.

074: Rod Robertson—Winning at Entrepreneurship Apr 30, 2018

Show notes

Are you an entrepreneur? Is your dream to start, grow, and then sell your own business? If so, you're going to love this podcast with Rod Robertson, Managing Partner and Founder of Briggs Capital. In our conversation and in his powerhouse book, Winning at Entrepreneurship: Insider Tips on Buying, Building, and Selling your own Business," Rod shares his success secrets for maximizing value for business owners when they decide to sell their companies. Enjoy!

As Managing Partner/Founder of Briggs Capital, an international Boston-based M&A firm and consulting practice, Rod Robertson specializes in strategizing and overseeing the sales or mergers of mid-market entrepreneurial businesses. Over the last fifteen years, he has successfully represented over 60 companies seeking to sell or recapitalize their business, raise equity or divest subsidiaries.

Focusing on maximizing value for sellers through a variety of innovative exit strategies, Rod's expertise is creatively positioning sellers to receive top dollar for their companies that often goes well beyond the seller's expectations.

Before founding Briggs, Rod owned or was an equity partner in three businesses in the consumer products, technology and real estate sectors and spearheaded the successful sale of all three.

Rod is also a motivational and guest speaker on a wide range of topics and is a regular speaker at Harvard Business School and the Babson College MBA program.

Required reading for entrepreneurs

In his book, Rod shares a number of case studies and personal interactions that give you key insights into:

Raising cash
Starting a business
Buying a business
Creating quick growth
Avoiding pitfalls
Preparing to sell
Enjoying the rewards of your labors

Want to read more?

At SAMC, we specialize in working with emerging entrepreneurs. Check out our 6-Step Process for Entrepreneurs, designed to help you get started and keep growing. In addition, you might find these blogs of interest:

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Rod's book: "Winning at Entrepreneurship"
My book: "On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights"
Simon Associates Management Consultants website

Download the 1-page synopsis of my book, "On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights" here

073: Holly Green—Tapping Into Your Brain to Build Better Relationships Apr 23, 2018

Show notes

Are you playing to win or merely playing not to lose? Don't miss my fascinating conversation with Holly Green, CEO of The Human Factor, which helps business leaders and their companies succeed by clarifying what winning looks like and then determining how to get there. Using the latest brain science techniques, Holly teaches organizations how to think differently and be truly innovative so they can win every day. Tune in, listen and learn!

Are you ready to win?

Does your business struggle to achieve its goals? Do you find yourself having to do things over vs. getting them right the first time? Do your employees even know what winning looks like?

In today's On The Brink podcast, Holly Green shows you how to align and focus your organization so everyone is in the same race. Her unique approach to strategic agility and engagement—based on the methodology Pause, Think, Focus, Run—provides the tools, techniques and skills you need to reach your destination and achieve your goals.

In this podcast, Holly Green and I talk about:

How to apply the science of thinking at work
Getting clear on where you're going
Setting clear performance expectations
Outlining strategies and tactics that will enable your team to execute with excellence
Methods to engage your entire organization in accomplishing great results
Tools to increase the skills and competencies required to thrive in today's hyper-paced world
Developing a culture of high performance and ongoing innovation

Applying the brain's processes to business

An experienced business leader and behavioral scientist, Holly has a rare combination of extensive academic training and in-the-trenches experience working in and leading organizations. The former president of The Ken Blanchard Company and co-founder of LumMed, a biotech firm, she has worked in senior leadership roles with major global companies including Coca-Cola and Dell.

As a consultant, Holly has helped hundreds of companies around the globe make new neural connections, change perspective, challenge assumptions and focus on the target. In addition to her consulting work, she delivers keynote presentations and workshops to trade show conventions, industry gatherings and business meetings.

Holly's top-selling book, "More Than a Minute: How to be an Effective Leader & Manager in Today's Changing World," goes beyond the theory of leading and managing by providing practical, action-oriented how-to's. Her newest book, "Using Your Brain to Win in today's hyper-paced world," is receiving international acclaim.

Holly holds a BS in behavioral sciences and an MS in organization development from American University in Washington, D.C., with postgraduate studies in neurophysiology. She is an adjunct professor at Webster University, teaching courses in the graduate program, and is the founder of the Management Development Institute at San Diego State University.

Explore more: 3 On The Brink podcasts and 2 blogs

Podcast: Jamie Candee—Leading Business And You To Success
Podcast: Roger Dooley—Neuromarketing Made Easy
Podcast: Ask Andi—See, Feel and Think In New Ways
Blog: How To Get Your Brain To Let Go Of Its Old Bad Habits
Blog: 4 Great Ways to Become a More Innovative Company

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Holly's book: "More Than a Minute: How to be an Effective Leader & Manager in Today's Changing World"
Holly's book: "Using Your Brain to Win in today's hyper-paced world,"
My book: "On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights"
Simon Associates Management Consultants website

Download the 1-page synopsis of my book, "On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights" here

072: Gil Cargill—How to Fix Your Underperforming Sales Team Apr 16, 2018

Show notes

Listen now to Gil Cargill talk about how to energize your salesforce for amazing results!

One of the recurring questions we get from our clients is how to fix an underperforming sales team. No matter what they've tried—carrots and sticks, personal coaching, sales training—nothing has worked. Then along comes Gil Cargill with his novel approach to building sales teams, resulting in exploding sales efforts. In this podcast, Gil's ideas are as relevant to running a productive business as they are to building a great sales experience.

By the end of this terrific podcast with Gil Cargill, founder of Cargill Consulting Group, you'll have discovered how to get your salesforce to perform with precision and predictability. You'll hear about the amazing things that can happen when you eliminate sales performance excuses. You'll also learn why old, outdated methods of prospecting are time wasters.

Want some how-to's? Gil teaches you how to build a "fortress" around your customers that stop your competition in their tracks, making customer defections a thing of the past! Gil explains that few people know how to do this, and almost none do it right, but it's a key strategy that can make your business soar.

Your business might be waiting for a fresh look at how to capture new clients and build deeper relationships with those who use you now. Enjoy our discussion and try Gil's tips.

Some of the things Gil Cargill and I discuss:

What if your team showed a 36% increase? What would this do to your paycheck?
What if you could create a steady stream of solid leads for your salesforce? It's called "salesperson nirvana" and it's possible.
Do your customers genuinely appreciate you or do they just hate to change?
Adapting the way we sell to a new generation and the way they buy
How to assess when a sales lead is ready to be pursued

3 great On The Brink podcasts you'll enjoy:

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Download the 1-page synopsis of my book, "On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights" here

071: Michelle Turman—Achieving Your Great Success, Now Apr 09, 2018

Show notes

As you know, On the Brink podcast is all about helping you "see, feel and think" in new ways so you can really soar! In this episode, I interview Michelle Turman, bestselling author and Principle of Catalyst Consulting Services, whose mission is to facilitate positive change in businesses and non-profits. It is so hard to drive change. But that is what we must do to adapt to these fast-changing times. In this podcast, we delve into why it's so difficult for individuals and companies to really achieve the success they deserve and could accomplish. Want answers? Listen in!

Jumping the Queue: Achieving Great Things Before You Are Ready

Turman is the author of the bestselling book, "Jumping the Queue: Achieving Great Things Before You Are Ready," which focuses on how young professional women can seize personal and professional opportunities, achieve great things, and get what they want and deserve. In addition, she is a Key Partner and educational trainer for the Nonprofit Leadership Center of Tampa Bay, and at the Edyth Bush Institute for Philanthropy & Nonprofit Leadership at Rollins College. She is a Certified Fund Raising Executive and specializes in professional education in the areas of change management, capital campaigns, volunteer management, board governance and fund development.

In 2015, Turman was recognized by Tampa Bay Metro Magazine as one of Tampa Bay's Distinguished Women in Business, and in 2016 as the Face of Nonprofit Change. She has also been nominated by Tampa Bay Business Journal as Business Woman of the Year in 2007, 2016 and 2017.

Michelle Turman's background

Turman received her bachelor degree from Florida State University and her master's from University of South Florida. After thirteen years of museum management with a focus on curating exhibitions, fundraising and administration at such esteemed institutions as the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, the Vero Beach Museum of Art, RMS Titanic and the Gulf Coast Museum of Art, and serving as an associate professor of art history and humanities at St. Petersburg College, she moved into the health and human services industry.

Over the next six years, Turman focused on fundraising, operations and human resources for the National MS Society, Children's Home Society and the Lighthouse of Pinellas for the Blind and Visually Impaired. During her tenure at the Gulf Coast Museum of Art, Children's Home Society and the Lighthouse of Pinellas, these organizations were all recognized as Nonprofit of the Year by the Tampa Bay Business Journal. With over 23 years of nonprofit experience, Turman established Catalyst Consulting Services. Responsible for increasing the impact and best practices of the nonprofit organizations she serves, she has raised over $60 million for the Tampa Bay community through her professional and personal philanthropic efforts.

Turman's community service has included leadership roles on the boards of the Arts Council of Hillsborough County, Suncoast Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, Partnership for Philanthropic Planning, Leadership Pinellas, the South Tampa Y, University of South Florida's Women in Leadership and Philanthropy Mentoring, and Working Women of Tampa Bay Foundation.

In this podcast you'll hear Michelle talk about:

How you don't need someone's permission to achieve greatness
Why hard work is the straightest road to success
The importance of constantly asking for feedback
Key difference between non-profits and for-profits and why this matters
How to think differently and use your passions to give back

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Podcast: Marcella Bremer—Build a Better Business With an Amazing, Positive Culture
Podcast: Ask Andi—It's Time For Companies To Adapt
Blog: Want To Change Your Organization? Make It Like An Exciting Play.
Michelle's book: "Jumping the Queue: Achieving Great Things Before You Are Ready"
My book:"On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights"
Simon Associates Management Consultants website

Download the 1-page synopsis of my book, "On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights" here

070: Ask Andi—How to Learn Resilience Apr 06, 2018

Show notes

Listen now to my podcast about how resilience turns bad situations into great opportunities!

As you know, at SAMC we are anthropologists and we work with organizations that need or want to change. I do these Ask Andi sessions because I think the questions people ask are so valuable to others and well worth sharing. I love your questions, keep sending them! This one is about resilience. How do you become resilient?, someone wants to know. Tune in and I'll tell you.

Changes—and problems—are coming fast and furious.

You're supposed to be working on your business, not in your business, but does it seem lately that things keep running off the rails? What are the problems? Well, take your pick. A recent client of ours lost a bid that he thought would start the year off with a profit. Another lost a key employee who went to a competitor. A third saw last year's sales come in much lower than he'd expected. And a fourth is mad that people are using new delivery channels to get their solutions and he's not ready to adjust to the new reality. And I won't even go into the e-commerce issues, where retailers are struggling to figure out how to bring more folks into their stores.

Without a doubt, business is going through fast-changing times. What are you going to do? Moan, become depressed, stop doing business? Your staff is probably walking around feeling angry and frustrated. How are you going to respond? How can you feel the situation differently? How can you keep your staff feeling upbeat and more positive? In short, how can you and everyone in your company become more resilient?

You need to build resilience.

The question is, how do you do it? My recommendation is not to wait until you need to. You can become resilient at the moment that you need it the most. Here are some ideas.

I bet you have regular meetings—sales meetings, strategy meetings, project management meetings, team-building meetings—to talk about what's going on, what's working well, what's not, what you need to work on. But do you ever talk about how you'll handle something really bad? Maybe this is a good time to think about adding resilience to the agenda of those meetings.

You probably have some kind of ritual when things go well. What's the ritual when they don't? Maybe you turn every meeting into a discussion about how you and your organization are going to deal with a challenge, and how you are going to value resilience...use it to build positive support for those who are having difficulties. Maybe this is a great time for mentoring and coaching.

Remember, you can't fake it.

You cannot pretend everything's going to be okay. This comes through really fast, and your folks will just lose trust in you. They won't believe that what you say is what you believe. When something is painful, you need to address it. And when you talk about it in team sessions and analyze what you'll do to address it, you turn lemons into lemonade.

Resilience is the mark of a good leader, maybe even a great one.

What is it that makes a great leader? The ability to build resilience in a team when things are not happening the way they should, inspiring them to reach higher. To think about what could be, not what was. This is the strength and the positive attitudes that leaders bring to the situation. A manager will just manage the problem, but a leader will create that inspirational feeling.

If you can be resilient and lead by example, your folks will follow as well. And what you'll find is that the small problem never becomes a big one. And the big one turns into an opportunity. And all those lemons become lemonade.

So I hope you become more resilient. And I hope you send me your notes about how a little preparation and thinking about resilience as a pathway might turn those bad situations that seem to be falling apart into good opportunities that could really thrive. You're on a path somewhere. Go enjoy it.

In this Ask Andi episode, I talk about:

Responding to business problems with strength and resilience
Building resilience into your business's culture
Creating a ritual for times when things don't go as planned
How resilience in leaders creates a stronger team
Turning problems into opportunities

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Blog: Try This Simple Strategy For Finding Your Inner Resilience
Blog: Change: It's Scary But Take The Plunge Anyway!
On The Brink podcast: Richard Sheridan—Joy in the Workplace
On The Brink podcast: Kimberly Davis—Leading Change: Are You A Brave Leader?
My book: "On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights"
Simon Associates Management Consultants website

069: Michael Menerey—Reconstructing Healthcare So Employers Can Win Not Lose Apr 02, 2018

Show notes

Listen to Michael Menerey teach us how to lower healthcare costs by challenging the status quo!

If you are the founder of a business, an entrepreneur growing your business or a CEO trying to stay in business, you probably are watching your healthcare costs and employee benefits soaring out of sight. What to do? The first step is to listen what to Michael Menerey, Senior Vice President and Benefits Consultant with Alliant Employee Benefits, has to tell us in this podcast. You'll learn a lot about what can be done to manage employee benefit costs. Don't miss this one!

You probably are thinking, "Yes, healthcare is really broken." What happened and what can we do about it?

Just look at what has occurred as a result of the current consolidations. Where are all those cost savings that were promised? Over the last 16 years, health insurance premiums have increased by over 201% and employee contributions towards healthcare premiums are up 350%, and this trend is only expected to continue.

If you run a business, listen to how Michael could help you, the same way he helps other employers restructure their health plans to yield lower costs and improved benefits for their employees. In this highly informative podcast, he shows you how to find alternatives to the usual health insurance strategies.

You know you don't want higher costs, so what can you do to find better solutions?

Michael's answer is simple: If employers want better results, they have to scrap the traditional health insurance structure and leverage creative strategies in the marketplace to proactively lower their health insurance costs. He is an expert at this, and he shares his wisdom with us so we can do it too.

If you want better results, you need a different approach.

"Traditional Health Insurance is a game you're guaranteed to lose," proclaims Michael's website. It goes on to say—and this is what Michael expands upon in our podcast—that we are at a unique point in time where "technology, capital and innovation all seem to be converging upon a healthcare industry that has been resistant to change and successful at keeping new entrants at bay."

Michael's out to change that, challenging the status quo approach to benefits and constantly evaluating new healthcare products, vendors and strategies that can drive down costs and create value for employers, employees and their dependents.

Passionate about helping businesses, he offers video training and other educational resources and hosts the podcast series Reconstructing Healthcare that explores what is wrong with the current U.S healthcare system, examines what drives higher healthcare costs and exposes deficiencies in traditional insurance products.

Michael recently published "The CEO's Guide to Lowering Healthcare Costs by 30%" to help business owners and executives begin to see the inefficiencies in traditional healthcare purchasing and also to provide a roadmap on how to get better results. Recently, he was recognized as one of Risk & Insurance Magazine's 2017 Power Broker® Rising Stars.

For more on today's healthcare issues, you might find these blogs and podcasts of value:

Resources mentioned in this episode: