On the Brink with Andi Simon

Latest Episodes:

041: Andi Simon—Women Entrepreneurs Changing Corporate Cultures Nov 17, 2017

Show notes

To coincide with Women's Entrepreneurship Day (Nov. 19th), today I want to talk about how women entrepreneurs and female CEOs are quickly and substantially changing the workplace, building great success stories you can learn from. As you know, I launched this On the Brink Podcast to help listeners see things with fresh eyes. Along those lines, at SAMC we have been researching women business leaders in order to better understand how they are changing business culture for the better. Take a listen—I know you'll learn a lot!

Many of my interviews with women CEOs can be heard on earlier podcasts, and yet here, I wanted to share some of our insights. My hope is that these women will inspire you to think in new ways about the culture in the company you lead, the company you work for, or the one you may want to start in the near future.

Did you know that 30% of businesses in the U.S. today are now owned and run by women? And that the number of women-owned businesses grew 45% from 2007 to 2016, compared to only 9% growth in overall businesses? Clearly, as women have taken on greater leadership roles in the business world, it's paying off for both them and business.

But no matter the business, people are really what matters, and how they work together has a major impact on their professional and personal lives—something that women leaders particularly seem to understand. Every day, they're proving that you can create a great place to work, staffed with people who want to help grow the business, not just do their jobs. After listening to the podcast, share with me your stories, please. Send them along to info@simonassociates.net.

In this episode, I talk about:

Creating successful businesses by solving problems and addressing unmet needs
How the rise of women entrepreneurs is responsible for the majority of entrepreneurial growth in the U.S., changing the face of businesses everywhere
How women approach business and how this differs from their male counterparts
Stephanie Breedlove's belief that mentorship and communities of like-minded women grow successful businesses
Kim Sheperd's view on building companies by balancing a process with creative collaboration
Tanya Hall's outlook on over-communication, consistent growth and redefining traditional methods to create better businesses
How balancing gender, work/life integration and cognitive diversity help create effective businesses

Resources mentioned in this episode:

040: Carmen Effron—Digitization of the Customer Journey Nov 14, 2017

Show notes

I bet you are struggling with today's abundance of data, wondering how to make sense of it. In this podcast interview, Carmen Effron and I dig deeply into how data and the marketing strategies around it are being used by financial services, insurance companies and investment firms—Carmen's areas of expertise. Businesses large and small are rethinking their approaches to reach and retain their consumers, fueled by data. Take a listen!

A truly exceptional consultant, Carmen Effron specializes in helping bridge the cultural divide between the financial services, insurance and investment industries, creating C F Effron Company after spending 20+ years in the corporate banking, insurance and investment worlds.

Carmen provides strategy and management consulting, as well as primary and customer experience research, to numerous banks and credit unions, insurers and reinsurers, nationally and internationally. A major focus of Carmen's firm is the intersection of banking, insurance and investments. Ms. Effron also works in concert with a network of associate firms to develop top executive teams for specific projects, using best-in-class measurement and scientific data collection techniques.

Ms. Effron is a certified Innovation Games® facilitator, using serious play methodology in company and board workshops to empower employees, solve everyday problems and create big ideas that turn into major market transformations. Indeed, one of C F Effron Company's competitive advantages is the use of advanced evaluative tools that turn numbers into knowledge and create integrated and actionable strategies.

Carmen works with numerous Fortune 500 companies and is a frequent speaker at industry events.

In this episode, Carmen Effron and I discuss:

Where her passion comes from
How her story helps create better customer experiences
Why companies need to understand customers' new digital journey
Identifying your company's purpose and value in order to design customer service
Knowing your business's targeted segments and defined personas to truly understand your customers' wants and needs

Resources mentioned in this episode:

039: Michael Gale—The Digital Transformation Coming to You Nov 06, 2017

Show notes

Get ready for the future that is just around the corner—the digital world that awaits us, tomorrow. In this podcast with Michael Gale, you'll be thoroughly excited by the digital revolution and how you can leverage its many opportunities, as revealed in Michael's new Wall Street Journal Bestseller book, "The Digital Helix: Transforming Your Organization's DNA to Thrive in the Digital Age," co-authored with Chris Aarons. Catch my conversation with Michael as he gives organizations the tools they need to work better, faster and smarter by developing a digital culture from the ground up. Enjoy!

In "The Digital Helix," Michael Gale and Chris Aarons (who was not available for the podcast) explain the specifics of digitally transforming your organization—in particular, 1) developing the role of the digital-explorer leader who uses information to empower the organization, and 2) adjusting the responsibilities of leadership, sales, marketing, communications, product development, customer service and support.

During our interview, Michael talks in-depth about the theory, methods and tools of digital transformation and how it is a bridge to a digital future where organizations can thrive with more fluid business models and processes. Some of the observations he shares:

More than 80% of Fortune 500 organizations are trying to digitally transform but less than 20% get the total value of it.
40% either abandon or scale back because it is so tough to do.
The ROI on a range of areas is amazing if you get it right: OPEX, margins, brand value, speed.

Listen in, then join the conversation and tell us what you are doing to change your organization using information power.

In 2001, MICHAEL GALE founded Strategic Oxygen which quickly became one of the technology industry's primary data toolsets for marketers. Used by over 20 brands and facilitating $4 billion of marketing and sales investments, the company was sold to Monitor Group, where Michael served as a group partner from 2006-2010. The next year, he became a partner at the digital consulting company Pulsepoint Group, which was acquired by ICF in 2015. Michael has also served as Chief Web Officer and GM at Micron Technology and Vice President of worldwide brand research at IntelliQuest.

CHRIS AARONS, Michael's co-author has helped launch dozens of produts companies using a unique mix of digital, sales and marketing strategies. At Pulsepoint Group, Chris helped leading organizations become digital in both their practice and delivery. In 2006, he launched one of the first social media departments at AMD and authored the book "Social Media Judo: The Essential Guide to Mastering Social Media and Delivering Real Results." Chris also teaches digital marketing at the University of Texas at Austin and has won numerous awards for his digital programs for clients such as Adobe, Amazon, AMD, Cisco, Dell, HP, LG, Microsoft, Philips, among others.

In this episode, Michael Gale and I discuss:

The digital revolution's effect on the future
How CEOs can overcome their fear and embrace digital transformation
The pitfall of marketing as a world of extremes
Approaching inputs and outputs in a way that is responsive rather than systematic
Marrying abundant data and agile strategy to implement change
Reassessing business assets to be more in tune with a digitally focused world
Gender difference in responsiveness and collaborative problem solving
Adjusting managers' mindsets to comprehend the rapidly changing, hands-on world

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Blog: Change: Are You Going To Avoid It Or Embrace It?
Blog: 5 Ways To Make Your Team Awesome Agents Of Change
Michael and Chris's book: "The Digital Helix: Transforming Your Organization's DNA to Thrive in the Digital Age"
My book: "On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights"
Simon Associates Management Consultants website

038: Ask Andi series—Trends from the Trenches Nov 03, 2017

Show notes

In this episode I discuss:

Trends moving far faster than companies, clients, and suppliers are able to thoroughly understand
The importance of companies adapting to social and technological changes rather than denying that there are changes at all
How the emergence of technology like autonomous vehicles is creating a shift in the way businesses will soon be operating
How sensors are becoming more prominent to create more customer-tailored experiences
How robots in businesses are transforming the way work is done
The growing prominence of women in the workplace changing the workforce through collaboration and creativity

037: Roger Dooley — Neuromarketing Made Easy Oct 30, 2017

Show notes

You will find this podcast full of great ideas about how to manage, market and make your business soar, all with the brain in mind. Our guest is Roger Dooley, the author of Brainfluence: 100 Ways to Persuade and Convince Consumers with Neuromarketing. He also writes his popular blog Neuromarketing.

Roger has held senior positions at several large companies but is really an entrepreneur and has been for decades. In his interview and in much of his writing, he bridges the gap between academics doing valuable research and business people who need practical, easy-to-implement ideas. We get that, don't we!

What is Brainfluence? Roger has compiled 100 simple, actionable techniques to build your brand, win new customers, and close more sales. We talk about his wonderful mix of the all-time best ideas from his AdAge Power150 blog Neuromarketing and brand new material.

Every one of the methods is based on serious brain research. But you will find each concept presented in a manner that is totally practical and free from scientific jargon.

He is the founder of Dooley Direct, a marketing consultancy, and co-founded College Confidential, the leading college-bound website. That business was acquired by Hobsons, a unit of UK-based DMGT, where Dooley served as VP Digital Marketing and continues in a consulting role.

In this episode, we will be discussing:

Neuromarketing, the bridge between marketing and brain science
Non-conscious techniques through big name companies such as Amazon
Different social and habitual elements that contribute to decision making
Implementing minor behavior change to help change overall strategies
Motivation, ability, and friction as leverages
Utilizing non-conscious arguments to create better marketing strategies
Making non-desirable habits less effortless by minimizing friction
The importance of consistency and ease in creating an effortless user experience
Eliminating complexity to make it simpler to be successful
Human adaptation to complexity and faster times

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

036: Hamilton Perkins — An Entrepreneurial Success Story Oct 23, 2017

Show notes

We are big believers in the imagination and initiative of entrepreneurs. Hamilton Perkins is one of them. The founder and president of Hamilton Perkins Collection, listen to our conversation about how he saw something. An idea emerged. From it came a very innovative company, an e-commerce retailer, creating designer travel bags at an affordable price, while holding his entire company to the highest standards of social and environmental performance, accountability, and transparency. His mission is to recylce "all" of the bottles going into those land fills.

"Only 9% of plastic waste is recycled, the rest ends up in landfills or the environment. We're doing something about it. Each of our bags is made up of 17.5 recycled plastic bottles."

Here is a sample of his bags. Pretty fantastic aren't they?

Hamilton is a remarkable entrepeneur and as you listen to his journey you are going to want to find his bags and buy one for you!

He was really upset by the looks of this:

He wanted to turn this waste into something of great beauty. And he did.

Hamilton Perkins Collection has been featured in Forbes, Fast Company, The Washington Post, and Money Magazine. Hamilton Perkins Collection has hosted trunk shows at Bloomingdale's and was the winner of the 2016 Virginia Velocity Tour business pitch competition hosted by the Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

He has also served in a leadership capacity with various non-profit organizations and has been recognized for his volunteer work and service hours assisting low-income populations.

Hamilton is also a contributing blogger for The Huffington Post.

In this episode, Hamilton Perkins and I discuss:

Hamilton's educational and former retail background
How Hamilton used persistence to make his product a reality
How Hamilton incorporated fashion with purpose to create a meaningful product
Hamilton's process of finding and deciding which materials are best to build his recycled product
Hamilton's hands-on involvement and relationships with the collection centers in Haiti
The new buying patterns Hamilton Perkins Collection is encouraging by pursuing e-commerce before brick and mortar
How Hamilton Perkins Collection is utilizing media in technology to connect with their customer base, ensuring a community-tailored product
Why Hamilton Perkins Collection is leading with impact rather than solely an interesting product
Combining a visually compelling marketing strategy with the product's story and purpose to run a successful crowdfunding campaign
How Hamilton Perkins Collection took all data into account to gauge what their consumers truly wanted and the best way to get it to them
How Hamilton Perkins Collection is tackling scalability at the beginning of popularity
Hamilton's view on patience and gratitude to push passion

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Hamilton Perkins
Discount Code: OTB
Thread International
On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights
Simon Associates Management Consultants website

035: Luke Hohmann—Building Better Teams Using Collaborative Games Oct 20, 2017

Show notes

In this podcast, Luke Hohmann talks with me about how to build better teams, engage employees and prioritize activities using games. You will be really surprised at how "serious games can help you do serious work, seriously better." The Founder and CEO of Conteneo Inc., Luke's playfully diverse background of life experiences has uniquely prepared him to design and produce serious games.

Graduating magna cum laude with a B.S.E. in computer engineering and an M.S.E. in computer science and engineering from the University of Michigan, Luke studied cognitive psychology and organizational behavior under such luminaries as Elliot Soloway, Karl Weick and Dan Dennison.

An author of three books, Luke is also a former United States National Junior Pairs Figure Skating Champion. His work, which focuses on using serious games to engage citizens, has been covered in Businessweek and Financial Times.

In this episode, Luke Hohmann and I discuss:

The occurrences that led Luke to create Innovation Games
How games change behavioral expectations of people, allowing for more experiential, collaborative experiences
Utilizing teamwork as a way of integrating different levels of thought for balanced vision
How transformed people transform companies
The different uses of Weave to create new habits and different ways of thinking
Understanding how to make innovation a reality in your company
Innovation as a spectrum rather than a single, abstract idea
How Weave helps advance innovative ideas
Observation as an invaluable method for understanding and utilizing your environments
The usage of games as a structure to allow collaborative teams to progress toward the same goal

Resources mentioned in this episode:

034: Ron West — Perpetually Disrupting Yourself Oct 16, 2017

Show notes

How do you successfully lead digital transformation? Disruption has become a cliché. What does it really mean? How do you do it rather than wait to have it done to you. Listen to Ron West's interivew with us on just this topic.

Ron West is an inspiring and entertaining speaker whose purpose is to engage with leaders to help them change. Sounds like someone you want to meet? Listen to our discussion about how you can lead your organization through a digital transformation – that you might actually enjoy.

Ron is the author of "Corporate Caterillars: How to Grow Wings" in which he writes about his f "blueprint" that you can use to create your own individual and corporate transformation to move from limited to limitless.

Mastering digital transformation requires leaders to first transform themselves in order to transform their organizations. Our businesses then become the change we all want to see in the world.

Are you being threatened with disruption by new technology or by start-ups that have leveraged technology to beat you at your own game? Do you want to leverage technology to dominate in your sector? The answer is to develop the ability to perpetually transform.

In our interview you will hear all about a process for change that you and your organization will embrace including Ron's programs.

In this episode, we will be discussing:

Corporate transformation at the heart of Ron's work
Accepting change as a complex process to help understand the human parts of business
The acceleration of overlapping and intertwining change leading to transformation
Reconstruction of everyday life with the evolution of technologies
Leaders opening up to change to inspire transformation of organizations
Entering the learning cycle to leverage change in our environments
Exploration as a necessity to acknowledge and adapt to consumers' needs
Different forms of awareness to help leaders see trends of change
Creating a space for individual experimentation, allowing leaders to have breakthroughs

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

033: Andi Simon—Finding and Keeping Great Employees Oct 13, 2017

Show notes

Welcome to another episode of Ask Andi series—short 15 minute podcasts every Friday where take a question and then offer tools, tips and strategies to help you re-think the issue and tackle it in new ways.

In this episode, I talk about:

How many jobs are being replaced by robots
The expansion of the freelance economy
How are we going to fill the talent shortage?
The major power shift in workplace
What are soft skills and why are they important?

Resources mentioned in this episode:

032: Linda MacCracken — The New World of Patient Care Oct 09, 2017

Show notes

If you are in healthcare, or use any part of the healthcare system, you need to listen to Linda MacCracken's interview with us.

Linda is Senior Principal at Accenture, focused on helping payers and providers connect with customers with greater loyalty and engaging to improve access and quality while reducing costs and increasing profits. Linda also teaches physician executives in the Masters of Management Program at Harvard University.

Linda's experience includes serving as Chief Strategy/Marketing Officer in health systems, VP Product Management at Thompson Reuters and VP Advisory Services at Truven Health Analytics. What we discuss is how caregivers today across the entire healthcare system have to create a patient focus, a vision that they live every day to really listen, engage with and provide the right care for each individual.

We discuss how to improve physician rankings, how to move hospitals up in their own market place so more people use them and are delighted when they do.

How do you do this—by teaching physicians leaders how they can do more than just be great doctors. And, by realizing that the elders we care for today are very different than the Millennials that are going to follow them tomorrow.

In this episode, we will be discussing:

Using behavioral information for real time predictive analytics to assess the needs of people
Shifting consumer expectations in healthcare
Optimizing the experience of healthcare by viewing the patient as a partner
Addressing and adapting to consumer's needs on a generational basis
Understanding the story of the patient to truly understand their need
Eliminating patient categories to create more intricate, concrete communities
The value in being a guest in a patient's life to achieve loyal relationships
Innovation programs in universities as an asset for advancement
Different interaction approaches for different generations
Keeping an eye on the invisible competitor
The nature of expectations affecting the ways businesses choose to operate

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

Thanks for Being Late by Thomas Friedman
Linda's E-mail
224-522-2574, Linda's Phone
On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights
Simon Associates Management Consultants website

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