IT’S THE NEW AGE OF BRANDING In this episode of The Business Conversation, Garrio welcomes Michael Stich, Partner at CourtAvenue and Investor and Advisor to various companies. He discusses the challenges being faced by the modern-day CMO and how much evolution this role has seen over the years. Michael talks about starting with the basics of the language of money and bridging the gap between marketing and sales. He also dives deep into the need for strategic planning and alignment, the journey from data to the creative process, and how to use data to drive business monetization. HIGHLIGHTS MICHAEL: BUILD A ROADMAP WITH A CLEAR VISION OF OPTIMAL CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES “What the roadmap is is the series of initiatives that we're going to go put in place to achieve those and to realize those experiences that drive that profitable growth for our company. We can tie all that together, that we've got ourselves in alignment and a vision for where we want to go. Many companies will develop a vision but they won't have a journey and they won't have a roadmap. Many companies will have a journey, but it won't ladder up to a Vision and CFO will wonder why you doing all that. Or we want to have a roadmap that delivers on that journey so that everyone can walk around, but they don't understand how their day-to-day jobs to deliver on it.” MICHAEL: START FROM THE POINT OF SALE AND NOT FROM ABOVE “Where are we going to start? That's peace, love and happiness is an optimal basis, right? So where do we actually start, where we find that things get self-funded, is by staying close to the point of sale. So that optimal experience is great. But why don't we get some sales going first, within that, and prove to me that all of this great planning results in that you can do that, then great, we can, we can start to build a flywheel around left. But if you start at the top of the funnel, or the point of wealth, etc, coming on this unified framework, you get some companies that lose momentum, or at times lose patience or what have you.” MICHAEL: YOUR PERSONALIZATION STARTS WITH THE VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER “So we're sort of the facilitator in that multi-party effort. But we have sort of integrated teams with different audiences, are those different parties that I mentioned, coming together to say, great, what is our personalization roadmap? How are we going to guide that? And it starts with the customer. It starts with understanding what are the requirements. What are the needs that they have. And we're very fortunate that we've got the voice of the customer, like literally primary user research brought into those sessions to tell us what people would like to have more personalized" Follow the link below to learn more about Michael Stich: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mstich/ Website: https://courtavenue.com/ This series is being put together in collaboration with AIGA Minnesota - one of the largest chapters of AIGA, that works to enhance the value and deepen the impact of design across all disciplines of business, society, and our collective future. & Curious, a group of B2B marketers helping their clients define a conversation that is unique, relevant, and honest with their ideal customers. They then help their clients find their ideal audience to start the conversation by pushing content through the most efficient channels, whether that be traditional or digital.

IT’S THE NEW AGE OF BRANDING In this episode of The Business Conversation, Garrio welcomes Kelli Schutrop, the VP for Sales and Marketing at Madecraft. She discusses the importance of leadership teams becoming more visible and active online. She explains that this became more of a necessity due to the COVID pandemic, as video connection was a way to better build relationships faster. She also explains that it is important for businesses to have a brand that resonates with their audience, as this is a key part of promoting their message and brand. She emphasizes that it is critical for businesses to have a strong presence online in order to be successful. HIGHLIGHTS KELLI: LEADERS ON SHOWING UP ONLINE “I think what has evolved is just this realization that in a sales capacity in a leadership capacity, even in your own career search, if you put yourself out there online, let's say on LinkedIn or another social platform, people are able to see more of who you are as a personal brand. And that can drive immense opportunity for your business for networking connections for career connections in the future.” KELLI: DEFINITION OF AUTHENTICITY “To me, authenticity is really, whether you're hitting the record button, or you're posting something on LinkedIn, even if it's a poll, just the way that you were actually forming your sentences can drive who you are as a person, right? Is it warm and welcoming? Is it more informative and structured? And so part of it is just about continuity and making sure that whatever it is you're providing, is going to be the same experience for someone no matter what environment they see you in.” KELLI: THINKING ABOUT YOUR AUDIENCE “Part of it is saying who can I help? So addressing? Who is your audience? Ultimately, who are you trying to impress? What is the industry? What are the company types? What are their levels? Right? And then what is important to them? So what are the key topics, they think about? What is thought leadership trends in your industry? Because this can kind of help break down to distill that. Man, I want to, I want to be more visible, but I have no idea. I don't know, how do I how do I approach that? So those are some of those questions.” KURT: GETTING CONNECTED HELPS WITH YOUR SKILLS “if a prospective employer, if someone you're networking with a prospective client, whatever that person may be if they go to your LinkedIn, we all see that activity feed. And they can see like, wow, this is cool. Like they've been posting content that's really intriguing. And you can even feature you know, as LinkedIn is current user experience stands, you can feature posts, so you can kind of control that narrative. It's really your own website, and you don't have to pay to host it, you get to make it what you want. And so the more that you can pour into it, the more it's going to create opportunities for you, but also benefit others, specifically, you know, within that, that stream of that audience, you're looking to support.” Follow the link below to learn more about Kelli Schutrop: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellischutrop/ Madecraft Website: https://onlymadecraft.com/ This series is being put together in collaboration with AIGA Minnesota - one of the largest chapters of AIGA, that works to enhance the value and deepen the impact of design across all disciplines of business, society, and our collective future. & Curious, a group of B2B marketers helping their clients define a conversation that is unique, relevant, and honest with their ideal customers. They then help their clients find their ideal audience to start the conversation by pushing content through the most efficient channels, whether that be traditional or digital.

NETWORKING IS NOT SO BAD For a long time, networking had an unpleasant reputation of being just a means of achieving one’s targets or quotas. Today, Garrio welcomes Kurt Schmidt to prove them wrong. He is the President of Foundry, and author of “The Little Book of Networking: How to Grow Your Career One Conversation at a Time”. Kurt shares his own definition of networking, why it’s important for every person, why it should not be viewed as a selfish act, and how it can help you in your career. Find out more in this latest episode of The Business Conversation. HIGHLIGHTS KURT: DEFINITION OF NETWORKING “What networking truly is, is about finding ways to let people know what your value is, what your worth is, and then understanding what their value and their worth is, and trying to find opportunities to work together” KURT: BEING A STEWARD OF CONNECTIONS AND GOALS “It should be going out and finding out what people's needs are and trying to connect those people who have those needs, and being that good connector and steward of their goals.” KURT: NETWORKING IS A LIFETIME ENDEAVOR “Networking is a lifetime endeavor. You've heard the terms before networking is your net worth and all those things, it's absolutely true. So you've got to find the time to invest in those things, and I've found that building systems around it, that allow you to help you has been really powerful.” KURT: GETTING CONNECTED HELPS WITH YOUR SKILLS “It really let me hone my pitch and get good at pitching, I got better and better at anticipating what the questions were that were going to come up, I got better at anticipating and changing my pitch to address questions before they even showed up. Because I saw commonalities in how I was pitching. And my confidence was going up in my pitch” KURT: FIND THE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO TALK TO YOU “You've got to talk to people that want to talk to you, they got to understand what you're looking for what your value is. And then they have to also understand that you're off there looking out for them as well. Like I said, these micro partnerships, which I find to be super valuable, I built a multimillion-dollar business on it. Let's just put it that way.” Follow the link below to learn more about Kurt Schmidt: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/-kurtschmidt/ Foundry Website: https://www.foundrymakes.com/ The Little Book of Networking: How to Grow Your Career One Conversation at a Time: https://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Networking-Career-Conversation-ebook/dp/B0BPB2ZTHZ?ref_=ast_author_mpb This series is being put together in collaboration with AIGA Minnesota - one of the largest chapters of AIGA, that works to enhance the value and deepen the impact of design across all disciplines of business, society, and our collective future. & Curious, a group of B2B marketers helping their clients define a conversation that is unique, relevant, and honest with their ideal customers. They then help their clients find their ideal audience to start the conversation by pushing content through the most efficient channels, whether that be traditional or digital.

IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING… Joshua Fedie is a sales expert who has been working in the field for over 20 years. He and Garrio are discussing how leaders can rebuild their sales organizations from scratch and how sales, marketing, and customer success can work together. Sales and Marketing have been apart for so long and it is high time for them to start working together. Stay tuned as Joshua will be sharing some tips on how sales and marketing can work together with some stories from his career, only here, in the latest episode of The Business Conversation. HIGHLIGHTS JOSHUA: HOW MARKETING SHOULD REACH OUT TO SALES “If you're in marketing, reach out to someone in sales, and I don't even care who it is reach out to someone in sales right now and say, Would you mind sitting down for 15 minutes with me to teach me about sales and to teach me about your process in this organization, I want to see if there's anything I can do to help the sales team better, and I want to use you as a guinea pig. If you're in marketing, do that tomorrow.” JOSHUA: HOW SALES SHOULD REACH OUT TO MARKETING “If you're in sales, I want you to reach out to someone in your marketing team, I don't care who it is, I want you to reach out to somebody in your marketing team. And I want you to say, I want to start creating more stories around what we do here, through myself on social channels, and I need some help coming up with some creative ways to go about this.” Follow the link below to learn more about Joshua Fedie: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshfedie/ SalesReach.io: https://www.salesreach.io/ This series is being put together in collaboration with AIGA Minnesota - one of the largest chapters of AIGA, that works to enhance the value and deepen the impact of design across all disciplines of business, society, and our collective future. & Curious, a group of B2B marketers helping their clients define a conversation that is unique, relevant, and honest with their ideal customers. They then help their clients find their ideal audience to start the conversation by pushing content through the most efficient channels, whether that be traditional or digital.

Garrio Harrison welcomes Nicole Middendorf, as they discuss the origin story of Prosperwell, how difficult dreams sometimes need to be achieved, and how positivity and a strong mindset are key to success. In the conversation, Nicole describes how she became a financial advisor after originally intending to go to law school. She talks about how her husband encouraged her to enter the financial industry instead, leading her to start the journey of being a wealth advisor. Find out more about Nicole in this latest episode of Business Conversations. HIGHLIGHTS NICOLE: LIVE A LIMITLESS LIFE “When you're living these limitless experiences, you're boosting your confidence and like I feel like I can do anything.” NICOLE: LIVE LIFE TO THE FULLEST “I really believe in, in the word of having a blast, like living life to the fullest today, but also being very thoughtful and planning to live life to the fullest in the future when you retire.” NICOLE: JUST DO IT “Go do it, go take those risks and delegate along the way.” NICOLE: GIVE YOURSELF SOME GRACE “Give yourself some grace along the whole process and enjoy, enjoy the ride, because that's what life is all about.” Follow the link below to learn more about Nicole Middendorf: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolemiddendorf/ Prosperwell Financial: https://prosperwell.com/ This series is being put together in collaboration with AIGA Minnesota - one of the largest chapters of AIGA, that works to enhance the value and deepen the impact of design across all disciplines of business, society, and our collective future. & Curious, a group of B2B marketers helping their clients define a conversation that is unique, relevant, and honest with their ideal customers. They then help their clients find their ideal audience to start the conversation by pushing content through the most efficient channels, whether that be traditional or digital.

This episode of The Business Conversation Podcast features Ulli Appelbaum, an award-winning marketing and brand strategy consultant with more than 20 years of experience. Ulli is also the author of “The Brand Positioning Workbook", which has been described as "Hands down the best book on brand positioning since Ries & Trout introduced this concept many years ago". Ulli talks about his own definition of what a brand is, along with his concept of “Association Bundles”, a set of associations that consumers remember your product or service by. Ulli’s insights bring back concepts that have been tried and tested strategies, but have since become “lost knowledge” as most marketers now learn on-the-job, instead of getting solid training.

This episode of The Business Conversation Podcast features Jim Cuene, the founder and CEO of Fahren LLC. Jim is in the business of supporting organizations that are looking to evolve and improve their operations, and is very astute in observing how the business environment is constantly changing at a rapid rate. In this episode, Jim talks about the relationship of technology and businesses, and how the emergence of new platforms, especially technology has led to the rise of new ways of monetization. In this regard, Jim also gives strategic advice for organizations that may want to enter these new and potentially lucrative spaces and why basic good management practices are still relevant.

This episode of The Business Conversation Podcast features Kelly Gunderson, staffing and recruiting expert and the Client Experience Director for Celarity. Kelly talks about the phenomenon called “The Great Reshuffle” and the reasons why people are leaving their jobs, sometimes even without a backup plan. Kelly points to mental health as a primary concern of people and how managers, team leaders, and business owners can and should start taking care of their employees in this area. With working remotely firmly established as one of the top drivers of productivity during the pandemic, Kelly encourages employers to trust their employees to do their jobs and when they aren’t performing as expected, give them grace and find out what is causing them to underperform.

This episode of The Business Conversation Podcast features Gaby and Mike Grinberg of Proofpoint Marketing. The husband and wife duo share valuable insight on the world of content marketing and the lessons they learned as entrepreneurs bootstrapping their business. Gaby and Mike talk about creating an effective content marketing strategy in many platforms, but focus on Linkedin as a platform for business owners to share their point of view. As professional content marketers, they talk about finding inspiration, pacing your posting strategy, as well as dealing with burnout that can come with content creation.

This episode of The Business Conversation Podcast features Ryan Truax, Director of Marketing at Sportsdigita. Ryan gives an in-depth look at the intricacies of branding, and how the brand is an investment for organizations, not just a marketing tool. Ryan emphasizes the need to clearly define and understand the “WHY” of the organization in its branding efforts. This way, companies can clearly define its position and differentiate itself from the competition. Ryan believes that a brand must resonate first with the organization and its different departments first before it can help reach prospects and customers. If any element in the brand falls in the company level, then customers are bound to feel the disconnect. Branding should empower the organization and its members should be its ambassadors.

This episode of The Business Conversation Podcast features Arik Hanson, Principal at Arik Hanson Social Media and adjunct professor on digital and social media strategy at the University of Minnesota and strategic communications and social media marketing at the University of St. Thomas. Corporate communications especially on LinkedIn have become intertwined with the executives who lead their organizations. In many cases, outspoken c-suite executives who post the same content as their corporate accounts tend to garner much more engagement, and Arik explains that this because this level of transparency is not very common. For the executives who do this, turning corporate events into PR events has a huge impact on how their brand is viewed and how desirable it looks to the general public. But especially today, Arik explains that executives who give what people want from them, like transparency and empowerment, increase trust and engagement considerably.

This episode of The Business Conversation Podcast features Greg Swan, Head of Creative Innovation at Fallon. Some very big shifts are coming to the world at large with the creation of Metaverse and the unstoppable rise of NFTs. Greg shares how he uses social signals to use learnings from the past to shed light on the patterns of today, ultimately shaping what tomorrow becomes. He explains the need to have more than one marketing channel to ensure longevity and how central and decentralized networks will dominate life soon. For marketers, Grey suggests to remain curious to keep learning and adapting to rapid changes in technology. Even with NFTs, a little reflection reveals that its success is actually rooted in human nature and the desire to collect and have ownership.

This episode of The Business Conversation Podcast features Greg Tucker, Vice President of Global Marketing of Trax Group. Leading by admitting that you don't know everything is not a bad thing. In fact, Greg’s leadership style is a prime example of how effective this can really be. Greg shares how he treats his team and forms a cohesive unit by understanding that he doesn't know everything. To make it work, Greg relies on asking the right questions to get results. The problems he faced as he entered business can be daunting for most listeners, but Greg highlights that working together and sharing the big picture with his team is what gets the job done. By always providing value and purpose, he achieves success with his team and ultimately provides an amazing user experience. Greg explains that hearing what customers have to say and actually understanding what they're trying to say are two completely different things.

This episode of The Business Conversation Podcast features Tiffany Hosey, CEO and Founder of BuilDATAnalytics, public speaker and key contributor at GEO BIM and GEOSPATIAL WORLD FORUM, and a law practitioner for 15 years. Tiffany shares her background of being in law helped mould her to how she approached the giant industry that is construction. With the mindset of facts and minute details being key to getting the job done to combating the old mindset of the construction industry to just eyeballing progress for the most part. The problems she witnessed first-hand when her family started a construction company was that there was no platform, software, or basis as to how to combat the inefficiencies there was. The inefficiencies were baked in on the cake together with the business model. For Tiffany, the challenge began when she recognized the problem and found a viable solution to fix the inefficiencies whilst disrupting the status quo of the construction industry and how she strived to fix those issues.

This episode of the The Business Conversation Podcast features Dr. Amelia Reigstad, Founder of The Women Empowerment Series which encourages and inspires women to use their voice for change. Amelia shares the findings of her 7 year doctoral studies which proves there is inequality between men and women in the workplace. One of the findings was that women are expected to perform at their best as mothers and as professionals but are not sufficiently supported by the system. This is most apparent in pay gaps and the prevalence of the Queen Bee Syndrome which pits women against women for fear of losing hard-fought ground. For Amelia, change begins when effective two-way communication is deployed to recognize the true advantages of an equal workplace. Active listening is needed and women and their allies need to have a strong unified voice to move the conversation forward.

This episode of The Business Conversation Podcast features Jessica Marshall Kurysh, Vice President of Commercial Market Segments at Cambria. The rift between sales and marketing is legendary. In practically every industry, there seems to be a consensus that the two teams simply cannot get along. However, both teams working in tandem is critical when launching new products and services. Jessica provides incredible insight as she has worked for both sides, such as using the voice of the customer to focus marketing's more long-term views and widen sales' generally shorter term goals. She provides simple yet actionable tips for teams to really understand their customers, such as asking them authentic questions that don't lead back to you and having leadership prioritize the discovery of the true voice of the customer.

This episode of the The Business Conversation Podcast features Nick Wellner, Principal Product Designer at When I Work. Product designers help founders at every phase of determining whether the solution they have in mind is viable or not. During the discovery phase and once there is enough data, product designers bring these products to life, listen for customer feedback and experience, and identify new problems to solve to refine the product further. In the growth phase, product designers help with the consistency of the product. They make sure that the growing team implements decisions that are in the line with intended solutions to the end users. Product designers are also advocates for the product itself and helps inform teams on creating a product that is consistent with client needs and company goals. And when all teams are aligned with the product's goals, starting with the organization's leadership, then customers can expect a product that ultimately provides solutions to their problems.

This episode of the The Business Conversation Podcast features Nigel Green, independent consultant who specializes in sales teams. Misalignment between sales and marketing is a common problem within organizations. Fortunately, there are creative solutions which empower both departments to hit company goals, regardless of industry. Nigel shares the anatomy of a good sales team and how curiosity, competition, and chemistry contribute to the success of this department. Nigel also advises company leaders that the implementation of scorecards is an unmistakable way to hold accountability.

Garrio Harrison welcomes Heather Polivka in this episode of The Business Conversation Podcast. Join Garrio and Heather as they delve into the topic of creating a perfect work environment and ultimately perfect solution for talent.

Dave Koerner joins Garrio Harrison in this episode of The Business Conversation Podcast. Let’s hear from Garrio and Dave about marketing acceleration focusing on founding teams and organizations.