 It’s been proven that kindness in the workplace has a stunning ROI. Kindness decreases stress, reduces employee burnout, and builds increasing levels of happiness and satisfaction in the workplace.  Susan's guest is author Linda Cohen. They visit about the simplicity of transforming your business to incorporate kindness as a method of recruitment, retention, reputation without spending a lot of money. Her ideas are so simple you can start them today. Imagine a company culture where employees feel valued, recognized, and empowered enough to go the extra mile for customers and colleagues; where the leadership is able to be authentic, transparent, and connected to their team. The Economy of Kindness: How Kindness Transforms Your Bottom Line provides real-life examples of companies that have employed kindness as their secret weapon to build and maintain their organizations. Join Susan and Linda for this 20-minute discussion about The Economy of Kindness: How Kindness Transforms Your Bottom Line .

Rooted In Revenue

Kindness in Your Culture for Reputation, Recruitment, and Retention

 Christopher Lochhead wrote a book called Play Bigger. He was the CMO of Mercury Interactive and a couple of other real high-flying Silicon Valley startups and just an awesome guy. But he has a saying. He likes to say, "Thinking about thinking is the most important thinking you do. A lot of what we're talking about is stepping back because it's so easy to default to, Hey, I just raised my Series A; I'm in MarTech, let's go get somebody out of drift or let's go get a sale. Let's go find someone in Salesforce marketing. Let's go get a director from Salesforce to run our marketing. Oh, they'll crush it for us. And it's a natural default, right? And then a person comes in and because they weren't clear... And usually that person, they don't know how to vet. So, they're told this and they're super excited. Oh, wow. This is my chance. Put a stamp on it, but they forget that I'm not going to be in Salesforce anymore. Meaning, I'm not going to have, first of all, the Salesforce brand and just all the power of that. I'm not going to have all the resources. And so anyway, the questions are just so important. Our guest, Mark Donnigan spends a lot of time just going through with the CEOs and the founders he works with and just really talking it through. Listen to the rest of the interview with Mark. Part one of this interview is here: The Two-Way Interview with Mark Donnigan About Susan's Guest: Mark Donnigan designs and executes marketing programs and go-to-market strategies that build markets and establish disruptive innovation companies as a category king. With 20 years of experience as a transformative and strategic B2B marketing and business leader Mark understands what’s required to succeed in today’s winner takes all market. Leveraging marketing and growth tactics that work, Mark produces real business results for early and growth-stage technology and disruptive innovation startup companies. Being well versed in SaaS, software licensing, wholesale, and retail distribution models, he helps companies build nimble, highly efficient marketing teams that routinely outperform larger marketing groups. Mark is passionate about extracting the most value from every marketing dollar invested. He provides startup founders in the early stages of building their sales engine with high-impact marketing playbooks so that they can reach their revenue goals and scale sustainably.

The Role of the Conductor in B2B Leadership

 Mark Donnigan from Growth Stage Marketing says, "It's important that a professional team work together and all the executives should be rowing in the same direction and all these kind of truisms, which are all true but there are some very profound implications to how we market and how we sell, which gets wrapped up in go to market as a result of the fragmented buyer's journey that we are in today." He also reminds us, "think about how you talk about yourself, how you talk about what you do. And even as a full-time employee, in fact, I could argue that as a full-time employee, it matters as much or even more because it's so amazing when you hear one person who just describes themselves in kind of the HR job description. What do you do?" Listen to the first half of this interview to walk away walking a little bit taller, and able to go into interviews with more confidence. About Susan's Guest: Mark Donnigan designs and executes marketing programs and go-to-market strategies that build markets and establish disruptive innovation companies as a category king. With 20 years of experience as a transformative and strategic B2B marketing and business leader Mark understands what’s required to succeed in today’s winner takes all market. Leveraging marketing and growth tactics that work, Mark produces real business results for early and growth-stage technology and disruptive innovation startup companies. Being well versed in SaaS, software licensing, wholesale, and retail distribution models, he helps companies build nimble, highly efficient marketing teams that routinely outperform larger marketing groups. Mark is passionate about extracting the most value from every marketing dollar invested. He provides startup founders in the early stages of building their sales engine with high-impact marketing playbooks so that they can reach their revenue goals and scale sustainably.

The Two-Way Interview with Mark Donnigan

 If someone is completing a form, you never want your customer to take any action that they don't know what's next for them. They need to know what's next and how long it will take. This is just one tip from Sonia Portwood and Virginia Robbins from PCBB. Customer service can make or break your business. Look at everything that you do from the point of view of your customers and you can't go wrong.  Virginia reminds us to be brave when a customer leaves. Pick up the phone and ask what happened and how you could improve. It will only make you more successful. We made so many sudden changes last year and now it's time to review, adjust and make sure we are truly listening to our customers and incorporating their problems, hiccups, and complaints to be better at serving them to hopefully avoid repeating the mistakes.   About our guests: Virginia Robbins, Chief Platform Product Manager | PCBB Virginia Robbins has more than 40 years of experience in product development, technology, and operational excellence for financial institutions. Virginia is the Chief Platform Product Manager and oversees product development for the advisory solutions division of PCBB.   Sonia Portwood, EVP, Business Development and Strategic Execution | PCBB Sonia Portwood has over 25 years of sales and marketing experience in banking, finance and capital markets. At PCBB, Ms. Portwood is responsible for all business development and the execution of strategic initiatives. Prior to joining PCBB, Ms. Portwood served as Vice President at Kensington Investment Group where she was involved in sales and served as its lead account manager for national clients. Earlier in her career, Ms. Portwood worked for Financial Oxygen, BISYS Professional Services, SunTrust Securities, Bank of America, and Deposit Guaranty National Bank. Ms. Portwood earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Belhaven University.

Correcting the Disconnect in Your Customer Service

 What are the questions you should ask before you select a network security advisor? What should you ask yourself? What are your accessibility needs? Be sure to include the factor of your team's cell phones. How secure are they? The simple requirement for facial recognition to login can save headaches and disasters. Listen to this short episode walking through the logic and some actionable tips. 

Vetting Your Network Security Vendor and Locking It Down.

 When we all were sent home suddenly, not everything was ready for this transition, including the security of the workspace we were cobbling together at home, in closets, on kitchen tables, our cars, coffee shops. Many companies have continued to evolve policies, purchase equipment for those working remotely. But many haven't been able to. This episode will help those companies start that thought process and catch up.  Michael says, "Treat your remote and home network the same way you would your corporate environment. Having policies in place that you review regularly helps you stay on top of this." Michael tells the story of someone who was able to work from home, but what the company didn't realize, she was sharing the computer with her student daughter. This left a lot of vulnerability because the company didn't send her home with a dedicated computer, or cite the requirements to protect company information and that of their clients. This episode helps us pick up where we left off when we started working from home. Many aren't going back. It's working out well. Follow these tips to ensure it continues to work better and improve constantly. About Michael Blood, President, Matraex, Inc. App Visionary & Strategist | Project Consultant | Remove Project Constraints & Risks and Guide Development Teams to Realize Those Breakthrough Moments | Always on The Lookout For That Next Big Opportunity Throughout his career, he's led project idea development, design, architecture, and road-mapping. At times, he's consulted on and taken over projects that were stalled and needed an innovative breakthrough or alternative solution. What he finds exciting about application/software development is its expansion with near-endless possibilities. He's very passionate about taking an idea and making it come to fruition. This is true whether it's a business, project in development, or guiding his teams.

Time for Security Review to Continue #WFH or Hybrid

 Today, I am interviewing Craig Ostbo. I met Craig because Nina Hambleton, who was on our team, everybody loves Nina. She said, "You need to interview my professor because he's the real deal. And he knows everything about international marketing and has so much passion and joy for this." From a touring musician to the perfect timing getting into the natural, the organic, and sustainable world of products, and taking clients brands global is the story he's telling us today. He's also shared some free resources and advice. From Craig: Here's a site where you can do a tremendous amount of research on market opportunities for different products in most countries of the world: https://www.trade.gov/export-solutions   Here's a site that gives you even more data/country reports if your product is made from an agricultural commodity. This is the Foreign Agriculture Service or FAS: https://www.fas.usda.gov/   It helps to know the Harmonized System Code for your product. This number identifies your product category down to the nth degree in almost every country on earth. This system creates standards for global import/export: https://www.trade.gov/harmonized-system-hs-codes   The HS code system is a great way to do research on your product category. The HS Code will allow you to determine if there are tariffs, duties, or any other barriers in that foreign country aimed at your imported product. Often, without understanding the tariff structure, you may think you can easily compete on price against the domestic or even other foreign competitors until you discover the 35% tariff leveled at JUST USA BRANDS . . . there goes your margin :)

What you need to know before going after an International or Global Market

 "I understand that your clients are your gold, and I'm not going to do anything to tarnish that." Doug C.   Who is your ideal client? do not be afraid to truthfully state it. Everyone is not our client. Dream it! You are not being ungrateful grabbing all the crumbs. Free up your time, free up your effort. What do you want your income level to be? Is that enough? It may be fine, everyone has their own level of gratification. ----more---- Some of us base it on time, not money. Why not have it accomplish both? Doug tells us his one thing, with a City Slickers' reference. His one thing was building an agency within the company. Listen in to hear how he did this and increased his revenue by nearly 850%! He also helps us recover when we need to identify a new 'best audience' without abandoning the old audience. Do not cannibalize your base overnight just to go after a new market.  It's easier to keep going with your existing clients and more profitable. Include your existing clients in your ideas. You will be pleasantly surprised that they catch your excitement and are willing to consider your new offerings.  Check out his new book:  Win-Win Selling  - special price for two weeks: $0.99 for the ebook version.

What if the old audience is still enjoyable, but not as profitable?

 Continuing our discussions with Ledge on ways to quickly jump start your sales team, and ultimately your company's revenue and joy he tackles good vs bad leads and why they all need to be addressed. He says, "From the funnel standpoint, you can use some automation for that, but ultimately make sure you have sales and marketing work together on a human look at the discernment in your funnel. Is this a fit? Why is it not a fit? If it's not a fit are there any flags that I can indicate ahead of time from an automation standpoint?" He continues, "It's unethical to even try to take somebody's money for that when down the street there could be a provider that could help them out." Tune in for tips, insights, and your inspiration. A bit about Add1Zero.co Lead-to-close sales execution for B2B tech companies ready to leap from 6 to 7 digits of revenue.Their team joins your team - under your brand - to pick up your leads as soon as they hit your CRM, engage and close them, and hand a signed client over to your onboarding and CS teams. Using a proven process for 6- to 7-digit annual growth, they provide sales strategy, execution, and ops -- the real work that needs to get done to close deals.

No lead should be ignored, but not all leads should be sold to.

 Ever the optimist, Award-winning Magician, Scott Tokar, is looking forward to the irreplaceable trade shows he is a part of regularly. His corral of other performers know they can adjust and do online appearances, but nothing replaces the barker at a trade show driving people you never reached before to hear your message through entertainment. This episode of Rooted in Revenue first appeared on SLMA Radio.  Susan Finch interviews Scott to talk about adjusting, the value of performers to help carry the "hosting" load at virtual and in-person events, as well as how you can plan for when in-person events return or how to stand out with your hybrid or virtual event.   About Susan's guest: Scott Tokar, CEO Corporate-Fx Trade Show Magic Group Scott Tokar is unique among magicians, having focused solely on corporate entertainment (Infotainment) and visual communication, he is known today as a “specialist” in tradeshow magic and sales meeting motivation. Unlike his magical colleagues, Scott does not perform in nightclubs, at kids' birthday parties, or picnics.

Keeping Your Event Attendees Engaged and Wanting More

 Until you address the emotion in a volatile situation with compassion and respect, you will not diffuse a situation and may do more damage raising the intensity to a blistering crescendo. This is the continuing conversation that started a couple of weeks ago with Melissa Agnes. In this episode, we deep dive into one aspect of our response to a crisis, confrontation, and conflict as our brands and key people are bombarded with heavy emotion. Some of what is covered is how to get ahead of high emotional relatability when you can never overcome emotion with pure logic. 1. Validate the emotion.2. Relate to them on that basis.3. Proof and logic to support your position and facts. The tips Melissa gives us will help us protect our brands, but also have more success diffusing situations in our everyday lives. You will want to take notes here. If you missed the first episode with Melissa, Crisis Readiness Equals Freedom, you can listen here > About Susan's guest: Author of Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in an Uncertain World, Melissa Agnes is a leading authority on crisis preparedness, reputation management, and brand protection. Agnes is a coveted speaker, commentator, and advisor to some of today's leading organizations faced with the greatest risks. In Crisis Ready, Melissa Agnes draws from her remarkable experience in helping global brands, government organizations, and world leaders prevent and overcome a range of real-world, high-impact crises. She uses this experience to provide your organization with a clear roadmap to implementing a crisis ready culture–and thus building an INVINCIBLE brand. Order Crisis Ready on Amazon  Crisis Ready is not about crisis management. Management is what happens after the negative event has occurred. Readiness is what is done to build an INVINCIBLE brand, where negative situations don’t occur—and even if they do, they’re instantly overcome in a way that leads to increased organizational trust, credibility, and goodwill. No matter the size, type, or industry of your business, Crisis Ready will provide your team with the insight into how to be perfectly prepared for anything life throws at you. Organizations that are crisis ready are more than just resilient. They’re invincible. Crisis Ready is your roadmap to business invincibility.

Tucking Away Emotion to Build Your Invincible Brand

 When I think of peace of mind in business, it comes from being prepared for the expected, as well as the unexpected. It's not all sparkle ponies, unicorns and laughter. Bad stuff happens. What we do to respond in those moments as leaders and team members can change the course of a company and set into motion a chain reaction of positive outcomes or a Coyote/Roadrunner death spiral into dust. A bit dramatic I know, but I wanted you to have a visual as I introduce you to an expert in crisis readiness, Melissa Agnes. You don't have to put this off. You and your company can immediately take steps to build your crisis readiness. You may have more in place than you think you do. Learn from Melissa Agnes who is the author of Crisis Readiness on Amazon.  About Susan's guest: Author of Crisis Ready: Building an Invincible Brand in an Uncertain World, Melissa Agnes is a leading authority on crisis preparedness, reputation management, and brand protection. Agnes is a coveted speaker, commentator, and advisor to some of today's leading organizations faced with the greatest risks. In Crisis Ready, Melissa Agnes draws from her remarkable experience in helping global brands, government organizations, and world leaders prevent and overcome a range of real-world, high-impact crises. She uses this experience to provide your organization with a clear roadmap to implementing a crisis ready culture–and thus building an INVINCIBLE brand. Order Crisis Ready on Amazon  Crisis Ready is not about crisis management. Management is what happens after the negative event has occurred. Readiness is what is done to build an INVINCIBLE brand, where negative situations don’t occur—and even if they do, they’re instantly overcome in a way that leads to increased organizational trust, credibility, and goodwill. No matter the size, type, or industry of your business, Crisis Ready will provide your team with the insight into how to be perfectly prepared for anything life throws at you. Organizations that are crisis ready are more than just resilient. They’re invincible. Crisis Ready is your roadmap to business invincibility.

Crisis Readiness Equals Freedom - 3 Steps

 Susan's guest is Richard Moore. Not only is he a successful architect, but he's a graphic artist and product designer. Richard talks about the unexpected lessons learned when he started mass producing products. With over 100 SKUs, he's been able to successfully refine the process. The first step, hiring someone specifically to manage the production process. They met through a Kickstarter program several years ago launching their Chimeras through Walrus Toys. When Susan asked Richard how he balances his love of being an architect with product development, he tells her that it's not always balanced and that people need to get over insisting everything is always balanced, including the balance between partners in an endeavor. Just keep doing what you love. A quote he used to explain how fortunate he is was taken from architectural school, "Graphic artists always want to be product designers. Product Designers always want to be architects, and architects always want to be graphic artists." He and his partner are able to be all three. Listen to this 24-minute episode about what that looks like, his advice, tips and insights. There will also be a new Kickstarter soon to launch four new toys completely separate from the successful and popular, Chimeras line. He would give us NO hints, you'll just have to get on his mailing list to find out. You don't want to miss the Kickstarter opportunity! Now, I need to go to find my next gifts on ilovehandles.com - they are always inventing SOMETHING I want. Learn more about Walrus Toys, ILoveHandles and Zero One Ten.

Generate Revenue From All of Your Passions

   My guest today is Corinne McCormack for part two of the interview we did a couple of weeks ago about how to build a multimillion-dollar business. Yes, you can, and she has some final tips, advice, and strategies for you in this episode you don't want to miss. Here we go. I'm here with Corinne McCormack, and we have had some great interviews recently and there were a couple of topics though that I wanted to cover with her. Corinne, are you open, let's tackle those last two topics that we didn't get to do in our earlier shows. In your book, From Living Room to Boardroom: How I Launched and Sold a Multimillion-Dollar Business, you tell your whole journey. What I noticed in it is you were very upfront and open to talking about how you were able to borrow against your home to finance the start of your business. You're in New York. You had some equity, you were good. But what do you recommend for people with less than that type of option? Is that a deal-breaker if they can't get that initial funding? Corinne: Let me just start by saying when I write about the apartment in my book, the reality is you're right. It is New York real estate. And after five or 10 years, our apartment value went up to the point that we were able to take out a second and third mortgage, which we used to finance the business. But what people need to understand is that I took a risk. So that when I lost my business, my husband and I were in the process of buying an apartment. And we knew we were on the line for a larger mortgage. I hadn't lost my job, but the president of our company, our parent company went Chapter 11. The president of the company lost his job. I called my accountant because it was four more weeks until our apartment closed.  "Oh, my God, Larry. What do I do? We're going to be closing on this apartment in four weeks, the company is in Chapter 11. what am I going to do? Should we be taking on all of this mortgage?" Because it was a big mortgage, and my accountant said something to the effect, "Well, you have to live somewhere." My husband and I just looked at each other and said, "We're taking the risk. We're going to go into this mortgage, we're going to figure it out. We'll figure out how to make it get paid." So for the first year of my business, we now had this very large mortgage to pay. I didn't have the benefit of substantial real estate when I first launched my business because we were still paying off a mortgage. And at that point, the apartment hadn't increased in value. We were just looking to make mortgage payments. So the first thing I have to say is people who want to make things happen in their life, sometimes you have to take a risk, but you have to take it or you live with regrets. I talk about risk in my book. You have to take a knowledgeable risk. Back to earning money for people or creating money when they want to launch their own business and they don't come from a lot of money, there are a lot more ways to fund startup businesses today than there were back in 1993. There's the internet, there are Kickstart campaigns. So there are opportunities. If you have a great idea for a company and you know how to position yourself online and develop a website, and develop an Instagram account and get a following, and go on Kickstarter and start selling your idea to people, people will gravitate towards you. I was just mentoring a couple of young women who started a business. And they did a Kickstart campaign and they launched enough money that they were able to finance their first round of inventory. A substantial amount of money, so there's a lot of opportunities. It's not what are the troubles or what are the problems to make what I want. It's like, "What do I want and how do I make it happen?" And I remember when I first financed my business, I became part of a women's organization. It was called American Economic Development Corporation. It doesn't exist anymore, but there are a lot of women's organizations out there that you can partner with. And this organization had an event where they invited a senior vice president from Chase Bank to talk to women about financing their business. 200 women attended, I was one of them. He went through this whole presentation about how they wanted to finance startup businesses. And at the end when he had the question and answer session and I said, "Oh, I have a question. I have a really important question. I want to launch this business. I've gone to three different banks looking for money, and all the banks say you need to be in business for two to three years before we'll loan you. But I won't be in business in two to three years unless I get a loan. So it's a catch 22. What am I supposed to do?" So this gentleman said, "Here's my phone number." Yeah, we didn't have emails. There was no internet. "Here's my phone number. Call me tomorrow." So I got on the phone at nine o'clock in the morning. I wanted to be the first one in line to get through because we used to get busy signals. Millennials, yes, you used to use your phone and there was something known a busy signal. If more than one person was talking on the phone, you couldn't talk to the other person. So I wanted to be first in line. I got through, I spoke with him, and then I started on the process to get my loan. And a couple of weeks later I said, "By the way, how many other people reached out after that meeting?" The answer was none. So lots of times people tell themselves that they want something, but then they think of all the reasons why it won't work, and they stop themselves from moving forward to make it happen. So my motto is if you want something, figure out how to get it and go for it. And yes, you're going to need you to take a risk. Nothing comes easy. Susan: I like, too, that you covered through more traditional financing. Sometimes it's a credit union. Sometimes it's the small banks, it's a local bank. I know Chase had launched a new program right at the exact same time. You had perfect timing with them. That's what they were investing in, small businesses because that was the new wave. Corinne: That was the new wave. Right. The internet was up and coming. All of these things were starting to happen and people were starting to understand the value of small businesses. It was just perfect timing, and yet it wasn't perfect timing because there was also a bad recession going on at the same time. So again, had I told myself the story, you know that, oh, it's a recession. People aren't spending money. Things are bad. I better get another job. I never would have launched my own company. You really need to believe in yourself. I had asked a lot of people prior to launching my own business because I knew someday I wanted to do it. "What do you need to have when you launch your own business?" And people said to me, among other things, you need enough money in the bank that you got two years worth of salary. So in case you don't make any money, you could draw on that. I didn't have any money in the bank. We had nothing. We had a new mortgage and no job, and my husband was working, but my salary wasn't coming in. So I had a severance package that would last for six months. That's what I had. Susan: I think the nos are all fear-driven, and they are also those that don't have enough drive. It is their excuse. It is their show stopper. When they hit that fork in the road, it's the path easily taken that's smooth and paved. And you can see the end of the path. I think what people need to remember too is okay if it doesn't work, what's the worst that it can be? Can you survive that? And if you think that all the way through rather than just I can't do it because I'm afraid of that, how bad really is that? And how much does that stink? Can you dig yourself out of that? And I think once you have those, to me those are safety net thoughts. It takes the fear out of the risk, out of the leap, out of the trust. Corinne:  You have to want it more than you fear it. There's a lot of things out there that are scary and you know, what if. But if what you want is stronger and your drive to succeed is stronger, and your belief that you're going to figure out a way no matter what. And that's what I believed. I kept saying to myself, "I'm going to figure out how to find the money for this company no matter what." And that's what I did. And when the bank said to us, "You need to put your property up as collateral against your loan," meaning if the business goes under, you lose your home. My husband and I said, "Well, go for it." Because what are our other options, not to go for our dream? We'd rather roll the dice and risk at all, than sit back and say, "No. That's too risky. I don't want to do it." No regrets. No regrets. Right. And you're right, you do have to move forward and you have to have ... You know, what's the worst that can happen? And something bad happens, I'll figure out a way to get out of that too. So you really do need to believe in yourself. And the nice thing about the world today is that there is the internet, there are opportunities to reach out to like-minded people. I have an Instagram page called Corinne Consults. People can come on there and ask me questions. I'm happy to, to talk to people. I have a website, corinnemccormackconsulting. Come on my website. I'm happy to talk to you. And there's different, and it's not just me. There's a world out there of people that if you Google something, you can get the answer very quickly. And you just need to to make it happen. But check the credibility of whose advice you're following. You need to be smart enough to be able to judge the crap from the good. On the web, there can be a lot of hucksters, shall we say. Susan: Any ding-dong can have a microphone and can type. The last thing on the financing  I want to remind you, most of your communities have community grants. And especially if you are creating an opportunity that could hire another person in your community. Remember, grants don't have to be repaid. Grants are a, "Hey. Make it happen, guys. Let me see what you can do with it." Look deeper. It isn't always just about the Kickstarters, as we know. It isn't always about the banks. Be creative. How bad do you want it? Go get it. Believe in yourself. Corinne McCormack, this has been a wonderful wrap up to these conversations. And I want to send everybody to Amazon. Go on Kindle, go anywhere you get books to find From Living Room to Boardroom: How I Launched and Sold a Multimillion-Dollar Business by Corinne McCormack. And go find her. Go to corinnemccormackconsulting.Com. Find her as she said on Instagram, Corinne Consults. Go find her. Connect, learn from her.   

Get out of your way and create a successful business.

Corinne McCormack - How to launch a multi-million dollar business.

Revenue and sales driven by marketing, sales skills and events.

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Rooted In Revenue

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