What's Next! with Tiffani Bova

Shep Hyken, a NY Times and WSJ bestselling author and customer service expert, joins Tiffani Bova's podcast. They discuss the importance of customer experience and its impact on purchase decisions. They emphasize the need for customer-focused companies and creating a customer-centric culture. The power of convenience as a competitive differentiator is also explored.

Today's guest is Peter Fader, professor of marketing at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and the co-founder of Zodiak. His expertise centers on the analysis of behavioral data to understand and forecast customer shopping purchasing activities. His insights are reflected in his great book, Customer Centricity. The highlight of the conversation is Peter's story of his disagreement with Wall Street's findings on Dish Network's company valuations. Peter and his team analyzed the company valuations using the public data Dish provided to investors. They came up with company valuations that were within 3-5% difference of the forecasts Wall Street was making. Next, as a fun academic exercise, his students created forecasts for the next 4 quarters using various statistical methods. Peter compared his students' numbers to Dish's quarterly numbers and noticed two things: (1) the students were within .5% of the number that Dish announced, and (2) the Wall Street analysts were off by about 10%. You can read Peter's article, "How Wharton marketing students beat Wall Street analysts at their own game," on his findings. In this episode: 2:00 – Can marketing can be taught or is it learned? 3:15 - What is the genesis of lifetime value and customer centricity? 4:08 – What happens if companies focus on the customers, not products? 5:38 - How do companies define, uncover, and identify the right customers? 9:00 – Wharton creates a new term, "customer-based corporate valuation" 12:45 – How to look beyond big, glitzy metrics 15:27 – Peter's disagreement with Wall Street analysts 21:15 – Peter's stock tip! 25:49 – Getting below the surface of the numbers to find the story 29:49 – The blend between data analytics and intuition 31:10 – What's Next! for customer lifetime value, customer centricity, and the analytics side of growing business? Running time: 33:43 Subscribe on iTunes Find Tiffani on social: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Find Peter on social: LinkedIn Twitter

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. Today's guest is Jim Harris, author of Blindsided: How to Spot the Next Breakthrough that Will Change Your Business Forever. Jim is a principal at Strategic Advantage and has 20 years of experience as a professional speaker and consultant. Jim speaks internationally at more than 40 conferences per year on essential topics such as creativity, innovation, customer relationships, strategic planning, and environmental leadership. THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… innovative thinkers. Innovation is coming here. Our professional lives are different than they were five years ago; our personal lives are drastically different they were ten years ago. How you approach change will determine your success. If you don't want to be blindsided, pay attention to your systems and processes and keep the younger employees involved in strategy. Remember, diversity goes way beyond gender. Choose a team of bright people and create job opportunities. Innovation ultimately means that everything gets lighter, faster, and cheaper, and that's ok. TODAY'S MAIN MESSAGE… Change happens and if you want to keep up — whether that's with social media, viral videos, staying agile, going direct to consumer, etc. — you're going to have to figure out a way to be current. Think about Tesla's integrated solutions: they have energy solutions, power walls, and cars. It's more than filling one need. It's about finding innovative methods to solve multiple problems via one platform. WHAT I LOVE MOST… No matter how these conversations start, it comes back to being sure that we're focusing on the right things. It's not about thinking and talking; it's about execution and putting your product in the hands of your customers. A PIECE OF ADVICE… create an ecosystem to bring your idea to fruition. People don't work in a vacuum; it's about the power of the whole, especially the employees. Running time: ­­­35:51 Subscribe on iTunes Find Tiffani on social: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Find Jim on social: Website LinkedIn Twitter

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. Today's guest is Josh Linkner. Josh is a five-time tech entrepreneur and hyper-growth CEO, two-time New York Times Bestselling author, top-rated keynote speaker, and founding partner of Detroit Venture Partners. Josh lives at the intersection of tech and advertising. In this episode, he and Tiffani explore how this intersection includes hacking, reinvention, and creativity. They also share ways that you can use traditions to be more innovative. In this episode: 4:50 – How a small jazz ensemble is a perfect metaphor for business 6:53 – How Josh defines reinvention and what people can learn from reinventing 8:52 - What can people do to start reinventing their business? 9:40 – A simple, but powerful question Josh poses to help you change your daily traditions 10:55 – What inspired Josh to write Hacking Innovation 12:55 – Is hacking just duct taping a problem together? 14:10 – Do new startups need to have a hacker mentality? 16:02 – Josh's definition of creativity and how innovation fits into creativity 20:52 – What to do if the organization isn't willing to riff off of the bottom-up or external innovation 22:01 – What leaders can do to harness innovation and tap into the holistic creative minds of the organization 32:00 – Is it the responsibility of all people to think about what's next? Running Time: 33:45 Find Tiffani on Social Media: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Find Josh on Social Media Website LinkedIn Twitter

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. This week, I'm speaking with Frits van Paasschen, a seasoned global executive, and author of the new book, The Disruptors Feast. With 30 years of experience, he has a unique perspective on the current trends that impact businesses around the world. Frits served as the CEO of Starwood Hotels and Resorts, CEO at Coors Brewing Company, and have held several management positions at Nike. Frits is one a few who have seen first-hand what it's like to be in the middle of disruption. He was the CEO of Starwood when AirBnB started and the CEO of Coors when the craft beer industry launched. He shares how he handled disruption by changing from the inside out and leading when change broadsides a company. In this episode: 4:10 – How Frits defines disruption 8:52 – What it was like as the CEO of Starwood when AirBnB disrupted the hotel industry 12:21 – What other industries can learn from disruptors like AirBnB 14:08 – What do you do when disruptors come after your industry? 17:09 – What does it look like, culturally, when a company has to shift due to disruption in the marketplace? 20:06 – Frits' three barriers to change 25:16 – Why Frits thinks that sometimes the best way to deal with disruption is to disrupt back 30:05 – Dissecting the interplay between the new digital side and how-we've-always-done-things 31:29 – Frits' perspective on athletic companies calling themselves technology companies Running Time: 35:08 Subscribe on iTunes Find Tiffani on Social Media: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Find Frits on Social Media: Website LinkedIn Facebook

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. I am thrilled to bring you Tom Peters on this week's episode. Tom is the co-author of In Search of Excellence and is one of the most exceptional management, sales, and marketing thinkers around. This book has been tagged as the "best business book ever." THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… leaders. Think about it, have you ever seen a tombstone with someone's net worth on it? No. That's not what matters. What matters in life and business is relationships, embracing differences, and pushing yourself to make sure you don't get caught in the same-same trap. TODAY'S MAIN MESSAGE… is that people come before everything else. Tom wholeheartedly believes in matching people to culture; otherwise, he knows, culture falls apart. To create culture, you must have a foundation of listening, caring, smiling, and saying thank you. It's about being nice to other people. WHAT I LOVE MOST… is that Tom shapes what excellence looks like. Take a moment to step back and give people the space to say what they are thinking. Building teams and coaching is all about the people side of business, not the shiny stuff. A PIECE OF ADVICE… consider management by wandering around (MBWA). Take 10 minutes and walk around with no goal in mind. Let your thoughts be your guide as you take moment to reflect. Running time: 46:10 Subscribe on iTunes Find Tiffani on social: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Find Tom on social: Website Twitter Facebook

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. This week, we have Martin Lindstrom on the show. Martin has developed an unorthodox method of doing what every company says it wants to do: understanding its consumers' deepest desires and turning them into breakthrough products, brands or retail experiences. He's a change agent, brand futurist, best-selling author, and pioneer in the fields of consumer psychology, brand marketing, and neuroscientific research. Martin is also the anchor and producer of NBC's popular show, 'Main Street Makeover.' Martin is living with less technology. He believes that we should get out of focus groups and into the homes of real customers. When you see how people are truly living and using products, you can create real value, spark creativity for future projects, and see the tiny details of the big picture. In this episode: 4:29 – Why Martin wrote his book, Small Data: The Tiny Clues That Uncover Huge Trends 7:15 – The problem with linear data 9:29 – How jumping to conclusions with data correlation doesn't work 10:14 – Why Tiffani says, "analytics is the refinery on the data, but intelligence is the petrol." 11:35 – Even if the data doesn't tell you what you want, don't discount it 13:09 – What refrigerator magnets can tell you about a child's need for entertainment in your community 15:57 – How can we have data and no information? 19:06 – Why Tiffani is surprised that CMOs don't spend time with customers 21:03 – What happens when downtime disappears? 23:06 – What Martin thinks you should do on Monday morning to lean into more downtime 26:38 – The magic of working from the outside in 28:25 – What can a small business do with data? 31:59 – What's next for small data? Running time: 33:40 Subscribe on iTunes Find Tiffani on Social Media: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Find Martin on Social Media: LinkedIn Twitter YouTube

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. This week, Whitney Johnson joins Tiffani on the podcast. Whitney was recognized as one of the world's most influential management thinkers in 2015, was a finalist for the Top Thinkers on Talent at the biennial Thinkers50 ceremony in London, and is best known for her work on driving corporate innovation through personal disruption. She's the author of the critically acclaimed Disrupt Yourself, one of Tiffani's favorite books. Tiffani and Whitney talk about personal disruption – a favorite conversational topic for both women. Disruption is bound to happen, at work and in your personal life. There are ways to adapt to change and so you (or your company) aren't left behind as the rest of the world moves forward. In this episode: 4:43 – What is personal disruption? 7:40 – Is change more difficult in your professional life? 8:34 - Companies that sell technology are actually selling change 8:56 – Why early adopters are better at change 10:29 – What you can control in your work life 11:09 – What can individual contributors do when they feel stuck in their own personal journey? 12:40 – Why you should play to your strengths 16:28 – What to do if your leader isn't willing to change, but you know you have to disrupt 19:38 – Why you should focus on what scares you, even if that means starting over 20:11 - Self-disruption exercises 28:31 - Preparing for the learning around the execution gap 32:25 – Take the S-Curve Locator Running time: 33:14 Subscribe on iTunes Find Tiffani on social: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Find Whitney on social: Twitter LinkedIn Harvard Business Review

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. Today's guest is Lisa Bodell. Lisa is a globally recognized innovation leader, futurist, and CEO of futurethink. As an expert on the topic of change, she is also the author of two best-selling books: Why Simple Wins (2016), and Kill the Company: End the Status Quo, Start an Innovation Revolution (2012). Lisa serves as a global council member of the World Economic Forum and is a frequent contributor to Forbes and Harvard Business Review. Lisa believes that innovation is not new – it's something that adds value. Ideas, Lisa believes, are everywhere. It's about what you do with those ideas that make them special. In this episode: 5:13 – What is innovation? 7:42 – Do teams need diversity beyond men and women? 9:50 – What happens when a leader has an established, homogeneous team? 10:42 – What is the difference between a groove and rut? 14:15 – How to have the opportunity to have a beginner's mindset? 15:14 – How risk, fear, power, and control impact every single person 19:05 – How we made innovation too complex 21:03 – Lisa challenges Tiffani on having the time and bandwidth to do more than you think you can 23:33 – You can create a simplification code of conduct to have more time to innovate 25:02 – Lisa's magical "kill a stupid rule" strategy 26:20 – The benefit of killing rules and meetings 30:09 – Simplification is contagious 30:43 – What inspires Lisa at the World Economic Forum? Running time: 34:40 Subscribe on iTunes Find Tiffani on social: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Find Lisa on social: Twitter YouTube LinkedIn

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. This week, I have the pleasure of having Mark Bonchek on the show. Mark is the Founder and Chief Epiphany Officer of Shift Thinking. He leads organizations to make the shift from incremental to exponential growth and to achieve transformational change so that they can more effectively compete in their market, engage their customers, and organize their teams. Mark believes that the business model is on the surface and what's underneath it is the customer centric mental model. The mental model, which focuses on people, has two parts. One view is a broad, outwardly focused model of engagement and marketing concentrating resources on targeting, segmenting, running campaigns, and moving customers through the funnel. This model spotlights the company's objectives and how to get the customer to take action to achieve corporate goals. Another model of customer centricity, which works backwards from the customer, asks, "What is the need that we're filling? What are the customer's objectives? How do we help the customer fulfill their objectives?" This model seeks to understand the customer's goals and how to marshal resources to help them achieve their goals. Both parts are customer centric, but one is about you and the other is about them. In this episode: 2:45 – Why Mark is in the epiphany business, not the consulting business 4:59 – Business model vs. mental model vs. measurement model 7:40 – Mark defines customer centricity 8:50 – Outwardly focused customer centricity 13:25 - How do you execute on customer experience? 14:45 – How to scale using engaged customer communities and user groups 16:05 – How disconnected teams and disconnected metrics lead to a disconnected experience, in the customer's eyes 20:30 – How an established culture can understand what customer centricity means 26:10 – How to see your own eyeballs 27:48 - We don't have technology problem; we have a people process problem 30:25 – Mark's article on Harvard Business Review, Don't Sell a Product, Sell a Whole New Way of Thinking 31:05 – What's next for customer centricity? Running time: 32:43 Subscribe on iTunes Find Tiffani on social: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Find Mark on social: Twitter LinkedIn Harvard Business Review