In this Expert Insight Interview, Jed Morley discusses aligning your brand messaging to increase sales and retention. Jed Morley is a brand strategist, backstory branding expert and CMO-for-hire, who helps CEOs scale their businesses by getting their story straight.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• Why companies must focus on the entire customer journey when it comes to branding
• How a shared sense of ownership leads to more satisfied customers
• The importance of living up to the brand’s promise

Delivering on Promises

Sometimes, very sales-oriented people do not seem to get the connection between branding/messaging and sales/retention. They tend to think that these are two very separate things, where branding and messaging are too far ‘up the funnel’ to affect sales.

The way that Jed Morley wants his clients to think about this is in terms of the entire customer journey. The idea is that the product can deliver on all the promises made in marketing. The sales team should be able to recommend the right product fit for each customer and have that customer realize the value they were promised.

Shared Sense of Ownership

The possibility of a customer being delighted by a product and being retained and loyal to the brand and the business is higher if marketing promises are met. The process that Jed recommends is to create ideal customer profiles and personas that everybody contributes to.

This way, there’s a shared sense of ownership and understanding about who the customers are, what they want and what obstacles and problems they’re facing. In turn, this helps the business as a whole meet the customers’ expectations.

Everyone’s a Brand Steward

Living up to the brand’s promise is the name of the game. In that way, everybody in the organization needs to be their version of a brand steward. If you promise something that you can’t fulfill, or the experience is different from what was expected, customers drop out, and everyone’s the worse for it.

The brand is the totality of the experience someone has from the moment they come in contact with your organization, through the sales process, to becoming a customer, onboarding, and finally, how they are supported.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

In this Expert Insight Interview, Janice Litvin discusses employee wellness and how companies should make their employees feel valued rather than showering them with superfluous workplace amenities. Janice Litvin is the author of the Banish Burnout Toolkit.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• The Banish Burnout Toolkit and its importance in today’s business climate
• Why do people have trouble taking breaks
• How companies should focus on making their employees feel appreciated

Banish Burnout Toolkit

Janice Litvin’s book Banish Burnout Toolkit is very timely because people seem to have generally decided to begin assessing where they were in life. The pandemic did accentuate this process, but even before it, people were asking themselves the question of what their work meant to them and where their life was headed.

Now we’re in a situation where many people are trying to figure out why they feel the way they do, why they feel so overwhelmed and burnt out. The pandemic caused a lot of uncertainty, a lot of confusion, and loss of control, and these are the areas that are the key drivers of stress and burnout.

Burnout Environment

People almost don’t want to stop for a moment and do the ‘awareness’ work, whether it is because they are afraid of what might turn up or because they’re addicted to momentum, even if it is stressful.

Burnout is not a one-way street. Traditionally, when we think about burnout, we think about what we can do to improve our self-care as individuals. But, in reality, the organization is often the one creating the burnout environment, and the workers are reacting. In order to avoid burnout, organizations should reward healthy choices, provide adequate resources, and support healthy work/life balance.

Superfluous Amenities

The way you treat your employees is essential for ‘employee wellness’, although it does not technically fall under the wellness hat. There was a trend for a while where companies thought that if they put out all these extraneous or superfluous goodies, their employees should be very happy.

However, if you’re overloading people and working them into the ground, making them feel marginalized and unimportant, it doesn’t matter how many foosball tables you give them; it’s not going to make a difference. If your employees feel abused and emotionally weak, they are going to leave.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

In this Expert Insight Interview, Will Haire discusses penetrating and growing your eCommerce business on Amazon. Will Haire is the CEO and founder of BellaVix, which helps companies increase their online footprint to boost their sales through domestic and international marketplaces.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• How Amazon has grown throughout the pandemic
• The crucial ways in which Amazon has changed over the last decade
• The critical factors in achieving success on Amazon
• Amazon Is Huge

There are so many people leveraging Amazon as a platform for business. As many as 60% of eCommerce searches start on Amazon, and about 50% of eCommerce sales happen on this platform. And it is continuing to grow with the pandemic doing nothing but strengthening the sales platform’s presence.

As of a few months ago, there’s an official Amazon airport within a hundred miles of every major U.S. city. The company has obviously managed to take whatever it has earned pre-COVID and invest it into company infrastructure.

Brand-Building Is Crucial

A major thing to point out is that Amazon has changed significantly in the last several years. Gone are the days when you could just find a niche product and sell it online for a huge profit without building a brand. Brand-building is precisely where the tables have turned.

What’s great about Amazon is that people who shop there are very close to the bottom of the funnel. People are going to Amazon to check reviews, gauge your product, as well as spec out some competitor products. So, what you do to penetrate the market on this platform is build an audience.

Keys to Success on Amazon

The first thing you should work on is a high-quality website, ensuring a consistent brand presence through all your marketplaces. Aside from this, the factors that count the most include the following:

• Having a good customer experience through Amazon
• Advertising and running marketing promotions
• Getting your product in front of interested customers

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

In this Expert Insight Interview, Wayne Washington argues that you can either align your company’s strategy, culture, and operations, or you’re leaving money on the table. Wayne Washington is known as the Doctor of Operations, and he helps CEOs sustain growth, profit by eliminating hidden costs, disengaged employees, and unnecessary complexity.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• The connection between company strategy, culture, and operations
• The “value drains” that come from an unbalanced approach
• Why it is essential to approach each problem holistically

Culture, Strategy, and Operations

In many organizations, company strategy is done at the executive level; operations are left to the head of operations, and culture is just something that organically happens over time. Rarely do you hear these three talked about together.

Operations are treated as the step-child in most companies. They focus on the strategy and culture while leaving operations to fend for themselves. The problem with this approach is that these three aspects of any business share the same resources. This means you have to have the right resources for the right reason at the right time and place.

Value Drains

If you’re not utilizing your resources effectively, there’s an issue, and to avoid this issue, you need to align your strategy, culture, and operations. All three of these are ways you can run your business model, and if you favor one over the other, you’re out of sync, which can lead to one of three “value drains:”

• Disengaged employees
• Unnecessary complexity
• Hidden costs

Holistic Approach

Sometimes when managers want to deal with the problem of disengaged employees, they start to default to the cultural side of the equation.

Suddenly everything becomes about getting people engaged, but putting a band-aid on this problem by suddenly doing a lot of cultural work is not going to help. You need to look at each situation through a holistic lens.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

In this Expert Insight Interview, Tim Sharp discusses positive psychology and happiness. Tim Sharp is at the forefront of the positive psychology movement and is the founder of The Happiness Institute.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• The definition of positive psychology
• Why positive psychology is important in today’s world
• How to focus on strengths instead of weaknesses

Positive Psychology

When most people think of psychology, they think of clinical psychology. It primarily focuses on the assessment and treatment of depression, anxiety, and stress. About 20 years ago, a group of psychologists decided that, instead of asking what was wrong with people, they could start asking what was right with people and how to make the most of that.

This is how the positive psychology movement was born. In the simplest of terms, this movement involves a shift from an exclusive focus on problems and deficits and how to overcome them to a more balanced approach that started to include strengths, attributes, and successes, and how we can leverage them for thriving and success.

Performance Reviews

As humans, we’re almost hard-wired to look at deficits and problems. Even when corporations and businesses do performance reviews, this is what they focus on. Therefore, it is no surprise that we associate clinical psychology with problems, issues, and deficits rather than something to use to build upon successes.

Dr. Tim points out that this is not entirely inappropriate, particularly in the business world. If someone’s underperforming and needs to learn something, it is important to identify those areas. However, it should not be exclusively about this, as each one of us also has psychological strengths.

Focusing on Strengths

The best organizations and managers are much more aware of their people’s strengths, and they are much better at helping their staff use those strengths. If you can do that, you can perform a lot better.

Focusing on strengths leads to a much more positive experience because, at the end of the day, there are some things that some people will never be good at, so why put that stress on them.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

In this Expert Insight Interview, Colin Scotland discusses the customer journey transformation and how to understand and identify your ideal client. Colin Scotland is a marketing coach for visionary entrepreneurs and a digital marketing strategist specializing in helping online businesses grow quickly.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• How to define your ideal client
• Why we often lose sight of our clients
• The “Prison to Paradise” journey

Ideal Client

It is incredible how many businesses today do not have a clear definition of who their ideal client is. Sometimes their definition is ill-defined; other times, it is too broad, but the problem persists, whatever the cause may be.

Even though it seems like a given that you should start marketing to your ideal client, for some reason, it often isn’t done well, which can cause lots of problems for any business.

Focusing Inward

We are all guilty of being wrapped up in what we do because we care about it so much. Our business is precious to us, so we tend to focus too much on our side of the equation without even realizing it.

This, unfortunately, means we all too often lose sight of what makes the business tick — the client. Aside from this, we often make assumptions that turn out not to be correct simply because we believe we are exceptionally perceptive.

Prison to Paradise

Colin Scotland has a process that he loves to share with his students and clients, called “Prison to Paradise.” The idea behind it is to imagine your ideal client being in a state of “prison,” a sad state of dealing with a problem before they’ve had your service or product. Once they discover your product, you can imagine them being in a “paradise” state.

Having a look at those contrasting states is the beginning of understanding how you deliver transformation. Understanding your ideal client isn’t always necessarily about their age, gender, job, or income. Sure, these factors are important — they are part of how we segment a market and create targetable groups that we can advertise to. That said, the transformation is the thing that is universal across segments and demographics.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

In this Expert Insight Interview, Aryeh Sheinbein discusses how to increase the value of your business and your net worth. Aryeh Sheinbein has spent over 20 years analyzing investments, from startups through billion-dollar companies to real-estate deals, partnerships, and everything in between.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• How small business owners and entrepreneurs are hampered by the inability to delegate
• Why every business needs a roadmap
• How understanding your goals sets you up for success

Delegating

For many entrepreneurs and business owners, their net worth is very much tied to the value of their business net worth. Looking at the business side of things, the first and most important thing is to understand how it can operate without you and what role you play within the day-to-day.

Many people who start their own business have trouble delegating and systematizing, which means they do everything alone. Understanding how you can delegate most of your tasks, turning your business into a more passive source of personal income is the first step.

Creating a Roadmap

When you’re starting a business, or you’re in the midst of running one, it always makes sense to take a step back and try to figure out precisely what you want from the business and where you want to take it.

Whether you want to sell your business or not, you probably want to get it to a place where it could be sold, in theory. Whatever it is you’re doing, whether you’re building personal wealth or growing your business, you’ll need a roadmap. And any roadmap is only helpful if you know where you are right now and where you want to go.

Understanding Your Goals

Sometimes people start their businesses with only a vague idea of where they want to go, not even thinking about a specific figure they want to reach in value. They simply think of their business as a way to sustain themselves and their families.

Despite this, people tend to get distracted by talk of exponential growth and overnight success, but taking a step back and seeing what you want out of your business is the only thing that will ensure you achieve the desired results.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

In this Expert Insight Interview, Anne Hill discusses how you can identify what’s working and not working in your business. Anne Hill runs Hilltop Virtual Solutions, and she wants to help you take control of your company’s backend again.

This Expert Insight Interview discusses:

• The six pillars of operation for any business
• The importance of consistency in the customer experience
• How minor tweaks can make a big difference

Six Pillars

When first working with a new business, Anne walks through a strategic planning session with them. The goal of this session is to dive into the company as a whole before focusing on the backend and operation side of things specifically.

She breaks businesses into six pillars: financial steadiness, visibility, product development, operations, team growth, and customer/client experience. Each company can have things that are working or not working in each of these areas.

Consistency Is Key

People want to have a red-carpet experience for their clients, but the customer journey they want to take the client through typically doesn’t consistently happen. Sometimes people tend to overlook the fact that the customer experience needs to be looked at from a holistic perspective, not just focusing on the part that works.

A company can have a tremendous pre-sale experience or a fantastic sale experience, but perhaps not great onboarding or implementation. So, what people tend to miss is how much the consistency and totality of the experience matter.

Small Steps, Big Changes

If you do project-based work or deliver a service, there may come the point when you switch your area of focus, leaving the customer feeling a little abandoned or vulnerable. Your customers may feel that the purchase of the product or service is no longer justified. A well-thought-out offboarding experience can go a long way towards mitigating this problem, and it often tends to get overlooked.

This shows that all the different pillars of successful operation are intertwined, but there are aspects of them that can make a big difference. Fixing how the backend of your business works doesn’t always have to be a huge undertaking; it can be a minor tweak that produces excellent results.

Our Host

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.