Rooted In Revenue

We have a highly specialized guest who will help us navigate the evolving landscape of consumer behavior as it relates to demand generation. Deanna Shimoto, with over eight years of expertise in marketing and demand generation, joins us to share insights that couldn't be more relevant to our current business climate. As Deanna aptly puts it, "Buyers, consumers in general, are spending significantly more time digging in and doing their own research." This shift in consumer behavior is transforming the way businesses need to approach sales and marketing. In this episode, we explore the reasons behind this shift and how it's affecting various industries, including the car vending machine trend exemplified by Carvana. Trust, efficiency, and control have become paramount for today's consumers. Whether you're in B2B or B2C, understanding and adapting to these changing dynamics is crucial. We'll delve into the importance of trust, the consequences of broken trust, and the need to align your strategies with evolving

In this episode, Susan Finch and Tessa Burg dive deep into the ethical and strategic incorporation of AI tools, such as ChatGPT, into business workflows and educational systems. They discuss the importance of understanding biases, setting up standards across the company, and adopting a cautious approach to the usage of generative AI tools. They emphasize the need for a strong QA process and internal policies to protect clients and businesses. Additionally, they touch on the importance of educating students and teachers on how to properly use AI tools to enhance creativity and communication. Susan and Tessa share real-life examples and insights to highlight the challenges and benefits of using AI tools while maintaining a strong focus on ethics, security, and bias. Tune in to explore the nuances of incorporating AI into your daily workflows and the importance of approaching it with a strategic mindset. Listen to Tessa's episode from Leader Generation on this topic, as well. The Unique Edge Marketers Have Over

Jo Dale Carothers has just published Royally Deceived. I sat with her yesterday to talk about the process of someone who works full-time AND wants to be a published author. One of her big takeaways - research free resources, talk to other authors in your genre, and put together a team. Here is an excerpt from the interview. If you know you have a book in you, you'll want to listen to this episode. Maye you will be like Jo Dale and realize you don't just have one book in you, but two, then four, then ten.  About Author - J.D. Carothers: When not consumed by her job as an attorney, J.D. Carothers loves to cook for her family and friends, read murder mysteries and romance novels, eat chocolate, and sip wine while watching the sunset in Southern California. Late at night or early on weekend mornings, she tries to find a quiet place to write her next novel and trade the stress of real life for a fantasy world where murder and romance are on the menu, along with the food she loves. She wishes there were more hours

Psychological safety is crucial for organizations to thrive, contributing to talent retention and overall success. Companies that create a culture of psychological safety outperform those that do not. Join Susan Finch and Rob Brodo to continue their discussion on leadership simulations. Creating a psychologically safe environment requires leaders to establish trust and make employees feel comfortable taking risks, challenging the status quo, and expressing their concerns. It involves treating everyone fairly and focusing on building self-esteem and recognition. To be a better leader and foster psychological safety, Rob Brodo suggests five key actions: creating a stable and predictable environment, providing employees with options and choices, ensuring equity in treatment, understanding employee desires and needs, and establishing a foundation of trust. Repairing trust can be challenging but is possible in certain situations. It requires open communication, difficult conversations, and the leader's judgment on

Susan Finch and Rob Brodo from Adventexe delve into the crucial role of coaching in driving organizational success. Recent studies have revealed that companies with a strong coaching culture are classified as high-performing organizations, and you won't want to miss out on that kind of achievement. Rob shares invaluable insights on coaching dialogue, coaching effectiveness, and the overall approach. They debunk the misconception that each company's coaching needs are vastly unique, emphasizing the core principles that apply to leadership coaching across the board. However, they also stress the significance of aligning coaching strategies with your company's specific goals and objectives. Join them for this episode, "Skills Needed to Drive Performance Through  Effective Coaching." Rob also invites you to read his latest post on Five Business Acument Tips to Making Yourself Indispensible.   Links from this episode: Adventexe.com https://www.advantexe.com/new-manager-business-leadership-simulation Rob Brodo on L

Intrigued by Advantexe's business simulations, Susan welcomes back Rob Brodo from Advantexe as they explores their focus on new manager training. They both acknowledge that management failure can lead to business failure but believe it is preventable and correctable. Susan asks Rob about the challenges faced by new managers and the motivation behind creating simulations. Rob highlights the overwhelming nature of transitioning into a management role without guidance. Advantexe's simulations allow new managers to practice essential skills like goal-setting, coaching, conflict resolution, and leading change. Susan shares insights from conversations with author Helen Fanucci, author of Love Your Team, emphasizing the need for comprehensive training to support new managers and the difficult conversations necessary to grow. They discuss the complexities of the evolving work environment, where institutional knowledge and documentation quickly become outdated. Rob reveals that many organizations lack manuals and stan

In this final episode of the Foundations of Business Series on Rooted in Revenue, Rob Brodo, the co-founder and CEO of Advantexe, and Susan Finch discuss competitive analysis as a foundation of business acumen. They first identify who the real competitors are and how to spot them. They also explain how scanning the environment, including social media platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter, can help companies stay up to date on their competitors and innovations in the market. Rob emphasizes the importance of building trust with customers and having continuous dialogues with them to keep track of who is entering the market and who might be a potential threat. By doing so, companies can use the information gained from competitive analysis to fine-tune their message to either existing customers or new prospects and establish a strategic competitive advantage. Overall, this episode provides valuable insights and practical tips for conducting competitive analysis, regardless of a company's size. Some of the points cov

In this episode of Rooted in Revenue, host Susan Finch is once again joined by Rob Brodo, the co-founder and CEO of AdvantX. The duo is continuing their series on the foundations of Business Acumen, which covers the key components of understanding business strategy and financial positions. In this episode, they delve into the importance of recognizing the strategic and financial challenges and opportunities of executing a new strategy. Rob discusses how many companies are disconnected between their metrics of success and their strategy, and that goals and objectives are not connected to the priorities of the business. He emphasizes the need to align people to measure the success of the strategy and that it is not happening in many companies. For example, if an organization has a value proposition of being an innovator, then the goals and objectives should be around innovation. Rob explains that it is not just about setting goals and objectives, but also about having specific measurements to tell if they are a

In this episode of the podcast, Susan Finch and Michelle Cramer from On Angels' Wings discuss the importance of HR support in the workplace. Michelle discusses her journey writing her book, Uncharted Grief, and her certification as a Grief Recovery Method specialist. Michelle shares her thoughts on the societal norms surrounding grief and how they impact employees in the workplace. She highlights the importance of allowing employees to grieve and the impact it can have on their health and financial well-being. Michelle also shares a story of a gentleman who struggled to find a balance between work and grieving after the unexpected death of his father. This episode sheds light on a crucial topic and highlights the importance of HR support for employees who are grieving. You’ll also hear the variations of grief, it’s not always about death. Listen in to gain insights and understanding on how to support your team and staff through the grieving process. This episode covers a few facets of this topic: Supporting T

In this episode, Susan is joined by Rob Brodo, the CEO and Co-Founder of Advantexe, as they continue their series on business acumen strategies. The focus of this episode is on comprehending financial position and key metrics, including the income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow report. Rob explains that financial management is just a scoreboard for the company's strategy and that understanding these metrics is crucial in measuring the success of the strategy. He also highlights the importance of cash flow, as it is the lifeblood of any business. The conversation then shifts to the importance of everyone in the company having a basic understanding of financial management and its impact on the company. Join Susan and Rob as they dive into the world of financial management and its impact on business success. The previous episode in this series is here: https://rootedinrevenue.com/e/transform-employee-performance-with-strategic-insight/  Links related to this episode: https://www.advantexe.com/business-a

In this episode, we cover the importance of understanding business strategy for every person working for a company. Our guest is Rob Brodo. Rob is the Co-Founder and CEO of Advantexe. Rob talks about how many CEOs struggle with leading an organization that lacks a clear understanding of their value proposition to customers. The discussion includes the difference between the "believers" and "non-believers," and the importance of knowing the company's strategy and its impact on a company's success. Listen to this first part of a 4 part series on understanding business strategy and how it can benefit your organization. Links related to this episode: https://www.advantexe.com/business-acumen-virtual-workshop Rob Brodo on LinkedIn and Twitter Susan Finch on LinkedIn and Twitter About Advantexe: Advantexe Learning Solution's mission is to provide world-class Business simulation-centric Business Acumen, Business Leadership, and Strategic Business Selling talent development solutions to organizations around the world

At least a few times a month I hear from a potential new client that their email marketing efforts produce no results. Once we sit and talk about their process, and how they follow up with the leads they get pretty quiet. This isn't uncommon. If you are struggling to create and execute targeted marketing campaigns that drive new business, you are not alone, especially for small businesses. It’s critical to the growth of your business, but you don’t have the time or the resources to do it and you cannot afford expensive marketing software or a high-priced marketing professional. Many of these small businesses are a team of one, two, or three trying to wear all the hats. They are great at what the company does, but they are not writers, they are not marketers, but they know they need to do this to get in front of existing customers and prospects.  Larry Caretsky, Founder of Commence - a trusted name in CRM is our guest today. Listen to this episode to hear how Commence has solved this common issue of starting,

We hear about all the ways marketers miss the mark - what they do wrong. What if we focused on what they are doing right and then expand the use of those tactics? Some companies have a team of one or less than five and each must wear several hats. If, as a group, you lay out what is working, analyze the results through Google Analytics and pulling in all the pieces, as a group, you can tackle what is next. It may be enhancing the most popular pages you have to ensure you move people along on the journey toward a conversation with your sales team. It may be creating a podcast or other content that appeals to your existing customers as the "inside group" rather than only talking to them when you want to sell them something new.  Jeanne Hopkins goes through ways to bring out the best in the existing marketing plan, letting go of what's not working and allowing companies to divide and conquer what needs to be done to engage, then celebrating the mountain of measurable successes as a group. Join us for, "Making Us

A more complete title is, "How are you marketing to your employees, customers, prospects, community?" Today I’m talking with Jeanne Hopkins who is launching Salty Marketing Company this month. We’ll cover what a fractional CMO is and isn’t, the four elements of marketing that every company must include or fail. Employees Customers Prospects Community Consider this a wake-up call to marketers who are unable to justify their spending. This is part one of our session. Links from this episode: Connect with Jeanne on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannehopkins/  Connect with Susan on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/susanmfinch   About Jeanne Hopkins, B2B Fractional CRO with growth marketing chops, Advice with Accountability, GTM, PLG; former @hubspot VP Marketing; Speaker; Author; Advisor; Mentor; Start-up Investors: Deep expertise in data-driven, high-velocity B2B and B2C customer acquisition, sales, marketing, and customer success organizations. Inbound (obviously)-based lead gen programs to support g

Holly Jean Jackson is a speaker, author, and holistic coach. This means she gives you three in one - a health coach, life coach, and a business coach. In this episode we are focusing on the value of relaunching your book. You put so much blood, sweat, tears, and hair-pulling into publishing a book. But what happens a few years later? Your publisher did their part, you did the signings, the promotions, and then crickets? Let's hope not. You may even be working on your next book, but you still really love your earlier works. There may be a few places that could use an update or a new version done as an audiobook. Have you done all that? Doing an audio version gives you the opportunity for updates. What about the kindle version? Can you update that? What a great way to reopen conversations with fans, clients, and prospects. Holly and Susan talk about the need for an actual marketing plan to relaunch what you did so well the first time. There is always a new way to do it better, and some elements that should be u

We need our prospects to be so confident that they will get the return they expect. And so it's the ROI model, but also it's the level of confidence about the ability to achieve that. The fact that sometimes even what our customers tell us, they see value in our own solutions starts to change and evolve. Eric Whittlake of 6Sense joins Susan today. He says,  "One of the things that you likely will see is they value the thing that's more immediate than the thing." That extends into the need for us to do things to reduce the perception of risk with prospects of choosing a, hopefully, our solutions. That has to do with our sales process, that has to do with our marketing, and establishing credibility. There's more that we have to do there because we have a higher bar. It's time to stir it up again. We have to recognize how much has potentially changed in our market, with our prospects, and how that is so much more important that we go do this work now to understand how we're going to prioritize. Listen to this ep

Steve Richard, SVP, Value Realization at Mediafly sits down with Susan to talk about sales and sales training in a recession. He says, "Really good demand gen marketers that are super targeted with what they do and have very little scrap rate have never been higher demand. That's one thing I'm definitely seeing that's critically important right now. And everyone's going outbound." Key points in this episode: SDRs, SBRs, are you in the top third, mid-range third, or bottom third? Time to start self-sourcing opportunities How many times do you need to repeat training materials, three, seven, 50, or 100 times?  The sins that steady renewals can cover. Is this current market downturn isolated to tech to tech, or is it across the board? Steve's advice to take from this episode: "If you're good at generating opportunities, you're always going to be fine.  That's it. It's simple. So learn how to generate opportunities no matter what customer-facing role you're in." ----more---- About our guest: Steve Richard is SVP

It doesn't really matter whether you're a really large company or really small company, you have to continue to find, keep and grow the value of customers, which is the essence of marketing. You can't stop looking for customers and doing that work, but you also have to focus on keeping them. In this episode, Laura Patterson, President of VisionEdge Marketing gives suggestions for smaller to mid-size companies about building an advisory panel from your customers and why that continues to build loyalty, resources for valuable information, and your ability to better serve all of your customers. This fits into the topic of budgets and getting away from a line-items from the past, compared to outcome-based recommendations to nimbly move forward. You will pick up several tips you can implement at your own company - no matter the size - in this episode, "Outcome-Based Budgets vs. Line Item Belt Tightening."   ----more---- About Laura Patterson: Growth strategy consultant to business leaders. Obsessed with helping co

Too many times a new CMO or CRO takes a position in a company and immediately wants to make changes without really observing to see what has been working, experience the company culture and getting to know the team. Jeanne Hopkins has been a CMO or CRO for many notable companies, including HubSpot, Ipswitch, Continuum, and currently OneScreen.ai. She knows the people are the greatest asset a company. In this episode Jeanne talks with Susan about her playbook and how important it is for it to align with that of any company she works for. Sometimes adjustments need to be made. Sometimes the company she is joining doesn't have a playbook so they start a fresh one based on Jeanne's. It's a huge value she brings - the ability to observe and pull from the wide range of experiences and successes she's had in B2B tech. Join us for this episode of Rooted in Revenue, "The Importance of a Playbook and Just Sitting for 30 Days."

Sales Managers and Leaders - you need to get your sales teams up 3x. Susan Finch's guest is Todd Duncan. A great place to start is with his golden nugget of a tip. At the end of each hour at the 55-minute rule. In the last 5 minutes of every hour, review what you did in the last hour. What was productive? What worked? What didn't work? If you simply start with this ONE tip, you'll be on your way to working much smarter in the following hours. Waiting until the week's end, or the month's end is too late for this review to make adjustments and improve. He'll also give his opinion as to why sales pros slip back into bad habits after having great coaching and training. One word - discipline.  And TRUST - the most important thing to earn and the easiest to lose. How do you get back on track? What is your WHY? What is your deep motivation? How does an action allow you to achieve something that is really emotionally important to you? You will want to listen to this more than once to fully absorb these huge tips y