Rooted In Revenue

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

If you are in sales, you'd better know if you are transactional-focused or lifetime-focused when it comes to how you approach prospects and customers. There is no wrong version, but you need to know which you are. Your sales manager needs to know which you are too. That deep honesty will allow you to play to your strengths. The theme of this episode is two-fold - being in awe of the fantastic things people you encounter do and who they are, and knowing yourself to the core. If you don't like it, change it. There is also homework at the end from both of us. A favorite quote from The Big Kahuna is, "It doesn't matter whether you're selling Jesus or Buddha or civil rights or 'How to Make Money in Real Estate With No Money Down'. That doesn't make you a human being; it makes you a marketing rep. If you want to talk to somebody honestly, as a human being, ask him about his kids. Find out what his dreams are - just to find out, for no other...” Jason Beck, this list of movies for sales professionals is for you.

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 .

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.

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. ----more---- About Susan's Guest: Mark Donnigan designs and executes marketing programs and go-to-market strategies that build markets

We're continuing our insightful conversation with Laura Patterson from VisionEdge Marketing. If you missed the first part, I encourage you to go back and listen - but don't worry, we'll catch you up quickly. In this episode, we dive deeper into the four patterns Laura identified for supporting growth and improving performance in business. Here are some key points we'll explore: The importance of considering "what if" scenarios in business planning How data analysis can reveal hidden patterns and opportunities The value of continuous training and practice, even in areas where you excel Why surrounding yourself with ambitious, growth-minded individuals is crucial Laura and I also discuss real-world examples of companies that have succeeded (and failed) by adapting to changing market conditions. We discuss the importance of objective data analysis and why partnering with external experts can provide fresh perspectives. Whether you're a seasoned business leader or just starting your career, this conversation offe

Welcome to Rooted in Revenue! I'm your host, Susan Finch, and today we're bringing you a blast from the past that's still incredibly relevant. Back in 2021, I had the pleasure of speaking with Laura Patterson from VisionEdge Marketing on my former show, SLMA Radio. Laura, a dear friend and frequent guest, recently reached out about revisiting this conversation - and I couldn't agree more that the insights are worth sharing again. In this episode, we dive into some powerful ideas around business growth and performance improvement. Here are some key points we'll explore: The importance of being proactive in shaping your business outcomes Why planning to win is crucial, even if you encounter setbacks along the way The value of analyzing patterns in your business and personal life How taking ownership and initiative can lead to positive change Laura and I also touch on our similar upbringings and the life lessons that have shaped our approaches to business. It's a candid, insightful conversation that I think you'