One On One Interviews

Yesterday Amazon announced the launch of their $150 million Black Business Accelerator Program, aimed at getting more black-owned businesses involved in selling on their platform. You can get the details at Sell.amazon.com/bba and also read a detailed article on the announcement published here yesterday. To learn more about the initiative I spoke with Brandi Neloms, Manager at Amazon, during a recent LinkedIn Live conversation.

The last time I had spoken with Leyla was about 18 months ago after she left Salesforce and became a partner in Operator Collective, a VC firm founded by long-time tech executive Mallun Yen with the goal of broadening the pool of those participating in venture capital investment. In fact 90% of these limited partners (LPs) are women, and more than 40% of them are people of color. I recently caught up with Leyla about why she co-founded BVI, the goals set for training black investors, and what the endgame was for this initiative. And just as I was setting this conversation up, I saw a glowing post from another good friend of mine, communications executive Letty Ledbetter, who was sharing her experiences going through the most recent BVI cohort while pointing out the role Leyla played in her becoming a part of the BVI family. So I was glad to have her join the conversation and share her perspective going through the program.

What is customer advocacy? What role does it plays in the organization? How is it different from marketing? And what's the importance of advocacy as part of a holistic customer experience? It’s not often I have an opportunity to speak with two industries leaders together on an important topic like customer advocacy, but those were a few of the questions I asked Kalina Bryant, Global Head of Customer Advocacy for Asana, and Cynthia Hester, Director of Global Customer Programs for Google Cloud, recently during a great LinkedIn Live conversation.

I’ve known Scott Wilder for well fifteen years or so. And in that time (and even before that) he has led community building efforts at big tech brands like Adobe, Apple, Google, Intuit and Marketo. And now he's heading up HubSpot's engagement and community building efforts. Earlier this week Scott and I had a LinkedIn Live conversation on how community building has evolved over the years, it’s role in digital transformation efforts, and how it will need to be done in a post-pandemic world in order to stay in tune with rapidly evolving customer needs and expectations.

I’ve been pretty interested in how subscription business models seemed to have held up pretty well during the pandemic, even allowing more traditional businesses to stay connected with customers who couldn’t venture out to their bricks and mortar locations. But now that we’re seeing the light at the end of tunnel and getting closer to life without masks and social distancing, I wanted to see if subscription models will be just as attractive in the post-pandemic economy we can’t wait to get to. So I was excited to speak with Katrina Gosek, VP of Sales Portfolio Products for Oracle, to get her perspective as subscription management is one of her portfolio focus areas.

There is no hotter technology out right now than virtual events platforms, with the pandemic accelerating their growth exponentially. Bevy is no exception as its virtual events platform is experiencing hyper growth right in line with the industry. But where Bevy is completely exceptional is how it has put diversity and inclusion at the core of the company's culture - as the company is closing in on 20% of its employee base being black, and with 60% of the participants in its recent $40M funding round also being black. During a recent LinkedIn Live conversation I spoke with Bevy CEO and co-founder Derek Andersen about competing in the virtual events platform space and the role the Startup Grind – the local event driven startup community he founded in 2010 - played in shaping Bevy’s approach to building its virtual events platform. We also spend time discussing why he felt embarrassed a year ago when none of his 27 employees were black, and how that realization led him and his cofounder to build diversity and

It’s been a couple of years since I caught up with Tyler Lessard, Chief Video Strategist for video platform Vidyard, to hear how B2B-focused organizations are utilizing videos in the sales and marketing efforts. So when I saw the company’s recent 2021 State of Video in Business study that was recently released, I had to do a LinkedIn Live convo with him to get his take on some of the key findings.

PegaWorld, the annual event put on by Pega, a leading customer engagement and process automation platform provider, will be taking place virtually on May 4th. And earlier this week my CRM Playaz co-host Paul Greenberg and I had the opportunity to hold a LinkedIn Live conversation with company founder and CEO Alan Trefler to talk about the event a lot more leading up to the event. Actually, “a lot more” may be an understatement when it comes to speaking with Trefler as there are so many areas you can delve into with him. Not only is he still at the helm of the company he founded back in 1983, he’s having a lot of fun while also leading Pega to cross $1 billion in annual revenues for the first time last year. He credits a lot of Pega’s success to the lessons he learned working in the family’s restoration business – which will be celebrating its 100th year anniversary next year. He’s also a chess master and an accordion player. So Paul and I covered a lot of bases in our time with Alan, and below is an

Last week’s conversation with Katherine Kostereva of Creatio on how low-code/ no-code development platforms will be a huge factor in helping non-programmers to automate their own tasks and processes was eye opening for me. And I wanted to see how the message of the importance and relevance of the latest automation tools is being received by microbusinesses as well as self-employed folks – people who need the most help getting things done to stay afloat. Which is why it was great timing being able to follow my conversation with Katherine up with Jon Fasoli, VP and Segment Leader, Small Business and Self-employed, for Intuit. During our LinkedIn Live conversation Jon shared with me how artificial intelligence and automation is helping even one-person bands spend more of their precious time on experimenting with new ways to connect with customers and prospects, and less time doing mundane activities. He also discusses how more digital interactions are feeding AI in platforms like Quickbooks that automaticall

I spoke with Katherine Kostereva four years ago during her company’s user conference. Back then the company she founded was named bpm’online, but today the company is called Creatio and has recently raised $68 million to further build out their no-code low-code platform aimed at helping non-IT people use easy interfaces to automate business processes on their own. Four years ago we spoke about how 80% of companies had not fully automated their important business processes and the impact that was having on productivity and efficiency. So I was eager to circle back around during a recent LinkedIn Live conversation with Katherine to see where things stand now and how the pandemic might have impacted things.

Thought leadership. Everybody is talking about it as a way to influence markets and consumer behavior - whether it’s aimed at individual or corporate consumers. It comes in a dizzying array of formats, channels and devices. It can be about trends, best practices or even tips and tricks. And businesses are trying to incorporate it into more opportunities to stay connected with customers and prospects over time to build long-lasting relationships with them. But many companies seem to be focusing their thought leadership efforts on their needs instead of delivering what’s important to the audience they want to connect with. In a recent CRM Playaz episode, me and co-hosts Paul Greenberg and Nicole France spoke with Janelle Dieken and Ginger Conlon who are heading up thought leadership efforts for Genesys, a leading customer experience platform. Janelle, VP of Content and Thought Leadership, and Ginger, Thought Leadership Director, shared with us their views and approach to building thought leadership that

Branding and marketing are topics that will always be of interest to businesses of all sizes. And the importance of getting branding right is only growing, as it gets more difficult to get and keep people’s attention long enough to make a compelling case to them to give us a shot. But as positive that branding can be to help us capture the attention from those we want it from, if it’s done wrong it could end your chances of building that relationship before it even starts – especially if you believe your brand is all about a logo. Recently I spoke with Shannel Wheeler, founder of Awesome Design Academy, about what it takes to pull off a successful branding/rebranding project, like the one she led for leading ABM (Account Based Marketing) platform Terminus. Below is a transcript from a portion of our conversation. Click the SoundCloud player to hear the full conversation. And let me give a special shoutout to martech expert Anand Thaker joining us for this discussion.

Last week personal finance app and website NerdWallet announced moving $2 million of NerdWallet capital to Self Help Credit Union – which serves low-income populations in Oakland, CA. The company is also partnering with the nonprofit association of community credit unions, Inclusiv, to scale up this effort nationally. Tim Chen, CEO and founder of NerdWallet, is hoping this will spark other companies to leverage the position credit unions have in local communities – many of which are in low-income and distressed areas hit hard by the pandemic – to pump much needed funding and capital directly into the hands that need it most. I recently spoke with Tim via LinkedIn Live to get a bit more insight into why doing this now is important to NerdWallet, how the employees of the company were a driving forced behind the idea, how working with credit unions is a better fit for this effort than partnering with the big banks, and how helping underserved communities is also benefiting NerdWallet as well.

It was ten years ago last month that I first spoke with Tien Tzuo, founder and CEO of subscription management platform Zuora, about what he was calling the Subscription Economy. Back then people really didn’t know what it was all about as most of us were still buying things outright to own them. Five years later when I next spoke with Tien things had changed dramatically as most of us were subscribing to at least one of the things we used to buy outright, like music, movies, clothes and even cars. With it being five years later, it was time to talk with Tien to get his reflections on the first decade of the Subscription Economy, how the pandemic impacted SE companies, and of course to get his take on what the next five years will look like as we enter the second decade of the Subscription Economy.

Small business already know about the shortcomings of the first go around of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). Where “small businesses” like Ruth Chris’ Steakhouse was able to get $20 million or so, while other real small businesses looking for $5,000 to just stay afloat were turned away. But with the new PPP round currently taking place, there’s renewed hope that companies left out of the first go around, especially black and brown businesses, will finally benefit from the program due to changes aimed it benefitting companies at the low end of the small business sector. Nancy Santiago, Community Impact Lead for Ureeka, a startup founded that provides mentorship and guidance through their platform to help entrepreneurs’ get answers to their most pressing questions, joins me to share what small businesses need to know about applying for this round of PPP.

According to Mathew Sweezey, Director of Market Strategy for Salesforce and author of The Context Marketing Revolution, individuals become the largest creators of noise in the marketplace – surpassing brands - and will “remain the largest creators of noise until the end of time”. And what has happened since then and continues to happen at an accelerated rate is something you ignore at your own peril, as what worked in marketing yesterday might not work for you tomorrow. And even that might not work for you the day after that. I had a great LinkedIn Live conversation with Sweezey to go over a few main themes he covers in the book, along with a few current topics that are already changing the marketing game from what it was in the very recent past.

Everything we do today creates data. From every click to every swipe. And when the pandemic forced us into sheltering in place, it also exponentially accelerated those clicks and swipes…and Zooms…and Uber Eats and Door Dash orders…. And you get the point. Many of the cash-based face-to-face transactions we’d make going into stores have turned into digital transactions and interactions. And all of this data can provide companies with important insights that can help guide companies during times of crisis into making the right calls on make-or-break decisions. To get some real insight into how all the data coming from all these digital interactions can be (and is being) used to help small and midsize businesses during times of crisis like we have faced the last year, I recently had an informative LinkedIn Live conversation with Jay Upchurch; CIO of SAS, a leading analytics platform provider. We spoke at length on a number of issues, including how the role of data and analytics have changed during the pand

The term “evangelist” has been thrown around a lot over the past couple of years. I’m not talking Jimmy Swaggart, TD Jakes or Joel Osteen. I’m talking about the evangelist role in terms of technology and business. But what does that mean and what do they really do? Recently me and my CRM Playaz co-host Paul Greenberg hosted a LinkedIn Live conversation with three of the leading CRM vendor evangelists to dig in a bit and find out what it really means to be an evangelist, what they do and how it differs from the perceptions out there for who evangelists are. Joining us were: Vala Afshar, Chief Digital Evangelist for Salesforce Esteban Kolsky, Chief CX Evangelist for SAP Martin Schneider, Chief Evangelist and Head of Market Strategy for SugarCRM

I’ve been using streaming service Streamyard for the past year for doing my weekly LinkedIn Live conversations. And when they recently were acquired by virtual events platform Hopin, I started to think about what this combo could potentially mean for future of two technologies that have blown up since the beginning of the pandemic. Which is why I wanted to do a conversation with Keith Teare, a Silicon Valley based investor, advisor and mentor to a number of companies participating in these industries – including Millicast and Around.co. Keith is also a founding investor in TechCrunch. Lastly, Keith and I are members of the Gillmor Gang show that can be seen weekly on TechCrunch. And during our conversation about the future of livestreaming and virtual events, something Keith said about using newsletters, podcasts, Clubhouse and other channels led to the topic of attention. And how all these disparate technologies and channels will eventually come together to create, for lack of a better way to put it, a

I had a really interesting conversation on what Apple’s move (and Facebook’s response to it) could really mean for small businesses and the consumers they seek to engage with. Raju Vegesna, Zoho’s Chief Evangelist and a leading proponent of customer data privacy rights, and marketing technology expert and industry analyst Anand Thaker, joined me to discuss the issues at length on a recent LinkedIn Live conversation. Below is an edited transcript of a portion of our conversation. To hear the full conversation check out the embedded SoundCloud player.