Commanding Business

Band-aid strategies for pleasing customers isn’t enough to differentiate your business—it needs to be designed for service from the ground up. In today's interview with Patricia O’Connell we discover the importance of service design in businesses that compete today. Patricia shares her journey of discovery in the field of service design and the inspiration behind Woo, Wow, and Win, a guide to service design, strategy, and the art of customer delight. Patricia currently serves as the President of Aerten Consulting, in New York City.   Key Takeaways: [1:03] As a journalist transitioning from print to web, Patricia found service design thinking a necessity. [4:30] The big idea behind Woo, Wow, and Win. [7:12] The importance of co-creation. [9:40] The 5 Principles of service design. ● The customer is always right, provided they are the right customer for you. ● Don’t surprise and delight your customers, just delight them. ● Heroics should not be required for good service. ● Anywhere you play, you have to play wel

Woo, Wow, and Win reveals the importance of designing your company around service, and offers clear, practical strategies based on the idea that the design of services is markedly different than manufacturing. Most companies, both digital and brick-and-mortar, B2B or B2C; are not designed for service—to provide an experience that matches a customer’s expectations with every interaction and serves the company’s needs. When customers have more choices than ever before, study after study reveals that it’s the experience that makes the difference. To provide great experiences that keep customers coming back, businesses must design their services with as much care as their products. Tune in for our interview with Tom Stewart, an authority on intellectual capital and knowledge management, and an influential thought leader on global management issues and ideas.   Key Takeaways: [02:04] Service design is the most important management discipline you haven’t heard of. [3:56] Services are experiences, and therefore open

Service design thinking is the designing and marketing of services that improve the customer experience, and the interactions between the service providers and the customers. We interview Marc Stickdorn, consultant, speaker and author of This Is Service Design Thinking.  Key Takeaways: [1:03] The big idea behind This Is Service Design Thinking. [3:47] How the linear approach can waste two years of your life. [8:01] Silos make an organization easy to manage, but this creates friction. [11:10] The classic trap of change management. [12:43] Adapt the process to the existing culture in small increments. [16:20] Fail early. Fail safe. Fail cheap. [17:54] Effective ways of prototyping and market testing. [24:45] A “Service Safari” requires management to use their product and sell it. [26:41] Becoming a customer-centric organization. [28:21] This Is Service Design Doing is a more experienced approach to integrating service design.   Mentioned in This Episode: More Than Metrics This is Service Design Thinking, by Mar

In The Customer Funded Business, best-selling author John Mullins uncovers five novel approaches that scrappy and innovative 21st century entrepreneurs working in companies large and small have ingeniously adapted from their predecessors like Dell, Gates, and the Zieglers. John Mullins is an Associate Professor of Management Practice at the London Business School and a worldwide speaker and educator. He is a regularly published author at Harvard Business Review and MIT Sloan Management Review.   Key Takeaways: [1:05] The big idea behind The Customer-Funded Business book. [3:30] Raising capital is a huge distraction. There is a better way. [6:57] Does Venture Capital funding ever make sense? [9:55] Three out of four VC-funded companies fail to return the capital that goes into them. [12:26] The pay-in-advance and subscription models allow entrepreneurs to collect a customer’s money before delivering the product. [16:54] The scarcity-based model uses a limited time offer to lure an immediate purchase. [23:49] T

Keith Casey is co-author of A Practical Approach to API design: From Principles to Practice. Former Developer Evangelist at Twilio, his current work with Okta focuses on identity and authentication APIs. Keith is a software engineer focusing on creating open architecture, specifically APIs. His goal is to get good technology into the hands of good people to do great things.   Key Takeaways: [2:43] Keith Casey describes APIs from a business perspective. [5:04] Why would a business adopt an API strategy? [7:01] Twilio eliminates the need for a carrier contract and provides enterprises with immediate cost structure. [10:03] Zapier captures an event and then sends the information to another system. [12:48] Jeff Bezos’ memo ensured APIs would be part of Amazon’s future. [19:23] Salesforce and their development community built APIs to integrate with other systems and platforms. [21:45] The concept of API-First gives users a toolbox instead of a finished product. [25:45] Security implications shouldn’t keep a busine

Journalist, author, and speaker, Karen Dillon is a former editor of Harvard Business Review Magazine, and the former Deputy Editor of Inc. Magazine. She recently co-authored Competing Against Luck with Clay Christensen.  Using the Jobs to Be Done framework, Karen Dillon and her co-authors help businesses understand what causes customers to "hire" a product or service. With that understanding, a business can improve its innovation track record, creating products that customers really want. Jobs theory offers new hope for growth to companies frustrated by their hit and miss efforts   Key Takeaways: [1:11] Karen Dillon defines Clay Christensen's Theory of Disruption using a real-world example. [8:02] Can an incumbent company’s actions be predicted when faced with a threat from an entry-level rival? [15:57] Karen explains why "likelihood to purchase" is still so unpredictable, even with today's plethora of customer knowledge and data gathering tools. [19:42] Customers make choices based on the Jobs to Be Done in

David Hubbard is a Revenue Growth Expert and CEO of Marketing Outfield. He works with private and public companies to strategically align sales, marketing, and product development efforts and grow annual revenues by 25-50%. He creates growth machines by integrating a company’s core values into the customer decision-making process.   Key Takeaways: [1:14] Many companies struggle to find alignment between the three revenue-producing functions of product management, product marketing, and sales. [3:31] When companies struggle with alignment, the customer experiences mixed messages in the purchasing decision-making process. [9:11] Technology is causing marketing efforts to be more complicated than ever before. [11:42] Make the most of sales and marketing efforts through integration. [17:28] Align systems to create a growth machine. [24:00] Focus on the core value of the company. [25:33] Making a product successful in the marketplace is the greatest cost a company has. [28:09] Pressure can force entrepreneurs to d

Jim Kalbach is a noted author, speaker, and instructor in user experience design, information architecture, and strategy. He is currently the Head of Consulting and Education with MURAL, a leading online whiteboard for digital collaboration. Previously, Jim has worked with large companies, such as Audi, SONY, Elsevier Science, Lexis Nexis, Citrix, and eBay, among others. Jim Kalbach authored #1 Amazon Business Development Bestseller, Mapping Experiences: A Guide to Creating Value Through Journeys, Blueprints, and Diagrams.   Key Takeaways: [1:05] Jim Kalbach never worried about what title was on his business card. His focus is on facilitating big-picture, strategic conversations. [3:36] Jim marries the idea of design information architecture with visualizing strategy in Chapter Three of Mapping Experiences. [5:46] Customer-centric thinking is a fundamental shift in the way business gets done. [8:54] Business leaders can use customer journey mapping, or experience mapping, to create a visualization. [11:04] Bl

Author of the NYT and WSJ bestseller, Flash Foresight, Daniel Burrus is a leading futurist in global trends and innovation. A leading consultant to Google, Proctor & Gamble, IBM, and many other Fortune 500 firms, Daniel Burrus provides strategic advice for predicting forthcoming market innovators and anticipating disruptions before they disrupt. His Anticipatory Organization Model uses the key components of hard and soft trends to identify transformative, pre-active solutions. Key Takeaways: [1:33] To see the invisible and do the impossible, you must start with certainty. [7:02] How a forecaster can separate hard trends from soft trends. [9:45] The three categories of hard trends: ● Technology ● Demographics ● Government Regulations [19:24] Examples of how soft trends can be influenced and manipulated. [22:41] The anticipatory organization must be agile. [25:28] Amazon is using anticipatory techniques along with hard and soft trends to create a new experience for their customers. [29:25] The key is to be

Author of six books, with a seventh in the works, Bill Halal is a Professor Emeritus of Management, Technology and Innovation at George Washington University. As the President of TechCast, Bill Halal and his team study the impact of artificial intelligence, the age of knowledge as compared to the age of consciousness, and future forecasting with a goal of simplifying change at the meso-economic level.   Key Takeaways: [1:09] TechCast is a collective intelligence system that collects background data on emerging technologies, social trends, and wildcards. [2:56] TechCast has forecasted that 30% of routine knowledge work will be automated by 2025. [9:08] Bill Halal explains the Age of Consciousness, a great frontier to be explored. [11:59] In the future, the corporation will be redefined as the focus of making money becomes obsolete. [15:39] The future of organizations is one of small, self-contained enterprises. [19:39] A stable economic system less prone to booms and bust is a possibility of the future. [21:00

Best-selling author of three customer service books, John DiJulius shares how a company can make their customer service approach and their customer experience their single biggest competitive advantage. Training is the #1 factor in an employee’s ability to recognize and deliver world class customer service. In order to extract the gifts of a millennial workforce, an organization must include them in the corporate purpose.      Key Takeaways: [1:32] Is it possible for a business to make price irrelevant, by competing in experience wars? [7:36] A real business example of how Lexus breeds customer loyalty by reducing a ‘grudge by’ factor. [10:24] How to reinforce the customer service vision statement using the 3 pillars: ● Quality ● Customer Interaction ● Going above and beyond. [13:03] The Starbucks example — A customer service vision statement must be MOAT: ● Measurable ● Observable ● Actionable ● Trainable [16:49] The currency for millennials is purpose. [17:57] E-commerce giants give us whatever we want inst

New York Times bestselling author and applied neuroscience expert Christine Comaford knows what it takes to move people from the Critter State into the Smart State, where they have full access to their own creativity, innovation, higher consAciousness, and emotional engagement. When an entire culture maintains that state, it becomes what she calls a SmartTribe. Focused. Accountable. Collaborative. Imbued with the energy and passion to solve problems and do what needs doing, again and again and again. Today, Christine Comaford unpacks those ideas for us, offering practical tools for business leaders and managers.   Key Takeaways: [1:53] Christine Comaford shares the big idea behind the predictability of building a company. [3:09] Leaders should assist employees in moving from the critter state to their smart state. [6:55] Christine outlines key questions for creating an Outcome Frame: ● What would you like? ● What will having that do for you? ● How will you know when you have it? ● What of value might you risk

Tim’s guest, David Evans, is one of the world’s leading authorities on multisided platform-based businesses. Many of the most dynamic public companies, from Alibaba to Facebook to Visa, and the most valuable start-ups, such as Airbnb and Uber, are matchmakers that connect one group of customers with another group of customers. Don’t let the flashy successes fool you, though. Starting a matchmaker is one of the toughest business challenges, and almost everyone who tries to build one, fails. In today's episode, David Evans explains how matchmakers work best in practice, why they do what they do, and how entrepreneurs can improve their chances for success.   Key Takeaways: [1:03] The 3 big ideas behind the book Matchmakers. [3:15] David Evans describes three scenarios for overcoming the critical mass challenge that platform entrepreneurs face. [8:01] Scenario three requires pre-commitment from one side of the match to encourage investments into the platform. David gives an example from the video game industry. [

The smartest, most successful companies are using radically new membership models, subscription-based formats, and freemium pricing structures to grow their customer base―and explode their market valuation―in the most disruptive shift in business since the Industrial Revolution. Today's guest, Robbie Baxter, unpacks The Membership Economy: Find Your Super Users, Master the Forever Transaction and Build Recurring Revenue.   Key Takeaways: [1:09] The big idea behind the membership economy. [2:47] Cost certainty is part of the appeal to subscribers of membership-based organizations. [8:18] Robbie Baxter unpacks three components within the membership economy: suspension, community, and loyalty. [16:02] Businesses who adopt the membership economy business concept experience major benefits, including recurring revenue. [22:27] Incumbent businesses in classically organized industries can adapt to the membership economy by focusing on and building off of the mission of their members. [30:42] Robbie Baxter explains ho

Today’s guest, Jay Harman is the CEO of PAX Scientific and author of The Shark’s Paintbrush. In The Shark's Paintbrush, Harman introduces us to pioneering engineers in a wide array of businesses who are uncovering and copying nature’s hidden marvels. He shows business leaders and aspiring entrepreneurs how we can reconcile creating more powerful, lucrative technologies with maximizing sustainability. Jay Harman injects a whole new vocabulary and way of thinking into the business sphere that speaks to both small start-ups and corporate giants.   Key Takeaways: [1:14] Biomimicry looks to nature to determine how nature has solved a problem humans are facing. [2:48] Jay Harman designed a boat based on the “using the least to get the most” techniques used by nature. [7:23] Examples of breakthrough innovations that are fundamental game-changers. [16:59] PAX Scientific projects may allow for energy savings of up to 50%, meaning we may be able to reverse the negative effects of climatic change. [20:40] The opportunit

Sangeet Paul Choudary is co-chair of the MIT Platform Strategy Summit, an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at INSEAD business school, and author of Platform Revolution and Platform Scale. In this podcast episode, Sangeet Choudary defines the concepts and drivers behind the platform business model, including the three trends that gave rise to this type of business entity. He also explains why he created the metaphor of the shift and how intelligent central platform businesses re-circulate learned data to create more efficient markets for the future.   Key Takeaways: [1:07] Sangeet Choudary contrasts the platform business model with the pipeline business model.  [5:59] Apple and Android versus Nokia and Blackberry―an example of the shift. [10:28] Intelligent platform markets encapsulate the flow between the producers and the consumers. [13:54] Not all platforms are benevolent, but they should be. [17:50] Sangeet describes three trends that have given rise to this new type of economic entity.  [21:32] Platform opportun

Jack Daly is a worldwide expert on sales and growing sales. He has built six companies into national firms, is an Amazon bestselling author of Hyper Sales Growth, and has completed 15 Iron Man competitions in eight countries. Jack Daly's proven methodologies focus on people driving the business. On this episode, Jack speaks with Tim on how to build an invincible sales organization, the four legs to a strong culture and the ‘hire slowly, fire quickly’ technique.   Key Takeaways: [3:45] Eliminate everything from your calendar, except for High Payoff Activities.  [8:02] Sales are created by human relationships. [16:56] To build an invincible sales organization, put people first. [20:04] What are the four legs of a strong culture? [24:37] Invest in explaining the long-term strategies of the company with new hires. [29:36] Hire slowly, fire quickly. [33:13] How does implementing the firing quickly method impact other team members? [36:02] Recruit as a process, not as an event. [47:14] Is it wise to turn a rock sta

Marshall Van Alstyne is a Professor at Boston University and a Digital Fellow at MIT. He co-authored Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming The Economy And How To Make Them Work For You, and is a father of the theory of two-sided markets. Marshall joins Tim today to discuss how cutting-edge businesses are built on platforms: two-sided markets that are revolutionizing the way we do business. Tune in as they dig deep into the brilliant future of platforms, revealing how they will irrevocably alter the lives and careers of millions.   Key Takeaways: [1:06] Marshall Van Alstyne explains how the rules that managers use to navigate the competitive landscape are changing from a Porter, 5 Forces way of thinking about the world to a Peter Drucker way of thinking about the world. [1:26] In a platform business, the mindset shifts from managing a product to managing a community. [10:21] How to create a market, value and wealth from an area in which there are spare capacity and resources. [13:19] What

Today’s guest is the multi-faceted and uniquely talented Adam Richardson. He is the author of the book Innovation X: Why a Company’s Toughest Problems Are Its Greatest Advantage, and is a contributing writer for the Harvard Business Review. Adam was formerly a design lead at Frog Design focusing on strategy and user research practices and today, he works as a product manager at Financial Engines. He shares his insights on how companies can continually bring innovation to the market, start solving ‘wicked’ problems and truly understand the customer experience.   Key Takeaways: [1:14] There are common problems within certain business segments. If your company is able to solve the problems you have the advantage. [5:44] Instead of attempting to solve problems with a purely internal, operations perspective, bring in an external, customer-oriented perspective for a balanced solution. [11:48] A wicked problem is a type of problem that is very systemic in nature. You know there is a problem, but the fundamental chal

Geoffrey Parker is a Professor of Engineering at the Thayer School at Dartmouth College, where he also serves as the Director of the Master of Engineering Management Program. In this podcast, he joins Tim to discuss his recent book, The Platform Revolution: How Networked Markets Are Transforming The Economy And How to Make Them Work for You. He also offers insights to business leaders who may be in the process of transitioning their existing data, from an informational intercompany resource into a new product offering or service.   Key Takeaways: [1:38] Geoff Parker defines a platform. [5:38] A real life business example of how Marriott International controls every aspect of the customer experience vs. Airbnb who controls very little. [10:00] The platform is part of a longer arc, which started with global outsourcing. [15:30] Industries with regulations and high failure cost will be disrupted first and it will affect their end markets.  [24:52] How does the globalization movement affect local economies?  [27: