Manage Smarter

Audie Penn is the Managing Partner with Faro Partners. He is a board advisor, executive consultant, and certified lean practitioner at the bronze, silver, and gold level. He represents the Society of Manufacturing Engineers as a member of the Lean Alliance where he participates in the certification oversight and appeals committee. "Leaders tend to spend too much time telling people how to do their jobs rather that clearly defining how successful outcomes will be measured." - Audie Penn  In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Audie discuss:  ·      Definition of Lean Principles ·      How leaders should prepare their teams for changes to come ·      At what point coaching crosses over into handholding management, slowing the lean process Join hosts Audrey Strong and C. Lee Smith every week as they dive into the aspects and concepts of good business management. From debunking sales myths to learning how to manage with and without measurements, you'll learn something new with every episode and will be able to implemen

Sky Stephens, co-founder of the Association of Professional Builders, a leading business coaching company dedicated to improving the residential construction industry for both builders and consumers. Since 2014 Sky has been helping builders double the size of their businesses through profitable growth. The Association Of Professional Builders excels in providing cutting-edge systems, world-class support, and sales & marketing training to the construction industry.   In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Sky discuss:  ·      Sales Training program she launched to drive greater lead gen and revenue ·      How she counsels clients on profitability, growing managing teams and margins ·      What is the #1 need her clients see in getting greater lead generation and success ·      Her advice to managers struggling with improving margins ·      Advice on rate integrity in a lull “The builders who thrived, the main difference was actually their sales ability. Margins is in your marketing and your sales process. A principa

Paul Katzoff is the CEO of White Canyon Software where he continues to drive growth at through direct sales, outbound connections and strategic partners. He is an expert on data breaches and on the physical destruction of drives, including environmental impacts and data security concerns. In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Paul discuss:  ·      Cost of physically destroying drives and environmental impact ·      Destroying data vs. wiping computers clean ·      Tips on improving security for your remote worker data access ·      Do’s and Don’ts on managing home computers networks via an office VPN “The new normal is going to open up a whole bag of issues and problems and the first issue there is data, where is it and who is responsible for it and if it gets out who is liable for it.” – Paul Katzoff Join hosts Audrey Strong and C. Lee Smith every week as they dive into the aspects and concepts of good business management. From debunking sales myths to learning how to manage with and without measurements, you'll

Bill Eckstrom is the founder and CEO of EcSell Institute, the world’s first and only organization to measure and quantify leadership effectiveness. He is considered one of the world’s top authorities in metric-based performance coaching and growth. His book, The Coaching Effect, coauthored by EcSell Institute president Sarah Wirth, helps leaders at alllevels understand the necessity of challenging people out of their comfort zone to create high-growth organizations. In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Bill discuss:  ·      How one moment of truth made Bill embrace discomfort to greater performance ·      Tips on how to force your team into discomfort and accelerated professional development ·      How to handle staff members who resist embracing the unknown and unpredictability ·      Definition of The Growth Rings ·      The Coaching Effect and how to implement it “There is a correlation between high-performing teams and managers who create healthy discomfort for those on their team.” – Bill Eckstrom Join hosts

Dennis Doran has successfully served the construction industry for over 30 years as a contractor, consultant, strategic trainer & facilitator, development coach and public speaker. He brings a multi-faceted perspective to people and organizations. There are two words that have continued to follow Dennis and capture his passion: people and service. His message on the vital importance of developing and valuing soft skills is the leading topic of his seminars and the very essence of the message in his highly praised book, Soft as Steel, written to equip readers with the tools to be successful, not just in business, but in life and relationships. In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Dennis discuss:  ·      How to recognize soft skills and cultivate them in your day-to-day interactions. ·      Recognize the value of soft skills from three generations with boots-on-the-ground perspectives. ·      How soft skills give you a better understanding of yourself. “Hard skills involve the mechanics of doing the job and soft sk

Ali Awad, also known as @ceolawyer on social media, is a successful lawyer/entrepreneur with his own multi-million dollar law firm (Ali Awad Law, P.C.) and media company where he teaches lawyers, doctors, and other professionals how to brand themselves digitally and generate clients through social media.   In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Ali discuss:  ·      His immigration into Georgia as a child and how he went from speaking no English to being one of the youngest JD/MBA graduates in Georgia State history ·      How he started his first businesses and his tips on how to scale up quickly ·      How he uses digital media and social media to drive leads "If you don’t have a seat at the table, then MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN TABLE! Sometimes you have to CREATE your opportunities, instead of shooting blindly in the dark and hoping one will come your way.” – Ali Awad Join hosts Audrey Strong and C. Lee Smith every week as they dive into the aspects and concepts of good business management. From debunking sales myths to

Bill Coletti is a reputation management, crisis communications, and professional development expert. Additionally, he is a keynote speaker, Wall Street Journal Risk & Compliance panelist, and best-selling author of Critical Moments, The New Mindset of Reputation Management. He has more than 25 years of global experience managing high-stakes crises, issues management, and media relations challenges for both Fortune 500 companies and winning global political campaigns. Bill has provided senior counsel in crisis management, corporate communications, and reputation defense to numerous clients including AT&T, Target Corporation, American Airlines, The Home Depot, Xerox, Nuclear Energy Institute, Cargill, as well as major universities and global NGOs. SPECIAL LINK TO PAGE FOR MANAGE SMARTER LISTENERS: kith.co/managesmarter   In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Bill discuss:  ·      How to clearly articulate crisis communication scenarios to plan for ·      Formal vs. informal command models and how to speed up your cr

Michelle Reines is a speaker, author, coach, entrepreneur, founder of MDR Coaching & Consulting, Inc., and creator of the unconventional Badass Leader brand. She is also the author of From Bad to Badass Leader: 12 Leadership Lessons. Early in her leadership journey, she was an absolute ASS as a boss, oblivious to the impact she was having on people! Perhaps, like many of you, she didn’t understand how to lead. Michelle shares her thrills of victory & agonies of defeat, with a goal of helping you unlock the art of leading like a Badass!  In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Michelle discuss:  ·      Evolution of businesses in covid-19 ·      Top pain points of remote work ·      Change management ·      No drama llama to navigate teams through pandemic--focus on working on your business as opposed to IN your business. THANK YOU GIFTS FOR OUR PODCAST LISTENERS HERE: https://badassleader.com/smarter/ "In a crisis everybody needs something different. We all react very differently when it comes to managing stress and

Chris White is Managing Director of DemoDoctor and author of "The Six Habits of Highly Effective Sales Engineers". If you're not familiar with DemoDoctor, it helps organizations fix sales demonstrations that delay and/or kill deals. They do this by 1) providing sales training for sales engineers, 2) facilitating sales-sales engineering collaboration workshops and 3) assessing and redesigning software demonstration messaging and mechanics. Due to COVID-19 and bandwidth in Zoom, this podcast has some minor audio dropouts. In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Chris discuss:  ·      What Sales Engineering is ·      Why sales engineers are starting to be involved in sales discovery now ·      The 6 Habits of Highly Effective Sales Engineers ·      Specific examples of what delays and kills deals "Organizations are realizing the earlier they bring in a technical expert into the process the more quickly those deals may come to fruition.” – Chris White Join hosts Audrey Strong and C. Lee Smith every week as they dive int

Jessica Katz is a trainer, mentor and coach through Liberated Elephant. Jessica is an expert at culture design within organizations that allow individuals to bring authenticity to work, bolstering internal engagement and revenue. Jessica's methodology is informed by Agile values, principles, and practices - creating a safe space for clients to be wholly themselves without judgement. Her company's name, Liberated Elephant has a tagline of "Make the elephant in the room work for you." In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Jessica discuss:  ·        The top 3 qualities needed in company cultures ·        How to deal with the “Elephant In The Room” in your company ·        Definition of Agile Values and how to implement them ·        Productivity without burning our your teams "The elephants I’m seeing right now, one of the big ones I’m seeing is Coronavirus has happened and folks are addressing their changes in revenue and the changes this brings.” – Jessica Katz Join hosts Audrey Strong and C. Lee Smith every week a

Cameron Herold is a world class executive coach, top rated speaker, and best selling author. He's also the founder of the COO Alliance, the world's leading network for seconds in command. He is known around the world as THE CEO WHISPERER. He is the mastermind behind hundreds of companies' exponential growth. Cameron's built a dynamic consultancy: his clients have included a "Big 4" wireless carrier and a monarchy. He's the author of five books including Meetings Suck: Turning One of The Most Loathed Elements of Business into One of the Most Valuable. In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Cameron discuss:  ·      Why meetings are awful and what % of professionals lead bad meetings ·      Tips to increase engagement in meetings in COVID-19 ·      Timing spacing tips of meetings ·      Accountability and engagement tests upon observing “checked out” behavior in meetings "You hear it all the time. It's the one thing that almost everyone in business can agree on. Except it's not actually true. Meetings don't suck, we

Whether you're a manager justifying your budget with upper management or a salesperson trying to close a deal, you'll undoubtedly encounter objections and need to know how to overcome them. Justin Weeder is the Owner and Head Coach at The Covert Closer. Justin has helped hundreds of sellers perfect their message and overcome objections without the usual aggressive, pushy, confrontation that is associated with selling today. He is the creator of the LISTEN method of overcoming objections and the author of The Covert Sales Method. Bonus content for Manage Smarter listeners: Get The Covert Closer's Code - a free objection eBook Mark has created for managers and salespeople at www.thecovertcloser.com. You can also download his free Sales Mindset Book at www.thecovertcloser.com/covert-closers-code In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Justin discuss:  ·      How he went from homeless on the streets of Vegas to success ·      How a relatable approach is the foundation to overcoming objections ·      LISTEN Method of 6

Jason Reichl co-founded Go Nimbly, the first revenue operations consultancy with the goal of allowing high-growth companies to increase the revenue of each of their customers by 26% through eliminating operational silos. In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Jason discuss:  ·      The definition of SalesOps or revenue operations ·      Why tackle revenue operations in today’s COVID-19 climate ·      How to get people to buy more or expand their spend in COVID-19 ·      Creating customer experiences to promote repeat purchases "There are 3 levels of operations and when we talk about operations we are talking about sales marketing and customer success.” – Jason Reichl Rev Ops by Role E-Book: https://gonimbly.drift.click/revopsbyrole?_ga=2.65713198.1433493349.1602689006-1753623276.1600783940 Consult Jason by phone: 415-669-0546 Join hosts Audrey Strong and C. Lee Smith every week as they dive into the aspects and concepts of good business management. From debunking sales myths to learning how to manage with and wit

Global Credibility Expert Mitchell Levy is a TEDx speaker and international bestselling author of over 60 books, including his latest "Credibility Nation." As CEO of the publishing company ThinkAha, his superpower is extracting the genius from your head in a three-hour interview so that his team can ghostwrite your book, publish it, distribute it, and make you an Amazon bestselling author in four months. He is an accomplished Entrepreneur who has created twenty businesses in Silicon Valley including four publishing companies that have published over 850 books. He's provided strategic consulting to over one hundred companies and has been chairman of the boardof a NASDAQ-listed company. In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Mitchell discuss:  ·      The new definition of credibility in today’s COVID-19 climate ·      The 3 Pillars of Credibility ·      Specific steps and strategies to build your credibility ·   Lee's new book, SalesCred, and the importance of credibility in buyers qualifying sellers "The qualit

Sophie Chiche, founder of Life by me, Shape House and the latest adventure, becurrent. Serial entrepreneur always on the lookout for concepts that moves the needle of the human experience. She’s earned masters degrees in business and journalism in her native city of Paris, France and added one in psychology soon after she moved to Los Angeles in 1993. She’s given two successful TEDx talks and co-authored the well-received book, “The Power of Personal Accountability: Achieve what Matters to You.” This amazing woman has also lost and kept off 200 pounds, transforming herself and her life.  In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Sophie discuss:  ·      Implementing active choices daily in COVID-19 to make the happiest, best experience you can have moment to moment ·      How to avoid stress eating in the pandemic ·      How to embrace feelings and use them to find a way to happiness "This one day I woke up and I literally had this voice, I heard it as a voice, intuition it said you can have everything you want but bef

Jim McCarthy, started his career in the e-commerce business back in 1997, has almost 20 years experience in live events, has sold tens of millions of tickets to millions of people, co-founded TEDxBroadway, advises entrepreneurs, co-founded Goldstar Events and Stellar Tickets, and is the CEO of both companies. His current mission is to enable artists and organizations to create high quality online content — helping them find success in this new era where online events are transforming the entertainment landscape. In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Jim discuss:  ·      New ways to produce events that boost engagement in COVID-19 ·      Making your online events as engaging as a live event ·      Creating a culture of quality in online events ·      Producer/Moderator priorities to inject more energy into online events "These have to be more participatory by design. You can’t allow people to be able to tune out just because the structure doesn’t demand that they do anything.” – Jim McCarthy Join hosts Audrey Stro

Justin Winter is the co-founder and CEO of Boostopia, a SaaS platform that allows you to manage your newly work-from-home customer support team with the world’s first support department operations platform. Justin exited his prior company after growing it to $22 million in annual sales to focus on a new problem. Boostopia is the missing link to your support help desk software built for managers to understand, manage, and improve both your team and customer experience. The company has also launched a ‘Support Operation Audit’ to support organizations going through the pandemic and the resulting economic downturn.  In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Justin discuss:  ·      Remote customer service changes since COVID-19 ·      How to audit your processes to evaluate your support operations metrics compared to benchmarks from before ·      Strategies to prevent support defects before they happen "The number one mistake managers make is a lack of clear agreement, definition, alignment, accountability too, and emph

Wayne Mullins is the founder and CEO of Ugly Mug Marketing. Over the past 20 years, he has scaled multiple companies and helped hundreds entrepreneurs do the same with their companies. his passion is helping entrepreneurs challenge their assumptions, create value from places they’ve never looked, and having more freedom than they previously believed possible. He has worked hands-on with clients in over 100 different industries, and from every corner of the globe. In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Wayne discuss:  ·      Sales and marketing in COVID-19 ·      How to shift marketing platforms to the client side to connect companies communicate ·      Coronavirus business strategies ·      Adjusting marketing messages in the pandemic "No one likes to be sold to and they want to be helped and know that you care beyond just yourself.” – Wayne Mullins DUE TO COVID-19 AND BANDWIDTH ISSUES IN ZOOM, THIS RECORDING MAY HAVE SOME AUDIO DROPOUTS. Join hosts Audrey Strong and C. Lee Smith every week as they dive into the a

Kathlyn Hendricks, Ph.D., BC-DMT*, is an evolutionary catalyst and freelance muchness mentor with 50 years pioneering experience in somatic approaches to relationship transformation. She is the co-author of 12 books, including the best-selling Conscious Loving and At the Speed of Life. Most recently, she has created a website with dozens of free resources focused on Unlocking the Fear Code and Restoring Resourcefulness in our turbulent times. In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Kathlyn discuss:  ·      The Four Levels of Fear and tips on how to come with them ·      New ways to discuss fear feelings with your team ·      What happens to your brain when you’re in the fear state of mind ·      Exercises to calm your mind and body "Fear is wired in. We would not be here unless our ancestors had really good responses to fear but it is not something we want to get rid of but we want to recognize when fear is running us. We need to move from fear to here.” – Kathlyn Hendricks DUE TO COVID-19 AND BANDWIDTH ISSUES I

Jason Bradshaw is the entrepreneur/author of the book IT'S ALL ABOUT CEX, the essential guide to customer and employee experience. At 14 years old, Jason Bradshaw started his own telecommunications and hardware distribution business. It was there he began a lifelong passion for customer experience Our guest today says every crisis is an opportunity to grow. Joining us today is Jason S Bradshaw, from teenage entrepreneur to aglob al thought leader on Customer & Employee Experience delivering business growth. With experience in everything from telecommunications to government, media and automotive Jason has the depth and breadth of experience to inspire, engage and deliver results. In this episode, Audrey, Lee and Jason discuss:  ·      Businesses who ignore COVID-19 are the ones most damaged ·      Tips/New Ways to boost customer engagement BECAUSE of the pandemic ·      Creative ideas to boost revenues " Many managers create a strategy and don't stick with the strategy long enough to let it work.” – Jason Bra