Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Thanks to Nancy, Chris and Libby for a great launch show!

We had an amazing show today. If you missed listening live, the show is available on DEMAND here on this site or on www.blogtalkradio.com/solutionzlive.

You can pause as you are listening if you don't have a single block of time to listen to the entire show or you can use iTunes to listen to the show and fast forward to the segment that you missed.
Below next to the time of the show is the minute marker on ITunes where the segment begins.

Segment 1: INNOVATION 10AM 00:00

Nancy Widmann started out her segment at 10am talking about Innovation when the sky is falling. My favorite piece of her segment was when she talked about "raising your hand" with innovative ideas. Whether you are in a corporate job, in a smaller, entrepreneurial company, you are an entrepreneur yourself or you are "in transition", this can apply to you. Think like the owner of the company and come up with ideas to innovate. It doesn't matter whether the innovation is making your own job more efficient, coming up with a new product or technology idea, a new business model, talking to a prospective employer about the things that they can do to grow their business or make it more profitable or simply a way to put customers at the center of your strategy, this approach to innovation makes total sense.


Segment 2: LEADERSHIP 1030AM 30:30

At 1030am, we shifted gears to talk about Leadership. I loved Nancy's word picture that whereas we used to aspire the corporate ladder, that ladder is now a lattice and doesn't provide the security that it once did. The top leadership issues that Nancy is facing in her coaching are morale, communicating that changes being made now are not temporary/stopgap measures but are permanent and lastly personal stress faced by executives due to unreasonable goals and pressures that are around them on both the business and personal side of their lives.

The takeaways from Nancy's segment were the need to innovate, think like an owner and an entrepreneur no matter what role you play in your company, to focus on rewards and public recognition in non-traditional ways (trophies, plaques or a handwritten thank you note) until you can get back to the place where you can grant bonuses and to drive forward an optimistic culture. The optimism can come back into an organization that focuses first on innovation and also on helping those that are less fortunate. Giving back to the community can be a great way to build morale and to bring together leadership and the rank and file during these tough times.


Segment 3: INVESTMENT INSIGHTS 11AM 1:01:15

Chris Dane and I had a great time expanding the dialogue that we began several weeks ago when we appeared on Fox Business' Money for Breakfast segment, talking about the rivalry between Carnival and Royal Caribbean. Chris and I are both travel industry investment experts with the Gerson Lehman Group, a company that matches industry experts with the investment community. Bottom line, Chris and I both believe that the cruise industry is a still a good investment, as there is still a large market to be penetrated, the companies generally have a lot of cash, there are revenue opportunities beyond the basic cost of the cruise and they have invested in expanding their fleets, while economizing where they can to conserve fuel, which is one of their top costs.


Segment 3: INNOVATION 1130AM 1:30:30

Libby Gill joined us for the last part of our show to talk about Growth through the use of branding. Libby helped us understand the 5 Branding Strategies to increase that all important "mindshare".
  1. Capture the mindshare and the market share will follow
  2. Stand out from the herd of competitors
  3. Craft a "sticky" message
  4. Broadcast your brand
  5. Expand your brand
Libby provided some very practical tips behind each of these key points. Listen in for more information. Sign up for Libby's next "Capture the Mindshare and the Market Share will Follow" 4 week program, beginning February 19th. Click HERE for more information.

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