This week’s episode features a conversation with Charles Henson, Managing Partner of Nashville Computer. Working from home can be a perilous electronic journey, especially for those of us without technical teams available. Charles and David discuss the prevalence of cybercrime and what you and your family can do to create a more secure computing environment and how to keep your information off the dark web.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

• 06:20 Password hygiene: Why you need to do it
• 08:19 Managing passwords: LastPass and 1Password
• 14:56 For parents: Learn about location services and the dark web
• 20:49 Special offer by Nashville Computer for ShiftShapers listeners

Quotes:

04:02 “All of these are devices that can be penetrated and accessed remotely if they are not secure.”

07:25 “If that password is compromised, you have to go change it in one place and the hacker can only get into it at that one place not everywhere that you’re using it.”

13:37 “That camera, if it was just plugged up and they left the username and password as a default, then they were online on that website.”

16:54 “If I were stalking someone, I could totally use that app to stalk somebody, to see exactly where their location is, and see where they live on the map.”

19:16 “It is an anonymous marketplace but for today, you can go there and you can buy drugs. You can have them mailed to your house. You can buy social security cards. You can buy stolen credit cards.”

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This week’s episode is a conversation with Steve Peterson, Partner at Tress Solutions. Today, Steve shares his professional journey which is defined by recognizing good opportunities and taking the plunge.

He tells the story of how he adapted to his client’s needs and provided solutions to their biggest pain point: cannabis trash collecting. Steve explains that investing in the right people came first in entering an emerging cannabis niche worth $5 billion.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

• 07:21 Seeing new perspectives and challenging the status quo
• 12:13 Cannabis waste: Addressing urgent problems and finding opportunities
• 16:31 Investing in people first and products second
• 19:01 The cannabis industry: A great product with room to grow

Quotes:

06:46 “You might create something that’s good but not good enough. And I think you’re constantly forced to look and say well, how can we make this better?”

07:18 “The buyer didn’t want to have more compliance software. What they wanted was somebody just to frankly pick up their trash. So we have to adapt and say, okay, we’ll pick up your trash.”

11:50 “Until you can see it and feel it, you don’t really truly understand what problems they’re having. And so from that knowledge, then you can really architect the better solution.”

13:19 “We started seeing a whole alternate industry out there which is basically taking those stalks, stripping them down, and turning them into things like clothing, bedding, industrial hemp. So that whole market is a $5 billion market.”

18:10 “Let’s not play this game of my product is $5 cheaper. Let’s buy the waste from the grower and say we’ll take it from here so they don’t have to pay for it. It solves an economic problem for the customer, at the same token from an ecology standpoint.”

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This week’s episode is part 2 of our conversation with Sean Schantzen, Co-Founder and President at Health Rosetta Group. Today, Sean predicts what the future may hold for the insurance industry and the tools and techniques needed to meet those changes.

Sean discusses the trend of mid-market companies banding together to rebuild infrastructures and the increasingly commonplace occurrence of building their own hospitals. He also discusses the main factors that drive pharma costs and the changes that are reshaping views on risk management.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

• 01:58 New mid-market company solution: Building their own hospitals
• 07:20 Influencing politics and using advisors as coordinators
• 10:12 Pharma cost drivers: Supply issues, drug management, and pricing
• 15:25 Changes in risk-management and the re-localization of risk

Quotes:

02:34 “We can pull together the capital and we can pull together the lives and we are influential in our communities. We could track
the doctors. We could do everything. Why don’t we just build a hospital or buy one or take it over?”

02:54 “We’re so frustrated with the way things have been going for so long and it’s been such a fight that, forget it, we’re done.
We’re just going to start over.”

10:36 “The entire model by which we price and distribute and have supply chain for drugs we all know is flawed in many, many ways.”

11:54 “That’s a supply chain issue which is replace the existing supply chain or decapitalize so much through technology and through
very, very specific types of business models that are borrowing from the tech community.”

20:35 “When you have community owning the skin in the game, the people that are most impacted by going wrong and the people that can most manage and keep it going right, that opens up an entirely new world.”

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This week’s episode is a conversation with Sean Schantzen, Co-Founder and President at Health Rosetta Group. Today, Sean shares his insights on what top advisors are doing to bring innovation, control, cost savings, and better user experiences to their clients.

Sean explains that transparency is central to reestablishing a relationship of trust between advisors and employers. He also discusses the Mr. Potato Head problem and how architecting new plans from the ground up is the only solution to give stakeholders what they really want.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

• 02:18 Examining the role of advisors today
• 07:37 Advisors are experimenting to create higher-value offerings
• 09:56 Changing the compensation model with transparency and trust
• 14:54 Architecting new plans and solving the Mr. Potato Head problem
• 19:03 How firms and individual advisors can usher in changes

Quotes:

07:37 “These business models that are moving away from the traditional staffing plan as an advisor into new models that maybe are more member-centric. They may be more analytic-centric. They may be more contracting and legal-centric.”

08:27 “They’ve gained experience that’s necessary to understand how they then pull all these things together to create a much more highly differentiated and high-value offering.”

11:37 “Being transparent in compensation, top to bottom, if anything overly transparent, kind of sets the stake in the ground to reestablish a relationship on more trust.”

16:39 “They’re solving the Mr. Potato Head problem. This is contracting. It’s vendor selection issues. It’s cross-vendor collaboration. It’s how your underwriter’s going to give credits and react to this.”

20:34 “It’s less about the size of the firm that the advisor is at and more about the commitment of the advisor and their team to building what they want to build and the willingness of their clients to go along with them.”

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This week’s episode is a conversation with Tom Malesic, Founder and CEO at EZSolution. Today, Tom introduces basic digital marketing concepts on major social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn.

Tom goes into detail on finding your audience on Facebook and using industry tricks to reach them more effectively. He also shares unusual metrics that you can use to track your marketing progress and ways you can improve your lead generation website.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

• 01:48 Digital marketing concepts for different sized enterprises
• 05:40 Determining your audience on Facebook and reaching them
• 09:28 A/B Testing and using metrics to track marketing success
• 11:56 Top mistakes when building your website
• 16:30 Tips in creating company blogs

Quotes:

02:26 “How do you produce content that makes your audience know and understand that you’re the expert and you’re the one they should call when they have a specific problem that you solve?”

06:18 “The other thing that Facebook does that most people don’t even know that it’s possible is you can export any kind of list that you have, so you might have a prospect list or maybe you have a customer list.”

11:10 “We could track form fills and you can even install call tracking on your website so that it displays a unique phone number and then you could log into the call tracking dashboard and actually listen to those calls.”

14:54 “Sometimes it just takes a little step back to say, do we need this section? How do we organize this content so that it makes more sense?”

18:53 “You could do video blogs instead of written blogs.”

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This week’s episode is a conversation with Ron Laikind, an adventurer with a penchant for adaptability and owner at Extreme Mist PCS, LLC. Today, Ron explains how he meets the needs of current times through on-the-spot creativity.

He shares that the idea for a misting system began on camelback while traversing the African desert. Ron also shares how he has since adapted his product to fight COVID-19 and adjusted it for use in the sanitation industry.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

• 03:10 Finding business inspiration on camelback
• 06:36 Extreme Mist: Starting the company and developing the product
• 11:11 Adapting his invention to battle COVID-19
• 17:35 Pivoting his sales profile: Selling to the sanitation industry

Quotes:

06:25 “That’s lesson number one. Don’t hesitate. If you think you have something, jump on it because if not, it’ll just sit in the pages and the ink will dull.”

07:18 “I’m walking, cycling, running into a nice cold cloud. So wherever I go, I’m walking right into it and I’m staying cool. I’m breathing it in.”

08:23 “I needed a hands-free operation so I could enjoy my trek and at the same time stay cool. And that’s what I came up with.”

15:20 “I went back over there ten minutes later, filled it up with their sanitizing fluid, and it’s a wireless remote with eight different speeds, so the manager put it on, started walking around, and the gym broke out in applause.”

17:40 “It’s probably fifty to one, maybe even more than that now, from our misting and drinking products from the Extreme Mist line going over to the portable sanitizing system line.”

Resources:

https://extrememist.com/

https://portablesanitizingsystem.com/

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This week’s episode is a conversation with Jason Treu, Chief People Officer at Unstoppable Workplaces. Today, Jason discusses how companies can experiment with communication strategies to maintain connections with their team members.

Jason also talks about the changes that companies need to adapt to in an increasingly digital environment. To survive, companies need to implement empathetic strategies for teamwork and get regular feedback from employees.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

• 03:42 Pandemic challenges: Going digital and experimenting to stay connected
• 09:52 Introducing company change and being prepared for it
• 13:26 Using structures to manage high performers
• 18:28 Resources and tools to gain feedback and develop essential skills

Quotes:

04:22 “People are galvanized around a purpose and the purpose is survival today. And you will do a lot for that.”

09:04 “It’s harder to create those decisions because you’re not in a room. You have to contact everyone and get them together and at some point, that’s just not feasible.”

15:23 “You should be doing weekly pulses, asking them questions of your sales force, and there’s a lot of questions you could be asking them to get some data back so you can get real-time feedback.”

16:32 “People with empathy, the people who have compassion, the people who have a plan and know how to build trust with people, I think those are the things that you’re seeing are doing much better across the board.”

21:12 “The challenge is going to be how far that people move off of making the people, the teamwork, the employee experience, a business priority. And I think that, to me, is the central question.”

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This episode of The ShiftShapers Podcast is called “The Importance of Emotional Intelligence” with Alan Cohen, President at ASC Coaching & Speaking, TEDx speaker, and author of “The Connection Challenge” and “Those Difficult Talks.”

Today, Alan defines emotional intelligence and a key aspect of it known as empathy. He also discusses the role of self-assessment in leadership to overcome blind spots and how a shared purpose can make people transcend pettiness and achieve greatness.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

• 03:13 Building empathy and its role in decision-making
• 08:09 Emotional awareness and its potential for business success
• 09:25 Self-assessment: Exercises and books for you
• 15:21 The power of shared purpose
• 19:54 Tips for self-help during the pandemic

Quotes:

03:41 “Without empathy, we can be perceived as being harsh or cold or detached. And with the appropriate amount of empathy, we are a more individual connected leader, somebody that builds trust.”

09:05 “Without connection, you might have results but you’re probably missing the greater potential to really build trust and engagement and a higher level of performance.”

10:40 “We all have a blind spot. As awake and as mindful and as conscious as we are, there’s still something that we’re not seeing, and that thing that we’re not seeing could be the very thing that’s getting in the way.”

20:14 “There’s such a crisis in empathy right now. People need that. People need to know that you see them and feel and care about them.”

20:45 “Everybody is going through similar things and the conditions are affecting all of us. We all have to take care of ourselves in terms of body, mind, spirit, physicality, creative expression, all of those things.”

Resources

EIQ Definitions

“The Magical Power of Shared Purpose” TEDx Talk by Alan Samuel Cohen

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This episode of The ShiftShapers Podcast is called “Dealing with VUCA – Your Key To Surviving Future Shock” with Ira Wolfe, President and Chief Googlization Officer at Success Performance Solutions.

Today, Ira defines VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity) and contextualizes it to the global pandemic. He comments on the stress of the accelerated use of technology and how responding to it causes disruption but also leads to adaptation.

What You’ll Learn From this Episode:

• 02:38 Defining VUCA in 2020
• 10:59 Responding to VUCA
• 13:04 The adoption of technology across generations
• 16:53 Using historical references to contextualize the present
• 18:27 Technology, stress, and adaptation

Quotes:

08:25 “Everybody’s having debates about everything. What does school look like? What do we do with our kids? What does daycare look like? What does our workplace look like?”

16:18 “It was a pretty volatile time and so we can reference those things which don’t relate. So for a millennial or Gen X, these are all new experiences. We’ve seen them before.”

16:34 “You gotta be careful when you’re talking about generations. Our reference points are different but our viewpoints are pretty diverse.”

18:48 “The pandemic itself will go away but the technology, the acceleration of the use of technology is just amazing.”

19:57 “All of a sudden, everybody needed to become digitally literate. They had to figure out how do we get five people onto our wireless internet. How do we secure it? I don’t have an IT department.”

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