Categories
Marketing Podcast

Unpacking B2B Influencers: The Gamechangers

cover image featuring dan keldsen and justin levy

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Welcome back to Next Future Today, your go-to podcast for exploring the fascinating intersection and acceleration of business and technology.

Today, we dive deep into the world of B2B influencer marketing with our special guest, Justin Levy.

Justin is a well known expert in the field, most recently serving as the Senior Director of Influencer Marketing at Demandbase.

With over a decade of experience in this space, Justin’s insights are invaluable for anyone looking to harness the power of influencers to grow their business.

During this enlightening conversation, our host, Dan Keldsen, uncovers the secrets of successful influencer marketing campaigns and how to become a better influencer yourself.

They kick off the discussion by highlighting how social media has revolutionized the concept of influence, allowing individuals to gain prominence beyond traditional methods like writing books or giving keynotes. From there, Justin shares his expertise on the various types of content production and audience engagement that influencers can utilize to make a true impact.

One standout point from the episode is the essential role of LinkedIn in B2B influencer marketing. Justin explains how this platform has become the primary medium for influencer content in the business world, offering unparalleled opportunities for reaching professionals and decision-makers.

The conversation also emphasizes the importance of identifying influential individuals within specific markets, regardless of whether they fit the traditional demographic profile. This highlights the need for a strategic approach to influencer selection that goes beyond simply considering follower count, but also focuses on engagement, resonance, and diversity of the influencer’s audience.

Throughout the episode, Justin emphasizes the significance of establishing genuine, long-term relationships with influencers to ensure mutual success. He advises brands to involve influencers in the content creation process, allowing them to play to their strengths and preferences rather than forcing them into unfamiliar formats. This approach yields more authentic and engaging content, resonating better with the audience.

Moreover, Justin stresses the importance of thinking strategically rather than solely pursuing short-term gains. Building credibility, being known, and showcasing one’s skills and abilities are vital across industries, and this rings true for influencers as well. From startups to established brands, all can benefit from incorporating influencer marketing into their overall marketing strategies.

To measure the success of influencer marketing campaigns, Justin highlights key metrics such as engagement rate and cost per engagement. These metrics provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of collaborations and help brands make data-driven decisions moving forward.

So, whether you’re an aspiring influencer or a brand seeking to make a bigger impact in the B2B world, this episode is a treasure trove of knowledge and practical tips. Join us on Next Future Today as we delve into the exciting world of B2B influencer marketing with the incredible Justin Levy. Get ready to unlock the secrets of success and propel your business to new heights. Let’s jump right in!

FOLLOW DAN AND JUSTIN

Dan Keldsen – https://www.linkedin.com/in/dankeldsen/
Justin Levy – https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinlevy/

Categories
Entrepreneurism Innovation Podcast

What is The Leader Way? From Domination to Empowerment in the Workplace

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Welcome to Next Future Today, hosted by Dan Keldsen.

Today’s episode is What is The Leader Way? From Domination to Empowerment in the Workplace” with Leadership Expert Jamie Mason Cohen – NextFutureToday Ep 14

Find more episodes at https://NextFutureToday.com, on YouTube, or in your favorite podcast app.

In this episode of NextFutureToday, I’m interviewing Jamie Mason Cohen, a well known leadership development and resilience expert with an array of stories that, no matter how improbable they are (hint: he doesn’t take NO for an answer… and I mean that literally), are just do.damn.good. and chock full of tips for work and life.

During our conversation, he shared some incredible quotes that really resonated with me, that I’ll call out here:

1. “Leadership should be a shared responsibility and privilege.” This quote truly underscores the importance of collaboration and empowering others within leadership roles. It reminds us that leadership is not about being the dominant force (like a hard charging Jack Welch, or Steve Jobs for example), but rather about elevating and supporting those around us.

2. “Experimentation is the key to effective leadership.” The value of trying new approaches and thinking outside the box is an uncommon take that’s well worth putting into action. It highlights the need for leaders to embrace innovation and learn from their mistakes, creating an environment that fosters growth and adaptability.

3. “Leaders should be ‘learn it alls,’ not ‘know it alls’.” Having a way with words, and memorable phrases, is the sign of a great communicator, and this saying encapsulates the mindset that leaders should strive for – continuous learning and humility. It reminds us that true leaders are open to new ideas, receptive to feedback, and willing to admit when they make mistakes. There’s much more, but for the rest… you’ll need to watch/listen. Go go go! And create YOUR Next Future Today. #leadership#leadershipskills#communicationskills#saturdaynightlive

Find out more about Jamie’s work at:

https://jamiemasoncohen.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiemasoncohen/

Categories
Branding Entrepreneurism Marketing Podcast

The Power of Branding for Buyouts

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Welcome to Next Future Today, hosted by Dan Keldsen.

In Episode 13 of NextFutureToday, I had the privilege to interview @TedSchlueter from The Grist Agency  where we discussed the power of Branding for Buyouts, the title of his book, courses he’s taught at Babson College about Branding for Buyouts, and his core business practice of over 15 years.

🔑 Key Takeaways:

1️⃣ Branding can significantly increase the value of a business when it is being sold. By repositioning the brand and understanding what potential buyers want, we can unlock untapped value waiting to be discovered.

2️⃣ Marketing and branding often take a backseat in the M&A process, but they deserve a dedicated spot at the table. Working alongside investment bankers can ensure a combined approach that tells the story of a company’s life’s work and sacrifices, attracting the right buyers.

3️⃣ Creating a category and trademarking it can be a game-changer. Just like Gartner’s Magic Quadrant, creating a unique space for your business increases its visibility and potential for success.

Want more? Listen up and be prepared to think about branding in a different way than most brands are designed and promoted!

Find out more about Ted’s work at:

https://www.brandingforbuyout.com/

https://www.thegrist.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tedschlueter/

Categories
Entrepreneurism Innovation Podcast Software

Secrets to Successful Software Pricing with Luke Hohmann

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Welcome to Next Future Today, hosted by Dan Keldsen.

Find more episodes at https://NextFutureToday.com, on YouTube, or in your favorite podcast app.

This interview between Dan Keldsen and Luke Hohmann discusses the importance of pricing and profit streams in software businesses, based on Luke’s latest book “Software Profit Streams” a spiritual successor to the long legacy of “canvas” style books first started by Business Model Generation.

“Software Profit Streams” is remarkably easy to understand, beautiful on the eyes, but quickly allows you to go VERY deep into software pricing.

Key Points

  • 🕰️ Time-based cadence is one of the triggers to change pricing.
  • 🏢 Internal triggers like adding new features can also necessitate pricing changes.
  • 🌍 External triggers such as regulatory changes, competitive forces, or hardware changes can impact pricing decisions.
  • 💰 Customer benefit analysis is the foundation for effective pricing strategies.
  • 🎯 Ilities (Reliability, Maintainability, Curability, Scalability) can be recast into current or future economic terms to inform pricing and licensing decisions.
  • 🤝 Intangible benefits of working with a company, such as being more flexible and willing to listen, should be considered in customer benefit analysis.
  • 📈 Pricing decisions should be revisited at least once a year, but more frequently in fast-growing products.
  • 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Collaborative decision-making is essential for pricing strategies.
  • 🧠 Simulations can be useful in building mental models, but relying too much on them can be risky due to unknown external triggers.

Keywords

  • Customer benefit analysis: Assessing the economic value or structure of a software’s benefits.
  • Ilities: Reliability, Maintainability, Curability, Scalability; attributes that can be recast into economic terms to inform pricing decisions.
  • Infrequent transaction: An event that occurs rarely, such as selling a house or revisiting pricing decisions.
  • Intangible benefits: Non-quantifiable benefits of a product or service, such as being a nice company to work with.
  • External triggers: Factors outside of a company that can impact pricing decisions, such as regulatory changes or competitive forces.

More about Luke’s book at:

https://amzn.to/3KgdLqC (this is an affiliate link)

Categories
Podcast Presenting

Revolutionizing Events in a Hybrid World

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Welcome to Next Future Today, hosted by Dan Keldsen.

Find more episodes at https://NextFutureToday.com, on YouTube, or in your favorite podcast app.

In this episode host Dan Keldsen interviews Jon Harris, the CEO and co-founder of BuzzIt, a platform designed to enhance attendee engagement and overall event experience.

It’s a tale of a pivot – dodging and weaving from one idea, connecting college students in big, anonymous classrooms, to much more… watch/listen for the details, in the meantime, here’s the quick summary.

Three Key Takeaways from BuzzIt’s Journey

  1. The initial idea for BuzzIt was to create a location-based messaging product.
  2. BuzzIt pivoted to focus on improving attendee engagement and experience at events.
  3. The platform aims to cater to the unique needs of smaller, more frequent events.

A Step-by-Step Process to BuzzIt’s Evolution

  1. Initial concept: John Harris was inspired to create a location-based messaging product after a bad experience with a food vendor.
  2. Pivot to classrooms: Realizing the potential for this product in educational settings, Harris and his team started using it in classrooms to help students connect.
  3. Transition to events: BuzzIt shifted to events, where it found a better market fit and started focusing on helping event organizers create better experiences for attendees.
  4. Covid-19 impact: The pandemic forced event organizers to adapt to virtual and hybrid events, and BuzzIt evolved alongside these changes to provide solutions for a niche market.
  • 📱 Buzzit began as a location-based messaging product
  • 🎓 Initially focused on classrooms for better communication
  • 🚀 Shifted focus to events and event organizers
  • 🌐 Adapted to online events during the Covid-19 pandemic
  • 🤝 Helps both attendees and hosts for better event experiences
  • 💼 Target audience: smaller, frequent events (75-150 people)
  • ⏳ Saves setup time for event organizers
  • 🌉 Bridges the gap between in-person and virtual attendees
  • 🎯 Not a one-size-fits-all solution,  tailored to a niche market
  • 🗣️ Strong engagement with clients to understand their needs

More about BuzzIT at:
https://www.buzzit.ca/

Categories
Podcast

What is ENDineering?

episode thumbnail of dan keldsen and joe macleod

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Welcome to Next Future Today, hosted by Dan Keldsen.

Find more episodes at https://NextFutureToday.com, on YouTube, or in your favorite podcast app.

This is Episode 10, and features a wonderful twist on the usual discussion around User eXperience (UX) and Customer eXperience (CX).

There’s been a long evolution from:

Usability concerns (do people know what a control does), To UX (is it easy to use),

To Information Architecture (IA) (is the end-to-end experience and the supporting tech and “connective tissue” between systems – like consistent navigation, terminology, ability to search across everything, etc.),

and in to CX (does what you’ve built make it easy to become a customer, onboard, and remain happy throughout the experience)…

All of these concepts and practices are typically focused on starting and maintaining an experience.

But none of them focus on how to create architected, designed and executed END experiences.

And that, dear reader, listener, watcher… is something where a TON of value can be unlocked.

In an industry obsessed with acquisition, Joe’s practice of Endineering provides a fresh perspective:

to rethink consumerism through the design of offboarding, so the end experience is designed as well as the beginning.

Find out more about Joe MacLeod and his company at:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephmacleod/

https://andend.co/?utm_referrer=nextfuturetoday_interview

Categories
Entrepreneurism Podcast

Employee Supremacy, the COVID Rollercoaster

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Welcome to Next Future Today, hosted by Dan Keldsen.

Find more episodes at https://NextFutureToday.com, on YouTube, or in your favorite podcast app.

This is Episode 9, and on the surface, the topic is about a visitor management system company called “The Receptionist” – and how the company has evolved from pre-COVID, thru COVID to the other side.

In this interview, I chatted with Andy Alsop, CEO of The Receptionist, on the rollercoaster of providing a solution used to greet and track people checking in at the front desk, at a time when nobody was in-person at all.

Throughout the evolution of the company, Andy’s also been pursuing what he calls “Employee Supremacy” a nice twist on exactly which “shareholder” is the most important, and what that explicitly means.

For decades, companies have operated under a model of Shareholder Supremacy, where leadership decisions are driven solely by what’s best for shareholders.

Andy argues that when a company’s leadership decides what’s best for employees before anything else, all of the company’s stakeholders will benefit.

Find out more about Andy and The Receptionist at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyalsop/

The Receptionist

Fun fact: Both Andy and I are classic muscle car enthusiasts – he’s a Camaro fan, and I’m a Mustang fan. But we won’t let those differences get between us! 😉

Categories
Entrepreneurism Podcast Presenting Remote Work

Start.Suck.Get Better. with Desiree Rose and Dan Keldsen

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Welcome to Next Future Today, hosted by Dan Keldsen. Find more episodes at https://NextFutureToday.com, on YouTube, or in your favorite podcast app.

This is Season 1, Episode 8, and the topic is “Start.Suck.Get Better.”

In this interview, I chatted with Desiree Rose from  @All-In-One Social Media about her newest book ( Start.Suck.Get Better. ), social media for individual/personal brands, small businesses, and well… anyone.

She started her career in social media and video specifically roughly 6 years ago, and has built quite a reputation as a content creator, and in her work with and as a military spouse, and female entrepreneurs as a whole.

If you’ve been listening to previous Next Future Today episodes, the core idea of Start.Suck.Get Better. fits fantastically with the key concept of Next Future Today… it’s not just gaining knowledge, but taking ACTION, quickly, that’s the key to empowering yourself as well as your team.

The sooner you start chipping away at making change happen, the sooner you’ll see the results!

Find out more about her work at:
https://www.allinonesocialmedia.com/
https://mrsdesireerose.com/

Fun fact: Desiree was the very first person to upload an unboxing video of our products at PlexiCam.com. That video was an early sign that the word was getting out that there was a real problem out in the world, cringingly bad eye contact on Zoom calls, interviews, recorded videos, you name it – and we were being seen as the solution.

Alright, let’s dive on into it with Desiree!

Categories
Agile Podcast Remote Work

Ditch Mediocrity with Helene Smuts and Dan Keldsen

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Welcome to Next Future Today, hosted by Dan Keldsen.

Find more episodes at NextFutureToday.com, on YouTube, or in your favorite podcast app.

This is Season 1, Episode 7, and the topic is “Ditch Mediocrity.”

I had a wonderful chat with my guest, Heléne Smuts, the founder of Credo Growth, a people development consultancy out of South Africa.

In 2021, she published her first book, “Ditch Mediocrity”, to empower leaders to develop their own teams rapidly.

If you’ve been listening to previous Next Future Today episodes, this idea fits fantastically with the key concept of Next Future Today… it’s not just gaining knowledge, but taking ACTION, quickly, that’s the key to empowering yourself as well as your team.

The sooner you start chipping away at making change happen, the sooner you’ll see the results!

Heléne is also an Advance Coach, a personality profiler, an expert in behavioral psychology, the holder of an honors degree in Industrial Psychology and a captivating keynote speaker.

Find out more about her company at:
Contract-SA.CO.ZA

I was introduced to Heléne by Richard Mulholland, who I interviewed a few episodes back about his book “Here Be Dragons” – which is similarly practical and insightful to Heléne’s book!

There’s something in the air in South Africa with Richard and Heléne, and whatever it is, it’s working!

Alright, let’s dive on into it!

Categories
Creativity Innovation Podcast Presenting Sales

Here Be Dragons with Rich Mulholland and Dan Keldsen

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Time for another episode of Next Future Today!

Find more episodes at NextFutureToday.com, on YouTube, or in your favorite podcast app.

This is Season 1, Episode 6, and the topic is “Here Be Dragons.” My guest is Rich Mulholland, who is a professional speaker, a salesperson, an author, has a pro music/entertainment background supporting a variety of internationally known rock bands, he’s a sales and speaking trainer, and perhaps most importantly, one heck of a storyteller.

Rich’s approach to explaining not just that storytelling is important, but HOW TO CREATE WELL CRAFTED STORIES, is among the best I’ve found.

I know I’ve found gold when I read a book and follow someone’s social feed, when most of the resources they mention are not the same old list that every one refers to.

And his latest book, “Here Be Dragons” is an incredibly compelling read, chock full of memorable nuggets.

More about Rich and his work:
msnglnk.com
linkedin.com/in/richardmulholland

His latest book:
https://amzn.to/3HU2JF1

And my company, and the product we discussed early in the conversation is:
plexicam.com

Thanks to Rich for his humor, insights and support – he’s serving a very similar audience in the same spirit as we are – there’s power in simplicity, and in making compelling presentations a normality rather than a rarity.