Follow Your Different
098 Build a legendary Board of Directors w/ Coco Brown
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In this episode, the CEO of Athena Alliance Coco Brown talks about how to build a legendary board of directors. Coco is an entrepreneur and an advocate for women. She tells us why boards need to have fresh talents and why they need diversity on skills and people. Also, she shares why the old model of creating a board is worn out.
The Athena Alliance
Coco Brown is the CEO of Athena Alliance. It is a global community of women business leaders, committed to driving diversity on company boards and developing new women leaders.
“We’re essentially bringing the top-tier women together in a digital ecosystem that provides us a lot of opportunities for them across disciplines.” – Coco Brown
Coco describes the community as in-part-Linkedin — with a portion of coaching and networking — and in-part-Bumble, because of matchmaking activities.
Male CEOs and The Outdated Board of Directors
Athena Alliance serves as an agency. The group is in contact with male CEOs who wish to expand their network with women.
Coco further shares with Christopher how outdated most companies are, in terms of the composition of their Board of Directors. In the past, the board is ultimately responsible for long term shareholder. Oftentimes, it is the reason why CEOs tend to stay long in their position, up until retirement.
“The board room needs a lot more empathy, connection, communication and understanding of the marketplace. If you look at the old board — seated with former CEOs and financial experts — the average age is 63, the average tenure is 8 1/2 years.” – Coco Brown
Building A Legendary Board
In the past, the committees are largely about CEO compensation, equities, and succession. Historically, committee topics are financials or risks. In the new world, these financial experts try to squeeze in other pressing corporate issues into those committees.
“So you’re starting to see this need for a much wider range of skills set in the board room. People who understand consumers. So good market strategists and leaders.” – Coco Brown
Moreover, she suggested to bring in more sets of people in their 30s or 40s. Ideally, she suggests contemporary professionals who are experienced with the operations.
To hear more about building a legendary Board of Directors, and more relevant information about Coco Brown, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Coco Brown leads “change and transformation.” She is responsible for accelerating multimillion-dollar growth through vision, strategy, technology, and people leadership.
She held leadership roles including CEO, COO, President, board member, and advisor—partnering with F1000 companies, start-ups, and nonprofits. Through her leadership, she has delivered successful outcomes for Apple, Cisco, eBay, Facebook, Silicon Valley Bank, and many others.
Currently, she is the founder, CEO, and board member of The Athena Alliance. The company is a game-changing executive firm helping to position the top 10% of executive women for advancement and board opportunities.
Since founding Athena in the Spring of 2016, she has led the organization to a network of over 1000 C-Level women, VCs, and CEOs from over 150 companies. These companies include Accenture, Cisco, Microsoft, Intuit, Autodesk, and Alphabet / Google.
Within two years, we have overseen 20 board placements and have secured $2 million in income through corporate and investor service offerings.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
097 Legendary Writer Dushka Zapata
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One of the most prolific and important writers in the world and our most regular guest Dushka Zapata, joins us today. We had a heartfelt conversation about mending broken-hearts, why grief is worst when you’re young, why discipline is better than inspiration and many more!
Writing Beautiful Answers at Quora
You may find Dushka lounging in Question and Answer site Quora, where her writings receive 140 million views. Her life-affirming, fun and powerful answers have garnered her quite a following, including Christopher himself.
During this conversation, she shared a wonderful passage where we can learn a thing or to about mending a broken heart. She shares a story about a big, crowded yoga class she attended. The intention was to heal the physical and non-physical aspects of the person — whether a sprain, a wound or even sorrow, anxiety and loneliness.
“At this point, I sneaked a peek. I opened my eyes and slowly panned the room. I would say that 97% of the people on the room had placed both their hands over the left side of their chest.” – Dushka Zapata
She left a powerful message to readers, reminding everyone to tread very carefully in this world because, in reality, almost everyone is desperately trying to mend a broken heart.
Grief is Worse When You’re Young
Dushka shares another question lifted from Quora about a young 16-year old who wanted to marry her girlfriend. She crafted a very creative and wholehearted response: she affirmed what the young lad was feeling and then informed him that this feeling is temporary.
“Feelings — real and deep — change. Feelings change and the fact that they do is what breaks me. The fact that it changes, saves me and it will save you too.” – Dushka Zapata
She concludes that the younger you are, the more confusing things are because you don’t know you can survive them.
Discipline Matters More Than Being Inspired
Dushka shares to Christopher about some days in her career, where she counts on being disciplined, rather than inspired., which she believes is the secret to anything.
“I don’t think there is such a thing as motivation. I think that you just do it because, you said you are gonna do it every day.” – Dushka Zapata
More on this Oddcast, Christopher, and Dushka discuss the importance of being an amateur. She also conversed about her new book, You Belong Everywhere and Other Things You’ll Have to See for Yourself.
To hear more about Legendary Writer Dushka Zapata, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Dushka Zapata is one of the most prolific and popular writers working today.
On question and answer site Quora her work has been viewed over 140 million times.
She’s the author of eight best-selling books.
Dushka has over 20 years experience as a senior communications executive in Silicon Valley.
When she’s not writing, she serves as a communications executive at tech juggernaut Zendesk.
Links:
New Book: You Belong Everywhere and Other Things You’ll Have to See for Yourself
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
096 Performance Marketing & Podcasting Media w/ Dan Granger, CEO of Oxford Road
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Podcasting has never been hotter! Dan Granger joins us today to have a unique, thoughtful and inspiring conversation about performance marketing & podcasting media. He is the CEO of Oxford Road, the pioneer in digital performance advertising, which he also talks about today.
The Incubation Period
Dan has done an incredible job of being early in new digital areas that produce meaningful results both for a performance and branding perspective for marketers.
He started paying attention to podcasting way back in 2006 but not only until the year 2012 did he start monetizing it, through advertisement placement on podcasts. Officially in 2013, they started working with unheard-of brands like Zip Recruiter, Blue Apron and Hulu.
“I had a 10-year background in radio. What was interesting is we get to ride two simultaneous waves that were really, really influential in the marketplace—both in media and general business.” – Dan Granger
Startups Building Businesses in Podcasting
Dan notes that it was all early adapters—geeks and gamers—who tried out podcasting and they resonated with people. Listeners appreciate the fact that something different happens technologically. In addition to that, the audiences were willing to try something that was entirely different and “disruptive.”
“I’m listening to audio in a way that has never been consumed before.” – Dan Granger on early listeners of podcasts
Podcasting is a big deal. Dan shares how a lot of brands got their growth spurt at the back of the podcast industry. They were efficient in buying these podcasts before it started to become popular with the mainstream.
“It really changes when you go ‘I’m really scared to spend this first 10 Grand’ to ‘I just got sold for a Billion dollars’ is a very different culture and priorities.” – Dan Granger
Is Podcasting Merging With Radio?
Christopher agrees with Dan about companies differentiating themselves quickly via podcasting. However, he noted the indirect proportion of the amount of growth and the actual dollar brought about by advertising.
“Yes this is a technological advancement, that means you can have more commercials. So my prediction, in not too distant future, we’re going to see advertising loads change tremendously. You may have to stick around till after the break.” – Dan Granger
Christopher posed an important question about whether podcasting is merging with radio formats. Dan candidly answered that it has many threats more than opportunities and it will be hard to fight this movement.
“There will be individuals who will stay independent — Joe Rogan, Tim Ferris, probably a lot of people like yourself who are really just purist and committed to the craft and love the fact that it’s not radio. It’s got this pirate radio about vibe to it.” – Dan Granger
To hear more about Performance Marketing & Podcasting Media and more relevant information about Dan, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Dan Granger is the CEO and founder of Oxford Road, a leading ad agency and ad-tech developer.
Since starting Oxford Road in 2013, Dan has teamed with countless “unicorn” companies on TV, radio and podcast advertisements on some of the country’s biggest shows, including Tim Ferriss and Joe Rogan.
Links:
Adweek Contributor Dan Granger
The Future of Performance Marketing With Oxford Road CEO Dan Granger
Mickey D’s is the latest company to hop on the branded podcast bandwagon
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
095 #1 Tech Startup In Africa w/ Matt Brown
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Entrepreneur, CEO, and top podcaster Matt Brown joins us today for another no-BS conversation about being a Techpreneur in South Africa. He gives us a glimpse of the South African Tech scene, as well as his successes, as he was voted as #1 Tech startup in Africa in London Tech Week. Matt gives practical insights on business and life design as well.
#1 Tech Startup
Matt Brown, a very down to earth guy, recounts to Christopher his experience at London Tech Week, as organizers named him the #1 Tech Startup in Africa. Although he admits he now has unnecessary pressure due to the title, he claims it was a great opportunity for international development in the technology space.
“It was pretty insane when a government like the UK gets behind an idea. So what they have done is, they mobilized literally billions of pounds just for Africa Tech, 1.2 Billion pounds available for distribution.” – Matt Brown
The Storytelling Technology
Matt runs a firm called Digital Kung Fu and he candidly shares with Christopher his elevator pitch — “we’re the world’s fastest tech story production business.” He further shares that Christopher’s books Play Bigger and Niche Down inspired him in this business.
“The truth is were evangelizing this idea — which I totally started from your thinking by the way — category design thinking and creating a point of view that is unique and different.” – Matt Brown
He further shares that through his firm, they are connecting that point-of-view at scale to a market a way that it creates value. In his case, it is the storytelling technology.
“It’s about taking proven powers of storytelling and marrying that with technology — data, automation, AI — and delivering stories essentially at a scale that makes very complicated things in ways that are memorable and relatable and understandable.” – Matt Brown
The South African Tech Scene
Matt also talks about the South African tech scene, as other countries do not exactly know what is happening locally. He shares about the different challenges and opportunities they have there and the similarities in terms of trends.
“I think Africa has some unique challenges. We have infrastructure challenges, connectivity challenges, bandwidth challenges, and these things don’t typically exist in developed markets.” – Matt Brown
Amidst these challenges, Matt shares how these forces techpreneurs to innovate, especially in the mobile phones market.
“African tech has got a bad name in many respects. Basically at a type of expansion into emerging markets, it’s less competitive in many respects. But, the economic opportunities are huge because there is no competition.” – Matt Brown
Bio:
Matt is the CEO of Digital Kungfu. It was named as “Best Tech Startup 2019 – Africa Tech Week Awards.” The company is a lead generation and storytelling production company purpose-built for technology businesses.
Links:
The Matt Brown Show in partnership with London Tech Week creates State of X Season One on Prime
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
094 How We Make Stuff Now w/ Jules Pieri
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Today’s episode features a highly informative discussion between our host, Christopher Lochhead and Jules Pieri. She’s the first designer to graduate from Harvard Business School. She shares some amazing lessons on how to create legendary new products and how to make sure those products succeed in the world.
Industrial Designer Turned Legendary Marketer
Fortune named Jules as one of the Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs.” She is the Co-Founder and CEO of the product launch platform The Grommet.
Jules shares that before she formed the company, she observed the huge shifts in technology — specifically the internet, like the development of 3D printing. 3D printing enabled a huge new class of entrepreneurs with physical products.
“Creative people have access to inexpensive tools, they will use that. Physical products are less abstract than software, so they’re gonna inspire more people to participate.” – Jules Pieri
What We Can Learn From Squatty Potty
Jules shares with Christopher the story behind the product Squatty Potty — a stool that raises the leg of the user during elimination. Christopher labeled the product as legendary because it created a new need for consumers.
Jules admitted that it is often quite a challenge whenever they start a new category. She pointed out the importance for companies to be as bold as possible when launching a new product.
“They hired a great agency to get the ads done and they had more vision and courage than most companies tend to have at the early stages. That’s a super insecure stage of a company and they paid large money. Your reputation is aligned with these ads.” – Jules Pieri
Category Creation Is a Must
Jules remarked about the importance of category creation. She believes that it is very hard to cut through in a crowded world. She added that through The Grommet, they can create categories that enable them to study product searches of users.
“Category search, ‘cause names are not usually as memorable as descriptions.” – Jules Pieri
Christopher and Jules discussed more about Legendary Marketing, the differences between creating demand and capturing a demand. They also touch base on to have an invention and bring it to the world in a way that it would be connected, unique and distinct.
Jules also shares some important parts of her great, new book out called How We Make Stuff Now.
Bio:
Jules Pieri is Co-Founder and CEO of the product launch platform The Grommet.
The company’s Citizen Commerce™ movement is reshaping how consumer products get discovered, shared, and bought.
Jules started her career as an industrial designer for technology companies and was subsequently a senior executive for large brands, such as Keds, Stride Rite, and Playskool.
The Grommet is her third startup, following roles as VP at Design Continuum and President of Ziggs.com.
She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan and people tell her she is the first designer to graduate from Harvard Business School, where she is currently an Entrepreneur in Residence.
Fortune named Jules as one fo the “Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs” in 2013.
In June 2014, White House Maker Faire invited Jules to launch The Grommet Wholesale Platform, connecting Makers with Main Street Retailers.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
093 Microsoft’s Transformation and Why Every Company is a Software Company w/ Bob Evans
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Today’s guest is one of Christopher’s favorite people, host of Cloud Wars podcast, Bob Evans. Together, they dig deep into how Microsoft transformed into a “Trillion Dollar Cloud Category King.” They discuss what we can all learn from their remarkable turn-around. Moreover, the compare why they think every company is a software company and a lot more!
Microsoft: A Trillion Cloud Category King
Bob Evans shares his opinion on Microsoft and its trillion-dollar cloud business. This massive growth in sales led both Bob and Christopher awestruck. Bob shares that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has largely driven the company into its current status.
He pointed out that Nadella realized Microsoft was spending too much time achieving internally driven goals. He believed it’s about time to ask what are the goals and dreams of their paying customers, what do they need to happen and how can Microsoft help them.
“I think it should be an inspiration to all sorts of businesses. You are limited not by competitive set and not by how much money you have. You are limited by what your dreams and ambitions are.” – Bob Evans
Massive Restructure of the Sales Team
Microsoft had a massive restructuring of its sales team. They replaced as much as 30-40% of their sales team, infusing with people who formerly Programmers but they have the outlook and personality of salespeople. This led to high engagement with customers and ultimately, high profits for Microsoft.
“I just think its a phenomenon that lots of people can learn from here. You can come back, you can change, you can become something that other people say you’ll never be. Defy history.” – Bob Evans
Importance of Channel Partners
Bob discussed another point to remember from Microsoft — their special attention to the ecosystem or channel partners. The company supported its clients, especially for software development and programming. In the end, these clients later sold their programs to other clients, under the supervision of Microsoft.
“The most valuable company on Earth is willing to say ‘the way you have always done it isn’t the way to the future. I will turn my organization to make your sales team.’ They are doing stuff that defies anybody prediction or scope or the way they look at things. Imagine where they could be, that is the magic Nadella has brought about.” – Bob Evans
To hear more about Microsoft’s transformation and why every company is a software company and more information about Bob Evans, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Bob grew up outside of Pittsburg, with hard-working parents and his 6 siblings.
Graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978 and entered the business world, flowing his passion for information technology and writing.
He rose to become the editor of Information Week, one of the top two publications in technology at the time.
He became the SVP and Content Director for Information Week’s parent company TechWeb/CMP
After thirty years in the media business, he left to join the world of software vendors, after a quick stop at ERP vendor SAP,
Bob was recruited by the world 5th richest person, a legendary category designer and entrepreneur — Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle.
At Oracle Bob served as SVP and Chief Communications Officer for Larry.
Today Bob runs his own strategic communications firm, is a prolific writer, a tech industry commentator, public speaker, and a legendary guy.
He hosts the widely popular Cloud Wars Live Podcast.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
7 Recession Marketing Ideas
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Christopher Lochhead discusses, in his newly launched podcast, Lochhead on Marketing talks about some of his ideas timely for a potential recession.
With this threat coming, Christopher points out the importance of developing and acting on ideas that would make your companies survive this disastrous event. He hopes that through these suggestions, your company will come out even come out stronger from a potential recession.
Without further adieu, here are Christopher’s 7 Recession Marketing Ideas
- Never Let A Good Recession Go To Waste!
- Assume you can’t raise any more money
- Measure twice, cut once
- Brainstorm short-term ways to increase revenue
- Market & Sell Into The Whitespace
- Consider a competitor trade-in
- Double Down on Your Category
You can check out Lochhead Marketing Podcast on Lochead.com or any podcast player that you and listen to episode 008 7 Recession Marketing Ideas.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
092 1000+ Little Things Happy Successful People Do Differently w/ Marc & Angel Chernoff
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Our guests for today, NY Times best-selling author/power couple Marc and Angel Chernoff talks about their new book and other self-help topics. We had an insightful conversation about happiness and unhappiness, as well as overcoming serious set-backs and other tons of practical insights for living.
The Journey is Worth It
Marc and Angel Chernoff got into this line of work when they lost someone — a best friend and a sibling. Just in their late 20s, they found themselves investing a lot in personal development and self-reflection.
“It was those moments where ultimately — we saw therapists, I mean depression sets in. We had no tools for coping and coming out of it. We realize what we want to do on a daily basis was to reflect.” – Marc Chernoff
Fast forward to the present day, Forbes dubbed this duo as “the authors of the most popular personal development blogs on the planet.” They are promulgators of the idea of acknowledging that “our present lives are more important than all of the lofty goals we have set for ourselves.”
“Because obviously it’s a cliche, but the journey is worth it. The journey is more important. Are we spending our days the way we want to spend our lives? Our days are our lives.” – March Chernoff
Live a Life Worth Living
Marc and Angel further share some wise words about living a life worth living. Marc pointed out how lucky most people are, as there are a lot of people living in dire situations and facing immense challenges. He further discussed the importance of a positive mindset and the ability to focus on the present.
Christopher also shares his own views on living life, especially about dealing with failures. He quoted Marc when he discussed “the belief that failure is the opposite of success.” He shares candidly that he has failed himself into a life that he loves and shares a quote that says “failure feels fun.”
“I don’t necessarily think that time wasted is wasted time. It’s time for self care, it’s time to relax. We don’t always have to be go-go-go.” – Angel Chernoff
Other practical insights
Both Marc and Angel share tips on how to cope with heartbreaks — from love interests to a divorce or a broken friendship to a loss of life. Marc shares how we can use these experiences to empower us in moving forward with our lives.
Marc, Ange-and Christopher discuss a lot more about things that happy and unhappy people do, as well as dealing with expectations of others.
To hear more about the 1000+ little things happy successful people do differently, and more information about Marc and Angel Chernoff, download and listen to the episode.
Bio:
Marc and Angel Chernoff are New York Times bestselling authors, professional coaches, full-time students of life and admirers of the human spirit. Forbes recognized the couple as having “one of the most popular personal development blogs.”
Through their blog, books, course and coaching, they’ve spent the past decade writing and teaching proven strategies for finding lasting happiness, success, love, and peace.
Marc and Angel’s New York Times bestselling book, Getting Back to Happy: Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Reality, and Turn Your Trials into Triumphs, is a guide to spark sustainable action—and to return to whenever needed.
Links:
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and subscribe on iTunes!
BIG NEWS! SPECIAL OFFER!
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We have just launched a new marketing podcast! It talks about the mindsets and strategies for winning — with a special focus on how you design, create and dominate market categories. It’s called LOCHHEAD ON MARKETING.
Radical Generosity
As Christopher is not a fan of self-promotion (which may sound crazy, coming from a three-time marketing guy), we have thought about how we’re going to market and promote the podcast.
On one hand, we wanted to do some marketing that would feel comfortable without the overly self-promotional crap. This brings us to Christopher’s buddy and co-conspirator on category creation and design, and legendary marketing, Eddie Yoon.
He has this powerful idea that legendary category designers practice “radical generosity.”
“If you think about the word ‘creation’, in a lot of ways, you could argue creation is about bringing something to the world and Eddie says, if you wanted to create a design category — having a radical generosity mindset matters.” – Christopher Lochhead
We’re Gonna Spend A Bunch Of Money
Legendary category designers and creators come from a place of generosity. So, to promote this podcast, we are going to spend a bunch of money. Rather than buying a ton of ads, we thought we might include you. We’re doing it in a way that is radically generous.
Here’s the offer: we would love if you will rate and review Lochhead on Marketing, take a screenshot of that review, email it to bl*******@******ad.com. For the next 7 days, we are going to make a $20 donation to four of my chosen charities.
“Were gonna divide up all the inbound and then divide it into quarters. Then, we will give it to the ASPCA, Frontrow Foundation, 1LifeFullyLived and Donorschoose.org. We will publish on our website—with full transparency —how much money we raise and how much money we gave away. This is the result of you participating in helping us market the new marketing podcast.” – Christopher Lochhead
The Beneficiaries
What we were asking you to do is rate and review the podcast, share it on social media and email us at bl*******@******ad.com. Once you do that, we will drop $20 in one of the following charities:
1. As we all know, Christopher loves animals. American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) is one of his chosen beneficiaries.
2. Frontrow Foundation is a charity that works with people, often kids, who are facing life-threatening conditions to give them one legendary experience.
3. If you’re a regular listener, we’re sure you know how much Christopher loves 1LifefullyLived.org. Founded by his buddy, Tim Rhode, this nonprofit has tried to put together programs and content around life planning and design, financial planning and design, and entrepreneurship. They try to do this as close to free as possible.
4. The fourth one is a non-profit called DonorsChoose. This is an extraordinary organization that allows school teachers around the country, to tell people what they need and people can go ahead and fund those things for their students and their classrooms.
Checkout Lochhead on Marketing on Lochhead.com or any of your favorite podcast players.
Thank you so much for being a listener of Follow Your Different. Thank you so much for helping us become radically generous. We hope you think its a cool idea.
