A SEAT at THE TABLE: Helping business leaders grow their influence

The years of companies staffing up as they sprinted towards what they believed was going to be the next unicorn - or at the very least years of strong growth - have suddenly reversed course. One by one, banks, consulting firms, retailers - even the tech sector - started announcing cutbacks.  With tens of thousands of jobs being axed. That’s led to massive layoffs during the past two years with a s...

Sometimes just when everything seems to be stable, we get blindsided. It happens to everyone sooner or later. We can’t control some of the challenges that life throws at us, but we can control how we react to them. That was certainly  the case for many businesses when the pandemic hit.  Not all were easily parlayed into remote work.  And one of the hardest hit was the travel industry. Welcome to L...

Customer service is often talked about but not often delivered.  In fact, it is one of the biggest complaints that both businesses and consumers have. Most say that the companies they do business with offer poor service - or even no service at all. Companies are looking to cut costs and customer service is typically the first department to get hit. Yet customer service might be the key to growing...

For nearly two decades most investors’ attention was focused on the stock market.  Then suddenly central banks began raising interest rates and investors began to rethink their strategies. That’s given rise to growing interest in a range of alternative investment vehicles, including CEFs, internal funds, ETFs, UITs, and commodity pools. However, until now most of these investment vehicles have onl...

In the competitive world of mobile commerce success is now being driven by push notifications powered by new mobile apps. The idea is to grab consumers’ attention and get them to take immediate action.  That means not only having e-commerce apps on people’s phones, but making them extremely user-friendly. Today we’re joined by Campbell Paton, Co-Founder and CEO of StoreLab, which helps e-commerce...

One of the biggest marketing tactics these days is to create a brand story. But how do you do that when you are selling basics, commodities - or something you can’t even touch or feel, like services? This week I’m joined by Chauncy Zalkin, an expert  in building brand stories for companies ranging from fashion to SaaS software and real estate. Even when it seems like  there isn’t a story to be fou...

SEO or search engine optimization isn’t getting the amount of attention  it used. The early days of e-commerce was all about key words and being top ranked in Google searches.    As dynamic new marketing options were rolled out, SEO found itself out of sight, out of mind. However online marketing experts are now saying that by overlooking this core part of the digital ecosystem, companies could be...

Everyone wants to do things faster - to get results right away - but that race to the finish line can often end in disaster - or at the very least, disappointing outcomes.    That’s increasingly the case as organizations hurry to introduce new technology, without having explored all the possible impacts it will have on the business - both good and bad.  And without any planning for how to address...

Most companies spend a lot of time and money creating a sales page on their website but few are rewarded with a steady stream of sales. Creating sales pages (or funnels as they are often called) is less about a clever headline or massive numbers of testimonials or grandiose promises of life changing results if you buy the product. Turns out, if you implement about 8 key elements and then regularly...

There’s a simple and effective marketing tool that most businesses are under utilizing - or sometimes not even using at all. I’m talking about email marketing. We send and receive hundreds of emails each week, but how often do we really spend time thinking about how we can use email to sell our products or build customer relationships? Today’s guest is going tell us how we can change that. Meet Sc...

Rising interest rates have changed the game.  After a near 20 year run, VC funds and Angel investors have left the market. However there are still opportunities for investing in startups.  It’s just that now they are a bit different. Today we’re joined by Charles Sidman, Founder and Managing Partner of ECS Capital Partners, a firm specializing in early stage investment. Charles' achievements...

Technology has become so ubiquitous that we take its existence for granted. That is until something goes wrong.  Then suddenly we are aware of how dependent every aspect of lives is on the smooth functioning of our IT systems. Just like so many industries, IT is facing its own Industrial Revolution of sorts. The industry is moving from a backroom operation to becoming a diverse supply chain compri...

Data analytics has become a key topic, especially when it comes to leveraging the internet to grow your business. Today we can capture a huge amount of data across a growing range of platforms.  That’s both a blessing and a curse! Marketers can easily get lost analyzing everything that they can analyze  - but not necessarily what they should analyze. Success comes from first creating a question -...

Marketing and B2B businesses are not typically seen as companions. However in a challenging market, companies selling products and services to other businesses need to a lot more to stand out in the market if they hope to survive let alone growth their business. The question facing many brands is how exactly can they promote a brand in a way that resonates with potential customers and helps to gro...

There’s almost nothing that we can’t measure - and so we tend to measure everything.  However, too often we end up measuring what we can, and not necessarily what’s important or meaningful. We see this in the fascination we all have with the number of likes or views a social media post gets.  But do ‘likes’ really mean that people actually like your product or want to buy your products?  Usually n...

The pressure to be more sustainable saw companies announcing ambitious goals with target dates that are now frighteningly near!  That’s left more than a few scrambling to revise their strategies and find ways to green up that will make an impact, but are more achievable. The question is how do we do this? Today we’re joined by Christopher Caldwell, a former investment banker and corporate lawyer,...

One of the biggest topics surrounding supply chains - if not the biggest topic - is the need to digitise.   We all love our Excel sheets (me too!) but they can only take us so far.   In an increasingly complex environment, we need to be able to gather better data - and analyze it faster. That means getting our business onto a a more advanced platform.   While most organisations acknowledge this -...

Every company today is at least thinking of digitising their operations - or at least part of their operations.  However, most companies see this as a task so daunting that ultimately the gain doesn’t seem to outweigh the pain. From 8 figure quotations for implementation to statistics that point to high failure rates, it can be difficult to make a compelling case to make the change. And yet, the p...

Most marketers understand the importance of A/B testing for optimizing marketing campaigns.  However,  surprisingly many are not  up to speed on best practices for doing this successfully. Sometimes even a simple tweak or modification can have game changing impacts on the success of your marketing, your sales - and on your company’s bottomline. While there is a lot of conversations around A/B test...

We talk a lot about leadership here on A Seat at The Table, however we don’t often discuss how to turn good intentions into an action plan.  Yet this is foundational to actually getting things done.  And make our business more successful - not just this year or this quarter - but for the long term. Meet Antonio Garrido, author of My Daily Leadership: A Powerful Roadmap for Leadership Success, and...

Running a business is quite as easy as it used to be. Most organizations are facing major challenges - and changes.  This is raising the bar for senior executives to find new ways to tackle an uncertain business environment, while also becoming stronger and more effective team leaders.  Today we are joined by Jeffrey Deckman, a serial entrepreneur who has bootstrapped two multi-million dollar comp...

Retailers are facing an uncertain market that has left even the most confident a bit unsure as to what might be coming next. Supply chains are back to normal, but now it’s the consumer that has changed.  Somehow, the behavior we expected to see is being replaced by a new attitude.   This has left many brands and retailers scrambling to figure out whether this is a short term aberration - or a long...

If you have a mental health issue should you let your boss know? What about your team mates? Millions of people struggle with mental health and yet most are reluctant to let anyone know about it. From being considered taboo to fearing of being labeled as unstable or being seen as a complainer, many people just try to power through. But what if it was OK be upfront about your struggles? And what if...

When brands look for new markets an obvious choice for many is Western Europe, where consumers have strong buying power, there’s grade A retail property, and market entry can be less baffling compared with tackling emerging markets.  Yet while many brands have successfully entered the European market, just as many - even well established brands - have failed.    That has left companies wondering w...

Anyone who has ever tried to raise money for a charitable cause or secure corporate sponsorships knows that it’s a lot easier said than done. Most fund raisers aren’t aware of the volume of requests for funding even smaller companies get - never mind larger corporations.  To successfully raise money, you need to know how  to stand out from a vast field of competitors.  This comes down to pitching...