Business Infrastructure - Curing Back Office Blues

Incorporating technology into your workflows can significantly streamline operations. However, not all technologies integrate with each other. This leads to disparate data and worse, inaccurate analysis. Vertify solves this issue. In this episode, Wayne Lopez, the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Vertify, gives a live demo to show how it connects data and unifies teams in making better-info...

"The answers to life are written in a book called YOU." This quote comes from poet, Jeffrey Pollard. He's self-published a series of poetry books and, naturally, wants to increase distribution. With over 2,700 self-published books launched daily, how can he get his to stand out? In this live consultation, he's joined by his wife Francine Smith. Together, we discuss a book promotion process to incr...

As business leaders, we're tethered to our laptops. After all, we can take them to in-person meetings, work on them while on an airplane, and use them at our home offices. But are we sacrificing comfort for mobility? Logitech designs best-in-class products that ensure both. In this episode, Art O Gnimh, a VP at Logitech, shares how to select the right mouse and keyboard and set them up in our home...

Deborah Bailey, Cynthia Culbreath, and Karen Mills are on a mission. They're helping entrepreneurs "get back to the basics of business" by harnessing their collective engineering and legal brainpower to power the Business Action Alliance. Part of their non-profit's outreach involves podcasting. But where do they start and how? In this episode, we walk through a process and a checklist for setting...

Necessity is the mother of invention. It's what led to the creation of Thinksmart Whiteboard. When Joseph Powell realized there wasn't a software on the market to emulate a collaborative whiteboard session remotely, he developed one himself. Now, Thinksmart Whiteboard powers remote whiteboarding sessions across America in real-time. In this episode, Joseph gives a demo of the app to show its versa...

At 14-years-old, Sebastian Flores is CEO of OctoGifts. What started as a unique handmade gift for his sweet-toothed friend, has now blossomed into a viable small business. Melanie Flores, his mom, lends her engineering and educator skills for operational support. But growing demand requires a more streamlined workflow. In this live consultation, you'll learn the steps this mother-and-son team can...

Following her last corporate job Ai Ching Goh vowed, "No more Monday blues!" She knows the tedium of digesting reports filled with mounds of numerical data. There had to be a more impactful way to represent this data. This led to her co-founding Piktochart, a web-based visual storytelling app now used by over 8M people. In this episode, Ching gives a demo of Piktochart to show its use in visualizi...

All businesses compete for mindshare. Getting it is exciting! But what happens beyond getting attention? How do you go from clicks and views to money in the bank? The answer can stump even the most seasoned digital marketers. Among them is Ericka Bates, a consultant to freelance graphic designers. In this episode, Alicia gives her a process to test in LinkedIn. The goal is to increase the conversi...

When Twitter burst onto the scene in 2006, Janice Jensen studied its use of 140 characters. She figured video would be the next big thing. And her sister agreed. Their foresight led to the creation of rVidi – a phone app that records videos in short, 30-sec soundbites. In this episode, Janice gives a demo of rVidi and shares its multiple uses as an efficient recording, editing, and communications...

Go big or go home - a fitting mantra for Clarence Levy and Derek Gauthier. As the Co-Founders of MorTec Innovation, these engineers turned entrepreneurs have big plans for their emerging company. It began with their debut product, Protect My Cell. After favorable testing results, they now want a repeatable process to scale their success. In this Season 10 kickoff, Alicia gives them a foundation to...

When Alicia Butler Pierre started Equilibria, she provided a hodgepodge of various services. A friend challenged her to figure out how to streamline and package her services. This gave birth to the Kasennu framework for business infrastructure. Since then, thousands of entrepreneurs use the framework to structure and scale their businesses. In this Season 9 Finale, Alicia tells the story (and proc...

What started as a side job selling wireless modems eventually led to Tom Kulzer creating the world's first email automation tool, AWeber. As demand grew, he assembled a team and they built a business infrastructure to support the fast growth. 20 years later, over 1 million small businesses have used AWeber. 100,000 of them are active customers. In this episode, Tom provides the processes that laid...

Digital technology is great for streamlining various back-office operations. With it being in abundance, validating ideas to offer software as a service (SaaS) is critical. Yet, Ronan Walsh warns, "Many SaaS companies set about creating an MVP [Minimum Viable Product] before ever speaking to a customer." As the founder of a leading digital marketing company, he's seen many people make this mistake...

COVID-19 leveled the playing field of veteran and neophyte teachers alike. The sudden pivot to remote instruction forced technology adoption at a record pace. But the steep learning curve hasn't slowed Rachna Nath down. As a STEM and entrepreneurship educator, she's used to thinking innovatively. In this episode, she describes her unique process for expanding her network beyond the traditional hig...

When Kimberly Fennell graduated from college, she had trouble finding a full-time job. A chance reading of Entrepreneur magazine sparked the idea to start a business support company. 17 years later, her company continues to offer remote administrative services that support back-office operations. Her foresight has paid off, especially during the pandemic, as demand for converting offline activitie...

Being amicable doesn't mean you can't get the job done. And Christine Yeager is living proof. She's quickly moved up the ranks at one of the world's most recognized brands and leads large-scale data projects across their supply chain. In this episode, she compares and contrasts two of those projects and reveals how developing technical acumen is only part of her success equation. The other part in...

Content is the currency of choice in the Digital Age. You must have a system for consistently producing and distributing it. And not just any content, but content that attracts leads and converts them into customers. The challenge is finding the time to do so. Nigel Washington has the antidote. His company, ContentMates.com, has a streamlined process for delivering quality content in just 2-3 days...

Providing excellent customer support is just as important as the goods and services you offer. Effective communication is vital to creating a positive customer experience. Despite your team's technical acumen, language nuances can erode that experience. This is further complicated when you have an international customer base. That's where Marianne Rutz comes to the rescue. As Europe's leading mult...

Joseph Garfield knows what it means to work his way up from the bottom. His entrée into technology started as an I.T. help desk operator. Over time, he advanced from being a "doer" to a strategist when he created his 3D Project Process. This framework not only consistently delivers I.T. projects on time and within budget, it's even more streamlined than Agile and Scrum! Discover what makes it uniq...

"Know your workflows!" Sage advice from Susan Blais as she described her experience in choosing the best technologies to optimize her sales and client engagement processes. As a Long-Term Care Professional (LTCP) she knew her decisions must be rooted in data security and HIPPA compliance. Now, she has a strong foundation in place to handle surges in demand for LTCP insurance. Learn how Susan reach...

After years of climbing the Wall Street corporate ladder, financial advisor John Stoj became disillusioned with false promises of outperforming the market. He eventually started a sushi delivery company only to return to his first love – financial planning. But this time, things are different.  Not only did he go rogue with his pricing model, but he also digitized his services without compromising...

Eagerly anticipating the release of another podcast episode, one day Berthine Crèvecoeur West found herself forgetting some critical steps.  So this award-winning podcaster and global diversity and inclusion expert took a page out of her own book.  She decided to not only document her process for producing her podcast, but she streamlined it too – and magical things started to happen!  Get the ful...

Being in the Army taught Bill Kurzeja the importance of leadership as he quickly moved up the ranks.  Upon transitioning back to the civilian world, he realized his ability to lead was only as good as his ability to communicate effectively.  In this episode, Bill details the process for how his company successfully improved production by 10-20%, increased customer satisfaction, and transitioned fr...

This Season 8 finale is different – it's not Alicia Butler Pierre's typical monologue.  She's joined by her 13-year-old goddaughter, Maegan Lane - a budding teen entrepreneur and COO of a clothing startup, Karma Collections.  In this episode, Alicia answers questions submitted by listeners throughout the season, and, in the process, tells Maegan how it applies to her business.  The result is answe...

Mohammad Ali may not float like a butterfly or sting like a bee, like the famous boxer by the same name, but he is a champion – a champion of operations. With over 37 years of combined experience as a high-ranking military official, chemical and industrial engineer, COO, and board member, he recognizes problem-solving as the cornerstone for continuous improvement.  In fact, he started the first au...