Making the Fan

Today's episode is all about turning fans into customers and customers into fans.  David sits down with internationally-known author, advisor, educator and speaker David Meerman Scott.  Scott co-wrote his latest book, Fanocracy: Turning Fans Into Customers and Customers into Fans , with his daughter Reiko Scott.  Fanocracy unearths the science behind building emotional connections in your tri...

In today's episode, David is joined by Luka Garza, starting center for the Iowa Hawkeyes,  AP College Basketball Player of the Year, and winner of the 2021 Naismith Trophy. They discuss name, image, and likeness, the launch of Luka's new NFT company LukaGarzaNFTGroup.io and how Luka hopes to provide opportunities for college athletes to monetize their brand, and the importance of college...

Today’s guest is Ed Vincent, Founder and CEO of FestivalPass.  Ed and his team are trying to reinvent the model for accessing live events and how we go about deciding what events to go to as consumers.  FestivalPass is the first festival and live event subscription marketplace that provides access to music, film, food and wine, tech and innovation, sports and entertainment and more.  His data-driv...

Today’s episode is all about Guest Service vs. Guest Experience and Designing Customer Experiences in New Venues On this episode, David sits down with Kameron Durham, Vice President of Guest Experience for the entire entertainment footprint of Hollywood Park, including SoFi Stadium, the brand new home of the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers.  Prior to this role, he was the Director of Gue...

In today's episode, David sits down with two industry legends Rob Temple,  Chief Executive Officer at FishBait Solutions, LLC and Rick Jones, Captain, Creative Director and Shareholder at FishBait Solutions, LLC. When combining Rick's creative mind for amazing corporate sponsorship ideas and insights and Rob's previous 20-year experience as ESPN's Senior Vice President of Sport...

Our guest today is Jesse Schwarz, who set an NBA Top Shot record earlier this year, paying $208k for a replay of a LeBron James dunk. If that makes no sense to you, don't worry, we've got you covered in this episode.  Today's episode is a little out of the ordinary, where we dive deep into non-fungible tokens (NFTs). NFTs have been all the rage in 2021, but if you still don't u...

Today’s guest has been one of my favorite follows on Twitter over the past year, Zoe Scaman. Zoe runs her own strategy studio in the UK, called Bodacious. At Bodcacious, one of Zoe’s bigger projects she’s working on right now is with Luka Doncic, the Dallas Mavericks, and Mark Cuban Experiments, or MCX for short. We’ll dive into this a ton in this episode.  Before Bodacious, Zoe was the Global Hea...

Our guest today is Shep Hyken, a customer service and experience expert and the Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations.  Shep works with companies and organizations that want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees. His articles have been read in hundreds of publications, and he is the author of "Amaze Every Customer Every Time," "Moments of Magic,&...

Our guest today is with Disney Parks & Resorts legend, Lee Cockerell.   In this episode, we focus on leadership, customer service, and time management, Lee Cockerell retired as the Executive Vice President of Operations for the WALT DISNEY WORLD® Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, a position he held for ten years. His responsibilities encompassed a diverse mix of operations, which included 2...

Join David and KG as they chat with guest Simon T. Bailey,  a motivational speaker, author, and life coach. Simon's content revolves around purpose, leadership, and inspiration. David and KG get into Simon's experiences through these lenses and how it ties into customer service. Show Notes: (5:26)  Making Organizations Sizzle: The Power of Leadership, Culture, and Consistency (6:52)  Cul...

In today's episode, David sits down with guest Jeremy Parker, Co-Founder and CEO at Swag.com.  With the attitude of learning as you go and reinventing your space, Jeremy discusses his journey in founding Swag.com and the ideas and concepts behind customer pain points. (4:41) Defining “Swag” (5:50) Jeremy’s journey from film major to Swag.com (9:11) The challenges of the licensing landscape in...

On today's episode, David and KG are joined by guest Elisa Padilla, former Senior Vice President, Creative Strategy & Partnership Marketing for Roc Nation, and former Senior Vice President of Marketing for the Miami Marlins. Elisa, David, and KG talk about customer-centric marketing and how the way you lead and the perspectives you shift allow you to achieve it more successfully.  Show No...

Our favorite clips from our Top 5 most popular episodes. Today, we're celebrating hitting our 50th episode! We couldn't have done this without all of you and we can't thank you all enough. To celebrate, we're taking a look back at our top 5 most listened to episodes. Counting down from #5, we'll listen back on great moments from each episode on the list. Hope you all enjoy...

In today's episode, Steph Smith, Head of Trends.co at the Hustle and Founder of Integral Labs, joins the show.  Steph and David discuss the ideas and insights of how to build a more effective team in both a remote work or hybrid environment. Show Notes: (6:54) The bell curve of giving and taking - amplifying giving in remote work (10:54) How to encourage giving behavior (15:50) What benefits...

In today's episode, KG and David chat with Adam Polansky, the Group Director of Innovation at Octagon, a one of the world's biggest sports marketing agencies.  They discuss how we can use technology to innovate and ultimately create better experiences for fans and employees. Show Notes: (3:55) What is Octagon? How does the Innovation team fit within the organization structure? (5:40) Wha...

Steven Van Bellegham is a best-selling author and an international keynote speaker, largely focused on the future customer experience. He’s given keynotes in over 40 countries, and he’s worked with some of the biggest companies in the world, from Google to Mercedes Benz. Steven is the author of multiple international bestselling books including ‘The Conversation Manager’, ‘ When Digital Becomes Hu...

Today's guest is Kami Testa, Guest Experience Program Director of the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury. Kevin Gober and Kami dive into how to drive change in your organization, the process of hiring a large team of employees all at once, training your staff, and how mindsets impact actions. Kami's unique background with the Walt Disney Company has helped her bring fresh insights to the N...

Jonathan Daniels, Co-Founder and Director of CX Brussels, joins us on today's episode as we go over the various steps of the "ICON Process" from his book The Customer Experience Playbook . Consisting of Initiate, Co-Create, Operationalize, and Nourish, David and Jonathan breakdown a customer experience transformation to its core and show how these fundamental CX steps can be leverag...

David Millay and Kevin Gober are back with another Jam Session as they discuss ways to create your own value and finding ways to bring that value to your organization. With Covid changing the working environment and structure, David and KG get into adapting your skillset to fit in any situation and learning universal ways to lead during the pandemic. Time Stamps: (2:00) What it’s like for sports t...

This week's episode is another jam session with Kevin Gober, and we're joined by Jesse Cole. Jesse is the owner of the Savannah Bananas and Fans First Entertainment. He's one of the most innovative sports execs in the industry, and his insights from running his baseball team will inspire you to try some of your own experiments. Time Stamps: (6:50) Taking big risks and experimenting:...

Time Stamps: (5:50) Dan’s background / What is Trapital? (12:32) Sports and Hip-Hop: “We want to be them, they want to be us” (13:12) How artists have engaged fans without live events (17:55) Example of how music can scale into sports and entertainment (24:37) Creative models to replace revenue   (26:05) Key partnerships for at-home entertainment (29:52) "Name-Image-Likeness" Parallels (...

In today's episode, David and Kevin talk with Drew Berst about the combination of digital and physical experiences and how to infuse that in your customer experience. How will stadiums utilize their space going forward? With many stadiums transforming and restructuring their format, how can you maintain the culture and tradition while also keeping with the times and adapting to new experience...

This episode is a little bit of a throwback. It's a conversation from the end of July, but we're airing it now, 3-4 months later. It still holds up tremendously well, as our guest's message on service and reinvention is timeless. Our guest today is Brandon Steiner and he's been in the sports marketing business longer than I've been alive. Literally. Brandon was the founder...

In the second episode of our new format with Kevin Gober, Kevin and David get into the importance of leadership and structure that top-level executives need to be taking during the ever-adapting covid and digital age.  With an overarching framework of leaders establishing, operationalizing, and sustaining the values and vision by which organizations thrive, David and Kevin discuss leaders' re...

Kevin Gober, the Senior Director of Arena Employee Experience and Learning & Development for the Atlanta Hawks, joined us for today's episode. For context, we recorded this episode on November 1, before the US election. We got tons of positive feedback on the episode we did earlier this year with Kevin, so we brought KG back to talk about what's on his mind. Not our typical interview...