Voice of Influence

Bill Coletti is the CEO & Founder of Kith, a reputation management, crisis communications and professional development expert, keynote speaker, Wall Street Journal Risk & Compliance panelist, and best-selling author of Critical Moments: The New Mindset of Reputation Management. Bill has more than 25 years of global experience managing high-stakes crises, issues management, and media relations chal...

It should be a goal of every corporate leader to get their employees to buy into the company's mission and brand. Yet, the further you get down the line, the more difficult it becomes to do that. You end up with people who don't feel like they have a purpose within the organization and then they're there just for the paycheck. In this episode, I explain how you can help your employees feel like th...

Ron Carruci is a co-founder and managing partner at Navalent where he works with CEO's and executives who are pursuing transformational change for their organizations, leaders, and industries. Ron has a thirty-year track record helping some of the world's most influential executives tackle challenges of strategy, organization, and leadership. He has been featured in many business publications incl...

We're celebrating today because it's episode 100 of the Voice of Influence® podcast! Our team is thrilled with where we've been and we're excited for where we're going with the show in the years to come! In today's show I share the ways the podcast has shifted and what has remained the same since the beginning. Then I discuss one of our biggest ah-ha's from interviewing guests, the six elements of...

Aviv Shahar enables Fortune 500 companies to create purpose-inspired visions that bring out the best in their people and catalyze growth. As the President of Aviv Consulting and the author of Create New Futures , Aviv guides executive teams at companies around the world to dramatically accelerate the achievement of their business results. In this episode, Aviv discusses what it means to create a n...

For the past twenty years, Rick McCutcheon has helped hundreds of business-to-business businesses improve their sales results. He is the creator of the Full Contact Selling System that allows sales teams to leverage powerful business development strategies through best practice use of technology. Rick has been awarded the prestigious designations of Certified Sales Professional with Distinction an...

Danny Williamson is a communicator, humorist, Navy veteran, and poet who's absolutely passionate about joy. He has more than sixteen years of leadership and ministry experience serving in the U.S. Navy, as a co-founder of a non-profit mission organization, as a church planning missionary in Argentina, and as an associate pastor in California. Danny has a bachelor's degree in Religion and a master'...

I'm not one of those people who believe everything happens for a reason. However, I do believe we can choose how we respond to obstacles in life and that every obstacle opens the door to an opportunity. In this episode, I go deeper into this topic by telling a story about how my dog made the best of a bad situation because she didn't know any other way to respond. I also talk about how this lesson...

Johnathan Grzybowski is the Chief Marketing Officer and Co-Founder of Penji, an on-demand graphic design service that is fast, simple, and affordable. Penji was named "Top Start-Up to Watch" by Philadelphia Magazine and has been mentioned in major publications like Success Magazine, Huffington Post, Forbes, and INC. Prior to Penji, Johnathan founded multiple marketing-related start-ups and worked...

When you carry influence, there will be opportunities for you to speaking into the lives and others and others might see this and you being critical of them. As people of influence, we need to find ways to turn feedback into a situation that actually builds people up instead of making everyone as if they need to defend themselves. In this episode, I provide three tips for making a feedback culture...

Kathy Bourque is the author of Conquering Busyness: A definitive guide to stop the overwhelm, get intentional and accomplish great things . In this episode, Kathy discusses the inspiration behind the book, the difference between being productive and being effective, the roles your mindset and values play in being an effective leader, why we shouldn't be people-pleasing perfectionists, her tips for...

This week's topic of bragging is a subject I see come up quite frequently when I speak with people about who they are, their identity, and how they show up in the world. In this episode, I talk about what bragging really is, why it comes up so often in my conversations, why being self-deprecating isn't ideal either, why we should strive to project humility instead of bragging or self-deprecation,...

Daniel Kimble is an executive coach, keynote speaker, motorcycle road race winner, and a 30+ year veteran of Silicon Valley. He is also the author of Unshakeable Influence: Mastering the Inner Game of Leadership and the CEO of Resonance Executive Coaching; a global executive coaching firm. In this episode, Daniel talks about the importance of mastering the "inner game" as an executive or leader, t...

Why do high-stakes conversations always feel so intense? Is it really necessary for these difficult conversations to feel like they're really so high-stakes? In this episode, I discuss the two questions above, what makes a conversation a high-stakes one, three questions to help you be prepared and ready to create the best outcome we can, the importance of understanding how you handle stressful sit...

As you likely know by now, I've been focusing on customer service for the past several weeks and interviewing my fellow Smart Customer Service conference speakers. Today, I would like to give you my personal takes on customer service. In this episode, I briefly discuss three of the most important aspects to keep in mind while building a customer support team and then I go in depth about the main c...

Over the past several weeks I've been speaking with other presenters who'll be joining me at the Smart Customer Service conference in Washington D.C. starting on April 29th. Well, today I have a very special treat for you because I was fortunate enough to speak with the leader of the conference, Bob Fernekees. Bob is also the Publisher of CRM Magazine. In this episode, Bob discusses what led him t...

Robert Lamb is a customer interaction expert with thirty years of experience. He specializes in transformational strategies for virtualized omnichannel customer contact. He has multiple technical certifications for designing, implementing, integrating, and developing applications for various technologies. Robert has consulted for over 400 customers and designed architectures implemented for over 1...

Jeff Toister has written three customer service books; including his new book, Getting Service Right: Overcoming the Hidden Obstacles to Outstanding Customer Service. Jeff has been recognized as a top customer service thought-leader by Global Gurus, ICMI, and COM100. More than 140,000 people on six continents have taken his video-based training courses on Linda.com. His training videos include Cus...

Tisa Sinclair's work experience has given her the opportunity to engage in several areas of communications from public relations to social media and digital marketing.  She currently leads a D.C. based team that forges the ongoing social care strategies, processes, and official responses to members and nonmembers as they interact with AARP's digital content. This program is a key feedback componen...

Chris Malone is the Founder and Managing Partner of the research-based consulting firm, Fidelum Partners, and has previously held senior marketing positions at leading organizations such as Choice Hotels, ARAMARK, Coca- Cola, the National Basketball Association, and Procter & Gamble and has consulted to a broad range of Fortune 500 companies. Chris is co-author of the award-winning book, The HUMAN...

Stan Phelps is a Forbes contributor, TEDx speaker, and IBM Futurist who focuses on customer experience and employee engagement that can drive differentiation, increase loyalty, and create word of mouth in business. He holds a JD/MBA from Villanova University and a certificate for Achieving Breakthrough Service from Harvard Business School. In this episode, we discuss how Stan became interested in...

Derrick Ricca is a 25+ year veteran of the hospitality industry who has been the Senior Sales Manager for Greenleaf Hospitality Group for the past 17 years. His true passions are customer service, mentoring, coaching, and food. In this episode, Derrick discusses how he got into the hospitality field, why he believes you have to drop your ego to provide good customer service, what he feels makes th...

As Founder of E-WRITE, Leslie O'Flahavan, is a problem solver for work-related writing challenges who has helped thousands of people learn how to write well. She helps customer service agents write on-brand email, chat, and social media posts. In this episode, Leslie discusses what led her to create her business back in 1996, why she's so passionate about helping customer services representatives,...

Kristie Rogers is an Assistant Professor of Management at Marquette University. Her research focuses on how people define themselves and experience respect at work. Kristie's research has been published in top-tier management journals such as Administrative Science Quarterly and Harvard Business Review. In episode 75 of the Voice of Influence podcast, I talked about an article Kristie wrote in the...

Recently, my children came home from school and they were telling me about a girl who was "bossy" and it was clearly a negative thing to them. This made me think about how children, especially ones who're sensitive to the feedback of others, struggle to know when it's appropriate to assert their voice and when they should hold back.  In this episode, I speak about how to find that balance and read...