Ponderings From The Perch

In observation of National Take Your Kid To Work Day, Priscilla and Beck McKinney co-host a special edition of Ponderings from the Perch. In doing so, they learn more about each other, and verily, more about themselves in the process.Beck has prepared a special pop quiz full of insightful questions for Priscilla about entrepreneurship, motivators, goals, and the importance of the silence during the Masters. Priscilla turns the tables back on Beck to find out why he thinks the office is slightly boring, and which of the Peeps is the most hilarious (spoiler: it’s Kahlief).Join us for what is guaranteed to be the sweetest podcast you will listen to on any given day (except maybe that one podcast that’s just a bunch of kittens purring).Love our show? Don't forget to give us a great review on iTunes! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when you put two thought leaders in the same room? In this episode of Ponderings from the Perch, Priscilla McKinney, Momma Bird and CEO of Little Bird Marketing, and Dan Leadbetter explore the different roles of thought leaders.After getting asked the same question at numerous speaking engagements, Priscilla honed in on the topic of thought leadership. Whether they acknowledge it or not, Priscilla explains, “Companies are built around thought leadership.” Identifying and amplifying your thought leadership style can give your brand the advantage in your industry.At this point, you might be asking, “But how do I know what my thought leadership style is?” Don’t fret! Our “What Kind of Thought Leader Are You?” quiz will tell you that very thing. In this episode, Priscilla (the Radical) and Dan (the Visionary) compare their leadership styles after taking the quiz.In addition to thought leadership, Priscilla and Dan dive into the topic of content marketing. They discuss:How to develop unique content fo

Join a fun-filled podcast with design wiz Simon Dunn, from Keen As Mustard Marketing, as he and Priscilla discuss holistic marketing strategy methods, data visualization, and the importance of industry networking.Simon, with Keen as Mustard, has been finding new ways for agencies to understand research and insights for the past ten years, with an indisputable understanding of the complexities of the field.“You don’t just do a new brand, or launch a new website, sit back and wait for the work to come in. It’s all about actually doing all of those things, joining them up, having a plan - segmentations - targeting. It’s a whole joined-up web of stuff that you’re doing - and you do need to be doing all of them. And for quite a long time!”In addition to providing marketing research PR and media relations, Keen as Mustard also helped develop Viz-Fest, an annual 4-day webinar full of market research insights.While the discussion is rife with extremely serious industry discussion, Simon and Priscilla find time to rem

Join Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing as she chats with Kathrin O'Sullivan, organizational development consultant, facilitator, executive coach, and extraordinary public speaker. O'Sullivan is a twelve-year veteran of Google, where she most recently served as Leadership Development Manager, and has studied with some of the most distinguished thought leaders in her field.  Priscilla and Kathrin discuss the complexities of effecting change through coaching in an organization, and how it can often resemble the efforts of steering a giant boat. O'Sullivan brings a fresh and progressive viewpoint to the topic of how individuals and teams relate to their work. "From a company perspective, it’s like, ‘How can we help people become more productive in their work?’ And you do this by helping people - or, at least it’s my personal philosophy - enjoy their work more. The more they enjoy their work, the more they will collaborate, and the better the results will be."They also discu

In this episode, Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing chats with Fritz Grutzner, founder and President of Brandgarten. As a brand strategy consultant with 30 years of brand-building experience for Fortune 500s and non-profits in the U.S. and abroad, he shares his insights about how emotion drives behavior. His superpower involves identifying emotional insights and drivers of brand choice, helping organizations discover their most compelling, authentic brand story and teaching them to tell it in a consistent way.While Brandgarten is primarily a strategy firm they do a lot of in-depth marketing research, because their strategies depend on having deep human insights. Fritz pontificates on his perspective about brand building and delivering actionable insights from the research. In the end, their team works with client to: understand the latest brain research and how to deal with the 95% of our cognitive activity that is really subconscious.help brands tell memorable stories instea

Want to know what makes a blog successful? Join Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing as she chats with Kyle Drenon, Director of Marketing at Murney Associates in Springfield, MO. After attending Mozcon 4 years ago, he details his slightly-Jerry Maguire story about how he came back to his job ready to take his company's marketing a new direction. Find out what happened next to bring this man, this myth, this Springfield, MO lifestyle guru to leading a small but mighty team making real estate fun again. “Our strategy on content creation is to sell more than just a house; we’re selling a community, too.” From this concept came a fresh batch of blogs people actually want to read. “We felt like we were uniquely qualified to speak about that because we’re in those communities every day. It was a natural fit to start writing a lifestyle blog about Springfield and the surrounding areas.”In this podcast they tackle not only strategy and tips for good content, but they also talk about th

Are you desperate to know what kind of fruit you are?Need to know who is your celebrity style icon? First, join Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing as she chats with Josh Haynam of Interact, a quiz software company. In this episode we ask:When was the last time you took a fun quiz?When was the last time you took a meaningful quiz?And, for the purposes of this show,When was the last time someone took a quiz and it turned into a sale for your business?Yup, Josh is the founder of Interact where their software helps businesses and non-profits create quizzes to not only boost brands, but generate leads. But "Why?" you ask. Why do businesses need to create quizzes for lead generation success? Well, according to an IBM study, email marketing has an ROI of 43x, meaning that for every $1 spent on email marketing you’ll earn $43 back. Email is also the way businesses SECURE their ownership of direct access to their potential customer base. So, growing your business email list is incredi

Priscilla and the gang (not to be confused with Kool and the Gang) bring to you the Little Bird Marketing second annual Holiday Spirit Variety Show: Spectacular! Spectacular! Get your cup of cocoa, sit back in front of a roaring fire (either in the fireplace, or the YouTube looped video if you are a millennial) and soak in the entertainment, interviews, original music and general nonsense as you break through your deepest desire to know the "peeps" more intimately (except for Ryan). Do you love us yet? All we want for Christmas is a 5-star iTunes rating from...you!Because we love you, here are all of the links to help you through the maze of wonderment and autoharp grandeur: Priscilla:Into Great Silence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK1FGpd03IgOzark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hAXVqrljbsS-Town: https://stownpodcast.org/Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance: https://www.amazon.com/Hillbilly-Elegy-Memoir-Family-Culture/dp/0062300547Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit: https://www.amazon.c

Join Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing as she chats with Matt Hayman, founder at Review Minder where he develops and executes on-line strategies to improve companies' online presence and clout. Matt understands not only the intricacies of this ever changing digital landscape, but he is also able to translate his knowledge into practical tips with true business benefit. Business owners are being inundated with tactics, multiple channels, a never ending string of review sites and in general there are lots of fads and shiny options available. In the face of this complexity, the importance of online reviews can get lost. Too much confusion surrounds how companies can use them as a powerful part of their marketing mix. Companies looking to improve their visibility on the web are wise to listen in on this casual and informative conversation. They tackle relevant questions like:How you you effectively grow positive reviews online and improve your company’s reputation? Wha

Curious about how Wonder Twin Powers activate?Join Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing as she chats with Kristin Luck, Growth Strategist, entrepreneur, Global Strategic Advisor and dynamic powerhouse behind Luck Collective. Kristin is busy traveling the world, serving clients across Asia Pacific, Europe, North America and speaking at multiple marketing research conferences and entrepreneurial events. In this podcast, she pauses to reflect on her journey toward consulting and multiple successes when the stakes have been quite high. Her firm, Luck Collective, is the go-to in the market research industry for growth hacking. As a consultant, she has a unique perspective from her many years of hands-on work. She founded two companies, help grow and sell three and she has held many jobs along they way. She worked as an analyst, in sales and marketing and product development departments, to name a few. These years of personal experience is the foundation to her tried and true methodo

Join Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing as she chats with Gray MacKenzie, co-founder of Guava Box and DoInbound. Over the last 7 years, Gray has helped businesses grow efficiently by increasing revenue and reducing overhead. They take their combined expertise and tackle the deeper topic of bringing sales and marketing together in a comprehensive revenue strategy. They talk shop as mutual agency owners and discuss inbound in general. His day to day at Guava Box was helping companies create efficient customer acquisition systems to expand. That work led him to create DoInbound, a project and process management tool built specifically for agencies, in 2013.DoInbound helps agencies grow profit, improve client results, and increase team happiness while leveraging proven processes to reduce the typical chaos and inefficiency of agency life. He shares some of his most applicable lessons about leveraging processes to scale marketing and growth efforts. They created a strategy for gro

Join Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing as she chats with her long-time friend, Tony D'Amato, Senior Sponsorship & Experiential Marketing Leader with 3M's auto care business development unit. If you think that's quite a title wait until you hear about his travel schedule! Serving together on the board of Enlace for more than a decade, they bonded over their shared passion for poverty alleviation and community transformation in El Salvador. They've laughed, they've cried over many years whilst traveling the Pan American Highway. Tony works in the industrial auto care aftermarket division at 3M driving deeper customer experience with the brand throughout the country and across their entire footprint. He speaks specifically about his experience working with digital and physical influencers and how that is nuanced in his market due based on the generational differences. As an experienced event marketing expert he leads a team to personally activate at over 75 events

Join Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing as she chats with Peter Levitan of Saatchi & Saatchi fame. Priscilla and Peter have been friends for years and love to catch up on all things marketing - especially when it comes to change in the agency world. Far beyond his global marketing agency fame, Peter also ran his own Portland agency and raised over $15 million for his two internet start-up companies. Not too shabby for a Ponderings from the Perch podcast guest, right? If you're a marketing agency owner, you won't want to miss this guy and his insight. Even if you are not an agency owner, but an entrepreneur, you'll appreciate his approach to helping companies codify what they are good at, how to understand how to consistently deliver and understand the benchmarks that should be watched for measures of success. Peter continues to consult with forward-thinking brands and agencies. He has even distilled his more than 2 decades of creating winning presentation strate

Join Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing as she chats with Robyn Crane, Money & Business Growth Expert known for hosting the TV show, The Financial G-Spot, Radio Show, Let’s Talk Money and as a 4-Time #1 Best Selling Author. Robyn's a self-starter and totally authentic entrepreneur introduced to Priscilla through a mutual friend. Their straight-forward approach to sales and marketing is refreshing. They talk about the nonsense involved when people refer to as an "overnight success". Robyn also talks candidly about her experience and total commitment to her dream business and dream life. With a shift in mindset, she chartered her course to becoming an in-demand speaker and is open about her business ups and downs. Through thsi journey she discovered her passion is sharing her IMPLEMENTATION-based, not INFORMATION-based processes for financial freedom. This impressive guest has shared her blueprint for financial and relationship success on ABC, The Motley Fool, and Fox

Join Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing as she chats with Paul Kortman, Digital Marketer, SEO expert and lead nomad of the Kortman family. He and his wife take Priscilla's favorite motto of "carve out the life you want to live" very seriously. He weaves expert marketing advice in with tails from the road on this episode.  As a self-proclaimed certified nerd he originally worked at an agency where he couldn't keep his mouth shut, saying they were doing SEO and PPC wrong. Ultimately, he built a successful internal digital advertising department within that agency and happily trained someone to take his place. Now he is the owner of Connex Social, a Digital Marketing agency specializing in increasing conversions and increasing quality traffic. Day in and day out, Paul accomplishes business objectives through solid strategy and on time tactics every time. He's living the freelancer dream and continues to work remotely while his family is totally engaged in this location-inde

Join Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing as she chats with Rachael O'Meara, the author of Pause: Harnessing the Life-Changing Power of Giving Yourself a Break. Having first met at Emerging Women conference, these two had an immediate connection on the drive for living for their "why" instead of solely for the paycheck and glory. They both had been anxiously awaiting the release of this first book and deliver thought provoking conversation on finding meaning along the way to a successful career. To answer the age old question, you can have it all and it can be awesome, but it first must be #pausesome. Rachael expounds on some pretty powerful messages about how to incorporate mindfulness into an already pressing schedule. In fact, most oft the pauses she recommends are tiny habits with long-lasting benefits. First they discuss recognizing the signs that you desperately need a pause and then she offers simple tools to get yourself back into alignment with your values and your aut

Join Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing as she chats with Tim Hughes, co-founder of Digital Leadership Associates and author of best-selling book, Social Selling - Techniques to Influence Buyers and Changemakers. They discuss a new mindset for social selling and effective ways to get fast responses selling by using social. The transformation he offers is not just about Social Selling, but providing a complete new way of working for sales and marketing teams. He also elaborates on the difference between buyers and changemakers. The book is relevant because of the reality that the digital landscape has changed buyers' habits. It is also increasingly difficult to reach them early enough in their decision-making processes. Additionally, developing relationships with decision makers through social networks has become a critical skill for the modern selling professional. Tim discusses how he was getting tired about the narrative surrounding social in relation to lead generation and prac

Join Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing as she interviews Paul Connor of Emotive Analytics. Group. Together they consider the deeper human feelings behind our actions and how market research can handle measuring these emotional associations. This podcast is a great follow up to Priscilla Looks at Consumer Relationships with Brands, where Priscilla and Dan discussed these sometimes hidden forces which compel us toward or against a brand. In this episode, Paul reveals how marketers can measure for this qualitative reaction, quantitatively. A consumer researcher since 1982, Paul founded Emotive Analytics in 2004 after seeing that traditional consumer research was lacking a component to reveal WHY people do what they do. These deeply sub-conscious or even non-conscious emotional dynamics need to be understood to deliver the whole truth of insights about brands and their products or services. Paul used psychology and neuroscience to assess the role of emotions in our processi

Join Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing as she interviews Ahava Liebtag of Aha Media Group. They discuss Priscilla's favorite topic, the "stunning discomfort of entrepreneurship". The hard work and passion for great writing is still driving both of them to lead creative teams. In terms of content that responds to the current needs of clients, Ahava talks about how consumers are actually zigging and zagging throughout their thought their interactions with brands. Because of the multiple ways people interact with content, she underlines the importance of starting with the end in mind before ever writing a word. Her group builds the user experience using layers of multiple questions because consumers don't interact with content in a linear fashion. They laugh about the notion that people are rational and simply plan accordingly. Ahava shares her entrepreneurial story about how she started the now powerful Aha Media Group. This boutique content consultancy delivers marketing

Join Priscilla McKinney, CEO and Momma Bird at Little Bird Marketing as she interviews Greg Shugar, serial entrepreneur and prolific writer. He, along with his wife Gina started Tie Bar in 2004 in true entrepreneurial fashion. They built the business from the ground up, starting alone in their basement with no employees. Over the next 9 years, they grew their brand and their business, employing 55 employees. Having sold the majority share to a private equity firm in 2013, Greg sheds a little light on his newest venture, Thread Experiment, the only brand in the world dedicated to the design of masculine bedding. They discuss what it truly means to disrupt the market and the opportunities that are out there when you develop the entrepreneurial mindset. Believe it or not, there was a day when going directly to e-commerce was just not done. They revisit his journey discussing the difference between obstacles in 2008 as opposed to the challenges we face now in 2017. He shares some of their best wins and most