What's Next! With Tiffani Bova

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. This week I interview Nir Eyal, author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-forming Products. Nir is an entrepreneur and has taught at Stanford School of Business. THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… companies who want to change consumer behavior. TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… Most of what you do throughout the day is because of a habit, the impulse to behave with little or no conscious thought. You choose Google as your search engine out of habit, don’t you? If you are a business owner, you want to make sure that your product is what consumers use because of a habit. When you understand how to create habits, you can generate a tremendous amount of economic and customer value and keep customers coming back. Of the four-steps that define a habit — trigger, action, reward, and investment — the investment phase is the most critical. It is in this phase where the company gets the user to do something that increases the likelihood of returning. How do you get repeat customers? It i

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. This week’s awesome guest is Dan Pink, the author of six books, including When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. Thinkers50 named Dan as one of the Top 15 Business Thinkers in the World, and his TED talk The Puzzle of Motivation is one of the 10 most-watched TED talks of all time. THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR…  anyone looking to improve their likelihood of success in both their personal and professional lives. TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… Did you know that a book about timing decisions didn’t exist until Dan Pink wrote it in early 2018? When you think about it, we make multiple “when” decisions in our life: When should I exercise during the day? When should I start a product? When should I quit a project? When should I quit my job?  Dan’s diligent research into the foundation behind our “when” decisions led him to discover that people mostly disregard the question of when and instead focus on what and who and how.  WHAT I LOVE MOST… Breaks are more impor

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. This week’s guest is Roger Martin. Roger is the former Dean of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, has been named “The Most Influential Business Thinker” by Thinkers50, and he advises CEOs worldwide. Roger is the author of ten books, including Creating Great Choices, a follow-up to his 2007 best-seller The Opposable Mind. THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… someone with a different style of thinking. TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… is the play between strategy and making choices. Roger’s unique perspective combines strategy and making choices. Roger believes the two ideas are interconnected because, simply put, you cannot make choices if you don’t have a strategy. And you can’t have a strategy without making choices. Roger opines that strategy is what you do, whereas choices put you in the position to behave. Just like every organization has a strategy, so does every person, and strategy comes with a choice. Roger believes that execution happens beca

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. I’m honored to have Arianna Huffington as this week’s guest.  Arianna is an author, mother, and businesswoman, most notably known as the co-founder and former Editor-in-Chief of The Huffington Post.  Most recently, Arianna has written Thrive and The Sleep Revolution. But what you may not know about Arianna is that she has a Master's Degree in Economics from Cambridge and was a candidate for California governor. She's been named one of the Most Influential Women in Media and one of the Most Powerful Women in Business. THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… those hesitant about the future. TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… We’re at a very interesting time in history – one that is currently being shaped in new ways every day. The next 20 years won’t look anything like today. But of course, 20 years ago doesn’t look anything like today either. We cannot predict what the future holds, but as Arianna says, we’re at an inflection point.  Careers are no longer linear. Passion and pur

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. This week is special because I was able to capture a frank conversation with my friend and fellow Hawaiian, Guy Kawasaki. He’s the Chief Evangelist at Canva, a brand ambassador for Mercedes-Benz, and an Executive Fellow at the Haas School of Business. He is also the author of The Art of the Start, The Art of Social Media, Enchantment, and nine other books. THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… anyone who wants to up their social media game. TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… Even for an expert, there is still room to learn. Guy is dedicated to making a difference via social media every day by pushing the envelope and learning as he goes. In the world of social media, we both believe that you have to be thoughtful with your posts. The days of simply showing up are over.  You can’t just tweet once and call it a day. Video has to be better. Graphics have to be better. Guy, however, takes a more aggressive approach. He’s comfortable posting about politics and difficult conversatio

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. My friend Shep Hyken is joining on the podcast this week. He’s a NY Times and WSJ bestselling author including, Moments of Magic, one of my favorites. He’s a customer service expert, and keynote speaker. He works with companies who want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees by delivering fantastic customer experiences. THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… anyone in customer service and customer success organization and leaders who wake up every day focused on improving customer experience. TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… The only thing that's going to separate one company from the next is the experience that that customer has with a brand. It will no longer be about product and price –customer service and customer success will carry as much, if not more weight than price in purchase decisions. Customer-focused companies make sure everyone on the team knows their value to the customer, even if they work behind-the-scenes. Leaders have to define wha

Today’s guest is Peter Fader, professor of marketing at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and the co-founder of Zodiak. His expertise centers on the analysis of behavioral data to understand and forecast customer shopping purchasing activities. His insights are reflected in his great book, Customer Centricity. The highlight of the conversation is Peter’s story of his disagreement with Wall Street’s findings on Dish Network’s company valuations. Peter and his team analyzed the company valuations using the public data Dish provided to investors. They came up with company valuations that were within 3-5% difference of the forecasts Wall Street was making. Next, as a fun academic exercise, his students created forecasts for the next 4 quarters using various statistical methods. Peter compared his students’ numbers to Dish’s quarterly numbers and noticed two things: (1) the students were within .5% of the number that Dish announced, and (2) the Wall Street analysts were off by about

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. Today’s guest is Jim Harris, author of Blindsided: How to Spot the Next Breakthrough that Will Change Your Business Forever. Jim is a principal at Strategic Advantage and has 20 years of experience as a professional speaker and consultant. Jim speaks internationally at more than 40 conferences per year on essential topics such as creativity, innovation, customer relationships, strategic planning, and environmental leadership.  THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… innovative thinkers. Innovation is coming here. Our professional lives are different than they were five years ago; our personal lives are drastically different they were ten years ago. How you approach change will determine your success. If you don’t want to be blindsided, pay attention to your systems and processes and keep the younger employees involved in strategy. Remember, diversity goes way beyond gender. Choose a team of bright people and create job opportunities. Innovation ultimately means that

Welcome to the What’s Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. Today’s guest is Josh Linkner. Josh is a five-time tech entrepreneur and hyper-growth CEO, two-time New York Times Bestselling author, top-rated keynote speaker, and founding partner of Detroit Venture Partners. Josh lives at the intersection of tech and advertising. In this episode, he and Tiffani explore how this intersection includes hacking, reinvention, and creativity. They also share ways that you can use traditions to be more innovative. In this episode: 4:50 – How a small jazz ensemble is a perfect metaphor for business 6:53 – How Josh defines reinvention and what people can learn from reinventing 8:52 - What can people do to start reinventing their business? 9:40 – A simple, but powerful question Josh poses to help you change your daily traditions 10:55 – What inspired Josh to write Hacking Innovation 12:55 – Is hacking just duct taping a problem together? 14:10 – Do new startups need to have a hacker mentality? 16:02 – Josh’s definition of creat

Welcome to the What’s Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. This week, I’m speaking with Frits van Paasschen, a seasoned global executive, and author of the new book, The Disruptors Feast. With 30 years of experience, he has a unique perspective on the current trends that impact businesses around the world. Frits served as the CEO of Starwood Hotels and Resorts, CEO at Coors Brewing Company, and have held several management positions at Nike.  Frits is one a few who have seen first-hand what it’s like to be in the middle of disruption. He was the CEO of Starwood when AirBnB started and the CEO of Coors when the craft beer industry launched. He shares how he handled disruption by changing from the inside out and leading when change broadsides a company. In this episode: 4:10 – How Frits defines disruption 8:52 – What it was like as the CEO of Starwood when AirBnB disrupted the hotel industry 12:21 – What other industries can learn from disruptors like AirBnB 14:08 – What do you do when disruptors come after your in

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. I am thrilled to bring you Tom Peters on this week’s episode. Tom is the co-author of In Search of Excellence and is one of the most exceptional management, sales, and marketing thinkers around. This book has been tagged as the “best business book ever.” THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… leaders. Think about it, have you ever seen a tombstone with someone’s net worth on it? No. That’s not what matters. What matters in life and business is relationships, embracing differences, and pushing yourself to make sure you don't get caught in the same-same trap. TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… is that people come before everything else. Tom wholeheartedly believes in matching people to culture; otherwise, he knows, culture falls apart. To create culture, you must have a foundation of listening, caring, smiling, and saying thank you. It’s about being nice to other people. WHAT I LOVE MOST… is that Tom shapes what excellence looks like. Take a moment to step back and give people th

Welcome to the What’s Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. This week, we have Martin Lindstrom on the show. Martin has developed an unorthodox method of doing what every company says it wants to do: understanding its consumers’ deepest desires and turning them into breakthrough products, brands or retail experiences. He’s a change agent, brand futurist, best-selling author, and pioneer in the fields of consumer psychology, brand marketing, and neuroscientific research. Martin is also the anchor and producer of NBC’s popular show, ‘Main Street Makeover.’ Martin is living with less technology. He believes that we should get out of focus groups and into the homes of real customers. When you see how people are truly living and using products, you can create real value, spark creativity for future projects, and see the tiny details of the big picture. In this episode: 4:29 – Why Martin wrote his book, Small Data: The Tiny Clues That Uncover Huge Trends 7:15 – The problem with linear data 9:29 – How jumping to conclusi

 Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova.  This week, Whitney Johnson joins Tiffani on the podcast. Whitney was recognized as one of the world's most influential management thinkers in 2015, was a finalist for the Top Thinkers on Talent at the biennial Thinkers50 ceremony in London, and is best known for her work on driving corporate innovation through personal disruption. She's the author of the critically acclaimed Disrupt Yourself, one of Tiffani’s favorite books. Tiffani and Whitney talk about personal disruption – a favorite conversational topic for both women. Disruption is bound to happen, at work and in your personal life. There are ways to adapt to change and so you (or your company) aren’t left behind as the rest of the world moves forward.   In this episode: 4:43 – What is personal disruption? 7:40 – Is change more difficult in your professional life? 8:34 - Companies that sell technology are actually selling change 8:56 – Why early adopters are better at change 10:29 – What you can

Welcome to the What’s Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova.   Today’s guest is Lisa Bodell. Lisa is a globally recognized innovation leader, futurist, and CEO of futurethink. As an expert on the topic of change, she is also the author of two best-selling books: Why Simple Wins (2016), and Kill the Company: End the Status Quo, Start an Innovation Revolution (2012). Lisa serves as a global council member of the World Economic Forum and is a frequent contributor to Forbes and Harvard Business Review. Lisa believes that innovation is not new – it’s something that adds value. Ideas, Lisa believes, are everywhere. It’s about what you do with those ideas that make them special.   In this episode: 5:13 – What is innovation? 7:42 – Do teams need diversity beyond men and women? 9:50 – What happens when a leader has an established, homogeneous team? 10:42 – What is the difference between a groove and rut? 14:15 – How to have the opportunity to have a beginner’s mindset? 15:14 – How risk, fear, power, and control impact every

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. This week, I have the pleasure of having Mark Bonchek on the show. Mark is the Founder and Chief Epiphany Officer of Shift Thinking. He leads organizations to make the shift from incremental to exponential growth and to achieve transformational change so that they can more effectively compete in their market, engage their customers, and organize their teams. Mark believes that the business model is on the surface and what's underneath it is the customer centric mental model. The mental model, which focuses on people, has two parts. One view is a broad, outwardly focused model of engagement and marketing concentrating resources on targeting, segmenting, running campaigns, and moving customers through the funnel. This model spotlights the company’s objectives and how to get the customer to take action to achieve corporate goals. Another model of customer centricity, which works backwards from the customer, asks, “What is the need that we're filling? What ar

Welcome to the What’s Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. This week on the podcast, I’m interviewing Nancy Duarte. Nancy is a communications expert who's been featured in Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Wired, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and on CNN. Her firm, Duarte Inc., is the largest design firm in Silicon Valley as well as one of the top women-owned businesses in the area. It's the global leader behind some of the most influential visual messages in business and culture creating more than a quarter of a million presentations. As a persuasion expert, she cracked the code for effectively incorporating story patterns into business communications. She's written five best-selling books and is ranked #1 on the list of the World's Top 30 Communication Professionals. Her TED Talk, The Secret Structure of Great Talks, has over 1 million views. Nancy’s expertise in the world of communication and presentations reveal how people can use stories to make real connections. In a B2B situation, real connections go b

Welcome to the What’s Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova.  This week’s guest is Tamara McCleary. Tamara is an international branding expert, a technology futurist, and the CEO of Thulium. She was named the #1 Most Influential Woman in MarTech by B2B Marketing and ranked by LeadTail as the 3rd most mentioned person on Twitter by CMOs. Tiffani and Tamara talk about What's Next! in the future of marketing, sales, AI, customer experience and let’s not forget 3D printed shoes. It's fascinating to understand how all of these components fit together into one conversation. People have changed; expectations have changed; and, the future of retail, artificial intelligence, and customer success is changing daily.   In this episode: 3:40 – Is 3D, instant gratifications commerce the future? 4:48 – The future of shopping 5:47 – Hyper-personalization of products 7:48 – What is artificial intelligence? 8:18 – What is machine learning? 8:34 – Tesla, the great example of machine learning 9:05 – Why machine learning is fascinating

My amazing guest is Naomi Simson. Naomi is the founding director of Australian online tech success story RedBalloon and Redii. She’s been blogging for a decade at Naomi Simson and is one of 5 Sharks on Network 10’s business reality show Shark Tank in Australia. You can join Naomi’s private online community at www.joinnaomisimson.com.   After spending 3 Days with a Shark, Tiffani shares her favorite lessons learned:   Naomi is committed: to her people and nurturing her staff Naomi admits that she’s better at leadership than management; she wants people to be aligned to the values and working toward the greater good.   Even though she’s successful, Naomi pushes herself every day. She’s still very hungry. She works so hard because want to be an equal with the people on her team and the community she serves. She doesn’t forget where she came from.   Personal motto: if it’s meant to be, it’s up to me. I don’t expect anything and I’m happy to keep sharing and being a role model to others.   It’s not about the

Welcome to the What’s Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. Today’s guest is Seth Godin. Seth is a bestselling author of 18 books and loves to talk about making something happen. Seth is a huge fan of doing the right thing in business. The “right thing” means not caring about stock options or your career and still caring about what you’re making. Seth promotes focusing on service to deliver consistently. Great marketers should spread ideas, not make sales. Your job as the marketer is not to sell what the factory makes, but to serve the people the company seeks to serve. This is the human side of business. In this episode: 3:15 – Doing the right thing in business 3:35 – How marketers are having to face shifting from worrying about what’s coming next to ensuring they are doing what’s right today 5:10 – Giving books away + traditional publishing 7:03 – Why Random House should have started Google and Simon and Schuster should have started Facebook 7:36 – How an individual (you!) can make a difference beyond metrics in

Welcome to the What's Next! podcast with Tiffani Bova. In my 20+ years in the sales industry, I’ve met so many cool people and have had some fascinating conversations. There have been too many times I’ve wished a microphone was on so I could record my conversations with amazing people and share them with you.   I take a practical approach when I work with tech companies, to help define growth strategies and go to market models. I am always on the outlook for emerging technologies and disruptive shifts in buyer behavior. Then I translate pragmatic plans into sales transformation. I have been told the combination of my operational and research experience is what positioned me as one of the leading thinkers in the area of sales transformation and business model innovation. My current conversations center around one objective: customer success. My conversations inspire me as a speaker and when I write for publications such as Harvard Business Review and Huffington Post. Meeting innovative and creative people push