Podcast Blog

Hear how to really hear what people are saying in meetings

Imogene Drummond is a woman whose story I love to share. She is bold and courageous about things she wants to do or learn more about. Today's topic is how her new program, ACQUITS, grew out of her interest in helping people communicate better, especially in the virtual environments so many of us find ourselves in these days. Imogene's professional life evolved from her training in psychology to her very successful career as an artist, to filmmaking, and now to working with people to develop their online communication skills. This is so timely. Do enjoy.

Hear how to provide optimal customer journeys for your prospects

In this On the Brink podcast, I had an amazing conversation with Patrick Van Gorder, Executive Vice President and Partner of Level Agency. Conversations with strategic marketers is always exciting. The world we used to market in has changed. And marketing is supposed to encourage people not just to purchase but to engage with your products and services. The buyer, however, has changed their journey over the past 25 years. As we know from our own work as HubSpot Partners, the buyer’s first task when considering a solution to solve their problem is to Google it. If you don’t have a digital experience that comes up on the first pages of Google search, you're not a good answer for that person’s problem or question. What does that mean for your business? Patrick has many great answers to that question so listen in, learn and share!

Hear how Blue Ocean Strategy helps you own your market!

In this podcast, Brian Gladden and I go digging into the whys and hows of creating Blue Ocean Strategies®. Brian is a trained Blue Ocean Strategist who helps businesses find unmet customer needs and create uncontested market space by using the tools and methods of Blue Ocean thinking. After conducting 500 workshops and dozens of client engagements, I know the thinking of a Blue Ocean Strategist quite well, and Brian is certainly one of us. He just loves the methodology and objectives behind BOS, as do I. It really works! To learn how to do it, listen in. 

Hear what can take your idea from good to great!

Listen in today to a woman who had a client searching for an unmet need and who then helped him open up a new market, literally Blue Ocean Strategy® in action. Jennifer Brazer, my podcast guest, has a new book out that you really should read because it's a “how-to” guide for building a great business, Blue Ocean-style. (It actually happened to be her own business.) She explains how she went from a cubicle to a multi-million dollar bookkeeping service on the cloud, serving accounting firms across the country. And it all started when a client asked her how to manage the bookkeeping for his companies at an affordable price. 

Learn how to craft a strategy that delivers the results you want

Remember, my job is to help you get off the brink. How do I do that? By helping you see, feel and think in new ways. As a corporate anthropologist, I go looking for people who can help you do just that: see in new ways the things you may have done the same old way for a long time. Carol Poore is one of those people. We met through our publisher, Greenleaf Book Group, and I learned that she has a new book coming out on business strategy. Since I’m a Blue Ocean Strategist, I was particularly interested in understanding her perspective and how it could add new meaning to the way we at SAMC approach strategy, and how you do too. How do you approach your strategy, both your personal one and your business one? It’s important to understand that in order to get to your destination, whatever your goal might be. Do take a listen!

 Hear how an innovative approach paid off, big time!

By becoming President of Delaware Valley University, Dr. Maria Gallo broke a very hard, very high glass ceiling, which is why I wanted to repost my podcast with her. In 2020, only 38% of college presidents were women, despite the fact that women represent over half the students in higher educational institutions. And, Dr. Gallo is not only leading DelVal, she's leading it successfully into the future. For this and many other reasons, I share her story in my new book, "Rethink: Smashing the Myths of Women in Business," which you can buy here. Seeing that the demographics of students are changing, fast, Maria and her team engaged us to help them find their Blue Ocean Strategy, then they made it happen, brilliantly. A great story. Listen in! 

Learn how you can really, really find your soul mate!  

This is a podcast that everyone should pay attention to. Our guest is Clarissa Silva, the founder of Your Happiness Hypothesis (H20) Method. Based on an algorithm she created, this "first-ever disruptive relationship technique" helps people find their significant other, husband, wife, partner, through a methodology that really works. After trying e-Harmony and all the other dating apps, she took the traditional psychological and behavioral science models and re-engineered them to be 10 times more effective. And guess what? She met her husband! If you're like me, you'll find our conversation fascinating, and possibly, even the gateway to love and happiness. 

Hear how fresh thinking can revolutionize an industry!

In case you haven't noticed, the world has become flat. In all kinds of ways, people are now connected across the globe, with significant and exciting implications. Ryan Cornell saw an opportunity to help companies, entrepreneurs, freelancers and even himself see this flat world with a fresh perspective. This led him to create RemoteProfessionals.com to help employers find trained, skilled staff abroad, particularly in the Philipines. In our podcast, Ryan and I will share how he started his company to help people in the US, the UK and Canada find excellent, English-speaking, "Americanized" workers in the Philipines. Listen in, I guarantee you'll learn a lot!

Learn how to go where the competition isn't!

For over a decade, Michael Olenick and I have worked together on Blue Ocean Strategy. Now, Michael is going to lead our Europe and the Middle East division. We have been getting a growing number of inquiries from all over the globe for Blue Ocean Strategy work, and Michael has been helping us guide these companies. It is now time for us to team up together and see how to help businesses everywhere discover the great value of seeing things through a Blue Ocean lens. We are thrilled to welcome Michael to our team here at SAMC, and to share with you our recent conversation. If you want to really understand how to grow and prosper, take a listen.

Hear how if you can dream it, you can do it!

We met Amanda Zuckerman when she spoke at the HER Summit (Helping Entrepreneurs Rise) at Washington University this past October. Amanda is a Wash U alumna who saw an unmet need and turned it into a great business, dormify.com, that has opened an entirely new market space—very Blue Ocean style. Named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 in 2018, Amanda is a perfect example of how you, yes you, can come up with a new way to fulfill an unmet need, turn that idea into a company, and watch it take off. Want to learn how she did it? Listen in, she tells us! Enjoy.

Hear how this entrepreneur brilliantly capitalized on unmet needs!

Brit Arthur is one of those creative women who sees a problem and just wants to solve it. Who says women aren’t as ingenious as men? They haven’t met Brit. Back when she was in school at Pratt Institute studying fashionwear, she saw a problem. She hated the way bathing suits were made and how they fit women’s bodies. Designers were making things that all looked the same. Fabrics and fit were compromised to keep costs down. What do you do when you're a talented, young, inspired visionary? You do better, much better! Wait til you hear Brit's phenomenal story.

Hear how strategy is the way to get to where you want to be!

As you know, we are Blue Ocean Strategists. As such, we love to talk with like-minded folks who help companies and their staff re-think their strategies, fill unmet needs and carve out unoccupied market space. That's why Rich Horwath is such a great guest today. One of the biggest challenges for companies is how to craft an appropriate strategy for today’s fast-changing times. Another is how to get the entire organization to embrace that strategy, live it and evaluate whether it's working. Both play into Rich's forte—helping people understand how to think strategically regardless of what type of strategy they have. Lots for you to learn and apply!

Hear how great things happen when you're willing to change!

Jake Manthei and his company, Aster Brands, was a client of ours when I led a Blue Ocean Strategy workshop for their manufacturers last year. These were very smart individuals who each knew it was time to find their Blue Ocean. They also knew they have to continue to innovate, find new ways to solve problems, and at times, pause and re-think “the way we do things.” We had a great time, and I learned a lot about how companies can listen to client needs, see unmet ones, and turn those ideas into real business opportunities, even without following a Blue Ocean Strategy process. It's all about learning how to listen differently. Now it's your turn...listen in!

Now that you know the basics, it's time to go visually exploring!

Last week, I shared with you my Ask Andi session, "How To Find Your Blue Ocean Strategy® Step 1," in which I explained how Blue Ocean Strategy shows you how to go after nonusers, carve out a new, unoccupied market space and make the competition irrelevant. "OK," you may be saying, "what do I do next? I've done my strategic canvas but where do I go from there?" Now that you've started to see, feel and think in new ways about your business (visual awakening), you're ready to go visually exploring, which is a very exciting part of the Blue Ocean methodology. Here we go!

Ready to find your Blue Ocean Strategy and soar? Listen in! 

Tired of competing against all those "others" that you've been benchmarking yourself against for years, without much benefit? Are you ready to carve out a new market space and make the competition irrelevant? It might be time for you to find your Blue Ocean Strategy, the amazingly successful methodology that helps you see, feel and think in new ways about your business in these rapidly-changing times. In this "Ask Andi" podcast, I'll take you through the initial steps of a Blue Ocean Strategy so you can learn how to apply it to your own business. Listen in and learn!

Dusty Rubeck tells us how to bring about innovative culture change!

How do you transform an old, established organization? How do you give it new purpose and change the way people get their jobs done? While that is what we do for clients, Dusty Rubeck showed us some fresh ways to move an organization in new directions. Dusty and I met at a Vistage meeting where I was speaking. He reminded me that he had heard me once before and had adopted a Blue Ocean Strategy approach to change himself and his organization. It seemed appropriate for us to dig further into what he had done and how he had done it. Enjoy!

 Hear how Maria Gallo and her team took an innovative approach that paid off, big time!

Dr. Maria Gallo is a very special interviewee for our podcast. She is president of Delaware Valley University—DelVal to many of us—in Bucks County, PA, north of Philadelphia. For much of 2018, we worked with DelVal on their Blue Ocean Strategy and are thrilled at the terrific successes they're seeing. Realizing that the demographics of students is changing, fast, Maria and her team knew DelVal needed a new strategy. What did they do? They set about finding their Blue Ocean Strategy and innovatively fulfilling today's students' unmet needs. Is it working? Like gangbusters. Take a listen. Might the lessons learned apply to your organization or business?

 Listen now as Matt Miller talks about his "a-ha" moment!

In this podcast, I have the pleasure of sharing with you Matt Miller: entrepreneur, imaginative problem solver, creative innovator. You'll be amazed at what he “saw” and how he converted his observations into terrific innovations—and you know how much we like to share these kinds of stories. After nine years in the Air Force as a pilot, Mike shifted to the medical device and advertising industries. But, he always wanted to be his own boss. Wait 'til you hear how he did it!

 Listen now to my podcast about how to go visually exploring! 

Recently, I did an Ask Andi session on Blue Ocean Strategy Part 1, and I've gotten wonderful feedback on it. People want to know, what do they do next? They've done their strategic canvas but where do they go from there? Once you have a visual awakening, you're ready to go visually exploring, which is a very exciting part of the Blue Ocean Strategy methodology. Here's how.

 Listen now to my podcast about how to find your Blue Ocean Strategy! 

Today, I want to talk about Blue Ocean Strategy, the methodology and book created by Renée Mauborgne and W. Chan Kim. This year they launched a new book called “Blue Ocean Shift,” an excellent 2nd version of the Blue Ocean Strategy approach to help you see, feel and think in new ways about your business in these rapidly-changing times. And so it seems very timely for me to go through the steps of a Blue Ocean Strategy with you so you can learn how to apply it to your own business, whether it's doing well or not so well and you’re wondering what's coming next.