Disruption / Interruption
 

Disruption / Interruption

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When did you say ”THAT’S IT! I’VE HAD IT!”? Time to Disrupt and Interrupt with host Karla Jo. Every week KJ interviews professionals who are disrupting their industries and altering economic networks that have been antiquated with bull-headed predecessors holding up the progress. KJ delves into uncovering more from industry rebels and innovators that you didn’t know you needed in your life.

Episodes

Disrupting Revenue Generation - Jeff Hoffman - Episode # 020

Friday Jan 07, 2022

Friday Jan 07, 2022

Jeff Hoffman is the Principal & Founder of RSR, LLC and the Fractional CRO of jeffhoffmancro.com. He has over 20 years of experience in disrupting and he developed a sales algorithm that elevates a company's offerings and how they are positioned in the market. He joins fellow disruptor and host KJ Helms to discuss how Jeff is breaking through to the other side of revenue generation.



Takeaways:

 

  • The main ingredient for disruption is having a solution that the buyers at companies are trying to sell to. 
  • Most tech industries are small to mid sized. To make money you have to make sure your products are “got to have” products and not “nice to have.”
  • You can’t assume that sales people will have amazing connections and they will close deals. You need a product that actually improves something for a company.
  • Most tech companies are operating at less than $25 million in funding if they’ve generated revenue. Typically the amount is around $2 - $5 million.
  • A knee jerk reaction for companies is that they hire sellers and they expect them to be able to go out and make deals, but they don’t put any proper set up for it.
  • You shouldn’t focus on a playbook until you have truly mastered an understanding of who is buying from you and why. 
  • The three questions you should always ask is “why is this person interested, why would they want to buy from us and why would they want our services now?”



Quote of the show:

 

3:50 “I think a lot of companies make a mistake of assuming that the sales people they hire are going to have connections at companies with their own Rolodex and that they'll be able to just go ahead and make deals happen. But in reality, nobody buys like that. It's not a relationship industry. You've got to have something that's going to impact their business.” 




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Disrupting Branding Agencies - Fabian Geyrhalter - Episode # 019

Thursday Dec 30, 2021

Thursday Dec 30, 2021

Fabian Geyrhalter is the Principal at FINIEN.  He spent years working at a different branding agency until one day he realized that he had it!! He decided to go against the grain of the dog and pony show and start his own business that gets right down to business. He joins the Host of Disruption / Interruption, Karla Jo, to talk about how he is disrupting branding agencies. 



Takeaways:

 

  • There are three key ingredients for disruption; Courage, determination, and perseverance. All of these skills are needed if you really want to disrupt an industry.
  • Instead of being hungry for more work, it’s important to think about the direction of your company and where you want to go.
  • The agency model is broken. Every agency wants to become agency of the year instead of actually focusing on what they want to do.
  • In the time of the great resignation, people are looking at what skills they have and are deciding they want jobs that better fit that and make them happy.
  • Don’t be afraid to say no to a client. A no can open a door to a better yes.
  • A key approach to branding agencies is bucking the trend of the dog and pony show and instead let your work speak for itself.   
  • When working on a project, the vision comes down from the person that has hired you so you want to make sure that you get along with the person and agree with what they have in mind.



Quote of the show:

 

1:42 “I think there are three key ingredients, and the very first one is courage. You can't disrupt if you don't have guts, if you don't have Moxy. That leads me to my second point. it's determination. Disruption is swimming against the stream and it’s going to take everything out of you. So I really think courage, determination and perseverance are the three key ingredients to actually get to that point where you can disrupt.”








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Disrupting Technology Marketing - Genefa Murphy - Episode # 018

Thursday Dec 23, 2021

Thursday Dec 23, 2021

Genefa Murphy, the CMO of Five9, has found her path to disruption by using her extensive background in technology. She prefers to take the road less traveled, and likes to bring people and technology and help create an engaging experience. She sits down with fellow disruptor and host KJ Helms to talk about how she is bringing her unique energy and background to disrupting technology marketing.



Takeaways:

 

  • The key to disruption is differentiation. You need to find what makes you different from everybody else in order to begin causing your disruption.

  • It’s better to be different than better. Just being better than your competitors isn’t enough to separate you from the pack.

  • Now is the time for marketers to come to the forefront. There’s a greater degree and emphasis on them with the customer experience.

  • There are more younger consumers of technology who have more disposable income, and they want their brands to be more open minded and give back to the community.

  • Know your stuff and have your data. You should know who your ideal customer profile is and what is your intent as a marketer.Try to be ahead of the game.

  • There are four factors for which most impact technology adoption; effort expectancy, performance expectancy, facilitating conditions and social influence. 

  • People will be more likely to adopt new technology if they believe important figures are advocates for the technology. Word of mouth matters.



Quote of the show:

 

1:48 ​​”Someone once said to me, it's better to be different than to be better. We could always be better, but it is better to be different than just being better. And I think you can apply that in so many different ways. 

You can think about that. You talk about my road to marketing. My road to marketing was different. It didn't come up through a traditional marketing path. It came up through a product management and a technology path. And I think that has helped me be a better marketer. My road to living in the U S was different and I think that has helped me be more culturally aware and value things like cultural diversity in team diversity.”



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Disrupting Veteran Employment Ecosystem - Wes Wood - Episode # 017

Thursday Dec 16, 2021

Thursday Dec 16, 2021

Wes Wood, Executive Director at INvets, left the military in 2015, and upon leaving he realized there was a serious issue that needed to be fixed. He started his own nonprofit partnership in the state of Indiana, where he works to help struggling veterans find work. He joins fellow disruptor and host Karla Jo Helms, to discuss the struggles veterans face trying to transition from the military to civilian life and work. 



Takeaways:

 

  • Most people have a perception that there are plenty of valuable opportunities out there, but for veterans it can be a struggle.
  • There are many issues for people who are coming from the military to civilian life and trying to find a job right away. It can be an adjustment process.
  • Some of the issues veterans face are where do they move to after the military, do they go back home, do they search on job boards for local jobs, etc?
  • Every year, between 200,000 and 300,000 veterans make the switch from military life to civilian life and get a civilian job.
  • Most of the people leaving the military don’t have much experience in the civilian sector and are often unsure of where to go from there.
  • The transition assistance program is a congressionally mandated program that everyone has to go through when they leave the military. It teaches you basic skills like how to write a resume.
  • In the midwest, the economic growth has outpaced the population growth, so a good solution to finding employees is hiring former veterans.



Quote of the show:

 

23:56 “One of the key things that's plagued the veteran ecosystem for years is collaboration. So there are a lot of nonprofits, the nonprofit world is very competitive. Everyone's going after a certain amount of dollars that are given out by veteran focused foundations, endowments, entities.

 

A lot of times what you see is organizations trying to elbow each other out, not collaborating. I want to count that as my win…”



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Disrupting Demand Side Sales - Bob Moesta - Episode # 016

Thursday Dec 09, 2021

Thursday Dec 09, 2021

Bob Moesta, President and CEO of the ReWired Group, has been a champion of disruption for over 30 years and earned the title “Disruptor's Mentor.” As a kid, he showed his natural inclination to mechanics and entrepreneurship by making ramps to ride his bike on outside of his house. Now, he’s helped to develop and launch over 3,500 products and services. Also author of “Demand Side Sales,” Bob joins Karla Jo to talk about how he is disrupting the demand side sales industry. 



Takeaways:

 

  • There are two essential steps that are needed for disruption to be successful; one is that people don’t buy products, they hire them. The second is being able to empathize with the struggling moments that lead to disruption.
  • Disruptors come from the low end, meaning they don’t have much to go off, and they are often unrecognized at the time until they become larger. 
  • To understand a struggling moment, you need to understand not just who is struggling, but also the what, when, where, and why of the struggle as well.
  • Entrepreneurs often get too fixated on making sure that something is perfect, which then slows down the entire process of trying to get the whole system to work.
  • Demand exists whether supply is there or not. Demand is about where people want to make progress but they can’t.
  • COVID forced people to think outside the box in terms of jobs that they had. It allowed people to make trade offs and find jobs that work better for them in different ways.
  • Take note of what is happening in the world and try to solve some of the problems that people are facing but don’t quite know it yet (i.e. how Apple made better cameras in their phones).



Quote of the show:

 

4:08 “So the first part is understanding the progress. The second part is then understanding basically how to actually serve the low end, where you're just better than nothing. So almost all disruptors come from the low end and they are dismissed by the incumbents because they're just seen as well, they're just toying in something else. Like how banks looked at PayPal or Square as well, ‘they're just a payment processor.’

All of a sudden now they're bank. And they're going to actually be bigger than most banks very soon. And so disruptors come in from the low end and they serve the underserved.” 

 

 

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Disrupting Content Creation - Chris Lamontagne - Episode # 015

Thursday Dec 02, 2021

Thursday Dec 02, 2021

After founding his first sports coaching company at age 20, today’s guest has been on a journey to create opportunities that empower the creator economy. Coming all the way from Liverpool, he has always been obsessed with finding the value in things. He’s an ambitious business leader with an innovative way of thinking and he isn’t ready to slow down yet! Chris Lamontagne, CEO of Spring, says that most companies struggle to keep up because they fail to change themselves and keep up with the times. He joins the Host of Disruption / Interruption, Karla Jo, to talk about how he is disrupting the content creation industry. 



Takeaways:

 

  • The failure to reinvent is what dooms most companies. They need to see what is going on around them and adapt to the new times or get left behind. 
  • You’ve got to be willing to look at your company and make the tough decision to rip it up and try something new if what you are doing isn’t working. 
  • The social commerce movement was really started by the creator economy. A lot of these people had followers already from YouTube, Tik Tok and other platforms. 
  • We are now seeing that social media outlets want to take part in the commerce side of the business as well (ie Instagram Shopping or Shoppable pins on Pinterest)
  • People are starting to realize now that they don’t have to do their 9-5 in the same way anymore, they can make money from home doing what they love by creating new content on different topics. 
  • The COVID pandemic has allowed people to really embrace the passions they have and be more creative with what they do. 
  • Today more so than any other previous time, people are able to get their own content out and reach any audience they want to.



Quote of the show:

 

2:13:  “When I think about disruption and what that actually means for an organizations and companies, if you think about so many countless stories of companies that haven't made it, and I had just asked about companies that don't make it and why they don't make it, it was the failure to reinvent or the failure to spot that things were happening around them that they didn't react fast enough.

 

If you really go deeper into that source, I’d understand why didn’t a company reinvent. It's because sometimes there's an issue with not being able to recognize or be able to let go of the past and think about the future.”






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Disrupting Branding - David Brier - Episode # 014

Thursday Nov 18, 2021

Thursday Nov 18, 2021

David Brier, the President and Creative Director at DBD International has a knack for pulling things apart and getting to the root of an issue by asking a simple question: ‘Why?’ David joins fellow disruptor and host Karla Jo to talk about ways that he is disrupting the status quo of rebranding your company. 

 

Takeaways:

 

  • The most important ingredient to disruption is paying attention. Many companies show up and make a lot of noise, but few take notice of what good disruption and change is and where it is needed.
  • Your brand should properly frame you. You must own your own dialogue and narrative. Your brand is a part of you and it should properly reflect that. 
  • People will not come to new conclusions based on old information. You need to make sure that you sound different in order to get your brand out there.
  • Branding is the art of differentiation and not the art of looking like another brand in your category. 
  • There are three phases to branding; Pre-Sales branding, During the Sales Branding, and Post-Sales Branding. Most companies only focus on two of the three but all three are important.
  • You want to be more connected to the solution to your customers problems and not your own solutions, that’s why Netflix is world wide and there is only one Blockbuster remaining. 



Quote of the show:

 

2:10 “The biggest, most important ingredient to disruption, this may surprise you, my answer is paying attention in the first place. How can you disrupt if you don't even take a pulse of where the things are at. And that to me is the biggest secret. So many companies, CEOs, brands, thought leaders, et cetera. They're just going to show up screaming really loud.

 

Well, that's going to disrupt! Well, what if everybody else is already screaming loud, bozo? That  would be my response to that person who chose to do that. So it's paying attention, so it's going, okay. Take a pulse where stuff is at, right? Because you could disrupt smartly. You could disrupt stupidly, right?”



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Disrupting Veteran Legal Aid - Antoinette Balta - Episode # 013

Thursday Nov 11, 2021

Thursday Nov 11, 2021

Our veterans are putting their lives on the line everyday to defend our country, but the fight doesn’t stop when they come home. Veterans are in need of legal aid and it can be too expensive, meaning that most have to represent themselves or not even have their legal needs met. Host of Disruption / Interruption, Karla Jo is joined by fellow disruptor Antoinette Balta, who is the Executive Director & Co-Founder of Veterans Legal Institute, to talk about how her non-profit is providing legal services to those who have given so much and need our help. 

 

Takeaways:

 

  • The key to disruption is courage. Change is hard but it’s worth the uphill battle to make others' lives better. 
  • The cost of legal aid for veterans today is too high. It can be upwards of $400 an hour, and if they can’t afford that then the veterans will have to represent themselves.
  • The top 80% of veterans become entrepreneurs, but the bottom 20% struggle with mental health or injuries related to service and need legal help.
  • 22 veterans a day take their own life, and that’s more than veterans who lose their life in combat on a daily basis. 
  • Veterans Legal Institute wants to make sure they aren’t turning anyone away, providing what services they can to those in need.
  • While working at an emergency shelter at the national guard armory 15 years ago, Atoinette noticed that there were plenty of veterans that needed more help than others and they weren’t receiving it, and this prompted her to start the change. 



Quote of the show:

 

6:38 “When I'm driving onto the on ramp of the freeway and I see someone holding a sign and it says homeless veteran, can you help? It makes my blood boil because I'll usually look at the veteran and it's almost always a Vietnam era veteran. It's mind blowing. Fortunately, the OEF OIF, the Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, have a lot more resources at their fingertips. There's a lot more outreach to them, but I definitely don't want to forget our brothers and sisters that served in Vietnam and even Korea.”



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Disrupting Automation - Kevin Buckley - Episode # 012

Thursday Nov 04, 2021

Thursday Nov 04, 2021

After seeing how a lack of communication can hurt a business, today’s guest decided to learn more about business automation to better help businesses streamline their processes. Host of Disruption / Interruption, Karla Jo is joined by fellow disruptor Kevin Buckley, who is a Business Automation Executive at Technologent, to talk about ways that brick and mortar stores can compete with cloud based companies without breaking the bank. 



Takeaways:

 

  • Greenfield businesses are businesses that are born in the cloud and coming to market. 
  • For brick and mortar stores to compete with these Greenfield businesses they have to disrupt their own business without getting in the way of their daily business.
  • Keeping your loyal customers is important, and it’s important to keep costs low while doing that. 
  • Automation is a way to keep costs down while also streamlining your business. 
  • Stakeholder input is important when it comes to trying to improve different processes at work. They understand the bigger picture and can see things in a different way. 
  • Healthcare and retail are the industries that are in need of a better automation system.



Quote of the show:

 

6:04 “They have to decide if they're going to embark on this journey to improve their business workflow processes, to automate them and to be able to deliver faster service, more timely deliveries, better customer service, better customer retention and do that without having to hire a lot more full-time equivalents, hiring more people. This is not about companies getting rid of employees and that's okay. What I hear a lot when I talk to the business. And then when I talked to the line of business, it's very different.

 

We need to disrupt ourselves. We need to drive efficiencies, lower our costs and provide a better customer experience. And the line of business person feels like you're trying to take my job away. And that's where I'm really seeing the pushback or the inability for the business to move forward with those processes."



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Disrupting Trucking - Brad Ball - Episode # 011

Thursday Oct 28, 2021

Thursday Oct 28, 2021

With almost 25 years of experience, today’s guest has taken the trucking industry by storm. Brad Ball, the president of Roadmasters Driver School, joins the Host of Disruption / Interruption, Karla Jo, to talk about how he is disrupting the trucking industry and making it more accessible to anyone!



Takeaways:

 

  • The top ingredient for disruption is accessibility. You need to be accessible for people to find your company.
  • Once COVID hit, the trucking industry started taking a big hit. Employees close to retirement age took their retirement early, and others left their jobs, all while the e-commerce boom demanded more from truckers. 
  • The trucks nowadays are much more comfortable and easier to manage than have been in previous years. 
  • Trucking is an industry where there is no pay gap tied to gender or race. 
  • Vocational fields are great opportunities. It takes about 4 weeks to learn how to drive a truck, and it provides a great opportunity for a career.
  • Trucking is a career that is both recession proof and pandemic proof. While it was difficult during the pandemic, it was not shut down like restaurants or other lines of work.



Quote of the show:

 

9:54 “We can take people that are unemployed or underemployed, regardless of your education status and introduce a career opportunity where there is no pay gap tied to race or gender. So, essentially the opportunity is there for anyone that walks in our door, regardless of what your background is or your education history, because this industry is not looking for degrees.

 

This is an industry that is looking for people that have a great desire to work and are looking for an opportunity to improve their life. It's really accessible again to just about every aspect of society.”



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