Navigating New Business Paradigms Post Pandemic

wanted to thank everyone for being here
today with the venture expert advisor
team
we are so excited to have a deep dive
discussion with all of you
about today's topic navigating new
business paradigms post pandemic
before we dive in i want to take a
moment and introduce you to our
moderator dr anute meden
dr mennon is the co-founder and ceo of
eisenguard
ai inc an ai startup that helps
businesses make decisions
in an agile data-driven manner
previously he was an assistant professor
of management at university of
pennsylvania's wharton school of
business
he completed his doctoral studies and
strategy from harvard business school
dr mennon is interested in the role of
cognition and strategy
focusing on the processes by which
strategic leaders interpret business
decisions
search for courses of actions or seek
consequences of different
choices and make strategic decisions
he recent lee had research that applies
machine learning techniques to
strategic analysis and his research has
received recognition
including an award of excellence in the
doctoral research at harvard business
school
an award-winning educator he taught
elective courses
in both the undergraduate and mba
programs at wharton on competitive
strategy and strategic change
with a focus on strategic change during
times of digital disruption
i'll now pass it off to you and you have
to take it from here
thanks emily thank you for that very
generous introduction
i am really excited and thrilled to be
here to bring to you
the vea team to chat with some of their
experts
and really understand all of us in the
audience as well to understand the vea
concept
and the model of this on-demand
workforce of subject matter experts
and how that will reimagine the way
companies and organizations succeed in
2021
and beyond like to quickly take this
opportunity to remind
everybody that there is a q a button
at the bottom of your screen where you
can type in questions and we'll have 10
minutes at the end
where we'll try to get to as many of
those as possible
now first quickly introduce emily emily
finkelstein ceo
and founder of venture expert advisors
emily thanks for taking the time to
share your vision of
the ea and to introduce us to the
high quality expert panel that we have
here over to you
thank you anew uh i it's my honor and
privilege to be here today to share with
you my overall vision for
venture expert advisors and why i'm so
excited for what is to come in 2021
but before i dive in any further i do
want to take the opportunity to
introduce
our panelists alongside me they are the
talented individuals that you want to
hear from in order to learn more about
their focus
industry expertise and how they are
helping their clients
navigate new business paradigms
post-pandemic
here today are the following panelists
with me we have norman finkelstein our
chief advisor
we have brook schiller leadership and
development facilitator
coach and keynote speaker we have darren
frank who is our strategist leadership
coach
and natalie polisky our chief
communications copywriting
and storytelling expert david kennedy
who specializes in website design and
digital strategy
and michael maggiano our senior human
capital advisor with a specialty in hr
strategy
compliance and executive search each one
of these experts plays an integral role
in our organization and later in the
discussion you'll understand why

thanks for that intro emily that's uh
that's really exciting team there
just uh could you give us a little bit
of your vision
of what you foresee as the ea
and what value add it brings to your
clients
[Music]
yes of course so venture expert advisors
came to me at a pivotal time in my
career as an entrepreneur and business
owner
i was reflecting on what was most
valuable to me as a business owner and
how i can help others succeed with the
same help and guidance that made a
drastic impact
on my business and for myself at the
time i was working with other external
consultants
on some recent projects that were
invaluable to myself into my
organization
so not only did i not have the time to
spend on these projects but
i lack the skills required to master a
task
unlike the experts that we brought on
board while in the trenches in these
projects
i was so enamored with the process and
the value-add that we received
and it was really got me thinking what
if i didn't have
talk to my friend who made the
recommendations to the consultants that
we ended up using
would we have experienced the same
outcome what if
i could provide a team of subject matter
experts that have a deep
understanding and knowledge base in a
particular area
that really can make a difference for
entrepreneurs and other business owners
what if we condense the time it takes to
find highly qualified individuals
and can provide an on-demand workforce
that could scale up and scale down as
needed
that will save our clients time and
money in the long run
alas venture expert advisors was born
and it soon became an all-consuming
venture for myself
emerging during a pandemic with the goal
of having a lasting
impact on our clients post coven is what
we are all about
that is why i am so excited to share our
team with you here today wow
thanks for sharing uh thanks for that
story emily that that makes a lot of
sense that's super interesting
now i want to pick up on something you
mentioned there you mentioned the
pandemic
man covets changed the world and those
changes are going to last
so in your opinion what are some factors
that business leaders
should keep in mind as they prepare for
the new normal
yes koba definitely shifted and changing
change things it was one hell of a year
so over the past year businesses were
scrambling to adapt to extraordinary
circumstances
while the fight against kova 19 is not
yet one
with the vaccine and more and more
people getting vaccinated daily
there is at least finally a light at the
end of the tunnel
2021 will be the year of transition
businesses and society can start to look
forward to shaping their futures
rather than just grinding through the
present i think that there are going to
be
10 emerging trends that will shape our
future as business owners and leaders
and
these are trends we should all be paying
attention to
first one in my opinion is globalization
globalization will be redefined with a
stronger emergence of social capitalism
so issues in one country do have a
domino effect on the entire economic
world so
recognizing interdependence companies
will shift their management models
towards a more corporate social
responsibility and really understanding
the well-being of their people two
is the acceleration of digital
transformation
the notion of digital transformation is
now fairly advanced with many
organizations working on transforming
their businesses
just like we saw over this last year
koba 19
definitely forced companies to take
radical steps to adopt technology
advancements
modernize their culture and
organizational structures
third and a very important one is the
use of on-demand workforces
companies will focus on tools and
strategies to use and retain on-demand
people
with the economic impact of coven 19
companies and people will embrace
on-demand workforce models and platforms
this will improve workforce planning
financial management and access to a
diverse skill set
companies should understand that and
learn how to engage and retain on-demand
talent while
with improved people management programs
along with strategies and tools that
make
room for an on-demand workforce this is
exactly why venture expert advisors was
created
and it's the core of what we do the
timing now is key and it is important
for organizations to recognize the value
add in this model
four is in my opinion health care reform
companies will have to start
concentrating even more on health care
individual health care plans for their
employees
you know emotional connection will
become more important as people are
continually working from home the focus
on mental health is becoming more
apparent coming out of
coven five is that supply chains will
fragment and reconfigure so companies
will need to continue to create
breakthrough value for their customers
in this area
and six the definition of workplace will
be changing
um companies will start to cut back on
work travel and
and also recognize the power of
technology and the cost-saving benefits
that it provides
new types of workplaces are continually
emerging with the rise of remote working
and co-working spaces
um and seven being upskilling and
reskilling so
companies will be having to update their
education their training systems to use
virtual solutions
more effectively uh another big one is
urban transformation so commercial real
estate will have a reduced demand and
commercial space will have to be
rethought uh
nine rapid innovation will keep
businesses afloat so
new businesses have the opportunity to
innovate and disrupt this marketplace
and lastly new mindsets will drive
future success so
companies resistant to change will be
left behind
um that is why it's so important for all
of us to take note and be aware of these
emerging trends so today's businesses
need to be resilient and able to handle
major and minor
changes that come at a social personal
and economic levels
if we do not embrace change we will be
left behind
okay last question for you emily before
we move on
to the other panelists how do you feel
businesses can create a more resilient
business model
so a resilient organization is an
organization
that survives and thrives in the face of
adversity so
not only can resilient organizations
withstand shocks caused by
internal and external crises but they
even become stronger because of it so
resiliency requires a broad set of
competencies such as anticipating
understanding preventing containing and
most of all learning how to recover from
a crisis in a timely and systematic way
so
because only they can then we expect to
achieve a stable and
sustainable performance so it as it
turns out
organizations that are built around the
principles of resiliency are more
flexible
they have better functioning
organizations and they exhibit more
long-term stable performance
so these are the fundamental principles
behind venture expert advisors and
since venture experts was born during a
time of crisis
these resilient principles are the
foundation of its core business beliefs
so
if businesses are able to adapt in this
way they will only
uh set themselves up for long-term
success
great thanks emily appreciate that now
just want to pivot over to norman
could you tell us a little bit about
what excites you the most
about bea and its team what made you
want to join
bea as the chief advisor at this stage
in your career
thanks anu i'm really excited for the
concept of adventure expert advisors
now to become a reality as emily
mentioned
ventured expert advisors was born in the
time of the pandemic
and has a unique insight and team and
experience to know how to become
resilient
the venture advisors team is made up of
talent that cannot be matched
on top of that you only have you have
access
not only to one individual you have
access to the entire network
so i wanted to be part of a venture
expert advisors team
because i believe in the concept and my
background and experience
will be an asset to our team and our
clients because i've seen all of it
great so norman
in your career what was the most unique
challenge you've experienced
as a business owner and how do you see
pandemic affecting businesses in short
like
what advice would you give businesses
moving forward
i have to tell you the pandemic was a
shock to everybody and to our business
the one thing that it did teach us is to
be flexible
and to be agile during this this time
our business has changed 180 degrees
during this pandemic
and again as i said just a second ago to
be agile and to be flexible during this
time is was crucial
our businesses providing auction
software to auctioneers
for timed and online auctions when a
pandemic hit
our clients could not have in-person
auctions and they were forced to run
timed online and virtual auctions we had
to adapt to the industry
strengthen our core infrastructure and
help
them evolve into what is now the new
normal
after coming out of the pandemic our
business is stronger than ever
our customers have found a new revenue
stream
of running timed in virtual auctions and
it's been a win-win for all

thanks norman thank you for that insight
i'm sure
the wisdom that you've shared will have
a huge impact on our audience now i'd
like to turn it over
to darren darren uh could you
tell us a little bit about your
expertise and what
clients will see when they're working
with you as a subject matter expert
sure thank you thank you uh well despite
being a recovering lawyer
i've owned run or advised businesses and
everything from retail to manufacturing
to tech services everywhere from the
east coast to hiroshima japan
where i spent a year running a product
manufacturer speaking really poor
japanese
and becoming an expert on nothing so
much as ramen consumption
so with me you get a really holistic
view and multicultural lens of business
i've been a part of many successful
companies and no
two of them did it the same way at all
which has made my approach completely
different for
each company i advise i don't think
there's one right way to do
anything but that there's a right way
for you and your company
and i believe i have the breadth of
experience to help people
find their authentic way
um darren what does a resilient leader
look like to you and how do you help
founders
become exceptional leaders
so to me a resilient leader is one who's
able to let go
of both theirs and others preconceived
notions about
what a leader should look or act like uh
only by unearthing those stories and
drivers
that inform that programming around what
they think those things should look like
and sometimes it's very deeply buried
but only by really getting underneath
that can someone come into their own
and generate the unique principles that
when honored
will allow them to both lead and live
successfully on their own terms
you know anyone who's been part of
founding a company knows that
starting something and leading something
are two very different skill sets
as they're two very different things and
unfortunately not all founders make that
transition especially
naturally or especially well i mean
there's a reason steve jobs got
thrown out of apple until he grew up a
bit right
so tactically i aim to help people work
to maximize their strengths
mitigate their weak specific weaknesses
by building great teams and managing
them effectively
and then on the personal side i really
want to drill down on the whys
and support the examination of certain
behaviors or beliefs
that are driving certain actions and
they're challenging or kind of reframing
those so that together we can make sure
that's what being built
actually gets you something you want
i've seen too many people with too much
financial success and too little
happiness or life satisfaction
um it's my belief that when a leader is
clear on these things
knows why they're doing what they're
doing and the path they're on
their path they're carving they can have
a company
that has a stable platform on which to
grow
darren what ships have you noticed
during the pandemic that ceos
founders executive teams have all had to
adapt
on matters ranging all the way from
operational efficiency
and human resource management to
maximizing sales and marketing
opportunities
what do you think will be the key
takeaways for leaders
on these initiatives postpending
i probably i think it's worth asking
what didn't change as a result of the
pandemic i mean there were so many
baseline assumptions that we were all
making of these
unshakable unassailable facts that
turned out to be
anything but you know and then
compounded on to that
we're much more interconnected and
interdependent than most of us
i think especially here in america would
have wanted to admit before the pandemic
you know remote work is probably the
obvious low-hanging fruit to talk about
here and the way it has impacted not
only
operational efficiency and effective
management but
how work is now integrated into people's
lives in a much more direct
uh inescapable way than it was before
and what that means to the organizations
they interact with
i believe leaders need to be really
cautious about navigating the return to
work and how employees are reacting to
the idea that's
something that was mandatory for more
than a year potentially becomes a
privilege again and what does that mean
to them and what does that mean to the
organization and how they are
relating to it and you know also in a
sort of
you don't know what you've got till it's
gone situation i think we undervalued
what
popping into someone's office to chat
about something completely innocuous for
10 minutes
kind of does for a relationship long
term and that zoom happy hours didn't
really cut
it as an attempt to replicate that kind
of engagement
so there's a lot of work to be done
there and you know people keep talking
about getting
back to normal and to me that's complete
fiction that there is no getting back
that
the curtain really was uh pulled back in
covet and people realized
it was all a bit of a house of cards and
you know the thing is it still will be
that we're again going to be wrong about
foundational issues that we're taking
for granted
and the trouble is it's impossible to
know which ones
so there's going forward to the new
normal and we'll need to maximize our
powers of flexibility and resilience to
embrace
whatever that looks like and and the
challenges that it presents
thank you daryn what's up brooke
over to you now uh what could you tell
us a little bit more about
your expertise and what clients will be
seeing while working with you as a
subject matter expert
yes thanks anub and thank you everyone
i'm really happy to be here
i have over 25 years of experience
in learning and organizational
development i
started um in in retail and
i worked my way up and i saw from a very
early
point in my career the impact of
learning
growing and bringing people up with you
um has on professional lives and also
uh the business and i have been
consulting
on my own for just about 15 years now
and when i look back at my career and
what i'm focused on now
i help leaders at all levels achieve
personal and professional breakthroughs
and i also help
executives and hr professionals build
their leadership pipeline by redefining
leadership development
great so brooke in your opinion what's
required of
leaders at all levels now and in the
future
yeah thanks i i have this new phrase
which is
the latter is broken and the view from
the top
isn't always what it's cracked up to be
and i think really what that
is referring to is that we have sort of
been raised in an environment where we
think up
is the only way and i need to get to
that certain job or that certain level
or that certain title
but actually i've lived this myself and
i'm sure many of our viewers have
that when we when we get there we
realize this isn't exactly what i
thought
or maybe that job that we've been
striving for
doesn't exist anymore because the world
has changed the company has changed and
the
and the structure and the needs have
changed
so based on what i'm seeing and what a
growing
body of research supports in
in order to really appeal to what emily
referred to and i
believe is true this on-demand workforce
if we want to improve inclusion and we
want to boost resilience
we need to be developing leaders at all
levels
and that's regardless of title that's
regardless of whether you manage people
or not
we need to be cultivating our leaders
wherever they are
where they are so that they can be ready
for the next
thing whether that's a pandemic or
post-pandemic life
and i think really it boils down to
a series of really important skills that
leaders at all levels need to cultivate
first and foremost before everything is
self-awareness
it starts at home we need to look inward
at what
darren really referred to as our
strengths and potential opportunities
and then we can take that knowledge and
we can focus outward
so self-awareness is one resilience as
we've been talking about throughout our
webinar so far
so i will echo that importance being
curious really asking the right
questions
examining things really wondering is
this really what it's appearing to be or
is there more and what questions can i
ask to really unearth the root cause
the fourth is what i call nuanced or
agile thinking
we have seen and we know this to be true
the world is complex and i often find we
try to force
fit one size fits all solutions into
complex
problems or on complex problems so
really
nuanced thinking digging in and
exploring the different aspects
of a problem situation or a skill you're
trying to develop
the next i will put these together
initiative
and accountability stepping up letting
people know what you're interested in
what your talents are your passions are
and connecting those to the
organizational needs and
being accountable owning your impact
when it's great and when it's not so
great
again linking back to self-awareness
inspiration and motivation being that
person who
can see around the corner so to speak
and see the future
so to speak and get excited about it and
get others
excited about it and that doesn't just
have to be at the
most senior levels of the organization
and last but not least and these are not
in any order uh dialogue and
communication
the ability to have dialogue
amongst our teams up down
all around interesting so
what can companies do to develop their
leadership pipeline
in in light of all these emerging
requirements as you mentioned
yeah thank you so unfortunately what
i've been seeing in working with clients
over the years is that
we tend to be mired in
old school or more traditional org
charts
and outdated performance management
systems that perpetuate this myth
that up is the only way they
know that a different way exists but
they don't know how to get there
and that's really where we're playing
right now i think looking at the systems
the processes that have gotten you to
this point
or maybe you realize might have a crack
and need to be re-examined
now is a great time to do this
and like most of us i have spent the
last 15 months revamping
everything i was doing in person and
creating modular
highly interactive virtual experiences
and i've been helping my clients do the
same and in summary
here are my strategies for developing
leaders at all levels
and what organizations can do
to move this process along one
meet the learner where they are so
convin combine
virtual and in-person experiences in
bite-sized chunks
that have a through line for interim
application that keeps the learning
alive two we have to redefine
success we need to talk about
development as something other than
promotion and we've all heard this
comparison of
scarcity versus abundance i think we've
lived in a world where we thought
well if i develop somebody and they
leave
that's a scarcity mentality like i will
lose that person but we're actually
building talent for the organization
and interestingly enough i think we're
seeing post pandemic
that scarcity actually is really
happening it is the job seekers market
so in order to appeal and to create our
leadership pipeline we need to create an
environment where people know that
they're going to be developed
that they can grow any way they would
like
and they will be ready for the jobs of
the future
and then third walk the talk learning
and development
is just one component of behavior change
and
really when we think about that we have
to also add in
[Music]
um processes so things like aligning
rewards with this new way of thinking
and
culture so we have training we have
processes and we have culture
the culture things like vision mission
values really reinforces and provides
the framework to bring
these new strategies and ways of
thinking alive
very cool on the point about pandemic
what impact has you know we've all gone
virtual now
like we're doing right now so what
impact has going fully virtual
had on leadership development and the
acquisition
of leadership skills yeah so
clearly it's been a big shift right but
i think
that we have proven that it it can be
done
um i as i mentioned earlier i used to do
fully multi-day
in-person workshops that require people
to
leave their families and homes for days
on end add in travel costs and all of
that
and then it's so much so fast that when
it comes back
to integrating it it's really hard to do
it's like drinking from a fire hose so
i think we have really proven that it
can be done but
you need things like thoughtful design
and facilitation really thinking about
how do i want to structure this so we
have again bite-sized chunks
virtual and in person and
then facilitating it in a way that
brings in different
modalities and different learning styles
the
second thing is we need support so
learners need support from all sides
they need support from
their direct managers from their teams
and they need to pass that learning on
to the people that report to them
if that's the case so support and then
reinforcement creating accountability
and practical application it's never
been enough just to say
go to this class and you'll be fixed or
it'll be a magic pill and i think that's
more important
than ever that we need reinforcement
back on the job
and both the training the culture and
the processes
can be created in concert to create an
environment where
that reinforcement can take place
thanks brooke michael over to you now
could you tell us a little bit about
your expertise and
what clients will be seeing when they
work with you as a subject matter expert
absolutely thank you very much anub and
uh really glad to be here with venture
expert advisors today i bring a very
non-traditional perspective of human
resources to clients honed from over 20
years of experience as an owner of my
own business
and management of multi-million dollar
units to human resources leadership
and project management having worked
with small medium and large
enterprises both privately held and
publicly traded
i can understand and relate to the needs
of executive business leaders
their challenges and their struggles i
apply a very strong
business acumen to strategic human
capital solutions
what did companies struggle with in
terms of hr
during the pandemic and how can they do
a better job going forward
that's a really big question hr had a
lot thrown at them in a very short
period of time
i couldn't sit here and list all of them
it would definitely take too long
but a few of the elements that are
important to mention first and foremost
employers
didn't deal with layoffs and furloughs
often enough
and weren't really up to speed on what
to do or how to do it
many of them got a crash course quite
quickly laws were constantly and very
rapidly changing
we had the introduction of the cares act
the family's first chronovirus response
act
and some of these laws were even
changing within this time period the
ffcra went through three or four
different iterations already and
adjustments
osha compliance became a really big
issue for many companies
that didn't really have to deal with
osha very frequently we all learned what
was ppe
now we all know uh but then we also had
to the implementation of rapidly
changing and
regionally different uh covet 19
protocols to contend with
technology change at a very rapid pace
uh you know you know we talk about
businesses uh in an e-commerce world
seeing
e-commerce uh advanced three years just
in 2020 alone
well technology advanced for human
resources and other businesses
similarly video conferencing which was
seldom used
prior to this pandemic by most
businesses became the normative way of
uh communicating and keeping in contact
with your people
obtaining and dis and distributing
mobile computing devices and
doing the training coaching and
developing at a very operational uh
and transactional level with your people
was a big issue for many hr personnel
compliance issues blew up all over the
place
with the advent of covet 19 just looking
at covet 19 protocols alone
2020 yielded 3.8 million dollars in
violations uh fined by osha uh as a
result of that
but other elements that businesses had
to contend with
wage and hour violations related to
temperature checks and the donating and
doffing of ppe
hipaa violations related to protected
health information exposure and what
companies could and couldn't ask of
their employees
warn act violations from all the rapid
layoffs and furloughs that happened
these things varied in some cases state
to state with some being more or less
lenient than others
and then you had to bring all of these
employees back
and that created its own set of rapid
challenges
there were a lot of eeoc violations when
with regards to who was brought back and
who wasn't
um you had i-9 compliance when
onboarding people
how are you going to do that in a remote
environment
to do a better job looking forward human
resources needs to focus on a variety
variety of different elements
first and foremost they need to be
intimately involved
with the disaster planning and that
includes the development
of business continuity plans and with
infectious disease control plans
they need to set up more strategic
partnerships
within the businesses and ensure that
they have someone responsible for
monitoring the legal landscape updating
and
different policies processes and
procedures on a regular basis
but most importantly they have to focus
on building
stronger partnerships within business
leadership and other cross-functional
areas within their businesses
got it yeah a lot did happen
so uh how do you think companies will
shift the way
they treat people moving forward
very good question people are a
company's most important asset
and they just need to treat them as such
many employees
saw how their companies treated their
people looking at
who was laid off and furloughed versus
who was not who was brought
back versus who was not who was allowed
to do
remote work versus who was required to
be on site
mission critical to work on premises
they weren't really happy with what they
saw on how some of these things were
handled
even if there were good solid business
case reasons for doing what was done
this differentiation between people not
being handled well
a lot of it was due to transparency or
the lack of transparency
transparency to the extent possible is
so important
um it's even as important if not more
important than the clear and effective
communication that's necessary as part
of that
to treat people better business leaders
should exemplify the desired culture of
their company in how they treat their
people
hr needs to lead difficult conversations
with employees and share
transparently what when why
how rumors need to be quelled and
communication needs to be consistent
and continuous each decision that is
going to be made whether it's by human
resources or other business leaders
needs to be done in the context of what
their corporate mission
vision and values are what their
strategic plan and goals and outcomes
are and that's means sometimes that
business leaders even the executives of
your organization need to be challenged
just because hr challenges uh leadership
to act and behave in a manner that is
consistent with their
corporate values doesn't mean you're
always going to change
leadership's mind but they still need to
focus on challenging where
appropriate in order to ensure uh
compliance and to reduce risks for the
organization
uh there weren't any leaders in
businesses
anywhere on the planet who were alive
during
anything quite like this uh from a
disaster magnitude or scale
this was new territory for everyone so
we've all had to learn quite a lot
absolutely in fact i could keep talking
about this with you for a long time
right
but just in the interest of time one
last question for you
what do you think top talent looks for
in an employer what are the most
effective ways
to get that top talent in times when
finding talent has just become so hard
excellent question everybody is
different
there are so many different elements and
the needs of one are not the same as the
needs of others
however there are some consistency that
top talent tends to look for
in employers first and foremost is
freedom
now we're talking about the freedom to
do the work that they were hired to do
don't focus on micromanaging them
they're professionals
they should be able to execute what you
need them to execute
respect and that's respect for them as a
person but also respect for the
contributions
to the business how you talk with them
and not always
to them is going to be critical there
listening
and this is actually hearing what they
have to say
being open to new ideas even ones that
challenge the status quo
empathy not sympathy we're focused on
understanding first before trying to be
understood
and of course transparency as i've
mentioned before is so critical to a
business
share openly to the extent possible we
all understand that there are some
things that must remain
confidential but some people withhold
information for power's sake
that's not going to be something that's
beneficial to a company that's going to
damage employee engagement
and overall performance
thank you for that insight michael
natalie
over to you could you tell us a little
bit more about your expertise
and what clients would expect to see
when working with you
as a subject matter expert well you know
how darin said he's a recovering lawyer
i'm a recovering journalist
i was at cnn for sort of the formative
years of my career i was a correspondent
and at heart i'm still a storyteller and
i focus a lot on
writing editing telling stories of our
clients
and figuring out how to message things
whether it's the everyday messaging or
difficult things as well
in my communications practice i'm the
story person and i have a partner who
works on
outreach placing stories in the media or
figuring out
other ways to reach the audiences we
need to reach the
biggest thing we focus on is uh we don't
communicate
for the sake of communicating we see all
of our work through a strategic lens
what are your organization's goals how
can our communications work advance
your goals so unless it's a one-off
event we usually start with a strategic
communications plan and we look ahead at
what an organization is trying to do
over the next six or nine or 12 months
try to figure out what their top
organizational goals are
who are the audiences they need to meet
to achieve those goals and how can we
help them do that
and we'll come up with a calendar of uh
strategies and tactics and when things
should happen
we've come up with a beautiful plan that
always has to change
because there's always challenges that
arise
and um crises which we've seen a super
abundance of over the last couple years
where you have to rip up the plan and um
are part of the plan anyway and start it
again
i also like to work with my clients on a
strategic
messaging process a lot of the times
messaging uh for a for a company is all
over the map
and different silos talk about things in
different ways so we try to take all of
that and boil it down to a strategic
messaging guide
it can be as little as one or two pages
six or seven talking points each
supported with
statistics or anecdotes or alternate
ways
of saying things and that way everybody
in the organization
and external consultants like us um
they know it's approved language that
they can be used
that can be used with confidence they
know that language can be used in
speeches website
um reporter calls you up just whip out
your talking points
it's the building blocks for a lot of
the communication throughout
that six months or nine months or a year
um we also sometimes do elevator
speeches um
extra messaging for difficult audiences
answers to tough questions that the
companies anticipating
uh and then in addition to all that
planning
we we will usually be the people who
execute it that doesn't happen
have to happen but um i do things like
ghostwrite op-eds and then my associates
amplify it and social media
we'll do videos for your website we'll
write your website um
we will um my with my partner will
handle media outreach for a launch event
uh coordinate interviews um and we're
generally available
for advice and that includes when not to
communicate
because sometimes you really don't want
to and in all of that we always keep
our clients goals in mind
great how has this work changed
in light of digitization that's been
happening
well a lot of what we do has to do with
media relations
so a lot of it has to do with the news
media
so we've been through a couple of
decades now of enormous
change the internet and digital news
sources continue to kill off
local news sources because newspapers
can't
make as much digitally the new business
models aren't working
for print so just to give you one
a couple facts and figures um the number
of
us newsroom newspaper jobs has was cut
in half between 2008
and 2019 and that's before the pandemic
we've had about 1800 newspapers closed
since 2004 although that's a lot of
weeklies
so what does this mean well that means
that there are
fewer highly trained journalists to
approach but also there are new digital
sources of information that we need to
work with
um the audience is very fragmented
and now uh social media can even be
considered a news source
but there's no editor so there are some
tricky calculations involved with that
there are fewer reporters doing more
work than ever
so for us the most important thing
in terms of especially media outreach
has proven to be
creating relationships with reporters
who are interested in key topics for our
clients
because everybody's ending up job
hopping
freelancing creating a sub stack
newsletter that suddenly blows up and
for some industries that's the must read
and the newspaper isn't anymore so we
have to keep our
our finger on the pulse of all those
changes
and through it all try to maintain
relationships with reporters and that
pays off because
somebody that you knew when they were
with a trade publication
you know makes their way to maybe a
national news source and then maybe to
you know the go-to source for that
industry you've already built that
relationship and it can really help with
story pitching
um we also there's been some other
assorted pages with digitization um
one of the biggest has been that
attention spans are shrinking
you have to get your message out so
quickly these days uh it has to fit
on your phone um and when you have
clients
as we do whose work is somewhat complex
or their story is somewhat complex
that can require some serious attention
paid to how you tell the story
is it visual and how do you break it up
into bites so that you can
let the people who need to know about
you know about you even at a time
when nobody's attention span is longer
than oh 248 characters
got it really interesting natalie and of
course i have to ask the mandatory
coveted question
how has kobe changed communications
right and is this short term or is it a
permanent change
well it's a little bit of both um
2020 was a disaster for the news media a
record number of job cuts in the u.s
newsrooms even worse than 2008 there was
something like
16 000 jobs lost and we're talking abc
new york times
um and digital outlets like buzzfeed and
vice media
and this was all because of the decline
in advertising sales
they just had to lay people off will
some of that be permanent
yeah it might be um some of it will
probably come back especially for
digital news sources
but it just puts additional pressure on
the importance of media relationships
because some of those people who got
laid off are going away and they're not
going to come back
some of the other things we've been
dealing with i think
comfort with remote events is going to
be worth watching
there was a time when you always held a
press conference in person
nobody does that during coven what will
we see next well it could be that people
are going to be more comfortable with
remote events
it could be that we'll see more hybrids
where you can either go to the event or
dial in over the internet we're already
seeing a lot of that
i also wonder if it will affect
the willingness of journalists to
conduct remote interviews you know when
i used to be in television you wouldn't
do a remote interview you needed your
terrific
80 000 camera to get beautiful audio and
beautiful video
now everybody's quite used to people you
know doing videos with their iphones and
showing up over skype i don't know
whether that will continue or not but
that's something worth
worth watching um in terms of remote
work
for us we've been doing it that way
anyway for years um
i work from home my business partner
prefers a co-working space
um so that's nothing new and it that
hasn't really hurt us at all
but um one legacy that i think is a
problem a noob and that's
everybody wants a zoom call and
sometimes i just like to leave my hair a
mess and do a regular phone call
appreciate that natalie so do we all
um david last but not least over to you

same question could you tell us a little
bit about your expertise
and what we what a client should be
expecting while they work with you
as a subject matter expert yeah thanks
anub and i'm
excited to be here and part of this
awesome team so for like the last 10
years i've been in digital marketing
working with startups and businesses
transforming their digital presence or
fixing
whatever presence that they had or try
to get them online
and actually develop and deploy a
marketing strategy
so basically working with myself
um it's kind of like a custom fit i like
to
understand the client and their their
needs as well as who is their customer
but also what are the issues that the
customers facing
especially if it's shopping online or
trying to find something online
perfect so david in your opinion how
well
were businesses prepared to handle the
pandemic in terms of their digital
presence
setting up shopping cms
yeah i think basically from the pandemic
i mean it
kind of categorizes businesses in two
buckets one is
the businesses that had invested prior
to the pandemic and were
already deployed with some sort of
strategy and have
already been kind of diving into into
the future
and being more accessible those made off
well
and obviously you know things with the
pandemic in terms of logistics supply
chain then there's issues but
then there was the businesses that
weren't quite there
or their industry wasn't kind of up to
par to other
industries and their digital standards
so i think
um you know basically it was kind of
like a fight or flight
type of situation and and now i mean
everyone sees the power of digital
and trying to reach your customer
whether they're down the street
or in another country or another
continent
so what was nice though with some of the
tools and features that had come out
previous to the pandemic is that there's
a lot of tools and software that
are pretty easy to get your business set
up with install and running
especially like the do-it-yourself cms
for your web presence so i think there
was a record number of people creating
shopify websites there's squarespace
wix wordpress and kind of businesses no
matter where they were
in terms of their online presence they
were able to
try to dive right in even if it was you
know
a complete emergency and a pandemic so
at least people weren't
caught without resources when they were
looking for it
got it to build on that then what
changes do
businesses need to make going forward
yeah i think a lot of the businesses
once they
if they were diving into digital for the
first time they realize how big of a
world it was
and then that they know that and
understand
that they can't just do it on their own
and that they need a strategy
and that there's competition and that
competition is growing
so i think the the biggest change moving
forward out of the pandemic
is that businesses are looking for a
team or
some sort of solution for their
workforce for digital
i mean for their businesses overall but
especially for digital
who's going to how are they going to
develop a strategy and how are they
going to execute
and also you know compete against comp
competitors
and my mandatory coveted question for
you david so
kova definitely accelerated a lot of
digital tech by several years right
so in your opinion what comes next
yeah i think what comes next i mean
digital is definitely
like accelerated like crazy and there's
not really a going back
i think the one big thing that a lot of
businesses had had prior to the pandemic
was having a ton of data and the problem
with the pandemic is things are moving
so fast
that now i think what will change is how
businesses
are able to process all this data they
have
from online or their operations and then
how to
quickly and effectively make decisions
and then enhance their business
without you know taking too much risk
so especially for digital again
everything is moving quickly
things are what's cool is that the
software the services
and the platforms they're getting more
robust but they're also
being built where you know your company
can
implement and integrate with a solution
right away
so i think you'll see what do we do with
all this data
and increasing competition online as
well as
more tools more integrations more things
to automate and make our lives easier
absolutely i can't agree with you more
david thanks again for
the insights so to just bring it all
back
um i know i've been harping on the
pandemic theme but really the pandemic
did change
everything it just threw business on its
head
and those who were not prepared to
adjust they failed
those who were prepared they survived
now moving forward
businesses will need to create much more
resilient business models
and the way i see it this is a great
time for
consultants like all of you to be
helping to step in and help
companies succeed and a great team like
ea has put together would be a great
asset for that
so emily briefly could you discuss how
companies can work
with venture expert advisors and how
your team can actually help them
so one of the beautiful things about uh
venture expert advisors other than the
top talent
comes down to our flexibility we want to
make a long stern
long-term sustainable business model for
our clients
and for ourselves we're extremely
flexible to work with we have a team of
very very talent that offers hourly
custom standard packages allowing our
customers to scale up and down
um with our team as necessary so think
of us
as a work workforce as a service model
so when you think of it that way it
should give you a sign of relief
knowing that you will never again be in
a bind or have to spend
ancillary costs so before you go to make
your next internal hire
think to yourself would it be possible
for venture experts team
to help us with this project while
helping us save time and money in the
end think about how much goes into
onboarding a new employee and
the costs associated with hiring a
full-time employee with the benefits
and the offerings needed in order to get
top talent these days
let us help you reach your goals in the
in the most resilient way
if you're interested in learning more
i'd be happy to have a free consultation
call with anybody and
we can chat further and dive into those
aspects
perfect now that i really like that idea
right
top talent as a service because i mean
so hard these days to
even get top talent and you've put
together
a nice bench of really good talent that
you can just tap
when needed that that's powerful so yeah
i would love to
like learn all the specialties of all
your experts
what i learned today already was really
really exciting
um so i just want to quickly now
turn over to our audience for the q a
and ask either emily or the rest of the
experts
questions that they might have
i'm already seeing a few
questions here one of them i think
it is addressed at michael
what do you think about reskilling
how can we rescale an existing workforce
you know that that's a really good
question
um it's a critical challenge for
businesses facing today um
strategic workforce planning is looking
at uh
where your company is today where your
company wants to be as part of that
strategic plan
and then planning the human capital
changes that are necessary to achieve
that future state
that means that there's going to be some
roles that are going to go away and
there's going to be some roles that
don't exist today that have to be
created
the challenge is do you upskill the
current existing
workforce to slot for those new roles
that are coming down the pipeline
or some other balance most companies are
looking at the situation you do a
combination of
terminating people who are in roles that
are going away
and hiring new people for the new roles
coming in
but also doing some combination of
re-skilling at the same time
strategic human resources really looks
at
building the financial models that help
to
understand the costs and the return on
the investment for each of these
different options
but decisions are not going to be based
exclusively off of costs there are a lot
of people
issues to consider and other impacts to
the business as well
when reskilling your workforce you look
at learning and development some of your
small businesses
might not be able to have a robust
learning and development program
so you have to look at other options
whether it's online learning whether
it's bringing in outside external
consultants such as
venture expert advisors or perhaps even
working with
your state some states have state funded
training programs that can provide tax
breaks for businesses when they upskill
or reskill their employees
the options are quite varied it just
depends on the unique situation
great thanks michael i have another
question here
says you spoke to resiliency
and how important it is to recover and
learn from a crisis
this sounds a lot like the concept of a
growth mindset
how would you instill a growth mindset
in a client
who historically has been more rigid
when it comes to change
but actively wants to involve
i think i'll pass this one on to norman
[Music]
i think the key here is for the client
to be
open to new ideas i think today
in today's world all of us has have
emphasized
the ways to be resilient and to be
open to change to be agile and to be
ready to move to take on the next
challenge
somebody who's stuck in their ways is
going to be very difficult
you know to change but they have to
change in order to survive in the new
world
great thanks ron i have another question
what types of services do you offer
can you summarize the types of expertise
your team
has tossing this over to emily
yeah so um what we have about 30 plus
experts from the deep branch of
knowledge in different areas ranging
from
what you saw today from leadership and
uh development to
marketing um with whether that be
paid advertising seo website development
uh you know copywriting storytelling we
also deal with more crux
of financial modeling and also figuring
out the best ways
to bring your company um to the next
level of funding and getting your
company prepared
and put in the right hands also the
different partnerships that we have
as venture expert advisors we work with
organizations to help get you funded so
we kind of really filled the gamut
from soft skills to hard skills um kind
of
covering covering everything you heard
today we have some executive coaching
um so um we basically we fill it all and
we're industry agnostic which is also
really nice so
every part of these skill sets and the
people that we have on board
um have the ability to dig into the
trenches whether or not you're in a
niche industry or whether or not
you're in a more broad industries i
think that the skill set and the
processes
in place um work with any organization
at a smaller larger level
great one last question how's this
on demand workforce that you have
described with vea
different from a traditional staff
augmentation
again yeah sure that that is a great
question
so with a traditional staff augmentation
firm you typically
are only hiring one staff member at a
time and are paying an expensive price
tag for that hire
with our team you get access to our
network of experts
creating a one-stop shop approach for
handling projects and more
also you have the ability to plug and
play to help staff a project
add a resource for a specific project or
a period of time
get a specific question answered get
coaching marketing
finance advice all under one umbrella
perfect and with that i think we're up
on time
just want to take a minute to thank
everyone
this was really interesting i learned a
ton on
not just what's happening right now but
also the emerging trends that can shape
our future going forward
and hopefully you know all of us can
also see how vea
and the expert team here can help us all
with our businesses going forward
all right everybody have a great day and
stay safe