by RJ Thompson | Jun 5, 2020
Marketing Mondays – join us during your lunch hour and listen in to local and national marketing experts on varying topics to sharpen your marketing skills.
Using Customer Insights to Transform Organizations
Many companies listen to the voice of the customer. It can increase marketing ROI, drive product strategy, and improve customer loyalty. But most companies don’t realize the power of the customer to drive internal change.
Using two compelling case studies—one about a market leader struggling to stave off new competition, another about the challenges of bringing disruptive technology to market—this presentation shows the power of the customer to inspire change.
You’ll learn specific tools and techniques to use customer insights to overcome ingrained behaviors and become a rallying cry for organizational change.
Learning objectives:
- Recognize situations in which your organization is being resistant to change.
- Learn approaches for using customer insights to inspire change within your organization.
- Learn best practices for using insights to make your organization more agile and customer-focused.
Scott Seidewitz, Founder & Principal, The Seidewitz Group

A graduate of MIT, a former P&G brand manager, and a former political activist, Scott has never shied away from challenging the conventional wisdom. With a sharp business perspective and deep understanding of market research best practices, Scott specializes in showing how conventional research often stifles innovation and growth. Scott is also an innovator in applying the science of memory and motivation to marketing, showing how consumers often don’t know the reasons for their own purchase behavior. Scott has worked with companies large and small, including Merck, Teva Neuroscience, Boston Scientific, Align Technology (makers of Invisalign), Alibaba, Intel, and Intuit. He is a recipient of a National Citation of Excellence from the American Advertising Federation.
by RJ Thompson | May 14, 2020
Marketing Mondays – join us during your lunch hour and listen in to local and national marketing experts on varying topics to sharpen your marketing skills.
eCommerce Sales Across Borders
7.5 billion people live outside of the United States, representing an enormous pool of potential customers. Tapping into these markets can lead to new product opportunities, new partners, and new revenue streams. Here’s the catch: English is not always the best way language for engagement. Capturing new audiences with international marketing requires not just literal translations but careful considerations of cultural context. One innocent idiom or accidental geopolitical misstep could ruin your campaign before it begins.
Patrick Schober, Creative Lead, Carper Communications

After three years at the helm of multiple finance publications in the Philadelphia region, Pat moved to Pittsburgh to transition into content marketing. Now, instead of reporting on the latest business trends and regulatory updates, Pat spends his days helping companies increase revenue through innovative blends of original content and advertising. When he’s not at his desk, you’ll find Pat reading, writing about music, or camping with his wife, Regina, and dog, Fallon.
Carper Communications: LinkedIn
by RJ Thompson | May 13, 2020
Marketing Mondays – join us during your lunch hour and listen in to local and national marketing experts on varying topics to sharpen your marketing skills.
Effective Crisis Communication Amid COVID-19
The COVID-19 outbreak has resulted in unprecedented challenges for everyone. In the midst of the pandemic, the need for organizations to communicate more frequently and effectively is evident, particularly as economies begin to open up again. In this webinar, C4CS® provides practical guidance to help communicators and marketers to devise successful strategies and craft compelling messages for all stakeholders – internal and external.
Oliver Schmidt, President & CEO, C4CS

A native of Berlin, Germany, Mr. Schmidt has more than 25 years of consulting, training, and executive coaching experience in the areas of strategic communication, crisis management, and organizational leadership. He speaks multiple languages and has lived and worked in North America, Europe, and Asia.
Mr. Schmidt routinely advises business leaders including the CEOs and members of the board of directors of publicly listed and privately held corporations regarding high stakes business issues. On the consulting end his focus is on working with domestic and international client partners in the areas of crisis and risk communication, employee and change communication, issues and stakeholder management, and reputation and crisis management.
Due to his unique background, Mr. Schmidt possesses a rare sense of cultural differences and their role in ethnically diverse and multinational corporations. He is capable of both quickly assessing complex business issues and guiding a comprehensive response while providing client partners with a depth of understanding and competence.
In confidential executive coaching sessions, Mr. Schmidt helps senior managers improve their crisis management, communication, and leadership expertise. This holistic approach is geared toward enhancing important leadership skills including public speaking, effective decision making in times of crisis, winning over stakeholders, and becoming a more confident and effective leader.
Mr. Schmidt is frequently invited to make presentations and conduct management training. He has addressed professional audiences in several dozen countries on topics ranging from crisis and risk communication to issues and reputation management and leadership coaching. While he often speaks at conferences that focus on corporate communication or crisis management, Mr. Schmidt is also regularly invited to present to corporate boards and senior management teams in the areas of strategic communication, crisis management, and leadership. Additionally, Mr. Schmidt conducts recurring Continuing Legal Education (CLE) classes on such topics as crisis communication and crisis management, and he teaches an online course on Harnessing the Power of Social Media in a Crisis.
A former affiliate of the Center for Global Public Relations (CGPR) at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Mr. Schmidt has been active in a number of professional organizations including the Association of Contingency Planners (ACP) and the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). He is currently serving as a member of the Global Affairs Committee within the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and a member of the Local Emergency Planning Committee (LEPC) for Allegheny County in Pennsylvania.
Mr. Schmidt possesses a Master’s degree in Communication Science and Business Administration and has been a guest lecturer at leading universities in several countries. A Friedrich Naumann scholar, Japanese Foreign Ministry fellow and recipient of a Fulbright Grant, Mr. Schmidt has been interviewed by various industry and mainstream media and contributed to trade and peer-reviewed publications including Bulldog Reporter, The Business Communicator, Communication World, Continuity Insights, Disaster Resource Guide, PR Week, Risk and Resilience HUB, and Smart Business Magazine.
In his free time, Mr. Schmidt enjoys biking, swimming, and soccer with his wife and his children. His interest in learning about and exploring foreign cultures has turned him into a fan of travel literature. An avid fly fisherman, Mr. Schmidt can be found wading the streams feeding Lake Erie, preferably going after steelhead.
C4CS: Twitter | LinkedIn
by RJ Thompson | May 13, 2020
Marketing Mondays – join us during your lunch hour and listen in to local and national marketing experts on varying topics to sharpen your marketing skills.
Change Management, Even for the Change-Averse
If the past two months have taught us anything, it’s that the only constant is change. Join Shannon J. Gregg as she explains Change Management Theory and how to apply it to your marketing initiatives. Gain buy-in from internal teams and external prospects and clients by applying these theoretical approaches to your marketing motions.
Shannon Gregg, Owner, Cloud Adoption Solutions

Shannon J. Gregg, MBA, is an aficionado of sales technology to increase efficiency in the sales process, and an early adopter and adoption influencer for sales technology systems, particularly Salesforce.com and technology that integrates with the Salesforce platform. Shannon is known as a change agent, particularly in M&A environments (VC/PE), with a successful track record of integrating process, product/service pricing, and pricing methodologies, and notably, global teams, with cultural sensitivity.
Having stood up three sales operations teams in technology firms, Shannon is no stranger to the needs of a growing company to identify efficient and effective sales processes in order to drive revenue as quickly as possible. She’s hyper-focused on improving sales productivity and optimization and is known for her ability to hone in on areas to improve with a lean approach and her charismatic candor.
Shannon’s president of Cloud Adoption Solutions, a sales process, and Salesforce.com consulting practice, and she also provides keynote talks, consulting, and workshops on sales productivity. Her popular book, “It’s About Time,” is available now, and is being used by sales teams across the country to refocus on what’s really important to drive revenue and results.
Shannon delights sales teams, sales management, and executive sponsors with her ability to improve sales to drive results. She earned her BA from the University of Pittsburgh, her MBA from Point Park University, and is currently a Ph.D. student in Community Engagement. She also competes on a jazz dance team for moms.
Cloud Adoption Solutions: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn
by RJ Thompson | May 13, 2020
Marketing Mondays – join us during your lunch hour and listen in to local and national marketing experts on varying topics to sharpen your marketing skills.
The Agile Brand: How to Adapt and Stay Relevant in Changing Times
With a continually shifting economic climate and changing dynamics in the brand-consumer relationship, modern companies must be able to stay agile and adapt their approaches to branding, marketing, and communications in order to stay relevant. Best selling author Greg Kihlström share thoughts from his Agile series of books, including The Agile Brand, which highlights how companies can stay true to their core mission and values while maintaining a strong presence and relationship with their customers.
Greg Kihlstrom, The Agile World

Greg is the best selling author, speaker, and entrepreneur. He is currently President and Chief Experience Officer at Cravety and co-founder at CareerGig, after selling his digital experience agency, Carousel30, in 2017. He has worked with some of the world’s top brands, including AOL, Choice Hotels, Coca-Cola, GEICO, Marriott International, MTV, Starbucks, Toyota, and VMware. He currently serves on the University of Richmond’s Customer Experience Advisory Board, and was the founding Chair of the American Advertising Federation’s National Innovation Committee, and served on the Virginia Tech Pamplin College of Business Marketing Mentorship Advisory Board.
Greg’s newest book, The Center of Experience (2020) talks about how customer and employee experience can be operationalized into a cohesive brand experience. He wrote another book on customer and employee experience called Digital Delight (2019), that focuses on designing, implementing, and measuring CX and EX. Greg’s previous book, The Agile Consumer (2019) explores the most recent shifts in the brand-consumer relationship and how companies must become more agile across their entire operation to remain successful. The Agile Brand (2018), follows the evolution of branding from its beginnings to the authentic relationship with brands that modern consumers want and gives practical examples of what you can do to create a more modern, agile brand while staying true to your core values. His first book, The Agile Web (2016), discusses the changing landscape of digital marketing and customer experience. His podcast, The Agile World, launched in early 2019 and discusses brand strategy, marketing, and customer experience.
Greg was named 2018 50 on Fire winner from DC Inno as one of DC’s trendsetters in Marketing. He is a regular contributing writer to Forbes and has been featured in publications such as Advertising Age, SmartCEO, Website Magazine, and The Washington Post. He’s participated as a keynote speaker, panelist, and moderator at industry events around the world including Internet Week New York, Internet Summit, EventTech, SMX Social Media, Social Media Week, Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit, ABA Bank Marketing Summit, and VMworld. He has guest lectured at several schools including VCU Brandcenter, Georgetown University, Duke University, American University, University of Maryland, Howard University, and Virginia Tech.
The Agile World: Facebook | Instagram | Twitter | LinkedIn
The Agile Brand
The Agile Consumer