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Mark Buffington with BIP Capital
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Mark Buffington is co-founder and CEO of BIP Capital, which is recognized as one of the most active and successful venture investors in the Southeast. Additionally, he has co-founded three successful companies over the course of his career.
Since founding BIP Capital in 2006, Buffington has led investment rounds in more than 25 companies in a number of market verticals, including healthcare IT, Digital Media, Ed Tech, Enterprise Software, and FinTech. Notable exits include Vendormate, Ingenious Med, and Shareholder InSite
Buffington serves on the board of directors for several companies, including AchieveIt, ConnexPay, Trella Health, mLevel, PlayOn! Sports, Nview, and UserIQ. He also serves on several nonprofit boards, including KIPP Metro Atlanta Schools, the Georgia Tech College of Computing, and the Board of Trustees for the Alexander-Tharpe Fund (Georgia Tech AthleticEndowment).
He graduated from the Georgia Institute of Technology and has an MBA from the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University.
Follow BIP Capital on LinkedIn and Twitter.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
- Why it was important for BIP Capital to create a Return to Office plan for its own portfolio companies and the business community at large
- Highlights of some of the most important elements of this plan
- Advice to companies for navigating COVID-19 from a management perspective
- The results of a recent public survey BIP Capital conducted on how companies and their teams were returning to office
- Advice to companies that are struggling on business growth
About Our Sponsor
OnPay’s
payroll services and HR software give you more time to focus on what’s most important. Rated “Excellent” by PC Magazine, we make it easy to pay employees fast, we automate all payroll taxes, and we even keep all your HR and benefits organized and compliant.
Our award-winning customer service includes an accuracy guarantee, deep integrations with popular accounting software, and we’ll even enter all your employee information for you — whether you have five employees or 500. Take a closer look to see all the ways we can save you time and money in the back office.
BRX Pro Tip: Customer Service – Do Not Automate
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BRX Pro Tip: Customer Service – Do Not Automate
Stone Payton: [00:00:00] Welcome back to BRX Pro Tips. Stone Payton and Lee Kantor here with you. Lee, let’s continue our conversation on customer service. There are just some things you can’t really automate, right? And maybe this is one of them.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:16] Yeah. You know I’m a big fan about automating as many things as possible in order to scale the business, but customer service is a difficult thing to automate, and it might be impossible in terms of kind of really serving the clients that we have because, again, our business is we don’t have hundreds or thousands of clients. We’re not this mass company. We’re dealing with a handful of people. So, it’s better, I think, to lean into the customer service as a way to differentiate and provide more value to the clients because in our business, I mean, every client’s important and it’s worth the time invested in personalizing the experience, so that you can keep that client for a long time.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:58] So, I’m a big believer in over-promising and over-delivering. I think that we should give them an offer that is so overwhelming that that’s almost impossible to say no. And then, I believe that we have to over-deliver the service. And when you do that kind of regularly, you’re going to get the clients you need, and you’re going to keep them for a long time. But in order to overshoot and exceed their expectations, you better be charging enough, so that you can afford to do that in the manner that’s going to kind of deliver and over-deliver on the promise that you’re making.
High Velocity Radio: John Vuong with Local SEO Search
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John Vuong is the owner and founder of Local SEO Search.
His boutique agency specializes in Local SEO for small and medium-sized businesses.
John’s passions are relationship building and helping his clients not only rank, but also grow their business.
Connect with John on LinkedIn and Twitter and follow Local SEO on Facebook.
TMBS E95: Guillermo Miranda, IBM Corporate Social Respons.
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More About Guillermo Miranda:
Global Head, IBM Corporate Social Responsibility
https://www.linkedin.com/in/digitalmirandag/
In this role, Guillermo leads IBM’s responsible stewardship and social impact programs worldwide. IBM has long been a leader in setting new business standards and in taking social stands on important issues. Guillermo is working to expand IBM’s strong history of social impact by prioritizing investments to tackle societal challenges like reinventing education for the AI / Digital driven economy. He has made significant investments to drive systemic change on how IBM approaches its social purpose, in particular reinventing how IBMers give and engage with the communities in which they live and work.
Guillermo brings a vast international perspective and employee-centered mindset to corporate responsibility. Since 1997, Guillermo has served IBM in various leadership roles around the world, beginning in Peru and extending across Europe, Latin America, North America, Africa, and the Middle East. He is fluent in Spanish, English, and Portuguese.
He has held several senior leadership roles at the company including IBM’s Chief Learning Officer, People & Talent Head for the Digital Business Group, Regional HR VP for Africa & Middle East, among others. Prior to joining IBM, he served as the Chief Human Resources Officer of the InterAmerican Development Bank and the Peruvian Tax Agency (SUNAT).
Guillermo is the founding Chair of the Digital Learning Consortium, serves on the Board of Directors of IPCOM Global LLC. and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Digital Marketing Institute. He holds an MBA from Deusto University (Spain), and a Law degree from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. He and his family live near Washington, D. C.
SBBV E19: Clint Parry,Business Growth & Personal Dvlpmnt
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Clint Parry, MBA, SHRM-SCP and Business Development Manager
Focus HR
6464 E Grant Rd, Tucson, AZ 85715
(520) 721-6777
clint@focushr.net
SOCIAL MEDIA: Facebook | FocusHR Blog |LinkedIn | Twitter |
Clint Parry has a passion for business growth and personal development. At Focus HR, he helps small business owners accelerate their growth through HR outsourcing.
Clint began his career at Xerox Corporation, helping grow Xerox’s document outsourcing practice in Tucson by over $4M in revenue. Thereafter, he launched his own business coaching firm, ActionCOACH, where he coached over 300 business owners in Southern Arizona.
Most recently, Clint led strategy and client development for Lapin International, a strategy and leadership consulting firm focused on building purpose-driven companies and leaders.
Clint is a past columnist for Inside Tucson Business, the Arizona Daily Star, and one of Tucson’s 40 under 40. He earned a degree in Business Management from BYU, an MBA from the University of Arizona, and is an SHRM Senior Certified Professional.
About Your Host, Stephanie Rising
A business coach and author, Stephanie Rising has helped over 100 small business owners achieve greater proficiency, profitability, and sanity. She specializes in navigating the complexities of family-owned companies and partnerships with 5 to 25 employees. An expert small business advocate, she provides objective problem solving and accountability that has led many of her clients to award-winning achievement. Her clients have represented a total of over $60M in annual revenues and 1,000 employees.
Stephanie specializes in DISC behavioral analysis and her book, DISC: Leverage Your Nature, Increase Your Sales, is available on Amazon. She outlines step-by-step tactics for building a marketing plan that is sustainable for each reader’s personality and speaks to their specific target market. Stephanie has led numerous well-received workshops on DISC-based marketing and applying behavioral analysis in business.
As an extension of her belief in promoting an educated and healthy community, Stephanie is a monthly sponsor of Youth On Their Own, which provides stipends, supplies, and mentorship to Tucson teens who are homeless through no fault of their own. She also supports Temwani Children’s Foundation, which provides education, food, and hope to orphaned children impoverished by the effects of HIV/AIDS in Lusaka, Zambia in Africa.
Stephanie’s podcast, Small Biz, Big Voices, is broadcast monthly on Tucson Business Radio X. Show notes, interview questions, and additional coaching tips can be found on her small Biz, Big Voices Facebook page.
Stephanie is available for executive team coaching, strategic planning retreats, and public speaking.
Terry Russell with Stanley Martin Homes
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For over 25 years, Terry Russell has been working in the Atlanta real estate business. He has been Region President at Stanley Martin Homes for over two years, overseeing the Atlanta division.
For more than 50+ years, Stanley Martin has been building homes designed for you. We design all our homes focused on how YOU actually live, so your home reflects your personal lifestyle. We love what we do, and are honored to create homes and neighborhoods that always begin with our homebuyer.
Follow Stanley Martin Homes on Facebook and Twitter.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
- How to keep sales alive during COVID-19
- New real estate in the Atlanta area
- How Atlanta companies are giving back
About Our Sponsor
OnPay’s payroll services and HR software give you more time to focus on what’s most important. Rated “Excellent” by PC Magazine, we make it easy to pay employees fast, we automate all payroll taxes, and we even keep all your HR and benefits organized and compliant.
Our award-winning customer service includes an accuracy guarantee, deep integrations with popular accounting software, and we’ll even enter all your employee information for you — whether you have five employees or 500. Take a closer look to see all the ways we can save you time and money in the back office.
BRX Pro Tip: Always Be Serving
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BRX Pro Tip: Always Be Serving
Stone Payton: [00:00:00] And we are back with BRX Pro Tips. Lee Kantor and Stone Payton here with you. Lee, to paraphrase one of my favorite movies, always be serving.
Lee Kantor: [00:00:11] Right. There was a time back in the day that “always be closing” was kind of the philosophy of salespeople, and they’re always looking for that opportunity to close, and they’re always gonna have all these techniques and tactics to close. I think those days have kind of passed us by. And now, in order to sell somebody something, you have to be figuring out ways to always be serving them, always be helping them, always be educating them. That’s the path to sales success in today’s world, I believe very strongly. So, I changed the mindset of trying to sell somebody something you have to try to help people, try to serve people, try to educate people, and then the business is going to come to you over time if you do that kind of relentlessly.
Kara Brown with SmithBrown Marketing
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Kara Brown is the Founder and CEO of SmithBrown Marketing, a fractional CMO and team focused on B2B sales and marketing alignment and execution. Originally from Chicago, Brown was one of the first employees of Echo Global Logistics, the first tech-enabled freight broker. Brown was a one-woman department single-handedly managing the company’s brand, image and marketing initiatives as the company grew 3000% in just over 3 years.
In 2008, she took on the role of Investor Relations and was part of the company’s successful 2009 IPO (NYSE:ECHO). This was all by the time she was 26. She was recruited by OHL (Ozburn-Hessey Logistics), at the time a $2B Nashville-based global supply chain provider with clients like Apple, Starbucks, Samsung, Sony and Remington. 
A few years before OHL was bought by GEODIS in 2015, she kicked up a consulting practice in Chicago and was the fractional CMO for six transportation and transportation technology companies. In 2016 Brown and her family moved to Atlanta when she was tapped to be Rubicon Global’s first VP of Marketing.
Since then, SmithBrown has become a part of the Atlanta B2B marketing and sales landscape.
Follow SmithBrown Marketing on LinkedIn.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode
- SmithBrown Marketing’s business strategy during COVID-19
- B2B Marketing
- Lead Generation
About Our Sponsor
OnPay’s payroll services and HR software give you more time to focus on what’s most important. Rated “Excellent” by PC Magazine, we make it easy to pay employees fast, we automate all payroll taxes, and we even keep all your HR and benefits organized and compliant.
Our award-winning customer service includes an accuracy guarantee, deep integrations with popular accounting software, and we’ll even enter all your employee information for you — whether you have five employees or 500. Take a closer look to see all the ways we can save you time and money in the back office.
