Amy Radin on CX for the CEO and in the Boardroom

Amy Radin on CX for the CEO and in the Boardroom

[00:00:00] Amy Radin: Welcome to be customer lad, where we’ll explore how leading experts in customer and employee experience are navigating organizations through their own journey to be customer led and the accidents and behaviors of lawyers and businesses exhibit to get there. And now your host of Bill’s staikos.

[00:00:33] Bill Staikos: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another week of be customer led. I’m your host bill. Staikos. I’ve got a really special guest for us this week. Amy Raiden is kind of one of those folks that you meet and like you immediately just want to just spend hours and hours with her. Cause she’s done so many cool things and amazing things.

[00:00:52] So she’s an author she’s been at, worked at major brands like Citi group. Like E-Trade like AXA, she’s on the board of directors for the association of international certified professional accountants. I’m not like, like the list can go on and on, but Amy, before we get into like, thank you for joining us, this is going to be such a cool conversation.

[00:01:13] I really appreciate you spending some time with us.

[00:01:19] Absolutely. Absolutely. So. The thing that we’re going to really talk about today, folks, which is a really important topic. And a lot of the listeners on this, of this show are really interested in how do we get customer experience? Not only sort of having a discussed that the CEO, or maybe even at the founder level, but even at the board member level.

[00:01:39] So we’re in the boardroom. And, but before we get into that topic, Amy, can you share just your background? You’ve gone through this amazing journey have, have worked at very, very senior levels, obviously, and at very large organizations. So tell our listeners a little bit about that journey because I know they’d love to hear it.

[00:01:57] Amy Radin: Well, I’ll, I’ll hit the high points cause, a lot of stops along the way, but, the first, the first chapter of my career, I was worked for American express as a direct marketer. Yeah, getting the mail out the door. And, it was a fabulous place to be because it was in the days, America express has always been a customer led company and knew about customer experience before that was even a buzzword.

[00:02:22] So, a great place to start my career. I continued my career in the retail banking sector and, led the digital transformation. Of, the credit card business, that city, which at that point was a $5 billion P and L so significant transformation. A lot of bad experience ended up becoming city’s first chief innovation officer and less there during the financial crisis.

[00:02:46] And after a few other roles in the corporate world at each trade and act. I made a big career pivot. And I decided that given my expertise, which is all about how do you help companies drive these complex changes, whether it’s around innovation, digital customer experience, that I would really, that I’ve wanted to use that expertise as an outsider.

[00:03:12] As a board member, as an advisor, as the author of an award-winning book, the changemaker playbook. So reconstructed a portfolio of activities that let me bring my expertise to a lot of companies, whether they’re startups or major global enterprises.

[00:03:31] Bill Staikos: Awesome. So awesome. that by the way, in and of itself, in that pivot and creating that portfolios could be an entirely new show in.

[00:03:39] Would love to dig in more there with you at some point, let’s talk a little bit about sort of, when you think about organizations you’ve worked with, you’re an advisor as well, right? We, you just mentioned that even outside of the book, what should be the board’s role in understanding, driving, or even defining and co defining with leadership, the customer experience that they wanted to deliver?

[00:04:00] Is that yeah. How deep should boards go?

[00:04:04] Amy Radin: Right. So just as context, a couple of things to make clear about the board and the role of the board, the, the operating principle for a good board is, noses in fingers out. So boards are not operators, right? They, their role is to ensure that shareholder objectives are delivered upon and that as part of that, they focus on.

[00:04:33] On risk management, all kinds of risk management, obviously on results or it’s has historically been dominated by people with financial backgrounds. So it’s only more recently that you’ll find and not terribly diverse, right? It’s only, you’ll, it’s only in the last two years that you are seeing a really increased, really increased attention being paid to improving the diversity.

[00:05:02] Not only in terms of gender, people of color, but also people with more diverse backgrounds. So you’re starting to see tech people on boards, HR because of the concerns with talent and even marketing people. So you have to keep in mind sort of the role of the board, what they are there to do, and who’s in the room, but you’re thinking about customers.

[00:05:27] So I think that we’re CX comes in today, boards have traditionally, I think, I think a lot of people and board turnover, exception will often equate customer experience with customer service or customer satisfaction. So even in the most well-run company, you’ll find that what boards are hearing about in the dashboard and the metrics that are reported to them, they’ll get an NPS.

[00:05:56] Oh, they’ll get a customer satisfaction score and it’s thing to track it. Okay. That’s sort of, okay. Let’s check that box, right? The conversation often doesn’t go deeper. I think I’ve certainly seen situations. boards will generally have some kind of an annual strategy meeting, at least with, the CEO will we’ll chair at that conversation.

[00:06:20] There may be more of a teacher. If the CEO puts it on the agenda and puts customer question on the agenda. So I think there’s needless to say with that as context, I see a lot of room to amplify the conversation about customer experience and really help connect directors connected. Between their oversight role and the things that are their primary concern.

[00:06:48] So how does customer experience connect to financial performance? with risk management, with reputation, with regulatory concerns, I also see a huge role. on the horizon as ESG, environmental sustainability and governance becomes a, is really moving up the priority agenda in most boardrooms.

[00:07:15] Europe is further ahead, but the U S we’ll get there. There are many aspects of ESG that customer experience and employee experience can implement. So I see that really over the horizon as a major. an opportunity for CX leaders to help directors.

[00:07:35] Bill Staikos: So I, and you’re definitely right in terms of Europe being further ahead on this than us in the states, the interesting thing, it just, and I think, the, the pandemic accelerated a lot of this as this sense of what is the company’s purpose and what societal value are they creating and what are they doing to make the world a better place?

[00:07:56] And customers of those companies, how that impacts them and their propensity to buy more or increase the relationship. I think that intersection is really important. Not explored enough, frankly. What advice then do you have? Right? We’ve got chief customer experience officers or chief experience officers, chief customer officers, even like these roles are at some of our biggest companies now.

[00:08:18] Right. And McDonald’s Walmart. I mean the major airlines, the list goes on. What advice do you have for these individuals and maybe how to engage the board for success? I mean, you mentioned one way as being able to connect well, not, I guess not only customer experience, but also employee experience on some level connect that to financial results, but that’s hard work.

[00:08:39] A lot of people still aren’t doing that in the CX space, but like beyond even like tell us a little bit, what would you, if you were sitting down with the CXOs or a CCO, what would you advise them in terms of engaging the board?

[00:08:51] Amy Radin: Listen, That was those dots, what gets measured gets done. And I’ll tell you, Jeff, it’s a little story.

[00:09:00] That’s not exactly a sidebar. It’s important. When I took over the leadership of digital transformation for Citi cards that were many business was filmic, right? We were doing great, but the CEO saw on the horizon. It was very obvious that we were at least in grounded to. And so much of that is experience.

[00:09:24] There was a lot of skepticism about whether we had to, really do what I say. And this was back in 2000, 2001. So you gotta really, right. You really gotta turn the, turn the page back and take a bath. There were people scratching their heads saying like, well, why do we need to do this? Things are fine.

[00:09:40] What put us on the map? What really started to get us traction? Was my team builds an incredibly close partnership for that decision analytics and risk management team, all the people who we needed to help us build, create, test, and learn situations where we can actually measure and understand the impact.

[00:10:03] If you do this, that is what will happen to the levers of the PNL and the balance sheet that. The CFO and the CEO and ultimately shareholders care about, and it feels grueling, but it’s inevitable. If he wants to really get attention and get the resources that you deserve. So make that investment don’t stop deferring it.

[00:10:30] It is possible. So that’s one thing I think the other thing is, you’ve got to start thinking about the board as your. So the reason I started this conversation setting the context is, as a marketer, when I try to accomplish a goal, I always think that, okay, well, who’s my audience. What’s their mindset.

[00:10:53] What are their needs? It’s no different from the board. So you’ve got to understand what their goals are, what they’re there to accomplish. What’s their role is what are their needs, how do they operate? So make the effort to educate yourself on the role of a board at how they operate. Then think about how you can add value to solving their challenge.

[00:11:16] And help them address some of their problems. So, as I said, I see opportunities in risk medication growth. I don’t know too many companies that aren’t thinking about, growth and they’re under pressure to figure out how they’re going to keep up with marketplace expectations. CX can bring a lot of value to that.

[00:11:36] I think there’s just almost endless opportunity. Start by understanding the board as your customer and what. You’ve got to have the CEO support, right? The CEO controls the boardroom agenda. And so you’re going to want to have the discussion with your CEO to understand what connections they see might exist to the board agenda, or to start to influence that conversation.

[00:12:02] If you think I just had a situation where I was working with a team that conducted. customer experience capabilities, assessment for a major bank in the United Kingdom and the work and had a big presented to the board. So it is becoming part of the discussion. You’ve got to meet them where they are and address their needs, which may be very different from the needs of your colleagues or other internal operators.

[00:12:32] There they’re very special group with very specific.

[00:12:36] Bill Staikos: Without a doubt. I love how you said noses in fingers out earlier as well. Right? Like they, they should have access to this information. They should understand how it’s impacting the business, the strategy, the near-term and long-term for that matter. So important.

[00:12:52] And your point around just buy in from the CEO is absolutely critical. I mean, so much of the work around customer and employee experience is top down and bottoms up and. I love that such a critical player in that such a critical player in that if we can kind of flip that,

[00:13:10] Amy Radin: I’ll just say one of the same board, board members, meet on extremely tight agendas, right.

[00:13:17] And they manage their time in the boardroom very carefully. So whatever you take to the board has to be incredibly concise and. They’re not going to listen to a two hour session on customer experience. it’s going to be 30 minutes. I’d say you’ve got to really hit the nail on the head in a way that they say, wow, this is really important to my responsibility.

[00:13:42] As a director, I want to know more about this.

[00:13:46] Bill Staikos: I in a former life, Amy, I had a wish of bringing the board together and getting them into a design session, a design thinking session, right? And watch it just as observers and watching and having them observe how to use design, thinking to solve problems, whether big or small in the, in the business we never got there, but that was one of my goals is to be able to, we, we were successful in some ways, but that was sort of like the next thing for the next year is to be able to do that.

[00:14:15] It would have been a lot of fun. I think eye opening too, for a lot of them. So.

[00:14:22] Amy Radin: Who have an interest in going further, a good board member will take the time to really learn how the business operates. they may go on a listening tour as part of their onboarding. And so you’ll see what question to ask your CEO, who on the board do you think would be interested in this topic?

[00:14:41] And could I have a quick one-to-one conversation with them to get their opinion? And if you’ve got a good relationship. With the CEO and they see the value of what you’re doing, they might make that introduction. And that could be very helpful to sort of scope out what’s going on in the boardroom.

[00:15:00] Bill Staikos: Great advice.

[00:15:01] Great advice, Amy, if we turn around maybe the question, are there a couple of things that perhaps boards or CEOs slash founders need to get ahead of in terms of customer or employee experience over the next? Let’s say 12 to 24 months. You mentioned ESG is a big, big one, obviously, but curious to see if there’s any others on that list.

[00:15:24] Amy Radin: Yeah. Well, I got back to ESG because I think that is a big one. And I think the place to start, because ESG right now, it’s kind of this big monster right yesterday. And especially in the near west, what’s getting the most attention is. Well, I think that, the E part, but the S and the G are really important.

[00:15:45] So the, where I would start is if you’re not already familiar with them, just look up the United nations, STGs the sustainable development goals. You can easily find a ton of content on the STGs just by doing a quick search. And if you go down the list, there are 17. Of these STGs that relate to ESG, sorry, for the alphabet soup and, and CEOs are looking at this list to start to establish some parameters and framework for like, well, how do we get our arms around this and what really matters?

[00:16:23] So there are things in there, there, there are STTs about health and wellbeing. Decent work and economic growth, climate action, responsible consumption, and production reduce to inequality. So you could really go down that list and start to think about, well, where could customer experience and employee experience have meaningful impact on any of these goals?

[00:16:49] And I don’t mean it’s marketing messages. Yeah, I’m familiar with, plenty of companies that just see this as, they want to stay up that they’re using some recycled product on their packaging, and that’s not what this is about. It’s authentically looking at how do you become a more sustainable and better governed organization.

[00:17:13] And so she just have to start to think about where can you have meaningful impact. And then socialize, start to socialize ideas with colleagues and influencers to pursue hypotheses and start testing and learning. But see if you can find some Hawks that influencers and leaders in the organization also think are important.

[00:17:40] So you can get some traction and, there are plenty of companies that are still thinking about this as, as messaging opportunities. I think that’s going to stop those companies will get exposed for, green washing, but just dig into those STGs and see where their connections are to your businesses.

[00:17:58] Priorities.

[00:18:00] Bill Staikos: Why do you think maybe it’s still a little bit of more of a marketing agenda today? Versus companies really saying this is a meaningful and important part of this organization. I’m not, I don’t want to generalize. There are a lot of companies that do,

[00:18:18] Amy Radin: right.

[00:18:20] Bill Staikos: Yeah, absolutely. Why do you think though that some are still maybe trying to figure it out?

[00:18:26] Is it just because it’s really hard or is it just because they haven’t been. They don’t have time to think about it. And maybe don’t have mechanisms internally to think about it. Like what’s your kind of perspective there.

[00:18:40] Amy Radin: I think it’s sort of all of the above. And I think, look, as I said before, what gets, what gets measured gets done?

[00:18:47] I think there’s a whole question of how do you manage. The effectiveness. And actually in my role, as a director at the CPA, the accounting association, they have played their leadership have been playing a direct role in establishing global standards that organizations like the sec would take seriously to measure, have ESG be up there in the scorecard, along with the financial performance, that’s going to take some time to play out and actually get implemented, but there has been significant progress.

[00:19:20] On that front. There’s a queer. International sustainability standards, board the ISB. So if you want to know more about what’s going on there, just, look up the ISS and you’ll see there’s there’s traction. So I think that’s one issue. I think the other issue is hard work and it’s going to require transformation.

[00:19:38] And so that’s hard organizations probably lack the skills and capabilities. It’s just like thinking back 20 years ago to when. Nobody knew about digital, but they thought it was important to actually get going. you just take an industry like fashion, one of the worst polluters and practitioners of poor sustainability in the world.

[00:20:05] Just a simple issue. Unused licensed product is companies are contractually obligated to just destroy unused license from. If you license a character from a media brand at new stamp that on your t-shirts are shaped as thousands of returns right now, the practices to destroy all that product. So you take chest untangling, start to think about the size of the hairball to untangle, to get to more sustainable business practices just in that industry.

[00:20:42] Just on that one issue. Yeah. It’s going to it’s it’s complex and it’s gonna really take mindset change and behavior change and business model change. Got to do it.

[00:20:57] Bill Staikos: Absolutely. I’m excited for, for what’s to come on this. I know again, there are a lot of companies taking this seriously, doing great work around it.

[00:21:05] when you think about Amy, the companies that you are, so you’re, you’re an executive in residence with an organization called progress partners. When you think about some of the things that, and, or the conversations that you’re having, having with these founders, what should founders be thinking about or considering to get past this sort of stage of startup, right into growth and into scale around customer or employee experience?

[00:21:32] Bill Staikos: What’s your perspective there?

[00:21:33] Amy Radin: But that’s a great question because there are many, many startups that have amazing concepts that they’ve validated. Yes. And they, they failed because they don’t know how to scale. So I think the first thing I want to make sure they understand is that what works in a beta will not work at scale.

[00:21:53] Right? So for example, a beta test situation or an environment where you have maybe a few thousand customers, yeah. Things can be messy. you could go back and apologize if things don’t work well, you may be, you may lack automation. You don’t know how to handle value. The team that may have been brilliant at testing and validated may lack the skills required to deliver industrial strength.

[00:22:20] So there’s a whole lot of issues that I counsel them to look at in terms of people, process and technology have to challenge themselves, having sort of a realistic sense of what needs to change from the way they have operated at when they were testing and validate. So what has happened at scale? I mean, the founder may all over even be the right person,

[00:22:43] So I just had a conversation interesting with a FinTech startup that wants to scale. And I, before the call with them, I went and read all their online reviews and the reviews. And I know there’s lots of issues with the quality and online reviews and stuff. So it’s a, it’s a directional dataset where you could get interesting learnings, right.

[00:23:05] they suggested that there was an inconsistency in delivery that said to me, that said to me, like, you’ve got to look at your delivery processes, which would really be where problems would really be exacerbated at scale to the point where, in their case, because they were FinTech that could turn into regulatory issues in any regulated sector.

[00:23:27] Amy Radin: And obviously having come from financial services, I have a particular interest in, and that’s that. But when you move from startup, get out the regulators start to be a lot more interested in what you’re doing.

[00:23:41] So you, you cannot, you’ve got to run, get out in, in that business in pharma, in many, many businesses where you’re affecting health and safety and people’s livelihoods, you’ve got to run a zero defect operation. You’ve got to really understand your customer experience. And your infrastructure, everything about how you operate to make that leap.

[00:24:07] So that’s really what the conversation is about.

[00:24:11] Bill Staikos: Interesting. Do you think a lot of startups are, are paying a lot of attention to feedback directly from customers or is that sort of a blind spot? Because they’re so busy on the product and getting it to a place where they want to be, get it out there as quickly as possible and iterate it.

[00:24:27] Do you think that more organizations or, or more startups I should say should pay closer attention to sort of the, the multiple signals that are out there?

[00:24:41] Amy Radin: So I see a Ray, I know of one startup where I retained part of the executive meeting agenda is to read customer letters. They are brought into the, and I think that’s fantastic.

[00:24:56] I’ve seen other startups where, or, smaller companies where the most of the interaction with customers is around trying to sell them something. And I think you need to create space for the broader conversation about like, how are you doing, what are your bigger challenges? How’s it going? And so, and then I’ve seen, I’ve seen other companies and, and, what’s impressive about.

[00:25:24] Yep. They got a price cause really learn it. startups don’t have the budgets for fancy market research studies or to license, automated tools necessarily to help them. So they have to be out talking to customers and I find the better CEOs are doing that. They’re they’re making the routes.

[00:25:46] And so I think, yeah, you see your range of practices. I would, I’m willing to bet there’s a real correlation. Between the startups that are talking and listening to their customers, not just in a sales call, but really earnestly and authentically interested in knowing what’s going on for them, all the ones that, that goes the distance, but they have, they can teach a lot to big companies where get out often times there’s not enough customer facing engagement outside of the sales process.

[00:26:23] Bill Staikos: Interesting. Yeah, that’s such good advice. I, I do some work with an organization in a similar, not, I’m not an executive in residence, but I have done some mentoring for startups. And one of the things that I’ve talked to a number of startups about is how are you getting, what mechanisms are you creating?

[00:26:41] And they don’t have to be expensive ones obviously, but what mechanisms are you creating where that voice of the employee or that voice of the customer. He’s coming into the founder in that inner circle. And they’re in, they’re creating space to talk about what they’re hearing and really, eyes wide open kind of conversations too.

[00:26:57] I have to ask. And by the way, I re so as a city, as a long-time city customer, I mean probably 30 years, I remember actually the w the first. Digital or, or digital banking effort where I actually had to put a CD into my laptop to get the software from city onto the laptop so I can make the connection.

[00:27:20] Ultimately, it was, it was so exciting. And I remember doing that. I’m like, wow, this is really I couldn’t. I was like, so super, just pumped and excited that this was happening. It was just really cool stuff. It was right. I mean, it really was. You were able to like, look at your balance and not have to go to the branch.

[00:27:36] It was pretty cool. And do other things for that matter as chief innovation officer at Citi cards, for, I mean, this is over 10 years ago, but, and you’ve had multiple senior level roles. One of the questions I get a lot is how do you influence organizations broadly? We’ve talked maybe a little bit about that throughout this, this conversation, but, and maybe you can’t share specific stories around, w places you’ve been.

[00:28:04] How do you do that? Like w what is your approach for influence at senior levels to drive change? And especially in an organization like Citi, right. I’ve been at chase. Right. the, the term I always use, it was like trying to turn that Titanic in a kiddie pool sometimes. Right. How would you counsel folks in terms of engaging senior, senior executives to drive and effect change around the customer?

[00:28:26] Amy Radin: Yeah. And it’s, it’s a great question. And it’s funny yesterday, I was in a rampage. Where the question was, why do you really successful innovation programs get shut down? And it was a call with, Sarah on the Roundtable where a lot of people who are currently a chief experience officers, chief innovation officers, type people.

[00:28:50] And the crazy thing is that what you have to do has not changed now, the world has become more complex. there’s a lot more pressure. There’s more demands for speed, but my council and this is from things I did well and lessons I’ve learned that I, if I look back sort of advice to my former self, it starts with building trust relationships with your car.

[00:29:16] Especially the people who are the Panhell owners, because they are the people who ultimately will need to support and advocate for an, a, a fund and get out there for efforts that will take time to prove out, I think, understanding their pain points and their priorities. And. Make sure that you are testing and learning and to the CX areas that will help them meet their priority goals and solve their big problems.

[00:29:50] The other thing is don’t expect everybody to be on board. when I, I remember when I first joined Citi, one of the first things I did was to go around and spend an hour with each of my colleagues. There were about 12. And I’d say four for them were wow. Really great that somebody is here to fo at the senior executive level to focus on digital.

[00:30:15] We need to get moving a third of them. Well, wow. This could be important. They were sort of open to the possibility, but sort of show me the money. And then a third of them are like, why do we need to bother where to and great. And yeah. Don’t beat you, right? Is that you are not gonna win everybody over, but what’s really important is you want to influencers to really be on board.

[00:30:41] You want to take their counsel and you want to support their goals and don’t underestimate the need for strong two-way communication. There’s communication is part of your job. It’s not this extra thing you do on the side. It’s a major part of your job, but don’t forget the communication is two way. So it’s as much about listening to understand what matters to them.

[00:31:06] Not just telling, in fact, I’d say it should be two thirds listening, one third telling that’s. So that’s my advice. And I think. It’s going to be enduring advice. It’s never going to go away. It’s the things that you need to do to make this work, succeed and pick out a prize. But there were a lot of agendas,

[00:31:25] Bill Staikos: such Sage counsel right there.

[00:31:27] Good advice. And it’s you’re right. It’s those things that are core to relationship building and development, and creating that trust at the end of the day, that’s foundational stuff that gets people ahead. Get your job. Listened to and people saying, okay, I’m here to support and I’m here to act. And here’s how it can make sense in my business.

[00:31:46] So let’s work together. Amy, I’ve got two more questions for you. Who are the leaders you look up to, and I’m, I’m personally curious to learn this. And I think our listeners after this conversation will be interested in learning about too, is who are the leaders that you

[00:31:59] Amy Radin: look up to?

[00:32:04] There are a lot of people in my career helping add who I’ve learned from either directly or just by watching them. So I could go on and on with a, with a big list, but one person that the thing that’s most important to me in a leader is honesty. integrity, a willingness to stand up to their beliefs and who really care about their people and their customers as human beings, not just as enablers of their business.

[00:32:32] So people who really lead with humanity, just someone I’ve known more recently from a far, but for a very long time, who I put very high on that list is, is catching up. Who was, who I saw a rise in the ranks from being, and I went inside office guy at American express to, to the CEO. And I got to work with him for a long time.

[00:32:51] The thing that I put out of back hen and why I think he’s so amazing is he’s, he’s someone who really does walk the talk and could have made different choices. He always had taught for people irrespective of their level. I mean, a sick guy who even when he was CEO stopped to say hi to the people vacuuming lobby.

[00:33:10] And when he came into American express tower and, and these days, who last year, did not stand for re-election on the board of Facebook over reportedly over disagreements with soccer, Berg over. and so I would get a renin to that that, he saw what was happening and that that’s not his cup of tea to be part of what’s going on there.

[00:33:34] And there’s a lot of controversy now about Facebook slash made-up and who’s dedicated himself now to addressing racism and diversity issues as part of an addition. To his business pursuits. So using his role as a private equity executive now as leverage, but also outside of his, his day job is also speaking out.

[00:34:00] And so I chose he’s, he recognizes that he can have an impact, but he was always this way throughout his career. And, as high success really, he’s, he’s a really exceptional.

[00:34:15] Bill Staikos: I agree. so I was with an external and a short time for a short time during the cash old days. And, he came into the elevator.

[00:34:22] We the only two in the elevator and I’m a young professional, I’m literally just shaking in my shoes. Like here’s the CEO. And he reaches out his hand and he says, hi, I’m Ken Chenault. What’s your name? Right. I mean, it blew my mind. And unlike my name is bill steakhouse. He’s like, well, where do you work?

[00:34:39] and it’s very nice kind of, soft tone and gentle way. And, describe he’s like he goes, this is what you’re doing is so important. And here’s why, and I was like, the CEO knows what I do, and he just connected it with the importance of the entire company, but you’re right. He did that with everybody.

[00:34:54] Bill Staikos: There’ve been other CEOs that I’ve sat next to on a plane have shared an elevator ride with not one of them has done that since. So I absolutely. Totally agree with you on Ken and everybody called him Ken in the company. I don’t want to call it right. Like that was so such a great role model.

[00:35:16] Amy Radin: Everybody knows who we’re talking about. Everybody knows.

[00:35:21] Bill Staikos: And an amazing individual. Before we wrap up one more question. Where do you go for inspiration, Amy?

[00:35:29] Amy Radin: So definitely my three children, we have to two it’s our children at a teenager. they keep me young, their views of the world and how they live their lives are so different. I feel like I’m constantly living at a, at a focus group, but I’ve just conversations about everything.

[00:35:47] I, my network. I’m really blessed to have a mat and develop relationships with so many people. and so many diverse people that sometimes I’ll just reach out to have a one-to-one conversation, with people I admire to find out like, what are they up to? what are they thinking about? And it always amazes me.

[00:36:11] Amy Radin: Especially now what people are accomplishing. And it really gives me a boost, especially on my, we all have our down days, right. It gives me a boost and give me new ideas, me meeting you has been that opportunity. when the weather’s good go to the beach, get out of it gets me out of my environment, which with COVID has been particularly difficult.

[00:36:34] go for a walk, simple, simple things, anything that lets me clear my head. It’s a, it’s a pathway to inspiration.

[00:36:44] Bill Staikos: So now I’ve got to ask what’s your favorite beach

[00:36:47] Amy Radin: Jersey shore please?

[00:36:50] Bill Staikos: So I’m a Manasquan kid.

[00:36:56] Amy Radin: Beautiful.

[00:36:58] Bill Staikos: Yeah, you’re a spring late spring lake is gorgeous and it’s a beautiful beach.

[00:37:00] My in-laws had a house on Manasquan for a number of number of years. Yeah. Sandy D decided to change a lot of that for them, unfortunately, but, Manasquan and the Jersey shore has a very special place in my heart, so, yeah.

[00:37:15] Amy Radin: Yeah. It’s so one, one of the good things about living in New Jersey is the Jersey shore.

[00:37:19] So hopefully, hopefully it’ll be protected cause it’s definitely.

[00:37:25] Bill Staikos: Yeah, certainly as I’m Amy, I’ve really enjoyed this conversation. I know that our listeners well insanely important topics we’ve covered today. Thank you again for your time, for the gift of your time. And, I hope to have you, another time and I’m looking forward to continue the conversation now that we know each other.

[00:37:40] I hope this isn’t, our, our last COVID, I don’t think it’s going to be, but, I’m looking forward to the next one.

[00:37:45] Amy Radin: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks so much for having me. This has been very thought provoking for me as well. Thank you.

[00:37:52] Bill Staikos: All right, everybody. Another great show. We’re out. Talk to you soon. The car

[00:37:56] Amy Radin: listening to be customer led with bill staikos.

[00:38:00] We are grateful to our audience for the gift of their time. Be sure to visit us@becustomerled.com for more episodes. Leave us feedback on how we’re doing or tell us what you want to hear more about until next time we’re out.