In our latest episode, Bryan Hobbs, Executive Briefing Manager at Zoom, provides lessons learned from his years of designing and implementing technical demonstrations for industry leading companies like Cisco, Symantec, Google Cloud and Microsoft. From identifying viable spaces and deciding who to partner with, to confirming what products/services to showcase, it is important to build for the short term and plan for the long term. Bryan also shares best practices for overcoming the unique challenges faced when installing in regional locations.

Highlights

• Visioning, the Art of the Possible
• Designing technical demo spaces for a variety of visitors
• Demo elements: wow factors, humor, addressing challenges
• Build in flexibility, see products/services working, leads to faster decision making
• Consult with Internal and External teams including industry partners
• Elements to consider: budget, size of space, content, exec involvement, roadmap
• Define scope and work with partners for alternatives (budget)
• Lessons learned for regional demos

Resources

• ‘Career Mapping: Charting Your Course in the New World of Work’ by Ginny Clarke
• ‘REVOLOGY’ by Todd N Williams about Tom Scapello
• ‘From Good to Great’ by Jim Collins

Guest Thought Leader

Bryan Hobbs, Executive Briefing Manager, Zoom

Bryan is a dynamic leader with over 25 years of experience at the intersection of technology, people management, and business processes. Bryan consults with businesses to refine their processes and harness the power of strategic partnerships. His career began at Cisco where his love for technology and customer engagement was established. Fostering strong partnerships has been key to his repeated successes during his leadership at Symantec’s Experience Center and to building groundbreaking hybrid experiences at Google Cloud’s Executive Briefing Center. Recently, as Director of Immersive Experiences at Microsoft, Bryan led teams in creating interactive, immersive customer experiences while mentoring high-performing individuals.

In our latest episode, John Morley, Principal of John Morley Co and CEP Innovation Coach with GoProBriefings.com, shares how EBCs/CEPs are the ultimate innovation engines within organizations, driving new value through fresh insights. From his years managing the EMC EBC Program and work in Design and Innovation, John outlines numerous ways to position and deliver EBC-as-a-Service, seen as a business and the complete value differentiator it is.

Highlights

• Design Thinking - desirable, feasible, viable
• Value Proposition Canvas - customer wants to achieve, what’s in their way?
• “Brokering” experiences - framework designed within EMC Program
• EBC-as-a-Business - program intention, business model canvas, innovation
• EBCs/CEPs are Innovators - new value from new insights (example: VCE)
• 3 Types (Horizons) - revenue, transformation, futures
• EBCs/CEPs - reduce cost and complexity for sales teams
• Design - identify, codify, make repeatable
• Codify: 5 elements of strategy, design offering, streamline operations

Resources

• ‘Move Fast, Break Shit, Burn Out’
• ‘Design a Better Business: New Tools, Skills, and Mindset for Strategy and Innovation’
• ‘Innovation Accounting: A Practical Guide For Measuring Your Innovation Ecosystem's Performance’
• Ten Types of Innovation: The Discipline of Building Breakthroughs

Guest Thought Leader

John Morley, Principal of John Morley Com, CEP Innovation Coach with GoProBriefings.com

John helps forward-looking leaders and organizations rapidly realize exponential value through the investments they have already made – in their existing people and resources. He focuses on generating net new value by looking beyond problems to reimagine the impact we can create when we reframe challenges as opportunities. John’s expertise lies in being an intrapreneur and program leader, where he leverages his skills in innovation, design, data science, and AI to resolve complex challenges. He credits what he works on now to the skills and the relationships he learned to value and grow while working in CEPs.

In our latest episode, Mary Stratton, Senior Manager of CXO Experiences at Rubrik, shares how she set her vision for her small program and through data-driven reporting solidified executive support and expanded her program. From setting clear parameters like requiring VP-level and above attendees, and requests be tied to SFDC Opportunities, to developing an all inclusive reporting dashboard to address executive level care-abouts, she has been laser focused on improving deal closure and driving pipeline. Mary partnered with Marketing Operations to build this dashboard using data from multiple platform tools which helped justify her HQ center upgrade and the addition of a new team member. She also highlights her latest adventure of taking on executive meetings at trade shows and conferences as well as ‘EBCs on the Road’. Mary is an inspiration in our industry and happy to meet with those who seek her council on demonstrating value through reporting.

Highlights

• Rubrik’s CXO Experiences - 3 modalities
  • Briefing Program
  • Meetings at Industry Shows / Events
  • EBCs on the Road
• Challenges faced while launching the Briefing Program
  • Build network, connect with resources
  • Leadership buy-in
  • Build trust, create sales champions
• Building Executive Support
  • Critical: Articulate your program's impact on the business
  • Using tools/integrations: BriefingSource, Salesforce, Tableau
• How to collect data needed for Reports
  • Leverage Briefing Management Platform
  • Work with Marketing Ops Team
• What metrics to build into Dashboard to showcase impact
  • Address Marketing and Sales organizations careabouts
  • Target metrics for C Level Personages: CEO, CRO, CSO, etc.
  • Individual win rate percentage for opps using briefings vs not
  • Account Type Breakdown (existing customers vs prospects vs partners)
  • Closed Won vs Closed Lost opportunities
• Reporting allowed for program expansion
  • Headcount, Center upgrades, tools, etc.

Resources

• “We Can Do Hard Things” Podcast
• “We Can Do Hard Things: Answers to Life's 20 Questions” by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, Amanda Doyle

Guest Thought Leader

Mary Stratton, Senior Manager of CXO Experiences, Rubrik

Having led the Rubrik Executive Briefing Program for more than 2 years by herself, Mary has worked extremely hard to build upon the foundational aspects she inherited when joining the company in 2022. From finishing an ‘in-progress’ physical Center to rebuilding a program that was dormant for more than a year, she’s demonstrated the value that her executives and sales team have come to rely on to support them in closing more business.

Prior to Rubrik, Mary cut her teeth in the briefing world at the Rackspace Technology and AppDynamics Briefing Programs where she learned from strong mentors about the importance of both the strategic and tactical aspects of managing a program and reporting on every metric possible. Today, Mary has expanded her program to support global briefings beyond her Palo Alto headquarters and has added executive meetings at top tier tradeshows/conferences to her plate. She is married and mom to 3.5 year old twins.