241: Mastering Sales Through Customer-Centric Mindsets: Insights from Alan Versteeg

Send us Fan MailAI won't replace your people. It will replace the ones acting like robots.Returning guest Jeff Toister, best-selling author of Human Service: The Skills AI Can't Replace, joins Yanique Grant to unpack where humans still win in a world racing to automate. Drawing on new research spanning more than 370,000 phone calls and 400-plus face-to-face interactions, Jeff makes the data-backed case for connection, understanding, and advocacy, the three human skills AI simply can't provide.In this episode:- Why connection is efficient: warm rapport makes calls 16% shorter - Understanding and advocacy, the skills that beat automation on complex issues - The greeting research: 12% better first-contact resolution and warmer customers - Why AI replaces the transactional employee, not the true expert - How to simplify your service strategy heading into 2027Featured resources:Book: Human Service: The Skills AI Can't Replace by Jeff ToisterBook: The Service Culture Handbook by Jeff ToisterZoom (video conferencing Jeff uses daily, while noting no single tool is truly indispensable)LinkedIn Learning (home to Jeff's training courses, taken by 5 million-plus learners)Customer Service Tip of the Week (Jeff's free weekly email with content to share with your team)Connect with the guest: Human Service book (download the first chapter free): humanservicebook.com Customer Service Tip of the Week (free weekly research and tips): toistersolutions.com/tips Reply directly to any weekly email and it goes straight to JeffFollow the show: X @NavigatingCX and join our private Facebook group, Navigating the Customer Experience Community. Hosted by Yanique Grant.

Send us Fan MailWhere should AI stop and a human step in? Rebecca Stone has spent 20 plus years finding the line.Rebecca Stone, Chief Customer and Marketing Officer at Plume, joins Yanique Grant to unpack why clean, centralized data is the real foundation of customer experience, and where AI should augment the journey versus where a human relationship has to show up. From the name problem that makes one customer look like four, to using AI to carry context across every support tier, to building high performing teams, Rebecca shares practical moves any leader can use.In this episode:- The first move to make when your customer data is messy - Where AI ends and human connection has to begin - Using AI to carry customer context across every support tier - The tools Rebecca can't live without: Claude, Gong, Salesforce, Marketo - Building high performing teams with The Five Dysfunctions of a Team - The Colin Powell quote that keeps her on trackFeatured resources:Book: Made to Stick by Chip Heath and Dan HeathBook: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick LencioniClaude (AI for building presentations and freeing up time)Gong (conversation intelligence and customer context)Salesforce (CRM and customer data)Marketo (marketing automation)Connect with the guest:LinkedIn: Rebecca Stone, connect and send her a messageCompany: PlumeFollow the show: X @NavigatingCX and join our private Facebook group, Navigating the Customer Experience Community. Hosted by Yanique Grant.

Send us Fan MailWhat if the fastest way to lead change was to stop trying to feel confident? Executive coach Terez Rijkenberg says clarity beats confidence every time, and she has the frameworks to prove it.Terez Rijkenberg, executive coach to C-suite leaders and director at Tuitive AI, joins Yanique Grant to share the two frameworks behind her work: the RAFT formula (results, actions, feelings, thoughts) and Radical Adaptability. She unpacks how change really happens, how she coaches leaders through it with a real client story, and how her Claude-based AI system hands executives back 10-plus hours a week. She also shares the grounding quote she uses when stress spikes.In this episode:- Terez's journey from the corporate ladder through postpartum depression and identity shift to executive coaching - The RAFT formula: why your thoughts drive your feelings, actions, and ultimately your results - Radical Adaptability: safety, clarity, belief, experiment, and integrate, the five steps of real change - A client story showing why coaching a team is faster than telling them what to do - Before and after: building AI workflows that remove manual work and free leaders to think - The grounding self-talk Terez uses under pressure: this is not an emergencyFeatured resources:Book: The Success Principles by Jack CanfieldBook: The Freakonomics series by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (her gateway into behavioral economics and psychology)Claude (Anthropic) - where Terez builds her processes, systems, and personalized client dashboards AI Amplified Exec - her Claude plugin that turns spreadsheets, transcripts, and documents into branded outputs like board packs in minutes Tuitive AI - where Terez is director and built AI Amplified Exec, helping senior executives use AI safely for real gains in personal productivity.Connect with the guest:Website: terezrijkenberg.comWeekly email / blog: terezrijkenberg.com/blogLinkedIn: Terez Rijkenberg (most active here)Follow the show: X @NavigatingCX and join our private Facebook group, Navigating the Customer Experience Community. Hosted by Yanique Grant.

Send us Fan MailCan AI answer your customers without pushing them away? David Karandish has automated support for 20,000 companies, and he says deflection should make the experience better, not worse.David Karandish, founder and CEO of Capacity, joins Yanique Grant to unpack how to bring AI into customer support the right way. After selling Answers Corp for $960 million, David built Capacity into an omni-channel support automation platform serving roughly 20,000 customers. In this episode he shares the design principles that keep automation human, why your first AI project should be a small, provable win, and how AI agents are now running entire companies from finance to marketing.In this episode:- The design principles that make AI deflection improve the customer experience instead of frustrating people, from great escalation paths to leading with empathy - Why human behavior is largely universal across regions, and where support questions actually differ - What the $960M Answers.com journey taught David about people who are truly stuck and have nowhere to turn - The single most practical first step for any support leader: go get your small win, then iterate - How builder agents let a complete novice spin up workflows, integrations, and CSAT surveys just by askingFeatured resources:Book: Principles by Ray Dalio — a first-principles breakdown of how Dalio built one of the most successful investment firms of all time. Foundational AI models — Google Gemini, OpenAI, and Anthropic's Claude, used across the business. Jira — for tracking development tickets; David uses LLMs to analyze time-in-stage when off-the-shelf plugins fall short. Capacity — an AI-powered support automation platform that deflects emails, calls, and tickets across voice, SMS, WhatsApp, web, and email. ~20,000 customers, 250+ app integrations.Connect with the guest: Website: capacity.com Email: [email protected] the show: X @NavigatingCX and join our private Facebook group, Navigating the Customer Experience Community. Hosted by Yanique Grant.

Send us Fan MailPricing AI is the hardest pricing problem in software right now, and most SaaS leaders are getting it wrong on the first try. In this episode of Navigating the Customer Experience, host Yanique Grant sits down with Dan Balcauski, founder of Product Tranquility, to unpack why the first AI price a company sets is always wrong, how to set usage caps when you have no historical data, and what smart B2B SaaS leaders do differently to turn pricing from a liability into a strategic advantage.Dan has spent more than 20 years in software, starting as an engineer before moving into product management and discovering that how a company captures value matters far more than how it builds the product. Today he advises B2B SaaS CEOs on the AI pricing and packaging decisions that keep them up at night, and in this conversation he shares the frameworks, the mistakes to avoid, and the practical playbook he uses with real companies.WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODEWhy the first AI price is always wrong, and why that has nothing to do with how smart your team or your consultants are. Dan explains the fundamental economic shift underway in software, where both sides of the pricing equation are moving at once. On the cost side, he points to a benchmark showing the cost per task for a top model dropping by roughly 390 times in a single year, a change no normal business ever absorbs in its cost of goods sold. On the value side, models keep getting more capable, handling this month what they could not handle last month. His research shows that every application layer software company he studied that released AI capabilities revised its pricing and packaging within 18 months. The lesson is not to price perfectly on day one. It is to build for change.How to set usage caps and pricing tiers with zero historical data. Dan frames the real problem plainly. You know what a token costs, but you have no idea what customers will actually do with a new AI feature. Products are full of features that barely got adopted, and AI features do not get to skip that step of the innovation cycle. On top of that, a small group of power users, often around 5 to 10 percent, can drive the overwhelming majority of usage and cost. That makes the tempting shortcuts unreliable. Using dashboard views as a proxy breaks down because good AI gets used far more than the dashboards it replaces, and a beta group rarely matches the usage profile of the full market.The early access playbook that sits between beta and general availability. Dan recommends a stage where companies announce their limits, put a price on the feature, and communicate it clearly, but do not enforce or meter it yet for a defined window that can run anywhere from six weeks to 18 months. This eases customer anxiety about surprise bills, encourages real adoption, and lets the company gather genuine usage patterns instead of guessing from proxies that break down.Why you should separate ordinary plan limits from fair use limits. Even when you are not metering usage, Dan explains, you can reserve the right to throttle or downgrade the rare customer using a capability a hundred or a thousand times more than the average, much like companies already do with API request limits. Those levers let teams keep experimenting during early access without the finance team panicking when the bill arrives.Why communication is where pricing changes succeed or fail. As Dan puts it, most pricing blowups come not from the change itself but from the fact that it was communicated poorly or not at all. Agility beats certainty, and reviewing pricing on a quarterly cadence beats the old annual or five year rhythm.This episode is essential listening for SaaS founders, product leaders, pricing strategists, and customer experience professionals who want to understand how AI is reshaping the economics of software and what to do about it before the market forces the decision for them.ABOUT DAN BALCAUSKIDan Balcauski is the founder of Product Tranquility, where he helps B2B SaaS CEOs turn pricing from a confusing liability into a strategic advantage. With more than 20 years in software, Dan began his career as an engineer before moving into product management and discovering that how companies capture value matters far more than how they build it. His work now centers on one of the most pressing questions in software today: how to price AI. Before founding Product Tranquility, Dan was a principal product strategist at SolarWinds and head of product at LawnStarter. He holds a BSc in computer engineering from Iowa State University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, where he also helps teach executive education courses on product strategy. He is the host of the SaaS Scaling Secrets podcast.QUESTIONS YANIQUE ASKEDCould you share a little about your journey and how you got from where you were to where you are today? You have said the first AI price is always wrong. Why is that, and what should a SaaS company do differently knowing they are going to get it wrong the first time? So many companies are trying to set usage caps and pricing tiers for AI with zero historical data. How would you advise a CEO to make that decision when they are essentially flying blind? What is the one online resource, tool, website, or application that you absolutely cannot live without in your business? Can you share one or two books that have had a positive impact on you, professionally or personally? What is one thing going on in your life right now that you are really excited about? Do you have a quote or saying that keeps you on track during times of adversity? Where can listeners find and connect with you online?KEY TAKEAWAYSThe first AI price is always wrong, and that is not a failure of intelligence. It reflects a fundamental economic shift where both cost and value are moving fast. Every application layer company Dan studied revised its AI pricing and packaging within 18 months. Plan for revision, not perfection. Agility beats certainty. Review pricing on a quarterly cadence rather than annually or every five years. Communication is where pricing changes succeed or fail. Most blowups come from poor communication, not the change itself. Usage proxies break down. Dashboard views and beta groups rarely predict how customers will actually use an AI feature. A small group of power users can drive the majority of usage and cost, so average user assumptions are dangerous. Early access is the smart middle stage. Announce and price the limits, communicate them, but do not meter yet while you gather real data. Separate plan limits from fair use limits. Reserve the right to throttle extreme usage even when you are not metering everyone. Do not borrow problems from the future. Anxiety about what has not happened yet only adds problems to the present. AI is making custom, personal business software economically viable for the first time, opening the door to tools built exactly the way you work.CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction and Guest Bio 01:51 Dan's Journey: From Engineer to Pricing Strategist 04:03 Learning That Pricing Is Different in Every Industry 04:49 Why the First AI Price Is Always Wrong 05:36 The 390x Cost Shift and the Moving Value Equation 06:49 Agility, Faster Pricing Reviews, and Communication 09:28 Setting Usage Caps With No Historical Data 11:32 Why Dashboard Proxies and Beta Groups Break Down 12:59 The Early Access Playbook Between Beta and GA 13:20 Plan Limits vs. Fair Use Limits 17:04 The One Tool Dan Cannot Live Without: Claude Code 17:38 Book Recommendation: Monetizing Innovation 18:31 Building Custom Business Software With AI 19:55 How to Connect With Dan Online 20:27 Dan's Guiding Quote: Don't Borrow Problems From the FutureFEATURED RESOURCESBook mentioned: Monetizing Innovation by Madhavan Ramanujam and Georg TackeTool mentioned: Claude Code, Dan's work surface and the engine behind his custom business softwareCONNECT WITH DANLinkedIn: Search Dan Balcauski on LinkedIn, and mention that you heard him on the podcast so he can separate you from the spamWebsite: producttranquility.comPodcast: SaaS Scaling Secrets, wherever podcasts are foundDAN'S GUIDING QUOTE"Don't borrow problems from the future." Dan BalcauskiDan explains that most of our anxiety is about things that have not happened yet. Worrying about a future scenario pulls that problem into the present before it ever arrives, giving you more to carry now for no reason. Like debt, it is borrowing against your future self. His practice is to stay focused on what is real and in front of him, which keeps him grounded when challenges or uncertainty threaten to pull him off track.ABOUT N

Send us Fan MailWhat if the most valuable thing a customer could do for your business was complain? In this episode of Navigating the Customer Experience, Yanique Grant sits down with Michael Podolsky, co-founder and CEO of PissedConsumer.com and Wisebrand.com, to explore the power of negative feedback and why organizations that take it seriously are the ones that build lasting customer loyalty.Michael built PissedConsumer.com after a deeply frustrating personal experience as a customer left him with no recourse and no resolution. Starting with just $200 and no venture backing, he has grown the platform over the past 20 years into a consumer advocacy powerhouse serving over 30 million users. His message to businesses is consistent: complaints are not your enemy. They are your most honest source of business intelligence.WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE87% of consumers contact a company directly before leaving a negative review online. That statistic sits at the heart of everything Michael teaches. By the time a review is posted, the customer has already tried to reach you. The review is not the problem. The missed connection is.In this conversation, Yanique and Michael explore how organizations of all sizes can shift the way they receive and respond to consumer feedback, including how to categorize complaints by severity, how to establish timelines for resolution, and why the department most often blamed for service failures is rarely the one responsible for causing them.KEY TOPICS COVEREDFrom a Bad Vacation to 30 Million UsersMichael shares the origin story behind PissedConsumer.com, which was born from a travel experience that left him with no recourse as a consumer. That frustration became the foundation for one of the largest negative review platforms in the world.Collective Complaints: A New Way to Get Businesses to RespondPissedConsumer.com recently introduced a collective complaint feature that groups consumer feedback around a single issue and gathers signatures to amplify the message. Companies that routinely ignore individual complaints have begun responding to collective ones.Complaints as Small Gifts72% of consumers who leave negative reviews are trying to protect future customers from the same experience. They want things to improve. Michael's position is that every complaint is a gift, and businesses that receive it that way build stronger relationships than those that deflect or dismiss.Customer Service Is Not a Deflection MechanismMichael addresses one of the most common and costly mistakes in large organizations: treating customer service as a buffer designed to keep consumers away from the business rather than a function empowered to fix the actual problem. When customer service has real authority and clear escalation paths, the feedback loop works.Empowering Your Team with AIMichael shares how his organizations have deployed agentic AI systems using multiple models across departments including recruitment, operations, marketing, and deep research. His belief is that business leaders must integrate AI and human institutional knowledge now, not later.The Last Generation to Manage Only Human TeamsPerhaps the most thought-provoking moment in the conversation comes when Michael reflects on where AI is taking the workforce. His message to his own employees: in nine months, the company will either need 70% fewer people or will be ten times more productive. Every single person chose productivity.BOOK RECOMMENDATIONGetting Past No by William Ury. Michael has carried this book on negotiation and conflict resolution for over 40 years. For anyone who deals with difficult customers, challenging conversations, or resistant stakeholders, this is the read he points to first.CONNECT WITH MICHAEL PODOLSKYLinkedIn: Search Michael Podolsky, PissedConsumer Website: pissedconsumer.com Website: wisebrand.comFOLLOW NAVIGATING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCEX (Twitter): @NavigatingCX Facebook: Navigating the Customer Experience Community LinkedIn: Yanique Grant Website: yaniquegrant.com

Send us Fan MailNAVIGATING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE Episode 274 | Lead With Clarity: Burnout, Cultural Intelligence, and the Strategy Every Leader NeedsWhat happens to your customers when the leader serving them is running on empty? In this episode, Yanique Grant sits down with Dr. Kerriann M. Peart, organizational psychologist, executive coach, and founder of Island Rooted Co., for a conversation that connects leadership well-being directly to customer experience outcomes.Dr. Peart brings over 20 years of experience in organizational psychology, public health, and executive coaching, and her work challenges the idea that high performance should come at the expense of people. Drawing on her own journey as a Caribbean woman who navigated three cycles of burnout while building her consulting practice in corporate America, she offers leaders a grounded, practical framework for leading with clarity, cultural intelligence, and personal strategy.WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODEHow burned-out leaders show up to customers in three distinct patterns, and which one is the rarest and most powerfulWhy happy employees are defined by competence AND capacity, and how both translate directly to the customer experienceHow the anchored bias of "this is how we have always done it" is damaging customer interactions in Caribbean businessesThe difference between a growth mindset and an agile mindset, and why leaders in culturally diverse environments need the latterWhy humble leaders go further and last longer than those who demand to be followedThe one personal strategy shift that will change how customer experience professionals show up, even on their hardest daysBOOKS MENTIONEDThe Prophet by Kahlil GibranThe 48 Laws of Power by Robert GreeneThe Power of Now by Eckhart TolleCONNECT WITH DR. PEARTLinkedIn: Search Kerriann PeartWebsite: peartconsulting.orgFOLLOW NAVIGATING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCEX: @NavigatingCXFacebook: Navigating the Customer Experience CommunityLinkedIn: Yanique GrantWebsite: yaniquegrant.com/podcasts

Send us Fan MailWhat does it actually take to lead in an era where artificial intelligence is reshaping every industry, every role, and every assumption about how work gets done? On this episode of Navigating the Customer Experience, Yanique Grant sits down with Jack Jendo, founder of BrainDigits, AI strategist, and author of Lead Forward, to explore what the future workplace really looks like and why leadership is the most important skill you can develop right now.Jack brings a perspective shaped by years of working across the Middle East, Europe, and Australia, building AI-powered programs for governments, corporations, and startups. His message is clear: AI is not just a tool. It is a mindset shift, and leaders who understand this will be the ones who define what comes next.WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODEJack shares the journey that took him from juggling three jobs during university to running agencies across multiple continents and founding BrainDigits. He talks about why he wrote Lead Forward, a book designed for three types of people he encounters every day: entrepreneurs who are just getting started, senior professionals who feel like their career is winding down when it does not have to be, and leaders in the middle who feel pressure but lack clarity.Jack also introduces a concept that reframes how leaders can use AI: the Digital Twin. Rather than using AI as a general assistant, Jack trains specialized AI versions of himself, one for brainstorming, one for financial strategy, one for business development. He has been building and refining these tools for years, and the result is a thinking partner that reflects his values, his frameworks, and his way of approaching problems.THE FUTURE WORKPLACE: AI FIRST OR AI ENABLED?Jack places AI in the same category as transformative inventions like the printing press and the internet. Each of those disrupted every industry it touched. AI is doing the same. But the change is not primarily about tools. It is about mindset and clarity.He describes two futures emerging for organizations. The first is a company that adopts AI aggressively without understanding what it is doing, relying on automation without the human judgment to direct it. That organization will struggle. The second is a company led by people who know exactly what they need, who operate with ownership and freedom, and who use AI to remove friction and accelerate execution. That is the organization every leader should be building toward.AI IS THE NEW LEADERSHIP SKILLJack and Yanique explore what it means to treat AI as a leadership skill rather than a software category. His view is that every task with a clear process can now be handled by AI. What cannot be automated is knowing what needs to be done, deciding the direction, and leading people through change.The leaders who will thrive are those who invest in training their AI tools the same way they would develop a trusted assistant. Not with generic prompts, but with context, values, goals, and frameworks. That investment is what turns a general tool into something genuinely useful.Jack shares that his two primary tools are ChatGPT, where he has trained a custom model called TwinJack over four years for brainstorming and strategic thinking, and Claude, which he has used for automation over the past year. He describes them as complementary, each with a distinct role, and both trained with the same foundation.KEY INSIGHTS FROM THIS EPISODEExperience compounds. Working across multiple roles and industries, especially early in a career, creates a foundation that multiplies future opportunity.Retirement is not an endpoint. Jack pushes back on the idea that experienced professionals should wind down. Their knowledge, relationships, and judgment are among the most valuable assets available to any organization.Scaling happens during crisis. When others pull back, Jack leans in. His approach is to build capacity, strengthen teams, and expand during periods of pressure because that is when the real growth happens.The guiding question Jack returns to during adversity is simple: remember why you started. It is not about nostalgia. It is about using original purpose as an anchor when clarity is hard to find.BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODELead Forward by Jack Jendo https://www.amazon.com/s?k=lead+forward+jack+jendoStart with Why by Simon Sinek https://www.amazon.com/s?k=start+with+why+simon+sinekRich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki https://www.amazon.com/s?k=rich+dad+poor+dadThe Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason https://www.amazon.com/s?k=richest+man+in+babylonTOOLS MENTIONEDChatGPT (Custom GPT / TwinJack): https://chatgpt.com Claude (AI): https://claude.ai BrainDigits: https://braindigits.comCONNECT WITH JACK JENDOLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=jack+jendo Instagram: Search Jack JendoJack responds personally to every message.FOLLOW NAVIGATING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCEX (Twitter): https://x.com/navigatingCX Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/NavigatingtheCustomerExperience LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaniquewagrantcx/ Website: https://yaniquegrant.com/podcasts/

Send us Fan Mail10 Years, 272 Episodes, and a Lifetime of Lessons: A Mother-Daughter ConversationThis episode is unlike any other in the 272-episode history of Navigating the Customer Experience. To celebrate 10 years of podcasting, host Yanique Grant invited her daughter Summer to turn the tables, Summer takes the microphone and interviews her mom about the journey, the hard lessons, and what the next decade holds. It's personal, honest, and deeply human.What You'll Hear in This EpisodeYanique shares why she launched the podcast in May 2016 not because podcasting was trending, but because she was genuinely passionate about customer experience and saw a free platform to connect with professionals globally. She credits a podcast coach from Canada with helping her get off the ground, and reflects on how much harder it would have been without today's AI tools.She opens up about what kept her going through 272 episodes — including taking on solo production after losing her internal team member — and names the guests who have stayed with her over a decade: Matt Swain, Joey Coleman (twice!), Jimi Gibson, Jason Feifer, Jay Baer, Paul Brunson, and Rochelle Gapere.She talks about the doors podcasting has opened — from sitting on a podcast panel in Arlington, Washington, to serving as Master of Ceremonies at a major BPO Mindshare event in Canada with 100+ global attendees.And she gets vulnerable about the one thing she'd do differently: stop trying to sound "North American" and just sound like Yanique.Key TakeawaysStart with purpose - passion is what sustains a 10-year run, not hypeGet support early - a coach at the start changes everythingBe yourself on mic - your voice, your accent, your personality are assetsConsistency compounds - 272 episodes, one at a timeCredibility creates opportunity - the podcast opened doors Yanique never planned forRelationships are the real ROIFeatured ResourcesMac Whisper - AI transcription toolClaude (AI) - claude.ai - show notes and production workflowBuzzsprout - podcast hostingCapCut — video editingConnect with Yanique 🌐 yaniquegrant.com 🐦 X/Twitter: @NavigatingCX 👥 Facebook: Navigating the Customer Experience Community 💼 LinkedIn: Yanique GrantListen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and yaniquegrant.com

Send us Fan MailWhat does it take to walk into a room full of strangers and walk out with real connections? In this episode of Navigating the Customer Experience, host Yanique Grant sits down with Alexandra Silva Labarr, internationally recognized speaker, author, and founder of Xandra Marketing and PR. Known as the Networking Queen, Alexandra brings over 25 years of experience in marketing, business development, and sales to a conversation that is practical, personal, and deeply inspiring.Alexandra's journey is one of remarkable resilience. After decades in corporate America, she bet on herself and launched her own marketing firm just before COVID hit, shutting down the in person networking she had built her reputation on. Instead of retreating, she pivoted, went digital, gave back to her community, and emerged stronger. Today, Xandra Marketing and PR helps businesses take full ownership of their marketing, from social media and branding to digital presence and messaging strategy.Her story starts at 13 years old, when she lost her mother. That experience taught her that finding the right people and leaning on them is not weakness, it is strategy. That understanding became the foundation for everything she has built since, including her Power of Networking Community, now with 15 chapters across South Florida. She is also the author of three books: The Power of Networking, Show Up Scared, and Show Up Scared: Teen Edition, which became an Amazon bestseller and has taken her into schools and universities across the country.In this episode Alexandra walks us through her Seven Essential C's of Networking and highlights the two people struggle with most: Courage and Common Ground. She explains why most people have courage and confidence backwards, and why showing up scared is the only real path to confidence. She also gets practical, giving you a step by step approach for exactly what to say at a networking event, how to approach a group already in conversation, how to introduce yourself without leading with a pitch, and how to craft a 30 second commercial built around the pain you solve.Alexandra also shares her thoughts on follow up, encouraging listeners to pick up the phone and let people hear their voice, because authenticity lives in your voice and people do business with people they can feel.Topics covered include the Seven C's of Networking, courage vs confidence, building common ground, crafting your 30 second commercial, follow up strategy, AI tools for entrepreneurs, and details on the Show Up Scared teen event at the Mayfair Hotel in Coconut Grove on June 23rd.Featured Resources:The Power of Networking by Alexandra Silva Labarr available on AmazonShow Up Scared by Alexandra Silva Labarr available on AmazonShow Up Scared: Teen Edition by Alexandra Silva Labarr available on AmazonHow to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie available on AmazonIt's Not Who You Know, It's Who Knows You available on AmazonBooks by John C. Maxwell available on AmazonBooks by Brené Brown available on AmazonClaude AI: claude.aiShow Up Scared Teen Event: June 23rd at the Mayfair Hotel, Coconut Grove, FL. Visit alexandrasilvabar.com for full event details and tickets.Connect with Alexandra Silva Labarr:Google her name and everything will appear including her website, social media profiles, upcoming events, and speaking opportunities. She is especially active on LinkedIn and responds to every message personally.Website: alexandrasilvalabarr.comConnect with Navigating the Customer Experience:Follow us on X @NavigatingCX and join our private Facebook group, Navigating the Customer Experience Community. You can also find us on LinkedIn and at yaniquegrant.com.If this episode added value to you, please share it with a fellow business owner, leave us a review, and subscribe so you never miss a new episode. Thank you for listening and until next time, keep navigating forward.