I recently interviewed two interesting people on the Village Global podcast (you can find it in any podcast player).
Michael Balaoing, founder of Candlelion, is an A+ public speaking and oral communications coach who’s helped me a great deal. Few people have been as instrumental to my ability to deliver speeches or presentations at a high level. In the conversation we discuss:
– The importance of the acronym WTF (what’s the feeling?) when you’re giving a presentation.
– The four roles that you take on as a speaker: captain, pilot, guide, and game show host.
– The five questions to ask when seeking feedback on a presentation.
– How to keep the audience engaged throughout a talk, not just during the Q&A at the end.
– How to bake stories into your presentations and remix your talks for different audiences.
– The keys to virtual communication in the COVID era.
I also led a conversation with Elliot Shmukler, a legendary product management exec in Silicon Valley who’s helped build LinkedIn, Instacart, and Wealthfront. When I was working at LinkedIn, I recall noticing that Elliot was frequently the smartest person in the room (or so it seemed to me). We’re thrilled to be investors in his new company, Anomalo, and in the conversation we discuss:
– How growth marketing has evolved over the last decade or so since he was an early pioneer of the field at LinkedIn in 2008.
– What people misunderstand about A/B testing, and the right way to go about it.
– Why he doesn’t like the term “growth hacking.”
– Why people should both be more humble and more ambitious with their growth marketing program.
– Lessons from his time at LinkedIn, eBay, Wealthfront, and Instacart.
– Finding a co-founder before finding the idea that became Anomalo.
– The perils of bad data and how Anomalo is helping to fix that problem.