How can leaders support their teams effectively without falling into the trap of fixing everything themselves?

Leah Marone is a psychotherapist with expertise in treating anxiety and mood disorders. She also works with athletes on performance anxiety issues, demonstrating her ability to understand and manage high-stress situations.

If you can relate, there are a ton of gems in this show, including:

1. What are some of the problems or ways that leaders lead that is the opposite of creating authentic spaces and solving?
2. How can leaders balance the need to control and deliver results with the approach of validating and empowering their employees?
3. What are the steps involved in transitioning from being a solver to a supporter as a leader, and how can these steps be applied in real-world scenarios?
4. How can leaders effectively inquire and motivate their employees while ensuring that they maintain ownership of their tasks?

And hey, did you catch our role-play experiment? That was like a masterclass in what not to do—Leah's advice saved the day by turning a "Ron-ian disaster" into a pathway to peace.

Meet Leah

Leah Marone, MSW, LCSW, is a seasoned psychotherapist and corporate mental wellness consultant based in Charlotte, NC, with over 20 years of extensive experience. Leah received her Master's degree in clinical social work from the University of Texas at Austin, a top-ranked institution in social work education. She has conducted over 20,000 therapy sessions and contributed articles to reputable publications such as Psychology Today, The Atlantic, and Newsweek, earning recognition for her expertise in mental health.

Leah's personal journey as a former anxiety-ridden Division 1 basketball player fuels her passion for working with high-achieving individuals, often described as type A go-getters. She specializes in addressing internal pressures, imposter syndrome, perfectionism, and performance anxiety.

In her dual role as a mental wellness consultant and board member, Leah collaborates with both companies and nonprofits. Her areas of focus include anxiety and stress management, burnout prevention, boundary setting, mindfulness practices, effective communication, and emotional intelligence. Leah's holistic approach involves a thorough assessment of company culture to tailor her services, meeting organizations where they are and addressing their specific needs.

Leah's innovative 5-step initiative underscores the significance of mental wellness organization-wide, identifying areas for growth and connection. This initiative aims to prevent high turnover, address burnout, and enhance overall collaboration and productivity.

Leah has facilitated dozens wellness workshops for educators, leaders, and healthcare providers and has presented her acclaimed "Support, Don’t Solve" framework on prominent stages. Her inspirational keynotes provide practical tools for self-awareness that can be seamlessly integrated into busy schedules. Renowned for her expertise in boundary setting and resilience, Leah is a sought-after speaker for leadership groups. She addresses individuals navigating perpetual burnout, often fueled by relentless inner critics and the challenges of people-pleasing. Her insights offer a transformative guide for cultivating resilience and establishing healthy boundaries in demanding professional environments.

Beyond her professional commitments, Leah enjoys traveling, hiking, exercising, and working on her upcoming book slated for publication early next year. Additionally, she actively contributes as a coach for her daughter's club soccer team, showcasing her dedication to both personal and community well-being.

https://www.leahmarone.com/

Brad Smith, CCXP, who brings his extensive experience from working with major companies like Symantec, Yahoo, and Sage. Mark and Brad delve into the future of customer experience (CX) management and explore a variety of valuable tools that can be applied to enhance CX.

Brad shares actionable insights on hidden value, value realization versus value erosion, and introduces the concept of value mapping. He also discusses the importance of having a clear brand promise and how it plays a crucial role in delivering a cohesive customer experience.

Key topics covered in this episode include:

• The importance of leveraging a comprehensive CX toolkit, including techniques like empathy maps, journey maps, and value mapping.

• A detailed discussion on identifying and unlocking hidden value within a company by examining areas with high customer traffic, and differentiating between value realization and value erosion.

• A fascinating case study on Brad's work with AARP, showcasing how to diagnose and rectify systemic issues that lead to customer churn and operational inefficiencies.

• The concept of value mapping, its significance, and how it helps in uncovering friction points in customer experiences.

• The critical role of brand promises and how they should guide every interaction to ensure consistency and memorability.

• Insights into the symbiotic relationship between marketing and CX in delivering on the brand promise.

Meet Brad

Brad has had the privilege of leading organizations in their
customer-centric transformation at Symantec, Yahoo!, and Sage as
their CCO/CMO. Across his 30+ years of leadership, Brad has led
global support and service functions for Oracle, Openwave, and
Verisign as well as small start-ups. Leveraging decades of experience
and insights gained from over 50 client engagements, he knows how to
quickly identify, unlock and realize the trapped value concealed across
any organization.

Currently, Brad is the President & Chairman of the Board of the
Consortium for Service Innovation and through the work of the
Consortium, has helped 100’s of customer service organizations
innovate better business models to deliver deep value to their
customers while better engaging their employees to grow their
businesses. He is also one of their recognized Innovators.

Brad is also a Co-Founder and Tribal Advisor at TribeCX Ltd, an alumni
member of the Forrester Chief Customer Executive Council, and the
Chief Customer Officer (CCO) council, and a alumni Board Member
(2018-2021) & recognized Innovator of Customer Experience
Professional Association (CXPA). He is also a Certified Customer
Experience Professional (CCXP).

He is a recognized thought leader in the Customer Experience and
Service Innovation space and has published dozens of articles for
various online publications including Forbes, New York Times, Fox
Business, and Entrepreneur. He is a frequent keynote speaker across
the CX and Customer Service industries.

Brad is home based in Irvine CA and is the Founder/President of Vector
Business Navigation, Inc. – A customer experience/customer success
transformation consulting provider - committed to mentoring inspired
leaders to successfully navigate their CX ecosystems since 2015.

You can learn more about Brad here:

All things CX Considered Podcast with Bob Azman

The Conversational Podcast with Julie Roehm

Reasoned Podcast with Sabrina Meditz

When you think of combinations who comes to mind?

👉 Jobs and Wozniak?

👉 Proctor and Gamble?

👉 Hewlett and Packard?

When it comes to customer experience and one-to-one marketing, hands down, it's Don Peppers and Martha Rogers. They are the individuals behind the Peppers and Rogers brand.

Don has authored or co-authored eleven different business books, collectively selling more than a million copies in 18 languages.

In 2022 Peppers and Rogers released the greatly revised and updated Fourth Edition of their graduate-level textbook and desk reference, Managing Customer Experience & Relationships (Wiley, 2022).

I had the chance to pick Don's brain about the intersection of AI and customer experience management. It was a lesson in how to think about the value customers expect and the value companies desire.

There were so many powerful insights including:

👉 Transforming Customer Interactions with AI:

Don highlighted how AI, especially generative AI, can revolutionize real-time, individualized customer interactions by analyzing emotional sentiment and providing empathetic, immediate responses.

👉 Rethink Success Metrics:

Don emphasized the importance of measuring success through customer-centric metrics like customer lifetime value (CLV) and proposed the innovative concept of 'Return on Customer (ROC)' as a more accurate gauge of business performance over traditional Return on Investment (ROI).

👉 Fostering Trust for Long-term Value:

A significant part of his message was about building trust with customers. Don stressed that maximizing customer value inherently requires businesses to always act in their customers’ best interest, nurturing trust and long-term relationships.

Don's vision and experience provide a roadmap for leveraging AI in creating truly personalized customer experiences. For more pearls of wisdom from Don Peppers, tune into the full episode of the Delighted Customers Podcast!

Meet Don Peppers

During the course of his career, Don has authored or co-authored eleven different business books, collectively selling more than a million copies in 18 languages.

His first book, The One to One Future: Building Relationships One Customer at a Time (Doubleday, 1993), coauthored with business partner Martha Rogers, kick-started the Customer Relationship Management discipline (“CRM”), which has evolved over the years into the “customer experience” field.

This is near and dear to my heart because I’ve had the blessing to teach customer relationship management at Michigan State in the first CXM Masters Degree program in North America.

So you’ll have to understand, this is an extra special episode for me. To have the Tom Brady, the Wayne Gretzky, the Babe Ruth, and the Michael Jordan the GOAT on the show is a big deal.

Finally, In 2013 Don and Martha were inducted into the Data & Marketing Association’s Hall of Fame, along with their business colleague Seth Godin (Don wrote the foreword for Godin’s 1998 breakthrough book Permission Marketing).

In 2022 Peppers and Rogers released the greatly revised and updated Fourth Edition of their graduate-level textbook and desk reference, Managing Customer Experience & Relationships (Wiley, 2022). As an Adjunct Professor of Marketing at Menlo College, Don teaches from this very textbook, and when time permits he Harvard Business Review articles:

• World Class Bull (May 2009), an HBR Case Study commentary, with Martha Rogers

• Is Your Company Ready for One-to-One Marketing? (Jan-Feb 1999), with Martha Rogers and Bob Dorf

• Do You Want to Keep Your Customers Forever? (Mar-Apr 1995), with Martha Rogers and B. Joseph Pine II

'Duh' was a common phase when I was an adolescent. Kids used it in a not-so-nice way to let the other person know that what they were stating was obvious.

In all of my years in customer experience management, it never occurred to me to consider the impact of partnerships on CX.

If you think about it, it's a 'duh.'

On today's show, I'm excited to introduce Theresa Caragol, who has authored Partnering Success: The Force Multiplier to Achieve Exponential Growth.

Theresa shares powerful insights on how to move beyond “random acts of partnering” and build intentional strategies that drive meaningful business outcomes.

We explore Achieve Unite’s three-part framework—talent development, ecosystem strategy, and profitable growth programs—and its role in fostering successful partnerships.

Other key topics include:

• Why strategic partnerships are essential to delivering exceptional customer experiences.
• Common misconceptions leaders have about partnerships and how to uncover gaps in their strategies.
• The concept of “partner lifetime value” versus “customer lifetime value” and the unique benefits of prioritizing it.

Tune in to learn how to create partnerships that not only fuel growth but also elevate your customer experience to the next level!

Show Notes:

• 2025 Partnering Trends: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/2025-partnering-success-trends-theresa-caragol-bc7mf/?trackingId=O%2F4Y2pViSJa%2BFsYtopOTpw%3D%3D
• Link to what we would tell our younger selves: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/letter-our-younger-selves-theresa-caragol-czzoe/?trackingId=01m35CVRRhuwhlMSwAbtyQ%3D%3D
• All the partnering success monthly editions https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6932307608557010944/
• Partnering Success book for order: https://theresacaragol.com/partnering-success-book/
• Press release Partnering success book: https://www.einpresswire.com/article/739586771/theresa-caragol-s-new-book-shows-how-strategic-partnerships-drive-today-s-business-success

Meet Theresa

Theresa Caragol is the Founder and CEO of AchieveUnite Inc. A visionary leader with over 20 years of experience in global partnerships and strategic alliances valued at $500M+. She has driven business growth across 50+ countries through innovative collaboration. Theresa is passionate about empowering leaders through growth, trust, and collaboration.
With expertise in leadership development, emotional intelligence, and partnerships, Theresa has trained thousands in leadership, channel, and partnering best practices. She also designs programs for companies, associations, and universities.

A sought-after speaker and author of Partnering Success: The Force Multiplier to Achieve Exponential Growth (Amazon #1 New Release and best seller in 20+ categories), Theresa has held executive roles at Extreme Networks, Ciena, and Nortel. She holds an MBA, an Executive Master’s in Leadership, and an executive coaching certification.

In this thought-provoking episode of the Delighted Customer Show, we are thrilled to welcome back Marbue Brown, the visionary founder and CEO of Customer Obsession Advantage. An authoritative voice in the intersection of AI and customer experience (CX), Marbu has recently contributed to the bestselling book, "The AI Mindset: Thriving in Civilization's Next Big Disruption."

Marbue discusses his chapter, "Transforming Customer Experience with AI Strategies and Innovation," where he refutes the common belief that AI-driven interactions lack personal touch. He shares insights on utilizing AI to tackle long-standing challenges in customer service, such as optimizing onboarding and training processes to improve proficiency and reduce costs. By leveraging AI to simulate training scenarios, companies are enhancing their customer support capabilities while drastically cutting their training times and expenses.

He shares real-world applications, highlighting how AI is revolutionizing business operations, especially in call centers, where quicker information aggregation and comprehensive customer journey insights are leading to improved agent performance and customer satisfaction scores. Marbu stresses the importance of selecting trustworthy AI providers and starting with clear use cases rather than getting lost in the technological allure.

Marbue also provides actionable advice for businesses, emphasizing maintaining an open mind and a learning posture towards AI opportunities while recounting his own enlightening experiences. I personally loved the example he shared about how Sam's Club is using AI to improve the checkout process for customers.

Tune in for a deeply insightful dialogue that addresses how AI can not only solve existing problems but also unleash new possibilities for businesses to thrive in the next big disruption.

Meet Marbue

B. A. Marbue Brown is author of the book Blueprint for Customer Obsession and the Founder and CEO of The Customer Obsession Advantage (customerobsession.net), a firm dedicated to helping companies achieve extraordinary business results through customer obsession.

He is an accomplished customer experience (CX) executive with a track record of thought leadership and signature business results at some of the most iconic companies on the planet, including JP Morgan Chase, Amazon.com, Microsoft Corporation, and Cisco Systems.

His expertise has been featured in premier media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, USA Today, Fox Business, CNN Business, CBS News, Yahoo! Finance, Forbes, The Baltimore Sun, The New York Post, Wharton Business Daily, and KTLA-TV.

The new book is The AI Mindset: Thriving in Civilization's Next Big Disruption. You can find it here.

I'm excited to kick off season 3 with Rob Markey! It's his third time on the show, and I think you will see why I'm so excited about the insights he shares.

Rob is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School and an Advisory Partner at Bain and Company. He’s widely known for his work on customer loyalty and the development of the Net Promoter Score and System. 🌟

In this episode, we explore Rob's journey and his current role at Harvard, including his innovative approach to teaching customer experience management.

Here are 3 key takeaways you won't want to miss:

🔍 Service Business Design: Learn how understanding customer needs and crafting a value proposition around those needs can drive business success. From extermination businesses to banking, effective service design is crucial.

📈 Customer and Employee Management Systems: Dive into the importance of customer management systems that help customers navigate the business model and employee management systems that elevate and empower employees to deliver exceptional service.

💡 Learning and Adapting: Discover the power of customer feedback and how companies can adapt, innovate, and grow even in the face of market changes and challenges. A great example discussed was the untapped potential in effectively responding to customer praise.

🌟 Special Highlight: Rob shares fascinating insights from his classroom experiences and practical exercises, like the customer compatibility exercise and letter-writing campaigns to service organizations. These exercises show the powerful impact of customer communication and feedback.

Don’t miss out on this episode packed with actionable insights and thought-provoking discussions on modern customer experience management! Tune in now and transform your CX strategy. 🎧🔥

#CustomerExperience #CX #BusinessStrategy #HarvardBusinessSchool #Leadership #CustomerLoyalty #Podcast #NetPromoterScore #MarkSlatin