Success Beneath the Surface

Deborah's guest is Chris Yeung, Founder and CTO of Vimbly Group. Deborah and Chris discuss his approach to identifying businesses where he can leverage his strengths in IP and technology to optimize them. Chris believes in being opportunistic and making strategic decisions. He discovered his strengths lie in operational efficiency and unlocking additional value based on his understanding of processes. He shares his experiences, from his role as a lowly analyst at BlackRock to how he and his partner founded Vimbly.com, a platform for discovering and booking recreational activities. The platform was born out of Chris and his partner's frustration with trying to book a photography class in NYC. They realized that their strengths in IP and technology could add value beyond Vimbly.com, and they began consulting for other organizations. The value they brought was their entrepreneurial mindset to problem-solving, which helped improve operational efficiency for their clients. Chris emphasizes the importance of trust in relationships, which is the most important thing for him.
About Vimbly Group:
Vimbly Group is a technology-oriented business-growth company. We believe that technology is the key ingredient to better than linear growth. As such, Vimbly Group partners with businesses from an ever-widening range of categories to identify inefficiencies in their operations and then develop unique technologies that resolve them and realize significant sources of new revenue.
About Chris Yeung:
Chris's passion for automation started in asset management, where he was responsible for building portfolio management systems at BlackRock.  His journey ultimately led to Vimbly Group, where he now takes pleasure in applying technology to build businesses across a variety of industries.
 
Links from today's episode:
Vimbly GroupChris Yeung on LinkedIn
Chief OutsidersDeborah Fell on LinkedIn

In this episode of Success Beneath the Surface, Deborah Fell gives commentary on last week's episode with Tom Zucker, president of EdgePoint Capital. Tom emphasizes that gross margin is becoming a critical indicator of a company's value and that sustained margins are a reflection of the company's worth. He stresses that businesses need to offer distinct value propositions that set them apart from competitors and resonate with their clients and customers.
To illustrate this point, Tom provides an example of a closely held family business that developed a unique friction-break product with superior intellectual property. The company should have traded for six times its value, but it traded for north of 11 times because it offered a distinct value that no one else had, enabling it to maintain and grow its margins.
Deborah and Tom discuss the fragility of business owners and the importance of ego fulfillment in M&A advisory services. They also acknowledge that family dynamics are consistent among businesses, regardless of their size and sophistication. Join us for this episode, "Family Dynamics are Consistent Among Businesses of All Sizes."
Listen to the full episode with Tom Zucker here.
About Deborah's guest, Tom Zucker
Tom Zucker serves as the President of EdgePoint Capital, managing client transactions, overseeing its day-to-day management, and executing strategic initiatives.
Tom uses his extensive business and financial experience to assist business owners in completing transition events, acquisitions, or recapitalizations. His diverse experiences range from executing corporate divestitures for General Electric to assisting small closely held businesses in executing family ownership transitions.
Links from this episode:
EdgePoint Capital
Tom Zucker on LinkedIn
Deborah Fell on LinkedIn
Chief Outsiders

Deborah Fell interviews Tom Zucker, Managing Director at EdgePoint Capital, about transitioning a family-owned business. Zucker emphasizes the importance of preparation and planning, particularly in terms of understanding a business's competitive edge and unique position in the marketplace.
Zucker stresses the significance of storytelling in successfully transitioning a family business. A financial statement alone fails to convey a company's purpose or potential. He provides an example of a family business that sold successfully due to its unique product that fit perfectly into the product line of a larger company. Zucker notes that the story must be authentic, informed, and tied together to be effective.
Tom acknowledges the emotional side of transitioning a family business, advising that owners should start the preparation process at least 24 months in advance. He also highlights the importance of transparency and authenticity in communicating with employees and family members during the transition process. Listen to this episode, "Navigating Emotional and Financial Challenges of Business Transitions."
 
About Deborah's guest, Tom Zucker
Tom Zucker serves as the President of EdgePoint Capital, managing client transactions, overseeing its day-to-day management, and executing strategic initiatives.
Tom uses his extensive business and financial experience to assist business owners in completing transition events, acquisitions, or recapitalizations. His diverse experiences range from executing corporate divestitures for General Electric to assisting small closely held businesses in executing family ownership transitions.
Links from this episode:
EdgePoint Capital
Tom Zucker on LinkedIn
Deborah Fell on LinkedIn
Chief Outsiders

Last week, my guest Deborah Overdeput emphasized the opportunity for sales and marketing to drive success when they work together vs when they act in silos.  Deborah has a way of taking atmospheric statements like “sales and marketing alignment” and breaking them down into the practical day-to-day of what needs to be done and who needs to do what to move the business. She used the term “sales enablement” and I unpack what that means in this session.  I also bring in my perspective on the importance of understanding and supporting the prospective client’s research and buying process vs a one-dimensional internal view of the sales funnel.  
To hear the full interview with Deborah Overdeput, listen here.
About Deborah Overdeput:
Deborah has 20+ years of experience as a global marketing leader working with CEOs at financial technology (fintech), SaaS, business consulting, and technology companies to achieve double-digit revenue growth, turning flat businesses into growing enterprises. She applies modern marketing techniques to drive top-of-funnel activity and nurture leads, working collaboratively with sales to build revenue momentum.
Links from this episode:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahoverdeput/ 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahfell 
https://chiefoutsiders.com 

In this episode, Deborah Fell is joined by Deborah Overdeput, CMO and Chief Outsiders. Together they talk about the importance of alignment between sales and marketing in order to achieve business success. Drawing from her experience, Overdeput explains how marketing and sales are often at odds because they operate in different silos, with different perspectives and goals. When these two teams work together, they can drive business success. She also shares insights on some of the strategies and tools that sales and marketing can use to ensure that they are on the same page. For Overdeput, the key is trust, and building a relationship based on trust, sales, and marketing can create a collaboration that works towards a common goal. She also shares how her background in engineering and marketing enables her to operationalize marketing strategies to drive business growth. Finally, Overdeput highlights her love for helping businesses challenge their pipeline and providing them with the necessary tools and strategies to drive growth.
About Deborah Overdeput:
Deborah has 20+ years of experience as a global marketing leader working with CEOs at financial technology (fintech), SaaS, business consulting, and technology companies to achieve double-digit revenue growth, turning flat businesses into growing enterprises. She applies modern marketing techniques to drive top-of-funnel activity and nurture leads, working collaboratively with sales to build revenue momentum.
Links from this episode:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahoverdeput/ 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborahfell 
https://chiefoutsiders.com 

We had a great discussion last episode with Gary Stockman about balancing the push and pull of driving new business and maintaining profitability. Today, I want to dive deeper into one particular aspect of our conversation that shouldn't be overlooked - the value proposition that a company offers to its customers.
As Gary mentioned, it's crucial to understand what matters to your customers and what attracted them to your company in the first place. If you're feeling pressure on prices from customers because of the economic environment, it may be time to go back and understand if your value proposition is still unique and if it solves their pain points in a way only you can solve. To do this, I recommend talking to four or five of your top customers and having a CEO-to-CEO level discussion about their pain points and the current environment. You can also talk to your sales team and even have an outside firm conduct one-on-one conversations with your core customers to gain insights about how their needs and wants may have changed.
Maintaining a strong value proposition is anti-commoditization and can help you maintain price premium and profitability even in uncertain times.
Next week, we will be speaking with Deborah Overdeput, a fractional chief marketing officer for Chief Outsiders, who will share her expertise on sales enablement and the importance of the alignment of sales and marketing. Subscribe to our podcast and join us next week for another insightful episode of Success Beneath the Surface.
The full episode is here.

Why a Segmentation Approach is Key to Customized Pricing Strategies.
In this first episode of Success Beneath the Surface, host Deborah Fell is joined by Gary Stockman to discuss the importance of having a thoughtful approach to pricing strategy. The conversation covers how companies can balance the desire to grow revenue with the need to maintain or grow profits. Gary stresses the importance of having a deep understanding of costs, as well as what truly matters to customers and what drives value for them. The discussion also touches on the challenges of making changes to the pricing strategy in a fast-paced and rapidly changing business environment. Whether you're a CEO or a business leader, this episode will provide you with valuable insights and perspectives on a pricing strategy that can help you make more informed decisions. So tune in and listen to this engaging conversation!