FLIP THE SWITCH

Hosted by EngageMint's Managing Partner, David Millay. We sit down with leaders in customer & employee experience to tease out new mindsets, core principles and best practices. Built specifically for leaders in sports & entertainment.

Flip the Switch

Future of Customer Experience w/ Steven Van Belleghem

Steven believes in a bright future where companies play the long-term game with their customers. His passion is spreading ideas about the future of customer experience. Steven believes in the combination of common sense, new technologies, an empathic human touch, playing the long-term game and taking your social responsibility to win the hearts and business of customers over and over again.

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Bringing the X-Factor to Guest and Employee Experience w/ Kami Testa

Today’s guest is Kami Testa, Guest Experience Program Director of the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury. Kevin Gober and Kami dive into how to drive change in your organization, the process of hiring a large team of employees all at once, training your staff, and how mindsets impact actions.

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The Customer Experience Playbook w/ Jonathan Daniels

Jonathan Daniels, Co-Founder and Director of CX Brussels, joins us on today’s episode as we go over the various steps of the “ICON Process” from his book The Customer Experience Playbook. Consisting of Initiate, Co-Create, Operationalize, and Nourish, David and Jonathan breakdown a customer experience transformation to its core and show how these fundamental CX …

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Importance of Versatility and Vulnerability in Leadership

David Millay and Kevin Gober are back with another Jam Session as they discuss ways to create your own value and finding ways to bring that value to your organization. With Covid changing the working environment and structure, David and KG get into adapting your skillset to fit in any situation and learning universal ways …

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44. A Culture of Experimentation and Innovation w/ Jesse Cole

This week’s episode is another jam session with Kevin Gober, and we’re joined by Jesse Cole. Jesse is the owner of the Savannah Bananas and Fans First Entertainment. He’s one of the most innovative sports execs in the industry, and his insights from running his baseball team will inspire you to try some of your own experiments. …

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43. Lessons from the Business of Hip-Hop w/ Dan Runcie

We’re stretching outside our world of sports business to learn from the business of hip-hop. Our guest, Dan Runcie, is the founder of Trapital, the home for the business of hip-hop.

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42. The Future of Venue Experiences w/ Drew Berst

In today’s episode, David and Kevin talk with Drew Berst about the combination of digital and physical experiences and how to infuse that in your customer experience. How will stadiums utilize their space going forward? With many stadiums transforming and restructuring their format, how can you maintain the culture and tradition while also keeping with …

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41. The Power of Service and Reinvention w/ Brandon Steiner

Our guest today is Brandon Steiner and he’s been in the sports marketing business longer than I’ve been alive. Literally. Brandon was the founder and former CEO of Steiner Sports, which is now owned by Fanatics. The biggest themes of the episode really revolve around entrepreneurship and how sports and entertainment organizations can ultimately become more entrepreneurial, which is incredibly important right now in this time of the pandemic where everybody’s reinventing. And innovation is key. Brandon is in his sixties now, and starting a second career.

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40: Establish, Operationalize, and Sustain Values

In the second episode of our new format with Kevin Gober, Kevin and David get into the importance of leadership and structure that top-level executives need to be taking during the ever-adapting covid and digital age. With an overarching framework of leaders establishing, operationalizing, and sustaining the values and vision by which organizations thrive, David …

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39: Livestreams, Guest Experience Philosophy, and CX at the Polls

Kevin Gober, the Senior Director of Arena Employee Experience and Learning & Development for the Atlanta Hawks, joined us for today’s episode. For context, we recorded this episode on November 1, before the US election. We got tons of positive feedback on the episode we did earlier this year with Kevin, so we brought KG …

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38: Modern Work and Digital Experiences w/ Jared Spataro

Our guest for this session is Jared Spataro, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft. Jared oversees Microsoft 365, including Microsoft Teams, as well as the company’s focus on Modern Work. Obviously, the different elements of Microsoft 365 are deeply embedded in all of our daily work, from Outlook to Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams, and more. His …

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37: Virtual Fan Engagement Opportunities w/ Brad Wurthman & Chris Grosse

Today’s episode is a little different than usual. This episode is the edited audio from one of our Fireside Chats, something that our invite-only community has access too. Our subject matter experts for the chat were Brad Wurthman, Senior Associate Athletics Director for External Operations at Virginia Tech and Chris Grosse, Assistant Athletics Director for Marketing at Penn State …

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36: Culture of a Challenger Brand w/ Scott Carr

Joining us today is Scott Carr, the Deputy Athletics Director of UCF, Scott Carr. In his daily responsibilities, Scott has oversight of all external units, including Brand Advancement, Strategic Communications and Video Services, as well as being heavily involved in revenue generation. And he does it for one of the innovative, creative, organizations in college …

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35: Personalizing the Guest Experience w/ Brian Betts

Our guest today is Brian Betts, a 22+ year Disney Cast member and former executive. By trade, Brian is an industrial engineer, so this episode is going to have an analytical and methodical approach towards improving customer experience. In his career at Disney, Brian did everything from helping launch Disney Cruise Line and Disney’s Fast …

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34: From Patient Experience to Fan Experience w/ Quint Studer

We’re joined today by the legendary Quint Studer. Quint is a philanthropist, an entrepreneur, and an expert in delivering quality experiences, for customers and employees. He’s the co-owner of the double-A baseball team, the Pensacola Blue Wahoos, and the founder of the healthcare consulting group, the Studer Group. In Quint’s approach to patient experience and fan experience, …

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Ep. 33: Thirty Thousand Fans w/ Drew Bedard

Our guest today is Drew Bedard, the Vice President of Marketing at Bristol Motor Speedway and Kentucky Speedway. On July 15, 2020, Bristol Motor Speedway hosted the NASCAR All-Star Race. The event had almost 30k fans in attendance, the largest attended event in the US since COVID cancelled sports in March 2020. As sports & …

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32: Sports, Resorts & Entertainment w/ Mike Crawford

Today’s guest is Mike Crawford, the President and CEO at Hall of Fame Resort & Entertainment Company. Previous to his current role, Mike held a number of leadership roles with Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts and The Walt Disney Company. At 4 Seasons, he was the President of Asia Pacific and then Portfolio Management around …

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31: The Business Behind ESPN World Wide of Sports w/ Mike Millay PART 2

This is second half of a two-part interview with Mike Millay. This part of the interview dives deeper into the behind-the-scenes stories at ESPN Wide World of Sports and explores Mike’s own revelations as leader at Disney. Mike is the longest tenured executive in ESPN Wide World of Sports’ history. He’s also my Dad and …

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30: The Business Behind ESPN Wide World of Sports w/ Mike Millay PART 1

This is first half of a two-part interview with Mike Millay. This part of the sheds light on the business model powering ESPN Wide World of Sports and explores how the cultures of Disney and competitive sports merged. Our guest today is Mike Millay, the longest tenured executive in ESPN Wide World of Sports’ history. …

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29: Creating Moments that Matter w/ Jahaan Blake

Our guest today is Jahaan Blake, founder of The J. Blake Group. We’ll cover two main topics in this epsisode. Creating infrastructure behind the scenes that allow your front-line staff to create genuine moments of connections with fansThe importance of coaching in leadership We spend much of the episode discussing her prior roles that led her …