The Human Connection Podcast

Corey Rosen: Humanizing Leadership Communication for B2B Executives

"Think about your why — and the what you say then can have more impact because it's got what I like to call the story below the story. The why is the message. The why is the meaning. The why is the inner life of that." — Corey Rosen Your all-hands isn't failing because you're a bad communicator. It's failing because you're communicating information when your team is waiting for a reason to care. Corey Rosen has spent his career at the intersection of storytelling, performance, and human connection — hosting The Moth Story Slams, teaching at NYU, writing for Comedy Central, and racking up VFX credits on Star Wars and Mission Impossible. When he talks about the mechanics of story, he's not speaking from a TED Talk. He's speaking from thousands of hours watching real humans connect, freeze, recover, and earn a room. In this conversation, Corey breaks down why leaders who've mastered the data haven't mastered the room — and what the "story below the story" actually does to the human brain when a leader is willing to tell it. What you'll take away from this conversation: * Why your team doesn't have a data problem — they have a meaning problem, and storytelling is the fix * The "story below the story" framework: how to find the why underneath any communication so it actually lands * What mirror neurons tell us about why authentic stories build trust faster than polished presentations ever will * Why the perfect all-hands presentation might be working against you — and what Moth Story Slam audiences reveal about vulnerability as a leadership superpower * The one shift that turns an ordinary moment (yes, even planting flowers) into a story that builds real connection with your team If your team is performing but not connecting — if your communication is technically correct but emotionally empty — this episode names exactly what's missing. #H2H #RelationshipDrivenGrowth #StartupLeadership #B2BRelationships #CompanyCulture === You can connect with Corey Rosen here: www.yourstorywelltold.com [http://www.yourstorywelltold.com] @storyrosen (instagram, tiktok) You can connect with Karl Pontau here: www.vouchedconnections.com [http://www.vouchedconnections.com] www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com [http://www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com] https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1 [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1] Please like, subscribe, and share this episode with somebody you care about!

Your Stakeholders Aren't Resistant. They Just Don't Trust You Yet. | Mallika Madakasira

"Spending time building those relationships is really important — because that's where you start to establish trust, and you're then able to reach that person. Their personality. Everything else. Good and bad." — Mallika Madakasira Most transformation initiatives fail before the first stakeholder meeting. Not because the strategy is wrong. Because the humans running it haven't done the work that makes strategy possible. Mallika Madakasira has spent her career driving healthcare innovation at the intersection of people, process, and technology — and her approach to leading change looks nothing like the playbook most executives are using. She maps the humans before she maps the project. She meets stakeholders where they are before she asks anything of them. And she's learned that the relationships you build before a project starts determine whether it lands — or dies quietly in a room full of politely disengaged people. In this episode, Karl and Mallika dig into what it actually takes to move complex systems in healthcare and beyond — and why the answer is almost never a better process. What you'll take away from this conversation: * Why relationship-mapping before project kickoff is the non-negotiable first move for any change initiative * How to neutralize the quiet saboteurs — the stakeholders who won't surface objections until it's too late * The disarming one-question approach that makes even resistant stakeholders open up immediately * Why shared success credit (even when the split is 50/5) is a strategic play, not a generosity one * How the relationships you build during a project outlast the project itself — and why that's where the real ROI lives If you're leading a transformation at scale and wondering why buy-in feels harder than the actual work — this conversation is the answer. #H2H #RelationshipDrivenGrowth #B2BRelationships #StartupLeadership #ClientRetention === You can connect with Mallika Madakasira here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallika-madakasira-877b76 [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mallika-madakasira-877b76] You can connect with Karl Pontau here: www.vouchedconnections.com [http://www.vouchedconnections.com] www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com [http://www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com] https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1 [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1] Please like, subscribe, and share this episode with somebody you care about!

Boy Hijnen: The Client Yield Methodology — Turn Existing Clients Into a Scalable Growth Engine

"Are we getting new clients just to paint over the fact that we're losing clients at the back end? That, to me, sounds not the smartest of ways — because you're just painting over what's really happening in your business." — Boy Hijnen Boy Hijnen spent years watching companies do the same expensive thing on repeat: pour budget into acquiring new clients while quietly bleeding the ones they already had. He built the Client Yield Methodology to stop that cycle — a Moneyball-style system of 127 metrics (92 of them leading indicators) designed to show you exactly where your existing client relationships are heading before the churn decision is already made. In this episode, Boy and Karl get into why most companies have their entire growth equation backwards. New logo obsession isn't a sales strategy — it's a cover-up. And the math only works until client acquisition costs rise high enough that there's nothing left to paint over. The harder conversation is the structural one: client success is classified as a cost center, so one account manager gets 60–70 clients, which means no one goes deep enough to catch the signals that matter, which means the churn that "came out of nowhere" was visible for months. The system produces exactly the outcome it was designed for — and then acts surprised. What you'll take away from this conversation: * The Client Yield framework: how retention lift, expansion lift, and referral yield work as a single integrated growth engine — not three separate departmental metrics * Why 92 of 127 client health metrics should be leading indicators, and why most CS dashboards are measuring the wrong 35 * The cost center reframe: the business case executives need to bring to the CEO and CRO to shift client success from expense line to revenue driver * Why one account manager covering 60+ clients is a structural guarantee of churn — and what the ratio actually needs to look like * The change management reality: why waiting until "the pain is high enough" to make this shift is often already too late If your retention numbers look fine on paper but something feels off in your client relationships, this episode will tell you what your dashboard isn't showing you — and what to do about it before the contract renewal window closes. #H2H #ClientRetention #RelationshipDrivenGrowth #B2BRelationships #StartupLeadership === You can connect with Boy Hijnen here: https://www.vantum.group/ [https://www.vantum.group/] You can connect with Karl Pontau here: www.vouchedconnections.com [http://www.vouchedconnections.com] www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com [http://www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com] https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1 [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1] Please like, subscribe, and share this episode with somebody you care about!

You're Not Failing at AI. You're Failing at Foundations. | Franck Ardourel

"95% of organizations fail at AI implementation because they're looking at the top of the iceberg. They don't look at what's below — and that's everything." — Franck Ardourel Franck Ardourel has spent 25 years at the intersection of customer experience, AI, and marketing strategy — advising Fortune 500 companies and high-growth startups, teaching at Santa Clara University, and watching the same mistake repeat itself across every industry: companies are rushing to bolt AI onto systems that were already broken. In this episode, Franck breaks down why 95% of AI transformations fail before they start — and it has nothing to do with the technology. It has everything to do with what's underneath it. Siloed data. Fractured workflows. Leadership teams that don't trust each other enough to agree on what the system should even do. You can't automate your way out of a foundation problem. You can only make it move faster. Franck also shares how one solo entrepreneur used a deliberately small, AI-researched, human-written outreach strategy to move conversion rates from 0.5% to 10% — not by going bigger, but by going more human at every touchpoint that mattered. What you'll take away from this conversation: * The iceberg framework: why AI at the top fails when the data infrastructure, governance, and system integration underneath it isn't ready * The three prerequisites every organization needs before AI transformation actually works * Why automating broken processes doesn't fix them — it just accelerates the damage * How to know when to stop the AI and bring in the human touch (and why most companies never ask that question) * The difference between AI experimentation and AI at scale — and the organizational gap between them that nobody talks about If your leadership team is being sold an AI roadmap while your data is still siloed and your departments still don't talk to each other, this episode is the conversation you need to have before you sign anything. #H2H #RelationshipDrivenGrowth #StartupLeadership #B2BRelationships #CompanyCulture === You can connect with Franck Ardourel here: https://franckardourel.com [https://franckardourel.com] You can connect with Karl Pontau here: www.vouchedconnections.com [http://www.vouchedconnections.com] www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com [http://www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com] https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1 [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1] Please like, subscribe, and share this episode with somebody you care about!

Your Pitch Deck Isn't the Problem. You Are. | Heather Lawver

"Every investment I've ever gotten was human to human. It baffles me that no one addresses 'know your investor' — because this is a relationship you're hoping will last a very long time." — Heather Lawver Heather Lawver out-marketed Warner Brothers at 16, launched her first company at 13, and has since helped early-stage founders raise over $220 million in venture capital. She didn't do it by perfecting the pitch deck. She did it by understanding the human being on the other side of the table. In this episode, Karl and Heather get into why most founders are still treating the pitch as an information delivery system — and why that's exactly backwards. The goal of your first pitch isn't to close. It's to get the next meeting. Everything else is noise you're paying for in investor attention. Heather also shares the story of a "no" that became a "yes" — not because she improved her deck metrics, but because she sent a thank-you note, took the feedback, and came back coachable. A senior investor later told her: "You make it easy to believe in you." That's the pitch. Everything else is slides. What you'll take away from this conversation: * Why founders can't see the trees for the forest — and why that's your biggest pitch liability at Series A and beyond * The one thing your first pitch must accomplish (it's not what you think) * Why "know your investor" matters as much as "know your customer" — and how investor discovery can protect you when things go sideways * The follow-up framework that turned a hard no into a funded yes * How Heather's AI pitch platform is automating the info-dump → clarity-pitch transformation for founders who don't have a Heather in their corner If you're a founder heading into a raise — or an exec who pitches clients, partners, or boards — the principle is the same: the human on the other side isn't investing in your product. They're investing in you. #H2H #RelationshipDrivenGrowth #StartupLeadership #B2BRelationships #ClientRetention === You can connect with Heather Lawver here: https://www.ceemo.ai [https://www.ceemo.ai] You can connect with Karl Pontau here: www.vouchedconnections.com [http://www.vouchedconnections.com] www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com [http://www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com] https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1 [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1] Please like, subscribe, and share this episode with somebody you care about!