Building Trust With a Growing Audience

Building Trust With a Growing Audience | Kaarel Kotkas | CEO Campfire Chat | The Sterling Woods Group

In our digital world, verifying that someone is who they say they are can be challenging. Kaarel Kotkas, CEO and founder of Veriff, noticed that even big brands with huge budgets struggle to verify customers’ identities—if it was that difficult for them to get it right, what hope did smaller organizations have?

This is the question that inspired Kaarel to start Veriff. Using AI technology, Veriff helps brands confirm the identity of customers online to avoid fraud and compliance violations.

Kaarel founded Veriff in his home country of Estonia. With a population of only 1.3 million, Veriff’s Estonian market was limited. The benefit, Kaarel points out, is that Estonia’s small population forced him and the team to think globally from day one. That mindset has paid off, as Veriff now has a presence in 190 countries.

As the brand expands, building trust is vital. Any organization must gain its customers’ trust, but when you’re in the business of online identity verification, you must win complete confidence from your audience.

Kaarel’s biggest piece of advice for organizations looking to scale an international, trusted brand is that it’s about more than simply translating your offering into other languages. To expand successfully, you must understand the mindset, culture, and attitudes of each market you pursue.

For example, Kaarel notes an interesting mindset among the American audience. Americans have been quick to adopt social media on a large scale—arguably a platform that puts our collective privacy at risk, as we share personal information in a public forum. However, and perhaps counterintuitively, he’s also found that Americans are, in general, highly privacy-conscious and concerned about safety online. This mindset differs significantly from the German market, where Veriff also operates, in which individuals are less conscious of the importance of security and privacy online.

Kaarel also discusses the importance of building a global network of stakeholders. The European market is not a monolith; each country has different laws and expectations around know your customer policies. As Veriff has expanded, the team has established relationships with regulators in each country. That way, as privacy rules change, Veriff has a seat at the table to help influence rules and ensure that regulators and government leaders are considering all the necessary angles in keeping constituents safe online.

Ultimately, Kaarel believes Veriff has applications far beyond the realm of online business. He envisions a future where Veriff helps governments verify passports during international travel. In Estonia, much of the country’s public services have shifted online—it became the first country to run nationwide elections online. Kaarel feels that, with proper online identification tools, digital transformation on this scale is within reach for all of us.

Episode Transcript

Announcer:

This is the CEO Campfire Chat with your host, Rob Ristagno. Taped in front of a live studio audience, join us to hear successful growth stories from middle-market companies, just like yours. Sponsored by The Sterling Woods Group.

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Rob Ristagno:

Welcome to the CEO Campfire Chat, recorded live in front of a studio audience of senior executives. I’m your host, Rob Ristagno. And today I have the privilege of introducing you to Kaarel Kotkas, the founder and CEO of Veriff, which is an online identity verification platform. Welcome, Kaarel.

Kaarel Kotkas:

Great to be here.

Rob Ristagno:

All right, so we are going to start this episode, like we do with all of our episodes, with the game of five questions–because CEOs don’t have time for 20 questions. So the goal here is just to answer these five questions within two minutes and you win the prize of a pat on the back. All right. You ready?

Kaarel Kotkas:

Let’s do it.

Rob Ristagno:

All right. Number one. What is your vision for your company?

Kaarel Kotkas:

In the future I’d like that passport will be issued by Veriff, not only by the government.

Rob Ristagno:

Gotcha. Gotcha. And number two, who is your ideal customer?

Kaarel Kotkas:

Global internet business.

Rob Ristagno:

And number three, what is your value proposition to them?

Kaarel Kotkas:

We enable them to verify their users so they can save up on cost of non-compliance and fraud.

Rob Ristagno:

Excellent. And number four, you’re doing very well here. What is the best part of being a CEO?

Kaarel Kotkas:

Solving big problems because they require cross-functional support.

Rob Ristagno:

All right. And number five, what is the one thing that is going to make or break your next year?

Kaarel Kotkas:

Not being able to hire fast enough.

Rob Ristagno:

All right. Yeah’s that’s a big problem. A lot of people are saying that the number one issue it’s either supply chain or people, or both, I think is we’re hearing that across the board. Huh? Any secrets, anything working for you just to share with our audience before we dive into the next segment?

Kaarel Kotkas:

I believe mainly, just referrals and internal referrals and support getting teams together.

Rob Ristagno:

Gotcha.

Kaarel Kotkas:

I think from our side the biggest thing is always around the culture. As for the first a hundred people we had no job advertisement out, and we just hired the people that we wanted to work with within our network and our referral status do the rest.

Rob Ristagno:

It’s much like sales and marketing. And I think that more and more companies are treating HR like marketing, they’re creating a CRM, so to speak. I think it’s called an applicant tracking system, but it’s effectively a CRM. And how do you attract people to get on your list and how do you nurture them and qualify them and like, all good sales and marketing starts with word of mouth and personal networks and things like that. So it sounds similar for you.

Kaarel Kotkas:

It is. No silver bullet–just execution and something similar like that.

Rob Ristagno:

Makes sense. Makes sense. All right. Well, let’s dive in. You’re running a company, you started a company… It’s all about verifying identity online, syncing up with government issued ID so that you know who someone is. And that has lots of good use cases, but you’re instilling trust in people. People have to trust you. So, one thing I really want to go deep on in this interview is how do you build trust? You’re a relatively new company. You’re based in Estonia and you have a global brand. So tell us a little bit about… Let’s just start with actually Estonia itself… 1.3 million population. Tell us how starting a company based on identity verification in Estonia was actually a competitive advantage?

Kaarel Kotkas:

I think in Estonia, we are having a lot of global businesses at the moment. And what is definitely the first competitive advantage is the mindset that businesses that start in Estonia have. You basically answered it on your own by saying there’s only 1.3 million people, meaning that you have to think global from day one. Domestic market isn’t big enough. So in our business where we are verifying people, we should be verifying every single Estonian twice a day when we like to keep it in Estonia. That’s the first thing: Make sure that all the business starting here think global from day one.

Kaarel Kotkas:

Then when thinking about identity, Estonia has very, very good history around digital identity. And this was from, actually now it’s more 20 years old, but it gets back to the time when Estonia got back to its re-independency in 1991. And there was no Soviet legacy… That they were able to just build upon the country… So, the country that has a land area bigger than Netherlands, but only 1.3 million people. It created a challenge that how you can keep some kind of office open in rural areas for two people per month. In order to be next year citizens, you have to go online and to get the corruption and all the legacy out means that the less people you have in between, the less corruption and challenges there are. So, this was all about building the digital identity framework that we paint in back in 2001.

Kaarel Kotkas:

And, this was something that it started to enable you to just, access, do a tax declaration online, filing taxes is a minute job. And then going into, into all the other segments and government-related services that can be done fairly easily online. So I think definitely Estonia as a country has shown to the world that digital identity and strong identity can enable all kinds of services coming online, which previously required meeting people in person.

Kaarel Kotkas:

And yeah, we have not fully done it yet. There’s only one thing… It’s that you can’t get married in Estonia online. So this is… You have to show up in person, but, the rest of the things are now covered.

Rob Ristagno:

So voting, taxes…All that is on online now?

Kaarel Kotkas:

Yeah. This is… We’ve had e-elections for was the first time 16 years ago. So definitely the experience around the country and the use cases for identity was something that we felt and felt a part of our society when I’ve been growing up was a central part, but globally it was missing. And this was also a trigger and competitive edge of just us taking the know-how and now trying to solve it globally.

Audience Member:

Yeah, I had a question. So for an internet company that’s selling online, what… Describe or identify the extent to which this is a problem that they can’t, or may not know who they’re dealing with before verifying their identity. I know at the… Once the transaction happens, there’s a verification because of the financial part. But before that, to what extent is it a problem?

Kaarel Kotkas:

It firstly started in the financial services as a compliance requirement to fight against terrorist financing and money laundering. That’s the reason why the verification is an essential piece for financial services and fintechs to shine online and leverage the technology. Then all the new service marketplaces, we would have not imagined the lives of sitting into the back seat of someone else’s car or allowing somebody to your apartment. So all the new service marketplaces, they are all about building up trust to make their platforms make sense, as an example of the essential piece of the identity verification and going further into those new use cases like running remote examinations from distance… How you can do and have access to education from distance and have certificates by saying that, “Yeah, you’re the one that has done it.” So now together with notarized contract… So the part is that it’s like infrastructure layer. It’s like a road that every service has to ride on. And this is why it’s been interesting to see the growth of this, now globally.

Audience Member:

Great. Great. Thank you.

Rob Ristagno:

All right. Now tell us a little bit… I understand now all the reasons why there’s an advantage of starting in Estonia. Tell us a little bit though about how you start expanding globally. Tell us how you started building trust around the world.

Kaarel Kotkas:

There was a lot of learning, actually, about the globalization of our business. We at first started to expand globally with our customers, like relation banking… Banking customers that they… Their offices are in other countries, nearby countries. But what it meant is that… We focused for a year of hard work. And that one day we were so excited about that we got there and within a year of hard work, we made it to Latvia. Now it’s twice the peak the market, which was 2 million or more… So what was the learning at the end? That building a global business and going international, it all starts by choosing the markets.

Kaarel Kotkas:

You’d like to go because the pain of entrance is as big. You just have to be wise enough to go after big goals. In terms of building a global brand and internationalization in general, then it gets to all the businesses quite fast, that internationalization isn’t about translation, meaning that you can’t go with your internet business global by just changing and adding a new language. That means that you have to have people around the world to build a global business with a new mindset, culture, and understanding of the market. And this has been essential for us to build a global brand, to think out… Not outside the box but of the box, meaning that, you know exactly what happens inside the box. So you develop an idea outside of it. So those are the things that are essential while growing globally as a business.

Rob Ristagno:

Yeah, that’s a good point. That just because it’s translated into a native language doesn’t mean that it meets the people’s culture or their attitudes towards security or identity, or their beliefs. Any stories about countries that were easier to enter versus harder to enter based on some of these cultural issues?

Kaarel Kotkas:

Yeah. I think there’s a lot of… The question about privacy is very interesting. And us being in the [inaudible 00:11:37] segment, meaning that, let’s say people sometimes feel comfortable showing their ID online and sometimes they don’t. And this is interesting where there are countries that have a very big social media penetration, like United States. People somehow are more privacy conscious compared to Germany that people feel at the end, “Okay, this is–the added friction is something I need to address this service and make sure that I feel my money and high-value transaction is secure.” So there are interesting parallels of seeing the understanding about the privacy, which is different on a country by country level. And other than that, I think, yeah, it’s like, I still don’t know how to do it exactly. It’s on a day by day learning, but every single time we are just seeing the small things wrong. Building up trust is so different on a country by country level.

Rob Ristagno:

Yeah, no, it sounds like any… Generalizing this, any company that’s looking to expand globally, it’s about really understanding the attitudes towards your category in each country. And you might be lucky if those attitudes are similar and probably have a smoother rollout, but if those attitudes are different, then you’re going to have to have a totally different “go to market” approach, maybe even a different product.

Kaarel Kotkas:

Yeah, agreed. Agreed. And I think another thing within financial services and now identity being highly regulated, even when there’s a saying that all the countries are equal in Europe, somewhat more equal, meaning different regulations and things to keep in mind. And this is something while scaling a business that is in a regulated space, keeps me away.

Rob Ristagno:

Any tips, are advice for people… I know a lot of people feel managing regulations is thorny and difficult and a lot of work. Any advice, and any coaching, mindset shifts, attitudes to help people who are struggling with or annoyed by the level of compliance they have to adhere to?

Kaarel Kotkas:

I think it’s when building things only based and things that are written out, it’s quite challenging. But actually regulators, they’re willing to just negotiate and talk to and being open about the plans that you’re having. They’re also more flexible… How to take different things into account. So I think the best hint here is to be a part of different discussions and really go and ask what has been meant here and show how the problems are solved. That enables you to just keep the regulators updated as well.

Rob Ristagno:

So it sounds like, if I understood that correctly, build relationships with the regulators and view it that you’re in it together, and there’s more of a back and forth conversation rather than just the letter of the law. Is that right?

Kaarel Kotkas:

Yes. I think from our side, we are seeing it as a great advantage that the market that we are in is getting regulated. So that’s the reason why we’d like to work with it closely with them, meaning that they can make us trust it so much easier globally as well. So I think it’s all about the cooperation here.

Audience Member:

Can I ask you a question about that?

Kaarel Kotkas:

Yeah.

Audience Member:

Does that mean that you’re able to spend a lot of time or are forced to spend a lot of time learning about the actual regulators themselves and their political constituencies? Because I imagine they’re not just interested in making your life better, right? They want to make sure that they last as politicians in their own country, that they take care of their own people. Do you have to really play 3D chess on that to make that work?

Kaarel Kotkas:

Not too much. I believe that Estonia has been a great example that regulators and… We’ve got it as something that politicians for them to make sense and be in power, they have to be pragmatic. They have to show results, not the ones that are being the loudest, meaning it’s not about playing chess. It’s helping them to make right decisions for their own success. And I think that’s why–

Audience Member:

It’s a little bit different here in the States, but glad to hear that it’s not like that over there.

Kaarel Kotkas:

Yeah. At the moment in this… Coming from Estonia, maybe I’m still in this space that everything is possible, but so far we have a track record that is.

Rob Ristagno:

Other questions?

Audience Member:

So I’m curious… Actually I had a quick anecdote. So a week ago I went to a baseball game… went to Yankee Stadium. And I was surprised that there was identity verification as part of entry into the stadium. Yeah, and because I had a Clear membership, I was able to go in a quicker line and use my Clear and all of that, but it was just… It just struck me that that is such a cultural shift. That idea of an activity that used to be fairly anonymous, going to a baseball game, now I’m identified and located to that place. And I’m just thinking in the context of this conversation… What an expansion of addressable market that is for a business and I’m curious how you think about… You said your target is online interactions and transactions. Do you think about an extension of your business being the sort of physical location identification?

Kaarel Kotkas:

To some level, there are physical use cases already. Like all the airlines that are using our product to get easier check-ins. This is just as we are calling online… As we run their online operations that leverage them also in that physical world to get access to. But I think this is something that… There’s a lot of things that start in Europe in terms of regulations and then, and additional things that land with a couple of years delay in the States, like GDPR being a great example… Starting a CCPA in California, three years later. And I believe around identity and the knowledge about it… It might be at first additional friction, but at the end, it grows into an understanding that, okay, when they don’t do it, then you are feeling already a bit different. It’s like a seatbelt. Once you put it on, it’s like, “yeah, you feel it has to be there.” But when you don’t have it, you feel odd to try it, as it’s a habit around trust and safety.

Audience Member:

I agree. I would say there’s a dynamic around now vaccine card verification that at least in New York is starting to feel the same way. Now when I go into a gym and they don’t ask to verify, I question the process and why aren’t you… You’re supposed to ask why aren’t you asking? Which is another big, big shift.

Kaarel Kotkas:

Yeah. Great.

Rob Ristagno:

So one thing that’s come up here is that transparency is very important for building a global brand and complying with regulations and getting your brand out there. But it is important not only to your customers, also your employees. Right? So tell us a little bit about the culture inside Veriff and how it’s consistent with how you’re trying to build your brand.

Kaarel Kotkas:

We slightly might have touched upon it, but the things around Veriff is definitely the part of the first customer… First people in our team. It was like, “Okay, we need identity.” We need know-how from… We just needed exact know-how, basically, okay, from identity space here in Estonia, we were able to just go after the key people to just bring [inaudible 00:18:40] us to us. Then we thought that, “Okay, all identities is going over to biometrics,” because it’s so much easier to take somebody’s ID card or mobile phone with [inaudible 00:18:49] also goes away than someone’s head, for example. So that’s the reason why it’s over biometrics, meaning the best way to gather biometrics from distance is all about leveraging the video. And because in the times of defects, pictures aren’t making any sense anymore. So you go after Skype engineers that built the Skype. So, Estonia has the best video analysis plant in the world… And then going out after optimization… It’s like Starship.

Kaarel Kotkas:

So, what it meant is that all the people that we started to have and leverage… It was all about going first a hundred people… No job advertisement out… We just went after our networks and started to just get people around that we wanted to work with. And I think this was something that enabled us to take the next level of growth as businesses change every single time as an organization. First 15 people is one level, then 15 to 35. And now us having a 320 person team globally. So those are the things that… First hundred is important. And another thing that I personally I don’t want to be the face of Veriff, but I’d like to be in this situation where I can choose people who are going to be the face of Veriff for their respective areas, meaning that we are taking the talent that highly trust because of their expertise. And they’re going to be the face of our company there and getting all the credit on the things they’re doing.

Kaarel Kotkas:

And this is something that… Has enabled to just gather more and more talent into areas, as well as the right expert… The experts are talking about the things they’re doing. And I believe it’s all those years… By doing business there’s values that might sound similar to different companies as headlines. But what makes the difference?

Kaarel Kotkas:

It’s like the environment… Like who is cool… It’s like going back to the school times that, yeah, people can learn from the same books, but they’re having different grades in different schools. And it gets back to the atmosphere like, “Who is considered as a great kid? The one who practice arts or the one who is good at taking some tests, some mathematics and science?” So the same thing is around company culture that is essential that… Who is great in this environment and who can succeed is the person who doesn’t hesitate to take the extra mile. And this is appreciated. And it’s important because you can say all the other things, but the only thing that matters is execution.

Rob Ristagno:

That’s true. Back to your point earlier, but just hiring it comes down to execution. No silver bullet.

Kaarel Kotkas:

Yeah.

Rob Ristagno:

Great. You once told me that you want to be more than just an identity verification service. You want to build the infrastructure for trust online. Tell me a little bit more about what you meant by that.

Kaarel Kotkas:

At the moment we are in this situation, that we are getting better with every single verification we are doing. So there’s a company that joins us to… Partners up with us to verify their users. Then it means that we also have a overlook across all other customers and businesses. So we can be sure that we can leverage this network effect onboard them on good, good customers. And how we compete is we are this kind of a trust infrastructure layer that businesses trust and people trust. That we are making and keeping them secure. And this is the world that we are living in today… On using government ID for this purpose. And government ID is the best tool to verify people today. But it isn’t the best in the long term. Why it is… It means that, yeah, different passports are different… Are having different power, depending where the passport is coming from, like with passports from some countries, you can’t travel around the world.

Kaarel Kotkas:

And us getting a passport means for the first 18 years of our lives, that your son or daughter of your parents, there’s not so much interactions that the government has with you. And in many countries getting access to the government issued ID is a challenge on its own. There’s a billion people having no government issued ID at all.

Kaarel Kotkas:

So the bigger picture of ours is to build the network power of businesses that use us and help us to move towards the consumer focus… That you, Rob, come to Veriff.com. We are making sure that you are who you say you are. And then we can start to build that trust for you. That, okay, you’ve been to Bank of America. You’ve been to Uber, you’ve been to Airbnb. That is a cross-platform, cross-patent that is so much stronger source of identity than government issued ID ever can be. So our big picture is to move towards the future where that passport will be issued by Veriff not only by the governments to enable people having equal access to services no matter where they’re coming from. So, I think this is what excites us a lot, but you can’t colonize Mars when you don’t have a rocket ship built at first. And that’s the thing that we are in this business of just building the network of businesses… To have the authorization right for issuing identity.

Rob Ristagno:

Gotcha. So you’ve built trust with other businesses you’ve built trust with your employees, with regulators. Now you want to have consumers come directly to you. What do you think some challenges or road blocks might be as you’re trying to build trust with the end consumer?

Kaarel Kotkas:

I think… Only thing is that it takes time to build up trust, but it’s very easy to lose one. Meaning that you… In the identity business, there are a lot of things that aren’t that shiny outside, but we invest millions and millions into, which is data security, because in one… In the trust business or especially in the identity business, you’re allowed to have only one mistake. So that’s the reason why we always invest in making sure that all the data deposited to us is used only for verification purposes, and it’s kept secure. And this is a first thing that doesn’t sound as a connection to a brand, but it is important to solve now because it’s getting so much more expensive in 10 to 15 years. And another thing is transparency. How and why this data is used having also the code of ethics in place saying no to businesses that you don’t want to work with. And this is something that we’ve kept in mind… Keeping tight on the price for a longer term success.

Rob Ristagno:

Great. And what advice you have, or what, maybe looking toward the future as you’re talking to leaders, what are some trends that they should be aware of related to identity verification?

Kaarel Kotkas:

I think the regulatory compliance is increasing. It isn’t a thing around financial services anymore. It’ll be a part of micro mobility to make sure that all the people with scooters and fast cars out there driving… That you can take from an application now have a valid driver’s license because it’s for all our safety. So I think the compliance and regulatory demand is about identity verification is increasing rapidly in the next days, next years, meaning that, you have to be 18 years old to get the bank account, but you can be, I don’t know, 10 or 12 years old to get access to Facebook… Crazy. So all those things means that there will be more verification layer coming for all the services online.

Kaarel Kotkas:

And I think the ones that start to do it before the regulatory demand comes along, it helps to build also more trusted businesses, as when you’re selling or buying. When buying goods online, it’s all about the cost of goods, a margin that you’d like to get. Plus this kind of, how to say this… Kind of… The price of trust that if you don’t have a verification layer, you have to solve the fraud with a bottom line, meaning that the businesses that know their customers the best can offer them the services at much lower cost.

Rob Ristagno:

Yeah.

Kaarel Kotkas:

And that’s the thing why it’s commercially viable for internet businesses to onboard for the people, because it gives them competitive edge over time.

Rob Ristagno:

Makes sense. What it sounds like to me is maybe some of the old tactics of just kind of, I don’t want to say stealing IDs, but like tricking people into giving you their name with no real reason or buying lists or things like that are not good for privacy, but they’re also not good for business. And the companies that will succeed are the ones that have built the trust and relationships with their customers and that in an ethical, compliant, transparent way. And that’s going to lead to better business results, because you’re actually going to get to have your customers disclose information about them so that you can make better decisions when it comes to marketing, sales, product development, service lines, et cetera, is that, is that fair?

Kaarel Kotkas:

It’s fair. And I think that option online and the challenge is of added friction… It feels it doesn’t last long for people meaning that you’re used to show your driver’s license, go to your library, go to gym, sign up. We actually show our driver’s license so often for verifying yourself. So I think the move and doing the same online is something that you might feel it being a friction at first, but, soon it’s as common as you do it in a physical world.

Rob Ristagno:

Gotcha. All right. Let’s move on then to our third and final segment. A little bit of campfire games. So, RepTrak is a research company and they did a project and discovered the 10 most trusted global brands in 2021. 10 most trusted global brands. So can you name three of them? I’ll give you six guesses to name three out of the 10.

Kaarel Kotkas:

So basically I can already name Apple, Amazon, and I don’t know, who’s the third one going to be? Is it there? Amazon?

Rob Ristagno:

I was surprised, but neither Apple nor Amazon made the list.

Kaarel Kotkas:

This is interesting.

Rob Ristagno:

Yeah.

Kaarel Kotkas:

Volvo. This is the most secure car still. I hope people still know it.

Rob Ristagno:

That’s a good guess, but that didn’t make it on the list either. It’s very hard. This is very hard list. So a lot of these things on here, I wouldn’t have thought of, to be honest.

Kaarel Kotkas:

Sorry, you got me. You got me. I don’t…

Rob Ristagno:

There’s a lot of stumpers on here, but I’ll let you all off the hook and give you the answers. You ready? I’ll go backwards. Number 10 was Sony… Nine, Microsoft… Eight, Disney… Seven, Adidas… Six, Canon… Five, Harley Davidson… Four is Bosch… Three is Ferrari… Two, Rolex… And number one, Lego.

Audience Member:

Whoa.

Kaarel Kotkas:

Oh. This is interesting. I don’t feel bad at all that I didn’t get that.

Rob Ristagno:

Well, one day I hope that Veriff makes that list. So thanks a lot for coming on the show today. If people want to learn more about you and what you do, where should they go?

Kaarel Kotkas:

I think it’s definitely an opportunity to go to Veriff.com as an opportunity to just see and learn more about us. Again, the story around Veriff… How we got the name was that when we thought in the physical world, there is sheriff, making sure that people are safe. Now, everything moving online in order to trust to have to verify… So verification sheriff, Veriff, is the name of our business that we are now building this friendly approach to keep people safe and facilitate for someone. So definitely reach out to me on LinkedIn or Kaarel@veriff.com. And I’m very excited to talk more about it.

Rob Ristagno:

Excellent. All right. And now it is time for the CEO Data Point. Joe Galvin, what’s up on the agenda today?

Joe Galvin:

Hey, thanks Rob. Today’s number… Today’s data point is 42%. That’s the number of organizations that are increasing their marketing investments in the year ahead. Why? Because buyer behaviors have changed as a result of the pandemic. We’ve all seen radical behavior change as individuals. As leaders we’ve seen it in our place. But our customers have changed too. They’re more digitally autonomous. They’re more digitally independent. They’re willing to do more things on their own before they engage with a salesperson. Consequently, the need to improve your digital footprint and how you engage digitally with your customers and your prospect is more important than ever to compete in the new reality of a post-COVID world.

Rob Ristagno:

Thanks Joe, insightful as always. See you next time. And for more research from Joe and his team, be sure to check out Vistage.com. Vistage Worldwide is a membership organization for leaders to refine their skills, make better decisions, get better results–in fact, there’s over 24,000 members right now. Vistage has been around for 60 years, and Vistage members outpace their competitors by growing 2.2 times faster than them, so you can do it, too. Again, Vistage.com, V-I-S-T-A-G-E.com.

Rob Ristagno:

And that concludes this episode of the CEO Campfire Chat. I’m your host, Rob Ristagno. To listen to prior episodes or to download bonus content please visit us at ceocampfirechat.com. See you next time around the fire.

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