Brad Surkamer

In March of 2020, as the pandemic was just beginning, my banker recommended a book to me: The Anticipatory Organization: Turn Disruption and Change into Opportunity and Advantage by Daniel Burrus. I read, highlighted, and took notes in the columns of this incredibly timely information. We were entering a time that felt like it would be one of the most disruptive in history. The novel coronavirus would change behaviors in ways that would impact businesses far into the future. I knew it would be critical for the future success of …READ MORE

I spent the first week of March in New York City at Adweek’s Challenger Brands summit, held right across the street from the World Trade Center. Before I left, my wife encouraged me not to go. The novel coronavirus had landed in the US by then, and the news was growing more alarming. But there were very few cases in New York at the time, and still a lot of misconceptions about its severity and how it spread, so I went. As I watched commuters exit the Cortlandt Station at …READ MORE

After graduating high school in Wisconsin, I left Milwaukee for college in Montana on a train. An avid camper and skier, I dreamt of living in the Rockies. So as I headed off to forestry school at the University of Montana, I felt as though my dreams were coming true. Naturally, my dreams shifted, and I spent the next few semesters drifting in and out of several majors until I finally landed on mathematics. In the spring of my sophomore year, I took differential equations at the University of Montana …READ MORE

I recently attended the annual North American State and Provincial Lotteries (NASPL) conference in Portland. While many of the conference sessions centered around new tech tools changing the way business is done, one I attended stood out by reminding me of one ultimate objective that remains unchanged: customer satisfaction. The session, titled “Consumer Satisfaction: Philosophy, Mechanics, and Outcomes,” was led by Debra Ringold, Dean and Professor of Free Enterprise at Willamette University. She began with a little background on the evolving purpose of “the firm.” In the beginning of business …READ MORE

Marketing professionals often fall into the trap of seeing a product market as a known quantity—an “it” that once identified, must simply be targeted and captured. But the reality is that product markets are living, breathing creatures that are constantly evolving. If you don’t recognize that the market for your product is shifting, you might be missing out on a valuable business opportunity. Several months ago, CLM began working with a new client, an early-stage consultancy firm. We started to develop a strategy the way we normally would: by looking …READ MORE

Last spring, the senior leadership at our parent company, Ivie and Associates, asked me to give a talk to a group of managers about the process I use for winning new business. When boiling down my new business-building methodology, I realized how essential not only “networking” can be on a local level, but networking in your community with passion, purpose, and intention. In other words, networking with everything you are and want to be. So, for my two-hour talk, I distilled my “get in it to win it” process down …READ MORE