Praise for Christine Comaford and the SmartTribes Institute (STI)
“Christine is super-high bandwidth.”
—Bill Gates
“Christine’s leadership tools are some of the most effective ones I have seen for quite some time. The neuroscience-based approach is very new and very powerful. It has made a big difference for our folks, particularly in the areas of fostering collaboration (by helping people better understand the needs and moods of their teammates) and increasing productivity (by helping our managers focus and tell apart the high-value-added activities from the low-value-added ones). These tools are easy to reapply to many different business situations and are especially useful in fast-changing business environments.”
—Alberto Moriana, Head of Sales Latin America, Procter & Gamble
“We’ve really moved the needle in our first year with STI! From our initial work at our Sales and Marketing Intensive and from coaching thereafter, together we’ve secured a needle-moving eight-digit account using two of the strategies I created with Christine and our team. This is a top three account for us. We have also doubled our marketing message effectiveness and increased our profile and brand awareness in the marketplace significantly; we’ve doubled our response rate on outbound marketing communications; we’ve created a scalable sales and marketing foundation to support our projected growth; we’ve launched an omni-channel marketing approach that is delivering double-digit response rates; we’ve developed a content marketing strategy and social media presence that is engaging prospects and clients at new levels; and we’ve just received the largest inbound lead in company history!
“Working with STI is efficient, effective, and high on ROI. STI brings a proven set of best practices to the table that streamlines the sales and marketing process and delivers results. If you want to take your sales and marketing to the next level, you’ll want them on your team.”
—Scott Patsiga, President, Telaid
“STI’s Building Brilliant Teams training is a key course in our leadership development program. Our leaders like the high interactivity, the hands-on labs, and the practical brain-based tools that are easy to learn and immediately create high-impact results. The case studies that help clarify STI’s key tools are popular too. Our leaders especially like learning how to tie the neuroscience and emotional drivers of satisfaction and motivation to drive team performance and happiness. It’s called ‘a great class and one of the best I’ve attended!’ by many.
“Thanks, STI, for helping us invest in leadership growth. As a result, our leaders are raising the bar on building brilliant teams.”
—Steve Degnan, Chief HR Officer, Nestlé Purina PetCare North America
“Christine received the top rating at our Fortune Leadership Summit. Her program on building trust in tangible, measurable, specific ways by showing us how it is experienced in the brain was life changing. Our audience of 650 business leaders was captivated by her message and engaged as we did labs together to apply Christine’s neuroscience-based tools. It’s been over a month, and our participants keep raving about it! We can’t wait to work with Christine again.”
—Verne Harnish, Chair, Fortune Magazine’s Leadership Summit, and author of Scaling Up
“I’ve been in the sales and marketing world for decades, and I can be a bit skeptical of consultants. Christine changed all that. From the start she was generous with her time, ROI focused, and profoundly accountable.
“The results have been amazing. In two workshops, Christine’s potent neuroscience techniques have completely refreshed how our marketing leadership team approaches messaging, customer experience, optimizing our marketing process, and aligning with sales. Our team has called the experience nothing short of amazing—and we’re not known to gush. Thanks, STI!”
—Steve Mann, former CMO, LexisNexis
“The program we had recently with STI was one of the highest rated of the year! Christine did prework to learn what our members’ top business challenges were, and then she brought exactly what we needed to solve them. She made sure we understood how to use the tools, she gave us specifics on applying them to different scenarios, and she also was very generous with extra tools and extra time. The whole day was nonstop take-home value! Our members didn’t know it was possible to get this much value in a single program. We will definitely have Christine work with our CEOs again. Everyone gave overwhelmingly positive feedback!”
—Daniel Levin, CEO, Cain Millwork, and Education Chair, YPO Chicago
“Our sincerest thanks for your fantastic work at our summit. Your energy is amazing, your expertise beyond valuable, and the STI team is wonderful to work with! Our leaders found the day to be packed with practical tools they could immediately apply to help their teams rise to new levels of engagement, performance, and connection. In times of change and growth, your powerful yet easy brain-based tools are already making a difference for our tribe. We can’t wait to work together further.”
—Tim Herrod, Vice President Procurement, Potash Corporation
“Thank you so much, Christine, for the brilliance, passion, and inspiration you’ve imprinted on the mind and heart of each of us. Your program at our first GoPro Women’s Summit empowered everyone profoundly. We have received so much incredible feedback from our attendees! Now they have new tools to help them generate new insights and help others do the same, to make new meaning about their experiences, to bring safety, belonging, and mattering where it is needed so they can lead themselves, others, and the business with a fresh perspective. We can’t thank you enough for leading such an impactful session. Your brain-based tools are truly helping our tribe!”
—Laura Robblee, Senior Director, GoPro
“Our event with Christine was one of our best ever! The roomful of 100+ leaders was fully engaged for an entire day. I’ve never seen anything like it. Christine took the time to learn what would benefit our members most, and then she designed a custom program that blew everyone’s mind. The tools were just what we needed to take our teams to the next level, to create deeply engaging company cultures, to market more effectively, and to close sales faster. We’re all high performers, and it’s rare that we hear something that fascinates us. Christine’s program had everyone diving in, learning new techniques, applying them to key business challenges, and buzzing about how they could share these tools with their teams. What a remarkable session! We’ll have Christine here again.”
—Scott Stevenson, President and CEO, Kleenmark, and Education Chair, YPO Wisconsin
“What is empowerment, really? We wanted to bring our amazing team to the next level, and STI is helping us do just that. First, it had to start with me. Through coaching, I’m learning to let go more, and I have optimized my time to do more strategic (and fulfilling) work and, most important, to have more time with my family. I am no longer focused on how activities are getting accomplished down in the weeds. Instead, I am enjoying the benefits of having a strategic focus and determining the direction the organization is headed. The one-on-one attention that STI has given me and the key members of my executive management team is the reason we are becoming a more strategic and aligned organization.
“As a result, together we’re continuously surpassing revenue goals and getting increasingly comfortable with even loftier revenue targets; achieving new highs in production; diversifying our client base while getting closer to and more involved in our key clients’ businesses; gaining visibility on the business and having a lot less stress; helping the team across the entire organization perform at greater levels with deeper fulfilment; and receiving a Best Places to Work award based on voting by our employees.
“Now I really know what empowerment is. Our people live it, and so do I.”
—Brandon Ewing, CEO, Server Technology
“In today’s world of constant change, leaders need simple and powerful tools to support their teams. STI’s practical, evidence-based tools that you introduced to our sales and underwriting managers were met with appreciation and excitement. You delivered the workshop in a way that connected with our emotions and intellect. I’m confident that the tools will help us focus on critical objectives and keep our energy high. We found our time together to be of high value.”
—Dennis Lum, VP National Channel Strategy, Kaiser Permanente
“Our first year working with STI has been better than I ever imagined. It’s as if our whole team has risen to an entirely new level. It’s awesome and energizing! The results we’re getting as a result of our work with STI are tangible too.
“Together we’ve created a compelling mission, vision, values, and company theme statements everyone loves; cultural rituals for engagement (high fives, celebrations and/or rewards for modeling our values); performance motivation, measurement, and growth processes (self-evaluations, leader reviews, individual development plans, personal improvement processes); accountability structures and tracking systems; three-year strategic plans with specific tactics, dependencies, and contingencies to ensure execution; three-year budget and staffing plans; a five-year map to our next key inflection point.
“I knew our team was remarkable, but seeing them dive into greater depths of leadership, enrolling and engaging others, collaborating in new and powerful ways, embracing new skills, and helping to cultivate and elevate others has been a profoundly fulfilling experience. Thanks, STI, for helping us step into our huge potential!”
—Chris Whitney, CEO, Trans-Phos, YPO Tampa
“As a finance executive, it’s key to make sure that you’re seen for the strategic value you bring. That’s one of the many reasons coaching with STI has been so transformative. I’ve significantly increased my ability to deliver strategic value across our organization by raising the bar as a leader. I’m now more present with others, listening more deeply, sharing my vision more clearly, and enrolling and engaging people like never before. As a result, I’ve built more powerful connections and greater trust with senior executives, peers, and team members—all of which is crucial as our business continues to grow, change, and evolve.
“My team is responding too. We’re more cohesive, effective, energized, and on point than ever before. My relationships are richer and closer with more open communication. Together, we’re achieving more, influencing more, and seeing conflicts and challenges as exciting adventures. I’m now someone who powerfully and quickly brings people together and delivers results that far exceed expectations. I’m now seen as a strategic asset, a trusted advisor, and a cultivator of talent and people in general. Thanks, STI!”
—Michael Trzupek, former General Manager Venture Integration Strategic Programs, Microsoft
“I’ve been to some of the top business growth programs in the country, and I’ve found STI’s methodology to be among the most effective. The positive transformation our company has experienced with STI has been profound.
“Here are some of our results from strategy days, trainings, and executive coaching sessions with STI: We’ve powerfully aligned our geographically distributed leadership team with clear communication, needle movers, performance expectations, and proven processes to streamline results and save everyone time and energy. We’ve defined compelling values that everyone is rallying around, and our associate engagement continues to climb. We’ve created Customer Journeys, Safety, Belonging, and Mattering (SBM) Triggers, and Meta Program Profiles for our top five customer profiles. Now we know how to step into their shoes and connect more deeply with them and provide even greater service, communication, and joy in working with us.
“We’ve raised the bar on our already high standards of performance, service, and behavior with programs our associates have created. The company’s infrastructure is in place now, and it is evolving to support our rapid growth. We’re reaching new revenue and customer delight records, and we have high visibility on our finances and operations overall.
“As a result, it’s now easier to recruit new associates—to onboard them and to bring them powerfully into our high-performing tribe. What a difference STI’s proven processes make! Thanks, STI, for helping us reach new heights (and have fun in the process)!”
—Abigail Kampmann, CEO, Principle Auto Group, YPO San Antonio
“Wow—our team had several aha moments at our recent Sales and Marketing Intensive with Christine. Now we clearly see what we’re not doing, what we can be doing, and how exactly to do it to get the increased results we want. Christine helped us fill in the gaps to streamline sales and marketing processes, identify the profiles (and surprising similarities) of our diverse prospects, launch powerful neuroscience-based messaging for a new service, and further align our sales and marketing teams around common objectives—all while laying out a clear path. Our team is jazzed—it’s as if the lights have been turned on bright and we can see farther and with greater detail.
“If you want to jumpstart your sales and marketing and get better results with a lot less effort, bring STI in to help. Your team, like mine, will thank you, and you’ll love the results.”
—John Gorski, CEO, NAMSA, YPO Maumee Valley
“Christine’s session at our chapter was our best so far! Everyone stayed well past the ending time, and the comments on the tremendous take-home value continue to stream in. Her expertise in applied neuroscience is vast—she taught us techniques for optimizing sales, marketing, leadership, and execution, and she explained them in easy-to-learn and powerful ways. Christine was generous with her time, working one-on-one with chapter members and even with our forum to iron out key leadership challenges. It was a truly invigorating event!”
—Luke Williams, Managing Director, Oak Tree Development, and Education Chair, YPO Connecticut
“Our first year with STI has been a total game changer! Emotional engagement is our highest ever: we’re all super aligned behind a vision we share, and we are totally in sync. Communication is also at an all-time high: we’re open, compassionate, clear, and honest with each other, and we now have new levels of collaboration and trust. The results have been tangible, measurable, and specific: new clients, increased operational efficiency, some of the best work we’ve ever created, and it feels like we’re just beginning to hit our stride.
“Thank you for helping us raise our level of leadership, for helping us optimize our culture and org chart, for helping us set clear and compelling needle movers, and so much more. Our marketing is more effective than ever before, our updated values, mission, and vision are inspiring everyone, and our new tools to increase engagement, communication, and prioritization are taking us to new heights. Wow. I knew our team was awesome, and they just keep raising the bar. I’m so glad we’re on this adventure together!”
—Cheryl Farr, Founder, SIGNAL.csk Brand Partners
“When CEOs spend a full day learning about leadership, the expectations are sky high. And Smart Tribes Institute delivered! Christine’s session for the Silicon Valley Chapter was one of the strongest workshops we’ve had. Christine helped us understand the basics of the human brain. We learned about STI’s easy and potent tools to enroll, engage, align, and empower our teams in immediate and high-impact ways. As leaders, the labs we did during the workshop helped us address our real-world challenges and apply STI’s tools to them. Everyone is still buzzing about the program. We can’t wait to have her back!”
—Nancy Geenen, Silicon Valley Chapter Chair, Women President’s Organization
“What a high impact day at our recent Sales & Marketing Intensive! Lots of great feedback from our team. VERY impactful for us. I was thrilled by how quickly everyone grasped your powerful brain-based rapport tools.
Our team is fired up and charging ahead at remarkable speed. They are already working on direct mail concepts using their new rapport tools—they’ll present them in two weeks. Our infographics are being optimized for high response rates with Safety, Belonging, Mattering, Meta Programs, WIIFM, CURVE, and the four Customer Journey Personas we created together are ready for validation. Our Sales and Marketing Needle Movers are clear and all our programs are tied directly to them, and our new marketing plan has been shared and all are engaged, aligned, enrolled. The Sales team is on board with the new stages, probabilities, and X Factor to streamline pipeline visibility and performance. Our client success stories are teed up and will be deployed easily, ensuring we amplify the awesome work our organization does for our clients.
“We now have the tools to support our Sales and Marketing team members to bring their personal best every single day.
“Our day together was the most productive and high ROI sales/marketing gathering I’ve ever experienced. And I’ve experienced plenty of them! Thank you, Christine and STI! I can’t wait to see what we create together next.”
—Patrick Gallagher , Vice President, Gallagher Asphalt Corporation, YPO Chicago