How Brand Evangelism Drives Growth in Fintech With Diana Cabrices
- Quik! News Team
- 12 minutes ago
- 29 min read
Diana Cabrices is the Founder and Fractional Chief Evangelist of Diana Cabrices Consulting, a growth-focused firm that energizes B2B wealthtech and financial services brands by amplifying their stories and building emotional connection with financial advisors. She has a track record of driving significant revenue growth, having helped a martech platform grow its recurring revenue by 10x in three years. Diana partners with CEOs and leadership teams to serve as their outsourced brand evangelist, speaker, and growth ambassador. A frequent industry speaker and contributor, she leverages her experience across sales, marketing, technology, and advisor engagement to help companies scale.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
[02:09] Diana Cabrices discusses how she helps companies get in front of more people to drive relationships and revenue
[03:22] How brand evangelism differs from traditional marketing
[06:22] Using customer conversations and call recordings to shape impactful messaging
[11:41] How Diana handles differing opinions from CEOs and marketing leaders
[14:31] Why financial services struggle with social media and how Diana approaches it
[20:45] Diana’s take on AI-generated content and its impact on brand authenticity
[25:29] How she uses AI tools like Opus Clip and ChatGPT to scale content creation
[30:01] Why performing on stage is her favorite part of being a brand evangelist
In this episode…
Many fintech and advisory firms struggle to stand out, explain their value, and consistently get in front of the right audiences. Marketing feels fragmented, sales conversations start too zoomed in on product features, and social content falls flat. How can these firms turn their story into an engine for demand and trust?
Diana Cabrices, a brand evangelist specializing in fintech and financial services, recommends starting with deep listening — reviewing sales and customer calls to uncover real pain points and language that resonates. She then builds messaging around the problem, not the product, and amplifies it through stages, webinars, podcasts, video, and especially LinkedIn to meet advisors where they are. Diana stresses partnering with leadership while confidently challenging assumptions, using social content that feels human and bold, and leaning on AI only as a “second brain” to repurpose content, not to replace authentic, on-stage performance.
In this episode of The Customer Wins, Richard Walker interviews Diana Cabrices, Founder and Fractional Chief Evangelist of Diana Cabrices Consulting, about using brand evangelism to drive growth. Diana also talks about crafting customer-led messaging, leveraging LinkedIn, and using AI tools without losing authenticity.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
Quotable Moments:
"My company helps people get in front of more people so that they can create relationships."
"I want all of your call recordings, as many of them as you can give me."
"And really, a great brand evangelism strategy is going to touch on most of those things."
"You're kind of starting again on more of a zoomed out perspective, which is really, really important."
"The best way to do that is to give a performance that they will not ever forget."
Action Steps:
Lead with the customer’s real voice: Review sales and success call recordings to uncover authentic needs and language that help you shape messaging that resonates and prevents selling from the wrong starting point.
Build messaging around the problem, not the product: Focus first on the pain points your audience is experiencing before introducing your solution to create trust and position your brand as a guide rather than a salesperson.
Diversify how you show up in front of your audience: Use stages, webinars, podcasts, video, and social content to reach people where they already are and increase visibility while strengthening brand recall.
Develop a bold and human social media voice: Create content that feels fresh, personal, and dynamic — especially on LinkedIn — to help your brand stand out in an industry full of generic, corporate messaging.
Use AI only as a creative accelerator, not a replacement: Let tools help repurpose content and spark ideas while relying on your own insight to keep your brand voice distinct and human.
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Episode Transcript:
Intro: 00:02
Welcome to The Customer Wins podcast, where business leaders discuss their secrets and techniques for helping their customers succeed and, in turn, grow their business.
Richard Walker: 00:16
Hi, I'm Rich Walker, the host of The Customer Wins, where I talk to business leaders about how they help their customers win and how their focus on customer experience leads to growth. Some of my past guests have included Brian Edelman of FCI, Jeff Rusin of Advisor Tech Partners, and Vickie Lewin of Amplify. Today, I'm speaking with Diana Cabrices, founder of Diana Cabrices Consulting, and today's episode is brought to you by Quik!, the leader in enterprise forms processing. When your business relies upon processing forms, don't waste your team's valuable time manually reviewing the forms. Instead, get Quik! using Quik!.
You'll be able to generate completed forms and get back clean, context-rich data that reduces manual reviews to only one out of 1000 submissions. Visit quickforms.com to get started. Now, before I introduce today's guest, I want to give a big thank you to Alexandrian of AtoZ Communications for introducing us. Ali is an awesome promoter, so go check out our website at AtoZcommunications.com. Diana is the founder of Diana Cabrices Consulting and the financial industry's first fractional chief evangelist.
What's an evangelist? She's your charismatic torchbearer that shines light on the problem your company solves, not just the product you sell. She's your number one demo queen, turning heads with her highly dynamic stage personality, converting your audience into your ambassadors by leaving everlasting impressions. Man, we need more of those. Diana, welcome to The Customer Wins.
Diana Cabrices: 01:48
Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here and have this conversation.
Richard Walker: 01:52
Me too. So for those who haven't heard my podcast before, I just love to talk to business leaders about what they're doing to help their customers win. How they built and delivered a great customer experience, and the challenges to growing their own company. So, Diana, to understand your business a little bit better, how does your company help people?
Diana Cabrices: 02:09
My company helps people get in front of more people so that they can create relationships that lead to business, whether it's new business or it's retained business.
Richard Walker: 02:24
What does that mean to get in front of people, though? I mean, is it really all about being on stage?
Diana Cabrices: 02:29
It's not all about being on stage. There's so many different ways to get in front of people, and it really starts with the right messaging. So it starts with deciding on, okay, what is this problem that your product or your service solves and what messaging is going to most likely resonate with our audience, resonate with our target audience. And from there, you decide, all right, what mediums do we want to use? Do we want to go in person to events and get on stage?
Do we want to host webinars and do things digitally? Do we want to launch a podcast where we're helping people? Do we want to create video clips and get on YouTube and drip things out on social media so that we're hitting all the different channels? And really a great brand evangelism strategy is going to touch on most of those things.
Richard Walker: 03:15
Got it. Are you actually executing on all those things, or are you coming up with the ideas and choreographing it with others?
Diana Cabrices: 03:22
It's a little bit of both. I would say That I am mostly the person executing on the end product, right? I am getting to that stage. I am creating and delivering those videos. I am coming up with the webinar deck and then giving the webinar and presenting in front of an audience. There's of course, teams that work together, right?
Nothing great happens without a team. And so I have a team. My clients have teams. Because remember I'm doing this from a fractional standpoint. So we're we're figuring out okay where do our puzzle pieces connect best.
And what are you going to handle and what am I going to handle? But truthfully, like the difference between a marketer and a brand evangelist is the brand evangelist. Is that walking, talking, conversational marketer that's going to go out there and represent that brand in the human form.
Richard Walker: 04:11
So does that mean you're actually like going out and talking to people about the companies you represent and having those conversations? You personally?
Diana Cabrices: 04:18
Yes. Me personally. Yeah. And I do it with leading with education. Right. Because then you start to think, okay, well how is this different than a salesperson.
And really they're all kind of intertwined, right? You've got sales, you've got marketing, you've got partnerships, and customer success. And really, at the heart of that, when you bring life to all of that, a brand evangelist is, is sort of kind of blending in with all of those different systems and ecosystems in your business.
Richard Walker: 04:44
Okay, look, I know I'm CEO, it's probably my job to be a brand evangelist for my own company. Tell me if I'm wrong. But one of the things I look at doing in the sales process in general is to help my customers make a high-quality decision, whether that's for or against my product. Do you think that falls into the realm of what you're talking about, of being an evangelist versus selling?
Diana Cabrices: 05:06
Absolutely. Because when you create content and messaging and have conversations with people that zoom out, right, that focus more on, hey, these are some pain points you're probably facing in your business. Here's why this is important, and here are the things that you can do to solve them. Oh, and by the way, we have a product or service that can do just that for you. You're kind of starting again on more of a zoomed out perspective, which is really, really important because you are helping them through that journey, that decision-making journey, talking them through it, versus just focusing on the product, which is what a salesperson would do.
Here's the features, here's what it can do for you. And getting more specific to that, you're really helping them along the way make that better decision.
Richard Walker: 05:53
I'm so glad you said this. I really am, because the journey is like climbing the ladder of inference. This leads to this, to this, to this. I've done that journey because I built the product, I designed it, I saw the problem my customers haven't. And Diana, I can't tell you how many times I start a conversation with a customer who's really only at step one, and I'm talking at step five, and realize they haven't come along this journey yet.
How do you take them through that process? What do you have to understand about them to help them get there?
Diana Cabrices: 06:22
Well, for me it starts with listening to them, right? Listening to your customers. And when I'm stepping into a new engagement with a new client, one of the first things I'll do is I'll say, I want all of your call recordings, as many of them as you can give me on the sales side and on the customer engagement side, the customer success side, because once you start listening to that, you can really, really hear, like, what is this customer or this prospect experiencing? And you create talk tracks around that, and that is what you're leading with in your, work as a brand evangelist. Again, whether it's through a podcast or maybe you're going to write a book, or maybe you're hosting a series of webinars on X topic, you're leading with that customer voice.
It truly starts there. And from there you're creating messaging that they will resonate with and in some cases, what one customer is experiencing, but the other one hasn't quite understood or experienced it yet. You're kind of uncovering that for them first. So it works, you know, from from again what one customer is experiencing. You're going to help another customer uncover something they may have not even gone through yet, but they will happen.
Richard Walker: 07:29
Today I was talking to a customer and I asked them, what percentage of your forms are still being wet signed? My expectation was less than 25% and they came back with the majority, and I was stunned. I really I had a false expectation. I have to keep my mind open and be curious, like what? What am I going to hear?
And I told them, I said, wow, I've talked to so many customers that they're really at the 2,025% level. They're like, what? We could be there. We've got to work on that. You're right.
You can uncover that for them. Just because you have that insight with other companies that are doing similar things or have gone through that step already. All right. I don't want you to name customers of yours, per se, if you want to find, but I'm kind of curious, what kind of companies do you work with? Are you working with advisory firms?
Are you working with fintechs? What's the gamut here?
Diana Cabrices: 08:17
So I primarily started with fintech companies. That's my bread and butter fintech wealthtech before I launched my business. That's, you know, I've always been on the solution side for financial advisors. That's where I have my most knowledge that I feel is valuable. But really, the work of a brand evangelist is not limited to tech companies because I've also worked with advisory firms.
So, for example, if I'm walking into a fintech engagement, my clients probably have a new feature that they've launched or a new version of their product, and they really want someone to go out in the marketplace. Or maybe there is a competing fintech tool that's come into the marketplace and they're, you know, aggressively going out and marketing their company. They're putting ambassadors on the front lines. And now my client really knows they need to step it up. So they bring me in to do the work.
On the other side, you have advisory firms who, for example, I recently did an engagement where I delivered some TV ads for an advisory firm in North Dakota because they host seminars, but they realize all of their TV ads to date have just been two older gentlemen. And they were like, we really need to change this up. We need to hire someone, maybe younger. We need to hire a female. We need more, you know, dynamics and personality to infuse into this brand, to help us get more potential customers in front of our messaging at our seminar.
And so I delivered some TV ads for them. So again, the work isn't limited to one or the other. I can do both, but primarily my clients are fintech clients, and we can certainly go deeper into what some of those engagements look like.
Richard Walker: 09:49
No, that's cool, but I'll ask this question because I really want to understand when somebody comes to ask you for help. What is the right stage for them to be in to get this help? Like, do they have to have their message totally cleared up? Do they have to have their ideal client profile done? Do they have to know their target audience perfectly?
Like where do you shine and where do you help them shine when given a stage they're in?
Diana Cabrices: 10:11
So I kind of consider myself as a little bit like a Swiss Army knife. Like, depending on what you need, I can be there for you. So I have clients that haven't really gotten a lot of customers in the door yet. I'd say my one requirement is like, yes, you have revenue, you're already generating revenue. But even if you had ten customers, that's enough for me to come in and say, okay, here's what we're going to lead with, with messaging, here's the channels we're going to do it with.
And depending on the size of your team, I might be doing some more of the, you know, more CMO type role along with the evangelist on top. Or if you already have all of your messaging and you have a marketing team and you just really need that voice and that dynamic person and that person who does have some influence in the industry. I'm just coming in and I'm fully stepping into that brand evangelist role. So it really depends. I have had clients on both sides.
I've had very small clients and I've had very, very big clients and the work looks slightly different, but the end goals are always the same. The end goal is to always create awareness, generate demand and hopefully create a pipeline of people who are ready to have that conversation, to take that next step, to move along that buying journey and become customers.
Richard Walker: 11:25
Do you ever have a CEO like me? I don't mean to characterize myself this way, but I have a strong personality, have certain ideas of how things should work, and you disagree with it? Like this is our client. This is the message. Go do this.
Do you ever have those types of situations?
Diana Cabrices: 11:41
100% yes. I have. And I think over time I have learned to become not aggressive, but I have learned to stand in my conviction of what I think is going to work and what I think maybe is not. And there's always a way to go about it in a friendly manner. Right. Like here's how I would push back on this and here's why. But I'm still willing to consider what you want to do.
But I think we should try both and see where we land. So, yes, to answer your question, absolutely. Some of my work has been completely redlined, like front and back. And I was like, whoa, okay. And I've, you know, I've had to again, like learn to be a little bit more assertive and step in and try to take the reins back.
And this isn't just with CEOs, Rich. This is with anyone in a firm. You might have a director of marketing who wants to do things his or her way and doesn't really want a, you know, an outsider, a contractor coming in and trying to tell them to do it differently. But again, you have to find that sweet spot where you can push, because my job the other day is to get you results, and that's why your company is hiring me.
Richard Walker: 12:49
Yeah, I've done a lot of consulting in my past, and I only enjoyed it if I was empowered to come there with creativity and challenge assumptions and be that assertive role that you're talking about. I couldn't just be like, oh, go do this job. You're paying me an hourly wage to do a job. That's not me. That's just not me.
Diana Cabrices: 13:07
It's not. Me either. And, you know, I'll also add, sometimes it's just about balancing your own business as a consultant. You know, sometimes you've got two really awesome clients that want you to come in and do this work the way you want it. And you've got one. Not so much.
But the revenue is smooth sailing for the next six months, and it's a little bit of a trade off. But usually those types of clients are not everlasting. I have some clients I've been with for this entire time since I launched three years ago, and I have some that I've just changed over time. And I'm not saying it's because of these reasons per se, but yeah, I understand what you're saying, and I think, you know, it's give and take until you can't really anymore. And yeah, things kind of always fall into place as they should.
And I've always learned something from every engagement, no matter if it's been on the side of they want to take charge or if I take charge.
Richard Walker: 13:55
Yeah. All right, let's switch gears a little bit, because I love TikTok and I sell all sorts of different things. And I love financial services. So I see stuff about that. I don't think our industry does a good job with social media, and the people who are on social media talking about wealth and management are either big names like Dave Ramsey or non-financial advisors not compensated to be in that role at all.
And honestly, they're spinning yarns like, I don't know who you should trust in that world. So where is social media playing in your world of evangelism and getting the word out?
Diana Cabrices: 14:31
It's such an important aspect of what I do. I have over time developed a voice on social media. Sometimes you're throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what works, but I have over time developed my voice and in the following I followed. I don't have a massive following, but I have a following and I really lean into those channels rich to spread the word right? Whether it's hey, I'm hosting this webinar and this is going to help you as financial advisors learn A-b-c one two, three.
Here's why it's important and you should totally come. Or hey, one of my clients just won this awesome award. And here's why that's important. Here's the research that they've done and here's how they're changing the industry. So many different messages and angles you can take with social media.
I think it's really important. I agree with your statement on how the industry doesn't leverage social media enough. I also don't necessarily think the right way. And so, for example, when I come into an engagement with a client, I want to go on social media and I want to get on video and I want to do something different, and I want the editing to be really cool and fun. And I want the music to be cool and fun, and I want the first statement to be really in your face.
Right? Whereas you see other videos in our industry that are just a little bit more vanilla and you got that classic corporate music playing in the background, and I just, I don't love it. And yes, there's part of this where, you know, it's really not about you, it's about what your customer might want. But the financial advisor space is changing quickly as well. And we're seeing more and more young, fresh, newer advisors come into the space.
So I think this will shift all around. But to answer your initial question, it's very important. I leverage it in as many creative ways as I can, and I get social. It's not just posting, it's also engaging with other people.
Richard Walker: 16:18
So one of the key questions that comes to me on social channels is, is the audience there? Like, if I put out all this content, will it actually reach the people that matter? And maybe the niche of my business is not a good example because of who we're selling to, but just in the financial industry as a whole. Does it work and which channels work? Where are you seeing the growth in which social channels?
Diana Cabrices: 16:42
So in my use cases, targeting financial advisors on LinkedIn is a great strategy and it's something that works. You know, if you're selling to enterprises, I would not say the same. I mean, you can because I have enterprise decision makers right now who love all of my posts, who like and comment and and say and engage with my posts on LinkedIn. So really, I'm hitting two different markets. But primarily targeting financial advisors on LinkedIn is a good strategy.
And it's not just posting stuff, right. Like you can send direct messages to financial advisors. You can invite them to your event. You can invite multiple advisors to your event, right just with a click of a button. So there's other ways to try to capture that attention when maybe they're not as engaged in their feed at any given time of the year.
Maybe it's the surge meeting season or something else. So I think LinkedIn is a great channel. I do, and maybe it's just because it's the one I've put most of my effort into. X, formerly Twitter used to be pretty good. Especially if you came at it from a very personal way.
So I post a lot more like photos of me and like my life and family and stuff like that, but it's kind of fizzled out, unfortunately. The whole fintwit world has fizzled out, so I don't really lean into that as much anymore. TikTok I'm not really there. I'm going to be honest with you. I think maybe in the next five years I should probably start investing more seriously business resources into developing a presence on TikTok for this industry.
But right now, I just found that I get the results I'm looking for on LinkedIn.
Richard Walker: 18:21
Yeah. Well, so to me, that answers the question of the audience. The audience is on LinkedIn. It's a professional social media channel. Yeah.
And we have not succeeded in any other channels, frankly. Maybe it's format, you know, posting has to follow the format of that specific channel. You can't have landscape on TikTok for example. That does not work. YouTube's the other one like you'd expect more interaction with YouTube, but really no.
And I think part of it is what you tell me. But my view is professionals are on LinkedIn as part of their profession, and when they're on YouTube and TikTok, it's not their profession time. It's their fun time, personal time, hobby time, etc. and in fact, if you look at my for you page, it's bodybuilding, it's cars, it's AI. Now AI falls into the professional category, but I'm not looking at my customers on TikTok.
Diana Cabrices: 19:14
Yeah, yeah. I agree with this. And you know, I think for financial advisors, like if you have any advisors tuning into this podcast right now, they like using YouTube to connect with consumers who are looking for financial advice I think is great. I think that does work. Again, it's all in the strategy. You have to be catchy and different and your thumbnails have to stand out like there's so many different layers to making YouTube work.
But as far as being in financial services and trying to connect with other financial service professionals? Not as much. I still use it. I put all my webinars on my YouTube. I put a lot of my videos on my YouTube.
I think I only have like 100 subscribers in the last three years, but I still use it and I could probably step in and really optimize it. But what I found when you manage three brands at any given time, plus your own and LinkedIn, there's not a whole lot, a lot of time left for you to. So I focus, I try to focus.
Richard Walker: 20:13
Yeah, yeah. No, I get it. So let's switch also to talk about artificial intelligence. Okay. My wife and I are kind of done with artificial intelligence videos that are coming out.
And it was so cool at first. Right. Bigfoot's talking about whatever, and there's all these nifty things, but now we're seeing them. We're like, oh, that's AI. I don't really want to see it.
It doesn't feel right. How do you view the impact AI is having on brand awareness and what people are using it for, and are you seeing successful ways to use it in your world?
Diana Cabrices: 20:45
Not quite yet. So I actually just talked to a CEO recently. Really. He's a chief product officer recently, and he's working on an AI video tool where you have your own avatar and it creates videos, and it looks like I'm here talking on a video. I haven't seen the results yet. Like the product is still being built.
I've heard great things, but I haven't really heard enough or seen really anything yet to convince me. I've seen a few videos of that nature online and I'm like, that looks a little bit weird. Like there's part of me that's like, oh, that's kind of cool. And there's part of me that's like, not really. I don't really love that.
So my stance is a little muddy right now. Like, I feel like I am with you and your wife. The AI-driven content is especially interesting if there's not like a human present in it. It's just like something made up like a Thing or group of people. I guess I could say versus like an avatar of you specifically.
Not really loving it. AI in general, obviously it's helping the industry a lot. It's helping financial advisors get in front of more people that they would serve. And, you know, we'll see how it continues to help people like me do my job in certain ways or scale my role a little bit better. But I think what I do is so human centered that it's not really ever something I'm going to want to tap into as much to scale what I do.
I'm kind of going all over the place with this answer, but I'm a little bit of a question mark right now.
Richard Walker: 22:18
But you're mimicking a theme that I think resonates in our industry. Financial services is a very intimate topic, and it's a human topic, and therefore it requires human interaction. I don't think I've interviewed anybody on this show like, oh yeah, AI can replace the people in the conversation. Nobody has said that in this industry. You can see it in other industries though.
And I think some of the standard sales processes, like following up with a lead capture where somebody signed up and then dropped and abandoned their cart and didn't buy a product, some device or whatever an AI voice agent could call that person and try to convince them to buy. I think that is totally suitable. But this industry is not really built that way. And I, I keep probing to see, are we going to have kind of a breakthrough moment? Are we going to see an AI take root in any of the conversations we're having with each other?
Diana Cabrices: 23:14
Yeah, I do. To answer that question, I think I think you're right. I think that it's not going to be as prevalent as in other industries. And we also have some data. So one of my clients, a wealthy tenor, I'll give him a shout out. We recently launched a study on what consumers are really looking for when they're going out and trying to find a financial advisor.
And we had some data on AI involved in that as well. And I can't quote it perfectly right now. I want to say around 70% of the audience we surveyed said, hey, I'm comfortable with AI when it comes to communications, but I'm not comfortable with AI when it comes to investment management and investment decisions. And it's interesting because we're starting to see more tools in AI, in financial services kind of starting to cater to that segment, that investment management investment space. So I'm curious how that's going to play out.
Right. Because you have to be transparent with your clients and you have to tell them, you know, hey, here's where AI is taking place. Maybe you don't, but at some point, I would assume there's going to be some new regulation around this topic, because I agree, I think in this specific use case in financial world, at the heart of money is very emotional and it will want to stay that way in in people, in the way they engage with their advisors.
Richard Walker: 24:34
Yeah, I think in general, the overall AI models that are out there are fairly generic there. They're built for everyday purposes. In fact, people have described, I'll use your word as open AI ChatGPT as the Swiss Army knife because it can do all sorts of things. Does it do them all super well? That's yet to be seen.
It can do a lot of really cool stuff, but I'm seeing like with cloud, with software development, cloud is getting more focused on software development. So is OpenAI. My point, though, is that when the models start to focus on a specific functional need or an area or an industry, that's when we're going to see the breakthroughs. So until somebody says we need to train models specific to investments or allocations or the workflows of financial services, that's when we'll see the real drivers. Let's go back to your business, though.
How are you using AI to scale, to grow, to enhance what you can deliver to people? Faster, better? Cheaper? Maybe.
Diana Cabrices: 25:29
Oh, man.There's a list. Yeah, right. I like shooting. Off into my brain right now. Well, first off, anytime I host a webinar or I film a presentation I'm giving on stage. I use AI to chop it up and do a bunch of smaller clips so that we can make the message easier to consume, and that we have more content to put out over more time. I use a really cool tool for that called Opus Clip for anyone that's listening. I also use ChatGPT as my second brain.
But there is a caveat here because I've realized something over time. I've been using ChatGPT for over a year at this point in my business, and I remember the first time I started really leaning into it to to help me to like, okay, I'm so tired right now, I can't think creatively, like, can you help me come up with some, you know, catchy webinar titles? And it was like, oh wow, this is really, really too good. But what I noticed over time started happening is I just kept relying on that and I'm like, eventually, like kind of losing my own spark a little bit like, I, I'm actually pretty good at this myself. And so I remember one day specifically, I was like pulling all these ideas from ChatGPT and then I was like, I could do something better than this.
I'm just not making the time for it, right? So I have to be my own accountability holder when it comes to using AI as a second brain to help me develop content. So now I usually start at the drawing board on my own. I come up with as many ideas as possible, and then I plug that into ChatGPT to try to, you know, perfect it or shape it in some way. And it usually does give me more ideas that then help me go and iterate further.
So yes, the ChatGPT opus clip is a big one. There's probably more, but those two are top of mind right now.
Richard Walker: 27:11
I love what you're saying about ChatGPT. By the way, the name of this podcast, The Customer Wins. I went through ChatGPT to help me define the name and it did not define this name. I came up with this name, but what ChatGPT did for me was to be my brainstorming partner. I didn't have to bring three people to a whiteboard and sit down and talk through things.
I just said, hey, what do you think about this? Here are some topics, here are some ideas and give me some more ideas. And it was just stirring my brain, but I. Oh my gosh, I so agree with you. You are the intellect here.
And so one of the people I had on my show. Make sure I get this right. Jeff Woods, the author of the AI Driven Leader. He talks about it being your thought partner. You're the thought leader.
I want to share something with you that I learned this summer about AI. So, number one, I approach it with insane curiosity, and I'm always asking it to explain itself and tell me the rationale behind it and how it thinks and what it's doing. But second to that, I also ask it to play the opposite role. You know how it tells you you're brilliant, you're amazing. This is the best idea ever.
And you're like, oh, I feel so good. Yeah.
Diana Cabrices: 28:19
Yeah.
Richard Walker: 28:19
But the reality is, if you ask it to play the opposite, tell me why this will fail. Be the devil's advocate. What are the risks? You get a totally different set of reactions and behaviors. And what I found in those behaviors is that it actually takes on a fear mindset and a scarcity mindset.
And then it won't even give you the best ideas anymore. So you have to be careful from a totally different perspective.
Diana Cabrices: 28:45
That is. So I've never heard anyone say they use ChatGPT in these ways or AI tools. I need to start doing that because I'm not even just using these tools for work stuff. We're all using it for personal stuff too. We might go through something hard and I'm like, I just need an opinion on this.
And you know, I don't have a therapist right now. I, you know, I go through periods of time and it's so catchy and yeah, it tells you what you want to hear. And so those are two really powerful ways to kind of flip the script on using it. I like that a lot.
Richard Walker: 29:19
They changed how I talk to AI and how I actually feel now when it says, oh, you're absolutely right. This is brilliant. I'm like, yeah, right. Okay. Yeah, okay.
I told myself that anymore. You know, I want to observe something, Diana, because you were talking about putting yourself out there on social media and stuff. And on the one hand, it's kind of like there's an influencing part of what you do. But the observation I want to make is you're so much more than an influencer. Like, there's so much more meat and potatoes in what you do in understanding brand and messaging and positioning and all those things.
What is your favorite part of your business?
Diana Cabrices: 30:01
My favorite part is getting on stage. I am a performer and I'm a performer at heart, but I'm also a professionally trained public speaker. And for me, the best way to move an audience, whatever direction you might want to move them into, you might want to move them into customer retention. You might want to move them into becoming new customers. The best way to do that is to give a performance that they will not ever forget.
And that happens when I take the stage and I, like, pull in a crowd and I pull in the energy and I get them laughing and I get them maybe even crying, and I get them emotional, and I get them in this self-discovery that they were not ever in before. And I leave such a mark that they again, they're so incentivized then to want to move on, whatever it is that I want them to move on. That's my favorite part of my job, hands down. If that could be 100% of what I do, I would be extremely, extremely happy. I'm happy now, but I would be extremely happy because truthfully, to me like that, that is at the heart of what makes me who I am and makes me good at what I do.
Richard Walker: 31:15
Okay, I know this is a podcast, but maybe this is the best job interview I've ever done with somebody. You're hired like, this is amazing.
Diana Cabrices: 31:22
That's awesome. Good podcast then. That was a good podcast.
Richard Walker: 31:27
I actually have to wrap up the show and I'd love to talk to you more. But before I get to my last question, what's the best way for people to find and connect with you?
Diana Cabrices: 31:35
So you can find me on LinkedIn. Number one, first and foremost, Diana Carey says, I'm sure you'll see my spelling, but my last name is cab. Like a taxi cab rice like you eat and then a little s at the end. LinkedIn is where I put out a lot of content, where I put out announcements where you can find how to connect with me, how to hop on a webinar that I'm hosting that might help you in your business, whether you're in financial services or not, or whether you're financial advisor or you're an enterprise decision maker, there's something there for everyone. You can also find me on YouTube.
As mentioned, I put a lot of my content there. Again, Diana says. And my website, if you just want to peruse through some of my content, some articles I've put in some industry publications or watch some of my videos, or just contact me further. W-w-w dot com.
Richard Walker: 32:23
Perfect. Oh my gosh, so many ways. All right. So here comes my last question. Who has had the biggest impact on your leadership style and how you approach your role.
Diana Cabrices: 32:33
Okay, so the answer to this question is Robert Sofia. He is the CEO of Snappy Kraken, which was the company I worked at before I launched Diana Cabrices Consulting. And when I met Robert, it wasn't because I was interviewing for a role. He was actually on stage and I was in his audience, and I was immediately starstruck. I was like, whoa, what does this what did this guy just do with this?
These slides? Like, no one has ever done anything like that with slides before. And that led to me following the company and following him. Right. He was very much evangelizing for that company.
And that led me to sign a job posting he put out a month later. Applying, getting the role. And from there, about four years of working together. He really was such a mentor to me. He put me on stage.
He helped me learn how to create really awesome presentations. Not just your typical run-of-the-mill PowerPoints. These were amazing copies, amazing design and then the performance all built in. He sent me to get professionally trained public speaking courses and workshops in person online. So he was fundamental to my growth.
And he also helped me work on leadership because over time I started running a team, running an enterprise team, actually. And I you know, I hadn't run a team of that nature before. And so what did he do? He recommended books and podcasts. And I look at him now as somebody that was so fundamental and still is.
He's still inspiring to me because we actually share a lot of the same traits. We're very much, in so many ways, a similar person, and I think it was the perfect leader for me at that time in my life to step into who I needed to be in order to kind of launch me into consulting today.
Richard Walker: 34:22
Oh my gosh, I have so much admiration for him. I didn't know you're going to mention him at all. He's been on my show and he's very impressive with what he's accomplished with Snappy Kraken and stuff. I didn't even know what the business was about. I'm like, I just need to know it.
I just want to see it.
Diana Cabrices: 34:36
It's a cool name, right? Like it draws you in? Yeah.
Richard Walker: 34:40
Oh, that's so awesome. I'm so glad you shared that story with us. Yeah. All right. I want to thank Diana Carissa, founder of Diana Cabrices Consulting, for being on this episode of The Customer Wins.
Go check out her website at Diana. And don't forget to check out Quik! at Quickforms.com, where we make processing forms easier. I hope you enjoyed this discussion. We'll click the like button, share this with someone, and subscribe to our channels for future episodes of The Customer Wins. Diana, thank you so much for joining me today.
Diana Cabrices: 35:08
Thank you. This has been so fun.
Outro: 35:11
Thanks for listening to The Customer Wins podcast. We'll see you again next time, and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.
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