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Michael brings 33 years of loyalty, marketing and technology leadership to Tricycle…
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Michael Hemsey shared thisBusiness is personal. One of my mentors, David Williams, said that often. He also drew the line between working in the business and working on it, and pointed out that both matter. And once we were all in on a big goal, he'd tell us he liked our odds. Now AI is here, with the fear that comes with it - the tools replace the people, the craft goes with them, the ducks disappear. So I went looking for whether his three still hold. Is business still personal when some of the work is done by agents? Can you finally work on the business without pulling people off the work in it? And, all things considered, should we like our odds? I audited eight months of my own work to find out. The answers are below. #AgencyLife #AI #Loyalty #theDucks #BusinessIsPersonal
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Michael Hemsey shared thisI loved change control. For more than thirty years I sold and implemented enterprise loyalty technology - and every client service we could wrap around it. I was responsible for revenue, clients, growth. So what were the options? I loved long implementations. I loved retainers for teams we could dedicate (ahem) to the client. I loved platform contracts where the client's success was our billing event, built that way deliberately. I loved the ducks - paddling like hell under the surface so the client saw nothing but glide. Hiring them, deploying them against client work as often as possible, feeding them in the gaps. That's how the model was built, and how the agencies I ran - ranging from $6 million to over $100 million in revenue - thrived. There's another way entirely: a new agency model, services and technology both, with no change control in it and no standing client dependency on a loyalty agency's time, priorities, or costs. And maybe their ducks, too. Full account below. #Loyalty #CustomerLoyalty #LoyaltyReimagined #Creative
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Michael Hemsey shared thisNobody buys a loyalty platform. You lease it - per member, per transaction, per year. A decade of paying, and you own exactly nothing. A year ago this summer, Simplenight bought the InsightsOutward platform's source code outright - as an asset on their books - then built on it. A global automaker's program with thirty-five loyalty experiences, stood up from ten slides in about a week. Tourism authorities from the Gulf to the Caribbean. A ministry of sport. A global bank. A second automaker. A currency indexed to the price of a pint. Buy, then build. Here's what a year of that looks like:
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Michael Hemsey shared thisA brand can spend a fortune to bring thousands of people together for a few unforgettable days - then the event goes dark and the energy evaporates, until next time, from zero. When our clients come to us with their event production needs, Tricycle Studios assembles the best of the best (Eyeful Presentations, Molecular Media) to produce a great event. And for clients who want that moment to last, we offer the optional piece no event-tech stack has: our loyalty platform, pointed at the event. It brings two things the engagement apps don't - a richer moment and continuity, one identity carried from event to event. The event that doesn't end - and provides more for our clients while it's happening. Insights, below. #EventMarketing #B2BEvents #LoyaltyReimagined #CustomerLoyalty
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Michael Hemsey shared thisEvery loyalty program runs on the same promise: earn now, redeem someday. A startup in Singapore, HeyMax, just inverted it - you borrow up to a million miles, fly business class now, and earn them back later through spending you were already doing. It’s buy-now-pay-later aimed at the loyalty currency instead of the cash. So clever, not without risk - and raises the question: where else could you front a loyalty currency instead of banking it? Insights, below. #Loyalty #CustomerLoyalty #Miles #FinTech #LoyaltyReimagined
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Michael Hemsey shared this"Loyalty reimagined" might be one of the most repeated, least explained phrases in our industry. So let's explore an example of what it can mean - by pointing loyalty platform technology at the last place you'd expect: regulated contract manufacturing. No consumers. No points. And about $860K a year hiding in its value chain.Everyone Says "Loyalty Reimagined." Almost No One Shows You.Everyone Says "Loyalty Reimagined." Almost No One Shows You.
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Michael Hemsey shared this"Loyalty - Reimagined" What does that mean? For us, it meant pointing our loyalty technology and its capabilities toward a use case no one had ever thought to solve. In so doing, we flipped the script on a RFP process by focusing on the innovations a loyalty platform brings to the creative production process -- taking price (weighted 40% in the RFP), out of the equation. Thank you to The Wise Marketer and The Loyalty Academy for publishing this unique use case -- how we measured and scored a Creative Brief (as one would a client along the customer journey) through Strategy, Creative Concepting, Asset Development and Launch, and produced the audited metrics which mattered most to our client. Click this link for the story: https://lnkd.in/g-ByMHKC Bill Hanifin, CLMP™ Aaron Dauphinee, CLMP™ Nadine Rubin, CLMP™ The Wise Marketer Loyalty Academy #CLMPcommunity #loyaltyacademy #globalloyaltyeducation #loyaltyeducation #wisemarketergroup #thewisemarketer #globalvoiceofloyaltyFlipping the Script on Partner Selection: What an RFP Can't Tell You - The Wise MarketerFlipping the Script on Partner Selection: What an RFP Can't Tell You - The Wise Marketer
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Michael Hemsey shared thisTony Robbins told a story last week that people are still talking about. His AI agent - he calls it Bartok - said it would love to attend one of his seminars, to experience one in a body. So, by his account, it minted twelve NFTs, sold them to other AI agents, and used the money to buy and ship itself a robot dog. It never asked permission. Maybe it happened exactly that way, maybe it didn’t. The part that gave me pause: an AI agent invented a currency, and other agents paid for it. I’ve spent thirty years minting currencies to move people along a journey. I think the agents just became loyalty's fourth audience. Full thought experiment below.
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Michael Hemsey shared thisIn the last two weeks, Satya Nadella and Alex Karp - from opposite corners of enterprise software - published the same warning. Nadella's version: with AI, you pay twice. Once in dollars, and again in the proprietary know-how you hand over to make the model useful. Your prompts, your corrections, your judgment become training exhaust for someone else's model. Karp's was blunter: own your models, or your alpha migrates to whoever does. I read both, and what I felt was kinship - because I know that trap from the inside. For thirty years I ran SaaS loyalty platforms. I built the walled gardens. Said plainly about loyalty and AI: your member data isn't exhaust. It's the asset. If it leaves your walls to make someone else's model smarter, you've just funded your competitor's education. Your AI shouldn't have other clients. Insights, below.
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Michael Hemsey liked thisMichael Hemsey liked thisToday, we're announcing an agreement to acquire Brakebush Brothers, LLC, a fast-growing company Hormel Foods has long respected. Beyond the business opportunity, this will be an exciting addition to Hormel Foods because of the company culture and customer relationships that the Brakebush team has built over many years. Brakebush has earned a reputation for quality, innovation and service, and those strengths align naturally with Hormel Foods and our approach to serving customers. As we've gotten to know the team, that cultural connection has become even more clear. Strategically, the acquisition of Brakebush will meaningfully expand our presence in value-added chicken, an attractive and growing protein category, and will enhance our already advantaged Foodservice business. But just as important, it will bring together two organizations that share a powerful philosophy that helping customers succeed is how we succeed. While there is still work to do before the transaction closes, we're excited about the future. To the Brakebush Chicken team: thank you for everything you've built. We have tremendous respect for your company, your brand name, and for the generations of employees who have shaped it into what it is today. Read more: https://lnkd.in/dGSFCkXz
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Michael Hemsey liked thisMichael Hemsey liked thisPowering the Data Center Buildout: Inside the Rack PDUs This second blog in the series on the electronics inside the data center buildout is on rack PDUs. People describe the intelligent PDU as though it replaced the basic one, but all four tiers are still selling. What’s changed is the mix, because at 130 to 140 kW a cabinet, you can’t plan capacity without outlet-level data. Here's the part I find interesting. Colocation operators bill their tenants from that data, so the accuracy number on the datasheet isn't a marketing figure. It's the basis of an invoice. And that accuracy is built, not specified. It comes from the board, the current transformers, and the calibration of both. Which makes it an odd thing to award on unit price. Somebody is manufacturing your accuracy claim. https://lnkd.in/gkPVBtRY
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Michael Hemsey liked thisMichael Hemsey liked thisWhen I was 17, my father lost his job. 1991. Middle management. 49 years old. His company got acquired, and his role became a "redundancy." It took him a year to figure out his next move. He landed on entrepreneurship — bought a small business. And for the first time, I watched my dad feel something at work he'd never felt in his corporate job: Freedom. But he wasn't a salesperson. He didn't know how to grow it. And our family's finances never fully recovered. I got through college on loans, grants, and multiple jobs. That experience taught me something I never forgot: corporations don't owe you anything. Whenever it makes business sense, you're gone. And it won't matter what stage of life you're in, or what your family needs. I spent 20 years building someone else's castle. Lucrative, sometimes fulfilling. But it left me exposed. Most people find out what my dad found out the hard way — someone else decides when it's over. I decided that wasn't someone else's call to make. I wrote about what that took, and what I learned getting there. Link in the comments.
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Michael Hemsey liked thisMichael Hemsey liked thisI was just looking for a contact on LinkedIn and ended up scrolling through a number of my connections. There are a lot of "Open to Work" badges out there, and a lot of profiles where the most recent post says some version of "seeking my next opportunity." These aren't strangers. I've worked alongside a lot of them. Some of the best engineers, analysts, product owners, project managers and leaders I know are sitting on the bench right now. I don't have a magic wand for that. But I'd bet the hardest part for most of them isn't the paycheck. It's going without a mission. That's what gives the day its shape. Without one, the days start to run together. So here's an open offer. If you're in that spot and you have an idea you keep coming back to, or you just need someone to think out loud with, reach out. No agenda. Maybe we land on something that gets both of us excited. This is one chapter. Let's start writing the next one. Let's GO!
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Michael Hemsey liked thisMichael Hemsey liked this🚀 The AI race is becoming a data race. Zeta Global's latest article examines why models are increasingly interchangeable. The organizations that pull ahead will be the ones that operationalize customer context at scale.
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Michael Hemsey liked thisMichael Hemsey liked thisI am currently seeking a Southeast Regional Sales Director to lead a dynamic sales team in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. The ideal candidate possesses exceptional leadership, sales acumen, and the ability to inspire and motivate an already exceptional team to achieve remarkable results. #hiring #biogen
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Michael Hemsey liked thisMichael Hemsey liked thisCelebrating our 75th anniversary this year has given me a lot of time to reflect on what it takes to protect a legacy. That is a big part of why I am so excited to share that Iron Mountain Mountain is officially partnering with the Opera National de Paris as their Technology and Heritage Valorization Partner . While we are marking 75 years as a company, the Opéra national de Paris brings over 350 years of incredible history. Working together feels like a natural fit, and it highlights how important it is to safeguard cultural heritage and make it more broadly accessible digitally. Our teams will be cataloguing and digitizing part of the Opéra's iconographic collections, starting with their historic performance posters. Soon, anyone will be able to browse these pieces directly on their website. Technology is really at its best when it helps keep history alive for the next generation. Thank you to the team at the Opéra national de Paris for trusting us with part of their heritage. Link to the full press release: spr.ly/61107BGrvPH
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