Business Leaders Podcast: Recent Episodes
Bob Roark
Listen, learn and accelerate your success by listening to Colorado’s top entrepreneurs and thought leaders. Each episode uncovers the intricate story of business success, what was done, challenges overcome, and specific steps you can implement to take action now. Featuring business leaders and experts from Colorado. Business Leaders Podcast is designed to function as your digital mentor so you can build the business you want so you can live the life you dream about. This is not just another business podcast, it features business leaders from your community that operate, overcome, and succeed in Colorado.
Are you executing the right strategies to market your products and services? Are you planning to buy or sell a business? In this episode, guest https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameron-kolb-49426015/ (Cameron Kolb), senior broker at Raincatcher, speaks with host Bob Roark on how business owners spend their money, time, and effort in growing their businesses. Cameron explains his company's professional process so you can start analyzing yours. He helps and guides people to get the maximum value when buying or selling their businesses. He values being true and honest to the people who are asking for their help while getting the job done. Stay tuned to know more to scale your business up!
Watch the episode here:
The Essentials Of Buying And Selling A Business With Cameron Kolb The big questions are how do business owners like us spending our own money, time and effort? How do we grow our businesses and jump the line that lets us accelerate the delivery of our products services in our community while being smart about our growth profits culture and still create a lasting value in our business? Those are the questions in this show. We'll share some of those answers. Our guest is Cameron Kolb. He's a Senior Broker with https://raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher). Welcome to the show.
Our guest is Cameron Kolb. He's the Senior Broker at https://raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher). Cameron, welcome to the show. Thanks for taking the time. Tell us a little bit about your background and bring us up on where you are now.
I started my professional career at Northwestern Mutual doing financial planning. We initially started with insurance and worked in the niche of business owners because we thought that was a good need there. As we expanded the team investments or more licenses they got, I started to specialize in exit planning. I worked with a lot of physicians and business owners. I did that for about six years and then, the debt in the family caused me to have to rethink things then, ultimately decided that based on what I've experienced with all these business owners and how difficult of a time they've had trying to sell their business, I thought there might be some opportunity to help essentially do business brokerage.
My path after that was that I went out on my own, learned how to do business brokering, did it on my own for about five years and then was asked to join Raincatcher back in May 2021, which has just been great. I essentially went from being a solo practitioner to doing everything that there is to do with now. Now, I get to focus on what I'm great at, which is bringing buyers and sellers to the table and getting deals done.
I think about the compare and contrast between the team approach to a business sale versus the sole practitioner approach to bring it to a sale. What it reminds me of is the difference between having a job and a business. For the sole practitioner, they might've been expertise that you didn't have, it might be franchising or one type of specialist event, whereas at RainCatcher, you have a depth of field.
[bctt tweet="Continue learning. When you start working with people, you will realize that there’s a lot you don’t know yet." username=""]
I thought I was smart then I started working with some smart people and realized there's a lot that I didn't even know I didn't know. It'll bring 4 or 5 months together on a deal we're working in. It's just made a huge difference in the execution and the progress that I've made as a business professional. I feel that one of the lots about what you can do to add a lot more value than I’m previously doing. There are different ways to sell businesses as a business broker. I thought I'd been doing it the best way and then sure enough, I learned that there are better ways to do it, which is humbling.
It’s interesting to maybe expand on that a little bit. You think about, “I thought I knew this way to sell a business and then I...
If you want to grow as a company, you have to do it organically, not by following trends. Ask your customers what they want and then build from that. Stop anticipating the next trend and just work on your core business. Be creative and original. Join your host Bob Roark and his guest https://www.angusfletcher.co/ (Dr. Angus Fletcher) as they break down how you can lead your business to grow organically. Angus is a Professor of Story Science at https://projectnarrative.osu.edu/ (Ohio State’s Project Narrative). Discover Angus's love for both neuroscience and storytelling. Come and join the conversation on how you can grow your company in a world that's so different from before. Be open to change and anomalies so that you can grow. Feed your creative brain so that you can grow. Grow organically today!
Watch the episode here:
How To Grow Your Company Organically In This New World With Dr. Angus Fletcher Our guest is Dr. Angus Fletcher. He is a professor at Ohio State University's https://projectnarrative.osu.edu/ (Project Narrative). He is a polymath with dual degrees in Neuroscience and Literature. He received his PhD from Yale, taught Shakespeare at Stanford, and published two books and numerous peer-reviewed articles. He has consulted with Sony, Disney, Amazon, and the Army Command and General Staff College. He is the author and presenter of the https://www.audible.com/pd/Screenwriting-101-Mastering-the-Art-of-Story-Audiobook/B0778Q1BHY (Audible Great Course Guide to Screenwriting). He was awarded the Rodica C. Botoman Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching and Mentoring 2020. Welcome to the show.
https://www.angusfletcher.co/ (Angus Fletcher), thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show.
Thanks for inviting me. I'm honored and excited.
In the pre-interview here, I was doing homework. The more homework I did, the more I knew I was lacking. I talked to another good friend of yours, https://www.linkedin.com/in/longkenneth/ (Ken Long). He had some input too and he says, "Maybe he has this." We will narrow down the discussion as to how it might apply to the business community and narrative. What I was fascinated with is you have literature and neuroscience. It's like chicken and egg. Which one came first?
I started in neuroscience and that continues to be the bedrock of everything that I do as a young neuroscience researcher. I was in the lab where, like every other lab in America, everyone thought the brain was a computer. They thought that the brain is operated by taking on data, storing it into memory, and then processing that data to make decisions logically and that the brain program has this thing called emotion. That was how everyone was working on the brain.
I started to notice the human brain didn't work as a computer at all. First of all, human brains are much worse at doing logic than most computers. Human brains can't take on the same amount of data. Even when we do, we are much more irregular in how we process it. Humans are a lot smarter than computers in certain situations. Humans are much better at low-data decision-making. We are much better at figuring out what to do when there's not a lot of information. That's a situation where AI goes completely haywire.
Humans are also better at being creative. Even though AI can be better at predicting the future, humans can be better at making the future and making it in ways that AI can't predict. That got me thinking, "What is this secret thing that's going on in the human brain that's different from what is going on in computers? How is it that we can have these other kinds of intelligence?"
That started me on this very unusual career, where I went to Silicon Valley and Hollywood. I have a PhD and all these kinds of names, which I'm sure your audience doesn't need to know about. It has brought me into working with the US military, traders, and other folks to bring out some of the...
Your hiring process should not just start with stacking up resumes. If you want the right fit for the job and for your company, you need to be thorough. Joining Bob Roark today are https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevepurban/ (Steve Urban) and https://www.linkedin.com/in/kegerreis/ (Scott Kegerreis), co-founders of https://www.riderflex.com/ (Riderflex), a generalist boutique recruiting firm servicing all industries, all functions, nationwide, C-level to associates. The two recruitment experts share how you can optimize your recruitment process. It’s not just about credentials on paper but also the character and personality. It all comes down to a human element. Learn more about their process and how they’ve helped build successful companies through their work by tuning in.
Optimizing Your Hiring Process With Steve Urban and Scott Kegerreis The big questions are, “How do business owners like us spend our own money, time and effort? How do we grow our business and jump the line that lets us accelerate the delivery of our products and services in our community while being smart about our growth, profits, and culture, and still creating lasting value in our business?” Those are the questions in this show. We will share some of those answers. Our guests are Steve Urban, CEO and Cofounder, and Scott Kegerreis, CRO and Cofounder of https://www.riderflex.com/ (Riderflex), a global recruiting and consulting firm. Welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for being on the show. It has been a long time. The last time we talked was in February of 2018 on one of the http://businessleaderspodcast.com/episodes/steve-urban-founder-ceo-of-riderflex/ (episodes) of the show. You have been hitting it out of the park. You have amazing five-star reviews counting over 200. What is it that you offer to your customers? What is it that you do?
For the readers, I'm glad to be back on the show. We are a recruiting firm and what we're here to talk about is our recruiting business. If it wasn't for you, I don't think https://www.riderflex.com/podcast (Riderflex Podcast) that we would do would not exist if it wasn’t for you because you gave us that suggestion way back a long time ago. I always think to myself, “The podcast we have would not exist without Bob.”
Thank you for the mentoring and advice you gave us way back then. You have a wonderful show and all the guests that you have had on. I try to mimic that a little bit and follow your lead, especially early on when I was first getting started. Thank you for the advice and the relationship that we have. With Bob Roark is appreciated.
For the readers, Riderflex is a generalist boutique recruiting firm for all industries and functions nationwide from C-level to associates. We are having great success building the company. Scott and I started it in late 2016. We both came from executive backgrounds. I was an operations guy and Scott was a sales guy. We had met each other working at a horticulture outfit. We bonded and had a lot of similarities.
We enjoyed being around each other so we stayed in touch. I called him and said, “I want to turn https://www.riderflex.com/ (Riderflex) into a recruiting firm.” He's like, “There are 20,000 recruiters. Why do we want to do that?” I said, “Most of them suck. We can do a lot better.” I’ve got some ideas on how to do it the right way because I had dealt with and hired recruiters, and recruiters had worked for me because I had run a couple of $40 million companies as a CEO. I had a lot of experience in hiring, interviewing and dealing with recruiters. I knew it could be done better.
At Buffalo Wild Wings, after the 3rd or 4th beer, I finally scratched out on a napkin what I thought we should do. I was trying to convince Scott to come to help me do it because I was an ops guy but Scott was sales. I knew that he could sell it and I could execute it. That's how it got started but I will let Scott give a better overview of who we are and...
For many business owners and entrepreneurs, the time comes when they have to move on. When this happens selling your business becomes a priority. What can you do to ensure that you get the most out of it? In this episode, Bob Roark discusses business exit strategies with senior business broker https://www.linkedin.com/in/garywofford/ (Gary Wofford) of Raincatcher LLC. Gary helps businesses buy and sell their companies and here, he gives you what you need to know with how to sell your company. Curious? Then learn more by tuning in to Bob and Gary.
Watch the episode here: How To Sell Your Business With Gary Wofford The big questions are how do business owners like us spend our own money, time and effort? How do we grow our businesses and jump the line? That lets us accelerate the delivery of our products and services in our community while being smart about our growth and profit culture and still creating lasting value in our business. Those are the questions in this show and we will share some of those answers. Our guest is Gary Wofford. He's the Senior Business Broker at https://www.raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher). Welcome to the show.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/garywofford/ (Gary Wofford), thank you so much for taking your time to be a guest on the show. Welcome.
Thank you, Bob. I'm glad to be here with you.
I have been looking forward to this. You started talking about your experience in the franchise space. It seems like there isn't anything you haven't done. If you would tell us a little bit about how you got here.
I have been reflecting on my background and experiences. I do cover a lot of bases. I first was on the corporate side of the franchising world. It was with a company based down in Dallas that decided to franchise all of their company-owned restaurants. That was https://www.bonanza.com/ (Bonanza International). I was VP of Operations over about 250 stores. They allowed me to become a franchise owner as a little bit of a stay bonus. My franchise fee was waived and I was able to pick 1 of 2 or 3 stores that would be mine. That's when I first got involved in the ownership side of franchising. It was a wonderful experience.
I was able to develop two additional Bonanza Family Steakhouses as a franchise owner in North Texas and Southern Oklahoma. I go back to that as a grassroots learning experience because with the adage, “You learn where the buck stops.” When it's snowing outside, you got a payroll on Monday and the business is down, you learn what you have to do as a business owner to take care of that. From that very early beginning, I started gaining a strong appreciation for business owners, knowing their world and what they were faced with on a day-to-day basis.
That later led to an opportunity to sell those stores to a larger franchise owner after about 6 or 7 years because the town that I was in built another highway. The cows cut the traffic patterns down quite a bit. I could see the handwriting on the wall that it was time to consider moving on to something else. I did sell those three locations to another franchise owner and that system. I got affiliated with another franchise as the operating partner back in the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Luther's BBQ. We built over 6 or 10 years of AAA locations.
This was back in the day. We were selling barbecue sandwiches for $1.99 but we had $2 million on average with a lot of drive-throughs, takeouts and catering. Each of these restaurants would sit 200 people. We were very successful in the Dallas-Fort Worth market despite some failures of the franchise company. That led to having a little bit of a dispute. We ended up, long story short, settling with those folks. We had to change the name from Luther's to http://www.coltersbbq.com/ (Colter's). I still have the little writing pad that I use to come up with that name because we did a little marketing thing and didn't want to confuse customers.
Luther was the...
Most entrepreneurs’ exit strategy is selling their business. But how do you sell your business at the best price? https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-woodbury/ (Mark Woodbury) is the Managing Director at https://raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher), helping entrepreneurs buy and sell remarkable companies. Today, he joins Bob Roark to break down the process behind how they help clients get maximum value for their businesses. He shares mistakes to avoid and things to prepare when you’re planning to exit and sell your business. Tune in for valuable insight on how to make your life’s work sellable!
How To Sell Your Online Or SaaS Business At Maximum Value With Mark Woodbury The big questions are, “How do business owners like us spend our own money, time and effort? How do we grow our business and jump the line that lets us accelerate the delivery of our products and services while being smart about our growth, profits, culture, instilling increased value in our business?” Those are the questions in this episode. We will share some of the answers.
Our guest is Mark Woodbury. He's a Managing Director of https://raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher). Mark, welcome to the show.
I appreciate you having me on.
I appreciate your time. Tell us a bit of you and what got you from there to here?
My background was in finance and I have worked in finance as my first job out of school. I always had an itch for a little bit more independence and less rigidity than I had. Since this is my first job, there is supposed to be some rigidity and you have to earn your stripes a little bit. I learned a ton. I liked what I was doing but I had an itch towards self-employment. They say, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” meaning if you want to start a business and you don't have any money, you better figure out how to start a business with no money. For me, that was learning the digital space.
It was a very low barrier to entry to do business online, to build websites as a service. At that point, start a website, get into eCommerce with very low customer acquisition costs. That's what I did. I dabbled around online and figured things out the hard way. Initially, I taught myself a lot of hard lessons. I stumbled and fell many times but this was nights and weekends for a while and I ended up having some success.
I was at the right place and at the right time. That was an easier time to get into eCommerce. It's much more competitive now. There are a lot of software that has decreased the barrier to entry even further. There are probably 10, 20 times as many merchants online competing for the same ad space as when I’ve got into it.
I’ve got in and got my feet wet into self-employment. I learned the hard way about keeping your books and quarterly estimated taxes. I learned that lesson the hard way. Plenty of stumbles, as you have seen with yourself or potentially your clients. I ultimately ended up selling that. I didn't know what my next venture would be until I sold that company. Throughout the sales process, that's where I learned, “This is what I want to do.” I have done consulting at other firms before. I wanted to do consulting and eCommerce. I wanted to do consulting for some supply chains and logistics.
It didn't ring a bell but when I sold my company, I realized this is what this person does. They understand the M&A process and know who all the key players are. It's a lucrative space to be. It provides value. It's fun. It's very goal-oriented. I'm not racking up hours on somebody else's bill. I'm working for free most of the time until I close something. That's how I’ve got into the business brokerage space. I started at my own company with a partner and we had a couple of employees. After a few years, he and I split off. He went to work with his wife on her business.
Fortunately, I met the folks at Raincatcher, which is the firm you are familiar with and the group I'm at. It has been a great...
It’s not just what you say that matters, but also how you say it. Everyone communicates differently, and knowing how to approach different people at different times can make or break you. https://www.linkedin.com/in/drethanbecker/ (Ethan Becker) is the President and second-generation senior coach and trainer from https://speechimprovement.com/ (The Speech Improvement Company). In this episode, he chats with host Bob Roark and shares some tips from his book, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08GQH3KD9/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0 (Mastering Communication at Work: How to Lead, Manage, and Influence). Ethan talks about the impact of communicating effectively and how that translates in different business situations. He also discusses the science behind speech and communication to give a better understanding of how it works.
Watch the episode https://youtu.be/R7tQz1fEG2E (here) Dr. Ethan Becker On The Impact Of Mastering Communication In Business How To Lead, Manage And Influence This is going to be quite the episode. We have Dr. Ethan Becker. He's the President and second generation senior coach and trainer for https://www.speechimprovement.com/ (The Speech Improvement Company). It’s the oldest communication coaching and training firm in America. More importantly, he's created what I would consider a tool case, a set of tools for https://speechimprovement.com/store/index.php?route=product/product&path=25&product_id=64 (Mastering Communication at Work). That's the name of his book with the co-author, https://www.thoughtleadersllc.com/ (Jon Wortmann). It's how to lead, manage, and influence. It's the second edition. He was kind enough to provide me a copy, which I promptly read. It resides on my desk as a go-to resource and how-to in the speech side of the house. Dr. Becker, thank you so much for taking the time. If you would, maybe starting out with a story about your company and your mom and how this all came to pass.
It's good to be here. I get asked that question about the company because we were founded in 1964. My mom and my dad were both at Emerson College, which for a long time is where you would go for communication. She was studying Speech Pathology and he was studying Rhetoric and Public Address, that was the vocation. They met, and dated, and they got together. They had this idea that if you could coach an executive, a businessperson, the same way an athlete was coached, you could help that person.
Their specialty was in communication, so they did that through the lens of communication and the company name, they started right away. They said, “Let's name it what we do, The Speech Improvement Company.” Between the two of them, they found something that could focus on, in some cases, mechanics of speaking, and in other cases, psychology, persuasion, and rhetoric. Naturally, that grew into the business world. That's how it originally started a long time ago.
Was there a recognition or a pushback when they started the company? Good speakers are born not made.
You get some of that stuff. They also had other challenges. They were out of the norm. My mother, a blind Jewish woman who married a Catholic boy. In the 1960s, that didn't go over well.
Your dad must have needed a lot of work for her to marry him and to try to improve.
An Irish Catholic boy from Pennsylvania hitchhiked his way up to Boston and did what he couldn't to get through school. She came from a long line. Her grandfather was one of the founding members of Brandeis University. She came from a different place. These two were not from the same background, but they found love and commonality, and they started this business and then it quickly grew. They never wanted the company to grow large. There were always about 10 or 11 on the team. Now, we're about 20.
They never wanted to be like a Dale Carnegie or a McKinsey or some watered down, one size fits all for everybody type of thing. They...
Interestingly, many banks receive customer complaints not about their services but their standard procedure of asking for ID all the time. Regulars often see this as annoying and repetitive, which sometimes leads to arguments with bank tellers and staff. Setting the record straight regarding this particular policy with Bob Roark is https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinjroberts (Robin Roberts), CEO of https://ppnb.com/ (Pikes Peak National Bank). She explains why confirming one's identification is critical in securing one's money and financial information. Robin emphasizes why this simple action promotes better relationships between you and your bank.
Watch the episode https://youtu.be/KgF3waxUreg (here) Robin Roberts: The Reason Behind Banks Asking For ID All The Time Have you ever wondered why banks sometimes do things that are not quite clear? In this series, I have Robin Roberts. She's the CEO of https://www.ppnb.com/about/ (Pikes Peak National Bank). She's here to demystify why banks want to see your ID again. You go, "Why would they want to see my ID? Don't they know me?" I thought it might be useful to talk about that process from the bank's perspective. Enjoy.
I got back from my bank. As always, I want to take some funds out and they wanted to see my ID again. I can't tell you how many times they've asked. Pretty much, it annoys me almost every time. Robin, why do they ask? Robin is the CEO of https://www.ppnb.com/about/ (Pikes Peak National Bank). She gets asked this question all the time so we thought we would answer it. Go ahead, Robin.
[bctt tweet="Banks are protecting not only your money but also your financial identity, social security number, and all other personal information. " via="no"]
I get more customer complaints about the fact that we asked for their ID than any other customer complaint. It boggles my mind. We are protecting your financial information and access to your accounts. For most people, that's either the most important thing to them or the second most important thing to them after their family. There is their money. I always equate it to when someone goes into a liquor store or they go to a restaurant and the bartender cards them, they feel so flattered like, "I must look young. Someone asked me for my ID. He must have thought I was under 21." You know that's not why they asked for the ID. They're flattered when the bartender asked them for their ID.
We're protecting not only their money but their financial identity, their social security number, date of birth, all of their personal information. They get irritated when we ask for an ID. Often I get, "Don't you know how long I've been banking here?" "I do know how long you've been banking here but the new teller doesn't." Banks have new tellers all the time. It's an entry-level position in our industry. Usually, good tellers get promoted so then you're going to have a new teller. The new teller doesn't know you and they better be asking for your ID because what if you're going through a divorce and your soon-to-be ex-wife is trying to access your accounts. We need to look at IDs to know who's authorized to have access to this and who isn't.
It's not optional, isn't it?
[caption id="attachment_5903" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Asking For ID: Banks need to look at IDs to know who's authorized to have access to the account and who isn't.[/caption]
It's not optional. If the bank allowed someone to take money out of your account and didn't ask for an ID, I can promise you you’d be complaining to me. It's the opposite side. It's not about us trying to create inconvenience for you. It's not about us not knowing who you are or appreciating your long-term relationship with us. It's us doing our job. We're protecting your financial information, your financial identity and access to your money. Please give us your ID. You could thank the teller for asking because they are doing...
Negotiating with banks when getting a loan is not only about getting the most rewarding end of the deal. There are a lot of regulations and policies to be considered here after all, and you must be aware of each one to ensure a smooth process. Bob Roark talks with the CEO of https://ppnb.com/ (Pikes Peak National Bank), https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinjroberts (Robin Roberts), to delve into the right approach to bank negotiations. She explains why you can't argue with banks about submitting tax returns and financial statements, delving into why it is not an invasion of privacy. On the other hand, Robin talks about loan covenants - which are negotiable - detailing how you should discuss its specifics with the bank to come up with a satisfying agreement for both parties.
Watch the episode https://www.youtube.com/embed/sEUCyl3HyaA?rel=0 (here) Robin Roberts: What You Must Know When Negotiating With Banks Have you ever wondered why banks sometimes do things that are not quite clear? In this series, I have Robin Roberts. She’s the CEO of https://ppnb.com/ (Pikes Peak National Bank). She’s here to demystify some of the things that might be bothering you. One of the things that we talked about at length is how to negotiate with your bank. There are so many people that miss this one particular component and it is not the 1/8 of the quarter that you negotiate on the loan. Oddly enough, it might be the covenants that you might want to spend some time on. Take care, enjoy, and I hope you learn something from this episode.
What can you negotiate with your bank? If you’ve finished negotiating with your bank and you’ve got an extra 1/8 off on my five-year fixed 30-year amortization note, don’t necessarily pat yourself on the back. You may have missed basically the entire positive things that you can do. In this episode, we have Robin Roberts. She is the CEO of https://ppnb.com/ (Pikes Peak National Bank) to illuminate and demystify what you can negotiate with your bank in the commercial loan for your business.
The first thing that business owners who have not borrowed before, they equate commercial loans with getting a residential mortgage on their house or getting a car loan. That’s a consumer purpose loan and those types of loans have their purpose. They are very different. They’re regulated differently. They have different laws that cover them than commercial lending. Commercial lending is its own animal. It’s important for business owners to understand commercial lending, how it is different than getting their residential mortgage, and how the process was. Not just now when you get the loan, but over the course of the loan because the bank is much more involved with you on an annual basis with your loan than when you get your residential mortgage for 30 years. You make your payment every month and no one ever bothers you again from the mortgage company or the servicer. You make your payment and you’re good. Commercial lending is not that way and business owners can, if they understand the whole process of the loan, negotiate things at the beginning of the loan that will help them 2 and 3 years down the road.
For a lot of them, when you do your home mortgage and you do it through a bank, most don’t realize or don’t realize until they get a notice that the note’s been sold. It’s not on the bank’s balance sheet and their responsibility and concern about your note is now gone. Whereas the commercial loan is the banks are intimately interested in making sure of the quality of your note because it resides at the bank that you have the note from it and it’s not sold.
[bctt tweet="Most small business loans are not sold. They're held on the bank's books to be monitored regulatory-wise." username=""]
Most commercial loans and small business loans are not sold. They’re held on the bank’s books and the bank has a responsibility regulatory-wise to monitor that loan portfolio we grade it actually on...
It is often believed that bank lending is only accessible to those with money. But if that's the case, then it conflicts with the entire idea of getting a loan. Breaking this misconception with Bob Roark is the CEO of https://ppnb.com/ (Pikes Peak National Bank), https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinjroberts (Robin Roberts). She explains how banks determine the qualified persons for bank lending. She enumerates the most important factors that come into play in such transactions, from the required cash of 10% to your overall credit/FICO score.
Watch the episode https://youtu.be/BxF538PraYU (here) Robin Roberts: Is Bank Lending Only Available To Those With Money? Have you ever wondered why banks sometimes do things that are not quite clear? In this series, I have Robin Roberts. She’s the CEO of https://ppnb.com/ (Pikes Peak National Bank). She’s going to talk about who banks lend to and why. I thought that might be interesting to the business owners out there so they might be a little more prepared. Enjoy.
https://ppnb.com/ (Robin), you and I talk a lot about some of the misconceptions and things that we hear on a regular basis. You’ve heard more times than you would like to count, “Banks only lend to people that have money.” That strikes me weird because what do you think they’re going to do. Let’s dive into that and talk about why that is. We have another in the series with Robin Roberts. She’s the CEO of Pikes Peak National Bank, talking about questions she gets asked and some of the answers that people don’t know. Here we go.
[bctt tweet="Banks lend based on your cashflow, not on the amount of money in your bank account." via="no"]
The comment that is made frequently is that, “Banks only lend to people who have money. It’s when you need money that banks won’t lend and if you have money, then you don’t need to borrow.” Both of those are not true. Banks lend to people who can pay it back. Banks lend based on your cashflow not on the amount of money that you have in your bank account. We certainly look at that. That’s a measure of liquidity for you as a borrower but we’re looking at what cashflow is being generated either from whatever it is that you’re purchasing or generated through your activities. You have a job, so you get paid every month. That’s cashflow. Earnings after expenses are your cashflow and what is left over to make the payment on the loan. From a business perspective, what are your earnings? Were the revenues from your business after expenses you have profit? What is the cashflow available to take on this additional payment?
We’re looking at what sources of repayment are there to pay the loan payment. You don’t have to have $200,000 in the bank in order for the bank to make a loan to you. They do look at also after cashflow then what happens if the business, for some reason, can’t make the payment. Is there cash in the bank? Is there cash in you, the business owner’s accounts where you have some liquidity and can make payments? When you’re looking at any business loan, particularly purchasing real estate, you’re going to need 10% of whatever. You’re going to need cash of 10%. There are government programs that can make up that difference, the down payment. You’re going to have to have 10% in. If you don’t have 10%, then there’s a problem. You need to think about it in that way. Otherwise, banks don’t make loans only to people who already have the same amount. If you want a $300,000 loan, you don’t have to have $300,000 in the bank in order for us to make a loan.
[caption id="attachment_5897" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Bank Lending: When looking at any business loan, particularly purchasing real estate, you're going to need cash of 10%.[/caption]
There’s a myriad of indicators of your ability to pay back. The fight goes, credit scores, the experience in TransUnion of the world. When banks looking at you only lend to people with money, there are...
Since a bank is still a business, it has to follow specific rules and regulations. So when it comes to loan approvals, one must be prepared to abide by the required loan package. Bob Roark is joined by https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinjroberts (Robin Roberts), CEO Of https://ppnb.com/ (Pikes Peak National Bank), to discuss what constitutes such a package and how business plans differ depending on your scope and reach. They also talk about why banks favor those mitigating risks and how banking changed a lot over the years because of politics and culture.
Watch the episode https://youtu.be/ESw6FO7SN2w (here) Robin Roberts On Putting Together A Loan Package Have you ever wondered why banks sometimes do things that are not quite clear? In this series, we have Robin Roberts. She is the CEO of https://www.ppnb.com/ (Pikes Peak National Bank). She’s here to demystify some of those things. We’re going to talk a little bit in this short episode on the best practices to improve your odds and getting that loan that you’ve lived with for loan success. Enjoy it.
I’m the business owner and I’ve done a good job. I have a reasonably good relationship with my bank. We have talked about this in some other series of things not to do. In the things of to, I want to take it and do a strategic acquisition for my business. I want to put together a loan package, present it to the bank, and do everything that’s within common practices to increase the out-of-the-bank gone. I understand what you are trying to do. I can see the numbers, we are willing to take in, and be a business partner with you in this note. What can they do? I have with me, Robin Roberts. She’s the CEO of https://www.ppnb.com/ (Pikes Peak National Bank). More of our series of things you didn’t know about banking but wish you did.
[caption id="attachment_5877" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Loan Package: The better prepared you are with this information, the faster the loan decision will be made, and you can get to whatever goal you’re after.[/caption]
It depends on the type of loan that you are wanting. There are some things in your loan package. They are always going to have to be there. The better prepared you are with all of this information, the faster the loan decision is going to be made and the faster you can get to whatever goal it is that you are after. If you are doing anything new, starting a new business, adding a second product line, buying someone else’s business, or expanding and opening another location, you need to have a business plan. Now, it doesn’t have to be 500 pages. The bank is not looking for you to do something that is 500 pages. If you are an existing business, you are opening a second location or you are adding to an existing product line, the business plan is a validation of your business model.
If you are a startup, you are writing a business plan to validate that the product or service that you are going to provide is needed. If you are already in business and you are generating revenue, that question is already answered. Somebody needs your product or service and you are generating revenue so you already exist. Less work has to be done on validating your business model and more work has to be done on, “Here’s how we are going to pay for the second location.” More financial projections, more talk about who the management team is going to be, what your supply chains are, and how you are going to support the new product, service, second location or whatever.
[bctt tweet="If you’re thinking about doing something big, get your tax returns filed by the deadline and don’t extend to them." via="no"]
A business plan with projections having that done before you go to the bank is important, it tells the bank what you are wanting to do, and why you think that you can pay the loan back given the revenues that are generated by whatever it is that you are going to do.A business plan is...
Banks has always been a secretive establishment, heightened even more so by The Bank Secrecy Act. This makes most, if not all transactions with them a bit unclear and complicated. Bob Roark sits down with https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinjroberts (Robin Roberts), CEO of https://ppnb.com/ (Pikes Peak National Bank), to delve into this law and how the 9/11 incident strengthened it through the Patriot Act. She explains why it is better to simply go on with your usual bank transactions instead of structuring it. Robin also talks about the penalties that come with breaking the Bank Secrecy Act both on the side of the customer as well as the banks.
Watch the episode https://youtu.be/xzO4mty6K7E (here) The Bank Secrecy Act, What It Is And Why Business Owners Should Be Aware With Robin Roberts, CEO Pikes Peak National Bank Have you ever wondered why banks sometimes do things that are not quite clear? In this series, I have Robin Roberts. She’s the CEO of https://www.ppnb.com/ (Pikes Peak National Bank). She’s going to be talking about the Bank Secrecy Act and how that might apply to you as a business owner. Enjoy. Thank you.
How many times you have said, “I’ve got a secret and I’m not telling.” The banks have secrets too, but it’s not because they want to have secrets. It’s because they have a Bank Secrecy Act. We thought we would take in, pull the cover off of the secrets in the Bank Secrecy Act. You talk about them and how they might affect you as the business owner and a client of a bank. Robin, thank you. This is Robin Roberts the CEO of https://www.ppnb.com/ (Pikes Peak National Bank). We are in the demystifying stage of talking about lending, banking and business owners.
I always felt like I need to talk about the Bank Secrecy Act because it’s a law. First of all, it was created in 1971 or 1972 to at least find racketeering, drug rings and money laundering being done through the banking system. After 9/11, with the Patriot Act, the Bank Secrecy Act was strengthened. Several things were added to the Bank Secrecy Act that banks have been doing since 2001. The Patriot Act continues to be renewed by Congress so they stay in place. I’m not telling any secrets. You can look up the Bank Secrecy Act and the regulations, it’s publicly available but I don’t think it’s public knowledge.
[bctt tweet="Any business dealing in money is going to have to follow the Bank Secrecy Act." username=""]
Most people do not understand how much the bank is reporting about you and not under penalty of law for the bank but under penalty of law for individual employees who do not follow the Bank Secrecy Act. This is a particular law where the employee themselves can be assessed that is called a Civil Money Penalty or assessment where they have to pay a fine because they didn’t follow the Bank Secrecy Act. There are severe penalties for not following it. That’s how seriously the Bank Secrecy Act is looked at by bank regulators and by bankers in general.
[caption id="attachment_5889" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Bank Secrecy Act: Most people do not understand how much the bank is reporting about you and not under penalty of law for the bank, but under penalty of law for individual employees who do not follow the Bank Secrecy Act.[/caption]
With that being said, one must not cross the Bank Secrecy Act. Our favorite discussion is the one about if I deposit X dollars at this bank and X dollars at this branch, is that a reportable thing?
Please don’t ask that. Do not go up to the teller and ask them, “I’ve got this cash. I need to bring it in but I don’t want it to be reported. What’s the threshold if I take it over here to this branch?” The fact that you are asking that, the teller has to report that you wanted to structure transactions. It’s called structuring. There are basic thresholds under the Bank Secrecy Act. $10,000 is a general fine.
$9,999 is not going to cut it?
At least $10,001
The vast majority of business owners spend somewhere between 90% to 95% of their time working IN their business and only about 5% working ON the business. Running the business is working in it; exit and transition planning are working on it. However, when it’s high time to sell, most business owners don't know what they don't know about selling their company. They are unaware of how to transition or exit their business. Joining Bob Roark on today’s show is Cam Bishop, the Managing Director at https://www.raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher), a business brokerage and M&A firm that partners with entrepreneurs and business owners looking for help in buying or selling remarkable companies. If you’re thinking about selling your business or in the process of doing so, you don’t want to pass up this episode as Bob and Cam dive into the exit planning fundamentals that will help you extract additional value out of your company.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/eB4ILmWLn_g[/embed] Exit Planning Fundamentals With Cam BishopWe're incredibly fortunate we have Cam Bishop. He's the Managing Director at https://raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher). It's a business brokerage and M&A firm that partners with entrepreneurs and business owners who are looking for help in buying or selling remarkable companies. He is the author of Head Noise: Perspective and Tales from the Executive Suite and Onward & Upward: Motivational Advice for Career Success.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cameron-bishop-19b6804/ (Cam), thank you from Kansas City and for coming on the show. We appreciate it. Thank you, Bob. You’re welcome. I'm glad to be here. Before the show, I did a little bit of homework. I looked at your long resume of experience. If you could, give us a quick snapshot or thumbnail of your experience prior to here. It has been an interesting journey. I went to the University of Missouri School of Journalism. I got a degree in Journalism and came out of school. I wanted to become an advertising copywriter. I thought I'll spend my entire career working in ad agencies. Instead, I started out in a marketing job and writing ad copy in a small publishing firm. It was a $7 million business. It got acquired and the new owner said, "We want you to go out and buy companies to grow this thing." We grew from $7 million to $13 million, to $90 million and then we got sold again. We grew from $90 million to $300 million. I stepped in as the CEO of that company and we grew it to $400 million. It was a profit machine. We were throwing off $100 million a year. We had 2,000 employees in 23 US cities in 4 or 5 foreign countries. It was a crazy ride. [bctt tweet="The integration plan is the absolute make or break of the deal." via="no"] The management structure changed and I said, "I liked this business model." I took six months off, wrote a business plan, flew around the country, pitched in the concept to about 50 different private equity firms, and ended up landing in a very happy relationship with JPMorgan Chase Banks' Private Equity Division. At that time, they had about $6 billion fund they were working out of. Unlike most PE deals, we didn't start with a direct acquisition. We started on my kitchen table. We went out and sourced a business as a starter, what they call a platform company. We ran the same model I had been running at the previous business, which they called in the PE world, the leverage roll-out business, where you buy a platform company and then you rapidly begin to tap companies that are strategic fits for your business. You build it up into a much bigger company, then you exit that deal and gain a benefit from scale that we used to call arbitrage on the exit multiple. Meaning if you had averaged all your deals in six times EBITDA, when they're aggregated together and you resell it, you can sell it for 8 or 9 times EBITDA based on the scale of the business and the efficiencies that you've driven into the...
People often have this misconception that investments in marketing almost always run contrary to an organization's mission. They feel that any spending that isn’t directly tied to the mission runs counter to the good you accomplish in the world. Bob Roark and his guest, https://www.linkedin.com/in/sswineford/ (Stu Swineford), tackle this very subject today. Stu is the author of https://missionuncomfortablebook.com/ (Mission: Uncomfortable - How Nonprofits Can Embrace Purpose-Driven Marketing to Survive and Thrive). Stu talks about purpose-driven marketing, showing that marketing isn’t really a bad thing, especially if you’re the leader of a non-profit organization or its marketing department.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/XIxoAhUkEbc[/embed] Purpose-Driven Marketing With Stu SwinefordMarketing is not a dirty word. As a leader of a nonprofit organization or its marketing department, you may have been told that investments in marketing run contrary to your organization's mission. At the least, you may feel that any spending can't be directly tied to the mission that runs counter to the good you accomplish in the world. We're going to talk about that. My guest is Stu Swineford. Stu is the co-author of https://missionuncomfortablebook.com/ (Mission Uncomfortable: How Nonprofits Can Embrace Purpose-driven Marketing to Survive and Thrive). He's also the co-founder of https://relishstudio.com/ (Relish Studio), a digital marketing firm and he's also the host of his own podcast, https://relishstudio.com/podcast/ (Relish This). Stu, thanks for taking your time. Thank you for having me on, Bob. I appreciate it. Fair disclosure, Stu and I are working together on a website. They do awesome work so I can attest to that right upfront. One of the things that we wanted to cover is one, we will talk about purpose-driven marketing and then the pillars of purpose-driven marketing, which are attract, connect, bond and inspire. Stu, maybe the first thing that we want to dig into is your thoughts on purpose-driven marketing. Thanks, Bob. Purpose-driven marketing is a phrase that we came to over the course of a few years where we're trying to give people the idea that marketing shouldn't just be an activity that you spend money on and check a box but it is something that should return an outcome. A lot of people think about marketing as a cost. One of the things that we've tried to establish in purpose-driven marketing is that it's more of an investment. It's something that you're doing to either run experiments or prove a hypothesis or tackle a challenge that you're having with your organization. There should be an outcome attached to that and it should be a positive outcome. That's what purpose-driven marketing is all about. Purpose-driven marketing can be applied to both for-profit and nonprofit businesses. It's marketing that has a specific goal in mind and we try to create all of the mechanisms by which you can attain that goal. In the context of Mission Uncomfortable, the book that I wrote, it's geared toward those businesses in the nonprofit sector specifically but the purpose-driven sector, additionally, to try and help them fuel growth. Fair disclosure, too, I read your book. Thank you for providing the copy. In the nonprofit arena, the folks that are in charge of marketing are trying to identify who their avatar or ideal donor and/or client might be. We usually start these discussions with an exercise that we call the values, vision and mission exercise. It takes some nonprofits a second to wrap their arms around it because their entire MO is around values, vision and mission. Making sure that that culture is intact and defined and everyone has a North Star so that we know what direction that we're going. When we work for for-profit businesses, we do an exercise that we call find the money and this can be something that a nonprofit can do as well. Essentially, it's looking back at your prior...
Selling a business is much more complicated than handing it over for an amount of money and then walking out of the room. On the part of the buyer, it involves a meticulous process of diligence and preparation. If those buyers, who are experts in buying, are taking the effort to be prepared before the transaction happens, why should you, the seller, who is probably selling for the first time, not want to achieve the same level of preparedness? Joining Bob Roark on the show, https://raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher) CPA https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronlinnebach/ (Aaron Linnebach) has some advice for business owners who are thinking about selling their companies at some point. Old wisdom tells us that “The early bird catches the worm,” and it couldn’t be truer when it comes to M&A. Listen in and learn why you should already be investing in exit preparedness now, even if (especially if) you’re not raring to let go of the reins just yet.
Watch the episode here:Start Early: Hard But Necessary Advice For Business Owners Thinking About Selling With Aaron LinnebachThe one thing that I would tell a business owner is to start the conversation early. If you can find your advisory team before you're ready to sell, and start discussing the things you can do on your business so that when it comes time to close that deal, you're prepared. You've got a clear strategic goal. You've got a compelling investment thesis. Starting early before the deal is about to close is only going to create money. It's only going to create extended value for your business. Our guest is Aaron Linnebach. He is the Managing Director of https://raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher). Aaron, thank you so much for coming on the show. Bob, thank you so much for having me. It’s always a pleasure to talk to you. We have a little history. We've shot out a few birds here a little bit, so that's a good thing. I've seen him in the field, in his natural setting for lack of a better term. Aaron, tell us a little bit about Raincatcher. What is your role at Raincatcher? Your backstory about how you came into this field is interesting. Raincatcher is a business broker and M&A advisor for small to medium-sized businesses. We help deliver it to you in our succinct form. We help business owners buy and sell remarkable companies. We exist to represent sellers when it's time to go to market. My personal role in that is incredibly exciting. I get to spend all day every day working with my team and our business owner clients to help shepherd that business through the process of getting ready to go to market, pulling the trigger and go into the market, navigating all the uncertainty in that path, and then successfully closing that deal. It is an incredible honor and privilege to be a part of that process. For us, it boils down to four main value add activities that we take. The first is emotional. It's a big deal to sell a company or your business. It's not all about the numbers and the Ps and Qs. Oftentimes, it's about the heart as much as anything else. We help navigate that part of it. We help take the mystique and the mystery out of selling your company. The next part is educational. It's making sure the business owners are smart on what they need to do today, what they need to do tomorrow, and what they need to do the day after that to complete that objective of selling the company successfully. The next one is strategic. That’s where we differentiate ourselves. It’s being able to take a strategic perspective on the overall life cycle of your business and why now is the right time to go to market, and then it’s tactical. It's the blocking and tackling. It's the boots on the ground grind of crunching the numbers, telling the story, putting together marketing materials, contacting buyers, negotiating on your behalf. At the end of the day, you take all of those things together. What we do is serve business owners. When a company comes to us and says,...
Business acquisition is a unique challenge, especially if you’re an owner-operator who’s being pitted against larger private equity entities. Navy SEAL officer https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-hossfeld/ (Ian Hossfeld) knows where his competitive advantages lie and tries to stay within that lane in his ongoing search for a company to acquire. Ian is the founder of https://fossmtn.co/about (The Foss Mountain Company), which was created in 2020 for that specific purpose. He spends time with Bob Roark on the show to share what his company is looking for in a business, as well as some insights on what business owners should be looking at if they’re planning to sell. If you’re a business owner who’s contemplating an exit, listen in to know if Ian is a good fit for you. If not, then he would gladly help you find a buyer who is!
Watch the podcast here:[embed]https://youtu.be/kcvjBqljX9E[/embed] Navy SEAL Turned Entrepreneur Lays Down His Business Acquisition Criteria - Ian HossfeldIn this episode, we have a special treat. We have Ian Hossfeld. He is the Managing Partner and Founder of https://fossmtn.co/ (The Foss Mountain Company). He's a SEAL Officer with the US Naval Reserves. Ian, thank you for joining us. Bob, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to join you. Ian and I ran across each other. He is working on purchasing a company. I thought we would take and dig in with his thoughts on the type of company he's looking for and some of the criteria. Ian, in a thumbnail sketch, give us a quick snapshot of what got you from the Navy to where you are now. I was a Navy SEAL Officer on active duty for eight years before transitioning from active duty to the Reserves, returning to school to get my MBA and pursuing this path. A couple of steps along the way that led me to this. What led me to transition from active duty was in 2016, my wife was pregnant with our first born. I was staring at my fourth deployment in five years and didn't see that changing while I was on active duty. I wanted to be around more for fatherhood and chose to leave active duty but still be able to serve while serving in the Reserves. You do when you don't know what you want to do and that's go back to school. I went and got my MBA. I wanted to do something with entrepreneurship. What led me to that was on my last tour on active duty, I was deployed to Iraq and was in charge of a 75-man militia in the Upper Euphrates River Valley helping lead the charge to clear ISIS out of the area. In my capacity there, I was in charge of manning, training, equipping and operationally employing this force. In many ways, I had wide left and right lateral limits. I got to be in charge of this force and in some parallels, it’s like being in charge of a company. I loved that autonomy and ability to make meaningful decisions and have to think on my feet. Having to problem solve, to work with individuals both inside and outside the organization. [bctt tweet="There is such a thing as a wonderful business to own, but not a wond erful business to buy." via="no"] It was a meaningful experience that I knew leaving from that, I wanted to replicate that and didn't want to be a cog in a larger machine. I knew entrepreneurship was the right path for me. While I was at business school, I met up with some professors, investors and mentors that worked with folks such as myself and help advise them and mentor them in going out and purchasing a company after graduation. I worked with them my last year I was in business school on a couple academic...
Not every entrepreneur goes into the process of putting their business on sale. But when the time comes that selling your business is necessary, whatever your purpose may be, you will have nothing to lose on your end if you prepare well. Demystifying the intricacies of business selling and acquisition with Bob Roark is https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-warrillow-a54b241/ (John Warrillow), the CEO of https://builttosell.com/ (Built To Sell). John discusses how to know the right time to sell a business, present it to potential buyers, and start a healthy bidding war. He also goes deep into the most critical responsibilities business owners must take on when delving into such a transaction, from breaking the news to your employees to treading carefully when signing a no-shop clause.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/UtLDWtUfbrE[/embed] Preparing To Sell Your Business With John WarrillowEvery business owner will exit their business at some point. If you want to learn how to create value, understand what makes your business attractive to a buyer, and then how to negotiate the sale of your businesses, where John says, “Punch above your weight with that buyer.” You're going to improve your skill stack on this episode with John Warrillow. He's the best-selling author of https://builttosell.com/the-books/ (Built to Sell), top ten Forbes ranked podcast host on https://builttosell.com/radio/ (Built to Sell Radio), and CEO of https://valuebuilder.com/ (The Value Builder System). He has started an excellent four companies. You would agree it's safe to say a couple of things at a minimum. John is a subject matter expert and an advocate for business owners on creating value in their business, maximizing the return on their legacy. He's one busy guy. John, welcome to the show. It's good to be here, Bob. Thank you for taking the time. John, I've read your previous books and I bought additional copies to share with business owners. I’ve got it dog-eared and worn out. One of your books, https://www.amazon.com/Art-Selling-Your-Business-Strategies/dp/1733478159 (The Art of Selling Your Business), is an important book. It's a must-have investment for every business owner. I have to ask, being as busy as you are, why this book and why now? It's funny you mentioned the podcast I do. I've done something like 300 episodes and what I've come to learn is that there are cadres, a small cohort of entrepreneurs, who seem to get much better offers when they go to sell their business than the prevailing industry benchmark. It got me curious about, “What is it that the small group is doing? What do they know that others don't? What are the secrets?” Independent of what industry you're in or what the mechanics of your business is. It seems like there was something they were thinking and doing differently. I tried to distill that down into some lessons and some secrets, and that's what inspired me to write the book. You're doing field research. You're talking to business owners every week on Built to Sell Radio. If you don't have your finger on the pulse of the business owner, no one else does. On the selling trends for business owners that were hit in a difficult patch during the COVID pandemic, what do you see the trends doing here during this period of time and post-pandemic? There are two big things that we've seen. We've done some research where we looked at people that complete the Value Builder questionnaire, which is our intake questionnaire for people who use the system prior to the announcement of the pandemic in March of 2020 and the next eight months during the pandemic. Two big things popped. One is that the pandemic is causing business owners to want to sell sooner. They moved up their sales by 20%. Number two is their appetite to do a family transition. Passing their business down to their kids has dropped through the floor. In lieu, they are now planning to sell their business to a third party. We could riff...
If there is one industry that can be tough to understand, especially if you are doing it legally, it would be the cannabis industry. Those who are in the medical cannabis business know how it can be challenging to understand the regulatory risks and compliance, to name a few. Stepping right in to help businesses and investors navigate this complex and new industry, https://www.linkedin.com/in/niceasley/ (Nic Easley) founded https://www.linkedin.com/company/comprehensive-cannabis-consulting-3c-/ (3C Consulting, LLC). He joins Bob Roark and https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaime-nespor-zawmon-b861731/ (Jaime Zawmon) of Titan CEO this episode to share with us what goes on behind the scenes of this business as CEO, highlighting what characteristics will make one a Titan of Industry. Nic then gives some advice about leading and building a great business, no matter what industry.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/9iEQcvXuA7A[/embed] Navigating The Complex Medical Cannabis Industry With Nic Easley, Founder & CEO of 3C Consulting And Co-host Jaime Zawmon of TitanCEOIn this episode, we have our special cohost Jaime Zawmon. She is the Founder and President of https://www.titanceo.com/ (Titan CEO) and our guest is Nic Easley. He's the Founder and CEO of https://www.3ccannabis.com/ (3C Consulting) and he’s the Managing Director of https://www.multiversecap.com/ (Multiverse Capital). Jaime, Nic, welcome. Thanks for making the time. We were privileged by you taking the time and sharing your experience and wisdom with us. With that being said, if you would, tell us about your business and who you serve. I've been in the legal cannabis industry for many years. Originally, I was an Air Force Linguist and I speak a few languages. I was from the farm county Wisconsin. After the military, I got hurt after about four years and came to Colorado. Medical cannabis was legal in 2006 or 2007 and I got my first medical card. I saw how people were growing and was disgusted by pesticides and indoor lights which is very unsustainable, non-environmental and not safe for patients. I started my business many years ago to help the cannabis industry form in a responsible way. As you see it now being over a $30 billion industry, which is a drop in the bucket for where this would go. It was to help companies understand the regulatory risks and compliance of navigating this brand-new industry that is a medical product. It's an adult-use product, but then also getting into the hemp industry and making papers, plastics and fibers. Helping businesses and investors navigate this complex and new industry is how we established ourselves. What are the typical issues that a client you're serving now has that you were able to solve their problems? I'm trying to paint a picture in the reader's mind of what's your clients and who your clients are? One of the challenges with cannabis is that it's federally illegal and each state has come up with its own medical or adult-use program. At the end of 2020, we have sixteen adult-use states where 21 and older consumption and possession is legal and we have 47 states with some medical laws on their books. About 37 of those are also having medical sales. In a normal business, you're like, “I want to open a gas station or a restaurant,” you would have that state's Department of Health to deal with. When it comes to cannabis, each program is different. I'm working on applications right now in the State of Georgia. Eleven million people are giving six licenses for cultivation for eleven million-person marketplace. It can be competitive. How does a client build a team, put their financial models together and start to raise capital? Put together thousands of pages of voluminous application content about the standards of DEA cages and vaults that they might need or video recording or production plants based on the Georgia Department of Agriculture requirements. We help people that...
Honing your skills in a certain craft is best done through first-hand experience. In the case of https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-ganahl-3694044/ (Jason Ganahl), he was able to start his own barbeque restaurant by spending time as a judge and competitor in the biggest professional barbeque contests. Jason sits down with Bob Roark, joined by his cohost Jaime Zawmon, to share how he founded https://gquebbq.com/menu/ (G-Que BBQ) and his strategies in maintaining its success, particularly in keeping good connections with customers even beyond good food. He also shares how his business dealt with the changes caused by the pandemic and how he plans to address any future adjustments that may come.
Watch the podcast here:[embed]https://youtu.be/i62p_M84UOY[/embed] Jason Ganahl, Founder Of G-Que BBQ With Cohost Jaime Zawmon, President Of Titan CEOWe are joined by Jaime Zawmon, my cohost, President and Founder of https://www.titanceo.com/ (Titan CEO). We also have Jason Ganahl, the Founder of https://gquebbq.com/ (GQue BBQ) and the Maestro of Meat. Good day, Jaime and Bob. Tell us about GQue BBQ. Tell us about your business and who you serve. In GQue, we got several different taglines. One of them is “Colorado's Only Championship Barbecue Restaurant.” I started out as somebody who wanted to eat good barbecue and then I became a judge for a professional barbecue contest. I started competing in a professional barbecue contest and opened up a barbecue restaurant. We are the only barbecue restaurant in Colorado that won a professional barbecue contest. How does one get to be a judge? I'm thinking that's clever. It's great but you pack on the pounds being a judge. You eat pounds of food at a barbecue contest, which is great, I loved it. I was a judge many years ago. We have a lot of judges that are 65 or 70 years old. I can't imagine how they feel for 2 or 3 days after they judge a barbecue contest. Even now, if I eat a big barbecue meal, which is nowhere near the amount of meat that you would eat while you were judging a contest, I still feel it the next day. I'll get the barbecue burst the day after at lunch or whatever. I'd burp up smoke and a little bit of the meat. I can’t imagine what it is like for some of these judges. These judges will do it every single week too for 35, 40 weeks out of the year. I think about the travel and the schedule. For you, how did you take and apply what you learned from judging to start to influence what you were offering in your restaurant? I tell people all the time, judging lent itself to a lot of the success I had when I was competing. When you're competing, you're trying to impress just the judges and being a judge for 2.5 to 3 years, I got to learn the entries of how they were presented. I got to see how they tasted but more importantly, I got to think like a judge. There are different strategies involved when you turn food in July at a contest when it's 100 degrees outside. If you're in a humid area, not in Colorado because we don't have a lot of humidity, but you're going to have a different type of flavor profile. If it's fall, in October or September, judges prefer different types of food given the different environments, climates and places of the country you're in. [bctt tweet="When creating a restaurant menu, include food that will not offend any particular person." username=""] It's also important to think like a judge when you're turning in your barbecue at these contests. I think judges helped me in that regard, more than any other regard. I don't know if it helped out a whole lot. I guess it did when I created the menu for the restaurant, but more so, what helped me with the background in that when I created the menu for the restaurant was getting the feedback from the judges. I judged for about three years and then I competed for about five but then getting all the feedback from the judges for those five years, that gave me a good idea of what...
There are many paths toward financial independence. But which can take you to it faster? https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolerueth/ (Nicole Rueth), the Producing Branch Manager of https://theruethteam.com/home (The Rueth Team), believes it is in using home equity. In this episode, she joins Bob Roark and https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaime-nespor-zawmon-b861731/ (Jaime Zawmon) of Titan CEO to tell us why that is so and how she helps people get to them and capitalize on their biggest asset and liability. Featured as one of the 2020 Titan 100, Nicole then shares what characteristics make a Titan of Industry and how you can build a company with the best version of yourself—from habits and rituals to mindset. Join today’s conversation as Nicole takes you into her journey of leaving a legacy and helping people.
Watch the podcast here:[embed]https://youtu.be/nwB-UwBCUZU[/embed] Leaving A Legacy Through Home Equity With Nicole Rueth, Producing Branch Manager, The Rueth Team, Fairway Mortgage, And Co-Host Jaime Zawmon, President of Titan CEOWe have our co-host Jaime Zawmon. She is the Founder and President of https://www.titanceo.com/ (Titan CEO). Our guest is Nicole Rueth. She is the Producing Branch Manager of https://www.theruethteam.com/ (The Rueth Team) at Fairway Mortgage. Thank you for taking the time. I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you for having me. Nicole, if you would tell us about your business and who you serve? As a lender, I serve people who own homes and want to refinance or buy homes but that's 1/100 of what we do. What my team does and what differentiates us in the market is the fact that we come alongside our clients to evaluate what is the swiftest way to get them towards independence financially using home equity. How do they capitalize on appreciation, principal reduction and rental income? How do they capitalize on what is the biggest asset and liability for most people? We solve the problem of how to finance that first purchase, that move up purchase and that investment property that's going to help take care of your family. When you first started on this path, was that your service offering? I first started as most lenders do dropping off candy at real estate offices, trying to connect with a divorce attorney, and trying to figure out who the financial planner that I was going to get referrals from. I operated it small and I was thinking about how do I get the next deal in my pipeline? It was a couple of years later when I started down this path of creating a team. I come from Corporate America so I manage large scale projects. This is back in the day of Andersen Consulting, now they're Accenture. I knew how to develop teams, strategies or solutions. I had no idea how to track that in mortgage lending. When I got out of the corporate business to have three amazing kids who are now young adults and then got back into a job, which that's all I thought it was. It happened to be in lending but I was trying to originate a loan. I started figuring out that I could originate more loans if I had people beside me that believed the same thing and then I got my first investment property. I had somebody come alongside me that cared enough to spend the time to teach me about what that meant because I didn't know, even though I was in the business. I started teaching other people. I had to pay it forward because I was generously given and I had to give it all away. As I'm giving it away, people want some of that and they're like, “I don't know how to build wealth.” Not real wealth where you invest in the stock market and right now that might be going well but next year it might not be. “How do you create that stability in that foundation?” It was that incremental change that somehow you don't even see coming until it's starting to build on itself and then it does. You realize that you want to start to build something that you're proud of, you can leave a legacy and you're
Marketing is a vital part of the business. As such, there are so many subject matter experts that claim they have the best practices. However, when everybody's doing best practices, they all end up doing basic practices. Working his way around that by understanding how things fit holistically, https://www.linkedin.com/in/room214guy/ (Jason Cormier) co-founded https://www.room214.com/team (Room 214)—a growth studio that helps bring coherence across an organization's brand marketing and sales efforts. In this episode, he joins https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaime-nespor-zawmon-b861731/ (Jaime Zawmon), Founder and President of Titan CEO, to share how he is helping businesses achieve that while taking us across their shift from digital marketing to growth and coherence. He also talks about the role of human intelligence, the iterative growth in digital, and the value of data gathered from customer conversation. Plus, Jason also shares some of his best leadership lessons, emphasizing how, at the end of it all, it is the people that leaders should take care of.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/FgDaQWYUeKk[/embed] Jason Cormier, Cofounder of Room 214, with co-host Jaime Zawmon, Founder and President of TitanCEOWe are joined by Jason Cormier. He's the Cofounder of https://www.room214.com/ (Room 214) and my co-host, Jaime Zawmon. She's the Founder and President of https://www.titanceo.com/about-titanceo (Titan CEO). Jaime and Jason, welcome. Thanks a lot, Bob. I appreciate it. We talked a little bit before the show. I am fascinated by what you do. If he could tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve. The name of company is Room 214. We are what is called a growth studio. We help bring coherence across an organization's brand marketing and sales efforts. We have a digital marketing agency background. A lot of folks come to us for those kinds of services. We've migrated a bit outside of what you would probably consider as traditional digital marketing and social media. Real quick to finish the answer to the question, the clients that we serve vary quite a bit. From funded startups to Fortune 100, across multiple industries over the last several years. The question that comes to my mind is you've migrated a bit from digital marketing to growth and coherence. Paint me a picture of what that looks like. When you look at digital marketing, in particular, and what you understand about marketing in general is that when everybody's doing best practices, what they're doing is basic practices. What you learn pretty quickly is what worked last season doesn't necessarily work this season, or what works for your competitor doesn't necessarily work for you. What happens is you get a bunch of people in marketing that are frustrated over time. They're working their butts off. The chief marketing officer and the chief revenue officer, these two roles these days, there's so much responsibility on their shoulders to increase leads, increase sales, whatever the case may be. The problem is they keep running up against the same walls. There are a lot of great subject matter experts in digital marketing and a lot of great marketing agencies out there, but what we found over time, and this is the migration, is that understanding how things holistically fit is where that's going to be most helpful to people. For example, this concept of coherence. If you look at a CEO or even ask a CEO, “Where's there coherence in your business?” You might get a deer in the headlights look from them. If you say, "Where is the incoherence in your business?” You're never going to hear the end of it. A lot of what we've done with this migration from a marketing agency to a growth studio is we've recognized that if we can bring coherence across an organization's brand marketing and sales, this is something that is missing. This is something that will make a tremendous difference in terms of their...
Cold therapy has been around for a long time, and it has a lot of great benefits. The Ice Barrel is the best way to take an ice bath. It's the easiest and most accessible product out there when it comes to cold therapy. Joining Bob Roark to discuss the benefits of cold therapy is https://theicebarrel.com/ (The Ice Barrel)’s Founder, https://www.linkedin.com/in/wyattewing/ (Wyatt Ewing). Together, they talk about the positive effects of cryotherapy on the body. Wyatt also tackles its role in staying healthy, mental conditioning and growth, and dealing with the work-from-home stresses of life. Interested to know more about cold therapy? Then tune in to learn more.
Watch the podcast here:[embed]https://youtu.be/Rwes-gL5mtI[/embed] Cold Therapy And How it Can Help You With Wyatt EwingWe were incredibly fortunate. We have a returning guest, Wyatt Ewing. He is the Founder and CEO of https://theicebarrel.com/ (The Ice Barrel). Welcome back. It’s good to see you. Thank you, Bob. It's great to be here. You were one of the first guests in the first cohort of being on the show and you had the distinction of being one of the most widely downloaded episodes. Congratulations. Well done on that. Lots of interest in what you had to say. For the folks that didn't read the http://businessleaderspodcast.com/episodes/the-ice-barrel-with-founder-wyatt-ewing/ (first episode), tell us about The Ice Barrel. Tell us about your business and who you serve. The Ice Barrel is the best way to take an ice bath. It's the easiest and most accessible product out there when it comes to cold therapy. It’s simple what it is. It's The Ice Barrel. We take this unique-made barrel, we fill it with ice and water, and we all jump in it, sometimes on a daily basis. Cold therapy has been around for a long time and it has a lot of great benefits. That's who we are. For the folks who are going like, “That's unique.” There has been a recognition of the benefits of cold therapy, there's been Wim Hof, who's from out of Europe that does a lot of cold work. There's Tony Robbins that has punched tanks that he has by his house that are chilled as well. We have Tim Ferriss that does the ice in the bathtub routine. Cryotherapy is gaining because there are franchises around. For the folks that aren't aware of the benefits of cold therapy or ice baths, share with us the benefits as you understand them. Cold therapy has been around for a long time, though it's new to some people in the US. It's not a fad. It's something that's been tried and true for a long time. It's not popular here in the west because we like to be comfortable. Whereas in this practice, the point is to get uncomfortable, which also is the best place as a human to grow is an uncomfortable situation. There are a lot of unique benefits to cold therapy that people are taking advantage of. Immune system support is a huge thing. It's one of the strongest anti-depressant and anti-anxiety practices. It’s amazing for elevating the mood, focus and clarity. There are a lot of top performers out there, both in sports, but also in business, that use it as an extra edge to get to that next level and to gain full mastery over the mind and body. I got interested as well after our episode. I went digging around. Some of the research that's out there, there's pH level change, increase in mitochondria production, there's all of these various and sundry benefits that come from cold therapy. My first observation, when you'd see the Scandinavians, they would be in a hothouse of some kind. They'd go and jump in a hole in the ice in the middle of winter and you go, “That bunch is collectively crazy as well.” As folks are going, “What in the world?” Going back to the beginning, walk us through the steps from where you started the idea and where you are. [caption id="attachment_5655" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Cold Therapy: Cold therapy isn't a fad. It has been around for a long...
Most of us address developmental, intellectual, and mental challenges within the family as they come along, and that's why most of us are unaware of what to do until it's too late. Therefore, https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-s-burpo-55673b22 (Katie Burpo) dedicates herself and her team at http://www.gsloinc.com/ (Goldstar Learning Options) to offer the most effective life intervention programs from childhood all the way to adulthood. She joins Bob Roark and cohost Jaime Zawmon in sharing the story of how her company started because of a small childhood dream and how they connect with the varying needs of every client, particularly in this challenging time of the pandemic.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/A6TEhe9Xm6I[/embed] The Benefits Of Life Intervention With Katie Burpo And Cohost Jaime ZawmonWe have Jaime Zawmon. She is the Founder and President of https://www.titanceo.com/ (TITAN CEO). She is co-hosting on this special series where we interview the TITAN 100. We have as our guest, Katie Burpo. She is the CEO and Founder of http://www.gsloinc.com/ (GoldStar Learning Options). Jaime and Katie, thanks for taking the time. Katie, we’ll jump straight into it. Tell us a bit about your business and who you serve. GoldStar Learning Options is an agency for individuals with developmental, intellectual, and mental health needs. What that means is we have a multitude of services and what makes GoldStar a little bit unique is we offer lifespan services. That's from birth through adulthood and that's for families to be able to access through all transitions of life, intervention for behavior, educational, academic, social, emotional support, community intervention, vocational training, and finding a purpose in life for all these kids and adults. All I can think of is from here to here, that's like an 80-year time span or it can be. I think about the challenge of families that are faced with developmental issues and how they find resources and informed experts to help them on their journey. That’s fascinating because what I usually hear about is specific applications on narrow sectors have a learning disability, you have this, you have that, they serve that part and they don't do the lifespan issues. Well done. I know that she mentioned to me that they hired one of their students. He was the first individual who inspired me to add services where they're needed and how they need to be delivered. We have many different examples of individuals, but one powerful moment is when I received a job application from one of our participants in our program, and it has been inspiring and a true demonstration of what real services look like to excel in life and find purpose throughout the life. I think about drinking your own Kool-Aid and you have a student that comes out of what you do and says, not only that, but they're employed here too. We walk the talk and that’s incredibly important. [bctt tweet=”Success requires you to keep moving forward and dedicated to your passion and mission.” via=”no”] It's a great testament to what you do. That's why I wanted to brag on you. We're going to find it's easy to brag on you. We'll embarrass you if we can. Jaime, she's a TITAN 100. She is a 2020 TITAN 100. We are excited to include Katie in this list. I've got a copy of the https://www.titan100.biz/titan100-book (TITAN 100) book here, which I am showcasing. Katie is featured inside this book, recognizing Colorado's Top 100 CEOs and C-level Executives 100 TITANS of Industry. Katie is doing amazing things in her industry, which makes her a TITAN. Katie, as we kick off things, I always like to ask every TITAN 100 that comes on to this show, what characteristics do you believe it takes to be considered a TITAN of the industry? I'm truly honored to be included in this group and inspired by how you have supported a lot of the Titans that I have come to pass, and to be included in that group does make...
Cashflow may be the number one most important thing in any business, but company culture comes in a close second. It is what https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuart-smith-4439294/ (Stuart Smith) strives to build everyday as the CEO of https://buehlercompanies.com/ (Buehler Companies), a top-rated moving company that does everything from commercial moving to Girl Scout cookie distribution. Leading with humility and a strong commitment to company culture, Stuart definitely deserves a place at the Titan 100. Listen in as he shares his take on company culture and humility-driven leadership in this conversation with Bob Roark and co-host, Jaime Zawmon, the President of TITAN CEO.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/SzrZgiPL9f8[/embed] Culture That Moves With Stuart Smith Of Buehler Companies And Co-host Jaime Zawmon, President Of TITAN CEOWe have Jaime Zawmon, the Founder and President of https://www.titanceo.com/ (Titan CEO). Our guest is Stuart Smith, the CEO of https://buehlercompanies.com/ (Buehler Companies). Welcome, Jaime and Stuart. Thank you. We're going to jump straight into it. Stuart, if you would tell us about your business and who you serve. The name of my company is Buehler Moving and Storage and we're an agent for http://www.mayflower.com/ (Mayflower Van Lines). We also have https://www.alliancerelocation.com/ (Alliance Relocation), which is an agent for http://www.unitedvanlines.com/ (United Van Lines). A couple of years ago, we bought https://www.thestudentmovers.com/ (Student Movers) and that's our local moving company. We bought that because people had the perception that we were the big trucks. They skipped over for small little moves, and in essence, we do all those, but we bought Student Movers to give people the perception that that's what they wanted was something for a smaller move. That’s been a great acquisition. We do local household goods, interstate, international, and we do have about 500,000 square feet of storage space between all four locations. We do a tremendous amount of office moving, and commercial business has turned into about 60% of our revenue now. We do hotel renovations and we also have gotten into battery work, where we go to different cell sites from El Paso all the way to South Dakota and we replaced cell site batteries from A to Z. We climb to the top of the mountains and we go to the desert. It's crazy some of the places we've been to change cell site batteries. We do Girl Scout cookies. We're the largest distributor of the United States for Girl Scout cookies. That's a cool little thing. In fact, they're coming into our warehouse and we'll end up getting about 72 truckloads of cookies by 270,000 cases. It's a lot of cookies and we deliver those out. We do design work. Designers will ship all kinds of furniture in and we'll deliver them out to homes and resort places. We'll set up everything from A to Z with the houses. We do work for a big home builder that we go around and set up all their model homes. We've tried to be diverse. Probably my favorite thing we do is the office moving because it’s a great piece of business and you can do a lot of different things quickly. I love the Girl Scout cookies. That’s exciting. It's fun. I'm excited to have you here, Stuart, as a 2020 Titan 100. It's no surprise that you have made this list. For those of you that are reading, Stuart was recognized as one of Colorado's Top 100 CEOs & C-Level Executives, the book that features 100 titans of industry. As we kick off this podcast, one of the things I always like to ask every Titan that we interview in this series is, what characteristics do they believe it takes to be considered a Titan of the industry? There are a lot of different characteristics that it takes to be a titan and one of them is you have to have culture in your company. The number one most important thing in running a business is cashflow but number two is culture. If you don't have a great
Being at the top of any team is truly a regaling feeling, but keeping your position also means dealing with loneliness, marketing strategies, and the constant urge to improve. In any CEO experience, a tenacious and curious mindset plays a huge role. Bob Roark is joined by cohost Jamie Zawmon in talking with https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickjdennis/ (Patrick Dennis), the President and CEO of https://twitter.com/_patrick_dennis (Aspect Software). Patrick spends some time detailing what it takes to lead a team, from getting rid of the fear of change and learning how to get out of a messy situation in the most optimal way, to the right way to motivate oneself.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/XpHLa48uODo[/embed] Breaking Down The CEO Experience With Patrick Dennis And Cohost Jaime ZawmonWe have Patrick Dennis. He's the President and CEO of https://www.aspect.com/ (Aspect Software). We have my cohost Jaime Zawmon. She is the Founder and President of https://www.titanceo.com/ (Titan CEO). Welcome. It’s good to be here. Thank you for taking time, Jaime and Patrick. I appreciate it. We'll go right into it. Patrick, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve? We are the leading provider of contact center software and workforce management and optimization software for enterprises around the world. Four of the five top commercial banks are our customers, three of the top four telecom providers, four of the top five tech companies, and six out of the six top airlines. You've interacted with our software if you've ever called Southwest Airlines to book a reservation. You've interacted with our software or the people that are behind our software if you've ever ordered anything off Amazon, Apple or from Microsoft. That's what we do. It's an awesome job. There are about 1,300 people that work here and we do about $300 million in revenue. [bctt tweet="If you don't have the curiosity bug, it's hard to figure out what went off track in a business." username=""] Nothing to do. It keeps you busy. Yes, it keeps us busy. I'm excited Patrick, that you are a 2020 Titan 100. For those reading, Patrick was selected as one of Colorado's top 100 CEOs and C-level executives. We featured him in https://www.titan100.biz/titan100-book (The Titan 100 Book). What I always ask every Titan who we interview on this show is what characteristics do you believe that it takes to be considered a Titans of industry? Jaime, you asked me this question a lot. For my little niche of what I do for a living, tenacity plays a big role. Much of what I do involves turning businesses around or helping businesses that were at one time struggling. If I think about the arc of my career and what's helped me be successful, tenacity has played a big role. It's hard to take on challenges like the ones taken on historically if you don't have the intestinal fortitude to want to win and stick with it. The second one is you need to be a little curious. If you don't have that curiosity bug, it's hard to figure out what went off track in a business. Some combination of tenacity and curiosity has served me well over the years. I completely agree with your curious statement there. I've watched you in interactions for many months and I believe it's a part of your DNA. I always see you asking incredible questions. It makes sense to me that you would say that. For those of you that don't know, I helped Jaime out in a board capacity occasionally with her business. I find the best way to get Jaime a benefit is to ask her questions that she should have contemplated the answers to. That's been a fun part of our relationship. It's fun to watch you craft your business based on some of the answers to your own questions. You have gotten to see that in action. That's true. Patrick, you have an interesting journey from beginning to now. If you would share with us a little bit about how you got started and what brought you to where you are...
One characteristic that sets industry Titans apart from the crowd is that they understand the importance of building their personal brand as well as their business. https://www.linkedin.com/in/chiefofchaos/ (Matt Frary) has exited quite a number of times during his career, but he has always been and will always be the http://www.chiefofchaos.com/ (ChiefOfChaos). For over 20 years, Matt has been helping big brands all over the world scale by making sense of the chaotic online marketing world. He earned a place in the Titan 100 as the CEO of http://www.smarterchaos.com/ (SmarterChaos), a boutique consulting firm that he founded in 2010. Having just exited this company last July, he is now the EVP of Brand Strategy for the acquiring firm, https://digitalmediasolutions.com/ (Digital Media Solutions Group). In this conversation with Bob Roark and TITAN CEO President, Jaime Zawmon, he shares his career as a serial entrepreneur as well as some personal branding tips.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/9ykToozPzkI[/embed] Business Scaling And Personal Branding Tips From The Chief Of Chaos, Matt Frary With Cohost Jaime Zawmon Of TITAN CEOWe're extremely fortunate to have Jaime Zawmon as a cohost. She is the Founder and CEO of https://www.titanceo.com/ (Titan 100), and we have Matt Frary, https://digitalmediasolutions.com/ (Digital Media Solutions Group), EVP of Brand Strategy. Jaime, thanks for taking the time. Matt, I appreciate you carving out the time given the Chaos that has been happening in your life. With all that being said, Matt, if you would give us a thumbnail sketch of your business and who you serve. First off, thanks Jaime for having me in, and thank you, Bob for having us as well. We appreciate it. We built this little company a few years ago called http://www.SmarterChaos.com (SmarterChaos.com) and I'm one of the Founders and was the CEO of that company. There's a long lead up to this, but we were purchased by Digital Media Solutions. On July 15th, the same day that we were purchased by Digital Media Solutions, we went public. We have some exciting news that we sold our company, and we also got to join a company that had an IPO. It's exciting times. I have to say, I've never imagined growing this company years ago, then selling and participating in a public event on the same day. A crash course in, are you kidding me? You can't script this stuff, I swear. Maybe we'll talk about this, but when I did start the company SmarterChaos.com, I did say something to the founders about, "We should build a strong foundation so this thing could scale someday." I’m curious to know the types of clients that you worked with or you envisioned working with through SmarterChaos as you originally created that foundation to scale it and grow it. SmarterChaos was originally built so that we could help large brands navigate the chaos of the online marketing world. I started SmarterChaos on the back of a napkin, sipping a margarita down in Mexico in Puerto Vallarta. My son who was 2 or 3 at the time was playing in a little waterfall fountain. My wife said, "Are you good here?" I said, "I'm good. I have an idea." Two hours later, I had sketched out this business plan and I had realized that the online marketing world for the layperson was extremely chaotic. You have all these different places you need to log in, all these different theories you needed to employ. I looked at serving any brand that looked at the internet as a chaotic confusing place where you could lose money quickly trying to navigate that space and pumping money into Facebook, Twitter, and all the partnerships. To make a long story longer, we focused on the brands that wanted to acquire customers profitably. If it was a household brand, that was the type of brand that we wanted to go after. When we first started, I used Shark Tank as my lead list. I would watch Shark Tank and I figured if they got funded, they had money. They...
Joining Bob Roark is his cohost Jamie Zawmon, the Founder and President of Titan CEO. Together, they talk to https://www.nickstanitz.com/ (Nick Stanitz-Harper) as he discusses the story of co-founding https://edisoninteractive.com/ (Edison Interactive) as well as his leadership experiences as its current Chief Revenue Officer. Nick provides a peek at how he manages his team, from the importance of instilling positivity to everyone to how they manage partnerships. He also shares his personal secrets in maintaining a healthy leader mindset, detailing his daily mantra centered on high gratitude and efficient visualization.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/yyDYt-1QIY0[/embed] Nick Stanitz-Harper, CRO & Co-Founder Edison Interactive With Cohost Jaime Zawmon, Founder & President Titan CEOWe have Jaime Zawmon. She is the Founder and President of https://www.titanceo.com/ (Titan CEO) and we have as our guest, Nick Stanitz-Harper. He's the CRO and Cofounder of https://edisoninteractive.com/ (Edison Interactive). Thank you, guys, for having me. Before we get started, congrats on being selected as a Titan 100. Great honor. Well done. Thank you very much. If you would, Nick, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve. Edison Interactive is a VC-backed tech company that builds interactive customer experience solutions primarily for complex environments. Our platform was originally designed to allow companies of all shapes and sizes to design, build, deploy and then manage large-scale screen networks globally. We focus on building enterprise-level IOT and digital out of home solutions that personalize and enhance the customer experience. Our solutions currently span across multiple industries ranging from golf carts, rental cars, ride shares, fan engagement, sports betting platforms and more. We're currently one of the fastest-growing digital out-of-home screen networks in North America. We've got about 40,000 screens on our network right now. Folks go, “IOT?” For the folks that are reading that aren't aware of what IOT is, could you expand on that just a little? IOT is Internet of Things. It's being able to control different devices in the wild and do creative, cool things. For us, an example of IOT would be one of our platforms is Shark Experience presented by Verizon, which is a partnership between Verizon and Greg Norman Media and Club Car. We do stuff through our technology that controls the devices and controls the golf carts and allows us to do creative, unique things with our solutions. Congratulations on your recognition as a Titan 100. For those of you that are reading, we recognized the Titan 100, 100 CEOs and C-level executives in Colorado, 100 Titans of industry. I always like to kick things off and ask our Titans what characteristics they believe it takes to be considered a Titan 100 or a Titan of Industry. [caption id="attachment_5606" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Edison Interactive: If your vision isn't massive, you're going to have a hard time getting your investors, partners, and employees attached to the mission of the company.[/caption] First of all, thank you very much, Jaime. You've been phenomenal to work with and I’m impressed by what you've done through such a crazy time. Thank you. I'm going to break this down into three main characteristics for the sake of time. The first one for me is vision. A Titan needs to think globally, not locally. From my experience, it takes as much time to build partnerships on a global scale as it does on a local scale. With one of my previous startups, our mission was focused on simply dominating the Colorado market. As a tech company, that was a very important lesson that I learned back in the day. If your vision isn't massive, it's going to have a hard time getting your investors, your partners, your employees attached to the mission of the company. Number one for me is always vision. The second for...
Change has been going rapidly for the past few years. Where that leaves many businesses and entrepreneurs is having to move alongside it; otherwise, you’ll only get left behind. Someone who has found comfortability with change is https://spearheadadvisors.io/team/lisa-miller/ (Lisa Miller), the President and COO of Spearhead Advisors. In this episode, she joins Bob Roark with guest co-host https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaime-nespor-zawmon-b861731/ (Jaime Zawmon), the founder and president of TITAN CEO, to share with us her career journey and how she is acquiring the skill stack to adopt. Lisa further tells us about her company and how she is working to maintain being a Titan in the industry.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/Sw3ySU_x_mA[/embed] Acquiring The Skill Stack To Adapt To Change With Lisa Miller And Cohost Jaime ZawmonWe’re extremely fortunate we have Jaime Zawmon. She is the Founder and President of https://www.titanceo.com/ (Titan 100 CEO). We have Lisa Miller. She is the President and COO of https://spearheadadvisors.io/ (Spearhead Advisors). Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. Greatly, I appreciate being here. I love the picture in your background. It's the mountains with a herd of horses in what looks like a loop and meadow. It is Granby, Colorado at a dude ranch. With that being said, Lisa, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve? At Spearhead Advisors, we are a master agent. In the industry, if you are an enterprise customer and you need communication services, we are working for you. We provide about 100 different vendors that we can supply services for an enterprise. Coming from a former carrier myself, the benefit that we have is we can provide you services and capabilities from many different options versus one single provider. That's the value proposition. CIO staffs are smaller and getting smaller by the day. Technology teams are getting smaller. What we are is an extension of your organization to provide services and capabilities from a consulting standpoint. [bctt tweet="Many times, people forget the people or the culture. It's important to be able to look at how every action you take impacts on others. " username=""] I failed to mention in the introduction, you were a President with https://www.lumen.com/en-us/home.html (CenturyLink), where you had 2,400 people in your organization. For the business owner or CIO that's out there, what are the typical problems that you can bring as a solution from your company to them? Many times, what a CIO sees is they have to go out and meet with many different suppliers to determine who is best in breed or class in the industry. We can do that for them. For example, security, top of mind for everyone. There are many bad things going on the dark web. There are many hackers out there trying to break into your data because data is power. CIOs are constantly having to control the perimeter and having to worry about who break into their company and take their data that they count on to run their business. Security is a big feature that we can help with and we can bring best in breed solutions to many of the enterprise customers. I love your experience on both sides of the coin, which is unique unto itself. That's fantastic. Lisa Miller is one of our 2020 Titan 100 honorees. We recognized her. This is a copy of the book that she was recognized in, The Titan 100 recognizes Colorado's Top 100 CEOs & C-Level Executives, 100 Titans of Industry. One of the questions that I always love to ask all of the Titans that we interview in our series is what characteristics do you believe that it takes to be considered a Titan of Industry? To be a Titan in any industry, you have to constantly be looking at all of the challenges in front of you and being able to say, “How can I attack that? How do I think differently?” There's the book, https://www.amazon.com/What-Got-Here-Wont-There-ebook/dp/B000Q9J128...
For the past 94 years, the https://www.mgma.com/ (Medical Group Management Association) (MGMA) has been leading in the business of medical practice management, currently representing almost three-quarters of the medical practices in the United States. Even well-entrenched organizations such as this has to change with the times, however – a task that MGMA has been able to fulfill with flying colors for the past four years under the leadership of its President and CEO, https://www.linkedin.com/in/halee-fischer-wright-41a5152/ (Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright). This exemplary leadership has caused her to be selected as a Titan 100 for 2020. Join in as she shares her personal take on leadership in this conversation with Bob Roark and his co-host, Jaime Zawmon, the President of TITAN CEO.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/CXmKZD1mz8w[/embed] Lessons On Flexible And Authentic Leadership With MGMA CEO Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright And Co-Host Jaime Zawmon, President Of TITAN CEOWe're extremely fortunate. We have Jaime Zawmon. She is the Founder and President of https://www.titanceo.com/ (Titan CEO). We also have Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright. She's the President and CEO of https://www.mgma.com/ (Medical Group Management Association), MGMA. Jaime, Halee, thank you for being on the show. Thank you, Bob. First off, congrats on being selected as a https://www.titanceo.com/titan-100 (Titan 100). Tell us a bit about MGMA, what's it about and who do you serve? We're a 94-year-old organization and the largest healthcare association focused on business of medical practice management. We represent over 60,000 members and more importantly, we represent 15,000 group medical practices, which is almost three-quarters of the medical practices in the United States. We represent everyone from the tiny practices like family doctors in rural communities to the national large health systems. We touch almost 350,000 physicians across the United States in a variety of specialties. We're in the background of almost all healthcare delivered at the front line. What we do is we work closely with medical practice leaders to help them solve their business challenges so they can focus on what matters, which is providing outstanding care for their patients in communities. In this day and age, that means now. We also provide and what we're known for in our industry is the gold standard and benchmarking for compensation and medical practice cost surveys. We advocate on behalf of our members on national regulatory and policy issues. We take it from the top at the federal government level all the way down to the doctor seen patient in a room. It’s such a steady, non-regulatory, not changing industry especially now. Halee, I have to say I'm excited that you've been recognized as part of the Titan 100 for 2020. As those of you may or may not know reading, we have published a copy of the https://www.titan100.biz/titan100-book (Titan 100) book in which Halee was profiled in. We'll talk a little bit more about how you can read her profile. I always like to start our show, as you know this platform recognizes Colorado's top 100 CEOs and C-level executives 100 Titans of Industry. I always like to ask every Titan that we interview in this show, what characteristics they believe that it takes to be considered a Titan of Industry? Once again, thank you for the honor of being a Titan 100. Now more than ever, especially given the challenges and changes as we're going through this global pandemic. Flexibility is someone like myself and the Titan 100 community has to have. As I've read through the book, all of my colleagues that are Titans have shown that as well. Some of those characteristics include, and we've talked about this with Jaime before, having the ability to alter your original plan of action. This is what I find has benefited our organization the most in the last several months is actively seek out a situation from many different...
Tenacity, creativity and adaptability – these are the qualities that a CEO should embody to become a titan in their industry. Bringing in these qualities to the emerging microbiome industry, https://www.linkedin.com/in/marthacarlin/ (Martha Carlin) leads https://www.thebiocollective.com/ (The BioCollective), a unique business that invests in both consumer products and microbiological research. Driven by a passion to give people the tools to take control of their health, the BioCollective team leverages some of the most advanced expertise in microbial ecology to tap the massive potential of microbiota in promoting human health. Because of her inspiring leadership, she has won her rightful place among the 2020 Titan 100. She graces the podcast on this co-hosted episode with Bob Roark and his co-host, https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaime-nespor-zawmon-b861731/ (Jaime Zawmon), President of TITAN CEO.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/0bXNCv6gpMM[/embed] Leading With Tenacity, Creativity And Adaptability With Guest, Martha Carlin Of The BioCollective And Co-host, Jaime Zawmon Of TITAN CEOWe have quite the treat. We have a Jaime Zawmon. She is the Founder and President of https://www.titanceo.com/ (Titan CEO). We have Martha Carlin. She is the CEO and Cofounder of https://www.thebiocollective.com/ (The BioCollective). We're having a co-hosted episode. Martha, Jaime, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for having me. Martha, thank you and congrats on being selected to the Titan 100, a big honor. I’m very excited about it.
Martha, tell us about your business and who you serve. My business is unique. It's in the field of the microbiome. For people who may not know what the microbiome is, it's the trillions of bacteria, fungi and viruses that live in and on our body. Over the last years, it's become increasingly apparent that the bacteria that live in and on our body are a critical component to our health. I recognize this after reading a book called https://www.amazon.com/Missing-Microbes-Overuse-Antibiotics-Fueling/dp/0805098100 (Missing Microbes) back in 2014, founded The BioCollective in 2015 to try to accelerate the path to discovery and helping people get healthier. By doing that, we went into an industry that most people had never heard of. It was rapidly growing and expanding. When I started the company, there were about twenty microbiome companies worldwide, and now there are thousands and thousands, but it's still pretty early days. Our company has evolved in the ways that we are serving two different customer bases. We serve the scientific research community through tools that we developed for our own work to build out a bio-bank of fecal samples and genomic data so that we could start to use artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify patterns in healthy people and diseased people. Through the tools that we developed, we received an NIH grant for $1.2 million to develop one of those quality control and research tools. The division of the BioCollective that has all these research tools is serving the scientific community, the nutrition community, pharmaceutical companies, and big food and big ag to some extent. Along the way, we developed our expertise and brought in a chief scientific officer with over 30 years of microbial ecology and developed a line and a brand of consumer products that replace lost function in the microbiome that we were able to identify through our data analytics. We have a consumer products platform called https://biotiquest.com/ (BiotiQuest) that has six products, three are currently on the market. One is for changing sugar metabolism in the body, it's called Sugar Shift. Another is for the immune system specifically protecting us and helping us ward off viral infection. That's called the Ideal Immunity. Another called Heart Centered, which is focused on cardiovascular health and the production of nitric oxide...
Pavement reconstruction and maintenance is one of the largest spending categories for commercial property owners in terms of yearly maintenance. Owning a big market share in this industry in the Colorado market, http://www.dacs.co/ (DACS Asphalt and Paving), one of the largest and fastest growing pavement reconstruction and maintenance firms serving the state’s front range. A selectee for the 2020 Titan 100, its President, https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasondunn7/ (Jason Dunn) leads from the front and invests a lot in continuously improving himself so that he can lead by example. In this conversation with Bob Roark and TITAN CEO Founder, https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaime-nespor-zawmon-b861731/ (Jaime Zawmon), Jason discusses what he believes are the marks of a true industry leader in a highly-specific niche. A humble leader and a team player, Jason is a good example that other leaders in blue collar industries should look up to.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/bAHA-ivD6ho[/embed] Leading From The Front With Guest Jason Dunn, President Of DACS Asphalt And Paving, And Co-Host Jaime Zawmon, Founder Of TITAN CEOWe have quite a treat. I have my co-host, Jaime Zawmon. She is the Founder and President of https://www.titanceo.com/ (Titan CEO). Our guest is Jason Dunn. He's the President of http://www.dacs.co/ (DACS Asphalt and Concrete). Thank you, Jaime. Thank you, Jason, for being on the show. Jason, tell us a little bit about your company and who you serve. DACS Asphalt and Concrete is one of the largest and fastest-growing pavement reconstruction and maintenance firms serving the front range of Colorado. We serve commercial property owners and commercial property managers across the front range, all things pavement. That's one of the largest spending categories they have per year in terms of maintenance items. Whether it's us having to repave an entire apartment complex parking lot or take care of a single broken piece of curb and gutter from a snowplow, we take care of that for our customers. In the parking lot out here, there's a pothole and periodically the crew shows up. That's an interesting niche paving market. What drove you to that particular niche? A few things are special about this market. One is it's a good business itself. I was a business analyst for many years. I'm accustomed to looking for characteristics and businesses that make them great, sustainable, generators of free cashflow, but one of the things that attracted me to this business too is it's a low bar industry. This is blue-collar world where my competitors oftentimes work growing up in concrete and asphalt and then doing their best as business owners once they grew an attractive firm. If you bring business sophistication, especially from outside of this industry into this world, it gives you an ability to easily differentiate for the customer. If the customer recognizes it, that makes it an exciting opportunity for us. For you, when you say front range, what's the furthest north you go? what's the furthest south that you go? It's a little bit nebulous, but it's Colorado Springs to Fort Collins. We’ll go down as far south as Pueblo if needed. My team finished with an overnight, nearly camping trip through the mountains because we were serving some convenience stores that seventeen of this same brand of the store needed work throughout the mountain area. We packed up the crews, overnighted them and got that work done. We can be moving around, but it's Colorado Springs to Fort Collins.
Jason, first of all, we're so excited to recognize you as a 2020 Titan 100. I've got a copy of the book in which you were profiled. This book recognizes 100 of Colorado's top CEOs and C-level executives, https://www.titanceo.com/titan-100 (Colorado-100 Titans of Industry). Being a Titan of the industry is about finding your niche and you have definitely found that in what you're doing. I'd like to ask you what...
In one way or another, everybody leaves their business. Prepare well for the inevitable by knowing your exit strategy. In this episode, Bob Roark talks with Donna and Gary Thiel, small service business owners who, after more than 30-plus years, has closed the sale of their business. They share their journey and offer great insights about the process, for when you also decide on selling your business. Follow along to learn about who to talk to and what to do during this important business decision.
Watch the episode here:Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="" title="The Process Of Selling Your Business With Donna And Gary Thiel" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] The Process Of Selling Your Business With Donna And Gary ThielWe have Donna and Gary Thiel. Thank you for your time. This is going to be a little bit different episode. We're going to talk about the journey between deciding to sell your business and the process. First off, tell us a little bit about your business. We own a small service business. Window cleaning was our main function. We did everything from residential to high rise. We also did snow removal services through the winter months. How long had you run the business? I originally bought it in fall 1986. I had worked for the company for about 6 or 7 years prior to that. Donna came in ‘96, ‘97-ish. She came in and helped with a lot of things like accounting stuff. What was the date that you closed on the sale of your business? March 1 of 2019. You ran that for a long time, 30-plus years. There's that ongoing discussion that you hear from business owners. At some point, you're going to exit the business in one way or another. Everybody leaves their business I suppose. What was that thought process like when you started thinking about selling your business? The stress level got high. The economy was good in Denver and stuff, but that brought along some difficulties of finding help and things like that. The salaries had gone way up in the city. It got difficult to compete and finding enough good people to get the work done to stay competitive was getting difficult. I would imagine it's not the everyday person that wants to hang over the side of a high rise. They are a different old breed. There are a lot of them out there. It’s some of the bigger companies and a lot of the construction industry was even taking employees that would normally be doing things in our industry. They had increased salaries much and benefits and it got difficult. I think about the challenges when you're in a full-employment economy. You and Donna got together and made it a decision that it was time to sell the business. Once you had that decision in place, what were your next steps to try to identify how or who you are going to use to help you sell? We were lucky because Marla is one of our accounts in my work in commercial packaging. I'm a broker. We automatically went to her and started asking questions. She comes involved with Keith and Keith was amazing. Marla is a unique individual. She is the CEO of https://raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher). You were fortunate you had a contact within the industry. You started working with Keith. For that process of going through, what was the process from when you started talking with Keith to when the business was effectively ready to go on the market? What was that like? [bctt tweet="You got to wait until it's completely done and not get wound up." username=""] There was some work involved. There were a lot of things they were asking for that we weren't expecting. We attempted to sell it ourselves. We're probably about 1.5 years before going out and seeking a broker in Raincatcher and such. What was that like? That got a bit frustrating. We had a couple of people that showed interest. We didn't know all the ins and outs of how to deal with them, and all...
What are potential buyers looking for in a business? While there is no such thing as perfect acquisition criteria, different buyers do have their preferences in terms of what industry the company is in, what its corporate structure and company culture looks like, and what the reason for the owner’s exit is. Taking a break from the usual format, Bob Roark interviews someone who is looking to acquire a business. https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholasseger/ (Nick Seger) is the president of https://parklandfield.com/ (Parkland Field Management), a search fund that intends to become the succession plan for a business inColorado or the surrounding states. Coming from a family business background, Nick has deep respect for business and is not looking for a quick flip as private equities tend to do. He plans to hold on to the business to see it grow and provide long-term value to its employees, customers, shareholders and community. What is his criteria for acquisition? What does a handoff transition period look like? What does he think business owners have to do to make their company attractive to search funds if they’re planning to sell? Nick shares all of these in this episode.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/DbL4zSzZDdQ[/embed] Business Acquisition Criteria: From The Buyer’s Perspective With Nick SegerWe have Nick Seger. He's the President of https://parklandfield.com/ (Parkland Field Management). Nick is a recent arrival to Denver. He's in search of a company to acquire. This show is a little different and many times we talk to business owners that have an existing business. They may be looking to transition their business or they may be looking at some point to sell. In this case, what we have is a potential buyer of a business. We're going to explore some of Nick's thoughts and also the view from the buyer's eyes when you're looking at a business. Nick, thank you for taking the time to be on the show. Thanks for having me, Bob. Nick, tell me a little bit about your business and a little bit backstory on you. I moved out to Denver over the 4th of July 2020 weekend. My significant other and I were living in Chicago before this. We were trying to figure out where we wanted to start that next phase of our lives and I had gone out and raised a little bit of money from some investors, which I'm sure we'll touch on here in a little bit. She was graduating from a Master's program and we figured Denver was a great place. She's from San Diego, I'm from Indiana and we picked up and drove the U-Haul out here and brought our puppy out. I've been searching for a company out here in Colorado. I appreciate you giving me some space here to talk about it. For you, people go, “You raised some money from some investors but you didn't just start.” You come from a family business background. I do. I grew up back in Indiana. My family still runs a third-generation agriculture business, turkeys and chickens. My grandfather started the business decades ago. My father has seven brothers, grew up in a large German Catholic family and large agriculture community back in Indiana. My dad and his five living brothers still run that business. People ask me all the time, “Why did I do this?” I tell them all the time that I had never seen the path to success being anything other than being a business owner. Where I grew up, it was the largest town within 60, 70 miles. I tell people the nearest Starbucks was 60 miles away. There were no consultants, bankers, lawyers, accountants or tech companies. That didn't exist in my hometown. What I saw as success in business was being a small business owner. That's always what I grew up wanting to do. I had always thought I'd go back and help run my family's business one day but they have strict rules. You have to go out and prove yourself in the world before and so I did. I went out and worked in finance and sales marketing for ten years. I was at Wells Fargo for a number of...
Who you surround yourself matters. Especially in business, being in a circle of successful CEOs and entrepreneurs can offer a lot to how you position yourself to succeed as well. In this episode, Bob Roark interviews https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaime-nespor-zawmon-b861731/ (Jaime Zawmon) about the importance of being in a CEO peer group. Jaime is the President of https://www.titanceo.com/ (TITAN CEO), which works with Colorado-based companies to help CEOs work through business-related challenges. Here, Jaime shares with us their TITAN CEO peer group that is building a community for CEOs and entrepreneurs to build strong connections and help each other out. She takes us deeper into what being in the https://www.titanceo.com/titan-100 (Titan 100) feels like and what benefits they can expect. Learning from these great people, Jaime then tells us some of the important traits successful people have that took them to where they are now.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/zsRAoHJhhJE[/embed] TITAN CEO: Why Surrounding Yourself With Successful People Matters With Jaime ZawmonWe are fortunate we have Jaime Zawmon. She is the President of https://www.titanceo.com/ (TITAN CEO). She's graciously agreed to be a guest to talk about what she's doing with the TITAN CEO Group. Jaime, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve. Thanks for having me, Bob. First and foremost, TITAN CEO is a company that I started that is essentially a CEO Peer Group, or a series of different CEO Peer Groups. We work with Colorado area-based companies, CEOs ranging traditionally between $1 million and about $50 million in annual company revenues. We work to do experience sharing, to help CEOs work through business-related challenges. We also work on building business valuation inside some of the work that we do with the CEOs because every CEO is looking to grow their business either, to build it as a lifestyle business or to grow it in order to sell it. That's a big blend of what we do within our groups. You're somewhat of a resident of the Rocky Mountain area. Tell us a little bit about your background because you have a long history of working with CEOs. I'm from the East Coast, originally born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. I went to school at Towson University in Baltimore County. I was recruited to a magazine publishing company back in 2003. I fell in love with the concept because the magazine was a magazine that was focused on CEOs, and every month we would feature one of the region's most enterprising CEOs. We would tell their story on the cover of the magazine. We would write about the success and/or the failure, obstacles, trials, and tribulations of running a company and growing it. We did that on a monthly basis. After about a year, I went to the owner and said, "I love this concept. We should expand it to Washington DC." He made me a partner and I moved down to DC. In 2005, we launched with Ted Leonsis, the former Chairman and CEO of AOL on the cover of our first magazine and we took stride ever since. We grew the magazine to seven cities up and down the East Coast, reaching over 100,000 CEOs on a consistent basis. We pioneered award programs that recognized the best of the best. We recognized CEOs that created incredible cultures, those that were technology-based CEOs, or growth companies CEOs, and the 50 fastest growing companies in each region. I've always surrounded myself with some of the region's most enterprising CEOs and it was an incredible ride. During that time I met my husband on a ski trip, ironically in Colorado, which is what brought him back to the East Coast for me for a short period of time and then I made the promise that I would eventually move back to Colorado for him because it's such a beautiful state. I can see where you compare Denver and Baltimore. It was like, "Your love for the water or your love for the mountains?" Unfortunately, I'm more of a water baby than I'm a...
The healthcare industry has been so slow in adopting digital technology to deliver its services that it took COVID-19 for telemedicine to be taken seriously by virtue of necessity. https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-carlin-md-72a87010/ (Dr. Daniel Carlin), the founder and CEO of https://worldclinic.com/ (WorldClinic), pioneered the company’s innovative concierge telemedicine model at a time when almost nobody else was doing it. More than two decades ago, Dr. Dan took the challenge of leveraging connectivity to deliver healthcare to people who need it, wherever they are. Through all the challenges, he successfully built WorldClinic into what it is now, a concierge level telemedicine practice that serves families, executives and corporations. During this time of pandemic when everyone is forced to do physical distancing, telemedicine is booming and providers will certainly have a lot to learn from WorldClinic’s best practices. Joining Bob Roark on the podcast, Dr. Dan explains the rationale for telemedicine, its brief history and the future that the post-COVID world holds for it.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/reYEV4ERSvI[/embed] Pioneering Concierge Telemedicine With Dr. Daniel Carlin, CEO Of WorldClinicWe have a real treat. We have Dr. Dan Carlin. He's the Founder and CEO of https://worldclinic.com/ (WorldClinic). He pioneered WorldClinic’s innovative concierge telemedicine model. He's a national leader in the field of telemedicine. He's a recognized pioneer in the delivery of medical care to distant populations, board-certified emergency physician, and a former US Navy Medical Officer. Commander Carlin, thank you so much for being on the show. I haven't received that title for years but I still love hearing it. It's a privilege to have you on the show. For the business owners out there, it's extremely important as you work hard, you have a tendency, or at least most that I know of, to neglect healthcare. When you have a liquidity event, it seems like you wake up with all the things you want to do, and your health condition is not going to support your efforts. For Dr. Carlin to be on the show and talk about what we can do about that, tell us a bit about what WorldClinic is about. How you got into a clinic? Before I jump in there, I wanted the audience to know that I'm an entrepreneur also. I'm a physician but I'm not in the big white tower of medicine here. I want to talk on the ground level like this is what's going on. I've built a successful practice and a company. These issues I'm talking about are also personal. I want to speak one-on-one around this stuff. Let me tell you about WorldClinic. It's a 22-year-old telemedicine practice. Back in the ‘90s, I was a pioneer trying to figure out how do I deliver healthcare at a distance using the internet. I had a big vision for it. I've seen most of that vision come to pass. It hasn't been easy. It's been a lot of struggles along the way but also a lot of some amazing successes. In 2020, this is a private concierge level telemedicine practice. We take care of families, executives, corporations. We've gone from superyachts, because my naval background suited me well for taking care of ships, to the families that own those superyachts to the companies in the portfolios of the families. At this point, we've broadened out to taking care of and in some cases, C-Suite executives or an entire workforce. We did that classic marketing strategy thing of start with a niche market and expand and use technology to scale. We still have our original families. Most of them are still with us many years later. They are several generations worth and lots of corporate executives, but I'm happy to report we're on now taking care of a lot of line workers, construction workers, these kinds of things. It's been a fun, challenging journey. The biggest thing I've seen, I want to close the loop here, is I know a ton of entrepreneurs that put their healthcare,...
The industry leader for custom-made 3D-printed casts and splints in the United States, https://activarmor.com/ (ActivArmor)™ empowers patients with the freedom to be able to maintain their active lifestyles. Now, they begin producing custom-fit, low-cost reusable face masks that achieve a 98.9% to 99.9% bacterial filtration efficiency (BFE) test score. On today’s show, Bob Roark chats with Diana Hall, the President and Founder of ActivArmor™, orthopedic surgeon http://www.KevinKaplanMD.com (Dr. Kevin Kaplan), and critical care flight nurse and paramedic https://www.linkedin.com/in/piacet?challengeId=AQEKxqSnpI3RAQAAAXNH9STA4_9Qc_0PXAusuKieWixRULrMyRzXrzAnhUJA3QzbqBzgqP0ydVh47rZV2cvxBSp8wFferOcY8g&submissionId=c16e2249-bc4c-2116-5181-6747c350aa0a (Eric Miller) about the face masks. Dr. Kaplan and Eric share their experiences wearing the face mask, while Diana explains how they’ve added the product line using their existing technology. They also dive into the company’s cast and its benefits for athletes and regular patients.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/D1uoZyaf3ls[/embed] Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/35545366-dcb7-43e9-88da-fa25f01cdb23/blp-diana-hall-dr.mp3" title="ActivArmor™ With Diana Hall, Dr. Kevin Kaplan And Eric Miller" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] ActivArmor™ With Diana Hall, Dr. Kevin Kaplan And Eric MillerWe have three guests on the show. We have Diana Hall. She's the President and COO of http://www.ActivArmor.com (ActivArmor). We have http://www.KevinKaplanMD.com (Dr. Kevin Kaplan). He is an orthopedic surgeon with the Jacksonville Orthopedic Institute and Head Team Physician for the Jacksonville Jaguars. We have https://www.linkedin.com/in/piacet?challengeId=AQEKxqSnpI3RAQAAAXNH9STA4_9Qc_0PXAusuKieWixRULrMyRzXrzAnhUJA3QzbqBzgqP0ydVh47rZV2cvxBSp8wFferOcY8g&submissionId=c16e2249-bc4c-2116-5181-6747c350aa0a (Eric Miller). He's a critical care flight nurse and paramedic and a Major in the Wyoming Air National Guard. We're going to be talking about ActivArmor, both their casts and their face masks. Eric, tell me a little bit about the face masks and why they're useful and attractive for you to use in your business. I work on the helicopter, and also work in an ICU. One of the big complaints, if you talk to any healthcare worker about masks, and if you have to wear these things, every time you breathe or exhale, your glasses are fogging up. The ActivArmor mask, I got a 3D scan of my face. This thing fits directly on my face and I don't get that fog in my glasses. I can tell you, if you're in a helicopter, you can't have that happening. It's a safety issue. Being in an ICU, after twelve-hour shifts, it's irritating. The other great thing is the ability to be able to see facial expressions and stuff, especially with patients. It's already scary enough. In this, you can see if you're smiling. If they have trouble hearing, they can see your lips. They're a fantastic tool and the fact that they're N95s, which is great for the situation with the COVID. I use mine all the time. Eric, you said that you were out flying and that you got your sound boom to work with the mask on. That's another big issue for me. I can put my visor down. It works like it goes over my nose and then putting the microphone to the side, I was able to still communicate within the cabin with the other crew members and discuss the patient. It was fantastic. You were talking about an interest in the hearing-impaired school and potential uses of those masks for the instructors at the school. Could you talk a little bit about your thoughts there? I was approached by somebody when I was wearing the mask and he says, “I am a teacher for the hearing impaired. Where did you get that mask?” I told them about ActivArmor and he said, “Do you
Many business owners are understandably extremely passionate about their business. Sometimes, they are too passionate that they fail to view their business from the buyer's perspective. When that business life cycle finally hits the break, they find themselves having seller's remorse from selling their business without maximizing its value early on. In this episode, Bob Roark is joined with co-host and CEO of https://raincatcher.com/?utm_expid=.q_OnCGmmQqaHa5PqOEWFVw.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fraincatcher.com%2F (Raincatcher,) Marla DiCarlo, to unpack the skillsets and insights of guests—https://jimgilbertcpa.com/about-company/#team-members (Jim Gilbert, CPA), CITP, CGMA, and Allen Harvey—that can help business owners out there to bring profits to the bottom line or increase the value as opposed to cash flow. Jim is the founder and owner of Jim Gilbert, CPA, while Allen is an independent valuation expert working for https://www.ibva.biz/About.html (IBVA) and IBVA Pros. Together, they discuss assessing your business and making adjustments from there in terms of valuation, moving from micro to macro that touches the people, processes, and systems involved. Join this great business coaching session to learn how to maximize the value of drivers of your business.
Watch the episode here: Maximizing Your Business’ Value With Co-Host And CEO Of Raincatcher, Marla DiCarlo, And Guests, Jim Gilbert And Allen HarveyBusiness CoachingWe're doing a continuation of the series with my co-host, Marla DiCarlo. She's the CEO and Cofounder of https://raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher), a business brokerage out of Denver, Colorado. Returning as guests, we have https://www.ibva.biz/ (Allen Harvey) and https://jimgilbertcpa.com/ (Jim Gilbert). In the previous episode, they were going through the details of the sale of a business that they ran together in Denver. Marla's company handled that transaction. What I wanted to cover with Jim and Allen with Marla's help is to unpack the skillsets that both of these gentlemen bring to the table and their insights to the businessowner mindset and skillsets. Some of the levers and tools that they can have in place that will help them run their business. We talked about this a lot before we started. We'll start off alphabetically. Allen, if you would tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve? I'm an independent valuation expert. I do professional certified business appraisals. We also work on calculations, which are not independent certified business appraisals. I work for IBVA and IBVA Pros is the team that we put together with some other evaluation experts. I’m teaming with a valuation expert by the name of Mike Dougan, who is a veteran appraiser in the industry We are also developing some relationships and teams with other appraisers as well. We have a team approach to our appraisal practice. That's what I do. We are at http://www.IBVA.com (IBVA.com) or http://www.IBVAPros.com (IBVAPros.com). I'm a CPA. I run a CPA consulting practice. We have three sides of our business. One side is the traditional accounting bookkeeping day-to-day, which helped many clients’ Cloud-based accounting. I've got the business side where I work on lots of CFO, controller, advisory business, and then the other side of our business, which is my passion is technology. How do you apply technology? I spent a lot of time working with my greatest love is merger and acquisition. I spent a lot of time helping my owners, both buyer and seller, be successful and how to get to those processes and achieve maximum value on whether you're buying or selling. Marla, you and I are friends. We've talked a lot and we've had a number of episodes. Talk a little bit about what you do at Raincatcher and then we'll try to weave together while we're all on this show together. At Raincatcher, we help entrepreneurs to sell their companies and more importantly, to maximize the full value...
When you enter the world of business, you have to be ready to experience setbacks and develop inventive ways to overcome them. We have all read somewhere that good business owners can step away from their business and still have things run smoothly as they envisioned. You’ll know you’re dead wrong when you hear about the sobering experience of https://www.susanrobertsfrew.com/ (Susan Frew), the CEO and CFO of https://www.sunshineplumbingheating.com/ (Sunshine Plumbing, Heating & Air), a business coach with https://fixthisnext.com/ (Fix This Next), and the author of The Pufferfish Effect. Just when she thought things were doing exceptionally great, Susan found her company being devastated by employee theft. Her experience taught her many lessons about overcoming setbacks in business, which she shares with Bob Roark in this episode. As a bonus, Bob is joined by co-host https://www.linkedin.com/in/marladicarlo/ (Marla DiCarlo), the owner and CEO of Raincatcher, the leading business brokerage firm in the US. Susan and Marla have worked with each other and are bound by their passion for helping small businesses overcome adversity and achieve success – something that is of extreme value now as we navigate these difficult times.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/FBxA0-IQ7yg[/embed] Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/703e9ac6-61cb-488e-b640-c602009b3361/blp-marla-dicarlo-susan-frew.mp3" title="Overcoming Setbacks In Business With Susan Frew" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] Overcoming Setbacks In Business With Susan FrewCo-hosted by Marla DiCarloWe have a special treat. We're going to do a joint hosted podcast. My co-host is Marla DiCarlo. She's a good friend and she's the CEO and Co-owner of https://raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher) located in Denver. Our guest is Susan Frew. She's the CEO and CFO of https://www.sunshineplumbingheating.com/ (Sunshine Plumbing, Heating & Air). She’s also a business coach with https://advisor.fixthisnext.com/ (Fix This Next Advisor). I’m looking forward to it. Thanks for taking the time, Susan. If you would, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve. I was a business coach for a long time after a corporate career. I was on an international assignment. When I came back, I became a business coach and coached unintentionally seventeen different trades. Through that, I met my husband who is in the plumbing, heating and air conditioning business. We started our own company called Sunshine Plumbing, Heating & Air. Things were going great. We had massive growth. I started going around speaking about how we grew our company. It was awesome. I wrote a book about all of that. I realized that I had made a very bad hiring decision. While I was traveling, a lot of bad things were happening to my company. There were some embezzlement and some theft, a lot of mismanagement and we almost lost it. We have been successful in turning it around. It's my passion to go back to coaching and continue speaking as well to help business owners to avoid what I went through because it was a real nail biter. I didn't think we were going to pull it out, but people like Marla who have known me for a long time encouraged me to coach myself for a minute. She knows that I could do it, but it was definitely with a lot of encouragement because I have given up a couple of times. I think about drinking your own tea where you go through and go, “I'm a coach and I coached before.” There's got to be some level of looking in the mirror and you go, “I coached this, what the heck?” I think about the advice that you might offer to a business owner based on your true veils. What might you tell a business owner based on your experience? As business owners and what you hear a lot and different books that you read,...
There is no doubt about the skills that each of us possesses; what is often lacking is the right mindset to turn those into success. https://www.linkedin.com/in/charmasblee (Charmas Lee), the Founder of https://charmaslee.com/ (Building Champions), has been transforming countless individuals in this regard for over 30 years. Charmas is a coach, motivational speaker, sports and fitness professional, two-time TEDx speaker, and the author of https://www.amazon.com/Think-Say-Do-Disrupting-Systemic-ebook/dp/B08D7767BZ/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= (Think Say Do) and other books. As he talks with host Bob Roark on the show, partake of the incredible wisdom he has accumulated over the decades in the areas of mindset, motivation, self-development, and personal mastery. With Charmas, you can learn how to make excellence a habit and success a default state.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/DMKWnGX4E7Q[/embed] Building Champion CEOs With Charmas LeeOur special guest is Charmas Lee. He is the Owner of https://charmaslee.com/ (Building Champions) and the author of https://www.amazon.com/Think-Say-Do-Disrupting-Systemic/dp/1094901032 (Think Say Do: Disrupting Systemic Cycles of Faulty Thinking). He's the author of six additional books. He's prolific and a two-time TEDx speaker. He also speaks to Vistage groups across the country. Charmas, thanks so much for taking the time. Thank you much for this opportunity. I'm glad to be here. We're going to have some fun. Tell me about your business and who you serve. The name of the business is Building Champions. We specialize in personal and professional development. I've been a coach for over 32 years, eclipsed the 10,000-hour rule 2.5 times. What I've seen is with victory in site, I've seen many people slip into mediocrity. We create comprehensive strategies for those who are trying to move in a different direction, provided with a purpose plan and a clear set of priorities and get them to knock the ball out of the park. I read the Think Say Do book. I also was lucky enough to see you speak at a Vistage group. I am exposed to your work. You're working in the athletic arena at the Olympic level. You've done track and field. I've had a chance to work with athletes in the National Football League, senior level of figure skaters, USA track and field, and the World Boxing Organization. I think of figure skaters and boxers, they both got to move on their feet or bad things happen. They've got to have excellent footwork, but more than that, they have to have the right mindset. They've got to bring the right mindset every single day, especially in the competitive environment. [bctt tweet="Start with the vision and then move forward from there." username=""] Maybe years ago, the mindset wasn't that much of a buzzword. I’ve got kids and I try to coach my kids and they're older. We talk about mindset and approach. Having mindset and keeping a mindset are two distinct skillsets. When you're working with the athlete that's on the long grind to get to a honed edge, what do you do to help them keep their mindset? The most important factor is it's going to start with their attitude. My responsibility is to ensure that they bring the right attitude so that they'll have the right perspective. It’s funny how the mind works. Based on the attitude, it will determine how you see others and how others see you and it plays such a big role. The second thing is that we have to create a series of habits, practices, and rituals that they perform on a daily basis. I want them to get to a place where when they don't perform a habit, practice or ritual that we've designed, for example an AM or a PM ritual, by creating incredibly uncomfortable. What that will do is that will set the tempo and press the agenda for the day, whether it be in the training or the competition environment. We implemented mental fortitude routines. We call them...
One of the great indicators of a business' growth is its ability to function without the business owner. This entails a lot of task delegation, taking off some of the weight from the business owner's shoulders and passing it down to those who can do them better and more efficiently. If you feel you are at this stage in your business already, this episode will provide you with some great insights about that transition. Bob Roark interviews https://www.linkedin.com/in/terristarck/ (Terri Starck), the founder and business strategist of https://lifept.co/ (LifePoint Strategies), a company that works with business owners who want a business that can run without them. Either you want to prepare for an exit or focus on the things that really matter and would make good use of your focus, Terri shows you the steps and the strategies to make that move while maximizing your business' value without skipping a beat. Dive deep into this great conversation to know the amazing services they offer and more.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/vcCayoIi-Hs[/embed] Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="" title="A Business That Runs Without A Business Owner With Terri Starck" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] A Business That Runs Without A Business Owner With Terri StarckWe're extremely fortunate because we have Terri Starck. She is the Founder and Business Strategist with https://lifept.co/ (LifePoint Strategies). Terri, thanks for taking the time. Thank you for having me, Bob. Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve. LifePoint Strategies works with business owners who want a business that can run without them. They either want that because they're almost ready to sell and they want to maximize the value of their business prior to selling. They want a business that runs without them so that they can focus on the things that matter to them. Maybe they like to do more strategic work for their business. Potentially, they want to get back in the field and do the things that they enjoy doing and the reason why they started the business in the first place. Some of them quite honestly just want to play more golf. The way I play golf, that wouldn't help much. I would spend all my time in the field not playing golf for sure. For the business owners, that sounds interesting. I'm going to try to play the role of the business owner and ask you some questions. That sounds intriguing. How do you work? When a business owner calls us, we start by going through what we call the discovery phase. It is where we come into the business and interview some of the key players, the owner, COO, CFO, management team players, and some of the key employees. Once we interview them, we'll have a good feel for the overall business because we take them through what we call the business assessment. We'll then take a look at their finances, P&Ls, and do a pretty good in-depth financial analysis. After that, we do a leadership assessment to identify any of the gaps that they have in their leaders, maybe communication or abilities to confront or resolve issues, those types of things. Finally, we go through what we call our walkabout. We walk around the business and get the feel of the company and the culture for how people interact with each other and how the businesses run overall. Once we do the discovery phase, then we move on and go through the strategy days. Those are two days that are packed with taking the information that we have gotten from the discovery phase. We will then prioritize what has to be done in order to achieve the financial goals of the owner as well as the leadership development goals. Anything else that needs to be done either to maximize the value of the business or get the business running on its own without the owner. Once we do the strategy days, then we're off to the...
Immunization is an important subject to talk about, especially in the midst of a pandemic like COVID-19. While traditional immunization methods are popular as ever, more and more companies are seeking out methods for needle-free immunization that mitigate some of the risks presented by needle immunization. Bob Roark is joined by https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-callender-potters-62247/ (Heather Callender-Potters), the Co-Founder of https://pharmajet.com/ (PharmaJet), to discuss the pressing impetus for investing more resources into needle-free immunization. Let Bob and Heather take you through this vital topic with a spirited conversation.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYQTMdkD5qI[/embed] Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="" title="The Pressing Need For Needle-Free Immunization With Heather Callender-Potters" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] The Pressing Need For Needle-Free Immunization With Heather Callender-PottersMy guest is Heather Potters. She's the Vice Chairman, Global Business Development Officer, and Cofounder of https://pharmajet.com/ (PharmaJet). Welcome, Heather. It's exciting for me. Thank you. I'm so excited to have this time with you and get your story out there, which it's already out there, but at least through this channel. If you could talk about PharmaJet's vision and your vision is needle-free applications for immunization and the story of why you started there and why that's still your focus. My mother and me cofounded the business. We wanted to make sure that we made a contribution to healthcare. She had experienced needles, she'd seen reused and there was a call to action by the World Health Organization because they were witnessing needle reuse about whether or not somebody could develop a needle-free immunization tool. We decided to rise to that occasion. When we looked at the market, immunization is global. We all share the healthcare burden. We're in the midst of something around Coronavirus where it's abundantly clear that if people are healthy, they're at work, the economy works. If a group of people is healthy, then the population generally is healthy. We focused on what we could do around taking needles out of the garbage dumps and the risk of reuse and needlestick and then that immunization market that's growing in perpetuity. More people being born, more need for immunization. If you fast forward to where we are, the exciting thing is that over time we've been able to prove that you might be able to move from the muscle to the skin and functionally reduce the dose of the vaccine by 80% and get the same immune response. It’s nifty. It's around the immunology that our skin has. Our body's barriers are always protecting us from things. The other exciting thing is that we kept seeing this glimmer of making vaccines work better. In particular in nucleic acid vaccines, messenger RNA, and DNA vaccines, we tend to see a multiple of higher immune response versus needle-based delivery. There's a whole slew of things, whether or not it's infectious disease or oncology, things coming to market to address disease concerns that we don't have treatment for. Like on the infectious disease side, it could be Zika and now also COVID. On the oncology side, it could be someone who's manifested HPV, cervical cancer, lung cancer, or leukemia. Lots of things that give us joy around near-term immunization, medium-term, reduce the dose in the longer-term of bringing things to market that don't have vaccine cures. [caption id="attachment_5238" align="aligncenter" width="600"] Needle-Free Immunization: A significant percentage of people avoid immunization because they don't like needles.[/caption] Thinking about the mechanics, my memory goes back to when I was a little boy. I got my polio sugar cube with a little red dot on it. We have...
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced everyone to take a good, long look at how things were being run once upon a time and see how things can change for the ultimate benefit of public health. One of these fields is the technology sector, where every day, companies find new uses for existing technologies to help the world adapt to the crisis. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-blakeman-71005a4/ (Mike Blakeman) and https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevorchandler/ (Trevor Chandler )are, respectively, the CEO and CTO of http://www.visual-globe.com/ (Visual Globe). They sit down with Bob Roark to discuss how artificial intelligence can be used to combat the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The time to act about the crisis is now, and with these technologies on hand, we might just be able to make the full recovery we need to.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/z6Wu4OZRGr0[/embed] Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/80f18bbf-8247-4a3c-8638-8dae067bf2b2/blp-mike-blakeman-trevor-chandler.mp3" title="Using Artificial Intelligence To Combat The COVID-19 Pandemic With Mike Blakeman And Trevor Chandler" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] Using Artificial Intelligence To Combat The COVID-19 Pandemic With Mike Blakeman And Trevor ChandlerMy name is Mike Blakeman. I’m the CTO of http://www.visual-globe.com/ (Visual Globe). With me is Trevor Chandler, our CTO for our technology and what we're doing now. I know, Bob, you wanted us to share our vision and what we're trying to do with our experience and solutions. We’ll be talking more about that technology here. The thing I wanted to do, which I typically do, is you guys have created an ability to solve some particular problems. You were working in the utility space and then we had the pandemic come along. You took, adjusted, and adapted to also solve this problem. If you would talk about what problems or benefits you bring to the utility space and then also talk about the benefits that you're bringing to the safety of the community in the COVID timeframe. I’ll give a brief overview of what the company's doing now and what we're about to do with the wellness program. I’ll allow Trevor to go into the details of the technology and his experience with artificial intelligence. Our company is strictly focused on data and information that we receive from our customers regardless of the market we're serving. Now we're serving power and telecom, but the information that we receive, it's all about taking raw data and converting that to information. We convert that to put that into insight and actionable items that they can react to. This has been on extracting information out of images that we collect on the distribution poles for telecom power and the ability to go out to the field and capture transformers with infrared technology to be able to determine if there those assets are healthy. As a company, Visual Globe is focused on physical assets that you can see on earth and to determine their wellness, condition, and maintenance and what needs to be handled and what the decisions need to be made in order for something to be reacted to or supported by others in the field. Right now, our contracts are simply going out and doing auditing at poles on the transformers and those who are attaching their equipment to the poles and be able to pull that information right out of the images based upon artificial intelligence and the automated feature extraction. Let me move it over to Trevor. He’ll talk more about the technology as it relates to what we're doing and then we'll move into what we see as a great opportunity for people to get back to work using our technology.
What we're going to go through here is there's a benefit from this company, first in the utility space pole and equipment and monitoring and
It is going to be a very different stage for marketing as we come out of the ashes of the COVID-19 pandemic and into a brave new world. To talk about what this pivot means for the promotional marketing space, https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulzafarana/ (Paul) and https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniezafarana/ (Stephanie Zafarana) of https://www.picamarketinggroup.com/ (Pica Marketing Group) join Bob Roark on the show. With decades of experience in coming up with innovative marketing solutions for businesses, Paul and Stephanie are experts in promotional marketing and spreading the marketing message using promotional tools and products. Listen as they talk about the future of promotional marketing in the post-COVID world and share some very amusing and incredible stories of marketing strategies that you never thought anyone could have pulled off.
Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="" title="Promotional Marketing In The Post-COVID World With Paul And Stephanie Zafarana" ] Promotional Marketing In The Post-COVID World With Paul And Stephanie ZafaranaWe have a special episode. I have my good friend Stephanie Zafarana and her husband Paul on. They're from https://www.picamarketinggroup.com/ (Pica Marketing Group). We're going to talk about marketing post-COVID pandemic and what they're doing to serve their clients. Stephanie, Paul, welcome to your episode. Thanks for having us. Tell us a little bit about the Pica Marketing Group and who you serve. Pica Marketing Group was conceived in 2008. There isn't a better time to start a company. We learned a lot of lessons starting in such a crazy environment, but we incorporated it because we saw the needs that not only were our clients and people in the marketing community looking for innovative marketing ideas. They were looking for hard numbered returns. They were their board of directors and all of the people that they report to for real numbers. No longer was it okay to throw money at the marketing and sales department without any actual results. That is why we call it Pica Marketing Group because pica is a unit of measurement. It plays well to our audience. We work on serving nonprofit organizations, healthcare, and then manufacturing. Those are the vertical markets that we serve the best and we engage in a couple of different ways. We have some large clients where we're able to plug into their already established marketing department and be that outside voice. We’re that different perspective to help them accomplish a particular project. Be plugged in to some of those smaller organizations that maybe have a person that's the office manager/marketing director. We become the marketing department for them, offering ideas, working and collaborating to get their message out, but doing that heavy lifting. It seems to work well for our clients. The great part is we find ourselves dealing with all sides of projects. Nothing's too big and too small. The more creative, the more fun we all tend to have. In the end, it is about results. We like to start the conversation with what you are trying to accomplish and work from there. It's been an interesting time. We're starting to come out of some of the quarantine and restrictive movement events post-COVID. A lot of the companies, their worlds changed. What are your thoughts on these companies on, what they should be thinking about as far as marketing and spending money and both from their customer perspective and also how to keep their employees safe? One of the biggest things that some people may or may not realize is back in the late '80s, early '90s when there was another recession that happened, a big player came out of that and that was Clif Bars. Those energy bars that everybody has. They were a big player in that and the time to spend on marketing and advertising is in these times. People tend to remember those brands that are out there that are there for them on a personal level. They tend to...
Inarguably, one of the sectors that have been hit the most by the COVID-19 pandemic is small businesses. Unlike large conglomerates or corporations, many of these small businesses operate independently, with a much smaller pool of resources than their more considerable counterparts, so they have to take a few more steps to deal with the economic aftermath of COVID-19. https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-dill-attorney/ (Mike Dill) is a Partner at https://www.hollandhart.com/ (Holland & Hart LLP). Using his experience working with small businesses, he joins Bob Roark to discuss how small businesses can go about weathering the storm and mitigating any more negative effects that might rear their head in the wake of COVID-19. Don’t miss this important and timely discussion.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgQsW6c-M-0[/embed] Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="" title="How Small Businesses Can Weather The COVID-19 Storm With Mike Dill" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] How Small Businesses Can Weather The COVID-19 Storm With Mike Dill In this episode, we have Mike Dill. He is a partner with https://www.hollandhart.com/ (Holland & Hart), a firm located out of Denver. He’s a Corporate M&A Security and Startup specialist in the legal arena. Mike, thanks for coming on the podcast. It is my pleasure. Thanks for the invitation, Bob. Given the COVID pandemic and some of Earth’s changing or seismic shifts in the business climate, I thought it was particularly useful to bring Mike on and talk about some of the issues that might be facing business owners. What we hope to cover so you have an idea of what’s coming is we’re going to talk about what you do about staying compliant or being aware of the state local orders and directives. We are going to talk about some of the issues that may be facing you on the HR side of the house. As far as some of the things that you need to be keeping in mind with as you’re either continuing or resuming operations, whether it’s supply chain issues, new business lines or so on. We will talk a little bit if you’ve got outstanding lines, loans, or financing issues and what you do about those. How do you take and provide? There’s a fair amount of concern or shifting landscape on some of the government relief programs, in particular, PPP. We’ve got Mike on. We’re going to go through so you can know what you’re looking forward to in the episode. Mike, why don’t we start out a little bit with how you got here and who you serve? I act as an outside general counsel for a lot of my companies that are clients. They’re smaller companies that can be growing in a variety of industries such as tech and manufacturing, but they don’t have a lawyer that’s on staff. They have a firm that they can call to get a lot of their questions answered. I will help people when they sell their companies. I will help people raise debt and equity financing, but for a lot of my clients, I get asked all kinds of everyday questions, which is, “I’ve got an employee that reported me to the police because I’m still operating when I’ve got to stay-at-home order that’s going on.” That is a real client and a real situation. I am the quarterback of a team at my firm, so I can pull in specialists that are well-versed in very specific issues such as in employment, tax, etc. A lot of the questions I can answer is as an outside general counsel, I help my clients navigate the variety of legal issues that are facing their businesses, which is a lot right now. [bctt tweet="The COVID-19 directives from municipal and state governments are not optional, and should not be treated as such." username=""] I thought we would try to drill down. As we go through the categories, I can imagine the quantity and volume of questions from the clients due to the level of uncertainty....
As businesses make the shift to working remotely, it's important to remember that not every strategy that works in a brick and mortar workplace will work in a virtual office. There are specific strategies that you need to implement to maintain balances now that every employee has to integrate their work life with their home life seamlessly. Joining Bob Roark is https://www.linkedin.com/in/danettegossett/ (Danette Gossett), the owner of http://www.gossettmktg.com/ (Gossett Marketing). Bob and Danette discuss some important strategies and solutions you can implement to manage your virtual office. You are not alone in this transition. Take the time to refine the way you operate to make the most of your time working remotely!
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/jTRLF-lKgzI[/embed] Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/dd0aa265-6068-49ee-a2e5-b1441947a626/blp-danette-gossett-part-4.mp3" title="Virtual Offices: The Growing Remote Working Culture With Danette Gossett" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] Virtual Offices: The Growing Remote Working Culture With Danette GossettI’ve got Danette Gossett of http://www.gossettmktg.com/ (Gossett Marketing). She's a highly respected marketer out of Southern Florida. She and I have been friends for a long time so I thought we'd have it on. What we're going to do is focus on the virtual business owner's thoughts and/or processes because it looks like more and more businesses are going to rotate toward the virtual office format while we're all in this pandemic condition. It may be that we find that we don't need bricks and mortar down the road. If so, these are some of the thoughts and observations. Danette, welcome. Thank you. It's been interesting. We thought we would structure this a little bit and talk about some of the observations. Danette had a case study as she was working with her people that are all working virtual on GovSpend training. Think of some of the things that are going forward and then thinking about whether it's Zoom or Microsoft Teams or GoToMeeting. How do you take and manage the use of your time so you can maintain effectiveness and optimize the time that you're working? Danette, what did you notice? We've been at home for so much longer now. Even though things are starting to open up in some areas, Southern Florida is a hot spot, so we are not opening up anytime soon. They're talking maybe June for us. We've got another month. For a lot of people, the room started closing in a little bit on them. The trials and tribulations of having their kids, their dogs, their spouse, their significant other all around them all the time. Not that they don't love them desperately but being 24/7 is not what anyone signed up for, to be sequestered with an individual or a whole family or my dogs or the isolation. For me, I'm isolated. It's me and my dogs. For me, it's “I want people” type of thing. Having more Zoom meetings has been a big part of it. Having my team wanting to spend more time with me on the phone or on the Zoom has ticked up. I found myself losing my day sometimes. I wasn't managing them and my time as I normally do. We're going to get back to that. A lot of companies are realizing now that this may go on for a long time where if you've got to have 60% less people in your office or more space between people, you may not have the space. People are going to have to be working remotely for months, if not a year or more. Some companies are going to do that. I did have a conversation with a company. They don't expect to have 100% people in their office for almost eighteen months. The landscape of the work team is changing completely. How do you make sure everyone feels a part of the team when they're in 50 locations or even five locations? How do you make sure that everybody is on the same page,...
The process of moving forward after the massive disruption created by the COVID-19 is not going to be easy, so as early as possible, you need to figure out how you can go about things. A "new normal" has begun to settle, and the best way of moving forward is finding ways to find your place within the renewed status quo. https://www.linkedin.com/in/danettegossett/ (Danette Gossett) is the owner of http://www.gossettmktg.com/ (Gossett Marketing). She joins Bob Roark to dive into planning the process of moving forward after COVID-19. If you've mapped out what you need to move forward, you won't feel trapped by the future, so let Bob and Danette show you the way through.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/_8ENd1Vm4GM[/embed] Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="" title="Moving Forward After COVID-19 With Danette Gossett" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] Moving Forward After COVID-19 With Danette GossettOn the continuing series with Danette Gossett of http://www.gossettmktg.com/ (Gossett Marketing) out of Miami. We're talking about what the business owners are going through and Danette as a business owner and observations and maybe some things to consider as the landscape is starting to shift to possibly people coming back to work. Danette, thanks for taking the time again. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. From your thoughts, what are you starting to see on the landscape that's starting to change? People are talking about, "When are we going to reopen? How is this going to change? What's going to be our new normal?" A lot of companies have gone remote workers and not everybody closed down. There were a lot of people working from home. I talked to you were talking that not everybody is going to go back to the office. They're going to stay remote. Some people are looking at, I don't need to have that big office building lease. We can have a smaller office somewhere and people will continue to work remotely. If you're doing that, what are you doing with your employees to keep them feeling like they're part of the team, they are being productive, and they are being motivated? They're not getting burned out because I don't know about you, but I spend eight hours a day on the phone and on Zoom meetings. It's not like the old days where I've had a meeting after meeting, but at least then I got to be able to get in the car and drive to another location, get a break for 15, 20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes. Now, you hang up the phone and you start the next one and pick it up again. It's exhausting being in front of this computer screen all day long. You think of the mental depress and as you go through these and you start to recognize, it's back-to-back. You have to be spot on, listening, and caring. You can't loaf in between, you can't reset. One of the things to consider is as you set your phone calls up if you can then take and put a break in between. You take this, I'm going to take 5 or 10 minutes in between I'm going to go outside, I'm going to go for a short walk, I'm going to go and down the stairwell. I'm going to do something to maintain the machine because we're all thinking maybe it's going to be a shorter time frame, but if this ends up being a marathon instead of a sprint, then you go, "How do we adjust to the new normal and maintain our personal machine and outlook?" We need to maintain it and employers need to understand that. You're right about saying sprint versus a marathon. A lot of businesses were thinking, "This is a sprint. We're going to get this done and you all will be back to work. I need you to get all these new initiatives figured out before we get back into the office." Even though we are talking about getting back to work, it's going to be a slow process. They're not going to turn a switch on and we all go back to the normal. They're saying methodical and
The COVID-19 pandemic has undeniably changed the way we do business. One of the areas that got affected is how we build business connections. Fortunately, with people migrating online, we can now fully utilize our LinkedIn accounts. Helping you make the most of it in this episode is https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimpetersonstone/ (Kim Peterson Stone), founder and CEO of https://linkability.us/ (Linkability, Inc). Here, she shares some of the LinkedIn business strategies that are particularly helpful in this time of the COVID-19 pandemic. She shares in detail how you need to set-up your account, how to position your message, what features you need to take advantage of, and what kind of content to put out. Kim also shares some of the relevant trends in the space when it comes to communicating with others, as well as some of the advantages of joining a group to your business.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/IFNHNoPSgdQ[/embed] Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="" title="LinkedIn Business Strategies During The COVID-19 Pandemic With Kim Peterson Stone" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] LinkedIn Business Strategies During The COVID-19 Pandemic With Kim Peterson StoneWe have a special treat. We have http://businessleaderspodcast.com/episodes/kim-peterson-stone-ceo-commonsensehealth-org-helping-clients-grow-their-business-and-increase-sales-using-social-media-and-online-marketing/ (Kim Peterson-Stone) on. She is the Founder and CEO of https://linkability.us/ (Linkability). She's been a previous guest before. We're good friends. We talk all the time. We thought we would take in and put on an episode given the current environment. Kim, you work with people in the LinkedIn space. During this Coronavirus, COVID timeframe, what are you seeing out there and what should people be considering as it relates to their business and LinkedIn? I'm glad to be here, Bob. Thanks for having me. Things have shifted and since this whole thing started, we've been inundated with people, “What is it that I should be doing?” Whether you're in middle management and you're concerned about what your organization is going to be doing, maybe you need to make a pivot. “How do I do that?” That's some projects that we're working on there. It’s a corporate presence. You had a game plan and things that you were going to be doing. You are going to be going to events and doing all these wonderful things. All of a sudden that wording is no longer appropriate and you need to roll that back in, shift and change your narrative. We've been working with organizations that way. We're getting a wave of people also that have not been that active on LinkedIn and are now thinking, “I'm not going to these events. I'm not being able to get out there and get in front of people. How do I use LinkedIn to do that?” Those three things are happening in droves right now. It's a good time to get your feet under you in all of those areas, depending on which aspect is affecting you right now. You're talking to clients of various types of jobs in various businesses and so on. Some are at home, some are working remotely for the very first time. Given that environment, there have been some insights that are starting to gain. I've been encouraging people to get at least one thing done while you're at home, one accomplishment. One of the things that you can do if we don't know how long we're going to be doing this at-home gig is to take a look at what you're doing on LinkedIn. How does it look? How's it perceived? Is it useful or is it just an, “Yes, I have one?” To that end, when you look at somebody's LinkedIn site, what are you thinking when you look at them and what are you seeing now? The big thing is, are you positioned to be found? Is your profile structured in such a way that you will be found for the things that you want to be...
COVID-19 is a hot topic these days, but you can't let it steal your show and paralyze your business. Fighting the virus can also mean doing your part in making a productive difference business-wise. In this episode with CEO of http://www.gossettmktg.com/ (Gossett Marketing), https://www.linkedin.com/in/danettegossett/ (Danette Gossett), Bob Roark follows up their discussion about mobilizing your business during the pandemic. Danette showcases the importance of having a contact list and using it to remain pro-active in the eyes of your clients and employees. Driving traffic to your business is crucial these days, simply reaching out to those who matter can help maintain and even improve your business' reputation.
Watch the episode here:Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="" title="Capitalizing On Your Contact List During The COVID-19 Pandemic With Danette Gossett" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] Capitalizing On Your Contact List During The COVID-19 Pandemic With Danette GossettI've got Danette Gossett of http://www.gossettmktg.com/ (Gossett Marketing) out of Miami, Florida. We were talking in the previous episode about steps you can take now and what we zeroed in on is in many of the businesses, whether it's bricks-and-mortars or others, you either have a contact list where you can reach out to your clients or you don't. We thought we would talk about both of those issues and what you can do in this environment to help drive traffic not through your door anymore, but drive traffic. Danette, what are your thoughts on contact lists, whether you have them or you don't? One, hopefully, a lot of people do already have a contact list and they've been using them. We talked about previously was if you haven't reached out to your customers already, you need to start contacting them, letting them know that you're still around and you're still in business and that you're here to help them in whatever it might be that they need. If you don't have an active contact list, then you need to start getting one. One of the ways that you can do that is through LinkedIn. If you don't have a LinkedIn profile, let's start that. Get your LinkedIn profile going. You'll see, because I have a lot of people that you can start looking up and saying, "It could be your neighbors. It could be your other business competitors." It can be a lot of different types of people that you can start your list with. I've had a LinkedIn profile for years. My network is thousands of people. You can see that little thing at the bottom where some people have 100 people that they're connected with. I have 100 people in the same company that I'm connected with in many cases or people that I have connections with that we have hundreds of people in common in our networks. That's how it works because you want people to start looking at you and saying, "I want to connect." If you have your LinkedIn, then you can also put in your information if you've got a special coming up, if you've got some program. Here, a lot of museums are doing virtual tours of their museum and they can't have people coming in if you're a member or not a member. I saw one for one of the museums here that you had an extra conversation with the artists if you were a member. That was all added value that you got, but everybody could go on the tour. I thought that was a great way to connect with the members of the museum. A lot of them are doing that and that's a great way. Even for a realtor if you're trying to show a house. Right now you can't. I was on the call with a realtor friend of mine and she's in the business office, she's one of our business development people. They found out when this happened, even though they had always encouraged their realtors to have videos of all their properties, only 20% of the properties were represented. They can't...
How can business owners cope with the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic? Some binge on Netflix and accept defeat that comes with business paralysis while others do what they can to continue mobilizing their business. In this episode, Bob Roark interviews bestselling author and CEO of http://www.gossettmktg.com/ (Gossett Marketing), https://www.linkedin.com/in/danettegossett/ (Danette Gossett). They talk about these trying times and how businesses can re-develop a routine that allows them to be as productive as they were before the crisis, highlighting the benefits of creating a contact list. Danette then shares some tips on how businesspeople can do their part in flattening the curve through creativity and resourcefulness.
Watch the episode here: Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="" title="Mobilizing Your Business To Thrive And Survive During The COVID-19 Pandemic With Danette Gossett" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] Mobilizing Your Business To Thrive And Survive During The COVID-19 Pandemic With Danette GossettWe're putting together the show with Danette Gossett of http://www.gossettmktg.com/ (Gossett Marketing) out of Miami, Florida. Danette and I have been friends for years and she's working hard with her clients during this COVID crisis. Danette, thanks for taking the time. Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time to give me a buzz. What we wanted to talk about is we're going to have shorter versions. In this lockdown, COVID virus and marketplace, there are a lot of business owners out there. Danette works with business owners and has for years and years. I thought we would get some insights from her and what we were talking about to talk about in this small piece is if you're a business owner and you find yourself stuck in the mud or paralyzed, what should you do? She got some great insights that we put those together. It's not just business owners, even the marketing departments. The business owners and the businesses themselves, a lot of them are paralyzed in understanding what in the world am I supposed to do? You hear about people binging on Netflix, being bored at home, and I'm like, "Who are these people? Where do they work? We’re working, they are bored at home." I'm working eleven hours a day, seven days a week trying to make sure that my clients are getting the attention they need and getting things out there that they need. First, they were seeing this as, "I get a couple of weeks of vacation." This is a much longer-term issue and people are very worried about their income and the economy. They're scared and they don't know what to do. They look at their business no matter what size it is, and they've had to close their doors, let off their employees, or all their employees are scattered in remote locations. They're like, "Are they working? Are they not working? Will they do what I tell them to? What do I do?" They're stuck. They can't seem to get a grip as to, "Where do I start? It seems overwhelming," all the information and their businesses out there. I gave up on trying to do all the SBA loans and the PPP loans and all that. I gave it to my expert. I gave it to my accountant to do. It's not my expertise so why should I be spending my time putting those types of things together? Let the experts do it. Get rid of some of those things that are paralyzing you because you're spending your time is not on your business, not even in your business. You're trying to ride the wave. That's one of the things that you need to put aside. After you put all that aside is to look at your customer base. Who are they? Where are you getting most of your revenue during normal times? Is it that standard 80/20 Rule where 20% of your customers are giving you 80% of revenue? If so, what can you do for that 20% of your customers? Have you reached out to them? What are you doing...
With data just at the tip of our fingertips, great innovations abound to take us closer to our potential. Founder and CEO of https://getzoptic.com/ (Zoptic), https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradpaz/ (Brad Paz), builds innovative sports technologies that optimize training for the use of amateur sports athletes. In this episode, Brad tells us how this idea came about and was conceived. He shares the process of how it captures metrics and videos of the athlete’s performance in a dynamic environment and delivers actionable insights to coaches. More on his entrepreneurial journey, Brad then imparts great wisdom on building products that are not only for today but also for the ever-evolving technologies of tomorrow. Don’t miss out on this insightful conversation fit not only for the athletes and coaches out there but also for those budding entrepreneurs.
Watch the episode here: Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/55a5e2f7-f044-42bf-80bd-d7cab5b5a5d5/blp-brad-paz.mp3" title="Building Innovative Sports Technologies For The Athletes Of Tomorrow With Brad Paz" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] Building Innovative Sports Technologies For The Athletes Of Tomorrow With Brad PazWe’re incredibly fortunate to have Brad Paz. He's the Founder and CEO of https://getzoptic.com/ (Zoptic), which builds innovative sports technologies that autonomously capture metrics and videos of the athletes while they're in the field. Brad, thanks for taking the time to come on the show. Thank you. I was happy to be invited here. I look forward to our conversation. Tell us about your company and what it does. We build technology that captures a carbon copy of the athlete's performance in a dynamic environment, indoor and outdoor, and delivers actionable insight into the performance coaches or coaching staff. Ultimately, what we want to do is optimize training for the use of amateur sports athletes. I think about what little I was involved in coaching. I was small, slow and unathletic as a kid. I would be the wrong guy to teach any ball sports, but I can remember working with my daughter in swimming. What you're trying to do is help them be better and you have no metric to come from. Let's say that I was out on the soccer field with my kids and I wanted to help them. How do you field this technology? What does it do? The athlete wears a small tag. It's about 80 grams. It's collecting all of the nonvital metrics on the athlete. Your traditional speed, distance, things of that nature, but also looking at the number of accelerations, number of decelerations. The sports science has not reached the youth and amateur market yet. This type of technology is used in professional sports. I'm sure someone like LeBron James has all of the statistics that anyone could imagine. We're trying to bring it down to the youth and amateur levels to be able to help those athletes improve their performance. It’s safely doing it in an optimal way and that needs to come from a performance coach. We're not like a watch or a band that will tell you what day you're having. We want to deliver that insight, that objective data to the performance coach because he or she knows and understands how to use that data to help the athlete get better. Is this like a solo application or if you had an entire team, would it capture all? It is a team product. That's what we're focused on and making sure that all of the athletes on the field have one of our wearable tags on. When we look at that, there are a couple of different applications that we run into in the market. From a coaching perspective, there are three things that they look at or three things that they would review. There's a tactical analysis, the X’s and O’s. There's your statistical analysis, so assists, pass, things of that nature. There's the third one,...
Many financial and real estate professionals out there, including CPAs and attorneys, don't know anything about real estate exchanges, and how these transactions can help their clients. While seemingly byzantine at first, this system of exchanges actually yield a lot of benefits for people who are looking to reinvest their money in different kinds of real estate, sometimes even to diversify their portfolio. https://www.ipx1031.com/locations/name/luke-hays/ (Luke Hays) is a Vice President and Business Development Officer at https://www.ipx1031.com/ (IPX1031), where he specializes in real estate exchanges. Luke speaks to Bob Roark about the basics of real estate exchanges, and how one can navigate the processes involved. If you're looking to reinvest your assets, don't miss this conversation. It might just be what you've been looking for!
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_YCobtceXY[/embed] Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="" title="Performing A Real Estate Exchange With Luke Hays" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] Performing A Real Estate Exchange With Luke HaysWe're very fortunate because we have Luke Hays out of Nashville, Tennessee. He's with https://www.ipx1031.com/ (IPX1031). Luke is a specialist in Real Estate Exchanges. With that being said, welcome to the show and tell us a little bit about what you do and how you got here. We're very fortunate because we have Luke Hays out of Nashville, Tennessee. He's with https://www.ipx1031.com/ (IPX1031). Luke is a specialist in Real Estate Exchanges. With that being said, welcome to the show and tell us a little bit about what you do and how you got here. I was born and raised in Birmingham, and went to Alabama for undergrad. I hope that doesn't scare away some of your readers. I went to law school at Tulane and then after law school, I joined IPX. As an attorney in Tennessee, my sole practice is 1031 exchanges. In the company I work for, IPX1031, we act as a qualified intermediary. I'm sure at this point you have no idea what that is and that's most likely why I'm on here is to go over some of that terminology, as well as the 1031 exchange as a whole. I usually like to begin with a call I normally get because I give a number of continuing education classes to agents, brokers, CPAs, real estate attorneys. This is a small part of the code. I'll address the background of the 1031 exchange, why it was implemented and why I worked with IPX. The call goes something like this, “Luke Hays, IPX.” “I want to do 1055.” If someone's in a rush, if they're in a hurry, they're going to get the name wrong. They're going to call 1055, 1088. They're going to say, “I don't want to pay any taxes.” I'll say, “Where are we at in the real estate transaction?” They'll say, “I closed and I have the funds. What is my next step?” Unfortunately, the bad news is coming at this point because I have to inform them that their next step is to contact their CPA or tax advisor. The number one rule in a 1031 is it has to be set up prior to the close. You would think that would be something that everyone would understand. It goes into a lot of what I do, which is more of a teaching element. Not a lot of people know about exchanges. They don't know when the rules apply. Maybe they have some rules correct, but the other rules are incorrect. My role is the combination of an advisory role as well as a teaching role and setting up these exchanges. Many people, we all specialize and people don't know what they don't know. In the 1031 space, it sounds pretty simple to say, “Consider doing 1031.” Anything past that, even if they know that much, there's a real acknowledged gap. I would agree, particularly attorneys and CPAs. They don't have time. It's a small part of the tax code; they don't have time to comb through the way we do. If I was an attorney in...
We are in the midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic that has since affected so many lives around the world. It has been testing the economy, public health infrastructures, and even our personal relationships. In this episode, Bob Roark tackles this pressing matter with someone who has a great deal of expertise about it, https://www.linkedin.com/in/o-shawn-cupp-ph-d-13224b11/ (Shawn Cupp, Ph.D.), the professor of Force Sustainment and Management at the Army Command and General Staff College. Shawn helps us understand COVID-19, comparing and contrasting it to what we've had before and helping us know how it will continue to affect us. Gathering up some news as well as scientific data, he informs us of the latest findings and development in terms of the creation of a vaccine. Shawn then taps into the many industries that are suffering because of the Pandemic, showing us the far-reaching implications that this will inevitably teach us for the following years to come.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA7MawLP7Tw[/embed] Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/29ff829d-2291-43d1-a3e7-c0c5925a3c63/blp-shawn-cupp.mp3" title="COVID-19 Pandemic: Understanding Its History And Its Future With Shawn Cupp" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] COVID-19 Pandemic: Understanding Its History And Its Future With Shawn CuppWe have https://www.linkedin.com/in/o-shawn-cupp-ph-d-13224b11/ (Dr. Shawn Cupp). He's a PhD. He's the professor of Force Sustainment and Management at the Army Command and General Staff College. Shawn, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. Thank you for having me. We're going to do a little bit of something different. We're going to talk about COVID-19. We're in the midst of it and Shawn has a great deal of expertise and thoughts on it. I thought I would turn it over to Shawn. When we talked about it was compare and contrast what we've had before and some of the history and some of your thoughts about that. There have been about thirteen different pandemics since the 1700s. The last major one that was worldwide was the 1918-1919 Spanish Flu that happened during the middle of World War I. It came from Kansas where I'm at. It went into Camp Funston and spread around the world. Historically, it was called the Spanish Flu because Spain was neutral during that fight and was the only one that would report on it. That has some significance now because China and some other news agencies are trying to blame people for what happened. We're in the midst of somewhat weaponizing information about blame. Who did what? Who started this? That is something significant that's going to happen in the outcome 3 to 5 years from now. We've also had a pandemic in Hong Kong and another flu in the late ‘50s and late ‘60s. Another pandemic was another H1N1 designated with swine, which was in 2009. Each of these viruses, at least Coronaviruses, you have to remember a few things about them. They don't need oxygen to live. They don't produce any products. They don't have to have any gender to reproduce. They are RNA-based, not DNA-based. When a water droplet that has COVID or SARS version two in it gets into your hands or you rub what we would call fomites like a computer screen or a door handle or a bag, you touch your mouth. That's why we talk about washing your hands all the time. You wash your hands, you get rid of the virus. Its only way to reproduce is to get into your lungs and change the RNA, DNA the next cell beside it. That's how it reproduces. When you cough or sneeze, then you expel that out. That's why we have the ten-foot social distance requirements that have been put out by the CDC. That's how you keep the virus moving from person to person. The other part of the science piece is the R0. How infectious is it? For example, if somebody had...
Selling an entire business or company is, without a doubt, daunting for the owner. However, with the right people to help execute this process, the business acquisition process can be quite successful. Today, Bob Roark interviews https://www.linkedin.com/in/chase-kenner/ (Chase Kenner), an Associate Broker with https://raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher) and a certified financial planner, about how his company proceeds with their process of helping companies become more sellable. He also discusses the importance of educating clients on what it takes to sell a business every step of the way, along with setting realistic expectations and client red flags.
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9aWq6sUrnE&feature=youtu.be[/embed] Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="" title="Business Acquisition Process: How To Become More Sellable With Chase Kenner" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] Business Acquisition Process: How To Become More Sellable With Chase KennerWe have Chase Kenner, an Associate Broker with https://raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher) and a certified financial planner. Chase, tell us a little bit about how you got here and what you do. It’s great to be here, Bob. Thank you for having me. I was born and raised in New Iberia, Louisiana, home of Tabasco. That's our claim to fame. I graduated from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, so I'm proud of Ragin’ Cajuns, in business administration. Right before I graduated, I received an offer from https://www.edwardjones.com/ (Edward Jones Investments) to be a financial advisor within their corporate headquarters in St. Louis, Missouri. I was excited at the time to leave South Louisiana for the first time. It was an amazing experience. The boy from the Bayou went to the big city. We're known as Bayou Teche in New Iberia, a beautiful little town. I ended up moving to St. Louis and it was a tremendous experience that made some lifelong friendships. As a guy who likes to hunt, fish, cook and drink beer, the home was calling me. It turns out that South Louisiana was where I wanted to start my career. I moved back to Lafayette, Louisiana where I reside, my wife and our two children, and I became a fiduciary independent advisor. Years later, I lucked out. I was at the right place at the right time and met this incredible group of guys that founded the top five wealth management firms in Louisiana and they were looking to bring in a younger advisor. What intrigued me the most was that this particular firm, their desire was to grow inorganically through acquisitions. Originally, I was meant to be another financial advisor, but our managing partner who I still see as a personal role model, a very smart and great guy, saw something more in me and gradually involved me as a leader in implementing necessary operations in order for them to scale and grow. It was a very exciting new territory for me as well. My first experience in M&A which was also industry-specific and on the buyer side of things. Once I became part of the M&A team, I found myself more excited about planning the firms in organic growth rather than the typical day-to-day financial advisory role. That's something that ended up happening organically. One day, my good fishing friend, https://www.linkedin.com/in/jude-david-172a6a76/ (Jude David), tells me that he's now with this amazing business brokerage firm called Raincatcher where they help entrepreneurs buy and sell businesses. I was very intrigued. I learned more and I immediately thought of all the business owners that I was serving as a financial advisor and a certified financial planner at that time. I knew that many of these people would benefit from this information I was receiving from Jude. After learning more and trusting his judgment, I was fortunate enough to meet our CEO,...
Working with the government can be very rewarding yet challenging especially when you are under contract. Today, Bob Roark talks to https://www.linkedin.com/in/crandallmike (Mike Crandall), the CEO of http://www.digitalbeachhead.com/about.html (Digital Beachhead) which is a company that seeks to build customer trust and corporate value by delivering Information Technology (IT) and Consulting Services Solutions in inventive economical ways. Mike describes what they do, who their target audiences are, and what they look forward to. He shares how it is working with the government and how they find people to fulfill their contracts. He also talks about cybersecurity including how they protect their clients in this field.
Watch the episode here:Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="" title="Government Contracts And Cybersecurity With Mike Crandall" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] Government Contracts And Cybersecurity With Mike CrandallWe have Mike Crandall. He's the CEO of http://www.digitalbeachhead.com/ (Digital Beachhead). It is nice to be here. Thanks, Bob. Mike, thank you so much for taking the time. Tell us about your business and who you serve. My company is Digital Beachhead. It's a term I coined on a performance report back when I was in the military and the commander asked me, “What is a digital beachhead. How dare you to say you can protect it, that you're in charge of it and then you're so good at it?” I explained that he has email and that's what I protected. Instead of a typical beachfront, you have the digital one, which was everywhere. His eyes lit up and he was like, “That digital beachhead is everywhere.” Years later, the Under Secretary of Defense used it in a speech, saying that the adversary had secured a digital beachhead on our network. They went from my performance report to a Wing Award on up. The Pentagon had heard the word and that got incorporated in a speech. I bought the name. We primarily focus on cybersecurity for the federal government, but I am branching out to provide cyber risk management for small and medium-sized businesses. People don't understand the designations of many government contracting businesses and you have a specific designation. I am a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business or SDVOSB. Going back a little bit, you served in the Air Force and in the Middle East. Talk about a little bit of that experience and how that started to help you start this business. Back in the day, before we had networks, during the First Gulf War, there were only a few PCs around. I had got in trouble for breaking into one of those PCs. The commander explained how much money they paid to protect them and they had software that was supposed to be secure. There was a two keystroke per entry to get to the DOS Prompt. He effectively destroyed my “I'm in trouble paperwork” and said, “You are in charge of small computer security for the Air Force.” I was one young kid who didn't know much. They sent me to school. I learned how to do some basic hacking and defensive work, as well as offensive work. In those days, you couldn't network in to break into a computer so we had to touch them. If the adversary had some computer systems that they needed information off of, we had to go physically to the machine, wherever it may be to gather the data. I got to work with some much more powerful and influential military people. The special forces people dragged me along as their computer boy. I trained with them but I wasn't raised as one. I tagged along for the ride. I think about the progress we all take to develop our careers. You had the Air Force time and then you had the time in the field and at some point, you rotate out of the military. Maybe it would be useful for the people that are curious, how do you go from being in the military and doing what you did to be...
Are you planning to sell your small or big business? If yes, finding the right people to help you out in this tedious process is essential. Today, Bob Roark is joined by Jude David, a Senior Broker with https://raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher), to talk about how Jude helped the company and what they’re doing to help investors. Having seen deals that didn’t work, Jude ensures their clients that they can find quality buyers and shares the key ingredients to hiring a good brokerage firm and getting the right buyers. He also talks about the questions that business owners should ask before considering anyone to help them sell their company. Know more about what makes a good and bad business broker as Jude gives an analogy between brokerage and brain surgery.
Watch the episode here:Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/dc83e37b-3824-48c6-9346-06eecd47d804/blp-jude-david.mp3" title="Hiring A Good Brokerage Firm With Jude David" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] Hiring A Good Brokerage Firm With Jude DavidWe will be speaking with Jude David. He is out of Louisiana. He a Senior Broker with https://raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher). It is a national M&A brokerage firm based in Denver, although he is in their Lafayette, Louisiana office. As a Louisiana native turned corporate attorney and investment banker, he is a passionate devotee professionally to corporate development through organic growth, business consulting, strategic planning, merger & acquisition negotiation acquisition, integration and other partnership or venture structures. Although Raincatcher is designed to operate in a team environment, his primary role is negotiating deals to closing in the back half of the transaction. Jude, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Bring us up to speed. How did you get to where are you now as far as your background and your journey? I was born and raised in South Louisiana, in a town called Lafayette. It's about 120,000 people. It is big for Louisiana, but small by big-city standards. It is a good Catholic community. I learned to love God and family first and always work hard, but work to live and not live to work. That's good community values that we have. I find some of the most successful people in life or some of the hardest workers I know, but they always find ways to put family first. Be good role models to their kids and that allows them to have the energy and the drive to be good at what they do. I've always tried to emulate that. I practiced merger and acquisition law for a long time after graduating from MBA school and law school. I was very fortunate. I got in with some great people and had tremendous success. The right people, right place, right time and a whole lot of hard work added up to a ton of success in very early along in my career. I was put in a position where I had to swim or else I was going to sink. You got thrown in the deep end early and there's nothing like experience when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. I've been very fortunate to have clients with tremendous character and talent to help form me along the way. They probably put way too much confidence in me early along and it allowed me to succeed. By happenstance over the years, I've represented tremendously successful companies and business owners and celebrities. Over my time of being a lawyer, my firm represented Nick Saban. I was his primary point of contact. My colleague, Hank, handled all of his stuff and I don't think you wanted me too close to that situation. Other ones I've represented were Jack Nicklaus and his family and some other sports celebrities as well. I represented J. Howard Marshall’s family estate. He was a billionaire oil tycoon. He married Anna Nicole Smith. His family owned 20% of Koch Industries. They are one of the...
Coordinating between all the vendors and providers that a company has to work with can be difficult work, but there are a certain subset of companies that have made it easier to do the work. Family office servicing companies can be a huge relief on the shoulders of your company when it comes to dealing with all these external providers. https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-jehle-20a9875/ (Evan Jehle) is a partner at http://www.ffollc.com/team/evan-jehle/ (Flynn Family Office )and https://lvwadvisors.com/about/why-lvw/ (LVW Flynn). He talks to Bob Roark about his experience working at a family office servicing company, and what these companies can offer you. Could this be the best way for your business to move forward?
Watch the episode here:[embed]https://youtu.be/IA-bCsIPQtE[/embed] Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/40379e09-9bcc-409a-b0d3-06267ec41c17/blp-evan-jehle.mp3" title="How to Use Outsourcing to Create Your Virtual Family Office"] How to Use Outsourcing to Create Your Virtual Family OfficeWe have a guest away from New York City, https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-jehle-20a9875 (Evan Jehle). He is a Partner with http://www.ffollc.com/ (FFO) and has a unique perspective and service offering that I thought was extremely important for us to go over. Evan, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve. First, I want to say thank you for having me. FFO is a family office servicing company. What we do is we are a single-family office service provider to multiple families. That's the key to what we do. We're virtual. We can work with a client anywhere they are in the world. There's a lot of different providers that a family would have that they're dealing with, their investment advisor, their attorney. We coordinate between all of those people to make sure that the family is getting whatever services they need. We're essentially the COO and CFO of their personal lives. That's what we're striving to be. If you were to look across your clientele, what is a client of yours look like? What industries or pursuits do they entail? We've got an eclectic client group. We do have an entertainment and sports team group of clients. That's probably 20% of our business, but 80% of our clients are business owners. All first-generation wealth creators. It's the actual wealth creator of the family. We don't have multiple generation family offices. We do have some first generation that is now working to pass wealth down to the children, gen two, which is an exciting part of some of the things that we're doing for them. Teaching them about managing money and how they do that. It is across multiple businesses. We have people that are in fashion, we have people that are in the food industry. It's business owners that have a lot of money and need help on the financial side on how to do it and managing all the different vendors, projects and things that are going on. It's eclectic. What's your background that got you into this field? Weren't you in a family office at one point? I started at Rothstein Kass, which was a public accounting firm out of Roseland, New Jersey. I did an audit for a couple of years, which was fun. I knew it wasn't going to be my entire career, but I love the firm and I didn't want to leave. I was lucky enough where Rick Flynn, who is my partner in FFO, was a client of Rothstein Kass, then he joined as a partner and started the family office practice. I volunteered to move out of the audit and into the family office group and hadn't looked back. I came up with an audit background where you learn analytics. Why did this change? What's the reason? You're trying to figure those things out. That served me well because when I'm doing budgeting for a client or I'm doing long-term financial planning with their investment advisor, I'm coming at it from an audit mindset. I'm asking questions, "If you spent this last year, what was the reason it was
Do you want your skin to glow or need to be revived from over-indulgence? Revivology has exactly what you need. In today’s episode, Amy Neary the Founder of https://revivologyiv.com/ (Revivology) and Steve Neary the COO of https://revivologyiv.com/ (Revivology) talk about their venture in creating this wonderful company, and how it helps people who suffer from fatigue and dehydration and makes people feel much better. They dive deeper into discussing the franchises of Revivology and how to become part of it. Amy and Steve also share advice to entrepreneurs on how to bring excellence to the process of your business processes all the time.
Watch the episode here:Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/7c08c157-ff98-4506-a60e-e1f872dce5c4/blp-amy-neary-steve-neary.mp3" title="All About Revivology And Franchising With Amy & Steve Neary" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] All About Revivology And Franchising With Amy & Steve NearyI have co-host with Catherine Wicklund with me. She is the https://www.vistage.com/ (Vistage) Chair of Southern Colorado. Our guests, Amy Neary, she is the founder of Revivology, and Steve Neary and he is the COO. They are also the owners of https://www.anylabtestnow.com (Any Lab Tests Now). Welcome guys. Amy, tell me some of what you do, what your business is about with RevIVology. https://revivologyiv.com/ (RevIVology) is a company where you can come and get IV therapy. It's a fairly new trend, but it's been around for a long time. Dr. John Myers started it probably in the ‘60s with what's called the Myers Cocktail and it's branched out from there over the years to treat things from migraine, fibromyalgia, lupus and Lyme disease. What we're using it for is for general health and wellness. People come and see us and we're able to give you 1,000 ccs of fluid, vitamin therapy, very high doses. You don't absorb vitamins the same way through your supplements as you do through an IV. It makes people feel much better when other things haven’t helped. IV therapy, intravenous. There's that part that goes on. When we talk about this company, this just barely starts to scratch the surface of your story and journey to getting here. We talked a lot about how you got here. Let's rewind a little bit and go a little bit through your journey to get here because you also have another franchise and you're also offering franchises with RevIVology as well. Let's go back to your post-college years with your Biology degree, like me. You started out and you had your Biology major, you took part-time work in the real estate world. I was in real estate, had the entrepreneurial spirit from the beginning. I bought a house when I was 24-years-old it was a 100-year-old home, Victorian, that I jacked up in the air and put a full foundation underneath. There was no outside help, this is all me. I got a grant from this local historical district. Where was this? It was in Great Falls, Montana. I learned how to do everything you could ever want to do as far as flipping a house. That was the start of my real estate career. I had a full summer job that grew into me being offered a job and new home sales. I did that for quite some time until 2008. That seemed to be rather a common pivot point for many people in the real estate arena. It started around 2006, but by 2008 I decided that I was going to get out of the real estate and do something different. I wanted to go back to my roots, which was my college education and doing something in the medical field. I started looking to purchase a franchise because the SBA and all the research that I had done had said that that was the way to go. If you're going to do new business and you didn't have experience doing business from scratch, look into franchising, so that's what I did. The thing that I found fascinating...
Getting your business where you want it to be has never been easier. Using what's called an Entrepreneurial Operating System, one can have protocols in place for every situation to make sure they make the most out of their results. https://www.linkedin.com/in/brsnyder/ (Ben Snyder), principal of https://bizexe.com/ (Bizexe), chats with Bob Roark. Together, they go into some of the best techniques to ensure maximization of your results, the results you're looking for. Learn how to work with this Entrepreneurial Operating System today!
Listen to the podcast here:[smart_track_player url="https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/54688eb1-6730-4a05-b00a-43d03cb0abe5/blp-ben-snyder.mp3" title="Entrepreneurial Operating System With Ben Snyder" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] Entrepreneurial Operating System With Ben SnyderWe're fortunate to have Ben Snyder. He's a professional EOS implementer. He's a principal at https://bizexe.com/ (Bizexe). Bizexe provides real-world expertise in the Entrepreneurial Operating System, EOS, to help business owners and operators grow their companies consistently. It's a time-tested model and a process with simple, practical tools where they help clients achieve three things: vision, traction and a healthy business. Ben, thank you so much for coming on the show. Bob, thank you. I appreciate it. We were chatting before the show. We have lots of things in common. The one fun fact that people may not know about you is you were a professional baseball player at one time in Houston Astros if I remember it correctly? Yeah, back in the early '80s. With a math degree. Yeah. I was the smart guy in the locker room. Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve. First of all, if the people I serve are people who have businesses from $5 to $50 million or if you want to go with employee size 10 to 200. They're usually the operator owners, a lot of family businesses too. Those are the people that I serve. In terms of what I do is I help them basically get what they want out of their business. Every entrepreneur has something they want out of the business, whether it be financial security or they want more time with their family. Ultimately when I work together, I help them get what they want. Rolling the clock back a bit, EOS, Entrepreneurial Operating System is an outgrowth of a fairly well-noted author that's widely respected in the business arena. Gino Wickman is the person who wrote the book https://traction.eosworldwide.com/traction-book (Traction) back in 2007, and since then obviously, it's become quite popular here in the States, I would say as a whole. It's starting to move outside into the international world. I've actually read Traction. I've interviewed some people that use Traction and there's a lot of complimentary dialogue that goes off on the concepts and principles that are contained in that book. The Entrepreneurial Operating System, as I understand it, incorporate some of that into a systematic process. These are tools that have been around a long time. Some of them, people recognize but the power of it is when it's brought together in a complete system where the tools interact with one another and support one another. When you talk to a business owner that's functioning in the business without EOS, what do you typically hear from the business owner? The biggest part is their lack of control. They're constantly working in the business, firefighting, resolving conflicts with customers. As a whole, what they're struggling with is basically not being able to have control of it, not having a vision for where they want to go. Their employees or their customers, their interactions are full of strife. I would say there's a lot of chaos in it. [bctt tweet="Every entrepreneur has something they want to get out of their business.
If you do something and you keep doing it, you're going to get better you're going to be able to do it regardless of how hard and risky it is. In this episode, Bob Roark with co-host Catherine Wicklund talk with https://www.linkedin.com/in/nora-lamar-3451a413 (Nora LaMar), the CEO of https://glassicaldesigns.com/ (Glassical Designs) which helps companies design and maintain stellar recognition programs. She talks about her business and who they serve, providing pieces of advice to aspiring business owners on how to become successful. She also shares some of the lessons that she learned from her experiences. She also touches on motivation and the typical misconceptions about the role of a CEO.
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Listen to the podcast:[smart_track_player url="https://podcasts.captivate.fm/media/5e082e27-1c42-467d-bee5-44298107c6cb/blp-nora-lamar.mp3" title="Glassical Designs And The Practicalities Of Running A Business With Nora LaMar and Co-Host Catherine Wicklund" image="http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png" background="default"] Glassical Designs And The Practicalities Of Running A Business With Nora LaMar and Co-Host Catherine WicklundWe're lucky to have Nora LaMar. She's the CEO of https://glassicaldesigns.com/ (Glassical). We also have a cohost that's Cath Wicklund. She's the Chair of the Southern Colorado https://www.vistage.com/ (Vistage) and the CEO of her own company. Nora, thank you so much for taking the time. Tell us a little bit about Glassical, what your business is and who you serve. First of all, thank you for having me. It's nice to be here. Glassical Designs is the company I started several years ago. We, for the last many years, provide awards and trophies for the corporate market which is what most people think all the time. We come in and help companies and corporations develop their recognition programs to be more effective, go along with our company culture and fit into their company branding. We do a lot of custom work, pick their brain and see what it is that they're trying to convey and see if we can help them do that. I've been at your location at a meeting and it is an amazing place. I had no idea what went on. A lot of very busy people creating some amazing items for recognition. Many of us have been in various firms that have a recognition item or award or an event in. You and I talked a little bit before about what Glassical is the physical representation of what they're trying to do. When you go in and talk to a company about developing a recognition program, what types of things do you work with them on to develop a signature piece? When we go in, we don't have a great idea of where they're at with their recognition within their company. If they see the need and the value in it or if they just heard and they need to start one. It depends on where they're at with it. If they have an established culture and they like their culture and they want to promote their culture and if they really enjoy their branding. We walk into all kinds of scenarios. When we walk in, we try and assess where they're at with recognizing their employees and if they fully understand why. If they do, that's a blessing because we're coming in now and trying to pick their brain about how can we refine this, make this more about your company culture and your branding. How do you make these people value what you're giving them and give them the biggest bang for their buck. We don't walk in and say, “We want to sell you a $2,000 award for every employee and I hope everybody buys it.” We go in and we try and assess, “Can we genuinely help them solve the problem and do it within a budget that they think is reasonable?” When we walk in, we get to have that leg up per se when they already understand the need for recognition. We sit down and gather information, give them an idea of what we think they should be doing when it...
https://raincatcher.com/ (RainCatcher) is a Denver-based national business and brokerage firm that helps entrepreneurs buy and sell their companies. In this episode, https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianloring (Brian Loring) who is one of its senior brokers talks to us about the company and how he ended up working there. As a real estate expert, he offers advice to those who are starting out in the buy and sell businesses and shares some of the things that he does to help business owners readily sell their business. Learn more from Brian as he discusses further how they go about acquiring and helping clients and the typical mistakes business owners make.
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Buying And Selling Companies With Brian Loring
We have a guest from the West Coast, Brian Loring. He is a senior broker with http://raincatcher.com/ (RainCatcher). RainCatcher is a national brokerage firm based in Denver. Even though Brian is in their LA office, he’s holding down the West Coast version or location for RainCatcher. He joined the company a few months ago, but he’s been a broker since 2005. He has completed more than $150 million in business sales and commercial transactions during that time. Selling businesses is actually a second career for Brian. He spent many years in a very different line of work. He’s going to tell us more about that and how he got to this point. Brian, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Bob. I sure appreciate it. Thank you for having me on.
Thanks for taking time out.
You’re welcome.
Give us a quick snapshot of your background and how you got to this point.
I actually am a two-career person. I completely had nothing to do with transactions, brokerage or anything to do with real estate or business for many years. I started out as a journalist. I was a reporter and a television news anchor. I worked as an on-air reporter for many years. I also worked as a television anchor for a while. I’ve been lifelong in California. I worked in Santa Barbara, San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento and all the major cities of California for many years. I started as a newspaper reporter, television reporter and I eventually got into television production here in the Los Angeles area. I worked for a bunch of syndicated television shows back in the ’90s and the 2000s. I worked for NBC, Fox, CBS, numerous television networks on the national level. I covered all the national news. I won several Emmy Awards, Golden Mike Awards and produced several documentaries, hour-long pieces. I did a lot of production. I was mostly a writer and producer for many years. I got to my early 40s or late 30s and I was running ragged. I was getting on a plane at a moment’s notice to go run to a news story that had happened and it gets tiring. It got to a point where I needed something else and I wanted to serve in a way that I wasn’t serving before.
I wanted to feel like I was making a contribution and helping people in a way that I wasn’t. I completely left the television production realm behind. I had been an executive producer. I was promoted to a divisional manager of an IT department at CBS and at Fox where I was doing a lot of IT work, a lot of systems work and network administration. I decided to try something else. That was back in the early 2000s. I went into brokerage. I’ve been a broker since 2005 and done a lot of deals both in the commercial real estate side as well as the business brokerage side.
For most of my life, I’ve done both side-by-side. I started out with several mainstream business or real estate brokerages; CB Richard Ellis, Grubb & Ellis, NAI Capital here in the greater LA area. It was just in deals, but at the same time also did business deals. I found that after a while I got more not only accustomed to and used to doing the business side, but I enjoyed them more. I liked working on the...
When you’re suddenly in a leadership role at a young age, do you pretend to know it all so people won’t look down on you, or do you show your vulnerability and seek help? In this segment, we talk to https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinjroberts/ (Robin Roberts,) the President and CEO of https://ppnb.com/ (Pikes Peak National Bank). Robin opens up about being in counterintelligence in the army and her path to becoming the CEO of a bank. She also touches on being realistic as an entrepreneur and the value of vulnerability in making meaningful connections. Discover the steep learning curve every entrepreneur has to go through to succeed in business and how continuous learning is a critical piece of it.
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Robin Roberts CEO Pikes Peak National Bank With Co-Host Catherine Wicklund CEO And Vistage Chair Southern Colorado We’re extremely fortunate because we have Robin Roberts. She’s the President and CEO of https://ppnb.com/ (Pikes Peak National Bank). I also have my cohost, Catherine Wicklund. She is the CEO and https://www.vistage.com/ (Vistage) Chair of Southern Colorado. Robin, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show.
It’s great to be here. Thanks for the invitation.
Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
Pikes Peak National Bank is a community bank in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We serve primarily small businesses with revenues under $2 million. We also are a consumer-focus bank, but our niche is in that small business market. That market tends to be underserved by financial institutions and those business owners tend to need more one-on-one with their bankers and expertise because they are starting or growing their businesses. We do work with startups which is unusual for our bank. We are primarily focused in El Paso County, but we are expanding and hope to be moving into other areas of Colorado starting 2020.
I was doing a little research and I found out that you’ve been doing this for several years and you started extremely young, apparently. That’s a good thing. I think about the bank relationship and the ideal customer for your bank, what does the ideal customer look like for you over the years?
Our ideal customer is a younger business owner who is growing their business and needs to be able to speak with a banker that has expertise in the business. That’s why we focus on annual revenues under $2 million. We have businesses that their revenues are higher than that, but we see the magic in the relationship when they’re under $2 million in revenue. Those are business owners who aren’t going to take a picture of their check and deposit it. They’re not the ones that are going to check online for their balances and download it into QuickBooks. They’re the business owners that need help like, “I have this challenge and I need someone to bounce it off of.” Bankers don’t charge by the hour. I bet we have a lot of expertise because we see businesses in a lot of industries. That’s where we do our best work is with those types of business owners.
For the business owner, there’s the relationship that you typically see in the media between a banker and the client. Your founders started to serve the business market.
The bank was started on the Westside of Colorado Springs, which we call Old Colorado City. It was started by businessmen that didn’t feel that the Westside of Colorado Springs had financial services supporting. The community bought stock in the bank and these businessmen ran the bank. One of the businessmen was the mayor of Colorado Springs at the time. A family in 1977 bought out all those shareholders and they owned it until January of 2018 when it was sold to another businessman. We were born on the Westside of Colorado Springs, that’s our heart, but we serve all of El Paso County.
I am always fascinated...
Managing a nonprofit is a very noble move, but materializing it can be a daunting process even when you have billions of cash waiting to be used for a wonderful cause. In this episode, we learn from the knowledge bank of https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianlefer (Christian LeFer) who is the CEO and Founder of http://InstantNonprofit.com (InstantNonprofit.com) as he walks us through the steps of starting a nonprofit, including dealing with the IRS and lawyers. He also presents how he and his team can help anyone aiming to start a foundation or charity and presents them their 501(c)(3) package.
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The Basics Of Starting A Nonprofit with Christian LeFer We have Christian Lefer. He’s the founder and CEO of https://www.instantnonprofit.com/ (InstantNonprofit.com). Christian, welcome.
Good to see you again, Bob.
Christian has been a previous guest and we’re going to talk about InstantNonprofit.com. Christian, tell us about your business and who you serve.
I had volunteered to start a nonprofit with some friends around 2008, 2009. I completed the application, which I figured how hard can this be. I sent it in. A few weeks already, I received a letter with an agent’s name on it and a phone number. I couldn’t seem to get ahold of that person. When I did get ahold of somebody in the front desk, they told me it was going to probably be about twelve months and I could sit back and cool my heels a little bit because that’s how long they take to approve on a 501(c)(3). I thought, “How ridiculous.” I grew up with my little sister being developmentally disabled. I had experience with her running in Special Olympics. People don’t even realize how much they count on nonprofits as part of our fabric of society, whether it’s PTA or local little league or whatever. I was pissed and morally outraged. I decided to call about twenty extensions north and south of that agent’s phone number and whoever I could get ahold of, I would beg, plead and cajole them to give me the information about why this was such a nightmare.
What separated a good file? What gave them a good day at their desk versus a bad day? The IRS has made this process very Byzantine and very confusing. There’s no real source of information that says, “This is exactly what you need to do.” They’ve only layered more and more anti-fraud Band-Aids on top of their process over the years, so it’s only become more complex. I put together what I called a love letter to a bureaucrat based on grilling all of those agents. I edit the application and I got an approval in about 45 days. I tried this again with my little formula. A couple of other people in town heard that I can do this. I had a school with a billionaire donor. The school needed to get their approval in time to admit kids into the school and the billionaire donor would match all of that donations. I said, “I think I can get this done.” I had no idea, but I got it done and I went from blogger to businessman at that point.
You hear many stories where people get motivated for one reason or another and typically, it’s a significant frustration. That’s your significant frustration. What does your ideal client look like?
There are probably three different types of ideal clients. One is this successful entrepreneur or successful person or even corporate. Something where there’s already success, there’s already somewhat of a framework in things like generating revenue and building teams and those kinds of things. They’ll come to us and say, “We’ve got this idea. We know we want to do this, but we don’t want to wait forever for this paperwork or slog through a bunch of delays and back and forth.” The other would be what I would call hyper-local organizations that have a single founder. It’s a woman in the inner city who is a retired teacher and she got these kids on...
Too many people go to work every day because that’s what they think they’re supposed to do. Perhaps they have this dream that they’d love to pursue something else. Maybe they’d like to start their own firm or their own business, but they’re not sure how to do it. If you’re in that kind of dilemma, https://www.linkedin.com/in/crystal-mcdonough-6ab04a60 (Crystal McDonough) says the first thing you need to do is figure out your goals and what you want out of life, and then design your life around that. Crystal is the founder and owner of https://mcdonoughlawllc.com/ (McDonough Law) and she has designed a fairly unique lifestyle as an entrepreneur, a business owner, and a lawyer. Today, she shares what her normal day looks like and how she manages it.
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Designing Your Life Around What You Want with Crystal McDonough
We have Crystal McDonough. She is the Founder and Owner of https://mcdonoughlawllc.com/ (McDonough Law). They do business law, energy, natural resources and utilities. They serve Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Montana, Idaho, California and Florida. Crystal, welcome to the show.
Thank you.
Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
We serve clients who are looking for attorneys who can help navigate them through some of their tough legal issues, whether it’s business, natural resources, energy or even trusts and estates. We help our clients navigate those issues. We come up with a plan to walk them through that and then we implement that plan to help them find as much success as they can with their situations.
You and I go back a little way. We’ve talked off and on for quite some time and this is not your straight-out of college first pursuit. You’ve been an entrepreneur and a business owner for many years before you pursued your law degree. Let’s dig in a little bit to the backstory.
I got my first taste in business when I was seven years old. I made inventions out of trash in our trash can, wrapped it in tin foil and went door to door selling my inventions to our neighbors for a quarter. I came home with a pocket full of change, I felt pretty good about myself. Later on in high school, I started a piano studio. I had been studying piano for a lot of years and my piano teachers said, “I think you’re ready to start teaching.” I opened up a studio, and I taught music for a lot of years.
What booming metropolis was it done?
If you're in law, you have to have a passion to help people.https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbusinessleaderspodcast.com%2Fdesigning-your-life-around-what-you-want-with-crystal-mcdonough%2F&text=If%20you%27re%20in%20law%2C%20you%20have%20to%20have%20a%20passion%20to%20help%20people.&related (Click To Tweet) This was in Grand Lake, Colorado, a little bitty mountain town if you’re familiar with it. I went from there. When I was in high school, I discovered that there was not a swim program for our community for all the kids. I coordinated with our local country club and the community center. I went and learned how to be a swim instructor. I took all the courses through the Red Cross. I developed and implemented a huge program that they ran for several years through the program. I taught all the lessons, I ran the program and I coordinated everything. I got my real first taste in how to run and manage things and take something from the ground up, solve the problem, put a plan together and find some success with that. There were a lot of kids that came through our program. It was fun, then I went to college.
What did you study in college?
I studied Piano Performance. That was my first love. Then, I met my husband and fell in love with him. We got married and went on to continue with other areas of business. We had a small construction business for a while. I maintained my piano studio...
Even in the coaching world, there’s a lot of baloney that’s out there and all the fads and all the headline chasing. Bradford Cooper resists that with evidence-based work. Bradford is the CEO of https://www.uscorporatewellness.com/ (US Corporate Wellness) and the Cofounder of https://www.catalystcoachinginstitute.com/ (The Catalyst Coaching Institute). He teaches on how we can take meaningful steps that can surely change our lives for the better through wellness coaching which is focused on evidence-based practices in health and wellness. Stay clear of the shiny object that’s not going to help your life at all. Through this episode, learn to appreciate the benefits of coaching and what effective professional coaching does.
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Wellness Coaching with Bradford Cooper
We have Brad Cooper. Brad is the CEO of https://www.uscorporatewellness.com/ (US Corporate Wellness) and the Cofounder of https://www.catalystcoachinginstitute.com/ (The Catalyst Coaching Institute). We’ve been trying to get this done for some time, but you were presenting in Germany and working on your PhD. I appreciate you taking time.
It’s a joy to be here. Thank you very much.
Tell us about the business and who you serve?
There are two hats. At US Corporate Wellness, we serve employers. Employers that are looking to improve the lives of their employees in the health and wellness arena. A lot of people think of health and wellness as food and fitness, we go so far beyond that. We may be talking to them about stress or life balance or it could be food. It could be fitness. It could be sleep or any number of things. That hat worked in the trenches. We’re with the employer. We’re putting all those things together for them. The other hat we’ve been training wellness coaches. The wellness coaching industry has changed dramatically in the last few years.
There’s a National Board Certification for wellness coaches. You and I can’t be having a cup of coffee and say, “You want to be a wellness coach?” You say, “Yeah, Brad. That sounds pretty good,” and we walk out the door as wellness coaches. There’s now an extensive training process. You have to go through an accredited program. You have to have a number of practice sessions, etc. We’re one of the programs that if you decide you want to be a health and wellness coach, you can go through our program, become certified and pursue that National Board exam. On the one hand, we serve employers. On the other hand, we serve the people out there doing it. Sometimes there’s an overlap. We’re known in the industry as the coaching experts. The companies that want top level of coaching, they come to us and that’s because they heard of us through The Catalyst Coaching Institute and they didn’t even know about US Corporate Wellness.
For the business owner that maybe hasn’t gone down the road of approaching this as a strategy for the company, what’s the typical problem that business owner will recognize or into it in his company? Why do they typically reach out to you?
There are a lot of answers to that. First off, they tend to look at their medical claims and say, “Are you kidding me? We’re going up another 8% and another 12% or whatever this year. We have to do something about that.” That doesn’t happen like this. You’ve got to get a good plan in place. Oftentimes, that’s the first thing that makes them reach out or have one of their team members reach out and find us and talk to you the details. The reality is it’s so much deeper than that. You talked about culture. I interviewed a guy on our podcast about resilience.
What is the name of your podcast?
It’s the https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/catalyst-health-and-wellness-coaching-podcast/id1434101390 (Catalyst Health...
It takes a great leader who understands his team and the company’s purpose to deliver great service. https://peakstructural.com/about-us/paul-sutton/ (Paul Sutton), the Founder and President of Paul Sutton’s https://peakstructural.com/ (Peak Structural, Inc.), shares what his business is all about, who their clientele is, and the services they specialize in. As the company grows, so does the pressure and the demand for more employees. With this, Paul talks about how they cope with their growth, confront their weaknesses, and unleash their people’s fullest potential to achieve their company’s mission and vision. Know more about Paul’s method in rearing his team and leading his company to greater heights in this episode.
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Growing Your Company By Unleashing Your Team’s Full Potential with Paul Sutton
We’re at the headquarters of Peak Structural with Paul Sutton. He’s the owner of https://peakstructural.com/ (Peak Structural). Paul, thank you for taking time out of your busy day.
I’m happy to be on the program.
Tell us about your business and who you serve.
We serve a primarily residential clientele. Literally, 90%-plus of our work is going to be on, around or underneath the home. We do some light commercial work as well, but most of our products and services are geared toward the residential market space. Geographically, our area covers upwards of Longmont on the north side of Denver and up there in Loveland, Boulder, Westminster, all the way through the Denver Metro and then all the way south down to the New Mexico border. It’s quite a footprint. It’s quite a large sandbox that we play in.
For the folks that aren’t in Colorado, that’s a stretch with traffic.
That’s several hundred miles north to south along the interstate corridor. You’ve got a major metropolitan area with Denver, Colorado Springs up and coming and then Pueblo to the south. The three different distinct metro areas amongst a lot of other suburbs and hamlets scattered in there as well.
What are the problems that you guys solve?
Sometimes we’re initially confused with some steel erection company. We put up skyscrapers or something like that, but that’s not the case. Our company specializes in foundation repairs, permanent solutions to foundation problems that homes here in Colorado can get into and elsewhere in the country as well. It’s certainly not unique to our climate here, but we do have some very active soils here in the front range. That can lead to instability with the home’s foundation itself; it can sometimes settle or crack or even heave upwards, and then an ancillary service that we work with is concrete leveling. Before a foundation is ever going to move, you’re going to see movement in a concrete slab typically. Driveways, porches, sidewalks, stoops, patios- those things readily move.
When they do, oftentimes they can create trip hazards and become more of a nuisance, even become a real hazard to health for folks coming and going. The concrete leveling is another aspect of ground movement that we provide services to mitigate against, correct those problems, put a long-term warranty on that as well. We’ve got two other services that also pertain to the underbelly of the home. That would be basement waterproofing, which goes hand-in-hand with structural problems. If you have too much water present around or underneath a foundation, it’s going to find a way in. In many homes and other structures, if you’ve got finished space below grade, you’ve got a problem.
You’ve got wet carpet or moldy sheetrock or damage to furnishings; things like that. From the health aspect, when you’ve got a very humid or dank environment in a basement, you’re inviting and encouraging mold to grow, which can be a real health concern for folks. We want to come in and install a permanently designed...
Preserving capital and enhancing value for your company is paramount. That is why there are people like Dr. Stephen Long who exist. In this episode Dr. Long, the Founder and President of Motere Consulting, teaches us how he goes about with his Strategic Execution method for making teams and companies more successful. He introduces and breaks down the two elements that he uses – management assessment and management development components. With these methods, he promotes not only teamwork but also identifies risks. On the side, Dr. Long also talks about potential and shares some of his significant leadership-related experiences in the military.
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Management Assessment And Development: Behavioral Analysis Method For Growing Teams with Dr. Stephen Long Our guest is Dr. Stephen Long. He’s the Founder and President of https://motereconsulting.com/ (Motere Consulting) here in Colorado Springs. Steve, thank you so much for taking the time to come by and be a guest on the show.
It’s my pleasure, Bob. Thanks for having me.
If you could, tell us a bit about your business and who you serve.
I’m the President and Founder of Motere Consulting, which is a performance enhancement firm that helps manage risk, preserve capital and enhance value through management development and management assessment services. I built a predictive model of human performance and leadership while I served as the Head of Performance Psychology in the Human Performance Lab at the Air Force Academy. The model has been successfully applied to business, athletic, academic, military and artistic performance. My business clients average 115% improvement in financial performance on average with a zero-failure rate. Basically, it’s a data company.
For the business owner that’s reading, I could do with the 115% improvement on pretty much anything at any time. If I’m that business customer and I go, “What is it that I should expect if I hire you to come in and evaluate my leadership team and my company?” What should they expect?
You’ve got to learn things about your people that you don’t know about them. Basically, what my behavioral analyses do is it’s a shortcut mechanism. Particularly with the clients I serve, what they find out in two to three weeks would normally take them two to three years to find out. And they usually find out under dire circumstances.
I’m your prospective new client and I’m getting ready to do whatever or I’m trying to hire and you come through the door, what time frame should I expect and what steps do you take to go through and arrive at a conclusion?
There are two elements. There is the management assessment component and the management development component. The management assessment component and what I’m doing there is I measure the behavioral factors of Strategic Execution. Strategic Execution is simply the ability to execute the strategy. There are some strategies that are better than others. There are some managers who execute strategy better than others. When you put a good strategy with a good manager, that’s when you blow the doors off.
You had the visionary versus the operational person?
You can combine the two. I don’t do anything with strategy. All my degrees are in education. That’s what the MBA is to determine as far as what to do. What the research has found is that strategies only deliver 63% of what they promise. Let’s say you got a proposal for $100 million. Lock that 30% or 40% off right from the start because at best they’re only going to get $60 million to $70 million. Then you combine the inability to execute strategy and it goes down significantly. This is where people don’t understand as far as what they should do because it’s what I call the Strategy Execution Paradox. When things go south, how do...
Things are not always sunny when it comes to running a business. There will be days where it seems like one disaster is pouring after another. Sweeping in just like her company’s name, Raincatcher, to help businesses is Marla DiCarlo. With her experience, Marla can fully empathize with the owners, especially with exiting their business. She shares her story of transitioning from a CFO role to becoming the CEO of Raincatcher, and imparts valuable advice on selling your business or building one. She also gives valuable insights on attracting buyers through digital marketing and generating leads. Learn what makes a good leader and how to navigate the business world and more in this episode with host Bob Roark and Marla DiCarlo.
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Marla DiCarlo: How To Exit Your Business And Successfully Start Over We’re in the world headquarters of Raincatcher with Marla DiCarlo. She is the CEO of https://raincatcher.com/ (Raincatcher). Marla, thanks so much for taking the time.
Thanks. I’m happy to be here.
Tell us a bit about your business and who you serve.
The name of our company is Raincatcher. We choose this name purposely because we always talk about that it’s hard to make it rain but easy to catch the rain. That’s what we’re doing. We’re trying to catch these business owners who are out there who need help. They want to make this once-in-a-lifetime event decision and they’re not prepared. We come alongside them and help them to not only market their business, find the right buyer and get the right price but also to spend time with them to help them prepare to sell. We do that by doing some tests, looking at the overall score of their business and figuring out how we can improve it. It’s like staging the house. I tell people often that you can have a nice house and a great area, but if you haven’t taken the time to clean it and remove the junk and some of the personal stuff, somebody is going to go in and go, “This place is a mess. I want to drop this down to $10,000, $20,000.” The same applies to business. There are certain things that they need to do to stage the business before they go and sell the business. That’s what we’re good at and what we’re all about at Raincatcher.
Before Raincatcher, you had quite a bit of experience going out and working with companies. You did a bunch of due diligence work. Let’s talk about the experience when you got to look inside companies and how you bring that forward to helping the companies now.
I love talking about this. This is where the passion for small business comes out. First off, I have to back up all the way. I originally went to school to become a social worker. I tell people that because it’s important. It talks about who I am as a person. What’s important to me is helping others. It’s something that’s in my core, something I care about. When I was in school, the problem was I thought differently. I realized among my peers I thought differently and my director of human services brought up that I didn’t quite think like everyone else. I have a very analytical side. I understood math. I’m very geeky that way, which served me well in my career. I became an accountant. The people component helped me in my career. I always cared about making a difference and wanting to change things and make them better. I became a corporate controller at a very young age. I was only 27 years old. I moved on with the founder of the company I was working with who created a fund. It was a $500 million fund that we could pull from. We worked with business owners to either help them exit their business, sell or maybe merge with another company.
We were doing this back at the beginning of the 2000s. My job was to fly out and perform due diligence on the small business owner, create the CIM (a Confidential Information Memorandum – It’s the marketing package for your business and the information about your business.), take that...
Businesses will never thrive when there are no dynamic teams involved. The Founder and CEO of TalenTrust, Kathleen Quinn Votaw, shows us how they help improve the middle market, privately held companies that want to build a business through their People Puzzle Gap Analysis. She goes over how they train employees individually or in teams to be who they are and show what they stand for. Kathleen also talks about what her book, Solve the People Puzzle, adheres to with regards to hiring the right people, and reveals one of the things that can bring the kiss of death to any company.
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Building Mid-Market Private Companies Using People Puzzle Gap Analysis with Kathleen Quinn Votaw We’re incredibly fortunate. We have Kathleen Quinn Votaw. She is the Founder and CEO of http://www.talentrust.com/ (TalenTrust). She is a leader in helping companies find, keep and grow great people. She’s also the author of https://talentrust.com/book/ (Solve the People Puzzle: How High-Growth Companies Attract and Retain Top Talent). She’s been recognized by the Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Business, back-to-back Inc. 5000 Fastest-Growing Private Companies honoree. She’s Cobiz Magazine’s Top 100 Women on Companies six years in a row. Kathleen, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day.
Thank you so much.
Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
TalenTrust was established in 2003, and we serve the middle market. Business owners and business leaders in the middle market and Fortune 500 companies who want to find, keep and grow great people. It’s that simple. We work on culture and we work on recruitment to make sure that they can grow. That’s my mission in life. Making sure small businesses, middle-market businesses can grow.
As a business owner, I think about the statement. There’s a challenge with many of the business owners. They get to a certain point and then they go, “I have to add key talent. I don’t know if I need a chief of staff. I don’t know if a chief operating officer, I don’t know what I need.” They go, “I’m good at running my company,” and then they have to start hiring because they’re growing.
It happens all the time and we get to a point about where we need to bring in people who compliment who we are. In privately held businesses, we can’t do it all. You get to a certain point on your journey where you have to look at other people being successful on your behalf. Either you’re going to have a lifestyle company or you’re going to have a middle market company. We work with those middle market, privately held companies that want to build a business. The owner often finds themselves in a place where how can they replace themselves so they can go on and continue to grow the company. Whether it be sales, marketing operations, finance. We often run into people who don’t know how to or when to bring in the next best athlete, next best employee to get to the next level of growth.
I think about some of the companies, you’ll talk to them and they’re bursting at the seams. The business owner’s hair is on fire and they’re going next step. I’m that business owner, my hair’s on fire. We’re growing like mad. I go, “I’ve got to do something or I’m going to die in place.” What does that conversation look like when I as the business owner reach out to you for help and trying to determine the path forward?
It often starts with, “Kathleen, something’s wrong and I don’t know what it is.” It’s because something’s not working. You get to a juncture where you understand that your culture is suffering, broken or not established. You don’t have the right people driving sales, operations, human resources. The owner is up at [2:00] in the...
Any product that aims to help Mother Nature thrive and help the world function better is a great product. Kyle Ewing, the Founder and President of TerraSlate, talks about the genesis of the idea for TerraSlate paper to product development. The product is environmentally conscious as it minimizes the use of paper. With its efficiency, TerraSlate has become bigger, and the need for manpower also increased. With Kyle’s management efforts, he shares his key learnings from running the business as well as the challenges they had to go through as a team. He highlights his company’s overarching protocol which stands on three pillars of success – quality, speed, and customer service.
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The TerraSlate Advantage with Kyle Ewing We’re with Kyle Ewing. He’s the Founder and President of https://terraslatepaper.com/ (TerraSlate). I had the pleasure of meeting him at a horse event. We’re in the signature flight terminal outside of DIA and Kyle’s about to fly to Houston.
We’re headed down to Houston on a jet to see some clients in the oil and gas industry. You will all have to cross your fingers for a good meeting!
Kyle, tell us about your business and who you serve.
My business is called TerraSlate. We make treeless paper that’s 100% waterproof and rip-proof. People often ask me, “Why do you need paper in a digital age?” What I tell them is there are millions and millions of things that not only get printed, but that get laminated and handled heavily on a daily basis. Something like a restaurant menu is always a good go-to example. Restaurant menus get handled by as many as 100 people a day and they get wiped down, spilled on, and people put hot coffee cups on them. They get wine or salsa spilled all over them and what’s cool is you can wipe them clean. For a restaurant, that’s very advantageous.
The other benefits are you can print it through any laser printer and you can write on it with a pen. Instead of printing out a sheet, then taking it over to the laminating machine and feeding the laminating machine one sheet at a time with traditional laminating pouches, you can put a ream of TerraSlate in your printer and click go. When it comes out, it’s done. You can do 500 in two minutes. We do everything from restaurant menus to work with biotech firms for materials in their labs. The paper is non-porous. If they’re working with hazardous chemicals or something like anthrax, the paper can go into the lab. It can get written on or used, usually, it’s a chart or some type that’s being filled out, and then it can go into the chemical bath and go out of the lab. You don’t have to type your notes before leaving the lab anymore.
With grocery stores, we do a lot of price tags, as well as behind the scenes manuals and foodservice guides. The next time you go to Whole Foods, touch the price tags, those are all done on TerraSlate. There are a couple of other cool things as well. We do maps and nautical charts for the military. We work with all four branches of the military as well as the Coast Guard. We’ve been having a good time with it. A customer called me and asked how does TerraSlate react to Plutonium 236 or whatever the isotope was. I said, “I have no idea. I don’t have any way to test that, but I’d be happy to put some samples in the mail. That way you can test it and let me know how it works.” I’m very excited to hear how that works if that works at all.
People hearing about TerraSlate paper, that you developed, and they’re asking, “How in the world did you think of this?” What drove you down this path? You’re a bit of a serial entrepreneur.
This is my third company. The first one I made a successful exit from. I bought myself a sports car and I bought my wife a house. The second one, I failed on. The third one is TerraSlate. We’re hoping that...
Every business is unique, and Hallenbeck Coin Gallery is nothing short of that. Taking us into the world of coin dealership, Tom Hallenbeck talks about the processes within their business and how they are coping with the changes. Marrying the past and the present, Tom takes us back to the time he was growing up as a coin collector to managing a full-service coin dealership in this changing time where everything is online. He identifies the three types of collectors out there and gets into the management side of the business – from fostering innovation to taking a creative approach to driving motivation. Finally, Tom reflects on his role as an entrepreneur, breaking down the misconceptions about the coin dealing.
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Managing A Coin Dealership Business In A Changing World with Tom Hallenbeck I’m Tom Hallenbeck with https://www.hallenbeckcoingallery.com/ (Hallenbeck Coin Gallery). I serve the Colorado Springs Community as a coin dealer, but also we do estate appraisals. We deal with elder law attorneys. We buy and sell scrap gold and silver. We’re much more than a coin dealer.
Tom, I appreciate you taking time. We have Tom Hallenbeck. He’s the President of Hallenbeck Coin Gallery. Tell us about your business and who you serve?
We’ve been in business for many years. We serve the Colorado Springs Community and throughout the region of the Rocky Mountains. We buy and sell coins and precious metals. We also do estates. The average person we buy from, normally the majority of our advertising is geared toward purchasing. We buy mainly from men and women who have estates or collections they’ve either accumulated or inherited that they want to fairly liquidate.
I’ve driven past this place. I’ve lived in Colorado Springs forever. You think about, “It’s a coin shop.” That’s what’s in my mind. When you talk about serving the community and the estate planning side, what does that look like?
With a lot of estates, somebody inherits a collection whether it’s through a father or grandfather. Usually, it’s the male side of the family. They are collectors more so than women typically. When they get it, they’re like, “What do we do with this thing?” We will go through from pennies, nickels, dimes, all the way through silver dollars, gold coins, value each item and then give it to the estate. We do two types of appraisals. One is the retail or replacement cost. That’s for insurance purposes. Sometimes insurance companies need an appraisal or the person in charge of the estate or the collection needs an appraisal in case a Waldo Canyon fire came through and burned their house down. If there was a robbery, more likely a theft so they need a value for replacement cost. Probably the vast majority of our appraisals are what we call “Fair wholesale appraisers.” What would you get if you were selling that $20 gold piece, your Krugerrand, your set of Lincoln cents? We’d go through that appraisal also.
For a lot of the folks, I don’t think as they look at the front of your building they have an idea of the number of people here. For leadership, the marketing and how you get everybody motivated in a sales process, let’s talk a little bit about it. When you first started, how many people were here?
It started with just my father. We moved to Colorado. He was a curator at the https://www.money.org/ (American Numismatic Association), which is the world’s largest coin club and they have a fantastic museum over there. If you’re a coin collector, that’s a thrill of a lifetime. You get to play like a kid in the candy store. That’s why he moved to Colorado. He got laid off in a mass layoff with the Numismatic Association in 1983. He looked around and said he didn’t want to go back to the corporate world, the insurance industry. He said, “What do I do?” He loved...
BEI or Business Enterprise Institute helps many entrepreneurs exit their businesses, choose their successor, and carry on with their dreams by supporting advisors. Jared Johnson and Elizabeth Mower, CEO and President of BEI respectively, share how they focus on working with advisors who help business owners in exit planning. They discuss how vital it is to create tools and online resources that can help advisory firms, CPAs, attorneys, business consultants, and coaches accomplish, deliver, and implement action plans for their clients. Moreover, they share why much emphasis is given to systematized education and training in helping advisors and their clients.
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How BEI Exit Planning Solutions Works with Jared Johnson and Elizabeth Mower
At BEI, we believe that these small and medium-sized business owners and the companies they run are the lifeblood of our economy. Our mission is to help as many of those business owners as possible exit their business when they want, with the money they need, choosing the successor that they’d like to see carry on their dream. We do that by supporting advisors to the business owner community: financial planners, attorneys, CPAs, wealth advisors, insurance advisors, and any advisor who works with the closely held business owner is somebody that we support. We want to provide the tools and resources to allow them to be the quarterback of an exit planning team.
We have https://www.exitplanning.com/user/482 (Jared Johnson), the CEO of BEI. We have https://www.exitplanning.com/user/211 (Elizabeth Mower), the President of BEI. We’re at the world headquarters of BEI in Denver, Colorado. Thank you so much for taking the time.
Bob, thanks for having us. We’re excited to share what BEI does and how we support the business owner community through their advisors and support and help other entrepreneurs understand how we operate. Maybe they can learn a little bit from our successes and certainly some of our failures in running up small and medium-sized businesses.
Tell me about your business and who you serve.
Our business is generally focused on helping business owners benefit from their lives’ work. We had to try and figure out a way to do that. In the distant past, we were helping one business owner at a time to figure out what they wanted to do with the future of their business. We quickly figured out that it was going to take a long time and we wouldn’t be able to get to everybody. We thought it was important work to do. We ended up realizing that we could have a much greater impact on the business community across North America if we work with advisors who help those business owners in each community. We’re on the ground every day meeting with business-owning clients and helping them figure out solutions to their problems and paths to their futures. What we decided to do is create tools and online resources that help advisory firms, CPAs, attorneys, business consultants, coaches, and people like that accomplish, deliver and implement action plans for their business-owning clients. We’re a behind-the-scenes tools provider.
It starts with education and making sure advisors truly understand what we believe is exit planning. A lot of business owners sometimes think, “When I’m ready to sell, I’ll call somebody,” or “I’m never going to transfer this business. I’m going to die at my desk. This is who I am.” That’s fantastic, but we need a plan for that as well. Even more, we see business owners out there who want to transfer to key employees, management staff, and kids, but the challenge with that is none of those people have any money. How do we help them accomplish their financial goals and objectives? Working with folks who don’t have any money to buy him out and that’s what exit planning is.
With us, it’s not about selling...
Gender diversity has been a prominent issue when it comes to corporate governance. Frequently, it is evident how women hold few positions in the top management and on boards of directors. Mary McBride, Independent Director of CatchMark Timber Trust, walks us through her journey to becoming the first woman board member of this publicly-traded timberland company. The Senior Advisor to Catalyze and the former President of CoBank gives insights on the value of learning about corporate governance early on to develop the skill sets to be a part of the board. Mary is an alumna of the Corporate Boardbound program offered by the Women’s Leadership Foundation.
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Putting Gender Diversity In Corporate Governance with Mary McBride and Guest Co-Host Jo Lynne Whiting We have a special guest and we have a cohost. Mary McBride is an Independent Director of http://www.catchmark.com/ (CatchMark Timber Trust), a Senior Advisor to https://catalyze.net/ (Catalyze) and the former President of CoBank. We have Jo Lynne Whiting. She is Chair of the https://womensleadershipfoundation.org/ (Boardbound by the Women’s Leadership Foundation). She’s a former executive of US West. We’re going to be talking a little bit about Mary’s background and also how that fits into her board experience. Mary, thanks for being on the podcast.
Thank you for having me. I’m pleased to be here.
Jo Lynne, thank you as well. Mary, if you would tell us a little bit about your background and what led up to your participation in the board world?
I started my career at Bank of Boston as an energy lender in the 1980s. Prior to that, I attended college and got an MBA. I went all through my career building up more and more lending experience and managerial experience. I then worked for First Interstate Bank of Denver. I worked for them for about eight or nine years. Some of the absolute best lending experience I received was as a workout lender during the oil and gas crash here in the 1980s.in
For certain people, it was an awful time. For me, it was certainly a stressful time but you don’t learn more than when you spend Valentine’s night, which is a Friday at [10:00] PM in bankruptcy court. That’s when your learning is at its best. It was a great experience for me. In the early ‘90s, I moved over to CoBank. I worked at CoBank for 23 years and in just about every area you could from lending to operations. I had the capital markets group. I had the finance group, a whole host of various areas there. I left there at the end of ’16. Following that, I said, “I’m not going to be working full-time, but how am I going to spend my time?”
I was not ready to turn it off fully. I said, I’ve got a good background in lending commercial finance and financial services, but more importantly in management and how to run an organization. What are the important components of an organization? How do you govern an organization? How do you set up compliance? How do you set up compensation systems? That led me to an interest in doing corporate board work. When I started that I started building a network. I started looking around and I went through the Boardbound program that Jo Lynne runs here, which was a great program from several aspects. It was wonderful from the content of the program. It was also great to meet other women who have similar interests and are also interested in being on a board. It was also great for making contacts, particularly in the Denver community.
As you go through your career and if you were to offer advice to other people that are interested in being on a board, whether men or women, would you do it as you did and wait until after you got done with your career? How would you do it as you’re looking back now?
I would not wait. I waited too late. This is something that both men and women tend to do. When you are in a career,...
Jewelry is not just another accessory to make outfits feel more polished. For some, it’s a way to express their personality, celebrate memorable moments, or a family heirloom to treasure forever. With this in mind, master faceter and graduate gemologist Jennifer Farnes shares how she sparks change in the jewelry industry. As the successful owner of Revolution Jewelry Works, she dives into what separates their company from other jewelry crafters and how they provide full flexibility in custom design. Jennifer talks about her love for jewelry making and offers advice to people who want to start their own jewelry business.
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The Jewelry Revolution with Jennifer Farnes
My goal in opening up my jewelry store was to create a place that I would feel comfortable shopping. In all of my years of following my mom around shopping for jewelry or even shopping for my own engagement ring, I always thought that jewelry was very intimidating. I thought there has to be a way to change that environment. That was the primary driver behind creating Revolution.
On this episode, we have Jennifer Farnes. She’s a master faceter and a graduate gemologist. She’s the owner of https://revolutionjewelryworks.com/ (Revolution Jewelry Works). I’ve had the pleasure of doing some business with her on a parking lot crash with my wife’s jewelry. Jennifer, thank you so much for taking the time to be on the show.
Thank you so much for having me.
Tell us about your business and who you serve.
Revolution Jewelry Works, being in the beautiful mountain city of Colorado Springs, we do have a lot of military personnel locally. Beyond that, it’s a very rapidly growing city. That was where we wanted to start our focus. We wanted to create something accessible to the city of Colorado Springs with the goal of world domination. The big thing that was missing here in the Springs was a place that you could go for custom jewelry. There were a lot of old school jewelers where you could go and request something custom, but essentially you would sit down, and they would be hand carving wax for you and you would get a look at a chunk of green material and you say, “I think that’s what I want.” Maybe a year later, you would have a finished piece of jewelry and that is what it is.
With the technology, I knew that there was software out there that helped people visualize what was being created. Make it to where they could actually picture what this is going to look like for me and how it’s going to function in my life rather than having to guess. We’ve got an entire generation coming up of consumers that have been accessing flexibility in every aspect of their life. You can pick your shoes, you can pick your phone case, you can customize your car and everything about it. It’s one thing to go into a jewelry store and be told, “I can customize something.” You can pick this mounting and you can pick this setting and you can pick this shape of a diamond and put them together and it’s a custom, but that’s not custom.
We have people that we encounter day in and day out that are hardcore fans of World of Warcraft, which is an online video game. They found each other because of this commonality of a video game. They want to represent their love for each other because of this thing that brought them together where before they probably would have never met. We’ve created rings with a theme of World of Warcraft. We’ve created rings that have to do with The Legend of Zelda or The Lord of the Rings or any of the above, and it doesn’t have to be something of that theme. It could be that someone says, “I saw a ring that I loved, but it wasn’t exactly what I wanted.” Whether they saw a ring that evoked emotions, but they have their grandmother’s diamond and that ring isn’t made for that diamond; how do you go...
Did you know, you CAN like your lawyer?
Whether you’re a sole proprietor, a CEO of a major corporation, or a medium-sized company owner, there are a lot of things you need to keep in mind to run your business smoothly. How well do you communicate with your employees? What steps do you take to ensure they are given equal opportunities? David Seserman, a successful Colorado civil trial attorney and the founding member of Seserman Law LLC, helps shed light on how businesses should handle their relationship with their employees. He believes that companies must provide equal opportunities among their subordinates. Highlighting the importance of proper communication and transparency in every organization, David gives advice on what businesses should do to prevent harassment from happening and elaborates on how attorneys can advocate for both the employer and employee’s rights and responsibilities.
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Transparency and Employee Relationships with David Seserman
My name is David Seserman. I am a civil trial attorney with the law firm https://www.seserman.law/ (Seserman Law). I use the term civil trial attorney for a very specific reason. I consider myself a trial attorney and not a litigator. The difference is a litigator is pretty good at pushing paper, arguing things, but is a bit uncomfortable at trial. A trial attorney enjoys going to trial and the challenges that that raises. I’ll give you an example. The way you can tell the difference between the two is if you are at a settlement conference and you are talking about resolving the case and the other side says to you, “David, if we can’t resolve this and settle this case here and now, then we’re going to go to trial.” If that’s an opportunity, you’re a trial attorney. If that’s a threat, you’re a litigator.
We’re incredibly fortunate to have you on the podcast. I have my cohost, Meranda Vieyra. She’s with https://www.denverlegalmarketing.com/ (Denver Legal Marketing) and we have David Seserman of Seserman Law. David, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
As a trial lawyer, you have to focus your practice. Most of my practice is in the realm of employment and employee benefits litigation. My employment law practice is fairly straightforward: age discrimination, gender discrimination, breach of employment contract, misappropriation of trade secrets cases and matters like that. I expand that to employee benefits because I have a fairly strong background in ERISA, that is retirement benefits, health and welfare benefits, benefits of that nature. I consider myself more of an HR attorney because I cover the gamut. I have always carefully maintained a practice where I represent both management and individuals. I feel like that gives me a much more balanced perspective and allows me to counsel whoever it may be, whether it’s a C-Suite executive leaving a company or management looking at, “How do we deal with a situation where one of our employees just walked out with some trade secrets?” I can counsel them a little bit better because I understand the arguments that both sides will make.
For your practice, what’s your predominant geographic focus?
For the most part, it’s Colorado. I am licensed in Colorado. I don’t hold a license to practice law anywhere else. That being said, I have handled matters all over the United States. Sometimes you get the call that says, “We need you or want to hire you in this case.” It could be a court appearance in New Orleans or it could be in Dallas. It depends, but the predominant focus for me is localized. I try to stay very involved in the Colorado community and I try to concentrate my practice here because it’s home and it’s what I know best.
They don’t know you and they don’t know how long you’ve been in the law field....
The American Bar Association published a report stating that 90% of Americans cannot afford to pick up the phone and talk to an attorney. This is the reality with regards to the accessibility of legal services in America. Chris Ward, Independent Associate of LegalShield Business Solutions, talks about how LegalShield can provide individuals, families, and business owners unlimited access to a network of law firms across North America. Chris also shares that people can access LegalShield for a low monthly fee as opposed to high hourly costs of legal services elsewhere. Learn more as Chris demystifies business legal services and shares how he got into LegalShield, what their ideal client would be to help, implementing strict customer service, and more.
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Demystifying Business Legal Services with Chris Ward and Co-Host Meranda Vieyra
This is Chris Ward with https://www.legalshield.com/ (LegalShield Business Solutions). If you are looking for affordable access to quality legal representation and you don’t have any, this is for you.
Welcome to the show, Chris. I’m joined by my cohost, Meranda Vieyra from https://www.denverlegalmarketing.com/ (Denver Legal Marketing). What we’re going to do is talk to Chris Ward with https://www.legalshield.com/ (LegalShield). He works in the Colorado and Wyoming areas. You’ve been with the company for quite some time.
Thank you. It’s an honor to be invited onto the show.
Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
My name is Chris Ward with LegalShield. In a nutshell, LegalShield gives individuals, families and business owners unlimited access to a network of law firms all across North America. As opposed to worrying about high hourly cost, people have unlimited access for a low flat month-to-month fee. Because of that, we have over 1.7 million households over 100,000 businesses across North America protected now.
Backing up, how in the world did you get into LegalShield?
It was a chance encounter. My background was the US Army. I served proudly for eleven years. The true Hollywood story is that in my last year, I was applying for jobs here, there and everywhere. I lived in Monterey, California and I was forced into entrepreneurship. The only job I got called back on was they wanted me to check IDs at the local British pub for $11 an hour. I didn’t think that my resume was only worth $11 an hour. I decided to follow a childhood dream of mine, which was video production. I’m not doing big projects, but I recognize the fact that this was the birth of YouTube and that entertainment was going to change from half-hour shows loaded with commercials to brief fifteen to twenty-minute videos without commercials. That’s what I focused on.
Almost immediately, we resurrected a jazz record label. I saw an opportunity. There was an incredible catalog of albums that nobody had access to. I was always a fan of jazz. I played trumpet growing up through middle school and high school. I started the company. I collaborated with an architect that built a sound studio. He had no knowledge of sound engineering himself, but he was passionate about his area. We collaborated together and we hired an attorney. He charged us a $10,000 retainer. However, I was very naïve having never used an attorney before outside of the office to get my will done. I thought that $10,000 would last us years until I got our first invoice. As I got the invoice for a little over $1,500, I said, “This is in case of an emergency break glass.” I put the attorney on the wall and just started doing what a lot of business owners do. I started Google searching legal questions, downloading legal forms, writing contracts myself and praying to God that they never ended up on a judge’s desk. I’m absolved of any guilt, but now I’ve come to terms with that.
A salesman came into my office one day and...
In this day and age, everyone is at risk of cyber threats. Small businesses are just as vulnerable to cyber attacks as much as the Fortune 500 companies. The question is, what measures should be implemented to prevent such threats? In an interesting discussion, Doug DePeppe, Hilary Wells, Ed Barkel and Bill Nelson explore why small businesses must start paying attention to cybersecurity as well as the importance of protecting their customers, their employees, and their data from cyber breach. They talk about the unseen risks brought about by cyber threats to both start-ups and major corporations and share tips on what organizations can do to enforce reasonable security measures and have a proper “cyber hygiene.”
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Cybersecurity Panel with Doug DePeppe, Hilary Wells, Ed Barkel and Bill Nelson We have a unique podcast. We would call this a panel. There is Doug DePeppe. We have Hilary Wells, Ed Barkel and Bill Nelson. Doug is with https://eosedgelegal.com/ (EOS Edge). Hilary, Ed and Bill are with https://www.lrrc.com/ (Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie). What we’re going to talk about is cybersecurity. Tell us about your business and who you serve.
We’re a full-service firm. We will talk a little bit later about how we’ve formed a strategic alliance with EOS Edge. We represent companies everywhere from banking to insurance companies to investment advisors, healthcare schools and manufacturing, everything in between. What we found is that all of our clients have access to data. That data needs to be secured. We’ve developed this group to work with our clients and help them, especially the small to medium size clients, develop systems, processes and methodology so that they can help keep their company data safe. Maybe even more importantly, their clients’ data safe.
You have been thinking about as a small business owner. Ten, fifteen years ago, I didn’t even need to think about this. I talked to a couple of groups here and their age was similar to mine. Most of them don’t use LinkedIn. Most of them don’t look at their email. What I would think is the awareness of the smaller business owner is not that high. Why did you form what you formed? What was the motivating factor?
What we did is we followed our clients and their path through data protection and cyber issues. Data protection, as far as a large industry that first encountered it, was the healthcare industry with the passage of HIPAA. As Ed said, we represent a lot of insurance companies. We represent hospitals systems. We saw that group be the first to try to tackle what information they were collecting, what they were doing to store it, then their obligations to protect it. The financial services industry was next. We had Gramm-Leach-Bliley and other regulations from FINRA come out. Our regulators are now requiring us to have these plans, these systems and these policies. How do we do this and how do we stay compliant? In the past five years, what we’ve seen is we’ve gone from regulated entities who are doing what they had to do because they were told to do so to an interesting standard that’s developed for all industries across the spectrum regardless of whether or not a regulator is directing what you do and how you do it.
It’s finding the customers or making buying decisions in part based on how are you doing in this field? If I’m going to trust you with my information, how do I know that you’re doing what you can to protect it? That’s not a Facebook problem. It’s not a Twitter problem. Businesses of all sizes have employee information. They have customer information. They have information to be protected. What we’ve done is we’ve transitioned from advising on what the law is, which can be daunting to bringing to the table for our small and mid-sized clients an opportunity for them to...
Butler Snow is one of the best law firms that is committed to help and provide value and client satisfaction with over twenty offices nationwide. Dave Mayhan and Sarah O’ Brien are attorneys in Butler Snow specializing in litigation, particularly in defense of real estate and construction professionals. They share the typical challenges their clients face and how they are engaging with them, as well as walk us through their expertise in real estate and construction legalities.
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Butler Snow: Your Guide To Legal Matters with Dave Mayhan, Sarah O’ Brien, and Guest Co-Host Meranda Vieyra
We have https://www.butlersnow.com/attorney/david-mayhan/ (Dave Mayhan) and https://www.butlersnow.com/attorney/sarah-obrien/ (Sarah O’Brien). They’re with http://www.butlersnow.com/ (Butler Snow). I have my co-host, Meranda Vieyra. She’s with https://www.denverlegalmarketing.com/ (Denver Legal Marketing). Welcome to the show.
Hello, Bob and Meranda.
Tell us a little bit about Butler Snow and what you do?
Butler Snow is the law firm with over twenty offices and way over 40 specialty areas of law. Sarah and I have been in Denver for our entire careers. We’ve got a combination of nearly 50 years of practice. We specialize in litigation and in particular the defense of real estate and construction professionals.
I think about driving into Denver and driving over here. It’s like cranes are sprouting from every nook and cranny. I would imagine given the pace of construction, not only in Denver but across the nation that you guys are busy. What does your typical client look like?
I don’t know if there’s a typical client. The construction industry involves a broader range of professionals from those involved in the development, design and contractor professionals to inspectors. It provided a lot of employment here in town and it will continue to do so as people move here. Every client is unique and every subspecialty has different issues. We were all collectively trying to figure out how we can best plan and develop proper construction both in residential and commercial real estate as this town grows. We’ve seen growth in the past, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.
As you guys look out across your client base and the typical challenges that your clients face, we were talking about being proactive to start with. When you guys are either engaged or retained for somebody for business, what are some of the proactive things that you could advise somebody in the trades that you represent that they might consider?
One of the first things we would recommend is that you need to own your contracts, which is more than keeping the paper. Often somebody will hand you a contract that’s a standard agreement that is going to immediately be bent toward their benefit. We recommend that those be reviewed and modified and negotiated so that your contracts are to your benefit. From things all the way from limitations of liability to insurance issues, indemnity language up front. That’s a very important thing to address before you even start the project.
For me, if I was to read a contract and I’m not a contract attorney, I may not see the nuance. There may be a piece that sticks out at you when you first look at it and go, “I wouldn’t sign it that way.” Do you find that given the pace of construction in Denver, that there are a lot of contracts that are signed quickly? If so, what would you advise if people are going down that road?
We’re better than some. Smart people don’t read all their contracts. There’s an assumption or maybe a trust in someone. When you develop a team and you’re in a construction project, there needs to be that trust. Oftentimes, even smart people don’t read their entire contract and they take things for granted. When you do read that, you need legal expertise to...
Sean Hutchinson and Barry Goodman, co-founders and partners with SVA Value Accelerators, do a deep dive continuation of the SVA episode as they talk about the challenges and perils of transition and the issues facing families in business. Sean is an expert in business value acceleration and transition readiness, while Barry is an expert in multigenerational family businesses with an advanced certificate in counseling family-owned businesses.
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The Challenges and Perils Of Transition And The Issues Facing Families In Business with Barry Goodman, President SVA
Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson and Barry Goodman, President/Partner SVA Value Accelerators
We’re doing a deep dive continuation with Sean Hutchinson and Barry Goodman, Cofounders and Partners with http://buildvaluetoday.com/ (SVA Value Accelerators). This is a continuation of the SVA episode. We’re going to dig deeper into this complex topic. We’re going to talk about the challenges and perils of transition and the issues facing families in business. Sean, let’s recap where this segment fits in.
Here’s the interesting thing about family-owned business in our value accelerator. If you think about our seven value accelerator sprints as vertical columns, family-owned business is the horizontal issue that cuts across all of them. It’s a different animal when you’re in a multigenerational family business. It’s great that we have on our team an expert in this area who is Barry. He’s got advanced certificates in counseling family-owned businesses. This as a resource that when we are working with a family-owned business, Barry’s expertise comes to bear. It cuts across all the sprints in value accelerator not just one but the constant issue when you are dealing with families.
Barry, why are the family-owned businesses so different than perhaps other businesses?
I believe you need to look at a Venn diagram where you have three circles. Family, business ownership and management reside in each of the circles and intersects with each other. This is the family business system. You have one circle and it talks about ownership and another circle is family and the third circle is the management of the business. You can have people that are members of the family that are not involved in the business and members of the family that are involved in the business. You can have members of the family who own shares but have no participation. We’re going to have family and employees that are employed that are not related by blood or marriage. There are all these different conflicts going on, different needs, different objectives of each of these different parties. As generations move from first to second to third and along with the history of the business, you put another circle around that and that’s called the cousin of consortium. It’s no wonder why this is a confusing area and an area where there could be conflict without intending to have a conflict because of the different needs, wants and objectives of each of the individual family members or nonfamily members.
That’s the pool that you’re navigating in.
It’s a big pool and it can get a little tenuous at times.
Business Transitions: Transition-ready businesses are more valuable.
In looking at the family business space, you were kind enough to provide a bunch of material for me to review. When you walk into a business situation where you’re working on value acceleration, what does that initial meeting or interaction with that business and/or family-owned business look like?
It is to understand what’s going on in the business and what’s going on in the family. It goes to the central theme that we have at SVA. We believe that transition-ready businesses are more valuable. The discussion is...
In our value accelerator, leadership is last. That, to a lot of people, probably wouldn’t make sense, but we put it last for a reason. You will have been at whatever speed you were traveling when we started doing value acceleration. By the time you’re through sprint six, which is financial acceleration, you’re going to be moving at about 100 miles an hour much faster than you were. Your organization and your practices are going to look completely different. You’re a value-creating machine by the time you’ve gotten through those. Let Sean Hutchinson of SVA Value Accelerators and Joe Slatter, the Lead Advisor of Decision Dynamics and the SVA Leadership Accelerator, use leadership acceleration to take you from 100 miles an hour to 200 miles an hour as they talk about the path to higher valuation.
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Leadership Described: Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson of SVA Value Accelerators and Joe Slatter Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson and Joe Slatter In our value accelerator, leadership is last. You will have begun with decision dynamics, making better decisions faster and figuring out what matters. You’re going to figure out how to reduce risk and keep your business less risky. You’re going to have a clear vision of your company of the future and the tools that you can use to reach your objectives. We’re going to talk about financial acceleration, productivity, sales, and marketing, then we come to leadership. Why did we put it last? That to a lot of people probably wouldn’t make sense, but we put it last for a reason. You will have been at whatever speed you were traveling when we started doing value acceleration. By the time you’re through sprint six, which is financial acceleration, you’re going to be moving at about 100 miles an hour much faster than you were and your organization and your practices are going to look completely different. You’re a value-creating machine by the time you’ve gotten through those. We’re going to use leadership acceleration to take you from 100 miles an hour to 200 miles an hour. You, as an organization, are going to be able to bear that kind of acceleration. You will not break.
We are doing a deep dive continuation with Sean Hutchinson of http://buildvaluetoday.com/ (SVA Value Accelerators). We also have with us Joe Slatter. He’s the Lead Advisor of http://www.decisiondynamics.se/en (Decision Dynamics) and the SVA Leadership Accelerator. We are going to dig into leadership acceleration.
Leadership acceleration, making leadership go faster. As Sean said, at this point, your organization has been through a transformation already. There’s a lot of good content, technique, process, and ways that you’re going to be thinking and operating in much more effective ways. I’m the business owner and I’ve got to make sense of all this and it’s still just me. The point of the transition readiness and all of this is to allow owner independence. We’ve got to get somehow figure out how to get that leadership transferred from the owner to the rest of the organization. At that point, there will have been leaders emerging. Every single one of these sprints results in leaders arriving and showing up. They’re not showing up from outside of your organization, they’re showing up from inside of your organization, which is a neat thing to watch.
I suspect the owner probably knows who some of those folks are likely going to be already. We’ve got to accelerate that process. We’re going to create a very clear focus on empowering and giving the freedom and the authority to that new leadership team. There’s an aspect of design to this. Up until this point, we’ve been focused on a lot of fundamentals and specific functional areas...
Businesses need constant communication between owners and their team to grow. While it is the common perception that decisions are made from the top, there should be an autonomy that happens among the employees that will make them feel part of the conversation. After all, a business is not only about the leaders; it is also about the team. Sean Hutchinson, CEO at SVA Value Accelerators, is joined by Joe Slatter of SVA Leadership Accelerator to talk about decision dynamics. They put together the relationship and how decisions work, laying down the “what,” “so what,” and the “what now.” Ultimately, decision dynamics work to create higher valuation because it fosters a business where people are held accountable, sharing the responsibilities between the leaders and the team.
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Decision Dynamics: Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson and Joe Slatter Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson and Joe Slatter We’re here to talk about decision dynamics and you are probably all wondering, “What is decision dynamics?” There are fancy words that consultants throw around. What this comes down to is operational excellence. That’s something that Sean and I had been talking about ever since we’ve known each other is operational excellence. It comes down to, “Can you make a good decision in a reasonable amount of time?” Everything we do with this content is helping organizations. This isn’t about the boss being able to make better decisions. This is about the whole team being able to make better decisions and driving those decisions as close to the action as we possibly can.
I have Sean Hutchinson, CEO/Partner at http://buildvaluetoday.com/ (SVA Value Accelerators) and Joe Slatter, Lead Advisor Decision Dynamics at SVA Leadership Accelerator. We’re doing a continuation of an original podcast where we talked to Sean about SVA. We’re doing a deep dive and we’re going to go into Decision Dynamics.
We talked about making good decisions quickly. How do you do that? Everybody comes into every situation with a way that they’re thinking and a way that they solve problems. The challenge is, they are all different ways. If we’re coming at this from an owner’s perspective, they’re thinking strategically. They’re trying to make the best decisions for the long game. A lot of the folks who may be out in the field are working directly with the customers. They’ve got real problems that they’ve got to solve. Much of their thinking is a shorter game. How do we reconcile those two so that everybody understands a whole bunch of different kinds of decisions gets made so that we can make them in the right spot? That’s what this comes down to.
As a business owner, I’m going, “It helps me make decisions quicker.” Quicker must be then better, but what’s the process? What do you guys do? If you’re coming into an organization, what’s your process to look at how they make decisions? What do you bring to the table in the process to help that identify and approve?
We start right out of the gate by providing them with what we call a liberating structure. Everybody needs some way to make sense in the world. Before we even start talking about their world, we develop a common language and a different way that we can look at things together. What that allows us then to do is conduct a conversation with them where we’re all sharing the same language. We have a common way of looking at what’s working and what’s not working and why those things matter and what we can do about it. That second piece, after they understand this basic structure, they’re able to tell stories basically using this new language. Out of those stories come all kinds of rich information. The owners are usually amazed at what their staff is saying in these...
In today’s world, the impact of social networking is undeniable not only to how people communicate but to businesses as well. It has become the forefront of this new wave of marketing that helps people get their voice and brand out there. Talking about social selling and influencer marketing is CEO of Forward Progress and creator of Social Jack, Dean DeLisle. Dean gives insights about the value accelerators world while sharing his processes when meeting companies. He also distinguishes between client acquisition and branding, ultimately putting forward the importance of humanizing the brand.
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Dean DeLisle Social Selling And Influencer Marketing SVA: Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson Our goal is to humanize the brand. In today’s world of business, it’s crazy how everything became about the brand and the logo. Our mission is to make sure that each and every brand has the human aspect to it, so we always say we’re all about the people. We love bringing the people out of the brand and to the forefront and helping them have an amazing digital presence, reputation, build credibility and become the thought leaders that they already are. Externalizing that to the world is our mission.
We’re doing a deep dive continuation of the SVA Value Accelerators podcast: Creating the Path to Higher Valuation with Sean Hutchinson. Our guest is Dean DeLisle. He’s the lead advisor for sales and marketing acceleration, specifically social selling and influencer marketing. He’s the Founder and CEO of https://forwardprogress.net/ (Forward Progress), a digital marketing company based in Chicago. He’s also the Creator of https://socialjack.com/ (Social Jack), a business influencer development platform. They’ve served over 120,000 professionals in over 30 countries. Dean, thanks for taking the time and welcome.
Thanks for having me.
Where do you fit in with the value accelerators world?
Like we all know, some people see sales and marketing depending on the size of the business, type of business, where your market is, who your customer is as either something that’s necessary or unnecessary evil. We try to take the evil out unnecessary when it comes to sales and marketing. We come in in that part when they’re building value within an organization. One of the biggest assets are the customers that are around that business, the context, the network that surrounds that business. In today’s world, a huge part of that is social networks. It’s something that you and I and a lot of the audience haven’t grown up with, but now we’ve adapted to the fact that it’s something that we have to pay attention to. We could spend three or four podcasts on the evolution of marketing. The real fact is that many businesses still don’t understand what they need to do, how to measure what the choices are between traditional marketing, marketing fundamentals and digital marketing.
Not only is it hard to understand, but it’s also a changing landscape. You mentioned our Social Jack platform and we’re constantly dedicated to having our team of coaches literally scour the internet and determine of all the things that are updated. We gauge that about every twelve seconds there’s a new release, a new update, a change, new mobile app, something that hits the marketplace. It’s our job to sift through that and say here we have the mission of driving business value by making this company known in the marketplace by growing a community and a following around this business. Digital is a big piece. What are the best things to do? What are the best tools to use? We take traditional best marketing practices that have been around for decades. I’ve been doing this for over 35 years. As we look at how communication, computers and evolution has changed,...
Continuing the deep dive from an original by Sean Hutchinson from SVA Value Accelerators Methodology, Sean gets right down through the financial accelerator component. He covers three things about the power of the financial accelerator – financial transparency, lowering the cost of capital, and the importance of knowing when to stop funding things that are ripping economic value away from the shareholders. Sean also touches on higher valuation, explaining how to talk with a lending institution, the Feed-Starve principle, and transferability options. Ultimately, creating value can be interpreted as the wealth of the owner, but what it should be is the value it has to shareholders and the whole company.
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Financial Accelerator Methodology Detailed: Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson We’re doing a continuation deep dive from an original podcast with Sean Hutchinson from http://buildvaluetoday.com/ (SVA Value Accelerators) Methodology. We’re going to go through the financial accelerator component.
Our Value Accelerator consists of discovery plus seven 90-day sprints. We’re talking about a two-year project. Why do we put financial acceleration toward the end? We’ve gone through decision making and culture, risk reduction and productivity, the company of the future, and sales and marketing at this point. What we’re trying to figure out in the financial accelerator is how to efficiently fund it all at the lowest cost of capital possible. Often, the financial strategy and the organizational strategy are not aligned. You can have a good foundation of strategy, a good operational foundation and a good productive, efficient process. If the financing strategies don’t line up with it, you keep running into these blockades that ultimately are not going to serve you. Financial acceleration is also importantly about creating shareholder value for the owners. Ultimately, when we talk about value creation or value acceleration, what we’re doing is accelerating shareholder value. We’re creating transferability options for the owner that they did not have before.
When you say transferability options, what that means is we have a buyer out there and the business owner wants to sell.
That would be an example of an outside transfer, but the business has to be able to transfer also to the inside if that’s the way it’s going to go. Employee ownership, management ownership, partnership, or transfer to family. Those are the four inside options. The outside options are to sell to a third party, recapitalize the business which brings in a partner that takes part of the ownership, or liquidate. When I’m talking about transferable value, I am talking about being able to efficiently transfer the ownership of the business at the highest value possible. Most businesses when we start working with them are not transferable at all. If you put a value on the business, it’s probably more of a fair market value or an IRS tax value than a true market representation. Our position is nobody would buy your business. Particularly, Mr. Owner or Mrs. Owner, if you would look at your business from the outside and say, “I don’t think I would buy that business,” then it has zero value. The IRS is happy to put a value on it, especially within your estate. They got their own valuation approach. Even if yours is not transferable, they’re going to say that it has value and they’re going to tax you on it. We are always talking about transferability and value in our work because we think that that’s the acid test. Will it transfer from one party to the other efficiently at the highest value possible?
The balance sheet tells an incredibly powerful story about the...
Continuing the deep dive from an original by Sean Hutchinson from SVA Value Accelerators Methodology, Sean gets right down through the financial accelerator component. He covers three things about the power of the financial accelerator – financial transparency, lowering the cost of capital, and the importance of knowing when to stop funding things that are ripping economic value away from the shareholders. Sean also touches on higher valuation, explaining how to talk with a lending institution, the Feed-Starve principle, and transferability options. Ultimately, creating value can be interpreted as the wealth of the owner, but what it should be is the value it has to shareholders and the whole company.
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Financial Accelerator Methodology Detailed: Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson We’re doing a continuation deep dive from an original podcast with Sean Hutchinson from http://buildvaluetoday.com/ (SVA Value Accelerators) Methodology. We’re going to go through the financial accelerator component.
Our Value Accelerator consists of discovery plus seven 90-day sprints. We’re talking about a two-year project. Why do we put financial acceleration toward the end? We’ve gone through decision making and culture, risk reduction and productivity, the company of the future, and sales and marketing at this point. What we’re trying to figure out in the financial accelerator is how to efficiently fund it all at the lowest cost of capital possible. Often, the financial strategy and the organizational strategy are not aligned. You can have a good foundation of strategy, a good operational foundation and a good productive, efficient process. If the financing strategies don’t line up with it, you keep running into these blockades that ultimately are not going to serve you. Financial acceleration is also importantly about creating shareholder value for the owners. Ultimately, when we talk about value creation or value acceleration, what we’re doing is accelerating shareholder value. We’re creating transferability options for the owner that they did not have before.
When you say transferability options, what that means is we have a buyer out there and the business owner wants to sell.
That would be an example of an outside transfer, but the business has to be able to transfer also to the inside if that’s the way it’s going to go. Employee ownership, management ownership, partnership, or transfer to family. Those are the four inside options. The outside options are to sell to a third party, recapitalize the business which brings in a partner that takes part of the ownership, or liquidate. When I’m talking about transferable value, I am talking about being able to efficiently transfer the ownership of the business at the highest value possible. Most businesses when we start working with them are not transferable at all. If you put a value on the business, it’s probably more of a fair market value or an IRS tax value than a true market representation. Our position is nobody would buy your business. Particularly, Mr. Owner or Mrs. Owner, if you would look at your business from the outside and say, “I don’t think I would buy that business,” then it has zero value. The IRS is happy to put a value on it, especially within your estate. They got their own valuation approach. Even if yours is not transferable, they’re going to say that it has value and they’re going to tax you on it. We are always talking about transferability and value in our work because we think that that’s the acid test. Will it transfer from one party to the other efficiently at the highest value possible?
The balance sheet tells an incredibly powerful story about the...
Continuing the deep dive from an original by Sean Hutchinson from SVA Value Accelerators Methodology, Sean gets right down through the financial accelerator component. He covers three things about the power of the financial accelerator – financial transparency, lowering the cost of capital, and the importance of knowing when to stop funding things that are ripping economic value away from the shareholders. Sean also touches on higher valuation, explaining how to talk with a lending institution, the Feed-Starve principle, and transferability options. Ultimately, creating value can be interpreted as the wealth of the owner, but what it should be is the value it has to shareholders and the whole company.
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Financial Accelerator Methodology Detailed: Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson We’re doing a continuation deep dive from an original podcast with Sean Hutchinson from http://buildvaluetoday.com/ (SVA Value Accelerators) Methodology. We’re going to go through the financial accelerator component.
Our Value Accelerator consists of discovery plus seven 90-day sprints. We’re talking about a two-year project. Why do we put financial acceleration toward the end? We’ve gone through decision making and culture, risk reduction and productivity, the company of the future, and sales and marketing at this point. What we’re trying to figure out in the financial accelerator is how to efficiently fund it all at the lowest cost of capital possible. Often, the financial strategy and the organizational strategy are not aligned. You can have a good foundation of strategy, a good operational foundation and a good productive, efficient process. If the financing strategies don’t line up with it, you keep running into these blockades that ultimately are not going to serve you. Financial acceleration is also importantly about creating shareholder value for the owners. Ultimately, when we talk about value creation or value acceleration, what we’re doing is accelerating shareholder value. We’re creating transferability options for the owner that they did not have before.
When you say transferability options, what that means is we have a buyer out there and the business owner wants to sell.
That would be an example of an outside transfer, but the business has to be able to transfer also to the inside if that’s the way it’s going to go. Employee ownership, management ownership, partnership, or transfer to family. Those are the four inside options. The outside options are to sell to a third party, recapitalize the business which brings in a partner that takes part of the ownership, or liquidate. When I’m talking about transferable value, I am talking about being able to efficiently transfer the ownership of the business at the highest value possible. Most businesses when we start working with them are not transferable at all. If you put a value on the business, it’s probably more of a fair market value or an IRS tax value than a true market representation. Our position is nobody would buy your business. Particularly, Mr. Owner or Mrs. Owner, if you would look at your business from the outside and say, “I don’t think I would buy that business,” then it has zero value. The IRS is happy to put a value on it, especially within your estate. They got their own valuation approach. Even if yours is not transferable, they’re going to say that it has value and they’re going to tax you on it. We are always talking about transferability and value in our work because we think that that’s the acid test. Will it transfer from one party to the other efficiently at the highest value possible?
The balance sheet tells an incredibly powerful story about the...
The key to our failures and successes always lie within us. Aiming for the latter, we have the CEO and Executive Leadership Coach at Velocity Leadership Consulting, Karen Brown, to talk about how the science of words or neuro-linguistic programming gives a window into what is going on in us that hinders our greater success. Karen guides us to find the blind spots in our behavioral patterns and address the limiting beliefs that hold us back from taking action. She also directs us to the fears that we keep locked down in our unconscious mind, urging us to overcome them and eventually lead better with the capacity to transform the world.
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Conquering Limiting Beliefs Through Neuro-Linguistic Programming with Karen Brown I am an expert in behavioral blind spots and identifying them. How they’re hindering greater success and by resolving them, you get greater success
We are so fortunate that we have Karen Brown on this episode. She’s the CEO and Executive Leadership Coach at http://www.velocityleadershipconsulting.com/ (Velocity Leadership Consulting). Karen, thanks for coming down.
I’m happy to be here.
Karen, tell me a little bit about your business and who you serve.
In Velocity Leadership Consulting, our mission is to elevate leadership performance and impact with greater velocity and ease. We do that through one-on-one executive coaching using neuroscience techniques. Everything we do is scientifically proven effective.
There’s that E word. In some of the backstory, for you, there’s a journey. Karen was nice enough to let me know she has a book out and I read the book before getting together. If I’m the business owner and I heard you said we help leadership in Velocity, what does that look like when you show up day one at my business?
What that looks like is I’m going to ask you a lot of questions. Most of which I probably know the answer to but I want to hear what you have to say and how you say it. This goes back to something called Neuro-Linguistic Programming which me and all of our coaches are experts in. It’s the science of the words that you use to express yourself and it gives us a window into what’s going on for you. Specifically, what are the blind spots in your behavioral patterns that are holding you back from higher levels of success? We tend to work with either high performers or the person in the organization who is the trouble spot. We also work in areas of succession. Maybe someone’s been identified as the successive candidate and maybe they have some developmental work to do. Whatever it is, it’s going through those blind spots and identifying them. I’m adept and I would say, if I have a special gift it’s that, being able to see behavioral blind spots in an instant. From what I ask someone and how they respond, I can see exactly what’s going on and then ask them a question to open that up even further so that they can see it.
By and large, at some point you pretty much see all the problems that you can see, if you’ve been doing it long enough.
I think that until a new problem emerges and then I go, “I haven’t seen it all yet. I thought I had.”
We've all risen to a nice level of success, and that's also where our blind spots live.https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbusinessleaderspodcast.com%2Fovercoming-limiting-beliefs-through-neuro-linguistic-programming-with-karen-brown%2F&text=We%27ve%20all%20risen%20to%20a%20nice%20level%20of%20success%2C%20and%20that%27s%20also%20where%20our%20blind%20spots%20live.&related (Click To Tweet) Is there a typical leadership challenge, blind spot that you see most of the time?
Yes. Number one that every single executive we work with talks about is not having enough time to achieve what they want, which is ultimately a blind spot and a limiting belief. It’s something that
The reason all owners are in business should be primarily to create value for themselves. The way they create value for themselves is by creating value for customers. One way to do that is by productivity acceleration. Productivity is accelerated by understanding non-value-added activities and stop doing them. That frees up a tremendous quantity of resources, time, cash, and physical space to focus on delivering customer value. This is a deep dive continuation with Sean Hutchinson, CEO/Partner with SVA Value Accelerators and Alistair Stewart, the Manufacturing Practice Leader, also with SVA Value Accelerators. This continuation is where we’re going to dig deeper and talk about productivity acceleration.
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Productivity Acceleration Detailed with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson and Alistair Stewart SVA Value Accelerators Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson and Alistair Stewart This is a deep dive continuation with Sean Hutchinson, CEO/Partner with http://buildvaluetoday.com/ (SVA Value Accelerators) and Alistair Stewart, the Manufacturing Practice Leader, also with SVA Value Accelerators. This continuation of the episode is where we’re going to dig deeper and talk about productivity acceleration. I appreciate it. Thanks so much for taking the time.
Thanks. It’s great to be with you.
Let’s talk a little bit about what productivity acceleration is. We can think about productivity as the effectiveness of the productive effort. It’s measured by the rate of output per unit. What does accelerating mean? That means making it happen quicker. The reason all owners are in business should be primarily to create value for themselves. The way they create value for themselves is by creating value for customers.
Here’s an example. Imagine that an owner staples a new order to their back, the next customer order…every time they shake somebody’s hand, every time they meet somebody, every time they wait for somebody, every time they wait for something, every time something has to go back to be redone, checking and rechecking all those activities, are what we call “non-value-added” steps. If you start to look at the operations of a typical company, and most owners are going to be shocked if they are reading this for the first time, about 95% of all activities do not create customer value.
To create customer value, an activity has to pass a classic three-part test. An activity, has to be done right the first time; It has to change the form fit or function if it’s a tangible product or has to deliver a service that otherwise wouldn’t happen or it has to convert data into information or knowledge, changing the form fit or function of something.
The last and best of the three parts of the acid test is the customer must be willing to pay for it. Again, imagine a hypothetical owner stapling him or herself to an order that halfway through that order has to go back to the preceding step because we are missing some information. We’re not exactly sure if the customer wanted it in blue or in black. We go back and we find that the sales guy wrote down B in the color box. That was all non-value-added activity. We’re going to break that out as a line item on the invoice to the customer. Checking what color you ordered. You told us loud and clear what color you ordered. We didn’t understand. We didn’t write it down. We didn’t record it. No customer is going to pay that. All of these little activities that are pervasive in every organization are death by a thousand cuts, and productivity is hurt..
Productivity is accelerated by understanding non-value-added activities and stopping doing them. That frees up a tremendous quantity of resources, time, cash and physical space to focus on delivering customer value. Think about the activities that don’t change the form, fit...
After his dad bought a Piper Cherokee 140, it became a fun family airplane over a sea-level mild-temperature family course in Corvallis, Oregon. At eight years old, George Bye was inspired watching both his parents learn to fly and became fascinated by the jets and the trip to the moon in the 1960s. He says that shaped his life and brought him to where he is today with electric airplanes. George is the founder and CEO of Bye Aerospace. He gets more intimate with us as he discusses what foreshadowed his interest in aviation, getting into the United States Air Force, flying a variety of platforms, and coming into electric aviation with Bye Aerospace.
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From Conventional To Electric Aviation with George Bye I was inspired at eight years old watching both my parents learn to fly and then fascinated by the jets and the trip to the moon of the 1960s. That shaped my life and brought me to where I am today with electric airplanes.
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We’re incredibly fortunate. I have the pleasure of sitting across from George Bye of https://www.byeaerospace.com/ (Bye Aerospace). He is the Founder and CEO and he’s bringing to market electric aviation. George, thanks for taking the time to visit.
It’s sure a pleasure to be here.
Going into your comment and you said what influenced you early on. Let’s talk about the early years of inspiration when you were a kid and all of that and how it influenced you.
I would start with my mother, who is the daughter of a professor where I grew up in Corvallis in Oregon State University. She’s very creative and a great mom. She insisted that I enjoy and come to learn the arts. I played the violin starting when I was in third grade. I love sports. I played baseball. My dad and I played catch. I enjoyed very much the life of a kid growing up and all things Boy Scouts and all of that. My mom also infused in me the appreciation of the arts. She insisted that I learn to draw and paint. Of course, she herself is a professional painter. She gave me a painting and I’m deeply honored by that gift. I loved the sciences. My dad’s an engineer and that was a great influence for me. The creative side, the artistic side, the combination of both sides of the brain was brought and a part of my DNA as a young lad. I mentioned I love flying and from the get-go, I dreamed of being a jet pilot and an astronaut. All of the excitement in the 1960s about going to the moon, all of that was captured as a young person but colored very much by a mother and a father who helped shape but also allow all that creativity, science, engineering, sports to be combined together with the arts, creativity, dreaming and imagining.
I think you and I talked previously and said your mom got her private pilot’s license at first?
Back in those days, that was something. In the early to mid-1960s, women did not fly. Getting a private license first inspired the family and me as an eight-year-old in those days. Dad is next. They both became private pilots. We bought a Piper Cherokee 140, believe it or not. As a family in Corvallis, Oregon with sea level mild temperatures, that was a fun family airplane. There were two of us boys at that time. My sister came a little bit later, but we love flying and that captured me. I was hooked. I set the path for my life at that moment going forward.
Do you remember the first time your mom gave you tutorial?
I do and it was an amazing feeling. You think two dimensionally.
How old were you when you did that?
That was all between eight, nine, ten until sixth grade, twelve years old. All of those early experiences of flying, you go from a very two-dimensional experience in life to flying as three dimensional. Going left, going right, going faster, going slower was something that was pretty easy to capture but going up and down that was like, “This is different. This is a roller coaster.” It was great fun.
Everybody understands what productivity is. It’s basically doing more with less. The former chairman of Procter & Gamble once said productivity is everything in every business. Sean Hutchinson, CEO/Partner of SVA Value Accelerators, talks about the productivity accelerator which is the fourth out of seven value accelerators. Sean says the reason that it’s in the middle is that it provides an important inflection point built on what’s happened before and it’s a predictor of what happens in the future. Learn more about productivity as Sean talks about the tools for productivity, the value-added process mapping, quality control, risk reduction, and more.
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Productivity: Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson We’re doing a continuation deep dive from an original podcast. We did it with Sean Hutchinson of http://buildvaluetoday.com/ (SVA Value Accelerators). What we’re going to be talking about is part of the Value Acceleration methodology. We’re going to be talking about the productivity portion of that. Sean, thanks again.
The former chairman of Procter & Gamble once said, “Productivity is everything in every business.” This particular piece of our Value Accelerator, the Productivity Accelerator, comes four out of seven. The reason that it’s in the middle is that it provides an important inflection point built on what’s happened before and it’s a predictor of what happens in the future. Value creation and value acceleration tend to not be linear. It’s more of a slow climb and then there’s an inflection point where it takes off. The exponential value curve is a scoop. One of the things that inflects that curve and gets it to move into a steep incline is increases in productivity. Everybody understands what productivity is but it’s doing more with less. There are a couple of different places in your numbers that you’re going to see it on your financial statements, but one place is in the gross margin. Not the net margin necessarily.
The gross margin is the indicator of financial productivity in the organization, of essential throughput of the assets. How quickly did they get through the organization? How quickly did they produce income cash? How quickly did they generate margin? Productivity is about not just efficiency, but it’s also about velocity. It’s also about the efficient use of capital within the organization. What are the tools that we use? One tool is called $50 to $5,000. It is a concept that came out of Rob Slee’s book, https://www.amazon.com/Midas-Managers-Rob-Slee/dp/0979047803 (Midas Managers). It’s an amazing concept and it’s been effective with our clients. If I go into a management team for instance or even talking to an owner and I say, “How much of your day do you spend doing $50 an hour work?” If they don’t land immediately on a percentage, which tends to be in the 90% of the day or above then the answer is way too much. That’s an immediate acknowledgment that productivity in the organization even at the top is dampened. It’s restricted. The reason for that is that not just the CEO, but everybody else in the organization is working on the wrong stuff.
There may be delegation problems. There may be process problems. There may be culture and communication problems. At the end of the day, stuff’s getting stuck in the organization. What we want in order to create economic value is for the highest-level strategic thinkers in the organization to be doing $5,000 an hour work. That’s where the juice gets put into the deal. Being aware is one piece of it. How much $50 an hour work are you doing? What are the things that are $50 an hour work? How quickly and how efficiently and how effectively can you...
When we say higher valuation, many business owners focus more on profits than actually looking into the threats to earning those profits. Sean Hutchinson and Alistair Stewart of SVA Value Accelerators talk about the importance of risk reduction. Together, they lay down the five categories of risks out there for business owners to consider: strategic, compliance, operational, financial, and reputational risk. They present situations and solutions that could help you picture out how to overcome them. They also talk about whether owners are aware of these risks while discussing a de-risked company versus a risky company and the value gap between them.
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Rapid Risk Reduction Methodology Detailed: Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson SVA Value Accelerators and Alistair Stewart Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson Risks are the consequences of an action, an event that is reasonably likely to undermine or threaten goals or objectives that have been determined. There are things you can do or stop doing to increase enterprise value that are counter-intuitive and will increase the value of your business.
We’re doing a deep dive continuation with Sean Hutchinson, CEO, and Partner with http://buildvaluetoday.com/ (SVA Value Accelerators) and Alistair Stewart. He’s the Manufacturing Practice Leader from SVA Value Accelerators. We’re going to dig deeper and we’re going to talk about rapid risk reduction. Alistair, let us know.
Risks are out there in a variety of categories and most business owners and people working in the business become a little desensitized to them. You can think of risks as being in a broad spectrum of categories. Strategic risk, compliance risk, operational risk, financial risk, and reputational risk. Those are five broad categories. We can also consider that risks exist within a business and risks exist outside of a business. If we look at how businesses are valued. If we look at the worth of a business, it’s pretty obvious to financial investors and pretty opaque to owners and employees that reducing risk represents a tremendous opportunity to increase the value of a business, particularly the transferable value of a business.
We can look at say strategic risk. Strategic risk is something that threatens the outcomes that a business has chosen to pursue. There’s a little bit of an eye-opener there. Are we choosing our outcomes? Do we understand the threats that compromise our ability to realize those outcomes? What might those risks, those threats be? We can go down the list of compliance if that matters to the industry that you’re in, operational, financial and reputational. A fairly straightforward discussion on those topics will reveal a tremendous amount of business value, of enterprise value, that’s threatened by inattention to these existential matters.
In these three categories of how to increase the value of the business, increasing earnings, reducing risk and increasing marketability, those broad categories, a lot of business owners and their teams are going to focus on increasing earnings as an instinctual way to increase the value of a business. That’s understandable. That’s where a lot of resources go. When we see that big category of things that you have to do to reduce risk or should do, could do or will do, less attention is typically paid to those things. They can have a dramatic effect immediately on the economic enterprise value, transferable enterprise value, and we can add value. What people need to realize, what owners might tune in on here, is that we can add value to our business pretty dramatically without adding $1 of revenue or $1 of profit. Those things in the beginning of the value acceleration process have less effect on value. In fact, they may counter-intuitively lessen the value of
Women who are newly diagnosed with breast cancer are shocked at how emotional the experience is. They’re finding that their emotions range from extremes as everything seems to all of a sudden get amplified in their life. Diane Simard, author of The Unlikely Gift of Breast Cancer, goes into her own personal experience of going through and surviving Stage 3 breast cancer. She’s here to talk about her book, the diagnosis, her treatments, and her advocacy for individualized psychosocial support for cancer survivors and their caregivers.
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The Unlikely Gift Of Breast Cancer with Diane Simard I’m http://businessleaderspodcast.com/diane-simard-world-class-businesswoman-angel-investor-stage-3-breast-cancer-survivor-data-capture-my-why-evolution/ (Diane M. Simard) coming to you from https://www.byeaerospace.com/ (Bye Aerospace) in lovely Centennial, Colorado. I’m thrilled to be on the show as part of a follow on. I’m here to talk about my experience now that I’ve published a book that I wrote called https://www.dianemsimard.com/book/ (The Unlikely Gift of Breast Cancer). I’m here to talk about how much fun I’m having integrating my life as an author and also my life as a Senior Vice President and Board Member for this amazing company that’s developing what we believe will be the world’s first FAA Part 23 certified airplane called eFlyer. We’re targeting the flight training market. What I’m finding out is that my book, which I finished and published, is appealing to two different sets of folks. One is newly diagnosed women with breast cancer who are shocked at how emotional this experience is. They’re finding that their emotions range from extremes and as I always say, “Everything seems to all of a sudden get amplified in your life.” Your highs are higher, your lows are lower. What this book does is go into my personal experience. It’s not a self-help book or “Do this, don’t do that” book. It’s the story about my experience, how I felt these same emotions and what I did about it.
Secondly, the other group that is finding this book appealing are those who are either survivors themselves or caregivers to survivors who wonder what this experience is like. One thing that I did is I set out to capture what it tastes, feels and smells like to go through what I call the nuclear bomb treatment, which includes chemo, surgery and radiation. It’s a very vivid recap of what I experienced, how I reacted, how I responded and what I did about it. I happen to find that journaling was very soothing for me. That journal is what turned into this story that I just published.
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https://www.dianemsimard.com (Diane), thank you so much for sitting down again. This is our second time. For many, if not all, we all have cancer somewhere in our families. It’s been in my family. We had a friend that got re-diagnosed here. The journey continues. What I thought was most important about this is that you had the courage and foresight to write the book, put yourself out there and push yourself at risk. At the same time, you’re very busy with Bye Aerospace and life goes on. I wanted to make sure we did this and why in this show? The cancer for you was during your business career. There are many different business owners that have either themselves or loved ones or people in their business that are diagnosed with cancer. I thought it was important to go back to this again. We’re going to talk about the book. Some of the things that maybe people don’t think would be what they would think is an outcome. For the book, diagnosis, treatment and advocacy, let’s talk about that.
Writing the book was part of my healing process and continues to be. I journaled. I couldn’t find anyone to talk to and I asked my oncologist for a therapist that I could...
A lot of people put their career first over everything else for a long period of time, and there are consequences to that. Doug Robinson always wanted to have a more balanced life between work, family and community, and so when an opportunity presented itself, he made the choice to move to Colorado to have a shot at it. Gathering the right people, he formed a successful organization and started his own firm. He is now the managing partner of Dry Fly Capital, a private equity firm casting vision for legacy business operations to expand into growth. Doug talks about the tradeoffs of creating your own firm, closing transactions, bringing companies to market, the culture, vision, and core principles of his firm, and more.
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Transitioning Into Running Your Own Firm with Doug Robinson We have Doug Robinson as our guest. He’s the Managing Partner of https://www.dryflycap.com/ (Dry Fly Capital). He’s an adjunct professor of Finance at the University of Colorado Boulder and he is a former candidate for the Governor of the State of Colorado. Doug, you have a deep and varied background. Let’s dive into your background and talk about the journey.
I’m a father of five and married to the same woman for many years. The kids turned out okay. Our oldest is 28. The youngest is a junior in high school. We have one at home still. That’s what I’m most proud of. Along the way, I’ve done a lot of things. I’ve been an entrepreneur. I started businesses. I’ve managed larger companies. I ran for political office. Now, we have an independent private equity firm and we have four portfolio companies. It looks like we’re about to have a fifth. We have purchased companies and installed management and running those companies as well. I’ve had a great life. I was born in Michigan. I got to New York out of college. I spent several years in New York and many years in Colorado.
When you came out of college, what was your skill set that you got in college that took you to New York City?
I discovered along the way in college that I liked numbers. I liked finance. I had an internship on the bond desk at First Interstate Bank in Los Angeles. I interviewed and found a way to get back to New York and took a job as an investment banker, as an analyst at Dean Witter in 2 World Trade Center. I didn’t realize at the time I was signing up for about 80 to 90-hour average weeks. That was quite an education.
As a credit analyst in the bond market, those guys go deep in the balance sheets to make sure the credit quality is sorted out. I think more about a company from their balance sheet than perhaps the equity side does, in my opinion.
The balance sheet tells you everything. Balance sheet, cashflow, income statement, that’s usually where people start. That’s the least important of the three statements, but they’re all important.
You were at Dean Witter, which is no longer with us.
Dean Witter is now part of Morgan Stanley. I went back to business school. I went to Columbia Business School in New York with an emphasis on finance. I came out and joined a media company in their corporate development group, Maxwell Macmillan, Macmillan Publishing. I was on a team where we brought 23 companies over a couple of years span. I was recruited and I joined a firm called Hambrecht & Quist, which was an early underwriter taking companies public technology companies based in San Francisco. I was in New York. There were lots of travel back and forth, but we were doing IPOs primarily for emerging internet and technology companies along the way. I was traveling so much my wife said, “Is this what we signed up for?”
You were married to her these days?
I was married. We just had our third child. Out of the blue, I had a new assignment in Colorado. I’d lived in Colorado as a kid for a couple of years. My wife grew up basically at the Air Force Academy....
Business is all about being able to look forward and come through from where you are in the present. Sean Hutchinson, CEO/Partner of SVA Value Accelerators, talks about the Company of the Future in the value accelerator. He shares the intensive work his company has been doing with pivoting owners to advance towards their goals in the future. The Company of the Future is that strategy where you will have to think of the current and future state of your business. Get down into it as you answer the question of “Where are we going and how are we going to get there?” Sean breaks down the two tools that can help you find the answers to these questions: the graphics game plan and strategic doing.
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Company Of The Future: Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson We’re going to go through and do a continuation or a deep dive from an original episode with Sean Hutchinson of http://buildvaluetoday.com/ (SVA). He’s the CEO and partner. What we’re going to be talking about is the value accelerator methodology, Company of the Future. Sean, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you, Bob. It’s good to be here.
Let’s talk about the Company of the Future component.
As a reminder, a few principles from the first episode that we did. We have three classes of owners, three categories. We’ve got the explorers, we’ve got the pivoters and we’ve got the triggers. Explorers are seeking information and insights. Pivoters are working on value accelerator actively and intensively. Then the triggerers are owners who are looking in the short-term to transition ownership of their business.
Company of the Future is in the value accelerator. We’re working with the pivoting owners. Company of the Future is a strategy. Think about the current state, future state when you’re doing strategy, you’ve got two questions to answer. They’re simple questions. Where are we going and how are we going to get there? That’s all you need to answer. We created Company of the Future as a 90-day sprint and what we ask our clients to do is concentrate on those two questions.
They’re going to continue to run their business, it’s not like we’re going on a 90-day retreat. What we are focusing on in terms of value acceleration is where are we going as a company out of all the options out there? Where do we want to plant our flag? How do we want to create a direct path or at least a path that can efficiently get us there? Then what resources are we going to need both in our company and from outside of our company in order to activate that pathway?
What I’m going to describe to you are two things after using a few visuals here. I’m going to describe to you two tools. One is the graphic game plan and the other is called strategic doing, which is an agile strategy methodology. We believe in agile strategy and, I want to say as many times as I possibly can, this has a strong bias for action. The reason that we call it strategic doing is because strategic planning doesn’t encourage anybody to do anything at all except plan. Think about being in an action mindset throughout this entire process. That’s what’s going to count.
You're going to have to learn what the essence of leadership is and that is knowing what not to do.https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbusinessleaderspodcast.com%2Fcompany-of-the-future-creating-the-path-to-higher-valuation-with-ceopartner-sean-hutchinson%2F&text=You%27re%20going%20to%20have%20to%20learn%20what%20the%20essence%20of%20leadership%20is%20and%20that%20is%20knowing%20what%20not%20to%20do.&related (Click To Tweet) I want you to imagine that we have a picture from the Kepler Space Telescope that shows us all of the Milky Way at one time. What is that going to look like? It’s going to look busy....
As the world continue to shift and improve, the spaces for women in leadership positions have greatly opened up. Cheryl Campbell, former Senior Vice President of Xcel Energy and the Independent Director of Hoffman Southwest, takes us to the boardroom as she engages her experiences as a woman functioning in board roles. Together with Jo Lynne Whiting of Board Bound, we follow Cheryl as she describes her responsibilities from working with Xcel Energy to Hoffman Southwest. She provides great insights and advices to those young men and women who would love a career path that would soon serve on boards, laying down some pointers on how you can make key decisions and add value – from compliance and progress to employee safety and acquisition. Cheryl then sheds a light for women who want to participate in nontraditional areas, encouraging them to have the confidence to pursue what they love to do.
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Entering The Boardroom with Cheryl Campbell and Jo Lynne Whiting We’re doing a cohosted version of the show. My cohost is http://businessleaderspodcast.com/women-on-board-with-jo-lynne-whiting/ (Jo Lynne Whiting). She is a previous guest on the podcast. She is with https://womensleadershipfoundation.org/board-bound-program/ (Boardbound) by the Women’s Leadership Foundation. Our guest is Cheryl Campbell. She is the former Senior Vice President of https://www.xcelenergy.com/ (Xcel Energy), retired and she’s also the Independent Director of http://hswcorp.com/ (Hoffman Southwest). For the folks that don’t know what Hoffman Southwest is, they are the parent company of Roto-Rooter.
They do https://www.rotorooter.com/ (Roto-Rooter) and https://pro-pipe.com/ (Pro-Pipe). They do a lot of pipeline work for the utility industry.
Tell us a little bit about what you do, what you’ve done in the past. We’ll bring it forward to your service on boards and the relationship that you have with Boardbound.
I spent about 35 years in the energy industry, about twenty years with the old Coastal Corporation, Colorado Interstate Gas and the last several years was with Xcel Energy. I retired from there. I spent a lot of time doing engineering, strategic planning, operations, regulatory work and a wide variety of things. I was very fortunate to have many opportunities and do a lot of interesting work over the course of my career. I got interested in boards relatively early on. I sat on a number of nonprofit boards. I decided I wanted to serve on company boards. It’s been a great career. I’m really happy to be here and talk to you about what I’ve been up to in the Boardbound Program.
Cheryl, you were an executive in the energy business. We have a lot of energy businesses here in Colorado. For those people that may not be familiar with Xcel, could you describe the scope of your responsibility?
Xcel Energy is a combination gas and electric utility provider and they serve eight states. We had two million gas customers and about 3.4 million electric customers. It’s a good-sized company. Overall, I ran the gas business for Xcel. I was responsible for those two million gas customers, our employees and our asset base. I have spent the last several years or so building their asset management programs and their risk management programs. Working with our board to improve our risk management and our safety both for employees and the public around our system. It was a great opportunity. We made a lot of good progress while I was there and they continue to make a lot of good progress now.
For the young men and women that are out there and they’re going to go, “I’d love to have a career path where I progress and succeed and end up running a division and being able to serve on boards.” What advice would you offer to our audience that has an interest in heading and trying to replicate your success?
First of all, you’ve got to be good at what you
Many business owners flinch when hearing the word “transition.” The reason is how, for so long, it has been associated with the death of the business. CEO and Partner of SVA Value Accelerators Sean Hutchinson says otherwise. In fact, he believes that it is the path to higher valuation, making the business more valuable. With his expertise on value acceleration and transition readiness for business owners around the country, he shares the reasons why equipping yourself with the succession tools are very important. Sean talks about the three buckets or classifications of business owners that represent different points along the journey to transition readiness: explorers, pivoters, and triggerers. Learn which among these you belong to as Sean gives the three ways that you can increase the value of your business.
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Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson 75% to 95% of the business owners’ net worth is tied up in their business, but only 10% have a plan for monetizing that net worth and only 20% will. On the show, we have Sean Hutchinson. He’s the CEO and Partner of http://buildvaluetoday.com/ (SVA Value Accelerators). Sean, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you, Bob.
Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
Our business is about value acceleration and transition readiness for business owners around the country. We only work with private businesses. We don’t focus on the publicly traded market and we work mostly with Baby Boomers, with some exceptions, that are middle-aged folks moving into the later stage of their business career. One reason why we work with Baby Boomers so often is there are so many of them. It’s a demographic that’s unprecedented in the United States. 50% of the Baby Boomers are saying that they’re going to transition their ownership in their business over the next five years. The other 50% say within ten. It’s hard to match that up with market cycles and other things. We focus on getting them ready so that they can take advantage of the window of opportunity when it’s open. The businesses tend to be in six different industries for us because we have specialty practices but they’re revenue-wise maybe $15 million to $250 million.
However, that ideal customer question had us perplexed because when people would ask, “What’s your ideal customer?” we’d start answering it in the way that almost everybody else answers it. It was “In this industry with minimum of $15 million in revenue. Business is healthy, not distressed, and so on” One day in a strategic planning meeting when we had a new advisor come on board, he asked the same question. We started answering in the same way and then somehow the conversation just stopped and we all looked at one another and said, “If the client is the owner, why are we describing our client with data about the business? Why is that the profile?” It seemed like the wrong answer and so we created what we call Three Buckets, three classifications, of owners that we think represent different points along the journey to transition readiness.
Bucket number one is the explorers. Explorers are owners who are trying to get insights and information before they decide to engage in advisory programs. They’re trying to get some clarity before they decide to spend the money, spend the time, devote the resources, to doing value acceleration and transition readiness.
The second group is the pivoters. These are the folks who have probably been sitting on their hands for a while. Procrastination is something that we all have to overcome. Whether it’s because of a life event or something else, they wake up and say, “I’ve got to do something about this.” It could be because of a business event. Things aren’t going too well in the business or something. They lose their top customer or whatever it might be...
Many business owners flinch when hearing the word “transition.” The reason is how, for so long, it has been associated with the death of the business. CEO and Partner of SVA Value Accelerators Sean Hutchinson says otherwise. In fact, he believes that it is the path to higher valuation, making the business more valuable. With his expertise on value acceleration and transition readiness for business owners around the country, he shares the reasons why equipping yourself with the succession tools are very important. Sean talks about the three buckets or classifications of business owners that represent different points along the journey to transition readiness: explorers, pivoters, and triggerers. Learn which among these you belong to as Sean gives the three ways that you can increase the value of your business.
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Creating The Path To Higher Valuation with CEO/Partner Sean Hutchinson 75% to 95% of the business owners’ net worth is tied up in their business, but only 10% have a plan for monetizing that net worth and only 20% will. On the show, we have Sean Hutchinson. He’s the CEO and Partner of http://buildvaluetoday.com/ (SVA Value Accelerators). Sean, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you, Bob.
Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
Our business is about value acceleration and transition readiness for business owners around the country. We only work with private businesses. We don’t focus on the publicly traded market and we work mostly with Baby Boomers, with some exceptions, that are middle-aged folks moving into the later stage of their business career. One reason why we work with Baby Boomers so often is there are so many of them. It’s a demographic that’s unprecedented in the United States. 50% of the Baby Boomers are saying that they’re going to transition their ownership in their business over the next five years. The other 50% say within ten. It’s hard to match that up with market cycles and other things. We focus on getting them ready so that they can take advantage of the window of opportunity when it’s open. The businesses tend to be in six different industries for us because we have specialty practices but they’re revenue-wise maybe $15 million to $250 million.
However, that ideal customer question had us perplexed because when people would ask, “What’s your ideal customer?” we’d start answering it in the way that almost everybody else answers it. It was “In this industry with minimum of $15 million in revenue. Business is healthy, not distressed, and so on” One day in a strategic planning meeting when we had a new advisor come on board, he asked the same question. We started answering in the same way and then somehow the conversation just stopped and we all looked at one another and said, “If the client is the owner, why are we describing our client with data about the business? Why is that the profile?” It seemed like the wrong answer and so we created what we call Three Buckets, three classifications, of owners that we think represent different points along the journey to transition readiness.
Bucket number one is the explorers. Explorers are owners who are trying to get insights and information before they decide to engage in advisory programs. They’re trying to get some clarity before they decide to spend the money, spend the time, devote the resources, to doing value acceleration and transition readiness.
The second group is the pivoters. These are the folks who have probably been sitting on their hands for a while. Procrastination is something that we all have to overcome. Whether it’s because of a life event or something else, they wake up and say, “I’ve got to do something about this.” It could be because of a business event. Things aren’t going too well in the business or something. They lose their top customer or whatever it might be...
We often hear the saying, “Your business is just as good as the people in it,” yet many businesses still fail at finding the right kind of people in their team. As a result, they lag behind in efficiency and productivity. Kevin Stoffel and Brent Hultman from Strong People Systems give an overview of the issues that business owners are currently facing when it comes to their employees. They offer some great advice, insights, and tools that help solve problems in turnover and employee engagement. Highlighting the importance of identifying the true human potential of an individual, they bring forth the need for more objectivity into the hiring process. This does not only help the company go forward towards success but it is also a service to individual employees to truly load up on who they are truly meant to be.
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Kevin Stoffel And Brent Hultman From Strong People Systems We have two guests on the podcast, Kevin Stoffel and Brent Hultman of http://strongpeoplesystems.com/ (Strong People Systems) there in the office from up north in the Denver area. Thanks so much for coming in.
It’s our pleasure to be here.
Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
We are Strong People Systems and we focus on unlocking human potential. It falls into two areas, working with small and medium-sized companies. We help companies bring some objective data into the hiring process, do a better job of getting the right people on the bus, to go along with the subjective resumes and interviews, where people look great on a resume and interview like a rock star but then turn out to be somebody else when they got on the job. We bring some objective data into that process using some pre-employment screening assessments and then working with existing staff to develop the potential of those people. If we ask the question to most of us, “Are you living up to your potential?” most people say, “Not really. There’s more I could give, more I could do, more I could achieve, if I can get out of my own way.”
One of the reasons that we typically don’t work with larger enterprises and large companies even though that’s my background is that we realized everybody says, “Our people are our most valuable asset,” but then if I ask the leader to demonstrate how they do that, I’ll catch them flatfooted. Most big companies say that but then they have a hard time demonstrating that they truly do it. We’re not willing to engage with a client that’s not serious about developing people. If they want us to go fix their people and they say, “We need you, go fix my people,” that’s a non-starter. We won’t sign a contract in that case.
When it’s a “Fix my people” attitude or mentality or thought process, I always tell people to be careful when you point the finger of blame at people because there are three fingers pointing back at you. There’s a lot of truth in that.
What’s your prototypical size business? How many employees? What kind of revenue?
We usually go by employees on that question because depending on the type of business you’re in, revenues can vary greatly. Ideally, our targeted clients are between 25 to 500 employees. We work with clients smaller than that and clients bigger than that. It’s about working with individuals or teams within those organizations to unlock their potential, the talents that are already there.
For the business owner that reaches out to you to bring you on board, what typical pain points or problems are they trying to solve when they reach out to you?
It’s one or two things, it’s, “I’m stuck. I’ve either plateaued or there are outcomes we have to accomplish that aren’t happening and they should be. If I could, I’d fire everybody and start over but I can’t, therefore I’m in enough pain with my current team that I’m willing to take a...
According to Seth Godin, marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make but about the stories you tell. One such powerful way of telling that story is through photos and images. Professional photographer Shelly Au talks about imagery and visual work, having a business focused on creating high-quality headshots and visual branding. Shelly helps companies communicate their story to the world in an artistic and creative way. He says it’s more than capturing your subject sitting down, taking the photo, getting up, and then leaving. Visual branding is more of how you get people to portray who they are to help businesses succeed and take the next step.
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Visual Branding: Telling Your Story Through Imagery with Shelly Au We’re incredibly fortunate, we have Shelly Au. He’s from https://www.shellyau.com/ (Shelly Au) Photography. We’re going to be talking about imagery and visual work with him and why it’s important. Shelly, tell me a little bit about your business and who you serve.
Bob, thank you for having me here. I appreciate it and the opportunity to chat with you on this. My business is focused on two areas. It’s high-end quality headshots and the second part is visual branding. It’s communicating the story of a business and what they’re doing. It’s how you artistically and creatively help them communicate that to the world and the public.
You and I met. I was at a corporate training event and you were doing all the headshots for all of the participants. For most of us rookies, we’ll do a selfie and go, “There’s my photo,” and I stick it on LinkedIn and you look at it and go, “It looks like a bad mugshot from the police department.” Let’s talk about the importance of that headshot in representing who you are.
There’s a lot that goes into it, believe it or not. The general photographer will bring in your studio and shoot you. Keep in mind when I photographed you and many others, I only had ten minutes. I do my best to try to communicate with you and to hear about what you’re doing. All of that helps me pose you the way I get your eyes to look. The way you sit up or down, leaning towards the camera, turn your face. I’m studying you. I’m studying my subject, their face but I’m also trying to bring out who they are as a person. I would pose them differently. I had Frank Shamrock come in and he was a boxer. He had awesome cheekbones and trying to get him as he speaks with his hands going. I definitely study them and try to help them come out. I feel like that separates me from the others as well along with some of the training. I’ve been very fortunate to train under some people who do head shots well. Peter Hurley in New York charges $2,000 for a headshot. I’m part of his crew and I’m crafting what’s best for that person.
I’m fortunate that I’ve already had my headshot done by Shelly. Part of the reason I had him on the podcast was that I thought it was important to talk about the visual conveyance. I can remember we popped out of a meeting. We went down this long hall and we go to this studio that you set up on site. It’s not as simple as your subject sitting down, you take photos and they get up and leave. There’s a whole process that you go through when you do the photo. Let’s talk a little bit about how you get your subject ready and comfortable.
There are a few things there. One is the lighting setup I chose. I have LED lights that are constantly on. Right there, there’s a sparkle in your eyes. It’s not that triggering flash that goes off and I can do that. I have done it that way. That continuous lighting allows a person to relax first of all. I always kneel and when I’m communicating. I have them sit on the chair first. It’s almost talking and finding out about who they are because...
At some point, business owners are responsible for the people that they’ve engaged because their livelihoods are dependent on their ability to run and to lead that business. Kevin Kays, president of The Alternative Board Denver North, helps business owners increase revenue, improve profitability, and lead their companies more effectively. Kevin shares what he does at The Alternative Board and how they help business owners run their businesses more effectively. He also touches on transitions, working with a business coach, behavioral assessments, critical success factors, and more.
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How To Increase Revenue, Improve Profitability And Run Your Business More Effectively with Kevin Kays We have Kevin Kays. He’s the President of https://www.thealternativeboard.com/denver-north (The Alternative Board Denver North). Kevin, thank you so much for taking the time on this episode.
Thanks for having me.
Kevin, tell us a bit about your business and who you serve.
I own The Alternative Board Denver North and I work with entrepreneurs. I target folks who own and operate and actively involved in running their businesses that do gross revenues of about $1 million up to the $50 million range and larger. What I do is work with them to run their businesses more effectively so that they can identify their personal goals and translate them into their company goals. Use that to develop their strategy and implement it to get them where they want to be both personally and with the business.
I’m going to pretend I’m a business owner. I’ve been successful. I know everything I think that there is to know about my customer. I’ve been running the business for twenty years. I’m successful by almost everybody’s measure. You walked through the door. What should I expect?
What you should expect is for me to start asking you about where you are with your business and where you are with your life. What plan do you have not only for running the business but for leaving the business and monetizing that asset that you’ve spent your life building?
For many of the business owners, they think about leaving the business, “I have zero plan to leave my business. I’m going to work here until I die.” Why would that be of interest to the guy that says, “I’m never going to leave my business?”
The guy that says he’s never going to leave his business is deluding himself because he’s either going to leave it on his own power or leave it first. If he’s got a family that’s depending on him, he’s got a responsibility to make sure that that asset serves them one way or another after he’s gone. If he doesn’t plan for his exit and doesn’t plan for that asset to be of value to the folks behind him, he’s going to leave a colossal mess for them.
I saw a statistic that said after 2008 declined crash that two-thirds of the jobs created in the country were created by small business owners. Some of the business owners that’s been successful is interested in as employees as well.
One of the things I look for the individual that runs his or her business is to help them lead more effectively. I help them deliver on the plan that they need to make so that not only is the business doing well to meet their needs but meets the needs of their employees. At some point, you are responsible for the people that you’ve engaged because their livelihoods are dependent on your ability to run and to lead that business.
For the business owner, they might say, “I’m not going to take and sell my business. I want to transition it to my kid.” For that particular person, what types of things do you see that you bring to the table that help those folks?
Have the family members worked in the business? What responsibilities have they had? A particular case I worked with was where the...
More than having such caring and nurturing hands, women nowadays have also demonstrated their power and strength on the business and corporate side. Jo Lynne Whiting, the Board Chair of the Women’s Leadership Foundation, believes that having more women on board is critical to the success of companies. She talks about how women can become a great leader to spearhead company success and create better economic development.
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Women On Board with Jo Lynne Whiting We’re incredibly fortunate because I have Jo Lynne Whiting. She is the Board Chair of the https://womensleadershipfoundation.org/ (Women’s Leadership Foundation). I had the pleasure of meeting her at an event where women were talking about being on boards. Jo Lynne, thanks for taking your time. Tell us a little bit about the foundation and what your mission is.
https://womensleadershipfoundation.org/board-bound-program/ (Boardbound) by Women’s Leadership Foundation, we are working for advocacy because we believe that having more women on boards is critical to the success of their companies. Fortunately, the research bears that out. We also work on the supply. We have a Boardbound program that equips women to step into board service and we work on-demand. We think there are a lot of very talented women already out there. The more that companies, CEOs, board directors, the chair nominating governance asked for those women and look for them, the better off we’ll be and we’ll have more balance on our boards.
How long has the foundation been around?
We were legally formed in 2002. The Colorado Women’s Chamber of Commerce formed an independent foundation and we were rather dormant until 2011 when we adopted a mission. The way we did that is we did research of what’s already going on here in Colorado, where are women succeeding and where are the gaps. One of the gaps that stood out was breaking that glass ceiling to get on the board. That is what we focused on. We started with research. In the very first research study, we learned that there was only 7% of the board positions in Colorado held by women.
How did that relate to the rest of the country as a comparison?
At that point in time, we didn’t have a good benchmark because you need to adjust to the size of companies. Back in 2011, you’ll hear publications say, “We’ve got 12%. We’ve got 14%.” They might have been only talking about the larger companies and here in Colorado, we do have a lot of smaller companies which tend to have fewer. Now, we know that and we know we’re about 2 percentage points behind the national average. We’re about 9 percentage points behind some of the best states whose companies that are headquartered there have done a great job of getting women on boards.
As far as percentage gains from where you were, you have made great strides.
It's everyone, both men and women, working together that are going to make this a better world and a better business environment. https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbusinessleaderspodcast.com%2Fwomen-on-board-with-jo-lynne-whiting%2F&text=It%27s%20everyone%2C%20both%20men%20and%20women%2C%20working%20together%20that%20are%20going%20to%20make%20this%20a%20better%20world%20and%20a%20better%20business%20environment.%20&related (Click To Tweet) We’re excited. It is slow, but it is a steady increase. We started at seven and I’m very proud to say that as of December 31st of 2018, we’re at 14.4%.
How does that put you in comparison to other states?
We’re still behind by about those 2 percentage points. The part that’s encouraging is if you look at 2018, we had a 2.1 percentage point gain and the previous six years it was less than one point. We’re encouraged because a lot of Coloradans have gotten behind this. Colorado was the fourth state to pass a resolution by both...
Data theft has run amok, and the internet is fraught with vulnerabilities. Anytime you are on the internet, you’re putting yourself – and your important digital files and folders – at risk to potential attack. Users should pay close attention to suspicious email, and check frequently to prevent hackers from gaining access to home or business networks.
Malware, spyware and keylogging attacks are real, and can cause significant damage. In fact, research firms tell us that a successful attack can likely cause a small business to close its doors within 6 to 9 months of the attack.
Robert Fleming, founder and president of BlackSquare Technologies, talks about securing your digital information from potential harm through hardware encryption tools. He also shares one of their key tools called Enigma, which delivers secure, simple, real-time USB hardware encryption and decryption to protect data, no matter where that data is stored.
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Protecting Your Data And Privacy with Robert Fleming
This is an episode where we are doing a return podcast with Bob Fleming. He’s the Founder and President of https://www.blacksquaretechnologies.com/ (BlackSquare Technologies). In the http://businessleaderspodcast.com/bob-fleming-ceo-blacksquare-technology-if-its-important-encrypt-it/ (previous podcast), we were talking about the Enigma device. It looks like a thumb drive, but does not store any data. Enigma offers a female connector which allows the user to connect any type of USB storage device. The whole idea is we wanted to get an update as to where we are. If you would, Bob, recap your business and who you serve.
Thanks for having me back, Bob. We’re a small Colorado based company called BlackSquare Technologies, and we build an external hardware encryption tool that we call Enigma. Enigma allows the connection of any USB storage device. Enigma itself does not store data and acts as a firewall to protect against malware and spyware attacks.
With a simple click, Enigma allows the user to encrypt and decrypt data, no matter where that data may be stored. Enigma has been designed to support the consumer and small business, and offers value to a single user to hundreds of users.
It’s also important to mention that Enigma does not have a back door, so please record your passwords.
As we look at the device, let’s back up a little bit and talk about some of your background and how you brought your background forward into the design and bringing to market of this device.
I bring over eighteen years of data security expertise and consultancy experience to BlackSquare. Prior to founding BlackSquare, my colleagues and I worked for a very large storage manufacturing company here in Colorado, where we designed and marketed full disk encrypting and self encrypting hard drives.
In the early 2000’s, I realized myself that data was suspect. If important data fell into the wrong hands, it could be leveraged or monetized against that company, it’s leadership, its board, its investors, vendors and contacts.
My team and I decided that we could design and build a product which will allow us to protect our important data from everybody. That’s how it came about.
I have an Enigma device here in my business. We were backing it up and I have a relatively large backup drive, which has a USB plug on it. It plugs right into Enigma. It’s a very simple process to drag and drop a file and encrypt it. You drag and drop it to the same place. You choose to encrypt or decrypt as you see fit. Some of the things that we talk about here, for folks who are going, “I’m migrating from storing information on my local hard drive to Dropbox or any various cloud providers.” Let’s dig into that process and your thoughts on protecting the data in the “cloud.”
While storing data in the cloud is beneficial, cloud storage is just as...
Intellectual property is the most valuable asset of a company that is why it should always be protected. Otherwise, employees come in and learn all your systems and processes, and then they leave. The next thing you realize, there’s a competitor down the road that is being run by that former employee. However, many companies don’t do a good job of securing their intellectual property because they don’t understand that. Art Nutter, the founder, chairman, and CEO of PatentBooks and a company called TAEUS, delves deep into the subject of intellectual property, bringing to light the significance of patents. He also shares how PatentBooks and TAEUS were created and what they are all about.
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How To Protect Your Intellectual Property with Art Nutter We have Art Nutter. He’s the Founder, Chairman and CEO of https://patentbooksinc.com/ (PatentBooks) and a company called https://taeus.com/ (TAEUS). People will go, “PatentBooks, I got. What is TAEUS?”
People think it’s some Greek god of knowledge. I was going to invent that, but it’s an acronym for Take Apart Everything Under the Sun. That company was one that I started back in 1992 when the United States and big companies were thinking that foreign competition was copying their intellectual property. I approached AT&T one day and said, “You acquired NCR. Do you know what patents you acquired in that acquisition?” They said, “No.” I said, “I can tell you.” We proceeded to do that and turned to AT&T and then subsequently IBM into patent licensing powerhouses. IBM went from $100 million licensing income to $2 billion in licensing income over the space of ten years.”
I think about that and say, “You started TAEUS.”
Yes, I did. Out of the garage with frequent flyer miles, a laptop computer, a laser printer and that was it.
Did you have experience in patent or anything or taking things apart?
Yes, I’ve always taken things apart. We grew up on a farm. If something broke, we had to figure out how to fix it. I’ve had an inherent interest and curiosity in doing those things. However, the last job I had as an employee before I started TAEUS, I tended to get fired in most companies because I was usually the guy making too much money. That was my crime. I doubled the sales of this particular company in a space of nine months. This company was reverse engineering semiconductor memory chips. I discovered that there was a marketplace that was very interested in this reverse engineering data. That was this intellectual property marketplace because like I said in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, US companies were thinking, “We’re getting killed by foreign competition. They must be copying our stuff, our ideas and our inventions.” In fact, they were and this was an easy way for them to document the other companies copying of their circuits. They literally would reverse engineer the circuits and then duplicate them exactly. It was government-funded in Japan and Korea and Taiwan and so forth. They wanted to establish semiconductor industries for themselves, which as from history, our semiconductor industry is pretty few and far between. You have the Intels, AMDs and in-house semiconductor capabilities but nowhere near likely the volume of semiconductor companies that did exist in here in the 1980s. Those businesses are now done overseas in Asia.
Learn all the time because you're kidding yourself anytime you think you know everything; you'll be blindsided.https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbusinessleaderspodcast.com%2Fhow-to-protect-your-intellectual-property-with-art-nutter%2F&text=Learn%20all%20the%20time%20because%20you%27re%20kidding%20yourself%20anytime%20you%20think%20you%20know%20everything%3B%20you%27ll%20be%20blindsided.&related (Click To Tweet) I’m thinking about you started out with your laptop in your garage and...
With everyone either selling or buying, you would think it’s a simple process for them to meet and finish the job. However, many business owners and buyers alike still have a hard time looking for the right business or buyers for them. Rob Amerine, certified business intermediary of The FBB Group, Ltd, talks about selling a business and helping buyers see what they want and need. He shares some nuggets about how to have good businesses that are ready to sell as well as the things you need to have a higher sales price. Rob walks through the process and discusses the small business development council (SBDC), the market, some expectations and misconceptions, and more as he advises businesses to build to sell.
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Rob Amerine: What You Need To Know About Selling A Business
We’re very fortunate to have https://www.linkedin.com/in/robamerine (Rob Amerine). He is a Certified Business Intermediary with the https://www.fbb.com/ (FBB Group) in Colorado Springs. If you would, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
Our firm was originally started in 1982 called the FBB, First Business Brokers, and then we changed the name to the FBB Group. We wanted to become a little bit more nuanced, people have a lot of questions about confidentiality so we want to make it more straightforward. We actually added the ability to do stock transactions at that time as well. Our Founder, https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronchernak (Ron Chernak), had his FINRA license. There was a little branding and name change at that point to the FBB Group.
What is it that you guys do?
If you don’t live in this world, you don’t realize that a lot of small businesses transact through intermediaries like ours where a seller needs to sell and we have buyers that come to our firm. It’s a very niche industry, but it’s very important to the economy, being able to find buyers for sellers that are looking to transition their business. It’s one of those businesses where you don’t realize it touches a lot of different facets of the business from the legal side, to the accounting side, to the marketing and the operations. You can imagine all the different things that we touch and see. It’s vital to what sellers need. Rarely do businesses sell without someone like us. If it does happen, it’s some of the bigger businesses. Small business is the engine of the economy, and selling businesses is where this value changes over.
Looking back over the past few years, would you say that there’s a fair quantity of businesses available to be sold? Is there a shortage?
There are a lot coming on the market, more so than we’ve seen before since the recession. We’re going through that cycle. No one knows when it’s going to end. There’s a lot of them out there. There are also a lot of businesses that are not ready to sell that out there. They’re trying to sell and they’re very frustrated. About one in ten go to the market actually sell. When you use a firm like ours, that can increase to maybe three or four out of ten. You increase your percentages by having a firm like ours involved.
It’s better to know than to wait.https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbusinessleaderspodcast.com%2Frob-amerine-what-you-need-to-know-about-selling-a-business%2F&text=It%E2%80%99s%20better%20to%20know%20than%20to%20wait.&related (Click To Tweet) You’ve got the business owner reading this and he goes, “I know what my company’s worth.” When you find the nine out of ten businesses that don’t sell, what are the typical reasons you run across as to why they don’t?
Unrealistic expectations. Most of the time, business owners have gotten their valuation from their accountant. The accountant does a great job of doing accounting, but they’re not selling businesses. Usually, when they value...
Managing director of IBG, Dan Roth, went from being a business owner to advising business owners himself. Taking all of those experiences he has gained through the years, he is now one of those rare people who can give you genuine advice about the entire processes and struggles in starting, maintaining, growing and selling a business. He lets us in into some of the methods and approaches he uses in advising business owners while also sharing some pointers on how to deal with buyers and selling. He also discusses topics such as acquisitions and risk management, and shares some personal regrets. And he provides great nuggets of wisdom that’ll help you move your business forward.
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The Art of Advising Businesses with Dan Roth Today, we’re incredibly fortunate to visit with https://www.linkedin.com/in/danjroth/ (Dan Roth). He is a Managing Director at https://ibgbusiness.com/ (IBG), a merger, acquisition and advisory firm. This is his second appearance on the podcast. We’re honored to have you on the show, Dan.
Thanks for having me again, Bob. I’m looking forward to the time with you.
Dan, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve. In a thumbnail sketch, what does your business do and what does your ideal client look like?
I work for IBG Business Services, which is based in Denver, Colorado. We’ve been in business since the mid-1980s. We focus on primarily mergers and acquisitions of mid to small-sized companies. Most of the companies we work with are looking to sell either all or part of their companies. Occasionally, we’ll work with companies that are looking to make acquisitions where they have specific types of companies they want to acquire, and we help them manage that process. For the clients that are looking to sell, sometimes they have us work with them right away. When they want to sell the company, we work quickly to get that started. Other times we work with companies that are not ready to sell, but are looking for advice on, “What should I do now to prepare my business for sale in a year or two years or five years?” We do a lot of advising as well to help companies know, “What should I do now so that when I sell my company, I get the most value for it and I find the best buyer.”
What folks may not know is you also started and have run a number of businesses as well.
Earlier in my career, I had the entrepreneurial bug. I started a company when I was in high school in technology and software and was fortunate to hire a number of people and build that up and sell it. A few years later, I started another software company. I was building software for International Banks with a partner in London and we were again fortunate to sell that company to a buyer out of Brussels, Belgium. Working with another partner, we created an investment banking firm in New Port Beach, California. That still runs. I’m not part of it anymore, but the company as I understand is doing well.
From there, I helped start up a company in home healthcare that is now one of the largest private companies in the home healthcare space in the United States. I’ve been involved in a number of early-stage startup companies in technology and healthcare. I love the process. I love to be part of startups. I love building companies. I love to work with business owners, because business owners are a different breed. They are people that take risks, who want to build something themselves and I find a real affinity for working with folks like that.
I think about the experiences that you’ve had in the past. You’re a business owner that’s now coming in to advise business owners. What type of advantage or benefit do you think you bring to that business owner that’s going to be looking for help?
I hope experience. I hope the fact that I have run several companies that were sold or continue to be successful. I have...
Most of the people in our society are experiencing some physical symptoms that reflect the negative effects of their lifestyle. Instead of using natural stressors to calm the body and illicit self-healing in the body, we’re taking medications. Wyatt Ewing, founder of The Ice Barrel, wanted to look at natural and effective ways to improve health and escape from this epidemic of overstressed, overworked, overstimulated, and medicated people. Thus, The Ice Barrel was born. It is a custom US-made oak barrel designed for taking ice baths. Wyatt is joined by sales director Chris O’Connor and marketing director Joby Stanford to talk about the health benefits of The Ice Barrel.
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The Ice Barrel with Founder Wyatt Ewing Radical improvements in your immune system, mood, focus, energy and overall health. Key leaders in all industries including Tony Robbins, Paul Chek, Laird Hamilton and Tim Ferriss are utilizing the benefits of the ice bath. If they’re doing it, why aren’t you?
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We’re joined by Wyatt Ewing. He’s the Founder of https://theicebarrel.com/ (The Ice Barrel). Chris O’Connor, he’s the Sales Director and Joby Stanford is the Marketing Director of The Ice Barrel. Thanks for being on Business Leaders Podcast. We’re going to jump right in. Tell us about The Ice Barrel and who it’s for.
The Ice Barrel is a custom US made oak barrel designed for taking ice baths. We are based in Colorado. We started out of a garage. The Ice Barrel was originally founded out of a desire to connect deeper, go further and maintain equanimity through life’s challenges. It’s grown to give a balanced approach to health fitness through practicality and simplification.
That’s a lot of vocabulary. Let’s drill down into it. Let’s talk about how you got the notion about Ice Barrel and the journey to taking it from thought. What got you started down this road?
I was tired of being sick, addicted to stress hormones in the body and being overworked, overworking myself ultimately. I needed something to take me to the next level and to regain health and balance in my life. When I started exploring with cold therapy, I quickly needed to make a water cooler. I was having some amazing changes in my physiology. I started taking ice baths. I was so sick and tired of laying down in my bathtub upstairs looking at the ugly ceiling. Weighing down in the cold water is not a natural feeling to begin with. You’ve got to lean forward and huddle in there. The idea came when I was driving down the road and it clicked. I need to be able to lean forward and gauge my mind in a different way. Not trying to force myself to relax, but let it come naturally. I put the idea together with the barrel. A lot of work trying to design something that would work and be suitable for the product we created.
Let’s bounce off your point. My background is in health and if we look at the state of the way things are and our population and the number of pharmaceuticals that we see consumed every day. The pain epidemics that we see. The lack of strong immune systems and functions that we see. People are sick. Most of the people in our society are experiencing some physical symptoms that reflect the negative effects of their lifestyle. Instead of using natural stressors to calm the body and illicit self-healing in the body, we’re taking medications. There’s a pill for that. Seeing this clearly if you look from a wider lens, you’ll see how much we are not helping in our traditional approach. We’re looking at natural effective ways to improve our health and escape from this epidemic of overstressed, overworked, overstimulated and medicated people. We want to move away from that. We want to give people a new direction, a new path to move forward and experience the benefits that we’ve all...
When you look around and you think of lawyers and law firms, you think of the big ones. Truth be told, the majority of the law firms in Colorado and beyond are small law firms. Most of the time, they’re solo practitioners. Meranda Vieyra of Denver Legal Marketing says her goal is to make market space for solo practitioners and small law firms. Meranda’s goal is to have more people start choosing to spend the money that they allocate for legal services by supporting small law firms, keeping their lights on, keeping the Colorado economy booming, and supporting this level of small business in that industry. Meranda explains why the service she provides is unique and why the business community has taken notice.
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Meranda Vieyra on Servicing Solo Practitioners And Small Law Firms With Legal Marketing I’m the owner of Denver Legal Marketing. I work with solo practitioners and small law firms in Colorado and beyond. My ultimate goal is to make some market space in the Colorado business community and beyond for the small law firms of the world, which are essentially small business.
We are incredibly fortunate. I am in the world headquarters of https://www.denverlegalmarketing.com/ (Denver Legal Marketing) with Meranda Vieyra. Thank you so much for taking the time to tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
Thanks for having me, Bob. I’m excited to talk to you. I founded Denver Legal Marketing. My business turns three on my daughter’s birthday in February. I’ve been very lucky to be successful. I have great clients. My sweet spot is solo practitioners and small law firms. I started out with a Colorado-focus, a Denver-focus and I’m looking to support my own community but word of my marketing firm has spread. At times, I’m working with lawyers in New York, Nevada, and California.
You’re widely covered and known in Denver. There’s a lot of press about you. Why do you think that is?
I’m a little bit unique when it comes to what a marketing professional or somebody in Colorado legal marketing looks like. I’m 5’1” and I am a working mom. I’ve been in Colorado law for twenty years. The way that I serve my clients and the types of clients that I serve is unique. Nobody else is doing this and so the business community especially has taken notice.
You decided in a niche, for the potential client of yours and they reach out to you. How do they find you? Where do they find you on social media?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/merandavieyra/ (LinkedIn) is my only place for social media. That is the easiest ROI when it comes to reaching other lawyers. I’m trying to reach lawyers and lawyers are playing on LinkedIn. About 90% of the lawyers in our country have LinkedIn profiles. The majority of my clients come through word of mouth. I’ve been in law for two decades. I’ve worked hard to protect my reputation. When I say what I’m going to do, then I do it. That travels. They come through word of mouth. They go to my website for confirmation of reputation and then they call.
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It is incredibly important to get the right counsel involved in your transactions at the right time so that you don’t end up in a dispute later on. Jessen Gregory, attorney with Ruddy Gregory, PLLC talks about preventative medicine in terms of business transactions. Jessen says the majority of their transactions are mergers and acquisition transactions where someone is trying to sell or purchase a business or an asset within that business or get financing thereof. RG is a member of an international alliance of business attorneys that they can reach out to if a client has a transaction going on in any other country across the world. Jessen talks about what they do in their firm and shares some useful information about pothole avoidance, de-risking your business, transitioning your business, and everything else you need to know in between transactions.
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Mergers, Acquisitions, And Other Business Transactions with Jessen Gregory
Better, sooner than later. A little prevention.
Preventative medicine in terms of a transaction.
We have https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessengregory/ (Jessen Gregory). She’s an attorney with http://www.ruddylaw.com/ (Ruddy Gregory). Jessen, you and I met at a large conference, which prompted this meeting. Welcome to the show.
Thank you, Bob. I’m very happy to be here.
I appreciate your time. If you would tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
I’ve been practicing for 13 years and I am licensed in California, Colorado and Texas. I’m part of a boutique firm. We have two offices, one here in Cherry Creek, Colorado and one in Washington, DC. There are six lawyers total. We provide high-quality services at an affordable rate. We have the same experience that large firms do. We are a smaller scale version of the same thing.
We have a collection of attorneys. What is the specialty that you guys focus on?
In the Denver Office, we have a general business practice. The majority of our transactions are mergers and acquisition transactions where someone is trying to sell or purchase a business or an asset within that business or get financing for some avenue thereof. In a transaction like that, you always see a piece of commercial real estate, whether it’s the sale of commercial real estate or a lease transaction or transferring that lease, so our business is heavily involved in commercial real estate as well. Our group in DC represents the alternative investment community, so hedge funds, registered investment advisers, private equity funds and the like. We’re also a part of the Alliance of International Business Attorneys. That means that we have a group that we can reach out to if you have a transaction going on in any other country across the world.
For the business owner that’s going like, “That’s not ringing a bell for me,” I’m a typical business owner and I go, “I’ve got a warehouse that’s no longer a key to my operation and I want to liquidate or I’ve got a warehouse and I want to move. I want to sell one and move to another.” What are the typical things that a business owner misses that they should be thinking about if they’re going to go down that road?
I’d like to separate the two into the asset itself versus the real estate because those are two separate questions. I’m thinking about concerns related to both of those.
Not affording yourself that ability to have somebody who thinks outside of the box is a detriment to your business and future...
There will come a time for business owners to start to entertain the idea of ownership transition. In one way or another, they will have to transfer their businesses to the hands of other owners, carrying over not only the business itself but the employees as well. Shina Culberson, chartered financial analyst of Quist Valuation, talks about the processes of valuation and how businesses can drive value. She covers the importance of creating a culture of innovation among employees starting with the customer mind rate. Sharing as well how they lower the barriers of entry to valuation, Shina provides some actionable and deliverable information to business owners as she shares her business journey.
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How Businesses Can Drive Value During Ownership Transition with Shina Culberson We are so fortunate, we’re in the world headquarters of https://www.quistvaluation.com/ (Quist Valuation )with the President, Shina Culberson. Shina, thank you so much for your time.
Thanks for having me.
Tell us a bit about your business and who you serve?
We are a business valuation firm. Many people don’t know what that means. To make it very simple, what we do is we work with primarily privately held companies and/or family-owned businesses to help them understand if they were to go on or sell their company, what could they sell their company for. What is the dollar value of their company? We work mostly with privately held companies and they can range from anywhere from $2 million in revenue to a billion dollars in revenue. We believe that looking at a broad breadth of clients across various life cycles makes us better at what we do. It provides us contexts when we look at different companies in different industries.
Folks would say, “What makes you qualified to go out and do this? What brought you to business valuation?”
Business valuation experts are also called business appraisers. There is a credentialing involved. I personally hold the Chartered Financial Analyst designation, which I don’t know if you’re familiar with. It’s quite a rigorous designation to obtain. We here at Quist actually support all over our analysts receiving that designation. We hold it in the highest regard. We think it stands out amongst many different designations within the industry. To be qualified, you need to work with somebody who has experience or this is something that they are doing on a full-time basis. I have many friends who are CPAs. They’re very good with numbers like we are, but they’re not necessarily qualified to do business valuation. There are a different financial theory and techniques involved. Finding someone where they’re doing business valuations as their full-time practice would be an important qualifier.
The understatement was that the CFA is a hard thing to get. It’s a very narrow funnel. Very few people come out the other end in the CFA. Then you’re also doing credit analysis for a major investment firm, I believe, in your previous life.
I’ve been an analyst my entire career. I graduated from college with an Economics major and had an Asian Studies minor. I spoke Japanese. I lived in Japan for a little while. My first job was at a Japanese bank in Los Angeles. I started out as a commercial banker. I probably was one of the last people to go through a formal credit training program sponsored by a commercial bank. I moved into asset management with Charles Schwab Investment Management. I covered the international markets. I did credit research for them. That was a fascinating time because I covered financial institutions so I was there when the Euro was launched. I was in Europe talking with the central bank, talking about lender of last resort across Europe. I was around when there was the Russian ruble crisis. The Japanese economy was tanking. It was a fascinating time when I was covering the...
Everybody can be successful if they want to be. With patience, persistence, and perspiration, you can accomplish anything. Successful networker and Chief Connection Officer of Firestorm in Denver, Colorado Phil Pelto helps people grow their business through relationships, strategic partnerships, and referrals. Firestorm is a business to business networking organization. They organize events and meetings for business people to meet, build relationships, and share referrals. He says no matter who their target market is, the goal is to help people grow their business. Phil shares a lot of what they’re doing and who they are serving from different industries.
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How Strategic Relationships Can Help You Grow Your Business with Phil Pelto We have Phil Pelto. He’s the Founder and Chief Connection Officer of https://www.myfirestorm.com/ (Firestorm) in Denver, Colorado. Phil, thanks so much for being on the podcast.
Thanks for having me.
Phil and I have a history. We’ve had breakfast together. We’ve talked about his networking efforts. He is an awesome networker and he’s built quite a business. Phil if you would, tell us about your business and who you serve.
Firestorm is a business to business networking organization. We organize events and meetings for business people to meet and build relationships and share referrals. The whole idea is to help people grow their business through relationships, strategic partnerships and referrals. The people that we serve are typically business owners that are still actively involved in the biz dev. I would say zero to $3 million in revenue, where they’re getting out and trying to grow their top line sales. We also have a good contingent of salespeople that work for larger organizations, the Comcast and CenturyLinks of the world, but are also going after business owners. The one thing both of those folks have in common is they are serving clients that are between $1 million to $50 million in revenue. We have all sorts of different industries. There are people that are doing the podcasting and phone systems and there are people that are doing digital marketing and websites and attorneys and CPAs and all that stuff. That’s our target market and the goal is to help people grow their business.
I was looking at your website and you had a lot of these groups up and down the front range. Can you describe the nature and the structure of each one of those separate units?
The nice thing about our organization is each one of those groups take sides on flavor, depending on who the core group of people is. What we’ll do is we’ll get a leader that has a business that it would behoove them to do this anyway. They would be out there looking for a group on their own and they decide that they want to run it. We have some good support structure in place for that. They will choose who they want to start the group with and they get to be a little bit selfish about it since it’s their group. They all say you’re in the exit planning and financial services business and so you would say, “Who are good partners for me?” We’d map out some good strategic partners and that would be the core group of people that we’d look for and then it expands from there. Depending on who the first person is, that will depend on the way the group grows and the makeup of the group going forward. It’s interesting. You can visit a chapter in Longmont and visit a chapter in Lone Tree and they are very different makeups, depending on who it was that started it.
We’re going to pretend I’m down in Colorado Springs and I want to open my chapter. Let’s go to the mechanics, your support level, expenses and that kind of thing.
We’ve been doing this for thirteen years now. Over the years I’ve been keeping notes and making manuals and becoming more sophisticated. We’re at
Judaism has changed a lot over the last few decades. Jewish families look a lot different than they have in the past. Interfaith families are growing and many people find it hard to fit into the traditional synagogue model. Cindy Abramson and Amy Becker saw an opportunity in this to create a community that is founded on support, acceptance, and love. They call this non-profit organization as JTown. With congregations being spread out, they offer a place where people can easily get together and inspire one another. They share what it means to be in a community and how they foster relationships and help those in need.
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Cindy Abramson and Amy Becker: Creating A Community For Interfaith Families With JTown We are incredibly fortunate. We have with us, Cindy Abramson and Amy Becker, Cofounders and Codirectors of https://jtownco.org/ (JTown). Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to visit with us.
Thank you for having us.
Tell me a little bit about JTown, what it’s all about, who you serve and why you started it?
JTown is a nonprofit organization that we created to offer opportunities for people to create connections and community with other Jewish people. The people we say to people who share their lives. We have a lot of interfaith families and so we want the interfaith person to be as comfortable as the Jewish person. We created this place, there isn’t a place, it’s a metaphoric place. We don’t have a building. We say JTown is wherever we are together.
We have a lot of social things that we do for fun. We do a lot of community service. That’s a huge part of our mission. We offer a lot of team programming. Then we do some alternative worship services, which means that we do a Shabbat service once a month. We do High Holidays services and Passover and they’re all lay-led. We are leading them but we encourage everyone to participate. We typically will have five or six people come out from the community and take part in the service each time we do it.
As you were talking about why you did this since you we wanted to form a community, was there not a community available for these folks?
Judaism has changed a lot over the last few decades. Jewish families look a lot different than they have in the past. The research is showing that there are more interfaith families now than Jews married to Jews in the in the generations that are coming up. A lot of people don’t fit into that traditional synagogue model anymore. Also, we’re very spread out. It didn’t use to be like that. We used to all congregate in one little neighborhood or a part of the city. Denver has it sprawling, so our Jewish people and their families can become a little isolated and not have a place to be Jewish.
Amy and I worked together for about ten years at a traditional synagogue. We both left it at about the same time a month apart and spent a few months each of us looking for another job. It was hard because at our previous job, we had so much passion. We cared so much and we loved the people so much that we couldn’t find anything to replace that feeling in a work environment.
With your other job, what was it that you guys were in-charge of?
We did the administration of a synagogue. I was the Executive Director for some time. I have also been the Assistant Exec, Program Director, Preschool Director. Cindy was the Communication and Marketing Director. She had also worked with our religious school as the Assistant Director. We both had various roles over a long period of time. One thing that we were always passionate about was the relationships that we created with people.
You knew everybody. One way or another, you’ve been a director and what you did as well. There wasn’t anybody who walked through the door that you didn’t know, didn’t know their kids or didn’t know the family.
It’s a...
Small businesses who are looking to grow, but feel like they are stuck need to consider bringing equity into the business. This allows them to consider if they should work with a partner or partners and under what conditions and structure. Ann Bennett, Founder and CEO of KBA Associates has been helping small businesses move into a state where they can grow the company for five years then sell it or grow it so that their children can take over. Ann explains that a company cannot run without people, so strong employee management is vital for growth.
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How Equity in Small Businesses Help Growth with Ann Bennett As our guest, we have https://www.linkedin.com/in/anncbennett/ (Ann Bennett). She’s the Founder and CEO of http://kbaassociates.com/ (KBA Associates). Ann, tell us about your business and who you serve. Before we get too far into that, let’s dig into your journey to this point and your background.
Thank you, Bob. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss my business, KBA, with you. I work with small and medium-sized businesses. I’m going to give you my background first and then it’ll journey on how I work with them. I have a Big Four background, started out in audit, then in consulting, left Big Four, and started an IT company that did large trading partnerships. We developed a software and we had customer service. I did that for fifteen years then I sold it to a strategic buyer and was a director of national tax at the company that acquired my company and had a non-compete. After I left after the non-compete, I realized that I had a lot of knowledge and had been beat up a lot in the small business world that I could help small businesses.
Specifically, what I’ve noticed is the lack of the journey of finance. You don’t look at your financial statements fifteen days after year-end. The financial attributes are throughout your company from day one, and every activity within the company has a financial component and should have a return. That helps in your decision making and your planning, and that’s why I help companies in strategic planning, executing the planning, making sure that the finance flows out throughout the company and the margin area, returning on marketing in sales and promotions. When you go to a conference for example, $10,000 spent at the conference, what was your return? What did you do? What should you do with the cards? That makes a difference in your growth.
The thing that folks are thinking, they go, “You went quickly through the fact that you started a company and ran it for fifteen years.” Most companies don’t make it that long nor do they get bought out. Let’s dig in a little bit to the start of your company and the growth and then the subsequent sale of your company. You left audit in the Big Four accounting firm. What was that thought process like when you said, “I’m leaving a great job, good security, and I’m going to start my own business.” What was that like?
What happened was I was going with a company that was going to do a large trading partnership in oil and gas, because I had done a lot of systems work in oil and gas, and I got a call. I never know how the call came. It came on my phone and it said, “Ann, we need a partnership system. Your name came up and we’d like you to write it.” I put together a couple of programmers and second floor of the train station and we were off and running. However, I was very lucky. In that environment, there were only three other public accounting firms that had large mainframe systems.
Where was this at the time?
Denver. There were a couple other companies that wanted to have a system available because they wanted the audit work, but they didn’t have the systems work, but we were developing the system. I got my seed money via a non-compete, giving them marketing and sales rights, that was my fundraise.
It was you and...
Imagine if you were to receive 500 loan applications one day and they just they showed up at your doorstep. That may be one, two, three boxes of paper, depending on all the supporting documentation that goes with that. You can imagine what this looks like. A loan package, on average, is around 600 pages. That’s what Charlie Weidman aims to solve with his company, Buddha Logic, an enterprise content management (ECM) solutions provider that helps companies streamline digital document capture and management. Folks get intimidated by the word robot or automated process and there’s some level of concern about them replacing people, but Charlie says it’s an education and an awareness that helps you eliminate unnecessary work when you start automating more.
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Buddha Logic: Simplifying Life with Charlie Weidman We have Charlie Weidman as our guest. He’s the CTO and President of http://buddhalogic.com/ (Buddha Logic). We’re going to do a deep dive in robots, digital transformation, and financial process automation. If that doesn’t take in and make your toes curl, we’ll dig into it. Charlie, thanks so much for taking the time.
Bob, it’s a pleasure to be here.
You and I chatted in a previous podcast and we talked about what you do at Buddha Logic. I was sufficiently interested in what I thought the possibilities were that I wanted to come back and do a deep dive because I think folks don’t quite get what it is that you do.
I’m happy to share what I can and give you some insight into what robots are, what digital transformation is, and what we can do with financial processes.
We were talking before we started, you’ve been working with a Housing Authority here in Denver.
It takes weeks to process a paper application. https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbusinessleaderspodcast.com%2Fbuddha-logic-simplifying-life-with-charlie-weidman%2F&text=It%20takes%20weeks%20to%20process%20a%20paper%20application.%20&related (Click To Tweet) That’s correct. We’ve seen them through quite a transition. If I were to look back, we were processing truckloads of paper that would show up and be captured in one way or feature or fashion or another. Scanning, sorting, separating, and batching. It would take a week to process a paper application.
I think about that from the end-user, from the customer standpoint, “What’s going on with my app?” It’s somewhere between the loading dock and the fourth floor or whatever. What I thought would be useful is to go back and go “This is where we were years ago.” They didn’t just jump off the cliff and started doing robots. I don’t even know that “robots” were available at that time. Let’s go sequentially what were they doing.
If you really want to start from scratch, you’re an entity that has not even thought about moving away from paper, getting into the digital transformation of paper. This Housing Authority was pretty much right at that space back then. They made a decision to say, “We can’t process paper anymore and the paper we get in, we need to digitize and move it into repository and make it available for our loan processors to take care of our customers.”
Phase one, let’s define a backbone, put together something that allows us to capture that information, and understand what we have and get it into the processors hands within a week’s time. Let’s say seven business days, that would be a huge goal. At that time, it was all over the map, how quickly something got processed. Sneakernet, paper from one desk to another in inboxes and outboxes. You can imagine what a mess that that was.
I had this vision what people’s desks look like.
Just think of the storage space you need to handle that paper because you’ve got to keep these documents for a certain
Many times, your experiences motivate you. For Nancy Trangmar and Meghan Marsden, Co-Founders of Veil Intimates, the big point was when they were trying to buy a beautiful, supportive bra but couldn’t find any that fit well. One discussion after another and one search after another for high-end but comfortable intimate apparel led them to create Veil Intimates. Veil Intimates is an apparel technology company where they’ve designed and patented technology that will revolutionize the women’s apparel industry. The heart of their product is the process and the design. Their approach is to change the marketplace, and they ultimately hope to work with existing brands not only in the traditional foundation arena, but also active wear to change the support structure for women.
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Veil Intimates with Co-Founders Nancy Trangmar and Meghan Marsden Thank you for having us.
This is an inaugural where I have two guests at one time. You guys are going to be fascinated by what these two have embarked on. If you would, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
Veil Intimates, we are an apparel technology company. We’ve design and patent revolutionary technology that is going to change women’s apparel. Meghan and I were shopping and trying to find a supportive bra that didn’t use an underwire for support and we were dumbfounded when we couldn’t find it existing in the market already. So, it motivated us to search out for possibilities, and here we are today.
You were motivated. I’m thinking of the quantity of times that you’ve been shopping for undergarments, a bra, whatever and this one was the tipping point. Tell me a little bit about when you had been disappointed and you left wherever you were and the conversation you guys had going on that spurred you to action? It’s amazing how many times you can experience something and it not motivate you but for some reason this was the tipping point. For us, we were at a really amazing boutique located in Cherry Creek in Denver that’s known for the most beautiful, high-end apparel and intimates. It was their sidewalk sale, so we’re buying really nice things at a discount. But even then we went to Starbucks, we we’re talking about it and this is the best fitting piece of apparel place that you could buy this piece of apparel in Colorado. We’re sitting and looking at each other, how can we spend that much money and still be this dissatisfied?
Maybe it just means that we need to look into the market and how our bras are made. Is there a way to do it better? Why does it have to be this way, and just started investigating, and that’s really what it was. There wasn’t one particular thing that really pushed us over the edge besides being together and both feeling the same way, and then having the conversation with other women. It was a continued echo of mentality that I guess this is just as good as it’s going to get and accepting this piece of apparel that you have to wear everyday is just not going to be comfortable. It is what it is. That wasn’t good enough for us.
I think about it in the morning, getting ready to go and do whatever you’re going to do and you go, “I have to put that device on again.” You already have some degree of rancor with that garment. You were explaining the history, the background from here. This is old technology as it exists today, the technology that you’re trying to interrupt, whalebones, corsets and the wire was brought on board when?
It was patented in the ‘30s.
The only innovation was making it to a plastic as opposed to the wire. Now, when it pokes you it doesn’t poke quite as stabbing as it used to.
Well isn’t that nice!
Yes, exactly!
I’m thinking about the genesis of you guys, that you’d left the shopping, you’ve gone to Starbucks. You have a history in business. Both of you guys have been entrepreneurs. What is some of your background?
This is Meghan. I worked in management...
At some point in time, NFL players realize the game of football is going to leave them behind. However, they could still be in a position where they’re financially stable, they’re of sound mind and body, and they’ve got opportunities after football. Craig Domann, CEO of 360 Sports, says these can all be provided for. Craig’s company represents NFL players when they come out of college. They’re basically career counselors and negotiators, and help players through their journey through the NFL. Craig talks about the many hats they have to wear in assisting clients with all aspects of their NFL career and shares the process it takes for an NFL prospect to be in the league.
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360 Sports: Through NFL And Beyond with Craig Domann We’re with the CEO of https://360sportsrep.com/ (360Sports), Craig Domann. Craig, thank you for taking time out.
I appreciate it, Bob.
Tell me a little bit about what you do in 360Sports and who you serve?
What we do is we represent NFL players when they come out of college. We’re basically career counselors, negotiators, we wear lots of hats. We help them through their journey through the NFL. At some point in time, the game of football is going to leave them behind. At that point in time, we want them to be in a position where they’re financially stable, they’re of sound mind and body and they’ve got opportunities after football.
The whole agent world, there are many misunderstandings about what you do. I suspect the Jerry Maguire movie had a great deal to do with that. Let’s walk backways, what did you do before you became an NFL agent?
First, you’ve got to look at the fact that I love sports. I love competition and I played college football. When I got out of college, I was in tax accounting. I was bored out of my mind. I went to law school to pursue something in sports and I found my way into the athlete representation business back in 1990. It gives me an opportunity to mentor young men, coach them. I love coaching. You are the ultimate coach when you’re an agent.
In my impression and I’m willfully ignorant, is that we have a notion of what an agent does. The coaching aspect, now that you say it, makes incredible sense. They have the coaching on their sport side, but you’re a life coach for them.
Absolutely. The person that besides the players that have fathers, the person they respect the most is typically a coach. The vernacular, the nomenclature, everything that goes along with the player-coach relationship is the one that they hold the highest. If you can communicate with a young man from a coach perspective, you can make more of an impression with him.
Looking at what you do for the athletes, you’ve been doing this for a long time. How many athletes do you think you’ve worked with through the years and securing them a place in the NFL?
Probably over a couple hundred.
That’s a couple of hundred folks and the audience is in a couple of different camps. You have the audience that may have either a friend or somebody that’s trying to get in the NFL as a college player. You have the folks that are sports enthusiasts and trying to understand the process of going from an NFL prospect to being in the league. Let’s talk about the typical things that are processed for an NFL prospect from college coming up to what’s important to them to get into the NFL?
There are a lot of myths involved in what it takes to be an NFL player. When guys come out of college you have to look at where they started. These guys were talented athletes, probably multisport athletes from when they were knee high. They were probably the best player in their middle school, certainly the best players in their high schools. They come to play college football and then they learn that it’s a business. That’s a big separator for players...
It’s true what they say that it’s lonely at the top. Former CEO Todd Ordal says he gets where CEOs are coming from because he’s worn their moccasins and felt their pain. Todd’s new company, Applied Strategy, was developed over years and years of screwing up and making mistakes. He now works with CEOs and helps them lead better, profit more, and sleep soundly at night with coaching strategies that work and has more organizational effectiveness. Todd talks about the problems he came across and the growing pains of setting and building up an organization.
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Applied Strategy: Helping CEOs Lead Better with Todd Ordal In this episode, we have http://toddordal.com/ (Todd Ordal) who is the CEO of http://appliedstrategy.info/ (Applied Strategy). He is the author of https://www.amazon.com/Never-Kick-Cow-Chip-Hot/dp/1630477206/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1529988622&sr=1-1&refinements=p_27%3ATodd+Ordal&dpID=51AoBfM5mcL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch (Never Kick a Cow Chip on a Hot Day), a great book. I’ve been through the book. I would recommend if you have not. It is a how-to and it tells you specific things you can do. Todd, thanks so much for being a guest on the show.
Thank you, Bob. Welcome to the People’s Republic of Boulder.
Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
I’m a former CEO and I now work with CEOs and help them lead better, profit more, and sleep soundly at night and hopefully without narcotics. That looks like coaching strategy work and has more organizational effectiveness, mostly CEOs of $50 million to $10 billion in range that I work with. Industry diagnostic and my work’s all over the country, a little bit of international. I hail from Boulder but don’t do much work here.
For the folks who don’t know your background, when you’re out in the space, there are a lot of consultants around on there. You did this for a living before consulting?
Yes. The reason I have a voice in this world is that there are all the mistakes I’ve probably made so there’s not much that my clients can screw up that I haven’t already screwed up. I can hopefully help them make different mistakes. I’m an operating guy so I can come at this coaching consulting thing from a senior’s perspective as opposed to a psyche community. I got an undergrad in psych, but I’ve made all of those mistakes. I had been in their moccasins and felt their pain and know it’s lonely at the top, so I get where they’re coming from.
I was going through your book before the show and you have experience with Kinko’s and some rather large store. Let’s talk a little bit of the backstory or background of you and Kinko’s.
I stumbled into Kinko’s on a college long family connection, ran a store, then ran more and more stores. I eventually ended up on the board there and had 7,000 people working for me. This was during the growth years of Kinko’s and we just had an absolute blast. Building that company was so fun and I was there for twenty years. It was just a riot. In fact, one of your friends, Larry Hay, used to work for me when I was at Kinko’s, but I had a division office here. We eventually rolled that thing up and sold it to a private equity firm. I stayed for three years after that and ran a couple of other smaller organizations. That’s the short story.
You were working for Kinko’s and for those that don’t know, it’s an office supply event, correct?
FedEx eventually bought them. They killed the name but it has been FedEx Office, which you would probably know them as now, that’s closest thing to what it was.
There’s that time frame and you see it grow, you see the growing pains. I would imagine pretty much every problem that you could run across, you ran across....
There are about 75% of closely held family business owners in the country. Yet, 85% of those have not completed the transition and succession plan. As a result, 25% of businesses close while others have to sell, cutting their family ties and emotional investment with it. Lisa Niederman, managing director of Speed2Results, talks about the importance of planning for your destination and preparing your business for succession. Sharing her own story and background in psychology as well, she discusses the state of owner readiness and the common problems with business owners. She also covers the processes of transition—from selling to buying—and the need for value drivers.
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The State Of Seller Readiness In Family Owned Businesses with Lisa Niederman We’re incredibly fortunate. We have Lisa Niederman. She is the Managing Director of http://speed2results.com/ (Speed2Results). Lisa, thank you so much for allowing us to come into your home.
Bob, what a pleasure. I’ve been excited about doing this interview with you and I’ve heard all about it. I’m ready to get started.
Lisa, tell me about your business and who you serve.
Speed2Results is about focusing on closely held family-owned businesses in transition. It’s particularly working with the owners, the rising generation, the nonfamily executives, and the partners in helping them look at the emotional and behavioral challenges that they’re experiencing with succession. There’s a lot of succession going and continuity. How do you grow the business? How do you create that legacy and getting it ready for sale? We call this seller readiness. It’s the people side of the transition journey that ensures improvement in value drivers and optimum valuation.
For the folks in our audience, they’re going, “What is that entire touchy-feely thing?” I don’t think they’re aware of the statistics for the quantities of businesses that come to market that don’t sell. Can you share some of your experience and understanding of basically the state of owner readiness?
There are about 75% of closely held family business owners in this country. 85% have not completed a transition plan and that succession we’re talking about. 50% haven’t even started. Out of that, 75% regret it when they do sell because they’re not prepared. They spend approximately the next eighteen months in depression and anxiety, trying to find themselves because their identity was tied to their business. 25% of the businesses only close. That’s not much. When we talk about seller readiness or the emotional and behavioral side of getting the business owners ready, I know that sounds a lot of gobbledygook, it’s not. If you think about it, it’s the glue that makes that transaction or succession work and people aren’t paying attention to it.
We’re living in a volatile market. We don’t know what’s going to happen.https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbusinessleaderspodcast.com%2Fthe-state-of-seller-readiness-in-family-owned-businesses-with-lisa-niederman%2F&text=We%E2%80%99re%20living%20in%20a%20volatile%20market.%20We%20don%E2%80%99t%20know%20what%E2%80%99s%20going%20to%20happen.&related (Click To Tweet) They’re paying attention to the advisors, the valuation, the attorneys, the CPAs, the investment bankers, and business brokers. What happens when the people side falls apart? What happens when the owner isn’t psychologically ready? They’re controlling. They’re a know-it-all. They’re not ready yet and they think they can do it in another three to five years. We’re living in a volatile market. We don’t know what’s going to happen. People think that they still can sell their business. They still have a right to sell their businesses. Nobody has a crystal ball. We don’t know that. You don’t know what’s...
Football is not just a contact sport. It’s a game of discipline, respect, and character. When Teddi Domann and her husband would drop her two boys off at youth football camps, she thought they could do something to make the camps be better. They gathered some people and put together their vision for impacting young people by using the sport of football and run a youth football camp for ages seven to fourteen, which is what is now known as Pro Football Camp. Teddi shares that they’re not only teaching kids proper football but life skills and character qualities that are some of the keys to success for many of the top and most successful people in the world.
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Pro Football Camp: Teaching Football And Character Skills with Teddi Domann We are with Teddi Domann. She is the Founder and Board Chairperson of http://www.profootballcamp.com/ (Pro Football Camp). Teddi, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me on.
What we’re going to be talking about with Teddi is about Pro Football Camp. If you would, tell us a little bit about Pro Football Camp and who it serves.
The Pro Football Camp is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. We serve the youth of the Greater Colorado Springs area. What we do every year is we put on a three-day camp. The camp starts at [8:00] in the morning and it goes to [11:30]. We have current and former NFL athletes who teach not only football skills, which you would expect from a football camp. They also teach character skills. When I talk about character skills, what I mean by that is what does it take to be able to be an athlete who’s able to play in the NFL? That’s a pretty small number of people and it takes some character qualities that candidly are some of the keys to success for many of the top and most successful people in the world. The bottom line is, if you can learn this at a young age, it’s going to impact your life whether you’re playing football or not.
What was the genesis of the idea to do this? How did it start?
It started because our boys, we have two boys, wanted to go to a youth football camp. My husband and I signed them up for several different camps. We would drop them off or pick them up, we’re checking out the camp and I was like, “We could really do this to help this camp be better.” At the end of it, I actually reached out to all three of those camps that my kids attended in and offered our assistance. No one took us up on it.
Because the backstory is people don’t know what else you do.
The back story is that my husband is an attorney and a CPA and what he does is represent NFL athletes. He’s a certified NFL PA agent.
You’re at this crux and you’ve reached out and they’re not interested in your help. What was going through your mind when you said, I think I’m going to do this?
Actually, I reached out to them a second time and no answer. Then my husband and I were talking, I said, “Let’s pray about it,” and so we did. At the end of that time period of praying, I said, “What do you hear what the Lord is saying?” My husband looked right at me and he goes, “You’re supposed to do this?” I said to him, “If we’re going to do this, then we’re going to do it right. It’s going to really make an impact in our community. We got together with some other people who shared our vision, including a former NFL player in Colorado Springs. His name is Rich Griffith. He played with the Jacksonville Jaguars, just short of ten years. He’s actually a pastor at a local church and just retired from that. Now he’s doing full-time missionary work. The bottom line is we all had a vision for impacting young people by using the sport of football and running a youth football camp for ages seven to fourteen.
We had this idea and we’ve got some folks that are in our camp and we all put our heads...
Small businesses are important to the nation’s economy. Over 80% of our gross national product is produced by employers with less than 100 employees and the failure rate is 76% to 90% in the first one to two years. Harry Lay, trusted advisor to CEOs and owner and president of Lay Professional Services, provides services primarily to small businesses to help them accomplish things they can’t seem to accomplish without somebody’s help. Harry says there are lots of companies that are underperforming, and he looks for the willingness and the ability of people to change what and how they do things. In order for them to move from where they are to where they want to be, he offers them the skillsets that they need but don’t have. Harry shares how he leveraged his skill as a CPA into starting his own consulting firm and becoming the trusted advisor to CEOs and business leaders worldwide.
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The Trusted Advisor: Learning From The Voice Of Experience Harry Lay We’re incredibly fortunate to have https://www.laypsi.com/ (Harry Lay), he’s the owner and president of Lay Professional Services, and he’s a good fishing buddy of mine. Harry, thanks for taking the time.
It’s a pleasure to be with you, as always.
Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
https://www.laypsi.com/index.cfm (Lay Professional Services Inc.) is headquartered in Tulsa. We provide services primarily to small businesses. The Chamber of Commerce, define small businesses, employers with 100 employees or less. I work with early stage mature small businesses and I help them accomplish things they can’t seem to accomplish without somebody’s help,
Folks go, “I’m that small business and I probably need some help.” Why should Harry be qualified? They don’t know your history and I do. Let’s dig in a little bit and talk about your journey prior to professional services.
Most people, when there’s something they want to change in their business, they want more income, and they want more sales or more profits. When I talk about I help companies change whatever it is in their company they want to change. That’s a pretty broad statement. I’ve had a pretty broad range of experience by education and training. I’m a CPA, at this stage of my career I’m a reforming CPA. I spent nineteen years in the profession, first of all with Arthur Andersen’s company as an auditor. After a few years there, two of their tax partners and I left. We formed our own firm in Tulsa and after almost ten years we grew to be one of the larger local firms. We were merged with or acquired by https://www.bdo.com/ (BDO Seidman). I was a senior audit partner with them for two more years before I got an incredible opportunity.
In the CPA world, I worked in virtually every industry that specialized in construction type clients, both in commercial and residential real estate, real estate development. My favorite client was https://www.weyerhaeuser.com/ (Weyerhaeuser), the forestry company. You’ve heard some stories about that. An architecture firm contacted me in Tulsa about 1988 and asked if I would become their president and chief financial officer. I was a single parent with a thirteen-year-old daughter at the time, so I’m not sure why I took that job. I don’t remember what motivated me to do that. It might’ve been my concern about the SEC and their crack down on publicly held companies, but I did take the job. I realized pretty quickly I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know that much about business. That may sound odd for a nineteen-year CPA veteran.
I knew how to audit companies. I knew how to work with companies that somebody else had generated. I knew how to account for transactions. However, how to motivate people and how to attract clients and retain them, I was pretty...
Hiring somebody could either break or make the company. There has to be an assurance that the person you hire is someone who they say they are. You have to go through a number of credentials and background checks to ensure their honesty and to know whether they can deliver well for the job. It helps to hire the right person in the first place, though this can be tough to do. Lori Denham is the founder of Guardian Background Screening, a full-service background screening company. Lori has all the details when it comes to doing pre and post-employment background checks. She takes us down into the processes as well as provides some notes and advice on the necessity of undergoing through the screening.
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Lori Denham on Hiring The Right Person With Background Screening We have Laura Denham on the show. She’s the Founder of https://guardianbackgroundscreening.com/ (Guardian Background Screening). Laura, thanks so much for being here.
Thanks for having me, Bob.
Tell me a little bit about your business and who you serve.
We are a full-service background screening company. We do pre and post-employment background checks. We do tenant checks, volunteer background screening, drug screening, aptitude and integrity testing.
Is there a requirement to do those types of testing now in the workplace?
No. However, the aptitude and integrity testing for the small business owner is a way to figure out if this person is going to be a good fit. Are they going to waste time on the computers? Do they have abusive tendencies? Do they have leadership potential? This is an affordable non-DISC way for small business owners to get that information.
Circling back to the background checks and other services that you provide for the business owner, you also work with nonprofits. Is it mandated that you do?
None of it is mandated for me.
I had a clearance way back in the military. To serve in my field, I had to have a clearance.
That depends on where you want to work. Obviously, in the military or government, there is a requirement. Any local government, there’s typically background screening required.
For the rest of the world, it’s a voluntary elective pursuit. When a business engages you to do a background or any of the services that you provide, what’s the general motivation of that business owner? What’s the typical benefit to them?
They are looking to trust the person they’re hiring and make sure there’s nothing lurking in the background that’s going to be a surprise down the road. Perhaps they work with vulnerable populations or sensitive information, and they want to make sure that the person they’re hiring is not going to take advantage of either of those situations. Whether it be abuse, neglect and maybe they don’t have the credentials that they said they had. It’s a high-fraud area of resumes, saying that they’ve graduated with degrees or have had jobs that they’ve never done. For the employer, I’m ensuring that who they’re hiring is who they say they are.
As an applicant, I said I went to Vanderbilt and I put that on my resume. There’s some database that you go to verify. Is that available to everybody? How does the data retrieval to verify work?
Yes and no. There are a lot of colleges or schools that have stored their information with a vendor who then charges us to retrieve it. If they don’t use that service, then anybody can call the registrar’s office. Sometimes they have to pay for that verification, sometimes they don’t. It depends on what level of education they have. It’s to make sure that you’ve graduated with either the diploma or the degree that you’ve said you’ve graduated with.
What set you on this track to start this business?
When we moved back to Colorado, I had my life and health insurance license and I did not want...
Trish Groom, business development leader and serial entrepreneur, takes us into her journey towards success as she lays down the attitudes and mindset that got her there. From opening a coffee shop called Sidney’s Café to evolving into other business ventures with Splick-it, Inc, she shows that determination to reach her goals. As a business owner making her own name in the game, she encourages women to become investors as well. She has built this community for women investors to tap into an industry that no one taps them into. Talking more about her businesses, she gives great advice on how to inspire other people to become successful in their areas as well. —
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The Spirit Of A Serial Entrepreneur with Trish Groom We have Trish Groom on the show. She was the Owner of a coffee shop called Sidney’s here in town. She’s the Cofounder of https://www.splickit.com/ (Splick.it). Trish, thanks so much for taking time out of your day.
Thanks for having me.
Trish is a serial entrepreneur. She’s on more than one business. She’s involved in many different things in the business community. In Splick.it, tell me about your role and who does Splick.it serves?
I was Cofounder and in business development. We built an online pre-order, pre-pay app and web for businesses, for restaurants specifically. We target more franchise companies. The sweet spot for us are franchises that have between 500 and 1,200 locations. We white label for them and provide the service. We manage the backend and the customer experience for them.
I’m not a restaurant person. Let’s say I’m the franchise owner, what improvement or what change should I expect to see by using Splick.it?
A lot of restaurants lose revenue because they lose people at the end of the line. They can’t wait. In the early stages, we were one of the first to come up with this idea where we were taking your pre-order and pre-payment and putting it on an app. That way, you can still as an owner, get that revenue in the door and the customer can still get served quickly like they need to do be.
That’s the sticky factor on the long line. For the app, is it an app that the customer has to have or does an employee come from the restaurant with the app?
We do the marketing. We help the franchise market the app to a customer. They download it and create an account. We have a credit card on file so it’s easy for them to order and pay.
The consumer won’t know that it’s Splick.it because it will be private labeled for the franchises. How long has that company been around?
We started in 2009.
That was an auspicious time.
It was rough, a lot of early-stage friends and family rounds.
Serial Entrepreneur: If you’re going to run a race, do everything you can to win.
What folks don’t realize is you didn’t come from a business background. Your first foray in Boulder was you bought a coffee shop.
I did buy a coffee shop. What I didn’t realize was that I had never drunk a cup of coffee in my life and I thought that was a good idea. I didn’t realize that was unusual at the time.
Do you drink coffee now?
I do. I learned a lot. I was traveling in South America for a year and had this idea that I wanted to own a coffee shop. Not because I loved coffee, but because I thought that there was some community aspect to it that was intriguing. I came home from South America and I had no money and no business owning a coffee shop. I had no experience whatsoever. I was teaching at the time, but I ended up in Telluride during the summer at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. My parents probably don’t want to know this part, but I drink a lot of beers and ended up buying a coffee shop from a couple there that I had met and ran into. Two weeks later, the universe conspires sometimes and the next thing I knew, I bought a coffee shop.
When thinking...
The culmination of diving into the curious question of, “Who am I?” resulted in Kerry Crandell’s establishment of WoMAN or the Women of Mergers and Acquisition Network. The mission at WoMAN is to enrich the lives of women who work in mergers and acquisitions through three pillars – information, connection, and service. Kerry explains that it’s basically a great group of women in a male-dominated industry that comes together every month. They’re building this great community so that they can share with each other and can also enrich their lives through personal growth, professional growth, and service. Learn more about this great group as Kerry shares how it all started, what it is all about, and how you can qualify to become a member.
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What It Takes To Be A WoMAN with Kerry Crandell We’re so fortunate to have Kerry Crandell on the show. She is the Founder of http://www.womanglobalgroup.com (WoMAN: Women of Mergers and Acquisition Network).
Thank you for having me.
Tell us a little bit about WoMAN, who you serve and what you do.
WoMAN is an acronym for Women of Mergers and Acquisitions Network. Our mission at WoMAN is to enrich the lives of women who work in mergers and acquisitions through our three pillars and that’s information, connection and service. As the name implies, you do have to qualify to become a member of WoMAN. You have to be or you have to identify being a woman and you have to work in or be affiliated with mergers and acquisitions in some form or fashion within your work. We launched in January of 2017.
For the young ladies and women, maybe they’re going, “I don’t know if I’m in that industry or not.” Expand on the folks that are in your group.
All of this is found on the website. I try to do a great job of it. It is http://www.womanglobalgroup.com (Womanglobalgroup.com). As we’re expanding and growing into other markets, we’re actually in the process of figuring out an international domain that we can plug into that but right now that’s where you can go. The categories that we have of WoMAN is very broad and very diverse which is definitely a great thing for us. The first category we have is corporate women. That’s anywhere from a woman business owner who is acquiring companies or the one that has started a business and knows that she wants to exit it and wants to stay informed and connected to the M&A community. The other middle corporate category that we have are a lot of the general counsel and corporate dev team and that sort.
What if it’s a woman that sold a business lately, would they be qualified to be in your group?
Potentially depending on what their role is.
If they were the CEO, Founder of the business and they sold it?
Absolutely, and then they would want to stay involved and connected to the community for sure.
If you’re a corporate officer in a company, let’s say you’re the COO or the CEO of a publicly traded firm, would that be someone that would be qualified to be in your group?
We have a few COO and CEO members as well. Those companies are in the acquisition phase right now. There’s relevancy there but even if they weren’t, it’s basically a great group of women in a male-dominated industry that comes together every month. We’re building this great community so that we can share with each other and we can also enrich our lives through some personal growth or professional growth and through service.
Do you meet up? You have a presentation or a meetup.
We have an event, http://womancolorado.com/events/ (WoMAN Connect).
If somebody is going, “I don’t know whether I should go or not,” if they’re not a member, what do they do to show up at one of your events?
We cap our membership to 100 of the best in each market. Every member has the ability to invite one...
When you see frozen food at the supermarket, you may not think about it and many people don’t even know it but they’re actually a result of food science. Just like any other item that needs to be manufactured for consumables, a lot of food will always start with a concept, whether the concept comes from the consumer or from a marketing aspect. That’s what food science is all about. Brandon Shepherd, CEO and Founder of Mile High Food Science, talks about paints a picture of what the food science space involves and what goes on behind food product development and manufacturing.
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Food Science: From Concept To Shelf with Brandon Shepherd
We’re up in Denver and we’re visiting with Brandon Shepherd. He’s the CEO and founder of https://milehighfoodscience.com/index.html (Mile High Food Science). Brandon, welcome to the show. Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
We are a food product development consulting company that works with a lot of major consumer package goods companies here in America as well as in Central America.
When folks would go food design, what does that mean? Paint us a picture, we’ve got this picture that you probably can’t see that well in the video in the background, but it’s the thing called Side Shots. Let’s talk a bit about that and maybe that will paint the picture for them.
A lot of food will always start with a concept, just like any other item that needs to be manufactured for consumables. Whether a concept comes from the consumer or from a marketing aspect, that’s where the idea starts. Once the data is gathered, it will be handed over to a product developer or a food scientist to say please make this product that can be manufactured in our facility at these certain costs.
We see that typically in the frozen food counters and the supermarket regularly. As you look at it, we were talking about Side Shots. For the listener they talk about food science and that’s certainly not how I grew up. There were family recipes that we’d worked with. What I see from what you were talking about, why I was excited about having you on the show is you did Hot Pockets where you did product development for https://www.hotpockets.com/ (Hot Pockets) and then you’ve actually had a foray into the cannabis industry as well.
When I graduated college, there was no such degree as a food science degree. This industry and this position has grown immensely over the past decade, two decades. Food science has become a household name now almost. Everybody knows a food scientist somewhere. Those are the rings that I travel in. The need for this kind of product development and knowledge of the science and manufacturing of food is becoming a very important and necessary in this environment. Food is the number one manufacturing business in North America. There are more food manufacturers than anything else. The industry seems very innocuous and we all have to eat, but it is a behemoth of an industry.
You graduated college and you worked at a dairy place. You worked at a manufacturing facility of some kind. Then at some point you got hooked up with Hot Pockets?
Yes. I actually just fell into the food industry. I was working. I had just come back from a teaching job in Japan for a year and 911 had happened while I was there. When I came back there were zero jobs to be held. I was a camp counselor. I did work with my dad when he could afford it. Then I was a microscopist for a long time and I just happened to fall into a temp job at Nestle handheld food groups, which was located in the Denver Tech Center at the time. Worked there for a week, sling and Hot Pockets on the bench top. Making them by hands actually. They gave me a job offer the next week and the rest is history.
Your degree is microbiology. That’s a torturous path from microbiology to food....
There are so many different models of leadership and there are so many different solutions out in the market. Martin Lanik, CEO of Pinsight and the author of the business bestseller, The Leader Habit, says what makes their process different is the realization that traditional classroom-based leadership development just doesn’t work. They focus on 5-minute daily leadership exercises that build positive habits. They work with organizations to help them hire better leaders, and then to promote better leaders to identify the right high-potentials that they should invest in and to develop them to prepare them for executive positions. Martin shares some effective leadership behaviors you can practice to the point that they are your second nature.
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Hiring and Developing Better Leaders with Martin Lanik We are in Downtown Denver with Martin Lanik. He’s the CEO of https://www.pinsight.com/ (Pinsight) and the author of the business bestseller, https://www.amazon.com/Leader-Habit-Master-Lead-Minutes/dp/0814439349 (The Leader Habit). I had the good fortune of getting a copy before it was released and finished reading it. Martin, thank you so much for taking time to be on the podcast.
I’m happy to be here. Thank you, Bob.
Martin, if you would tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
I run a software company called Pinsight and we focus on leadership development and leadership assessment. We work with organizations to help them hire better leaders and then to promote better leaders to identify the right high potentials that they should invest in and to develop them and prepare them for executive positions and work with those high potential as we are developing them.
I’m paramilitary so the leadership model was pretty understood and taught and so on. What took you down the path of working on leadership and developing solutions and applications to help?
I have a background in Industrial Organizational Psychology. I have a PhD from Fort Collins from Colorado State University. I started very early on in my career focusing on leadership and leadership assessment and then development. Then I worked as a consultant out of Pittsburgh and London working with global organizations, helping them with their leadership strategy. When the recession hit, I identified an opportunity. I thought, “There’s an opportunity here in the market where you can take all the really good parts of general leadership programs and then streamline them so they become much more cost-effective and scalable globally. That’s how I founded Pinsight.
Let’s make leadership as natural as brushing your teeth.https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbusinessleaderspodcast.com%2Fhiring-and-developing-better-leaders-with-martin-lanik%2F&text=Let%E2%80%99s%20make%20leadership%20as%20natural%20as%20brushing%20your%20teeth.&related (Click To Tweet) I think about the folks that are listening and they’re going, “There’s a number of leadership programs with one description or another.” It’s really module-based inside the book where you could go through and try to do some work with big topics and work your way through, what led you basically to the thought process to start chunking it for lack of a better term?
You are absolutely correct. There are so many different models of leadership and there are so many different solutions out in the market. What makes our process different is the realization that your traditional classroom-based leadership development just doesn’t work. This was actually why I decided to write the book. Several years ago, I came across an article in the Journal of Consulting Psychology that shows that American corporations year-over-year are now spending more and more money on leadership development, to the point that it was about $14 billion in 2012. Our general confidence in leadership
We often hear the saying, “Begin with the end in mind.” However, no one would think of applying this when it comes to business. Thinking about the end is often overlooked that it becomes a problem. Statistically, 80% of business owners either do not transact at all or did not transact with the value they think they should have gotten. Holly Flores, president of the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Exit Planning Institute, talks about exit planning, succession, and why it’s important for businesses to take this in mind. She covers the EBITDA which stands for earnings before interest, taxes, and depreciation, as well as the valuation, the processes, transactions, sales options, and more. Watch the episode:
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Why Businesses Should Think About Exit Planning with Holly Flores We have Holly Flores. She’s the President of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the http://exit-planning-institute.org/chapter/epi-rocky-mountain-chapter/ (Exit Planning Institute). She is also a Certified Exit Planning Advisor. We’re very fortunate. Thanks for taking the time to come in.
It’s my pleasure. I’m excited to be here.
Holly, tell us a little bit about what you do with the Exit Planning Institute as well as what you do as a Certified Exit Planning Advisor?
I got to the Exit Planning Institute via my day job as a Value Advisor with https://goquantive.com/ (Quantive) where we do business valuation. Those business valuations are often a triggering point for Exit Planning. What Exit Planning is, some people think of it as a negative because exit, they think I’m coming near the end of my life, but it means succession planning in business. Exit Planning does not mean planning for an exit for tomorrow. It means planning for transitioning out of your business sometime down the road, whether it’s six months from now or five years from now. We often say you always want to start with the end in mind. We transfer that over into other parts of our life but when we run a business, sometimes we fail to have that conversation.
With the Exit Planning Institute, who has done a great job over the past five or so years, bringing that vocabulary to the forefront of advisors all across the country, I wanted to be part of it and see how I could integrate that into my business. From day-to-day, I may work with the business on determining their current value and maybe looking at that for a handful of reasons. First of all, for transaction, for litigation, for tax planning but often that conversation, when they see the value, all of a sudden, the light goes on. They see what it’s worth and they’re excited or they see what it’s worth then they’re a little disappointed and they start thinking about, “What does the path forward look like?”
We hear triggering event and we hear exit and succession and go, “I died.” That’s usually what you get. In going backwards a little bit, the statistics around Exit Planning, succession planning are pretty grim, aren’t they?
They are. Statistically, 80% of business owners either do not transact at all or do not transact at the value that they think they should have gotten. If you think about that, the opportunity that is out there for us to improve upon this is huge. It’s limitless, especially when you think about how many small businesses there are in every city in America. If you are an advisor working with business owners and you’re not having this conversation, then maybe there’s an opportunity that you’re missing as well as there was a part of me that thinks we’re failing as advisors if we don’t have that difficult conversation and say, “Have you thought about what’s next?”
Most business owners think they’re...
Being the fourth generation President and Chief Executive Officer of Babson Farms Inc., Taylor Kirkpatrick takes his responsibility very seriously running the family office. His job is running the family business and managing assets created over 100 years ago by his great grandfather. Right now, Babson Farms’ core asset is based on agricultural holdings, with supporting operating businesses like captive crop insurance company, tiling company, drainage, bin storage, trucking and transportation operations. Taylor shares that running the family business is a demonstration of patience and fortitude because you’re charged with seeing the future and trying to take advantage of an opportunity that might occur in the future. He always keeps the mindset that like everything in life, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. You have to keep a generational thinking, map out strategies and figure out how to do things on a daily basis as well as look at the bigger picture.
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Successfully Managing a Family Office with Taylor Kirkpatrick We have a treat now. We’re in http://www.babsonfarms.com/ (Babson Farms) and we’re with the CEO, Taylor Kirkpatrick. Taylor, welcome to the show.
Bob, thanks for having me.
Do us a favor, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
The easy answer is Babson Farms is a family office, which is a term that a lot of folks may or may not be familiar with and what it is, I serve one family managing their assets. These assets were created 100 years ago when my great grandfather, Henry Babson, went and visited the Thomas Edison at the Columbian World Exposition in 1893 in Chicago and said that he was willing to go and sell the phonograph for Thomas Edison outside of the United States. He took a prototype of the Edison talking machine and went to China and India and sold several thousand of those over the course of about two years.
When he came back, he took those winnings and started a mail-order catalog that competed with the Sears catalog in the South side of Chicago called Babson Brothers. That sold everything from sundries and fabric and things like that to dairy equipment and other farming equipment. He was selling a piece of equipment that he realized was not that great. It was difficult to clean. There was some sanitation issues. It would taint the central plant of the milk if you didn’t have clean vulcanized rubber tubes and things. He ultimately invented and patented and then sold the majority of the world’s dairy equipment called Surge Dairy Products for a period of about 50 years. In the‘70s, we had a liquidity event when we sold that to Westphalia which is a German conglomerate. The proceeds from that sale lead to the core assets that we have now.
Our core asset is based on agricultural holdings that we have, which are mostly in North Central Illinois. We have a bunch of farms that grow corn and soybeans up in North Central Illinois. Then we have supporting operating businesses or products and services that we use ourselves. Then we said, “We can do this in-house and then we can also help our neighbors as well.” Those are everything from a captive crop insurance company to a tiling company, which is a drainage situation to bin storage and some trucking and transportation and then GIS mapping services. Those are the types of things that we do for our customers and that’s what we’re trying to do. When you say who do we serve? The question for me is the constituents are the family themselves. That’s everybody that is a lineal descendant of Henry Babson.
Then there are also the employees that we have that worked within these businesses and then the partners that we have. We have operating partners that manage and work on all these farms. We have to make sure that we’re being smart about doing what we can and helping the family members achieve what it is that they want with the proceeds of
A lot of people in science, engineering, and health professions have a good idea but they don’t know what to do with it. Maybe they had two or three good ideas that just went down the drain. How do you translate your idea into something that creates value for a patient? According to Arlen Meyers, the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs is a global biomedical and clinical innovation and entrepreneurship network whose mission is to help members get their ideas to patients. Arlen is the president and CEO of the said society. He’s also a radio co-host in Colorado Business Roundtable, and a professor emeritus of otolaryngology, dentistry, and engineering at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He discusses in detail what the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs is all about, and touches on data and machine learning, physician entrepreneurship, digital health technology, and the experiences that helped him progress down the road.
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The Society of Physician Entrepreneurs with Arlen Meyers We’re extremely fortunate to have Arlen Meyers. He’s the President and CEO of the https://www.sopenet.org (Society of Physicians Entrepreneurs). He’s also a radio co-host in https://www.cobrt.com/radio-podcast/ (Colorado Business Roundtable). He’s a professor emeritus of Otolaryngology, Dentistry and Engineering at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. Arlen, thank you for taking your time to be here.
Thanks for having me.
Tell me a little bit about what you’re doing with the Society of Physicians and who you serve.
The Society of Physicians Entrepreneurs is a global biomedical and clinical innovation and entrepreneurship network. Our mission is to help our members, which are fairly eclectic, to get their ideas to patients. Everyone I know in science, engineering, and health professions have a good idea but they don’t know what to do with it. Typically, it goes down the drain in the shower. Maybe you had two or three good ideas and they went down the drain. How do you translate the idea into something that creates value for a patient? That process, which we refer to in sick care have a $3.2 trillion healthcare spending, which is masquerading as a sick care system. 90% of the budget goes toward taking care of sick people. I’m a recovery Ear, Nose and Throat surgeon. I spent my career at the Anschutz Medical Campus in the University of Colorado School of Medicine teaching people how to do surgery on that stuff.
I’ve had a fairly complicated medical career. I didn’t like the idea of how this was playing out in terms of innovation. I felt that for a very long time and to a certain extent now, the two most important components of the innovation supply chain, the doctor and the patient, were ignored. It was the biomedical industrial complex that came up with bright shiny objects and said, “These are great. Why don’t you buy them for this ridiculous cost?” Now, we wind up with high-cost, low-value stuff. Why? Because of a number of reasons, but one of them is because we didn’t engage end users early enough in what is described as design thinking, lean startup methodology, consumer engagement and customer discovery. I didn’t like that, I thought that was stupid. I decided with some other folks to do something about it.
When did you decide?
This is something that I had been involved with for a long time. I graduated from business school in 1984. In those days, having someone with a white coat sitting next to pinstripes was rare. I’ve always had this bug about the business of science and medicine. Part of it comes from my background. My dad was a pharmacist, he was a son of an immigrant. It was a great generation, depression to immigration, the whole drill. He worked like a dog and was the embodiment of the American dream. We lived in a nice house. I took a look at that and said, “Maybe that’s
Chris Hetherington Resilience Code CEO, Resilience Code is an amazing place. It is technically a data-driven, evidence-based, multi-specialty medical performance center. We serve anybody really, whether you’re an athlete, where you’re a non-athlete, whether you’re a corporate athlete, an executive, a housewife, chronically ill patient, a surgery patient. We have this multidisciplinary integrated approach. We have all these amazing specialty providers under one roof. The goal of what we’re trying to do as a company is spread health literacy. Arming people with the knowledge of how their body works and their mind works to make better decisions going forward and reliably guide their wellness. So whether you’re looking to…you know, performer seekers, whether you’re looking to perform better at work, at life, at sport, we’re the place for you to come.
We’ve developed this one-stop shop for all of your medical and performance needs. It’s for people that are looking for subtle changes, people that are looking for very comprehensive programs. We’ll re-manage your meds, your supplements, your fitness etc., but really for everybody. Our goal is to spread health literacy one person at a time, to create this dynamic cultural shift.
I’ve been an athlete my whole life. I grew up in Connecticut. I was lucky enough to be a good, natural athlete. I played football, hockey, baseball, golf. My dad and I went to golf driving range as a kid, so I grew up a golfer. But I went to Yale, played football and baseball. I gave up hockey. Then I was fortunate enough to play in the NFL for 11 years for 5 different teams. I had a wonderful experience and was lucky to realize from guys that I respected, older guys, experienced pros that you have to take care of your body. Later on, in my career, I was very focused on recovery and going off campus to get IVs and taking supplements. I was the crazy guy carrying around this tackle box of supplements to the facility and getting bodywork. There’s no better place than Resilience Code to come here and learn from all these amazing people, starting with Dr. Chad Prusmack, who’s the visionary here and the founder of Resilience Code. One of the most intelligent guys I’ve met but one of the most dynamic charismatic guys and a unique guy.
The corporate athlete. “I’m going to be in the arena for another 10 or 20 years. I know I need to do something so maybe these guys can help get me pointed.” What should he or she expect?
The problem is, people only get tested when they’re sick, go to the doctor when they’re sick and tested when they have issues. We’re trying to prevent issues before they happen. The process is, we want to learn about the client, we want to know the client, “What are your goals? What’s your lifestyle? Do you work out? Do you not work out? Do you follow a strict diet? Do you not? Do you take supplements? Are you open to taking supplements?” So everything is 100% completely customized to the client and what their goals are.
Typical time allocation once he or she walks through the door here? Our most comprehensive program, we call it iCODE. That’s our executive health and wellness program. The way that works is they come in for this two-and-a-half-day testing experience. There’s a lot of information we collect before you come here, obviously, and then you come here, we do this testing experience. That’s the biomarker test, your KinetiCode or moving-based testing and your MindCode testing. From there, we collect the data. All of our amazing specialists collaborate and come up with an intervention a plan or recommendation, and then it’s an ongoing, we’re tracking your data, we’re making constant interventions. We’re this data-driven, evidence-based facility. The thing that separates us, and I’ve studied all
As a certified grant consultant and a very successful grant writer, Sherita Herring debunks the enormous misconception around what people think about grants, one of the most common of which is can a nonprofit make a profit? Sherita’s answer is yes, it can. Many small towns are drying up across the country, and there is a need to coach them on how to implement sustainability efforts and go after funding for their town. A lot of small town mayors are not getting their dollars through the government because they just figure there’s no money. Most people aren’t aware there’s millions in tourism grants. Sherita says a grant proposal is nothing but a business plan and to approach an investor is the same language used in the nonprofit arena as the for profit arena. You’ve got to learn how to go after your own money. She teaches how to raise capital, how to speak to investors, and how to prepare your documents to give your grant proposal the best chance at success.
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Making Profit From A Non-Profit Through Grant Proposals with Sherita Herring I have as my guest, http://sheritaherring.com/ (Sherita Herring). Sherita is a non-profit expert and business strategist. She’s the owner of http://www.kifoundation.org/ (Kreative Images Foundation). She’s a certified grant consultant with over $30 million worth of grants secured, the largest being around $14 million. She’s a very successful grant writer. Sherita, thanks for taking time to be on the show.
Thank you. It’s an honor.
Tell me a little bit about your business and who you serve.
I serve individuals that want to make a difference in the world. That could range from celebrities and athletes to someone that has a soup kitchen and they’re working with the homeless. Anyone that wants to make a difference, that’s my ideal client. In the past three or four years, most of my clients have been these super entrepreneurs and small business owners.
For most of us, when we hear about grant, and I certainly did before I had listened to you speak. This is the second or third time I’ve heard you speak about grant. There’s an enormous misconception or disconnect between around what people think about grants. Let’s dig into what they do and how you view grants and cover some of that.
In the past few years, it’s been entrepreneurs and small business owners because before they would not look or even consider that grants are non-profit arena. They felt like, first of all, I need to make a profit. The misconception and one of the main things that people ask is can a nonprofit make a profit? Yes, it can. There are multimillion and even billion-dollar non-profits. Non-profit just means it’s a non-stock corporation. Once I get them past that misconception in their mind.
Non-profit just means it's a non-stock corporation.https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fbusinessleaderspodcast.com%2Fmaking-profit-from-a-non-profit-through-grant-proposals-with-sherita-herring%2F&text=Non-profit%20just%20means%20it%27s%20a%20non-stock%20corporation.&related (Click To Tweet) You’ve got a project going on now with some small town mayors. Let’s walk through it if we can like a case study of what you did for the small town mayor that you did the grant for.
I was on tour and it took me through small town America, and I realized that many small towns are drying up across the country. We did a little research and there’s the graying of America that’s going on. What does that mean? Where you got young kids that live in small towns, they can’t wait to grow up and leave and then what’s being left in these small towns are individuals that now on an average are 60 years old and older. They’re losing jobs, empty homes, empty schools, and you’ve got the older people that are left there. That’s...
In our lives, we often are influenced by two things, the books we read and the people we meet. Those two things set us off in a new directions. We always have that influential person or a few in our lives that are so influential that they take us in a new direction. For Bob Cornuke, that person was Jim Irwin who had been to the moon and back and had a cathartic moment while seeing the earth from space. Their first of many expeditions started with the search for Noah’s Ark. More expeditions followed and eventually, it led him to write books. Storytelling, Bob shares, is a skill set that he’s never tapped into as a young man. He likes to encourage people to take advantage of every season of their lives and try to find those things they have buried deep inside of them. The only way of finding and tapping buried skill sets is challenging yourself and going out on a limb sometimes. For Bob, it was writing, and now he’s doing it as a profession.
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Tapping Buried Skill Sets: Living The Life You Were Truly Meant To Live with Bob Cornuke We have something a little unusual. I’m sitting in the living room of http://www.baseinstitute.org/pages/bob_cornuke_biography/3 (Bob Cornuke)’s house. He’s up the http://www.baseinstitute.org/ (Base Institute). Bob, it’s a lovely day in Colorado. Thanks for the hospitality.
Thanks for having me on your podcast.
We’re sitting in the living room. I have a buffalo head behind me with a Sharps ‘52 carried by one of Bob’s family members or built by Bob’s family members.
Actually, I’m the great, great grandson of Christian Sharps. If you saw Quigley Down Under, that’s a Sharp rifle, a true grit. I am the great, great grandson of Christian Sharps.
I’ll make sure I behave.
Behave yourself.
We’re sitting here, we have this beautiful day. We’re overlooking a pond and part of a golf course. I’m going to take in, go off-grid, and let you explore and talk to some of the folks about what it is that you do and what gets you going down this path.
It’s certainly not a place I’d ever expect to go to in my life. Early on, I received a football scholarship at Fresno State early on, and then had a real desire to be in law enforcement. After college, I got involved with the Costa Mesa Police Department. I was about ten years on the department and an FBI-trained homicide investigator for the department. Then I got in a bad shoot out and the man died. I came out here to Colorado and was doing some fly fishing with my brother, Paul Cornuke, and he was an air traffic controller out here. I fell in love with Colorado immediately. From LA and Orange County and the traffic, and especially after the shooting, I said, “I’ve had a nice experience in law enforcement and I’m seeing all the older guys straining to retirement, not liking the job, and complaining about everything.” I didn’t want to be that. I thought it was a good time to step away from law enforcement and try some new challenges in life.
I came out to Colorado and I got involved with real estate development and within a few years I had 125 employees in three offices and made partnership with my brother Paul. He left air traffic control. To date, he’s very successful in real estate. He has 1,900 employees now in Florida. He’s doing quite well. We got into real estate, did well together, a good partnership, and meshed really well, but during that process, I met a man named Jim Irwin, who is the eighth man to walk on the moon, the first one to drive the car on the moon. In our lives, we often are influenced by two things. The two main things are the books we read and the people we meet. Those two things set us off in a new direction, and we always have that influential person or a few in our lives that are so influential that they take this in a new direction. Jim had been to the moon and when he...
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There is a level of sophistication in the cannabis industry that most people don’t know of. It is operated by a lot of bright people doing smart work with organic nutrition and data gathering. Tom Regan, President of Mindful, a cannabis company in Colorado, has taken the business from growing and extracting to distributing and retailing. Coming in to the company, his biggest challenge was to balance the cannabis culture and the corporate culture which meant that respect needs to come from both sides. More than just data collection and management, he needed the company to understand the history of cannabis and its social issues, where it came from and where is it headed.
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Balancing The Cannabis Culture And The Corporate Culture with Tom Regan We have a unique treat. We’re here with https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomregan (Tom Regan). He’s the President of https://bemindful.today/ (Mindful). Tell us a little bit about what you do and the customers you serve.
Thanks, Bob. Thanks for having me. Mindful is our retail and cultivation brand. We are a cannabis company located in Colorado. As President of the company, my job is to make sure the trains run on time and we serve our customers. Part of our business is we have a 40,000 square foot grow here in Denver. We have a 25,000 square foot extraction facility and a retail footprint throughout the Colorado area. On top of that, we have a B2B business where we sell our products to other retailers.
You were kind enough to give me a tour and it reminds me of a surgical suite when you come in here. The place is clean and the data gathering here is incredible. Shed some light on what you did before here.
In my prior career, I was a Director at Cisco Systems for about twelve years. For those of you that don’t know Cisco Systems, it’s not the food company, it’s the computer company. Cisco is about a $50-billion a year company now. My job was to manage the worldwide supply chain, do product integrations when we acquired companies and launch new products. Before that, I worked at a bunch of small high-tech startups in the networking space in the Boston area. A bunch of them got bought by large companies like Cisco and Intel.
You said it was a $1 billion event that you managed at the time?
At Cisco, I was responsible for about $10 billion of Cisco’s revenue from a manufacturing and supply chain perspective.
I met many people here that had significantly advanced degrees in agronomy and horticulture. We had an engineer that was a farmer that is consulting all over. The misconception about the business is profound and I would tell you that this is a sophisticated. What do you reckon one grow room would take to set up?
A 1,500-square foot to 2,000-square foot grow room would cost anywhere from $400,000 to $700,000 to set up.
I was fortunate enough to see them. If you’re a gardener at all, you’re jealous. There are misters and there are fans and there are hydroponic stuff going on and all the RFID chips to manage. Not to belabor the point, but this is a highly sophisticated operation with bright people doing a lot of smart work on nutrition, organic work, and data gathering.
You mentioned our workforce. We have about 90 employees in all of those four businesses. At the grower we’re at, the cultivation facility, we have a woman that has a master’s in horticulture. We have engineers, the whole gamut. If I had to go top of my head, of the 100 people, over 40 have a bachelor’s degree and a little less than fifteen have master’s degrees.
I was unaware of the industry but the level of sophistication, tracking and compliance, you walk into the lobby, it’s gated in, and there’s more permits hanging on the wall there than you can shake a stick at to comply. This is a real life...
1980 was one of the largest booms ever in the oil and gas business, and David Allard was in the right place at the right time. David just got out of college with a Geology degree and was lucky enough to get a job with only a BS degree and covered twenty plus countries over a twenty plus year period of exploration around the globe that comes with being a geologist in the oil field. Over his career, David has survived five major downturns. David chronicles 30 years of being a geologist in a book called A World of Culture, Oil and Golf which is journal of his life lessons, and business and cultural experiences. David said it’s key to the success for the business to engage the host country and follow the rules and create value for everyone involved.
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Exploring A World of Culture, Oil and Golf with David Allard We’re fortunate to have http://www.davidallardauthor.com/ (David Allard). He is a chief geologist and author of https://www.amazon.com/World-Culture-Oil-Golf/dp/1633020363/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 (A World of Culture, Oil and Golf). I went through the book and I would encourage you to go through. I think there’s no place on the planet that this guy hasn’t either landed on, been in or been over, or so highly traveled. Thanks so much for taking time.
Thank you, Bob. It’s my pleasure to be here.
Let’s start with the story that got you into the oil and gas business.
A World of Culture, Oil and Golf
That’s fun because growing up I knew I was going to be an Earth Scientist from junior high during the sand experiments with little rivers. I grew up and went to college. In the first orientation day, I was going to be a forestry major. I met some professors and they said, “That would be a good thing if you’ve got a PhD, but then you probably wouldn’t get a job. Why don’t you be a geologist?” I changed right there and I’ve been a geologist ever since.
Where did you go to school?
Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.
Geologists in Pennsylvania in the oil field, I usually hear Colorado School of Mines, South Dakota or the Dakotas and elsewhere through Pennsylvania with the kind in mind but the Marcellus kind of brought that in.
Back in 1980 when I graduated, it was one of the largest booms ever in the oil and gas business. They needed a geologist and my professor said you can work anywhere. I went to California and I ended up with Sohio initially in San Francisco. I was lucky enough to get a job with only a BS degree. I call myself a Boom Baby, if you will.
You graduated in ’80s while the oilfield began puny not long after that.
I maybe not so proudly say I’ve survived five major downturns and the first one you’re speaking of about 1985, ’86. There was some disruption in the force of OPEC and Saudi, a commitment of the oil reserve and it just changed the world demand and we had our first downturn. We went from thinking we’re going to have $100 oil forever. A lot of business leaders bet the farm on that future income. Many of them went by the wayside in the ’80s because of it.
You went to San Francisco. Were you married at that time or when did you meet your bride?
I met my bride at Midland, Texas in the mid ’80s.
Thinking about folks who have different thoughts, what does a geologist do in the oil field?
Our job as geologists, the bottom line is we say, “Here’s where you drill to find more oil and gas production or reserves,” whatever the objective of your company model is.
You point the drilling rig?
Essentially, and we do that with a series of tools. Of course, we map the subsurface and try to identify structures are traps for the oil and gas. That technology’s evolved quite a bit. In recent years real improvement and success rate came from 3D seismic.
Does it follow along with the computer capability? I...
We’re living in an age of disruption and transformation. If you’re not innovating ahead of that change, you end up like a lot of famous or once famous companies that don’t exist anymore. Adam Markel, bestselling author of Pivot: The Art and Science of Reinventing Your Career and Life, serves a community of business leaders and entrepreneurs by helping them reinvent their business landscape as well as anything they like to change in their lives. His main goal is to create a culture of empowerment where people feel emotionally safe to be creative and innovative.
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The Science Of Pivot with Adam Markel Pivot: The Art and Science of Reinventing Your Career and Life
We’re operating remote in Tampa, Florida at http://ceospaceinternational.com/ (CEO Space) and we are with http://www.adammarkel.com/ (Adam Markel). He is the best-selling author of https://www.amazon.com/Pivot-Science-Reinventing-Your-Career/dp/1476779473 (Pivot: The Science of Reinventing Your Career). I’ve read the book personally and I’ve given it to both of my kids. If you haven’t read it, I would recommend that you put it on your reading list. He was picked up by Huffington Post last year as one of the top speakers that you must see. Welcome to the show, Adam. Thanks for taking the time.
Thank you, Bob. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Tell me a little bit about your business and who you serve.
Our company is called More Love Media. We serve a community of people who are business leaders, people that are some entrepreneurs and others that are running larger organizations, some quite large organizations who are reinventing. When I say reinventing, you are right, the book Pivot is the art and science of reinventing aspects of your business and your personal life as well. It’s not a term that says things are wrong necessarily and we’ve got to change them because I’m desperate for a change. We’ve got people, whether it’s their health or something in their relationships, either business or personal relationships that they are urgent about making a change, that’s for sure, but we’ve got a lot of people that are simply looking at the landscape ahead and seeing what’s happening right now, which is that we’re living in an age of disruption and an age of transformation. If you’re not innovating ahead of that change or that disruption, you end up like a lot of famous or once famous companies that don’t exist anymore.
I think about the CEO that’s in this. There’s a show on TV about Fortune Fire where they take a piece of metal and turn it into something useful, and then you pound that thing out and you have tempered steel at some point. I think the CEO’s nowadays feel like they’ve been tempered a lot. In that timeframe, you work with organizations and try to develop a culture inside the organization that’s heart-centered. Let’s talk about that for a bit.
We call it heart space in the workplace, which is interesting when I sit down with a CEO and talk about that, but this is really about a culture of empowerment, of creating a culture where people are more free and feel emotionally safe to be creative, to be innovative. It’s important that a company these days remain ahead of that cycle of change and not manage the change, but utilize it and look ahead at where it is that you can innovate. You have to have a culture that promotes that. You have to have compensation that rewards that behavior. In many companies, there are structures and other things, the culture that’s set up, does not reward innovation even though it’s part of the company’s mission. The things that are pronounced from the top down that they want to see the company innovate and be agile, be flexible, and yet the structures of the company are anything but that.
I think about for that for the listener out there...
It takes three to five years to create a sustainable business which is a long time to commit your life to something. If you don’t love what you’re doing, it can get very difficult to sustain it that is why understanding personal purpose should be tied to the kind of business that you’re going to do. Mike McCausland, CEO and founder of Leadership Institute for Entrepreneurs (LIFE), is focused on helping entrepreneurs all the way from what’s a good business idea through launch, growth, scaling, and exit, or what is called the entrepreneurship journey, from end to end. Mike also talks about another project they’re launching called local entrepreneurship ecosystems which are entrepreneurship networks or group endeavors trying to crack the code on how to cause economic engines to start growing and what ecosystems impact the whole community.
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Walking Through The Entrepreneurship Journey Successfully with Mike McCausland We’re incredibly fortunate that we have Mike McCausland, Founder and CEO of https://www.lifestartups.com/ (Leadership Institute for Entrepreneurs). Mike, thanks for being on the show.
Thanks, Bob. I’m excited to be here.
Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
The Leadership Institute for Entrepreneurs is really focused on helping entrepreneurs, all the way from what’s a good business idea through launch growth, scaling, exit, we call it the entrepreneurship journey from end to end. I’ve learned that 99% of the population has no understanding of their purpose. Understanding personal purpose should be tied to the kind of business that you’re going to do. If you don’t love what you’re doing, life can get very difficult in a business. Three to five years to create a sustainable business, that’s a long time to commit your life to something you don’t love doing.
We serve entrepreneurs on this end-to-end entrepreneurship journey. The other thing we’re doing and a lot more of is launching local entrepreneurship ecosystems. We live in Colorado Springs, I think is number nine. Denver’s number five, the Denver Boulder Corridor in entrepreneurship ecosystems in the US. Our market is international and so we’re launching ecosystems all over the world. We actually have seven this year. Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Indonesia, Kenya, Jordan and a relational ecosystem in Rome, Italy of a global network called Open.
I think about that. I would love to take and get an ecosystem in my area. How do they go about getting you to come?
It’s a lot of relational networks. We’ve been all over the world. I ran a nonprofit that was in 150 countries over fifteen years. We ended up shutting it down to move everything to for profit operations because we just believe it’s a better model. The relational aspect is how we figure out where to go and how to help people. Entrepreneurship ecosystems are a big focus worldwide. Some of the leading players in that space, https://www.kauffman.org/ (Kauffman Foundation), which many are aware of, but Kauffman just does the United States. They’re in 180 cities. https://www.kauffman.org/what-we-do/entrepreneurship/1-million-cups (1 Million Cups), maybe something you’re familiar with, that’s one of their programs or that they’ve produced. The Global Entrepreneurship Network works globally. The Endeavor Global Group is out there globally. The World Economic Forum is out there.
One of the big questions that people are trying to crack the code on is how do you create an entrepreneurship ecosystem and cause economic that engine to start growing? Every mayor in the world ever in every city is interested. Ecosystems are very local. You can’t do a US ecosystem. You can’t do a continental ecosystem. It’s very local. As an example of Colorado Springs, Denver and Boulder, almost three...
You’ve been on your feet all day. Maybe you just finished a long run or a long workout. You come home and you kick off your shoes. You look at your toes. Do you feel better? Probably not, if you’ve chosen to wear the wrong shoes. For the last 50 years, performance footwear has thrived with a design philosophy that guarantees discomfort. To address this problem, Xero Shoes makes addictively comfortable footwear designed based on your foot, a quarter of the bones and joints of your entire body or in your feet and ankles. Steven Sashen, CEO of Xero Shoes, explains that a person has more nerve endings in the soles of their feet than anywhere else in the body, except their fingertips and their lips. And so you’re supposed to use these things. They’re supposed to bend, flex to move to feel the world.
If you don’t let them do their job, that function tries to move up into your ankles, your knees, your hips and your back and can cause pain – so Xero designs shoes based solely on your feet for guaranteed comfort. Pretty much all of Steven’s time is spent building the barefoot sandal business that he and his wife Lena started. It all began, almost as a joke, in a corner of a spare bedroom. But now it’s a thriving business with an office, employees, and a LOT of late nights. Xero Shoes (originally Invisible Shoes) are a modern take on the tire sandals made by the Tarahumara in Mexico. They give you all the fun and benefits of being barefoot, but with a layer of protection, style… and FUN.
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Redefining Comfort Through Xero Shoes With Steven Sashen I’m with Steve Sashen. He is the CEO of https://xeroshoes.com/ (Xero Shoes). Welcome to the show, Steven. I appreciate you taking the time.
Thank you. My pleasure.
Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
Xero Shoes is a footwear brand based on a simple idea. Think of it this way. You’ve been on your feet all day, maybe you just finished a long run or a long workout. You come home and you kick off your shoes and you wiggle your toes. Do you feel better? If so, you’ve been wearing the wrong shoes. If you haven’t accidentally gotten into bed still wearing your shoes because you forgot you were wearing them, you’ve been wearing the wrong shoes. It’s not your fault because footwear, for the last 45, 50 years, especially performance footwear has been made with a designed philosophy that guarantees discomfort and there’s literally nothing you can do to fix it.
We make addictively comfortable footwear designed based on your foot. A quarter of the bones and joints of your entire body are in your feet and ankles. You have more nerve endings in the soles of your feet than anywhere but your fingertips and your lips. You’re supposed to use these things. They’re supposed to bend, flex, to move to feel the world. If you don’t let them do their job, that function tries to move up into your ankles, your knees, your hips, and your back and can cause pain. We make shoes designed for feet. They’ve got a nice wide toe box so your toes can spread and relax. We don’t elevate your heel because that messes with your posture. They’re super flexible, so that your feet can bend and move. They’re low to the ground for balance and agility and the soles are thin. They give you the right combination of protection, but they also let you get that feedback that your brain needs to know how to use your feet and everything in between.
There’s now research coming out from Harvard and from BYU and from researchers in Brazil showing how true minimalist footwear, like ours, and I say it that way because there are some products sold as minimalist but they aren’t. True minimalist footwear can improve foot muscle strength, can be helpful with plantar fasciitis or knee osteoarthritis imbalance. People use...
Payroll services are evolving and Payroll Vault’s Sean Manning is changing history as we know it. With better benefit packages, clear scheduling, and leveraging technology for your business goals, Payroll Vault is on the rise to make payroll for people again. Is there more to the CEO beyond the company figurehead? How can you make your employees happier? Ditch your current corporate payroll model and switch to Payroll Vault. It’s the future.
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How To Leverage Technology Using Payroll Vault With Sean Manning We’re in the offices of Sean Manning. He is the CEO of https://www.payrollvault.com/ (Payroll Vault). Sean, welcome to the podcast.
Thanks, Bob.
Sean, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
The payroll industry is a little bit unique that there are not a whole lot of national brands that bring a localized payroll service to business owners. Payroll Vault is a localized concept for payroll services with a national footprint that basically helps small business owners be more successful in managing their people and their payroll processes in order for them to be more successful in running their business and really helping to manage their people to make them happier. Payroll Vault’s an organizational franchise system that is designed to be the number one alternative to the corporate model of payroll services and bring it local and responsive to business owners.
You own a CPA firm as well. For you, what was the genesis of the thought process behind Payroll Vault?
In having a CPA firm, our focus there was also small business. We did accounting, tax, and a little bit of payroll consulting to business owners. I love the advice end of working with business owners when you open up to them and ask them, “What do you need? How can I help you? What’s your biggest need?” It was funny because payroll service technology, how to be a better business owner, always came to the top. After about fifteen or twenty years of organically growing that payroll, we said this is a bigger need. We need to absolutely create a new brand, find a way to better serve, and bring all the tools together since we have HR tools, we have a workmen’s comp, we have time clock tools, all electronic delivery, paperless environment, to help business owners be more successful. Payroll Vault’s basically sprung out of a need from the accounting firm in order to service our clients better.
Once we rebranded, it took off in the local market. That led to a lot of new opportunity with helping other accounting firms possibly consider that type of service. A lot of national speaking, a lot of education, brought us forward in regard to the opportunity to help others tap into this market and service their clients better. That directly led us into franchising, so we can basically offer everything we can to a person that wants to service that need, that payroll service need, that is growing. Compliance is getting a lot more complicated. Federal level’s pretty complicated, but actually the state level is where things are accelerating for business owners to stay compliant with payroll laws. You can see the migration that happens when you own a business like an accounting firm and really identify a need for payroll services and then create a brand and a system that can help them.
One of the things as you said, “We rebranded at some point.”
I believe in business, you have to have a very focused thought process. Although we actually were doing payroll services for about 80 companies, small businesses at the time when we rebranded, but when you rebrand, you identify as to who you are and how you serve. The minute we created a sister company under the brand Payroll Vault, people identified with what that was more clearly. It does it at three levels, not only from a client level, but also from a staffing and management level. People identify with...
Sequenza, a global company with an established presence in the US, Asia, and Europe, carries the business tagline “Why pay more?” Indeed, across all three of their brands, Sequenza, VINclusive, Sayage, they are well below market prices, which makes them a popular choice among consumers. Strings Kozisek shares that one of the contributing factors of the growth of their company is employee empowerment. He says that it’s important to hire people better than you and pay attention to their careers because as a CEO, you are delegating tasks that enhances the employees skills and overall career who then adds value to the company in the long run.
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Employee Empowerment: A Big Contributor to Growth with Strings Kozisek
We’re lucky to have Strings Kozisek, CEO of https://sequenzainc.com/ (Sequenza). Strings, welcome to the podcast.
Thanks, Bob. It’s good to be here.
Strings and I met at the local Bass Pro here some time ago and we must have chatted for a couple of hours.
I tend to do that to people. That was awesome. Thanks for talking to me.
We had a good time and trying to get to know and he was gracious enough to come down and be on the podcast.
Thanks for having me.
We talked about Strings and we’re not sure where the nickname came from, but Strings Kozisek. If you would, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
My business is Sequenza. Under Sequenza, we handle three different brands. Sequenza is an IT and A/V professional services firm. With our internal network of a couple thousand techs across the US, another thousand or so outside of the United States, we provide IT and AV services and we’re able to have somebody anywhere in the continental United States in four hours. We do this under market price. We handle a lot of retail, we do a lot of restaurants, we do technology companies, all that stuff. The two other brands, one of them is VinClusive. VINclusive is a host of technology services that enhance auto dealerships.
We provide proprietary tools for inventory management, for the status of cars, anti-theft protection, GPS, geo-fencing, inventory management tools, and these things. The third brand that comes under the Sequenza banner is called The Sayage. http://www.thesayage.com/ (The Sayage) is a digital signage platform. It is a proprietary Android box that connects wired, wirelessly or over cellular to our backend system that sits in the Amazon web services. This has been up and running about fifteen years. We are bringing this into the United States. The niche there is it’s very cheap and we’ve taken about 70% of the most used digital signage functionality, put it in a package that I could train somebody on in 45 minutes. Simple, cheap, easy to use.
First, going into digital signage for the person going like, “That doesn’t draw a mental picture for me,” what is digital signage?
When you’re out going through the day, you go to the dentist or you go to the doctor’s office, it has a monitor in the lobby that’s showing some advertisements. You go to your local clothing store and they have monitors up there that are showing the new fashions of the season. You go into your fast food restaurant and you’re looking at the menu. All of these things are examples of digital signage. Digital signage is saying something digitally.
Employee Empowerment: Digital signage is saying something digitally.
Within that space, what’s the pain point that the digital signage company solves for the customer?
The pain points we solve, there are two of them. One, most signage solutions have large learning curves. Ours, can easily be learned in an hour. And Second, A lot of systems are geared more towards enterprise, either by their cost or the over-abundant features they try to push. Our system is cheap enough to be meaningful to the family run businesses, and robust enough multi-thousand locations.
For folks that are lost, A/V is?
Audiovisual stuff. There are a...
There are 16.2 million solopreneurs in the US right now. Only 20% will find success at their first go of their business. Jim Sugarman and 4GenNow helps these solopreneurs by finding their intergenerational business partners to get a higher probability of success and funding. He shares that his biggest challenge is to find the key characteristics of these four generations of entrepreneurs and the unique skill sets they bring to the table. In doing this, Jim also addresses the issue of creating too many startups with too many failures.
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Bringing Four Generations of Entrepreneurs Together with Jim Sugarman We have Jim Sugarman. He’s the Co- Founder of the nonprofit https://4gennow.com/ (4 Gen Now). Jim, thanks so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to come by and visit.
Bob, great to be with you.
Jim, tell us a little bit about 4 Gen Now and who you serve.
4 Gen Now, we’re an international and intergenerational community of entrepreneurs, 1,600 at last count, from about 35 states and 23 countries. Our community members are looking to find an intergenerational business partner to launch a startup. That’s who we are. We’re also a non-profit awaiting a 501(c)(3) status, so our targeted market is 16.2 million solopreneurs. According to a survey from MBO Partners out of Virginia, there are 16.2 million full-time solopreneurs. As you and your audience probably know, only 20% of them will be successful in their first go around. They need help. 4 Gen Now is about helping solopreneurs find their intergenerational business partner so they have a higher probability of success and also a higher probability of funding. That’s who we serve.
I think about that. I’m out there and I’m this lonesome entrepreneur. Either they’re in my generation, baby boomers, or any of the other three generations that go, “That sounds interesting. How would I find one of these organizations?”
This is the how-to of 4 Gen Now. We have a platform designed to connect, match and fund intergenerational entrepreneurs specifically through face-to-face meet-up chapters around the US. We have 21 in the US, we have five overseas. Our flagship meet-up chapter is in Denver.
For some of the other meetups and groups, how does the local chapter organize it?
We have a two co-organizers in the local Denver chapter and they host monthly meet ups. Every monthly meet up will have a different theme to it and it will have a guest speaker. For example, we’ll have a meet-up where four different generations will talk about challenges of working together to find their business partner and once they have found it, challenges to overcome to make their intergenerational startup succeed.
How long has the organization been in operation?
Formally I should say since January, we just formed as an educational nonprofit in the Great Commonwealth of Massachusetts and waiting 501(c)(3) status hopefully from the IRS.
You started in January and you got 1,600 members already?
It was under a different name brand. To continue to be transparent, this has been a labor of love for about a year and a half now part-time, full-time just since January.
To drill down, let’s talk about your background and what brought you to be so passionate about what you’re doing.
As my wife reminds me, I’m a dreamer. I tried to extract the best from that by organizing trade shows and special events. That’s my primary background, or at least that’s what it has been for about fifteen years now both for myself in the US and for five years living in Hong Kong. What got me into this was I read an article that changed my life. In 2015, I read an article from the Kauffman Foundation, a well-known think tank based in Kansas City that advocates on behalf of entrepreneurship. This study showed in the last 40 years that the number of startups as a percentage of US businesses has
http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/052blpbanner.jpg () Most people have common misconceptions about what ADA is. ADA is a disability rights law, not an accessibility law. Kent Kelly of Meeting the Challenge discusses how his company helps institutions and communities be ADA-compliant. He talks about some of the projects they’ve made and how they can teach you to comply and negotiate with the DOJ if you have to, and get a reasonable implementation plan to achieve the objectives of the law and make your community more accessible. It all boils down to being compassionate, caring about people, and doing what’s right. He says if you can’t do it for that, then at least mitigate the risk and try to avoid a law suit.
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Kent Kelley Meeting the Challenge CEO, demystifying ADA accessibility with consulting initiatives for both public and private entities. We’re here with Kent Kelly in http://www.mtc-inc.com/ (Meeting The Challenge)’s office in Colorado Springs, Colorado. We interview some of the best and brightest business owners and entrepreneurs in and around the state of Colorado. We talk about the ins and outs of running a business and being an entrepreneur inside shared by top business leaders and entrepreneurs in the state of Colorado. We talk about what to do, and as importantly, what not to do about growing, running or starting a business. We’re fortunate to have as our guest Mr. Kent Kelly. He’s the President of Meeting The Challenge, a Colorado Springs based company with 27 years of experience working on ADA accessibility, consulting initiatives for both public and private entities since the inception of the ADA. Kent, it’s a pleasure to have you.
Thank you, Bob.
What is ADA?
It’s the Americans with Disabilities Act. It was signed into law back in 1991 and then became enforceable in 1992.
For the average businessperson, what would be the evidence of seeing ADA?
It’s a disability rights law. It’s not an accessibility law. It’s not a wheelchair law as some people say. It’s not a building code. It’s all about requiring nondiscrimination against people with disabilities.
C: ADA is a disability rights law. It’s not an accessibility law.
Parking spaces, adequate space for them to get out, ramps, restrooms done properly in the gamut of things. When I was looking at your website, it said ADA accessibility on websites.
That’s the big topic du jour. Websites have to be accessible and that’s a pretty complicated concept. There are no standards right now. The Department of Justice has been working on them and has tabled them because of the complexity of it. Essentially, what it means is we can go to a website, we can order off of Amazon or whatever, we can do surveys, do about anything, pay your bill, pay your taxes or whatever. That has to be accessible for people with disabilities too. For instance, how does a blind person access a website? If we would think about it, it would be nearly impossible unless the website was accessible because they’re going to use a screen reader. This is going to tell you everything that’s there and how to navigate through the site. What we found are some major lawsuits, even though we don’t have standards that are enforceable. The DOJ is still acting and enforcing some best practices for websites. Target, Netflix, Winn-Dixie, a lot of sites, a lot of universities, Harvard, all have been under settlement agreements to get their websites successful.
Take us a little bit through your career before coming to MTC and how you came across the company.
I’ve tried a lot of different avenues. First of all, I was a commercial lender for the largest bank in Colorado Springs right out of college. I thought I was a big shot. That was a good training ground for how to interact with people, my clients that were my commercial loan customers and all....
http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/051blpbanner.jpg () Partners not projects. That’s what Matthew Barnes of Momenta Media and his company is looking for. Learn how they figure out a solution to your marketing site problem, which is not a website problem, through the different phases they’ve developed. He provides insight on their processes to find out your pain point so you can communicate your idea and make your business run more effectively. He also shares the different tools they use to orchestrate, manage, and communicate different projects across the team.
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Matthew Barnes Partner & Chief Solutions Officer at SeeSaw Labs | Owner of Momenta Media | From side hustle to digital production agency and partnering We’re here with Matthew Barnes. He’s the owner of http://www.momentamedia.com/ (Momenta Media) and Partner and Chief Solutions Officer and Virtual Reality Lead at https://www.seesawlabs.com/ (SeeSaw Labs). We’re incredibly fortunate to have Matthew Barnes. Matthew, welcome.
Thank you.
Matthew, tell us a little bit about how you got started and your business.
My background is in engineering. I am formally educated as a civil engineer. Part way through that, I realized that what I love is problem-solving, not necessarily civil engineering. I got started in the startup entrepreneurship world pretty early on in college, realizing that was going to be my out. I liked diving into things that were complicated that I didn’t know a lot about. Getting up to speed and trying to work in that realm and technology is very attractive because the barrier to entry is so low. You need a computer and internet to start getting your hands dirty. While I was at the university, I was doing seismic design, earthquake engineering, while moonlighting running an apparel company, so getting my feet wet in eCommerce.
I eventually went on to drop out of grad school to run that eCommerce company for that startup and built from the ground up their whole platform as far as marketing and advertising and then the eCommerce website, the whole nine yards. I also did apparel design and did that for about three and a half years, and then went onto a company called https://www.facebook.com/moosejaw/ (Moosejaw Mountaineering), which if you’re in the outdoor space, you may know. It’s a little bit like Ariad, all the analytics and split testing there, so diving into that marketing aspect and understanding how users interact and behave with a piece of technology. I find that thing is one of the most interesting problems for me because it goes beyond just the basic problem solving.
Now you’re getting someone to do something that you anticipate you want them to do. Closing the feedback loop on that and testing hypothesis is a very exciting thing. All the while, Momenta Media, was the side hustle thing along the way. I couldn’t get enough with just the one thing I was doing. I wanted to also find other people who were having problems and say, “I can help you too.” A lot of times that started with just personal connections and then moved on to getting connected with other people that had eCommerce businesses where I thought I could lend a hand and reshape things, building websites, just teaching myself all of that.
Now I’m at SeeSaw Labs. SeeSaw Labs is a digital production agency, which is just a vague enough term that can encompass almost anything but specific enough that you get a little idea. The short version is if it’s on a screen, we probably create it. What I try not to say is we don’t build apps. We don’t build websites. That’s a discrete way of looking about technology. Quite frankly, you can get just about anybody to build something like that. People do it all the time, ship a website out to India or whatever and get something built. Anybody who’s done that probably knows that...
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Jessica Mehring of Horizon Peak Consulting focuses on marketing content and shares her wisdom and insight from working as a copywriter for small and medium businesses and enterprise. She explains that relationship building upfront is an integral part of the profession. She talks about how it helps create a message that’s aligned with the brand and their goal and connects emotionally with the audience.
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Jessica Mehring CEO Horizon Peak Consulting, proprietary copywriting methodology helping IT, software and tech companies get measurable results from their marketing content. We’re incredibly fortunate. We have https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicamehring (Jessica Mehring). She’s the CEO and Senior Copywriter of https://www.horizonpeakconsulting.com/ (Horizon Peak Consulting). Thanks so much for taking time. Jessica, thanks for coming on the show. Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
Marketing content for IT, software and tech companies. I work with small and medium businesses and enterprise, which might seem like they have totally different needs, but they have very similar needs when it comes to marketing content and expressing their expertise in a way that aligns with the brand and still connects with the audience.
For folks that are going like, “I’m lost,” in an IT company, what would be a prototypical client of yours, without disclosing necessarily who they are? Who would be that customer?
I work with a lot of IT services companies, so they’re helping businesses with their IT setups and I write a lot of whitepapers for those folks. Blog posts, some e-books, infographics, guides, everything that helps them explain what they do to their customers in a way that makes sense and connects emotionally and helps them make sales too.
I think about the commentary about some of the folks in the tech space. They’re good at what they do, but not necessarily that good communicating. For you, let’s say that I’m in the IT space. I have an app or software as a service and when I reach out to you, what’s the process that you go through to try to help understand and craft the message?
We talk. We have very in-depth conversations upfront to make sure we’re aligned on the goals for the company and their goals for the project. A lot of copywriters have set packages and they have spitball rates that they’ll throw at people. I try to have deeper conversations initially to make sure we’re 100% in alignment before a proposal even happens.
Why is that?
There’s this huge disconnect between these brilliant technicians, these brilliant engineers, developers, founders and their audience. I’m trying to help bridge that gap. There are too many copywriters out there who want to put words on a page and not bridge that gap while they’re at it. If you are not bridging that gap, you’re not helping the company. The company’s wasting money with a copywriter and the copywriters are wasting their time with a customer who’s probably not going to recommend them or be a good case study. I try to have a lot of that relationship building upfront to bridge that gap right away.
When you have a client show up and a lot of engineers are, “We have this great solution and we’re trying to take our solution to somebody’s pain point and create a sale.” For you, between the engineer, their product and their potential customer, what does that process look like to you as you’re trying to go through discovery?
In discovery, I’m discovering two things. I’m discovering the company and I’m discovering the customer. In discovering the company, I can become a better partner and I can help them meet their business goals because I understand what their business goals are, but most...
For Laura Love of GroundFloor Media, transforming a business starts with strategic communication. She likes to think of her and her team as storytellers, and how they tell a company or an organization’s story depends on the audiences they want to reach and the tools that they have in their arsenal. They can tell that story through video, by talking to the media, or by putting that CEO on a panel and having them tell the rest of the world what they do. The point is to make the impact and create brand awareness for the company. On the flip side of that, a big part of their agency is focused on crisis and issues management, which means keeping a company out of the news, or minimizing the impact of something that could be perceived as something negative that they have to face. Laura shares her thoughts on how they handle everything, from media relations to thought leadership to crisis and issues management.
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Laura Love GroundFloor Media Founder, Synthesizing Strategic Communications, Digital & Social Media Strategy, Crisis Communication & Reputation Management We’re incredibly fortunate. We have Laura Love who’s a guest on the podcast. She is the Founder of http://groundfloormedia.com/ (GroundFloor Media) and the Co-Founder of https://meetatct.com/ (CenterTable). Laura, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you for having me.
Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
GroundFloor Media is a strategic communications company that I started sixteen years ago in my basement in Boulder, Colorado. On that side of the agency, we handle everything from media relations to thought leadership to crisis and issues management. Our clients range from everyone from Children’s Hospital of Colorado to Noble Energy to Tennyson Center for Children. Our sister agency is an agency that we started about a year and a half ago, and the name of that agency is CenterTable. That’s the digital arm of what we do on the communications side.
I’m familiar little bit with some of the entities that you described. We have some level of common ground. Both of us have spent a little time back in Tennessee. You at Vandy and me as a wannabe Vandy yet at the time. Segueing a little bit and looking about what you do within your agency, and folks get confused when they hear about what you do. When you’re working with a client, what types of things do you bring to the table for your client that moves their needle or causes a transformation for their business?
It’s funny that I’ve been doing this for a long time now and my parents still don’t know what I do. What we like to say is that we’re storytellers. How we tell a company or an organization’s story depends on the audiences they want to reach and the tools that they have in their arsenal. If a company comes to us, they have a challenge. They want to launch a new product. We can tell that story through video; we can tell it by talking to the media, we can tell it by putting that CEO on a panel and having them tell the rest of the world what they do. The tools that we have to help shape that story and share it have grown since even I started the agency sixteen years ago. The point is to make the impact and create brand awareness for our company. On the flip side of that, a big part of our agency is focused on crisis and issues management. Sometimes, it’s keeping a company out of the news, or minimizing the impact of something that could be perceived as something negative that they have to face.
I think about a typical business owner, and most business owners are looking for more clients, more revenue. What’s the most common question, desire or misunderstanding that you hear from a new customer to your firm?
Our favorite one used to be, “How soon can you get us on Oprah?” That’s usually when we exit stage left. The misconception is that public relations equal sales and...
Forensic Accounting is primarily just delving into the details, going to sources of the transactions, and making sure those are what has been recorded and/or used in business transactions or in a divorce arena, that those particular assets are existing or are there other assets. So we do a lot of tracing of transactions to hopefully get all the transactions put together in a format or a summary that makes sense for whatever the project covers. In one case, it’s really interesting and certainly eye-opening, as I went through it and, many times, led me in some directions that were uncomfortable, dealing with personalities, but this was an employee benefit client that had a significant investments. Digging into this estate issue? A situation where two beneficiaries, equal beneficiaries of an estate, and parents passed. The one child of the parents was a trustee, and so this trustee made numerous withdrawals to her benefit. It was a woman in this case. To her benefit and to the detriment of her sibling. So we had to go back and figure out where the money came into the trust, where the money came out of the trust, and then subsequently into the estate.
An initial client interview easily would take us an hour or hour-and-a-half and be just kind of a fact-finding mission on our part, to really delve into what they’re after and what the issue is. It is an agreed-upon procedures type of engagement, where we outline what we would do, why we do it, and what the results would be and how we would summarize and provide that information to the client. Three broad categories: estate beneficiary, the business owner, divorce arena. Contractor case study: Two contractors and one contractor felt there could be job costs on that particular joint venture, coming from the other contractor, that were not on their joint job.
What are the one or two things that they should have uppermost in their mind about engaging forensic services? What are the things they need to be aware of and think about? Independence of that forensic person. They really want somebody that’s got experience because, obviously, experience can mean you can do it effectively and timely, so that you’re not spinning your wheels. Misconceptions about the forensic accounting? They don’t realize the nature of a lot of the transactions that they’ve looked at or been involved in. I think it’s just probably incumbent on them to, again, engage someone that has experience and exposure.
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Bill Sanden, CEO FM Consulting, Forensic Accounting, 3 key areas We’re lucky to have https://www.linkedin.com/in/william-sanden-8b887911/ (Bill Sanden). He’s the former President of SSA and currently CEO of FM Consulting. Bill has extensive experience and specializes in audit and insurance, employee benefit plans, forensic accounting, and consulting. FM Consulting serves the needs of the business owner, beneficiaries of estates in the divorce arena. Bill is a certified Public Accountant in both Colorado and Utah. He’s a member of numerous professional and local associations and has served in many positions in the Colorado Society of CPAs and the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce. He currently serves as Bank Director and Board Member of the Colorado Educational and Cultural Facilities Authority. Bill, thanks for taking the time. Bill, tell us a little bit about yourself.
I’ve been primarily an audit partner for many years and throughout that experience, I’ve got a lot of fun experiences and some not so fun but at this point, I wanted to change my career a little bit and simplify my life. I’ve gotten into looking at doing consulting in the forensic accounting arena and I’ve done some of that. It certainly is part of my role at SAA, but now I want to pursue that specific area going forward.
I’m thinking of forensics and I’m thinking of the TV shows, which are those guys. For...
Have you ever sat on a chair and wished it was more comfortable? Comfortable furniture is really important because we spend lots of hours of our day in them. For Cliff Levin and his company, Furniture for Life, their mission is to make the world a more comfortable place through a variety of well-designed, well-made furniture products with health, wellness, and comfort-related twists on them. He guarantees that everything they do and touch is going to have an underlying health message, and that there’s real value to buying the luxury and high-quality brands that they make and represent. He says the passion and the way they care about their customers is core to their success.
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Cliff Levin CEO Furniture For Life, transforming the business while delivering lasting profound health and comfort benefits We have with us the Founder, CEO and President, Cliff Levin, of http://www.furnitureforlife.com/ (Furniture For Life).
Happy you joined us here, Bob.
Cliff, thanks so much for taking time with us. Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
We’ve been in business eleven years. Our mission is to make the world a more comfortable place. We do that through a variety of well-designed, well-made furniture products. We talk to discerning consumers who care about the quality of product they buy and they’re interested in something that’s healthy and comfortable. That’s who we’re after.
When I first came in, there’s a showroom that we were in. There’s a quantity of high-tech furniture, you didn’t get to test drive one of these pieces of furniture and it looks like a very high-speed, sleek, easy chair, the one that I was in. At least that’s what I would call it.
All of our furniture has a twist on it that’s health, wellness, comfort-related. The core of our business is massage chairs, that’s how we grew up as an organization. We’ve branched out from massage chairs into the recliner that you were trying, which is a https://www.positiveposture.com/true-zero-gravity/ (True Zero Gravity) recliner under the Positive Posture brand name. We also carry a Norwegian brand of chairs where we’re the North American distributor that are healthier than your average office chair because they introduce a level of movement into your day that isn’t possible in a typical static office environment. Everything we do and everything we touch is going to have an underlying health message.
The health message is not you and I chatting about it. There’s research that’s been done that supports your assertions on what you’re talking about and being a healthy piece of equipment.
For example, this Norwegian brand I’m talking about, the brand is https://www.varierfurniture.com/ (Varier), there is a https://www.varierfurniture.com/eng/explore-our-chairs/sit-stand/move (Move) stool. It encourages you to fidget. When we sent that Move stool to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and there’s a research lab there. There’s a guy named http://www.mayo.edu/research/faculty/levine-james-a-m-d-ph-d/bio-00083408 (Dr. Levine) who is deep into researching how to make Americans and people around the world more healthy in the context of this sedentary way of life that people in advanced economies live.
The Move stool is something called NEAT-certified. NEAT stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. It’s a very fancy way of saying how much are you moving and how much energy are you burning when you’re not exercising? It turns out, according to Dr. Levine’s research, that that kind of activity is as important, if not more important, than making a point of exercising 45 minutes a day, in terms of your long-term health and vitality.
I’m in the office environment and I’m sedentary through much of the day in front of computers and doing what I do. You think about the
James Britt, founder and owner of Britt Films, a freelance cinematography and filmmaking business, identifies himself as a cinematographer. More than just capturing a video, he tries to add an element of cinematic technique and look to it, and he tries to give everything he does an artistic appeal. James has a great deal of passion for teaching anything that he learns, and he loves to share whatever he feels is good information. The advice he gives any budding videographer as to using this skill set to gain money is you absolutely can. You just have to really work at it. You have to market yourself, brand yourself, put your name out there, be producing good work consistently, and let people know that this is something that you do.
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James Britt, Owner Of Britt Films, A Freelance Cinematography And Filmmaking Business (Creating Videos With Cinematic Technique And Look) We have James Britt, the owner at https://www.brittfilms.com/ (Britt Films). Incredibly fortunate he took time out of his day to come see us. James, welcome to the podcast.
It’s great to be here.
James, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
I’m the founder and owner of Britt Films, a freelance cinematography and filmmaking business. Primarily I shoot digital videos for hire, all kinds of things. Anything ranging from businesses who need a commercial, a web ad and ad campaign, organizations who need promotional videos, interviews, personal services like wedding videography. I shoot music videos for bands, all kinds of things. Specifically, I identify as a cinematographer, which a lot of people don’t know what that is, but I’m sure if they’ve heard of videographer and usually when you think of videographer, it’s someone that’s capturing the video.
A cinematographer would differ in that I’m more than capturing the video. They are trying to add an element of cinematic techniques, cinematic look to it. The angles and the shots will be a little bit prettier to put it more simply. In everything that I do, I try to give it an artistic appeal. More than you capture whatever we needed recorded, it looks great. It looks good. Actually, I try to make everything look more like a movie as the way that I put it. I would say that I’m doing these services for anybody who needs video. I can’t think of anyone or any type of organization that I wouldn’t be able to benefit if they had a video need.
Backing up a little bit and thinking about as you grew up, were you always drawn to cinematography?
I’m reminded in film school how many times the professor would ask something to the class about, “This is the first day of the semester. Tell me about yourself.” How many people would say, “I knew when I was four years old that I wanted to be a film maker. My dad got me this Super Eight camera, this old Polaroid photography camera.” I wish I could say that. I didn’t. I want to be a rock star or a psychologist or an English teacher, hairstylist for a little bit, I was all over the board. My mom did have a video camera and I’d love to say the moment I picked it up, I knew, but I picked it up and I thought it was fun and then I got bored of it.
It was something that I happen to keep getting drawn towards. Eventually, the way that I decided I wanted to go into it was I was a volunteer in my spare time. I was volunteering at a local church where I lived. I knew how to play guitar and I was helping the high school age group by playing guitar and helping with the band. Every time we’d get a new teenager who had to play an instrument, they needed to learn how to do the songs that we did, and I got tired of teaching the exact same songs over and over again. I figured, “I should record this.” YouTube was out. It was getting popularity and I figured it’s free, I could put something on there.
I found a point and shoot
Charlie Weidman is president of Buddha Logic, an enterprise content management solutions provider that helps companies streamline digital document capture and management. Charlie shares how their process starts is they typically go in, analyze the process, and then take a look at the solution set or tools that will help clients get to their goal. That culturally can be a challenge because people like to do things a certain way. Charlie shares they may sometimes have to convince their vendors and customers to take advantage of this new process they’re implementing. Buddha Logic specializes in the accounts payable world, but has also gotten into digital signatures as well, and shares that there’s a whole industry waiting out there to enjoy more of this automated processing.
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" data-artist="Business Leaders Podcast" data-paid="true" data-social="true" data-social_twitter="true" data-social_facebook="true" data-social_gplus="true" data-speedcontrol="true" data-uid="Dg85VFb0" data-download_id="095fe5f3791424195d887d5539af216a" > Charlie Weidman, President Buddha Logic, Enterprise Content Solutions Driving Cost Savings And Improving Profits We’re incredibly fortunate to have as our guest Charlie Weidman. He’s the president of http://buddhalogic.com/ (Buddha Logic), a Denver, Colorado-based company with 25 years of experience specializing in enterprise content management and smart process application solutions that produce a return on investment. Charlie, it’s a pleasure to have you on the podcast.
Thank you for having me, Bob. Looking forward to sharing.
Tell us how old did you get started?
Out of school. I graduated from University of Colorado Boulder and was offered a job with Martin Marietta and they started my career in the data processing world. They presented me with a PC back in the mid ‘80s and they weren’t sure what to do with. It pretty much is the size of a desk , but it was a lot of fun to play with it. I developed some of my first applications using some tools that were available at that point in time for an IBM XT computer. That started my path down to the data world. As my tenure with Martin, they trained me in a couple different other products. Both of them were content management products. What do you do with your documents when they’re coming into your world? How do you store them and retrieve them? How do you version them?
They trained me on a couple of products that gave me enough skill sets to start down the road of being an entrepreneur. I worked with a gentleman, in fact I had hired him or recruited him to help us do a project at Martin Marietta. A year later he offered me a job to come out and be employee number two with him in a small company. That’s how I got started in this whole world and have been through several very exciting and enjoyable smaller companies that failed. It was sobering and you learn a lot. I also didn’t ever want to go back to a larger company. I was getting used to being able to choose what I wanted to do and how I would develop and presented and delivered to a client.
I think about that pivot from large corporate security blanket to, “I’m going to come out with a small company.” Take us to that decision process in your mind. What did that look like?
It was an interesting choice. The salary increase helped a lot. I was offered pretty close to twice what I was making to start. I thought, “Wow.” At that point in time I was pretty young and I thought that’s great. I didn’t realize there were a lot of benefits that were being taken care of by my large corporate family that I now had to do by myself, so that was interesting. However, the work itself was really exciting. That was what made it easy, pushed me over the edge, so to speak, to say, “Let’s give this a try.”
I think about in the early years when you’re doing that data storage. What was that like in a large...
Since 2009, CommonSenseHealth.org has been helping clients to establish an online presence, grow their business, and increase sales using social media and online marketing. Founder and CEO Kim Peterson-Stone was already creating a community prior to the ability to do it online. When the power of that gained momentum, she used that as a perfect segue to build the new enterprise. She has since built a network of 180,000 plus highly engaged subscribers and fans for herself and hundreds of thousands more for clients. She speaks, consults, and trains on inspired leadership and how to build quality business relationships and acquire new clients through LinkedIn and social media.
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Kim Peterson-Stone, CEO CommonSenseHealth.org – Helping Clients Grow Their Business And Increase Sales Using Social Media And Online Marketing We’re fortunate to have as our guest Kim Peterson-Stone. She’s the Founder and CEO of http://www.commonsensehealth.org/ (CommonSenseHealth.org). Since 2009, http://www.commonsensehealth.org/ (CommonSenseHealth.org) has been helping clients to establish an online presence and grow their business and increase sales using social media and online marketing. Kim has built a network of 180,000 plus highly engaged subscribers and fans for herself and hundreds of thousands more for clients. She speaks, consults, and trains on inspired leadership and how to build quality business relationships and acquire new clients through LinkedIn and social media. Kim, welcome to the show.
I’m glad to be here, Bob. Thanks so much for having me.
Kim, tell us a little bit about how you got started.
Actually, I’ll you in the way back machine how this all started to working in social media platforms, actually, before there were social media platforms. Back in the day, I founded and ran a medical device firm which used storytelling to share what it was that we did. We had a device that uses light to relieve pain. We were relieving peoples pain, but it was a new concept at the time. It was something that needed to be explained. We did that via infomercials and be a being on the home shopping network. We also were picked up by the Denver Post and Newsweek and lots of national publications, PBS.
We got a lot of good press, but the device needed to be explained. It needed to be shared. It needed people that had gotten really good results, needed to share that with other people. We needed to form a community around it. We did that pre-platform social media days. We ran that company for about eight years and it grew from a kitchen table endeavor to a $20 million enterprise, and because of the perfect storm and growing too quickly, that business eventually imploded. What I took from that experience is what I learned about human engagement and human interaction. About that time, things were starting to pick up online.
On 2009, I started a platform where people who are in the health and wellness community can have a presence and share with one another the types of things that they were doing. These were innovative types of treatments that again needed to be explained and shared. That platform took off. I was not monetizing that as a business at all. It was really just a community that I had created online, but what I found from that experience was that people within those communities were not very savvy on how to market what they did.
That was right about the time where Facebook and LinkedIn and a lot of different platforms we’re coming to be. http://www.commonsensehealth.org/ (CommonSenseHealth.org) morphed from a community of health and wellness providers to a digital marketing agency within that space. To make a short story long, that’s how I got there. I was doing the creation of community prior to the ability to do it online. When the power of that gained momentum, I decided that that was a perfect segue in a great place to spend my time in...
When it comes to decision-making, RiderFlex Recruiting Firm takes it beyond apps and algorithms – and meets candidates in person. Is the Denver-based company’s model still feasible in the age of virtual testing? Founder and CEO Steve Urban is changing the business landscape in Denver and beyond with a recruitment process so old, it’s redefining the future: assessing potential candidates face-to-face. Not through Skype, or live-streaming, but in the same room – physically! RiderFlex Recruiting Firm is focused on matching cultures and personalities perfectly with the job description: something that can only be done through tangible interaction.
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Steve Urban Founder CEO of Riderflex, Recruiting, Process, Success and Video Interviews We’re incredibly fortunate to have Steve Urban, Founder and CEO of https://www.riderflex.com/ (Riderflex), as our guest. Steve, welcome to the show.
Hello, Bob. Thank you. Glad to be here.
First, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
Riderflex is a business advisory and recruiting firm. We’re based in Denver but we do recruiting work all over the country. People always ask us, “What industries do you focus on?” I always pause and say, “Yes.” Yes, because we focus on all. When we first started the business, since I was a former consumer goods executive, we thought we’d go with consumer goods, but we started getting phone calls from other industries, whether it’s legal, tech, services, even the cannabis industry, which we serve because we’re based in Denver. At this point, because our model is all about matching personalities to culture and less about a specific industry, I feel like we can do any industry. It doesn’t really matter. We’re not letting ourselves get boxed in to a specific industry. We’re careful about that.
I remember when we got the first phone call for attorney interviews, the law firm said, “Have you ever hired attorneys?” I said, “No, but here’s the deal. I know you, Rey,” he was our customer. “I know your style. I know your personality. I’ve stayed at your home. I’ve met your family. I know the kind of people you work well with. If you give me the requirements of the job, I guarantee we’ll find the right lawyer to fit your firm.” At that point, we started saying, “We’re not going to box ourselves in. We’re going to focus on matching cultures and personalities. You just give us the job description. I don’t care if it’s a full stack developer from the IT field or whatever. We can do it.” We focus on all and we’re not going to let ourselves get boxed in.
You don’t specialize.
No, everybody says we should and I always push back. If somebody wants to pay us, we’re going to do a good job and we’re not going to say no to a new customer.
You were thinking about that. For the audience that’s either going like, “How do I retain them to place me?” or for the company that’s going, “I’m looking for a particular skill set to fill a position.” Let’s dig into both of those.
Most companies have a decent job description or the specs. Let’s call it “the requirements”. He has to have this degree and he’s got to have this experience with this sort of programming or whatever. They got to have these specs. It doesn’t matter what the industry is. What we usually say is, “That’s great. You gave us the job description. We have the requirements for the job.” Most recruiting firms stop right there, and they say, “We’re going to find resumes that match this job description and we’re going to shove these candidates in front of you.” For us, it’s more the beginning phase. We get that job description and we say, “Great,...
In the face of paralysis and adversity, how does Breakaway Sports’ Phil McCarthy keep up the fight? As founder of the Denver-based company, McCarthy now helps professional teams conquer the world with top-notch coaching and assembly services. Breakaway Sports’ business model is similar to being in a locker room and trying to achieve success on the field through a team. Drive and passion is important. You can be sure that the guys at Breakaway Sports love those sports, coached those sports, gave back and involve themselves in the community in a positive way.
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Lacrosse and Hockey, Collegiate Success, Personal Adversity and Building a Business with CEO Phil McCarthy Former Owner of Breakaway Sports We’re here with Phil McCarthy. He’s the Founder of http://www.breakawaylacrosse.com (Breakaway Sports) in Denver, Colorado. We interview some of the best and brightest business owners and entrepreneurs in and around the state of Colorado. We talk about the ins and outs of running a business and being an entrepreneur inside shared by the top business leaders and entrepreneurs in the state of Colorado. Phil, welcome to Business Leaders Podcast.
I appreciate it. Thank you very much, Bob.
Phil and I have hit it off before the show and found a lot of common ground. I think that you are going to find that this is a special episode. Phil, tell us a little bit about what you did prior to Breakaway Sports.
Right from graduating from college, I went on and got my MBA right away. In my mind, there wasn’t a ton of opportunity out there in the early ‘90s, so I figured I’d scale up and get an MBA. From there I went to Wall Street and I was an options and futures trader on Wall Street. That’s a different world, but I learned a lot about that. I learned what you give to the business you get back, and they gave me an opportunity to move to Singapore and run their operation over there and contribute that way. I thought that was a huge personal growing experience as well as a professional growth experience. I appreciated that, but at the end of that I realized I couldn’t find the real passion in that for myself. I wanted to make a change from there. The question became, “What do you do next? What is it that excites you and will get you going?” I found that coupling my new business experience and my education, wrapping it around the things I care most about, which was playing hockey and lacrosse in athletics and the relationships I’ve built there, I came up with the idea that I would found Breakaway Sports and go from there.
Let’s circle back. You talked about lacrosse and hockey. Let’s talk about your collegiate effort and accomplishments in that area.
At a young age I realized that being an athlete and playing sports felt great and I could grow skill around that and grow confidence around that. I set my eyes on playing in college and did the type of things that would take to get there. I had great teammates, good coaching. I absorbed what they’re given me as lessons. I was aware of how I was growing as an athlete. When I got to college I was ready to grow again. At Hobart College we had a program that was strong. My senior year was twelve straight national championships. It was quite a dynasty. The expectation was that you came there to compete and grow a team that would continue that type of success on the field. Of course that comes with great coaching, amazing teammates and people with shared goals as well as trying to push themselves individually. We gained a lot from that. As well, I played hockey in college and was able to be the captain and achieved a couple of personal goals of being the all-time leading scorer of that school and sharing that with teammates that are my best friends in this world today. That athletic success created processes for myself and I’ve been taking those on in life ever since.
You went to Breakaway Sports...
Ben Maxwell founder of HCM Capital Group, is a third generation entrepreneur and has been going at it ever since entering the workforce in 1999. He started HCM Capital in 2002 as an infill real estate development firm that focuses on the Denver Metro area. HCM Capital has experience in both residential and commercial development. Ben talks about his journey and shares that he wants to be proud to drive through the communities in ten to twenty years from now and point to the long-standing projects they helped create and are still involved in.
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Infill Development, Private Capital, Providing Value, And Avoiding Denver Fugly with Ben Maxwell On the show now, we’re fortunate to have as our guest, Ben Maxwell. He’s the founder of http://hmcapitalgroup.com/ (HM Capital Group). He’s a third generation entrepreneur and has been going at it ever since entering the workforce in 1999. He started HM Capital in 2002 as an infill real estate development firm that focuses on the Denver Metro area. HM capital has experience in both residential and commercial development, lending, construction management, design and brokerage. At HM Capital, Ben wants to be proud to drive through the communities in ten to twenty years from now and point to the long-standing projects they helped create and are still involved in. Ben, it’s a pleasure to have you on the show.
Thank you very much for having me.
How on earth did you ever get started in this business?
I was fortunate enough when I was a kid to learn a little bit from my grandfather and my dad. My grandfather was a big commercial general contractor in Kansas City. He built small bank buildings and hospital buildings and things of that nature. Then my dad took that business over when I was young and got into the commercial development business through the mid ‘80s and then still been involved in real estate since then. I learned a lot of the business side of it from him. In high school, in the winters and summers, I had a lawn mowing business. I had always worked for myself and love working for myself. In the winters, I worked from my next-door neighbor who was a custom home builder, a spec builder in Kansas City. I learned the carpentry trade from him. I went to college for about a year and a half. I successfully dropped out of a few colleges and then moved to Denver and fell in love with it. I started a construction company right away. We had a subcontracting business where I had framers and drywallers and trim carpenters and things of that nature, we were subcontracting. A couple of years after that, I bought my first fix and flip over in the Old Baker neighborhood. That was 2002. We bought our first ever flip and did most of the work ourselves, swinging hammers in there, and got lucky and made quite a bit of money. I was hooked and addicted to real estate ever since.
There wasn’t much of a fix and flip market in that timeframe, was there?
There weren’t as many people as doing it right now. We call it the HGTV effect in our business. There are a lot of people that are in the business now that weren’t back then, but there was still quite a few professionals doing it. It just wasn’t nearly as popular back then for sure. We made some good money on that one, and I went from doing one to doing two and grew the business from there.
One of my part time jobs back when I was a kid was construction site cleanup. I did that in the winter and, like you, I mowed yards in the summer as well. Being an entrepreneur, what do you think the lessons were that were passed down between your dad and your granddad that basically started this entrepreneurial bug in you?
I learned a lot of good, valuable lessons. My grandfather was an extremely hard worker, always willing to be the first guy out there, the hardest one out there, and making sure that the job got done. My dad taught me a lot of good lessons on being very detail-oriented on...
Working in a very small office supply retail store in high school back in the mid ‘80s, Mark Newhall, founder and CEO of Execution Specialists Group, ESG, learned early on how businesses operate and how you could, as a partner to them, bring value to the products and services. Now, as CEO of a management consulting firm, he shares the day deals closed, they were the ones rationalizing the distribution footprint, putting the distribution systems, warehouse systems and order management systems in place, and training the workforce on new things. He says they’re driving not so much on the strategy of the company, but on how to execute in line of the company worldwide the tenets of the strategy.
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Mark Newhall, CEO ESG, One Of America’s Best Management Consulting Firms (2nd Year In A Row) We’re fortunate to have https://esgimpact.com/leadership/mark-newhall/ (Mark Newhall). He’s the Founder and CEO of https://esgimpact.com/ (Execution Specialists Group), ESG. He was most recently recognized, and I would let him talk about the recognition and what it means to him. Mark, thanks for taking the time.
Thanks, Bob. Forbes in 2016 surprised us with recognizing ESG as one of America’s best management consulting practices. It was a surprise to us. We didn’t apply for it. We didn’t even know it particularly existed in a myriad of Forbes lists that get put out. The way they went about identifying these companies was through talking to some of the largest companies in the United States, “Who are the big firms that you use? We’re looking for advice, support and advisory services. Who are those boutique firms that you count on and they make their first pass through?” Apparently we came up enough for where they said, “We want to go deeper and understand who this firm is.” They go back to the clients that we’ve worked with and talked a lot about the value that we deliver and how they worked with us. They go talk to our peers. “What are your thoughts on working with these ESG?” There are people in the value that they deliver. They had roughly a dozen or so categories. Ours was on business strategy. They named somewhere around fifteen or so companies. We’re proud to make that list in 2016 and to make it again in the spring of 2017. It’s a great job by our people and a big deal for them to be recognized for their work.
You talked a little bit about pre ESG road that you traveled. Let’s dig into a little bit about your time prior to ESG.
What’s the first thing you remember as a child? Sometimes it feels that way. I worked in a small office supply retail store in high school back in the mid‘80s and that was before Staples superstores, the internet, fax machines, email and things like that. I learned pretty early on in school and then working for this business services company, how businesses operated and how you could, as a partner to them, bring value to the products and services. We sold typewriters, early Wang word processors, Canon photocopiers and all other printing services. I stayed with that in high school, stayed with that after high school, became a full commissioned outside salesperson and sales manager.
I found my way to a national company that had a smaller operation in Boston. Shortly after, I joined the company Corporate Express which was founded here in Colorado in ’86. They were in the process of going public. They were intending to use the proceeds from that public offering to begin acquiring small and regional office products companies. We were basically their first foray into Boston and Northern New England area. At 25, I became their youngest division president. It wasn’t anything particularly impressive. It was a small $6-million division of what was a fast growing company. They taught me at that young age how to move in from sales management to general management and how you go buy companies. I spent a lot
Going to courses and seminars and reading books by so-called gurus, Catherine Bell discovered that all these gurus have a few things that are very similar. While there’s never really a cardboard cutout of them, they all have this similar three-step sales process which starts with a weekend or day training, upgrading to boot camps, and then a full-blown mentoring program. Catherine is VP of Operations for Flipping Females, a group of successful investors that mentor and train people on how to become successful real estate investors in the world of fixing and flipping properties. The company was founded to prevent people from getting ripped off by these enterprising gurus who’ve actually never done a fix and flip ever in their life and yet they were claiming to teach it. Catherine says if you’re going to learn fix and flipping, you can’t learn it through a book, a webinar, videos, or a phone conference. You actually need to have your boots on the ground learning exactly how to manage everything that comes up in a fix and flip.
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Catherine Bell, VP Flipping Females, Mentoring And Training Entrepreneurs To Fix And Flip Properties We’re incredibly fortunate we’re operating remote in a conference in Tampa, Florida. I have Catherine Bell. She’s from Scottsdale, Arizona, and she’s the VP of operations for http://www.flippingfemales.com/ (Flipping Females).
Yes, thank you.
With the name Flipping Females, folks are going to go, “What in the world is Flipping Females?”
What the Flipping Females is, is we are a group of successful investors. Most of us are all women, and we mentor and train people how to become successful real estate investors in the world of fixing and flipping properties.
There’s a lot of attention and a lot of media in the flipping world and TV. How long have you been up to this?
We’ve been doing this for almost five years.
You’re across the Phoenix area?
We are, and we’re in Las Vegas and moving into Texas as well.
How in the world did you get started?
The company Flipping Females, how it got started was all of us being successful investors. As an investor, we’re always learning, growing, expanding, figuring out how to be a better investor, and how to have our ROI be better. We’re always going to courses, seminars, and reading books, whatever it is. Ultimately, what happened was there were the gurus that come to town all the time and teach these courses. We, as investors, would always go because if we could learn one new thing that has us be a better investor, it was completely worth our time and money. We kept going. Inside of that, what we discovered was all these gurus have a few things that are very similar. One, the guru was just a cardboard cutout of them. Two, that they all have this similar three-step sales process. The first one is you go to a weekend or day training, it’s free. Then they upgrade you to the boot camp, which is usually a little bit longer. Then the whole time they’re at that, they are having you increase your credit card limits for the purpose of what they say is real estate investing, but at the end of the day, they just want you to pay $60,000, $70,000, the latest I heard was a $120,000 for their mentoring program. That wasn’t okay with us.
The founder of the company, we’ve done hundreds of these projects and inside of conversations with several of the people that were running the event, it was pretty easy to determine that they’d never done a fix and flip ever in their life and yet they were claiming to teach it. There was a little old lady, she was about 70 years old and she got up and started walking to the back of the room with her credit card to put down $60,000. He stood up and said, “Hold on. What are you going to teach her that she’s going to earn the $60,000 back in her lifetime? This is probably her life...
Jay Arthur, President of KnowWare International, has 21 years of experience helping companies solve problems of delays, defects, and deviation using Lean Six Sigma. Jay shares it’s a journey of learning how to make improvements. To take your business to the next level, you’re going to need some data about defects, delays and deviation, which are the silent killers of productivity and profitability. Once you start to analyze and start to be able to pinpoint exactly what’s broken and where to fix it, your business smooths out and gets better.
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Using Lean Six Sigma To Solve Problems Of Delays, Defects And Deviation with “The KnowWare Man” Jay Arthur
We’re here with Jay Arthur known as the KnowWare Man in Denver, Colorado. He’s the President of https://www.qimacros.com (KnowWare), a Denver, Colorado-based company with 21 years of experience helping companies solve problems of delays, defects, and deviation using Lean Six Sigma. He’s the author of https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Six-Sigma-Demystified-Second/dp/0071749098 (Lean Six Sigma Demystified), https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Six-Sigma-Hospitals-Affordable/dp/0071753257 (Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals) and https://www.qimacros.com/spc-software-for-excel/index2.php?utm_expid=8009240-48.NlTuaYIbRsuGSjerj7Skrw.1&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.qimacros.com%2F (QI Macros Lean Six Sigma SPC Software for Excel). Jay, it’s a pleasure to have you on Business Leaders Podcast.
Thanks for having me.
How did you get started?
I spent 21 years in the phone company building software and everything from mainframes to mini computers to microcomputers. About 1989, our VP of Technology decided that he wanted to get involved with Total Quality Management, which was the early version of Six Sigma, so that’s what we did. It turned out it was a journey of learning how to make improvements. Most people think of Six Sigma as performance improvement. It’s really what it is. The “Six Sigma” word came out of Motorola. They invented that term. Over at Motorola University, it says, “In God we trust. All others must bring data.” Most people get successful in business through gut feel, common sense, trial and error. Consequently, they get good at it through just nuts and bolts stuff, but to take your business to the next level, you’re going to need some data about defects, delays, and deviation, which I call the three silent killers of productivity and profitability. Once you start to analyze and start to be able to pinpoint exactly what’s broken and where to fix it, your business smoothens out and it gets better.
Lean Six Sigma: Combining Six Sigma Quality with Lean Production Speed
In the phone company, the odd thing was Six Sigma was always considered to be about the manufacturing, not about service industries like telephony or healthcare, whatever it is. One of the biggest complaints I get from people is they say, “Six Sigma, isn’t that just for manufacturing?” I go, “No.” “Do you have a process? Does it do things? Do you have errors and mistakes and stuff?” “We can fix all that with a little bit of data.” I got involved with that and we learned how to not successfully implement Total Quality because after five years in the quality department, they shut down the quality department because most of them weren’t delivering any returns. I’ve been working with the head of finance and she had this problem. All of a sudden postage costs went up $20 million in one year. I got a little bit of data and started to do some analysis. I don’t know if you remember back in the ’90s, everybody was putting up their own little mom-and-pop long distance company, and we offered to put that on our bill. If you put enough mom-and-pop things on a bill, the bill increases in price by $0.23 or...
There’s a movement in the radiology community to become more quantitative. When you think about radiology, it’s a picture of what’s going on in your body, and those pictures very as you go from one MRI scanner to another, and they can vary from day to day but still gives you a reasonably good picture of your body. If you really want to do something quantitative, like watch how much a tumor is growing or reducing in size when you’re taking treatment, it doesn’t do very well unless you implement some standards or ground value. Elizabeth Mirowski, CEO of QalibreMD, shares that their MRI medical imaging standards provide a ground truth baseline for measuring quantitative imaging biomarkers. They developed this technology jointly with the ISMRM, QIBA/RSNA, and NIST to deliver rigor and relevance to medical research and patient care.
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Elizabeth Mirowski, CEO QalibreMD transforming MRI medical imaging standards helping reduce diagnoses variability. We have https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabeth-mirowski-ph-d-a2619a34 (Elizabeth Mirowski, Ph.D). We interview some of the best and brightest business owners and entrepreneurs in and around the state of Colorado. We talk about the ins and outs of running a business, of being an entrepreneur. You can think of this as your back of the napkin MBA by top business leaders and entrepreneurs in the state of Colorado. The folks that are doing it are not talking about it every day. We talk about what to do and as importantly what not to do about growing, running or starting a business. We’re incredibly fortunate Elizabeth has taken time out of her day to visit with us. She is running the entire operation at the moment. At https://www.qalibre-md.com/ (QalibreMD), the strategy is to transform medical imaging from a simple diagnosis of a lesion to an exact diagnosis of what disease is present, at what stage and to what extent in the body it is occurring. Their superior imaging standards certify the accuracy and imaging biomarkers to reduce unnecessary repeat scans and variability in diagnoses from one health center to another. They focus on making their standards easily adoptable for widespread implementation. Elizabeth, thanks so much for taking time.
It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Tell me about QalibreMD.
https://www.qalibre-md.com/ (QalibreMD) is a spin-off of a parent company. We spun off of http://www.hpd-online.com/index.php (High Precision Devices) because we were medically focused. We realized that it was a very different market from what the parent company was doing. We needed to ramp up our efforts to meet what we see as the need and demand for radiologists to have more exact results in their diagnoses. We are actually also in the process of raising funds to be able to move quickly with the market
What was the need that QalibreMD started to solve, or the problem they started to solve?
There’s a movement in the radiology community to become more quantitative. What you think about when you think about radiology, it’s basically a picture of what’s going on in your body. Those pictures vary as you go from one MRI scanner to another, and they can vary from day to day. It still gives you a reasonably good picture of your body, but if you really want to do something quantitative like, watch how much a tumor is growing or reducing in size when you’re taking treatment, it doesn’t do very well. Unless you implement some standards, some ground truth value that lets you know that, for example, if you think about a picture and you have colors, your shirt is blue, mine is orange. If we switched them and yours was orange and blue, it’s that whole dress issue that was in the media for a long time. Is it a blue dress or a gold dress? In that case they tweaked the numbers of what the colors look like and produced a totally different result. That can happen in
The firm’s job is to go out and find the right answer to, the best answer. Kurtz Fargo serves emerging growth businesses, with the common thread between those companies being that they are growing rapidly and they need a firm that’s helping them plan and strategize throughout their growth process. Matt Fargo’s firm also serves high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individual clients. It turns out that the planning and the strategy work that is done for a business is very similar to that required to properly serve high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals. Unfortunately, most individuals, whether ultra-high-net-worth or not, have never experienced true planning and strategy services with their accounting firm, as most firms, solo practitioner to the Big 4, have not trained their teams to think this way. Kurtz Fargo trains their people to think strategically rather than being purely compliance focused, which is unfortunately where most accounting firms focus all of their time and efforts.
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Matt Fargo, Managing Partner at Kurtz Fargo, Serving Emerging Growth Businesses & Ultra-High-Net-Worth Individuals With Solution Based Strategies And Planning We’re incredibly fortunate with the patient and understanding Matt Fargo of http://kurtzfargo.com/ (Kurtz Fargo). He’s got a consulting firm with his good friend in Boulder, Colorado. We’re going to talk a little bit about the business and who he serves. Thanks so much for taking the time.
You are welcome.
We started out chatting about the business that you have and the clientele that you serve. Could you dig into that a little bit?
Our business likes to serve emerging growth businesses and that’s a pretty wide range of companies. The common thread between all of those is that they’re growing and they need a firm that’s helping them plan and strategize throughout the process. We also work with individuals that are high net worth and ultra-high net worth. You wouldn’t think there’s a lot of similarities between businesses and individuals, but it turns out that the planning and the strategy of the businesses they want are the exact same thing that high net worth and ultra-high net worth individuals want. The way we’ve taught our people to think, we’ve asked them to think strategically about things and that’s what they deliver to the clients. It’s not always the canned solution, it’s not the obvious solution. We teach our people to think and we teach them to consult. Anytime they’re presented with a problem, their job is to go out and find the right answer, not the answer.
Let’s say for sake of argent, I’m a prototypical client, whether it’s a small business owner or whether it’s high net worth person. There’s a particular process or steps that you take to serve that marketplace. Can you describe a bit of your process when you’re dealing with the entrepreneur in business and then secondarily that high net worth, ultra-high net worth individual?
Let’s give an example of a small startup business. There are always the interesting ones to start out with. In the Boulder community here, there’s quite a few of those in a number of different industries, but a lot of times the first time we’re brought into the engagement is by their law firm and the law firm or their accelerator that they come to us and say, “We’ve got this company and they’re just getting started. What’s the right organizational structure for them?” There’s C-Corp, we got S-Corp, we got LLC. a lot of people will throw an answer on that, and the first thing our team thinks about is, “What are you planning to do? Who’s going to finance the business? Where are your growth plans? How are you going to raise money? What are you going to be delivering to customers over what period of...
“If you know you want to start a business or have a business one day, don’t wait until that demarcation point in your career.”
Anthony McDaniels is the founder of RARE PETRO. RARE PETRO is engaged in creating oil and gas, mobile and cloud-based app technologies, along with providing petroleum engineering and consulting services.
Founded in 2015, RARE PETRO is designed to be the future of oil and gas technical firms. Its main mission is to work towards modernizing the industry by using and leveraging technology to drive efficiency and improvement.
They also offer traditional technical consulting services, with a focus on being more cost-effective.
From a Senior production and completions engineer, he decided to try and do things on his own, leverage his technical knowledge and experience to start with a consulting approach. He soon rolled out his first oil and gas app.
Anthony talks about his thought process and is rolling out a number of additional oil & gas industry mobile apps in the coming months on iOS and Android systems to serve the oil and gas industry.
You can do little things well in advance at that to help prepare you to increase your financial IQ, increase your network of people that you know, quality advisors, CPAs, attorneys. This is a lot of stuff that can be done years in advance.
Learn how Anthony leveraged foresight, technical expertise and listening to the “pain points” of his customers to brand and build a successful business.
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Anthony McDaniels CEO, Rare Petro: On Modern Tech Applications In Oil And Gas, Consulting And Building Your Brand Anthony McDaniels is the Founder of https://www.rarepetro.com/ (RARE PETRO). RARE PETRO is engaged in creating oil and gas mobile and cloud-based app technologies, along with providing petroleum engineering and consulting services. Founded in 2015, RARE PETRO is designed to be the future of oil and gas technical firms. Its main mission is to work towards modernizing the industry by using and leveraging technology to drive efficiency and improvement. They also offer traditional technical consulting services with a focus of being more cost effective. Anthony, it’s a pleasure to have you on Business Leaders Podcast.
Thank you for having me.
How in the world did you get started with RARE PETRO?
For a long time, I knew that at some point I wanted to start a business of some variety in the oil industry. Back in college, ten or fifteen years ago, I didn’t know what that would look like. I started out in the industry working a little more than ten years ago. I had a good job and was working through a boom, but I always knew that the industry was cyclical by nature and that the boom wouldn’t last forever. I started investing in rental properties and so on and so forth, and try to practice a little bit and get some things going that would help soften the blow when and if I needed to make a jump into business for myself.
After a number of years of that, two and a half years ago, it was announced that the company I was working for full time in Denver at the time was shutting down their offices in Denver and people were either getting packages or severance or relocation. Severance was my end on that. I didn’t want to leave the area anyway. I took the last so many years of investments in rental properties and the severance package and went out and said, “Now’s the time to start something.” Early 30s, you got some experience under your belt but you’ve also got the timeline and the energy needed to recoup if you make a drastic mistake. My wife and I have three daughters, five, three and one. The family is pretty well-balanced. I don’t know how it’s possible. It was weird because when I started, I had a consulting project pretty much. My pay went through the end of June 2015. Then starting July 1st, I had a consulting contract start.
Before you started your...
Chuck Blakeman, founder of the Crankset Group, a counter-intuitive and no-nonsense approach to life and business; focus on purpose. Chuck is a successful entrepreneur, #1 best-selling business author and world-renowned business advisor who built ten businesses in seven industries on four continents, and now uses his experience to advise others. His company, Crankset Group, provides outcome-based mentoring and practical strategies.
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Chuck Blakeman, Founder Of The Crankset Group, A Counter-Intuitive And No-Nonsense Approach To Life And Business; Focus On Purpose We’re here with http://chuckblakeman.com/ (Chuck Blakeman) in Crankset Group’s office in Greenwood Village, Colorado. Chuck’s a successful entrepreneur, number one bestselling business author, and world-renowned business advisor. He built ten businesses in seven industries on four continents and now uses his experience to advise others. His company, http://www.cranksetgroup.com/ (Crankset Group), provides outcome-based mentoring and peer advisory for business leaders worldwide. Chuck sold one of his businesses to the largest consumer fulfillment company in America and led three other $10 million to $100 million companies. He presently leads the Crankset Group and a for profit business based in Africa, focused on developing local economies to solve poverty. Mr. Blakeman is a results leader with decades of experience leading companies in marketing, import, export, fulfillment, call centers, website development, printing, and direct mail processing. Chuck, it’s a pleasure to have you on the podcast.
Great to be with you.
I must confess, I’m already a fan. I have already read the book more than once, so that was cool. The book, http://www.amazon.com/Making-Money-Killing-Business-Build/dp/0984334327/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1449526442&sr=8-1&keywords=making+money+is+killing+your+business (Making Money Is Killing Your Business), is in its second edition. Somewhere in that book, what crossed my mind is you started somewhere before this and then you had a pivot and changed how you thought about business. Let’s dig into that.
Making Money Is Killing Your Business, How to Build a Business You’ll Love and Have a Life, Too – Second Edition
The book itself is a compilation of all the stuff I’ve been through. I speak a dozens of times a year, keynotes. I’ve written books that are now college textbooks and required reading. I always tell people I do not see myself as a speaker or an author, I’m just a business guy who speaks, talks, and writes about what he did. That’s why these books have worked for me and worked for other peoples because they come from years of bleeding over and stuff and doing it badly and figuring it out and stumbling and bumbling and mucking my way to what works.
These are all built on real life and not on what can I sit in an ivory tower and pick out and design for people. My first five or so businesses were the same thing over and over again in different industries. I’m a serial entrepreneur, I’m left-handed, right-brained, ADHD, dyslexic, all that stuff. I graduated at the bottom of my class in high school. They barely let me out, actually discussing the day of graduation whether they should let me go or not. That’s how bad it was. I got that classic background. I went through business after business. Once I figured it out, I’d get bored, and then there would be something else that I didn’t understand. I never went into a business I understood. That made no sense at all because why would you do that?
I was doing this stuff, I had no idea what I was doing. Then once I figured it out, I went through the first full iteration of it began to be successful, then I’d get bored and I either kill the business or move on to another one. In that process, looking back after about the fifth business, I was...
“When I say turn them into customers, that’s more than just making a sale today.”
As CEO of StrategiCopy, Mike Connolly creates and manages direct response marketing systems for fast-growing businesses so they can attract their ideal customers, put an iron fence around them and develop an abundant “herd” of customers for life.
He has co-created and manages marketing systems using blogs, social networking sites, newsletters, e-letters, video networks, articles, multi-media follow-up systems, direct mail, teleseminars, webinars and affiliate marketing. He’s an experienced teacher, trainer, and coach and loves sharing his passion for magnetic attraction strategies with high achieving business owners and entrepreneurs.
StrategiCopy primarily serves small to medium-sized businesses. We help them attract the type of customer they’re really most interested in finding out in the world and get found. We help them actually turn the virtual strangers into customers.
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Mike Connolly, CEO StrategiCopy, Helping Clients Attract & Close More Business I’m talking with Mike Connolly. We’re at Impact Hub in Boulder. He’s the CEO and Founder of https://strategicopy.com/ (StrategiCopy). He creates and manages direct response marketing systems for fast growing businesses so they can attract their ideal customers, put an iron fence around them, and develop an abundant herd of customers for life. Mike, thanks for taking the time.
Thanks for having me, Bob.
Let’s start out and talk a little bit about your business and who you serve.
StrategiCopy primarily serves small to medium-sized businesses. What we help them do is attract the type of customer that they’re most interested in finding out in the world and get found. From that point, we help them turn virtual strangers into customers. When I say turn them into customers, that’s more than just making a sale today, although that’s critical and we are very focused on creating sales. Ultimately, the idea is we want to create a lifetime relationship with that ideal client. What we do for our customers is we help them find their ideal clients, attract them, and then turn them into lifelong customers for their businesses.
How do you do that?
These days we have an incredible explosion of media. Media is just a way for people to relate to each other. I’m going to refer back to about 100 years ago just as a point in time. One of my mentors, Claude Hopkins, wrote a book called https://www.amazon.com/Life-Advertising-Scientific-Classics-Library/dp/0844231010 (My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising). He wrote about how they successfully implemented marketing campaigns. Back then, it was very different than it is now. I want to talk about how they did it back then and compare it to how it is now because that will help us understand what it takes to be effective in today’s age with all of the media that we’ve got. We’ve got this explosion of media.
In Claude Hopkins’ day, how could you reach people? This was the turn of the century around the 1900s. You could send a letter out to people. You could put billboards up. We didn’t have radio, we didn’t have television, we didn’t have telephones even, let alone cell phones or smartphones. Social media and email wasn’t there. Those are all things that you did not have to work with. How did you succeed? I’ll share with you a story here about how Claude Hopkins succeeded for one of his clients as an example.
My Life in Advertising and Scientific Advertising
There was this little beer company called http://schlitzbrewing.com/ (Schlitz) and they had a problem in that they were about number five of all the beer manufacturers. Their product didn’t seem to be very different. Their challenge was why should people by Schlitz versus all of these other guys? Claude Hopkins went to their...
Lighter Charms are an opportunity for you to turn your best-selling lighters in the world into a billboard that you control. Lighter Charms are perfect for lighter identification and self-expression. CEO Rob Healy instructs the user to simply slide the silicone band on your lighter, pop a charm into the charm band and use your lighter as you normally would (For lighting candles. NOT if you’re an arsonist.) You can also use the charm as a ball marker, a fridge magnet – whatever you like. Just don’t eat them or let kids play with them. Just one piece of advice from CEO Rob Healy: If you’re really serious about it, find people who can point out the problems with your product.
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Lighter Charms with CEO Rob Healy Decorative Charms For Disposable Lighters That Help You Snuff Your Stuff We’re incredibly fortunate to have Rob Healy from https://lightercharms.myshopify.com/ (Lighter Charms) as a guest on the show. Rob, welcome to the show.
Thank you very much for having me, Bob.
Tell us a little bit about the business that you have and your journey to this point.
We invented a new product called Lighter Charms. It is a decorative charm for disposable lighters that help you snuff your stuff. The bestselling lighters in the United States are https://www.shopbic.com/products/lighters (BIC) single-color lighters. They’re currently trying to conquer China. They built a factory over there so that will be great. This gives people an opportunity to decorate their lighter however they want. BIC was very smart in they saw how popular their single-color lighters were. They thought people wanted to have a few more options, something that was a little more personable to them, sports teams, that type of thing. They’re fantastic. The only problem is that you can’t change the look of your lighter when you buy it with one of those graphic sleeve wraps.
We thought, “That’s not really as much freedom as we could have,” so we came up with like a wine charm for lighters. You can go ahead and slide it on your lighter. It fits every full-size BIC, as well as Lynn Sliders, Elite, Scripto and several others. It’s a great idea. There were people who were making lighter wraps, but it was very hard to store them. You couldn’t keep them anywhere. Let’s say you have a wrap, you can put it off to the side or in an ashtray or somewhere else. What we wanted to do was make it collectible, so we made them interchangeable. You can now take your charm out of the silicone band. Basically, a silicone band stretches and slides right up your lighter. You pop the charm in and out, based on your mood and you can keep your collection on the fridge or someplace magnetic. What that does is it enables you to collect them, but you can also keep them out of the hands of kids and pets. They’re very small, so they look like candy. It’s a safety feature. BIC is very big on safety and so one of the things that we wanted to do was incorporate that and make sure that was at the forefront as well.
The folks are going like, “You’ve got this charm for the lighter.” Tell us about the journey from, “I think I’m going to do this” to “We’re sitting here now with it done.” Tell us a little bit about yourself and the early years before you started this.
I was always a huge movie fan and so I had decided to move to LA to try and become a movie writer. It didn’t work out exactly the way I thought, but it was a whole lot of fun. I ended up selling a story to Ron Howard and Brian Grazer at Imagine. It was addictive, but it took forever. It took so long to pitch and get through the door and that type of thing. I started looking at advertising agencies, and I had a great opportunity given to me by the owner of the last ad agency that I worked for who took a chance on me, and I ended up working there for nine great years. It was amazing. While I was there, I...
For legacy architectures, infrastructures, and technology, the business logic needs to get extracted, cleaned up, and organized in a more relevant and future-looking architecture. Mike Gearhardt, CEO of 5280 Software, helps small businesses, startups and medium-sized companies in the Denver area in maturing their technology. Mike is also the CTO of Fathym which focuses in the IoT space by helping industrial companies learn from their data and predict things they need in order to attain maximum efficiency.
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Mike Gearhardt On IoT Data Extraction And Learning Solutions Applied We’re fortunate to be with Mike Gearhardt. He’s the CEO of http://www.5280software.com/ (5280 Software) and he’s currently the CTO of https://fathym.com/ (Fathym). We’re going to dig into the IoT space and a couple of other topics, so this is going to be quite fun. Mike, I appreciate you taking the time.
Thank you for having me.
For the folks out there going like, “What the heck is 5280? What is Fathym?” tell me a little bit about the businesses and who you serve.
I founded 5280 Software to focus on what I had been doing for the last decade of my career, which is helping companies take legacy architectures and infrastructures in technology and get the business logic extracted, cleaned up and in a much more relevant and future-looking architecture. For us, we do a lot of work in the ski industry because we’ve seen a lot of problems that they’ve had there. We also do a lot of work with small businesses, startups, and medium-sized businesses in the Denver area who need help in maturing their technology. That’s how we originally met with Fathym. I was on the basis of helping them take the legacy of startup workflows that they have had for the last years and the pivots in their business and helping them mature their technology stack and in exploring that relationship, it eventually turned into something more. Then taking the CTO role here, we’re focused on helping companies with legacy architecture situation. Fathym does a little bit of the same thing but focused in the IoT space and helping industrial companies get the data and devices and everything that they have exposed in a way that lets them learn from their data and predict the things that they need to be a more efficient and operational business.
For the lay person, what is a legacy architecture example?
When I say legacy, for me, it doesn’t necessarily mean old. It’s something that just had a lot of different hands on it. When I think legacy, I’m thinking more of my legacy as a business. I, over the last number of years as a business executive, have learned a lot of things about how to operate in our space, how to do different things and interact with our customers, but it’s been built by a dozen different people with a dozen different attitudes and has become something that handcuffs you and prevents you from innovating in your industry, and being somebody who’s bringing new tools to your customers because you can’t because the way your code is put together. When I talk about legacy architecture, it’s about the people who have all this valuable knowledge locked away in a system that they can’t access.
Fathym Data Extraction: Legacy doesn’t necessarily mean old. It’s something that just had a lot of different hands on it.
For you, you had a rather unique path to the skills that you possess. Walk us through that deal.
For me, technology started as a kid. My Dad was an EE and somewhere in his career realized, “I think that software is the future, not necessarily hardware.” He made the move and that proved well in his career as he made it through several different acquisitions in that line of work, living through on software. Seeing him make that transition and having these books start to show up in our house for C++, Objective-C, and...
How can we leverage the things that we instinctively suck at? Holly G. Green, CEO and Managing Director of The Human Factor, Inc. focuses on the complexities of why and how humans think and behave the way they do at work. That means aligning everything in the organization so that they’re all in the same race, everyone knows what the targets are, and everybody is moving towards them. One of our deep human tendencies, the thing we’re better at than anything else in the whole world, is to prove ourselves right. And this is not about motivating people with recognition or awards – although that’s certainly all threaded through. This is about real specificity. What is our game? What is the target? Where are we according to that target and how we are going to get there effectively together? The world is changing at such a fast pace that just because it worked five years ago doesn’t guarantee it will work today.
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Holly G. Green Teaches How To Master The Skills Required To Win In Today’s Hyper-Paced World We’re incredibly fortunate to have Holly G. Green. She’s the CEO and Managing Director of the http://thehumanfactor.biz/ (Human Factor, Inc.) She’s also the author of https://www.amazon.com/Using-Brain-todays-hyper-paced-world-ebook/dp/B00D7ICL1S (Using Your Brain to Win). Holly, thanks for taking the time to be on the show.
Thank you for having me.
It’s a pleasure. We’re going to explore Holly’s business. Holly, if you would tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.
I help organizations and that could be for-profit or for-cause organizations versus that non-profit we don’t like. For-profit or for-cause organizations get crystal clear on winning and then get there. That means aligning everything and everyone in the organization so that we’re all in the same race, we know what the targets are and we’re moving towards them each and every single day in every way.
I went on your website and read most of the book. It’s one of those things, how do you eat an elephant because there’s so much of what you do. For the listeners out there that are going like, “This is going to be cool. What is she doing? Am I her likely client?” What does a likely client or prototypical client look like to you?
Any organization that has humans, that’s the number one criteria. That’s the human factor because we do work with and through the brains of adult humans at work. There’s the number one criteria. Any organization that knows they can be better, that may be stretched too thin, departments or teams are not aligned. “We’re working really hard, but we’re not quite accomplishing what we know we should be able to accomplish. We have people pulling in different directions. We need to professionalize or get to the next level of our stage of growth. We’re founder, owned and run and now we need to be able to scale. We’re a large organization and we need to skinny up a little bit.” Or, “We’ve been running along at the same size for a long time and again, we know we can get more out of who we are and what we are and what we’ve got.” It requires for us to be able to help anyone is a desire to be even better. That’s it, adult humans and a desire to be even better.
I think about that as a business owner. I’m going where there are some parts that I’m pretty well comfortable with and in my business. I think for many of the business owners, they don’t even have an idea that maybe they have a hole in their bucket. Hopefully not cashflow tells them when that’s happening. Could you cover a little bit of your background, where you came from and when you started working in this space?
I started out with a BA and BS. I always thought that was a great fit to the corporate world. Mine is Behavioral Sciences though. I went to work for some great...
Joseph Cheung and Morgan Nolan / http://www.toggleind.com/ (Toggle Industries LLC)
Cyber security experts Joseph Cheung and Morgan Nolan, from Toggle Industries LLC return to the show for an episode to discuss the current issues and the challenges within cyber-security, in broad terms, steps you can take and a wide-ranging discussion with respect to cyber security.
What can you do? “All you have to do is continue to be educational within your staff, educate your clients,as well as have a good fundamental mindset, and just honestly, be vigilant.”
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Morgan Nolan/ http://www.toggleind.com/ (Toggle Industries LLC)
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The post http://businessleaderspodcast.com/toggle-industries-cyber-security-steps-joseph-cheung-and-morgan-noland/ (Joseph Cheung and Morgan Nolan, Cyber Security mind set and education) appeared first on http://businessleaderspodcast.com (My podcast website).
A cancer diagnosis causes a trauma so powerful, it splits your life around that single point in time: the Before-Why, and the After-Why. Breast cancer survivor Diane Simard was the classic type A, small business owner, charging at 100 miles an hour when she received the diagnosis. She shaved her head before the hair fell out because she needed to be in control. Imagine spending $200 every six weeks to have your hair colored and cut for years – and now it’s on the floor. But Diane held her chin up and said to herself: “I’m going to save probably about $1,000 this year.”
Diane Simard seed-funded the Center for Oncology Psychology (COPE), an organization that continues to change lives for the better. She hopes that with her efforts, more women would not have to go through the humiliation of feeling raw and naked in front of random passersby.
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The Evolution Of “Why” With Breast Cancer Survivor Diane Simard We’re incredibly fortunate. We’ve been welcomed into the home of https://www.dianemsimard.com/ (Diane Simard). We’re going to have a bit of a different podcast in that we’re going to talk about before-why and after-why experience. Diane, thanks for taking the time and extending the hospitality of your home.
My pleasure, Bob. Thank you for being here.
For the folks, if you would thumbnail sketch a little bit of background and then we’ll dig in.
I wear many hats. I’m part Angel investor, businesswoman, philanthropist, a breast cancer survivor, and I’m also very passionate about bringing attention to the psychological impact that a cancer diagnosis can have on an individual.
It’s interesting when we were talking before we started the episode at the various directions we could go. You were the classic type A, hard-charging, small business owner, development person, 100 miles an hour, and you had an event. I don’t know if it was a routine exam or what, but take us to that experience for you.
I was 49 and a half years old and maybe it’s this way from men too, but certainly for women, turning 50 is a big deal. There are a lot of changes that happen to our body during that time. At 49 and a half years old in January 2015, I had my mind set that the next phase of my life was going to be a lot more peaceful. The previous decade had been very challenging business-wise. I had invested in a lot of startup companies and had not had much success. The success that I’ve had came from those companies that I was not involved with.
My ego had been hurt, but I was ready to live peacefully for things to be a lot calmer. I served on the boards of directors of several of the companies that I invested in. I was on the board of a bank that failed, and so the stress level had been monumental. I did what I was told to do, I’d had annual mammograms since I was 40 because I’d had a benign cyst when I was 40. It was routine and I didn’t expect anything would be different that year, but I got a phone call finally saying that the results were concerning.
I was called back for what’s called a diagnostic mammogram and also an ultrasound test. It was during that ultrasound test that the ultrasound technician let it slip. I’m an inquisitive person. I have a journalism degree. I’m always asking “Why,” the questions. She sat me up and she pointed it out and to me it looks like snow on an ultrasound screen. I said, “How can you even tell what that means?” She said “I’m not supposed to say anything but it doesn’t look good.” That was the day that I likely suspected something was wrong. The radiologist came in, he didn’t even want to look at anything, and he said, “We’re going to have to have a biopsy to determine that.” All of a sudden my morning went from, “Got to get to the office. We got to do these things now” to saying, “I might have breast
There is a move towards probiotics that has resulted in a so-called yogurt craze: people are stocking their fridges with pints of yogurt and with bottles of Yakult, a Japanese probiotic drink. But isn’t probiotic food just traveling through your system without sticking to the wall of your gut? How do we know that probiotics is even doing anything? These are logical questions that microbio research is trying to answer. Martha Carlin, CEO of The Biocollective and Biocollective Research, says that we’re actually more microbial than we are human. The ratio now is about two to one cell count of microbes versus human cells. They focus on gut health and the human microbiome composed of trillions of bacteria, fungi, viruses and archaea living in and on our body. The Biocollective connects their membership and the collected sample with the research world in order to accelerate discovery in the microbiome space and create solutions for gut health overall.
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The Human Microbiome And Gut Health With Martha Carlin, CEO The Biocollective Research We’re incredibly fortunate we have Martha Carlin on the show. She’s the CEO of the https://www.thebiocollective.com/ (BioCollective) and the http://www.biocollectiveresearch.org/ (BioCollective Research). Martha, welcome to the show.
Thank you.
Tell me a little bit about your company and who you serve?
The BioCollective is a company that’s focused on gut health and the human microbiome. For people who don’t know what the human microbiome is, that’s the trillions of bacteria, fungi, viruses and archaea that live in and on our body. We’re actually more microbial than we are human. The ratio now that they’ve agreed on is about two to one cell count of microbes versus human cells. The BioCollective connects our membership and the sample that we collect with the research world to try to accelerate discovery in the microbiome space and solutions to gut health overall. We have both a business to consumer side of the business and a business to business side.
I did a bit of homework before we did the show and for the audience that go, “Tell me more so I understand,” but before we go into the why of understand about the BioCollective, how did you get started? Are you a biologist by training?
I am not a biologist by training. I’m actually an accountant by training, but accounting is one of the original systems and I’m a systems thinker. In 2002, my young, 44-year-old husband was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and I looked at how science and medicine was approaching that problem. I said, “That’s never going to solve the problem or understand why. This is a complex problem and you have to take a systems approach.” I started teaching myself science on the side and over thirteen years, I started with the food supply, how we grow our food, nutrition, and then I moved into the human systems and got back into chemistry and biology and molecular biology and genetics and epigenetics. In 2014, I read a book by Dr. Martin Blaser of NYU called https://www.amazon.com/Missing-Microbes-Overuse-Antibiotics-Fueling/dp/0805098100 (Missing Microbes) and that was a big light bulb for me. He was talking about the age of antibiotics and how we have seen this rise in chronic diseases since antibiotics have been ubiquitous in the environment either from human prescribing or through use in animal feed and animal husbandry.
About two or three months after that, I met a young man who was looking for an investor in a company called http://purecultures.com/ (Pure Cultures). His background was fermentation chemistry. I thought, “I’ll invest in that and I can learn a little bit about fermentation chemistry.” He had spent twenty years in the human nutraceuticals business, which most people won’t know. Most of the vitamins you buy off the shelf are actually fermented by bacteria and fungi in big vats in...
Greyledge Technology is a biotech company that works with the patient’s own tissue samples. They take a tissue from you, typically blood or bone marrow tissue, and they manipulate that into a sample in a therapeutic that’s placed back either via injection, or as part of the surgical technique where our surgeon implants it. There are therapeutic cells within these preparations that can be used to promote and support natural healing.
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Greyledge CEO Dave Karli MD, biotech startup & optimizing the process of regenerative medicine. We’re incredibly fortunate to have Dr. Dave Karli on the show. He is the CEO of https://greyledgebiotech.com/ (Greyledge). Greyledge is located out of Vail, Colorado in Denver. Dave is responsible for all aspects of the company development, including the integration of a strong team of professionals to support Greyledge’s innovative approach to regenerative medicine. A bit of background about Dave; after attending med school at the University of Maryland, Dr. Karli, completed his residency at Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School. Subsequently, he joined the facility at Harvard serving as an attending physician with the Department of PM&R at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital as well as working in the department of Orthopedic Surgery at Mass General Hospital.
After joining the Steadman Clinic in Vail, Colorado in 2003, Dr. Karli began to adopt the use of autologous-based therapies that were emerging in the field of regenerative medicine. He has continued to lead the effort required to refine the practice of regenerative medicine. He has published pivotal clinical results and lectured extensively. His practice has grown substantially and includes treating elite-level and professional athletes. As a result, Dr. Karli has been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ESPN Magazine and the Denver Magazine. Dr. Karli recognized early on that understanding the composition of regenerative biologic preparations used in treating his patients would be critical to refining his practice of medicine. He also realized that a one size fits all approach to creating the therapeutic preparations wouldn’t meet the need for an evidence-based precision medicine approach. In support of his concept for regenerative medicine, he completed the COLA Laboratory Director training course and obtained his MBA at Daniels College of Business, University of Denver. Greyledge has achieved sustained profitability ready for scalable expansion. Dr. Karli is positioning the company to maintain its unique technology platform offering by tracking regulatory activity, advancing biologic sample analytics and quality measures, and creating protocols that allow for customization of patient biologic preparations.
Dave, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for having me. It’s an honor to be here.
What is Greyledge Technology?
Greyledge is an early-phase biotech company that works with the patient’s own tissue samples. You mentioned the word autologous earlier, a lot of people may not know what that word means. Autologous means from the self. It’s your tissues that are put back into you. We’ll take a tissue from you, typically blood or bone marrow tissue, and we manipulate that into a sample, a therapeutic, that’s placed back either via injection or as a part of a surgical technique where our surgeon implants it. I hesitate to use the word stem cell. There are stem cells in these preparations. That’s not a very accurate term to be using anymore, it’s been antiquated, but there are therapeutic cells within these preparations that we can use to promote and support natural healing. Our company promotes healing at the end of the day. We apply it towards orthopedic applications, arthritis, sports injuries, and things of that nature.
There are other...
When you’re running an organization, you’re obviously going to face challenges that you’d rather delegate to an expert solutions third party. One such company is Online Advisor, which specializes in providing immediate solutions to your problems. For example, advanced bookkeeping or accounting is not a forte for many small business owners. John Harris, CEO of Online Advisor, runs the site like a streamlined online resource where folks can quickly retrieve what they need and focus on higher-level concerns. Online Advisor is an excellent website that serves entrepreneurs, business owners, business leaders, and organizational leaders, helping them boost their professional lives.
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Listen to the podcast: http://origin1.podcastwebsites.com/1128/416/1717/Podcast-029John-Harris-1.mp3″ title=”Business Growth Strategies With John Harris Of Online Advisor” artist=”Business Leaders Podcast” image=”http://businessleaderspodcast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/BLP-SquareLogo-WhiteBlueBG1400x1400.png” background=”default” ] Business Growth Strategies With John Harris Of Online Advisor We’re incredibly fortunate to have John Harris of https://www.onlineadvisor.com/ (Online Advisor) on the show. John, welcome to the show. Thank you.
Tell me a little bit about your business and who you serve.
Online Advisor is a website and it’s https://www.onlineadvisor.com/ (OnlineAdvisor.com). It’s a website that’s a serves entrepreneurs, business owners, business leaders, organizational leaders. It provides them all kinds of resources to grow their professional lives, as well as our personal lives and also to help grow their organizations.
Let’s drill down a little bit and get specific about some of the applications that the business owner is looking for help with that you provide solutions for.
We’re providing solutions for a lot of challenges when you’re running an organization. What we’re working on is providing the solutions that will grow business. For example, it may be a bookkeeping question or a bookkeeping issue, we work on some of that. There’s folks that don’t understand bookkeeping or don’t understand accounting and so we answer someone’s questions. We also point them in the direction where they can get the answers through other sources or other advisers. We work on that. For me, I specialize in building systems and refining things and making things streamlined so that folks can get where they need to go quickly and efficiently so they can focus on what’s important for the organization.
For a lot of folks who are looking at starting a business and you have your dream and you have your core competencies, but maybe accounting’s not it or maybe marketing is not your thing or some of those areas. Looking at your site, it’s menu-driven is all were demand-driven, if you need a certain piece of help. Tell us a little bit about the genesis, the why you put this together.
In 1998, I was able to start my own business and that business was a graphic design company. We did brochures and catalogs. The internet was starting to come into play and so we were looking at websites and building websites. When I started my business, I went to a financial advisor and asked him and said, “How do you start a business?” He said, “I can help you.” As it turned out he could help me, but it was in a limited sense because what he knew was investing and insurance and all that stuff, but a lot of the other questions I had, he couldn’t answer. It was at times challenging for me to find what I needed to find. After that point, after I talked to him, I learned some good lessons but I learned some hard lessons. What I thought I could do is depend on him to answer my questions and to get the information I needed. It turned out there were questions he couldn’t answer.
People know about MRI, CT, SPECT and PET: all acronyms of machines that kick out imaging that makes it possible to examine what’s wrong inside the brain. And when patients do receive the bad news, they deserve no less than CereScan’s advanced brain imaging software for predictive diagnoses – arguably the best in the US. John Kelley, CEO of CereScan, leads his company in taking patient information regarding certain brain disorders and combining that with other factors in their life. With this data, CereScan can quickly come up with a good, predictive diagnosis for whatever their problem could be. Patients then have the ability to start correlating diagnostic data to life events, pharmaceutical and genetic predisposition for certain conditions. CereScan sheds a new light into how we might be able to treat brain diseases: conditions once considered taboo and incurable.
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Advanced Brain Imaging Software With CereScan’s John Kelley We’re incredibly fortunate to have John Kelley, CEO of https://cerescan.com/ (CereScan). You’re going to be fascinated by the story. John, welcome to the show.
Bob, thank you for having us on. It’s an honor to be on here and be able to talk to your audience. It’s a terrific opportunity for us. For the folks that don’t know what CereScan is, could you give them a thumbnail sketch of your company and who you serve?
In the United States, we’re arguably the best company in the country that takes patient information regarding certain brain disorders and combining that with other factors in their life to be able to come up with something that’s predictive or a good diagnosis for whatever their problem is. We are the best at doing that. For the folks that are interested in the technology space, what are the tools that you bring to the table to arrive at the data that you collect?
We’re an imaging company. People know about MRI, CT, SPECT and PET. All of those acronyms are about machines. Those machines kick out information in the form of imaging, things people might call X-rays. When you have the imaging side of things to be able to look and see what’s wrong inside of the brain, you then have the ability to start correlating that to life events, to pharmaceutical things, to genetic predisposition for certain conditions. We start combining all that information and it’s been available for a number of years in each of those categories. There’s a notion of what you guys do and there’s the machinery like we’ve all seen on TV, it looks like a big doughnut that they put you through on a table. The part that was not apparent to me was the quantity of data that’s produced. You had an analogy from the data produced versus some of the other data that’s collected around on the planet. Can you draw the parallel between the data that you collect on the PET or the SPECT?
Yes. The information we will get out of cameras start approaching millions of data points per brain. We’re able to combine that with data around pharmaceutical usage, around blood types, proteins that might be in the blood, genetic information. Testing data, we’re combining millions of pieces of information and on the fly or instantaneously being able to correlate all that to see if there’s commonality across all of those data elements. It’s truly a super computing capability that we possess today.
You were talking about the Hubble telescope as an analogy. The Hubble collects not images. We all see the fantastic pictures that it had come up with, but that’s a result of data collection, is it not? That’s correct. Hubble is a phenomenal piece of technology that’s taking invisible infrared light, it’s taken ultraviolet light, it’s taken other light spectrum and having other sound wave information coming and being aggregated at Hubble. That information then is converted
Nowadays, getting your idea to IRS-approved 501(c)(3) is a pain in the a**. The unyielding bureaucratic obstacles can test the limits of those looking to process their IRS compliant non-profit. In the midst of red tape, we’re lucky to have companies like Yippiekiyay, whose mission is to ease the inconvenience as much as possible. Christian Lefer, CEO of Yippiekiyay, describes it as an attitude of empowering non-profits by fighting the bad guys. The way that translates is whether you’re starting a nonprofit or getting fundraising compliant, which is a difficult process as well, Yippikiyay will get you from idea to IRS-approved 501(c)(3) in less than an hour for under a thousand dollars – and you’ll never talk to a government agent or lawyer!
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Start Your IRS Compliant Non-Profit With Christian Lefer, CEO Yippiekiyay We’re incredibly fortunate to have https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianlefer/ (Christian LeFer). He’s from https://heroes.do/ (Yippiekiyay). He’s the CEO and he’s going to tell us about his company and what it does. Christian, it’s all yours.
Yippiekiyay is an attitude of empowering people and shedding light in the darkness, fighting the bad guys, making the world a better place by helping people get past all of the bureaucratic obstacles to changing their community through a non-profit. The way that translates is whether you’re starting a nonprofit or getting fundraising compliant, which is a difficult process as well, we’ll get you from idea to IRS-approved 501(c)(3) in less than an hour for under $1,000 and you’ll never talk to a government agent or lawyer.
I think about the folks that are out there that have intent that want to go and help the planet, and a great deal of those ideas, like many others, die on the kitchen table. They die because they can’t figure out how to get from A to B. You basically take out that barrier to entry for a budding 501(c)(3).
If you look at all the great movements in history, there’s been a little bit of moral outrage to power them. With this one back in 2009 or 2010, I volunteered to help start a 501(c)(3), and you know how difficult can that be, give me that paperwork. I welcomed the challenge. When I got a letter from the IRS and called in, they said, “Don’t worry, it’ll take about a year for 501(c)(3) to get approved. I questioned, “What in the world? If I wanted to start a used car lot, it would be twenty minutes at the Secretary of State’s website, $50 or $100.” I couldn’t imagine why even attorneys were looking at an eight, ten, or twelve-month cycle to get approved. I took that letter and I called about ten or fifteen extensions north and south of that phone number and I begged, cajoled, bribed. I promised to send chocolates, whatever I could get out of that person on the other end of the line who is processing the files because it was reaching somewhere into that exempt organizations department. At the end of the day, I put together all my research and tried it out and we started getting approvals in 30 days for people long before there was even a company or a process or software conceived, and I thought this is something people could use.
In the midst of Hurricane Harvey and the effects down in South Texas, I think about all the outreach. You’ve got athletes and luminaries raising funds and all I can think of is the bureaucratic nightmare. Somebody raised $4 million or $5 million on donations and gone. How’s that working in the 501(c)(3) space?
What many nonprofits aren’t even unaware of, let alone people who want to start them, is that say you have a little local neighborhood nonprofit and you’re providing some school lunches and maybe some support to people in the neighborhood. You’re in Beaumont or you’re in Port Arthur, Texas. Right now you’ve got the opportunity to...
Contractor’s Guide to Success Start It, Build It, Grow It with Randy Brothers, the CEO of CJ and Elite Roofing as well as head coach of The Roofing Academy.
He’s a third-generation contractor and business owner with over 15 years of contracting experience.
His company has grown 10 times in 6 years, or 10X,
A 30% growth rate over the past 5 years, even when the local roofing market softened during that time frame.
Elite Roofing now provides for the families of over 40 people that are employed in his firm
A natural born entrepreneur. Even as a little kid, I did various entrepreneurial endeavors from, you know, buying popsicles and Blow Pops in bulk, selling them to my friends on the school bus, to landscaping, doing lawn mowing, to a window cleaning company I started in college.
I mowed lawns to buy my first PlayStation. And then all the friends came over and played my PlayStation for two years. And then I ended up hiring them and having them help me mow lawns
I worked three jobs in college. I worked full-time and went to school full-time. I actually started…early on, as soon as I kinda knew I wanted to do business, I correlated, you know, my kinda natural ability to build things, and, you know, third generation contractor. I grew up kinda watching my grandpa and my dad, everything they wanted to fix or do around the house, they did it themselves. They built it themselves.
I basically went in blindly to this construction company and sat there for three hours with no experience, just trying to convince this owner of this company to hire me. And I basically offered my services for free just because I wanted to learn how to build a house. I started my company right out of my basement, in the house that I had purchased from my previous boss, set up a little office down there, and used the garage for all the tools, and we just started doing basement finish. Three months after I graduated college. I just went all in. I just went in and never really looked back. You had this success, you had a house, you’re a young guy just out of college, and marketing and remodeling basements. Bob: And then, things started to unwind. Take us to, basically, that process, when it started to unwind.
I bought a boat. I had a house at age 23. I had two trucks at the time. And I was living on cloud nine.
I was all about myself and, you know, chasing girls, and doing whatever I can to just live it up and live the dream. But all the while, I wasn’t able to, one, pay attention to the market, which was gradually starting to turn and things were starting to change in overall construction, and real estate, and mortgage markets.
The whole bottom fell out and I was kinda caught holding the bag. I had a couple projects I had already started and working on, and I just was scrounging just to get through those. I was able to make it through there, but ultimately, I ended up losing everything. This was a really, really low point in my life. And through a lot of kind of soul-searching and self-evaluation, kinda dawned on me that the most important things in life weren’t myself.
You know, I kinda got right with the Lord, so to speak, if you will, and realized that, you know, faith and family trump everything. You know, so once I got to a place where I mentally was able to, “You know what? Like, it’s not about me. It’s about the other people in my life: faith, family and other people.”
So this hailstorm came, hit Denver. I was in Austin, Texas and my friend had called me, out of the blue, and was saying, “Hey, man. I remember you saying something about being in insurance and, you know, as an insurance adjuster. You still doing that?”
I was like, “Yeah, but I’m just in between assignments right now.” So he was like, “Hey, man. I can get you a job selling roofs.” And I had already kinda dabbled in it a little bit in Texas, kinda in between,...
Rope manufacturing and lesson learned from working safely at height with Loui McCurley, CEO Pigeon Mountain Industries
Coolest company on Earth
PMI is a manufacturer of life safety ropes and soft goods, other equipment for work at height
We distribute other gear from people whose products complement our own. So we’re a manufacturer and distributor, as well as an http://www.verticalrescuesolutions.com/ (educator).
How Pigeon Mountain Industries started
We started down in Georgia, in the heart of what we call “TAG,” Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia. TAG caving area.
The founders of our company were all cavers and they wanted a better caving rope to go caving with.
What we do
Rope manufacturing; we manufacture a kernmantle rope. Kernmantle is a German term and it means core and sheath. So the “kern” is the core, the “mantle” is the sheath.
Depending on how much twist or what you do to the design on the inside of the rope, you can really control, you can really engineer exactly how much elongation you want to happen and at what force and at what range.
How in the world did you get involved with a rope company?
Well, I fell off a cliff. Isn’t that how everybody gets involved?
I fell about 40 feet off a cliff and I lived to tell about it. But it wasn’t then until a few years later that I actually joined a local mountain rescue team.
Falling off the cliff brought my awareness to the fact that I was lucky to be alive and that I was really stupid about what I’ve done. I needed more information. I needed more knowledge.
I was just out for a hike and I decided to split off from the rest of my group and take a shortcut back to the car. And, you know, I beat them back to the car.
Having a little bit of fear is not necessarily a bad thing
A healthy fear is what keeps you alive.
Understand how that equipment works and how that equipment is used.
Know what you’re capable of, you know what your limitations are, you know what the limitations of your gear is.
Traveling around the world, stopping at different rescue organizations along the way, lessons learned.
I don’t know everything and I don’t know how to do everything, but that’s okay.
There’s a lot of right ways to do things. So pay attention, learn from the people around you, and try it.
Sitting on that standards committees for rope manufacturing, why?
We need to think about as we’re writing standards. We can’t just write them as a manufacturer.
We have to consider the needs of the many users.
The foundations of rope access
It’s that ability to not just go down.
No, it’s not just rappelling.
You can go down. You can go up.
You can go cross ways.
You can go from one set of ropes to another.
Definitely a growing industry
It’s gaining acceptance by NC and OSHA and regulatory bodies.
The safety record of these guys that work this way is stellar. It’s outstanding
You can access points in stadiums that nobody’s ever touched before. You can inspect the undersides of bridges.
High tension towers that you need repairs
Wind turbines
Transformation you see from the person pre-course(http://www.pmirope.com/ (PMI)), and the person that comes in here after they’ve graduated? What do you see?
By the end of the week, to be able to ascend rope, traverse over to another rope, turn backwards and upside-down and get across a horizontal traverse
All the things that they can do on rope, never touching the ground, and that the sense of security that people gain in that. People just walk through the door and say, “I am afraid of heights. I don’t know how this is gonna go.”
Then they got enrolled, and they learn to trust their gear, and they learn to trust their knowledge.” That’s, like, “Wow. I still am not all that fond of heights, but you...
Recycling tires and what is Bolder Black? A sustainable alternative to traditional carbon black produced recycling tires that would otherwise be placed in landfills or incinerated.
Early influences My first taste of entrepreneurship with my first job out of college and I worked for a guy who had invented voicemail. And he was an Indiana guy who came back home to invest in a series of companies, and I was working directly for him in one of those companies.
Following your passion One of those customers turned out to be in the medical device industry and offered me a job in a startup company. I learned a lot about products, services, and feeding a market, but more importantly, I learned about following some passions. It was in the women’s healthcare space, and waking up in the morning and knowing that when you wake up and every patient you see has a better outcome and a better day because of it, you want to work a little harder, put a few more hours on the road, just get that extra patient because every single patient you touched had a better situation.
The charter The goal, the mandate was take waste products, generate more power than we need, reduce water usage from traditional methods, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, reduce landfilling, and create jobs in areas that are needed.
Our first real product It is a product called Bolder Black. So our business is reclaiming tires, and also industrial rubber, and using our understanding and technology and manufacturing know-how and our trade secrets to understand how we create the ingredients to bake the cake for the end-product customer.
The first lesson in entrepreneurship I learned there was no reason to spend excess money on anything ever. Lean operations win.
Gates Rubber This is a production trial run for a company called Gates Rubber, which is the largest non-tire rubber manufacturer in the world. They’re based out of Denver, Colorado, which is wonderful. And we’re getting them to take a look at some of the stuff and they have a sustainability focus. They care. So if a company cares about the environment, cares about the people, cares about the future, which they do, they’ll try to work this in.
Tires disposed per year in the US We could take every tire that’s disposed of in the United States, which is about 300 million tires a year, annually, to interject some scale. I was in a conference speaking and somebody raised their hand and said,” I heard the numbers are really like 350 million.
One seat at a time This seat was important for a contractor to achieve an additional LEED credit. They were looking for additional LEED points in their contract to build a number of schools in a city in California, and one of the places to go was to furnishings that are put in here. And our Bolder Black worked with this particular seat. So there’s gonna be hundreds of thousands of these seats manufactured, using this product, to go into school systems.
Why? One, the environmental impact of using our product versus other is pretty massive, so that’s a really good story for the world. We’re getting rid of some tires. That’s a great story for the world. And then, now this school system and this contractor now have access to LEED points that they did not had before, and that’s valuable to them from an optics and doing their job well perspective. And it actually really works. So it was a great example of us solving a problem that we didn’t even know really was a problem.
We wound up in a lot of places
We didn’t know any different than to just call up to a local phone case manufacturer and say, “Hey, man. Look what we’ve got.” And they didn’t even know what carbon black was, because in their supply chain, it’s so far down. So there’s a lot of education.
We’re talking some of the sustainability companies, so some of the major brands like Adidas, for...
Recruiting executives: what does Carol do?
Recruiting-Carol offers a boutique talent solution at http://verticalelevation.com/ (Vertical Elevation) that has a unique and customized talent recruiting strategy process. As an adviser, she is in demand by executives looking to build better organizations, improve their leadership and communication skills, and advance their careers. Using her expertise as a recruitment process optimization strategist, she is able to improve the number of performers in organizations, substantially increasing company revenue.
Who does she serve?
She serves primarily high-tech clients, both startups and mid-sized companies, sometimes large companies.
When do you use a retained recruiter?
Any time they have an important hire to fill. I’ve been hired by startups who need software engineers. I’ve had people ask, “Why would somebody hire you to do that?” Well, because it’s an important hire. I mean, with high-tech startups, it’s very critical. On up to VP and CXO level.
What is your process?
Regardless of the size of the company, I sit down and do a kickoff meeting with them, and each of the stakeholders that I meet with on the particular search gets…prior to that gets a document with a list of maybe 40 or 50 questions to be prepared for as we talk. And in all of those questions… Some are geared around the company, some are geared around competitors, some are geared around the actual job; all the answers to that allow me then to write a position description.
I was busy taking my notes from nine hours’ worth of meetings with eight different people and putting it into the first draft of the position description, which I then sent to the CEO. And then we went through a second draft. And between the second and third draft, they decided that instead of looking for this level of person, we needed to look for a different level of person.
Finding talent
That process starts with the position description and me understanding their needs. And it’s not just about what they want. It’s about me asking hard questions to them to determine, is this reasonable, given who you are as a company? Some people will say, “Gosh. Well, I want this.” And I will say, “Well, given who you are and the size of your company, how long you’ve been around, do you think that person wants to come work for you?” So it’s all of those things.
Once that’s determined, I start sourcing—I also have a sourcer that I employ to help me—and we start looking for people. And that first list, it’s usually in the neighborhood of a hundred possibilities.
Narrowing the Talent list
The people could come from consulting firms or they could come from industry, and before industry, the vertical market that they’re in. Or we could go to industry, and then maybe they work for a consulting firm before that.
So, to give a CEO a potpourri of candidates that are all great quality is what’s the most important thing to me, so that they can now look and judge people.
We also built… I built—and the CEO approved it, of course—a competency model. So that when each person interviews, if the company wants a competency model—they don’t always want it because they don’t always want to use it—the competency model then allows the interviewer to make sure they’re asking the questions that are important to the position, as well as each of the competencies that we’ve now come up with are ranked low, medium, or high importance to successfully do the job. And then we rank them 1 to 5.
After the hire
After they have been placed and after they start working, well, I speak to my candidates usually within the first week or a few days. I will also reach out to whoever the hiring manager was—in this case, the CEO—and, you know… “How’s it going? Any questions?”
I have a
If it’s important, encrypt it! with BlackSquare Technologies
How did BlackSquare Technologies come about, and tell us about the Enigma product. I have been in the data security field for close to 14 years now, and have observed an increase in data theft over that time. Moreover, we’ve seen data theft come into its own over the past 5 years; hackers and bad actors have stolen not only money but valuable and confidential data, surpassing trillions of dollars. Thieves access, monitor and then monetize data. Once ‘in’ a network, it’s very difficult to remove their presence.
The genesis of BlackSquare came about by thinking we could build a simple yet secure ‘tool’ that any user could manage to encrypt and decrypt data. That was the idea; it has to be simple to manage and simple to use. Why? We wanted to build this product so that consumers and SMBs could now manage data independent of the operating systems. As you know, both WIN and MAC operating systems are continually under pressure to fix problems, which may be an entry point for the hackers and bad actors.
After developing a skeleton concept, we did quite a bit of market research to make sure we were on the right track, to validate what we needed to build, and to see if there was a market out there. Well, it turns out that the market is global; that millions of users are looking for a way to protect their valuable data.
The cumulative message from this effort was If it’s important, encrypt it. Each user may wish to encrypt what’s important to them.
And then, there’s the name Enigma. We wanted to honor the original German engineer (Arthur Scherbius) who in the 1919-20 time frame began to build the Enigma multiple rotor manual encryption machines.
Why build Enigma? Over the past 15 years, we’ve seen data theft continue to expand and grow. Today, data theft is the largest growing market on the planet, with no real solution in sight.
We’re told that 91% of all data breaches occur due to humans making mistakes and clicking on links or documents, which can ruin an otherwise great day. Concerns over malware, spyware and ransomware dominate conversations in every day life as well as those who live in and support IT departments worldwide.
And, it’s really expensive to recover from a data breach! Just look at Target and how many classes of people were affected: Board members, leadership, management, employees, investors, customers and vendors. In a breach everyone is impacted, your reputation will take a hit and you’ll now have to work harder to retain existing customers, let alone acquire new ones.
With that said, we wanted to offer a best in class, innovative, easy to use encryption tool to consumers and small and medium sized business owners (SMBs) so that they can now protect valuable or important data, and that’s what we have done.
Why don’t I know about Enigma to encrypt files? After years of product design and development, BlackSquare is now offering our Enigma product.
We offer Enigma for sale on our web site and thru IT experts and MSSP resellers, and we’re always on the lookout for qualified passionate resellers to understand and represent our products. Now, resellers can offer their clients a tool which may be used to encrypt important data.
The goal: users manage important data on both WIN and MAC computers, notebooks or tablets with a USB port.
Enigma is now WIN and MAC compatible, and operates independently of the operating system. Enigma looks to be a USB thumb drive, but it does not store data. Instead, Enigma provides a female USB connector where you can connect any type of USB storage device
Users can learn to use and manage an Enigma in 5-10 minutes. It’s a very short learning curve, which was one of our priorities when developing the tool.
Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) certifications Enigma is FIPS 140-2 hardware certified, meaning our product has been scrutinized and
Food distribution clarified by Jerry Wilhite, CEO FSIC Background He worked with U.S. Foodservice for 22 years in all aspects of the food distribution business including: Corporate National Accounts, Division President, VP of Sales, Accounts Payable and Receivables, Purchasing and Operations. Jerry also was a Division President for Food Services of America.
How did you feel about taking a risk to open your own company? Even today I don’t think of it that way. I think of it as,”I’ve got a job to do, and it started out by looking at the opportunity of how we could help our customers.
What does FSIC do?
Track products from manufacturer through the operator.
Bring visibility to the customer so they can make great business decisions. Unfortunately, with invoices, they’re looking at invoice data, they maybe looking at a can, but they don’t really truly understand, “Am I getting the right product from the right vendor at the right price?” and we have the ability to make sure that that happens.
Same problem then, same problem now
There’s over 8.5% inherent error rate in the industry today. That doesn’t mean dollars, everybody can all equate that and go, “Wow, 8.5% of dollars.”
It’s 8.5% of all transactions has something different than what the perception of the customer was. Different pack size, different products, different manufacturer, wrong pricing, you name it. There’s a gamut of reasons, but 8.5% of the time something isn’t the way that it was perceived to be when it was purchased.
How does FSIC do it? We have the ability because we track by manufacture by manufacturer product code, we have the ability and a system setup to capture those variances, put some eyeballs on it, and say, “Does this make sense?
What does it mean to the customer?
There isn’t a customer we have or we will engage with or bring on that we can’t bring at least a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of savings opportunities to the table.
They are able to see the metrics that are in supply chain that have never been there before or haven’t had the ability to get to right in front of them teed up every quarter, every month, where they have one sheet they’re able to look at, and look at what the potential problems are
Intellispend
One of our vertical companies called my IntelliSpend, and what that does is for an up and comer or a new account or a large independent, we have the ability to license software to them that enables them to get that visibility themselves.
If they are not big enough where we can afford to service them as a company as an FSIC client and all the consulting service that we provide, but it gives them a way to get into the game, at smaller or lower entry fee.
Why is FSIC unique?
We’re only paid by our client.
If we don’t give the customer the opportunity and ability to save twice what they pay us the first year, I give their money back because I’ve never wanted to be in our customer’s pocket.
Restitution
We have a module that’s a contract management module, and what it does is it manages the contract price that a customer should pay for any given period of time whether it’s a month, a day, a week, a year, we load that into our system, and it matches that up against every single transaction off of every single invoice.
Our client didn’t get the right product or they didn’t get it at the right price or you owe them restitution.” and we show them the report. First thing out of their mouth is, “Wow, where did you get this information?” “Well, it’s the data you provided to us two weeks ago, we just looked at it differently. We looked at the data, and slice and dice it differently, and the way we ask for and again because it originates from manufacturer and manufacturer product, it’s very easy to track...
Mike Walker, CEO Opterre The early influences Why did I decide to train consultants? It is a rags-to-riches-type story where I grew up in a fairly poor background. My mom was divorced. She was a single mom with three kids. We basically have to live on food stamps to augment our living. And my mom was not the type of person that really was all that keen about that, so what she wanted to do is give me the food stamps and I’d go into the grocery store, buy the groceries, come back out and go back home. Well, there was one event that occurred where I was buying the groceries and I’m walking out the door. And as I’m walking out, as I was paying for ’em at the food stamps, the clerk was talking to somebody else, because [SP] I know he probably stole ’em. And, you know, like, some people have these catalyzing events, well, for me, that was one of them.
Why Opterre Another catalyzing event occurred, which is I was quite responsible for outsourcing a lot of jobs from the U.S. to other countries, most particularly India. And in that situation, I was visiting a client, and was discussing with them the plans of outsourcing some work over to India, over a span of about two years. I came back to do a review with them, and they had already said, “Well. we just got rid of ’em, got rid of the employees.” And that really didn’t sit well with me. It never really sat well with me that I would outsource people’s jobs away to begin with. But that one was just the sort of, like, event that just was, “I need to do something about this.
Who do you serve? An individual who is probably in the age of 30 to 65, who has at least 10 years of experience in some area so that they really have a good base of understanding of the pros and cons and the ins and outs in such a way that they now can be regarded as somewhat of an expert. One that is very entrepreneurial and really just wants to go out there and start crafting and sharing their expertise. Those that are really, in a certain sense, looking over their shoulder because of automation taking jobs away, outsourcing, like what I used to do, taking jobs away, or M&A-type activities are happening where jobs are eliminated because of corporate consolidation.
What should I expect? I’ve compiled all the best practices, as well as my own discipline and what I’ve practiced out myself in my own businesses, and now compiled that into a program that is easily digestible.
What is the consultants assessment?
After you have defined your unique value proposition, then you have to really kind of define, how do you approach your market? What are the best approaches to reach out to them? How many different channels are available? We provide a questionnaire, to start with, so that they can kind of do their own assessment. But in another level, they need to evaluate us as coaches, mentors going forward with them
Next Steps for the Consultant Legal setup issues, proforma, niche market identification, market lever, marketing, who is your market, how you will deliver your product & scale.
Field Guide offer
Click https://opterre.com/ (here) and fill out the form for your free field guide for consultants
Soup to Nuts
“Here’s how you figure it out if you can be a consultant, this is how you do it?” An individual could figure this stuff out for themselves, but think about how much time it will take, how much effort it will take, possibly even spending some money doing the research or testing out various tools. We do the 80/20. We give you 80% of what probably you already need, already packaged up, ready to go.
Parting Advice
Don’t second-guess themselves and think that they can’t be a consultant; they can do this.
Twitter- https://twitter.com/search?q=%40opterre&src=typd (@Opterre)
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Jarvis Labs why founded and when Jarvis Labs was founded six years ago and was more or less kind of just an accumulation of lifelong work and, specifically, in the IT industry, around cloud services. We formed it with the intentions of really kind of getting to the next level in cloud and the cyber spectrum of opportunity. You know, we’ve developed some cloud technologies and built our own infrastructure.
What do you do We bring an enterprise level of support and services to small and medium businesses, to startups. We’ve helped companies go from zero to all the way.
What do you do for Startups Startups have trouble getting to the next level or leveraging that next piece of technology that they need in order to thrive or in order to make a manufacturing process work or whatever it is. https://jarvislabs.com/company (Jarvis Labs) is with our repertoire and experience implementing technology in a wide variety of places, we’re usually able to find that missing piece or we’re able to develop that missing piece that startups are looking for.
The early years My grandfather was an old Air Force electronics technician. He ended up being an IT guru, an IT head of his oil field company back in the ’80s and ’90s. He always made sure I had a computer to work on and some connections to work with. We used to figure a lot of things out in my grandpa’s office. My first real job in the industry was taking computers apart and cleaning them.
Mom calling My mom even has contacted me through the help desk when she wasn’t able to find me. The guys at the help desk gave me a hard time about it. But, you know, that’s what it’s there for. Use it. Create a ticket. Call your mom.
First invoice My first invoice as a 16-year-old was to a feed store in my hometown for fixing a printer and upgrading some RAM.
We are recruiting We’re not recruiting for anything specific but we’re always recruiting for the right fit.
Building fast computers-Rock Silo We’re running everything out of active fast memory. Fast-forward to now, especially with our Hyper Expanse technology, that’s one of the Rock Silo offerings. We’re able to…we’re just able to bundle more computing power, more processing, more memory, more hard drive space. It’s just, it’s amazing, it’s exciting.
Rock Silo https://rocksilo.com/ (Rock Silo) builds appliances. We build appliances that you can plug into your network and it provides a specific service. So one of those is spam control. I call it an artificial intelligence engine because it takes some thousand or so different rules, computing rules, and makes a decision over whether or not to deliver that email, whether or not to hold that email until maybe we’d get some updated signatures from the rest of the world.
Big computers, virtual machines If you’re running a CAD workstation, you have your workstation, you’ve got your video cards, you’ve got your…whatever it takes to make that 3D model look good. Well, under our Rock Silo offering, through a virtual workstation, you have more power. You can do, in 15 minutes on an engineering simulation, what you used to take two weeks. I mean it’s, you punch a button and you’re using the computing power to do this work.
Government contracting assistance On the government contracting side, you’re required to have an IT infrastructure. You’re required to have authentications in place. You’re required to have, sometimes, your own email server. Jarvis Labs can just kind of step in and help meet certain requirements to get you in the room.
3D modeling on CAD programs and the ability to use the Silo, what’s the typical commentary that you hear from those types of engineering folks? They’re sold on it before we even turn them on. I can do a five or 10-minute demo, illustrate things they do every day and how much...
There is no such thing as a safe place. Given all the recent occurrences of hacking and penetration in Yahoo, Experian and other tech giants, it’s high time we look at business cyber security as an increasingly urgent issue. Joseph Cheung talks about the issue and the broad-term challenges with cyber security. What information are you putting out there? Are you okay if a convict or some “prince” in Nigeria gets access to that information? Essentially you’re leaving little pieces of your personal puzzle out into cyberspace, whether it’s your personal puzzle or your company’s puzzle.
Together with Morgan Nolan, Joseph runs Toggle Industries, a company that educates companies to stay vigilant of threats, and to develop strong fundamental mindsets for data protection.
Watch the episode:
Listen to the podcast:
Business Cyber Security With Joseph Cheung We’re doing something a little different. We’re going to have a special episode, given all the recent occurrences of hacking and penetration in Yahoo, Experian and so on. I’ve got Joseph Cheung and Morgan Nolan from https://www.toggleind.com/ (Toggle Industries) coming in to talk us about the issue and the challenge with cybersecurity, a broad term. Some of the things that you can do and basically, it’s going to be a wide ranging discussion and hopefully when we’re said and done, there are some things that you can pick up that you can do where you’re not the tallest person in the foxhole. With that being said, Joseph, Morgan, thanks for being on the show.
Thank you for having us.
We’ve had one event after another, from Deloitte getting hacked, NSA is getting hacked, Experian, which is on top of everybody’s mind, that’s half the population in the United States. From what you’re doing in your field and what you’re hearing from your customers, what are you hearing?
One of the biggest things that we hear from our clients is why is this happening? Why is nothing being done to solve these problems? A lot of times we see, especially with Experian, we’re all sick of hearing the fact that Yahoo has gotten hacked. We keep hearing that and we’re just so tired of it. A lot of our clients are asking us, “I know I have the service with you and thankfully nothing has happened to us thus far, but how can we help our colleagues in industry? How can we help our fellow neighbors in the ecosystem? How can we prevent those incidences from happening to our colleagues?”
We keep trying to tell them, “All you have to do is continue to be educational within your staff, educate your clients as well as to have a good fundamental mindset and honestly, be vigilant.” A lot of times the clients, they don’t realize that their personal cyber security is literally in their fingertips. If they choose to disclose X information or if they choose to sign up for Y service without looking at the potential repercussions and when I say repercussions, you’re registering for a newsletter, for recipes or you’re registering for what may be perceived as free ABC. It doesn’t matter.
You think that by giving out your @gmail, @yahoo, @whatever email account or by providing some nonsensical information, you think that it’s free to you, but in actuality, what are you sacrificing? A lot of the times we have these very frank conversations with our existing clients and for the mini seminars that we do. As a matter of fact, we have two coming up and we always ask those questions. “What information are you putting out there? Are you okay if the person in jail or anywhere else or some prince in Nigeria gets access to that information? Are you okay with that?”
Most people, they don’t think that someone is going to get access to their information. You always have to think of the most unsavory individual or the most unsavory organization getting access to the...
Jim Downing, USN Retired, Author “The Other Side of Infamy: My Journey Through Pearl Harbor and the World War” With greatest respect to Jim and his shipmates lost at Pearl Harbor, I included the entire transcript of the interview.
Host: Today, we’re honored to have Jim Downing, author of “The Other Side of Infamy: My Journey Through Pearl Harbor and the World War.” Jim’s ship was the Navy battleship the USS West Virginia, where Jim was a Gunner’s Mate First Class and ship’s Postmaster.
Jim retired from the Navy with 24 years of service, at rank of Lieutenant, and has remained a utility player during his 27 years, full-time staff with the Navigators, serving in positions ranging from Deputy President to Chair of the Board of Directors. Jim was married for 68 years to Morena, who passed away in 2010, and is parents of 7 children. Jim is still known as Navigator #6. Jim, welcome to Business Leaders podcast. We’re honored.
Jim: No, sir. I’m honored to be here.
Host: This is awesome. We’re in Jim’s living room, and we’re chatting away at the kitchen table, where, I think, everything that’s important has ever happened in life, is at the kitchen table. And so I thought I’d go through and, you know, Jim, to kind of start out, take us back to your growing up, and a bit about yourself in Plevna, Missouri.
Jim: I was born at the beginning of World War I. My father worked in defense plants. Money was pretty scarce, so he had an uncle that lived right outside of Kansas City, so he got a job there so I could be delivered by my uncle. And then, my great-grandparents bought a large parcel of land in Missouri, directly out of Louisiana Purchase.
So we still have a section of that in the family today. So, there’s a small town by the name of Plevna. It was settled by Bulgarian immigrants. And apparently, they have a town by that name, so they named it after their hometown in Bulgaria.
Host: I bet you Plevna, Missouri looks just like Plevna, Bulgaria. What do you bet?
Jim: Well, something one of my friends checked it out on the Google, and the population is now 40. It was 100 when I lived there, so it’s cut in half now.
Host: You know, it’s interesting to grow up in rural America. And I think about the times that you grew up, and I read your book recently, and you were talking about some of the early influences, the Zane Grey and Horatio Alger books that you read. You know, as a young man, did you find that those books shaped part of your thinking?
Jim: Yes, it did. Books were scarce, and I liked the Zane Grey books and the Horatio Alger books. In fact, that’s all we had. So I read them over and over and over again. And as I mentioned in my book, the Horatio Alger books shaped, you know, that if you do the right thing, you’ll be a success. So, I felt they were pretty much all the same, just changed the name of the characters in them. But the theme was that somebody went into town, found a sponsor, did the right things, and ended up a success. So I kind of adopted that philosophy. I could be a success.
Host: You know, it’s an interesting thought process when you’re in a smaller community looking for a role model. And, for you, on access to the books, where did the books come from? Was there a local library?
Jim: We had a small library, but these were family books. So I apparently had ancestors who were interested in Zane Grey.
Host: Interestingly enough, my family had an interest in Zane Grey, so I made it through the entire series of Zane Grey books myself, more than once. So we share that in common, for sure. You know, in your book, rolling forward a little bit further down the road, you mention the influence of radio in your life and listening to the World Series on radio, and listening to, I think it was Dempsey’s fight on the radio.
I think, for many listeners, that’s...
Nidal Allis CEO of Techno Rescue, which is a veteran-owned, full life-cycle green IT company based in Colorado, specializing in computer electronics, recycling, data destruction, e-waste disposal, computer service and repair, IT support, and consulting.
Not just computers-
Medical equipment, have them refurbished, recertified, and remarketed to other medical facilities, whether they’re in this country or aboard, that cannot afford brand new medical equipment.
Earth Month
We brought in probably somewhere in between 400,000 and 500,000 pounds. And most of that was in the last two and a half weeks of the month during Earth Week.
Guinness Book of World Records
We do an event with 9News, and this year we’re doing it on http://www.9news.com/news/outreach/community/9news-e-cycle-event-to-recycle-old-electronics/274705776 (September 9th) at Coors Field. Last year in a five-hour period we picked up 378,000 pounds in five hours. So much so that this year the Guinness Book of World Records is going to come out because that is a world record for the most amount of recyclable material of electronics in a one-day period.
Vision and round the clock
I can envision us in a year, year and a half from now being a 24-hour operation just to keep up with the growing volume
I was in the shower and I had the vision. I jumped out of the shower before the soap got out of my head, I called my soon-to-be partner, and within two hours we met for lunch. I went to the Secretary of State, I got licensed, two weeks later found a warehouse and got busy
Success and control-
The first year we profited and that was against all odds, as you know as a businessman. The second year at Techno Rescue we profited, and again that was against all odds. And then, being the young entrepreneur, I think I got a little ahead of myself, started expanding, had multiple locations, and I decided I’m going to go after some of the big million-dollar contracts and accounts. And I’ll accept my accountability, I lost control of it a bit
Embezzlement and Cancer
The third year I experienced an embezzlement. So the second embezzlement of my life, the first one in D.C., then this one with my own company. Had a lot of problems with employees. At that same exact time my mom got diagnosed with cancer.
So I decided to fight. http://businessleaderspodcast.com/cfo-buying-selling-business-key-insights-ken-jensen/ (Shut all the different locations down), got reorganized, I terminated both partner relationships. It was a very expensive experience.
I have a Ph.D. in the hard-knock class of business learning.
Rebuilding-
Difficult because I had zero dollars and massive debt that I took on by myself, especially when I kicked out my cofounder. He wanted to sue me, but luckily, even though we had a high school relationship, I was smart enough to have an operating agreement an attorney drafted at the beginning.
Advice
You had two opportunities to look at embezzlement, if you were going to take and start another business today and you were going to have partners, what procedures or policies would you put in place where everybody would know that there’s accountability and oversight? What would you do?
I’d do is I’d make sure that my partner had a vested interest and not going to walk in with just sweat equity. They need something to lose,
Part of the operating agreement was that I’d be the primary to manage all the books. But he wanted to run it because I was a better business development person than he was. So I should have kept my hands on it.
Present
I have 27 really excellent employees right now that I’m very proud of and we’re just rocking. Are we where I want to be? Not even close. At the same time I’ll probably never be satisfied, I’m probably always going to want more.
When you’re thinking about doing another location, what are the two or three things...
Dick Lee, the CEO and Chief Innovation Officer at https://valueinnovations.com/ (Value Innovations) based in Castle Pines, Colorado. Dick is also the co-author of the book,https://www.amazon.com/Value-Innovation-Works-Sustainable-Exceptional/dp/1470020572/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8 ( “Value Innovation Works.”) The driving force to everything that they do at Value Innovation is to help C-level executives address critical issues within their organization using their 10-step value innovation process.
What does https://hbr.org/2004/07/value-innovation-the-strategic-logic-of-high-growth (value innovation) mean?
It’s delivering exceptional value to the most important customer in the value chain all the time, every time. And I’m going to highlight a couple of things.
The first one is for a company in the B2B space that value chain is fairly long and your direct customer is probably not your most important customer.
The second thing is, and I’m a scientist by training so I tend to think that value comes from new products and new technologies, nothing could be further from the truth. It can be a new business model, it could be work process, it could be workflow, it could be packaging, it could be services. It comes in many, many different forms.
The great thing about this business model is you can change overnight and you can be value innovating within six months with this new business model.
FoldedPak (Case Study)
We’ve been looking for, a green material to replace bubble wrap and peanuts.” And they invested in the company.
Five years later they put in \$7 million and nothing has happened. And they called an individual, his name is Brad Finn who’s now the CEO of FoldedPak. He happens to sit on our advisory board and said, “Brad, we need your help. We have to do one of two things, we either close the doors on this mess that we’ve got or we fundamentally change what we do and how we do it. Can you help us?”
He said, “Well, I think I can. Let me come in and take a look.” And he sat down with the people who are running the company and said, “Who is your most important customer?”
Amazon and FoldedPak
I’m going back now to 2013 Amazon came to FoldedPak. How they found out about FoldedPak, I don’t know. And said, “We want to change the way we ship our television sets from our distribution centers.
It was a simple value chain. FoldedPak was selling to distributors. Distributors were selling to manufacturers, a simple value chain. But, under the manufacturing organization, it is not that it is Amazon or that it is HP. Who within HP and Amazon is the most important customer within that manufacturing organization?
In order to answer that question, we ask three questions.
If there’s a problem with your product service of offering who stands to lose the most financially?
Who sees the value? And in the case of FoldedPak, it was very, very simple. It is the VP of operations or logistics has to fix the problem if there is a problem. They lose financially because they got to replace the television set in Amazon’s case and they see the value.
What keeps you awake at night?
Typically, when we’re working with clients, we’ve identified the value chain, we’ve identified the most important customer. We now want to know what are the unmet needs, unarticulated unmet needs or the problems that these people have. And that leads us into a series of interviews, three in all. One hour each. We’ll recruit 12 most important customers, we’ll interview them over the phone, and we will ask them six questions. And this is what the questions typically looked like.
Output of analysis
This is like the output of our analysis, they haven’t seen any of this and that leads us now into a second interview. We go back to the same six pairs and we share with them,...
Business valuation, growth, what drives both with world traveler David Fein cofounder and CEO of https://www.valusource.com/ (ValuSource). David is an entrepreneur, world traveler, and adventurer at age 16 he was the second youngest person ever set foot on the South Pole. To put himself through college, David started and ran a sailboat charter business. At the age of 25, he fulfilled a longtime dream by sailing across the Pacific to Tahiti on a 34-foot sailboat. In 1986, after returning from Tahiti. He cofounded ValuSource. For over 30 years, ValuSource has been the leading provider of business valuation software, data, and services.
South Pole at 16
When I was about 14, I stumbled Sea Cadets, which is like Navy reserve for young guys. And it’s the same exact program that an enlisted Navy guy goes through. You take the same courses, you take the same tests, you learn the same kind of things. You go to an abbreviated boot camp in San Diego. And you also spent time…I was spending summers on tugboats in San Diego and Easter vacations in Port Hueneme in their missile recovery boats, and I spent time in Aegis missile destroyers, at 14, 14 and 15. So, to me, I mean it was so exciting. It was so incredible, I mean, it was like, you know, I was in high school and doing all this incredible stuff. And I was loving it, it was just an incredible experience. And then the Coast Guard open three billets on the USS Burton Island, 300-foot big red icebreaker. It was headed Antarctica. And as soon as I heard that, I mean never in my life did I want something so deeply. I mean it was just, you know, the lights went off, I was excited. And they told me that I couldn’t go because I wasn’t the right rank and I had too many tests in time, and you know, they basically said forget it. And I said, look, you know, let me try. And so, they did. And I managed to pass all the tests and meet the things, and so I got to apply. And to make a long story short, I got selected as one of the three Sea Cadets in the United States to go
Father’s advice
I remember talking to my father and, you know, telling him that, you know, I’m getting to the continent, which is enough of a miracle for a 16-year-old anyway. But what I really wanted to do was get to the South Pole. So, I’ll never forget what he said to me. He looked at me and he said David, you know, never let seemingly difficult things or even seemingly impossible things, get in the way of you putting your heart into going after what you really want. You know what I mean. So, I said, oaky. I mean, you know, what does that mean? He was a big thinker. And so, anyway, to make a long story short, we put together the South Pole project.
Sailing to Tahiti at 25
That feeling in your chest where your dream becomes this fear, you know what I mean, it’s like it’s a little terrifying to think about, to really sailing across… It’s the reality is very different than sort of the romantic vision of being on the boat. So, I remember that moment where they called and the asked, and I remember feeling scared really, I mean wow, okay, this is the real deal, I’m going to set foot on a boat, throw the mooring lines off and not see land for 35 days.
Sailing is sort of 80% tedium, you know, 10% of absolute joy and ecstasy, and 10% terror. And it’s sort of like life.
What is ValuSource
ValuSource has become the leading provider of business valuation software in the world. Everybody from merger and acquisition people that need to do it, people that need to buy small businesses, and there are professionals that need to value businesses. For example, if a company issues stock options or someone passes away and there’s a business involved, or if there’s a divorce and that couple can’t agree on the value of the business, they bring in a professional.
ValuSource-the early days
I graduated college, moved to San Diego and
Business consultant, direction to destination, franchise master to middle market investor, Larry Hay President of HayCorp, a business consulting firm founded in 2003. Larry helps companies identify their core business opportunities and strategically position themselves to take advantage of developing business and consumer trends. Larry was named as one of the Top 100 Executives in Colorado by the Denver Business Journal.
The early years
Grew up in Savannah, Georgia in the south, and kind of, you know, grew up out in the country on the lake. My dad was a barber, you know, and didn’t really necessarily come from business background. My dad did his own his own business, my mother actually owned her own business. She had a Sears distributorship, a Sears store, and a flower shop, and a few other things like that.
First jobs
Wound up getting a job at Radio Shack back in the days when Radio Shack was exploding all over the place.
I grew up through their system, so I was the store manager for a while, and I guess I was 24 when I took over my first district, as they called them. I think I had 30 stores or so, scattered across the southern part of Georgia, and I was responsible for everything. So, I had full P&L [SP] responsibility for all these stores. I opened stores, I hired people, did all the training, took over everything, and pretty much out there autonomously on your own.
I was recruited by Pepsi. I had been with Taco Bell for about…excuse me, with Radio Shack for about 13 years or so, and then Pepsi approached and said…and they were looking for, within Pepsi, in the restaurant division, in Taco Bell, it was [inaudible [00:05:20] a transformation stage. That’s when John Martin had just taken over CEO, and Taco Bell had turned into the chain that we know of today, and had started the price wars in the fast-food business. And so, they were looking for somebody from outside the business, that had a different perspective, to step into this fast-food environment and help them grow and build that business. So, I had just come from an environment where we were expanding and growing, and I did a lot of problem-solving, and went into areas that were either underdeveloped or under-penetrated, or sometimes in turnaround situations. And so, that’s what was appealing to them because, primarily, their group of upper management had all grown up in the fast-food business.
When I took over this…I ran the south, and they were about, give or take, 125 locations or so, and I grew it to a thousand. So, by the time I left, I had a thousand Taco Bells in one way, shape, or form, scattered throughout what you consider the traditional South, and the Mason-Dixon to Texas.
I went to Einstein, then I ran Kinko’s for the Central U.S., and that was really interesting. It was through a transformational stage that Kinko’s was going through.
I went out and I did a technology startup, and it was a home technology integration company with some partners.
I got into the healthcare business, and I was one of the founders of a company called SmartCare Family Medical Centers. It was one of the very first five medical centers to do retail healthcare clinics and services in the country for a decade, I was the operating partner for a billion-dollar private equity firm here in Denver, Colorado, and we primarily focused on middle market to lower-middle market investments in the banking-related side.
Haycorp
I actually have had a consulting firm for…gosh, a long time, 10, 15 years, something like that, that I did in addition to the other things that I had going on. And so, now I’m doing it full-time, and I’m kind of doing the same thing. I’m helping middle-market companies, lower-middle-market companies that are either trying to expand or have operational challenges they’re trying to get around, or just trying to figure out what their place is in the world,...
Train the Brain- learn easier, think faster,perform better at any age; 80 centers, 46 countries with Kim Hanson CEO of LearningRx a Colorado Springs based franchise. Discover if you or your child has a learning challenge, give the gift of brain training so that they can learn better, easier, and faster.
How it started-
Dr. Ken Gibson, a pediatric optometrist who developed the LearningRx process. He really started out wanting to answer a question, and that question was, how can you be smart and still struggle to read?
As a child, himself, he was off the charts when it came to, like, logic and reasoning, and a lot of things that we look at today and know what IQ is, but he really struggled to read. And so, there was this mystery as to how can you be smart and yet struggle? He is a genius at systems and taking research and wisdom from the field, but then making it practical and putting it into, like, this system that he devised.
When did Kim become involved?
When I was two years old, he put me in a high chair and he taught me 800 words off flash cards. We know today that that’s not a good way to do it, but it’s a great party trick. So, when I was four, I became his partner.
Kim’s story-
I loved to draw as a kid, and so my dad also one day said, “You know what? You should make some greeting cards.” So, I went and I worked on it and drew them. And I said, “Okay, here they are, Dad.” And so, we went to the printer. We looked at the different costs. We had them printed up. And I thought, “Great, I have greeting cards.” And then, when we got home, he said, “Well, now you have to go sell them.” I was 9 years old. As a 15-year old, I became the first one-on-one trainer.
He’d always tell me, “You need to come back and work for me. You need to come back and work for me.” And so, when they moved to Colorado, it was just the right timing, the right timing for them, the right timing in my life, and so that’s when I joined. It was about a year before we started franchising. Before that, we just licensed our program to doctors, and specialists, and hospitals.
Realization-
When I trained them, you know, I think the first moment that I realized the power of what my dad’s program, you know, could do in someone’s life was actually when I got to college, because I had trained a lot of students. And I’d seen it in their life, but I remember the first time I had huge empathy was in college. I had a friend, and she would study so hard. She’s study, like, four, six, eight times harder than everyone else.
No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t get the grade she wanted.
Process and Understanding
How does the individual know or even discover that they have a learning challenge, and how do they reach out to you guys, and what’s your recommendation to them?
There are seven underlying skills. Most people don’t know that. There’s also two parts to smart.
There’s what you know, which is what the school focuses on, but then there’s also how you process information. It’s like your attention, and your memory, and how you see things visually, how you process them auditorily. And so, what we do is we look at those seven skills, and we See where someone’s strengths and weaknesses are. And then, we can pinpoint why they’re having a struggle.
What’s difficult about tutoring is that you’re re-teaching what they didn’t get the first time, right? So you’re re-teaching content. But, a lot of times, what will happen is you reteach it and they still don’t get it.
Tactics and observations-
We get a lot of students that have difficulty learning to read, and it’s because they have low auditory processing skills. And you can have logic and reasoning off the charts, but have, you know, have a hard time blending, segmenting,...
http://www.thearenacs.com/ (The Arena), which is a 20,000-square foot state of the art athletic training center where Doug is the current owner and head coach; Doug’s also owned and operated http://www.forbushgoldberg.com/aboutUs-Doug-Goldberg.php (Goldberg Law Center) for over 30 years. He specializes in the Estate and Business Planning Law practice. Doug’s played and coached baseball for more than 50 years, and is currently in his third year as a varsity baseball coach at Air Academy High School.
“I really want to do this…
” And I remember the day that I signed the contract to buy this property and we were just leaving to go on a spring trip with my Air Academy baseball team and thought, “Holy smokes, what have I done?” I got down to New Mexico and I thought, “Huh. This is going to be a real thing.” What had started as a little dream of having the baseball field inside where my kids could hit and take ground balls turned into a 20,000-square foot state of the art training facility.
Some things that your dad taught you, early influences.
You’ve got to have a standard, you have to have some rules, some kind of the rules of engagement, you know, you have to have a bar that’s set, and you can’t waiver, you know, you’ve got to strive for excellence.
My dad was never a guy that had to have 10 things in writing and 6 lawyers look at every document. He basically was a guy that would look you in the eye, shake your hand and say, “That’s the deal.” And when you made a deal with my dad you could put it in the bank. I mean, and so, you know, he was a great man of his word.
“Baseball will tell you when you’re done.”
As a young man, I was done at age 21. You get that letter in the paper (from the Montreal Organization) in the mail that says, “We’re granting you your unconditional release.” You know, I gave that to my dad and said, “what does that mean?” He says, “Well, in the real world we just call it getting fired.” And so, it’s, you know, it’s different but, you know, the game is a game of adversity and…which is a tremendous teaching tool. But it’s also a game of passion and it’s a game that, you know, you’ve got to be smart to play baseball.
“We get a lot of athletes here.”
We train kids that are eight, we train Olympic athletes, we train professional athletes and kind of everybody in between all sports. We have MMA fighters and we have Olympics Judo athletes and figure skaters and people from all walks of athletics and…but I’m really excited for the young people I see walk in and just to watch the light, you known, turn on and shine in their eyes as they go through their sport.
What do you think was the best piece of advice you ever received?
It came from my dad said “Don’t ever let anybody control your life, you know. You control your life. Don’t let them control your calendar. If they tell you when you can get up, and when you can go on vacation and when you have to be there, they own you.”
As a leader, what’s the number one thing that you need to have?
“And I just thought about it for maybe 10 seconds and the word that comes to me is courage. Boy, you’ve got to have courage to be a leader and you’ve got to have courage to be a business owner.”
Parting advice; “The bad times are going to come.”
“You’ve just got to have the courage to see it through and know that, you know…I mean, my personal belief is I’m a Christian and, you know, God’s going to take care of you, God promised never to leave you or forsake you and so, lean on that, trust that, and that’s the best advice I could give.”
Listen in, hear more
You can find Doug at…
doug@forbushgoldberg.com
http://www.thearenacs.com/ (The Arena), 719-428-5466
doug@wherechampionstrain.net
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ThinkTopic with Jeff Rose founder and CEO. ThinkTopic is a tech firm in Boulder, Colorado that was founded a short two years ago combining the latest discoveries of machine learning with expertise and systems engineering. Rather than a typical data science company that might produce some reports or generate some insights, http://www.thinktopic.com (ThinkTopic) builds tools and systems that are meant to empower the business owner.
ThinkTopic …is a machine learning-focused software consultancy technology company that works in a broad range of different types of problems, some computer vision, data science, signal processing, doing some work in biotech, financial tech, kind of real wide range of areas.
…when you create a machine learning model, in essence what you’re doing is writing a program that’s taking in some data and adjusting its parameters based on what data it’s been exposed to so far, with the goal of sort of modeling that data to kind of understand it. Meaning what are the set of states that data can take and what do those states mean.
ThinkTopic …is excelling at, tackling fresh problems that businesses or organizations are facing and they’re maybe not quite sure how to approach it or what types of techniques would be appropriate or how hard of a problem is it even. Is it feasible at all?
Biotech …diagnostic development and in using neural networks and machine learning models to analyze data coming from some of their proteomic analysis technology. So in essence we get results from a very sophisticated blood test that shows the set of concentrations of various molecules in the bloodstream. And then we’re working on developing models to help make diagnostic decisions or predictions or sort of score people based on that information.
Satellite Imagery …so for that project I worked with a GIS consultant and what we did is created a tool where we licensed data from a number of data provider companies, also the Department of Energy, found a bunch of open data, and built a tool where they could, in essence, select Tajikistan and say, “Okay, show us the regions that have at least 10 meters per second of average wind speed at an 80-meter hub height.”
…they could create a constraint like that, and then hit “enter” and it would show the sweet spots on a map. And then they could add an additional constraint and say, “I must be less than this slope and it must be within a certain distance to a road and within a certain distance to a power line and have less than a certain population density,” and so on and so on. And then they could really narrow into the key spots to then actually fly out and investigate.
Cell Phone Network …we were trying to look at usage data from their users in terms of how many calls were they making, how many are getting dropped, are they calling people in or out of network, in-country or out-of-country, potentially even the web of phone numbers that they’re calling, and try to design some algorithms that could help the company to know who is likely to leave next month. … it’s a fairly straightforward exercise to build a model that can take in a data set like that, predict who’s likely to leave given historical data, and then you can train another model that actually learns over time which type of offer is this person likely to benefit most from or likely to stick around because they were offered it.
Great moments …I think that’s something that particularly my brother is great at celebrating, like when we get new stuff working. And in software we’re building things that kind of have lots of moving parts and it’s exciting when you finally turn on a new system and it does the right thing. We really try to celebrate our creations.
Resources mentioned-.
http://www.style.com (www.style.com)
http://www.condenast.com (http://www.condenast.com)
https://clubhouse.io/...
Commercial elevator maintenance business from 67 units on service in 2007 to a little over 1,200 units today with a management team with over 80 years of collective experience; Randy McGinnis, CEO of https://peakelevator.com/ (PEAK Elevator), and Garrett McGinnis, Director of https://peakelevatorfranchise.com/ (Franchise Development) for PEAK Vertical Transportation Group reveal their new franchise opportunity available in the commercial elevator business.
“Rarely do I get goosebumps anymore about a pizza joint or a sub sandwich concept. But Randy, I have to tell ya, I’ve got goosebumps. Because I believe that the timing is right for your pioneering concept within your industry.” Dave Hood, International Franchise Group
The franchise opportunity affords elevator professionals–that’s mechanics, sales associates, and other elevator professionals–the opportunity to own their own elevator business.
“Look, rather than just hire a consulting firm right off the bat, let’s test and prove this theory.”
I think in this circumstance for folks that are listening, the part that appeals to me is that you go from concept to proof.
I always like to know that when you’ve got a conceptual idea, that you really…you put a pilot program together and you beta test, and you pilot this concept.
We believe in our research and our history tells us that there are thousands of seasoned elevator professionals in the U.S. who currently are working for another company. And you know, they’re not satisfied.
The customer. They want that preventive maintenance. They want that customer care. They want that customer service feel that has kind of already vacated our industry.
How many units are there in the United States, do you reckon? Nine hundred and forty five thousand. A unit in the elevator industry is typically defined as an elevator or an escalator, or a piece of equipment that we maintain or service.
To learn more there’s a three-day event, it’s the 9th, the 11th, and the 13th of May 2017, we’re going to offer a chance for them to come in, learn more about the concept, and really unlock some details to figure out if this is something they’d like to pursue.
We dig into all the details about the vertical transportation industry opportunity, I found it fascinating.
To learn more, listen in……
randymcginnis@peakelevator.com
garrettmcginnis@peakelevator.com
http://www.peakelevator.com (www.peakelevator.com)
http://www.peakelevatorfranchise.com (www.peakelevatorfranchise.com)
The post http://businessleaderspodcast.com/commercial-elevator-maintenance-franchise/ (Commercial elevator maintenance business to new franchise opportunity with Randy and Garrett McGinniss) appeared first on http://businessleaderspodcast.com (My podcast website).
Starting over; from a Senior Engineer for 25 locations across the US with a major MSP with responsibility for every deployment and every setup, how Rick grew Technowledge, an IT company, from his basement to 17 employees providing business solutions ranging from network security, deployments and management, systems backup and recovery, cloud solutions, voice-over Internet, network solutions, firewalls, as well as connected solutions to the Front Range of Colorado.
The post http://businessleaderspodcast.com/grow-successful-it-company-basement-success-rick-murphy/ (Growing up twice, from senior engineer to basement to success; how to grow a successful IT company with Rick Murphy) appeared first on http://businessleaderspodcast.com (My podcast website).
Growing an agency, doing it the right way, from 7 to 29 employees and two locations in Alamosa and Colorado Springs, Colorado; leadership insights from Dan Bowers owner of a top Colorado independent insurance agency CIA-Leavitt, which provides exceptional long-term value to its clients through expert advice and creative solutions and uncommon service for risk management insurance and employee benefits.
The post http://businessleaderspodcast.com/danbowers-cia-leavitt/ (Growing an agency, doing it the right way, from 7 to 29 employees and two locations with Dan Bowers.) appeared first on http://businessleaderspodcast.com (My podcast website).
As the business owner of Builders Appliance Center from 2005 -2015 and now Managing Director at Aspenwood Capital, Ken has a strong record of spearheading change, increasing revenue, and improving employee productivity and morale as well as navigating the challenges of the 2008 housing collapse. He is skillful in creating and implementing creative marketing strategies to solidify strong customer relationships. Ken Jensen has over 30 years of management and leadership experience. His career started in the financial industry as a Bank Manager and Loan Officer. Then, as General Manager of the largest branch of a large international company, his team had the highest sales and profit numbers in the industry.
The post http://businessleaderspodcast.com/cfo-buying-selling-business-key-insights-ken-jensen/ (128% sales growth at BAC Appliance key growth insights Ken Jensen) appeared first on http://businessleaderspodcast.com (My podcast website).
Buying or selling a business? Dan reveals key insights that owners and buyers need to know prior to selling or buying a business today. Dan co-founded a mergers and acquisitions firm, built and sold several software technology firms, was a senior executive for a fortune 500 company responsible for an online e-commerce and a catalog business which sold more than 10,000 products; he currently is the Managing Director of IBG Business in Denver, Colorado.
The post http://businessleaderspodcast.com/buying-selling-business-dan-roth/ (Buying or selling a business critical considerations before doing either with Dan Roth) appeared first on http://businessleaderspodcast.com (My podcast website).