BizSchool

This week, we're chatting with Sandy Bradford, Director of Business Development at Lifesigns. This successful Memphis-based medical practice provides prevention-focused medical exams. At Lifesigns, they believe that employee wellness is essential to business health and go above and beyond to ensure that. In fact, they provide nearly 1,000 medical exams a month while saving businesses money and employees' time!

Building a great team is one of the most critical aspects of a successful service-based business! This week, we're talking to Ben Buffington, the President and CEO of Hi-Speed Industrial Service. We'll be talking about the fundamentals of a successful service-based business, the qualities to look for in top-performing employees, and creating a management team that'll knock it out of the park every time. Ready to dive in? Give a listen to one of our best episodes for business leaders to date!

Networking and real estate go hand in hand.

This week, Biz School is all about education! Leigh Mansfield is an award-winning educator who currently serves as the president and CEO of Junior Achievement Memphis.  This groundbreaking organization is dedicated to educating students about entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and workforce readiness through hands-on experience.  In this episode of Biz School, Alex and Leigh discuss the importance of education and the many ways leaders can help educate the next generation in their very own communities!  Be sure to tune in for this informative episode and learn more about the impact you can make through education! 

We spend a lot of time talking about gaining leads, but what about when the leads come to you? This episode of Biz School is all about closing deals! This week, I'm talking to Scott Hansen, founder and CEO of LeadSigma - a company that ensures that every inbound lead gets a call and helps your team know when and how each follow-up happens.  When it comes to closing a deal, Scott has what you need. Before LeadSigma, he developed Professional Chats - a company he grew to 150 employees - before selling to Ruby Receptionists.  If you're ready to dive in, let's get down to business! Tune in to the newest episode of BizSchool and find out the key to closing inbound deals. 

Want the most concise view of what happened in orthodontic practices in 2020? We've got it in this special episode of Biz School! Alex welcomes Ryan Moynihan of GAiDGE to discuss aggregate data collected across 1,500 orthodontic locations last year. What was the trend with new patient calls, consults, new starts and more? Watch this episode to find out!

This week on BizSchool, I'm sitting down with Jean McGhee to talk about all things growth. A number of things go into building a successful brand, and Hollywood Feed hits the main points off the bat. With exceptional customer service that has fans raving and quality, American-made products on almost every shelf, Hollywood Feed is thriving in a time when retail stores are closing around the country. Check out this week's episode to learn everything from what goes into choosing a new dog food brand to how Hollywood Feed adapted their strategy while dealing with COVID-19.

If you've ever found yourself wondering which areas of SEO you should focus on and what factors make it most successful, this episode of BizSchool is for you!    Join Alex for a fascinating conversation with SEO expert Adam Heitzman, who was named as one of Forbes' “Top 15 SEO Gurus You Should Know” in 2015. Adam's agency has also been recognized by respected SEO publications like Search Engine Land and U.S. Search Awards.    Alex and Adam go deep into what makes SEO work, and also discuss why knowing a client's needs is the key to producing exciting results.

With a cold snap happening all across the country, it's the perfect time to settle in with a steaming cup of coffee and check out the latest episode of Biz School! Listen in as Alex chats with Troy Watts, a former member of the U.S. ski team and current ski instructor in Breckenridge, Colorado. Episode 8 is all about TEAMWORK—Alex and Troy discuss building a solid team from selection to retention, what business owners can do to encourage excellence from every team member, and how important it is to identify leaders on your team and empower them!  

We're bringing a whole lot of Memphis grit and grind to the sixth episode of Biz School! I could think of no better example of the true Memphis hustle than my friend, Jerry King of King Limousines. From driving across the country 15 years ago to purchase his first limo, he now runs a fleet of high-end, high-demand limos and party buses. We talk about how how he built his business after leaving a job at Marriott, and how covid has affected business (and how he has made it through). And it sounds like his secret to success is actually something his mother taught him from the time he was little. If you like stories about someone with an idea working hard day after day to make their dream a reality, you don't want to skip this episode! Also, stick around at the end for a few great moments once the cameras shut off, but the conversation with Jerry kept rolling!

The importance of branding can't be overstated, but it's also something a lot of small businesses get wrong. In episode 7 of BizSchool, I'm getting down to the brass tacks of branding with graphic design expert Curt Crocker. A Memphis native, Curt has helped develop over 300 brand identities through his work with Landry's Inc. and our very own Neon Canvas, where he is the current Senior Art Director.    Curt specializes in branding and using graphic design to give businesses an identity all their own, so don't sleep on this episode if you're starting, purchasing, or rebranding a small business! Check out this essential installment of BizSchool to learn how to successfully develop a brand identity that stands out in a crowded market. Don't forget to subscribe to keep up with the latest episodes!

Welcome back to BizSchool! In episode five, I'm sitting down with one of the top legal minds in Memphis to discuss some of the legal pitfalls that can come with business ownership.  Robin Rasmussen of Dinkelspiel Rasmussen & Mink, PLLC has been named a “Top Memphis Lawyer” for 10 years in a row by the Memphis Business Journal. She's also a “Top Rated Employment & Labor Attorney in Memphis, TN” according to Thompson Reuters. Did I mention she's also my mom?  Like it or not, understanding the legalities that come with owning a business can be crucial to your long-term success and financial well-being. Investing in an experienced attorney to guide you through legal considerations can pay dividends over time!  You put your heart, soul, and finances into your business. If you want to protect what you've worked so hard to create, don't miss this important episode!

On the fourth episode of BizSchool we're going full Jerry Maguire to show you the money! Some call it the root of all evil, some say it makes the world go 'round, but there's no denying that money is essential to running and growing a business of any kind. I'll be talking with my own banker, Bill Freeman, who has been an integral part of my own business growth and success. Bill breaks good and bad debt down into bite-sized basics, and we'll also chat about how you can set your business up for success with a great banking partner. You won't want to miss out on this important episode!

On the 3rd episode of BizSchool, With Alex Rasmussen, I am going to be teaching you how to build meaningful relationships. Today we have an incredible duo in Judy and Mickey McLellan from Crye-Leike, realtors here to give us insight about how to build relationships and turn into business.

BizSchool w/ Alex Rasmussen Guest: Dr. Kyle Fagala  Wednesday, April 22   INTRO Alex: Welcome, here it goes, this is the 2nd episode of BizSchool, With me, Alex Rsmussen, where I am going to be teaching you all things business.    On this episode I am going to pick up right where I left off in the 1st episode, telling my story and what led me to where I am today. We will wrap up that story today when I bring in my business partner in both Neon Canvas and Signature Advertising, Dr. Kyle Fagala.    The cool part about this story is that I was also on the ground floor of Dr. Kyle's other business, Saddle Creek Orthodontics, which he started back in 2012 and has grown into a multi location and multi million dollar operation.    He runs that practice with his amazing wife, Anna and I am proud to call Kyle, a friend, confidant and the yin to my yang businessman, yang.    On the show tonight, we will discuss…  My Digital Marketing Career How Dr. Kyle and I met What led us to start Neon canvas Why we decided to purchase Signature What the future holds for our businesses   So let's get right back to it. When we left off in episode 1 I was telling you why I thought digital and online marketing was going to be and is the future of commerce.    I saw this coming as far back as the early 2000s, sold my first website in 2001 and by 2010 I was a full-time business consultant teaching companies how to leverage digital marketing.    I was still in my 20s yet I was well into my professional career consulting to business owners that were easily twice my age.    But I had what they did not, which was a native relationship to technology and social media. New media as it was called back then now commonly referred to as digital marketing.    The reason I was so passionate about digital marketing was because I realized that unlike traditional marketing, you could easily track ROI (return on investment) with digital marketing.    So by 2010 I was mastering how to drive traffic into a website then convert that traffic into dollars for my customers. I certainly was not the first one doing this but I was learning from the best. I self-taught myself SEO with Google's Webmaster Guide. Now called Guidelines and they literally gave me the damn book on how to rank sites on SEO.    I was also one of the first advertisers on facebook ad platform. I was neck deep in this stuff everyday, trying to get every advantage I could get so that I could build a career on this knowledge and expertise.    I knew from day one that I wanted to have my own book of clients that I was helping achieve their marketing and sales goals and that in return I could have the career I knew I was destined for.    The skillset I did not want to acquire was coding. I tried it, I was good enough at it to be dangerous but I was not a designer and so I found that the User Interface was lacking and I needed to work with other professionals and bring our strengths together to create these websites that would do everything I needed them to do.    They had to rank well on google, they had to convert, they had to look great and function well, load quickly and have great copy.   This was not a job for 1person yet every website was being built by 1 or 2 people. A guy that could code but whose designs were terrible or a designer who had a great eye but didn't know how to code or convert traffic into dollars.    So after working to perfect this for a couple of years I approached a guy in my hometown who I thought was building great websites. I called him up out of the blue, told him who I was and what I did and asked him if I could come build the digital marketing division of his company.   After a long interview process and I think much trepidation on his part, I don't want to speak for him but I think history will bear that out, he offered me a job.    It was a fair offer and ultimately I would be rewarded for the success and revenue I was able to generate. I started with this company in 2012 and by 2016 I was selling and managing over 2 million dollars in annual revenue.     The company had tripled in size, I had an awesome team, close to 100 clients and  my career was humming along quite nicely.    (Here is where I want @Kyle to come onto the screen by simply turning on his camera.)   One of those clients was Dr. Kyle Fagala, an Orthodontist in Memphis, TN.  I had 5 or 6 other clients who  were also Orthodointist, scattered throughout the country that were working with me based on the recommendation of Dr. Kyle who we will bring onto the show now.    Kyle was not getting anything from me to refer these folks to me, other than the occasional donut run for his team or a night out, on me, to see our favorite team, the Memphis Grizzlies. Kyle was referring his peers to me because what we were doing together was working and folks in other markets around the country wanted in on the secret sauce.    I want to introduce Dr. Kyle Fagala to my audience. First and foremost Dr. Kyle is a great friend to me and many others, he is a devoted father and husband to his 4 beautiful children and wife, Anna. He is a man of great faith and he is an incredible businessman. He is an Orthodontist, that means he is really smart, and has a bunch of degrees and is also a pretty decent drummer, from what I have witnessed.    Kyle, thank you for being here with us.    Here is the thing about our relationship that I want people to know.  Dr. Kyle has a set of skills in marketing that are not my strengths. I have a set of skills that are not his strengths but when we first combined our strengths and worked together with our teams to bring our ideas to life, big things started happening. We were able to formulate ideas, test them, and use our monthly strategy and planning sessions to formulate high ROI marketing campaigns. This was at a time when I was simply a consultant for Kyle and we had no plans or inclination that we would ever start a business together. But eventually we decided to create Neon Canvas together and I want you to tell everyone, why that was.    Kyle Selfishly, I wanted to have an agency that could market my practice through my vision and that agency did not exist, even though the situation Alex and I were in was great, there were still too many decisions that we weren't able to make for one reason or another that was slowing us down.      Before we go  too much deeper into Neon Canvas, I want you to talk about your first business, Saddle Creek Ortho Tell me about the humble beginnings (No patients, working an associate job to pay, big debt etc) When did you start to see that this was going to grow much faster than you had anticipated? What are the top 3 things to led to your success? How did you handle the growth? What were some of the challenges Talk about your KOL development in Orthodontics  Tell me about Saddle Creek Ortho now Team, Revenue, Locations How has Covid-19 affected your business.        Obviously I am very proud of you and what you have accomplished with Saddle Creek and I am very happy for the role that you have let me play. Let's get back to Neon canvas.  We had joked before about starting a marketing agency together but when I approached you and said, I am doing this, are you in? What went through your head?  Did you think about saying no?  What were your fears? Why did you ultimately say “yes” Talk about from an Orthodontist owner view, how is neon built to take care of your practice's marketing needs?       Did you ever think that Neon would grow as fast as it has?  What has attributed to that success?  Talk about owning and being heavily involved in more than one business? How do you overcome the struggles? How do you balance it all? How do you know when to say “no”       Early in 2019, I approached you with an opportunity for us to acquire another agency, Signature Advertising. Talk to me about what made Signature attractive to you and why we ultimately decided this was an investment we were going to take on.  Kyle, I don't know how you do it, you own 3 companies, you host a wildly popular Podcast, TDO Live!, you are heavily involved in your church and community can all look to you for inspiration.      Before we let you go...   Let's end the show with something fun, I am going to give you 3 things.  You have to choose the one you want, the one you will discard and the one you will give away. Here we go:    Your 3 things:  1 Million Dollars Top of the Line Drum Set  Immortality CLOSING I want to thank Dr. Kyle Fagala, my friend, my business partner, for coming on with me today. Please join me on the next episode of BizSchool, when I will be joined by my favorite power couple, Judy and Mickey McLellan. Judy and Mickey will sit down with me to talk about how they have built their business with strong  relationships and savvy marketing. I promise you won't want to miss it, so please, subscribe to this podcast, share it with your friends and do me a quick favor...click on those 5 stars and help us grow this podcast. Thank you, that is all for this episode and the rest,  the rest is history. 

I'M Alex Rasmussen, CEO of Neon Canvas and Signature Advertising, I am also a real estate investor... I am a business man and this is BizSchool, your digital classroom that will take you behind the scenes and gives you insights from the inside. This will be unlike any thing you have ever listened to. I a going to give away the secrets that other people say I am crazy to tell. But I am the man of the people and I won't be stopped.  There are dozens of majors you can get from a university in the Business School but none of them are going to teach you anything about the real world of running a business. I got one of those business degrees hanging on my wall but the most important thing I got of business school was not the knowledge as it was the relationships. It take a serious commitment to get a degree in anything and if you want to be a great business person, you need to place learning at the forefront of all you do.  You don't get out of school and know everything that youre going to need to know to succeed in business.  So I created BizSchool to give you insights and information that I have learned during my 20 year career.  We will dive deep into marketing, sales where I made my mark but also into every aspect of running a business. Planning, Management, Finance, Skill building, Technology, HR, Culture, Health and Safety, Employee motivation.  I will bring on experts and leaders that I have built relationships with through the years that have helped me in my businesses and can also help you in yours. We will leave no stone unturned and we look forward to this journey together.  From Neon Canvas and Signature Advertising, this is BizSchool w/ Alex Rasmussen. Subscribe now on Apple Podcast or your favorite listening app and please...share it with your friends. 

In this inaugural episode of BizSchool, we're exploring my origin story and how it led to me making the leap into digital marketing. From teen dad to CEO, you'll learn what happened throughout my twenties that inspired me to start my own agency and expand into real estate.