Management Blueprint

https://youtu.be/7kbdcPkeCuY Alanna Levenson, Business Coach and Workshop Facilitator, is on a mission to help driven business owners reach their highest potential through self-awareness and no-excuses action. We explore Alanna's coaching journey and her Executive Improvement MAP, a framework that guides entrepreneurs to elevate their mindset and mission, align strategy with values, and build legacy-driven, profit-focused teams. She outlines how leaders can reclaim their focus, lead with intention, and foster quiet influence by becoming profoundly self-aware. Alanna also shares the three critical questions business owners should ask daily to stay on a growth path. --- Build Your Team's Self-Awareness with Alanna Levenson Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And my guest today is Alanna Levenson, business coach and workshop facilitator who helps driven business owners reach their highest potential and take no excuses action. Alanna, welcome to the show. It's good to be here. Well, I'm super curious about how you do that with these business owners, even though they are driven, which is a good given. But let's start with my favorite question. What is your personal “Why” and what are you doing to manifest it in your practice? Yeah. So, the question of our “Why.” I mean, I asked that of my clients too. It's an important one, because if we don't know what it is, then in essence, we're directionless and we're disconnected. So when I think about that, I reflect back at when I was very young and I was introverted and very shy and didn't really feel like I had much of a voice. I was also very insecure. And there were things that I did throughout my life, like I studied dancing, which was more of a physical expression than a verbal one. But I did it in a very committed way for, I mean, I could say from when I was four until I was 18, but I even did it in college. So really my “Why” is about connecting with yourself, finding confidence, knowing your voice, and what does your voice wanna say?Share on X And that will evolve throughout your lifetime because what my voice has wanted to express or is currently expressing is very different than even who I was just a few years ago.  So, my “Why” is really reflecting and connecting with who you are, understanding that we are evolving living beings. And we're having this incredible experience and that we're not the only ones on the planet. So, since we're constantly bumping up against other people in life and in work, how can we be the best that we can be while also supporting others and being the best that they can be too? Yeah, okay. That's, that's pretty powerful. Be the best we can be and make other people the best that they can be as well. I love it. So how do you do this? How do you help your clients kind of map out a roadmap to get there? So what does it take to be the best you can be as a business owner as you are traversing this terrain and trying to be in the business and be a better human? Well, I've been coaching for 20 years, and even my journey with coaching has evolved over time. My clientele has evolved. The “Why's” have evolved within the clientele as well. And where I am now, it's about giving people, it's not so much a framework as it is guardrails. And then there's a very intuitive, organic, custom process within that, that I work with people on. But if we're talking about a roadmap or the word MAP, as an acronym, I am using that as a framework. So what do I mean by that? So the M, if you think of that in terms of your mindset and your mission, if I was to sum that up, it's about reconnecting to your purpose, your “Why.” It's reclaiming your focus. So what I've noticed about people is they tend to get very distracted and it's easy and it's becoming quote unquote easier to get distracted these days, especially because of so many things happening in the world and the world changing so fast.

https://youtu.be/Me3XLCOh1iM Carla Fowler, MD, PhD and CEO of THAXA Executive Coaching, is driven by a mission to help ambitious leaders perform at their best by applying the principles of performance science. We explore Carla's journey from scientist to coach and explore her Performance Framework, a science-based model that guides high achievers through four core areas: strategy, execution, mindset, and physiology. Carla explains how strategic clarity and resource prioritization drive focused leadership, and how physiological resilience and mental perspective are essential to long-term success. She also shares how she applies scientific tools to coaching engagements to help leaders build empowered teams and make high-quality decisions under uncertainty. --- Tap into Performance Science with Carla Fowler Good day, dear listeners, it's Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And today my guest is Carla Fowler, who is an MD, a PhD, and also the CEO of THAXA Executive Coaching, which helps CEOs and executives with clarity, focus, growth, and support using a proprietary process based on performance science. So welcome to the show, Carla. Thanks so much, Steve. It's really fun to be here chatting with you. It's exciting to have a scientist who is also a coach because I love to combine the two and to have the scientific approach in coaching. I'm trying to do the same thing, but I'm sure I'm not mastering it to the degree that you are. So I'm all ears of how that works. But let's start with my favorite question for guests, which is, what is your personal “Why” that drives you to do what you're doing and how are you manifesting it in your practice? I love that you asked this question, Steve, because I think taking this moment, like there are often a lot of different “Why's” along the way, but for me, I think in reflection, one big “Why” was that as a young person growing up, I always looked out at the world and saw there were a lot of things you could go do. There were exciting goals that you could set for yourself. And I wanted to figure out how to go do that. That was just a very pure sort of desire that even as a young person I had. And I also was very interested, I mean, I certainly had some talents, but I wanted to know like, what could someone do? What did someone have control over? To have more agency in your life as you were trying to navigate and do all of that. And so I think for me, how this manifest was number one, an interest in science, like approaching things scientifically, because certainly my coaching practice, I look at performance from a scientific standpoint, which is to say, what are the principles that really guide how we perform and how it is received and what results we get that has nothing to do with our talent? I mean, we get whatever talent we're born with and we don't really get to control that. But when we think about performance scientifically, now we're talking about things that anyone could access that might help them improve their leadership and I really liked that idea.Share on X Like it motivates me not just for myself to say, well, these are principles I can access, but also to say, these are principles I can share with other people. And regardless of what talent they were born with, we could use them and apply them in day-to-day life and work. That would be really helpful to them. And to me, that just feels like motivating. It feels inclusive, and that's my “Why.” Wow. Okay, so let's dig in and see how that works. So these scientific principles, so how do you connect it to the work at hand? So you're talking to a CEO or an executive, you're trying to figure out what they need to do to perform better. How do you apply principles? Like you observe what's going on and then intuitively some principles flash into your mind and then you say, okay, that would work here or you have a process that you walk people through?

https://youtu.be/_FFUS8tb-b4 Michael E. Gerber, author of The E-Myth Revisited and over 35 other books, is driven by a mission to transform the state of small business, entrepreneurship, and economic development worldwide. We explore Michael's origin story and the moment that sparked the E-Myth movement, including his revelation that most business owners don't understand their own businesses. He shares how his intuitive and soul-driven approach led to the creation of the first business operating system and the now-iconic principle of “working on your business, not in it.” Michael introduces his Eightfold Path Framework, built on the eight discrete personalities of an entrepreneur: The Dreamer, Thinker, Storyteller, Leader, Designer, Builder, Launcher, and Grower. We also discuss his Dreaming Room methodology, the Radical You 5-year entrepreneurial school, and how AI is enabling the creation of 199 vertical-market E-Myth books. --- Awaken Your Inner Entrepreneur with Michael E. Gerber Good day, dear listeners. So guess who I have here as my guest today. After five years, we finally got to the day when I can interview Michael E. Gerber, who is the author of the E-Myth Revisited, E-Myth Mastery and 35 other best-selling books that have sold over 5 million copies in 30 languages and 150 countries. Michael was the original mastermind behind the concept of the first business operating system back in 1986. And he coined the idea of Working On Your Business, Rather Than In Your Business, which idea touched at least 100 million entrepreneurs worldwide. So Michael is also currently the founder at age 88, almost 89. He is the founder and CEO of the Michael E. Gerber companies, owning programs including Gerber Works, Radical You, Become The One, and The Dreaming Room most recently, and he owns the rights to 35 E-Myth books. So Michael, without further ado, welcome to the Management Blueprint Podcast. I'm delighted to be here. Thank you, Steve. I'm so excited because really, I read your book back in the early 2000s. I got immediately smitten. I actually started a side business trying to implement your system without any training from you, which unfortunately was not successful. So I had to close down my side business, but we definitely implemented it in my own business. And I was just very enamored. I also got a dog-eared copy of E-Myth Mastery, which is like a big volume, and I kind of went through all the ideas there. And finally, to have you be a guest is a great honor, and it's a very exciting day. I'm delighted to be here. Thank you. So, Michael, I'm going to start with my favorite question, even though you are like a super guest here, but tell me about your personal “Why” and how it influenced your life and how it got you where you are at age 88, almost 89, still going strong, still being an entrepreneur. So, what was that “Why” that you had and have? Well, I have said it so many times, it's to transform the state of small business worldwide. To transform the state of small business worldwide. I can almost dance to it because that is what I've been working on all these years. And in the heart of that is to transform the state of entrepreneurship worldwide. And in the process of accomplishing each of those to transform the state of economic development worldwide. Because were I capable of doing the first in order to do the second, I would absolutely achieve that result, economic development worldwide.Share on X And within that resides the spirit of all that, but you know all about that. Well, I mean, I know as much as you've written down and as much as you told me, I definitely know that part. I don't know what's going on in your mind because you're still being creative. You're still developing programs, which is amazing to me. I like to be like you when I get to your age. It's definitely awesome. So tell me about the beginning. What prompted you to write the E-Myth?

https://youtu.be/rRK1UIE-9nQ Nick Warner, seasoned business coach and host of the Together at the Top podcast, is on a mission to help leaders and emerging professionals align their values, careers, and impact. We explore Nick's Managing Up Framework: What's in it for them, Preferred Cadence, Preferred Channel, Prioritize, and Make It Convenient. Nick explains how to adapt communication to busy executives, navigate different leadership styles, and influence without authority. He also shares the mindset shifts needed to coach effectively, why humility is non-negotiable, and how soulful leadership fuels high-performing teams. --- Learn How to Manage Up from Nick Warner Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast, and I'm excited to have today on the show, Nick Warner, who is a seasoned business coach with over 4,000 sessions under his belt, but he also was the managing partner of a lobbying firm in California for a couple of decades before that. So, lots to bring to the show. Nick, welcome. Thank you for having me, Steve. I really appreciate it. Well, it's great to have you. You've got some good information and a great career and lots of experience. So let's dive in. My favorite question for guests is, what is your personal “Why” and what are you doing to manifest it in your practice? Yeah, great question. My personal “Why,” I hope this doesn't sound cheesy, this is a second career for me, is I really want to help people. I want to help them find the highest level of confluence of what they want in their life, in their career or their companies. So I'm really motivated by helping. I'm not sure I knew that until I got a little bit further into it and it started to like affect my soul, a more scientific way to say it. You realize it's their families and their stress environments and their kids' college accounts, and you may end up mattering in their lives. So, I really enjoy helping people in that regard. Yeah, I mean, coaching is a high leverage activity. You touch people who are multipliers, especially when you're in business coaching and that's a pretty awesome aspect of it. So if I multiply the 4,000 with the number of people touched, it's probably more like 50,000 something. It's funny you say it that way because when I was an employer directly, I would think about my staff of 25 times and I'm making this up a little bit like an average family of four and I would think of it in my sphere of responsibility was 100 people. So if I have an agency, I have a public sector agency where there's a thousand people that working in it, there's four, they have different titles, but essentially vice presidents. And I urge them to think about 4,000 people. There are very small number of us in this room and we can really impact people's lives. So yeah, I use that same similar multiplier when I think about it. Yeah. That's pretty awesome. You're probably undercharging for your coaching, talking about this. I doubt it. Some might disagree. All right, so let's switch gears and let's talk about your framework, because that's also pretty interesting. You developed a framework about something that a lot of us struggle with. I no longer struggle with it because I don't have anyone that I report to other than my wife. But I know that when I was working for big companies, it was very hard to manage up to get your bosses to actually not complicate your life and not want to second guess you and to exert your influence when you didn't have authority for it. So what is that process? What is that framework, The Managing Up Framework? Can you walk us through please? Yeah, for sure. I want to thank you too, because when you asked me the question about, do I have a framework? I said, no. And then you asked me to just talk about it. And when you played it back to me, I realized I do have a framework. So, I appreciate it. You actually really helped me a lot in my conversa...

https://youtu.be/rADiqnrhgrk Adam Coughlin, Co-founder, CMO, and Managing Partner of York IE, is on a mission to help startups beat the odds by building strong, capital-efficient brands that resonate with their markets. We explore Adam's Drumbeat Marketing Framework:Messaging & Positioning, Develop Unique Point of View, Execution, and Scorekeeping.He shares why brand consistency beats shiny-object syndrome, how vertical AI is redefining SaaS, and why startups need to balance storytelling with measurable impact. Adam also explains how to foster entrepreneurial thinking early and why founders must lead with a deep sense of purpose. --- Run Through Walls with Adam Coughlin Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And my guest today is Adam Coughlin, co-founder, CMO and managing partner of York IE, where he works with startups on foundational messaging, content, communications, go-to-market strategy, website and digital marketing, revenue operations, and corporate storytelling. Welcome to the show, Adam. Yeah, thanks for having me, Steve. Appreciate it. Yeah, you guys are really a full-service shop. You do almost everything. So tell me, how are you guys unique, and what is it that makes you a superior solution for people? Yeah, absolutely. So the founding team of York IE, we all work together at a company called Dine here in New Hampshire that did the domain name system. And we built that company to about a hundred million of annual recurring revenue, got acquired by Oracle. While we were inside of Oracle, we kind of reflected on the growth journey that we took at Dine. And we felt that a lot of the legacy institutions that we turned to for growth help, whether that was our investors, our advisors, our vendors, they were operating out of antiquated models so that were really good for them, but not necessarily for us as the operators. And so that's what we wanted to disrupt. So in 2019, we launched York IE. We are an advisory and investment firm. So we help technology companies grow. We do that through investing in early stage exclusively B2B software companies. And then because we were operators, we also built a strategic advisory firm that does strategy and execution across the functional areas of R&D, go to market and G&A. Because we feel like we want to roll up our sleeves and help companies be successful.Share on X Yeah. So you're basically investing companies that advise them, help to improve them, and some you just advise them and don't invest. So it's a combination. Combination. Exactly. Right. And I think in addition to the advise, it's really important to get across that we do the execution because that is where companies need help. Especially early stage companies. A lot of those teams are small, they're dynamic, they have a good strategy, they just need help and take some things off their plates and we're there to help them with that. Sounds great. So that leads to my question. What is your personal “Why” and how are you manifesting it in your business? Yeah, absolutely. I think this is a great question. And my personal “Why” is I love entrepreneurs. I think that they are both visionary and builders and that they are pursuing their dreams in the effort to create something and build something that makes the world better. And I think that if they build good companies, then they hire good employees. Good companies have impacts on communities. Good companies build wealth.Share on X But unfortunately, the numbers are stacked against them. A large majority of startups fail, and I don't think that needs to be the case. And that's what I want to try to impact. If we can lower those numbers a little bit and help more founders and entrepreneurs succeed, then we're going to have a really positive impact on things because of all the good things that come from that success. Yeah, well, I couldn't resonate more with that.

https://youtu.be/wn9XOB_H-as Dave Molenda, Business and Sales Coach, Speaker, Best-selling Author, and Host of the Positive Polarity Podcast, is driven by a mission to help business owners grow intentionally by strengthening their teams and delivering exceptional customer experiences. We dive into Dave's journey and his ST+ICE=P Formula, which stands for Strengthen the Team + Improve the Customer Experience = Profit. Dave explains how focusing first on internal team engagement leads to outstanding customer experiences, which then fuels sustainable business growth. We also discuss lessons from his book Growing On Purpose, why most businesses grow by accident rather than design, how to spot hidden blind spots, and when letting go of the wrong customers is the right move for your company's health and future. --- Cover Your Blindspots with Dave Molenda Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint podcast. And my guest here is Dave Molenda, who is a business and sales coach, speaker, best-selling author and the host of the wonderful Positive Polarity podcast. Dave, welcome to the show. Hi, Steve. how are you today? I'm doing pretty good because I'm meeting you, so it's already injecting some positivity in my day. Well good, I'm honored to be hanging out with you and thanks to you for being on our episode 260. I loved our question, “does your business have Covid?” That was a blast. So that was a great episode. So, for anyone listening, if you wonder if your business has Covid, I'm not going to tell you anything else other than head over and listen to Steve's answer to that question. It was awesome. Well, hopefully your business doesn't have Covid because it's a potentially lethal malady. Exactly. For sure. But it was, it really was a fun episode and we created a lot of snippets that we put on our website, so we definitely are excited about it. Awesome. But we're not going to talk about this because we are going to talk about your stuff and what you are doing because it is at least as good, if not better, and we are going to dive into your frameworks, your book and all your experiences, your “Why” and all that good stuff. So, are you ready? I'm ready. I got my seatbelt on. I'm all set here so we can go as fast or as slow as you want. Okay, so let's fast track into my favorite question. What is your personal “Why,” Dave? And how are you manifesting it in your practice and in your business? Yeah, for sure. I tell you, it's interesting, Steve. I love the name of your podcast, using a blueprint as a framework, because I can't believe how many people start and try to grow a business without a blueprint, without some kind of framework. So I love unpacking that with you on my show. But my “Why” is for all the people that are out there that are so good at what they do, they're good at their craft, they're good at their skill, whether it's building a house, whether it's selling something, whatever it is, making something, they're so good at that. But boy, they struggle when asking the question about, how do I grow this business? How do I create a team? How do I develop this team? How do I make this a long-lasting business? So my “Why” is really coming alongside of those people. Again, genuine people, really good at what they do, but they very often are struggling with what to do once they have gotten to the end so far.Share on X They've asked all their neighbors and friends, they've asked all their acquaintances to buy whatever they have. I don't know about you, but we get inundated with all the Girl Scout cookies from all your friends and family. But rarely do you get a knock on the door from somebody that you don't know. So my whole goal is to help businesses that are struggling, that want to grow. And so we come alongside them and help them again and create a blueprint different than yours. Our blueprint a lot of times involves the customer.

https://youtu.be/wn9XOB_H-as Dave Molenda, Business and Sales Coach, Speaker, Best-selling Author, and Host of the Positive Polarity Podcast, is driven by a mission to help business owners grow intentionally by strengthening their teams and delivering exceptional customer experiences. We dive into Dave's journey and his ST+ICE=P Formula, which stands for Strengthen the Team + Improve the Customer Experience = Profit. Dave explains how focusing first on internal team engagement leads to outstanding customer experiences, which then fuels sustainable business growth. We also discuss lessons from his book Growing On Purpose, why most businesses grow by accident rather than design, how to spot hidden blind spots, and when letting go of the wrong customers is the right move for your company's health and future. --- Cover Your Blindspots with Dave Molenda Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint podcast. And my guest here is Dave Molenda, who is a business and sales coach, speaker, best-selling author and the host of the wonderful Positive Polarity podcast. Dave, welcome to the show. Hi, Steve. how are you today? I'm doing pretty good because I'm meeting you, so it's already injecting some positivity in my day. Well good, I'm honored to be hanging out with you and thanks to you for being on our episode 260. I loved our question, “does your business have Covid?” That was a blast. So that was a great episode. So, for anyone listening, if you wonder if your business has Covid, I'm not going to tell you anything else other than head over and listen to Steve's answer to that question. It was awesome. Well, hopefully your business doesn't have Covid because it's a potentially lethal malady. Exactly. For sure. But it was, it really was a fun episode and we created a lot of snippets that we put on our website, so we definitely are excited about it. Awesome. But we're not going to talk about this because we are going to talk about your stuff and what you are doing because it is at least as good, if not better, and we are going to dive into your frameworks, your book and all your experiences, your “Why” and all that good stuff. So, are you ready? I'm ready. I got my seatbelt on. I'm all set here so we can go as fast or as slow as you want. Okay, so let's fast track into my favorite question. What is your personal “Why,” Dave? And how are you manifesting it in your practice and in your business? Yeah, for sure. I tell you, it's interesting, Steve. I love the name of your podcast, using a blueprint as a framework, because I can't believe how many people start and try to grow a business without a blueprint, without some kind of framework. So I love unpacking that with you on my show. But my “Why” is for all the people that are out there that are so good at what they do, they're good at their craft, they're good at their skill, whether it's building a house, whether it's selling something, whatever it is, making something, they're so good at that. But boy, they struggle when asking the question about, how do I grow this business? How do I create a team? How do I develop this team? How do I make this a long-lasting business? So my “Why” is really coming alongside of those people. Again, genuine people, really good at what they do, but they very often are struggling with what to do once they have gotten to the end so far. They've asked all their neighbors and friends, they've asked all their acquaintances to buy whatever they have. I don't know about you, but we get inundated with all the Girl Scout cookies from all your friends and family. But rarely do you get a knock on the door from somebody that you don't know. So my whole goal is to help businesses that are struggling, that want to grow.Share on X And so we come alongside them and help them again and create a blueprint different than yours. Our blueprint a lot of times involves the customer.

https://youtu.be/VsYNJyvLhJQ Devin Sizemore, Connector, Consultant, Speaker, and author of Connection Expansion, is driven by a mission to help entrepreneurs unlock opportunity by building meaningful, leveraged relationships that drive growth. We explore Devin's journey into connection strategy and his creation of the Connection Expansion Framework, a system designed to help business owners stop chasing prospects and instead build a thriving network that brings opportunity to them. The framework includes five key steps: identifying connectors to your target market, asking to be introduced, building strategic partnerships, saturating your niche, and staying top of mind through long-term follow-up. Devin explains why most entrepreneurs overemphasize referrals and underestimate the value of partnerships, events, and collaborations. He shares how to reduce friction in introductions, build authority in niche communities, and turn warm relationships into a consistent flywheel of growth. He also discusses his book Connection Expansion, a tactical guide to putting this system into action. --- Expand Your Network with Devin Sizemore Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And today my guest is Devin Sizemore, who is a connector, consultant, speaker, and author of Connection Expansion. Devin, welcome to the show. Steve, thanks so much for having me. Been looking forward to this conversation. Yeah, I've been looking forward to it too, especially since I read, I'm through about halfway through your book, Connection Expansion, and I found it fascinating, so let's talk about it. But first, let's start with your personal “Why” and how you are manifesting it in your business and businesses. Definitely. I love that question. I think a lot of people aren't aligned with their “Why,” and so I love that you start there. My personal “Why” is my first core principle that I share in the book, which is always add value. So everything I do, I focus on how do I add value to others, whether that's just people I'm meeting, whether that's clients, whether that's your listeners, I'm always focused on adding value. And so everything I do, every decision I make has to align with adding value.Share on X And if it does, great. If it doesn't, I'm probably not interested in doing it. That's a good principle to live by, to always add value. I had a client who had one of their core values was always add value. It was a consulting company and I thought it was very appropriate. So let's talk about your book, Connection Expansion, which describes your unique networking system. So my question is what prompted you to write a book about networking and about the system? Yeah, again, another great question. I've been doing consulting for 15 years. I've owned a bunch of companies and the core of it has always been connections. But where I think we're a little bit different and where I'm different is I have the ability to be a visionary. So what do I think I wanna create, but also being tactical. So grounding that into an actual system. Seven years ago, I really focused on connections. A couple of hundred clients later, and we've proven the system works. And so writing the book was kind of the last step of that process with me going through and really documenting the questions, the follow-up, the cadence, the templates, the whole system in a way that I could share it easily with the world.  And then I work with a lot of book clients with one of my biggest clients. And so the combination of, I want to do it, and I'm watching all these people have success with books kind of led to me going, hey, it's my turn to do this and I need to share it with the world. Okay. And why is it important to build a network, to have lots of connections? Maybe it's a stupid question, but I'm still curious. No, it's a great question because depending on what your goals are currently, the answer is different.

David Anderson, Founder of Off Madison Ave and Lighthouse PE, is passionate about helping people and companies thrive through leadership coaching, board service, and team development. We explore how David helps companies build high-performing teams using his High-Performing Team Framework, which includes: psychological safety, a learn and grow mindset, the chemist mentality, and attention to team dynamics when introducing new members. David also shares lessons from his book Leader is not a Title, emphasizing that true leadership is about influence—not hierarchy. We talk about building trust, breaking silos, and knowing when to evolve as a leader. --- Build High-Performing Teams with David Anderson Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And today I have David Anderson with me on this episode, who is the founder of Off Madison Avenue and Lighthouse PE, two companies that are now doing their own thing. And he is spending his time sitting on boards and doing leadership team coaching as an executive coach, business coach. He's also the author of Leader is Not a Title, which actually has a very cool cover. You have to read it closely to really see what is the title, what is not the title. But we can get into this later. So David, welcome to the show. Thank you very much. Thanks for having me on today, Steve. Absolutely. And let's start with my favorite question. What is your personal “Why” and what are you doing to manifest it in your practice and perhaps in your businesses as well? Yeah, awesome. Great question to kick it off here this morning. My personal “Why” is to help people and companies thrive. I have been very blessed over the years to had a lot of things go my way, be lucky. Believe me, I've had my fair share of rough times and screw-ups and bad businesses, but overall, I'm very fortunate. And as you mentioned early on, I am the founder, technically CEO of two companies, Off Madison Ave and Lighthouse PE. I'm not involved day-to-day with those anymore. And I really am helping people and companies thrive now by working as an executive team coach. I really focus on building high performing teams. As we all know, you can have the best strategy in the world, but if you don't have the right people, it doesn't really matter. I do speaking on this topic and a few other things and also sitting on boards of directors, helping companies really thrive. So it's all about helping people and companies thrive. Love it. Well, okay. So help us and help our listeners thrive as well. And so let's talk about this thing that you mentioned, the building high performing teams. I totally agree. A company is really a group of people committed to a cause. And if they're not thriving, then the company is not thriving. So what does it take for a business owner or CEO to build a high-performing team? What are the steps? What is your framework on this? Well, there's a few things. There's lots of factors that get you to a high-performing team, but a high-performing team is one where everybody's roles are extremely clearly defined. People know how to interact with each other to accomplish the common goal, the strategy, the vision that they're going to. There's no silos. Many organizations get caught in silos. They keep it from being a high-performing team. They know how to communicate with each other. 95, I would even say maybe more percent of our challenges are poor communications, lack of communications that get us in the way from ensuring that we are a high-performing team. My most favorite analogy of that, I don't know how many of your listeners out there are race car fans, maybe race cars once in their life, whatever, but think of a pit crew for a Formula One, IndyCar, NASCAR race. The driver actually is very important, just like a CEO, chair of achieving goals, winning the race, but it doesn't happen without the pit crew. And the pit crew is the best example I have been ab...

https://youtu.be/ogf58Yalix8 Dr. Sharon Spano, Executive Coach, Business Strategist, and author of The Pursuit of Time and Money, is driven by a mission to help leaders realize their fullest potential and elevate their impact across business, family, and community. We learn about Sharon's journey helping high-performing leaders navigate stress, growth, and transformation through The Awareness Elevation Framework. By guiding them to witness themselves, build awareness, observe patterns, and shift behaviors, Sharon empowers deeper personal and professional growth. In this episode, Sharon unpacks the 12 stages of adult development and reveals why many leaders plateau early—despite external success. We explore how awareness creates lasting change, and how the “emptiness of success” often mirrors one's inner relationship with time, money, and life. --- Become a Self-Aware Leader with Dr. Sharon Spano Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And I have today Dr. Sharon Spano, Executive Coach and Business Strategist, and the author of The Pursuit of Time and Money. As my guest, Sharon, thanks for joining me on the show. Thank you so much for having me, Steve. I am looking forward to this. Yeah, I am very curious about what you're bringing to the table. You have some original ideas on executive coaching and business strategy. But let's start with my favorite question. What is your personal “Why” and what are you doing to manifest it in your practice? Well, that's a very big question. The “Why” is all about helping people realize their fullest potential. And the reason that it's so important to me is because I have seen just so much damage across the country and across the world from individuals who have been under poor leadership. And I really believe that leadership is just a very important part of our economy and how businesses are run. And so anything that I can do, the primary focus is to help leaders as I've moved into this other stage of my career, really help them discover and uncover some of the things that are holding them back, even though they may be successful. I find there's always something more that they're looking for so that they can be better leaders for themselves, their families and their businesses. Yeah, I think it's such an overlooked idea that leaders are multipliers. And when you coach a leader and you make them better, then you improve the quality of not just the family, but their employees and the employees, and they are happier then they're going to help the customers and their family. So it's a real force multiplier that you do when you coach your leaders the right way. So this podcast is a podcast of frameworks, and I'm always after frameworks, as you know. So I'm wondering about your framework that you could share with us. We talked about a three-stage transition framework for entrepreneurs. I don't know if that's the right title for it. Can you talk a little bit about this framework? I operate, as most of us do, I think, from many frameworks. The primary framework that I use is grounded in human development because I believe that's a very important part of how we become more effective leaders. Many people don't understand that the stages of human development are exactly that opportunity. But if we wanted to boil it down to some of the things that you and I talked about, we talked about being able to witness oneself, have that awareness of awareness, and then to look at how to leverage opportunities for growth so that if something is going on in your life, for instance, it might feel like it's very, very challenging, it is actually an opportunity to move into another stage of development. And then to look at what is the best option to get there, because sometimes, we're not able to do that on our own. We need other people to walk alongside of us. And that's why I believe the coaching profession has grown in the way that it has...

https://youtu.be/RaLbPGZBOEU Seth Tillotson, CEO and Founder of Your Business Consultation, is driven by a mission to empower everyday professionals to become confident entrepreneurs and business owners. We learn how Seth's journey—from launching service businesses to helping others transition from 9–5 roles—inspired his purpose. He shares his framework, The 7 Profit Improvement Areas, which helps entrepreneurs uncover hidden revenue and boost profitability by focusing on: Lead Generation, Conversion Rates, Closing Rate, Client Retention, Increasing Average Sale, Increasing Sale Frequency, and Cost Reduction. He also explains how to use squeeze pages to accelerate conversions, outlines the Captivate–Fascinate–Educate–Close method, and discusses how entrepreneurs can avoid the trap of staying busy instead of being effective. --- 6 Figures to Your Profit in 60 Minutes with Seth Tillotson Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And my guest today is Seth Tillotson, the CEO and founder of Your Business Consultation, and an investor in multiple retail-oriented businesses. Seth, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Steve. I'm excited to be here. All right. So you're a very young entrepreneur to be on the show in general, but that's great because you're bringing a different perspective, you're bringing a different energy, and you have certainly big ambitions and already a good track record. So, tell me a little bit about your personal ”Why,” what is driving you, and how are you manifesting it in your business? Sure. So, my personal “Why,” it comes from a feeling that I got. I'll tell you a specific story. The first time that I helped somebody transition from a nine to five employee to their own business owner. So, I, at one point, owned a booth rental hair salon and I encouraged everybody to have their own business as they rented the space from me. I came across a young lady who was timid and shy working a nine to five that wasn't really being treated the best at that salon. And so I said, you know what, if you come over and rent a booth, then I'll sit down with you for as long as it takes and we'll set up the whole LLC, get your registration, EIN, taxes, all that fun stuff, insurance, all of it. It took about four hours, but by the end of it, I could tell that she was feeling confident in having her own business and excited to have her own brand and be able to choose her own hours. If there was a specific service that she didn't want to offer, she didn't have to. I had no rules other than to keep the space clean and sanitary, pay the rent on time, that's it. So, about a year later, I had an interview with her and I sat down and asked, how's it going? And just the glow from her eyes and the body language, everything, it's so different. It was confident, it was inspiring. And the feeling that I got from doing that, from being a part of that transformation, the only thing that I can think of it is akin to when I was flying helicopters. And so, like the feeling of that freedom and the responsibility, I guess, it lit a fire in my soul. I'll put it that way. And I knew then that this was one of my sole purposes, something that not only am I good at helping people with that transition and answering all their questions, but it's something that I feel like I'm here to do. Love it. That's a very inspiring story. And I mean, hey, entrepreneurship can be life changing for sure. It probably is life changing. Now, not all the time for the better, but it's definitely if you embrace it, then it can make your life much more autonomous and rewarding. So, you started offering this service and, in fact, on your LinkedIn page and website you talk about a 60-minute conversation with an entrepreneur and you basically look at seven different areas in their business and you offer to identify at least six figures of profit improvement, which is quite a bold claim. So,

Andrew Amann, CEO and Co-founder of NineTwoThree Studio, is driven by a passion for building great products and embracing the entrepreneurial journey alongside his team and clients. We learn about Andrew's journey as a founder and his philosophy of finding joy in the process. He introduces The AI Operating System, a practical framework that helps companies adopt AI with clarity and speed. The system begins by building an internal knowledge base, then moves into deploying simple AI agents to automate repetitive tasks, and culminates in managing these agents through a Super-Agent that orchestrates workflows and interacts with external systems using natural language. --- Build Your AI Operating System with Andrew Amann Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And my guest today is Andrew Amann, the CEO and co-founder of NineTwoThree Studio, an AI consulting agency, building products for funded startups and established brands such as Consumer Reports, NPR, and Experian. Andrew, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Steve. It's a pleasure to be here. Great to have you. And I will start with my favorite question as always, what is your personal “Why,” Andrew, and how are you manifesting it in your business? Sure, so we've been at this for 12 years, and I believe that many entrepreneurs would answer that question depending on the year that they're in. As you grow, my personal”Why” originally was to build the biggest company to be on the tallest building in Boston and to have the logo basically replace Fenway Park. And that dream has has sailed. I don't think I'm interested in that anymore. It seems aspirational and I think necessary when you're starting a company to have those levels of aspirations and dreams because you have to run through things that most people wouldn't and you have to achieve things that most people would give up on. So the journey of entrepreneurship, I've discovered that my “Why” is to be part of the journey. I've read a lot of books recently, basically around the philosophy of the process of like Siddhartha is a great example, or The Alchemist, or even Life of Pi. That's been my last year of inner research about what I want to be when I grow up. And what I discovered in all three of those books is the journey is what matters, the story is what matters, and the process of success, the process part is what matters. And many entrepreneurial friends, they sell their business and they lose that aspect of their lives because they forget that the process was what was fun. The ability to learn, the ability to grow, and the ability to be part of the team is what I truly admire. So when I was asked this question in a CEO group, they said, Andrew, what do you want to do next? I said, I kind of want to do the same thing I'm doing now. And they said, well, who do you wanna work with? And I said, the teammates that I currently have. And they said, well, what type of clients do you want? And I said, the clients we currently have. And so I think my “Why” is just kind of living in the moment, being part of the process, being successful, but also supporting the teammates that we have so that they can be prosperous, that they can find their purpose. They can be great problem solvers, but they can also be great providers for their family. And so my “Why” is to support that journey and that process that we're going through right now. Wow. Okay. Well, you look very young for having such a wise “Why,” but it's good. You shortcut the process. I do agree that the journey is the destination, perhaps. It definitely is very important. And as an investment banker, I can testify that sometimes you saw businesses for people and then they fall into depression because they lost their identity. They didn't know how to recreate the success that they were having along the way. And so that's pretty awesome. So having said that,

Alistair Gordon, CEO of Expertunity, is driven by a mission to empower technical experts to reach their full potential by mastering enterprise skills that elevate their impact. We learn about Alistair's journey into expert development and his creation of The Expert-ship Model, a framework that helps technical professionals move beyond subject-matter expertise to become influential leaders within their organizations. The model outlines nine core capabilities across three domains: Technical, Relationship, and Value—ranging from solving complex problems and transferring knowledge to collaborating across teams, engaging stakeholders, understanding the business, and leading change. --- Supercharge Your Experts with Alistair Gordon Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And my guest today is Alistair Gordon, who is the CEO of Expertunity, a new global enterprise dedicated to helping technical experts everywhere reach their full potential. Alistair, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Steve. Thank you for the invite. It's great to have you and learn about this opportunity for experts, how to get them to reach their full potential. So, let's start with your personal “Why,” your personal mission, and what are you doing to manifest it in your business? So, over many years, I've worked for lots and lots of organizations, Steve, in many roles as a leader and as a consultant to lots of businesses. And mostly my prominence, if you like, is leadership development. Sort of topics that your podcast covers, very relevant and very familiar to me. But along the way, sort of 10 years or so ago, we discovered this large group of people who weren't really being developed, technical experts most of your listeners will, I'm sure know one or other of these people, highly technical, they might be in finance, they might be in IT, whatever. And they're technically brilliant, but they're very stuck and frustrated, and not really fulfilling their potential and not necessarily having a fully fulfilling work life because they're technically brilliant, but they're missing some of what we call these enterprise skills that really help them add value at 2X, 3X to their organization. So having spotted the gap, we've done lots of research. We've worked with thousands and thousands of them now over the years and feel like we know them really well, Steve. And the most fulfilling part of this is that once you show a technical expert how they can be a better expert, they attack it with military precision and they really lean into it. And both themselves and their families and the organizations they work for get just extraordinary benefits from them really leaning in and making the difference they know they can make. And why do you think, Alistair, there is this gap? Is it not natural to not have the gap or is it the difference between the entrepreneur who develops a multifaceted approach to the expert who is more of in a silo and they just never got the chance to develop it. Why does that happen? Is this the corporate environment that takes care of it? I mean, it's absolutely the right question, Steve, from my perspective, because the answer is, as you might expect, multifaceted. So if we just look at it from the organizational perspective, most large organizations, even medium organizations, I know a lot of your listeners are, will have someone responsible for developing talent, but 281: Supercharge Your Experts with Alistair GordonShare on X They even have a model called the 9-Box Grid, which most large organizations use to establish who is high potential talent and they are the people who get spent lots of money on them developing their skills and what have you. And the definition of potential for most organizations is the ability to lead more people in the future. So it's people leadership orientated and what have you. And in a 9-Box Grid,

https://youtu.be/8qOmMjL008Y Want to become a more adaptable and effective leader? In this episode, Kevin Eikenberry—trainer, author, podcaster, and founder—shares powerful strategies from his latest book, Flexible Leadership. As a leadership expert dedicated to helping organizations, leaders, and individuals unlock their full potential, Kevin reveals how to flex your leadership style to navigate uncertainty, make smarter decisions, and empower your team. --- Flex Your Leadership with Kevin Eikenberry Good day dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And my guest today is Kevin Eikenberry, a trainer, author, podcaster who's empowering organizations, leaders, and individuals to fulfill their potential through transformative and effective learning strategies. Kevin, welcome to the show. Steve, I'm glad to be here. Thanks for having me.  Well, I was excited to have you because you have some really cool ideas about leadership and how to make it flexible, which is what the people need. I mean, it cannot be one size fits all solution. But let's start with my favorite question which is, what is your personal 'Why' and how are you manifesting it in your practice? Well, I am fortunate that my personal 'Why' is directly connected to our organizational 'Why'. I suppose when the company has my name on it, that's a privilege. We are in the business of helping leaders to be more effective because we know that if leaders are more effective, we can make the world a better place.Share on X So ultimately, that's our goal. As you introduced me, we talked about helping people reach their potential, and that means people as humans and leaders. If we can do that for leaders, then leaders can help unleash that in others. Yeah. So there's a multiplication going on there and that's a great opportunity, but also a great responsibility. A Hundred percent, for sure. I mean, when I think about leadership in general, Steve, that I think about those two things, right? Leadership is a tremendous responsibility, right? If we're a people leader, a capital L leader, we have positional power, people are watching us. We have the responsibility to make sure that what we're doing is modeling what we want from others. We have the responsibility of setting goals and outcomes that are desirable to reach.Share on X We have a responsibility to help our people get to those things and build their skills and confidence. All of that is our responsibility, and when we do those things, the opportunities that we have to make the world a better place, our organizations more effective, our team members more satisfied and more committed to their work. All comes with that, 100%. Love it. I love it. So, let's talk about your brand of leadership, because you developed this concept of Flexible Leadership. So can you explain to our audience what you mean by Flexible Leadership? And then what is your framework around it? Because you also have a framework that you developed around it. All of this is related to my new book, Flexible Leadership: navigate uncertainty and lead with confidence. And so let's start here. What does it mean to be a flexible leader? To be a flexible leader is to be a both and leader. Too many folks think, well, I'm either this or I'm that. I'm either going to do this or I'm going to do that. Intention plus Context plus Flexors equals being a flexible leader.Share on X And so intention says, I'm willing to, I'm open to the fact that the 'How' of my leadership might need to change. That's how I do it naturally, or my first inclination, or my style, or my habit might not always best serve us. So the intention is to recognize that, hey, number one, flexibility is useful and valuable. And number two, intention to say in this moment, perhaps I need to flex. It's both a mindset and a skillset and the skillset comes from the other two components. But if we don't have that mindset right,

https://youtu.be/Fka2npq2Kjg Marcus Hamaker, CEO of [bu:st] USA, is driven by a passion for helping small businesses find their pursuit of value by simplifying projects, optimizing processes, and streamlining operations for sustainable growth. We learn about Marcus's journey from growing up in a family business to leading [bu:st] USA, where he applies lean principles to help organizations improve alignment, communication, and execution. He explains the 5 Steps to Finding Value framework—Organizational Alignment, Communication, SOPs, Change Management, and Project Controls—guiding businesses to remove inefficiencies and drive sustainable growth. He also shares how the Boost Method ensures teams operate with clarity and purpose, emphasizing fastest time to value as a key metric for success. He highlights key leadership lessons and the mindset shifts entrepreneurs need to scale effectively. --- Pursuit Value with Marcus Hamaker Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And my guest today is Marcus Hamaker, the CEO of [bu:st] USA, a consulting firm that helps you simplify your projects, optimize your processes and streamline your organization. He is also the host of The Pursuit of Value Podcast. Marcus, welcome to the show.  Hey, Steve, how are you? Thanks for having me.  Yeah, I am super pumped to have you. It's going to be a great episode and we are going to start as usual with the 'Why', because that's what powers great entrepreneurs. They have a strong 'Why'. So what is your personal 'Why', Marcus, and what are you doing to manifest it in [bu:st] or any of your businesses? Yeah. So, my personal 'Why' is just to make companies better. Ever since I was younger, growing up in the family business, watching my dad work hard. I'm very intrigued by business and it's really interesting to me why one business can succeed exponentially and another business really struggles to get off the ground. And so what we do at [bu:st] USA, what my podcast is about, The Pursuit of Value, is really helping small businesses be better.Share on X Real simple. And I also believe that small business has the power to change the world. I believe that business is and can be the greatest force for good in the world today because of just the entity and the formation of it. Also, not only what you can do with your employees internally, but how you can embrace the environment that you're in. Wherever that's in Italy, whether it's here in the United States, you have the ability and the responsibility and the opportunity to impact wherever your business sits. And so I really love small business.  Yeah. And small businesses are always exposed to market forces and there's no way to take it easy and you always have to strive to be competitive and make a profit and definitely is a powerful force for reducing waste. And I'm making this point because one of the things that [bu:st] does is to apply Lean principles. Tell me a little bit about the [bu:st] method that your company, your group developed, and how do you bring in Lean?  Yeah, so when we talk about Lean, it really has to do with value and it has to do with defining what is valuable to the company. So what's valuable to a manufacturer might be very different to what's valuable to a service company, right? So in our [bu:st] method, we always want to start with defining the future picture. What is success to that company? Or more simply, what is the solution to the problem that they're running into? So you define the future picture, you define the targets, you build the roadmap.  And through that whole process of defining the value, you also want to throw out what's not valuable. And that's where it lines up with Lean. And we always really try to focus on making every step, every process as efficient as possible. And that's what's really important. And that's what we do really well at [bu:st] USA. 

https://youtu.be/LvorRF-e2UQ Lawrence Armstrong, Chairman of Ware Malcomb, is driven by a mission to help leaders layer their leadership by integrating creativity, strategy, and empowerment to build resilient, innovative organizations. We learn about Lawrence's journey from architect to CEO, how he transformed Ware Malcomb into a leading international design firm, and why he developed the Layered Leadership framework. Inspired by architectural design, he explains how leadership, like architecture, involves synthesizing different layers—Light, Sound, Emotion, and Thought—to build strong, visionary organizations. He shares how leaders can apply these 4 Layers of Leadership to inspire teams, create strategic clarity, and drive sustainable growth. He also introduces the Visible Light Spectrum metaphor for business diversification, discusses the importance of fostering a culture of innovation, and offers insights on making tough leadership decisions. --- Layer Your Leadership with Lawrence Armstrong Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast, and my guest is Lawrence Armstrong, Chairman of Ware Malcomb, a leading international design firm. He's also an accomplished business leader, architect, artist, and the author of Layered Leadership. Larry, welcome to the show. Oh, Steve, thanks. Thanks for having me on. Well, what a bio, what a CV. I'm proud of having you on this show. So, we'll get into all of what you are doing, but let's start with why you're doing it. What is your personal “Why” and what are you doing to manifest it in your different business, and I guess authorship is part of artistic activities? Thanks. Well, I think I wrote the book and pretty much everything else I'm doing right now is trying to help people. We had a great time building our company and I'm involved in a lot of other pursuits at this point. Some of the ideas and the creativity we brought to leadership I thought could really help people build their organizations. So, let's plunge right in. When you talk about leadership, what is your experience about it, and what made you want to write a book about it? Yeah, I think that I have a little bit of a different take on leadership than maybe most people do. So that's why I wrote it. The idea behind Layered Leadership is this conceptual idea of the way I see the world. Architects think of layers when they design space and buildings and different aspects of a building. And so I've sort of tried to expand that thinking to different concepts and different inspirations and how we can utilize inspirations in our life and turn them into strategies to build an organization and to inspire growth. And so using that creative thought, whether it be a business, a concept in a business book or a metaphor for a physics lesson from high school or a discussion about the example set by Leonardo da Vinci, would bring different ideas together and synthesize those into strategies to build an organization.Share on X And so I feel like it's a little different take on this idea of leadership. So, what does layered leadership look like? I mean, are there like figurative layers that you have to build in order to be a great leader? How does it work? Yeah. So it's sort of the baseline of, first of all, understanding your company and where you want to go and what you're trying to do. And then inspiring your people to help build it. And so, the various aspects are understanding your company, what it does, what it does not do, I think is very important. And then how you want to expand it, how you leverage and encourage your people and empower your people to help get there, and how you build those people and how you encourage them by empowering them and training them, and then just infusing different concepts that inspire in a creative way to build up. So, Larry, in our earlier discussion, you told me that this layered concept or layered vision,

https://youtu.be/etlBrw4WKGw?si=NxtN4Gg1iZ02nmgV Ron Monteiro, Keynote Speaker, Facilitator, Trainer, and Author of Love Mondays, is driven by a mission to help professionals discover their purpose, build fulfilling careers, and burn their boats to fully commit to meaningful work.  We learn about Ron's journey from a finance executive to an entrepreneur, speaker, and author, and how he embraced the Ikigai framework—a Japanese philosophy for finding meaning in work. He introduces the Path to Entrepreneurship Framework, a four-step approach that helps individuals transition from corporate life to a career they love: Find Your Purpose, Build Your Bridge, Burn Your Boats, and Flex Your Muscle. Ron shares insights on overcoming fear, learning to say no, and balancing financial stability with the pursuit of passion, while also exploring the mindset shifts needed to create a career where every day—not just Mondays—feels meaningful and exciting. --- Burn Your Boats Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And my guest today is Ron Monteiro, keynote speaker, facilitator, trainer, and the author of Love Mondays. Ron, welcome to the show. Thank you, Steve. I'm very excited to be here. Well, it's exciting to have you. You have a very interesting career coming across the world to be here with us. And you also have some interesting frameworks that you're using. So, let's start with what drives you. What is your personal “Why?” And what is this Ikigai process that you mentioned on social media and your posts that help people find theirs? Yeah, I want to rewind. Like I'm a big proponent of purpose and life work and things like that. Many years ago, I would be shaking my head because I wasn't clear on my purpose. So, I've done a lot of work and a lot of personal development work that a lot of it talks about how do you start with what is your “Why,” what is your purpose? Simon Sinek, as you've mentioned. And my purpose now is I get a lot of joy from helping others. So, the way I've phrased it, how do I help myself and others love Mondays and every other day? And I think it connects to my book, which talks about how do you love Mondays? So today's a Monday that we're recording, and every other day. And then Ikigai is a beautiful Japanese concept that talks about people who don't even have a word for retirement. They love what they're doing so much, and it's connected to their life purpose.Share on X So, Ikigai is a framework I love. There's a whole book on Ikigai, if anybody's interested, which asks four simple questions. “What do you love to do?” is the first one. And this is something we journal. So let's say five years from now, what I love to do might be slightly different than today. So it's not a fixed destination. It's one of those iterative processes. So, you start with “What do I love to do?” The second is, “What am I good at?” So for me, I love teaching and I think I'm pretty good at it. I've done it for a while now. So, what do I love doing? The third is “What does the world need?” Okay, so if I continue with my example, I think the world needs people to teach them things. So, for me, one of my favorite topics to teach is soft skills and story time because I really struggled there. I landed a company that helped me overcome my fear and now I teach it for a living. So that in itself is a “Why” for me. And then the fourth question is, “What can you get paid for?” I know inflation and all these things are coming into play. So, if you can answer those four questions and it's right in the bullseye, right in the heart of those, and think about four circles, concentric circles. If you find something that's in the middle there, it's your Ikigai, it's your reason for living, it's your reason for waking up on a Monday and every other day. And that's, to me, a lifelong journey. And if you hit any of those two questions in isolation,

https://youtu.be/Q6-OaKXD2hU Rob Levin, Chairman and Co-Founder of WorkBetterNow, is driven by a mission to help small and medium-sized businesses find top Latin American talent and scale efficiently. We learn about Rob's journey from his early passion for entrepreneurship to launching WorkBetterNow, a company that connects SMBs with skilled professionals from Latin America. He explains the hiring process his company has developed—from sourcing top-tier talent to precision matching and seamless onboarding—allowing business owners to delegate more effectively and focus on growth. He also shares insights on the challenges of hiring in today's market, the importance of building a strong company culture, and why core values should guide every aspect of a business. --- Find Latin Talent with Rob Levin Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast, and I welcome Rob Levin, Chairman and Co-Founder of WorkBetterNow, an agency that provides high-performing talent from Latin America for small and medium-sized businesses. Rob, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, Steve. Great to see you. Great to see you, and I'm excited to have this conversation. So let's start with my favorite question. What is your personal “Why” and how do you manifest it in your business? Since I was a kid, I always loved the world of entrepreneurship and more importantly, entrepreneurs, business owners. My dad, while he didn't start his business, he did end up owning a business. And I just remember even going with him, as a teenager, to meetings with his accountant and asking his accountant questions about other businesses that they were involved with. And I was reading Inc. Magazine as a kid. And I've always thought of business owners as one of the groups of heroes of this country, along with first responders and military members, what they do, what they go through, and what really is the output of all of that, the effects. Almost all of my career has been spent helping small businesses in one way or another. I started my career as an accountant, and even though I was at a big firm, I was working with the owners of closely held businesses. I was an executive in several fast-growing small businesses many years ago before I started my own, my first company, which was the New York Enterprise Report, a media company for business owners, and then now with WorkBetterNow, this is what I love to do, is to help business owners fulfill their dreams. That's awesome. So, what was the moment that led you to starting WorkBetterNow, this business that you're in right now? Well, I'll give you the medium-length story. So, I hired my first assistant maybe 11 years ago, and having the right assistant changed my life. I mean, I was not doing the work that I shouldn't have been doing. I had more free time to spend on higher value activities, more free time to spend with my family and friends, and it just changed my life. And because I know a lot of business owners, I mean, hundreds, if not well over a thousand, a lot of people were asking me about my assistant. They knew she wasn't in the office with me and she was remote from Latin America. And I was employing her through this other company based in Latin America. And at some point I said, you know what? I can do a better job than these guys are. And I won't go into the details there, but I was then in Portland, Oregon, and a friend of mine from college met me there and we were having drinks. And I said, hey, I think I'm going to start this business for, at the time, it was different than what it is today. It was just providing assistance to business owners. We believe every business owner should have an assistant. I mentioned this to my friend A.C. and he said, I'll do it with you. And that was 2018 and we've been off to the races ever since. That's exciting. And this is an exciting time to grow a business with virtual assistants. With Zoom,

https://youtu.be/NPxN5HDgqHs David Shavzin, President of The Value Track, is driven by a mission to help business owners know and make their number when exiting their companies—maximizing financial returns and securing their legacies. We learn about David's journey from corporate leadership to founding The Value Track, where he helps business owners strategically prepare for and execute their exits. He explains the What's Your Transition Looks Like Framework, which guides business owners through understanding the M&A process, estimating transferable value, refining their advisory team, conducting due diligence, and enhancing business value before a sale. He highlights the importance of early planning, maintaining business momentum, and avoiding common pitfalls that can derail a successful exit. --- Know and Make Your Number with David Shavzin Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And my guest today is David Shavzin, President of The Value Track, which helps business owners set out an exit strategy and then sell their companies by optimizing price and sale terms so that they can monetize their life's work. David, welcome to the show. Thanks, Steve. I appreciate you having me. Looking forward to it. It's great to have you and we have good topics to talk about. So let's start with my favorite question. What is your personal “Why” and what are you doing to manifest it in your business? Yeah, for me, it really has been helping people. That's sort of number one. And of course, we tend to do that in the way that we know or our background or our experience. So for me, that has come through decades of working in the business world, more generally, a lot of large organizations, and so helping the smaller business owners and the smaller companies in that lower bid market, I get to be pretty rewarding for me. Well, definitely, you're projecting that enthusiasm about helping people, which is awesome. So what was the defining moment that led you to starting your business? It's interesting. It came really at the tail end of my large corporate career and was transitioning out, looking at what I wanted to do exactly. And early on, ended up helping a friend with their business, just kind of went in to see what was going on. And I realized that while they had a good business, they'd been working really hard, they did not have all that help around them for either maybe outside advisors. They didn't have all the resources in all of the companies that I've had, the experience. And there was so much that they could be doing to make that company run better, stronger, faster, more valuable. And that kind of triggered it for me. And I just got engaged and started working more with, like I say, those smaller companies because there was just so much I could bring to the table. That's really what kicked it all off. Yeah. So you basically helped them with their exit and you actually have developed the process to do that because it can be quite complicated. There are many moving parts. So what does your transition framework look like and can you walk our listeners through what you do when you meet with a new client and kind of help them figure all these things out? Yeah, it really starts out, Steve, with just a lot of conversation. We want to understand not just the business in depth, but what their personal goals are. So they've been often at this business for 10 years or 20 years, 30 years, and haven't taken the time often to think about, okay, what's next whenever that is? What do they really want out of, I'll say, the company, but also out of life after that? Some people might go that traditional retirement route. Some people might be thinking about another business venture, but they're just kind of running day to day. So we want to understand what those goals are, when they want out, how much money they might need, what they want to have happened to the company,

https://youtu.be/5i_RE9C7KLY Dr. Karen Hills Pruden, Founder and CEO of Pruden Global Business Solutions Consulting and the Sister Leaders Community, is driven by a mission to increase the number of women in senior leadership and help them go from intrapreneur to entrepreneur with the tools to sustain long-term success. We learn about Karen's journey from struggling to find mentorship in middle management to breaking into senior leadership and founding organizations that empower women professionals. She explains the Learn, Practice, Teach Framework, a structured approach that helps professionals transition from intrapreneurship (working for others) to entrepreneurship (leading their own ventures). She also introduces the Professional Equity Model, emphasizing relationships, reputation, and expertise as key drivers of career and business success. She highlights the power of mentorship, strategic growth, and continuous learning in building expertise and staying competitive. Go Intrapreneur to Entrepreneur with Karen Hills Pruden Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint podcast. And my guest today is Karen Hills Pruden, the founder and CEO of Pruden Global Business Solutions Consulting and the Sister Leaders Community, a global community of exceptional men and women leaders of every generation committed to increasing the number of women in senior leadership. Karen is an expert in empowering businesses to build high performing leaders, and the author or co-author of, wait for this, 32 books. Karen, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. I'm excited about this conversation. Well, I am excited too. I've never met such a prolific author as you are. So, let's start with your “Why,” because someone like you, I'm sure, has a very powerful “Why.” So, what is your personal “Why,” and what are you doing in your practice and in your business to manifest it? Absolutely. So my “Why” in helping women professionals acquire and sustain themselves in senior leadership has to do with a pain point that happened in my career about 16 years ago. 16 years ago, I was in middle management, had lingered there for about a decade and I wanted to go into leadership, but I did not know of any senior leaders who happened to be women. And so at that time in my career, LinkedIn was about five years old. I jumped on LinkedIn, I did some research, looked for women leaders who look like me, African American, who were in a vice president position and who had been in that position for at least a decade because I wanted a mentor. So I got my two, number one and number two choices, shot off a direct message through LinkedIn with a copy of my resume with the request for mentorship. And then they made me wait about two weeks. And then at that two-week mark, my number one selection came through and said she will be glad to be my mentor for $350 an hour. Now, back then, I wasn't rolling like that so $350 an hour was a lot for me but what do you do when you are looking to achieve a goal and someone has achieved it and they can share that blueprint with you. So I negotiated one hour a month for one year. So my contract with her was one $350 for one hour a month for one year. And I worked with her for one year, four months after that one year, I was invited to apply for a senior leadership position. I went through the 4 month process and I have been in senior leadership since then. And so, in terms of my personal “Why,” I devised my professional development corporation for women professionals because it should not be this difficult to find a mentor when you are looking to go to leadership. And so, that is the whole vision and mission of my organization. The mission is to increase the number of women in senior leadership and allow them the experience and education to sustain themselves.Share on X That's great. That's very good work. And you were very smart to invest in a great mentor because that's one of ...

https://youtu.be/j1K89s-x8D8 Adam Goldman, Franchise Coach, Consultant, and author of The Franchisee Lifestyle, is driven by a mission to help individuals find their dream franchise opportunities and align them with their goals for a fulfilling lifestyle. We learn about Adam's journey into franchise coaching and his 3 Filters Framework, a tool he uses to match individuals with franchise opportunities. The framework evaluates three key factors: sales vs. execution, full-time vs. part-time engagement, and brick-and-mortar vs. service-based models. Adam explains how these filters guide potential franchisees to discover opportunities that fit their skills, preferences, and lifestyle. He also shares insights on the differences between lifestyle and growth businesses, the keys to franchising success, and the importance of finding the right cultural fit. Find Your Dream Franchise with Adam Goldman Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast, and my guest today is Adam Goldman, a franchise coach and consultant and the author of The Franchisee Lifestyle. Adam, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Steve. So great to be here today. Great to have you here. So, let's start with your “Why.” What is your personal “Why” and what are you doing to manifest it in your business? So, I really have two “Why's.” Let's start with them and they're in no particular order. For my personal “Why,” it's really to kind of have a great life in general. I'm talking about things such as working at my own schedule, being able to be there for my kids. My daughters are seven, nine, and 13 and I'm not getting any younger. So, to kind of make the best out of this time through travel or through fitness or whatever that might be, and my business allows me to do that. In many ways, my business is a lifestyle business. And number two, my “Why,” when it comes to my company, is really I'm here to help people. So, what that means is my work is, I almost see myself as a dating agency between individuals and franchise brands.Share on X So, the way I've structured my business is I'm really customer focused and really candidate focused, meaning I spend much of my day because of the systems I have in place that really allow me to have that biggest impact with my candidates, to get to know them better and to make that good match. And even after I've made that match to kind of have a relationship with them afterwards. And I'm very blessed to have a situation like this. That's interesting, and we'll get into what you do and being a franchise coach. But what struck me that you mentioned in your introduction is that you said that it's very much a lifestyle business. And I think you're not just preaching franchise, you are a franchisee yourself. Or are you not? No, I'm actually not a franchisee per se. I'm part of a network. But we're not a franchise organization. Okay, well, some of the franchise coaching organizations are franchises. That's right, that's correct. We're not one. You're not one, okay. So then my question is, what differentiates in your view, a lifestyle business from maybe a growth business or whatever the other category you call it? And what are the pros and cons? That's a great question. The way I see a lifestyle business is being one with flexibility. I have friends that are amazing entrepreneurs and I love them to death, but they have young kids, they don't see them. They might be traveling on a roadshow all year long. And I'm just not willing myself to kind of, for me, it's about time. What kind of hours you're working, what kind of flexibility do you have on a day to day basis? That makes sense. That's a great perspective. And I have not really considered this before. So it's a great argument in favor of a franchise or any other kind of lifestyle businesses. And do you consider franchises as more likely to be lifestyle businesses as opposed to maybe growth businesses?

https://youtu.be/dxdFmUiiQds Mark Josephson, Executive Coach, three-time CEO with three exits, Founder, Advisor, and Investor, is driven by a mission to empower leaders and think big to achieve clarity, purpose, and lasting impact in their organizations and lives. We learn about Mark's journey from leading three companies to successful exits to coaching leaders and teams to unlock their potential. He explains the Wouldn't It Be Great If framework, a four-step approach to setting ambitious goals: pushing away from the desk, asking bold questions, identifying what needs to be true to achieve them, and brainstorming without constraints. Mark also introduces the Balcony vs. Dance Floor framework, which helps CEOs balance strategic vision with operational focus. He shares lessons from his entrepreneurial journey and insights from his podcast Critical Moments. Think BIG with Mark Josephson Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And my guest today is Mark Josephson, Executive Coach, three-time CEO with three exits, Founder, Advisor, and Investor. Mark, welcome to the show. Thank you, Steve. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's exciting to have you. You have built two companies up to exit. Oh sorry, three companies. That's very impressive. And you're advising other companies. And now you're going to advise our listeners, which is very cool. So, let's start with my favorite question, which is, what is your personal “Why” and what are you doing to manifest it in your practice? Great question. I believe that we have a choice that we make every single day that we wake up to put goodness in the world or to take goodness out of the world. And I wake up every day, most days anyway, with the intention of helping the people I meet, the people I come across have better days than they did yesterday. It is that simple. I want to make a positive impact on the people around me. I will say that I have three goals as it relates to those “Why” more personally and I borrowed this from somebody else so I didn't invent this but it resonated. Number one, I want to stay married to my wife. And I'm specific because that's the most important relationship that I have in the world. We will be celebrating our 26th wedding anniversary next week. And we met in college and have been together for over 30 years. So it is the number one most important thing that I need to do every day is make sure my wife is happy. Number two is I want to be thin and fit and why I say that is because I want to live a long time. I want to be healthy. Another really important relationship in my life is with me and my health and well-being. So I want to take that seriously and the third goal, Steve, is that I want my sons and I'm blessed with three sons, 22, 20 and 17. I want them to call me when they need help. That's it. I'm going to be really happy and healthy and will die a happy man if those things are true. It sounds like that's a great formula. Relationships, purpose, and more relationships. It helps.  I mean, they say that these are the three most important things that are required for happiness, so, definitely, you seem to be on the right track. No surprises there. Well, before we talk about the framework, I'm curious about these three businesses that you ran and exited. Sure. Tell me a little bit about that. Is this, is all this private equity, what companies did you find them? How did you come about it? Sure, so to start at 10,000 feet, I've spent 30 years in technology startups with being born and raised in dot-com one in the 1990s. And I was blessed to be at a high growth company that went public and sold. And I ended up having 12 different jobs in five years there, like truly a rocket ship kind of ride. That was a company called about.com. And I got my MBA in the world there. That was incredibly foundational for me. I have been the CEO three times.

Mark Josephson, Executive Coach, three-time CEO with three exits, Founder, Advisor, and Investor, is driven by a mission to empower leaders and think big to achieve clarity, purpose, and lasting impact in their organizations and lives.   We learn about Mark's journey from leading three companies to successful exits to coaching leaders and teams to unlock their potential. He explains the Wouldn't It Be Great If framework, a four-step approach to setting ambitious goals: pushing away from the desk, asking bold questions, identifying what needs to be true to achieve them, and brainstorming without constraints. Mark also introduces the Balcony vs. Dance Floor framework, which helps CEOs balance strategic vision with operational focus. He shares lessons from his entrepreneurial journey and insights from his podcast Critical Moments.   (1:31) Mark's personal Why (6:59) The Wouldn't It Be Great If Framework (11:17) Insights from the Critical Moment podcast (16:35) The Balcony vs. Dance Floor Framework (22:24) Connect with Mark   Links and Resources Mark's LinkedIn  Mark Josephson  Critical Moments Podcast  Test-drive the Summit OS® Toolkit: https://stevepreda.com/free-business-growth-tools-summit-os-toolkit/ Management Blueprint® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT  Steve Preda's books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks  Follow video shorts of current and past episodes on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevepreda-com/

Brad Chandler, Chief Transformative Officer of LimitlessYou, is driven by a mission to help high achievers discover their entrepreneurial happiness, unlock subconscious beliefs, and live lives of freedom, connection, and joy.   We learn about Brad's journey from a successful career in real estate to founding LimitlessYou, where he empowers individuals to identify and overcome the root causes of their struggles. He explains the Three R's Framework—Realize, Recode, Rewrite—a transformative process that rewires negative subconscious patterns and helps clients reclaim their lives. He highlights the importance of self-love as the foundation for success, shares insights on breaking generational cycles of limiting beliefs, and discusses his vision of making transformative tools accessible to everyone globally.   (1:25) Brad's personal Why (5:43) Insights on overcoming subconscious beliefs (11:33) The Three R's Framework: Realize, Recode, Rewrite (13:29) Tips for family businesses (16:27) Breaking generational cycles of limiting beliefs (18:32) Self-love as the foundation for success (20:57) Learn more about Brad   Links and Resources Brad's LinkedIn  LimitlessYou  Krista Crawford's LinkedIn  Test-drive the Summit OS® Toolkit: https://stevepreda.com/free-business-growth-tools-summit-os-toolkit/ Management Blueprint® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT  Steve Preda's books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks  Follow video shorts of current and past episodes on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevepreda-com/

https://youtu.be/Z94HeM1PJP4 Brad Chandler, Chief Transformative Officer of LimitlessYou, is driven by a mission to help high achievers discover their entrepreneurial happiness, unlock subconscious beliefs, and live lives of freedom, connection, and joy. We learn about Brad's journey from a successful career in real estate to founding LimitlessYou, where he empowers individuals to identify and overcome the root causes of their struggles. He explains the Three R's Framework—Realize, Recode, Rewrite—a transformative process that rewires negative subconscious patterns and helps clients reclaim their lives. He highlights the importance of self-love as the foundation for success, shares insights on breaking generational cycles of limiting beliefs, and discusses his vision of making transformative tools accessible to everyone globally. --- Discovering your Entrepreneurial Happiness with Brad Chandler Welcome to this episode of the Management Blueprint. My guest today is Brad Chandler, Chief Transformative Officer for LimitlessYou. LimitlessYou helps high achievers rewrite their stories and create a life of freedom, connection, and joy. I'm Krista Crawford, your host for today's episode. Brad, thank you so much for carving out your busy schedule. Welcome, welcome. Thanks for having me. We're going to cover quite a few topics today, so let's just go right ahead and dig in. One of the first that I like to ask is, what's your personal “Why,” and what are you doing to manifest it? Oh, I love it. My personal “Why” is something I figured out three and a half years ago. It took me 47 years of living, and that is to help people unlock these hidden beliefs in their subconscious mind that is driving the behavior that's not serving them, whether it's their businesses failing or struggling or cash flow issues or relationship issues or addiction, anxiety, depression, anything like that. Almost always those things are being driven by this subconscious beliefs that were formed decades ago. So my “Why” is to impact as many, I want to help a million people erase these limiting beliefs so they can live the life and have the relationships that they deserve. I'm going to go ahead and follow up with that one. What's a good example, obviously not giving the person's name, but what's an example of where you helped someone discover something from the past that was keeping them from moving forward? Yeah, I mean, a text I got about 8 months ago was from a client that said, thank you for changing my life and my family's life. And he came to me, his relationship with his wife was on the brink of divorce. And after doing the work with him, he realized some things from childhood that was affecting his relationship with his wife and that he really couldn't recall. We always remember everything. Remembering it means it's in your subconscious. Everything is stored in your subconscious, but we often can't recall it because it's painful. Fast forward a year and a half after working with him and his marriage is amazing, and I never met with his wife. I never had a marriage counseling session because relationship problems aren't ever the actual relationship. It's a relationship each individual has with themselves. So he's a good example of one of the hundred people that we've helped over the years. I'm glad you mentioned issues that take place earlier. One of the questions I also like to ask is, think back to your, let's say 13, 14, 15 year old self. What did you think you would be doing at this stage in your life now? What I did for most of my life, and that is real estate and making lots of money because as a child, love was shown to me through money. And then we had so many money problems in our house that I figured, well, at 10 years old, my mom and dad got divorced and my dad stopped paying. And so at one point in time, my mom said, we may lose the house that I lived in since I was born,

Ben Larman, Scientific Founder and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of Infinity Bio, is driven by a passion for advancing human health by decoding the complexities of the immune system.   We discuss Ben's Antibody Reactomics Framework and his Complex Data Delivery Framework. The Antibody Reactomics Framework leverages DNA barcoding to analyze immune responses, providing researchers with groundbreaking insights into human health and disease mechanisms. The Complex Data Delivery Framework streamlines the process of communicating scientific findings by focusing on understanding customer needs, analyzing data, presenting positive results, and combining findings to deliver customized insights. He also shares how AI is transforming biomedical research and the importance of refining a biotech company's narrative to effectively engage diverse audiences.   (1:19) Ben's personal Why (4:00) The Antibody Reactomics Framework (8:19) The Complex Data Delivery Framework (11:01) Leveraging AI in biomedical research (18:48) A key question for biotech entrepreneurs (22:04) Connect with Ben   Links and Resources Ben's LinkedIn  Infinity Bio  Test-drive the Summit OS® Toolkit: https://stevepreda.com/free-business-growth-tools-summit-os-toolkit/ Management Blueprint® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT  Steve Preda's books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks  Follow video shorts of current and past episodes on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevepreda-com/

https://youtu.be/-7x5kBxJ5ig Ben Larman, Scientific Founder and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of Infinity Bio, is driven by a passion for advancing human health by decoding the complexities of the immune system. We discuss Ben's Antibody Reactomics Framework and his Complex Data Delivery Framework. The Antibody Reactomics Framework leverages DNA barcoding to analyze immune responses, providing researchers with groundbreaking insights into human health and disease mechanisms. The Complex Data Delivery Framework streamlines the process of communicating scientific findings by focusing on understanding customer needs, analyzing data, presenting positive results, and combining findings to deliver customized insights. He also shares how AI is transforming biomedical research and the importance of refining a biotech company's narrative to effectively engage diverse audiences. --- Simplify Complexity with Ben Larman Good day, dear listener, Steve Breda here with the Management Blueprint podcast. And my guest today is Ben Larman, the Scientific Founder and CSO of Infinity Bio, a technology company that measures individual immune responses against all known human viruses, autoimmune conditions and allergies. Ben, welcome to the show. Thanks, Steve. Great to be here. My favorite question for you. So what is your personal “Why” and what are you doing to manifest it in your company? Great. Well, yeah, I'll start by saying I guess I became an immunologist by training because I believe there is an incredible opportunity to improve human health by better understanding immune responses and the immune system. The immune system is incredibly complex. It's sort of, we're just scratching the surface now in terms of our understanding and how it's connected to so many different health conditions ranging, as you mentioned, from infections to cancer, to autoimmune disease, to allergies. The ability to move technology forward in a way that allows us to take better measurements and understand human immune responses at a population scale, that's always motivated me. And so that's what we formed Infinity Bio to accomplish by being able to read antibodies. Okay. And when you read antibodies, so how does that inform you? How does it help you fight immune conditions? I guess you can call it. Yeah, so antibodies, I think we all sort of have seen the cartoons of these Y-shaped molecules. I think what a lot of people don't appreciate is the massive abundance and diversity of these molecules in our blood at all times. So there's roughly 100 trillion antibody molecules in every drop of blood, and they really store the information from all of our prior immune responses, going back to your vaccinations in childhood. And one way to think about them, they're expressed by cells in our immune system in response to very specific targets. They have these ridges and bumps on them, and that's what allows them to very specifically recognize their target, whether it's flu or a cancer antigen. And so what we've done is to create a technology that you can think of like a record player where the record, your old vinyl records with those grooves and bumps read out by a needle, that's sort of what we're doing with molecules, reading out those bumps and grooves to know what they bind to and get a picture of your immune system. Antibodies are really a wonderful window into your immune system and everything that it has tried to accomplish over your lifetime. So that's an amazing complexity. You said trillions of antibodies in a drop of blood. Yeah. That's very, very minuscule and very numerous. So how do you measure this data or process even this data? How do you then communicate this data is about? And actually you develop a framework around this. So can you tell me a little bit about how that came about and what's its significance is and how does it work? Yeah, so the approach that we've taken and that I've sort of worked on si...

https://youtu.be/IyjtkLD79tc Kevin Torf, Managing Partner of T2 Tech Group, is driven by a passion for getting the job done, transforming IT liabilities into valuable assets, and delivering success through innovative project management. We learn about Kevin's journey from founding T2 Tech Group to becoming a leader in technology consulting, particularly in the healthcare sector. He explains the PROJECTS Framework—Planning, Reflection, Organization, Juggling, Empowerment, Communication, Transparency, and Standards—a comprehensive methodology designed to manage large-scale projects effectively. Kevin also shares insights on balancing traditional project management with Agile principles, empowering teams to succeed, and the importance of market research and iterative development in entrepreneurial ventures. --- Get the Job Done with Kevin Torf Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast and my guest today is Kevin Torf, the Managing Partner of T2 Tech Group, a technology consulting firm in Southern California, transforming IT liabilities into valuable assets for clients in a range of industries, primarily healthcare. Kevin is also the author of Getting the Job Done. Kevin, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Steve. I'm excited to be part of your podcast and looking forward to having some dialogue and learning from each other. Yeah, well, me too. I'm also looking forward. So let's start with my favorite question. What is your personal “Why,” Kevin, and what are you doing in your business to manifest? I'd say to start with, I got to use the book as my statement, it's getting the job done. The question is why, what's so important about getting the job done? Well, I enjoy it. I take a lot of pride in what I do. I enjoy the success that comes with it. I'd say many athletes run because of the adrenaline or what gets them motivated and winning and the things that an athlete does on a daily basis when they compete. I try to practice that in business. And in most cases, you've got to get the job done first, meaning you've got to achieve something that you set your mind out to. In my case, it's mostly a lot of big large-scale projects. And then the success that comes with it, the feeling of doing something maybe other people haven't done or couldn't do or you were able to bring value that some other people might not have, it's great. That makes me feel good. It makes the business today what it is, and I enjoy it. Sounds like you're a competitive person who likes to show things that other people couldn't achieve. I am competitive. I'm not going to shy away from that statement. I don't use that to judge myself. I think I'm my biggest competitor myself. When I set out to do something, I make a commitment to myself first and foremost. And it's being able to execute on that.Share on X When I have the opportunity of working with other people, I like a lot of competitive fun. You got to be careful how you manifest competition. You don't want it to get in the way of your success and the success of others. You want to bring the best out of everybody. And I do like that. It's a lot of fun. Okay. Well, you're certainly very methodical about how you do that. In your book you talk about the framework that you call PROJECTS, which is an acronym of how you actually get the job done. So can you tell a little bit to our listeners about the project framework and what it does and how it does it? Yes. T2, the group, the company, for many, many years has been working on projects and those projects range mostly technology, but they range in relocating a corporation's data center or transforming their technology or helping them install new applications to enable them to do other things that they might not have been doing. And those projects require a lot of coordination and a lot of planning, a lot of resource management. And as we've evolved over the years,

https://youtu.be/fa1f_rVBqbI Walt Alfred, Founder and President of Ally Power, is driven by a mission to innovate in energy production, reducing carbon emissions and creating sustainable solutions for a greener future. We learn about Walt's journey from a career in law to founding Ally Power, a hydrogen and electric refueling station company that has rapidly grown since its inception in 2019. He explains the ALLY Framework—Authentic, Leadership, Last, Yearly—a leadership philosophy that emphasizes transparency, team collaboration, and sustainable impact. Walt highlights how Ally Power's innovative technology generates hydrogen, electricity, potable water, and sodium luminate while delivering cost savings and zero emissions. He also shares the company's exciting future plans to decarbonize ports and airports, scaling projects from millions to billions in impact. --- Innovate in Energy with Walt Alfred Welcome, Walt Alfred, the Founder and President of Ally Power, revolutionizing energy production and reducing carbon emissions one station at a time. Walt, thank you so much for making time for us today. Thank you very much, Krista, for having me. We're going to dig in first, and for you to describe what Ally Power is. And then we're going to dig in a little more personally about you. So, in layman's terms, tell us about Ally Power. Ally Power is a hydrogen and electric refueling station company. We started in November of 2019, and now we have projects that are looking to be deployed all over the world. We have a team of around 15 committed people that are in business development, as well as engineering, risk, and in, obviously, operations and executives of the team and management of the company. The purpose of the company is to produce four different revenue sources from two feedstock sources. The four revenue sources are hydrogen, electricity, sodium luminate, and potable water. And we do this through the two chemical reactions. First reaction with aluminum and sodium hydroxide, and the second reaction with hydrogen and oxygen to make the potable water. The reason why we want to do it this way is that, one, it's zero emission. Two, it's a very small footprint compared to other ways to generate electricity. Three, there's some serious cost savings for the customer. And four, we have found a lot of customer interest all over the world for our product. So that in a nutshell is Ally Power. And we are welcoming in new team members and new opportunities every single day. So let me get this right. You started in 2019. That's correct. And you've already grown a team of 15 with places all over the world. And you did this during a time with COVID in the middle of it. Tell me how you did that. It's very exciting. So a lot of the meetings that we have are virtual because it was especially within COVID, there was a reticence to actually meet in person. But after COVID had subsided, we did actually get to do some in-person business development, which was very exciting for me to go to all these different places to see what was going to be the customer dynamic when approached with this particular solution. There are already going to be solutions in the market that are very well-developed and have existing customer relationships and how does Ally Power unique offering interact with the existing dynamics within the market. That has always been very exciting to me to see how a customer would react when approached with this particular opportunity. So we have found overwhelming customer support in a number of different areas and that's something that even within the COVID area, we have been able to move the process forward to where we are today. So very exciting about things to come and look forward to being able to present that. You use the word exciting or excitement quite a bit and it shows on your face when you talk about your company and your product. That's one of the things that I see consistently ac...

https://youtu.be/FBWm0877tRg Pete Scahill, Senior Manager of the Run Efficient Consulting Agency, is driven by a passion for helping individuals, teams, and organizations transform weaknesses into strengths and achieve their full potential. We discuss Pete's Weaknesses to Strengths Framework, a framework designed to build trust, enhance self-confidence, and foster knowledge to unlock growth. He shares how this approach transforms challenges into opportunities, empowers teams to innovate, and drives sustainable success. He introduces the concept of "building boxes to think outside of," a strategy that sparks creativity and scales organizational impact. He also highlights the importance of empathy, logic, and creativity in leadership, illustrating how these qualities help leaders inspire and guide their teams. --- Turn our Weaknesses Into Strengths with Pete Scahill Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And my guest today is Pete Scahill, Senior Manager of the Run Efficient Consulting Agency, which helps companies, non-profits and teams achieve peak performance. Pete, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Great to be here. Appreciate it. Good to have you here and good to learn about your experiences and “Why” and framework. So let's start with the “Why.” What is your personal “Why” and what are you doing to manifest in your business? So my personal “Why” is because I like to see achievement and my personal achievement is the success of others. So I look at a company, I look at a team, I look at an individual and what can they achieve and how do they do it and helping them get to that level in their professional life. So that is my “Why.” I just love seeing success. Awesome. So what do you do in your business to manifest that? How do you do that? Multiple ways. Sometimes it just seems to be happenstance. I'll be working with a project or a company, and I will see an individual that has great potential, and I'll bring them up to a leadership level through coaching, utilizing multiple tools. Or I'll be brought in saying, I have a team that's really just not performing, but I know they've got the skills. I have to give them the confidence and the tools and what the end goal is. The biggest and most expensive phrase that anybody has ever said to me is, we've always done it this way, why don't we just continue this way? That can be frustrating when people say that then there is resistance, but they don't want to change their ways. So you mentioned tools, confidence, knowledge. So let's discuss then your framework, which I think you call it the Weaknesses to Strengths Framework. So tell me what that is and how do you take companies or individuals from weaknesses to strengths and how to apply that framework. We've always done it this way. That right there seems to be a weakness that I've come across quite a bit. Or on an individual level, I've always done it this way. With technology and the world changing as quickly as it does, this is a great opportunity to not skill up in technology, but skill up in your personal life and in your work life. So if I see a weakness or a manager has told an individual that this is their weakness, they really need to boat up on it. I say it's not your weakness, it's your opportunity. It's your opportunity for your strength. And we work with them, I work with them, and say, okay, your manager said that your weakness is that you do not have good time management. Well, you have time management. It's just how do you do time management that might be different than the way they do time management.Share on X So I work with them on how to be effective in time management, or I work with teams that are not delivering projects on time, whether it be Agile or Waterfall or anything like that, and I find out that individuals within the teams are resistant to change,

Kevin Torf, Managing Partner of T2 Tech Group, is driven by a passion for getting the job done, transforming IT liabilities into valuable assets, and delivering success through innovative project management.   We learn about Kevin's journey from founding T2 Tech Group to becoming a leader in technology consulting, particularly in the healthcare sector. He explains the PROJECTS Framework—Planning, Reflection, Organization, Juggling, Empowerment, Communication, Transparency, and Standards—a comprehensive methodology designed to manage large-scale projects effectively. Kevin also shares insights on balancing traditional project management with Agile principles, empowering teams to succeed, and the importance of market research and iterative development in entrepreneurial ventures.   (1:29) Kevin's personal Why (3:35) The PROJECTS Framework (19:25) Using Agile to build teams and productivity (22:14) A key question for entrepreneurs (25:20) Find out more about Kevin   Links and Resources Kevin's LinkedIn  T2 Tech Group  Test-drive the Summit OS® Toolkit: https://stevepreda.com/free-business-growth-tools-summit-os-toolkit/ Management Blueprint® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT  Steve Preda's books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks  Follow video shorts of current and past episodes on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevepreda-com/

Walt Alfred, Founder and President of Ally Power, is driven by a mission to innovate in energy production, reducing carbon emissions and creating sustainable solutions for a greener future.   We learn about Walt's journey from a career in law to founding Ally Power, a hydrogen and electric refueling station company that has rapidly grown since its inception in 2019. He explains the ALLY Framework—Authentic, Leadership, Last, Yearly—a leadership philosophy that emphasizes transparency, team collaboration, and sustainable impact. Walt highlights how Ally Power's innovative technology generates hydrogen, electricity, potable water, and sodium luminate while delivering cost savings and zero emissions. He also shares the company's exciting future plans to decarbonize ports and airports, scaling projects from millions to billions in impact.   (0:22) Walt's journey to founding Ally Power (3:49) Walt's personal Why (6:28) Insights for aspiring entrepreneurs: building a strong network (8:02) The ALLY Framework (16:45) Scaling infrastructure and funding strategies (19:45) Decarbonizing ports and airports (21:42) Learn more about Walt   Links and Resources Walt's LinkedIn  Ally Power  Krista Crawford's LinkedIn  Test-drive the Summit OS® Toolkit: https://stevepreda.com/free-business-growth-tools-summit-os-toolkit/ Management Blueprint® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT  Steve Preda's books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks  Follow video shorts of current and past episodes on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevepreda-com/

Pete Scahill, Senior Manager of the Run Efficient Consulting Agency, is driven by a passion for helping individuals, teams, and organizations transform weaknesses into strengths and achieve their full potential.   We discuss Pete's Weaknesses to Strengths Framework, a framework designed to build trust, enhance self-confidence, and foster knowledge to unlock growth. He shares how this approach transforms challenges into opportunities, empowers teams to innovate, and drives sustainable success. He introduces the concept of "building boxes to think outside of," a strategy that sparks creativity and scales organizational impact. He also highlights the importance of empathy, logic, and creativity in leadership, illustrating how these qualities help leaders inspire and guide their teams.   (1:18) Pete's personal Why (2:46) The Weaknesses to Strengths Framework (13:20) Building boxes to drive innovation (18:47) Empathy, logic, and creativity in leadership (22:01) A question for coaches (24:24) Connect with Pete   Links and Resources Pete's LinkedIn  Run Efficient Consulting Agency  Test-drive the Summit OS® Toolkit: https://stevepreda.com/free-business-growth-tools-summit-os-toolkit/ Management Blueprint® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT  Steve Preda's books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks  Follow video shorts of current and past episodes on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevepreda-com/

Kendall Lott, CEO and President of M Powered Strategies, is driven by a mission to empower public service organizations to grow their GovCon in both directions, aligning client needs with skilled talent.   We discuss the Tie Fighter (Bowtie) Framework, a strategic model Kendall developed to enhance growth by connecting business development, capture, and proposals (right wing) with networking, recruiting, and hiring (left wing), all bridged by training and development at the center. Kendall explains how this framework helps service-based businesses scale, maintain profitability, and empower organizations for long-term independence. He also shares insights on leveraging intellectual property and automation to optimize consulting operations and achieve greater efficiency.   (1:36) Kendall's personal Why (5:42) The Tie Fighter (Bowtie) Framework (11:13) Aligning client needs with talent acquisition (15:54) Scaling through training, IP, and automation (25:04) Connect with Kendall   Links and Resources Kendall's LinkedIn  M Powered Strategies  Test-drive the Summit OS® Toolkit: https://stevepreda.com/free-business-growth-tools-summit-os-toolkit/ Management Blueprint® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT  Steve Preda's books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks  Follow video shorts of current and past episodes on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevepreda-com/

https://youtu.be/X-3kplDKxfw Kendall Lott, CEO and President of M Powered Strategies, is driven by a mission to empower public service organizations to grow their GovCon in both directions, aligning client needs with skilled talent. We discuss the Tie Fighter (Bowtie) Framework, a strategic model Kendall developed to enhance growth by connecting business development, capture, and proposals (right wing) with networking, recruiting, and hiring (left wing), all bridged by training and development at the center. Kendall explains how this framework helps service-based businesses scale, maintain profitability, and empower organizations for long-term independence. He also shares insights on leveraging intellectual property and automation to optimize consulting operations and achieve greater efficiency. --- Grow Your GovCon in Both Directions with Kendall Lott Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint podcast. And my guest today is Kendall Lott, the CEO and President of M Powered Strategies, a management consulting firm that empowers government and nonprofit clients to serve the public more efficiently and effectively. Welcome to the show, Kendall. Hey, good afternoon. Good morning. I guess it's still morning here, but it's nice to meet you again. So, thanks for having me, Steve It's great to reconnect and talk about govcon and professional service firms and how to kind of master this magic of having the right people and the right work in your business. So let's start with your personal “Why.” So, what is your personal “Why” and how do you manifest it in your business? Yeah, and I think this is the key to anyone who's going to run a small firm. And I think that's a lot of your audiences. Thinking smaller firms. I guess anybody needs a personal “Why,” but a small firm takes so much commitment. You better have a reason for it. And then it's almost like the money falls where it may, as we like to say, no margin, no mission. So you gotta make that profit, but you still have some dedication to why you're trying to pull it off, and I think that's important. My own background, just personally, I'm the eldest son of a preacher man, and my parents are both educators, so I was raised in the whole idea that helping in the public service is kind of important. So that's just kind of where I came from. So the work that I do, which may be different than a lot of your other audience members is really around govcon, government contracting, in the context of trying to help in the management processes and we can all roll our eyes what that might mean for government work. I don't. Yeah, I mean it's tough though. Because that's not a focus when we think of government. We often don't think of them as well managed or even possibly interested in management, frankly, given the amount of work they do and the size of the bureaucracy and all. So I come from a public service background. I was a Peace Corps volunteer. I was a civil servant myself. I had gone through testing to get into the government and I did those kinds of pieces of work. And then I decided to be a government contractor through a large firm and then ultimately through a small firm that I took over. And for me, one of the best things that I did that helps me now encapsulate this though, so that's the journey here, I joined a group called Vistage, which is for CEOs, and I highly recommend that for everyone to get involved with one of those locally to the extent you want to work with peers. Because sometimes when you're CEO, there's no one to hear you scream. You're in charge of your universe, and who's going to help you out with all that? So it's good to be able to work with peers sometimes. One of the drills that we did there was, did a couple of things that helped me after I was years in it was to boil it down. What are you after as a value? So this is not your personal values or your religious values so much, for example,

Nic DeAngelo, President of Saint Investment Group, is driven by a mission to empower individuals with health, wealth, and legacy by helping them pull out the stops from their growth through smart investments.   We learn about Nic's journey from business ownership to founding Saint Investment Group, a platform providing access to off-market real estate opportunities. He explains the Entrepreneurial Investment Framework, which includes educating yourself to grow, achieving $250k net income to become an accredited investor, investing in single-family mortgages for stability, and exploring alternative investments for diversification. He also highlights the tax advantages of real estate investments and shares strategies for identifying and removing growth roadblocks to scale a business effectively.   (1:37) Nic's personal Why (6:08) The Entrepreneurial Investment Framework (12:52) Utilizing single-family mortgages for stability (21:02) Tax advantages of real estate investments (24:24) Identifying and removing business growth blockers (27:16) Learn more about Nic   Links and Resources Nic's LinkedIn  Saint Investment Group  Test-drive the Summit OS® Toolkit: https://stevepreda.com/free-business-growth-tools-summit-os-toolkit/ Management Blueprint® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT  Steve Preda's books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks  Follow video shorts of current and past episodes on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevepreda-com/

https://youtu.be/TM6kALhhIYM Nic DeAngelo, President of Saint Investment Group, is driven by a mission to empower individuals with health, wealth, and legacy by helping them pull out the stops from their growth through smart investments. We learn about Nic's journey from business ownership to founding Saint Investment Group, a platform providing access to off-market real estate opportunities. He explains the Entrepreneurial Investment Framework, which includes educating yourself to grow, achieving $250k net income to become an accredited investor, investing in single-family mortgages for stability, and exploring alternative investments for diversification. He also highlights the tax advantages of real estate investments and shares strategies for identifying and removing growth roadblocks to scale a business effectively. --- Pull Out the Stops from Your Growth with Nic DeAngelo Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint podcast. And my guest today is Nic DeAngelo, the president of the Saint Investment Group that is leading a new era of real estate investing through proprietary analysis, technology and access to off-market deal flow. Nic, welcome to the show. Steve, great to be here. We've been talking for a long time and lining up schedules. So excited to catch up today, even catching up beforehand and looking forward to jumping in. Yeah, well, I have a question for you, which you may not have expected back in February when we first spoke, which is, what is your personal “Why” and what are you doing in your business to manifest? That's so powerful. I think people talk business strategy and line by line and whether it's tactics or going through deep analysis of the business, but really if you zoom out, the question is, why do we do this? Why do we work so many hours? Why do we take on the stress? For me, it's three things every single time, health, wealth, and legacy. And really the first two lead to the third, which is the legacy piece. Everything is for that legacy piece. Health is physical health, it's emotional health, interpersonal, all the things that make a person feel whole, feel good, have the energy and pour from a full cup. So health is first, wealth is second. It doesn't matter how good you feel, it doesn't matter how good your intentions are. If you don't have the resources or the ability to make a significant impact, then you will be limited in your lifetime.Share on X So to me, wealth, it's much less about how much money's in your bank account and how many numbers pop up on a screen when you check your account. It's much more about having the freedom and the ability to make the world a better place for the things that are most important to you. Then the third is legacy. Unbelievably important and really that's the number one focus, but it comes at the end because I think the other two are so important to pour into legacy. Legacy to me, it's education. It's always been education. It's so important to me to give back whatever I can and we have a ton of focus on that at Saint and in my own life. Also it's the virtues that we put forth, the things that are valuable to us, how do we move those forward and improve the world to make it better? And then really, it's my kids are another one. That's another aspect. The biggest gift that I can give to the world are kids that are competent, they have good virtues, good morals that make the world a better place, that as they move into the world, they have the responsibility to do big things and great things, and hopefully they, whatever we're gonna talk about, whatever Saint does or any businesses I'm involved, I hope my kids just make the world an even better place and make a bigger impact. So health, wealth, and legacy are my focuses every single day. I arrange my days around those and it helps me to focus and not have dead weight in my days of doing things that aren't important. Interesting.

https://youtu.be/dfZXjxBb98c Brandon Jones, CEO of Delbert Adams Construction Group, is driven by a mission to close the knowledge gap in the construction industry, fusing his personal brand into a values-driven, sustainable business. We learn about Brandon's journey to create a thriving construction business that leverages technology and data to enhance project management. He explains the Financial Forecasting Framework, a strategic methodology to project revenue, align it with individual and company capacities, and identify future resource gaps or overloads. This framework enables businesses to overlay opportunity volume projections and engineer strategies to close opportunities effectively. He also discusses the importance of transitioning a personal brand into a values-driven organization to ensure long-term sustainability and success. --- Fuse Your Personal Brand into Your Business with Brandon Jones Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast, and my guest today is Brandon Jones, the CEO of the Delbert Adams Construction Group, an award-winning builder and remodeler with outstanding project management and the finest artisanship in and around Baltimore. Brandon, welcome to the show. Good morning, Steve. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm excited because we're going to be tackling a topic which has not come up in the 250 episodes that we recorded on this podcast, which is personal branding for a construction firm or for any owner-operated business. But let's start with my favorite question, which is, what is your personal “Why” and how are you manifesting it in your business? I think that's a great question. It's a question I've been asking myself as my career has grown and changed. I think it's very easy for somebody to fall into a trap of starting to focus on financials, monthly financials, financial performance, and start to live their life through spreadsheets. So what is the “Why?” What do you really do this for? And for me personally, the highest goal that I can say I would apply my “Why” to is closing the knowledge gap in the construction industry. It's a major issue for our industry. And what excites me most about doing that is it does something that's very important to me and something I can feel very good about, which is it creates opportunity for people who have historically faced dead ends in their careers. So by closing the knowledge gap, we're actually giving people an opportunity to grow their own careers and to start to move into roles in the construction industry, bring their knowledge with them. So what is the knowledge gap? Why is there a knowledge gap to begin with and what's the gap between? A couple of factors there. So we have people that are retiring from the industry at a greater rate than those that are coming into the industry. So that's a major issue. So we have people leaving with knowledge that are not passing it down at the rate at which we need to. So we have fewer people with knowledge trying to reach the people that are coming in, which is not enough for the industry, but it's more than what can be touched by the individuals who carry that information. So we wind up with a knowledge gap. One of the reasons why that knowledge gap exists is that our industry, construction industry, happens to be very slow with adoption of technology. And technology can be great for expanding the accessibility to information and to making it archival for people in ways that simply in the field, hands-on, direct person-to-person training can't do. Yeah, that's interesting. I heard about a McKinsey study which came out a couple of years ago, and it measured the productivity improvement since the Second World War in different industries. And generally, on average, it was like a 4x productivity improvement. So exponential. And for construction, however, it was only 10%, which was mind-boggling to me. So what are ways that you can institutionalize this knowledge inside yo...

https://youtu.be/RByUM0fYtno Sathya Elumalai, Founder and CEO of Aidar Health, is driven by a mission to solve the problem that really matters: ensuring no one loses a loved one due to lack of access to timely care. We learn about Sathya's journey from creating Aidar Health's flagship product, MouthLab, inspired by his own family's healthcare challenges, to developing a strategic approach to finding and refining his company's target market. He explains his "How to Niche Your Business" Framework, which includes five key steps: starting with a shotgun approach, enabling potential customers to self-identify, focusing the message on a hot market, offering free samples to collect data and use cases, and eliminating bottlenecks to refine the product. This framework demonstrates how thoughtful strategy and data-driven insights can help businesses achieve product-market fit and drive impactful growth. --- Solve the Problem that Really Matters with Sathya Elumalai Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint podcast. And my guest again is Sathya Elumalai, who is the founder and CEO of Aidar Health, the creator of MouthLab, a non-invasive handheld home monitoring device that measures more than 10 vital medical parameters in 30 seconds. Welcome back to the show, Sathya. Yeah, thanks, Steve, for having me. It's a pleasure to come back after a couple of years. Nice to be a part of it again and looking forward to chatting more. Yeah, it's great to have you back. I think it was three years or something that and your business has evolved. And in fact, during the time you developed another framework that we're going to be talking about. But let me ask you first this. So what is your personal “Why?” I don't think we touched upon this in the first episode three years ago. What is your personal “Why” and what are you doing in your business to manifest it? Absolutely. I think my personal “Why” has been very close to my home experience. So I needed some kind of a help to help my mom navigate the complex chronic conditions that she had. She was facing a lot of obstacles in terms of getting timely and accurate health insights. So I poured in everything that I had. I thought, probably it would be a two- to three-year journey, but it took us almost eight, nine years today. Through using technology, we were able to create a more holistic care for my mother and also help improve her quality of life. And more importantly, it helps us to and help me to personally extend her life and have her stay with us for a lot longer. But today, sad to say that I lost both my parents this year within a span of three months to the same condition at the same circumstances, which deepen my “Why” and my mission now is not just to help people with chronic condition, but also starting with technology, how we can use technology to empower people and also the caregivers to stay one step ahead in terms of managing their chronic condition, enabling proactive care, and also helping them to better understand where they are in their care journey. And that's what really helped me to even start Aidar in the first place. And I believe creating a world where no one has to lose a loved one because of lack of access to timely care. So that's what has been the company's goal. And it's more than a company mission. It started as a personal mission.Share on X And I'm hoping to honor my parents' legacy and turn that loss into more meaningful and help a lasting change in healthcare. Wow, okay, that is very inspiring. And really, I mean, especially people who are in nursing homes, and we'll talk about this in a minute, but they really can become cut off from their family and who's gonna look after them and how are they gonna be looked after and how can you empower the people in the nursing homes to help these people get the best care and elongate their lives. That is pretty cool. So let's talk about this because I loved how you actually dis...

Brandon Jones, CEO of Delbert Adams Construction Group, is driven by a mission to close the knowledge gap in the construction industry, fusing his personal brand into a values-driven, sustainable business.   We learn about Brandon's journey to create a thriving construction business that leverages technology and data to enhance project management. He explains the Financial Forecasting Framework, a strategic methodology to project revenue, align it with individual and company capacities, and identify future resource gaps or overloads. This framework enables businesses to overlay opportunity volume projections and engineer strategies to close opportunities effectively. He also discusses the importance of transitioning a personal brand into a values-driven organization to ensure long-term sustainability and success.   (1:34) Brandon's personal Why (5:49) The Financial Forecasting Framework (14:55) Leveraging technology to close the knowledge gap (16:53) Transitioning personal brand into company values (25:14) Connect with Brandon   Links and Resources Brandon's LinkedIn  Delbert Adams Construction Group  Test-drive the Summit OS® Toolkit: https://stevepreda.com/free-business-growth-tools-summit-os-toolkit/ Management Blueprint® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT  Steve Preda's books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks  Follow video shorts of current and past episodes on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevepreda-com/

Sathya Elumalai, Founder and CEO of Aidar Health, is driven by a mission to solve the problem that really matters: ensuring no one loses a loved one due to lack of access to timely care.   We learn about Sathya's journey from creating Aidar Health's flagship product, MouthLab, inspired by his own family's healthcare challenges, to developing a strategic approach to finding and refining his company's target market. He explains his "How to Niche Your Business" Framework, which includes five key steps: starting with a shotgun approach, enabling potential customers to self-identify, focusing the message on a hot market, offering free samples to collect data and use cases, and eliminating bottlenecks to refine the product. This framework demonstrates how thoughtful strategy and data-driven insights can help businesses achieve product-market fit and drive impactful growth.   (1:43) Sathya's personal Why (4:15) The "How to Niche Your Business" Framework (12:54) Leveraging data for product refinement (19:27) A question for entrepreneurs (24:58) Final thoughts   Links and Resources Sathya's LinkedIn  Aidar Health  Test-drive the Summit OS® Toolkit: https://stevepreda.com/free-business-growth-tools-summit-os-toolkit/ Management Blueprint® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT  Steve Preda's books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks  Follow video shorts of current and past episodes on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevepreda-com/

https://youtu.be/4KzOOovNfSQ Sam McKenna, Founder of #samsales Consulting, is driven by a mission to elevate the sales profession through manners-first sales emails, authentic connections, and using her platform for positive impact. We learn about Sam's journey to redefine sales, focusing on her Impact First Email Framework, a six-step methodology for crafting personalized and effective outreach. The framework includes creating unique, recipient-specific subject lines, using authentic preview text, transitioning seamlessly into addressing the recipient's challenges, preemptively handling objections, and avoiding the presumptive use of calendar links. She also highlights how modern sales require emotional intelligence, adaptability, and consultative skills. She shares insights on how sales professionals can stand out in today's competitive landscape while using thoughtful strategies to drive success. --- Manners-First Sales Emails with Sam McKenna Good day, dear listeners. This is Steve Preda with the Management Blueprint podcast. And my guest today is Sam McKenna, founder of #samsales Consulting, whose mission is to make a positive impact on the sales profession by helping organizations, large and small, better operationalize the most important aspects of their businesses, sales, pipeline, leader development, and LinkedIn. So welcome to the show, Sam. Thank you for having me, Steve. Really nice to be here. Well, it's great to have you. So my first question is, as always, what is your personal “Why” and what are you doing in your business to manifest it? Well, personal “Why.” So I think one of the things that I am most passionate about, as you said in my introduction, is making a positive impact. And how do we do that? So I think in a couple of different ways. One, we think about it from the sales profession perspective. I think sales, unfortunately, one, still has a bit of a dodgy reputation for most. And two, has a pretty low bar in terms of expectations of what our buyers have of what sellers are like. So it's not hard to make a positive impact here, but I think teaching a couple of things about how to lead with a manners-first, buyer-centric approach, teach people that they can do things that are in favor of the buyer and with a little bit of good European manners, which are something you and I both know a little something about, and they can be really successful while doing it. They don't have to cold call a hundred times. They don't have to be really aggressive. They don't have to be conniving. They don't have to lie in order to be able to see success. So I think that's one thing, just changing the perception of sales and making a positive impact there for the better.Share on X And then two, I think one of the beautiful things about my career is I've managed to build a really big voice on LinkedIn. And I think what a shame if I only use that for our financial gain and our success. So to me, making a positive impact is also thinking about how I use that voice to raise money for causes that I really care about. Feeding kids or helping with humanitarian issues, et cetera. How do I use my voice to shine a light on women that are really deserving or to empower them by hosting free webinars? And I think, finally, giving our content away to underserved communities or people that could really use it. So people in the military, people that are transitioning from teaching to sales. We're really trying to think about how to just use our voice for good, hopefully our company growth as well, so we stick around, but also for a little bit of good in the world. I think we could all use a little bit more of that. Okay. So I'm hearing manners-first, buyer-centric approach. That's interesting. And I mean, you told me you're from Switzerland, and I mean, that's my experience that the Swiss people are fairly civilized. If I look at Roger Federer, it's kind of an iconic example of this.

https://youtu.be/9KhyJgt2mic Laszlo Balassy, CEO of ActiveGraf, is driven by a mission to help businesses become scenario smart, enabling faster, smarter decisions through real-time analytics and democratized data visualization. We discuss the ActiveGraf Framework, a tool designed to align strategic objectives, identify key drivers, and enable dynamic, interactive models to accelerate decision-making and reduce sales cycles. Laszlo shares impactful use cases, such as shortening a global software firm's sales cycle by 50% and enhancing food safety analytics for a fast food chain. He also highlights ActiveGraf's future, including the integration of AI to simplify predictive and prescriptive analytics, making these tools more accessible to businesses of all sizes. He emphasizes the transformative potential of democratized analytics to help organizations optimize operations, demonstrate value, and achieve sustainable growth. --- Become Scenario Smart with Laszlo Balassy Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint podcast. And my guest today is Laszlo Balassy, the CEO of ActiveGraf, a software company on a quest to democratize analytics, accelerate decisions, and reduce expense. So ActiveGraf allows visually modify Excel-based data models in PowerPoint without involving teams of analysts and analytics, I guess. Laszlo, welcome to the show. Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here, and especially given our past of having known each other in our previous lives, it's especially a pleasure to be here with you today. Yes, but you're not here because we have connections from previously, you're here because you have a great business and you have an exciting story to tell to our listeners. So let's start. I like to start this show these days. What is your personal “Why” and what are you doing to manifest it in your business? Yeah, so my “Why” is to leverage the power of analytics for the betterment of humanity. It sounds very grandiose, but in effect, it's not. It really started with simple ideas of if we could calculate things live in a situation, we could make much better and faster decisions. Today, my business is mostly, our business at ActiveGraf is really mostly shortening sales cycles for people that are making technical sales and things like that and using analytics to do that client work. But one example of using analytics for the betterment of humanity and making better decisions is a use case we made called the HR use case. Back when I was at Citi, whenever there was a market downturn, they basically almost arbitrarily said, this half of the room, okay, you go home. And that's it. And why was that? The reason was that board members have a fiduciary responsibility. And when they're cutting costs, nobody could ever blame them. But in six months time, when the markets turned, they'd be trying to hire back the exact same people or very similar people, maybe not the exact same people. And I thought, God, there's gotta be a better way. And we developed this use case called the HR during a recession use case. And the clear thing is that if you look at keeping people who seem to be excess staff, it actually comes out as a calculation to be better to keep them even for 9 months, 12 months, 18 months than it is to get rid of them, pay severance and all of that. And I feel that if more people had access to analytics and calculations like this, the world would just be a better place. We'd make better and faster decisions. So that's the kind of my “Why” is really to democratize that and make it easy for anybody to use even more sophisticated calculations.Share on X Yeah, that's cool. So you had this experience, I think you explained in our pre-interview that when you're an investment banker, you would have loved to actually be able to demonstrate the sensitivity analysis, what the scenario analysis that you were talking about, and the team had to go back to the office to develop it in real-time,...

Sam McKenna, Founder of #samsales Consulting, is driven by a mission to elevate the sales profession through manners-first sales emails, authentic connections, and using her platform for positive impact.   We learn about Sam's journey to redefine sales, focusing on her Impact First Email Framework, a six-step methodology for crafting personalized and effective outreach. The framework includes creating unique, recipient-specific subject lines, using authentic preview text, transitioning seamlessly into addressing the recipient's challenges, preemptively handling objections, and avoiding the presumptive use of calendar links. She also highlights how modern sales require emotional intelligence, adaptability, and consultative skills. She shares insights on how sales professionals can stand out in today's competitive landscape while using thoughtful strategies to drive success.   (1:25) Sam's personal Why (3:44) The Impact First Email Framework (15:33) Modern traits for sales success (23:57) Advice for entrepreneurs (28:07) Connect with Sam   Links and Resources Sam's LinkedIn  #samsales Consulting  Test-drive the Summit OS® Toolkit: https://stevepreda.com/free-business-growth-tools-summit-os-toolkit/ Management Blueprint® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT  Steve Preda's books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks  Follow video shorts of current and past episodes on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevepreda-com/

https://youtu.be/RbUroiKBLSs David Snider, Founder and CEO of Harness Wealth, is driven by a mission to help clients build financial confidence while making rapid decisions with clarity through modernized, tailored advisory solutions. We learn about David's journey from aspiring politician to private equity professional, and ultimately to entrepreneur. He explains the RAPID Framework—Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input, and Decide—a decision-making process he applies to foster collaboration and clarity within his team. He shares his insights on creating scalable solutions for complex financial and tax challenges, emphasizing the importance of empowering clients with tailored tools and resources. He also highlights the value of peer advisory groups and continuous learning to navigate leadership challenges effectively. --- David Snider on Making RAPID decisions Welcome to the Management Blueprint Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Krista, the Vistage Chair, an Adjunct Professor, and someone who just really believes in leaders. My guest today is David Snider, the founder and CEO at Harness Wealth, with a mission to help clients build confidence in the path to their best financial futures. David, welcome. Thank you. We're going to dig in and we're going to start on the inside in terms of you and your leadership. What is your personal “Why” and what are you doing to manifest it? Well, first, thank you for having me. I would say that there are some fellow founders that I know where they really couldn't work for anyone else. Like it is in their ethos to do their own thing. And I've never totally been that way. I think early on I've done things that in retrospect were entrepreneurial, but they've generally come from an awareness of there's something that could be better. And if I can't find the solution for it, like why not just go out and build it myself? And so that was the catalyst for writing a business book that I started during college because I was looking for the resource, couldn't find it and decided to be a great Trojan horse to have conversation with people that I thought I might actually want to work with, or work for, I should say. I think similarly here, where after the great entrepreneurial experience of helping to build Compass from pre-revenue to hundreds of millions, was open to jumping into another operating executive role. But as I was sort of thinking about the ecosystem, there's sort of the confluence of two things. Number one, despite having been a CFO and investor, every 6 months I'd find things that I had missed or screwed up and that was no more poignantly and painfully illustrated than turning to some Harvard Business School professors for what amounted to, they didn't consider at the time to be tax advice and getting the answer, which maybe philosophically could have been right, but mechanically ended up being a seven-figure mistake for me and some others. And so, the combination of those pieces and sort of the theme that we had stumbled into a compass of the value and creating technology to help advisors and spaces that clients are really excited to get great advice and be better, be modernized, et cetera, was on that I got excited about. And so, harnesses meeting, hopefully, the need that I found around some of the nuances of tax and financial advisory and been very glad that it seems to have been helpful to thousands of others now. Yes, that evidence is by the fact that there are thousands using it. So you brought up writing a book when you were 20. Why don't you share that title with us and how that came about? Sure. So the book is called Moneymakers: Inside the New World of Finance and Business. And the catalyst was when I was much younger. And sorry if I'm jumping ahead to a question you often ask. In my teens, I really thought that I wanted to work on Capitol Hill, sort of had that goal of being an elected member of Congress potentially. And I was very fortunate to get an internship and get to see ...

Laszlo Balassy, CEO of ActiveGraf, is driven by a mission to help businesses become scenario smart, enabling faster, smarter decisions through real-time analytics and democratized data visualization.   We discuss the ActiveGraf Framework, a tool designed to align strategic objectives, identify key drivers, and enable dynamic, interactive models to accelerate decision-making and reduce sales cycles. Laszlo shares impactful use cases, such as shortening a global software firm's sales cycle by 50% and enhancing food safety analytics for a fast food chain. He also highlights ActiveGraf's future, including the integration of AI to simplify predictive and prescriptive analytics, making these tools more accessible to businesses of all sizes. He emphasizes the transformative potential of democratized analytics to help organizations optimize operations, demonstrate value, and achieve sustainable growth.   (1:49) Laszlo's personal Why (4:16) The ActiveGraf Framework (6:35) Use cases: software sales and food safety (12:52) The role of AI in ActiveGraf's future (22:24) Connect with Laszlo and learn more about ActiveGraf   Links and Resources Laszlo's LinkedIn  ActiveGraf  Test-drive the Summit OS® Toolkit: https://stevepreda.com/free-business-growth-tools-summit-os-toolkit/ Management Blueprint® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT  Steve Preda's books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks  Follow video shorts of current and past episodes on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevepreda-com/

https://youtu.be/T-aI91UGCWw Nick Jain, CEO of IdeaScale, is driven by a mission to help organizations innovate to success by democratizing innovation, enabling them to crowdsource and rank ideas from their entire ecosystem. We learn about Nick's journey from growing up in India and building a career in private equity to leading IdeaScale, the largest innovation-focused software company globally. He explains the ICE Framework—Innovate, Collaborate, and Execute—a philosophy and process that encourages continuous improvement, teamwork, and actionable results. He highlights how IdeaScale helps organizations like Pfizer and the U.S. federal government overcome constraints and systematically tap into collective intelligence for impactful innovation. He also shares the company's commitment to adaptability and hard work, providing responsive, high-touch solutions for customers. --- Innovate to Success with Nick Jain Welcome everyone to the Management Blueprint Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Krista Crawford. My guest today is Nick Jain, CEO of IdeaScale, a leading innovation operating system designed as a platform for crowdsourcing ideas. Nick, welcome. Thank you so much for having me, Krista. I'm excited to be here. I am excited, too. And just for our listeners, we have had a short pre-interview, so we're going to be covering some things that we've already talked about, and you're also going to be adding some new information. We will dig into IdeaScale shortly. However, to begin, you and I had that pre-interview where you described your leadership journey. I am sure others would benefit from your story. Please share what you will. Sure. So the quick summary of my background is I initially grew up in India, raised by a single grandmother to live up to the age of five, then did all my childhood education, small public high school in Canada, came to the U.S. for college, studied math and physics, spent the first 10 years of my career on Wall Street as a professional investor doing private equity deals and hedge fund deals. Went to business school at Harvard. And then for the past five or six years, I have either run or co-run companies in a bunch of different industries, ranging from a really big trucking company to a very small men's shoe company. And now I have the great honor and privilege of leading IdeaScale, the largest innovation-specific software company on the planet. You mentioned IdeaScale. Go ahead. Give us a little teaser about what you actually do there. Sure. So, well, I guess what I do is I'm the CEO, so I spend my time doing anything and everything, right, whether that means taking out the trash or doing marketing, coding, whatever's needed, right? What IdeaScale does, though, is really cool. What it allows any large, complex organization to do is to collect ideas from their entire ecosystem rather than just the people who sit in the boardroom. So a thing that a lot of companies struggle with is, hey, how do we get the ideas from people in our satellite offices who aren't necessarily super connected to the CEO or who are introverts or who don't speak the headquarters main language? And so our software helps you collect all of those ideas. And just like a social media platform, it'll help you rank those ideas. People can upvote and downvote those ideas. So the best ideas rise to the top. No different than how a funny dance video rise to the top in TikTok or a cute cat image rises up in Instagram. But imagine this for much more impactful ideas that could be your company's new product. It could be you're a new initiative for your nonprofit, a new way to serve your constituents as a government. And you can get those ideas from your entire ecosystem. That could be your employees, that could be your customers, your shareholders, the people you serve as a nonprofit. And what that results in is just a much more diverse group of ideas and also the best ideas rising to the top,

David Snider, Founder and CEO of Harness Wealth, is driven by a mission to help clients build financial confidence while making rapid decisions with clarity through modernized, tailored advisory solutions.   We learn about David's journey from aspiring politician to private equity professional, and ultimately to entrepreneur. He explains the RAPID Framework—Recommend, Agree, Perform, Input, and Decide—a decision-making process he applies to foster collaboration and clarity within his team. He shares his insights on creating scalable solutions for complex financial and tax challenges, emphasizing the importance of empowering clients with tailored tools and resources. He also highlights the value of peer advisory groups and continuous learning to navigate leadership challenges effectively.   (1:32) David's personal Why (7:24) Advice for young entrepreneurs (11:50) The RAPID Framework  (19:17) How Harness Wealth empowers financial confidence (22:19) Find out more about David and Harness Wealth   Links and Resources David's LinkedIn  Harness Wealth  Moneymakers: Inside the New World of Finance and Business by David Snider  Krista Crawford's LinkedIn  Test-drive the Summit OS® Toolkit: https://stevepreda.com/free-business-growth-tools-summit-os-toolkit/ Management Blueprint® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT  Steve Preda's books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks  Follow video shorts of current and past episodes on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevepreda-com/

Nick Jain, CEO of IdeaScale, is driven by a mission to help organizations innovate to success by democratizing innovation, enabling them to crowdsource and rank ideas from their entire ecosystem.   We learn about Nick's journey from growing up in India and building a career in private equity to leading IdeaScale, the largest innovation-focused software company globally. He explains the ICE Framework—Innovate, Collaborate, and Execute—a philosophy and process that encourages continuous improvement, teamwork, and actionable results. He highlights how IdeaScale helps organizations like Pfizer and the U.S. federal government overcome constraints and systematically tap into collective intelligence for impactful innovation. He also shares the company's commitment to adaptability and hard work, providing responsive, high-touch solutions for customers.   (0:44) Nick's journey to leadership (8:27) The ICE Framework (10:37) How IdeaScale transforms innovation (16:32) Building a team for continuous learning (19:47) Learn more about Nick and IdeaScale   Links and Resources Nick's LinkedIn  IdeaScale  Krista Crawford's LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristacrawfordphd/ Test-drive the Summit OS® Toolkit: https://stevepreda.com/free-business-growth-tools-summit-os-toolkit/ Management Blueprint® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT  Steve Preda's books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks  Follow video shorts of current and past episodes on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevepreda-com/

https://youtu.be/bwd1bPIT3KA Ron Crabtree, CEO of MetaExperts, is driven by a mission to stop waste in organizations by addressing digital transformation, labor shortages, and operational excellence. We learn about Ron's journey in supporting businesses, especially in manufacturing, to navigate these critical issues. He explains his framework for transformation, focusing on three pillars: digital transformation with practical applications of AI and automation, workforce development to address labor shortages, and Lean Six Sigma practices to eliminate waste and optimize processes. He highlights the importance of value stream mapping and applying the Pareto principle to target key areas for improvement, helping organizations become more efficient and resilient. --- Stop the Crazy Waste with Ron Crabtree Good day, dear listeners, Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast, and my guest today is Ron Crabtree, the CEO of MetaExperts that provides Interim Top Talent from a global network of OpEx deployment experts and resources for flexible, on-demand, short-term contract or contract-to-higher needs. Welcome to the show, Ron. Awesome. Thank you for inviting me, Steve. Yeah. It's great to have you and you have a great company and a great topic area that we have not covered so far. Let's start with the question that I like to ask all our guests these days. What is your personal “Why,” your personal mission, and what are you doing to manifest it in your business? Well, I've been spending a lot of time giving a lot of thought to the common challenges that organizations face, right? And this is particularly, I've kind of leaned toward manufacturing and organizations involved with making, moving product, using lots of product. And here in North America, in particular, practically every Western country, we have three things that keep executives awake at night and it gives me a lot of pause. And the first is digital transformation and digitization of work. The big buzz is artificial intelligence, AI, is supposed to be the big solution, and incredible pressure and a lot of angst around, well, what do we do with all that? And you see statistics from some of the big consulting firms out there, about 80 to 90% failure rates of organizations spending time and money to try to digitize and digitally transform and just not getting anywhere fast. The second one that I think everybody kind of recognizes, but maybe doesn't name it real well, is this phenomenon called the forever labor shortage. And I'm just holding up a little picture here of something I found on the web late last year. It was based on data that came out of the Congressional Budget Office, and they're describing the percentage of growth in the workforce in North America. And if we take a look at the last decade of the 2000s, it was almost 12%. In that decade, 12% of the workforce entered the workforce in that decade. But the following decade, it dropped below 8%. The most recent decade, it dropped below 6%, and that number is going down. So there's incredible angst out there around the war on talent, the war for talent, and where are we going to come up with people, particularly in North America and most Western countries, where is that workforce of the future coming from and how are we going to cope with it? And then the third thing is, is just flat got to do more with less, less logistics, less transportation, less material, fewer mistakes, smaller facilities. We have to get leaner and meaner every day because that's, frankly, one of the things you have to do if you're going to cope with this forever labor shortage phenomenon. Okay, so the three areas that we will be discussing, and I think it's kind of your framework, maybe it's the three pillars of meta experts, I don't know what to call it, but digitization, digital transformation, a lot of people talk about that, and then how do you get the labor, how do you cover your labor shortage and then how do you dr...

Ron Crabtree, CEO of MetaExperts, is driven by a mission to stop waste in organizations by addressing digital transformation, labor shortages, and operational excellence.   We learn about Ron's journey in supporting businesses, especially in manufacturing, to navigate these critical issues. He explains his framework for transformation, focusing on three pillars: digital transformation with practical applications of AI and automation, workforce development to address labor shortages, and Lean Six Sigma practices to eliminate waste and optimize processes. He highlights the importance of value stream mapping and applying the Pareto principle to target key areas for improvement, helping organizations become more efficient and resilient.   (1:34) Ron's personal Why (4:19)  The MetaOps Competitiveness Framework (18:10) Value stream mapping (21:27) Find out more about Ron   Links and Resources Ron's LinkedIn  MetaOps  Test-drive the Summit OS® Toolkit: https://stevepreda.com/summit-os-toolkit/ Management Blueprint® Podcast on Youtube https://bit.ly/MBPodcastPlaylistYT  Steve Preda's books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B08XPTF4ST/allbooks  Follow video shorts of current and past episodes on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/stevepreda-com/