Podcasts about COO

The Hulu's series, ‘Murdaugh: Death in the Family' has generated renewed interest in the case. This special release of the original investigative series Laura shared in April 2023 is in addition to recent interviews about the series. Incensed that Maggie had become a footnote in her own murder, Laura began her deep dive that to fix the narrative and deconstruct and decode Alex Murdaugh's behaviour with forensic precision.   Don't forget to listen to the new episodes with Mandy Matney and creators of the show, starting from Ep 285 and join in for additional episodes and interviews with Mandy Matney, Erin Lee Carr,  Liz Farrell and David Moses in the Crime Analyst Squad: patreon.com/CrimeAnalyst   Registration for spring 2026 Masterclasses is now open here: bit.ly/LRMasterclasses2026 ******   Laura continues to unravel the timeline and shares that, in addition to the boat crash case and PMPED's COO and CFO Jeanne Seckinger's confrontation with Murdaugh about the missing $792k missing legal fees on June 7th, there was another very serious investigation into Murdaugh's behaviour and finances, which began before Maggie and Paul's murders. Laura then details Gloria Satterfield's troubling case and how a Judge signed off on a $4.3m settlement, which included $1.45m attorney fees and $105,000 prosecution expenses, which went to guess who? Gloria's family knew nothing about this. One month before signing off on the settlement, that same Judge recused herself from the boat crash case due to her long-standing relationship with Murdaugh. In this episode, Laura also highlights first hand testimony from those who knew Murdaugh the best which helps develop the behavioural profile of Murdaugh and talks to motive. Join Laura as she breaks it all down. #MaggieMurdaugh #PaulMurdaugh #StephenSmith #GloriaSatterfield #MalloryBeach #MurdaughMurders #Murder #AlexMurdaugh #MaleViolence #DomesticAbuse #DomesticHomicide #Timeline #CrimeAnalyst #Expert #Analysis #Behaviour #TrueCrime #Podcast #TrueCrimePodcast   Clips   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qUgdtQlAnQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fLV7aWq7t0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r3IkeqM7a4 https://www.fitsnews.com/2022/04/26/murdaugh-murders-saga-south-carolina-grand-jury-was-probing-alex-murdaughs-finances-prior-to-double-homicide/     Sources   https://murdaughmurderspodcast.com/ https://www.justice.gov/usao-sc/pr/alex-murdaugh-indicted-federal-conspiracy-wire-fraud-bank-fraud-and-money-laundering https://www.fitsnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/talahassee-democrat.jpeg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StHXgB0oSoQ https://www.thedailybeast.com/alex-murdaughs-pmped-law-firm-colleagues-describe-his-work-behavior-in-murder-trial https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/federal-judge-says-multi-million-dollar-murdaugh-insurance-policy-doesnt-cover-boat-crash-that-killed-mallory-beach/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mallory-beach-death-alex-murdaugh-boating-crash/ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10045843/Alex-Murdaughs-wife-Maggie-met-divorce-attorney-just-six-weeks-killed.html https://people.com/crime/maggie-murdaugh-saw-divorce-lawyer-six-weeks-before-murders/ https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/06/us/alex-murdaugh-whats-next/index.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/alex-murdaugh-trial-voicemail-pills-b2284637.html https://wpde.com/news/local/judge-approves-43m-judgement-for-estate-of-alex-murdaugh-housekeeper-gloria-satterfield https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/crime/curtis-eddie-smith-bond-alex-murdaugh-b2313351.html   Masterclasses and Crime Analyst Resources and Community    The Crime Analyst Squad is a growing and dynamic community offering expert insight, in-depth conversations, exclusive episodes and videos, and live events. Join the community or follow along:    Patreon: Crime Analyst Squad    If you found this episode valuable, please consider leaving a five start review wherever you listen.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jody Fiess is the COO of Cerboni Financial Services, HQ'd in Houston, Texas. Cerboni is an all-in-one financial solution for restaurants. Cerboni Services was formed in 2017 to help independent restaurants manage their financials and lower costs through performance based metrics. Today, Cerboni helps around 800 restaurants nationwide.  Join RULibrary: www.restaurantunstoppable.com/RULibrary Join RULive: www.restaurantunstoppable.com/live Set Up your RUEvolve 1:1: www.restaurantunstoppable.com/evolve Subscribe on YouTube: https://youtube.com/restaurantunstoppable Subscribe to our email newsletter: https://www.restaurantunstoppable.com/ Today's sponsors: - Restaurant Technologies — the leader in automated cooking oil management. Their Total Oil Management solution is an end-to-end closed loop automated system that delivers, monitors, filters, collects, and recycles your cooking oil eliminating one of the dirtiest jobs in the kitchen.. Automate your oil and elevate your kitchen by visiting rti-inc.com or call 888-779-5314 to get started! - Restaurant Systems Pro - Lower your prime cost by $1,000, and get paid $1,000 with the Restaurant Systems Pro 30-Day Prime Cost Challenge. If you successfully improve your prime cost by $1,000 or more compared to the same 30-day period last year, Restaurant Systems Pro will pay you $1,000. It's a "reverse guarantee."  Let's make 2026 the year your restaurant thrives. - US Foods®. Running a restaurant takes MORE than great food—it takes reliable deliveries, quality products, and smart tools. US Foods® helps you make it. Ready to level up? Visit: usfoods.com/expectmore. - Guest contact info:  Website: https://cerboniservices.com Thanks for listening! Rate the podcast, subscribe, and share! 

In "Inside the DAT - Convoy Platform Deal: What This Acquisiton Means for the Freight Market", Joe Lynch and Bill Driegert, EVP of Convoy Platform - DAT Freight & Analytics, discuss how the integration of the Convoy Platform's automation and AI technology with DAT's massive freight marketplace will help brokers combat fraud, increase efficiency, and focus on high-value work. About Bill Driegert Bill Driegert is the EVP of Convoy Platform at DAT Freight & Analytics. He was previously the EVP of Trucking at Flexport and the co-founder and Head of Operations at Uber Freight, Uber's logistics business. Bill began his career in freight as the fourth employee at Coyote Logistics (acquired by UPS), where he grew the role to Chief Innovation Officer. Prior to joining Uber, he served as COO at Pillow Homes. He also spent time at Amazon as Director of Planning and Innovation. Bill holds an M.A. in Supply Chain from MIT, an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, and a B.A. from Southern Methodist University. About DAT Freight & Analytics DAT Freight & Analytics operates the DAT One truckload freight marketplace; Convoy Platform, an automated freight-matching technology; DAT iQ analytics service; Trucker Tools load-visibility platform; and Outgo factoring and financial services for truckers. Shippers, transportation brokers, carriers, news organizations, and industry analysts rely on DAT for market trends and data insights, informed by nearly 700,000 daily load posts and a database exceeding $1 trillion in freight market transactions. Founded in 1978, DAT is a business unit of Roper Technologies (Nasdaq: ROP), a constituent of the Nasdaq 100, S&P 500, and Fortune 1000. Headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, DAT continues to set the standard for innovation in the trucking and logistics industry. Visit dat.com for more information. Key Takeaways: Inside the DAT - Convoy Platform Deal: What This Acquisiton Means for the Freight Market In "Inside the DAT - Convoy Platform Deal: What This Acquisiton Means for the Freight Market", Joe Lynch and Bill Driegert, EVP of Convoy Platform - DAT Freight & Analytics, discuss how the integration of the Convoy Platform's automation and AI technology with DAT's massive freight marketplace will help brokers combat fraud, increase efficiency, and focus on high-value work. Solving Major Brokerage Challenges: The acquisition of the Convoy Platform is a strategic move by DAT to help freight brokers tackle significant industry challenges like fraud, the need for increased automation, and the integration of AI. Automation for Efficiency: By integrating the Convoy Platform, DAT aims to automate routine tasks, which will allow brokers to dedicate more time to complex, high-value work, such as building relationships with clients and carriers. Enhanced Fraud Prevention: The deal combines the Convoy Platform's advanced, machine-learning-powered fraud prevention technology with DAT's extensive network and data. This fusion is intended to create a safer and more secure environment for freight transactions. Augmenting the DAT One Platform: The Convoy technology will be incorporated into DAT's flagship product, DAT One. This integration will offer brokers and carriers new automated capabilities while ensuring that the core, familiar functions of the load board remain unchanged. Leveraging Bill Driegert's Expertise: Bill Driegert's background, including his leadership roles at Uber Freight and Coyote Logistics, is a crucial asset for DAT. His experience as a technologist and innovator in the freight industry is key to the successful integration and future development of the Convoy Platform. The Practical Role of AI: The interview clarifies that AI is not just a buzzword but a practical tool for improving freight operations. The technology will be used to enhance decision-making, optimize processes, and increase overall efficiency for the brokers DAT serves. Building a Comprehensive Ecosystem: The Convoy acquisition is part of a larger plan to unify DAT's recent acquisitions, including Trucker Tools and Outgo. The goal is to create a complete, integrated ecosystem that provides solutions for everything from freight matching and payment processing to carrier tracking and automation. Learn More About Inside the DAT - Convoy Platform Deal: What This Acquisiton Means for the Freight Market Bill Driegert | Linkedin DAT Freight & Analytics | Linkedin DAT DAT - Convoy Platform Convoy Platform - DAT DAT + The Convoy Platform: A new chapter in our marketplace evolution Infographic: Modernize your brokerage MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics with Chris Caplice Navigating Market Uncertainty with Sarah Bertram A Trillion Dollars in Freight Transactions with Ken Adamo DAT iQ: The Metrics that Matter with Samuel Parker Taking the Uncertainty and Risk Out of Freight with Erika Voss The Logistics of Logistics Podcast If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a positive review, subscribe, and share it with your friends and colleagues. The Logistics of Logistics Podcast: Google, Apple, Castbox, Spotify, Stitcher, PlayerFM, Tunein, Podbean, Owltail, Libsyn, Overcast Check out The Logistics of Logistics on Youtube

Tony chats with David Stafford, Co-Founder and COO at Substance, they are a budding insurtech, currently in pre-seed funding round, that is building an An MGA that is powered by AI and robotics to completely change the risk evaluation and loss prevention process focused in warehouse and supply chain space. Their technology will have applicability to warehouses, manufacturing, and the fast growing space of data centers. They completely turn the model upside down with proprietary products starting in property. Instead of a loss control inspection they create a deep digital twin of the facility to 2 mm of precision using video, sensors and lidar. Once the policy is written they leave behind the robot to continuously scan the facility in case something changes, think of it like an industrial roomba, and his name is FELIX. An incredible conversation you wouldn't miss! #Insurance #insurtech David Stafford: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-stafford-b842048/Substance: https://substance-corp.com/Video Version: https://youtu.be/ICfUpKMSHQs

How to Scale Faster with B2B Brand Strategy Here's a common scenario in B2B marketing: you launch campaigns, hit the deadlines, and fill the pipeline, but the results feel disconnected from your long-term goals. Internal messaging discussions resurface, campaigns feel shallow and reactive, and when you ask people what your brand stands for, you get 50 different answers. This inconsistent approach creates friction and impedes scalable growth. So what can B2B marketers do when their tactical execution is outpacing their brand strategy, and how to do you realign for lasting impact? That's why we're talking to JoAnne Gritter (COO, ddm marketing + communications), who shares her expertise and actionable insights on how to scale faster with B2B brand strategy. During our conversation, JoAnne underscored why a foundational strategy is crucial for building credibility and trust in competitive markets. She also discussed the role of AI in marketing, commenting that while it can support with idea generation and research, it shouldn't replace direct communication with customers and employees. JoAnne shared some common pitfalls such as messaging misalignment and inconsistent branding, which can lead to distrust and reduced credibility, She explained the importance of having a cohesive brand strategy that aligns values, messaging, and customer experiences across all company touchpoints through proactive brand management. https://youtu.be/_Alwkinhw-g Topics discussed in episode: [02:36] The “Soul vs. Body” framework: Why marketing is just the body in action, while brand strategy is the soul that provides direction and values.  [06:51] Red flags that your marketing has outpaced your strategy: When content feels fragmented and sales teams are telling completely different stories.  [08:52] Defining true brand strategy: Moving beyond logos and colors to include deep research, stakeholder analysis, and internal alignment.  [14:41] The critical differences between a brand refresh (auditing existing assets), a complete revamp (starting from scratch), and branding during a merger.  [24:10] Actionable steps you can take to realign your brand: – Audit your customer journey – Define messaging pillars – Ensure HR and onboarding match the brand promise  [29:37] Why “data-only” marketing fails: The importance of human emotion and psychology that performance data often misses.  Companies and links mentioned: JoAnne Gritter on LinkedIn  ddm marketing + communications  Transcript JoAnne Gritter, Christian Klepp JoAnne Gritter  00:00 AI can be used as a tool. It should not replace thinking and actually talking to your customers and your employees and your sales team. So you can use AI as a crutch to to like, ask it for ideas, idea generation. You can use it for deep research on your on your audience, and stuff like that. But nothing replaces the gold standard of talking to people. I see this in messaging misalignment or content misalignment. If content feels like it’s been written by four different people or completely different companies, that’s a red flag. Christian Klepp  00:37 This is a common scenario for B2B Marketers. You launch campaigns, hit the deadlines and fill the pipeline. It all looks great on paper, but something is still off internal messaging discussions resurface. Campaigns feel shallow and reactive, and when you ask people what the brand stands for, you get 50 different answers. So what can B2B Marketers do when their marketing is outpacing their brand strategy? Welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers in the Mission podcast, and I’m your host, Christian Klepp, today, I’ll be talking to JoAnne Gritter, who will be answering this question. She’s a member of the leadership team at DDM Marketing Communications that provides integrated marketing solutions to drive business success. Tune in to find out more about what this B2B Marketers Mission is and here we go. JoAnne Gritter, welcome to the show. JoAnne Gritter  01:25 Hi Christian. Happy to be here. Christian Klepp  01:27 We you know, we had such a wonderful, like, pre-interview conversation. I almost feel like we’re neighbors or something, and something to that extent. But I’m, I’m really, like, happy to have you on the show, and I’m really looking forward to this conversation, because this topic is, I’m a little bit biased because I am in the branding space, so it’s a bit near and dear to my heart, but it’s also something that’s extremely important, because you’ll agree. I mean, you, I know you’ll agree because you wrote an article about it. JoAnne Gritter  01:54 Yeah Christian Klepp  01:55 It’s something that marketing teams tend to overlook. And good, goodness gracious me, I’m gonna, like, stop keeping people in suspense. We’ll just jump right in all right. JoAnne Gritter  02:04 Okay Christian Klepp  02:04 So JoAnne, you’re on a mission to provide integrated marketing solutions that drive B2B business success. So for this conversation, let’s focus on this topic, how brand strategy helps B2B organizations to realign for long term growth. So I’m going to kick off this conversation with the following question. In our previous conversation, our previous discussion, you talked about how marketing without a brand is a strategy without a soul. Could you please explain what you meant by that? JoAnne Gritter  02:36 So I just made the comparison kind of to the whole human, as in, like the brand is your soul, meaning like your values, what drives you, why you’re here, what differentiates you, what makes you different than the person standing next to you, whereas, like marketing is your body in action, or action in general, where you hopefully, if you if you’re a trustworthy person, what is, what are your values internally are matching your actions externally? And that is often where we see a divergent in companies, because they don’t think about those as like two sides of the same coin. It is really important that you make sure that you know the direction that you’re going as a company and what you stand for and who you’re there to support or serve, and what markets you’re there to do, and like your whole company, everybody that’s part of interfacing with customers understands that and is and is speaking the same language. Christian Klepp  03:37 Yeah, no, absolutely. And I suppose the the follow up question to that is like, where do you see a lot of, like, marketing teams go wrong. Because, like, you know, more often than not, a lot of teams are like, Okay, we’ve we’ve implemented the campaigns check. We’re generating results and driving pipeline or filling the pipeline, rather check. So where does it all go wrong? JoAnne Gritter  04:00 If you are not paying attention to your branding, you can have a lot of activity without a lot of traction. So or you can have a lot of different messages going out that seem not cohesive or fragmented. And so you can or more examples you can have, like your sales folks going out and telling different stories about about what your company stands for and what you do and how you’re different, that creates a lot of waste, because then you’re continuously trying to get more activity and more campaigns going more sales people out there, because you’re not getting the quality leads that you need, because nobody really knows what you stand for. Everybody says it a little bit differently, and that goes for customer service too. Branding. People think about branding as a marketing problem, or a marketing, you know, teams problem. But if, let’s say part of your brand is your brand identity or values is to put the customer. First, if you don’t really solidify that from your sales team and your customer support team, then there would be a mismatch there, right then you’re just putting out into the world that customers first, but that doesn’t match up with what the customer is experiencing. Christian Klepp  05:16 Yeah, there’s certainly some kind of misalignment there, and you touched on it, like, briefly. It’s interesting to me, like, even in my own experience, one of the telltale signs of that is when you ask people within the organization, well, what makes you different? And you get 50 different answers, and some of them are similar, and some of them are completely, like, different. And it’s like, okay, yep, okay, I see where this is going, or to your to your other point, when sales teams are having those discovery calls, and you listen back to some of those recordings, which I hope you marketing people out there are doing, and you listen to the way that the sales deal with objections, and maybe the procurement team or people like, you know, on the prospect side, they’re probably not phrasing it exactly the way I’m going to say it right now, but like, but they probably are asking something to the effect of, okay, what makes you different from vendor B, C and D, right? What is different about your solution? Like, why are you charging this guy? Why are your rates like, this high. JoAnne Gritter  05:16 Right. Absolutely. And if they have different answers, or if you go and you listen in on four different sales calls and they’re all a little bit different, then that tells you have a branding issue that people don’t fully understand your brand and how you’re different and who you support and serve. Christian Klepp  05:16 Yep, absolutely, absolutely. So you’ve touched on it a little bit, but like, tell us about some more of these. I’m going to call them red flags, right? That signal when marketing has outrun brand strategy. JoAnne Gritter  05:16 Sure, I see this in messaging misalignment or content misalignment. If content feels like it’s been written by four different people or completely different companies, that’s a red flag. If, like we mentioned, your sales team talks about your company completely differently, it’s okay that they put their own little spin on it, as long as you’re still hitting like the purpose of your company, why you’re here, how you serve whatever your target audience or audiences are what your values are. If that’s not coming through in in those different places, then you may have a brand issue, or your training issue, or your brand is not being carried out through the company. So when you have a solid brand, it should be, should be repeated in in like your onboarding process, in HR kind of things, in performance conversations, in obviously, your sales and marketing and your customer service, so that everybody is aligned to that brand, and so that there’s a common message, common theme, because repeatability is is super important. Consistency is super important in marketing. I’m sure a lot of people have heard that it takes multiple multi multiple times of hearing the same message for it to actually resonate, and if they’re hearing multiple different messages, it’s causes confusion and a lack of trust in whatever the company is offering. Christian Klepp  05:16 Yeah, that’s absolutely right. JoAnne, I’ve got a I just thought of another fall off question, and you’ll indulge me here. Um, you know it, I know it. But let’s, let’s clear the air here for a second. Because I’ve been hearing this like, and I’m sure you have as well, in the B2B world, it’s just been thrown around, like, very loosely. Let’s clear the air here. Like, what do you mean by brand strategy, because I’ve heard people, especially at senior level, say, like, Yeah, we don’t need branding. We’ve got a logo and we’ve got a website. We’re good, so maybe just clear the air on that one, please. JoAnne Gritter  05:16 Well, brand strategy is, let’s see, like, I think of strategy in like, four or three different tiers. Like, we have your business strategy, it’s how you win in the marketplace. Then you have your brand strategy, which is positions you in the market and in the minds of your consumers or your customers. And then your marketing strategy is how you take that and communicate it out and you deliver that message in multiple different channels. So if you have marketing running without, without laddering up to that business strategy and and brand strategy, then it’s just, it’s just running and putting stuff out there. So it’s just activity without, without purpose and strategy. So like a brand strategy is so much more than just a lot of people think about it as their logo, their identity suite, whatever, but there should be research that goes into it. They should be stakeholder analysis. They should talk to your customers and kind of understand what they value about about your company compared to another company. So then, using. Their language in some of your brand messaging is super helpful. So if you have like, customers that say, you know, like, I just love working with, you know, Company X, Y and Z, because the people are great. They’re super responsive. They they get me what I need, etc. Like, using some of that as part of your brand is going to be really important. So like, a strategy may may include, like, the focus, the brand, promise your your core values can be part of that. The naming can be part of that. Obviously, the the design part that a lot of folks actually think about and listen or think about and recall would be, like the visual identity that also needs to be consistent, from your logo to your fonts to your colors, and then like, multiple touch points on that, like, again, like repeating that consistency from like the stationary, the collateral, the assets, all that stuff, but then also making sure that the messaging and the voice carries throughout your company, past past your your marketing team, past your sales team. Christian Klepp  05:16 Yeah, that’s absolutely right. I mean, I like to tell people that all of these things that you mentioned, especially the visual aspect, the the sexy part of it, right, like the the visual identity, the logo, the web design and all that. It’s the end result. It’s one of the outcomes of right branding, right? JoAnne Gritter  05:16 That doesn’t come out of a vacuum, right? You don’t show a designer that’s like, I’m super excited about the color red, so we’re gonna do it’s what do our customers, current customers, feel about us, and what do we want our prospective customers to feel about us? And then there’s a lot of strategy behind that. Christian Klepp  05:16 That’s right, that’s right. I’m gonna move on to the topic of key pitfalls to avoid. So what are some of these key pitfalls that B2B Marketing Teams should avoid, and what should they do instead? JoAnne Gritter  05:16 So pitfalls that I see is companies teams that get really excited about certain trends. I’m just going to pick on Tiktok. There’s time and a place for Tiktok, but like, for B2B, they’re like, oh, man, everybody’s on Tiktok, or this latest, you know, social media platform, channel, we really got to get on there. It’s or we got to use AI in some specific way without, like, thinking about the strategy behind that and just like going forward, because you know that that’s the hottest trend right now. So always make sure it ladders up to where your customers are and what you want them to think about you. If you’re a B2B company, it’s likely that your customers are more on LinkedIn than they are on Tiktok. That’s just an example. I can’t say that across the board, but like picking picking things that are always centered on on your customer and your brand are super important. So that’s a pitfall, and then what to do about it? Also treating the brand as a one time exercise, like set it and forget it, kind of thing. A lot of people are just like, Okay, we did the brand. We got a great logo, we got stationery, we even got PowerPoints that are branded and then never think about it again, except for, like, just the, you know, the colors and the logo on all of your media assets, right? So, but the brand is so much more than that. The brand is so much about, like, how you want them to feel, what the differentiators are, what makes you different, what you deliver and like, how you talk about it, how you position yourself. So like, every bit, every asset that goes out the door, should be aligned to that there should be almost a hierarchy. Christian Klepp  05:16 Yeah, no, exactly, exactly. And I’m gonna throw another follow up question at you, only because I know you can handle you can handle it. You probably hear this a lot, and you hear this a lot, most likely also from marketing teams that perhaps don’t have as much experience in the branding space as you do, and they say things like, JoAnne, you know, we’re looking at our company, and we feel that, you know, the overall look and feel and the direction, it’s not really in line with what we aspire to be. So we’re looking for a revamp. And then, and then, as the conversation progresses, they say, Oh, actually, we want maybe, maybe just a refresh, right? And then you hear another prospect say, Well, you know, we just merged the two companies. So like, what do we do there? So maybe just, just to, again, clear the air, so people don’t throw around these terms so recklessly, what actually is the difference between a brand refresh, a brand revamp, and branding as a result of a merger, Speaker 1  06:02 like a brand like from scratch, is going to take a lot of different kind of research efforts than like a brand refresh. Like, if you’re doing a brand refresh, then you’re looking at assets that already exist, you know, and and you’re looking at reasons why they might change or are no longer working. So you’re doing more. Of an audit kind of thing, like, what’s different now than it was 20 years ago when we created this brand, and where are we going? Their new leadership? Are they focused on different parts of this like even even DDM, the marketing agency that I work with or that I work for. We, every once in a while, look at our brand, and not just the visuals, but like the things that make us unique. And we say, hey, those are still unique, but we’re talking about them slightly differently now. So we need to take a look at that and change the messaging a little bit. We’re heading in a slightly different direction lately with our creative so let’s, let’s make sure that we’re still in line, so that everything, everything matches. And if they see us on Instagram versus if they see us on LinkedIn or on our website, that it still looks like ABM, you know, and then a merger is slightly different, because you’re putting together two brands, and a lot of times they’re creating a new brand from that, or they might keep one of the brands and then just bring another like, you know, Company X is now a, you know, Company Y brand. And there might be, like a sub. There’s all kinds of different ways hierarchies of brands in that kind of scenario. But more recent one that we did, they created a new brand, which was a combination of the two names, and they completely they went through the whole exercise with the new leadership team. So it’s more similar to like starting from scratch, but also taking bits and pieces that they want to keep from both brands and what’s working. So you kind of look at what clients from both brands like about those brands, and make sure that you keep those and you preserve those, and make sure that it’s it’s heading in the direction that the company wants to go a lot of discovery and research and questions, Christian Klepp  06:16 Absolutely, absolutely. And I love that you keep bringing that up, though, because that is, again, one of these components that people tend to overlook, that this comes with a lot of research. It’s not, as you said, it’s not okay. Here’s the brief. Graphic designers or design team have at it. JoAnne Gritter  17:07 Right? Christian Klepp  17:07 Come up with something, something else, great, right? Yeah, my favorite briefs are always the ones that said we want something modern, clean, yet traditional and exciting. It’s like, JoAnne Gritter  17:17 Oh yes, creative. Make it creative, splashy mean to you? Christian Klepp  17:25 Yeah, yeah, open to interpretation, I suppose. Why do you believe that inconsistent messaging and internal misalignment cost organizations credibility and dollars? And you did touch on it earlier on the conversation. JoAnne Gritter  17:41 It’s a misalignment of what you say versus what you do. If you have on your website that you are there to serve X population and that you are like your mission and purpose in in this world is to support that population in in achieving whatever goal, whatever needs that that population needs, but then that customer or population that comes and interacts with your brand does not get that from the people or get that from their experience with your product. Then then that’s a misalignment, and that creates, you know, instant distrust, like you are not following through on, on what your brand promise was, or if you have multiple people saying they’re promising different things and they don’t get that, that’s a lack of trust. Christian Klepp  18:27 I’m kind of slightly grinning here, although I know that anyone who’s been in this situation probably will not see any humor in it, but like, I’m just thinking about anyone that’s experienced a flight delay, JoAnne Gritter  18:37 right, Christian Klepp  18:39 or been trapped at the airport, and whichever airline it is you’re flying with, and you have to deal with ground staff that are either unprofessional and rude or you just have zero transparency. And I’m sure, like, I’ve certainly gone through it like I’ve experienced a 10, 12 hour flight delay, right where I was at the airport until like, one or two in the morning, and then they finally come and say, well, the plane’s not coming. JoAnne Gritter  19:04 Yeah, that really rocks the brand reputation. I also see that in health care a lot, which, God bless everybody in health care, it’s hard, but like, if all those services are disjointed and the scheduling gives you a different feeling than the doctor gives and trying to do things online, it doesn’t match what your experience is in person. People don’t want to go to that provider anymore. You know, they’re like, this is confusing. I just want help. Just want to get what you’re promising. Christian Klepp  19:35 It’s a very for lack of a description of fragmented ecosystem. JoAnne Gritter  19:39 Yeah, absolutely. And that’s a bigger issue than we can solve here, but Christian Klepp  19:43 Yeah, no amount of branding is going to fix that. JoAnne Gritter  19:47 You got to follow through on it. Christian Klepp  19:49 That’s absolutely right. That’s absolutely right. Talk to us about how aligning, and you’ve touched on it briefly, how aligning soul and action will help to build. Trust, loyalty and resilience and please provide examples where relevant. JoAnne Gritter  20:04 Let me think of an example. We work with a very large medical device manufacturer, and we’ve worked with them for 15, probably close to 20 years now. And so 15 years ago, they were very product centric. They also grow by acquisition. So they have, like several different companies that came in under this master global brand. And even though they have the same logo, they still had their own kind of visual identity. They all talked about their stuff differently. And as a result of that, in those different teams, the customers were getting wildly different experiences from this company, even though they were all under the same master company. So they rebranded. We helped them rebrand seven years ago, maybe, and this is a global organization where they brought all their business units under the same brand. They have a very strict, robust brand now. And I’m not saying that everybody needs 100 page brand guidelines. They don’t, but, like they they went all in on branding, and they make all their new employees do their brand training. It’s worked in through their onboarding. It’s worked in through their like, performance conversations, and they have just really exploded and created this, this amazing reputation as a leader. Christian Klepp  21:25 I’m sorry you’re talking about, you’re talking about real branding, then JoAnne Gritter  21:27 Real branding. Yes, they are now a leader in their industry. I mean, they were big before, but they have just really exploded in the last seven years since rebranding, and it’s been really helpful for them, because now they still grow by acquisition, but they bring in a new company, and they know what the process is to get them on board, not just from a visual identity, like rebranding all the collateral, like the sales enablement and stuff like that, but bringing the internal teams up to speed about like, what what we stand for, what we hire, like, what kind of values we Look for, so that every customer gets the same experience Christian Klepp  22:04 from your experience. How did that exercise of helping them to re brand and take all of this because, you know, there’s that situation of taking all the business units and putting them under one roof, so to speak. How did that exercise help to improve them as an organization. JoAnne Gritter  22:22 It’s been a long time, like in multiple phases. So it improves their organization. It creates a lot of clarity for them. So they’re not like redoing each other’s work, and they’re not all creating the same or they’re they’re not all creating from scratch anymore. They have a they have a similar starting point on, like, the different messaging pillars that they need to hit, even for just their products, you know. So this goes into product messaging and product launch. So like, if they are medical device, they are they want to sell, you know, knee replacements or or stuff along those lines, they know that they need to hit on a couple core values, and they need to make sure that they are targeting the same audience, and that they need to make sure that they that what they’re saying out there aligns with the master brand. Of course, there’s they still need to do the differentiators on the product level, but they also have the full brand that that supports it. So it’s just a higher level like reputation. I like to, I like to compare like branding to your reputation. So that goes along with every product that they bring in. Christian Klepp  23:32 Yeah, no, absolutely, absolutely. Okay, we get to the part in the conversation. We’re talking about actionable tips. And you’ve, you’ve actually given us quite a bit already, but if we were to summarize it, okay, JoAnne, like, if there was somebody out if there was somebody out there that was listening to this conversation, and they were listening to what you were saying, and they were like, oh my goodness, this is exactly what we’re going through right now, right? I mean, besides contacting you, right, what are like three to five things that you would recommend they do right now to realign for long term growth using brand strategy, JoAnne Gritter  24:10 I would take a look at what brand strategy you already have, if you have one otherwise kind of creating at least the bones of that. Like, what are our values? What are we focused on? What is our purpose here and mission? And then, like, what are messaging pillars or groups that align with those values? And then once you have those making sure that you have a succinct narrative or story, or even, like an elevator pitch, that everybody is aligned on. Having that is kind of a simple, hopefully a simple thing for you to figure out and align on, and then auditing the customer journey for those promises and values. So like, if you have a customer journey, they’re going from, you know, awareness of you. Or a problem to consideration between you and your company, and, you know, multiple other companies, and then you’re they’re making a decision, then they’re purchasing, then they’re hopefully your customer experience, and your delivery teams are delivering on those promises, and then you’re creating loyalty. So that’s the customer journey. So of these phases are, they are the customers still experiencing the brand that you want them to experience. So that’s like a little audit that you can do. And then from there, also making sure that all of your content that’s out there, from your like your brochures, your website, your sales enablement kind of stuff, making sure that that’s still aligned to the brand and the message that that you want it to and then making sure that, of course, throughout the company, in your like, HR documentation, you’re, I’ve said onboarding a million times, but like, making sure that everybody that’s coming into your organization understands who you are and who you who you serve, and why? Christian Klepp  26:01 Absolutely, absolutely. And that’s a really good list. And I have to ask you this question, because you know, at the time of the recording, we’re at the end of 2025, and you did bring up AI, so I’m going to bring it up again. How, how has in your experience, from what you’re seeing out there, how has AI impacted brand strategy and all the work that comes along with that. JoAnne Gritter  26:24 Well, that’s a loaded question, right? So as far as brand strategy, I kind of see it. AI can be used as a tool. It should not replace thinking and actually talking to your customers and your employees and your sales team. So you can use AI as a crutch to to, like, ask it for ideas, idea generation. You can use it for deep research on your on your audience, and stuff like that. But nothing replaces the gold standard of talking to people. So like, the the best resources from that research perspective are your customers, or your prospective customers and your sales team, if you can’t get to those customers, will often hear those like, you know, positive and negatives about your products and services. So getting to those and aligning on stakeholders, AI can be used as you know, you can use it to help think of ideas for like, let me think if you were thinking of like values, like core values, like in and messaging pillars, you can say, hey, you know, I really want it to be something along these lines. We’re circling around on like, exactly right the what the right way to phrase this is. And it can give you 50 different ideas, and you can cross out 45 of them and then land on like the top five that you communicate with your team. Don’t ever take it for rate for like per vatum, sorry, exactly as chat GPT gives you, Christian Klepp  27:55 at face value. JoAnne Gritter  27:57 Thank you. I see that that is a lot harder for early career individuals because they don’t have that discernment yet. So they, they will, they will use it as a crutch, and then, like, oftentimes not have that same kind of editing expertise to see what actually works and what doesn’t. So like pairing AI as a tool with with human intelligence and empathy, for sure, Christian Klepp  28:23 Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, at least in from my observation, and this is where I think AI really falls flat, especially when you’re coming up with the verbal expression component of brand strategy. AI doesn’t really have any soul or character, like everything, it turns out, is very, for lack of a better description, lifeless, so, and that’s where the human element, or to your point, the human intervention, can then come into play, because then you can inject that story, you can inject that human emotion, which also is a very crucial component in B2B, right? As much as people like to say, oh, B2B is all factual, right? And I would, I would disagree with that, JoAnne Gritter  29:06 yeah, it’s, it’s quality over quantity. Now, you know people, people can spot, can spot the AI generated content, and there can be a whole bunch of it, and that can help you in a variety of ways. But if it’s not actually, if it doesn’t sound human speaking or human human sounding, then, then people reject it and they don’t trust it as much. Christian Klepp  29:28 Okay, get up on your soapbox a status quo that you passionately disagree with, and why? JoAnne Gritter  29:37 I passionately disagree with data only marketing. So the big push for data driven marketing, I am, I am on board with that at face value, but it still doesn’t tell the whole story, because you can still look at data from, let’s say you did like a. Um, a focus group about about what customers want from a like a beverage or something. I’m thinking of Coca Cola, and they and they say that they they want it to be healthy. They want it to be low sugar. They want it to taste amazing. They want it to make them, you know, feel great, and stuff like that that does not you’re gonna try to create like this Frankenstein kind of soda instead, instead of recognizing that, like, there’s more psychology to this. Like a Coca Cola has, like, a whole traditional, like branding kind of way that, or traditional and emotional way that they make people feel, and that doesn’t show up in the data, necessarily. That doesn’t show up in the performance data. You know that that is a totally different kind of research too. Christian Klepp  30:51 Yeah, yeah, JoAnne Gritter  30:55 You know, that’s performance, marketing and branding. Christian Klepp  30:58 I totally agree. I totally agree that, as much as there is a big camp out there that says the future is data driven now when it comes to B2B Marketing, and I’m like, Yeah, JoAnne Gritter  31:11 humans are tricky. Christian Klepp  31:13 We’re not robots. Absolutely, absolutely, okay, here comes the bonus question. So Rumor has it that you like to draw. JoAnne Gritter  31:23  I do. Christian Klepp  31:24 Yes, and from one enthusiastic sketcher to another, I thought, I thought deep and hard about this question. Tell us about one of the most well exciting, yes, but more importantly, one of the most challenging works that you’ve created to date. So what was the theme and subject? What made it so challenging to draw, and what did you learn from that experience when you when you completed it? JoAnne Gritter  31:50 I really like to find, like, kind of micro moments I have. I have three children at home, and I like to take pictures, or, like, capture, like small moments of, like one of them snuggling the cat, or like holding hands or doing something unexpected. And in, like, not a macro view, but in a micro view of like, the different connections that people have. And then, usually, I’ll take a picture, and then I will sketch those out after they go to sleep and stuff like that. And that’s just kind of my own personal way to, I don’t know it’s it’s therapeutic. It’s a way to see, see the beauty in the world, you know, and to slow down in the moment. Christian Klepp  32:37 100%. I like to call it Balsam for the soul. JoAnne Gritter  32:40 Yeah, Christian Klepp  32:40 all right, I don’t know about you, but like, I like to sketch in the in this very room where we’re doing the recording, and I usually play classical music. So like, show pen, so something like, with with piano. Like, no opera, because that can get a bit too dramatic. JoAnne Gritter  32:59 I like classical too, when, when I’m focused at classical music, and I also like binaural beats, or it’s more like meditation kind of music. So kind of zone, zone into the moment, instead of all the crazy thoughts that go through your head and all the things you have to do. Christian Klepp  33:17 Very nice, very nice. One of the things I learned about drawing is pretty much like certain aspects of our professional work, you know, like marketing and branding. It starts with a line, and then you just keep adding the layers, right? And it’s almost the same like when you’re implementing a campaign, you know, some especially nowadays, right? You try to start small first, and do a lot of testing to see if it works. And you scale from there. And I like to, I like to think of drawings that way too. You start, you start not by adding the details. You start like, you know, with a lighter pencil. And there’s a certain, there’s a certain way of holding the pencil tool, right, so you have lesser control. And just, it’s just a bit free flowing. And for me personally, it took me a long time to start drawing like that, because I’m like, No, then I don’t have control of the process. But that’s kind of the point, right? Let go of the perfectionism, right? JoAnne Gritter  34:18 You outline it first, and then you start filling in. You know that the shadows and the light marks, and then you slowly bring in the detail. I mean, that you’re totally right, that that is like a marketing or branding strategy. You got to outline it first before you go fully in on any specific detail. Otherwise, you’re you may be way off target. Christian Klepp  34:38 That’s it. That’s it. I mean, JoAnne like I think we just found our next podcast interview topic. But thank you so much for coming on and for sharing your expertise and experience with the listeners. So please a quick introduction to yourself and how people out they can get in touch with you. JoAnne Gritter  34:57 JoAnne Gritter, I’m at DDM Marketing and Communications headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA. And I am COO, Vice President of our company. You can get a hold of me at joanneg@teamddm.com or you can just check us out at Teamddm.com Christian Klepp  35:18 Fantastic, fantastic. And we will be sure to like drop all those links in the show notes. So once again, JoAnne, thanks so much for your time. Take care, stay safe and talk to you soon. JoAnne Gritter  35:27 Thanks, Christian. Bye. Christian Klepp  35:29 Bye, for now you.

Claudine Ripert is COO at Critical Control, a remediation and disaster recovery firm that helps commercial real estate investors, owners and operators secure their portfolios from natural and internal disasters, as well as helping those organizations hit by such mishaps with disaster recovery from situations involving flooding, fire, mold and a number of other common problems that can inflict millions in recovery costs. She also discusses the elements of a disaster preparedness program to prevent or mitigate building calamities. (02/2026)

Claudine Ripert is COO at Critical Control, a remediation and disaster recovery firm that helps commercial real estate investors, owners and operators secure their portfolios from natural and internal disasters, as well as helping those organizations hit by such mishaps with disaster recovery from situations involving flooding, fire, mold and a number of other common problems that can inflict millions in recovery costs. She also discusses the elements of a disaster preparedness program to prevent or mitigate building calamities. (02/2026)

Claudine Ripert is COO at Critical Control, a remediation and disaster recovery firm that helps commercial real estate investors, owners and operators secure their portfolios from natural and internal disasters, as well as helping those organizations hit by such mishaps with disaster recovery from situations involving flooding, fire, mold and a number of other common problems that can inflict millions in recovery costs. She also discusses the elements of a disaster preparedness program to prevent or mitigate building calamities. (02/2026)

On this episode of The SaaS CFO Podcast, host Ben Murray welcomes Ben Winter, co-founder and COO at Stuut. Ben Winter brings a dynamic background in management consulting, design agencies, and executive leadership roles within scaling SaaS companies. He shares the story behind founding Stuut—an AI-powered platform designed to transform the order-to-cash process for businesses where working capital and collection efficiency are essential. Ben Winter reveals how Stuut's AI agents streamline everything from invoice communication to payment collection, targeting verticals like manufacturing, logistics, and medical devices that rely on fast cash cycles. The discussion delves into Stuut's journey—from early customer pain points to rapid fundraising, the importance of founder–investor alignment, and their innovative approach to go-to-market and brand differentiation in the crowded finance technology space. Listen in for actionable insights on SaaS metrics, building AI-driven solutions, and lessons learned in scaling an operationally efficient company—straight from a COO who's at the forefront of fintech innovation. Show Notes: 00:00 "Automating AR with AI" 05:19 "Optimizing Cash Flow for Growth" 07:11 Evolving CFO Strategies for Collections 12:34 "Delivering Value to Customers" 16:25 In-Person Impact and Clear Value 19:14 "Non-Traditional Marketing Strategies" 21:16 "Digital Coworkers for Collections Teams" 24:09 "AP & AR Strategy Insights" 29:57 "Scaling Efficiently with AI" 31:28 "Rethinking Team Structures Efficiently" Links: SaaS Fundraising Stories: https://www.thesaasnews.com/news/stuut-technologies-raises-29-5m-series-a Ben Winter's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bengwinter/ Stuut's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/stuut/ Stuut's Website: https://www.stuut.ai/ To learn more about Ben check out the links below: Subscribe to Ben's daily metrics newsletter: https://saasmetricsschool.beehiiv.com/subscribe Subscribe to Ben's SaaS newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/df1db6bf8bca/the-saas-cfo-sign-up-landing-page SaaS Metrics courses here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/ Join Ben's SaaS community here: https://www.thesaasacademy.com/offers/ivNjwYDx/checkout Follow Ben on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrmurray

I traveled to Minneapolis to sit down with several local Christian leaders to learn what's really going on in the city. To the suprise of no one, what's really going on is far more complex than what you'll hear about in the media. And local churches have come together in beautify and powerful ways to care for those who have been traumatized by recent events. Carl Nelson is the President & Chief Executive Officer for Transform Minnesota--an awesome organization that provides space for pastors and Christian leaders to wrestle through complex issues from a biblical perspective. Schelli Cronk is the COO for Transform Minnesota, and Dave Brickey is the lead pastor of Open Door church, which hosts the Exiles in Babylon Conference. Learn More!https://theologyintheraw.com/exiles26/https://transformmn.orghttps://thedoor.orgSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Why do some recruiters win retained work in a single meeting while others pitch for weeks and still lose to contingent competitors? My guest, James O'Brien, knows exactly why. And it has nothing to do with fee structure. James is the Managing Director and COO at i-intro. He's been in recruitment since the late 1980s and has spent the last decade helping recruitment firms move from transactional, contingent work into retained and exclusive assignments. His clients consistently outperform the market, with 96% one-year retention and 93% of placements still in role after two years. In this episode, James delivers a practical masterclass on consultative selling. He explains why most recruiters lose retained work before they even walk into the meeting, how to reframe hiring conversations around risk and retention, and what it really means to position yourself as a management consultant who specializes in talent acquisition. This conversation is for recruiters who are tired of pitching, discounting, and competing with five other agencies for the same role. You'll hear the exact questions James uses to expose hidden hiring failure, why “wow” should be the standard for every client meeting, and how preparation, not persuasion, is what wins retained work consistently. In this episode, you'll learn: Why recruitment isn't the real problem and retention is The three questions that reframe hiring failure for clients How to measure retention and use it to justify higher fees Why most recruiters lose retained work in the preparation, not the pitch How to show value instead of just describing your process What accountability really looks like beyond the placement Why retained fees feel fair when clients understand the true cost of hiring failure Episode Highlights: [03:56] Why transactional recruitment is dying [10:13] Recruitment's not the problem. Retention is [13:34] How to measure retention and monetize better outcomes [18:00] The three questions that reveal a 20–30% hiring failure rate [32:23] Why “wow” should be your minimum standard in client meetings [36:35] The preparation process that wins retained work [45:00] Why proposals still matter and when to send them [59:03] Accountability beyond the placement and why 12-month guarantees work Sponsor This episode is brought to you by Recruiterflow — an end-to-end, AI-first recruitment platform designed to help recruiters run and scale their business more effectively. Recruiterflow combines ATS, CRM, sequencing, data enrichment, marketing automation, and AI agents in one streamlined system. Many top recruiting leaders and members of our coaching community rely on Recruiterflow to stay organised, consistent, and competitive. You can learn more or request a demo at https://recruitmentcoach.com/recruiterflow. Guest Bio James O'Brien is the Managing Director and COO at i-intro. Since the late 1980s, he has worked across every part of the recruitment industry and now helps recruitment firms transition from contingent to retained and exclusive search. His work focuses on retention, accountability, and elevating recruiters from job fillers to trusted talent advisors. Connect with James: LinkedIn: James O'Brien Website: i-intro Connect with Mark Whitby Get your free 30-minute strategy session: recruitmentcoach.com/strategy-session

On today's episode, Editor in Chief Sarah Wheeler talks with Taylor Stork, COO of Developer's Mortgage Company and President of the Community Home Lenders of America, about credit reports and the potential risks of the proposal to go to a single-report model. Related to this episode: Debate intensifies over single-file credit report plan for mortgages HousingWire | YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ More info about HousingWire To learn more about Trust & Will click here. The HousingWire Daily podcast brings the full picture of the most compelling stories in the housing market reported across HousingWire. Each morning, listen to editor in chief Sarah Wheeler talk to leading industry voices and get a deeper look behind the scenes of the top mortgage and real estate.

What if the path to transforming higher ed isn't about radical reinvention—but about finally using the tools we already have? In this episode, Dustin chats with Kelly Rogan, COO of Ellucian, about how AI and data can revolutionize student experiences, institutional operations, and leadership decisions—if we're brave enough to modernize. Drawing from her background at Microsoft and her deep dive into higher ed, Kelly unpacks how institutions can move from resistance to action, without losing the human touch.Guest Name: Kelly Rogan - Chief Operating Officer at EllucianGuest Social: LinkedInGuest Bio: As Chief Operating Officer, Kelly Rogan drives acceleration and enhancement of Ellucian's SaaS delivery strategies and customer experience, leading the Global Professional Services, Managed Services, Services Strategy and Innovation, and Customer Success and Support organizations. Kelly has more than 20 years of impressive experience in driving cloud transformation in the technology industry, a deep understanding of transformational change, and a proven ability to scale organizations effectively. - - - -Connect With Our Host:Dustin Ramsdellhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/dustinramsdell/About The Enrollify Podcast Network:The Higher Ed Geek is a part of the Enrollify Podcast Network. If you like this podcast, chances are you'll like other Enrollify shows too!Enrollify is made possible by Element451 — The AI Workforce Platform for Higher Ed. Learn more at element451.com. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Heart Valve Disease Awareness Day (HVDAD) takes place each February 22 during American Heart Month and was launched to raise awareness of valve disease risks and symptoms, improving detection and treatment. Before the campaign began, symptoms were often dismissed as “normal aging,” when we now know they're not. Today, HVDAD unites more than 135 partners including nonprofits, advocacy groups, hospitals, and heart centers to amplify awareness nationwide. We're joined by Lindsay Clarke, COO and Senior Vice President of Health Education at the Alliance, who founded HVDAD and helped grow it into the movement it is today.

If you're looking to understand how the OBBBA can empower your business, this episode is packed with clear explanations and actionable insights for entrepreneurs everywhere.Welcome to another episode of Empowering Entrepreneurs, hosted by Glenn Harper and Julie Smith. They talk about the real impact of the OBBBA—referred to as the "big beautiful bill"—on entrepreneurs and business owners.With lots of chatter and confusion around what this legislation actually means, Glenn Harper breaks down the concrete benefits: from locking in permanent tax rates, to making long-term business planning easier, to allowing full write-offs for heavy vehicles and essential equipment purchases.Julie Smith joins in with practical questions, making sure listeners know how these changes could directly affect their buying decisions and tax strategies.PureTax, LLCTop 3 Takeaways:Locked-in Tax Rates: The OBBBA makes the current tax rates permanent, allowing entrepreneurs to plan for the future with more certainty. No more worrying about sudden tax hikes after sunset clauses expire!Permanent Qualified Business Income Deduction: Most flow-through entities can continue to benefit from this deduction. That means more money stays in your pocket and less goes to taxes.Immediate Asset Write-Offs: Need new equipment, vehicles, or even a factory upgrade? Purchase qualifying assets and write off 100%—right away, with no long depreciation schedules.Running a business doesn't have to run your life.Without a business partner who holds you accountable, it's easy to be so busy ‘doing' business that you don't have the right strategy to grow your business.Stop letting your business run you. At Harper & Co CPA Plus, we know that you want to be empowered to build the lifestyle you envision. In order to do that you need a clear path to follow for successOur clients enjoy a proactive partnership with us. Schedule a consultation with us today.Download our free guide - Entrepreneurial Success Formula: How to Avoid Managing Your Business From Your Bank Account.Glenn Harper, CPA, is the Owner and Managing Partner of Harper & Company CPAs Plus, a top 10 Managing Partner in the country (Accounting Today's 2022 MP Elite). His firm won the 2021 Luca Award for Firm of the Year. An entrepreneur and speaker, Glenn transformed his firm into an advisory-focused practice, doubling revenue and profit in two years. He teaches entrepreneurs to build financial and operational excellence, speaks nationwide to CPA firm owners about running their businesses like entrepreneurs, and consults with firms across the country. Glenn enjoys golfing, fishing, hiking, cooking, and spending time with his family.Julie Smith, MBA, is a serial entrepreneur in the public accounting space. She is the Founder of EmpowerCPA™, Founder of PureTax, LLC, COO for Harper & Company CPAs Plus, and Co-host of the Empowering Entrepreneurs podcast. Named CPA.com's 2021 Innovative Practitioner of Year, Julie led Harper & Company's transition to an advisory-focused firm, doubling revenue and profit in two years. She now empowers other CPA firm owners nationwide through consulting and speaking, teaching them how to run their businesses

We're excited to bring you a special episode from the NADA show floor featuring Sam D'Arc, COO of Zeigler Auto Group and host of Daily Dealer Live! In this episode, Greg Uland asks Sam about his unique perspective on the automotive industry and they discuss the key issues Sam sees dealers focusing on today, such as: • The shift from digital retailing to AI as the industry's hot topic. • Encouraging transparency and storytelling within the automotive community. • The evolving role of social media in dealership marketing.

Running a multi-location urgent care is rarely about bold growth moves. More often, success comes from discipline, culture, and getting the fundamentals right before scaling.In this episode, Michael sits down with Andrew Shulman, CEO of ModernMD Urgent Care, for a candid conversation about what it really takes to lead a 14-location urgent care organization serving underserved communities across Brooklyn and Queens.With more than 20 years of healthcare leadership experience, Andrew brings a rare perspective shaped by hospitals, occupational health, national employer services, and now direct-to-consumer urgent care. Since stepping into the CEO role in 2024, he has focused on stabilizing operations, restructuring management, strengthening culture, and building systems that support sustainable growth.Together, they explore why spreadsheet management alone fails in urgent care, how patient experience is driven by frontline leadership, and what metrics actually matter when you are responsible for multiple locations. This episode is a practical look at urgent care leadership from someone actively in the trenches.

In this episode, Regan Archibald breaks down why emotional health isn't “soft”—it's biochemical. He introduces the EPIC triggers (Emotions, Pain, Infections, Chemicals) and focuses on how emotions leave a measurable chemical trail that can either support health or accelerate inflammation. Using examples like anger increasing inflammatory signaling (including IL-6) and gratitude/joy supporting nitric oxide and vascular function, Regan explains how repeated emotional patterns can rewire the brain, shape immune behavior, and even override diet, exercise, and supplements if left unmanaged. The takeaway: practice the pause, choose your response, and build gratitude and connection on purpose. Consistency in emotional regulation can shift physiology toward resilience, recovery, and better long-term health.RESOURCES:Book Comprehensive Labs: https://agelessfuture.com/longevity-labs/FREE copy of The Peptide Blueprint: https://agelessfuture.com/blueprintSign up for future Health Accelerator Challenges calls LIVE! https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YZsiUMOzSyqcE8IinC5YEQ#/registrationBooks: https://www.amazon.com/Books-Regan-Archibald/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ARegan%2BArchibaldArticles: https://medium.com/search?q=Regan+ArchibaldLIKE/FOLLOW/SUBSCRIBE:YouTube -https://www.youtube.com/@ReganArchibald / https://www.youtube.com/@Ageless.FutureLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/regan-archibald-ab70b813Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ageless.future/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AgelessFutureHealth/DISCLAIMER: This video is for educational purposes only and does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.  Many of the molecules discussed in this video are research compounds and are not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for any specific medical use, indication, or condition. They are mentioned only in the context of existing scientific literature and ongoing research and are not being recommended, prescribed, sold, or offered through this video.  This content does not endorse or recommend any specific tests, products, procedures, or treatment protocols.References to our clinic are for general educational context only; investigational or non‑approved products are not available for direct ordering or prescribing based solely on viewing this content.  Do not start, stop, or change any medication, peptide, or supplement based on this video. All medical decisions must be made with a licensed prescribing clinician after a proper evaluation. No provider–patient relationship is created by viewing this content or contacting our clinic.  Regan Archibald is a Licensed Acupuncturist and longevity coach. He is not a medical doctor. Cade Archibald is COO and Co-Founder of Ageless Future, also not a medical doctor. All medical decisions, lab ordering, and prescribing in our clinic are performed only by our licensed medical team (MD, APRN, PA).  Viewers should follow the guidance of their own licensed clinicians and local health authorities regarding diagnosis and treatment decisions.

This is the fifth episode in the reignited series "Coaching for Transformation". This series will focus on unpacking the coaching strategies that help leaders grow into the best versions of themselves.This conversation is hosted by Dario Minaya, with insights from Susan Minaya, COO, Chief Learning Strategist and Executive couch with Minaya Learning Global Solutions. This episode dives into being a strategic leader from the lens of women in leadership.Stay tuned to learn more.

A lot of people leaders are exhausted right now. They're holding the line on performance… trying to keep their teams engaged… and making hard calls under pressure. And in the middle of all that, one thing gets pushed to the bottom of the list: Joy. Not the "happy all the time" kind of joy. Not "good vibes only." But joy as an operating system — the thing that stabilizes how you lead, how you respond, and how you treat people when work gets messy. Because when a leader runs on urgency, fear, or control… the team can feel it. And it costs you: trust, creativity, psychological safety, retention… and eventually, results. My special guest today is Sheryl Raphael Whitaker, and she's simplifying how to be a joy-centered people leader. Sheryl is a leadership transformation expert and best-selling author of It Starts with Joy: The Inner Shift that Changes Everything. She helps leaders and teams move from overload and disconnection into clarity, authenticity, and steady leadership — through her JoyShift™ method and the idea that "Joy is your COO." Here's how. My special guest today is Sheryl Raphael Whitaker and she's simplifying how to be a joy-centered people leader.  We tackle and simplify all aspects of it, including: That when you believe "Joy is an operating system" and "Joy is your COO," what that really means and the real cost to a team when a leader runs on urgency, fear, or control instead. The most common signs a people leader is not joy-centered (even if they're high-performing) versus someone who truly is. How to use the JoyAudit — and a couple of questions a manager can ask themselves to get clarity in under 10 minutes. A step-by-step, simplified walkthrough of the JoyShift Method: Joy Aware, Joy Embraced, Joy Committed, Joy in Motion — and one simple action you can take this week for each step. And if joy is the operating system, how it changes the most important people-leader moments: feedback, conflict, decision-making under pressure, and building trust — with a couple "before vs. after" examples you can picture immediately. Q: Are you ready to learn how to be a joy-centered people leader? If yes, this one is for you. It's time to #DoTheThing! ---- Show notes available with all links mentioned here: https://www.thesimplifiers.com/posts/410-how-to-be-a-joy-centered-people-leader---with-sheryl-raphael-whitaker

If you're a physician with at least 5 years of experience looking for a flexible, non-clinical, part-time medical-legal consulting role… ...Dr. Armin Feldman's Medical Legal Coaching program will guarantee to add $100K in additional income within 12 months without doing any expert witness work. Any doctor in any specialty can do this work. And if you don't reach that number, he'll work with you for free until you do, guaranteed. How can he make such a bold claim? It's simple, he gets results…  Dr. David exceeded his clinical income without sacrificing time in his full-time position. Dr. Anke retired from her practice while generating the same monthly consulting income.  And Dr. Elliott added meaningful consulting work without lowering his clinical income or job satisfaction. So, if you're a physician with 5+ years of experience and you want to find out exactly how to add $100K in additional consulting income in just 12 months, go to arminfeldman.com.                                                          =============== Get the FREE GUIDE to 10 Nonclinical Careers at nonclinicalphysicians.com/freeguide. Get a list of 70 nontraditional jobs at nonclinicalphysicians.com/70jobs.                                                                                                 =============== Former hospital executive and operations leader Joe White explains how years spent running ER, hospitalist, and ICU services showed him the hidden costs and inefficiencies of traditional locums arrangements. Working as an ER tech, COO, and corporate VP, he saw firsthand how opaque markups, slow credentialing, and rigid contracts hurt both hospitals and physicians, and why it made sense to rebuild the process from the ground up. He describes how that experience led him to launch SendIt, a platform that lets physicians contract directly with hospitals, set their own hourly rates, control their availability, and treat clinical work more like flexible fractional gigs. Along the way, he demystifies how hospital finances really work, how administrators think about coverage and service lines, and what doctors should understand before negotiating, signing up for locums work, or relying on staffing agencies You'll find links mentioned in the episode at nonclinicalphysicians.com/restore-physician-autonomy/

Your organization doesn't have a data problem. It has an intelligence problem: the gap between having information and being able to act on it with speed, clarity, and confidence. That gap shows up everywhere: hospitals, schools, manufacturers, and any team drowning in dashboards while leaders still wait on someone to “find the story.”Rick Anderson (Chairman & CEO, The Hive Health) is back to show just how much AI has impacted one organization in 12 months. Enter Corby Furrer (Harvard AI fellow, builder since college) and Will Furrer (former NFL quarterback turned COO). Together, they've built what they call a "trade intelligence platform" - not another analytics tool, but a system that encodes economic expectations, reconciles them against purchasing reality in real-time, and tells people exactly what action to take when behavior drifts off course.Intelligence isn't about regression models anymore. It's about knowing what "good looks like," verifying AI assumptions through human-in-the-loop, and translating observations into stories that change behavior when delivered by the people who speak the right language (physician to physician, engineer to engineer, teacher to teacher, not consultant to administrator). Sustainable change requires three legs: understanding the rules of the game, seeing what's actually happening (not what's supposed to happen), and coaching insights through stakeholders who can shift behavior.AI scales when it creates shared clarity people can validate and act on repeatedly, not when it generates reports that collect dust behind the CEO's desk.In this episode:Why your organization can have endless dashboards and still lack decision-grade intelligence. What must be true for leaders to trust AI results enough to act on them. How a data observation becomes a story for the change agent that actually drives behavior change. How coding and product building changes when AI can generate code, and why knowing “what good looks like” matters.Why one-time improvements fade, and what it takes to build a repeatable system.3 Big Takeaways from this Episode:1. Decision-grade intelligence starts with clear expectations and a next action. The bridge from data to intelligence = what should happen, reconciling it against what is happening, and using that gap to drive the next corrective step. The takeaway is widely applicable: if you cannot state the intended economic or operational outcome, you cannot reliably diagnose variance or drive consistent performance.2. If the improvement is not repeatable, it is not a solution. Build a system that codifies the work, monitors performance against targets, and keeps savings from reverting once the project ends. The real value in AI projects is durable behavior change and ongoing detection of the next opportunity, not a one-time finding.3. Insights only matter when they are delivered to the change agent as a story that drives action. A data observation has to become a narrative that the person who can change the behavior will actually respond to. In the AI era, that elevates a specific skill stack: storytelling, curiosity, and building, because trust and adoption live or die in communication and execution, not in the existence of a model. Links & resources We want to hear from you! Send us a text.Instagram - Facebook - YouTube - TikTok - Twitter - LinkedIn

What do billion-dollar investors and donors actually care about?It's not your pitch deck.It's not your financial model.And it's definitely not your IRR slide.In this episode of Commercially Speaking, we sit down with Greg Dugard, COO of Seder Grove Holdings, who previously helped raise over $5 billion during Notre Dame's historic capital campaign.Greg breaks down what he learned from raising billions, working with ultra-high-net-worth families, and now partnering with founders through permanent capital, a long-term investment approach that rejects forced exits, short-term incentives, and five-year flip cycles.We explore:What investors actually look for before wiring moneyWhy time horizons destroy more value than bad dealsPermanent capital vs private equity and venture capitalHow misaligned incentives quietly ruin partnershipsWhy selling too early kills compoundingThe difference between IRR and long-term wealth creationHow founders should evaluate partners before signingWhy trust beats returns in the long runWhat “life's work” really means for a founderIf you're a founder, investor, or operator thinking about taking on capital, this conversation might save you years of regret.

Andrew Hasty, COO at Peterman Brothers, challenges HVAC, plumbing, and electrical leaders to stop using the word "premium" as a label and start treating it as a daily standard. If pricing, marketing, and wrapped trucks all scream premium, but leadership behavior, culture, and follow-through do not match, that is not just a soft issue. It is a full-blown business identity crisis. Andrew reframes what "premium" actually means in a home service company: how your leaders talk, how they handle conflict, whether they walk past sloppy trucks, tolerate gossip, or avoid hard conversations. Listeners hear why inconsistency is expensive, why gossip is "fun" but toxic, and how every one-on-one conversation, Slack message, or branch visit becomes a brushstroke on the picture of the brand. For owners, GMs, and managers in the trades, this episode is a direct call-out: premium cannot just be demanded from technicians in the field. Leadership must model the premium first in how standards are set, how wins are celebrated, how accountability is handled, and how people are cared for. Commit to consistent, above-the-line behavior, join The Arena now: https://cantstopthegrowth.com/ Additional Resources: Learn more about the Peterman Brothers Subscribe to CSTG on YouTube! Connect with Chad on LinkedIn Chad Peterman | CEO | Author Follow PeopleForward Network on LinkedIn Learn more about PeopleForward Network Key Takeaways: Premium is lived, not priced Your rates can be premium only if leadership behavior and culture feel premium to the team and the customer. Leaders set the true standard Trucks, installs, and communication all follow the level of ownership and consistency modeled by leaders. What you allow becomes normal Ignoring gossip, sloppiness, or excuses silently tells the team that mediocrity is acceptable. Gossip destroys a premium brand Gossip and blame culture erode trust, clarity, and the identity you are trying to build. Consistency makes excellence "boring." When coaching, standards, and follow-through are consistent, high performance becomes predictable instead of dramatic.  

Phoenix is hosting the NCAA Women's Final Four in April. Kyle Hedstrom, executive vice president and COO of the Arizona Sports & Events Alliance, joins to explain what hosting a large event like this means to the Valley.

Ever wondered why the box your product comes in can matter more than the product itself?In this eye-opening episode of Start Up to Stock Exchange, host Seth Farbman sits down with Jason Grady CEO of NYSE-listed DSS and its powerhouse subsidiary Premier Packaging.From racing pro motocross as a teen to thriving in the "extreme sport" of public markets, Jason shares how DSS turns undervalued assets into high-ceiling winners across packaging, biotech, lending.Why packaging isn't boring cardboard it's strategic "pain management" that boosts sales, protects products, embraces sustainability, and creates addictive unboxing moments.The shocking truth: for brands (even iPhone-level), the box often gets as much engineering love as what's inside.A fast-paced, no-BS conversation blending high-adrenaline leadership, recession-proof business wisdom, and hidden secrets behind every shelf and delivery you see.Seth's CompaniesVstock Transfer – https://www.vstocktransfer.com/Share Media – https://www.sharemedia.co/Listen to the ShowApple Podcasts – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/seth-farbman-on-podcast-from-startup-to-stock-exchange/id1356667808Spotify – https://open.spotify.com/show/54i7xkWaAALAFrUvk4WZcNConnect with SethLinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethfarbman/Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/sethfarbmanstockTikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@sethfarbmanTwitter (X) – https://x.com/sethfarbman1About the ShowFrom Startup to Stock Exchange, hosted by entrepreneur and investor Seth Farbman, spotlights the journey of founders and CEOs as they scale their companies from early ideas to public markets. Each episode features candid conversations with leaders across industries, offering insights on growth, fundraising, branding, and the mindset it takes to build a company that lasts.0:00 – Welcome & Guest Intro0:04 – Meet Jason Grady: CEO, COO, Leader of It All1:29 – Snapshot of DSS Today: Portfolio Powerhouse2:47 – How Jason Accidentally Became "The Packaging Guy"4:13 – Packaging as "Pain Management" – The Real Magic6:28 – Surviving (and Loving) the Public Markets Extreme Sport8:35 – Why Going Public Is an "Extreme Sport"9:52 – From Pro Motocross Racer to NYSE CEO18:30 – The Big Misconception: Packaging Is NOT a Commodity19:00 – Why the Box Can Matter More Than the Product (iPhone Example)21:46 – First Moment of Truth: Unboxing & Brand Power25:23 – Wrap-Up & Where to Learn More (DSS & Premier Sites)Connect with Seth LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethfarbman/ Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/sethfarbmanstock TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@sethfarbman Twitter (X) – https://x.com/sethfarbman1

Sara sits down with Brendan McKee, Co-Founder & COO of Silver Therapeutics, for a thoughtful conversation on cannabis retail with heart—community engagement, compassionate leadership, and why the customer experience truly matters. [Ep 194]

Can you scale customer support without burning out agents or frustrating customers?Ping Wu shares how Cresta combines AI and human intelligence into a single system that scales sustainably for companies like United Airlines and Porsche.In this episode, Ping also breaks down the three constraints that shape automation in the real world: conversation complexity, infrastructure debt, and customer demographics.Guest: Ping Wu, CEO of CrestaConnect with Ping WuX: https://x.com/ping_wuLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pingwu/Connect with JoubinX: https://x.com/JoubinmirLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joubin-mirzadegan-66186854/Email: grit@kleinerperkins.comFollow on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/kpgritFollow on X:https://x.com/KPGrit​Learn more about Kleiner Perkins: https://www.kleinerperkins.com/ 

Bob Goodson was the first employee at Yelp, founder of social media analytics company Quid, co-inventor of the Like button, and co-author of the new book Like: The Button That Changed the World. On Oct 1, 2025, Bob spent a day with our MBA students at the University of Kansas, and he shared so much great content that I asked him if we could put together some of the highlights as a podcast, which I've now put together in three chapters: First is Careers, second is Building Companies, and third is AI and Social Media. As a reminder, any views and perspectives expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individual, and not those of the organizations they represent. Hope you enjoy the episode. - [Transcript] Nate:  My name is Nate Meikle. You're listening to Meikles and Dimes, where every episode is dedicated to the simple, practical, and under-appreciated. Bob Goodson was the first employee at Yelp, founder of social media analytics company Quid, co-inventor of the like button, and co-author of the new book Like: The Button That Changed the World. On Oct 1, 2025, Bob spent a day with our MBA students at the University of Kansas, and he shared so much great content that I asked him if we could put together some of the highlights as a podcast, which I've now put together in three chapters: First is Careers, second is Building Companies, and third is AI and Social Media. As a reminder, any views and perspectives expressed on the podcast are solely those of the individual and not those of the organizations they represent. Hope you enjoy the episode. Let's jump into Chapter 1 on Careers. For the first question, a student asked Bob who he has become and how his experiences have shaped him as a person and leader.   Bob:  Oh, thanks, Darrell. That's a thoughtful question. It's thoughtful because it's often not asked, and it's generally not discussed. But I will say, and hopefully you'll feel like this about your work if you don't already, that you will over time, which is I'm 45 now, so I have some sort of vantage point to look back over. Like, I mean, I started working when I was about 9 or 10 years old, so I have been working for money for about 35 years. So I'm like a bit further into my career than perhaps I look. I've been starting companies and things since I was about 10. So, in terms of like my professional career, which I guess started, you know, just over 20 years ago, 20 years into that kind of work, the thing I'm most grateful for is what it's allowed me to learn and how it's evolved me as a person. And I'm also most grateful on the business front for how the businesses that I've helped create and the projects and client deployments and whatever have helped evolve the people that have worked on them. Like I genuinely feel that is the most lasting thing that anything in business does is evolve people. It's so gratifying when you have a team member that joins and three years later you see them, just their confidence has developed or their personality has developed in some way. And it's the test of the work that has evolved them as people. I mean, I actually just on Monday night, I caught up for the first time in 10 years with an intern we had 10 years ago called Max Hofer. You can look him up. He was an intern at Quid. He was from Europe, was studying in London, came to do an internship with us in San Francisco for the summer. And, he was probably like 18, 19 years old. And a few weeks ago, he launched his AI company, Parsewise, with funding from Y Combinator. And, he cites his experience at Quid as being fundamental in choosing his career path, in choosing what field he worked in and so on. So that was, yeah, that was, when you see these things happening, right, 10 years on, we caught up at an event we did in London on Monday. And it's just it's really rewarding. So I suppose, yeah, like I suppose it's it's brought me a lot of perspective, brought me a lot of inner peace, actually, you know, the and and when you're when I was in the thick of it at times, I had no sense of that whatsoever. Right. Like in tough years. And there were some - there have been some very tough years in my working career that you don't feel like it's developing you in any way. It just feels brutal. I liken starting a company, sometimes it's like someone's put you in a room with a massive monster and the monster pins you down and just bats you across the face, right, for like a while. And you're like just trying to get away from the monster and you're like, finally you get the monster off your back and then like the monster's just on you again. And it just, it's just like you get a little bit of space and freedom and then the monster's back and it's just like pummeling you. And it's just honestly some years, like for those of you, some of you are running companies now, right? And starting your own companies as well. And I suppose it's not just starting companies. There are just phases in your career and work where it's like you look back and you're like, man, that year was just like, that was brutal. You just get up and fight every day, and you just get knocked down every day. So I think, I don't wish that on anybody, but it does build resilience that then transfers into other aspects of your life.    Nate:  Next, a student made a reference to the first podcast episode I recorded with Bob and asked him if he felt like he was still working on the most important problem in his field.    Bob:  Yeah, thank you. Thanks for listening to the podcast, as this gives us… thanks for the chance to plug the podcast. So the way I met Nate is that he interviewed me for his podcast. And for those of you who haven't listened to it, it's a 30 minute interview. And he asked this question about what advice would you share with others? And we honed in on this question of like, what is the most important problem in your field? And are you working on it? Which I love as a guide to like choosing what to work on. And so we had a great conversation. I enjoyed it so much and really enjoyed meeting Nate. So we sort of said, hey, let's do more fun stuff together in the future. So that's what brought us to this conversation. And thanks to Nate for, you know, bringing us all together today. I'm always working on what I think is the most important problem in front of me. And I always will be. I can't help it. I don't have to think about it. I just can't think about anything else. So yes, I do feel like right now I'm working on the most important problem in my field. And I feel like I've been doing that for about 20 years. And it's not for everybody, I suppose. But I just think, like, let's talk about that idea a little bit. And then I'll say what I think is the most important problem in my field that I'm working on. Like, just to translate it for each of you. Systems are always evolving. The systems we live in are evolving. We all know that. People talk about the pace of change and like life's changing, technology's changing and so on. Well, it is, right? Like humans developed agriculture 5,000 years ago. That wasn't very long ago. Agriculture, right? Just the idea that you could grow crops in one area and live in that area without walking around, without moving around settlements and different living in different places. And that concept is only 5,000 years old, right? I mean, people debate exactly how old, like 7, 8,000. But anyway, it's not that long ago, considering Homo sapiens have been walking around for in one form or another for several hundred thousand years and humans in general for a couple million years. So 5,000 years is not long. Look at what's happened in 5,000 years, right? Like houses, the first settlements where you would actually just live at sleep in the same place every night is only 5,000 years old. And now we've got on a - you can access all the world's knowledge - on your phone for free through ChatGPT and ask it sophisticated questions and all right answers. Or you can get on a plane and fly all over the world. You have, you know, sophisticated digital currency systems. We have sophisticated laws. And like, we've got to be aware, I think, that we are living in a time of great change. And that has been true for 5,000 years, right? That's not new. So I think about this concept of the forefront. I imagine, human development is, you can just simply imagine it like a sphere or balloon that someone's like blowing up, right? And so every time they breathe into it, like something shifts and it just gets bigger. And so there's stuff happening on the forefront where it's occupying more space, different space, right? There's stuff in the middle that's like a bit more stable and a bit more, less prone to rapid change, right? The education system, some parts of the healthcare system, like certain professions, certain things that are like a bit more stable, but there's stuff happening all the time on the periphery, right? Like on the boundary. And that stuff is affecting every field in one way or another. And I just think if you get a chance to work on that stuff, that's a really interesting place to live and a really interesting place to work. And I feel like you can make a contribution to that, right, if you put yourself on the edge. And it's true for every field. So whatever field you're in, we had people here today, you know, in everything from, yeah, like the military to fitness to, you know, your product, product design and management and, you know, lots of different, you know, people, different backgrounds. But if you ask yourself, what is the most important thing happening in my area of work today, and then try to find some way to work on it, then I think that sort of is a nice sort of North Star and keeps things interesting. Because the sort of breakthroughs and discoveries and important contributions are actually not complicated once you put yourself in that position. They're obvious once you put yourself in that position, right? It's just that there aren't many people there hanging out in that place. If you're one of them, if you put yourself there, not everyone's there, suddenly you're kind of in a room where like lots of cool stuff can happen, but there aren't many people around to compete with you. So you're more likely to find those breakthroughs, whether it's for your company or for, you know, the people you work with or, you know, maybe it's inventions and, but it just, anyway, so I really like doing that. And in my space right now, I call it the concept of being the bridge. And this could apply to all of you too. It's a simple idea that the world's value, right, is locked up in companies, essentially. Companies create value. We can debate all the other vehicles that do it, but basically most of the world's value is tied up in companies and their processes. And that's been true for a long time. There's a new ball of power in the world, which is been created by large language models. And I think of that just like a new ball of power. So you've got a ball of value and a ball of power. And the funny thing about this new ball of power is this actually has no value. That's a funny thing to say, right? The large language models have no value. They don't. They don't have any value and they don't create value. Think about it. It's just a massive bag of words. That has no value, right? I can send you a poem now in the chat. Does that have any value? You might like it, you might not, but it's just a set of words, right? So you've got this massive bag of words that with like a trillion connections, no value whatsoever. That is different from previous tech trends like e-commerce, for example, which had inherent value because it was a new way to reach consumers. So some tech trends do have inherent value because they're new processes, but large language models don't. They're just a new technology. They're very powerful. So I call it a ball of power. but they don't have any value. So why is there a multi-trillion dollar opportunity in front of all of us right now in terms of value creation? It's being the bridge. It's how to make use of this ball of power to improve businesses. And businesses only have two ways you improve them. You save money or you grow revenue. That's it. So being the bridge, like taking this new ball of power and finding ways to save money, be more efficient, taking this new ball of power and finding ways to access new consumers, create new offerings and so on, right? Solve new problems. That is where all the value is. So while you may think that the new value, this multi-trillion dollar opportunity with AI is really for the people that work on the AI companies, sure, there's a lot of, you know, there's some money to be made there. And if you can go work for OpenAI, you probably should. Everyone should be knocking the door down. Everyone should be applying for positions because it's the most important company, you know, in our generation. But if you're not in OpenAI or Meta or Microsoft or whoever, you know, three or four companies in the US that are doing this, for everybody else, it's about being the bridge, finding ways that in your organizations, you can unlock the power of AI by bringing it into the organizations and finding ways to either save money or grow the business. And that's fascinating to me because anybody can be the bridge. You don't have to be good with large language models. You have to understand business processes and you have to be creative and willing to even think like this. And suddenly you can be on the forefront of like creating massive value at your companies because you were the, you know, you're the one that brings brings in the new tools. And I think that skill set, there are certain skills involved in being the bridge, but that skill set of being the bridge is going to be so valuable in the next 5 to 10 years. So I encourage people, and that's what I'm doing. Like, I see my role - I serve clients at Quid. I love working with clients. You know, I'm not someone that really like thrives for management and like day-to-day operations and administration of a business. I learned that about myself. And so I just spend my time serving clients. I have done for several years now. And I love just meeting clients and figuring out how they can use Quid's AI, Quid's data, and any other form of AI that we want to bring to the table to improve their businesses. And that's just what I do with my time full-time. And I'll probably be doing that for at least the next 5 or 10 years. I think the outlook for that area of work is really huge.    Nate:  Building on the podcast episode where Bob talked about working on the most important problem in his field, I asked if he could give us some more details on how he took that advice and ended up at Yelp.    Bob:  So I was in grad school in the UK studying, well, I was actually on a program for medieval literature and philosophy, but looking into like language theory. So it was not the most commercial course that one could be doing. But I was a hobbyist programmer, played around with the web when it first came up and was making, you know, various new types of websites for students. while in my free time. I didn't think of that as commercial at all. I didn't see any commercial potential in that. But I did meet the founders of PayPal that way, who would come to give a talk. And I guess they saw the potential in me as a product manager. You know, there's lots of new apps they wanted to build. This is in 2003. And so they invited me to the US to work for them. And I joined the incubator when there were just five people in it. Max Levchin was one of them, the PayPal co-founder. Yelp, Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons were in those first five people. They turned out to be the Yelp co-founders. And Yelp came out of the incubator. So we were actually prototyping 4 companies each in a different industry. There was a chat application that we called Chatango that was five years before Twitter or something, but it was a way of helping people to chat online more easily. There were, which is still around today, but didn't make it as a hit. There was an ad network called AdRoll, which ended up getting renamed and is still around today. That wasn't a huge hit, but it's still around. Then there was Slide, which is photo sharing application, photo and video sharing, which was Max's company. That was acquired by Google. And that did reasonably well. I think it was acquired for about $150 million. And then there was Yelp, which you'll probably know if you're in the US and went public on the New York Stock Exchange and now has a billion dollars in revenue. So those are the four things that we were trying to prototype, each very different, as you can see. But I suppose that's the like tactical story, right? Like the steps that took me there. But there was an idea that took me there that started this journey of working on the most, the most important problems that are happening in the time. So if I rewind, when I was studying medieval literature, I got to the point where I was studying the invention of the print press. And I'd been studying manuscript culture and seeing what happened when the print press was invented and how it changed education, politics, society. You know, when you took this technology that made it cheaper to print, to make books, books were so expensive in the Middle Ages. They were the domain of only the wealthiest people. And only 5% of people could read before the print process was invented, right? So 95% of people couldn't read anything or write anything. And that was because the books themselves were just so expensive, they had to be handwritten, right? And so when the print press made the cost of a book drop dramatically, the literacy rates in Europe shot up and it completely transformed society. So I was studying that period and at the same time, like dabbling with websites in the early internet and sort of going, oh, like there was this moment where I was like, the web is our equivalent of the print press. And it's happening right now. I'm talking like maybe 2002, or so when I had this realization. It's happening right now. It's going to change everything during our lifetimes. And I just had a fork in my life where it's like I could be a professor in medieval history, which was the path I was on professionally. I had a scholarship. There were only 5 scholarships in my year, in the whole UK. I was on a scholarship track to be a professor and study things like the emergence of the print press, or I could contribute to the print press of our era, which is the internet, and find some way to contribute, some way, right? It didn't matter to me if it was big or small, it was irrelevant. It was just be in the mix with people that are pushing the boundaries. Whatever I did, I'd take the most junior role available, no problem, but like just be in the mix with the people that are doing that. So yeah, that was the decision, right? Like, and that's what led me down to sort of leave my course, leave my scholarship. And, my salary was $40,000 when I moved to the US. All right. And that's pretty much all I earned for a while. I'd spent everything I had starting a group called Oxford Entrepreneurs. So I had absolutely no money. The last few months actually living in Oxford, I had one meal a day because I didn't have enough money to buy three meals a day. And then I packed up my stuff in a suitcase - one bag - wasn't even a suitcase, it was a rucksack and moved to the US and, you know, and landed there basically on a student visa and friends and family was just thought I was, you know, not making a good decision, right? Like, I'm not earning much money. It's with a bunch of people in a like a dorm room style incubator, right? Where the tables and chairs we pulled off the street because we didn't want to spend money on tables and chairs. And where I get to work seven days a week, 12 hours a day. And I've just walked away from a scholarship and a PhD track at Oxford to go into that. And it didn't look like a good decision. But to me, the chance to work on the forefront of what's happening in our era is just too important and too interesting to not make those decisions. So I've done that a number of times, even when it's gone against commercial interest or career interest. I haven't made the best career decisions, you know, not from a commercial standpoint, but from a like getting to work on the new stuff. Like that's what I've prioritized.    Nate:  Next, I asked Bob about his first meeting with the PayPal founders and how he made an impression on them.    Bob:  Good question, because I think... So I have a high level thought on that, like a rubric to use. And then I have the details. I'll start with the details. So I had started the entrepreneurship club at Oxford. And believe it or not, in 800 years of the University's history, there was no entrepreneurship club. And they know that because when you want to start a new society, you go to university and they go through the archive, which is kept underground in the library, and someone goes down to the library archives and they go through all these pages for 800 years and look for the society that's called that. And if there is one, they pull it out and then they have the charter and you have to continue the charter. Even if it was started 300 years ago, they pull out the charter and they're like, no, you have to modify that one. You can't start with a new charter. So anyway, it's because it's technically a part of the university, right? So they have a way of administrating it. So they went through the records and were like, there's never been a club for entrepreneurs at the university. So we started the first, I was one of the co-founders of this club. And, again, there's absolutely no pay. It was just a charity as part of the university. But I love the idea of getting students who were scientists together with students that were business minded, and kind of bringing technical and creative people together. That was the theme of the club. So we'd host drinks, events and talks and all sorts. And I love building communities, at least at that stage of my life. I loved building communities. I'd been doing it. I started several charities and clubs, you know, throughout my life. So it came quite naturally to me. But what I didn't, I mean, I kind of thought this could happen, but it really changed my life as it put me at the center of this super interesting community that we've built. And I think that when you're in a university environment, like starting clubs, running clubs, even if they're small, like, we, I ran another club that we called BEAR. It was an acronym. And it was just a weekly meetup in a pub where we talked about politics and society and stuff. And like, it didn't go anywhere. It fizzled out after a year or two, but it was really like an interesting thing to work on. So I think when you're in a university environment, even if you guys are virtual, finding ways to get together, it's so powerful. It's like, it's who you're meeting in courses like this that is so powerful. So I put myself in the middle of this community, and I was running it, I was president of it. So when these people came to speak at the business school, I was asked to bring the students along, and I was given 200 slots in the lecture theatre. So I filled them, I got 200 students along. We had 3,000 members, by the way, after like 2 years running this club. It became the biggest club at the university, and the biggest entrepreneurship student community in Europe. It got written up in The Economist actually as like, because it was so popular. But yeah, it meant that I was in the middle of it. And when the business school said, you can come to the dinner with the speakers afterwards, that was my ticket to sit down next to the founder of PayPal, you know. And so, then I sat down at dinner with him, and I had my portfolio with me, which back then I used to carry around in a little folder, like a black paper folder. And every project I'd worked on, every, because I used to do graphic design for money as a student. So I had my graphic design projects. I had my yoga publishing business and projects in there. I had printouts about the websites I'd created. So when I sat down next to him, and he's like, what do you work on? I just put this thing on the table over dinner and was like, he picked it up and he started going through it. And he was like, what's this? What's this? And I think just having my projects readily available allowed him to sort of get interested in what I was working on. Nowadays, you can have a website, right? Like I didn't have a website for a long time. Now I have one. It's at bobgoodson.com where I put my projects on there. You can check it out if you like. But I think I've always had a portfolio in one way or another. And I think carrying around the stuff that you've done in an interactive way is a really good way to connect with people. But one more thing I'll say on this concept, because it connects more broadly to like life in general, is that I think that I have this theory that in your lifetime, you get around five opportunities put in front of you that you didn't yet fully deserve, right? Someone believes in you, someone opens a door, someone's like, hey, Nate, how about you do this? Or like, we think you might be capable of this. And it doesn't happen very often, but those moments do happen. And when they happen, a massive differentiator for your life is do you notice that it's happening and do you grab it with both hands? And in that moment, do everything you can to make it work, right? Like they don't come along very often. And to me, those moments have been so precious. I knew I wouldn't get many of them. And so every time they happened, I've just been all in. I don't care what's going on in my life at that time. When the door opens, I drop everything, and I do everything I can to make it work. And you're stretched in those situations. So it's not easy, right? Like someone's given you an opportunity to do something you're not ready for, essentially. So you're literally not ready for it. Like you're not good enough, you don't know enough, you don't have the knowledge, you don't have the skills. So you only have to do the job, but you have to cultivate your own skills and develop your skills. And that's a lot of work. You know, when I landed in, I mean, working for Max was one of those opportunities where I did not, I'd not done enough to earn that opportunity when I got that opportunity. I landed with five people who had all done PayPal. They were all like incredible experts in their fields, right? Like Russ Simmons, the Yelp co-founder, had been the chief architect of PayPal. He architected PayPal, right? Like I was with very skilled technical people. I was the only Brit. They were all Americans. So I stood out culturally. Most of them couldn't understand what I was saying when I arrived. I've since changed how I speak. So you can understand me, the Americans in the room. But I just mumbled. I wasn't very articulate. So it was really hard to get my ideas across. And I had programmed as a hobbyist, but I didn't know enough to be able to program production code alongside people that had worked at PayPal. I mean, their security levels and their accuracy and everything was just off the, I was in another league, right? So there I was, I felt totally out of my depth, and I had to fight to stay in that job for a year. Like I fought every day for a year to like not get kicked out of that job and essentially out of the country. Because without their sponsorship, I couldn't have stayed in the country. I was on a student visa with them, right? And I worked seven days a week for 365 days in a row. I basically almost lived in the office. I got an apartment a few blocks from the office and I had to. No one else was working those kind of hours, but I had to do the job, and I had to learn 3 new programming languages and all this technical stuff, how to write specs, how to write product specs like I had to research the history of various websites in parts of the internet. So I'm just, I guess I'm just giving some color to like when these doors open in your career and in your life, sometimes they're relationship doors that open, right? You meet somebody who's going to change your life, and it's like, are you going to fight to make that work? And, you know, like, so not all, it's not always career events, but when they happen, I think like trusting your instinct that this is one of those moments and knowing this is one of the, you can't do this throughout your whole life. You burn out and you die young. Like you're just not sustainable. But when they happen, are you going to put the burners on and be like, I'm in. And sometimes it only takes a few weeks. Like the most it's ever taken for me is a year to walk through a door. But like, anyway, like just saying that in case anyone here has one of these moments and like maybe this will resonate with one of you, and you'll be like, that's one of the moments I need to walk through the door.    Nate:  That concludes chapter one. In chapter 2, Bob talks about building companies. First, I asked Bob if he gained much leadership experience at Yelp.    Bob:  I gained some. I suppose my first year or two in the US was in a technical role. So I didn't have anyone reporting to me. I was just working on the user interface and front end stuff. So really no leadership there. But then, there was a day when we still had five people. Jeremy started to go pitch investors for our second round because we had really good traffic growth, right? In San Francisco, we had really nice charts showing traffic growth. We'd started to get traction in New York and started to get traction in LA. So we've had the start of a nice story, right? Like this works in other cities. We've got a model we can get traffic. And Jeremy went to his first VC pitch for the second round. And the VC said, you need to show that you can monetize the traffic before you raise this round. The growth story is fine, but you also need to say, we've signed 3 customers and they're paying this much, right, monthly. So Jeremy came back from that pitch, and I remember very clearly, he sat down, kind of slumped in his chair and he's like, oh man, we're going to have to do some sales before we can raise this next round. Like we need someone on the team to go close a few new clients. And it's so funny because it's like, me and four people and everyone went like this and faced me at the same time. And I was like, why are you looking at me? Like, I'm not, I didn't know how to start selling to local businesses. And they're like, they all looked at each other and went, no, we think you're probably the best for this, Bob. And they were all engineers, like all four of them were like, background in engineering. Even the CEO was VP engineering at PayPal before he did Yelp. So basically, we were all geeks. And for some reason, they thought I would be the best choice to sell to businesses. And I didn't really have a choice in it, honestly. I didn't want to do it. They were just like, you're like, that's what needs to happen next. And you're the most suitable candidate for it. So I I just started picking up the phone and calling dentists, chiropractors, restaurants. We didn't know if Yelp would resonate with bars or restaurants or healthcare. We thought healthcare was going to be big, which is reasonably big for Yelp now, but it's not the focus. But anyway, I just started calling these random businesses with great reviews. I just started with the best reviewed businesses. And the funny thing is some of those people, my first ever calls are still friends today, right? Like my chiropractor that I called is the second person I ever called and he signed up, ended up being my chiropractor for like 15 years living in San Francisco. And now we're still in touch, and we're great friends. So it's funny, like I dreaded those first calls, but they actually turned out to be really interesting people that I met. But yeah, we didn't have a model. We didn't know what to charge for. So we started out charging for calls. We changed the business's phone number. So if you're, you had a 415 number and you're a chiropractor on Yelp, we would change your number to like a number that Yelp owned, but it went straight through to their phone. So it was a transfer, but it meant our system could track that they got the call through Yelp, right? Yeah. And then we tracked the duration of the call. We couldn't hear the call, but we tracked the duration of the call. And then we could report back to them at the end of the month. You got 10 calls from Yelp this month and we're going to charge you $50 a call or whatever. So I sold that to 5 or 10 customers and people hated it. They hated that model because they're like, they'd get a call, it'd be like a wrong number or they just wanted to ask, they're already a current customer and they're asking about parking or something, right? So then we'd get back to and be like, you got a call and we charged you 50 bucks. So like, no, I can't pay you for that. Like, that was one of my current customers. So now the reality is they were getting loads of advertising and that was really driving the growth for their business, but they didn't want to pay for the call. So then I was like, that's not working. We have to do something else. Then we paid pay for click, which was we put ads on your page and when someone clicks it, they see you. And then people hated that too, because they're like, my mum just told me she's been like clicking on the link, right? Because she's like looking at my business. And my mum probably just cost me 5 bucks because she said she clicked it 10 times. And like, can you take that off my bill? So people hated the clicks. And then one day we just brought in a head of operations, Geoff Donaker. And by this point, by the way, I had like 2 salespeople working for me that I'd hired. And so it was me and two other people. We were calling these companies, signing these contracts. And one day I just had this epiphany. I was like, we should just pay for the ads that are viewed, not the ads that are clicked. In other words, pay for impressions to the ads. So if I tell you, I've put your ad in front of 500 people when they were looking for sushi this month, right? That you don't mind paying for because there's no action involved, but you're like, whoa, it's a big number. You put me in front of 500 people. I'll pay you 200 bucks for that. No problem. Essentially impression-based advertising. And I went to our COO and I was like, I think we should try this. He was like, if you want to give it a go. And I wrote up a contract and started selling it that day. And that is that format, that model now has a billion dollars revenue running through Yelp. So basically they took that model, like I switched it to impression-based advertising. And that was what was right for local. And our metrics were amazing. We're actually able to charge a lot more than we could in the previous two models. And I built out the sales team to about 20 people. Through that process, I got hooked, basically. Like I realized I love selling during that role. I would never have walked into sales, I think, unless everyone had gone, you have to do it. And I dreaded it, but I got really hooked on it. I love the adrenaline of it. I love hunting down these deals and I love like what you can learn from customers when you're selling. You can learn what they need and you can evolve your business model. So I love that flywheel and that's kind of what I've been doing ever since. But I built out a team of 20 people, so I got to learn management, essentially by just doing it at Yelp and building out that team.    Nate:  Next, I asked Bob how he developed his theory of leadership.    Bob:  I actually developed it really early on. You know, I mentioned earlier I'd been starting things since I was about 10 years old. And what's fascinated me between the age of like 10 and maybe, you know, my early 20s, I love the idea of creating stuff with people where no one gets paid. And here's why. These are charities and nonprofits and stuff, right? But I realized really early, if I can lead and motivate in a way where people want to contribute, even though they're not getting paid, and we can create stuff together, if I can learn that aspect, like management in that sense, then if I'm one day paying people, I'm going to get like, I'm going to, we're all going to be so much more effective, essentially, right? Like the organization is going to be so much more effective. And that is a concept I still work with today. Yes, we pay everyone quite well at Quid who works at Quid, right? Like we pay at or above market rate. But I never think about that. I never, ever ask for anything or work with people in a way that I feel they need to do it because that's their job ever. I just erased that from my mindset. I've never had that in my mindset. I always work with people with like, with gratitude and and in a way where I'm like, well, I'll try and make it fun and like help them see the meaning in the work, right? Like help them understand why it's an exciting thing to work on or a, why it's right for them, how it connects to their goals and their interests and why it's, you know, fun to contribute, whether it's to a client or to an area of technology or whatever we're working on. It's like, so yeah, I haven't really, I haven't, I mean, you guys might have read books on this, but I haven't really seen that idea articulated in quite the way that I think about it. And because I didn't read it in a book, I just kind of like stumbled across it as a kid. But that's, but I learned because I practiced it for 10 years before I even ended up in the US, when I started managing teams at Yelp, I found that I was very effective as a manager and a leader because I didn't take for granted that, you know, people had to do it because it was their job. I thought of ways to make the environment fun and make the connections between the different team members fun and teach them things and have there be like a culture of success and winning and sharing in the results of the wins together. And I suppose this did play out a little bit financially in my career because, although we pay people well at Yelp, we're kind of a somewhat mature business now. But in the early days of Yelp and in the early days of Quid, I never competed on pay. You know, when you're starting a company, it's a really bad idea to try and compete on pay. You have to, I went into every hiring conversation all the way through my early days at Yelp, as well as through the early days at Quid, like probably the first nearly 10 years at Quid. And every time I interviewed people, I would say early on, this isn't going to be where you earn the most money. I'm not going to be able to pay you market rate. You're going to earn less here than you could elsewhere. However, this is what I can offer you, right? Like whether then I make a culture that's about like helping learning. Like we always had a book like quota at Quid. If you want to buy books to read in your free time, I don't care what the title is, we'll give you money to buy books. And the reality is a book's like 10 bucks or 20 bucks, right? No one spends much on books, but that was one of the perks. I put together these perks so that we were paying often like half of what you could get in the market for the same role, but you're printing like reasons to be there that aren't about the money. Now, it doesn't work for everybody, you know, that's as in every company doesn't, but that's just what played out. And that's really important in the early days. You've got to be so efficient. And then once you start bringing in the money, then you can start moving up your rates and obviously pay people market rate. But early on, you've got to find ways to be really, really, really efficient and really lean. And you can't pay people market rate in the early days. I mean, people kind of expect that going into early stage companies, but I was particularly aggressive on that front. But that was just because I suppose it was in my DNA that like, I will try and give you other reasons to work here, but it's not going to be, it's not going to be for the money.    Nate:  Next, I asked Bob how he got from Yelp to Quid and how he knew it was time to launch his own company.    Bob:  Yeah, like looking back, if I'd made sort of the smart decision from a financial standpoint and from a, you know, career standpoint, I suppose you'd say, I would have just stayed put. if you're in a rocket ship and it's growing and you've got a senior role and you get to, you've got, you've earned the license to work on whatever you want. Like Yelp wanted me to move to Phoenix and create their first remote sales team. They wanted, I was running customer success at the time and I'd set up all those systems. Like there was so much to do. Yelp was only like three or four years old at the time, and it was clearly a rocket ship. And you know, I could have learned a lot more like from Yelp in that, like I could have seen it all the way through to IPO and, setting up remote teams and hiring hundreds of people, thousands of people eventually. So I, but I made the choice to leave relatively early and start my own thing. Just coming back to this idea we talked about in the session earlier today, I I always want to work on the forefront of whatever's going on, like the most important thing happening in our time. And I felt I knew what was next. I could kind of see what was next, which was applying AI to analyze the world's text, which was clear to me by about 2008, like that was going to be as big as the internet. That's kind of how I felt about it. And I told people that, and I put that in articles, and I put it in talks that are online that you can go watch. You know, there's one on my website from 10 years ago where I'd already been in the space for five or six years. You can go watch it and see what I was saying in 2015. So fortunately, I documented this because it sounds a bit, you know, unbelievable given what's just happened with large language models and open AI. But it was clear to me where things were going around 2008. And I just wanted to work on what was next, basically. I wanted to apply neural networks and natural language processing to massive text sets like all the world's media, all the world's social media. And yeah, I suppose whenever I've seen what's going to happen next, like with social network, going to Yelp, like seeing what was going to happen with social networking, going to building Yelp, and then seeing this observation about AI and going and doing Quid, it's not, it doesn't feel like a choice to me. It's felt like, well, just what I have to do. And regardless of whether that's going to be more work, harder work, less money, et cetera, it's just how I'm wired, I guess. And I'm kind of, I see it now. Like I see what's next now. And I'll probably just keep doing this. But I was really too early or very, very early, as you can probably see, to be trying to do that at like 2008, 2009, seven or eight years before OpenAI was founded, I was just banging my head against the wall for nearly a decade with no one that would listen. So even the best companies in the world and the biggest investors in the world, again, I won't name them, But it was so hard to raise money. It was so hard to get anyone to watch it that, after a time, I actually started to think I was wrong. Like after doing it for like 10 years and it hadn't taken off, I just started to think like, I was so wrong. I spent a year or two before ChatGPT took off. I'd got to a point where I'd spent like a year or two just thinking, how could my instinct be so wrong about what was going to play out here? How could we not have unlocked the world's written information at this point? And I started to think maybe it'll never happen, you know, and like I was simply wrong, which of course you could be wrong on these things. And then, you know, ChatGPT and OpenAI like totally blew up, and it's been bigger than even I imagined. And I couldn't have told you exactly which technical breakthrough was going to result in it. Like no one knew that large language models were going to be the unlock. But I played with everything available to try and unlock that value. And as soon as large language models became promising in 2016, we were on it, like literally the month that the Google BERT paper came out, because we were like knocking on that door for many years beforehand. And we were one of the teams that were like, trying to unlock that value. That's why many of the early Quid people are very senior at OpenAI and went on to take what they learned from Quid and then apply it in an OpenAI environment, which I'm very proud of. I'm very proud of those people, and it's amazing to see what they've done.    Nate:  That concludes Chapter 2. In Chapter 3, we discuss AI and social media. The first question was about anxiety and AI.    Bob:  Maybe I'll just focus on the anxiety and the issues first of all. A lot's been said on it. I suppose what would be my headlines? I think that one big area of concern is how it changes the job market. And I think the practical thing on that is if you can learn to be the bridge, then you're putting yourself in a really valuable position, right? Because if you can bridge this technology into businesses in a way that makes change and improvements, then you are moving yourself to a skill set that's going to continue to be really valuable. So that's just a practical matter. One of the executives I work with in a major US company likes to say will doctors become redundant because of AI? And he says, no, doctors won't be redundant, but doctors that don't use AI will be redundant. And that's kind of where we are, right? It's like, we're still going to need a person, but if you refuse, if you're not using it, you're going to fall behind and like that is going to put you at risk. So I think there is some truth to that little kind of illustrative story. There will be massive numbers of jobs that are no longer necessary. And the history of technology is full of these examples. Coming back to like 5,000 years ago, think of all the times that people invented stuff that made the prior roles redundant, right? In London, before electricity was discovered and harnessed, one of the biggest areas of employment was for the people that walked the streets at night, lighting the candles and gas lights that lit London. That was a huge breakthrough, right? You could put fire in the street, you put gas in the street and you lit London. Without that, you couldn't go out at night in London and like it would have been an absolute nightmare. The city wouldn't be what it is. But that meant there were like thousands of people whose job it was to light those candles and then go round in the morning when the sun came up and blow them out. So when the light bulb was invented, can you imagine the uproar in London where all these jobs were going to be lost, thousands of jobs were going to be lost. by people that no longer are needed to put out these lights. There were riots, right? There was massive social upheaval. The light bulb threatened and wiped out those jobs. How many people in London now work lighting gas lamps and lighting candles to light the streets, right? Nobody. That was unthinkable. How could you possibly take away those jobs? You know, people actually smashed these light bulbs when the first electric light bulbs were put into streets. People just went and smashed them because they're like, we are not going to let this technology take our jobs. And I can give you 20 more examples like that throughout history, right? Like you could probably think of loads yourselves. Even the motor car, you know, so many people were employed to look after horses, right? Think of all the people that were employed in major cities around the world, looking after horses and caring for them and building the carts and everything. And suddenly you don't need horses anymore. Like that wiped out an entire industry. But what did it do? It created the automobile industry, which has been employing massive numbers of people ever since. And the same is true for, you know, like what have light bulbs done for the quality of our lives? You know, we don't look at them now and think that's an evil technology that wiped out loads of jobs. We go, thank goodness we've got light bulbs. So the nature of technology is that it wipes out roles, and it creates roles. And I just don't see AI being any different. Humans have no limit to like, seem to have no limit to the comfort they want to live with and the things that we want in our lives. And those things are still really expensive and we don't, we're nowhere near satisfied. So like, we're going to keep driving forward. We're going to go, oh, now we can do that. Great. I can use AI, I can make movies and I can, you know, I don't know, like there's just loads of stuff that people are going to want to do with AI. Like, I mean, using the internet, how much time do we spend on these damn web forms, just clicking links and buttons and stuff? Is that fun? Do we even want to do that? No. Like we're just wasting hours of our lives every week, like clicking buttons. Like if we have agents, they can do that for us. So we have, I think we're a long way from like an optimal state where work is optional and we can just do the things that humans want to do with their time. And so, but that's the journey that I see us all along, you know. So anyway, that's just my take on AI and employment, both practically, what can you do about it? Be the bridge, embrace it, learn it, jump in. And also just like in a long arc, I'm not saying in the short term, there won't be riots and there won't be lots of people out of work. And I mean, there will be. But when we look back again, like I often think about what time period are we talking about? Right? People often like, well, what will it do to jobs? Next year, like there'll certain categories that will become redundant. But are we thinking about this in a one year period or 100 year period? Like it's worth asking yourself, what timeframe am I talking about? Right? And I always try and come back to the 100 year view at a minimum when talking about technology change. If it's better for humanity in 100 years, then we should probably work on it and make it happen, right? If we didn't do that, we wouldn't have any light bulbs in our house. Still be lighting candles?    Nate:  Next was a question about social media, fragmented attention, and how it drives isolation.    Bob:  Well, it's obviously been very problematic, particularly in the last five or six years. So TikTok gained success in the United States and around the world around five or six years ago with a completely new model for how to put content in front of people. And what powered it? AI. So TikTok is really an AI company. And the first touch point that most of us had with AI was actually through TikTok. It got so good at knowing the network of all possible content and knowing if you watch this, is the next thing we should show you to keep you engaged. And they didn't care if you were friends with someone or not. Your network didn't matter. Think about Facebook. Like for those of you that were using Facebook, maybe say 2010, right? Like 15 years ago. What did social media look like? You had a profile page, you uploaded photos of yourself and photos of your friends, you linked between them. And when you logged into Facebook, you basically just browsing people's profiles and seeing what they got up to at the weekend. That was social media 15 years ago. Now imagine, now think what you do when you're on Instagram and you're swiping, right? Or you go to TikTok and you're swiping. First of all, let's move to videos, which is a lot more compelling, short videos. And most of the content has nothing to do with your friends. So there was a massive evolution in social media that happened five or six years ago, driven by TikTok. And all the other companies had to basically adopt the same approach or they would have fallen too far behind. So it forced Meta to evolve Instagram and Facebook to be more about attention. Like there's always about attention, that's the nature of media. But these like AI powered ways to keep you there, regardless of what they're showing you. And that turned out to be a bit of a nightmare because it unleashed loads of content without any sense of like what's good for the people who are watching it, right? That's not the game they're playing. They're playing attention and then they're not making decisions about what might be good for you or not. So we went through like a real dip, I think, in social media, went through a real dip and we're still kind of in it, right, trying to find ways out of it. So regulation will ultimately be the savior, which it is in any new field of tech. Regulation is necessary to keep tech to have positive impact for the people that it's meant to be serving. And that's taken a long time to successfully put in place for social media, but we are getting there. I mean, Australia just banned social media for everyone under 16. You may have seen that. Happened, I think, earlier this year. France is putting controls around it. The UK is starting to put more controls around it. So, you know, gradually countries are voters are making it a requirement to put regulation around social media use. In terms of just practical things for you all, as you think about your own social media use, I think it's very healthy to think about how long you spend on it and find ways to just make it a little harder to access, right? Like none of us feel good when we spend a lot of time on our screens. None of us feel good when we spend a lot of time on social media. It feels good at the time because it's given us those quick dopamine hits. But then afterwards, we're like, man, I spent an hour, and I just like, I lost an hour down like the Instagram wormhole. And then we don't feel good afterwards. It affects us sleep negatively. And yeah, come to the question that was, posted, can create a sense of isolation or negative feelings of self due to comparison to centrally like models and actors and all these people that are like putting out content, right? Kind of super humans. So I think just finding ways to limit it and asking yourself what's right for you and then just sticking to that. And if that means coming off it for a month or coming off it for a couple of months, then, give that a try. Personally, I don't use it much at all. I'll use it mostly because friends will share like a funny meme or something and you just still want to watch it because it's like it's sent to you by a friend. It's a way of interacting. Like my dad sends me funny stuff from the internet, and I want to watch it because it's a way of connecting with him. But then I set a timer. I like to use this timer. It's like just a little physical device. I know we've all got one on our phones, but I like to have one on my desk. And so if I'm going into something, whether it's like I'm going to do an hour on my inbox, my e-mail inbox, or I'm going to, you know, open up Instagram and just swipe for a bit, I'll just set a timer, you know, and just keep me honest, like, okay, I'm going to give myself 8 minutes. I'm not going to give myself any more time on there. So there's limited it. And then I put all these apps in a folder on the second screen of my phone. So I can't easily access them. I don't even see them because they're on the second screen of my phone in a folder called social. So to access any of the apps, I have to swipe, open the folder, and then open the app. And just moving them to a place where I can't see them has been really helpful. I only put the healthy apps on my front page of my phone.    Nate:  Next was a question about where Bob expects AI to be in 20 years and whether there are new levels to be unlocked.    Bob:  No one knows. Right? Like what happens when you take a large language model from a trillion nodes to like 5 trillion nodes? No one knows. It's, this is where the question comes in around like consciousness, for example. Will it be, will it get to a point where we have to consider this entity conscious? Fiercely debated, not obvious at all. Will it become, it's already smarter than, well, it already knows more than any human on the planet. So in terms of its knowledge access, it knows more. In terms of most capabilities, most, you know, cognitive capabilities, it's already more capable than any single human on the planet. But there are certain aspects of consciousness, well, certain cognitive functions that humans currently are capable of that AI is not currently capable of, but we might expect some of those to be eaten into as these large language models get better. And it might be that these large language models have cognitive capabilities that humans don't have and never could have, right? Like levels of strategic thinking, for example, that we just can't possibly mirror. And that's one of the things that's kind of, you know, a concern to nations and to people is that, you know, we could end up with something on the planet that is a lot smarter than any one of us or even all of us combined. So in general, when something becomes more intelligent, it seeks to dominate everything else. That is a pattern. You can see that throughout all life. Nothing's ever got smarter and not sought to dominate. And so that's concerning, especially because it's trained on everything we've ever said and done. So I don't know why that pattern would be different. So that, you know, that's interesting. And and I think in terms of, so the part of that question, which is whole new areas of capability to be unlocked, really fascinating area to look at is not so much the text now, because everything I've written is already in these models, right? So the only way they can get more information is by the fact that like, loads of social networks are creating more information and so on. It's probably pretty duplicitous at this point. That's why Elon bought Twitter, for example, because he wanted the data in Twitter, and he wants that constant access to that data. But how much smarter can they get when they've already got everything ever written? However, large language models, of course, don't just apply to text. They apply to any information, genetics, photography, film, every form of information can be harnessed by these large language models and are being harnessed. And one area that's super interesting is robotics. So the robot is going to be as nimble and as capable as the training data that goes into it. And there isn't much robotic training data yet. But companies are now collecting robotic training data. So in the coming years, robots are going to get way more capable, thanks to large language models, but only as this data gets collected. So in other words, like language is kind of reaching its limits in terms of new capabilities, but think of all the other sensor types that could feed into large language models and you can start to see all kinds of future capabilities, which is why everyone suddenly got so interested in personal transportation vehicles and personal robotics, which is why like Tesla share price is up for example, right? Because Elon's committed now to kind of moving more into robotics with Tesla as a company. And there are going to be loads of amazing robotics companies that come out over the next like 10 or 20 years.    Nate:  And that brings us to the end of this episode with Bob Goodson. Like I mentioned in the intro, there were so many great nuggets from Bob. Such great insight on managing our careers, building companies, and the evolving impact of AI and social media. In summary, try to be at the intersection of new power and real problems. Seek to inspire rather than just transact, and be thoughtful about how to use social media and AI. All simple ideas, please, take them seriously.   

Tim Martinez, Value Creation, Strategic, and Exit & Succession Planning Advisor—also known as “The Inside Man”—is on a mission to empower entrepreneurs and make the world a better place with his philosophy of “No entrepreneur left behind.”  In this episode, Tim shares how he evolved from starting small businesses as a teenager to advising founders on high-stakes growth and exit decisions. We explore Tim's 3 Exits Framework, which breaks exit planning into three critical phases: Mental Exit (separating identity from the business), Role Exit (building leadership and succession so the business can run without the owner), and Technical Exit (valuation, deal structure, and the formal sale process). Tim also explains why AI is accelerating business disruption, why minimalism is a competitive advantage, and what keeps so many businesses stuck at the $3M revenue ceiling. — 3 Ways to Exit Your Business with Tim Martinez Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here, the Founder of the Summit OS Group. And I have as my guest today Tim Martinez, who is a Value Creation, Strategic, and Exit & Succession Planning Advisor, also known as “The Inside Man.” Tim also has a successful Substack with lots of followers, which has a similar title, Inside Man. He's also built his own ChatGPT API, so he's running with the times. Tim, welcome to the show.  Thanks, Steve. Great to be here.  Finally, we have someone who is ahead of the curve on AI and the technological evolution that's part of this new industry revolution. So let’s start with my favorite question. What is your personal ‘Why’ and how are you manifesting it in your practice and in your business?  Yeah. My personal ‘Why’ is to make the world a better place and to empower entrepreneurs. “No entrepreneur left behind” has kind of been my motto. Since I was a kid—I started businesses very young, like 15 or 16—people would ask me, “How are you doing this?” And I would help however I could. And it was just always felt really good to help my fellow entrepreneurs, whether I was helping them in a small way or a big way. And there's nothing better than seeing some of the advice you're able to give someone actually get implemented.Share on X Then you see them go, “Wow, oh my gosh, this is great.” And again, sometimes it’s small, sometimes it’s big. But I believe entrepreneurs rule the world, and I do my part every day—whether it's writing my Substack, jumping on podcasts, or writing books. I'm always here just to share what I've learned, because I think that’s what makes the world go round.  Well, you have a boundless energy, because you are writing books, you are writing your blog, you are doing these podcasts. Then you also have to gather the information, right? You have to work with clients—otherwise there's no raw material. That is very impressive. So what took you to this point? How did you evolve? I mean, you started at 15, but surely you were not coaching or consulting people at 15.  Yeah, so I probably spent about 10 years just starting small businesses. I had the lemonade stand, then a coffee business and a silk-screen business. I had a DJ business, a retail store, a marketing and advertising agency, a small one, but I was able to sell it. And I got lucky and sold a couple of these small businesses. I built websites, built apps—I mean, anything you can do to make a buck. I was just kind of hustling and figuring it out on my own. And at a certain point in time, maybe like 10 years later, someone asked me to help them write their business plan. It was the first time I thought, “Huh, someone wants to pay me to help them write a business plan. That sounds interesting.” Okay. And I had written all of my own business plans for 10 years. I used to go to SCORE—the Senior Corps of Retired Executives, a division of the SBA—and they would consult for free. They still do, by the way. And I always said my long-term goal was to be an old advisor at SCORE, because they helped me so much when I was a kid.Share on X So I charged money for my first business plan. That person was able to raise money from their uncle. Then they said, “Well, hey, we got this money. What do we do now?” So I said, “Well, I think I can charge you. I think this is called consulting. Maybe I'll just charge you to help execute your business plan.” It was a small business, and I went to Barnes & Noble and bought a book that was like this big—How to Start a Consulting Business. I just sat there and highlighted the whole thing. It had CD-ROM forms in the back. I knew nothing about consulting. And probably for the next handful of years, I just focused on writing business plans and helping people. That's kind of what got me into consulting and working with bigger businesses. It really started with business plans and small businesses.Share on X  Yeah. I mean, business plans are great because you are envisioning the future of the business, crunching the numbers—what's going to happen with your top line, bottom line, costs, overhead, margins—and essentially it helps you visualize the skeleton of the business. Then you can put the meat on the bone, kind of thing.  Yeah. And I had worked on hundreds of business plans, and  pitch decks, financial models, and market research. That documentation aspect of a business, I had spent a good, let's say, 10 years working very heavily with clients as an analyst in consulting firms. And that’s really what got me into the game and got me into bigger and bigger businesses, because I got very good at doing that with no formal training—and we didn't really have what the internet is today. I remember going to the downtown library in Los Angeles, finding articles, and taking scanned copies of them. That’s how we did our market research. And business plans used to be like a dictionary. The SBA would require business plans to meet all these requirements, so we ended up with huge business plans. Now people want a one-pager, maybe a 10-slide deck, and call it a day. Where I got my chops was from understanding every imaginable nuance of every business in all verticals. I worked around the world with businesses, and I guess I was in the right place at the right time for it.Share on X  Yeah, that’s very humble. So one of the things that you do is you help people prepare for exit, and you came up with this framework called The 3 Exits Framework. I thought it was fascinating to think about exits from different perspectives and to have different mental models for them. How did you come up with this, and can you explain to the audience what it looks like, how it works, and how it helps entrepreneurs? Yeah. And it’s important to note that I started my career starting businesses, helping people get the start. And as I got older, the businesses I worked with were also getting older. And as I got a little more gray hair and a few more wrinkles, people would take me more seriously at the later stages of the business, when they maybe wouldn’t take me so seriously when I was in my early twenties. So my business had evolved from starting to growing and then eventually to exiting, and that’s where most of my clients are now. What I’ve discovered is most people enter the exit planning conversation at the very end, asking, “What is my business worth? Who wants to buy it?” Needing a business valuation is the most common first question: “Whoa, what's it worth?” But after working with a handful of companies through this whole exit process, you start to realize that there’s far more than just the numbers. The 3 Exits Framework says there are three exits that need to occur before you're out and on your yacht, sailing into the sunset.Share on X The first exit is the mental exit, which we can talk about at length. It's your role—your identity in the business. Who am I if I'm not the CEO? What am I going to do with my time if I'm not running this business? Who am I if people can't come to me with their every burning question? It’s this piece, it’s so important. And a lot of people don’t want to give up control. They don’t even know they’re control freaks, which I'll call them for lack of a better term. But they don’t even know that they are that. You have to help them through that.  The second exit is really your role exit, because eventually someone needs to run this business in your absence. The whole tenant of selling a business is that you're not going to be in it. You might have earnouts or some transitional involvement, but eventually, you will not run this business. So you have to replicate yourself. Most people say, “I've tried, but it hasn't worked.” Well, you know what? Now’s the time for this to work. It's time to build SOPs, standards of excellence, and get someone who could be better than you ever were in that seat. So that role exit is a big part, and that would be true succession. The other part of that is it’s not just the CEO or the owner. A lot of times it’s them and they’re number one, or they’re number two, or number three, because in many cases those people also have equity and ownership in the companies in some cases. So we need to get succession in line for multiple roles.  And then the third exit is your technical exit. It’s the one piece everyone feels like they start with that is your valuation, getting your documentation together, running a formal auction process, making sure that you’re looking at multiple buyers, whether strategic or financial. And just running a very thorough, formal process that’s going to get you the highest valuation possible. And structuring a deal that there’s going to be a little bit of give and take. Most deals die because of misaligned expectations. And they’re usually misaligned expectations on that final exit. So when you put those three things together and someone says, I want to sell my business, or we're thinking about exiting in the next couple years, I just start first with the identity part.Share on X Yeah. And people underestimate the significance of that. It can sound touchy-feely and like an afterthought in most cases. And people think that just by earning a sack of money, their life will be solved and all problems will disappear. But actually, problems exist at all levels. Elon Musk probably has more problems than most listeners here.  Sure.  So, it's not going to solve your problems, and identity is huge. I talk to people—I was also an M&A advisor for over 10 years, sold many businesses, visited former clients, and went out on their boats on the lake. Often, that was the one time they actually used the boat, because they didn't really need it. They thought they did, but they didn't. Next time, the engine wouldn't start, or the boat was full of water. Or they'd go out on the golf course, meet new people, and ask, “Who are they?” It turned out they were just retired rich people—not interesting entrepreneurs or CEO. That's a huge change. And with the Great Wealth Transfer and the aging Baby Boomer population, there's a statistic that says 50% of business owners are forced into an exit—meaning there’s some life event that occurs that says you now need to sell your business and get out. And you and I both know that if you’re forced to an exit, you’re going to be taking a major discount. But those forces can happen when you have a heart attack, or someone in your family has a health issue, or your grandkids and everybody moves multiple states and you want to go with them. All these things happen. So our recommendation is just start having the conversation now.  Yeah. And so I think it's a little bit like saving for retirement. A lot of people keep putting it off, and eventually there's no time left to do it, and then they’re in trouble. So how do you even raise awareness with people about this? How do you work with them to prepare this? Can you actually raise awareness and make them feel this is a real issue? How do you raise awareness?  Well, I have my blog, and that’s probably where I do most of my conversations. I wrote about the 3 Exits Framework. Any chance I get to speak, I always use it to raise awareness around the subject. In my consulting practice, I work with a handful of consulting firms and investment banks. Anytime I get pulled into a conversation about exit planning, I usually just pause for a second and just talk about their life goals.Share on X Like, what do you really want this exit to do for you? Because there are so many things you can do and a million ways to do it. So, what do you really want this exit to mean for you? Also, remember, Uncle Sam is going to take his cut—so not everyone gets the biggest check possible. Usually, what we hear is people say, “I'm just so exhausted. I don't have anything left in me for this thing, and anything I can get for it, I'd be happy to take, as long as it means I don't have to put out every single fire.” And this usually happens because they didn't build good systems to remove themselves from the business.  Otherwise, they would've been the chairman, and just meeting with their CEO, who's running the business. That’s usually not the case with these owner-operator businesses. And that doesn't mean they're small, by the way. I mean, they could be running a $50 million business and still the choke point where everything has to run through them and they’re just exhausted and burnt out.  Do you think that this AI revolution is going to change things? Is it going to make more people exit-ready because it's easier to create systems?  Perhaps. Yeah, I think it's helping the service provider world be more efficient. In my world as a management consultant, I'm 10 times more efficient. I’m sure you’re 10 times more efficient with tools like the one we’re using here, and it just helps us speed things up. I've noticed people use it as a thought partner, as a psychiatrist, even as a best friend. I've seen people go into deep dialogue like, “Should I sell my business? Give me five factors.” The ones who are aware of this are using it fully. The people who aren't are a little behind the times. And then from an operational standpoint, yeah, I mean with the bots and all the many things you could put in your business to make you more efficient, but that doesn’t apply to everybody. I would say there’s going to be a 10 to 20% group of people that are already on it, making it work for them, and then there are the laggards who will probably never touch it.  Or is it that—okay, maybe we can be more efficient with AI, but we'll have the appetite to do more, and there will be more complexity? Some things we'll simplify, but we'll create other complexities that replace the previous ones. What do you think about it?  Yes. So businesses typically have cycles. There's usually a five- to seven-year cycle where a business hits its peak, and then it starts to trend down. And they usually have some level of innovation that has to reoccur for it to hit another up cycle, and then there will be a down cycle and so on and so forth. So it's always like an up slope after an up slope. When you've been in business for 30 or 40 years, you've gone through multiple rounds of these cycles—three or four rounds of those cycles. What I’m hearing right now is business owners that are, let’s say, at retirement age, they’re saying, “I don't know if I have what it takes to go through this AI cycle. Maybe I had what it took to make it through the eighties, nineties, and two thousands, but now we're in 2026. I’m not sure I’m equipped, or my team who’s also very senior, they don’t feel like they have what it takes to get through that next cycle without hiring young talent. But even then, they don’t really understand what they’re talking about. So there’s this gap. And again, I’m hearing it more and more of people saying, I think now’s the time to get out and let some other company that has gas in the tank, vision, and capacity to come in and do that thing.  Yeah, that's interesting. Do you think a multiple-AI–enabled company versus a post-AI company is going to be markedly different?  Maybe. Because it all comes down to revenue—it comes down to the revenue story. I'll give you a perfect example. You have a very profitable company, but they're using an old CRM. A new company comes in and says, “Hey, you're already profitable. If we buy you and put in a new CRM, maybe we could be even more profitable.” That’s cool. So we don’t really need you to put in all the tech. We’ll come in and do all that, and then we’ll get the upside on that. Just as long as you’re profitable, as long as you’re profitable, yet you don’t have major client concentration, your business has all the components. A new company with new vision could come in. That would largely be a strategic buyer. The PE buyer, the financial buyer, most likely is going to want to inject capital into your business so you can go and reinvest, and build new tech, or become a platform, whatever you’re going to be. But that would be a different arrangement. So it's basically a numbers issue. It doesn't matter your technological evolution. And maybe it’s even worse if you've already implemented AI and that only allows you to make five million dollars—there's less upside for the buyer.  Yeah. The bigger concern is: Is your industry at risk because of AI? Is your particular business at risk? And that's why I think people need to adopt it—so they can say, “No, we're not at risk. We've adopted it, we're applying it in whatever fashion we're doing it, and we're going to see the results.” We've already seen a major downswing in a handful of industries because of AI. I mean, advertising agencies are getting hit really hard. People used to be able to charge for writing press releases, to write blogs, to write social, to do video editing on social media. A lot of that's gone, so the bottom tier of those agencies is just gone—there's no need for them anymore.  Do you see people proactively working on making themselves AI-resilient? Everyone knows that they need to do it. Nobody is unaware that today, it’s like websites. There was a time when everyone knew they needed a website. They just didn’t really know how they were going to build it or who was going to build it. They knew it was going to be expensive. It’s kind of where we’re at right now. Everybody knows they need AI. They’re just not exactly sure how they need AI, what it can actually, literally do for them.I think for some people, that big dream that it was going to do everything quickly got taken off the tableShare on X and they say, okay, we could do this much, but even this much is make me very effective.  But it’s just not going to do everything. Like, I still need an accountant. I still need an account manager. I still need someone to do these things, but maybe I don’t need as many people as I once did. So we’re seeing kind of some leveling off there. But I would say largely most people don’t know what AI can do for them, and they’re not really prepared to make those investments. We have a client right now that just made a half million dollar investment into an RFP tool that’s going to help them move faster than their competitors, submit more on RFPs, build everything out in a very complicated way, but they’re making a half million dollar investment. How many companies out there are saying, let’s go, give me the invoice. I’m ready to roll. There’s still a lot of pause there.  What you're describing feels more like a defensive play—okay, we know AI is coming, so we have to implement some AI tools. But I’m thinking more about the big picture. Is my industry going to be disrupted by AI? And how do I pivot my business before I lose momentum, so I become like Netflix—going from a video rental company to a streaming company? Yep.  Do you see companies rethinking their business model?  I think from what I’ve seen, people are rethinking everything—top to bottom. Because you have to start with labor. That’s usually where people start. “AI can do all these things—do I need less talent on the deck?” And if I do, then what can AI do so I don’t have such heavy overhead? Because overhead is also liability, and it has this employment risk behind it. So if you can go from a thousand staff to 800 or 750, great, let’s do it—why wouldn't you do it? Most people are saying, “Let's figure that part out first.” The next thing is the industry disruption, which is what’s our competitors doing to service clients better, manufacture faster, or do things cheaper, so then we’re not left in the dust. So from a production standpoint, we need to figure this out quickly. What I'd say—what I do—is, as an analyst, as a consultant and advisor coming in, that's why I built my AI. I built my AI to fire myself. I basically said, “What I used to do as a management consultant is now irrelevant, because AI is better than me.” So let me just build the digital me and not worry about that side of my business anymore. So I just don’t worry about that anymore. I don’t even really take on assignments that I used to, because AI can do it better and faster. Now, if you want to hire me and allow me to use my AI tool to handle the technical work, I'm more than happy to do that. But I'll tell you firsthand—save your money.  So you're giving it away, or are you selling it?  Yeah, it's free. It's free. It's on ChatGPT. What people can’t do is sit down and have an honest, sincere conversation and ask them the hard questions and challenge them. That's where AI still lacks the human component. I can take a client and say, “Hey, let's hang out. Let's get lunch. Let's go play golf. Let's bring in your kids. Let's talk to your kids. Let's talk about the family dynamic.” Let’s just have a sincere conversation. Let me hold space and create a forum where I can hear people. And that human component is the only thing that I’m worried, like I’m working on now. I'm out of the technical side, because that part of my job is gone.  So fascinating. So does it mean you have to be more of a social animal?  I think so. If you're not going to be a social animal and you're just going to sit at your desk, you should probably be building software using tools like Replit, n8n, or any of these different software tools and just go all in.Share on X But the way we used to do it—you probably see this on LinkedIn, with all the bots on LinkedIn, it’s not what it used to be. It used to be a place where you had a handful of connections and actually met people. Now it’s just so overrun with the bots. It’s like I don’t even want to accept connections anymore. I'd much rather have a conversation like this. To me, this is the future.  Yeah. But maybe we connected originally through LinkedIn. I don’t know where, how we connected, but we may have have connected through a bot—actually.  It’s possible.  Yeah.  It’s possible. But I'll tell you, I connect with maybe one or two percent of people now. Previously, because I didn't get so many inbound inquiries, I would connect with more, because I felt like there was a sincere person on the other end. Now, I really don't know. I've become very skeptical.  Yeah, I'm with you. Let's switch gears, because our time is running out. And there are a couple of things that in our pre-interview you talked about, and one was minimalism. Yeah.  What is minimalism? How do you do it? And what’s a low-hanging way to start to become a minimalist?  It's kind of like that first-principles idea of what really matters. It’s essentialism. It’s kind of getting down to the one thing, that was my recent blog, if there was only one thing you could do this year, but it would make all the difference, what would it be? And anything that gets in the way of that one thing is just noise. For me, minimalism is really about reduction, and kind of getting rid, and being aware and cognizant of things that really shouldn't be on your desk, on your to-do list.Share on X And using AI tools and assistance to get rid of everything that’s low-level activity. If you think of a pyramid, at the very top is where the most value that you can add would be. But yet we spend all of our time, if this is a time pyramid, most of our time is spent at the bottom, the wide part that pretty much anyone can do. So we kind of got to invert the pyramid. To get there, you have to reduce and extract. To protect your time, you have to treat it as very precious and focus only on the most important thing at all times. It is a very hard thing for all professionals to do, and it’s always been a hard thing, but I just take it upon myself and say, okay, well, as a minimalist, I mean, if you were to come to my house and see how sparse my furniture is on purpose. How sparse my closet is on purpose. I’m trying to get rid of options. It's like Steve Jobs and the black turtleneck—if I have one less thing, because I can only make so many choices and decisions in a given day, let me spend my time on the things that are the most important and most impactful.Share on X And that’s not always, because it’s going to put millions of dollars in my bank account. Sometimes it’s just helps me sleep better at night. So I don’t need 50 clients. If I’m going to have 50 headaches. What if I just have five clients? And every one of those was one that I felt very good about, and that would allowed me to charge more. It allowed me to go deeper with them. It's that concept—then you're free to see where your scalable opportunities are. It's the story I told you about a monk who was carving away at this beautiful elephant. Someone walks up and asks, “How did you learn to do this, carving away this elephant in the stone? And he says, Oh, I just chip away everything that's not the elephant. So for me, I have to have a very clear picture of what the elephant is. I have to see the picture in my brain first—like what my life is, what I’m trying to build, how good of a dad I’m trying to be, how good of a husband I’m trying to be, how good of a business partner or a service provider, an advisor. This is my life’s work as a masterpiece, so let me just get rid of anything that doesn’t belong as part of that picture. So that, to me, is kind of how I would explain it. And my approach toward it is I just get rid of everything. It’s not about accumulation. I don't really need more information, because AI already has all the information. Anything I'm going to absorb, I have to be very intentional about—why am I reading it? I see all the books on your shelf. I could show you my bookshelf—tons of books, right? I feel like I've read them all. Am I going to learn anything new? I could also just go back to the books I've already read. I try to highlight them and stuff, but it's like, what more do I need at this point?  Yeah. So I’m wondering about this idea of a lifestyle business versus a growth business. Because what I see is that people who are building a lifestyle business, it’s easier for them to be a minimalist. Because you just do this most valuable thing. You don’t have to build the business. You don’t have to worry about necessarily all the other people, systems, and processes, or making sure of quality control. You just do your high-value work, and at the end of the day, you can put things down and relax. Whereas a growth business, it's different.  I would say with the clients that I have—some have thousands of employees, some have hundreds—I still encourage them to reduce and subtract. Even though they're in high-growth, highly scalable businesses, sometimes the conversation is: How many direct reports do you have, and why do you have that many direct reports? How are you delegating? How are you giving authority? How are you limiting all the inputs? Because a lot of it is noise in your given day. So how do I make your day a little more silent so you can have a little more peace to make better decisions while you run this highly scalable business? Just because you're scaling doesn't mean it needs to be pure chaos. That's what people think—they think, “Oh, if I scale, that means chaos.” I'm anti-chaos.  Okay. But let me ask you this: Two of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time are Elon Musk and Jensen Huang. Elon Musk runs six companies, so he's got a lot of direct reports and goes deep in each of them. And then Jensen Huang has, I don't know, 20, 30, or 40 direct reports—he basically has a million direct reports as well. And that actually allows them to be closer to decisions and make sure things don't go off the rails and their vision gets manifested. So that's what I'm kind of wondering—whether minimalism means you're going to, maybe the flip side is you have to accept less growth, or maybe not.  So I’ve met with a lot of entrepreneurs in my life. Not one of them has been Elon Musk. So I would say we’re looking at the median of entrepreneurs, the average entrepreneur. Those are the people I deal with. I’m not dealing with Elon Musk. I would love to, but I don’t have those types. I have the family-owned business who took it over from their dad and they’ve been running it for 50 years, and he has 250 employees, and he’s got pure chaos, and I’m getting the call to go in and try to sort him out. These are not always the highly sophisticated Steve Jobs types of the world. If you really take a look under the hood with Elon—I read his book and listened to the audiobook with my kids, so I'm very familiar with his story, because I've heard it twice now—what they don't really mention is all the heroes underneath Elon. He wouldn't be who he is without all the many heroes, all the systems, and the Six Sigma and other processes and procedures. That's not to say he doesn't take a deep analytical look at everything, but who are those heroes and what are the processes? I'm far more interested in hearing about his VP of Operations than about Elon. Because what has his VP of Operations worked out? What systems have they implemented that allow him to scale and build a Tesla? Or his COO, like, what do they have going on? Elon's a face. Elon's a madman. He creates all this momentum and chaos, and then he has teams of people behind him who make sense and order out of that chaos. That's why you have what you have with Tesla. If he were just Elon Chaos, without that, I don't believe he would be where he is. But he had people that wanted to get in line. He had a lot of people that wanted to get in line. They believed in his vision. He had huge visions, and it's very inspiring to get behind those visions. Then they say, “Okay, give me the ball. We'll create the infrastructure that allows this thing to take off.” So I'm far more interested in the infrastructure that allows for that scale.  I agree. I'm just thinking whether there is this kind of dichotomy. Because I see that many entrepreneurs—when I was an investment banker—until they sold their business, they were not able to have that simple lifestyle they perhaps desired, because they were building, they were reinvesting. And it wasn't just reinvesting their cash—they were reinvesting their time. So every time they simplified, that was the opportunity cost of not using that time to improve their business. So they plowed it back in, plowed it back in.  Well, it's kind of like the E-Myth is a bit skewed. It's almost like the E-Myth is a myth. E-Myth is a dream—a dream that you can work on your business, step out completely, and everything about it runs itself. It doesn't really work that way. If you're going to be a successful entrepreneur, you're going to have late nights, long weekends, and you're going to feel like every major problem is your own because you're taking all the legal risks. I'm not telling people not to scale. I'm not telling them not to have chaos. What I'm trying to help them do is get clear on what they consider to be important.  And not get killed in the process, and not get divorced.  Statistically, that can happen—the more successful someone gets.  Yeah, it does. Because our time becomes much more valuable, and at some point, it's really hard to say no to the million-dollar hour—to spend that hour watching Netflix with your spouse, right? Exactly. Just feels harder to do.  Exactly.  Yeah.  That was good.  Alright, well, I enjoyed this tremendously. So one more question, one more question that I have to ask you. You talk about this $3 million rule—what do you mean by that? That’s a really interesting concept.  Yeah. So most small businesses get stuck around $3 million, statistically. The question is, why? Why do they get stuck there? A large majority gets stuck and it’s because they create a lifestyle for themself around $3 million. They’re taking enough off the table that they would never be able to find a job that would be able to replace that type of income. So they've made their small business their sole business, their job, and they say, “This is good enough for me,” because let's say half a million dollars, more or less, is going into their bank. They're filling up their 401(k), sending their kids to private school, giving themselves big bonuses. If they're profitable, they don't really see the need to take more risks or double down to go past that wall. I've seen many businesses kind of stay there. They’ll go fluctuate up and down through the years, but more or less they’ll hit that wall. They could stay there for 20 years and never make any progress. It’s not until they put on new thinking and say, we’re going to grow through acquisitions, we’re going to target a different market, new products, we’re going to innovate in some way. But that takes extra gas in the tank. Sometimes, a lot of entrepreneurs, once they hit that first level of success, say, “This is good enough for me,” because it usually takes them about five to seven years to get to that first major breathing point.  They're not hungry enough anymore.  Exactly.  Does someone has to be a little crazy to still want to eat more, even though they're already full?  Yeah. Some people are just wired that way. Some people just more and more, and that's no slight against them. They're never satisfied. They always want more—another dollar, another nickel. If they saw a nickel on the floor, they would stop and pick it up. They want every piece of everything. And those people usually are the ones that go and go and go and go. They’re usually the ones that just keep going because it’s an insatiable appetite. I'm not talking about people who get—well, I don't want to call it lucky—but sometimes things do fall out of the sky. Sometimes a big client falls out of the sky, or an opportunity opens up, and people are smart enough to buy their competitor when the competitor approaches them. Or sometimes they make these little moves, and that gives them a leap. I’m not talking about those people. Those are outliers to me. I’m talking about your average entrepreneur that built a $3 million business on his own with no major clients falling, just hard work, blood, sweat in tears. The average Joe typically gets stuck around that $3 million.  Yeah, that’s interesting. Fascinating. Alright, well, if you don't want to be stuck around $3 million, or if you want to get to the next level, then reach out to Tim and check out what he’s doing. So where can our listeners find you? Where can our listeners find you if they want to learn with you, learn about you, read your Substack, read your books? Where should they go?  Just go to Google or AI and type in Tim “The Inside Man” Martinez. The Inside Man is an acronym for Tim. You'll find my LinkedIn—happy to connect with you, just tell me you heard me on Steve's podcast. You can also check out my blog: it's Tim “The Inside Man” on Substack, or go to www.theinsideman.biz, my website. I'd love to connect with anyone. Well, do check out Tim's Substack—it's awesome. You're going to get more of what you heard on this podcast. And if you enjoy listening, make sure you follow us. Subscribe on YouTube, LinkedIn, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts, because every week I'm inviting—and luckily more and more people want to come on the show—to have a conversation. So thank you, Tim, for coming, and thank you for listening. Important Links: Tim's LinkedIn Tim's website

Interview with Jon Deluce, President & CEO of Abitibi MetalsOur previous interview: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/posts/abitibi-metals-cseamq-high-grade-copper-gold-discovery-gains-momentum-in-quebec-8692Recording date: 6th February 2026Abitibi Metals Corp. (CSE:AMQ) has announced a transformational resource update for its B26 copper-gold-zinc-silver deposit in Quebec, demonstrating the scale potential that could attract major producer interest. The updated mineral resource estimate reveals 13 million tons indicated at 2.1% copper equivalent and 12.3 million tons inferred at 2.2% copper equivalent, representing a 125% increase in total tonnage since the company optioned the project from SOQUEM in 2023.The resource growth was achieved at a discovery cost of just 2.5 cents per pound copper equivalent, positioning Abitibi favorably among peers for capital efficiency. CEO Jon Deluce emphasised that the company has delivered on its goal to reach 25-30 million tons by 2026 well ahead of schedule, while maintaining strong grades throughout the expansion process.The resource calculation uses conservative commodity price assumptions of $2,500 gold, $30 silver, $4.50 copper, and $1.35 zinc. At current spot prices, the deposit would grade closer to 2.55% copper equivalent, demonstrating substantial operating leverage to metal price movements. The indicated category alone contains 775 million pounds of copper, 451,000 ounces of gold, 16 million ounces of silver, and 376 million pounds of zinc.Management has assembled a world-class team to advance the project, most notably David Bernier as COO, who previously built Foran's McIlvenna Bay deposit from preliminary assessment through to commercial production. That deposit was recently acquired in a transaction valued at C$3.8 billion, providing a relevant valuation benchmark for B26, which currently represents 56% of McIlvenna Bay's resource tonnage.Abitibi is executing a funded 40,000-meter drill program in 2026 focused on resource expansion, regional exploration testing four new targets, and early-stage permitting work. The deposit remains completely open along strike and at depth, with management targeting 30-50 million tons based on geological evidence and comparisons to the nearby 60-million-ton Selbaie mine located just 7 kilometers away.View Abitibi Metals' company profile: https://www.cruxinvestor.com/companies/abitibi-metalsSign up for Crux Investor: https://cruxinvestor.com

In this episode of Retail Remix, host Nicole Silberstein chats with Meera Bhatia, President and COO of Fabletics, on the strategies powering the brand's impressive momentum.Fresh off hitting the $1 billion revenue milestone, Meera breaks down how Fabletics has driven sustained growth through category expansion, measured store growth and a flexible membership model that delivers both value for consumers and predictability for the business. She also shares how AI is being deployed across the organization — from smart fitting rooms and associate coaching to inventory optimization and loyalty-driving personalization.The conversation offers a candid look at how Fabletics is blending fashion, function, value, and technology to stand out in the crowded activewear market and why comfort-forward “lifewear” is shaping what comes next.Key TakeawaysHow Fabletics scaled past $1 billion in revenue through category, channel and geographic expansion;Why the brand's membership model drives loyalty, predictability and lower supply chain waste;How physical retail is fueling omnichannel growth, with 120+ stores and more on the way;Inside Fabletics' AI-powered flagship store, from smart fitting rooms to real-time associate coaching;Why AI is less about replacing fundamentals — and more about delivering them better; andWhat's next for Fabletics in 2026, including international growth and new category plays.Related LinksExplore Fabletics' latest collections and retail experienceRelated reading: New Fabletics Flagship Brings AI-Powered Operations to Westfield Century CityRelated reading: Fabletics Deploys RFID-Powered Inventory Management SolutionExplore more NRF26 coverage and retail insights from Retail TouchPointsSubscribe so you don't miss more episodes of Retail Remix from the show floor of NRF26

Inspirational NFL stars Leonard Russell, Steve Wright, Jaime Coffee and Chris Poitras, COO of Jostens the jewellers who have made the vast majority of Super Bowl rings.

Cameron Herold is the mastermind behind the exponential growth of hundreds of companies worldwide and is often called the CEO Whisperer. He's the founder of the COO Alliance and the Invest In Your Leaders training program, and the former COO of 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, where he helped scale revenue from 2 million to 106 million in just six years. He's also the author of several influential business books, including Vivid Vision and Free PR, and hosts The Second in Command podcast. On this episode we talk about: How Cameron's first “business” at seven years old collecting and reselling coat hangers sparked a lifelong entrepreneurial journey. Why entrepreneurial thinking (spotting opportunities, selling, leading, problem-solving) matters for every kid—even if they never start a company. How to practically “raise entrepreneurs” by letting kids run real mini-businesses without helicopter parenting. The difference between being an entrepreneur and being entrepreneurial, and why not everyone is wired to be a founder (and that's okay). Cameron's Vivid Vision framework, why most mission statements fail, and how to actually get your team aligned around the future. How founders can regain clarity when their original vision no longer fits, and where to turn when you feel “stuck” strategically. Why real relationship-building beats old-school “networking,” and how to put yourself in the right rooms with the right people. How to think about media and podcasts using the “digital trifecta” so every interview or feature keeps paying dividends for years. Top 3 Takeaways Raising entrepreneurial kids is less about forcing them to start companies and more about giving them reps in leadership, sales, negotiation, problem-solving, and time management—without rescuing them every time they struggle. A Vivid Vision is a detailed 3–5 page description of what your company looks, feels, and acts like three years in the future, and your job as a founder is to communicate that picture clearly and repeatedly so others can help build it. Media appearances (press, podcasts, features) only matter if you actively repurpose, promote, and reshare them; the long-term leverage comes from what you do with each “log on the fire,” not from the hit itself. Notable Quotes “We don't need to raise our kids to be entrepreneurs, but we do need to raise them to be entrepreneurial.” “The Vivid Vision is a four- or five-page description of what every part of your company looks like, acts like, and feels like three years from now.” “It's not about what podcast you're on; it's what you do with that podcast afterwards.” Connect with Cameron Herold: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coo-alliance/ Twitter/X: https://x.com/CameronHerold Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameron_herold_cooalliance Other: Website – https://cameronherold.com (includes links to books, COO Alliance, Invest In Your Leaders, and his Second in Command podcast) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Matt MacInnis spent 6 years as COO at Rippling and now leads as CPO. He joined Rippling in 2019, when there were only 70 people, and has led the company across multiple stages.Before that, Matt was a founder for 9 years, building Inkling after 7 years at Apple. These three chapters of his career shape this conversation. We focus on how to build and operate teams as a company scales. Matt explains how he thinks about speed versus real progress, and which parts of building a company should move fast and which should move slowly. He shares how he decided when to introduce processes at Rippling, when to keep things informal, and how to recognize when a process that once helped the company had started to slow it down.We discuss how his role changed as Rippling grew from around 70 people to 100, then to 500, and now to thousands. He explains what he paid attention to at each stage and which metrics he deliberately did not obsess over.These are practical lessons for founders, from the earliest days of a startup to the challenges of scaling a large organization.0:00 - Trailer01:11 – One thing people get wrong about building a business?04:01 – Great founders find markets that already exist06:36 – What does a “death march” mean at Apple?10:11 – How to build a good team in early-stage startup?12:33 – Learnings from Apple to Inkling18:11 – Processes to set up in startups25:20 – Humans always optimize for comfort (and why that's bad instinct)33:09 – Why success teaches you more than failure36:01 – How should processes change as company scales?42:11 – How is AI changing the software industry?54:03 – If Matt were starting up today, how would he do it?57:07 – How would Next-gen PM roles look like?01:01:51 – Matt shares about Rippling CEO Parker01:04:32 – Founder instinct vs Data01:06:06 – Over-optimizing for employee comfort01:07:27 – If building a startup feels comfortable, it's probably dead01:08:36 – One thing only CEO's should do forever01:11:15 – One piece of startup advice Matt doesn't trust-------------India's talent has built the world's tech—now it's time to lead it.This mission goes beyond startups. It's about shifting the center of gravity in global tech to include the brilliance rising from India.What is Neon Fund?We invest in seed and early-stage founders from India and the diaspora building world-class Enterprise AI companies. We bring capital, conviction, and a community that's done it before.Subscribe for real founder stories, investor perspectives, economist breakdowns, and a behind-the-scenes look at how we're doing it all at Neon.-------------Check us out on:Website: https://neon.fund/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theneonshoww/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/beneon/Twitter: https://x.com/TheNeonShowwConnect with Siddhartha on:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddharthaahluwalia/Twitter: https://x.com/siddharthaa7-------------This video is for informational purposes only. The views expressed are those of the individuals quoted and do not constitute professional advice.Send us a text

Scaling a dental practice isn't just about adding operatories... it's about having the right leadership and systems in place. In this episode of the Nifty Thrifty Dentists Podcast, Dr. Glenn Vo sits down with Erica Benavente, Founder of Quest Dental Solutions, to discuss why many dentists hit a ceiling when they try to scale without executive-level operational support. Erica shares her journey from dental assistant to COO, how she helped grow a practice into a 25-operatory super practice, and why a fractional COO can be the missing link between chaos and sustainable growth. In this episode, we cover: When dentists actually need a fractional COOWhy office managers can't scale practices aloneHow systems and staffing must evolve as practices growWhat changes when you expand to multiple locations

In this episode of the Wharton FinTech Podcast, Bobby Ma sits down with Dean Brauer, President & COO of Cybrid. Dean shares his experience building Cybrid, who combines stablecoin, fiat, and compliance into a single API-first platform helping financial institutions, FinTechs, and enterprises integrate stablecoin infrastructure and launch end-to-end cross-border payment solutions to more than 150+ countries, at up to 90% lower cost, and with full transparency. The Company raised a $10 million Series A funding round led by BDC Capital and has grown 5x in the last 12 months. We discuss: - Dean's journey building Cybrid and his deep entrepreneurship experience - The solutions Cybrid offers in orchestrating stablecoin payments - The Company's bespoke thought partnership with customers in creating and executing their stablecoin strategy - Recent regulatory & industry trends driving forward this rapidly growing space

Business Owners have plenty of challenges. We thought it would be helpful to invite Bill Squires to share his knowledge of those challenges, and more importantly, what to do about them in the next 100 days. Bill has a keen eye for commerce and finances. He wants to help individuals, teams, and businesses achieve their full potential. He has coached business owners (all with challenges), executives, and teams in all aspects of building rapid growth and profitable companies.Summary of PodcastBill Squires' background and coaching approachBill Squires discussed his background, including his experience in the oil industry, getting an MBA, and then transitioning into business coaching about 8 years ago. He emphasized the importance of helping clients develop a clear vision and plan for their business, rather than just jumping into execution. Bill shared his 90-day planning process and the value of accountability in driving results.Challenges facing business ownersBill outlined some of the key challenges he sees business owners facing, including finding enough leads and customers, hiring and retaining good people, and getting their team to be more accountable. He noted that many business owners are working long hours but not seeing the financial rewards they expect.The role of planning and goal-settingThe discussion explored the value of long-term planning, with Bill advocating for 5-year plans that get broken down into 90-day and weekly goals. Kevin challenged whether 5 years is too long to plan for, but Bill shared examples of clients who have achieved their ambitious 5-year goals by sticking to the plan.The evolution of coaching with technologyGraham and Bill discussed the potential for AI-powered coaching tools that could scale Bill's expertise, while noting the continued value of in-person coaching and the importance of accountability that a human coach provides. They explored how technology and human coaching could complement each other going forward.Bill's coaching offerings and exit strategyBill outlined his various coaching programs, including one-on-one, group, and community-based offerings. He also shared his plan to eventually step back from the business by bringing on additional coaches and a business development manager to sustain the community he has built.The Next 100 Days Podcast Co-HostsGraham ArrowsmithGraham founded Finely Fettled eleven years ago to help businesses market to affluent and high-net-worth customers. He's the founder of MicroYES, a Partner of MeclabsAI, providing AI Agents, Workflows and phone-to-agent delivery systems. Now, Graham offers Answer Engine Optimisation so you get found by LLM search and Enterprise-level AI Solutions.Kevin ApplebyKevin specialises in finance transformation and implementing business change. He's the COO of GrowCFO, which provides both community and CPD-accredited training designed to grow the next generation of finance leaders. You can find Kevin on LinkedIn and at kevinappleby.com

Are you tired of chaotic operations, burned-out teams, and the relentless pressure to execute big visions without breaking yourself in the process? In this can't-miss fan favorite episode, Cameron Herold goes deep with Griff Long, former COO of Orangetheory Fitness, a leader who's transformed personal growth and business results at some of America's top brands. If you're a second-in-command, exhausted by firefighting and silo wars, this conversation will shake up your playbook. Griff shares battle-tested leadership secrets, why people (not processes) matter most, and how data-driven innovation is gripping the fitness world.Skip another mediocre “growth” podcast. Listen now to avoid the #1 pain point for COOs: stagnant teams, missed opportunities, and burnout. This is your backstage pass to proven strategies and exclusive insights you won't get anywhere else.Timestamped Highlights[00:00] – Why this episode is a fan-favorite (and why you need it now)[00:28] – Griff's devastating rookie mistake and how it reshaped his approach[01:24] – The “double threat” that got Griff hired at Orangetheory[03:09] – The surprising science and secrets behind Orangetheory's addictively sticky workouts[09:33] – Griff's golden thread technique for obliterating silos and boosting buy-in[13:00] – Why running corporate-owned studios is Orangetheory's secret weapon[16:02] – How Griff rebuilt the org chart and what every COO should copy[19:20] – Laser focus vs. death by a thousand cuts: How to avoid competitive distraction[25:19] – Griff's top-three leadership lessons (and the #1 thing he'd tell his 22-year-old self)[34:08] – The red/yellow/green “traffic light” playbook for direct reports and leadership developmentAbout the GuestGriff Long is the former COO of Orangetheory Fitness, blending 25+ years of hands-on leadership with a passion for measurable growth and elite team culture. Known for scaling fitness giants like PureBar and SoulCycle, Griff has rebuilt teams, crushed operational bottlenecks, and championed transformations using data and heart. He's a US Triathlon Coach, a Six Sigma Green Belt, and a master at developing people before processes—essential context for any COO facing existential growth pains.

You're keeping people on your crew who are poisoning the well. In this episode, Derek and Tim break down why "talent" isn't enough if the fit is wrong, using a legendary story about Charles Barkley and a $50k lesson from a powerhouse COO. Stop making excuses for bad behavior and start owning your role as a leader. If you don't have clear SOPs, you aren't a boss; you're just a guy with a headache.==============================================Ready to stop playing small? Claim your seat in "The Contractor's Code to Finally Cracking $1M" and learn the systems that separate the pros from the pretenders.https://thecontractorfight.com/code================================================ Rate the Podcast ==Help your fellow contractors find the podcast! Please leave a rating/review.Apple PodcastsSpotify

In the first Executive Function episode, Brett sits down with Jeanne De Witt Grosser, Chief Operating Officer at Vercel. Before Vercel, Jeanne spent nearly a decade at Stripe, where she built and scaled global revenue teams and led product partnerships. In this conversation, she unpacks what separates good executives from extraordinary ones, shares her rigorous executive hiring process, and reveals the brutally honest performance review feedback she'll never forget. In today's episode, we discuss: What it takes to operate at 30,000 feet and ground level simultaneously The leap from frontline manager to manager of managers Inside Jeanne's executive interview process The inherent value of driver trees for metrics Why context is everything References: Akamai: https://www.akamai.com Claire Johnson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-hughes-johnson-7058/ Culture Amp: https://www.cultureamp.com Guillermo Rauch: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rauchg John Collison: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnbcollison/ Next.js: https://nextjs.org Nike: https://www.nike.com OpenAI: https://www.openai.com Patrick Collison: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickcollison Stanford Graduate School of Business: https://www.gsb.stanford.edu Stripe: https://www.stripe.com Vercel: https://www.vercel.com Where to find Jeanne: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannedewitt Where to find Brett: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-berson-9986094/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/brettberson Where to find First Round Capital: Website: https://firstround.com/ First Round Review: https://review.firstround.com/ Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/firstround YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@FirstRoundCapital This podcast on all platforms: https://review.firstround.com/podcast Timestamps: (01:17) What separates good executives from extraordinary ones (02:48) How leadership changes as companies scale (04:15) What an executive is actually accountable for (06:11) The leap most rising leaders never make (07:52) When to dive deep vs. when to step back (10:09) Teaching people to think like you do (11:56) Creating a shared language across the business (13:52) What a COO job description actually looks like (17:20) The upside of owning the full customer experience (19:10) Why marketing rolls up under a COO (21:06) Being demanding and supportive at the same time (22:33) Inside the executive interview process (27:35) The workshop prompts that reveal everything (30:11) The common thread in failed executive hires (36:36) Metrics: the driver tree philosophy (43:04 What a collaborative exec team looks like (57:08) How Stripe got 30 people to operate as one team (1:03:50) Working yourself out of a job (1:10:32) The review feedback you can't unhear

In this one-on-one conversation, I sit down with Liz Townsend, a senior partner at a global management consulting firm, Gallup-certified strengths coach, former VP of 24 Hour Fitness, former COO of MyFitFoods, and current board member of Junior Achievement of Southeast Texas. Liz has spent decades inside high-growth, high-pressure organizations, from small teams to billion-dollar brands helping leaders navigate the real challenges that don't show up on spreadsheets: mindset, communication breakdowns, unresolved conflict, cultural drift, and the personal cost of leadership. In this episode, we talk honestly about: Why company culture breaks long before the numbers do The leadership habits that quietly stall growth in small businesses How self-awareness and strengths-based leadership change the way teams perform The difference between managing people and actually leading them What strong leaders do differently when conflict shows up Why personal growth is not optional if you want to scale a business This conversation is for entrepreneurs, small business owners, executives, and team leaders who want to grow without burning out their people or themselves. It's practical, grounded, and rooted in real-world experience, not theory. If you're building something meaningful and feel the weight of leadership, this episode will help you gain clarity, reduce friction, and lead with more confidence and intention.

Episode #58 of the Hindu Parenting Podcast features a conversation with entrepreneur and inventor of an exciting new board game that teaches Sanatani concepts through play.Mumukshu is a life simulation game, wherein you play as yourself and compete with fellow players to live an ideal/perfect life as per traditional Indian way.An ideal life is based on balancing personal goals, fulfilling familial needs & wants, societal responsibilities, spiritual endeavours and your contribution to the larger dharma & civilisation.Game is based on Bhartiya civilisation, history, culture & way of life. It's rooted in the dharmic concepts of 4 purusharthas, grihasta dharma, maya, karma etc. Overcoming life challenges, resources management, proper usage of superpowers (siddhis) & taking right life decisions is key to winning the game !To pre-order the game, please contact Sahil at: +91 9969520015sahilrs@zohomail.inmumukshugame@zohomail.inInstagram ID: mumukshugame.108About the inventor, Sahil Raje Shirke:Sahil has diversified interests ranging from geopolitics to history to Vedanta to entrepreneurship. He represented India at the BRICS summit of young leaders and entrepreneurs in Stavropol (Russia). He initiated social ventures like “Subhikshaa” (a food and education program in the conversion-affected area of Dahisar, and “Bharatam Reawakening” (a youth centric discussion forum).After completing his PG from a Mumbai business school, Sahil went on to become the founder of a tech start up and the COO of another renowned Mumbai-based startup. He writes extensively on geopolitics, history and 5th generation warfare and is fascinated by Vedanta and Bhakti. Currently, he's building Mumukshu, a life simulation game based on Bharatiya civilisation, history and way of life.Hindu Parenting is a community for Hindu parents worldwide. We carry articles, podcasts, reviews, classes for teens and various other resources to help you in your parenting journey.Please support us by signing up for our newsletters to get the latest articles and podcasts in your e-mail inbox. Our podcasts (The Hindu Parenting Podcast and The Authentic Valmiki Ramayan Podcast) can be heard on Spotify, YouTube, Apple and Google Podcasts too.Leave a note, DM or send email to contact@hinduparenting.org if you'd like to share your viewpoints, experiences and wisdom as Hindu parents, or if you wish to join our community! You can also follow us on X (Twitter) or Instagram. Our handle is “hinduparenting”The opinions expressed by guests on The Hindu Parenting Podcast are their personal opinions and Hindu Parenting does not assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, completeness, suitability or validity of anything shared on our platform by them.Copyright belongs to Hindu Parenting. Get full access to Hindu Parenting at hinduparenting.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of Millions Were Made, Jessica Marx and Brooke Dumas explore the critical role of exit strategy, succession planning, and incentive structures in maximizing business valuation and founder wealth.Far too many founders begin thinking about exit planning only when they are exhausted, disengaged, or already in conversations with a broker—resulting in hurried negotiations, lowered valuations, and limited personal financial outcomes.Jessica and Brooke outline a proactive approach designed to help founders prepare three to five years ahead of exit, strengthen operational infrastructure, and ensure the business can transfer value beyond the founder.They discuss:Why 99% of founders don't have an exit plan—and the risks that createsThe three primary outcomes for every business: shutdown, acquisition, or successionWhy broker valuations often overestimate value and how due diligence reshapes the numberHow operational, financial, and legal gaps erode business value during negotiationsThe link between founder dependency, scalability, and marketabilityHow small operational shifts can lead to significant increases in profitability and valuationWhy many acquisitions leave founders with minimal financial gainStructuring leadership roles—especially COO and CFO—to manage a future due diligence processWho should be part of exit planning—and why this information should not be disclosed to most employeesHow to maintain strategic momentum during an exit process to preserve leverageJessica emphasizes the importance of preparing for exit long before a transition is imminent. By doing so, founders gain optionality, negotiation strength, and the ability to exit on their preferred terms.If you are committed to building a business that creates wealth, impact, and long-term opportunity—this episode provides a strategic roadmap for preparing your company for a successful transfer of ownership.Mini-timeline00:00–00:52 — Why the Business Performance Audit was developed00:53–02:42 — Lack of exit plans among founders and associated risks02:43–04:23 — The three potential endpoints of a business04:24–05:24 — Why initial valuations are often inflated05:25–08:01 — The due diligence process and common pitfalls08:02–09:52 — Common outcomes of small business acquisitions09:53–11:25 — Defining peak performance and identifying profitability leaks11:26–12:51 — Legal and IP gaps that undermine valuation

Getting finance to buy an online business is no longer just about ticking boxes or relying on outdated bank formulas. Today, lenders are looking forward. They want to understand your assumptions, your go-to-market strategy, and how the business performs once capital is deployed. In this special episode, Jaryd Krause speaks with Ciaran Burke, COO and co-founder of Swoop, a global SME funding marketplace helping buyers access debt, equity, and grant funding across the UK, Australia, the US, and Canada. Ciaran has helped thousands of businesses secure funding by unlocking options traditional banks often miss. You’ll learn how buyers are funding ecommerce, SaaS, and media acquisitions, what lenders really care about beyond the numbers, and why acquisition finance is now easier to access in markets like Australia and the UK. If you are planning to buy an online business and want to understand how deals are being funded right now, hit the “Play” button! BONUS: Explore Swoop’s free funding platform and see if your next acquisition qualifies. Episode Highlights 06:00 Funding Options for Acquiring Online Businesses 09:02 Understanding Deposit Requirements for Acquisitions 12:05 Setting Up a Business Entity for Acquisition Financing 15:03 Navigating Interest Rates and Loan Terms 18:02 Refinancing and Its Importance for Business Owners 21:02 Key Requirements for Loan Approval 24:38 Navigating the Financing Landscape 30:00 Preparing for Acquisition: Key Documentation 36:03 Understanding the Acquisition Process 40:01 Exploring Financing Options and Strategies 43:53 The Importance of Credit and Sector Awareness Key Takeaways ➥ The Australian market was targeted for expansion during COVID due to its strong SME financing landscape. ➥ Deposits for acquisitions can vary significantly based on the business type and trading history. ➥ New investors may need to provide a higher deposit compared to those with established businesses. ➥ A solid business plan and financial model are crucial for securing financing. ➥ Interest rates and loan terms can vary widely based on market conditions and business performance. ➥ Refinancing options can improve cash flow and reduce interest rates over time. Understanding personal credit scores is essential for first-time investors. About Ciaran Burke Ciarán Burke is the COO & Co-Founder of Swoop, a global SME funding marketplace that helps businesses discover debt, equity, and grant options using integrated business data.He co-founded Swoop after a career at KPMG and building the creative network Hiive, and now leads the product & operations work that matches businesses with suitable finance solutions across multiple territories. Swoop’s platform has helped hundreds of thousands of businesses access funding and simplify options that traditional banks often miss, making it a powerful route for buyers who need acquisition capital. Ciarán frequently speaks about debt, equity, and grants to fund acquisitions in the UK, Australia, and the US. Join Swoop Funding for free; ➥ https://swoopfunding.com/au/buying_online_businesses Resource Links ➥ Connect with Jaryd here - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jarydkrause➥ Buying Online Businesses Website - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com ➥ Download the Due Diligence Framework - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/freeresources/➥ Sell your business to us here - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/sell-your-business/ ➥ Google Ads Service - https://buyingonlinebusinesses.com/ads-services/ Buy & Sell Online Businesses Here (Top Website Brokers We Use)

Guest Co-Host Charles Duncan. Guest: David Seymour, COO, American Airlines. Topics: AA hit hard by weather related operational issues; A good week for Southwest, cash pouring in, will Elliott Mgt cash out? American earnings drop; JetBlue down; NTSB report issued on chopper collision with AA flight; Big increase in flights by United at ORD; Listener questions: Is there room for a new airline? What's the cost to start service at an airport?

Learn why talking to your advisor before you act isn't just smart—it's essential for entrepreneurial success!Welcome to another enlightening episode of the Empowering Entrepreneurs Podcast! In this conversation, Glenn Harper and Julie Smith talk about a topic every entrepreneur needs to hear: “What entrepreneurs should be asking their CPA right now.”If you've ever made a big financial move for your business—like selling stock, making a large purchase, or considering a Roth conversion—without looping in your tax advisor, you're not alone.Glenn Harper and Julie Smith share their candid insights on why a quick phone call to your CPA can be the difference between an average outcome and an optimal one.They discuss the importance of tax planning, avoiding knee-jerk decisions, and how even small tweaks can have a big impact on your bottom line.PureTax, LLCHere are 3 key takeaways for entrepreneurs and decision-makers:Don't Go It Alone: Before making any material financial move, reach out to your CPA or advisory team. A quick call could dramatically improve your results.Proper Planning = Better Outcomes: Acting on impulse might get the job done, but strategic planning can help you minimize taxes and maximize your benefits.It's Easier to Ask for Permission: Give your CPA a heads up before acting, because sometimes “asking for forgiveness” means missed opportunities that can't be undone.Running a business doesn't have to run your life.Without a business partner who holds you accountable, it's easy to be so busy ‘doing' business that you don't have the right strategy to grow your business.Stop letting your business run you. At Harper & Co CPA Plus, we know that you want to be empowered to build the lifestyle you envision. In order to do that you need a clear path to follow for successOur clients enjoy a proactive partnership with us. Schedule a consultation with us today.Download our free guide - Entrepreneurial Success Formula: How to Avoid Managing Your Business From Your Bank Account.Glenn Harper, CPA, is the Owner and Managing Partner of Harper & Company CPAs Plus, a top 10 Managing Partner in the country (Accounting Today's 2022 MP Elite). His firm won the 2021 Luca Award for Firm of the Year. An entrepreneur and speaker, Glenn transformed his firm into an advisory-focused practice, doubling revenue and profit in two years. He teaches entrepreneurs to build financial and operational excellence, speaks nationwide to CPA firm owners about running their businesses like entrepreneurs, and consults with firms across the country. Glenn enjoys golfing, fishing, hiking, cooking, and spending time with his family.Julie Smith, MBA, is a serial entrepreneur in the public accounting space. She is the Founder of EmpowerCPA™, Founder of PureTax, LLC, COO for Harper & Company CPAs Plus, and Co-host of the Empowering Entrepreneurs podcast. Named CPA.com's 2021 Innovative Practitioner of Year, Julie led Harper & Company's transition to an advisory-focused firm, doubling revenue and profit in two years. She now empowers other CPA firm owners nationwide through consulting and speaking, teaching them how to run their businesses like entrepreneurs. Julie lives in Columbus,...

Questions have arisen about transparency when it comes to city leaders and light rail for the Eastside Atlanta Beltline. This, after a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution article revealed an alleged secret vote stopped work on the $800 Million project. According to AJC Transportation Reporter Sara Gregory, even city council members were surprised to learn about the vote. Was the public truly left in the dark? The issue is debated on Wednesday’s “Closer Look” with light rail advocate Matthew Rao, the Chairperson for BeltLine Rail Now and opponent Dr. Hans Klein, Associate Professor of Public Policy at Georgia Tech and President of the Board of Directors for Better Atlanta Transit. TheDream.US is now accepting applications for a scholarship to benefit students regardless of their immigration status. On Wednesday’s edition of “Closer Look,” DACA recipient Indira Islas and Hyein Lee, the COO of TheDream.US shared the application process and how it has benefited students who migrated to the U.S. Plus, they reflect on the ongoing immigration raids happening under the Trump administration and how some TheDream.US scholarship recipients have been detained and deported.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Ever feel like you did everything “right” and still got sidelined? We sit down with Andrea Mohamed, COO and co‑founder of QuantumBloom, to unpack why so many women exit tech and what it takes to build workplaces they won't want to leave. Andrea traces her journey from first‑gen college student to strategy executive and founder, sharing how an MBA unlocked confidence and how glass-cliff roles, nitpicky performance feedback, and unspoken power dynamics still got in the way. The message is clear and practical: stop blaming individuals and start redesigning systems, while equipping women early with the skills that make influence, advocacy, and staying power feel natural.We dig into the critical inflection points where women quietly disengage: the first year after a STEM degree, the leap to management, and the jump to senior leadership, where relationships and influence matter more than output. Andrea explains why the school playbook fails at work, how to unlearn “merit-only” thinking, and what durable skills, communication, negotiation, and cross-functional trust look like in real roles. We talk about psychological safety, manager capability, and pro-family flexibility that benefits everyone, not just mothers, and how these choices change retention.The conversation turns tactical for leaders and HR. Learn to quantify turnover, model retention ROI, and speak the CFO's language so talent programs no longer get cut. Andrea outlines how HR can evolve, as modern marketing did, moving from “arts and crafts” to a revenue partner, by connecting programs to profit. We also address DEI headwinds, the tall poppy problem, and the courage it takes to be values-aligned and visible without burning out. If you care about keeping women in STEM, building fair systems, and turning excellence into advancement, this one gives you the data, the playbook, and the push.If this resonates, follow, share with a colleague who leads teams, and leave a quick review so more people can find the show. Your feedback helps us keep these conversations bold and useful.Resources:Quantum Bloom is helping companies retain and advance women in STEM by fixing the systems that push them out Andrea Mohamed on LinkedInGet the LinkedIn Visibility Foundation. Use coupon code: "BOLDER" to receive $50 off.

Jamie Pastrano, Rebecca Matchett and Brittany Moser are the co-founders of Symphony, a platform pairing AI-powered social coaching with intentional interest-based matching, in a safe, simple, and supportive space for the neurodivergent. Jamie, inspired to build the new app by her son's autism, joined with serial entrepreneur Rebecca, COO, with a track record of building successful fashion companies, including alice+olivia and TrioFit, and Brittany Moser, an autism specialist and digital learning expert. The Synchrony app launches this month.