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Absolute Advantage Podcast

The Absolute Advantage is about learning from some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, leaders, and achievers at the top of their game. When chasing your dreams, a lot of times there isn’t a need to reinvent the wheel. Instead, shorten your path to success by learning from the stories, strategies and concepts shared by our guests. Then shorten it even further by learning about amazing resources (books, webinars, tools, software, events, coaching, etc.) that should be on your radar. You are not alone in the challenges you face! It's my mission to help you walk away with at least one idea you can apply each episode and to offer content that inspires, encourages and helps you grow and progress QUICKLY both professionally and personally.
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Now displaying: 2017
Dec 20, 2017

Having a keen eye isn’t just for what one sees, but also for what one senses. Having been one of the most sought after portrait photographers in the U.S. for more than three decades, Jeffrey Shaw, a.k.a. the Lingo Guy, uses this honed intuition to teach entrepreneurs how to attract their ideal customers by speaking their Secret Language. Jeffrey is the host of the popular business podcast Creative Warriors, a nationally acclaimed keynote speaker, a business coach for entrepreneurs, and the author of the forthcoming book, LINGO: Discover Your Ideal Customer’s Secret Language and Make Your Business Irresistible.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Why every market has a secret language
  • The danger of building the business you want and then trying to stuff people into it
  • Studying your market and learning their perspective
  • Why customers are going to require that we know more about them than their statistics and behavior
  • Looking through your customer’s eyes and seeing what’s already familiar to them
  • Why your ideal customers want your brand to speak on their behalf
  • How pricing creates perception and why the right price will magnetize your ideal customers
  • The power of using the right — and wrong — words
  • Your ideal customers: the people who will love what you do
  • How to win customers when you can’t compete on price
  • The New Niche: defining what your area of expertise is (and why this is open to multiple audiences)

Ways to contact Jeffrey:

Dec 13, 2017

Adam Anderson is a long-time small business owner who also happens to be one of the leading authorities on small business cyber security. He is a serial entrepreneur, author, and founder and Chairman of Palmetto Security Group (PSG), an IBM Premier Cyber Security Business Partner. He recently launched Anderson Security Group. With 20 years in cyber security, and 13 as a small business owner, Adam is positioned to understand both sides of the cyber security equation in a way most aren’t. Adam got tired of answering all his business owner friends’ questions about cyber security, so he co-authored a book and created some tools for them. The book is called Small Business Cyber Security: Your Customers Can Trust You…Right? Adam is on a mission to help fellow business owners find the answer to the question, “Should I even care about cyber security?”

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • What small business owners need to know about cyber security (and why common beliefs are usually wrong)
  • Some of the most common mistakes business owners make with cyber security
  • The kind of back ups you should be doing with your information
  • Why you need a cyber security insurance policy (and what kind of policy you should get)
  • Why you should use a cloud-based email system
  • How to formulate secure passwords (and why you should use two-factor authentication whenever possible)
  • Why you should log into your computer as a user and not an administrator
  • How to detect if you’re under a cyber attack and having a plan for when this happens
  • Is cyber security actually important for your company?
  • Ways to keep cyber security top-of-mind with your team
  • Resources to use to stay on top of what’s important for cyber security
  • Signs to look for that show you may have been attacked

Ways to contact Adam:

Dec 6, 2017

Steve Sims is the visionary founder of Bluefish: the world’s first luxury concierge company that delivers the highest level of personalized travel, transportation, and cutting-edge entertainment services to corporate executives, celebrities, professional athletes, and other discerning individuals interested in living life to its fullest. He has been invited to speak to MBA students at Harvard (twice), has spoken at the Pentagon, and has been featured in major media all around the world: From The Sunday Times and China Post to The Wall Street Journal.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Steve’s book “Bluefishing” and how it gives you the tools to make things happen
  • The lesson Steve’s dad taught him about why you always get up stronger
  • Fire Your Vampires: why you need to get the rid of the naysayers in your life
  • Email is not communication: why it’s so easy to misinterpret email and why you should send videos instead
  • Ugly works: why you should strive for rawness and transparency instead of perfection
  • Why you should try to engage people with as many senses as you can
  • Why your team will be thankful when you let bad employees go but won’t tell you they want them gone beforehand
  • Delegation: why this is a skill that will keep you from going broke
  • Doing what you can to get yourself continually one step closer to your dream

Ways to contact Steve:

Nov 29, 2017

Carl Gould is an authority on business growth who advises organizations to grow to the next level. He is an entrepreneur who built three multi-million dollar businesses by age 40. His consulting firm, 7 Stage Advisors, has mentored the launch of over five thousand businesses. He has advised over 100 of the Inc. 500/5000 Fastest-Growing Companies, and currently works with the 9th fastest-growing company in NJ.

Carl created the farthest-reaching business mentoring organization in the world, and his methodologies are in practice in 35 countries. He has trained, certified or accredited over 7,000 Business Coaches and Mentors since 2002.

Carl has written multiple books on the subject of business strategy, leadership and sustainable growth. He co-authored “Blueprint for Success” with Stephen R. Covey and Ken Blanchard; and his best-selling book, “The 7 Stage of Small Business Success”, lays out the formula for HyperGrowth. In 2016, Biz Dev Done Right became a #1 Best Seller on Amazon. Each week he co-hosts “Quit and Get Rich” on iHeart® radio; and shares share his insights from working with top companies from around the world.

Carl’s dynamic and energetic presentation style has made him one of the most sought after speakers internationally. He combines practical and impactful content with real-world experience…no theory here! He engages his audiences and keeps them on the edge of their seat. Gould’s content is original, profound and battle-tested…his stuff works!

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Carl’s transition from his construction business to his coaching business
  • How to transfer your skills when you want to make a change from one role (or even career) to another
  • The lifeline exercise for analyzing when life was good and when it was bad
  • Why you find out what you’re made of when you’re faced with tough circumstances
  • Why there are no boundaries for master coaches
  • How to grow your business through lead generation and marketing
  • Turning your clients complaints about your competitors into your business plan
  • Outcome-based thinking and planning vs. activity-based thinking and planning
  • How to enhance and magnify every experience in your life

Ways to contact Carl:

Nov 15, 2017

Mike Bundrant is the founder of iNLP Center. He is an NLP Master Practitioner, IANLP Fellow Trainer and retired psychotherapist (NM). He became a certified NLP practitioner in 1993 by taking a 27-day NLP certification course from Western States Training in Salt Lake City, UT.

Because of NLP, Mike’s been fortunate enough in life to do exactly what he wants. He couldn’t ask for anything more. Mike and Jake Eagle are co-authors of the book published in Japan in 2007 called Holistic NLP.

What takes up most of Mike’s time today is his family. He lives in Murrieta, CA with his wife, Hope, and their children.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • The magic of the “a-ha!” moment and why Mike lives to give other people those moments
  • Becoming aware of the choices we make to self-sabotage ourselves
  • Why — if you work hard every day but wind up feeling like garbage — you need to embrace that
  • After you’ve decided to embrace what’s making you feel bad, noting everything that makes you feel that way
  • The Imposter Syndrome: how this ties directly into self-sabotage
  • Why your psychology — and how you act day in and day out — is the biggest part of being a great leader
  • The questions you should ask yourself before having a difficult conversation with one of your team members
  • The importance of a mindfulness practice to keep yourself centered

Ways to contact Mike:

Nov 8, 2017

Nathan Hirsch is a 28-year-old serial entrepreneur who is an expert in hiring online and building eCommerce businesses. He co-founded his first eCommerce company out of his dorm room in 2009 drop shipping products on Amazon.com and built it to sell over $25 million worth of product over 5 years. While scaling, Nathan discovered the power of outsourcing and ended up building a remote army of freelancers.

In 2015, Nathan co-founded and became the CEO of FreeeUp, an online hiring marketplace that allows business owners fast access to a hand-picked network of top talent freelancers in eCommerce, digital marketing, web development, and much more who have already been vetted for skill, attitude, and communication. FreeeUp interviews hundreds of freelancers each week and only allows the top 1% of applicants into the network. The company has been growing at rapid paces (500%+ YoY) and has quickly become a top destination to hire online for over 3,000 businesses around the world.

Nathan has built his personal brand to be synonymous with online hiring and entrepreneurship through 75+ guest appearances on top podcasts: Entrepreneur on Fire with John Lee Dumas, Eventual Millionaire, and handfuls more. Nathan has also become a regular speaker at industry conferences where he teaches other business owners how to hire freelancers and gain back more time in their growing businesses.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • The story of how Nathan ran a multi-million dollar business out of his college dorm room
  • Accepting the risk and making smart decisions when hiring
  • How to learn from hiring mistakes so you do better next time
  • Being clear with your team on what is expected
  • Why there’s nothing in your business that you can’t hire for
  • Figuring out what you should delegate off your plate (and when to do it)
  • Focusing on attitude and communication when hiring an employee or contractor
  • Why Nathan uses the same process for hiring FreeeUp freelancers as he does hiring people to his team
  • The Client Expectations Document: how to use this to onboard new employees
  • The importance of consistency as a leader
  • Using meetings to keep people on the same page
  • Why you need to diversify your business

Ways to contact Nathan:

Resources:

Nov 1, 2017

Steve Weiss is a lifelong entrepreneur having started his first successful venture at age 16 in his high school’s computer lab. Steve is supremely passionate about building and recruiting agile marketing teams that execute.

Over the last three years, Steve invested most of his time building MuteSix as a performance marketing powerhouse. It’s since grown at a rate of 300%+ per year and is the most awarded Facebook social advertising agency with more Facebook & Instagram marketing case studies than any other agency. In 2017, MuteSix was named one of Inc. magazine’s Best Workplaces and ranked #341 on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest growing private companies.

Steve is a highly regarded speaker on Entrepreneurship, eCommerce, and Facebook advertising. Hes recently been a featured speaker at Mumbrella, Affiliate World Europe, the Digital Growth Summit, the Seller Summit and can be heard weekly on the Spend $10K a Day digital media podcast.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • How Steve relates his experience with stand up comedy to working with Facebook ads
  • The growth of MuteSix’s team and why they are so good at focusing on their specific niche of performance marketing
  • The key to success: always having an open mind
  • Why you need to focus on the best case scenario, not the worst
  • Keeping your company culture when you scale your team
  • Why multiple people should interview a candidate
  • The importance of not being afraid to fail
  • Why Steve has elected not to have a virtual team
  • Putting a high price tag on diversity
  • Putting yourself and your team in a position for success
  • Encouraging your team to never be afraid to ask for help
  • Steve’s podcast Spend 10k a Day
  • Not worrying about what you can’t control

Ways to contact Steve:

Oct 25, 2017

Having led in both restaurants and a startup, Drew is no stranger to the travails of leadership, mentorship, and management in chaotic, cash-constrained environments. He currently serves as Human Capital Advisor to Fulcrum Investing and as an Engagement Manager for Artemis Connection. He recently published his first book, “What I Learned Before 30.”

Drew climbed the ladder of the restaurant industry as many do: with a great deal of empathy, a little bit of luck, and a massive amount of overconfidence. After graduating from Harvard in 2009, he worked his way up from being a busboy in Boston to being a beverage director for Momofuku in New York City, where he managed the buying, pricing, and selling of wine, beer, and spirits for the restaurant. He decided that he wanted to have more ownership of the guest experiences he was creating, so he took to Chicago to see how Booth could help him open his own restaurant.

While attending Booth, Drew met his business partner, Hunter Swartz, and the two quickly realized that their shared background in endurance sports mixed with complementary work experiences could build something remarkable. Drew joined the Eastman Egg team in January 2014 and served as COO for three years. In his time there, the company grew to four operating units and grew its revenues and team each by a factor of 10.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Why Drew decided to leave a business that he built up
  • The importance of actually taking action
  • The coaching groups and one-on-one sessions Drew built after leaving his business
  • Being open-minded to change in your business and being ready to not necessarily stick with your original idea
  • Why culture is more about how you interact with your team and your customers and less about how well written your mission statement is
  • Incentivizing people to act in accordance with your company culture
  • How to attract the right candidates
  • Why you should ask your team “why do you work?”
  • The benefits of empathetic leadership
  • The difference between working towards something and finishing something and why it matters

Ways to contact Drew:

Resources:

Oct 18, 2017

Over the past 20 years, Carl Cox has been supporting companies grow 3x to 5x on the finance and operations side. He has always been passionate about Strategic Planning – but not just to build a plan – but to actually deliver the plan so that the potential of the organization can be reached. Yet, it is always more fulfilling to see the people responsible for delivering the plan growing and reaching their personal goals as well.

In his new role as the CEO for Cascade North America, Cascade Strategy is a perfect fit. Carl has the wonderful opportunity to launch Cascade in North America but to also help organizations from high-tech start-ups to Fortune 500 companies to not-for-profits to governments simplify their strategic execution process. He truly believes this is the biggest impact that he can have in the world – and he is going All In!

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Cascade North America: Carl’s software for managing strategic planning
  • The lessons Carl learned from his mentor Jerry Ramey, the Founder & CEO of Lightspeed Technologies
  • Why you have to walk the walk as a leader and stay consistent to your core values
  • Core value meetings: how Carl turned a bad decision into something that built a lot of trust with the team
  • Asking questions in the right way so that your team feels safe in responding
  • Listing out the top three things you need to get done each day and getting them done first whenever possible
  • Empowering your team to take ownership in your company
  • Hiring the right person for the right role
  • Why you need to take risks
  • What to consider before going out on your own and starting your business
  • The most important daily habit: getting up early

Ways to contact Carl:

Oct 11, 2017

Clara Capano is an international Trainer, Performance Coach, Speaker, and Author. She has helped thousands become more purposeful and intentional in their business and life. She has a passion for helping others become their truest and greatest self.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Clara’s book “Find Your Focus”
  • Starting your day with the best version of yourself
  • Why clarity of vision and culture are huge for success
  • Becoming the best leader you can be and build a great culture
  • Who Clara learns from herself to become the best leader she can be
  • Realizing that when you choose to do one thing you’re choosing not to do something else
  • Why having a schedule brings you freedom
  • Letting go of the wrong things to make time for the right things
  • The benefits of not watching the news
  • Learning from setbacks and looking for the lessons in everything
  • Asking questions of your team to really improve your company
  • Why you need to take your time with the hiring process
  • The importance of a strong morning routine

Ways to contact Clara:

Resources:

Oct 4, 2017

Sarah Jones is the founder of Introverted Alpha, the premier dating coaching company for introverted men. She and her team help men find their own uniquely attractive vibe and connect with women in a relaxed, confident way.

Sarah has loved introverted men all her life, and she naturally brings out their best. After three solid years, Introverted Alpha has established itself as the strong alternative to pickup artist advice, an oasis for men who want genuine connections with women.

Sarah has been featured in Business Insider, Forbes, Entrepreneur, General Assembly, Ramit Sethi’s GrowthLab, AskMen, Order of Man, Knowledge for Men, Self Made Man, and much more.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Sarah’s journey into coaching that began by tutoring in high school
  • Why Sarah got rid of her passive income program that was doing well financially but wasn’t serving her customers
  • The importance of waiting to understand something before you delegate it
  • The challenges Sarah has faced when growing her team
  • Taking negative feedback from your audience and using it to be better
  • How Sarah learned to actually take the time and rest and the massive impact it’s had on her life
  • Understanding your personality (and why Sarah studies the Enneagram)
  • Sarah’s dating skills assessment for introverted men

Ways to contact Sarah:

Resources:

Sep 27, 2017

Jon Dwoskin is an executive advisor, business coach, and motivational speaker who’s been called the business whisperer for his skilled and compassionate insights into what can keep a corporate culture from thriving. At age 23, he created one of the first internet marketing companies in America, then went on to great success at several national commercial real estate firms.

Jon has built, trained, expanded and restructured both sales teams and corporate structures, but after 20 years in a C-suite, knew it was time to make a business out of being himself. The Jon Dwoskin Experience teaches the secrets, hard work and discipline required to Think Big. Very Big! A prolific business blogger, Jon is the author of The Think Big Movement, a business fable about getting unstuck and transforming a business.

A 15-year cancer survivor, he lives with his wife and two children in Michigan, where he is active in community organizations. Jon has been included in the prestigious Crains Detroit Business 40 Under 40 list and named Alumnus of the Year by Eastern Michigan University, where he double majored in economics and journalism.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Jon’s career path and why he decided to leave the C-suite to become an entrepreneur
  • Advice Jon has for people contemplating a similar switch
  • Why you need to write your vision in a journal every single day
  • Keeping your ego in check as a leader
  • Focusing on leadership skills, influence, and communication
  • Why the biggest challenge for companies is that they have the wrong people in the wrong jobs and what they need to do about it
  • Never settling on the wrong hire
  • How to know when you’re stuck as a leader and what you can do about it
  • Thinking big: doing small things on a daily basis that compound to something bigger
  • Managing and leading from your heart, not your head

Ways to contact Jon:

Sep 20, 2017

Jeff Koser is the spirited founder and CEO of Selling to Zebras (STZ). STZ is the software company that helps organizations profitably increase revenue. The Selling to Zebras™ software platform helps start each sales engagement in a better place.

STZ launched the newest version of the Selling to Zebras™ software platform last September. The Selling to Zebras™ software provides insights that help identify Zebras, Power (the person who can buy even without a budget) and the Power-level critical business issues which, when solved, create measurable value. Eliminate the waste associated with chasing deals that will not close 85% of the time. Pursue Zebras and close 90% of the business you pursue faster, more easily and more profitably. As an important by-product, the Selling to Zebras™ software ends the busy work associated with entering CRM and forecast data. The Selling to Zebras™ software is a real-time up-to-date CRM or can be integrated with your present CRM, eliminating the need to do separate updates in preparation for a forecast or sales business review.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Jeff’s extensive background that features time growing the Baan business in the US
  • The seven attributes that make up every deal
  • Zebras: the perfect fit for your business (or the animal you want to hunt)
  • Why sellers hate CRMs and why Selling to Zebras (STZ) is a better solution
  • Knowing when it’s time to pivot away when something isn’t working
  • Just putting a product out there so you can get feedback and improve
  • Why what you say “no” to is more important than what you say “yes” to
  • The most important thing you can do: hiring the right people
  • Getting into the right frame of mind before starting your work
  • Focusing on the “needle-moving” activities
  • Getting crystal clear on your “why”
  • Jeff’s weekly one-on-one meetings with his team
  • How to manage virtual employees
  • Why you should never be afraid to hire people smarter than you

Ways to contact Jeff:

 

Sep 13, 2017

Eddie Yoon is the founder of EDDIEWOULDGROW, a think tank and advisory firm on growth strategy. Prior to that he was a partner at The Cambridge Group where he worked for 18 years, a strategy consulting firm founded in 1975 that specializes in helping CEOs and senior leadership teams within Fortune 1000 corporations drive growth by understanding how to unlock new sources of consumer demand. In the last 5 years, he has helped double numerous businesses-cable media company, food brand, beverage company, pet food brand, consumer robotics, standby generators-from several hundred million to close to a billion dollars.

Eddie is the author of the acclaimed book, “Superconsumers: A Simple, Speedy and Sustainable Path to Superior Growth” (Harvard Business School Press, 2016). Eddie has been a keynote speaker in the U.S., Africa, Australia, Denmark, the UK, and Japan.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Eddie’s journey as a consultant
  • How competitive strategies “split the pie” and why they need to “make more pie”
  • Why you should create your own category to do business in
  • Asking crazy questions to figure out how to grow the business in your category
  • Talk less; listen more: why this needs to be how brands operate going forward
  • Why categories are now the star and brands are not
  • The psychology of a superconsumer
  • What makes services even more suited to superconsumers than products (which also have many superconsumers)
  • Using data and doubling down on the things that are growing your business
  • Why you need to engage with the people who are talking about you on social media

Ways to contact Eddie:

Sep 7, 2017

Determination and resilience have served Maureen in her many accomplishments. As a member of the US Cycling Team, she won a National Championship, set a national record, earned a silver and 2 bronze medals at National Championships, competed in 3 World Championships and won a silver medal at the 1990 World Championships.

Maureen’s cycling career came to an abrupt halt at the sudden onset of Multiple Sclerosis. She turned her determination and focus to a new journey, exploring ways to integrate her Mind, Body, and Spirit in order to create optimal health and peace of mind. This inquiry led her to gain knowledge and understanding from a variety of fields, including mind-body sciences, behavioral sciences, faith based traditions, psychology, meditation, life coaching, and systems theory. The application of her learnings led her to a deeper understanding that THRIVING originates from the specific choices we make when facing uncertain and challenging times.

After completion of a Master’s Degree in Integrated Wellness, Maureen established her private practice and return to her much-loved sport of cycling.

Maureen is a well-respected speaker, counselor, educator, and consultant. She currently delivers motivational presentations around the country, leads workshops, teaches classes, designs wellness programs and consults with organizations who wish to empower both their workforce and clients.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Overcoming tremendous obstacles to achieve great success
  • How to succeed even when the odds are against you
  • Pushing yourself to reach the highest levels
  • Becoming a world-class cyclist through grit and determination
  • Manifesting your success through willpower
  • Avoiding a fixed mindset by developing adaptability
  • Developing competency as a means of thriving under pressure
  • Thriving under pressure instead of being a victim of it
  • The realities of working as a cohesive team at a very high level

Ways to contact Maureen:

Sep 5, 2017

Linda Raynier CPA, CA, a Career Strategist, Speaker, and Intuitive Purpose Coach who helps experienced professionals to enhance their personal brand so they can pursue careers that they’ll truly enjoy. Formerly a top-performing headhunter in Toronto, Linda has worked with thousands of corporate professionals and has learned what it takes to find and develop a truly fulfilling career. She is establishing herself as a thought leader in the career and professional development space and has a rapidly growing YouTube channel where hundreds of new subscribers are joining on a daily basis to learn her insights on anything career-related, from interview and resume tips to personal branding and confidence-building strategies. Her clients have successfully landed exciting career opportunities within a short time of working with Linda, by executing her unique strategies.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Finding your passion and having the courage to pursue it
  • Getting interviews and then successfully obtaining offers
  • Tips and techniques for helping people to build their brand
  • How to sell yourself in a job search and convince others to hire you
  • Avoiding ending up stuck in jobs you don’t like
  • Listening to your heart and following through on what it wants
  • Managing transitions that might be very scary
  • Enjoying everything that you do while doing what matters
  • Conditioning yourself to feel confident and brave in any situation

Ways to contact Linda:

Aug 31, 2017

Cort Dial believes the only leader who needs to change is you. He has spent the last 30 years in a variety of environments ranging from corporate skyscrapers to South American jungles. Cort has honed a unique approach to developing coaches and business leaders founded in the core conviction: Leaders reach the summit of leadership when they can create extraordinary business performance while caring for people. Cort calls this new breed of 21st-century hero the All-In™ Leader.

Today, Cort is the President of Cort Dial Consulting, LLC where he has successfully guided business coaches and executives from organizations such as Chevron, Intel, U.S. Borax, Disney, and Apple to cultivate a new breed of leader. He guides individuals through frank self-evaluation, personal change, and the pursuit of extraordinary performance, he creates the All-In™ Leaders, high achievers who recognize the power of human connection.

Cort is also the author of the Globe and Mail’s 2016 #1 business book, Heretics to Heroes: A Memoir on Modern Leadership. His book introduces a new framework for inspiring and influencing others with his All-In™ Leadership. As provocative as it is practical, Heretics to Heroes reminds readers that history’s greatest men and women were once seen as heretics.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • How to become a leader who does big things
  • Finding great leaders and developing them to achieve their full potential
  • The most inspiring people and how to use what they teach you
  • Never forgetting that business is about results
  • Overcoming your limits with imagination and creativity
  • Becoming a time traveler who goes to the future and comes back to help us get there
  • Asking the questions no one else wants to ask
  • Figuring out what is really happening and how to work toward your true goals
  • Helping others to overcome self-imposed challenges

Ways to contact Cort:

Aug 29, 2017

Prior to co-founding Meditation Studio, Cyd served as the COO and CDO of Gaiam Brands, where she led key growth initiatives including brand repositioning, category expansion and the evolution of Gaiam’s content strategy. In addition, she was heavily involved in the marketing and eventual sale of the Gaiam brand to the Sequential Brands Group. Previously, she held leadership roles at Whole Foods Market and Corporate Express. Cyd is on the Digital Advisory Board of the USO and serves as the Secretary of the Board of the STEPS Foundation. Cyd is committed to conscious commerce and strongly believes that most sustainable way to do good is via ethical commerce.

She has an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from Oklahoma State University, and when she isn’t working on Meditation Studio, she enjoys growing trees, raising longhorn cattle and listening to vinyl records at her micro-ranch in the sandhills of Nebraska.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • How meditation can help people from any walk of life to improve themselves
  • Using technology and modern networks to promote wellness
  • Managing stress in your personal and work life even in the worst circumstances
  • Bringing your best self to your life and your job
  • Developing a consistent practice of meditation that will feed your success
  • Why mindfulness and meditation can work for anyone anywhere
  • Maintaining a consistent practice of meditation
  • How to tap into your real potential as a person and professional
  • Setting realistic expectations for yourself and what you can do day-by-day

Ways to contact Cyd:

Aug 22, 2017

Bill Troy is an Inc. 500 CEO and a natural-born contrarian who, for 25 years, has helped global brands like Sony, Disney and Nestle see the world from a different perspective.

As CEO of Civilis Marketing, Bill and his team help companies initiate and nurture REALationships™ that drive business growth using today’s digital communication tools without resorting to the high-pressure, high-volume automated techniques sold by online marketing pitchmen.

Bill’s crusade these days is to rid the world of the garbage that floods all of our inboxes garbage sent by businesses who have followed the advice of online marketing pitchmen and help business owners avoid or escape the CLICKSAND trap before it’s too late.

In CLICKSAND, Bill Troy compares giant firms like HubSpot, Google, and LinkedIn as well as local agencies and consultants in towns big and small to snake-oil pitchmen of the 1800s.

Bill details the unscrupulous techniques that online marketing pitchmen use to convince business owners, the societal factors that are unnaturally magnifying their success and how businesses who are caught in the trap can escape and get back to what really works.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Asking the right questions about your marketing strategies
  • Building relationship processes that create customer bases
  • Thinking about the future and working toward it by acting now
  • How to decide for yourself what a relationship is for your business
  • What you need in order to make email marketing people want to read
  • Avoiding the common pitfalls of online marketing
  • What to be careful about when crafting your marketing strategy
  • The questions you need to ask yourself when marketing your company
  • Understanding the life of the person who will buy from you

Ways to contact Bill:

Aug 22, 2017

Jeff McManus grows things. As the Director of Landscape Services at the University of Mississippi, he grows plants, he grows people, and he grows ideas. Jeff is a problem-solver, understanding that doing more with less is a 21st-century mandate. Faced with a multi-million dollar landscaping beautification project, a demand for excellence, high productivity, and with a stagnant budget, Jeff knew that growing the people was critical to growing the plants. Understanding that all humans either have or strive for the innate elements of Greatness, Resiliency, Opportunity, and Wisdom, Jeff developed his GROW-theory into an impactful management and professional development leadership program for his staff.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Finding and attracting passionate people to your organization
  • Using curiosity and research to learn continually
  • Taking ownership of issues and finding resolutions that work
  • Inspiring people to be their best selves every day no matter what they do
  • Hiring strategies that can weed out the wrong people for your organization
  • Lengthening the interview process and utilizing your whole team when hiring
  • Being adaptable and overcoming daily challenges
  • How self-leadership can lead to a productive mindset and healthy habits
  • Effective leadership in the modern workplace

Ways to contact Jeff:

Aug 17, 2017

Andrew Roman Wells is the CEO of Aspirent, a management-consulting firm focused on analytics. He has extensive experience building Analytical Solutions for a wide range of companies, from Fortune 500s to small non-profits.

In addition to his role as an executive, Wells is a hands-on consultant. He refined his craft in Silicon Valley working for two successful startups focused on customer analytics and the use of predictive methods to drive performance. Wells has also held executive roles in industry as Director of Business Intelligence at Capital One and built solutions for a wide variety of industries and companies including Coca-Cola, IHG, The Home Depot, Capital One, Wells Fargo, HP, Time Warner, Merrill Lynch, Applied Materials, and many others.

Kathy Williams Chiang is an established Business Analytics practitioner with expertise in guided analytics, analytic data mart development, and business planning. Prior to her current position as VP, Business Insights, at Wunderman Data Management, Chiang consulted with Aspirent on numerous analytic projects for several multi-national clients including IHG and Coca-Cola, among others. She has also worked for multinational corporations including Telecommunications Systems of Trinidad and Tobago, Acuity Brands Lighting, BellSouth International and Portman Overseas.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • A framework and approach with best practices in data analytics
  • Building analytics that help you monetize your data
  • Insights into data analytics from two subject matter experts
  • The power of integrating qualitative and quantitative data
  • Empowering your customers to drive your business by understanding your data
  • Segmentation of your market to leverage tailor made products and services
  • Understand how to raise revenue and lower inventory costs through sales data
  • How to avoid common data collection and management mistakes
  • Setting accurate expectations for data analytics projects

Ways to contact Andrew and Kathy:

Aug 15, 2017

Jody Foster, MD, MBA, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Vice Chair for Clinical Operations in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Pennsylvania Hospital. She attained her MBA, with a concentration in finance, from the Wharton School.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Finding your niche even when you least expect it
  • How to combine knowledge of psychology with business savvy
  • Creating better teams through understanding everyone you work with
  • Intervening on disruptive behavior in the workplace
  • Why you need to start with yourself when addressing workplace problems
  • Increasing retention and decreasing turnover in your workplace
  • How to process positive and negative feelings at work
  • Identifying problematic behaviors and handling them effectively
  • Accepting that most people are not maliciously causing problems at work

Ways to contact Jody:

Aug 1, 2017

Jason Forrest, the CEO and Chief Culture Officer at FPG (Forrest Performance Group), is a leading authority on culture change programs and an expert at creating high-performance, high-profit, and Best Place to Work cultures. As a sales professional, author, speaker, and management coach, Jason’s job is to empower professionals and executives to unleash their human performance and master their leadership skills in sales, management, culture, and service; for the purpose of increasing profit through people.

The winner of four international Stevie Awards for his Warrior Selling and Leadership Coaching training programs, Jason is also an award-winning author of six books, including Leadership Sales Coaching rated as one of Selling Power Magazine’s Top Sales Books. Additionally, Inc. Magazine has named FPG as one of the Nation’s Best Workplaces for 2017.

With a decade of coaching and speaking experience, Jason Forrest is a member of the acclaimed National Speaker Associations Million Dollar Speaker Group, as well as The Entrepreneurs Organization (EO), the world’s only peer-to-peer network exclusively for entrepreneurs. Every year, Jason delivers approximately 100 keynotes for sales teams, managers, and executives.

Jason Forrest’s new book, “WTF: Why Training Fails,” intends to change the behavior of how managers interact with their employees. $164.2 billion is spent annually on training, yet 70% of the training fails to produce a positive ROI; this book explains why the failure rate is so significant and how businesses can implement more effective training strategies.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Why training is unsuccessful and how to make it work
  • The simple reason you need to evolve from a manager into a coach
  • How Millennials are ushering in a new era of humane management
  • Turning potential into performance
  • Focusing on improvement – telling your people what you do want
  • Modeling engagement to your employees, loving what you do so they will too
  • Giving your employees purpose, helping them to feel like they make the world better

Ways to contact Jason:

Jul 27, 2017

PJ Jonas is a business owner, goat-wrangler, entrepreneur, and mother. After getting goats to provide healthy milk for her eight children, she decided to put some excess milk into a batch of handmade soap. That decision was the beginning of Goat Milk Stuff, a growing goat milk products business that has been featured on The Today Show, The Doctors, The Huckabee Show, and in O, the Oprah Magazine. This is a great story of how a business was started in her kitchen and grew into a million dollar business that now employs her entire family as well as other employees.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • How ingenuity can arise from simply wanting to help others
  • Solving problems as a mother that turned into a million dollar business
  • Insider knowledge of entrepreneurship from a successful owner
  • Thinking about employees carefully before hiring to promote success
  • Understanding your missteps and not letting yourself be defined as a failure
  • Why you can’t get it all done and how to seize on the right opportunities
  • Maximizing efficiencies and processes through carefully designed systems
  • Growing your business at the right pace
  • What you need to know about your competition when diversifying your business
  • How to be humble and a good listener and why all leaders must be able to do both
  • Where you can have a chance get a free bar of soap from Goat Milk Stuff

Ways to contact PJ:

Jul 25, 2017

Bix and Joe Bickson are Future Hackers…they have reimagined management for today’s and more importantly, tomorrow’s world.

Bix Bickson lived in Berkeley in the 60s, built a community in the Canadian woods for 10 years in the 70s, was an est trainer in the 80s, became an organizational consultant in the 90s. He has consulted major corporations, institutions, non-profit organizations, and individuals throughout the world. His clients include executives and their teams at Starbucks, Escada, Microsoft, Guinness, Ford Motors, and much, much more.  He was joined by his son, Joe, two years ago with the energy, passion, and commitment of a millennial bringing his Dad and their clients into the digital economy. They are regarded as authorities on the ability to tap the collective creativity of groups, how to inspire others toward action, how to accelerate significant measurable change across large, complex projects.

Future hacking is the management discipline that provides leaders with the essential tools required to push past what is in the way of creating and fulfilling the future. Bix and Joe have led many turnarounds of organizations ranging in size from 100 to over 10,000, with revenues of a few million dollars to over a billion.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

  • Transformational conversations that rewrite your corporate DNA
  • Infusing purpose and meaning into your company’s work
  • Motivating young people and crafting companies that look forward
  • How to see the DNA of a company in its conversations
  • Future Hacking and unlocking the power of your company
  • Being a partner and not a savior in your relationships
  • Why the source of results is not skill, talent, or experience but it is to be present

Ways to contact Bix & Joe:

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