Manage 2 Win

Spending money on marketing can be like flushing cash down the toilet.  Mac Attram has a different approach:  Focus on joint ventures to build on the success of others. But how do you choose the right company for your joint venture?  How do you structure the agreement?  Joint ventures can be easy to sign, but might be agonizingly slow to launch.  What happens when a joint venture goes sour – how do you get out? These topics and more are discussed in this podcast.  Mac shares his system to grow your company 200% or more in 6-12 months.  He introduces how joint ventures can leverage six cornerstones of your company:   Marketing, Sales, Team, Systems, Finance & Mindset.  Joint ventures often enable you to grow all these 6 areas simultaneously. Mac Attram is the Founder & CEO of MindSpace Coaching, where he helps businesses grow more rapidly using his proven systems.  One of his favorite techniques is joint ventures, which is the main reason he is a multi-millionaire today.  Join this podcast to be introd

Carey Smith grew Big Ass Fans from zero to $300 million over 18 years without outside investors.  He shares key parts of his story on this podcast. It’s interesting to note that when he sold Big Ass Fans for $500 million, the company’s stock appreciation rights program paid out $50 million to more than 100 loyal employees who shared Carey’s work ethic with 15 becoming overnight millionaires. Every year, American entrepreneurs start more than 500,000 companies, but only 200 will ever reach $100 million in revenue.  Even many that succeed will later fail. One valuable tip from Carey is that he personally called each new customer to hear first-hand what they liked about their Big Ass Fan, and more importantly, learn what they thought could be improved.  Why did he do that? Because Carey believes in a “fail-fast” approach to drive revenue quickly.  He learned a valuable lesson that you can usually tell within a short time if an idea’s going to work.  If it doesn't, then make the conscious decision to fail fast. 

When people don’t get your story right, they often buy from someone else.  Therefore, effectively communicating the value of your company’s services is crucial to your company’s profitability and growth. David Saltzman is a marketing guru who joins us to candidly share common mistakes too many leaders make in explaining what their company does, and what to do instead.  Most leaders describe themselves and their people as heroes.  However, this is less effective than being a guide to someone’s desired destination.  David’s company, The Saltzman Group, helps leaders craft stories that sell customers, employees, communities… he wants us to stop talking and start communicating.  David and David, our host, discuss ways you can create clarity that cuts through and gets noticed.  There are some great tips here! Our guest, David Saltzman, is a 20-year nationally-published monthly columnist, a certified StoryBrand consultant, and hosts the award-winning ShiftShapers Podcast.  His company, The Saltzman Group, also serv

Rarely do we get to speak with people who are saving lives.  Every day.  Navid Alipour and his team are some of these people.  Why?  His life was changed when his wife faced cancer. Join this discussion for hope.  David talks with Navid about two companies he cofounded, not just funded, CureMetrix and CureMatch.  The AI technology behind these ventures was developed by some of today’s greatest minds to improve disease detection and cancer survival rates across the globe. Cancer is a vicious demon that consumes an estimated 1,670 lives a day in America.  It continues to be the second most common cause of death in the US, after heart disease.  A total of 1.9 million new cancer cases and 609,360 deaths from cancer are estimated to have occurred in 2022 (American Cancer Society). Navid shares candidly how he and his teams pursue these solutions.  Some are awaiting the U.S. government’s full blessing, but are available to people worldwide today.  The stories are touching.  The hope is real. Although a primary focu

Brendan Dell gets paid to position his clients to connect with top technology brands, including Expedia, ADP, HP, YC and 99 Start Ups portfolio companies.  Brandon’s claim is to help people with their “$1B Pitch.” Brendan’s course, $1B Pitch, examines the 8 elements of $1B pitches.  His podcast Billion Dollar Tech reaches founders, executives, VCs, and PE investors globally. In this podcast, Brendan provides high level insights into his work, and book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging.  Join this conversation if you’d like an introduction to Brendan’s $1B Pitch. Spotify  Apple Podcast  Google Podcast  Manage2Win   ------- This Manage 2 Win Podcast episode is brought to you by Habitly.  I (David) review Habitly best practices regularly, and teach these essential people skills to clients weekly.  This advice has changed my life, and made millions for our clients. I started developing Habitly content in 2004.  Habitly’s powerful best practices have now been taught to thousands of people worldwi

Would you like your employees to be better engaged, loving what they do, and being their best more of the time? Orrin Klopper, the CEO of Netsurit, has a solution for you: Support their dreams!  His company has implemented a Dream Programme based on Matthew Kelly’s book, The Dream Manager.  This program and three acquisitions have catapulted Netsurit to $35 million in sales and 300 employees. Orrin attended 9 schools as a kid.  Only got expelled from 3.  So, 6 out of 9 is not a bad result…  More recently, his company did an acquisition of a company in NYC, and in his words, “…we made every mistake possible.”  Yet, he learned.  Orrin is an overcomer.  For instance, he has a master’s diploma in Entrepreneurship from the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management. Now Orrin grows his company through acquisitions and has an incredibly strong company culture that adapts through different growth phases through an actionable framework.  Their Dream Programme helps too. Orrin is a passionate Microsoft Partner and is committed

You have a company that is profitable, but you need funds to hire a superstar, acquire another company, or launch a marketing program...  Where do you get the money? You have funding options when you’re a software company with recurring revenue.  One of them is John Gallagher, the CEO of Element SaaS Finance.  He leads a boutique growth finance company that invests in and lends to SaaS and recurring revenue companies. John talks with David about the challenges of growing a company.  Leaders get stuck doing everything, which causes growth initiatives to get set aside.  This podcast discusses the importance of strategy and how to work effectively with outside investors, whether they are on your board or not.  John discusses what he learned from working with Mazars Ireland, and Ireland Investments, one of Ireland's most prominent family investment offices.  He also has served as a SaaS CFO consultant to some of the fastest-growing software companies in Europe. John has been responsible for growing his company

Have you posted a YouTube video that has 1.4 million views?  Peter Anderton has (here).  It’s on his two rules of great leadership.  The popularity of this post demands us to consider it. David interviews Peter about leadership, well beyond his TED talk, "Great Leadership Comes Down to Only Two Rules."  Do you have leaders complaining about their people?  How do you get your team pulling together and heading fully focused in the right direction so amazing things happen? Peter suggests we build beliefs about people, products, systems, situations…  These beliefs, often based on assumptions, can lead us to make disastrous decisions.  We lack clarity on truth, but feel we have complete understanding.  Oops.  Wrong approach. Peter Anderton is the Founder of Internal Alignment, where he helps leaders build processes so they can 10x their companies from inside out.  He and his team have worked with hundreds of companies, including giants like Jaguar Land Rover, 3M, Atkins, HSBC Holdings, Michels & Taylor, and Hu

Some consultants and leaders use diversity to divide.  Dr. Lauren Tucker believes another approach is more effective:  Focus on inclusion.    Dr. Tucker is the Founder and CEO of Do What Matters.  She is an entrepreneur who works with other entrepreneurs.  She talks candidly with David about how traditional diversity efforts often hurt the very people they are intended to help, and good intentions have not led to sustainable impact.   Dr. Tucker believes inclusion means all your employees feel invested in the mission of your company and success of the work.  One challenge is to achieve a win-win where diversity is a solution, not a problem to be fixed.  But if you want to go for inclusion, how do you build on your company’s strengths with a strategy that reduces cultural resistance to change, and enables you to achieve sustainable inclusion and representation goals faster?  It's not easy, but it is doable.  Part of the problem is the toxic media and political environment today that seeks to divide people by

As a CEO, Melissa Widner has led two companies to successful acquisitions that provided over a 10X return to investors.  Do you need money to grow your company, without giving up equity?  David talks with Melissa about funding your company’s growth and the challenges financial folks see in entrepreneurs.  Every startup leaders have a different journey, but there are key similarities that separate high-growth visionaries from those who get stuck.  Money for growth can be a tipping point. Melissa has a deep understanding of the entrepreneur's journey and the importance of growth capital.  If you’re looking for alternative methods to finance your next big move, then join this conversation! Melissa Widner is the CEO of Lighter Capital, the pioneer and leading provider of revenue-based financing to SAAS companies.  Previously, she was the Managing Director of NAB Ventures, the venture capital arm of National Australia Bank, where she invested in and served as a director for several global fintech companies, includ

Today’s guest, Sam Citro Alexander, is an admitted Food Lover and Nutrition Nerd who’s bitewell team is on a mission to make healthy eating easy, convenient, and accessible for all. Sam and her team says they tried about 1,000 different food and nutrition apps, but concluded none helped people eat well.  Instead, most healthy eating platforms focus on cooking and preparation although the average American only cooks 1 meal a day. Food is part of the fuel for your employee performance.  Companies have varying degrees of support for employees on mental health, physical health, emotional health… but most Americans fail to consider how their diet affects their personal and professional lives. Bitewell is an app that captures how we really eat.  Our snacks, the food we order out, our iced lattes, what we cook…  Why track it?  Because this enables us to consider making small changes to WHAT we eat and tracking how it affects us. Join this conversation to hear how Samantha Citro Alexander decided to leave her excitin

Brad Harris is a rare Ph.D. leader who can articulate how fantastic leaders succeed in plain English.  He shares the power of failure, how to learn from it, and then to thrive. Brad and David have a very insightful discussion about how top leaders organize their time.  What is their tipping point to maintain their strategic focus?  How do they learn from mistakes?  To be candid, David came away from this discussion inspired to change part of his weekly schedule to achieve more than he has than in the past. What if you could get that ONE idea that helps you break into new territory?  Brad gives you many opportunities in this conversation to break through that glass ceiling that’s holding you down.  Don’t miss this conversation! Brad is the Professor in the Department of Management and Human Resources at HEC Paris.  Brad has received multiple teaching awards and was named a top “40 under 40 Business School Professor” by Poets and Quants.   He has co-authored two books, Scaling for Success: People Priorities fo

As America’s mainline colleges and universities continue their 50+ year descent into political indoctrination and teaching anything but career skills, leaders are wondering what they’re getting when hiring recent graduates. Today’s podcast is with Dr. John Jackson, the President of William Jessup University, the 3rd fastest growing institution of its type in the nation.  Prior to Jessup, John has been an entrepreneur, a journey he wrote about in one of his many books, Pastorpreneur. David and John have a candid conversation about the state of education in America today, and how that is affecting our economy.  The situation is not all bad, but it has never been so dire.  What’s a leader to do?  Listen in and hear some great insights. John has served as the executive director of Thriving Churches International.  He is the founding pastor of LifePoint Church in Minden, Nevada, and was the executive minister of the American Baptist Churches of the Pacific Southwest (now Transformation Ministries) where he served

How can you stand out in the incredibly crowded markets of today? Seven years ago, Sri Chellappa understood the Human resources area needed more than administrative strategies. For an area as crowded as this, he thought it was necessary to redefine the HR processes and develop a strategy that would help managers streamline HR processes and harness employee potential. So, he did. Sri is the President and Co-Founder of Engagedly, an INC 5000 company. With his team, strategy management software redefines performance management, employee engagement, and development to enable organizations to build highly engaged and high-performance teams. He has over 20 years of leading organizations in technology and consulting in the United States, is a Forbes contributor, a Top 50 Tech visionary, and is recognized as a Titan 100 in the St. Louis business district. The story of how Sri and his team broke into the crowded HR market is worthwhile. Don’t miss the advice he gives on how to develop best practices for your team. Spo

On the slopes of Colorado, Shea Gerhardt’s ears hurt from wearing typical earbuds for hours.  Ouch!  There has to be a better way…  and Buderflys research began. But why leave two decades as a high-paid executive in the mobile, gaming, and music industries?  Shea had worked with Universal, Sony, EMI, and Warner Bros., as well as VZW, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Vodafone. The reason is other earbud designs are flawed.  The human ear canal moves as we move, and thus hard plastic, inflexible Apple EarPod / AirPod-like designs not only fall out, they can hurt when wore for long periods of time.   But how can Shea and her team develop a clear and focused path to cut through the noise of a crowded market overpopulated with stale product designs?  How can they flip it so better, user-centric products are king even though massive corporate conglomerates and Chinese knockoffs saturate the market?  Shea believes in doing things right.  She couldn’t standby and just accept the status quo when better is possible.  It

What if your company’s culture was not haphazard, but a beautiful tapestry masterfully designed to engage each individual based on their individual dreams, skills, behaviors, and experiences? For more than 20 years, Gustavo Razzetti of Fearless Culture has helped teams do the best work of their lives.  Most organizations don’t lack ideas, talent, or resources.  Instead, leaders lack a conducive culture where employees are encouraged to collaborate, take initiative and experiment beyond perceived limitations. In this episode, Gustavo walks us through his Culture Design Canvas, a framework to map, assess, and design your culture.  He has written four books on culture change, including his latest that was released earlier this year, Remote Not Distant: Design a Company Culture That Will Help You Thrive in a Hybrid Workplace.  Join this conversation to see if Gustavo’s creative approach can help your company. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/41rIZOQ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast G

How can humility and anarchy build a business? Ari Weinzweig teaches anarchy is not being at war or demanding a lack of structure.  “Ari’s Anarchy” (David’s term) involves fully connecting with your employees to create and evolve your company.   Ari’s Anarchy replaces a focus on hierarchy with humble recognition of the value each member brings to your company.  His approach honors everybody as a unique individual, welcomes what you learn from them, and believes there is potential in everybody. Does that sound too touchy-feely for you?  Too bad if it does, because you cannot argue with Ari’s results.  He’s an overcomer. Ari is CEO and co-founding partner of Zingerman's Community of Businesses a collection of Zingerman’s businesses.  He and his partner started as a 1,300 retail delicatessen.  Now their businesses are approaching $75 million in revenue, each with its own food specialty, all located in the Ann Arbor area.  Each business group strives to make the shopping, taste, and relational experience of Zinge

We hear about cybersecurity and online villains so much that we dismiss it.  Listen to this podcast with Peter Fidler to consider if you should feel safe, and if you are concerned, what to do about it. THIS IS NOT A SALES PITCH.  Peter gives free tips on steps you can take to protect your computer, phone, and company systems. One study concluded that in the first 8 months of 2020 there had already been around 445 million cyberattacks globally, twice as much as all of 2019.  Cybercrime is skyrocketing because it is easy money with low risk of jail time for the thieves.  It is projected that in 2022 there will be nearly a billion attacks globally. Peter is the President and founding partner of WCA Technologies. He has more than 30 years of Information Technology experience working with not for profit, legal and financial organizations. WCA Technologies is an IT support, IT consulting, and managed IT services provided located in midtown Manhattan. Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/41rIZOQ Apple Podcasts: ht

Most people know what an influencer does at a high level, but do you comprehend how to engage social media influencers to grow your business? Ashley Cline is an expert in influencer and referral marketing.  In her conversation with David, she explains specific ways you can develop powerful relationships with influencers.  This is true whether you are introvert or an extrovert, super sophisticated in social media or have limited experience. For instance, Ashley teaches us how an introvert can convince an influencer to collaborate in a marketing project.  It is a process.  In general, you must identify the best influencers for your needs, develop relationships with them, and then propose your partnership. But there is a lot more to it. Ashley has more than 15 years of experience as a digital marketing consultant and freelancing expert.  She is currently the EVP of Client Strategy at TicketSocket and Vice President and Co-Founder of Ice Cream Social. How do you influence an influencer?  Join this podcast for the

How do I recruit and retain the best talent for my company? According to LinkedIn, an average of only 8% of people who view your job posting will apply.  If this doesn’t concern you, then it should.  How do you attract and hire superstars when most of them are happy in their current jobs and not even looking?  Then, you convince some people to consider joining your company and only 8% of them apply? David and today’s guest, Chase Kocher, the founder & CEO of Aim4Hire, talk about hiring.  Not just when to use a recruiter, like Aim4Hire, but lots of other hiring challenges.  There are plenty of quick tips in this podcast that can help you hire the best and avoid the rest, including asking the right interview questions and knowing salary expectations. Aim4Hire, a boutique recruiting agency that partners with top tech startups in the booming market of Austin, TX.  Join the podcast.  One hiring tip can make all the difference in your next conversation with a great candidate for your company. Spotify: https://