CEO Coaching International Podcast

Guest: Mike Morris, a Principal at Kettle Hole Partners, a company that helps you optimize your marketing results based on detailed tracking of the numbers. Previously, Mike headed up Customer Acquisition and Retention at Grasshopper, The Entrepreneur’s Phone System, where he tripled the customer acquisition rate and doubled revenue in 3 years.

Overview: When a company falls short of its goals, sales and marketing teams tend to point fingers at each other. Sales complains that marketing isn't delivering enough qualified leads. Marketing complains that sales isn't closing enough leads. And perceptive CEOs see a significant misalignment that threatens to drag down profits.

On today's show, Mike Morris discusses structural and analytical strategies CEOs can use to keep sales and marketing focused on reaching your target customers and Making BIG Happen. Mike also uses his time at Grasshopper as a case study in identifying a sales niche and firing test bullets to identify new opportunities for growth.

Guest: Chris Dyer, a company culture and remote work expert. He's also a former CEO who has managed thousands of people, and his companies were consistently named a "best place to work." Chris' new book is The Power of Company Culture: How Any Business Can Build a Culture That Improves Productivity, Performance and Profits.

Overview: Recently, the tech and entertainment sectors have given us some high-profile examples of what happens when a company's culture degrades from a strength into a liability. CEOs have to be intentional and specific about building a culture that will generate value for all stakeholders, keep the company moving toward its targets, and, ultimately, Make BIG Happen.

On today's show, Chris Dyer discusses what culture is, how leaders cultivate it, and how culture can drive or destroy growth.

Guest: Jeffrey Pfeffer, the Thomas D. Dee II Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, where he has taught since 1979. Prof. Pfeffer is the author or co-author of 16 books, including his latest, 7 Rules of Power: Surprising--but True--Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career.

Overview: The tools that allow business leaders to gain, increase, and retain their power are neutral. It's how you use those tools that determines how far others will be willing to follow you and how BIG your company will get.

On today's show, Jeffrey Pfeffer discusses his 7 Rules of Power, how power is and isn't distributed through successful organizations and societies, and the choices we all have to make as we strive to Make BIG Happen.

Guest: Mark Miller, the CEO of Connective, a community-based social services nonprofit operating in British Columbia and the Yukon to create safe, healthy, and inclusive communities for all.

Overview: A nonprofit may not have the exact same goals as a for-profit business. But the principles of success are no different for a nonprofit CEO: have a vision that benefits all stakeholders, track, measure, and manage progress towards milestones every day, and assemble a team of people who care about your mission and will work hard to Make BIG Happen.

On today's show, Mark Miller explains how he professionalized his nonprofit and grew the organization by more than 700% in seven years.

Guest: Christian Stang, Vice President Of Business Development at GINCOR Werx, a leading company in the custom manufacturing of vocational vehicles.

Overview: It's common for the top salesperson to get promoted to lead the sales team. But there's a big difference between being a top salesperson and being a great leader. How do the best sales people cross the chasm into leadership and lead their team to BIG results?

On today's show, Christian Stang discusses how his experience as a top-performing salesperson informs how he builds and manages collaborative sales teams.

Guest: Fred Joye, Co-founder of Arcanys, a premier Swiss software development outsourcing firm based in the Philippines. Fred's firm specializes in building and maturing highly skilled, dedicated teams of developers for startups and established businesses. Arcanys is also a Strategic Partner of CEO Coaching International.

Overview: The best companies hire the best people, period. That means even if your tech firm isn't directly competing with Facebook and Google, you're still competing with Facebook and Google for top talent. To win that battle, growing companies need to get creative about how they build, compensate, and motivate their teams.

On today's show, Fred Joye discusses how companies can use outsourcing to scale their development teams with top software engineers and compete against BIG tech companies that have more resources.

Guest: Siddhartha Agarwal, the founder of Bhoruka Park Pvt. Ltd, one of the leading commercial real estate developers in Bangalore, India.

Overview: Thinking BIG is a mindset that, with practice, coaching, and follow-through, can become a powerful habit. Apply the same systems and processes to your business that you apply to sports, hobbies, personal challenges, and relationships, and there's no limit to what you can accomplish.

On today's show, Siddhartha Agarwal discusses why he set a goal of swimming across the English Channel, how he worked with a coach and a partner on a year-long plan to achieve that goal, and what the whole process taught him about Making BIG Happen in both business and life.

Guest: Jonathan Cronstedt, the CEO and Chairman of The Cronstedt Company and its broadly diversified investment portfolio. JCron was recently the President (now board director) of Kajabi, a double-unicorn global SaaS platform.

Overview: CEOs can win the battle for top talent but still lose the war with their competitors if they don't have systems in place where A players can thrive.

On today's show, Jonathan Cronstedt shares some contrarian takes on the relationship between the external and internal purposes of a business and the support that employees need to Make BIG Happen.

Guest: Kurt Wilkin, Co-Founder and former CEO of HireBetter and a Managing Partner of Bee Cave Capital. Kurt is also the author of a new book, Who’s Your Mike? A No-BS Guide to the People You’ll Meet on Your Entrepreneurial Journey.

Overview: A fast-growing company will only keep accelerating towards BIG if it has the right people working the right jobs. Sometimes CEOs can maintain that alignment with a mission and values system that inspires good performers to become great. In other cases, CEOs need the courage to make difficult decisions and the EQ to help folks exit the company as gracefully as possible. 

On today's show, Kurt Wilkin discusses how CEOs can avoid some common people challenges and assemble next-level teams that will Make BIG Happen. 

Guest: Ahmed Hassan, a coach at CEO Coaching International with 30-plus years of global expertise in operations, strategy, leadership, and business development.

Quick Background: Saving a failing business is never just about driving up profit. A successful turnaround starts with recalibrating the company's accountability and its belief in Making BIG Happen together. 

On today's show, Ahmed Hassan discusses the three-step process he used to rescue distressed businesses all over the world, as well as a major personal challenge that forced him to redefine what success means in business and in life.