Lead to Grow

Have you ever found yourself chasing down every dollar that comes your way? Many business owners and leaders have been there, thinking, “We’re saying ‘yes’ to everything, but the company still isn’t growing.”

Jon McGinley says that maybe saying “yes” is the problem, not the solution.

On this episode of Lead to Grow, Jon joined us to share 5 reasons every company should specialize, not generalize.

Jon is Senior Partner at CloudKettle, where he helps companies build and optimize their revenue stack.

Listen in to find out what he had to say about specialization:

“A company is nothing more than a group of people.”

I started listening even closer as Oded spoke. His words resonated with me, for multiple reasons: We had similar ideas on leadership, plus, we’ve both owned companies in the moving business. (Oded is the President of DN Van Lines.) Lastly, we both believe this:

The right person is far more important than the perfect skill set.

On our Lead to Grow podcast, Oded talked about expanding your company into other Lines of Business, and gave three reasons to focus on the person, and hire from within your company whenever possible.

One of the things that we, as leaders, need to do be able to make smarter decisions faster.

When we have a decision to make, we usually spend too much time thinking. How much time in your day is being taken up by just thinking and not actually make a decision?

How much time could you save every day if you could make smarter decisions and make them faster?

Well, that’s what we talked with Josh Feinberg about on today’s episode of the Lead To Grow podcast. Josh is the President and CEO at Everlasting Capital, a nationwide business financing company.

On the show, Josh shared his five keys to making smarter decisions faster. Check it out.

Failure is sometimes a better teacher than success. But too often, when we run into failure, we don’t see the learning opportunity. We believe the lie that it’s the end.

The world is thankful Todd Palmer didn’t stop after his “failure”:

He joined us on the Lead to Grow podcast to share what he’s learned from the brink of bankruptcy about failure and humility as a leader.

Todd is the President of Diversified Industrial Staffing, a 6-time member of the Inc. 5000. He’s also the Founder and President of ExtraordinaryAdvisors.Com, a keynote speaker, and author of The Job Search Process.

Ambassadors are essential to any institution:

They are bridge-builders, key communicators, and interpreters. They translate between one entity and the rest of the world: They communicate ideas and philosophies and garner support with outside individuals, or even countries.

Every institution needs ambassadors.

Businesses are no exception.

On this episode of the Lead to Grow podcast, Amy Franko joined us to show how ambassadors can radically impact your customer base, your ROI, and your employee retention.

Amy is an author, keynote speaker, and Founder and President of  Impact Instruction Group, a sales consulting and sales leadership business.

“Do you really think you can build this business?”

That’s what someone asked David Ridley during the early stages of his startup real estate investment firm.

Well, David was able to build the business. The firm he founded and lead as CEO, Invesco Real Estate, grew to over $65 billion in assets under management with 20 offices scattered around the world.

But that’s not the most important part of the story.

The most crucial part of David’s story is not that he was able to achieve success. It’s that he was able to achieve success, without regrets.

In the early days of company formation, David sat at a conference table with his partners. That day, they made a pledge they were not going to pay the price that so many pay to be successful. They weren’t going to sacrifice their families. They wouldn’t give in to alcoholism or pride.

How’d they do it?

Well, that’s what David came on the latest episode of the Lead to Grow podcast to talk about.

Here’s what he had to say about the three pillars of achieving success without regret.

Here, we love providing value to others. It’s in the name of our company (Values-Driven Leadership).

It’s an amazing day when we get the chance to speak with someone else who loves bringing value as much as we do.

We sat down with Bill Cates, a Hall of Fame speaker, best-selling author, and founder and head of Referral Coach International.

He came on the Lead to Grow podcast to deliver a few secrets on customer referrals.

The biggest secret is this: Referrals aren’t a side dish to your business. Referrals are your business. Check out what Bill said about exponentially growing your business through referrals.

How do you innovate faster and at the same time be more customer-centric?

We spoke with Aaron Eden is Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Moves The Needle. Moves the Needle "ignites entrepreneurial action within large organizations so their people can be closer to customers, move faster, and act bolder."

He gave us tips on how innovators like Steve Jobs lead their teams to victory.

Andy Crestodina. He’s a cool guy with a track record that includes earning a degree in Mandarin and working as a teacher in China.

In 2001, Andy and his friend co-founded Orbit Media, a company that has grown from zero to about $4.5M in revenue. Totally organically.

Now, Andy is the CMO at Orbit Media and he’s a marketing metrics expert.

Our latest guest on the Lead to Grow podcast, Andy talked with us about his experience and his company. He also shared his metrics expertise, focusing on the metrics you should care about the most. And the ones you should care about the least.

Babak Azad had planned this for over a year.

He had quit his eight-year career at Beachbody, where he helped excel their revenue from $100MM to $1B.

But after three months of working together ... he and his business partners split up. Babak’s wife had just given birth to their second child.

With a growing household, no job, no business, Babak had to do something.

This is his story and his lessons on leadership.

On this episode of the Lead to Grow podcast, we get a chance to hear from the founder of Round Two Partners. He discusses how his view on leadership has evolved since starting his own company, where he now helps businesses within the $15 to $20MM range scale.