Talking Business Now

Do you ever wonder whether your brand's message is breaking through the noise that inundates consumers every day? And, just as important, do they trust it once they finally hear it? Ron Tite, the founder of content marketing agency Church+State, joins Talking Business Now host Kelly Scanlon to offer a simple philosophy for accomplishing just that. Tune in to understand the basics of the gimmick-free and jargon-free approach Tite presents in his book "Think. Do. Say: How to Seize Attention and Build Trust in a Busy, Busy World.": Why having access to so much information can be a bad thing Overcoming the tendency to bombard prospects and customers with "pitch slaps" What Think. Do. Say. is—and how to implement it Why the model focuses on everyone in the organization—not just management or the CEO How to avoid "integrity gaps" Why consumers should experience your values rather than just reading or hearing them Tite is a former stand-up comedian who was trained at Second City. After working with such majo

In this humorous but candid interview, entrepreneur and author Lee Caraher talks about how she epically failed but ultimately succeeded with her 15-year-old PR and digital marketing firm Double Forte because she didn't know how to work with millennials. She hired six, but lost them all within three months, which created a major disruption for her business. Determined to buck the negative reporting about that age cohort, Caraher did her own research on multiple generations in the workplace, combined it with her own practical experience, and started creating a culture in which all age groups could thrive and learn from one another. The effort paid off, resulting in higher-than-average retention rates, personal satisfaction for employees and a more productive and profitable business. Currently, more than half her staff is under the age of 32. Tune in to discover how Caraher became an expert on creating great multigenerational workplace teams, including: The steps she took to recover from the "body blow" she and

Mike Moyer, serial entrepreneur and author of Slicing Pie Handbook: Perfectly Fair Equity Splits for Bootstrapped Startups, joins Talking Business Now host Kelly Scanlon to discuss fair equity models for startups and early-stage companies. Tune in to find out: The basics of the Slicing Pie model. Whether the person who has the most risk in the startup always has the controlling interest. The pitfalls of equity being used as compensation. What pre-revenue equity allocation is. Why allocating equity must be based on a set of rules. Why allocating equity is a "rolling" endeavor, not a static one. Moyer is a serial entrepreneur who has started several companies from scratch, including Cappex.com. He's joined start-up companies, helped others start companies, raised millions of dollars of start-up capital and helped sell start-up companies. Mike shares his entrepreneurial experience by teaching Entrepreneurship at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago Booth School of Business CONNECT WITH

During this holiday season, I hope you enjoy a replay of my popular Elf on the Shelf episode. I recorded this several years ago on the Smart Companies Thinking Bigger Network. Elf on the Shelf co-founder Chanda Bell gives us the behind-the-scenes story on how she, along with her twin sister Christa Pitts and her mother Carol Aebersold, transformed a cherished family tradition into a best-selling and enduring holiday brand. Listen in as Bell shares: The inspiration behind the story—and how they built it into an enduring brand. What they had to do to finally get the idea to market. The touching stories they hear from their customers. Words of encouragement for entrepreneurs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode of Talking Business Now welcomes back Frank Fiume. He is the founder of i9 Sports, the nation’s leading franchise of youth leagues and camps. He’s also the author of a recently released, best-selling book called Running With My Head Down: An Entrepreneur's Story of Passion, Perseverance, and Purpose. This is the third in a series of episodes we’ve done with Fiume, who grew i9 Sports to more than $300 million in sales, with 2 million participants in 900 communities in 30 states. In the first episode, we talked with him about his entrepreneurial journey, his lessons learned and the mindset that’s necessary for becoming a successful entrepreneur. In the second episode, we discussed how he used the franchising model to attain such phenomenal growth, and he shares tips and insights for those of you who may be considering franchising as a growth model. And what does an entrepreneur do to complete the cycle? Exit the business successfully! In this episode of Talking Business Now, Frank shares with us hi

In this second of a three-part series, serial entrepreneur Frank Fiume, a pioneer in the youth sports industry and the founder of i9 Sports, joins Talking Business Now host Kelly Scanlon to share tips and insights into using franchising as a way to grow your business—including the lessons he learned from his mistakes. (Listen to the first episode on the entrepreneurial mindset needed to run a successful business and remain a healthy person.) i9 Sports is the country's leading franchise of youth leagues and camps. It has generated more than $300 million in sales, with 2 million participants in 900 communities across 30 states nationwide. The business catapulted Fiume to national recognition, and Entrepreneur magazine ranked i9 Sports as the #1 children’s fitness franchise. Fiume has been featured on Fox Business News, HBO Real Sports, and in dozens of publications and national news media outlets, including USA Today, Sports Illustrated and The Wall Street Journal. Fiume sold i9 Sports in 2017 to a private equi

My guest on this episode of Talking Business Now is serial entrepreneur Frank Fiume, a pioneer in the youth sports industry and the founder of i9 Sports—the country's leading franchise of youth leagues and camps. The company has generated more than $300 million in sales, with 2 million participants in 900 communities across 30 states nationwide. The business catapulted Fiume to national recognition, and Entrepreneur magazine ranked i9 Sports as the #1 children’s fitness franchise. Fiume has been featured on Fox Business News, HBO Real Sports, and in dozens of publications and national news media outlets, including USA Today, Sports Illustrated, and The Wall Street Journal. Fiume sold i9 Sports in 2017 to a private equity firm, but remains a minority shareholder and member of the board of directors. Fiume recently released his first book, "Running With My Head Down: An Entrepreneur's Story of Passion, Perseverance, and Purpose." In this episode, we talk with Frank about how his boyhood fascination with basebal

In this episode of Talking Business Now, Oscar Trimboli, a former marketing director at Microsoft, joins host Kelly Scanlon to talk with us about what deep listening is, how to master it and how to use it to increase productivity, improve processes and grow your business. Trimboli says that despite spending 55% of our time listening, only 2% of people really grasp the skill. But the stakes for not listening are high, ranging from miscommunication to job turnover to lost sales. At Microsoft, Tribmoli and his teams were renowned for their ability to deep listen to customers in the call center as well as their market research summaries. Trimboli brought his passion for Deep Listening to next-generation leaders at Microsoft by rebuilding the company's graduate leadership program, which was eventually implemented in 26 countries. As a deep listening expert, Trimboli is on a quest to create 100 million Deep Listeners in the world. In this episode, discover: What Deep Listening is, including how it differs from act

Adversity doesn’t define you, but it can influence the road you take as you become who you are. That’s the belief of David Cooks, my guest on this episode of Talking Business Now. At the age of 15, David Cooks was a high school sophomore and a passionate basketball player. But then, he experienced a spinal aneurysm that left him as a T-6 paraplegic. From the beginning, David refused to let the wheelchair control his life. In his book, Getting Undressed: From Paralysis To Purpose, David shares his inspiring story of persistence, power of perspective and power of faith to demonstrate how obstacles should not define you and instead, should help you help others. He discusses how you can learn your own purpose and become a more effective leader by taking a break from your problems and challenges to help others with theirs. Here are just a few of the takeaways David offers in the podcast: Persevering through life’s challenges sometimes requires getting help. You’re not in it all by yourself. There is nothing wro

How do we deal with uncertainty? My guest on this episode of Talking Business Now—Julie Benezet—has some ideas on how to handle it. And she has the experience to back it up. In 1999, Benezet was the new director for a fledgling dot com called Amazon. Her challenge was to figure out how to lease just the right real estate and buildings in just the right places, to help the company survive and thrive. And as they say, the rest is history. As the first global real estate sales executive for Amazon, she helped manage the company’s growth and rapid expansion during the uncertainties of the 1990s and early 2000s. Benezet is the author of the award-winning book The Journey of Not Knowing: How 21st Century Leaders Can Chart a Course Where There Is None, and she has just released a companion workbook titled, The Journal of Not Knowing. Julie speaks, coaches and writes on galvanizing change in the 21st century and decoding human behavior in the face of uncertainty.  In this episode of Talking Business Now, Julie talks

AI expert and author Pamela McCorduck joins Talking Business Now host Kelly Scanlon to offer insights on the evolution of AI and where the technology is headed. McCorduck has been working in the field of artificial intelligence since 1960—and she knows the founding fathers personally. She's made a name for herself as an astute and authoritative observer of AI's evolution and growth since its earliest days. Her first book, "Machines Who Think," was the first modern history of artificial intelligence. It contains interviews with the early, pioneering scientists. Though the science around AI has evolved, the interviews are fresh and revealing and continue to stand the test of time. McCorduck's most recent book is "This Could Be Important: My Life and Times with the Artificial Intelligentsia." It is a memoir of her first encounters with the pioneers in the field, and her subsequent efforts to convince leading public intellectuals that AI could be important.  Tune in to learn about: Examples of the way businesses

Your company's brand identity is everything visual that is visual about your brand—and your company name is a major part of that. In fact, 77% of consumers make purchases based on a brand name. In this episode of Talking Business Now, Ross Kimbarovsky shares tips for choosing a name for your business—whether you're launching a new business or rebranding an existing business: The difference between brand identity and brand design How your business name conveys your overall brand design and creates a competitive edge Do’s and don’ts for selecting a good company name to begin with Good reasons for changing a company's name Whether you should use online business name generators Whether it's important to be able to trademark the name Is it smart to create an odd company names in order to secure a unique domain name? Examples of effective company names Kimbarovsky is the co-founder and CEO of crowdSPRING. He spent 13 years as a trial attorney before founding the company in 2007. Kimbarovsky mentors entrepr

Margaret Reynolds joins Talking Business Now host Kelly Scanlon to discuss her latest book—Boost Your GrowthDNA: How Strategic Leaders Use Growth Genetics to Drive Sustainable Business Performance. Reynolds explains how growth-driven can use the Growth DNA framework to accelerate performance in a highly competitive and fast-changing world. Tune in to find out:1. Why GrowthDNA is the missing link to more profit, stronger culture and sustainable high performance. 2. How to develop the four strands of GrowthDNA—confidence, clarity, commitment and culture— to fuel sustainable and profitable growth and lead your team to breakthrough results year after year 3. Why growth doesn't occur just by doing the right things but rather by HOW they are being done.4. How to understand your company's GrowthDNA so you can modify outcomes.5. The importance of taking the GrowthDNA Scorecard Assessment (at no charge). You can access it at www.dnascorecard.com.Margaret Reynolds is a thought leader on the topic of corporate growth—ho

August Turak, serial entreprener and award-winning author who attributes much of his success to his 20-year stint as a frequent guest of the Trappist monks of Mepkin Abbey, joins host Kelly Scanlon on this episode of Talking Business Now. In our May 24, 2019 interview with Turak, he talked about the 1996 skydiving accident that triggered the emotional crisis that sent him to the Abbey in search of spiritual solace; his Christmas Eve exchange with a monk named Brother John that led him to write his Templeton prize-winning essay, Brother John: A Monk, a Pilgrim and the Purpose of Life;and his book Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks: One CEO’s Quest for Meaning and Authenticity, in which he describes how to apply the lessons he learned from the monks to achieve business success.In this episode, Turak returns to Talking Business Now to discuss the life and leadership lessons he learned from his father, which he published as a tribute in Forbes.com—on what would have been his father’s 100th birthday. Among the

Small business marketing expert John Jantsch joins host Kelly Scanlon on this episode of Talking Business Now to discuss his recent book "The Self-Reliant Entrepreneur: 366 Daily Meditations to Feed Your Soul and Grow Your Business." In a departure from his previous five books on marketing, in his latest work, Jantsch taps into the wisdom of 19th-century transcendentalist literature and his own 30-year entrepreneurial journey to create a daily guide entrepreneurs can use to create a deeper relationship with their own entrepreneurial journey.Listen in to discover:—Why the message of the transcendentalists resonates with modern-day entrepreneurs—What it means to be a self-reliant entrepreneur—The parallels between 19th-century society and today, and their implications for business—How mindfulness, meditation and solitude can serve entrepreneurs—How to get back up and start over after you fail—How to remain true to your entrepreneurial dream—Lessons from nature for living a joyful lifeJantsch shows how entrepren

When Conner Hazelrigg was a college sophomore, her friend returned from a trip to Haiti, amazed that everyone there had cell phones—but no electricity to charge them. Yet many residents of these countries rely on their phones for food, medical needs and digital currency transactions.A math and physics major, Hazelrigg decided she needed to do something about the situation. And, within a few months, she had created a prototype for the Sunshine Box, a suitcase-sized device that can charge 10 mobile phones at a time, using solar power.In this episode of Talking Business Now, Hazelrigg talks about how she quickly found herself leading a new company—17° 73° Innovation Co. (the coordinates of Port au Prince in Haiti)—that provides solar power, creates jobs and provides a payment platform for developing countries as well as assistance in disaster areas.To date, the Sunshine Box has helped to charge tens of thousands of phones in 17 developing nations. The boxes also hosts an IoT payment platform to meet the needs of

What happens when you combine your talent with your passion? According to our guest on this episode of Talking Business Now, legendary Orlando Magic co-founder Pat Williams, you find your “success intersection.”  When Pat was seven years old, his passion was baseball. By the time he made it to the minor leagues, he realized after just two years that as much as he loved the sport, it wasn't his greatest talent.  Little did he know that his career in sports was just beginning. He discovered that he had a real talent for leadership and sales. When he combined those talents with his passion for sports, he discovered his success intersection. In this episode from our 2017 podcast archives, Pat discusses his book, “The Success Intersection: What Happens When Your Talent Meets Your Passion.”  Listen in and learn how to identify your greatest talent, pursue your greatest passion and multiply your efforts through teamwork.  Basketball hall-of-famer Pat Williams founded the Orlando Magic and retired as senior vice pre

Sales and leadership expert Ron Karr joins Talking Business Now host Kelly Scanlon to talk with us about a proprietary sales process, called Velocity Mindset, for increasing your company's market share, sales and profits. Tune in to discover: ■ What today's prospects expect from a salesperson.■ Simple questions for qualifying a prospect.■ How to shorten the sales cycle.■ How to grow sales revenues without discounting.■ The secret to reducing the number of proposals you send out.■ Time management tips for salespeople. Working with Karr, his clients worldwide—including Hertz, UPS and Marriott—have generated three-quarters of a billion dollars in incremental revenues. Karr is the author of several books, including the best-selling book “Lead, Sell, or Get Out of the Way.”  He has been published in more than 250 national magazines, interviewed on hundreds of radio stations and appeared on Fox News, the CBS Morning Show, BBC, Bloomberg TV and C-Suite TV. An international keynote speaker and a former president

Ray Zinn, co-founder of microchip company Micrel, joins Talking Business Now host Kelly Scanlon to discuss entrepreneurship, startup success, staying true to core values maintaining a disciplined focus and being a "student of life." A Silicon Valley pioneer, Zinn founded the company in 1978—and he chose to bootstrap it to profitability rather than take venture capital.  When Microchip acquired the company in 2015, Zinn delivered a total equity value of more than $800 million.   Before attending college, Zinn worked at a janitorial service. After college, he moved to San Francisco and started working in rocket motor manufacturing and then in the semiconductor industry. He and a friend founded Micrel with $300,000, and the company was profitable in its first year. In total, Micrel achieved profitability in 36 of its 37 years. During his 37 years with Micrel, Zinn served as president, CEO and chairman of the board. He's known as the longest-serving CEO of a publicly traded Silicon Valley company. He also holds

Everyday companies across America hire or promote talented executives who ultimately fail. Perhaps you've been one of those executives yourself. Why does this happen so often? My guest on this episode of Talking Business Now, Ron Carucci, has written a book on this very subject. Called "Rising to Power: The Journey of Exceptional Executives,"it’s based on a ground-breaking 10-year study on executive transition that reveals why so many executives fail—and fail so fast. Ron shares with us why that happens and how your organization can avoid those landmines.Tune in to discover: ■ Why 50% of leaders fail within the first 18 months■ The 4 characteristics that set successful leaders apart■ How an organization can prepare a newly appointed executive for their new position■ Tips for startup founders who have big ideas but who aren't seasoned leaders—how to lead their organization from startup to grown upCarucci is the co-founder and managing partner at Navalent, where he works with CEOs and executives around the worl