Executive Wins Podcast Introduction with CEO Gordon Sheppard from Executive Wins

Gordon Sheppard (00:00)
Find out how the Executive Wins podcast helps senior leaders get more wins in business and in life with Gordon Sheppard. That's me, the CEO of Executive Wins.

Welcome to the Executive Wins podcast. I'm your host, Gordon Sheppard and I am so glad that you are here, especially if you're an executive who wants to get more wins. And when I say wins, I mean increasing profitability, improving processes, communicating better with your senior leadership team, higher client satisfaction, innovation, and a whole lot more. This podcast features high value information and interviews with accomplished executives who share their wins so you can learn from them.

grow your leadership skills and your business. For example, on episode two, you'll learn why Karen Unland, the Co-Founder of Taproot Publishing, does a wellness check-in at the beginning of every meeting. Here's a clip.

Karen Unland (01:03)
And before we have any meeting,

Taproot, we ask the participants to go around the horn and say what their wellness check is, like what their state of mind is. And it seems like a little thing, but when you just start a conversation saying, how are you today, and people say, fine, you get no information, and we're also kind of trained.

to hear that, okay, let's go, let's do the work, right? And so we are depriving ourselves of useful information to know how someone is that day, how they're showing up at work, and they're deprived of an opportunity to feel like we actually care about the

Gordon Sheppard (01:53)
then on episode 3, you'll find out why Chelsea Yarmuch, the director of finance at McKillican switched her company from asset-based financing to traditional financing.

Chelsea Yarmuch (02:04)
normally when I look at an organization, I'm always looking for large expense items. I really love trying to mitigate expenses, trying to make the organization more successful. And one of the line items that I saw that was large was banking.

and it was lending to be specific, asset-based lending. Asset-based lending,

as you might know, is for an organization and they can kind of go up and down with the the flows of the company. It's a little bit different than traditional lending. You do have a lot more expenses with that asset based lending. So for example, you're going to have bank audits, you're going to have third party inventory audits, the bank is likely going to make you have an audit from a third party organization, you might have higher interest rates, a lot more bank

So when I look at something like this I want to know why. Why do they use it? How long have they used it? Does it make sense to still have that line item on

Gordon Sheppard (03:16)
Each interview follows a proven structure that is based on the work that I do as a business advisor. It's called the executive planning system and it's based on five major areas that include strategy work plan, people, operations, and results. For the podcast, I also refer to these five areas as the anatomy of a win. And I use this structure to get the most out of every interview. And let me take a moment to break down the anatomy of a win. Strategy is the first area.

And that's because I want to find out the why behind the win. What was the vision? What was the mission, values, goals, and objectives that were in place to make the win happen? In step number two, well, that's the work plan. And this is when we take a practical look at how the win happened, as in the what, who, and the when. The third step is all about people, as in who were the key stakeholders that made this win happen in the first place? What role did they play? What was their attitude? What unique talents did they contribute?

The fourth step gives us chance to examine the operational inputs that helped to get the win. As in, what were the policies, procedures, equipment, processes, and a whole lot more? And finally, I ask each guest about what results they measured to know that they were successful. Was it about profits, saving time, improving communication, or personal satisfaction? Whatever the reason, it is important to know the data and how it was gathered. So why have I built the show this way? So you can get inspired.

and learn how to reverse engineer your wins so you can get more wins in the future. It's also been a terrific learning journey for me because I've had a chance to spend such valuable time with so many talented leaders as they share their unique insights into what makes them tick personally and what makes their companies successful, which ultimately improves the work that I do as an Executive coach, facilitator, business advisor, and Podcaster. If you want to learn more about the show,

get more resources to support your leadership journey, sign up for the newsletter or get in touch with me directly, then visit executivewins.com. And if you enjoy the show, please rate, review and subscribe, whether it's on YouTube, Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your shows. And thank you so much for listening to the Executive Wins podcast so you can grow yourself and your business.