“You have to know the difference between apples and orangutans.” Connor Wood Bicycles, LLC was founded by Chris Connor in 2012 to build wood bicycles that beautifully combine form and function. Chris, now the worldwide expert on building wood bicycles, is a longtime Denver woodworker and cycling enthusiast. After years of experience building classical guitars and designing and building modern furniture, Chris took his love and respect for the beauty, strength, and durability of wood into the rea...
Sep 24, 2018•28 min•Season 1Ep. 215
“The more challenges you face, the more confident you are.” When it comes to the evolving audiovisual industry and witnessing new technological capabilities, Diana Mueller CEO of Image Audiovisuals has a front-row seat. With more than 40 employees in Colorado and Arizona, Diana and her husband and business partner David, have taken part in decades’-worth of live events, ranging from corporate, nonprofit, and medical events to political, entertainment, and sports functions. The company has produc...
Sep 18, 2018•23 min•Season 1Ep. 213
“Instructions should not be easy to understand; they should be impossible to misunderstand.” Liam is the founder and CEO of TimeDoctor.com, one of the world’s leading time-tracking software for remote teams. He is also the founder and CEO of Staff.com, an outsourcing company that concentrates on providing companies with long-term outsourced labor relationships. Both of these companies are focused on companies getting the best results from their employees, even if they’re working with people who ...
Sep 18, 2018•27 min•Season 1Ep. 214
“Think local first.” After successfully elevating the Oskar Blues Brewery brand nationally for over a decade, Chad Melis has become a brand of marketing professional uniquely his own. With PR savvy and an uncanny knack for brand strategy, Chad has an ironclad grasp on how to provide clients with a roadmap to meet their individual goals. He thrives on instigating innovative thinking and amplified anthems that resonate with your tribe. As a brand strategist, he works to authentically “dial up” the...
Sep 17, 2018•35 min•Season 1Ep. 212
“There’s the role of tenacity, almost forcing things to happen, really pushing through walls and barriers, but at some point, you have to realize the difference between that and banging your head against a brick wall.” Jojo Collins started making Jojo's Sriracha back in 2010. She was 26, which made her, as she says, “old enough to know I wasn’t taking care of my body but still young enough to try and do something about it.” She took refined sugar out of her diet for a month and started reading f...
Sep 11, 2018•26 min•Season 1Ep. 209
“It has nothing to do with (the product), it has everything to do with WHY (your customers) want it.” Britton Purser created Vintage Overland out of necessity, out of “the need to grab that romance, passion, and sense of adventure and take it into the middle of nowhere.” Britton, alongside his two brothers, Cody and Cullen, spend day and night in the studio where they meticulously design, shape and assemble each of their custom caravans by hand. It is Vintage Overland’s desire to preserve the qu...
Sep 10, 2018•29 min•Season 1Ep. 209
“Before you walk a mile in another person’s shoes, you must take your own shoes off first.” Rob Andzik is president of AMERGINT Technologies, a company that delivers next-generation technologies to the space industry. The company’s mission is simple: be technically focused and customer-supportive. Rob and his team at AMERGINT solve hard problems through innovation and by building intellectual capital that their customers leverage. Before coming to AMERGINT, Rob worked at Lockheed Martin and RT L...
Sep 06, 2018•24 min•Season 1Ep. 208
“78% of people will actually touch Amazon at some point during their purchase cycle. That means that every brand needs to consider Amazon as part of their marketing plan.” Jeff Cohen is chief marketing officer at SellerLabs, a cloud-based tool for e-Commerce businesses to source, sell, and provide customer service. Jeff’s goal is to empower small businesses with the tools they need to succeed, provide excellent support and service, and always push to make things better. Listen And Learn: The fou...
Sep 04, 2018•32 min•Season 1Ep. 207
“ Content should be relatable, emotive, reusable, and snack’able.” Ed Graczyk is an experienced chief marketing officer for start-up companies as well as a 16-year Microsoft veteran where he launched more than a dozen products worldwide. He has built and led high-performance marketing teams and programs for award-winning consumer, enterprise, and business-to-business-to-consumer products and services. He has deep vertical market experience across Internet and online services, telecom and cable, ...
Sep 03, 2018•42 min•Season 1Ep. 206
“User experience is where fingers meet technology.” Scott Kincaid started at Usability Sciences 20+ years ago with a lofty goal to make the world a little more intuitive, one bit at a time. As to be expected in small companies, he has worn many hats including researcher, operations manager, sales engineer, salesforce.com admin, and executive. In his time of user research consulting, Scott has worked for a wide range of companies including Salesforce, Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, and Dell. Li...
Aug 30, 2018•31 min•Season 1Ep. 205
“Most business owners have been more conscientious about writing directions and instructions for their babysitters (than they have) with writing contingency plans for their businesses.” Nate Sachs is the founder and owner of Blueprints For Tomorrow. He has four decades of experience in succession, contingency, and key employee retention, and is also an author, credentialed national speaker, and adviser to over three thousand entrepreneurs. Nate frequently lecturers across the country to business...
Aug 28, 2018•22 min•Season 1Ep. 204
“If you focus on your overall goals, on creating sustainable sales, and on finding your ideal reader you will hit Number One in your category on Amazon.” Julie Broad, founder of Book Launchers, is an Amazon Overall #1 Best Selling Author, an International Book Award Winner, and recipient of the Beverly Hills Book Award for Best Sales book. As an entrepreneur and successful real estate investor she was also awarded the Top 20 under 40 Award. Book Launchers helps entrepreneurs and professionals bu...
Aug 27, 2018•33 min•Season 1Ep. 203
“The brand is a souvenir of a lifestyle.” In May of 2017, W.H. Ranch won the Artisan Challenge, cementing owner Ryan Martin in the history books as the Greatest Jean Maker in the World. Ryan is the company’s CEO, CFO, COO, Head Designer, Head Pattern Maker, Head Sewer, Director of Marketing, Creative Director, Head Buyer, Head of Sales, Head of Research and Development, and janitor. Ryan is focused on creating “Heirloom Quality” jeans. For him, this concept conveys the generations of knowledge, ...
Aug 23, 2018•35 min•Season 1Ep. 202
“It’s never about the technology and it’s never about the shiny stuff.” George Karayannis is vice president of CityNOW, Panasonic North America, where he leads a high-performing team providing sustainable community solutions to municipalities and private developers. He is passionate about providing sustainable solutions, emerging technologies, and working with ultra-high performing teams. He has led sales, marketing and BD teams at F100 firms and leading-edge wireless startups, and is an expert ...
Aug 21, 2018•27 min•Season 1Ep. 201
"Sometimes we have to have permission from someone else to uncover our own special kind of genius.” The eQuilter 15,000 square foot warehouse is located in Boulder, Colorado, and has the largest online selection of high-quality quilt fabrics and related products, with over 22,000 products online and in stock. Luana Rubin, who founded the company with her husband Paul, has a 35+ year background in art, design, and retail. Her eye for color and design – and most especially for identifying trends i...
Aug 20, 2018•36 min•Season 1Ep. 200
“Leaders need to build a bridge from, ‘I want to be,’ to ‘I am.’” Dethra U. Giles is an international consultant, best-selling author, and highly sought after keynote speaker. She is the founder of ExecuPrep, a global brand that provides coaching, leadership development, and performance improvement in the workplace. She has worked with multiple industries with hundreds of clients and thousands of leaders worldwide. She is the author of Unstuck: Discovering Career Limiting Actions and Breaking Go...
Aug 16, 2018•20 min•Season 1Ep. 199
“Leadership isn’t generational, it’s relational.” Robby, the founder of Sana Sano Consulting, is a high-performing transformation leader with experience driving change initiatives from startups to Fortune 100 companies. He has shepherded clients through re-orgs, technology implementations, talent evaluation, strategic planning, and multiple acquisitions. He believes in the power of real teams and is passionate about bringing people together to achieve more. He is an engaging, off-the-charts pres...
Aug 14, 2018•34 min•Season 1Ep. 198
“Be prepared to iterate.” Robert Galop is SVP, Product and Marketing, for IntelePeer, where he oversees product strategy and delivery to market of IntelePeer’s leading-edge communications products. His career has been focused on the high-tech industry, including roles in application development, project management, and product and marketing leadership. He drives delivery of successful products by focusing on customer value and end-user experience. Listen And Learn: How to maximize the brain trus...
Aug 13, 2018•26 min•Season 1Ep. 197
“No matter which strategy you take, you still have to have a lot of one-to-one conversations with investors.” Jenny Kassan has been an attorney for social enterprises for 22 years, and is a certified transformational coach, social entrepreneur, investor, and finance innovator. She specializes in helping mission-driven women entrepreneurs raise capital from like-minded investors. Her formula for mission-aligned capital raising has helped diverse entrepreneurs raise millions of dollars on their ow...
Aug 09, 2018•26 min•Season 1Ep. 196
“Be a glass box, not a black box.” Geoffrey Colon, senior marketing communications designer at Microsoft, works at the intersection of tech, design, media, human behavior, popular culture, trends, and product innovation. He defines himself as a dreamer + doer + thinker. He is the author of the 2016 book DISRUPTIVE MARKETING: What Growth Hackers, Data Punks, And Other Hybrid Thinkers Can Teach Us About Navigating the New Normal . At Microsoft, Geoffrey explores and executes creative data-driven c...
Aug 07, 2018•40 min•Season 1Ep. 195
“It does not matter how great your content is if the Google bots or any of the others can’t properly crawl your site.” As a marketing veteran, Ashlee Colliver has worked with well over 70 organizations during her 15+ year career. In her career, Ashlee worked to move an entirely offline company to a nearly 100% digital operation increasing revenues with the move by 152%. She also drove a campaign that resulted in fully funding the build of a not-for-profit Hospice House in Harrison, Arkansas, the...
Aug 06, 2018•39 min•Season 1Ep. 194
“People everywhere have some very common goals. People want more truth and they want more love." Bill Graebel was appointed the chief executive officer of Graebel Companies, Inc. in 2007, and in 2018 was named as chairman of the board of directors. Under his leadership, Bill has evolved the family-owned company into a multi-national, global workforce and workplace mobility solutions provider for some of the world’s top companies. Today, the company manages nearly 80,000 annual mobility initiatio...
Aug 02, 2018•34 min•Season 1Ep. 193
"Whatever your brand principles are, you have to repeat them till you are blue in the face, and then repeat them even more.” Sandro Roco is the director of strategic initiatives at Bombfell, a stylish subscription service that helps men keep their wardrobes updated and relevant. He was the second hire on the company’s business team back in a time where, as he says, “paper clips and chewing gum were our primary tools for keeping things together.” Over the years, he has served in various different...
Jul 31, 2018•31 min•Season 1Ep. 192
“Taking a ‘spray and pray’ approach puts you in danger of, at best, being ignored by the wrong people, and at worse, the right people opt out.” Annie Wissner runs marketing for Hexagon Mining, where she has helped transform the business into the first enterprise solution for mines. She has 20+ years in the B2B technology industry, and is a high-energy maximizer with certified project management skills. Both deadline and metric driven, Annie holds herself and her team accountable for delivering r...
Jul 30, 2018•28 min•Season 1Ep. 190
“Change is inevitable; progress is a choice.” Dean Lindsay is a top business keynote speaker that has been entertaining, educating, and engaging audiences worldwide for years. He has helped build engaged, progress-based sales leadership and customer service cultures at companies such as New York Life, Ericsson, Golds Gym, Aramark Canada, UCLA Anderson School of Management, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and Haggar Clothing. His books, How to Achieve Big PHAT Goals , Cracking the ...
Jul 27, 2018•26 min•Season 1Ep. 190
“It takes a special kind of leader to be moldable.” Morgan Browning is president of Emergenetics International. He is the driver of the company’s rapid growth and has built a recognizable and impactful global brand. Under his leadership, Emergenetics has been recognized as one of America’s fastest-growing companies by Inc. magazine for the past seven consecutive years. Morgan has spent his entire life understanding the science and application of Emergenetics, and co-authored the 2006 book, Emerg...
Jul 26, 2018•32 min•Season 1Ep. 189
“HR is life insurance for your business.” Hunter Lott is a human resources trainer dedicated to the rights of management and good business decision-making. He has presented to over 100,000 business owners and managers at all levels on topics such as hiring, motivation, leadership, firing, and staying out of court. Hunter is the author of Please Sue Me-The Guide to Safe Hiring and Firing Practices for the Frontline Manager with a Short Attention Span . He serves as HR support for small businesses...
Jul 25, 2018•34 min•Season 1Ep. 188
“We expect obstacles. So, let’s get the cow out of the ditch and build a fence so it doesn’t happen again." Brandon Fuller is a software engineer with an entrepreneurial spirit. Prior to Docketly, Brandon worked in the communications and collaboration market on industry-first products like Latitude MeetingPlace, Cisco WebEx, Cisco TelePresence, and BlueJeans video conferencing. In his current role, he is responsible for defining the Docketly’s vision and for leading the team to continued growth ...
Jul 23, 2018•27 min•Season 1Ep. 187
“Some people just think of YouTube as nothing more than cat videos, and that’s where you just have to change your mentality.” Ben Petersen, marketing manager at Blade HQ, is a guerrilla storyteller with a passion for craftsmanship. Ben has spent the last seven years selling pocketknives on both the B2C and D2C sides of e-commerce, and now manages the in-house creative team at Blade HQ. Accolades include: consistent double-digit revenue growth at Blade HQ, receiving the Best Video Award from the ...
Jul 18, 2018•32 min•Season 1Ep. 186
“It’s the connective tissue that separates good organizations from great organizations.” Matthew Clark leads Premier Farnell's global digital marketing and e-commerce team, delivering $700 million in yearly e-commerce sales through more than 40 websites serving the Americas (Newark.com), EMEA (Farnell.com) & APAC ( element14.com ). Matt has held e-commerce, sales, marketing, and customer service positions at Dell, PCM, Saturn, and EDS. In addition to strong commerce efforts, Premier Farnell ...
Jul 17, 2018•31 min