Ayman Al-Abdullah is the former CEO of AppSumo, and now coaches CEO’s on how to scale their business from seven figures to nine. Graduating as an accounting major during the 2008 recession, Ayman saw a lot of his friends treading the battlefield of the job market. He had always been interested in entrepreneurship, so instead of working for someone else, he decided to begin his own business, but he kept coming up against a revenue wall - A monetary figure he just couldn’t get past. As time went b...
Sep 20, 2023•1 hr 22 min•Season 4Ep. 259
ADHD, or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, has been around a long time, but is surprisingly under diagnosed in the many that struggle with its symptoms. It can cause a variety of issues with concentration, finishing work, and following instructions (per the CDC). Those symptoms can then result in a variety of reactions, with one of the most common one’s being low self esteem. Our guest for this episode, Abi Lemon, believes that with self awareness and discipline, people with ADHD can man...
Sep 13, 2023•1 hr 5 min•Season 4Ep. 258
Have you ever been curious what it would be like to talk to a business coach? To ask direct questions about the problems you or your business might be having, and get direct answers? Chris has been doing business coaching for years, but before he did, he had a business coach of his own - Keir McLaren. Chris hired Keir a few years into Blind’s existence, because he knew he needed someone to help him see what he wasn’t seeing, and could help him get to where he wanted to go. Unfortunately, we lost...
Sep 06, 2023•1 hr 38 min•Season 4Ep. 257
In everyone’s career there is a moment where you need to make the leap from good to great if you want to keep growing. There’s always a point where everyone wants to level up their brand so they can work on bigger projects, and boost revenue and profit. Working with clients is a skill, just like your art, and in order to make the leap from good to great, you need to have the skills to get from where you are to where you want to go. Some people make that leap quickly, and others struggle with it....
Aug 30, 2023•53 min•Season 4Ep. 256
Have you ever considered creating a workshop to teach others? Not just a single lecture that you’re going to give once, but a workshop you can teach in different situations, over and over again? Buckle up, because Rob Fitzpatrick, co-author of The Workshop Survival Guide, is here to talk to Chris about the in’s and out’s of designing a great workshop, and why it’s so important to treat it as your product. Rob shares some of the things he did wrong in his early workshop attempts, the iterations t...
Aug 23, 2023•1 hr 47 min•Season 4Ep. 255
Michael Margolis believes that narrative storytelling is the #1 superpower of humanity, and that the three most important, fundamental skills for the future all come from the exercise of storytelling. As the CEO of Storied, a strategic messaging and leadership firm, Michael and his team help leaders and teams stand out through story. But why is story so important? and what makes a great story when it comes to a product or a business? In this episode, Chris and Michael are going to talk about the...
Aug 16, 2023•1 hr 33 min•Season 4Ep. 254
LinkedIn. The very name conjures a variety of feelings amongst people. Hard to believe, but the social media juggernaut has been around for over two decades, and has over 930 MILLION users worldwide. Needless to say, whether you appreciate it or not, it is a force in the business world, whether you’re looking for a new job, or you’re an HR manager looking for potential recruits, or you’re a CEO looking to connect with people in similar positions, there’s a LOT that can be done on this site. Beca...
Aug 09, 2023•1 hr•Season 4Ep. 253
A website is an amazing sales tool. It can tell people who you are, what you do, and act as a sort of virtual handshake to begin a relationship between you and a potential customer. Often times, a website might be someone’s first point of contact with you or your business. So how do you optimize it to boost its ability to convert potential clients? There’s a lot of data that you can pull from a website, but are you using it effectively? Amanda Webb is a Digital Marketing and ROI consultant and t...
Aug 02, 2023•55 min•Season 4Ep. 252
AI has become such a buzz term lately. It was the mainstay of sci fi books and movies, for the longest time, and was something everybody thought of as being far in the future. And then Midjourney happened, and Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT. AI is definitely here, right now, and is growing almost exponentially, every single day. Through all of this, we’ve seen people create magical, non existent worlds, wild characters, and some very… weird stuff with AI like Midjourney. People have used ChatGPT t...
Jul 26, 2023•1 hr 23 min•Season 4Ep. 251
It’s common sense to think “I have a business. I should sell as much of my product to as many people as I can”. So why do companies, like Rolex or Ferrari, make so much money by limiting the amount of product that they sell? Why would anyone throw up road blocks in front of their own potential customers? And why is creating tension in the supply and demand equation a way to get people to want to buy from you? Daniel Priestley returns to talk with Chris about his concept of being “Oversubscribed”...
Jul 19, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 4Ep. 250
Orly Israel is a communicator who wanted to improve his conversational skills, and realized the best way to do that was to learn how to listen. His concept to achieve his goal, The Listening Table, is just that - A table that he has set up in various cities across the country, where he sits and listens to anyone who wants to talk. His goal is to create a space where the other person can share whatever they need to, in a zone that is free of advice and free of judgment. Those two things are in pl...
Jul 12, 2023•52 min•Season 4Ep. 249
Chris Voss is a former FBI negotiator who is using his decades of knowledge to teach others how to negotiate in both life and business. His book Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It is a Wall Street Journal Best Seller, and Chris is teaching negotiation in classrooms, workshops, and through a popular series on the MasterClass website. In this episode, the two Chris’s (Do and Voss) talk about how negotiation works, whether it’s on a personal level or in sales. Ch...
Jul 05, 2023•1 hr•Season 4Ep. 248
In our final discussion on the 5 Core Business Principles, Mo Ismail returns to talk to Chris about Attraction Marketing. In todays world, few people are looking at your social profiles by random chance. They’re looking to see who you are, and what you’ve done. One of the strongest way you can attract potential clients is to use those profiles to demonstrate your skills and knowledge in your area of expertise. That way you’re not just building an audience, you’re building trust. In this episode,...
Jun 28, 2023•39 min•Season 4Ep. 247
In the second part of Chris’s discussion with Mo Ismail on the 5 Core Business Principles, he’ll be talking about The Irresistible Offer, and how to create it. It’s natural to feel like “the work should sell itself”, but competition has risen to a level where you have to start creating a product, or service, that is SO attractive to a potential customer or client, that they want to buy from YOU. So how do you do create The Irresistible Offer? Two ways - Either lower the price, or create more val...
Jun 21, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 4Ep. 246
For much of human history, mankind didn’t have very much in the way of resources. If there was food to eat, we ate it, and we would eat as much as we could, because we didn’t know when our next meal was going to come. Fast forward to the 21st century, and we have an abundance of food and mass produced goods which gives us choice. With this multitude of options, we start to ask ourselves “Why do we choose one over the other?”. Why do people buy? What are the core, psychological elements that get ...
Jun 14, 2023•1 hr 23 min•Season 4Ep. 245
Whether you’re just starting out in a creative business, or pivoting to a new specialty, finding those first clients is one of the biggest hills you have to climb. So how do you build up your skills and get yourself seen by potential clients? If you’re adding a skill or a specialty, how do you get potential clients to see you as someone who can do more than just what you have already done for them? Mo Ismail returns to talk to Chris about how he went from being a student to landing clients as a ...
Jun 07, 2023•1 hr•Season 4Ep. 244
Money. How does that word make you feel? Some people hear it and think opportunity, success, maybe even happiness. Others have a much more complicated reaction. Chris has fielded a lot of questions and comments about money over the years, and the one thing that is consistent with these questions is that there is a surprising amount of negative attitude towards both money, and the people who have made a fair share of it. But, as Chris argues, money is simply “a score card of how much you are able...
May 31, 2023•46 min•Season 4Ep. 243
We’re back with our second episode with YouTube pro and entrepreneur Sean Cannell. Sean is the driving force behind ThinkMedia, a company focused on YouTube strategy and growth. He is also an international speaker and coach that helps entrepreneurs build their influence and income with online video. In this episode, Sean and Chris continue their conversation about the importance of YouTube for entrepreneurs and business owners. Sean goes into topics like building a team, figuring out what to foc...
May 24, 2023•50 min•Season 4Ep. 242
Sean Cannell returns to the podcast to talk to Chris about why YouTube is the most undervalued social media platform, and how to take advantage of its amazing features. Sean is a successful YouTuber, and founder of ThinkMedia, an organization and YouTube channel focused on helping creators understand new technology, devise strategies, and create more success on YouTube. In the first part of a two part conversation, Sean and Chris talk about why being able to communicate is the most important ski...
May 17, 2023•59 min•Season 4Ep. 241
James Victore is a designer and fine artist, who’s work is part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. His stunning, expressive typography has helped to define his work, and is born out of the passion that he feels for the act of creating. He’s always known what he wanted to do, and has spent years whittling away the perfection so many of us suffer from to deliver work that is authentic, vulnerable, and bold. Because personality and humanity are the most important parts of his work. In t...
May 10, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Season 4Ep. 240
Brett Williams is a designer and entrepreneur who runs DesignJoy, a design subscription service. He is essentially a one-man design agency that operates at scale and earns upwards of $1 million in annual revenue. In this podcast episode, Brett gives us a peek into how his business operates, the tools he uses, and what he’s learned after running a design subscription service for six years. It’s not for everyone, but to make something like this work you need two things: to be good and to be fast. ...
May 03, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Season 4Ep. 239
Michael Ventura is the founder of Sub Rosa, a strategy and design firm that works with some of the world’s largest brands, organizations, and startups. He is also a board member and advisor to several organizations, including Behance, The Burning Man Project, and The Smithsonian’s Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum. As if that weren’t impressive enough, he also owns a globally recognized design store in New York’s West Village and is a visiting lecturer at institutions like Princeton Universit...
Apr 26, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Season 4Ep. 238
In this inspiring podcast episode, we welcome magician, father, and keynote speaker Vinh Giang to the show. Vinh walks us through his fascinating life and career path, sharing powerful personal stories from both along the way. We hear about how Vinh struggled as a shy and seemingly invisible kid and how the allure of magic and showmanship helped instill confidence and paved the way for an even bigger, worldly presence for him. Beyond the craft of magic, Vinh is a teacher at heart. And his topic ...
Apr 19, 2023•1 hr 22 min•Season 4Ep. 237
Dr. Emmanuel Probst is Global Lead of Brand Thought-Leadership at Ipsos, a leading market research agency in the world. He is also a WSJ bestselling author and adjunct professor at UCLA. We invited Dr. Probst on the show to share his deep understanding of consumer psychology, discuss how branding has evolved throughout the 21st century, and what it means for businesses to connect with their audience. In this episode, Emmanuel shares his thoughts about what a brand is and what a brand is not. Put...
Apr 12, 2023•57 min•Season 4Ep. 236
Vince Lebon is a husband, father, and a curious design collaborator. He founded the experiential footwear brand Rollie Nation, where he has designed for and collaborated with celebrities. In this episode, Vince discusses the importance of pursuing what makes him happy instead of chasing money. He shares how he honed his product design skills and started his own footwear brand from scratch. Vince also talks about Rollie Nation's future as an experience-centric brand and how he plans to blur the l...
Apr 05, 2023•1 hr 13 min•Season 4Ep. 235
In this episode, we are joined by Marshall Davis Jones, TEDx Speaker and founder of MindBodySpeak. Marshall is a competitive slam poet and world-bridger, known for his voice tone techniques that help people win negotiations, deescalate conflicts, and build business relationships across multiple industries. Throughout the conversation, Marshall emphasizes the importance of voice work in communication and how tonal decision making can impact behavior in others. He explains how mastering words and ...
Mar 29, 2023•1 hr 8 min•Season 4Ep. 234
Phyllis Williams-Strawder is a certified brand strategist, life and business coach, and psychology marketing specialist who is known as the Ghetto Country Brandmother®. She has a passion for guiding people and helping them become brand leaders. Phyllis began her career in the food industry. She started by delivering lunches from her dining room table to eventually owning two restaurants and a catering company that generated millions in revenue. Her personal brand at that time was Mrs. Mista , wh...
Mar 22, 2023•1 hr 24 min•Season 4Ep. 233
Kevin Finn is a TEDx speaker, advisor, internationally recognized branding designer, and author who works with individuals and groups dedicated to creating a positive impact at scale. With 30 years of international experience, Kevin emphasizes that not every business is a brand, and that businesses become brands only when society says so. As an advisor, Kevin challenges his clients' assumptions objectively. He questions their identity in comparison to how their customers perceive them. In this c...
Mar 15, 2023•58 min•Season 4Ep. 232
In Part Two of our discussion on when to quit and when to push through, we hear stories from listeners about perseverance and strategic quitting. Joining us again are Nidhi Tewari and Stefan Bucher, who both remind us that joy is an important factor in deciding whether to stay the course or not. If there’s one thing you take away from this conversation, it’s that sacrificing your personal well-being for professional success rarely works out in the long run. Learn more about your ad choices. Visi...
Mar 08, 2023•45 min•Season 4Ep. 231
Acclaimed NFL coach Vince Lombardi once said, "Winners never quit and quitters never win." It's a motivating and catchy sentiment, but famed marketer Seth Godin begs to differ. In his book, The Dip , he argues that quitting can be the best strategy. In this two-part episode, Chris is joined by therapist Nidhi Tewari and designer Stefan Bucher to discuss knowing when to quit and when to persevere. Like it or not, the free market rewards exceptionalism. Success goes to the obsessed. But where is t...
Mar 01, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Season 4Ep. 230
