Sales and sales management expert Jack Daly has built 6 companies into national organizations, two of which he subsequently sold to the Wall Street firms. Today, he delivers keynote and general session presentations on sales; he has also been a cited influencer for several prior guests on Smashing the Plateau. Here, he argues that having a proven system for sales and sales management in place is a “differentiator” for business success, and that companies need to consciously work to create a winning company culture, and prioritize quality and training over speed when growing their sales force and helping individual salespeople become more effective.

He also discusses:

• How sports teams—who never take the field without systems, processes, preparation, training, and practice—are more prepared for success than “most businesses in the world today.”
• The central importance of a playbook for success
• Why people and companies tend to underperform compared to their potential because they “run to the urgent at the expense of the important”
• The importance of executing simple, basic things that work—and executing them well. “Take a breath! Don’t be in such a hurry to go out into the marketplace. Figure out what works, and then build it in your processes.”
• The four necessary legs of a winning company culture, and how to begin implementing them: Recognition systems; communication systems; personal and professional development processes; and employee empowerment processes.

Daly is currently developing a companion book to his bestselling Hyper Sales Growth, titled The Sales Playbook for Hyper Sales Growth, which will provide more details on the systems and processes described in Hyper Sales Growth, along with timelines for putting them into play.

To learn more about Daly, visit JackDaly.net or call (888) 298-6868.

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Speaker, author, entrepreneur and financial expert Greg Crabtree has come a long way since he grew up on a chicken farm in Alabama. He is currently CEO of Crabtree, Rowe & Berger, PC, a CPA firm that helps entrepreneurs build the economic engine of their business; he also specializes in helping clients develop a business plan that includes a “purpose”—a sense of how they want to help their community or give back once the business becomes successful. Here, he discusses why all small business should have that plan and that purpose—and why purpose should not come at the expense of profitability.

Other topics include:

• The key untruths that too many small business owners tell themselves regarding pay and profitability
• Separating owner wealth vs. business profitability
• Why “profit plus purpose equals impact”
• The importance of knowing “what does healthy look like, and how to get there” for your business
• The problem of listening to “the noise” of the media and business anecdotes, rather than hard business numbers
• “The number one problem inhibitor to success in today’s market is effectiveness of marketing… Nine out of ten companies that we break down are not spending enough money on marketing”
• Why financial consultants needs to be more proactive about helping clients learn from the results of audits and other financial work

In addition to serving as the Crabtree, Rowe & Berger‘s CEO, Crabtree leads the business consulting team, which helps clients align their financial goals with their profit model and their core business values. In 2011, Greg published the book Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits! He is a National Area Council Member of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, and is involved in the ALS Association of Alabama and the Boys and Girls Clubs of North Alabama. He is a former board member of the Atlanta chapter of The Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO).

Learn more about Crabtree’s work at SimpleNumbers.Me; Crabtree Rowe & Berger’s site is available at CRBCPA.net.

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Pandwe Gibson describes the focus of her work: “How do you create opportunities for economic development in low-income communities? Because that is the vehicle to having a happy, healthy, fulfilled life.” Gibson’s career has worked to answer this question—after founding a network of schools in Louisiana to create educational opportunities for students after Hurricane Katrina, she shifted into a more community-based direction, since stable communities and employed adults were also crucial for children’s development.

Currently, she is founder of Ecotech Visions, a Miami-based tech incubator currently helping 18 green manufacturing companies find the right people, make the right connections, and grow the needed leadership skills to develop into influential innovators and stable community employers. In this lively interview, she discusses her driving philosophies about manufacturing can (and should) help Americans achieve the American dream, and why the current business climate in America is not necessarily helping entrepreneurs or innovators grow those kinds of businesses.

She also discusses:

• Why the greatest opportunities for American manufacturing are located along the tech spectrum
• How America currently lacks an ecosystem of support to help innovators move up, and help tech innovation happen
• How EcoTech is helping young engineers, architect, and business majors come together to create new businesses
• Why so many successful small businesses find it difficult to grow into medium or large businesses
• The advantages of focusing on the assets of your community—who your consumer is, and what they need—rather than thinking in terms of “niches”
• How Michael Jordan and LeBron James can help us think about where we should look for technical innovation

Gibson has started, led and scaled three successful companies; she is currently Founder and Executive Director of EcoTech Visions. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Scripps College, a Master of Arts in Teaching and Learning from Claremont Graduate University, a Master in Leadership from Harvard Graduate School, and a PhD from Claremont Graduate University.

Learn more about EcoTech at ecotechvisions.org, or through its social media pages on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

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After beginning her career as an attorney, Tania Yuki moved into digital entrepreneurship; she is currently the founder and CEO of Shareablee, which provides social content analytics for business. In this interview, she discusses the nature of that transition, and how important is it to recognize that the employee/entrepreneur dichotomy is not the only relevant division for people seeking out a career path: she suggests that people might also consider whether they prefer to seek variety (and risk) or whether they prefer stability.

In this wide-ranging discussion, she also discusses:

• The importance of clarity and transparency for leaders
• Why expanding businesses especially should go into the hiring process with a set of metrics, and know, in advance, what qualities they are searching for in potential employees
• The necessity of being “regimented” in how you take care of yourself: why sleep and fitness are required to maintain your mental clarity for decision-making
• Knowing what you can achieve in a given week, and how taking time to plan out your week can help you get there
• Using predictive analytics to “take the guesswork out of social media”, and making decisions based on available data about social media practices
• Why planning is invaluable even when—or especially when—unexpected events mean that they don’t work out: “You don’t plan because you want to create a rigid structure… but if you don’t plan, you’ll really have no chance at being able to succeed with anything that comes your way.”

As an attorney, Yuki specialized in digital rights management, IP and film financing; before founding Shareablee, she was head of acquisitions and branding and led product management for comScore’s Video Metrix, the world’s leading online video ratings service. She is also the founder of wimlink, an organization that holds regular events and seminars promoting entrepreneurship, leadership and the professional development of women.

Yuki was recently honored with a “Great Mind Award” from the Advertising Research Foundation, and featured in Fast Company and Forbes as one of the top 12 women driving digital in New York. She also received the 2014 L’Oréal Women in Digital “Next Generation Award.”

Learn more about Yuk and her business at Shareablee.com, or through Shareablee’s Facebook and Twitter pages.

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Drawing on over 25 years of experience as a consultant and coach, Brenda Williams has developed what she calls her “Self-Mastery System,” which focuses on leadership development and emotional intelligence. In this interview, she explains how relatively few people have a real self-awareness, noting that “Most of us think we are one way, but when you do a 360-self assessment”—soliciting feedback from friends, employees, or others—”you get different feedback.” She notes that people can learn to be more consciously aware of what they are conveying to other people—through their language, tone, and more, and that this awareness can help them become better employees and better leaders.

She also explains:

• How effective leaders can convey confidence, inspiration, and make employees feel appreciated and “part of a bigger journey”
• What happens when leaders are not aware of how they come across to their employees, which may lead to a lack of inspiration, or—even worse—hesitancy and fear to speak up
• The importance of inviting and encouraging new perspectives
• How to present ideas to leaders about creating change in a way that will be positive for the company as a whole
• How active listening and asking “clarifying questions” can help improve communication

Williams is a Board-Certified Coach who has provided consulting and coaching to individuals and businesses for over 25 years. She helps individuals and organizations make critical changes in their behavior, mindset and skills. Learn more about Williams at www.yourcoachingsolution.com.

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Allan Karl has explored more than 60 countries, photographing, blogging, and writing about them on the way. His book Forks: The Quest for Culture, Cuisine and Connection (2014) documents a three-year motorcycle journey through 35 countries. In this interview, Karl discusses his decision to turn his passion for travel into a way to live, and the hesitation that too often prevents people from taking a similar leap in their own entrepreneurial endeavors. He describes how “Anyone can do this—the hardest part about deciding to choose your passion, and follow your dream, is that decision point: deciding to do it.”

He also describes:

• The power of “change conditioning”: how practicing small changes can make it easier to take on larger changes
• Balancing the benefits of consistency against the risk of allowing habits to turn into stagnancy.
• Why risk taking is “the only way you can innovate and grow”
• The necessity of “being open” to new experiences and new people, and of trusting both yourself and others
• The value of curiosity: “When we’re curious, we tend to ask more questions”

Currently, Karl is preparing to film his next journey (another motorcycle odyssey, beginning in China) for television. He is principal of WorldRider Productions, where he focuses on speaking, publishing, and coaching, and a marketing strategist for clearcloud, a digital marketing and branding consultancy located in Southern California.

Learn more about Karl on AllanKarl.com; WorldRider.com; Twitter (@WorldRider), Instagram, and Facebook; and at ForksTheBook.com.

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This episode features a Face-Off on the topic of personal branding between experts Gary Vaynerchuk and David Zweig. Zweig’s recent book Invisibles criticizes what he considers the 21^st-century problem of personal branding and image overtaking people’s actual work. In contrast, Vaynerchuk argues in his book Crush It! that “Everyone needs to start thinking of themselves as a brand. You are a brand.” In their discussion here, Zweig and Vaynerchuk find themselves agreeing on most points—and the result is a rigorous discussion on the subtleties of deciding if, why, and how people should brand themselves.

They also discuss:

• The differences between “generating noise” about yourself and being effective as a self-promoter.
• When it’s “worth” the money, time, or effort to engage in personal branding—and who would find it worthwhile.
• Why “For most people, it’s a waste of time—unless they enjoy it. They’re far better off perfecting their craft.” (Zweig)
• Why brand-building requires a sustained effort, and why so many people quit too soon.

Gary Vaynerchuk is a storytelling entrepreneur, video blogger, self-trained social media expert, and a best-selling author. Vaynerhuk launched Winelibrary.com in 1997 and helped grow his family business from $3 million to $45 million by 2005. He and his brother AJ are founders of VaynerMedia, an agency that helps companies including GE, PepsiCo, Hasbro and the New York Jets build their digital-brands. He is currently the General Partner of the newly-formed venture fund VaynerRSE.

David Zweig is a writer, lecturer and musician based in Brooklyn, New York. Invisibles (Penguin, 2014), his first nonfiction book, is an expansion of his Atlantic article “What Do Fact-Checkers and Anesthesiologists Have in Common?” As a singer, guitar player, and producer, Zweig has released two albums, All Now With Wings and Keep Going; his debut novel Swimming Inside The Sun was released in 2009. As a freelance journalist he has written for The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He is currently putting together a new book on how Western culture at large, especially online culture, affects individual self-perception.

Learn more about Gary Vaynerchuk on Twitter (@garyvee), and visit Dave Zweig’s website at DavidZweig.com.

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Will Henshall describes himself as “equally right-brained and left-brained”—he has background as both a successful tech entrepreneur (he holds six patents) and as a platinum record-selling musician/composer. In this interview, he describes how the processes in tech entrepreneurship and writing and making a hit pop song successful are surprisingly similar. He argues that running a band is like a tech startup: you need an idea; you need to see if people like it; you need feedback; you need to see if it is marketable… both require, he says, 2% inspiration and 98% perspiration, and that time and execution are the most importance parts of that process.

Here, he also touches on:

• Why you should remain motived while also “not believing your own publicity—your latest idea is just your latest idea”
• How every idea is equal at its inception—it’s the work that follows that will prove how good it is in the real world
• How to assess the open-mindedness of potential hires
• How his startup hacks the mind’s distraction mechanisms using carefully-calibrated music
• The ways in which getting a project to succeed is like managing a sinking boat.

Henshall founded the British pop soul band Londonbeat and had two Billboard #1 hit records. He went on to found Rocket Network (a Paul Allen/Cisco-funded San Francisco company) and created the professional audio media transfer system DigiDelivery, which he later sold to Avid. Today his focus is www.focusatwill.com, “an online cognitive performance platform that delivers scientifically developed music and sound that helps reduce distractions when working, studying and reading.”

Learn more about Henshall on Twitter (@focusatwill), Facebook, or at www.focusatwill.com.

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Marcie Allen began booking bands when she was sixteen; during college, she was offered a job at LiveNation’s Cellar Door Concerts. At age 25, she founded her first business, MAD Booking & Events; today, she is President of New York City-based music experiential agency MAC Presents. Here, she discusses the importance of identifying and adapting to industry niches: being, in the words of her grandfather Hoss Allen, “a bit of a chameleon” in order to succeed.

She also spoke about how:

• “A lot of people think that there’s a rulebook when you’re sitting down to do an artist sponsorship or endorsement deal. But there’s not.”
• “I don’t represent either side—I represent the deal, because if there’s not a successful deal that both the artist and the brand are happy about, no one wins.”
• Understanding where both sides of the partnership are coming from: “What’s a win? How are you going to measure your ROI?”
• Being passionate vs. being emotional about a deal.
• Paving the way for women in the music industry
• The new model for entrepreneurship in the music industry: artist apps, social media, branded content.
• The new importance of millennials in the music industry.

Allen uses her 21 years of connections in the music industry to “bridge the gap” between corporate brands and the music industry. She has executed partnerships on behalf of brands including Delta, Microsoft, Jeep, Samsung, CITI, Sony, Southwest Airlines, Verizon, and AT&T, and artists including Foo Fighters, Green Day, John Legend, Billy Joel, Imagine Dragons, The Who, Rolling Stones, and Keith Urban. She is a nine-time nominee and four-time winner of Billboard’s Concert Marketing and Promotion Award.

Allen was named to Billboard’s Women in Music 2010-2014, Billboard’s “40 under 40” in 2013, and Billboard’s Humanitarian of the Year Award. In 2013, The White House honored Allen as one of their Hurricane Sandy “Champions of Change.”

Learn more about Allen or get in touch through MacPresents.com, Twitter (@MarcieAllen), or LinkedIn.

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After donating blood to raise money (“which I don’t recommend as a way to get capital”), Tim Fargo founded Omega Insurance Services, a firm that, after almost seven years, he sold in 2003 for $20 million. But that’s the too-short version of the story: as Fargo discusses in his interview, this success required a series of mistakes and missteps in his previous entrepreneurial attempts—including a bankruptcy—before he had the requisite knowledge and experience to do well. Here, he discusses the value—even the necessity—of failure and self-reflection for entrepreneurs.

He also discusses:

• Celebrating victories as your business starts to be successful, but also “keep[ing] them in proportion to what’s occurred.”
• Finding and driving home your niche: “Don’t try to push what’s not working—focus on what is.”
• Why it’s not the idea that will lead to success, but the ability to execute that idea.
• How the rules and values of social media are not different from those of other social contexts: “medium is irrelevant.”

Fargo is the author of Alphabet Success – Keeping It Simple, My Rules of Success. He is currently bootstrapping tech start-up Tweet Jukebox, which manages content for Twitter users, and he is an angel investor. He also spoke about Meddle (meddle.it) during his interview, as a startup that plans to re-frame internet comments into opinion pieces that won’t get lost in comments sections.

Learn more about Fargo’s book at Alphabetsuccess.blogspot.com, and his company at TweetJukebox.com. Tim can be contacted through tim@tweetjukebox.com.

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Sheila Walker Hartwell started Hartwell Planning in 1996, a fee-only financial planning firm, initially intended to help divorced and widowed women. Today, she works with a diverse clientele and speaks about comprehensive financial planning issues. In this interview, she discusses how and why even successful small business owners may not be on top of their personal financial planning: they believe that they will work forever, and they may not have an exit plan for their business.

Other topics include:

• How succession planning can both help small business owners think about leaving their business and optimize its growth.
• Why asking “What’s next?” can help business owners leave their small business and move forward—into retirement, or onto the next project.
• Why people in the same field can and should collaborate, rather than think of themselves as competing.
• How going in with the goal of identifying and meeting each client’s individual needs precisely can lead to greater efficiency.

Sheila is the author of Lift the Burden of Debt: How to Climb Out of Debt and Stay Out in 10 Easy Steps, and has been a senior VP in advertising for Fortune 500 companies. A Canadian-American, she holds a BA from the University of Western Ontario in Canada, and an MBA in Finance from Columbia’s Graduate School of Business in New York. She also holds a Certificate of Financial Planning from New York University’s Center for Finance, Law and Taxation.

Get in touch with Sheila through www.hartwellplanning.com (soon to relaunch) or have an informal, complimentary chat with Hartwell Planning at (212) 772-8654.

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After founding Human Capital in 1997, Scott Fritz grew the company into a nationwide player with 2007 annual revenues of $170 million dollars. He also acquired Atlantic Insurance, a property and casualty agency, re-branded and re-positioned the agency, and sold it – all within two years. In this interview, however, he goes back to the beginning—when he spent two and a half years without a paycheck. He describes the factors that produce a successful business at its inception—in particular, why a certain amount of “failure is not an option” attitude can be helpful to getting a business of the ground.

He also discusses:

• Building a business vs. building an asset
• Getting “out of the way” of talented employees, and how to let people do what they were hired to do
• Building owner wealth vs. building company value, and why owners should take wealth out of a business—and how much
• Transitioning yourself out of the business you founded, in three steps
• Positioning your company to be acquired, and why it’s the same as positioning your company to acquire others
• Learning to be okay with passing your work to someone who may not be capable of 100% of what you did—but why 80% is good enough

Fritz is the author of The 40 Hour Work YEAR; he currently oversees funding and strategy for Vision Group Management, a website transaction company focused on the acquisition and monetization of over 50 websites around the world. He is also the founder of Growth Connect, specializing in transforming businesses into assets, and an active angel investor.

Learn more about Fritz at 40hourworkyear.com, which provides details on his book, coaching business, speaking, and more.

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Former Olympian Mary Andrews specializes in working with business leaders who have achieved individual success, and are working to take on responsibility for the broader success of their companies. Here, she discusses the four things that we can all learn from Olympians regarding how to achieve success, beginning with the ability to believe in possibilities of success, and learning how to name and claim what you want. Drawing on her Olympics experience, she also discusses the interplay of individual dynamics with group performance, and how group success can be achieved among teams and communities.

Other topics include:

• How competition can inspire everyone to do better
• Why “adding a team member” is a misnomer (you’re not “adding”; you’re reforming the whole team!)
• Why everyone should think about leadership—not just managers, bosses, and partners
• Succession leadership—how to move from being in charge to helping others prepare to step into leadership roles
• Why being successful doesn’t mean you have to “do it on your own”: why coaches can help you maintain focus

Andrews is President of Andrews Performance Corporation. She holds a Masters Degree from Stanford University, and has more than twenty years of experience in the field of individual, team, and organizational performance—specializing in helping leaders who are dealing with too much to do, not enough time, and frustration with the lack of exciting results.

Get in touch with Andrews via email at MOAndrews@AndrewsPerformance.com or learn more through her website, www.andrewsperformance.com.

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Shep Hyken has expanded the customer service practices he learned as a twelve-year-old magician into a career as a customer service expert, professional speaker and bestselling author. This week, he speaks about how crucial a healthy customer service culture is to any company, and how companies of any size can help foster a culture of positive feedback—not only through treating customers well, but by treating their own employees well.

Other topics include:

• Starting a business in 2015 vs. starting his first business in 1983
• How online content marketing can help you identify new customers while serving your current customers
• The importance of a flexibility of mindset, at companies of any size
• Why good leaders need clarity of vision, and how employee training can help everyone share that vision
• The importance of hiring new employees who fit a company culture
• What we can learn about leadership from Walt Disney’s picking up garbage at Disneyland

Hyken specializes in helping companies build loyal relationships with their customers and employees. He write regularly for Forbes.com, and has authored several books, including Moments of Magic (1993), The Amazement Revolution (2011), and Amaze Every Customer Every Time (2013). He has also created The Customer Focus program, which helps clients develop a customer service culture and loyalty mindset.

Learn more about Hyken at www.hyken.com.

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Brian Honigman is a marketing consultant, freelance writer and speaker, with a highly diverse background at agencies, global brands (including Dell), and small-but-hot start-ups (like Sumall). Here, he discusses what companies need to know about social media, and why finding the right audience, and promoting your content in the right places, is just as important as producing that content in the first place.

He also discusses:

• Being sure that your business is not “blogging for the sake of blogging”
• Identifying your “ideal audience” online, and targeting content to that audience
• Bringing together data analytics and business intuition to make smart social media decisions
• Testing whether social media could help your business
• Keeping a long-term perspective on social media, even in an instant-gratification medium

Honigman helps brands with content marketing and social media strategy; he has spoken at NYU, UNICEF, Huffington Post Live, and is a contributing writer to the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the World Economic Forum, Entrepreneur Magazine and others.

The last Wednesday of every month, at 1pm EST, Honigman hosts a Twitter chat using the hashtag #InsiderChat. Learn more at www.brianhonigman.com or follow him on Twitter @BrianHonigman.

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Marc Mathios is the Principal of Ace Apparel, a New York-based manufacturing business founded in 1938 by Mathios’s grandfather Morris. Mathios and his brothers must be doing lots of things right: they’re beating the odds (currently at 13%!) on keeping a third-generation family business running successfully. In this interview, Mathios discusses how family dynamics can help a family business—and also how to address family dynamics when they become a difficulty.

Other topics include:

• How to respond to mistakes constructively, whether they are systems failures or individual employee misjudgments
• What it’s like to run a manufacturing business in New York City in 2015
• Using your current customers as models to find more of your ideal customers
• Why wrong-fit customers can prevent your company from moving forward—even if they come with big contracts
• Why waiting for the “perfect moment” to act can keep you on a plateau
• Creating comfort in a workplace as a form of effective leadership

Ace Apparel & Promotions creates apparel with custom corporate logos; all of their apparel manufacturing, embroidery and screen printing are done at their New York City factory. Prior to joining Ace, Mathios worked for 5 years at Ernst & Young as a manager working on accounts in the financial services industry.

Learn more about Ace at www.ace-promo.com.

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Ric Edelman is the Chairman and CEO of Edelman Financial Services, a business that he and his wife Jean founded twenty-seven years ago. Since then, he has been three times ranked the #1 Independent Financial Advisor in the nation by Barron’s and has published multiple books on personal finance. In this interview, he attributes his success in the financial industry partially to his lack of background on Wall Street; Edelman also has no MBA. Instead, Edelman describes how his degree in Communications set him up for success in helping ordinary consumers understand financial planning.

He also discusses:

• Why financial planning “isn’t about the stock market,” but about how people live their lives
• Why it’s not “who you know,” but “who knows you”
• How to plan to learn from failure, not success
• The difference between taking risks and being rash
• Why it can be so hard—and so important—for entrepreneurs to acknowledge that they are not the best person for every job at their business
• The three necessary steps to making sure that your employees succeed

Edelman Financial Services manages $13.7 billion for more than 26,000 individuals and families. The company has 38 offices coast-to-coast, and has won more than 100 business, advisory, communication and community service awards. Edelman hosts weekly radio and television shows, and has published eight books on personal finance, most recently The Truth About Retirement Plans and IRAs (2014). Learn more at RicEdelman.com.

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Mark Asquith is a co-founder of design and digital agency DMSQD. He has described how in 2012 he burned out, a moment that led to his reassessment of his business strategies and subsequent greater success. Here, he speaks about maintaining a sense of perspective on one’s work, and how to manage time and self-expectations, so that the entrepreneurial spirit remains a strength, and doesn’t lead to burnout or wasted energy.

Other topics include:

• What business owners need to know about investing in digital content
• The power of delegation, the risk of burnout, and “superhero syndrome”
• How to balance developing new business with producing the work that generates revenue
• How to be “ruthless with your time”
• Why there “are no competitors”

Asquith hosts Excellence Expected, a podcast that helps entrepreneurs take on their biggest issues, with the involvement of the world’s greatest business minds. He is also the founder of PodcastWebsites.com with John Lee Dumas. Learn more about Asquith at Excellence-expected.com or through his Twitter at @em_two.

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As EVP of Marketing and Business Development at Fragmob, Michel Bayan is working to reinvent the direct selling industry for the digital age: his company works with direct selling companies, selling them tools that help them more clearly understand and analyze their sales figures and compensation plans. Here, Bayan discusses how he moved from being a classically-trained actor into the direct selling industry, and how understanding storytelling, and how stories move people, has helped him be successful in a business he never imagined he’d be involved in.

Bayan discusses:

• Why direct selling is “the last truly democratic opportunity in the world”
• How to balance forward drive and momentum with openness to other possibilities
• How mobile technology will reshape the direct selling industry in the next five to ten years
• Why you need people that are not like you in your business (and why “the nuts are the ones that come up with great ideas”)

A writer and speaker in direct selling, Bayan has advised numerous companies in the industry on their digital strategy, and how to build (or rebuild) their brands to succeed in the digital age. Fragmob is on Twitter (@fragmob) and Facebook (facebook.com/fragmob); follow Bayan on Twitter at @michelbayan.

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From an inauspicious beginning as a self-described “sales failure,” Eric Lofholm has reached tremendous heights in sales: he is President and CEO of Eric Lofholm International Inc., which professionally trains people in the art of selling. In this week’s episode, he attributes the beginnings of his success to learning how to combine his natural talent for teaching with an effective sales system. He also explains the business strategies that helped his company weather and recover from the 2008 recession.

Topics include:

• How formal training can help people overcome the internal resistance to sales caused by the “stigma to sales in our culture”
• The advantages of a “90-day blitz” model for sales efforts
• How to respond to urgency with flexibility
• How publishing—through podcasts, online magazines, and YouTube—can help establish you as a thought leader in your field
• Why it’s so important to understand the mechanisms of your own success

Eric is an instructor for CEOSpace and Networking University, and is the author of How to Sell in the New Economy (2010) and Duplication: The Key to Creating Freedom in Your Network Marketing Business (2014). He also produces a free app, which includes a podcast; to find it, search for “Eric Lofholm” in Apple’s App Store. Learn more at SalesChampion.com or Twitter (@EricLofholm).

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Jeremy Pound is the founder of JuicyResults.com, a search engine optimization firm with a flagship service of a guaranteed SEO. Wil Reynolds is the founder of Seer Interactive, a digital marketing agency. Both are in the search engine industry—but while Jeremy’s company guarantees its search results, Wil has said that a guarantee it is not possible in this swiftly-changing industry. Can these two entrepreneurs find common ground?

Certainly they can! Both agreed that their goal is to help search engine users find content that is useful and relevant to them, and to help the user and their client connect when they should. In this rigorous discussion, they also address:

• The difficulty of measuring accomplishments (or even accountability) in a constantly-changing and unpredictable business environment
• Choosing to pursue revenue vs. rankings
• The importance of performing due diligence before working with a client, and treating a client like a potential business partner
• How sharing risk with a client should affect business decisions
• How to help a client choose between branding vs. direct marketing approaches
• The keys to long-term business success in a quickly-changing industry

Wil Reynolds founded Seer Interactive in his apartment in 2002; the company now has a team of over 100 people and offices in Philadelphia and San Francisco. Reynolds is its current Director of Strategy. Follow him at @wilreynolds.

Jeremy Pound is the founder of JuicyResults.com, and writes and speaks regularly on how organizations can best take advantage of the web to grow their customer base. His book The Bootstrapper’s Guide to SEO is forthcoming. Follow him at @jeremypound.

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Tony A. Rose is a founding partner of Rose, Snyder & Jacobs, a partnership of certified public accountants.In this interview, Rose draws on more than thirty-five years in the industry to talk about finance, fulfillment, and happiness, where they intersect, and how understanding their dynamic can help lead to business success.

In his interview, Rose covers a range of topics including:

• Defining and connecting wealth, happiness, money, and fulfillment
• The importance of measuring and maintaining business capital—not only financial capital, but also human, intellectual, social, and structural
• The strength of “knowing people who are strangers”
• How periods of ambiguity, discomfort, and danger can be turned to a business’s advantage
• What prevents people from making the changes they need for their companies to thrive

Rose’s firm provides a full-range of assurance, tax, and consulting services for small public, closely held, and family-owned businesses, with a specialty in high-net-worth individuals and their families. Rose is a is a Legacy Wealth Coach® and a Certified Kolbe Method Consultant®, as well as the author of Say Hello to the Elephants: A Four-Part Process for Finding Clarity, Confronting Problems, and Moving On (2008) and Five Eyes on the Fence: Protecting the Five Core Capitals of Your Business (2014).

Learn more about Rose at RSJCPA.com.

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What can we learn when politics, academia, business, showbiz, and the literary worlds collide? Between the two of them, Dorie Clark and Eric Ruben have a tremendous breadth of experience, and both experts take different approaches to the same topic: personal brand and reputation management.

Clark is the author of Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future (2013). A former presidential campaign spokeswoman, she is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Entrepreneur, and is a speaker for clients including Google, Microsoft, Yale University, Fidelity, and the World Bank. A graduate of New York’s Cardozo School of Law, Ruben is a former veteran entertainment professional, and has performed in film, TV, commercials and in off-Broadway productions. He has traveled across the country performing stand-up. He also has over twenty-five years’ experience as a counselor, litigator, literary agent, and talent manager.

In this episode, Clark and Ruben discuss their different approaches and attitudes toward personal branding, including:

• Personal branding: overhyped, or underrated?
• The value of doing good work—and the value of publicizing it
• Why social media can be a double-edged sword for an online reputation
• How to distinguish yourself in a crowded marketplace
• How developing a personal brand can be “fundamental” to your ability to earn a living

Dorie Clark is an Adjunct Professor of Business Administration at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and a Visiting Professor for IE Business School in Madrid. She has guest lectured at Harvard Business School, the Harvard Kennedy School, Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business, the Wharton School, the MIT Sloan School of Management, and more. She is recognized as a “branding expert” by the Associated Press and Fortune, is a frequent guest on MSNBC, and appears in worldwide media including NPR, the Wall Street Journal, and the BBC. Her book Stand Out: How to Find Your Breakthrough Idea and Build a Following Around It comes out this April. Learn more at dorieclark.com or follow her on Twitter @dorieclark.

Working in partnership, Eric Ruben assists his clients in determining how best to achieve their personal and professional goals. He can be reached by Twitter (@ericrubenlawyer) or through his website, RubenLaw.org.

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Wanda Allen is a national speaker, coach, author and award-winning business owner. After being a business banker for 25 years, Allen left the bank to pursue her own ventures, founding her business Follow Up Sales Strategies. In this interview, she discusses the emotional blocks that can prevent successful follow-ups, from fear of rejection to reluctance to “bother,” and how having a system in place can help a business overcome these hesitations.

This week, we spoke to her about:

• The five questions you should be asking in the follow-up process
• How overthinking sales follow-ups wastes time, and how having systems in place can help you be more productive (see also Wendy Lipton-Dibner, Smashing the Plateau episode 30)
• How to use follow-ups to establish trust and credibility
• Creating and maintaining effective relationships outside your business–and within it

Allen is a Rising Star Award Winner and Business Owner of the Year Nominee by the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), and an expert in helping entrepreneurs, business owners and sales professionals improve sales performance, increase client retention, and become more referable through effective follow up systems.

Learn more at Follow Up Sales Strategies, or contact Allen through email at wanda@followupsalesstrategies.com.

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