Go For Launch Rocket Fuel For Entrepreneurs

This episode of the Go For Launch podcast focuses on how to diagnose business gaps and create your business battle plan. My guest is Stuart Leo, the founder and CEO of Waymaker.io—an intelligent business management and strategy platform that helps leaders build a better business in 30 days. Stuart is a global thinker in strategy, systems, and leadership development. As the founder of Waymaker.io, he has led the creation of Waymaker’s Leadership Curve, a new way of building clarity, alignment and remarkable results in any organization.

Feeling overwhelmed at work? Amanda Hamilton can help you reclaim your time and delegate with intention. She joined me on the latest episode of the Go For Launch podcast. Amanda is the founder of Hamilton Raye—“Your Outsourced Admin®”— which brings professional remote administrative support to startup organizations and businesses. Prior to starting Hamilton Raye, she spent 10 years working in the corporate retail industry. She had a very successful career in production and sourcing where she had the opportunity to learn best practices for staying organized, managing constant changes in priorities, and finding process efficiencies to reduce workload. Loving the scope of her work and her team, but craving personal and professional growth, she longed to work remotely in order to live and work anywhere she pleased. Intrigued by the ‘digital nomads’ she would often read about, Amanda decided to take her fate into her own hands. As Amanda started to connect with founders, CEOs, and small business owners, she saw an

Using traditional SEO tools and manual writing processes, it can be hard to scale quality content. But with artificial intelligence (AI), you can create a scalable strategy that will ensure all of your content is at the highest possible quality. My latest guest on the Go For Launch podcast is at the forefront of helping companies use AI to scale their content creation efforts. Pankil Shah is the CEO of Outranking.io, an AI platform for writers, editors and SEO professionals to create content that ranks. He is an entrepreneur, founder and content marketing expert with more than 10 years of experience in leading product and growth for tech companies. Before starting Outranking.io, Pankil led growth for an enterprise database company, scaling revenue using content marketing. He also co-founded Vclassrooming.com, a learning management system aimed at improving K12 learning outcomes. AI can help you improve the relevancy of your content, increase conversion rates and make sure that you are always on top of what pe

If you don’t have a clear message and image, you could be wasting as much as 80% of your marketing budget. Joining me to discuss this on the Go For Launch podcast is Orsolya Herbein, better known as Orshie. Orshie is a partner at Brand3, a virtual marketing and branding agency. On the podcast, she shared actionable tips to help business owners rethink marketing, stop wasting time and money, and accelerate their business growth.

It seems counterintuitive to many people: You must narrow your focus to Increase your chances of success as a professional services provider. The saying is true, "The riches are in the niches." My latest guest on the Go For Launch podcast is an expert on helping firms focus. Sean Campbell is founder and CEO of Cascade Insights. As a professional services firm owner for over 20 years, his work has spanned consulting engagements with the Fortune 50 to startups you’ve heard of; the sale of his first professional services company; and the growth of delivery, sales, marketing, and operational practices inside professional services firms. Sean has been training, mentoring, and educating all his life. An exceptionally well-regarded conference speaker and author, Sean has delivered talks for Fortune 50 companies and top-tier conferences. He has also been the author of several books on technical as well as business topics. Sean brings a wealth of knowledge when it comes to surviving and thriving as a service firm owne

Storytelling. We all learned and loved it as kids, but many of us forget about the power of storytelling in the context of promoting our businesses. In the latest episode of the Go For Launch podcast, I spoke to Ben Worthen about this topic. Ben is CEO of Message Lab, an award-winning agency that combines journalism, data and design to craft content and create experiences that get real results. Ben and his team help clients figure out how to tell stories that people actually want to hear. Ben developed his storytelling and investigative savvy working as a journalist for 13 years, winning many national awards for news and feature-writing. In 2007, he joined The Wall Street Journal, where he covered the tech industry and wrote more than 50 Page One stories. He also was editor-in-chief at Ready State and head of content at Sequoia Capital. Over the last two years, Message Lab has won seven Content Marketing Awards and has been a finalist for 16 more. Current and former clients include Facebook, Google, GoDaddy,

Tracey Bissett is on a mission to redefine the world's economic future by increasing the financial literacy of entrepreneurs, also known as financial fitness. With over 20 years of experience in the financial services industry, Tracey helps entrepreneurs across all industries. As Chief Financial Fitness Trainer of Bissett Financial Fitness Inc., Tracey educates and empowers entrepreneurs to take control of and live their financial lives with confidence. A former executive at TD Bank, one of Canada's Big 5 Banks, Tracey has worked with thousands of entrepreneurs to secure the financing they needed. This hands-on experience coupled with her formal financial education gives Tracey unique coaching skills about all things money-related. Tracey is also a professor at Centennial College’s School of Business and regularly leads speaking engagements to increase financial fitness awareness. Get a free monthly meeting template at https://cashcoach.biz.

Ron Carucci is co-founder and managing partner at Navalent, which works with CEOs and executives to enable transformational change for their organizations, leaders and industries. Ron’s newest book and passion, To Be Honest: Lead with the Power of Truth, Justice and Purpose, is based on 15 years of research and more than 200 interviews with leaders around the world. To Be Honest explains how four factors—Clear Identity, Accountability, Governance and Cross-Functional Relationships—affect honesty, justice and purpose within a company. When these factors are absent or ineffective, the organizational conditions compel employees to choose dishonesty and self-interest. But when done well, the organization is 16 times more likely to have people tell the truth, behave fairly and serve a greater good. For three decades, Ron has helped some of the world’s most influential executives tackle challenges of strategy, organization and leadership. In addition to being a regular contributor to HBR and Forbes, and is a 2-time

Tim Parkin of Parkin Consulting is a global consultant, advisor, and coach to marketing executives of many world-renowned brands. He specializes in helping marketing teams optimize people, process and performance to accelerate growth. By applying more than 20 years of experience merging behavioral psychology and technology seamlessly, Tim has unlocked rapid and dramatic growth for global brands and award-winning agencies alike. Tim is a speaker, author, and thought leader who has contributed to AdWeek, Forbes, MarTech, TechCrunch, and dozens of other marketing outlets. He is also a member of the American Marketing Association, the Society for the Advancement of Consulting, and was inducted into the Million Dollar Consulting Hall of Fame. For free resources from Tim, text Grow to 8443113200.

There are many “frameworks” purported to help companies achieve greater levels of growth. But many of them are challenging to understand and end up being underutilized. Tim Cakir is on a mission to develop a new growth framework based on Goals, Challenges and Opportunities. He joined me in this episode of the Go For Launch podcast. Tim is a growth consultant and founder of Squad One who helps companies, entrepreneurs and students achieve fast and consistent growth. Working with 17 startups to date, some of his best achievements include helping two startups reach 1.7 million euros in Horizon 2020 funding, increasing monthly recurring revenue (MRR) of one startup from $80k to $300k in less than 18 months and completing projects such as implementing Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), building company dashboards and launching new product launches. As part of Tim’s passion for helping people realize their potential, he also teaches Bachelor and Masters programs at two universities in Barcelona—ESEI International B

Andy Cagnetta is the CEO of Transworld Business Advisors (https://www.tworld.com), where they have bought and sold over 10,000 businesses. Today, they have more than 400 business brokers, with over 3,000 businesses for sale. Andy has become the go-to expert on helping entrepreneurs maximize their potential before, during and after their big exit. Other than his work, he is very proud of his signature event, "Andy's Family Pasta Dinner," which raised over $2,000,000 for LifeNet 4 Families. He shares tips on how to prepare your business for a successful sale, as well as key considerations buyers need to know.

Jonathan Goldhill is a business coach and personal strategist who specializes in guiding next-generation leaders of family businesses to scale up their business as they take control over the leadership and ownership of the family business. Jonathan left New York for California at age 20 after his family’s large, privately-held men’s apparel manufacturing company—started by his great-grandfather—sold to a conglomerate in its third generation of family ownership. Within 10 years, Jonathan had established himself as the go-to expert for entrepreneurs looking to find their freedom. Today, Jonathan brings 30 years of experience advising, coaching, consulting, training, and guiding entrepreneurial and family businesses to grow their revenues, profits and people’s leadership. Learn more at The Goldhill Group and get a copy of his book, Disruptive Successor.

In my last show (https://goforlaunch.io/show155), I went on a rant on how to piss off podcast hosts. For this episode, I decided to take a more positive take on the subject, and give some tips on how to be a great podcast guest. Be sure to refer to the blog post I reference, How to Be The Perfect Podcast Guest, for more details and links. Happy podcast guesting!

As a podcast host, nothing is more frustrating than having a guest not show up at the last minute...then not responding...and doing this several times in a row. After my latest guest left me in the lurch, I decided to record a quick episode on how to piss off podcast hosts. If you want to know what NOT to do when you're invited to be on someone's podcast, please give this a listen! In a future episode, I'll expand on the right things to do to ensure you are a perfect podcast guest.

If the words "shooting and sending videos" give you anxiety, have no fear. Today's guest on the GFL podcast will put you at ease and give you lots of tips to get started making videos not only easy, but a routine part of your day. Darin Dawson is co-founder and president of BombBomb, a human-centered communications platform that enables users to use simple personal video messages to leverage their best asset— themselves. He's on a mission to re-humanize the planet and he wants to start with your business communication. He believes that human beings have intrinsic value and that every person deserves to be seen heard and understood. That's why he cofounded BombBomb. Darin also talks about their new book, Human Centered Communication.

Have you ever wondered what goes into the web development process? Have you had an idea for new software but no clue how to make it happen? My guest today is an expert on these topics. Ryan Vice is the Co-founder and CEO of Vice Software, which provides cost-effective web development services. Ryan has a wealth of experience—including 20 years of experience in shipping software; six years in building high-velocity development teams; publishing two books; and being awarded Microsoft MVP award three times. After doing all that, Ryan decided to transfer his skills to an entrepreneurial space. Vice Software utilizes modern toolkits and a globally distributed team to bring clients impressive design at a reasonable price point. The unique structure of his team allows Ryan to remain very hands-on, helping to create processes and best practices that speed up project delivery and increase ROI. Over the past three years, Ryan has led Vice Software to 50% year-over-year growth as the team grew from 15 to 45.

It’s not a question of if but when your business will be hit with a cyber or ransomware attack. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to become aware and proactive in order to protect your business. Brian Fritton is the CEO and Founder of the cybersecurity firm Havoc Shield. He's also an alumnus of the 2020 TechStars program and a founding member of Forbes Technology Council. Brian has built products and led engineering, design, and IT teams at companies with credentials such as Fortune’s 500 Fastest Growing Companies, the Inc. 5000 List and Entrepreneur’s 100 Most Brilliant Companies. He’s been the “guy in the hot seat” — responsible for defending a small business from cyberattacks — as a FinTech CTO at Patch of Land and the VP of Engineering for a critical political campaign and enterprise data science software maker. Brian brings the founder’s perspective to cybersecurity in an increasingly complicated and risk-filled environment.

They say “leaders are readers”—and that definitely applies to my latest guest on the Go For Launch podcast, Brandon Hakim. Brandon is on a quest to give people the education they never got in school. When he was in college, he went into the dean’s office and said “I feel like we’re getting an outdated education.” The person replied that they were working on it. So Brandon walked out that day, and swore he’d teach himself the things he should have learned in school. He’s since read over 1,000 books and realized that everyone who has excelled in any area of life knew things were never taught in school. That led him to found InsiderSchool.com—which has helped over 300,000 people read more books, learn better—and download the wisdom from thousands of pages of books into their brains through short, actionable videos.

Michael Keplinger is a partner at SmashBrand, an agile brand strategy agency for consumer package goods that specializes in a complete approach to market research, product design and testing. After earning a degree in computer engineering and working in the industry, Michael soon found himself developing marketing strategies for his own consumer product business. He quickly found a talent for connecting seemingly unrelated thoughts to discover room for innovation and opportunity. Michael says the key to success is about seeing everything from the eyes of the consumer and anticipating how they will react to a message or product. Michael currently leads his research team in developing strategies for clients and optimizing various aspects of branding and packaging through testing. Over the past decade, he has developed an agile methodology and a proven platform for consumer testing.

As a kid, you probably played Capture the Flag. Adults in the business world play it too—albeit a different version that we can call Capture the Category. It’s no secret that companies that can best identify a problem, convince people they need to solve it—then create the optimal solution—often become the pre-eminent player, aka the Category King. But the path to category creation and dominance is neither quick nor easy, and it’s certainly not for the faint of heart. I had a fascinating conversation with Kevin Maney on the latest Go For Launch podcast. Kevin is the co-author of Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets, which has sold more than 100,000 copies globally. He’s a journalist who has been covering technology and society for 30 years. Kevin is a partner at Category Design Advisors, where he and his team have helped more than 50 companies discover, define and chart a course to dominate new markets. The book is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the