Intentional Growth

Are you mentally prepared to do everything in your power to clarify your vision and execute on that vision, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you or how many times you fail? Nick Bradley, who has sold 22 businesses for more than $5.2 billion in his lifetime (and the last for 14x profit in 2017), shares what helped him create the 6 Peaks of Value Creation and the results he’s seen when you combine mindset with execution.  What you will learn in today's Podcast Interview The Venn diagram of entrepreneurial skills for optimizing growth. What percentage of EBITDA you should reinvest to increase enterprise value. The 6 Peaks of Value Creation you should be using to create success. The importance of addressing long-term goals in your business’s financials, including where you’re getting your financing from.  How empathy helps you drive a growth culture (the way you'd rather have a doctor with a good bedside manner than one without). How your true wants influence not only your decision making but also the eventual options you have to transition or exit the business, and the importance of alignment.  Why you should put the effort in to solve for root issues and not just address symptoms. If you want 10-15 million from the sale of your company, you’ll need to achieve a valuation in the 10s of millions . . . are you on the right growth path? Leadership starts with you and if you’re not leading yourself to grow, what results can you expect to see in your business? The impact discipline has on freedom, creativity, and—ultimately—success. Are You Growing The Value of Your Business Take The 2-Minute Assessment To Get Your Intentional Growth Score™ And 1-Page Vision Board.    Podcast Summary: Nick Bradley shares on today’s podcast how to get into the right mindset, scale up your business and optimize for value growth. Nick shares his 6 Peaks of Value Creation with us and details how acting with intention and discipline leads to more freedom and success than you’ve seen before. Purpose – Understanding where you want to go and knowing your options, and why this matters to you. Profit – Have a safety net and flexibility to invest. Understand where profitability is going to come from. Proposition – Value proposition, not just a product or service. Ultimately the culmination of a product (or service) ecosystem and the experience your client or customer has.  Predictability – Predictable business. All top-performing businesses have a steady flow of the right customers coming in and driving recurring revenue. Process – Where and how consistently you use technology, data, insight, and even your mission. The handoff between processes needs to be really clear. People – Right people, right seats. Look after them, treat with respect, and have the correct compensation structure for performance. This is all about culture. Whether you’re the financial or operations person, this podcast shows the value of learning the other side. The optimal entrepreneur has an understanding of both, allowing them to create value, wealth, and freedom. If you understand how things work, how to get where you want to go, and how to align things to make it happen, you’ll find the success you set out to achieve on day one. If you live in the lane of mediocrity, you end up in a weird comfort zone. When you’ve had challenges, you’ve had limited options: You either give up or turn things around. Challenges help you be successful because you have knowledge of pain and the growth that only comes from being so uncomfortable it forces a change.  Strange catalysts can help ignite you to do something extraordinary. Look at challenges as gifts.   Are you ready to be the instrument of successful change in your business? If not now, when? If not you, who?   About the Guest: Nick Bradley is a world-renowned business growth expert who works with entrepreneurs, business leaders, and investors, transforming good companies into great ones. Over the last decade, he has built, bought and sold 22 businesses with a combined valuation of $5.2 billion dollars. He also works with Private Equity and Venture Capital firms across the UK and the US leading business turnarounds, mergers, acquisitions, and scale-ups. He is the host of the UK’s #1 Business Podcast on iTunes and Spotify—Scale Up Your Business—which has achieved over 150,000 downloads in 130 countries in less than 12 months since launch. Guests include—Neil Patel, David Meltzer, Oren Klaff, John Lee Dumas, Rock Thomas, Patrick Bet-David, and JT McCormick. He is also the co-founder of The Fielding Group, a growth accelerator that helps companies improve business performance in order for entrepreneurs to create freedom, build wealth, and live life without limits. Originally from Australia, Nick is a dedicated family man who has a strong background in physical fitness. He has completed 67 marathons and 24 ultramarathons worldwide, and is also a qualified personal trainer and performance coach.  He is absolutely committed to personal growth and becoming the best version of himself, as well as inspiring others to achieve the same. His mission is to help create empires by bringing entrepreneurial skill sets and mindsets to people all over the world as a driving force of progression and prosperity.   Quotes: 13:41 - “The smallest amount of time I’ve worked with someone is twelve months. Over that twelve months, we’re going to take you from where you are now to where you want to be. It’s a very precise intervention.” - Nick Bradley 19:34 - “Every business has a purpose, it has an intent and that usually comes off what that owner is trying to achieve.” - Nick Bradley 29:09 - “As soon as you go niche, you go tighter, all of a sudden you’ll start to get significant growth.” - Nick Bradley 33:14 - “The identity of someone who is great at starting businesses is not the same as the identity of someone who is great at scaling them.” - Nick Bradley   Links and Resources: LinkedIn: Nick Bradley Apple Podcasts: Scale Up Your Business Podcast Website: NickCBradley.com Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp!   You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, on my LinkedIn.

Craig Rutledge, lead consultant at VisionLink, brings over 25 years of experience in executive compensation. He dives into the nuances of designing effective compensation plans that align short- and long-term incentives with business growth. Craig explains the benefits of phantom stock and the importance of clear communication. He emphasizes transforming employees into growth partners and the significance of understanding their ideal compensation structures. Learn why an abundance mindset can foster a high-performing culture and the role of normalized EBITDA in valuation.

Kent took a company from $800 million to $1.8 billion in 30 months, exited, and then lost everything. He became depressed and spent a few years reinventing himself before finding his passion in real estate and entrepreneurship. Through Kent's incredible and raw story about realizing time is the most valuable asset he could ever have, you'll see how becoming intentional and scaling and growing your business the right way leads not just to success, but fulfillment.    What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview Rock-bottom isn’t a final destination—bouncing back is hard work, but you can build something better if you take your wake-up call to heart. The difference between creating value and creating income. Whether you own a job or a business, what the difference is, and the dangers of becoming trapped in it. The ways data helps your bottom line and the power that comes from giving people what they want. Why micromanaging good employees will actually push them away. How common advice that keeps your aspirations low comes from dream-stealers who don’t know how to achieve their own goals—and what advice you should listen to instead. Don’t get conned into believing you have no control! Why you should scale your business to be sustainable without you at the helm. How to recognize the impact of your driving factors and assess if they’re working for you. Why you should hire people who challenge you and are smarter than you. How selling a company is like getting divorced from hundreds of people, all at once. If you pushed your ego aside, do you really need to be CEO? Could someone else do it? That roughly 35% of real estate transactions in a single family home are done with cash.   Are You Growing The Value of Your Business Take The 2-Minute Assessment To Get Your Intentional Growth Score™ And 1-Page Vision Board. Podcast Summary If you don’t run into challenges, you’re not trying hard enough. Kent Clothier shares his incredible story that illuminates why down isn’t out and choosing to act with intention leads to greater success.   Learn how to turn obstacles into opportunities from someone who lost everything and then built an even stronger business after. There is no such thing as can’t in the business world, so you have to be honest with yourself—why are you really content with your status quo? How hard would you work to change it, if you knew what steps to take? Creating income is hard work, but creating lasting long-term value and sustainable cash flow is harder. How hard are you willing to work, and for how long? Right now, if you were to take a week off work, what would happen? If your blood pressure went up at the thought, you don’t own a business; you own a job.  Is that really what you put all this hard work in for? How valuable do you think someone else is going to find your job, versus a company that doesn’t rely so heavily on its owner? Sometimes the obvious answers are the hardest to come to, as you'll hear all too clearly from Kent. Hire the right people to support you so that you aren’t taking the lead in every role—these people will be smart and challenging and you’re going to learn to love it as they help you achieve those goals that have always felt out of reach.  The last thing you should believe is that you are not in control of your own destiny, or that of your business. As Kent has demonstrated repeatedly over the course of his career, there is success hidden within every challenge you run into. If you’re not being challenged, you need to look at what’s holding you back because chances are . . . it’s you.   About the Guest: Kent Clothier is President and CEO of Real Estate Worldwide (REWW), a multi-faceted real estate education company. He built award-winning real estate systems and compiled national data on real estate cash buyers and private lenders to lead him to intentional success. He knows how to tailor what his businesses offer to what clients want. Kent has built eleven companies, flipped over 6,000 houses, and currently manages 6,500 properties over seven markets, soon to be eight.  Author of This Shit Works: A No-Nonsense Guide to Networking Your Way to More Friends, More Adventures, and More Success, Kent is big on chasing your dreams and living for the day. His way of doing this is showing people how he reached success and breaking it down as simply as possible so they can replicate it.   Quotes: 27:17 - “You have to surround yourself with people that are really smart, which means you’re going to have to invest in them, invest in yourself.” - Kent Clothier 42:23 - “They care about my company as much as they care about themselves because it’s authentic all the way through. And absolutely, I don’t care about doing that and pushing on, because the way I see it, they’re going to go either way. Either they’re going to be attracted--wildly attracted--to the best version of me, who I really am. Or, I’m absolutely going to repel you from the very beginning and you were never going to do business with me anyway. So who cares? Let’s just get it over with.” - Kent Clothier 49:05 - “It’s about time. I don’t want to waste yours and I don’t want to waste mine, right? My motto is that time is now. It’s on my wrist. I don’t wear a fancy watch. I wear a silly wristband and I have for ten years and I’ll be damned if everytime I look at my wrist, that bitch is right.” - Kent Clothier 63.20 - “When somebody sits there and tells me ‘I can’t’, I’m like ‘No. Let’s just be honest with each other.’ More importantly, you be honest with yourself because you’re the one that’s always listening to the words coming out of your mouth. Just replace those words with, ‘I choose not to.’ cause that’s really what you’re doing.” - Kent Clothier   Links and Resources: Website: Kent Clothier GrabKentsBook.com Twitter: @kentclothier Instagram: @kentclothier Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp!   You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, on my LinkedIn.

Todd shares the mindset-changing framework he created in his book The Alter Ego Effect to help you break through obstacles and eliminate your self-limiting beliefs for amazing success. This is the mental playbook used by Olympic and professional athletes, world-class entertainers, and top-tier entrepreneurs to achieve their most ambitious goals. If you're ready to up your game, this is the episode for you.    What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview: Why “just deal with it” is terrible advice to a business owner who is evolving their role and what to do to address the underlying issues. How to access your inner hero. The people who win in life have the most valuable skills; do you or your alter ego manifest those skills? When you change the way you relate to yourself, all things change. Why imposter syndrome is a buzzword in the self-help world these days. That discounting your achievements ("oh, that was just luck") contributes to real imposter syndrome and feelings of anxiety over being “found out” (despite said achievements) and what to do about it. How to avoid self-help traps that take away your power rather than provide real ways to succeed in overcoming mental blocks and imposter syndrome. Why “fake it ‘til you make it” is good advice and how to figure out when you’ve made it. Anyone not getting the results they want is acting in a fake way. What traits entrepreneurs and athletes share that draw them to their fields. How to break your brain to achieve success by overcoming some built-in drivers (such as to seek comfort) that hinder us when we aren't intentionally choosing them. Why you should carefully choose heroes to emulate in all aspects of your life from work to home and how to “show up” as those people day after day for ultimate success. Are You Growing The Value of Your Business Take The 2-Minute Assessment To Get Your Intentional Growth Score™ And 1-Page Vision Board. Podcast Summary Business owners often have to reevaluate themselves and their relationship with their business in order to shift their mindset to long-term value creation. Todd shares how drawing on an alter ego isn’t about ‘faking it until you make it’, but rather bringing out the 'real you' so you can conquer any challenge life throws at you, drawn from decades of experience with elite athletes, entertainers, and public figure. Todd’s work on the alter ego led him to a key discovery: We need to establish a persona that can handle the tasks we don’t take pride in so we can ultimately achieve success in the areas that are holding us back. ​​If you want to be the chairman of the board, emulating owners who have successfully worked themselves out of the business can help you get there. Ask yourself, "What they would do in that situation?" and follow their roadmap to success. This is a practical conversation on how to become the person who always wins. This is not a self-help fluff piece. Our mindset, ego, narrative, control issues and personality attributes (like Allie Taylor talked about last week) are limiting what we can do with our businesses. Todd’s episode is a framework to identify your field of play and your limiting beliefs to help your alter ego evolve so you win more and settle for comfortable less. Obviously this isn’t a simple process. You’ll need to figure out what exactly “making it” looks like to you. In the process, you’ll learn to take ownership over your successes instead of chalking them up to luck (or worse!) and eventually grow into a fuller person with a larger, more valuable skill set.    About the Guest: Todd Herman Has Been Entrenched In The World Of Elite Performers Working With The Highest Achievers In Sports And Business For Over Two Decades. Creator of the award-winning Leadership & Skills Development Program, 90 Day Year, author of the WSJ bestselling book, The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life, and recipient of Inc. 500’s Fastest Growing Companies Award, as well as the Rama Award for Wisdom and Leadership, Todd’s professional programs are delivered annually to over 200,000 people in 73 countries. Named by the Boston Herald as a “Training Superstar”,  Todd has been featured on the Today Show, Sky News, Inc Magazine, CBS, and Business Insider, among others. Originally from Alberta, Canada, Todd grew up on a large farm and ranch (where he developed a healthy dislike of chicken coops). Todd now lives in New York City with his wife and three young children, and is currently the world’s worst ukulele player.   Quotes: 04:02 - “Practical advice and a practical framework that is actionable. That is the biggest takeaway from this episode.” - Ryan Tansom 11:57 - “Most of the people who have written books for people have maybe worked with above average people and they’re writing it for average people.” - Todd Herman 21:57 - “I’m here to speak the truth with a knuckle to the jaw because that’s what wakes people up.” - Todd Herman 30:43 - “The need for significance is at the very top right? It’s not even a core psychology; it’s just biologically the truth of how our brains are built. We need to learn how to break out brains.” - Todd Herman   Links and Resources: The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life, by Todd Herman Website: Todd Herman YouTube: Todd Herman Twitter: @todd_herman Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp!   You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, on my LinkedIn.

There is a direct correlation between the size of a company and how tight of a grip the owner has on it, and it's not in the way you might think. Listen to this incredibly important episode to learn how to double your company's enterprise value by giving up a bit of control—and why this is the best scary thing you can do for yourself and your business.    What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview How separating governance from management roles is vital to success. The five personality attributes business owners should know about: High-innovativeness; higher tolerance for ambiguity; high need for goal achievement; internal locus of control; and a higher propensity for prudent risk-taking. Why your identity can be either your superpower or kryptonite, which you can tell based on how you respond to being challenged. What generations get wrong in communication and how it leads to misunderstanding. How self-identity is often fused to role-identity and what to do about it. You can align your strategy and culture to improve your bottom line by 50%. How private equity destroys culture. That if you’re struggling today in your business, the next step is to make no decision except to start being curious. The sunk-cost fallacy and how to recognize the mindset. If you’re a dissenting voice, you need to have data to support your opinions before someone is going to be open to listening to you. How to capitalize on 2020's challenges to get the future you want.   Podcast Summary If you’re having trouble loosening your control on your business, you’ll need no more convincing than this episode with Allie Taylor. She has an actual PhD in business psychology which she applies to her business every day to help her clients achieve greater financial and personal freedom. Her tips on how to increase your enterprise value by 50% are powerful and simple, though require a bit of self-reflection and hard work. She also tackles common issues plaguing business owners like the sunk-cost fallacy and miscommunication issues at the workplace that result in decreased efficiencies. We need to learn how to leverage the people around us to achieve this, and that’s unnatural for most. As she says, you must seek to understand before you can be understood. That said, the first person you should seek to understand is yourself. Knowing if your identity (and your relationship with your business) is serving you or harming you cements the next steps you need to take for personal and business growth. As a business gets bigger, it becomes more complex. One person can't give all the disparate parts the attention they deserve, so it's necessary to learn how to give up control for growth. If you find yourself feeling defensive when questioned with a fresh perspective, your ego isn’t serving you. Separating your identity from your role in the business lets you see things more clearly to pivot both into stronger positions.   About Allie Taylor Allie Taylor has a PhD in business psychology and is the co-founder of Orange Kiwi, which helps low-to-mid market business owners achieve successful transitions and consults with advisors, senior leaders, boards and business family members. With a background in biology and chemistry, Allie’s insights into the psyche of a business owner are based on patterns and behavior and the consequences that follow. Sharing how identity impacts our decisions personally and professionally gives her clients a keen edge in transition planning.   Quotes: 02:28 - “Owners who relinquish control can over double the value of their business over time because of their ability to continue to grow the company.” - Ryan Tansom 10:17 - “What’s required to grow and scale a business are certain personality attributes. The literature is super clear about that.” - Allie Taylor 13:39 - “This need that we have as business owners to compete, not just with the world and our marketplace but with ourselves. And to be better this year than we were last year.” - Allie Taylor 21:36 - “And our identity is either going to be our superpower or our kryptonite at every phase of the business life-cycle.” - Allie Taylor 59:10 - “The first thing you can do is do something. Talk to one person that’s been through it or take a step out just to find one path that you could take to exit. Don’t make any decisions. Just start to be curious.” - Allie Taylor   Links and Resources: Orange Kiwi Allie Taylor, LinkedIn Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp!   You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, on my LinkedIn.

Today I'm talking to the #1 speaker on generations in the world, Jason Dorsey. We'll be diving into how different generations (and more specifically generation Z) and their values will have an impact on the future of economy, trends, consumerism, capitalism, and more.   What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview The different values and world events that create generational cohorts: Baby Boomers 1946-1964; Gen X 1965-1976; Millennials 1977-1995; Gen Z: 1996-TBD How Gen Z is changing things with their wallets and why they’re more likely to save money than spend it. Why Gen Zers entering the job market have the immediate potential to surpass their Millennial peers. What you can do to strengthen communication and therefore efficiencies between generations in your company for a better bottom line. What earned-wage access means and why it’s gaining traction. Gen Z’s buying and spending habits and what that indicates for future trends and the economy. Learn how to better connect to, build trust with, and drive influence over and between generations. What the “mega” me is. Insightful facts about Gen Z to help you better understand them, including that they trust influencers more than doctors. Why Gen Z ties stability to size and not history when it comes to businesses and how you can emphasize this during recruitment. Take The 2-Minute Assessment To Get Your Intentional Growth Score™ And 1-Page Vision Board.     Podcast Interview Summary: Today we're going to be talking with Jason Dorsey about Gen Z and their impact not only on the future of our economy, but business as we know it.  As author of Zconomy: How Gen Z Will Change the Future of Business—and What to Do About It, Jason knows what he’s talking about when he says a lot of our notions about Gen Z are dead wrong.  With over 1,000 standing ovations from his speeches on Gen Z and Millennials, and 65 generational studies for 700 different companies completed, Jason really is the “research guru” for tackling the next generation emerging onto the scene. He's been on 60 Minutes, CNBC and the Today Show, and has contributed to the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. He’ll show you what matters to Gen Z and what your business should be doing it about it, from communication styles that help win customers and employees to simply understanding the mindset that having grown up with technology like smartphones and the internet gives them.  Jason’s mission is to help businesses make informed decisions about their employees, clients, and customers. On the interview today, he's going to be talking about how Gen Z is going to come in like a wrecking ball and how they will reshape our entrepreneurial landscape. Gen Z is not afraid to put their wallets where their values are, and they expect you to do the same. FYI, Gen Z is already 24 years old. We're not just talking about babies and kids here, but current employees and consumers with real money and influence.  I love this episode because Jason has so much insight into the way that our world's going to change based on the demographics that he researches.It's very hard to predict the future, as we all know; however, when you look at the big trends different generations force into the system based on their values, you can better tap into what the future of your business should look like. You don't have to predict today what's going to happen, but you can set yourself up to ride the next wave of innovation.   About the Guest: Jason Doresy is a leading generational researcher, speaker, and author. He has appeared on over 200 TV shows including 60 Minutes, The Today Show, and The Early Show. His mission is to help leaders solve generational challenges with employees, customers, and emerging trends in order to grow their business faster. Jason and his business partner Denise Villa PhD, has written a book entitled, Zconomy: How Gen Z Will Change the Future of Business—and What to Do About It, in which they talk about the approach that Gen Z takes to employment as well as buying, shopping, and influencing   Quotes: 15:11 - “Understanding generations enables you to faster connect with, build trust, and drive influence.” - Jason Doresy 16:11 - “How you are raised is one of the greatest influencers of what people will go on to do.” - Jason Doresy 42:51 - “Gen Z wants to know if you’re going to be able to pay them, are you going to be around a long time. So if you’re trying to recruit them, it’s very important that you talk to them about how stable you are.” - Jason Doresy 57:13 - “For the employers and marketers and business owners, what I encourage you to do is to create what we call a generational snapshot. Which means you essentially create a pie chart that shows you the percentage of each generation that is in your workplace.” - Jason Doresy   Links and Resources: JasonDorsey.com GenHQ Jason Dorsey, LinkedIn Zconomy: How Gen Z Will Change the Future of Business—and What to Do About It, by Jason Dorsey and Denise Villa, PhD Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp! You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, on my LinkedIn.

For thirteen years, Roy has run the family business after his father-in-law turned it into an ESOP and transitioned out of an ownership role. Not only has the business grown from $6M to $19M since then, but both parties were able to achieve their desired financial and lifestyle goals because of the successfully orchestrated and executed ESOP. He’ll share how they did it on today’s episode!   What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview What it's like leading and growing the company as the next generation, after an ESOP transaction. How Hopkins Printing built their next level of leadership (and why that isn’t so easy sometimes).  What it's like running a company under the ESOP structure and how it differs from other ownership structures. What an ESOP is and how it differs from other ownership structures. How an ESOP helps you grow the business, with examples from Ray’s success. When and why an ESOP might not be the solution for you. Why Ray’s father-in-law chose an ESOP over an internal transfer or selling to a third party. How to cultivate an “ESOP mentality.” The way an ESOP can eliminate state and federal taxes. Why it’s important to separate management and ownership roles. The benefits of shifting your mindset away from annual income to long-term value creation. How Ray’s father-in-law was able to satisfy financial, lifestyle, and family needs through the ESOP. Why ESOPs aren’t a socialist enterprise and what involvement the employees really have.   Podcast Summary: Roy shares his insights into how effective ESOPs are after transition and why they're key to helping more business owners consider one over an internal transfer or a third party, just like his father-in-law did.   We all wonder what comes next for the generation after an ESOP. Roy is a prime example of a president getting it right through solid planning, communication and follow-through. In the past thirteen years, business has increased from $6M in revenue with 50 employees to $19M with 100 employees. And it worked for the management team and owners, too. Roy's father-in-law was able to work the amount he wanted after the sale of the company, without worrying about how the next generation would carry on his work. He already knew! He'd planned his succession and to have a team that would take as much care of his business as he would. To make this happen, they moved from a traditional annual income model to a long-term value creation one to ensure the business was tied to success after transition.  ESOPs aren’t for everyone, but if you take the time to cultivate an ESOP mentality before you take the plunge, you’ll find all sorts of ways to keep your business growing through the years, with higher employee engagement, retention and performance than typical business structures encourage.  It’s five minutes to closing — do you know where your employees are?   About the Guest: Roy Waterhouse has been in the family printing business for decades, working his way up to the presidential position at Hopkins Printing. Hopkins became an ESOP in 2007 and is 100% Employee Owned. Before that, he worked with Prepress, where he did film assembly, camera work, typesetting, layout and CAD work. Hopkins Printing is your commercial printer of choice for offset, wide-format and digital printing. For four decades, they have exceeded client expectations and turned creative ideas into realities. Customers have praised our offset printing, wide-format printing, digital printing, fulfillment and storefronts. They know that their clients’ success ultimately dictates their success, and that’s why their number one goal is to generate results for your business.   Quotes: 14:50 - “I don’t think you can flip the switch one day and have an ESOP mentality. ” - Roy Waterhouse 22:23 - “Had they wanted to have a quick exit, we couldn’t have done an ESOP. It doesn’t fit the model. What it fit really well was that Jim could stay involved and over time he had control over his life.” - Roy Waterhouse 30:12 - “Our ESOP education committee meets monthly and goes through questions from people and, ‘How do we explain it?’ and publishes notes so people can read things. There’s a lot of complexity to it. It can seem overwhelming.” - Roy Waterhouse 41:20 - “The trustee is a fiduciary responsibility to make sure the shareholders, the employees” are not taken advantage of.” - Roy Waterhouse 56:21 - “If somebody wants to go down the ESOP path, they need to get some really good advisors. Because the typical staff (your accountants, your attorneys) don’t have the background of an ESOP“  - Roy Waterhouse   Links and Resources: Episode #162 - What is an ESOP: A Deep Dive Into How Employee Stock Ownership Plans Work with Dave Diehl Episode #201 - The Current & Future State of Business Valuations with Dave Diehl Episode #206 - How SRC Grew 2x in Value After the Last 5 Recessions & Saved $100M Preparing for the Next One with Jack Stack Episode #156 - The Great Game of Business: The Only Sensible Way To Run Your Company with Jack Stack Website: Hopkins Printing LinkedIn: Roy Waterhouse Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp! You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, on my LinkedIn.

Hitting the ceiling is not always just an emotional or energy related event. Often times business owners get to a point where growth consumes capital, and they have to choose between reducing their annual income, selling out or stalling growth. What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview Growth capital, versus private equity, versus commercial lending Biggest challenges when trying to find the right type of capital for growth Why the “capital gap” exists in the lower and middle market Why the typical options for capital, described as “Bank vs. Shark Tank,” often are too extreme for what business owners really need to grow The importance of owners understanding their options in order to avoid regret after a deal How growth capital is different than the traditional private equity structure What they think is “effective capital” for companies Why the most common way for an equity investor to get their money is to sell the business Why not all capital is equal for business owners Why they focus their mechanism on supporting business owners The power of having motivation outside of earning money when designing your business   Take The 2-Minute Assessment To Get Your Intentional Growth Score™ And 1-Page Vision Board.    Podcast Summary In today’s episode, Patrick and Nick dive deeply into what they refer to as “the capital gap,” why companies hit a ceiling for growth, and how to find the right source of capital to grow the value of a business. There are mechanical issues that don’t necessarily allow traditional banks to lend (via debt) the capital needed to finance the growth. Typically, in high growth companies there may not be enough assets for the bank to take back if things go south. The opposite end of that spectrum is to sell the business, or sell a large portion of equity, to an investor who has the capital to support the growth. However, in that case, most of the upside in value creation and future distributions goes to that new equity partner. The emergence of growth capital is helping solve this issue. Patrick and Nick call it “efficient capital”. It bridges the gap for business owners who want to continue to grow while also keeping control of their company and reaping the benefits of that future value creation.  Patrick and Nick brought their finance and accounting backgrounds together when starting Hill Capital to create both a forward and historical looking mindset when supporting their business and investments. Before Hill Capital, Patrick co-founded equity capital markets at Northland Securities, where he was the Director of Research and Managing Director of Investment Banking. Nick spent the first part of his career as a CPA at KPMG. At Hill Capital, they focus on lower- to mid-market financing and provide capital and expertise to small business and entrepreneurs. Major takeaway – if growth capital is deployed correctly (into strategies that INCREASE the value of the business) it can help owners break through from a few hundred thousand dollars in EBITDA to a few million dollars. This specific range in EBITDA growth will increase the options of exits that weren’t possible (ESOPs or Private Equity) and unlock a different range of value multiples.   About the Guests: Patrick E. Donohue, CFA is the Managing Partner and CEO at Hill Capital Corporation. He has experience in direct private and public investments, investment banking, and equity research. Co-founded equity capital markets at Northland Securities (Director of Research and Managing Director, Investment Banking). He also has a BSBA Finance from  Creighton University, with honors. Nick Ehret is a CPA, Managing Partner, and CFO at Hill Capital Corporation. He has experience in public accounting, managing a single-family office, and small business operations. Managed the audits of investment portfolios totaling $70B under management. He also has a BA from Saint John’s University, where he graduated with honors.   Quotes: 31:50 - “You know, at the end of the day, it’s really all about a return on your investment capital and so we don’t need (and I don’t expect) business owners that are going to go on to be financial wizards but there needs to be an understanding of: not all capital is equal and money costs differently depending on the sources.” - Patrick E. Donohue 34:50 - “We encourage people to look for money-on-money, right? So if somebody puts a dollar in, what are they going to expect for a dollar back?.” - Patrick E. Donohue 15:56 - “We like to say that there’s always two sorts of capital that people think about; one being the bank and the other being shark tank.” - Nick Ehret 38:46 - “We’re trying to help them go from, ‘You don’t have a lot of choices’ to ‘Now you have a lot of choices.’ That’s our fundamental goal of what we’re doing.” - Nick Ehret   Links and Resources: Hill Capital Corporation Empire Builders LinkedIn: Hill Capital Corporation Twitter: @HillCapitalMN YouTube: Hill Capital Corporation Facebook: Hill Capital Corporation Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything, by BJ Fogg Atomic Habits: The life-changing million copy bestseller, by James Clear Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp! You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, on my LinkedIn.

The world can be a better place if more entrepreneurs can find a way to align the impact they want to make on the world with growing a more valuable business. Anne shares how she is making a dent in the world while benefiting all her stakeholders and creating a lasting business. What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview How Anne and her team are using social science and human behavior to change the energy industry Why business is the center to make sure people have great lives How to prioritize all your stakeholders’ while growing a more valuable company How to align your personal core values with your company’s core values Ways to use your business as leverage to spread your personal values Why ‘value’ has multiple dimensions How focusing on building a healthy company creates a more valuable business Why we need to break through the narrative that we can’t live great lives while making money and creating a great business Why Anne prioritized a family-centric model when starting her own company Why this model can attract more talented employees How their model appeals to their clients and peers How living misaligned with your values can impact you physically and mentally Podcast Interview Summary: Anne shares with us that profit and growth do not need to come at the expense of a business’s stakeholders and their interests; if you can identify your goals and core values, you can integrate them into your company’s model to build an even more successful and long-lasting organization. Anne and her partner had intentionality from the start of ILLUME when they decided to prioritize the needs and rights of their employees—this decision set the tone for their company’s entire culture and ethos. This decision has attracted talented employees and fantastic clients, and it also produces exceptional work. In short, Anne and ILLUME are an awesome example of how being intentional about what you want from your business and engineering the company around your values puts you in an upward spiral of success. Are You Growing The Value of Your Business Take The 2-Minute Assessment To Get Your Intentional Growth Score™ And 1-Page Vision Board. About the Guest: Anne Dougherty started her career after graduate school in applied consumer product research for fortune 100 companies. She made the shift to the energy industry and used her expertise to examine the human behavior dimension of energy as a consultant. After about ten years in that field, Anne and her business partner decided to start a consulting firm of their own, but with a feminist and family-centric model of business.   Podcast Interview Quotes: 13:08 - “People have an almost mythical relationship with electricity” - Anne Dougherty 22:01 - “I just kinda want to layer in that you and I are both capitalists at heart and that there is a way for us to do all of this” - Ryan Tansom, on the topic of conscious capitalism 25:51 - “We really wanted to create an environment where you could advance based on your ability to get the work done in the time that you committed to and not just in terms of sheer volume of work.” - Anne Dougherty     45:12 - “Thinking about the value of the company is thinking about the metrics. A highly valuable company is a very healthy company.” - Anne Dougherty   Links and Resources: ILLUME Advising Instagram:@illume_advising Twitter: @illumeadvising LinkedIn: ILLUME Advising Podcast: Current: An Energy Podcast Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp! You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, on my LinkedIn

Privately held companies in the middle market ($10M - $1B in revenue) account for 1/3 of the US GDP as well as 44.5 million jobs. Unlike the stock market, we can’t just jump online and see how well they are doing. Today we’re diving into mountains of data on the middle market with former Managing Director of Harvard Business Review and Editor of Fortune. What You Will Learn In Today's Podcast Interview Why the top private companies cluster into 3 typologies: investors, innovators, and efficiency experts. The 7 key factors that contribute to the growth (and are under the owner and management’s control) How to focus on enterprise value instead of just annual profitability How privately held companies in the middle market are dealing with uncertainty How COVID has impacted the likelihood of different types of transitions for middle market companies Why the middle market consistently outperforms the S&P 500 The 5 “COVID cushions” to manage uncertainty Why the middle market is where businesses become companies How an entrepreneur transitions to the CEO role by thinking beyond the lifespan of an individual or company   Podast Summary: Quarter after quarter privately held middle market companies post higher rates of growth and employment than the public or lower markets. In general, it is hard to understand how middle market companies operate since a majority are privately owned—today Tom Stewart explains how these businesses are doing things differently to grow faster than their larger and smaller peers.  Tom is the Executive Director of the National Center for the Middle Market. He was also the Editor and Managing Director of Harvard Business Review for six years and participated in the World Economic Forum twelve timesthroughout his career. Tom and the National Center for the Middle Market are dedicated to researching and understanding the middle market economy. This organization, housed in the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University, is the only research group that focuses on mid-sized companies. They have surveyed 1,000 midsize companies each quarter for the past ten years, giving them the necessary data to fill in the information gap on the middle third of the private sector. Here is a link the research on the DNA of the Middle Market As usual, a group of top tier middle market companies is responsible for a large percentage of this growth. By understanding what contributes to the growth of these companies and what they do differently to consistently outperform their peers, the Center identified 3 types of companies and 7 pillars of growth that are fundamental to their success.  About the Guest: Thomas A. Stewart is the Executive Director of the National Center for the Middle Market, the leading source for knowledge, leadership and research on mid-sized companies, based at the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University. Stewart is an influential thought leader on global management issues and ideas: an internationally recognized editor and publisher, authority on intellectual capital and knowledge management, and a best-selling author. Before joining the National Center for the Middle Market, Stewart served as Chief Marketing and Knowledge Officer for international consulting firm Booz & Company (now called Strategy&), overseeing the firm’s intellectual agenda, major research projects, and strategy + business magazine. Prior to that, he was for six years the Editor and Managing Director of Harvard Business Review, leading it to multiple finalist nominations for a National Magazine Award. He earlier served as the editorial director of Business 2.0 magazine and as a member of the Board of Editors of Fortune magazine. His new book, Woo, Wow, and Win: Service Design, Strategy, and the Art of Customer Delight (co-authored with Patricia O’Connell), was published by Harper Business in November 2016.   Podcast Interview Quotes: 12:14 - “This is where a business becomes a company: in the middle. It’s where an entrepreneur becomes a CEO and has to make that transition.” - Tom Stewart 39:00 - “The moral of the story is: preparation, preparation, preparation.” - Tom Stewart 49:50 - “Uncertainty is the single hardest thing to manage.” - Tom Stewart 57:44 - “It means that I have, in the back of my head, a long term goal that I’m trying to get to. I once heard Bill Clinton say, ‘If you’re getting to a goal, you never sail directly toward it.’” - Tom Stewart 58:00 - “Intentional means to me, my tactics may vary but I have intent. I have a purpose. I know what I’m trying to get to.” - Tom Stewart.   Links and Resources: Previous episode with Tom: Secrets of Growth: Data, Trends, and Insights from the Middle Market Middle Market Center website LinkedIn: Thomas A Stewart Mastering Your Cash Flow Digital Course ARKONA Boot Camp Reach out to me if you have questions about the boot camp! You can also reach out to me via email at rtansom@arkona.io, on my LinkedIn.