Entrepreneurs United

Krystal Hicks (Founder / Career Strategist, JOBTALK, LLC) started her company after 10+ years in the employment sector as she saw there was a huge need for affordable, accessible, and inclusive career counseling among job seekers.    At the same time, Krystal watched employers struggle to attract, recruit, and retain the talent they wanted and needed and her firm started to become a liaison between candidates and organizations.    Today, JOBTALK is a career counseling practice that provides one-on-one job hunting support to individuals in transition, as well as employer branding and RPO consulting to companies.   Krystal also teaches her course, “College to Career: How to stand out in today’s job market” to undergraduate business students.

Aleta Norris (Co-Founder, Living As A Leader®) is an expert leadership coach and trainer with 30 years of experience developing leaders. She is committed to helping leaders learn what great leadership looks like. This competence and confidence changes the employee experience. As a result of effective leadership, employees have a better experience at work and a better life all around.   Aleta is also a two-time author of “Women Who Spark” and “Women Who Spark After 50”. She regularly speaks for annual meetings, keynote engagements, panel discussions, and networking groups.   You can access some free resources at: www.livingasaleaderonline.com

Diane Pleuss (Franchise Business Consultant and Career Transition Specialist, FranChoice) has been focused on helping others find their perfect franchise fit since 2004. If you have ever wanted to start your own business and ever thought about owning a franchise, Diane is the matchmaker you have been looking for. Starting a business can be daunting and the initial start-up years of building your own business can be very risky and hard while owning a franchise can help you accelerate your earning potential by providing you with proven business systems right out of the gate. Enjoy the conversation!

Shawn Shepheard (Business Growth Coach & Keynote Speaker, The Leadership Advantage) is an executive coach, business strategist and keynote speaker. Shawn helps great leaders become exceptional, on their terms. Shawn has a long track record of being the secret weapon for executives and business owners. He has worked with entrepreneurs across North America, and for global companies including LinkedIn, Verizon, Johnson & Johnson, Javelin, Allstate, Kaloutas, Tim Hortons, Kraft Foods, Cassidy Paving, and the YMCA. Many of his clients think of him as their private Sherpa—in their corner and helping them reach new heights. His unique ability is using his raw honesty combined with his sense of humor and adventure to help people reignite the dream vision they’ve always wanted, and provide clarity that gets them excited and moves them into immediate positive action where they’ll become even bigger stars than they already are.

Javier Lozano, Jr. (Anchor Wave, CMO), is both an experienced entrepreneur and a senior-level strategist. Javier is the host of the "Trust Tipping Point" Marketing Podcast where he shares a ton of marketing strategies for businesses looking to improve their marketing efforts.   As an entrepreneur, he opened his first business in 2008, during the great recession, and built it up over a decade before selling the business.  As a senior-level business strategist, he entered an unfamiliar industry but armed with marketing strategies and sales systems that he had learned as an entrepreneur brought in new business and opportunities from Fortune 100 companies and some of the biggest brands in the world.   Now, he is on a mission to stop businesses from spending and losing millions of dollars on poor marketing strategies and broken sales processes.   His company Anchor Wave gives out customized Digital Marketing Playbooks that lay out the foundation and "next steps" your business should take when setting up a marketing strategy.   Our listeners can schedule a free playbook session by going to: www.anchorwave.com/playbook

Gordon Blocker (Principal Consultant, The Table Group, a Pat Lencioni Company) works regularly with CEOs and executive teams in quickly and effectively applying the concepts captured in all of Pat Lencioni's books. He helps leadership teams transform their organization by creating organizational clarity, over-communicating that clarity, and reinforcing key messages through human systems. In addition to his work with consulting clients, Gordon has extensive first-hand experience building high-performing teams by implementing the models in his own teams for nearly a decade. His relational, dynamic leadership style helps clients break through dysfunctional barriers and gain strategic insights and clarity. He loves implementing practical processes and tools teams can use to accelerate their success and ultimately lead to genuine organizational growth.

Erin Diehl (Founder and Chief Edutainment Officer, improve it! LLC) develops teams and leaders through play, improv, and experiential learning. Erin is a Business Improv Edutainer, Failfluencer and Professional Zoom-bie. Empirical evidence has shown that improvisational training can enhance professional development, team building, effective communication, networking, presentation skills, leadership capabilities, the act of thinking quickly on your feet, and everything in between. Improve it!, has helped everyone, from Fortune 500 companies to small mom and pop shops, transform their business, their leadership, and their people - through play. Erin has the privilege of speaking on stages nationwide for all types of events and associations and shares her learnings with us here on this podcast.

Joel Bennett (Owner, Veel Hoeden Consulting) has 20+ years of human resources experience and builds improved organizational capacity by providing customized consulting, training, and coaching services to growth-focused businesses. His expertise in leadership development, performance management, and change management in blue-collar environments allows him to assist leaders in tackling challenging personnel and organizational issues.     Joel’s firm, Veel Hoeden Consulting, develops leaders who transform their teams and exceed expectations.  To do that, they use a proven methodology to bridge the gap between education and application that helps companies measure the impact of their efforts.  Its flagship program, Frontline Leadership, has been utilized by a variety of businesses in the manufacturing, construction, and field service industry.

Mike Zani (The Predictive Index, CEO), runs The Predictive Index, a talent optimization platform that uses over 60 years of proven science and software to help businesses design high-performing teams and cultures, make objective hiring decisions and inspire greatness in people.   Mike is also the co-founder and partner at Phoenix Strategy Investments, a private investment fund. An avid sailor, he was the coach of the 1996 US Olympic Team.    Mike's newly released first book “The Science of Dream Teams” provides entrepreneurs and leaders with actionable advice on how to win starting with your talent and human resources strategy.   Lot’s of aha moments in this episode, let’s jump right in!

Building a world-class sales team should be a major priority for entrepreneurs wanting to grow their businesses.  In this episode, our co-hosts, Rich Hoffmann and John St.Pierre share their learnings from both success and failures of building sales teams. The 5 keys to building a world-class sales team will walk entrepreneurs through finding and recruiting top sales talent, how to properly train them for success, helping them become top producers, and ultimately how to retain the best performers.