CEO Coaching International Podcast

Brenda Jacobsen started in the family business right out of college and eventually rose to CEO of the company. After a "type-A driven business woman" told Brenda about the coach she was using and raved about the tremendous results she was getting, Brenda decided to contact the coach. Shortly after hiring CEO Coaching International coach Jay Reid, Brenda's company got an unsolicited offer to buy her company. The timing was perfect. Working with Jay and the team at CEO Coaching, Brenda was able to bring in another buyer to the table, play one off the other, and get a much higher sale price--all while negotiating a good payout for herself. This is the behind the scenes story of a business sale that can benefit all small to mid-size companies when it comes time to sell your company.

Sheldon Harris, the former president of Cold Stone Creamery, entrepreneur, and now coach at CEO Coaching International, says meetings don’t have to be a boring waste of time. In fact, he says there’s a specific “cadence” of meetings and a structure that enables leaders at all levels to be highly effective communicators. By following his strategy, you can turn internal communication into a scalable competitive advantage for your company.

The amazing story of how two guys started a revolutionary real estate e-commerce company that has transacted more than $30 billion in real estate--online.   Rob Friedman and his high school friend Jeff started an offline auction company that did reasonably well. But then the internet came along and they decided to put some listings online. Things really took off when, after four years of badgering the owner, they bought the domain Auction.com for $1.7 million and rebranded the company. Today, Auction.com is the country's (and possibly the world's) largest e-commerce seller of real estate. And they hold a world record! The Auction.com platform was used to facilitate the largest verified e-commerce transaction in history based on current Guinness World Records information: The $96 million sale of Manhattan Towers, a two-building, 309,734 square-foot office property in Southern California.

Like great entrepreneurs, Todd and Sean saw a need and built a company to fill it. Sensing that e-commerce was about to explode in the late 1990s, they decided to start a company to supply these firms with fulfillment services. Right on queue, business took off. However, they had to overcome early stumbles in hiring the right people for the leadership team before the business was on solid footing. Today, people, culture, and systems keep the firm on the Inc. 5000 list.

Former COO of Grasshopper shares the three keys and one metric you must optimize as you start massively scaling your business. Don Schiavone, the former COO of fast-growing Grasshopper, "The Entrepreneur's Phone System," was instrumental in leading the company as it optimized its 100% digital marketing growth strategy and its eventual sale to a Fortune 500 company. He brings together an in-depth understanding of technology with a data-driven “test-everything” philosophy: You can’t manage what you can’t measure. While coaching entrepreneurs at CEO Coaching, Don's approach to coaching focuses on three pillars of success: people, process, and systems.

CEOs from around the world gathered in Newport Beach, CA recently for the third annual CEO Coaching International Summit. Guest speakers included bestselling authors, health experts, CEO Coaching's founding partner Mark Moses as well as several of CEO Coaching's clients. By the end of the two days of learning, networking, and socializing, attendees headed home to all parts of the world with new ideas and relationships that will accelerate their business growth for years to come. In today's episode, we discuss many of the key takeaways from the event. 

Josh McCarter led the spinout of a small firm and with great leadership and a big vision, re-focused the company into new markets and the company experienced explosive growth. As a software-as-a-service (SaaS) company, Booker’s platform empowers firms such as spas, salons, dance studios, and photographers to manage their appointments, their staff, and their customers, and, importantly, be able to transact with those customers. With a recent acquisition, Booker has become an end-to-end platform that a service-based business can use to both run their operations and grow their sales. In today's show, Josh discusses the keys to the firm's growth and how the SaaS model works. 

What started as a bunch of nerds who got together in downtown LA to share projects they were working on has turned into a brand new genre of entertainment that fuses the physical and digital to create a new world of social amusement. Brent and his friends created an initial interactive high-tech game and installed it at local parties just for fun with no profit motive. After doing about eight parties, big brands began calling and asking if Brent and his colleagues could create an immersive technology experience for their parties. Quickly, the vision expanded. While everybody knows the importance of STEM (science, technology, engineering, math), Brent is passionate about rebranding STEM learning to STEAM with the inclusion of art and creative. He is motivated by the power of group games and interactive media to bring people together in fun and meaningful ways. As a UCLA-trained engineer, he is a hands-on maker who uses rapid prototyping to turn vision into reality--and make money in the process.

Rick Stern, an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year® Award finalist builds a telecom company that lands on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing private companies in America for 7 consecutive years--and counting. He set a goal early in life to start a successful company, and now he's the CEO of a 7-time Inc. 5000 member. Yet he’ll proudly show you pictures of his wife and four kids before he’ll hand you a business card. Because it’s still all about winning one for the team. Here's one of many takeaways from the podcast. 1. Reset your goals BEFORE you achieve them. Most people are happy just to meet their goals. Rick and his business partner Ron Grason have always been very aggressive about what's next. "If we were able to walk a mile, we wanted to run three. When we ran two, we reset the goal to run 10. We've always stretched ourselves from a goal-setting perspective and continue to spread our wings for growth opportunities, whether it be sales, product, network, or something else," said Rick. Are you resetting your goals as you near the finish line?

Growing up in a working-class family in southwest Sydney, Australia with no entrepreneurs in her family, Jo took the traditional and safe route and became an employee of somebody else’s company. She quickly rose to CEO but by age 32, was bored out of her mind. She quit and eventually started Job Capital, a payroll and migration services firm, and built it to more than $40 million in revenue. More startup companies followed and in 2012, she was named a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Today, Jo still leads Job Capital and she’s also building her newest company, Rare Birds, into a global powerhouse to empower women entrepreneurs around the world. In today’s podcast, Jo shares her inspiring story and the hard fought business lessons that have propelled her career.