Scaling Up Business Podcast

Nathan Beckord — Capital Raising Mistakes: Third Time’s the Charm   Today, Bill and his guest take an in-depth look at some of the common mistakes startup founders make when trying to raise capital. Having gone through the experience himself a number of times, our guest shares key highlights he’s learned from his extensive career as an interim CFO, Business Developer, and Advisor.   Nathan Beckord is the CEO and Founder of Foundersuite.com, a venture-backed company that provides critical resources for startups looking to raise capital. Foundersuite’s users have raised over $3 billion in seed and venture capital and Nathan himself is also the podcast host of “How I Raised It.”   Nathan got his start in investment banking and was helping companies raise capital. He found that everyone was basing their data and analysis on old-school spreadsheets and proposal docs, but what if he could create a software platform that could provide an all-in-one solution to raising capital? That’s how his company was born.   Toda

In this week’s episode, Scaling Up has 12 fan-favorite episodes from 2021. In case you’ve missed some of these classics, we have a quick recap of each of the episodes and the guests below. Thank you for listening to the Scaling Up show!   Neil Gordon works with entrepreneurs, executives, influencers, and thought leaders to overcome their messaging struggles. He helps them streamline their message to convey their value in unexpected ways. Prior to his work as a communications expert, Neil worked on the editorial staff of Penguin Random House. He is also the VIP contributor for Entrepreneur with three of his articles making it to the #1 spot on the website’s most popular posts.   Sarah Dawn is a Business Growth Expert and host of The Blissed Biz Podcast. She helps entrepreneurs and professionals create the business of their dreams that supports a lifestyle they love. A seven-figure entrepreneur herself, Sarah was burned out and overwhelmed in the beginning. Despite checking all the boxes, she sacrificed her hea

Charlie Bailes is this week’s Getting Real entrepreneur where he chats with Bill about his entrepreneurial life. He is a fourth-generation wine business owner and the Founder of CB Supplements. Get to know his journey, some of the challenges he faced with filling the past generations’ shoes, and so much more!   Because of the pandemic, Charlie has seen a lot of supply chain issues in his wine business. He buys products from all over the world, so it affects him on a larger scale than one might think. If France is shut down, well, it means he’s going to have a hard time acquiring French wine. He found himself having to ration his liquor supply to help keep things stable.   Also, because of what’s happening between Russia and Ukraine, Charlie has taken all the Russian-made brands off of his shelf to support Ukraine's fight. Though, it’s interesting to note that because we live in such a global world, what really classifies as a “Russian” brand anymore? So many products get sourced all over to create a particula

This week’s episode is all about strategy! For some leaders, planning ahead can come seamlessly, for others, not so much. You might have run into a problem where you’ve planned a cohesive strategy, but when it comes to the execution, it doesn’t quite turn out the way you’ve envisioned. Our guest shares how you can optimize your strategy for maximum impact.   Ron Price is the President and Founder of Price Associates, a global leadership performance firm. He is an internationally recognized Business Advisor, Executive Coach, Speaker, and Author. He is also the author of the new book, Optimizing Strategy For Results.   Ron comes from an entrepreneurial family. His father became an entrepreneur because he wanted to live out his values. There were a lot of valuable lessons his father had instilled into Ron and it paved a way for him within his business and executive career.   Despite Ron’s diverse career over the last 40 years, he can boil it down to two critical pieces for his success: talent and strategy. Talen

In this episode of Scaling Up Insights, Bill is joined by panelists Neale Lewis, Stacy Eads, and Judy Guido to discuss the latest advancements in the world of Scaling Up.   The first on the agenda is Keith Ferrazzi’s latest book, Competing in the New World of Work. As we’re coming up towards the third year of “a different way of working in life,” Keith details that the biggest takeaway out of all of this is that being vulnerable is okay. People are breaking down. They’re exhausted and leaders need to be tuned in to accurately address that.   When CEOs notice that their teams are stressed out, Bill offers advice that instead of trying to “problem-solve” their stress, take a step back and get real and vulnerable. Tell the team you’re also stressed in an authentic way! By revealing this insight, people were able to open up and a real dialogue was able to start. If you want people to be open and honest, you have to be open and honest first.   Scaling Up is launching the 20,000 Scale Up Program. It’s a 12-month in

Do you ever feel fear or anxiety over the unknown future ahead? How can you navigate through something when you don’t know what you don’t know? And more importantly, how can you scale if you’re not sure where you are in your growth stage? Today’s guest has some answers.   Marissa Levin has been an entrepreneur for over 25 years and is a globally-recognized growth strategist. In 1995, she launched her first business and grew it to $13 million in revenue. Her current venture, Successful Culture, is a leadership consulting organization that helps CEOs master the three most critical aspects of business growth: leadership development, strategy formulation and execution, and organizational culture assessment and improvement.   Building your first company can often feel like building a plane while you’re flying it. Every day, you’re just hoping you’re making the right decision to move forward. However, an advisory board can be the most compelling and effective strategic tool that leadership can use to get to their n

In this Getting Real Episode, Bill sits down with Shawn Hill, a software entrepreneur that makes it easy for companies to track customer growth and their own reputation. You’ll learn about his journey, some of his struggles, and how he got his big break in this week’s show!   Shawn is the Community Marketing Director for NiceJob. He’s passionate about engaging with small businesses through social media, videos, and podcasts to help them develop their reputation marketing and ensure their success with the NiceJob platform. He often writes about marketing channels for small businesses and how to create fan cultures.   Reputation marketing is all about taking the parts of your reputation that you can control, making it better, and amplifying it to your audience. It’s about owning your uniqueness and using it as a strength, even if certain customers are put off by it.   One of Shawn’s biggest struggles right now is the push and pull between manual processes and automation. There has to be a balance between the tw

If you believe you have to burn yourself out or overextend yourself to ‘have it all’, then this episode is for you. Today’s guest believes yes, you can have it all, but it has to start with an intentional and thoughtful plan or else it will not be sustainable.    Jack Daly is a leading Sales Speaker and Trainer and has spent over 30 years of his career helping sales and executives succeed. In 2022, Jack released his 10th book, Jack Daly’s Life By Design, that shares with the world his special recipe for life well lived.   Jack is just a few weeks away from turning 73, but he learned a long time ago how to live, and design, an intentional life. Jack not only has built six companies from scratch and sold a few of them, but he’s also flown a jet fighter plane with zero training, shark dived in Africa, completed 15 ironmans (even when he didn’t know how to swim), and ran a marathon in all 50 states and 7 continents. None of these high achievements came by accident.    It’s not about building a successful business

The sales process can be frustrating for any startup founder trying to find their mark. Even more seasoned companies struggle with closing more deals. This week’s guest understands that if you truly want to scale, you have to adopt a sales mindset, a process, and your language.   Jason Forrest became established as a top 1% sales professional in his career and has gone on to train others in the field. Throughout his career, he’s found that the common sales techniques being taught out there puts limitations on others. As a result of Jason’s hands-on sales experience, his coaching and consulting work has led sales teams to increase their effectiveness and drive more profit.   To create a powerful sales team, you must work on changing bad habits or bad behaviors. Most of us have “default” programming where, for whatever reason, we believe what we believe. This is our truth and how we show up and interact in the world. What we think to be true will inevitably drive our emotions, and our emotions drive our motivat

In this Getting Real episode, we hear from a custom home builder on the ups and downs of his entrepreneurial journey.   Tim Winter got his start as a builder at a young age while working with his father on home renovation projects. By the time he was 28 years old, he started his own venture and formed the company he has today, Paradigm Homes. He builds custom homes and redesigns older homes to fit the homeowner’s specific needs.   Tim started his business in 2007 and the crash happened shortly after. The biggest lesson he learned was not only to be consistent but to be flexible when you gather new information. This advice still rings true today with the uncertainties the pandemic has given to the housing market.   Tim has been working a lot on the culture of the business. They hired a scaling-up executive coach and that’s really elevated the business and helped them focus on hiring for core values instead of personality. Tim is proud to have a good team around him, and even though he is the CEO, he feels very

We go deep into an entrepreneur’s unconventional path in this week’s episode of Getting Real. After an industry change, this business owner saw some interesting parallels that made him realize that people are really the cornerstone to your company’s success.   Michael Solomon has three businesses today, one in artist management, freelance software talent management, and compensation negotiation services. He is also the author of the book, Game Changer, which dives into how to get the most out of the talent economy.   Right out of school, Michael found himself touring with Bruce Springsteen. That was the first insight into seeing what 10xers can do with their networking ability and star power. After that experience, Michael would later go on to found his own artist management company, which is still going strong 26 years later.   In the early 2000s, the music industry got crushed by file-sharing websites. Seeing the writing on the wall, Michael knew he had to pivot. He noticed the next new rockstars were reall

In this Getting Real episode, we learn from an entrepreneur who purchases and scales wellness companies. We find out how he got into this line of work and some painful lessons he’s had to learn along the way. Mike Giannulis is the Founder of Sanetris, an international health and wellness company that is on track to eight figures in annual revenue. Originally a high school dropout, Mike has worked his way into living the American Dream. One of Mike’s superpowers is looking for people who possess skill sets he doesn’t have, cultivating them into thinking bigger, and setting them to work in an important aspect of the business. Mike always knew he was entrepreneurial. He got his start as a poem writer when he was a kid and, when he turned 18, he purchased a “get rich quick” real estate course because he knew he wanted to work for himself. And although he failed in that venture, it was just the building blocks to what he does now. His self-drive and hustle have found him in some weird business ventures, like purch

Don’t you wish you had an easier time with your workflow and bringing new team members up to speed? Have you ever taken a look at your systems and processes and known that they could be optimized more effectively? Today’s guest shares how to streamline this in an easy way where it doesn’t overwhelm you! Chris Ronzio is the founder & CEO of Trainual, an online training resource manual for your company to help train employees, contractors, and more. He was also named EY Entrepreneur of the Year in 2021 and is the author of the new book, The Business Playbook. Chris takes his Business Playbook to a different level. Everyone wants to jump right into SOPs and their special business processes, but employees need more context than just a recipe book. People need to know why this business operates the way it does. If you want people to grow with you, you can’t just be teaching them the nuts and bolts of the business. You have to teach them the heart and soul of the business. If you were just a random person off o

Today’s topic focuses on curiosity! How it impacts the world around us today, how to cultivate it, and how more of it within your team helps your business scale and grow! Dr. Alison Horstmeyer is a Talent Development Consultant, Executive Coach, and Humanistic Thought Leader. Her research focuses on curiosity and associated mental, emotional, and motivational attributes. Dr. Alison is considered to be one of the pioneering practitioners in workplace curiosity. Dr. Alison has been called in to launch new things or disrupt them. Through her work, she became fascinated with why people had so much anxiety, complacency, and stress around the work that they do. She noticed this pattern across so many diverse international teams that she decided to go back to school for it. She wanted to answer, can we be curious and anxious at the same time? As Dr. Alison studied different disciplines, she realized curiosity and anxiety are closely related. However, depending on the person, they can use the fear of the unknown as a

Welcome to another Getting Real episode, where Bill digs into the ups and downs of an entrepreneur’s journey. Today’s guest dives into the world of online business and what he had to do differently to stand out. Jaryd Krause used to work 60-plus hours a week as a plumber. He would often make enough money to leave to go travel, and when he ran out, he’d be right back in that cycle. He wanted to create something more sustainable, and so he tried his hand at buying his first online business. Jaryd is grateful he got into the plumbing business. He uses the analogy all the time that if you don’t fix the leaks in your financial life, acquiring a business is only going to worsen your situation. Respectively, with determining where to invest within your business, faulty business plumping only heightens your financial problem. Starting a business is so hard and there are so many online courses out there trying to sell you on that dream. Jaryd understands this. He tried to start an online business on the side as a plum

Are you low on chutzpah? Today’s guest is all about getting your hutzpah levels up to peak levels! If you’re ready to go bigger, bolder, and take on smarter risks, then this is the episode for you! Mason Harris is the Founder of Robin Technologies Inc., which earned local and national growth awards. He is also an author and a speaker and is out with a new book called The Chutzpah Advantage, where he dives into how to be more strategic about the unknown. What is chutzpah, really? Originally a Yiddish word, it can mean being a little bold and being a little cheeky. However, anyone who has entrepreneurial blood in them has a little bit of chutzpah. If you’re interested in striving and making your company more efficient, you’ve got chutzpah! Is chutzpah good or bad? In researching the book, Mason discovered that it’s, realistically, a skillset you can finetune over time with practice. In Mason’s research, he found eight key characteristics of chutzpah! Mason’s acronym and eight characteristics in chutzpah are: C

Today Bill is sitting down and getting the inside scoop on an entrepreneur’s backstory and how he began his career as a business owner, and now a regular podcaster. Find about some of his toughest challenges throughout over two decades of experience, in this week’s episode!   David Mammano has started seven businesses from scratch in the last 25 years and now uses these experiences to help accelerate other business owners’ growth. He is a board member for the Western NY Make-A-Wish Foundation and a graduate of the MIT Entrepreneurial Masters Program, an executive education program offered through Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO).   David started his first company when he was 25 years old. Prior to that, he’d been working in radio sales for three years, but knew he needed something more. His company was a magazine company that helped high school kids with college and career planning. The magazine exploded and he decided to franchise it.   However, the digital revolution caught up with David, and especially wit

Miscommunication happens all the time in the workplace. Are you just saying things in a complex way? Are people just interpreting your “clear language” in a strange way? There’s a lot of factors to unpack on why miscommunication happens, and this week’s guest has some insight on how to reduce it. Debra Roberts, LCSW, is a Conversation Expert and the Creator of the Relationship Protocol. She helps business people navigate the important conversations in their lives by teaching the “how-to” on communicating effectively. Debra is also an award-winning author and has been featured on multiple media platforms, including The New York Times. Communication shapes our relationships and it influences the quality of our life. Unfortunately, we don’t learn how to communicate effectively at home or school. This is something we have to take conscious part in developing, and it’s not always clear cut on how to do so, especially when it comes to having the tough conversations. One of the ways you can build a deeper connection

This week’s topic covers how to have a more resilient mindset when you’re focused on building your own company. Headspace is almost everything when you’re dealing with a lot of moving pieces, unforeseen stressors, and disruption. Today’s guest has some answers on how you can handle the unknown and certainty with ease. John Swanson is the CEO of Wendell, a coaching company that focuses on the areas of Mindset and Health. He was the former CEO of Granite Games, Fast Factory Fitness, and Factory Forge. He is also an avid professional athlete who is passionate about shortening business leaders’ to-do lists and turning them into clear action steps that move the needle. When you fail, that’s when you really learn. As a professional athlete, John has had his fair share of failures and when he retired, he found a new path that led him to help other athletes with their nutrition, sports performance, and mindset. A lot of times, life will not meet your expectations. How do you manage the disappointment in your life? Do

Today’s topic is something the business world doesn’t always talk about or lean into as much, and that’s trusting your intuition. How do we know when we’re on the right path vs. not? This week’s guest offers her insights on the topic. Kim Woods is an Intuitive Strategist and Spiritual Consultant to high-performing entrepreneurs and global leaders. She was also a former business consultant at Oracle. Her True KLT Process™ has helped entrepreneurs trust themselves more effectively to create personal, professional, and financial success. Kim got into this line of work because she was very dissatisfied in her corporate life. She was unable to know, like, and trust herself because of her toxic environment. It felt like every day she was just going down the wrong path, and she was trying everything she could to ignore her intuition and her needs. When you’re able to tap into your intuition and actually trust the decisions you’re making, you show up as a better leader. You have more clarity. When you trust yourself,