Jacob Lapera, Author at Business RadioX ® Page

Fixing Stalled Revenue: How Go-to-Market Strategy Drives Growth

May 5, 2026 by Jacob Lapera

High Velocity Radio

Fixing Stalled Revenue: How Go-to-Market Strategy Drives Growth

00:00 /

In this episode on High Velocity Radio, Lee speaks with James Hayden, a go-to-market strategist and fractional CRO, about how companies can fix stalled revenue and build scalable growth. James explains the importance of achieving strong product-market fit, identifying ideal customers, and targeting early adopters before expanding to the broader market. He shares how aligning sales with product, operations, and finance is critical to driving consistent results, and why many organizations struggle due to silos, poor processes, or lack of clear revenue focus. Through real-world examples, he highlights the impact of leadership, disciplined sales activity, and the right tools—from CRM systems to sales intelligence platforms—in creating predictable growth. The conversation emphasizes a holistic, hands-on approach to diagnosing problems, building effective teams, and turning underperforming sales organizations into high-performing revenue engines.

James Hayden is a Go-To-Market strategist and Fractional CRO who has helped 140+ companies drive over $1B in revenue. With 8+ years designing and implementing AI solutions, he specializes in GTM diagnostics, sales enablement, BDR training, and CRM optimization (HubSpot).

He advises founders and leadership teams on building repeatable revenue engines, partner/channel strategy, and AI-powered sales acceleration.

Connect with James on LinkedIn and Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

How to define your ideal customer profile and key buyer personas in complex sales.
The role of alignment across sales, product, operations, and finance in driving growth.
Common breakdowns in sales teams, including poor reporting, lack of focus, and unclear expectations.
Why revenue-generating activity—not just “consulting”—must be the priority for sales teams.
Practical ways to build predictable pipelines using the right messaging, channels, and cadence.
How tools like CRM systems and sales intelligence platforms improve visibility and decision-making.
The impact of leadership, accountability, and culture in turning around underperforming teams.
Why a holistic, hands-on approach is more effective than applying generic sales tactics.
How discipline, clear goals, and consistent execution can transform results quickly.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have James Hayden, who is a go to market strategist and fractional CRO Chief Revenue Officer. And that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. Welcome, James.

James Hayden: Hey, Lee, good to hear your voice.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your, uh, the services you offer regarding go to market and fractional CRO services.

James Hayden: You bet. So I work with organizations when revenue gets stuck, if you will, a lot of organizations, when they’re launching a new product, they haven’t done the right product to market fit. So I work with organizations On on getting that set up. I’ve worked with a number of organizations on turning around the existing sales teams, and it really means an alignment with a lot of the rest of the organization as well. So in general, I’d say if there’s if there’s a revenue issue in the organization, I come in and work with the teams to fix it. I’ve worked with approximately, it’s just over 140 companies, and I can explain that. It sounds sounds like I can’t keep a job, but that’s. I had a bulk of 80 companies working for the New Zealand government on organizations that were expanding outside of New Zealand as an advisor to them on, on launching their businesses. So I really focus I focus on finding finding the right market. Do they have the right pricing in place? I usually roll up my sleeves with, with the team I, I call myself a practitioner that is steeped in. In the latest knowledge in the industry on how to how to build the businesses. So I go out and do it myself. Then I can knowledgeably go in with the teams and from from there, make sure we have the right people in place and there’s a process to that. Make sure that we have some kind of processes in place in terms of, of reporting and aligning with the rest of the organization around operations, financial part product teams. And, um, we, we go out and build, build new markets.

Lee Kantor: So who is your ideal client? Like, are they startups? Are they already kind of seasoned companies that have just hit a plateau and they need help and like kind of a turnaround situation? Like who, who is ideal for you?

James Hayden: Yeah. Good question. My, for the most part, my ideal audience is startups. And those companies that hit that plateau at about 15 million in revenue and need and want to take it to the next level. So in the venture capital world, that would be the like the series B funded companies and, and startups. I’ve worked with a couple of larger companies and have a bit of large company experience in my background, but the bulk of, of what I do is in, uh, in those types of businesses.

Lee Kantor: So you mentioned early kind of identifying that ideal client fit. If you don’t get that right, foundationally, you’re going to be off into a million rabbit holes. How do you help them? Is there some advice you can give a emerging company to get that ideal client fit? How do you kind of know who the right person is to be talking to.

James Hayden: The right person within the.

Lee Kantor: Or just when you’re when you’re going to market. I say I’m a startup and I think I have a good widget. How do I know who the ideal person I should be talking to to sell this widget is?

James Hayden: It’s it’s really getting, getting out on initially getting out on um, meetings and calls, um, whether that’s meetings by video or if you can face face to face with potential clients and fine tuning that, that value proposition or the hooks to get other businesses interested. And it’s super important in, in building a new market to look at product adoption lifecycle. And that sounds theoretical, but it really, really, really works. Um, and it’s, it’s based in science from crossing the chasm. If, if you’re familiar with that in the technology industry and then the tipping point. And so when you’re launching a new product, it’s important to find the early adopters and innovators, they see the world quite differently than the rest of the market. And it’s the reason you see product placement, for example, in movies because, um, as humans, we look to people who are, who are leaders and then we adopt what they’re doing or what the products are. So finding those early adopters and innovators in the market, the message is different than it is to the mass market. But to get from that point of early adoption to a mass market, you need to get those early adopters in who are driving, driving the market. They’re looking for innovation in the marketplace. They readily, uh, I should say they embrace innovation and technology.

James Hayden: And there’s just some companies that are, that are followers. And so it’s, it’s a very different approach. So it’s, it’s a laser focused identification on who those, uh, who those companies are. Then within, within the organization, it’s about defining the right roles or personas there. I mean, there’s some great technology and data that if I’d had it 30 some years ago when I was beginning, you know, doing individual selling on my own, it would be a dream come true. So defining initially, defining an ideal customer profile, what that what that customer looks like. And again, that needs to be somewhat flexible and it can be iterative what that customer looks like. Then defining the people who will buy. So if you go to sales methodologies or several types of buyers in a complex sale like Miller, Hyman, and in the book I wrote, we talk about economic buyer, user, buyer, technical buyer, and coach defining those markets, developing that persona, using, um, a technology where you can prospect actively with those clients and fill in those gaps of information you have. Like, um, Zoominfo is, is a great product for sales intelligence that I utilize amazing data. I don’t know how to get all the contact information they do. Um, but it’s an incredible way to build a market for companies. I’ve gone through several technology selection, having the right CRM in place for reporting.

James Hayden: Now, that’s a bit of a balance because as you begin in the business and one of the small clients I’m working with right now is looking at $25,000 a year for a CRM package. What we did initially is we, we used Google Docs or like an Excel spreadsheet put in macros. So, so we could build that kind of reporting. And so we’ve got predictability. And what, what you want to get to with any organization is that message that resonates with people. So you’re getting the right message to the right people at the right time. I know that sounds easy. It’s it, it really takes it takes some work digging in. It’s the reason I like to be involved in, in the initial building of that and then messaging people. And there’s several different ways or, or means of messaging people. Um, one of the new ones I know some people are uncomfortable with is text messaging because you can get people’s mobile numbers using an email campaign. It’s still super effective, uh, to, to phone people, get them, get them engaged in a conversation, a very crisp conversation about why you’re calling and the benefits to your business. Um, email, um, you can use, but it’s of those things I mentioned the least effective.

Lee Kantor: So email’s the least effective.

James Hayden: Yeah. The, the open rates and email are about 20%. The open rates of a text are about 95%. Texts are opened in North America within five minutes by 95% of the people. I mean, that’s it’s amazing, but it can be intrusive. And, you know, I, I work with, uh, reps and teams on how to handle that objective of somebody feels it’s intrusive and, um, we’ve turned it around in most cases where, uh, you know, if you’re dealing with an executive and executive, and you talk about the most effective way to communicate with them. And, hey, I got a hold of you. Wouldn’t you want your people, if they’re generating revenue to use the most effective means possible? Um, yeah, last year we turned around a client who was a little bit angry when they first got that message and, uh, proposal and, uh, went right into a proof of concept.

Lee Kantor: So now when you’re working with a client, what’s your first move to understand kind of where they’re at so you can assess if you can even help them.

James Hayden: It’s, yeah, it’s, it’s a bit like going to the doctor. So there’s, there’s a diagnostic, uh, phase, um, with, with questions. And, um, I generally don’t get called in unless they’re stuck in some areas. So, um, where they’re, where they’re stuck is what I, what do I have to, for example, um, one of the, one of the organizations I’m advising brought me in because sales people aren’t reporting on their product. Uh, they’re not reporting in the CRM on the product. So what that does for the organization is the operations team has one picture of the business. The CFO has another picture of the business sales organization has another picture of the business, but they’re, um, the reps don’t, don’t have a cadence to the, to the meeting they’re in. Hence the rest of the organization has difficulty catching up with them. So that’s, that’s one of the issues. So first of all, it’s identifying the, the symptoms and the issues within the organization. And then what, what approach to, to take. But, you know, I mean, just going in, going in with a, with a template for everybody doesn’t, doesn’t make sense. But there are certain things you can see when, uh, when revenue is, is challenged, you know, getting Building. Building a demand for a new product. Depending on what space you’re in. Oftentimes, you need to build category or generic demand for the product, and then you have to answer the question of what. Um, why would they choose your company? So it’s. Why would they choose a solution? Like, uh, the product has. And then the next step is, um, why our company? So it’s, it’s taking a look at that, you know, really understanding the people within the organization and, um, and the structure, the organizational structure of sales, how it’s tied back into the groups, the product group, the, um, the operations group and the finance group getting more connectivity there.

James Hayden: Um, between those organizations. It’s critical. I’ve been, I’ve been involved myself and I can, I’ve got plenty of scar tissue from organizations where product wasn’t connected to sales. So, you know, we’ve gone out ahead of the product team brought in products that product team isn’t able to deliver on. So I’m bringing my, uh, my, my war stories and scar tissue to, to solve some of those issues for, for companies. But it’s really the primary areas are people, you know, do they have the right people in place? Do they have the right processes in place to go after the market? Um, how does the product look? Um, and that may have to be adjusted. So as having, um, having an open discussion and um, dialog with, with the product team and, and building that product to market fit and organizational structure. And then do they have supporting technology to, uh, for, for the sales teams really to ramp the business. And what that looks like today in organizations is good sales intelligence system and, and some kind of good sales reporting system. You know, Salesforce, HubSpot, um, are the, are the real big ones, but there are some other good smaller products depending on the organization too. Or like I said, um, if you’re, if you’re a nimble startup, sometimes a spreadsheet can work while you’re getting, you know, you’re getting your cash flow going and, and ramping up.

Lee Kantor: So it sounds, you’re taking a very holistic approach on this. You’re not just kind of taking a tactic and just forcing it into the company. You’re looking at everything holistically. So every so it’s not as siloed and the information is shared amongst everybody. So everybody can kind of be rowing in the same direction.

James Hayden: Absolutely. One of the organizations I came into, um, there were 32 salespeople and a couple of, um, um, of managers that, that they reported into that had been the poorest performing division in the, in the organization for four years. The founders were looking to recapitalize or essentially get some kind of an exit for the business. That division had been pulling the entire company down. And what what it took or the, the approach I had was I went out and I, I met went on sales calls with each of the 3232 salespeople. And what I came back to was, um, they’d been told by. The, the executive leadership that their job was really to consult with clients, but they weren’t hitting the revenue numbers. So when, when you’re in a revenue generating position, your job is, is generating revenue. So what, what I needed to do was instill in that team that their job was, was about generating revenue. So I gave them a mantra they heard. I probably 200 times during the year, every, every one of the calls we had was, your job is about getting in front of clients in revenue generating activity. Period. The expense reports, the the all the other reporting data do outside of those hours where you can meet with clients. And then what I looked at too was because they’d been taught rather than, than going out and looking for revenue opportunities to consult, which is an easy, you know, kind of an easy, um, conversation is show them how it’s done. So I initially went out with that organization on some of the, some of the key sales calls with each one of the reps and showed them an approach to do it.

James Hayden: Um, we were working in technology and it was when, um, the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas was, was just opening. Um, we went after that business. That was a big first win that we had. So getting, getting a substantial win to get people talking about, a new approach and a new belief in. They can be the winning team. Like I said, this team had been, um, out of four divisions in the company. They’d been four out of four for five years in a row. And so it was, it was modeling, modeling the right kind of behavior and then instilling that approach about, hey, our job is this now, because they asked me what what I expected from them. And so it, it was a series of things I did. Like we had a mid-year meeting to prepare for the end of the year push, um, in Scottsdale, Arizona. And I had the team on the call and they said, you know what, what attire should we wear for the meeting? And I said to the team, I said, look, because that was that was the focus. Let’s get the revenue up. And, and again, I believe leadership needs to have clear communication. So I said, dress in a way that shows how you’re going to blow out or exceed your number. So we had some crazy things people wore. You know, there were, um, there were people dressed up, you know, Superman, Supergirl.

James Hayden: I don’t know if I could say this on your program, but one was dressed up as a pimp and said it was pumping incremental margin profitably and, um, and, and that, and so I, I came in with a bullwhip and I said, we’re going to whip your clients into shape. And then the E that we had on the team came in with the lasso and we’re going to lasso up the, the revenue. But the point was it was focused. Then what what happened from there was I went to I had the product team in place and the financial team, uh, and I said, you know, we’re going to go off agenda a bit. I want to know anything, anything that could stop you from exceeding your number. This year. We got into a three hour off agenda discussion. And and at the end of it, I said, here are the things we’re going to discuss. I can’t guarantee I’ll solve all of them, but we solved a couple. But I’m going to get back to you on a status on that. And then I asked the team if I did that, that they would make their number. I said, just I want you to envision it. We had a couple motivational speakers in one who had climbed Mount Rainier with me, who was a mountain guide and, and other other people. And I said, you don’t this is not obligatory, but I want I’m committing to you that I’m going to put everything behind it. And I’d like you to shake hands and for you to commit to make that number.

James Hayden: Everybody in the team shook hands, agreed to do it. Um, the end of the year, the team finished number one out of four. It was a very quick, quick turnaround. But it’s that kind of focus. I hope that’s illustrative of Um, the focus, it takes us a little bit different. You know, I’m in a startup is a different focus. You have fewer people and that, but that’s, um, it’s coming in and diagnosing it. And one, one of the things that’s been pivotal for me was, um, there was a sales training group that I utilized to work with. I need coaching to, I, you know, I’m not, I’m not perfect. And I think we have to go back to the basics every year. And the head of that organization, it’s a, it’s an approach that I really, really believe in. I stumbled into it after 17 years. And, um, they, I found out through another executive, um, their approach, um, we became fast friends and he’d asked me to work with him on writing a book, which it, it took four and a half years to, to do it. And what, what he said that got me committed to the book was he said, look, you can come into organizations, you know how to how to turn it around. Can you tell me what you do? And I stopped dead in my tracks. And, um, I said, well, I just come in and I know, you know, to put pieces together. I’ve got some pattern recognition. He said, I’ll tell you what you really you don’t you’re great at doing that.

James Hayden: What you what you’ll get if you write this book with me because he said he was having a hard time doing it, and he needed a practitioner with some case histories to, to do that is you’ll go from a conscious, competent to. Or you’re an unconscious, sorry, you’re an unconscious competent, you’ll go from being a conscious, competent. Yeah, look, I still have I still have plenty of work to do on my own, but it really, really made a difference in, in sitting down and going through that thought process about what I, what I do and figuring that out. So we published the book in 2013. It’s called Real world selling strategies. The Art of selling conversation that’s available on Amazon and actually in audible too. I did the narration on it on the revision of it. Um, so we were, I revised the book because from 2013 to 2023, the world changed a lot and technology had had a big impact. Um, channel channel sales or selling through partners was something we didn’t cover. That’s pretty substantial. Um, in, in technology, Gartner reports 70% of sales come through channel partners, not direct sales. So that’s an important piece of the sales equation too. Um, I also covered how to utilize AI. And we’re, it seems like we’re revising that every day in, in the sales process and have been involved in, in organizations, uh, that sell AI. So anyway, that was, I hope that was a good, uh, good illustration of of an approach.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Now, if somebody wants to learn more and have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team or get the book, is there a website?

James Hayden: Um, you bet I have. I have a personal website. It’s James B Hayden hayden.com.

Lee Kantor: All right. Well, James, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

James Hayden: Thank you, thank you. I mean, revenue revenue, uh, is what makes companies, right?

Lee Kantor: If if nobody’s buying anything, nobody’s eating. So it’s a critical component to any successful organization.

James Hayden: Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: All right. Well thank you again. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.

Hidden Revenue: Finding Profit You Already Earned

May 5, 2026 by Jacob Lapera

High Velocity Radio

Hidden Revenue: Finding Profit You Already Earned

00:00 /

In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Lee speak with Doug Brown, founder of CEO Sales Strategies. He shares how he helps businesses uncover hidden revenue and profit already inside their operations by identifying inefficiencies, missed follow-ups, underpricing, and untapped sales opportunities. He explains that many founders are too focused on working in the business instead of on it, which leads to money being left on the table. Through real examples, he highlights how simple changes—like improving processes, targeting ideal customers, and reviewing expenses—can dramatically increase profitability. Brown also emphasizes the growing role of AI as a tool for insight, the importance of preparing early for business exits, and how fixing financial issues can create meaningful personal and life-changing impact beyond just revenue growth.

Doug C. Brown is a revenue growth advisor with over 30 years of experience helping founder-led companies uncover hidden profit, improve margins, and capture cash already inside the business.

Over his career, he has generated more than $1 billion in revenue, delivered a $17 million turnaround at Intuit, produced $14 million in one year for Tony Robbins’ Business Breakthroughs International, and helped companies grow from $3.5 million to successful exits at 5x revenue.

He has worked with Fortune 500 brands, national companies, and more than 200 founder-led businesses across industries including manufacturing, healthcare, technology, and professional services. He is also the host of the CEO Sales Strategies Podcast, ranked in the top 2.5% globally, where he shares insights on revenue growth, profit improvement, and business scalability.

Connect with Doug on LinkedIn, Facebook and X.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

How to identify hidden revenue and profit already inside your business.
Common ways companies lose money, including poor follow-up, underpricing, and missed upsells.
Why founders often miss opportunities by working in the business instead of on it.
Practical ways to increase margins and revenue without adding new customers.
How small operational fixes can lead to significant financial gains.
The importance of understanding your ideal customer and targeting the right buyers.
How reviewing expenses can instantly improve profitability.
The role of AI in uncovering patterns, optimizing decisions, and avoiding costly mistakes.
Why preparing early is critical for a successful business exit and higher valuation.
How improving business performance can reduce stress and create positive personal impact.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have the founder of CEO Sales Strategies, Doug Brown. Welcome.

Doug Brown: Hey, Lee, thanks for having me on here. Very grateful.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about CEO Sales Strategies. How are you helping folks?

Doug Brown: Well, what we do is we find hidden revenue and hidden margins for companies. So that’s money that they’ve already spent but never made it to their bank accounts.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Doug Brown: Well, I got involved in this line of work actually, starting with my dad’s business when I was a kid. I noticed things like, we had, uh, way too much inventory at the end of the year, and we would pay taxes on that. And so I was asking my dad and the family members like, why do we want to carry all this? Why don’t we carry half of this and pay half the tax? Right? And so when we did, we lowered the tax rate and not the rate, but the actual taxes. And we had more money back in the, in the, in the, in the, you know, in our pocket, so to speak. But then I was looking through his business and I was finding things like proposals, never followed up on Under-pricing that was happening, you know, risk factors within the business that if we eliminated them, we could go out expenses, but we could also go after the revenue side of the business. And when you improve both of those, you get a very wide margin, makes your business far more profitable when you’re having more operating cash. Plus, if you ever want to go sell it, it boosts the exit value and the valuation of the company.

Lee Kantor: So you were always drawn to kind of the operational side of business.

Doug Brown: You know, I was always drawn to the sales side of the business, but I kind of got pulled into this side of the business just because of of the nature of who I am. I, I look at things and I spot patterns, I look at numbers, metrics, math, and I spot patterns, and then I question what the patterns really are. And it gives us a true story. And, you know, then we can apply an optimization process to that story. So for example, if I have a sales, this happened just the other day. We look through somebody’s, you know, business, heating and air conditioning company, and we look through the business and within 30 minutes we found $42,000 in profit. And it was just from asking questions about when they got on site, what are they doing? And then, you know, we could offer more profitable jobs. We could offer some add ons, we could offer, uh, different things that they, they had, they just were never doing it. And so, you know, right then and there, you know, we, we did. And, uh, well, I should say we did that part a month ago. And then this month they reported that they actually have, uh, doubled their revenue from the previous April of last year to this year. Uh, we just had that conversation two days ago.

Lee Kantor: So when you’re working with, um, the, I guess you talked to the leader, the CEO or the founder, is that who you typically.

Doug Brown: Yeah. Typically that’s who we work with. Um, we work with the, the founder or the, the CEO of the company. Um, the person who really looks at the, you know, the, the bottom line and the up and the top line together. Right. Because business is easy. It’s money in. Money out equals some result. And so usually founders and CEOs are responsible for that result. And that’s why we talk with them.

Lee Kantor: But do you find that in most especially founder led businesses, the founder is busy working on the business and they don’t they’re not kind of keeping track of every hole there might be in their funnel or pipeline.

Doug Brown: Yeah. I mean, so essentially they’re working in the business and that’s part of the reason they’re not focused on that. Right? So what I do is I get them working on the business in that capacity. So it’s, it’s amazing the amounts of money sometimes Lee, that I find. I mean, I’ve literally found millions and millions of dollars in companies that were just sitting there just sitting in the business. And then we were able to move it to the bank account. And here’s the cool part. When founders and owners realize this, CEOs realize this, that money was never going to go into the bank account. So essentially that money is just profit moving into the bank account.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re working, how much time do you spend in kind of discovery in terms of just getting the lay of the land?

Doug Brown: Yeah. So it depends on the size of the company. Um, but you know, traditionally it takes about, I usually can start finding stuff within within 2 to 3 hours. Um, significant stuff. Uh, I, uh, I’ve been doing some trades companies lately and I just found this is kind of, you know, for a smaller company, they had $772,000 in revenue. And within three hours we found $226,000 in profit. They weren’t collecting.

Lee Kantor: So when you say not collecting, is it that it was there and they just didn’t bill it? Or was it potentially there if they asked for an upsell or something like that?

Doug Brown: So it was in all of the above. Uh, it was there. They hadn’t collected some, some was, they had their process and they weren’t asking for, uh, you know, extending the sale or increasing the transactional value of the process. Like they weren’t asking, for example, if you went in and found, uh, like they got called in for a leak in the wall, right? They, uh, I mean, that’s a pretty significant thing when, when, you know, the basement starts flooding and the walls are all, you know, I mean, you got to worry about mold and all this stuff as a homeowner or as a, you know, commercial building owner, but, uh, they have this really cool process. There’s just an automatic shut off valve. I mean, it’s a shut off process. So if, if anywhere in the building a leak is detected, it will shut the water off immediately in that zone. And so it’s $3,000. And so for example, you know, we looked up how many people were actually buying that when they offered it. And then it was like, well, why don’t we offer it to everybody? So there were 75 people a year they weren’t offering it to. And so, you know, at if you just run some quick numbers, it’s 75 people at, you know, 15% taking that, that’s 11 people. Now, it doesn’t sound like a lot, but you know, it’s 3000 bucks. So there’s $34,000 just sitting there, uh, at, you know, a super high profit in that case. So the profit on that thing would be somewhere around 70 to 75%.

Lee Kantor: Now, is most of your work in the trades or do you do like, um, consultants or coaches or people like that?

Doug Brown: Uh, you know, it depends on the company. I’ve worked in 353 industries at this point. So anything from the trades business to recruiting companies to manufacturers to, um, medical companies to sales driven companies, done a lot for like training companies as well. Um, you know, some of the larger training companies. Um, but, you know, every business has something sitting there And the natural occurrence of finding out what’s sitting there then reveals what could be additional potential growth. So we uncover one thing and it’s like, oh geez. Well, that could lead to this amount of business if we wanted it to, you know, implement that, that new thing that we just found. So the old thing that’s sitting there, uh, almost always leads to something new in an increased value. Um, you know, I, I can give an example. Chet Holmes and Tony Robbins owned a company. Uh, most people will know Tony Robbins. Chet Holmes used to, he wrote a book called The Ultimate Sales Machine. And, uh, when I was looking through their business, I found a 15% refund rate that was happening. And I identified that. And we were able to clear that refund rate within 24 hours. And we dropped it from over 15% down to 1%. Now, if you think about this, that in itself is a win. But they’re driving 2000 leads a week through this program at this point. So those 300 people that were clear that were were refunding are now buying new products and services. But we were able to identify in that group a product that there was underperforming in their company that was selling $86,000 a year. And when we retrenched that tool, and we put not a lot of money into doing that, we went from $86,000 in sales that year to $8.2 million in sales that year on that new initiative.

Lee Kantor: So when you’re saying finding money, it’s not necessarily, oh, we were mislabeling this thing in the, in my books. Like you’re actually helping them in, in all aspects of their business, find opportunities. Maybe they’re not leveraging, or it might be even coming up with new offerings that might help them make more money down the road.

Doug Brown: Yeah yeah, yeah. I mean, it could be, you know, so it’s exactly that. So the first question we ask them is do you want to grow your revenue or do you want to grow your margins or do you want to grow both. Right. So whatever they want to achieve, then we work the plan to achieve that. And then we start looking for things. And we do this diagnostic process as we’re going through, it just starts uncovering things. And every business is dysfunctional to some level. I mean, I’ve worked with companies like Intuit and Procter and Gamble and, you know, enterprise Rent-A-Car, all of them have some level of, oh, wow, we could find some money here, but every small business has this as a similar level in that size capacity of that business where they’re leaving money on the table. You know, I mean, I just did one, uh, where we found, uh, the merchants were just, uh, taking advantage of them on the credit card side and we were able to go back and reclaim tens of thousands of dollars. They had to not change any credit card company whatsoever. They stay with the same credit card company, but they were able to get, you know, 40 I think it was $46,000 back, if I remember correctly. Um, somewhere in that area on just from the merchant, because the merchant was overcharging them, they had the tax rates wrong. They had different things. So it can be something like that. Or it could be like, hey, your company’s not asking for referrals whatsoever. And what’s the cost of a referral? Zero. Um, and how many referrals could we get a year? We figure that out. And then we put a referral program, active referral program in. Their sales team starts asking, everybody in the company starts asking and they’re magically picking up sales all over the place. So there’s all kinds of things that happen. We’ve identified 21 areas, and in each of those areas, this 5 or 6 subsets of the area. So there’s literally well over 100 ways of doing this.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you recommend companies, especially smaller companies, leverage AI and automation? Is that something that’s now evolved to a must have rather than a nice to have.

Doug Brown: You know, every it depends on the business, right? So, um, but in most cases, AI is a tool and it’s a tool that is going and has been and will continue to reshape how we’re doing business. So my recommendation to everybody is learn AI, you know, because AI is going to have some functionality into it that, um, absolutely will be helpful in any business. But, you know, we mentioned the trades business earlier, uh, AI is really not penetrating the trades business in a deep way at this point because, you know, it’s not going to go out and turn a wrench, right? Not yet. Um, but what AI will do is it will help identify some buying patterns of your, you know, ideal right fit buyer. So in that capacity, you should be able to understand that because then you can figure out, okay, how many people am I selling to every single year who are profitable or not profitable? Um, I just, uh, was talking to another company and, you know, they, they were spending a tremendous amount of money on marketing and I ran some numbers for them and used AI to actually do it initially. And then we dug into it. And long story short, they were losing money on every client.

Doug Brown: They thought they were making a few hundred dollars on every client. Turns out they were losing $860 on every single client because they didn’t figure in all of the numbers. And that sounds like a huge disparity. But I mean, you think about it, you sell 50 clients a month and you’re losing $900 a client that’s 45 grand a month that you’re basically losing in that business. Now, that was easy enough to start to adjust because we just started adjusting the marketing spend and how the marketing allocation went away. You know, in certain categories, they didn’t need that. They weren’t looking at the marketing across the board. They were just looking at, hey, we’re closing sales. So it can be all kinds of things that are over the map. Lee and I know that it doesn’t sound like, well, give me the whole process, but that is the whole process. Like we look through the whole company from every single stage of the client journey, and we find these things and then we, uh, bring them forth to the owner and say, hey, do you want to fix them? Or, you know, or are you good with, with this?

Lee Kantor: And then so your deliverable is at first a list of all the opportunities. And second, if they want to have you help them fix it, then you can help them fix it.

Doug Brown: Yes. Yeah. So we build a growth map right out of the front, front end, you know, and the growth map shows them all of the things that They can do in order to improve their margins or improve their revenue. And then if they want us to help them, we’ll build them a growth plan, which is like, hey, here’s what we’re going to do over the next 12 to 24 months, depending on the size company. And this is where we can get you from point A to point B to point C to point D, and we just lay it all out for them. Um, and you know, they can still take that map and do it on their own or we, you know, most of the time people want us to help them at that point. Um, but, you know, again, it’s a very straightforward process. The hardest part. See, here’s the thing that happens. Lee companies have all kinds of data and stuff, but they don’t have any real visibility to the data that gives them the, um, the ability to actually make decisions on this level. So like they might be looking like at their CRM data, but they’re not looking at the financial and the CRM and the marketing and customer service data. All, all collectively. And that’s where they can’t see it. So we’ve developed our own in-house process to be able to show them that. And they can, you know, we can see where it started in marketing and where it’s breaking down, let’s say, in operations. And so we fixed the problem in operations, and all of a sudden more money is pushing through. And then we teach customer service on how to actually sell, not just answer questions. And so now we’ve created an internal sales team within customer service, which can be highly profitable for companies. So it just depends on what company needs what.

Lee Kantor: Now when you’re working with your clients, is this something that, um, like what’s the signal of when this is the appropriate time? Like I know every today is the appropriate time, but is it if I was going to exit in five years, should I be having this conversation with you in order to just kind of get my business in the best shape so that when I do exit, I get the most for it? Or is there something that. Hey, I’m just starting. Maybe I should foundationally put everything in place so that I’ll have a better than even chance of making it.

Doug Brown: Yeah. So again, it depends on the goal. So if you’re just starting, like I just talked to a CEO, he’s like, no, I don’t want to do this. We’ve only been in business a year and we’ll handle it for now. And then when, when we get dysfunctional, we’ll call you. Right. And so my response was, why do we want to get dysfunctional?

Lee Kantor: Like, why don’t you skip that step?

Doug Brown: It’s like, why do we want to bleed out a few million dollars over the next three years or whatever? Figuring this out when we can figure this out now and maybe put $10 million in the business, put the systems, put the processes in, and all of this stuff, because he doesn’t have the data, he can’t see it. And so it’s one of those situations that when is the right time? Um, we don’t know until we run the diagnostic, but I can tell you normally within a conversation and just running a very small percentage of the diagnostic, like on a call within 20 minutes or so, I can tell them if there’s money there or not. And so it just depends. Now, the guy who wants the exit or the gal who wants to exit in five years, they need to get their stuff in order earlier than later. Because here’s the thing about exit. Most of the time people think they’re going to be able to sell their company, but a lot of times they can’t. And so why not build the company into the most profitable asset now and then? It makes it far more attractive for the exit down the line. Right? But it doesn’t mean that they can still sell the company like I had. I had a telecommunications company. We sold it three times. Funding fell through for the buyers all three times.

Doug Brown: We ended up keeping that thing till the end. Um and so it’s, it doesn’t, you know, a lot of companies, uh, want to sell. I, I have a friend who, uh, eventually sold their company for $2 billion and they wanted to sell within a year of the first conversation. It was 11 years later that that company sold. So if they’re planning on trying to exit the business, there’s multiple ways of exiting a business. Um, there’s a great story. There’s a company around me called Sullivan Tire. They exited the business, but they sold it to all the employees. So there’s different ways of doing it. But if you’re going to sell to a, a P company or an investor company or another person looking at your company, the more you have your stuff in order and the higher your EBITDA is, generally that’s what they go off of EBITDA being operating cash flow. The higher that is, the more you get for evaluation and the more you get for a multiple on your company in most cases, especially if you have the systems processes in place. So yeah, if you’re an owner and you want to sell. Don’t wait till a year before or two years before you really want to start. Now, if you’re a year before, start now, but you know, if you can start earlier.

Lee Kantor: So is there any low hanging fruit for a listener right now that they could start poking around on where they can fix some of this themselves?

Doug Brown: Yeah. There is. Um, you know, there’s the, the, the, the easy one is, you know, just do a review of your expenses. That’s, that’s a very clean one. Right. Um, you know, my wife and I do this every single year, just even for our home. And we reduced our expenses this year by $6,700, if I remember correctly. What was that on Oversubscriptions? You know, um, you know, streaming channels, we weren’t using, uh, auto insurance that we could readjust, uh, you know, uh, truck insurance, uh, you know, uh, telecommunications, electricity, all, all kinds of things you can look at right on the expense. So that’s, that’s a quick one. Um, you know, a lot of companies don’t want to look at expense, but here’s what I, I tell them is like for every $1,000 you save, if your company’s at 13% EBITDA for every $1,000 you save, it’s like selling $7,600 in product. So if you as a company owner can knock your bills down by $10,000, it’s equivalent to selling $76,000. If you can knock it down by 100,000, that’s equivalent to selling three quarters of $1 million. So which one do you want to do? So on the sales side, the easiest thing to start doing is look at every little section that’s going on in your company sales process and ask this question, are we creating more sales at this point? Are we creating more relationships at this point? Are we increasing what they’re buying, how often they’re buying, and how many people we’re extending the relationship through at each stage of that process? If they just asked that question, they’ll get the answers.

Doug Brown: You know, are we following up with people? Are we dropping the ball? Follow up is an easy one to fix because the majority of companies are not very good at it. Are we selling to the ideal right fit buyer? Harvard University and Wharton School of Business did a study recently that was backed up, I think, by Marketo and HubSpot, um, which said that 97% of people selling today do not, in part or in full, know their ideal right fit economic buyer. What that means is we don’t really know who we’re really selling to, who buys the quickest, the most, the best. And so we’re creating all these marketing messages around stuff that’s not even hitting the target. And so those are a couple of things that they could do right out.

Lee Kantor: So how do you help them identify their ideal fit client if if nine out of ten are missing.

Doug Brown: Yeah. Believe it or not, it’s not that hard. So we have a whole process for it that we run through. And we do use AI for that process as well because it speeds up the process. In the old days, this would take us three weeks to figure it out. Um, but if somebody wants to like really start to figure it out quickly, look at all your clients, ask the question, who the best clients that you, you know, spend the most with you are not your hassle clients. If you have data like this, right? Made the decision quickly. They’re, they’re a joy to work with. And then look at all the common threads. Why did they buy? If you don’t know, call them up and ask them why didn’t they buy? Call them up and ask them. Start looking for overlapping patterns. That’ll start to reveal some of the stuff. But you know, with AI and with things today, you can research a lot deeper. But in the old days, that’s how we started out. We started out surveying all the all the clients that bought didn’t buy. Asking questions, looking for overlapping patterns. And then it will reveal itself. And by the way, you only need like 3 to 5 data points and it’ll give you your ideal right fit buyer.

Lee Kantor: So how often do you use your system on your own company?

Doug Brown: Uh, once or twice a year.

Lee Kantor: So this is something that once a company understands how this works, it’s not a set it and forget it. This is something you have to revisit on a regular rhythm.

Doug Brown: Depend. Well, you know all companies. Yes. To answer your question, you should because things change. So, you know, it doesn’t have to be the pandemic that changes your business, right? You might be growing as you’re growing. And let’s say you don’t have your numbers anchored. Your numbers can, you know, outstrip you pretty quickly. A company working, uh, they installed, uh, utility poles. They, they grew from 3 million to 17 million in 16 months, pretty fast growth. When I talked with them, they were like, we’re close to being out of business. And I said, why? And they said, I don’t know. And I looked at their books. They had $11 million uncollected, over 180 days on their books. And when I asked them why, they said, we don’t know. And I said, who’s paying attention to this? And they said, it’s a friend of my daughter’s. We hired her because she seemed to have experience. And within 45 days, not even it was like 42 days. We had collected all $11 million. There were clients literally saying, hey, we had the check sitting here, but no one contacted us with the information to get get pay you or we wanted to do direct deposit. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera. So, you know, the company’s super healthy within, you know, 40, 45 within six weeks. So it could be something as silly as that. Or it could be something that, you know, people never even thought existed in the company. Um, you know, or people know in the company they’re afraid to tell. Right. So, uh, I worked with a company, they were doing, uh, 48 million a year and they had, uh, two of their sales team members going through the company, terrorizing people, literally threatening them. If they didn’t do this, they were going to come after them. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera. Ceo didn’t even know about it. And once we remove those two people and put a sale system in, the company grew from 48 million to 110 million in the next two years. People became way more productive. So sometimes it’s people issues, sometimes it’s not.

Lee Kantor: So is there a story you can share maybe the most rewarding for you in all the years you’ve been doing this? Is there. Don’t name the name of the company or maybe name the challenge that they had and how you were able to help them get to a new level that meant the most to you?

Doug Brown: Yeah. This one might make me cry a little bit, though. Like, seriously. Like, um, so I was working with a financial company. It was owned by two brothers and the, uh, and they had a partner, two brothers and a, in a partner. And, uh, I was talking with this gentleman and he was just like, so pushing back like, so hard on this thing. And normally on that type of thing, it’s like, well, this isn’t the client that I can really help, right? I mean, they’re just not open. They’re not they’re not coachable, they’re, you know, that type of thing. But something told me, stay with this guy. It was like a little inner voice in my head. And I stayed with him. And finally at the end, he goes, okay, you’ve convinced me. And he said, I’ll do it. And I said, I don’t want to convince you. I want you to be buying into this because this requires commitment on your end as much as on our end, like as we work a lot on performance, right? So we actually make our money when the company does better versus saying, hey, we want this huge consulting fee up front or whatever. And so he bought in and we helped him. Uh, and I told him, I said, I need a minimum of 60 days commitment. And then you, you know, you guys can be on your own if you want. And so we worked on that thing for 60 days and we started turning the company in the right direction. And he said, at the end of 60 days, he goes. You know, I think we can take this now.

Doug Brown: And I said, fine. And, you know, we sort of like friendly emailed back and forth over the next year. So this is like 14 months after the first time I started. And I was at a live event and I felt these arms come around the back of me and like, give me a bear hug and just literally lifted me off the ground. And, uh, and then I heard his voice and he was laughing and I knew who it was. And he said, how you doing? And I said, well, if you put me down, I’ll tell you. When he put me down, another set of arms came around me, um, not as strong. And then one on my leg, two little arms and then two little arms on my other leg. And, uh, they all were giving me a hug and I, and he, he came around the front of me and he said, hey, there’s something I never told you. And I said, what? He goes, uh, my wife and kids, we were doing so bad as you knew, Because when I was pushing back like that, he said, I was a. My wife and I were talking about getting a divorce, and I had moved out of the house and I was estranged from my children. There they are holding on to your legs. And, um, he said in, my brother and I were damn close to, uh, with the partner declaring bankruptcy. And he said, we just didn’t have the money or the this or that. And he said, he said, I really, really did not like you during our conversation whatsoever.

Doug Brown: He said, I frankly can use the H word, the hate word. I hated our conversation. But he said, if it wasn’t for that conversation and you working with us for the next 60 days, we turned our company around in. Four months later, I was back with my wife, back at home with the kids. Things got a lot better. And, you know, we have more than doubled the business in the last 14 months since you disengaged with us. And he said, you know, I want to thank you and thank God that God sent you to me. That was super impactful. In fact, I left the room and started breaking down, crying a little bit. Right? Because what people don’t, at least for me, it’s not about the money anymore. You know, I own the house, I own the cars. I own all that stuff. You know, I had that early on in my life because I worked really hard. But it’s the impact. Like the family didn’t break up. Now the family’s together, the kids grow up more healthy, they go on and they start families. So it’s that ripple effect that goes through life. And to me, what we do is exactly that we can help people go from a high, you know, stress state and lower their stress states because usually it’s around money that causes the stress states in the business. And usually the money is just sitting there, you know, for years, sometimes sometimes longer. And it’s just not moving from point A to point B. So in his case, you know, he’s still doing well today.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And it’s it’s not for lack of desire or lack of a good idea or a good company. It just they don’t know where the holes in the swing are. And they need fresh eyes to look at it and go, hey, look over here. Look over there. You know, I’m sure a lot of the times these people want to work hard and are hard workers. They just don’t know what to work hard on. If people want to learn more, what’s a website.

Doug Brown: W w w dot CEO sales strategies.com? Or they can send me an email at Doug at CEO sales strategies.com.

Lee Kantor: All right, man, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Making the Invisible Visible: The Leadership Power of Psychological Safety

May 1, 2026 by Jacob Lapera

High Velocity Radio

Making the Invisible Visible: The Leadership Power of Psychological Safety

00:00 /

In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Lee Kantor interviews Maxine Attong, founder of the Gestalt Experience, about helping leaders uncover hidden team dynamics that affect performance. Maxine explains that many organizations focus on processes and technology but overlook the human side—emotions, trust, and relationships. She emphasizes that psychological safety is a strategic necessity, starting with leadership alignment and self-awareness. Without it, teams hold back ideas, avoid honest communication, and underperform. She shares how leaders can spot issues—like lack of discussion, delayed information, or disengagement—and address them through reflection, feedback, and open conversations. Through coaching, Maxine helps leaders become more authentic and intentional, leading to stronger engagement, better collaboration, and improved results.

Maxine Attong is a Gestalt Organizational Development strategist, executive coach, and former COO who helps leaders and teams perform in high-pressure, high-uncertainty environments. With over 25 years of experience across corporate and international sectors, including the United Nations, she specializes in aligning leadership, strengthening accountability, and embedding psychological safety as a driver of performance.

A Certified Professional Facilitator and Professional Certified Coach (ICF-PCC), Maxine is known for her ability to “make the invisible visible”—surfacing the unspoken dynamics that shape decision-making, trust, and execution. She has worked with senior leaders and multicultural teams across North America, Europe, Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean

Maxine is also a Certified Management Accountant (CMA), bringing financial and operational rigor to her leadership work. She is the author of Lead Your Team to Win, which captures her work on embedding psychological safety in teams, and Change or Die: The Business Process Improvement Manual.

Through her work, Maxine helps leaders move from awareness to decisive action—so they can build aligned, accountable, and high-performing teams.

Connect with Maxine on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

How leaders can identify and address hidden tensions that impact team performance.
Why psychological safety is a strategic driver of productivity—not just an HR concept.
Common signs of low trust in teams, such as lack of open discussion and incomplete information.
The role of leadership behavior in shaping team culture and engagement.
How emotional awareness and human connection influence creativity and accountability.
Practical ways to build trust, including open conversations and consistent check-ins.
The difference between vulnerability and oversharing in leadership.
How disengagement often mirrors the relationship leaders create with their teams.
Measurable impacts of strong team culture, including higher engagement and more innovation.
Key challenges executives face, such as confidence, identity, and leading authentically after promotion.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have the founder of the Gestalt Experience, Maxine Attong. Welcome.

Maxine Attong: Hi. Thanks for having us.

Lee Kantor: Well, Maxine, before we get too far into things, tell us about your practice. How are you serving folks?

Maxine Attong: I really help leaders and team leaders make the invisible visible very often in teams. There’s some a little bit of tension that we can’t quite name, and it does affect productivity. So it could be interpersonal relationships. It could be seen as, you know, high absenteeism, high turnover in the team or the leader just doesn’t feel settled. Everything looks fine, but the leader just feels instinctively that something is wrong. That’s why I step in and really help teams to come to the moment where they can move. Beyond that. They could name what’s happening. They could come up with suitable actions for it and sort of get over that hump.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you primarily work with organizations or individuals?

Maxine Attong: I work individuals. I’m an executive coach and I work with organizations, a lot of NGOs and international organizations as well, as well as some people.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Maxine Attong: Well, I started off way back when as an accountant and leading teams in finance and strategy. And I think my own experience of being frustrated, um, seeing people’s potential, but not really understanding how to tap into it. I became very curious about human behavior and how I, as a leader, despite my technical skills and my search for excellence, why it White is that I wasn’t really meeting people. So I started doing facilitation as a way to help groups make decisions and became a certified professional facilitator. And then I started to realize, I asked myself the question, if I could help groups make decisions, what would it be like if I were to work with the individuals and get them ready for decisions? So that led me into coaching. So I’m a PCC level executive coach with the with ICF. And because of that, I became just really more and more curious about what makes humans tick. So I went back and did a master’s in organizational development, really understanding the theories that take human behavior from normal to high performance. So it really was because of my own failures as a leader. And that feeling I had of, I am not saving these people enough. I am not feeling happy even though the work looks good. It was really from that curiosity that I started this entire journey.

Lee Kantor: So now, having worked with a variety of organizations, do you see some common threads about why certain organizations are maybe more functional than others? Like, are there some mistakes that companies are making that, you know, when you insert yourself and your and your process into them, that you can really make an impact?

Maxine Attong: Yeah. I think, you know, now with, of course, there’s a lot of technology, there’s AI and we talk about replacing workers. And I think sometimes we forget that humans will always be humans. Um, and what I mean by that is that we have a lot of emotions and we need to deal with those emotions before we do anything else. So there’s a way in which a lot of people show up in the organization, sort of not as who they are, but who their profession says they should be. And in everybody’s life there becomes an aha moment where it is that we have to reconcile many parts of us. We have to reconcile what happened to us as children. We have to reconcile what happened to us when we were married. If we went through a divorce, it comes in different forms. And so in organizations, we we deal with people, whether they are in hybrid, whether they’re face to face. We’re dealing with those people and we’re trying to extract the most valuable thing from them, i.e. their productivity, their creativity, and their intelligence. And if it is that we are pretending that those clouds don’t exist around them, we’re not going to be able to get what we really want from them.

Maxine Attong: I mean, it just does not work. And so how does that show up in organizations? A lot of organizations talk about people not being accountable or the basis of of high functioning team is trust. So before you talk about the accountability, what is it that you are doing as a leader to inculcate trust in your teams? A A lot of times people are complaining that, you know, because team members are not bringing new ideas, they’re just doing enough work. Well, what is your relationship like with them that will encourage them to bring a lot of ideas? So a lot of it, we think about, you know, processes. We make sure we have efficient processes. We bring in all this fancy technology, we train the technical capabilities of our team members. And what are we doing in terms of what makes them human, what makes them creative. And that will redound to productivity. We need to deal with it.

Lee Kantor: Now, a lot of organizations at least give lip service to how their people or their most important asset, and that their culture is important. But is there some advice or tactics that an organization can do to really live into those words? When it comes to psychological safety, where in order to create that environment of trust there, the employee has to feel safe in order to share and be vulnerable, and to be as productive as the organization would like them to be.

Maxine Attong: Is that I think the first thing for.

Maxine Attong: For organizations who really want to embed psychological safety is to understand that this is strategic. I think the word psychological safety, people think it’s like a fluffy word. It’s the realm of the human resources team. And they don’t realize that it is something tactical and it is a strategic differentiator. Why is it strategic? Because we have to be intentional and deliberate in inculcating it in our teams on a daily basis. And so fish rots from the head. So leaders, the leadership team, we need to make the assumption. We need to make the assumption or ask the question, do the leaders feel safe? Because if leaders don’t feel safe, they cannot create psychological safety. And a lot of leaders right now, you know, have high anxiety. Will I keep my job? Will there be another cost cutting exercise? All that’s happening in the world, you know, they are in pressure situations. So if the leadership team does not feel safe, they are not going to create psychological safety for the rest of the organization. If the leadership team does not agree on what psychological safety looks like here and what behaviors promote or don’t promote it, it’s not going to be safe. So very, very often, you know, leaders want to bring in an initiative and the leadership team is not aligned or not in agreement with the initiative. And what happens? Somebody pushes it ahead and eventually it trickle down. And it feels so first and foremost, if you really want to put psychological safety into your organization, realize that one, it’s a strategic move that will redound to productivity. And two, the leadership team needs to be aligned and in agreement to what it means and how it will be effected.

Lee Kantor: Now, are there some symptoms or signals that an organization can look at to tell if there is a culture of psychological safety within their organizations? Are there signs that maybe there isn’t and something’s amiss?

Maxine Attong: Yeah. So I think the first sign a lot of organizations do their pulse surveys or their satisfaction surveys, the employee engagement surveys, if those if those give you high marks, especially in the more in the less in the ones that are not about, you know, the physical conditions, but really about the leadership. If those marks are high and people are engaged, then you know that you’re on to something great. Keep pressing. If those engagement scores are low, I would suggest that maybe people don’t feel safe. If you go to meetings and yours is the only voice or everything that you everything that you say people are in high agreement with without any discussion. That’s a sign that probably people aren’t safe. If you’re making decisions and you’re not getting full data. That’s a that’s another sign. Or you realize three months down the road, oh, this is what is really happening. I made a decision based on incomplete data. That’s a sign that people are not telling you the truth. So if you are a leader, everything people are agreeing with no discussions. You’re getting data late. You’re realizing things after the after the fact. Maybe people aren’t feeling safe enough to speak up and tell you the truth.

Lee Kantor: Now, in your work, have you been able to kind of quantify the ramifications of, um, not having a psychologically safe environment in an organization?

Maxine Attong: So what I’ve seen is engagement scores go up like 15, at least 15 points in one year. And that is really because of leaders being very deliberate and intentional about their behavior. Um, that will take 6 to 1 year to change according to. Of course, the leaders, I guess their ability or their willingness to accept the feedback, um, to. I have seen teams go from the leader alone carrying the weight of it to people actually holding each other accountable, which for leaders is a great thing because it frees you up a lot to not carry the burden of the team alone. What else I’ve seen is, uh, more, more ideation. So in teams that would have been, you know, where the leader says everything, the leader comes up on one idea. They move from like two ideas a month to maybe like six ideas a month. So those are the things that I’ve seen. And in terms of the bottom line, there always is an uptick on it. And so, you know, people talk about customer experience and everybody wants customer experience. And that’s the new buzzword. How are you going to create customer experience. If your front line people do not feel safe enough to make a decision, that will give the customer a different experience. So all of those buzzwords that we come up with, at the end of the day, it’s a human given to service. And if that human does not feel safe to question or to put their voice into the room, the organization is going to miss the mark.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I agree with you 100% when it comes to it seems like there was such an emphasis on kind of leaning into all these digital technical, um, ways to measure things. And we’ve lost some of the humanity and the human to human interaction and the, you know, the way that that can’t just snugly fit into boxes. There has to be grace. There has to be a little more, uh, give and take when a deal, when you’re dealing with humans. And if you just ignore that, I think you There’s got to be a price. You pay for it.

Maxine Attong: Yeah yeah, yeah. You know, I think there’s no there’s no measurement for the heart. Right. We don’t we don’t go around taking measurements of the half of the heart and we can’t see people shrink. You know, people often wonder, like leaders will say, you know, when I had this person, they were so brilliant when I promoted them, they were so promising. And what happened? And that’s a great question to ask what happened? And I would often ask leaders, do you really want the truth of what happened? Because we could have that discussion. So you’re absolutely right. There’s something that we we do that erodes that human in so many very sad ways.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you have a case where like you’re describing this human is kind of, uh, shrinking back, is there anything an organization can do to bring them back so they can blossom again?

Maxine Attong: Yeah, I think this is where conversations matter the most. So can you have a conversation with that person? I would I would look at two things. If I were a leader of a person who I saw shrinking, I would really have a come to Jesus moment with myself. What did I do to help this individual shrink? Was it something that I said? Was it something that I did? Did. And so I could look at my own, my own behavior with that individual and really take a helicopter view? You know, what was my body language like? What words did I say? Um, when did I create some tension about individual? And of course, feedback is great. You can get feedback from the individual. You know, what’s happening with you. It could be something that’s personal that they’re going through. It could be something that maybe you did to offend them and how, how safe do they feel that, that you could, um, that they could actually share that with you. So this is where anonymous feedback is golden. You can do anonymous feedback with your team. It doesn’t have to be anything like a, an expensive feedback. You could do a simple Google document, a simple MailChimp document, or any survey.

Maxine Attong: Don’t let people put in their names and get feedback on your behavior as the leader. Because very often as leaders, our teams mirror what we do. We got to take responsibility. The second thing I would do is if it is that I get feedback and there’s nothing that I could make an assumption that maybe this person is going through something personal and have that discussion. And of course, if if it goes beyond that, then you need to look at things like, are they technically capable? Did I give them too much, too much work at one time? Do they need some special other intervention? And so if you come to other invention, that’s where you get, you know, if you need a coach, if it is, you need to go to an employee assistance program. If you need to get the human resources team involved. So it is a matter of finding out, you know, doing evaluations, assessing the situation before you actually move to action, because we want to make sure that we as leader, understand what’s going on with our team member, and only when we understand, we will know what is the right thing to do.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share about your work where you were able to help an organization or an individual get to a new level? Obviously don’t name the name, but maybe share the challenge they came to you with and how you were able to help them.

Maxine Attong: So I had a leader who came to me, um, it was one on one coaching and she was complaining about exactly this. Um, her teams are not getting engaged. They’re doing the work and the work is fine, but nothing more than that. And she was really frustrated and very tired, and she did all the things that we usually say to do, you know, be very clear in your communication, give specific instructions, um, you know, do the one on one check ins. And still she was saying her team is not engaged. So in coaching, she mentioned a conversation where her team member members said to her, wow, I never knew you. Had you. I never knew you had two children and I’ve been working with you for five years. So I said to the team leader, it seems that your team was mirroring the relationship that you have with them. And she understood that. She said, wow. Yes, I have always had a professional distance. I always focus on work and I keep it moving. And so she had to make some decisions about how she wanted to be. And I think a lot of leaders sometimes confuse being vulnerable with oversharing. You know, they kind of like want to tell their teams everything. And that’s not what is required. In fact, that’s probably not safe to do. And some leaders like this one, when she thought about being vulnerable with her team, it was something that she definitely wanted to avoid.

Maxine Attong: So we had to work out, you know, how do you be yourself? How do you share information that is safe? What topics is it okay to talk about? And for her, she wanted to talk about like her leadership journey to share it with them. Some of the technical stuff that she did, some things about her children. And so it wasn’t overnight because of course, when we leaders change behavior, our teams look at us and say, is she for real? Let’s see how long it will last. So we have to be consistent. And so eventually what she did as well is what we decided is at the beginning of meetings, do a 15 minute check in, don’t rush to work. Let people talk about what’s top of their mind, what their anxieties are, what they might be concerned about, whether professionally or personally. And so eventually, her team actually began to move a little closer to her and to begin to build that relationship. And so they started to bring ideas to the table. They started to discuss things freely, because what she didn’t realize is that her team was mirroring the relationship she set up with them. And so if you were to scale that to an organization, you would begin to realize if it is. If we just focus on work, our people will come and do as they are contracted to do their work. They’ll do it well and nothing more.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you deliver your coaching to organizations? Is it primarily one on one? Is it group? Do you do online work? Um, how do you deliver what you do?

Maxine Attong: So I do it in whatever way the client wants because that’s best if it’s one on one coaching. I’m definitely online because, you know, time, time is a factor in that. So we get online, we do our coaching, we go our way. If it’s a team, I do it online as well. But if it’s like a one day engagement or a half day engagement, those are face to face. So with teams we usually do with teams, if I’m going to work with a team, I prefer to work with a team over 3 to 6 months for the team to really get what it looks like. Usually we’ll start with a 1 or 2 day, um, team retreat where it is, they could really surface the problems and decide on how they want to move forward. And then we do monthly check ins, you know, it could be twice a month, two hours a month, 2 hours or 2 hours a session online where it is, if we really start working on what, what it is that we all agreed is happening in the room. So that’s kind of like what it looks like. And sometimes the intervention could be different because sometimes it’s, um, a team needs to learn how to communicate. You know, a team needs to trust what to communicate. So we may be dealing with that. A team may want to say, okay, we have a work plan, we want to run a test on it. We could do that. A team might say, we want to work on our processes. I’ve done a lot of work in business process improvement. That’s what my first book is on. So so I work with a team. I say that I bring solutions to teams and I help leaders to deal with their teams. So that’s kind of like the range of what I do now.

Lee Kantor: When you’re working with an individual, what’s the kind of the typical challenge they’re having right before that they start working with you. What, what, what’s your kind of sweet spot in terms of working with executives?

Maxine Attong: So I think for executives, a lot of them say they want to work on their executive presence. You know, how they are received because they they are technically capable. They’ve they’ve reached the height of their career and they really want to be more whatever they think executive presence is. And with women, especially with female leaders, they want to work on their assertiveness and their confidence. So that’s kind of like the the range that I see coming to me. And it’s interesting because the, the core of it is. Am I good enough for this role that I have? Um, am I all that I could be for this role that I have? Sometimes the question is I’ve gotten this role. So I with Fred, do I still want this role or what can I do to make this role mine? So those are some of the questions that executive leaders really have in their mind because they’ve they’ve done it. They have a high level of confidence. And they really begin now to look at themselves differently and say, this is who I am and how do I express this in this role without losing myself? Or how do I do my role well, without losing who I am? Or can I take a risk now that I’ve reached the top of my ladder to really show who I am and lead from what I think I should be leading at? Like so those are some of the questions that those leaders come with. And I love those questions because it really is about their innate, who they are at their core and how they know themselves or don’t know themselves, or how they want to rediscover themselves and reclaim themselves in a way that makes their leadership so much more powerful.

Lee Kantor: Now, are they coming to you after they got the promotion, or are they coming to you if they didn’t get the promotion?

Maxine Attong: Most times it’s when they got a promotion or when they’re preparing and readying themselves for promotion. I think what most people miss about promotions is that at a certain level, you’re capabilities are almost assumed. So some people who didn’t get promoted for a while, they come to me to say, okay, how do I get promoted? Because it is about what are your networks like? How strategic are you being? Who’s champion? Champion? Champion in you in rooms that you are not present in? So it’s really about rebuilding a lot of the assumptions about work as a meritocracy. So those are the people who don’t get promoted, who come to me to get promoted. Yeah.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Maxine Attong: So I have.

Maxine Attong: Just experience.com and you can contact me through there. I think my phone number is on there as well. You can also link with me on LinkedIn. I do accept all, all connections, except I guess people who are just marketing or where it is that they just joined LinkedIn because some of those are fake profiles. But once you have a profile, I will definitely connect with you. I’m not. Yeah, it’s all good. And so connect with me. Send me a message on LinkedIn that all of the above is fine.

Lee Kantor: Well, Maxine, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Maxine Attong: Thank you for having me. And for, of course, asking me those great questions.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.

Centralized Strategy, Local Impact: Cracking the Franchise Code

May 1, 2026 by Jacob Lapera

Franchise Marketing Radio

Centralized Strategy, Local Impact: Cracking the Franchise Code

00:00 /

In this episode of Franchise Marketing Radio, host Lee Kantor speaks with Melissa Telsrow, president and co-founder of Hiper, about solving the complexities of digital marketing for franchise and multi-location brands. Melissa explains how Hiper helps franchisors balance centralized brand control with local flexibility. Many franchise systems struggle with inconsistent messaging when individual locations manage their own marketing—or face inefficiencies when everything is handled separately. Hiper addresses this by combining technology, templates, and managed services to create a unified yet locally adaptable strategy.

As co-founder of Hiper, Melissa Telsrow helps franchise, nonprofit, and multi-location brands (2–200+ locations) scale local marketing. Her work spans local social, search, and reputation management with technical systems that ensure brand cohesion across all markets.

She leads content and strategy teams focused on authentic brand storytelling through short-form video. She helps organizations and their leaders show up on today’s social discovery platforms with content that feels human, stays on brand, and drives growth.

Connect with Melissa on LinkedIn and Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Overview of Hiper and its focus on multi-location and franchise marketing.
Challenges franchisors face managing consistent digital presence across many locations.
Importance of balancing centralized brand control with local franchisee flexibility.
Use of baseline, brand-approved content combined with local, authentic content.
Role of tools, templates, and automation in simplifying marketing for franchisees.
Key marketing channels: social media, local search (including AI-driven discovery), and reputation management.
Metrics that matter: discovery (reach), engagement, and conversions.
Growing importance of organic content over paid ads in the AI search era.
Value of peer-to-peer learning and sharing best practices across franchisees.
How simplifying workflows increases franchisee participation and overall marketing success.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio. It’s Franchise Marketing Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Franchise Marketing Radio. And this is gonna be a good one. Today on the show, we have the president and co-founder with Hiper, Melissa Telsrow. Welcome.

Melissa Telsrow: Thank you. Thanks for having me, I appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Hiper, how you serving folks?

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah for sure. So Hiper, we’ve been around for just over a decade, and we are a digital marketing agency that specializes in multi-location and supporting multi-location organizations. So that could be franchises, it could be a lot of national non-profits that have chapters across the country, distributor networks. So it tends to be a little bit more of a complicated digital strategy and execution support, but we’ve been doing that since day one. So.

Lee Kantor: So so what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in that line of work?

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah for sure. So my background is actually in franchising. So I spent my career about 13 years at a coffee franchise here in the Midwest and worked my way up through the years. And 2015 is when I went into business with actually my boss at the time we launched Hiper. And so in that experience of working with franchisees and leading field marketing teams, we really saw the need to help connect the marketing support in more of a modern way, um, between the franchisee and the franchisor and helping to bridge the gap sometimes that, that is there for what the franchise franchises need in a digital marketing space because it just, it becomes more and more complicated as it relates to social media, email marketing, your digital presence. And so that was really the catalyst for going off on our own and taking that Hiper local approach to other franchise and multi-location brands and companies.

Lee Kantor: So if the franchisor isn’t using you, how are they going about it? Are they just trying to figure it out on their own? Like, what does it look like from their end?

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah. You know, it’s we have fascinating conversations. And I will say, sometimes when the franchisor approaches us, they honestly, they feel like it’s an impossible challenge to tackle. Like, how do you gain control of, you know, a social media presence, a digital presence when you have ten, 50, 100 locations because it can get complicated pretty quickly. And so for some brands, that just means that they’re kind of, I don’t want to say a blind eye, but just leaving it up to the franchisee to take control over in whatever way that looks like, and then they just manage their national presence. Um, but it gets to a point where it can become, you know, not only a brand liability, but also you lose some of the brand cohesion and just brand consistency when you don’t have centralized control and management. And so, um, oftentimes the catalyst for calling us is they see something on social media or something out in digital. It’s like how, like, how is this out there? Um, and so they bring us in almost as a fixer to help. Um, you know, our programs really depend on the right technology as the foundation to bring that centralized access and management so that they can help support the franchisees. Um, and then once we have control essentially of the entire digital ecosystem, then that’s where the real fun begins. And we can help to drive sales and actions, but it really starts with kind of that foundation. Yeah, I would say a lot of times they’re just, they’re struggling internally, um, trying to have their internal teams manage it. Um, but it just gets, it gets challenging pretty quickly. Or the franchisees are all working with individual agencies, which also is very expensive. So there’s a lot of power, um, and efficiencies and effectiveness, um, to running it centrally, but really balancing, you know, how much, um, flexibility can they allow their franchisees to have versus where are those brand controls?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I can see where it would be tricky because you have the overarching like, say I’m a hamburger company. Yeah. And then I’m like, you know, what’s happening in my New York hamburger company is going to be different than what’s happening in my Alabama hamburger company. And then those franchisees might have a different kind of way to interact with their people in their respective markets. That might be similar, but not the same. And, you know, to have one consistent brand message sounds like a great idea, but you also want that local guy or girl to be able to have their own personality and make it their business, because that’s what they kind of bought, right? Their own business.

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah, totally. And that is exactly the local nuance that I think separates programs as well. So for us, when we are supporting a brand, we kind of look at look at it from three different ways. One is just the, the overall brand campaigns that are relevant to everyone. And it’s kind of what we always call it, like the baseline. So regardless of the franchisee has anything to add on top of that or not, we can make it relevant and just kind of cover our bases. But then how can we make it easier for the franchisees to share those local moments, share experiences, lived experience, content from their own communities. And we do that through, um, like one of the tools we use is called Soce where we have, um, pre-built templates, but templates in the way where we’re guiding them to add their own photos, add their own employee videos. Um, and over time sharing that data to say, hey, look at what, you know, Alabama is doing. They’re sharing these types of moments, these real authentic photos. And it really becomes a balance of sharing what works across the organization and then giving them kind of a proven and approved path to, um, share those local moments, but make it easy for them. Um, so we have those templates where they can log into a centralized dashboard. And then we also have a local ticketing system that says, okay, we recognize that you’re going to have your very own custom request needs. And we have a team to help you. So almost like their own field team that can create local assets. So kind of it takes all three of those to put together a program that has that local nuance, but still operates under a brand umbrella. And I think that, um, any one of those missing, you’re almost like a sub optimized program because to your point, you definitely need a way for them to share those local moments happening in each of their markets.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. And just not to share them just for the sake of, hey, this was an interesting thing. And that’s they should do things like that. But also just for the sense of ownership that they have in the sense of pride they have, and to be able to, to make them the face of that local community that they’re that’s part of the why that they bought the franchise to begin with.

Melissa Telsrow: Yes. Yeah. You said that so well, and that’s exactly it. So how are we making it easier for them to do that? Because franchisees are all at different levels. Some feel very comfortable with social media, others don’t. Um, and so what is that right balance? And, um, and if they have the right tools that are easy in the right data and, you know, we love to share peer to peer, it’s like, here’s what’s happening in this market. Here’s how they did this, here’s how they executed it. Because those, um, I guess best practice sharing across the franchisees is really what inspires and motivates others to do similar things. But we have to make sure that they kind of have a sandbox to work within and to work from. And so yeah, so we really, we kind of act as that managed service layer between the franchisor and the franchisee to support their local efforts and to support what they’re doing locally. Um, which I think a lot of programs, it’s just, it’s missing that piece. But for those that can crack that code, it’s really, really powerful for sure.

Lee Kantor: Now when you’re working with the franchisor, with their kind of helping their franchisee be successful in a Hiper local manner. Do they also ask you to, hey, while you’re doing that, can you help me get more franchisees? Like, because as a franchisor, part of their job is to be good and serve their franchisee. But another part of their job is to get more franchisees.

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah. That’s right. You know, that’s a great question. And for our clients so far, they typically work with agencies that they specialize in that. However, what has been helpful is in our programs, we measure, um, local franchisee program adoption. And we can show year over year growth of how engaged the franchisees are in the local marketing programs, which becomes a selling point for their franchisees to know that they have best in class technology solutions that they have, you know, the most modern marketing playbooks, which have to include social media, short form video, and really meeting customers where they’re spending time consuming media. So I think that those two things go hand in hand. Um, but we’re not the, the agency actually, um, recruiting for the franchisee, we’re more of the B2C.

Lee Kantor: So then the franchisor typically, um, has kind of a separation when it comes to this. They don’t have one agency that handles everything. They have specialists that handle either one of those needs.

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah. That’s what we have found for the franchisees or franchisors that we, um, have worked with where they typically their sales, um, department and the franchise sales and business development will have, um, an agency and um, they’re specializing in franchise sales and lead nurturing. Um, whereas for the programs that we’re running are focusing on supporting the existing franchisees today and their marketing playbook.

Lee Kantor: Well, I would just think that the work you’re doing, kind of the boots on the ground in the local market is the ammunition they need to sell the next franchise.

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah. Honestly it is. And it’s that it’s that data. Um, and, you know, helping them with their, um, you know, kind of the sales resources that they need. Um, because our programs and especially now it’s really quite vital. Um, the areas that we serve are social media, um, local search and making sure that they’re visible in AI overviews and AI summaries at every location comes up in those local AI recommendations, in addition to traditional SEO and then reputation management and helping, um, to manage the reviews coming in across all the channels, which are typically Google, Facebook and Yelp for, for most franchise systems. So those three areas just are a vital part of the franchisee success. And to know that they have a robust program with the right technology and human support with it, um, really is a valuable, you know, um, a valuable selling point for the franchisor for sure.

Lee Kantor: Now in the, I guess before they work with you, are they thinking like, oh, the franchisees, they’re gonna do this, like they’re going to be able to know what to post because they’re human and they’re probably on Facebook themselves or their spouses, and they’ll figure out what the appropriate things are. And that’s probably not the case, I would imagine in most cases. Um, and you have to kind of guide them to create, do you need them to create the content? Or is it something that you create enough content and they can just kind of post it themselves? Or is it a combination?

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah, honestly, it’s a it’s a combination because we know only a percent of the system will be active on the program. However, that’s where, as I said, we are tracking adoption metrics and can show that more and more franchisees or local operators are engaging in our program because we’re making it easier and they’re seeing success. And so, um, this combination of, we have a set amount of content that we’re publishing for you. So if you don’t have time, if you don’t have resources, it’s just being done at the brand level for you. So you have an active and relevant.

Lee Kantor: So in the background, this is just happening. You don’t have to do anything. It’s just happening. And you’re gonna there’s going to be a Hiper local post in my market saying something about whatever’s going on.

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah, that’s exactly right. But the differentiator in what we tried to really focus on is not only that, you know, you have that baseline covered. How can we, um, Capture local moments from you to add additional local flavor to your content mix. Because we know that truly, truly drives, drives results, drives, business drives, awareness drives, shareability. Um, and we do that in a couple of different ways. I mean, we are constantly sourcing user generated content from local markets and asking for permission to use that content. We’re sharing, um, local content that, you know, the tools we use make it easy for franchisees to upload their own images. And then we have a way in which we’re looking at a national level to amplify what’s happening locally and to almost give them a large. So it’s almost like a reward for using the program where we’re amplifying across national channels, top performing local content. So it gives them an incentive to add to what we’re doing, um, because they’ll have a national stage and have an even larger audience. Um, so yeah, so there’s a few different, you know, um, techniques that we have found over the years, but ultimately we’re trying to, um, engage and support with the franchisees and make it easier for them. But again, I think it’s really important that there’s always a baseline layer that’s being done for them because there are times in the year when they don’t have time or resources, or maybe they had, you know, employee changes. Um, and so we know that that baseline layer is really important.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, is there a story you can share about one of your clients? You don’t have to name the name of the organization, but how you were able to help them maybe get a surprising result or maybe they were blown away with the result.

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah. You know, we have, um, we have one client that is an, it’s an interesting one. So they have, um, 34 locations. And um, I’m just going to pull this up quick. They have 34 locations and all of their content is approved before it gets published for brand compliance and guardrails.

Lee Kantor: Is that is that the norm or is that an exception?

Melissa Telsrow: It’s not an exception. And I would say, um, it just depends on the brand and the industry, right? So if it’s a regulated industry, then for sure, like some industries, for example, you can’t say the word guarantee or um, if they have sensitive content, if you know, depending on kind of what they’re working with. Um, and that was a real pain point of, um, local operators having the ability to post content that nobody sees before it goes out becomes, you know, a vicarious liability. And so, um, for certain organizations, they need that content approval layer. And so through the, our platform that we license for them, they can, you know, schedule all of their posts. And then we have a 24 hour review period. And, um, our team at Hiper, we know the brand guidelines. Um, we know what can be approved and we can approve as just a moderation layer. Um, we can approve those, but there are certain topics that always get pulled out of the queue that require special approval because of the content type. Um, and that has, so that means that 100% of content is reviewed and approved before it goes live. Um, you know, but then we have other organizations that they’re, you know, or their operators can post whatever they’d like. Um, and they have more of a passive kind of review of that. But the one, um, client that I was talking about that we were review all of their content over the last three years, we’ve increased local social media publishing by 138%. Um, really because of, we’re sharing the data frequently, we’re sharing best practices, we’re amplifying what’s going on locally. And then the local operators know, like they won’t get in trouble for something going live that it shouldn’t or needed to be changed slightly to follow brand guidelines guidelines. Um, because we have that layer of brand governance.

Lee Kantor: Now when it comes to social media for the local operator is that are there like, what are your metrics that matter and what are the areas? Like if you were giving advice to a local operator, what are the metrics that matter that you think that they should be paying attention to and being on top of when it comes to, you know, doing it in an effective, efficient manner, not just kind of doing it to do it.

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah. That’s such a good, such a good question and channel strategy for us. We look at the channels that are what we consider the brand channels and really just held for the brand only. And then which channels make sense for a local presence like Facebook, Instagram, um, Google business profiles. And so for us, when we’re looking at the data, um, we want to make sure that there’s a certain level or a certain amount of content that is reaching non-followers and new, new eyeballs based on interests and outside of their existing followers. And that’s really for brand discovery. And, you know, people are searching online, they’re going to TikTok, they’re going to YouTube, they’re going to reels to discover new brands and products. And, um, so that short form video content layer is an important part of their mix because that’s going outside of their existing followers. And so, um, we look at kind of follower growth as well as, um, social content views coming from search, which is really important. So if somebody is searching for their product or service, is their content coming up in search in social media similar to how, you know, people tend to use Google, but now they’re using social media.

Melissa Telsrow: So we look at those brand discovery metrics. Um, and then for in-feed content, the engagement rate by reach for us becomes important in terms of how many people are engaging with your content that it reached. So kind of normalizes for, um, for reach. And we almost, we follow a typical sales funnel where at the top of the funnel is your short form video. As I mentioned, for awareness and brand discovery, In-feed content is focused on engagement metrics and really fostering your community because that’s where we’re building trust and authority. And then we’re seeing conversions happening in direct message, um, using chat automation like Manychat, um, and trying to get more information and convert. And so that could be an order now, or, you know, online delivery, um, for some brands, you know, for our nonprofit clients, that could be, they sign up for a local event or fundraising effort. But we do follow a traditional marketing sales funnel, but we, um, look at it in kind of the social media ecosystem and where that audience is and what is their intent.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you so do you view social media as kind of like its role as kind of being a Costco sample rather than, you know, it’s going to close the sale? Or do you feel that it should be something that takes them all the way through purchase?

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah, it should for sure. Take them all the way through purchase for sure, and or whatever that action is. Because again, some, some brands, it is a purchase. Um, some brands it’s um, an action like a lead or, um, or they’re getting a resource that they needed. So whatever that action is, it should take them all the way through. But we do know from data that people are going to 3 or 4 sites to vet before they make a decision. So it’s kind of this infinity loop of how people are discovering and engaging with brands where they may discover you on social, and then they may, um, you know, put you into ChatGPT to get a recommendation, um, or map and, and find you through a Google business profile. So we do see all of those signals connected. And that’s why for our programs, um, we make sure that it’s not only social media, but it’s local search and reputation, so that all of those trust and authority signals are working together.

Lee Kantor: Now do you find paid is imperative? Like, is that a must have or is that a nice to have for most brands?

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah, I would say.

Melissa Telsrow: Paid is a nice to have. Um, but things have shifted so much with AI search and AI overviews, which of course are not paid that my recommendation is to double down on organic, um, and to build those trust and authority signals and be visible. Right. Because I think the biggest risk for brands is being invisible. If somebody is actively engaging in search or discovery for your product or service, um, because if they’re using an, um, like a, an LLM that’s rendering one recommendation, it’s not like a whole search results page like on Google. And all of that is organic. Um, and people are just becoming more, um, I guess just critical of like, is this AI content, is this original content? Is this paid? Is it not? And so I really believe in a solid organic, um, kind of ecosystem where if you can strategically add on paid, um, then that’s kind of the, the best to have, but I would say paid is a nice to have and certainly not a, a must have. Now depending on your industry, I should say that’s a caveat.

Lee Kantor: Now when you’re working with a franchisee, are you telling them, hey, look, you can we can do it all for you. This can happen in the background, but like how like, how are you kind of approaching them within their work flow? Is this something like, look, we need you to do something 30 minutes a week or, you know, 30 hours a week. Like what’s the expectation for a franchisee when it comes to social?

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah, hopefully it’s minimal. Um, and we try to encourage a monthly webinar with the local operators every month to share like results of what we saw last month. Here’s the editorial calendar, here’s what we’re focusing on, here’s what we’re doing for you. And then here are some key moments for you to engage with. If you have the time and resources, um, and some brands, you know, they set more strict guidelines of an expectation, but we found it best to, you know, to show them where their efforts, um, are expected within the monthly content calendar. Um, and where they’ll get the most, um, most results from those efforts. And again, usually that’s, you know, upload photos like real photos. So we’re just looking for like real photos, real moments that are candid, not as polished, um, that will resonate with, with users who are, you know, consuming that content. Um, so hopefully it’s, you know, maybe a couple hours a week, but it certainly should not be, um, because these are not marketers for the most part, you know, these are operators. And so we can’t expect them to, um, you know, to put in the time like a marketing professional would. But just be very prescriptive as what we have found to be the best and share peer to peer data and best practices to inspire them.

Lee Kantor: So if you say like, hey, if you take, you know, ten pictures vertically in this way that involves, you know, the product and a person and they just send them to you and then you take it from there.

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah.

Melissa Telsrow: It could, uh, so that could be a custom post request or in the tools that we use, they could find a template that is like seasonal, and then they could just upload their photos and schedule it for publishing right within the tool. And really, I, removing that type of friction has been pretty key because some brands still operate with like, here’s a PDF marketing playbook, and then the franchisee has to like copy and paste and go on to something. But if we’re bringing tools to their program where they can log in, they can see the different templates, upload their photos and schedule it for tomorrow and then it’s done. Um, and really, that’s what we’re going for is removing as many bottlenecks or friction points as possible.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the best way to connect?

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah.

Melissa Telsrow: Um, well, you can find me on LinkedIn at Melissa Telsrow, T E L S R O W. Otherwise, our website is hiperlocalmarketing.com and that’s spelled with an I, so H I P E R localmarketing.com.

Lee Kantor: Well, Melissa, thank you so much for sharing your story today and such. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Melissa Telsrow: Yeah.

Melissa Telsrow: Thank you. I appreciate the conversation. Thank you so much.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Franchise Marketing Radio.

Reinventing the Job Search: Career Strategy Insights with Zachary Kuhl

May 1, 2026 by Jacob Lapera

High Velocity Radio

Reinventing the Job Search: Career Strategy Insights with Zachary Kuhl

00:00 /

In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Lee Kantor talks with career coach Zachary Kuhl of Strategically Human about cutting through the noise in today’s job market. Kuhl shares insider insights from recruiting, explaining how candidates can stand out by focusing on measurable results, clear positioning, and consistent outreach. He emphasizes that job searching is a full-time effort requiring both volume and strategy—and that success comes from knowing your value, telling your career story effectively, and targeting the right opportunities.

Zachary Kuhl is a talent strategist and career coach with over a decade of experience recruiting for startups, Fortune 500 companies, and university career services. He is the author of the guidebook Push: 6 Tips & Exercises To Push You Further In Your Career, a practical resource designed to help professionals navigate crossroads and gain momentum in their professional lives.

By combining his deep background in hospitality and corporate recruiting, he provides actionable exercises that help individuals bridge the gap between where they are and where they want to be.

In addition to his coaching, he is a forward-thinking researcher on the intersection of technology and labor. His white paper, The Strategic Human, offers a nuanced look at how AI is reshaping the job market by eroding routine cognitive work and impacting entry-level roles.

Rather than leaning into “AI panic,” he focuses on the subtle, structural shifts in employment, helping audiences understand how to remain relevant and strategic in an increasingly automated economy.

Connect with Zach on LinkedIn and X.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Overview of Strategically Human and its approach to research-backed, actionable career coaching.
Differences between high-volume (data-driven) and match-driven (headhunting) recruitment.
Importance of identifying whether you’re a “mass” or “bespoke” candidate in the job market.
How to stand out by turning experience into measurable, tangible results.
The role of visibility, networking, and personal branding in attracting opportunities.
Common job search mistakes, including being too broad or misaligned in applications.
Why job searching requires high volume (40–50 applications/week) plus targeted outreach.
Insights into recruiter behavior, job boards, and hidden hiring biases.
Strategies to combat bias and better position your resume and experience.
The concept of building and communicating a clear “career story.”

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have career coach with Strategically Human, Zachary Kuhl. Welcome.

Zachary Kuhl: Thank you. It’s nice to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your practice. How are you serving folks?

Zachary Kuhl: So right now, what we focus on primarily is trying to find real world applications to give to folks outside of the well, let’s be honest, career coaching has been sort of a polarized business. Some folks think it’s just fancy life coaching. Some folks think it’s just a bunch of workbooks. We’re trying to strike the right balance, give people research backed, actionable steps that they can actually use in the job market as it is today. Instead of just advice from five years ago or speculations on what’s going to happen in the next five years.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How did you get involved in career coaching?

Zachary Kuhl: So my background is actually in talent acquisition and recruitment. So I started on the hiring side of things, worked in the hospitality business for a while before moving into go to market and sales when the pandemic hit a couple of years ago. And through that process, it became pretty clear that the job market was moving a lot faster than anyone had realized. And I was talking to a lot of folks who were in sort of sales and marketing backgrounds, and they were going through a lot of disruption, lots of hiring and then firing phases, and people were just unsure about how to leverage their existing experience up against the new challenges and new opportunities that were coming down the pipeline. And so I started to develop sort of a framework that I would use with the people that I was actually recruiting go out, reach out to them, give them tips about how to actually get the job. So they would get the jobs, my clients. And then I realized that it’s a lot more fulfilling to actually work on just the side of the folks who are trying to get the job. So then I transitioned into the actual career coaching side from there.

Lee Kantor: So in talent acquisition, do you find that people who have that role are across industries? Is it the similar work? Is there the same strategy or is kind of every business or company have their own unique way of doing it?

Zachary Kuhl: Every company is a little bit different, but there’s two primary schools of thought across all organizations. So there’s high volume recruitment or what we call data driven recruitment. And then there’s match driven recruitment. So high volume is exactly what it sounds like. Try to get as many people into the interview process as you can to hopefully filter through and find the best number of candidates for the most number of roles the organization has. The match driven is where it’s more like headhunting, where you’re trying to find someone with a specific skill set for the specific problem. Every organization does a little bit of both, but depending on if you are in a specialty organization or if you are in a high volume organization, that’ll affect it. And so I’ve done a little bit of both. And so from that side of it, I know some of the, let’s call it dirty secrets of the hiring business. From the high volume side of things, the things that will automatically get you booted into the no pile. The communication strategies that they’ll use, but also because I’ve been on the match driven side, I know what it takes to stand out from the crowd and to leverage your experience to match what you’re trying to get.

Lee Kantor: Now was the first kind of decision that a candidate has to make is, am I, you know, am I a mass candidate or am I a bespoke candidate?

Zachary Kuhl: Yeah, I think that’s really where a lot of people need to start. If you have some sort of specialty skill set, or you even just have an outlook on a problem that, you know, the organization you’re targeting has to deal with. You have to figure out the best way to get that opinion or that viewpoint in front of that organization, which requires some real out-of-the-box thinking. It’s more than just having a nice resume and a nice cover letter. You have to know how to network and how to put yourself out there in a way that shows that you’re the subject matter expert, which will put you above the rest.

Lee Kantor: But is that where a lot of the frustration lies? Where the candidate thinks that they are a bespoke, but they’re a mass, and then they’re going about it in a way that’s just not going to serve them.

Zachary Kuhl: That’s definitely a part of it. I think what we’ve seen a lot in the last couple of years as well, is you’ll have folks who they think that they are a great fit for whatever position or whatever organization it may be. And what they end up forgetting is that they are their their perspective is unique, but the actual applicable skill set that they have probably isn’t. And so that’s when you have to get really good at taking your theoretical point of view and put it into an actual, tangible thing. And that means that you’re going to need to be volunteering in your community more. You’re going to need to be willing to take on more responsibilities in your current position, things that will take you from that mass candidate to that bespoke, because you’ve taken the extra steps to take your theory and your perspective and make it practical and tangible.

Lee Kantor: All right, so let’s break down each one of those. So what are some actionable things a mass candidate could do to stand out?

Zachary Kuhl: So the easiest thing is to just make yourself more known in your current role. If you’re in any sort of position, just being someone who’s willing to be vocal in the room is going to be a very, very valuable skill set. There are plenty of people who make it to any position in an organization, and they don’t quite know what their place is, and so they will just be happy to be in the room and sit back quietly. At that point, you’re basically just as good as the wallpaper, even if you’re wrong or your ideas aren’t, uh, taken up on if you can at first show that you have something to add and you’re willing to put yourself out there, people will naturally gravitate towards you and they’ll start giving you more responsibility. And that’s the first thing that you can do. Instead of going to your resume and saying, well, I’ve worked on this team with this title, which is great, you can actually go and say, you know, I’ve worked at this, this company with this title, and I’ve worked on this project that had this outcome. The more actual, tangible things you can put your hands on and attach your name to, the more valuable you are in the market. That’s the first step. Secondly is do something similar in your own community. If there’s nonprofits, if there’s initiatives that you care deeply about, give a couple of hours of your time during the week to do whatever you can and again, measure the impact of what that thing is. And you can market that on your resume, on your portfolio, whatever it may be.

Lee Kantor: So now if you’re going the other way and you’re hoping to be attractive to a headhunter, what should you be doing to stand out in that regard?

Zachary Kuhl: It’s still the same thing. You have to build your value where you are. Um, a very unpopular opinion with, uh, with candidates is the fact that if you can’t be considered for a promotion where you currently are, then it’s going to be very hard to get a headhunter to notice you. You have to build the skill sets with what you have available in front of you, and again, then attaching your name to whatever those projects or those outcomes are, it’s going to make you more valuable to them. But the thing that people will miss when it comes to the headhunter side of it, is that once you do that work, you do have to let people know. And I know that people have some polarizing opinions about LinkedIn or getting on different video platforms and things like that. But if you can position yourself as someone in the public eye that is actually doing anything that is tied to your career. The easier will be for people to find you because you’re simply more visible.

Lee Kantor: So now when you’re working with your clients, is this a difficult conversation or are they kind of hungry for this kind of information?

Zachary Kuhl: It depends on the client. You have some folks who they feel they’ve done everything right, and they want to just unlock whatever the next step is, and they don’t believe that they need to do a whole lot more. There are some folks who are more open to it, but the folks who are most successful understand that the market is ever changing, and that years of experience or the right degree, or knowing the right person is only part of the battle. Uh, and so the ones who are more willing to take up that advice and are willing to put themselves out there are the ones who usually find themselves success faster.

Lee Kantor: Now, since you’ve been kind of on the inside. Um, are the, are people’s perceived biases as true as they might think when it comes to age or race? Um, is, are those things that are, are, did you see that with your eyes or was that something that’s implied? Or is there kind of just some subconscious bias when it comes to some of that stuff? Or is that real issues that, you know, if you’re 50, 55 years old, that that’s, that’s a reality.

Zachary Kuhl: I can only speak to my experience. I’ll say that. But in my experience, it is a real thing for sure. Sometimes it is conscious, sometimes it is unconscious, um, or I should say subconscious. So when it comes to things like, uh, ageism or the school that you went to, or the amount of jobs that you’ve had in a certain amount of time, those biases exist, especially when you get into smaller organizations where the amount of, let’s call it layers to the cake are smaller, when you’re a part of a larger organization where you have a very robust legal department and talent acquisition team and HR team, it’s easier to build in processes that actively work against personal bias. But if you’re talking about a smaller organization, a startup organization, anything like that, where there’s only a handful of decision makers there bias, whether they know they’re doing it or not, whether they want to do it or not is going to affect that, that decision making. And so if we’re talking about something like ageism, there’s a few very easy things you can do to work against that. One of it is not list the dates when you’ve graduated from whatever education you have. Only putting the last five years of relevant experience, um, sort of things like that. And then any other biases that you feel you might be victim to if you’re working with a coach like myself or my team. We can address those through the coaching process and figure out how we want to try to combat them, but it’s very personalized at that point about what you feel like you might be at risk of being, um, biased for.

Lee Kantor: So now when a person is hiring a coach like yourself or just a career coach in general, is it because this is a Hail Mary for them? Or is this something that they’re being proactively strategic around or they don’t want to, you know, they think it’s going to shorten the amount of time that they’ll be looking like kind of where’s their mindset?

Zachary Kuhl: Most of the people that we work with have come to us sort of as a Hail Mary last ditch attempt, if I’m being honest. They have they’ve done everything that they think that they need to do and they haven’t gotten the results that they want. And so they come to work with us, which is why we take the research and the data side of what we do very seriously. There’s a lot of great coaching services out there. There’s a lot of not so great coaching services out there. We want to give as much resources as we can to our clients that they can then continue to use down their career, whether they work with us or not. Because by the time that someone gets to us, they’ve already went through all the steps that they think that they need to go through. They’ve updated their resume, they’ve contacted people at the company, they’ve gotten great references. They’re using multiple job boards, things like that. And so by the time someone gets to us, usually what we end up finding in the first meeting or two is that they’re usually just focusing on the wrong areas. And by that, I mean that they are far too focused on trying to get in touch with someone in the organization. Trying to get an inside lead or their resume is overly extensive or under utilized, or their portfolio is a mess. There’s some aspect of it that they tried so hard to polish it that it’s just become almost useless. And so a lot of what we do is just helping people backpedal a little bit, look at the larger picture, and then break down the steps that they need to get to where they want to go, and then we help them through those steps. But ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s not a great business model, but we want to teach people how to be able to do this on their own, because a lot of this is just slowing down and looking at how to market yourself, how to sell yourself better.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you specialize in industry or niche or type of work?

Zachary Kuhl: So my background is mostly in go to market. So a lot of sales organizations, high growth, things like that. So that’s a lot of what I focus on. But as the market’s been changing, a lot of my focus has been moving towards computer science and what’s been going on in that space. But we can work with anyone. We have a big focus on health care as well, because that’s a huge need right now in the market. Um, but if you come to us and you’re someone who’s got a background in accounting, a lot of the same principles that we use are going to apply to that same hiring process. Because at the end of the day, it’s all talent acquisition. We know the steps that go through it. It’s just the decision making factors might be different, and there’s enough out there that we can do the research to find out what those factors are.

Lee Kantor: Now, a lot of, um, executives that I spoke to, they are always looking for a players. They feel like those players are, you know, ten X, you know what a C player can be and how do you coach your people up when it comes to how good they are rather than how good they think they are? Is there a way to assess that? Number one, and is there a way to explain it to a potential employer? Uh, when it comes to an industry or like you said, accountants, like how do you show you’re an a player accountant when it’s kind of a commodity type industry?

Zachary Kuhl: Well, a lot of it comes down to what’s actually measurable, what you’ve actually been able to do or the outcomes that you can bring to the table. And so there’s this thin line. You have to walk between being realistic about what you’ve done and not trying to oversell what you think you could do. I tell everyone there’s a thin line between brave and stupid. And so what we want to look at is the actual tangible outcomes of your work. So if you are, let’s go with the accountant example. If you’re someone who’s working accounting, you’re trying to make it into a more senior role, or you’re trying to get into a more prestigious firm, one of the easiest ways you can show that you actually make an impact is by measuring your impact. Look at the portfolios that you’ve managed. Look at the time it takes you to complete any amount of tasks and compare that to the average of your team. Okay, let’s say you’re 5% faster. Okay, great. We can mark that. Let’s work with that. You have 13% less errors. The more you can break things down into tangible numbers, the easier it is for you to physically say, I am this much better than X. I sit in, you know, this grade point average of the curve. If you really want to get into the numbers of something. Because once you can see the tangible outcomes of what you do every day, and sometimes it’s a pain to figure that out, you have to sit down and do the math and really compare yourself to others. But once you know where you’re at compared to your peers, it becomes very clear to you where you sit at and figuring out where you want to push those values farther and where you might want to push some value back.

Lee Kantor: Now, for the folks that aren’t looking for a job today, but at you know, in today’s world, at some point you will be, um, how important is it to kind of check what the market is paying? Like, should you be doing that regularly and seeing, okay, where am I at relative to where other people like me are at?

Zachary Kuhl: My advice to people is to always look at the market about every six months. Go look at the data from U.S. labor statistics is the easiest way to get sort of a national average. But you also should be going out and interviewing at least every 12 to 18 months, even if you’re not planning on taking another job, just to get yourself out there to get you into the practice of doing all these things that we’ve talked about. And again, figure out realistically what you could get from the market. You might not be looking, and you might go through this exercise and end up getting an offer that you would have never considered before, and it might be the right move for you at that time. But keeping those skill sets sharp and keeping an eye on what’s going on is the best way for you to know when it might be time to move on.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re saying interviewer, are you saying externally or internally?

Zachary Kuhl: Both. Ideally. Um, but at least externally, um, it’s one of those things that some people, they get a little antsy about because, well, what if someone finds out about it X, Y, and z? I’m not saying you have to go and do a whole big blast on LinkedIn. You can go and quietly apply to a couple of different places and see what it gets you. But if you’re in a position where you’re just comfortable where you’re at and you don’t know what’s going on with the market, and suddenly you’re a victim of a layoff or a reshuffle that you didn’t see coming down the pipeline, you’re going to wish that maybe you had some options, or you’re going to at least wish that you had some practice under your belt.

Lee Kantor: Now, what advice would you give people that are in, say, the creative field or the arts? Is the is the same strategy apply for an actor as it does for an accountant?

Zachary Kuhl: I’ll be honest, I’ve got a little bit less experience there. I do work with some graphic designers and things like that, but I do think that it is a little bit more of a business mindset in that world, because you have to be almost more data driven with your outcomes than someone who works in any other career. Because if you work in any other career, the the tangible data is right in front of you, you know, or are you able to sell enough? Did you move enough units where projects completed on time? Did your client base like what you delivered? If you’re a creative person, you’re usually working for yourself in some capacity. And so you have to be very, very clear on what your deliverables were, what you got done, and the timeline and efficiency that you got those things done. It’s much harder in the creative space for my experience.

Lee Kantor: Now, talk about your book. Why was it important for you to write a book? I mean, you mentioned, uh, a little bit ago that you said that, you know, maybe your, um, strategy of helping people become kind of, um, self-sufficient maybe isn’t the best business model, but it was the book along the same lines, the thinking.

Zachary Kuhl: So the book is where it all started. I had moved into freelance coaching and had developed a few exercises I would do with people, because when I got started, it was a lot of not quite executive coaching, but a lot of higher level level, uh, folks who were really going through more of a crisis, a crisis of confidence. And so I started to develop these exercises that I would go through with people to help them identify a lot of what we talked about. What skill sets do you bring to the table that are unique to you? What are you better at than others? What maybe should you not advertise as much? And so I built these exercises, and I had toyed around with the idea of trying to write a really extensive book. And the more that I worked on it, the more that I realized there’s just a lot of clutter. And if you look at if you go to any bookstore and you go to the business section or self-help section, you’ll find books similar to this about, you know, uh, become a CEO in ten weeks or some nonsense like that. And so I wanted to strip all the noise out. And so it’s more of a guidebook. It’s right around 100 pages, and it’s just six tips and exercises that you can sit down and do in an afternoon to actually figure out what your value is going into the market and what you need to do for your next steps. And the idea behind it is quite simple. There’s lots of folks that we talk to who don’t technically need to work with us. They just need to identify what those skill sets are to push ahead. And if someone can spend a couple bucks on a guidebook that helps them do that, the labor market overall would be much better off.

Lee Kantor: Now, when a person is looking for work and say they don’t have a job right now, what should their day look like? Like, I can see how this could just be, you know, overwhelming and frustrating. And you could get burnt out in a very short period of time. How do you help coach them on the kind of the grind it takes to get that next gig?

Zachary Kuhl: That’s a great question, because getting a job is a full time job. That’s that’s very, very real. And the burnout is definitely a big part of it. The first step is, I think, figuring out what your timeline realistically needs to be. If you’re someone who their finances are in order and you can take a week to, you know, put some feelers out there and see if there’s any sort of organic leads that you can follow. Great. Maybe start there. But if you’re like most of us and you start to instantly become stressed about the money coming in, regardless of your finances, we like to work in blocks. And so if we’re working with someone who is currently unemployed, we do four days a week where the coach will work very closely with you. It’ll be one day of doing applications, one day of doing cold outreach, one day of doing applications, one day of doing cold outreach, taking some time off and then coming back in the next week until interviews start to come in, and then we break the block up for interview prep. But you want to split your time between passive applications and actively reaching out to people who might be able to help you.

Lee Kantor: So do those kind of job boards work? Like, is that a realistic possibility to get a job through one of those kind of, you know, mega job boards?

Zachary Kuhl: Yes and no. Here’s the uncomfortable truth. Most of the job. I want to say most all the job boards are now more engagement machines than anything else. So to give you some insight on the talent acquisition side of things, if I use indy.com, which most organizations are going to use, I pay them for a couple of things. I pay them for premium listing spots, having my job towards the top of the board to give me the most number of applicants. And I also pay for something called clicks, which is the amount of people that I actually say I want to talk to who have applied, and I pay for messages, which are people who haven’t applied, but I found them and I want to contact them. And so the entire business model of indeed is around getting me the business to pay for the most amount of premium advertising spots, clicks and messages that I can. So they’re going to continue to feed you the business leads, but they’re not going to be the very, very best leads. Because if they’re the very, very best leads, then you’re going to pay for less clicks and less messages. And so if you’re a candidate, you do need to be on those job boards because that’s where the employers are. But it’s not enough to just put out a couple a day. You need to really push volume and you need to do the cold outreach on the other side. Find people on LinkedIn if you can. There’s tools right now, AI scraping tools that people are building to help you find internal email addresses for people. If that’s something you’re willing to try, that’s a great avenue as well. But you need to hit both sides of it, so to say, to really be effective.

Lee Kantor: So what kind of volume do you recommend? Is it ten 100 or 1000? I mean, this it seems like it could be anything.

Zachary Kuhl: In a hyper competitive role. So if you’re not a true specialist, um it’s probably going to be 40 to 50 applications a week. Uh, and that, uh, at least half of those, if you can find contact information for someone in the organization, you need to do the cold reach on top of at least half of those as well.

Lee Kantor: So 50 and then 25, like that combo, you know, twice a week, that’s your week.

Zachary Kuhl: That’s the week. And we usually find success within 2 to 3 weeks. If we hit that volume with the clients we work with in the past.

Lee Kantor: So you better be resilient. You better have some sticktoitiveness because this is not for the faint of heart.

Zachary Kuhl: No, that’s like I said, getting a job has become a full time job. Definitely.

Lee Kantor: Now, what do you say to the people who are like, I’m sending out all this stuff and nobody everybody’s ghosting me. No, I’m not even getting like a any response whatsoever. Like I’m just putting information into the ether.

Zachary Kuhl: Well, if everyone else in the world is crazy, but you, then you’re probably the one who’s insane. Um, there’s something wrong with the process. You’re either not applying to the right places or you’re not leveraging your experience and the way you should be for the places that you’re applying or you’re just completely scattershot. And this is one of the most common ones that we see. We have people who they’re applying to roles that they think they could be a fit for, roles that are exactly what they were doing before, and roles that are underneath what they think that they’re good for. And so the roles that your peer two, you got a decent shot at, but you’re not putting enough applications out to the roles that you might be good enough for. You’re probably not doing the outreach side of. So people think maybe you’re not at the level and the roles that you’re above, well, then they’re gonna the employer thinks they’re gonna have to pay you more because you’re above that level. And so they’re not going to engage with you either. You need to pick an avenue and be very intentional about your efforts in that avenue.

Lee Kantor: So is there a story you could share, maybe your favorite success story when it comes to helping somebody get a dream job or get a position that, that, you know, maybe, uh, that they were surprised that they were able to get.

Zachary Kuhl: Yeah. There was one individual that I worked with when I was still doing freelance coaching before we sort of made this official. He had a very unorthodox background. Uh, he was a data engineer, but he had never went to school for it. He had worked with, um, one of the larger banks, I think it was either Bank of America or JP Morgan. And he had spent 13 years of his career there. Everything that he knew, he had learned internally within the organization. He had gotten a couple other, um, um, like certifications from third party sources. But he had all these wealth of experience, but he was missing that college education that a lot of people want to see for the roles he was interested in. Primarily, he didn’t have the masters of computer science. He didn’t want to go back to school. Whatever his employment situation was, he was working at an office that was going to be winding down. And so the office was going to close. I wanted to relocate. He didn’t want relocate, so we had to find him something else. And it became really clear that he had all the know how that he needed to be successful in the types of roles he was looking for, but he didn’t know how to translate it into layman’s terms, because a huge part about the hiring process that people don’t think about is recruiters like myself. I only know enough about the role I’m recruiting for to be able to talk about it for about a half hour.

Zachary Kuhl: I don’t know all the jargon, I don’t know all the inside baseball terminology. And so if you lean too heavily into specialty knowledge. It can almost be a deterrent. And everything that he was talking about in our interview prep and all of his resume work was extremely knowledgeable, but it wasn’t anything that a layman could make sense of. And so we had to really sit down together and figure out what he did in the day to day, that he could translate into something that you and I could understand, to be able to leverage that into his job search. And so that’s what we did. Over the course of about three weeks, we started to get interviews coming in, and he eventually ended up getting a head of engineering role, actually for a Web3 startup at the time, which was a huge bump in pay for him. It was breaking into a new field and something he was personally very passionate about. And it all came from that conversation of sitting down and saying, okay, you clearly know what you’re talking about, but how are we going to translate this and leverage this? So other people see it? Just because you’re missing this piece of paper doesn’t mean that you don’t know where you’re going. We just have to be able to convince everyone else by breaking it down to language that they can understand.

Lee Kantor: Now, if a person is just trying to do this on their own without the help of you or coach like you, what is the kind of the typical timeline for somebody who’s just out there winging it, doing the best they can? Like, how long does a job search typically take?

Zachary Kuhl: I don’t know if there’s official numbers for this. We’ve done some independent research, and from the surveys we’ve put out, it’s usually 6 to 6 and a half months if you’re doing it by yourself. And so that’s why whether you’re working with a coach or not, just being very intentional with your output and how you’re positioning yourself will save a lot of time off of that. Because if you’re currently working full time and you’re doing this part time, maybe six, six and a half months is a timeline, that’s reasonable. But if you’re not working, that can be a really rough situation.

Lee Kantor: But earlier you said it could be a matter of weeks if you’re just kind of relentlessly working the system you recommend.

Zachary Kuhl: Right. If you’re doing it, like I said, with the system that we recommend a couple of weeks, but from the surveys we’ve put out to people who are passively looking, they’re reporting back to us as taking 6 to 6 and a half months. We have no idea what their output is.

Lee Kantor: Right. But part of what makes your thing work is you’re being relentless and you’re doing volume.

Zachary Kuhl: Exactly. If you can do the volume, you can shave that down to a couple of weeks or a month and a half reasonably. Um, but most people, even if they are doing the volume side of it, they’re too scattershot in the approach as well. Um, and so my advice to anyone who’s doing it on their own is to be very relentless with the volume, but very intentional with where you’re putting that volume as well.

Lee Kantor: Right. But in order to do that, you have to have a clear understanding of who you are and the value you provide to the market, not just what you think.

Zachary Kuhl: Yes. That’s true.

Lee Kantor: Right. Because that’s I mean, that’s a big part of the value you’re providing is you’re giving them a true kind of assessment so they can aim like a laser instead of just aiming and thinking that they, they are hitting the bullseye when they may not even be in the, in the room.

Zachary Kuhl: No, you’re not wrong about that. And that’s a big part of it is just the objectiveness of it. We’re as human beings, we’re really, really bad at being objective about what we’re good at and really, really bad about being objective, about what we’re bad at. And so having that outside person being, you know, ideally would be a coach of some kind makes it a lot easier to get there.

Lee Kantor: So now how does it work? Okay, I raised my hand. I’m like, Zach, I’m in. What do you do? Some sort of assessment. Do you look at my resume? Like, how do you kind of build the plan for me so that I am like a laser now.

Zachary Kuhl: So we start by doing an intro call with you, and before the intro call starts, you have to send us over some information. So we need your your updated resume or your updated work history. It doesn’t need to be in resume format. You can just send it over in an email. Um, and we need to know what exactly it is that you’re wanting to do. Um, if you come to us and you just say, I just need a job, that’s a fine place to start. But we do need to know what your intention is. If you’re just curiously looking, we probably will pass on you for now because we’re really, again, intentional. And then from there, we will then go into the intro call. We’ll ask you a whole bunch of questions, ranging from where you went to school, to how much you want to make in the next five years. And from that assessment, well, then look at your resume and we’ll build what we call your career story, which is where you’ve been, what you’re doing and where you want to go. All stories consist of three parts beginning, middle and end, and using that resume and that first intro call or what we call our personality interview with you, we build out what we think that story is. And then in our second meeting, we run through that story together, make sure it’s a story that you’re comfortable with, you feel represents you well, and that you’re comfortable speaking to. And then we build the job search strategy from there. But figuring out that career story, that is what we use to build all the materials around.

Lee Kantor: Now, are you helping me identify the places I have to apply or am I doing that? Like, um, is like, how much is this done for me? And how much is this? Do it myself.

Zachary Kuhl: So it depends on the level of assistance that you want. And so if you’re looking for more of just helping you identify the avenues, that’s a little bit more of a cheaper service, if you want more of a hands on service, we will go out and we’ll add usually 25 to 40 jobs, depending on how difficult of a specialty it is into a personalized job tracker for you. And then we use that job tracker to also track your applications going out. So we have a tangible record of how many applications you got going out the door versus the number of applications that you’ve passed on for whatever reason. And then we also use that with a rating system that we build into it to help us figure out what appeals to you and what does not appeal to you to adjust our search going forward. And so if you go with that model, we, most of us come from a recruitment background. We have access to recruiter seats on a lot of job boards. So we can easily filter through postings that you would never find. And so that service does cost a lot more, if I’m being frank about it. If you’re someone who, uh, you know, time is of the essence, it could definitely be a worthwhile service if you’re someone who just wants to help with the confidence and sort of the positioning, that’s something we can do in a matter of a couple of meetings and then send you on your way.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Zachary Kuhl: Uh, so best way to get in touch with us is to go to strategically human.org. Um, that’s the name of our website on there. You’ll find a little bit more about us. There’ll be a link to the job or the guidebook as well as our white paper. And then there’ll be some information on the different services that we offer in a contact link. That’s the best way.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Zachary Kuhl: Of course. Thanks for having me on.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.

Mastering Mindset: Turning Self-Doubt into Success

May 1, 2026 by Jacob Lapera

High Velocity Radio

Mastering Mindset: Turning Self-Doubt into Success

00:00 /

In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Lee interviews Paul Boehnke, a coach specializing in helping individuals overcome negative self-talk and build aligned businesses. He explains how the “inner critic” — rooted in fear and habit — can limit growth, but can be reframed into a supportive voice through awareness and intentional thought habits. Drawing from his background as a classical musician, He emphasizes self-discipline, mindset, and alignment with personal values as keys to success, especially for solo entrepreneurs. He highlights that business struggles often stem not from lack of knowledge, but from internal misalignment. He also distinguishes coaching from therapy and consulting, noting that coaching focuses on forward movement, clarity, and accountability. Through practical strategies and mindset shifts, he helps clients transition careers, overcome perfectionism, and create more fulfilling, effective paths forward.

As a classical musician, Paul Boehnke stumbled on a unique process that not only helped his performances but could easily be applied to taming his inner critic. Then he realized this process not only works for him but works for everyone, musician or not.

As a speaker, author, and coach, Paul helps coaches and entrepreneurs find energetic alignment with their business so they have greater impact, make more money, and have more fun.

In his book, “Thoughts On Demand: Turn Negative Self-Talk into Unstoppable Confidence” he shares a process that transforms the voice in your head from an adversary into an ally.

Connect with Paul on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Overview of Paul Boehnke’s coaching practice focused on inner critic work and solo entrepreneurs
Exploration of negative self-talk and how it impacts personal and professional growth
Insights into how the inner critic forms and why it persists as a protective mechanism
Techniques for identifying hidden beliefs behind behaviors like procrastination and perfectionism
Introduction to reframing and replacing limiting thought patterns with supportive ones
Discussion on career transitions and managing fear, uncertainty, and identity shifts
Importance of aligning business strategies with personal values and energy
Differences between coaching, therapy, and consulting in personal development
Real client example showing how overcoming perfectionism improved business performance
Overview of coaching formats offered, including one-on-one sessions, group programs, and online resources

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is gonna be a good one. Today on the show, we have Paul Boehnke with Paul Boehnke Coaching. Welcome.

Paul Boehnke: Thank you Lee. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn about your practice. Uh, tell us about your coaching practice. How are you serving folks?

Paul Boehnke: Well, um, yeah, there are a couple of different focuses that I seem to have in my business. The first is, um, I love doing work around the inner critic. That negative self-talk, the little voice in our head, which is always telling us what we can or cannot do. And it seems to be in the way of so many things that we want. And I love helping people sort of uncover what’s really going on with that voice and figuring out how we can reprogram that voice, change it so that it’s supportive and encouraging. So that’s sort of one of the major parts of what I do. I also do a bit of business coaching with mostly solo entrepreneurs. And sometimes that inner critic work, of course, comes in to that business building as well. So those two areas fit together pretty nicely.

Lee Kantor: Can you share a little bit about your backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Paul Boehnke: Well, of course, I got into coaching because I was a classical musician for 30 years.

Lee Kantor: It was a logical next step.

Paul Boehnke: Then of course, yes, actually. Well, actually it was for me on the inside. You know, I think, uh, being an artist, uh, it is about so much more than, uh, just mastering the tools of your art. I think being an artist is really becoming a master of yourself, really sort of getting a hold of what are all those hidden fears, motivations, worries that get in the way of creativity. And an artist’s job, I think, is to clear away all of those hidden things so that creativity has a place to be. And it turned out that was a great preparation for coaching, helping other people do that same sort of thing. So on what looked like on the outside, I’m sure what looked like a rather drastic shift to my friends and colleagues on the inside, it felt like just a little minor shift in the focus of what I was doing.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you still work as a classical musician?

Paul Boehnke: Actually I do. Not nearly as much. I played a concert yesterday, as a matter of fact. So it is still in my life. And my family were all musicians, and so I can’t quite get away from it even if I wanted.

Lee Kantor: And then now the focus though, like career wise, is more along coaching.

Paul Boehnke: Yes, yes, that’s that’s what I do full time and, you know, play a couple, three concerts a year maybe.

Lee Kantor: Now for yourself, was that a difficult transition to make to, you know, having kind of the image of yourself as I am a musician to. Now I am a coach who also does music.

Paul Boehnke: Well, if I’m going to be honest, during that switch, of course I had my own little voice in my head saying, you’re doing what? What do you think you’re doing? Who’s who’s who’s going to trust you for this? But you know, once, once I realized that taking that step is what I needed to do, you take the first baby step and you realize, well, I didn’t die. So I guess maybe I could take the second baby step, and then pretty soon you’re off and running. So yeah, making a shift like that can be, oh, what’s the word can be a little intimidating, but also felt so strongly in my mind that I knew, although I loved being a musician, I could tell that time was sort of coming to an end and there was going to need to be something else. And so I just needed to step into it. And the more you step into something, the more comfortable and easy it becomes for you.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you work with your clients who are in a similar state of their career may be where one chapter of their career is ending, and then now they have to take that leap into something else. How do you help them? Number one, to come to terms with that maybe reality and number two, to help, you know, have the inner confidence to launch into this new kind of world?

Paul Boehnke: Yeah. Well, it’s a great question. And I think, you know, you kind of highlighted the two parts. How do you help people, um, come to the realization that something needs to change? And usually they can come to that realization fairly easily on their own, mostly. But what gets them stuck is the fear of, okay, if I’m letting all of this go, then what? Um, there’s this void that feels. And for some people, there might be grief of sort of letting something go. So you work through that process like you would any process. Um, but then stepping into what, what is needed. Um, you know, I think when, when we are able to help people find things that are inspiring to them, that move them, that really resonate with their values, then they have the sense of clear purpose of what’s going on for them themselves and their lives. Um, it almost feels bigger than them and they’re drawn to it. Um, so then we just sort of help get that clear for them and help them feel supported as they take those baby steps into the next thing.

Lee Kantor: Now, when a person is struggling, a lot of times they part of the struggle is kind of the way that they’re talking to themselves. Um, is that kind of negative self-talk? Is that something that is just a human behavioral way to protect us, you know, as a species? Or is this or some people just able to not have negative self-talk?

Paul Boehnke: Well, I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t have some now. Um, we all have our unique varieties or unique amounts of it, but I think it is very naturally part of our humanity. Um, you know, the fear center of our brain, the amygdala, it’s job is to look out for everything dangerous and point it out to us so that we can stay safe. And it’s done a great job of that over the millennia because, well, here we are. Um, but, uh, most of what goes on in our lives now is not life threatening, even though our amygdala still thinks it is. So we have developed these, shall we say, habits of thought that, um, encourage us to find all the bad things that could possibly go wrong, rather than the good habits of thought that try to keep us safe by saying, oh no, you’re not really quite good enough for this. Uh, you know, stay away from that because then you won’t be humiliated, be shamed, be whatever it is And it turns out that those are just habits of thought. They are not who we are. They don’t define us. It’s just who we are. These are habits of thought that don’t define us unless we say that they do, of course. Um, and when we can first of all realize that the grip that those thoughts have on us seems to lessen. Um, in my work, I’ve also not come in, not encountered any sort of inner critic message that isn’t ultimately based on some sort of a lie.

Paul Boehnke: And when we can really get to the bottom of what’s the lie underneath this, then that helps us even more to release it. Um, and then what we want to do is, uh, find a new belief, a new thing that we want to hear from our mind. Um, and that isn’t going to be just the opposite of some old message because that just creates an argument which will keep the old message alive. But when we can do a little end run around that argument, address the issues that that lie brings up, but do it in a way that supports and encourages us. Then all we have to do is turn that thought into a habit, which is actually one of the skills that’s most useful to me that I learned as a musician. How do you get your brain to do what you want it to do and to do it on cue? This is actually a whole process or framework that I use with my clients called Thoughts on Demand. Um, I’ve actually written a book which goes into detail of that whole process by the same title, but that’s kind of how we do that. We sort of pick apart what’s really going on with this negative self-talk, and then we find out what do we want to replace it with. And then it’s just a matter of creating a habit, which is not a difficult thing to do.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you have any advice for the listener right now? Is there something they can be doing to number one, to just maybe increase their awareness of, oh, I am doing that thing. I am, um, using negative self-talk. Like I’m sure there has to be an awareness element where they, the person, you know, maybe instinctively says, I don’t, I don’t do that. And then maybe there’s a way to show them that they do do that. And then once you do that, how, what’s kind of a baby step you can do to stop doing that a little bit?

Paul Boehnke: Yeah, great. So one of the interesting things about this inner critic is it is a very wily shapeshifter. It can look and behave in all sorts of ways. Um, you know, some of the ways that it disguises itself are through procrastination or perfectionism or worry or imposter syndrome or being particularly shy or particularly, um, gregarious, shall we say. And it will hide behind all sorts of different behaviors. But when we really get to the bottom of why am I procrastinating? Or why am I, um, a perfectionist? What’s really going on in my mind underneath those things, that’s when we begin to sort of uncover what those lies are and what’s really going on for us. And we come to realize that we have a whole lot of options to stay safe and to move forward in ways that are really encouraging to us without having to rely on those other habits which aren’t serving us very well. And then, as I mentioned, just sort of this process of creating new habits about the way you think. So in a nutshell, it’s about as simple as that. It’s, um, uh, what I want to say in some ways, it can take a little time to sort of begin to recognize that.

Paul Boehnke: But if you see, oh, yes, I’m finding I procrastinate a lot. Oh, well, that’s, that’s pretty interesting. Why? What’s going on underneath that procrastination? What are you telling yourself? And it can be such a huge range of things, even for that one. One issue I can think of one client I had who loved procrastinating and then suddenly at the last second, you know, going full tilt and working all night long to get some sort of project done. And what we discovered was that he actually loved the feeling of that adrenaline fueled drama, shall we say. And the lie was that he thought he needed procrastination in order to feel alive that way. Well, when we uncovered that, all of a sudden he realized, oh, feeling alive is really what I’m trying to do. How do I be vital, engaged, productive? I don’t have to procrastinate to do that. So that’s the sort of thing that you start looking at. What are these habits that you have that somehow don’t quite seem to serve you, and then find out what’s really going on underneath it.

Lee Kantor: Now, as part of your, um, kind of business coaching, how much do you lean on your background as a as a musician and the discipline and the systems that it took to reach the levels that you were able to reach in that regard, because I would imagine there’s a lot of transferable skills, uh, from the processes that you were able to create in order to help you become the best you, you were in that realm that would easily transfer to the business sector.

Paul Boehnke: Yeah. Um, another great question. I think that, um. The self discipline you mentioned, that’s huge, I think for anything. And you can learn that whether you’re a musician or an athlete or whatever it is that you’re doing something that takes some practice and takes time. What a fabulous way to learn self discipline, to sort of keep focused on what’s important to you and to keep showing up, keep practicing, keep doing whatever it is you’re doing. And that was certainly handy. Um, I also say that I think one of the things which has helped me build my business successfully is my own self-awareness of my energies, how I feel, what inspires me, what drags me down. Um, because I think the biggest problem that most entrepreneurs have as they’re trying to build a new business is they tend to think that it’s all about the information. If I just know how to do this, if I know what to do and how to do it, then I will have a business. And the what and the how are definitely important. There are things that one needs to do to have a business that works. There are certain ways to go about it that make it more effective. The thing is, that kind of information is pretty easy to come by, particularly in this day of the internet. You can go to your computer and do a search. Sir, what do I need to do to start my XYZ business? And all of a sudden you’ve got pages and pages of information about how to do that.

Paul Boehnke: And you can say, okay, here’s my first step. How do I go about doing that? Yes, your computer and it will tell you how to go about doing that. And that’s all great, powerful information. But the reason I think people sometimes struggle is because there’s something out of alignment with what they’re who they are, how they’re being, how they want to show up in the world and what they are trying to do in their business. There’s a mismatch in there, and the energy, they end up fighting against themselves. They’re doing something, but they’re not engaged or inspired by it or not completely bought in. And so when that’s the case, you don’t do the job very well. And the focus I have with my business clients is, first, let’s find that energetic alignment. Let’s find out what really inspires you, why you want to have this business. What are your values that this honors? How do we then craft a business that fits that? Because that will help with that self-discipline. It will help with the follow through. It’ll help with the the quality of the work that you do. And there are a million ways to build a business. Um, but when we find the couple ways that are really in alignment with you, that’s what’s going to work for you.

Paul Boehnke: We don’t have to be everywhere. Um, just as an example, from my own experience, I remember when I started this business, um, I remember a lot of people telling me, oh, well, you have to be on social media and not only do you have to be on social media, you’ve got to be posting like all the time and well, not just posting a lot, but you have to really create content which is valuable to people so that they want to, you know, come back and engage. And well, when they do engage, then you have to go back in and engage with them and keep this. Well, it was feeling overwhelming for me. Social media never felt like a natural place for me to be. I didn’t quite get it. Um, and any time I would post or do anything on social media, No one would see it. It wouldn’t, uh, you know, uh, generate any interest, any conversation, any, anything. It was not effective for me because it was not in alignment with me. Now I’ve got another friend and colleague who loves social media, and he gets almost all of his coaching clients through Facebook. I couldn’t get anybody to see my posts. So the, the what and the how, the information of how to create a business is really important. But I think what’s even more crucial is finding ways to build your business, which are in alignment with you.

Lee Kantor: And isn’t that where having a coach really is an important, uh, piece of that puzzle? Because having somebody with fresh eyes and the ability to look at things, you know, kind of objectively and, and hold you accountable, those are all, uh, important traits that a business person needs to get to a new level, especially if they’re stuck or they’ve reached a plateau, or they’re frustrated to have somebody to come in and kind of hold them accountable, be a cheerleader and help them kind of work through the path that might take them to a new level. I would think that that’s can really be a game changer for a lot of folks.

Paul Boehnke: I think it can, um, you know, there are people who, of course, build a business all on their own and they do it really well. Yay. That’s great for them. Um, if, however, one finds themselves feeling isolated, which a lot of solo entrepreneurs do, um, wondering about things, how do I, how do I go about things? Now we’re also talking about the what and the how again, but also having the kind of support that gives you the confidence to go ahead and do things. Yes, coaching brings a lot of that. It helps. As a coach, I can listen to you watch what’s going on and just sort of reflect back what I see and ask questions about that, and often that will spark new insights in the the person said, oh man, I had no idea I was doing that or this is what was going on for my mind. No wonder I am struggling in this way. That is the real power of a coach because we can ask questions. A coach will ask questions that we don’t ask ourselves. Um, and so that is why it can be so powerful, so helpful. And yes, of course, the accountability and the encouragement, it also feels good. I know when I have worked with coaches, which I almost always have one. Um, it feels so good to know that there’s somebody else in my corner. It’s like there’s somebody in the next cube to me that I can turn to and ask for support and encouragement for fun, for whatever it is that needs to happen. So yes, working with a coach can really be a game changer for people. It can provide this sort of support and the momentum to get things done much more quickly than you would do on your own.

Lee Kantor: Now, for the listener out there that maybe has never had a coach, how would you How would you answer their question about kind of differentiating between should I get a coach? Should I get a therapist? Should I hire a consultant or should I just do this myself? You mentioned that there’s lots of information out there.

Paul Boehnke: Yes. Um, I think there’s nothing wrong with trying to do it yourself. Um, it has a tendency to be the slow way. I mean, there are people out there who are happy to support you, who can help move things along much more quickly, much more easily without all the mistakes. Um, so that would be a benefit for that, uh, difference between coaching and therapy. Therapy is in general about sort of healing old wounds from the past. And coaching is not, uh, trying to heal old wounds. We will sometimes ask questions about the past, but merely to gain enough information so that we know where we are and how to move forward from where we are. Uh, we don’t need to sort of rehash re practice, go over and over that past to try to heal things. We just sort of briefly look at it. So that’s kind of one of the major differences. Therapy is trying to heal something. And coaching is really trying to help you move forward from wherever you are at the moment. And consultants, um, they tend to sort of come in and answer the question, what do I need to do? And how do I do it to get my business going or whatever it is. And that’s really powerful, useful information. Um, that can be really helpful. But then their responsibility is normally done. Then it’s on the person to implement that and to follow it through, which of course, for all sorts of reasons gets a bit tricky sometimes, which is why coaching can be this really great, um, synergistic partnership between the coach and their client, um, where together they’re really sort of figuring out how to move forward, what to do. Um, the coach can help uncover those places of misalignment. Um, which then makes everything so much smoother, so much easier. The kind of growth that happens, um, can be quite astonishing. And unlike the consultant, the coach is there all the way along. As long as you would like their support, they’re happy to sort of support, encourage, ask the next question.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share about a client? Uh, don’t name the name of the client, but maybe share the challenge they had when they came to you and how you were able to help them get to a new level.

Paul Boehnke: Sure. So, um, I had one client actually who is a brand new coach and he was, uh, beginning to start running his business. And he was, of course, doing things like, you know, setting up his website and figuring out his coaching practices and pricing and going to networking events and, you know, doing all of those different things that a business owner will do. Now, his negative self-talk for him showed up in the form of perfectionism. And so every time he would accomplish something, he’d get something done in his business. This little voice would say, oh, well, that really isn’t good enough. You. You think that’s enough? You know, there would be this nagging voice that was always raising the bar on whatever the expectation was. And by the time he came to me, um, he was feeling pretty exhausted, uh, discouraged, and kind of ready to quit. Well, together, we sort of dug into this process. He, of course, discovered that building a business is not a journey of perfection. In fact, many of the things that he were seeing as failures, it actually is what was spurring new growth and opening new opportunities for him that he hadn’t seen in the past. And he was able to sort of rewrite that script in his head so that the perfectionism wasn’t there.

Paul Boehnke: What he learned from perfectionism was doing things really well. That was a skill. Actually, I’ve never met a perfectionist who wants to give up that skill of doing things well. But when perfectionism becomes tricky is when it feels like you are compelled to do things perfectly rather than choosing to do things really, really well. Well, so he was through this work, he was able to sort of release that compulsion and choose to do work really well when it suited him. There’s a sense of peace that began to sort of come into his business working. Things were moving quicker, more easily. Clients were coming in, and when I saw him a few months later, um, he mentioned, you know, how things had changed and things were much more fun. And he wasn’t, uh, dragged down by these perfectionistic tendencies. And then he also said, but what surprised him the most was that the piece that he was beginning to find in his, um, business building. Well, that was beginning to spread to other parts of his life as well. And this is the sort of thing that happens when we can get our handle on negative self talk and turn that from, well, something that feels like an adversary into something that’s more of an ally.

Lee Kantor: So how do you deliver your coaching? Is it mainly one on ones? Do you do group coaching? Are there online courses? Like how do you deliver the coaching?

Paul Boehnke: Yeah. Great question. So I do a little bit of each. I do have an online program that walks people through this process that I’ve briefly discovered about reprograming negative self-talk. And, um, the one on one clients I have have access to that. And that’s something that we often work on. Um, so most of my work is through one on one clients. Um, I also do group programs. Both one on one of the groups tends to be focused on that negative self-talk. The other group tends to be focused on how to get your business up and running from an aligned point of view. Um, but I have online resources that are available on demand for my clients. And it’s that one on one or group work that really supports them through taking those steps.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on your team when it, uh, is there a website, is there socials to get the book or to get information about the coaching or just kind of learn more about your resources and all the stuff you have going on?

Paul Boehnke: Yeah. So I will share actually three different things. Hope that’s not overwhelming or confusing. The easiest is probably my website, which is just my name, Paul benki.com. Um, last name is BOEHNKE. The book, which is called Thoughts on Demand. You can learn about that at thoughts on-demand dot ORG. Um, I also have a YouTube channel. Um, the handle at YouTube is at inner critic coach and I’ve got tons of videos there that sort of talk about all sorts of different topics that I work with in my coaching. That’s, that’s a way to sort of get to know me and how I think, um, but you can contact me certainly through my website. Um, and I’d be happy to offer a complimentary conversation. We can talk about sort of what’s going on for you, uh, if and how I might be able to help and if moving together, uh, working together looks like the thing to do. I’m happy to sort of share how that looks.

Lee Kantor: Well, Paul, thank you so much for sharing your story today, doing such important work. And we appreciate you.

Paul Boehnke: Well, thank you so much, Lee, has been my pleasure.

Lee Kantor: All right. This Lee Kantor we’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.

Investing with Impact: How Greenleaf Balances Profit and Community in Real Estate Development

April 28, 2026 by Jacob Lapera

Atlanta Business Radio

Investing with Impact: How Greenleaf Balances Profit and Community in Real Estate Development

00:00 /

In this episode of Atlanta Business Radio, host Lee Kantor interviews Josh Friedensohn, co-owner of Greenleaf Management. Josh shares how he and partner Dave Codrea built a real estate investment company focused on acquiring and revitalizing distressed properties across Atlanta and the Southeast. Starting during the Great Recession, they capitalized on undervalued properties, renovating them to benefit tenants and communities. Their portfolio has evolved from multifamily housing to office, industrial, and retail spaces. Josh also discusses their investor-focused model, naturally occurring affordable housing, and their long-term stewardship philosophy of creating community value rather than maximizing short-term profits.

Josh Friedensohn is co-founder of Greenleaf Management and directs acquisitions, fundraising, and lending relationships throughout each asset’s life cycle. An adaptive and strategic leader, he has guided Greenleaf through multiple shifts in the real estate market and into new asset classes.

Greenleaf began with single-family and student housing investments before expanding into low-income multifamily housing. After eight years, the company grew its multifamily portfolio to 4,000 units and expanded into mobile home communities, NNN leased properties, and commercial office investments. Over the past 18 years, he has helped lead more than 150 acquisitions.

The relationships Josh has built with brokers, bankers, and investors continue to serve as catalysts for Greenleaf’s growth. He leads the company’s Capital team, which he has expanded to support new partnerships and investment opportunities.

He is also passionate about community impact. He supports nonprofit initiatives that create opportunities for underprivileged youth, including Camp Impact (20 years) and the Crazy Science Extravaganza (13 years). Greenleaf has also launched its own nonprofit focused on reducing everyday costs such as food, utilities, transportation, and education in the communities where it operates.

He graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in Chemical Engineering and lives in Peachtree Corners, Georgia with his wife and four boys.

Connect with Josh on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Origins and founding of Greenleaf Management
Focus on buying and renovating distressed properties
Impact of the Great Recession on real estate opportunities
Challenges faced by undercapitalized property owners
Evolution of the company’s portfolio and investment strategy
Definition and distinction between affordable housing and naturally occurring affordable housing
Community benefits of revitalizing distressed properties
Investment approach and engagement with investors
Current market opportunities and property types of interest
Philosophy of long-term stewardship and community impact in real estate investment

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the Accelerated Degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, another episode of Atlanta Business Radio. And this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor CSU’s executive MBA program. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on the show, we have the co-owner with Greenleaf Management, Josh Friedensohn. Welcome.

Josh Friedensohn: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about Greenleaf. How are you serving folks?

Josh Friedensohn: So my business partner, my business partner is Dave Coudray. Him and I started the business, uh, really right out of college. But while we were still working our day jobs. But we’ve, we’ve built a business of community and service. So we buy buildings that are distressed using investor money. So we pull together investors, buy distressed properties, and then make them better for the community and the people around us. And that also brings tenants into them. We’ve done that with everything from single family housing to multifamily housing to office buildings to industrial properties. And all the while, as we do this, it really brings up and lifts the area around us because typically a vacant building is a blight on the area and we’re looking to make it better.

Lee Kantor: So what was the genesis of that idea? Where did you see the opportunity?

Josh Friedensohn: Dave and I met through my college roommate and we were working at our day job. So my day job, I studied chemical engineering and I was I was a chemical engineer for Kimberly-Clark for seven years. Dave was a real estate finance guy, a consultant at Deloitte in D.C. and we were I was down here in Atlanta, and we were were looking for investment opportunities in a way to start a business. And Dave had a really strong background in real estate. And at the time, the great financial crisis was really, uh, was really under underway. So this is call it 2007, 2008, 2009. And Atlanta became one of the best buying opportunities for single family homes in the country. And so homes that were selling for 4 or $500,000 in 2006 were now selling for 80 to $120,000 throughout metro Atlanta and some even less. And so we saw an opportunity to buy a couple of these homes and renovate them and get and lease them. But also what we did was we saw that people were stuck in their houses and they couldn’t sell them, and they were greatly upside down. And so we started knocking on doors and saying, hey, we can help you solve this problem. We know you want to move. We know you want to sell your house, but you can’t right now. How about this? We’ll take over property management of your house. We’ll renovate, we’ll do the minimum renovation because we know you don’t have excess cash, get a tenant to move in, and that revenue for the rental revenue will help fix your debt to coverage ratio when you go buy your next house.

Josh Friedensohn: And so we went knocking on real estate offices, doors, and we started incentivizing real estate brokers to refer their clients that couldn’t move to us and enable them to move. And then the real estate broker got a commission for helping them by their next house. So we really started there. And that kind of led us into this, this thesis of how do we help solve problems? How do we fix, how do we fix issues? Led us into a low income apartments predominantly along in Atlanta, along Buford Highway is where we probably bought our first 20 properties and they were boarded up. Uh, the the water wasn’t running to them because the, the previous owner didn’t pay the water bill. Uh, gas lines were broken. People didn’t have heat. And we were able to buy these directly from the lender, renovate them, and make a better community for the people that live there. They fell in love with our commitment to them and the property, our management style, and they would bring their friends and family, and the whole place would lease up in a matter of weeks. So we really have just copied that model over the years and kind of led into other different building types.

Lee Kantor: So before you or when you’re not around the typical, like, why do those, um, areas get kind of distressed?

Josh Friedensohn: Yeah. So it’s a great question. Um, you know, the great financial, you know, the, the great Recession, you know, that that hit and give or take 2008 really just wiped out a lot of people’s pocketbooks. So real estate requires constant capital investment. And over, you know, if you’re let’s talk about a multifamily property, it doesn’t have to be big. You can talk about a ten unit property. When the Hvac goes out, you don’t really have the option to keep kicking it down the road. It’s gone. Especially on a 1960s, 1970s property. It’s probably on its fourth one, and you need to put the fifth one in. Well, if you don’t have three, four, or $5,000 sitting around to make that investment. Because of what? Because of your your the recession that’s happening, you couldn’t keep investing in those properties. And that led to a faces are out. Well, if a tenant’s Hvac is out, the landlord is now in violation of the lease and the tenant moves out to another property that has Hvac. So properties went vacant and things just got worse and worse and worse and really compounded in that direction.

Lee Kantor: So that, um, is it so it’s an undercapitalized kind of management company that is at the heart of the problem.

Josh Friedensohn: I would say undercapitalized owner is probably the is probably the answer. Um, and lack of liquidity in the market that, you know, if, if you, if you don’t have the liquidity, a lot of times if the property is performing well, you can go to a bank and get a renovation loan or get an improvement loan. Well, banks were totally wiped out during the recession. So there was not a lending option. People didn’t have the liquidity. So taking care of these properties, honestly, it just required a fresh set of capital to come in and recapitalize the deal. So a lot of the properties we were buying, the former owner had had bought them for, say, $50,000 a unit and they had $30,000 a unit of debt on them. Well, we were buying them for 25 to right below the debt amount, and we were only putting 10,000 a unit of debt on it. And the rest we were raising money for. And so we were, it was just a different capital stack that was able to improve the properties and fix the problem.

Lee Kantor: Now, um, we’re not in that financial situation right now. Are there still opportunities?

Josh Friedensohn: Correct. We’re not in a financial situation right now. Um, opportunities are fewer and further between. We’re in a very challenging market to find buying opportunities, distressed buying opportunities because the market has been so liquid, meaning that owners have free cash flow that they’re putting in their pocket and investing in their properties. Banks are lending decently healthy. Um, so you can get improvement loans. You can get new loans to buy properties and properties are selling at a really high value. So most owners of commercial properties or apartment buildings, they own more than one. And at times if they own five properties, they’ll sell one of them. And that will and that knew that all that new money that comes in will help improve the other ones. So it’s a, it’s a, it’s a much better, healthier market than it is now, so it’s harder to find deals. Um, we are still finding opportunities where like where we’re buying heavily right now is in industrial space. And industrial space has moved very quickly. So we can find opportunities that tenants are paying half of the market rent, and we can go in and renovate the place and get them to all the way to market rent. Or we can find properties that tenants leases are coming up and they’re not renewing. And it really just requires a fresh set of capital to renovate the place and bring a new tenant in. So yes, there’s still are opportunities, but they’re fewer and further between.

Lee Kantor: And your portfolio has evolved based on these kind of new market demands.

Josh Friedensohn: Absolutely. Yeah. So we, um, at our peak, we had about 4000 something apartment units and about 1500 mobile homes. So all residential. Now we’re down to about 20% of that. And we redeploy that capital into office buildings, retail properties and industrial buildings.

Lee Kantor: So that’s where you see the greatest opportunity in this market climate.

Josh Friedensohn: Exactly. That’s where we’re really finding that we can still buy, uh, really in any market. We can still buy in distressed pricing and bring improvement dollars. Because if a tenant’s been in a building for 20 years and they leave and the owner is, is basically stuck with a vacant building needing millions of dollars, and a lot of times they’re better, they feel that they’re better off selling that property so we can buy it as basically distressed, meaning that it’s vacant and put a bunch of money into it. Uh, one of one of those recent, I would say value add purchases was last fall we bought a vacant film studio. So as most people know, Atlanta was a hotbed for filming, uh, movies and, and TV shows, etc., etc. and still is, but a lot of that industry has moved overseas because of the complexity of using us domestic, uh, film crews here. There’s strikes. They cost a lot of money. Um, there’s a lot of red tape. So a lot of the film industry has moved abroad. And Atlanta built out all this infrastructure for the film industry. And it’s not being used as much anymore. And they’re perfectly built industrial buildings that the film industry doesn’t have use for. So we’re buying them vacant and repurposing the buildings.

Lee Kantor: Right. So that sounds like that’s kind of the model, right? Is look for distressed opportunities where you can come in and infuse it with new capital and maybe repurpose it. And then.

Josh Friedensohn: Exactly.

Lee Kantor: Do what you do in terms of providing that high quality management and that really caring for the end user.

Josh Friedensohn: Exactly. Yes.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned starting in this kind of multifamily environment, is that do you call that affordable housing? Is that what when people refer to affordable housing, is that affordable housing?

Josh Friedensohn: So there’s two kind of definitions of affordable housing. One is, kind of the industry term, affordable housing, which would be a restricted rent based unit. So, um, the government will incentivize owners to limit the amount of rent that they’ll charge to potential tenants to make housing more affordable. That’s the technical term. The, the less technical term is what we do, which is, um, what we call it, uh, naturally occurring affordable housing, which means we have older buildings that are in good condition, but they’re still older buildings and they naturally attract a lower income tenant to live there versus a brand new building with elevators and pools and all that. We don’t have any of that in our buildings. Um, and so in a, it’s, it’s, it’s more, it’s a more natural way that we’re not restricted by the government on what we can charge. We can charge whatever we want, but our, but the market dynamics is we’re generally in the lower end of the, of the rental spectrum because of the age and condition of our properties. Does that make sense?

Lee Kantor: Yeah. I mean, I was always confused with the term affordable housing because if if there’s a subsidized housing for an individual, are they just getting lower rent to afford to live in a desirable area without any opportunity to build wealth for themselves? Are they just basically renting a nice place, a nice area at a lower price? I never understood kind of the logic there because any even an area that’s distressed, if it becomes more desirable, then the value will go higher. And if the person who’s paying the rent isn’t getting any upside, then, you know, it just didn’t make any sense. I didn’t understand conceptually the logic behind it.

Josh Friedensohn: So and then the other component that I didn’t really mention was on the kind of government side of things is, is the subsidy, the true subsidy, meaning that the tenant is getting a monthly check from the government and the government is and then they’re using that to pay their rent to us. So that’s the, I would say the additional layer, um, that that comes into play. We have a little, we have maybe 10% of that in our portfolio. Not much. Um, but we’re very familiar with and we’re familiar with the way it works. But to your point, um, these are in the most part, these, these tenants in these conditions are, are they don’t really have the luxury of looking ahead and saying, how do I build myself out of this situation? They’re more looking from a day to day survival mode on how do they pay their daily bills and how do they get their hourly paycheck? And, um, we, our, our goal is to provide them housing that a comfortable place for their family to raise a family with enough space in a, in a safe environment that they can afford to do that.

Lee Kantor: Right. Well, that makes sense to me. Like that the, that logic makes sense. I didn’t understand when the government’s involved in subsidizing people in an area that is appreciating in value and then somebody is getting the upside, but it’s not them.

Josh Friedensohn: Right, right. Well, there, there, I, I would, I would somewhat disagree with that because I do believe that that so we have a, we have an affordable, it’s actually expiring affordable housing. So affordable housing has a time limit when you have these restrictions. Um, going back to the government restrictions on the property, they’re usually a 30 year contract with the government. And then after 30 years that goes away. So we have a property like this in Alpharetta. Um, and it’s the only one in North Fulton. It’s the only one in Alpharetta. And the benefit is, is that the tenants that are paying the subsidized rent get to use these top tier schools and get to use the top tier amenities that an Alpharetta provides, versus if they have to live in a low income area in a low income property, the schools are usually catered to more low income, meaning that they’re a little bit rougher and the community around them is usually a little bit rougher as well and not really taking care of as much. So I, you know, I do think there are some, I would say, less tangible benefits of being in a, a nicer community to raise your family that you can’t necessarily afford on your own, that the government is helping you be in that community.

Lee Kantor: But I mean, in that case of Alpharetta, I mean, that happened probably towards the tail end of the 30 years rather than the first part of the 30 years.

Josh Friedensohn: In terms of being kind of.

Lee Kantor: The the quality of schools.

Josh Friedensohn: Right? I’ve been in Atlanta for 20 years. Alpharetta has always been a pretty, pretty gem to be in. Um, we’ve had this property for about ten years and Alpharetta has been top tier schools for a long time. So yes, yes, but I mean, Alpharetta has always been a.

Lee Kantor: And there’s one affordable housing place in Alpharetta, like compared to other parts of the city of Atlanta.

Josh Friedensohn: Correct. Yeah. Other parts of the city of Atlanta.

Lee Kantor: Do you want to compare the school systems and all the affordable housing? How do you think they’d fare?

Josh Friedensohn: Exactly. No, I agree with you on that front.

Lee Kantor: So, um, now has your companies evolved? Is it now a place where people can make investments into these properties? And, and this is now an investment vehicle? Like what, how would talk about the evolution of, you know, at one point you were doing this for yourself, or was this always a place for people to invest in, in your kind of vision?

Josh Friedensohn: Yeah. I didn’t really have any, uh, any money to invest, uh, for a long time. Um, so we’ve always raised money and pulled together investors. So, and the way we do it is we find the property, we evaluate the property for give or take about 30 days is our evaluation process. Once we determine that we want to go proceed and buy this property is when we offer it out to our investor community and show them, hey, this is the opportunity that we see. Here’s the physical nuts and bolts. Here’s how we plan to improve the property management of it. And here’s the dollars and cents of what an investment looks like and what we plan to turn it into. And a potential, you know, call it a five year hold horizon, what that means for your money. Um, we kind of look at investors two ways. One is the primary way is we want you to be part of our community. We want you to, to be involved with our company. Uh, we offer a lot of investor engagement into our, our operations, our property management tours. And also we do speaker series. We have a, we have a, every quarter, we do a growth day where we invite all our investors. We actually invite the whole community. You’re welcome to come to our growth day. It’s next Thursday. Um, and we have speakers come in and we talk about big goals that we have set and how we accomplish those goals. We have speakers from all different walks of life that will tell their story. Um, and so that’s, that’s the, uh, I would say nontraditional investor involvement. The traditional investor involvement is you write a check, you’re involved with one of our properties. We report to you every quarter. We pay distributions as they’re available by the property performance, and eventually we sell it. And we show you more and more opportunities to invest in now.

Lee Kantor: So the investors are buying one property at a time. There’s no way to buy kind of the portfolio.

Josh Friedensohn: No, we’ve always been, I would say a little bit grittier than the portfolio. What we found is like doing the fund or the portfolio approach. It’s, it’s less tangible. So like I’m like, hey, Lee, I have this great fund that has 50 properties in all over the country. You want to make an investment, you’ll make 10% a year. You’re like, well, where are the properties? What are they? Oh, they’re in the fund. I’ll send you, I’ll send you paperwork versus Haley. We just bought a film studio in Hiram, Georgia. Do you want to go on a drive with me? We can go look at it together. We can tour it together. We can touch it together. In three months from now, we can go look at it again and show you all the improvements. It’s just a lot more. It’s a lot grittier and more tangible. And that’s kind of our approach to business.

Lee Kantor: And then so you’re doing this in markets outside of Georgia as well.

Josh Friedensohn: So we’re probably pretty close to 70% North Atlanta. Um, we are in Chattanooga and Nashville, Raleigh, Durham, Columbia and Greenville and Charlotte as well. Uh, we kind of called the 85 and 75 corridors north of Atlanta. And, um, we’re looking at some, you know, we’re looking at some, some industrial development in, uh, north of Austin, Texas as well. Uh, so we, we generally like to operate everything we own and kind of be and have hands on people where we go. So that’s, that’s the only way the markets we’re looking at.

Lee Kantor: So you have partners in all those communities outside of Atlanta?

Josh Friedensohn: Yeah. I mean, outside of Atlanta, it’s my staff that operates them. Um, and in Austin, we have, we have an operating partner that we be working with.

Lee Kantor: And then, so what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Josh Friedensohn: Yeah. So we’re always looking for.

Josh Friedensohn: I would say, an opportunistic real estate deal. So, um, you know, if you drive a property, it looks boarded up, it looks vacant. It looks like it could use some love. We’re always looking at that, whether it’s retail, whether it’s industrial, whether office building. I mean, we haven’t bought multifamily in 7 or 8 years because there’s just so much competition in that space. Um, so yeah, my, my weekend when I’m driving my, I have four kids when I’m driving them between soccer practice and gymnastics and all that other crap. I’m looking at buildings everywhere I go. So, uh, if anyone, you know, I would say for the general audience, we’re always looking, we’re always looking for a buying opportunity and to make improvements. And, but we like the value add story. Like I’m not the group that’s we’re not the group that’s going to buy a Starbucks and just lease it to Starbucks and just kind of go to sleep at the wheel. We’re, we’re always looking to how do we make an improvement at this place.

Lee Kantor: So just for people, if they’re driving around, what are signals that maybe there’s a distressed property? Is it like when there’s a a fast food restaurant that’s closed and it’s empty? Like, is that a signal for you?

Josh Friedensohn: Yeah, that’s absolutely a signal. Um, I would say the obvious, which would be there’s a for sale for lease sign in the yard. Uh, the grass is overgrown. The windows are boarded up. Any one of these are signals that there’s something going on here that the person that the owner needs to get out, the owner might be a bank. They don’t want to own the property anymore. They want to get out. Um, also, you know, we’re always looking for expanding companies, expanding brands that want more space. So we, um, we’ve done partnerships with an operator at Zaxby’s where he came to us and say, hey, listen, um, I’m looking to expand stores. Will you guys help me buy a store and provide me renovation dollars? Right. Absolutely. And he signed a ten year lease with us when we did that. So, um, every, every of that. And then the other part of it is, you know, we, we have a podcast where we talk about our deals on a regular basis. Uh, we, we have an additional podcast where we interview government officials. So we interview mayors right now. We’re interviewing government governor, governor, candidates, um, on both the Republican and Democratic side because we have a big race coming up in the fall in Georgia. And, um, so we’re always looking kind of, you know, to tell the story of, um, of, of people that, that want to hustle.

Lee Kantor: And then, um, is there an investment you made that you’re most proud of or most rewarding? You can share.

Josh Friedensohn: Investment? I mean, oh man, that’s a, that’s a loaded question. Um, you know.

Lee Kantor: I mean, you don’t, it doesn’t have to be about the, maybe it’s not the financial gain, but it’s about the impact it made in the community.

Josh Friedensohn: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I like talking about kind of more. I mean, we’ve done a lot of I have lots of stories from the apartment days, but it’s been a while since we’ve done that. So I want to talk about something more recent. Uh, the, over the last three years, we’ve bought about 1,000,000ft² of single story office buildings that were vacant. And these were grasses, overgrown dirty buildings. You know what vacancy you have people that do stuff in the parking lot that you don’t want them doing. Um, and they become an issue for the city and the owner. And it’s just a problem. We bought these single story office buildings and we ripped out all the old office. We put a roll up door in them and storage in the back by the roll up door and put a small office in the front and we lease it to, we call them office flex users, and they’re everything under the sun. They’re pest control companies, they’re Hvac, they’re plumbing. Um, and like, I have a pharmacy in the building in the unit next to me that I’m sitting in right now.

Josh Friedensohn: Um, um, I have car storage. We have, um, I, we have a um, a car parts distributor. So everything we have a pet crematorium in one of our buildings. Um, I, I’m very excited about that opportunity. I think that opportunity still exists that we buy single story office and convert it into this flexi, um, investment. And it does so much not only for obviously the tenants that come in there, but so much for the surrounding community. The building that I’m in right now, I live in Peachtree Corners. This building is in Peachtree Corners. My kid, I, I have to pass it every single day. I’m dropping my kids off at school, picking them up, driving them activities. And it was really just a, a pain in the butt looking building. Um, before we bought it and, and made this investment. And now it’s one of the, it’s just, it’s just one of the, the pretty shiny buildings in Peachtree Corners. It has a beautiful car lounge in it. Um, and it has just active use that just adds to the whole community around us.

Lee Kantor: And that’s really at the heart of this, right? You want to be a force for good and not just kind of squeeze every dollar out of what’s happening there. You’re trying to really positively impact the communities you’re in.

Josh Friedensohn: Well, what we found is that squeezing, squeezing every dollar out is not actually a good investment approach. There’s no long term commitment to squeezing every dollar out. That’s a very short term minded thing. And I think eventually everything just falls. If you’re squeezing every dollar, eventually there’s no dollars left and you’re giving that property back to the bank for someone like me to buy and actually love on it. So, um, a wise investor of ours said to me, um, that if you hold real estate, it will hold you. And it’s one of my favorite phrases and beliefs in real estate that if you make the right investments, if you take care of it and you do the things for the long, the long run, it will hold you back and take care of you back. And that’s just a general philosophy of our company.

Lee Kantor: And it sounds like that’s just the part of the culture of your organization is trying to positively impact the communities.

Josh Friedensohn: Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: Well, Josh, if somebody wants to learn more, um, where should they go? What’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Josh Friedensohn: Yeah. So our website.

Josh Friedensohn: Is Greenleaf mgmt.com. Um, we’re, you know, we’re on YouTube with our podcast. So you can look up Greenleaf, uh, you can look up my name. My business partners name is Dave Cordray. Um, and, uh, we, we just like, uh, we like building community. We like, uh, spreading the word about, uh, how to operate real estate. And we love hearing about other people’s operational stories, so we’d love to connect.

Lee Kantor: Good stuff. Well, Josh, thank you so much for sharing your story, doing important work. And we appreciate you.

Josh Friedensohn: Of course. Anytime.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Atlanta Business Radio.

Unlocking the Growth Code: From Founder Grind to Fractional Executive Powerhouse

April 28, 2026 by Jacob Lapera

High Velocity Radio

Unlocking the Growth Code: From Founder Grind to Fractional Executive Powerhouse

00:00 /

In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Lee speaks with Andrea Beach, CEO and founder of Growth Concierge. Andrea shares how her company provides fractional executive teams to help growth-stage companies ($5M–$50M in revenue) scale profitably while giving founders more freedom. Drawing from her experience founding 22 companies, she discusses common challenges founders face, including growth plateaus, bottlenecks, and mindset shifts required for scaling. Andrea also emphasizes the importance of early exit planning and explains how Growth Concierge guarantees measurable results, including $300,000 in cost savings within 90 days.

Andrea Beach is an accomplished entrepreneur, investor, and business strategist specializing in scalable growth, improving profits, and consumer behavior.

In addition to having founded over 22 companies herself, she has helped CEOs and business owners scale rapidly while reducing risk and giving the founder more freedom.

She is the CEO & founder of Growth Concierge, that helps companies 5-10X their business with a team of seasoned operators, all for the cost of one employee. Andrea has worked with Fortune 500 brands, advised hundreds of growth-stage companies and is an in-demand speaker and media commentator – and fun fact…she’s a certified hypnotherapist and expert in human behavior.

Connect with Andrea on LinkedIn and Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Overview of Growth Concierge and its services for growth-stage companies.
Discussion of the challenges founders face as their businesses scale.
Explanation of the unique fractional membership model and its benefits.
Insights on identifying and overcoming growth bottlenecks.
Importance of mindset shifts for founders transitioning from hands-on work to building systems.
The concept of “invisible ceilings” and how they affect business growth.
Strategies for early planning regarding business exits and succession.
The role of seasoned entrepreneurial experts in delivering measurable results.
Advice for business leaders seeking quick wins and immediate improvements.
The onboarding process for new clients and how to assess their needs.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is gonna be a good one. Today we’re going to catch up with an old friend, Andrea Beach, who is the CEO and founder with Growth Concierge. Welcome.

Andrea Beach: Thank you so much for having me, Lee. Good to see you again.

Lee Kantor: Well, I’m excited to get caught up for folks who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about Growth Concierge? How are you serving folks?

Andrea Beach: Uh, sure. Of course. So after 22 companies and doing it wrong almost as many times as I did it right, I started to see that there were some patterns and some, you know, continuity if it was done correctly. So as a business advisor and investor and everything else, I got a lot of requests for how do you how do you structure a business that can be profitable, scalable, but where I’m not completely tied to it, I want some freedom in my life. And that’s where Growth Concierge was born. People are familiar with the word fractional these days, but that’s, uh, a wide net on things that that can mean. All of our fractional experts are seasoned entrepreneurs. Uh, they’ve all started, grown and sold or IPO companies for hundreds of millions, and they’re just too young and energetic to golf all day. So they still want to be in the game. And we do that by helping grow stage companies. So we actually have a fractional membership model, which is very different. You’re not just paying for hours, you you get a whole team. And so that’s what we’re about is helping companies break through to the next level and find some freedom in their life and hopefully enjoy the ride.

Lee Kantor: So what, who was the initial target for this kind of an offering? Was it the small aspiring entrepreneur or is it the kind of the entrepreneur that’s plateaued, or just the person who’s tired of doing all the work and said, there has to be a better way?

Andrea Beach: Yeah, well, I would say all of the above, but initially we were thinking that our target was going to be founders that had maybe a 3 to 5 year goal of wanting to retire or step back. There’s a lot of baby boomers and older Gen Xers that are even looking at succession plans. And so originally when I came up with the idea of the company, I thought, that’s going to be my target, is people that have maybe grown the business for however many years. They’ve reached a certain level, they’re getting a little tired, and they know they want to jump out, either sell IPO or hand it off to someone in the next 3 to 5 years. And so they want as big a growth and as much stability before they do that. That’s all good and fine. We actually bring in a whole team, kind of like a special operations team with exit planners and strategists on valuation, and we can do that. But then the more conversations I had, the more I realized that other companies and other founders that said, no, I’m good, I don’t need to sell. And the next 3 to 5 years, I just want more profit, stability, and freedom. Can we still work together? So I actually expanded the offering quite a bit. So now we serve founder CEOs all the way from 5 million up to 50 million is kind of our sweet spot.

Lee Kantor: Now. Is there a story you can share about working with somebody who came to you with a challenge, maybe share the challenge and how you were able to help them get to a new level? You know, you don’t have to name them or the company.

Andrea Beach: Yeah, sure. Actually, one of our very first clients that we ever had as a behavioral health company who led by a psychiatrist, so not a business person by education or training, um, had grown the company to the point where he knew he wanted to entertain the idea of maybe looking at a PE firm and taking some kind of a, of an exit that would be good for his family. But he also knew that he had some cultural challenges. There were a couple of different sections of the business that didn’t get along, and so we almost treated them as two separate companies, which of course isn’t scalable or sustainable. And he was right around 40 million when he found us. Um, I can’t even believe this, but it’s really true. Lee, we did a 190 minute strategy session, and at the end of that session, we had gotten him from 40 to 50 million just by rearranging the Legos. Um, better and smarter. So that’s a obviously a great win for him. He immediately found some interested PE firms. I think he was courting several. And because of the work we did together, he didn’t have to figure it all out and juggle it all. We could sustain the new structure that he needed and give him a lot more valuation and a lot more leverage, and he got exactly what he wanted.

Lee Kantor: So now when you’re working with these leaders at that level, are you seeing kind of common threads amongst them in terms of what’s holding them back or, or mistakes that they’re they’re making?

Andrea Beach: Oh, absolutely. And I think it’s so interesting that founders think they’re on an island. They think, well, my company’s different or my situation is unique. And the more you do this, the more you realize that’s actually probably not true. Um, there are very predictable phases of business. There’s about five major phases. Phases that all businesses go through. And each phase has its own set of predictable patterns. And those predictable patterns are going to appear until you hit an invisible ceiling. And that’s when they tend to lean in like they want to work harder and grind harder and do the things that worked before, and they get confused and frustrated why it’s not working and they stop growing because effort stops equaling growth at that point. What has to change is their mindset, first of all, and then the behaviors and things have to change because what worked to get them there is not going to get them to that next level once they break through and make some of these changes, which of course, we can help them him with. But there’s ideas out there on how to change these things, but you’ve got to make sure their identity can handle it. You know, if they’re the hustler, they like to call themselves the grinder when the next phase comes along, where it’s about systems and automations and having your people become autonomous and empowered. That’s an identity shift for that founder. But yes, there are predictable phases, predictable patterns in each and every phase, and very predictable ceilings. And then thankfully, predictable ways that you can break through to the next level and keep going.

Lee Kantor: So you mentioned invisible ceilings. What do you mean by that? And what’s an example of 1 or 2?

Andrea Beach: So in the beginning, when a company is going through that grind and hustle phase, this is when efforts are scattered. They’re probably making more exceptions to the rule than any kind of structure. They’re basically selling to anyone and everyone because every dollar is precious. Um, the founder tends to be the one doing a lot of the sales or the negotiations, and there’s people behind him are trying to just catch all the balls as they’re coming across the net and do the fulfillment that works until it doesn’t. And so when you hit that ceiling, it’s because the ceiling essentially is the bottleneck of the founder and the fact that every day is a new day and there’s no predictability or stability. So what you have to do to get through that is narrow in on your right fit buyer, your ICP, your ideal customer profile. And that feels counterintuitive because they think, oh, I can sell my widgets to anyone. Yes, you can, but you probably shouldn’t because then you become invisible out there. You don’t you don’t actually have a brand. You’re not known for anything. So instead you become the company that sells widgets to veteran owned companies or however you need to narrow your focus, then you’ve got to build that repeatable sales process. And then you’ve got to start documenting and automating what’s working. That’s the only way you’re going to break through from you being the one kind of cooking the French fries all day, or making the donuts or whatever example you want to give to break through to that next level because more of you grinding is not going to equal more success in your business. You’ll plateau.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re working with a team, the team that you deploy of these, I don’t know. Do you like to call them fractional executives or what do you call your team members that you deploy?

Andrea Beach: Yeah. I don’t love calling them fractional because then it lumps them in with the corporate refugees who’ve worked for some big company until they got laid off. And now they’re, they’re doing fractional work on your dime while they’re job hunting. These are really successful seasoned entrepreneurs and operators. So I don’t love that word, but it is the one that meets people kind of where they are in the market right now. Um, but yes, we, we will deploy a growth team. So it’s always led by a chief growth officer. Our chief growth officers are, you know, black belt lean Six Sigma, multiple successful exits, best selling authors, and they come in and do the assessment. They’ll figure out where your bottlenecks, your gaps, your challenges are and your easy wins. And then whoever that additional team needs to have as far as a compliment, we usually bring in a CFO, we’ll bring in a COO and a CTO before we ever get to marketing and sales and things like that, just to make sure the infrastructure can handle it. Because sometimes, Lee, you have to go slow to go fast. And so we make sure we do the structure right. So when we’re ready to hit the gas, they can handle it.

Lee Kantor: Now when you’re deploying a team like that, is this something that the team has been trained on, the, uh, Andrea Beach methodology, or is this something that they’re experts in the niche or industry you deploy them in and you just kind of let them go and do what they do?

Andrea Beach: I would say both. So having started, own, sold, grown and acquired companies my whole career, there are certain things that I know to be true regardless of industry. There’s best practices. And like I already mentioned, the predictable phases and patterns. Folks that have had those kinds of experiences as well will nod and say, yeah, that’s right. It’s an 80/20 rule. Pretty much everything’s about the same. So on some of those, I would say they’re just standard. But when it becomes industry specific or becomes niche specific within an industry, we do bring in growth operators that have experience in that industry, but also maybe have encountered some of the same challenges. That’s when I’ll step back as far as the philosophies or the structure or the scalable patterns and say, hey, you’ve walked this step before, you’ve seen this movie. So whatever needs to happen to get them, you know, successfully navigated through the minefield, go for it. So I’d say it’s a really perfect compliment of tried and true proven structure and their personal Expertise, having been in that industry and walked that path.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you go about vetting your experts?

Andrea Beach: That’s a great question because it is so important in such a distinction for what we do. Um, well, first of all, I’m very fortunate that after, you know, decades in business, I have met and mingled with people way smarter, way more successful and way more interesting than me. Um, and they have along the way, you know, remained friends or we’ve stayed in each other’s orbit. And when I came up with a concept for growth concierge, I really wanted the A players. I wanted people that no matter what situation I dropped them into, they were going to guarantee results, which we do, by the way. Um, and so I had a handful of those folks that I already knew and that I brought on board and they were totally down for this concept. But then as I started having additional conversations, there were people that said, oh, man, you need to meet so and so, or that sounds exactly like such and such. And then as I met people and went through the criteria, they have to be entrepreneurial. They have to already have walked that path and had a successful growth and exit at least one. And they have to understand more about human behavior than just spreadsheets. And you know, what goes on to like maybe a valuation or a term sheet. They need to understand people. So those are the main criterias that, you know, we look for as we’re bringing our cxos into the network. And currently we have 39. Well, about to be 40 by the end of this week, we’ll have 40.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned, uh, human behavior and I know that’s a passion of yours and expertise of yours that you’ve had over the years. How much of the issues that your clients having are they mindset issues versus maybe operational or tactical issues?

Andrea Beach: Yeah, such a smart question, Lee. So I would say there’s a good combination of both, especially in the beginning where they do hit those break points and those bottlenecks ceilings. And then they’ve got to change their mindset and change their behavior to break through. But where the mindset shift becomes really personal is once you get to some of the later phases. So once you’ve brought in some leadership team and there is such a thing as the leadership illusion or like fake leadership where they might have the fancy titles, but everybody’s still coming to you as the founder for everything, at least the big decisions that is not going to get you to scale. So once you’ve actually architected, moved from operator to architect, and you’ve architected a system and structure that truly doesn’t need you on the day to day operations. This is where founders struggle with their behavior. This is the identity shift of, well, if I am not the smartest person in the room or the subject matter expert with all the answers, then who am I? You know, if I’m not solving problems and firefighting and leading this company, then do I really matter? And that’s a personal experience that needs to be addressed long before that moment arrives, in order to not slow that momentum, because a founder will say, yeah, I want freedom. I want to go spend time with my wife, my kids, whatever. But then when I actually get to it, they have a really hard time letting go. So I’m really proud of our team and our ability to work through those behavioral challenges before they become obstacles.

Lee Kantor: And it’s something that you really have to deal with those up front, right? That’s not something you wait till the end.

Andrea Beach: Absolutely not. And people will sometimes say, hey, I’ll call you when I’m, you know, six months to a year away from wanting to exit. And we’re like, no, no, no, uh, we need to think about that now because it’s not just how the company’s physically structured and who you bring in as far as team members, but it’s, you know, it’s everything from how you do the books to then what that founder focuses on. And sometimes it requires them multiple years in advance to shift that mindset in their behavior, to empower that next team of leaders so that honestly, the business runs just as well, if not better, without them.

Lee Kantor: Now, when people are thinking about exiting, are you finding that they’re having these kind of questions like way too late? Like this is something they should. Obviously, a lot of people believe that you should be thinking of that when you start, but for a lot of people, it’s also. Well, I think I’m ready. And then you got to cut to five years later when it actually happens.

Andrea Beach: Yeah. I mean, the earlier the better because you want to get them where they can actually have the most impact on the valuation when they’re ready. And the most impact is usually at least 3 to 5 years ahead. So if somebody still comes to us a year out and says, you know, or even a month out, they say, I’m ready, I’m ready right now, they’re probably going to get a smaller valuation. Maybe they get a one or a two X. But if we say, hey, if you will follow this path, this growth strategy and plan for the next 18 to 24 months. Do you have it in you? Can you still hang in there for the next year and a half to two years? If we can get you a six or a seven X sometimes Lee they’re like, no, I’m done. I’m burnt toast, I’m cooked, I’m ready to go. And shame on them. Maybe for not, you know, thinking about it earlier, but that’s okay. Everyone’s different. Other people say, heck yeah, I can get an additional 5 or 6 X on top of what I thought I was gonna get. Yeah, show me the way. And I think that’s probably more often we see that.

Lee Kantor: So when a person is about to exit or is taking the steps exiting, they, they contact you and you deploy your team. Is this something that your team is kind of coaching them? Or are they actually doing the things that need to be done in order to get that seven, eight X return?

Andrea Beach: Yeah, that’s another really big differentiator is we actually implement, I don’t know, a single founder or CEO that needs more on their to do list. And in cases of, you know, where they’re bottlenecked or they’re burnt out, they really can’t handle one more thing. They don’t need more advice. They need implementation. So we come alongside them and we have different levels of membership. So at our base level, they just get a chief growth officer, and they’re the ones doing the assessment and the strategy and figuring out what that founder should be focused on in what order. And they’re still the ones doing the work, but they’re doing it alongside the chief growth officer and only focusing on the things that matter at the next level up, they get a plus one. So a chief growth officer plus a CXO at a time, maybe they start with a CFO. That CFO is doing the work. They’re actually running the reports. They’re shoring up whatever the automations are. You know, they’re future proofing. They’re helping them attain, say, lines of credit or whatever they need for growth. So they’re not giving advice. We’re not consultants, we’re not advisors. Even though we all have that Capability. We are implementers. We’re operators.

Lee Kantor: And that’s a critical distinction because there’s, like you mentioned, there’s a lot of folks out there that will give you advice or sell you a playbook, but they’re not ready to roll up their sleeves to actually get things done and be held accountable for outcomes.

Andrea Beach: Yeah. And accountable for outcomes is key. You know, everybody’s great at giving advice or giving you a report that they charged you six figures for that sits and collects dust on your desk. But if you can actually not only be held accountable, but have ownership of outcomes, it changes the game. And that’s why right off the bat, I said, I want to guarantee that we find at least $300,000 in the first 90 days either in, you know, cost savings like immediate waste or cost savings or in low hanging fruit. And that’s found that’s not projected. That way. I can get the ROI conversation completely off the table, and we can just get down to business and everybody’s comfortable.

Lee Kantor: So now if somebody raises their hand and say, okay, I’m in. I want to do this. What is kind of the process when you onboard somebody or at least vet them to see if you’re the right fit or they’re the right fit for you?

Andrea Beach: Yeah, that’s a good question. The main thing is we will connect them with the chief growth officer that understands their industry, understands exactly where they are, what phase or stage of business and what their goal or trajectory looks like. So that has to be a right fit because that chief growth officer is your quarterback, their maestro. Um, then we will fill out the rest of the team based on that. Some of it has to do with industry, but a lot of it has to do with personality and who we think is going to work well with whom. Um, and then we also have 80 to 100 support staff that comes in up underneath and does things like rebranding, marketing, social media. You need a new website, you need your website to be ChatGPT, you know, crawlable all those things that require time and energy that maybe you and your team don’t have. That’s also included in your hours that you get based on your level of membership. So we’re taking all that off your plate. So we’re going to assign when you first get onboarded, your Chief Growth officer comes first. If you’re happy, you guys, you know, fall in love.

Andrea Beach: Everything’s wonderful. We then bring your full compliment depending on your membership level, um, how many additional team members you have? And sometimes you just need them at a time. You know, you need one at a time and you kind of go at a predictable and comfortable cadence. We still assign dedicated cxos to you. So even if they’re not up to bat, they’re still watching, they’re still paying attention, they’re still weighing in because these, these, uh, different areas of business really shouldn’t operate in silos when you’re trying to holistically grow the whole organization. So we assign that team and then we get to work and the first thing we do is assessment, of course. And then while we’re doing the assessment, we’re looking for quick wins. We’re not going to do a six month assessment. You know, like a lot of consulting firms, we want to get that founder some quick wins and some quick leverage. It’s in our best interest to do that so that we can, like I said, take the ROI conversation off the table, give them a comfort level. Okay, let’s dig in and keep going.

Lee Kantor: Now, talking about quick wins, do you have any advice for the listener right now? Maybe they’re not ready for you and your team yet, or maybe they’re would like to be ready shortly, but is there any advice for getting a quick win? Where do you look for quick wins if you’re listening right now? Where would you tell them to go and what would you recommend they do?

Andrea Beach: Yeah, well, it depends on the stage of business, but I would say if I had to pick a universal quick win, it would be do an honest assessment of where you as the leader or the founder, the CEO of the company, where are you the bottleneck? Where do all roads lead to you? Or where do you still block anybody else’s autonomy or ownership of a decision making process, and free yourself from as many of those roadblocks or bottlenecks as you can. That’ll give you some breathing room. And then think about what the ideal structure would be to actually grow or get to the next level. Do it on a piece of paper. You may not have those people yet, but even if you can step back and, and look at that as far as what I would need, what would have to be true at the next level for me to be able to get there and not be involved in every single sale, conversation, negotiation, or decision, that is the easiest win. Is figuring out how to get yourself out of the way. Because people always think it’s a strategy problem. They’re always looking for. What is the new strategy I need? You probably don’t need a new strategy. You probably need new structure because you have frankensteined together, the different systems, tech platforms. You know, the way people have done it. You know, if Janice comes in and has done your workflow of your onboarding process for clients a particular way for nine years, that’s just how it’s always been done may not be the best way. You may need to completely re-engineer that to get to the next level. So before you look for a new strategy, I would look for a new structure that gives you the support to be able to even get to the next level.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you are there symptoms or signals that tell you that you’re the bottleneck in an area? What is it like? You’ve been doing it for so long you may not even realize.

Andrea Beach: Yeah, that’s absolutely true. And like I said, there’s an identity and an ego that’s kind of wrapped up and being the one that’s got all the answers or being the subject matter expert, but ways that you can identify if that’s the case is if you feel like, I couldn’t step away from my business for two weeks and go off grid and come back and it still be running, well, that’s probably your biggest sign. If you can’t step away for a couple of weeks and let your team manage and handle everything. You automatically have a bottleneck problem. The other way to know is if they have titles and they have particular roles that are more task based instead of outcomes based. So you look around at your leadership. If you’ve got managers or directors or VP’s or whatever levels you’ve got, if they still have to come to you for the big decisions, or if they maybe don’t have that authority, but they really still come to you for guidance, they don’t. It’s an illusion. So those are ways that you can immediately assess, am I the bottleneck? Because you probably are.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Andrea Beach: Yeah, I appreciate that. So growth concierge.org is our website. We are on all social platforms as well. So I would say just, you know, reach out to us. We’d be happy to have a discovery call, an initial conversation, not a sales conversation per se, just a discovery conversation to see where are you stuck? Maybe give you some ideas or suggestions on how to break through. Hopefully then we earn your trust. And if you feel like having a sales conversation at some point, you know we can always set that up as well.

Lee Kantor: And then the ideal client for you is what range of sales annually.

Andrea Beach: Well, I would say in order to make the most effective changes, we really need a company to be doing at least 5 million. So that 5 to 50 million is our sweet spot. However, we do have a CEO club which is CEO club.online. That is for our founders doing a million in sales or above. And some of those we have CEO club members doing half a billion. Um, they just don’t really care if they grow too much or they’re a lifestyle business. They’re just looking for more profits, more stability, and of course, more freedom. But they also want to be around like minded, you know, growth minded entrepreneurs. So if you’re doing a million or more and you’re an actual company, meaning not a, not a solopreneur, not an agent or a distributor, if you’re a real company million or over, and if you’re looking for that kind of like the personal trainer, so to speak, or the, the team around you for growth concierge, that’d be over 5 million.

Lee Kantor: And the website for CEO club, again.

Andrea Beach: It’s the CEO club.online.

Lee Kantor: The CEO club.online.

Andrea Beach: You got it.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Andrea Beach: Yeah, thanks for having me on. It was good talking to you again.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.

Next Conversation Consulting’s Playbook for Turning Difficult Talks into Breakthroughs

April 27, 2026 by Jacob Lapera

High Velocity Radio

Next Conversation Consulting’s Playbook for Turning Difficult Talks into Breakthroughs

00:00 /

In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Lee interviews Kristy Busija, CEO of Next Conversation Consulting, about building thriving workplace cultures. Kristy shares how her psychology and business background led her to help organizations identify invisible cultural issues, measure abstract qualities like creativity, and improve leadership effectiveness. She discusses her book Hidden in Plain Sight, addressing invisible disabilities affecting 73% of the workforce, and offers practical inclusion strategies. Kristy also advises aspiring leaders to make their contributions visible and encourages a conversational, experimental approach to workplace change.

Kristy Busija is the CEO and Founder of Next Conversation Consulting and is widely known for one thing: making sense out of chaos. Before becoming an award-winning business owner, best-selling author, and Forbes contributor, clients simply called her when things felt messy, stuck, or unclear—because she has a rare ability to see patterns where others see problems.

With more than 25 years of experience in corporate leadership, talent development, and organizational strategy, she brings a practical, business-minded lens to culture, leadership, and change. She doesn’t speak in theory or buzzwords. She translates complex challenges into clear, actionable steps leaders can use immediately.

She works with organizations across industries to build cultures where people can do their best work and leaders know how to navigate uncertainty without losing momentum. Her work has been recognized with a Gold Brandon Hall Award for Best Unique or Innovative Leadership Development Program, and her insights are frequently sought after by executives, boards, and leadership teams.

Connect with Kristy on LinkedIn and Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Creating positive workplace cultures where employees thrive.
The role of psychology in understanding workplace dynamics.
Addressing invisible cultural issues within organizations.
Measuring abstract qualities like creativity and strategic thinking.
The impact of coaching on leadership effectiveness and business outcomes.
Discussing invisible disabilities in the workplace and promoting inclusivity.
Practical steps for companies to support employees with invisible disabilities.
The connection between psychological safety and innovation.
Strategies for leaders to improve communication and visibility of their contributions.
The importance of focusing on incremental conversations to drive change.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor. Here are another episode of High Velocity Radio and this is gonna be a good one. Today on the show, we have the CEO and founder of Next Conversation Consulting, Kristy Busija.

Kristy Busija: Yeah, it’s good to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn more about your work. Tell us about your firm. How are you serving folks?

Kristy Busija: Absolutely. Well, we are at the heart of what we do. We try to help companies create cultures where employees actually love to work, and we can help them prove it.

Lee Kantor: So so what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Kristy Busija: Mm. My backstory is I, I’ve always loved psychology and so how people tick, but I also love the business side. And so when I had a chance to go into a field to see how companies can use the most valuable assets, their employees, and really, really help to create an environment that’s going to get help them to thrive and be innovative, which then can help the bottom line and help the company grow. I found my calling.

Lee Kantor: Now, is your work primarily at the organizational level, or do you work with individual high performers?

Kristy Busija: Both. Actually. So even if I work with an individual, that individual is part of a team, part of a department, part, a part of the whole ecosystem. So when I even work with one person, I’m actually looking at the whole system.

Lee Kantor: But when they come to you, or are they coming to you typically as an individual or as a kind of an executive saying, hey, Kristy, we need some help in this area and work with this team.

Kristy Busija: It can be both. It could be both. I could be.

Kristy Busija: Brought in to to work with one individual within a company to coach an individual to help them be more effective or handle difficult conversations, more strategic thinking, things like that. Or it could be they come in, contact us for more of a team. This team needs a little bit of love and care and needs a little help and support. Or it could be the whole system and say, well, we, you know, our culture isn’t where we want it to be. We’re having our numbers are slipping. We don’t know why. Can you help us think that through?

Lee Kantor: So are there kind of signs and signals for an executive to know if their culture is a problem?

Kristy Busija: Absolutely. The biggest sign is if if you’re always if you’re if as an executive, you’re always saying, I don’t know why they’re doing that. We tell them that this is what we do. You now, you know, now you have, um, what we call an invisible programing problem. Something in the system is signaling that what they’re getting is acceptable, not what they want to see. So that’s typically what I tell them to look for.

Lee Kantor: So you’re saying invisible and then something makes it visible. Like what? So the pain is that the executive is like, this isn’t, you know, congruent with how I think things should be or we think things should be.

Kristy Busija: Absolutely.

Kristy Busija: It’s invisible. It’s that fuzzy thing. It’s the I’m not getting what I thought I would get. Why aren’t people, you know, speaking up? Why are we not getting innovation? Why are we not getting X, Y, or Z or whatever that thing is that that ideal that they want to see? And that would be the thing that we would strive to help them get to, but they don’t know exactly what is that trigger or that lever or that thing leading into it. That’s the invisible part. But we come in and we help them. We help them think through and see all the places that they’re they’re quietly teaching people what to expect and how to behave.

Lee Kantor: Now, is this an area that can be measured? Is it like, you know, when you say like, I wish we were more innovative? Like, is that something that you can count?

Kristy Busija: Absolutely. We can. We can take a look at whatever metrics they currently have in place in terms of, um, whether it’s looking at their, their, you know, the, the R&D projects, the schedules or whatever, whatever they have in place, we can help them quantify what they’re doing now and what they want to do different in the future, and then figure out how the path to get there.

Lee Kantor: So how do you help people kind of develop metrics around things like creativity or strategic thinking? Hmm.

Kristy Busija: Well, the, um, very, very good question. We get all the time. Um, we actually, we take it, we boil it down to the simplest of terms and we ask them, we ask them to define what does creativity look like for them in their environment? What does strategic thinking look like for them in their environment? And we try to get as granular as possible with it. So for some companies, strategic thinking is being able to create the three year plan, five year plan. For others, it’s just being able to, to look further, a little further ahead down the road. Um, or, and for even other companies, it’s, it’s more of, um, instead of just looking at how it affects your team, you’re pulling your head up and looking across departments and how that one decision can impact everybody. So when we look at the measurement, we get as granular as we possibly can for them and then help them assess where they are now and where they want to be. And then we think through how they can close that gap.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there an example you can share? Don’t name the name of the organization, but maybe an example along those lines to illustrate how this kind of work can impact a company and get them to a new place.

Kristy Busija: Absolutely. So we were working with one of the executives of a technology consulting firm. And, um, she came to, they came to us and asked us to work with her on strategic thinking. And part of part of that conversation when we dove into it was, uh, she really is a strategic thinker, a strategic thinker. So she is able to see all of the pieces and the parts. But the challenge was not, not necessarily being able to think strategically, but to be able to articulate that and also be able to say how this impacts here, changes impact over there. And then we even dove in a little bit more and found out that the other challenge that was kind of getting in her way was, um, she wasn’t a fan of, um, difficult conversations. So being able to have a conversation about why we should do this or not do that. Why this employee is not performing and how to handle that. That was actually getting in the way of her making the strategic decisions. So fast forward six months of working with her and partnering with her. Um, we actually asked her and her leader, who is the president of the company, to put a number on it and say bye bye. Her leaning into the things that we’ve been working with her. What is the impact to the business? And she line itemed they line item out every single decision that was made and saw over $1 million impact directly into the business for doing the work and building strategic thinking and also the difficult conversations.

Lee Kantor: So that probably helped her review a 100%.

Kristy Busija: So when we’re in that call, we get the we get the thumbs up emoji from the president. I was like, oh my goodness, this is great. Yes, it did help.

Lee Kantor: And that’s, that’s probably good advice for people to to try to quantify as much of the impact you’re having so that when you do have that annual review conversation, that you are equipped with some metrics that matter.

Kristy Busija: Absolutely. Well, also return on investment. So bringing some bringing firms in or bringing consultants or bringing coaches in, you want to actually see those dollars coming back into the business, not just to develop that one person. So absolutely, it helps with the performance, the performance conversations, but it also helps from a from the company understanding the value that they receive from the work that from the investment that they made into the people.

Lee Kantor: So let’s talk a little bit about your, uh, your book Hidden in Plain Sight. How did that come about?

Kristy Busija: Oh, that one came about from my own lived experiences. And then getting a chance to meet Doctor Jessica Hegstad, a leading researcher in the space, and then a good colleague of hers, Danielle Ralston. Uh, so, um, in, you know, invisible disabilities. I had no, up until a couple years ago, I had no idea what those those were and that I had a couple of my own. And they’re just anything that, um, can prevent you from being, maximizing your personal effectiveness in the work environment. And so for me, my personal story is that, you know, I, um, and it’s actually in the book, um, I, it was my worst. I’ll be honest, it was my worst fear come to life where, you know, I, I have reactions to perfumes where my, it makes it hard to breathe. So imagine in a cubicle environment and colleagues wearing perfume and instead of instead of, uh, working with me to help solve the situation, I was, I was literally put into another corner of the building away from everybody instead. And so my, you know, I really want to help companies think through how do we help make more inclusive spaces for those with things that we necessarily don’t necessarily see, whether that’s hearing impairments, whether that’s anxiety, whether that’s, um, autism, learning disabilities, anything that’s invisible that could impact their effectiveness. And I want to create a space, a safe space for them to talk about it, ask for what’s going to help them to maximize their effectiveness without feeling like they are the problem. Uh, for bringing it to somebody’s attention.

Lee Kantor: About how many, like what percentage of a given workforce has some sort of invisible disability?

Kristy Busija: Uh, Jessica. Doctor, Jessica’s research shows 73% of the workforce has at least one invisible disability, which is over double of what the current research is showing.

Lee Kantor: So, um, when you explain that to leaders, are they do their heads explode? That seems like such a high number to ignore.

Kristy Busija: Their well, their their heads don’t explode, per se. It’s just more of wait, what? Wait whoa whoa, wait, there’s that many people. Um, well, it’s more of an education around what exactly is in that bucket, which is anything that’s covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act here in the US. Um, but then more importantly, it’s. Oh, wow. I had no idea is what the typical response I get. And for me, that’s just a jumping off point to say, now that we know, let’s unpack that and see where do we take it from here? Because there are a lot of things that we can do that that are easy. We already have native to what we do in work and our tech stacks anyway, and, and don’t require a lot of extra things or dollar value to, to be able to work with.

Lee Kantor: So what are some of those kind of easy things?

Kristy Busija: Oh, the easy buttons are things that, um, you know, zoom does it teams does it. Um, and a lot of the other platforms do it. Closed captioning is closed. Captioning is one great thing to do. Um, allowing people to to hit the record and the note takers on on, uh, on meetings so that they can go back and take a look at what that look at the transcript or read it on screen at the same time that they’re hearing it. Um, there are, there are, there are so many things. And we even have a partnership with, um, a really great strategic partner, translate live. Their software actually allows you to translate what I’m saying into over 200 languages instantaneous. And then it also shows what I’m saying, um, on screen. So it’s actually, it actually helps when I’m speaking or I’m teaching so people can actually see it, especially if they’re hard of hearing or, um, or they need to, they just need that visual cue as well.

Lee Kantor: Now when you’re having the conversation with the leaders, is this an area where they just kind of like kind of give lip service to it, but don’t actually do something or do once they’re aware of it, do most people take action?

Kristy Busija: It’s it’s a space where we’re, we’re trending. We’re starting to tread lightly because it’s a space that people don’t know what to do. Right? So historically it’s been, oh, I don’t know what to do. I have to make, I have to make an exception. And accommodation for this one person. Oh my goodness, is legal going to get involved. What do I do. So I think we’ve you know, there’s been a lot of fear around this space or and also fear of not knowing what to say or saying the wrong thing. I think that’s the biggest hurdle that we have, which is honestly why Danielle and I wrote the book. The book. It gives very practical. Instead of saying this, try saying this instead. Um, this, this is a good alternative to what we do. Here’s how to, here’s how to have that conversation. Because we, we don’t want to just point out that we’re, you know, we’re doing it wrong because we’re not, we’re just, we just don’t know what to say and what to do. And I think that that’s where leaders get a little hung up.

Lee Kantor: And change is hard in any case. So, I mean, I could see how this is a tricky conversation. Like you’re opening up a Pandora’s box.

Kristy Busija: So yes and no. Yes and no. It’s it’s Pandora’s box in terms of creating more inclusive work environments. Um, which, which honestly, the new generations in the workforce is actually demanding and asking is that we be more inclusive and supportive and bring your whole self to work, which could be your, your messy middle. Um, instead of masking who you are. Um, but it’s, it’s, it’s just what we find is that what will help one person typically helps the majority of the population. So being able to give people the choice to not have to be on camera, um, which is, you know, you can’t, there is something, you know, something as, uh, zoom fatigue or video fatigue. And so allowing people that space to do that without forcing the issue. That does help more than one. And I think that that’s so Pandora’s box. I think in some ways can be a good thing because it’s actually creating a better environment for everybody.

Lee Kantor: Well, I agree, I think it’s I think it’s a positive in the, in the sense that once people are aware of it, I would hope that they get on board and try to serve their people because the people, a lot of them give, you know, say they’re the most important part of their organization. So live in to that. I’m pro that, that’s for sure. But I can see a portion, um, like you mentioned earlier about being fear based, saying, oh, here we go. Now I got to get, you know, HR and that’s illegal. And now there’s compliance. And, and that’s what I was referring to when I said Pandora’s box.

Kristy Busija: Well, absolutely. And we definitely want to make sure that, um, you know, companies feel, feel that we we’re not we’re not sidestepping that conversation. We actually touch about that in, in, in the book as well that it’s, um, absolutely pull in legal because you don’t want to put something in place that’s going to totally get you out of, out of whack in one other don’t over index in one way or another. Um, but I think the question like, at least now we just want to get onto the table. Let’s change some of the language so it doesn’t sound like legal ease of how do I accommodate you? Right. Which sounds like, oh, wow. How do I put you in a little box and make sure that we’re doing things only for you and, and, and make sure that’s that’s all buttoned up. But is there something else in our culture, our environment, our workspaces that could really help everybody else, which doesn’t require legal intervention. It’s just the ways that we work.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. I’m a big fan of bringing humanity back into the workplace. Um, and having human to human interactions that aren’t kind of robotic or, you know, where it’s just a checking a bunch of boxes, like deal with the human beings as human beings. I mean, we’re all unique and we have our own needs and desires and, you know, just try to you want us to be part of the team. So make it so that I can deliver what you’re investing in.

Kristy Busija: Absolutely. That’s absolutely. Talk human to human. Let’s just put the humanity back into it. Not let not have to have people mask and just show up a certain way to be accepted. Allow them to participate however they need to. And I think we’re going to get a lot more innovation, creativity, psychological safety from it.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there metrics that kind of back up that thesis?

Kristy Busija: Absolutely. So doctor Jessica’s research does show does link to all of that. Um I don’t have those handy today. So I can get those to you later into your listeners if they’re, if they’re interested. But yeah, there is a link between psychological safety and innovation. The work of Tim Clark around the four stages of psychological safety shows that direct line, that when you create that safe space for people to be themselves, learn, contribute and challenge, then you will get that, that creativity and that innovation which a lot of companies really want.

Lee Kantor: Now when you’re working with, um, like walk me through what, uh, what it looks like to work with you and your team. So they kind of like, what’s a typical problem they’re coming to you with?

Kristy Busija: Usually what they come to us with, um, is, well, it definitely depends on it depends. Well, it, it, I don’t think there’s any specific things that we, we hit, I think right now lately we get a lot of, um, my team, we have some team problems. This team is kind of not getting along. They’re not productive. We need some team stuff over here. Uh, we also get quite a bit of we, we want to develop our leaders towards the future capabilities, but we have no idea where to start, especially with the, um, the, you know, the, you know, right now we have five generations in the workforce. What do we do with that? How do we lead? What, what capabilities are we going to, are we going to need? Um, but usually there is something that is there burning platform or they just got their engagement scores and they’re not looking as well as they would like to. And they want to, they want to see how they can impact that culture. Those are some of the big ones that people come to us for.

Lee Kantor: Okay, so let’s work on the, the culture element. So somebody calls you in and says, we’re not happy with our culture. Um, so what, so how does it begin? Like, so what, how do you start? Is there assessments? Like, what is some of your framework that you go in and your methodology to deliver an outcome?

Kristy Busija: Absolutely. We can, um, we can do everything from, um, interviewing stakeholders and focus groups in different pockets of the organization to kind of get the voice of the customer from all, from all over the place. If they have their engagement data, we’ll take a look at whatever they have. Um, or we can get even as, depending on how much they really want to really dive in and invest. We could also probably use the human synergistics culture assessments that get us really, really in depth information around what their ideal culture is and what their current culture is. And then we can really map out a clear plan. But regardless, we do really heavy discovery phase. And when I say heavy, I’m not talking months and months and months. It can we can short circuit it, but we really want to go deep and understand what’s really happening. And when we do, we do that. We listen for what’s being said, but also, more importantly, what’s not being said and read between the lines so that we can help them understand What they’re saying is happening and what’s really happening, happening and what’s signaling or what’s driving that. That’s, that’s typically what we do to assess.

Lee Kantor: And then once you come to, um, a realization of what you feel is happening, how quickly can change occur?

Kristy Busija: No change can, um, if the company is ready to put in the work, um, change can change can happen very rapidly. Um, I worked with this, I worked with a, um, an entire nursing leadership team and um, started with the, the, the chief nursing officer. And when we started working together, they had a very, um, as they described, as they described it, a very toxic environment, very fear based environment, um, threats in the parking lot environment in rural America of all places. And we, so we started working with the leaders, started teaching them and working and helping them understand behaviors and the impact and the result you’re getting by the input you’re putting in. And in less than a year, that team became that nursing leadership became so cohesive that other departments were looking at them to say, how do I, how do we become like that? Because that group is so tight knit and, and functioning really well. So that domino can fall really fast, that momentum can pick up super fast, but the leaders have to be willing to go first, be vulnerable and reinforce it and, and start to move the momentum in the right direction.

Lee Kantor: So now we’ve talked a lot about teams. Let’s talk about individuals. Is there, um, any advice for that aspiring leader that maybe isn’t getting, uh, the promotion that they like or they’re not moving up as fast as they’d like to? Do you have any advice for that person in order to, you know, get the momentum they need in their career.

Kristy Busija: Absolutely. So I do quite a bit with leaders that are looking to get promoted or want to move to a in a different role. And it’s, it’s, I’d say 90% of the time, it’s not because they’re not qualified or capable. What I see quite often is that they have a strategic marketing or strategic communication challenge where what got them there is not going to help them get propelled forward. So, you know, as we are, we’re doing work. We, you know, our work does speak for ourselves up to an up to a certain point. And at some point we have to shift into, um, starting to tell people what we’re doing, what our team’s doing. And for a lot of leaders, they, uh, to kind of use some of their language, it feels icky or feels weird, it feels self-promoting. And that’s that mindset. That’s a mindset shift of it’s not self-promoting, It’s just making the invisible visible because people don’t see the work product of leading. Leading is seen through the work and the things that other people do. But the only way to make that visible is you’ve got to tell people about it, and you’ve got to bring it to the light. That’s honestly what I see quite a bit for getting promoted.

Lee Kantor: Now, what’s the, um, why is the name of the organization next conversation. What’s the meaning behind that?

Kristy Busija: Um, it was, it came about from um, not needing to think through your entire, your entire roadmap or everything that you need to do to get from point A to point B, it was, it’s more of, let’s just focus on what is that next conversation we need to have? What’s that critical piece of information we need to talk about and share? Because that’s going to then change and shape what that adventure is going to look like next second, third, fourth and fifth.

Lee Kantor: So do you find a lot of times people are overthinking things.

Kristy Busija: Yeah, yeah yeah we do. We all we typically think, overthink things or, or try to think or try to predict. If I say this, you’re going to say this and this and that, and we can’t. Again, it goes back to that we’re we’re humans working with humans. All bets are off. We have no idea what the other person’s going to say or do, which is why we say start with one conversation, one experiment, one one choice point and see where it goes.

Lee Kantor: How do you help your clients get comfortable with that kind of chaos where a lot of especially leaders, like to be in control?

Kristy Busija: I asked them to to treat everything like a hypothesis and a mini experiment and just say, can you do, can you just for, you know, the next conversation, can you just at least try this and see how and see how it happens, what happens and if it works? And of course, asking them what makes the most sense for them based upon their their personality, their style, and how they want to be perceived and show up. And then from there, they’re like, okay, I’ll try that one thing. And then when they come back and say, oh my goodness, it worked. Then it starts to build momentum like, okay, what else can I try? What? What’s the next thing I can do? And then we start to piggyback on that and habit stack on it.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. If you can take the emotion out of things and frame it as an experiment, I think that that goes a long way for a more less stress and a more productive life.

Kristy Busija: Absolutely. Because there’s no, you know, because when we, when we say experiment, there’s no, we don’t, we’re not saying it’s going to work. We’re not saying it’s not going to work. We’re just going to see what happens and go with it.

Lee Kantor: And no one knows. I mean, it like a lot of things sound good on a whiteboard, but once you know, you hit the market, it’s a different world.

Kristy Busija: Oh, absolutely.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. I think a lot of people stay in their own head, in the safety of the whiteboard, and are afraid to kind of put their things out there for the world to see and hear.

Kristy Busija: Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what is the website? What is the best way to connect?

Kristy Busija: They can go to our next conversation, consulting.com, or they can email us at info at next conversation, consulting.com, and we’d be happy to hear from them and schedule some time to for a further chat.

Lee Kantor: Well, Christie, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Kristy Busija: Thank you so much for having me.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.