This blog is for owners and executives of growth-oriented businesses who share our growth mindset and passion for building value. Here, we share insights and experiences in our growth journey, things we learned with or from our clients, that can help you reach your next mountaintop. Enjoy!
After his first job as CPA at Arthur Anderson ended shortly after the Berlin Wall fell (fun story how that global event unleashed our guest’s entrepreneurial spirit at 1:01), Stu Seltzer became a licensing expert, first as executive at fashion house YSL, then in entertaining at Disney, and now as owner of licensing agency Seltzer…
Read MoreWe started with the leadership analogy of orchestra musicians as cross-functional business team members, the conductor as its leader – but my guest Daniel Wachter connected dots from business culture to sounds and language (7:08), from change management to listening, from music to the Baroque painter Rubens’ delegation and painting ‘process’ (38:09 thru 42:03). We…
Read More“Never waste a good crisis” is an important reminder as we work through the COVID pandemic and prepare for post-pandemic life. Craig Todd shares five values that helped his company to thrive, and actions his team took to grow during COVID. Our conversation leads us to share other tools forged by other crises and how…
Read MoreHow does empathy unlock potential for growth? Cindy Tripp talks about seeing the world in the other’s shoes, building rapport and candor, letting go of judgment to allow curiosity to open new doors, inside teams and out in the market. Whether Cindy shares global company stories – like P&G learning from a small competitor in…
Read MoreA life-long merchant with manufacturers and national retailers, Karin Jeske talks about the left/right brain approach to product development, “from spreadsheets to bed sheets, from color palettes to shipping pallets, from boardrooms to sample rooms.” There are plenty of product people that are either “all about the numbers” (and wrong) or “all about fashion trends…
Read MoreOur 16- and 20-year-old daughters said to us “you guys should do a podcast about working together.” My wife Hilda Castillo Duenkelsbuehler is this episode’s star guest and we talked about our different working styles, the flexibility required to learn a new way to work, the willingness to re-frame, be open and curious, that “with…
Read MoreBorn in Turkey, raised in beautiful Istanbul, and leading teams in Italy and the USA, Mehmet Yuksek knows a thing or two about growth journeys, cultural idiosyncrasies, and several golden rules that helped him succeed on three continents. He shares his favorite business authors, as well as simple and powerful frameworks like “Courage, Focus, Clarity”,…
Read MoreAmplifying a business by a factor of 10x (in Jeffrey Lazarow’s case from 5 stores to a chain of 49 mall stores in 11 states) requires an open mind, a few powerful guiding principles (like “run your business as if you were to sell it in three years”), hard work and of course some luck…
Read MoreFront-end innovation for manufacturers starts with falling in love with a problem, requiring us to clarify assumptions and customers’ needs. If the product is to be a great solution, start with the customer as the hero of this journey, not the product. Paul Miklautsch from Start Something Bold is a thoughtful and bold designer and…
Read MoreA real estate executive asked “is there a better way?” for home buyers and sellers to find each other. Nick Rabin talks thru the concept his group developed – replacing some of the over one million realtors in the USA charging sellers about $100 billion dollars in broker commissions each year, with a peer-to-peer home…
Read More