Problem Solvers

When you change your company name, can you change the way you relate to customers? That's what Neighborly (formerly Dwyer Group) is currently finding out. In this, the second in our two-part series about name changes, we learn how the country's largest home-services franchise company is redefining how it relates to customers... all because it changed its name.

Does a corporate name really matter? Yes, says Guru Gowrappan. And he should know. On this episode, we learn why Yahoo and AOL was merged into a company called Oath, why Guru changed the name to Verizon Media, and how renaming the company changed the entire company’s culture—leading to more sales, more collaboration, and a lot less drama.

Entrepreneurs should be life-long learners. They should constantly develop new skills, even if they don’t know the ROI on those skills. And that’s why James Altucher—the former hedge fund manager who’s built and sold many companies—dedicated himself to mastering stand-up comedy. In this conversation, he explains why he kept pushing himself to try something difficult and often embarrassing, and how...

What do you do for a second act, when your first act literally changed an industry? That was the question facing makeup powerhouse Bobbi Brown, whose simple line of lipsticks blossomed into the billion-dollar company Bobbi Brown Cosmetics. She left it in 2016 with no plans for what to do next; all she knew was that she was done with corporate life. But she’s since found an answer—expanding into ne...

Change will come to every business, but there’s an irony to it: The best time to embrace change is when you see it coming from far away -- when you still have time to plan, and when you aren’t hurting. On this episode, I make my case for making change, and then talk actor Justin Klosky, who switched careers and became a professional organizer.

Influencers can be a valuable marketing tool: Get your product into their hands, and they might send waves of new fans your way. But how do you actually do that? We talk to Will Ahmed, founder and CEO of a wearable fitness device called Whoop, whose product was almost immediately embraced by the world’s top athletes.

Can you give your customers too much choice? Vanessa Van Edwards learned that the answer is yes. She used to sell lots of different courses online, but eventually decided to throw them all away. The result was crazy: Profits spiked! If you’re looking to sell online courses—or really, to sell *anything* online—this is the episode to listen to. Thanks to our sponsors: Blip Billboards: Sign up for a...

In this episode, leadership expert Scott Miller lays out a radical argument: Some people are just excellent individual performers -- and there's no shame in staying that way. But if you ARE going to become a leader, then it's time to think differently about everything. Thanks to our sponsors: Netsuite: Download your free guide "7 Key Strategies to Grow Your Profits" netsuite.com/problemsolvers Bli...

SwagUp CEO Artem Mashkov had a problem: His employees were miserable and making mistakes. But instead of blaming them, he looked internally—and discovered a hiring system that was recruiting the entirely wrong kind of employee. Then he made some big changes in how SwagUp hires... leading to sometimes strange interviews, where he challenges candidates to think creatively and tries to scare them out...

When a company is in trouble and needs someone to make change, they call Matt Hewitt. He's now the president of Rosetta Stone, and is in the process of rethinking the company's entire product offering. How does a guy like this operate? In this episode, Matt shares the three-step approach he takes to turning a company around.

Right now, as you listen to this show, someone out there might be thinking about hiring or partnering with you—but they can't, because you haven't put enough of yourself out there. On this episode, we discuss fear and self-promotion with Kassi Underwood, an author and coach who focuses on overcoming fear.

OMG we've made 100 episodes of Problem Solvers! If you're interested in podcasting, this is the episode for you: Host Jason Feifer is going to explain how he conceived of the show, how he makes it each week on a shoestring budget, and how any entrepreneur can jump into the podcasting game.

Barefoot Wine is one of the largest wine brands in the world. But it was nearly destroyed in the very beginning, when it was forced to stop all sales for a month. Its founders panicked... and then used that suspension to create the greatest sales opportunity a young brand like theirs could ever hope for. This is the story of how Barefoot Wine grew by repeatedly turning errors into advantages.

We’ve all done it: We see someone score amazing attention, or win some award, or snag the perfect client, and we wonder, How’d they pull that off? It can seem random. What do they have that we don’t? How did luck happen to break their way? I used to wonder this all the time. But now, after meeting so many entrepreneurs who have triumphed in so many ways, I see a pattern in their success. Here it i...

Cameo is an app that connects celebrities with fans for a very specific purpose: Fans can pay for the celebrity to film a personalized video for them—wishing them a happy birthday, for example. Growth was steady, but then potential disaster struck: A group of white supremacists tricked one of Cameo's most famous celebrities into filming a video with coded hate speech. Cameo knew it needed to fix t...

Harry Overly got an unexpected call one day from Sun-Maid, the raisin company with the famous red box featuring a grapescarrying girl. It needed a new CEO—was he interested? “What is the appetite for risk?” he asked in response. Because Overly, a food industry veteran, knew the job wouldn’t be easy. Sun-Maid was in trouble: Raisin sales were down, and its brand voice had gone silent. What to do? I...

Nobody can see the pathway ahead of them. We’re all blind. But the people who succeed are the ones willing to walk in the dark anyway. On this episode, host Jason Feifer shares his six-step plan for success (step one: start moving!), and then talks with Gregg Clunis, host of the podcast Tiny Steps, Big Leaps, about how to find the motivation and will to take those steps.