Business Growth Spotlight

What happens when the business owner is the reason the business can't grow? Heidi Schalk sits down with Avigail Schondorf, founder of Alisto Executive Support, a mom of two with AuDHD who built a fractional executive support team in the Philippines after relocating from Israel to Georgia in February 2020. Avi is refreshingly unapologetic. She explains why cloning yourself doubles your weaknes...

What happens when a company grows faster than its foundation can handle? In this episode of the Business Growth Spotlight, Heidi Schalk sits down with Erik Davison, CEO of DBV Solutions Inc., a consulting firm that has spent more than two decades helping organizations in financial services, insurance, banking, and healthcare redesign how they operate. Erik shares why you cannot grow your way out o...

In his first ever podcast interview, Ken Christie, Chief Operating Officer of VTS Consultants, joins Heidi Schalk on the Business Growth Spotlight. With twenty years in aseptic manufacturing and twenty five years in consulting, Ken helps regulated manufacturers prepare for FDA inspections, respond to observations, and keep pace with expectations that rise as technology and equipment design evolve....

What does a $3 million road salt mistake have to do with growing your business? More than you might think. In this episode of the Business Growth Spotlight, Heidi Schalk sits down with Eric Schnurer, president and founder of Public Works LLC, a consulting firm that helps state, local, national and international governments operate better and spend smarter. Can a small consulting firm win against t...

Why do so many business owners feel powerless right now, and what can they do about it? Heidi Schalk sits down with Sharon Seivert, founder and CEO of Core Coaching and Consulting, to explore the Six Powers, an ancient model of balance that Sharon has turned into a practical framework for leaders, teams, and entire organizations. Sharon explains why the real problem in a business usually starts so...

In this episode of the Business Growth Spotlight, host Heidi Schalk sits down with retired Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann, former US Army Green Beret, playwright, bestselling author, and founder of Rooftop Leadership and the Scott Mann Leadership Academy. Scott spent decades building rapport in some of the lowest trust environments on earth, from Colombia and Peru to multiple tours in Afghanistan....

Colin Lepiscopo has spent 13 years in marketing, including CMO and Director of Innovation roles. He’s the founder of AI Advantage Agency and the new civilian self defense media brand Model Civilian. In this episode, Heidi and Colin talk about what happens when a seasoned marketer becomes a first stage founder again. He explains why his first guess about his audience was completely wrong, and why h...

Jerry Lujan spent 17 years grinding toward a million dollar book of business in his family’s insurance agency, working close to 100 hours a week. Then his five year old daughter booked an appointment with him, took him to the park, and asked why he didn’t love her. That moment changed everything. Over the next four years, Jerry quadrupled his business while working about half the hours, was named...

What happens when your best performer becomes a supervisor or leader? They may be excellent at the work, but that does not automatically mean they know how to coach, manage, delegate, or develop the people around them. In this episode of Business Growth Spotlight, Heidi Schalk sits down with Jack Shade, founder of Infinite CXO, to talk about what really happens when businesses promote high perform...

Why do good companies stop growing? Host Heidi Schalk talks with Craig Apatov, founder and managing partner of Ascension Growth and Innovation Strategies, a 25 year old consulting firm focused entirely on top line growth for middle market companies and divisions of global corporations. Craig explains war gaming, where leaders study their own business through a competitor's eyes, and why growt...

Ben Cooper, founder of Amplify, joins Heidi Schalk to talk about what really happens when a business grows beyond the point where the owner can rely on gut instinct alone. They discuss using financial forecasting to make better growth decisions, why business owners often avoid their numbers, how AI can support financial strategy without replacing human judgment, and why growth should ultimately su...

Great Ideas Don't Fail. Teams Do. with Dr. Nikki Blacksmith of Symeta Behavior Science What really determines whether a business succeeds? According to Dr. Nikki Blacksmith, it's rarely the idea. It's the people behind it. In this episode of the Business Growth Spotlight, Heidi Schalk sits down with Dr. Nikki Blacksmith, a scientist practitioner of behavior science and founder of Sy...

Your business is working. The bills are paid, clients are coming in, and everything is fine. So why does it feel like you are running in place? In this episode of the Business Growth Spotlight, host Heidi Schalk sits down with Jim McLaughlin, partner at Effective Action Consulting, to talk about what it really takes to step off the treadmill and actually go somewhere with your business. Jim is a f...

What if leaving corporate did not require leaping off a cliff? In this episode of the Business Growth Spotlight, Heidi Schalk sits down with Kimberly Nicole Evans, founder of Seismic Transformations and founding partner of Renel Evans Limited and Beck Evans Limited, joining us from Hawaii with an ocean view you have to see on YouTube. After years in banking and executive leadership, including one...

Dave Sanderson is best known as the last passenger off US Airways Flight 1549, the flight the world remembers as the Miracle on the Hudson. In this episode of the Business Growth Spotlight, host Heidi Schalk sits down with Dave to unpack what that day actually taught him about leadership, and how a former Oracle sales executive and Tony Robbins security director turned one of the most famous survi...

In this episode of the Business Growth Spotlight, host Heidi Schalk sits down with Angus MacDonald, director and co-founder of A&S International, a British company that acts as a master distributor for niche maintenance and reliability solutions across heavy industry worldwide. Angus makes a refreshing case that innovation is not always about inventing something new. Often it is about helping...

In this episode of the Business Growth Spotlight, host Heidi Schalk sits down with Tobias Young, an IFBB Pro, seven time fitness magazine cover model, and founder of TNT Fit Pro Coaching, to unpack how fitness professionals can turn expert coaching skills into a scalable six figure online business. Tobias breaks down his nine step framework for building a profitable online fitness coaching busines...

In this episode of Business Growth Spotlight, host Heidi Schalk talks with Rachel Minion, founder of Rockstarr & Moon, a marketing agency for small, founder-led businesses. Rachel is a bold, no-nonsense marketer and cancer warrior who cuts through the chaos to help overwhelmed business owners turn inefficiency into impact. Rachel shares the story of the 21 days that rebuilt her agency. When he...

I n this episode of Business Growth Spotlight, host Heidi Schalk sits down with Rodney Koop, founder of The New Flat Rate and author of Why Won't They Pay Me What I'm Worth? and Breaking Free Forever . A former electrician with 12 unrestricted contractor licenses and 20 years teaching the National Electrical Code, Rodney shares the counterintuitive pricing discovery that has generated ov...

In this episode of Business Growth Spotlight, Heidi Schalk talks with Dickson Wasake, managing partner at Jedidiah CPA and a 20 year CPA with both US and UK qualifications. Dickson brings deep international experience across US GAAP, IFRS, and UK GAAP, making him a strong partner for clients operating across borders. Dickson shares why treating your CPA as a once a year tax resource is a costly mi...

In this episode of Business Growth Spotlight, Heidi Schalk sits down with Elise Marquis of Chameleon Collective, a non-traditional agency that delivers fractional growth leadership and recruiting services to direct-to-consumer brands in the beauty, apparel, and fragrance spaces. With nearly nine years at the collective and a career built on reading between the lines, Elise brings a rare dual persp...

What if increasing revenue isn't actually the best measure of whether your business is growing well? In this episode of Business Growth Spotlight, Heidi Schalk sits down with Don McDaniel, serial entrepreneur, healthcare industry veteran, educator, and founder of Canton Growth Partners, for a conversation about what it really takes to build sustainable growth and long-term business value. Wit...

Most companies treat growth as a sales problem. Jim Gitney has spent forty-five years proving it is really an operations problem in disguise. In this episode of the Business Growth Spotlight, Heidi Schalk sits down with Jim, founder and CEO of Group 50 Consulting, to talk about what actually happens when a business tries to scale, and why so many of them stall out right at the moment they should b...

Most business leaders spend a shocking amount of their day buried in people management, anywhere from ten to fifty percent, dealing with compensation, compliance, benefits, onboarding, offboarding, and employee relations. In this episode of the Business Growth Spotlight, Heidi Schalk sits down with Neil Katz, founder and CEO of Exceptional HR Solutions, to unpack why HR is not just a compliance ch...

Matthew Ferguson accidentally fell into e-commerce nearly 30 years ago, starting with a door-to-door sales job in the Florida sun that quickly went sideways, then landing an office admin role in Deerfield Beach that turned out to be an all-things-e-commerce crash course. Back then eBay ruled, nobody had heard of Amazon, and FBA didn't exist. Today he runs eManage, a UK-based agency that helps...