Conquer the Chaos

Jake Fackrell is a born entrepreneur—as a kid, he started a lawn mowing business, and by the time he was 17, he partnered with his cousin to start a collections company in Las Vegas. Mackrell thought that what he really wanted to be was a doctor, so he worked part time as an athletic trainer in college while starting a coupon card business. Tired of "rubbing down 350-pound linemen," Fackrell made...

What did it take to get CEO and co-founder Clate Mask on board with Infusionsoft? Clate always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but first he went to law school and got an MBA. $100,000 in debt, it took almost a year for his brothers-in-law Eric and Scott Martineau to convince him to join the company. Clate talks with Director of Content Carey Ballard about how the business has grown since 2001 and th...

2008 was a dark time for Kim Duncan and her husband, Kirk. They struggled to buy their family groceries, and their neighbors donated Christmas. Things started to turn in early 2009, when they intentionally changed their mindset and threw their weight into their business, 3 Key Elements. Now, thousands of people flock to Salt Lake City every year to attend their workshops on personal development an...

A key factor to business growth is making sales, which is why Clate and Scott say that small businesses must grow a culture of selling. That means you have to get over rejection and become a master closer—like Scott! The key is having a great product. If you do that, then selling really becomes serving, because you'll know you're selling something that will improve the quality of someone's life. Y...

Three days before your baby is due is best time to start a business, right? It was for Bonnie Bowles, an estate planning lawyer and founder of Wills and Wellness in Denver, Colorado. Bonnie decided to take a family-focused approach to practicing law—she doesn't even bill by the hour. When she shares how hard it was to relinquish some responsibility in the business, Clate shares that he thinks a vi...

Jeff Corn took a "super nasty" fall on his mountain bike and broke his pelvis, shoulder, and tore his rotator cuff. A long recovery time gave him time to think about what he really wanted to do with his life. That turned into Virtuance, a real-estate marketing company that developed the HDReal image processing system. Virtuance now has 10,000 customers, but back in the day the company had one serv...

Clate and Scott have watched thousands of small business owners do all kinds of things to make their businesses more successful. Most of those things fall into two separate ends of planning: the behemoth master plan and the overly idealistic immediate attack. Neither of these work; what works is an iterative approach where you can experience quick wins and build quickly based on what you learn. Li...

Mark Breyer once declared that he would never work with his wife, Alexis, but they've been running their personal injury law firm together for 20 years. In retrospect, they found that they set themselves up to have problems scaling their business and fall behind the times. Clate and Scott follow Mark and Alexis' business journey and talk about going from generalist to specialist, letting half thei...

Ever heard you shouldn't go into business with a family member? Clate and Scott (who are brothers-in-law!) think that's terrible advice, even though they don't always see eye-to-eye. They find the care and love they have for each other as family members allows them to do things they can't always achieve with others. Why? Because they had existing love and care before the business side of it starte...

In 2008, Kay Walten's Mexico-based business Loco Gringo faced the perfect storm: The Great Recession, a hurricane, Swine Flu, and drug cartel activity, all of which tend to discourage tourism. Loco Gringo started in 1996 when Kay was in Mexico exploring underwater caves with a client who introduced her to a thing called the internet. After writing a business plan on a cocktail napkin, she started...

Kathy Fettke's husband Rich was given with six months to live—and she had to figure out how to take over their finances. Luckily, Rich's doctor was wrong, but that scare was the impetus to start The Real Wealth Network. She leveraged her existing radio show to learn about investing, and now she and her husband teach people how to grow wealth through real estate. Clate and Scott talk with her about...

Firefighter Peter Thorpe had seen a lot of devastating fires started by stoves, so he developed FireAvert, which automatically shuts off stoves. Wes Clark, Peter's  business partner and our guest in this episode, shares with Clate and Scott what it was like to prepare for—and recover from—being on ABC's Shark Tank , overcoming rejection, and figuring out the simplest way to solve business problems...

What do Clate and Scott think is the silent killer for small businesses? The inability to cultivate disciplined optimism. Disciplined optimism is a balance between having a positive attitude while being willing to face the brutal facts of your current reality. Clate and Scott talk about why that optimism is so critical to the survival of your small business and how to harness it to help your busin...

Matt Leitz is a born entrepreneur—he even thought he invented social networking. Clearly he didn't, but he brings that passion to his role as  President of Clever Investor. He shares with Clate and Scott the struggles his company faced along the way—like losing every customer's credit card information—as well as the big wins, like helping customers get results and taking a six-week vacation.   Aut...

Abigail Olaya and her husband went from corporate work to owning their own business during the U.S. economic downturn of 2008. They now run Venue at the Grove, a wedding venue and experience in Phoenix, Arizona. Their business journey hasn't been easy—when Abigail was pregnant with triplets, her one remaining site coordinator resigned a mere month before Abigail's due date. She talks with Clate an...

Stephanie Holmes faced condescension when she floated the idea of deviating from just selling financial services. She wanted to help people change their spending habits, structure their debt, and have the life they want, and she had to start her own practice to do it. She later sold it when she started The Money Finder, of which she is currently the CEO. She chats with Clate and Scott about naysay...

Damien Sanchez started his business, DC Mosquito Squad, in 2007. Now it's booming with 47 employees, but there was a time when he lost 30 pounds in two months trying to handle office admin tasks by himself all while he was still working as a firefighter and being a new dad. "If I had known how much work and time was involved when I started, I would have been discouraged," he says. But he turned it...

When Infusionsoft CEO Clate Mask and co-founder Scott Martineau started the company, they had no idea what they were getting into. It took years of hard work, financial struggle, and hustle until they experienced real business growth. Clate and Scott don't want it to be that hard for other small business owners. That's why the Small Business Success Podcast is about the entrepreneur's business jou...