In The Trenches

Chris Mance is a software engineer and the founder of Nichevertising, software that gives authors, podcasters, and thought leader businesses the power to engage with influencers and build their following. What Chris Mance and I talked about in this broadcast: How Chris went from the corporate world to launch his business How Chris built Nichevertising into what it is today, pivoting multiple times...

Darren Stehle is the founder of EatMoveBe.com, a website devoted to living a healthy lifestyle through healthy eating. He lives in Toronto, Canada, and has spent his entire adult life cooking healthy meals. He could have been a successful chef, but the stressful lifestyle wasn't worth it to him. So he started his own business and grew his own platform from scratch on his own term. What Darren Steh...

Today's guest is Simon Granner, the President of Clarity Financial , a life insurance company, and the founder and host of The Simon Granner Podcast , a business and self-development podcast for entrepreneurs (or anyone hustling to do great work).  What we talk about in today's episode: How Simon got his start in entrepreneurship Why Simon started podcasting (we definitely share this in common) Ho...

Today's guest is Rachel Glueck, founded of El Amor Del Diablo, a Mexico-based mezcal company. Originally from the United States, Rachel met her now-husband and business partner in Mexico in 2012. Rachel originally began experimenting with importing textiles to Baja, California,  that they wanted to sell in the market in Baja California. That's when she was invited to help sell mezcal. After seeing...

Doug Geiger is the founder of CanYouHandlebar.com and senior project manager at Saddleback Leather Co . In today's interview, we not only talk about both of these companies, but we also look specifically at how Doug has leveraged giveaways to grow his business rapidly. Just a few of the topics we cover: Doug's background as senior project manager at Saddleback Leather Co. How Doug uses true storie...

Rachel Gilliam is the founder of  PunchPresence.com and the marketing director for  Launch DFW , a company that supports tech entrepreneurship throughout northern Texas. I brought Rachel on the show specifically because of her uncanny ability to connect with people and lead communities (a skillset that is undervalued, in my opinion). Here are just a few of the topics we touch on in today's intervi...

David Nihill is the founder of FunnyBizz.co, an entrepreneur who has been featured in Inc., Forbes, and Fast Company among others, and author of Do You Talk Funny? 7 Comedy Habits to Become a Better and Funnier Public Speaker. Prior to writing Do You Talk Funny?, David had been deathly afraid of public speaking. His solution? Spend one year as a standup comic - a sort of "jump in the deep end of t...

Navid Moazzez is a lifestyle entrepreneur, personal branding strategist, blogger, podcaster, and online marketer. He helps entrepreneurs build their authority and powerful personal brands online. His goal is to help people make a bigger impact by building powerful brands. In high school, Navid spent a year in the US, earning a high school diploma in both the US and in Sweden. He was accepted into...

Ryan Levesque is well known for creating online lead, sales, and flow models, most notably his survey sales funnel. In the past few years, he has managed to generate over 2.8 million leads and 175,000 customers in 19 different markets. In today's broadcast, we talk about: Ryan’s background of how he got to working with sales funnels The first month after quitting his job Ryan’s first success and f...

Charlie Gilkey is the founder of Productive Flourishing , a company that helps professionals, leaders, and executives take action on the things that really matter through planning, productivity, and team development. Charlie founded Productive Flourishing out of his own frustration with the conventional approach to productivity. Instead of complaining, Charlie took focused action to create a bette...

In today's broadcast of In The Trenches, I sit down with Liam Veitch, founder of Freelancelift.com  and author of  Stop Thinking Like a Freelancer – the Evolution of a One Million Dollar Web Designer . What you'll learn: how to get paid what you're worth as a freelancer or consultant how to improve your freelancing practice how Liam made $1 million in 3 years from freelancing (and the techniques a...

From Podcast to Movement Today’s episode of In The Trenches features Timothy Lawson of Veteran’s Empire and the founder of 1, 2 Many: Veteran Suicide - which is a podcast series telling the stories of veteran suicide. Tim’s story of starting work with Veteran’s Empire is an encouraging tale that shows us success is a matter of breaking out of the mold, taking bold action, and ultimately doing the...

How to Promote Yourself to the Top How would you feel if I asked  you to talk about how great you are? My guess is, if you're like the majority of people in the world, you wouldn't feel very comfortable. According to Dan Schawbel, author of Promote Yourself and Me 2.0, this attitude of feeling ashamed to talk about your success, or ashamed to show people the value you add, will not benefit you in...

Morning Brew in Kailua I first spotted Abstract Magazine in the wild when I was ordering a coffee from Morning Brew in Kailua Hawaii. Next to the counter was a small stand with a bunch of bright, hot pink magazines. The style was so bold I picked one up to browse through it. I was so impressed with the magazine, from the artwork, to the physical design (it felt great in my hands), to the content o...

From Passion Project to Business There are two words that define the theme of Life & Thyme: culinary storytelling. Antonio Diaz is the founder of Life & Thyme, a digital publication and production studio devoted to bringing a community together around food. Antonio and his team bring culinary fanatics the stories behind the food and restaurants they enjoy. In the past two years, Life & Thyme has g...

Rebuilding America with Chad Grills Chad Grills is a veteran, entrepreneur and the author of the currently-being-crowdfunded-book:  Veterans: Don’t Reintegrate, Rebuild America. Chad and I happen to have a very similar background, and like myself, he is currently occupying his time with a cornucopia of projects. (bonus points for using the word cornucopia in a sentence) In today's broadcast, we to...

How to Validate a Minimum Viable Product with Cheryl Woodhouse If you've been following me for a while, you know I write about product development (starting, finishing, and shipping products and services) a lot . Part of the process for successfully shipping a product or service to market is making sure it will work BEFORE you spend months or years building it. This is what we mean when we say: mi...

Winning the Battle for Attention with Ryan Hanley How often do you find yourself competing for attention online? If you're a writer, artist, entrepreneur, or blogger, chances are a lot. It comes with the territory. There are millions of websites and our audiences' time and attention are limited. So the question is: how do you distinguish yourself from the crowd and earn that well deserved attentio...

The Business of Giving No contracts. No selling. No price. That's how today's guest, Adrian Hoppel, a Philadelphia-based web designer, does "business." Instead, he simply gives his work away - as a gift - and expects nothing in return. Yet instead of being taken advantage of, Adrian's business has flourished. Last year, he worked on 25 projects and ended up getting paid more per project than he wo...

Courage and Writing A lot of people have books in them... But how many take the time to actually write them? Enter: Dave Ursillo - a multi-published author and entrepreneur who helps creative self-starters live their leadership through artistry. Dave’s written 8 books, is the leader of the Literati Writers – a small, private community of writers, and has done numerous speaking engagements around t...

How to Start a Major Festival from SCRATCH Have you ever wanted to start your own conference, festival, or event? You know, like TomCon, or the Morkes Festival? Me too.  That's why I brought Stephen Ananicz onto In The Trenches today. Stephen is the cofounder of the The Key West Film Festival , and has a background in acting and film production (if you check out his name on IMDB you’ll see him cre...

Building a Tech Startup from the Ground Up. We all hear variations of the following phrases - ‘you need to work like a madman to be successful’ OR ‘you need to work hard…and then work harder to get what you want’ but what does that really mean? It’s easy to say you should ‘hustle’ but it’s a lot harder to ACTUALLY put in the time and effort to make things happen. Enter John Genovese – a guy who tr...

The Podcast Answer Man: Cliff Ravenscraft Have you ever been passionate about a pastime, but didn't think it could ever develop into anything more (like a business)? Maybe it's time to reevaluate your thinking. In today's broadcast of In The Trenches, I sit down with Cliff Ravenscraft, a man who turned a passionate side project into a 6 figure business in a few short years. Cliff started podcastin...

Jason Andrew Bond: Bestselling Author In today’s broadcast, I sit down with bestselling author, Jason Andrew Bond. Jason is a full time fiction writer who has written several novels and short stories.  His first novel, Hammerhead , has over 100 5-star reviews on Amazon (as of this writing), and hit best seller status shortly after its release. While that's remarkable in its own right - it's rare f...

Change is Good In today’s broadcast, I sit down with Ryan Delk – creative entrepreneur, networker extraordinaire and Lead Growth at Gumroad. If you’re not familiar with Gumroad, it’s the platform I use for all my products and allows me to make my products Pay What You Want (believe it or not, almost no other platform out there has this same feature). Take a test drive by checking out my book 2 Day...