Keep It Brief

Most people wait until January to plan their year. By then, they’re already behind. In this bonus episode of Keep It Brief, Natalie Dawson breaks down the annual planning process that helped her company scale past a quarter-billion in annual revenue, and how to use the rest of this year to prepare for 2027. Learn how to audit the past 12 months using data, set low, mid, and high revenue targets, a...

Want to spend more time building your personal brand, but you’re stuck running your business? Build a business that runs without you, so you can focus on the things only you can do. Learn how with Elite Edge: http://nataliedawson.com/event Jennifer Gottlieb added over 500,000 Instagram followers in nine months, and she says it came down to one choice. She stopped playing the amateur game and went...

Is your team underperforming, or is the real issue how they’re being led? In this bonus episode, Natalie Dawson breaks down the difference between “me work” (execution) and “we work” (leadership), and how to diagnose which one needs fixing. Learn how to align your team around personal, professional, and financial goals, manage by the numbers, spot problems before they escalate, and have clear conv...

Build a business that can grow without depending on you. Learn more about Elite Edge: http://nataliedawson.com/event Carly Kremer, founder of 'The Beekeepers Naturals', ran out of rent money, moved onto a friend's couch for a year, and kept going. Today her brand, Beekeepers Naturals, is in 20,000 stores. She explains how she did it without an operations background and without giving u...

What you wear does more than change how other people see you. It can change how you think, perform, and see yourself. In this bonus solo episode of Keep It Brief , Natalie Dawson shares five pieces from her wardrobe and the lessons each taught her about identity, confidence, credibility, and growth. She explains why a blazer became a daily cue to lead, why she stopped dressing for different versio...

Rebecca Minkoff bootstrapped her handbag brand for seven years to a $100M Brand. Then two hires she trusted almost sank it in nine months. The fashion designer and founder shares why her biggest wins came from going against the grain, how designing for editors instead of customers hurt her apparel line, and why she would take the valuation her team once passed on. We also get into why not every bu...

If you own a salon or know someone who does, DM “SALON” to @nataliedawson on Instagram and I’ll send you the details on what we’re building and how to get involved. Drybar grew from one salon to 150 locations. She sold $35 blowouts and scaled it to a $255M exit. Alli Webb says demand was never the hard part. Alli is the founder of Drybar and the creator of Messy, a new hair care line. Her rule was...

Camille Moore's first viral video hit a million views in a weekend. It brought in just three leads. She says that gap between attention and actual business is exactly what most founders get wrong about branding. Camille Moore is the founder of Third Eye Insights and host of The Art of Brand podcast, and companies like Nike, Red Bull, and Harvard pay her to teach branding. She breaks down the r...

Most people want to build a business around what they love. I believe that can be one of the fastest ways to fail. Recorded during the first live edition of Keep It Brief, this audience Q&A covers money, scaling, wealth, and the decisions that separate a profitable business from an expensive passion project. I explain why I turned down a $250,000 investment opportunity from a clothing brand I...

John Maxwell has written more than 90 books, sold 38 million copies, and spoken on over 14,000 stages. After 50 years teaching leadership, he says the hardest lesson is still learning to confront yourself before you confront anyone else. The New York Times bestselling author of "The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership" breaks down the mistakes he made as a young leader, starting with the h...

Grant Cardone does not believe success makes life easier. It gives you bigger problems, higher stakes, and fewer people you can trust to make the decision for you. In this episode, Grant breaks down how he developed the certainty to act before he had all the answers. We talk about why he still considers himself an underachiever, why doing everything right can still take you backward, and why being...

Join the "Clear Club" for free and get the book: clearbuilders.com/Elena Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health: https://www.amazon.com/Dianetics-Modern-Science-Mental-English/dp/140314446X Most people are told to pick one. The marriage, the family, or the empire. Elena Cardone built all three at once, and she says the thing that finally made her powerful was giving up her indepe...

Most founders hold onto the CEO title for as long as they can. Dianna Cohen gave hers up after five years, and she did it after turning a Google Doc she wrote for her girlfriends into Crown Affair and the number one dry shampoo at Sephora. The Crown Affair founder explains why she refused to over-raise, how she got her first $2 million on a 10 page deck with no financials, and why she has raised i...

89% of small businesses say they use AI. Only 14% have actually built it into how they operate. Chris Workman explains the gap and why the businesses that close it in the next five years will pull away from everyone else. Chris is the Head of Technology at Cardone Ventures and the person who embedded AI into every function of a $225 million company. He didn't just buy tools. He redesigned how...

$30 trillion is shifting into women's hands and most people are getting the story wrong. This isn't just about women building wealth. It's about women outliving their partners and being handed the financial wheel with zero preparation. In this episode, I break down what the great wealth transfer actually means, why money moves twice inside most families, and why it wasn't until 197...

Most business owners think workers comp is handled because they pay the premium. Tina Odjaghian says the hardest cases are the ones nobody can see, and she has recovered more than $700 million proving it. The Odjaghian Law Group founder explains why California’s workers’ comp system is broken, how invisible traumatic brain injuries get denied, and what employers miss in the first hours after an in...

Terra Harvell reveals why most salon owners have built an expensive job, not a valuable asset. The founder of Harper Ellis Hair Co. and Strata Salon Systems explains how better pricing, high-ticket services, team incentives and financial systems helped her salon reach a 28% net margin. Learn how stylists can raise their income, owners can reduce dependency on the chair, and salons can build scalab...

Most executives run from a company that's about to collapse. Phil Cox ran toward it. He was the COO of Silicon Valley Bank the day $42 billion left in a single afternoon, and the bank was gone by morning. The former Silicon Valley Bank COO breaks down how a bank built on safe government bonds became the fastest bank failure in U.S. history, why 93% of its deposits were uninsured, and what it w...

Most founders think they need investors to build something big. Kim Perell says it's really about betting on yourself first, a lesson she learned by turning a $10,000 loan from her grandmother into a $235 million exit. The 100.co founder and 9x entrepreneur explains why she had to fire her entire team the same day she got fired herself, why there is no such thing as job security, and why rejec...

In this episode of Keep It Brief, I sit down with my husband and Cardone Ventures co-founder Brandon Dawson to break down how he sold his last company, Audigy, for 77 times earnings after almost losing a $150 million deal the night before it closed. We unpack why 97% of small businesses never make it, and the one mistake that turned into an $800 million win. Comment KEEP IT BRIEF 9 on my latest In...

In this episode of Keep It Brief, I sit down with Jeff Zwiefel, former President and COO of Life Time Fitness, to break down how he helped grow the company from $139M to $2.3B in revenue over 27 years. We unpack why charging too little almost capped their growth, why he walked away from a company now worth $9B, and the leadership rule he says separates good businesses from great ones... Comment KE...

In this episode of Keep It Brief, I sit down with Jean Lou and Cherie Brooke, your Wall Street and Silicon Valley big sisters. Harvard MBA, Ex Goldman Sachs, Stanford MBA, Ex LinkedIn, these two are here to break down why women score lower than men in every single financial literacy category after a decade of tracking. We unpack why the gap has nothing to do with intelligence or access, why the fi...

In this episode of Keep It Brief, I sit down with Allison McNamara, founder of Mara, about the moment a celebrity accidentally made her product sell out globally. We unpack why bootstrapping beats every funded competitor and why she didn't copy what already existed on the market. Comment Brief 6 on my latest Instagram post for a PDF of my notes and takeaways from this episode! FOLLOW KEEP IT B...

In this episode of Keep It Brief, we sit down with JD Ross, founder of Open Door and now WithCoverage, to break down why domain expertise plus AI tools is the formula winning in the next five years. We unpack why he turned down Sam Altman's offer to run OpenAI's business side, why traditional operators beat young tech founders at building AI businesses, and the simple philosophy that got h...

In this episode of Keep It Brief, I sit down with Ken Goodrich, The entrepreneur who acquired over 200 businesses, and turned around some of Americas longest running companies. We break down how a $500K acquisition turned into a multi-million dollar exit. He walks through his 1,000-day plan and why most service businesses will never attract a serious buyer. And he shares the one reframe that chang...