The Third Growth Option with Benno Duenkelsbuehler and Guests

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? This episode is about how to bring the right people into the room, and how to facilitate the process to make better decisions. I learned not only about solutions to fundamental “people problems” in our democracy on this episode, I learned how Dani is approaching getting help from “everyday experts”: he took the business community’s “focus group” concep...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Understanding differences in people outside of our “tribe” – maybe outside of our comfort zone – can be, well, uncomfortable and difficult. Nicole Armstrong, founder/CEO of Queen City Certified shared her insights with me, how her team helps executives to guide them with DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) challenges, as the nation’s first data-info...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Jay Messner has built several businesses and helps clients improve theirs. Here we talk about inflection points, causes of failures and reasons for getting stuck, what skills can be taught or developed, vs. having to be recruited, and how to jump through inflections points by creating “trust, clarity, and alignment.”   5:04 – “organizations need to hav...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Many of you know Warren Shoulberg the journalist, writer, editor, consultant, and singular source of home furnishings industry insights via HFN, Forbes.com , and many others. Here, Warren shares his Magnificent Seven of Retail. Important for manufacturers, vendors, and buyers to hear his thoughts the Good, the Bad, or the Ugly of retail (we talk about...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Growing 10x from the ground up, instead of by edict from the top down, requires a magic combination of strategy, flexibility, authenticity, finding rock stars (and letting them be chess players, not chess pieces), and in Doug Cofiell’s example also well-integrated acquisitions.   6:39 – “you hire for talent, not necessarily for the exact position… as y...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Amazon controls nearly 50% of online sales in the USA, with that comes being loved or hated, and often the latter. Jason Boyce has been an Amazon Seller for 17 years, a Top 200 seller (of millions), he shares successes worth emulating, and how to avoid certain failures and “speed bumps” selling on Amazon. He’s the co-author of Amazon Jungle, where he a...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Marvin Dejean removes a bit of mystery around the crucial topic of “digital transformation”, also personal or just “transformation”. We talk about his TIP-squared framework (technology and trends, innovation and insights, people and platforms), how to approach transformation, and avoid pitfalls.   3:36 – “learn to dominate your fear… if you don’t trans...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Pop-up stores come in all types, and both retailers and manufacturers launch them for different reasons. Andy Bailen has deep experience and “spills the beans” with us in this episode.  2:21 – “All Things Retail (a weekly newsletter) came out of my interest in providing guidance and help and actionable content for retailers (of all sizes).”  This conve...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? If a bear roars in the woods and nobody hears him, did it really happen? Brian Burke the Mac Man shares his thoughts on personal branding, his entrepreneurial journey from a dorm room business to running a 20+ employee company that has purchased over $45,000,000 in used Apple equipment, and how he helps others with content strategy, creating a post wit...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Transportation is a fundamental building block of any economy – so dissecting the necessary ingredients for transforming transportation in the coming decades is key to creating a transportation system that works more efficiently and with less environmental impact. Evangelos Simoudis starts with Data and AI, and has written several books, one about Big...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Jay Steinfeld, founder of blinds.com (which he grew from $0 to revenues of hundreds of millions of dollars before selling it to Home Depot) shares heartfelt insights from his entrepreneurial journey and personal development in my conversation with him. If you haven’t read his book Lead from the Core , you’ll want to read it. Whether or not you have, yo...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Sharon Rowe founded Ecobags, the original reusable bag company, three decades ago, long before sustainability was as cool and certainly as urgent as it is today. She talks about the sometimes-hard choices, sometimes mutually beneficial relationship between conscious capitalism and naked profitability. Sharon authored The Magic of Tiny Business, as a st...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? As co-founder of a now 20-year-old distribution company approaching the 9-figure revenue milestone, Yoram Weinreich opens up to share lessons learned, pivots made, and convictions formed during that growth journey: how it began from a direct import business to online/ecom sales, from less to more branded, no inventory to inventory, from a Canadian work...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? My guest Dr. L. Carol Scott spoke openly about slaying personal dragons, addressing patterns from childhood and her framework for developmental do-overs. I asked Dr. Scott to come on my podcast because I believe most of us limit ourselves, keep ourselves from growing and thriving in some way, due to some preconceived notion that requires introspection,...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? From ice-cream shopkeeper to executive at Pepsico, expat-CEO for LensCrafter in China, and author of several books, George Minakakis’ journey has been enriched by his curiosity and drive. He shares the reasons behind his mantra to “stay relevant, dismiss nothing, expect the unexpected and plan for the improbable”, and why he loves retail – hint: he lov...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Marisa Lytle has a secret weapon: agility. As VP of Consumer Engagement and Ecom at DEMDACO, she shares not only interesting insights from the world of digital marketing but overriding lessons about the importance of agility.    3:06 – whereas there used to be a clear start and stop with business initiatives “it’s no longer about achieving a set object...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Innovating and growing a legacy company that  has often played inside the conventions of an industry, is different from the proverbial outside disruptor crashing the party. John Toler, who worked his way up to CEO of Evergreen Enterprises, shares his thoughts on innovating inside the model.   5:39 – on personal growth “I’m part of development group YPO...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Joe Motz started with a pickup truck and a dream, then built a 140-person company that builds sports fields for NFL teams across the country. After getting a wakeup call at age 34 that his command and control, hard-charging style was close to killing him, he changed his approach to life, people, and management. In this episode Joe openly talks about un...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Gary Hawkins grew up in the grocery store business in upstate NY (also on a farm, about 30 minutes from my parents’ organic venison farm) and became a trailblazer on retailing for global consumer products companies. He wrote a fascinating white paper on Retail 4.0 – and here he talks us through versions 1.0 thru 4.0, converging technologies, automation...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Tom Klaff shares his story of growth and learning, allowing us to learn from lessons he picked up building and exiting several businesses, and now building a new rocket ship, a relevant brand on the kitchen counter.    4:01 – “…I was struck by the level of introspection… when did you start articulating your personal building blocks?” – “… it’s like a d...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? When a team goes from $0 at launch to $21M revenue rate in 2½ years, and a few months later (at time of this recording) exceeds a $40M run rate, the term hyper-growth is not hyperbole. Eleanor Lynch is part of the leadership team at Kiaro, a Canadian Cannabis omni-channel business that launched shortly after legalization in 2018: her thoughts on growth...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Richard Degnan is a creative dynamo, building and reinventing big national and global brands. He shares his insights on several companies accessing creative energy, remotely. He distinguishes between working remotely and WFH/working from home, in isolation.   3:45 – “I could be in any number of locations… I love all that stimulus.”   13:53 – “How do we...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? If you’re a student of collaboration, of different expertise coming together to learn each other’s language, this episode is for you. If you’re a student of the design process, and how different approaches lead to better outcomes, this episode is for you. Gary Pettitt, CEO Seasonal Living and Laura Muller, Owner of Four Point Design Build talk about th...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? If you own a small to midsize business that you’re thinking about selling, Bill Goldberg shares a unique investment model. His firm, the W. Alexander Group makes minority investments in companies with $3M to $20M in revenues and helps them to grow to become more valuable.   4:31 – “I really enjoy smaller businesses… B2B service space… the ‘yellow zone’...

Are you looking for a Third Growth Option ℠ ? Maulik Parekh talks about three mega trends in this episode, which he described in his best-selling book “Futureproof Your Career and Company”, and how they will change your company in the near future: 1) AI, 2) a workforce of digital natives, and 3) the gig economy.   3:20 – “when I first came to the Philippines in 2001, there were only some 10,000 pe...