Branch Out - A Podcast from Connection Builders

In an ever-changing world, one thing that remains constant is the power and importance of relationships. On today's episode, we speak with Adam Klein, Chief Growth Officer with Bennett Thrasher, a full-service, CPA advisory business advisory firm based in Atlanta, Georgia, about his perspective on the ins and outs of building value-added connections. We kick off our conversation with an overview of what has changed since the pandemic and what has stayed the same. This introduces us to today's theme: relationships as the core of business-building. Adam gives us his predictions for the future of communication, encourages us to embrace flexibility, and be strategic about when to meet online, and make the additional effort to see someone in person. He introduces us to the practice of reframing selling as helping and seeking to understand people in order to add value. We talk about developing soft skills, why people do business with people they like, how to adjust our networking expectations for a post-COVID world, and why there is no shortcut to building fruitful relationships. We hope you join us for an episode packed with insights with the power to change your perspective today!

Key Points From This Episode:

• What the pandemic has not changed: relationships at the core of business development.
• What has changed: bringing internal and external communication into the digital space.
• How the pandemic has highlighted the importance of relationships.
• Why building rapport supports business.
• A prediction for Zoom going forward: a new dynamic for what is considered face-to-face.
• Bridging the gap when you have different needs to the person you are meeting with.
• The benefit of arranging an initial meeting digitally before engaging in person.
• How Zoom has created greater ease of making new connections.
• Ways we should adjust our networking expectations in a post-COVID world.
• Reframing selling as helping.
• Seeking to understand people in order to add value.
• The value of developing soft skills: people do business with people they like. 
• Why there is no shortcut to building relationships.
• Adam's advice: don't overcomplicate it, enjoy the process, and treat people well.
• Call-to-action: write down three ways that you can be helpful to your existing network. 

Adam Klein on LinkedIn
Adam Klein Email
Bennett Thrasher
Alex Drost LinkedIn
Branch Out Podcast LinkedIn
Connection Builders LinkedIn

Have thoughts or comments? We want to hear from you. [email protected]

Working with the right service providers is at the heart of every successful business. Today’s guest, Lori Gleeman, Founder and CEO of Soul Equity Solutions, combines her two superpowers in business development and recruitment to connect private equity firms to service providers at the top of their game. In today’s episode, she tells us how she developed this niche for herself and her role as a professional services concierge. She shares her two priorities when pairing providers with firms: industry-aligned experience and excellent references, and we discuss the role of building strong relationships and generating trust. Lori also tells us why she introduces private equity firms to each other as a complementary value add. Next, she reveals the details of her unusual pricing structure and shares her three-part goal to help firms to gain knowledge, save money, and learn from other clients. Hear how Lori has leveraged her strengths and her network to build a successful business that offers massive support and value to both service providers and private equity firms. We hope you join us today!

 Key Points From This Episode:

• Lori’s background as an executive search recruiter.
• Lori’s role as a professional services concierge.
• The value of finding service providers with relevant experience to your industry.
• How Lori pairs firms with industry-aligned service providers with excellent references.
• Why doing good work is the foundation of building a solid reputation as a service provider.
• How Lori’s role lets her focus on her two strengths: business development and recruitment.
• How building strong relationships within her network has generated trust.
• Why Lori introduces private equity firms to each other as a complimentary value add.
• Lori’s pricing structure where she charges service providers and not equity firms.
• The network of highly trusted service providers and firms that makes her work possible.
• How Lori looks to add value by having conversations with private equity firms.
• Lori’s goal to help firms to gain knowledge, save money, and learn from other clients.
• How Private Equity Firms work closely together and how Lori offers advice and solutions.
• This week’s call to action: create a list of ways that you can support your existing network.

Lori Gleeman on LinkedIn
Soul Equity Solutions
Soul Equity Solutions on LinkedIn
Alex Drost LinkedIn
Branch Out Podcast LinkedIn
Connection Builders LinkedIn

Have thoughts or comments? We want to hear from you. [email protected]

• Jim's unique career path and the factors that have enabled him to excel. 
• The mindset Jim embodies in order to sustain and build his network every day. 
• Important soft skills that Jim has developed and applies in his work. 
• How Jim approaches connecting in an authentic and personal way before getting into business.  
• Preparing for networking opportunities and Jim's mindset going into meetings and interactions. 
• Staying motivated and focused on the long-term rewards on a daily basis. 
• The dangers of empty offers and fake giving; the failure to follow through on networking promises.
• Staying committed to following up with prospects and why this area of networking is often forgotten. 
• Writing things down and calendarizing your commitments to make sure you do them! 
• Jim's morning and daily routine and the parameters he puts on his time 
• Challenges to balancing a normal workload with business development goals. 
• Job security is associated with building a strong book of business at a firm. 
• The value of patience and persistence in the business development field. 
• Two calls to action for today; making time for follow-ups and exercising patience and persistence! 

• Why diversity inclusion is important to Charmone.
• How he defines diversity as a concept.
• Embracing diversity in your personal life if you want it to work in your professional life.
• Why Charmone thinks of inclusion as the secret sauce.
• The importance of including diversity in decision-making.
• Why different perspectives are the key component.
• How seeking out a different perspective enriched Charmone's decision-making.
• The power of thinking bigger than yourself.
• How Charmone's personal mentor helped him be intentional in thinking beyond himself.
• Why self-development is the most important thing.
• The value of creating a list of all your goals and how you wish to change.
• Alex makes a summary of our conversation.
• Intentionality as the key ingredient. 
• A challenge for the week: write down three things you want to work on over the next six to twelve months.

• The first thing Howie does when a project commences. 
• Hear why the path to building a team is always different and how to shape a team around a specific project.
• The next steps to take once you have created your project-specific team.
• Howie shares why he arranges meetings to arrange meetings.
• Find out how you can bring an idea that's in your head to fruition.
• How Howie builds consensus and alignment within his teams.
• Fundamental questions to ask your team when its members have vastly different interpretations of information.
• The importance of implementing a project using a timeline.
• Howie talks about how to motivate your team.
• Asking what we can do to ensure that we are growing and better the next time around?
• We hear why feedback can be so valuable to a team and its leader.

• The potential for habits to stand in the way of success instead of aiding it. 
• How Mike rethought his morning routine to better suit his particular needs. 
• Putting helpful parameters in place to ensure getting all the essential things done. 
• The power of starting the day with wins and gratitude! 
• How Mike's attitude towards gratitude journalling shifted over time. 
• Using a consistent approach to break in a tricky new habit that you want to adopt. 
• Allowing for mistakes and giving oneself the grace to miss a marker and then improve. 
• Reassessing and rearranging things in an honest and realistic way for your own benefit. 
• Motivation through the image of your ideal self to make it through the trickier days. 
• Recapping all of today's great lessons about better personal habit building.
• Today's call to action around reflecting on what is standing in the way of your ideal habits. 

• Mark shares his initial thoughts on the differences between managing and leading in 2020.
• Why management and leadership are equally important; being so well-prepared logistically that you don't have to think about it.
• Part of being a leader is understanding how you and your team complement one another.
• Learn about this team leadership model: Forming, storming, norming, and performing.
• How, as a leader, you can identify what causes a storm and work past it, starting with acknowledging and talking about it.
• Mark emphasizes the importance of authenticity in a period of transition or change.
• Essential skills of a leader include equipping your team with change leadership skills.
• How wisdom and intelligence are two different (but equally important) things.
• Mark shares a team management tool; assess what each team member can do, will do, and commitment level before assigning roles.
• The importance of having an enterprise or company perspective rather than a siloed one.
• Why an emotionally intelligent leadership approach never begins and ends at your desk.
• Mark highlights influencing skills and serving a stakeholder rather than pleasing them.
• Communication is key: tell people what they need to know six times, in six ways.
• Hear Alex's summary of the discussion, from what it means to be a leader or a manager to fostering a growth mindset and culture. 
• Mark's parting words of advice: it's not weaknesses that get you; it's overused strengths.

• Changing responses to events to achieve desired outcomes.
• Finding ways to meet the same goals even when circumstances change.
• The story of host Alex starting a new business and adapting as COVID struck.
• Changing your attitude toward shifting circumstances and not getting flustered.
• Methods Tom used to still build relationships remotely.
• Positive outcomes of Tom’s changed lifestyle as far as having extra time. 
• Bearing in mind that change is inevitable and being ready to adapt.
• Taking comfort in the things you can control in times of uncertainty.
• Tom’s attitude to being assigned two new markets he had to develop remotely.
• How helpful people can be; how Tom remembered to be vulnerable and ask for help.
• Not getting hung up on a premise that there is only one way to do things.
• Remembering to reflect on a new method and revise it.
• Whether to lean into things you are not good at or work around them.
• Creating zones for different focuses to deal with living and working at home.
• Remembering not to give up because you can’t do things in the same way anymore.
• The way that change encourages one to reshuffle their life in positive ways.
• Learning to believe that there is always another way of doing something.

Automated systems free your team up to focus on the best uses of their time, but these systems could not be developed if one did not take the time to reflect on how to improve. Today we invite Max Friar onto the show to speak about the reflections he made about his industry, how they allowed him to automate the mundane sides of his business, and the huge benefits this has offered. Max is the Managing Partner at Calder Capital, a full-service M&A firm focused on lower middle-market companies within the Midwest. Calder was successful in closing 40 transactions in 2020, and it was the most successful year the firm ever had, despite all of the challenges the pandemic presented. Max takes us through the various positions he occupied in the M&A industry and how he figured out how to solve different pain points using automation before starting Calder. He then gets into the weeds of exactly which parts of the business brokerage process he has automated using software and other systems. We talk about how these jobs, when done manually, are incredibly draining for business brokers, leading to burnout and poor service. The plus for Max is that since implementing his automation systems, his team does not struggle with these issues anymore, and this, in turn, has allowed him to scale and broaden the range of high-quality services he can now offer. We talk about what these are before wrapping our conversation up on the topic of reflection once more. Without these valuable moments of contemplation, Max would never have been able to scale his business and refine his services in the way he had. Tune in for all this and more today! 

Key Points From This Episode: 

• Max's experience in M&A and how automation helped him scale Calder.
• Automation processes Max put in place using software to vet potential buyers.
• Three ways business brokers get burned out and how automation can help.
• How Max's attitude about the value of rest for productive work has changed.
• The way automation can free up staff for more key roles and treating clients better.
• Attachment sellers have to their businesses and how important the right buyer is.
• The need to market a business widely for finding the right buyer.
• How much emotional bandwidth is needed to take a buyer through the selling process.
• The role of reflection in helping Max come up with his automation systems.
• Evolution in the business; prospecting for new sellers, data analytics, and more.
• Max's ideas around whether a concrete business plan is necessary for success.

Progress is what we all drive for, but achieving it can be tricky. Without proper processes in place, you could be headed down a bumpy road filled and unseen dangers. But if you could boil this journey down to a few simple tenets, then you can soar beyond what you originally thought was possible. Today we sit with Doug LaLone, who is a partner and patent attorney at Fishman Stewart, a premier specialty law firm dedicated to the practice of intellectual property law. In this episode, Doug shares the genesis of his balance scorecard practices and unpacks the top metrics to focus on. He first touches on the metrics you're most in control of, like reaching into new areas, generating a referral network, and identifying new targets. After going into detail about each metric, Doug reveals five additional metrics, like retaining clients, fees collected, and personal income, and more. Later in the show, Doug peels back his process to show listeners what the balanced scorecard looks like. By using visual cues, users are able to quickly identify their weaknesses, strong points, and areas that need refinement. As host Alex Drost puts it, scorecards give you a chance to allocate time and energy into the right spaces. To hear more on how balance scorecards can help you progress in business, be sure to join us today.

Key Points From This Episode: 

• Doug introduces the concept of balanced scorecards.
• How balanced scorecards can help optimize the result of your efforts.
• Doug shares how he boiled this complex process down into a simple business formula.
• Some of the metrics which can be measured on balance scorecards. 
• How Doug uses IP snapshots to help target new clients.
• Doug breaks down an example of a balanced scorecard for viewers.
• Why the visual aspect of balanced scorecards is so beneficial.
• Doug touches on why balanced scorecards can be versatile tools for its users.
• The value of having coaches walk beside you.
• Host Alex Drost's challenge to listeners.

Doug LaLone LinkedIn
Fishman Stewart
ACG Detroit
Alex Drost LinkedIn
Branch Out Podcast LinkedIn
Connection Builders LinkedIn

Have thoughts or comments? We want to hear from you. [email protected]