Have you ever sat on a chair and wished it was more comfortable? Comfortable furniture is really important because we spend lots of hours of our day in them. For Cliff Levin and his company, Furniture for Life, their mission is to make the world a more comfortable place through a variety of well-designed, well-made furniture products with health, wellness, and comfort-related twists on them. He guarantees that everything they do and touch is going to have an underlying health message, and that there’s real value to buying the luxury and high-quality brands that they make and represent. He says the passion and the way they care about their customers is core to their success.

We have with us the Founder, CEO and President, Cliff Levin, of Furniture For Life.

Happy you joined us here, Bob.

Cliff, thanks so much for taking time with us. Tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.

We’ve been in business eleven years. Our mission is to make the world a more comfortable place. We do that through a variety of well-designed, well-made furniture products. We talk to discerning consumers who care about the quality of product they buy and they’re interested in something that’s healthy and comfortable. That’s who we’re after.

When I first came in, there’s a showroom that we were in. There’s a quantity of high-tech furniture, you didn’t get to test drive one of these pieces of furniture and it looks like a very high-speed, sleek, easy chair, the one that I was in. At least that’s what I would call it.

All of our furniture has a twist on it that’s health, wellness, comfort-related. The core of our business is massage chairs, that’s how we grew up as an organization. We’ve branched out from massage chairs into the recliner that you were trying, which is a True Zero Gravity recliner under the Positive Posture brand name. We also carry a Norwegian brand of chairs where we’re the North American distributor that are healthier than your average office chair because they introduce a level of movement into your day that isn’t possible in a typical static office environment. Everything we do and everything we touch is going to have an underlying health message.

The health message is not you and I chatting about it. There’s research that’s been done that supports your assertions on what you’re talking about and being a healthy piece of equipment.

For example, this Norwegian brand I’m talking about, the brand is Varier, there is a Move stool. It encourages you to fidget. When we sent that Move stool to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and there’s a research lab there. There’s a guy named Dr. Levine who is deep into researching how to make Americans and people around the world more healthy in the context of this sedentary way of life that people in advanced economies live.

The Move stool is something called NEAT-certified. NEAT stands for Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. It’s a very fancy way of saying how much are you moving and how much energy are you burning when you’re not exercising? It turns out, according to Dr. Levine’s research, that that kind of activity is as important, if not more important, than making a point of exercising 45 minutes a day, in terms of your long-term health and...

James Britt, founder and owner of Britt Films, a freelance cinematography and filmmaking business, identifies himself as a cinematographer. More than just capturing a video, he tries to add an element of cinematic technique and look to it, and he tries to give everything he does an artistic appeal. James has a great deal of passion for teaching anything that he learns, and he loves to share whatever he feels is good information. The advice he gives any budding videographer as to using this skill set to gain money is you absolutely can. You just have to really work at it. You have to market yourself, brand yourself, put your name out there, be producing good work consistently, and let people know that this is something that you do.

We have James Britt, the owner at Britt Films. Incredibly fortunate he took time out of his day to come see us. James, welcome to the podcast.

It’s great to be here.

James, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve.

I’m the founder and owner of Britt Films, a freelance cinematography and filmmaking business. Primarily I shoot digital videos for hire, all kinds of things. Anything ranging from businesses who need a commercial, a web ad and ad campaign, organizations who need promotional videos, interviews, personal services like wedding videography. I shoot music videos for bands, all kinds of things. Specifically, I identify as a cinematographer, which a lot of people don’t know what that is, but I’m sure if they’ve heard of videographer and usually when you think of videographer, it’s someone that’s capturing the video.

A cinematographer would differ in that I’m more than capturing the video. They are trying to add an element of cinematic techniques, cinematic look to it. The angles and the shots will be a little bit prettier to put it more simply. In everything that I do, I try to give it an artistic appeal. More than you capture whatever we needed recorded, it looks great. It looks good. Actually, I try to make everything look more like a movie as the way that I put it. I would say that I’m doing these services for anybody who needs video. I can’t think of anyone or any type of organization that I wouldn’t be able to benefit if they had a video need.

Backing up a little bit and thinking about as you grew up, were you always drawn to cinematography?

I’m reminded in film school how many times the professor would ask something to the class about, “This is the first day of the semester. Tell me about yourself.” How many people would say, “I knew when I was four years old that I wanted to be a film maker. My dad got me this Super Eight camera, this old Polaroid photography camera.” I wish I could say that. I didn’t. I want to be a rock star or a psychologist or an English teacher, hairstylist for a little bit, I was all over the board. My mom did have a video camera and I’d love to say the moment I picked it up, I knew, but I picked it up and I thought it was fun and then I got bored of it.

It was something that I happen to keep getting drawn towards. Eventually, the way that I decided I wanted to go into it was I was a volunteer in my spare time. I was volunteering at a local church where I lived. I knew how to play guitar and I was helping the high school age group by playing guitar and helping with the band. Every time we’d get a new teenager who had to play an instrument, they needed to learn how to do the songs that we did, and I got tired of teaching the exact same songs over and over again. I figured, “I should record this.” YouTube was out. It was getting popularity and I figured it’s free, I could put something on...

Charlie Weidman is president of Buddha Logic, an enterprise content management solutions provider that helps companies streamline digital document capture and management. Charlie shares how their process starts is they typically go in, analyze the process, and then take a look at the solution set or tools that will help clients get to their goal. That culturally can be a challenge because people like to do things a certain way. Charlie shares they may sometimes have to convince their vendors and customers to take advantage of this new process they’re implementing. Buddha Logic specializes in the accounts payable world, but has also gotten into digital signatures as well, and shares that there’s a whole industry waiting out there to enjoy more of this automated processing.

Since 2009, CommonSenseHealth.org has been helping clients to establish an online presence, grow their business, and increase sales using social media and online marketing. Founder and CEO Kim Peterson-Stone was already creating a community prior to the ability to do it online. When the power of that gained momentum, she used that as a perfect segue to build the new enterprise. She has since built a network of 180,000 plus highly engaged subscribers and fans for herself and hundreds of thousands more for clients. She speaks, consults, and trains on inspired leadership and how to build quality business relationships and acquire new clients through LinkedIn and social media.

We’re fortunate to have as our guest Kim Peterson-Stone. She’s the Founder and CEO of CommonSenseHealth.org. Since 2009, CommonSenseHealth.org has been helping clients to establish an online presence and grow their business and increase sales using social media and online marketing. Kim has built a network of 180,000 plus highly engaged subscribers and fans for herself and hundreds of thousands more for clients. She speaks, consults, and trains on inspired leadership and how to build quality business relationships and acquire new clients through LinkedIn and social media. Kim, welcome to the show.

I’m glad to be here, Bob. Thanks so much for having me.

Kim, tell us a little bit about how you got started.

Actually, I’ll you in the way back machine how this all started to working in social media platforms, actually, before there were social media platforms. Back in the day, I founded and ran a medical device firm which used storytelling to share what it was that we did. We had a device that uses light to relieve pain. We were relieving peoples pain, but it was a new concept at the time. It was something that needed to be explained. We did that via infomercials and be a being on the home shopping network. We also were picked up by the Denver Post and Newsweek and lots of national publications, PBS.

We got a lot of good press, but the device needed to be explained. It needed to be shared. It needed people that had gotten really good results, needed to share that with other people. We needed to form a community around it. We did that pre-platform social media days. We ran that company for about eight years and it grew from a kitchen table endeavor to a $20 million enterprise, and because of the perfect storm and growing too quickly, that business eventually imploded. What I took from that experience is what I learned about human engagement and human interaction. About that time, things were starting to pick up online.

On 2009, I started a platform where people who are in the health and wellness community can have a presence and share with one another the types of things that they were doing. These were innovative types of treatments that again needed to be explained and shared. That platform took off. I was not monetizing that as a business at all. It was really just a community that I had created online, but what I found from that experience was that people within those communities were not very savvy on how to market what they did.

That was right about the time where Facebook and LinkedIn and a lot of different platforms we’re coming to be. CommonSenseHealth.org morphed from a community of health and wellness providers to a digital marketing agency within that space. To make a short story long, that’s how I got there. I was doing the creation of community...

When it comes to decision-making, RiderFlex Recruiting Firm takes it beyond apps and algorithms – and meets candidates in person. Is the Denver-based company’s model still feasible in the age of virtual testing? Founder and CEO Steve Urban is changing the business landscape in Denver and beyond with a recruitment process so old, it’s redefining the future: assessing potential candidates face-to-face. Not through Skype, or live-streaming, but in the same room – physically! RiderFlex Recruiting Firm is focused on matching cultures and personalities perfectly with the job description: something that can only be done through tangible interaction.

We’re incredibly fortunate to have Steve Urban, Founder and CEO of Riderflex, as our guest. Steve, welcome to the show. 

Hello, Bob. Thank you. Glad to be here.

First, tell us a little bit about your business and who you serve. 

Riderflex is a business advisory and recruiting firm. We’re based in Denver but we do recruiting work all over the country. People always ask us, “What industries do you focus on?” I always pause and say, “Yes.” Yes, because we focus on all. When we first started the business, since I was a former consumer goods executive, we thought we’d go with consumer goods, but we started getting phone calls from other industries, whether it’s legal, tech, services, even the cannabis industry, which we serve because we’re based in Denver. At this point, because our model is all about matching personalities to culture and less about a specific industry, I feel like we can do any industry. It doesn’t really matter. We’re not letting ourselves get boxed in to a specific industry. We’re careful about that.

I remember when we got the first phone call for attorney interviews, the law firm said, “Have you ever hired attorneys?” I said, “No, but here’s the deal. I know you, Rey,” he was our customer. “I know your style. I know your personality. I’ve stayed at your home. I’ve met your family. I know the kind of people you work well with. If you give me the requirements of the job, I guarantee we’ll find the right lawyer to fit your firm.” At that point, we started saying, “We’re not going to box ourselves in. We’re going to focus on matching cultures and personalities. You just give us the job description. I don’t care if it’s a full stack developer from the IT field or whatever. We can do it.” We focus on all and we’re not going to let ourselves get boxed in.

You don’t specialize.

No, everybody says we should and I always push back. If somebody wants to pay us, we’re going to do a good job and we’re not going to say no to a new customer.

You were thinking about that. For the audience that’s either going like, “How do I retain them to place me?” or for the company that’s going, “I’m looking for a particular skill set to fill a position.” Let’s dig into both of those. 

Most companies have a decent job description or the specs. Let’s call it “the requirements”. He has to have this degree and he’s got to have this experience with this sort of programming or whatever. They got to have these specs. It doesn’t matter what the industry is. What we usually say is, “That’s great. You gave us the job description. We have the requirements for the job.” Most recruiting firms stop right there, and they say, “We’re going to find resumes that match this job description and we’re going to shove these candidates in front of you.” For us, it’s more the beginning phase. We get that job description and we say, “Great, that’s cool. We got that.”

Steve’s going to fly out to meet the CEO, spend an afternoon in the office, get to know the...

In the face of paralysis and adversity, how does Breakaway Sports’ Phil McCarthy keep up the fight? As founder of the Denver-based company, McCarthy now helps professional teams conquer the world with top-notch coaching and assembly services. Breakaway Sports’ business model is similar to being in a locker room and trying to achieve success on the field through a team. Drive and passion is important. You can be sure that the guys at Breakaway Sports love those sports, coached those sports, gave back and involve themselves in the community in a positive way.

We’re here with Phil McCarthy. He’s the Founder of Breakaway Sports in Denver, Colorado. We interview some of the best and brightest business owners and entrepreneurs in and around the state of Colorado. We talk about the ins and outs of running a business and being an entrepreneur inside shared by the top business leaders and entrepreneurs in the state of Colorado. Phil, welcome to Business Leaders Podcast.

I appreciate it. Thank you very much, Bob.

Phil and I have hit it off before the show and found a lot of common ground. I think that you are going to find that this is a special episode. Phil, tell us a little bit about what you did prior to Breakaway Sports.

Right from graduating from college, I went on and got my MBA right away. In my mind, there wasn’t a ton of opportunity out there in the early ‘90s, so I figured I’d scale up and get an MBA. From there I went to Wall Street and I was an options and futures trader on Wall Street. That’s a different world, but I learned a lot about that. I learned what you give to the business you get back, and they gave me an opportunity to move to Singapore and run their operation over there and contribute that way. I thought that was a huge personal growing experience as well as a professional growth experience. I appreciated that, but at the end of that I realized I couldn’t find the real passion in that for myself. I wanted to make a change from there. The question became, “What do you do next? What is it that excites you and will get you going?” I found that coupling my new business experience and my education, wrapping it around the things I care most about, which was playing hockey and lacrosse in athletics and the relationships I’ve built there, I came up with the idea that I would found Breakaway Sports and go from there.

Let’s circle back. You talked about lacrosse and hockey. Let’s talk about your collegiate effort and accomplishments in that area.

At a young age I realized that being an athlete and playing sports felt great and I could grow skill around that and grow confidence around that. I set my eyes on playing in college and did the type of things that would take to get there. I had great teammates, good coaching. I absorbed what they’re given me as lessons. I was aware of how I was growing as an athlete. When I got to college I was ready to grow again. At Hobart College we had a program that was strong. My senior year was twelve straight national championships. It was quite a dynasty. The expectation was that you came there to compete and grow a team that would continue that type of success on the field. Of course that comes with great coaching, amazing teammates and people with shared goals as well as trying to push themselves individually. We gained a lot from that. As well, I played hockey in college and was able to be the captain and achieved a couple of personal goals of being the all-time leading scorer of that school and sharing that with teammates that are my best friends in this world today. That athletic success created processes for myself and I’ve...

Ben Maxwell founder of HCM Capital Group, is a third generation entrepreneur and has been going at it ever since entering the workforce in 1999. He started HCM Capital in 2002 as an infill real estate development firm that focuses on the Denver Metro area. HCM Capital has experience in both residential and commercial development. Ben talks about his journey and shares that he wants to be proud to drive through the communities in ten to twenty years from now and point to the long-standing projects they helped create and are still involved in.

On the show now, we’re fortunate to have as our guest, Ben Maxwell. He’s the founder of HM Capital Group. He’s a third generation entrepreneur and has been going at it ever since entering the workforce in 1999. He started HM Capital in 2002 as an infill real estate development firm that focuses on the Denver Metro area. HM capital has experience in both residential and commercial development, lending, construction management, design and brokerage. At HM Capital, Ben wants to be proud to drive through the communities in ten to twenty years from now and point to the long-standing projects they helped create and are still involved in. Ben, it’s a pleasure to have you on the show.

Thank you very much for having me.

How on earth did you ever get started in this business?

I was fortunate enough when I was a kid to learn a little bit from my grandfather and my dad. My grandfather was a big commercial general contractor in Kansas City. He built small bank buildings and hospital buildings and things of that nature. Then my dad took that business over when I was young and got into the commercial development business through the mid ‘80s and then still been involved in real estate since then. I learned a lot of the business side of it from him. In high school, in the winters and summers, I had a lawn mowing business. I had always worked for myself and love working for myself. In the winters, I worked from my next-door neighbor who was a custom home builder, a spec builder in Kansas City. I learned the carpentry trade from him. I went to college for about a year and a half. I successfully dropped out of a few colleges and then moved to Denver and fell in love with it. I started a construction company right away. We had a subcontracting business where I had framers and drywallers and trim carpenters and things of that nature, we were subcontracting. A couple of years after that, I bought my first fix and flip over in the Old Baker neighborhood. That was 2002. We bought our first ever flip and did most of the work ourselves, swinging hammers in there, and got lucky and made quite a bit of money. I was hooked and addicted to real estate ever since.

There wasn’t much of a fix and flip market in that timeframe, was there?

There weren’t as many people as doing it right now. We call it the HGTV effect in our business. There are a lot of people that are in the business now that weren’t back then, but there was still quite a few professionals doing it. It just wasn’t nearly as popular back then for sure. We made some good money on that one, and I went from doing one to doing two and grew the business from there.

One of my part time jobs back when I was a kid was construction site cleanup. I did that in the winter and, like you, I mowed yards in the summer as well. Being an entrepreneur, what do you think the lessons were that were passed down between your dad and your granddad that basically started this entrepreneurial bug in you?

I learned a lot of good, valuable lessons. My grandfather was an extremely hard worker, always willing to be the first guy out there, the hardest...

Working in a very small office supply retail store in high school back in the mid ‘80s, Mark Newhall, founder and CEO of Execution Specialists Group, ESG, learned early on how businesses operate and how you could, as a partner to them, bring value to the products and services. Now, as CEO of a management consulting firm, he shares the day deals closed, they were the ones rationalizing the distribution footprint, putting the distribution systems, warehouse systems and order management systems in place, and training the workforce on new things. He says they’re driving not so much on the strategy of the company, but on how to execute in line of the company worldwide the tenets of the strategy.

We’re fortunate to have Mark Newhall. He’s the Founder and CEO of Execution Specialists Group, ESG. He was most recently recognized, and I would let him talk about the recognition and what it means to him. Mark, thanks for taking the time.

Thanks, Bob. Forbes in 2016 surprised us with recognizing ESG as one of America’s best management consulting practices. It was a surprise to us. We didn’t apply for it. We didn’t even know it particularly existed in a myriad of Forbes lists that get put out. The way they went about identifying these companies was through talking to some of the largest companies in the United States, “Who are the big firms that you use? We’re looking for advice, support and advisory services. Who are those boutique firms that you count on and they make their first pass through?” Apparently we came up enough for where they said, “We want to go deeper and understand who this firm is.” They go back to the clients that we’ve worked with and talked a lot about the value that we deliver and how they worked with us. They go talk to our peers. “What are your thoughts on working with these ESG?” There are people in the value that they deliver. They had roughly a dozen or so categories. Ours was on business strategy. They named somewhere around fifteen or so companies. We’re proud to make that list in 2016 and to make it again in the spring of 2017. It’s a great job by our people and a big deal for them to be recognized for their work.

You talked a little bit about pre ESG road that you traveled. Let’s dig into a little bit about your time prior to ESG.

What’s the first thing you remember as a child? Sometimes it feels that way. I worked in a small office supply retail store in high school back in the mid‘80s and that was before Staples superstores, the internet, fax machines, email and things like that. I learned pretty early on in school and then working for this business services company, how businesses operated and how you could, as a partner to them, bring value to the products and services. We sold typewriters, early Wang word processors, Canon photocopiers and all other printing services. I stayed with that in high school, stayed with that after high school, became a full commissioned outside salesperson and sales manager.

I found my way to a national company that had a smaller operation in Boston. Shortly after, I joined the company Corporate Express which was founded here in Colorado in ’86. They were in the process of going public. They were intending to use the proceeds from that public offering to begin acquiring small and regional office products companies. We were basically their first foray into Boston and Northern New England area. At 25, I became their youngest division president. It wasn’t anything particularly impressive. It was a small $6-million division of what was a fast growing company. They taught me at that young age how...

Going to courses and seminars and reading books by so-called gurus, Catherine Bell discovered that all these gurus have a few things that are very similar. While there’s never really a cardboard cutout of them, they all have this similar three-step sales process which starts with a weekend or day training, upgrading to boot camps, and then a full-blown mentoring program. Catherine is VP of Operations for Flipping Females, a group of successful investors that mentor and train people on how to become successful real estate investors in the world of fixing and flipping properties. The company was founded to prevent people from getting ripped off by these enterprising gurus who’ve actually never done a fix and flip ever in their life and yet they were claiming to teach it. Catherine says if you’re going to learn fix and flipping, you can’t learn it through a book, a webinar, videos, or a phone conference. You actually need to have your boots on the ground learning exactly how to manage everything that comes up in a fix and flip.

We’re incredibly fortunate we’re operating remote in a conference in Tampa, Florida. I have Catherine Bell. She’s from Scottsdale, Arizona, and she’s the VP of operations for Flipping Females.

Yes, thank you.

With the name Flipping Females, folks are going to go, “What in the world is Flipping Females?”

What the Flipping Females is, is we are a group of successful investors. Most of us are all women, and we mentor and train people how to become successful real estate investors in the world of fixing and flipping properties.

There’s a lot of attention and a lot of media in the flipping world and TV. How long have you been up to this?

We’ve been doing this for almost five years.

You’re across the Phoenix area?

We are, and we’re in Las Vegas and moving into Texas as well.

How in the world did you get started?

The company Flipping Females, how it got started was all of us being successful investors. As an investor, we’re always learning, growing, expanding, figuring out how to be a better investor, and how to have our ROI be better. We’re always going to courses, seminars, and reading books, whatever it is. Ultimately, what happened was there were the gurus that come to town all the time and teach these courses. We, as investors, would always go because if we could learn one new thing that has us be a better investor, it was completely worth our time and money. We kept going. Inside of that, what we discovered was all these gurus have a few things that are very similar. One, the guru was just a cardboard cutout of them. Two, that they all have this similar three-step sales process. The first one is you go to a weekend or day training, it’s free. Then they upgrade you to the boot camp, which is usually a little bit longer. Then the whole time they’re at that, they are having you increase your credit card limits for the purpose of what they say is real estate investing, but at the end of the day, they just want you to pay $60,000, $70,000, the latest I heard was a $120,000 for their mentoring program. That wasn’t okay with us.

The founder of the company, we’ve done hundreds of these projects and inside of conversations with several of the people that were running the event, it was pretty easy to determine that they’d never done a fix and flip ever in their life and yet they were claiming to teach it. There was a little old lady, she was about 70 years old and she got up and started walking to the back of the room with her credit card to put down $60,000. He stood up and said, “Hold on. What are you going to teach her that she’s...

Jay Arthur, President of KnowWare International, has 21 years of experience helping companies solve problems of delays, defects, and deviation using Lean Six Sigma. Jay shares it’s a journey of learning how to make improvements. To take your business to the next level, you’re going to need some data about defects, delays and deviation, which are the silent killers of productivity and profitability. Once you start to analyze and start to be able to pinpoint exactly what’s broken and where to fix it, your business smooths out and gets better.

We’re here with Jay Arthur known as the KnowWare Man in Denver, Colorado. He’s the President of KnowWare, a Denver, Colorado-based company with 21 years of experience helping companies solve problems of delays, defects, and deviation using Lean Six Sigma. He’s the author of Lean Six Sigma Demystified, Lean Six Sigma for Hospitals and QI Macros Lean Six Sigma SPC Software for Excel. Jay, it’s a pleasure to have you on Business Leaders Podcast. 

Thanks for having me.

How did you get started? 

I spent 21 years in the phone company building software and everything from mainframes to mini computers to microcomputers. About 1989, our VP of Technology decided that he wanted to get involved with Total Quality Management, which was the early version of Six Sigma, so that’s what we did. It turned out it was a journey of learning how to make improvements. Most people think of Six Sigma as performance improvement. It’s really what it is. The “Six Sigma” word came out of Motorola. They invented that term. Over at Motorola University, it says, “In God we trust. All others must bring data.” Most people get successful in business through gut feel, common sense, trial and error. Consequently, they get good at it through just nuts and bolts stuff, but to take your business to the next level, you’re going to need some data about defects, delays, and deviation, which I call the three silent killers of productivity and profitability. Once you start to analyze and start to be able to pinpoint exactly what’s broken and where to fix it, your business smoothens out and it gets better.

Lean Six Sigma: Combining Six Sigma Quality with Lean Production Speed

In the phone company, the odd thing was Six Sigma was always considered to be about the manufacturing, not about service industries like telephony or healthcare, whatever it is. One of the biggest complaints I get from people is they say, “Six Sigma, isn’t that just for manufacturing?” I go, “No.” “Do you have a process? Does it do things? Do you have errors and mistakes and stuff?” “We can fix all that with a little bit of data.” I got involved with that and we learned how to not successfully implement Total Quality because after five years in the quality department, they shut down the quality department because most of them weren’t delivering any returns. I’ve been working with the head of finance and she had this problem. All of a sudden postage costs went up...