How do you monetize a podcast and turn it into a real business? In this episode of DissedMedia: A Startup Story, host Ben Olmos talks with Adam Torres, founder of Mission Matters and host of 15 shows with thousands of interviews behind him. Adam breaks down how to monetize a podcast from day one through live events, book publishing, PR, and paid guest experiences instead of waiting on downloads and CPM. He shares his journey from a 14-year finance career to building a media company around storytelling, the dramatic sign that pushed him to go all in, and why the podcast business is still in its infancy with only four million shows worldwide. If you want to grow a podcast, make money podcasting, and stay in the game long enough to win, this conversation is full of practical, hard-won lessons.

Connect with Adam Torres:

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Some of the most knowledgeable professionals in their fields are nearly impossible to find online. In this episode of DissedMedia: A Startup Story, host Ben Olmos sits down with Ashley Smith, a former realtor of 18 years turned personal branding strategist who studies what she calls the proof gap, the distance between what you know and what shows up when someone searches for you.

Ashley explains why AI search is rewriting how people discover professionals, why Google is overhauling search for the first real time in 25 years, and how she got her own expertise indexed on Google in just three days using podcasting and an RSS feed. She shares the concept of minimum viable proof, a practical 90 day sprint for building presence, and why being referenced by others may carry far more weight than posting on your own.

If you are a mid-career professional, an entrepreneur, or an emerging expert who wants to get discovered for what you actually know, this conversation gives you a clear place to start.

In this episode:

Connect with Ashley Smith:

About the show:

Most founders lose their best hours to the back office. Chore founder and angel investor Adam Spector explains how back office outsourcing hands HR, finance, compliance, payroll, and bookkeeping to a fractional team that runs all of it for you, so you get your time back for product and customers.

Adam has founded four companies and made more than 200 startup investments, and he built Chore to solve the problem that distracted him in every one of them. He breaks down how Chore differs from a PEO, the company stage where fractional support starts to pay off, why a single full-time generalist is often a liability, and how Chore's AI co-pilot Ollie turns your operational data into instant answers. If you want to spend more time in your zone of genius and less time chasing invoices and state registrations, this one is your playbook.

Connect with Adam and Chore:

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What does it actually take to reinvent yourself after your career pulls the rug out from under you? Andrew Brummer found out at 53 — no degree, no external network, and a company that was winding down after a decade of his best operational work. In this episode, he breaks down how he rebuilt from scratch, why he became a double author and co-founder of multiple companies, and what it means to make yourself operationally dispensable so the people around you can thrive without you.

Andrew and Ben get into the culture of trust that makes teams run without you in the room, the difference between listening to respond and listening to learn, how ageism is really just a failure to communicate across generations, and how AI can be your best thinking partner — or your worst echo chamber, depending on how you use it.

Andrew also shares the story behind My Story Told, his platform that uses AI to help people capture and publish their life stories — because everyone's earned the right to be remembered.

If you've ever hit a wall in your career and wondered what comes next, this one's for you.

Connect with Andrew Brummer:

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What if your next client already trusted you before they ever called your office? That's the outcome Dennis "DM" Meador has been engineering for attorneys and professionals for the past two years, and it starts with a podcast.

Dennis is the founder of The Legal Podcast Network and The Authority Podcast Network. He has built a system that runs 250 shows and produces 350 episodes a month with a team of 75. His approach flips the traditional marketing model: instead of chasing reach and viral views, his clients publish niche, FAQ-driven content aimed at the exact people who need them most. The result is a pipeline of prospects who show up already sold.

In this episode, Dennis and Ben dig into:

— Why authority marketing through podcasting outperforms mass-audience content for high-value professionals

Dennis also shares two real-world examples of clients who had niche content already in place when major national news events broke in their specialty areas, and how that content turned them from local practitioners into nationally wait-listed authorities overnight.

Connect with Dennis "DM" Meador:

Get Ben's book: 10 Topics To Help Managers, Leaders, and Entrepreneurs Get Better @ What You Do:

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What separates a business that scales from one that stays stuck? In episode 76 of Dissed Media: A Startup Story, Ben Olmos sits down with Mark Gordon, founder of Integrated Go-To-Market Solutions, to break down the go-to-market strategy that turns struggling companies into growth machines.

Mark grew Princeton Mortgage from $36 million to over $1 billion in annual production while holding a 98 net promoter score, exited a previous company in a seven-figure deal, and now helps founders fix the revenue engine that breaks first.

In this conversation, Mark explains why product market fit and clear messaging matter more than any sales tactic, why trying to serve everybody quietly kills growth, and how the four parts of a go-to-market system (messaging, lead generation, sales execution, and revenue technology) have to move in sync like a crew boat. He shares the mom test for explaining your business in 30 seconds, the real reason founders stay stuck, and how the right messaging shift can lift revenue 30 percent in 90 days.

If you are scaling a business and want a go-to-market strategy built on product market fit instead of guesswork, this episode is for you.

Connect with Mark Gordon: Website and free Go-To-Market Clarity Assessment: https://igtms.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkDGordon-IGTMS Search Mark D. Gordon on LinkedIn and Instagram

Grab Ben's book, 10 Topics To Help Managers, Leaders, and Entrepreneurs Get Better @ What You Do: https://amzn.to/4uDUC7K

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Wondering how to patent an idea and protect your intellectual property before someone else profits from it? In this episode of DissedMedia: A Startup Story, host Ben Olmos talks with patent attorney Austin Bonderer, who brings 25 years of experience, more than 700 secured US patents, and an insider's view from his years as a USPTO patent examiner.

Austin reveals what most entrepreneurs get wrong about protecting an idea. The biggest one: disclosure kills patents. Too many founders post their invention online or pitch it everywhere before protecting it, and that single move can sink a patent before it ever starts.

In this conversation you'll learn:

If you're a founder, inventor, or small business owner, this episode gives you a clear, practical roadmap for protecting what you build.

Connect with Austin Bonderer:

Website: https://bondererpatents.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AustinThePatentAttorney

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@austin.the.patent

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austin-bonderer-a0b08b3/

Get the first chapter of Ben's book free: 10 Topics To Help Managers, Leaders, and Entrepreneurs Get Better @ What You Do https://amzn.to/4uDUC7K

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What if you could step away from your business for a month and come back to find it ran perfectly without you?

In this episode, Ben Olmos sits down with Ral West, an entrepreneur who spent 25 years building a Hawaii travel company into a charter airline flying 35,000 passengers a year between Alaska and Hawaii, before selling it to Alaska Airlines. But that success nearly cost her everything that mattered. For years she and her husband were buried in the day to day, working around the clock while their young daughter ate dinner at the office. The business owned them, not the other way around.

Ral breaks down exactly how she turned it around. She explains how she systemized the company, learned to delegate the right way, and built a culture of open book management that turned her team into true partners. She shares the mindset shift that frees owners from constant firefighting, the real reason most delegation attempts fail, and how she eventually walked away from daily operations while the business kept right on growing.

You'll learn:

Ral now teaches business owners these same principles through her BOSS program, Business Owner Success Strategies, a year round mastermind built on the six core principles that let her run a multimillion dollar operation without being chained to it.

Connect with Ral West:

Website: https://www.ralwest.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ralwest/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RalWest-wv3ou

Take her business diagnostic tool to find out how much of a bottleneck you are in your own business.

Get Ben's book, 10 Topics To Help Managers, Leaders, and Entrepreneurs Get Better @ What You Do: https://amzn.to/4uDUC7K

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What if the biggest obstacle to your success isn't your strategy, your market, or your competition but the beliefs you inherited before you ever started a business?

Randy Gage knows this firsthand. He went from a jail cell as a teenager to becoming a Speaker Hall of Famer, a multimillion-dollar entrepreneur, and the author of 16 bestselling books translated into more than 25 languages. His new book, Wealth Without Apology: A Prosperity Manifesto, just released and it may be the most important thing an entrepreneur reads this year.

In this episode, Randy breaks down the concept of "mind viruses," the cultural programming around money, success, and wealth that silently causes entrepreneurs to self-sabotage without even knowing it. He and Ben explore why TV, movies, and media keep recycling the same tired message that rich people are evil, and why that programming is costing you more than you realize.

They also get into:

If you've ever felt guilty about wanting more, capped your own income without realizing it, or wondered why success seems to slip through your fingers, this conversation is for you.

Get Randy's new book, Wealth Without Apology: A Prosperity Manifesto: https://amzn.to/43gsvj3

Visit Randy's website: https://randygage.com/

Also check out Risky Is the New Safe and Mad Genius, both essential reads for entrepreneurs on Amazon.

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Get Ben's book, 10 Topics To Help Managers, Leaders, and Entrepreneurs Get Better @ What You Do: https://amzn.to/4uDUC7K

What if the toxic work environment you keep trying to fix is actually a drama triangle problem? This week on DissedMedia: A Startup Story, Ben sits down with Charlie Sheppard, behavioral scientist, executive coach, and author of Save Your Drama for Your Mama (available on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4u9q1Og). With 40 years of experience working with organizations like AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Genentech, Charlie has built a career helping leaders escape the drama triangle and build cultures where real leadership development can finally take hold.

Charlie explains the drama triangle - the victim, rescuer, and adversary roles that come as standard equipment with every human being - and contrasts it with the Leadership Triangle. He shares why leadership coaching must go beyond surface behaviors to the full stack of beliefs, identity, and even physiology, and why stopping workplace drama is the real foundation of effective leadership.

The conversation also covers his remarkable 33-year record of zero work stoppages in high-stakes labor negotiations, the role of relationship-building before bargaining, and locus of control as the leadership development pattern that gets leaders in trouble fastest. And in a surprising close, Charlie shares three projects fired up about: a 12-book children's series called The Path of Light (back it on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1317302143/path-of-light-bedtime-stories-that-help-kids-sleep), the inaugural Human Presence Institute weekend, and a biotech molecule targeting advanced cancer in solid tumors.

If you lead people, manage teams, or are building something from the ground up, this episode will change how you think about the drama triangle, leadership development, and the patterns keeping you stuck.

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