Entrepreneurs United

What if 98% of people are just winging life, and don't even know it?

We don't do book episodes often on Entrepreneurs United, but Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People earned one. We brought back returning guest John Mitchell, founder of the Center for Advanced Leadership of Self at the University of Texas at Austin, to go through the book habit by habit with hosts John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann.

In this episode, the three of them talk about which habits actually shaped how they lead, why most people are proactive in theory but not in practice, and propose the eighth habit they think Covey left out of the original book.

What you'll walk away with: why John Mitchell says 98% of people are winging life instead of living it on purpose, Rich Hoffmann's data backed case for why listening beats talking when it comes to real influence, John St. Pierre's take on Covey's big rocks story and why it still beats every modern productivity hack, the space between stimulus and response and why that pause is the real secret to self-control, and the eighth habit John Mitchell thinks Covey left out: learning to control your subconscious autopilot.

If it's been a while since you've read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, this episode is your reminder to pick it back up.

Connect with John Mitchell

Hosted by John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann, Entrepreneurs United is built for founders and leaders who want straight talk on building businesses that actually work. New episodes every week.

https://entrepreneursunited.us/links/

Most founders think they have a lead generation problem. What if the real problem starts after the sale closes?

Bradley Rausch is a client experience architect, strategic advisor, and founder of Level Up Influence, the go-to backend profit partner for founder-led coaching and group programs. Over six years, he has helped dozens of founders turn chaotic growth into durable, higher-margin revenue without sacrificing their values.

In this episode, Bradley walks John & Rich through his four-sale framework: enrollment, onboarding, advocacy, and ascension. He breaks down the four emotional states every client needs to feel in their first 72 hours, the exact math and timing behind referrals and testimonials, how to price and pitch an ascension offer, and how a custom GPT can deliver a client's first win before the onboarding call even happens.

What you'll walk away with:

The four-sale framework and why most businesses only optimize the first sale

The four emotional states - Momentum, Clarity, Safety & Identity, to build in a client's first 72 hours

Connect with Bradley Rausch

Hosted by John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann, Entrepreneurs United is built for founders and leaders who want straight talk on building businesses that actually work. New episodes every week.

https://entrepreneursunited.us/links

Are you managing AI adoption on your team, or is it managing you?

In this episode, hosts John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann tackle one of the biggest leadership challenges right now: helping employees embrace AI instead of fearing it. They dig into why change resistance almost always comes down to a perceived loss of privacy, trust, individuality, or job security, and why leaders need to name that directly instead of dancing around it.

Rich shares eight AI use guidelines he built with a coaching client, covering everything from opt in consent for recordings to being transparent about AI shaped outputs to rewriting things in your own voice. John and Rich also get into piloting small AI use cases for quick wins, capturing institutional knowledge into SOPs and competency models, hiring for AI embracing talent, and mentoring employees into higher level work.

What you'll walk away with: a clear framework for setting AI ground rules on your team, practical ways to pilot AI without overwhelming your people, how to turn tribal knowledge into documented systems before it walks out the door, what to look for when hiring for an AI forward culture, and why focus groups and open communication matter more than a top down mandate.

Hosted by John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann, Entrepreneurs United is built for founders and leaders who want straight talk on building businesses that actually work. New episodes every week.

https://entrepreneursunited.us/links

What if your best salesperson never took a day off?

On the Entrepreneurs United Podcast, hosts John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann talk with book strategist Jill Clair, co-founder of Erin Marie Books, about why a book is a 24/7 credibility asset and one of the most powerful sales tools an entrepreneur, expert, or business owner will ever create.

Jill explains how to rise above the crowded everyone has a book market by publishing professionally, aiming for bestseller status with a real launch strategy, and building in a dedicated URL and free bonus that turns readers into leads. She breaks down a 3 to 4 month process that uses AI for structure and content gathering while keeping the author's own voice through writing, interviews, and transcripts, often in a focused 120 page format. John and Rich then unpack the vulnerability of authorship, the relationship building power of storytelling, and the four reasons to write a book.

What you'll walk away with: why a book works as a credibility asset before you ever get on a call, walk on a stage, or get Googled, why AI-written books lose readers' trust fast and how to use AI the right way instead, why a dedicated URL or lead magnet inside your book is what actually turns readers into leads, what writing a book forces you to confront about your own vulnerability, and the four real reasons to write a book: purpose, value, legacy, and business card.

Connect with Jill Clair on LinkedIn

Hosted by John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann, Entrepreneurs United is built for founders and leaders who want straight talk on building businesses that actually work. New episodes every week.

https://entrepreneursunited.us/links/

What if your money problems were never about money?

Doug Lynam has had three careers: Marine, Benedictine monk, and financial advisor. That path led him to one insight most financial professionals never arrive at. Your Enneagram personality type has been driving your financial decisions since childhood. He calls these patterns Money Monsters, and every one of us has them.

In this episode, Doug walks John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann through the nine Enneagram types and their relationship to money, explains the four pillars of finance and where each type struggles most, and makes the case that building real financial strength is not selfish. When you align your money with your values, you stop surviving and start serving.

What you'll walk away with: an understanding of how your ego defense structures shape how you earn, save, invest, and give; the two Money Monsters for Type 2 helpers and Type 3 achievers; why paying yourself first is the antidote for the over-giving type; and what it means to use your wealth as a tool for love and service to the world.

Download Doug's free Enneagram personality test at douglynam.com

Connect with Doug Lynam on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/doug-lynam/

Hosted by John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann, Entrepreneurs United is built for founders and leaders who want straight talk on building businesses that actually work. New episodes every week.

https://entrepreneursunited.us/links

What would it look like if every leader in your business actually had clarity?

In this episode, John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann do something different: they build a clarity checklist live on air, with no script and no prep. What comes out of it is a set of principles any entrepreneur or leadership team can use immediately to pressure-test where clarity actually exists in their business and where it doesn't.

They cover the six principles of clarity: concise communication using a minimum number of words, consideration of both facts and feelings, written clarity that's accessible to everyone who needs it, a one-page or less standard, the right people in the room when clarity is being defined, and confirmation that everyone understands. They also get into why most quarterly goals fail before the quarter ends, why personal clarity through a 30-year life plan has to come before business clarity, and how AI can function as a real-time clarity coach.

You'll walk away knowing the difference between thinking you have clarity and actually having it, and with a framework to start testing that in your business today.

Listen here: https://entrepreneursunited.us/links/

Hosted by John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann, Entrepreneurs United is built for founders and leaders who want straight talk on building businesses that actually work. New episodes every week.

What if your AI could function like a team of specialists who already know everything about your business?

Jason Van Orden has spent two decades helping coaches and consultants turn their expertise into scalable businesses. In this episode, he joins John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann to break down how he builds custom AI systems using Claude that function like a real team. A system that knows your SOPs, your brand voice, your clients, and your intellectual property, and turns all of it into compounding leverage.

This isn't about using AI to write posts faster. It's about building a second brain that eliminates cognitive drag, runs scheduled tasks in the background, and multiplies everything you've worked hard to learn and build.

What you'll walk away with: How to set up scheduled tasks that eliminate repetitive work. The three barriers keeping most entrepreneurs from real AI leverage. The trust, mindset, and logistics framework for handling AI security anxiety. Why reducing cognitive load is the goal and why eliminating it is the trap. Real client wins including a nurture sequence built in an afternoon and a seven-year stalled book that landed a publisher deal in four months.

Take Jason's free Growth Diagnostic at http://www.jasonvanorden.com/growth

Connect with Jason Van Orden on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonvanorden/

Hosted by John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann, Entrepreneurs United is built for founders and leaders who want straight talk on building businesses that actually work. New episodes every week. https://entrepreneursunited.us/links/

Do you actually know what your business is worth? Most entrepreneurs think they do.

Eric Coonrod is a 22-year investment banker and author of The Preparation Principle. He specializes in helping business owners get the maximum value from their exits. In this episode, he breaks down the pattern he sees most often: owners who go to market underprepared, find out their financials don't match their assumptions, and watch deals fall apart.

This episode walks through what it actually takes to prepare for a business sale -- starting with the most common mistake Eric sees, entrepreneurs who don't know their real EBITDA, all the way through the five-person professional team you need, the tax strategies that can save millions before a deal closes, and the question most founders never answer until they're already at the closing table: who are you after you sell?

What you'll walk away with: Why EBITDA mismatch is the number one exit killer and how to fix it before you go to market. The five professionals every entrepreneur needs at least two to three years before selling -- and why your existing attorney is almost certainly not on the list. The wealth management and tax strategies that can save you millions if you start early enough. How to structure earn-outs so buyers can't manipulate your payout. And the identity question most entrepreneurs avoid until it's too late.

Get The Preparation Principle by Eric Coonrod at ecoonrodco.com

Connect with Eric Coonrod on LinkedIn

Hosted by John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann, Entrepreneurs United is built for founders and leaders who want straight talk on building businesses that actually work. New episodes every week.

https://entrepreneursunited.us/links/

Are you actually holding people accountable, or are you just making them nervous?

In this milestone 300th episode of Entrepreneurs United, co-hosts John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann go deep on one of the most misunderstood leadership skills: accountability. Rich has been coaching leaders and entrepreneurs on this for years, and what he finds is consistent: most leaders have inherited a definition of accountability that quietly works against them.

In this episode, Rich and John break down the real two-step process for accountability that actually works: collecting a genuine commitment and following up on facts, not feelings.

What you'll walk away with: why accountability is a support system, not a punishment, and what that means in practice. The three-part commitment that closes every accountability gap: who, what, and when. Why letting people set their own deadlines makes commitment more likely to stick. How to tell if a pattern of missed commitments is a commitment problem or a competency problem. The TSP method (Truthful, Specific, Positive) for reinforcement that builds accountability into your culture.

Hosted by John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann, Entrepreneurs United is built for founders and leaders who want straight talk on building businesses that actually work. New episodes every week.

https://entrepreneursunited.us/links/

About Entrepreneurs United

Hosted by John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann, Entrepreneurs United is built for founders and leaders who want straight talk on building businesses that actually work. New episodes every week.

What if you could detect Alzheimer's years before any symptoms appeared and stop it?

Dr. Yogesh Shah is a Board-Certified Geriatrician and Mayo Clinic-trained memory specialist who has spent 25 years focused entirely on the early detection and prevention of dementia. In this episode, he makes a case that every entrepreneur in their 40s and 50s needs to hear: the window to protect your brain is now. Not at 70. Not after a diagnosis.

America spends 20% of its GDP on healthcare, and nearly all of it goes to disease management. Dr. Shah explains why that approach is failing, what Mild Cognitive Impairment is and why it matters, and how a new FDA-approved blood test can identify Alzheimer's pathology years before any symptoms appear. He walks through the 14 lifestyle factors identified in the Lancet study that can reduce dementia risk by up to 45%, and explains how monoclonal antibody infusions are now removing amyloid plaque from the brains of patients caught early enough.

What you will walk away with: an understanding of why 40 to 50% of dementia cases go undiagnosed and the real-world consequences, what the new p-tau blood tests are and how to ask your doctor about getting one, which lifestyle factors carry the most risk weight for entrepreneurs, and why managing your LDL, sleep, social connection, and chronic conditions in midlife is the most important thing you can do for your future brain health.

Connect with Dr. Yogesh Shah on LinkedIn

Hosted by John St. Pierre and Rich Hoffmann, Entrepreneurs United is built for founders and leaders who want straight talk on building businesses that actually work. New episodes every week.

https://entrepreneursunited.us/links/