Today we’re talking to Travis Steffen. Travis has exited seven companies so far, and he’s going to share what he’s learned along the way, including lessons learned from a botched exit. He will help us understand what builds a successful business. We will also touch upon following our passions and how to find happiness as an entrepreneur when you’re always chasing the next best thing. He’s got some great tips, so you won’t want to miss it!

The Value Advantage

Viral Hero

Bax.co

Travis Steffen, author of Viral Hero, is a serial entrepreneur with 7 successful exits (and a few crash-and-burn failures) to his name. As a growth engineer, he specializes in building products that grow themselves.

After nearly a decade of running startups, Travis began to adopt a different way of building products by building the viral loops first, then finding product details that fit inside those structures. After seeing this strategy work, he set a goal to gain a deeper understanding of viral marketing mechan

Today we are going to be talking to Erik Huberman. Erik found that discovering a company’s unfair advantage and exploiting it through digital marketing and sustainable business processes can take a company and its profits to new heights.

Erik is the current owner of Hawke Media, has sold multiple companies and is on the Forbes 30 Under 30. He started Hawke Media three years ago with just seven employees and he has scaled it to 150 employees today. He’s also a cofounder of Arrowroot Capital. Today, we’re going to talk about how to build a sustainable business that is profitable and that gives you the option to sell whenever you want. Erik will explain the three pillars of marketing and how to make good decisions.

Hawke Media

Erik on Facebook

Erik on Twitter

Erik Huberman is the Founder & CEO of Hawke Media, a full-service Outsourced CMO based in Santa Monica, CA that launch

Today we are talking to Jim Zuehlke, who will be speaking about a board of directors: why they’re important, how to build one, how to compensate them, and how to upgrade the talent of your current board of directors. Jim has tons of experience as a builder of a boards of directors. Although many perceive a board of directors or board of advisors to be solely for extremely profitable companies, the truth is that any company can benefit. Today’s episode is a must-listen for anyone who wants to take their company to the next level.

Cardinal Board Services

Principles

Jim’s company, Cardinal Board Services, is passionate about maximizing the effectiveness our clients boards. Whether it be a Board of Directors or the Board of Advisors, they help organizations with board formation, bylaw creation, recruitment & hiring of directors as well as facilitating the initial board meetings.

His clients range in size from $30M to over $1B companies from a variety of industries including manufacturing, construction, technology, CPG, wholesale apparel and medical. Our clients are mostly private companies seeking to grow their business, transition to a new generation or bring in outside management.

Ryan:               Welcome back to the Life After Business podcast. Today’s guest name is Jim Zuehlke. Jim is on the show today to talk about how to build a board of directors, why a board of directors is important, the functions that the board of directors plas, actually how to strategically build them with the different roles and experiences, and then what happens if you need to upgrade your talent of your board if you already have a board of directors set up. Jim has a ton of experience to be able to speak to this because he started his company, Cardinal Ma

Today on the Life After Business podcast, we’re going to be talking to Ken Sanginario. Ken is the founder of the Corporate Value Metrics and the creator of the Value Opportunity Profile and the Certified Value Growth Advisor. He’s got a lot of experience and he has developed a system that shows business-owners how to develop and implement a strategic plan. He’s going to give us some background on the work he’s done and some tips on how to fund your growth through your process. Sit back and relax; you won’t want to miss this episode!

Today’s podcast centers on the concept of value: value today, and value enduring. We have no greater asset than ourselves when we start a business, this is true. But we need to grow our businesses into stand-alone, fully functioning organizations that do not require our constant input and upkeep.

The issue is: how do we get from here to there?

Ken Sanginario has identified 8 key points that all business owners need to consider. These are as follows: planning, leadership, sales, marketing, people, operations, finance and legal—and these breakdown further into 47 subcategories. Ken developed his role as a turnaround consultant with these points in mind and has successfully saved business and business owners alike from bankruptcy time and time again.

These categories are not, of course, the alpha and omega of successful businesses—but they are pretty darn close. Ken has implemented his working business valuation model into a software program, as well, to aid struggling business owners on a wider plain.

Every company is underperforming to some degree, even ones which are strong and profitable. This makes a turnaround consultant a vital part of your advisory team. Where a consultant adds value is by providing measurable ideas. If you’ve had a consultant approach your business in the past with lots of big ideas, but zero ways to measure these ideas, then you have not experienced a real consultant. True advisors are able to provide points (or, in this case, categories) to you which you can measure and evaluate over time so there are real progress points to show your increased business value.

Your best and truest valuation—the value of future cash flows—depends on sustainability, transferability and predictability.

If your co

Today we are talking to Jim Sulciner. Jim bought his business, RTD, a decade after becoming an engineer and after having a career in marketing. He experienced double-digit growth for over 12 years before selling to a very large company. He sold for a multiple of EBITA that is nearly unheard of and gave himself some great options. He’s going to talk to us about all of his business milestones.

The Value Advantage

Email Jim

Jim on LinkedIn

Jim Sulciner, a sales & marketing executive and entrepreneur, is highly experienced in growth and leadership of startups to midsize companies with an emphasis in recruiting, sales, and customer relations. Most recently as CEO,, Jim guided RTD Company through an acquisition by Measurement Specialties (NASDAQ MEAS) at seven times EBITA. This culminates 25 years of experience in a variety of sales channels — direct, manufacturing representatives, and distribution. His technical experience includes project management, ISo 9001, and lean manufacturing.

Jim was educated with a double major in Chemistry from the University o