Intentional Growth

Mark Raderstorf is a Rehabilitation Psychologist by training and lifelong entrepreneur by choice. Mark was working at the University of Minnesota Medical School and decided to launch into private practice back in the 1980’s. He founded Behavioral Medical Interventions, Inc. (BMI), a disability management company and national provider of psychiatric and physical disability management services. For the next 15 years before selling the business, he helped people with injuries or disabilities in their emotional, psychological, or vocational adjustments.

Mark describes himself as a service-oriented individual. His passion for helping people was sparked by a traumatic event in his brother’s life. His older brother had a football related head injury and almost died from an aneurysm which dramatically changed the trajectory of his career. This experience was eye opening for Mark and he knew he wanted to help people in similar situations.

Mark’s small private practice grew from Raderstorf and Associates to Behavioral Medical Interventions, Inc. when he was becoming too busy to handle the incoming business all on his own. He hired one person after another and the company continued to grow even through the financial downturn of 2009. The key to their success was a little bit of luck mixed with good relationships and reputation in the industry.

Mark took on more and more with the business which caused stress and worry. At the age of 50, he contemplated if he wanted to continue with the business for the rest of his life. He was spending more and more energy managing people and customers. He couldn’t “turn it off” at the end of the day and it was taking away from time with his wife and kids.

“The business can just gobble you up if you let it. You gotta draw a line somewhere,” says Mark.

Mark found himself spending less time impacting the daily lives of people which was why he went into psychology in the first place. He decided he wanted to do something different and figure out what his encore career was going to be.

It took Mark two to three years to get his company ready to sell with the help of a CFO advisor. He brought in key employees to increase the value and marketability of the company. He tried to first sell to a private equity group but the deal went nowhere. He talks more about his experience in the podcast and what he learned throughout this process.

Eventually Mark did sell to a partner, Crisis Care Network that later rebranded into R3 Continuum, whose services were a natural complement to BMI’s.

Even though he could have stayed in the business and possible sold for more at a later stage, Mark does not regret the decision. It was his time to sell. The plan for Mark was to sell the business, take a sabbatical to Ecuador with his wife, and figure out what to do with the next stage of their lives.

“The more time and energy you can spend on what’s next around the corner, the better the adjustment is going to be. It is really hard when you’re selling a business because all the focus is on getting business ready…It is important not to get too far down the road…It is impor

Bob Moesta, current President and Cofounder of The ReWired Group, created the Jobs To Be Done Theory along with Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen. The theory has successfully helped Moesta start, build, and sell several startups and launch over 3,500 products over the years. It is the main method used in his current occupation which helps business owners reevaluate their companies and drives them to really understand their customer to be a more profitable and valuable company.

From an early age, Bob Moesta always had a notion of questioning and wanting to know how things work. He always took apart things and put them back together. Because of his dyslexia, it made it hard for him to read and write but he learned by questioning and listening.

He took this way of learning and his knack for product development and created the Jobs to Be Done Theory which is described in the book “Competing Against Luck” written by Clay Christiansen.

“People don’t buy products or services, they hire them to do a job in their life,” Moesta explains in the podcast. When you ask people what they want out of a product or service, they usually have no clue. They know what their desired outcome is which is what a company must understand to be able to sell to them.

Moesta goes into a business and intently interviews new, current, or previous customers about the company’s product or service. His goal is to find out what actually made them switch to or away from the product. What caused them to buy or choose a different product? What was their struggling moment that caused them to make progress? The Jobs to Be Done framework allows you to see the struggling moment leading to the customer’s purchase.

After multiple customer interviews, business owners should be able to have an idea of what they should be focusing their business or messaging on. Some businesses need to completely reevaluate how they bring their products or services to market and may have to change their focus entirely.

“You can sit in a conference room all day and guess what people will say,” says Moesta. Actually understanding why a customer purchases your product or service will help you position the product in a way that makes the consumer see you as a solution rather than just another product.

“The moment that a customer or consumer struggles, they care about something and want something better. The more you find struggling moments and understand the progress they want to make, then you can design better products,” says Moesta. 

You have to understand what causes people to value something over something else. This knowledge will not only make better products and drive revenue, but can help cut costs of marketing to the wrong people or in the wrong way.

Bob’s main reason for doing what he does it to ultimately create value for companies. Bob and his team help businesses grow by understanding what their customers need in order to progress into a sale. The customer interviews conducted may result in a company having to change their offeri

Most people say that business isn’t personal, however if you’ve ever owned or currently run a private business, you know that statement is completely false… your business is a reflection of you and all your values. Your business and your life are inevitably intertwined.

Marc Miller, Owner and Chief Happiness Officer at Imagine IT, has made happiness his life’s work after experiencing a tragic family event. Even though life threw him a very challenging curveball, he is on a mission to figure out “what it takes to be happy” even if it comes from an unlikely place.

Over two years ago, Marc’s son, Gunnar, was in a fatal accident. Gunnar had issues with substance abuse and depression, but that is not what took his life. He was over 14 months sober and wiped out on a skateboard and died.

After this tragic and devastating accident, Marc wanted to do something to honor his son. He started a non-profit, The Gunnar Project. He didn’t want to create another youth addiction non-profit so decided to go another route with it.

“Gunnar had this unique ability to make people happy,” explains Marc. Marc decided to focus on the idea of happiness for the non-profit. The mission of the Gunnar Project is to inspire young adults and others to wake up every morning and pursue happiness. 

Happiness is an intangible thing. It is a buzz word in our society today. Marc has read tons of books and research articles on happiness and outlines the four main principles of happiness in the podcast which can also be found on the Gunnar Project website:

Marc urges listeners to plan to intentionally do things every day that make you happy. Outline your day in the morning and avoid doing things throughout the day or talking to people that will make you crabby. Plan and choose to be happy.

“The investment you have to make to be happy every day is a 3-minute investment. If you don’t have 3, 4, or 5 minutes in your day to pursue happiness, you are screwed.”

People may think happiness is this big thing or event. It isn’t a milestone or pot at the end of the rainbow. In talking about happiness being more about the journey, not the goal, Marc says, “Happiness can be found in the little spaces in between the milestones, because that is where the action happens.” 

Marc has created a culture of happiness at Imagine IT. After Gunnar died, Marc changed his title to Chief Happiness Officer to further his mission to drive happiness with everybody he meets day in and day out.

Talking about happiness at work isn’t a “normal” thing in most companies. Imagine IT puts happiness at the forefront and therefore have a vocabulary around the subject which makes it easier for employees to talk about happiness.

Happiness is actionable within Imagine IT’s culture. It is talked about in weekly