Jamaica Slicer spent 15 years as a go-to-market practitioner before she and her co-founder Brian noticed the same frustrating pattern from opposite sides of the table. Early-stage startups desperately needed experienced go-to-market talent. Experienced go-to-market talent kept choosing established companies that could pay more. It was a cycle nobody could break from inside.

Their answer was Budburst, a go-to-market consulting cooperative that scales seasoned experts across multiple startups at once. They gave themselves three to six months to see if the idea had legs. They had their first client within a month. Three years later, three of their client companies have exited successfully, and every single client has come through word of mouth.

This conversation is a practical clinic for anyone leading through a messy growth period. Jamaica is direct about the traps: the founder who keeps attending every sales meeting because the knowledge lives only in their head, the leader who climbs into the ivory tower and stops operating, the sales team told to "go generate pipeline" with no targets and no playbook.

In this episode:

• The biggest go-to-market misconception, and why superior products get outsold every day
• Building a cooperative that works for people at every career stage, including one teammate who works five hours a week between fishing trips
• The first-year surprise nobody saw coming: how VC and private equity relationships became their entire growth engine, and the integrity lines they drew before it started
• Why documentation is the first system crack Jamaica looks for, and how a game of telephone breaks a growing sales team
• Building your own goals with metrics attached instead of waiting for someone to hand them to you
• How to hold a high standard without creating fear, silence, or burnout, including the 15-minute debrief her team runs after every important customer meeting
• The signals that tell you it's time to change rooms, not just change roles

Jamaica's answer to our title question: making more time. Her reason for it, including what scared her about the idea of retirement, is worth sitting with.

Find Jamaica Slicer on LinkedIn, and learn more about Budburst at https://budburst.io

Find Billy on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bigeyedfisch/ or visit his website, billyfischer.focalpointcoaching.com.

Nick Marquart, Co-Founder & CTO of Infinity Labs: Scaling Trust in a High-Stakes World

When Nick Marquart told his eight-months-pregnant wife he was quitting his job to join a startup, he had no savings plan and no entrepreneurial preparation. Six years later, Infinity Labs has grown from seven people to more than ninety, and the son born a month after the company started is about to begin kindergarten.

In this conversation, Nick pulls back the curtain on a world most people misunderstand. Infinity Labs is a Dayton, Ohio software company working in defense modeling and simulation, cybersecurity for the things that were never meant to be connected to the internet, and research and development that borrows its best ideas from biology. As one of their chief scientists puts it: nature always wins.

But the heart of this episode is what happens to a company when it outgrows the room where everyone knows everything. Nick is refreshingly honest about the reorgs, the communication breakdown around fifty employees, and the moment he realized he had created a bottleneck by promoting too few leaders too fast. His analogy for it involves the Three Stooges and a doorway, and every leader who has scaled a team will wince in recognition.

In this episode:

• What people get wrong about government contracting, and why the reality looks nothing like the headlines
• Modeling and simulation explained in plain language, plus what it is like working inside two million lines of code with hundreds of stakeholders
• Winning a seat on the Forge contract, and the "cannot fail" pressure that came with it
• Why the hardest part of scaling was not compliance, but finding the next layer of leadership
• The traits that separate a great developer from a leader you can trust, including what Nick means by soft skills on top of the software
• How Aileron helped Infinity Labs formalize core values, and how those values now shape hiring, pricing, and which partnerships they walk away from
• Keeping trust intact through meaningful interactions, with a memorable counterexample from Office Space

Nick's answer to our title question: making more time with the kids.

Learn more about Nick and Infinity Labs at https://i-labs.tech or connect with him on LinkedIn.

If this conversation was useful to you, please follow the show and share it with a leader who needs it.

Find Billy on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bigeyedfisch/ or visit his website, billyfischer.focalpointcoaching.com.

Episode 18: Abigail Church | HR That Builds Trust, Clarity, and Cohesiveness

In this episode of Making More, Billy Fischer sits down with Abigail Church, PHR, an HR business partner with GrowthLab, to talk about the people systems growing companies need before the cracks start showing.

Abigail works with startups and growing organizations to build the HR foundation that keeps teams compliant, aligned, and scalable. From handbooks and payroll setup to employee classification, compensation benchmarking, feedback systems, and performance improvement plans, her work sits at the intersection of compliance and culture.

This conversation reframes HR as leadership infrastructure, not paperwork. Abigail explains why “we’ll fix it later” often becomes expensive, why clarity builds trust, and why difficult feedback can be an act of care when it is handled with honesty, structure, and support.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why early-stage companies need HR foundations before problems appear
• The hidden cost of misclassification, unclear pay bands, and incomplete documentation
• How GrowthLab helps companies build compliant, scalable people systems
• Why clarity is one of the most important trust-building tools in leadership
• How performance improvement plans can be collaborative, not punitive
• What healthy conflict and workplace cohesiveness actually look like
• Why leaders should stop pushing HR problems to “next quarter”

Abigail’s answer to the title question was clear: making more clarity and cohesiveness. In her view, clarity helps build cohesiveness, and cohesiveness helps individuals, teams, and businesses achieve their goals.

Learn more about GrowthLab:
 www.growthlabfinancial.com

Connect with Abigail on LinkedIn:
 Abigail Church, PHR: https://www.linkedin.com/in/abigail-church-phr

Find Billy on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bigeyedfisch/ or visit his website, billyfischer.focalpointcoaching.com.

In this special episode of Making More, Billy Fischer is joined by three high school entrepreneurs — Prit Patel, Kishan Patel, and Nidhi Patel — the founding team behind Roots2Results.

While most students are focused on getting through the week, these three are building a real business and solving important problems. Their story starts with something personal: helping their families navigate complicated business paperwork, financial decisions, and legal language that can be difficult to interpret. That lived experience turned into a mission — create tools and services that make it easier for small business owners to understand what they’re signing, what they’re paying for, and what their next best step should be.

Along the way, we also talk about what they’ve learned through the student-run retail operation Highlander Outfitters, where they’ve managed inventory, marketing, sales, and operations — getting a crash course in real-world execution before graduation.

In this conversation, we cover:

• How Roots2Results started and what problem they’re solving
• Why legal and financial jargon creates real barriers for business owners
• Their subscription-based concept and how they’re thinking about pricing and value
• What they’ve learned from running Highlander Outfitters behind the scenes
• What it means to lead and build while still balancing school, friends, and extracurriculars

Making More (their answers):

• Kishan: making more time
• Prit: making more connections
• Nidhi: making more impact

Learn more:
 Roots2Results feature: https://vace.uky.edu/news/roots2results
LinkedIn (company): https://www.linkedin.com/sales/company/109166927

Find Billy on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bigeyedfisch/ or visit his website, billyfischer.focalpointcoaching.com.

In this episode of Making More, Billy Fischer sits down with Brage Garofalo for a powerful conversation about transition, identity, service, and the deep human need for belonging.

Brage has spent years supporting veterans, first responders, elite operators, and high performers as they navigate the difficult space between who they were, who they served with, and who they are becoming next. Drawing from her background in clinical research, her work in mental health, and her commitment to those moving through major life transitions, Brage brings a deeply compassionate perspective to what happens when structure fades and the uniform comes off.

Billy and Brage explore the loss of tribe many veterans experience after service, the emotional and intellectual side of transition, and why rebuilding community is just as important as building a resume or LinkedIn profile. They also discuss leadership lessons from military teams, the importance of psychological safety, and what business leaders can learn from people who have been trained to operate with trust, humility, loyalty, and mission focus.

The conversation also takes a memorable turn into open-water swimming, including Brage’s story of participating in the Frogman Swim under the Golden Gate Bridge, where a mysterious bump in the water became a vivid metaphor for fear, focus, and the instinct to keep moving forward.

At the heart of this episode is Brage’s answer to the title question: she wants to make more of a difference. Whether through supporting someone in transition, helping a veteran feel less alone, or simply leaving the world better than she found it, Brage reminds us that meaningful impact often begins with showing up for people when they need a tribe the most.

Find Billy on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bigeyedfisch/ or visit his website, billyfischer.focalpointcoaching.com.

In this episode of Making More, Billy Fischer sits down with JD Miller, PhD— a seasoned executive leader, board advisor, and author who has helped organizations navigate growth, complexity, and renewal across decades in the technology industry.

JD’s story starts in an unlikely place: an internship connected to the Clinton White House. From there, his path moved into tech sales and leadership, where he learned how trust is built (and lost) when relationships increasingly happen through screens, meetings, and digital noise.

We also dig into JD’s work as an author — including The CRO’s Guide to Winning in Private Equity — and how his perspective on leadership has evolved into something both simple and difficult: building a life that makes room for the people in it.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Why trust is harder (and more important) in modern professional environments
• What executive presence actually means beyond titles and credentials
• Lessons from writing for CROs and leaders navigating private equity
• How to think about AI and sales without losing the human element
• The leadership discipline of “making more time for quality interactions”

Connect with JD Miller:

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

New Book: The AI Handbook for Sales Professionals: A Practical, Tactical Guide for Sellers, Managers, and Executives to Reclaim Their Time and Expand Their Humanity. (https://a.co/d/09BWuO6s)

JD's Foundation: https://www.jdmja.org/

Find Billy on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bigeyedfisch/ or visit his website, billyfischer.focalpointcoaching.com.

In this episode of Making More, I’m joined by Luís Dias, founder of Legau, to talk about what it really takes to build a product, build a team, and build conviction when the road is not predictable.

Luís and I get into the daily realities of startup leadership, what it looks like to earn clarity through action, and why “better tools” only matter when they’re paired with better thinking and stronger habits. We also talk about the difference between being busy and being effective, the importance of shaping your workflow before you automate it, and how leaders can stay grounded when the stakes feel high and the pace is constant.

Toward the end, Luís answers the signature question of the show with a response I’ll be thinking about for a while: “making more fun.” Not comfort. Not ease. Fun, as in learning to enjoy the long game so you can sustain the work and keep building with energy.

In this episode, we cover:

• What Luís is building with Legau and the problem it’s designed to solve
• Why good process matters more than flashy tooling
• How to think about sustainable execution when the work is never “done”
• The mindset shift from chasing outcomes to enjoying the build
• Luís’s “Making More” answer: making more time for fun in the process

Connect with Luís / Legau:

• Luís Dias on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luis-alves-dias
• Legau: https://legau.com/

Find Billy on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bigeyedfisch/ or visit his website, billyfischer.focalpointcoaching.com.

Global business is not just bigger business. It’s different business.

In this conversation, I’m joined by Jonathan Bench of Kirton McConkie, host of the Lawbalization podcast, to talk about what leaders often underestimate when their work crosses borders: how trust is built, how influence works across cultures, and why clarity and relationships become even more important when the stakes and the complexity rise.

We talk about the real-world friction points that show up when legal, business, and human dynamics collide, and how Jonathan thinks about leadership when the “right answer” is rarely simple. We also get into the hidden cost of shallow networking, and why he’s focused right now on making more time for quality interactions, both online and in person.

In this episode, we cover:

• How global work changes the leadership playbook
• The difference between activity, connection, and real influence
• Why clarity and trust beat speed when complexity shows up
• What “quality interactions” actually look like in a busy professional life
• The question every leader should ask before they scale anything

Connect and learn more

• Jonathan Bench: Lawbalization podcast; Kirton McConkie

Find Billy on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bigeyedfisch/ or visit his website, billyfischer.focalpointcoaching.com.

In this episode of Making More, Billy sits down with Gordon Sansaver, Associate Executive Director at the Virginia Mason Institute, to explore what happens when the principles behind the Toyota Production System collide—beautifully—with the realities of modern healthcare.

Gordon shares the Virginia Mason origin story: a health system at a crossroads, facing rising costs, patient safety risk, and workforce strain… and deciding to bet on a different path—continuous improvement and respect for people. From there, we unpack why “process” in healthcare isn’t just a set of tools—it’s a full management system, how executive alignment shapes culture (for better or worse), and why you can’t delegate improvement work and expect it to stick.

We also talk about Gordon’s early frontline path in healthcare, his experience leading a study tour to Japan, and how Virginia Mason’s approach expanded into the UK’s National Health Service—with independent evaluation from Warwick Business School.

In this conversation:

• Why improvement and culture change can’t be “handed off”
• Executive + board alignment as a force multiplier
• “VMPS” (Virginia Mason Production System): making TPS your own
• “Better never stops” as a leadership posture, not a slogan
• What healthcare leaders can borrow from manufacturing without losing the human side

Guest: Gordon Sansaver — Associate Executive Director, Virginia Mason Institute

Find Billy on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bigeyedfisch/ or visit his website, billyfischer.focalpointcoaching.com.

What does leadership look like when systems fail? And when the consequences are human, not theoretical?

In this episode of Making More, Billy Fischer sits down with Robert Reed, a seasoned financial services leader whose career spans the Chicago Stock Exchange, the 2008 financial crisis, and today’s fight against human trafficking through financial intelligence.

Robert’s professional journey begins on the floor of the Chicago Stock Exchange and carries through the collapse of Bear Stearns and crisis operations at JPMorgan. These formative experiences shaped his understanding of leadership under pressure—where clarity, calm, and responsibility matter more than titles or technical expertise.

Now serving as COO of the International Bank of Chicago (and previously the Director of Operations at Dark Watch), Robert operates at the intersection of financial systems, compliance, and anti–human trafficking intelligence. The conversation explores how modern financial leadership increasingly carries a moral dimension: protecting institutions means protecting people.

Throughout the episode, Robert emphasizes:

• Leadership revealed in crisis
• Ethical stewardship of power and capital
• Multiplying others through systems that outlast the leader

Rather than romanticizing resilience or heroics, Robert frames leadership as disciplined presence—staying grounded, asking better questions, and making decisions with long-term human consequences in view.

The episode closes with a shared reflection on what it truly means to make more: more capable people, more ethical systems, and more leaders worthy of the trust they’ve been given.

Find Billy on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bigeyedfisch/ or visit his website, billyfischer.focalpointcoaching.com.