My Quest for the Best with Bill Ringle - the podcast for ambitious business owners.

Bill Ringle and Ron Friedman discuss the strategies and stories behind reverse engineering success stories for small business leaders.

>>> Visit MyQuestforTheBest.com  for complete show notes and more expert advice and inspiring stories to propel your small business growth. My Quest for the Best is a top-rated small business podcast with over 300 episodes of thought-provoking and insightful interviews with today’s top thought leaders and business experts. Host Bill Ringle’s mission with this show is to provide the strategies, insights, and resources that will unlock the growth potential of your business through these powerful conversations.

• Reconstruct existing and proven ideas and in your own way, add more efficiency to it or make it unique.
• Observe, study, collect the objects, principles, behaviors, and best practices in your field and apply these patterns.These patterns can be the blueprint of your success.
• Connectedness is the center of high-performing teams. Communication builds strong relationships and clears misunderstandings, and a means to show appreciation to your colleagues, which leads to high performance.

• New York Knick coach Pat Riley’s book, The Winner Within, opened Ron’s eyes to the power of human motivation. [01:16]
• One of the studies that Ron did during graduate school was looking to see whether there is or isn’t an impact of seeing a Michael Jordan jersey on a basketball performance. [02:42]
• The factors that lead people to perform at their best. [03:46]
• Does greatness comes from talent? [04:03]
• Or does it come from practice? [04:21]
• Ron talks about the power of reverse engineering in achieving greatness. [04:58]
• The process of reverse engineering. [05:25]
• An elaboration of the insight of viability and how it distinguishes mega entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos, Mark Cuban and Richard Branson. [07:12]
• What we can learn from Tinder bout how they used algorithms. [11:41]
• Ron talks about his first book, The Best Place to Work. [13:54]
• Connectedness is the heart of high-performing teams. [14:37]
• Appreciation plays a key role to having superior performance. [16:20]
• My Quest for the Best lightning round. [29:37]

Ron has served on the faculty of the University of Rochester, Nazareth College, and Hobart and William Smith Colleges, and has consulted for some of the world’s most successful organizations.

Popular accounts of his research have appeared on NPR and in major newspapers, including The New York Times, Financial Times, The Globe and Mail, Washington Post, The Guardian, as well as magazines such as Men’s Health, Entrepreneur, and Success. He is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, Psychology Today, Fast Company, Forbes, and CNN.

His first book, The Best Place to Work, was named an Inc. Magazine Best Business Book of the Year. His new book, Decoding Greatness: How the Best in the World Reverse Engineer Success, was selected by Amazon’s editors as one of this year’s best non-fiction books.

• Primary Website
• Travels from: Pittsford, New York
• Connect on LinkedIn| Facebook | Twitter 

Below are key people, places, books, quotes, websites, and other resources that we discussed so you can explore further.

• Pat Riley -former coach of the New York Knicks and author of The Winner Within: A Life Plan for Team Players.
• Michael Jordan
• Jeff Bezos
• Mark Cuban
• Richard Branson
• Chipotle
• Starbucks
• Tinder

Bill Ringle and Bill Miller discuss how the career path, life philosophy, and communications style of a leader relates to the strengths and weaknesses he or she brings to the role of CEO in small and mid-sized businesses in technology as well as other industries. 

>>> Visit MyQuestforTheBest.com for complete show notes and more expert advice and inspiring stories to propel your small business growth. My Quest for the Best is a top-rated small business podcast with over 300 episodes of thought-provoking and insightful interviews with today’s top thought leaders and business experts. Host Bill Ringle’s mission with this show is to provide the strategies, insights, and resources that will unlock the growth potential of your business through these powerful conversations.

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• Leadership philosophies set expectations, goals, and how leaders respond at any given situation. Take time to build your leadership philosophy.
• Consider and understand all the elements in your business and proactively build a strong foundation for your company by making wise decisions.
• Know every group in your company to know what drives them to give their best performance.

• Bill’s father, who was a business owner, taught him the value of hard work and the payoff that comes with it. [03:34]
• One of Bill’s early jobs was at Universal Studios in California where he was manager but the guy he replaced was still there. Here he applied one of his father’s teachings which is to take everything step-by-step. [02:33]
• Every decision you make to becoming CEO builds your foundation as a leader. [04:09]
• A discussion on why the foundation that we build, and our philosophies are what matters the most when we lead. [05:27]
• The Rookie CEO’s common denominator. [06:27]
• Tom was a former VP of a very large company who got stuck with an idea of wheelbarrow that he cannot let go. [07:23]
• Meet with every group or function in your company to know what motivates them. [11:04]
• The philosophy of budget management. [12:25]
• Mike is a former VP who put a lot of importance to becoming a collaborative leader, who poses a very important question: What would you do to prepare yourself? [13:23]
• Bill shares his first experience being promoted as VP. [16:34]
• My Quest for the Best Lightning round begins. [23:39]

Bill Miller helps aspiring CEOs and Leaders as an executive advisor, mentor, and coach. As the author of “The Rookie CEO, You Can’t Make This Stuff Up!” he uses a framework he created to guide how new CEOs and leaders will lead and how they can deliver operational excellence for growth and profitability. As a former vice president, general manager, and leader who has led Marketing, Product Management, Business Development, Strategic Partnerships, Development, and Operations in the past 30 years in companies of all sizes from early-stage startups to multi-billion-dollar multinational companies, his experience can accelerate your business with positive outcomes while guiding and coaching through the most difficult times.

• Primary Website
• CEO Insights blog
• Travels from: Bristol, Connecticut
• Connect on LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook

Below are key people, places, books, quotes, websites and other resources that we discussed so you can explore further.

• Universal Studios, California
• Bill Miller’s LinkTree
• American Airlines, where Bill Miller has 1.5 million miles

Bill Ringle and Brendan Kane discuss how to use social media as a way to express and execute on big ideas for your own business or for your clients as small business leaders.

>>> Visit MyQuestforTheBest.com for complete show notes and more expert advice and inspiring stories to propel your small business growth. My Quest for the Best is a top-rated small business podcast with over 300 episodes of thought-provoking and insightful interviews with today’s top thought leaders and business experts. Host Bill Ringle’s mission with this show is to provide the strategies, insights, and resources that will unlock the growth potential of your business through these powerful conversations.

Brendan Kane is an outside of the box thinker, speaker and author who empowers brands to scale by helping them stand out and beat competition in crowded and oversaturated markets. He is the author of the international best-selling book ​One Million Followers​ and the newly released ​Hook Point: How To Stand Out In A 3 Second World​, as well as the founder and CEO of the Hook Point agency. Brendan has worked with hundreds of individuals and brands providing business and digital strategy for more than 15 years, including MTV, Taylor Swift, Rhianna and many others.

Below are key people, places, books, quotes, websites and other resources that we discussed so you can explore further.

Bill Ringle and Ann Latham discuss how clarity streamlines effort and improves productivity for managers and leaders in small business.

>>> Visit MyQuestforTheBest.com for complete show notes and more expert advice and inspiring stories to propel your small business growth. My Quest for the Best is a top-rated small business podcast with over 300 episodes of thought-provoking and insightful interviews with today’s top thought leaders and business experts. Host Bill Ringle’s mission with this show is to provide the strategies, insights, and resources that will unlock the growth potential of your business through these powerful conversations.

• Vague instructions can lead to bad judgement calls that can cause wasted time and effort, damage trust and confidence between leaders and their teams, and lessen self esteem. Avoid this unnecessary problem by being specific and clear on how much time and effort is needed for a specific task and be clear on what needs to be done to have the desired result.
• Clear communication often requires specifics. If in doubt, ask.
• Not everyone should be included in any given meeting. Choose the people who are needed to contribute or who are efficient and well-versed on a specific task that needs to be done to achieve the goal. It would be a waste of time to include those who are not contributing.

• Ann’s father who taught her how to speak her mind. [01:21]
• Her outspokenness earned the rare and probably one of a kind recognition as the ‘most likely to dispute recognized authorities.’ [02:07]
• Moving farther away from the production process to management is often a big problem because management responsiblities often are more abstract and lacking clearly defined goals and objectives. [03:45]
• Meetings are important but a lot of people, based on surveys, think that meetings are just a waste of time. [05:16]
• The two steps to having a meaningful meeting is to decide what needs to change after the meeting and to have specific steps on how to get to the end result. [08:03]
• Case: Jess, a healthcare company manager, and her boss miscommunicate about the approach to making hand lotion available in public parks. It eroded her boss’ trust and confidence in her judgement due to the lack of clarity. 10:02]
• After assessing the situation, Ann points out that the root of the problem was a vague request made by the boss causing the new employee Jess to misjudge the amount of investment she has to put on this project. [12:18]
• The importance of asking questions. [13:11]
• Case: Peter, a marketing director who submitted his marketing plan to his boss but did not get the expected feedback. [17:41]
• The six cognitive cognitive objects that constitute real progress are: a decision, plan, problem resolution, a list, confirmation, or an approval. [19:05]
• My Quest for the Best Lightning round begins.

ANN LATHAM is the founder of US-based consulting firm Uncommon Clarity®. Her clients represent over 40 industries and range from organizations such as Boeing, Hitachi, and Medtronic to non-profits such as the Public Broadcasting Service and colleges and universities.

She is widely considered an expert in strategic clarity and strategies for improving productivity, performance, and commitment. She has been interviewed by publications such as The New York Times, Bloomberg, MSNBC, and is an expert blogger for Forbes.com.

Ann is an accomplished speaker and the author of The Power of Clarity, The Clarity Papers, and Uncommon Meetings. Ann is also the sole recipient of a corporate award that she cherishes to this day: Most Likely To Dispute Recognized Authorities.

• Primary Website
• Travels from: New Hampshire
• Connect on Twitter | LinkedIn

Bill Ringle and Steve Anderson discuss new insights that small business leaders and managers can use based on Amazon’s stunning growth.

>>> Visit MyQuestforTheBest.com for complete show notes and more expert advice and inspiring stories to propel your small business growth. My Quest for the Best is a top-rated small business podcast with over 300 episodes of thought-provoking and insightful interviews with today’s top thought leaders and business experts. Host Bill Ringle’s mission with this show is to provide the strategies, insights, and resources that will unlock the growth potential of your business through these powerful conversations.

• If we are willing to experiment, we should also be willing to fail, and from this failure, we take what we learn and build from it.
• Business longevity relies heavily on customer satisfaction.
• Fixing the problem is a band-aid solution. For it not to be a repeated issue, leaders should target the cause of the problem, and fix it from the root.

• Steve Anderson’s father was a huge inspiration to him growing up. [01:00]
• On his first job working in the United States Postal service, taught him that not everyone has the same standard of what a good job is. [02:54]
• Bezos left Wall Street to start his own business because he does not want to regret not trying to pursue his dreams. [05:01]
• Books came up on the top when Bezos was thinking of products to sell on Amazon because the internet has unlimited shelf space. [05:40]
• Other than the undeniable value of customer obsession, Amazon also values hiring employees that can implement its standards. [07:05]
• One of Bezos’ core ideas is testing and experimenting, in fact, he talked about this in multiple letters, stressing out the importance of experimenting. [08:05]
• Amazon Prime is an example of a great successful experiment by Bezos and his team. [09:24]
• Bezos believes that what is better for the customer is also what is better for Amazon. [11:31]
• Steve discuss about Amazon’s ‘obsessing over customers’ and how this principle propels the company forward. [18;27]
• What separates Amazon from other companies is that it encourages employees to come up with ideas and experiment. [26:39]
• Part of Amazon’s process management when dealing with a mistake is not fixing the problem, but fixing the cause of the problem. [30:51]
• Steve breaks down his goals into three separate groups:quarterly, weekly, and daily. [34:11]
• My Quest for the Best Lightning Round begins [45:30]

Steve Anderson is an expert in strategic risk and business growth. Drawing on decades of experience in the insurance industry, he wrote The Bezos Letters: 14 Principles to Grow Your Business Like Amazon, which has become a Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and international bestseller. With hundreds of thousands of followers, Steve has been handpicked by LinkedIn as one of the world’s most influential thought leaders.

• Primary Website
• Connect on LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook
• Steve travels from Franklin, Tennessee

Below are key people, places, books, quotes, websites, and other resources that we discussed so you can explore further.

• Jeff Bezos
• Amazon
• IBM
• Barnes and Noble
• Azure
• Google Cloud

Alex Goldfayn and Bill Ringle discuss how using this simple system help improve impact and sales for small business leaders.

>>> Visit MyQuestforTheBest.com for complete show notes and more expert advice and inspiring stories to propel your small business growth. My Quest for the Best is a top-rated small business podcast with over 300 episodes of thought-provoking and insightful interviews with today’s top thought leaders and business experts. Host Bill Ringle’s mission with this show is to provide the strategies, insights, and resources that will unlock the growth potential of your business through these powerful conversations.

• We are born reactive but we need to be proactive in taking charge of our business and personal lives. This takes effort and commitment but this is something we must do to ensure we are maneuvering ourselves to success.
• A much bigger problem in selling is the resistance to sell rather than the inability to do so.
• Hearing rejection over the phone is more personal which is why many sales people do not like making phone calls. We should not let this fear or any type of fear limit our capacity to succeed. Remember that going through the NOs will lead us to the YESes. 

• “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you’re right,” this quote by Henry Ford is one of Alex’s favorite. [01:31]
• Fight and flights is reactive to our DNA. [03:38]
• The percentage of salespeople getting rejected is higher. [04:18]
• Another great quote loved by Alex is from Winston Churchill- “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.” [04:25]
• Cold calling is hard which is why it is better to call people who we know, who we have a connection and a relationship with. This does not mean we need to avoid cold calling. [05:42]
• Pick Up the Phone and Sell, the title of his new book, was chosen because they wanted a behavior tittle. [07:14]
• The phone is the most efficient selling tool and yet is the most avoided. This is because rejection over the phone is a more intimate form of rejection. You don’t get this rejection on email. [09:15]
• 80 to 90% of the time, cold calls end up in voicemails. [10:16]
• Alex talks about preparing to make a call. [11:11]
• Paul is a CEO of a firm with a very small group engineers who must sell but has no interest in selling. [17:41]
• Bill and Alex talk about the importance of starting with the easy calls that makes you feel good. [20:11]
• A big obstacle for leaders is that young employees don’t want to make phone calls. [22:06]
• One big mistake leaders do is they simply assume that young people are just not interested in it  which is why they don’t put a lot of effort in teaching them how to be good at calling, however, the result is the exact opposite. [22:57]
• Being in the sales world himself, Alex has full understanding that sales people are very busy, which is why his course is direct, not time consuming yet efficient. [23:39]
• Jake is an example of an excellent leader. He does not limit his teaching to words, but actually shows his team how to make excellent phone calls by showing them himself. [24:54]
• A great phrase by one of Alex’s clients, a COO- “Weaponize the phone.” [25:56]
• My Quest for the Best Lightning Round begins. [24”42]

Alex is the CEO of the Evangelist Marketing Institute and works with leaders of small and midsized businesses to improve sales measurably, even if you are in a “mature” industry such as distribution and manufacturing.

Client revenues range between $20 million and $2 billion and are almost always multi-generational family businesses. His client list includes companies such as Cisco, Logitech, Lenovo, T-Mobile, Activar, Milwaukee Valve, Columbia Pipe and WinSupply.

Alex is the author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller Selling Boldly as well as The Revenue Growth Habit (selected as the sales book of the year by 800-CEO-Read) and Evangelist Marketing. He lives in the Chicago area with his wife and 10-year-old twins.

Below are key people, places, books, quotes, websites, and other resources that we discussed so you can explore further.

Bill Ringle and Paul White discuss how to identify and cultivate a vibrant workplace, one where employees are challenged to grow, appreciated for the specific contributions they make, and valued for who they are by their colleagues and other stakeholders for small business leaders.

>>> Visit MyQuestforTheBest.com for complete show notes and more expert advice and inspiring stories to propel your small business growth. My Quest for the Best is a top-rated small business podcast with over 300 episodes of thought-provoking and insightful interviews with today’s top thought leaders and business experts. Host Bill Ringle’s mission with this show is to provide the strategies, insights, and resources that will unlock the growth potential of your business through these powerful conversations.

• To create a vibrant workplace, leaders must highlight and understand the people’s side of things.
• Appreciation should go beyond pretty, flattering words we string together to make our employees feel happy. Still, it should be time, respect, and something that helps us maintain an effective, productive, and vibrant workplace.
• Communicating appreciation is not exclusive to managers but a must-do practice by the whole team.

• “He who walks with the wise will become wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm,” is a quote from the old testament, inspires Dr. Paul White.[01:33]
• A discussion about the shifting and challenges of work dynamics exiting COVID. [02:21]
• Aiming for a vibrant workplace. [03:38]
• The challenges of creating a vibrant workplace. [05:05]
• Paul does not believe that the primary goal of appreciation is to make people feel good or happy. [07:31]
• Another misconception of appreciation is that it’s simply words we tell people. [09:50]
• Research shows that 79% of people who voluntarily left their jobs cited a lack of appreciation as the primary reason for leaving. :[14:08]
• Why communicating appreciation is not the sole responsibility of managers but the whole team. [16:01]
• Response to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook. [19:33]
• Two great ways to stay connected on remote work: Be proactive in reaching out, and people’s connectivity should not be limited to their supervisor. [20:22]
• The relation of having a high level of being valued and appreciated to a company’s profitability. [25:41]
• My Quest for the Best Lightning Round begins [29:40]

Dr. Paul White is an author, speaker and psychologist, who helps “make work relationships work.”

He is the coauthor of The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace with Dr. Gary Chapman and his book, The Vibrant Workplace, had been released in April 2017.

He created and developed The Motivating By Appreciation Inventory, Appreciation at Work Implementation Kit, and The Toxic Workplace Prevention & Repair Kit that helped many workplaces to become an environment full with positivism and grow towards health.

He also co-authored various titles such as Rising Above a Toxic Workplace and “Sync or Swim” with Dr. Chapman & Harold Myra.

Dr. White is called upon as an expert resource by U.S. News & World Report (online), BusinessWeek, Entrepreneur.com, FastCompany, Fortune/CNN.com , FoxBusiness.com, Huffington Post LIVE, Chicago Tribune, and BizJournals.

• Primary Website 
• Travels from: Wichita, KS
• Connect on LinkedIn | Twitter  

Below are key people, places, books, quotes, websites and other resources that we discussed so you can explore further.

• Tim Cook – CEO of Apple
• The Appreciation At Work blog
• Ep231: Become Fluent in the 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace with Dr. Paul White
• Ep236: The causes of and cures for a toxic workplace with guest expert Dr. Paul White

Bill Ringle and Rob Cross discuss how everyone can avoid the obvious ways that overwhelm creeps into our work life, but high performers recognize and embrace the small moves to avoid them at every level of small business leadership.

>>> Visit MyQuestforTheBest.com for complete show notes and more expert advice and inspiring stories to propel your small business growth. My Quest for the Best is a top-rated small business podcast with over 300 episodes of thought-provoking and insightful interviews with today’s top thought leaders and business experts. Host Bill Ringle’s mission with this show is to provide the strategies, insights, and resources that will unlock the growth potential of your business through these powerful conversations.

Rob Cross, the Edward A. Madden Professor of Global Leadership at Babson College, and author of Beyond Collaboration Overload: How to Work Smarter, Get Ahead, and Restore Your Well-Being. He is a renowned thinker, writer, and speaker whose category-defying ideas have influenced fields as diverse as organizational design, change, collaboration, teams, agility, innovation, and talent optimization. He is the co-founder and Research Director of the Connected Commons business consortium.
Cross has authored six Harvard Business Review articles on practical approaches to enhancing collaboration. He is the co-author of five books, including The Hidden Power of Social Networks.

Below are key people, places, books, quotes, websites, and other resources that we discussed so you can explore further.

Trevor G. Blake and Bill Ringle discuss the importance of following proven business processes, what you can learn from your network, and how a community can accelerate your success for small business leaders.

>>> Visit MyQuestforTheBest.com  for complete show notes and more expert advice and inspiring stories to propel your small business growth. My Quest for the Best is a top-rated small business podcast with over 300 episodes of thought-provoking and insightful interviews with today’s top thought leaders and business experts. Host Bill Ringle’s mission with this show is to provide the strategies, insights, and resources that will unlock the growth potential of your business through these powerful conversations.

Hear from Trevor Blake, a perpetual student of life. Author of NY Times Bestseller, Three Simple Steps, and his newest book, Secrets to a Successful Startup: A Recession-Proof Guide to Starting, Surviving & Thriving in Your Own Venture.

Trevor was the founder and CEO of QOL Medical LLC, which he started with just a few hundred dollars, and sold in 2010 for more than $100 million. He has since sold two more companies (over $300 million) and is currently at work on his 4th, 5th, and 6th.

He’s never hired a single employee or worked more than 5 hours a day. He has worked in the UK, Europe, and the USA with companies such as Lipha, 3M, and Biogen and has won many industry awards, including Pharmaceutical Manager of the Year 1990, 1991 & 1992, and UK marketing professional of the year. Trevor’s passion is physics and how we can use an understanding of the relationship between energy and matter to achieve success in any aspect of business and life. 

Below are key people, places, books, quotes, websites, and other resources that we discussed so you can explore further.

Vanessa Bohns and Bill Ringle discuss the scientific principles of how to maximize your influence at work for small business leaders.

>>> Visit MyQuestforTheBest.com for complete show notes and more expert advice and inspiring stories to propel your small business growth. My Quest for the Best is a top-rated small business podcast with over 300 episodes of thought-provoking and insightful interviews with today’s top thought leaders and business experts. Host Bill Ringle’s mission with this show is to provide the strategies, insights, and resources that will unlock the growth potential of your business through these powerful conversations.

Vanessa Bohns is a social psychologist and professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University holds a Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia University and an AB from Brown University.

She is the author of You Have More Influence Than You Think: How We Underestimate our Power of Persuasion, and Why it Matters.

Her writing has appeared in the New York Times and Harvard Business Review, and her research has been featured by the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and NPR’s Hidden Brain.

Below are key people, places, books, quotes, websites and other resources that we discussed so you can explore further.