What does success mean to you? Being a recovering perfectionist and a serial accomplisher, Amber Fuhriman defines true success as being able to make an impact, create experiences and provide transformation for others, while staying true to living life on your terms. It’s about intentionally creating it every day.

Amber is an attorney, a success strategist, a speaker, podcast host, a mindset motivator, and a master practitioner of neuro-linguistic programming or NLP.

Today, she talks about the value of having real conversations, the importance of being selfish before you can be selfless, and finally, the power of intentionally defining your success each day.

Here are some power takeaways from today’s conversation:

Episode Highlights:

Valuing Conversations and Building Relationships

There is no greater sign of trust than somebody can give you their audience. If you're doing podcast interviews, somebody is sharing their space with you and they're sharing their audience with you. They're trusting you with the know, like, and trust factor that they've built up with their audience through time. And if you don't see that as a huge sign of the faith they have in you, then you absolutely should. Because any podcast host who values their audience is the gatekeeper between the information that their audience gets.

Putting Yourself First

You have to be selfish before you can be selfless. You have to be selfish with your time and your resources, before you can choose who to give that time and resource to. Because if you're not selfish, and you just say yes to everything around you, then you don't have anything to give to the people who need it and you don't have anything to give to yourself.

When you say yes to something, you are saying no to an infinite amount of other things. So we go through our life saying we don't want to say no. But by saying yes, we're saying no to all of these other opportunities.

What True Success Really Means

The definition of success for people changes throughout their lives. What was a success to you previously doesn't have to be successful to you tomorrow. Yet, we hold on to that. And we don't give ourselves permission to change because we worked so hard to get somewhere. And so then we just keep ramming our head against this concrete wall thinking it’s supposed to make us happy. And it doesn’t end up well.

Success is broken down into micro definitions. If you can define success for yourself every single day, then that big definition of success is always going to fall in alignment with where you're at no matter what your job is, what your relationship status is, or where you live. If every single day is a success, and you're intentionally defining that every single day, then the rest falls into place.

Resources Mentioned:

https://www.roryvaden.com/procrastinate-on-purpose

 Brian Beers is an entrepreneur, real estate investor, and business coach who is focused on massively scaling his businesses, income, and contribution. Brain is also the host of Business with Beers podcast, a weekly podcast with business owners and investors who share their wisdom.

As an entrepreneur, Brian joined his family's automotive repair business, Midas. Today, he shares some business strategies that have helped them scale their business from what was once a struggling mom and pop shop to now a company with 20 locations that still continues to grow.

Here are some power takeaways from today’s conversation:

Episode Highlights:

The Visionary vs. The Integrators

There are two major components to running any successful business or making a business successful – the visionary and the integrator.

The visionary is the person with all the ideas, the dreams, the culture aspect. It's the person most likely to suffer from the shiny object syndrome, who always wants to chase the next big idea and get bored very quickly.

The integrator is the one who implements the visionary's ideas. They want to make everything efficient and make sure it all works. They want to hold not just their people accountable but themselves. They're based on results and driven by the results.

Midas’ Business Growth Strategies

Brian says they look at creating those relationships. People buy from people they like. and trust So make it a point to be well-known and well-liked in terms of helping others. The more you give, the more you get back.

Next, they look at valuations. A lot of small businesses trade at somewhere around two and a half times the current owner's cash flow. For instance, if the cash flowing to the owneris $100,000 a year,  then $250,000 is roughly what it would be worth. Other things they look at are capital investments, historical performance, as well as their cash-on-cash returns.

Ways to Finance

The Benefits of Seller Financing

Resources Mentioned:

www.beerspodcast.com

To connect with Brian, find him on Instagram @businesswithbeers or email [email protected]

Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman and Mark Winters

Habib Salo is the CEO of Young Nails, a nail care business that grew with the help of VaynerMedia and every portion of it from being stagnant at $10 million. Habib’s mom started a cosmetics company back in 1992. She had a passion for the nail industry and they did everything in their power to support her. It was a family business after all.  Greg, the older brother, became a licensed nail technician after switching gears from firefighters' training. Habib, on the other hand,  jumped in a few years later, taking a detour from medical school and a life in music.

Today, 24 years later, Young Nails Inc. is more than a professional nail care manufacturing company exporting to over 40 countries worldwide and distributing domestically to over 3,000 stores.

Here are some power takeaways from today’s conversation:

Episode Highlights:

Operating on 25% Fear and 75% Challenge

Habib says he doesn’t operate totally out of fear. It’s 25% it's fear and 75% of taking the challenge of how he could get to the next level. Because when you reach $10-million revenue, that’s almost like a ceiling that’s hard to crack. For them, it’s not the money and having to want more. But it’s about not taking things for granted because things can change in just a couple of seconds.

As they were still starting out their company, they found themselves in deep debt. Habib says that in order to get yourself out of this rut, you have to figure out how to manage your debt. Have a realistic timeline. Then also figure out a way to bring money in each week.

Breaking the Glass Ceiling

When they got debt-free, they connected with VaynerMedia. They had already hit $10 million in revenue and couldn't get past. And so, Habib’s company joined the VaynerMentors Program run by The Sasha Group, a VaynerMedia company. They work with small businesses as a mentor to help you double or triple the size of your company. It's nothing like traditional consulting. They really get into your business, understand your business, and put a plan together to put hyper-growth behind your organization.

Habib says they didn't see results in the first year. But they saw the change happening within their company. For instance, their model of business traditionally has been distribution. But with Vayner, part of the strategy was for them to go direct and build out their own eCommerce business. They also had to elevate their brand to the consumer.

And so, while distribution was going down, eCommerce was going up. Because of this, they didn't see a change in revenue initially and even their profits went down. And it wasn't until the second year that things really took off. And even now in 2021, things are skyrocketing for them. Now 80% is eCommerce, and 20% is distribution. This has been a complete flip from what they've done previously.

How to Differentiate Yourself in a Saturated Market

This is where content is vital. You have to pump out content consistently on all platforms. They put out 60-70 pieces a day on all platforms. And relevance is key. They're not selling their product.  The core of their content is teaching people how to be successful and how to do nails successfully. Then add in some entertainment for some good laughs.

Resources Mentioned:

VaynerMedia

www.youngnails.com

Arn Cenedella is the Founder of Spark Investment Group that helps individuals invest passively in real estate to create additional income streams while freeing up your time to pursue your passions.

He has been investing in real estate for over 40 years and has created a rental portfolio that provides solid monthly cash flow income and capital appreciation. Arn has personally managed his rental portfolio and is now transitioning towards passive investing and larger multifamily properties.

Here are some power takeaways from today’s conversation:

Episode Highlights:

How to Get Past the Fear of Investing

Real estate brokerage is not rocket science. After a couple of years, you figure out how it works whether that's through hands-on experience or counseling. As a broker and an agent, and you're working and learning along the way, you eventually get past the fear of what could potentially happen, which is something that holds a lot of us back when it comes to investing.

Always have a lot of forward motion. You learn by doing, and so, you're going to learn some lessons along the way, you're going to take some bumps and bruises. But as long as they're at the scale where you live to fight another day, then it's all part of your evolution.

Investing Ideas

It's often more an appreciation game than a cash flow game. Look at whether the property makes sense today. Look for reasonable, rational reasons for optimism about the future, knowing you don't know what the future is going to throw at you. But if it makes sense today, then the property will support itself.

You can’t go as big as soon as you can because there’s a sequence to things. And when you get out of sequence, that's where you get in danger. If you just plug along, gain experience, go bigger and bigger, then you're in a little safer position. So it’s safer to scale slowly.

You need people to help you along the way, and the way to build teams is to treat people nicely. Treat people with respect, no matter what position they hold. In the residential real estate business, you got contractors, landscapers, insurance people – there's a whole series of people you need to rely on. And so, if you can start creating that key team of people you trust, you can then offload and delegate a lot of the responsibilities.

Understanding Cycles and Real Estate Trends

Life, economy, real estate – it all has cycles. And the only predictable thing is that there is going to change. Therefore, understand that you just can't have a constant up. There has to be a retrenchment and then maybe a little bit of a plateau. The new bottom is reestablished at that point from when growth has occurred.

Generally, there's an upward trajectory. In real estate, the amount of ground is finite. The population keeps growing. But in 10 years, that could be different too. If you take the long-term perspective, this momentary up and down doesn't seem as life-threatening, or you don't get too high when it's going good either.

There are always fears associated with being an entrepreneur. And it’s how you’re able to plow through those that you’re able to ultimately achieve success. In today’s episode, Amanda Rabideau talks about overcoming fears and leaning into the power of your mindset.

Amanda Rabideau is the Founder & CEO Arch Collective, that works with post-series A companies by handling all marketing strategy and execution so that their $2 million startup can look and perform like a $222-million company.

Here are some power takeaways from today’s conversation:

Episode Highlights:

What is Series A?

Series A is a round of funding that startup companies would raise through venture capital. Prior to series A is something like friends and family or an angel round fund or seed round of funding.

When you think of Series A, think of it as the point where your product-market fit has been validated. You've got some clients and people are using your product or your service, or solution. And so, you're now ready to take your business to the next level.

Why Arch Collective is Targeting Post-Series A Companies

When series A has been closed, there's an expectation of about tripling your revenue at that point over the next year. And startup companies going into series A rarely have a strategic marketer in place and they may not have any marketing in place. They may have been outsourcing from agencies.

In order for the business to triple their revenue, they need to be more strategic when it comes to marketing.

The challenge is they often don't have the funding to bring in not only a senior-level strategist, like a CMO or a VP level but also to bring in the team to execute on the strategy that that person would provide. And so, Arch Collective provides the solution to that.

The Power of the Mind

Many entrepreneurs have this itch they want to scratch. However, they have all these fears that hold them back. There’s that fear of failure. Are you going to make money? Or what if you lose your house? There’s also that fear of success – what if it does work out? Now, these things don't really ever go away. But you just have to plow through because it's better than the alternative, which is not doing it.

Also, sometimes people subconsciously put out into the universe all their worries associated with their success. What if you can't take any more clients? And this prevents new clients from coming because you're putting out the energy that you don't want to take anymore. Therefore, it's important to clear the things preventing you from getting new clients. It's amazing what our minds, our energy and what we can do.

Resources Mentioned:

Arch Collective

John Ruhlin is a speaker, author, and advisor. He is the author of Giftology: The Art and Science of Using Gifts to Cut Through the Noise, Increase Referrals, and Strengthen Retention. Today, he speaks about the concept of gifts and how there is a right and wrong way to give.

Here are some power takeaways from today’s conversation:

Episode Highlights:

Building Human Connection Through Giftology

What most people forget whether they're a sales rep or  a million-dollar business, or a billion-dollar company, is every business rises and falls on relationships. Whether that’s relationships with clients, mentors, advisors, employees, and prospects, most people, however, are terrible at showing gratitude to even their spouse, let alone their top 100 clients or their top 500 employees or whatever.

At the end of the day, nobody cares about gifts, but the results in the referrals and how you show up for people matter. The gifts are the delivery vehicle for this emotional connection. It's actually not about the thing that you've given, but it's the meaning, the story, the thoughtfulness.

When you're more thoughtful and more creative with how you love on people, you can spend 1/10 the amount of money and get 100 times more impact.

The problem with many people, however, is they're trying to buy their way with sponsorships and advertising, as well as Facebook ads and cool sexy events and models. But you need to understand the psychology of how to influence people and how to do it either in a thoughtful way with no strings attached.

Most people give then they ask and ruin it. They actually damage relationships because they're not giving a gift but they’re trying to manipulate. You need to show up for people and then show up again and then show up again. Then maybe after doing this for a year or two or three to people you already have a relationship with, you earn the right to ask for a referral. And so, don’t give a gift and ask for a referral otherwise you would only turn that relationship into a transactional deal.

The Return on Relationships

When you show up for your wife, your husband, your client, or your employee, it’s because you want to, and not because you had to – and all that changes everything.

There’s no other part of your business where you can get a better return on investment than a return on relationship. But many times, people don't understand this return on relationship. You should be inspiring all of your clients to be sales reps for you. And if you do that well, you get referrals without asking. It's not about the gift. It's about the results on the back end of loving people well.

Why Start With Your Warm Market

Start with the warm market because when you do, you're already taking that small fire that's already burning. Now, imagine drowning a bunch of wood with gas and there's no fire. And so, you just wasted all your resources. If you want to get somebody to be in your corner, start with a relationship first and then pour gasoline on fire that's already warm and burning.

Pat Quinn is a consultant and a keynote speaker. He has stood on the biggest stages and conferences and spoken to some of the largest audiences all around the globe. Pat started as a professional magician and worked magic for 10 years professionally until he decided to teach math in high school for 10 years. Speaking and changing lives, Pat is now teaching as head coach for Advance Your Reach in the last five years.

Here are some power takeaways from today’s conversation:

Episode Highlights:

The 2 Words Most Misunderstood: Speaker and Stage

The two words that are most misunderstood are probably speaker and stage. Everybody who owns a business – or who works for a nonprofit or has a cause or a message that they believe in – speaks about it and communicates about it. And you're either doing it intentionally well or you're doing it accidentally very poorly.

A lot of people are also scared of speaking on a stage. But you're on the stage every single day – whenever you call someone or speak to someone at Starbucks, or on your kid's soccer field talking to other parents – that's a stage.

You can accidentally stumble your way through it and get no new customers out of it. Or you can intentionally improve that communication and turn every conversation and every opportunity to talk to someone to impact the lives of someone else with your business, and with how you help people every single day.

The Common Things Entrepreneurs Struggle With

The biggest mistake that people make is they don't have clarity on the problem that they solve for people. Nobody wakes up in the morning waiting for your system, or what you do. People wake up every morning with problems. So what is the problem that you solve for people? And if you don't have clarity on that, you're not going to tell a great story. When you have clarity, all of your communication improves.

The second mistake that people make is that they explain that problem or what they do in expert language. They start to change our language when we become really smart on one topic and use different words. Instead, you should spend less time trying to get the person you're talking to to understand you, and more time making sure the person knows that you understand them. That is speaking their language.

What Makes Great Stories

Rule #1:  Great stories are ordinary.

Rule #2:  Great stories are short. They should never take longer than two and a half minutes to tell.

3 Parts of Best Stories

Shownotes:

This episode was recorded at an exclusive event called PodMAX where founders had an opportunity to share their stories and knowledge.

Special guest host Todd Giannattasio of Tresnic Media leads the conversation down a path of insights, solutions, and collaboration.

Join us for our next event at www.podmax.co

Adam Rundle is the CEO of CleverProfits, which provides outsourced CFO services and accounting services for online businesses and entrepreneurs. Today, he talks about the power of business partnership, how it’s also critical to find the right partner to grow your business, and the importance of determining your financial viability.

Episode Highlights:

Taxes as a Huge Part in Running a Business

Maximizing the potential of a business is a huge part of running a business, but there's an equally huge part right next to it called taxes because it plays such a massive role in every decision you make and everything you do.

The Recipe for Success in Business Partnerships

As long as they fundamentally agree on the macro. It's actually good to disagree on the micro because that's how iron sharpens iron. That's where this tension leads to brilliance.

The financial piece of it is easy. Who earns what, the salary, the profit – all of that is easy. The hard part is, do you want to work with this person? Is there a relationship yet? Do you feel connected? Is the vision the same? Are you prepared to disagree and move forward? Take care of each other. Be open. Punch back but just go slow. You don't date someone for a week and get married. It's a process.

1. CEO - visionary leadership, the one driving the ship, and making sure it gets to where it should get to

2. COO (Chief Operating Officer) - making sure that the vision can actually tangibly get done; in charge of the people resources, processes, systems structures, etc.

3. CFO (Chief Financial Officer) - makes sure that the business is financially viable. It has the ability to survive long term, so it can function long term, and that there is money in the system to do the things that need to happen, whether it's paying employees or paying the owners or growing, scaling, whatever it is.

By clearly defining those functions, you gain more clarity in your business which then translates to clarity in your numbers.

A CFO is concerned about the financial viability of the business. Is that financially viable? Is that something that is just a moonshot? Is it not going to work or is it going to work only one time? Every business needs that interpretation. You need either yourself or someone to put on the financial glasses and to look at everything financially.

Accountants are good at it, because they understand numbers. They have the ability to be good at it but you want someone to interpret the vision, interpret the operations from a financial viewpoint to either validate it or give some input.

This episode was recorded at an exclusive event called PodMAX where founders had an opportunity to share their stories and knowledge.

Along with special guest co-host Josh Cary, we lead the conversation down a path of insights, solutions, and collaboration.

Join us for our next event at www.podmax.co

Steve Sims is the founder of Bluefish, the world’s first luxury concierge that delivers the highest level of personalized travel, transportation, and cutting-edge entertainment services. They work with entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and companies. Their goal is to remove the confusion you've created from the people you're trying to do business with so that it’s impossible for people to misunderstand you. Then the only thing you've got to do after that is to find the person that needs you.

Today, Steve talks about the power of podcasts as well as how it’s actually possible to rub elbows with some of the most successful people in the world like Sir Richard Branson and Elon Musk.

Here are some power takeaways from today’s conversation:

Episode Highlights:

The Power of Podcasts

People don't realize the power of podcasts. Many billions of people don't even have the ability to tune in yet. And if you have a product, a service, a voice, or a message, the best medium on the planet. Not Forbes, not the Wall Street Journal, not the New York Times of which I have been front page on all of those. It's getting on someone's podcast. Again, the person to hear your message in your voice in your passion. podcasts are the best medium, there isn't a moment. And they've already just started.

What’s Your Point?

When you get on the podcast, you need to get to the point. No one cares how much money you made. They care about how you can pass that information over to help them become more powerful, impactful, affluent, whatever the point is. So you have to always think about what's the point for the listener listening to you.

The Value of Showing Up

If you want to accomplish something in our world, you have to effectively position yourself alongside successful people. You've got to show up.

However, today, there are lots of conversations going on. And rather than having them, we avoid those for fear of looking stupid. So we don't converse and we make up these brands showing who we are supposed to be. But all we're doing is confusing the end-user looking at us. Branding today is a myth. Because what really branding means is what people say about you when you've left the room.

Mitchell Beinhaker is a lawyer, entrepreneur, and advisor. He loves helping companies translate their

business goals into reality. He's also the host of The Accidental Entrepreneur. Mitchell started businesses

in middle school and high school where he had a car detailing company and practically had been in

multiple businesses since then. Mitchell has also been practicing law for the better part of 30 years. He

works with a lot of business owner startups and family-owned, multi-generational businesses, helping

them out in areas related to governance, structure, and estate planning.

● Mitchell’s entrepreneurial journey

● Habits you need to develop to increase your chances of success as an entrepreneur

● Operating agreement vs. buy-sell agreement

● Why getting divorced is one of the worst things you can ever do for your business

● What you need to get life insurance for your business

● How to keep a healthy, positive mindset

The One Habit You Need to Develop as an Entrepreneur

You can increase your chances of success if you just made it part of your practice to put things in writing.

Whether that’s an agreement between your partner, customer agreements, with vendors, and your

lease. Where people also get in trouble most of the time is not having any business plan. And that as

soon as they shift to another business, they fail. They're not really entrepreneurs because they didn't

have business skills, to begin with. They don't have anything planned in terms of capital, financial

forecasts, marketing, and all that stuff. So these people will do it by accident. There are also a few

reasons entrepreneurs develop these bad habits over time – either they're lazy or they're scared of

dealing with these things.

buy-sell agreement addresses things like death, disability, retirement, and involuntary termination like

when someone is suing you, or you're getting divorced.

In most states, if you get divorced, your spouse is entitled to a percentage in the business. So you want

to make sure your spouse signs a waiver where they’re not allowed to have shared, but you might have

to pay the value. And this is why getting divorced is one of the worst things you can ever do for your

business. Another common mistake people make is when they fail to fund the agreement. Therefore,

getting life insurance for your business is important.