The Pivotal Leader

"Culture isn't just put some core values on the wall and call it a day. It has to be infused in absolutely everything you do." – Felena Hanson

In this episode of The Pivotal Leader, Gina Trimarco interviewed Felena Hanson, a long-time entrepreneur and marketing maven. Her latest venture, Hera Hub, is a spa-inspired shared workspace and business accelerator for female entrepreneurs. This as-needed, flexible work and meeting space provides a productive environment for growing businesses. Hera Hub members have access to a professional space to meet with clients and to connect and collaborate with like-minded business owners, thus giving them the support they need to be prosperous.

She has three company owned locations in San Diego and licensed locations in Phoenix, DC, and Sweden, with more cities launching soon. She's on a mission to support over 20,000 women in the launch and growth of their businesses by 2020.

Felena and Hera Hub have been featured in Inc Magazine, the BBC News, Forbes, and the New York Times. She also is the author of "Flight Club – Rebel, Reinvent, and Thrive: How to Launch Your Dream Business".

Podcast Topics Include:

• Fast growth of the entrepreneurial businesses, especially women-owned businesses
• How Hera Hub, Hera Angels & Hera Labs was started and funded
• The difference between angel investors and venture capitalists and the growth of female angels
• Commercial real estate challenges; negotiating leases as a new business concept
• Licensing vs franchising and culture adaptation with licensed locations
• Figuring out formulas to make a business profitable

Full show notes: http://pivot10results.com/podcast47_felena-hanson

"Culture is up to us. We need to be the thermostat for culture. Not just a thermometer." – Rick Coplin, Former VP, Rev1

Podcast Topics Include:

• Entrepreneurial drive
• The passion of sales people
• Pitching for customer and concept validation before funding
• The type of talent to look for
• When culture matters the most and how to set it
• Retrofitting a culture in trouble
• Employee empowerment
• Successful and consistent communication as a strategy

Full Show Notes: http://pivot10results.com/podcast46_rick-coplin

"If you are transparent and honest 100% of the time, you are open not just to asking questions but also open to advice and suggestions, [and] people are going to respect you more." – Russell Tuchman, CEO, BashPros

In this episode of The Pivotal Leader, Gina Trimarco interviewed Russell Tuchman, entrepreneur, world traveler, personal trainer, cinephile, adventure seeker, and Founder & CEO of BashPros.

As co-founder of his first startup, Buddytruk, Russell oversaw various aspects of the company including operations, fundraising, sales, insurance, HR, and business development. He left Buddytruk in order to start up BashPros, after recognizing an opportunity to aggregate the event industry. The goal of the BashPros platform is to make events more accessible, affordable, transparent, and streamlined for the masses and helps people find the perfect event professionals for their needs.

Podcast Topics Include:

• Helping clients have and create unique experiences
• Building a double-sided market place
• Managing Type A personalities
• Family member leadership role models
• Setting standards for yourself and others to follow
• Balancing work and personal in relationships
• Being a transparent leader
• Being a no-ego business to do what's best for the business
• Leadership advice for startups

Full show notes at: http://pivot10results.com/podcast45_russell-tuchman

"You can't pull together a team without putting a priority on understanding what everyone's background and culture is." – Peter Gasca

In this episode of The Pivotal Leader, Gina Trimarco interviewed Peter Gasca in person in the studio, where they bantered about being an entrepreneur, adapting to cultures, the differences between Gen X and Gen Y and so much more.

Peter Gasca is an experienced business executive and entrepreneur, with a background in multiple business disciplines across several industries. He is a management consultant, coach, speaker, business writer, startup advisor/mentor, co-author of One Million Frogs and a regular contributor to Entrepreneur.com and Inc.com

Peter also works with Coastal Carolina University as the Director of the Community and Business Engagement (CoBE) Institute, a student-led management consulting organization with a focus of pairing high achieving students in real world business projects. He also serves as an Assistant Professor.

Podcast Topics Include:

• Working in Russia as an American
• Establishing credibility when you don't know company AND country cultures
• The importance of knowing how talk, listen, empathize and pivot
• Leveraging your personal strengths
• Acceptance vs Agreement (and other improv philosophies)
• Social media story filtering and information disparity
• Income inequality
• "Niche is the new big" in business and the marketing behind niche businesses
• How to be a successful start-up
• Why traction is more important than ideas
• Differentiating yourself and your business
• Trends in employee retention and how to let go of star performers
• Why Millennials ("The Choice Generation") jump jobs
• References to Justin Irizarry (OrthoNow), Charlie Fusco, (Brains, Boobs & Balls), Paul Singh (500 Startups)

Full Show Notes at: http://pivot10results.com/podcast44_petergasca

"Outward success is an inside job." – Bobby Albert

In this episode of The Pivotal Leader, Gina Trimarco interviewed Bobby Albert, CEO of Values-Driven Leadership LLC, an Institute focused upon teaching others the growth enabling potential of building foundational values into company culture. These values affect how employees treat one another and how they serve the company's customers. When the right values are in place, employees become empowered to make decisions they believe in and that allows leaders to gain the leverage they need to grow revenue and profit.

Bobby, a Wichita Falls, Texas native, took over the family moving business when his father died unexpectedly. He transformed his father's five-person business into a fast growth company, eventually employing 150 people before The Albert Group of Companies was approached by a strategic acquirer. Rather than simply accept their first acquisition offer, Bobby patiently negotiated the offer up by more than 100% before he agreed to a deal.

Podcast Topics Include:

• Creating a "people first" culture based on respect
• How to build a culture
• Why culture is like the wind
• Delighting versus Satisfying the customer
• The Triple E philosophy (Experience that Exceeds Expectations)
• Having a participative leadership style
• Core values that everyone can authentically live by (versus aspire to live by)
• Being a values-driven organization instead of results-driven
• Ways to get buy-in for core values and fostering culture

Full Show Notes: http://pivot10results.com/podcast43_bobbyalbert

"If they're just not the right fit for you, it's toxic to your company and it's toxic to your growth. As hard as it is to walk away from a revenue stream, it has to be done." – Karla Jobling, COO, BeecherMadden

In this episode of The Pivotal Leader, Gina Trimarco interviewed Karla Jobling, COO and Owner of BeecherMadden, a recruitment firm with offices in London and New York. Their expertise is in the attraction of senior global talent and subject matter experts, with a specialty in technology solutions. Company culture has been very important to the growth of the business and keeping that culture through the past 5 years, has not always been easy for them. Karla notes that they can tie periods of poor performance back to a shift in the company culture. They have also had to balance keeping people who are toxic to the culture, when they are high performers.

Podcast Topics Include:

• Managing cultures in different parts of the world, including employees and clients
• The first few months of onboarding new employees
• Managing without micromanaging
• Having a "family" company culture
• The core value of honesty
• The secret sauce to attracting the right talent: asking questions that align with your company core values; "Have you ever told a lie?" as an interview question
• Managing top performers as well as underperformers who don't fit the culture
• Eliminating toxic people
• The U.S. "Hire or Fire" Culture vs the U.K.'s mandate of giving employees one to three months to improve before termination
• Meritocracy
• Getting business by being confident enough to ask for it
• Being open minded about potential job candidates that might not fit your "profile"

Full Show Notes: http://pivot10results.com/podcast42_karlajobling

In this episode of The Pivotal Leader Gina Trimarco interviewed Alex Moen, San Diego California native and lifelong entrepreneur. Alex has had multiple Fortune100 corporate partners in his career, gone from zero to 30 employees in less than 3 months, and has run businesses with home offices in multiple states AND countries. The companies being both online and offline in nature. Currently he is running two subscription box, automated online businesses, which include MatchMadeCoffee.com and TheLoadedVault.com (men's fashion accessories).

Podcast Topics Include:

• Being a serial start up business entrepreneur
• The Subscription Box business model and industry
• Finding employees with the "right" attitudes versus the "right" resumes
• How to avoid a mass employee exodus during fast growth
• Employee handbooks with core values that don't match reality
• The Half Ass, Quarter Ass Theory
• Getting to know your employees personally while separating personal from business
• Choosing natural and organic growth over fast growth
• The three types of mentors that every leader needs
• Best conference for CEOs to attend for networking: CEO Space

Full Show Notes: http://pivot10results.com/podcast41_amoen

"When you think of the CEO's job, if you have very talented people around you, hopefully should make yourself irrelevant 99% of the time because all the day-to-day stuff is being handled by people who are better at their jobs than you are." – Jonathan Frankel, CEO, Nucleus

In this episode of The Pivotal Leader, Gina Trimarco interviewed Jonathan Frankel, Founder and CEO of Nucleus – a startup on a mission to fundamentally redefine the home intercom system and help people stay closer to loved ones.

One of the coolest things about Jonathan is hearing his story about having an idea to make life better for families and with no real knowledge of technology, hardware, manufacturing and managing people, he had enough desire and passion to find the right team members and venture capital to innovate a new product!

Nucleus is a home intercom device that launched in August 2016 to transform the way families communicate in and away from the home. Its lightweight intercom can be mounted or propped anywhere in the home (or between homes) to create instant points of audio and HD video communication between rooms, homes, or mobile-to-home with its smartphone app.

Within one day of its launch, Nucleus sold out completely. And in one month, Nucleus hit sales in 50 states – major traction for mainstream adoption of smart home technology.

Podcast Topics Include:

• How to be the antithesis of the typical tech start up
• Building a company based on the core values of being family friendly, kind, nice, easy going and respectful
• How to find talent: let them find you
• Starting a business from an idea, raising capital and producing a product that sells out on the first day
• Raising capital through traction and connection
• What to do when you're not a natural connector
• The theory of "lines, not dots" in the VC world
• Managing fast growth = Managing cash flow
• Leadership based on logic and rational thinking
• CEO responsibilities

Full Show Notes: http://pivot10results.com/podcast40_jfrankel

In this episode of The Pivotal Leader, Gina Trimarco interviewed Trevor Longino, an American marketer with 20 years of experience in the industry, focused mostly on strategic, digital and event marketing, and he has been a consultant at Disney's Yellowshoes Interactive, Universal Studios, Stratosphere Casino, Cox Communications, CD Projekt, and many more companies. He has taken 4 different startups from newly launched to #1 in their industries.

Podcast Topics Include:

• Having an open and honest culture
• When leaders "screw up" - Making and learning from mistakes (and how companies give lip service to this)
• Being a leader vs a manager
• "Why" starts with leaders and employees fill in the "how"
• The difference in between Gen X & Gen Y in problem solving
• The leadership approaches of Steve Jobs, Elon Musk & Google
• Understanding personalities and having emotional intelligence
• Getting extraordinary talent at less cost
• Explaining your leadership style and sharing expectations when hiring team members
• Balancing your craft/expertise with being a leader

Full Show Notes at http://pivot10results.com/podcast39_trevorlongino

- Phillip B. Wilson

In this episode of The Pivotal Leader, Gina Trimarco interviewed Phillip B. Wilson, Founder and Chief Evangelist of Approachable Leadership, a leadership consulting firm. For over two decades as a labor expert, Phil has helped thousands of companies survive – and triumph over – life-or-death employee relations disasters. Over and over, he's been an eyewitness to leadership train wrecks. Over years of watching what doesn't work (including a lot of traditional leadership advice) he's stumbled upon what he calls "the One Ring of leadership," approachability. Yeah, he's also a self-proclaimed nerd. Like all business owners, Phil is a leader too. He is an Entrepreneur's Organization board member and owner of an Inc. 5000 consulting business. Before that, he was a labor lawyer and HR Director of a riverboat casino (really!) – he has struggled through the same leadership challenges each of us face every day.

Podcast Topics Include:

• Going from broken to positive leadership
• The employment relationship – a different kind of marriage
• Leveraging leadership to turn things around
• The "one ring" of leadership philosophy
• Understanding leadership styles
• Focusing on connection and approachability
• The 3 most important questions a leader should ask
• "Power Distance" – a leadership failure
• The "Stop, Listen & Confirm" approach
• Strategies for leadership training consultants

Full Show Notes: http://pivot10results.com/podcast38_philwilson