Thrive Radio ™

When someone asks ChatGPT to recommend a business like yours, does your company enter the conversation?

In this episode of Thrive Radio, I talk with Kevin Armstrong, a former product leader at Amazon and SpaceX and founder of Armstrong HoldCo, about AI search visibility and the realities of building a business from scratch.

Kevin explains why showing up in traditional search doesn't automatically mean an AI assistant will mention your business. We discuss third-party sources, the role of website audits, and how business owners can start investigating their visibility across AI platforms.

We also get into the lessons behind his own business: leaving the corporate customer pipeline behind, building an app that didn't attract users beyond friends and family, and learning why engagement on LinkedIn wasn't translating into bookings for his coaching service. Throughout the conversation, we return to the value of customer conversations, clearer messaging, and the willingness to keep learning.

If you're trying to make sense of AI search while finding a more effective way to reach your customers, this conversation offers a grounded place to start.

What You'll Learn

Why traditional search visibility and AI recommendations can differ.

How third-party sources can influence what an AI assistant surfaces.

What an AI visibility audit can help you investigate.

Why a corporate growth playbook can leave a new founder unprepared for finding customers.

What Kevin learned from building an app that people didn't use.

How candid support conversations can reveal customer needs and build trust.

Why attention and engagement need to be connected to meaningful business outcomes.

How to use feedback and your own voice to refine your message.

Business growth starts with knowing who will buy what you’re building. In this episode of Thrive Radio, Brian Esposito makes the case for finding customers and developing useful business relationships before treating more capital as the answer.

I sit down with Brian, founder and CEO of Esposito Intellectual Enterprises and CEO of Diamond Lake Minerals, to explore the experiences behind that perspective. From working in his father’s warehouse as a child to building businesses across industries, he shares what he has learned about creating value, choosing collaborators, and knowing when to say no.

We talk about why the timing of an introduction matters, how staying close to customers informs product and pricing decisions, and what Brian learned from PAYBAQ, an early financial technology venture he ultimately shut down. We also discuss using AI to support people at work and the difference between feeling motivated and having the tools and relationships to act.

If you’re pursuing growth but feel pulled toward more funding, more visibility, or the next big opportunity, this conversation will help you examine what your business needs to move forward.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Why Brian starts with product quality and customer demand when discussing growth.

How to think about winning a first customer before seeking more capital.

Why a valuable introduction needs the right timing and compatible people.

How empathy and integrity influence Brian’s choice of collaborators.

Why leaders need to stay connected to customers’ everyday realities.

How Brian works backward from a likely selling price when considering a product.

What his PAYBAQ experience taught him about relationships and regulatory complexity.

How he approaches AI as a tool to support employees.

Why asking for help can open a conversation worth having.

Explore Brian’s work: Esposito Intellectual Enterprises https://eie.rocks/

and Diamond Lake https://diamondlake.com/.

Find more Thrive Radio episodes and learn about A Call To Thrive visit https://acalltothrive.com

Scaling a local business changes what the founder needs to do every day. For Shirley Braune, turning a flower truck into a franchise meant redesigning the truck, developing operations and training, and learning to let someone else run the daily business.

In this episode of Thrive Radio, I sit down with Shirley, founder of The Flower Truck Franchise, to talk about the journey from banking and corporate burnout back to a business built around flowers and community. She shares how a vintage truck became a new chapter, how she rebuilt after a transport accident, and what she learned while serving customers during the pandemic.

We explore the difference between an appealing concept and the work of owning a business, why a franchise needs systems that others can follow, and what made releasing control so difficult. We also talk about the pressure of pursuing early customers and how Shirley reconnected with the reason she wanted to build the business in the first place.

If you’re growing a business, considering a second career, or wondering how your idea could work beyond your own daily involvement, this conversation offers an honest look at the transition.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

How Shirley returned to her floral background after leaving corporate work.

What rebuilding a damaged truck taught her about finding another way forward.

How a mobile flower business connected with customers during disruption.

Why the original vintage truck needed to change for the franchise concept.

How sourcing, operating processes, and training support another owner.

Why enjoying flowers is only one part of running a flower truck business.

What made giving up control of daily operations difficult for Shirley.

How reconnecting with purpose changed the way she thought about growth.

For more Thrive Radio episodes and information about A Call To Thrive, visit acalltothrive.com.

How do you market a new product when customers haven’t seen anything quite like it? A creative idea can catch someone’s attention, but helping them understand why they would buy it is a different challenge.

In this episode of Thrive Radio, I sit down with Lisa Bastian, an award-winning journalist, longtime entrepreneur, former federal background investigator, and founder of Tropics Lifestyle Coffee. Lisa shares how she combined specialty coffee with tropical artwork and gift-ready packaging, then began learning which customers understood the idea and what made it valuable to them.

We talk about what happened when she brought her products to a coffee festival, how genuine business relationships start with listening, and why the reason customers buy may be different from the explanation a founder wants to give. Lisa also shares how she uses AI for artwork, research, and editing while keeping her own judgment and voice in the process.

If you’re building a distinctive product or trying to explain an offer people don’t immediately understand, this conversation will help you think more clearly about your customers, your message, and where to focus your effort.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

How Lisa connected her career experience and creative interests to a new coffee and gifting brand.

Why a unique product can require customer education even in a familiar market.

What customer conversations at a coffee festival revealed about potential buyers.

How a gifting use case can change the way someone understands a product’s value.

Why listening and curiosity matter before you make a sales pitch.

How to learn from the outcomes customers want rather than leading with your methodology.

How Lisa uses AI to support creative work, research, and editing without handing over her voice.

What to research before pitching a publication or gift guide.

Explore Lisa’s business: https://tropicslifestylecoffee.com/

For more Thrive Radio episodes and information about A Call To Thrive, visit https://acalltothrive.com/.

B2B sales can stall even when buyers understand the value of your solution. What keeps them from moving forward, and how can you help them make a confident decision?

In this episode of Thrive Radio, I sit down with Art Fromm, sales development and enablement expert and author of Making SEAMless Sales, to explore buyer psychology, buyer enablement, and the relationship between sales and presales.

Art explains why doing nothing can become your strongest competition, how buyers weigh value against perceived risk and total cost, and why an enthusiastic contact may still need help getting internal approval. We also discuss how account executives and sales engineers can work together to connect technical capabilities with business outcomes and create a clearer path to customer success.

I bring in a challenge I see with business owners: assuming more marketing will solve a growth problem before understanding what is actually preventing customers from buying. Sometimes the missing piece is trust, a clearer business case, or confidence that the change can be implemented successfully.

If you’re a business owner, sales leader, account executive, or presales professional, this conversation will help you look beneath the stalled sale and understand what your buyer needs next.

What You’ll Learn

How to shift from selling a solution to helping the buyer make a decision.

Why sales and presales need a shared understanding of the customer.

How to connect technical capabilities to business and personal outcomes.

Why your internal champion may need help making the case to other stakeholders.

How perceived risk and total cost influence the decision to change.

What discovery questions can reveal about frustrations, motivation, and the status quo.

Why implementation support can build confidence instead of simply adding cost.

How understanding the buying process can reveal constraints that more marketing won’t resolve.

Follow Thrive Radio for more conversations about the real problems behind business growth.

How to grow a business? Do you really need more marketing, more leads, more social media, or more traffic to grow your business? Maybe. But before you spend another dollar or another month chasing more attention, you need to know what's actually preventing your business from growing.

In this episode of Thrive Radio, I break down why business owners often jump to a solution before identifying the real problem. More marketing won't fix a weak offer, poor conversion, broken sales process, revenue leak, unclear messaging, or an operational bottleneck.

I share real examples from businesses I've worked with, including a company that increased revenue after turning off ineffective ads, a dental business that discovered it had lost millions in potential revenue because of a breakdown in its sales process, and an established business owner who didn't need to become an influencer or build a course to reach her growth goals.

I'll also walk you through the process I use to look beyond the obvious symptoms, follow the customer journey, identify what's actually holding a business back, and determine which actions have the greatest potential to move it forward.

Because growth doesn't always require doing more. Sometimes the fastest path forward is figuring out what actually matters and focusing on that.

What You'll Learn in This Podcast

-Why more marketing isn't always the answer to increasing revenue

-How to distinguish the symptom of a business problem from its actual cause

-Why you need to define exactly what “growth” means before choosing a strategy

-How to use your business data to uncover revenue leaks and overlooked opportunities

-How to follow the customer journey and identify where potential buyers are dropping off

-Why more traffic won't solve a conversion, messaging, offer, or sales-process problem

-How the right positioning and messaging can generate sales without a massive audience

-Why your strategy should fit your business model, goals, strengths, and preferences

-How focusing on too many ideas can prevent otherwise strong businesses from gaining traction

-How to prioritize the two or three actions that matter most instead of constantly adding more tactics

-Why building a sustainable customer and revenue system is better than continually chasing new -buyers

-How to identify the shortest, strongest path between where your business is today and where you want it to go

What happens when your life looks perfectly fine on the outside—but deep down, you know fine isn’t enough?

In this episode of Thrive Radio, I sit down with Lori Saitz, host of Fine is a Four Letter Word and a communication strategist who helps mid-sized companies strengthen culture and connection through internal podcasts.

After losing her mother, Lori found herself asking a life-changing question: Do I want the next 20 years to look like the last 20? That question eventually led her to leave a 30-year marriage, reinvent her life, build a new community, and rethink what meaningful connection really looks like.

We talk about why “fine” can be such a comfortable—and dangerous—place to stay, how getting quiet can help you figure out what you actually want, and what Lori has learned from more than 240 conversations with people who have reinvented their lives.

We also bring those lessons into business. Lori shares how communication shapes company culture, why employees need genuine appreciation, and how internal podcasts can help leaders build trust and connection—especially during growth, mergers, acquisitions, and leadership transitions.

And as AI makes it increasingly difficult to know what’s authentic, we explore why real human connection may become more valuable than ever.

What You’ll Learn:

* Why “fine” isn’t necessarily the same as happy or thriving

* How to recognize when it’s time to make a change in your life

* Why getting quiet can help you uncover what you actually want

* What Lori has learned about reinvention from more than 240 podcast conversations

* Why unprocessed emotions can influence your decisions, relationships, and well-being

* How gratitude can strengthen relationships and leadership

* Why communication is critical to a healthy company culture

* How internal podcasts can humanize leadership and strengthen employee connection

* Why communication becomes even more important during periods of growth and uncertainty

* How leaders can make employees feel genuinely valued without spending more money

* Why authentic human connection becomes more valuable as AI-generated content increases

Whether you’re reevaluating your own life or leading a business through change, this conversation is a reminder that you don’t have to settle for “fine.”

Have a great idea—but aren’t sure whether it can actually become a profitable business?

In this episode of Thrive Radio, I sit down with inventor, entrepreneur, author, and innovation expert Brian Fried to talk about what it really takes to move an idea from your head into the marketplace.

With 15 patents and more than 20 years of experience working with inventors and entrepreneurs, Brian shares how to evaluate an idea before investing significant time and money, research the competitive landscape, protect intellectual property, develop a prototype, and decide whether licensing or manufacturing is the right path.

We also dig into one of the most important—and often overlooked—parts of innovation: determining whether customers actually want what you’re creating. Brian explains why customer discovery and honest market feedback can save entrepreneurs from expensive mistakes, and how AI is making it easier to research, visualize, evaluate, and improve new ideas.

We also discuss how entrepreneurs can create a competitive advantage, build a brand around an initial product, and turn innovation into sustainable revenue.

What You’ll Learn

* How to determine whether an invention is worth pursuing before investing heavily in it

* The first steps to take when you think you have a million-dollar idea

* Why researching existing products and intellectual property should happen early

* How customer discovery can prevent costly product-development mistakes

* The differences between licensing an invention and manufacturing it yourself

* How to create a competitive advantage that makes your product harder to copy

* Where inventors commonly get stuck between having an idea and making money from it

* How AI can help inventors research, visualize, evaluate, and improve their ideas

* Why getting brutally honest customer feedback is more valuable than asking friends and family

* How one successful invention can become the foundation for a larger brand and business

In this episode of Thrive Radio, I sit down with Duncan Brand, executive coach, leadership consultant, founder of Intrinsic Leader, and author of Mind the Gap. Duncan has spent decades leading organizational transformation and helping companies develop stronger leaders, healthier cultures, and workplaces where people can reach their full potential.

We talk about what Duncan calls the “gap”the distance between the values leaders say they believe in and what employees actually experience inside an organization. As Duncan explains, people don't leave because of the values written on the wall; they leave because of the gap between those words and reality.

We also dive into the future of leadership as AI transforms the workplace. Duncan believes the organizations that thrive won't simply be those that adopt AI the fastest. They'll be the companies that use technology to make their people more effective while continuing to invest in leadership, emotional intelligence, trust, and human potential.

Duncan and I also explore why leadership starts below the surface—with your purpose, beliefs, values, and self-awareness—and why a company's culture can only grow as far as its leaders are willing to grow.

In this episode, you'll learn:

Why good business strategies can fail because of leadership and culture.

How to identify the gap between your company's stated values and employees' actual experience.

The difference between being people-first and simply being employee-centric.

Why AI may make emotional intelligence and human leadership more valuable.

How a leader's beliefs, values, purpose, and self-awareness influence an entire organization.

Why culture isn't an HR initiative—it's an ongoing leadership practice.

The three leadership capabilities Duncan believes CEOs need to develop for the next five years: self-awareness, trust-building, and comfort with uncertainty.

Learning how to communicate with confidence can change the way people perceive you, your expertise, and your business.

In this episode of Thrive Radio, I sit down with Vanessa Wasche, communication coach and founder of On Point Speaking, to talk about what it really takes to become a clear, confident, and memorable communicator.

Vanessa works with professionals, leaders, teams, and business owners to strengthen their public speaking and everyday communication skills. We discuss why clarity is often more important than confidence, how to organize your thoughts without rambling, and why the best communicators don’t suddenly become a different person when they step in front of an audience.

We also dive into something I’m passionate about: visibility and personal branding. Vanessa and I talk about why business owners need to understand what makes them different, why authenticity matters when you’re building a brand, and how becoming comfortable being seen can dramatically change how people perceive your value.

And yes—we talk about nerves, haters, awkward videos, putting yourself online, and why sometimes the only way to become confident is to keep showing up until being visible becomes normal.

What You’ll Learn

* How to organize your thoughts so you communicate clearly and get to the point.

* Why authenticity is one of the most important elements of powerful communication.

* How to manage nerves instead of trying to eliminate them.

* Why clarity can be more valuable than confidence when you’re speaking.

* How business owners can become more comfortable being visible online and in person.

* Why understanding your competitive advantage is essential to communicating your value.

* How your communication style and personal brand work together to make you more memorable.