Small Business Stories

Why Higher Sales Aren't Fixing Your Cash Flow with Matan Bar CEO Xero US

S6:E87 Overall, small business sales are growing. So why do so many owners still feeling the squeeze? The answer is hiding underneath the headline. Matan Bar, CEO o

How an Overlooked Service Business & Dirty Job Makes Money with Mark Regan

S6:E86 The businesses people overlook may be the ones worth examining. Especially those ew - yucky - services! Entrepreneurship culture gives enormous attention to inno

The Ripple Effect of Intentional Leadership with Lisa Even

S6:E85 People experience your leadership long before you make a formal leadership decision. It's in how you enter a room. How you react when you're stressed. Whether

How to Become an Expert in Your Field with Katrena Friel

S6:E84 It has never been easier to look like an expert. That may be precisely why genuine expertise matters more. AI can help produce polished content, sophisticated

Why Your Small Business Isn't Scaling with Joseph Shalaby

S6:E83 How do you know when persistence is serving the business? Or at what point does attachment to what you've built prevent you from seeing it clearly? Joseph Shal

Why You're Wasting Money on Google Ads with Andy Janaitis

S6:E82 Better Data, Better Decisions with Andy Janaitis What if your advertising dashboard says you're succeeding but your bank account says otherwise? That's not nec

Why Your Marketing Isn't Working with John Elbing

S6:E81 Businesses usually think about marketing from the inside out. Here's what we do. Here's why we're good. Here are our features. Here are our credentials. John

Should AI Replace Humans in Customer Service? Guest Nathan Strum has Thoughts

S6:E80 AI, Empathy & Why Humans Still Matter with Nathan Strum AI can answer the phone. It can schedule appointments. It can listen to sales calls, extract insights a

Why Your Google Ads Aren't Working Anymore with John Sanders

S6:E79 Why More Traffic Doesn't Mean More Business with John Sanders Your advertising may be doing exactly what you asked it to do. That doesn't mean it's helping you

Why AI Won't Fix a Broken Business with Tullio Siragusa

S6:E78 AI doesn't arrive inside a business as a neutral cure for everything that isn't working. It encounters the decision structures, silos, leadership behaviors, cu

How to Get Startup Funding with Vijay Rajendran

S6:E77 A funding round can transform a company. It can also change who controls it, how it's expected to grow and even whether the founder remains CEO. So perhaps the

Small Business Cybersecurity: What You Don't See Can Hurt You with Last Pass CEO Karim Toubba

S6:E76 Security is ultimately a promise of trust. So what happens when that trust gets broken? Karim Toubba has had to answer that question in circumstances few CEOs

The Founder Trap: Why Your Business Isn't Growing Even When You're Working Harder with Charles Gaudet

S6:E75 What if getting more customers actually made your business worse? That's the paradox Charles Gaudet sees repeatedly. A founder builds a business through hard

How to Plan Your Business Exit When Your Kids Don't Want to Take Over with John Abrams

S6:E74 What happens to your business when you aren't there anymore? For millions of founders, where more than half of all small businesses in the USA today are owned

What to Do When Your Business Is in Financial Trouble with Jim Martin

S6:E73 "If you were just here sooner." Jim Martin has never forgotten those words. They came from an employee of a 125-year-old company with approximately 1,800 emp

Why Dating Apps Make It Harder to Find the Right Person with April Davis

S6:E72 Dating apps give us more choices than we've ever had, so why does finding the right person feel harder? Some people have given up, saying that it is "impossible"

Why AI Is Making Your Marketing Easier But Not Better with Gee Ranasinha

S6:E71 AI has raised the floor. But has it raised the ceiling? Gee Ranasinha doesn't think so. AI has democratized content production, giving small businesses acces

How to Stop Trying to Be Everything to Everyone with Christine Blosdale

S6:E70 Stop Trying to Be Everything to Everyone with Christine Blosdale You can be extraordinarily talented and still make yourself almost impossible to hire. Christi

Why Good Products Fail After Launch with Lon Riley

S6:E69 When a Better Product Isn't Enough with Lon Riley This is stronger for streaming than a generic "Lessons from a Product Launch." It captures the central contradi

How to Build Confidence When You're Afraid to Put Yourself Out There with Patty Aubery

S6:E68 Sometimes you meet someone whose work you've known for years and then discover that the story behind the success is even better than you expected. This was one