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Brian Walker
In part two of this five-part interview, host Tom Ryan and co-host Jason Pyles talk with Brian about sales as a tool for business development, branding as a core business value, and much more. Continue reading
Every company, large and small, needs to understand the sales business. Sales can be intimidating, and it’s no surprise that it’s often given the lowest priority when a business is just starting out. From my perspective, however, sales is also an absolute must-have skill for every entrepreneur.
Too many folks miss the opportunity to apply the same level of professionalism and structure to sales that they do to the other functional areas of their business. It should be at least as important to your business as areas like HR, finance and accounting, product development or production. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, the lack of a strong sales structure can be a huge roadblock when it comes to things like attracting investors. Continue reading
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Brian Walker
He’s done pretty well for himself. As the founder of the Chicago-based AE Marketing Group, Brian has overseen 18 straight quarters of profitability, and 200% growth. He’s also a Graduate of Goldman Sachs Small Business 10K Program. In this episode, host Tom Ryan and co-host Jason Pyles talk with Brian about his background, his company, and his mission. Continue reading
In my work as a business coach and mentor to early stage companies, I get to meet and work with a ton of great folks. Their businesses couldn’t be more different from one another, from the kinds of products and services they offer to the sizes of their staff and their target markets. There’s a huge amount of diversity in my work, but there’s also some common threads.
One of those common threads are the mistakes. This incredible collection of entrepreneurs, owners and executives I serve all seem to have the same blind spots when it comes to the business of sales. What is that blind spot? They don’t give their sales the same level of attention and focus that they give other areas of their businesses. Continue reading
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Following on the heels of the earlier “4 Ps of Marketing” episode, this week host Tom Ryan explores his newly minted “4 Ps of Sales” concept. Unfortunately, he’s not entirely sure that this content is the most engaging, particularly for a Friday.
Thankfully, he’s joined by co-host Jason Pyles, who is always ready to bewilder Tom with an off-handed reference to a semi-obscure ’70s sci-fi cult film. Continue reading
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As an entrepreneur who has spent substantial time in the crowdfunding space, Brenden Fitzgerald has a few thoughts for listeners about growing a community, building collaborations and exploring partnerships as a means of creating a successful campaign.
In this final installment of this three-part interview, host Tom Ryan and co-host Jason Pyles also chat with Brenden about his favorite startup resources, balancing priorities, time management, and what it means to be a “slasher” entrepreneur. Continue reading
Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/76657755@N04/
After talking with the founders, a husband-and-wife team, I realized the company had good potential for growth. They have great products, they had done their homework, good traction, and they were both dedicated to making their company succeed. But everything wasn’t perfect. They wanted to grow the company, and they needed money to pay for that growth. Continue reading
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In his role as a serial entrepreneur, Brenden Fitzgerald has spent a lot of time building community, connecting with influencers and mastering the fine art of raising money through crowdsoucing.
In part two of this interview, host Tom Ryan and Brenden discuss these challenges, as well as managing outsourced talent and courting technical co-founders, all while creating solid products for the market. As always, Tom is joined by co-host Jason Pyles. Continue reading
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In today’s episode, serial entrepreneur and GoWorx founder Brenden Fitzgerald returns to the show to talk about his new app-based venture Taggd.
Brenden and host Tom Ryan discuss how the app came to be, lessons learned in the development, and Brenden’s process for working with collaborators.
As always, Tom is joined by co-host Jason Pyles. Continue reading
Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/76657755@N04/
I’ll sit down with these entrepreneurs and managers to talk about their long-term strategies and growth plans, and I hear something like this: “We’ve got a great product. It’s going to change the world. But we just can’t get it off the ground, so we need a bunch of money so we can buy all the things we need to be successful.” Continue reading