Consulting Rainmakers Podcast

Agentee Digital

Featuring successful B2B consulting and advisory firms. Every episode is their story and what they picked up building it.

Guests come from across the advisory world: strategy and operations consulting, sales and leadership development, finance and accounting, fractional CFO and tax advisory, IT and security, HR and people.

My hope is that a founder a few years behind listens and takes something from it. Not so they avoid the same mistakes. Mistakes are fine if you learn from them. So they get there faster.

If you run a firm like that, this show is for you.

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Yesterday · 21 min
This Is How AI Turns You Into A Passive Thinker (Tom Bryant)
Tom Bryant is the Founder and Managing Director of TFB Consulting, an AI plus human strategist based in London. Tom Bryant has spent more than 25 years in tech transformation, learning and change. A Master's in HR led him into the people side of technology, first at Accenture on large global tech transformations, then as Global Head of Learning & Development at Colt Technology Services. Within three weeks of founding TFB Consulting in 2013, he got a call from the UK Cabinet Office asking him to come in as a Senior Advisor on digital skills across the British government, where his unofficial job title was "positive disruptor". He has since studied AI at UC Berkeley and works with organisations on human-centred AI transformation, with clients including HSBC, Imperial College London and KPMG. In this conversation, Tom explains why AI can be a crutch or a catalyst, how cognitive offloading turns people into passive thinkers, and how a solo consultant can use AI as a strategic thought partner. Expect to learn why freedom from corporate noise pushed Tom to go independent, what "cognitive polarization" means for the way we work with AI, why you should define your own red lines for what AI is and is not used for, what the Cabinet Office taught him about disrupting yourself before you are disrupted, how a custom GPT he has trained for three years acts as his thought partner, and what he would do differently if he started again today, and much more… - 0:00 Welcome 0:28 Why He Went Independent 2:22 What An AI Plus Human Strategist Does 5:11 Studying AI At UC Berkeley 7:32 AI As A Crutch Or A Catalyst 9:00 Cognitive Polarization And Passive Thinkers 11:02 Inside The UK Cabinet Office 15:35 How AI Changed His Own Business 19:04 What He Would Do Differently 20:30 Where To Find Tom Bryant - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Tom Bryant: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasfbryant Website: https://tfbconsulting.co.uk - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Yesterday · 19 min
Why Your Most Engaged Team Will Resist Change (Csaba Toth)
Csaba Toth is the Founder of ICQ Global. Csaba Toth grew up between cultures and studied business psychology and international management. His first company in the UK grew into one of the biggest restaurant listings in the country, then turned into a joint venture that he lost, because what made sense on paper did not work between the people involved. That failure became the topic of his dissertation on Eastern and Western European joint ventures, and the research behind ICQ Global. Today ICQ Global measures the nine biomarkers within psychological safety, motivational drivers and cognitive diversity, has worked with more than 900 teams, and is present in more than 50 countries through hundreds of licensed partners. Csaba is also the author of Uncommon Sense in Unusual Times and co-founder of the People Developers' Playground, a community for coaches, consultants and HR professionals. In this conversation, he explains why most people know themselves far less than they think, why psychological safety is not about being nice, and why the most engaged teams are often the most resistant to change. Expect to learn why so many providers sell the workshop they have instead of the solution a client needs, why "common sense" usually just means someone thinks like us, how the Dunning-Kruger effect keeps self-awareness away from the people who need it most, why the packaging sells but the content makes it last, why coaches and consultants need a safe space of their own, how a team can look great on average while one member feels unsafe, and why making transformation decisions on engagement scores is a reason so many of them fail, and much more… - 0:00 Welcome 0:16 From A Lost Company To ICQ Global 1:58 The Invisible Forces That Make Or Break A Team 4:10 How Self-Aware Are You Really 6:20 The Dunning-Kruger Trap 8:54 Why Coaches Need A Community 10:56 Uncommon Sense In Unusual Times 14:44 Measuring Psychological Safety 17:56 Why Engaged Teams Resist Change 19:22 Where To Find Csaba Toth - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Csaba Toth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/csabatothinterculturaldisc Website: https://icq.global - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Yesterday · 18 min
AI Is Making Every Business Think The Same (Rob Mitchell)
Rob Mitchell is the Co-Founder of Exhibit B Partners. Rob Mitchell started out in journalism and spent several years as a managing editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit, leading global thought leadership projects for blue-chip clients. He co-founded Longitude and led it as CEO from a startup to its acquisition by the Financial Times, running hundreds of engagements for multinational brands in finance, professional services and technology. He now runs Exhibit B Partners, which helps companies build and scale profitable thought leadership businesses. In this conversation, Rob explains why most companies get their positioning wrong, why AI risks pulling business thinking towards the average, and why B2B content should be held to the same standard as the best consumer content. Expect to learn why positioning should start with the audience rather than with what a company wants to broadcast, why saying too much is the second biggest messaging mistake, how AI can lift weak thinking to the middle of the bell curve while pulling strong thinking back to the mean, what Rob looks at first when a firm asks for a research programme, what he would tell his 20 year old self, and why surveys and the PDF report are no longer enough, and much more… - 0:00 Welcome 0:16 From Journalism To Thought Leadership 2:29 The First Positioning Mistake 3:34 Trying To Say Too Much 5:13 How Rob Sees AI 9:32 AI And The Bell Curve Of Averageness 10:04 Where A Thought Leadership Programme Starts 11:52 Advice To His 20 Year Old Self 14:36 What Exhibit B Does Differently 17:22 Where To Find Rob Mitchell - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Rob Mitchell: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-mitchell-ned Website: https://exhibit-b.co.uk - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Yesterday · 19 min
This Is Why Sustainability Plans Never Leave The Boardroom (Pierluigi Zacheo)
Pierluigi Zacheo is the Founder and Managing Director of MyStadium. Pierluigi Zacheo is an industrial engineer who founded MyStadium in London in 2011 to help sport and major events organisations manage their environmental and social impact. He saw a gap: quality and environmental management systems already existed, but the sport and events industry had no framework of its own, until the British standard for sustainable events, BS 8901, became ISO 20121 as part of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games legacy. Since then he has advised organisations including the NBA and Formula E, where a community dispute in season two nearly cancelled an event and led to the strategic community engagement plan that took every race from bronze to gold. He also serves as a committee member for the British Standards Institution. In this conversation, Pierluigi explains why sustainability strategies fail when they never reach the people who deliver the event, and how to get them embedded instead. Expect to learn why a sustainability strategy needs both a top-down and a bottom-up funnel, why an event has to behave like a guest in its host city, how quick wins win over top management, why sustainability work is about management systems rather than campaigning, where AI helps event operators measure and cut their carbon footprint, why you spend your first pound on the biggest source of emissions, and much more… - 0:00 Welcome 0:28 Why He Founded MyStadium 2:39 How London 2012 Created A Standard 4:38 A Week Advising The NBA And Formula E 6:47 Why Good Sustainability Ideas Fail 7:47 The Double Funnel 9:09 The Protest That Nearly Cancelled A Race 12:13 Getting Top Management On Board 14:53 Where AI Helps Sustainability 16:47 Spend Your First Pound Where The Carbon Is 17:18 What's Next For MyStadium 18:47 Where To Find Pierluigi Zacheo - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Pierluigi Zacheo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pierluigizacheo Website: https://www.mystadium.net - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Thursday · 20 min
Your Leadership Team Only Thinks It Agrees (Jeremy Sturt)
Jeremy Sturt is the Owner of Just Add Water. Jeremy Sturt started his career as a stage manager in London's West End, working on big musicals through the 80s and 90s for the likes of Cameron Mackintosh and Andrew Lloyd Webber. In the mid-90s a global consulting firm asked him to challenge the thinking of its partner group, so he and a partner had 400 people at a time put on their own opera in an open-air amphitheatre built in the Algarve. Since 1995 he has designed and facilitated leadership development and employee engagement programmes for corporate clients, first through his creative consultancy Lively Arts and since 2002 through Just Add Water, which works with large organisations around the world from offices in London and Singapore. In this conversation, Jeremy explains why misalignment is the main thing that stops executive teams from reaching their goals, why every strategy needs an opening night, and how leaders can embrace AI while staying human-centric. Expect to learn why a leadership team that agrees in the room often drifts apart in execution, how a clear North Star and constant check-ins keep a team on course, why business leadership may be harder than leadership in sport, which human skills AI should never take over, how Just Add Water wins work through referrals and co-creates programmes with its clients, and why business has barely scratched the surface of what the arts can offer it, and much more… - 0:00 Welcome And Jeremy's Background 0:23 From The West End To A Corporate Opera 2:01 Setting Up Just Add Water 3:32 What Stops Leadership Teams Reaching Their Goals 5:52 How To Fix Misalignment 6:44 Every Strategy Needs An Opening Night 8:24 Why Business Leadership Is So Hard 8:56 AI And Staying Human-Centric 11:25 Don't Outsource The Thinking 12:19 How A Client Engagement Starts 14:37 Co-Creating Programmes With Clients 17:53 Growing The Next Generation Of Leaders 18:43 The Arts And Business Have Barely Started 19:45 Where To Find Jeremy Sturt - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Jeremy Sturt: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremysturt Website: https://www.sojustaddwater.com - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Thursday · 18 min
Never Let AI Build Your Financial Assumptions (Neethu Stephen)
Neethu Stephen is the Founder of Evalua8. Neethu Stephen is a chartered accountant who runs Evalua8, an embedded finance team for founders and senior management at SaaS, fintech and agency businesses. She started out in audit, spent time in risk advisory at Ernst & Young and with Protiviti, then spent five years at Futurebooks, rising from business consultant to partner. After moving from Singapore to the UK she began contracting through her own company, which grew into Evalua8, now a team of about five across the UK and India, and she has also served as CFO of Demographics Pro since 2017. In this conversation, Neethu explains the gap between bookkeepers on one end and finance directors and CFOs on the other, why founders outgrow their first accountant when the numbers do not arrive quickly enough, and why her team uses Claude to build around its assumptions but never lets AI make them. Expect to learn what management accounting should do for a founder beyond year-end tax, the questions that push scale-ups to look for help (can we afford this hire, how much tax should we pay, what goes in the management pack for investors), why forecasting is the starting point before a full budget, why client consent comes first before any numbers go near AI, the most expensive mistake of treating finance as a compliance job, how FP&A sits between the transactional and the strategic, and why she would have treated Evalua8 as a business from day one, and much more… - 0:00 Welcome And Neethu's Background 0:35 From Accidental Entrepreneur To Evalua8 1:33 The Gap Between Bookkeepers And CFOs 2:40 What Management Accounting Does Differently 4:26 Why Scale-Ups Come Looking For Help 6:20 Why Founders Outgrow Their First Accountant 8:25 Where AI Fits In Evalua8's Work 9:33 Why AI Should Not Build The Assumptions 12:38 The Cost Of Treating Finance As Compliance 13:58 What FP&A Means For Founders 15:01 Bringing FP&A To Smaller Companies 16:28 What She Would Tell Her Younger Self 17:31 Where To Find Neethu Stephen - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Neethu Stephen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neethustephen Website: https://evalua8.com - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Thursday · 19 min
This Is Not About You (Caroline Berglund)
Caroline Berglund is the Founder and Principal of Talk Talk, a Canadian firm that runs leadership workshops, team development, executive coaching and public speaking programs. Caroline first started Talk Talk about sixteen years ago, then spent roughly eight or nine years inside one of the big consulting houses, where she looked after their leadership practice and worked on their employee engagement survey. Six or seven years ago she resurrected Talk Talk, and some of her clients came with her. She has run workshops for 25 to 30 years, wrote a book studying 365 talks to put herself through her own presentation skills university, and recently launched a program called The Art of Story that takes speakers and would-be speakers onto the stage. In this conversation, Caroline explains why the big consulting firms leave little room for creativity, why devices are pulling us away from human connection, and why authenticity is what separates a good talk from a superb one. Expect to learn the two things that set solo consulting apart from the big firms, why she calls herself an autodidact and spends most of her time studying, how she uses AI as an assistant and thought partner, why nobody believes a speaker wearing a mask, the one mantra she repeats before every keynote to calm her nerves, how a simple pep talk can trick your brain into confidence, and much more… - 0:00 Welcome And Caroline's Background 0:17 Why Caroline Restarted Talk Talk 2:21 Big Consulting Firms Versus Going Solo 4:17 How She Spends Her Time Today 5:39 Learning For The Sake Of Learning 7:49 Why We Do Education All Wrong 9:22 How Caroline Uses AI Day To Day 10:54 Devices Are Pulling Us Away From Each Other 13:47 What Separates A Good Talk From A Superb One 15:12 The One Mantra That Calms Stage Nerves 17:15 Give Yourself A Pep Talk 17:56 What's Next For Talk Talk 19:10 Where To Find Caroline Berglund - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Caroline Berglund: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-berglund Website: https://www.talktalk.ca - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Thursday · 26 min
Project Managers Who Ignore AI Are Out Of The Game (Jean-François Tassé)
Jean-François Tassé is a Partner and Vice-President of PlanAxion Solutions. Jean-François Tassé is a founding partner of PlanAxion Solutions, a consulting firm in business since 2015 that runs project management, solution architecture and business analysis on its clients' behalf, and over the last year has added an AI division to its projects. Before PlanAxion he spent almost eight years at IBM, first as a Managing Consultant and then as an Oracle EBS Solution Architect, after four years as a Senior Consultant at CGI. In this conversation, Jean-François explains how PlanAxion uses AI in both the strategy and the execution of a project, why a project manager who used AI last year was cutting edge, this year is the norm, and next year without it is out of the game, and why AI accelerates the work but still does not make the decision for you. Expect to learn how AI speeds up ERP and software selection by drafting and scoring requirements, how AI tools read legacy code and produce technical and functional documentation, why bringing the fit and gap work forward stops you discovering gaps after you have bought the software, how AI-generated meeting minutes and requirement scanning give a project manager eyes in every workshop, how AI can tell you a project is heading off course, why the next project team may be five humans and one agent, and much more… - 0:00 Welcome And Jean-François's Background 0:47 What PlanAxion Does 1:17 Launching An AI Division 1:43 How AI Speeds Up Software Selection 3:36 Using AI To Document Legacy Code 5:55 Finding The Gaps Before You Buy 6:40 Without AI, Project Managers Are Out Of The Game 8:05 AI Meeting Minutes Within Hours 9:58 AI In Project Recovery 11:26 Setting Up Copilot And Cowork For Clients 14:14 Eyes Everywhere On The Project 16:27 AI That Tells You When You Are Off Course 19:21 Agents Joining The Project Team 22:03 Doubling The Business In 12 Months 23:25 Training Project Managers Every Quarter 25:06 Where To Find Jean-François Tassé - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Jean-François Tassé: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jftasse Website: https://www.planaxion.com - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Wednesday · 17 min
Only 20% Of Your Team Will Ever Innovate (Karen Tilstra)
Karen Tilstra is the Founder and President of Creativity Effect, a consulting company that helps leaders and organizations build the mindset, skills, and culture of innovation. Karen holds a PhD in Innovation and Creative Problem Solving from Andrews University and an EdS in Educational Psychology from Chapman University. She spent over a decade co-founding and running the AdventHealth Innovation Lab, while also building innovation labs for a professional sports organization, higher education, healthcare, and government, and co-designing the nation's first undergraduate degree in innovation and social entrepreneurship at Rollins College. When COVID hit, Karen left to start Creativity Effect so she could bring that work to organizations across every industry on her own terms. A two-time TEDx presenter, she is the author of the Amazon bestseller "The Deathline: Stopping the #1 All-Time Killer of Human Potential" and her second book, "101 Activities to Ignite Collaboration, Boost Creativity, and Fuel Innovation." Expect to learn why Karen left a ten-year hospital innovation lab to build Creativity Effect on her own, what most organizations get wrong when they try to build a culture of innovation, the "Yes, And" philosophy she borrowed from improv comedy, how she co-designed the nation's first undergraduate degree in innovation and social entrepreneurship, where AI actually helps (and doesn't help) in her business, and the real 20/80 rule behind which employees actually drive innovation, and much more… - 0:00 Intro 0:16 Why Karen Left AdventHealth to Start Creativity Effect 3:32 Where Innovation Culture Breaks Down 5:04 The Power of "Yes, And" 6:34 Building the First Innovation Degree Program 8:31 Where AI Actually Helps (and Where It Falls Short) 11:54 The 20/80 Rule of Innovation Culture 14:14 What's Next for Creativity Effect 16:34 How to Connect with Karen - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Karen Tilstra: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-tilstra-phd-6b3660b Website: https://creativityeffect.com - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Wednesday · 25 min
Every Branding Dollar Is Wasted Without This (Mona Amodeo)
Mona Amodeo, Ph.D., is the Founder and President of idgroup. Mona Amodeo started out teaching broadcast journalism at the University of West Florida and working with an international documentary unit. After being detained by the Panamanian Defense Force during the Noriega era on a documentary trip, she took her last university paycheck, rented space from a friend and started the agency that is now idgroup. For more than 35 years she has helped organizations build their brand from the inside out with her Branding from the Core approach, and she wrote the book Beyond Sizzle: The Next Evolution of Branding. Her doctorate is in organization development and change, and her doctoral research took her inside Interface, the global carpet manufacturer whose founder Ray Anderson set out to build a company with zero negative impact. In this conversation, Mona explains why a brand is meaning that lives in people's minds, why the logo and colors are the end of branding and not the beginning, and how purpose leads to performance and performance leads to profit. Expect to learn why she swapped a clear strategy for vine swinging, the gap between the stories companies tell and the stories they live, how trust turns into advocacy, customers and growth, what Interface's Mission Zero teaches leaders today, why every dollar spent downstream is wasted without the upstream work, how idgroup is turning its methodology into the Metis ID intelligence platform, and much more… - 0:00 Welcome And Mona's Background 0:17 Detained In Panama: Why She Left Teaching 1:42 Starting An Agency With No Background 3:31 Vine Swinging Instead Of A Strategy 5:31 Why Branding Must Start From The Inside Out 8:31 What A Brand Actually Is 9:48 How Trust Builds Advocacy And Growth 11:40 The Interface Carpets Story 13:04 Mission Zero: An Impossible Mission 15:00 Purpose Leads To Performance And Profit 17:31 Beyond Sizzle And The Metis ID Platform 20:19 Your Logo Is The End, Not The Beginning 22:11 Her Next Book On Trust And Growth 24:48 Where To Find Mona Amodeo - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Mona Amodeo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mona-amodeo Website: https://idgrouppartners.com Personal website: https://monaamodeo.com - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Wednesday · 23 min
AI Won't Replace You, But This Skill Will (Carla Taylor)
Carla Taylor is the CEO and Founder of Bring Your Brilliance, an AI era workforce and leadership development firm helping organizations build the human skills that AI cannot replace. Carla began her career in corporate learning and development after earning a master's degree in instructional design, communications, and training technology, working first at Eli Lilly, the global pharmaceutical company where her own father had spent his career, before moving into an internal leadership consultant role at the roughly 5,500 employee Ascension St. Vincent hospital system. In the middle of the 2009 recession she launched her first company, Ignite Consulting, doing strengths based team building and leadership development, which later evolved into Bring Your Brilliance. After publishing her first book on career development, a chance introduction connected her with Dr. Fozzie, who has studied artificial intelligence for over 30 years, and that collaboration pushed her focus toward the human skills organizations need as AI reshapes work. She is now finishing two books under the Your Human Advantage banner, one for university curricula and one for corporate leaders, while building a fractional People Ops collective powered by the Ptolemy Map navigation system. Expect to learn why AI should stay the assistant while you remain the architect, the three human skills her book teaches people to future proof their careers, why teams get frustrated with AI the same way they wouldn't with a new hire, why the CHRO is becoming the next CEO, and how the Ptolemy Map diagnoses where a business needs to go next, and much more… - 0:00 Intro 0:41 From Corporate L&D To Launching Her Own Business 3:54 How Bring Your Brilliance Was Born 5:17 Why The Human Side Is Now The Business Strategy 6:10 Meeting Dr. Fozzie And Writing Her First AI Book 9:05 AI Is The Assistant, You're Still The Architect 10:00 Garbage In, Garbage Out: Why Your Prompts Matter 12:28 Why We Get Mad At AI But Not At People 15:04 The Industries She Works With And Her Two New Books 17:26 Why The CHRO Is Becoming The Next CEO 17:55 The Ptolemy Map And Her People Ops Collective 21:47 Where To Connect With Carla - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Carla Taylor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlajtaylor Website: https://bringyourbrilliance.net - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Wednesday · 19 min
Most Firms Chase Demand That Doesn't Exist (Roman Ponos)
Roman Ponos is the President of Pope Solutions, an advisory firm that helps companies moving from the international market into the US federal and state-and-local (SLED) contracting space. Roman spent most of his career in international development, working for both for-profit contractors and nonprofits, mostly in partnership with USAID, the agency that closed its doors last year. He joined Pope Solutions as a partner a little over a year ago to build out the firm's business development practices, the same work he'd done for 15 years across the industry, and was promoted to President in April. Before Pope Solutions he spent over four years as VP of Business Development at Blumont, running a team spread across six or seven countries. Today he leads Pope Solutions in helping companies, many of them pivoting out of the international market, understand the US federal and SLED markets through a proprietary segmentation methodology, a network of former state chief procurement officers, and AI-assisted market research and proposal writing paired with decades of hands-on relationship building across more than 40 countries. Expect to learn how Pope Solutions helps international firms break into the US federal and SLED markets, the most common blind spot companies have about their own market, how AI took the firm from writing 2-3 proposals a week to up to 10, why Roman still won't let AI run client work on its own, how he's kept a global network warm for over 15 years without cold outreach, the simple icebreaker he uses to turn a business meeting into a real relationship, and what he'd tell his younger, more introverted self, and much more… - 0:00 Intro 0:15 Roman's path into Pope Solutions 2:11 What Pope Solutions does 3:41 The biggest mistake companies make about their market 6:01 Where AI fits into market research and proposals 9:30 Why in-person networking still wins new business 11:30 How he keeps a global network warm 14:11 Advice to his younger, introverted self 15:17 Lessons from running BD at a bigger firm (Blumont) 17:23 The vision: sustainable growth, not explosive growth 18:29 Where to find Roman and Pope Solutions - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Roman Ponos: https://www.linkedin.com/in/romanponos Website: https://pope.international - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Wednesday · 19 min
AI Is A Tool, Not Your Competition (Courtney Young)
Courtney Young is the President and CEO of ForeSight Communications, a public relations and marketing agency that helps government and industry authorities expand their reach, manage their brand, and guide change. Courtney got her start with an undergraduate degree in communications and two years in a biotech company's marketing department, a deliberate stop to learn how a business actually runs before going out on her own. At 23, an opportunity came along that replaced her salary, and she took it, asking her employer for a box and walking out to start what would become ForeSight Communications. The company was built on what she called a "big black book of resources," a connecting force between a company and the community it serves. Twenty one years later, after the pandemic forced organizations to either integrate fast or reassess their processes, the business circled back to that original vision, working today with authorities in transportation, tourism, and government who need help expanding reach, managing a crisis, or guiding a shift in their market. Along the way ForeSight has grown past its PR and marketing core into communication strategy, curriculum development for the military, and change management training for government staff adopting new technology. Expect to learn how Courtney built ForeSight Communications from a single replaced paycheck at 23, why the business came full circle to its original vision after the pandemic, the type of "authority" clients ForeSight works best with, the hardest lesson of 21 years in business (learning when to fire a client), her three-part approach to marketing (referrals, industry events, and a strong digital presence), why she treats AI as a tool rather than competition, and much more… - 0:00 Intro 0:18 How Courtney started ForeSight at 23 2:30 How the pandemic brought the business full circle 4:09 The clients ForeSight works best with 5:28 The hardest lesson: learning when to fire a client 7:42 Spotting a misaligned client early 8:58 ForeSight's approach to marketing: referrals first 11:46 AI is a tool, not competition 15:19 The biggest mistake organizations make post-pandemic 17:19 Courtney's vision for ForeSight 18:42 Where to connect with Courtney - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Courtney Young: https://www.linkedin.com/in/youngcourt Website: https://thinkfsc.com - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Wednesday · 18 min
Nobody Should Face A Layoff Alone (Rafael-Cristian Rios)
Rafael-Cristian Rios is the Founder of well transitioned. Rafael-Cristian Rios has spent 25 years in HR and learning and development, with roles at FedEx Office, DTCC and Google (through HCL Tech). Early in his career, as a teenager helping a startup grow, he hired and trained a team that became his friends, and two years later he was handed a list and asked to walk 90 of them, one by one, into the room where they would be laid off. Later he was laid off himself, more than once, and learned firsthand what it is like to have no support once the news is delivered. He founded well transitioned to change that: it helps organizations plan and carry out reductions in force with care and dignity, and assigns each affected person a dedicated coach from the very first hour who stays with them until they land their next role. In this conversation, Rafael explains why companies that invest so much in onboarding drop the ball on offboarding, how showing care in a layoff protects both people and the organization, and what he wants every HR leader to hear. Expect to learn why the reason someone is let go should not change the support they get, how well transitioned works with both in-house and fractional CHROs, why the people delivering layoff news need support too, how caring for departing employees lowers an organization's risk of lawsuits and complaints, what Rafael would do differently if he started again, and why he believes the US job market is worse than the numbers show, and much more… - 0:00 Welcome 0:38 Helping Companies Through Layoffs 1:34 Walking 90 People Into A Layoff 5:21 Great Onboarding, No Offboarding 8:47 How A Conversation With A CHRO Begins 12:18 What He Would Do Differently 13:42 The Next Two Years And The US Job Market 14:57 A Message For HR Leaders 17:22 A Good Layoff Is Good Marketing 17:51 Where To Find Rafael-Cristian Rios - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Rafael-Cristian Rios: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafaelrios Website: https://welltransitioned.co - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Wednesday · 18 min
Nobody Should Let AI Run Their Books Yet (Damian Connolly)
Damian Connolly is the Founder and Managing Director of Sakura Business Solutions. Damian Connolly is a Fellow of the ACCA (FCCA) who has run Sakura Business Solutions since 2012, an accountancy practice for SMEs in the UK and Ireland that combines outsourced finance team services with business advisory, fractional CFO support and exit planning. Before Sakura he ran finance at Instant Access Group, where the business grew from around £5 million in turnover across two companies to eighteen companies in six jurisdictions, with new offices in Spain, Hong Kong and South Africa, and he took it through a sale process with M&A advisors. He then went through a second exit at a private equity owned marketing agency. In this conversation, Damian explains why most business owners know nothing about selling their business until a buyer turns up, why a good finance team is the backbone of every consistently successful business, and why connecting Claude to Xero will not replace an accountant while the books underneath are wrong. Expect to learn what founders underestimate when they try to sell, how buyers chip the price down when the answers are not ready, the common finance mistakes that sink growing businesses (unpaid taxes, running out of cash and months of unposted bookkeeping), the client whose books showed hundreds of thousands of pounds while the bank held four thousand, why AI insights built on wrong numbers can kill a business, and how to bring AI in slowly and sensibly, and much more… - 0:00 Welcome And Damian's Background 0:20 Growing A Business From £5M To £60M Plus 2:49 Why Sakura's Advisory Is Built Around Exit Planning 4:50 What Founders Underestimate About Selling 6:45 Why A Good Finance Team Is The Backbone 9:14 Common Mistakes: Tax, Cash And Bookkeeping 11:46 The Bank Balance That Was Not There 12:29 Can Claude And Xero Replace An Accountant 15:37 Why You Should Tread Carefully With AI 17:36 Where To Find Damian Connolly - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Damian Connolly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/damianconnollyfcca Website: https://sakurabusiness.co.uk - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Wednesday · 23 min
Training Never Fixes What The Subconscious Is Running (Julian Sado)
Julian Sado is the Founder of Pivot-2-Change, a behavioral coach and NLP practitioner who works with leaders and sales teams. Julian Sado's path into behavioral science runs through the streets of East Los Angeles, the music industry, where he worked as a talent agent, kickboxing, and then corporate sales. Mentored by Jim Rohn, who pointed him toward neuroscience and NLP, he now spends his days observing what people say versus what they actually mean, then running mastermind groups where leaders and sales teams discover for themselves how to change their behavior. In this conversation, Julian makes the case that the subconscious drives behavior far more than training or a manager's rules ever will, and that the fear of being fired, anger at a boss, or frustration with a job sets the energy of a whole team. He also explains why people hold on to their past as if it were their identity, using the music industry's "demo" as his analogy for why most of us refuse to redo ours. Expect to learn why Julian prefers masterminds to training, how fear, stress and anger shape a team's environment, why we identify ourselves by our past experiences and how to let them go, what the reticular activating system is really protecting you from, the letter-to-yourself exercise every one of his clients has to do, why the fear around AI looks just like the fear around the internet and the cell phone, and why leaning into what you fear takes its power away, and much more… - 0:00 Welcome And A Week As A Behavioral Coach 1:39 Why The Subconscious Drives Behavior 3:28 From East LA To Hollywood To Corporate Sales 7:02 Why We Cling To Negative Music And Our Past 9:58 Redo Your Demo: Letting Go Of Your Past 11:21 The Red Car And The Reticular Activating System 13:29 Writing A Letter To Yourself From God 15:40 The Night That Made Julian A Fighter 19:06 AI: Fear Or Opportunity 21:30 Lean Into What You Fear 22:05 Where To Find Julian Sado - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Julian Sado: https://www.linkedin.com/in/juliansado Website: https://www.pivot2change.com - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Tuesday · 24 min
Nobody Who Drinks Their Own Kool-Aid Survives In Business (David Nolan)
David Nolan is the Fractional CEO of The Proper Group. David built his career inside Marriott International before moving up to CEO roles at major destination organizations, including a nine-year push to help finance a $500 million convention center in Cleveland. He later transitioned from full-time executive roles into fractional work, founding The Proper Group to bring the hospitality philosophy he learned at Marriott, that taking care of employees is what takes care of customers, which is what takes care of the business, to small and mid-size companies across hospitality and beyond. In this conversation, David talks through what it actually takes to build consensus for financing a nine-figure public project, why he thinks ego is the most destructive force in a business, and what changes when a company finally starts listening to its own employees and customers instead of its own leadership. Expect to learn why ego is the most destructive force in a growing business, what it actually takes to build consensus for financing a $500 million public project, why David believes 75% of a workforce quietly disengages once an owner checks out, what The Proper Group actually fixes when it walks into a new company, why losing well matters more than winning well for keeping a team together, why David thinks staying relevant today means admitting what you don't know, and much more… - 0:00 Intro 0:53 Why Fractional Over Full-Time 2:43 Marriott Roots and Hospitality Philosophy 5:06 Lessons on Managing People 7:39 Common Business Shortcomings 10:31 Financing a $500M Convention Center 13:39 What The Proper Group Fixes 16:31 Biggest Lessons and What He'd Change 19:28 The Fourth Quarter and Losing Together 22:47 How to Connect with David - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with David Nolan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-nolan-53a058151 Website: https://theproper.group - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Tuesday · 24 min
Revenue Is the Great Deodorant for Every Broken Company (Eddie Jimenez)
Eddie Jimenez is the Founder and CEO of Primal Trust Consulting. Eddie Jimenez spent a decade at One Huddle building someone else's revenue function before folding several ventures into Primal Trust Consulting, a firm built to fix one problem founder-led companies keep misdiagnosing: they think they have a lead gen problem when they actually have a revenue infrastructure problem. In this conversation, Eddie explains why he starts every engagement by auditing the founder's mindset before touching the sales process, why "revenue is the great deodorant" that covers up everything else broken inside a company, why most AI "agents" are really just prompts run through someone else's frontier model, and why the seven-to-nine-year grind to scale a company looks nothing like the overnight-unicorn stories flooding social media. Expect to learn why most companies don't actually have a lead gen problem, what makes a revenue system scalable without the founder as the bottleneck, how Eddie evaluates whether a company is ready for a senior sales hire, and why he thinks almost nobody is running real agentic AI yet, and much more… - 0:00 Introducing Eddie Jimenez, Founder of Primal Trust Consulting 0:16 Leaving One Huddle to Start Primal Trust 2:35 Why Revenue Is the Great Deodorant 3:21 The First Fix Is Always the Founder's Mindset 8:32 Most Companies Don't Have a Lead Gen Problem 10:40 Why a Senior Hire Fails Without a System 11:51 Building a Repeatable Revenue Infrastructure 14:16 The Truth About the 7 to 9 Year Scale-Up 16:04 AI Is a Hammer, Not an Agent 23:32 Where to Connect With Eddie Jimenez - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Eddie Jimenez: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eddie-jimenez-primal Website: https://www.primaltrust.co - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Tuesday · 27 min
Never Try To Convince A Customer To Buy (Scott Roy)
Scott Roy is the CEO and Co-Founder of Whitten & Roy Partnership. Scott Roy has spent 40-plus years in sales, sales management, and now sales consulting, and for the last 18 years he's run Whitten & Roy Partnership, a firm that fixes selling, sales management, and customer service problems for organizations across the developed world and the global south alike. He's an international best-selling author of two books (one on consumer selling in emerging markets, one on B2B "Decision Intelligence Selling"), and the architect of the RACE formula (Attitude, Competence, Execution) that his firm uses to diagnose why sales teams underperform. In this conversation, Scott makes the case that most salespeople are doing the opposite of what works, trying to convince customers instead of helping them see the real cost of their problem. At 69, with his original business partner retired, he's still taking on new work, most recently in Guatemala and on a potential billion-person eyewear initiative with the India Postal Service. Expect to learn why companies routinely promote their best salesperson into a management role that breaks them, the RACE formula of attitude, competence, and execution and why attitude outweighs the other two, why convincing a customer is the wrong goal and what Decision Intelligence Selling does instead, the $800 water bill Scott uses to explain how real urgency gets created in a sale, where AI actually helps a consulting firm and the one thing he refuses to use it for, and why at 69, with his business partner retired, he's still taking on new work in places like Guatemala and India, and much more… - 0:00 Welcome And Scott's 18-Year Partnership 1:42 The Top Sales Mistake: Promoting Your Best Rep To Manager 5:09 The RACE Formula: Attitude, Competence, Execution 9:27 Why Being Convincing Is The Wrong Goal 10:54 The $800 Water Bill That Explains Real Urgency 11:47 Sell Well, Do Good: Selling To The Global South 19:54 Where AI Helps (And Where Scott Refuses To Use It) 22:08 Why Pressure Leads To Bad Decisions 24:52 Still Taking New Work At 69: Guatemala And India 27:04 Where To Find Scott Roy - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Scott Roy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottaroy Website: http://www.WRPartnership.com - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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Tuesday · 15 min
Never Reveal Your Minimum Price In A Business Sale (Nedko Kolev)
Nedko Kolev is a Founding Partner at Nextoria, where he leads sell-side M&A for founder-led SaaS, IT services, and e-commerce companies under roughly €100M in revenue. Before Nextoria he spent years at Shell, and today he focuses on founder-first exits and the negotiation work that goes with them. Nedko has sat across the table while deals worth a founder's life savings nearly fell apart after the ink was already drying. In this conversation he explains why a signed offer is not a closed deal, why the smartest move in a negotiation is sometimes to give something away, and why Nextoria itself had to abandon its first market when e-commerce M&A collapsed almost overnight. Expect to learn why a buyer can walk away even after signing an offer, the one number you should never reveal in a sale negotiation, why withholding the wrong information can cost you a deal, where AI genuinely helps in M&A and where it still cannot replace human judgment, why Nextoria pivoted from e-commerce to tech after the post-COVID boom collapsed, why founders should bring in an advisor from the very start of the process and not after, and much more… - 0:00 Welcome to the show 0:19 Leaving a long corporate career at Shell to launch Nextoria 2:31 Why selling a business is so emotionally draining for founders 3:28 When a signed offer still falls apart 6:00 The one number you should never reveal in a negotiation 7:05 Where AI helps in M&A and where it still can't replace humans 9:16 Why you need an M&A advisor from day one 10:48 Nextoria's growth plans and global ambitions 12:15 The e-commerce collapse that forced a pivot to tech 14:37 How to connect with Nedko Kolev - 🔗 Guest & Resources Connect with Nedko Kolev: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nedko-kolev-b8891b11 Website: http://nextoria.com - Get in touch: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikulaszach/ Apply to be a guest: https://consultingrainmakers.com/ Email: mikulas.zach@agenteedigital.com
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