From the Host: Jeremy Rivera on Small Business Growth & Entrepreneurship
Running a small business is different from working in one, and different again from building one. The entrepreneurs and founders I’ve interviewed on this topic — across every vertical from stump grinding to logistics to consulting — share something I didn’t expect when I started doing these conversations: the principles of sustainable business building are remarkably consistent regardless of industry. Strategy clarity. Accountability systems. Customer-first thinking. Sales discipline. Cash flow management. The guests on this page have earned the right to talk about all of these through hard experience, not theory. Their stories are some of the most honest and practically useful in the library.
“If you feel like you’re constantly living in a reactive state, constantly putting out fires — now is the time to find that accountability partner or coach who is going to help you find some direction.”
— Kate Hendrickson, Founder of The Strategy Lane
Why Small Business Growth Requires a Different Playbook
Small businesses don’t fail for lack of passion or work ethic. They fail for lack of strategy, structure, and systems. The gap between a business that works and a business that scales isn’t talent — it’s the founder’s ability to shift from doing the work to designing the system that does the work. The guests on this page have made that shift, and they’re specific about how.
Episodes on Small Business Growth & Entrepreneurship
Tom Malesic: The Website Is the Center of Everything — Unscripted SEO Podcast
Tom Malesic — Founder & President, EZMarketing | 28 years serving small business clients
Tom founded EZMarketing in 1997 and has spent nearly three decades watching small business owners make the same marketing mistake: trying to do one thing at a time when the real gains come from compounding channels. His compound marketing effect framework — that each additional channel multiplies the value of all the others, not just adds to them — is one of the most important strategic concepts for small business growth in the library. His “website as the center of everything” principle is the north star every small business should return to before investing in any other marketing channel.
“Business owners don’t understand the compound effect of marketing. If you’re doing one thing great — well, if you did two things, it’s going to make that one thing even better. If you did three things, it becomes exponential. They try to Mickey Mouse it and make it cheaper.” — Tom Malesic
From Corporate to Creator: Joe Zeplin on Going Full-Time YouTuber
Joe Zeplin — “The Corporate Guy Turned YouTuber”
Joe left a corporate career to build a full-time YouTube creator business — one of the most honest accounts of the corporate-to-entrepreneurship leap in the library. His story speaks directly to the growing segment of professionals considering a full-time content business: what the transition actually requires, the financial reality behind the decision, and the point where the creator economy becomes a genuine business rather than a side project worth leaving stability for.
Kate Hendrickson on Strategy, Accountability & the Over-Tooled Business
Kate Hendrickson — Consultant, Author & Founder, The Strategy Lane
Kate’s framework for escaping the reactive fire-fighting trap that most small business owners live in is one of the most direct and actionable conversations about strategic focus I’ve recorded. Her observation that small businesses focus on way too many things — and that narrowing to two or three measurable priorities is where things “get really good” — is backed by her work with hundreds of clients.
“Small businesses focus on way too many things. If you can narrow your focus to two or three items and have some data to see if you’re actually moving in the right direction — that is where things get really good.” — Kate Hendrickson
The Golden Rule Applies to Businesses Too: Kyle Merrick
Kyle Merrick — Business Owner & Ethical Business Advocate
Kyle’s case that treating customers and employees the way you’d want to be treated is not just moral philosophy but the most durable growth strategy available is one of the simplest and most powerful frameworks in the library.
Drewbie Wilson: Why 90% of Business Owners Can’t Convert Their Leads
Drewbie Wilson — Founder, Call the Damn Leads
Drewbie’s entire brand is built around a single insight: the massive disconnect between traffic and revenue that most businesses ignore. His framework for what actually happens at the conversion stage is the most direct conversion-focused episode in the library.
Grinding Out Success: Tyler Mumford Left Corporate Sales to Build a Thriving Stump Grinding Business
Tyler Mumford — Owner, Stump Grinding Business
Tyler’s jump from corporate software sales to stump grinding is one of the most honest accounts of what entrepreneurship actually looks like when you bet on yourself and go all in on a physical trade business.
Téa Phillips: How Entrepreneurs Transform Personal Projects into Thriving Businesses
Téa Phillips — Entrepreneur & Business Builder
Téa’s journey from passion project to sustainable business is one of the cleanest illustrations of what authentic entrepreneurship actually looks like — built from something personal rather than from a market gap analysis.
Dave Gulas of EZDC 3PL Shares Lessons from 20+ Years in Sales
Dave Gulas — Founder, EZDC 3PL | 20+ years in logistics and sales
Dave’s two decades in customer-first logistics have given him a perspective on sales and trust-building that transcends industry. His account of what twenty-plus years of sales experience teaches you is one of the most transferable sales philosophies in the library for any B2B service business.
Why Your Customer Is the Hero (and You’re Not) — with Bruce Ashford
Bruce Ashford — Founder & CEO, Ashford Group
Bruce’s StoryBrand-inspired framework for message clarity is one of the most immediately applicable marketing frameworks in the entire library. His diagnosis of why most businesses make themselves the hero of their own marketing — and why that’s the single most common reason marketing underperforms — is something every founder needs to internalize.
“First impressions are visual. Commitments to buy are message based.” — Bruce Ashford
Scaling a 9-Figure SEO Driven Lead Generation Business with James Dooley
James Dooley — Digital Entrepreneur & Lead Generation Builder
James built a nine-figure lead generation empire starting from a single website in 2009. His account of how rank-and-rent SEO scales into a full lead generation business is one of the highest-ambition entrepreneurship stories in the library.
Marisa Cali: Leveraging Events For Branding & Long-Term ROI
Marisa Cali — CEO, Be Present Events
Marisa makes the case that in-person events are one of the most underutilized brand-building channels for small businesses — and that the ROI compounds in ways that digital-only strategies don’t.
SEO Calculators and Digital Assets with Steven Schneider
Steven Schneider — Co-Founder, TrioSEO
Steven’s strategic use of calculators, tools, and digital assets to drive qualified leads — not just traffic volume — is one of the most ROI-focused content strategy frameworks in the library.
Jeremy’s Key Takeaways: Small Business Growth & Entrepreneurship
- The website is the center. Fix it first. Every other marketing channel amplifies what’s on the website. If the site doesn’t convert, scaling traffic makes the problem bigger, not smaller.
- Marketing compounds — one channel is never enough. Each additional channel multiplies the value of all the others. Small businesses that treat marketing as one thing at a time hit artificial growth ceilings.
- Strategy clarity before tactics. The most common small business marketing mistake is investing in tactics before getting clear on who the business serves and why that matters to the right customer.
- The customer is the hero. You are the guide. Every piece of content, every sales conversation, every service description should center the customer’s transformation — not the business’s capabilities.
- Accountability accelerates growth more than strategy. Most founders know what they need to do. They don’t do it consistently. An accountability partner or coach is often the highest-ROI investment a small business can make.
- Converting leads beats generating them. If you’re investing in lead generation without a systematic follow-up and conversion process, you’re filling a leaky bucket. Fix the conversion before you scale the acquisition.
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