Business Roundtable

Hosted by David W. Carr

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Episodes

159

Latest episode

Sep 2026

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About the show

Welcome to the Business Roundtable Podcast , hosted by David Carr of Steward Your Business. This engaging and informative podcast series is dedicated to helping business owners, and entrepreneurs navigate the complexities of running a successful enterprise. Each episode features David Carr and a roster of industry experts, including regular contributors like Curtis Cochran, who bring their wealth of experience in mergers and acquisitions, organizational health, and team building. Dive into discussions that cover a broad range of topics essential to business growth and sustainability. From strategic planning and preparation to understanding the cycles of business ownership, the podcast provides invaluable insights into evaluating, enhancing, and exiting business ownership. Listeners can expect practical advice on scaling businesses, managing finances, and creating a culture that aligns with company goals. What sets this podcast apart is its focus on actionable strategies combined with real-world experiences. The conversations often delve into the importance of providing more value than the dollars earned and the necessity of adaptability in a rapidly changing business landscape. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or a seasoned business owner, the Business Roundtable Podcast is vital for staying ahead in today's competitive market. Join David Carr and his guests as they explore the art of making a business profitable but also enjoyable and sustainable. Tune in for your dose of inspiration, guidance, and tools to make 2024 and beyond a resounding success for your business ventures. Become a podcast supporter at just $2 a month at https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support .

Listen to episodes

60 recent

October 23, 2026Episode 15642 min

Why Projects Fail and How to Turn Them Around

Most business owners think a failing project is a people problem. Richard Broo says it usually starts earlier, with scope nobody nailed down and a CEO and a team who never agreed on what "done" means. Richard has spent more than four decades as the executive companies call when a plant, product launch, or whole business unit goes sideways, including years at General Electric. He is the founder of True North PMP Consulting and a fractional COO for small and mid-sized manufacturers and industrial companies. In this conversation with David Carr, Richard explains: Why only about 31 percent of projects finish on budget, on time, with every deliverable How a signed, living scope document with "in spec" and "out of spec" lists prevents scope creep Why tribal knowledge and mentorship are a competitive advantage, and how the Hedwin turnaround proved it The early warning signs to watch: alignment, finances, schedule, and risk His step-by-step turnaround process and three questions every owner should ask before the next project If you have ever wondered what hesitating on outside help is really costing you, this one is for you. Connect with Richard Broo: Website: https://www.truenorthpmpconsulting.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardbroo Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support . Connect with Steward Your Business: Book a Leadership Clarity Call: https://calendar.stewardyourbusiness.com/cc Call: +1 909.404.9865 Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr Watch more episodes and subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business

October 19, 2026Episode 15544 min

Is Your Leadership Team Ready for AI? A Live Audit

Disciplined leaders keep the bridges standing. But what happens to that strength when AI starts changing the work? Christopher Skinner and Chris Wessling return to the Business Roundtable Podcast for a live leadership audit. Christopher, who spent his career building search algorithms and creating new variables to describe business reality, walks through an AI simulation of how an organizational psychologist might read public statements from more than 275 leaders at a large engineering firm. It is a conversation starter, not a formal assessment of any company or person. Chris Wessling of Solomon Group, the process guy and a Baldrige examiner, adds where big organizations lose time and knowledge: coordination, communication, and a pile of apps that do not talk to each other. Together with David they explore what happens when experienced people retire and take the knowledge with them, and why mentorship still matters. What you'll learn: - How an AI leadership audit is built from public statements, and what it can and cannot tell you - Why strong discipline and planning can become a risk when the work changes - How app sprawl and manual spreadsheet work hide time you could win back - Why knowledge transfer from retiring experts is a leadership issue - Why asking "is this who we want to be?" beats treating an audit as a verdict Note for listeners: the charts are shown on screen, and the guests describe them as they go. The video version shows them. Christopher Skinner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherjskinner Stealth Dog Labs: https://www.stealthdog.com Chris Wessling: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherwessling Solomon Group: https://solomongroup.ai Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support . Connect with Steward Your Business: Book a Leadership Clarity Call: https://calendar.stewardyourbusiness.com/cc Call: +1 909.404.9865 Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr Watch more episodes and subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business

September 16, 2026Episode 15442 min

The Real Cost of People Problems | Helena Ferrari

Most owners think their biggest risks show up on the balance sheet. Helena Ferrari says the expensive ones are hiding in how your leaders show up every day. Helena Ferrari (GPHR, PHR) is a fractional Chief HR Officer, board director, and risk mitigation advisor who has saved companies more than $150M across 15 countries. She has a gift for taking "soft" HR problems and putting a hard dollar figure on them before they become a lawsuit, a settlement, or a revolving door. In this conversation with host David Carr, Helena unpacks: - Why the costliest risks live in your leaders, not your balance sheet - A 60% turnover problem dollarized to $6M a year — and fixed for a fraction of that - A wage-and-hour audit that surfaced a $900K exposure from missed meal breaks - Why every company needs an AI policy right now - Interview questions that are quietly illegal (one cost a company $120K) - Handling layoffs without triggering the WARN Act or bias claims - Why HR belongs at the board table — and at the deal seat before the LOI - Succession planning that keeps your IP from walking out the door - Three questions every leader should ask themselves this week Her throughline is freeing: your people aren't the problem. Most damage comes from accidental mistakes by leaders who were never trained to lead. Fix the system, dollarize the risk, and you protect both the business and the people in it. More from Helena Ferrari: Website & book (Protect Your Profit Line): https://www.thehrrx.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenaferrari/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support . Connect with Steward Your Business: Book a Leadership Clarity Call: https://calendar.stewardyourbusiness.com/cc Call: +1 909.404.9865 Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr Watch more episodes and subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business

August 5, 2026Episode 15345 min

Impact Shift: How to Pivot with Purpose and Build a Lasting Legacy | Rahul Prasad

What does it really mean to build a lasting legacy and can you begin shaping it while you are still living it? In this episode of the Business Roundtable Podcast, David Carr sits down with physicist, philanthropist, and author Raul Brazad to explore how leaders can pivot with intention and create meaningful impact beyond professional success. After a distinguished career as a senior physicist working on long-horizon nuclear fusion projects, Raul began asking a deeper question: What change can I make that I can actually see in my lifetime? That question led him from the national laboratory to global nonprofit leadership, serving as President of Butterflies USA and board chair of Amandla Development. Raul shares the concept behind his book, Impact Shift: The Art of Pivoting for Meaningful Change, and explains why transformation does not require a dramatic leap. Instead, it begins with micro-pivots — small, intentional steps outside your comfort zone. He challenges listeners to replace the question “Why should I?” with “Why not?” and to confront the self-censorship that often holds leaders back. Together, David and Raul explore: Why legacy is about how people remember how you made them feel How passion, purpose, and impact create meaning over time Recognizing when you are “playing not to lose” instead of playing to win The danger of comfort and incremental stagnation How small experiments build confidence and clarity Why giving with a “warm hand” creates deeper fulfillment Raul also shares powerful stories from his nonprofit work, including how a cooperative bank for street children in India reshaped a young boy’s vision of his own future — and why those visible, human outcomes reshaped Raul’s definition of success. If you are a leader who feels successful yet unsettled… accomplished yet curious… this episode offers a framework for thoughtful transition without reckless change. Because growth is not always about climbing higher — sometimes it is about shifting toward deeper purpose. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support . Connect with Steward Your Business: Book a Leadership Clarity Call: https://calendar.stewardyourbusiness.com/cc Call: +1 909.404.9865 Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr Watch more episodes and subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business

August 1, 2026Episode 15233 min

Solving a Capacity Problem, Not a Trend

Most founders think they have a hiring problem. Pranav Dalal says it is usually a capacity problem, and that distinction changes everything about how you scale. Pranav is the founder and CEO of Office Beacon, a global outsourcing and remote staffing firm he has built over 25 years into a company of more than 5,500 employees across six countries. He started right after the dot com crash wiped out his first career, and the lessons from those early years still run the business today: never undervalue yourself, and never price yourself out of the market either. With David Carr, Pranav gets candid about the difference between being a visionary and being a bottleneck, and how knowing which one you are changes how you lead. You will hear how a single remote virtual assistant can hand a founder back hours a day, how Pranav approaches AI as an opportunity instead of a threat, and why he still runs quarterly town halls to keep culture from becoming transactional. If you are a founder wondering whether your next move should be more headcount or more structure, start here. Connect with Pranav: Office Beacon: https://www.officebeacon.com Pranav Dalal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pranavdalal/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support . Connect with Steward Your Business: Book a Leadership Clarity Call: https://calendar.stewardyourbusiness.com/cc Call: +1 909.404.9865 Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr Watch more episodes and subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business

July 28, 2026Episode 15141 min

The Second Profile Behind Every "Yes"

Most leaders think a confident "yes" in a meeting means the deal, the buy-in, or the hard conversation is settled. Jake Stahl says that's exactly when people start quietly disappearing. Jake built NeuroStrategy after 15+ years of training sales teams, including leading a region to over $65 million in annual sales, and noticing that good pitches still failed to land. His discovery: everyone has a second, hidden profile that's actually making the decision, and it rarely matches the polite one sitting across the table. In this conversation, Jake and David get into: Why a live "yes" often turns into a cold, unanswered email What NeuroStrategy sees that DISC and Myers-Briggs assessments miss A real story about reading someone's body language in real time, mid-conversation The opioid addiction and two-year spiral that cost Jake his marriage, his home, and his career, and what rebuilding taught him about being seen, heard, and respected Why do people resist the memory your idea brings up, not the idea itself Jake is the creator of NeuroStrategy, founder of Orchestraight, and author of Own the Room: How to Communicate to Be Seen, Heard, and Respected . Connect with Jake: Website: https://orchestraight.org Book: Own the Room, How to Communicate to Be Seen, Heard, and Respected — https://a.co/d/05qViUIZ Podcast: Own the Room with Jake Stahl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakestahl/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support . Connect with Steward Your Business: Book a Leadership Clarity Call: https://calendar.stewardyourbusiness.com/cc Call: +1 909.404.9865 Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr Watch more episodes and subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business

July 14, 2026Episode 1501 hr 3 min

AI Won't Fix a Broken Culture, It Amplifies It

Everyone is racing to adopt AI. Almost no one is asking the harder question: what kind of leader are you becoming as AI gets more powerful? Technology will not fix a broken culture or poor leadership. It amplifies whatever is already there. In this conversation, David Carr sits down with two guests who think about this differently. Christopher Skinner, founder of Stealth Dog Labs, works at the intersection of AI, cognition, and leadership. Chris Wessling, The Process Dude, helps leaders escape the day to day by building systems that scale. Christopher explains why AI is running on the wrong specifications, why it was never designed to listen, and the three legs every healthy relationship needs: safety, challenge, and investment. Chris brings the process lens, if there is pain in a business, there is a process problem, and shares how one discovery conversation uncovered a 700,000 dollar fix hiding in a company's estimates. Then Christopher shows how the words a company uses can reveal where it is really heading, sometimes years before the numbers do. The takeaway: before you lean on AI, get an honest baseline of your culture, your communication, and your decision making. Then the tool can actually help. Connect Christopher Skinner on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopherjskinner/ Stealth Dog Labs: https://www.stealthdog.com Connect with Chris Wessling, The Process Dude, on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theprocessdude/ Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support . Connect with Steward Your Business: Book a Leadership Clarity Call: https://calendar.stewardyourbusiness.com/cc Call: +1 909.404.9865 Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr Watch more episodes and subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business

July 3, 2026Episode 14938 min

What Employees Really Want Isn't a Raise

When a great employee leaves, most leaders assume it was about pay. Larry Salazar has the data to argue otherwise. The single largest contributor to the financial stress that drives turnover is housing, and almost no employer is doing anything about it. Larry is the President and co-founder of NestSTEPS, a platform that turns home ownership into an employee benefit. In this conversation with David Carr he makes the business case: replacing an employee costs 50 to 200 percent of their salary, housing eats roughly a third of household spending, and financially stressed employees lose about 9 percent of their work time to money worries. He shares the personal story behind NestSTEPS, leaving a company he loved because he could not figure out how to buy his first home nearby, and what a national study revealed: 78 percent of employees would switch employers for a home ownership benefit, and 89 percent would stay even after receiving help. Then he walks through exactly how the program works, from a financial wellness platform to live workshops to an employer funded contribution at closing, and how smaller companies can offer it through a PEO. You will walk away rethinking what really keeps your best people, and what benefit could set your business apart. Connect with Larry Salazar on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/larrysalazar/ NestSTEPS: https://www.neststepsbenefits.com Sign up for Larry's newsletter: https://bit.ly/3OAGcp8 Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support . Connect with Steward Your Business: Book a Leadership Clarity Call: https://calendar.stewardyourbusiness.com/cc Call: +1 909.404.9865 Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr Watch more episodes and subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business

July 1, 2026Episode 14847 min

Your Revenue Problem Isn't a Leads Problem

When revenue slows, almost every company reaches for the same lever: more leads, more marketing, more pressure on sales. Ellen Smolko says that is usually the wrong move. Most revenue problems are structural, and more activity does not fix them. It just exposes the gaps. Ellen is the founder of Foresight Performance and the Marketing Medic. In this conversation with David Carr she unpacks revenue friction, the term she coined for anything that quietly slows a company's growth, and her rule: diagnose before you do. She shows how founders misdiagnose a slowdown, blaming the pipeline, then sales, then marketing, then buying a new website, while the real issue goes untouched. She shares a pricing pushback story where the client actually wanted to pay more, and an accounting firm that was losing clients until it lost the suits, got relatable, and then raised its prices. Then she lays out her four pillar revenue alignment framework: positioning and buyer fit, productization, pricing strategy, and scalability. You will walk away knowing how to tell whether your revenue problem is really a leads problem, and what to look at instead. Connect with Ellen Smolko on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ellen-smolko/ Foresight Performance: https://foresightperformance.com Free Revenue Friction Diagnostic: https://marketingmedic.pro/diagnosticfs Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support . Connect with Steward Your Business: Book a Leadership Clarity Call: https://calendar.stewardyourbusiness.com/cc Call: +1 909.404.9865 Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr Watch more episodes and subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business

June 29, 2026Episode 14744 min

AI Changed Search. Show Up or Disappear.

For thirty years, getting found meant ranking on Google. That era is ending. People now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude to recommend a business, and those tools only surface a few names. If yours is not one of them, your next customer never sees you. Solomon Thimothy is the founder of Clickx, co-founder and CEO of OneIMS, and a USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-selling author who has spent two decades helping companies grow. In this conversation with David Carr he makes a blunt case: the founder's voice is now the growth strategy, and you cannot outsource it. If Oprah had outsourced her marketing, would Oprah be Oprah? He shows why AI tools only cite the sources they trust, third party media and podcasts, and how to build a footprint that makes you the answer when someone asks the machine who to hire. Then it gets strategic: why 10X thinking is easier than 2X, why the product with your best margin is often the one you market least, and how AI agents can follow up with every lead on autopilot. You will walk away knowing whether your business shows up where buying decisions are now made, and what to do about it. Connect with Solomon Thimothy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/solomonthimothy Clickx: https://www.clickx.io OneIMS: https://www.oneims.com Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support . Connect with Steward Your Business: Book a Leadership Clarity Call: https://calendar.stewardyourbusiness.com/cc Call: +1 909.404.9865 Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr Watch more episodes and subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business