Scale from Here | Business Growth & Scaling Strategies for Small Business Owners

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Nov 2026

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You have built a real business. The next stage requires more than working harder. Scale From Here gives owners of $5M–$25M businesses the practical growth, leadership, operations, and revenue strategies needed to scale without becoming the bottleneck. Each week, host Corey Harlock brings you the people, playbooks, and decisions that help businesses grow beyond their current level. Scale From Here gives established small-business owners practical insight into the strategies, people, leadership decisions, and operating systems that create sustainable growth. Hosted by Corey Harlock, the show features direct conversations with operators, experts, and business leaders who understand what it takes to build capacity, lead teams, make better decisions, and move a company beyond its current ceiling. Whether you are working to improve operations, hire stronger leaders, grow revenue, build a management layer, or reduce owner dependence, every episode is designed to leave you with clear thinking and a practical next step. Follow Corey on LinkedIn @CoreyHarlock Join our Mailing List at scalefromhere.com

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November 3, 202639 min

Stop Prompt Engineering. Let AI Interview You Instead. | Craig Mooney

Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. AI is in every corner of your business, and if you sell for a living, you have almost certainly been asked whether it can replace the human part of the job. In this episode of Scale From Here, Corey Harlock sits down with Craig Mooney, founder of Auto Build Solutions, to answer a more useful question: where are you actually in your AI journey, and what is the next step that will not blow up your business? Craig helps component manufacturers and LBM suppliers escape reaction mode with automated, connected systems that improve visibility and cut manual work. He brings a framework he calls RACE, and it is the clearest breakdown of AI sales implementation this show has produced. Review your workflows. Architect what they would look like automated. Confidently launch. Enhance and evolve, because AI never stops moving. The word confidently is deliberate: most owners launch before they are ready, with no guardrails and no plan. Before you implement anything, Craig says you need to know which car you are driving. He maps five levels of AI maturity using a vehicle metaphor that sticks. The wagon is no AI at all, the Oregon Trail of business operations, and he compares it to insisting on the fax machine while everyone else moved to email. The Model T is using AI as a search engine, which is where most people start. The daily driver connects AI to your email, spreadsheets, and MCP connectors to summarize and draft, and that is where roughly 72 percent of businesses sit today. The sports car is building with AI, creating artifacts, dashboards, estimating tools, and lightweight CRM solutions, with real power and real security risk. The self-driving race car is AI embedded in your systems, understanding your workflows and working while you sleep. Then they get tactical on inbound sales automation. An email arrives with a bid request. The agent finds the contact in your CRM, pulls the company’s buying history and past margins, ranks the priority, drafts the quote, and lands it in your inbox for review, all before you have finished lunch. Craig also shares the shift that matters most for owners who are not technical: stop trying to engineer the perfect prompt and instead tell ChatGPT or Claude to interview you about your process. Corey adds the brand document approach that came out of rebranding this very show, plus his own rules for keeping AI honest, truth mode and red teaming so it tells you when your idea is bad. On outbound, both agree AI has made the noise unbearable, and that relationships, video DMs, and actually sitting down for lunch are winning again. As Craig puts it, the goal is not eliminating people. It is replacing the work that does not make you money. You have built a real business. The next question is, how do you scale from here? KEY TAKEAWAYS Know which car you are driving: Craig’s five levels run from the wagon with no AI, to the Model T using it as search, to the daily driver where about 72 percent of businesses sit, to the sports car where you build tools, to the self-driving race car with AI embedded in your systems. Confidently launch, do not just launch: the C in RACE is deliberate, because an AI rollout without an AI handbook, guardrails, and a strategy is how small businesses create problems they did not plan for. Your team may already be leaking company data: employees using personal AI accounts with company logins and company data expose your business, so move to team or business plans and write the handbook before you scale. LINKS & RESOURCES Connect with Craig Mooney on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-mooney-86b9924a/ Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about Scale From Here: https://www.scalefromhere.com Join the Member’s Area for Free: https://www.scalefromhere.com/members Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scale-from-here-business-growth-scaling-strategies/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 6:06 - The RACE framework and the self-driving sales system 7:13 - Level one: the wagon, running your business without AI 11:12 - Why every company needs an AI handbook and guardrails 12:22 - The self-driving race car: agents that handle bid intake 14:04 - Inbound versus outbound, and why outbound stays personal 19:37 - Stop prompt engineering and let AI interview you 21:07 - Connecting your CRM and ERP to build your own dashboards 23:14 - The brand document: giving AI the context it needs 26:48 - Start small, self-learning agents, and the roofing quote story 30:49 - Truth mode, red teaming, and talking instead of typing 36:11 - How to scale from here: map it, then confidently launch

October 27, 202643 min

AI Made Outbound Easy. That’s Exactly Why Yours Isn’t Working | Leslie Venetz

Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. If you have ever sent a cold email, watched it vanish into silence, and assumed the problem was your list, this episode will change where you look next. Corey Harlock sits down with Leslie Venetz, a top 1% B2B sales expert on LinkedIn, a highly sought-after keynote speaker who recently opened for Tony Robbins, an outbound sales strategist, and the USA Today bestselling author of Profit Generating Pipeline. The topic is outbound sales, and specifically cold outreach: what actually earns a reply in an era where AI has made it effortless to send a thousand messages that all sound exactly the same. Leslie opens with the numbers that reframe everything. In 2004, the average attention span was two and a half minutes. Today it is 40 seconds. Meanwhile the average person fields roughly 100 notifications a day on their phone alone. You are not emailing a prospect with free time and an open mind. You are emailing someone at maximum cognitive load, and you are competing for whatever mind share is left. She shares her own story of jumping from 40 emails a day to 400 after a promotion, and what she did to cope: filing, deleting, and telling herself that if it mattered, they would reach out again. Before the tactics, Leslie draws a distinction most business owners blur. Marketing outreach is one-to-many and opted in. Sales outreach should always feel one-to-one and always come from a person, not a noreply address. And warm means the person explicitly asked you to contact them. If they downloaded your white paper, attended your webinar, or met you at an event but never said “reach out,” they are cold, no matter how warm they feel in your CRM. From there, the frameworks come fast. The average executive spends three to four seconds on an email they open, which means you need to stop writing for readers and start writing for scanners. Her 1-10-100 rule: cold sales emails stay under 100 words, carry exactly one clear call to action, and use the first 10 words to earn the open rather than wasting the preview text on “I hope this email finds you well.” Two paths in one email is two calls to action, even if you did not mean it that way. On cadence, the old rule holds: eight touch points, and Leslie starts clients at eight to twelve. What has changed is channel diversity. Data shows reply rates improving dramatically once outreach spans three or more channels, typically phone, email, and LinkedIn, with direct mail, gifting, and events as creative additions. As Leslie puts it, this work is simple but not easy. Block two hours, run the audits, rewrite five emails, and start scaling from here. KEY TAKEAWAYS Attention is the real constraint: average attention spans fell from two and a half minutes in 2004 to 40 seconds today, and the average person gets about 100 phone notifications a day, so you are writing to someone already at maximum cognitive load. Warm means they explicitly asked: downloading a white paper, attending a webinar, or meeting you at an event does not make a prospect warm, and telling them what they already did is the fastest way into the ignore pile. Write for scanners, not readers: executives spend three to four seconds on an email they open, so cold sales emails should stay under 100 words and spread the full story across a sequence instead of one message. LINKS & RESOURCES Connect with Leslie Venetz on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslievenetz/ Learn more about Leslie Venetz and her book: https://salesledgtm.com/book Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about Scale From Here: https://www.scalefromhere.com Join the Member’s Area for Free: https://www.scalefromhere.com/members Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scale-from-here-business-growth-scaling-strategies/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 8:32 - Marketing outreach versus sales outreach, defined 9:34 - Warm, hot, and cold: why most of your list is colder than you think 11:23 - Relevance: stop telling prospects what they already know 14:02 - Three to four seconds: write for scanners, not readers 14:32 - The 1-10-100 rule and why 100 words is enough 18:47 - One clear call to action, and the sneaky ways we break that 19:51 - The first 10 words: fixing your preview text 21:40 - The I-versus-you audit on your last five emails 24:57 - FABs: features, advantages, benefits and the top 5 percent 34:09 - Sequence length: eight touches, starting at eight to 12 35:11 - Three channels minimum, and how to use LinkedIn properly 39:49 - Putting a bow on it: the two-hour exercise to start today

October 20, 202637 min

You’re Not a Control Freak. You Just Never Learned How to Delegate | Greg Harrod

Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. If you feel like every decision in your business still has to run through you, this episode is for you. Corey Harlock sits down with Greg Harrod, a business coach who helps leaders find where clarity is breaking down so they can stop doing the work their teams are ready to own. Greg brings more than 30 years of manufacturing experience to his coaching, from Caterpillar’s systems and controls research group to 21 years at Johnson Controls in HVAC, plus a stint in Australia and a working-genius facilitator certification. He and his wife Kirsten also raise a small flock of sheep in southeastern Kansas, which tells you something about his appetite for work that actually needs doing. The conversation starts with a diagnosis most small business owners will recognize instantly. Corey calls it being addicted to chaos: the owner who has built the company on time and hard work and cannot imagine another way. Greg reframes it generously. Most of these leaders are not control freaks. They have hired good people, they know they need to delegate, and they simply do not know how. So they default to the two obvious filters, capacity and competence, and miss the one that matters most. That filter is fit. What is this person actually built to do? Greg walks through the Six Types of Working Genius, Patrick Lencioni’s framework from The Table Group, and explains why it works differently than a personality assessment. It is a productivity tool and a trust accelerator, because the conversation is about the work, not about who you are as a person. He breaks down the acronym: Wonder and Invention in the ideation phase, Discernment and Galvanizing in activation, Enablement and Tenacity in implementation. WIDGETS. Everyone has two geniuses that energize them, two frustrations that drain them, and two competencies they can run on for a while before burnout sets in. Corey adds the warning that every owner needs to hear. Keep giving someone work just because they are good at it and you will find out there is a problem when you get their two weeks notice. Worse, the loyal high performer may never say anything at all, because there was never an environment where that conversation could happen. The episode closes with a story worth the whole listen, about married business partners who discovered that what looked like one of them shooting holes in the other’s ideas was actually discernment doing its job. One conversation changed their marriage and their business. If you are tired of being the bottleneck in your own company, this one gives you a place to start. Thanks for listening to Scale From Here. KEY TAKEAWAYS Capacity and competence are not enough: most owners reassign work by asking who is available and who can do it, and skip the question that actually matters, which is what that person is built to do. Micromanaging is usually habit, not control: these leaders have hired good people and know they need to let go, they just have never learned how to strategically reassign work instead of randomly delegating it. Do not break your employee’s neck: handing a salesperson your marketing because they are always on their phone splits their attention and you end up disappointed in one of your best people. LINKS & RESOURCES Connect with Greg Harrod on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-harrod/ Learn more about the Leadership Clarity Scorecard: https://leadershipclarityscorecard.com Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about Scale From Here: https://www.scalefromhere.com Join the Member’s Area for Free: https://www.scalefromhere.com/members Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scale-from-here-business-growth-scaling-strategies/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 7:50 - Addicted to chaos: why time and hard work do not scale 8:44 - Acknowledging that the owner is the bottleneck 10:42 - The Six Types of Working Genius, and why it beats a personality test 11:48 - The loyal high performer who never says a word 12:47 - Absence of information: the stories employees tell themselves 14:36 - Step one: list what you are actually doing and what drains you 16:08 - I don’t have time, and that sounds expensive 17:28 - SOPs, leadership depth, and what your business is worth 18:37 - The experience-capacity gap: scaling your holes along with your revenue 19:41 - Promoting your best people into leadership with no training 22:02 - WIDGETS explained: wonder, invention, discernment, galvanizing, enablement, tenacity 29:53 - The married business partners who misread each other 33:16 - The Leadership Clarity Scorecard and how to scale from here

October 13, 202632 min

Scaling Your Business? The Safety Gap You Can’t Afford to Miss | Ryan Rinehart

Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. If your business is growing fast, there is a good chance safety is the thing you have not thought about yet. This episode is about what happens when it catches up with you. Corey Harlock opens with a client who built a facility six to eight times the size of their old one. No experts, no outside help, one of the owners designed it himself. The old building moved product with hand trucks. The new one ran forklifts, with shelving two and three stories high. Corey told the owner to hire a safety person or at minimum a seasoned forklift operator. The answer was no, we will send one of our guys for training. He had never driven a forklift in his life. Corey made two points: someone hit with a hand truck goes home sore, and someone hit with a forklift might not go home at all. Also, do you really want someone learning to drive a forklift on your brand new walls? That is the setup for a conversation with Ryan Rinehart, a retired U.S. Navy veteran with 21 years of safety experience, a safety and hazmat specialist, an OSHA authorized trainer, author of nine books including Safe on Purpose, and host of The Ways of Safety podcast. Ryan reframes safety from a cost center into a revenue conversation, which is where this episode earns its place in a season focused on growth. Safety ratings gate B2B contracts, and in regulated industries buyers will not even look at your bid if your number is wrong. On the savings side it is workers compensation, lost time accidents, downtime, and the productivity hit when a key person is out. Spend ten thousand on equipment, avoid one claim, and the math is not close. He also takes on the safety first versus safety third debate, including a story about working alongside Mike Rowe at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. Ryan’s position is that safety first does not mean a checklist you run before work. It means the protection is already built into how the job is done. He prefers the word integrated. Corey and Ryan get into the part most owners recognize. The slogan on the wall. The annual training. The Friday afternoon shortcut when the supervisor wants to get to a barbecue. Every time protocol gets thrown out to save two hours, the standard on that banner resets to zero. Ryan’s line on it is simple: safety culture is the definition of integrity, which is what you do when nobody is looking. There are stories here you will not forget, including a food manufacturing worker who defeated a safety device and lost a fingertip, followed within the hour by the engineer who designed that same guard doing the exact same thing. Two OSHA recordables in under sixty minutes. And a company with over ten thousand employees whose safety manual still referenced the OSHA 200 log, retired in 2002, twenty years out of date. Ryan told them they had been lucky, then found out they had not been lucky at all, they had just been skirting things. If you are scaling output, adding equipment, moving into a new building, or buying a business, this one is a must listen. Thanks for listening to Scale From Here. KEY TAKEAWAYS Safety is an investment, not a cost: owners see the line item, but safety ratings open the door to larger regulated B2B contracts and reduce comp claims, lost time, and downtime, so the return shows up on both sides of the ledger. Scaling output scales risk: going from hand trucks to forklifts, or small shelving to three stories, changes the entire risk profile of your operation, and most owners never update their thinking to match. Safety first means integrated, not sequential: protection should already be built into how the job is performed rather than added as a step you remember, which is why Ryan prefers the word integrated to first, third, or any other ranking. The slogan on the wall means nothing without the decision: find the actual decision maker, because the CEO, COO, or CFO determines whether your safety program is real or theater regardless of what the mission statement says. Shortcuts reset the standard: the Friday afternoon choice to skip a protocol so everyone can go home tells your entire team the policy is optional, and no banner survives that. You cannot plead ignorance with OSHA: out of date manuals and missing training have cost small businesses everything, and Ryan has seen C-suite executives go to prison for not having or not following a safety plan. LINKS & RESOURCES Connect with Ryan Rinehart on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlrinehart/ Read Safe on Purpose: https://a.co/d/0a3X0fJl Learn more about The Ways of Safety: https://thewaysofsafety.com Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about Scale From Here: https://www.scalefromhere.com Join the Member’s Area for Free: https://www.scalefromhere.com/members Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scale-from-here-business-growth-scaling-strategies/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 0:00 - Introduction: the forklift story and scaling without safety 2:39 - Recent episodes and meeting Ryan Rinehart 5:39 - The 30,000-foot view of EHS, OSHA, and the alphabet agencies 7:02 - Selling safety as an investment: ratings, contracts, and lost time 8:03 - Safety first versus Mike Rowe’s safety third 10:19 - Safety and quality: pockets on the same pair of pants 11:30 - Employee versus consultant: finding the real decision maker 13:40 - Choosing speed, and why safety slogans fall flat 14:53 - Growth blind spots: what owners don’t know they don’t know 16:55 - Two recordables in one hour: the defeated safety device 19:39 - Safety goggles, audits versus observations 21:17 - The ROI of safety: claims, downtime, and people going home 23:14 - Two hats, delegating the decision, and EHS burnout 27:36 - A roadmap for a new facility: insurance, codes, and inspections 30:03 - Out of date manuals, prison time, and luck running out

October 6, 202633 min

How to Increase Sales From Existing Customers: The 100% of 100% Method | Dr. Jeffrey Magee

Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. If you are chasing new leads while leaving money on the table with the customers you already have, this episode will change how you look at your pipeline. This is episode one of Scale From Here, the new format of the podcast. Corey Harlock breaks down what is changing: four-month seasons, each built around a loose theme, with a round table of favorite guests closing out every season. Season one’s theme is revenue generation, and the timing is deliberate. Interest rates are up, money is expensive to borrow, tariffs and trade wars are in play, there is conflict in the Gulf, and fuel costs are punishing. The question for every small business owner right now is how to stay focused on generating revenue when the ground keeps moving. To open the season, Corey sits down with Dr. Jeffrey Magee, one of the leading voices in human capital development, author of more than 30 bestselling books, and a speaker who has addressed audiences across five continents. Jeff’s whole focus is unleashing talent at three levels: yourself, the people around you, and the organization. But the core of this conversation is a deceptively simple sales concept he has carried since his frontline selling days in a Fortune 100 company: 100% of 100%. Here is the premise. Every morning, until you have engaged 100% of your customers about 100% of what you have to offer, nothing else you do matters as much. Most businesses sell one or two products deep into an account while seven or eight others sit on the shelf gathering dust. That is 70% of your available market opportunity, already qualified, already trusting you, completely untouched. Jeff pushes the idea further, and Corey reframes it on the spot as the 100% cube. Are your customers buying 100% of your product line? Are you talking to 100% of the buyers inside that organization, not just the one contact you inherited? And are you winning 100% of each project, or quoting on 10% while someone else takes the other 90%? Jeff separates market share, the fight over the same pie, from market potential, the work of finding and creating buyers who did not exist yesterday. Then there is the inactive customer list. Jeff shares a story about a billion-dollar client where one question to the credit manager surfaced a list of national name-brand accounts that had quietly gone dormant, simply because people changed on both sides and the relationship fell through the cracks. That list came back before lunch. The conversation also covers competitive strategy, attacking a competitor’s gaps rather than their strengths, why business owners get addicted to chaos and confuse hard work with value, and what Walmart, Amazon, DoorDash, and the highest-volume restaurant in America can teach you about anticipating what a customer needs before they ask. Jeff closes with three things you can do this week: build the spreadsheet, set a Monday reminder for outbound, and run a Friday five-at-five report. He also has a two-day Sales Mastery Boot Camp coming up in Houston. If you are a small business owner looking for revenue growth without a bigger ad budget, start here. The only question left is, how do you scale from here? KEY TAKEAWAYS Start with the customers you already have: until you have engaged 100% of your active customers about 100% of what you offer, prospecting is the less valuable use of your morning. Most of your product line is invisible to your buyers: if you sell ten things and a customer buys three, 70% of your ready-to-go market opportunity is sitting on the shelf gathering dust. Your inactive list is a revenue goldmine: relationships go dormant because two or three people change on each side, not because anyone decided to leave, and that list can often be produced by lunch. LINKS & RESOURCES Connect with Jeffrey Magee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drjeffspeaks/ Learn more about Jeffrey Magee: https://JeffreyMagee.com Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about Scale From Here: https://www.scalefromhere.com Join the Member’s Area for Free: https://www.scalefromhere.com/members Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/scale-from-here-business-growth-scaling-strategies/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 0:00 - Introduction: the new format and season one’s revenue focus 4:04 - Meet Dr. Jeffrey Magee and unleashing talent at three levels 6:34 - What 100% of 100% actually means 7:46 - Working your active customers product by product 14:17 - Percent of wallet: how much of the project are you winning? 15:22 - Market share versus market potential 16:30 - Corey’s reframe: the 100% cube 18:14 - Attack the competitor’s gaps, not their strengths 20:05 - When your contact leaves and nobody knows you anymore

September 28, 202641 min

Why Your Marketing Isn't Working (Our Most Popular Episode of 2026) | Final KeyHire Episode

Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. On Tuesday, October 6, The KeyHire Small Business Podcast becomes Scale From Here . Your subscription carries over automatically. The same feed, a new name, and a broader focus on the conversations that help business owners grow. Visit scalefromhere.com to become a free member and get access to bonus conversations, practical tools, and resources. If your business has thrown money at Facebook or Google ads and watched it disappear with nothing to show for it, this episode is for you. This is also a milestone: the final episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast. After years of conversations about hiring, leadership, and growth, Corey Harlock is evolving the show into Scale From Here, launching next week in the same feed. Listeners do not need to change a thing, resubscribe, or search for anything new. It will simply show up with a new name, a new format, and a lineup of guests built to help small business owners scale with more clarity and confidence. To close out the KeyHire era, Corey revisits one of the most practical marketing conversations the show has produced: his episode with Heather Manes of Savage Brands. It is a throwback worth hearing again, especially for owners heading into a new year wondering where their marketing budget should actually go. Heather starts where most business owners never do: the budget. She explains the common benchmark of spending roughly seven to eight percent of gross revenue on marketing, all in, and why that number shifts based on growth stage, competitive pressure, and industry-specific factors. Her core point is that there is no blanket approach. The right marketing strategy is tied directly to business goals, not to whatever channel happens to be trending. From there, she walks through the terms small business owners keep hearing but rarely get explained clearly. Digital transformation. Multimodal search, and why buyers are no longer just Googling, but also searching across Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude, which means companies need to be found and trained across all of those platforms. Personalization and list segmentation, and why sending bridge-builder content to a utilities buyer is a fast way to lose a lead. Brand differentiation and storytelling through case studies and video. Demand generation through webinars, ebooks, industry publications, and account-based marketing. Corey also pushes Heather on the mistakes, and this is where the episode earns its keep. The biggest one is spending without a strategy tied to business goals. The second is skipping the foundation: a CRM and marketing automation system that lets you actually track where money went and whether sales followed up on the leads marketing generated. Heather shares an example of a company that spent heavily to drive more than one hundred thousand visitors to a website and captured almost nothing, because there was no compelling offer, no call to action, and no form to convert traffic into first-party data. Corey adds a framing worth remembering: an email address is currency. People have become far more selective about who they give it to, which means your content has to be worth the price. Heather’s practical advice for owners starting from scratch is refreshingly doable. Set your budget against your goals, audit and build a clean opted-in email list, get your website fast and mobile-friendly, build a real content calendar, and then bring in professionals to map the paid strategy. If you are a small business owner tired of marketing that feels like a burden and a money pit, this one delivers. Thank you for listening to The KeyHire Small Business Podcast. We will see you next week on Scale From Here. KEY TAKEAWAYS Start with the budget, tied to your goals: a common benchmark is roughly 7 to 8 percent of gross revenue, all in, but the right number shifts with your growth stage, competitive pressure, and industry, so there is no blanket approach. Buyers now search everywhere, so train every platform: people no longer just Google, they also ask Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude, and multimodal search means you need to be found and cited across all of them. A CRM and marketing automation are the non-negotiable foundation: without them you spend money and never know where it went or whether sales followed up on the leads marketing generated. Traffic without an offer is wasted money: one company drove more than 100,000 visitors and captured almost nothing because there was no compelling offer, no call to action, and no form to convert them into first-party data. An email address is currency: people are far more selective about who they give it to, so your content has to be worth the price, and a clean opted-in list is the one channel you truly own. Personalize and segment, or lose the lead: sending utilities content to a bridge buyer is a fast way to get unsubscribed, so match the message to each segment and nurture people over repeat visits. LINKS & RESOURCES Connect with Heather Manes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heathermanes/ Learn more about Savage Brands: https://savagebrands.com Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keyhire-small-business-podcast/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 0:00 - Introduction: the final KeyHire episode and the move to Scale From Here 3:46 - A near-death Kilimanjaro story and why preparation matters 5:32 - Why marketing feels overwhelming, and starting with definitions 8:33 - Budgeting first: the 7-8% of revenue benchmark and what shifts it 10:13 - Digital transformation now: AI tools and multimodal search 11:30 - CRM and marketing automation: owning your first-party data 13:17 - Personalization and segmenting your list the right way 15:33 - Brand differentiation: storytelling, video, and sustainability 16:50 - Demand generation: webinars, ebooks, and account-based marketing 19:29 - The most common marketing mistakes owners make 23:44 - The cautionary tale: 100,000 visitors, almost zero leads 24:55 - Offers, calls to action, and why an email is currency 26:28 - Conversion rates and the art of nurturing 29:42 - Advice from scratch: budget, then build an opted-in list

September 21, 202642 min

Rates Are Going Up: What a 90% Fed Hike Odds Means for Your Business (with Shannon Willems)

Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. Meet Scale From Here. The KeyHire Small Business Podcast is becoming Scale From Here —a weekly show focused on business growth and scaling strategies for small-business owners. The first episode arrives October 6. Subscribe now, watch the trailer, and visit scalefromhere.com to learn more. If rising interest rates, stubborn inflation, and constant economic headlines have you wondering what comes next for your business, this episode is for you. On this special episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast, Corey Harlock sits down with Shannon Willems, Managing Director of New Edge Capital Group, recently ranked the number two RIA in the country by Barron’s. They talk about what’s really happening in the economy and what it means for small business owners. This is a milestone episode, too. It’s the final show under the KeyHire Small Business Podcast name before the show becomes Scale From Here on October 6th, with the same practical conversations and even stronger resources to help small business owners grow and scale. The conversation starts with the latest CPI report. Shannon explains, in plain language, why the markets were watching it so closely. With a new Fed chair in place, pressure from the administration to lower rates, and oil prices climbing because of the conflict overseas, the inflation numbers came in slightly hot. Shannon breaks down why the market is now pricing in a better than 90 percent chance of a quarter-point Fed rate hike. He also explains the Federal Reserve’s two mandates, full employment and stable inflation, and why tariffs are showing up less in the year-over-year numbers even though their impact hasn’t gone away. One of the most useful parts of this episode is Shannon’s explanation of why small and mid-sized businesses feel higher interest rates more than anyone else. Variable-rate lines of credit, real estate debt, diesel over six dollars a gallon, and rising input costs all squeeze margins. With the 10-year Treasury above 5 percent, business valuations come under pressure too. That matters for any owner thinking about mergers and acquisitions, selling, or growing through acquisition. Corey brings the discussion back to what owners are living through every day: uncertainty. When you don’t know what your costs, tax rates, or wages will look like next quarter, it’s hard to invest in a new product line, build a facility, or put together a recruiting plan. Many businesses are choosing to sit tight, and the result is often burned-out teams covering for roles that never got filled. But this episode is not all doom and gloom. Shannon shares why he thinks the long-term outlook is getting brighter. AI-driven capital spending, including roughly $780 billion from the Magnificent Seven this year, is pushing corporate earnings growth far beyond expectations. He also explains why reshoring and new manufacturing take time to reach the wider economy. Along the way, Corey and Shannon make the case for the skilled trades, where electricians and other tradespeople are in huge demand. The episode wraps with a practical look at personal finance in a volatile market. Shannon covers diversification, today’s cash and bond yields, and the mortgage refinance problem facing homeowners coming off historically low rates. He also offers a helpful reminder: 6 to 7 percent mortgage rates are not crazy. They reflect a healthier economy. If you’re a small business owner, entrepreneur, or leader trying to make smart decisions in an uncertain economy, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in for a clear, grounded conversation about interest rates, inflation, AI, and how to plan for what’s ahead. And make sure you’re subscribed so you don’t miss the launch of Scale From Here. KEY TAKEAWAYS Slightly hot inflation opened the door to a hike: Friday’s CPI report came in a touch strong, and the market is pricing in a better than 90 percent chance the Fed raises the federal funds rate by a quarter point. Small and mid-sized businesses feel rate increases first: variable lines of credit, real estate debt, diesel over six dollars a gallon, and rising input costs squeeze margins, and a 10-year Treasury above 5 percent pulls business valuations down. Uncertainty is the real tax on growth: when owners can’t predict costs, wages, or tax rates, they sit tight instead of investing or hiring, which leaves existing teams stretched and burned out. The long-term outlook is brighter than the headlines: AI-driven capital spending, including roughly $780 billion from the Magnificent Seven this year, has pushed S&P 500 earnings growth to 34 percent, far past the mid-teens expected at the start of the year. The skilled trades are a rare growth lane: electricians and other tradespeople are in heavy demand with a small competition pool, and that work can’t be offshored or automated away. In a volatile market, diversify and reset your rate expectations: don’t bet everything on one name, take advantage of higher cash and bond yields, and remember that 6 to 7 percent mortgage rates are normal for a healthy economy. LINKS & RESOURCES Learn more about NewEdge Wealth: https://www.newedgewealth.com Email Shannon Willems: swillems@newedgecg.com Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keyhire-small-business-podcast/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 9:31 - Administration pressure, a likely hike, and the Fed’s two mandates 12:10 - A “beige” economy: M&A, housing, and tariff math 14:11 - Why small and mid-sized businesses feel higher rates most 17:08 - Not all doom and gloom: the AI capex tailwind 18:12 - How uncertainty freezes decisions and burns out teams 20:48 - The long view: AI-driven earnings growth and $780B in spend 22:58 - When reshoring and new plants actually hit the economy 24:44 - The trades boom: why electricians are in demand 26:33 - The AI debate: early innings, doom, and sensible guardrails

September 14, 202636 min

683,000 People Just Entered the Labor Force (Hiring Didn't Get Easier)

Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. We share what’s next tomorrow. The KeyHire Small Business Podcast is evolving. We’ve been building something designed to bring you broader conversations, practical ideas, and more resources to help you grow. Look for our announcement tomorrow. In a soft market you get to ask a candidate why they want to work for you. At 4.1% unemployment, they get to ask you the same question. In this episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast, Corey Harlock breaks down the August jobs report and explains what three straight months of positive job growth really mean for small business owners who need to hire. The headlines sound encouraging. The economy added 162,000 jobs, unemployment held steady at 4.1 percent for the second month in a row, and the labor force grew by more than 600,000 people. But as Corey explains, a stronger jobs report does not automatically make hiring easier. Some industries are adding jobs while others are shedding them, and the people leaving information and financial services are not necessarily the candidates a manufacturing, construction, or food service business is trying to hire. Understanding where the jobs are actually coming from matters more than the top-line number. Corey walks through what different unemployment rates signal for hiring, from an extremely tight market below 3.5 percent to a soft market above 6.5 percent where applicants outnumber jobs. At 4.1 percent, small business owners are sitting in a tight, nearly full employment market. The key takeaway is one every owner needs to remember: strong candidates have options and are usually already employed. If you are excited about a candidate, at least one other company is too. In this market, you are competing, and the question is not why the candidate wants to work for you, it is why you would want to work for them. That reality leads into the heart of the episode: hiring is a discipline, not something you squeeze in when you have a gap in your calendar. Corey lays out the three things small business owners struggle with most, time, process, and priority, and shows how solving for all three creates a hiring process and candidate experience that lands transformational talent. He shares the statistics that prove candidate experience is your number one recruiting tool, including how many excited candidates walk away after a slow, informal, or disorganized hiring process. From there, Corey delivers a practical blueprint. He explains why one person should own the process and screen every candidate with a consistent scorecard, why generating candidates is the easy part and not worth a 30 percent recruiter fee, and why the hiring manager should conduct the first interview instead of sitting at the end. He covers how to run an efficient on-site interview with your best people asking different questions, why the best candidates are off the market within two weeks, and why the first and best offer usually wins when paired with a great experience. This episode is especially valuable for small business owners hiring in a tight labor market, competing for employed candidates, or trying to build a repeatable hiring process that actually works. Corey also offers a free small business hiring playbook, the four C’s of hiring, available by text through the show notes. If you want to read the jobs report correctly, avoid costly hiring mistakes, and build a process that helps you win great people, this episode is a must-listen. As Corey says, stop grinding, start growing. KEY TAKEAWAYS The jobs report is encouraging and the hiring market is still tight: 162,000 jobs added, unemployment unchanged at 4.1% for two months running, a labor force up 683,000, and July revised from a loss of 31,000 to a gain of 21,000. Three months of growth in a row means the pendulum is not swinging back toward employers any time soon. Layoffs in one industry do not help you hire in another: information lost 23,000 and financial activities lost 11,000, while the growth landed in food service, local government education, construction, manufacturing, and healthcare. The people leaving a finance job are not your manufacturing candidates. You are competing with the industries that are adding, not benefiting from the ones that are cutting. Know what your unemployment rate actually means: below 3.5% is peak warm body syndrome and wage wars, 3.5% to 4.5% is tight and nearly full employment, 4.5% to 5.5% is balanced with real applicant flow, 5.5% to 6.5% is softening and you can start getting picky, and above 6.5% the problem becomes sorting volume. At 4.1% we are squarely in the band where strong candidates have options and are already employed. If you are excited about a candidate, so is someone else: in this market the question is not why do you want to work for us, it is why would I want to work for you. You are in sales mode, and the interview is as much your pitch as theirs. Hiring is a discipline, not a task you fit into a gap: if you have ever called someone to push an interview because something came up, that tells you where hiring really ranks. Solve for three things and the rest follows: time, a process, and someone who owns it. Speed is the whole game at the top of the funnel: generating candidates is the easy part now, with job boards and AI sourcing tools running around $49 a month rather than the 30% a recruiter charges to hand you a database you already have. What separates you is reaching out immediately, and by text rather than a call that puts them on the spot at work. Wait 48 hours and someone else has them. One person pre screens every candidate for every role: same person, same questions, same order, 15 minutes against a scorecard with an 80% threshold. It is not a culture conversation or a resume walkthrough, it is do you have what we need. Over time that person learns what good looks like in your company and builds a real baseline. Put the hiring manager first, not last: if your team spends three hours per candidate and the decision maker cuts half of them at the end, that is fifteen wasted hours for every ten candidates. Worse, when the decision maker sits at the end, the team starts throwing volume at the wall. When they go first, the message becomes I like this person, I think we could hire them, and everyone downstream interviews differently. Design the on site round like a progression, not a repeat: only your best people, two or three of them, never substituted in or out, each assigned a specific topic. A peer opening with can you walk me through your resume, after the pre screen and the hiring manager already covered it, tells the candidate nobody is paying attention. Move on the clock the candidate is on: ten days from first interview to offer, an offer within 24 to 48 hours of the debrief, and a check in from your process owner if it slips even a day. The best candidates are off the market in two weeks start to finish, so pushing someone a week is effectively deciding not to hire them. First and best offer wins, but experience breaks the tie: a candidate who was treated well will take less money to go somewhere that made them feel like a priority. The candidate experience is the number one recruiting tool a small business has. Volume is not skill: Corey compares it to hitting 10,000 balls at the driving range and still being a bad golfer. If you hired ten people last year and two are still there, that is not being good at hiring. Doubling your hit rate means hiring five people instead of ten, and spending the difference on running the business instead of refilling seats. LINKS & RESOURCES Get the KeyHire small business hiring playbook, built on the four C's of hiring: text the show using the link in the show notes and ask Corey to send it over, free and no strings Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keyhire-small-business-podcast/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 0:00 – Introduction: three months of job growth and what it means for your hiring 1:45 – Big news coming for the podcast, and where to watch for it 2:49 – Looking back at Barry Moline on influence and Bill Hammett on benefits 4:52 – The August jobs report: 162,000 jobs, 4.1% unemployment, a labor force up 683,000 6:16 – Where the jobs are: food service, education, construction, manufacturing, healthcare 7:00 – Where the losses are, and why they do not help you hire 7:42 – What each unemployment band actually means for an employer 9:52 – Where 4.1% puts you: strong candidates have options and already have jobs 10:24 – If you are excited about a candidate, so is someone else 12:53 – The three things to solve for: time, process, and priority 16:49 – Generating candidates is the easy part, and why not to pay 30% for it 19:00 – Why the first outreach should be a text, not a call 19:44 – One person pre screens everyone: the scorecard and the 80% threshold

September 7, 202638 min

Every Small Business is in the Health Insurance Business (with Bill Hammett)

Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. Something new is coming. We’re building the next chapter of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast. More practical conversations, new perspectives, and more ways to help business owners grow. Keep an eye on this space. We’ll share more soon. You might be in the widget business, the plumbing business, or the car business. You are also in the health insurance business, whether you like it or not. If benefits feel like a giant expense you shop for once a year, hand off, and hope your people appreciate, this episode will change how you think about it. On this episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast, Corey Harlock sits down with Bill Hammett, owner of Hammett Health Insurance Services and a certified healthcare reform specialist with over 20 years of experience, to talk about how small business owners can turn employee benefits from a painful line item into a powerful investment. Early on, Bill makes a point that reframes the entire conversation: since World War II, Americans get their health insurance through their employers, which means every business owner, whether they sell widgets, plumbing, or cars, is also in the health insurance business whether they like it or not. From there, Corey and Bill dig into what actually moves the needle on cost, coverage, and employee loyalty. One of the biggest ideas in this episode is that you are not really shopping for health insurance, you are shopping for brokers. Bill explains that the underlying product is largely a commodity, so the real difference comes from the broker's strategy, process, and advocacy. He walks through how larger companies can move beyond fully insured plans into level funding or self funding, taking on some risk in exchange for real savings, and why prescription drug costs have exploded from three percent of premiums in the late 90s to roughly 25 percent today. What makes this conversation especially valuable is the shift from buying more benefits to understanding the benefits you already have. Bill and Corey explore practical, low cost strategies any owner can use: mail order pharmacy programs that deliver a three month supply for the price of two, generic drugs, telehealth, urgent care versus the emergency room, and asking for pre authorizations to stay in network. As Bill puts it, before you buy the 17th line of coverage, make sure your people understand benefits one through 16. The most powerful takeaway may be treating benefits as compensation, not an HR expense. If you pay someone $80,000 and spend another $15,000 to $20,000 on benefits, you do not have an $80,000 employee, you have a six figure investment. Corey and Bill discuss how communicating that investment, even building an incentive around keeping premiums low, can boost retention, help you win candidates, and turn employees into educated healthcare consumers who assign real value to what you provide. For small business owners weighing the seven candidate drivers during hiring, benefits have moved to the top of the list post COVID. This episode is a must listen for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and HR leaders who feel stuck with rising premiums, confused by open enrollment, or unsure whether their broker is truly working for them. Bill also shares how to pressure test your current broker and offers to share his Leave No Stone Unturned presentation with listeners. If you want to lower benefits costs, keep more money in your business, and make your team feel genuinely taken care of, tune in for a clear, surprisingly engaging conversation that proves benefits do not have to be shackles you are simply stuck with. KEY TAKEAWAYS You are not shopping for health insurance, you are shopping for brokers: the product itself is a commodity, and a dozen agents can quote you the same plan at the same price. The difference is the broker's process, their opinion, and the strategy behind how they bring it to your employees. Above about 50 employees in California, and in some places down to two, the funding model becomes a lever: level funding and self funding let employers take on some of the risk the carriers have been profiting from for decades. The upside is real, and so is the downside, so the cash question comes first: if two major claims hit in January and you are out $150,000 on two people, can the business absorb it? Prescription drugs went from roughly 3% of premium in the late 90s to about 25% today: it is the fastest escalating piece of the medical premium, and it is where a lot of the recoverable dollars are hiding for employers who look, from rebates to sourcing medication differently. There should always be a second set of eyes on your benefits: a strategy your broker believes in will stand up to questioning and alternate quotes. If your broker is your brother-in-law, your neighbor, or your buddy from college and nothing has changed in years, the likely reason is that nobody is shopping it, because moving a policy is far more work than telling you everything looks good. Benefits are compensation, not an HR expense: if you pay $80,000 and spend another $15,000 to $20,000 on benefits, you do not have an $80,000 employee, you have a six figure investment. Two companies offering $90,000 are not making the same offer when one can show another $18,000 going into that person's family, and most employees only ever see the $200 coming out of their check, not the $1,000 the employer puts in on top of it. Sometimes the answer is not better benefits, it is better understanding of the benefits you already bought: mail order pharmacy that delivers a three month supply for the price of two, generic drugs, telehealth including telehealth for mental health, knowing where the nearest urgent care is instead of defaulting to the emergency room, and asking the doctor for pre authorization to stay in network. Before you buy the 17th line of coverage, make sure your people understand benefits one through 16. An educated healthcare consumer behaves differently: they pick a plan that actually fits, they know where to go when something goes wrong, and they assign a higher value to what you are paying for. Same plan, same price, but the educated employee is healthier, happier, and more appreciative than the one down the street who got no education at all. Corey floats an incentive line around benefits: tell the team what the company spent last year, and if next year comes in flat, everyone shares in the savings. If premiums had climbed 10% instead, that money was going out the door anyway, and now your people are working the problem with you instead of resenting the deduction. Confusion has a hard cost: unnecessary ER visits, avoided care that was actually necessary, the wrong plan selected at enrollment. It costs the employer, the employee, time, and health. And after you spend all that effort winning a candidate over, handing them a 47 page booklet is not onboarding, it is homework. LINKS & RESOURCES Connect with Bill Hammett on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billhammett/ Learn more about Hammett Health Insurance Services: https://www.hammetthealth.com Follow Bill on Instagram for his Monday benefit breakdowns and Friday healthcare policy recaps: @healthcarebill Ask Bill for his Leave No Stone Unturned presentation: text the show using the link in the show notes and we will connect you Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keyhire-small-business-podcast/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 0:00 – Introduction: do your people know what you actually invest in their benefits? 1:42 – A teaser about what is coming for the podcast, plus Tony Manganiello and Barry Moline recaps 4:33 – Meet Bill Hammett: owner of Hammett Health Insurance Services and certified healthcare reform specialist 5:30 – Every business is in the health insurance business, whether they like it or not 6:44 – The product is a commodity, so you are really shopping for brokers 7:35 – Fully insured versus level funded and self funded, and where strategy moves cost 8:55 – Prescription drugs: from 3% of premium in the late 90s to 25% today 10:15 – What happens if a catastrophic claim hits a self funded plan 11:27 – The loyal team that got older, got sick, and could not get quoted 13:43 – Negotiating hospital bills and becoming a consumer of your own healthcare 15:23 – When your broker is your buddy and nobody is shopping the policy 16:47 – The seven candidate drivers, benefit stipends, and why benefits now lead the list 19:15 – Benefits as compensation: the six figure employee nobody talks about 20:34 – Put the benefits number in your all hands meeting, and the dentist goodie bag story 22:33 – Making it a quarterly conversation about our investment in you 23:50 – Mail order pharmacy, education, and benefits one through 16 25:33 – Building an incentive line around keeping premiums flat 26:35 – Why an educated healthcare consumer behaves differently 28:12 – The real cost of healthcare confusion

August 31, 202649 min

One Sentence Increased Sales 15% (The Science of Ethical Influence)

Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. Influence is happening to you all day long. The only question is whether you can see it, and whether you are willing to use it honestly. If you have ever tried to move someone toward a decision and hit nothing but pushback, this episode is for you. On this episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast, Corey Harlock sits down with Barry Moline, CEO of BJM Solutions and author of Connect! How to Quickly Collaborate for Success in Business and Life, to unpack the science of influence and persuasion and how small business owners can use it to sell more, lead better, and build stronger teams. This is not a conversation about manipulation or gimmicks. Barry, a certified trainer in Dr. Robert Cialdini's method of ethical influence, sets one clear ground rule early: everything discussed has to be true, has to make sense to the other person, and has to be wise enough that you would recommend it to your own family. That standard separates real persuasion from the snake oil salesman who makes the sale today and is long gone when it stops working tomorrow. From there, Barry walks through three practical elements of ethical influence that any business owner can start using immediately. The first is enhancing relationships. He explains why liking begins with curiosity, asking questions and making people feel seen instead of trying to impress them. He covers unity, or finding common ground, and why simply calling your people a team can build loyalty. And he breaks down reciprocity, the chocolate shop and Costco effect, where giving something away, even information or a compliment, creates goodwill that comes back later. The second element is reducing uncertainty. Here Barry shows how authority and social proof help customers feel confident enough to say yes. He shares why you should never read your own bio, how a simple introduction as our expert can lift sales, and why testimonials, reviews, and award-winning credentials matter so much. Corey and Barry also offer a practical tip for business owners: if you want customer testimonials, write a draft for your happy clients and let them edit it, because most people will never write one from scratch. The third element is motivating people to act. Barry explains ethical scarcity and how it differs from the endless fake sales that train buyers to wait. He covers consistency, the power of getting a small yes first, and ties it back to Chris Voss and the art of the strategic no. Finally, he explains reducing friction, using a furniture store that boosted couch sales simply by offering to haul away the old one, and why understanding why customers say no is one of the most valuable things you can learn. What makes this episode work is how usable it is. Corey keeps bringing the ideas back to the small business owner who wears too many hats, and every concept comes with a real-world example you can apply to your sales team, your leadership, your marketing, and even your everyday conversations. If you are a business owner, sales leader, consultant, or entrepreneur who wants to communicate more effectively, build trust, and move people toward yes without feeling salesy, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in for a smart, engaging conversation on behavioral economics, ethical influence, and the persuasion techniques that quietly shape every decision around us. KEY TAKEAWAYS Ethical influence has three tests: it has to be true, it has to make sense to the person you are talking to, and it has to be wise enough that you would recommend it to your own kids, spouse, or colleagues. If what you are moving someone toward fails any of those, you are not persuading, you are manipulating, and you will see that person again tomorrow. Liking starts with curiosity, not credentials: people do not walk away impressed by your background, they walk away liking you because you asked about theirs. Barry describes it as a volleyball rally rather than an interrogation, and Corey points out it is the same skill that separates the best leaders, who ask questions and make people feel seen, from the ones who just talk. Unity is built by naming it: find common ground and then say it out loud. Call the group a team, whether that is team sales, team IT, or team plumbers, and put people in logo shirts. It sounds hokey the first time a leader says it, but people want to belong to something, and they notice the leader who gives them that. Reciprocity is targeted karma: the chocolate shop that hands out samples sees sales climb 50% to 150%, and the farmers market vendor who has someone handing fruit to passersby outsells the booth with a bowl on the table. A bowl is not a gift; a person giving it to you is. The same applies to information, a heads up, or a compliment, and none of it is one for one, so do not expect the return today. Never read your own bio: reciting your background is bragging, but the same words coming from someone else confer authority. A London real estate firm lifted rentals by over 15% by having the receptionist say let me introduce you to our expert in the Chelsea area instead of just transferring the call. Hang the diplomas, the certificates, and the awards, because authority works even when nobody says a word about it. When people cannot find an expert, they go to the crowd: that is why reviews, award-winning credentials, and testimonials carry so much weight. If you want testimonials, do not just ask, because roughly nine out of ten happy customers will never write one. Draft it for them and let them edit it, and most will say yes. Scarcity only works when it is real: the endless President's Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day sale trains buyers to wait for the next one. A limited run of 25 pieces, an early bird conference rate tied to a real planning deadline, or 17 seats actually left is honest scarcity, and honest scarcity is the only kind that keeps working. Get the small yes first, or use the strategic no: a police department could not get anyone to put a two foot lawn sign up, so they asked for a three by five postcard in the window instead. Everyone said yes, and weeks later most of those same people took the sign. The flip side is Chris Voss territory, where asking are you against this lets people say no and feel in control, which clears the way for the real conversation. Reducing friction is the one most owners skip: a furniture store was losing couch sales over one unanswered question, what do we do with the old one. They started hauling old couches away and sales took off. When someone says no, ask why, because you may be able to fix it for them, and if not, you have just learned something for the next customer. LINKS & RESOURCES Connect with Barry Moline on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barry-moline-29b99a53/ Learn more about Barry Moline and BJM Solutions: https://barrymoline.com Email Barry directly: barry@barrymoline.com Get the book, Connect! How to Quickly Collaborate for Success in Business and Life: https://www.amazon.com/Connect-Quickly-Collaborate-Success-Business/dp/1977209084 Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keyhire-small-business-podcast/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 0:00 – Introduction: there is a science to moving people toward yes 1:50 – Looking back at Stefan Boehmer on incentive plans and Tony Manganiello on employee cash flow 4:33 – Meet Barry Moline: CEO of BJM Solutions and author of Connect! 5:23 – What behavioral economics actually means 6:38 – Chris Voss and the power of a no oriented question 7:47 – The ethics umbrella: true, makes sense, and wise 11:26 – The snake oil salesman and why trust outlasts the sale 12:15 – The three elements: relationships, uncertainty, and action 13:51 – Learning the method from Dr. Robert Cialdini, and why liking starts with questions 16:27 – The high school experiment and what it taught Corey about curiosity 20:15 – Unity, common ground, and the Calgary Flames jersey in Nashville 22:27 – Call yourselves a team, and why logo shirts work 24:46 – Reciprocity: the chocolate shop, the fruit vendor, and the Costco effect 29:17 – Targeted karma: giving information, a heads up, or a compliment 30:18 – Reducing uncertainty: authority, uniforms, and never reading your own bio 31:44 – The Chelsea rental study and the power of our expert 34:30 – Social proof, reviews, and the award-winning label 36:20 – How to actually get testimonials: write the draft for them 36:48 – Motivating action and the problem with fake scarcity 39:19 – Consistency, the small yes, and the lawn sign study 40:19 – Letting people say no so they feel in control 43:31 – Reducing friction: hauling away the old couch 45:48 – Barry recaps all three elements 46:47 – Where to find Barry and the book