The Lead Machine Growth Show with Paul Guyon

Hosted by The Lead Machine Growth Show with Paul Guyon

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Episodes

189

Latest episode

Nov 2026

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EN-US

About the show

You have a powerful message for your audience and an irresistible offer that could change everything for them. But you’re struggling with marketing and technology. You’re struggling to implement. You’re stuck. You wonder. Where can I find help? Enter Paul Guyon, the mastermind behind the Lead Machine. He joins trailblazers who share their insights and how they overcame obstacles, marketing, and tech uncertainty. And they share the importance of cultivating a positive mindset. They give expert guidance on implementing life-changing solutions and systems you can model to nurture your leads and get your offers seen by your ideal clients who will invest in themselves and in you. Paul’s mission is to help ordinary people produce extraordinary results. Get ready to transform your vision into reality!

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November 11, 202636 min

#190 Every Yes Has a Cost: Learning When to Say No

Nate Graham shows you how accepting new opportunities creates competing demands on time, relationships, and follow-through, and why knowing when to say no matters as much as recognizing when to say yes. In This Episode, You’ll Learn • How new business opportunities compete with existing commitments and family time. • Why taking on too much can make consistent follow-up difficult. • How Nate approaches priorities while continuing to pursue opportunities. Tune In Now From running Cure-All Wireless to joining his family’s real estate business in Harbor Springs, Nate has experienced changing markets, unexpected opportunities, and difficult choices. He and Paul discuss the personal cost of saying yes, the importance of consistency, and Nate’s desire to leave his community better than he found it. Chapters 00:00 The Power of Saying No 01:00 From Wireless to Real Estate 03:00 When the Wireless Market Changed 05:00 Photography, Drones, and Marketing 07:00 Building a Real Estate Business 09:00 Learning When to Say No 10:00 The Cost of Time Away From Family 12:00 Simplifying Life and Priorities 14:00 Protecting Harbor Springs 16:00 Development and Community Change 19:00 Keep Showing Up 20:00 Consistency and Follow-Up 22:00 Photography and Community Fundraising 24:00 Learning to Fail Faster 27:00 Empathy and Listening in Real Estate 29:00 New Opportunities and Future Plans 30:00 Urgent Versus Important 33:00 Making Room for What’s Next Quotable “So every yes, you know, you’re saying no to something else. There’s a consequence for it.” ~ Nate Graham Invitation From Guest Connect with Nate https://www.instagram.com/nateupnorth/ Connect With Our Guest Primary Website: https://grahamre.com LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nate-graham-8272688b/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nateupnorth/ The post #190 Every Yes Has a Cost: Learning When to Say No first appeared on The Lead Machine Growth Show with Paul Guyon .

November 4, 202618 min

#189 Growth Doesn’t Break Businesses. It Reveals the Cracks.

Paul Guyon shows you how business growth exposes misalignment between strategy, people, processes, technology, and culture, and why relying on heroic effort becomes increasingly difficult as a company scales. In This Episode, You’ll Learn How growth exposes operational weaknesses that employees have been quietly working around. Why changing business strategy requires people, processes, and technology to evolve together. How a company’s culture can weaken even when leadership still cares about its people. Tune In Now Hear the firsthand story of building DSI into a multimillion-dollar business, the operational and cultural changes that accompanied its growth, and the difficult personal experience that shaped Paul’s understanding of sustainable growth. Chapters 00:00 Growth reveals the cracks 01:00 The culture that made DSI special 01:00 The Easter bunny recall 03:00 Expanding into pharmaceuticals 04:00 Building the airline delivery network 06:00 How LogiTRACK transformed operations 07:00 Growing to $50 million 08:00 When company culture began changing 09:00 A new strategy challenges existing operations 10:00 Why LogiTRACK needed to evolve 11:00 Expanding IT resources and rearchitecting 12:00 Customer service and relationships suffer 13:00 A difficult personal turning point 14:00 The hidden cost of growth 15:00 Why heroic effort doesn’t scale 16:00 Lessons learned and Growing Pains invitation Quotable “Growth exposes weaknesses that were easier to work around before.” ~ Paul Guyon Invitation From Guest Are You an Established Business Owner? Help Shape My Next Book! I’m interviewing established business owners for the next edition of Growing Pains. Join me for a 60-minute Zoom conversation to share your industry insights and explore strategies for uncovering hidden revenue and profit opportunities without spending more on advertising. Schedule Your Book Interview: https://leadmachinegrowthshow.com/growing-pains Connect With Our Guest Website: https://LeadMachineMarketingGroup.com LinkedIn: https://LeadMachineGrowthShow.com/linkedin Facebook: https://LeadMachineGrowthShow.com/facebook The post #189 Growth Doesn’t Break Businesses. It Reveals the Cracks. first appeared on The Lead Machine Growth Show with Paul Guyon .

October 28, 202645 min

#188 The Broke Millionaire: When More Revenue Makes Things Worse

Kim Trathen shows you how increasing sales can deepen financial problems when poor financial visibility hides profit leaks and owners make growth decisions without reliable numbers. In This Episode, You’ll Learn Why revenue growth doesn’t always produce better cash flow or profitability. How inaccurate bookkeeping can conceal expenses and undermine financial decisions. How staffing, marketing spending, and owner dependency can affect financial health. Tune In Now If you’re making more sales but wondering where the money went, this conversation explores what owners need to understand before investing in another round of growth. Chapters 00:00 Introduction: The Broke Millionaire 01:00 Profit on paper, no cash in the bank 03:00 The pressure of making payroll 08:00 Why bank balances don’t tell the whole story 10:00 Why accurate bookkeeping comes first 15:00 Finding profit leaks 17:00 Staffing and profitability 22:00 Recognizing the cash flow problem 24:00 Scaling problems instead of profits 27:00 The difficult decisions owners face 32:00 When the owner becomes the bottleneck 36:00 Moving from reaction to financial control 40:00 What owners wish they knew sooner 43:00 Getting started and Kim’s resources Quotable “that’s when you scale problems, not profits.” ~ Kim Trathen Invitation From Guest Cash Flow Clarity: 15-Minute Monthly Check-In A resource from Zacharin Consulting designed to help business owners review key cash-flow information each month and better understand their financial position. https://zacharinconsulting.com/resources Business owners uncertain about their financial position can contact Kim for a conversation about practical next steps, whether or not Zacharin Consulting is the right fit. Email: kim@zacharinconsulting.com Connect With Our Guest Website: https://zacharinconsulting.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimtrathen/ The post #188 The Broke Millionaire: When More Revenue Makes Things Worse first appeared on The Lead Machine Growth Show with Paul Guyon .

October 21, 202641 min

#187 When Leadership Moves Faster Than the Team Can Learn

Behrad Bayanpour shows you how to recognize the gap between leadership’s pace of change and employees’ ability to absorb it, and how to use communication, demonstration, practice, and feedback to improve organizational alignment. In This Episode, You’ll Learn Why established processes and cultures can become obstacles to the next stage of growth. How to communicate the why and how behind organizational change before focusing on what employees must do. How demonstration, feedback, and shared learning help teams adopt new ways of working. Tune In Now When a business needs to change, leadership can move through new ideas and decisions faster than the people responsible for implementing them. Behrad Bayanpour shares what he learned while integrating business functions at Powerpay, introducing new ways of working, and recognizing when his own involvement was becoming a bottleneck. The conversation examines how leaders can balance progress with organizational learning, develop independent decision-making, and adapt their leadership approach to the people they serve. Chapters 00:00 Introduction to Behrad Bayanpour and Powerpay 02:00 Bringing business functions under one leader 04:00 Established cultures and resistance to change 07:00 Transparent communication and employee feedback 10:00 Why leadership learns faster than the organization 12:00 Start with why, then how, then what 13:00 Demonstrating what good looks like 15:00 Developing leaders and demonstrating new methods 17:00 Helping employees navigate new expectations 19:00 Compliance without alignment 23:00 When leadership becomes the decision-making bottleneck 25:00 Learning patience through a family card game 28:00 Different learning styles and team development 30:00 Why the business cannot scale through one decision-maker 32:00 Testing organizational independence by taking time off 35:00 Developing patience and empathy as a leader Quotable “So you, as a leaders, we have to stop. We have to understand where those frictions are for people to, A, understand the why, B, understand the how, to ultimately get into the what.” ~ Behrad Bayanpour Invitation From Guest Learn more about Powerpay: https://www.powerpay.ca/ Connect with Powerpay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/powerpay-canada/ Connect With Our Guest Primary Website https://www.powerpay.ca/ Social Profiles LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/powerpay-canada/ The post #187 When Leadership Moves Faster Than the Team Can Learn first appeared on The Lead Machine Growth Show with Paul Guyon .

October 14, 202646 min

#186 Why Hiring Help Left Me Doing Everything Again

Mike Milligan shows you how hiring decisions, employee expectations, and planning for future roles influence whether delegation supports sustained business growth. In This Episode, You’ll Learn Why hiring part-time employees for full-time responsibilities created problems for Mike’s first team. How listening to employees’ needs and understanding their expectations can improve hiring decisions. How Mike used documented processes and future-focused hiring to build a larger team. Tune In Now If you’ve hired employees to reduce your workload but found yourself taking on those responsibilities again, Mike’s experience offers a practical examination of what went wrong, what he learned, and how he approached building his next team differently. Chapters 00:00:00 | Introduction to Mike Milligan 00:01:00 | Leaving Corporate America and Recognizing the Need to Hire 00:02:00 | Hiring Part-Time for Full-Time Responsibilities 00:03:00 | Assigning Tasks Without Understanding Employees’ Goals 00:05:00 | Back to Doing Everything Himself 00:06:00 | Recognizing Missed Employee Expectations 00:13:00 | Building the Second Team With Full-Time Employees 00:15:00 | When an Employee Wants to Build a Different Business 00:16:00 | Asking One Employee to Handle Two Roles 00:17:00 | Selling the Business After Another Setback 00:18:00 | Starting 1.oak Financial 00:20:00 | Self-Doubt After Repeated Setbacks 00:24:00 | Renewed Confidence During COVID 00:25:00 | Documenting Systems and Processes 00:26:00 | Hiring an Operations Leader 00:28:00 | Growing From One Employee to 37 00:30:00 | Recognition and Company Culture 00:31:00 | Moving From Personal Goals to Impact 00:34:00 | Reducing Dependence on the Founder 00:37:00 | Support Versus Keeping Employees on Life Support 00:39:00 | A Three-Step Decision-Making Framework 00:41:00 | Spending Authority and Decision Rules 00:42:00 | The One of a Kind Financial Plan 00:44:00 | How to Connect With Mike Milligan Quotable “I ended up exactly where I was three years later from where I started.” ~ Mike Milligan Invitation From Guest Purchase The One of a Kind Financial Plan on Amazon, or schedule a time to speak with Mike by texting the word “ideas” to 600-700. www.mikemilligan.com Connect With Our Guest Primary Website: www.mikemilligan.com Additional URLs: www.1oakfinancial.com LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/mikemilligancfp YouTube: www.youtube.com/@1.oakradio The post #186 Why Hiring Help Left Me Doing Everything Again first appeared on The Lead Machine Growth Show with Paul Guyon .

October 7, 202645 min

#185 You Can’t Run a Growing Business From Your Gut

Christy Carter shows you how to recognize when growth has exceeded your personal capacity, document what lives in your head, delegate responsibility, and move from running everything yourself toward leading through people and systems. In This Episode, You’ll Learn Why running a business from your gut becomes less reliable as the company grows How documentation helps an owner delegate without remaining the answer to everything Why increasing capacity requires recognizing what you can handle and what someone else needs to own Tune In Now If your business is growing but more work, more employees, and more responsibility keep pulling you deeper into day-to-day operations, Christy’s experience provides a practical look at what has to change. She shares the difficulty of letting go, the cost of keeping critical processes in your head, and what helped her move into a leadership role. Chapters 00:00 Introduction 02:00 Growing Beyond the Kitchen Table 06:00 Trust, Control, and Learning to Let Go 11:00 Getting Processes Out of Your Head 14:00 Delegating the Dispatch Board 18:00 When Growth Accelerated 24:00 When the Business Took Over Family Life 25:00 Getting Help Without the Capacity to Use It 28:00 The Question That Changed Christy’s Role 31:00 Building Managers Without Micromanaging 33:00 Why Company Values Became Operational 38:00 Selling the HVAC Company 40:00 Creating Capacity With WorkWife 42:00 The Step From Running the Business to Leading It Quotable “It’s okay to not be able to do everything, and that it doesn’t make you a bad leader to say, “I can’t do this.” It actually makes you a better one because you can say “This is the part I can handle. This is the part I can’t.”” ~ Christy Carter Invitation From Guest Learn more at: getworkwife.com Connect With Our Guest Primary Website: https://getworkwife.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WorkWifeLLC/ TikTok: @get_workwife Instagram: @workwifellc LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/workwife/ YouTube: @get_workwife The post #185 You Can’t Run a Growing Business From Your Gut first appeared on The Lead Machine Growth Show with Paul Guyon .

September 30, 202639 min

#184 You’re Solving the Wrong Problem: Why Business Problems Keep Coming Back

Kevin D. St.Clergy shows you how to recognize when an incorrect diagnosis of a recurring business problem can keep you fixing symptoms, blaming yourself or your team, and repeating solutions that cannot address the real cause. In This Episode, You’ll Learn Why repeated solutions can fail when the underlying problem has been incorrectly identified. How Kevin’s team kept trying productivity and planning solutions before discovering that sleep apnea was affecting his performance. How to separate work only you can do from work that can be delegated, automated, or outsourced. Tune In Now If the same sales, team, or operational problem keeps returning despite repeated attempts to fix it, this conversation provides a practical reason to question the diagnosis before adding another system, tool, or productivity fix. Chapters 00:00:00 Growth Reveals What Needs Attention 00:03:00 The Problem Wasn’t ADHD 00:04:00 Missed Follow-Up and Lost Opportunities 00:07:00 Scaling, Overselling, and Client Churn 00:10:00 When the ADHD Explanation Stopped Fitting 00:11:00 Looking Beyond the Assumed Problem 00:12:00 Discovering Sleep Apnea 00:14:00 Why Recurring Problems Can Be Hard to See 00:17:00 What Changed After Getting Rest 00:19:00 The Personal Cost of the Problem 00:22:00 Expectations and Covert Contracts 00:28:00 Giving Without Needing Validation 00:30:00 Learning From Failure and Focusing on Solutions 00:31:00 Making Health a Business Priority 00:32:00 Working More Versus Being Effective 00:33:00 What to Delegate, Automate, or Outsource Quotable “I think that a lot of people aren’t failing, Paul. They’re just solving the wrong problem over and over again, and that’s what keeps them stuck” ~ Kevin D. St.Clergy Invitation From Guest Email Kevin at kevin@blindblaming.com with the subject line FREE BOOK, and he’ll send you a free copy of Beyond Blind Blaming. www.blindblaming.com if you want to buy all 4 versions. Connect With Our Guest Primary Website www.BlindBlaming.com Social Profiles LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinstclergy/ The post #184 You’re Solving the Wrong Problem: Why Business Problems Keep Coming Back first appeared on The Lead Machine Growth Show with Paul Guyon .

September 23, 202645 min

#183 AI Can Write the Copy, but Humans Still Have to Know What Works

Jon Benson shows you how to combine specialized AI, proprietary knowledge, iterative refinement, buyer alignment, and human judgment to produce marketing grounded in expertise and ethical persuasion. In This Episode, You’ll Learn In this episode, you’ll learn: Why Jon uses specialized training and human judgment instead of relying only on general-purpose AI How buyer alignment connects marketing language with the values of the people you want to reach Why AI-generated copy needs multiple iterations instead of treating the first draft as finished work Tune In Now If you use AI for copy, funnels, or marketing execution, this conversation explores where automation helps and where Jon believes human expertise still belongs. You’ll hear how he approaches specialized models, proprietary knowledge, buyer values, storytelling, ethical persuasion, and the human interaction surrounding the technology. Chapters 00:00 Jon Benson and the evolution of AI copywriting 01:00 Training machines to understand copy patterns 04:00 How AI amplified Jon’s business 06:00 Why specialized AI training matters 08:00 Where humans still have to get involved 09:00 The problem with AI-generated copy 14:00 Making BNSN easier to use 16:00 Building a buyer alignment profile 20:00 Why sell to people aligned with your values 23:00 Breaking storytelling into patterns 28:00 Why AI struggles with first drafts 34:00 From video sales letters to AI systems 36:00 Protecting proprietary knowledge in AI 39:00 Keeping human interaction in the system 40:00 Ethical persuasion and telling the truth 42:00 Jon’s AI clone and YouCloned.ai Quotable “The humans have to get involved here.” ~ Jon Benson Invitation From Guest See how I cloned myself and doubled my clients in 72 hours https://Youcloned.ai Get the AI skills I designed to build a multimillion-dollar company https://bnsn.ai/pod Connect With Our Guest Primary Website: https://bnsn.ai/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsjonbenson/ X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/itsjonbenson Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/itsjonbenson The post #183 AI Can Write the Copy, but Humans Still Have to Know What Works first appeared on The Lead Machine Growth Show with Paul Guyon .

September 16, 202642 min

#182 Growth Reveals What Your Business Can’t Handle

Lyndsay Phillips shows you how growing pains can expose operational weaknesses, founder bottlenecks, and outdated ways of working, and why documenting processes before growth can reduce mistakes, burnout, and stress. In This Episode, You’ll Learn Why hiring creates a new leadership challenge when knowledge and expectations still live in the founder’s head How growth exposed missing processes when a flood of clients led to mistakes, burnout, and late-night documentation Why good revenue and a bigger business did not necessarily create a better business for Lyndsay Tune In Now If your business is growing but becoming harder to operate, this conversation examines what those growing pains may be revealing. Lyndsay shares lessons from building a team, managing contractors, changing services, documenting processes, and recognizing when she remains the bottleneck. Chapters 00:00 Growth Reveals What the Business Can’t Handle 02:00 From VA Work to Building a Business 04:00 Hiring to Break the Hours-for-Dollars Ceiling 06:00 Learning What to Look for When Hiring 09:00 Scaling Values and Client Experience 11:00 Changing the Team as the Business Changes 14:00 Letting Go of Work That No Longer Fits 18:00 Coaches, Masterminds, and Outside Perspective 21:00 Recognizing the Founder Bottleneck 25:00 When Getting Bigger Doesn’t Mean Getting Better 28:00 Bringing the Team Into Problem-Solving 32:00 Testing a New Group Coaching Model 37:00 The Process Lesson Lyndsay Wishes She Learned Earlier 39:00 How to Connect With Lyndsay 40:00 Growth Reveals What Is Breaking Behind the Scenes Quotable “I know I’m the problem.” ~ Lyndsay Phillips Invitation From Guest For those starting to guest on podcasts or who simply want more results from their appearances, Lyndsay offers Why Your Podcast Interviews Aren’t Turning Into Leads (And What To Do Instead) https://www.leverageyourpodcast.com/clients Connect With Our Guest Primary Website: https://guesting360.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/smoothbusinesspodcasting Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smoothbusinessgrowth/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyndsayphillips/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@smoothbusinesspodcasting The post #182 Growth Reveals What Your Business Can’t Handle first appeared on The Lead Machine Growth Show with Paul Guyon .

September 9, 202646 min

#181 The Growth Engine Hidden in Human Connection

Gerren Sprauve shows you how intentional human connection can strengthen employee relationships, customer trust, and the relational equity that supports business growth. In This Episode, You’ll Learn How Gerren turned a simple thank-you moment into an approach to building relationships throughout his business. Why helping customers see the human behind the service worker changed how Gerren approached client and employee relationships. How repeated acts of recognition created relational equity that became operationally valuable during an unexpected staffing crisis. Tune In Now Hear how Gerren built a service company around human connection, what happened when 19 workers showed up during a sudden staffing crisis, and how he now approaches relationships through what he calls Human ROI, return on identity. Chapters 00:00:00 Gerren Sprauve and the Origin of Clean Slate 00:01:00 The Thank You Moment That Started It 00:05:00 Deciding to Become a Janitor 00:08:00 Choosing Thank You Moments Over Monetary Goals 00:11:00 Building a Business Through Human Connection 00:14:00 Connecting Clients With the Human Behind the Performer 00:16:00 Finding a Strategic Alliance 00:19:00 When the Partnership Suddenly Ended 00:20:00 19 Workers Show Up 00:23:00 When Relationship Equity Becomes Operationally Valuable 00:25:00 Building Through People and Moments 00:28:00 Losing a Major Client and the Team 00:30:00 Moving Into a New Season 00:38:00 Human ROI and the LENS Framework 00:42:00 Becoming a Conduit for Relationships 00:43:00 Connecting With Gerren 00:44:00 The Thank You Moments Challenge 00:46:00 Closing Quotable “I didn’t know that I was actually building equity with these individuals.” ~ Gerren Sprauve Invitation From Guest Visit www.thankyoumomentschallenge.com . Connect With Our Guest Primary Website www.cleanslatejan.com Additional URLs www.gerrensprauve.com Social Profiles https://www.facebook.com/gerrensprauve https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerrensprauve/ https://www.instagram.com/gerrensprauve/ The post #181 The Growth Engine Hidden in Human Connection first appeared on The Lead Machine Growth Show with Paul Guyon .