Unscripted Small Business Podcast
Meet the Guests
Every founder, operator, and expert who’s joined us to talk shop — the wins, the scars, and the strategies that actually worked. 68 conversations and counting.
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We’re always looking for small business owners and experts with hard-won lessons.
| Guest | Company | Episode | What it’s about |
|---|---|---|---|
| Richard Gearhart | Gearhart Law | AI Cannot Be Your Author, and It Cannot Be Your Inventor Either | Richard Gearhart of Gearhart Law on what copyright, patents and trade secrets still protect once AI is in your workflow, and what quietly stops protecting you. |
| Alex Radetic | Nuvo Agency | Why a 5% Close-Rate Lift Beats 20% More Leads | Alex Radetic of Nuvo Agency on why a five percent close-rate lift beats twenty percent more leads, publishing price ranges, and fixing your Yelp reviews. |
| Phil Crowley | He Downloaded an Operating Agreement Off the Internet. It Wasn’t One. | Phil Crowley’s client downloaded an operating agreement off the internet. It was not one, and it nearly cost him $50,000 and his vodka distillery. | |
| Isaac Justesen | Stop Boosting Posts: What a Clinic Marketer Fixes First | Isaac Justesen has spent five years marketing physical therapy and chiropractic clinics. His first two fixes cost almost nothing, and almost every small business has both of them broken. | |
| Brett Schklar | Brett Schklar: AI Is Not Taking Your Job. It Is Taking Your Tasks. | Brett Schklar has asked 1,800 CEOs how AI adoption is really going. On IQ versus AIQ, why 95% of pilots fail, and the 1% a week Moneyball fix. | |
| Jake Still | Junk Rescue | Jake Still On Going From One Job To A Thousand | Junk Rescue’s Jake Still on what nobody tells you about scaling a hauling business – and why he sorts every load into donation, recycling and trash. |
| Matthew Pohl | The ReWild Group | Your Business Isn’t Stuck. It’s In A Stage. | Matthew Pohl of The ReWild Group on why complexity tracks headcount, not revenue, and the five challenges that hit every business at 11 to 19 employees. |
| Karen Aucoin | JoBelle Bell and Studio 131 | Karen Aucoin: Your Competitors Should Be Friends | Karen Aucoin of JoBelle Bell and Studio 131 on why most people quit when it gets hard, and why every competitor should be in your corner. |
| Gil Vaisman | GoADU | Gil Vaisman Wants To Be Useless In His Own Business | GoADU’s Gil Vaisman on hiring right, refusing to micromanage, and the goal that sounds insulting until you understand it – being useless. |
| Sherri Langburt | BabbleBoxx | Selling a Pool Is Harder Than Selling Mascara | Sherri Langburt of BabbleBoxx on influencer marketing for small business — creator fit, campaign readiness, the channels nobody books, and why AI cannot replace the human. |
| James Ernst | Core Order | Fix the Workflow First: James Ernst on AI That Actually Sticks in a Small Business | James Ernst of Core Order on why most businesses buy AI backwards, where homebrew beats off-the-shelf, and how to give reclaimed time back to your people instead of cutting headcount. |
| John David Graham | You Can’t Argue People Out of Fear — John David Graham on Building Good Samaritan Home | Homeless at 53, John David Graham founded a nonprofit that now runs 19 houses and has helped 2,500 people restart. The reentry economics, the snowblower that beat the petitions, and the nonprofit mechanics nobody warns you about. | |
| Cari McGee | Are You Writing for a Lion or an Otter? Cari McGee on Personality-Typed Marketing | Twenty years in real estate: the parking-lot photo that outperformed everything else she’s posted, why she only refers local lenders, what COVID masks taught her about reading clients, and a DISC-based case for writing four versions of your content. | |
| Sal Tirabassi | CFO Pro + Analytics | One Model, All Purposes: Sal Tirabassi on What a Fractional CFO Actually Does | CFO Pro + Analytics founder Sal Tirabassi on the first three priorities of a new engagement, the ~$5M revenue threshold where a fractional CFO pays for itself, the client he told to fire him, and the AI habits he uses in finance work. |
| Rachel Smalling | A Toaster Oven and Five Items: Rachel Smalling on Two Motels, a Speakeasy, and Running on Constraint | Rachel Smalling bought a closed motel on a joke, a second one to block a competitor, and opened Cookeville’s first speakeasy without ever having worked in a bar. The financing, the paper-calendar booking system, and the case for a deliberately tiny menu. | |
| Francie Jain | Terawatt | Burnout Is a System Problem — Francie Jain on Group Coaching, Retention Math and the “Sophisticated Middle” | Terawatt founder Francie Jain on the marketplace insight that coaches need leads too, why group coaching reaches the people one-on-one never does, and the $10,000 test that explains most of your turnover. |
| Jeff Revilla | The Infinite Seat Theater: Jeff Revilla on Building a Risk-Free Stage for Podcasters | Jeff Revilla went from selling blank skateboards to running a 70-million-view dealer content operation to opening a live podcast theater — with no contract, no minimum ticket sales, and a 50/50 door split that moves in the creator’s favour as they grow. | |
| Brandon Barnum | 84% of B2B Sales Start With a Referral — Brandon Barnum on Building the Partnerships That Produce Them | The “King of Referrals” on going from $20K to $200K in 18 months, the exact script for formalizing a referral partnership, networking events for introverts, and reading someone’s personality in 90 seconds. | |
| Samantha Prestidge | Auxo Business Services | Samantha Prestidge on Simplifying Your Business, Trusting Your Boundaries, and Getting Help | Auxo Business Services founder Samantha Prestidge on the three buckets every business has, choosing your pond before you chase the gorilla client, why most pricing is arbitrary, and the middle manager stuck in a sucky sandwich. |
| Rachel Eisaman | Joli Residential | Beyond the Truck: Rachel Eisaman on 17 Years of Helping People Actually Survive a Move | Joli Residential founder Rachel Eisaman on move management as project management, why 60% referral business is both a moat and a ceiling, quoting high on purpose, and the 300 hours of packing nobody budgets for. |
| Juliana Weiss-Roessler | WR Digital Marketing | Your Marketing Isn’t Broken — Your Process Is: Juliana Weiss-Roessler on the System That Grows Small Businesses | Juliana Weiss-Roessler of WR Digital Marketing on treating marketing as a process instead of a to-do list, why email is the only channel you truly own, the dog-training event that went from 1 conversion to 8, and the customers you already have. |
| Thiago Cordeiro | OG Group | Zero to Seven Figures in 90 Days — Thiago Cordeiro on Direct Response, VSL Funnels, and Scaling With Affiliates | Thiago Cordeiro (OG Group) went from a $15K first-month loss to seven-figure months in nutraceuticals. He breaks down 40-minute VSL funnels for cold traffic, why AI can’t write your copy alone, and the backend LTV model powering a $20–50M affiliate goal. |
| Louis Swart | Iron Brij | The $100/Hour Rule That Ends $10 Busywork — Louis Swart of Iron Brij | The $100/Hour Rule That Ends $10 Busywork Louis Swart of Iron Brij on why a business a broker once called “worth nothing” later sold for $5M, the SOPs that let him scale to 450 staff, and the post-it note that kills $10 busywork. ▶ Listen to the Episode 🎧 Listen: […] |
| Richard Hickman | Piqued Consulting | Build Your Website for the AI, Not the Human: Richard Hickman on Coaching the Coaches | The founder of Piqued Consulting on CRM foundations and speed-to-lead, pricing to cover acquisition, why email is the most underused channel, and building your website so AI cites you. |
| Kinsey Morgan | Workplace Trauma Is the Thing Nobody Books Therapy For — Kinsey Morgan of Arise Counseling | Therapist Kinsey Morgan on EMDR as a dimmer switch for painful memories, the post-COVID surge in workplace trauma, why HR protects the company, and why she won’t bill insurance. | |
| Ally Machate | The Writer’s Ally | Most Business Owners Are Writing the Wrong Book — Ally Machate on Authority, the Memoir Trap and Book Strategy | The Writer’s Ally founder Ally Machate on why not every business owner should write a book, why coaches keep writing the wrong one, and how giving copies away sells more of them. |
| Claudia Rucker | Beyond Ordinary Business | Seven Figures and No Fulfillment — Claudia Rucker on Entrepreneurial Poverty and Building a Business You Can Sell | Beyond Ordinary Business founder Claudia Rucker on hitting seven figures and feeling nothing, the owner-operator to leader transition, fractional COOs, and designing an exit before you need one. |
| Oreet Kaufman | “Don’t Make Me Do Math” — Oreet Kaufman on Word Dieting, the Five-Second Slide and a Keynote Deck in 48 Hours | Chicago PowerPoint specialist Oreet Kaufman on designing backwards from the outcome, why bullets lose the room, where AI stops being useful, and the Thanksgiving keynote she turned around in two days. | |
| Zach Brown & Jared LaCroix | The Unexpected Interruption — Zach Brown & Jared LaCroix of Majestic Photo Booth on Refusing to Be a Commodity | How a thousand-pound film photo booth bought to fund a band became a national brand — the zero-cost venue placement model, brand activations, and why the printed strip still beats a phone. | |
| Tatiana Zagorovski | Trio Realty Partners | From Code to Keys — Tatiana Zagorovski on Leaving 23 Years of Software for St. Louis Real Estate | Trio Realty Partners founder Tatiana Zagorovski on vetting real estate mentors the hard way, why cash offers aren’t automatically lowballs, and the six-figure scam that didn’t stop her. |
| Jorge Chavez | Topaz Sales Consulting | The Status Quo Is Your Biggest Competitor — Jorge Chavez on Selling Without Selling | Topaz Sales Consulting’s Jorge Chavez on why the status quo is every seller’s real competitor, why you don’t have to ask for the order, empathetic listening, and… |
| Ameera Virani | The Designed Life | Design Your Life on Purpose — Ameera Virani on Habits, Visibility & Wealth | Life-design coach Ameera Virani of The Designed Life on why designing your life is a responsibility, the internal thermostat that pulls founders back, work-life… |
| Julika Novkova | Jules Psychology | Julika Novkova on the Human Side of Small Business | Business psychologist Julika Novkova on why rigidity blocks creativity, the freeze response in business, authenticity as alignment, and why ‘without action,… |
| George Rivera | Founder Dad Tables | George Rivera on Building a Business You Can Step Away From | Founder Dad Tables creator George Rivera on the deathbed sentence that changed everything, why founder dads have a dependency problem (not a time problem), and… |
| Jared Harman | One Group Agency | Jared Harman on Running a Full-Service Agency in the AI Era | One Group Agency founder Jared Harman on where AI actually adds value, why human connection is the differentiator, and the messy truth that marketing has no… |
| Txldian The Destroyer | Independent artist (aka Sham Beasy) | Txldian The Destroyer on the Smoke and Mirrors of the Music Business | Independent artist Txldian The Destroyer on leaving a Sony deal to go fully independent, treating music as a business, AI in creative work, and why ‘the real… |
| Brad Poulos | — | Brad Poulos on Building a Business That Runs Without You | Entrepreneurship educator Brad Poulos on lean startups, delegating outcomes instead of tasks, funding paths beyond VC, and the ‘Barbados test’ for whether you… |
| Matt Tyner | Bone Dry Roofing | Matt Tyner on Why Marketing Makes the Promise and Operations Keeps It | Bone Dry Roofing CMO Matt Tyner on the only constant in 15 years of marketing, why home services over-rotated to digital, and a week-one action list to start… |
| Cecily North | Traveling North Agency | Cecily North on Building a Travel Agency — and Why AI Can’t Replace a Human Agent | Traveling North Agency founder Cecily North on the question that launched her business, why friends and family make the worst first clients, and the one thing… |
| Jessica Malnik | The Remote Work Tribe | Jessica Malnik on Remote Work, AI & Beating Commodity Content | Remote-work and product-marketing expert Jessica Malnik on why hybrid is the hardest model, who maintains your vibe-coded tools once their builder leaves, and… |
| Mark Pearson | Agent Buyable AI | Mark Pearson on Getting Found, Chosen, and Paid by AI Agents — Agentic Commerce Comes to Small Business | AI consultant Mark Pearson breaks down agentic commerce and AEO for small business — how AI agents now have a wallet, why backlinks still matter, and how to get… |
| Paul Pape | Gamify Business | Paul Pape: How Gamifying Business Makes Entrepreneurs Finally Get It | What if the reason your clients can’t understand your process is that you’re explaining it wrong — not because they’re incapable, but because the format itself… |
| Cameron Tope | Emerson Property Management | Cameron Tope: Building a Property Management Company With Integrity | Cameron Tope of Emerson Property Management shares how he built a Houston property management company from 30 doors to a full-service asset management firm —… |
| Knight Lancaster | Lancaster Firm CPA | Knight Lancaster: Navigating Finances, Marketing & Law in Tennessee | Knight Lancaster — attorney and CPA — breaks down the cash flow models, marketing attribution strategies, and legal frameworks helping Tennessee small businesses… |
| Meaghan Wall | The Hot Girl CFO | Cash Flow Is Queen — and It’s Also Baby | Meaghan Wall of The Hot Girl CFO | Jeremy Rivera sits down with Meaghan Wall, founder of The Hot Girl CFO — a boutique accounting agency specializing in fractional CFO services, bookkeeping, and… |
| Brandon Moon | TD Pine Advisors | Building a Business You Can Walk Away From | Brandon Moon, TD Pine Advisors | 100% of business owners will exit their business someday. Brandon Moon of TD Pine Advisors joined Jeremy Rivera to talk about building a transferable asset,… |
| Dave Gulas | EZDC 3PL | Dave Gulas on Customer Service, Entrepreneurship & E-commerce Logistics | Dave Gulas co-founded EZDC 3PL after 20 years in pharmaceutical sales — spotting a massive complacency gap in the logistics industry. This episode covers the… |
| Mason McCumber | — | Mason McCumber on AI Agents, Agentic Workflows & Building Smarter Business Systems | Show notes for the Mason McCumber episode — AI expert at buildwithmm.com on agentic workflows, long-term AI memory, automation vs. AI, and why project management… |
| Kate Hendrickson | The Strategy Lane | Kate Hendrickson: Authentic Marketing in a Tech-Driven World | 🎙️ Unscripted Small Business Podcast Authentic Marketing in a Tech-Driven World with Kate Hendrickson Consultant, author, and founder of The Strategy Lane on… |
| Christopher Papin | — | Christopher Papin: 168 Hours, Business Clarity & Knowing When to Walk Away | Christopher Papin is a CPA, attorney, and author who runs three different operations simultaneously — and he credits it all to systems. In this episode he… |
| Sara Nay | Duct Tape Marketing | Strategy First: Why Small Business Marketing Fails Without Foundation | Sara Nay has spent 15 years at Duct Tape Marketing, rising from intern to CEO. In this episode she breaks down why strategy has to come before tactics, how to… |
| Melinda Martin | — | Melinda Martin: Exploding Your Knowledge of the Book Publishing Industry | Melinda Martin has spent 15 years guiding authors through one of the most emotionally charged and predatory industries in small business: book publishing. In… |
| Tyler Mumford | Grind Time Stump Grinding | Grinding Out Success: Tyler Mumford from Corporate Sales to Stump Grinding | Tyler Mumford left corporate software sales to grind stumps — and made $9,000 in his first month. In this episode he explains how B2B SaaS sales skills apply… |
| Lynn Colepaugh | Cyber PR Army | Lynn Colepaugh: Transforming Creators into Business Leaders | Lynn Colepaugh has spent her career helping creators make the leap from artist to business owner. In this episode she digs into why that mindset shift is the… |
| Conrad Coe | Exotic Vehicle Wraps | Interview with Conrad Coe: Operations, AI, and the Evolution of Automotive Wrapping | Conrad Coe manages operations at one of the nation’s longest-running automotive wrapping shops. In this episode he shares how AI is creating sameness in their… |
| Scott Curry | — | From Failed Ventures to Financial Freedom & Faith with Scott Curry | Scott Curry spent 15 years failing at businesses before a COVID pivot to YouTube replaced his six-figure income in three months. In this episode he shares what… |
| Tianna Mamalick | SMB Marketing School | The Human Element in SEO for SMBs: A Conversation with Tianna Mamalick | Tianna Mamalick has spent 12 years doing SEO exclusively for small businesses. In this episode she cuts through the noise on AI content, service pages, sales… |
| Bill Kasko | Frontline Source Group | The Costanza Theory: How Doing the Opposite Drives Success for Bill Kasko | Bill Kasko built Frontline Source Group over 21 years by doing the opposite of everything his industry told him to do. In this episode he shares the… |
| Rachel Minion | Rockstarr & Moon | Breaking the Consultant Hustle Cycle with Rachel Minion | Rachel Minion built her consulting practice around one core insight: the feast-or-famine cycle isn’t inevitable — it’s a systems problem. In this episode she… |
| Bruce Ashford | The Ashford Agency | What a Nonprofit Consultant Taught Me About Why Your Marketing Isn’t Working | Bruce Ashford of The Ashford Agency joined the Unscripted Small Business Podcast to break down why most small business marketing fails — and it’s not a tactics… |
| Marc Pitts | DiscountVapePen.com | Marc Pitts of DiscountVapePen.com on SEO Survival in a Regulated Industry | 🎙️ Unscripted Small Business Podcast Marc Pitts of DiscountVapePen.com on SEO Survival in a Regulated Industry The founder who had to become an SEO practitioner… |
| Mark Gilliland | Kyoto Botanicals | Running a Botanical Wellness Brand: What One Founder Learned About Products, Regulations, and Building a Business Without a Playbook | 🎙️ Unscripted Small Business Podcast Running a Botanical Wellness Brand: Products, Regulations & Building Without a Playbook Mark Gilliland of Kyoto Botanicals… |
| Denise Dubois | — | Building a Spa Empire: Denise Dubois on Beauty, Wellness & Sustainable Business Growth | 🎙️ Unscripted Small Business Podcast Building a Spa Empire: Denise Dubois on Beauty, Wellness & Sustainable Business Growth The founder who opened her first spa… |
| H&H Construction | Home remodeling (Cookeville, TN) | Dominating Cookeville Home Renovation, Additions & Remodeling : H&H Construction | 🎙️ Unscripted Small Business Podcast Dominating Cookeville Home Renovation, Additions & Remodeling: H&H Construction The husband-and-wife team behind H&H… |
| Chad T. Jenkins | SeedSpark | The Collaboration Formula That Beats Working Hard (VCR = Vision + Capability × Reach) | 🎙️ Unscripted Small Business Podcast The Collaboration Formula That Beats Working Hard — Chad T. Jenkins & the VCR Formula Founder of SeedSpark on Vision +… |
| Andrew Poles | — | The Entrepreneur Mindset With Andrew Poles | 🎙️ Unscripted Small Business Podcast The Entrepreneur Mindset With Andrew Poles Executive coach and ultra marathon mountain biker on why founder growth and… |
| Terrence Irving | Wedding photography | Building a Wedding Photography Business: Terrence Irving’s Story | 🎙️ Unscripted Small Business Podcast Building a Wedding Photography Business: Terrence Irving’s Story How a landscape photo seller on Etsy became a sought-after… |
| Justin Stehr | MetaFlex® | Unscripted Small Business Podcast: Interview with Justin Stehr | 🎙️ Unscripted Small Business Podcast From Business Operations to Medical Innovation with Justin Stehr of MetaFlex® The Certified Hand Therapist at Vanderbilt… |