Making BIG Shifts is a growth and decision-making podcast for founders and operators, hosted by strategic integrator and founder of MKTG Reboot, Josh Anderson. Each episode features real operators, founders, and leaders unpacking the hard parts of running a business, the tough decisions, the setbacks, the inflection points, and the wins that follow. Through founder stories, growth strategies, and startup strategy insights, conversations span growth, marketing, leadership, systems, and strategy, with a focus on the shifts that actually move businesses forward.
The harder you chase a sale, the more buyers tend to pull away. Nancy Kay Coy, author of Stop Selling, Dammit! , joins Making BIG Shifts to explain why pressure, scripts, and aggressive closing tactics are becoming less effective with today’s informed and skeptical buyers. Nancy breaks down the four emotional drivers behind purchasing decisions, the extra question every seller should ask before closing, and why deals often stall long before a prospect goes silent. They also discuss how to uncover hidden friction, focus on outcomes instead of proving your expertise, and help buyers confidently explain and defend a decision internally. The core lesson is simple: selling chases the yes. Solving earns it. Listen now, follow Making Big Shifts by MKTG Reboot , and share this episode with someone who is tired of chasing deals that never close.
What if your business is actually stealing your freedom? Josh Anderson sits down with entrepreneur Justin Lund to discuss the lessons he learned through addiction, recovery, entrepreneurship, and building systems that buy back your time. They cover delegation, eliminating low-value work, the importance of having a North Star, and why your time may already be worth hundreds of dollars per hour. If you're an entrepreneur feeling overwhelmed, this episode offers a practical roadmap for creating a business that serves your life instead of consuming it.
Most entrepreneurs are chasing more revenue, but Phil Calandra says that may be the trap. After making his first million dollars, Phil found himself during the 2009 financial crisis with payroll due, his mom’s name at the top of the list, and only eight cents in his checking account. That moment forced him to learn the difference between income, revenue, and real wealth. In this episode, Josh talks with Phil Calandra, co-founder and chief wealth officer at True Wealth Advisors and author of The Wealth Creation Method , about how founders can stop betting everything on their business and start building true financial freedom. They cover the revenue trap, the wealth ratio, work optionality, founder dependency, exit planning, and why extracting wealth from the business may be just as important as growing the business. If you are an entrepreneur reinvesting everything and hoping a future exit saves you, this one is worth hearing.
Are you building a valuable company, or have you simply created a demanding job for yourself? Muriel Touati, founder of Exit 3D Studio, joins me to explain the structural problems that can make a business difficult or impossible to sell. We dig into founder dependency, customer concentration, recurring revenue, customer churn, acquisition systems, and the marketing infrastructure buyers want to see. Muriel also shares why she walked away from an acquisition after discovering that the company’s “recurring revenue” was actually being replaced by a constant stream of new customers as existing customers left. Even when selling is years away, these lessons can help you build a stronger business that is less dependent on you.
Wade Foster, CEO and co-founder of Zapier, walks through the real origin story of how a hackathon project in Missouri became a $200M+ automation platform powering thousands of integrations and hundreds of employees. This episode covers the unfiltered startup journey: • Building Zapier from a real personal frustration with software integration • Why YC rejected them the first time, and what changed • The second application that unlocked everything • How a rough $100 beta validated product market fit instantly • Why imperfect products often reveal truth faster than polished ones • The evolution from early founder execution to large-scale leadership • How AI is fundamentally changing automation and software creation If you’re a founder, operator, or builder, this episode is about one thing: execution beats planning. Listen through for Wade’s perspective on shipping early, avoiding analysis paralysis, and learning directly from reality instead of assumptions. #Zapier #WadeFoster #StartupStories #AI #Automation #Founders #Entrepreneurship #ProductMarketFit #YC #BusinessPodcast
What if your book was not just something you sold, but one of the most powerful marketing tools your business could ever have? In this episode of Making BIG Shifts , Josh Anderson sits down with Henry DeVries, publisher of Indie Books International, host of Agency Rainmaker TV, and ghostwriter/editor of more than 200 business books. Henry breaks down why business leaders, consultants, agency owners, and entrepreneurs should stop thinking about “marketing a book” and start thinking about marketing with a book. Henry also shares a special offer for Making BIG Shifts listeners. Mention Josh Anderson when reaching out to Henry, and you can get access to his two-hour book kickoff class at no cost - a $365 Connect with Henry: https://indiebooksintl.com Listen now if you are an entrepreneur, consultant, agency owner, or expert who knows there is a bigger story inside your business. #MakingBigShifts #MarketingReboot #BusinessBooks #AuthorityMarketing #Entrepreneurship #Storytelling #PersonalBranding #ThoughtLeadership
Most high performers don’t burn out because they fail. They burn out because they succeed at the wrong game. In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, Josh Anderson sits down with Monica McKitterick, nurse practitioner, CEO of Impact Family Wellness, and founder in the Direct Primary Care space. After years inside a system driven by insurance, paperwork, and volume over care, she made a $20,000 bet on a different model. One focused on access, relationships, prevention, and real patient care. What started as a leap into the unknown turned into three clinics, a growing team, and eventually a harder decision. Stop optimizing for more, and start optimizing for life. In this episode, we break down: • The hidden career trap most high performers fall into• Why more growth often quietly reduces freedom• What Direct Primary Care actually changes in healthcare• How most founders misread success signals early on• Why marketing and sales matter even in medicine• The turning point between scaling and sustainability• How to know when “more” is no longer the right answer If you are a founder, healthcare provider, operator, or high performer building something meaningful, this conversation will challenge how you define success. Listen to the full episode, like, subscribe to Making BIG Shifts, and share this with someone who is building fast but starting to question what it is costing them. #MakingBigShifts #Leadership #Burnout #Entrepreneurship #HighPerformance #CareerGrowth #Healthcare #DirectPrimaryCare #BusinessStrategy
In this episode of Making BIG Shifts , host Josh Anderson sits down with Graeme Barlow, four-time founder, CEO of Iversoft, and founder of FounderLink and Barlow Consulting, to talk about the hard lessons that come from building, scaling, and selling companies over more than two decades. Graeme shares the most expensive mistake of his career, losing focus, and how expanding Iversoft into too many services nearly broke the business. He walks through the painful decision to downsize half the company, the mindset required to protect momentum, and why founders often grow faster by doing less. Josh and Graeme also dig into fundraising, AI’s impact on services and marketing agencies, building strong teams, investing in early-stage companies, and the simple framework Graeme uses to help founders get unstuck: cash, customers, or delivery. This is a real conversation about focus, hard decisions, team energy, AI, and what it actually takes to build a company that lasts. Connect with today’s speakers: Graeme Barlow: https://www.graemebarlow.com/ FounderLink: https://www.founderlink.com/ #MakingBIGShifts #Entrepreneurship #FounderAdvice #StartupGrowth #BusinessGrowth #Leadership #ScalingBusiness #Fundraising #AIinBusiness
In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, Jonathan David Lewis, President and Partner at McKee Wallwork and author of The Rebuilders, shares why the best leaders know when to say no, how to lead through disruption, and why rebuilding yourself is the first step to rebuilding your business. From navigating industry change and AI to creating thriving cultures, Jonathan delivers practical insights for founders, CEOs, and leaders ready to make their next big shift. Listen now and discover how clarity, courage, and character drive lasting growth. #MakingBIGShifts #JonathanDavidLewis #Leadership #BusinessGrowth #TheRebuilders
In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, host Josh Anderson sits down with Dusty Holcomb, leadership strategist, founder and CEO of Arcqus Group, and host of the Leadership Unlocked podcast. After 21 years inside the American Automobile Association and a stint as a company CEO, Dusty burned the boats to build a leadership practice focused on helping founders and senior executives unlock their next level of growth. In this conversation, Dusty breaks down why most execution problems are not, in fact, execution problems at all. They are clarity and alignment problems sitting upstream. He shares the reframe he uses with CEOs who complain that their team cannot keep up, why leaders need to articulate what must be done by when and avoid the how at all costs, and how to find a coach who will actually challenge you instead of coddle you. Dusty also gets into his Rules of Engagement playbook, the Socratic method he uses to expose the real bottleneck inside a founder-led company, leadership in the age of agentic AI, and the Monday morning practice every founder needs to stop being the bottleneck in their own business. If you are a founder, operator, or senior leader who feels like everything runs through you, this episode hands you a clear, practical framework to step back, get clarity, build alignment, and finally let execution take care of itself. #business #entrepreneur #team #EQ
In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, host Josh Anderson sits down with Barry LaBov, founder of LaBov Marketing Communications and Training and author of The Power of Differentiation. With 45 years of experience, Barry has worked with iconic brands like Harley-Davidson, Audi, and Volkswagen, helping them uncover what makes them truly rare in a sea of sameness. Barry never planned to be an entrepreneur. He started out writing jingles for music until a client handed him their entire marketing department and asked him to take it over. That single moment of trust pulled him into a 45-year journey of building brands. In this conversation, Barry breaks down why so many companies sound exactly the same today, why AI-generated content is making it worse, and why true differentiation is not about being superior but about owning what makes you genuinely different. He shares the five-step process his team uses to uncover what a brand really stands for, the Wal-Mart of insurance story, why employees should hear a brand launch first, and how to find the right customer profile for your business. #branding #makingbigshifts #business #marketing #entrepeneurship If you are a founder, marketer, or operator trying to stand out in a crowded category, this episode gives you a clear and grounded framework to figure out what makes you different and how to protect it.
In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, we are joined by Vlad Pivnev, CEO of Stivi and co-founder of Acoda, a leader helping businesses integrate AI into their marketing and sales strategies to drive real growth. Vlad brings over sixteen years of experience building and running a traditional digital marketing agency. But when he saw the landscape shifting beneath him, he decided to pivot. Rather than wait for AI to make his business irrelevant, he leaned into it and built Stivi, a company focused on helping brands increase their sales and leads through AI-powered marketing. In this conversation, he shares how that shift happened, what he learned along the way, and why he believes the window of opportunity is wide open for anyone willing to start now. Josh and Vlad go deep on AI visibility and generative engine optimization (GEO). Vlad breaks down the key signals that large language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude use when deciding which brands to recommend. From technical crawlability and media mentions to forum discussions and reputation management, the conversation covers what businesses need to do to appear in LLM-generated answers. Vlad also shares a compelling case study in which a client achieved a 46 percent conversion rate from LLM-driven traffic, a number that blew away anything he had seen in sixteen years of marketing. One of the most powerful takeaways from this episode is the shift in how consumers search for information. Vlad shares a personal story about his six-year-old son, who now asks him to "ask ChatGPT" instead of "Google it." That generational shift signals a massive change in how brands will need to position themselves online in the years ahead. The conversation also touches on the future of the workforce, with Vlad predicting that senior-level professionals who know how to leverage AI will thrive, while many junior and mid-level roles in design, development, and writing may disappear within the next 1 to 2 years. Whether you run a small business, lead a marketing team, or are just trying to figure out where AI fits into your career, this episode gives you a practical and honest look at what is happening right now and how to stay ahead of it. Vlad's advice is grounded and simple: understand your background, find where AI fits into what you already do well, and start integrating it one step at a time. #AI #GEO #entrepreneurship #makingbigshifts #leadership
In this episode of Making BIG Shifts , Josh Anderson sits down with Dr. Barry Davis, a college baseball coach with over 35 years of experience and the author of Old Dog New Tricks . Dr. Davis shares lessons from decades of coaching and leadership, including how struggling teams are transformed into winning cultures. He explains why emotional intelligence is often overlooked in leadership and how it separates good leaders from truly effective ones. The conversation explores mentorship, decision-making, and the importance of asking better questions instead of always having the answers. Dr. Davis also explains why control is often misunderstood and how trust, clarity, and self-awareness play a greater role in building strong teams. They also dive into a simple but powerful truth: knowledge without action means nothing. Real change only happens when you execute. If you’re leading a team, building something, or trying to improve how you show up every day, this episode will give you practical insights you can actually apply. #EQ #leadership #business #makingbigshifts #entrepreneurship
In this episode of Making BIG Shifts , Josh Anderson sits down with Siegfried “Jay” Tiegs, a 27-year U.S. Army veteran, leadership coach, and author of Life on Offence: Do Hard Things . Jay shares his journey from a difficult childhood and long military career to feeling stuck, out of alignment, and searching for purpose. That experience led him to build a simple but powerful approach to life and performance. They break down the HARD Framework, Health, Affluence, Relationships, and Development, and talk about what actually helps driven people get unstuck. This conversation covers high performance vs high achievement, burnout, imposter syndrome, breathwork, slowing down, and why doing less can often lead to better results. If you feel like something is off despite doing all the right things, this episode will help you reset, refocus, and move forward with clarity. #highperformance #entrepreneurship #business #makingbigshifts
In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, host Josh Anderson sits down with Dr. Barry Davis, longtime college baseball coach and author of Old Dog New Tricks, to discuss the leadership principles that transform struggling teams into elite programs. After nearly four decades in coaching, Dr. Davis pursued a PhD in sports leadership where he studied how top coaches quickly turn around failing programs and sustain long-term success. Through interviews with elite Division I baseball coaches who collectively earned 8,000+ wins and multiple national championships, he identified key leadership principles that separate good coaches from great ones.
In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, host Josh Anderson sits down with Dre Baldwin, former professional basketball player and founder of Work On Your Game, to discuss how discipline, structure, and execution drive elite performance in business and life. Dre shares how he transitioned from a decade-long professional basketball career into building a successful personal brand and business by publishing content online and selling training programs to athletes. Over time, that evolved into helping entrepreneurs and professionals master the mental frameworks needed to perform consistently at a high level. #leadership #entrepreneur #makingbigshifts #business
In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, host Josh Anderson sits down with Rabbi Ezra Max, a coach, creative strategist, and leadership advisor who helps entrepreneurs navigate complex decisions, high-pressure environments, and personal transformation. Ezra shares his extraordinary journey from working in corporate technology sales to becoming a leadership coach who helps founders, executives, and entrepreneurs navigate the emotional and relational challenges of building businesses. After a life-changing moment on September 11, Ezra began exploring deeper questions of purpose, leadership, and personal meaning, ultimately shaping the work he does today, helping leaders navigate crossroads in their lives and businesses. #leadership #entrepreneur #makingbigshifts #business
In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, host Josh Anderson sits down with Alejandro Sahuquillo, author of The Musk Way: Cracking Elon Musk’s Playbook to Disrupt Any Market. Alejandro shares the story behind writing his book and the deep research he conducted into Elon Musk’s entrepreneurial methodology. After launching a startup himself and investing in Tesla, Alejandro became fascinated with how Musk repeatedly builds world-changing companies. #leadership #entrepreneur #makingbigshifts #business #elonmusk #tesla #spaceX
In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, host Josh Anderson sits down with Jessica Miller, a business coach who helps entrepreneurs uncover hidden money in their businesses and dramatically increase profitability. Jessica shares her journey from corporate brand strategy in the pharmaceutical industry to entrepreneurship after a life-changing health scare. What began as mindset coaching evolved into a powerful consulting framework that helps businesses identify profit levers—the small, high-impact changes that can generate massive financial results. #leadership #entrepreneur #makingbigshifts #business #marketing #branding
In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, host Josh Anderson sits down with Hannah Mizelle, founder of Agency 102, to talk about the journey from freelance marketing consultant to running a growing marketing agency. Hannah shares the story behind starting Agency 102 during the COVID era, the moment she decided to leave traditional agency life, and how a simple freelancing opportunity turned into a full team working with clients across multiple industries. She also explains how her agency focuses on high-quality content marketing, strategic messaging, and helping companies adapt to modern marketing trends—including AI search visibility and video content. #leadership #entrepreneur #makingbigshifts #business #marketing #branding
