Above The Business

Bradley Hamner

What if you could step out of the day-to-day and see your business from a whole new perspective? Welcome to Above The Business, where we empower you to rise above the daily grind and embrace a higher way of business ownership. It's time to build your business by design. www.abovethebusiness.co

  1. 13h ago

    #595: Developing A-Players

    In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner maps where developing your team actually sits inside a business blueprint. Team is one of the principles in the BlueprintOS operating system, and it carries three playbooks: attract A-players, develop A-players, and retain A-players. This episode covers the middle one and picks up directly from last week's conversation on performance improvement plans. Bradley walks through the three elements of the Develop A-Players Playbook. An ongoing training and development system for people who are years past onboarding. A current state and future state accountability chart that shows each role, who holds it, and the three to five things they own. And a performance management system, which is where PIPs live. He also explains why playbooks operate like gears in a watch rather than silos, and why the accountability chart earns its keep twice, once with the team you have and once with the candidate you are trying to recruit. This conversation moves beyond hiring and into what happens after. What are you doing intentionally to develop someone who has been on the team for five years? Can your current team see what the organization looks like three years from now? And what is your actual process when a good performer drops below quota? If you have built a team and stopped there, this episode is for you. Join us in the free Circle community and hop on the email list to get practical tools, resources, trainings, and updates on what we’re working on next. https://blueprintos.com/assets/ Thanks to our sponsorsCoach P ConsultingCoach P found great success as an insurance agent and agency owner, leading a large and stable team of top-performing professionals. Today, he shares the systems, delegation strategies, and specialization methods he developed along the way. Gain access to weekly training calls and mentoring at: https://coachpconsulting.com Be sure to mention you heard about it on the Above The Business Podcast. Autopilot RecruitingAutopilot Recruiting helps small business owners solve staffing challenges by taking the stress out of hiring. Their dedicated recruiters work on your behalf every business day. They optimize your applicant tracking system, post job listings, and source candidates through social media and local communities. With their continuous recruiting approach, you can save time, reduce hiring costs, and receive pre-screened candidates without paying hiring fees or commissions. https://www.autopilotrecruiting.com Mention Above The Business Podcast when you reach out. Direct ClicksDirect Clicks specializes in digital marketing solutions designed for business owners who want measurable results. Their team supports companies through paid advertising, SEO, and strategic marketing systems that help generate consistent leads. Exclusive offer for listeners: https://directclicksinc.com/abovethebusiness Get a free marketing campaign audit where their team reviews your website, SEO, content, social media, and paid advertising, then provides actionable recommendations. If you partner with them, all setup fees will be waived. About Above The BusinessAbove The Business is hosted by Bradley Hamner, founder of BlueprintOS, and focuses on helping small business owners transition from Rainmaker to Architect by building systems, teams, and operations that scale without their constant involvement.

  2. 4d ago

    #594: Systems Champion

    In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner makes the case that the business owner is the wrong person to document the company's systems and processes. Bradley revisits the three components of a blueprint: personal leadership, a roadmap for growth, and an operating system built on documented playbooks. He explains why appointing a systems champion, someone already on the team who owns documentation as an actual job, moves the work further than the owner will ever manage alone, and how AI now compresses the time it takes to produce a playbook. This conversation moves beyond agreeing with the concept and into the appointment itself. Who on your team is closest to how the work actually gets done? What happens to your documentation when it depends entirely on your own calendar? And what changes if the only parts you own are the first ten percent and the last ten percent? If you have believed in systemizing your business for years but have never assigned it to anyone, this episode is for you. Visit https://workshop.blueprintos.com to register for the upcoming Above The Business workshop. Thanks to our sponsorsCoach P ConsultingCoach P found great success as an insurance agent and agency owner, leading a large and stable team of top-performing professionals. Today, he shares the systems, delegation strategies, and specialization methods he developed along the way. Gain access to weekly training calls and mentoring at: https://coachpconsulting.com Be sure to mention you heard about it on the Above The Business Podcast. Autopilot RecruitingAutopilot Recruiting helps small business owners solve staffing challenges by taking the stress out of hiring. Their dedicated recruiters work on your behalf every business day. They optimize your applicant tracking system, post job listings, and source candidates through social media and local communities. With their continuous recruiting approach, you can save time, reduce hiring costs, and receive pre-screened candidates without paying hiring fees or commissions. https://www.autopilotrecruiting.com Mention Above The Business Podcast when you reach out. Direct ClicksDirect Clicks specializes in digital marketing solutions designed for business owners who want measurable results. Their team supports companies through paid advertising, SEO, and strategic marketing systems that help generate consistent leads. Exclusive offer for listeners: https://directclicksinc.com/abovethebusiness Get a free marketing campaign audit where their team reviews your website, SEO, content, social media, and paid advertising, then provides actionable recommendations. If you partner with them, all setup fees will be waived. About Above The BusinessAbove The Business is hosted by Bradley Hamner, founder of BlueprintOS, and focuses on helping small business owners transition from Rainmaker to Architect by building systems, teams, and operations that scale without their constant involvement.

  3. Aug 17

    #593: Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs)

    In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner opens a series on developing and coaching team members with a case for performance improvement plans. Most small business owners treat a PIP as a cover-your-back document and a signal that someone is already on the way out. Bradley argues that stigma costs owners good people and real money. He walks through four reasons owners skip PIPs, including corporate red tape stigma, close personal relationships with staff, and the absence of any HR infrastructure. He then lays out four reasons to use them: forcing concrete clarity on expectations, protecting the business legally and financially, relieving the invisible strain that unaddressed underperformance puts on A players, and keeping people worth keeping. He shares a client who built automatic PIP triggers into the culture and retains more than 80 percent of the people who go on one. This conversation moves beyond documentation and into how owners actually develop people. What does good performance look like in concrete numbers? Who on your team is quietly absorbing someone else's workload? And what does it cost to replace a person you could have coached? If you have avoided a performance conversation because the paperwork felt like corporate overhead, this episode is for you. Visit https://workshop.blueprintos.com to register for the upcoming Above The Business workshop. Thanks to our sponsorsCoach P ConsultingCoach P found great success as an insurance agent and agency owner, leading a large and stable team of top-performing professionals. Today, he shares the systems, delegation strategies, and specialization methods he developed along the way. Gain access to weekly training calls and mentoring at: https://coachpconsulting.com Be sure to mention you heard about it on the Above The Business Podcast. Autopilot RecruitingAutopilot Recruiting helps small business owners solve staffing challenges by taking the stress out of hiring. Their dedicated recruiters work on your behalf every business day. They optimize your applicant tracking system, post job listings, and source candidates through social media and local communities. With their continuous recruiting approach, you can save time, reduce hiring costs, and receive pre-screened candidates without paying hiring fees or commissions. https://www.autopilotrecruiting.com Mention Above The Business Podcast when you reach out. Direct ClicksDirect Clicks specializes in digital marketing solutions designed for business owners who want measurable results. Their team supports companies through paid advertising, SEO, and strategic marketing systems that help generate consistent leads. Exclusive offer for listeners: https://directclicksinc.com/abovethebusiness Get a free marketing campaign audit where their team reviews your website, SEO, content, social media, and paid advertising, then provides actionable recommendations. If you partner with them, all setup fees will be waived. About Above The BusinessAbove The Business is hosted by Bradley Hamner, founder of BlueprintOS, and focuses on helping small business owners transition from Rainmaker to Architect by building systems, teams, and operations that scale without their constant involvement.

  4. Aug 14

    #592: Idea to Implementation Framework

    In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner shares the framework he built to take an idea from concept to rollout. He opens with the maxim behind it, ideas are everywhere and implementation is everything, and explains why a business doing $500,000 to $1.5 million cannot afford to throw ideas at the wall when money, team capacity, and owner bandwidth are all limited. Bradley walks through the five phases of the document: naming the idea and the problem it solves, filtering it through acquisition, ascension, retention, efficiency, or profit, defining a best case and a minimum win, assigning a single owner with a communication plan and timeline, running a pre-mortem on what could go wrong, and reaching a verdict. He also explains why owners are better arsonists in their businesses than firefighters. This episode moves beyond idea generation and into restraint. Which ideas actually deserve your team's capacity? Who owns the rollout after the excitement wears off? And does the door you are about to walk through swing both ways? If you generate more ideas than your business can absorb, this episode is for you. Visit https://workshop.blueprintos.com to register for the upcoming Above The Business workshop. Thanks to our sponsorsCoach P ConsultingCoach P found great success as an insurance agent and agency owner, leading a large and stable team of top-performing professionals. Today, he shares the systems, delegation strategies, and specialization methods he developed along the way. Gain access to weekly training calls and mentoring at: https://coachpconsulting.com Be sure to mention you heard about it on the Above The Business Podcast. Autopilot RecruitingAutopilot Recruiting helps small business owners solve staffing challenges by taking the stress out of hiring. Their dedicated recruiters work on your behalf every business day. They optimize your applicant tracking system, post job listings, and source candidates through social media and local communities. With their continuous recruiting approach, you can save time, reduce hiring costs, and receive pre-screened candidates without paying hiring fees or commissions. https://www.autopilotrecruiting.com Mention Above The Business Podcast when you reach out. Direct ClicksDirect Clicks specializes in digital marketing solutions designed for business owners who want measurable results. Their team supports companies through paid advertising, SEO, and strategic marketing systems that help generate consistent leads. Exclusive offer for listeners: https://directclicksinc.com/abovethebusiness Get a free marketing campaign audit where their team reviews your website, SEO, content, social media, and paid advertising, then provides actionable recommendations. If you partner with them, all setup fees will be waived. About Above The BusinessAbove The Business is hosted by Bradley Hamner, founder of BlueprintOS, and focuses on helping small business owners transition from Rainmaker to Architect by building systems, teams, and operations that scale without their constant involvement.

  5. Aug 10

    #591: The Business Never Outgrows Its Leadership with Sean Patton

    In this episode, Bradley sits down with Sean Patton, leadership coach and former Army Special Forces officer, to talk about why the growth of a company tracks the growth of the people leading it. Sean shares his path from West Point and two Green Beret detachment commands into entrepreneurship, including a bankruptcy that cost him everything and the second company he built to a million dollars in self-sustaining revenue. They discuss why vision has to come before strategy, how old beliefs have to be cleared out before new ones hold, and why business growth arrives in stair steps that break the systems built for the previous level. Sean also breaks down what culture requires in practice, including one to ones that carry real feedback instead of status updates, and why he treats self discipline as a design problem rather than a willpower problem. This conversation moves beyond leadership frameworks and into the person applying them. Who do you need to become for the business to reach the next stage? Which beliefs got you here that will not carry you forward? And are your priorities actually in the order you say they are? If you want to grow the business by first growing the person running it, this conversation is for you. Visit https://workshop.blueprintos.com to register for the upcoming Above The Business workshop. Resources Learn more about Sean Patton: seanpatton.me Thanks to our sponsorsCoach P ConsultingCoach P found great success as an insurance agent and agency owner, leading a large and stable team of top-performing professionals. Today, he shares the systems, delegation strategies, and specialization methods he developed along the way. Gain access to weekly training calls and mentoring at: https://www.coachpconsulting.com Be sure to mention you heard about it on the Above The Business Podcast. Autopilot RecruitingAutopilot Recruiting helps small business owners solve staffing challenges by taking the stress out of hiring. Their dedicated recruiters work on your behalf every business day, optimizing your applicant tracking system, posting job listings, and sourcing candidates through social media and local communities. https://www.autopilotrecruiting.com Mention Above The Business Podcast when you reach out. Direct ClicksDirect Clicks is built by business owners, for business owners. They specialize in custom marketing solutions that drive real results. From paid search campaigns to SEO and social media management, they provide comprehensive digital marketing support to help your business grow. Exclusive offer for listeners: https://directclicksinc.com/abovethebusiness Get a free marketing campaign audit and actionable recommendations. About Above The BusinessAbove The Business is hosted by Bradley Hamner, founder of BlueprintOS, and focuses on helping small business owners transition from Rainmaker to Architect by building systems, teams, and operations that scale.

  6. Aug 7

    #590: Compensation Plan Guidelines

    In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner continues the Friday sales playbook series with the piece most owners get wrong: how the sales team gets paid. He explains where compensation sits inside an operating system, and why a plan that looks reasonable on a spreadsheet still fails once a rep has to work inside it. Bradley walks through four guidelines every compensation plan should meet. He covers the sixty-second test and the bar napkin test for simplicity, why the plan has to point directly at the objectives the business is chasing, why the business needs a positive return on the money it invests in a rep, and why the rep has to see a clear path to their own income target. He also addresses the real cost of growth and why growing at all costs breaks bootstrapped businesses. This episode moves beyond compensation mechanics and into business economics. Can your reps explain how they get paid without help? Does your plan reward the specific results you need this year? And does it still work when you run the numbers from the company's side of the ledger? If you pay a sales team and are not certain the plan is doing its job, this episode is for you. Visit https://workshop.blueprintos.com to register for the upcoming Above The Business workshop. Thanks to our sponsorsCoach P ConsultingCoach P found great success as an insurance agent and agency owner, leading a large and stable team of top-performing professionals. Today, he shares the systems, delegation strategies, and specialization methods he developed along the way. Gain access to weekly training calls and mentoring at: https://coachpconsulting.com Be sure to mention you heard about it on the Above The Business Podcast. Autopilot RecruitingAutopilot Recruiting helps small business owners solve staffing challenges by taking the stress out of hiring. Their dedicated recruiters work on your behalf every business day. They optimize your applicant tracking system, post job listings, and source candidates through social media and local communities. With their continuous recruiting approach, you can save time, reduce hiring costs, and receive pre-screened candidates without paying hiring fees or commissions. https://www.autopilotrecruiting.com Mention Above The Business Podcast when you reach out. Direct ClicksDirect Clicks specializes in digital marketing solutions designed for business owners who want measurable results. Their team supports companies through paid advertising, SEO, and strategic marketing systems that help generate consistent leads. Exclusive offer for listeners: https://directclicksinc.com/abovethebusiness Get a free marketing campaign audit where their team reviews your website, SEO, content, social media, and paid advertising, then provides actionable recommendations. If you partner with them, all setup fees will be waived. About Above The BusinessAbove The Business is hosted by Bradley Hamner, founder of BlueprintOS, and focuses on helping small business owners transition from Rainmaker to Architect by building systems, teams, and operations that scale without their constant involvement.

  7. Aug 3

    #589: Winning the Buyer Before First Contact with Bob Ruffolo

    In this episode, Bradley sits down with Bob Ruffolo, founder of Impact, to talk about what drives customer acquisition now that buyers finish most of their research before they contact a company. Bob traces his path from freelancing during the recession, to building a top HubSpot partner agency, to merging with Marcus Sheridan and rebuilding the business as a coaching and training company. They discuss the zero moment of truth and why roughly 80 percent of the buying decision is complete before a company knows the buyer exists. Bob breaks down the Big Five content topics buyers care about most, why differentiation starts with a promise or guarantee competitors will not make, and what AI looks at when it recommends a single company to a buyer. This conversation moves beyond channel tactics and into how buying decisions actually get made. What does your market find when it researches your category? Are you answering the questions buyers ask before they are ready to talk? And if AI returns one company name in your market, what would make it yours? If you want a clearer view of how to earn trust before the first conversation, this conversation is for you. Visit https://workshop.blueprintos.com to register for the upcoming Above The Business workshop. Resources Learn more about Bob Ruffolo and Impact: impactplus.com Pick up the book behind the system, Endless Customers: https://a.co/d/07MzFWx5 Check out the book Bradley references, The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham: https://a.co/d/0iwqLCSl Check out the book Bob references, Traction by Gino Wickman: https://a.co/d/01royaHy Connect with Bob on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobruffolo/ Thanks to our sponsorsCoach P ConsultingCoach P found great success as an insurance agent and agency owner, leading a large and stable team of top-performing professionals. Today, he shares the systems, delegation strategies, and specialization methods he developed along the way. Gain access to weekly training calls and mentoring at: https://www.coachpconsulting.com Be sure to mention you heard about it on the Above The Business Podcast. Autopilot RecruitingAutopilot Recruiting helps small business owners solve staffing challenges by taking the stress out of hiring. Their dedicated recruiters work on your behalf every business day, optimizing your applicant tracking system, posting job listings, and sourcing candidates through social media and local communities. https://www.autopilotrecruiting.com Mention Above The Business Podcast when you reach out. Direct ClicksDirect Clicks is built by business owners, for business owners. They specialize in custom marketing solutions that drive real results. From paid search campaigns to SEO and social media management, they provide comprehensive digital marketing support to help your business grow. Exclusive offer for listeners: https://directclicksinc.com/abovethebusiness Get a free marketing campaign audit and actionable recommendations. About Above The BusinessAbove The Business is hosted by Bradley Hamner, founder of BlueprintOS, and focuses on helping small business owners transition from Rainmaker to Architect by building systems, teams, and operations that scale.

  8. Jul 31

    #588: Rules for the Selling Sales Manager

    In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner breaks down the five rules that make a selling sales manager work: time, money, mindset, proof, and systems adherence. He explains why owners need to specify how many hours the role spends producing versus leading, and why he does not consider it a real management role until there are at least three reps to manage. Bradley then walks through the compensation problem that sinks most of these roles. When the comp plan stays the same, the manager drifts back toward personal production because that is where the money is. He also addresses the habit of promoting the best producer by default, the proof owners should look for before handing over the title, and why a manager who ignores the sales playbook can undo the training of the entire team. This episode moves beyond the org chart and into role design. Have you told this person how their time should be split, or are they guessing? Does their compensation reward the results of the people they lead? And have they shown you, before the promotion, that they will pour into someone else? If you are considering putting a producer in charge of your sales team, this episode is for you. Visit https://workshop.blueprintos.com to register for the upcoming Above The Business workshop. Thanks to our sponsorsCoach P ConsultingCoach P found great success as an insurance agent and agency owner, leading a large and stable team of top-performing professionals. Today, he shares the systems, delegation strategies, and specialization methods he developed along the way. Gain access to weekly training calls and mentoring at: https://coachpconsulting.com Be sure to mention you heard about it on the Above The Business Podcast. Autopilot RecruitingAutopilot Recruiting helps small business owners solve staffing challenges by taking the stress out of hiring. Their dedicated recruiters work on your behalf every business day. They optimize your applicant tracking system, post job listings, and source candidates through social media and local communities. With their continuous recruiting approach, you can save time, reduce hiring costs, and receive pre-screened candidates without paying hiring fees or commissions. https://www.autopilotrecruiting.com Mention Above The Business Podcast when you reach out. Direct ClicksDirect Clicks specializes in digital marketing solutions designed for business owners who want measurable results. Their team supports companies through paid advertising, SEO, and strategic marketing systems that help generate consistent leads. Exclusive offer for listeners: https://directclicksinc.com/abovethebusiness Get a free marketing campaign audit where their team reviews your website, SEO, content, social media, and paid advertising, then provides actionable recommendations. If you partner with them, all setup fees will be waived. About Above The BusinessAbove The Business is hosted by Bradley Hamner, founder of BlueprintOS, and focuses on helping small business owners transition from Rainmaker to Architect by building systems, teams, and operations that scale without their constant involvement.

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4.8
out of 5
57 Ratings

About

What if you could step out of the day-to-day and see your business from a whole new perspective? Welcome to Above The Business, where we empower you to rise above the daily grind and embrace a higher way of business ownership. It's time to build your business by design. www.abovethebusiness.co

Information

  • Creator
    Bradley Hamner
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    500
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2025, Business Growth Curator and Club Capital
  • Show Website
    Above The Business

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