Business Growth Spotlight

Heidi Schalk
  • 5.0 (4)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Daily

Welcome to Business Growth Spotlight, the podcast where we shine a light on innovative business leaders, cutting-edge strategies, and the latest trends shaping the world of business growth. Whether you're a CEO, Founder, Corporate leader or Entrepreneur, this podcast delivers actionable insights and expert conversations to help you scale your business, increase revenue, and stay ahead in a competitive market.  Join host Heidi Schalk as we dive deep into the stories and strategies of industry leaders, uncovering the tools and tactics they use to drive success. From navigating corporate challenges to mastering online visibility, this podcast is your go-to resource for scaling your business and reaching your goals. Tune in on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, for inspiring conversations, practical advice, and a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to thrive in today’s ever-evolving business landscape.

  1. 21h ago

    Ep. 249 Strategy Realized: Why 80% of Business Strategies Never Get Executed with Jim Gitney

    Most companies treat growth as a sales problem. Jim Gitney has spent forty-five years proving it is really an operations problem in disguise. In this episode of the Business Growth Spotlight, Heidi Schalk sits down with Jim, founder and CEO of Group 50 Consulting, to talk about what actually happens when a business tries to scale, and why so many of them stall out right at the moment they should be accelerating. Jim spent his first twenty-five years in corporate America at GE, Black and Decker, Sunbeam, and Rainbird, reaching general manager, COO, and CEO roles before leaving to start Group 50 in 2004. Since then he and his team have worked with over 300 companies across thirteen countries and added an estimated three to four hundred million dollars to their collective bottom lines. His focus is the middle market, companies from roughly twenty million up to seven hundred fifty million in sales, and his specialty is the moment he calls the inflection point: the stage where the systems, processes, and org structure that got a company here are no longer capable of taking it further. The conversation digs into why every company needs to redesign itself each time it doubles, why patchwork systems quietly strangle growth, and why 80 percent of businesses fail to realize the benefits of their own strategy. Jim traces that failure not to weak strategy but to the messy middle layer of execution, where organizations neglect to align their people, secure the right skills, and keep the most important goal in front of everyone. He shares a real client story of a company that came in at 30 million with a five year goal of 120 million and is now tracking toward 74 million just three years in. Jim and Heidi then get into AI, and this is where it gets practical. Jim reveals how Group 50 has codified its entire strategy methodology into an AI chief of staff, and he names the quiet risk most middle market companies are ignoring: 60 to 70 percent have no AI policy at all, with employees feeding company data into public models without a second thought. They close on visibility, where Jim explains how 70 percent of his business comes from organic search built on 225 blog articles, and why the shift from SEO to AEO is really a shift from keywords to intent. To connect with our guest, click on the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jgitney/  Strategy Realized:  www.StrategyRealized.com Website:  https://www.group50.com/  Contact: info@group50.com  Connect with me: LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidischalkcoaching/ 🎁Spotlight to Scale Blueprint:  https://spotlighttoscale.com/blueprint  🎁Join us for a free 60 Minute Webinar on Visibility and Getting Recommended by AI:  https://becomeairecommended.com/grow

  2. 2d ago

    Ep. 248 Why HR Is a Growth Strategy, Not Just Compliance, with Neil Katz

    Most business leaders spend a shocking amount of their day buried in people management, anywhere from ten to fifty percent, dealing with compensation, compliance, benefits, onboarding, offboarding, and employee relations. In this episode of the Business Growth Spotlight, Heidi Schalk sits down with Neil Katz, founder and CEO of Exceptional HR Solutions, to unpack why HR is not just a compliance checkbox but a genuine growth strategy, and why the fractional model is changing how small and mid-sized companies build their people function. Neil brings 19 years in HR and a team with over 450 combined years of experience to the conversation. He explains why companies under 250 employees usually do not need a full time HR person, how fractional partners deliver expertise at 15 to 20 years of experience per person without the distraction of internal politics and endless meetings, and why the real cost of turnover is closer to six months of lost business impact than most owners realize. The conversation goes deep on hiring mistakes, including Neil's counterintuitive advice to try to talk great candidates out of working for you to reveal their true desire. He and Heidi also tackle culture, the number one thing employees actually want from leaders, and the reality of AI in HR. Neil is a huge fan of AI as a tool but is direct about its limits: it does not know what it does not know, and it will never replace the human connection at the heart of human resources. They close on visibility and growth, covering Neil's relationship-first outreach philosophy, why he has spent two years nurturing deals that eventually close, the challenge of measuring social media ROI, and the rise of AEO as the next frontier in how businesses get found and recommended by AI. To connect with our guest, click on the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neilkatzhr/  Website:  https://exceptionalhrsolutions.com/  Connect with me: LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidischalkcoaching/ 🎁Spotlight to Scale Blueprint:  https://spotlighttoscale.com/blueprint  🎁Join us for a free 60 Minute Webinar on Visibility and Getting Recommended by AI:  https://becomeairecommended.com/grow

  3. 5d ago

    Ep. 247 Is Pay Per Click Dying? An E-Commerce Veteran on the AI-Driven Internet of Tomorrow

    Matthew Ferguson accidentally fell into e-commerce nearly 30 years ago, starting with a door-to-door sales job in the Florida sun that quickly went sideways, then landing an office admin role in Deerfield Beach that turned out to be an all-things-e-commerce crash course. Back then eBay ruled, nobody had heard of Amazon, and FBA didn't exist. Today he runs eManage, a UK-based agency that helps businesses replace the duct tape and spreadsheets with real infrastructure and automation, so smart people can spend their time on growth instead of manual busywork. In this conversation, Matthew and Heidi get into what actually moves the needle for growing companies. Matthew reframes technology as a growth driver rather than a support cost, arguing that any tool that isn't helping you sell more or run leaner is either a bad tool or a bad fit. He's candid about cybersecurity, sharing that a partner recently lost a considerable sum to an advanced attack, and warns that with voice cloning, face cloning, and quantum computing on the horizon, no password is truly safe. His father spent two decades in cybersecurity and always said no system is unhackable, it's only a question of prevention and loss limitation. The discussion moves into AI, where Matthew offers a grounded take: most people have barely scratched the surface, the best results come from breaking work into pieces rather than asking AI to do everything at once, and at its core AI is a pattern recognition tool. He also shares a striking prediction about the future of the internet, where AI assistants scan hundreds of pages in seconds and even transact on your behalf, which raises real questions about where pay per click and traditional search optimization go from here. Matthew is refreshingly honest that his agency has thrived not through slick marketing but through word of mouth, long-term relationships, and never being transactional. His advice for founders in the early stages is gold: have something people genuinely want, embrace the chaos of the first six months, learn from your mistakes, ask for help more than you think you should, and surround yourself with people smarter than you. On AEO, he cuts through the noise: it matters, but anyone charging a fortune for it is overcharging, because clean, clear, accurate data is most of the battle. Bio: Nearly 30 years of accidentally making a professional life in ecommerce, starting in Florida and currently still in progress in the UK and Europe. Specializing in no-nonsense advice and proven methods to be successful on 3rd party multi channel marketplaces with SEO, Branding and marketing services. To connect with our guest, click on the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewcaferguson/  Website:  www.emanaged.co.uk  Connect with me: LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidischalkcoaching/ 🎁Spotlight to Scale Blueprint:  https://spotlighttoscale.com/blueprint

  4. Aug 26

    Ep. 246 When Efficiency Goes Too Far: Why Business Still Needs the Human Connection

    What happens when businesses become so focused on efficiency, outsourcing, automation, and AI that they make it harder for customers to reach an actual human? In this episode of Business Growth Spotlight, Heidi Schalk sits down with Stan Salot, CEO of Business and Quality Process Management (BQPM), to explore how business processes, quality management, outsourcing, and AI are reshaping the way companies operate and grow. Stan brings more than 30 years of experience in quality management, supply chain management, international standards, process management, and business consulting. His career has taken him from engineering and component sourcing to implementing ISO 9001 systems, working with international standards organizations, and building long-term client relationships that have lasted decades. One of the central themes of the conversation is the misconception that process creates bureaucracy. Stan explains that the right processes should create value, not simply add cost. The challenge is getting leadership to stop treating quality and process management as an expense and start looking at how they contribute to efficiency, consistency, and revenue. The conversation then takes a fascinating turn toward the rise of the virtual organization. Businesses can now outsource marketing, accounting, manufacturing, sales, and countless other functions. AI can provide answers instantly and help companies accomplish more without adding employees. But there is a tradeoff: sometimes the people who need to communicate with one another can no longer actually reach each other. Stan shares a powerful example of a client attempting to reshore manufacturing to the United States. The process took approximately eight months largely because they couldn't get direct access to the engineers who could answer the technical questions needed to move the project forward. That leads to an important question for today's business leaders: Are we using technology to remove friction, or are we accidentally creating more of it? Stan also discusses the changing role of AI in business development.  While AI has made information dramatically easier to access, he believes businesses still need meaningful human interaction when the situation requires expertise, nuance, or relationship-building. And then comes one of the most timely moments in the episode. Stan explains that a law firm recently found him because they asked AI to identify an ISO 9000 expert for an expert-witness matter. The implication is significant: AI is already influencing who gets found. Stan's decades of expertise, reputation, content, and digital presence had positioned him to appear when someone asked AI for a recommendation. This makes the episode especially relevant for businesses thinking about AI search, AEO (Answer Engine Optimization), strategic visibility, and how buyers discover experts in 2026. Bio: Stanley H. Salot, Jr. President/CEO Business & Quality Process Management, LLC Mr. Salot is an acknowledged expert in business, quality, environment, health & safety, and process management and has actively participated in the U.S. and international industry standards bodies. Mr. Salot is the CEO of Business & Quality Process Management, which consults for and trains companies in quality, environmental, and health & safety management processes; hazardous material mitigation and avoidance processes; counterfeit product identification and avoidance; and sound business processes. With his in-depth knowledge of process management, hazardous substance, and counterfeit product mitigation and avoidance, Mr. Salot has held technical and leadership roles in several IECQ and SAE advisory and working groups, including the group which authored and implemented the U.S. standard, EIA/ECCB – 954. Additionally, he served for ten years as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the ECC Corporation.   Working with industry leaders in the electronics industry, Stan organized the Counterfeit Avoidance Mark Alliance (CAMA®) and the Hazardous Substance Free Mark Alliance (HSF Mark®) to provide forums for collaboration and for standard product and process compliance verification. As a published author and speaker, Mr. Salot contributes articles to national and international technical journals. He speaks to audiences worldwide in person, on the radio, and on internet video shows.   Mr. Salot is committed to “helping companies help themselves” succeed with verifiable quality. To connect with our guest, click on the links below: Facebook:   https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100085062050900  Website:  https://bqpm.com/  Connect with me: LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidischalkcoaching/ 🎁Spotlight to Scale Blueprint:  https://spotlighttoscale.com/blueprint  🎁Join us for a free 60 Minute Webinar on Visibility and Getting Recommended by AI:  https://becomeairecommended.com/grow

  5. Aug 24

    Ep. 245 It's Lonely at the Top: How Senior Leaders Find Clarity Under Pressure with George Hayworth

    In this episode of the Business Growth Spotlight, Heidi Schalk sits down with George Hayworth, Managing Partner of Advisory Services at Precision Components, a combat veteran and former US Army Field Artillery Officer who continues to serve as an engineer officer in the Army National Guard. George brings a disciplined, high accountability approach to leadership that he now uses to help senior executives find clarity from the loneliest seat in any organization. George opens by drawing a clear line between what he does and what most consultants do. He diagnoses, he does not motivate. Executives carry a million worries and rarely have a neutral person to work through the things they are afraid to admit, and that is the gap he fills. From there the conversation moves into the leadership principle he is most passionate about, which is emotional regulation. George shares candidly that he once struggled with this himself, and that learning to respond rather than react changed everything in both his personal and professional life. A steady, approachable leader lowers the stress of the entire team and sets the tone everyone else emulates. The discussion digs into decisive leadership through a military lens, including the concept of commander's intent and the idea that clarity is kindness. George explains how giving people the task and the purpose while leaving the how up to them builds trust, develops talent, and creates a business that runs while you sleep. He talks about casting vision for team members who cannot yet see their own potential, and about assuming calculated risk so people can learn from their own mistakes. On sales and growth, George stresses knowing exactly who you serve and standing firmly in that identity, because the moment you become something to anyone, you become nothing to everyone. He shares how he separates the sales process from personal identity, why the internet is not real, and how to treat negative feedback as data without letting it touch who you are. The conversation closes with a grounded, practical take on AI as a tool to compress time rather than replace thinking, a look at the shift from SEO to AEO, and George's advice to pick one or two strategies and stay consistent long enough to actually see results. George is offering listeners a complimentary, no strings attached strategy conversation focused on giving senior leaders clarity they can act on immediately. Bio: George Hayworth is the Managing Partner of Advisory Services at Precision Components. He is a combat veteran and former U.S. Army Field Artillery Officer (2011–2016) with a deployment to Afghanistan from 2012-13 in the 101st Airborne Division. He continues his service today as an Engineer Officer in the Army National Guard. His military experience shaped a disciplined, high-accountability approach to leadership under pressure that now informs his work with senior executives. Prior to his career in executive coaching, George spent nearly a decade as a Sales Executive in the global IT services industry, operating in complex, high-stakes enterprise environments. His background spans industrial manufacturing, aviation manufacturing, airlines, logistics, mortgage, and insurance. George brings together battle-tested leadership experience and corporate executive exposure to support leaders navigating growth, complexity, and performance demands. He is a proud husband and father and resides in Tennessee with his wife, Whitney, and their daughter, Rhealynn. To connect with our guest, click on the links below: Website:  https://www.precisioncomponentsllc.com/  X:   https://x.com/georgehayworth LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/george-hayworth/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@george.hayworth IG: https://www.instagram.com/george.hayworth/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@george.hayworth  Connect with me: LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidischalkcoaching/ 🎁Spotlight to Scale Blueprint:  https://spotlighttoscale.com/blueprint  🎁Join us for a free 60 Minute Webinar on Visibility and Getting Recommended by AI:  https://becomeairecommended.com/grow

  6. Aug 21

    Ep. 244 The Triple Bottom Line: How People, Planet, and Profit Build Competitive Advantage

    Most business owners are already living their values every single day. They treat their people well, they think about their impact, they make decisions that go beyond the bottom line. But they are doing it without proof. In this episode of Business Growth Spotlight, host Heidi Schalk sits down with Tom Hering, founder of Benefit Corporations for Good, to explore what happens when purpose-driven businesses decide to make that commitment official. Tom launched Benefit Corporations for Good in 2018 after spending two acts of his career in the advertising world as a copywriter and creative director across Portland and Seattle. Alongside his co-founder Marianne Harmer, he set out to do something meaningful in his third act, and that led him to the benefit company movement. Today he helps small and mid sized businesses across North America commit to a triple bottom line of people, planet, and profit. The conversation digs into why certification matters even when a business is already doing good. Tom explains that third party verification gives owners something a PR campaign never can: credibility, accountability, and a public marker that holds them to their commitments year after year. He shares why this resonates so strongly with Millennial and Gen Z talent who want to work for companies making a difference, and how it becomes a genuine differentiator in a crowded market. Tom also tells the story of a steel fabrication company in Portland led by a 40 under 40 honoree, a business building alternative energy products while training and employing women who have been through the prison system. It is a powerful example of what purpose-driven leadership looks like when values move from intention into practice. Heidi and Tom close on one of the most timely questions in business today: how AI fits into values-driven organizations. Tom shares that he is assembling a panel of AI professionals to help his community navigate authenticity and purpose in an AI world, and his core guidance stays refreshingly simple. Look at your values first, then ask whether the decision syncs up. Bio: Tom’s work is focused on growing the Benefit Company movement in Oregon and throughout North America. When he launched Benefit Corporations for Good (BCFG) in 2018, he realized the positive impact small businesses could have on their employees, their communities and their planet through commitment to a triple bottom line of People, Planet and Profit.  Currently, BCFG has certified businesses in 13 different states and one Canadian province with the majority of businesses headquartered in Oregon. In June of 2023, Tom received word that the bill he sponsored in the Oregon legislature passed both chambers and headed to Governor Kotek for signing. The bill provides a sustainable advantage to Oregon Benefit Companies seeking a contract through the state's procurement office. Tom has worked as a creative director, copywriter and brand strategist. Before starting his strategic marketing communications firm, he worked for well-regarded agencies in Portland and Seattle as copywriter and creative director.  He is the co-author of the book, Putting Soul Into Business: How the Benefit Corporation is Transforming American Business and 25 Building Blocks to Create a Conscientious Organization. Tom is a graduate of the University of Oregon's School of Journalism. To connect with our guest, click on the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/benefit-corporations-for-good  Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/bencorpsforgood/  Website:  https://benefitcorporationsforgood.com/  Connect with me: LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidischalkcoaching/ 🎁Spotlight to Scale Blueprint:  https://spotlighttoscale.com/blueprint  🎁Join us for a free 60 Minute Webinar on Visibility and Getting Recommended by AI:  https://becomeairecommended.com/grow

  7. Aug 19

    Ep. 243 The Three Movement Symphony That Makes Any Presentation Land with Oratium CEO, Mark Bourgeois

    In this episode of Business Growth Spotlight, host Heidi Schalk sits down with Mark Bourgeois CEO of Oratium to unpack why so many business presentations fall flat and what it actually takes to communicate in a way that drives decisions. Mark has delivered thousands of presentations and now leads the teams at Oratium who teach, consult, and coach companies like Pfizer, Cisco, Amazon, and Rockwell Automation on the art and science of presenting. The conversation gets straight to the heart of "death by PowerPoint." Mark explains that the problem almost never starts with delivery. It starts with design. Our instincts as presenters lead us to pack in too much information, assume the audience has more mental bandwidth than they do, and make the whole thing about us instead of them. He calls this sender-centricity, and it quietly kills more presentations than any nervous delivery ever could. One of the most valuable ideas Mark shares is retellability. Every high-stakes presentation is really the first of two meetings, because the actual decision gets made later in a room you are not in. If your message is too complicated, too jargon-heavy, or too focused on your own solution, the person in that first meeting simply cannot carry your story into the second one. It becomes a game of telephone, and your message arrives distorted or lost entirely. The result is longer sales cycles, lower win rates, and the same meeting happening over and over. Mark walks through his practical framework for fixing this, the three movement symphony. First, you have a problem that is bigger and more serious than you realize. Second, we know how to solve it and we solve it better than anyone else. Third, here is what working together looks like and here are the next steps. He also shares the rule of one third, which says that in an interactive meeting you should design your content to fit inside a third of the total time so the rest can be spent on genuine discussion. Throughout the episode, Mark drives home that customers rarely buy what you think you are selling. Through a memorable story about a company selling industrial drives to mining operations, he shows how the real value was not the product at all but the promise of asset reliability and thirty minute on-site repair. The lesson is to sell what they are buying, not what you are selling. The conversation closes with a grounded take on AI. Mark cautions against handing your creative voice and original ideas to a machine, since that path leads straight to sounding like everyone else. Instead he recommends using AI from the bottom up, as a quality checker, an editor, a slide-builder, and increasingly as a coach that can simulate real customer conversations. The throughline is simple and freeing: anyone can become an effective presenter, because it was never about being gifted on stage. It is about the design and the story. Bio: CEO Mark has delivered thousands of presentations and now leads teams who teach, consult and coach using methods developed by Oratium. Additionally, he leads teams responsible for revenue development, for operations and for product development and management. Mark's background spans journalism, consulting, finance, and public service. Mark holds a master’s in Public and Private Management from Yale and a bachelor’s from Tulane. He’s also a husband and father of three. To connect with our guest, click on the links below: LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-bourgeois-a0440b/  Website:  www.oratium.com  Connect with me: LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidischalkcoaching/ 🎁Spotlight to Scale Blueprint:  https://spotlighttoscale.com/blueprint  🎁Join us for a free 60 Minute Webinar on Visibility and Getting Recommended by AI:  https://becomeairecommended.com/grow

  8. Aug 17

    Ep. 242 How Strategic Partnerships Can Become Your Biggest Growth Engine with Justin Boyum

    In this episode of Business Growth Spotlight, Heidi Schalk sits down with Justin Boyhum, founder of Charge Forward, to explore why relationships may be one of the most powerful growth strategies available to business owners. Justin shares how his military background, entrepreneurship journey, and experience navigating business during COVID led him to develop the Force Multiplier Method, a relationship based approach to generating conversations, partnerships, referrals, and revenue. The conversation covers how to use LinkedIn as a relationship building platform rather than simply a content publishing tool, why vanity metrics can distract from meaningful growth, how strategic partnerships can create exponential opportunities, and why AI should support human connection rather than replace it. Justin also shares real examples of businesses generating significant revenue through strategic partnerships and explains how entrepreneurs can stop trying to do everything themselves and start leveraging the networks and audiences that already exist. A key takeaway from this conversation is simple: you may not need more leads. You may need the right relationships. To connect with our guest, click on the links below: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinboyum/ Website:  https://thechargeforward.com/ https://ezlinkedintraffic.com/bgs Connect with me: LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidischalkcoaching/ 🎁Spotlight to Scale Blueprint:  https://spotlighttoscale.com/blueprint  🎁Join us for a free 60 Minute Webinar on Visibility and Getting Recommended by AI:  https://becomeairecommended.com/grow

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About

Welcome to Business Growth Spotlight, the podcast where we shine a light on innovative business leaders, cutting-edge strategies, and the latest trends shaping the world of business growth. Whether you're a CEO, Founder, Corporate leader or Entrepreneur, this podcast delivers actionable insights and expert conversations to help you scale your business, increase revenue, and stay ahead in a competitive market.  Join host Heidi Schalk as we dive deep into the stories and strategies of industry leaders, uncovering the tools and tactics they use to drive success. From navigating corporate challenges to mastering online visibility, this podcast is your go-to resource for scaling your business and reaching your goals. Tune in on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, for inspiring conversations, practical advice, and a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to thrive in today’s ever-evolving business landscape.

Information

  • Creator
    Heidi Schalk
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    250
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Business Growth Spotlight
  • Show Website
    Business Growth Spotlight