John Warrillow is the creator of The Value Builder System™, a statistically proven methodology for improving a company’s value by up to 71%.

We talk about the many pitfalls facing companies including “The Owner’s Trap”, where the revenue cannot grow beyond the owner’s time. We talk about how businesses falter because of over-exuberance by the entrepreneur owner and how this leads to employee churn. John demystifies many issues around possible acquisition. We talk about how to position your company to look attractive by a likely acquirer, but in doing so make it a better business for yourself.

We talk about making it a more compelling business for customers and even the tweaks that should be made to language surrounding your business.

John is the author of the bestselling book Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You, which was recognised by both Fortune and Inc Magazine as one of the best business books. Built to Sell has been translated into four languages. John’s latest book, The Automatic Customer: Creating A Subscription Business In Any Industry was released in February 2015. Before starting The Value Builder System™, John started and exited four companies, including a quantitative market research business that was acquired by The Corporate Executive Board (NYSE: CEB) in 2008.

Dale Archer M.D. is a Psychiatrist and Founder/CEO of The Institute for Neuropsychiatry and NYT bestselling author of two great books: ‘The ADHD Advantage’ and ‘Better than Normal’.

We talk to Dale about how ADHD can be a huge advantage if we society reframes ADHD-ers to see it as an advantage and not a sickness. We talk about the perfect storm of overdiagnosis, the profits from ADHD medication and trigger-happy prescriptions of ADHD drugs. We talk about how the ADHD brain works and is challenged by our one-size-fits-all education system. We talk about the ADHD gifts of resilience, “Bingo-Brain, non-linear thinking and multi-tasking. Dale shares some tips for parents of ADHD-ers and we celebrate some of the heroes of ADHD.

You can find out more about Dale Archer and his work, including where to buy his books here: http://drdalearcher.com/

From Buddhist monks to the early stages of psychology, attention has been deemed a vital element of success.

In a world vying for our attention, if we can become masters of this attention, we can lead happier more present lives.

Dr Joseph Cardillo is this week’s guest. He is a martial artist, doctor and author of: ’Body Intelligence – Harness Your Body’s Energies for Your Best Life’, ‘The Five Seasons’, ‘Your Playlist Can Change Your Life’,  ‘Be Like Water’, ‘Bow to Life’ and the focus of today’s show Can I Have Your Attention? How to Think Fast, Find Your Focus and Sharpen Your Concentration’.

We explore some of the attention building exercises and processes outlined in his book and how we can reset our increasing attention deficit. We discuss how we can maximise our attention at work, in key moments where we are about to “lose our mind”.

We discuss how we can give our children the tools for better sleep as well as ourselves. We touch on how we can be victims of unintentional bias. Finally, Joseph emphasises the merits of meditation and the myriad benefits it can give us.

We speak with Andrew Keen, the pioneer of calling into question the impact of technology and the resulting new business models on society.

He has been called a luddite and a technological Antichrist for calling out such concerns.

Today, no-one calls him that today.

He is the author of the fantastic books:

‘The Cult of the amateur’

‘Digital Vertigo’

‘The Internet is Not the Answer’ and the focus of our chat:

‘How to Fix The Future’

Andrew’s book “How to Fix the Future” outlines a map of how we might approach the future of humanity amidst a world of ai, technology, algorithm and tech behemoths.

Andrew looks at how humanity has overcome huge change in the past and how we can use what we have learned in the past to fix the future.

We explore:

1. Legal regulation, where innovation and regulation are symbiotic. Andrew discusses some of the exemplars of regulation and how we can learn from them. We also discuss governments driving change such as Estonia, Singapore and even China.
2. Innovators and innovation diving change
3. The role of consumers and social responsibility, where consumers shape society with their needs.
4. Philanthropists, non-profits and committed change makers like Edward Snowden and you Andrew Keen!
5. Education and our roles as parents, teachers and educators of every kind.

You can find more about Andrew and where to buy his books here:

http://www.ajkeen.com/how-to-fix-the-future/

The anti-bullying movement has been full throttle for 18 years since Columbine shooting in 1999. The efforts to stop students from becoming victims of bullying have been solely focused on changing the world around the victim to create a less hostile environment. This has failed.

Brooks Gibbs has flipped the approach to bullying and empowers victims to be emotionally resilient so they are not hurt in the first place. This is a simple solution to a complex problem and the only approach that can keep children from killing themselves or others in retaliation. 

So we will be contrasting a direct versus indirect approach to help kids. A legal versus psychological approach.

More on brooks here: https://www.brooksgibbs.com/ and his programme here: https://brooks-gibbs.mykajabi.com/store/97335cvs

Friederike Fabritius, M.S., is a trained neuropsychologist, a certified coach, a popular keynote speaker, an internationally recognized management consultant, and author of The Leading Brain. She is an expert in the field of Neuroleadership.

We discuss strategies to improve our lives by understanding how to maximise the brain. This great conversation includes thoughts on sleep, exercise, brain training, meditation, ageing, children and technology and much more.

You can find out more about Friederike and her work and where to by the book here:

https://www.fabulous-brain.com/

https://www.fabulous-brain.com/the-leading-brain

Jon Acuff is the New York Times Bestselling author of six books including his most recent Wall Street Journal #1 Bestseller, Finish: Give yourself the gift of done.

For over 20 years he’s helped some of the biggest brands in the world tell their story, including The Home Depot, Bose, Staples.

He speaks internationally and was named amidst the INC. top 100 leadership speakers.

We discuss how one of the biggest blockers to our success is our perfectionism. We explore ways to change this and help us achieve our goals and challenge our excuses.

We discuss traits of exceptional leaders and we look at how we might maximise our work practices to work for us.

Steve Waddell is founder and CEO of Nasoni. Steve is disrupting a very mature market, this is the first functional change to the faucet in over 80 years. Steve shares his mindset, his background, his challenges and his motivation.

This show is very useful for anyone who wants to understand bootstrapping a physical product from everything from patent to prototype.

You can find out more here:

https://nasoni.com/

https://vimeo.com/249864698

https://nasoni.com/pages/what-else-can-fontanina-be-used-for

David Gluckman is the common denominator of so many brands we know and love. Kerrygold butter, Baileys Irish Cream, Smirnoff Black, Le Piat D’or and many more.

We discuss his book That s!it will never sell! through the lens of the lessons it imparts. We discuss the best ways to sell ideas. We discuss the best ways to deliver ideas. We discuss new product development and how to get them over the line.

David shares some of his failures and the lessons learned and the ones that got away.

You can find out more about the book and David here: http://www.thatshitwillneversell.com/

You can read his Linkedin articles reference on the show here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/marketing-success-requires-appetite-risk-david-gluckman

The story of the ship mender is here: https://atkinsbookshelf.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/the-parable-of-the-ship-mechanic/

On this week’s show, we discuss how goods and services are no longer enough. How competing on price alone will kill your business.

We discuss how we need to move beyond designing the thing to designing the experience of the thing.

We discuss how business is a theatre and how employees should be cast members. How employees shift from task mindset to experience mindset, it is no longer about a task but how the task is done.

We discuss how staging experience means the customer is the products and how merchandise is part of the experience and not the product at all.

Joe paints a picture of the landscape and we differentiate Commodities /Goods /Services /Experiences.

Amazon books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/B.-Joseph-Pine/e/B001JP9UY2/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_6?qid=1517360950&sr=1-6

Thoughts page of Joe’s posts: https://strategichorizons.com/books-and-ideas/thoughts/

The Experience Economy Expert Certification class to be held August 6-10 2018 in Minneapolis, Minnesota https://strategichorizons.com/learn-and-engage/public-events/certification/

New HBR Article: Shoppers Need a Reason to Go to Your Store — Other Than Buying Stuff