Scale from Here | Business Growth & Scaling Strategies for Small Business Owners

You have built a real business. The next stage requires more than working harder. Scale From Here gives owners of $5M–$25M businesses the practical growth, leadership, operations, and revenue strategies needed to scale without becoming the bottleneck. Each week, host Corey Harlock brings you the people, playbooks, and decisions that help businesses grow beyond their current level. Scale From Here gives established small-business owners practical insight into the strategies, people, leadership decisions, and operating systems that create sustainable growth. Hosted by Corey Harlock, the show features direct conversations with operators, experts, and business leaders who understand what it takes to build capacity, lead teams, make better decisions, and move a company beyond its current ceiling. Whether you are working to improve operations, hire stronger leaders, grow revenue, build a management layer, or reduce owner dependence, every episode is designed to leave you with clear thinking and a practical next step. Follow Corey on LinkedIn @CoreyHarlock Join our Mailing List at scalefromhere.com

Scale from Here | Business Growth & Scaling Strategies for Small Business Owners is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 157 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Unknown Host hosts Scale from Here | Business Growth & Scaling Strategies for Small Business Owners, a business show with 157 episodes published.

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  Scale from Here | Business Growth & Scaling Strategies for Small Business Owners

  Why Your Marketing Isn't Working (Our Most Popular Episode of 2026) | Final KeyHire Episode

  Sep 28, 202641 min

  Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. On Tuesday, October 6, The KeyHire Small Business Podcast becomes Scale From Here . Your subscription carries over automatically. The same feed, a new name, and a broader focus on the conversations that help business owners grow. Visit scalefromhere.com to become a free member and get access to bonus conversations, practical tools, and resources. If your business has thrown money at Facebook or Google ads and watched it disappear with nothing to show for it, this episode is for you. This is also a milestone: the final episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast. After years of conversations about hiring, leadership, and growth, Corey Harlock is evolving the show into Scale From Here, launching next week in the same feed. Listeners do not need to change a thing, resubscribe, or search for anything new. It will simply show up with a new name, a new format, and a lineup of guests built to help small business owners scale with more clarity and confidence. To close out the KeyHire era, Corey revisits one of the most practical marketing conversations the show has produced: his episode with Heather Manes of Savage Brands. It is a throwback worth hearing again, especially for owners heading into a new year wondering where their marketing budget should actually go. Heather starts where most business owners never do: the budget. She explains the common benchmark of spending roughly seven to eight percent of gross revenue on marketing, all in, and why that number shifts based on growth stage, competitive pressure, and industry-specific factors. Her core point is that there is no blanket approach. The right marketing strategy is tied directly to business goals, not to whatever channel happens to be trending. From there, she walks through the terms small business owners keep hearing but rarely get explained clearly. Digital transformation. Multimodal search, and why buyers are no longer just Googling, but also searching across Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude, which means companies need to be found and trained across all of those platforms. Personalization and list segmentation, and why sending bridge-builder content to a utilities buyer is a fast way to lose a lead. Brand differentiation and storytelling through case studies and video. Demand generation through webinars, ebooks, industry publications, and account-based marketing. Corey also pushes Heather on the mistakes, and this is where the episode earns its keep. The biggest one is spending without a strategy tied to business goals. The second is skipping the foundation: a CRM and marketing automation system that lets you actually track where money went and whether sales followed up on the leads marketing generated. Heather shares an example of a company that spent heavily to drive more than one hundred thousand visitors to a website and captured almost nothing, because there was no compelling offer, no call to action, and no form to convert traffic into first-party data. Corey adds a framing worth remembering: an email address is currency. People have become far more selective about who they give it to, which means your content has to be worth the price. Heather’s practical advice for owners starting from scratch is refreshingly doable. Set your budget against your goals, audit and build a clean opted-in email list, get your website fast and mobile-friendly, build a real content calendar, and then bring in professionals to map the paid strategy. If you are a small business owner tired of marketing that feels like a burden and a money pit, this one delivers. Thank you for listening to The KeyHire Small Business Podcast. We will see you next week on Scale From Here. KEY TAKEAWAYS Start with the budget, tied to your goals: a common benchmark is roughly 7 to 8 percent of gross revenue, all in, but the right number shifts with your growth stage, competitive pressure, and industry, so there is no blanket approach. Buyers now search everywhere, so train every platform: people no longer just Google, they also ask Gemini, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude, and multimodal search means you need to be found and cited across all of them. A CRM and marketing automation are the non-negotiable foundation: without them you spend money and never know where it went or whether sales followed up on the leads marketing generated. Traffic without an offer is wasted money: one company drove more than 100,000 visitors and captured almost nothing because there was no compelling offer, no call to action, and no form to convert them into first-party data. An email address is currency: people are far more selective about who they give it to, so your content has to be worth the price, and a clean opted-in list is the one channel you truly own. Personalize and segment, or lose the lead: sending utilities content to a bridge buyer is a fast way to get unsubscribed, so match the message to each segment and nurture people over repeat visits. LINKS & RESOURCES Connect with Heather Manes on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heathermanes/ Learn more about Savage Brands: https://savagebrands.com Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keyhire-small-business-podcast/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 0:00 - Introduction: the final KeyHire episode and the move to Scale From Here 3:46 - A near-death Kilimanjaro story and why preparation matters 5:32 - Why marketing feels overwhelming, and starting with definitions 8:33 - Budgeting first: the 7-8% of revenue benchmark and what shifts it 10:13 - Digital transformation now: AI tools and multimodal search 11:30 - CRM and marketing automation: owning your first-party data 13:17 - Personalization and segmenting your list the right way 15:33 - Brand differentiation: storytelling, video, and sustainability 16:50 - Demand generation: webinars, ebooks, and account-based marketing 19:29 - The most common marketing mistakes owners make 23:44 - The cautionary tale: 100,000 visitors, almost zero leads 24:55 - Offers, calls to action, and why an email is currency 26:28 - Conversion rates and the art of nurturing 29:42 - Advice from scratch: budget, then build an opted-in list

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  Scale from Here | Business Growth & Scaling Strategies for Small Business Owners

  683,000 People Just Entered the Labor Force (Hiring Didn't Get Easier)

  Sep 14, 202637 min

  Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. We share what’s next tomorrow. The KeyHire Small Business Podcast is evolving. We’ve been building something designed to bring you broader conversations, practical ideas, and more resources to help you grow. Look for our announcement tomorrow. In a soft market you get to ask a candidate why they want to work for you. At 4.1% unemployment, they get to ask you the same question. In this episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast, Corey Harlock breaks down the August jobs report and explains what three straight months of positive job growth really mean for small business owners who need to hire. The headlines sound encouraging. The economy added 162,000 jobs, unemployment held steady at 4.1 percent for the second month in a row, and the labor force grew by more than 600,000 people. But as Corey explains, a stronger jobs report does not automatically make hiring easier. Some industries are adding jobs while others are shedding them, and the people leaving information and financial services are not necessarily the candidates a manufacturing, construction, or food service business is trying to hire. Understanding where the jobs are actually coming from matters more than the top-line number. Corey walks through what different unemployment rates signal for hiring, from an extremely tight market below 3.5 percent to a soft market above 6.5 percent where applicants outnumber jobs. At 4.1 percent, small business owners are sitting in a tight, nearly full employment market. The key takeaway is one every owner needs to remember: strong candidates have options and are usually already employed. If you are excited about a candidate, at least one other company is too. In this market, you are competing, and the question is not why the candidate wants to work for you, it is why you would want to work for them. That reality leads into the heart of the episode: hiring is a discipline, not something you squeeze in when you have a gap in your calendar. Corey lays out the three things small business owners struggle with most, time, process, and priority, and shows how solving for all three creates a hiring process and candidate experience that lands transformational talent. He shares the statistics that prove candidate experience is your number one recruiting tool, including how many excited candidates walk away after a slow, informal, or disorganized hiring process. From there, Corey delivers a practical blueprint. He explains why one person should own the process and screen every candidate with a consistent scorecard, why generating candidates is the easy part and not worth a 30 percent recruiter fee, and why the hiring manager should conduct the first interview instead of sitting at the end. He covers how to run an efficient on-site interview with your best people asking different questions, why the best candidates are off the market within two weeks, and why the first and best offer usually wins when paired with a great experience. This episode is especially valuable for small business owners hiring in a tight labor market, competing for employed candidates, or trying to build a repeatable hiring process that actually works. Corey also offers a free small business hiring playbook, the four C’s of hiring, available by text through the show notes. If you want to read the jobs report correctly, avoid costly hiring mistakes, and build a process that helps you win great people, this episode is a must-listen. As Corey says, stop grinding, start growing. KEY TAKEAWAYS The jobs report is encouraging and the hiring market is still tight: 162,000 jobs added, unemployment unchanged at 4.1% for two months running, a labor force up 683,000, and July revised from a loss of 31,000 to a gain of 21,000. Three months of growth in a row means the pendulum is not swinging back toward employers any time soon. Layoffs in one industry do not help you hire in another: information lost 23,000 and financial activities lost 11,000, while the growth landed in food service, local government education, construction, manufacturing, and healthcare. The people leaving a finance job are not your manufacturing candidates. You are competing with the industries that are adding, not benefiting from the ones that are cutting. Know what your unemployment rate actually means: below 3.5% is peak warm body syndrome and wage wars, 3.5% to 4.5% is tight and nearly full employment, 4.5% to 5.5% is balanced with real applicant flow, 5.5% to 6.5% is softening and you can start getting picky, and above 6.5% the problem becomes sorting volume. At 4.1% we are squarely in the band where strong candidates have options and are already employed. If you are excited about a candidate, so is someone else: in this market the question is not why do you want to work for us, it is why would I want to work for you. You are in sales mode, and the interview is as much your pitch as theirs. Hiring is a discipline, not a task you fit into a gap: if you have ever called someone to push an interview because something came up, that tells you where hiring really ranks. Solve for three things and the rest follows: time, a process, and someone who owns it. Speed is the whole game at the top of the funnel: generating candidates is the easy part now, with job boards and AI sourcing tools running around $49 a month rather than the 30% a recruiter charges to hand you a database you already have. What separates you is reaching out immediately, and by text rather than a call that puts them on the spot at work. Wait 48 hours and someone else has them. One person pre screens every candidate for every role: same person, same questions, same order, 15 minutes against a scorecard with an 80% threshold. It is not a culture conversation or a resume walkthrough, it is do you have what we need. Over time that person learns what good looks like in your company and builds a real baseline. Put the hiring manager first, not last: if your team spends three hours per candidate and the decision maker cuts half of them at the end, that is fifteen wasted hours for every ten candidates. Worse, when the decision maker sits at the end, the team starts throwing volume at the wall. When they go first, the message becomes I like this person, I think we could hire them, and everyone downstream interviews differently. Design the on site round like a progression, not a repeat: only your best people, two or three of them, never substituted in or out, each assigned a specific topic. A peer opening with can you walk me through your resume, after the pre screen and the hiring manager already covered it, tells the candidate nobody is paying attention. Move on the clock the candidate is on: ten days from first interview to offer, an offer within 24 to 48 hours of the debrief, and a check in from your process owner if it slips even a day. The best candidates are off the market in two weeks start to finish, so pushing someone a week is effectively deciding not to hire them. First and best offer wins, but experience breaks the tie: a candidate who was treated well will take less money to go somewhere that made them feel like a priority. The candidate experience is the number one recruiting tool a small business has. Volume is not skill: Corey compares it to hitting 10,000 balls at the driving range and still being a bad golfer. If you hired ten people last year and two are still there, that is not being good at hiring. Doubling your hit rate means hiring five people instead of ten, and spending the difference on running the business instead of refilling seats. LINKS & RESOURCES Get the KeyHire small business hiring playbook, built on the four C's of hiring: text the show using the link in the show notes and ask Corey to send it over, free and no strings Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keyhire-small-business-podcast/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 0:00 – Introduction: three months of job growth and what it means for your hiring 1:45 – Big news coming for the podcast, and where to watch for it 2:49 – Looking back at Barry Moline on influence and Bill Hammett on benefits 4:52 – The August jobs report: 162,000 jobs, 4.1% unemployment, a labor force up 683,000 6:16 – Where the jobs are: food service, education, construction, manufacturing, healthcare 7:00 – Where the losses are, and why they do not help you hire 7:42 – What each unemployment band actually means for an employer 9:52 – Where 4.1% puts you: strong candidates have options and already have jobs 10:24 – If you are excited about a candidate, so is someone else 12:53 – The three things to solve for: time, process, and priority 16:49 – Generating candidates is the easy part, and why not to pay 30% for it 19:00 – Why the first outreach should be a text, not a call 19:44 – One person pre screens everyone: the scorecard and the 80% threshold

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  Scale from Here | Business Growth & Scaling Strategies for Small Business Owners

  Every Small Business is in the Health Insurance Business (with Bill Hammett)

  Sep 7, 202638 min

  Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. Something new is coming. We’re building the next chapter of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast. More practical conversations, new perspectives, and more ways to help business owners grow. Keep an eye on this space. We’ll share more soon. You might be in the widget business, the plumbing business, or the car business. You are also in the health insurance business, whether you like it or not. If benefits feel like a giant expense you shop for once a year, hand off, and hope your people appreciate, this episode will change how you think about it. On this episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast, Corey Harlock sits down with Bill Hammett, owner of Hammett Health Insurance Services and a certified healthcare reform specialist with over 20 years of experience, to talk about how small business owners can turn employee benefits from a painful line item into a powerful investment. Early on, Bill makes a point that reframes the entire conversation: since World War II, Americans get their health insurance through their employers, which means every business owner, whether they sell widgets, plumbing, or cars, is also in the health insurance business whether they like it or not. From there, Corey and Bill dig into what actually moves the needle on cost, coverage, and employee loyalty. One of the biggest ideas in this episode is that you are not really shopping for health insurance, you are shopping for brokers. Bill explains that the underlying product is largely a commodity, so the real difference comes from the broker's strategy, process, and advocacy. He walks through how larger companies can move beyond fully insured plans into level funding or self funding, taking on some risk in exchange for real savings, and why prescription drug costs have exploded from three percent of premiums in the late 90s to roughly 25 percent today. What makes this conversation especially valuable is the shift from buying more benefits to understanding the benefits you already have. Bill and Corey explore practical, low cost strategies any owner can use: mail order pharmacy programs that deliver a three month supply for the price of two, generic drugs, telehealth, urgent care versus the emergency room, and asking for pre authorizations to stay in network. As Bill puts it, before you buy the 17th line of coverage, make sure your people understand benefits one through 16. The most powerful takeaway may be treating benefits as compensation, not an HR expense. If you pay someone $80,000 and spend another $15,000 to $20,000 on benefits, you do not have an $80,000 employee, you have a six figure investment. Corey and Bill discuss how communicating that investment, even building an incentive around keeping premiums low, can boost retention, help you win candidates, and turn employees into educated healthcare consumers who assign real value to what you provide. For small business owners weighing the seven candidate drivers during hiring, benefits have moved to the top of the list post COVID. This episode is a must listen for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and HR leaders who feel stuck with rising premiums, confused by open enrollment, or unsure whether their broker is truly working for them. Bill also shares how to pressure test your current broker and offers to share his Leave No Stone Unturned presentation with listeners. If you want to lower benefits costs, keep more money in your business, and make your team feel genuinely taken care of, tune in for a clear, surprisingly engaging conversation that proves benefits do not have to be shackles you are simply stuck with. KEY TAKEAWAYS You are not shopping for health insurance, you are shopping for brokers: the product itself is a commodity, and a dozen agents can quote you the same plan at the same price. The difference is the broker's process, their opinion, and the strategy behind how they bring it to your employees. Above about 50 employees in California, and in some places down to two, the funding model becomes a lever: level funding and self funding let employers take on some of the risk the carriers have been profiting from for decades. The upside is real, and so is the downside, so the cash question comes first: if two major claims hit in January and you are out $150,000 on two people, can the business absorb it? Prescription drugs went from roughly 3% of premium in the late 90s to about 25% today: it is the fastest escalating piece of the medical premium, and it is where a lot of the recoverable dollars are hiding for employers who look, from rebates to sourcing medication differently. There should always be a second set of eyes on your benefits: a strategy your broker believes in will stand up to questioning and alternate quotes. If your broker is your brother-in-law, your neighbor, or your buddy from college and nothing has changed in years, the likely reason is that nobody is shopping it, because moving a policy is far more work than telling you everything looks good. Benefits are compensation, not an HR expense: if you pay $80,000 and spend another $15,000 to $20,000 on benefits, you do not have an $80,000 employee, you have a six figure investment. Two companies offering $90,000 are not making the same offer when one can show another $18,000 going into that person's family, and most employees only ever see the $200 coming out of their check, not the $1,000 the employer puts in on top of it. Sometimes the answer is not better benefits, it is better understanding of the benefits you already bought: mail order pharmacy that delivers a three month supply for the price of two, generic drugs, telehealth including telehealth for mental health, knowing where the nearest urgent care is instead of defaulting to the emergency room, and asking the doctor for pre authorization to stay in network. Before you buy the 17th line of coverage, make sure your people understand benefits one through 16. An educated healthcare consumer behaves differently: they pick a plan that actually fits, they know where to go when something goes wrong, and they assign a higher value to what you are paying for. Same plan, same price, but the educated employee is healthier, happier, and more appreciative than the one down the street who got no education at all. Corey floats an incentive line around benefits: tell the team what the company spent last year, and if next year comes in flat, everyone shares in the savings. If premiums had climbed 10% instead, that money was going out the door anyway, and now your people are working the problem with you instead of resenting the deduction. Confusion has a hard cost: unnecessary ER visits, avoided care that was actually necessary, the wrong plan selected at enrollment. It costs the employer, the employee, time, and health. And after you spend all that effort winning a candidate over, handing them a 47 page booklet is not onboarding, it is homework. LINKS & RESOURCES Connect with Bill Hammett on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/billhammett/ Learn more about Hammett Health Insurance Services: https://www.hammetthealth.com Follow Bill on Instagram for his Monday benefit breakdowns and Friday healthcare policy recaps: @healthcarebill Ask Bill for his Leave No Stone Unturned presentation: text the show using the link in the show notes and we will connect you Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keyhire-small-business-podcast/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 0:00 – Introduction: do your people know what you actually invest in their benefits? 1:42 – A teaser about what is coming for the podcast, plus Tony Manganiello and Barry Moline recaps 4:33 – Meet Bill Hammett: owner of Hammett Health Insurance Services and certified healthcare reform specialist 5:30 – Every business is in the health insurance business, whether they like it or not 6:44 – The product is a commodity, so you are really shopping for brokers 7:35 – Fully insured versus level funded and self funded, and where strategy moves cost 8:55 – Prescription drugs: from 3% of premium in the late 90s to 25% today 10:15 – What happens if a catastrophic claim hits a self funded plan 11:27 – The loyal team that got older, got sick, and could not get quoted 13:43 – Negotiating hospital bills and becoming a consumer of your own healthcare 15:23 – When your broker is your buddy and nobody is shopping the policy 16:47 – The seven candidate drivers, benefit stipends, and why benefits now lead the list 19:15 – Benefits as compensation: the six figure employee nobody talks about 20:34 – Put the benefits number in your all hands meeting, and the dentist goodie bag story 22:33 – Making it a quarterly conversation about our investment in you 23:50 – Mail order pharmacy, education, and benefits one through 16 25:33 – Building an incentive line around keeping premiums flat 26:35 – Why an educated healthcare consumer behaves differently 28:12 – The real cost of healthcare confusion

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  Scale from Here | Business Growth & Scaling Strategies for Small Business Owners

  One Sentence Increased Sales 15% (The Science of Ethical Influence)

  Aug 31, 202650 min

  Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. Influence is happening to you all day long. The only question is whether you can see it, and whether you are willing to use it honestly. If you have ever tried to move someone toward a decision and hit nothing but pushback, this episode is for you. On this episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast, Corey Harlock sits down with Barry Moline, CEO of BJM Solutions and author of Connect! How to Quickly Collaborate for Success in Business and Life, to unpack the science of influence and persuasion and how small business owners can use it to sell more, lead better, and build stronger teams. This is not a conversation about manipulation or gimmicks. Barry, a certified trainer in Dr. Robert Cialdini's method of ethical influence, sets one clear ground rule early: everything discussed has to be true, has to make sense to the other person, and has to be wise enough that you would recommend it to your own family. That standard separates real persuasion from the snake oil salesman who makes the sale today and is long gone when it stops working tomorrow. From there, Barry walks through three practical elements of ethical influence that any business owner can start using immediately. The first is enhancing relationships. He explains why liking begins with curiosity, asking questions and making people feel seen instead of trying to impress them. He covers unity, or finding common ground, and why simply calling your people a team can build loyalty. And he breaks down reciprocity, the chocolate shop and Costco effect, where giving something away, even information or a compliment, creates goodwill that comes back later. The second element is reducing uncertainty. Here Barry shows how authority and social proof help customers feel confident enough to say yes. He shares why you should never read your own bio, how a simple introduction as our expert can lift sales, and why testimonials, reviews, and award-winning credentials matter so much. Corey and Barry also offer a practical tip for business owners: if you want customer testimonials, write a draft for your happy clients and let them edit it, because most people will never write one from scratch. The third element is motivating people to act. Barry explains ethical scarcity and how it differs from the endless fake sales that train buyers to wait. He covers consistency, the power of getting a small yes first, and ties it back to Chris Voss and the art of the strategic no. Finally, he explains reducing friction, using a furniture store that boosted couch sales simply by offering to haul away the old one, and why understanding why customers say no is one of the most valuable things you can learn. What makes this episode work is how usable it is. Corey keeps bringing the ideas back to the small business owner who wears too many hats, and every concept comes with a real-world example you can apply to your sales team, your leadership, your marketing, and even your everyday conversations. If you are a business owner, sales leader, consultant, or entrepreneur who wants to communicate more effectively, build trust, and move people toward yes without feeling salesy, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in for a smart, engaging conversation on behavioral economics, ethical influence, and the persuasion techniques that quietly shape every decision around us. KEY TAKEAWAYS Ethical influence has three tests: it has to be true, it has to make sense to the person you are talking to, and it has to be wise enough that you would recommend it to your own kids, spouse, or colleagues. If what you are moving someone toward fails any of those, you are not persuading, you are manipulating, and you will see that person again tomorrow. Liking starts with curiosity, not credentials: people do not walk away impressed by your background, they walk away liking you because you asked about theirs. Barry describes it as a volleyball rally rather than an interrogation, and Corey points out it is the same skill that separates the best leaders, who ask questions and make people feel seen, from the ones who just talk. Unity is built by naming it: find common ground and then say it out loud. Call the group a team, whether that is team sales, team IT, or team plumbers, and put people in logo shirts. It sounds hokey the first time a leader says it, but people want to belong to something, and they notice the leader who gives them that. Reciprocity is targeted karma: the chocolate shop that hands out samples sees sales climb 50% to 150%, and the farmers market vendor who has someone handing fruit to passersby outsells the booth with a bowl on the table. A bowl is not a gift; a person giving it to you is. The same applies to information, a heads up, or a compliment, and none of it is one for one, so do not expect the return today. Never read your own bio: reciting your background is bragging, but the same words coming from someone else confer authority. A London real estate firm lifted rentals by over 15% by having the receptionist say let me introduce you to our expert in the Chelsea area instead of just transferring the call. Hang the diplomas, the certificates, and the awards, because authority works even when nobody says a word about it. When people cannot find an expert, they go to the crowd: that is why reviews, award-winning credentials, and testimonials carry so much weight. If you want testimonials, do not just ask, because roughly nine out of ten happy customers will never write one. Draft it for them and let them edit it, and most will say yes. Scarcity only works when it is real: the endless President's Day, Fourth of July, and Labor Day sale trains buyers to wait for the next one. A limited run of 25 pieces, an early bird conference rate tied to a real planning deadline, or 17 seats actually left is honest scarcity, and honest scarcity is the only kind that keeps working. Get the small yes first, or use the strategic no: a police department could not get anyone to put a two foot lawn sign up, so they asked for a three by five postcard in the window instead. Everyone said yes, and weeks later most of those same people took the sign. The flip side is Chris Voss territory, where asking are you against this lets people say no and feel in control, which clears the way for the real conversation. Reducing friction is the one most owners skip: a furniture store was losing couch sales over one unanswered question, what do we do with the old one. They started hauling old couches away and sales took off. When someone says no, ask why, because you may be able to fix it for them, and if not, you have just learned something for the next customer. LINKS & RESOURCES Connect with Barry Moline on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barry-moline-29b99a53/ Learn more about Barry Moline and BJM Solutions: https://barrymoline.com Email Barry directly: barry@barrymoline.com Get the book, Connect! How to Quickly Collaborate for Success in Business and Life: https://www.amazon.com/Connect-Quickly-Collaborate-Success-Business/dp/1977209084 Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keyhire-small-business-podcast/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 0:00 – Introduction: there is a science to moving people toward yes 1:50 – Looking back at Stefan Boehmer on incentive plans and Tony Manganiello on employee cash flow 4:33 – Meet Barry Moline: CEO of BJM Solutions and author of Connect! 5:23 – What behavioral economics actually means 6:38 – Chris Voss and the power of a no oriented question 7:47 – The ethics umbrella: true, makes sense, and wise 11:26 – The snake oil salesman and why trust outlasts the sale 12:15 – The three elements: relationships, uncertainty, and action 13:51 – Learning the method from Dr. Robert Cialdini, and why liking starts with questions 16:27 – The high school experiment and what it taught Corey about curiosity 20:15 – Unity, common ground, and the Calgary Flames jersey in Nashville 22:27 – Call yourselves a team, and why logo shirts work 24:46 – Reciprocity: the chocolate shop, the fruit vendor, and the Costco effect 29:17 – Targeted karma: giving information, a heads up, or a compliment 30:18 – Reducing uncertainty: authority, uniforms, and never reading your own bio 31:44 – The Chelsea rental study and the power of our expert 34:30 – Social proof, reviews, and the award-winning label 36:20 – How to actually get testimonials: write the draft for them 36:48 – Motivating action and the problem with fake scarcity 39:19 – Consistency, the small yes, and the lawn sign study 40:19 – Letting people say no so they feel in control 43:31 – Reducing friction: hauling away the old couch 45:48 – Barry recaps all three elements 46:47 – Where to find Barry and the book

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  Scale from Here | Business Growth & Scaling Strategies for Small Business Owners

  Give Your Employees a 40% Raise Without Touching Payroll (with Tony Manganiello)

  Aug 24, 202641 min

  Text us your comments or topic ideas for future shows. If your best people are getting called with an offer of a dollar an hour more, you do not have to win that bidding war. You just have to help them keep more of the money they already earn. On this episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast, Corey Harlock sits down with Inc. Magazine contributing columnist, keynote speaker, and author Tony Manganiello to reveal something that sounds too good to be true: how to give every one of your employees the equivalent of up to a 40% raise without touching payroll or your bottom line. If you are a small business owner losing sleep over retention, watching competitors call your best people and dangle an extra dollar an hour, this conversation offers a different path. Instead of getting pulled into an expensive bidding war for talent, Tony explains how helping employees manage cash flow, not just spending, can build loyalty, reduce turnover, and give your team more of the money they already earn. At the center of the episode is Tony's Cash Flow Mastery System, developed while helping an Inc. 500 company hit that list three times in four years. He introduces a simple but powerful idea: your income is a shovel, and most people are using it to dig a hole instead of fill one. When you get a raise, the shovel just gets bigger, and lifestyle inflation swallows the difference. Corey and Tony connect this to the real cost of financial stress in the workplace, citing research that 59% of employees are financially stressed, 56% say it hurts their work, and stressed employees can waste up to 7.3 hours a week on the clock. Tony breaks down what he calls the 50-50 drain: many people must gross 40% or more of their income just to cover debt payments, and roughly half of those payments are pure interest. He uses a striking mortgage example, showing how a homeowner can pay about $163,000 over seven years and reduce the balance by only about $30,000. Once employees see these numbers, Tony says, they experience a clarity moment, realizing their struggle was never a personal failure but the result of a system, what he calls the payment matrix, designed to benefit lenders. The conversation reframes how business owners think about their largest line item. Payroll is often automated and forgotten, but Tony argues it deserves the same scrutiny as any major investment. He shares his forgotten customer concept: if a customer is anyone who exchanges value with you, then your employees, who trade time for money, are your first customers and deserve to be treated like it. Corey ties this directly to KeyHire's philosophy that your candidate and employee experience is your best recruiting and retention tool. For owners wondering about time and cost, Tony explains that implementation is straightforward. After due diligence, his team does the work, pricing on a per employee basis so it never becomes a barrier to entry. This episode is especially valuable for small business owners focused on employee retention, team engagement, and reducing turnover in a tough economy without inflating payroll. Corey also references his August 10th solo episode on candidate experience and last week's conversation with Stefan Boehmer on incentive programs. If you want to take better care of your people, strengthen loyalty, and give your team a raise that costs you nothing, this episode is a must-listen. KEY TAKEAWAYS Teach cash flow management, not spending management: most workplace financial wellness programs stop at budgeting and trimming expenses, which keeps people shoveling in the same direction. Tony's Cash Flow Mastery System changes the direction of the shovel, and the equivalent of a 40% raise surfaces on its own out of the same income. Your income is a shovel and you are either digging a hole or filling it: when the raise comes, the shovel just gets bigger, lifestyle inflation absorbs it, and payday stops feeling like progress. That is why the stress shows up at every income level, including people earning six figures and people approaching what Tony calls the retirement cliff, where you do not fall off and die, you just work until you do. Financial stress is a productivity line item: 59% of employees are financially stressed, 56% say it negatively affects their work, 80% of HR leaders see it hurting productivity, 78% of business leaders connect it to turnover, and a stressed employee can waste up to 7.3 hours a week on the clock, close to 15% of the week. A healthy debt to income ratio is healthy for the lender, not the borrower: nobody stops to ask how much you have to gross to bring home enough to cover your payments. For most people that is 40% or more of gross income, and 48% to 53% of those payments are pure interest. Tony calls it the 50-50 drain: half your income is spoken for before it arrives, and half of what you pay out disappears into interest. The mortgage math nobody runs: a $300,000 home at 6.7% carries a payment of about $1,945 a month. Over seven years, which is roughly how often people move or refinance, that is about $163,000 in payments and only about $30,000 off the balance. As Tony puts it, if someone asked you for $1,900 a month for seven years and promised to hand back $30,000 at the end, you would tell them where to go. Call it a mortgage and people ask where to sign. Payroll is the biggest line item on the P&L and the one nobody scrutinizes: it is automated, paid out, and forgotten. Tony compares it to spending $100,000 a month on a click through campaign where the landing page fails half the time and the opt in form fails the rest. You would fix the page. Most owners never look at what happens to the money after the check hits the account. Your employees are your forgotten customer: if a customer is anyone who exchanges value with you, then the person trading time for your money is your first customer. Corey connects it to the point from his August 10th solo episode, that your candidate and employee experience is your sales process for talent, and you already know how to run a sales process. Clarity starts with two numbers: how much you have to gross to cover your debt payments, and how much of each monthly payment is actual interest, which the APR will not tell you. When employees run those two numbers they hit the clarity moment, and Tony says the motivation problem solves itself because they immediately want to know what to do next. LINKS & RESOURCES Connect with Tony Manganiello on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonymags Learn more about Tony Manganiello: https://tonymags.com Read The Payday Blindspot: https://speakerhub.com/cta/nGHkcn Email Tony directly: tony@tonymags.com (mention the KeyHire podcast in the subject line) Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/ Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keyhire-small-business-podcast/id1643962763 Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs EPISODE CHAPTERS 5:10 – Meet Tony Manganiello: Inc. columnist, keynote speaker, and author 6:17 – The Cash Flow Mastery System and where the 40% comes from 7:18 – Two payday expectations and the real cost of financial stress at work 9:28 – Your income is a shovel: digging the hole versus filling it 10:28 – The retirement cliff and why stress hits every income level 11:21 – Who a healthy debt to income ratio is actually healthy for 13:51 – Retention, bidding wars, and the dollar an hour problem 16:05 – The forgotten customer: your employees are your first customers 18:45 – Payroll is automated, forgotten, and never scrutinized 19:44 – The click through campaign analogy and the 50-50 drain 22:09 – Deferred interest, the payment matrix, and where this system came from 28:31 – Rehiring your current employees and taking care of the whole team 30:48 – The two numbers every employee should calculate first 33:44 – The mortgage example: $163,000 in payments, $30,000 off the balance 35:52 – What implementation actually costs an owner in time and money 37:11 – How to reach Tony and the free book for listeners

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