This week on #PoisedforExit we featured Nina Hale, a pioneer in the world of digital advertising, who sold her company Nina Hale to an ESOP in 2014. The company has been renamed Collective Measures and is growing strong, with many of the same employees who worked for Nina. She now sits on several non-profit Boards and helps educate business owners on what ESOP's are and are not. 

ESOP is an acronym for Employee Stock Ownership P...

The Family Business of Knutson Construction:  Building for the next 110 years


Our featured guest for this episode is John Curry, 3rd generation owner of Knutson Construction, a commercial construction company that boasts 110 years in business! 

Before joining the company, John spent some time playing hockey as a Goalie; in high school, college and for the pros! He started his construction career on the job site and over time, moved h...

Getting 'Poised for Exit': Understanding Buyer Strategies

Our #PoisedforExit episode today featured Russ Fleming, partner at Baker Tilly in Minneapolis. Russ grew up with an interest in accounting and gained a great deal of exposure to it from his father (a CPA) whose clients were real estate and construction industry business owners. Thus, Russ acquired many clients in these industry sectors and is sought often for his expe...

Our guest for this episode is Derek Weatherford, Market Executive with BMO Private Bank. Derek's long standing background in wealth management, especially in the area of philanthropy made him the perfect guest for this topic!

There are many options and directions a business owner can take when it comes to making donations. We can give to our church or other favorite charity, but for many of us, it doesn't stop there, and for...

Our show today featured Chris Jones, President and co-owner of Sunbelt Business Advisors, a business brokerage firm with a long track record for helping both sellers and buyers of companies. Chris joined the firm in 2001 after several years working as a Mergers and Acquisitions adviser for a Fortune 200 private company. He loves putting deals together and helping sellers achieve their hard won goals. 

Profile by Sanford is a health and wellness service provider whose holistic approach is being sought after by employers everywhere. Why? First, because their programs come at no cost to the employer (unless you want to provide it as an employee benefit) and second, employers are looking for ways to enhance their company culture and increase productivity at the same time. 

My guest for this episode is Danette Peterson, a Lead Dietici...

There's a documentary out there about a guy who ate dog food for a month to prove his company's pet food products were safe and healthy. This same guy, Mitch Felderhoff, happens to co-own the company with his brother, Chad. They are 4th Generation owners of the Muenster Milling Company in Muenster Texas. And their company is growing like crazy. 

It wasn't always that way, though. Mitch joined the company out of college t...

Our guest for this #PoisedforExit episode is a media celebrity; Lee Schafer with Star Tribune. Lee has been a Business and Economics Columnist for the paper these past 9 years, and is the winner of a couple national awards as well. But what you probably didn't know, is that Lee spent many years in the world of Mergers and Acquisitions as a partner, an adviser, and a deal maker. 

Lee's first taste of entrepreneurism came from...

For this #PoisedforExit episode, we interviewed Lynne Robertson, CEO of Fame, a national Advertising and Branding firm. Lynne got her start in an ad agency as an office assistant and eventually worked her way to a C level leader. She ended up becoming the CEO of Fame when the original leader left abruptly. She did so well that she eventually ended up buying the company from its Private Equity owners; that was back in 2015. Since th...

Our guest for this #PoisedforExit episode is Joe Housman, Vice President for Hays Companies and Brown & Brown Insurance. Joe has held a variety of roles with privately held companies, from CPA, to Private Equity adviser; he's worked with many companies in various stages of growth, acquisition and exit. 

He recently added Commercial Insurance to his areas of expertise and talked about how insurance can be used when buying or ...

Today's guest on #PoisedforExit is Emily Morgan, the founder and CEO of Delegate Solutions, which provides Virtual Assistant services to entrepreneurs. Emily grew her firm from scratch out of a need to expand the services she was already delivering, and over 13 years has built it into a 40 person team of Virtual Assistants and support staff. 

We entrepreneurs tend to have issues with delegating well. The content and advice from ...

Our guest today is Rose McKinney, Founder and CEO of Pineapple RM, a Brand and Reputation Management firm. 

Rose has been doing the work of managing her clients' reputations for many years. You'll want to listen to this show, because she offered some great insight into why reputation is so vitally important to a company's overall brand. 

When you think of your company's brand and its message, would you say it's sy...

We talked today with Joel Seleskie, Founder and Principle of Seleskie Financial. Joel's team consists of 4 other advisers and 8 support staff, and work primarily with owners of privately held and closely held companies. 

Joel said he knew from a young age that he wanted to be a financial adviser. His first boss when in High School taught him the concept of earning interest on your money, and from then he went on to higher educat...

On this episode of #PoisedforExit, we featured Kyla Hansen, partner at JAK CPA's. Kyla's firm works with privately held companies and they're very busy helping their clients prepare for a future acquisition. 

Kyla says that a business owner should get their financials cleaned up at least 3 years ahead of a sale, but even better to do so 5 years ahead of a sale in the wake of COVID. She said that many buyers are now looki...

Our episode today featured the President of Village Bank, Aleesha Webb. Aleesha is a Second Generation successor to the bank, started by her father, Don 28 years ago. Growing up, Don was involved in several entities and Aleesha learned a lot about entrepreneurship at an early age, which propelled her to continue in that direction herself. 

Village Bank has learned to compete with larger banks through their focus on building strong r...

Our guest for this #PoisedforExit episode is Steve Baird; shareholder and practice area leader for his Intellectual Property team in the Minneapolis office of global firm Greenberg Traurig. Steve's interest in the law did not follow a straight line. Being from a family of educators (his parents and siblings are all teachers of some kind) he naturally gravitated toward wanting to educate people, just not as a teacher. 

He spent s...

This episode features Darin Lynch, a well known and respected digital marketing expert, who is the Founder and "Chief Liberation Officer" of Irish Titan.

Darin came from a hardworking start as an Iowa farm boy. His dream of owning his own business as a boy, with its own Bat Pole, came true! Along his career journey he spent time in the IT departments and Ecommerce departments of various publicly held companies, when one day,...

Today's episode featured CEO, Tyler Olson, owner of Shyld Academy, a firm who specializes in cybersecurity education for businesses and their employees. 

Did you know that 95% of all Data Breaches are caused by individuals in your company who 'don't know any better' and don't understand the basics of cyber security?  Even home offices are being hacked and many people mistakenly think that it's OK not to chang...

On this #PoisedforExit episode, we feature entrepreneur, Nicole Anthony who tells us all about her latest endeavor called "COYABLU Tequila Cocktails" !  Premium tequila cocktails in a can, in 8 flavors! Personally, I can't wait!

Before she became CEO of COYABLU, Nicole had her hand in starting, running and selling 3 other companies. We talked about the diverse skill set it takes to launch and build a successful business,...