The Handshake Business

Mario Lanzarotti runs the Sovereign Advisor Group out of Cape Town. He was born in Germany to an Italian father, and his parents ran an Italian restaurant for nearly thirty years. They worked until one in the morning and there was nobody to watch him, so he spent his childhood evenings asleep in the storage room on top of the supplies. Mostly pizza dough.

He moved to New York in 2015 and talked his way from intern to co-foun...

Steve Barton created The Game of Ten. In Portland, Maine, he was arranging flowers at eight years old, standing on a stool in his father's shop. At twenty-two he was three days from a one way ticket to Germany when his mother called to say his father had had a stroke and the business needed him. He stayed for thirty years and took it from two hundred thousand to two million.

How he did it is the part your audience will recognize. A ...

Most people play it safe when everything falls apart. Lance Cayko started F9 Productions.

In 2009, with the construction industry losing half its workforce and no jobs to be had, Lance and his partner Alex Gore did the opposite of what everyone around them was doing, they launched F9 Productions, a design-build firm in Northern Colorado, out of a one-bedroom apartment on Craigslist.

Twenty years later, F9 has grown to a team of 11, t...

Marjan Radi, owner of Radi General Contracting Corp, spent thousands on Home Advisor leads before he ran the numbers on what they actually closed. He competed against 15 other Westchester County contractors for the same job. And still walked away with nothing.

Then he decided to find another way, that's when he met Ashley DePiano of Connectid.

In this episode, I sit down with Marjan and Vitore, a husband and wife team...

When Yessenia Lauzardo started Rise Interiors in Miami, the advice she got was that the market was full.

Yessy's father was abruptly laid off from his construction job during the recession. She didn't just help him find work, she built a company around it and made him her first employee. Eleven years later, that leap of faith has become a thriving Miami remodeling business known for high-end transformations and a deeply personal app...

Korey Mack, owner of Start the Party, in Dallas TX, found out he'd worked a job for Tony Romo after the fact, from the work order.

In this episode, I sit down with Korey, owner of a bounce house and event rental company that's been bringing fun (and a few unexpected lessons) to families across North Texas for over a decade.

Korey shares how growing up in his dad's and grandfather's businesses shaped his approach to entreprene...

Every day on a Division 7 Millwork job site, Micah Beatty asks the customer the same question. Do you see anything you'd like us to fix?

He asks it while the cabinets are still going up. Then again during crown. Then again when the knobs go on.

By the time the job wraps, that customer has already inspected the work with a critical eye five or six times and said it looks good. The punch list at the end is nearly empty...

Apolo Arellano runs Get Pro Landscaping in San Jose and has never bought a lead.

In this episode, I sit down with Apolo to talk about his journey from immigrant roots to running a growth-oriented landscaping business and the systems, mindset, and hustle that made it possible.

Apolo breaks down how he built a reputation in his community, why trust is the foundation of every client relationship, and how tools like a CRM and Goo...

Casarra Cover runs Whitaker's Garage Doors in Westchester County. Third generation, 8 trucks, 23 people.

Before we started working together, those trucks came back every night with 80 handwritten invoices. She had hired someone whose entire job was typing them into QuickBooks, and billing still ran days behind. Customers who weren't home got a paper invoice in the door, then a mailed copy, then somebody on the phone chasing ...

Miguel Bañuelos was 23 when Pristine Concrete Denver crossed $1 million in a year.

Two years earlier he was doing a few small jobs a month and taking whoever called.

I asked him to walk through it in order. What he changed first. What he changed after that. And the point where the phone started ringing with people ready to buy instead of people collecting 5 quotes.

What we get into:

How he stopped taking every job that came in, and wha...