The Principal Podcast

Want to solve Branding and Lead-Gen for good for your B2B Business? Download our Completed Playbook for FREE: https://ghapodcast.com/b2b-podcasting-secrets-lv/ ********************************************************** Mike Oppedahl is CEO of GiANT Worldwide, a professional services business built around leadership IP, certification, and a global network of more than 420 certified Guides. In this episode, Mike shares what he’s learned about turning expertise into scalable intellectual property, creating recurring revenue, and building a services business designed for long-term growth. ********************************************************** Links: StreamYard (for guest): https://streamyard.com/a8uz4jxfk9 YouTube (for sharing): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K11jmtojnhY Apply to be a guest: https://ghapodcast.com/application-to-be-a-guest-on-consulting-leaders/ ********************************************************** Mike's Bio: Mike Oppedahl is CEO of GiANT Worldwide, where he helps lead a global business focused on equipping coaches and consultants with proven leadership IP, including the 5 Voices framework, certification programs, and AI-enabled tools. Mike has spent more than a decade at GiANT across growth and leadership roles, including Managing Partner, Chief Revenue Officer, President, and Partner before becoming CEO. Prior to GiANT, he progressed from business development to President and Executive VP/COO at FootPrints Home Care. He began his career as a software engineer at Honeywell supporting the F-15 Eagle program and holds a degree in Electrical Engineering from Arizona State University. ********************************************************** Show Notes: Mike Oppedahl has spent more than a decade helping build GiANT Worldwide, progressing through roles including Managing Partner, Chief Revenue Officer, President, Partner, and now CEO. GiANT equips coaches and consultants with leadership frameworks, tools, certifications, and AI-supported resources they can take into their own client engagements. At the center of the business is 5 Voices, a practical leadership and communication framework used across organizations ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Rather than relying exclusively on bespoke services, GiANT has built an ecosystem around its intellectual property, including certification, technology, published content, and a global community of more than 420 certified Guides. For professional services leaders, Mike’s experience raises an important question: how do you take expertise that traditionally depends on individual practitioners and turn it into a business that can scale? We’ll explore how GiANT attracts and retains clients, builds recurring revenue around IP, develops a global practitioner network, and thinks about the next stage of growth. ********************************************************** Proposed Interview Structure: 1. You started your career as an engineer working on the F-15 program, then moved into running businesses and eventually spent more than a decade building GiANT. What pulled you into the professional services world in the first place? 2. What specific problem is GiANT helping coaches, consultants, and the organizations they serve solve today, and why does solving that problem matter so much to you personally? 3. Who are the ideal clients for GiANT today, and when you’re selling into an organization, who typically holds the decision to bring you in or invest in the work? 4. GiANT has built a brand around its IP, books, certification, and community. When it comes to generating new business today, where are your best clients actually coming from, and what has worked best for you? Current Acquisition Channels: Referral, Content, Meta Ads, Webinars, Podcast (guesting), Speaking engagements Sub Question: What do you think about podcasting as a marketing and trust-building tool for professional services firms? 5. Leadership and culture can sometimes be difficult services to make tangible before a client experiences the results. How do you sell that value and move a prospective client from initial interest to actually investing in GiANT? 6. Once someone starts working with GiANT, what do you do to make sure they continue getting value, keep coming back, and ultimately develop into a long-term relationship with the business? 7. Now that you’re CEO and responsible for taking GiANT into its next stage of growth, where do you find yourself most challenged right now as a professional services leader, if at all? 8. Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunity for your work over the next few years?

Look into the "3 Ways to Generate Leads With Your Podcast" E-book for free here on our website! (https://ghapodcast.com) Want to solve Branding and Lead-Gen for good for your B2B Business? Download our Completed Playbook for FREE: https://ghapodcast.com/b2b-podcasting-secrets-pod ********************************************************************** Lee Allen has spent his career at the intersection of marketing, client growth, and business building. During nearly 19 years with adm Group, he progressed through senior leadership positions including Managing Director, CEO Americas, Global Chief Innovation Officer, and CEO of Effectus Partners, working with global brands including Coca-Cola, Diageo, Nestlé, Castrol, and Kraft. His latest chapter puts him back in the founder's seat. With Game Theory, built around the acquisition of MVP Index, he is creating a sponsorship intelligence business on a simple thesis: brands and rights holders need both rigorous measurement and strategic advice to make better commercial decisions, and the two are far more powerful together than apart. What makes Lee's story relevant to professional services leaders is how he approaches building a firm: identify a meaningful client problem, validate it with the market, build trust before selling, and connect strategy to measurable outcomes. We get into what that looks like across business development, enterprise sales, client retention, leadership, and building a business that can grow beyond the founder. Proposed Interview Structure: 1. You started out as an entrepreneur very young, spent nearly 19 years helping build and lead adm, and are now back in the founder's seat with Game Theory. What originally drew you to building marketing services businesses? 2. What specific problem is Game Theory solving for brands and rights holders, and why did it matter enough to you to build a company around it? 3. Who are Game Theory's ideal clients, and within those organizations, who typically holds the decision to bring you in? 4. You've talked about making regular "deposits" into your network without asking for anything in return. As a founder, how are you turning relationships and reputation into a consistent pipeline for Game Theory, and what has worked best in winning new business? Current Acquisition Channels: Referral Sub Question: For founders of professional services firms, where trust and expertise are often the product, what do you think about podcasting as a way to build authority, relationships, and ultimately generate business? 5. You've spent years selling into large global organizations with multiple stakeholders and long decision cycles. How do you move a prospect from an initial conversation to enough trust and internal buy-in to hire your firm? 6. Once you've won a client, what do you do to make sure they keep seeing value and it develops into a long-term relationship rather than a one-off engagement? 7. You've led established organizations and are now building from the ground up again. Where do you find yourself most challenged right now as a founder, if at all? 8. Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunity for Game Theory and for sponsorship intelligence over the next few years? ********************************************************** Know more about Lee Allen Website Link: http://www.gametheoryinc.com Connect with Lee Allen on LinkedIn LinkedIn Link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lee-allen-34b449b Apply to be a guest on The Principal Podcast: https://ghapodcast.com/application-to-be-a-guest-on-consulting-leaders/

Look into the "3 Ways to Generate Leads With Your Podcast" E-book for free here on our website! (https://ghapodcast.com) Want to solve Branding and Lead-Gen for good for your B2B Business? Download our Completed Playbook for FREE: https://ghapodcast.com/b2b-podcasting-secrets-pod ********************************************************************** Mike Oppedahl has spent more than a decade helping build GiANT Worldwide, progressing through roles including Managing Partner, Chief Revenue Officer, President, Partner, and now CEO. GiANT equips coaches and consultants with leadership frameworks, tools, certifications, and AI-supported resources they can take into their own client engagements. At the center of the business is 5 Voices, a practical leadership and communication framework used across organizations ranging from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Rather than relying exclusively on bespoke services, GiANT has built an ecosystem around its intellectual property, including certification, technology, published content, and a global community of more than 420 certified Guides. For professional services leaders, Mike’s experience raises an important question: how do you take expertise that traditionally depends on individual practitioners and turn it into a business that can scale? We’ll explore how GiANT attracts and retains clients, builds recurring revenue around IP, develops a global practitioner network, and thinks about the next stage of growth. Proposed Interview Structure: 1. You started your career as an engineer working on the F-15 program, then moved into running businesses and eventually spent more than a decade building GiANT. What pulled you into the professional services world in the first place? 2. What specific problem is GiANT helping coaches, consultants, and the organizations they serve solve today, and why does solving that problem matter so much to you personally? 3. Who are the ideal clients for GiANT today, and when you’re selling into an organization, who typically holds the decision to bring you in or invest in the work? 4. GiANT has built a brand around its IP, books, certification, and community. When it comes to generating new business today, where are your best clients actually coming from, and what has worked best for you? Current Acquisition Channels: Referral, Content, Meta Ads, Webinars, Podcast (guesting), Speaking engagements Sub Question: What do you think about podcasting as a marketing and trust-building tool for professional services firms? 5. Leadership and culture can sometimes be difficult services to make tangible before a client experiences the results. How do you sell that value and move a prospective client from initial interest to actually investing in GiANT? 6. Once someone starts working with GiANT, what do you do to make sure they continue getting value, keep coming back, and ultimately develop into a long-term relationship with the business? 7. Now that you’re CEO and responsible for taking GiANT into its next stage of growth, where do you find yourself most challenged right now as a professional services leader, if at all? 8. Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunity for your work over the next few years? ********************************************************** Know more about Mike Oppedahl Website Link: http://giantworldwide.com Connect with Mike Oppedahl on LinkedIn LinkedIn Link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-oppedahl-8706584/?isSelfProfile=false Apply to be a guest on The Principal Podcast: https://ghapodcast.com/application-to-be-a-guest-on-consulting-leaders/

Look into the "3 Ways to Generate Leads With Your Podcast" E-book for free here on our website! (https://ghapodcast.com) Want to solve Branding and Lead-Gen for good for your B2B Business? Download our Completed Playbook for FREE: https://ghapodcast.com/b2b-podcasting-secrets-pod ********************************************************************** Darius Norell has spent around 25 years doing transformational work, helping people, leaders, and organisations navigate change, uncertainty, and transformation. Through People and Their Brilliance, his leadership consulting practice of more than 15 years, he works with organisations to help their leaders see reality more clearly, reconnect with what matters, and move forward when the path ahead isn't obvious. A central idea in Darius's work is “confident uncertainty”: the ability for leaders and organisations to move into the unknown without needing to pretend they have all the answers. His approach draws on leadership development, neuroscience, facilitation, meditation, and years of experience working with organisations across sectors and in 25 countries. Beyond his core consulting work, Darius leads Radical Employability and previously co-founded the Spring Project, whose programmes reached roughly 5,000 students and graduates. His experience provides an interesting lens into a challenge every professional services leader faces: how do you turn expertise and deeply human work into a business that consistently creates value, earns trust, and builds relationships that last? Proposed Interview Structure: 1. You’ve been building People and Their Brilliance and working in leadership consulting for more than 15 years. How did you originally get into the business, and what made you decide this was the firm you wanted to build? 2. What specific problem are clients bringing you in to solve today, and why does solving that problem matter so much to you personally? 3. Who are your ideal clients today, and within those organisations, who typically holds the decision to bring you in? 4. Leadership consulting is a business where trust matters enormously before someone hires you. How are clients finding you today, and what has worked best for you in consistently generating new business? Current Acquisition Channels: Referral Sub Question: What do you think about podcasting as a marketing and trust-building tool for leadership consulting and professional services firms more broadly? 5. Once a potential client enters your world, how do you take them from an initial conversation to a signed engagement, particularly when you're selling something as intangible as leadership transformation? 6. Once you’ve done the initial work with a client, how do you keep that relationship going, create opportunities to work together again, and turn individual engagements into long-term client relationships? 7. Where do you find yourself most challenged right now as the founder of a leadership consulting firm, if at all? 8. Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunity for your work over the next few years? ********************************************************** Know more about Darius Norell Website Link: https://thebrilliance.co.uk/ Connect with Darius Norell on LinkedIn LinkedIn Link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dariusnorell/ Apply to be a guest on The Principal Podcast: https://ghapodcast.com/application-to-be-a-guest-on-consulting-leaders/

Look into the "3 Ways to Generate Leads With Your Podcast" E-book for free here on our website! (https://ghapodcast.com) Want to solve Branding and Lead-Gen for good for your B2B Business? Download our Completed Playbook for FREE: https://ghapodcast.com/b2b-podcasting-secrets-pod ********************************************************************** Steve Moss has spent decades developing leaders, first from inside the C-suite and now as the founder of Executive Springboard. His firm connects senior leaders with experienced executives who have sat in similar functional chairs and understand the cultural, political, and operational challenges that can derail leaders during critical career transitions. Executive Springboard addresses high-stakes moments including promotion readiness, senior executive onboarding, leadership development, and career transition. Its approach combines carefully matched mentors with structured programs, assessments, stakeholder interviews, development exercises, and ongoing feedback. The firm reports a 91%+ retention rate over 18 months and an ROI above 1,500%. For founders and leaders of professional services firms, Steve’s journey offers a useful look at how expertise can become a differentiated and scalable business. We’ll explore how he positions Executive Springboard, finds and sells to clients, creates long-term relationships, and maintains quality while operating a network of more than 100 senior mentors. Proposed Interview Structure: 1. You spent years as a corporate executive and consultant before building Executive Springboard. What got you into executive mentoring, and when did you realize there was a business you could build around it? 2. What specific problem are you helping organizations and their leaders solve through Executive Springboard, and why does solving that problem matter so much to you personally? 3. Who are your ideal clients today, and within those organizations, who usually holds the decision to bring Executive Springboard in? 4. How do new clients typically discover Executive Springboard today, and what have you found works best for consistently generating new business? Current Acquisition Channels: Referral, Webinars, Podcast (guesting), Podcast (hosting), Speaking engagements Sub Question: You’ve been a guest on several podcasts yourself. What do you think about podcasting as a way for professional services firms to build trust, demonstrate expertise, and ultimately generate business? 5. When a potential client comes into your world, what does your sales process look like from that first conversation through to getting the engagement signed? 6. Once you’ve won a client, how do you make sure Executive Springboard continues delivering enough value that clients keep coming back and you build a long-term relationship rather than a one-off engagement? 7. Where do you find yourself most challenged right now as the founder of Executive Springboard, if at all? 8. Looking ahead, where do you see the biggest opportunity for your work over the next few years? ********************************************************** Know more about Steve Moss Website Link: http://www.execspringboard.com Connect with Steve Moss on LinkedIn LinkedIn Link: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenfmoss/?isSelfProfile=false Apply to be a guest on The Principal Podcast: https://ghapodcast.com/application-to-be-a-guest-on-consulting-leaders/