Business Owners Tell All

Eddie DeAngelis’s story is ultimately about learning through experience and becoming a different kind of leader as the business grows. He began more than 30 years ago selling imitation perfume and cologne in Northeast Philadelphia, eventually building retail and wholesale operations, spending nearly two decades in screen printing and embroidery, and later transitioning into commercial finance. Pasted text A major theme throughout the conversation was Eddie’s willingness to acknowledge what he did wrong for years. In his earlier businesses, he believed he needed to touch everything himself: every large sale, client relationship, order, and decision. Looking back, he believes his inability to delegate kept those companies from growing beyond roughly $2 million in revenue. Learning to build a team rather than remaining at the center of everything became one of his biggest leadership lessons. Pasted text Learning & Development Notes Hiring is part of development. Eddie said his earlier approach was essentially to find someone quickly, hire them, put them to work, and expect them to learn as they went. QualiFi now treats hiring as an actual process, using multiple interviews, multiple perspectives, prepared questions, assessments, and post interview feedback. His lesson is that investing more time before hiring dramatically improves what happens afterward. Pasted text You cannot develop motivation into someone who does not have it. Eddie admitted that he used to retain underperformers for 12, 18, or even 24 months because he believed he could eventually motivate them. One of his biggest lessons was recognizing that motivation has to come from within. Leaders can train, support, coach, and create opportunity, but the employee has to want it. Pasted text Development does not stop after onboarding. QualiFi now provides six to eight weeks of structured training. Eddie and his daughter created the training manual, and they use interactive tools such as Kahoot to keep people engaged. After formal training ends, employees continue receiving significant management support. Eddie described having three sales managers supporting 19 sales representatives and still feeling that additional support could be valuable. Pasted text Listening is part of leadership development. Eddie contrasted his current leadership style with the traditional CEO who dictates how everything should be done. He now sees tremendous value in listening to employees who are closest to customers, partners, and day to day operations. QualiFi intentionally tries to create a culture where everyone has a seat at the table and can challenge something that is not working. Pasted text Culture became real to him only after seeing a larger organization operate. Eddie said that five years earlier he would have considered culture little more than a buzzword. His experience after his prior brokerage was acquired exposed him to a larger corporate environment with departments, managers, systems, processes, and a deliberate focus on people. That experience heavily influenced how he later built QualiFi. Pasted text Great people can materially change a small company. One of Eddie’s strongest observations was that just two excellent hires can change the trajectory of a small business. He has watched highly motivated employees and managers elevate not only performance but even his own energy and thinking as the owner. Conversely, two poor hires can pull the organization in the opposite direction. Pasted text Additional Business Lessons Eddie repeatedly connected people development to systems and processes. His philosophy today is to look at each component of the company almost as its own business. Hiring has a process. Onboarding has a process. Training has a process. The client journey has a process. He recommends mapping the customer's experience from the first point of contact through the final outcome and continuously improving each stage. Pasted text He also emphasized client experience as a competitive advantage. One lesson he carried forward from former Nav Technologies CEO Greg Ott was to continually focus on the client experience. Eddie's takeaway was that when a company builds a great product, makes customers happy, improves its process, and gets incrementally better, financial results become a byproduct. Pasted text Technology is another component of development and scale. QualiFi has used API integrations and other technology to turn processes that once required multiple people and 15 to 30 minutes into tasks that can now happen in roughly a minute. His point was not that technology replaces people, but that the right technology allows good people and good processes to perform significantly better. Pasted text Signature Question: What Does It Take to Be a Business Owner? Eddie’s answer centered on resilience. He connected his ability to navigate entrepreneurial chaos to his childhood experience growing up in a family affected by addiction. He believes those experiences unintentionally taught him how to function amid uncertainty and adversity, something that later became an asset in entrepreneurship. Pasted text He illustrated it with a particularly personal period at QualiFi. During two difficult quarters, Eddie and his business partner Jason took themselves off payroll for several months. Eddie later discovered that his daughter had stopped cashing her own checks because she knew the company was struggling. Despite believing they were doing the right things operationally, Eddie said they questioned themselves nightly. They kept going. Pasted text His ultimate message was simple: business owners have to learn to navigate stress, keep improving, and continue moving when things go wrong, including when the circumstances are outside their control. Memorable Quotes These are the strongest Eddie quotes from the conversation: “Those failures are really the successes that are teaching us every day.” Pasted text “I held myself back... not knowing how to delegate.” Pasted text “Everybody has a seat at the table.” Pasted text “We’ve wanted it more for them than they wanted it for themselves.” Pasted text “If you solve for the client experience, the money’s just a byproduct.” Pasted text “We’re building the plane while we’re flying it, and we’re still learning every day.” Pasted text “Two good hires can literally change your whole company.” Pasted text “Failure’s not an option... Plan B is make Plan A work.” Pasted text “Go to sleep, get a good night’s sleep, tomorrow’s a new day.” Pasted text “It’s all about those experiences that got us here... that really matter the most and make the most impact.” Pasted text One other memorable line Eddie used was “Hire slow and fire fast,” but he specifically said on the episode that the quote was not his and credited it to his Sandler Training trainer. That distinction is worth preserving if you use it in episode graphics or promotional content. Pasted text Best pull quote for this episode: “Two good hires can literally change your whole company.” Best quote tied specifically to Learning & Development: “We’ve wanted it more for them than they wanted it for themselves.” Best quote for the overall What It Takes brand: “Failure’s not an option. Plan B is make Plan A work.”

In this episode of Business Owners Tell All: What It Takes, Boris Zhukov, Co-Founder and CEO of LetYouKnow®, shares how his background in economics, statistics, and mathematics helped him build a marketplace designed to reverse the traditional buying process. Boris explains that his vision goes beyond simply making car buying more convenient. His goal is to shift transactional power toward consumers, allowing them to research the market, determine what they are willing to pay, and instantly discover whether a seller will accept their offer. Convenience and eliminating negotiation are benefits, but Boris repeatedly emphasizes that they are byproducts of the larger objective: empowering consumers to take control of transactions and save money. The conversation also explores the strategic challenge of getting dealerships to participate in a model that initially appears to compete with their existing sales. Boris explains that LetYouKnow was intentionally structured to provide incremental business rather than replace a dealer's normal sales channels. Dealers establish hidden pricing thresholds that operate automatically, allowing transactions to occur without manually reviewing individual bids. The platform also generates demand data from unsuccessful bids, which businesses can use to evaluate pricing and potential demand. One of the larger strategic themes of the episode is building for expansion from the beginning. Boris says LetYouKnow intentionally started with automotive because of its complexity. By solving for a difficult industry first, the company could create infrastructure capable of expanding into restaurants, hotels, storage, services, and potentially virtually any other industry without continually rebuilding the underlying system. Boris also discusses how the company's strategy has evolved since 2019. One significant lesson came from initially expecting dealerships to actively manage their pricing within the system. He eventually concluded that this was neither feasible nor desirable. Feedback from dealership owners, including some who became shareholders, pushed the company toward creating a hands-free, automated system instead. That feedback also revealed an opportunity Boris had not originally anticipated: the value of unsuccessful bids as demand data. Rather than seeing only completed transactions, businesses could potentially understand transactions they could have had at different price points and use that information to improve pricing decisions. The discussion ultimately moves from process management into leadership. Boris says one of the skills he had to develop was recognizing individual team members' strengths and weaknesses and positioning people accordingly. He credits much of LetYouKnow's evolution to surrounding himself with experienced business owners, shareholders, and advisors who could challenge assumptions and contribute practical expertise. When asked what it really takes to be a business owner, Boris identifies optimism, perseverance, hard work, honest evaluation of progress, and the willingness to keep solving difficult problems. Rather than viewing obstacles as evidence that something is going wrong, he argues that genuinely difficult problems can be evidence that a company has reached the frontier where meaningful innovation happens. Key Episode Notes Core theme: Process Management / Strategy Major discussion points: Boris's economics, mathematics, and statistics background became foundational to building LetYouKnow's marketplace and matching methodology. His motivation is not simply eliminating an unpleasant dealership experience. He wants consumers to control transactions and get better deals instantly. LetYouKnow's model is designed so businesses establish hidden thresholds rather than manually accepting or rejecting individual bids. Boris views the platform as a source of incremental business, rather than a replacement for a company's existing sales process. Missed bids create valuable demand data by showing businesses transactions that potentially could have occurred at other prices. The long-term vision extends beyond automotive into restaurants, services, hospitality, storage, nonprofits, and other industries. Boris uses opportunity cost as a framework for strategic decision-making and expansion. Starting with automotive was intentional because solving for a complicated industry created infrastructure that could later support simpler industries. A major operational pivot was moving away from expecting dealerships to continually manage their own pricing toward creating a largely hands-free system. Dealer and shareholder feedback became an important source of product and process innovation. Boris learned that leadership requires understanding people's individual strengths and putting them in positions where those strengths can produce the best results. He believes meaningful progress should be measured over longer intervals rather than expecting visible results every day. Difficult problems aren't necessarily warning signs. Boris sees some of the hardest obstacles as evidence that a company is working on something genuinely innovative. Memorable Quotes “I want to empower people to take control of these transactions.” “The focus is actually empower you to take control of those transactions to save money. Everything else comes as a byproduct.” “Opportunity cost, you do this, well, you cannot do something else.” “We started with the most difficult industry.” “I all of a sudden have something else, which is the transactions I could have had.” “You have to recognize who's really good at what, and then position them in that fashion.” “You gotta have this sense of optimism that it will work out.” “You gotta keep that optimism inside of you, and then you gotta persevere.” “When you look back... you should see big progression.” “Whenever you hit a wall, that's great.” “Look at your challenges as almost like a benchmark... you're on the right track.” Strongest Quote for Episode Promotion “Whenever you hit a wall, that's great. That's when you should persevere, that's when you should actually have that optimism that things will work out.” That quote captures the What It Takes theme particularly well because it connects Boris's approach to strategy, innovation, perseverance, and business ownership in one thought.

Matt Kovacs, President of Blaze PR, joins Business Owners Tell All: What It Takes to discuss what happens behind the scenes of building and managing a successful PR agency. Drawing on more than two decades in public relations, Matt explains how Blaze has built processes that provide structure while allowing the team to remain nimble in an industry where the media landscape, technology, and client needs are constantly changing. Matt’s approach to process management starts with communication rather than rigid systems. Blaze uses regular Monday and Thursday team touchpoints, client meetings, timelines, and software to keep campaigns moving, but Matt emphasizes that effective processes also require understanding what team members and clients are experiencing. The agency views itself as a partner and counselor to its clients rather than simply an order taker. One of the central themes of the conversation is the balance between repeatability and adaptability. There are proven PR fundamentals, such as press releases, press kits, and media training, but Matt says those fundamentals must continually evolve. He points to AI as an example: rather than eliminating the need for PR, changes in AI and large language models are creating new considerations around how information is structured, distributed, and discovered. His team therefore has to continually learn while proactively creating new opportunities for clients. Strategy at Blaze begins by understanding the client's actual business objective. Matt's team asks whether the client is seeking investment, preparing for an eventual sale, building its brand, increasing sales, or pursuing another goal. From there, they map PR activity around launches, trade shows, seasonal opportunities, retail initiatives, and other important business moments. The objective is to ensure they aren't simply "doing PR for PR's sake," but connecting PR activity to meaningful business outcomes. Matt also discusses the importance of giving employees genuine ownership. Rather than requiring every idea or process improvement to originate with leadership, Blaze incorporates the experiences and perspectives of its team. Matt describes the company as "all our worlds," rather than his alone, and believes people should feel that their decisions matter. That philosophy has also allowed Matt to move away from being the decision maker for everything. After working together for years, his core team has developed the judgment and confidence to make decisions independently. Instead of focusing only on completing PR tasks or securing individual pieces of coverage, Matt teaches employees to think about each client's business as though it were their own and ask how their work can contribute to the client's larger objectives. The conversation closes with Matt's broader perspective on business ownership. For him, success isn't primarily about finding shortcuts or pursuing growth at all costs. It's built through "all the little things": remembering people's names, treating people well, being direct, doing the work, and investing in relationships. Those lessons trace back in part to his father, a third-grade teacher who emphasized the Golden Rule. Episode Notes & Key Takeaways Build structure without eliminating flexibility. Processes should create consistency while leaving room for teams to react to changing circumstances. Communication is part of the process. Blaze uses short, consistent team touchpoints to reset priorities and keep everyone connected. Start strategy with the business objective. Before deciding what tactics to use, understand what the client is actually trying to accomplish. Don't create processes simply because you can. Systems should support the strategy and ultimately affect the business. Create the newness. In a rapidly changing industry, waiting for the next opportunity isn't enough. Matt believes agencies have to continually generate fresh ideas. Give employees decision-making confidence. Matt doesn't believe everything should require his approval. Trust develops when people understand the business, clients, and reasoning behind decisions. Teach people the "why," not simply the task. Blaze encourages team members to understand why their work matters rather than simply completing a checklist. Think beyond transactions. A single PR placement may be useful, but Matt's focus is on long-term brand building, validation, and business impact. Relationships remain foundational. Even as technology changes PR, Matt believes knowing people, remembering details, and treating them well still creates lasting value. There are no sustainable shortcuts. Business ownership requires consistent work and attention to details that can easily be overlooked. Memorable Quotes "The kiss of death of any agency is, 'Well, you didn't do anything new.'" — Matt Kovacs "It's not my world, it's all our worlds." — Matt Kovacs "We want participants, not hostages." — Matt Kovacs, referencing Mike Tomlin "I don't need to sign off on everything." — Matt Kovacs "Think of it more of, this is your business. How would you want to treat it?" — Matt Kovacs "Coverage is transactional." — Matt Kovacs "I think it's all the little things." — Matt Kovacs "Treating people the way you want to be treated." — Matt Kovacs "If you look for angles and edges, and you're always trying to find the quick fix, it's not going to work." — Matt Kovacs "You're in the foxhole together." — Matt Kovacs, on the importance of strong client relationships Strongest Quote for Episode Promotion "Coverage is transactional." This is probably the strongest pull quote from the episode because it captures Matt's larger philosophy in just three words. The conversation that follows explains the distinction: individual coverage is transactional, while effective PR strategy is about building the business, strengthening the brand, and creating longer-term value.

Jason Yormark shares how more than 30 years in marketing, including work with major organizations such as Microsoft, ultimately led him to entrepreneurship and the creation of Socialistics. For years, Jason felt like a “square peg in a round hole” professionally and wanted to build something of his own, but the perceived security of a traditional paycheck kept him from making the leap. Rather than abruptly leaving his career, Jason intentionally built a runway. He developed momentum while still employed so that entrepreneurship would be a calculated transition rather than a blind leap. When his final traditional job ended, he committed fully to Socialistics. He credits overcoming fear and committing wholeheartedly as important pieces of eventually building a seven figure business and creating greater freedom in his life. Key Takeaways and Discussion Notes Build a runway before taking the leap. Jason's approach to entrepreneurship centered on mitigating risk. He didn't believe starting a business had to mean immediately abandoning financial security. He built momentum first, creating a stronger foundation before committing full time. Know what kind of business you actually want to build. From the beginning, Jason wasn't interested in simply maximizing revenue. He wanted a business built around relationships, freedom, culture, and meaningful work. That meant accepting that Socialistics might grow more slowly or remain smaller than an agency focused purely on maximizing revenue. Learn to say no. One of Jason's biggest lessons as a business owner has been learning not to accept every opportunity simply because it generates revenue. Early businesses sometimes have to take work they might later decline, but the goal should be reaching a position where the company can deliberately choose the right clients and relationships. Client retention can matter more than client acquisition. Jason deliberately prioritizes long term client relationships instead of operating a “churn and burn” agency model. His philosophy is that choosing the right work and creating mutually beneficial relationships produces deeper partnerships, stronger culture, and a more fulfilling business. Freedom is a business objective, not just a personal benefit. Freedom is Socialistics' number one core value and central to Jason's definition of success. His team is evaluated on the quality of their work and their commitments rather than where, when, or exactly how long they work. Socialistics doesn't even use traditional time tracking, despite the additional challenges that creates when measuring profitability. Build a company that doesn't depend entirely on the owner. Jason was advised early that if he ever wanted the option of selling his company, the business couldn't depend on him. Finding Joanna, his Director of Operations, allowed him to intentionally remove himself from much of Socialistics' day to day operation. Hire for what can't easily be taught. Rather than concentrating primarily on technical skills, Jason looks for what he calls “untrainable traits,” including communication, emotional intelligence, authenticity, and genuine care for other people. Tools and technology can be taught. Those foundational characteristics are much harder to manufacture. Make employees feel like they're building the company with you. Jason wants team members to feel ownership in the business rather than simply seeing themselves as employees. Profit sharing, compensation, autonomy, and culture all support that philosophy. Eliminate friction wherever possible. Jason describes one of his core business philosophies as eliminating the things that interfere with winning and retaining great customers and great employees. That can mean reconsidering long term contracts, workload expectations, traditional agency practices, and anything else that makes it unnecessarily difficult for people to say yes or remain committed. Don't optimize revenue at the expense of the business you wanted to create. Jason acknowledges that Socialistics could potentially make more money with a higher volume, higher churn model. Instead, he deliberately protects capacity so his team has room to think creatively about existing clients. He's comfortable with a potential $3 million to $5 million ceiling if that allows him and his team to maintain the lives and culture they want. Niche down, and sometimes sub niche even further. Jason sees trying to be everything to everybody as one of today's biggest entrepreneurial mistakes. Socialistics eventually focused specifically on nonprofits, and he argues that newer service businesses may benefit from narrowing even further. Becoming highly specialized helps a company cut through competitive noise and establish itself as an authority. Business planning requires commitment after the decision is made. Choosing a niche or strategic direction isn't enough. Jason stresses that business owners need to stay the course rather than continually abandoning their strategy when something else appears attractive. What Does It Take to Be a Business Owner? Jason's answer came down primarily to patience, appetite, and stamina. Most entrepreneurs aren't going to immediately “hit a home run.” Businesses and ideas take time to develop, and goals frequently take longer than anticipated. Jason emphasized that patience shouldn't become analysis paralysis, but owners need the stamina to keep moving when results don't arrive according to their original timeline. Memorable Quotes “I didn't want to chase dollars, I wanted to chase relationships.” “Keeping clients, to me, is more important than winning new ones.” “Ultimately, just learning to say no is one of the biggest things.” “When you're chasing dollars, it just becomes a commoditized business, and it becomes just a grind.” “That's my calling card, is freedom.” “Just do awesome work, live life on your own terms.” “Make sure that the business isn't reliant on you.” “I always look for the untrainable traits.” “I want them to feel like they're building this business together with me.” “To me, it's about eliminating as much friction in business as possible.” “Better to be a big fish in a small pond.” “Sub-niching is the way to go.” “You've got to have the appetite and the stamina to see things through.” “Great things take time to build.” Core Theme of the Episode Jason's approach to business planning isn't about creating the biggest company possible. It's about intentionally designing the business you actually want to own. His decisions around client selection, employee autonomy, leadership, specialization, growth, and even revenue ceilings all come back to that objective. Growth is important, but growth that undermines the owner's original goals isn't necessarily success. The episode ultimately reinforces that effective business planning means knowing what you're building, why you're building it, what you're willing to say no to, and having the patience to stay the course.

In this episode of Business Owners Tell All: What It Takes, Jamie Seeker sits down with Glen Fields, CEO and Co-Founder of Big Deal Agency in Greenacres, Florida, to discuss how strategic business planning, accountability, and measurable results have fueled the growth of his agency. Glen shares his unconventional path to entrepreneurship, beginning with his work at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and later transitioning into public relations during the early days of digital advertising. Recognizing that online advertising would become the future of marketing, he made the difficult decision to leave a traditional PR firm and launch Big Deal Agency after his vision for digital marketing wasn't shared. The conversation explores how Glen built a results-driven agency focused on transparency and ROI instead of vague marketing promises. He explains why he abandoned the traditional retainer model in favor of a billable-hours approach, allowing his agency to eliminate scope creep, improve profitability, and better manage both client expectations and employee accountability. Throughout the discussion, Glen emphasizes that business planning isn't just about creating goals, it's about building systems that support sustainable growth, measuring performance, adapting when necessary, and having the courage to make difficult operational changes. The episode concludes with Glen's thoughts on what truly separates successful entrepreneurs: passion, resilience, patience, and the ability to learn from failure without allowing setbacks to define the future. Key Takeaways Seeing Opportunity Before Everyone Else Glen recognized the potential of digital advertising long before it became mainstream. His willingness to act on that vision ultimately led to the creation of Big Deal Agency. Results Should Always Be Measurable One of Glen's guiding principles is that marketing should never rely on hope or vague promises. Every client should understand exactly what they're paying for and the results they're receiving. Business Planning Evolves with Growth As the company expanded, Glen realized that his original retainer model no longer supported sustainable growth. Transitioning to a billable-hours model improved profitability, reduced burnout, and created clearer expectations for clients and employees. Scope Creep Can Destroy Profitability Allowing unlimited client requests under a fixed retainer created operational challenges. Tracking billable hours provided an objective way to manage additional requests while maintaining healthy client relationships. Leaders Need to Understand Their Business Glen believes founders should understand every major function of their company, especially during the early growth stages. Learning different aspects of the business allows leaders to better estimate workloads, coach employees, and make informed decisions. Accountability Builds Trust Whether managing employees or clients, Glen believes accountability begins with measurable expectations and complete transparency. Never Be Afraid to Ask Questions For business owners hiring outside experts, Glen encourages asking questions until you fully understand where your money is going. Passion Comes Before Planning Business planning matters, but Glen believes successful entrepreneurs first need genuine passion for solving a real problem in a better way than what's currently available. Failure Is Part of Business Ownership Entrepreneurs should expect setbacks and develop the resilience to move past them without allowing one failure to affect future opportunities. Memorable Quotes "Marketing and advertising has to come with accountability and results." "People actually pay for results. People understand what they're getting." "Nowadays, I'm running my agency like a law office." "It's your money. If you don't understand what that money's being spent for, then the agency's not doing their job." "Don't be intimidated by the marketing lingo." "Learn how to do it." (Advice to founders about understanding every function of their business.) "Have passion for what you're doing." "If you believe that you can deliver quality work faster, cheaper, or just much better than others, then that's your cue to get started." "That's not a recipe for success." (On starting a business simply because others are doing it.) "Business ownership is so much about failure." "Seven failures out of ten gets you into the Hall of Fame." "Every client is now your boss." "Take the joy of the little successes that you have, and build on them."