Tessa Burg talks for a second time with Mariano Bosaz, Global VP of Consumer Data and Strategy at Coca-Cola and the author of “Digital Mindset.” This time, they dive deeper into practical applications of digital thinking, moving beyond theory to give you actionable strategies you can implement right away. Mariano shares real-world examples of how the shift from analog to digital thinking transforms problem-solving, particularly around the “last mile challenge” that affects so many industries. You’ll discover what teams of the future look like and get concrete use cases from recent headlines that make these concepts accessible and immediately applicable. Whether you’re a business leader looking to stay ahead or someone curious about how AI-era marketing really works, this conversation offers valuable insights from someone operating at the highest levels of global business.
Nancy and Ron Bogart have been married since 1989, started their first business together in 1992, and somewhere along the way figured out something most business owners spend decades chasing: how to build something real and keep it going. Nancy is the founder and CEO of Jordan Essentials, a 26-year-old direct sales company based in Nixa, Missouri, that manufactures and ships non-toxic personal care products — lotions, scrubs, soaps, magnesium sprays — and supports thousands of independent consultants across all 50 states. Ron spent 13 years taking a sole proprietorship to an employee-owned company of 220, tripling both its size and share price along the way. They are, as Deborah puts it, a power couple — not in the surface-level sense, but in the way that two people who genuinely like each other make better decisions together than either would alone. This conversation covers a lot of ground: how a children’s book about lavender spray and a monster under the bed became a real business product, why Nancy doubled her revenue in a sector that is not seeing a rising tide, what the Judgment Index revealed about a hire Ron almost didn’t question, and why Ron ignored a book recommendation from his wife for five years before it changed everything.
Ron’s new book, A Heartbeat Away, arrives in April 2026. It’s a fable — mostly made up, he says, except for the parts that are true. The story behind it spans more than a decade. When Ron first took on the CEO role at his current company, the outgoing owner had a heart attack eight months into the transition, forcing Ron to take over much faster than anyone planned. He navigated that successfully. Then, eleven months before this recording, Ron had open heart surgery of his own — unplanned, and a direct test of whether his own succession systems were ready. They weren’t fully ready. His argument in the book: succession plans fail not because people don’t care, but because a plan that isn’t embedded in a living operating system isn’t really a plan at all. Ron had lived that truth from both sides of the table.
Most business owners think they know who the key person in their organization is. They think of the CEO, the founder, the executive. But Susan Finch and Lany Sullivan have a different perspective, and once you hear it, you cannot unhear it.In this episode, Lany opens with a concept borrowed from the insurance world: Keyman Insurance, which is an actual policy that protects a business when something happens to a critical individual. But what the insurance industry focuses on and what actually keeps your day-to-day operations alive are often two very different things. The real key people in your business are rarely at the top of the org chart.
When Liza Buck followed a stranger’s car down a dirt road into the Maine woods as an 18-year-old, she had no idea she was headed to a grief camp. She thought she was going to lifeguard. That accidental detour became her life’s work. Liza is now on staff full time at Experience Camps, a nonprofit founded in 2009 that provides free week-long programs for children who have lost a parent, sibling, or primary caregiver. What started with 27 kids in Maine now serves nearly 2,000 children a summer across 16 programs in 8 states. In this conversation, Liza and Susan talk about what grieving children actually need, why the first question you ask matters more than almost anything else, and how a camper’s fishbowl analogy captures something most adults spend years trying to articulate. They also talk about anger as a legitimate part of grief, the value of saying the words “death” and “dying” out loud, and what it looked like when a Binky Patrol blanket showed up on a 30-degree May night in Connecticut.
Susan and Lany walk through what happens when a business loses that person: the front desk admin who handled all invoicing, the ops coordinator who held every password, the team member who just knew things no one else thought to document. One HR company Lany references lost their key person and had no passwords. No access. No continuity. The business scrambled. The conversation shifts to prevention. Where does all the knowledge live? Is there a hub, a Start Here folder, a documented set of SOPs that would allow someone to step into a role and keep things moving? For smaller businesses especially, under 15 people, cross-functionality is not optional. It is survival.
Aron Placencia and Anand Karasi from Glider.ai join Chris Beall and Corey Frank to tackle the perennial challenge of talent acquisition in sales. They’re not just talking about finding “good” people – they’re on the hunt for true “A players.” How do you spot them? What makes them tick? And how can you build a team full of them? From the pitfalls of traditional hiring to the power of curiosity in sales, this conversation pulls no punches. Tune in as they break down Glider.ai’s fresh approach to assessing and hiring top talent, and why it matters in today’s cutthroat sales landscape. Listen to this episode, EP247: “Uncovering A-Players: The New Science of Sales Talent Acquisition.”
Today’s episode of What’s Your Edge from VisionEdge Marketing, explores the transformation of a legacy business in the fire protection industry, a sector that is highly regulated, fiercely competitive, and faces ongoing price pressure and low barriers to entry. Perhaps some of you can relate. This is also an industry where many companies experience long periods of stagnant growth or workflow. It’s not because demand disappears, but because differentiation erodes and internal complexity quietly increases. Laura Patterson’s conversation is with Shawn Mullen, President and Chief Energy Officer at Protex Central. The company has been serving mission-critical facilities for 60 years. When Shawn took the helm in 2017, the company’s revenue trajectory was flat. Essentially, a parked car in an industry where standing still means falling behind. What’s especially interesting is that the market itself was growing; yet Protex Central wasn’t. That gap between market opportunity and company performance became the catalyst for change.
In this week’s episode of The Granite List. Live, Sally is joined by Ryan Rice and Jake Goll of Prism Health Group as they dive into Prism’s new clinical performance engine, Spectra. Designed to enhance pharmacy benefits management, Spectra leverages pharmacist-led analysis and retrospective oversight to improve patient outcomes and cost savings.
We hope you enjoy this playlist of our favorite episodes of the week.
