PODCAST · business
Above The Business
by Bradley Hamner
What if you could step out of the day-to-day and see your business from a whole new perspective? Welcome to Above The Business, where we empower you to rise above the daily grind and embrace a higher way of business ownership. It's time to build your business by design.www.abovethebusiness.co
Episodes
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#612: If You Own the Business, Why Does the Week Own You? w/ Dustin Booth
In this second installment of Lead Yourself First, Dustin Booth moves from concept to framework. He introduces the perfect repeatable week, a weekly template that brings consistency to the calendar and matches the most important work to the hours when energy is highest. Dustin walks through how…
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#611: Fixing a Terrible Sales Compensation Plan
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner reviews a sales team compensation plan that one of his Boardroom members, an insurance agency owner, asked him to critique. The plan fits on one page, but it is crowded with words and numbers and never tells a sales rep what quota is or what hitting it pays....
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#610: Do the Math: Most Business Visions Don’t Survive the Numbers
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner argues that a business vision becomes a real plan only once the numbers behind it are worked out. He explains how to define point A and set a three-year point B. He then shows how to measure the gap between them across revenue, profit, customer count, and...
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#609: How to Know if a Business Is Worth Buying (Or If You’re Buying a Job)
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner walks through the scorecard he built to evaluate his own business acquisition deals. The trigger is a recent sit-down with the owner of a deck company who has been the rainmaker of his business for 30 years. Bradley uses that conversation to test whether there...
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#608: You Don't Get Bonus Points for Remembering
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner closes the operating system best practices series with one principle: owners do not get bonus points for remembering. After hearing "I don't remember that number" from business owners on recent calls, he argues the more important question is whether you know...
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#607: Rembrandt’s in the Attic
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner continues the operating system series with a step that comes before writing any new documentation. Any business that has operated for a while already holds valuable assets: intake forms, discovery call notes, sales process documents, spreadsheets, and…
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#606: Priorities & Allocation of Resources (Quarterly Planning)
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner opens Q4 by focusing on the step that decides whether quarterly priorities actually get done: allocating resources to them. He outlines the BlueprintOS planning structure of three-year vision, one-year objectives, and quarterly priorities, and walks through a...
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#605: Playbook for Creating Playbooks
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner continues the operating system series with a detail most owners skip: making every document in the business look the same. He explains why a shared standard for fonts, headings, colors, and margins signals to the team that the company runs by design. Without...
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#604: Lead Yourself First with Dustin Booth
In this episode, Dustin Booth opens Lead Yourself First, a new Above The Business series built around a core concept inside the BlueprintOS community. He explains why business owners need to manage themselves with intention before they can lead their team, their business, and their family well....
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#603: The Operating System Architecture
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner continues the operating system series by laying out the folder structure that holds a business's documentation. The previous episode dealt with organizing what already exists. This one gives those assets a permanent home, whether the company runs on Google...
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#602: Marie Kondo Your Digital Files
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner continues the operating system series by applying the KonMari method to the files scattered across a growing business. He works through the six principles from Marie Kondo's book on tidying up and maps each one onto the work of documenting how a company…
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#601: Operating System Foundational Best Practices
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner opens a short series on the foundational principles behind a business operating system. He goes back to a 2016 Strategic Coach session in Toronto, where an owner doing $40 million in revenue told him the difference came down to documented systems, processes…
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#600: Getting on the Same Page... Literally
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner works through a coaching conversation with a business owner who says twice in the same meeting that he and his second in command need to get on the same page. Bradley asks whether either of them has ever put anything into a shared document. The answer is no....
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#599: Reviewing Game Film
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner describes a Friday sales call review he used to attend, where the person running it removed a participant within the first five minutes for showing up without timestamps. He recounts what happened to the woman who came prepared, took blunt feedback on her...
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#598: Team Bonus Best Practices
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner breaks down the eight best practices behind a monthly team bonus that the team tracks on its own. He built the one-pager after a listener emailed asking how to structure one, and he walks through the whole thing here. Bradley covers aligning the bonus to...
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#597: Asking Skilled Questions - Developing as a Leader
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner makes the case for the Socratic method as a team development tool. He opens with an analogy. A person drowning in the water needs a rope, not a question about how they ended up there. There are moments when a team member needs the answer handed to them, and...
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#596: Functional Areas of Business
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner breaks down the three functional areas of a business: growth, delivery and fulfillment, and operations. Owners lean hard into one of them based on what they did before they started the company, and that tilt shows up in the books they read, the conferences…
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#595: Developing A-Players
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner maps where developing your team actually sits inside a business blueprint. Team is one of the principles in the BlueprintOS operating system, and it carries three playbooks: attract A-players, develop A-players, and retain A-players. This episode covers the...
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#594: Systems Champion
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner makes the case that the business owner is the wrong person to document the company's systems and processes. Bradley revisits the three components of a blueprint: personal leadership, a roadmap for growth, and an operating system built on documented playbooks.…
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#593: Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs)
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner opens a series on developing and coaching team members with a case for performance improvement plans. Most small business owners treat a PIP as a cover-your-back document and a signal that someone is already on the way out. Bradley argues that stigma costs...
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#592: Idea to Implementation Framework
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner shares the framework he built to take an idea from concept to rollout. He opens with the maxim behind it, ideas are everywhere and implementation is everything, and explains why a business doing $500,000 to $1.5 million cannot afford to throw ideas at the wall...
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#591: The Business Never Outgrows Its Leadership with Sean Patton
In this episode, Bradley sits down with Sean Patton, leadership coach and former Army Special Forces officer, to talk about why the growth of a company tracks the growth of the people leading it. Sean shares his path from West Point and two Green Beret detachment commands into entrepreneurship,...
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#590: Compensation Plan Guidelines
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner continues the Friday sales playbook series with the piece most owners get wrong: how the sales team gets paid. He explains where compensation sits inside an operating system, and why a plan that looks reasonable on a spreadsheet still fails once a rep has to...
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#589: Winning the Buyer Before First Contact with Bob Ruffolo
In this episode, Bradley sits down with Bob Ruffolo, founder of Impact, to talk about what drives customer acquisition now that buyers finish most of their research before they contact a company. Bob traces his path from freelancing during the recession, to building a top HubSpot partner agency…
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#588: Rules for the Selling Sales Manager
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner breaks down the five rules that make a selling sales manager work: time, money, mindset, proof, and systems adherence. He explains why owners need to specify how many hours the role spends producing versus leading, and why he does not consider it a real...
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#587: Growing a Business Without Hiring with Jonathan Stark
In this episode, Bradley sits down with Jonathan Stark, a former software developer who now helps consultants escape hourly billing. Jonathan shares the moment he realized his firm made the most profit on its most junior developer, and how that single observation pushed him to abandon the time…
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#586: Sales Process - Introduction & Discovery
Bradley Hamner closes out the sales playbook series with the third and final part, moving from belief and sales systems into the sales process itself. This solo episode focuses on the first two phases of that process: the introduction and the discovery, or information gathering, phase. Bradley…
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#585: The Case for Simplifying Your Business with Scott Grates
In this episode, Bradley sits down with Scott Grates, insurance agency owner, author of Referrals Done Right, and sales trainer for Coach P Consulting, to talk about simplifying a business, delegating almost everything, and growing through relationships instead of cold outreach. Scott shares how...
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#584: Sales Systems - Implement Visible Tracking
Bradley Hamner continues the sales playbook series with the second of three parts, following an opening episode on sales belief and conviction. This episode focuses on one component of a strong sales system: visible tracking. Bradley explains why most owners already know how to fix a sales…
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#583: Designing a Business That Runs Without You with Jason Henneberry
In this episode, Bradley sits down with Jason Henneberry, founder of Tango Financial and creator of the Dependency Design framework, to talk about why so many successful businesses quietly become dependent on the founder. Jason built a solo mortgage brokerage into a support platform now serving...
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#582: Sales Belief
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner opens a three-part series on building a sales playbook, the master document that defines how a company sells. He explains why founder-led sales makes sense from zero to half a million in revenue, and why owners who want to move from rainmaker to architect...
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#581: Leading Through the AI Shift with Caroline Stokes
In this episode, Bradley sits down with Caroline Stokes, executive coach, founder of The Forward, and author of Aftershock 2030, to talk about what actually determines whether a business succeeds as AI reshapes how teams work. Caroline shares her path from launching PlayStation as employee number...
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#580: Dealing With Toxic High Performance
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner addresses a problem almost every business owner eventually faces: the top producer who performs at a high level while quietly damaging the culture. He describes the golden handcuffs that keep owners from acting, and the resentment that builds on a team when...
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#579: Building a Business That Doesn't Need You with Jason Swenk
Jason Swenk built a digital agency from scratch to over 100 people and eight figures before selling it twice. He now coaches agency owners through Agency Mastery and has codified the journey into five identity shifts inside his book, Operator to Owner. Bradley and Jason walk through each shift:...
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#578: Google Maps & Your Business
In this Friday solo episode, Bradley Hamner uses a tool everyone already trusts to make a point about direction. Every time you open Google Maps, it needs two coordinates: where you are right now and where you are trying to go. Bradley argues your business requires the exact same two points, a...
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#577: The Three Pillars of Predictable Growth with Stephen Woessner
In this episode, Bradley sits down with Stephen Woessner, co-founder of Predictive ROI, who has owned five businesses and spent 16 years helping agency owners grow. Stephen shares his family's entrepreneurial roots and why he believes risk tolerance, strategic clarity, and team-building form the...
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#576: Unconscious Incompetence
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner addresses the guilt and shame many business owners feel when they realize they don't know their marketing numbers. Drawing on feedback from the April Above The Business marketing workshop, Bradley explains why not knowing something like customer acquisition…
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#575: Delegation as a Growth Strategy with Kyle Willis
In this episode, Bradley sits down with Kyle Willis from BELAY, a fractional remote staffing company that places experienced executive assistants with small business owners. Kyle shares how the fractional model works, who it's right for, and what separates business owners who build lasting EA...
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#574: Coach vs Consultant
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner breaks down the difference between coaching and consulting and why it matters for business owners in two practical ways: how they lead and develop their team members, and how they think about finding outside help for their own business. Bradley uses a clear...
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#573: The Customer Experience Advantage with Daniel Daly
In this episode, Bradley sits down with Daniel Daly, founder of Aim High Now, who spent 20 years in automotive retail and helped scale a dealership group to $700 million in annual revenue. Daniel breaks down what customer service actually looks like as an operating system, not a personality…
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#572: The Hawthorne Effect
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner explores a phenomenon that applies directly to every small business owner tracking time, marketing, or team performance: the Hawthorne Effect. The principle is straightforward. When you begin measuring something, behavioral changes follow, often before any...
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#571: What Has to Change as Your Business Grows with Brad Farris
In this episode, Bradley sits down with Brad Farris, founder of Anchor Advisors and executive coach, who has spent nearly two decades helping entrepreneurial founders build businesses that can grow beyond them. Brad shares his path from engineering to general management and explains why the…
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#570: Attract A-Players Playbook
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner walks through the Attract A-Players Playbook, the first of three team-focused playbooks inside the BlueprintOS operating system. This episode continues a May mini-series on building great teams and gives small business owners a concrete structure for…
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#569: Why Most Problems Solve Themselves with Brad Poulos
In this episode, Bradley sits down with Brad Poulos, part-time professor, small business consultant, and former operator who helped grow a startup from four people to 200 employees and $30 million in sales. Brad shares his path from a 15-year career in satellite technology into co-running a…
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#568: Buy or Build the Talent
Most business owners eventually face this decision: go find someone who has already done the job, or grow someone from the ground up. In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner breaks down buy vs. build as a practical mental model for any owner who is growing a team, filling a role, or navigating...
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#567: Leadership in the Fog with Pete Behrens
In this episode, Bradley sits down with Pete Behrens, leadership coach, author, and founder of Agile Leadership Journey. Pete shares how his path from engineering to leadership coaching led him to focus on one of the hardest parts of leadership: guiding people through uncertainty, change, and...
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#566: Functional Leaders vs Helpers
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner draws a clear line between leaders who own outcomes and managers who execute tasks. If a business owner still feels pulled into the weeds around their managers, the role has likely never been defined around outcomes. Bradley walks through what outcome…
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#565: Building Your Dream Team with David Peterson
In this episode, Bradley sits down with David Peterson, insurance agency owner and author of Building Your Dream Team. David shares how he grew his business from three employees to nearly 60 over 12 years by treating recruiting as a structured system rather than a reactive process. They cover...
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#564: Production vs Potential (The Transfer Portal)
In this solo episode, Bradley Hamner applies the college sports transfer portal concept to one of the most consequential decisions a growing business faces: when recruiting, are you going after someone who has already done the work, or someone with the raw ingredients to develop? Most business...
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#563: The Four Forces of Growth with Kevin Lawrence
In this episode, Bradley sits down with Kevin Lawrence, entrepreneur, coach, and author of Your Oxygen Mask First and The Four Forces of Growth. Kevin shares how his path from early entrepreneurial hustles to decades of coaching business owners shaped the frameworks he now teaches around growth,...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
What if you could step out of the day-to-day and see your business from a whole new perspective? Welcome to Above The Business, where we empower you to rise above the daily grind and embrace a higher way of business ownership. It's time to build your business by design.www.abovethebusiness.co
HOSTED BY
Bradley Hamner
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Above The Business have?
Above The Business currently has 500 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Above The Business about?
What if you could step out of the day-to-day and see your business from a whole new perspective? Welcome to Above The Business, where we empower you to rise above the daily grind and embrace a higher way of business ownership. It's time to build your business by design.www.abovethebusiness.co
How often does Above The Business release new episodes?
Above The Business publishes regularly with 500 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Above The Business?
You can listen to Above The Business on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Above The Business?
Above The Business is created and hosted by Bradley Hamner.
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