The Business Owner's Trap Andrew Acer Sees Time and Time Again

The Business Owner's Trap Andrew Acer Sees Time and Time Again

Andrew Acer, Senior Business Analyst at Cogent Analytics, grew up on a ranch in Idaho raised by a Depression-era West Point grandfather before navigating family businesses, serial startups, graduate test prep, and a leadership burnout that cost him his heartbeat. He came back to consulting with a clearer philosophy: stewardship over shortcuts, and truth over comfort. ✨ Key Insights You'll Learn: * Ranch upbringing: responsibility, seasonality, and work before self * Family serial entrepreneurship: route accounting at 14, managing rental business through college * Georgia State scholarship, LSAT tutoring, and building Atlanta operations from scratch * Joining Cogent Analytics in 2016 as regional VP at 28, selling to owners older than his career * Managing director of business development through COVID with zero travel and near heart failure * Left for a deliberate reset: design consultant at bathroom remodeling company to decompress * Returned to Cogent as Director of Portfolio Development and now Senior Business Analyst * AI as a hyper-literal intern: multiplier, not replacement, with real management implications * The owner's trap: what got you here will not get you there * Stewardship model: trust-based leadership built on accountability, not just service 🌟 Andrew's Key Mentors: * His Grandfather: West Point graduate and stockbroker who modeled hard work, directness, and lifelong professional ambition * His Mother: Serial entrepreneur and business analyst who modeled resourcefulness and introduced him to consulting * Rob Raymond (Cogent Founder): Mentored Andrew through leadership transitions and growth at the firm * His Team at Cogent: Gave direct feedback that reshaped his communication and delegation approach * Business Owners He Has Served: Continue teaching him what high-stakes decision-making looks like from the inside 👉 Don't miss Andrew's candid account of burning out at 33, stepping away deliberately, and what returning to the work he loves actually taught him about sustainable leadership. 🔗 Connect with Andrew Acer: LinkedIn: Andrew Acer Website: cogentanalytics.com 📋 Transcript Available: The Business Owner's Trap Andrew Acer Sees Time and Time Again 📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast 🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast 📋 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line. Website: addbackbenefits.com

The Bronze Star Veteran Who Now Helps Companies Stop Being Afraid of AI with Jon Hilton

🎙️ From West Point to ExxonMobil to AI Practice Leader: Jon Hilton’s Unconventional Path Jon Hilton, shareholder and AI practice leader at LBMC, earned a Bronze Star in Iraq, spent over a decade at ExxonMobil managing capital projects across the globe, then walked away from that security to earn a master’s in data science at Berkeley — all while raising four kids. What looks like a series of bold pivots is actually one continuous story about doing hard things, building the right team, and leading through uncertainty. Now he helps middle market companies stop experimenting with AI and start getting results. ✨ Key Insights You’ll Learn: * West Point and two tours in Iraq: training, grit, and the next right step * 11 years at ExxonMobil’s global projects organization — $40B+ capital programs * Pursuing a Berkeley data science master’s while working full-time at ExxonMobil * Why AI transformation is a leadership problem, not a technology problem * BCG study: 75% of CEOs at large companies are the primary AI decision-maker * AI use case ROI stacks — the real value starts at use case three, four, and five * Sales call coaching agent: AI listening to every rep and generating coaching reports * Patient care coordination agent: identifying fall risk from unstructured conversation * Audit agent: comparing narrative reports against financial data for discrepancies * Why hallucinations are declining — and why a human in the loop still matters 🌟 Jon’s Key Mentors: * Thermodynamics Professor (West Point): Recognized Jon’s aptitude for math and redirected him from political science to engineering * Zacher Hussein and Fazl (EY): Taught Jon how enterprises actually approach AI strategy and change management at scale * Dr. Charlie Pegian (LBMC Colleague, former Belmont/MTSU Professor): Co-developer of Jon’s problem-first AI framework for client engagements * His Wife: Held the family together through two Iraq deployments, expat assignments in Norway, France, and England, and a Berkeley master’s program — the unsung hero * His Combat Brothers and Sisters: The community that made the hardest years survivable 👉 Don’t miss this conversation about what leading through fear actually looks like, why the middle market is falling behind on AI, and what a West Point education and two combat tours have to do with building an AI practice in Nashville. 🔗 Connect with Jon Hilton: LinkedIn: Jon Hilton — LBMC Website: lbmc.com 📎 Transcript Available: The Bronze Star Veteran Who Now Helps Companies Stop Being Afraid of AI with Jon Hilton 📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast 🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast 📎 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line. Website: addbackbenefits.com

The Lesson David Tobin Learned Running a 60-Person Firm He Couldn’t Scale: Manage for Profit

David Tobin, founder and managing partner of TobinLeff, started with coupon books in college, built a B2B telemarketing firm that he scaled to 60 people and sold under pressure rather than on his terms, and then spent years piecing together what went wrong. That painful exit became the foundation for everything he built next: an MA advisory firm focused on marketing, technology, and professional services companies that has now guided more than 250 clients through valuations, acquisitions, and sales over 16 years. ✨ Key Insights You’ll Learn: * College coupon books that sold for more than expected and nearly bought back a few years later * How a trade show accidentally launched a B2B telemarketing firm aimed at financial services companies * Why positioning financial advisors as exit planning specialists worked in the mid-90s before anyone had a name for it * The difference between increasing EBITDA and increasing your multiple — and why both matter * Why one plus one doesn’t equal three in a roll-up and what TobinLeff learned the hard way * Growth, margins, transferability, and client retention: the four value drivers buyers actually measure * Why 60 to 90 days of prep before going to market changes everything * Deal fatigue is real: what happens when a seller takes their eye off new business during the process * Why getting on a plane to meet a prospective client won an engagement that a Zoom call never would have * The difference between business brokers, MA advisors, and investment bankers — and why it matters 🌟 David’s Key Mentors: * His Father (Sydney Tobin): Named his first company after him; passed away when David was young and shaped his early drive * His Mother: Her line — experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want — stayed with him through his hardest exit * His Three Partner Colleagues (Former Marketing Agency Owners): Proved that good business sense built over years of ownership transfers directly to MA advisory work * The Buyers and Sellers He Observed Early On: Watching deal rooms before doing deals himself taught him what actually mattered in the process 👉 Don’t miss this conversation about what business owners get wrong when they think about selling, why the most painful exit David had turned out to be the most useful, and what separates a firm that commands 7x from one that gets 4x. 🔗 Connect with David Tobin: Website: tobinleff.com 📤 Transcript Available: The Lesson David Tobin Learned Running a 60-Person Firm He Couldn’t Scale: Manage for Profit 📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast 🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast 📤 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency — Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line. Website: addbackbenefits.com

The Numbers Never Lie: Elizabeth McKee on Bar Inventory, Overpouring, and Protecting Your Margins

🎙️ From Catfish Restaurant Server at 14 to Hospitality Inventory Consultant: Elizabeth McKee's Journey With Sculpture Hospitality Elizabeth McKee, franchise owner of Sculpture Hospitality of the Alabama Gulf Coast, shares her journey from waiting tables at a mom and pop catfish restaurant at 14 and never fully leaving the industry, through discovering inventory consulting as a side gig and watching it grow into her full-time business, to building a referral-driven practice along one of the fastest growing coastlines in the United States. Through candid stories about a 2025 that blindsided her after years of doubling her client base, the relief of learning her losses were economy-driven rather than performance-driven, and how volunteering at a panini cook-off reminded her exactly why she loves hospitality, Elizabeth reveals how accountability without blame is the real secret to helping bars and restaurants stop losing money they didn't even know was walking out the door. ✨ Key Insights You'll Learn: * Weekly inventory revealing losses most owners never knew existed * Overpouring as a training problem, not a theft problem * Bartenders earn more tips by pouring less per drink * Menu pricing drift when ingredient costs change but prices don't * Deliveries as a hidden and frequently overlooked source of loss * Third party accountability removing the owner from being the bad guy * Dead stock identification and how to move it before it costs you * A 2025 that reversed years of growth and what she learned from it * Volunteering with no skin in the game as the fastest path back to confidence * Sandler selling transforming her from feature pitcher to question asker * Alabama Gulf Coast as one of the fastest growing regions in the country * Frontline hospitality workers as the most underappreciated people in any business 🌟 Elizabeth's Key Mentors: * First Sculpture Hospitality Colleague: The employee who invited Elizabeth to ride along on an inventory job 20 years ago and gave her the first look at what would eventually become her full-time business * Brian Jackson (Sandler Sales Coach): Transformed her selling approach from feature-driven pitching to question-driven listening, which she credits with fundamentally changing how she serves clients * Bethany Brenlinger (University of Alabama, School of Hospitality and Sports Management): A connector and friend who runs frontline worker training programs along the Gulf Coast, sharing Elizabeth's passion for recognizing and supporting the people who make hospitality function * Clients Who Were Honest During Hard Times: The business owners who told her directly what was going wrong in their own operations gave her the data she needed to understand that her 2025 losses were economy-driven, not performance-driven, and that distinction mattered enormously * Husband: Named directly as the reason the whole operation works, handling the household and kids so Elizabeth can stay in the field 👉 Don't miss this conversation about why the numbers never lie, how accountability without blame changes the entire culture of a bar or restaurant, and what volunteering has to do with getting your confidence back after a hard year in business. 🔗 Connect with Elizabeth McKee: Company: Sculpture Hospitality of the Alabama Gulf Coast  Website: sculpturehospitality.com 📄 Transcript Available: The Numbers Never Lie: Elizabeth McKee on Bar Inventory, Overpouring, and Protecting Your Margins 📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast 🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast 📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line Website: addbackbenefits.com

Kasey Devine Left a Top Sales Job to Fix the Problem He’d Watched the Industry Ignore for Years

🎤 Kasey Devine Left a Top Sales Job to Fix the Problem He’d Watched the Industry Ignore for Years Kasey Devine, founder and CEO of Entravia, spent over a decade mastering the workflows inside some of the biggest names in HR outsourcing — then left a top five national sales ranking at ADP to build the platform the industry never bothered to create. Six months in, Entravia has raised $2.6 million, won the Evergreen Award for Best PEO Shopping Platform, and is already threatening legacy workflows across a $414 billion industry. ✨ Key Insights You’ll Learn: * Cardinals ticket sales as the moment sales stopped being a dirty word * ADP training as a total transformation — from territory management to pipeline structure * The chamber of commerce moment that turned near-failure into a relationship-first sales philosophy * How to ask the one sidebar question at the end of every meeting that changes everything * The mortgage application that showed Kasey how far the PEO industry had fallen behind * Why Entravia pivoted from B2C shopping platform to white-labeled B2B infrastructure overnight * The general agency model and how it made brokers partners instead of competitors * Getting rejected by every VC, then getting a second look through one unexpected relationship * Why the cost of building software dropped enough to make this startup possible now * Browser-based bots that could compress a 9-week PEO evaluation into a single day — once the threats stop 🌟 Kasey’s Key Mentors: * His ADP manager and training program: built the entire foundation for how he thinks about territory, pipeline, relationships, and value creation * TriNet founder and ProCare HR founder: showed him what it looks like to lead a sales and marketing org with accountability and discipline * M25 and Cambrian Ventures: gave him the capital and credibility to move fast on a problem he already understood better than anyone * His mother: showed him what self-determination looks like when you have no safety net — and that nobody’s coming to save you 👉 Don’t miss this conversation about why helping people is the only sales strategy that actually scales, how a $414 billion industry forgot to make its product easy to buy, and what it looks like to bet everything on a problem you’ve spent your whole career watching go unsolved. 🔗 Connect with Kasey Devine: Website: entravia.co 📤 Transcript Available: Kasey Devine Left a Top Sales Job to Fix the Problem He’d Watched the Industry Ignore for Years 📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast 🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast 📤 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line Website: addbackbenefits.com