Cheri Kuhn—Why Your Business Feels Stuck (Even with a Strong Team) & How to Fix It

Cheri Kuhn—Why Your Business Feels Stuck (Even with a Strong Team) & How to Fix It

Why do talented, hardworking teams still feel stuck? In this episode of the Business Builder's Playbook, host David Bush sits down with Cheri Kuhn, a certified EOS Implementer who has run close to 500 sessions with leadership teams and now coaches other implementers at EOS Worldwide. Cheri breaks down exactly what keeps strong teams stuck and what it actually takes to break through. Here's what you'll learn by watching or listening to this full episode: • How to spot the real reason your leadership team feels stuck, even when everyone on it is talented • Why "simplify" is the leadership ability that runs underneath all the others • How to stop being the bottleneck by delegating your thinking, not just your tasks • Why unclear expectations, not laziness, are usually behind poor execution • How to use the Delegate and Elevate tool to get to the root of overwhelm • Why turnover on a leadership team in year one is normal, and sometimes necessary • How to build a scorecard that turns you from a firefighter into a smoke detector • Why "you get what you accept" should change how you handle accountability • How to create healthy tension on a team without breaking people • How to know when it's time to change the team instead of just adding more tools Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.BusinessBuildersPlaybook.com/Cheri-Kuhn

David Hickman—The Intelligent Business: How Leaders Use AI to Gain Clarity, Momentum, & Connection

What's the real problem leaders are running into with AI? According to David Hickman, it's overwhelm: too many tools and too many opinions about which one is right. In this episode of the Business Builder's Playbook, host David Bush sits down with David Hickman, expert EOS Implementer and author of the new book The Intelligent Business, to talk about how leadership teams can move past the noise and start using AI with intention. David has spent almost 10 years helping companies get clear on where they're going, rally their teams, and execute, and his book lays out the forces he believes every leader needs to build an intelligent business: cadence, clarity, momentum, and connection. Here's what you'll learn by watching or listening to this full episode: • How to stop chasing every new AI tool and instead pick one LLM, stick with it, and let it learn your business. • How to use AI in the meeting room to capture context and decisions without turning note-taking into the main event. • Why David's "Two Quiet Minutes" exercise gets a team's real, unfiltered thinking on the table before groupthink sets in. • How AI acts as a mirror for leadership by showing a team exactly what was said and what actually matters in the room. • Why a visual "priority palette" makes it nearly impossible for a team to keep avoiding the real elephant in the room. • How to avoid the single most expensive AI mistake: losing hours in the rabbit hole instead of handing the exploration off to someone who has the time for it. • Why protecting trust, empathy, and real human connection gets more important as AI takes over the busywork. How to turn a vague goal into a SMART rock by letting AI sharpen the metrics and milestones while a human still owns the call. • How to start using AI in your next leadership meeting with one simple move: record the session, transcribe it, and let AI sort the priorities and action items. • Why letting AI generate a team's priorities without real ownership behind them quietly kills follow-through. Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.businessbuildersplaybook.com/David-Hickman

Walter Crosby—Sales Hiring Secrets: 7 Strategies to Hire Salespeople That Actually Sell

What does it take to build a sales team that actually sells? In this episode of the Business Builder's Playbook, host David Bush sits down with Walter Crosby, founder of Helix Sales Development and creator of the Sales Hiring Secrets framework. Walter brings 40 years in sales and direct experience inside 27 EOS-driven organizations to identify the eight blind spots that cause founders, CEOs, and revenue leaders to repeatedly hire the wrong salespeople. This conversation goes deep into the specific patterns Walter has watched derail companies at every stage, and he pulls them apart one by one. Here's what you'll learn by watching or listening to this full episode: * How to define the specific seat before you write a job post, and why a vague, generic role description guarantees the wrong candidates apply * Why the industry experience requirement is mostly a trap, and which candidates actually have an edge over seasoned "industry veterans" * How to write a job posting modeled on radical honesty that attracts hungry performers and filters out everyone else * How to read a sales resume with a red pen, and which questions to ask that expose inflated claims and unmeasured results * Why "I can tell in 30 minutes" is one of the most expensive beliefs a founder can hold, and what a structured, objective interview process looks like instead * How to design a compensation plan that works as a set of instructions for your salespeople, and why placing a cap on earnings tells your top performers to coast * Why giving salespeople autonomy without accountability is a slow leak in any revenue pipeline * How to onboard a new sales hire so well in the first 90 days that you don't lose the A player you worked so hard to find Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.businessbuildersplaybook.com/Walter-Crosby

Abigail Merrill—How to Go from AI Overwhelm to AI ROI, Run Pilots That Actually Produce Results, and Scale a Revenue Engine That Keeps Compounding

What if the reason your AI investment hasn't paid off has nothing to do with the tools you picked? In this episode of Business Builder's Playbook, host David Bush sits down with Abigail Merrill, AI consultant, speaker, and founder of Business Growth Partners, who has been working in generative AI since before ChatGPT existed. Abigail breaks down why most businesses are drowning in tools and seeing zero return, and walks through her AI for ROI framework: a three-phase, pilot-based system for turning AI chaos into compounding competitive advantage. The conversation covers shiny object syndrome, agentic AI hype, the real reason 95% of pilots fail, and why the most valuable skill in a world full of AI is still human authenticity. Here's what you'll learn by watching or listening to this full episode: * How to identify the highest-ROI AI use cases for your specific business across sales, marketing, and operations * Why starting with the business problem before looking at tools is what separates companies that flourish from those that stay stuck in overwhelm * How to run a true AI pilot — including why 95% of pilots fail and what the ones that work all have in common * How to use Abigail's AI for ROI framework: the three-phase Align, Integrate, and Scale system she uses with clients from solopreneurs to mid-size companies * Why top-down leadership is non-negotiable for AI adoption, and what to do when your leadership is resistant or checked out * How to become an AI champion from any position in your organization, and why it might be the smartest career move you make right now * Why agentic AI is largely still hype, and what the realistic timeline actually looks like * How building safety and governance into your AI strategy from the start makes every pilot that follows faster and lower risk Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.BusinessBuildersPlaybook.com/Abigail-Merrill

Nino Fincher—How to Break Through Hidden Mental Ceilings, Build New Neural Pathways on Purpose, and Lead with Emotional Presence That Changes the Whole Room

What happens when the expert who spent a career studying how the mind breaks down finally has to face her own? In this episode of Business Builder's Playbook, host David Bush sits down with Nino Fincher, a mental performance coach, licensed counselor, and TEDx speaker who works with CEOs and executives stuck at ceilings they can't quite name. Nino's path into this work started with her own experience with depression after years of counseling others through it. The four-step MOVE method she built from that journey now helps leaders get to the root of what's holding them back, and fast. David and Nino dig into how the mind actually operates, why insomnia, anxiety, and lost motivation are signals worth paying attention to, and how a leader's emotional state functions like weather for the entire organization. Here's what you'll learn by watching or listening to this full episode: * How to identify which layer of your performance is breaking down: mindset, toolset, or skill set * How to use Nino's MOVE method to get free from past failures and setbacks that quietly drive your current decisions * Why high-level leaders almost always struggle with the past rather than the future, and how to stop letting it run the show * How to read insomnia, anxiety, and lost motivation as signals pointing to something deeper * Why your identity is the foundation of every ceiling you keep bumping into, and how to examine it clearly * How the brain physically builds new neural pathways, and what it actually takes to make new patterns stick * Why your emotional state as a leader spreads through your whole organization, and how to take ownership of the environment you're creating * How to set deliberate expectations for your own mind so it stops defaulting to patterns that no longer serve you Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.BusinessBuildersPlaybook.com/Nino-Fincher