Todd Lucas on Building a Training Program From Scratch That Created a Better Employee Experience at Family Farm and Home

Todd Lucas on Building a Training Program From Scratch That Created a Better Employee Experience at Family Farm and Home

Todd Lucas is the Director of Family Culture at Family Farm and Home, a family-owned rural retail chain that has grown from 19 locations to more than 80 stores across Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Maryland, and Pennsylvania since he joined in 2012. A former radio DJ turned Menards store manager, Todd came to Family Farm and Home as a district manager, moved through senior buying roles, and was tapped in 2022 to build the company's first-ever training department from scratch — bringing his broadcast background, operations knowledge, and product expertise together in a role that didn't exist before he created it. ✨ Key Insights You'll Learn: * Radio DJ career in the Fox Valley area of Wisconsin before Menards pulled him into full-time retail * Eleven-plus years at Menards across eight locations in Wisconsin, North Dakota, and Michigan, reaching interim store manager by 26 * Joining Family Farm and Home in 2012 as store manager first, then district manager four months later, by choice * The average employee age dropped from 53 in March 2020 to 36 in July 2022, creating the product knowledge gap the training department was built to close * Creating Todd Talks: a two-minute video series launched with a deer urine product demo that got 1,800 views from a 1,100-person workforce * 80-plus percent of employees watch each Todd Talks episode all the way through without scrubbing * Triple-digit sales increase on a specific insect control product within three weeks of its Todd Talks feature * Service centers as a key competitive differentiator: Family Farm and Home services gas-powered equipment that competitors only sell * 4-H involvement: store managers know kids' names and their animals' names, attend county fairs, and watch those projects grow over the year * The Frontline Enablement Playbook by JD Dillon: Todd contributed a chapter covering Todd Talks and the training model 🌟 Todd's Key Mentors: * Menards Store Managers (Early Career): Long-tenured operators who modeled consistency, high standards, and the idea that hard work in a demanding environment would open future doors * Family Farm and Home Owners: Three-owner family who gave Todd the runway to move from operations to buying to training, always finding a meaningful next role * His Trusted Friend at the Company: A sounding board during a bruising career transition who helped Todd process the ego hit and come out of it performing at his best * JD Dillon (Author, Frontline Enablement Playbook): Invited Todd to contribute a chapter and helped him frame the Todd Talks model in the context of frontline workforce development nationally 👉 Don't miss Todd's account of getting sprayed in the face with deer urine to launch a training series that now reaches more employees than the company has people, and how a career pivot he didn't choose became the role he was most qualified to do. 🔗 Connect with Todd Lucas: Website: familyfarmandhome.com LinkedIn: Todd Lucas 📋 Transcript Available: Todd Lucas on Building a Training Program From Scratch That Created a Better Employee Experience at Family Farm and Home  🌐 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

Good Apple's Brie Bolopue and Rochelle Lierz on Why Small Business Deserves Better

C-Suite Thinking for Small Business: Brie Bolopue and Rochelle Lierz on Building Good Apple Brie Bolopue and Rochelle Lierz, co-founders of Good Apple Business Managers, built a fractional leadership firm around a simple conviction: small businesses deserve the same quality of strategic thinking as large ones. With specialties in reputation and reach and money and metrics respectively, they serve as embedded operating partners for small businesses navigating growth, complexity, and exit. Together, they share why they walked away from corporate and what they found on the other side. Key Insights You'll Learn: * Why most small business owners carry a shame cloud around their finances and how to dissolve it * Cash flow mapping as a tool to help intimidated owners see their numbers without fear * The business blueprint: a five-session framework covering mission, vision, values, offering, and financial modeling * Fractional C-suite leadership as a plug-and-play model for businesses that need expertise without full-time overhead * Why exit planning started three or more years out is the difference between a strategic sale and a fire sale * The silver tsunami: millions of boomer business owners ready to retire with no succession plan * Helping owners through the egoic death of selling a business they built their identity around * The three D's: death, divorce, and disability as the forces that push unprepared owners toward the exit * Why transferability, not just revenue, determines what a business is actually worth to a buyer * Good Apple's target client: open, willing to receive help, and feeling the pain of going it alone Brie and Rochelle's Key Mentors: * Rochelle's Family of Accountants: Gave Rochelle the financial language and empathy to translate money concepts without shame * Rochelle's First Exit Client: Proved the model by walking through partial retirement; still a client three years later * Brie's Stepdad (Small Business Owner): Showed her firsthand that building your own business can create a beautiful, flexible life * Corporate Executive Brie Supported: Gave Brie a front-row view of how executive presence and communications work at scale, and what she wanted to do differently * Ram Dass (Author): The quote "We're all just walking each other home" became the philosophical foundation of Good Apple Don't miss this conversation about what it really takes to support a small business owner through growth, transition, and the exit they have been quietly dreading. Connect with Brie and Rochelle: Website: wearegoodapple.com Transcript Available: Good Apple's Brie Bolopue and Rochelle Lierz on Why Small Business Deserves Better  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

Joel Guth Built a $2.4 Billion Firm by Asking Questions Nobody Else Was Asking

🎧 From Cold Calls to $2.4 Billion: Joel Guth’s Journey Building Gryphon Financial Partners Joel Guth, CEO and founder of Gryphon Financial Partners, spent more than two decades at Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Smith Barney before walking away to build something more aligned with how he believed wealthy families should be served. What he built — a firm that now oversees $2.4 billion in assets and has guided business owners through more than $2 billion in illiquid business transitions — started with a phone book, 65 calls a day, and a mentor who told him he was an idiot for quitting. ✨ Key Insights You’ll Learn: * Small-town Ohio upbringing shaped by an older brother who worked in a steel mill and put himself through medical school * Division I basketball at Toledo and Cornell; the pivot to finance after a knee injury * Starting at Merrill Lynch with no sales experience and surviving on scripts, cold calls, and persistence * Why he followed a woman from Mansfield to Columbus and how that shaped his entire career * The move to independence in 2014 and why he and partner Cathy Corey knew it was time * The 3:30 a.m. panic the night before Gryphon opened and what got him through it * The mythical origin of the Gryphon name and what it means to protect family treasure * Why he engages clients three to five years before an exit — not three weeks before * The Next Mountain framework: helping business owners figure out who they are after the sale * The soccer game that forced him to confront how his competitive drive was hurting his daughter 🌟 Joel’s Key Mentors: * His Oldest Brother: raised him more like a father; working in a steel mill while putting himself through medical school modeled what drive and sacrifice look like * Greg (Columbus Mentor): taught Joel the formula for sales, gave him scripts, and told him he was a fool to quit * Cathy Corey (Business Partner for 31 Years): rock-steady co-founder who handled every infrastructure crisis so Joel could focus on clients * Bill (Client Turned Mentor): helped them name the firm and gave them the confidence to leave Morgan Stanley * His Daughter and Wife: forced the hardest personal reckoning of his career — that his competitive drive had a dark side 👉 Don’t miss this candid conversation about building a firm that protects what families spend their lives creating — and why the work after the exit matters as much as the exit itself. 🔗 Connect with Joel Guth: Website: Gryphonfp.com 📤 Transcript Available: Joel Guth Built a $2.4 Billion Firm by Asking Questions Nobody Else Was Asking 📺 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

How California's SB68 Is Forcing Restaurants to Tag Allergens and Why Foodini Was Ready

Dylan McDonnell is the founder and CEO of Foodini, an AI-powered dietary intelligence company that helps restaurants, food service operators, stadiums, and delivery platforms map allergen and dietary information down to the ingredient level. An Irish-born corporate lawyer who worked at Mercer in Dublin and Sydney before founding the company, Dylan built Foodini to solve a problem he has lived with since childhood: celiac disease and the constant stress of not knowing what is safe to eat when dining out. He moved the company to Los Angeles two years ago and has since helped pass California's SB68, the first US law requiring allergen labeling on restaurant menus. ✨ Key Insights You'll Learn: * Diagnosed with celiac disease as a child, spending years silently navigating meals in school, sports trips, and social settings with no safe options * Career path from Big Law in Ireland through Mercer's investment funds practice in Dublin and Sydney to founding Foodini in Australia * Early MVP: a consumer discovery app quickly revealed the real problem was the absence of structured ingredient data at the restaurant level * Pivoting from consumer-first to B2B-first after realizing the data coverage problem had to be solved before the consumer experience could scale * Building integrations with POS systems, recipe and inventory management platforms, and major distributors to pull ingredient data automatically * Training LLMs to tag menu items across 150 allergens and dietary preferences, with human dietitian oversight as a quality layer * Spending most of Q3 2024 working with California senators and assembly members to help pass SB68, signed by Newsom in October 2024 * SB68 takes effect July 1, 2026, requiring chains with 20 or more locations to label menus for the top nine allergens * Six more states with legislation in progress: New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Michigan, Illinois, and Missouri * Integration with Major League Baseball's ballpark app to help fans with dietary needs navigate concession options at MLB stadiums 🌟 Dylan's Key Mentors: * His Parents: Glass-half-full, pragmatic personalities who modeled resilience and the perspective that in the grand scheme of things, a lost client is not that big a deal * FAIR (Food Allergy Education Organization): The nonprofit food allergy advocacy network that connected Dylan to the regulatory and community work shaping the legislative landscape * Mendoza Ventures (Adrian and Sennifer Mendoza): Early-stage fintech investors whose thesis and values resonated with Dylan and expanded his understanding of the startup ecosystem * His Head Dietitian (First Hire): Still with the company, she shaped the credibility and rigor of the dietitian-in-a-box model from day one, including early kitchen visits to photograph ingredient labels 👉 Don't miss Dylan's account of manually pulling products from restaurant refrigerators to photograph ingredient labels, the moment he realized the data infrastructure problem was even bigger than the consumer problem, and how a childhood with celiac disease quietly shaped everything that followed. 🔗 Connect with Dylan McDonnell: Website: Foodini.co 📋 Transcript Available: How California's SB68 Is Forcing Restaurants to Tag Allergens and Why Foodini Was Ready 📺 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

How Acloche Expanded Beyond Staffing Into Skills Training, HR Consulting, and Community Development

Kim Shoemaker is the CEO of Acloche, a Central Ohio staffing institution founded in 1968 that now places roughly 8,000 workers at any given time across contingent staffing, direct hire, and HR consulting. She joined the company in 1999 to run the accounting department and spent a decade learning every corner of the business before being asked by the board to step into the CEO role following the sudden passing of her mentor and predecessor in 2010. More than fifteen years later, she has expanded the company's reach well beyond traditional staffing into skills training, community development, and educational partnership work that most people in the industry aren't doing. ✨ Key Insights You'll Learn: * Joining Acloche in 1999 to manage accounting, then spending a decade absorbing operations, IT, marketing, sales, and HR * Mentor Bobbi Rook taking Kim under her wing and coaching her into public speaking and strategic leadership * Stepping into the CEO role in 2010 after Bobbi passed away suddenly, managing grief and company continuity simultaneously * Moving offices roughly a year into the transition as a way to help the team physically move forward * Three lines of business: contingent staffing across all 88 Ohio counties, direct hire across North America, and HR consulting and training * Piloting a virtual skilled trade certification program with Northview Trade School offering HVAC, appliance repair, and machine operator courses * Running an eighth-grade career awareness program through BPA to teach resume writing, cover letters, and interviewing * Working with the College Board to pilot cybersecurity and financial AP courses at the high school level for college credit * Buying and building out a 1,500 square foot dedicated training center at Acloche's new Groveport headquarters in 2025 * Over 30 years of NWBOC and WBENC women-owned business certification; 17 years of Acloche for the Cure at Susan G. Komen's Race for the Cure 🌟 Kim's Key Mentors: * Bobbi Rook (Former CEO): Mentored Kim for a decade, brought her into strategic leadership, pushed her into public speaking, and built the legacy Kim continues today * Betty Lou (Founder): Acloche's founder and emeritus board member whose original vision set the company's community-first standards * Answer Team Network: National staffing organization Kim serves on the board of, expanding her view of how the industry can change public perception and workforce outcomes * Her Internal Management Team: Long-tenured leaders averaging 15 years who have helped Kim evolve from the one with all the answers to the director of an orchestra * Her Daughter: Told Kim directly that not every problem needs to be fixed, only listened to, a lesson Kim carries into her leadership and community work 👉 Don't miss Kim's account of being asked to take the CEO role while the entire company was still grieving, the letter from a woman who had been living in her car with two children, and why she believes the staffing industry is bigger than the movie theater industry but far less understood. 🔗 Connect with Kim Shoemaker: Website: Acloche.com Phone: 888-608-0889 📋 Transcript Available: How Acloche Expanded Beyond Staffing Into Skills Training, HR Consulting, and Community Development 📺 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