Making the Leap: Navigating the Transition from Employee to Small Business Owner

November 5, 2014
Hosted by Marcia Zidle

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Guest Information

Episode Description

Paul Brashier spent 23 years as an executive in finance and accounting, but two years ago he decided to pursue a long-held dream to own his own business. He and his wife, Kathryn, acquired Snelling’s Huntsville-based franchise which specializes in executive search and employment solutions. Transitioning from a career as an employee to owner brings both excitement and challenges which Paul will discuss. From the fun: setting strategy, identifying growth opportunities, devising a marketing plan, setting goals, celebrating wins, and managing a diverse team. To the more challenging: Setting up infrastructure, managing costs, working with the former owner, developing incentive plans, and managing a diverse team. Paul was accustomed to wearing many hats from his prior roles, but owning and managing a business required him to take that talent to a whole new level. Learn how Paul navigated the transition.

The Business Edge

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Your entrepreneurial vision has taken hold. Your business is growing. It's everything you hoped for and more. Or is it? With growth come bigger headaches: more hiring, more capital, more customers to satisfy, more employees to deal with, more plates to juggle and more demands on your time. Whether you realize it or not, you are experiencing Growing Pains!

On The Business Edge, with host Marcia Zidle, The Smart Moves Coach, you will hear how to make the leap from running a stressful business that is always putting out fires to leading a successful company that operates like a finely tuned management machine. You will meet savvy, street smart entrepreneurs and business leaders who’ll share their stories of success and even missteps as well as practical solutions to the unique challenges faced by growing companies.

Marcia Zidle

Marcia Zidle, The Smart Moves Coach, works with entrepreneurial ventures and small to medium size companies to build and leverage their leadership foundation to move from Start-Up to Scale-Up to Successful Enterprise. In other words, she helps them take the growing pains out of growth.

Coming from a unique entrepreneurial and corporate background, she’s both street smart and strategic as she guides CEO’s and their management teams to focus on the right priorities - the right talent - the right alignment - the right performance to get the right results that will satisfy their investors, customers and other stakeholders.

With 25 years of management, business consulting and international experience, she brings an expertise in executive and team leadership; employee engagement and performance; personal and organization change; emotional and social intelligence. Her clients range from privately owned businesses to mid-market professional firms to divisions of global companies in the following industries: healthcare, financial services, insurance, manufacturing, transportation, high-tech, hospitality as well as governments and nonprofit agencies.

Marcia's "claim to fame" is as a global citizen, living as an expatriate with her family in Scandinavia and Australia. In fact, one of her children is an "Aussie.” She’s traveled in over 30 countries throughout Europe, the Middle East, Far East and South Pacific.



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