In this episode, Kuba chats with Tiffany Sauder, CEO of Element Three, keynote speaker, and creator of the Scared Confident podcast, about her breakthroughs related to rebuilding her agency, leadership approach, and personal life.

Tiffany shares insights on admitting business problems openly, making difficult but necessary decisions, implementing operating systems for consistency, and communicating organizational change.

Problems this episode will help you solve:

✅ How to have open and vulnerable conversations about business problems

✅ Making unpopular but necessary decisions as a leader

✅ Implementing operating systems and processes for discipline and consistency

✅ Improving communication around organizational change

Some highlights:

⚖️ Admitting business problems openly is scary but also freeing - it brings control and a chance to solve them

⚖️ Change starts with vulnerability about the real situation, then clear decisions, then diligent change management

⚖️ Picking one operating system/structure and fully committing is better than trying to customize everything

⚖️ Layoffs are painful but sometimes necessary - be transparent about reasons and allow people to emotionally process

⚖️ The "Understand, Agree, Like" framework helps people intellectually process difficult changes

⚖️ Open book financials are scary but crucial for creating trust and transparency

This episode will be perfect for agency owners and entrepreneurs facing issues with talent retention, profitability, or scaling up their business.

👉 Don’t forget to follow and rate us on your preferred podcast platforms. We’re also on YouTube: @ZenPilot

📣 Shoutouts and mentions:

Tiffany’s website and podcast: https://www.tiffanysauder.com/

Tiffany’s agency, Element Three: https://elementthree.com/

🛠 Tools:

Hatch light system for kids' sleep schedules!

📚 Books/Concepts/Frameworks:

Great by Choice by Jim Collins

The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack

Open book financials

EOS (Tiffany was the opening keynote speaker for the 2023 EOS Conference, check out her awesome speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKkQtxvegj4)

In this episode, Kuba and Gray chat with Chris Dreyer, founder of rankings.io, about the key breakthrough moments that fueled his agency's growth from $0 to $13M in revenue.

Chris shares his framework for creating leverage in an agency using the "4 Cs": Capital, Code, Collaboration, and Content.

Some highlights:

👑 Chris’ focus on winning the game of business by finding and exploiting leverage

👑 The importance of tracking revenue per employee to stay profitable

👑 Using automation and APIs to create leverage

👑 Thoughts on podcasting vs speaking at events for authority and distribution

👑 Chris' approach to hiring and labor arbitrage

👑 His favorite books and mental models

Chris provides tactical tips and mindset shifts that helped him rapidly scale his agency. His story will resonate with agency owners struggling with fragmented growth and profitability issues.

👉 Don’t forget to follow and rate us on your preferred podcast platforms. We’re also on YouTube: @ZenPilot

📣 Shoutouts and mentions:

🛠 Tools:

ClickUp

📚 Books/Concepts:

Ready, Fire, Aim

The Boutique

How to Get Rich

$100M Offers

🧠 Mental Models:

Iron Triangle

Pareto Principle

👨‍🏫 People to follow:

Greg Alexander

Alex Hormozi

Naval Ravikant

💼 Service vendors:

Lower Street (podcast production company)

In this episode, Kuba asks Gray about the good old days of GuavaBox—an inbound marketing agency that both Gray and Andrew (ZenPilot’s co-founder) were leading back in the early 2010s.

Gray told the story of a relatively simple change in their marketing workflow that led to huge pipeline results for GuavaBox.

Some highlights:

🍈 How GuavaBox increased traffic from 200 to 15,000 visitors per month through disciplined content batch days

🍈 Gray's system for planning high-impact content fueled by SEO research

🍈 How a structured system boosted team morale and progress

Overall, Gray shared an inspiring growth story and actionable advice on systemizing content marketing. This episode will be particularly useful for service business owners struggling with inconsistent marketing and lead generation.

👉 Don’t forget to follow and rate us on your preferred podcast platforms. We’re also on YouTube: @ZenPilot

📣 Shoutouts and mentions:

🛠 Tools:

HubSpot

ClickUp

Around

📚 Books/Concepts:

Deep Work by Cal Newport

Maker vs Manager Schedule

Progress Principle (there’s a Talk at Google and a book about it)

👨‍🏫 People to follow:

Marcus Sheridan

Seth Godin

Chris Brogan

Paul Graham