Today our expert guest is Tony Guarnaccia, who’s helped thousands of businesses survive crisis—whether it was post-9/11, a massive recession, or amidst massive company acquisitions, he’s helped businesses navigate through uncertainty and emerge stronger on the other side.
Over his 20-year career as an entrepreneur, business owner, and enterprise marketer, he’s worked with the best-in-class businesses in every industry, including Google, Microsoft, ADP, Ford, BMW, and Foster Grant, to name a few. He’s helped grow over ten thousand small businesses and a dozen Fortune 500 companies.
Tony grew up within a small business family of bakers. His parents were fantastic bakers, but they didn’t know what they didn’t know about growing a business, and when he was 12 years old, they were essentially homeless. In college, he was on a mission to redeem himself. As part of his graduation plan, he wrote a business plan for an online bakery that transformed into a mail-order cake company that made gift cakes for promotional products. It was going amazing at first until Tony found out that he didn’t know what he didn’t know about running a business.
Realizing he didn’t know how to run a business, he asked himself “Who does know?” That led him on a journey to work with the absolute best companies in the world. Even though his business had failed, he had done a lot of things right. He used the expertise he’d gained in leveraging search engine optimization (SEO) and got the first job that came up, because not many people had heard of SEO at the time. He went on to have some amazing opportunities by being in the right place at the right time and being prepared to take those opportunities.
He was traveling a lot and wanted a more balanced lifestyle with his family, so he went on to start helping small businesses leverage the same tools, tactics, and strategies that these big businesses are using. Part of what they are lacking was the foundation of knowing their why and having a strategy, so he started a training and coaching company.
Tony has learned to specialize in helping businesses make it through difficult times. His mom, at 9 months old, had contracted polio and could walk until she was 14. She taught him about resiliency and the power of breaking things down into taking small steps.
How do you do that? You have to do these 3 things:
- Know what steps to take
- Know how to take those steps
- Actually take the steps
It sounds simple, and it is, but implementation is what makes the difference.
If you can lay the foundation, find out what you want, and take the steps to get there, small businesses—and individuals—can achieve the same results as big companies.
The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway
“You have to slow down to speed up. So often we just want to jump right into things, but in business and life that costs time, effort, and money. A lot of bad decisions are made because we jump in without thinking it through.”
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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Play to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.
Resources:
- smallstepsgrowprofits.com
- Smallstepsmanifesto.com
- Instagram: @tony.g.guarnaccia
- Ep. 167: What to Fix Next in Your Business | with Mike Michalowicz
The Daily Helping is produced by Crate Media
There is incredible potential that lies within each and every one of us to create positive change in our lives (and the lives of others) while achieving our dreams.
This is the Power of You!
