The people and decisions that get a business to one stage may not be the ones that take it to the next. In this ScaleCraft episode of The Joe Jaap Podcast, Joe Jaap talks with Chris Hessler, founder and CEO of The Advisory Bench, about what changes as a company grows and why even experienced CEOs need perspectives beyond their own.

Chris shares how his first advisory board helped him build a business around a U.S. Postal Service contract. Years later, that board challenged him to stop investing in a second product and focus on the core business, which grew to $120 million in revenue. Drawing on his experience building and selling companies and working in private equity, Chris explains why scaling demands difficult decisions about people, priorities, and leadership.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why the team that gets a company to $10 million may not get it to $50 million
• What humility and coachability look like in a CEO.
• How the right advisors can challenge a decision without taking it away from the leader
• Why a promising new idea can distract from a proven core business.
• How to work backward from the company you hope to sell in three to five years.
• Where AI helps leaders, and where experience and judgment still matter.

Many of the problems a growing business faces have been solved before. The challenge is finding people who have lived through them and being willing to listen. Produced by EmoryDay. New episodes weekly.

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The biggest opportunities rarely arrive with complete certainty.

Sometimes they look inconvenient, risky, or completely outside the way you normally operate. The challenge is knowing whether you’re looking at a reckless gamble or a calculated opportunity to grow.

In this solo episode of The Joe Jaap Podcast, Joe Jaap shares the story of a decision that opened an important chapter in EmoryDay’s growth and the framework he now uses to think through opportunities: SCALE.

Signal. Capacity. Appetite. Leverage. Execute.

Joe explains how an unconventional performance-based opportunity led EmoryDay into the As Seen on TV marketplace, eventually contributing to nearly 300 campaigns, more than $5 million in annual revenue, and recognition on the Inc. 500.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• Why waiting for certainty can become a form of inaction
• How to separate real signals from excitement
• What “mostly ready” actually means
• Why wanting the outcome isn’t the same as wanting the work
• How leverage expands what a business can accomplish
• Why execution turns assumptions into useful information
• How experience and instinct can inform calculated risk

You don’t need to know the entire path. You need enough evidence, readiness, and conviction to take the next meaningful step.

Produced by EmoryDay. New episodes weekly.