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Coach… or Couch? Dr. Pamela Carrington Rotto, founder of Markay Advisors LLC, helps CEOs and leadership teams scale their companies and achieve legacy-driven success by...
Welcome to CardCast! Inspired by Milan Veverka’s habit of jotting insights on blank playing cards, this practice grew into a digital archive and now a podcast. Hosted by Ged and Milan, each episode takes one card as a prompt to spark conversation on leadership, communication, and the human side of growth. The idea is simple: one card, one prompt, one meaningful conversation.
I read an article the other day from a cafe owner who was six months in and still losing money. Their question was: What are we doing wrong?
I couldn't tell you from the outside, but I know that you'd better figure it out before you invest more and try to scale. Otherwise, you’ll end up losing money on every sale and hoping volume will make up for it.
This card started with a conversation with my friend Casey Jones of Essentialist CEO. People kept coming to her with what looked like a marketing problem or a customer acquisition problem, then she would discover the model itself was not working. Her advice? Prove and improve the model first.
It sounds obvious, but it’s surprisingly hard, because ideas are emotional.
When you have found a problem you care about, passion can override logic, and pulling yourself back to ask whether it stacks up takes real discipline.
Even a strong sales engine can hide the problem. I once worked with a client who was probably the best salesman I have ever met. He closed the contracts and won the customers, and it looked like growth. But too much was missing behind the model. Investor money can do the same thing. Someone giving you money is not validation of your idea.
Then there is the part nobody enjoys: a model that works can stop working. Sometimes it is a tariff, a rising cost, a new law, or a shift in what your customer's customer wants, and you might never quite learn why.
Ask the uncomfortable question while you are still winning: how could this fail, and what would need to be true for it to keep working?
The work is not finished once the model is proven. Prove it, improve it, and keep re-proving it.
Key-Card points:
Prove the model before you scale it
Customer discovery comes before the build
Loving an idea is not a good enough reason to start
Strong sales, big contracts, and investor money can hide a model that does not work
Keep re-proving the model, and set tripwires before a crisis
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CardCast is produced by Lovemore Media.
