Hello, and welcome to SMB Trendwire, the audio conversation for the small business marketplace. My name is Steve Rucinski, your co-host for today's conversation. Today's conversation we have another terrific guest. He's the founder and CEO of Six Disciplines Corporation, a professional service firm that helps the best small businesses achieve lasting excellence. Gary is the former founder and CEO of Solomon Software. His company grew to over 400 employees, then merged with their largest competitor, and eventually was acquired by Microsoft. Gary has a strong interest and passion in understanding how high performance organizations develop and maintain culture. His presentations weave together the principles and strategies which are the foundation of the Six Disciplines methodology. Gary's work as an author, keynote speaker, television and radio guest, and executive mentor has created nationwide interest in applying the Six Disciplines methodology, for ready and able organizations who passionately want to be excellent. Gary is also the author of an exciting new book, "Six Disciplines for Excellence, Building Small Businesses that Learn, Lead and Last," which offers specific details on the methodology of how best small and emerging businesses can achieve lasting excellence. You can learn more at www.sixdisciplines.com. Please join me in welcoming Gary Harpst.

Thanks, Steve. It's great to be here with you and Anita today. I've really been looking forward to this cause I've spent most of my business life working with small businesses and I really love what SMB Trendwire is doing for small businesses.

Thank you. It's great to have you here. Well, for our audience, we're speaking to you today from Cleveland, Ohio in the Midwest of the United States. Our guest is also speaking with us from Findlay, Ohio which is in the northwest corner of our state. And we're sitting right in the middle of a giant thunderstorm right now as we transgress from 100 degree weather to probably 70 degree weather, which we're all thankful for. And maybe we'll get enough rain to end a little bit of the drought we've been having, but it's, you know, great to have nature active around us. Ok. Let's get started. Let me welcome my co-host, and well-known expert in the area of small business, Anita Campbell. Welcome Anita, why don't you get us started.

Hey, thanks Steve. And good afternoon everyone. And we are so glad you could join our SMB Trendwire conversation today, Gary. Well I'm particularly excited about this conversation because I used to be a small business coach consultant in a past life and I know how challenging and rewarding it can be to help the business grow. And last week when I visited your headquarters, I was impressed to learn that you've been working on building the Six Disciplines methodology and infrastructure for nearly five years. That long-term commitment is particularly striking. You've really been building a foundation for a long time now. So Gary, I wonder if you could start us out by telling us what Six Disciplines is and a little of the story about how Six Disciplines got started.

Well, Six Disciplines...
[Listen to the entire podcast]