Howard Rudin spent 13 years cooking in New York City kitchens before trading his chef's knife for a tape measure and walking into the family conveyor belting business. Thirty years later, he's keeping production lines running for commercial bakeries, pharmaceutical companies, cosmetic manufacturers, and a snack chip brand that went viral on TikTok. In this episode, Howard talks about what it actually takes to build relationships in a business nobody knows they need, why Thursday is his most productive day of the week, and how a giver-first mindset has shaped everything about how he operates.

What you'll hear in this episode:

• How 13 years in professional kitchens translated directly into a career in industrial supply

• What conveyor belting actually has to do with bison tracking tags in Banff National Park

• Why Howard believes referral networking is the only advertising that works for B2B

• The "giver's gain" philosophy he lives by — and why he doesn't want to convince anyone to join BNI

• What it takes to rank above the fold on Google without spending a dollar on ads

• His pitch for getting people to a 7am networking meeting — and why it works

Connect with Howard

Email: beltman@acebelting.com

Social: @madeonabelt on Instagram and Facebook

LinkedIn: Howard Rudin

This episode is brought to you by Flodesk. Get 25% off your first year: flodesk.com/c/LYONCREATIVES

Julia DeWolfe is a CBT-informed business coach and founder of Off The Record, a 1:1 coaching program for women in service and expertise-based businesses. She works with clients through Voxer — in real time, not waiting for the next scheduled call — to help them untangle the beliefs running their decisions and build a business that fits their brain. In this episode, Julia walks through how cognitive behavioral therapy maps onto business thinking, how an ADHD diagnosis at 30 reshaped how she runs her practice, why cycle syncing is more useful than most people give it credit for, and why she thinks reading fiction is one of the most underrated tools a founder has.

In This Episode

• What CBT is and how your core beliefs quietly run your business decisions

• The luteal crisis — why there’s a predictable window each month when everything feels like it’s on fire (and it’s not a sign to quit)

• How Julia rebuilt her coaching model entirely around how she does her best work

• Her ADHD diagnosis at 30 and what it clarified about structure, consequence, and business design

• Why anti-hustle is not the same as anti-ambition

• The case for reading fiction as a business owner — empathy, imagination, and ideal client avatars

• What happens when you stop trying to fit your business into someone else’s model

Connect with Julia

• Instagram: @juliadewolfecoaching

• TikTok: @juliadewolfecoaching

• Off The Record (1:1 coaching): juliadewolfecoaching.com

• The Hotline (1-day Voxer intensive): juliadewolfecoaching.com

Not sure where your brand stands right now? The free Brand Audit Scorecard at lyoncreatives.com/brand-audit-scorecard takes five minutes and shows you exactly where to focus.

This episode is brought to you by Flodesk. Get 25% off your first year: flodesk.com/c/LYONCREATIVES

Faith Morris moved back to the U.S. from Australia in 2023 with two kids under two, no local community, and a husband starting a stone masonry business from scratch. Within six months, that business turned profitable. Within a year of launching her own operations consultancy, she hit six figures. She did both with what she calls a minimal marketing plan.

In this episode, Faith breaks down exactly how she built the back end of two businesses at the same time, why hustle culture gets a bad rap it doesn't always deserve, and what most entrepreneurs get completely wrong about hiring. She also shares the four rules that got her masonry business booked three months out and growing 65% year over year in gross profit margin.

If you're a founder running on fumes and wondering whether it's worth building the infrastructure before you have it all figured out, this one is for you.

In this episode:

• How Faith scaled a stone masonry business to profitability in six months with zero local community

• The four-rule client experience system that sounds obvious but almost nobody does

• Why referrals alone will eventually destroy you

• Her take on hustle culture and why year one and two require a different mindset

• The difference between online and local business owners when it comes to spending money

• Her minimal marketing plan: two platforms, one community, three months

• Why a VA is not always your first hire and how to figure out what you actually need

• What happened when she finally rebranded and wrote every word of her own copy

Connect with Faith:

faithemorris.com

LinkedIn: Faith Morris

Instagram: @remote.ops.partner

Faith's offers mentioned:

• Ops Diagnostic

• The Six Week Sprint

• Before You Bring Them On

• The Efficiency Circle (group program, runs twice a year)

This episode is brought to you by Flodesk. Get 25% off your first year: flodesk.com/c/LYONCREATIVES

Not sure where your brand actually stands? The Brand Audit Scorecard walks you through the key areas founders overlook. lyoncreatives.com/brand-audit-scorecard