The Third Growth Option with Benno Duenkelsbuehler and Guests
171 episodes - English - Latest episode: 4 days ago -Welcome to The Third Growth Option, where we're not just talking about growth—we're making it our mission.
At TGO, we understand that success isn't a fixed destination; it's an ongoing journey with twists, turns, and unexpected detours that take us to new places. Those moments are our Third Growth Options, where we throw away binary choices to create our own path.
Hosted by Benno Duenkelsbuehler, O.G #GrowthNerd, we're on a mission to redefine success inside and outside of business, one episode at a time. From humble beginnings to Fortune 500 companies, our stories are not just about business—it's about the relentless pursuit of greatness in every aspect of life.
With each episode, we don’t just want to share insights—we want to empower business owners across all frontiers to carve their own path to success, their way.
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Episodes
Licensing 101
October 01, 2020 14:00 - 32 minutes - 22.6 MBAfter his first job as CPA at Arthur Anderson ended shortly after the Berlin Wall fell (fun story how that global event unleashed our guest’s entrepreneurial spirit at 1:01), Stu Seltzer became a licensing expert, first as executive at fashion house YSL, then in entertaining at Disney, and now as owner of licensing agency Seltzer Licensing Group and teaching at NYU. This episode offers a crash course in licensing (4:30-14:08), followed by insightful comments helpful to manufacturers or distr...
Growing your Company using Brand Licensing
October 01, 2020 14:00 - 32 minutes - 22.6 MBSend us a Text Message. After his first job as CPA at Arthur Anderson ended shortly after the Berlin Wall fell (fun story how that global event unleashed our guest’s entrepreneurial spirit at 1:01), Stu Seltzer became a licensing expert, first as executive at fashion house YSL, then in entertaining at Disney, and now as owner of licensing agency Seltzer Licensing Group and teaching at NYU. This episode offers a crash course in licensing (4:30-14:08), followed by insightful comments helpful ...
Growing your Company using Brand Licensing
October 01, 2020 14:00 - 32 minutes - 22.6 MBAfter his first job as CPA at Arthur Anderson ended shortly after the Berlin Wall fell (fun story how that global event unleashed our guest’s entrepreneurial spirit at 1:01), Stu Seltzer became a licensing expert, first as executive at fashion house YSL, then in entertaining at Disney, and now as owner of licensing agency Seltzer Licensing Group and teaching at NYU. This episode offers a crash course in licensing (4:30-14:08), followed by insightful comments helpful to manufacturers or distr...
Symphony of Growth
September 25, 2020 17:00 - 49 minutes - 34.3 MBSend us a Text Message. We started with the leadership analogy of orchestra musicians as cross-functional business team members, the conductor as its leader – but my guest Daniel Wachter connected dots from business culture to sounds and language (7:08), from change management to listening, from music to the Baroque painter Rubens’ delegation and painting ‘process’ (38:09 thru 42:03). We both had aha! moments during the episode. “The marketing works with the product, works with the organiza...
Post-Pan Pivots – growing stronger thru adversity
September 17, 2020 18:00 - 33 minutes - 22.8 MBSend us a Text Message. “Never waste a good crisis” is an important reminder as we work through the COVID pandemic and prepare for post-pandemic life. Craig Todd shares five values that helped his company to thrive, and actions his team took to grow during COVID. Our conversation leads us to share other tools forged by other crises and how they can help our listeners – grit as a company and personal value, being vulnerable, believing in yourself and trusting others. Always growing. Benno...
Growing by Design – Using Empathy to Unlock Growth
September 10, 2020 18:00 - 38 minutes - 26.5 MBSend us a Text Message. How does empathy unlock potential for growth? Cindy Tripp talks about seeing the world in the other’s shoes, building rapport and candor, letting go of judgment to allow curiosity to open new doors, inside teams and out in the market. Whether Cindy shares global company stories – like P&G learning from a small competitor in Peru – or her personal meditation (inhale “I don’t know” and exhale “let it go”), her message about the power of empathy is inspiring and helpful...
Product Growth thru Creativity + Analysis
September 03, 2020 17:00 - 26 minutes - 18.5 MBSend us a Text Message. A life-long merchant with manufacturers and national retailers, Karin Jeske talks about the left/right brain approach to product development, “from spreadsheets to bed sheets, from color palettes to shipping pallets, from boardrooms to sample rooms.” There are plenty of product people that are either “all about the numbers” (and wrong) or “all about fashion trends and creativity” (and also wrong) – Karin built her career and her own product distribution company on b...
When Life and Business Partner is the Same Person
August 27, 2020 12:00 - 26 minutes - 18.5 MBSend us a Text Message. Our 16- and 20-year-old daughters said to us “you guys should do a podcast about working together.” My wife Hilda Castillo Duenkelsbuehler is this episode’s star guest and we talked about our different working styles, the flexibility required to learn a new way to work, the willingness to re-frame, be open and curious, that “with different styles come different ideas” (8:53) and that “we work ideas in a more intense way because we come from two different angles” (9:1...
Growth Journeys – Across Continents and Cultures
August 20, 2020 13:00 - 35 minutes - 24.1 MBSend us a Text Message. Born in Turkey, raised in beautiful Istanbul, and leading teams in Italy and the USA, Mehmet Yuksek knows a thing or two about growth journeys, cultural idiosyncrasies, and several golden rules that helped him succeed on three continents. He shares his favorite business authors, as well as simple and powerful frameworks like “Courage, Focus, Clarity”, and “Head, Heart, and Hands” that helped him rise to being CEO of a Top 5 global player. We talk about the importance...
Run your Business to Sell it in Three Years
August 13, 2020 16:00 - 31 minutes - 21.5 MBSend us a Text Message. Amplifying a business by a factor of 10x (in Jeffrey Lazarow’s case from 5 stores to a chain of 49 mall stores in 11 states) requires an open mind, a few powerful guiding principles (like “run your business as if you were to sell it in three years”), hard work and of course some luck and tail winds (like market trends, seen and embraced by an open mind). Jeffrey shares with our listeners how his decision to start with the end in mind shaped his business story and imp...
Design Thinking for Manufacturers
August 06, 2020 15:00 - 31 minutes - 21.6 MBSend us a Text Message. Front-end innovation for manufacturers starts with falling in love with a problem, requiring us to clarify assumptions and customers’ needs. If the product is to be a great solution, start with the customer as the hero of this journey, not the product. Paul is a thoughtful and bold designer and entrepreneur whose firm happens to work with manufacturers of medical products and industrial goods. His approach to design thinking and front-end innovation apply to any prod...
Story behind the story of a disruptive start-up
July 29, 2020 18:00 - 28 minutes - 19.8 MBSend us a Text Message. A real estate executive asked “is there a better way” for home buyers and sellers to find each other. Nick Rabin talks thru the concept his group developed – replacing some of the over one million realtors in the USA charging sellers about $100 billion dollars in broker commissions each year, with a peer-to-peer home sales platform – the journey towards implementation, the design sprint, surprises along the way, and some helpful take-aways. Always growing. Benno Du...
Outsiders contributing to family businesses: a cultural perspective
July 21, 2020 23:00 - 29 minutes - 20.4 MBSend us a Text Message. There are as many good reasons to bring large company thinking to privately-held smaller businesses, as there are ways to make that work, or not work. Carlos had a long and impressive career with IBM and as CFO for Purina in Mexico, has written on social responsibility and management systems, and was both the insider hiring outsiders, and the outsider brought in to create change. In this podcast Carlos shares his experiences, and tips on how to work with outsiders as...
From rags to riches to rags to rich…
July 10, 2020 20:00 - 32 minutes - 22.6 MBSend us a Text Message. Doug Stein is a serial entrepreneur, a high school drop out with an MBA, a restaurateur who ran restaurants in Arizona, Asia, and Africa, who started and sold several businesses in the USA. Who better to talk about an entrepreneur’s DNA, skills and attitudes that served him well, and how creativity, courage and a balanced approach to risk and reward helped him find success, the occasional failure, and more success. Always growing. Benno Duenkelsbuehler CEO & Chi...
Diversity at Work to Foster Growth
July 10, 2020 20:00 - 25 minutes - 17.2 MBSend us a Text Message. There are many ways to think about diversity – from federally mandated to diversity of opinions. Here talking with my life-long friend and NYC employment arbitrator David Hyland, who shares his thoughts on top-down and bottom-up approaches to nurturing diversity in ways that can help to foster effectiveness and growth both organizationally and personally. Always growing. Benno Duenkelsbuehler CEO & Chief Sherpa of (re)ALIGN [email protected]
Managing Quality During Growth Inflection Points
July 10, 2020 20:00 - 24 minutes - 16.6 MBSend us a Text Message. Managing quality creates different challenges as a business moves through different growth inflection points. Nils Larsson (a product and manufacturing expert who worked with hundreds of factories globally for big retailers like IKEA and Home Depot and many mid-sized US factories) shares how processes become more formal and more pro-active as the business grows to ensure profitability. “In God We Trust, all others must bring data”. Always growing. Benno Duenkelsbu...
Interim or Fractional Growth Capacity
July 10, 2020 20:00 - 32 minutes - 22.3 MBSend us a Text Message. What is fractional growth capacity, for what businesses does it work best, and what impact can a CEO hiring a fractional leader expect? Rock Robinson (I call him the Minister of Sales because he is kind, engaging, and nurturing) is a seasoned sales executive who shares his thoughts on how engagements are effectively structured, and some real-life examples. Always growing. Benno Duenkelsbuehler CEO & Chief Sherpa of (re)ALIGN [email protected]
Interim or fractional growth capacity
July 10, 2020 20:00 - 32 minutes - 22.3 MBWhat is fractional growth capacity, for what businesses does it work best, and what impact can a CEO hiring a fractional leader expect? Rock Robinson (I call him the Minister of Sales because he is kind, engaging, and nurturing) is a seasoned sales executive who shares his thoughts on how engagements are effectively structured, and some real-life examples.
Diversity at work to foster growth
July 10, 2020 20:00 - 25 minutes - 17.2 MBThere are many ways to think about diversity – from federally mandated to diversity of opinions. Here talking with my life-long friend and NYC employment arbitrator David Hyland, who shares his thoughts on top-down and bottom-up approaches to nurturing diversity in ways that can help to foster effectiveness and growth both organizationally and personally.
Managing Quality during growth inflection points
July 10, 2020 20:00 - 24 minutes - 16.6 MBManaging quality creates different challenges as a business moves through different growth inflection points. Nils Larsson (a product and manufacturing expert who worked with hundreds of factories globally for big retailers like IKEA and Home Depot and many mid-sized US factories) shares how processes become more formal and more pro-active as the business grows to ensure profitability. “In God We Trust, all others must bring data”.
Managing Growth and Self-Imposed Barriers
July 10, 2020 18:00 - 26 minutes - 18.3 MBSend us a Text Message. Sometimes it’s not market competition or financial constraints that limit growth, but “self-imposed” limits. In this episode we talk with Tom Hattersley (Partner in a business consultancy, Author, Lawyer, and Enneagram Master) about personality types, their impact on company strategy, and the role self-awareness plays in overcoming self-imposed barriers. Always growing. Benno Duenkelsbuehler CEO & Chief Sherpa of (re)ALIGN [email protected]