279: Pursuit Value with Marcus Hamaker

https://youtu.be/Fka2npq2Kjg Marcus Hamaker, CEO of [bu:st] USA, is driven by a passion for helping small businesses find their pursuit of value by simplifying projects, optimizing processes, and streamlining operations for sustainable growth. We learn about Marcus’s journey from growing up in a family business to leading [bu:st] USA, where he applies lean principles to help organizations improve alignment, communication, and execution. He explains the 5 Steps to Finding Value framework—Organizational Alignment, Communication, SOPs, Change Management, and Project Controls—guiding businesses to remove inefficiencies and drive sustainable growth. He also shares how the Boost Method ensures teams operate with clarity and purpose, emphasizing fastest time to value as a key metric for success. He highlights key leadership lessons and the mindset shifts entrepreneurs need to scale effectively. --- Pursuit Value with Marcus Hamaker Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. And my guest today is Marcus Hamaker, the CEO of [bu:st] USA, a consulting firm that helps you simplify your projects, optimize your processes and streamline your organization. He is also the host of The Pursuit of Value Podcast. Marcus, welcome to the show.  Hey, Steve, how are you? Thanks for having me.  Yeah, I am super pumped to have you. It's going to be a great episode and we are going to start as usual with the 'Why', because that's what powers great entrepreneurs. They have a strong 'Why'. So what is your personal 'Why', Marcus, and what are you doing to manifest it in [bu:st] or any of your businesses? Yeah. So, my personal 'Why' is just to make companies better. Ever since I was younger, growing up in the family business, watching my dad work hard. I'm very intrigued by business and it's really interesting to me why one business can succeed exponentially and another business really struggles to get off the ground. And so what we do at [bu:st] USA, what my podcast is about, The Pursuit of Value, is really helping small businesses be better.Share on X Real simple. And I also believe that small business has the power to change the world. I believe that business is and can be the greatest force for good in the world today because of just the entity and the formation of it. Also, not only what you can do with your employees internally, but how you can embrace the environment that you're in. Wherever that's in Italy, whether it's here in the United States, you have the ability and the responsibility and the opportunity to impact wherever your business sits. And so I really love small business.  Yeah. And small businesses are always exposed to market forces and there's no way to take it easy and you always have to strive to be competitive and make a profit and definitely is a powerful force for reducing waste. And I'm making this point because one of the things that [bu:st] does is to apply Lean principles. Tell me a little bit about the [bu:st] method that your company, your group developed, and how do you bring in Lean?  Yeah, so when we talk about Lean, it really has to do with value and it has to do with defining what is valuable to the company. So what's valuable to a manufacturer might be very different to what's valuable to a service company, right? So in our [bu:st] method, we always want to start with defining the future picture. What is success to that company? Or more simply, what is the solution to the problem that they're running into? So you define the future picture, you define the targets, you build the roadmap.  And through that whole process of defining the value, you also want to throw out what's not valuable. And that's where it lines up with Lean. And we always really try to focus on making every step, every process as efficient as possible. And that's what's really important. And that's what we do really well at [bu:st] USA.