Why Most Founders Stay Stuck — And How to Build a Business That Actually Scales | Rick Meekins

Strap in, founders — today’s episode is a masterclass in building businesses that actually last. We’re joined by Rick Meekins, Managing Partner at Aepiphanni Business Consulting and host of the Relentless Pursuit of Winning Podcast — a guy who’s spent 20+ years helping founders stop running their businesses like a flaming circus and start operating like a well-engineered machine.

Rick has helped leaders navigate growth, fix broken systems, and build companies that scale without the chaos tornado. And today? He’s dropping the exact mindset shifts and operational frameworks founders need to break out of reactive growth cycles.

If you’re scaling fast, feel like you’re white-knuckling the handlebars, or want to build a company that wins today AND 10 years from now, this episode is required listening.

💡 In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

🔥 Why Founders Stay Stuck in Reactive Growth

And how to get out of the cycle before your business becomes the world’s most stressful full-time job.

⚙️ The “Engine” Model of Operations

Rick breaks down how every business — from software to pool cleaning to light manufacturing — needs the same core operational principles to scale sustainably.

👥 How Visionaries & Executors Can Actually Work Together

And how Rick turns abstract founder vision into tactical, scalable systems.

📈 How to Build a Company with Real Longevity

Not a “cool idea” that dies when the founder gets tired.

🎙️ Rick's Podcasting Journey

Why he started Relentless Pursuit of Winning, how it fuels his business, and what every founder gets wrong about podcasting.

🌟 The Big Takeaway

A stable, scalable business isn’t magic — it’s engineered.

🔗 Connect With Rick Meekins

Website: https://aepiphanni.com/

Podcast: https://rpowpodcast.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rickmeekins/

Big Scary Vision: https://bigscaryvision.com

🔗 Connect With MarketSurge

Website: https://marketsurge.io

Podcast: https://marketsurge.transistor.fm/

X / Twitter: https://x.com/marketsurging

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketsurgeio

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100035121171654

🎯 Want your marketing engine to run like a team of 10 without hiring a team of 10?
Book your 15-minute Value or Free Coffee call:
https://link.marketsurge.io/widget/bookings/marketsurge/demozvwcxw

Creators and Guests

Host

Reed Hansen

Reed Hansen is a seasoned digital marketing executive with a proven track record of driving business growth through innovative strategies. As the Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge, he focuses on leveraging AI-powered marketing tools to help businesses scale efficiently. Reed's expertise spans from leading startups to Fortune 500 companies, making him a recognized authority in the digital marketing space. His unique ability to combine data-driven insights with creative solutions has been instrumental in achieving remarkable sales growth for his clients. ​

What is Inside Marketing with MarketSurge?

Welcome to Inside Marketing with MarketSurge — your front-row seat to the boldest business insights, marketing breakthroughs, and entrepreneurial real talk.

Hosted by Reed Hansen, Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge and a digital marketing veteran who's helped scale everything from scrappy startups to Fortune 500 giants, this podcast dives deep into what’s really moving the needle in today’s marketing world. Find us at Marketsurge.io

Each week, we’ll break down the latest marketing and business news (minus the fluff), explore tech trends you actually need to know, and feature unfiltered conversations with the most interesting minds in entrepreneurship and marketing.

Whether you're a founder, a marketer, or just a curious hustler looking to level up, this is where growth happens—loudly, smartly, and with just the right amount of sass.

Subscribe, tune in, and let’s scale something legendary. 🚀

Speaker: Welcome to Inside
Marketing With Market Surge.

Your front row seat to the
boldest ideas and smartest

strategies in the marketing game.

Your host is Reed Hansen, chief
Growth Officer at Market Surge.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hello,
and welcome back to Inside

Marketing with Market Surge.

My guest today is Rick Meekins,
managing partner at Epiphany Business

Consulting and host of the Relentless
Pursuit of Winning podcasts.

helps founders build companies
that don't just grow.

They endure without.

Over two decades leading businesses
through complex growth challenges, Rick's

known for helping leaders align vision
with execution and scale sustainably.

In this episode, we'll explore how so
many founders get stuck in reactive growth

cycles, how to engineer systems that
turn vision into execution and what it

takes to build a business that wins not
just for today, but for the long term.

If you're a founder chasing growth, but
craving stability, this one's for you.

Welcome to the show, Rick.

Rick Meekins: Thank you, Reed.

I really appreciate it.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge:
I'm so glad to have you.

So tell us a little bit about your path.

How did you come into this role
specifically where you're strategizing

with companies, how did you get here?

Rick Meekins: You know, I was
always one of those people

that was like a business guy.

I was always tinkering stuff.

I've got one of those engineer brains.

When I was a little kid, I
wanted to be in business.

I didn't know what consulting was
at the time or whatever, but I just

wanted to do that and I was always
like helping my friends and, and

so it's like I was, I don't know.

I was kind of born with it, if you
will, but one of the big impetus for

me is that I used to have a restaurant
up in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

It was called our Petros
Cafe and Coffee Bar.

I did everything in that
restaurant to, make it stand out.

We didn't have wifi back then.

If you remember, we had, internet
capabilities access at that restaurant

we had Tuesday nights we had the place
packed out with jazz and spoken word.

We had a menu everybody was doing
like a Japanese fusion cuisine.

We're doing African
Caribbean fusion cuisine.

I mean, it was like anytime there was a
chance to zig, everybody else was zagging.

We took the opportunity to zig
and it was a great experience.

It was a great learning experience,
obviously, but it was a great experience.

Just always trying to push the limits.

The thing about small towns, relatively
small towns is the Chamber of Commerce

is really big and, I got involved in it.

And so what was happening is a lot of
people that were in the chamber started

joining or started hanging out at the
restaurant, which was absolutely fine.

But, you know, I start hearing the
same theme over and over is like.

I've got my business, I've been
doing it for five years, 10 years.

It's just me.

It's just me and one other
person, dah, dah, dah.

And I can't do anything with the company.

You, I'm sitting here,
I've got 20 employees.

I've got onsite catering, offsite
catering, banquet facilities, and

I'm like, you know, doing the thing.

And it's just like, you know,
I, I could see that I had.

I could see things differently
than perhaps some of the

other business owners were.

one of the things that's always
important to me is for people to have,

you know, a level of sustainability.

It's like, Hey, you know what?

I know that I have a bus.

I at least have a business that's
built well that can generate revenue.

And so I decided to take my skills
and help other people with that.

And that's when, I moved to Atlanta
in 2004 and I've been working

with companies, you know, pretty
much in that way since about then.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Do you tell us what kind of
industries you work with?

So I'm assuming you don't
work just with restaurants.

are there some principles that
apply across industries that you

go back to that you find are pretty
essential for any kind of business?

Rick Meekins: mean, if you think
about business operations, business

operations is like an engine.

Okay?

You put an engine in every
vehicle that's gonna run.

And so what we're doing is we're thinking
about operations in terms of principles.

We've gotta have a product or
service that we're offering.

We have to have a team.

We have to have people,
leadership, management, et cetera.

We have to have a way
to get more business.

We have to manage our finances.

This is gonna be across every
single business that we work with.

And so what my job is to do is to
go into a company and understand.

How the business works, understand
where the potential gaps are.

And my job is really to get in there
and really tune that engine, make

that engine run really, really well.

Now that doesn't I'm not looking 3, 4, 5
years down the road and saying, Hey, What

is that engine going to need in order
for that car to perform at its best?

if we look at things in terms
of where we are right now.

We can't get past it.

sometimes we can't get past
that because we almost create

an obstacle for ourselves.

it's like, Hey, we got training wheels.

Those training wheels don't come off.

the company can't grow.

we've gotta put things into place.

Thinking down the road, what do we
need to have in that future business?

What do we need to put in place right now
for that future business to be successful?

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah, I love a
metaphor and I think it does really help

you visualize, what a business needs.

And I think that's a good way to teach.

I am curious.

so do you work with restaurants,
what other kinds of businesses

do you work with and.

have you worked with any unusual
ones that would, surprise us maybe.

Rick Meekins: Well, I generally work
with service-based businesses and

service-based you know, I look at
professional services, construction.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: No.

Rick Meekins: Have done some real, I just
recalled the answer to your question.

You know, real estate property management,
we've done a little bit of healthcare

work have done light manufacturing have
done software, have done, you know, a

lot of different industries and, and
I've really enjoyed, the thing I enjoy

about it is it's, it's just so diverse.

I've worked for B2B, I've worked
B2C you know, and again, it's really

implementing the same sorts of.

You know, looking at the same
principles and then implementing them

into the companies that we serve.

The most interesting, I think
was a company hired us to.

they had a patent on an item that they
were selling, and the patent was running

out, and they hired us to hire an engineer
to create the new version of the product

that they were selling, you know, so we're
suddenly in that space at the same time.

they were also in property management,
and they were, you know, flipping

houses and it's like, okay, we need
investment and stuff like that.

So, I mean, this company just turned
into like all these other projects.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Rick Meekins: and it was,
it was absolutely fantastic.

It was just like, Hey, dude,
we're building houses now, you

know, didn't see that coming.

And, we're doing we're working
towards manufacturing and, you

know, I mean, I've done that a
couple of times for companies, but.

it's different.

It's interesting.

the key for me a lot of times
is being able to bring in

the subject matter experts.

I don't know everything,
you know what I'm saying?

But, you know, if I bring in an engineer,
if I bring in, a project manager or

whatever that is, we can make sure that
we still put the same principles in place.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah
and it sounds like you're like me.

I run an agency and I really
enjoy getting into a new niche.

Business and learning some of the
unique things that they do and

so often I'm discovering like,
this is like a legit business.

I had no idea you could make
a business out of this thing.

And, like for instance, I've, recently
started working with a pool cleaning

company and just the complexity of it is,
i'm getting up to speed on it, but it is

so fascinating and so many opportunities.

I bet you really enjoy that as
well, getting into the weeds,

Rick Meekins: Oh yeah.

I don't like to stay there.

I like to understand what's going on.

You know, I like to know what
kind of fertilizer we need to put

in there, but you know, my job,
it's really important for me.

And my job to really be able
to provide that oversight, you

know, that navigational support.

It's like, okay, you know, you
want to go in this direction.

These are the things that
we need to watch out for.

These are the situations that are gonna
create potential obstacles for us.

And so that's, that's really
where my role needs to stay.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

Okay, so I, one other thing that
comes to mind is, stages of business.

I'm sure when you're dealing with a
startup you're helping them get off

the ground, install the engine, so to
speak, versus an engine that might be.

Choking and sputtering like an
established business that's maybe

plateaued or started to decline.

how do you treat those differently?

Or are they essentially the same
operation from your perspective

do same principles apply?

Do you approach it any differently?

Rick Meekins: I wish there
was a simple answer for that.

I mean, every company, every
business is made up of people.

As you know, people come to the table with
different talents, so if I'm working with

a startup, I really have to understand
where that founder's mindset is.

are they more the visionary?

Are they more the sales person?

Are they more, kind of that tactical,
okay, let's do the same thing over

and over again and make sure that,
we're selling, blinds, for example.

You know what I'm saying?

And so in understanding where
they are and understanding

their operational limitations.

I can start to build
from that perspective.

A lot of times it's a conversation around,
okay, how do we differentiate, how do we

implement these things into the company?

How do we create a stable business
development program, et cetera, et cetera.

When you're looking at a more
mature company, we have a track

record, we have history, we have
customers, et cetera, et cetera.

And we have habits and that's the
hardest thing sometimes if we've got

a staff and the staff is used to doing
things a certain way for a number

of years, and I'm coming in and say,
you know what, this has been really

great, but you could save some time.

You could save some steps.

We could implement this technology.

This is a different way that we could
go to market, et cetera, et cetera.

You know, turning that
boat is a little bit.

You know, a little bit harder, you know,
they're, they're not nearly as agile,

You know, there's a usually a
lot more moving parts to this.

And then of course, we have
the customer end of things.

We never want to make change in the
company, so it disrupts our customers.

You know, if people get upset or, you
know, whatever it is, you know, suddenly

customer service isn't, isn't there, or
business, you know, sales isn't there.

Whatever it is, that's a problem.

So we have to make incremental changes,
you know the thing about startups is

we can, a lot of times we can go and
we can pivot, And just kind of like

with a more mature company, it's much,
much harder, much more complex to do.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

no I, that makes a lot of sense.

It sounds like your, personnel
are pretty key to your approach

and, having the right people.

When you come into a
business where you have.

Groups that are filled with qualified
people that are working hard within

their lane, they're working well, but
maybe there's not a lot of synergy

between sales and marketing or
operations and sales and marketing.

How do you.

Better align them, is
it, do you sit them down?

Is this a, a like outlining process?

is it individual relationship coaching?

How do you typically tackle that?

Rick Meekins: You know what, a lot of
times I'm gonna diagnose the problem.

I've got other people, you know, other
coaches and that sort of thing that I

work with that would come and do the
real team dynamics, the real one-on-one.

and I've done that.

You know, we had a company that we were
growing, they started at, I think they

started at about six or seven people.

They ended up with.

About 30 people, you know, and we
brought in, you know, someone to

assist with change management and,
you know, we developed all sorts of,

or not all sorts of, but we developed
assessments and, you know, management

coaching and training and leadership
development and that sort of thing.

that was their lane.

I'm gonna always be that systems guy.

I'm gonna say, how do things
need to work in this company, for

this company to be successful?

So I'm always gonna
put the tools in place.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Another thing you brought up earlier that
I wanted to drill into a little bit is the

difference between vision and execution.

You've mentioned that, founders come in
with a vision and, are they the visionary?

Are they the person
that does the execution?

Are you able to help them bridge the two?

So say, you've got your visionary
founder are you able to help

them become more able to execute?

And conversely, a lot of people
that are good at executing,

they don't necessarily think.

Big, they think about like day to day
and, getting through the day's tasks

can you help them have a bigger vision.

Is that something you work with founders?

Rick Meekins: Yeah, that's the, the
visionary part of it is probably one

of the most important parts of it.

You know, a bad example would be I go and
I work with a company and I come up with

the vision for where the company can go.

leadership's not bought into it.

Team's not bought into it.

it turns into a bad engagement.

we don't do that.

What I do most of the time is I'll
work with a founder and understand the

vision, and I'm very good at taking
that vision and turning that into

something that would be tactical.

I'm gonna say, okay.

what is the greatest opportunity
with this vision that you had?

So, I had a tax accounting firm that
I was working with and, you know, he's

telling me about, his vision for the
way that he wants his firm to run.

And so my question to him is, you know,
why can't we partner with other tax

accounting firms and take your brand
and put that you know what I'm saying?

So we're, building these partnerships.

We're building a network of firms,
and suddenly it's just like, oh, wow.

I had never, I had never thought of that.

You know, and, perhaps a simple example,
but this is the type of thinking that

enables companies to be sustainable.

So in a one unit shop with
one CPA, there's no fallback.

you know, someone gets sick
or something like that.

And that's always what I'm thinking.

If someone gets sick, something
like that, or we wanna sell the org.

The company with only one
CPMA in the firm, the company

doesn't have a lot of value.

The company's in a very risky position.

But if we build the company from
the perspective of, Hey, let's

build something that's sustainable.

let's make your vision very
feasible for the future of the

company, then we have something
that's gonna have a lot more value.

So.

A lot of times, this is where I'm gonna
focus a lot of my energy with my clients.

It's like how do we create that strategic
advantage in your company that's gonna

allow your company to have longevity,
have value so that if you wanna sell

it or whatever you want to do with it,
you have legs to be able to do that.

on the other end of that, you talked
about, people that are really good

at execution and I think that.

the great thing about people that
are really good at execution is

they're really good at execution.

So what I can do is I can
create that roadmap for them.

I say, okay, we need to do
this, then this, then this

These are our priorities.

If they understand the priorities, if
they understand the criteria for quality.

If they understand that we do
things in an incremental approach

rather than trying to do everything
all at once so we can understand

how things are working together.

it's a great partnership.

It's an absolutely great partnership
and I've seen, you know, both ends

of that spectrum and, you know,
we've made things work really,

really well for those companies.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: That's awesome.

Yeah, no, that's, really important and
I'm glad that you can be that resource.

Now we met initially around
your podcast actually, and I'd

love to talk to you about that.

One my first question is.

What motivated you to start a podcast and
how does it help your business overall?

I'm interested in this topic because I
started this podcast to help my marketing

agency and I've actually found some
unique benefits that I didn't expect.

But I'd love to hear like
what your experience has been.

Rick Meekins: For sure, for sure.

So we started the podcast.

The first podcast that we did
we started about five years ago.

I used to have a marketing
company called converge Marketing.

And so.

We built that podcast and we didn't
really know what we were doing.

We figured it out.

We made it happen.

We did 30 episodes, had a co-host and,
it was a decent show and it enabled us

to meet people and we actually ended up
running I think, two or three podcasts

for some of our clients, which wasn't
something that we'd expected to be able to

do, but it was something that we were able
to do and we, did a really, really good

job with those and enjoyed that process.

after COVID, we had, just some
devastating losses, around COVID.

a lot of our companies were
in service-based businesses.

They're going down and so, we
went from a team of about 30

people down to about five people.

And so, you know, we dealt with that
and I eventually, stopped doing that

podcast, but I was always interested in
creating something that was really gonna

be motivational, you know, for clients.

So if I look at myself, my vision, my
mission to educate equipment, inspire

people to pursue extraordinary goals.

And so this is where the name
for that podcast came from.

And with the understanding
that running companies is hard,

being an entrepreneur is hard.

I wanted to be able to pour into
people and get other people's

perspectives, you know, so you get
the people that were, you know, super.

Wealthy and, and that sort of thing.

And they had the crash in birds.

It's like, oh, I poured
everything into my company.

It affected my health, my
marriage, dah, dah, dah, dah.

You know, I hear those stories, you
know, but I hear them coming back.

They have the, the epiphany moments.

It's like, you know what?

Life is more important than money,
and life is more important than

being successful in business.

And so I get to share those stories
with the other entrepreneurs out there,

which I find to be really exciting.

So, I mean, there's,
there's that piece of it.

I found personally it's very important
for me to create a platform for my guests.

it's incredibly important for me
to create, you know, a source of

inspiration, a safe space, so to speak,
for entrepreneurs in the business.

So.

From a business perspective.

I mean, this, this is, you know,
that's, that's what's important to me.

That's, that's the goal for me.

That's the return on investment.

Happy people, is a return
on investment for me.

Now, those.

Other pieces to that is that
the great thing about podcasting

is I have a lot of one-on-one
relationships with a lot of people.

You know, I meet people every
single week that are gonna

be on the show at some point.

And, you know, sometimes, we have
an opportunity to do business.

Sometimes there's great synergies.

Sometimes, you know, you never know where
it's gonna go, but the important thing.

is to value the people that
are coming on the show.

You know, I think anyone that's a
podcaster that has transactional

relationships with the people
on their show are really not

valuing their own capabilities.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Yeah.

No I think you're right.

And I have really enjoyed getting to know
interesting people, yourself included

Rick through this podcasting exercise.

You are such an enthusiastic
positive, inspirational person,

where does that come from?

Where does all that
positive energy come from?

Rick Meekins: I think it's that same
thing where I worked really hard.

I, have built a lot of different
things and, it all came back to

at some point that people were
most important, and I enjoy.

everywhere I go, I'm just enjoying people.

You know?

I go to the gym and I'm the greeter.

I say hi to everybody.

I give everybody pounds
and stuff like that.

You know, I'm finding that, at church
people are just looking out for me.

It's like, Hey, Rick, da da.

and so I'm just, I'm really taking
that and I'm giving that back.

just authentically.

it's not work for me.

It's just something that I'm
naturally doing, I guess.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: that is so cool.

And I wish there were more people
like you, Rick, and you're doing good

things for a lot of businesses, even.

Directly and through your
podcast and that's fantastic.

Now, if somebody would like to work
with you, tune into your podcast where

are the places that you can be found?

Rick Meekins: Okay.

The easiest way to get to my website, if
you go to Big Scary Vision, it's a brand

new domain, but I absolutely love it.

Big, scary vision.

The idea behind that is I want people
to create and pursue visions that

are really gonna push the envelope.

It's like, how do we really create
differentiation in our business,

in our market, in our industry?

so big scary vision is that domain.

If you go to big scary vision.com,

you're still gonna get there.

I know how it goes.

So that's that.

If you wanna check out my
podcast, go to r pow RPOW.

podcast.com.

That's RPOW podcast.com.

And I'm on LinkedIn.

You know, you can look me up.

Just Rick Kins.

I'm always happy to connect.

Always happy to have a conversation.

And you can absolutely apply to be
a guest on the [e-mail].

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: So awesome.

Rick, it's so nice to talk to you and
hear your story and your approach.

I think we had a lot of great takeaways
and I hope people will connect with you

if they really want to build that vision.

Rick Meekins: I love that.

Thank you so much for having me.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: my pleasure.

Speaker 2: Want to stay ahead of what's
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