About Michael Barbarita: Michael Barbarita has owned and operated retail, manufacturing, and service companies for over 30 years. One of the retail companies he operated, called “Ski Town USA,” grew from $2.5 million to $8.0 million in less than 5 years. One of the products he manufactured was “Cookies To Scoop Frozen Cookie Dough,” which was featured on the QVC Home Shopping Network and was selected as one of the top 20 products in the State of Massachusetts in 1997. He has sat on the Board of Directors of 5 different companies and was a Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer for a large specialty retailer, as well as for all of his previously owned companies. Michael has been involved in the structuring of leveraged buyouts, has experience in owning both commercial and residential investment real estate, exporting and doing business on a global scale, and is an award-winning public speaker and Published Co-author with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. In this episode, Dean Newlund and Michael Barbarita discuss: Strategic business and financial leadership Marketing psychology and customer engagement Small business growth strategies Sales conversion frameworks Cash flow and profitability planning Key Takeaways: The Conversion Formula—Captivate, Fascinate, Educate, Offer—provides a repeatable framework for connecting with prospects emotionally and logically, dramatically improving sales effectiveness when followed in the correct order. Implementing a risk reversal strategy like the “Ski Guarantee” not only eliminated customer hesitation but led to a 25% increase in sales with less than 0.2% product returns, proving that customer trust can be more profitable than tight control. Email drip campaigns that align with the buyer’s journey and apply the conversion formula to industry-specific pain points can significantly shorten the time it takes for prospects to move from awareness to purchase. A truly strategic CFO brings more than financial oversight—they integrate differentiated, actionable strategies that competitors overlook, bridging the gap between financial clarity and business innovation. "95% of business strategies used today are identical to the competition, and quite frankly, by virtue of that, they don't work.” — Michael Barbarita Connect with Michael Barbarita:  Website: https://www.nextstepcfo.net/ Show: Powerful Business Strategies: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/powerful-business-strategies/id1757160951 | https://www.powerfulbusinessstrategies.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelbarbarita/ See Dean’s TedTalk “Why Business Needs Intuition” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEq9IYvgV7I Connect with Dean: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgqRK8GC8jBIFYPmECUCMkw Website: https://www.mfileadership.com/ The Mission Statement E-Newsletter: https://www.mfileadership.com/blog/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deannewlund/ X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/deannewlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MissionFacilitators/ Email: dean.newlund@mfileadership.com Phone: 1-800-926-7370 Show notes by Podcastologist: Hanz Jimuel Alvarez Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.