How Can a Career Shift from Banking Lead to Thriving Global Consulting Business with Daniel Feiman

Mark Osborne welcomes Daniel Feiman, founder and managing director of Build It Backwards, a consulting and training firm based in Redondo Beach, California. With a career spanning manufacturing, marketing, and commercial banking before launching his own firm nearly 30 years ago, Daniel brings a rare blend of practical operator experience and executive advisory depth. He’s advised organizations across 30+ countries including Apple, Dell, Hilton, and Credit Suisse, taught at UCLA Extension for over 25 years, served as a visiting professor at the University of Huddersfield in the UK, authored four books including The Evolved Enterprise: A New Paradigm for Business Success, and holds the elite Certified Management Consultant (CMC) designation awarded to less than 1% of consultants worldwide. 

In this episode, Daniel shares why “plans don’t have to be perfect—just executed,” and why the real ROI lies in the act of planning. He breaks down a holistic approach to succession planning that future-proofs organizations, emphasizes writing plans down to enable alignment and collaboration, and shows how leadership development, gap analyses, and individual development plans (IDPs) transform SMEs into professionally managed, resilient companies. From “building it backwards” (starting with the 20-year vision and reverse-engineering the steps) to becoming your client’s “business concierge,” Daniel outlines a repeatable system any growth-minded firm can adopt. 

Quotes: 

● “You don’t need a perfect plan. What you need is a plan.” 

● “Proper planning prevents poor performance.” 

● “My worst day in consulting is still better than my best day as a banker.” 

Takeaways: 

● Write it down. A written plan creates clarity, invites collaboration, and drives better results than ideas that live only in leaders’ heads. 

● Build it backwards: define the 20-year horizon, then reverse-engineer 10-, 5-, and 1-year goals with actions, owners, and metrics. 

● Treat succession as organizational, not just owner exit—identify, assess, and develop leaders; use gap analyses to craft individual development plans and clear career paths. 

● Professionalize to scale: move from founder-centric to team-centric by leveraging specialists and a “business concierge” mindset. 

● The payoff is measurable: stronger agility, higher productivity, lower turnover, greater employee satisfaction, and a healthier bottom line. 

Conclusion: 

Daniel Feiman’s approach reframes planning from a static document to a living process that builds alignment, agility, and bench strength. By committing to write plans down, collaborating across the organization, and “building it backwards” from a clear long-term vision, SMEs can evolve into professionally managed, future-proofed companies—ready for growth, prepared for shocks, and rich with options. 

 

Links Mentioned: 

Website: https://builditbackwards.com  

Books: 

• The Book on...Succession Planning Systems: The 30 Secrets To Leadership Development: https://a.co/d/0qJsevQ  

• THE Book on...BUSINESS From A to Z: The 260 Most Important Answers You Need to Know (The Build It Backwards series): https://a.co/d/2NqdgxC  

• The Book On Improving Productivity By Fair Means Or Foul (The Build it Backwards Series 1): https://a.co/d/bO9ad8F  

Guest Links: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielfeimanbuilditbackwards1/