Why Smart Business Leaders Are Using These Softball Coaching Strategies

The CEO Project Podcast

What can a smart business leader learn from a softball field to build a thriving, multi-million-dollar company?

If you’ve ever wondered how to build a resilient company culture, lead with decisiveness, and navigate the messy beauty of running a family business, this episode is for you. Derek Volk, third-generation CEO of Volk Packaging, shares unfiltered stories and hard-earned leadership lessons drawn from the softball diamond and decades in the corrugated box industry. Whether you're in manufacturing, family business, or just looking to lead with more clarity, you'll find yourself nodding along.

By the end of this episode, you’ll walk away with:

• A powerful mindset shift around decision-making that could change how you lead under pressure

• A fresh take on company culture rooted in loyalty, trust, and “no bureaucracy” empowerment

• Real strategies for growing a family-owned business without losing your soul—or your sanity

Hit play now to discover how to lead like a coach, build a team that thinks like owners, and create a business your customers love doing business with.

Check out:

• [10:34] – How Derek’s family turned a GE stationery account into a multi-generational manufacturing empire

• [28:47] – The softball coaching philosophy that inspired his bestselling business book, “Go For Third”

• [51:10] – A candid look at succession planning, ESOP dilemmas, and what it really means to build a business worth inheriting

About Derek Volk

Derek Volk is the owner of Volk Packaging Corporation, a third-generation family-owned and operated corrugated box manufacturer in Biddeford, Maine, and Volk Paxit, a contract packaging fulfillment center in Sanford, Maine. He released his second book, Go for Third: Leadership Lessons from the Softball Field to the Workplace in 2024. Derek has been working at Volk Packaging since high school and has been running the company for over 20 years. Derek is a Maine businessman, best-selling author, former radio personality, and nationally recognized public speaker. He is a grateful supporter of veterans’ organizations and created the Volk Packaging Heroes Wall as a way to honor members of the US Armed Forces, past and present. Derek was named the 2015 Spurwink “Humanitarian of the Year.” That same year, Maine Biz named Derek to their NEXT List, recognizing him as one of Maine’s business trailblazers. In 2020, Derek was inducted into the Manufacturer’s Association of Maine’s “Manufacturer’s Hall of Fame.”