The Idea Climbing Podcast

Mark J. Carter
  • 5.0 (4)
  • MARKETING
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

If you’re passionate about bringing your big ideas to life and want actionable strategies for marketing, branding, sales, mentoring, networking and more this show is for you! You’ll learn from interviews with successful B2B thought leaders and entrepreneurs.

  1. 1D AGO

    How to Turn Obstacles into Opportunities with Lasada Pippen

    In this episode we’re discussing how to turn obstacles into opportunities with my guest, Lasada Pippin. Lasada was raised in an underserved community as a young African American and defied the odds to build a successful career in engineering and become a first-generation college graduate. His journey reflects the resilience and determination that now fuel his mission as an inspirational speaker.   Lasada’s signature keynote series, “Say It Better: Communicate with Clarity & Lead with Confidence” draws directly from that path: Empowering corporate professionals, educators, and youth to overcome obstacles and pursue meaningful growth. With a message rooted in grit, reinvention, and purpose, he equips audiences with practical strategies to lead with intention, rise stronger, and climb higher. We dive into topics including: How to make and support your decision to “burn the boats” How to successfully step into the new space that you’re striving towards. The importance of finding the finish line and keeping your eyes on it at all times. What you need to do to build momentum to get to the finish line. What to do to stay once you’ve “burned the boats’ and successfully gotten to your island of success. The role of self-confidence in turning obstacles into opportunities. Why it’s of the utmost importance to move towards something that you’re truly passionate about. How to take action in “the moment of now” one small step at a time. How to keep on keepin’ on after the initial excitement of your journey fades. The reason you must really know and understand your “Why” on your journey. How to get strategic about your goals instead of just riding high on excitement and love. The power of starting with the end in mind. The three questions you need to ask yourself and answer to turn obstacles into opportunities. Why your journey never ends, it just evolves over time. The importance of celebrating your small wins. The importance of having a way to measure your progress and how to create it. The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to turn obstacles into opportunities. …and more golden nuggets of advice! Starting to Turn Obstacles Into Opportunities  Lasada grew up in an underserved community with low resources and not having a whole lot. He feels like during his entire life that he’s had to turn obstacles into opportunities. There was always some type of roadblock, there was always some type of challenge. Lasada has a background in engineering and technology where he spent his professional time for a decade. Even making the shift from engineering and technology into the keynote and motivational speaking space was an obstacle. Lasada had to see the opportunity inside of that transitional moment if he wanted to get past that obstacle. An obstacle can be anything. It can be fear, it can be anxiety, it can be procrastination, it can be self-doubt, it can be a lack of self-confidence. There are so many obstacles that we don’t realize are obstacles because they’re wrapped in a different type of clothing. Because of that there are so many obstacles that we need to identify, and that’s the only way that we can turn them into opportunities. For Lasada it was getting over the fear, embracing it, learning how to coexist with it, and building up his self-confidence. He needed to develop the confidence that he could make each leap and go forward and operate in the space of keynote and motivational speaking that he operates in today. A Lifelong Journey Turning obstacles into opportunities has been a lifelong journey for Lasada. He said that it doesn’t have to be a life altering, such as super darkness, but let’s just say “dark times”. When you hit the dark times, you hit obstacles. It’s then that you really need to see and focus on the opportunities. A Decision to Create Opportunities When Lasada was getting ready to leave corporate, he was faced with a decision. His contract had ended, and so he had the opportunity to renew his contract. He could stay there and prolong the contract and continue being in a place that included a great income and great people. Nothing was “wrong”. OR he could take a leap of faith and go after what he really wanted to do, what he really loved, and what he really desired. He said a lot of times you are so blinded by what’s good that it blinds you from getting to what’s great. If you are blinded by darkness in your life, it’s oftentimes going to be hard to see that light. You have to shift that perspective. You have to change the way you see it. You must look at it like as an obstacle, but at the same time realize there’s also an opportunity naturally baked into every obstacle. If you adopt a mentality that for every problem there is a solution, whether you have the solution at that time or not, that’s a whole different story. You can adopt a mentality that within every problem that you face, there’s also a solution. So Lasada did a mental shift, and when he left and took that leap to put himself out there, he did something inspiring. He “burned the boats”. Lasada did that because you don’t want to give yourself room to go backwards after making a leap of faith. Instead, you want to give yourself the opportunity to go forward. When Lasada made that leap and jumped out into the keynote and motivational speaking space, the way he burned the bolts was by deciding he couldn’t go back into Corporate America and couldn’t go back into contract positions. In short, he couldn’t go back into engineering and technology. Lasada had to figure out where the opportunities were for him to continue to press forward. For every obstacle that he faced Lasada had to believe there has to be some kind of workaround and then embrace that pathway. He believed there had to be some type of solution to get to the island of success he yearned for. Burning the boats needs to start from the moment that you make the decision. For Lasada, it was when he made the decision to leave engineering and technology and go into the keynote and motivational speaking space. The decision to burn the boats started right there at that moment. The rest is history! Watch or listen to the full episode for more golden nuggets of advice! You can get my book here: “Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea” About My Guest   Lasada Pippen’s journey from the tech world to the keynote stage equips him with a unique and powerful perspective as a motivational speaker. A bilingual STEM professional, he spent over a decade thriving in the engineering field before realizing that his greatest impact wouldn’t be made behind a screen, but in front of an audience. Lasada is a former engineer turned keynote speaker and communication coach. He helps professionals, teams, and leaders say it better—so they can lead better, teach better, and connect more effectively. Lasada’s mission is to help anyone who wants to improve their communication, regardless of their profession, background, or reason why. His journey from the tech world to the stage is rooted in resilience, reinvention, and a passion for helping others grow. Lasada has delivered keynotes in over 38 U.S. states and worked with hundreds of clients, from national conferences to Fortune 500 companies to K–12 school communities. He speaks to both school leaders and students, corporate teams and emerging professionals, equipping each audience with practical tools to communicate with clarity, show up with confidence, and lead with purpose. If you’re looking for a speaker who brings real tools, real energy, and real connection, You’ve found him!. Learn more about Lasada! Connect with Lasada on LinkedIn!

    23 min

  2. FEB 18

    Today we’re discussing how to get focused and get into “flow states” (what athlete's call "The Zone") to achieve more in less time. My guest is Peter Wishnie.

    Today we’re discussing how to get focused and get into “flow states” (what athlete’s call “The Zone”) to achieve more in less time. My guest is Peter Wishnie.     In his younger years Peter purchased a medical practice and after one year, he made more money than the previous owner did in any one of his 17 years of ownership. Peter has been in business for over 33 years and has made multiple 7 figures for 30 consecutive years, landing him in the top 1% in his field. During those years he has learned key secrets that have helped him work a lot less while growing the business year after year. In 2022, he sold that business for $2 million more than he paid for it. The reason he sold it was mainly because his passion is now to help other businesses learn to have the life they so deserve and desire. Peter believes people become business owners or leaders not to be slaves to your jobs but to have the freedom to enjoy your family, hobbies, and friends. Peter wants to help you live your best life. We dive into topics including: Why you have to know and write out you KPIs, your Key Performance Indicators for your business. Why you have to review your KPI’s at least weekly if not more often. How to maintain focus once you’ve gotten started. How to survive and embrace the roller coaster ride of focus. Why consistency every single day is king; it’s not about overloading your schedule. The definition of and examples of flow state, or being “in the zone” as athletes call it. How to stay in the zone and not get knocked out of it for short periods of time. Why creative ideas come when you’re most relaxed. The benefits and rewards of getting yourself into flow state. What comes first; focus or flow state. The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to get focused and into flow state. …and other golden nuggets of advice! Peter’s Story of Focus and Flow State Peter says far from the expert of ALWAYS being focused. After every video he creates, he says “stay focused my friends”.  He got that from that beer commercial, “stay thirsty my friends”. It’s because it’s because getting focused and into flow states isn’t always easy. We’re constantly getting interrupted with calls and our electronic devices. Peter says he’s constantly getting bombarded with messages, and he tries to keep up with them. He remembers when he was younger back in 1989, when he purchased his practice. Peter didn’t even have a desktop computer. People didn’t have cell phones. It was easy to get and stay focused with few interruptions. At the time when the phone rang it was a great thing for a business owner because it could be a prospect. But creating focus and flow state is something Peter has since learned. He loves to study. He loves to listen to and learn from people. Peter purchased his first Franklin Covey planner back in the early 1990s. Peter wrote down his goals for the year; exactly what he wanted to achieve. He wrote them down based on what he was going to do every single month, then every single week.  which made staying focused easier. Now Peter is also a John Maxwell certified leadership coach. There’s a great book, “The One Thing”, you just focus on the one thing. Peter adopted that principle. Then he adopted Michael Hyatt’s “Full Focus Planner”. Because of that Peter wrote down the three major things he needed to accomplish every single day. Some people love to cross things out every single day. Peter did this and that, but it’s that one thing, and it could be you. Like writing 20 pages in your book. That’s the one thing, the other things on your list don’t matter as much. You can also figure out what the top three things you must do are and write them down every day. You must decide what’s important for your family, your relationships, your health, and so on. Then it’s a matter of putting those things first while you have a business to take care of. If you don’t take care of those other things, take care of yourself, your health, and building up your energy levels you’re going to crash sometime during the day. You might wake up totally fogged up, just like your brain’s all fogged and because you’re just not doing the right things to take care of yourself day in and day out. That’s where energy comes into play… Managing Your Energy Imagine having all that energy, when you have all that energy, you can go longer during the day and the day goes by faster because you are just full of pep. Peter believes it starts with that. How did he learn to do that? It came from medical school. Now imagine going to college. In Peter’s case he always had those few hard classes, but he also signed up for some easier courses like history of rock and roll. Meanwhile, he was taking physics and chemistry as a pre-med student. Peter had a hard time his first year in school and he read a book called “How to Study”, and from that he learned how to organize and how to focus and then how to schedule focus. It’s about really knowing what you want to do each day. The Importance of Writing and Journaling Where do you start to get focused? Pull out a piece of paper or a journal. Write down everything that’s on your mind. Everything; everything that you think that needs to get done or everything that’s bothering you. And not even that just bothering you. Just write down everything. Just journal. Then divide your life into a pie. Things like health, relationships, friendships, finances, your business goals, relaxation time, all that. Then what do you want to do in each of those areas? What are your goals? Just pick one little goal that you want to accomplish in the next 90 days. Watch or listen for the rest of the stories and lessons to be learned! You can get my book here: “Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea” About My Guest   In his younger years Peter Wishnie purchased a medical practice and after one year, he made more money than the previous owner did in any one of his 17 years of ownership. Peter has been in business for over 33 years and has made multiple 7 figures for 30 consecutive years, landing him in the top 1% in his field. During those years he has learned key secrets that have helped him work a lot less while growing the business year after year. In 2022, he sold that business for $2 million more than he paid for it. The reason he sold it was mainly because his passion is now to help other businesses learn to have the life they so deserve and desire. Peter believes people become business owners or leaders not to be slaves to your jobs but to have the freedom to enjoy your family, hobbies, and friends. Peter wants to help you live your best life. Connect with Peter on LinkedIn! Learn more about Peter’s coaching and speaking! Want to learn about “being in the zone” when it comes to money? Check out “How To Have a Successful Money Mindset with Robin Waite”

    24 min

  3. FEB 3

    How to Create Story-Driven Content Marketing Campaigns with Katie Wagner

    Storytelling is an absolute must in the marketing world. In this episode I discuss How to Create Story-Driven Content Marketing Campaigns with my guest, Katie Wagner.     Katie spent more than 15 years as a journalist. In 2010, Katie realized that she could use the skills she learned in the newsroom to help business owners connect with their clients online and started her own agency, KWSM. Katie is a proud member of Vistage, Provisors and the Young Entrepreneur Council. She has served as a member of the Advisory Board for Web Wise Kids, a non-profit focused on keeping kids safe on the internet and social media. In 2012, she was honored with the organization’s ‘Champion for Children Award.’ We dive into topics including: How to use informational interviews with your clients to create your marketing stories. The structure of a great informational interview. Where and how to share your story once you create it. How to get happy clients to share your story with their friends in their language. Why learning why your happy clients are happy can help you learn a lot about your business and ultimately improve your client experience. A deeper discussion into how to create a successful marketing strategy with your content once it’s ready. An examination of the pillars of story-driven content marketing and how to expand that marketing process. How to uncover how prospects discover you and make the decision to become your clients. The definition of “nurturing content” and how to create it. How to nurture your client relationships once you close the deal. How to get qualified referrals from your existing clients. Why case studies are the most compelling way to create story-driven marketing campaigns and how to create great ones. The one thing, above all else, you need to do to create story-driven content marketing campaigns. …and more golden nuggets of advice! Getting Into Storytelling  Katie was a journalist for 15 years before she started a digital marketing agency. She specifically worked in television and radio. She worked all over the world and retired from CNN headline News back in 2009.  She opened her agency in 2010. The reason she did that is because she realized that nobody was going home to watch the five o’clock news anymore. They started getting the headlines on Facebook and Twitter. As those channels came to prominence, that became the way people wanted to get their information. Katie saw an opportunity to teach business owners how to tell their story using digital channels. She believed that founding a company in the tenets of journalism and knowing what attracts an audience was a good place to start. What Successful Marketing is Really About First Katie defined brand journalism. What that means to her is that it is the act of creating content that builds an emotional connection. It’s about the humans involved in a business. Brand journalism highlights the stories of the people that make or deliver your products or service. It highlights the stories of the people that benefit from your products and service. It’s really about those emotional connecting stories that we have to tell beyond just features and benefits also known as the marketing or the sales language. It’s really about that human language. Those are the stories they tell at the her agency. Even during the very early days, back in 2010, they had to interview their clients to uncover those stories. When you ask somebody about their business their default they usually talk about is the services they provide and what they can do for people or their products and what the benefits are. They forget the most important parts. What are they? It’s answering questions such as what does that do for somebody? How does it change their life? and from there focusing on the transformation around using your products and services. The first step was to teach people to start thinking of their businesses based on the answers to those questions and focusing on the outcomes their clients’ were creating more than the services they were delivering. The Structure of A Great Story When Katie’s agency is telling stories for their clients there’s a purpose behind the stories they’re telling. They like to think of it as the transformation moment. There’s a before for your potential client, then they use you, and then there’s an after. And that arc is the story you want to tell. What is life like before they interact with you? You know, what are their pain points? What are their struggles? What are the fears and motivations they have? And then what happens at that moment they engage with your products or services? Then what is the transformation after that engagement? How is life different? How does life look better, safer or easier for them? If you can start creating content around that transformation point, those stories really resonate with people. Even when Katie’s agency is creating website content, they ask themselves can you paint a picture of the pain that they’re in now and how your product or service solves that? Not through the physical, like what does it do, but what is the emotional state? The before and the after. If you think of that story arc, that’s a pretty good place to start. And then there are a multitude of different spinoffs from that. You can talk about individual types of pain. It doesn’t always have to be pain, but at least their initial needs. Is it philosophical or an emotional pain? Is it a physical pain? Is it a tactical pain? Here’s an example using Katie’s own business. People that hire KWSM do so because they’re a lead generation agency, so they their clients want leads for their businesses. The sort of surface pain point may be that their business is slow or they’re not getting as much business as they want, or they need a better way to get business. But really the pain point is “My business won’t survive unless I bring in new clients.” That is the emotional connection they’re trying to get at. People need lead generation not just to grow, but because they’re afraid of what happens if they don’t grow. Unfortunately, people don’t usually admit that to each other. But if you really dig deep, for example, if most of Katie’s clients are afraid in today’s geopolitical climate, they fear that if they don’t have a good lead generation strategy, their business may not make it through to the other side. And that’s the pain point they have to step into. That’s some powerful stuff! Onwards and upwards; listen to or watch the episode for the rest! You can get my book here: “Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea” About My Guest Katie Wagner spent more than 15 years as a journalist. After graduating Magna Cum Laude from Boston University with a B.S. in Broadcast Journalism and a B.A. in International Relations, she began her career as an investigative reporter, and then spent a decade as a television and radio news anchor. Katie has worked at CBS, ABC, Fox, CNN and National Public Radio. In addition, she has appeared on dozens of commercials, educational videos and websites. She has hosted her own talk show, had columns published in major newspapers and blogs, and is a popular public speaker. In 2010, Katie realized that she could use the skills she learned in the newsroom to help business owners connect with their clients online. She opened KWSM to help companies and organizations tell their story, building the agency with journalists, whom she knew understood how to establish a relationship with their audience and convey information in an engaging and educational way. Katie is a proud member of Vistage, Provisors and the Young Entrepreneur Council. She has served as a member of the Advisory Board for Web Wise Kids, a non-profit focused on keeping kids safe on the internet and social media. In 2012, she was honored with the organization’s ‘Champion for Children Award.’ Over the years she has served as an Entrepreneur in Residence at Chapman University’s Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics, a Mentor for Chapman’s MBA Program, and a guest lecturer for Chapman, California Southern University and California State University, Fullerton. Connect with Katie on LinkedIn! Learn more about Katy’s company, KWSM Digital! Want to learn more about storytelling and sales? Check out “Story Selling: How to Know What Stories to Tell to Sell with Sylvain “Sly” Haché”

    21 min

  4. JAN 28

    How To Have a Successful Money Mindset with Robin Waite

    Your money mindset can make or break you as an entrepreneur. I discuss how to create a successful money mindset in this episode with my guest, Robin Waite. Robin is a dynamic and inspiring public speaker, author, and international business coach. He has a passion for helping others succeed and reach their full potential, and his energy and enthusiasm are contagious. With over 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and business coach, Robin has a wealth of knowledge and practical insights to share with his audiences.     I asked Robin about his story and he said “I’ve only been in business for 21 years, so maybe I’m a bit of a slow learner. I don’t know. But I finally feel I’ve nailed it when it comes to pricing and money mindset.” We dive into topics including: Why how we choose to buy things is a reflection of how we price and sell things as entrepreneurs. How to break through that pricing barrier in your mind. The two financial things your business needs to be profitable. The makeup of a successful business foundation. The three questions you need to ask yourself to achieve your financial goals. How and when to raise the prices of your service offerings. How to attract the right clients at higher price points. How to sustain a higher value, higher ticket price business model over time. The challenge of “loss aversion” and how to overcome it. The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to create a successful money mindset. …and more golden nuggets of advice! In the Beginning… Robin ran a marketing agency for the first 12 years of his career, predominantly doing web design and branding up until 2016, and ultimately ended up selling that agency. It was a good time because he was between kids and it meant he could spend a bit of time with his family and just enjoy my earnout that he had. Robin eventually needed to make a decision about his professional life; start a new career or start a new business? Because the first question everybody asked you at networking meetings is “What do you do?” And I’m like. I don’t really do anything ’cause, you know, and then I tell ’em I sold my agency and naturally you get a lot of freelancers and agency owners, small networking events. Robin did some informal networking over coffee and cake and turns out actually I was quite good at it. While explaining the agency he sold Robin realized that the reason somebody wanted to buy his agency was because there was some really cool stuff which he’d done around sort of how we packaged up our offer, how we priced it, and various things like that. During the 12 years of running that agency, with a bit of help from therapists and various mentors and coaches, he started to realize this mountain of value that he’d actually create. He also realized he had gotten rid of the negative money mindset which he had inherited as a child. Robin had undone a lot of that during those 12 years running the agency. He decided to start a new business as a business coach. Your Money Mindset Starts in Childhood Many people’s money blueprints are actually formed before their earliest memories. You’re building emotions even as a toddler based on what’s going on in the home. Many of the people speaks with they typically say most of the arguments were about money. They’ve adopted the sort of stuff that people say, such as, money doesn’t grow on trees and money’s the root of all evil and all those sorts of things. But a lot of, um, you know, home-based arguments are familial arguments around money of some sort. In Robin’s home growing up it was a bit traumatic. There were fights between his mother and father over household bills, holidays, and things like that. It got a point where Robin and his brother used to go and hide upstairs. It was very volatile. So, you can imagine at a very young formative age Robin’s associations with money were scary. That’s the same for many people. Much of the population are born into not necessarily born into poverty; but they’re born into working class family homes where money is tight. You know, we’re not all built, born with trust funds and silver spoons in our mouths. Financial Mindset Growing Up And then go into your teenage years where you want a bit of financial independence. You don’t want to rely on your parents for money, so you go out and get a paper route or you go and work in a restaurant waiting tables or something like that. Then you start to earn your own money. But now what you’re teaching yourself is that money comes through hard work and getting paid a wage. Part of that is repeating what your parents did because many of our parents worked for a wage throughout their lives. Then your parents are trying to educate you about money. They start telling you to be careful and make wise investments and that you eventually need to buy a house with a mortgage and everything else like that. Then they tell you to plan for college. Robin was privileged to go to college but came out of that with a lot of debt. So, you’ve got these amazing young human beings who are starting off their adult life in debt with a very poor attachment to money. They spend most of their twenties and thirties recovering from that and trying to get back into a state whereby they no longer owe money. Then consider business owners. You can see how all of this baggage isn’t particularly helpful when you’re then running a business as a grownup, right? Because everything still feels like hard work and how many times do you see business owners tearing their hair out? That’s because they’ve ended up working solid fifty plus hour weeks and they’re scratching their head thinking “I’m not making the money that I thought I’d make.” Onwards and upwards; listen or watch the episode to hear the rest! You can get my book here: “Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea” About My Guest From the age of 18, Robin Waite spent four years as a systems analyst for a medical devices company, helping them increase their turnover by 50 per cent, from £1 million to £1.5 million. From 2004 to 2014 Robin ran a successful design and advertising agency serving over 250 clients. During this time, he delivered workshops and masterclasses that helped over 1,000 business owners improve their marketing, product architecture, pricing, websites and digital advertising. Robin loves helping businesses to become more successful and getting results for his clients is what gets him out of bed each day. Robin’s practical, one-to-one sessions are grounded in hard work and a relentless focus on goals. He believes his coaching & mentor program can help ANY business become more profitable… and have a lot more fun while they’re at it! Robin works with ambitious businesses in Gloucestershire, the south west of England and beyond, his goal is to help as many business owners as possible by sharing his 19 years of experience through his talks and workshops, business books, and one-to-one coaching. Learn more about Robert and Fearless Business! Connect with Robert on LinkedIn! Want to learn more about successful money mindsets? Check out “How to Create a Millionaire Mindset with Cole Vandee“

    26 min

  5. JAN 21

    How to Sell Your Services Without Being Pushy with Eric Shulman

    Today we’re discussing how to sell your services without being pushy; because nobody likes to be sold to but everyone loves to buy. My guest is Eric Schulman. Eric brings over 5 decades of business experience to the table.  A “Serial Entrepreneur”, he’s worked with both tangible and intangible products and services in B2B and B2C environments.  After building 5 businesses on his own, he started Consultants Can Sell! specifically to work with Business Owners, Consultants and Sales Professionals to provide sales training that really works.   The Accidental Salesperson Eric believes sales is an accidental profession and nobody ever plans to be in sales. His accident happened when Eric was a kid. He used to sell stuff door to door, if the reader remembers door to door. But at the age of 12 years old, his mom and dad opened a record store in Levittown, New Jersey, in 1963. Six months later, there was a group called The Beatles that was on the Ed Sullivan Show. Eric was the 13-year-old kid in Levittown, New Jersey, whose dad owned the record store. Most people’s parents teach their kids things such as children were seen and not heard, don’t talk to strangers and so on. Eric’s mom taught him something different. On one busy day his mom told him to go wait on a new customer. She effectively said “Go talk to a stranger”. What that taught Eric was don’t talk to strangers until you’re old enough to earn a commission. That’s how Eric accidentally got into sales. He found that he was good at it. He could connect to people well. Because of that all through high school, Eric was the only one who always had money in his pocket. In addition to commission Eric also earned an hourly salary. That was nice and he liked having money. Eric likes to say that salespeople are coin operated; they do what the money tells them to do. If his mom and dad hadn’t opened a store he probably would have wound up in sales, but not at such an early age. The “Official” Start of a Sales Career Eric says his sales career “officially” started in his early teens because by the time he was 18 he had been accepted to three colleges, but he didn’t want to go to college. Eric liked what he did. He was making decent money as a kid. He was making hundreds of dollars a week in 1969. When you were making that much money you could buy a house back then. Eric believed he didn’t need to go to college. He was very, very well read and he went to college but wound up dropping out after one semester. Then he gave college another try one year later and stayed for two semesters. He achieved a 3.9 GPA. His parents sold the store in Jersey in 1973 and moved to Orlando and opened a chain of stores. Eric was the heir apparent to the family business and decided that was his career path. So consciously around the age of 19, he decided that’s what he wanted to do. He didn’t need to go to school. Eric worked for the family business until I was 28 or 29 years old. Sales as an Adult Eric came to an interesting realization. At the age of 29, he did the math and realized he was never going to get rich in the family business. So, he made the decision to leave the family business after doing the marketing for eight years. Eric started in the marketing field and wound up forming a direct marketing agency in 1980 and bought a computer when they cost $30,000. He mortgaged the house and started providing direct mail services. In five years he grew that business to 54 people in a 17,000 square foot facility. Eric was doing 90% of the sales. He sold that business in 1993. Eight months later, he met Sharon, who owned a wedding back business and would eventually become his wife. Eric bolstered the value of the business and they sold the business in 1995. They moved to upstate New York and Eric took a job where he became the number one salesperson in the company. From there he opened a Sandler Training franchise in Orlando, Florida. He made more money in eight months than he had made in the previous year and did that for almost two decades. He sold the business just before the pandemic and struck out on his own as a sales trainer. Eric created a sales system called truth-based selling that showed people how to create a place where people can feel comfortable being honest with you. The rest, as they say, is history. From there we dive into topics including: Why most salespeople default to high pressure selling. How to develop relationships with prospects whether or not they buy from you. How to break down the wall of resistance with prospects so they’ll trust you enough to speak honestly with you. The real reason prospects are coming to you, and it’s not to buy something. How to discover the real reason prospects are coming to you. The process of “Building radical empathy” of how to leverage it in your sales conversations. The three steps of diagnosing your prospect’s problem. How to navigate the road between creating a safe space to talk and closing a sale without being pushy. People buy based on emotions. How to get your prospects to emotionally want to buy from you. Why you should discuss money early on in your sales conversations. The principle of scarcity and how to leverage it in sales conversations. The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to close more sales without being pushy. …and other golden nuggets of advice! You can get my book here: “Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea” About My Guest Eric Shulman started his career helping build and run a successful chain of music stores in NJ and FL.  He started National List Council, a direct marketing company in 1980.  Over the next 12 years, he grew the business to 17,000 square feet with over 50 employees. When he sold NLC, he joined his new wife’s business: Sprinkles Custom Cakes!  In just 6 months, Sprinkles grew from doing four wedding cakes per month at “grocery store” prices up to 15 to 20 per week at double the price!  After selling Sprinkles in 1995, he led a national sales force selling Business Consulting Services in NY, Boston, DC, NJ, VA, and FL. His close ratio was five times the company average.  When his earnings potential capped out, he opened a Sales Training Business in 2003, and was named Rookie of the Year in just eight months.  After almost two decades in that field, he sold in 2019.  ConsultantsCanSell.com is his latest venture:  Putting his 50 years of business expertise to work for others. Learn more about Eric’s company; Consultants Can Sell! Reach out to Eric directly: (321) 301-5700 Eric.InsideMan@gmail.com Want to learn more about sales? Check out this Idea Climbing Podcast episode: “Story Selling: How to Know What Stories to Tell to Sell with Sylvain “Sly” Haché”

    29 min

  6. JAN 13

    How to Create Your Servant Leadership Origin Story with Adrienne Wilkerson

    If you practice servant leadership people want to get to know you through your origin story. Sharing it will help you boost your brand and enhance your marketing. I discuss how to create and develop your origin story in this episode with my guest, Adrienne Wilkerson.     As Co-Founder and CEO of Beacon Media + Marketing, Adrienne is driven by a passion for developing people and fostering a culture where innovation thrives. In her early 20s, she realized she would make a much better boss than an employee, which led her to found her own company in 2001. Today, she is a visionary leader who’s company has earned it a spot on the Inc. 5000 list of Fastest-Growing Private Companies for three consecutive years.  The Origin of Adrienne’s Servant Leadership Origin Story One of Adrienne’s favorite things when she gets to talk to founders, CEOs, business owners, there’s almost always a powerful story behind why they’re doing what they’re doing. Why did they start their own business? Why does this matter? That “why”, that story, has really created them as leaders and created them in the business space. That’s why Adrienne believes that’s why that origin story is so important. It’s a powerful connection piece. Entrepreneurship is a lot of Adrienne’s origin story. Her father is an entrepreneur and a business owner, so was my grandmother. Adrienne has a lot of entrepreneurs in her family and hence she had a lot of excellent examples of entrepreneurship in her life. Her grandmother together with a partner started the very first art gallery in Anchorage, Alaska way back in the day. She was just an entrepreneurial person. Adrienne’s father started one of the first counseling and medical clinic combinations with the idea of taking care of the whole person and the medical and the counseling working together. It was a beautiful vision and there was a reason behind that. Those origin stories and what both of them accomplished spoke to Adrienne as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, and as a leader. Growing Up Entrepreneurial Adrienne’s father is a therapist that started his own therapy clinic. So she was raised by a therapist. There was a lot of times where she would have to tell her dad, “I need you to be my dad and not my therapist right now”. And he’d be like, “okay. Right, right. Thank you”. Then we would laugh and switch gears. He passed on his insights into people and his understanding of what drives people and how people work and tick and interact with each other. It was that experience and that knowledge that he had through school, through working with a lot of leaders. He passed a lot of that on to Adrienne organically. He was a natural teacher. Even with the circumstances that Adrienne would grow up in, such as dealing with personal conflict at school, at college, and just even in relationships, he would just walk her through a lot of resolutions. He would tell her you must ask these questions and you understand what’s really going on in each situation. He told Adrienne if you’re going to lead, there’s a guiding relationship there. She remembers coming back from high school one day from class very frustrated because she was the year book editor in chief and we were co just coming off a big deadline and she did all the work. She was venting that her team didn’t do this and that. Adrienne had to take over for that them and had to do this person’s job and that person’s job. She wondered why can’t they just do their jobs? Her father’s feedback was: You met your deadline. You got across the finish line. How much of your team came across the finish line with you? Or did you just plow through and make it happen and leave the rest of them in the dust? Leadership Lessons Learned That was one of those moments, one of the lessons that hit Adrienne upside the head and shifted the course of how she viewed leadership. Adrienne learned it’s not just enough as a leader to accomplish a goal. You have to try your best to guide your team to come with you. Now granted, not everybody will choose to walk across that finish line with you. If they don’t choose to, that, that’s their choice. As long as you as a leader are doing everything that you can to create that kind of environment where people want to grow with, want to accomplish the goal with you, and it’s not really leading. If you do everybody’s job and cross that finish line by yourself, it was a great hike, but that’s not leading. There are things like that, stories like that, that Adrienne’s father wove in those lessons that he wove into her life that have really shaped how she chooses to lead now. Adrienne definitely doesn’t nail it on the head every time. That’s part of the process of learning and growing. Creating and Leveraging Your Origin Story As a business owner or a CEO, there are stories that make up your origin story. Those are powerful because they are what connect with people and make people want to buy from you. They hate to be sold, but they love to buy. We know this concept in business, and who do they want to buy from? They want to buy from somebody they know, like, and trust. So, in this digital age, how do we as business owners, as CEOs, how do we connect with our audience, with our ideal client profile? We do it in part through our origin story, through those stories that shaped us and shaped our company because those connect with people. That story could connect with somebody else who had a therapist as a father. There’s lots of aspects of that formula, but that’s why the origin story and even some of the really raw parts of your origin story, your failures, your successes. That’s what makes you human, and that’s what provides the opportunity for people to connect and to feel like they know you, which means they’re going to trust you. That’s a kind of a 10,000 foot view as to why that origin story is so important. Adrienne believes, at least if you don’t have, and what you said, including raw details an origin story, that’s what its servant leadership is getting people to follow you and eventually developing them, but getting people to follow a mission. We also dive into topics including: Why it’s ok to say “no” to servant leadership opportunities if the people involved don’t fit your ideal client or ideal partnership profile. The structure that makes a great origin story. Why you need to start with your “Why”. Why it’s important to include your failures and what you learned from the challenges you overcame. How your origin story shapes your servant leadership journey. Why if you’re not failing you’re not trying enough new things. Knowing when sharing your trials and tribulations becomes oversharing. The responsibilities of a servant leader. Why people won’t always follow what you say but they will follow what you do. How to create an environment of trust, or a safe space, within your business. Why putting other people first pays dividends as a servant leader. The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to create and live your servant leadership origin story. …and other golden nuggets of advice! You can get my book here: “Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea” About My Guest As Co-Founder and CEO of Beacon Media + Marketing, Adrienne Wilkerson is driven by a passion for developing people and fostering a culture where innovation thrives. She is a visionary leader who guides her team to find opportunity in every challenge, pushing creative boundaries to deliver impactful results. This approach has established Beacon as an award-winning digital marketing agency, renowned for its work in the mental and behavioral health sectors. Adrienne believes that investing in people is the key to success, creating an environment where her team can learn, excel, and build with purpose. Her forward-thinking leadership has earned Beacon a coveted spot on the Inc. 5000 list of Fastest-Growing Private Companies for three consecutive years. A respected voice in the business community, Adrienne extends her influence as a sought-after speaker, published author, and podcast host. She shares practical insights on leadership, ethical marketing, and adapting to industry shifts like the rise of AI, encouraging leaders to use technology to deepen human connection. Beyond her professional achievements, Adrienne finds balance and inspiration with her family on their ranch. This life fuels her belief in hard work and resilience—principles she applies to both her business and her commitment to building a legacy of positive impact for the next generation. Check out Adrienne’s Podcast! Connect with Adrienne on LinkedIn! Get Adrienne’s book “Digital Marketing for Mental Health: From Complex to Clarity” here! Want to learn more about servant leadership? Check out “How to Embrace Servant Leadership with Andrew Kolikoff“!

    25 min

  7. JAN 7

    How Entrepreneurs Can Build a Circle of Trust with Jonathan Hung

    Creating a circle of trust can create explosive business growth. I discuss how to do that with my guest, Jonathan Hung. Jonathan is a successful VC and entrepreneur. He has evolved from his role as a prolific angel investor with over 150+ pre-seed and pre-IPO investments under his belt to becoming the Managing Partner for Entrepreneur Ventures.     Jonathan believes that everyone thinks entrepreneurship is all about fundraising. That’s one aspect of building a business. Jonathan is dedicating his upcoming book to his father. He was a great entrepreneur who came to this country with nothing and along with Jonathan’s mom they built an amazing company. Entrepreneurship is about building trusted relationships from business partners to advisors and mentors. The Importance of Being Real Jonathan’s perspective on life is that you’re going to meet a lot of fakes. A lot of people who try to sell you an idea by telling you it’s all going to be roses, but really, will they be helpful in the long run, right? You must find people that you could trust to work with you. You can easily like somebody, but can you actually trust them? That’s why the subtitle of Jonathan’s upcoming book is “Why trust drives venture capital success.” Jonthan built his career based on people that he trusted, and who have trusted him. That’s how he’s built success. How to Build Trust It’s the simplest things. It’s not just saying “I’m going to write you a check.” It’s about both parties being be very communicative. That means doing things like giving regular updates. Having great communication is the most important rule. It also means asking for help. If you don’t ask, it’s always no. The number one rule in sales that you ask. That you keep going, you don’t take discouragement. You know, it sucks sometimes, right? Getting turned down and you might have to hear a thousand no’s before you get to that one yes. But when you get to that yes, it was all worth it. It was all worth it. For Jonthan building trust is showing up. It’s doing the hard work. It’s not about just executing, it’s also about showing people how you did it because some people think it’s just how like the ends justify the means. For Jonathan it’s about growing as a human being. It’s about finding those people you can trust because you can count on them. Neither of you over promise and under deliver. Jonathan is a big believer that you don’t over promise and then under deliver. He’s always about under promising and over delivering because he’s had people in his past who he’s invested in give that gave him crazy numbers. He would think, “How are you going to do that? How are you going to 10x your business in a year?” Sometimes that makes no sense. Jonathan also loves people who give him a plan. It’s all about the execution. It’s how you go through with something. That’s how you build trust, in his opinion. We also dive into topics such as: The definition and examples of a circle of trust. How you can start to intentionally build a circle of trust. The types of people that should be in your circle of trust. Why nobody that’s successful has done it by themselves. How to approach the right people to bring them into your circle of trust. Why you should practice being a “giver”. How to maintain a circle of trust over time once you’ve built yours. The role vulnerability plays in building your circle of trust. Jonathan’s philosophy of “living your life in quarters” and how to embrace it. The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to build a successful circle of trust. …and other golden nuggets of advice! You can get my book here: “Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea” About My Guest   Jonathan Hung is a seasoned venture capitalist and entrepreneur with a proven track record in governance, strategic growth, and financial expertise. He led his family’s textile business across the U.S. and Asia before transitioning into venture capital, where he has invested in more than 250 companies and 50 funds. Today, Jonathan is the Managing Partner of Entrepreneur Ventures, a fund he co-founded with Entrepreneur Media, deploying capital into innovative startups and helping founders build profitable businesses. He also manages his family office fund, J Heart Ventures. His success in raising millions for venture funds, combined with cross-border operational expertise, positions him as a leader in capital growth and value creation. Learn more about Jonathan! Website / Portfolio LinkedIn Want to learn more about entrepreneurship? Check out “How to Create a Millionaire Mindset”!

    26 min

  8. 12/16/2025

    How to Write Copy That Positions You as a Thought Leader with Kristin Sweeney

    Today we’re discussing how to write copy that positions you as a thought leader. There are subtle nuances that separate the average copy from the excellent copy. I discuss strategies to become an excellent copy write and therefore an excellent thought leader with my guest, Kristen Sweeney.     Kristen is a content strategist who has helped over 100 organizations communicate more clearly, especially when the subject matter is complex or highly technical. She’s the founder of Every Little Word, a boutique content and communications agency that believes great ideas—and the people who power them—deserve a bigger voice. Her team builds expert-led content programs in industries like life sciences, higher education, and B2B services. Getting Started with Copy Writing Kristen did not come up as a professionally trained marketer, but she considers herself as someone who’s always been a writer. And for many years, freelance writing was one of her many side jobs that she worked while she was an actor in New York City and while she was a yoga teacher in New York City and Boston. Over the course of those years, freelance writing, she started to learn more and more about marketing. What happened for her was that classic situation where you hand over something to a client and then you see that the website copy never got launched or the asset was never created or they’re not using something. Something fell short somewhere. She started to ask questions such as what does it take to actually put these ideas and this information out into the world in a way that’s going to make impact? That led her to learning more about the disciplines of marketing and communications. In 2019, her first daughter was born. Long story short, like for so many people, that was a pivot point that changed everything. She started taking her writing and content work seriously and the rest is history. It’s certainly been a range of ups and downs, but she’s been running her business and team for over five years with over 15 years of experience in the copy writing field in general. The Origin of Great Copy Writing Kristen believes it starts with good ideas. Her company’s mission is to share great ideas with the world. The way they do that is through their approach to creating content and copy. To her, it’s all about the thinking that goes into the perspectives and the opinions and the ideas that people and companies can share. It should be something of substance. She believes content for a lot of people and companies has become more like “containers”. It’s a container to try to get somebody to click through. It’s a container to try to get someone to stay on the page longer. It’s a container to be able to track them, cookie them and start tracking them. Kristin’s of the mindset that the great ideas and the substance, the content of content is what we’re really after. Some Characteristics of a Great Idea That’s Worthy of Creating Content Around Kristen has a whole big piece on her company website about thought leadership. Great ideas in general tend to come from a place of someone who’s taken the time to really develop a unique perspective. That most often comes from their life experiences. It can come from their belief systems and their values. It can come from understanding their space or their industry and taking the time to think deeply about it. In general, Kristen believes it also comes from a high degree of caring. Her team has had situations in the past where they’ve tried to partner with someone as a thought leader. What happened was they were there to do their job day in and day out and they weren’t really invested in sharing their knowledge publicly. It takes a lot to be that kind of collaborator and that’s why that caring piece is really important When it comes to writing copy to be a thought leader, where does that process start? Kristen likes to think of a thought leader as someone who leads with their thoughts. That might sound obvious, but what she means by that is a lot of people define thought leadership by the external markers such as they have a huge following. The ideas come first. You could be a thought leader alone in your room all day long. The problem is you need to have the right platform to share those ideas and spread them and help them grow and get your message out there. When we think about thought leadership, again, the kernel of it is making sure that you are developing and forming your own perspectives and opinions. And then ultimately that you’re finding the right messages that align with whoever it is you are trying to reach. Many companies, when they think about thought leadership, they’re trying to reach customers. Other times you’re trying to reach peers. Think about folks who sell to their peers, such as a marketer who sells their courses to other marketers. They want to be seen as a thought leader among their peers who also happen to be their customers. Know Your Audience Really understanding your audience and how your perspectives and those things align and provide value to the people you want to be speaking with. That’s different from some common approaches to content where content is generated from the outside. And it’s main goal is to answer your audience’s questions. Kristen likes to think of thought leadership as answering questions. That includes questions your audience hasn’t even thought to ask sometimes. It goes beyond helpful into something that is thought-provoking, insightful, that gives them some kind of shift in the way they’re thinking about a particular topic. We also dive into topics including: What “The curse of knowledge” is to experts and how to overcome it. The ever present “blank page syndrome” and how to get started with writing copy. How to create a content creation strategy and integrate it into your professional life. A few definitions of thought leadership and how to decide which one applies to you. How to create value for your audience through content creation. Why “basic” is a really good place to start to establish thought leadership. Ideas for types of structure for your copy. Examples of copy writing best practices. The case for creating long form copy assets and how to successfully do it. How to consistently write great copy for thought leadership. The project management approach to writing great content and how to implement it. The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to create great content for thought leadership. …and other golden nuggets of advice You can get my book here: “Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea”   About My Guest   Kristen Sweeney is a writer and content strategist who has helped over 100 organizations communicate more clearly, especially who has helped over 100 organizations communicate more clearly, especially when the subject matter is complex or highly technical. Her agency, Every Little Word, develops expert-led content programs that use an organization’s expertise to build visibility, credibility, and trust. Every Little Word is a boutique content and communications agency that helps organizations in life sciences and pharma, higher education, and B2B professional services. The company is founded on the belief that great ideas—and the people behind them—deserve a bigger voice. Because audiences don’t need more filler content; they’re hungry for real substance. Connect with Kristen on LinkedIn! Learn more about Every Little Word!

    22 min
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About

If you’re passionate about bringing your big ideas to life and want actionable strategies for marketing, branding, sales, mentoring, networking and more this show is for you! You’ll learn from interviews with successful B2B thought leaders and entrepreneurs.

Information

  • Creator
    Mark J. Carter
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    150
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2019 Mark J. Carter & ONE80
  • Show Website
    The Idea Climbing Podcast