The Idea Climbing® Podcast

Mark J. Carter
  • 5.0 (4)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • 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. Jun 23

    How to Navigate the Path Between Relationships and Revenue with Lady Jen Duplessis

    You can’t run a business on relationships without revenue. At the same time you can’t try to sell everybody you meet. Where’s the middle ground? In this episode, I discuss how to navigate that path between relationships and revenue with my guest, Lady Jen Du Plessis. Lady Jen is known as The Business Scaling Architect and The Sovereign Leadership Mentor, boasting 40 years in finance and over $400 million in revenue generated. She is a celebrated numerous Barnes & Noble and Amazon #1 International Best-Selling author, 3X Podcast Host, and TV talk show host who delivers real transformation, not just fast profits - so her clients achieve both business success and personal fulfillment. We dive into topics including: ● Jen’s relationships to revenue origin story. ● The problems with most “one-to-one” networking meetings and how to avoid them. ● How to stop trying to sell and start trying to build relationships instead. ● How to know when it’s the right time to sell your services. ● An example role play of an effective relationship-building first time one-on-one. ● How to successfully grow your business without being “pushy”. ● The five questions that you need to ask in every first-time one-on-one meeting. ● How to prepare for productive and meaningful one-one-one meetings. ● How to know when to start building a relationship after your first meeting and how to do it. ● How to qualify people that might become part of your business’ inner circle of referral partners. ● Why you should aim for 56 people in your inner circle of referral partners and how often to connect with each of them. ● The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to successfully navigate the path from relationships to revenue. …and other golden nuggets of advice!

  2. Jun 16

    How to Create Engaging Virtual Meetings & Events with John Chen

    Making virtual meetings and events engaging can be an arduous task. You must have some key strategies to work with. I discuss some of them with my guest, John Chen. John is the author of the #1 Amazon Hot New Book Release, Engaging Virtual Meetings.  He’s been meeting virtually for over 38 years.  He has produced over 4,000 virtual meetings including an EIGHT language meeting and the only 100% LIVE virtual conference in the training industry. He’s one of only 400 Certified Speaking Professionals designated by the National Speakers Association. We Dive into Topics Including: ● John’s origin story for getting into the virtual event space. ● What most companies do wrong with virtual meetings and how to avoid their mistakes. ● Pro-tips for virtual event facilitation. ● How to create truly active and engaging virtual meetings. ● The importance of “psychological safety” in virtual meetings and how to create it. ● What you need to do in the first five minutes of any virtual meeting or event. ● How to define the purpose of your meetings and address a problem that needs to be solved. ● The ideal part of any engaging meeting or event. ● The structure of a great agenda for a meeting and how to create one. ● Why the sequence of the activities in your meetings and events is of paramount importance. ● The importance of vulnerability from the event facilitator/speaker to create open discussion with your audience. ● How to close your virtual meetings and events strong. ● The one thing, above all else, that you must do to have a successful virtual meeting or event. …and other golden nuggets of advice!

    25 min

  3. Jun 9

    How to Write and Publish a Successful Business Book with Weston Lyon

    Writing and publishing a business book is an art and science. I discuss pitfalls to avoid along with proven writing and publishing success strategies in this episode with my guest, Weston Lyon. Weston is the author of 23 books, including The Book Writing Blueprint, and the founder of Plug and Play Publishing. Known as one of the only authors to write nine books in 11 months, he has delivered more than 600 presentations and interviews over the past 25 years. Weston helps entrepreneurs and business owners write the right book and use it to build authority, attract clients, and grow their business. We dive into topics including: ● Weston’s origin story when it comes to authorship and profiting from his books. ● Where the book writing process begins. ● The three phases every author goes through when writing a book. ● A deep dive into the five-step process of writing and profiting from your book. ● The concept of time blocking and its necessity in the authorship space. ● The two things you need to look at to set your book up for success. ● How to find a topic that fits your target markets. ● The biggest problem people face when writing a book and other things not to do. ● The two types of book outlines you need to create. ● The three subconscious questions you need to answer for every chapter before you write them. ● The first thing you need to do after you finish writing your book. ● The five steps to successfully publishing your book before you start marketing it. ● How to start the profiting phase of your book after it’s published. ● How to leverage and profit from your book for the rest of your career. ● The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to successfully write and publish your business book. …and more golden nuggets of advice!

    29 min

  4. Jun 3

    Visioneering: How to Design Your Successful Future Self with Barbara Daoust

    Regardless of where you are today you have the power to design your successful future self; also called “Visioneering”. I discuss the pitfalls to avoid and the strategies to embrace to do that in this episode with my guest, Barbara Daoust. In a world where high achievers often struggle to break through the limits they impose on themselves, Barbara is helping leaders, entrepreneurs, and business owners step fully into their greatest potential.     Based in Los Angeles County, California, Barbara is a certified consultant with the Proctor/Gallagher Institute, guiding CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners to achieve measurable personal and professional results. We dive into topics including: The definition of “Visioneering” How to get started with creating your ideal future self. What your reticular activating system is and how to engage with it to create more opportunities. Why your reticular activating system helps you notice opportunities that will get you closer to your desires. The power of writing down exactly what it is that you want and why it helps you. The fact that our subconscious mind doesn’t see words; it sees pictures and the power of visualization. A look at “The Actor’s Technique” and how it helps you create your future self. The first sign of transformation and how to recognize it when it appears. The importance of creating “success habits” and how to do it. How imposter syndrome sets in and how to overcome it. Why there might be some truth to the advice “fake it ‘till you make it”. How to solidify successful change in your life when it happens and not backslide. The importance of taking inspired action every day. Why seeking failure will help you grow in the long run. How to keep on keepin’ on during the tough times. The importance of acknowledging your successes, even the small ones. The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to create your successful future self. …and other golden nuggets of advice! Barbara’s Origin Story In what seems like a past life Barbara was director and ran a theater company. She had success in her field. She has a master’s degree in directing. She was also a personal acting coach for the Olson twins for ten years. Barbara also ran an acting academy, and a lot of her past students are now doing very well in the entertainment industry. She also had a show at the Kennedy Center. Barbara directed one of the Olson twins’ videos and their animated series. She has a lot of experience in the entertainment field where people are constantly using their imaginations. And now she’s entered another field and works with high achievers, peak performers, and other people who really want more from life for themselves. The comments Barbara hears often is “There’s so much greatness inside of me and I don’t know how to get it out of me.” “I’m so frustrated with Underearning.” They may not say that they have low self-worth or low self-value, but essentially that’s what they’re saying. Things like “I’m not earning what I think I really should be earning, and I’m not accomplishing as much as I know I can accomplish, and I just don’t know what’s in the way.” Solving problems like those became her passion to pull performance out of a lot of those people who said that they wanted more and started showing people how to get into bold action and becoming their future self. It’s closing that gap between where they were and where they want to go, and doing it in a way that is a little bit more bold and radical. Where does future visioneering start? How does one get started with it? It starts with allowing yourself to fantasize and being honest with yourself; truly honest with yourself. Getting relaxed and allowing yourself to imagine all of the things that you would like to do in your life. What are things that you would like to accomplish? What are some goals that you have in your mind? One of Barbara’s first goals that she started thinking about a while ago was having enough money where she could pick up the tab in any five-star restaurant across the world for anyone who was sitting at my table. That was something that really excited her. So, in that excitement, she started to practice picking up the tab for eight people at the Hilton. It wasn’t a five-star hotel, but it was a start. A start of just starting to activate her imagination; how does that show up in her life? That then that pulled her in a direction of thinking about what is going to help me make more income in order to achieve that desire? It’s really to sitting down with yourself and asking “What is it that I really, really want?” That means thinking of something that you want, not what somebody else wants for you. Not the idea of becoming the lawyer, the doctor, or something else that’s going to make you a lot of money because you were told that it would. There’s an illusion of a title being the thing to go after, Barbara doesn’t believe that we are our jobs. She believes that our jobs are a vehicle for us to express who we are and what we’re here to do and what we want to accomplish in our lives. How to Get Focused on and Create More Opportunities Once you start to fantasize you select something that’s going to excite you and possibly scare you. It has to be something you’ve never done before. Because if you’re doing something you already know how to do, you’re not going to meet the parts of yourself you’ve never yet met. You want to go after something that has been inside of you for a long time, that you want to let out, that you want to express. Then you decide that you’re going to go for it. The first step is to make a committed decision that no matter what you’re aiming for, and once you start aiming and focusing, you’re going to get your desire. The purpose of the conscious mind is to focus and choose. Focus and choose. Once you get highly focused and you start choosing in the direction of your goal, then your reticular activating system in the subconscious mind starts to narrow the field so that you start to see things that were already there, but you didn’t notice before. You’re getting highly focused on bringing your desire to life at that point. It’s like a red Dodge. You don’t notice them until your purchase on and then you see them all over the road. The same happens with opportunities to achieve your goals; you’ll notice what you didn’t notice before. And that’s just the beginning! Listen to or watch the rest of the interview to continue this story and learn 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 In a world where high achievers often struggle to break through the limits they impose on themselves, Barbara Daoust is helping leaders, entrepreneurs, and business owners step fully into their greatest potential. Based in Los Angeles County, California, Barbara is a certified consultant with the Proctor/Gallagher Institute, guiding CEOs, entrepreneurs, and business owners to achieve measurable personal and professional results. With over 25 years of experience in theater, film, and television as a director, producer, and acting coach, she brings a unique understanding of performance, leadership, and human behavior to her coaching. Barbara helps leaders close the gap between knowledge and action to unlock untapped potential. She is also the author of “True Love, True Self: A Journey to Self-Love”, a keynote speaker, and creator of transformative coaching programs designed to expand self-confidence, productivity, and business growth. “Discover Greatness Within” and “Your Genius Code Unlocked” are two brainwave entrainment programs she developed with Dr. Jussi Erikainen from Spain. Her work empowers people to overcome limiting beliefs, embrace change, and step into their future identity. Click here to learn more about Barbara! Click here to connect with Barbara on LinkedIn! Click here to follow Barbara on Instagram! Click here to learn about Barbara’s “Code to Success” Program! Want more self-improvement insights? Check out “How to End Self-Sabotage and Boost Self-Confidence with Dr. Robyn Lynette”

    28 min

  5. May 19

    How to Successfully Build and Scale Your Service Business with Rick Elmore

    There’s an art and a science to scaling your service business. A big part of it is learning to work on your business and not in your business. I discuss how to do that with my guest, Rick Elmore. Rick Elmore is the Founder and CEO of Simply Noted, a technology company helping businesses build stronger relationships through automated handwritten communication powered by real pen and ink.     A former college and professional football player turned entrepreneur, Rick has combined his background in sales, marketing, and relationship-building to create one of the fastest-growing handwritten outreach platforms in the world. We dive into topics including:  Rick’s early days in sales that lead to his multi-million-dollar discovery. The importance of getting the right people in the right seats of your business. How to work on your business instead of in your business. Where and when Rick started working on his business instead of in his business. Your life cycle as an entrepreneur from inception to scaling your business. The importance of building an ecosystem of trust in your business and how to do it. What you need to do next after you build the core team of your business. How to scale your marketing initiatives. How to keep your sanity when you’re scaling as an owner/operator. The importance of discipline and how to develop it. Why scaling is a lifelong journey that never ends. The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to successfully scale your service business. …and other golden nuggets of advice! Rick’s Origin Story Rick has a pretty unique background. He was an athlete growing up. He played college and professional sports, even though athletics didn’t come to naturally to him. Athletics was something that Rick was able to be successful at because he was a hard worker and didn’t overextend himself. A lot of people discredit what you can get done in 10 years versus all the pressure they put on themselves to get done in a year. Rick had 15 years of experience working on not overextending himself before he became an entrepreneur. Rick made it to the NFL in 2010, but he was an athlete for a long time before that. His first year in the NFL he was playing for the Cleveland Browns, and he was with one of the back office people. They showed me his draft profile and it said, “This guy plays above his potential, is an overachiever, and wins with effort.” Back then he used to think that was like a stab. But now, being 38 years old, Rick looks back and he believes that all of those were his strengths. He used that and leveraged his ability to keep working hard to push on and persevere through any of life’s problems. Then five years in the NFL Rick went back and got his MBA. He was a typical B or C student; nothing special as he recalls. His mindset was that he was just there to memorize stuff and take tests. But he fell in love with learning because he was passionate about and interested in business. He wanted to learn how to start a business. He wanted to learn about what made businesses work even though he was completely green in the entrepreneurship space. When Rick went into sales that was one of the turning points in his life. Life After Sports Because he found something he was interested in, it became a lot easier to dedicate his life to it after sports. He had a marketing professor that said something that changed his life. About a year into his program, the professor said that handwritten mail had a 99% open rate. Rick realized that if you got something in the mail, and it was handwritten, you were going to open it. He grew up in the nineties, when people used to write notes to their friends. It became a lost art over time. BUT there was no way to like do it efficiently at scale. It took Rick a lot of time to sit down and write a holiday card to each of his clients and put them in envelopes. Rick started researching and there was a technology called a “pen plotter” out at that time. It had no paper feed, no technology behind it. He got it from China, built it and went to his friends and said “Hey, this is my idea. Can you help me?” He knew nothing about software, nothing about software integrations and software coding. Rick’s a-HA! Business Scaling Moment But he DID know that if his idea could be flushed out there would be an opportunity for a business because nobody else was doing it. Rick made it work. He created 500 handwritten notes using that simple handwriting robot and sent them out to clients and prospects. The response rate was amazing. Many of his clients and prospects were doctors and many of them responded to his note that it helped Rick bypass his $50,000 a month quota. Rick made over $270,000 in sales. That was the most money he had ever made. He laughed because people think just because he was in NFL, that he made a lot of money, which is not true. Only about 1% of the athletes who go to the NFL make all the money that you think they do. The CEO of his company took notice of the results Rick was getting. When he met Rick, he said “Keep doing whatever you’re doing. It’s working.” Rick figured if the CEO is noticing what he’s doing, it had to mean he was on to something. The Payoff for Scaling His Business the Right Way Rick says he was a football player and a sales and marketing guy who started a robotics/engineering automation business with zero experience. But he wouldn’t have been able to get to over $10 million in revenue, with multi-seven-figure a year runs in business, if he hadn’t gotten the right people in the right seats and built the right systems for scaling everything he was doing. Rick says you can’t just focus on one thing. You must scale your marketing, get the leads, and then scale the team to close the leads. After that you must scale your production. And that was a process. Rick believes what most entrepreneurs do wrong is getting stuck working in their businesses instead of working on their businesses. It was time for Rick to start working on his business. That is just the beginning! Watch or listen to the interview for the rest of the story and 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 Rick Elmore is the Founder and CEO of Simply Noted, a technology company helping businesses build stronger relationships through automated handwritten communication powered by real pen and ink. A former college and professional football player turned entrepreneur, Rick has combined his background in sales, marketing, and relationship-building to create one of the fastest-growing handwritten outreach platforms in the world. Founded in 2018, Simply Noted helps companies scale authentic, personalized communication through proprietary technology that integrates handwritten notes into modern sales and marketing systems. Under Rick’s leadership, the company has worked with businesses across industries including real estate, insurance, hospitality, nonprofit, franchise, and B2B organizations. Before launching Simply Noted, Rick played football at the University of Arizona and spent time in the NFL before transitioning into medical sales and entrepreneurship. Today, he is known for his expertise in relationship-driven marketing, customer retention, and helping businesses stand out in an increasingly automated world. Click here to learn more about Simply Noted! Click here to connect with Rick on LinkedIn! Want to learn more about building a successful service business? Check out “How to Package and Price Your Service Offering with Alex Shartsis“

    27 min

  6. May 13

    How to End Self-Sabotage and Boost Self-Confidence with Dr. Robyn Lynette

    Entrepreneurs face self-sabotage more than most people. We can also experience powerful self-confidence when we have the right strategies. I discuss how to overcome self-sabotage and replace it with life-altering self confidence in this episode with my guest, Dr. Robyn Lynette. Dr. Robyn is an executive strategy partner who has spent nearly two decades working privately with CEOs and founders during the highest-stakes moments of their professional lives.     Drawing on business and sport psychology, she identifies the hidden patterns that can quickly undermine decision-making and leadership at the top, where the pressure is high and the margin for error is thin. The leaders she works with aren’t looking for help; they’re looking for an edge. She’s also the author of the memoir I’d Like to Thank the Cartel for Getting Me Out of a Cult. We dive into topics including: Why playing competitive sports helped form Robyn’s mindset for success in all areas of life. How your brain can either help or hinder you. Specific examples of the best way your brain can help you. The unfortunate reality of our “Fight or flight” response and how to overcome it. The power of intuition and what it really is. Examples of what happens when you ignore your intuition. Where self-sabotage comes from and why it’s there. How to recognize self-sabotage and stop it in its tracks. What your logical brain needs to do to step in and “save the day” on bad days. How to build mental habits to automatically break your stream of self-sabotage. Why people stay stuck in self-destructive or self-sabotaging habits. The definition of self-confidence. Where building self-confidence starts and what it looks like. Examples of confident behaviors and how to develop them. The all important role of self-talk in your life, especially when it comes to self-confidence. The origin of self-fulfilling prophecies and how to create good ones. How to change negative emotions when you realize you’re feeling them. How to maintain self-confidence over time even on the “down days”. The role your logical brain plays when combined with your emotional brain. The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to end self-sabotage and boost self-confidence. …and other golden nuggets of advice! Robyn’s Introduction to Self-Sabotage and Self-Confidence Robyn’s story goes back to when she used to play competitive beach volleyball. There were some days when she could get on the court and just nail it; she felt like a phenomenal volleyball player. And then there were other days when she would get on the court and her partner would hold out a volleyball and ask, “Robyn, this is a volleyball. Have you ever seen one before?” Robyn wondered, “Where did my game go?” Because of that, Robyn’s interest was sparked. She had the opportunity in college to study high performance people and how and why they achieve more than the general population. The thing that she noticed was that across all professions, whether you’re in business, sports, or the military, is how your brain can either help you or hinder you.  She likes to joke and say, “Whether you’re using your brawn or your brain, your brain is still gonna be in the way.” Your Brain Can Help or Hinder You… It’s Your Choice! Obviously, your brain can help with critical thinking. For example, we can manage stress and override our fight or flight response. You probably know that in the modern world; we’re constantly in fight or flight mode. Because of that we have all hormones that are constantly flooding our brains; for better or worse. If you’re going to succeed, you must be able to set that mode aside and realize, “I know I’m not being chased by a saber tooth tiger; I can do this.” Doing that starts to help. The hinder part, or problem, is if you’re constantly overcoming fight or flight and pushing down that fear, you’re also eliminating your gut instinct and your intuition. Things like those that can help you get pushed down because you’re in fight or flight mode. Which leads us to intuition… Entrepreneurs and Intuition Intuition is an interesting phenomenon. There’s a lot of science around it that talks about how intuition is your sunconscious picking up on patterns before your logical mind recognizes them. Which means your emotional brain is the part of your brain that makes you think of the perfect thing to say 20 minutes after the argument. That’s the part of your brain that was overriding things. If you want that intuition to come through, you must listen to your emotional, or subconscious part of your brain. So many of us are ignoring it, and we’re all in critical thinking mode most of the time. That’s what keeps us awake at 3:00 AM because we’re thinking of all the things that we didn’t share when we had the opportunities to do so during the day. You should make time during the day to listen to that part of your brain. There are many ways you can do that. It could be meditation. Robyn believes meditation is an excellent practice. But she gets a lot of people telling her that they don’t have time to meditate. Connecting with and Listening to Your Intuition Maybe for you it’s when you’re driving in the car, you leave the radio off, so you don’t have that extra input. Then your subconscious brain has a chance to bubble to the surface. Maybe for you, it’s working with someone, whether it’s a coach, therapist, strategic business partner or someone like that who talks through that stuff with you. That can trigger the part of your brain that brings up with intuition. At the end of the day, it comes down to making time to actively listen to your thoughts. Then there’s the other side of the coin. You’ve probably had this happen to you. You have an intuition (or gut feeling), you ignore it, and then you wonder “Why did I ignore that?” It’s when you’re walking out the door and you’re thinking, “I know I’m forgetting something”, and you get 10 minutes down the road, and your brain reminds you about what you forgot. Then you have to turn around and go get it. That happens when you’re not making time for your subconscious, emotional brain to bubble to the top. Your intuition can actually speak to your logical brain and prevent problems like that. That is just the beginning! Watch or listen to the interview for the rest of the story and 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 Dr. Robyn Lynette, an executive strategy partner, has spent nearly two decades working privately with CEOs and founders during the highest-stakes moments of their professional lives: funding rounds, major exits, board crises, fraud inside the leadership team, restructuring, and the quieter weight that comes with making decisions no one else can make. With a background in business and sport psychology she works with leaders to identify the hidden patterns that undermine decision-making, relationships, and performance at the top —where the pressure is high and the margin for error is thin. The leaders who work with Dr. Robyn aren’t looking for help. They’re looking for an edge: the ability to think clearly under pressure, communicate with authority, and lead with greater influence and self-trust. She is also the author of the memoir I’d Like to Thank the Cartel for Getting Me Out of a Cult, which explores the personal experiences that shaped her approach to resilience, leadership, and human behavior. Learn More About Dr. Robyn! Check out Dr. Robyn’s Book! Watch Dr. Robyn’s TEDx talk “Creating Success Out of Chaos”  Want more self improvement advice? Check out “How to Design Your Ideal Life by Creating Fulfillment and Impact with Mo Salami”

    26 min

  7. May 5

    How to Package and Price Your Service Offering with Alex Shartsis

    How to package and price your service offering are difficult decisions to make. Most entrepreneurs wrestle with them for years. I discuss how to do it faster and more effectively with my guest, Alex Shartsis. Alex is a multi-exit founder and go to market strategist who has led go-to-market at venture-backed startups including Drawbridge, acquired by LinkedIn, and TripIt, acquired by Concur, and ran corporate development at Opendoor.     Today he’s the co-founder and CEO of Skyp — an AI-powered outbound email platform that helps founders and sales teams book more meetings without hiring an sales development representative. He built Silverwood Advisors, an advisory practice focused on GTM strategy, into a go-to resource for teams in Silicon Valley and beyond. We dive into topics including: The difference between charging hourly, project-based, or retainer pricing options. Where to start when you’re packaging a service. The importance of understanding your clients’ needs before determining pricing models. How to make promises that you can follow through on. The importance of setting expectations before the sale and how to do it. How to do research about how to price your service offering. The importance of having a deep understanding of your clients’ business models. How to position yourself for success in the marketplace. Why most service providers underprice themselves and what to do about it. Why pricing low to win business rarely works. How to pick the most profitable target markets. The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to package and price your services successfully. …and other golden nuggets of advice! Living in the Startup World Alex has worked with a lot of startups, at least 20 or 30 at this point. He prefers early-stage startups where he must figure out their product market fit and figure out what their customers want. Alex has been advising and selling consulting services for six years now, and he’s become great at packaging his own service as a result. In addition, he’s spoken with many other consultants about how they package themselves successfully. Alex has ended up with a wealth of knowledge that he never intentionally set out to get; but he’s grateful to have it now. The Origin of How Alex Packaged His Service Offerings and What You Can Learn from His Experience For Alex, it’s a funny story. Originally Alex wasn’t looking to get into consulting. He had just left his startup, and it was a rough time. A venture capital friend asked Alex to become an advisor to one of his companies. Even though he was planning to take some time off, Alex agreed. Alex spoke with friends who were in the consulting world. One had only done consulting throughout his entire career. His advice to Alex was to charge $300 an hour. The challenge with that was that startup founders often don’t know how many hours they need. More Ideas and Suggestions for Fee Structures Alex continued his conversations. Next, he spoke with people that worked only on project-based fee structures. He liked that because he believes people don’t want the surprises that come from charging hourly rates. It can hurt your relationships if the hours go over the amount initially proposed. The project-based work they discussed involved payment at certain milestones. When you hit a milestone with your clients, they pay you $10,000 and so on. That structure aligns the work with the results. And then the third fee structure Alex discovered was the retainer-based model. For example, he would charge $10,000 a month for one day a week, and $20,000 a month for two days a week. Then there was the option for $30,000 to have Alex for a full week. Alex realized was that he had a strong opinion after having been a founder who hired consultants, and that was that. Immediately, he didn’t want to underprice. He believed the biggest risk he faced was underpricing his time. And second, he wanted to make sure he didn’t get stuck in a cheaper-will-get-you-more-clients mindset. He didn’t want to be the poor salesperson who drives a Honda Accord, who asks “Why would you ever spend $150,000 on a car?” Thinking that way is self-defeating when it comes to pricing your services. If you put yourself in your buyer’s shoes, they may have a completely different perspective of budget and value than you do. Value and budget are equally important. Alex didn’t want to make that mistake and didn’t want to have to track his hours as the sole way of delivering value. He notices that the consultants that took the hourly route were working with founders who had lots of different things going on and needed a variety of consulting services. An hour here for this project; an hour there for another project. More Decisions About Pricing Models For example, if Alex took the hourly route and asked a client to review his work on their website and then move onto the next step, if it took the client two weeks to get to the next step he couldn’t bill them anything for two weeks because he was waiting for them to review the web site. In that case you must track your billing and you’re at the mercy of wondering if your client will do the thing they said they were going to do (and in a timely manner). In that scenario you can’t send them an invoice that month because they didn’t follow through. So, the retainer model was what Alex decided to go with, at a price point that he initially thought he would have never paid at that rate when he was a founder. But now, looking back on it, Alex says he probably would have in the end because he realized that it reduced the risk for him as a founder. With the retainer model he gradually increased his retainer as he had more clients. And that is just the beginning! Listen to or watch the interview to continue this story and get 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   Alex Shartsis is a multi-exit founder and go to market strategist who has led go-to-market at venture-backed startups including Drawbridge (acquired by LinkedIn) and TripIt (acquired by Concur), and ran corporate development at Opendoor. Today he is the co-founder and CEO of Skyp, the best AI outreach tool for sales teams — an AI-powered microcampaign platform that helps founders and sales teams book more meetings without hiring an SDR. He also runs Silverwood Advisors, an advisory practice focused on go to market strategy and early-stage M&A for founders. Alex writes the Seed to Sequoia newsletter on strategy, and the Skyp Go to Market Newsletter on outbound and sales strategy for founders and operators. You can connect with him on LinkedIn. Want to learn more about entrepreneurship? Check out “How to Go from Employee to Solopreneur to Entrepreneur with Sys Savanh“

    25 min

  8. Apr 21

    How to Go from Employee to Solopreneur to Entrepreneur with Sys Savanh

    The journey from employee to entrepreneur can be confusing. Where do you begin? How to create a mindset to get you there? In this interview we answer questions like that with my guest, Sys Savanh. Sys is the founder of 7 Figure Expert Academy, where he helps entrepreneurs package, position, and scale their expertise into powerful offers that actually sell. In this conversation, we’re going beyond theory!     We’re talking about what’s working right now; how to stand out, how to monetize what you know, and how to build something that doesn’t just look good online… but actually grows your business. We dive into topics including: The fear of making the leap from employee to solopreneur and how to overcome it. How to start building a business as a solopreneur. The difference between a business operator and a business owner. How to make the shift from being an operator to an owner. The four pillars of a successful business. Why you still need people working for you when you’re a solopreneur. How to know when you’re ready to make the leap from solopreneur to entrepreneur. Why you can’t build a brand first; you have to sell first. The characteristics of entrepreneurs that make them different than solopreneurs. How to automate your sales and generate consistent leads. How to maintain success as an entrepreneur and not slide backwards. How to hit the milestone of placing most of your focus on marketing instead of selling. The importance of developing procedures and processes. Why your main job as an entrepreneur is to get yourself seen more and how to do it. The one thing, above all else, that you have to do to be successful on your journey from employee to solopreneur to entrepreneur. …and other golden nuggets of advice! Sys’ Journey from Employee to Solopreneur to Entrepreneur Sys believes that when you’re an employee, there’s often a point when you have something brewing in your gut that tells you there’s something more out there. Just like Sys did for three years as an employee. He just knew that he was meant for more, like he was meant to do something great. Sys believes that if you have something tugging at you, you start asking yourself questions like “What’s my purpose, what’s the meaning of life and is there more to life than this?” Those are the types of questions he started asking himself as he was being the best employee possible for the companies he was working for. Ever since Sys was 10 years old he has always been a hard worker. He would go around his neighborhood knocking on doors asking if he could cut his neighbors’ lawns. When somebody allowed him to cut their grass for five bucks, he did it. Sys considered himself to be the best grass cutter. Then he went onto Burger King and then the VFW where he was the best dishwasher. At every company he went to work for, he was always the best. Then in 2002 he read a quote, “If you don’t build your dream, someone will hire you to build theirs.” That hit him like a ton of brick as an employee. Sys realized that he wasn’t building his dream but he was hired to build someone else’s and he was trading his time for money. That didn’t sit well with him. He realized it was time to… Stop Trading Time for Money There was a catalyst for him to make a transition two years later in 2004. Sys saw another quote from Jim Rohn; “If you didn’t come from a wealthy family, make sure a wealthy family comes from you.” He considered that to be his second sign from God. With that he decided enough’s enough. Sys decided God was speaking to him and he went for it. He  started to figure out a plan. He went back to school to get his business degree. Then what started it all was when Sys was a manager at a very large company called ITT and he went into a board meeting one day. The CEO came out and told everyone he has lay off 57 people because people didn’t sell enough services. That stuck with him. Sys realized the CEO was right. It doesn’t matter what the economy is like, it doesn’t matter what’s happening in the marketplace. If somebody doesn’t sell, they have to lay people off. He had never done sales before, so he took a sales position just to learn how to sell and how to communicate. He was presented with two options. Do you want to get paid $55,000 a year plus bonuses, or do you want to make as much as you want? That would mean he would be on a hundred percent commission. He chose the hundred percent commission. He thanks God he did that because he just crushed it. Sys realized that it’s not that he was great at sales, he was just really good at being himself. That’s how his sales journey started and that’s when it really gave him the confidence to move from employee to a solopreneur. Making the Leap from Employee to Solopreneur Sys says there’s always fear involved with the decision to go from being an employee to being a solopreneur. There’s negative self-talk. He calls it “the crappy committee that’s inside of your head.” He says you have to fire that committee and change your board there. There’s a whole executive board up there in your head. When Sys made the leap the fear was there. He went for it anyways. He future paced myself and pretended he was 70 years old and sitting in his rocking chair and wondering what if he didn’t make the leap? Would he regret it? Then he decided, whether he succeeded or not, at least he could tell himself that he went for it. Then he asked himself what if I actually succeeded? What are my rewards? His rewards outweighed his regrets, and that gave him the courage to go through with it, even though fear was still there. There was a calling, Sys believes that God was calling to him to step out on his own. It was December 3rd, 2005, when he opened his very first business. In December of 2025 Sys celebrated his 20th anniversary as an entrepreneur. That business was a sales company. Sys went out and got contracts to sell other people’s products and services. He did that for close to seven years. And that is just the beginning! Listen to or watch the interview to continue this story and get 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 Sys Savanh is an entrepreneur and business strategist who helps coaches, consultants, and experts turn what they know into scalable, high-income businesses. As the founder of 7 Figure Expert Academy, Sys specializes in helping entrepreneurs package their expertise, position themselves as authorities, and build offers that don’t just sound good—but actually convert. His work focuses on simplifying the path to growth—cutting through the noise of overcomplicated marketing and helping his clients create clear, repeatable systems that generate consistent revenue. If you’ve ever felt like you have more value to offer than what your business is currently producing, Sys is the kind of expert who helps bridge that gap—turning knowledge into impact, and impact into income. Connect with Sys on LinkedIn! Learn more about 7 Figures Expert Academy! Get your free gift; special for my audience! Want to learn more about entrepreneurship? Check out this interview, “How to Create a Millionaire Mindset with Cole Vandee”

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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
    © 2026 Mark J. Carter & ONE80
  • Show Website
    The Idea Climbing® Podcast