Unlock Your Way with STK

Suzanne Taylor-King
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Biweekly

Unlock Your Way with STK is a founder development podcast for experienced CEOs who've hit a ceiling. Host Suzanne Taylor-King, founder and diagnostician for growing businesses, explores the invisible constraints that stall progress long after strategy and hustle stop working. Each week: a diagnostic conversation with a founder or leader who found the real constraint, not another tactic. Because the problem you're solving may not be the real problem. New episodes weekly for founders ready to see what they can't see from inside the business.

  1. 3d ago

    Ep87 John Daniels—How to Grow a Coaching Business From the Relationships You Already Have Without Building Another Funnel

    Ever built one more funnel and still felt like the right conversations weren't happening? Suzanne sits down with John Daniels, founder of Connected Impact. Suzanne and John have been each other's clients, so they get candid fast. John's path runs from IT support and Google Ads to funded tech startups in Edinburgh, and he now helps coaches and conscious entrepreneurs build systems around the relationships they already have. John shares how a business collapse taught him to rebuild and why technology can become a distraction from speaking to the people you want to help. Suzanne shares her own cleanup, from 47 funnels and email sequences to none, and what she found when she studied her 97 clients. In this conversation, you'll discover: - How John answers "How do I get more people into my funnels?" with a birthday party analogy - How to look at your CRM contacts and tags to see who your most important people are and whether you're spending time with them - How Suzanne went from 47 funnels and email sequences to none and now has double the clients and income - How AI and automation can help you write personal referral emails to past clients when you review and edit every one before it goes out - What the 12 most successful of Suzanne's 97 clients had in common, and how it set her standard for next year - How to ask Claude to pull your coaching call transcripts and tell you what you actually do, including every compliment you have received - Why John says building email sequences and updating your website can be a way to avoid the real work, because there is no emotional cost - Why John says to feel a hard emotion all the way through so you only deal with it once Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.unlockyourwaywithstk.com/87

    Ep87 John Daniels—How to Grow a Coaching Business From the Relationships You Already Have Without Building Another Funnel

  2. 4d ago

    Ep86 Jeffery Smith MD—How to Trade In a Stubborn Pattern Without Fighting the Part of You That Is Trying to Keep You Safe

    Ever read every self-help book on the shelf and still watched the same pattern come right back? Suzanne sits down with Dr. Jeffery Smith, a psychiatrist who has spent 50 years asking what every kind of therapy is doing underneath. Dr. Smith has a new book that explains how psychotherapy works in plain language, written for coaches and others new to the field, and he writes the How Therapy Works Substack. Suzanne brings her coaching and positive psychology background to the conversation, asking where coaching ends and psychotherapy begins, why some people spot a habit and change it while others never see it, and whether you need a strong why to make a change stick. Dr. Smith answers with stories from his practice and from the alcohol clinic he ran early in his career. In this conversation, you'll discover: - How to tell whether you need coaching or psychotherapy using the one factor Dr. Smith looks at: whether you can change the pattern voluntarily. - Why Dr. Smith defines psychotherapy as trading in outdated patterns for more satisfactory ones - What accurate empathy is, and why asking what triggered a feeling and what it feels like gets you further than naming the emotion - Why the inner mind holds on to survival patterns that no longer serve you, and how it puts up blockades when you try to change them - How the inner mind steers your choices through thoughts, feelings, and impulses, including impulses to avoid - Why befriending the part of you behind a stubborn pattern works better than getting angry at it - How coaches can move between non-directive coaching and offering advice, depending on the client Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.unlockyourwaywithstk.com/86

    Ep86 Jeffery Smith MD—How to Trade In a Stubborn Pattern Without Fighting the Part of You That Is Trying to Keep You Safe

  3. 4d ago

    Ep85 Jackie Schwabe—How to Use AI to Finish What You Start and Book More Sales Calls Without Hiding Behind a Funnel

    Got a pile of half-finished projects and a nagging feeling you should build one more thing before you start selling? Suzanne sits down with Jackie Schwabe, an AI builder and coach with a computer science degree, a master's in technology project management, and International Coach Federation training. Jackie has taught at Cornell and now builds custom systems with Claude Code, from a content flywheel that handles her post-call workflow to a tool that turns a metal fabricator's blueprints into a bill of materials. Suzanne shares her own results: a complete content flywheel plan in two hours that would have taken her around 40, and competitive research that dropped from six hours to five minutes. Together they get into why a plan matters before you build, what honest business math looks like, and how real conversations on LinkedIn fill a calendar. In this conversation, you'll discover: - How to plan before you build, and why a good-looking app can still be a lazy build that disappears when your browser refreshes - How Jackie's content flywheel turns every live Zoom call into a YouTube upload and a follow-up email to attendees without her lifting a finger - How to use AI to run the numbers on an offer before you build it, starting from the list you actually have instead of a 10-step program from someone with 60,000 subscribers - Why Suzanne and Jackie call it irresponsible to promise that a $27 course can replace a salary - How Jackie gets three to seven sales calls a day from LinkedIn conversations and an email list of about 500 people - How to ask AI questions the way a coach would, so it pulls your best thinking out - Why Suzanne calls the hours AI gives back "time wealth," and what Jackie does with hers Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.unlockyourwaywithstk.com/85

    Ep85 Jackie Schwabe—How to Use AI to Finish What You Start and Book More Sales Calls Without Hiding Behind a Funnel

  4. 4d ago

    Ep84 Barbara Daoust—How to Step Into the Bigger Version of Yourself Without Letting Fear Pull You Back to the Old On

    Ever started something big, felt great for a few weeks, and then had doubt walk in right on schedule? Suzanne sits down with Barbara Daoust, an acting coach and director who spent 25 years working with A-list actors before bringing that craft to business owners. Barbara blends acting, visioneering, and Bob Proctor's thinking into a results methodology that helps entrepreneurs step into the bigger character their next level requires. She also talks openly about the loss that rewrote her own life and what it taught her about change. Suzanne brings her own story to the conversation: the day she walked into her first paid speaking gig, saw a roster where everyone else was a doctor, and coached herself into a rock star persona. Barbara shows how that kind of character work can be built on purpose, and she points listeners to a template for writing out the design of your life. In this conversation, you'll discover: - How to make a decision stick by putting a date on it and a commitment behind it, the way one writing coach did with 20 invitations - Why doubt tends to hit around week four or five of a big goal, and how to treat it as the old self pushing back - How to tell fear from real threat and what to do in the 90 seconds after fear hits - How to build the bigger version of yourself the way an actor builds a role, from the beliefs behind the character to how that person dresses - Why visioneering works best when you get emotionally involved and write the obstacles into the picture - How to make a task you'd rather avoid easier, like the financial advisor who colored in one scallop on an angel for every cold call Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.unlockyourwaywithstk.com/84

    Ep84 Barbara Daoust—How to Step Into the Bigger Version of Yourself Without Letting Fear Pull You Back to the Old On

  5. Oct 23

    Ep83 Kevin Voisin—How to Get Honest About Where You Are and Build Your Own Path Without Copying Someone Else's Playbook

    Ever bought a program because someone else's results made yours look small? Or wondered whether the number on a stranger's screenshot was real? Suzanne sits down with Kevin Voisin, COO and head coach at Apogee Strong, a mindset coach who holds his clients to a personal standard. Kevin says he has coached more than 50,000 people, and his advice starts in the same place every time: tell the truth about where you are, then pick a destination you want. Suzanne brings her own tools to the conversation. She shares what she learned from the VIA character strengths assessment (her top three are love of learning, curiosity, and humor), and how a three-sentence email to a member who had never logged in turned into a one-on-one client within three days. Kevin is also about to release a book and an accountability app, and you can find him at itscoachkevin. In this conversation, you'll discover: - How to find your core values by looking back over your life instead of inventing them - Why constraints sharpen your message, and what a $100 red banner taught one holistic health center about plain language - How to size up income claims and online proof by asking to see the deposit slip - Why every person is a sample set of one, and what that means when you choose a program or a coach - How to tell the truth about where you are and where you want to go so the path you set gets you somewhere - Why accountability takes a mirror, and how a coach or a group helps you see what you can't see yourself Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.unlockyourwaywithstk.com/83

    Ep83 Kevin Voisin—How to Get Honest About Where You Are and Build Your Own Path Without Copying Someone Else's Playbook

  6. Oct 7

    Ep82 Bret Ridgway—How to Reinvent Your Business After 60, Use AI to Launch a New Idea, and Turn Books Into Marketing Tools That Actually Make Money

    You sent your audience to Amazon to buy your book, and now you have no idea who bought it. That's a lot of readers and no way to follow up. Suzanne sits down with Bret Ridgway, a children's book author with a long career in publishing, speaking, and speaker fulfillment, to talk about what a book can do for your business when you treat it as the front end of your sales process. Suzanne shares a $197 book funnel she bought that turned out to be a full coaching program, and Bret explains why the format you put your content in changes what people will pay for it. Bret also tells the story behind his Laugh and Learn Library. After he was pushed out of the fulfillment company he co-founded, he started playing with Google Gemini to make a cartoon image of crickets playing croquet. That turned into Games Animals Play, an A to Z book of animals doing silly things, and a plan to give away 1,000 copies this year. In this conversation, you'll discover: - Why a nonfiction book works best as the front end of your business, and how bouncebacks inside it send readers to your website - What you give up when you send your audience to Amazon to buy your book, and what to do instead - How the same content can sell for $15 to $20 as a book and $97 to $197 as a binder, and what that teaches about perceived value - How selling from a stage works: 85-90% content, a high-ticket offer at the end, and why event promoters expect a split - Why Suzanne and Bret both see AI as an adaptation of the work and not the end of it - Why relationships are your most important business asset, and why Bret still writes handwritten notes Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.unlockyourwaywithstk.com/82

    Ep82 Bret Ridgway—How to Reinvent Your Business After 60, Use AI to Launch a New Idea, and Turn Books Into Marketing Tools That Actually Make Money

  7. Sep 25

    Ep81 David McIlroy—Why Chasing Likes Is the Wrong Growth Strategy (and What Works Instead)

    David McIlroy joined Substack in June 2023 with fewer than 200 subscribers who migrated over from another list. He never promoted it on social media. Today, 99% of his audience has come from inside the platform itself.   Suzanne sits down with David, a Substack writer and creator who helps other writers get their best thinking out of their heads and onto the page, to talk about what actually drives growth once the vanity metrics stop meaning anything.   David's take is blunt: likes don't tell you whether your business is growing. The real signal is what happens in the background: the DMs, the comments under an article, and the conversations nobody else sees. He builds his entire approach around connecting with people first and worrying about the sale later, if it comes up at all.   In this conversation, you'll discover:   - Why likes and vanity metrics are the wrong thing to chase if you actually want to grow a business - The difference between marketing that makes people feel like they have a problem and marketing that simply opens a door - Why vulnerable, self-deprecating stories build more trust than any polished pitch - How David is launching Velocity, his new group coaching program for writers, by being upfront about the price from day one - What changed on Substack after the Notes feature launched, and why it pulled in so many writers and journalists   Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.unlockyourwaywithstk.com/81

    Ep81 David McIlroy—Why Chasing Likes Is the Wrong Growth Strategy (and What Works Instead)

  8. Jun 14

    Ep80 Kevin Maney - How to Use the Category Creation Formula to Own Your Market and Make Competition Irrelevant

    One pre-IPO company had been operating for 20 years. After one category design session with Kevin Maney, a veteran executive raised his hand in the conference room and said he felt embarrassed. The answer they'd found was so obvious in hindsight, he couldn't understand why it had taken two decades to see it. Kevin's response: it's like trying to be your own psychologist. Suzanne sits down with Kevin Maney, co-founder of Category Design Advisors and author of the new book The Category Creation Formula, to walk through the strategic system behind how companies win their markets. In most digital markets, one company captures roughly 75% of the category. One company. All the pricing power and market share. The Category Creation Formula is built around a simple question: why wouldn't you do everything possible to be that company? The formula is Context + Missing + Innovation = new market category. Context comes first: what's changing around your target audience, what new problems are appearing, what's no longer being adequately solved. From there, the missing piece becomes visible. Then you build the innovation to fill it. The order matters. In this conversation, you'll discover: - Why category design starts at the CEO level, before any marketing message gets written - How the Context + Missing + Innovation formula works with real clients - What a 20-year-old pre-IPO company learned about itself in one session - Why writing a book disciplines your thinking in ways that make you a clearer leader and speaker - How Kevin's advisory firm grew almost entirely through word of mouth Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.unlockyourwaywithstk.com/80

    Ep80 Kevin Maney - How to Use the Category Creation Formula to Own Your Market and Make Competition Irrelevant
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About

Unlock Your Way with STK is a founder development podcast for experienced CEOs who've hit a ceiling. Host Suzanne Taylor-King, founder and diagnostician for growing businesses, explores the invisible constraints that stall progress long after strategy and hustle stop working. Each week: a diagnostic conversation with a founder or leader who found the real constraint, not another tactic. Because the problem you're solving may not be the real problem. New episodes weekly for founders ready to see what they can't see from inside the business.

Information

  • Creator
    Suzanne Taylor-King
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    85
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Suzanne Taylor-King
  • Show Website
    Unlock Your Way with STK