Unlock Your Way with STK

Suzanne Taylor-King
  • 0.0 (0)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated 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. 7h ago

    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

  2. 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

  3. 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)

  4. 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

  5. May 16

    Ep79 Marcia Martin - How to Lead With Your Own Voice and Break the Childhood Patterns Quietly Running Your Business

    The patterns running your business right now were set before you turned 10. Before age 10, the brain operates in a theta state — the same state as hypnosis. Every decision a child makes about how to earn love, stay safe, or fit in gets locked in as an unconscious pattern. Marcia Martin has spent 50 years watching those patterns play out in boardrooms, entrepreneurial teams, and leadership programs around the world. Suzanne sits down with Marcia, pioneer of the human potential movement, Dame, author of Sex, Power, and Transformation, and the woman who helped build the $48 billion self-help industry from the inside. She worked at the heart of EST (which became Landmark), helped Tony Robbins go national and launch Unlimited Power, and co-created the Transformational Leadership Council with Jack Canfield. In this conversation, you'll discover: Why the personal development space has quietly shifted from helping people find their own answers toward telling them what to do, and what that means for anyone in a program right nowHow the decisions you made before age 10 are showing up in your leadership, your communication, and your business todayWhy your body and your mind learn in completely different ways, and what that means for actually building skills like giving and receiving feedbackThe role language plays in creating reality, and how what you say today is actively shaping the future you're walking intoWhy leading from "I don't know" is more powerful than projecting certainty you haven't earned yetFind all the show notes and links here: https://www.unlockyourwaywithstk.com/79

    Ep79 Marcia Martin - How to Lead With Your Own Voice and Break the Childhood Patterns Quietly Running Your Business

  6. May 15

    Ep78 Scott Perry—How to Build a Loyal Audience and Hit Your Annual Income Goal Without Social Media or Funnels

    What would happen to your business if you deleted every social media account tomorrow? Scott Perry did exactly that. His email open rate climbed back above 50%, his annual income goal was done by June, and he runs his entire business in under two hours a day. Suzanne sits down with Scott, author of Intrepid: Dare to Make a Difference and founder of Creative on Purpose on Substack, to explore what a purpose-driven business looks like when you stop chasing every platform and start building something that actually holds. In this conversation, you'll discover: Why solopreneurs and entrepreneurs aren't working from the same resource pool, and how mixing them up leads to burnout How Scott grew from one to three new Substack subscribers per day by focusing on direct, personal, relevant connection instead of paid ads or content calendars The way he uses Substack Notes as a raw idea-testing pad rather than a growth tool, and why that distinction changes what you get from it What Seth Godin's The Dip taught him about the difference between strategic quitting and giving up Why human connection and belonging are what AI can't replicate, and what that means for how you build your business Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.unlockyourwaywithstk.com/78

    Ep78 Scott Perry—How to Build a Loyal Audience and Hit Your Annual Income Goal Without Social Media or Funnels

  7. Apr 23

    Ep77 Ari Galper - How to Win Clients Through Trust Without Chasing Leads or Overcoming Objections

    Ever hung up a sales call convinced you nailed it, only to hear nothing back? Ari Galper did. He also accidentally stayed on the mute line and heard exactly what the prospect was saying when they thought he'd left. Suzanne sits down with Ari Galper, the global authority on trust-based selling and author of Trust in a Split Second, for a conversation that rethinks how coaches and consultants earn real commitment from the people they're meant to serve. In this conversation, you'll discover:  Why trust-building and relationship-building are two entirely different skills, and why confusing them is costing you sales  How to open every sales conversation as the authority in the room, with the bedside manner of a doctor diagnosing a patient  The exact language to use when you need to follow up with a prospect (and why the phrase "follow up" is the worst thing you can say)  Why objections disappear when you start every conversation from a position of trust How to market the problems you solve rather than the services you offer  What "cost of inaction" means and how to use it to help prospects see the real truth of their own situation Find all the show notes and links here:  https://www.unlockyourwaywithstk.com/77

    Ep77 Ari Galper - How to Win Clients Through Trust Without Chasing Leads or Overcoming Objections

  8. Apr 22

    Ep76 Melanie Mitchell Wexler - How to Build Real LinkedIn Momentum Without Burning Out or Playing the Numbers Game

    Ever feel like LinkedIn is just a firehose of automated pitch messages from people all working off the same template? Suzanne sits down with Melanie Mitchell Wexler, executive career coach, LinkedIn strategist, and co-creator of the LinkedIn Rockstar Academy, to get into what actually builds real business momentum on this platform without burning yourself out doing it. In this conversation, you'll discover: How to reach out and start genuine conversations that actually go somewhere Why your LinkedIn profile is your real landing page and what needs to be there for people to stay How LinkedIn posts are now being indexed by Google and what that changes about your visibility strategy How to run a LinkedIn newsletter that builds an audience without writing on a rigid schedule Why waking up your existing network is more powerful than always chasing new connections How to know when a pitch is welcome and when it kills the relationship before it starts Find all the show notes and links here:  https://www.unlockyourwaywithstk.com/76

    Ep76 Melanie Mitchell Wexler - How to Build Real LinkedIn Momentum Without Burning Out or Playing the Numbers Game
See All (81)

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
    81
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Suzanne Taylor-King
  • Show Website
    Unlock Your Way with STK