The Idea Climbing Podcast

By: Mark J. Carter
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  • Summary

  • 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.
    © 2019 Mark J. Carter & ONE80
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Economics Leadership Marketing
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Episodes
  • How to Build and Scale a Business You Love with Mary Kelly

    How to Build and Scale a Business You Love with Mary Kelly
    Nov 5 2024
    If you’re going to build a business, you should love what you do. Once you build a foundation it’s time to scale the business. I discuss how to do that in this episode with my guest, Mary Kelly. Mary started working for her dad’s business at trade shows when she was just seven years old. Her parents would leave her at their tradeshow booth to write orders while they worked the room to get more business. Mary took a hiatus from the business world for 25 years when she joined the navy and spent 17 of those years in Asia. During that time, she got experience leading teams that were both multi-cultural and multi-lingual. She learned how to manage people, assets, and supply chains. Transitioning into the Private Sector During her last tour in the Navy, Mary taught at the naval academy. The admiral was always being called to give talks about the status of the Navy, leadership, and other topics to government institutions and private sector businesses. One day the admiral was busy, and Mary’s friend called her and asked her to give a talk. That led to more talks. At one of those talks the organizer asked her to come back and train their people. Mary was ready for the opportunity because the premises of what you’re managing doesn’t really change. It doesn’t matter if it’s Navy people or businesspeople. Managing and leading people is still managing and leading people. This is where people get hung up on “How do we lead Gen Z, or millennials, or boomers if they’re older or younger than us?” Mary believes that regardless of the demographic, people need great leadership. You don’t lead demographics, you lead individuals. Lead your people well and the rest will follow suit. This belief has led to a very successful private sector speaking career for Mary. The Biggest Lessons Learned Number one, you must pay attention to your numbers, always pay attention to your numbers. Number two, realize and embrace that your people are your most important assets. You must make sure that people show up every day to serve you, the mission and the vision you’ve got in mind. The third thing is when you see a disruption there’s almost always more to it than what you think. Dig a little bit deeper than you initially want to, look at the surface problem and go “Ok, we’ve solved that, put a band-aid on it, everything is fine, NO. What Mary found is there’s almost always a deeper-rooted problem that needs a solution. Many leaders are worried about making a mistake or going in the wrong direction, so they do nothing. Sometimes they stagnate or believe a decision they made a year ago is still a good decision today. In that case they’re not taking the current market conditions into consideration. You need to ask yourself what is the situation today and how has it changed since yesterday and how might it change tomorrow. How to Start Building a Business and Do It Effectively First you must figure out your vision and your mission. The next question to answer is why are you better at those than somebody else? You can be competitively better (you’re just better) or you can be comparatively better (and have a lower price point, or you’re more convenient, and so on). This means answering: Competitively and comparatively where are you better? Build your value proposition around that. Then you build out your mission and figure out where you want to go. From there you create the action steps to get you there. When you cross the action steps, this is where Mary believes a lot of people get stuck, you must first say, “What’s going to be the biggest obstacle?” Sometimes, it’s your own friends and family. They’re going to say things like “You can’t start that business.” Those are not the people you don’t want to listen to. Once you see those obstacles then you brainstorm on the solutions. If you don’t give your brain a place to go with the solutions, it’s going to focus on the obstacles.
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    24 mins
  • How Entrepreneurs Can Build a Stronger Brand Online with Shon Christy

    How Entrepreneurs Can Build a Stronger Brand Online with Shon Christy
    Oct 30 2024
    Building a strong brand and powerful online presence are necessities for entrepreneurs. I discuss how to do that in this episode with my guest, Shon Christy. Shon brings over 20 years of marketing expertise as the founder of Shon Christy Social Media, Fractional Social Pro, and NeuroSocial Labs. He's worked with over 800 companies internationally, pioneering innovative social media marketing and engagement approaches. When Shon got discovered social media he was just a basic user. When social media got to college campuses, he was getting his master’s degree at the University of Akron. He was in the right place at the right time. Shon launched his first social media company. They were the first niche social media marketing agency in the state of Ohio. Talk about a great start! Shon had to build the business “brick by brick” by practicing what he was preaching and trying new things online. In addition to his company he built his own personal brand, establishing himself as the local leader in social media through public speaking and his online activity. Shon was building his online presence and promoting himself. When he looked back after a couple years of doing that, he examined why some things worked and why some things didn’t work. He realized that attention was becoming the new currency. We’re getting bombarded with marketing messages more and more every day. Our minds are filtering and rejecting information all the time. For this reason, it’s even more important for you to stand out. So that’s what Shon started to do. He focused on some principles that he successfully used to grab people’s attention. You don’t automatically have somebody’s attention during your first interaction with them. Shon realized that saying the same things on social media over and over gets boring to your audiences. He shifted his messaging from time to time to stay fresh in his marketing efforts. How to Start Building Your Online Brand Shon started by asking “Who am I?” The answer guided his online branding messages. Social media is the great digital amplifier, and he was amplifying the right messages. Marketing begins with taking an authentic look at yourself. Shon likens your personal brand to a recipe. It’s the concept of a “secret sauce”. Understanding what that taste palette is for you and understanding the ingredients of your personal brand is where it starts. Shon recommends broadcasting multiple things to attract like-minded people. You might try five or six things, and the sixth thing creates a way to connect with somebody on a human level, that will grab attention. That’s part of his alignment concept. If you’re aligned with other people they’re going to like you a little bit more. Getting somebody to like you because of that branding is a key to long term success. We also delve into things such as: How to get people’s attention. How to eliminate roadblocks for people to communicate with you. How to keep people’s attention after you get it. Two ways to know that you have someone’s attention. The importance of amplifying other people's stories while amplifying your own and how to do that. How to build a reputation and not just have a bunch of people’s attention. How to move along the know, like, and trust continuum faster. How to build and balance your personal reputation with your professional reputation. How to build a reputation and a business without being “salesy”. The importance of practicing the Golden Rule in your professional life. How to maintain your reputation over time after you build it. …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” Click here for more outstanding interviews with entrepreneurs and thought leaders! About the Guest Shon Christy brings over 20 years of marketing expertise as the founde...
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    25 mins
  • Beat Your Brain Bully: How to Master Your Mind and Manifest Your Mission with Lynn Smith

    Beat Your Brain Bully: How to Master Your Mind and Manifest Your Mission with Lynn Smith
    Oct 16 2024
    Do you ever run into your Brain Bully? What does that feel like? With the right strategies you can build your self esteem and achieve success in all areas of your life. In this episode I discuss how to do that with my guest, Lynn Smith. Lynn is a national media expert, consultant, keynote speaker, and host of “StrollerCoaster” a parenting podcast brought to you by Munchkin the world most loved baby brand in the world. Previously, she spent 15 years as an anchor on the TODAY Show, NBC News, MSNBC, and CNN Headline News. In 2021, Smith left TV News to launch her company Rylan Media which takes her media insight and expertise to tackle corporate and individuals greatest branding and communications challenges. Meet Your Brain Bully The brain bully is that voice we all have in our mind that’s saying, “What if I screw this up?” or “Does Mark like what I’m saying?” or “What if the audience thinks I’m a total idiot?” Lynn realized after coaching hundreds of executives, after being a news anchor for 15 years, and having her own Brain Bully incidents many times, that almost 100% of us have a Brain Bully. If you don’t, you’re likely a sociopath or a narcissist. Just saying. Her brain bully creeping in was so common that Lynn decided “I have to create something in order to help myself and other people overcome this situation…”, and through self-examination she did just that. As a news anchor she was told many times (to her face) “You’re not good enough, you’ll never make it in TV”. Then she had her own internal audio loop; “Maybe they’re right, maybe I’m not good at this…” She had to create techniques to overcome her Brain Bully to sustain a long term career in television. Now, when she shares her methodology with executives it’s this lightbulb moment for them. “Oh, I shouldn’t ignore this voice, this voice is actually not real, or right, I just have to tame it, I need to know how to manage my Brain Bully”. How do you overcome your Brain Bully? Initially, early on, when Lynn was in her early twenties and started in television, beating her Brain Bully was the result of pure grit and tenacity. It was a case of “just keep going”. Sometimes she didn’t have any reason or logic to believe in her eventual success, she just had to push through it. There was no other option. From seeing what good came from pushing through her Brain Bully dialogues she realized “Now I can have fun with this, and I can talk to my Brain Bully. I can say, ‘Brain Bully’, listen here, you’re through right now”. She parented her Brain Bully out of the situation. If you have kids, what would you say to them if they had a bully? What advice would you have to get rid of that bully? That’s what she did. You must literally name it and then tame it. You tame it by having those conversations with it. The next step? Reframe it. That Brain Bully could be an asset to you by keeping you on your toes. We don’t want to get complacent. It’s when we lose control of the dialogue that we have problems. So, you must name it, tame it and reframe it. We do a deeper dive into that methodology and discuss topics such as: What’s really holding you back in life, and it’s not your professional skillset or lack of one. How to find ways to do whatever it is you were meant to do with your life. Why just pushing your Brain Bully away won’t work. How to control your fight, flight, or freeze responses in your primitive brain. It doesn’t know the difference between you giving a presentation and you being attacked by a tiger. It’s protecting you from what you perceive as a threat. How to create a Brain Buddy and use it to your advantage. How and why you have complete control over which thoughts you focus on. How to show up as your authentic self. …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”
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    24 mins

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