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
  • How to Leverage LinkedIn to Build Your Brand with Donna Serdula

    How to Leverage LinkedIn to Build Your Brand with Donna Serdula
    Oct 9 2024
    LinkedIn is only a powerful tool if you know how to use it. My guest Donna Serdula and I discuss LinkedIn branding strategies in this episode. Donna has almost 20 years of experience on LinkedIn. She is the founder and president of Vision Board Media, a professional branding company that helps individuals and companies tell their unique stories on LinkedIn and beyond. Getting Started Donna’s relationship with LinkedIn started in 2005. A colleague of Donna’s asked if she had heard of LinkedIn and said “You should join, you will get a lot of opportunities. Things just drop in your lap; you’ve got to sign up for it!” When she signed up, she saw that her profile looked like a resume. So, she copied and pasted her very dry, dull, out of date resume. She thought “Ok, opportunity, hit me! I can’t wait to see what happens here!”. Then nothing happened. It seemed like a huge waste of time. She continued with her professional life and didn’t think much more of that LinkedIn profile for quite some time. She accepted another job, no thanks to LinkedIn. She found herself in a much more cutthroat sales type of environment. She was dialing for dollars; she was cold calling. Suddenly LinkedIn started to cross her path again. She was using it to enhance her cold calling, she wanted to learn about the people were that she was calling before she spoke with them. One day she had an epiphany; she thought about all these people and every time she looked at their profiles, she was disappointed. She wanted to learn more about their story. Then it hit her, how was she showing up? She Googled herself and her LinkedIn profile was the first thing to pop up. She realized by lack of caring and lack of activity she was doing the same thing all the other people were doing – nothing. That’s when she realized that your LinkedIn profile isn’t your resume. It’s much bigger than that, it’s your online presence, often your first impression, and your brand. A BIG Shift in Thinking and Results… Donna contemplated how she wanted to be perceived and what goals she was striving to achieve. She looked at LinkedIn strategically. She created a new profile that was much more aligned with her desired personal brand. As soon as she did that amazing results started to happen. She became a magnet for opportunities. People were searching for someone like her, and she was popping up in the search results. People were seeing her as someone in their industry that is a thought leader and cares about other people in her industry. That’s when she realized she wanted to help other people do the same thing and get the same branding results. They need help with their resumes, help with their bios, help with strategically using LinkedIn as a networking tool, help with thought leadership assistance and so on. How to Build Your Brand to Get Opportunities to Come to You When it comes to LinkedIn certain things have changed, and certain things haven’t changed. When you think of the LinkedIn feed, that has changed massively. The LinkedIn profile hasn’t really changed, it’s still this huge area to really tell your story, to showcase your career trajectory, and it’s a place to get found. Most people forget that LinkedIn is a search engine. A lot of people think LinkedIn is just a professional social network. Many people on LinkedIn are there looking for someone like you. That’s one place where successful branding strategies begin. What terms do you want to be found for? You need to be peppering those terms throughout your profile, that way you can collide with opportunity. Many times, Donna finds big mistakes that people make are doing what she had been doing. For example, she was looking for opportunities in sales, but she was aligning herself as a job seeker. Her target audience wasn’t recruiters, it was sales managers and other people in her industry. She overhauled her profile, and the right people started to find her because she was align...
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    23 mins
  • How to Develop the Mindset for Successful Networking with Dr. Ivan Misner

    How to Develop the Mindset for Successful Networking with Dr. Ivan Misner
    Oct 1 2024
    Networking needs to begin with the development of a successful mindset long before you get into tactics and strategies. I discuss how to develop that mindset in this episode with my guest, Dr. Ivan Misner. Dr. Ivan Misner is the Founder & Chief Visionary Officer of BNI (Business Network International), the world’s largest business networking organization. Founded in 1985, the organization now has over 11,100 chapters in 76 countries throughout every populated continent of the world. Last year alone, BNI generated 15.2 million referrals resulting in more than $23.4 billion dollars’ worth of business for its members. When I asked how he learned the mindset for networking, Ivan replied “I have a lot of grey hair, I learned the hard way.” Fortunately, you don’t have to do that with a little guidance! One of the big problems with networking (the right way) is that we don’t teach that in colleges and universities. It’s not taught in schools anywhere in the world. So, what happens from lack of education? People go out and they have the wrong mindset; they use networking as a face-to-face cold calling opportunity. Some people teach to end every networking conversation with: “Here are three copies of my card, maybe you’ll pass them along to your friends”. If you don’t know, like and trust someone why would you do that? Ivan was recently the keynote speaker for an event in London with some 900 people in attendance. He asked the audience, “How many of you are here today to hopefully sell something?” 900 people raised their hands. “How many of you are here today hoping to buy something?” Nobody raised their hand. That’s a problem. V-C-P in Action That’s what Ivan calls the “networking disconnect”. People show up to networking events hoping to sell, but nobody’s there to buy. So why go? You go to work your way through the V-C-P Process. This is the beginning of the mindset. V-C-P stands for visibility, credibility, and profitability. First, you must have visibility. Of course, you want to let people know who you are and what you do. Then you must establish credibility, that’s the one that takes a long time. It doesn't happen overnight. It’s more of a marathon than it is a sprint. You must go into networking situations understanding that. Then the third is profitability. Once people know who you are, what you do, and they know you’re credible, they’re willing to pass you referrals because then you have this relationship with them. What tends to happen is we try to jump over visibility, jump over credibility, and get right to profitability. That’s not how it works. Ivan refers to that as “premature solicitation”. That’s the foundation of the mindset. It’s all about relationships, it’s not about transactions. We discuss how to develop those all-important relationships in this episode. We dive into topics such as: How to bridge the gap faster between visibility, credibility, and profitability without being “salesy”. Why givers gain, it pays to be a giver in the long run. How to make quality, meaningful introductions for your network. How to build credibility. Networking is a contact sport, we discuss how to win at that sport. What to say and do in your 1:1 networking meetings to move along the visibility-credibility-profitability (V-C-P) continuum faster. The best way to get more ongoing, qualified referrals with the GAINS methodology. What “profitability” looks like when it’s done the right way. Why the V-C-P continuum is a referral process, not a sales The (big) difference between a lead and a referral. The case for looking for referral partners at events instead of clients. Why the closing rate from referrals is significantly higher than from advertisements. More reasons why if you build a relationship with someone then you’re more likely to get referrals. Why the chances of a referral leading to closed business is much higher than hunting for your next sale...
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    24 mins
  • How to Create Successful Entrepreneur Peer Group Experiences with Craig James

    How to Create Successful Entrepreneur Peer Group Experiences with Craig James
    Sep 25 2024
    Entrepreneurs have unique challenges to address. They need peer groups more than most people. We discuss how to create successful peer group experiences for entrepreneurs in this episode with my guest, Craig James. Craig has been running entrepreneurial peer groups for Vistage for many years (Vistage has over 45,000 members in 35 different countries.). He views it as a calling to help fellow entrepreneurs. When you think about the typical entrepreneur, oftentimes they’re operating in isolation and they’re wearing many different hats. When it comes to making big decisions, they oftentimes don’t have many people to tap into to get purely objective advice. Craig addresses those challenges and more! The Entrepreneurial Support Challenge When it comes to searching for support they might talk to a friend, they might talk to their attorney or maybe their accountant and so on. The problem with that is those people are being paid a fee and the entrepreneur isn’t necessarily going to get straight answers and certainly won’t be challenged in terms of their thinking. You get a lot of “yes men”, and that doesn’t do anybody any good. The benefit of a peer group as Craig has experienced is you can bring any issue you have, challenge, decision, an idea you want to run by people. You can run those things through a group of unbiased peers from noncompeting businesses in complete confidence and they have no skin in the game. They will tell you your baby is ugly (if that’s the case) but also how to make that baby pretty. In this episode we also cover topics such as: The importance of objective advice and the difference between objective and subjective advice. Two ways to start your own peer group. Characteristics of successful peer groups and their membership. How to create a “safe space” to share personal and professional issues. How to develop a growth-oriented mindset as an entrepreneur. The creation of a successful culture for entrepreneur peer groups. How to grow your peer group faster and get on the fast track to getting your first new members. How to maintain a successful peer group culture over time. …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” Click here for more outstanding interviews with entrepreneurs and thought leaders! About the Guest I’ve been a Chair with Vistage Worldwide, the world’s foremost CEO development organization, since 2016. My passion is leading high-performing peer groups whose members outperform their competition, and who develop themselves as better leaders. I’m grateful to be in a field which affords me the opportunity to continually improve my life and the lives of those I am fortunate enough to be working with. Prior to Vistage, I spent a decade in what is today known as the Fintech industry with organizations such as Thomson Financial, Wolters Kluwer, and Zacks Investment Research. I’ve held senior positions in both established enterprises and entrepreneurial ventures, and founded a sales performance improvement business. I was a Contributing Editor to The New York Enterprise Report, which was the leading publication for small business owners in the New York City metropolitan area until its acquisition by SmartCEO in 2014, and subsequent dissolution. From 2003 – 2005, I was an Adjunct Instructor at New York University’s School of Continuing and Professional Studies, and for several years was part of the organizing committee for the annual NYU Conference for Small Business and Entrepreneurship, as well as a breakout session presenter in each of those years. I was also a 5-year member and President of a local Toastmasters club. Connect with me on LinkedIn! https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigrjames/
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    23 mins
  • Brand Strategies to Have Your Clients at “Hello” with Kevin Perlmutter

    Brand Strategies to Have Your Clients at “Hello” with Kevin Perlmutter
    Sep 18 2024
    Have you ever had someone at “Hello”? Someone that understood your branding and service offering and wanted to work with you? I discuss how to do that with my guest, Kevin Perlmutter. Kevin is the Chief Strategist and Founder of Limbic Brand Evolution - a brand strategy and neuromarketing consultancy, and creator of Limbic Sparks Brand Strategy, which taps into emotional insight to strengthen connections between brands and people. Kevin has been working in brand strategy for many years. When he started his career, he was in advertising but quickly realized that he wanted to be in the customer experience part of the business. He learned different ways to bring brand strategy together. The Gap with Traditional Brand Strategy It wasn’t until he was at his next job working in a studio that creates sound and music for brands and entertainment companies that he got introduced to emotional insight and neuroscience-based thinking. Kevin created a research capability rooted in neuroscience where he learned about the limbic part of our brain and how people make instinctive emotional decisions that guide how they act, feel, and consume products and services as they relate to brands. He was on his way. Traditional brand strategy doesn’t address how to put emotional insight at the center of branding endeavors. Emotional insight is what guides us; it guides what we think and how we behave. Yet it’s often overlooked with most brand strategy campaigns. Kevin decided to create an approach to brand strategy that puts emotional insight at the center of campaigns. How and Why People Make Decisions Based on Emotion There’s a behavioral science truism which is “We buy on emotion and justify with logic”. Our brains are operating all the time at the subconscious level. We are deciding what we choose to think about and what we choose let go, moving on to the next thing that grabs our attention. We are emotional beings at heart and our brains are trained to guide us based on emotional instincts. If you’re interacting with a brand and it has a negative impact on you, that experience is going to be encoded in your memory longer than another generic, unemotional experience. We’re highly attuned to something positive, highly attuned to something negative, or we’re indifferent to the situation. You want your brand to create positive experiences and emotions with your target audience. We discuss how to do that. In this episode we also dive into: How to create instinctive positive responses that Kevin calls “Limbic Sparks” to have your customers at hello and keep them coming back for more. How to tap into peoples’ positive emotions instead of turning them off. The problems and pitfalls with traditional brand strategy and how to avoid them. How to have conversations that allow your brand to be relevant to your target audience. How to create shared emotional motivation. How to create a brand benefit and invitation rooted in what your potential clients are looking for. How to create “Limbic Sparks” and emotional attachment with a new service. How to create a meaningful benefit for potential clients and then a well-crafted invitation to bring them into your world. What type of people to reach out to and what research questions to ask them when you’re launching a new service offering. The fastest way for a brand to fail. How to build and maintain a successful reputation. How to keep people’s attention when you get it and how to stay top of mind. …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 the Guest Kevin Perlmutter, Chief Strategist and Founder of Limbic Brand Evolution - a brand strategy and neuromarketing consultancy, and creator of Limbic Sparks® Brand Strategy, which taps into emotional insight to strengthen conn...
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    23 mins
  • How to Start and Market Your Business Podcast with John Golden

    How to Start and Market Your Business Podcast with John Golden
    Sep 4 2024
    Starting a podcast is no simple task. If you have the right strategies, it can be a fun, fruitful endeavor. I discuss how to do that in this episode with my guest, John Golden. John is a globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Notes. Around 2020 John and his team were migrating their blog. The question “Does the world need more product blogs?” popped into their heads. They decided to do something different. John suggested they start an online magazine. They wanted to create meaningful and valuable content to educate people about niche business topics. They reached out to people to get them to contribute, but with a twist. John started interviewing them. He thought “Why would we create content from only our point of view when there’s global experts out there with genius to share. So, they started doing that. Their podcast was born. They wanted to bring experts’ expertise to the world and give those people a platform to share their genius with John’s audience. What’s the starting point? The place you need to start is with your “Why?”. Think about things like why are you starting the podcast? If you’re starting a business podcast and you think “I’m going to start this business podcast to generate leads for my business” That’s one way you can go about it. If that’s what you’re going to do, then you need to be very specific about who your target audience is and what will be of value to them. That decides what your interview topics will be. You must do your research and get intelligently targeted with your efforts. Otherwise, you’re going to start your podcast and you’re going to be frustrated because you’re never going to build an audience if your podcast topics aren’t focused on your audience’s needs. One key point? It’s better to have a small audience of the right people than a large audience of the wrong people. That’s when you must sit down at the beginning and answer “Why am I starting this podcast and what is the purpose of it?” Will you be happy with your podcast being very targeted and very niche or do you want to go broader? If you’re going to go broader why and how are you going to get there? Unfortunately, a lot of people just jump in before they’ve answered their “Why?”. That’s the first problem to avoid. We get into more things to avoid and strategies for business podcasting success during our conversation. In this episode we also discuss: How to discover and decide on a target audience. Great advice for new hosts. The importance of getting honest feedback and constructive criticism when you get started. The case for not using “canned questions” that you send to your guests ahead of time. How to embrace and be your authentic self as a host. When a new podcaster can expect to get traction with listeners and viewers. The qualities of successful podcasts needed for faster growth. Guerrilla marketing techniques and strategies to grow your audience base. The power of guesting on other peoples’ podcasts. How to approach podcasters to be a guest on their shows. How to sell yourself as a host. Once you get traction, how to maintain it and grow it for the long haul. …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 the Guest John Golden, a globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP!
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    23 mins