Founders Future

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Olivia Sammons, we dive into the journey of Allison Ishman, the strategic mind behind Allison Ishman Creative Agency. Allison shares her unique transition from a successful career in clinical massage and building a nationwide equipment rental business to discovering a passion for performance marketing. She opens up about the pivotal moment of spending her own money to learn digital advertising the hard way, which forged her data-driven, customer-centric approach to running Facebook and Instagram ads for coaches and founders.

Allison discusses the core of her business philosophy: the critical importance of deeply understanding your customer's language and pain points to create ads that not only convert but also build genuine connection. She breaks down her service model, from building high-conversion funnels to managing ad spend, and candidly identifies the key bottleneck in her own scaling journey. The conversation is packed with actionable advice on strategic growth, the value of focusing on your strengths, and why knowing your customer is the ultimate key to scalability and happiness in business.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Olivia Sammons, we sit down with Steve Jones, founder of Skills for Business Training. Steve takes us on his journey from being a key leader in the rapid scaling of Fitness First PLC to becoming a disengaged employee after its corporate acquisition. This pivotal experience ignited his mission to help businesses avoid the same fate by focusing on their most valuable asset: their people. He shares how this led him to develop powerful tools around motivational mapping and employee engagement, ensuring companies can scale effectively while building motivated teams and strong cultures.

Steve delves into the core of his work, explaining his unique "supermarket model" for marketing and his philosophy of building relationships over sales. He details his leadership programs and the critical 90-day appraisal process designed to keep employee motivation and company culture in sync during periods of fast growth. Looking ahead, Steve outlines his ambitious plan to transition his business towards a retainer model by licensing his motivational mapping tool to coaches and in-house practitioners, empowering them to drive long-term, sustainable engagement within organizations.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Olivia Sammons, we meet Iván Garrido, the passionate founder behind NextLevel Mentoring. Iván shares his powerful journey from earning just 1,000 euros a month and battling personal struggles to becoming a top sales manager. Despite achieving financial success, he felt a profound emptiness, which led him to discover his true purpose: sharing his knowledge to help others. This revelation was the catalyst for starting his coaching company, dedicated to guiding high-performance professionals.

Iván delves into the methodology behind NextLevel Mentoring, explaining his proprietary CPA (Clarity, Positioning, Action) system that he uses to help clients monetize their expertise and build their own online coaching businesses. He reveals his ambitious vision to create the first dedicated business school for Spanish-speaking coaches and consultants, a much-needed resource in the market. Throughout the conversation, Iván's core message is one of authenticity and courage, encouraging everyone to believe in themselves, share their unique experiences, and understand that their past challenges have equipped them with a specific mission to help others.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Ammar Elm, we sit down with Brandon Garcia, the founder of BKXX Enterprises. Brandon shares his journey from selling cars and insurance to identifying a critical gap in the market: local home service businesses with virtually no online presence or effective customer response systems. He discusses the genesis of his agency, which is dedicated to "digital foundation repair," helping these businesses dominate their local markets through tailored SEO, paid advertising, and innovative AI solutions for lead capture and follow-up.

Brandon gets candid about the realities of bootstrapping an agency, emphasizing the crucial lesson of using other people's money by securing clients before investing in sophisticated tools. He offers invaluable advice for new agency owners, stressing the importance of persistence, cold outreach, and the mindset that "you only fail if you quit." This conversation is a raw look at the grind of early-stage entrepreneurship and the strategies to build a impactful service business from the ground up.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Ammar Elm, we meet Kelly Ling, the founder of Stork & Spark. Kelly shares her journey from a 15-year corporate career, where she was a serial "career pivoter" in finance, product management, and innovation at companies like Ghirardelli Chocolate and DoorDash, to discovering her passion for a people-first approach. This, combined with her own experiences of being pregnant and building a family while navigating a demanding career, led her to launch Stork & Spark. Her venture is dedicated to helping ambitious new and expectant parents leverage parenthood as an asset for leadership and career growth, rather than seeing it as a setback.

Kelly delves into the two core pillars of her business: one-on-one coaching for senior leaders and organizational consulting for companies that want to better support and retain parent talent. She discusses her marketing strategy, which is heavily focused on authentic thought leadership and sharing her personal story on LinkedIn to connect with both individuals and decision-makers at corporations. Kelly also reveals her exciting future vision of hosting large-scale events and career fairs to act as a matchmaker between parent talent and family-forward companies, reimagining the future of work for caregivers.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Ammar Elm, we sit down with Greg Zlevor, President and Founder of Westwood International. Greg shares his incredible journey from running leadership programs at Boston College to building a globally recognized firm that designs transformational development programs for Fortune 500 companies and government agencies. He delves into the pivotal moment that launched his entrepreneurial career and the years of hardship that prepared him for that opportunity, emphasizing the critical importance of emotional fortitude and persistence.

Greg provides a masterclass on working with large organizations, detailing how his team's agility and deep expertise allow them to facilitate real-time pivots and create meaningful, lasting results for their clients. He discusses the current "trust scarcity" in the age of AI-generated content and why demonstrable evidence and powerful referrals are now more valuable than ever. For any coach or consultant looking to make an impact, Greg offers invaluable advice on finding strategic partners, delivering immediate value, and building the systems necessary for long-term success.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Ammar Elm, we sit down with Elliott Stafford, the innovative founder behind LUXE Creative Agency and Elliot's Pages. Elliott shares her remarkable journey from being a collegiate soccer player and model juggling multiple service jobs to discovering her passion in the User-Generated Content (UGC) space. She delves into how she leveraged a single, viral satirical video on LinkedIn to catapult her personal brand and attract high-ticket clients, transforming her financial stability and career path.

Elliott breaks down the distinct purposes of her two ventures: Elliot's Pages, which started as a personal passion project and podcast documenting her life, and LUXE Creative Agency, her vision for a vetted, high-end UGC creator community that guarantees performance and fosters mutually beneficial partnerships between elite creators and serious brands. She discusses the challenges of time management, the bottlenecks of manual processes, and her ambitious plans for scaling through automation and paid advertising to reach new revenue milestones.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Olivia Sammons, we sit down with Tobias Young, a 26-year veteran of the fitness industry and the founder of TNT Fit Pro Coaching. Tobias shares his incredible journey from working long hours as an in-person trainer and gym manager to pioneering online fitness coaching 16 years ago. He delves into the pivotal moment he transitioned from training clients to coaching other fitness professionals, detailing the unique 9-step framework he developed to help them build scalable, six-figure online businesses and escape the burnout he once experienced.

Tobias gets into the nuts and bolts of his business model, discussing his core offers and the ideal clients he serves—from online trainers stuck at $10k/month to gym owners looking to add an online component. He emphasizes the importance of organic growth strategies first, followed by strategic team building and paid advertising. Tobias also opens up about the very real challenges of scaling, including having his ad accounts hacked, and leaves founders with invaluable advice: to invest in themselves by learning from those who have already paved the way and to commit to the "dirty reps" of consistent, daily action, much like training for a championship.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Ammar Elm, we meet Anna Lily Annette, transformational coach and founder of the Edelweiss Academy of Mastery. Anna shares her remarkable 25-year journey from teaching business simulations for Fortune 500 companies to creating her own pioneering academy. She delves into the core of her work, which blends deep psychology, business strategy, and energetic mastery to help leaders, teams, and individuals unlock their authentic potential.

Anna provides profound insights into the philosophy behind her Bloomtica® method, emphasizing the critical importance of inner alignment and energetic vibration for sustainable business success. She and Ammar explore why the right marketing strategy must come from a place of authentic self-knowledge rather than fear or scarcity, and she shares her daily practices for maintaining harmony between mind, heart, and soul to achieve visionary goals.

In this episode of Founders Future, with host Ammar Elm, we are joined by Dr. Izdihar Jamil, a computer scientist turned #1 best-selling author and media strategist. Dr. Jamil shares her powerful origin story, which began with a PhD program in England and a move to the US that was marked by painful experiences of prejudice. These events became the catalyst for her mission to empower entrepreneurs and marginalized voices to be heard without fear. She explains how hitting the "go live" button for the first time, despite her fears, was the pivotal moment that set her on the path to becoming a TEDx speaker and curator.

Dr. Jamil details the three core pillars of her boutique authority-building practice: guiding leaders to become best-selling authors, securing them media features on TV and in magazines, and preparing them to speak on influential stages like TEDx. She discusses her intentional shift from quantity to quality, focusing on a personalized client experience fueled primarily by organic marketing, masterclasses, and referrals. The conversation concludes with her personal definition of success, which revolves around freedom, family, and the ability to make a significant impact while working on her own terms.