The Entrepreneur Ethos

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Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening. 

Now on to my guest for today, Brooke Yoakam. At 19, Brooke has already been at the helm of her company, Gift Pocket, for seven years. 

Brooke comes from a family of entrepreneurs, yet when her mother first proposed the idea that she join the Young Entrepreneurs Academy, she balked. But she agreed to try it out and found she loved it. It was at the academy that Brooke came up with the idea for Gift Pocket as a solution to a problem she had, which was that her grandfather kept giving her gift cards to stores she didn’t want to go to. The app she created, enables users to store gift cards digitally and to exchange them for ones from different stores. The app also solves the common problem of people losing gift cards. Brooke sees her company as innovating in an industry that has long been stagnant and helping companies build revenue.

Brooke continues to run her company while she attends college, where she’s learning skills in finance and computers as well as building an invaluable network. She talks about balancing being a CEO with being a college student, the frustrations of working with funders, and how she sees everyone who comes to work with her as potential collaborators in making the company even better. 

Now, let’s get better together.

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Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening. 

Jeroen Corthout is the cofounder of Salesflare, a CRM that automates sales leads, the program he realized he needed to track his own sales. 

Jeroen was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug as a teenager when he started designing websites. He went on to study biomedical electrical engineering at university but realized it wasn’t ultimately the kind of work he was drawn to. Instead he took a job in pharmaceutical marketing but knew he wanted to eventually start his own company. Within a year, he moved to a consultancy, where he was able to learn a lot more about what having his own business would be like. After diving into various ventures, he and his cofounder of Doctura, originally a service that offered personalized readers for doctors to help them stay on top of the latest developments, to offer sales and marketing to tech and healthcare companies. It was in the process of selling for Doctura that Jeroen found the issue that Salesflare seeks to solve - how to effortlessly automate data collected in the sales lead process. 

Jeroen sees selling as a process that requires empathy and that is a key part of the process of solving problems. Selling is basically collaboration, the quintessential element that has helped humanity solve problems for centuries. 

Now, let’s get better together.

The two questions Jeroen recommends asking yourself when starting a business is:

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Hey everyone. As Always, Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening. 

Now on to my guest for today, Tim Young, CEO of Naturally Grateful, Small Farm Nation, and Techmar Communications and author of several books, including Accidental Farmers and Start Prepping. 

Tim first built a career in marketing, first as a division head for a Fortune 500 company and then as founder and CEO of his own marketing services firm for tech companies. After 22 years, though, he realized he had a longing to do something else, and finally settled on trying his hand at farming. He and his wife bought land in Georgia and started a livestock farm; Tim even learned to make artisan cheese and earned awards for it. But when he and his wife had their daughter, they decided they wanted to have more time to focus on her. They scaled back, turning to homesteading and homeschooling. 

Tim describes how he and his daughter have a daily practice of writing something they are grateful for on a gratitude tree. It was one day after doing this, when Tim and daughter began talking about ideas for a business as a learning project, that they came up with the idea of an apparel company featuring slogans about gratitude. That grew into the family-run company they now call Naturally Grateful. 

Now, let’s get better together.

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Hey everyone. Aw always, stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening.

Now on to my guest today, Antonio Thornton of Fearless Impact and Money Mouth Marketing. 

Antonio recalls his first venture into entrepreneurship in candy sales at school. He was so successful that he was kicked out of school, and so learned early on that entrepreneurship wasn’t a conventional path, but that he had a talent for it. He’s had a number of businesses, but eventually realized that what he was best at was selling, which led to the founding of Money Mouth Marketing 20 years ago. 

Fearless Impact stems from a period in Antonio’s life when he was held back by fear after being involved with a company that was indicted for illegal activities. He worked on his mindset and started a group devoted to learning about law of attraction and visualization as tools. He’s built on this work to form Fearless Impact, a program that helps entrepreneurs, as well as a podcast by the same name. Antonio’s mission to help entrepreneurs is grounded in helping people identify and face their fears. He extols the importance of asking yourself what you fear and challenging beliefs about what might be holding you back.

Now let’s get better together.

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Summary

Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening.

Now on to my guest today, Terry McDougall, executive coach and author of Winning at Work: Career Happiness and Success on Your Own Terms.   

Terry coaches executives who have been exactly where she was just a few years ago: successful but not satisfied. As the head of marketing at a national bank, she started to think about doing something else. She’s always liked “helping others figure things out” so she decided to get a coaching certification and now helps executives get clarity, shift their mindset, and find balance. 

Aspiring entrepreneurs as well as anyone climbing the corporate ladder can benefit from Terry’s insight and approach. Terry describes how, after she graduated from college, she was given the book What Color Is My Parachute?, from which she takes two key questions everyone should ask themselves: What do I like to do and what am I good at? 

She starts her coaching by helping her clients gain clarity on their goals, shifting to a positive mindset, then taking action. One of the main challenges she often sees is the reluctance by high achievers to delegate and put systems into place so their staff can take over some of their work. While it might seem faster or somehow better to take care of business themselves, executives - as well as entrepreneurs - need to eventually find ways to delegate tasks and implement systems that allow them to take on new challenges and grow themselves and their company. Letting go of perfectionist tendencies is often one important shift her clients need to make. But once you move from being stuck with what’s in front of you and step back to take a look from a different perspective, you will find opportunities and options you didn’t realize were there. 

Now let’s get better together.

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Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening.

Now on to my guest for today, Paul Baron, an entrepreneur with over 50 years of experience whose latest venture is The Wall Printer. 

Paul studied to become a math teacher but soon found his real calling as an entrepreneur, at first following his passion for tennis. He opened a string of tennis stores before eventually selling to his partner and entering corporate life. While he learned a lot working for others there, he decided it wasn’t for him and embarked on a series of entrepreneurial projects, some that failed and some that succeeded. 

Paul’s businesses have included a successful restaurant in New York City - which promptly failed when he moved it to Florida - and a dog-washing franchise. He follows what interests him and what he thinks serves a need in the market. In 2019, he became intrigued by the wall printer, hardware that allows one to actually print on walls and other vertical areas. Finding that they did not exist for sale in the U.S., he researched the best company offering the machine, ordered some, and obtained licensing rights to sell them in North and South America as well as in the U.K. He sees selling wall printers as a good business opportunity for entrepreneurs, and even though he started the business at the start of the pandemic, he already has 50 people who want to sell wall printers, too. 

Now, let’s get better together.

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Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening. 

Now on to my guest for today, Brandon Cullen, cofounder and chief concept officer of MADabolic, a fitness training system and franchise. 

Brandon, like his co founder, is a former professional hockey player from Canada who played on farm teams for the New York Islanders. After 10 years of playing, he suffered a concussion, ending his career. He’d already been working as a fitness trainer in the off-season so he and his cofounder developed a fitness training system they call MADabolic. MADabolic also franchises gyms and has over 10 locations to date. Their loyal following has kept them afloat even during COVID. 

Brandon explains that the idea for MADabolic grew out of realizing that there was a gap in the fitness industry. MADabolic is designed to specifically appeal to athletes as they age, focusing on ages 25 to 50, offering clients a unique strength-based conditioning program. While Brandon and his partner, both athletes, bring key skills from sports to business, they also realized that some of those skills don’t always cross over. Learning to lead a company comprised of people with different perspectives is one key area he points to. Taking on a partner to handle the logistics of franchising the company has also been key in helping him to focus on leadership in the areas where he excels.

Now, let’s get better together.

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Hey everyone. As always, stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening.

Now on to my guest today, Jonathan Aberman, managing director of Amplifier Advisors and dean of the College of Business, Innovation, Leadership and Technology at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia. Jonathan also hosts the show What’s Working in Washington.

Jonathan comes from a family of entrepreneurs, but his parents wanted him to go to college and join a profession - which he did. But the entrepreneurial bug caught up with him. As a lawyer he’s worked with many startups and entrepreneurs and has started a venture capital fund. And now he’s helping to redesign education by leading an innovative new program at Marymount University. 

Jonathan has a lot of insight into the life of an entrepreneur and what qualities entrepreneurs can offer larger companies. Entrepreneurs need to be motivated by more than just money; most entrepreneurs have a strong belief that they can make a difference. Entrepreneurs can, contrary to what many people believe, work in larger structures, as long as they are treated with respect and are appreciated for what they have to offer. In fact, entrepreneurs as leaders can be really good “culture creators” for a business, especially if they employ a servant-leader model. As dean of the School of Business, Innovation, Leadership and Technology at Marymount, Jonathan is also aware that companies are not so much interested in a graduate’s degree as their skills. And with the increasing automation of tools, creativity is going to play a bigger role than ever in both an individuals and a company’s success.

Now let’s get better together.

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Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening.

Now on to my guest today, Mike Harvey of Business Growth Domination. 

Mike comes from a family of entrepreneurs and got his start working with his dad on a farm. He and his dad both moved into other ventures and Mike wound up in IT services, working with a friend and eventually taking over the business. He now has a wealth of experience as an entrepreneur, which he puts to work helping others grow their businesses. 

Like all entrepreneurs, Mike had to learn that he didn’t know what he didn’t know. He reached out to others who had done what he wanted to do, and learned from them. He also learned that a successful business is all about solving problems. When working with clients, Mike says, there are two major issues he usually helps with: helping entrepreneurs get to the point where they are not trying to do everything - and slowing the business down - and helping them identify what their real challenges are.  

Now let’s get better together.

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Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening.

Now on to today’s guests, Patrick Frank and George Kramb, cofounders of a new digital healthcare solution, Patient Partner. 

Patrick and George have been friends since second grade. They pursued separate careers but came together to start Patient Partner. George had a successful career as a medical device representative and Patrick has worked in a variety of industries developing consumer technologies. 

After seeing a patient struggle with questions and concerns before an operation, then seeing how a postoperative patient was afterwards, George suggested putting them together so the more experienced patient could offer advice and insights. He went to Patrick and asked how they might implement a system where patients could be matched up with mentors to help them through their procedures. That’s how Patient Partner was born. 

Patient Partner matches up patients with mentors and physicians in their area and also helps them determine insurance coverage. While it has not been around very long, the two friends are finding much interest in the platform, with patients frequently coming back to volunteer to be mentors. They also saw firsthand with a family member how well the program has worked. 

George and Patrick credit their successful working relationship to a long history with each other, knowing each other’s styles and attitudes, and trusting that the other won’t give up. These qualities more than anything else, they believe, help them to continue to effectively run and grow the business together. 

Now let’s get better together.

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