The Inspired Stories Podcast

🎙️ From Catfish Restaurant Server at 14 to Hospitality Inventory Consultant: Elizabeth McKee's Journey With Sculpture Hospitality

Elizabeth McKee, franchise owner of Sculpture Hospitality of the Alabama Gulf Coast, shares her journey from waiting tables at a mom and pop catfish restaurant at 14 and never fully leaving the industry, through discovering inventory consulting as a side gig and watching it grow into her full-time business, to building a referral-driven practice along one of the fastest growing coastlines in the United States. Through candid stories about a 2025 that blindsided her after years of doubling her client base, the relief of learning her losses were economy-driven rather than performance-driven, and how volunteering at a panini cook-off reminded her exactly why she loves hospitality, Elizabeth reveals how accountability without blame is the real secret to helping bars and restaurants stop losing money they didn't even know was walking out the door.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Weekly inventory revealing losses most owners never knew existed

• Overpouring as a training problem, not a theft problem

• Bartenders earn more tips by pouring less per drink

• Menu pricing drift when ingredient costs change but prices don't

• Deliveries as a hidden and frequently overlooked source of loss

• Third party accountability removing the owner from being the bad guy

• Dead stock identification and how to move it before it costs you

• A 2025 that reversed years of growth and what she learned from it

• Volunteering with no skin in the game as the fastest path back to confidence

• Sandler selling transforming her from feature pitcher to question asker

• Alabama Gulf Coast as one of the fastest growing regions in the country

• Frontline hospitality workers as the most underappreciated people in any business

🌟 Elizabeth's Key Mentors:

• First Sculpture Hospitality Colleague: The employee who invited Elizabeth to ride along on an inventory job 20 years ago and gave her the first look at what would eventually become her full-time business

• Brian Jackson (Sandler Sales Coach): Transformed her selling approach from feature-driven pitching to question-driven listening, which she credits with fundamentally changing how she serves clients

• Bethany Brenlinger (University of Alabama, School of Hospitality and Sports Management): A connector and friend who runs frontline worker training programs along the Gulf Coast, sharing Elizabeth's passion for recognizing and supporting the people who make hospitality function

• Clients Who Were Honest During Hard Times: The business owners who told her directly what was going wrong in their own operations gave her the data she needed to understand that her 2025 losses were economy-driven, not performance-driven, and that distinction mattered enormously

• Husband: Named directly as the reason the whole operation works, handling the household and kids so Elizabeth can stay in the field

👉 Don't miss this conversation about why the numbers never lie, how accountability without blame changes the entire culture of a bar or restaurant, and what volunteering has to do with getting your confidence back after a hard year in business.

🔗 Connect with Elizabeth McKee:

Company: Sculpture Hospitality of the Alabama Gulf Coast 

Website: sculpturehospitality.com

📄 Transcript Available: The Numbers Never Lie: Elizabeth McKee on Bar Inventory, Overpouring, and Protecting Your Margins

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎤 Kasey Devine Left a Top Sales Job to Fix the Problem He’d Watched the Industry Ignore for Years

Kasey Devine, founder and CEO of Entravia, spent over a decade mastering the workflows inside some of the biggest names in HR outsourcing — then left a top five national sales ranking at ADP to build the platform the industry never bothered to create. Six months in, Entravia has raised $2.6 million, won the Evergreen Award for Best PEO Shopping Platform, and is already threatening legacy workflows across a $414 billion industry.

✨ Key Insights You’ll Learn:

• Cardinals ticket sales as the moment sales stopped being a dirty word

• ADP training as a total transformation — from territory management to pipeline structure

• The chamber of commerce moment that turned near-failure into a relationship-first sales philosophy

• How to ask the one sidebar question at the end of every meeting that changes everything

• The mortgage application that showed Kasey how far the PEO industry had fallen behind

• Why Entravia pivoted from B2C shopping platform to white-labeled B2B infrastructure overnight

• The general agency model and how it made brokers partners instead of competitors

• Getting rejected by every VC, then getting a second look through one unexpected relationship

• Why the cost of building software dropped enough to make this startup possible now

• Browser-based bots that could compress a 9-week PEO evaluation into a single day — once the threats stop

🌟 Kasey’s Key Mentors:

• His ADP manager and training program: built the entire foundation for how he thinks about territory, pipeline, relationships, and value creation

• TriNet founder and ProCare HR founder: showed him what it looks like to lead a sales and marketing org with accountability and discipline

• M25 and Cambrian Ventures: gave him the capital and credibility to move fast on a problem he already understood better than anyone

• His mother: showed him what self-determination looks like when you have no safety net — and that nobody’s coming to save you

👉 Don’t miss this conversation about why helping people is the only sales strategy that actually scales, how a $414 billion industry forgot to make its product easy to buy, and what it looks like to bet everything on a problem you’ve spent your whole career watching go unsolved.

🔗 Connect with Kasey Devine:

Website: entravia.co

📤 Transcript Available: Kasey Devine Left a Top Sales Job to Fix the Problem He’d Watched the Industry Ignore for Years

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📤 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎙️ Scott Sowers: From Textile Executive to Ohio Pest Control Founder

In this episode, Scott Sowers, founder of Earthrite Pest Control, shares how a tearful conversation with his wife pulled him out of a 16-year global textile career and into building a family-owned, people and pet safe pest control company in central Ohio. He opens up about scrapping his business plan two weeks after launch, building one of the state's top bed bug heat eradication companies, and the letter his eight-year-old wrote at school that changed how he spends his time.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• 16 years in textiles before pivoting to pest control

• Left a global career after his wife's tearful request

• Threw out his business plan two weeks after launch

• Built one of Ohio's top bed bug heat eradication companies

• People, pet, and plant safe treatment philosophy

• Worked seven days a week for over a decade

• Daughter's school letter sparked a major life reset

• Spent a year and thousands solving one unique infestation

• Expanding into Dublin and Polaris for efficiency

• Shifting the company to run on data, not gut feel

🌟 Scott's Key Mentors:

• His Father: Serial entrepreneur who modeled relentless work ethic

• His Wife: Former ICU cardiac nurse who pushed him toward something real

• His Uncle: Ran the family's side pest control truck, sparked his interest

• His Daughter: Her school letter reshaped how he spends his time

• Nationwide Pest Control Peers: Helped him crack one of his toughest cases

👉 A candid look at what it costs to build something from nothing, and what it takes to notice before the cost gets too high.

🔗 Connect with Scott Sowers:

Website: Earthritepestcontrol.com

📄 Transcript Available: Inside Earthrite Pest Control's Bed Bug Heat Business with Scott Sowers

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line

Website: addbackbenefits.com

Keywords: pest control, bed bug heat treatment, family owned business, central Ohio business, people pet safe pest control, entrepreneurship, work life balance, small business growth, structural pest control, tick control, termite treatment, business scaling, SOPs and delegation, career pivot, Earthrite Pest Control

Meta Description: Scott Sowers, founder of Earthrite Pest Control, on leaving a global textile career, building one of Ohio's top bed bug companies, and the letter that changed everything.

#InspiredStoriesPodcast #PestControl #SmallBusiness #Entrepreneurship #FamilyBusiness #OhioBusiness #WorkLifeBalance #CareerPivot

🎤 From All-American Runner to Running Retail’s Most Restless Builder: Ben Cooke at Marathon Sports

Ben Cooke, President of Marathon Sports, has spent 25 years building things inside companies he didn’t own — then lost everything trying to build something that was truly his. Along the way he helped create Fleet Feet’s corporate retail arm, launched their e-commerce platform, built an On Running program that became 8% of On’s global business, and is now turning a 30-location New England specialty retailer into a trail running brand with global ambitions.

✨ Key Insights You’ll Learn:

• Competitive athletics as the foundation for a business career driven by daily PRs

• Running Princeton Running Company as a de facto entrepreneur for 11 years under a Koch Industries executive

• Selling to Finish Line and stepping into a national roll-up role without M&A experience

• Transitioning from owned retail to franchising and why the cultures require entirely different instincts

• Building Fleet Feet’s e-commerce, Amazon business, and distribution center from scratch

• The On Running partnership that took them from zero to hundreds of thousands of pairs

• Acquiring Marathon Sports in 2022 and growing from 18 to 32 locations in four years

• Trail running as a flywheel — races, field trips, and dirt camps building the customer of tomorrow

• Why win-win-win is the only deal structure worth pursuing

• Losing everything on two outdoor stores in Colorado and what the failure actually taught him

🌟 Ben’s Key Mentors:

• Princeton Running Company founder: modeled entrepreneurial decision-making at the local level, inspired by Koch Industries’ market-based management philosophy — without ever naming it

• Fleet Feet leadership: gave him room to innovate across every department and scale concepts from zero

• Podcasts (Founders, Acquired): a daily MBA on the commute, replacing incidental mentorship with intentional learning from the best business minds in history

• His own failures: the Colorado outdoor stores taught him that systems and teams — not individual toughness — are what allow entrepreneurs to flourish

👉 Don’t miss this conversation about building something from inside someone else’s company, the specific deal structure that turned On Running into a powerhouse, and what it feels like to lose everything you put in and still say you’d do it again.

🔗 Connect with Ben Cooke:

Website: marathonsports.com

📤 Transcript Available: Ben Cooke Turned 18 Running Stores Into a Trail Running Movement with Marathon Sports

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📤 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎤 Three Generations, One Brand: Eric Simsolo’s Path to President of Next Level Apparel

Eric Simsolo, President of Next Level Apparel, grew up watching his father and grandfather build a wholesale apparel empire from a single embroidery machine in Los Angeles. He chose to start as an intern anyway, worked through every corner of the business, and stepped into the president’s role during one of the company’s most demanding turnarounds. What he found wasn’t just a cleanup project — it was a masterclass in what it looks like to build something that outlasts you.

✨ Key Insights You’ll Learn:

• Three generations of apparel entrepreneurship beginning in Israel in the late 1970s

• How sublimation printing innovation unlocked photorealistic design at mass-market scale

• Warehouse move as an MBA-caliber project management experience in summer 2014

• Post-COVID inventory crisis and the eight-figure write-off that preceded the rebuild

• Stop the bleeding — the four-stage turnaround framework borrowed from battlefield medicine

• The dynamics of reporting directly to your father as president and CEO

• Acquisition of Stedman Europe expanding Next Level from two to fourteen distributors

• First-ever impact report measuring carbon footprint, cotton sourcing, and supply chain responsibility

• US Cotton Trust Protocol and recycled polyester as tangible sustainability commitments

• Altana AI platform for vetting vendor relationships and preventing supply chain blind spots

🌟 Eric’s Key Mentors:

• His grandfather: engineering visionary who retooled industrial printing presses for sublimation, turning a ceiling into a floor for the next generation

• His father: market-research-driven entrepreneur who identified every new business category before competitors saw it, and modeled the courage to start over twice

• Next Level’s leadership team: COO, VP of HR, and department heads who carried institutional knowledge through multiple transitions

• The Stedman Europe team: gave Eric his first model of what a properly staffed international subsidiary could look like

👉 Don’t miss this conversation about what it actually feels like to step into your father’s company during a crisis, why sustainability is a revenue strategy and not just a values statement, and what it means to build something designed to outgrow the person who built it.

🔗 Connect with Eric Simsolo:

Website: nextlevelapparel.com

📤 Transcript Available: From Embroidery Machines to Global Blank Apparel: Three Generations of Next Level

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📤 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎤 From Beijing Dealmaker to Foot Health CEO: John Prothro’s Rebuild of Foot Solutions

John Prothro, President and CEO of Foot Solutions, spent years closing cross-border deals in Beijing, running a 250-person scaffolding company on four continents, and building a private equity fund before acquiring a neglected foot health franchise one week before COVID shut the world down. What followed was a brand overhaul, a failed acquisition that became a recurring speech topic, and the rollout of 3D printed custom orthotics delivering a 97% success rate at four times the speed of traditional methods.

✨ Key Insights You’ll Learn:

• Acquiring Foot Solutions one week before COVID and surviving with no e-commerce

• Brand overhaul starting with a three-word exercise that revealed complete messaging chaos

• 3D printed custom orthotics outperforming traditional lab methods in speed and accuracy

• Semi-weight-bearing scanning technique that separates effective from ineffective orthotics

• Happy Feet Plus acquisition post-mortem — what went wrong and why

• Service business versus retail business distinction that drove the acquisition failure

• Medicare diabetic shoe bill as an underutilized patient benefit and growth opportunity

• 5% royalty structure and no brand fund fee as a franchisee-first differentiator

• 26 years of training infrastructure as a near-impossible barrier to entry

• Path to 350–400 US locations from current base of 52

🌟 John’s Key Mentors:

• Scaffolding company CEO: challenged John to move from advising to doing, exposing the gap between knowing and leading

• Inner Mongolia business partner: gave John his Chinese name meaning “watering the people around you” — a philosophy he carried forward

• Peter Drucker, Jack Welch, and the Harvard Business Review case study library: built his early nonfiction foundation before he realized people skills mattered more

• Foot Solutions franchisees: brought the European scanning technology to corporate, modeling the organizational learning John now builds the system around

👉 Don’t miss this conversation about why most custom orthotics fail before they’re even made, what a bombed acquisition taught a seasoned dealmaker, and how a 26-year-old brand is building a category from scratch.

🔗 Connect with John Prothro:

Website: footsolutions.com

Email: [email protected]

📤 Transcript Available: Rebuilding a Struggling Orthotics Franchise After Buying It the Week Before COVID

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📤 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line Website: addbackbenefits.com

Dave Allred, founder and CEO of Axia Partners, grew up in a destitute household, was entirely on his own at 17, and built his first million by 26 after climbing through Vivint Smart Home as it reached multi-billion dollar valuation across 41 states. At 30 he sat down with a spreadsheet, reverse engineered what financial freedom would actually cost, set a goal of 40 rental properties by 40, hit it at 36, then reset to 1,000 doors by 40 and hit that too.

✨ Key Insights You’ll Learn:

• Living in a semi truck cab at 17 and finding $120 a month rent with a collapsing roof

• How Clint Ashton became the first person to speak possibility into Dave’s life

• The three skills Dave says lead to seven figure income: salesmanship, recruiting, and leadership

• Why freedom has been his core motivator from the beginning and how it has evolved

• The lifestyle design spreadsheet with 10 tabs he created at 26 and still updates monthly

• The financial freedom equation: reverse engineering passive income by a deadline

• Power and proximity: how to get near the people doing what you want to do

• Teaching all four kids to be employees, investors, and entrepreneurs simultaneously

• How Axia Partners structures recession-resilient real estate funds for accredited investors

• The legacy video he created for his father after losing his mother unexpectedly

🌟 Dave’s Key Mentors:

• Clint Ashton (Teenage Boss and Neighbor): First person to speak possibility into Dave and rehire him after the pipe bomb incident

• Todd Peterson (Vivint CEO): Modeled power and proximity at scale and taught Dave to seek the top 1-2% of any new arena

• Ed Mylett and Andy Frisella: Reinforced 10x thinking and the concept of being the one who resets generational standards

• Dave’s Business Coach: Connected the dots between Dave’s childhood freedom deprivation and his core motivator as an adult

👉 Don’t miss this conversation about what it actually takes to reverse engineer freedom, why leadership beats salesmanship as a long-term skill, and how one man used a Jerry Rice poster in a broken-down house to build a $50 million real estate firm.

🔗 Connect with Dave Allred:

Website: daveallred.com

Website: axiapartners.com

LinkedIn: Dave Allred, Axia Partners

📤 Transcript Available: How Dave Allred Reverse Engineered Financial Freedom and Hit 1,000 Rental Doors by 40

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📤 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency — Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line. Website: addbackbenefits.com

Kal Patel, founder and CEO of Crestpoint Companies, grew up stripping motel rooms at 12 years old, swore he'd never return to hospitality, and then spent 25 years building hotels, a home inspection franchise, an urgent care, and a social media agency his daughter now runs. His path includes a near-fatal car accident, a $150K loss, and a fall off a roof that nearly cost him his arm -- each one followed by a rebuild.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Childhood motel work as foundation for lifelong grit

• T-shirt shop launch with $30K borrowed from friends and family

• Head-on car accident that ended the t-shirt business

• First hotel built using library books to learn blueprints

• $150K loss from partner capital calls and the seven-year payback

• Roof fall, nine surgeries, and systems that kept the business running

• Home inspection franchise grown to 11 locations across four states

• Hospitality principles brought into AFC Urgent Care design

• Social Sia: daughter's social media agency at 27 clients

• Fueled by Purpose: book dedicated to his late mother

🌟 Kal's Key Mentors:

• Craig Oberg: Personal trainer turned advisor who redirected Kal into home inspections and urged him to let go of the $150K loss

• Kal's Wife (Lina): 27-year Accenture career; anchor through every financial setback and rebuild

• E-Myth Revisited (Michael Gerber): Systems framework that kept the inspection business running through his injury recovery

• Kal's Mother: Lifelong cheerleader whose passing inspired the journaling that became his book

• Jed (Business Partner): Took over hotel management operations, freeing Kal to focus on development

👉 Don't miss this conversation about rebuilding after loss, building systems that outlast you, and what it looks like to pass a business on to the next generation.

🔗 Connect with Kal Patel:

Website: crestpointco.com

Email: [email protected]

Book: fueledbypurpose.com

📄 Transcript Available: From Motel Rooms at 12 to Hotel Developer: Kal Patel

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency -- Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line. Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎤 The Accident That Redefined Marketing: Kevin Koster’s Mission to Fix Business Value

Kevin Koster, President and Chief Brand Officer of Skopós, The Brand Refinery and founder of Nexit Growth Partners, watched two business owners die in the same accident — and only one company survived. That moment set him on a 20-year mission to prove that marketing, done right, is the most powerful driver of business value that most owners have never measured.

✨ Key Insights You’ll Learn:

• Two owners, one accident — what separated the company that survived

• Why most businesses are worth half what the owner thinks

• Marketing controlling five of eight business value drivers

• The $10M swing from a 20-minute assessment and 90-minute meeting

• Owner concentration as the #1 killer of transferable business value

• Recurring revenue and true delegation as value-building levers

• The roofing company conversation that sparked the Nexit vision

• 20-to-1 ROI guarantee on business value assessments

• Entrepreneurship through acquisition and how MBA buyers find unprepared sellers

• Building Skopós  on purpose-first positioning, not lead generation

🌟 Kevin’s Key Mentors:

• Dave Sandweiss: Founded Sandweiss Advertising modeled conservative brand-first client service, and unknowingly built a transferable company

• John Warrillow: Author of Built to Sell and creator of the Value Builder System used as the backbone of Nexit assessments

• Kansas City Star leadership: Shaped Kevin’s creative sales instincts and exposed the dysfunction of rigid corporate systems

• Times Mirror Corporation: Forged his competitive instincts in a brutal Southern California newspaper market fresh out of college

👉 Don’t miss this conversation about what business owners almost never calculate, why the marketing industry is missing the biggest opportunity in front of it, and how one tragedy launched a career-defining mission.

🔗 Connect with Kevin Koster:

Website: nexitgrowth.com

Website: skoposworks.com

📤 Transcript Available: Kevin Koster on Why Marketing Drives Business Value More Than You Realize

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📤 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line Website: addbackbenefits.com

Christian Hertl is a CFP and partner at Antolino Wealth Advisors, a Columbus-based fiduciary wealth management firm now in its third generation, with offices in Columbus, Gallipolis, Estero, and Naples. The firm was founded in 1960 by Ralph Antolino Sr., a schoolteacher whose part-time life insurance work outpaced his salary, and has been built on a philosophy of thinking and caring rather than product sales. Christian joined in 2004 after a stint at Wells Fargo Financial, earned his CFP designation in 2010, became a partner in 2013, and now leads client relationships focused primarily on business owners navigating the intersection of their companies and their personal wealth.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Antolino Wealth Advisors founded in 1960 by Ralph Antolino Sr., a former schoolteacher and son of Italian immigrants who couldn't read or write

• Firm philosophy of thinking and caring: the value is in understanding what clients want, not in specific products or strategies

• Christian's early lesson at Wells Fargo: people make financial decisions based on motivation toward goals, not math

• Joining Antolino in 2004 through a college network connection, arriving at exactly the right moment when two spots had opened

• The Ultra Vision System: a proprietary discovery process to get clients ultra-clear on what they want and build a path to get there

• Three-tier client model with paired resources for each level, from business owners with complex needs to their families and employees

• Advanced strategies including specialty retirement plans that allow business owners to shelter up to $1-2 million annually in tax-deductible contributions

• Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) as a tool to sell a business, avoid capital gains, and transfer wealth to employees

• Succession planning as a core differentiator: acquiring four to five smaller advisory firms whose owners had no plan for transition

• Growing from roughly 15 employees three years ago to 25 today, with three more graduates coming from Ohio State

🌟 Christian's Key Mentors:

• Ralph Antolino Sr. (Founder): The most thoughtful and caring person Christian ever worked with, whose Optimist Creed and mission of thinking and caring still define the firm's culture

• Ralph Antolino Jr.: Built on his father's foundation, modeled the owner-operator mentality and brought Christian into the firm through a shared network connection

• Maureen Armstrong (Partner): Made partner at the same time as Christian, brings deep employee benefits expertise, and helped build the firm's team-based advisory model

• His Father: A church employee who gave Christian a strong sense of purpose and belief that shaped how he processes his sister's illness and finds meaning in suffering

👉 Don't miss Christian's account of how his sister's terminal cancer diagnosis at 34 forced him to rethink everything he believed about purpose and suffering, and what he found on the other side of that reckoning.

🔗 Connect with Christian Hertl:

Website: antolino.com

📋 Transcript Available: Christian Hertl on Building Wealth Advisory Relationships That Outlast Any Single Advisor's Career

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📋 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line. Website: addbackbenefits.com