The MECE Muse Unplugged Podcast - Empowering Go-Getters on Their Journey to Greatness

Jill Lublin is an author and master strategist on how to position your business for more profitability and more visibility in the marketplace. She is CEO of a strategic consulting firm and has over 20 years’ experience working with over 100,000 people plus national and international media.   Jill says that publicity is the most powerful and cost-effective tool around to attract and retain customers and clients. It can help your business make its mark in the marketplace and multiply its profits.

In this interview, Jill shares her journey and how you too can become an influencer in your realm of expertise.

Listen to the Episode Here:

Interview with Jill Lublin

My guest is Jill Lublin. She is an author, a coach and a consultant on the area of becoming an influencer if you’re thinking about how to level up with your credibility. How do you take your content and your body of knowledge and create a thought leadership presence out in the marketplace? Jill helps you do that. In this episode, she helps deep dive into what some of the best tactics are creating and generating publicity for your consulting work or your consulting business. She gives a lot of tips that she sees worked within the industry. Jill, thank you for joining us on the MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing?

I am so good and it’s great to be here with you.

Thank you for joining us. Jill, we would love for you to take a moment to introduce yourself to the go-getters of the MECE Muse unplugged.

One of the things that I’ve been very blessed is that I have four bestselling books. My latest that are relevant for this is Guerrilla Publicity and The Profit of Kindness, a book all about using kindness in business. It’s always important. I’ve been helping entrepreneurs, small business owners, coaches, consultants, authors, speakers, for over twenty years get more visibility and credibility using publicity as a primary strategy.

I help people get more clients and more prospects by using publicity mostly through what I call my publicity crash courses, which I teach as live Zoom events where they don’t have to travel or live events. I’ve been working with people for over twenty years. It’s been a lot of fun. I help people get book deals, who don’t even have a word written and those who are self-published, I help get foreign rights deals. I work in a number of different arenas.

It sounds like you are definitely a consultant’s secret weapon.

That’s a great way to say it, and I am. I’ve helped consultants who are starting business or growing their business get more clients and get more credibility.

You are the real deal, Jill. I definitely want to talk to you about becoming an influencer for go-getters and consultants out there that want to do that. It would be great for you to maybe take a step back and share how did you get started with the journey that you’ve been on.

I started in the music business, which is great fun. I started consulting with independent record labels and musicians and I’ve always worked with highly creative people. I love that and I’m good at it and I love messaging. That’s how I started, in the music business.

How did you decide to write your first book? Maybe share what led you to believe that publicity is the real strategy to...

Tori is a social media consultant, blogger, and Instagram influencer with over 30,000 followers.  With over nine years’ experience creating engaging social media for clients, Tori decided to niche down on her consulting business to specifically focus on helping women-led run organizations grow their business.  In this interview, Tori shares some of her best practices on how you can best leverage social media, and build a brand online to grow your consulting business and pipeline by creating a micro niche focus.

Listen to the Episode Here:

Interview with Tori Mistick

We’re going to be speaking with Tori Mistick. She is a consultant, coach and blogger. She’s also a go-getter and a social media influencer. She’s huge on Instagram. You can check her out. She has well-over 30,000 followers. What she’s going to talk to us about is how you can roll your business being super specific and super niche. When most consulting companies or individuals decide to go into the space, they start out broad and what I love about Tori’s strategy is that going broad as a social media consultant and marketer and coach, she decided to go specifically niche. Tori’s consulting business primarily focuses on helping women grow their business using Instagram.

It’s a cool story and a great example of how you can take a different path and be able to take your business to the next level. You’ll enjoy this conversation, go-getters. Tori also leaves us a freebie. You will find a tutorial on how to create Instagram stories. What I love about Tori’s best practices, they actually work. I’m still on my journey to greatness when it comes to my social media game. I’ve had a bad social media presence up when I decided to begin to grow my presence from the ground up, and so check out my Instagram. You can follow me on @MECEMuse on Instagram. You’ll see some of the tactics that Tori shares on this show as well as in her tutorial. Tori, thank you so much for joining us on the MECE Muse. How are you doing?

I’m great. Thank you for having me.

Tori, where are you located at this moment?

I live in Pittsburgh, PA.

Thank you so much for making time to connect. Tori, maybe we can start by introducing yourself to the go getters of the MECE Muse Unplugged.

My name is Tori Mistick. I live in Pittsburgh where I was born and raised, and I’ve been a social media consultant for about eight or nine years working primarily with small businesses here in Pittsburgh, but I’ve also consulted with businesses all over the world and with large nonprofits and museums and brands and just a huge variety. For about eight years, I consulted on every social media you could imagine and even ones that don’t exist anymore.

Then in 2017, I rebranded my business to niche down into Instagram coaching and consulting. Since my last name is Mistick, I called it InstaMistick and came up with some fun branding around that with crystals, which I’m into personally and it’s a nice positive vibe message to everyone and started focusing in on working with women entrepreneurs and creative women. It’s been exciting. I never heard anyone say micro niche before, but I definitely have created a little micro niche for my consultancy. It never ceases to amaze me just how effective you can be. You think you’re going to reach less people when you go super specific, but you reach people who are a better fit for you.

My business has grown a lot and I’m more fulfilled by it since I did that. That’s been cool and then in addition to all of my social media...

Quick wins interview with David Barnett – author, speaker, and seasoned consultant with expertise as a private transaction advisor that helps clients around the world buy or sell businesses.

After a career in advertising sales, Barnett started several businesses including a commercial debt brokerage. Helping to finance small and medium sized businesses led to the field of business brokerage. Over several years, Barnett sold dozens of businesses for others while also managing his own portfolio of income properties and starting his career as a local private investor. Barnett regularly consults with professionals and banks on business and asset values.

In today’s interview, David breaks down how best practices in buying and selling businesses, how you should prepare, as well as emerging trends in the business brokerage space.

Listen to the Episode Here:

We are doing a Quick Wins episode. Quick Wins are when I have the opportunity to connect with individuals, discussing products, ideas or services to help round out your consulting toolkit. We’ve got super cool guest. I call this a special edition, go-getters. We’ve got David Barnett on the show. He is a seasoned consultant, an author, a speaker and he’s a former business broker. I asked David to join us on the show to talk about the buying and selling of businesses. It’s a topic that I hear a lot of consultants talk about. Just from an M&A perspective, when at least the consultants that I know and work with, they may do a lot of what’s called mergers and acquisitions transactional types of work.

What David is describing and what he’ll share on the show is for those go-getters out there that may be already entrepreneurs, independent freelancers that are wanting to step their entrepreneurial consulting game up in scale and thinking about buying a consulting firm or go getters out there that currently have their own boutique firm and maybe thinking about selling it off. David provides cool insights. David has a unique position he plays. He acts as a consultant for individuals that are seeking to buy a business and giving people the ins and outs of the business brokerage and commercial debt structuring, different kinds of elements of buying and selling businesses.

David is going to unpack what do you look for when you’re buying a business, selling it, managing small businesses, the complexity of it. Sometimes people don’t realize how complex it is to buy and sell what he calls the main street businesses, things like gas stations and laundry mats. He talks about that nobody else talks about where he sees business buying and selling, where he sees that headed, what are some of the trends out there and what are some things that you should consider if you are looking to be in this space. I thought it was really unique.

I want us to do a quick recap of my experience. I’m officially a TEDx speaker. I had the utmost pleasure of hitting the TEDx stage in Zaragoza, Spain where I talked about how to create thriving organizational cultures and my talk is called Why Great People Quit Good Jobs. It was so surreal to not only be on the stage but the journey it took to get there has been pretty exciting. I do plan on doing an episode just on TEDx and I want to gather some of my peers in this space to talk about if you’re interested in doing TEDx talks or hitting the TED stage yourself and want more information even attending a TED event.

Before I went down the journey of my TEDx journey, I attended a TED Talk event because I wanted to get more insight. You see what is the final outcome on YouTube videos and if you go to the Ted.

 

Special edition of The MECE Muse Unplugged celebrating the podcast’s 9 month journey.

This episode includes a replay of an interview with Michelle Florendo, a former consultant, a decisions analysis expert & career coach for Type A professionals.   A Stanford University graduate with a degree in decision engineering & analysis, Michelle shares her career journey in consulting and some of her lessons learned.

Michelle unpacks the concept of decision making for those that may be feeling stuck in their career or at a crossroads. She breaks down the components of strategic decision making, providing simple yet actionable steps, best practices, and recommendations on how you can make decisions to live a happier, healthier life.

Listen to the Episode Here:

We’re going to be doing a little bit of a different type of episode. I’m going to dub this one On the Bench. This is another Bench edition. We did a Bench episode back then where we took a break, bench or some firms call it the beach. On the Bench is a consulting lingo or taking a break. Any downtime in between projects that individuals have as a consultant is termed being on the bench. I want us to take a moment and celebrate how far the podcast has come. I wanted to thank you all for being such gracious listeners. I wanted to share some stats. The podcast, MECE Muse Unplugged turned nine months old. I want to take a pause and thank you all.

We’ve been able to produce over 40 episodes with that many guests on the show. Great conversations. We’ve had over 22,000 episode downloads of the show since it started. Over 1,000 plus subscribers and we now have go-getters listening to the show in 70 countries. I remember the last time I did a Bench episode, we had go-getters in about 38 country that that time. We’ve definitely increased our presence in 70 countries across six continents, which is fantastic. In the US alone, MECE Muse Unplugged’s biggest market for podcast listeners. We have listeners in 44 of the 50 states. The podcast has grown, expanded, and it’s been much more than I ever thought it would be.

I remember when I started the show, I was just thinking, “I’m going to put together a podcast. I’m going to dub it a pop up,” because I didn’t know how long I was going to be doing it. I didn’t know if anyone was going to tune in, if anyone was going to care to tune in. I dubbed it a pop up and say, “Let’s see what happens and if it works, it works. It doesn’t, it doesn’t.” I started bare bones. I started this thing and it’s taken a life on its own. It added a lot of dimension to my life and the wonderful relationships I’ve been able to build through the podcast. Most importantly, I continue to hear from you, go-getters. I remember I used to say that a lot on the show is, “I’m only going to keep doing this if I hear from people. If it seems like no one cares, I’m going to move on.”

As consultants, we want to always add value. To me, it was like, “If this was not valuable, we’re not doing this anymore,” and that’s okay. I was going to be perfectly okay if I tried it out and a couple months in, no one tuned in, I’d say, “I tried.” That has not been the case. I’ve continued to get emails, continue to hear people giving me feedback, things they like to hear on the show, introducing me to guests. I’ve even had people been able to make career decisions. That’s been amazingly important for me. For me to hear that this show has helped people make career decisions, help people pick projects, help people decide even what firm they’re going to go to, help people land consulting jobs. That impact is exactly what this is all about.

I’m grateful to be in this space that I am in doing what we’re doing here. Nothing brings me more joy than to be living and being the mentor that I wish I had. In the beginning,

 

AMA (Ask Me Anything) interview with Bianca J Jackson, a seasoned consultant turned career coach and LinkedIn strategist. In today’s interview, Bianca shares her career journey IT consulting,  side hustles, and how she transitioned into entrepreneurship.  She also breaks down how she got started with LinkedIN, including how she grew her following on LinkedIN to over 20, 000 followers.

We’re doing an AMA interview. AMA is when I have a chance to connect with former or seasoned consultant and they give you advice. We had a chance to connect with Bianca J. Jackson. She is a seasoned consultant and a LinkedIn expert and she’s going to give some full tips on how you can maximize your LinkedIn profile and take your game to the next level. Bianca, thank you so much for joining us on the MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing?

Interview with Bianca J. Jackson

I’m doing fantastic. Thanks for having me.

We’re going to talk about LinkedIn. Maybe you can introduce yourself to the Go-Getter of the MECE Muse Unplugged.

I am Bianca J. Jackson and you can find me on LinkedIn. I’m excited to be here to talk about the importance of LinkedIn, how you can leverage LinkedIn and position yourself as an expert. I’ve been on LinkedIn for about ten years now and it seems like a long time, but over the last year, I’ve grown my following significantly. I’ve gone from 1,200 people to about 22,000 or 23,000 followers. I’m wanting to be a speaker. To be in a virtual reality space and also to be able to help people move their careers along. That’s pretty much in a nutshell why I feel like I can speak about LinkedIn and give people some valuable helpful tips.

You’re definitely the go-to expert, Bianca, and I must say, with all the different social media platforms, I personally feel like LinkedIn is one of the harder platforms to build a following because it’s not just putting out personal things. It’s also being able to have that professional valuable content that people deem you an expert to follow. I give you a lot of kudos for being able to grow your platform significantly to over 22,000 followers. That’s a lot and that’s pretty amazing. Maybe you can share a little bit about your career journey. I know you’ve been a consultant for quite some time and you’ve transitioned. You’re now doing career coaching and a LinkedIn strategist. Maybe you can take a step back and share a little bit about your journey in consulting.

When I graduated in college, I came on board as a full-time consultant for a software company in Philadelphia and I loved it at first. I was traveling all over the place. When you travel a lot, there is the ugly side of the traveling to being stuck on a tarmac. Your flights being delayed, being a consultant wears off. Then I went to full-time, so I was no longer a consultant. I did that for about four years and then I went back to consulting over the summer and then I had full-time jobs ever since. I left my last corporate position as a project manager. My whole career had been in IT and I decided that I was going to run my own businesses. Now, I’m back in the consulting realm, helping not only individuals but also businesses. Being a black woman, being in tech, the way that I like to describe it from time to time is I was a bit of a unicorn. For anyone who doesn’t know too much about the tech industry, about 25% are women. Women employees that represent 25% of all tech employees in the US and then when it comes to women of color, we’re about 1% to 3%.

There’s been plenty of times where I was the only person who look like m...

AMA (Ask Me Anything) interview with Bianca J Jackson, a seasoned consultant turned career coach and LinkedIn strategist. In today’s interview, Bianca shares her career journey IT consulting,  side hustles, and how she transitioned into entrepreneurship.  She also breaks down how she got started with LinkedIN, including how she grew her following on LinkedIN to over 20, 000 followers.

Links in today’s episode

* Bianca J Jackson LinkedIN

* Bianca J Jackson website

* Sign up for Bianca’s daily career inspiration

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Quick Wins interview with Ernest Barbaric, a seasoned consultant, digital marketer, and veteran podcaster. Ernest shares his career journey, how he adapted through volatile market swings, and how he got started with podcasting.  Ernest shares perspectives on the state of podcasting as channel, common pitfalls, and what to consider if you want to start your own podcast show.

Ernest also discusses the upcoming PodSummit, a one day event in Western Canada where you will get a chance to connect with podcasters, businesses, hobbyists, entrepreneurs, community leaders, and content creators sharing their voice with the world.

Listen to the Episode Here:

We’re going to be doing a Quick Wins interview. Quick Wins is when I have the opportunity to connect with individuals discussing ideas, products, and services to help round out your consulting tool kit. I’m honored to have Ernest Barbaric join us. He is a seasoned consultant. He’s specifically in the digital marketing space. He’s also a podcaster and an all-around go-getter himself. I had the chance to meet Ernest when I attended his PodSummit conference. He had hosted the first PodSummit conference within the western Canada area and I was super thrilled to meet him. With his help and with this conference, it’s the founding story of the MECE Muse Unplugged. I’m excited to have Ernest on this show. Ernest shares with us how he got started in consulting, specifically how we adapted after a lot of different volatile market shifts because he did several stints with startups. He also helps discuss and dissect more about how he became a podcaster. He’s got a cool podcast called The Art of Meaningful Work. He became an early adopter of podcasting in general. He’s been podcasting for a number of years. On this show, he breaks down the state of podcasting. If you’re interested in starting your own podcast show, what are some of things you should consider?

Interview with Ernest Barbaric

There are a lot of noise in the system. Podcasting is the thing to do these days. With Ernest’s insights and he’s been at the ground floor of podcasting as a channel, he provides some profound insight. I attended his PodSummit and after attending that summit, I ended up launching the MECE Muse Unplugged. I felt like I walked away and had a whole tool kit of information I needed to start my own show. I’m looking forward to participating in his PodSummit again. This time as a podcaster and being able to get some advanced information. What’s cool is that he sets up the conference, so whether you were just getting started like I was or if you’re a seasoned podcaster looking to take your podcast show to the next game, his summit fits all areas. Ernest, thank you so much for joining us on MECE Muse. How are you doing?

I am excellent and this is such a pleasure. I enjoy our friendship and I’m glad that we’re able to connect on a podcast.

Ernest is the reason this podcast even exists. We met online. I was looking for a hack to start a podcast show. I remember I came across your summit. I’m based in Boston and on a whim, I was like, “I’m attending the summit. This looks like the real deal.” Then I reached out to you. It’s such a pleasure to have you and this go full circle. Maybe you can take a moment and you can introduce yourself to the go getters of the MECE Muse Unplugged.

Hello, Go-Getters of the MECE Muse Unplugged. Most of the work that I do is in the digital marketing strategy world. I do consulting for a pretty wide variety of different brands.

We’re going to be doing a Quick Wins interview. Quick Wins is when I have the opportunity to connect with individuals discussing products, ideas or services to help round out your consulting toolkit. Our guest is David JP Fisher. He is a consultant, a business coach, and an author. He’s got a great book called Hyper-Connected Selling and we go deep about social selling and networking in a digital world. David provides a lot of key insights of his experiences as a consultant, the importance of networking, why networking is the key to unlocking a lot of doors to professional success. David brings down-to-earth tactical ways that you can begin to elevate your social selling game today in a way that’s manageable, that’s realistic. David provides some resources and more insights on his website.

I wanted to share an announcement. I’m thrilled to now be able to announce that I’m going to be doing my first TEDx Talk. I’m excited about that and I’m a confirmed speaker for TEDx Zaragoza in Spain. I’m going to be talking about the topic of organizational cultures. I wrote a blog post and it went viral on my blog. It’s funny because when I look at the other blog posts on my website, it got under 100 hits or so. This one post has over 100,000 hits. It was pretty remarkable. I wrote about organizational cultures. The blog post went viral and here I am, I’m doing a TEDx Talk on it. I’m super thrilled to be sharing this news with you Go-Getters.

Listen to the podcast here:

David, welcome to the MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing?

I am living the dream. Excited to be here.

What part of the world are you in right now, David?

I am in my home base in Chicago, Illinois.

Thank you again for being on the show. Before we get started, if you can introduce yourself to the Go-Getters of the MECE Muse Unplugged.

My name is David JP Fisher, but pretty much everybody calls me D Fish, which is a nickname I picked up when I was playing in a band in an earlier incarnation of my life. For the last almost thirteen years, I’ve run a consulting firm called RockStar Consulting where I’ve been a professional business coach and sales trainer. Over the last few years, I’ve written a number of books including Networking In The 21st Century: Why Your Network Sucks And What To Do About It. We released Hyper-Connected Selling.

I got my start in the sales and entrepreneurship world coming right out of college. I ran a sales company here in Chicago for a company called Cutco, which many people are familiar with. We sold kitchen knives and took the experiences that I developed there and continued on through my career in sales and entrepreneurship. Today, I coach professionals. I do a lot of speaking and training around the country in the world, which is a lot of fun. I write books, which is also a lot of fun.

David, you have an impressive background. I was looking at the number of books you’ve written.

 

Quick Wins interview with powerful couple, entrepreneurs, & co-authors Ajit Nawalkha and Neeta Bhushan.  Ajit is the Founder of Evercoach, a coaching/training company, and Neeta is the Founder of The Global Grit Institute.  They wrote a book together called The Book of Coaching.

In this interview, Ajit & Neeta provides perspectives on what good coaching looks like, the difference between a coach, mentor, and trainer.  They also share how consultants can develop & use coaching skills as a competitive advantage.

Listen to the Episode Here:

We’re going to be doing a Quick Ones interview. Quick Ones are when I have the opportunity to connect with individuals, discussing products, ideas, and services to help round out your consulting toolkit. We got a couple of guests. They are serial entrepreneurs, super rock stars. They are both best-selling authors, and they are a power couple. This is our first couple on The MECE Muse, but we’re thrilled to have Ajit Nawalkha and Neeta Bhushan join us. Ajit is the Founder of Evercoach, which is his coaching organization. Neeta is the Founder of the Global Grit Institute and they both decided to get together and co-author a book called The Book of Coaching. We have a chance to talk about coaching. That seems to be a big buzzword these days, especially if you go online and look at a lot of solopreneurs out there.

There’s a lot of coaching going on out there in the world. I’ve had questions of people asking me, “What’s the difference between a coach and a mentor or a coach and a trainer?” Ajit and Neeta come in to share a little bit about their insights, how they got started. They both transitioned into the entrepreneurial space, and they share their differences of definition of a coach, mentor, and trainer, and how you can leverage all of these different resources for any personal, professional, or organizational transformation. They also share how you as a consultant can leverage coaching as a skill set that you can bring to your clients. It’s an important, informative conversation. I look forward to having both Ajit and Neeta come and talk about being a couple and working together. That’s a pretty unique instance and I’d love to hear their perspective.

Interview with Ajit Nawalkha & Neeta Bhushan

Neeta and Ajit, thank you so much for joining us on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you both doing?

Awesome. Excited to be here.

Can each of you take a moment and just introduce yourselves?

I wear many hats as many consultants and entrepreneurs do. I’m Founder of the Global Grit Institute, authored two best-selling books, created the SchoolOfGrit.TV, and I run a business accelerator. I speak all around the world helping entrepreneurs create their greatest masterpiece in a book.

My name is Ajit but my nickname is AJ for this conversation. I am Co-Founder of Evercoach, Co-Founder of Mind Valley, a co-author of The Book of Coaching and a global traveler and lover of life.

You both sound not only busy but you’re living fabulous lives. How did you get started? It seems like you’re both doing a couple of things similar, but some things very different. How did you decide to start this journey?

 

“Anybody listening to this show has the chance to create something incredible. Has the chance to be something incredible.”

AMA interview with Mitch Russo, an experienced business strategist, implementation consultant, and serial entrepreneur, former CEO of Business Breakthrough International, a training/coaching joint venture with Chet Holmes & Tony Robbins that he scaled from the ground up into a $25M in annual revenues. Before Business Breakthrough, Mitch founded Timeslips Corp which he sold after reaching $10M in sales.

Mitch delves into how to scale a profitable, sustainable business, sharing stories and lessons learned along the way.  He shares his thoughts on how to best work on virtual teams and his new venture, Results Breakthrough Network.

Listen to the Episode Here:

We are going to be doing an Ask Me Anything or AMA interview. AMAs are when I have the utmost pleasure of connecting with either seasoned or former consultants and they give you advice. We’ve got Mitch Russo in the house as our guest. He is a seasoned business consultant and he’s a serial entrepreneur. He’s the former CEO of the Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes joint venture called Business Breakthroughs International. We get a chance to connect with Mitch and he shares a lot about the art of scaling. How do you scale a business or scale a particular joint venture, whether it’s for yourself or your business or for your clients? How do you do that in a way that brings results in a sustainable way? Mitch delves into that. He also shares a little bit about his Results Breakthrough Network that he’s just getting started. I’m super thrilled and honored to have Mitch.

Interview with Mitch Russo

Thank you so much for taking time to be on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing?

I’m doing great.

Thank you for taking the time. Maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself.

My background is that of a business founder. I started a software company when I was in my twenties. I grew it to over 100 people and then I sold it to a European company called Sage PLC. I had a lot of fun doing that. That was a great experience and I learned so much being a software company founder. As my life unfolded, I came back at the age of 40 years old. I had finished all of my financial goals for just about a lifetime and I didn’t know what to do next. I decided I would help other companies. In a sense, that’s all I’ve been doing ever since. I decided to go back into consulting and help other companies. I was able to help nineteen different companies to either raise money or launch before I took a job working directly with my friend Chet Holmes to build a company called Business Breakthroughs International with Tony Robbins.

Tony, Chet, and I went into partnership together and we built Business Breakthroughs International, which grew to be about a $25 million a year company based entirely on helping entrepreneurs and business people with training, consulting and coaching. The training programs that we created were very powerful and very popular. We sold them through webinars and we advertised on the radio. I was responsible for spending millions of dollars setting up radio campaigns and executing those to make sure that we got the most out of them. As background, that’s what I’ve done. Since then, I work individually with clients to help them grow their companies. I have started a new company recently called the Results Breakthrough Network.

How did you get connected with Chet and Tony Robbins?