The Idea Climbing Podcast

<p>Your money mindset can make or break you as an entrepreneur. I discuss how to create a successful money mindset in this episode with my guest, Robin Waite.</p> <p>Robin is a dynamic and inspiring public speaker, author, and international business coach. He has a passion for helping others succeed and reach their full potential, and his energy and enthusiasm are contagious. With over 20 years of experience as an entrepreneur and business coach, Robin has a wealth of knowledge and practical insights to share with his audiences.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p><center><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/S4wQkaEQClQ?si=RtPHib8a2G4HKJcu" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></center><center></center>&#160;</p> <p>I asked Robin about his story and he said “<em>I&#8217;ve only been in business for 21 years, so maybe I&#8217;m a bit of a slow learner. I don&#8217;t know. But I finally feel I&#8217;ve nailed it when it comes to pricing and money mindset.”</em></p> <h3><strong>We dive into topics including:</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Why how we choose to buy things is a reflection of how we price and sell things as entrepreneurs.</li> <li>How to break through that pricing barrier in your mind.</li> <li>The two financial things your business needs to be profitable.</li> <li>The makeup of a successful business foundation.</li> <li>The three questions you need to ask yourself to achieve your financial goals.</li> <li>How and when to raise the prices of your service offerings.</li> <li>How to attract the right clients at higher price points.</li> <li>How to sustain a higher value, higher ticket price business model over time.</li> <li>The challenge of “loss aversion” and how to overcome it.</li> <li>The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to create a successful money mindset.</li> </ul> <p>…and more golden nuggets of advice!</p> <h3>In the Beginning&#8230;</h3> <p>Robin ran a marketing agency for the first 12 years of his career, predominantly doing web design and branding up until 2016, and ultimately ended up selling that agency. It was a good time because he was between kids and it meant he could spend a bit of time with his family and just enjoy my earnout that he had.</p> <p>Robin eventually needed to make a decision about his professional life; start a new career or start a new business? Because the first question everybody asked you at networking meetings is “What do you do?” And I&#8217;m like. I don&#8217;t really do anything &#8217;cause, you know, and then I tell &#8217;em I sold my agency and naturally you get a lot of freelancers and agency owners, small networking events.</p> <p>Robin did some informal networking over coffee and cake and turns out actually I was quite good at it. While explaining the agency he sold Robin realized that the reason somebody wanted to buy his agency was because there was some really cool stuff which he’d done around sort of how we packaged up our offer, how we priced it, and various things like that.</p> <p>During the 12 years of running that agency, with a bit of help from therapists and various mentors and coaches, he started to realize this mountain of value that he’d actually create. He also realized he had gotten rid of the negative money mindset which he had inherited as a child. Robin had undone a lot of that during those 12 years running the agency.</p> <p>He decided to start a new business as a business coach.</p> <h3><strong>Your Money Mindset Starts in Childhood</strong></h3> <p>Many people&#8217;s money blueprints are actually formed before their earliest memories. You’re building emotions even as a toddler based on what&#8217;s going on in the home. Many of the people speaks with they typically say most of the arguments were about money. They’ve adopted the sort of stuff that people say, such as, money doesn&#8217;t grow on trees and money&#8217;s the root of all evil and all those sorts of things. But a lot of, um, you know, home-based arguments are familial arguments around money of some sort.</p> <p>In Robin’s home growing up it was a bit traumatic. There were fights between his mother and father over household bills, holidays, and things like that. It got a point where Robin and his brother used to go and hide upstairs.</p> <p>It was very volatile. So, you can imagine at a very young formative age Robin’s associations with money were scary. That&#8217;s the same for many people. Much of the population are born into not necessarily born into poverty; but they&#8217;re born into working class family homes where money is tight. You know, we&#8217;re not all built, born with trust funds and silver spoons in our mouths.</p> <h3><strong>Financial Mindset Growing Up</strong></h3> <p>And then go into your teenage years where you want a bit of financial independence. You don&#8217;t want to rely on your parents for money, so you go out and get a paper route or you go and work in a restaurant waiting tables or something like that.</p> <p>Then you start to earn your own money. But now what you&#8217;re teaching yourself is that money comes through hard work and getting paid a wage. Part of that is repeating what your parents did because many of our parents worked for a wage throughout their lives. Then your parents are trying to educate you about money. They start telling you to be careful and make wise investments and that you eventually need to buy a house with a mortgage and everything else like that. Then they tell you to plan for college. Robin was privileged to go to college but came out of that with a lot of debt.</p> <p>So, you&#8217;ve got these amazing young human beings who are starting off their adult life in debt with a very poor attachment to money. They spend most of their twenties and thirties recovering from that and trying to get back into a state whereby they no longer owe money.</p> <p>Then consider business owners. You can see how all of this baggage isn&#8217;t particularly helpful when you&#8217;re then running a business as a grownup, right? Because everything still feels like hard work and how many times do you see business owners tearing their hair out? That’s because they&#8217;ve ended up working solid fifty plus hour weeks and they&#8217;re scratching their head thinking “I&#8217;m not making the money that I thought I&#8217;d make.”</p> <p>Onwards and upwards; listen or watch the episode to hear the rest!</p> <p><strong>You can get my book here:<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Climbing-Create-Support-System/dp/1990093515/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> “<em>Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea</em>”</a></strong></p> <p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Climbing-Create-Support-System/dp/1990093515/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-14427 size-medium" src="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1-300x105.png" alt="Idea Climbing Book" width="300" height="105" srcset="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1-200x70.png 200w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1-300x105.png 300w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1.png 400w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p> <h3 class="fusion-responsive-typography-calculated" data-fontsize="16" data-lineheight="24px">About My Guest</h3> <p><img decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-14653" src="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Money-Mindset.png" alt="Idea Climbing Podcast Money Mindset" width="200" height="199" srcset="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Money-Mindset-66x66.png 66w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Money-Mindset-150x150.png 150w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Money-Mindset.png 200w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></p> <p>From the age of 18, <strong>Robin Waite</strong> spent four years as a systems analyst for a medical devices company, helping them increase their turnover by 50 per cent, from £1 million to £1.5 million.</p> <p>From 2004 to 2014 Robin ran a successful design and advertising agency serving over 250 clients. During this time, he delivered workshops and masterclasses that helped over 1,000 business owners improve their marketing, product architecture, pricing, websites and digital advertising.</p> <p>Robin loves helping businesses to become more successful and getting results for his clients is what gets him out of bed each day.</p> <p>Robin’s practical, one-to-one sessions are grounded in hard work and a relentless focus on goals. He believes his coaching &#38; mentor program can help ANY business become more profitable… and have a lot more fun while they’re at it!</p> <p>Robin works with ambitious businesses in Gloucestershire, the south west of England and beyond, his goal is to help as many business owners as possible by sharing his 19 years of experience through his talks and workshops, business books, and one-to-one coaching.</p> <p><a href="https://www.fearless.biz/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Learn more about Robert and Fearless Business!</a></p> <p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinmwaite/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Connect with Robert on LinkedIn!</a></p> <p><strong>Want to learn more about successful money mindsets? Check out &#8220;<a href="https://www.markjcarter.com/2025/10/how-to-create-a-millionaire-mindset-with-cole-vandee/"><em>How to Create a Millionaire Mindset with Cole Vandee</em></a>&#8220;</strong></p>

<p>Today we’re discussing how to sell your services without being pushy; because nobody likes to be sold to but everyone loves to buy. My guest is Eric Schulman.</p> <p>Eric brings over 5 decades of business experience to the table.  A “Serial Entrepreneur”, he’s worked with both tangible and intangible products and services in B2B and B2C environments.  After building 5 businesses on his own, he started Consultants Can Sell! specifically to work with Business Owners, Consultants and Sales Professionals to provide sales training that really works.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p><center><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7m82lTw-tDA?si=RZW2nuoaIiJm6Pfz" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></center></p> <h3></h3> <h3><strong>The Accidental Salesperson</strong></h3> <p>Eric believes sales is an accidental profession and nobody ever plans to be in sales. His accident happened when Eric was a kid. He used to sell stuff door to door, if the reader remembers door to door. But at the age of 12 years old, his mom and dad opened a record store in Levittown, New Jersey, in 1963.</p> <p>Six months later, there was a group called The Beatles that was on the Ed Sullivan Show. Eric was the 13-year-old kid in Levittown, New Jersey, whose dad owned the record store. Most people’s parents teach their kids things such as children were seen and not heard, don&#8217;t talk to strangers and so on. Eric’s mom taught him something different.</p> <p>On one busy day his mom told him to go wait on a new customer. She effectively said “Go talk to a stranger”. What that taught Eric was don&#8217;t talk to strangers until you&#8217;re old enough to earn a commission. That’s how Eric accidentally got into sales. He found that he was good at it. He could connect to people well. Because of that all through high school, Eric was the only one who always had money in his pocket.</p> <p>In addition to commission Eric also earned an hourly salary. That was nice and he liked having money. Eric likes to say that salespeople are coin operated; they do what the money tells them to do. If his mom and dad hadn’t opened a store he probably would have wound up in sales, but not at such an early age.</p> <h3><strong>The “Official” Start of a Sales Career</strong></h3> <p>Eric says his sales career “officially” started in his early teens because by the time he was 18 he had been accepted to three colleges, but he didn’t want to go to college.</p> <p>Eric liked what he did. He was making decent money as a kid. He was making hundreds of dollars a week in 1969. When you were making that much money you could buy a house back then. Eric believed he didn’t need to go to college. He was very, very well read and he went to college but wound up dropping out after one semester.</p> <p>Then he gave college another try one year later and stayed for two semesters. He achieved a 3.9 GPA. His parents sold the store in Jersey in 1973 and moved to Orlando and opened a chain of stores.</p> <p>Eric was the heir apparent to the family business and decided that was his career path. So consciously around the age of 19, he decided that’s what he wanted to do. He didn’t need to go to school. Eric worked for the family business until I was 28 or 29 years old.</p> <h3><strong>Sales as an Adult</strong></h3> <p>Eric came to an interesting realization. At the age of 29, he did the math and realized he was never going to get rich in the family business. So, he made the decision to leave the family business after doing the marketing for eight years. Eric started in the marketing field and wound up forming a direct marketing agency in 1980 and bought a computer when they cost $30,000.</p> <p>He mortgaged the house and started providing direct mail services. In five years he grew that business to 54 people in a 17,000 square foot facility. Eric was doing 90% of the sales. He sold that business in 1993. Eight months later, he met Sharon, who owned a wedding back business and would eventually become his wife.</p> <p>Eric bolstered the value of the business and they sold the business in 1995. They moved to upstate New York and Eric took a job where he became the number one salesperson in the company.</p> <p>From there he opened a Sandler Training franchise in Orlando, Florida. He made more money in eight months than he had made in the previous year and did that for almost two decades. He sold the business just before the pandemic and struck out on his own as a sales trainer. Eric created a sales system called <em>truth-based selling</em> that showed people how to create a place where people can feel comfortable being honest with you.</p> <p>The rest, as they say, is history.</p> <h3><strong>From there we dive into topics including:</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Why most salespeople default to high pressure selling.</li> <li>How to develop relationships with prospects whether or not they buy from you.</li> <li>How to break down the wall of resistance with prospects so they’ll trust you enough to speak honestly with you.</li> <li>The real reason prospects are coming to you, and it’s not to buy something.</li> <li>How to discover the real reason prospects are coming to you.</li> <li>The process of “<em>Building radical empathy</em>” of how to leverage it in your sales conversations.</li> <li>The three steps of diagnosing your prospect’s problem.</li> <li>How to navigate the road between creating a safe space to talk and closing a sale without being pushy.</li> <li>People buy based on emotions. How to get your prospects to emotionally want to buy from you.</li> <li>Why you should discuss money early on in your sales conversations.</li> <li>The principle of scarcity and how to leverage it in sales conversations.</li> <li>The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to close more sales without being pushy.</li> </ul> <p>…and other golden nuggets of advice!</p> <p><strong>You can get my book here:<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Climbing-Create-Support-System/dp/1990093515/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> “<em>Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea</em>”</a></strong></p> <p><a class="fusion-no-lightbox" href="https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Climbing-Create-Support-System/dp/1990093515/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-14427 size-medium" src="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1-300x105.png" alt="Idea Climbing Book" width="300" height="105" srcset="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1-200x70.png 200w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1-300x105.png 300w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1.png 400w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p> <h3 class="" data-fontsize="16" data-lineheight="24px">About My Guest</h3> <p><img decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-14650" src="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Eric-Schulman-Sales.png" alt="Idea Climbing Podcast Eric Schulman Sales" width="200" height="200" srcset="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Eric-Schulman-Sales-66x66.png 66w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Eric-Schulman-Sales-150x150.png 150w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Eric-Schulman-Sales.png 200w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></p> <p><strong>Eric Shulman</strong> started his career helping build and run a successful chain of music stores in NJ and FL.  He started National List Council, a direct marketing company in 1980.  Over the next 12 years, he grew the business to 17,000 square feet with over 50 employees.</p> <p>When he sold NLC, he joined his new wife’s business: Sprinkles Custom Cakes!  In just 6 months, Sprinkles grew from doing four wedding cakes per month at “grocery store” prices up to 15 to 20 per week at double the price!  After selling Sprinkles in 1995, he led a national sales force selling Business Consulting Services in NY, Boston, DC, NJ, VA, and FL.</p> <p>His close ratio was five times the company average.  When his earnings potential capped out, he opened a Sales Training Business in 2003, and was named Rookie of the Year in just eight months.  After almost two decades in that field, he sold in 2019.  ConsultantsCanSell.com is his latest venture:  Putting his 50 years of business expertise to work for others.</p> <p><a href="https://consultantscansell.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Learn more about Eric&#8217;s company; Consultants Can Sell!</a></p> <p>Reach out to Eric directly: (321) 301-5700 [email protected]</p> <p><strong>Want to learn more about sales? Check out this Idea Climbing Podcast episode: <a href="https://www.markjcarter.com/2025/11/story-selling-how-to-know-what-stories-to-tell-to-sell-with-sylvain-sly-hache/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>&#8220;Story Selling: How to Know What Stories to Tell to Sell with Sylvain “Sly” Haché&#8221;</em></a></strong></p>

<p>If you practice servant leadership people want to get to know you through your origin story. Sharing it will help you boost your brand and enhance your marketing. I discuss how to create and develop your origin story in this episode with my guest, Adrienne Wilkerson.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p><center><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OLEALjb0JOg?si=iRBwjmDVybfEG_Ex" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></center>&#160;</p> <p>As Co-Founder and CEO of Beacon Media + Marketing, Adrienne is driven by a passion for developing people and fostering a culture where innovation thrives. In her early 20s, she realized she would make a much better boss than an employee, which led her to found her own company in 2001. Today, she is a visionary leader who’s company has earned it a spot on the Inc. 5000 list of Fastest-Growing Private Companies for three consecutive years.</p> <p><strong> </strong><strong>The Origin of Adrienne’s Servant Leadership Origin Story</strong></p> <p>One of Adrienne’s favorite things when she gets to talk to founders, CEOs, business owners, there&#8217;s almost always a powerful story behind why they&#8217;re doing what they&#8217;re doing. Why did they start their own business? Why does this matter?</p> <p>That “why”, that story, has really created them as leaders and created them in the business space. That’s why Adrienne believes that&#8217;s why that origin story is so important. It&#8217;s a powerful connection piece. Entrepreneurship is a lot of Adrienne’s origin story. Her father is an entrepreneur and a business owner, so was my grandmother.</p> <p>Adrienne has a lot of entrepreneurs in her family and hence she had a lot of excellent examples of entrepreneurship in her life. Her grandmother together with a partner started the very first art gallery in Anchorage, Alaska way back in the day. She was just an entrepreneurial person. Adrienne’s father started one of the first counseling and medical clinic combinations with the idea of taking care of the whole person and the medical and the counseling working together. It was a beautiful vision and there was a reason behind that. Those origin stories and what both of them accomplished spoke to Adrienne as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, and as a leader.</p> <h3><strong>Growing Up Entrepreneurial</strong></h3> <p>Adrienne’s father is a therapist that started his own therapy clinic. So she was raised by a therapist. There was a lot of times where she would have to tell her dad, “I need you to be my dad and not my therapist right now”. And he&#8217;d be like, “okay. Right, right. Thank you”. Then we would laugh and switch gears. He passed on his insights into people and his understanding of what drives people and how people work and tick and interact with each other. It was that experience and that knowledge that he had through school, through working with a lot of leaders.</p> <p>He passed a lot of that on to Adrienne organically. He was a natural teacher. Even with the circumstances that Adrienne would grow up in, such as dealing with personal conflict at school, at college, and just even in relationships, he would just walk her through a lot of resolutions. He would tell her you must ask these questions and you understand what’s really going on in each situation.</p> <p>He told Adrienne if you&#8217;re going to lead, there&#8217;s a guiding relationship there. She remembers coming back from high school one day from class very frustrated because she was the year book editor in chief and we were co just coming off a big deadline and she did all the work. She was venting that her team didn&#8217;t do this and that. Adrienne had to take over for that them and had to do this person&#8217;s job and that person&#8217;s job. She wondered why can&#8217;t they just do their jobs?</p> <p>Her father’s feedback was: You met your deadline. You got across the finish line. How much of your team came across the finish line with you? Or did you just plow through and make it happen and leave the rest of them in the dust?</p> <h3><strong>Leadership Lessons Learned</strong></h3> <p>That was one of those moments, one of the lessons that hit Adrienne upside the head and shifted the course of how she viewed leadership. Adrienne learned it&#8217;s not just enough as a leader to accomplish a goal. You have to try your best to guide your team to come with you. Now granted, not everybody will choose to walk across that finish line with you.</p> <p>If they don&#8217;t choose to, that, that&#8217;s their choice. As long as you as a leader are doing everything that you can to create that kind of environment where people want to grow with, want to accomplish the goal with you, and it&#8217;s not really leading. If you do everybody&#8217;s job and cross that finish line by yourself, it was a great hike, but that&#8217;s not leading.</p> <p>There are things like that, stories like that, that Adrienne’s father wove in those lessons that he wove into her life that have really shaped how she chooses to lead now. Adrienne definitely doesn’t nail it on the head every time. That&#8217;s part of the process of learning and growing.</p> <h3><strong>Creating and Leveraging Your Origin Story</strong></h3> <p>As a business owner or a CEO, there are stories that make up your origin story. Those are powerful because they are what connect with people and make people want to buy from you. They hate to be sold, but they love to buy. We know this concept in business, and who do they want to buy from? They want to buy from somebody they know, like, and trust.</p> <p>So, in this digital age, how do we as business owners, as CEOs, how do we connect with our audience, with our ideal client profile? We do it in part through our origin story, through those stories that shaped us and shaped our company because those connect with people. That story could connect with somebody else who had a therapist as a father.</p> <p>There&#8217;s lots of aspects of that formula, but that&#8217;s why the origin story and even some of the really raw parts of your origin story, your failures, your successes. That&#8217;s what makes you human, and that&#8217;s what provides the opportunity for people to connect and to feel like they know you, which means they&#8217;re going to trust you.</p> <p>That&#8217;s a kind of a 10,000 foot view as to why that origin story is so important. Adrienne believes, at least if you don&#8217;t have, and what you said, including raw details an origin story, that&#8217;s what its servant leadership is getting people to follow you and eventually developing them, but getting people to follow a mission.</p> <h3><strong>We also dive into topics including:</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Why it’s ok to say “no” to servant leadership opportunities if the people involved don’t fit your ideal client or ideal partnership profile.</li> <li>The structure that makes a great origin story.</li> <li>Why you need to start with your “Why”.</li> <li>Why it’s important to include your failures and what you learned from the challenges you overcame.</li> <li>How your origin story shapes your servant leadership journey.</li> <li>Why if you’re not failing you’re not trying enough new things.</li> <li>Knowing when sharing your trials and tribulations becomes <em>oversharing</em>.</li> <li>The responsibilities of a servant leader.</li> <li>Why people won’t always follow what you <em>say</em> but they will follow what you <em>do</em>.</li> <li>How to create an environment of trust, or a safe space, within your business.</li> <li>Why putting other people first pays dividends as a servant leader.</li> <li>The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to create and live your servant leadership origin story.</li> </ul> <p>…and other golden nuggets of advice!</p> <p><strong>You can get my book here:<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Climbing-Create-Support-System/dp/1990093515/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> “<em>Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea</em>”</a></strong></p> <p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Climbing-Create-Support-System/dp/1990093515/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-14427 size-medium" src="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1-300x105.png" alt="Idea Climbing Book" width="300" height="105" srcset="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1-200x70.png 200w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1-300x105.png 300w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1.png 400w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p> <h3 class="fusion-responsive-typography-calculated" data-fontsize="16" data-lineheight="24px">About My Guest</h3> <p><img decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-14644" src="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Adrienne-Wilkerson.png" alt="Idea Climbing Podcast Adrienne Wilkerson" width="200" height="200" srcset="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Adrienne-Wilkerson-66x66.png 66w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Adrienne-Wilkerson-150x150.png 150w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Adrienne-Wilkerson.png 200w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></p> <p>As Co-Founder and CEO of Beacon Media + Marketing, <strong>Adrienne Wilkerson</strong> is driven by a passion for developing people and fostering a culture where innovation thrives. She is a visionary leader who guides her team to find opportunity in every challenge, pushing creative boundaries to deliver impactful results.</p> <p>This approach has established Beacon as an award-winning digital marketing agency, renowned for its work in the mental and behavioral health sectors. Adrienne believes that investing in people is the key to success, creating an environment where her team can learn, excel, and build with purpose. Her forward-thinking leadership has earned Beacon a coveted spot on the Inc. 5000 list of Fastest-Growing Private Companies for three consecutive years.</p> <p>A respected voice in the business community, Adrienne extends her influence as a sought-after speaker, published author, and podcast host. She shares practical insights on leadership, ethical marketing, and adapting to industry shifts like the rise of AI, encouraging leaders to use technology to deepen human connection.</p> <p>Beyond her professional achievements, Adrienne finds balance and inspiration with her family on their ranch. This life fuels her belief in hard work and resilience—principles she applies to both her business and her commitment to building a legacy of positive impact for the next generation.</p> <p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/@BeaconWayPodcast/podcasts" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Check out Adrienne&#8217;s Podcast!</a></p> <p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriennewilkerson/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Connect with Adrienne on LinkedIn!</a></p> <p><a href="https://a.co/d/fBo6sBg" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Get Adrienne&#8217;s book &#8220;<em>Digital Marketing for Mental Health: From Complex to Clarity</em>&#8221; here!</a></p> <p><strong>Want to learn more about servant leadership? Check out &#8220;<a href="https://www.markjcarter.com/2025/07/how-to-embrace-servant-leadership-with-andrew-kolikoff/"><em>How to Embrace Servant Leadership with Andrew Kolikoff</em></a>&#8220;!</strong></p>

<p>Creating a circle of trust can create explosive business growth. I discuss how to do that with my guest, Jonathan Hung.</p> <p>Jonathan is a successful VC and entrepreneur. He has evolved from his role as a prolific angel investor with over 150+ pre-seed and pre-IPO investments under his belt to becoming the Managing Partner for Entrepreneur Ventures.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p><center><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1CsV-NRLgec?si=8nwdWFS6K-qWGSha" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></center>&#160;</p> <p>Jonathan believes that everyone thinks entrepreneurship is all about fundraising. That&#8217;s one aspect of building a business. Jonathan is dedicating his upcoming book to his father. He was a great entrepreneur who came to this country with nothing and along with Jonathan’s mom they built an amazing company. Entrepreneurship is about building trusted relationships from business partners to advisors and mentors.</p> <h3><strong>The Importance of Being Real</strong></h3> <p>Jonathan’s perspective on life is that you&#8217;re going to meet a lot of fakes. A lot of people who try to sell you an idea by telling you it’s all going to be roses, but really, will they be helpful in the long run, right? You must find people that you could trust to work with you. You can easily like somebody, but can you actually <em>trust</em> them? That&#8217;s why the subtitle of Jonathan’s upcoming book is “<em>Why trust drives venture capital success</em>.”</p> <p>Jonthan built his career based on people that he trusted, and who have trusted him. That&#8217;s how he’s built success.</p> <h3><strong>How to Build Trust</strong></h3> <p>It&#8217;s the simplest things. It&#8217;s not just saying “I&#8217;m going to write you a check.” It&#8217;s about both parties being be very communicative. That means doing things like giving regular updates. Having great communication is the most important rule. It also means asking for help. If you don&#8217;t ask, it&#8217;s always no. The number one rule in sales that you ask. That you keep going, you don&#8217;t take discouragement. You know, it sucks sometimes, right? Getting turned down and you might have to hear a thousand no&#8217;s before you get to that one yes. But when you get to that yes, it was all worth it. It was all worth it.</p> <p>For Jonthan building trust is showing up. It&#8217;s doing the hard work. It’s not about just executing, it&#8217;s also about showing people how you did it because some people think it&#8217;s just how like the ends justify the means. For Jonathan it’s about growing as a human being. It’s about finding those people you can trust because you can count on them.</p> <p>Neither of you over promise and under deliver. Jonathan is a big believer that you don&#8217;t over promise and then under deliver. He’s always about under promising and over delivering because he’s had people in his past who he’s invested in give that gave him crazy numbers. He would think, “How are you going to do that? How are you going to 10x your business in a year?” Sometimes that makes no sense.</p> <p>Jonathan also loves people who give him a plan. It&#8217;s all about the execution. It&#8217;s how you go through with something. That&#8217;s how you build trust, in his opinion.</p> <h3><strong>We also dive into topics such as:</strong></h3> <ul> <li>The definition and examples of a circle of trust.</li> <li>How you can start to <em>intentionally</em> build a circle of trust.</li> <li>The types of people that should be in your circle of trust.</li> <li>Why nobody that’s successful has done it by themselves.</li> <li>How to approach the right people to bring them into your circle of trust.</li> <li>Why you should practice being a “giver”.</li> <li>How to maintain a circle of trust over time once you’ve built yours.</li> <li>The role vulnerability plays in building your circle of trust.</li> <li>Jonathan’s philosophy of “living your life in quarters” and how to embrace it.</li> <li>The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to build a successful circle of trust.</li> </ul> <p>…and other golden nuggets of advice!</p> <p><strong>You can get my book here:<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Climbing-Create-Support-System/dp/1990093515/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> “<em>Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea</em>”</a></strong></p> <p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Climbing-Create-Support-System/dp/1990093515/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-14427 size-medium" src="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1-300x105.png" alt="Idea Climbing Book" width="300" height="105" srcset="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1-200x70.png 200w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1-300x105.png 300w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1.png 400w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p> <h3>About My Guest</h3> <p><img decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-14640" src="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Jonathan-Hung.png" alt="Idea Climbing Podcast Jonathan Hung" width="200" height="200" srcset="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Jonathan-Hung-66x66.png 66w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Jonathan-Hung-150x150.png 150w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Jonathan-Hung.png 200w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></p> <p>&#160;</p> <p><strong>Jonathan Hung</strong> is a seasoned venture capitalist and entrepreneur with a proven track record in governance, strategic growth, and financial expertise. He led his family’s textile business across the U.S. and Asia before transitioning into venture capital, where he has invested in more than 250 companies and 50 funds.</p> <p>Today, Jonathan is the Managing Partner of <strong>Entrepreneur Ventures</strong>, a fund he co-founded with <em>Entrepreneur Media</em>, deploying capital into innovative startups and helping founders build profitable businesses. He also manages his family office fund, <strong>J Heart Ventures</strong>. His success in raising millions for venture funds, combined with cross-border operational expertise, positions him as a leader in capital growth and value creation.</p> <p>Learn more about Jonathan!</p> <p><a href="https://entrepreneur.vc/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Website / Portfolio</a></p> <p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanhung" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LinkedIn</a></p> <p><em><a href="https://www.markjcarter.com/2025/10/how-to-create-a-millionaire-mindset-with-cole-vandee/"><strong>Want to learn more about entrepreneurship? Check out &#8220;How to Create a Millionaire Mindset&#8221;!</strong></a></em></p>

<p>Today we’re discussing how to write copy that positions you as a thought leader. There are subtle nuances that separate the average copy from the excellent copy. I discuss strategies to become an excellent copy write and therefore an excellent thought leader with my guest, Kristen Sweeney.</p> <p>&#160;</p> <p><center><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eB_G9r_MQkI?si=HMjEDph7RCZXWZqF" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></center>&#160;</p> <p>Kristen is a content strategist who has helped over 100 organizations communicate more clearly, especially when the subject matter is complex or highly technical. She’s the founder of Every Little Word, a boutique content and communications agency that believes great ideas—and the people who power them—deserve a bigger voice. Her team builds expert-led content programs in industries like life sciences, higher education, and B2B services.</p> <h3><strong>Getting Started with Copy Writing</strong></h3> <p>Kristen did not come up as a professionally trained marketer, but she considers herself as someone who&#8217;s always been a writer. And for many years, freelance writing was one of her many side jobs that she worked while she was an actor in New York City and while she was a yoga teacher in New York City and Boston.</p> <p>Over the course of those years, freelance writing, she started to learn more and more about marketing. What happened for her was that classic situation where you hand over something to a client and then you see that the website copy never got launched or the asset was never created or they&#8217;re not using something. Something fell short somewhere.</p> <p>She started to ask questions such as what does it take to actually put these ideas and this information out into the world in a way that&#8217;s going to make impact? That led her to learning more about the disciplines of marketing and communications. In 2019, her first daughter was born. Long story short, like for so many people, that was a pivot point that changed everything. She started taking her writing and content work seriously and the rest is history. It&#8217;s certainly been a range of ups and downs, but she’s been running her business and team for over five years with over 15 years of experience in the copy writing field in general.</p> <h3><strong>The Origin of Great Copy Writing</strong></h3> <p>Kristen believes it starts with good ideas. Her company&#8217;s mission is to share great ideas with the world. The way they do that is through their approach to creating content and copy. To her, it&#8217;s all about the thinking that goes into the perspectives and the opinions and the ideas that people and companies can share. It should be something of substance.</p> <p>She believes content for a lot of people and companies has become more like “containers”. It&#8217;s a container to try to get somebody to click through. It&#8217;s a container to try to get someone to stay on the page longer. It&#8217;s a container to be able to track them, cookie them and start tracking them. Kristin’s of the mindset that the great ideas and the substance, the content of content is what we&#8217;re really after.</p> <h3><strong>Some Characteristics of a Great Idea That&#8217;s Worthy of Creating Content Around</strong></h3> <p>Kristen has a whole big piece on her company website about thought leadership. Great ideas in general tend to come from a place of someone who&#8217;s taken the time to really develop a unique perspective. That most often comes from their life experiences. It can come from their belief systems and their values. It can come from understanding their space or their industry and taking the time to think deeply about it. In general, Kristen believes it also comes from a high degree of caring.</p> <p>Her team has had situations in the past where they’ve tried to partner with someone as a thought leader. What happened was they were there to do their job day in and day out and they weren&#8217;t really invested in sharing their knowledge publicly. It takes a lot to be that kind of collaborator and that’s why that caring piece is really important</p> <h3><strong>When it comes to writing copy to be a thought leader, where does that process start?</strong></h3> <p>Kristen likes to think of a thought leader as someone who leads with their thoughts. That might sound obvious, but what she means by that is a lot of people define thought leadership by the external markers such as they have a huge following. The ideas come first. You could be a thought leader alone in your room all day long. The problem is you need to have the right platform to share those ideas and spread them and help them grow and get your message out there.</p> <p>When we think about thought leadership, again, the kernel of it is making sure that you are developing and forming your own perspectives and opinions. And then ultimately that you&#8217;re finding the right messages that align with whoever it is you are trying to reach. Many companies, when they think about thought leadership, they&#8217;re trying to reach customers.</p> <p>Other times you&#8217;re trying to reach peers. Think about folks who sell to their peers, such as a marketer who sells their courses to other marketers. They want to be seen as a thought leader among their peers who also happen to be their customers.</p> <h3><strong>Know Your Audience</strong></h3> <p>Really understanding your audience and how your perspectives and those things align and provide value to the people you want to be speaking with. That&#8217;s different from some common approaches to content where content is generated from the outside. And it&#8217;s main goal is to answer your audience’s questions.</p> <p>Kristen likes to think of thought leadership as answering questions. That includes questions your audience hasn&#8217;t even thought to ask sometimes. It goes beyond helpful into something that is thought-provoking, insightful, that gives them some kind of shift in the way they&#8217;re thinking about a particular topic.</p> <h3><strong>We also dive into topics including:</strong></h3> <ul> <li>What “The curse of knowledge” is to experts and how to overcome it.</li> <li>The ever present “blank page syndrome” and how to get started with writing copy.</li> <li>How to create a content creation strategy and integrate it into your professional life.</li> <li>A few definitions of thought leadership and how to decide which one applies to you.</li> <li>How to create value for your audience through content creation.</li> <li>Why “basic” is a really good place to start to establish thought leadership.</li> <li>Ideas for types of structure for your copy.</li> <li>Examples of copy writing best practices.</li> <li>The case for creating long form copy assets and how to successfully do it.</li> <li>How to consistently write great copy for thought leadership.</li> <li>The project management approach to writing great content and how to implement it.</li> <li>The one thing, above all else, that you need to do to create great content for thought leadership.</li> </ul> <p>…and other golden nuggets of advice</p> <p><strong>You can get my book here:<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Climbing-Create-Support-System/dp/1990093515/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"> “<em>Idea Climbing: How to Create a Support System for Your Next Big Idea</em>”</a></strong></p> <p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Climbing-Create-Support-System/dp/1990093515/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-14427 size-medium" src="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1-300x105.png" alt="Idea Climbing Book" width="300" height="105" srcset="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1-200x70.png 200w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1-300x105.png 300w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/buy-on-amazon-button-400x140-1.png 400w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a></p> <p>&#160;</p> <h3 class="" data-fontsize="16" data-lineheight="24px"><strong>About My Guest</strong></h3> <p><img decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-14631" src="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Kristen-Sweeney.png" alt="Idea Climbing Podcast Kristen Sweeney" width="200" height="200" srcset="https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Kristen-Sweeney-66x66.png 66w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Kristen-Sweeney-150x150.png 150w, https://www.markjcarter.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Idea-Climbing-Podcast-Kristen-Sweeney.png 200w" sizes="(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px" /></p> <p>&#160;</p> <p><strong>Kristen Sweeney</strong> is a writer and content strategist who has helped over 100 organizations communicate more clearly, especially who has helped over 100 organizations communicate more clearly, especially when the subject matter is complex or highly technical. Her agency, Every Little Word, develops expert-led content programs that use an organization&#8217;s expertise to build visibility, credibility, and trust.</p> <p>Every Little Word is a boutique content and communications agency that helps organizations in life sciences and pharma, higher education, and B2B professional services. The company is founded on the belief that great ideas—and the people behind them—deserve a bigger voice. Because audiences don&#8217;t need more filler content; they&#8217;re hungry for real substance.</p> <p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristen-sweeney-every-little-word" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Connect with Kristen on LinkedIn!</a></p> <p><a href="https://everylittleword.co/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Learn more about Every Little Word!</a></p>