Episode 51: Prospecting On Purpose Guest Roundup: Top Takeaways From 2023 Guest Interviews
It’s been a long journey we have in Prospecting on Purpose Podcast. This year, we’ve invited amazing guests to share their valuable insights and learn from them. In this episode, Sara Murray takes us back into some of the incredible guests and the top takeaways from 2023 guest interviews in Prospecting on Purpose. What’s your favorite episode this year? What lessons have you learned from them? Let’s join Sara’s 2023 Guest Roundup and grab the different lessons we could learn from these amazing guests.
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Prospecting On Purpose Guest Roundup: Top Takeaways From 2023 Guest Interviews
At the time of this episode, 2023 is coming to a close. Truly my favorite part about this entire year one of my highest privileges has been the caliber of guests that we have had on this show. I loved every conversation. I have learned much and I have applied a lot of those lessons to my life and my business since meeting and interviewing these individuals. It's been wonderful that for this episode, I have compiled a guest roundup of the fifteen guests that we have had on the show and my personal 1, 2, or 3 takeaways from each. I know that the guest interviews are a little bit longer episodes, but they are all fascinating. If you get a chance and something resonates with you here in this roundup, go back and read their full episode and full interview because there's much goodness and knowledge in each one.
The Power Of Reinvention
I'm going to start with our first guest Episode 3: The Power Of Reinvention with Kathi Sharpe-Ross. Kathi is the owner of the global brand and marketing agency, THE SHARPE ALLIANCE. She's spent many years cultivating brands, businesses, deals, partnerships, and personalities in all Industries. Kathi is also the author of the book REINVENT YOUR LIFE! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? and host of THE POWER OF RE:INVENTION PODCAST.
Kathi’s episode is full of great strategies for managing stress, staying positive, how to maximize your time, and how to prioritize your day. As the reinvention expert, we dived into what is reinvention and how to create your own. When we think about reinvention specifically to reinventing ourselves, these can be things that are big or small and they can happen at any time. We get stuck in these routines, career trajectories, or habits we don't like. We either assume we can't break out of them or we forget that we can even try.
When you read Kathi’s episode, you realize that nothing is limited to you. We are entitled to live the lives that we want to live. A big takeaway from Kathi for me was, “What are we waiting for? Let's go for it.” As a personal example happening, I have like three different ideas for Christmas movies. I saw an ad for virtual writing about how to write a Christmas movie.
I'm taking the course and I have fun ideas. Maybe I will write the movie. Maybe I won't. One of the biggest shifts that I feel is that I don't feel limited in exploring that option. Why couldn't I write a Christmas movie? I'm entitled to do whatever I want and I want to try that. Kathi's episode gives us a mission to try stuff and live a full rich life finding things that light us up. It is such a great episode. I get a lot of great feedback on that from readers.
Entrepreneurship And The World's Oldest Industry
Our next guest was Joe Welch in Episode 5: Entrepreneurship In The World's Oldest Industry. Joe is the CEO and Cofounder of In Good Taste, a wine company that creates ready-to-drink wine flights. Some of the more interesting things that I took away from our conversation was that prior to founding In Good Taste, Joe had different roles at Twitter, DoorDash, and SpaceX. We go into each one of those in the episode, but in each role, he learned the different skillsets that he needed to become an effective CEO.
I loved the idea of taking those different skillsets and building upon one another. He was intentional about what he was learning at those companies. I don't necessarily think you need to switch companies to learn new skills. Oftentimes, there are different departments, roles, and teams we can do in our organizations that were in. All of those skills build upon each other. I thought it was cool to see how Joe leveraged all that to turn his passion and hobby into his career. It was very cool.
Another great takeaway that Joe left us with and it has personally helped me in my business is that when you are ready to start delegating, take a few hours, take a day, and look at and identify your ankle biters. Ankle biters are the things that are preventing you from doing your role successfully. Once you identify them, how can you get them off of your plate? Can you outsource, automate, and use AI? Can you streamline your operations? Can you ask for help? Eliminating your ankle biters is going to give you the bandwidth to grow and scale but taking that time to reflect and get organized is going to serve you better in the long run. If you enjoy wine, it's an interesting episode about the wine industry and how it's been evolving for thousands of years. It's fun.
Defining Your Values In The Future Of Work
Episode 6: Defining Your Values & The Future of Work features Anne Wallin, a tech and media executive. Anne and I discussed the future of work, what great leadership looks like, and why it's as important to be clear on your weaknesses as it is to know your strengths. We also discuss the early years of her career working at a company that was disrupting two industries at the same time, entertainment and tech.
This episode is such a powerful episode on leadership and specifically, if you are a leader of people. She gets into how to build and maintain great teams. Anne gives very specific examples as well of how you can balance informal and formal leadership styles. One of the biggest takeaways for me was how she defined vulnerability and how you can make vulnerability an asset to your work.
She shares with us that vulnerability doesn't mean you have to be an open book. I'm going to read a direct quote from her interview. “Vulnerability is being open with what you know and what you don't know, and being confident that that's a strength to be able to declare, ‘I'm unsure about this,’ because that provides the opportunity for more collaboration, different perspectives, and overall better output.”
It is a thought-provoking episode. I have many different a-ha moments. I have read it a couple of times. I take something away from it differently each time. On a personal note, Anne supported me in the launch of this show before we launched at the end of 2022. She gave me a lot of great guidance on how to interview people which is something I had never done before. It's a skill that I had to learn and I'm still practicing. I am very grateful to Ann for that. It's a special episode for me.
Overcoming The Period Post-Crisis
Our next guest is found in Episode 8: Overcoming The Period Post-Crisis With Jeffrey Shaw. Jeff is the ultimate champion for the self-employed. He's a business coach. He's the author of the books LINGO and The Self-Employed Life. He is the host of The Self-Employed Life Podcast. With Jeff's career and background, he has an interesting perspective on the period post-crisis. He's always been self-employed. He's always been in this luxury space but watching his businesses and his clients' businesses and their lives have all changed after certain major crises, 9/11, The Great Recession of 2008, and the pandemic. He gets into what are the biggest shifts and changes that he has seen coming out of that.
Another interesting takeaway from Jeff is we talk about the difference between self-employed, small business, solopreneur, and entrepreneur. Those are all different and it's interesting especially now that I have been embarking on an entrepreneurship, solopreneurship, and self-employed journey. It has helped me get some clarity on the differences there.
One of the biggest pieces that people struggle with he shared with us on the show is prospecting, how are you getting people into your business? How are you generating income? One of the biggest takeaways that I have been working on is, “How to maximize your lurkers so different people watch what you are doing and paying attention to what you are building. Slowly as you get closer, you bring them into your orbit so they go from lurkers, acquaintances in the community to then potential clients.” It's interesting to know from Jeff especially because his entire career has been self-employed.
Ditch Feature Selling And Start Storytelling
Episode 11: Ditch Feature Selling and Start Storytelling with Ravi Rajani. Ravi is a storytelling coach and consultant and it is such a funny episode. You will be laughing out loud. Ravi is fun. He's entertaining but knowledgeable and you can tell he has a passion for helping sellers add storytelling as one of the other tools in their tool belt. Some of the big takeaways that I got from this episode is that storytelling is not just customer success stories or case studies. Especially, in B2B, we see that more frequently.
Successful storytelling is an important tool that we can use to inspire our prospects to take action and we can use storytelling throughout the entire sales process. Ravi has a lot of acronyms and tactical ways that you can build your own stories. One of the things that I have used and I see this in how we show up in LinkedIn posts and in quickly talking to clients at networking events is this 90-second story. It's composed of a handful of key elements.
The first is a hook, something that breaks the pattern and grabs their attention. The next piece is we have to establish some context of where the story is and who's in it. That's the basics, but then we have to introduce some conflict. Where was the villain in the story? After the conflict, we introduced a turning point. What is that a-ha moment? What is the transformation that the main character goes through, and that leads to the impact on the prospect that you are telling that story to and the call to action? In 90 seconds, we have a hook, context, conflict, turning point, transformation, prospect impact, and call to action. It is very cool. I like that he breaks it down almost like a formula and that we can plug and play what works for us our business and our prospects.
The Attention Economy
Our next guest episode was Episode 15: Four Points To Operate In An Attention Economy With Jai Dattani. We are in a time where all of our businesses, brands, and people are vying for eyeballs and fighting for attention. How can we stop the scroll and get prospects and consumers to engage with our brand, product, or service and engage with our marketing? Jai's global experience in building brands that became household names makes him an invaluable resource. The episode is so good because he gets to specific details and examples that are very relatable. After all, you have probably seen them in your Instagram feed.
One of the biggest lessons. He goes into four different points. The first one is powerful and it's what stuck with me the most is that when you are crafting your brand or business messaging, the content, marketing, and the social media. What are you communicating outwardly is you have to define an overarching brand story that you want to tell your consumers. When you are building that story, it's important that you and the brand are not the heroes. The consumer or the prospect is the hero. We as the business or the sellers are the guides in aiding them on their journey.
It was such a great perspective. It establishes some guardrails to support us when we are creating our messaging. I'm happy I did this episode because I want to read and visit it because I think maybe I need to shift some of my content. If you have not read that episode, it was Episode 15: Four Points To Operate In An Attention Economy With Jai Dattani.
Sales Is Everywhere
Episode 18: Sales Is Everywhere. Embracing It Leads To A More Interesting Life & Career With Lauren Ashley Smith. Lauren is a seasoned real estate professional with many years of experience in commercial real estate, investment banking, mergers and acquisitions, capital raising, and strategic advisory. Her career journey is interesting and impressive. She attributes a lot of her success to her ability to sell because, at the end of the day, sales is everywhere.
What I loved about my conversation with Lauren is that it leaves you with a sense of confidence and how we are all going about building our world of sales. Every interaction we have with people gives us data points. The more data points that we have to reference the greater conversations, transactions, and opportunities are going to be afforded to us.
This is especially important when we are communicating across multiple generations and diverse backgrounds. Lauren has helped me a couple of times in my business. She's been a nice mentor to me. We also talk about in our episode the spirit of generosity and how helping others propels us forward and it's not necessarily a tit for tat. I may not help Lauren in return, but I may help someone and pay it forward. If we have this spirit of generosity, it's going to always come back to us in different ways. I thought that was special.
The Future Of Luxury
This leads us to Episode 22: The Future Of Luxury With Amanda Frasier. Amanda is the President of Ratings for Forbes Travel Guide. With her many years of experience at Forbes Travel Guide, she has had a front-row seat to the evolution of luxury hospitality. She and her team have been the leaders in literally creating the standards and guidelines for what it means to deliver that luxury guest experience. It was special to have her on the show. My biggest takeaway from Amanda is that we can deliver a luxury experience at any level. She shares a story about living in Georgia and going to a Chick-fil-A with her son when he was younger. They ordered a kid's meal and it came with an ice cream cone.
The Chick-fil-A employee told the family that they would wait until the son was done with his meal to bring out their ice cream cone to them so it wouldn't melt. It's such a great example of delivering luxury. It's easy, authentic, and memorable because she's talked about it as an example years later. We discussed authenticity as this key to unlocking an element of luxury and embracing your authentic self can help remove intimidation when you are servicing or selling to a luxury clientele.
Embracing your authentic self can help remove intimidation when servicing or selling to a luxury clientele.
One of the biggest pieces of advice that Amanda had for us was to not overthink it and that authenticity is a luxury. We also got into four upcoming travel trends that we are going to see in the future of luxury travel and luxury service. It's a very forward-thinking leadership episode coming from Amanda and The Forbes Travel Guide team. It's super aspirational. It makes you want to travel the world. If you need a little break during this winter season, make sure you are reading Episode 22: The Future Of Luxury With Amanda Frasier.
Work From The Inside Out
Episode 27: Work From The Inside Out features Tammy Gooler Loeb, a career and executive coach author, and speaker. Tammy inspires people to build careers that are fulfilling and meaningful. For decades, Tammy has shared her expertise with audiences and clients focusing specifically on career transitions networking, leadership strategies, and team development.
We discussed what it means to work from the inside out. When we think about how we are showing up in our lives, we have so much external influence that's always pushing us to make decisions from our upbringing to societal pressures, expectations and to behaving how we think our bosses, spouses, or parents want us to act and instead of acting in alignment with what we desire. Getting in touch with our intuition is one of the biggest takeaways and following what lights us up is what's going to be how we get there.
Another impactful piece of information that I got out of our conversation was that our network is much larger than we think it is. That includes our network. If we are exploring new careers or trying to figure out how to do something, like write a Christmas movie. We have many resources in the form of specific people to figure it out. When I started my business, there were people that I used to work with that I wanted to reach out to but I hadn't spoken to them in many years. Every single person I reached out to, without fail was happy to hear from me and more than happy to help me. It took a little push from Tammy to give me that lesson but it was a great lesson and I wanted to make sure that I captured it here.
Passion Meets Action
Next up is Episode 29: Passion Meets Action: Designing A Dream Career With Mike Woodward. Mike is a multimedia ideation consultant and producer who has many decades in the entertainment industry. Mike works for The ATS Team and serves as the President of originals and productions. The ATS Team is the group behind the obstacles you see on American Ninja Warrior and The Amazing Race. Mike has been spearheading their original projects as a division that he created a few years ago. Some of the biggest Icarus for Mike is that it's important to share your ideas with your teams. Holding an idea internally will never come to fruition.
Don't be afraid of people stealing it because they can't steal an idea that has never been spoken out loud, especially if you are not acting on it. Use your voice and speak up. Maybe you don't have an idea that's fully baked, but if you bring it to your boss, team, or even your clients, once it's out there, it can be built upon and grow. If we wait for perfection, it's never going to get done.
Prospecting On Purpose: If we wait for perfection, it wil never get done.
Michael gave a great example of going with the flow and following those trade winds. When we hear, “Go with the flow,” it's a little tough to understand how to do it, but he shares that if you put a goal out there, you can't necessarily be attached to how you are going to get the goal. You have to follow those trade winds and sometimes that means getting off one ship and getting on to another ship.
One of the ways that you can visualize your goals or taking the time to understand what it is that you want. Mike calls them stress naps, which is funny and I have been using that term ever since our interview. If you are stuck and overwhelmed, if you don't know where to go next, take some time, take that stress nap, turn off your brain meditate, and then the calmness and clarity will follow.
Finding Inspired Purpose
Next up we have Episode 31: Finding Inspired Purpose With Tony Martignetti. Tony is a leadership coach, author of Climbing The Right Mountain, and host of The Virtual Campfire Podcast where he shares lessons from leaders in their transformation journey. Tony is a special soul. Everyone who meets Tony can feel his positive and kind energy.
I love Tony's insights on fulfillment and self-leadership. Tony's definition of fulfillment is that it's not a destination, but it's a mindset. It's a place to come from. It's a sense of, “How am I connected to who I want to be and not what do I want to achieve?” It was such an interesting lens to view fulfillment, which is why I'm sharing it here.
Another big piece that I learned from Tony is that leadership comes at every level and it's not about managing people or having a title. He uses the term self-leadership. Self-leadership is the cornerstone of everything and it's an understanding of, “Who am I? What do I stand for? What are the thoughts that are creating my world?” If we don't have this defined, it's almost like we are driving blind. Getting clear on what self-leadership is is my biggest takeaway. I view Tony as such a unique thought leader and I was very grateful to have him on the show.
Self-leadership is the cornerstone of everything.
Management Versus Leadership
Episode 32: Management Versus Leadership: Learn The Key Differences And Start To Lead Your People Better With Jordan Modiano. Jordan is a leadership consultant and public speaker. He's also the owner of Express Employment Professionals in the Capital Region of New York. He has a heavy sales and leadership background and our episode talks about the difference between managing and leading.
The key takeaway from Jordan is what makes an effective leader. Some of the different things that make effective leaders are being an active listener and listening to understand is very important. People want to communicate with you and as a leader, it is your job to take in that communication. Having a thick skin, being able to have tough conversations, and take honest feedback. All of those things are crucial. Another important piece to look at is how are you portraying the role that you would like your people to play. If you expect that your team is going to show up early every day, are you showing up early every day?
He has a great quote, “Manager is, ‘Do what I say. Not what I do.’ Leadership is, ‘Follow my example.’” Jordan also shares a couple of personal stories and you can tell that is what makes them such a great speaker when you hear his stories and how you can apply those learnings in your own life you come away very inspired and very engaged as you read the episode. It's such a great episode.
Smashing The Plateau
Episode 34: Smashing The Plateau With David Shriner-Cahn. David is the podcast host and community builder behind Smashing The Plateau, an online platform offering resources accountability, and camaraderie to high-performing professionals who are leaping from a corporate career track to entrepreneurial business ownership. One huge lesson from David on the show is revisited often as he gives clarity on the difference between goals versus objectives. Goals or something specific enough. you know that you are working towards them yet they are not necessarily time-bound or bound by metrics.
For example, a goal could be, “Sara Murray wants to build a business.” Objectives are measurable and concrete so you know that you have reached an objective and you are finished with it. My goal could be, “Get the podcast to the top 1% of all global podcasts.” You could take that goal and define specific objectives to get you there, but there's a difference and hopefully, those quick examples made that clear.
I also asked David what are some of the biggest struggles he sees within his community and his advice was to focus on what you can control. Too often we get overwhelmed and stressed out by things we can't control. I asked him for an example and he gave me some great ones. I'm going to quote David directly here, “I can get stressed out about the size of my podcast audience or I can get stressed about how many impressions I get on a LinkedIn post. I have no control over that. I can control what I write. If I think what I write is helpful to my audience, okay. If I get actual concrete feedback from somebody I can work on, that's great. But if it's something that's a vanity metric that I have no control over, what's the point of getting stressed over it? It doesn't dry my business metrics or anything else.”
That was very cool for me. I feel like it helps me. Hopefully, that helped you and David is such a practical and kind person. He truly wants to support others and see them succeed in their entrepreneurial journeys. He's helped me a handful of times which I am grateful for. His podcast is full of corporate refugees sharing their lessons and their knowledge. Make sure you check that out.
Sales Implementation And Sales Team Accountability
We got two more left. Episode 36: Sales Implementation And Sales Team Accountability With Doug Miller, Fractional Sales VP. Doug and I met at a virtual networking event and we nerd out about sales every time we talk. I was excited to have them on the show. I asked him for the best piece of sales advice he's received. This is a great takeaway. I'm going to quote them directly here, “Don't spend all your time with people like you. It's a classic mistake that many salespeople make. You find somebody enthusiastic about what you are selling and the value that you are going to provide and it's like a drug. You want to spend all your time with them because they are providing you with this amazing positive feedback for what you are doing and it feels good.”
Doug's point is that the reality is in most companies there are many different stakeholders involved in the decision-making process. If we are only spending time with people like us we miss opportunities to uncover potential issues or objections that will prevent your deal from closing. We need to make sure we are talking to everyone who has decision-making capabilities, especially if they are not like us, and finding common ground between all prospects. Doug and I also got into the value of CRM systems, how to embrace them, how to lead teams, and hold them accountable to meet specific goals. It's a very sales-heavy episode. If you are in a sales role, I encourage you to read Episode 36: Sales Implementation And Sales Team Accountability With Doug Miller.
How To Get Unstuck
Our final guest episode in 2023 was Episode 47: How To Get Unstuck With Holly Markham. Holly is the Founder and Co-Owner of European Home, a design-oriented manufacturer of imported modern fireplaces based in Massachusetts. Holly and I discussed how her sales and marketing background helped her build the skillset she needed to grow her business, but a bulk of the conversation was around what to do when you are overwhelmed, stuck, or if you have this large complex nut you need to crack.
Two of the big pieces I learned from Holly was that if you feel stuck, any type of movement will help spark momentum. Work grease in the wheels. She shared that if she's dragging her feet on a task. She will commit to working on it for ten minutes. Oftentimes that 10 minutes will turn into 20 or 30 minutes. Push through and do a little bit. She gives this great example of human decision-making capabilities almost functioning like a flow chart, “If I do this, this will happen. If I do that, that will happen. Which one am I over here?”
Any movement will help spark momentum.
Your brain goes through all of these processes, but if we focus too much on the result and how we are going to get there, we paralyze ourselves. If we are focused on the result, that's where we are getting stuck. If you move it along a little bit, all of a sudden you are halfway there. Getting to that halfway point is what makes the end clearer and more achievable.
I feel grateful and touched that these individuals gave us their time and expertise. There are many more impactful lessons beyond what I shared here, but I wanted to give a little sneak peek if anyone missed any of these or if you wanted to have almost a table of contents and a rundown. If you haven't read those full episodes and something resonated, make sure you go back and read.
All of these folks are fairly accessible if you want to reach out to them on LinkedIn and let them know how their episode and insights impacted you. I'm sure they would appreciate it. I would as well if you want to send me a note. I want to thank you so much for reading our 2023 guest roundup. I am excited for the upcoming guests in 2024. There's a nice list going and a nice crew assembling here for the upcoming year. I am very anxious and excited to see where we can all grow and learn from one another and anxious in the best possible way. I want to thank you so much for reading. As always, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review. It means much to us. I will see you next episode.
Important Links
Episode 3: The Power Of Reinvention with Kathi Sharpe-Ross – Past Episode
Episode 5: Entrepreneurship In The World's Oldest Industry – Past Episode
Episode 6: Defining Your Values & The Future of Work – Past Episode
Episode 8: Overcoming The Period Post-Crisis With Jeffrey Shaw – Past Episode
Episode 11: Ditch Feature Selling and Start Storytelling with Ravi Rajani – Past Episode
Episode 15: Four Points To Operate In An Attention Economy With Jai Dattani – Past Episode
Episode 18: Sales Is Everywhere. Embracing It Leads To A More Interesting Life & Career With Lauren Ashley Smith – Past Episode
Episode 22: The Future Of Luxury With Amanda Frasier – Past Episode
Episode 27: Work From The Inside Out – Past Episode
Episode 29: Passion Meets Action: Designing A Dream Career With Mike Woodward – Past Episode
Episode 31: Finding Inspired Purpose With Tony Martignetti – Past Episode
Episode 32: Management Versus Leadership: Learn The Key Differences And Start To Lead Your People Better With Jordan Modiano – Past Episode
Episode 34: Smashing The Plateau With David Shriner-Cah – Past Episode
Episode 36: Sales Implementation And Sales Team Accountability With Doug Miller, Fractional Sales VP – Past Episode
Episode 47: How To Get Unstuck With Holly Markham – Past Episode
