

The Thoughtful Entrepreneur
Josh Elledge · UpMyInfluence.com & PodVerified.com
The Thoughtful Entrepreneur features candid, commercial-free conversations with the founders, CEOs, and B2B leaders building the companies and ideas shaping their industries.
Each episode runs 15-25 minutes, built for busy professionals who want substance without the filler. Guests include agency owners, consultants, coaches, and executives with real stories, hard-won lessons, and specific insight for business leaders focused on growth.
Host Josh Elledge has conducted 3,000+ interviews, helped launch 300+ podcasts, and has been directly involved in generating $40M+ in client results through relationship-driven media. He knows what makes a guest worth featuring and what makes an appearance actually worth the guest's time.
Want to be featured?
Guests are selected through PodVerified, the platform built by podcast hosts to restore trust and quality to podcast guesting. If you're a serious B2B expert with a clear message and a story worth sharing, apply here:
👉 https://PodVerified.com/podcast
Each episode runs 15-25 minutes, built for busy professionals who want substance without the filler. Guests include agency owners, consultants, coaches, and executives with real stories, hard-won lessons, and specific insight for business leaders focused on growth.
Host Josh Elledge has conducted 3,000+ interviews, helped launch 300+ podcasts, and has been directly involved in generating $40M+ in client results through relationship-driven media. He knows what makes a guest worth featuring and what makes an appearance actually worth the guest's time.
Want to be featured?
Guests are selected through PodVerified, the platform built by podcast hosts to restore trust and quality to podcast guesting. If you're a serious B2B expert with a clear message and a story worth sharing, apply here:
👉 https://PodVerified.com/podcast
Episodes
Mentioned books

Mar 3, 2022 • 19min
1093 - A Holistic Approach to Franchising with Metric Collective's Rob Huntington
In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge talks with the CEO of Metric Collective, Rob Huntington.Metric Collective is a vertically integrated franchise and technology company. They work in all areas of franchising, from top of funnel onward. They can also help with franchise leads, franchise sales, and equity investments into franchisors. Metric Collective is also a franchisee and ‘eat their own dogfood’ when it comes to their technology. They’ve dialed in their services and earned their domain authority through years of franchise work and their backend is intricately designed. Their leadgen system is quite sensitive and they prioritize filtering their leads for their clients. They can generate and filter reasonably, long before they sell them to a brand. Rob and his team also believe direct marketing is constantly changing – there’s no secret sauce. They stay up to date on all platforms and target niche audiences that they find through advanced lead generation. Rob also shares why lead collection and the selling of leads can be seriously negatively impacted by how a purchaser treats the leads. Metric Collective’s franchise leads tool allows their users to automatically reach out and begin the relationship-building process without as much of the manual hassle. If you’re letting leads accumulate and you’re calling them all one day per week with a few seconds or less, you’re simply not going to see results. Metric Collective is a few different companies that offer various franchising services. FranchiseHelp is the largest lead generator for franchisors in the country, according to Metric Collective’s website. Through this company, they offer highly qualified leads through their specially designed proprietary matching quiz. FranFunnel is their SaaS product offering that gives franchisors and franchisees the ability to communicate with their leads more effectively through automated texting. Finally, they also offer their third business, a Franchise Development company called Oakscale, which is a fully outsourced franchise sales organization.Metric Collective makes franchising “cool” and attainable for those who are new to franchising or for seasoned franchisors. Franchising allows you to be your own boss, without any capital, and offers you an opportunity to become a franchising entrepreneur. No matter how far along you might be, they have an innovative, high-level offering for you. This method of business is becoming more and more popular, and Rob shares that he and his team have spread awareness about how amazing the space can be when tackled effectively. Want to learn more? Check out Metric Collective’s website at https://metriccollective.com/. Check out Metric Collective on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/metric-collective/. Check out Rob Huntington on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertahuntington/. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.

Mar 2, 2022 • 24min
1092 - Building Real Relationships Within Your Center of Influence with The High Five Effect's Matt Ward
In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge talks to Word of Mouth consultant and the author of The High Five Effect, Matt Ward. Matt helps service-based business professionals build better relationships and make more sales through referrals. Josh and Matt explore why professionals struggle with referral-based business. The reality is that many service-based professionals think they’re better at word of mouth and referral based business than they think. Someone in your center of influence needs to know who you are and why they should direct business to you. List your referral sources (that weren’t referred by other existing clients), find the common denominator, and find your ideal center of influence and ideal referral sources.Once you discover this, double down, focus, and build relationships with people. You need to outrun your competition by staying in touch with your center of influence. Stay top of mind and reach out more than your competitors do. Matt also advises to send more than just email when building these relationships – mail adverts in the mail, send handwritten cards, and show you’re dedicated beyond just virtual communication. Matt’s philosophy is to work with clients that truly bring you joy. Entrepreneurs give up so much during the first five years of their business to create success. In reality, they lose money, time, and relationships by constantly overextending themselves. When you build relationships with like-minded people, Matt shares, they know, like, and trust you. They want to send business your way. You want to go a step beyond – you want people in your sphere to know, like, and care about you. This is the basis of referral-based business. Transition away from business and move towards knowing someone personally when you build a relationship with someone. What are their hobbies? Do you know their family? Ask yourselves these things and invest in your center of influence as though they’re your friends. Josh and Matt explore the ways sales have become sleazy and unenjoyable for most people being sold to. When you aren’t authentic, everyone you sell to can pick up on this. Businesses and consumers are more wary than ever of being sold to, so when you manage to strike up a relationship with a company or brand, don’t jump to selling. Ask how they are, check in, and be willing to have these types of conversations. Touch points and reaching out should never be sales-driven; play the long game and invest time and energy into them long before they’ll even consider investing money with you. Check out Matt Ward on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattwardspeaks/. Check out Matt Ward’s book, The High Five Effect at https://www.amazon.com/High-Five-Effect-Business-People-Bring-ebook/dp/B09HXXKYX7. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.

Mar 2, 2022 • 29min
1091 - Turn Yourself Into An Effective Leader with 30 Day Leadership's Nils Vinje
In the first ever sponsored episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks to the founder and CEO of 30 Day Leadership, Nils Vinje. Josh and Nils explore high-level networking and how the B2B world is built entirely on networking. Put yourself in a position to make these connections – but not in a sales setting. Paying a little extra to be in a VIP setting at events, masterminds, and functions is an amazing opportunity to forge these connections organically. Nils explains how he adapted and pivoted once the pandemic hit. He realized he needed to build something more sustainable and focused. The pandemic forced him to pivot away from one-on-one high touch consulting and towards a one-to-many model. He focuses now entirely on leadership coaching. He wrote the book, the 30 Day Leadership Playbook, available for free here! Nils also explores how being a leader in a B2B business requires you to inspire your employees to believe in the solutions you offer. You also need to understand what your team needs and they need to understand your company’s message and vision. All of these factors, universally, depend upon good leadership.Josh and Nils also talk about how good leadership is created. Nils breaks this down into four pillars; leading yourself, leading others, leading with communication, and leading with metrics. Leading yourself requires you to manage yourself and your time efficiently (not to mention knowing the areas you need to improve upon); self awareness is key here. Leading others requires you to drive your team’s performance – don’t just ‘lead’, coach your team forward. Leading with communication means, fundamentally, you have communication tuned in internally and externally when it comes to your business. Leading with metrics means being data driven – prioritizing logistics and understanding the actual numbers that run your business. These pillars round out what it means to be a successful leader; implementing these pillars can be a challenge, which is where 30 Day Leadership can help. Nils also talks about how he and his team measure success in their B2B leadership academy. They maintain scorecards that track each participant's pillar progres as well as where they are in their leadership modules. By tracking these aspects, participants will learn to integrate the tools and lessons they learned into their businesses in real time. Want to learn more? Check out 30 Day Leadership’s website at https://www.30dayleadership.com/. Check out Nils Vinje’s book, the 30 Day Leadership Playbook at https://www.30dayleadership.com/book. Check out 30 Day Leadership on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/30-day-leadership/. Check out Nils Vinje on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilsvinje/. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.

Mar 1, 2022 • 25min
1090 - The Truth About Impactful, Scalable Coaching with High Impact Coaching's Zander Fryer
In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge talks with the founder and CEO of High Impact Coaching, Zander Fryer. High Impact Coaching helps coaches build 6 and 7-figure businesses in a variety of verticals. Zander and Josh explore how coaches struggle in their space. He talks about owning and recognizing our own individual obstacles and limiting beliefs. Coaches become niche experts in their space, and may spend years or decades honing that expertise. However, coaching and business expertise aren’t always learned or honed simultaneously. If coaches don’t learn the business side of things and become a CEO and not just a coach, their business won’t thrive or scale. In early stages of business, it’s easy for a coach to stay in their zone of genius. The issues arise as their businesses start to grow and need to scale. You can’t be predictable if you don’t have reliable, consistent lead generation, which only comes with being an entrepreneur as much as you are a coach. Being a great coach from the beginning isn’t the challenge – it’s learning how to grow your business sustainably and reliably. Zander shares a bit of wisdom he was given by a mentor – you can either have a crappy product that reaches a lot of people but doesn’t deliver, or you can have an amazing product but be terrible at marketing. The truth is the latter situation is worse. You need to become an expert marketer to be an effective, impactful coach. Zander shares how he experienced self-limiting beliefs and how it doesn’t matter if you’re starting from scratch. Anyone can become a marketer, but you have to put in the time to hone that mindset. Zander’s philosophy is that a coach should also be their own marketing master, but this takes years. Mastery isn’t something that happens overnight. But what about tactics? One of the biggest shifts Zander learned through his research is that until you make your first 7-figures, 80% of your focus should be on sales. As long as you’re focused on selling, you’re having active conversations and you’re learning more about your target market. Until this point, you likely haven’t narrowed that down completely. If you’re working with a minimum viable product, talk to as many people as possible to find out how to improve that product to then launch the next iteration. You need to study every aspect of what these leads are wanting out of your solution – this is the only way you’ll grow in the right direction for your target audience. Want to learn more? Check out Zander Fryer’s website at https://zanderfryer.com/. Check out High Impact Coaching on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/sh-t-you-don-t-learn-in-college/. Check out Zander Fryer on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/zanderfryer/. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.

Mar 1, 2022 • 17min
1089 - Influencer Marketing in 2022 with Markerly's Justin Kline
In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge talks to the founder and CEO of Markerly, Justin Kline. Markerly is a technology company and agency that works in the influencer space. They began in 2012 and work in a massive variety of verticals. Justin and Josh explore how influencer marketing has evolved from its origins. It’s become easier to become an influencer, but the space has also matured. Justin explains that marketing and advertising came about through the desire to influence in general. This concept predates even modern advertising and marketing, he shares. Markerly runs large scale influencer campaigns and they work in a couple of ways. One half of their business is the influencer database they maintain, and the other half is their advertising services. Justin shares that niche content creation and audience targeting gets harder and harder over time, but Markerly amplifies content by recognizing how to market to these niches using influencer marketing.Justin and Josh also explore certain aspects of influencer marketing to be aware of. You should be asking questions about engagement rates – and doing your own research on these topics. Influencers aren’t exactly keen on sharing these details necessarily. Justin shares some tips on looking at these indicators. Use third party engagement tracker tools and external data sources. Also, follow your intuition. If something pings as fishy to you, it probably is. Look at the types of accounts following the influencer you’re looking at, for instance. You also want to think about brand alignment. You have to pair the right influencers with the right brands – and the right customers. Brand affinity, especially with larger brands, is one way to target specific audiences with the right influencers. If an influencer has looked at similar brands and align with the ethos of a brand, that’s how Markerly chooses brands and influencers to pair together.Josh also asks about performance indicators. You have to remember that bigger influencers are much busier, and require more touch points than just an affiliate code. However, if you’re willing to pay for more ‘expensive’ influencers, you’ll see a larger return more quickly. It all depends on what your brand is striving to do and what your goal is for your influencer campaign. Smaller influencers are likely less expensive but don’t underestimate their reach. If they really speak to their niche, and you see an opportunity in that niche, consider trying to work with them on a single campaign to see what happens. Establishing relationships with the influencers you work with is not only good public relations, it’s pragmatic and can only serve to improve the work you do together. Want to learn more? Check out Markerly’s website at https://markerly.com/. Check out Markerly on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/markerly/. Check out Justin Kline on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/klinejustin/. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.

Feb 28, 2022 • 17min
1088 - Innovative Tech Solutions with Comtec Systems' Mike Vertolli
In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks to the President and CEO of Comtec Systems, Mike Vertolli. Almost 30 years ago, Mike started Comtec Systems. In high school, he worked in telecommunications and installation and he had an unprecedented opportunity to work in the budding tech space in the 90’s. Today, Comtec Systems works with 300 agents that sell their services nationwide. Their current mission is simple; they help their clients run their companies better through technology. Their client base is scattered across various industries. Mike shares the number one vertical he serves that has the most pain points is the healthcare space. They teach various different technological skills to healthcare teams in order to execute working with patients more effectively. Many healthcare professionals are shocked at how much business they lose every year because their automated systems are not good. Mike shares that some practices are skeptical of their services – until he shows how poor these analytics really are. Josh and Mike also explore the lack of awareness with the customer journey experience. You might think you have a good thing going, but your blindspots are just that; you don’t know what you don’t know. Mike shares that a poor customer experience is the quickest thing to be shared and circulated online, and you need to make it your goal to have exceptional customer service. Average service isn’t acceptable; complete excellence should be the bar. Mike also shares ways to better convert online traffic, as well as some tips on optimizing how your staff communicates. Can they handle phones and website inquiries at the same time? If that’s feasible, optimize time by stacking applicable tasks that can be done back and forth with ease. Mike also shares some thoughts on how remote work will likely be the permanent future of many industries. You can use tools like what Comtec Systems offers to source top talent nationwide. If you don’t have to keep your hiring pool to your immediate geographical region, absolutely leverage and take advantage of high-level talent sourcing software. This, believe it or not, ties into your customer experience. You might have been underutilizing high-level talent across the board, which means you don’t have a top notch team to manage and facilitate the customer experience. Investing into this type of talent is another amazing way to boost your customer journey through innovative tech solutions. Don’t turn a blind eye to your customer journey; do a deep dive and see what you can improve for immediate results. Want to learn more? Check out Comtech Systems’ website at https://comtecsystems.net/. Check out Comtec Systems on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/comtec-systems-inc-/. Check out Mike Vertolli on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-vertolli-66b60112/. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.

Feb 28, 2022 • 12min
1087 - Help Your Neighbors in Minutes with NeighborShare's Diana Zhang
In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge talks with the co-founder and CEO of the nonprofit organization NeighborShare, Diana Zhang. NeighborShare’s mission is to help our neighbors through moments of pivotal need with 400 dollars or less. NeighborShare helps our community by empowering community frontline heroes – teachers, social workers, and more. They spotlight these major needs in communities and provide help through this empowerment. This type of platform allows you to know exactly where your help is going. It’s a little difficult to know how to help your neighbors in your local community, Diana shares. NeighborShare’s platform tells you who in your area needs help, what they need help for, and it’s all laid out in small, affordable incremental donations.The success of a society is the strength of its safety net, and helping others is not something most of us would say no to, sometimes we just don’t know the best ways to help as donors. NeighborShare addresses this need and vets everything in the process. You know exactly where things are needed and who has need in your immediate community.Diana shares that NeighborShare strives to fill in the gaps and provide that extra safety net so that people aren’t being forgotten or neglected. Any neighbor that has a desire to help someone can benefit from using NeighborShare’s platform.Diana shares that helping others doesn’t need to be as complicated or difficult as it has become – you can browse NeighborShare’s network based on need and location. You can help in a way that resonates with you in just a few minutes. According to NeighborShare’s website, 40% of American families can’t afford a $400 emergency. The COVID-19 pandemic disproportionally affects lower-income Americans who were already struggling to make ends meet.Facing low wage growth, high unemployment, and expensive healthcare and housing, millions of Americans don’t have the resources to withstand the economic and public health impacts of an extended pandemic. Local nonprofit and government assistance programs do great work, but they often can’t help everyone who needs it. That's where you, and NeighborShare, come in.This is why NeighborShare’s threshold is 400 dollars – this symbolically and literally shows this statistic and how close any given family (40% of them) is to a make or break incidental or emergency. NeighborShare has become the additional resource – they’re a non-profit looking to be the extra safety net for struggling individuals and families across the nation.Want to learn more? Check out NeighborShare’s website at https://nbshare.org/. Check out NeighborShare on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/neighborshare/. Check out Diana Zhang on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-zhang-02b4aaa4/. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.

Feb 27, 2022 • 19min
1086 - Build Rich, Structured Fun Into Your Remote Workplace with Get Some Class's Joseph Gerstel
In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge talks to the founder and CEO of Get Some Class, Joseph Gerstel. Get Some Class is a virtual events provider that builds high-end virtual events for corporate teams. Joseph shares that much of the world has gone virtual permanently. This spawns a challenge – how do you connect your team so that there isn’t social friction and so that there is a sense of workplace community. How do you replace parties and watercooler chats, though? Joseph and his company provide these high-end virtual events that are semi-regular and are actually legitimate fun for your team. There are tons of different options that are curated specifically for your team and business. Practically speaking, Get Some Class utilizes Zoom. Joseph shares that the challenge with Zoom is that you have to make things engaging. This has to be executed strategically and thoughtfully. You don’t want your team just sitting in a Zoom meeting for hours – the experiences have to be designed to be fun and not feel time consuming. Another challenge with Zoom is that on its own, it doesn’t support individual interactions. Joseph shares that there are other video programs out there that revolutionize this. Video tech and virtual avatars allow your team to enjoy a more unique, engaging experience, all on a virtual platform. Joseph shares that these challenges for companies aren't going to go away; most of the workforce that is remote will stay remote. Over the next few years, we’ll only see more of a boom in remote work. Honor the challenge and be willing to experiment and be thoughtful with your team bonding experiences. Josh and Joseph also explore how to make general meetings more engaging and interactive. Incorporate new, fun things into the daily grind for your remote team. First of all, don’t overcomplicate things. Introduce things casually – let your team make small talk before a meeting, or designate and facilitate simple team bonding activities. You can start small and work up to bigger events as you observe your team’s response. Chill out the social environment a bit and signal that being light and social when appropriate is completely okay.Fostering this environment in a remote workplace is very important, especially if you want honest feedback and thoughts from your team. You can be mindful and proactive by simply paying attention to your team. Increase your own awareness through connecting to your team personally, sharing things about yourself, and encouraging them to share things. Be open to this sort of engagement and invite your team to participate consistently. Want to learn more? Check out Get Some Class’s website at https://getsomeclass.com/. Check out Get Some Class on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/getsomeclass/. Check out Joseph Gerstel on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephgerstel/. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.

Feb 26, 2022 • 22min
1085 – Maximize Your Marketing with Parkin Consulting’s Tim Parkin
In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks with marketing consultant and the President of Parkin Consulting, Tim Parkin. Tim is a marketing advisor to global marketing executives. He helps them dramatically improve the effectiveness of their marketing and their marketing teams. In short, he discovers what works and what doesn’t for specific teams. His journey throughout his career has been wild, but he shares that he realized along the way that software and products weren’t the issue with businesses he encountered – it was their marketing. Marketing is understanding the consumer, how they think and what they feel. He shares that you have to deeply connect with and understand your audience in order to execute marketing successfully. If you aren’t connected to what resonates with your target audience, you’re probably wasting a lot of money on poor strategies. Consumers are as sophisticated and savvy as ever – and there is now pushback on data privacy. With data privacy challenges, you have to be creative and find new ways to tune into your audience. Tim sees some common issues as companies grow; they either hit a wall as far as scaling, or they struggle to accelerate that growth. Tim offers expertise on accelerating growth and addressing bottlenecks – as well as implementing the long term solutions that permanently bridge the disconnect between consumers and businesses. Josh and Tim also explore the issues with companies that think they’re customer-centric. The truth? They aren’t talking to their customers at all. Data and numbers are great, but it’s not keeping eyes on the customer’s needs and thoughts. Don’t just send out a survey, actually make an effort to engage with and find what your customers want and need. Tim shares a trick to get better customer data – read your own reviews and the reviews of your competitors. Take those reviews into account and take them to heart. Another trick? Hire your customers! Hire those who would purchase and use your product or service and build an internal community around that. This is a great way to have access to real, impactful feedback that will resonate across your customer base. No more assumptions, just reliable data straight from the source. Tim works in a wide range of industries (B2B and B2C businesses) and shares some of his predictions for 2022 in the world of marketing. Data and privacy changes are at the top of the list – he believes in the next year, more data breaches will cause more privacy issues and blocks. Data is integral to marketing, and relying on advertiser data isn’t ideal. Use authenticity and sensitivity with your customers as these issues continue to change. Want to learn more? Check out Tim Parkin’s website at https://www.timparkin.com/. Check out Parkin Consulting on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/parkin-consulting/. Check out Tim Parkin on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/marketing-consultant-tim-parkin/#experience. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.

Feb 25, 2022 • 35min
1084 - Build Your Online Community with Find Calm Here's Deb Schell
In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks to the Creator and Founder of Find Calm Here, Deb Schell. Deb helps entrepreneurs build online communities with newfound peace and ease. Deb shares that having a thriving online community while running a successful business can be chaos. She wanted to help other entrepreneurs find calm in running an online business, so Find Calm Here began as a wellness community. The more people joined, the more she realized there she filled a need – she helped guide entrepreneurs create and utilize their own self-made communities. Now, that’s what she does with the Find Calm Here community. Josh and Deb also explore how resourceful and collaborative a community can be. As a business owner, you may not have all eyes on your customers and their issues at all times. The more you scale, the more relevant this problem becomes. Having a self-driven community can help, but it takes work and really investing into connecting your network in order to have something effective that fills the role. Deb also talks about how community-based softwares have evolved over time. There are many different options out there, especially when you’re looking to get away from Facebook groups. A popular option that both Deb and Josh have used and loved is Might Networks. Using a platform like this empowers your customer base to become impactful within itself. Deb shares that ‘community’ is more often than not the missing magic in your business. If you’re an entrepreneur, agency, wellness or mindfulness professional, or a coach/consultant, building a dedicated community is always a best practice. Josh also asks about how to build a community truly. It’s not just the software, Deb shares. You want to notice those who are engaging with your community already (perhaps on social media or in a Facebook group you’ve implemented) and invite them to join the community you’re building. You want to establish a community with those who already like to engage with you – and you want to ask them what they really want to see. Collaborate with your community and make them part of the direction it goes in, don’t just take them along for the ride. Your community knows what it wants, so leverage that by asking them! Deb suggests using something like a Google Form to ask your audience questions about building your community – do some trial “market” research here to see what’s actually in demand in your network and client base. Want to learn more? Check out Find Calm Here’s website at https://findcalmhere.com/. Check out Find Calm Here on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/find-calm-here/. Check out Deb Schell on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/debschell/. Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:✅ We are actively booking guests for our DAILY Entrepreneur Success Podcast. Schedule HERE.✅ Are you a 6-figure consultant? Let us fill your sales schedule and move you to 7-figures. Learn more here.✅ Check out our free Authority Transformation Masterclass.


