#MeetCoolPeople

Are You Building Loyalty or Just Collecting Contacts? I talk to a lot of business owners who've given up on email. Open rates dropped. Nobody replied. They figured the tool was broken. The tool is fine. The relationship is the problem. This episode is a solo from me, pulled from the chapter about loyalty in my upcoming book, The Follow-Up Code. It comes down to one idea: people buy when they're ready, not when you want them to. Your job is to still be there when that moment comes. Key Takeaways List size means nothing if the relationship is shallow. A 300-person list with real trust outperforms 16,000 overly pitched subscribers every time.Showing up consistently with value is what builds loyalty. It does not have to be about your product.People will save emails they don't want to lose. That's the sign you're doing it right.The "slacker email" is a simple, no-pitch message that restarts conversations with people you've lost touch with.Conversations lead to sales. You don't need a pitch. You need a starting point. Listen If You... Have an email list you haven't touched in months (or years) and don't know where to startKeep sending newsletters that nobody replies to and wonder if email even works anymoreWant to build the kind of trust where clients refer you to their family a decade after you first met ---- Tired of prospects ghosting you after your first conversation? Grab my FREE 5-day email course at https://thefollowupfix.net/ and learn the five relationship-killing mistakes that are costing you sales (and how to fix them without being pushy). About the Show #MeetCoolPeople is where founders, creators, and entrepreneurs share real stories about building businesses that matter. Hosted by Ely Delaney, each episode goes past surface-level advice to uncover the mindset shifts, failures, and frameworks that separate people who talk about success from people who actually build it.

Why Integrity Isn't Just About Keeping Your Word There are two sides to integrity in business. Most people only think about one. The obvious side is doing what you say. Deliver what you promised. Show up. If you say you're going to do something, do it. Most of us get that part. The other side is where things get tricky. And it's the side that quietly kills your confidence when you ignore it. In this solo episode, I'm talking about integrity. Not just toward your clients, but toward yourself and the work you actually do. There's a version of "keeping the peace" that's really just cowering. And if you've ever bent over backward for a client who was simply wrong, you know exactly what I mean. Key Takeaways The best way to show people you can help them is by actually helping them, before they pay youHow to handle a client who's unhappy without backing down on work you know was done rightWhy "the customer is always right" is one of the biggest lies in businessThe questions to ask yourself when you're deciding if a mistake was yours or theirsWhy over-educating your clients on the front end prevents most of these problems from ever starting Listen If You... Have ever caved to a client you knew was wrong and regretted itAre in a situation right now where you're not sure if it's your fault or theirsWant more confidence in how you handle pushback without losing the relationship Tired of prospects ghosting you after your first conversation? Grab my FREE 5-day email course at https://thefollowupfix.net/ and learn the five relationship-killing mistakes that are costing you sales (and how to fix them without being pushy). About the Show #MeetCoolPeople is where founders, creators, and entrepreneurs share real stories about building businesses that matter. Hosted by Ely Delaney, each episode goes past surface-level advice to uncover the mindset shifts, failures, and frameworks that separate people who talk about success from people who actually build it.

Why Most Follow-Up Fails Before It Even Starts When was the last time you followed up with someone and actually felt good about it? If that question made you pause, this episode is for you. Most follow-up fails, and it fails fast. Not because people forget to do it. It fails because of what people say when they do it. I've been working on something for several months now. My book, The Follow-Up Code, is almost here. And putting it together got me thinking hard about the core problem most people have with follow-up. They treat it like an ATM. Reach in, pull something out. The people you want to work with, founders, CEOs, real decision-makers, they're not buying from someone who makes them feel like a credit card number. But flip the script a little, show up with something worth their time, a resource, a check-in, something you genuinely thought they'd like, and the whole dynamic changes. They stop dreading your name in their inbox and start looking forward to it. Key Takeaways How sending something genuinely helpful shifts your relationship from vendor to trusted resourceWhy "I need to think about it" is often the truth, not a dodge, and what to do with thatThe simple consistency habit that keeps you top of mind without being pushyWhy the follow-up process that works in B2B looks nothing like a traditional sales script Listen If You... Have followed up once or twice and then given up, wondering why nobody respondedKnow you should be nurturing relationships better but aren't sure what to actually sayAre building something real and want clients who come to you, not the other way around Tired of prospects ghosting you after your first conversation? Grab my FREE 5-day email course at https://thefollowupfix.net/ and learn the five relationship-killing mistakes that are costing you sales (and how to fix them without being pushy). About the Show #MeetCoolPeople is where founders, creators, and entrepreneurs share real stories about building businesses that matter. Hosted by Ely Delaney, each episode goes past surface-level advice to uncover the mindset shifts, failures, and frameworks that separate people who talk about success from people who actually build it.

Why "I'll Just Do It Myself" Is Costing You More Than You Think Most business owners don't have a task problem. They have a letting-go problem. I got to sit down with Cathy Baillargeon, founder and CEO of Virtual Cathy, and this one hit close to home. She runs a US-based virtual assistance agency built around support that actually moves the needle. Not just task work. The real right-hand-person relationship that gets you back to running your business. Cathy and I met at gathering get-together back in December and clicked fast. This conversation was no different. She has a straight-talk approach to what getting real help in your business looks like, and she doesn't hold back. Key Takeaways Why "I'll just do it myself" is usually the most expensive decision you can makeHow the best VA relationships go way beyond tasks and become a true accountability and sounding board partnershipWhat to look for in a client-facing VA, and why protecting your energy and time mattersWhy delegation is a skill set that takes practice, and what to do when it's not clickingHow to hire for what you actually need instead of expecting one person to wear every hat Listen If You... Are buried in email, scheduling, and quick tasks that eat your whole dayHave tried getting help before and it didn't stick, and you're still not sure whyKnow you need support but don't know where to start or what to hand off first Connect with Cathy Find Cathy on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathy-baillargeon. To book a consult or learn more about Virtual Cathy, head to virtualcathy.com. Tired of prospects ghosting you after your first conversation? Grab my FREE 5-day email course at https://thefollowupfix.net/ and learn the five relationship-killing mistakes that are costing you sales (and how to fix them without being pushy). About the Show #MeetCoolPeople is where founders, creators, and entrepreneurs share real stories about building businesses that matter. Hosted by Ely Delaney, each episode goes past surface-level advice to get into the mindset shifts, real talk, and hard-won lessons that actually make a difference.

Why Your Business Feels So Heavy (And the 5 Principles That Fix It) Your business should feel lighter as it grows. For most founders, it feels heavier. More people. More meetings. More opinions. Less gets done. Nils Vinje has seen this repeat across companies of every size. The problem is almost never strategy. It is complexity. And the fix is simpler than you think. Nils is a business growth guide based in Phoenix, Arizona. He works with leadership teams to strip things back to first principles. His job is not to tell clients what to do. It is to ask the right questions, in the right order, at the right time, until the real answers surface. What You'll Learn in This Episode The 5 core principles every business needs: People, Purpose, Playbooks, Performance, and ProfitWhy right people for where you have been is not the same as right people for where you are goingHow vague expectations quietly kill your team's outputThe 4-step framework for running meetings that actually accomplish somethingWhy copying another company's system usually backfiresThe Checklist Manifesto story that proves fundamentals save lives and businesses Episode Chapters [00:00] Intro and how Ely and Nils connected [02:00] Why complexity is an injury and how businesses compensate [06:42] The 5 Principles: People, Purpose, Playbooks, Performance, Profit [09:00] Right people for where you're going, not where you've been [14:20] Why templates and frameworks usually backfire [19:22] The 4 things every productive meeting must have [22:23] What happens in vagueness stays in vagueness [26:25] The Checklist Manifesto and why fundamentals save lives [31:50] Why everything starts and ends with the leadership team Key Takeaways Complexity is a leadership problem. When a business has too many priorities and too little clarity, everyone compensates. Things get built around the chaos instead of fixing it. Nils's 5 principles work because they do not tell you what to do. They tell you what to focus on, in the right order. Getting the right people starts with knowing where you are going. Good meetings start with knowing the outcome. Setting expectations means actually setting them, not assuming everyone is aligned. The checklist story says it all. A hospital cut infections from 11% to zero with a 5-step checklist. Not a new system. Not more training. Just fundamentals. Resources Mentioned The Checklist Manifesto by Atul GawandeNils Vinje's free 5-day email series: nilsvinje.com/blueprint Take the Next Step Connect with Nils Vinje: Grab his free 5-day email series, How to Scale Your Business Without Everything Falling on You, at nilsvinje.com/blueprint. He responds to every email personally. You can also find him on LinkedIn here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nilsvinje/ Ready to fix your follow-up? Tired of prospects ghosting you after your first conversation? Grab my FREE 5-day email course at https://thefollowupfix.net/ and learn the five relationship-killing mistakes that are costing you sales (and how to fix them without being pushy). About the Podcast #MeetCoolPeople is where founders, creators, and entrepreneurs share the real stories behind building businesses that matter. Hosted by Ely Delaney, each episode goes beyond surface-level advice to uncover the mindset shifts, failures, and frameworks that separate people who talk about success from people who build it. If you are tired of theory and want practical insights from people doing the work, this is your show.

How a Carpet Cleaner Turned Disney Systems Into a Business Clients Can't Stop Talking About Your competitors have similar prices. Similar services. Similar websites. So why does the customer pick them over you? Most business owners assume it's about being cheaper or spending more on ads. It's not. It's about being memorable. And most businesses are doing absolutely nothing to create that. Vance Morris went from Disney leader to bankrupt executive to carpet cleaner. Then he built a business his clients couldn't stop talking about. Not because of the cleaning. Because of the experience. In this conversation, he breaks down exactly how he did it and how any business can do the same. Episode Overview This episode is for business owners tired of competing on price and losing clients they should be keeping. Vance spent 10 years inside Disney. He took those same systems and principles into a carpet cleaning company in Maryland. The results were measurable. A $5 gift box created $65,000 in additional annual sales. A custom phone greeting filtered out bad clients and attracted great ones. This is not theory. He runs three businesses using these principles today. What You'll Learn in This Episode Why systems create freedom and how Vance works just 90 minutes a week on his cleaning businessesWhat "Disneyfying" your business actually means and how to apply it to any industryWhy your marketing has two jobs: attract the right people and repel the wrong onesHow a $5 box of cookies drove over $65,000 in additional revenueThe difference between direct response marketing and Goodyear blimp advertisingWhy you'll get tired of your marketing long before your customers do Key Insights & Takeaways People don't just buy services. They buy how it feels to work with you. The boring parts of running a business, answering the phone, showing up to a job, shipping a product, are all chances to create a story worth telling. Vance calls this "Disneyfying." It doesn't require a big budget. It requires intention. The businesses that win long-term create tellable moments. Not just good service. Not just fair pricing. Something specific a client actually wants to share. None of it matters if you don't implement it. Start with one idea. Build from there. Resources Mentioned Vance's free gift: 52 Ways to Wow Your Customer Without Breaking the Bank at wow52ways.com Take the Next Step Connect with Vance Morris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vancemorris/ Ready to fix your follow-up? Tired of prospects ghosting you after your first conversation? Grab my FREE 5-day email course at https://thefollowupfix.net/ and learn the five relationship-killing mistakes that are costing you sales (and how to fix them without being pushy). About the Podcast #MeetCoolPeople is where founders, creators, and entrepreneurs share the real stories behind building businesses that matter. Hosted by Ely Delaney, each episode goes beyond surface-level advice to uncover the mindset shifts, failures, and frameworks that separate people who talk about success from people who build it. If you're tired of theory and want practical insights from people doing the work, this is your show.

You planned the event. You set the date. You posted about it everywhere. And then almost nobody showed up. Or worse, they showed up, enjoyed the snacks, and disappeared without ever becoming a client. Most business coaches and entrepreneurs treat events like a box to check. Shaquille Telford treats them like a system. And the difference is everything. Episode Overview This episode is for coaches and service pros who want in-person events to actually drive revenue, not just fill a room. Shaquille Telford is the CEO of Easy to Refer. He started in financial education with no clients and no idea how to get them. A mentor told him to try events. He did one. Thirty people showed up. He walked away with clients. Now he helps coaches attract the right audience, secure sponsors to cover costs, and build referral systems that outlast the event itself. What You'll Learn in This Episode Why a full room is not the same thing as a successful eventHow to define what "the right people" actually means for your eventThe cake vs. vegetables framework for making your event feel irresistibleHow sponsors work and who to approach when you're just getting startedThe 7-level communication strategy for filling seats without spamming peopleWhy events without a clear call to action leave money on the tableWhat makes people leave your event excited to come back next time Key Insights and Takeaways A full room is not the goal. The right room is. Ten people who genuinely need what you offer will outperform a hundred who showed up for the free lunch. Sponsors reduce your financial risk. Any business that would pay to be in front of your audience qualifies. Pitch them on access, not exposure. "Here are the people, here is how many, here is what they want." Fill seats by getting personal. Start with a public announcement, move to personalized emails, then calls, then one-to-one invitations. The more personal the outreach, the higher the yes rate. Most importantly, make it a good event. People should leave thinking, I cannot wait for the next one. That is how a single event becomes a referral engine. Resources Mentioned 7L: The Seven Levels of Communication by Michael J. Maher Take the Next Step Connect with Shaquille on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaquillet/ Ready to fix your follow-up? Tired of prospects ghosting you after your first conversation? Grab my FREE 5-day email course at https://thefollowupfix.net/ and learn the five relationship-killing mistakes that are costing you sales (and how to fix them without being pushy). About the Podcast #MeetCoolPeople is where founders, creators, and entrepreneurs share the real stories behind building businesses that matter. Hosted by Ely Delaney, each episode goes beyond surface-level advice to uncover the mindset shifts, failures, and frameworks that separate people who talk about success from people who build it. If you are tired of theory and want practical insights from people doing the work, this is your show.

Why Your Negative Self-Talk Is Killing Your Business (And How to Fix It) You're probably sabotaging your success without realizing it. Every time you think "I'm so far behind" or "I should have started earlier," you're reinforcing the exact patterns keeping you stuck. Your habitual thoughts are not passive observations. They're actively shaping your reality, your energy, and the opportunities you can see. This episode breaks down how to catch those destructive thought patterns and rewire them before they wreck everything you're building. In This Episode How to identify the habitual thoughts that are sabotaging your successWhy public confidence without private belief never works long-termThe daily reset practice that rewires negative thought patterns in minutesHow to surround yourself with people who lift you up instead of drain you This Episode Is For You If You Catches yourself thinking "I'm not smart enough" or "I'm behind everyone else"Puts on a confident face publicly but struggles with self-doubt privatelyWants to break the cycle of negative self-talk that's holding you backNeeds a practical system to change your mindset without endless therapy Resources Mentioned Daily Stoic Podcast by Ryan HolidayMeditations by Marcus Aurelius Take the Next Step Ready to fix your follow-up? Tired of prospects ghosting you after your first conversation? Grab my FREE 5-day email course at https://thefollowupfix.net/ and learn the five relationship-killing mistakes that are costing you sales (and how to fix them without being pushy). About #MeetCoolPeople #MeetCoolPeople is where founders, creators, and entrepreneurs get real about the mindset shifts that separate people who talk about success from people who build it. Hosted by Ely Delaney, each episode cuts through the noise to deliver practical insights you can apply immediately. If you're tired of surface-level advice and want to hear from people doing the actual work, this is your show.

The Copywriter Who Refuses to Sound Like a Robot You just paid someone to write your social media content. It's polished. It's professional. It sounds like every other business page on the internet. Problem is, it sounds nothing like you. Your audience can tell. They scroll past because there's no soul behind the words. You're posting consistently, checking that box, but nobody's converting. You've got content that could belong to anyone, which means it connects with no one. Sarah Chan built a six-figure copywriting business in her 20s by refusing to let clients sound like ChatGPT. After getting fired and joining Andrew Tate's The Real World program for $50 a month, she learned the frameworks and psychology that actually converts. But the real skill wasn't in templates. It was making copy sound human. What You'll Learn Why joining a $50/month program after getting fired became the best business decision Sarah ever madeWhy copying ChatGPT output and posting it kills conversions before you realize the problemHow Sarah built a six-figure business learning frameworks, buyer psychology, and revision in a tight communityWhy transitioning from AI content to authentic voice requires deleting everything and starting overWhy authority issues and remote work dreams led Sarah to entrepreneurshipHow growing up in a broken home and surviving false accusations built the mental fortitude behind Unbreakable podcastWhy Sarah turns away podcast guests who think age or success alone qualifies them Key Insights Most business owners either outsource to someone who doesn't understand their voice, or copy-paste ChatGPT and wonder why nobody engages. AI can write decent sentences. But it strips out everything that makes you different. Sarah's approach centers on learning technical frameworks and buyer psychology, then layering in the human element that makes people stop scrolling. Her business grew because she refused to let clients sound like everyone else. She pushes back. She tells people to delete years of content if it doesn't align. She turns away business when values don't match. That's protecting what copy is supposed to do: convert by sounding like an actual human wrote it. Take the Next Step Connect with Sarah Chan: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-chan-35a2a2187/ Email: sarah@srqcopy.com Phone/WhatsApp: 941-405-9746 Ready to fix your follow-up? Tired of prospects ghosting you after your first conversation? Grab my FREE 5-day email course at https://thefollowupfix.net/ and learn the five relationship-killing mistakes that are costing you sales (and how to fix them without being pushy).

From Events to Assets: How to Turn Your Voice Into a Business You book the gig. You show up. You deliver your talk. People clap. Maybe a few grab your business card. And then... crickets. No leads. No follow-up. No clients. Just another speaking gig that looked good on LinkedIn but didn't do much for your business. Most speakers treat stages like one-off performances instead of business assets. They chase free gigs for "exposure." They say yes to anything with a microphone. And they're not building systems to turn stage time into revenue. Toni Caruso has spent over 30 years in live events and media. After years of helping entrepreneurs build speaking businesses that actually pay, she’s the Executive Director of the Ewomen Speakers Network, where she teaches what most speaker coaches skip: how to make money doing this. In this conversation, Toni and I dig into turning speaking from a hobby into something that drives your business forward. We talk about picking the right stages, building genuine relationships, and why saying no to the wrong opportunities matters more than saying yes to everything. Episode Overview If you've been thinking about using speaking to grow your business but have no idea where to start, this episode is for you. Toni shares her story of relocating from California to Texas and building a speaking community from scratch. We talk about what separates speakers who get paid from speakers who get ghosted. And she breaks down how to use stages to create real business growth instead of just racking up speaking credits that go nowhere. What You'll Learn in This Episode Why most speakers fail to turn speaking into business (and what to do instead)How to build genuine relationships without being transactionalThe difference between exposure gigs and revenue-generating opportunitiesWhy saying no to the wrong stages is more valuable than saying yes to everything Key Insights & Takeaways Speaking is only a business asset if you treat it like one. Too many entrepreneurs say yes to every opportunity. They take free gigs that go nowhere. They speak at events that don't align with their ideal clients. The speakers who succeed get strategic. They pick stages where their buyers actually are. They build systems to follow up with people who hear them speak. They say no to opportunities that don't fit their business model. They treat relationships as the real currency, not just stage time. Take the Next Step Connect with Toni Caruso: Learn more about Toni and her upcoming workshops at ToniCaruso.com Ready to fix your follow-up? Tired of prospects ghosting you after your first conversation? Grab my FREE 5-day email course at https://thefollowupfix.net/ and learn the five relationship-killing mistakes that are costing you sales (and how to fix them without being pushy). About the Podcast #MeetCoolPeople is where founders, creators, and entrepreneurs share the real stories behind building businesses that matter. Hosted by Ely Delaney, each episode goes beyond surface-level advice to uncover the mindset shifts, failures, and frameworks that separate people who talk about success from people who build it. If you're tired of theory and want practical insights from people doing the work, this is your show.