Inspired Insider With Dr. Jeremy Weisz | Ecommerce Interviews | Entrepreneurship | Inspirational Stories | Business Lessons

Kerri Garbis is the CEO and Founder of Ovation, a go-to resource for professional presence and speaker development training. Through Ovation, Kerri has trained thousands of business professionals from companies such as Walt Disney and Mastercard. She helps them with presentation skills, storytelling, etiquette, and emotional intelligence. Kerri is the Author of Presentation Skills for Managers, published by McGraw Hill. Wendy Pease is a language translation expert and the President of Rapport International, a translation and interpretation services company specializing in marketing translation. Wendy is the Author of The Language of Global Marketing: Translate Your Domestic Strategies into International Sales and Profits. In this episode… One of the hidden gems of successful entrepreneurship is the ability to speak and present confidently. You need to be an excellent speaker for local and international marketing, but the best part is that these skills can be learned. However, international marketing comes wit

Fredrik van Huynh is a Swedish-Cambodian entrepreneur and the Co-founder and CEO of Absolute Internship, a leading global internship program matching university students with internships for in-person and remote positions in top companies all around the globe.  Since 2009, Absolute Internship has helped thousands of students join more than 800 corporate partners in cities including Barcelona, Beijing, Hong Kong, Lisbon, London, Madrid, Paris. Interns develop marketable skills for future employment, and the program empowers them to step outside of their comfort zones.  In 2019, Fredrik was ranked among the top 25 Swedish entrepreneurs of the year for disrupting industries and breaking boundaries. In this episode… When Fredrik van Huynh started his company and decided to charge students for internship placements in companies worldwide, he got a lot of negative feedback. Some people even called his business model exploitative.  But Fredrik’s position was simple: students could get internship placements in their

Zach Wilcox is the Founder and CEO of Fide Freight, a representative logistics solution providing a full range of services in long and short-distance freight, specialty haulage, and management of dry freights. Zach and his team pride themselves on complete transparency and communication, from bringing on a client to getting the shipments completed on time. Before founding Fide Freight, Zach held project management, operations, and manufacturing roles across different companies. He has a business degree from Grand Valley State University.  In this episode… Core values have become the sound bite that punctuates every conversation with entrepreneurs. But since you’re in business to make profits, what is the ROI on your core values? Does staying true to your core values produce the business outcomes you seek, or are they some cool mantras to have?  Zach Wilcox, the Founder and CEO of Fide Freight, let us in on his company’s secret sauce for generating revenue and edging out competitors through core values. He tal

Ryan Tansom started his entrepreneurial career at his family business, where he was responsible for the operational and financial strategy of the $21 million company. He helped turn the company around and bring intentional focus to the right strategy, which enabled them to sell to a local competitor for eight figures.  Ryan is the Co-founder and Partner of Arkona, where they help entrepreneurs get clarity and control on how to grow the value of their company through Value Growth Education and Strategic CFO Services. He is the Host of the Intentional Growth podcast. In this episode… Has the growth of your business been stifled? Are you stuck with a broken system holding down your business, but you’re unsure how to turn it around? According to today’s guest, Ryan Tansom, the Intentional Growth framework is one way to help you figure out the issues and repair the broken system.  There are five principles you should be applying. The first is your drivers. What do you want from your business and why? The next is y

Jim Schleckser helps leaders grow their companies by assisting them in opening their point of constraint (also known as the kink in the hose). He is the CEO of Inc. CEO Project, a business advisory group for high-performing, experienced CEOs. Jim has been at the company's helm for 17 years and counting.  Jim has done business in 40 countries and recently ran a technology business valued at $1.6 billion. He's a Columnist for Inc. Magazine and the author of two best-selling books, Professional Drinking and Great CEOs are Lazy. In this episode… Dear CEO, if there’s a kink in the hose of your company’s revenue flow, what will you do about it? Are you going to put on your player hat, march straight to the frontlines to drive sales, and hopefully figure out the constraints? Or are you going to wear your analyst hat, dig into the data and figure it out? Whichever approach you take, you’ll be wearing either of the first two hats effective CEOs must wear to remove kinks in their business. The other three hats are nece

Danny Gavin is the Founder and Chief Strategist of Optidge, a Houston-based digital marketing agency. Danny is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Houston’s C.T. Bauer College of Business, teaching master-level classes and executive education on social media and search engine marketing. He is also the Founder of ODEO Academy, where he provides digital marketing education and practical application to help people land a job and get a better grasp of this changing world of digital marketing.  In this episode… Agency owners are specialists in the services they render but also wear many different hats to serve their clients better. One of the toughest challenges they face is taking off some of those hats and letting others come in to help scale the business. It’s a nightmare that keeps them twisting and turning in bed.  Are you facing these same challenges in your business? Today’s guest, Danny Gavin, had a similar experience but moved past it to grow his business. What was his secret recipe? Delegation

John Corcoran is a recovering attorney, an author, and was a former White House writer and speechwriter to the Governor of California. Throughout his career, John has worked in Hollywood, the heart of Silicon Valley, and has run his boutique law firm in the San Francisco Bay Area catering to small business owners and entrepreneurs. John has been the Host of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast since 2012. He has interviewed hundreds of CEOs, founders, authors, and entrepreneurs, from Peter Diamandis and Adam Grant to Gary Vaynerchuk and Marie Forleo. John is also the Co-founder of Rise25 Media, a company that connects B2B businesses with their ideal clients, referral partners, and strategic partners and generates ROI through their done-for-you podcast service. Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the Co-founder of Rise25. He has been involved in podcasting for 11 years and was a Senior Producer for one of the early business podcasts; he assisted in putting all of their systems in place and helped them add volume, feature, an

John Corcoran is a recovering attorney, an author, and was a former White House writer and speechwriter to the Governor of California. Throughout his career, John has worked in Hollywood, the heart of Silicon Valley, and has run his boutique law firm in the San Francisco Bay Area catering to small business owners and entrepreneurs. John has been the Host of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast since 2012. He has interviewed hundreds of CEOs, founders, authors, and entrepreneurs, from Peter Diamandis and Adam Grant to Gary Vaynerchuk and Marie Forleo. John is also the Co-founder of Rise25 Media, a company that connects B2B businesses with their ideal clients, referral partners, and strategic partners and generates ROI through their done-for-you podcast service. Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the Co-founder of Rise25. He has been involved in podcasting for 11 years and was a Senior Producer for one of the early business podcasts; he assisted in putting all of their systems in place and helped them add volume, feature, an

John Corcoran is a recovering attorney, an author, and was a former White House writer and speechwriter to the Governor of California. Throughout his career, John has worked in Hollywood, the heart of Silicon Valley, and has run his boutique law firm in the San Francisco Bay Area catering to small business owners and entrepreneurs. John has been the host of the Smart Business Revolution Podcast since 2012. He has interviewed hundreds of CEOs, founders, authors, and entrepreneurs, from Peter Diamandis and Adam Grant to Gary Vaynerchuk and Marie Forleo. John is also the Co-founder of Rise25 Media, a company that connects B2B businesses with their ideal clients, referral partners, and strategic partners and generates ROI through their done-for-you podcast service. Dr. Jeremy Weisz is the Co-founder of Rise25. He has been involved in podcasting for 11 years and was a Senior Producer for one of the early business podcasts; he assisted in putting all of their systems in place and helped them add volume, feature, an

Dan Grunfeld is a former professional basketball player, an accomplished writer, and a proud graduate of Stanford University. An Academic All-American and All-Conference basketball selection at Stanford, Dan played professionally for eight seasons in top leagues worldwide, including in Germany, Spain, and Israel. He is the Author of By The Grace of the Game: The Holocaust, A Basketball Legacy, and an Unprecedented American Dream. Dan is also the Vice President of Lightspeed Venture Partners.  In this episode… What do surviving the holocaust, escaping communism (in part thanks to Buddy Hackett), building a small business, and raising two generations of professional basketball players have in common? The answer lies in the story of Anyu — the incredible grandmother of Dan Grunfeld.  Dan does a fantastic job of recanting his family’s story. It’s a story of persevering in the face of pain, death, and oppression — and how basketball was the game-changer. This episode will shock you, entertain you, and leave you wi

Lisa Tener is an award-winning book coach who specializes in helping experts, visionaries, and entrepreneurs write and publish compelling how-to, self-help, and business books. For over 12 years, Lisa served as Faculty of Continuing Medical Education at Harvard Medical School.  Her clients have signed five and six-figure publishing deals with dozens of publishers, including Random House, Harper Collins, and more. She's the Author of The Joy of Writing Journal: Spark Your Creativity in 8 Minutes a Day. Lisa also runs a Bring Your Book to Life program.  Vanessa Levin is an Early Childhood Professional Development Consultant and the Creator of Pre-K Pages, one of the Internet's most popular resource websites for teachers of young children.  She has more than 20 years of classroom teaching experience, and people across the globe follow her teachings. Vanessa is also the Author of Teach Smarter: Literacy Strategies for Early Childhood Teachers. Christopher Littlefield is an international speaker and Founder of Bey

Melih Oztalay is the Founder and CEO of Smartfinds Internet Marketing, an agency that focuses on marketing processes and strategic activities based on using multiple web marketing channels.  Melih has been in the marketing industry since 1987. He helps companies with various internet marketing needs, including conversion rate optimization. He has worked with different clients, from manufacturers to automotive suppliers, franchisors, and more. In this episode… Back in the day when internet marketing was in its infancy, how would you sell health insurance to the hard-to-reach people who think they don’t need it? Now that the landscape has evolved and there are countless websites, how do you win over more of your existing website visitors?  Timeless fundamentals. That could be a deep dive into your target customers, marketing directly to them, deploying the compounding effect of social media, or some other tactic. No matter how fast things change in the industry, these timeless tactics will hold up. The problem

Darcy Garbin and Debbie Pontera are the Co-founders and Managing Partners of D2 Media, a full-service advertising agency. They've worked in media and marketing for over 30 years. The duo hand selects the best media partners to help clients build their advertising dream team. Darcy and Debbie have digital and traditional advertising expertise, including radio, TV, direct mail, billboard, and print. In this episode… You’ve heard people say that advertising on traditional media is a dying trade with little to no impact. They could be right and wrong at the same time. If you use traditional media like billboards without a clear strategy behind it, you’ll prove the naysayers right.  But if you combine traditional and digital media with a defined goal and strategy, you can expect to reap the best of both worlds. How do you harness the strengths of both traditional and digital media? Who should be using broadcast media and why? Two broadcast advertising experts answer these questions — and more — on today’s show. Li

Andy Crestodina is the Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer at Orbit Media Studios, an award-winning 40-person digital agency in Chicago. Over the past 20 years, Andy had provided digital marketing advice to thousands of businesses and has written countless articles on content strategy, SEO, visitor psychology, and analytics before it was even popular. He is the Author of the book Content Chemistry: The Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing.  In this episode… If you take a deep dive analysis of your website, you'll probably discover countless ways your website is unsatisfying visitors. If that's happening on your site, your business is leaking leads — and that's a possible report of broken dreams.  Many businesses have content gaps on their website, and they drop off several leads even through their thank-you page. How do you uncover all of these problem areas on your website? Which message should your website convey to meet the information needs of your visitors?  Listen to this episode of the Inspire

Jennifer Spivak is the CEO and Founder of The Ad Girls, an all-female Facebook ads agency that generates millions of dollars for clients on Facebook and Instagram. They've managed over $4 million in advertising spend and generated over $20 million in revenue for clients.  Jennifer was previously an Adjunct Professor of digital marketing at the City College of New York. She has more than 11 years of experience generating revenue for thousands of clients via paid marketing. She loves big picture strategy as much as she loves digging deep into the teeny tiny details and data. In this episode… An ad by itself does not do anything more than give the platform provider money to help you get more eyeballs on a piece of content. Looking at ads and the vanity metrics (such as low cost per lead) is wrong and short-sighted. Are those leads turning into profitable revenue? If you want to use ads like a predictable profit machine, Jennifer Spivak says you don’t need a 75-step funnel. You need a simple funnel that converts

Michelle Prince is a best-selling author, speaker, publishing expert, CEO, and Founder of Performance Publishing Group, a partner publishing company that has helped thousands of people tell their stories and become published authors.  She has personally published many successful books, including her best-selling, Winning in Life Now, and her latest, The Power of Authority, endorsed by some of the most influential speakers in personal development, including Zig Ziglar. She is also a Zig Ziglar Legacy Certified Speaker and Trainer. In this episode… If you are successful at anything — whether it’s your career, business, or personal life — when people see you, all they want to know is, “how did you achieve it?” People often ask this question because they want that result for themselves, too. What better way to communicate and share that story than writing a book?  Even if you think you haven’t done anything of note to share in a book, Michelle Prince wants you to know that your story matters. So if you wish to sh

Chandler Bolt is the Founder and CEO of Self-Publishing School, which is an Inc. 5000 company three years in a row and is ranked one of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the US. Chandler is on Forbes’ 30 under 30 entrepreneur list and author of six best-selling books. His book Published: The Proven Path From Blank Page to 10,000 Copies Sold can be found on publishedbook.com. He’s also the 7 Figure Principles podcast and Self Publishing School podcast host. In this episode… Are you looking for evergreen marketing material that’ll help grow your business and even open up new business channels? Think no further than writing a book. It’s no news that books change lives (and businesses, too). But how do you move from a blank page to launching and selling over 10,000 copies of your book?  Have you ever heard of the one-year book launch framework? It’s how today’s guest, Chandler Bolt, helps people write and self-publish best-selling books despite their busy schedules. If you’re interested in learning h

Vance Morris is a Customer Service Speaker and Service and Marketing Strategist at Deliver Service Now Institute, where he shares insider secrets of how the magic of customer and guest service is created. He is a 10-year Disney veteran, having spent 10 years working for the mouse at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. His Disney service and direct response marketing business allows him to coach companies that create Disney-style service systems and then monetize them through direct response marketing. Vance is also the longest-reigning marketer of the year at GKIC. In this episode… Nobody does a lasting experience like Disney. Imagine if you knew all the insider secrets Disney uses to create jaw-dropping experiences that turn customers into lifetime ambassadors. The good news is, Vance Morris is here to share the secrets and help you attract lifelong clients. Vance shares insight into how Disney goes out of its way to repeatedly create the best first impression, ensure that employees love what they do, and

Matt Inglot is the Founder of Tilted Pixel, an agency that helps membership-based websites grow through consulting, marketing, and web development. Matt has been doing this for over 15 years and has reinvented his agency several times. His clients have gone from making six figures to millions of dollars.  In this episode… We can all use a refresher to think deeply about our customers' needs and understand how our website helps create an exceptional journey no matter what business we do. Unfortunately, we often commit the mistake of not having a clear offer, an inefficient lead magnet, and poor onboarding that makes clients churn too quickly.  If you're looking to grow your membership business (heck, any business), you can start by making your website the gateway to a profitable relationship with your customers. Today's guest, Matt Inglot, breaks down this process by reviewing different websites and providing insights on tweaks to increase conversion. Want to learn more?  Listen to this episode of the Inspired

Tom Vozzo is the CEO of Homeboy Industries, the largest and most successful gang intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program across the globe. He left a lucrative career in corporate America, where he had helped grow a company from $50 million to $300 million to over a billion dollars in revenue as President of ARAMARK Uniform and Career Apparel Group.  Convinced there had to be a better way to define success, in 2012, Tom decided to become a volunteer, unpaid CEO of Homeboy Industries, a nonprofit built on compassion, empathy, and social justice. In this episode… Corporate America is filled with many opportunities, but they’re inaccessible to many who are just trying to make a decent living. Former gang members and ex-convicts are one of the worst-hit demographics. These people come out of prisons but remain incarcerated by the lack of opportunities for a do-over.  Fortunately, Homeboy Industries is changing the narrative by taking on people with the worst circumstance for recovery and helping them be