INspired INsider Podcast

Tom Foster is the Founder and Owner of Foster Web Marketing, a web design and Internet marketing agency. He is also the creator of DSS (Dynamic Self-Syndication) marketing automation software, a powerful and highly effective online application that allows clients to update every aspect of their website. Tom is a nationally recognized author and adept at marketing law firms online. He is the Author of The 7 Biggest Mistakes Lawyers Make With Their Web Marketing That Cost Them Millions in Cases, Clients, and Profits. Tom also authored How Smart Lawyers are Using Video on the Web to Get More Cases Without Breaking the Bank. He is the Co-author of the best-selling book, Shift Happens: America's Premier Experts Reveal Their Biggest Secrets to Help You Thrive in the New Economy. In this episode… It's every business owner's dream to one day hand over the reins of their business without feeling like they're giving up an arm and a leg. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs struggle with letting go and firing themselves from the business because they are too involved in day-to-day activities.  Tom Foster of Foster Web Marketing once shared that struggle. A chance at selling and exiting the business opened his eyes to the need to fire himself after 20-plus years at the helm. He needed to hire for the roles he hated, those he wasn't good at, and bring on the right people to take the business to the next level. Ready to learn more?  Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz featuring the Owner of Foster Web Marketing, Tom Foster. They discuss the pain of being involved in every aspect of your business, the roles you should hire for, how to fire yourself from your business, and why you need to do it fast.

Lisa Larson-Kelley is the Founder and CEO of Quantious, a premier marketing agency specializing in emerging technology. Over the past decade, Lisa has grown the company from a small, two-person enterprise into a sought-after boutique marketing services agency. They’ve received national certification as a Women’s Business Enterprise by the Women President’s Educational Organization. Lisa is an online-video industry veteran, published author, and certified expert in emerging technologies. Her deep understanding of the developer ecosystem allows her to bridge the gap between tech-talk and marketing-speak.  In this episode… Since the pandemic began in 2020, companies working in remote or hybrid environments have struggled to keep everyone engaged and connected. As a result, they grapple with employee retention and productivity.  Fortunately, some have found the tools and tech to work through these challenges and succeed. Lisa Larson-Kelley is one of those using the latest tools to help foster a community while working remotely. She keeps her remote team engaged and ready to learn using AR, VR, and other capabilities. What are these capabilities, and how do you deploy them? Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz featuring Lisa Larson-Kelley, Founder and CEO of Quantious. They talk about how Lisa is leveraging AR for collaboration, the opportunities to create a diverse remote team, and the key steps that helped her grow her business.

Chris Madden is the Co-founder of Matchnode, a digital advertising and strategy firm that works with B2C brands. He also started Seabums, an NFT project focused on massively improving ocean health. They’ve donated over $140,000 to ocean charities within a six-month timeframe. In this episode… The cryptocurrency and NFT space continues to grow, and virtual experiences are becoming more common. Does this trend affect digital advertising strategies? And what should you know before entering these digital worlds?  Envisioning a future in which creators and people own digital networks, Chris Madden decided to create virtual communities of his own. He started Seabums, an NFT project that rallies around a cause — protecting our oceans. With this cause at the forefront and a community-led roadmap to help guide you, Seabums makes it easy to venture into the crypto and NFT world. Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz featuring Chris Madden, Co-founder of Matchnode and Founder of Seabums. Chris breaks down the process of buying an NFT, why crypto and the metaverse are becoming more popular, and the best resources for those looking to enter into these digital spaces. 

Bill Harper is the CEO and Chief Creative Officer at wmHarper, a strategically-led, creatively-driven transformation agency. The agency focuses on brands in need of transformation and helps them transition from a stagnant awkward stage to a growth-generating stage.  Bill offers leadership teams the insights, strategy, and fearless creativity they need to set them on a path to reaching their full potential. Over his 30-year career, Bill has created compelling creative executions and success stories for brands like Denny’s, Ryobi, Bosch, Michelin, Delsey Luggage, and Music & Arts, to name a few. During Bill’s downtime, he enjoys spending time with his family, fishing for striped bass, a good book, woodworking, and all things IPA. In this episode… Is your business taking two steps forward and three steps backward? Do you wish you could find a way to push through barriers so your brand could reach its full potential? Your brand has the potential to dominate its category, but it has to create a contagious, market-shattering impact on its customers and competition.  Once you discover what the consumer values — what they’re either striving for or moving away from — and your product leaves the consumer in a better emotional state, then you’ve got something. Your brand's growth can soar when you lock in that insight and align it with the right marketing strategy and a winning team. How do you build that winning team to achieve the growth you want? Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz featuring Bill Harper, the CEO and Chief Creative Officer at wmHarper. They discuss Bill’s entrepreneurial journey, strategies for brands to achieve their full growth potential, the process of creating marketing campaigns that achieve real growth, factors to consider when hiring, and lots more. 

Laurel Rundle is the Founder and CEO of Aha! Marketing, a leading provider of targeted product sampling that delivers millions of samples to consumers yearly through thousands of locations. They drive trials and awareness for top consumer products and natural brands. Over the past 20 years, they've worked with companies such as Gerber, Brita, Dove, and Gillette.  Laurel puts health, wellness, fitness, nutrition, education, and pet lifestyle brands at the center of human interactions that are already happening. So every brand campaign is delivered through one of their proprietary networks. In this episode… After creating an amazing consumer product, what’s next? How do you drive awareness for your product and get it in the hands of your preferred consumers? One sure way to do so is by delivering samples to your target market. This requires partnerships to get the products to the relevant consumers at the right time.  However, many consumer brands miss the context involved in driving awareness through trial. They make the mistake of sending product samples out to consumers who don’t know them at a time when the product may not be relevant in their lives, thereby making the trial ineffective. How can you do it better?  Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz, featuring the CEO of Aha! Marketing, Laurel Rundle. They discuss Laurel’s approach to driving effective trials for consumer brands, why it works, how some big brands use it, and what to think about when you want to drive product awareness through trial. 

Aalap Shah is a Chicago-born entrepreneur and Founder of 1o8, a performance marketing digital agency focused on driving sales for CPG companies nationwide on e-com and Amazon platforms. They've worked with companies like Gildan, Sweet Leaf Tea, Tio, So Crazy, and more.  Aalap has been recognized as a leader in Chicago's minority-owned digital marketing world and is known by multiple entities for his entrepreneurial and charitable endeavors. Crain's Chicago Business recognized him as one of Chicago's young emerging philanthropists, while the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship named him the National Volunteer of the Year.  In this episode… One of the greatest concerns for online retailers is retaining customers and keeping them engaged. It is especially critical now because customer acquisition cost has become astronomically high as brands scramble to lift online sales. Currently, only 20% of site visitors account for 50% to 70% of retail sales.  Trying to get new customers is great, but what if you tried to get that returning customer up 30% or 40%? How does your business change? How do you get your existing customers to buy more? That’s where the retention loyalty model comes in: this model helps you generate increased profitability more quickly rather than spending insane amounts on new customer acquisitions. Want to find out how? Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz featuring the Founder of 1o8 Agency, Aalap Shah. They discuss Aalap’s journey to becoming an agency owner, how retail brands can thrive online, the retention loyalty model, and how to increase the profitability of your business.

Michele Tonkovitz is the Founder and CEO of Green Onion Creative, an agency that helps companies nationwide grow their brand awareness and achieve their marketing goals. She has over a decade of experience writing creative copy.  Michele also offers design, social media, PR, and vendor relations services. She holds a BA in journalism and mass communications from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. In this episode… One of the hardest things for a business owner is transitioning from a solopreneur to building a team. The struggle comes from the extra time and effort needed to take on new tasks and roles required to build a team. It is also the mental stress of transferring knowledge to employees when it will take you minutes to get the job done.  Making that transition is more challenging in the creative space. Letting go and allowing someone else to take the reins can feel like you're in a room with no air, especially if you hate administrative work and managing people. But the truth is you'll have to let go if you want to grow your business. After seven years of riding solo, here's how Michele Tonkovitz quit solopreneurship smoothly… Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz featuring the Founder and CEO of Green Onion Creative, Michele Tonkovitz. They discuss Michele's struggles and strategies for transitioning from solopreneurship into building a team, how to source talent that suits you and your clients, SEO, website mistakes people make, and more.

Jess Begen Galica is a corporate speaker and private coach. She helps high-performing women transform their career trajectories to find more purpose, balance, and fulfillment.  Jess has built a highly successful business career spanning almost every kind of corporate work environment, from top companies like Apple and Siemens to various startups to management consulting at Bain & Company. After becoming a new mom, Jess pivoted, researched, and wrote about women and careers. She soon discovered that her story is not unique — building a stellar career, doing everything “right,” but waking up lost.  She went on to study the career trajectories of more than 150 highly successful women and has become an expert on career reinvention. She is the Founder of Reclaim Your Career, where she helps women launch a career change. In this episode… To every working woman, you’re not alone in the guilt you feel when you try to reinvent yourself and make your next big career move. You think you have to climb a career ladder, hopefully punch through the glass ceiling, and keep climbing. Now you’re about to make a big career decision, but you fear that you’ll fall off the ladder if you do.  Here’s the truth: there’s no ladder. Career changes today are universal and an adventure with many twists and turns. But it requires new tools, strategies, intentions, and investments because career navigation has become more complicated. What are these tools, systems, and investments?  Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz featuring the Founder of Reclaim Your Career, Jess Begen Galica. They discuss the guilt successful women deal with and why they feel lost, why women need feedback mechanisms to navigate their careers, how to begin significant career change safely, and more.

Peter Billmeyer, SIOR, is a Co-founder and Managing Principal at Bespoke Commercial Real Estate, a company that finds, negotiates, finalizes, and extends custom real estate solutions for privately-held businesses and nonprofit organizations. In his role, Peter prides himself on business development and creative problem solving to drive value for clients continually. He has a business degree from Oregon State University and was an Academic All-American, a four-year starter, and three-year captain of the soccer team — and eventually played professionally. In this episode… Your company culture is everything, and you should protect it at all costs. What most people don’t realize is that your work environment has a lot to do with that. Beyond the pandemic and the need for many people to work remotely, how productive is your company’s work environment? Do your employees come in to work earlier? Are they hesitant to leave by the end of the day because they love it there? Contrary to what many people think, many employees want to return to the office. But most companies do not have the physical environment their teams love. And the more employees work remotely, the less connected they are, putting your company’s culture at risk. Find out how Peter Billmeyer is helping entrepreneurs rethink their workspaces and culture.  Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz, featuring Co-founder and Managing Principal at Bespoke Commercial Real Estate, Peter Billmeyer. They discuss Peter’s entrepreneurial journey, the nature of commercial real estate right now, and the struggles and opportunities of building business partnerships, culture, and workspaces.

Michael LaVista is the Founder of Caxy Interactive, a Chicago-based custom software and technology company. Since 1999, they've been helping organizations create user-centered designs, content management systems, e-commerce, mobile application development, and much more. Over the past several decades, they have worked with clients like Motorola, Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the American Dental Association. In this episode… Digital transformation has become a buzzword, and people struggle to figure out what it means beyond deploying tech tools and frameworks. It is more about scaling processes, systems, and eventually revenue. Unfortunately, many companies complicate their digital transformation attempts, turning innovation into a burden.  For example, when some companies try to improve the digital experience for customers, they often run into the common mistake of making customers jump through hurdles. They ask too much of the customer too early. But all the customer needs is what's necessary to get them up and running. How can you avoid these pitfalls of digital experience design?  Listen to this episode of the Inspired Insider Podcast with Dr. Jeremy Weisz featuring the Founder of Caxy Interactive, Michael LaVista. They discuss Michael's digital experience design and custom software development consulting work, the mistakes companies are making with their digital transformation efforts, how they can implement change using the agile approach, and more.