In this episode of The Business Owner’s Journey, host Nick Berry sits down with Jessica Yarmey, a seasoned entrepreneur and franchise veteran with over 25 years of experience in promoting and protecting global brands like Gold’s Gym and Burger King. Jessica shares her journey of launching and scaling her own ventures, including KickHouse and her latest projects, FlexSociety and SizzleSociety. They dive deep into the mindset of entrepreneurship, the importance of resilience, and how self-awareness and adaptability play crucial roles in building successful businesses.
Jessica shares her experience of pivoting from her initial plans for FlexSociety to focus on launching her marketing agency, SizzleSociety. This decision came after realizing that her initial direction wasn't aligning with the success she envisioned. Jessica emphasizes the importance of staying open to change and being willing to pivot when necessary to unlock new opportunities.
Returning to her marketing roots allowed Jessica to quickly gain momentum with SizzleSociety. She discusses how recognizing and leveraging your core strengths can make all the difference in business, especially when you're facing challenges or considering a shift in direction.
Both Nick and Jessica delve into the value of mentorship, emphasizing how critical it is to seek guidance from those who have walked the path before you. They also touch on the importance of surrounding yourself with a strong network of peers and mentors who can offer diverse perspectives and support your growth.
Jessica talks about the importance of self-awareness in entrepreneurship, particularly in understanding your unique strengths and how they can shape your business. She explains how embracing her generalist mindset, instead of trying to fit into a specialist mold, has been key to her success.
Jessica discusses the significance of authenticity in building a personal brand, particularly in a noisy digital world. She advises aspiring entrepreneurs to start sharing their journey early on, focusing on consistent and genuine communication, which will eventually serve as a strong foundation for future business endeavors.
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Nick (00:00)
so flex society is still concept, right. But not, not hasn't launched, but the agency has launched,
Jessica Yarmey (00:07)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And that's been my last year is just that learning of I was pushing on Flex Society, pushing on it, trying to get funding, trying to bring it to life. And I really just pivoted, even a full 180, just like a little slight degree different change, different focus. And all of a sudden it just started to unlock and roll in. And that's been such a lesson because everything I thought I wanted to do changed. And
It turns out I was wrong about what I wanted to do. And it's just interesting to be able to pivot, go with the flow and follow the green lights, if you will.
Nick (00:50)
And it worked out. Yeah.
Jessica Yarmey (00:53)
We're in it right now. So we'll see. We'll have that two -year reconnect and we'll figure out if it's really working.
Nick (01:00)
But the way that you said that made it, it sounds like you made the pivot to the agency and that has gotten legs, right? Why do you think that is?
Jessica Yarmey (01:10)
Yeah, yeah, just so.
Well, I want to say I went back to my core. I went back to what I know best.
I when I talk to people about it, when I talk to my friends about it, I will say I girlbossed a little bit too close to the sun and I need to step back from that a little bit and just go back to what I know I can knock out of the park and that's marketing things. So I think that's when I started the marketing agency and I haven't even advertised it really. I've just connected with people that are in my network, in my family. It's a lot of fitness people and just started to have conversations and said, hey,
building this, are you interested in working together? And it really just came together quickly. So I don't know, you've built a lot of businesses. Have you seen like some have been an uphill battle the whole way and others have come together really seamlessly?
Nick (02:06)
yes. and I think, so they're all an uphill battle, right? But some of them are, and it's a different type of uphill battle. It's maybe an uphill battle with the wind at your back. but I think, it kind of ties. So my explanation for that would kind of tie to what I've seen, what I think I've seen out of you. mean, like for anybody listening, I've known you for two weeks.
It's kind of miraculous that we didn't know each other sooner because it's like with our backgrounds, we almost would have had to have avoided one another somehow. They had to vote. I mean, they overlapped a lot.
Jessica Yarmey (02:44)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, the Venn diagram of our interests is basically just a circle. Yeah.
Nick (02:51)
Yeah, it is. But, but I can totally see like the you turning your attention toward marketing and it clicking really well because everything that I've seen out of you exudes that understanding an audience, like, know, who you're talking to, there's like this level of awareness there. And then this ability to state things in ways that are
reasonable and insightful and, but simple enough that they're like, that somebody can read them and follow them. you're not like talking over your audience's head or trying to complexify messages. everything that I've seen comes across as someone who is good at conveying who they are. And our conversations, you seem to be like very self -aware.
as a marketer, those are the boxes that absolutely have to be checked, right? Like you have to be aware, you have to be able to communicate. You have to be able to do some adapting in there and like, you are that.
Jessica Yarmey (03:49)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for that compliment. And I...
It means a lot to me because I'm very focused right now on I'm only six years into my entrepreneurial journey. You're, 20 something years in, Like, so you have so many lessons and I feel like even in my six years, I have so many lessons and they're not comfortable lessons. They are waterboard style lessons. And I want to put everything that I've learned out there for people to make it seem a little bit more
approachable and to help somebody maybe avoid the obstacles that I've had to go through. And I'm going to pay it forward season. I'm in a add value to the next person kind of season, knowing that it will eventually come back around. And so when people say like, do you have a content strategy? It's almost real time of what is in my mind? What lessons am I either currently learning or
currently digesting that happened years ago, but I haven't had to unpack them or haven't wanted to unpack them. But it's things that I'm really dealing with right now. And so I think that's why it seems self -aware because it's very much in my brain right now. It's very real and I'm still going through it. And so it's not solved. It's a little bit of like, hey, here's a puzzle piece. Like here's a thing that I've
Nick (05:12)
It's real.
Jessica Yarmey (05:26)
And I think to me it just means a lot to, it makes the lessons feel a little bit less painful if I can take that pain and like put it into something good. And the thing that could be good is like I pay it forward to the next person. And I know you do a lot of, you do a lot of mentoring and maybe you get the same payback kind of feeling of all the things that I've learned.
Nick (05:41)
Mm -hmm.
Jessica Yarmey (05:51)
I'm going to give this to the next person. Why did you originally get into mentoring? How did that come to be?
Nick (05:58)
you described it really well. It's the, man, here's all the shit that I wish somebody would have told me or that they probably did tell me a lot of these things and I didn't hear it for whatever reason. But the bottom line is here's what I know now that I've learned in some way, or form through the act. And so these are my like earned secrets
My game is I can shorten the learning curve for somebody else. There are things that somebody else who's going to go down this path of entrepreneurship, like they're going to learn them a hard way no matter what. just, that's how some of it is going to come to pass. But there are a lot of things where I can save you time or the money or the sleepless nights, like lose your sleep at night over something else. It doesn't have to be this thing that I learned that I can very clearly like hand over to
And I don't, don't really know why that has always been my thing. but it, know, from day one as a business owner, I've just always felt like I, I could learn something on the fly and, it would kind of stick with me like, man, there's gotta be an easier way. So then I could, pass that. try to package that up and pass that along to somebody else in whether it was through information products
coaching, mentoring, franchising. Like there's just a way that all of this earned knowledge can be shared and other people can like access it for speed and save themselves some of the skinned knees or pound of flesh, you know, cause you're going to get them anyway.
Jessica Yarmey (07:31)
Yeah. Did you have a mentor? Did you have a mentor along your journey or did you have more book resources that you followed or what were your guiding principles?
Nick (07:43)
So I really didn't have, know, there were people who I would talk, I could talk to that I could get information, but I wasn't very good at asking for help. And I'm still probably not very good at it, to be honest with you. But at somewhere along the way, I figured out like, I've got to be around, I need to be in a room with more people who are thinking about these things. Like I knew I didn't know what I didn't
But I didn't know what to do with that. I didn't know how to like start to find those blind spots. And I started picking around and we were like in my business at that time, we were doing mastermind programs for other business owners. I don't know at what point my light bulb came on, but I was like, I need to be a part of something like this. So I found Vistage and that's really where things took off for me. And Vistage
If anybody doesn't know, it's the executive coaching program. And it's, you know, it's a mastermind program for what I would have described at that time as like real business owners. getting in the room with them, like just unlocked so many things for me about the way that I thought about things, the way that I learned to like look to other people and other, get other inputs to, to like feed
and then from there, like I acquired mentors and that, and since then that's kind of where I've landed on, you know, my philosophy on that is I think everybody needs a coach or mentor, a one -on -one person who is like, they are invested in your best interest. Their job is to tell you things that you might not want to hear. you need to be part of a bigger communities, like industry wide, just something like a big network.
And then you need to be part of a smaller, more intimate group of peers, people who are doing more what you do, but understand your business at a deeper level so they can tell you like, Hey, I don't know if that's, if what you're saying is exactly what, how you need to be looking at this. And so it took me a while. Again, this is, can shorten the learning curve for somebody. can tell you, these are the three things I think that you need in your circle of support. It took me 10 years.
of doing things all kinds of backwards before I finally realized like, you know, if I just had a coach and a big group and a small group who would all call me on my BS, I would have gotten here a lot faster.
Jessica Yarmey (10:17)
Okay, but it seems like in the industry now, because entrepreneurship is cool now, you can trip over entrepreneurship coaches, you could trip over masterminds, you can trip over, buy my course, and how do you cut through that noise to know who's the right group for you or who's the right coach for you? Like, how do you think about that as a coach?
Nick (10:44)
Yeah, so
Jessica Yarmey (10:46)
Get on the soapbox. I want to hear this. I because because this is something I think about all the time.
Nick (10:52)
Yeah, I'm putting my language filter on real quick. So it really, the onus is on you, right? At a certain point, the business owner has to be responsible for doing some critical thinking. you have to use some judgment. You're not always going to be right. Like not every option out there is as good as they say they are. But there are a lot of good options out
and you don't have to get the very best one. Like don't look for the only one out there for you, right? There are a lot of fish in the sea, but you need to be able to exercise some judgment and be able to discern between like who is in this top tier group of people who are, would be a good fit for me versus who would not. It's a lot like identifying like the whole ideal client
target market and say, know, are you going to work with everybody or are you going to work with like this small segment? And it's so much easier to say it until you're like in the trenches and you're having to actually make the judgment on the fly, like recognize these characteristics that they're not actually boxes to check on this profile. I'm having to listen and pay attention to a person and the, and the, they're communicating with me. And
decide like, hmm, do they fit more of this profile or that profile? It's the same thing, but ultimately like this is you have to strengthen your critical thinking muscles as a business owner and learn to use some judgment. And no matter what, no matter where you land, like my take is there, there, if you're using some judgment, if you've got a coach, a support group, like good, that's better than nothing. Now, like,
Hold them accountable for the things that you're trying to get. And if it's not a good fit, then fine. Move, like, go look for what is. Move in a better direction. But, you know, going from zero to one is a big
Jessica Yarmey (12:55)
Yeah, I think you started talking about self -awareness and I think maybe part of that math is self -awareness of find a coach that's going to match with you. So my brain and my background, I have attention deficit. I have a creative part of my brain and I've almost for years tried to like, tried to mute it and dial it down. And now as an entrepreneur,
I'm just self aware. This is me. I don't medicate. It's my superpower.
to just go and to just be. And that's how I get to ecosystem. Cause I'm like, you know what? Some days I'm to want to do this and then I'm going to want to do this. And I want to be able to harness it all. And so I have that to my day. Like my workflow is all over the place. And I jumped on this mastermind group call and one of the coaches that was on the call had a, a time blocking philosophy around his coaching. And without knowing me or my background or what I've built so far, he's like, well, I
see how you could be successful without a time blocked calendar. I was immediately just like...
Okay, goodbye. Like, who are you to, to try to shoehorn me into your philosophy, just because it's the latest book you've read on time management, I'm not going to just do your process, because it works for you and has worked for other people who have a more structured brain and time flow. But I think to go back to that self awareness topic, it's understanding like if you're somebody who is a more
brained, in the flow kind of person, you're not going to work well with a coach that is a time bound, time blocking kind of coach. And so maybe it's clarifying or asking the coach, like, what are some of their pillars or philosophies around those kinds of things?
Nick (14:51)
Exactly. Yeah, that's a perfect example. And that doesn't necessarily mean that their way is wrong. It may work very well for some people, but it's not going to necessarily put you in a position to excel. so, okay, that's fine. Like you're not the fit for them. They're not the fit for you, but we need to find the fit for you. think, you know, the, one of the biggest things that causes confusion when, your business owners are looking
support or coaching is like, do you want somebody to tell you what to do? Or do you want somebody who's going to help you become a better thinker or move you toward your aspirational version of yourself. If you're looking for somebody to tell you what to do, you're not looking for a coach. Like that's a different game. And yeah, exactly. Most of the time that is it right there. and that way of thinking is going to cause
Jessica Yarmey (15:36)
You're looking for a boss.
Nick (15:44)
there's another set of issues that's gonna come with that if you are running your own business and you need somebody to tell you what to do. But it's just separating those two things out, I think helps a lot of people decide like, yeah, what I'm really looking for right now is I need to answer this question. Or I don't really have a particular question, I just need like some help figuring out
What should I be focused on? How do the good ones get through these things? All right, then you probably need more of a coach or a mentor.
Jessica Yarmey (16:21)
Yeah, and so many times I think as entrepreneurs, we have the answers in our minds. We just need somebody to ask us the question that unlocks it all. And sometimes as entrepreneurs, you're so in your business and you're so in your operational mode and you're in the weeds. And you need somebody who's standing out looking at the forest saying, hey, what about this?
And it's not to your point, it's not saying here's what to do. It's just saying, here's this question that you might not have thought of recently because you've been buried under your to -do list. You've been buried under meetings. You've been buried under running payroll, all the things that entrepreneurs have to deal with. And you've lost connection to the whole picture.
Nick (17:08)
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's one of the best questions, most impactful moments that I've ever had working with a coach was a few years ago. I don't remember what the situation was, but I kept bumping into the same problem and it wasn't a major, major thing, but it was kind of becoming major because I wasn't solving it permanently.
And I had gotten kind of into this routine of like, this should go this way, it should go this way, it should go this way. Or we, you know, we should be able to do this and it work. and all he did was, was reframing was like, let's don't use the word should just replace that with the word could like, how could you do this? How could, and what that like cleared out all of this, these other things that over time, I just like jumbled up my thinking with there's like, they
actually matter. We've got all of this space that we could solve this problem, we can maneuver. And I bet I've used that phrase, like, how could, how could we, how could you? That's probably the most commonly used phrase that I've had for me in my professional life since then. I mean, it's that kind of impact. But that's what a coach does, right? It's just that little like, hey, you're you're close,
Maybe try this and it unlocks something.
Jessica Yarmey (18:33)
Yeah. Can I layer onto that? Because I think my last year has been a lot of that. We as entrepreneurs, we go in with a plan, whether it's an official business plan or whether it's just a vision in our mind of what we want to do. And this was exactly where I was 12 months ago. I had a plan. I have a new fitness concept I want to create. I know exactly what it's going to look like. I know exactly the equipment that's going to be in it. And I go and I'm running and I'm effort, effort, effort, effort.
And it's uphill, uphill, uphill. And exactly to your point, it's like, stay open to the possibility that there's something that's off script that you do not have in your business plan. That's not part of what you had mapped out on a napkin or otherwise. Just stay open to, it might be a right turn. It might be a left turn. It might be just something that like catches your eye, but all of a sudden you look in that direction and it's all green
lights, go, go. And, and when you hit that place and it's flowing, so many times we, we don't sprint because we're like, it's not part of the plan. That wasn't the plan. Just go where it's green lights. Just go Matthew McConaughey's book on green lights. Listen to it on audible. So you get his voice attached to it, but it's just all about
Nick (19:46)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Jessica Yarmey (19:59)
that layer of intuition and the layer of the universe showing you this is where it's at. And gosh, I have spent way too much time and wasted months sitting at red lights, just wishing and hoping and working and trying to get the light to turn green. Just go in a different direction, go where the lights are green. I just, I love that thought of just like stay open to.
other possibilities. Like there's the possibility that it could go in a different way and it's okay. Like stay open to that.
Nick (20:34)
Yeah, absolutely. so that I want to come ask you then your franchise, you went from zero to 30 on the first franchise. How straight of a line was that or how much like adapting did you have to do along the
Jessica Yarmey (20:51)
It was also during COVID. So there was no straight line. I had 20 years of experience at that point. I had been in the fitness industry for 15 years, years, playbooks. I knew what to do, but I had no idea what to do during COVID. No idea what to do when, yeah, I had been in franchising. And so like I knew the playbooks.
Nick (21:11)
Had you been in franchising before that?
Jessica Yarmey (21:18)
But put those playbooks in the middle of a pandemic. It all goes out the window.
And it's truly like day by day, by day, by day decisions where your typical modeling would be what's happening year over year, what's happening quarter over quarter, day over day. Like where are we today? What are the restrictions that are in place today? And, and so it was an exercise in be, be ready to throw out everything that you knew and be ready to create something that you have never done
based on what you used to know to be true. And people talked to me about that experience and they said, didn't you think it was risky? And I more see it as it would have been riskier just to stay still and to not try and not try to like learn and grow and not try to.
evolve as the world was shifting and evolving. Like so many people try to just like stay still or stay on their their plan, stay on their track. And so it goes back to what we were just talking about. Stay open to something you've never done before. Stay open to something that comes your way that's a total challenge that scares the heck out of you.
You know, as an entrepreneur, feel like if you're not scared, you're not going fast enough, right? That's like a Mario Andretti quote, like about race car driving. Like if you don't feel completely out of control, you're not going fast enough. And I feel that exact way about, about entrepreneurship.
Nick (22:55)
you asked me the question about mentorship and guidance, what about you? What have you or do you have in your corner?
Jessica Yarmey (23:03)
Part of what is driving me now to do what I do and post as much as I post or put out as much content as I do is I really didn't have a strong female mentor.
I had a lot of male bosses. I had a lot of male mentors and I still do have a lot of male mentors. And I think that's served me well from a standpoint of I build in the fitness space, which is a male dominated business in the franchising business model, which is a male dominated business model. So from that standpoint, I've had the correct mentors to bring me through the game. From the standpoint of how do I lean into my
woman entrepreneur.
I would say it's just a differentiator. It's a little bit of a it's a different skill set that I can bring to the table as a woman leader. And I started to tap into that more when I founded KickHouse because I realized that being a female leader in a male -dominated space, in a male -dominated business model, in martial arts, which is a male -dominated modality, just simply
a woman led business with a woman focused energy to it was enough of a niche that I could build in that niche. And, but then in order to build in that niche, I need to be able to understand like, what does that mean? What is the differences? What does it mean to bring more?
femininity to how I lead or how I build or how I show up as an entrepreneur. And there really weren't, I didn't have good role models for that. So my even current podcast list, I listened to Gary Vee all the time. I listened to Ed Milett all the time. And I find that a lot of the, the female entrepreneurs that are pushing content out, it's like the Sarah Blakely's of the world where she's, she's so far ahead of where I am that
almost unrelatable and it's difficult to connect with because she's so successful. so I want to show up from the weeds. I want to show up in the work, in the mud. I'm in the highs, I'm in the lows. I want to share all of that so that someone who's building from zero to 30 has that as a resource. And hopefully I'll still be a resource when they're building from 200 to 10,
You know, I want to be all along that way because I want to continue to learn and grow, but I didn't have that example to follow. And so I do feel, I feel obligated to, to put information out there, to put content out there, to put my learnings out there.
but so many people hesitate to share because there's already
Sarah Blakely or there's already a Whitney Wolf or there's already an insert name here, you know, if you're a man and there's already a Gary V, there's already Alex Hermosy, there's already Ed Mylick, there's already these people out there. But the point is there's not a you out there. And so to tie in self awareness, like once you start to understand like who you are and why you are,
it becomes a feeling of obligation to put that out there more. And so I say to my team all the time, like, you need to be posting more and it can't just be personal life things. Like if you want to be, or if you have C level aspirations, you need to start in this game now.
even entrepreneurial aspirations. Like if you have a strong enough personal platform, it's easier to build as an entrepreneur because you can build off of your personal platform. Your personal platform starts to become the foundation, but that doesn't happen overnight. I've been consistently posting for 10 years on LinkedIn and I'm just now
6 ,000, 7 ,000 followers. So it takes time to find your voice. It takes time to find your flow. all takes time. Even doing podcasts, you don't wake up one day and decide, I want to be really good at podcasts. Like you start day one and you do the first one and it's...
bad and then you do the next one and it's better and then the next one is better and then the next one's better and so I think too many people especially women sit the game out because they think it needs to be like a perfect result or they think it needs to be a perfect game and it doesn't it just the game is being out there figuring it out and and and posting as you learn
Nick (28:04)
You know, it takes so long, like it takes a really long time, like you just said. And so much of that time, I think is removing those self -imposed hurdles, the mental hurdles, all of the things that you're thinking that at the end of it, you're going to look back and be like, that wasn't really true. Right? Like there, there's not another Nick Berry out there. There is a Gary Vee and Ed Malette and all the people that you just mentioned, but to be honest, but I don't give a shit.
Like I don't have any control over that. What I have control over is me and what I do. And I need to execute the way you just described. Like get the first one out there. What can you learn from that? Use that to improve, do the second one, then do the third, then do the fourth. Start to put together a picture of like what I want this to look like. What's the aspirational image and how do I get there? There's just a lot of, it takes a long time because it's hard to
and a lot of the difficulty, it's the mental barriers that we create for ourselves. And everybody does it. Everybody does
Jessica Yarmey (29:10)
And one of the mental barriers that I've had that I've really tried to break down or break around is just having a goal or having a need to...
post for some result, build a podcast for some result, build a business for some result. I think we, as business people grow up thinking always attached to goals. It's always, there's always a reason. And maybe especially with the podcast, if five people listen to my podcast or even this podcast, like if five people listen to Nick's podcast, if it's the right five,
I'm good with that. The goal is not be Gary Vee or the goal is not to reach a million people. The goal is to learn what I've learned to be able to succinctly say it, pass it along and feel good about the right people finding it and the right people connecting with it.
Nick (30:07)
Exactly. I love that. The goal is not a number. It's the right people, the right listener. So what's, I guess, thinking forward, what are you working on right now, first of
Jessica Yarmey (30:19)
So the LLC that I filed this time last year is for Flex Society. And Flex Society is a fitness concept. That's a boutique fitness franchise that I want to get off the ground. It's on the back burner. I built it, started it, it's in my mind, and I couldn't get it launched. And so then I pivoted.
And in about November, December decided to launch the marketing agency, which is called Sizzle Society, which is my primary focus area right now. And it's a marketing agency to support early stage franchise brands that don't have the payroll to fund a full marketing department. So I'll essentially be their fractional marketing department. And we have a lot of clients in the fitness space, but we have clients that are outside of
fitness space also, but it's really right in the wheelhouse of what I'm good at. And then I started the podcast to somewhat interact with the agency, but then also just to stay connected to people that I know I need to stay connected to anyway. One of the things as I've been working through my entrepreneurship is I've been so, I felt so grateful for the network that I have and
There's so many people, I don't like to ask for help either. And there's so many people when I did pick up the phone and say like, I need help. So many people have helped me big time in the last few years. And it's just made me appreciate the fact that I have such a strong network of people that I'm not just connected to from a work perspective, but really truly, I would call them friends. And so then to be able to put our conversations into a format
and put them out into the world. Those are the kinds of things that light my soul on fire, to be able to stay connected to people who are amazing people, to continue to have really great conversations with them. And instead of having those conversations via text, via cell phone call, and I learned from them, but no one else does, feels very selfish. So I just decided I'm gonna start podcasting all of these great conversations that I have with all the great people that I know.
And so that's my ecosystem right now. And I guess the center of that ecosystem is my personal brand. And that's why I'm so big on even younger.
I don't even want to say young entrepreneurs. it's like young professionals start focusing on your personal brand because if you build your brand connected to values, connected to certain themes that you are passionate about, you can not just build a business on top of your personal brand, but you could start to create an ecosystem around your personal brand. And I mean, you kind of have an ecosystem structure too.
Nick (33:17)
you said Flex Society was on the back burner. Are you planning on getting it off the back burner? Are you going to still try to grow it or are you questioning
Jessica Yarmey (33:27)
If someone came to me tomorrow and it was the right person, I'm ready to go. Coming off of my last exit, I'm so sensitive to working with the right people, building with the right people. And I think that's one of the reasons why it ended up on the back burner was because I was almost maybe gun shy about moving forward with the wrong person.
and not wanting to be financially tied to the wrong people ever again. And in conversations that I had asking my network for help, talking this through, more than one person said to me, Jessica, if you can bootstrap it, bootstrap it.
And, and so there's a, there's a reality where the ecosystem could fund itself. There's a reality where the right person comes in and adds fuel to that ecosystem or adds fuel to one aspect of that ecosystem. And it starts to fund itself. And I'm open to all of the possibilities, but I'm closed to the wrong person just dangling money in front of my face because I've been there. I
that mistake and I'm not going to do that again. It has to be the person who's in it for the right reasons.
Nick (34:53)
Do you know what that person looks like? Like, can I help you find
Jessica Yarmey (34:57)
Absolutely. I think it's somebody who is experienced
building franchises and scaling franchises and exiting franchises. So like I have built and scaled and exited, but in terms of bringing PE money in at the right time, what would be the mile markers to maybe make those decisions? The financial side is where I got stuck quite honestly on my last effort. And so where you're...
building a business and it is going, going, and you're slowed by your own runway. That's what I did wrong before. And that's the kind of person I need to help build the next one is like the runway has to be correct in order for
that problem to not happen again. So I think it's somebody who is passionate about building and not just passionate about the exit.
I love having goals, but I love the process. Like I just love being in my businesses. I love building. And I think, you know, again, there's like the vision that you put down on paper and you stick it to your bulletin board. And then there's the way that things end up happening. And it usually is the different, two different things. So I think it's connecting to a person who builds in the same way. And at this point, I'm...
a scrappy entrepreneurial kind of startup builder.
And I know I can build something to 30. I also know I can support it from 200 to 600. I've done both of those things before. And I think what's frustrating as a female founder is like, despite those successes, it's been difficult to connect with the people who see that that's out there as a possibility.
Nick (37:08)
Yep. I can see that. definitely want to introduce you to one of my other guests, Matt Goebel. He knows that world. Matt is the founder of Woven. They've done like enterprise software for franchises. So he's not necessarily...
Jessica Yarmey (37:24)
Mm -hmm.
Nick (37:27)
the solution. He's who, if I'm looking for what you just described, I'm going to Matt and asking him like who fits this description. I'll connect you with him
Jessica Yarmey (37:36)
that's amazing. And to go back to my last thought of like, at some point you outgrow your network, it's a good problem to have to not know, to not have anyone in your network who knows this problem. But then it is about raising your hand and saying the exact conversation we just had, what are you looking for? Talk it out, share it with everybody, post about it publicly online.
I announced Flex Society online a year ago because I was like, need to put this out there so that the right person is going to connect with me about it. so in a way, it's like, I kind of like posted publicly, like a fail, like a flop, but I just see it as part of being an entrepreneur. It's like, you start things, you reprioritize them, and it's on the back burner, but it
definitely not dead in my mind and it's still part of like what I consider to be like my ecosystem of focus.
Nick (38:40)
Yeah. Well, so to what you said about like posting and it could be seen as a fail. Like I, that's how this conversation came about. Right. I put it made a post. I was like, Hey, LinkedIn, I need to talk. So I need somebody who can talk about this topic and get this flurry of names. And I look at your profile. I'm like, Holy shit. How does that, how do I not know this person already? First of all, because it's like, we walk this path. Like it's like
our journey, we walked this on the same road together for a really long time. We were on opposite sides of the road for some reason. But yeah, here we are. And I think, yeah, I don't really put too much stock in the hole, like could be seen as a failure. It's like, you know how to ping the network. And at the same time, your brand is authenticity and reality. And so sometimes like that might be what it looks like to somebody who's not paying attention, but
to the people who are in your sphere.
That's just you pinging the network.
Jessica Yarmey (39:47)
Well, and to your point about authenticity, the person who connected us is Crystal Wheeler, who if you're in the fitness industry, you probably know Crystal. And what an amazing superpower to have to be a connector. She's just a super connector of people. so again, if you're somebody who's listening to this and you're trying to get connected to people,
connect with the super connectors and put it out there as like, here's what I'm looking for. And super connectors see it so clearly. Crystal has connected me with more than one person who I've, I've connected with her after. I've just said, how did you know I would exactly vibe with that person? And she said, I just know I knew. So it's, it's definitely a, it's definitely a superpower. And I think that's what LinkedIn is. It's a gift and, LinkedIn's a great
Nick (40:39)
The gift.
Jessica Yarmey (40:42)
for those kind of connections.
Nick (40:45)
Yeah. So, and we're going to be able to map this out. So a year from now, whenever Flex Society, you've met this person and, you know, we're already at 30. It's going to be Nick made a post on LinkedIn, Crystal made the connection. We had a conversation. You happen to mention what you're looking for, Matt Goble, and then person X came.
Jessica Yarmey (41:07)
Yes. Yes. But Nick, you know that that's how these things happen. And I think as early entrepreneurs, you sometimes get in your head of in a solopreneur kind of mindset.
Nick (41:14)
yeah.
Jessica Yarmey (41:23)
I need to figure it out. I need to be able to do all of this myself. I need to be able to, even in a consulting business, do A to Z in my business. And the reality is, even if you are a solopreneur, there are things that you need to take off of your plate and tap into resources that are out there that can...
keep you in your superpower and not have you dealing with things that you're not great at. just having those kind of moments is so important because you take something you hate off of your plate and you put it onto someone's plate who loves that part of the business and you start to grow so much faster. Have you seen that with people you've worked with or teammates you've worked with where like you're great at one thing and they're great at another?
Nick (42:11)
Yep. And well, like one of the biggest obstacles, mental hurdles that I've had to work through myself was the one you just described. Like I'm very, very, very independent. Like I have to figure it out. I have to make sure that it gets done. And so it took me a long, long time to work through it. There are things that I don't like to do. Like, first of all, none of what I just said is true. I don't have to figure it out. What's important is that it gets figured
And then there are things that I don't enjoy doing that, that's not the case for somebody else. Like, you my wife is a great example. there, we are opposites in a lot of ways where, you know, if there's some of the things that I'm just extremely like molasses moving on, she can just mow through them and enjoy doing it. And there are just things that I would tell myself about like, well, if it sucks to
then it must suck for everybody. And that's not true. I mean, I think one, another one of the like major inflection points for me as a leader was right after I got into Vistage, we had a speaker come in. It was my first experience with disc profiles and like, know, disc is whatever disc is, but it was the assessment and the profiles and learning to recognize like, whatever I'm, whatever I'm trying to project.
on everybody else about myself is like totally false, right? And so whatever it is that I don't like about that person, the way that person does this thing, like I have my own version of that. And so like, it's all right for me to feel this way because everybody has their own version of that. And that's when I started to realize like, okay, I need to stop looking at it. Like we're all from the same cookie cutter and more like we're pieces to a puzzle
We're gonna need to find all the pieces and we can compliment each other. it finally got me to break through and realize the truth to the statement of like going, if you wanna go, was it fast, go alone, but you wanna go far, go together.
Jessica Yarmey (44:18)
Go together.
I completely agree with that. And I'll just share that people ask me about building KickHouse and going from zero to 30 as fast as we did. And it was the first time I was a CEO. So I went from CMO focused on marketing to CEO to start this fitness concept during the pandemic. All chips stacked up against me being able to do this. And the moment I wrapped my head around raising my hand and asking for help and giving a
out to someone, the moment I connected that that action brought them closer to me as a leader and brought them closer to our brand and brought them into the the overall project that we were trying to bring to life, it unlocked everything.
I just started to dish homework, dish homework, dish homework, dish. I was dishing to everyone. There were days that I didn't work. I just dished. And I think that's honestly the thing that helped us go fast.
was just everyone's working on things and they're connected to the overall purpose because they are working on things. And I think sometimes as leaders, we think people don't want more work, but the reality is people do want work if it's connected to their disc profile. Like if it's in their superpower, they want that work.
And people want to feel connected to the bigger picture. And so if you can do those two things by dishing out homework, by all means, like as leaders, we need to do that. We need to get comfortable doing
Nick (46:12)
I think if you've got the right people on the team, it's more likely that they're sitting there wondering, do you have more for me? What else can I do? Than them sitting there thinking, you're giving me more work? We always, like, for some reason, we want to frame things around, like, the worst case scenario, which tends to be like the outlying scenario. It's kind of like, it's like the critics.
on online, right? You envision, I'm gonna make this post and then we get all these negative, like, no, you're not. And if you do, for every one person who says something asinine or critical, like there are how many others, like 10 times that, who maybe didn't say anything, but they were like, that's good. And they moved on.
Jessica Yarmey (47:06)
Yeah. Do you feel like you would describe your brain as a generalist brain or do you feel like your brain is a specialist brain?
Nick (47:17)
Generalist.
Jessica Yarmey (47:19)
I feel like most entrepreneurs maybe have a more generalist brain because a generalist brain can see the whole picture, can see everything that needs to come to life in order to get a business off the ground. And then we as generalist brain entrepreneurs hold on to things because we're like, we can do it better than a specialist.
Dish it to the specialist. I mean, it's, it's mind blowing because I go through this exact same thing. My brain is not, I'm a specialist in nothing. I'm an expert in nothing. And all of the imposter syndrome I ever feel is watching people's content online that are specialists in things. It messes my brain up so much. Cause I'm like, my gosh, they're so smart. They're so smart. I'm so less than,
Nick (48:04)
Mm -hmm. We picked the worst thing to compare to.
Jessica Yarmey (48:14)
But being a generalist brain is such an entrepreneurial superpower because you are the conductor. But then as the conductor, you have to get good at realizing when I give this to a specialist, it gets done better than I would do it. So it's just a fascinating mind game that us entrepreneurs play with ourselves, I think.
Nick (48:39)
Yeah. That's so that's what every one of my interviews, it comes up like it's such a mind game. And I mean, I didn't realize it was going to go like this at the beginning, but my, theme of my podcast has turned into more of like handling the mind, the mindset, the mind game, mental toughness, resilience of the challenge, right? The, the uncertain choppy waters.
probably choppy on their best days. it's hard enough, period. And then we do all the things that you and I have just described to kind of make it worse. We like can lose the reality plot and turn in, go to the nightmare plot. But there are a lot of things that you can do, like that's part of it, right? That's part of the challenge. And there are a lot of things that you can do if you're willing
take the time to learn and explore to help walk your mind back to toward reality, to put things into perspective and to get up and get back at them. Haley Perlis was on, I had her a few weeks ago and yeah, she gave me like a list of things like just do this, do this, do this. And it's like, you know, these two or three step, little resets that you can do.
to just kind
Jessica Yarmey (49:56)
So were you an athlete? How do you feel
Nick (49:56)
Okay, I'm gonna go
Yeah, yeah, I played baseball in college.
Jessica Yarmey (50:04)
So, okay, and baseball's like a super mindset kind of game. Do you feel that connection between your athletic training and your mindset training through athletics and where you are today?
Nick (50:15)
a thousand percent, but primarily because I was really fortunate and the coaches that my college coach was big on mindset and resilience. And like, he taught us that, I mean, a lot of the things that I say now came from 25 years ago when I was playing ball for this guy. but yes, that's where a lot of it stems from.
Jessica Yarmey (50:37)
Yeah, the connection between high performance athletics and entrepreneurship, I think is huge. And I think there's an opportunity to bridge that a little bit better for even athletes coming out of college because I think
you function as entrepreneurs and then you get thrown into a corporate environment. And sometimes there's a big disconnect unless you find a great culture with a great almost sales culture where performance equals reward. But I was in marketing and so I had this high performance drive to my personality. And it took me a while to be able to get to a place where I could channel my high
high into my career. So early on in my career, I almost just had high performance hobbies. Like I ran marathons and things just to keep that athletic drive going. But now the mindset tricks that I would have as an athlete, I use them all the time in business. And it is such important learning for anybody who's going into entrepreneurship because
Let's say every day in entrepreneurship, you mess something up, you have a fail, something doesn't go according to plan. A client falls off. There's something that's going badly every day and you need the hacks around not just how you reconnect, like you just said, reconnect to what you're great at, but how do you bounce back? How do you recover?
And I had like a bad knee injury in college and it was like, there's no doubt about it. I'm getting back, I'm recovering, I'm working through this. Not selected for a team. How do I recover? How do I show up? The whole game of entrepreneurship is how you show up when things are completely on fire. And I
Nick (52:37)
had car problems or like we're in an accident or the day's been an absolute shit show. Well, game time is three o 'clock.
Jessica Yarmey (52:45)
Yeah, yeah, you just show up and you get it done and the ability to take losses and show up the next day and put a W on the board or the ability to take losses and use it as fuel to motivate your training through the off season. All of those things are super hacks in entrepreneurship.
Nick (53:08)
Yeah. mean, when, when it comes to building a team now, you know, it's, I want to know like, what's, what's your athletic background or where, what kind of teams or coaching did you get? And something else that I, I don't know why it took me so long to figure this out, but I want to know if somebody else, if their parents were entrepreneurs or not, or if their, parents are in business because every, because there are things that those people get that
you don't have to try to teach them or try to enlighten them with that. You know, they've had it for a long time, right? They've seen it. They've seen the sacrifice. It's, I'm not saying it's not teachable. I'm not saying that anybody doesn't have those things are a lost cause, but I think we all know the difference in somebody who comes pre -packaged with certain DNA versus people who are like, well, this is a project here.
Jessica Yarmey (54:04)
One of
favorite legacy things that I'm doing right now in my ecosystem is my son is 13 and he he edits videos and so within my ecosystem where it's podcast video content clients at the marketing agency like he does work with me which is it's fun to see and I almost worry that I'm ruining him a little bit because he might be unemployable at some point where you just get used to entrepreneurship and you think that you can just do things the way you want to
them. So I think it's a fine, a fine line and I probably will push him to work for someone else besides me at some point and then go build his own thing. But I could see him building a business at a young age and just doing that as his main thing.
Nick (54:55)
Yeah. Or maybe getting to a point and realizing like, that's not a thing that I want to do. I think ultimately as a parent for me, I guess there are things that I would prefer, but ultimately if it helps her get clear on what she wants and is good at sooner, that's really the
Jessica Yarmey (55:14)
Yeah, yeah, because you have to be connected in passionate levels to what you're building in order for it to be sustainable. It has to be a fun game at some point in order for your brain to wrap around all of the chaos of entrepreneurship and all of the fails around entrepreneurship. You have to at some point just love it. You have to love the game. And yeah, I think it's important for...
Nick (55:39)
Mm -hmm.
Jessica Yarmey (55:43)
kids to find that early on. It's like, what do you love so much that you could just do it 24 hours a day and build a business around it?
You were talking about having your wires frazzled earlier, just because you're almost numb to certain things. Do you feel like you're numb to chaos or numb to something has to be so huge to knock you off of center? Do you feel that now as an entrepreneur?
Nick (56:17)
Hmm, I think.
that I am actually better. Like the bigger, the messier it is, the more stable I am. I tend to respond better under worse circumstances, like steadier, the stronger the wind, but I can make a mountain out of a mole. Like if it's minor, if it's small, like those are the kinds of things that I'm just
I don't know why I need to probably work on it more, but
do think that over time I've learned to handle it better because I've been able to determine in all this mess of uncertainty, here's what matters and the rest of it's just stuff. This is what matters. And I think that gives you a sense of control. So in control is I believe where really things become stressful or you respond to stress differently based on a sense of control.
So if I feel stressed, I know that I'm not doing a good job filtering the situation and recognizing like what really matters. And once I know what matters, then I can, like, have I done what I need to do? You know, what's my degree of control over this? And maybe control may not be controlling the outcome. Control may just be clarity on what it is. That's okay. And like, that's kind of
what helps me manage my temperament.
Jessica Yarmey (57:51)
Where have you felt the most out of control as an entrepreneur? Or where have you felt like you had the biggest fail maybe?
Nick (58:02)
I would have to think about a single one, but I think they all probably like their, a theme would be poor communication with people and probably being able to look back and realize after the fact, maybe too late, like, this is what they were thinking. Like I had either.
You know, I was misunderstanding something or maybe I was like applying a filter on a situation My, was making assumption about someone's perspective that was wrong. And it, and it caused like we just didn't get that whatever outcome we were looking forward. That's, that's probably the biggest theme.
I don't dwell on things much. So, you know, I've got a list of failures. You know, I've had businesses like partners. So I've taken on partners that I shouldn't have that I just, I was telling myself that I was applying the filters, but I wasn't like, I wasn't being honest with myself or same thing about like assessing like a product market fit.
you know, kind of wishing that it was a certain way and it got it. Just, was what more emotional about it than I should have been. Those kinds of things. I mean, if you've been in, if you've started a lot of businesses, you've either made mistakes like that or you're a liar.
Jessica Yarmey (59:21)
How many of you started total?
I know what's on your LinkedIn, but I feel like there's probably some that are behind the scenes.
Nick (59:28)
I don't even know it's on my LinkedIn. So I think, so if it's, so I've been a co -founder or acquired probably like three dozen.
Jessica Yarmey (59:39)
Thanks a lot.
I think that's a lot. Yeah. I'm on, I'm on three. So.
Nick (59:45)
Well, you know, a lot of it can come back to qualifying. I had someone introduced to me a long time ago that the introducing party said this person has, you know, over a hundred LLCs like.
Jessica Yarmey (59:59)
Mm.
Nick (1:00:02)
that matter? Like that is a complicated tax strategy is what that is. So you know, 36 some of those were information product concepts, right? And then, you know, they did enough that they, they qualify, they were a business, they still are business,
but that's not the same thing as launching a franchise system. like, you know, one doesn't equal one in those two things. So I just don't put a lot of stock in the number. I share that like a number because from certain angles, it does lend some credibility. But I'm also, I don't mind saying like some of that's bullshit.
So if you want to work with me, all that really matters to you is probably about eight or 10 of those.
Jessica Yarmey (1:00:51)
What do you think is the biggest lesson that you've learned in the 36?
Nick (1:00:56)
learning to recognize the difference in someone's ability to do something and their willingness
And I would put that slightly ahead of what we were talking about earlier with the recognizing like the epiphany that I had whenever we did first did this disc assessment. I'm like, we're not all broken. Like we all just have different versions of these same responses. We all have these different versions of tendencies. Like I feel so much better now. What about you? What's yours?
Jessica Yarmey (1:01:22)
I'm currently thinking through and working through the entrepreneurial tendency to think everything is resilience and push and hard work and learning the line between resilience and being stubborn. And almost as you're talking about having 36 started, it's okay to start and then.
close it or start and change directions or start and stop. And it's always going to be there to come back to and start again, start something different. But I do think maybe the social media trends around entrepreneurship is don't give up. You're one day away from.
success, whatever, like there's so many click baity things that put your brain into a place of, I should be able to muscle this to life. And when you're building a business, there's so many things that are out of your control that sometimes it's not about more effort. It's about different perspective and it's about different direction.
Nick (1:02:15)
Mm
Yeah. The ability to reframe things in a way that they, how are they going to serve you? Like that's what it's about because some days you need to be told like it's about resilience, but other days there's another way that you need to look at it. it's ultimately you have to figure out, learn to, this is kind of my thing on adaptability. It's learn how to frame
in a way that's gonna serve you. You give me feedback on something and you might be right, you might be wrong, you could be somewhere in the middle. It's not up to you to take it from there. You've done your part, now it's up to me to figure out how do I use this to serve me best? And by serve, I mean like move me in the direction that I'm trying to go.
Jessica Yarmey (1:03:27)
do you have thing that's in the back of your mind that you haven't started yet?
Nick (1:03:30)
I mean, I have some ideas, but nothing that's what I'm like serious about. And that's kind of why I started doing the podcast. It's like, I need to do something and, and I, and I'm not getting like sparked the way that I once was. So I feel like I always, up until just a few years ago, I always had a good answer for that question. And then all of a sudden.
It's just kind of like, I don't, then that's not me. So I don't, so I'm trying, like trying to get back to where, you know, I should have, you know, something on deck, right? It's ready to go at the drop of a hat. And then the next one, the next one, the next one. even if I'm not firing them, it's, I know that I'm in the best place mentally when it's like that. You got any tips? You got any ideas? I know you do.
Jessica Yarmey (1:04:24)
things that are out there that even somewhat fit into my ecosystem. But I'll tell you if we come back to this conversation 10 years from now, so like 2034, have volume two, or let's say volume five of our conversation, because hopefully we come back and do another few. I want to be...
Nick (1:04:39)
No.
Jessica Yarmey (1:04:44)
an angel investor to basically support entrepreneurs who are in this phase. so I love that you've taken like a mentorship approach. And so far I haven't mentored entrepreneurs because I almost don't feel like I know what I'm doing. So I don't entirely feel qualified to be a mentor yet, but that's where I want to be. I want to be a mentor who also has funds who can help not just
the person who's asking the correct questions, but be able to add the fuel to the fire where need be to build something great. So that's in the back of my mind. That's down the road. And there's a couple other small ones that would fit into the ecosystem to maybe get to that part down the road. that's the current vision for the ecosystem.
Nick (1:05:39)
Yeah, I love that. You don't have to have all the answers to be a mentor or a guide or like, because I mean, there is no, nobody has all the answers.
And part of, my brand as a coach and a mentor is authenticity. And I think anyone who's worked with me will tell you like, he's, if he doesn't know the answer, he's going to say that, or he'll tell you like, this is what we're struggling with. Like, how do we get through it? I'm bringing them along with me and, and sometimes they're helping me solve it. Like, Hey, I'm not above
Jessica Yarmey (1:06:12)
I like that framework. I'll see if that gets me over the hump.
Nick (1:06:16)
Are you gonna stay in fitness, do know?
Jessica Yarmey (1:06:19)
I just love the fitness space. so even, you know, having the marketing agency really be focused on fitness clients, it's just my, it's a sweet spot. It's an overlap of passions. It, it fits really well. There's so much happening in the recovery world right now and in the wellness world as a whole. So I find myself more so thinking of fitness as the core and then like what's tangential to the core that, that expands my footprint a little
it. So yeah, I see myself staying connected to the fitness space for sure.
Nick (1:06:56)
I mean, it's grown up a lot since we, in the time that we've been in it. You know, if you,
Jessica Yarmey (1:07:00)
And it's still needed. Here we are, however many years you've been in the fitness world, it's still needed. There's still tools around how to live healthy lives. There's still education that's needed around, okay, yeah, you could do Ozempic. Here's three other ways to achieve the same result. There's just so much misinformation out there and I don't think we can rely on.
our school system to provide it. can't rely on the government to provide it. So like the fitness industry needs to step up and be the resources for better health and wellness guidance as a whole. And I can't believe that it's still as much of a need as it is, but the amount
misinformation gets pumped out, it's pumped out faster than the amount of correct information. And so I think this is just always going to be a game that we need to play as an industry of just, like, we need to keep on saying the things that are correct. And I know there's so many different ways to skin a cat, but there are certain things that are true and there's certain things that are correct. And we need to be resources for people who are trying to find their correct.
path within all those things.
Nick (1:08:20)
And I think that's an advantage that the fitness, the industry has. There are a lot of good people coming in who want good information. They want to be guided in the right direction. But, the resources, you know, it's still not exactly clear to it. It's not obvious to everyone like where the right resources are, but as long as we've
good, that many volume of good people still trying to come in and they're already good people in the industry who are trying to like, stand out through the, the misinformation. I think that kind of makes this a season of the industry maturing. Like it's just part of the process that an industry would go through as it grows up because it's lucky it's really
Jessica Yarmey (1:09:09)
It is young, but I think you're in the same kind of place where whether you're an entrepreneur or you're a stay at home mom or you're a business person working a nine to five, if you have your health and wellness dialed in, the echo of that through the rest of your life is huge. And I don't think I could do what I do if I didn't have
my health and wellness, I don't want to say it's dialed in, but it's mostly dialed in and have that as a core and have that as an outlet and have that as a place where I pull strength and confidence from. And so the fact that people don't have that as a core, I just want to give that core to every single person that I can. And
and help them realize that it is a trickle down through everything. I mean, it's like the single greatest gift you can give yourself and you can give your loved ones is just being aware of that connection and being aware of how your health is truly wealth. And we only have one life, we only have one body, like let's do it, do it correctly.
Nick (1:10:14)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, and so we've talked a lot about in this conversation about things you can control, things you can't control. And there are a lot of elements of your health that you can't control. But the ones that we're talking about, how active you are, what you put in your body, you have total control. And if you're a parent, you have control over more than just you. That is a powerful
Jessica Yarmey (1:10:59)
Garbage in, garbage out. And I think that all the time as I'm building business, as I'm writing content, as I'm showing up for my kid, what you put in your brain, what you put in your ears, what you put in your body, all of those inputs, if those are trash.
you're going to get trash back out. so whenever I've been in a low point or in a setback season, that's what I come back to is like, come back to my health. I come back to my inputs. come back to controlling my controllables and I build back from there. And, and that's how important fitness is for me. And that's why when you say like, will you stay in fitness? I almost need to cause it
because it's my core, you know, it's like core to who I am.
Nick (1:11:47)
Yeah, that's great. Well, Jessica, this is awesome. This is a great conversation.
thank you for doing this. It's been fantastic.
Jessica Yarmey (1:11:55)
Thank you so much for having me, Nick. It's great to chat with you.
Nick Berry is an accomplished entrepreneur and CEO, whose track record includes founding and leading numerous companies since 2002.
He is also a mentor and coach to other entrepreneurs and business owners who are looking for a trusted (and proven) advisor.
Among peers, colleagues, staff, and clients, Nick has been referred to as both 'The Business Guy' as well as 'The Anti-Guru', due to his pragmatic approach and principled leadership.
He shares his insights and lessons learned, along with those of his expert guests,
on his podcast, 'The Business Owner's Journey'.
