This Episode Appears in Our 'Best Of' Lists:
In this special solo episode, host Nick Berry reflects on the first season of The Business Owner’s Journey and shares insights, lessons learned, and plans for season two. Nick, an experienced entrepreneur, CEO, and small business advisor, delves into the mental aspects of business, the value of creating meaningful guest experiences, and leveraging podcasts to build personal and business brands. With an eye toward growth, Nick outlines his vision for expanding the podcast’s impact in the upcoming season.
Throughout season one, the mental game of business emerged as a recurring theme. From resilience to strategic thinking, Nick shares how conversations with guests revealed the importance of mindset in navigating challenges and staying ahead. “The rest can be put into a blueprint, but how you handle it—your mindset—that’s the game,” Nick says.
Nick highlights the intentional effort behind making The Business Owner’s Journey a meaningful platform for guests. Beyond audience exposure, guests benefit from SEO-optimized content clusters, direct introductions, and opportunities for collaboration. “I’ve connected guests who are now doing business together,” Nick shares, emphasizing the unique value created through these interactions.
Nick reflects on how podcasting has helped refine his personal brand, build credibility, and develop his communication skills. He encourages entrepreneurs to explore podcasting as a versatile tool for reaching business goals, whether through building a personal brand or fostering industry connections.
Managing the workload of a podcast while prioritizing family and personal commitments has reinforced Nick’s time management skills. A streamlined workflow allows him to maximize the impact of each episode while maintaining balance.
Looking ahead, Nick plans to bring on more guests, conduct workshop-style episodes, and deepen his connection with listeners. He aims to showcase guest expertise through practical demonstrations and foster a two-way dialogue with the audience for more impactful storytelling.
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the podcast on your favorite platform and leave a review. Your feedback helps us bring you more valuable content.
Follow us:
The Business Owner's Journey Podcast host: Nick Berry
Production Company: FCG
Nick Berry (00:12)
So I made it through season one of the business owners journey and I wanted to do a recap and share some of what I've learned and what to look forward to in the future with season two. Overall, the experience was great. It did turn into more than what I expected, but I mean almost entirely in positive ways. We ended up focusing more topic wise on the mental aspects, which kind of makes sense.
because that's something that interests me and I spend a lot of time talking and working on that for myself and with other business owners and entrepreneurs. But I mean, from episode one, my first interview with Kiri Masters, we kind of spun off into a side topic and it was about like the mental game of business and we stayed there and we kept going and like that became a lot of the interview and it just, was a common theme every lesson.
that was brought by one of my guests every time. It was either about the mindset or mental aspect, or it included an aspect of mindset, thought processes, how you handle situations, but that makes sense, right? Like that's the job, that's the hard part. The rest of it can be kind of put into a blueprint or a script, but how you're able to handle it, like staying resilient, developing your thinking skills.
continuing to learn like different ways to look at an approach and prevent challenges that, know, that's the game.
One of the things that I knew that I was going to focus on when I came into this was the guest experience and creating max value for the guests. But that's gone even better than expected. I've been able to make a lot of direct introductions, connecting audience to guest or, or guests to guests. you know, I've had stories like one of my guests comes on and during our interview says that another interview, one of our episodes with one of my guests, he said it changes his life.
You know, I've connected some guests who are now doing business with one another. My guests come on the show and they're talking about some of the other guests that the things that they've heard in the other episodes that I've done. And like that was, I expected a degree of that, but it's been more common. And I think they've even appreciated the impact or the benefit of that even more than I expected.
For me to really share my kind of assessment, looking back and reflecting on season one, I kind of need to go back and share with you how I got there. Like what my expectations were, my thoughts were coming into the business owner journey. So when I started, the first episode, it was launched in June. the idea for starting a podcast was probably March.
my wife and I had sold our main business just prior to that. And so we're in this transit transitional season of trying to figure out what's next. And so, you know, for me, it was really important part of that process. I wanted to kind of go back to the drawing board, like let things settle. And I just want to make sure that no matter what I look to next, I don't just default to doing what I've always done.
And this is kind of the approach I take with most things. I want to make sure that I don't let the inertia or the things that I've always held to be true to go unchallenged. So, you know, I want to go back to the drawing board and reassess strengths, weaknesses. What am I enjoying? What am I drawn to or intrigued by? And just make sure that everything is getting as fresh of a perspective as I possibly can. And so in doing that, I knew
that part of that process was going to be, I'm going to want to talk to the type of people who are my guests. I'm going to want to talk to those types of people. I'm going to want to have these types of conversations where I can just, we can go back and forth and we can be curious and share ideas and thoughts and what we do well and what has not gone well. that's an exciting, enjoyable thing for me to do. It's good for my thought process. And I thought, why not just record it at the same time?
Well, why not just make it a podcast? I'll share it with other people and other people want to listen and it's valuable for them too. That's fantastic.
And so I kind of built it around this goal of let's shorten the learning curve for other entrepreneurs, people who are curious about these types of topics and pull back the curtain and see like what it actually takes to solve these challenges that we're facing every day when trying to build a
bring these stories, these lessons, these anecdotes and use them to help prepare other people for, to move forward faster, to help them anticipate like what lies ahead. And if there's somebody who's trying to do some like discovery or rediscovery similar to what I'm was doing at the time, then this should be a value to them also. So between, you know, the guests and their experience and me asking questions and,
picking into them and then sharing my own experience and insights from over two decades worth of quite a few businesses that I think has created some pretty powerful lessons and insights to share and value for other business owners.
that's creating those type of lessons or that type of value for the business owners is important to me because I feel like I learned a lot of the things, my lessons, the hard way. And I don't really think that it has, well, it doesn't have to be that way for everybody. It's going to be hard enough, even if you've got people in your ear feeding you the answers, it's going to be hard. I like to help other people skip over the painful parts, the parts that are avoidable because
There's some things that you do just have to go through, but not everything. Not every bit of it has to be done the hard way. And I think for that audience, like frameworks, anecdotes, stories, they tend to resonate really well.
And think that's just lends itself perfectly to a podcast.
So that was the big part of what got me thinking about doing the podcast. Then there are some other things that I felt like would be ancillary benefits that I wanted to make sure that I tried to use it to improve for myself. One of the things was just working on my own personal brand. know that I needed to, whatever my personal brand was going to be, my messaging was going to be, I was going to have to work on that because
All of my businesses before, we did not build my personal brand. And that's actually a talking point in some of the episodes in season one about like why I was resistant to that. But regardless, where I'm at now is now I need to be more intentional about building my personal brand.
It's not so much a privacy thing. in the past it's been mostly, I wanted to present as like a grounded, humble person. I don't want to be the person who is throwing their accolades in every conversation. That's just not me.
And I don't think it has to be that way, right? There's a middle ground and that's what I'm focused on, like finding for myself because I think the humility and being grounded is great, but it doesn't have to be to the detriment of people knowing more about why they need to know you or why they should or shouldn't know you.
Some other things that I'm using the podcast to help me get reps and continue to improve on. One is just reframing how I tell my story. I need to be able to talk about the things that I've done and the experiences that I've had in ways that are relatable to other people who are in those situations. Having not been the guru for our businesses and not being out in front.
Most of my time was spent communicating internally, preparing our staff to then be external facing Now I'm having to make the adjustment to speaking more directly to the audience. And so this has been really valuable for me to continue to get reps working on that.
And then lastly, one thing that I knew that I was not going to be able to neglect is like my sense of humor is sarcasm and like self-deprecation. That's just kind of my default setting. And I knew that was, this is not the place for that. That will not land here well.
I wanted to make sure that we didn't remove humor from the conversations, but I knew I was going to have to make some adjustments and I wasn't going to be able to, I can't just sit here and like make fun of myself or be sarcastic the entire time. So that was something I had to sit out to do intentionally.
And that was a pretty easy adjustment to make.
I mentioned being a focus, providing value for the guests. I knew from the beginning, there was this opportunity for a podcast to really step up and help guests get so much more mileage out of their time investment for these interviews. Everybody talks about the audience value, but I didn't hear much.
conversation about the guest value. And I know it's there, but I think it's just kind of seen as like you get exposure to the audience, you get exposure to the audience, you get exposure to the audience, but it's got this super short shelf life. And I don't know that it has, I don't think it has to be that way. So my goal is I wanted to be able to turn this one conversation that this guest could have into as big of a content cluster around the guest's brand and their topics.
as we could, and then we could like put the focus, if we approached it strategically, there's some things that we could do like SEO backlinks and extending that shelf life. So they could get a lot more mileage out of the, these interviews, that one hour conversation than what they're typically getting from most podcasts interviews. So that's something that we've been doing. We've put a lot into building out our other workflow.
And it's paid off. I knew for one thing, knew that because we were in this transition phase and we had sold the business. Like I didn't have a main thing that was going to occupy most of my time. So I was able to focus on the podcast more, at least in the short term. I knew it wasn't going to be that way forever. So I've had to build this from the beginning with like, need to be hyper efficient with my time, make it like
very well-leveraged and I want to do the same thing for the guest. so we built out a well-oiled workflow that we get maximum juice for the squeeze
And I think the guests have been very appreciative of it. And I think we are tip of the iceberg right now too.
So there will definitely, that's already created more opportunities for me and for us, just the efficiency that we can take that conversation and turn it into a pretty massive amount of valuable content for these guests. and the other element of creating this
kind of unique special experience for the guest is I wanted to make absolutely sure what we're not going to do is make my guests feel like they were being asked on to then be pitched or treated like a prospect. There are a lot of podcasts that like that's their prospecting tactic that they use and to each their own, that's fine. I don't like the way that that would make me feel as a guest and I don't like the way that I would feel.
if I was doing that with someone. So that's not what I'm going to do. So I've just made absolutely sure that my guests did not feel like that. of the things that I do that's unique, or at least I think it's unique. I've not heard of someone else doing it. I require guests to listen to the show before I allow them to book. I want to make sure that they know what they're getting into.
that they know what to expect. And we're on the same page with making this about creating value. And this isn't like a transient stop on the podcast circuit. And so far, mean, guests have appreciated these things immensely. I've probably as much feedback, positive feedback on that as anything. They're like, I think that's great. That's a fantastic filter. Like that's the kind of show that I want to be on because I know why I'm there and I know that's real. Like we're on the same page.
So there was one more element that went into my decision to start a podcast, why I chose a podcast. And it ties back to getting more mileage out of the time investment for guests. there's them getting this content cluster and getting more assets, more value out of that one hour conversation,
than what they typically had been. I also think that there is a way to do more for their online presence than just have these assets out there. I think there's a strategy to it
at this point, I think everyone can use podcasting for their business in some way. Now, it doesn't necessarily have to be exactly the way that what you've seen, you don't have to like launch into this indefinite endeavor.
I that everyone can use podcasting in some way to reach their business goals. I think it's particularly good for creators or anyone whose brand isn't quite as refined as it needs to be. I'm a perfect example of that. There's things that I needed to hone in on, sand down, figure out, polish up. That's what I'm doing here. I'm just getting rep, rep after rep after rep.
It's been enlightening to me to think about all of the possible ways that podcasts could be used that I don't see many people or anybody doing some of them.
a few other lessons, things that I've picked up as I've gone managing my time has been a bit of a challenge. Not so much because of the volume of work that goes into a podcast, although there is a pretty good volume of work that goes into a podcast. There are so many things you could do that if you don't compartmentalize your time, that it continues to spill over and spill over and spill over. And so it started to do that with me. And for the most part,
where I would draw a line is if it starts to spill over into time with Vivienne or Kelly, then I'm like, okay, we got to stop it there.
it was a good reminder about time management. And when I, when I didn't have that main thing that I was almost like programmed to manage my time for, I kind of had to go back and, re-strengthen some of my own like time management muscles.
one of my other lessons, oh, I don't know if this is a lesson. This was a reminder of, I just do not enjoy social media at all. but it's a thing that it needs to be a part of, of the business.
So I've, I have been doing more on LinkedIn since I've started the business owners journey and it's been effective. And, and I've actually, it's, I won't say that I've enjoyed it, but it has been the least unenjoyable of social media for me. So I'm on LinkedIn regularly and that like, that's where LinkedIn is where you should be following me, LinkedIn and email. If you're trying to keep up with what's going on with me, LinkedIn and email.
So looking ahead to season two, one of my priorities is going to be building a network of partners, consultants, different marketers, strategy, social content, PR, website design, like VAs, people who offer services that I know the audience needs.
some of these are going to be services that I'll use myself. And that's great, but it's not a requirement as a partner. But I just, like to have these people on the show as a guest, let them like workshop or guide me through an exercise. So I want to demonstrate as best we can anyway. I want to demonstrate what it looks like working with them or the thing that they do that they do really, really well. Like I want to put them on stage and let them do it.
Like I have guests on who are good at what they do. So I love the opportunity to let them show it off. And like, I'm more than happy to be the guinea pig. I definitely don't mind learning like that. so that way the listeners are going to get a feel for like how the partner, how they operate. And then, it's easier for me to confidently recommend them.
Or if they're doing something of mine, then I'm happy to say like, Hey, you know, if you're looking for this, you can see the example of their work right there on my website or this show or whatever. And so I can speak to the experience first hand.
Another thing that for season two, want to continue improving as a host. I need to be a better interviewer. I've improved over the course of season one, but I think there are always just a lot of questions after the fact that I'm like, man, I wish I had known that. But then that kind of spins into the next thing. So I really enjoyed doing the 12 days, the mini series at the end of season one. And I just think that there's a lot of value in having guests on multiple times because it's like,
Every time when a guest leaves a conversation, we're both like, oh, we already kind of know what the next thing we should talk about is, when can we do it? so having guests come back on multiple times with Haley Perlus in season one, I mean, think we split one of hers up into two parts, but she actually did like three appearances and it was fantastic. Like we get better, more.
in honed in on our styles of communicating, but then also like where the value is in the conversation. And we can both go there.
And I also like for season two, and we've already started recording some of the episodes, but we're doing more of the workshop or exercise type interviews where we can put me and put the guests out there and like let them show their stuff and you know, shred me. And I like I'm here for it. And I'm still, I'm looking for more guests who are also here for it. If you've got the chops to, to come on and,
and we can demonstrate your skills somehow during the interview, let me know. Let's talk.
the last thing I'll say is I want to create even more opportunities where I can hear from the listeners. I love getting the feedback, the stories, how you've applied something. Stories like my guest who said that listening to the Haley Perlus episode changed his life. Like that is impactful. And it's, it's not just to me. it's impactful to other listeners who might be privy to hearing that if you share it with me.
So I asked you please continue to reach out and share your stories with me, share the feedback, suggestions. I try to always look at it like this. You've chose to listen to me today and you chose to listen to hopefully all of season one. And I appreciate that. So I'm going to keep bringing you things that I think you need to be thinking about and the things that you need to know as you're trying to build your business.
I'm excited about season two. I really have enjoyed doing this. So thank you again and enjoy the rest of your day.
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'.
.png)
