Making Memories and...Movies! w/Maria Gus

Despite a nagging calling to pursue interior design in college, Lisa Palmer of Lisa Palmer Designs stayed committed to business school and pursued a successful career in business development after graduation. But her love for design never waivered and she was soon taking on home staging and interior design projects as a side gig part-time. After leaving her last development job, staying home for a few years with her girls, and serving in a super cool hosting role with QVC, Lisa was ready to return to the workforce full-time. This time she didn't miss a chance to design a career she loved as she went all-in on entrepreneurship.

What does it take to build a successful book of clients and then open your own law firm? To navigate the delicate balance between starting a new firm and thriving in family life? To be intentional about your career development, education, and community efforts? To be delightfully surprised by becoming a mom later in life and making big decisions for the benefit of your family? We asked Michelle Douglass of Burnham Douglass, and did this conversation ever deliver! Come along for the ride - you're sure to learn something and to enjoy Michelle's sense of humor as much as we did.

As entrepreneurs and executives, we are always thinking about our customers! But are we truly considering each customer's journey to us? Are we mapping out our interactions with our key market segments and being intentional about our touchpoints? Amanda Read is back with us to talk about how she leverages the marketing staircase and how you can too!

Andrea Merrill of Virtually Adventurous joins us for this month's business theme of Marketing Channels. Managing your customer POS can be overwhelming, but if you begin to understand human psychology behind buying behaviors, you can start to determine which channels are important for your business and deserve your time, effort and investment.

How can understanding your audience and narrowing in on key segments help you market and build your business? Holly Haynes of Crush the Rush joins us to talk about the benefits that refining your customer strategy can have on your productivity and ROI.

Branding expert Kelly Wittman is back to help us kickoff season 3! Listen in on our discussion about being intentional when building your personal brand.

What kind of content are we working on for Season 3? Listen in and find out!

Vicki Dunn Marshall started working as a crew member in a Little Caesars restaurant at the age of 15, working her way up to become one of the first female supervisors for Little Caesars’ corporate office, and the first female in franchise sales. Today she is the CEO of her own VDM Management Group, which operates 24 Little Caesars restaurants and 1 Dog Haus Biergarten throughout West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. She provides jobs for more than 500 people in her stores and has even helped five of her former employees open their own stores, either by selling them a store or by sponsoring them through their application process with the brand. It's fair to say that she's built a big business, but her impact has been even bigger when you hear others share how committed she has been to making a charitable impact on her community,

One very direct impact has been on her own daughter, Carissa. Carissa and her siblings grew up with an enterprising mom, and a knowledge that hard work made all things possible. In considering the next steps in her career, she knew she wanted to build something that felt uniquely her own, while still benefitting from her mom's mentorship, so the two launched into partnership with another franchise brand, Dog Haus Biergarten. Signing a commitment to open three locations in the West Virginia market, the pair is introducing a new brand into a state that apparently has a long history of loving hot dogs! Listen in to hear our first mother-daughter pair on The Mom Shuffle podcast talk about how they do it all.

Chelsey Strand has made it her life's mission to make a positive impact. As a social worker, she supports children as they navigate their diagnoses, anxiety, and depression; as a co-founder of the nonprofit Box of Balloons in Fargo, North Dakota, she is fortunate to give back by helping children in need feel seen and loved on their birthday. Listen in to learn how Chelsey and her team make sure that every child they encounter feels supported and celebrated, and learn how you can take up the effort in your area.

Emily Jaime's passion for travel and discovering other cultures took her around the world before founding YIREH, an ethically sourced, socially conscious boutique, in Hawai'i. Today, Emily and her team of artisans aim to change the narrative of the industry and showcase that fashion can be a positive force for change. This is no fast fashion, this is "slow fashion" focused on thoughtful designs, and a commitment to responsible business practices like safe working conditions, fair wages, and more. Listen in to learn more in this week's episode of the podcast.