Future Proof Creative Marketing

I've been doing this show long enough now to recognize when a conversation has something extra in it. This one did. Nate Tolleth is someone I've gotten to know over the past few years, we first crossed paths at Friday night concerts at Mapleside, talking shop while walking the grounds. At the time he had four Crumbl Cookie franchise locations and was about to open two more. Today he operates six l...

There are moments in life where the plan you made and the life you're living stop matching up. What you do in that gap, that's where character gets built. I've known Kristen Eiermann for over a decade through our BNI networking world here in Northeast Ohio, and I've watched her work up close. She is, without question, one of the most polished, committed, and genuinely excellent professionals I kno...

There's a phrase that stuck with me from this conversation: "It's a problem, not a brag." Kim Kitchen has been doing search engine optimization for small businesses since 2015. She has her first client from that year still on retainer. Her clients see their names showing up in AI overviews. Her phone rings because of referrals from people who love working with her. By most measures, Burning River...

There's a concept that I keep running into, and the more I dig into it, the more I think it's one of the most underappreciated ideas in personal finance. It's called the Infinite Banking Concept, and my guest today, Luke Tatum of Perfect Spiral Capital, has made it the foundation of everything he does. Luke is the author of Between the Lies: How to Reclaim Your Future from the Banks and Wall Stree...

There's a certain kind of courage that doesn't always get talked about, the courage to stop mid-life, look at what you've built, and say, "I want something more." That's the Claudia Duffy story, and it's one I think you're going to find genuinely energizing. Claudia came up as an x-ray technician. Good career. Stable work. And then a cruise changed everything. One trip, one moment of clarity, and...

There are businesses that exist to fill a market gap, and then there are businesses that exist because someone got tired of being made to feel like they didn't belong in the room. This episode is the second kind. I sat down with Mandi Cavano and Judy Vegh, the co-founders of The Girls Joint, a Cleveland-based cannabis accessories shop built from a shared frustration and a genuine friendship. These...

There are people who talk about real estate investing, and then there are people who've spent 17 years doing it, the dirty work, the evictions, the flips, the management headaches, all of it. Stephen Greene is the second kind. Steve and I have known each other for a while, but I'd never really sat down and talked business with him. That changes this episode. And what came out of it was one of the...

There's something powerful about sitting across from someone and realizing they've already figured out things it took most people decades to understand. That's the feeling I walked away with after this conversation with Nolan Buchanan. Nolan is the founder of Northlake Pressure Washing out of the greater Cleveland area, and he started this business at 15 years old. Not as a summer side hustle. As...

One of the things I love most about these conversations is that nobody's story is ever a straight line. Greg Snyder's path to founding No Alumni wound through the construction trades, the 2008 economic collapse, BNI networking rooms, and a chance encounter with a Harley mechanic's anti-establishment merch. At every turn, Greg found himself recognizing something, a cool factor, a gap in the market,...

Nobody wakes up wanting to be a chimney sweep. That's what Gary Spolar told me, and honestly, it might be the most honest thing anybody's said on this show so far. Gary is the owner of Century Chimney, a Cleveland-based chimney service company he's been building since 1988. We're talking 35-plus years in the same city, the same trade, the same commitment to doing things right. That is not a small...

One of the things I've come to believe pretty firmly is that the most important conversations are often the ones people work hardest to avoid. This episode is a good example of that. Jake Schoch is the owner of Assisted Living Locators of West Cleveland, and he does something that, when you hear it described plainly, sounds almost too good to be true. Jake helps families navigate one of the most s...

Welcome to the very first episode of the Future Proof Podcast, a place where we explore the past, present, and future of real business goals with real people doing real work. For my inaugural guest, I didn't have to look far. Nicky P is someone I'm proud to call a friend and a colleague. He runs Iron Age Marketing, and when I look at his LinkedIn profile, the through line is unmistakable: creative...