Do More with Every Interview: Diving Into the Podcasting World with Tom Schwab and Interview Valet

[00:00:00] Don't just do more interviews. Do more with every interview. This is pure gold. Today, 96% of podcasts have video. You can slice it. You can dice it. You can get reels and shorts. You can get a month's worth of content from every interview.

[00:00:18] So that's why it's important to make sure that you're going on the right interviews, make sure you're talking about the right things, which is really the audience's problem. And then your time is valuable. Don't just do more interviews. Do more with every interview.

[00:00:42] Welcome to the En Factor Podcast, conversations with entrepreneurs that started, stumbled and succeeded. I'm your host, Dr. Rebecca White, and I'm really glad you've decided to join me for today's episode. Today, I'm talking to Tom Schwab. Tom is the founder of Interview Valet.

[00:01:00] This is a company that helps entrepreneurs and thought leaders tell their story and build powerful marketing content. Now, have you ever thought about being on a podcast? Well, you know, in 2019, I started my own podcast and it was after I was a guest on someone else's podcast. It really taught me a lot about the power of sharing my story that way. And when I shared my story with some of my graduate students at that time,

[00:01:30] at the University of Tampa, they said, Dr. White, you should start your own podcast. So I decided to do it. And it's been an amazing experience since that time. So have you ever thought about being a guest on someone else's podcast? Well, that's what we're going to be talking about today with Tom.

[00:01:48] Now, you know, podcasting has really grown since I started my own podcast back in 2019. It's a really important medium for sharing our stories and for impacting people. People more than I think there's more than 5 million podcasts or close to that many worldwide.

[00:02:06] And I know that I read somewhere recently that 40% of adults in the United States actually listen to podcasts regularly. So it's a really valuable way to get your story out and build powerful marketing content, quite honestly. Now, it has to be the right podcast, though.

[00:02:27] So that's where people like Tom come in to help you understand which podcasts are going to be the most powerful for you. And then once you get that podcast, you've got to make sure that you make it an excellent episode by using authentic storytelling and being credible and building your own authority in the way that you share your story on the podcast.

[00:02:51] So today we're going to talk about all those things and more. And I hope you enjoy this and find it inspiring and interesting. So let's dig in to this interview with Tom Schwab. Tom, welcome to The En Factor. Rebecca, I am thrilled to be here.

[00:03:14] Well, it's lovely to have you here on the show and to get to meet you and learn more about what you do. You're an entrepreneur and you're also using AI. So I know everybody's going to be interested in that. Let's go over what you do at Interview Valet, your company that you founded and that you're running right now. And then we'll kind of dig back into your past a little bit and sort of how you got there.

[00:03:39] So what is Interview Valet and when did you start this company and how do you incorporate AI, which is I think really probably a story that a lot of people want to hear about. Yeah. So I'm going to take a step back. It's I always start with what problem do we solve? Right. Because my last company, a client gave me the weirdest insult. I guess it was a compliment. He said, you guys are just like Preparation H. And I said, excuse me, like hemorrhoid cream.

[00:04:09] He's like, no, it's a compliment. Right. You came recommended. You gave me fast relief. You took away the pain. And so I always start with what we're trying to do here is help take away people's pain. And for us, it's business owners. It's thought leaders. It's people that are humble heroes that could help so many people if the world only knew about them. And these aren't the people that are going to be self-promoting. They want to educate. They want to help.

[00:04:36] And so we allow them and we help them get on targeted podcast interviews that their ideal clients are already listening to. Right. So that they can get that know, like and trust. And the thing that's amazing today, Rebecca, is that, you know, when we first started in 2015, I'd say podcast and people say, what's that?

[00:05:00] Now, today, 11 years later in 2026, it's not only people that are listening to podcasts, but there is no doubt that AI is indexing all of the podcast interviews. Right. Right. Right. It's pretty exciting. You know, I started mine in 2019 and and things were so different then as well.

[00:05:23] I mean, it's crazy. I mean, you mentioned 11 years, but even in the last five to seven years and and even I think since politics has entered into podcasting, it's really put it on the stage and people do look to podcasts to educate. Well, and it's like what is a podcast anymore? Right. It used to be audio only. Well, today, 96 percent of podcasts have video. And I'm always amazed.

[00:05:50] Some people say I listen to this podcast the other day and they listen to a clip on social media. Well, that's OK. As long as they got the content there. I don't care what you call it. As long as people get the ideas. Sure. Sure. So tell me again. So how do you use AI to help me find the right podcast? Well, so we always look at it as AI empowers our team to do things better, not replace them. Right.

[00:06:18] And there's this push out there that just because AI can do something, you should let them do it. Right. There's a joke in the podcasting industry. There's a company out there that says they will pitch you to three and a half million podcasts. Right. The thing is, is that today there's only 500,000 podcasts that are live and only 100,000 take guests. But I still think they're sending out three and a half million spam emails. Right.

[00:06:48] And so this idea of it's not supposed to just let us do more and make more and more noise. It's supposed to let us do it better. So we're going through and using AI to listen to our clients past interviews for us to know them better. All of our sales calls are recorded. Right. So that we have access to those. I firmly believe you should never ask somebody the same question twice.

[00:07:12] If they've already answered it once, we should be able to find that and get it ourselves. And then even after podcast interviews, you know, everybody will tell you after an interview, oh, you did great. Right. Because they don't want to hurt your feelings. And my team has worked together and we got a team of 22. They have a 21 point checklist that they look for. They, they listen to it.

[00:07:38] They put it through the AI and then we give it to every one of our clients so that they can get better. And I got one a couple of days ago from an interview and I'm trying to remember it. So I don't do the same things here, but they came back and said, Tom, you talk 20% faster than the host. You may want to slow that down a little bit. You use some jargon. If you use those, you've got to explain what it means.

[00:08:04] Or even to the point of you told this great story, but you didn't tell the moral of the story. You didn't connect the dots for people. So we're using all of that to give more information and help people get better results from every podcast. Because I think too many people are using podcast interviews as this idea of more, more, more. I don't think it's about doing more. I think it's about getting more from every interview. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:31] I mean, I think that's very insightful with everything we do, right? I mean, if you're thinking of podcasting as a way to educate and market what you, what you have to offer, you got to understand what the ROI is, right? Well, what's the return on your investment? And I know, you know, there's a lot of people, especially business owners who are very busy and they understand that content creation is really important, but they don't know how. And they don't know.

[00:08:59] So, and that's, I think, a gap that you're filling there with your clients and your customers. So it's a, you're educating, but you're also using AI to help them find targeted podcasts. And do you also help them make the pitch? Because that's the other thing, when you've got a very successful podcaster, you got to convince them to put you on the show. Yeah. And we take care of everything, right?

[00:09:25] We, early on, a client said, I like working with interview valet because they let me be the guest and they take care of the rest. And I'm just like, oh, that's good copy. I'm taking that. We don't use the word internally pitch. And I know where it comes from, right? If you go to a journalist, you pitch an idea for a story. You pitch, you pitch an angle on something. The problem has become is now we're pitching people where it's like, Rebecca, this is Tom.

[00:09:54] He'd be great for your show. It becomes dehumanizing, right? You pitch an idea, you pitch a story, you introduce a person. So what we're really trying to do is get to know the host, right? What are they interested in? What's their focus? What have they been talking about? And then look at the guest and say, you know, what are their goals? What are their passions? What do they speak about?

[00:10:19] And as opposed to just pitching a person, we introduce them and introduce the ideas that they could talk about, right? That's the reason that when my team introduced me, it was, here's the one sheet. Here's different topics that Tom can talk on. Not just that, you know, Tom wrote a book, he should be on your podcast. Yeah. So I can't resist asking you, what are your top three?

[00:10:46] What are the top three mistakes that people make when they go on a podcast? Yeah. I think the first one we talked about a little bit, that bigger is better, more is better, right? That it's all a numbers game. And that is wrong. You can't say enough of the right things to the wrong people. And so often people think, well, if I just go out there and talk to enough people, magic will happen, right? That's hope and hope is not a strategy. So that's the first one.

[00:11:16] They're not targeting the podcast. The second one is they're talking about themselves. Little people that'll say, well, just go out there and tell your story, right? Everybody wants to tell their story. There's a place for your story, but it is support for your point of view, right? Like I said at the very beginning, I could have started that answer with, you know, I was born here. I went to school here. I did this. This is the name of my pets, right?

[00:11:45] My mom doesn't even want to hear that, right? People want to hear about is why are you here? How can you help my life? So that's that second error of don't focus on you, focus on solving the audience's problem. And the third one is don't just do more interviews. Do more with every interview, right? This is pure gold, right? Today, 96% of podcasts have video. You can slice it.

[00:12:15] You can dice it. You can get reels and shorts. You can get a month's worth of content from every interview. So that's why it's important to, you know, make sure that you're going on the right interviews. Make sure you're talking about the right things, which is really the audience's problem. And then your time is valuable. You know, don't just do more interviews. Do more with every interview.

[00:12:38] That really resonates with me because over the years, I've gone back and forth about how many podcasts I need to do to maintain an audience. And I learned about this idea of repurposing content and thinking about the purpose of the repurposing, right? Sometimes you're educating. Sometimes you're entertaining. Sometimes, you know, you're informing. There can be a wide variety of ways to repurpose what you put together.

[00:13:08] But I think it's really interesting because we get onto this treadmill of producing content. And, you know, we don't think about what a goal mom we've got with all of it. And I think that's really interesting. Okay. So those are kind of the three mistakes. What, you know, if somebody works with you, you're going to be their preparation age. So I love, I mean, you're going to solve their problem quickly and you're coming highly recommended.

[00:13:39] But what are the things, the top things that anybody listening today would get from working with you? I think they would get, I'm going to put four in there. Okay. Because I think we'll get the bonus one. I think anybody that comes and works with us, right? They're all hardworking. They're smart. They're nonfiction authors. They're professionals. They're founders. They're thought leaders. And they're hardworking.

[00:14:07] But what they're looking for us to add is really the first thing is the data to find the right shows. We license a lot of different databases. They're expensive. But without there, you can't find the shows. So the data is the right thing. The first thing. The second thing is really the relationships to get the invitation, right? If you're just reaching out one time to a host, it's really hard to build that relationship. And we've got a team of 22.

[00:14:36] Some of them have been working with the same podcasters, you know, for six or seven years. So they know that host. They know what they're looking for. That's number two. Number three is the support to make it easy, right? There's a lot of other things that our business owners are doing. They don't want to take this on as a full-time job. And then finally, it's the strategy to make it effective, right? So it's not just podcast guesting.

[00:15:02] And I don't like that term podcast guesting because it's an activity. And nobody just wants to have an activity. They want the results that come from activity, right? And so that's why we always look at it as podcast interview marketing. Yeah, I think that's great. So, you know, when I think about some of the experience and things that I've learned over the years, and you may know from my background that I'm an educator. So I'm teaching college students.

[00:15:31] And we put in our own podcast studio in the entrepreneurship center that we have on the campus. And it's actually a content creation studio. But we do some podcast training and support. And what I find really interesting is that these students, a lot of this comes naturally to them. They love being on the camera.

[00:15:55] But they also don't really know how to frame up a podcast in terms of how do I start? How do you know, what should the middle look like? How do I end it? Do you help those people that are interested in starting their own podcast as well as those who are interested in being guests? And if so, what kind of do you have a model or a technique that you'd like to share? We do.

[00:16:20] And we help primarily the guests, but there's a lot of times when somebody is starting out their show, they work with us. And we call it phase zero. Before the interview even goes live or their show goes live, they go out on other podcasts so that they can get experience on there, right? I had one client that said that she had been in a lot of weddings before she had her own wedding.

[00:16:48] And she said it was a different experience if you sit in the seats as opposed to if you're on the altar with those bridesmaids. And she got to see what she liked and what she didn't. And the issue became is if the first time she'd ever attended a wedding was her own, that's going to be really tough to plan. So people will often go out on podcasts. It's almost like a trial run or a way to promote their own podcasts.

[00:17:16] But I think like so many different activities, you have to figure out how are you going to start it and how are you going to finish it, right? Often the medium part takes care of itself, right? If you're doing a keynote, make sure you've memorized the beginning and the end. You can work your way through the center, but there's going to be the nerves at the beginning at the end. So we always help them with how are you going to start it out when somebody says, you know,

[00:17:44] so Tom, tell me about yourself. Where are you going to go with that? And then at the end, when they say, you know, how can people find out about you? What's the next step? How are you going to land the plane? Because without that, it could just become a conversation that goes nowhere. Yeah, I think that's a really important point. As as my for my own personal experience, I, I developed a model about the entrepreneurial mindset.

[00:18:12] And so I apply that in all the all the podcasts. And I've changed things over the years, but I had a plan for three main topics that I wanted to cover. They were going to the one in the middle, as you pointed out, was going to vary a little bit, but the beginning one and the end one is always the same. And it's really served me. I can't say that I went into that really thinking with clarity that that's what I was doing, but

[00:18:41] that's the model I brought to it. So I definitely learned by doing. And I was a guest before I was, I started my own podcast and two of my grad students actually asked me or recommended to me that I should do my own. And that's kind of how I got started with it. So, you know, after they heard me on someone's, someone else's podcast. So great advice, I guess I would say. And about, you know, going out and being on somebody else's podcast.

[00:19:09] But, but I have to take you back because it's my model and I have to find out how you develop this idea and this opportunity, because opportunity recognition is really important in the model that I talk about. So I saw that you went to the Naval Academy, I think, and I'm not sure that prepared you to, to do interview valet in line of, but I'm just curious about your path here. Yeah, I think it did.

[00:19:38] So thanks to all the U.S. taxpayers for paying for my education. I graduated and then went on to nuclear power and ran nuclear power plants on aircraft carrier. And people like, well, how do you go from that to business? Well, there were some steps along the way, but I think everything built upon itself, right? Because the systems and processes that you learn in engineering or anything in a job there, you apply those to future things in the career.

[00:20:08] Now, I jokingly say running a nuclear power plant was easy because they gave you a manual with it. Entrepreneurship doesn't always come with the manual. You got to sort of write it as you're doing it. But I took a lot of the things from there. And the other thing is I don't see the world as revolutionary, right? It's really evolutionary. And my previous company was HubSpot's first e-commerce case study.

[00:20:35] So I had gone from the Navy to working in corporate America in sales, had a e-commerce business then. And after I built it up from a regional player to a national leader and sold it off, people asked me, well, how'd you do that? And this was 2014. And I'm like, oh, we built the whole thing up with guest blogs. But guest blogs didn't work in 2014, right? By that time, you could see them starting to go down.

[00:21:04] And I thought, I bet you could do the same thing with podcast interviews, right? Tap into other people's audiences, get that know, like, and trust. So I was in a mastermind group while I was in my sabbatical phase and helped a couple of the other people do it. It worked really, really well. And they said, you should write a book about it. And I'm like, I'm an engineer. I'm not writing a book. It was like a little PDF that I gave away. And then they said, well, you should have a course.

[00:21:32] So we did a course, but we never took it out of beta. And Rebecca, the reason was, is because people weren't getting results with it. And the ones that were honest said, you know, I don't want to be taught how to do this. I want to be the guest, right? You should have an agency that does this. And I saw that and I'm like, that sounds like a whole lot of work, right? And so we tested it. And one of our early adopters actually bought the website Interview Valet.

[00:22:02] He said, this is what you should call it, right? Here's the website. You should do this. So when we first started it in 2015, the first few years, I thought we were way, way too early. Because I'd give my elevator pitch, you know, I'd be so excited and people would smile, nod their head. And then they'd say, what's a podcast, right? So, but it gave us the opportunity to figure out the systems, the processes. Podcasting took off in about 2018.

[00:22:30] And then in 2020, when COVID hit, businesses, you know, major businesses started to realize that you could get to their ideal clients through podcasting. So that helped us. And then in 2024, it was obvious that AI was indexing all of the podcasting of use. So if you want to get found through AI, it's a great means to do it.

[00:22:58] So it's from the time I was an engineer at the Naval Academy to now, I just see it as a continual path. And it only makes sense in the rear view mirror. Yeah, I think that's probably true for a lot of entrepreneurs. You know, did you resist becoming an entrepreneur at first, coming from that kind of a background? Very much so. And to this day, I still, I struggle with the word entrepreneur, right? Because what does that mean, right?

[00:23:28] If you've got a different idea every day and you don't execute on it, they'll call themselves entrepreneur, right? Elon Musk is an entrepreneur. I wasn't sure what that meant. And like, even with CEO, right? A lot of times people will just say, I'm CEO. Well, you're the only person in the business, right? And I've got friends that are CEOs of publicly traded companies. I don't do that job.

[00:23:54] So I look at my job as CEO, as chief evangelist officer, right? That's how I see my role is I'm an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur, yes. And I guess the way I look at entrepreneur is every entrepreneur I've ever met takes up the hobby of retirement, right? They finish something and they say, that's it. I'm going to retire. And they never can, right? They've got to start that next thing because it's in their blood. They just love to create. And that's how I see myself.

[00:24:23] Yeah, I absolutely agree with that in terms of the creation side. I think, you know, building. Yes. Serial entrepreneurs love to build things and they get bored once they're built and they want to go build something else. But not every business owner falls into that kind of a mindset. And so it does get challenging when we start to define entrepreneur versus business owner versus inventor versus investor.

[00:24:52] Everybody plays a role in making it successful. As I think about what you've done, one of the things that I find really interesting is that you listened to your clientele or your customers all along the way. I mean, your name came from one. The concept came from feedback.

[00:25:11] So, you know, how do you and how have you really approached customer feedback and talking to customers outside of podcasting, which is certainly one way to share. But how do you take in the other side that is what they have to say back to you? And it used to be asking, you know, I'd ask questions.

[00:25:34] And I always say your clients will talk with their actions and their dollars, right? They'll tell you what they love and what they loathe. And in the Navy, we used to joke, you have to be smart enough to know one right answer when told. So if they're asking for more, you need to do more of that. If they don't value another service, well, you can kill that one off. But the problem that I always have is recency bias and the filter bias, right?

[00:26:04] I'll listen to what I want to hear. And then sometimes the last thing that was said to me is the most important. And I really struggled with that for a long time. And I think AI, there's a lot of promise with it. There's a lot of things we got to work out with it. But one of the things I love about it is that it doesn't have an agenda as it goes in there. So today, most of the time you record the calls.

[00:26:31] And it's been so great to take those calls and run it through an AI and say, what are the top five questions that clients are asking? What are they asking for? What objections do they have? And it's been so empowerful to continually improve. And so that's something that we've done to really listen to the client. Oh, yeah. It's pretty amazing how we can use AI. I think we're all figuring that out right now.

[00:26:59] I don't think everybody is completely clear on what that process is even going to look like tomorrow or the next day. But I find it really amazing because we're doing some things with the work I do, too, obviously with AI. But I'm a really productive graduate student in my world. I still have to go back and check the work and really direct and guide, do a lot of teaching.

[00:27:28] But AI can be a great tool if I put in the time up front and I guide along the way and I verify at the end. I think it's so exciting what we can accomplish. I mean, you know, in 15, 20 minutes, we can accomplish something that would have taken hours, if not days. But the prep time is what matters.

[00:27:56] How well we prepared with our prompt and how well we educated the AI tool that we're using. And so for me, that's been my experience with it. Thinking of it like a really, really productive graduate student. I've framed it with my team members. We got 22. I said, I'm not looking for AI to replace anyone. Right. I want to hire AI so that you have an assistant or you have a few assistants.

[00:28:25] So you've got people working for you. And just the same way, if you've got people working for you, you need to manage them. You need to set expectations. It's your creativity. And you better double check the work before you send it out. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And as an engineer, I'm sure that comes naturally to you. You know, you mentioned you have 22 people on your team. Talk to me a little bit about that, because that's kind of the middle part. I want to talk about building your company.

[00:28:54] And what have you learned about people and about taking that company from you and an idea and actually adding the complexity of a team? You know, the bottleneck is always at the top. Right. So it's always been my limitation. But one of the things I've learned, and we've been remote since the very beginning, is that I don't like to manage people. And managing people remotely can be so tough. Right. Right.

[00:29:24] And so I've always looked for people that didn't need to be managed. They self-managed themselves. What they wanted was to be led. And so I'll tell them, you know, during the interview process, if you want to be managed, this is not the company for you. If you want to be led, it is. And I think that has served us very, very well with that. And I routinely on podcast interviews will say, my microphone makes me sound good, but my team makes me look good. I am so proud of the team that we have.

[00:29:54] They do things that I can't even dream of. Right. We'll have clients say, well, will you be my account manager? Heavens no. You don't want me. I'll come in on the strategy. But whoever it is, Kristen, Chloe, Cindy, Miriam, all these people, they are much better on the details. They'll take care of everything.

[00:30:13] And that if each one of them grow in their position, right, while using AI, we can amplify ourselves so much more than, you know, if everybody grows 10%, what does that look like as opposed to just the leader growing 10%? So to me, it's been great. And the other thing I'd like to add here is that about 18 months ago, I took a six-week sabbatical. Best thing I ever did for my business.

[00:30:41] My wife and I, we hiked the Camino de Santiago, which is a route in northern Spain. We walked 500 miles in 27 days and ate a lot of great food and wine along the way too. But while I was doing that, the team members, they raised up to the next level, right? I let them grow into the new positions. I showed other people that this wasn't a founder-dependent business.

[00:31:10] And when I came back, they had backfilled most of the roles that I was doing, right? They'd been doing them for six weeks. So that allowed me to come back in at a different level. And it's something that we're really looking at because we've had team members that have come back after maternity leave. And it seems like they come back at a different level, right? Sort of a quantum step. And so how can we do this in the team to give them time away to refresh, to come back at a new level?

[00:31:40] Yeah, that's really very cool. That was a public argument you were on, right? It was. Yes. And, you know, of course, in academics, we've had sabbaticals for a long time. So that idea is not foreign to me. And I've been blessed with having that opportunity myself. But I love that you're incorporating it or considering incorporating it in your business. Where do you find talent? Two-thirds of our team is military spouses.

[00:32:08] And we got lucky with that, right? I wish I could say that it was a strategic decision on my part. But it has been a great workforce. If you give them a little bit of flexibility, they're just a disciplined, educated, you know, workforce. And so we found most of them through military spouses.

[00:32:31] And it seems like once you get a core group of people, they'll attract more people there, right? And when people say, well, hiring is so tough. Maybe if you're a new company, I could see that. But if the founder and the leadership team has a good track record and a good reputation out there, there'll be people that want to go along with them. And the same way with a company. I saw it when we hit about eight years.

[00:32:59] All of a sudden, companies knew about us, but also future employees knew about us. And so that made it much, much easier. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really interesting. You know, when entrepreneurs tend to base their business and the way they build it on who they know, what they know, and the skill set that they have and who they are, who they are, what they know and who they know. And I think our networks are really incredibly important in that.

[00:33:28] And once we start building that network, it's amazing what that can do for us. Yeah. I've been asked, what would you do differently? And I would always say I would have focused more on the relationships along the way, because that relationship capital, it goes along with your reputation capital. And it's amazing the deals that will come through, the employees that will come through. Beyond social media, people know, is this a company that I want to work for? Does it have a good reputation?

[00:33:57] And that's how you will magnetically attract the right people and repel the wrong ones. Yeah. So you talked earlier about the fact that a lot of entrepreneurs, some people call themselves entrepreneurs. They come up with an idea every day and they try it. And then the next day, it's something else. And in the research I've done, one of the competencies of an entrepreneurial mindset is, and a successful entrepreneurship, is the ability to execute past failure.

[00:34:26] So I never talked to anybody that, any entrepreneur that has been successful, that hasn't had a failure. So I wonder if you have a failure story that you might share with us that you've dealt with. Well, I love that term of executing beyond failure. And it's this idea of maybe you don't see it as a failure when the rest of the world does.

[00:34:53] And the example that I want to give you is not from my entrepreneurship days, but it came from my sales days. And I was in orthopedic sales for a fortune 500 company. And I'll never forget one of my best accounts told my manager that he didn't know if Tom was the most persistent sales rep or the stupidest sales rep that he'd ever met.

[00:35:18] He said he kept coming and showing me different products and having conversations. And he said, I never bought anything from him. And he's like, after 18 months, right? He didn't get the hint that I wasn't going to buy from him. I felt sorry for him. So I threw him a bone, right? And gave him a case. And he did so well on that, that now he's never going to leave, right?

[00:35:44] So fast forward six months later, I had all of his business. And people could say, you were failing for 18 months, but why didn't you stop? Right? And it's that old thing, well, he never kicked me out of his office, right? So I thought I had a chance on that. So I think sometimes with entrepreneurs, it's that same thing. You've got to, it's the Stockdale paradigm, right? From Admiral Stockdale.

[00:36:08] You've got to understand and not sugarcoat the brutal facts there, but then also never give up on that belief, right? That faith that you will find a way to do it. Yeah, I agree with you. Failure is hopefully not fatal. And finding the changes you need to make when things aren't working out. And that's exactly a skill, I think, that successful sales, anybody in sales learns.

[00:36:37] I've heard it said by others that have had their career built on sales that every no, you know, if it took them $10 or if it took them 10 times to make a $10 sale, you know, the first nine were a dollar towards that $10. And it's really the lessons that you learn, don't you think, when you have a failure that matters? It is because, and it's like, what is a failure?

[00:37:05] If you learn from it, I would argue it's not a failure, right? You just figured out what doesn't work. And, you know, you can't, nobody bats a thousand in the Major League Baseball. You're going to miss some, but each one, you better learn a little bit more on there. And I think today, especially in the United States, right, we live in a great time. If you're in poverty here, you're probably still within what, the top 10% of the richest people in the world.

[00:37:31] And I remember somebody asking me, well, you know, why would you go out in business on your own? What if you failed? And I'm like, do you realize that if I fail, my backup plan is doing what you do, right? I can get a job, right? And if you look at it that way, there's not a lot of downside. There is a safety net there to it. And, you know, for me, I'd rather take the risk.

[00:37:56] Yeah, I had a student once that he was speaking to freshmen coming into the University of Tampa, where I teach. And he was talking about why he decided to study entrepreneurship and why he wanted to have his own business. And he said, because I saw my parents downsized in their late 50s. And I'd rather bet on myself than give somebody else that power. And I thought, that's a great way, I think, to look at it.

[00:38:24] Not everybody wants that, nor is everybody suited to that. But I think it's aligned with what you're saying there. Yeah, I think there's a different mentality from the people that sign the front of the checks and the back of the checks. You know, the world needs both of those. But often the people that sign one side look at the other side. It's like, well, that's risky. But I look at it as from an entrepreneur. It's like, I don't want my income coming from one person. Right.

[00:38:54] I've got diversified. There's lots of customers. And, you know, they talk about that, that no client should be more than 5%, 10% of your total revenue. Well, if you're an employee, 100% of your revenue is coming from one employee. Right. So I think there's benefits to both sides. You know, I think absolutely. And you're kind of, I think you're talking about resilience, company resilience as well as personal resilience matter.

[00:39:24] And to that end, we live in a pretty challenging time right now. Of course, you and I probably have been around long enough to know that there's been challenging times before. This isn't the first time. But it is a pretty challenging time. Lots of uncertainty, which makes it very challenging for business today. And, you know, we look at the market. It's up. It's down. Uncertainty is challenging for people.

[00:39:51] Talk to me about what you see as a business owner and entrepreneur as some of the biggest challenges that we face today as entrepreneurs. And then maybe carry that a little further. What are you facing that's challenging right now? And what do you think? How are you thinking about it? I think that the biggest thing that we struggle with is the thing we love so much at the same time. Agency. Right. Today, we've got agency over our lives like people didn't before.

[00:40:22] Right. Kings and queens 200 years ago don't have the agency that we do. Right. We can choose the problem we solve. We can do whatever we want to do. We can live wherever we want to live. But that also is a lot of uncertainty. Right. If I grew up in a town and my dad was a farmer, I was probably going to be a farmer. Right. And today, there's so much flexibility in that. And sometimes that can be overwhelming. Right. And I've even seen this in my own children when they were going to college. Right.

[00:40:51] It was overwhelming to them of what path do I go? What college do I go to? And I have to remind myself that every time has been stressful. Right. For me, a bad day is when I get locked out of my bank account because I forgot my pin and the internet went down. Right. Well, for my grandfather, a bad day for him is when he buried a child. And I even reminded my daughter of this one time.

[00:41:18] She was graduating from high school, very stressful time. And she said, Dad, you don't understand how stressful it is for kids today. And she went through all of these other things. And I said, honey, you're right. Right. Because your great grandfather at your age, he didn't even have to go to college. In fact, he got to get a free trip to Europe. Right. And all the food and clothing was paid for and everything like that.

[00:41:48] Now, granted, he didn't come back from Normandy. But we look at that and say, well, we had it harder than them. And she was not happy with that. But she came back and she said, I think that puts it in perspective. Right. So I think the challenge that we have is sometimes this agency of looking at it as a challenge as opposed to looking at it as an opportunity. Right. We can look at it both ways. Right. The glass is half full or the glass is half empty.

[00:42:16] And I always look at it as, you know, if the glass is down halfway, we've got the opportunity now to order another round. So I think it's that optimistic entrepreneur attitude with it. Yeah. And in my book, I talk about optimism and the importance of it. And I actually just talked with my students about it. So I hear you. And agency is a big part of that. If we give up that agency, you know, then we're victims and we're victims to everything going on around us. And we don't want to.

[00:42:45] That is not empowering. So as we think about the future, where are you headed? And what are some of the things that you're facing? You know, scaling a business is one of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurs. And in the kind of business you have, it can be a challenge to scale. So are there any scaling challenges or any challenges you face right now that you're learning from and that you're reframing the journey, if you will?

[00:43:11] Well, the world is changing so fast that I don't think we can go from a top-down model. Right? I can't know everything and then teach other people, which is how I really started my business. There's a lot of founders do that. And so one of the things that I'm really trying to do is make sure that we have A players using the tools, the AI and everything. So I'm trying to make sure that I'm growing the team there.

[00:43:37] To me, that's the biggest scaling problem that we have right now. How do I get them the resources? How do I get them to look at this that they're not scared of AI? They're not fighting against it, but they're actively learning it and fighting for the future. Right? I heard somebody say, you can either fight for the past or you can create the future.

[00:43:59] And as a leader, trying to set that up, that mindset, because I think the narrative that's being taught to everybody or the media is, is that the world is ending. Right? AI is going to take all of our jobs. And, you know, it's an awful time. Somebody reminded me to go back and read a book that came out about Y2K. It was, I think, the third industrial revolution. And it was all about how computers are going to change the world.

[00:44:29] And he said, every time it says computer, put the word AI in there. And I swear you could, you could rewrite that book as the fourth industrial revolution and just change the word. And people would read it and go, oh yeah, this is right. All the things that we were worried about 26 years ago with computers, we're worried about today. It's just, it's happening so much quicker and people don't make good decisions out of fear.

[00:44:56] They make it out of hope and feeling like, like you said, they have agency. So that's what I'm trying to communicate. Yeah, I think that's great. And, and I think that's a really good point. And it does go back to this, this earlier comments we were making about the fact that we've been there before in different ways. And that there is hope because we're here, right? We're here today and we're doing what we're doing. And, and so there's lots of hope.

[00:45:23] And as entrepreneurs, we need to carry that optimism flag, I think. And as leaders, we need to do it for our team. And one of the things I signed my emails with is stay strong. The world needs to hear you now more than ever. And I sign it that way as an encouragement to other people, but as a reminder to myself, right? I don't think anybody's coming to save us. I don't think the government, the institutions are going to save us.

[00:45:50] My bet is that business owners, entrepreneurs, they're going to save us. And I've, you know, people will, will talk negatively about the youth. And I think they've been doing that since the caveman, right? But I'm encouraged by that. It's like, they're going to have to solve the problems that they didn't create. If we knew how to solve them right now, we would have, but no, we're leaving them to them. That's right.

[00:46:16] Well, they will hopefully be very well equipped to do it because they've got a lot of tools to work with. It will be, I'm optimistic too. And, you know, I think that optimistic about the future. And I think that's the way to live and be grateful for what we have. So, Tom, I always end by asking my guests if they have one piece of advice for an entrepreneur out there and you might be trying to struggle or might be struggling or an entrepreneur that,

[00:46:44] or a nascent entrepreneur, someone who wants to be an entrepreneur. What would that one piece of advice be? You're one conversation away, right? And let me unpack that a little bit. We always think, well, I don't know how to do this or I don't have funding or I don't do this. You're one conversation away, right? And it's not just building a funnel or putting a post, having a conversation with somebody and saying, you know, this is my constraint, right? I don't know how to do this.

[00:47:11] There's communities around there, you know, universities, colleges, organizations, and people will help you. They've been there. There's no new problems under the sun. From that standpoint, right? Have that conversation and someone will either show you the answer, point you in the right direction. But I think there's something magical about young entrepreneurs because they don't know that they're not supposed to know, right? So they're very open to say, I don't know. How do you do that?

[00:47:41] How do you do that? And I can remember I went back later in life to get an MBA because I have no business experience. I had engineering experience. Somebody would pull up a P&L and I would just sort of, you know, shake my head and go along with it. Had no idea what I was looking at. Whereas if I would have been, I don't know, 15, 20 years younger, if I would have been like my kids, they would have just said, what's that? What are these numbers? What does this mean?

[00:48:11] And could have gotten it so quick today. Heck, you could have that one conversation with AI and figure that out. So just realize that all of your solutions, all of your problems, your funding, your customers, all the rest of that is all just one conversation away. That's great. We don't have to know it all before we start, right? It's a learning journey. Tom, that's fantastic. Where can our guests connect with you, find out more about you and interview valet? Yeah.

[00:48:37] Easiest place is just to go back to interviewvalet.com forward slash n factor. So E-N factor. I'll put all of my contact information if you want to connect with me. We've got an assessment. Will podcast interview marketing work for you? I wrote a book. You can buy it on Amazon, but you can get a free copy. I'll mail it to you, email it to you. Or if you'd like to talk with me, right? I'll put my calendar scheduling link there.

[00:49:07] All of that will be back there at interviewvalet.com forward slash n factor. Thank you, Tom. Appreciate you joining me today. Thank you, Rebecca. Thank you for joining me today on the En Factor. I hope you found this conversation with Tom Schwab as insightful and inspiring as I did.

[00:49:36] If you're an entrepreneur or thinking about becoming one, remember this. Your story matters. And platforms like podcasting give you a powerful way to share it, connect with others, and create opportunities that you might not have even considered yet. So if you enjoyed this episode, I invite you to stay connected. Visit my website at DrRebeccaWhite.com. DrRebeccaWhite.com.

[00:50:03] There you're going to find more episodes of my podcast. You're also going to find my books like See Do Repeat, The Practice of Entrepreneurship, and our new entrepreneurial intelligence lab. It's a space designed to help you build the mindset and skills you need to stay connected in today's evolving landscape.

[00:50:23] And if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe, share this episode with someone who could benefit, and continue being part of our entrepreneurial community. Until next time, keep showing up, keep learning, and keep building your N factor. Thank you.