Latest / Christian Business Growth Podcast / Faith, Leadership, and Strategy with Shawn Sommerkamp

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Faith, Leadership, and Strategy with Shawn Sommerkamp · Christian Business Growth Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to Christian Business Growth Podcast.
• 0:03
  I'm Lyle and I'm here with Sean Summercamp.
• 0:05
  So, Sean, tell us how did God get you into business?
• 0:09
  I was working in the corporate world.
• 0:11
  Um, always thought I was supposed to be in the full time ministry.
• 0:14
  God said nope, shut those doors every chance I went for.
• 0:18
  But I went begrudgingly into the corporate world and eventually landed at a company GE that decided to train me and build me up to uh use me as a leader in the company as an
• 0:30
  executive.
• 0:30
  And while there at their private training institute, I got my own executive coach and never even heard of executive coaching ever.
• 0:39
  So after this spending that all this time with the executive coach, I walked out of there kind of floating.
• 0:44
  It felt like the the the heavens opened and the angels were singing.
• 0:48
  And I'm like, wow, I think that's what I'm supposed to be doing.
• 0:51
  So I went to the head of the GE Institute and said, What is that guy?
• 0:56
  Where did you find him?
• 0:57
  And how can I become one?
• 0:59
  And so I started that process back in 2010-ish.
• 1:04
  And it basically just combined my love for God's word.
• 1:08
  my love for the corporate world and my love for the ministry.
• 1:12
  And now I as an executive coach, it is kind of like a ministry.
• 1:15
  I work only with Christians, but it seemed like the exact right place to go.
• 1:20
  And now I've been in business for 15 years.
• 1:22
  That's exciting.
• 1:23
  What would what would you say kind of triggered that God aspect in it?
• 1:26
  What made you want to go into the executive coaching?
• 1:28
  You could have went into twelve other different kinds of coaching.
• 1:32
  Well, um, because of my experience as an executive in very big businesses, I worked for GE, Johnson Controls, Abbott, HID, in senior leadership roles.
• 1:42
  Um, I felt at ease speaking to higher levels of leadership.
• 1:45
  And I read this guy.
• 1:47
  Maybe you've heard of this book before.
• 1:49
  The CEO of Rollerblade is ro was Roger D.
• 1:53
  Anderson, and he was a Christian CEO, and he wrote a book, The Executive Calling.
• 1:59
  Basically, why are there not more
• 2:02
  overt outward Christians of Fortune 500 companies.
• 2:06
  And that book kind of like, whoa, as I was going through my coach training, I was already leaning that direction, but after reading Roger D.
• 2:13
  Anderson's book, I'm like, this is it.
• 2:15
  I'm doing it.
• 2:16
  This is perfect.
• 2:17
  Yeah, that gonna be my question, 'cause you have a corporate culture and so there's a corporate overlord, so to speak.
• 2:22
  So it's hard to to haul in your Christian values, your integrity and aspect and everything, especially to to be out outspoken a as a Christian.
• 2:31
  Well, believe it or not, um, I don't know a lot about your background.
• 2:35
  Maybe you can share that with me, but very big businesses take huge risks when they allow people to work for them that don't have integrity, character, all these other um worldly
• 2:48
  aspects of business, but they are the fruit of the spirit.
• 2:51
  That's if you were to la stack up all the fruit of the spirit, that's the type of employee big companies are always looking for.
• 2:59
  And I was mature enough not to just
• 3:01
  Overtly, hey, I'm gonna share my faith every day.
• 3:03
  And what I did actually was just speak scripture into the lives of my employees.
• 3:08
  I'm like, it's there's an ancient saying, you know, and um it really helped people to know way that God's word is kind of coming to me.
• 3:16
  The people that made the connection would come to me for ministering, but I was able to have absolute integrity in every role I've ever been in.
• 3:24
  Yeah, there were times when I was asked to cheat or to lie or to steal.
• 3:28
  A couple of interesting stories I won't go into, but
• 3:30
  All in all, they really do value very highly integrity.
• 3:34
  Good.
• 3:35
  Good to hear.
• 3:35
  Yeah, we've got a weatherman that comes to one of our groups and he started his own little Bible study and as long as he did it in the lunchroom and away from everybody's volunteer,
• 3:43
  they allowed it to happen, but they it was kinda like they allowed it but they weren't happy about it at first and but it it changed the culture internally.
• 3:51
  Well, I was blessed in that GE, one of the senior executives was Rich Aang.
• 3:56
  He was crazy overt about his Christianity.
• 4:01
  He led the entire global services organization for GE Healthcare, and he would get up to speak at the annual meetings and share his whole conversion story and all about Jesus like
• 4:10
  all the time.
• 4:11
  So the culture of GE would have allowed it because he's still there and still thriving.
• 4:16
  I just chose not to go quite that overt of a direction.
• 4:19
  Right, yeah, I understand.
• 4:20
  And there's a balance between being preachy and ministering to people.
• 4:25
  Yes, I went the ministering route for sure.
• 4:28
  Exactly.
• 4:29
  So what's God doing your business right now?
• 4:32
  So I am a Christian executive coach.
• 4:33
  So what I basically do is serve those that are in positions in big companies or business owners that have profess their faith in some way.
• 4:43
  They believe in Jesus, but they can't quite get to where they want to go.
• 4:47
  So I help them.
• 4:49
  I do spend uh a lot of time doing pro bono coaching just because it's a ministry, but the business now is going up.
• 4:57
  Um
• 4:59
  I go and speak live at very large events all over the US.
• 5:02
  That's kind of the direction I'm going.
• 5:04
  And now I'm trying to get more into podcasts.
• 5:06
  I've been on many, many podcasts, but I'd like to start focusing more on that, which I love that you had me on.
• 5:11
  Lyle, thank you for that.
• 5:12
  So that's kind of a direction I'm going, more exposure that dire that route.
• 5:17
  Good deal.
• 5:17
  And on that aspect, w tell somebody if somebody's an executive out there and they want to go to executive coaching but they've never heard of it like yourself, you've never heard
• 5:25
  it before.
• 5:25
  What would you tell somebody that's never heard about executive coaching?
• 5:28
  What is executive coaching specifically?
• 5:30
  Well, if they were, let's say they called me up and asked me, of course, I would have the dialogue and tell them.
• 5:35
  But if they were just thinking on their own, they heard this and they didn't listen to what executive coaching is, I would say, just type it into AI.
• 5:44
  What's executive coaching?
• 5:45
  What's Christian executive coaching?
• 5:47
  And AI will tell you.
• 5:48
  But overall, um, we as coaches, I know you are one, help people that can't see their own blockers remove the blockers so that they can have an epiphany.
• 5:59
  In Romans 12, 2, God helps transform people by renewing their mind.
• 6:04
  I help people have epiphanies to get to that transformation that only really God can do.
• 6:09
  And I do it just by listening.
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  And there are a few telltale signs of when someone's being blocked, the four blockers, fear, assumptions, interpretations, limiting beliefs.
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  I identify that, then I just ask them a few questions, you know, like, you know, Jedi mind tricks.
• 6:25
  They don't really know I'm doing it.
• 6:27
  And then they're like, oh, and all of a sudden they can see the pathway forward.
• 6:31
  We both glorify God.
• 6:33
  And then once they see that, then we start, okay, what are the what's the next small step?
• 6:37
  How are we going to measure it?
• 6:39
  What's the risk that could get in the way of that?
• 6:41
  What's the growth that you want to do after that?
• 6:44
  Then it's just let's we're off to the races.
• 6:46
  As you also know, never look back.
• 6:49
  Coaches always help their clients look forward, which happens to be something Jesus said.
• 6:54
  Do not put your hand to the plow share and look back.
• 6:56
  Yeah, one of my life verses is no longer looking back, I press on towards the mark of the high calling of Jesus Christ.
• 7:02
  That's something that that sticks in my you know, it's that whole windshield factor.
• 7:06
  You've got a small little rear view mirror, but you've got the huge windshield, you've got to be looking forward.
• 7:10
  You can glance backwards, but keep moving forward.
• 7:12
  I like that a lot.
• 7:14
  Yeah, the windshield versus the rear view mirror.
• 7:16
  They're both glass.
• 7:18
  that is a really good analogy.
• 7:19
  I love it.
• 7:20
  I might steal that.
• 7:20
  Thank you.
• 7:22
  I stole someone else too.
• 7:23
  I'd tell you who, but I don't know who.
• 7:24
  It's been a while.
• 7:27
  There you go.
• 7:28
  Um, and before we get into our business growth concept, you talk a lot about fun and humor being part of it, which I ju generally don't associate with executive phrases.
• 7:36
  So tell us a little bit about how fun and humor fits into what you do.
• 7:41
  Well, um, I do a lot of public speaking and the best way to engage the audience is to get them laughing really.
• 7:48
  So the best way to do it is to get audiences to participate.
• 7:54
  As they're speaking, I just have this weird ability to kind of pick up on something funny in the moment and I'll just throw it out there and the whole audience starts laughing.
• 8:03
  Yes, on rare occasions I will have to find that person or a person and say, look, I'm sorry I
• 8:09
  Had that laugh at your expense, which it really wasn't, but some people aren't accustomed to saying something out loud.
• 8:16
  I play off of it, make it really funny, and then have them have to deal with are they laughing at me or near me, you know?
• 8:24
  But it's very easy to do.
• 8:26
  I think it's because I've always been on very large teams.
• 8:28
  I was an athlete growing up, so prankster, and then I was in a submarine service.
• 8:33
  You cannot be submerged out at sea for 90 days without.
• 8:36
  constantly cutting up.
• 8:38
  I just work that now into where I speak.
• 8:40
  I don't use that one-on-one.
• 8:42
  And one-on-one is really the sober-minded aspect, but when I'm in a group or on a podcast, I do like to make a joke or two.
• 8:50
  I miss sometimes, but I I do give it a shot.
• 8:54
  That's good.
• 8:54
  I think we all need to try more often to be funny.
• 8:57
  There's not enough of that.
• 8:58
  I can give you lots of dad jokes, but we'll stay away from those.
• 9:00
  All right, so let's move to our business growth tip section.
• 9:07
  What is your business growth tip and how can we help some people grow their business so they can honor God better and build the kingdom?
• 9:13
  Well, there are some vernacular that people tend to use and get lost in that.
• 9:19
  I'm gonna use that vernacular, but then just briefly explain it.
• 9:22
  A lot of business owners don't think about the client acquisition strategy.
• 9:29
  They think about tactics.
• 9:31
  I'm gonna go get a new client, I'm gonna try this, I'm gonna cold call, I'm gonna speak and leave little forms for people, I'm gonna do pay-per-click advertising, I'm gonna ask
• 9:40
  everybody word of mouth, I'm gonna build a list.
• 9:43
  But that's not a strategy.
• 9:44
  Those are a series of tactics.
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  Tactics can be changed very quickly on the fly without a lot of expense.
• 9:51
  Treat sitting down as a business owner, looking at the type of business, your market, what the industry is doing in your market, really think through what a client acquisition
• 10:01
  strategy could be.
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  That for me is speaking for free at very large events.
• 10:09
  Where people will make the connection.
• 10:10
  Hey, he's an executive coach.
• 10:12
  I can pay him.
• 10:14
  For other people, that strategy is give a low price point offering to get people interested in you.
• 10:20
  Another one could be I'm just gonna do mastermind groups, sometimes low price point, sometimes just for free.
• 10:26
  Really take the time to figure out what your client acquisition strategy is, then automate it.
• 10:33
  In the world of GE, where I was a Six Sigma guy, lean Six Sigma.
• 10:37
  The Japanese phrase is poke yok.
• 10:39
  It literally means idiot proof.
• 10:41
  Toyota was the first one to do this where um you could not take the keys out of the ignition until the car was in park.
• 10:50
  That's poke yoke.
• 10:52
  What we want to do in our business is idiot proof the client acquisition strategy.
• 10:56
  There are lots of ways to do it, but that's what I recommend.
• 10:59
  Maybe even ask AI.
• 11:00
  For my industry, how do I, what's a
• 11:03
  Automated client acquisition.
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  And then the keyword, I'm beating this up, strategy, not tactics.
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  Go for the strategy.
• 11:11
  And give us an example of what an idiot proof would be in a specific business.
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  I mean, besides from a key in an ignition.
• 11:17
  In a general business.
• 11:18
  I know there's a hundred businesses and they are all different and they all work differently.
• 11:21
  But give us a couple examples for people who are listening in.
• 11:24
  So it what a big one is, and it's probably a the shortest putt, is to go ahead and build out a 15-week email drip campaign.
• 11:33
  I developed this formula that took quite a while to do because it was lots of trial and error, where once you get someone into your list, which we won't talk about that now
• 11:41
  unless you want to, but once they're in your list, they get the first email, give them nothing but value, 100% value, zero selling.
• 11:49
  Second email, 100% value, zero selling.
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  And value, I mean stuff that they're gonna go.
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  How could he be giving this away for free?
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  When we do that, not only do we build trust, but they're gonna say to themselves, I wonder what else he has.
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  If he's giving this away for free, email number three, 100% zero.
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  Then email number four, 90% value, 10% selling.
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  Hey, by the way, in my industry, I'm an executive coach.
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  If you ever want to talk, just let me know.
• 12:14
  That's a 10% sales thing.
• 12:17
  Email number five, 75% value, 25% selling, email number six, 50-50, and then finally.
• 12:23
  You get to email number seven, no value, 100% selling.
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  Like, hey, look, you've been getting these emails now for almost two months.
• 12:30
  What are you waiting for?
• 12:31
  I can help change everything for you, or my product will make a big difference.
• 12:35
  Then you go back to three more 100% value, no selling, 100% value, no selling, and then so on.
• 12:42
  That idiot proofs it.
• 12:44
  Then you can all you focus on serving your clients, getting in front of audiences, getting them into the drip with a QR code, and then it will do the
• 12:52
  selling for you.
• 12:54
  Is that what you were looking for?
• 12:57
  Yeah.
• 12:57
  some of those things.
• 12:58
  You know, an email campaign or a drip campaign just means it's it's automated.
• 13:02
  Its sequence is timed out.
• 13:04
  So maybe once a day over a f two week period of time, or maybe I guess it would be three weeks if you do it only on the weekdays, if you're doing it in a business setting.
• 13:12
  So you'd want to set that and you wanna make sure your parameters are correct.
• 13:15
  You don't want to send them at two o'clock in the morning, you don't want to sit at six o'clock in the morning, you wanna set it within those those business parameters and also
• 13:21
  what fits
• 13:23
  Your specific category.
• 13:24
  Do you use SMS with yours as well?
• 13:26
  I don't.
• 13:27
  Um I have found my clients want the freedom of looking at it when they want to look at it.
• 13:33
  To me, getting an SMS text just in my life, although I'm a technologist, I've always been, it's intrusive.
• 13:39
  I just don't want to be that for my clients.
• 13:41
  Maybe in the future, if not for my clients, for my potential clients.
• 13:46
  My clients text me all day long, but not not those I'm trying to sell to.
• 13:50
  I don't know.
• 13:50
  Do you use SMX?
• 13:52
  I do sometimes, but I'm the same with you.
• 13:53
  I don't it's that interrupt ca aspect.
• 13:55
  If I'm not if I have an event going, then I'll do the interrupt to remind them, hey, this is coming up.
• 14:00
  But for specific onboarding people, I don't use SMS.
• 14:03
  That's why I was curious how you did it.
• 14:06
  Perfect.
• 14:07
  And what other automating tools would you suggest somebody if they're just getting started?
• 14:11
  A lot of our listeners are entrepreneurs, so
• 14:14
  so all the rage right now, your audience has probably heard of this, I'm sure you have too is vibe coding.
• 14:20
  Vive coding is when you uh use AI um co-work type tools, not just chat, co-work type tools that you can help write code.
• 14:31
  Find an AI vibe coder on something like Upwork.com or Freelancer, maybe Fiverr, Fiverr is a little more advanced these days, and have them build for you.
• 14:42
  a custom scraping campaign on LinkedIn.
• 14:45
  We want to do business on LinkedIn now.
• 14:47
  Um the guy I use, which I won't get into, I'll just say it's it's AI AIAscend.com.
• 14:54
  It's Tim Burnham, amazing guy.
• 14:56
  He basically looks for my ideal client, goes onto LinkedIn and looks for those ideal clients chatting using this AI vibe code Clay with Apify.
• 15:08
  I don't want to get over complicated.
• 15:10
  When they say a certain set of things, that AI tool texts them as if I'm literally responding to them, but nothing cheesy, nothing salesy, just hey, and if you want to talk,
• 15:23
  let me know.
• 15:24
  And then they will send me a message on LinkedIn Messenger.
• 15:26
  That's all 100% automated.
• 15:28
  I don't even have to think about it.
• 15:30
  Then I get these messengers, which are emails now, because I have LinkedIn tied to my email.
• 15:35
  And then I see someone wants to talk, and then I just say, Yeah, and I respond to them.
• 15:38
  We jump on the call.
• 15:40
  That's great.
• 15:40
  Yeah, lot of people I think they're afraid of AI nowadays.
• 15:43
  They're afraid of what it's gonna do.
• 15:45
  Some people are either on the side they're afraid of it or they're so busy using it that it complicates things.
• 15:50
  And I like what you said, you know, you're gonna hire somebody that's gonna do it set up the setup for you.
• 15:54
  So you don't have to go out and learn everything for yourself because that gets super complicated.
• 15:59
  You don't wanna do that.
• 15:59
  And even though exactly.
• 16:01
  all of our time get into this rabbit hole where it's not working.
• 16:05
  We're trying it out.
• 16:06
  I that you wanna find someone who lives in that world.
• 16:09
  Yeah.
• 16:09
  Yeah, exactly.
• 16:10
  And even going back to your 15-week drip campaign, if somebody's just getting started, they don't know what to do, you can ask AI, hey, how could I do this drip campaign?
• 16:18
  You can go back and watch this video again or listen to this podcast and go back and listen to what he said.
• 16:23
  Five value-based, one slight sell, and another full sell.
• 16:29
  So just make it simple for yourself, but set up a system that helps for you.
• 16:33
  I really wish I would have thought of this before.
• 16:36
  I could have put the image up on the screen.
• 16:39
  Your listeners could screenshot that, upload that to Claude or Copilot or whatever, and say, Build me a fifteen week drip campaign based on my business using value and selling,
• 16:51
  and it'll do it all for you instantly.
• 16:52
  Yep, you gotta clean it up, you gotta find better value things, but it will do it for you in a minute.
• 17:01
  Yeah.
• 17:01
  just if those who are listening, if you try if you're going to do this, make sure you add your voice.
• 17:06
  Make sure the AI knows what you're talking about.
• 17:08
  Give them, feed them your website or whatever.
• 17:09
  And Sean, if you want to send us that, we can put it up on our blog post.
• 17:12
  So to go on our website, CBG Podcast, and someone can download it and use it directly from there.
• 17:18
  So if you're listening in, please go out there and listen to that.
• 17:20
  I'm gonna send that to you right after.
• 17:22
  Thank you.
• 17:23
  All right.
• 17:23
  So leave us as we get end up here, leave us with one little bit of wisdom and tell us how we can get in touch with you.
• 17:30
  the the my go-to verse, um all of my coaching is always about understanding what we tell ourselves.
• 17:35
  If we can understand the inner dialogue, we can change it.
• 17:38
  This is emotional intelligence.
• 17:39
  My all-time favorite verse is Ecclesiastes 10:20, do not revile the king, even in your thoughts, or curse rich in your bedroom, lest a bird of the air carry your words, a bird
• 17:49
  on the wing report what you say.
• 17:50
  We can't hide what we're thinking about.
• 17:52
  We think we can, we can't.
• 17:54
  The best go-forward strategy in anything that we do, whether it's with our employees or clients or vendors.
• 18:00
  Be mindful of the inner dialogue that we have.
• 18:02
  We usually say horrible things to ourselves.
• 18:06
  Get great at mastering that one thought at a time.
• 18:09
  It will change your whole outlook, your energy, how you show up.
• 18:12
  Next thing you know, people are gonna want to start doing way more business with you.
• 18:16
  I agree with that.
• 18:17
  Yeah, it's capture your thoughts, hold them captive, I believe, somewhere it says in the Bible.
• 18:22
  Thank you.
• 18:23
  Thank you for pulling that out.
• 18:25
  And how can we get in touch with you?
• 18:27
  go to my website motivationer dot com.
• 18:29
  That's motivation e r dot com and you'll see my contact information there.
• 18:35
  Perfect.
• 18:36
  Well thanks for being with us today.
• 18:37
  I appreciate it, Sean.
• 18:38
  Really great to spend time with you, Lyle.
• 18:40
  Appreciate it.