Shows
Beyond ExpertiseHow Getting Fired Sparked a Purpose Driven Social Enterprise with Merry KornGetting fired can punch a hole straight through your identity, especially when your career has been the proof that you’re “doing fine.” Mary Korn’s story cuts through that illusion. She had the title, the money, and the corporate ladder momentum, yet privately felt misaligned and depleted. Then she gets fired from a job she took in desperation and suddenly has to answer the scariest question of all: what now, with kids to support and no clear runway?We dig into what actually helped her reinvent her career, beyond feel-good slogans. Mary shares how career coaching and skil...
2026-05-2123 min
Beyond ExpertiseFrom Corporate Communications to Purpose Driven Work with Ivonne FurneauxSuccess can look flawless on LinkedIn while still feeling wrong in your body. That tension is exactly where my conversation with Yvonne Furneaux begins and where it gets most useful for anyone thinking about identity reinvention, career change, or a second chapter beyond a corporate title. Yvonne spent more than 25 years in corporate communications, employee experience, HR, and DEI leadership, and she shares what she learned from working within large systems that don’t treat everyone the same. We get into the messy realities professionals rarely say out loud: how layoffs actually land, why corporate loyalty keeps ero...
2026-05-1930 min
Beyond ExpertiseA Real Estate Leader Discovers Alignment Helping Agents with Joe ArnaoA career can look successful and still feel strangely unfamiliar. Joe Arno spent decades building in sales, real estate leadership, and recruiting, only to realize that the work he was doing no longer matched the life he wanted to live. After a move, a bout with cancer, and one too many “shiny new” opportunities that didn’t fix the underlying problem, the misalignment became impossible to ignore.In this episode, we talk about the real pressures behind professional reinvention: the loneliness of entrepreneurship, the illusion that independence automatically brings balance, and the way industries like real estate can pu...
2026-05-1431 min
Beyond ExpertiseA Widowmaker Wake Up Call That Changed Everything with Adrian JonesTwo widowmaker heart attacks will either break your story or rewrite it. I sit down with Adrian “AJ” Jones, a longtime financial services leader who had to confront the question most high performers avoid until something forces it: what if the life you built no longer matches who you are? AJ walks me through the early twists that pulled him from international relations into finance, how comfort can become a trap, and how “fine” can mask deep misalignment.We get candid about what happens after a major health scare when the paycheck still feels safer than the calling...
2026-05-1039 min
Beyond ExpertiseCOVID Closed the Stage and Opened a New Career with Kate KayaianThe strangest career clue is not burnout, it's relief. When concert cellist Kate Kayaian watched her entire performance calendar vanish during COVID, she expected panic. What she felt instead was a weight lifted, and that single emotional moment forced a bigger question: if the “dream” disappears and you feel freer, what does that say about your identity?Kate grew up in a world where music was not a hobby but a calling. She had a community and a clear definition of success. In this episode, we unpack how achievement-based careers can become a locked-in professional identity, even when...
2026-05-0841 min
Beyond ExpertiseFrom Selling Canned Corn to Purposeful Coaching with Chip ScholzA layoff. A cross-country move. A booming coaching practice. Then a stroke that forced a hard pause. Chip Scholz’s story is a sharp reminder that career and identity reinvention rarely unfold as we script them, and that “success” can still quietly pull us away from the life we actually want.On this episode of Beyond Expertise, we trace Chip’s path from working non-stop in college, landing in sales during a recession, to discovering he thrives when he can define his own role and build real community relationships. He explains what pushed him out of the corporat...
2026-05-0738 min
The Virtual CMOMarketing Earns Its Seat At The Table When It Speaks Revenue with Dana MarxerFollowers, clicks, open rates, and impressions can make a marketing dashboard look busy, but they rarely answer the question your CEO and CFO actually ask: how much revenue did marketing influence? Eric Dickmann sits down with Dana Marxer, CEO of RevOps automation company ayeQ, to unpack what it really takes for CMOs to align marketing to pipeline, bookings, and predictable growth in today’s economy. We get specific about the language shift CMOs must make to earn influence at the leadership table. Dana explains why marketing should still track leading indicators internally, but present outcomes externally in ter...
2026-04-2033 min
The Virtual CMOHow Introverts Can Learn to Network Like a Pro with Matthew PollardIn episode 93, host Eric Dickmann interviews Matthew Pollard. Matthew is a growth marketing expert, keynote speaker, award-winning blogger and podcaster, and best-selling author of "The Introvert’s Edge." Forbes calls him “the real deal,” but Matthew is better known as “The Rapid Growth Guy.” By the age of 30, he was responsible for five multi-million dollar business success stories. Pollard has worked with companies such as Electrolux, Oracle, and Microsoft, providing training, keynotes, and workshops from Thailand to Las Vegas. The hundreds of stages he has appeared on, and the impeccable ratings Matthew has received, have earned him a CSP designatio...
2021-09-2042 minThe Virtual CMOBeing a Customer Advocate Within Your Business with Brian KaleIn episode 92, host Eric Dickmann interviews Brian Kale. Brian is a customer service advocate, CX industry insider, and Head of Customer Success at Bank Novo. a small business banking platform connecting business owners to no-fee checking and debit accounts. He's been helping companies better understand their customers by building better products for their needs. For show notes and a list of resources mentioned in this episode, please visit:https://fiveechelon.com/being-customer-advocate-within-your-business-s6ep11/Send us your questions or commentsA fractional CMO can help build out a comprehensive marketing strategy a...
2021-09-1634 minThe Virtual CMOUsing Digital Marketing to Grow Your Business with Saunder SchroederIn episode 91, host Eric Dickmann interviews Saunder Schroeder. Saunder is a digital marketer and the Chief Marketing Officer of Disruptive Advertising. Throughout his career, he has been able to help grow hundreds of businesses by creating digital marketing strategies to drive traffic and generate leads. Saunder has created and executed digital marketing strategies for Fortune 500 companies, including Adobe, Citrix, Dell, ESPN, Time Warner Cable, Lynda, Blendtec, Groopdealz, Salesforce, Pluralsight, and many others. His mission is to grow people and brands that he believes in.For show notes and a list of resources mentioned in this episode, please v...
2021-09-1332 minThe Virtual CMOHow to Improve Your Writing and Build Influence Online with Morissa SchwartzIn episode 90, host Eric Dickmann interviews Morissa Schwartz. Morissa is an entrepreneur, social media specialist, marketing expert, best-selling author, and Founder of Dr. Rissy’s Writing & Marketing. She holds a Ph.D. in Literature and a Master's in Communications. Morissa has published several books and articles in periodicals including Entertainment Weekly, Huffington Post, Yahoo Finance, Buzzfeed, and more. Alongside that, Dr. Schwartz has spoken about digital entrepreneurship and building a work-from-home team at numerous events. For show notes and a list of resources mentioned in this episode, please visit:https://fiveechelon.com/how-to-improve-writing-build-influence-onlines6ep9/...
2021-09-0927 minThe Virtual CMOBuilding a Marketing Strategy to Reach an Unreachable Audience with Colin JeffriesIn episode 89, host Eric Dickmann interviews Colin Jeffries. Colin is an entrepreneur, podcast host, and Marketing & Communications Director at BrightView. He has over a decade of experience helping organizations reach the right audiences at the right time with messages that galvanize the best prospects to action. Jeffries’ background in digital marketing, content marketing, advertising, branding, strategy, and segmentation help him bring a holistic perspective to help organizations grow. Colin has honed his skills by serving in a wide array of industries. In addition to serving a broad range of healthcare practices and providers, Colin is a pioneer in direct-to-patient ma...
2021-09-0641 minThe Virtual CMOImplementing a CEX - Customer and Employee Experience Strategy with Jason BradshawIn episode 88, host Eric Dickmann interviews Jason Bradshaw. Jason is an entrepreneur, global guru on customer service, award-winning executive, keynote speaker, CMO, and Best-Selling Author of "It’s All About CEX." He created his first business at 14, selling telecommunications and computer equipment in the Australian regional city of Toowoomba. Jason tested and implemented strategies for improving the experience in a variety of sectors, including telecommunications, retail, media, finance, automotive, health, and not-for-profit.A cornerstone of Jason’s career has been an unwavering commitment to improving the lives of customers and employees. During his time in the telecommunications indust...
2021-09-0238 minThe Virtual CMOBuilding a Successful Fully Remote Local Business with Neel ParekhIn episode 87, host Eric Dickmann interviews Neel Parekh. Neel is an entrepreneur and Founder and CEO of MaidThis Franchise. He started his career working in venture capital and private equity identifying and analyzing investment opportunities and managing investment portfolios. His dream was to work for himself and to enjoy freedom from the confines of the 9-to-5 office life. Neel pursued this entrepreneurial spirit and founded MaidThis. MaidThis helps homeowners and short-term rental hosts with their cleanings. As a franchise, it helps owners build their own meaning of “freedom” by empowering them to build their own fully remote, new-a...
2021-08-3035 minThe Virtual CMOHow to Improve Online Lead Generation with Alex OliveiraIn episode 86, host Eric Dickmann interviews Alex Oliveira. Alex is an entrepreneur, marketing innovator, and Host of Dadpreneur Podcast. Throughout his career, Alex has helped generate millions of leads for SMB's and Fortune 500 companies. With his expertise in digital marketing, he also teaches an MBA program at FAU to train Marketing Directors at global corporations. Oliveira’s passion is to help businesses and brands increase leads and sales by building a sustainable marketing strategy that grows revenues for his clients. The Dadpreneur Podcast is all about transforming challenges into opportunities. As host, Alex aims to help businesses di...
2021-08-2642 minThe Virtual CMOUsing AI to Create Content for Social Media with Kate Bradley ChernisIn episode 85, host Eric Dickmann interviews Kate Bradley Chernis. Kate is the Founder & CEO of Lately, the only social media management platform that creates content for you with the power of A.I. As a former marketing agency owner, Kate initially created the idea for Lately out of spreadsheets for then-client, Walmart, and got them a 130% ROI, year-over-year for three years. Prior to founding Lately, Kate served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM radio. She’s also an award-winning radio producer, engineer, and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sa...
2021-08-2344 minThe Virtual CMOBuilding a Fast Growing, High Profit Business with Steve PredaIn episode 84, host Eric Dickmann interviews Steve Preda. Steve is an entrepreneur, speaker, certified EOS implementer, and author of "Buyable: Your Guide to Building a Self-Managing, Fast-Growing, and High-Profit Business." Since the age of ten, Steve (Istvan) Preda dreamt of becoming an entrepreneur, inspired by his great-grandfather, who had built a legendary bakery business in Budapest, Hungary. After working for top consulting firms and banks in London and Budapest, in 2002, he embarked on realizing his dream by starting MB Partners, a consulting firm, helping private companies arrange ownership transitions.Having overcome many painful mistakes, by 2007, MB Partners...
2021-08-1937 minThe Virtual CMOHow to Acquire and Retain New Customers with Tim WuIn episode 83, host Eric Dickmann interviews Tim Wu. Tim is a growth specialist, podcast host, and Head of Growth Marketing of Hatch, a VC-backed FinTech startup based in San Francisco, California. Hatch is an information technology and services company that aims to provide accessible, transparent, and fair checking and lending products to help people start and grow their businesses. Tim also hosts the Hatch Small Business Spotlight podcast. Together with his co-host, Katie, they feature Hatch Cardholders and their trials, tribulations, and successes of starting and scaling their businesses. The podcast also highlights inspiring stories of entrepreneurs...
2021-08-1738 minThe Virtual CMOHow to Build an Effective B2B Content Marketing Strategy with Brad SmithIn episode 82, host Eric Dickmann interviews Brad Smith. Brad is a content marketer and CEO of a SaaS company called Wordable. He runs two successful agencies in the content production and digital PR industry. As a Business Insider featured copywriter, Smith is on a mission to slay awful content one blog at a time. His content has been highlighted by The New York Times, Business Insider, The Next Web, MarTech Today, Marketing Land, Moz, Shopify, Unbounce, HubSpot, Search Engine Journal, Kissmetrics, Crazy Egg, BounceX, and hundreds more.Through his agency work, Brad Smith has helped companies such...
2021-08-0347 minThe Virtual CMOWhy it's Time to Digitize Your Business with Tracy SheenIn episode 81, host Eric Dickmann interviews Tracy Sheen. Tracy is a digital marketer, business strategist, speaker, and author of- The End of Technophobia: A practical guide to digitizing your business. She is also known as "The Digital Guide," who has been working in the marketing and sales space relating to small business technology adaptation for the past 30 years. Tracy is a pioneer in the Australian podcast movement she launched, called the globally successful "Not Another Business Show," and is a regular judge for the Australian Podcast Awards, the Australian Business Book Awards, and The Australian Web Awards.R...
2021-06-2839 minThe Virtual CMOUsing Video to Engage Your Target Audience with Gina PomponiIn episode 80, host Eric Dickmann interviews Gina Pomponi. Gina is an entrepreneur and President and COO of Bluewater Media. Bluewater is one of the leading digital marketing/video production companies in the world. She has spent 30 years in the business pioneering digital marketing and a women’s role at the top of a company. She’s driven well over 11X in media growth and created Bluewater’s Account Management team to provide direct client support. Her leadership has been instrumental in building the web development division, e-commerce marketplace division, and expansion of the analytics team. For show notes...
2021-06-2424 minThe Virtual CMOHow to Activate Your Brand Purpose with Scott Goodson & Chip WalkerIn episode 79, host Eric Dickmann interviews Scott Goodson and Chip Walker. They are both associated with StrawberryFrog, a full-funnel, marketing, advertising, and design company founded in Amsterdam in 1999 and New York in 2005. Their company has put together a new way to overcome the gap between purpose-based storytelling, data-led optimizations, and business transformation. For over 20 years, Scott, Chip, and their team at StrawberryFrog have continued to challenge the status quo and driven remarkable results for iconic clients worldwide, such as Walmart, P&G, Google, Emirates Airline, SunTrust, and Coca-Cola.Scott Goodson is an entrepreneur, business mentor, award-winning author...
2021-06-2135 minThe Virtual CMOUsing Analytics and Business Intelligence to Grow Your Business with Dan McGawIn episode 78, host Eric Dickmann interviews Dan McGaw. Dan is an award-winning entrepreneur, author, speaker, marketing specialist, growth hacker, and Founder and CEO of McGaw.io, an analytics and marketing technology consultancy firm. He has led the teams at Kissmetrics.com and CodeSchool.com, and served as CMO of Effin Amazing, an analytics and marketing consultancy.In 2015, Dan was selected to be a United States Ambassador of Entrepreneurship by the United States State Department, where he had the privilege to advise universities, governments, and private corporations on how to build entrepreneur ecosystems. McGaw authored his latest book...
2021-06-1737 minThe Virtual CMOSelling Online and Building a Successful E-Commerce Business with Joe ScartzIn episode 77, host Eric Dickmann interviews Joe Scartz. Joe is the Chief Digital Commerce Officer of Velocity Commerce Group and TPN+. He is an experienced executive with over 20 years of quantifiable marketing, digital marketing, and ecommerce success. Scartz has worked across industry verticals like retail, travel, CPG, automotive, branded manufacturers, and government to drive innovative and impactful marketing and e-commerce solutions with proven success. Whether in an e-commerce start-up or in a larger agency, Joe has worked well in team settings as an inspirational leader, mentor, and team member.Joe Scartz is an accomplished marketing executive, and...
2021-06-1435 minThe Virtual CMODiversity, Inclusion, and the Importance of Culture in Marketing with Taunya Renson-MartinIn episode 76, host Eric Dickmann interviews Taunya Renson-Martin. Taunya is an entrepreneur, writer, and Founder and Managing Partner of Mach Media. She leads a remarkable team of global professionals who are not only incredibly skillful but also super nice! Advising clients remain as Martin's passion as well, which is why you’ll still find Taunya creating and implementing strategic marketing communications programs to impact business for a variety of international companies. Strategy, creativity, service, and results are the four words that really light Taunya's fire!Taunya Renson-Martin was born and raised in Washington, D.C. She lived in...
2021-06-1031 min