#71 The Heike Young Route

In this episode, consultant, speaker, and creator,  Heike Young, shares her journey from leading content teams at Salesforce and Microsoft to building her own business helping B2B brands create content through employees, customers, and creators. She reflects on leaving a successful corporate career, the desire for greater flexibility and ownership of her time, and how building an audience on LinkedIn created the foundation for her entrepreneurial leap.Heike breaks down how she landed her first clients through inbound demand, content partnerships, and consulting opportunities that emerged from her online presence. She shares the lessons learned during her first year of business, including the challenges of pricing, packaging offers, balancing multiple audiences, and discovering which types of work created the highest return on her time and energy.The conversation explores the rise of people-generated content in an AI-driven world and why Heike believes authentic human voices are becoming a competitive advantage for brands. She discusses her work training teams to create employee-generated content, her collaboration with LinkedIn creator Vince Pieri, and the realities of building workshops, consulting engagements, and recurring revenue streams.Throughout the episode, Heike reflects on personal branding, content strategy, entrepreneurship, and the tradeoffs of creator-led businesses. She shares what she would do differently, why she is moving away from sponsored content, and how she is shaping a business centered on teaching, creativity, and meaningful client impact.Timestamps:(00:00) Intro(04:21) Building a business through content(13:15) Pricing, coaching, and finding ROI on time(21:04) Helping brands create people-generated content(27:31) Why human-created content matters in the AI era(30:39) Partnering with Vince Pieri and building workshops(37:28) Recurring revenue, execution, and client success(45:17) Lessons learned from building the wrong audience(51:36) What's next for the business(53:20) Moving beyond sponsored content(57:46) Last meal on EarthFollow Heike on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heikeyoung/  Check out Heike’s Website: https://heike-young.com/   –Build a repeatable inbound motion and stabilize your revenue: ⁠https://duoconsulting.co/⁠Each week, we share a new framework, concept, or example of how solopreneurs are scaling from $25,000 to $60,000+ per month: ​​⁠https://www.howsolosscale.com/⁠