The people and stories behind the East Metro and St. Croix Valley business community.
Real conversations with the owners behind the businesses you see every day across the East Metro and St. Croix Valley. Produced locally by McKinney Creative Ventures.
Also from MCV: , quick marketing and tech wins for local business.
Flagship show The people and stories behind the East Metro and St. Croix Valley business community.
Interviews with the owners behind the businesses you see every day across the East Metro and St. Croix Valley: their story, their work, and what it takes to build here.
from McKinney Creative Ventures
Short, practical marketing and tech wins for local service businesses: local SEO, AI search, reviews, and automation. Usually under three minutes, posted on Tuesdays.
Woodbury Mayor Anne Burt connects the difficult decision to leave a full-time water-industry career with the community involvement and public service that followed. She joins Sam McKinney to discuss parenting, continued part-time consulting, city planning, infrastructure, and the trust involved in leading Woodbury.
Kathy Hill left South Africa at twenty for what was supposed to be a summer adventure. Ten days after landing in Cleveland she met the man she would marry, and she did not make it home again for six years. She has spent more than two decades in the masonry and landscape trade, a career that started because a stranger watched how she treated her coworkers at a Hardee's and told her to come find him if she ever needed a job. We talk about choosing positivity as an actual discipline, what old buildings hold, and why she tells people to make time for each other now.
Jane Stobbie Keer got her first job at Apple because Apple put its UK office in her small Hertfordshire hometown. She spent twenty years running Train with Jane, teaching designers the software that was inventing itself around them, then started over in Woodbury with nothing when two women handed her their client lists. We talk about teaching, the story behind a name like Keer Keer, and the chronic pain condition she has run a business through for seventeen years.
Elizabeth Yang goes by The Deal Fixer. Companies call her when deals stall. She started her practice by accident, when a stranger asked how much she charged and she had no answer. We talk about trust, holding a decision under pressure, curing over-giving by raising prices, and growing by force versus growing on purpose.
Mitch Bliven washed out of two careers by the age of 24 before a 10-minute assessment explained a decade of burnout. Now he helps people find the work they are wired for. A conversation about wonder, alignment, and building a life that fits.
Gary Borglund wears a lot of hats. Through his nonprofit Generous Harvest he gets fresh produce and eggs from local and Amish farmers to the food shelves that need them, and through Land and Egg Solutions he helps small towns revitalize the tired old buildings at the heart of their main streets. We talk about food access, saving small-town downtowns, and why he would rather feed people than draw a salary.
Henry Schneider builds video for East Metro businesses at Open Window Productions in Oakdale and co-owns Hangtime Board Shop in North St. Paul. We talk about learning through expensive mistakes, why story beats gear every time, when authentic beats polished, and building a business without losing your balance at home.
Tim Voit left corporate a decade ago and became one of the most connected people in the East Metro, running networking groups and building his LegalShield practice entirely on trust and referrals. We talk about the Go-Giver philosophy, getting through fear to clarity, the rise of the fractional workforce, and why it is never about you.
Before AJ Alberts, Steve Grohn went from dairy-farm roots to UPS, Gateway Computers, and the dot-coms. We talk about the winding path to owning one of Woodbury's most trusted plumbing companies, the culture of care he built, and why he is obsessed with getting one percent better.
East Side Enterprise spotlights the owners behind local businesses across the East Metro and St. Croix Valley. If that is you, or someone you know, we would love to have them on.
People are asking Google full questions now, not keywords. With AI-powered Maps, your Google Business Profile is how Google understands your business in the first place. A quick episode on making your profile clear enough for Google's AI to recommend you.
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Replying to every review builds trust and helps you show up on Google. A quick episode on using a free AI assistant to draft warm, professional replies in about two minutes, then making them sound like you.
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A visitor decides in about five seconds whether to stay on your site or leave. A quick episode with a test you can run on your own homepage and the four things that must be visible up top.
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People now ask ChatGPT and Google's AI for local recommendations. A quick episode on how to make your business the answer it gives: consistent information, real reviews, and a clear website.
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Your competitor outranking you in the local map pack is almost never luck. A quick episode on what Google actually rewards, and how to climb it with your Google Business Profile and no ad budget.
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When a local customer reaches out, the first business to respond usually gets the job. A quick episode on speed to lead, and how a simple CRM makes sure no lead slips away while you are working.
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Episode 1 breaks down Google's April 2026 review policy changes in plain English: what is now banned, including review quotas, staff-name solicitation, on-site kiosks, incentives, gating, and insider reviews, plus the FTC angle and how to keep building reviews the compliant way. A companion to our written guide for local service business owners.
Read the full guideWe build the marketing systems we talk about: websites that convert, local SEO and AI search, reviews, and follow-up automation for local service businesses.
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