In this rapid‑fire interview, Professor Pete Alexander hosts entrepreneur James Carberry, founder of Sweetfish Media, the SaaS platform Showcase, and the media outlet Young Married Christian. Carberry emphasizes the unique value of one‑to‑one relationships forged through podcasting, arguing that the depth of host‑guest connections outweighs generic audience metrics. He identifies the "people chapter" as the most critical business lesson, highlighting hiring, retention, and thoughtful exits, and credits his people leader Ryan Drahti for exemplifying high emotional intelligence. Carberry advises leaders to continuously stack meaningful relationships, focusing on quality over sheer quantity, and suggests engaging with contacts through content interaction. He refers a fellow podcaster and leadership‑development entrepreneur, Blake Bozarth of CoThrive, as a desirable guest. Reflecting on his first job bagging groceries at Super H in Oklahoma, Carberry notes how those early friendships broadened his perspective and reinforced his relational style. The episode concludes with his LinkedIn handle and email for listeners to connect.
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This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast, where business leaders share their insights. It is 6 questions in 7 minutes because successful business leaders are busy and rarely have more time to spare. So let's get to it. Question number 1: In a few sentences, please tell me who you are and what you do.
So my name is James Carberry. I'm the founder of Sweetfish Media and also the founder of a SaaS product called Showcase. And a media company called Young Married Christian. So that is, that's me in a nutshell.
James, it's great to have you on the show. And question number 2, what is something that makes you smile and/or laugh about working in your industry?
So I think something that makes me smile in the podcasting industry specifically is the relationships that you get to build with the guests that you have on your show. I think so many people think about podcasting in terms of in terms of relationships that they build with listeners. And obviously that's the case, the people listening to the show, um, you're able to build relationships at scale, but I don't think enough people think about the one-to-one relationships, even between you and I here, Pete Alexander Alexander, the relationships that you get to build as a podcast host with each guest that you bring onto your show and the community that you then get to build with the collective guests that you bring onto your show. So that's something we're really pressing in at Sweetfish. And, uh, and so something, something that I'm really excited about.
I agree 100% with you, James, because it's so fun when I interview great people like yourself. I really get a connection that is so much better than just, you know, sending a direct message, uh, like on LinkedIn or something, and that, and it just ends after that. It's just you really get a, get more of a friendship there. So totally get that. Question number 3: I have a fictitious book with all the answers for business. What chapter would you think most companies should read?
I think this will probably be multiple chapters, but, uh, if you had to boil it to one, uh, I would say the people chapter. When I think about the success of Sweetfish and why we have grown at the rate that we've grown and, and in the healthy way that we've grown, it's because of the people in our business, the leadership we have installed in our business. Really everybody in the business contributes to those things. And so figuring out how to find the right people, bring the right people onto the bus, keep the right people onto the bus. And then, I mean, even the nuances of how to exit people off of the bus when it is time for them to exit. Those are hard things to do. I'm very, very fortunate that we have a people leader at Sweetfish named Ryan Drahti who does this exceptionally well. He's high, high, high EQ, but also understands the business and has been with us for the last 6 and a half years, really. So incredibly grateful for him. But yeah, that's what I would say there.
I think that's really insightful because, you know, without the right people, as you say, the right people on the bus, it is just going to make life very difficult for the company, whether it's dealing with the customers or just the whole chemistry within the team itself. So really, really good, good advice there. Question number 4, other than the generic work harder, have a great attitude, and care for customers, what insight would you give to other business leaders?
I think the advice I would give to other business leaders is that you should be stacking more and more relationships, meaningful relationships with people, month after month, quarter after quarter, year after year. I think it's really easy to get complacent and think, man, I've got my kind of 2 or 3 really close friendships, uh, the folks outside of my spouse and my kids that kind of pour in and invest. Maybe you have a mentor too, but I just think there's something powerful to continually adding. Not that you need to spend enormous amounts of time with new relationships, you've only got so many hours in a day, but there's so much power that can come from hearing from different perspectives on a regular basis. That's why I love our industry, the industry of podcasting, so much, is it allows you to build new relationships with every new guest that you bring onto your show and hopefully nurture relationships with each of those guests that you're bringing on. Even if it's not jumping on a call every week, maybe it's just engaging with their content on LinkedIn or wherever. But that's the advice I think I would give is to proactively pursue more relationships.
And more quality relationships. Not just having a bunch of connections that never engage with you, but quality relationships. Yeah, really good advice. Thank you so much. Question number 5, what other business leader like yourself would you like to acknowledge and invite to be on my podcast?
Yeah, so I would say Blake Bozarth. He is one of my dear friends here in Orlando. He runs a podcast called Leadership on Purpose, runs a company called CoThrive. They do leadership development for companies. He's just one of the most thoughtful, entrepreneurs, leaders that I know, and I think he'd be a fantastic guest here.
Sounds like it. I look forward to talking to him. Thank you for that referral. And our final question, question number 6, please tell me about your first job.
Yeah, so my first job, I used to bag groceries at a grocery store called Super H in Choctaw, Oklahoma, and I think the thing that I remember most about that job is, are the friendships that I made at that job. Obviously I'm very relational. I love, I love forming friendships wherever I go. And the friends that I met there were very much, they were very different than kind of the church friends that I had in the other part of my life. And so it gave me some different perspectives and it allowed me to I don't know, understand things from a lens that I wasn't exposed to prior to getting that job. And so that was a really interesting season of life. And I look back on it really fondly.
It sounds like that. And, you know, it's interesting too, because a job like that, you are exposed to the general public, but in a bagging standpoint, you know, as I think about it from all the times that I've been in the grocery store, most of the time the baggers get a thank you because they're given a survey service versus the cashier who the customer may say, how come that was charged, overcharged, or whatever, right? So it probably was a real positive experience based on what you were saying.
Yeah, we did it all. I mean, at that little small shop, we did it all, right? So it was bagging, you're the cashier some days, you're the guy stocking the shelves other days. But yeah, it was a fun season of life.
That's great. Thank you for sharing that. And James, thanks so much for being on the show. How can people find you?
Yeah, so I'm really active on LinkedIn. You can just search James Carberry, C-A-R-B-A-R-Y, and then my email is james@sweetfishmedia.com.
Perfect. This is Professor Pete Alexander with the Winning at Business and Life podcast. Get hundreds of amazing business insights from previous guest episodes on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for listening.
