The Barefoot Executive

Carrie Wilkerson launched The Barefoot Executive on August 27, 2007, with a 10-week-old baby as her fourth child. Rather than building a traditional product or service, she created an online presence by conducting interviews with influential business leaders—what she calls the "Oprah effect." By interviewing experts and funneling their information, she positioned herself as a credible expert without needing to be the one teaching the content. She wasn't calling them podcasts yet; they were tele-summits and tele-conferences. The model was simple: establish authority through association and information curation.

After just 4-5 months of building her online brand, Carrie received an inbound call at her home from a corporate agency representing a direct selling company holding a national conference. They had been listening to her interviews and "stalking" her for weeks. They offered her $2,000 to drive 30 minutes and deliver a 60-minute motivational speech. Carrie negotiated a crucial deal: she could sell her own CDs and information products at the event. Interestingly, she had just visualized buying a $2,000 swing set for her kids and posted it on her vision board the day before—that first keynote fee went directly to that purchase. Even better, she sold more than double in CDs and materials than she earned from the keynote fee itself, demonstrating the power of leveraging speaking engagements for product sales.

Carrie's keynote fees exploded in a 9-month period: $2,000 → $7,500 → $12,500. She credits this rapid scaling to positioning herself as "the prize" rather than desperately chasing clients. She also strategically said "yes" to unpaid or lower-paid speaking when it served other goals: building credibility, capturing contacts, securing book deals, or sharing stages with influential figures like John Maxwell. Her keynoting success led to downstream revenue: a book deal came as an inbound opportunity because of her speaking reputation, and contracts from audience members added substantial revenue beyond the speaking fees themselves. Between 2007 and 2014, keynoting and associated revenue streams (speaking fees, book sales, consulting contracts from audiences) generated well over $1 million. However, she strategically took two nearly complete sabbaticals during this period—one when her youngest went to kindergarten and another during her second child's senior year of high school—proving that growth doesn't require constant hustle.

Carrie now positions herself primarily as a consultant, encourager, and keynote speaker rather than a product seller. She focuses on speaking engagements, high-level consulting, and occasional information products. She's intentionally not marketed herself as a keynote speaker until recently and prefers to focus on podcast appearances over conference circuits to maintain her desired lifestyle. Her youngest is now 8 and homeschools three days a week, allowing flexibility for travel when needed. She attends just one conference per year as a student (recently ClickFunnels' Funnel Hacking Live) to stay sharp. Her key insight: the minute you stop learning, you're "dying on the vine." Her power comes not from constant availability but from the ability to say no, which makes her more desirable and commands higher fees.