We had the good fortune of connecting with Mary Grothe and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Mary, how did you come up with the idea for your business?
After years of being an entrepreneur with two companies and one successful sale, I decided to shift paths and start a different kind of business – a professional performance-speaking career in the faith-based category. I decided to take my previous corporate keynote speaking career, which was mixed into my second company, House of Revenue, where I spoke about building revenue engines and helping CEOs scale their companies, and trade it in for something more aligned with my heart.

In August of 2023, I decided to go all in and carve out a new category for myself. I am not your typical motivational speaker. With my years of training and experience in the performing arts, I bring a theatrical performance that is accompanied by stunning videos, audio, and props, creating the ultimate transformative experience for the audience. I see myself as a performance artist for high-impact, faith-fueled conferences and Christian music concerts—a perfect performer for ‘in-between’ sets that will move your audience!

My keynotes address the inner conflict many Christians face—whether they’re struggling with being lukewarm in their faith, not living up to their full potential, or grappling with understanding why God created them with marketplace talents. These are challenges I have personally encountered.

To make this a business model, I also film these keynotes in a studio in Denver, and then partner with Chris Decker and his production team at Creator Spark in Texas, to make them come to life.

The cinematic/theatrical videos are released 3-4 times per year and those videos will soon be monetized, as my subscribers and views continue to grow on YouTube.

Additionally, as a part of this brand, I launched the Fearless Faith Radio Show. Originally, the show launched on two radio stations through Crawford Broadcasting, but we recently built a podcast studio in my house and now my husband assists as an in-house producer for the shows.

My goal is to monetize this business through speaking fees, ads on YouTube, and sponsors on Fearless Faith. As with many businesses, the startup capital and time requirements have been difficult to manage while working a full-time job, but I believe this will take off as more people learn about it and watch the videos!

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Transitioning from being a stereotypical business entrepreneur into what I am building now was not easy. Previously, I had founded and run two businesses. The first was somewhat successful, but never really took off, and I closed down after 3 years, but the second took off. It scaled to $5M in revenue in 4 years and I was able to successfully sell the company in 2023.

I was then in a full-time Chief Revenue Officer role for about 18 months and began to build my third business ‘after-hours’ while working full-time. Previously, I built my companies as a full-time role, so this was new for me and difficult to manage both. Since my full-time job came first, building my third company often got pushed to the side, prolonging the upfront capital investments and delaying success metrics. In July 2024, I decided to step away from my executive role and into a quieter role, as an individual sales contributor, to create a margin in my life to focus on my third business, since my CRO role often required me to work nights and weekends.

In the last two months, I have been able to spend 8-10 hours per week on my third business and it is starting to gain traction. However, as of now, I am approaching the one-year mark since I started this, and I don’t have much to show for it, which is different for me. Previously, in my two companies in less than two months, I had a fully operating business with a brand, a team, clients, and a strong cash flow.

This time, it has taken months to build, but I believe I am reaching a tipping point and it will pay off soon.
I released my first cinematic keynote production, called Scaling Faith, in March of 2024. Across all social channels, the trailer (https://youtu.be/u4YI7BqgJHc) was viewed about 8,000 times and the full 30-minute version was viewed about 7,000 times across all channels. This also led to a booking at a faith-fueled event in which I was on the ‘ticket’ with Tim Tebow, a life-long dream.

The vision for this business is to carve out a new category for me as a speaker… this is not a typical corporate speaking career. I envision myself performing these theatrical/cinematic keynote performances at well-known faith-based conferences and in between sets at Christian music concerts. In between I will monetize my radio show with sponsors and soon will monetize the cinematic keynote videos with ads, once I reach the minimum threshold of subscribers and views on YouTube.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I love the little town I live in… Castle Rock! I would take my friend up the incline, to listen to music at the amphitheater, and to eat at all the fun places like Tribe at Riverwalk, Angies for Italian, and Pegasus for breakfast.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Two people deserve the shoutout for helping me get to this point. Casey Dowdell (https://www.linkedin.com/in/casey-dowdell-63ab74225/), at Brand Builders Group (https://brandbuildersgroup.com/), is my brand strategist who took on the assignment of rebuilding my personal brand from being a Top 100 CEO who helped over 100 companies scale their revenue. I had a reputation for all things revenue, sales, and marketing. Casey helped me write a new story for everyone – one that was living inside of me but needed to be pulled out and brought into the spotlight. Casey helped me envision my new business as a performance speaker, helped me write my new keynotes, and guided me through the journey to bring my faith into the spotlight, even while still working as a Corporate Executive in Corporate America,

The second person is Chris Decker (https://www.linkedin.com/in/decker-christopher/) at Creator Spark (https://creatorspark.com/). I’ll never be able to put into words what Chris has done for me. Because we had similar backgrounds of alcoholism, abuse, and toxicity in our upbringing, I felt like he knew the pain I experienced growing up… he was able to capture and produce imagery and video illustrations of the hell I used to live in and he helped make my story come to life.

He is the one who filmed and produced my initial cinematic keynote video, Scaling Faith (https://youtu.be/7U6aXyirheQ), which launched in March of 2024, and he helped forever shift how I viewed myself as a speaker. He is extremely talented, knowledgeable, and caring.

Website: https://www.marygrothe.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marygrothe/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marygrothe/

Twitter: https://x.com/MaryLGrothe

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marylgrothe

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MaryGrothe

Other: https://www.fearlessfaithradio.com

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