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Nile Nickel interviews Lolly Daskal, Inc. magazine's most popular writer, executive coach Lolly Daskal. In the interview Lolly explains how anyone can recognize and leverage the leadership gaps that stand in the way of greatness. The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness
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The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing - with Jason Falls
Largo, Florida - April 4, 2016- In this show Nile Nickel talks with Jason Falls the award-winning social media strategist and widely read industry pundit, Jason is known as a top influencer in the social technology and marketing space by Forbes, Entrepreneur, Advertising Age and others. His strategies and ideas have touched iconic brands like General Motors, AT&T, Makers Mark, Humana and CafePress, among others. Jason leads strategy for Elasticity, an innovative agency that blends public relations, social media, mobile and SEO to help brands adjust and excel in an ever-changing marketing landscape. He is the co-author of two books: No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide To Social Media Marketing (Que 2011), and The Rebels Guide To Email Marketing (Que 2012). Falls is also noted for founding SocialMediaExplorer.com, one of the industry’s most widely read blogs.
Jason is the co-author of two books: No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide To Social Media Marketing (Que 2011), and The Rebels Guide To Email Marketing (Que 2012). Falls is also noted for founding SocialMediaExplorer.com, one of the industry’s most widely read blogs.
No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media MarketingThe In-Your-Face, Results-Focused, No-“Kumbaya” Guide to Social Media for Business!
Detailed techniques for increasing sales, profits, market share, and efficiencySpecific solutions for brand-building, customer service, R&D, and reputation managementFacts, statistics, real-world case studies, and rock-solid metricsStop hiding from social media--or treating it as if it’s a playground. Start using it strategically. Identify specific, actionable goals. Apply business discipline and proven best practices. Stop fearing risks. Start mitigating them. Measure performance. Get results. You can. This book shows you how. Jason Falls and Erik Deckers serve up practical social media techniques and metrics for building brands, strengthening awareness, improving service, optimizing R&D, driving better leads--and closing more sales. “Conversations” and “communities” are wonderful, but they’re not enough. Get this book and get what you really want from social media: profits. Think social media’s a passing fad? Too risky? Just a toy? Too soft and fuzzy? Not for your business? Wake up! It’s where your customers are. And it ain’t going away. Does that suck? No. It doesn’t. Do social media right, and all those great business buzzwords come true. Actionable. Measurable.And...wait for it...here comes the big one. Profitable. Damn profitable. Want to know how to do it right? We’ll show you. And, yeah, we know how because we’ve done it. This is the bullshit-free, lie-free, fluff-free, blessedly non-New-Age real deal. You’re going to learn how to use social media to deliver absolutely killer customer service. How to R&D stuff people actually want. Develop scads of seriously qualified leads. You’ll figure out what you want. You know, the little things like profits, market share, loyalty, and brand power. You’ll figure out how to measure it. And then you’ll go get it. One more thing. We know what scares you about social media. Screwing up (a.k.a., your mug on the front page of The Wall Street Journal). So we’ll tell you what to do so that won’t happen. Ever. No B.S. in this book. Just facts. Metrics. Best practices. Stuff to warm the hearts of your CFO, CEO, all your C-whatevers. And, yeah, you. So get your head out from under the pillow. Get your butt in gear. Let’s go make some money.
The Rebel's Guide to Email Marketing: Grow Your List, Break the Rules, and WinA No-Nonsense, Take-No-Prisoners Plan for Earning Positive Return on Your Email Marketing! “They” say email is dead. Baloney! 94% of Americans use email. Passionate social networkers use email more, not less. Mobile email is huge. Email offers marketers more opportunities than ever...opportunities to guide customers from consideration and trial to repeat purchase, loyalty, even advocacy! But email has changed. Email users have changed. To get breakthrough results, you must break the rules! Whether you’re B2B or B2C, Fortune 500 or startup, this is a complete no-nonsense plan for transforming your email marketing. Discover radically better ways to handle every facet of your campaign: lists, From names, Subject lines, calls to action, social network integration...everything! Learn how to
Discover which email marketing “rules” are obsolete--and when to break the restOptimize every component of your message and campaignDrive list growth that translates directly into the top lineEncourage opt-in by systematically simplifying signupBring real humor and creativity back into your emailWrite a great main call to action--and great secondary and tertiary calls, tooTake full advantage of tools ranging from QR codes to texting to grow your email listMake better technical decisions about prechecked opt-in boxes and other attributesKnow when to deliberately introduce “imperfections” into your emailsUse email marketing and social media to power each otherPrepare for the short- and long-term futures of email marketing Links:Email Address: [email protected] Twitter Handle: @JasonFalls Facebook Profile: http://facebook.com/jasonfalls LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonfalls Websites: http://goelastic.com, http://jasonfalls.com
Show Transcript:Segment 1 [Weird Ass News - No Transcript Available]Segment 2:Nile: Hey, I’d like to welcome you to the social media business hour tonight. We’ve got Jason Falls on. You heard a tease upfront so you’re going to learn some great things about social listening and I’m sort of fascinated to hear that topic myself. And Jason, by the way, is a leading digital strategist, author, speaker and thinker in the digital and social media marketing industry. His strategies and ideas have touched iconic brands probably you’ve never heard of like General Motors, AT&T, my personal favorite Makers Mark, Humanic, FA Press and many others. Jason: Everyone likes that one. Nile: Yeah, it’s -- that’s always a good one to warm us up in these cold winter times. Jason: Exactly. Nile: Well, you know, one of the things that you talk about and you’ve got a sort of a really innovative agency. Elasticity, correct? Jason: That’s right. Elasticity. We’re about, you know, we’re a boutique agency. We’ve got about 30, 35 people headquartered in Saint Louis. It was founded by three former Omnicom executives and I actually was -- when I was the vice president for digital strategy at Café Press a few years ago I brought Elasticity to Café Press to be our sort of marketing, digital marketing and PR firm. And, you know, just absolutely loved them so much that -- I mean, there was a little bit of an executive change over at Café Press and I was sort of looking for a different opportunity. I just kind of gave them a call and said hey, is -- would it be possible for us to work together? And it sort of worked out. So, I’ve been there a little over a year. I run a Louisville office and we continued to grow and create content strategies and stuff for clients that we just have a lot of fun doing it. Nile: I was going to say the size of it sounds like you are. I mean, that doesn’t sound so boutique anymore. Jason: Well, I mean, I guess, you know, I guess it’s all relative. I mean, when I think of a boutique agency I think of anything under 50 people. You know, once you get over 50 you’re starting to get pretty big and layered but we’re small enough as an agency that we are still very flat and by that I mean there’s not a great hierarchy. We bring the right subject matter experts to the table for each client so it’s not just an account executive who is the liaison between the client and everybody else in the agency. When we have a client call or a meeting, you know, the media planning and buying, you know, person on that particular account is at the table, the creative director’s at the table, the account executive’s at the table, the strategist is at the table, the guy doing the SEO and pay per click stuff, the guy doing the community management or the gal doing community management is sitting there as well. So, we have a very flat organization which makes for a great collaborative environment. Nile: Sounds like it does and I know that you guys have won a number of awards. You personally have as well. You’re widely read in the industry. Considered a pundit. You’re also noted as the top -- go ahead. Jason: I was just going to say it’s great that I’m considered a pundit because I don’t know how to spell it but that’s okay. Nile: You know, to me that always sounds like the guy on the football team that, you know, kicks the football. But that’s just me. Jason: Exactly. Nile: That’s just me. Well, and you also coauthored two books. I like your first book title. You probably listen to the show and you know that we have a segment in part of the social media business hour. It’s called weird ass news. So, you’ve got the no bullshit social media the all business no hype guide to social media marketing. And then you’ve got the rebel’s guide to email marketing. So, I like both of those titles. I think it says a lot about you. Jason: It does. I’ve got a little bit of a non-conformist personality. I typically -- I’m the guy in -- that you sat next to in class growing up who always had a problem with authority and was probably continually sent to the principal’s office. That’s kind of me and it’s not necessarily that I’m, you know, that I _____04:16 at rules and all that. But I just have a disruptive personality which, you know, in the marketing world these days is what you’re looking for. You’re looking for people who can -- especially with content marketing online you’re looking at people who can help you disrupt, you know, the status quo of way too much signal or way too much noise and not enough signal. And so disruption is something that, you know, we pride ourselves on at Elasticity creating ideas that make people perk up and take notice and so, you know, no bullshit social media was where I first pitched the idea for the book to Pierson and Q, my publisher. I said if you won’t use the title I’m not going to write this book for you because the title is absolutely the essence of the book. It has to be the title. And they came back and said if Barnes and Noble likes it, we like it. And Barnes and Noble was like thumbs up man. We’ll put that on the in cap. Those are great -- that’s a great title. So, it worked out really well. Nile: That is absolutely super. And, you know, I’ve never heard that I’m a rebel or a non-conformist ever. Well, at least in the last five minutes so -- listen, I know where you’re coming from and I appreciate that. Well, you know, one of the things that you talked about -- you talked about this in the tease before we got started. You’ve even mentioned it here. As we’ve just got -- we’ve allowed people to get to know you a bit. You mentioned social listening and, you know, I’m going to understand that concept. I talk to people a lot about engagement with their audience and I’m curious how engagement and social listening relate to each other. Jason: Well, they’re certainly intertwined but I think to define social listening let’s first define social monitoring because there’s a difference. In, you know, in 2007, 2008 as companies started to really look at social marketing as a viable avenue to reach consumers lots of software vendors started to pop up to try to make sense of this social media mess out there for brands and one of the popular sort of verticals of software that popped up was social media monitoring software. And so if you’ve heard of brands like [?] and Radiant Six and, you know, some of those types of software. There’s even a free one out there called socialmention.com where you type in a keyword or a phrase and just like Google these softwares go out to all the social networks and blogs and even beyond that. Forums and message boards. And find mentions of that particular keyword, term or phrase and sort of quantify it for you. How many people are talking about it, what are they saying, is it positive, is it negative? Etcetera, etcetera. So, social media monitoring in my mind or kind of the definition of it is just that monitoring. Watching what’s going on on the social web so that you can quantify the conversation about you. Social listening takes that concept one step further where you’re not just quantifying, you’re not just measuring but you’re actually doing something with the data. You’re doing something with the information. You are extrapolating insights. So, you might be doing what many brands do with social listening which is social customer service. They find people complaining about a product or service. They reach out proactively and try to -- or actually it’s reactively because they wait for someone to say something negative. They react to that and reach out and try to conduct a little customer service on social media but there’s so much more there and real, true social listening is when you say I’m going to monitor the conversation. Not necessarily about my company but about the whole category. The whole category of the industry I’m in and I’m going to look for what people are saying about the types of products they like. The types they dislike. So, you’re trying to get consumer insights out of the social conversation just like you would try to get them out of consumers through a focus group or a survey. The data here is unstructured, there’s a lot more of it and it’s a lot harder to sift through but if you are practicing social listening very well you can actually get the same type of insights for your product, for your consumer experience or even for your content marketing out of just the conversations that are happening every day on the web. Nile: You know, I want to do something that, you know, when I was in marriage counseling way back when the therapist told me it was a good thing to do. So, I’m going to parrot back what you’ve said based on my perspective and what I heard and I’d like to get your comments on it because I think it might help the listeners as well. What I heard you talk about was social monitoring is sort of the analytics and the keyword analysis to find out what people are talking about on the social platform. Whatever that might be. Social listening is where you start listening for specific keywords, specific topics that you want to engage with if you will. And then we talk just a tiny bit about engagement. I’m going to put engagement on top of this. Engagement is where now you start engaging in some sort of conversation based on the listening that you did as discovered by the monitoring that you -- that lead you there. Is that fair? Jason: That’s -- yeah. that’s absolutely fair. That’s right in there. What I would say about -- to extend the conversation into engagement is when you’re doing a really good job at social listening you are understanding more about your audience and what it is that they are looking for not just in your product or your service but in the experience they have with companies like yours and the types of content that companies like yours can provide to intrigue them. And I’ll give you a quick example. Vespa, the really fancy scooters that you can buy. You know, it’s kind of like, you know, today’s version of the Moped only they’re really nice and, you know, well designed. So, Vespa had this, you know, standard blog on their website where they blogged all about scooters and driving scooters and what driving a Vespa was like. And they started looking at -- they actually started the practice of social listening to say okay. We want to find out what our customers -- and we want to try to identify our customers online, on social networks and we want to listen to what they talk about besides scooters. We want to know what else intrigues them so that we can understand them more. And what they found when they did that was that Vespa customers, when they are talking online about anything and everything have a much higher tendency -- they index higher than the normal, average person talking online in the categories of art and fashion and design and, you know, sort of that sort of genre of the world. So, you’ve got a higher cultured consumer that is a Vespa customer compared to customers of other scooter companies or just the general web. Well, that insight lead them to say you know what? We need to change our blog and stop talking about -- yeah, yeah. Nile: We’re going to carry what they learned and what they did about it over into the next segment. Does that sound fair? Jason: Okay. That sounds great. We’ll talk about what they learned in a second. Nile: Yeah. so, make sure you join us. Nile Nickel and Jason Falls on social media business hour in our next segment.
Segment 3Hey, welcome back and if you listened to the first segment, man, we’re into some fascinating conversations. This is Nile Nickel with the social media business hour. You hear me all the time but we’ve got Jason Falls, just a fascinating gentleman and as we talked about in the first segment a pundit. You could go back and listen to that conversation. But in our first segment we got into social listening and you started to describe -- and they’ll have to go back to figure out what we’re talking about, social listening, into that first segment. But we were talking about Vespa and Vespa had done some listening and that listening allowed them to gain insights into other interests, you know, basically the what else their consumers were interested in and then you were given an example of what they did with that. Jason: Right. And I got so excited about telling the story I forgot we needed to break for a segment so I apologize. But so they discovered obviously that the Vespa customer was a -- has a higher tendency to talk about art and fashion and design. So, what they decided to do with that information was they said we’re going to stop just writing about scooters and transportation and getting around and whatnot on our blog and we’re going to turn our blog into an online magazine and again, the mechanism doesn’t change. It’s still a blog. But they changed the name of it from blog to magazine because again, they’re going after a higher brow consumer, someone who’s much more into design, fashion, art, etcetera. And they changed the content to be really focused on art, interior design, fashion, so on and so forth. And so what they did was they changed their content on their website. They started calling it a magazine instead of a blog and that attracted more people like their customers to come to Vespa, to read articles, to share content, so on and so forth. Over the course of -- I think it was a three-month period. They measured 50000 I think it was new, unique visitors to their website. And from those 50000 new visitors they were able to gain -- I think it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 1400 new leads of people who wanted to buy Vespas. Because again they were creating the type of content that a person who might want to buy a Vespa wanted to consume. So, it was listening to the conversation to try and gain insights about their customers that they could then turn into something actionable which would drive more customers, more leads and more transactions. So, that’s the type of thing you can do if you’re doing social listening well. Nile: Now, what I took away from that because I’m an analytical guy is I was looking -- and I said well that’s about 2.8 percent conversion from followers to leads. That’s huge. Jason: It’s -- it is. It’s fantastic. And when you talk to people in the digital marketing space about conversion, you know, click through rates, things of that nature you have to remember the average pay per click advertisement -- just average is a .2 percent click through rate, right. That’s basically one in 10000 visitors to a search page is going to click on that pay per click ad. And that’s kind of the standard that you work from when you’re trying to look at how efficient you are in digital conversions. When you’re talking two, three, four percent -- and there’s some digital marketing case studies I’ve seen where you get 30 and 40 percent click through rates. Those are obviously rare and crazy, insatiable things. But when you’re talking two, three, four percent you’re talking significant jump in visits --
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Liz O’Donnell is the General Manager of Double Forte, a marketing firm expert at connecting companies to the people who matter to them via digital, marketing, and content strategies. She is also the co-founder of SheStarts, which supports the growing pipeline of women founders in Boston through networking, coaching and events. Liz is the author of Mogul, Mom & Maid: The Balancing Act of the Modern Woman, a book that picks up where other business books leave off understanding the impact women’s personal lives have on their careers and the ways business can support working women. She is a frequent speaker and consultant to women who want to thrive and the organizations that want to reach and mobilize women. Interesting Facts and Sound Bites: Her first blog, Hello Ladies, was named one of the top 100 websites for women by Forbes, a Best of the Net by Working Mother Magazine and a Voice of the Year by BlogHer. Today you can find her blogging at WorkingDaughter.com, a resource for women balancing career and caring for their aging parents. She is passionate about helping women thrive and helping companies reach and mobilize this powerful resource. Liz has been also named as the "Voice of the Year" and a "must read" political blogger by BlogHer. She is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post, MomsRising and SheKnows.
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Guest Bio: Stephan Spencer is an internationally recognized SEO expert and bestselling author. He is the author of “Google Power Search”, co-author of “Social eCommerce”, and co-author of the “The Art of SEO”, now in its 3rd edition and considered THE bible on SEO. Stephan founded Netconcepts in 1995 and grew it into a multi-national SEO agency before selling it in 2010 to Covario. Stephan continued as a sought-after SEO and digital strategy consultant. His clients post-acquisition have included Zappos, Sony Store, Quicksilver, Best Buy Canada, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Chanel. Stephan speaks at many Internet marketing events, including SES, SMX, PubCon, Internet Retailer, Shop.org, etc. He’s contributed to Huffington Post, Search Engine Land, DM News and MarketingProfs, among others. Stephan is the creator of Traffic Control, a 3-day seminar on SEO, co-creator of the 3-day professional development seminar Passions into Profits with Kris Jones, and the host of 2 podcasts, The Optimized Geek and Marketing Speak. Interesting Facts and Sound Bites:
He holds an M.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.Inventor of “The Gravitystream” - an automated pay-for-performance natural search technology platform, re-branded as RIO SEO Website Optimizer. Show Notes:Nile: Hey, welcome back to the social media business hour. We’re talking with Stephan Spencer and Stephan is a true SEO expert. He’s really written the bible on SEO. Go back in the first segment if you’d like and listen to the details regarding that. But without getting into the details we were talking about some SEO strategies and one of the things that we happened to talk about was an SEO audit and in that audit finding duplicate content. Now, one of the questions I get asked a lot Stephan is about duplicate content. What’s considered duplicate content? What’s not? You know, what would get you slapped by Google if you will. And so rather than me speculating on it let me just ask you about that. Stephan: Yeah, great question. So, let me first dispel a big myth about duplicate content. It doesn’t create a penalty situation. It is a filter. Not a penalty. So, when you get filtered because you have duplicate content that another more authoritative site also has it’s not like you are being slapped. It’s just basically that you’re not being favored over a more authoritative site. And this can happen if you’re even the originator of the content. So, let’s say that you have created unique valuable content about cruises and cruise lines and various, you know, just each cruise line, princess cruises and so forth. And this is an actual real world case. A company, cruises.com created all these different write ups about each cruise and each cruise line and so forth and then they would syndicate it to various sites that -- like airline partners and travel partners like Orbits. And guess who would end up winning the duplicate content filter war in Google. It wasn’t cruises.com. it wasn’t even any of the airlines. It was Orbits. Because when you think about how much authority Orbits has with all of these links and really powerful, important links pointing to their site. So, cruises.orbits.com was the site that would win out and then everything else would get filtered. So, you don’t want to get filtered out. Even if you’re the originator of the content that can happen so there’s some strategies and tactics you can use to ensure that doesn’t happen. Like for example, any partners you’re syndicating to asking them to link back to the -- your original article from their article. Like if you’re syndicating an article to various business sites then you could have in the byline or the bio where you specify, you know, just your company and so forth. You can include a link to the original article on your site. Not just to your home page because we want to link directly to the article in question so that Google can see that oh, this is the originator. And also when you’re the first one to show that article on the web and then later your syndication partners start to show it on their websites that’s also a signal. And then there’s another thing that -- I’ll geek out for just a moment here and then we’ll get back to normal talk. And that’s called a canonical tag. So, you add this into the HTML code. It’s not really difficult to do. It’s just one line of HTML and it just specifies what the definitive source URL of that piece of content is and so if you get permission, you get buy in from this syndicating partner that they’ll put a canonical tag in your HTML on the page that points to your URL, your article on your site then that will be a very definitive signal to Google that you’re the originator of that content. Nile: You know, if you happen to share content or get it syndicated and the syndication partner -- obviously, you might want. But they are not going to do anything related to linking back to you or allowing this conical tag. Did I get that right? Stephan: Canonical tag. Nile: Canonical. See? I told you I’d mispronounce it. What -- or how much of the content do you have to change on your page to make it unique? Stephan: Substantial. It would have to be very substantial. Because if you just move your paragraphs around or you add an extra paragraph -- think of it like if you had this imaginary five or six-word long window that you ran across both pages to compare and contrast them and see how many of those -- these are called shingles. These five or six word long windows are in common between the two documents. Shuffling paragraphs around is going to still leave most of those shingles in common between the two documents. Adding an extra paragraph or reducing a paragraph, that’s still going to keep -- leave most of the shingles in common between the two documents. You’d have to do a substantial rewrite. Paraphrase most everything. Or significantly augment the content with tons of like user generated content, lots of customer reviews or discussion forum posts and things like that to really differentiate your content from the other site. And that’s also -- we didn’t even go into the issue of duplicate content that you’re causing to your own site just by misconfiguring all the -- like the URL structure or having superfluous parameters in the URL. And I’m getting geeky again. Sorry. I just -- I’m a geek. Nile: That’s okay. Keep getting geeky. You know, we get some technical people on here so we want to know this. Stephan: Yeah, yeah. and actually I’m a podcaster as well so -- when I say I’m a geek I actually have a show that has geek in its name. optimized geek. Nile: I like it. Stephan: So, yeah. I’m a real geek. So, anyways, if you have duplicate content on your own site -- so, you are competing with yourself. Now it’s like you are creating not only duplicate content but you’re creating page rank dilution. So, think of it this way. Like if the leading candidate for president -- whoever that is. I’m not going to get into Trump and all that sort of stuff. But let’s say whoever your favorite candidate is had a twin brother or a sister, whatever. And they both ran and they had similar platforms and they didn’t really have any differentiating, you know, their level of experience was pretty much the same and so forth. You’d have a hard time picking one of them, right? So, it would split the vote and neither would win. So, imagine doing that on your website. You have five different variants of the same exact product page at different URLs. You know, flags or parameters in the URL, tracking parameters and things and they’re all picked up by Google. It’s like having four twin brothers and you both, you know, all of you running for president and none of you are going to win. Nile: You know, so people get into article spinners and then they’re looking to change words out in the article and they get the percentage of words and all that type stuff. It sounds like that’s sort of a game that they’re probably not going to win. Is that a fair statement? Stephan: Oh, are they not going to win? In fact, they are going to lose very badly because most of Google’s future algorithm is going to be based on machine learning and you can bet that with artificial intelligence they’re going to be able to sniff out any of that nonsense and if it does not read like it was written by a human and it like reads like poetry -- you can't make an article spinner right like Shakespeare or, you know, whatever. Pick your favorite poet or a writer, right. So, you cannot fool the search engines going forward. You might be able to fool them today or a couple of years ago. But even today I’d say you probably aren’t fooling them. Maybe a few years ago possibly. So, you are down a path that is not going to bode well for -- it’s not going to -- you’re not going to win. You are going to in fact lose. Certainly get penalized for it. And when you do something that you think okay. I’m going to kind of skate the edge here and see how far I can get away with this and I know it’s not cool, I know it’s against Google’s guidelines but it works. And other people are having success with it. So, I’m going to keep writing this out until I think it’s too dangerous and then I’ll stop. That’s a terrible idea because what will happen is Google will be able to retroactively look back on all your bad behavior because they’re keeping a rap sheet on you for certain. And they’re going to be able to figure out -- hey, wait a second. You have a pattern of, you know, skating on the edge here, doing stuff that’s against Google’s guidelines until you suddenly think you’re about to get caught and then you stop. We’re sick of that and we’re going to slap you like you’ve never been slapped before. And rightly so. You know, you had it coming to you. Nile: Yeah, and that’s what everybody, you know, has heard about the Google slap that happened to a lot of people and they went from respectable or high rankings to being invisible. Stephan: Yeah, but they think in terms of like okay. I did this thing and then I got caught or I did this and then I got caught or I do this thing and I don’t -- did I get caught? I’m not sure but suddenly my rankings are not what they used to be and so forth. So, they can't pinpoint it to a particular algorithmic update. What they’re not thinking about is they’ve created a pattern of bad behavior. Google’s been keeping that rap sheet on them and they can retroactively go back and reassess, reanalyze the data, figure out that you were doing something that was not okay and you have this pattern of stuff and something that probably wouldn’t on its own have gotten you in trouble; with that pattern of bad behavior you’re slapped. Nile: That makes perfect sense and I know a lot of people won’t like that but let’s go back to where you were talking about duplicate content on your own site. And it’s not there for any other reason than you’re trying to create, you know, different pages on your site that address specific issues and you might have people look at content on those pages. Stephan: Yeah. it’s totally inadvertent. It’s not like you said well, let’s create five different copies of every product in my catalogue or, you know, whatever. It’s just that whoever built the site didn’t know what they didn’t know. Nile: If you encounter that problem, is there any way to basically say this is my main page, these other pages, you know, ignore because -- it’s something like that if you will. Stephan: Yeah, absolutely. That’s what the canonical tag was built for. So that really reduces the duplicate content. The thing is it’s only a hint. It’s not an absolute directive so Google may or may not obey that canonical tag but the -- before the canonical tag was cross domain meaning it covered multiple websites -- you could go, you know, like let’s say you get syndicated onto -- I don’t know. Businessinsider.com or something, right. And they agree to do a canonical tag back to your site, to your original article on your blog. Well, back in the day when canonical tags were brand new that was not supported. You only could use canonical tags within your own site and that was to reduce the duplicate content that was inadvertent created because of tracking parameters and things like that. Because if you have like added to the end of your URLs source=blog to track when people are coming into your home page from your blog or source=email if you’re tracking people coming in from your email newsletter and then you also have that email newsletter archive down the web and, you know, have all these different pathways into the home page and they all are different URLs with that source= whatever tracking parameter. Now you’ve created umpteen number of duplicates of your home page and that’s not -- that creates that duplicate content situation we’ve been talking about. Nile: Okay, okay. It makes sense. Well, listen, we’ve got a lot to talk about. I feel like we’ve barely scratched the surface but we’re at the end of another segment. So, join us in the next segment. You definitely don’t want to miss what’s coming up next. And we’ll be right back. Hey, welcome back to the social media business hour. This has been so exciting. We’re in segment three of a three segment interview with Stephan Spencer who is -- I’m going to change your title. I was saying that you wrote the bible on SEO. I’m now going to make you the SEO god so -- you might argue that Google really is in that position because they’re the guys that are making the rules but listen. I’ve learned so much. I appreciate it. Thank so much Stephan. Stephan: It’s great being here. Thanks for having me. Nile: So, you know, if somebody wants to learn some more about some of the SEO there’s a lot of tools out there. Are there any tools that are really worth your time? Stephan: There’s so many. That’s a great question because there are a lot of time wasting tools out there but there are some great tools and it depends on what you’re trying to do. Like some people will buy a big, expensive enterprise level tool and then they don’t have anybody to run the tool which is absolutely ridiculous. It’s like buying a really expensive car and nobody has time to drive it. What a waste of resource. So, if you instead buy lower priced tools and you spend your money on internal resources, staffing and outside consultants and so forth that’s way more effective use of your money. So, my favorite tools -- and I’m using these for all my clients, right. So, every engagement where I’m dealing with the three pillars of SEO which is, you know, every engagement I’m dealing with all three pillars so architecture, content and links if you recall. So, for links I’m using link analysis tools such as AH _____16:28 majestic.com, open site explorer which is part of MOZ. Of course Google has their free tools inside of Google search console. It used to be called Google web master tools. Doing link analysis with those. And linkresearchtools.com. these are all fantastic tools and I recommend having at least a couple of them so that you can compare and contrast the data that’s coming out of them and the reporting because they’re all different. They’re using different algorithms, different data sets, they crawl the web differently and to varying degrees. So, that’s just link analysis to figure out what your competitors are doing, where they’re getting their links from and which links are the most authoritative, important, trusted links so that you can maybe go after some of those same links and -- but again. That’s more tactics than strategy. You’ve got to have a strategy to like go viral with some crazy, amazing content marketing piece and so forth. And so we can circle back to that if you’d like. But so that’s link analysis. And then let’s say we’re doing some competitive intelligence on what keywords and so forth are driving the most traffic and rankings for our competitors. We could look at tools like search metrics. That’s M-E-T-R-I-C-S.com or semrush.com. and if we’re talking about keyword research to figure out which keywords are popular. Not based on looking at our competition and what they’re getting traffic on but just like what’s popular with Google searchers in our niche, our categories and so forth. Then you want to use the Google AdWords keyword planner which is a free tool. You just have to have a Google AdWords account which means you have to sign up with AdWords and give them your credit card but you don’t have to start buying AdWords campaigns. You can just never do that. And then log in and start using this free tool inside of Google AdWords called the keyword planner and this will tell you which keywords are more popular than others, synonyms, verb tenses, plurals versus singulars, all that sort of great stuff. And there’s complication with like -- algorithms have gotten better over time with google so it’s not so much like oh, I’ve got to get the right verb tense or I have to get the singular or the plural right depending on which one’s more popular. It’s more about entities and stuff so we can geek out on that later. But keyword research tools, that’s one of my favorites but there’s also keyworddiscovery.com which is a paid tool. There’s a tool within authority labs that’s great for doing keyword research. Authority labs is knows as being a tool for tracking your rankings. Your search rakings across the engines. It’s like Google and Bing and so forth. And speaking of tracking your rankings if you have never thought of YouTube as a search engine you should because it’s the number two search engine by search volume, number of search queries. So, tracking your rankings on the YouTube search engine is something that’s not on anybody’s radar for the most part but it should be. And there’s a tool called Woot that you probably have never heard of that allows you to track your YouTube search rankings as well as some other YouTube engagement metrics like watch time and number of views and favorites and likes versus dislikes. All that sort of good stuff so that’s -- Nile: Okay, spell that one for us. Stephan: Yeah. Woot, W-O-O-T.net. Nile: Okay, great. Stephan: Yeah. lots of tools. Nile: Well, you know what? That -- listen, that’s worth the price of admission just to the podcast here for getting that listing of tools. And I know that wasn’t a complete list. Stephan: Not even close. Nile: But, you know, the thing that amazes me is you were just rattling all of that off the top of your head. Stephan: Oh, yeah. there’s a lot more up there. Nile: I can't remember all three of my names consistently. First, last and middle. I’ve got to stop and think every once and a while so that was impressive. Stephan: Oh, thank you. Nile: So, listen, what are some of the common or maybe even the most common myth about SEO? Stephan: Boy, there’s so many. And I actually created a white paper full of myths to dispel many of them. There were 72 in that document all in so -- Nile: And I bet you that document’s on your website, isn’t it? Stephan: It is. It’s my lead magnet on my home page, on stephanspencer.com. so, yes. You can go ahead and download that if you’re listening -- if you’re driving don’t do that now. Go do that later when you’re in front of a computer. Nile: Yeah, we’ll have the links on social media business hour. This is episode 142 so no problem. Just go get the links and in the meantime continue to listen. Stephan: Yeah, yeah. so, let me give you a few examples of just myths that need to die but still haven’t. so, I still, to this day in Florida people are talking about meta tags and them having really any value for SEO. And I’ll -- let me get into specifics here because details matter. Like the devil’s in the details. So, the meta keywords tag is a meta tag that never counted in Google. And this is a great screening question by the way. If you’re looking to hire a consultant or an in house SEO person ask them about meta tags and specifically about meta keywords. What’s your process for optimizing meta keywords, how are you going to go about doing that? And if they give you any answer other than meta keywords what -- they never counted. Never. If that’s not their answer you boot them out the door because they never counted in Google. And if they give you some BS line about how, you know, they’re not as important as they used to be. Or yeah, they used to matter and not anymore. None of that is true. They never counted in Google and I can point to concrete evidence of that fact. Google webmaster central blog which is owned by Google and Google engineers write for that blog. They said that -- and back in 2009. We never counted the meta keywords tag. So, that’s one. And there’s another meta tag that’s talked about a lot called -- so, that was the meta keywords tag. Now I’m going to talk about the meta description tag. Do you know the meta description tag doesn't move your rankings at all? It’s not part of the rankings algorithm. It’s only used to influence the snippet that’s displayed on your search listing. So, you can change that snippet from like a copyright statement all rights reserved sort of thing to something more compelling which is great. But if you’re position nine, who cares? Nobody’s going to see that search listing. You’re buried. Yeah, you’re on page one but barely. So, instead do stuff that’s going to improve your rankings in the search results instead of tweaking the snippet that’s displayed. So, meta descriptions, that’s a very much a second order activity if that, right. Focus on the things that really move the needle. So, you could ask another kind of trick question or screening question of your candidate in front of you in the interview. Like tell me about the meta description and how that influences the rankings or how that -- where that plays in Google’s rankings algorithm. And if they give you any answer other than it doesn’t count, it’s not part of the rankings algorithm you boot them out the door. Nile: Well, you’ve got a quick boot process. I mean, we’ve got two questions already that we could identify if they know anything and boot them quickly. Stephan: Yeah, so just download my white paper and you’ve got 72. Nile: And if they don’t get through all 72 you know that you need to be looking for somebody else. Stephan: Yeah. Nile: I bet that you have some recommendations. Tell us a little bit about your business and how people could engage with you in all seriousness. Stephan: Yeah, okay, cool. So, I used to have like dozens of staff. We were in three different countries and it was fun. And I decided after I sold my agency that I was not going to replicate that again. That I was only going to take on a small number of clients that I could work with individually rather than just handing them off because when you run an agency, you’re the thought leader who is writing books and speaking at conferences and so forth you don’t have time to work on individual clients when you’ve got, you know, 30, 40, 50 active clients at any given point in time. So, I take a small number of clients and I work with them directly. I’m the one doing the deep dive SEO audits, I’m the one writing the content marketing strategy and presenting it. I’m the one who’s doing the keyword research and creating keyword strategy and doing the ongoing month by month kind of retainer work for the clients. Now, I don’t do all the like trench work. I’ll recommend, you know, outside people for doing things like optimizing individual title tags across a 10000-page website. I mean, I’m not going to -- I’d rather like -- I’d rather pull my teeth out than do that work. But the more strategic work and the really -- the deep dive forensic analysis and a really creative brainstorming for content marketing to get links and so forth, I love that stuff and so I do that with my clients. So, _____25:59 handful of clients at the beginning. Those are all clients I work with personally since I sold my agency. So, _____26:06 Chanel, Sony, Bed, Bath and Beyond, Bloomberg business week, Best Buy, Canada. Those are all post acquisition clients. So, if you’re interested. If anyone’s wanting to talk more about potentially taking it to a whole other level in terms of Google and driving more traffic just, you know, contact me at my -- go to my website stephanspencer.com. email me directly at [email protected] and we can talk. Nile: And we’ll have all those links as I’d mentioned earlier up on the website. You know, I’ve been blown away. We’ve been through three segments. A lot of information. And I feel like we just haven’t scratched the surface. So, I understand why you’re so revered and have reached the status that you’ve reached. Because really, there’s just a lot of great information and I had so many questions that I wanted to ask we didn’t even get to. Stephan: You know, there’s always another level. There’s always deeper that you can go. Your website’s never finished, your SEO is never finished. If somebody is interested in doing more on your own DIY kind of SEO I encourage them to get a copy of my book the art of SEO. You don’t have to buy it in fact. I got permission from my publisher to share a free electronic copy of this 50-dollar book with listeners. If you email my assistant she’ll send the link. I can't -- we can't include the direct link to the O’Riley site because it’s super-secret and O’Riley, my publisher would have a fit if it got out there in the wild but for your listeners we can allow them to download one of my three books for free. So, there’s social ecommerce, art of SEO and Google power search and they could pick any one of those three for free. Just email my assistant [email protected]. Nile: And we’ll make sure that that is on the site as well. Actually we won’t put that on the site. You’ve got to listen. If you don’t write it down, go back and listen to it. It’s there. I think there’s value in that. Wouldn’t you agree? Stephan: Yeah, yeah. you can allude to it and say somewhere towards the end of the episode there’s instructions about how to get a free copy of a 50-dollar book from Stephan. Nile: There you go. That’s what we’ll do. That will be the tease in the site. But you’ve got to go back and listen. You know, Stephan thanks so much for being with us. I can't tell you how much I’ve learned and how much I appreciate it. I know that all the listeners with me do. Again thank you so much. Stephan: Thank you Nile. It’s been great being on the show. I love it. Nile: You know, and for the listeners, I want to thank you too. You really make the social media business hour. We would be nothing without you. And hopefully you learned a few new ideas or concepts. I’d be surprised if you didn’t. you know that my desire is you take just one of the things that you learned today and you apply it to your business this week. I know those small changes can make a big difference and I’m committed to bringing you at least one new idea each week. So, identify just that one small change you could make from the information that we’ve presented here and find out what a big difference it will make for you. So, until next week, this is Nile Nickel. Now, go make it happen.
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Tom Tancredi has worked (alongside twin brother Dominic) on the successful launch of over 250 digital products while building their digital agency, DOM & TOM into an Inc. 500 fastest growing company two years running. Tom is a resource on anything startup related including mobile strategy, onboarding a technical team, finding a cofounder or structuring a fundraising deal. Tom has built high profile applications for Fortune 500 companies and is an expert on intrapreneurship in large organizations.
What is “Intrepreneurship”?Take Steve Balmer with Microsoft. He’s a great example of Intrepreneurship. One of the first employees of Microsoft (he was employee number 30) – Steve was really the right hand man for Microsoft founder Bill Gates. He negotiated himself 8 percent of the total company, which is really incredible, considering there were 29 employees who were hired before him. Steve helped build Microsoft into the huge company it is today. With over 90% internet using Microsoft products. Steve Balmer was not the entrepreneur. He didn’t come up with the product – he did however, see the potential for the product, understood the strengths of the team and had the vision to take the product (Windows) to the marketplace in a scalable way. Although Tom is not the entrepreneur for his company (his brother Dom is the entrepreneur) – Tom found himself in the unique role as the “Intrepreneur”. In 2008/2009 he saw a unique opportunity to learn all that he could about the Apple iPhone. Since no one was the expert on that platform, Tom realized that if his company could be the subject matter expert for iPhones, they could create demand for their mobile software development services.
How can a mobile application boost retail sales?70% of all retail “research” is done online, on mobile devices – before products are actually purchased. This makes for an incredible opportunity for any retailer who is open to (or already using) flash sales, deep discount offers or impulse point purchases. In fact, if you’re not using mobile, you’re going to miss a TON of sales, especially around the holiday season, with so many consumers making last minute purchases for gifts. Likewise, if you’re interested in year-round sales, mobile is equally as important. Before creating an application though, you really need to ask yourself what benefits and features your application will offer to consumers. Tom recommends that you don’t even bother with creating a mobile application if you haven’t clearly thought through the features and benefits of you application. Whatever you do, don’t just go copying some other larger corporation’s application. Large retailers for example, the money and resources to “get it wrong” many times before they get it right. As small business owners, we don’t have that luxury. As a small business owner, you must play to your strengths. One of the things that you can do, that larger corporations have a hard time with is – you can be face to face with your customers much easier. This mean, you can solicit feedback, answer questions and solve problems much faster than a larger corporation. If for instance, you can think of features for your mobile application that can help you do that, then your customers will find great benefits with that. Anyone you touch in that regard, will find more value doing business with you, than anyone else. In the hands of your customers or prospects, your mobile application may just be the first time they research what you have to offer and who you are. For a great example of how NOT to create a mobile application, you only have to look as far as the banking industry. It doesn’t matter who you’re banking with, just about all of them have one experience online and a completely different experience on their mobile applications. When you go to their website to do any kind of online banking, most of the time, they have really thought through what features, choices and the “look and feel” you as their customer should experience. Contrast that experience, with how most mobile banking applications operate: They are not user friendly, don’t offer valuable features and worst of all, they can feel totally insecure. Once again, this a great example of how NOT to design a mobile application. It’s absolutely crucial, that you take into account the user experience and value that your customers will get by using your application.
One Of The Most Common Challenges Business Owners Have When Designing Their Own Mobile ApplicationI’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “Timing Is Everything”. Nothing could be more true in the case of mobile technology – especially when it comes to user purchases. Through real world experience, Tom shares with us that if you have some process for a user to go through…as an example, it could be a purchase. If they are using a mobile application to make a purchase, processing time included, if it takes up to 30 seconds, your chances for success are really great. If on the other hand, your purchase process takes longer than 30 seconds, you’ll see your users drop off, discontinue the purchase process and buy from a competitor who has a faster option. This could be making reservations for a restaurant, purchasing movie tickets – whatever the process Is, it needs to take 30 seconds or less.
A World-Class Example Of How To Lower Processing Time For Your Mobile ApplicationAmazon is a great example of streamlining this process. When you open your Amazon application, you’re automatically logged in. Not logging in before making a purchase, lowers the total processing time. Then, once the application is open, you need to make a selection of what you might want to buy – Amazon did it again, decreasing processing time buy making suggestions for you. Think about it like this: Amazon took a process that was five steps long and shortened it into two steps. All so you can quickly open their application, easily find what you are looking for and make the purchase. This shortened process has created a hockey-stick like growth for Amazon. You can achieve success if you do the same thing. Other examples of organizations who lower processing time to almost nothing include companies like “Trunk Club”. Once signed up for this subscription service, customers automatically receive things they may like. If they choose to keep the products, the purchase is already made. Companies like Trunk Club have brought the processing time down to almost nothing for making purchases from them.
Tom’s Best Mobile Application So FarTom has recently created an application called “Life Is Simple”. It’s a mobile application that connects customers to beauty industry professionals (like hairstylists) and their employees for the purposes of scheduling appointments in a quick and easy way. This really hits at the heart of what Tom is all about. He wants to help those who are struggling to make ends meet. Most beauty industry professionals make less what is considered to be at the poverty line in the United States. If adopted, this application will change the lives of thousands of hard working professionals who are struggling every day.
How Tom Started His Multi-Million Dollar Business With No MoneyStarting with offering services to generate cash flow, Tom and his brother Dom created an environment where they could offer value to others, including mentorship for those who are less fortunate. They were able to get the attention from Fortune 500 companies by taking on contracts with a simple philosophy: Do what you say you’ll do, when you say you’ll do it and charge a fair price for doing it. Most people just want to be treated fairly and with integrity. Once you provide services or products with that philosophy, the people who you do business with, will appreciate that and take notice.
How To Have A Mobile Application Built, Even If You Don’t Know Anything About Mobile ApplicationsOnce you have an idea for a mobile application, do some research. Try to find other applications that do something similar. If you find them, that is actually a good sign. You really want to see market validation before you invest time or money into your application. If you find other applications that do something similar to what you have in mind, the next question to ask is: “How are they doing?” Are they performing poorly? If so, then try to find out what their strengths and weaknesses are. Why haven’t they hit a bulls-eye? What are they missing? Once the above research is done to your satisfaction, before building an application, first find a designer. Designing out the application using wireframes is a great way to figure out how it will work and is a lot cheaper than hiring some one to write code before very important questions are answered. A great designer can be hired for as little as $30 per hour. Once that is completed, find a technical co-founder to work with you. This person can help work out the entire application process and just as important, who to hire for which parts of the development.
Twitter Handle: @dom_and_tom Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/DomAndTom/ LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dom-&-tom Website: http://domandtom.com/
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How To Take Your Next Vacation For FREE With “Travel Hacking” just starts this great episode.
Listen Along, as we reveal the secrets to using your LinkedIn profile as your very own sales page – capable of generating leads for free, what it takes to grow a business from anywhere in the world plus much, much more!
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You can quickly learn how to become a Twitter Rockstar, 140 characters at a time!
Use this incredible and uncommon advice to leverage the power of Twitter to create an unfair advantage for yourself and your business. On this great podcast, you’ll learn how to use Twitter to easily test the market for what your audience really wants, how to stand out online and how to avoid some of the biggest mistakes people make on Twitter.
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Greg Smith is the Founder and CEO of Thinkific, a software platform that makes it easy to create, market and sell online courses. Greg practiced corporate law for one of the largest law firms in the country when he created his own online course and it took off, generating more revenue than being a lawyer.
He left his law career to start Thinkific and hasn’t looked back.
Greg and the Thinkific team have helped thousands of experts create and sell courses while building their brands and growing passive revenue.
Clients include everyone from the yoga instructor who wants to teach online, to companies like Hootsuite taking their training to millions of students worldwide.
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If You Are Ready To See Massive Results On LinkedIn, Then Listen To Expert Level Tips And Tricks On This Terrific Interview Between TWO LinkedIn Gurus. Just A Few Short Minutes Into This Great Conversation About How To Use LinkedIn, You’ll Get:
The Single Most Important Networking Philosophy To Use In Combination With LinkedIn
The “Real” Way To Maximize Your LinkedIn Profile
How To Protect Yourself While Using LinkedIn
Which LinkedIn Connections To Have That Will Boost Your Network (Not Just Any LinkedIn Contact)
Plus Much, Much More!
In 2011, Mike began sharing his insights and perspectives on LinkedIn with audiences throughout Maryland. In 2015, He founded Mike Shelah Consulting to work directly with companies and sales professionals across the United States to find more customers and find them fast, leveraging the power of LinkedIn. Mike also uses his experience to evangelize the value of LinkedIn and assist those in the job market wanting to find their dream job and get to the front of the applicant list. A resident of Westminster Maryland since 2005, Mike is a dedicated: husband, father and community advocate.
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What is LinkedIn?LinkedIn is a very powerful, crucial online tool for professionals. When used correctly, LinkedIn can help you build a great network, find and get introduced to your ideal prospects and showcase your true value and worth to them. All you need is basic networking skills to make it happen. If you have networking skills and understand the golden networking philosophy. It’s a philosophy best described as one where “You to give before you get”. That is you should give value and not just look for an immediate return. When you give true value to somebody, most of the time, they will try to give back to you. LinkedIn is a great place to apply this networking philosophy.
How To Power-up Your LinkedIn ProfileWhat Makes Mike Shella Unique and Successful? Mike is a well-known LinkedIn Expert, but thinks of himself not as an expert or guru but just a successful salesperson who’s figured out LinkedIn. He suggests, a lot of people think that including words like “expert”, “guru” or “ninja” will make their LinkedIn profile more attractive and will outshine others…but those people have got it all wrong. A LinkedIn profile doesn’t have to be extravagant and boastful. By making it realistic, a profile with value and strong content will easily give you an edge from other professionals in your industry.
LinkedIn Guru With The AnswersMike started out in sales in 1995 and got into technology sales in 1999. He was one of those traditional sales people making calls and setting appointments. It was a repetitive job. Sadly, Mike noticed he was becoming less effective at it…that is, until a good friend sent him a connection request on LinkedIn. It was a request that started him down a new road in life. That new direction, led Mike from the telecom/communications industry, to starting a business teaching and consulting with professionals on how to properly leverage LinkedIn. Because of his one-on-one consulting, group presentations, and seminars, he was able to help many individuals take full advantage of LinkedIn. After listening to Mike, they were able to find customers, find a job, and succeed in their careers.
How To Properly Leverage Your LinkedIn ProfileLinkedIn was still fairly new during the time he accepted that friend’s request. He did not waste time exploring and experimenting the ins and outs of it. He found a lot of good and bad things with LinkedIn and both helped paved the way to his success. LinkedIn has an extremely valuable section called advice for contact. Most people use this option in the wrong way. Based on Mike’s experience, most of the people contacting him, will just write a long paragraph or even a short one saying “send me an email” without including so much as their email address or phone number. Simple Power Tips For All LinkedIn Users Sending Contact Requests: • Keep it simple, make it easy for people to contact you • Include a phone number • Include an email address • Utilize the summary section to include your contact details Most of us are not comfortable giving out personal information over the internet. Check Out Two Solid Tricks For Protecting Yourself While Building Your Network: • Have A Dedicated LinkedIn Email Address – Create an email address mainly to be used for LinkedIn. This will let you completely control your inbox. • Sign Up For A Google Voice Number – If you are not comfortable giving out your mobile or landline number, go to Google Voice and sign up for a free Google Voice number. You can then pair the Google Number to your mobile number without anyone seeing your “real” phone number. You then, don’t have to worry about people knowing your mobile number. You can also get an application that can be downloaded directly on your smartphone for this.
Are You Committing The Single Biggest Pet Peeve On LinkedIn?How would you feel if somebody sent you a message or you sent someone a message and received a response with a huge delay (like a week or so later) – only to apologize for the late response. The most common excuse? People say they are not checking their LinkedIn mailbox regularly. Avoid this embarrassing and unprofessional situation, by using LinkedIn often and spend time checking the 3 most important sections regularly: 1) Inbox 2) Wall 3) Notifications. It will only take you around 5-10 minutes per day to check everything. LinkedIn is a great tool to engage others with, even more so, if you are using it for your business. Take the time to answer questions from your notifications, celebrate with your connections (who got a new job, who are celebrating their work anniversary, etc.) and go through your invitations on a regular basis.
Building A Bigger, Stronger More Responsive List Of Subscribers Is The Fastest And Easiest Way To Add More Profits To Your Bottom Line.
3 “Expert Level” Ways To Spot A Good Connection on LinkedInSince LinkedIn is open to networking, you will always get invitations from people you don’t know. Make sure to use this list when considering a new connection request:Always ask yourself the following before accepting an invite:Is this person a legitimate customer for me?Can I do business with this person if I accept his invitation?Is it a personalized invitation to connect? (Only few people personalize their request to connect with a personal message)Great example to filter your invitations: Try this one fantastic trick to filter invitations, especially from people you don’t or you’re not really connected with in any degree. Don’t ignore invites, but send them all of these “unknown” people an email with the same message -- “Hello Name, Thank you for reaching out to me, I don’t believe we have me. What are your thoughts about helping one another? I will wait 3 days for your response before I accept your connection request” By sending this response email, you’ll find that 90% of those people will not bother to respond. “Don’t bother sending out connection requests if you don’t know what you can do or if you’re not yet ready to start networking with the big boys” Mike Shelah The key is message customization and profile research. If you are trying to connect with somebody and looking at them as a prospective client, be prepared because you need to let them know your value and the level of engagement you can provide. Everyone needs to learn the fact that we have to reach out as a person and try to develop a personal connection because that can and will make a difference.3 Tips using LinkedIn To Manage, Develop and Nurture ContactsEngaged – LinkedIn will always give you the opportunity to post an update (like Facebook). However, your update shouldn’t be like the regular Facebook posts about your breakfast, kid’s rehearsals, etc. but it should be on more of a business level. Post an update and invite people to engage and join the conversation.Join Groups – LinkedIn now allows you to join max of 100 groups. Joining groups will help increase your audience and engagement.Share your posts – LinkedIn has made it possible for you to share your posts with other social media channels like Twitter.How To Create Attention-Grabbing Professional-Looking Marketing, Explainer & Training Videos in Just Minutes! Explaindio $57 annual
Connect With Mike And Get The FollowingAnybody that goes to Mike’s website will get:FREE 3 page personalized LinkedIn profile reportHe will also share with you his top 5 tips and tricksRecommendations based on what he sees on your LinkedIn profileAfter Reviewing his free report, if you have a specific goal you want to achieve, Mike will offer you one on one coaching![content_toggle style="1" label="Click%20Here%20To%20View%20The%20Full%20Transcript%20Of%20The%20Show" hide_label="Hide"] Mike: Hi, this is Mike Shelah with the social media business hour with Nile Nickel and today we’re going to empower your Linked In profile. Woman: Are you in business or thinking about starting a new business and could do with a bit of help and guidance when it comes to social media? Then you’re in the right place. Social media can seem daunting and even frustrating but it doesn’t have to be. That is why we offer insights and experience from social media experts from around the world. Discover tips, tricks and information that will help you leverage the power of social media so you can start growing your business today. Welcome to social media business hour with your host Nile Nickel. Nile: Hey, welcome back to our first segment and you heard in the tease that tonight we’ve got Mike Shelah and Mike Shelah is a Linked In expert and I really like talking to Linked In experts. We’ve had probably -- what would you say Jordan? About a half dozen on the show? Jordan: Yeah, sounds about right. Nile: And I really like those experts. Don’t die on me Jordan. Don’t die on me. I really like the Linked In experts because that’s sort of what I do so we always have fun. We tend to learn a lot from each other and we all become better so just to give you some background on Mike. In 2011 Mike began sharing his insights and perspectives on Linked In with audiences throughout Maryland. In 2015 he founded Mike Shelah Coaching to work directly with companies and sales professionals across the United States to find more customers and find them fast leveraging the power of Linked In. mike also uses his experience to evangelize the value of Linked In and those in the job market wanting to find their dream job and get in front of the applicant list. And so Mike welcome to the show. Mike: Thank you Nile. Excited to be here today. Nile: Well, I’m excited. You wanted to -- you talked about helping people out with their profile and I look at profiles as where people really can shine and most of the time they don’t. They just fall flat on their face. In fact I do a product why your Linked In profile sucks and exactly what to do about it so I’m really interested in what you’ve got to talk about tonight. But if I look at all of the Linked In consultants that are out there and you and I both know there are thousands. In fact maybe even tens of thousands. What makes you unique out of all of us Linked In people out here? Mike: The first thing that makes me unique Nile -- and that’s a great question. I get asked it a lot. Is I don’t think of myself as an expert or a guru or a black belt or a ninja or any of those other foolish words that people like to put in their profiles because they think it’s going to somehow attract people to their profile. What I am is a successful salesperson. I started out in sales in 1995. I got into technology sales in 1999 and like many salespeople I come from that tradition of you get a list, you make a 100 phone calls, you set 10 appointments, you get three sales out of that, you move on to the next month. Then you repeat. And what I started to notice about eight years ago was that was becoming less and less effective and a good friend of mine sent me a connection request on Linked In and at that time Linked In was still fairly new. People had it but it certainly was not the platform that it is today and I began experimenting with it and I found lots of bad things to do that I stopped doing and I found a lot of good things to do that really helped me be successful as a salesperson and I’ve been able to modify that to also help people that are in the job hunting process because a lot of the skills that it takes to use Linked In for selling also apply to people that are in the job market looking to find a job. Nile: Sure, absolutely. Absolutely. Of all things that you found with Linked In what would you say is your biggest pet peeve on Linked In? Mike: There is an extremely valuable section to Linked In that says advice for contact and it amazes me how many people in that section don’t actually put a way for me to contact you. They’ll write a big long paragraph or they’ll say shoot me an email but I don’t have your email address. I say keep it simple. Put a phone number in there, put an email address in there and I recommend to people create an email address just for your Linked In account. With Yahoo and Gmail and all the other email platforms out there create an email. Keep it just for your profile and for the phone number -- some people are uncomfortable giving out their personal cellphone number which I can understand. Go to Google Voice, sign up for a free Google Voice number, put that in your profile and that way you can check any messages that come directly from Linked In and you’ll know because it’s a separate app on your smartphone that you just pair with the smartphone number and people never have to know your smartphone number. Nile: Both -- a couple of golden nuggets in there. One of the things that I always recommend is you make it easy for people to contact you and like you said there’s the advice for contact section, there’s information but I also even recommend putting it in the summary section. Make it super easy. And you’re right. So many people don’t do that and after all, if they find you on Linked In which is one of the goals that you likely have if you’re really optimizing your Linked In profile and you’re using it for business or to find a job, you want people to contact you. Mike: Absolutely. Let’s make this simple. Let’s take the confusion out of it. How do I get a hold of you? Nile: In fact, not only taking the confusion out of it. Make it super easy. Mike: Yeah. Nile: If they’re used to looking in a place where it’s not at make sure that it’s in the place that they’re going to look so I love it. I appreciate that advice. Of all the things that you’ve done and the people that you’ve worked with what would you say your favorite Linked In success story is? Mike: Probably my favorite one comes from about six years ago. I was actually at a networking event in Baltimore and I met a gentleman who was the owner of a small business and he was one of the distinguished guests at that event. It was very obvious he didn’t want to talk to any salespeople that day but he was nice enough to give me his business card and after the event I sent him a connection request on Linked In. simply Wayne, thank you for your time. It was a pleasure meeting you this evening. And then a couple of weeks later I see in the Baltimore Business Journal that he’s going to be a keynote speaker at an event. Send Wayne another quick message. Wayne, best of luck with the speaking event. I hope it’s a great success for you. Couple of weeks after that a friend of mine is looking for a job and he’s got a perfect background for this gentleman Wayne. I sent Wayne a message. Wayne, I’d love to introduce you to my friend Dereck. He just got back into the job market and I think he’d be an ideal candidate for your company. Wayne immediately calls me. We spent 15, 20 minutes talking about Dereck and at the end of the conversation Wayne says to me by the way Mike, what do you do? And within 10 minutes of that I’m talking to his office manager. Shortly after that Wayne becomes a customer. But even more important, three years later there was another article in the Baltimore Business Journal about a bank and how they’re going through this explosive growth and they’re interviewing the CEO of the bank. I look her up on Linked In and who does she know? My friend Wayne. Reach out to Wayne. Wayne, would you mind introducing me to Mary? And he says, I’m not going to introduce you to Mary. I’m going to introduce you to the person that I do all my work for her bank through. And within 60 days of that Linked In message I landed the largest account of my professional career and today they spend a quarter of a million dollars a year with my daytime job company. Nile: As you go through that story it reminds me of so many things. One of the things that I talk about and I’m really interested on your thoughts on this as well is Linked In is a tool and it’s a networking tool but it’s just that. It’s a tool. So, when you’ve got good, basic networking skills and networking skills is about give before you get, giving value, not always looking for a return. It’s sort of a natural thing that happens. When you give true value to somebody they look to give back. And so I take that networking philosophy that I have and I’ve shared and I just heard you describe that philosophy perfectly but you used Linked In to implement that strategy. You used the tool of Linked In. Mike: That is correct. And I think you alluded to this earlier. So many people really don’t take the time to develop their Linked In profile and most of the time when I meet someone at a networking event now and they say oh, what do you do? And I tell them I do Linked In consulting, I’m a sales strategist. They look down their feet as if they’re ashamed. As if they’re being addressed by their third grade teacher and the answer’s almost always the same. Well, I have a profile but I don’t really do anything with it and oh, please don’t look at mine because it needs to be updated. And my first thought is well, if you know that why haven’t you done it? Nile: Exactly how long does it take to do that? Mike: In my opinion it takes an hour of hard work to really set up a great profile and then depending on what you do for a living it’s 15 to 20 minutes of maintenance a day. Nile: Well, I’m going to give you my thought and it’s one of the things that I teach. In fact, I teach to really develop your profile and I go through -- there’s currently 13 sections and I talk about going through each of those sections in detail. Spend a week on it but spending a week, you’re probably going to spend anywhere between 15 to maybe 20 minutes a week. Not a day. A week. And then go back over each one of those 13 sections after you’ve went through it the first time which takes you about a quarter so first quarter just build your profile. Second quarter is you start to go back through each section just one section a week which will take you another quarter but that means that you’re touching your profile each and every week and you’re making sure that all of the sections are updated and most sections aren’t going to change that frequently. If at all. But the bottom line is you’ve at least looked at it and you could do that in five to 10, maybe 15 minutes a week. And so you could really have a top of the line profile with very, very little time invested. Mike: Agreed. Nile: Now I suspect that when you’re talking about maybe 15 minutes a day you’re doing the other maintenance things like people send you messages. It might be a good idea to answer those messages. People have connection requests and depending on what your personal policies are and I’d be interested in hearing you’re either going to accept or reject them, whatever. But the flipside is -- and there’s other minor maintenance things you do and then strategically how are you using it for your business. So, I know that I gave you a lot about what I’ve done but I’m interested; and I know you followed all of that too but I’m interested in what you think and what you recommend people to do through those processes as well. Mike: Yeah, you’re hitting a lot of similar ideas that I like to reinforce to people and I apologize. You asked me what my pet peeve earlier was and I think I gave you the wrong one because nothing drives me crazy more than when I send somebody a message on Linked In and then a week later they respond and they say sorry Mike. I don’t check Linked In very often. Again, take 15 minutes a day. You’ve got that little banner right on top of your profile. You’ve got an inbox that shows messages. You have the flag for to dos and then you have invitations. It’s really that simple. Those three things, that’s the 15 minutes I was referring to. You’re right. Those three things should not take you more than 15, 20 minutes a day. Answer the questions that come through, check out the notifications. Who wrote a good blog, who’s got a new job, who’s celebrating an anniversary? Engage on those things and then go through your invitations. And I am not _____30:58 Linked In open networker but I’m not a lock down Linked In user either. What I generally recommend to people is -- because you’re going to get recommendations from people that you don’t know. It always happens. My first thought is is this person a legitimate customer for me? Is this somebody that I could do business with and if so then I accept the connection request and I follow that up with hey, thanks for reaching out? How can I help you today? And I want to get the conversation going and I want to start it just as easy as what can I do to help you. Now, for people that don’t fall into that category -- maybe we don’t have a mutual contact, maybe they’re in Switzerland. The list could be extensive. My first thought is did they customize the Linked In introduction? Did they write something in there because if they wrote something in there there’s a very good chance they’ve described why they wanted to connect with me? Very few people do that. I would say one out of about a 100 invitations I get actually have a personalized introduction. So, I recommend to everybody that that’s what they do when they reach out to people. Particularly if you don’t know them. Linked In doesn’t like you doing that but if you’re going to take that risk, customize it and maximize your opportunity to get connected. When people don’t customize instead of ignoring or accepting I reply to the message and my message is consistent. I say to that person hi Nile. Thank you for reaching out to me. I don’t believe we have met. What are your thoughts on helping one another? I’ll wait three days for your response before I accept your connection request. And then I wait to see what happens because what I found is 90 percent of those people don’t bother to respond to my follow through and I think well, if you can't do that you’re probably not ready to start networking with the big boys. Nile: Yeah, that’s probably true. Well, listen, I know that I want to continue this but we’re going to take a short break. We’ll be right back after this message. Hey, welcome back. You’re listening to the social media business hour with Nile and Jordan and our special guest tonight Mike Shelah and we’re talking about Linked In. you know it’s one of my favorite subjects. And in the last segment we were talking about how people -- or better yet, how you personally respond to the connection requests you get in messages Mike and I liked what you were saying and one of the things that I think we agree on but I want you to continue with where you were but one of the things that we both agree on here is that you don’t want to just use the default messages because why do you just want to be run of the mill? Stand out and it doesn’t take long. In fact, I use a program -- I’m Mac based. It’s called text expander. On PC it’s called Brevity. But literally all it does is -- it’s a short key. I type in three keys and it fills in the message for me and I just fill in the blanks if there are any and it doesn’t take any length of time to sort of put my standard message out. Some people could just save it and cut and paste it but because I do different ones depending on the situation I like having that customization there. But you give a unique response and I liked where you were going in the last segment. So, let me hear more about how you respond to some of those requests that you get. Mike: Sure. The key is customization and even more important delivering some value. If you’re going -- if you’re trying to connect with somebody and they’re a prospective client let them know what was the level of engagement. One of my favorite things about Linked In is that you can research a person before you try to touch them. I went to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County also known as UMBC and in this part of the country UMBC is now very well renowned as a top technology school and if I see on somebody’s profile that they’re an UMBC graduate I’m writing go retrievers because that’s our mascot. Our mascot’s a Labrador retriever. Go retrievers. And because that’s something that’s going to really create that common bond. That’s going to -- it’s going to ground us. And for the sales audience listening today it enhances your prospecting tool. You come up with that target list of 20 accounts that you want to engage and you’re going to reach out to someone what better way than your mutual connections. The people that you know that they know. Looking through their mutual contacts. I got a call back from a client one day because the message I left on his voicemail was hey Bob. Calling you today. We’re both members of the Baltimore County Chamber. I saw that you are friends with George and with Brad. How do you know George and Brad? And he called me back and he said well Mike, how do you know George and Brad? And we got the conversation going. I didn’t say anything about my company or my product or any of that. I started as a person and I started deeply, personally and it just so happened the two names that I mentioned that we had as mutual contacts -- one was a business partner of his that he rents space from and the other one was his childhood best friend. Oh, and I could say that the one man was my former boss that I have a good relationship with and the other one’s my fraternity brother. He was more than happy to set a meeting and have a conversation with me because I wasn’t just another salesperson. I was a person. Nile: And he approached you on a completely different level and I always like to say people buy from people. They don’t buy from companies or businesses. Mike: Amen brother. Nile: And so the fact that you’re reaching out as a person and you’re developing the personal connection just makes all the difference in the world. Great golden nugget there. I’m curious, you’ve been using Linked In for a while. Have you ever used Linked In to find a job? Mike: I have actually and what normally happens is jobs normally find me and what I mean by that is because I’ve optimized my profile, because I’m engaging on a regular basis on there I have people reach out to me all the time saying they’re having trouble finding a job and I say well, I get contacted by one new recruiter on average once a week and they say well, how do you do that? I’m like my profile’s optimized for the industry that I’m in. they naturally find me. and I’ve been happy to say that I’ve been able to just reject most of those job opportunities because they weren’t better than the one I have and the company I’m with right now; I’m with them now because I saw an old friend of mine had gotten a new job there as a sales director so he was above a manager and I just reached out and I again, I had no attention -- I said Rob, congratulations on the new job. I wish you nothing but success. And Rob immediately pinged me back and said Mike I’m desperate for good sales people. Will you come and interview with us. And at the time I was open to hearing about new opportunities. I came in. I met with my now sales manager of three and a half years and I’ve had ridiculous success at that company. And that’s how you find the opportunities. By optimizing your profile and doing that daily engagement. I wasn’t looking for a job when I reached out to Rob to congratulate them. I genuinely wanted to say hey, best of luck with your new job. Nile: Again, it’s on a person basis. Not a company basis. Makes all the difference in the world. We’ve talked about some strategies and I’m curious and obviously want to relate this to Linked In but what do you think has made you successful with Linked In from a personal level? Mike: I think it starts with the personal component. I certainly do. When I think about my big wins, like my big successes that I’ve had as a salesperson almost every single one of them has started with a personal referral that I’d leveraged through Linked In to get the opportunity to speak to that client. Almost every single one. I have some close relationship to someone who knew to get me in the door and they got me in the right door and that person had to be ignoring me before and the plates just shifted into place. I had this one company, huge law firm in Baltimore and I had been calling on them and calling on them and calling on them and they never returned my phone calls. And a friend of mine went to work for that firm and I said Joe would you mind introducing me to Brent. I’ve been trying to get a hold of him. He has not been returning my calls. Joe sends one email to Brent introducing me. Brent gets -- sends me a follow up email and says I would be happy to work with you -- meet with you Mike but I don’t think there’s much you’re going to be able to help us with right now. That was the second largest sale of my professional career. It again happened in less than 60 days and I actually got the customer so excited about what I was offering that they broke their contract with their current vendor to come and work with my company. Nile: Wow. That’s actually saying something. Mike: And it really was leveraging that other relationship. He had no desire to talk to me but because I knew someone that he respected he said all right. I’ll hear what you have to say. Nile: Excellent strategy there and thanks for giving us insights into your success as well. One of the other things that I’d like to ask is that I know that you teach people, you have a strategy to average a new connection every day to get the right introductions. So, it’s not just the connection but it’s the connection to get the right introductions. How do you do that? Mike: It’s the value of the second degree connection. That’s what I try to impart on people. I connect with my clients all the time but I -- I say I connect with everyone. I connect with everyone that I meet. Great example, I was at a business expo last week in Baltimore and it’s a big semiannual event. They do one in the fall, they do one in the spring. There’s usually 60 vendors and about 500 people and typically when I go to an event like that I’m going to see 20 or 30 people I already know and I’m going to meet 15 to 20 people that I don’t know. And with each one of those people I follow up right after the event. Nile, great meeting you at the Bizz Expo this week. I hope we have the opportunity to work together very soon. And that’s all the introduction is. I’ll tell you, I have a coworker right now who is doing some great volunteer work with a nonprofit here in Baltimore and that nonprofit has got this big event coming up in June and they’re looking for ways to market and promote the event and so my coworker said well, you’ve got to talk to my friend Mike because he does all this stuff with Linked In and you’re just going to love him. And I have a phone call with my liaison there. Her name is Karin. And it turns out that Karin’s not connected to my friend on Linked In. now, I know that they know each other but neither one of them has taken that step and my first thought was why aren’t you taking that step? Because I found out that another friend of mine in the marketing company is also doing a project for them and in fact I’m helping her behind the scenes to prepare for that presentation. And I said to her why aren’t you connected to Karin? If you’re working with her why haven’t you taken that step? Why wouldn’t you? Because once you’ve done a good job, once you’ve delivered on what they’ve asked for I’m going to ask for a recommendation because I want that on my profile. I want people to see that I have customers that are happy, that love me and that I’ve done great work for. Nile: That makes absolute sense there and again, I think there’s a number of golden nuggets there. As we’re going through this and I’m listening to what you’re talking about there and the way that you’re talking about connecting people -- again, I’m back to old fashioned networking and it’s sometimes good to connect the virtual world to the real world and when we’ve got these real world connections it does amaze me as well how many people aren’t sharing those connections that they have. Not only -- I look at Linked In I guess and I’m going to take a sort of different angle here. I look at Linked In as my best resource for my online rolodex and if -- now, we’re talking rolodex so we’re dating ourselves a bit because most people today have no clue what that is if they’re new to the business world but it was basically on the corner of your desk and you kept notes on there about anniversaries and spouses and children and events and whatever it may be you kept on that little card. I like to keep all of those notes on those little cards in my Linked In section but -- Mike: Absolutely. Nile: But if I’m not connected to those folks I can't do that. And so I like the recommendation you just made. Why aren’t you and why wouldn’t you? Because I think sometimes we could help the folks that are in our community deal with the value that sometimes they overlook or quite frankly they don’t value. And I want to get into some other strategies as well as talking to about how people could find you and all of that but we’re going to do that in the next segment. So, we’re going to take just a short break and we’ll be right back after this message. Hey, welcome back to the social media business hour. We’re here talking to Mike Shelah and we’re talking about Linked In and Mike I personally think we’re into some advanced strategies but before we get into some -- Mike: Love it. Nile: Some of the other questions and all of that good stuff, one of the things that really strikes me in the face and I think of this the same way. I think anybody listening to this is going to say there’s nothing real detailed or real fancy. I could do all of this. Sounds pretty simple. And I would agree that they could. But they don’t do it. like you said, the most common thing that I hear people say is yeah, I’ve got a Linked In profile but I really haven’t touched it. It’s out of date. Don’t look at it. And we’re talking about some tremendous power they could get and it’s pretty simple if you just do a few simple things. Would you agree? Mike: I completely agree, yeah. And that’s why I use the word evangelize, I use the word catalyst because that really is my goal. I want to turn on as many people as I can to this platform. And not just make them aware because as you’ve stated plenty of people are aware of Linked In. they’re not aware of what it could do for them. And by me getting their awareness cranked up to 11 it’s just going to benefit me. I mean, ultimately it’s very selfish. The more people use Linked In, the better off I am. Nile: Well, and the more people you help you become valuable to those folks. They’re more interested in helping you at that point in time. Mike: Very true. Nile: So, do you have any tips on how you use Linked In to manage and develop and nurture contacts along the way? Now, I know you’ve shared a few things but I’m interested if you’ve got any more details there, any more nuggets? Mike: Yeah, I -- my favorite thing is the engagement piece and you may have seen -- you may have talked about this on previous podcasts but Linked In now has that social selling index tab. You can click on it and it will highlight your profile and put it into four buckets and show you where you need to do a better job and it gives you a ranked score of one out of 100. And the one thing that I think most people don’t really take advantage of is the engagement. You have an opportunity to post an update like you do on Facebook although we’re not talking about what you had for breakfast or your kid’s rehearsal or anything like that. We’re talking about things that matter to business. Do an update and invite conversation. A more detailed update, Linked In Pulse -- once a week put your thought together or for people that don’t like to write what I recommend is they take their daily updates from Monday through Friday and they lump those into a pulse blog post on Saturday. So, take the five articles or relevant stories that you connected throughout the week and just do a two, three sentence paragraph on each one and make that your pulse bog post for the week to increase engagement. And not only to increase engagement but to position yourself as a thought leader and an industry expert. That’s really what those two tools do for you. And then you can further leverage that blog post by engaging it in groups. Linked In now let’s you join up to 100 groups and those groups can be everything from your favorite football team to your college alumni to something based in your community. It can be faith based. It can -- the spectrum for groups that you can join is almost infinite. Get yourself north of 50 groups and then once you’ve written that blog post on Saturday the following Monday share it in five groups and it’s as simple as I wrote this blog post about -- what are some of the things you’ve done in this situation that have benefited you? And get the conversation going. And now you’re being positioned as a thought leader. You’re increasing your audience. You’re increasing engagement and that’s really how you get yourself to adding one new connection a day. By going through those steps. You start with the daily posts. You summarize them in a weekly pule blog and then you push them out to your groups to further engage your audience. Nile: Well, groups have changed dramatically just in the last six months on Linked In that for people that think they know about groups and maybe some of the things that they used to do that don’t work anymore -- it’s worthwhile taking a new look at groups and we don’t have that much time. We can't get into that much detail there but I agree with the group power. It’s just people leveraging that power. And developing that power. Having that said, what you just talked about was an excellent social media strategy and when you do those shares -- we haven’t talked about this but a lot of people don’t know this. I know you do. You’ve got this nice little box down in the bottom right hand corner of your post where you could share on Twitter. Mike: Oh, yes. One of my favorites. Nile: And most of those posts that you’re doing make sense to be shared on Twitter as well. People will engage with you on the platforms that are their platforms. It’s where they work and play. That may or may not be Linked In. may not include Linked In. so, if you’re doing something there why not leverage the power and be able to put it out to Twitter at the same time and if you happen to think about how you’re doing those things it works perfectly when you could do that and just check that little tiny box. Mike: Yeah, very -- and you make a good point that it doesn’t have to be automatic. When Linked In first rolled out Twitter there was a feature that you could select to make it automatic and I learned very quickly that was a bad idea because I was getting these random post updates on my Linked In profile for when I would tweet something. So, I quickly learned to make it a toggle that when I post something on linked it then pushes it over to Twitter and not the other way around. Nile: Yeah, absolutely. Because a lot of things that you put on Twitter may not work very well on Linked In. virtually everything you do on Linked In would work on Twitter so use it accordingly. Mike: Flip the phone. Absolutely. Nile: But I love the way that you talked about doing that because that same strategy works with a lot of the different social media platforms and engage with people where they are. They may or may not be on Linked In as I mentioned but certainly the fact that you could pick up one or two over the course of a year -- new contacts that are valuable contacts just by sharing out the same information may not sound like much but if you look at it 10 years later and it was only two per year that’s 20 good, solid contacts. That could make a business all by itself. Sometimes we -- Mike: That -- believed in -- yeah. They’ve believed in what you said and it resonated with them and they wanted to get engaged. Nile: Exactly. Sometimes we think about the big numbers and I’d rather have 10 followers that are actively engaged than a thousand that aren’t. And it’s just so important to make sure that we don’t get caught up in big numbers. We get caught up in good numbers. Mike: Quality. Nile: Quality over quantity so great stuff. Mike: Nothing wrong with quantity but quality and quantity, much nicer combination. Nile: A much nicer combination and sometimes you have to have quantity just to sort of validate that you’re in the game and you probably have some strategies related to that but we’re running close to being out of time. We’ve got about three or four minutes left and before we run out of time I want to ask about what you do with your clients and to the extent that we’ve got people that are interested in learning more and talking to you, how would they do that? So, let’s talk first about what you do for your clients. Mike: Sure. Three phases to that really. First is anybody that goes to my website can get a free three page report where I review their profile and I believe you said you have 13 points. I have 12 points and then my five tips and tricks. So, we’re basically talking about the same things. And I go through there, I make my recommendations based on what I see. Then the next phase is they’ve gone through that report, they’ve done the things I’ve suggested but they’re looking for more the strategic -- they have a specific goal that they want to attack; I’ll do one on one coaching. The nonprofit that I mentioned. I’m going to be doing that for them. I’m going to be working with them starting in December through June on a biweekly basis to promote this event that they have. It’s one of their biggest fundraisers of the year. That’s what I’m going to be doing with them. And then the last one is I do a 10 week program that is sale centric for the business owner that has a sales force of five or more people. I do a snapshot before this program begins where I do an overview of each participant and I present that to management. And then through the 10 week course we’re going through 30 minutes of Linked In and then 30 minutes of sales strategy. Once a week. At the end of the 10 weeks I do another snapshot for management and it generally falls into four categories. You’ve got your DIY people at the top mister manager. They’re doing great. They don’t need any more help. You’ve got your people that are picking it up. They probably could use some more help. You’ve got these people bellow. They really need a lot of help. And then you’ve got that unfortunate group at the bottom that I can hit them over the head with a hammer and they won't know that it hurts. Nile: Well, I just re-categorized your list there. I like it. The DIY, great. They’re ready to fly. Need some help. Needs a lot of help and helpless. Mike: It can't be helped. Yes. Nile: So, yeah. Beyond any help. So, that’s absolutely awesome. So, if people are interested in learning more, give us that information again. Mike: Certainly. I’m on Linked In. you can find me at www.mikeshelah.com. M-I-K-E-S-H-E-L-A-H. Nile: I was going to say make sure we spell Shelah because you know people will be getting that wrong. Mike: Yes, it is not like the girl’s name. Just pronounced that way. And I’m also on Twitter @mikeshelah. I have a Facebook page, Mike Shelah Consulting and I have an Instagram @mikeshelah. Nile: You just mentioned Instagram there. That’s powerful stuff but most people seem to ignore that. Mike: Great for pictures. Nile: Well, great. Great for a lot of things actually. We might talk about that in the future. Well, listen, we’re basically out of time. I want to thank you so much for joining us and us just having this great Linked In discussion. I always like it when I can have other Linked In -- I know you don’t like the term expert. You say you’re not but I like when other Linked In experts are out there and experts are the people that are sort of at the top of it, of the Linked In platform as you are that are really helping pull other people up to the top because it is a great platform. Most people just aren’t using it. So, Mike, thanks so much for joining us. Mike: Nile, this has been a blast. Thank you for your time. Nile: I appreciate it. And to our listeners, I want to thank you for joining us on the social media business hour. Hopefully you learned at least a few new ideas or concepts. Maybe you were just reminded of a few things that you already know but you haven’t been doing to improve or grow your life or business. Our desire is that you take just one of the things that you learned or were reminded of today and you apply it to your business or your life this week. I know that a small change will make a big difference and I’m committed to bringing you at least one new idea each week that you could implement. So, identify just one small change that you could make to your business or your life this week and see what a big difference it will make for you. So, until next week, this is Nile Nickel. Now, go make it happen. Woman: Thanks for listening. Social media business hour is sponsored by linkedinfocus.com. Be sure to get the latest social media business tips and tricks plus free tips on how you can use Linked In to help your business today. Visit socialmediabusinesshour.com. [/content_toggle] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikeshelahconsulting Twitter: @mikeshelah Website: www.mikeshelah.com
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Sales doesn’t have to be hard. It can be easy, but only if you know the secrets of building profitable relationships.
Join us for this incredible interview and discover the time-tested strategies and tactics for how to handle people in a way that excites them and leaves them asking for more.
Bob Burg is a sought-after speaker at company leadership and sales conferences sharing the platform with everyone from today’s business leaders and broadcast personalities to even a former U.S. President. Bob is the author of a number of books on sales, marketing and influence, with total book sales of well over a million copies. His book, The Go-Giver, coauthored with John David Mann has sold over half a million copies and it has been translated into 21 languages. It is now being released in a new, expanded edition, with a foreword by Huffington Post founder and publisher, Arianna Huffington. Bob is an advocate, supporter and defender of the Free Enterprise system, believing that the amount of money one makes is directly proportional to how many people they serve. He is also an unapologetic animal fanatic, and serves on the Board of Trustees of Furry Friends Adoption & Clinic in his town of Jupiter, Florida.
How To Say No When You Just Don’t Want To Do Something?Do you want to always please others? Are you afraid of hurting other people’s feelings? Are you afraid to say “NO”? What is it really about saying no that we try to avoid? As human beings, we always seem to have that instinct to please others. We often think that by saying “No” we are going to offend some one…and that it’s not appropriate or nice. It is not congruent in today’s society and our value system, to treat people with disrespect. We’re afraid of losing an important person in our life or even miss out on an opportunity. We don’t want to say “No” because others might think that we’re being unproductive. Believe it or not, we are taught to say No, and the word “No” is already a complete sentence. We are more happy and productive when we do the things that we want to do and not the things we are compelled to do.
“Unless you want to do something or there is a compelling reason for you to do it, then you shouldn’t” -Bob Burg
Bob Burg shares with us the secrets of being polite in this extremely valuable interview. For instance, if you don’t want to do something for whatever reason, maybe it’s due to lack of time, lack of knowledge or inclination, then just say “no” politely and thank whoever it is for asking. The reasons for saying no are your reasons and yours alone.
The Results Of Saying No PolitelyYou can say “No” and still feel good after saying it. Better yet, you can also leave the person you’re talking to with a good feeling, too – even though you’re declining their offer or request. If you don’t want to do something, you can just simply say no politely. Make sure to thank them for asking you and say how honored and humbled you are by being asked. Unless the person you’re talking to is the kind of person who gets angry for any reason, they probably can’t afford to get mad at you. If you do it right, they might even thank you for the way you turned them down.
The 5 Undisputable Laws Of Business SuccessThe Law Of Value – Your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value that you take in payment. Most people will think that this is a recipe for bankruptcy, but it’s not. To really get the concept, you might first need to understand the difference between price and value.Price - It is a dollar figure, an amount. It is finite.Value - It is the relative worth or desirability of something from the end user’s point of view. It is how you might desire a product, service, concept or idea that brings so much worth or value that you are willing to exchange your money, your time and your energy.The Law Of Compensation – Your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them.Your income is determined not just by the value you provide but how many lives you impact with value.The Law Of Influence – Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interest first. The greatest leaders, top influencers, and the most profitable sales people run their lives and their business through the power of influence. It is all about you looking for ways to place the interest of others first.When you place other people’s interest first, it doesn’t mean that you will become a doormat, martyr or that you even have to sacrifice yourself for them…but it is seeing all things as equal. It is moving from an “I Focus” to “An Other’s Focus”. “Golden rule of business is to see all things and people as being equal, it is moving from an “I Focus” to “An Other’s Focus” Bob Burg “Be the Protégé, making your win all about the other person’s win” Bob BurgBuilding A Bigger, Stronger More Responsive List Of Subscribers Is The Fastest And Easiest Way To Add More Profits To Your Bottom Line.The Law Of Authenticity – The most valuable gift you offer is yourself. Bob mentioned one of his mentors, Debra Davenport. She explained that all the skills in the world like sales, technical and people skills, as important as they are, they are all for naught if you don’t come at it from your true, authentic core.When you show up as yourself, day in and day out, week after week, month after month, you can expect that people will feel good about you. They will feel comfortable with you because they know, either in a personal or business relationship, they can like and trust you.
The Law Of Reciprocity – The key to effective giving, is to be open to receiving. All the giving in the world won’t benefit you if you are not willing and able to allow yourself to receive as well. You want a sustainable life? You’ve got to breathe in and breathe out. Life is all about giving and receiving.“The key to effective giving is to be open to receiving” -Bob Burg
Being A Go-GiverThe common misconception about being a go-giver, especially to those who haven’t read the book yet, is that Go-Givers are just always giving themselves away. As if those people don’t care about making a profit. This is just not true.A Go-Giver type of person, gives value constantly and not just gives themselves away. In fact, Go-Givers tend to make a much larger profit that others because they sell high value rather than low price. They know that when you sell “Low price”, you become a commodity. When you sell on value, you become a resource. “A Go-Giver knows that when you sell “Low price”, you become a commodity but when you “Sell value”, you become a resource”
Another misconception is that Go-Givers don’t know how to say “No”. Go-givers actually say “No” a lot. Most go-givers are very successful. Typically, they are very busy and they don’t have much time say “yes” to everyone and everything. One great thing about being a Go-giver is, they know how to say “no” in a way that honors the other person.Increase Your Income by Building Relationships with Influencers, VIPs, and Top Performers, Even If You Hate Networking
4 Master Level Lessons To live byIf you want to make a lot of money in business or make a lot of money in sales, then do not use “making money” as your sole goal. Your goal should be serving others. When you achieve your goal, you’ll receive a reward. That reward can be money or an opportunity that leads to money. Of course, you can use that money in whatever way that you want - but never forget, money is NOT only the reward for hitting your target. It’s not the goal itself. The goal should be in serving others.Selling is not about you, it is always about the customer.Selling is discovering what somebody wants, what they need or desires and helping them to get it.Great leadership is never about the leader, great influence is never about the influencer and great salesmanship is never about the sales person. It is always about the other person. It is about everyone whose lives you chose to touch and lives you chose to add value to.[content_toggle style="1" label="Click%20Here%20To%20Read%20The%20Full%20Show%20Transcript" hide_label="Hide"]
Bob: Hi, I’m Bob Burg, coauthor of the Go-Giver and tonight we’ll look at how a small shift in focus can have significant results for your business. Woman: Are you in business or thinking about starting a new business and could do with a bit of help and guidance when it comes to social media? Then you’re in the right place. Social media can seem daunting and even frustrating but it doesn’t have to be. That is why we offer insights and experience from social media experts from around the world. Discover tips, tricks and information that will help you leverage the power of social media so you can start growing your business today. Welcome to social media business hour with your host Nile Nickel. Jordan: Hello and thank you again for joining us. This is Nile’s trusty sidekick and cohost Jordan and I’d like to take a moment to share with you how you could benefit from Nile’s incredible experience using social media for real business success. If you’re an entrepreneur or thinking about starting your own business then using social media might be the most cost effective and time effective way to get your business real results. That’s not to mention much of what you could do to get those terrific results on social media is even free. Take Linked In for example. Nile always says it’s the best social media platform for business today. And that’s why I recommend you go to linkedinfocus.com and start your social media education today. Sign up for Nile’s free tips, tricks and strategies. Once again, it’s free and it only takes a few seconds. Go to linkedinfocus.com today. You’ll be glad you did. Nile: Hey, welcome back and we are so excited tonight. We have a return guest Bob Burg. He was with us in episode 33. Jordan: Yes, the infamous episode 33. Nile: The infamous. As a matter of fact, we get more questions about that episode than any other episode. Jordan: That’s right. And accusation. Nile: Because everybody thinks we baited them. Jordan: That’s right. That’s right. Nile: We didn’t do that, didn’t we Bob? Bob: No, not at all. Nile: Yeah, we just haven’t got back together to sort of complete that interview but just to give everybody a little bit of recall Bob is really a very sought after speaker at company leadership and sales conferences sharing the platform with everyone from today’s business leaders, broadcast personalities even to a former US president. He’s the author of a number of books on sales, marketing and influence with the total book sales of well over a million copies. His book the Go-Giver coauthored with John David Mann has sold over a half million copies and has been translated into 21 languages. It’s now being released in a new expanded edition with a foreword by Huffington Post founder and publisher Arianna Huffington. Bob is an advocate, supported and defender of the free enterprise system believing that the amount of money one makes is directly proportional to how many people they serve. He’s also an unapologetic animal fanatic and serves on the board of trustees of Furry Friends, Adoption and Clinic in his home town of Jupiter, Florida. We make fun of Florida a lot Jordan but we’re there and so -- Jordan: Well, that gives us license. Nile: That gives us license I guess. So, Bob welcome back. Bob: Well, thanks. Great being back with you guys. Nile: It is awesome to have you back. It’s always a pleasure. You just always have so many great insights and really valuable information but we’re going to go back to the end of episode 33 now and we were talking about how people don’t have time and some of the answers that they give and you were giving an answer and last time technology wasn’t our friend and it cut off in the middle of the answer and people think that we did that intentionally. So, let me take you back to that and let’s just sort of replay that a bit. So, if you don’t have time and you really want to give an honest answer. You were starting to give some recommendations so let’s jump back into that and then we’ll jump into today’s interview. Bob: Sure. Well, it was really about how to say no when you just don’t want to do something. Whether you have time or not it may not be the question. It’s typically we have time to do those things we want to do or feel drawn to do. we never have time to do something we don’t really want to do so it really comes down to is it something you want to do or not and unless there is a compelling reason for you to do it in your mind’s eye then if you really don’t want to then you shouldn’t. Now, the problem is with telling people no, I don’t want to do it. Why? Because as human beings we want to please others. We want to come through for people assuming it’s not a -- assuming that it’s something that’s worthy or something that’s not inappropriate but let’s say for example and I think we used the example of being asked to serve on a committee. Nile: Exactly. Bob: And it’s -- yeah. And it’s something you don’t want to do for whatever reason. You may not feel like you have the time or the knowledge or the inclination, whatever. That’s your business. One way people are taught to kind of say no is to well, just say no. no is a complete sentence and so forth. And people fell often empowered when they hear that but very rarely is someone going to do that. Is someone going to say no, I don’t want to? Because it’s not nice, it’s not congruent with your value system of treating people with respect and you’re probably going to lose a friend or a potential friend or other opportunities when you do it that way so it’s really -- saying no that way isn’t necessarily appropriate and it’s not particularly productive. So, the other way people do it is to say they don’t have time. Oh, I’d really like to but I’m sorry. I just don’t have time. Well, again, the challenge with doing that is you do have the time if you want to do it. You probably don’t want to do it which again is fine. That’s okay. But the challenge with saying I don’t have time is that the other person comes across this all the time and they know how to answer that objection if you will. And when they do so compellingly then you’re in a position where you either have to admit that really I just don’t want to and so you’re kind of saying I lied which doesn’t make them feel good about you and you don’t feel good about yourself or in order to save face you need to take on the assignment or accept the -- their request which you really don’t want to do and then that’s a losing situation for you. So, rather than doing either of those we can say no in way that respects the other person and honors the other person while also respecting our boundaries. And so the way I would suggest is this and that’s very simple. When -- and again, let’s say you’re being asked to serve on a committee you don’t want to serve on. You simply say to the person thank you so much for asking. While it’s not something I’d like to do please know how honored I am to be asked. And that’s it. Okay. And what you’ve done is you’ve answered the question in a way that’s not only polite. It’s very respectful. You’ve honored this other person. You’ve thanked them for asking. You’ve let them know it’s not something you’d like to do or something you choose to do but that you’re honored to have been asked. And unless this person is really someone who is going to be mad at someone for whatever reason they can't be mad at you. In fact, they’re going to feel good about you and they’re going to -- they may even thank you for the way you turned them down. I’ve had that happen to me and others have said the same. So, again, it’s simply thank you so much for asking. While it’s not something I’d like to do please know how honored I am to be asked. Nile: And now we’ve got that great answer to close out episode 33 so adversity to allies. Go back to episode 33 and listen to that. It’s really great stuff. Bob: Thank you. Nile: But tonight you’re touching my heart a bit here. I don’t know how long ago it was that I actually started listening to the Go-Giver on Audible and I enjoyed it so much I actually then got the book sort of backwards of what a lot of people do. But you and John David Mann published that back in 2007. That’s for all practical purposes nine years ago. What has motivated you to take that book which is a great book? If people haven’t read it we’re going to have a link up on the website and of course the expanded edition as well of course. But for the people that haven’t read that what was really the inspiration for that? Bob: Well, years ago, many years ago I had a book out called Endless referrals, network your everyday contacts into sales which was really for people in sales who didn’t necessarily feel comfortable with the selling process or with meeting people and developing the relationships that it took to really have a steady stream of qualified prospects and referrals and the premise of the book was that all things being equal people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like and trust. The way you develop these relationships is to really take the focus off of yourself. Move from what we call an eye focus or me focus and move to an other focus always looking for ways to add value to their lives. You could even say placing their interests first. And so I through the years -- and it was a how to book and through the years I’ve read a lot of business parables, short books that had an impactful message and were entertaining and fun to read. Books such as Ken _____23:30 Spencer Johnson’s One minute series, the One minute manager, the One minute sales person, the One minute apology. Spencer Johnson had -- and Ken _____23:41 had a number of other books through the years and there were many other people who wrote parables and I always enjoyed them. I thought what a great way to learn an important message. Nile: Sure. Bob: And to do it in a short period of time. And I thought wouldn’t it be neat if we could take the general underlying message, the premise if you will from endless referrals and put it into a parable. And so I had the basic idea in the title the Go-Giver but that was pretty much it. and so I asked John David Mann who was the editor and chief of a magazine I was writing for at the time or I had written for in the past and I knew John to have an amazing reputation as a writer and at that time -- now John is in demand everywhere. At that time only people within a certain niche market really knew of his genius and I knew that I wanted him to be the lead writer and major storyteller of the book because I knew I couldn’t do it justice myself. I’m a how to author. I’m not really a parable writer. And so John and I got together and collaborated on it and thanks to his expert writing the book really turned out to have an emotional appeal with people and it’s something that we both believe very strongly in the message and we continue to promote it and it’s been sort of like the ever ready the energizer bunny, whatever it was. That just keeps on going and we’re very grateful for that. Nile: Well, and it is such a beautiful story. It’s easy to get into the story and you’re weaving just invaluable business messages and life lessons into the story. In fact, one of the things that I like as you get into the story, you had a gentleman that just really wasn’t happy with his life. We’re not talking about business. We’re just talking about his life. And with the changes that he learned over time not only did his life change but his business changed dramatically as well. It’s really just a fantastic parable as you said. Bob: Oh, thank you. Nile: And I love the -- and it’s a short read. I think it’s 127 pages and those are small pages. And you end up with the five laws of stratospheric success. That was hard to say. Bob: It is hard to say. Nile: But just valuable lessons. One of the things you do is you talk about the entrepreneurial spirit. But what about those people who aren’t entrepreneurs? Does that message in the Go-Giver still apply to them? Bob: It really does because even if someone is not an entrepreneur in terms of starting their own business they still need to think entrepreneurially even when they are simply an employee within a small or major corporation because remember, in this case you still have your own business and that business is you and you’re selling your time, you’re selling your knowledge, your wisdom, you’re selling your services, you are selling your value to your employer and the only reason that they are going to have you in their company is because they feel they’re receiving more in use value from you than what they’re paying and that only makes sense. Otherwise why would they shell out money, right, to have you working in their organization? By the same token it works the other way too. The employer can add great value to their employees over and above their -- the paycheck by creating an environment where people feel valued, where they look forward to coming to work, where they feel as though they’re making a difference, where they’re learning things that can help them progress in their life after that particular job, what have you. So, it’s really a two way street. Everyone can be entrepreneurial in terms of looking for ways to focus on the other person, on adding value to others and that’s why that shift in focus makes all the difference in the world. When you’re an employee who’s focused truly on providing exceptional value to your employer when the layoffs come you’re still going to have your job. Nile: It’s so, so right and so valuable. Well, we’re going to talk about the five laws and all of that right after we take this short break. Jordan: All right. It’s time for another social media marketing moment. Nile, do me a favor. Talk to me about headshots in Linked In. yeah, I hear you talking to people about that all the time. Nile: Well, one thing that’s so funny is so many people don’t take that headshot seriously. They’ve got their arm around somebody that’s not in the picture or they’re deep in the background you could barely see who they are. Want to know an interesting fact? People that look at your Linked In profile spend 80 percent of their time looking at your profile, looking at your headshot. Why is that? It’s because people like to look into your eye. They feel if they look into your eye that they could see what you’re about. They get an understanding of who you are and that’s important before they move anywhere else. Jordan: Another great pearl of wisdom. Thanks Nile. For more just like that join us at linkedinfocus.com, sign up. You’ll be glad you did. Nile: Hey, welcome back to the social media business hour where we’re talking with Bob Burg, the author of the Go-Giver and there’s a new expanded edition that Bob’s just put out. We talked a little bit about that in the first segment but one of the things that we talked about is the five laws and can you maybe give us a quick review of the five laws that you and John share in the book? Bob: Sure. The five laws themselves are the laws of value, compensation, influence, authenticity and receptivity. The law of value says your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment. Now, this sounds like a recipe for bankruptcy when you first hear it but it’s not because we need to simply understand the difference between price and value. Price is a dollar figure, a dollar amount. It’s finite. It is what it is. Value on the other hand is the relative worth or desirability of a thing of something to the end user or the holder. In other words what is it about this thing, this product, service, concept, idea that brings so much worth or value to it that someone will willingly exchange their money for it or their time or their energy, what have you, in order to obtain this value and feel great about it while you make a very healthy profit? And this can be anything from someone selling accounting services to someone owning a pizza restaurant. When someone buys a pizza for 15 dollars and the pizza is absolutely delicious; they’re really hungry so that pizza has even more value to them; they’re eating it with their family and they have a great family experience; your pizza restaurant -- everyone there makes them feel just fantastic for being there, valued and appreciated and you do this consistently with excellence. You’ve give this person well over 15 dollars in value. Okay, so they feel fantastic about it. They receive much more in value than what they paid but because the pizza and your employees and everything else probably cost you about three dollars per pizza you also made a very, very healthy profit. So, both parties come out ahead and that’s why understanding the difference between price and value is so very important but it all starts with that focus on providing value to that other person which is why John and I both say that money is simply an echo of value. It’s the funder if you will to values lightning which means the value must come first and the money is simply a very natural and direct result of the value you’ve provided. That’s the law of value. The law of compensation says your income is determined by how many people you serve and how well you serve them. So, where law number one says to give more in value than you take in payment law number two tells us that the more people whose lives you touch with the exceptional value you provide, the more money with which you’ll be rewarded. The pizza restaurant owner -- I’m not sure how we got into that but that’s how -- who we used it for so let’s continue with that. Nile: Sure. Bob: The pizza restaurant owner, it’s not enough just to provide value to one person. They have a lot of guests in every single night and so the income is determined not just by the value they provide but how many lives they impact with that value. So, law number one represents your potential income. Law number two, the number of lives you impact with that value. That equals your actual income. Now, law number three is the law of influence. This says your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first. Again, this sounds counter intuitive but it’s really -- it makes a lot of sense because when you think about it the greatest leaders, the top influencers, the most profitable sales people, this is how they run their lives and conduct their businesses. They’re always looking for ways to place the interest of others first. Now, when we say this and let me qualify this. When we say place other people’s interests first we certainly don’t mean you should be anyone’s doormat or a martyr or self-sacrificial in any way. Not at all. It’s just that as we mentioned earlier in the show, the golden rule of business is that all things being equal people will do business with and refer business to those people they know, like and trust and there’s no faster, more powerful or more effective way to elicit those feelings toward you from others than by -- again, moving from an I focus to an other focus as Sam, one of the mentors in the story told Joe, the protégé, making your win about the other person’s win. And then you have number four. Law number four is the law of authenticity which says the most valuable gift you have to offer is yourself. One of the mentors, Debra Davenport explained that all the skills in the world, the sales skills, technical skills, people skills, as important as they are and they all are very, very important, they’re all for naught if you don’t come at it from your true authentic core. When you do however, when you show up as yourself day after day, week after week, months after month, people feel good about you, they feel comfortable with you, they know, like and trust you. They want to be in a relationship with you. They want to do business with you and refer you to others. And law number five, the law of receptivity says the key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving. All the giving in the world is all for naught if you’re not willing and able to allow yourself to receive as well. In the story we use the example of breathing out and breathing in. it’s not just the matter of doing one or the other. In order to sustain life you’ve got to breathe out and breathe in. we breathe out, we breathe in, we give, we receive. Giving and receiving, contrary to popular belief and popular culture; giving and receiving are -- they’re not opposite concepts. They’re simply to sides of the very same coin and they work best in tandem. Nile: As you go through your description there; sort of distancing myself from the story because I can do this now this sounds very spiritual. In fact, I feel almost like I’m being churched. But one of the things that I noticed in the book was the way that you weave it into the story and into the lives in the story. As I said earlier on it really becomes more than a business story. I mean, it sounds like we’re talking about business here because we’re relating it to business but it was really all about life in general and business just became a natural part of it. Is that a fair assessment? Bob: Yeah, I think that life and business -- all the aspects, all the areas of life are intertwined. People talk about balance, work and life balance or work life and personal life. I’m not sure balance -- and I’m certainly not the first one to say this but I’m not sure balance is the right word as much as harmony is maybe more -- Nile: I like that. Bob: Yeah. Again, I didn’t make that up. That’s something I’ve heard. I’m not that smart. I don’t have a whole lot of original thoughts. John does. I don’t. Nile: Well, I know that you listen well and you collect those thoughts and you repeat them well so there’s value that you’re giving there so I appreciate it. Bob: Thank you. And so I’ve never believed in that story about the person who could be one way at work and another way at home. I’m all nasty, so and so at work but oh, when I get home I’m kind and I’m gentle and -- people pretty much are what they are. I remember reading a great book by _____37:07 called secrets of the millionaire mind and the theme that went through his book -- I just love this -- was that how you do anything is how you do everything. Nile: Exactly. Bob: And I think that’s basically true and I think because of that universal laws and principles, work across the board, _____37:25 anything that works in life is pretty much going to work right across the way in business and vice versa. Nile: Absolutely. Well, again, knowing how you received the messages that are sent to you there -- I’m curious and we’ve got about three minutes or so before the break. If there’s a piece, one piece of advice that maybe you received before you knew anything about what being a Go-Giver entailed that really was a difference maker for you. Bob: When I was just starting to get my legs in sales, just starting to produce a little bit, I remember coming back to the office after what I will call a non-selling appointment. In other words, the sale did not happen and -- Nile: So, that’s what we call those now? Non selling appointments? Bob: Right. Nile: I like that. Bob: That’s like misremembering something, right? And I remember one of the older -- I guess he was a guy who was about to retire and he kind of took me aside. I think he saw me as sort of like Joe in the story and saw me as a guy with good potential but who really needed to adjust his focus and he said to me something like Burg if you want to make a lot of money in business, if you want to make a lot of money in sales, do not have making money as your target. Your target is serving others. Now, when you hit the target, he continued, you’ll receive a reward and that reward will be money and you can do with that money whatever you want but never forget that the money is only the reward for hitting the target. It’s not the target itself. The target is serving others. And I just was hit right in the heart by that advice and for me it was really a difference maker. What it told me is that selling is not about me. It’s always about the customer. And I personally define selling as -- simply as discovering what somebody wants, needs or desires and helping them to get it. And I think in all sorts of instances -- I think great leadership is never about the leader. Great influence is never about the influencer and great salesmanship is never about the sales person. It’s always about the other person. It’s about everyone whose lives you choose to touch. It’s about everyone whose lives you choose to add value to. Nile: Well, I know we don’t have a great deal of time in the segment but what you just said really resonated with me because I’ve been in sales for quite a number of years as well and I’ve always considered myself a consultive seller meaning that I really want to listen and I want to consult with the clients and if there’s something that I have to offer them that offers them value then certainly I’d like to have them consider that but my big question is do you really need what I’m selling. There may be a better solution for you. And I remember going through that a number of times in the past and sometimes my recommendation was you don’t need my product. You may want it and somewhere down the line I hope that you use my product but this is what you need today. And I remember with some associates some time they’d say what are you doing? And I’m saying don’t worry. That always comes back. They either find somebody that needs exactly what I have and they refer me to them because I wasn’t trying to sell them. I was trying to help them. I was trying to give them value and what you said really just struck me so I think there’s just such a powerful message there and sometimes we miss it and I know that that’s the part of the message of the Go-giver as well. There’s so much more to talk about. We’ve got one more segment to share but what we’re going to do is we’re going to take a short break, do a couple of the commercials that pay for things and we’ll be right back after this short break. Jordan: All right Nile. I think it’s time for another social media marketing moment. Do me a favor. Talk to me about key words in Linked In. Nile: Linked In is a very high authority site. In fact, most people say it’s the fourth highest site for authority that you could go to. Well, you’ve got your own personal web page on that and as everybody knows in web page strategies you want key words so that when people search those key words anywhere on the internet you’re found. Linked In, because of its high authority transfers all of that authority to you so if you take your profile, you key work optimize it, making sure you use key words that users are using to search for you. Not the ones you like. You’re going to get tremendous results. Jordan: Thanks Nile. For more tips just like that join us at linkedinfocus.com, sign up for more tips and tricks. You’ll be glad you did. Nile: Welcome back. And as you know I’m so excited that we have Bob Burg here, the coauthor of the Go-Giver and Bob, I’ve been waiting for this interview for so long because the book has meant so much to me and I know that you’ve got an expanded edition. Before we get too far into our last segment, what was the motivation about that expanded edition and what’s the expansion, what’s the impact? Bob: Sure. Once the book hit the 500000 mark in sales the publisher asked John and me if there was something that we wanted to do in order to celebrate that and to -- if there was any additional value we could put into the book and so forth and we thought about it and obviously with the story being a parable you can't change that. But we could add something at the end of the book that we felt would be of significant value to our readers. We had always heard and well, we had discovered that people were -- we knew businesses were using the book in their sales meetings, their leadership meetings and so forth and discussing certain ideas from the book. We certainly knew schools were doing this from colleges to high schools to -- and churches and other religious institutions. Book clubs were using it and discussing it so we thought well, why don’t we give them a discussion guide. So, at the end of the book we have a discussion guide at the back where they can utilize those discussion points in order to lead study on the book. We also have been asked so many questions throughout the years. Good questions. Just a lot of times the same questions that we figured if one person or if many people are asking probably a whole lot of people who read the book ask and so we put a question and answer section in there as well. We also have a new foreword by -- well, it’s not a new foreword. It’s the only foreword by Arianna Huffington who’s the great entrepreneur and very nice person and the founder and publisher of the Huffington Post so all in all it -- we feel very happy, very excited about this expanded edition. Nile: I can't wait to get my hands on it. And when is that available by the way? Is it on shelves now? Bob: Yeah, yeah. It’s out. Nile: Oh, well, I’m slipping. That’s something I got to get the latest, greatest copy of. Bob: Thank you. I hope you enjoy it. Nile: I absolutely will. I know that there’s one line in the book that’s raised quite a few eyebrows and it’s where you and John wrote does it make money. It’s not a bad question. It’s a great question. It’s just a bad first question. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs especially when in the startup phase might disagree with you just a bit. They might say it’s the only question when it comes to business. Otherwise you’re just naïve. So, what do you two mean? Bob: Well, actually we would say that if you -- and I think history has born this out that if the first question you ask is will it make money you’re focused in the wrong direction and it’s less likely to make money because if it doesn’t provide value to others, if there’s not a market for this either an already made market or one that you can create and that’s always created by providing value, then the second part, the money part is moot. So, we sort of mean that in a -- on a couple of levels. One is just as we mentioned. First ask does it serve. And when we say does it serve that simply means is there a market for it or could there be. Do people want it? You can create the best widget in the world and you might be thinking oh, man this is fantastic. We’re going to make a lot of money with this. But if there’s no market for it you’re not making money from it. You basically are just investing in something fantastic that’s a hobby. On the other hand if you determine first if there is a market in other words does it serve, now you can say will it make money. Is there a way we can take this product or service that really does serve and market in such a way that there’s a lot of money to be earned from it. On a bit deeper level we say well, first ask if it serves because we always want to add value to people’s lives by the very nature of what we do. We want to find a way to add value to others. Back in the -- I think it was the 1950s a young MIT student by the name of Amar _____47:11 went into a radio shack store and bought a pair of headphones and -- or speakers. Excuse me. Not headphones. Speakers. And he was very, very disappointed by the sound quality and he felt this is something that consumers should not have to have. And so he basically devoted his life to making great speakers, right, and creating great sound quality. We all are familiar with _____47:41 speakers. And he became a billionaire because he first asked does it serve, will it serve, how will it serve others. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m sure he deposited every single one of those checks and he should. He earned them. But his focus was not on the money. His focus was on providing value. His focus was on does it serve. Then it was will it make money. Nile: Yeah, and I love that story. It’s a great one because obviously he didn’t like it and he knew if he didn’t a lot of other people didn’t either and it starts out. Throughout the book -- in fact, I’d say the book is really about mentorship so what do you think is the best way to find a mentor and perhaps most importantly what should an up and comer not do when trying to find one? Bob: Oh, that’s a great question. Both questions are excellent. What I would suggest not doing is approaching someone and simply asking them to be your mentor. I mean, you could admire someone and you can study that person and then you approach that person and say hey, will you be my mentor. And basically, when there’s no relationship there what you’re basically asking this person is hey, would you share your 40 or 50 years of experience with me and just let me know everything it’s taken for you to be successful even though we don’t even know each other. And so typically that’s not going to work. What I would suggest is when there’s someone whose work you admire is to contact that person and first study their stuff. If they’re an author or whatever they do, read their books. What have you. Watch their videos. Or read the articles they’ve written. Just learn about what they’ve done first so you’re not asking questions that you should know the answer to already because you don’t want to waste their time. But you can ask. You can let them know that you admire their work, that you’re studying to or that you’re looking to so and so and if it wouldn’t be inappropriate may I ask you one or two very specific questions. Boom. So, now what you’ve done is you’ve communicated in a way that says to them hey, I honor your time, I respect you and your time, I’m not just looking to waste your time and want something for nothing, that sort of thing. Now, once they do and if they do answer your questions whether it’s letting you take them to lunch or just a cup of coffee or answering a couple of questions on email or over the phone, make sure you send them a hand written note afterwards thanking them. Just a short note thanking them, letting them know you’ll take action on their ideas and so forth. You can report back to them. You can determine or discover what their favorite charity is and make a small donation in their name. that will get back to them and basically again what you’re letting them know is even though I certainly am not in the position to add the kind of value to your life as you are to mine I want to let you know I’m not taking it for granted and I’m looking to add value to you in some way. You can add -- if you’re close enough geographically you can ask to drive them around, be their chauffer and so forth. That way you can be around them and maybe ask them some questions. I mean, there are all sorts of ways that may not apply to some people and will apply to others but the point is this. A mentor/protégé relationship is just that. It’s a relationship. And it usually takes time to develop. It’s much less likely to happen when you come right out and ask a person who doesn’t know you will you be my mentor. It’s more likely to happen when you build a relationship always looking for ways to express gratitude and add value to that person’s life. Nile: I love that answer because it reminded me of what you said as you went through the laws. Breathing is an in and out thing and so you get somebody that’s giving you value as a mentor, as a protégé you’re able to give value back to them. It might be at a different level but they’re recognizing the value that you’re giving. And I know we’ve got just a couple of minutes left and before I get through the final interview I’m going to ask one question but I also want to be able to ask and save some time if people want to know more, how they could get in touch and some other things you’re doing because I know you do a whole lot more than just write books so here’s the question. Are there misconceptions about being a Go-Giver? I mean, the name itself almost implies that you give constantly. Can you be taken advantage of that way? For example, does a Go-Giver tell people no, I don’t want to do that? Bob: Well, okay. So, these are great questions and it -- and there are misconception, misperceptions about what being a Go-Giver means and I think that happens when people see the tittle of the book or they hear about the title from someone and they haven’t read the book. Naturally the mind goes to oh, the Go-Giver. They’re just giving themselves away, right? Or they’re -- they don’t care about making a profit or -- and of course none of that is true. As a Go-Giver you don’t -- you give value constantly, certainly. But you don’t give yourself away. In fact, Go-Givers tend to make a much larger profit than most others because a Go-Giver sells on high value rather than low price. They know that when you sell on low price you’re a commodity. When you sell on value, you’re a resource. So, typically a Go-Giver makes more money and they have a higher profit. Of course, their focus is on the other person. Do they say no? Yeah. Go-Givers need to say no a lot. Just like we talked about at the beginning of this -- at the -- of the show. Go-Givers are typically very successful so they’re typically very busy and if you were to say yes to everyone and everything you wouldn’t -- you really wouldn’t have the time to say yes to those and to that which you should say yes to. But what a Go-Giver would do is they would say no in such a way that honors the other person. Nile: Again, I appreciate that and I appreciate you being a giver that decided to give so much value to all of our listeners tonight. Bob: Oh, thank you. Nile: But one of the things that I’d really like to ask though -- you do a whole lot more. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about what you do and if they’re interested in finding more how do they get in touch? Bob: Well, the easiest way to get in touch is just to visit burg B-U-R-G.com and as you know I speak at a lot of corporate and organizational sales and leadership conferences. We also have a Go-Giver certified speaker program where we actually train people how to become a professional speaker and deliver the Go-Giver message as well as my other intellectual properties that I’ve developed over the last 27, 28 years or so and how to actually market themselves as a speaker and they can get all that information as well as information on the book, the Go-Giver by visiting www.burg B-U-R-G.com. Nile: And we’ll make sure that all of those links are one the Social Media Business Hour page so as always we encourage you to download our episodes on iTunes. Subscribe there. That way you get all the episodes delivered right to you. But we have show notes and links and all of that on the socialmediabusinesshour.com. This is episode 132 just to make it real easy. If we were one more episode in we would be exactly a 100 episodes from our first interview that we did Bob. That’s sort of amazing. Bob: Wow. Nile: Yeah, I agree. Well, listen, to all of you and especially you Bob, I want to thank you for joining us on the Social Media Business Hour. To our listeners I hope you learned a few new ideas or concepts. Maybe you were just reminded of a few things you already know but you haven’t been doing to improve or grow your business. You know that my desire is that you take just one of the things that you learned or were reminded of today and you apply it to your life or business this week. We know that a small change will make a big difference and I’m committed to bringing you at least one new idea each week that you can implement. So, go back and identify just one small change that you could make to your life or business and see what a big difference it will make for you. So, until next week, this is Nile Nickel. Now, go make it happen. Woman: Thanks for listening. Social Media Business Hour is sponsored by linkedinfocus.com. Be sure to get the latest social media business tips and tricks plus free tips on how you can use Linked In to help your business today. Visit socialmediabusinesshour.com. [/content_toggle] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/burgbob Twitter: @bobburg Website: www.burg.com
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Maurice Cherry is the founder and creative principal at 3eighteen media, a design and consulting studio in Atlanta, GA that helps creative brands craft messages and tell stories for their targeted audiences, including fostering relationships with underrepresented communities. Past clients and collaborators include Site5, The City of Atlanta, NIKE, Mediabistro, and SitePoint.
He is a pioneering digital creator who is most well-known for the Black Weblog Awards (the Web's longest running event celebrating Black bloggers, video bloggers, and podcasters) Other projects of Maurice's include Revision Path, 28 Days of the Web, and The Year of Tea. His projects and overall design work and advocacy have been recognized by NPR, News One, CNN, AIGA, Creative Bloq, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, and The Los Angeles Times.
Maurice is also an educator, and has built curriculum and taught courses on web design, web development, email marketing, WordPress, and podcasting for hundreds of students over the past ten years. -
Most entrepreneurs and business owners are mistakenly doing the wrong things on Social Media. It shouldn’t be a surprise when they don’t get the results they’re looking for. Join us on this episode to learn:
-Which Activities Are Actually The Income Generating Activities You Should Be Focusing On
-The “Real” Definition Of Having A Business vs Having A Hobby
-What Is The Difference Between Social Media Marketing And Social Media Sales…And How Not Knowing Is Probably Hurting Your Business
-How To Become A Professional Revenue Generator
Shola Abidoye (SHO-LA AH-BEE-DOY) is a serial international entrepreneur, private equity investor and author. She's also the Co-Founder of Convertport.com the predictable sales technology that turns website clicks into clients. Her team has bought and sold 25+ Billion sales ad impressions, generated 100,000+ profitable business and consumer leads and create 25,000+ customers, lifetime recurring revenue customers among them. She lives between the East Coast, Europe and 526 ft from the beach on the Baja, Mexican Riviera where she goes to think, write, produce, conduct market research and support a local nonprofit. >> Insert Summary Here Insert Transcript Here
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Heather Ann Havenwood, CEO of Havenwood Worldwide, LLC and Chief Sexy Boss, is a serial entrepreneur and is regarded as a top authority on internet marketing, business strategies and marketing. Since marketing her first online business in 1999, bringing together clients and personal coaches, she has played an active role in the online marketing world since before most even had a home computer.
In 2006 she started, developed and grew an online information marketing publishing company from ground zero to over $1 million in sales in less than 12 months. Starting without a list, a product, a name or an offer, Heather Ann molded her client into a successful guru now known as an expert in his field.
Heather Ann has been named by a few as an ‘Icon Creator’ or the ‘Wizard Behind the Curtain’. She has instructed, coached and promoted hundreds of entrepreneurs leading them down the path to success. She has produced and managed over 350 seminars and events and hosted tele-seminars with many top online thought leaders such as Richard Flint, John Alanis, Susan Bratton, Alicia Lyttle, Tom Antion, Alex Mandossian, Legend Joe Sugarman, Anthony Blake, David Lakhani, Robert Shemin and many others.
Heather Ann currently is the Author of…Sexy Boss: How the empowerment of women is changing the Rule Book for sex, money and success (available on Amazon click HERE!) and The Game of Dating and How to Play it: A rule book for divorced men stepping back into the game.
Heather Ann Havenwood is smart, sexy, savvy and now stepping out from behind the curtain to educate, enlighten and empower women entrepreneurs to grow or start an online business and live a fearless and fulfilled life.Heather Anne Havenwood, CEO of Havenwood Worldwide, LLC and Chief Sexy Boss, is a serial entrepreneur and is regarded as a top authority on internet marketing, business strategies and marketing. Since marketing her first online business in 1999, bringing together clients and personal coaches, she has played an active role in the online marketing world since before most even had a home computer. In 2006 she started, developed and grew an online information marketing publishing company from ground zero to over $1 million in sales in less than 12 months. Starting without a list, a product, a name or an offer, Heather Ann molded her client into a successful guru now known as an expert in his field. Heather Anne has been named by a few as an ‘Icon Creator’ or the ‘Wizard Behind the Curtain’. She has instructed, coached and promoted hundreds of entrepreneurs leading them down the path to success. She has produced and managed over 350 seminars and events and hosted teleseminars with many top online thought leaders such as Richard Flint, John Alanis, Susan Bratton, Alicia Lyttle, Tom Antion, Alex Mandossian, Legend Joe Sugarman, Anthony Blake, David Lakhani, Robert Shemin and many others. Heather Anne currently is the Author of The Sexy Boss: How the empowerment of women is changing the Rule Book for sex, money and success (available on Amazon click HERE!) and The Game of Dating and How to Play it: A rule book for divorced men stepping back into the game. Heather Anne Havenwood is smart, sexy, savvy and now stepping out from behind the curtain to educate, enlighten and empower women entrepreneurs to grow or start an online business and live a fearless and fulfilled life.
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➲ When Your Greatest Mistake Became Tremendous SuccessHeather’s life is pretty phenomenal. She started out creating her first business plan in 1999 while taking an Internet Marketing course. The funny thing is, she found herself enjoying it so much, that a few years later, she developed and grew her online information marketing publishing company from ground zero. Heather didn’t have a list, product, name, offer and STILL went from zero to making over a million dollars In less than 12 months…and the really impressive thing is, she did it all over again with her next venture. Sadly, no story about a true master is complete without some acknowledgement of failure and Heather, like so many of us, was not immune to setbacks. Read on to learn how Heather handled bankruptcy, starting over from scratch and the important lessons she learned along the way…
Tough Lessons Learned And What It Means To Be An ENTREPRENEURAfter she lost her business, Heather had nothing. She even had to go back to Corporate America and get a job. Not satisfied with failure, she quickly set about analyzing what happened, how the business failed and how she was going to prevent it from happening again.
Heather says “In business and entrepreneurship, you have to fail. Success and failure are always part of the journey. You will fail over and over and over again, but no matter how many times you fail, if you want to finish strong and successful, you just have to continue to play the game strong”.Heather learned her lesson the hard way and now she plays the game as a master. She is now stronger and wiser Heather. Something she would not have achieved without such a strong desire for excellence. Heather looked for the main reason why her business failed. Not being a lawyer, she realized that when it comes to legal help, she needed to employ experts to guide her. Now, anything that comes across her desk gets reviewed by her legal team. Something she recommends for all entrepreneurs…especially those of use just starting out.
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➲ “The Sexy Boss”Heather is the author of “The Sexy Boss” – How the empowerment of women is changing the rule book for sex, money and success. Unlike Many other business books, that are all about marketing and business, Heather aims to inspire you. She offers some incredible lessons about how she rose above her CHALLENGES and how you can do the same.
The Real Deal…You Must Promote YourselfLike most people, Heather initially didn’t want to promote herself. We often see it is “Bragging”…which in our culture is socially unacceptable. Then she looked at the most successful entrepreneurs and realized that if she’s going to emulate them and achieve their level of success, she would have to emulate how they promote themselves as well. Now, a very strong advocate for self-promotion, Heather instructs all entrepreneurs to embrace that very necessary skill – no matter how uncomfortable it may be. Whether you belong to a big or small corporation, no matter what kind of business you’re in, you have to be constantly and consistently promoting yourself. Everyone needs to learn how to market themselves, especially in today’s corporate and entrepreneurial world. This is a skill that is often ignored as it makes most people uncomfortable…but it is absolutely essential. If you do not learn how to promote yourself, you’ll simply fall behind your competition who is willing to learn how to promote themselves.
Top 3 Reasons Why Most People Won’t Promote ThemselvesNowadays more women than men are resistant towards self-promotion because:
They don’t know how to promote themselvesThey don’t feel comfortableThey are not taught how to self-promoteHeather declares (and this is crucial): It is all about the right mindset. She understands that you are taught NOT to be strong self-promoter. However, once you get past your personal hang-ups embrace the importance of self-promotion, then it will become easy to “Own it”. Becoming a great self-promoter will be second nature to you. Learning how to do this is one of the many reasons why she wrote her book, “The Sexy Boss”.
➲Life Lessons From “The Sexy Boss”Here are Heather’s key takeaways and life lessons openly shared to all of us in this incredible interview
In business and entrepreneurship, you have to fail to succeedYou have to constantly promote and market yourself. Become a master of self-promotion. Some entrepreneurs even become successful because they know how to promote themselves – not necessarily because they are good at performing.Know your skillset and be good at it. Choose something you are confident with…something no one can seriously question your background and authority.Never stop advertising yourself and your business.Keep at it – don’t give up and don’t let your failures beat you down.If you’re going through something… just get out of your head. There’s a time and place for everything.Always say to yourself “I’m the most important person in my life” – Practice Mature Selfishness.Everything happens for the best – It is a journey. As long as you feel that no matter what the situation is - Bad, good, car wreck or someone giving you flowers everything happens for the best. It's all about the process.Always try to learn a new skillset.If you’re a writer. Be confident. Be Confident That You Have the Power Of The Pen.Learn how to use the power of words and understand the world of wordsmiths. Understanding marketing and getting people to buy something for your business is key.Learn to shift your mindset completely to your advantage.If it is just you and your head, you’re in the worst place. You've got to get out of your head.Treat your failure not as failure but a learning experience resulting to a better you.Increase Your Income by Building Relationships with Influencer's, VIPs, and Top Performers, Even If You Hate Networking
➲Heather’s Marketing StrategyHeather maximizes the power of email marketing. She has many different market segments (Yes, she has pretty big business). What she normally does is constant email communication with her subscribers. Normally she emails all of them four to five times a day and applies all of her marketing strategies. Check out even more of Heather’s great business advice…
Depending on the day – Learn Broadcasting. Constantly send out email marketingEmail marketing should be like TV advertising. They like to sell products to an audience any time of the day.Never get tired of advertising your business.Strategize and Prepare The Information You Want To Release.Try to have A “Demographic Plan”Include “Follow-Up’s” in Your Marketing PlansDiscover How To Skip The $50,000 Investment Cost, Save A Year's Hard Slog, And Still Get The Benefits Of Owning A Network Of 10 Profit Pulling Member Sites!
[content_toggle style="1" label="Read%20Full%20Show%20Transcript%20Here" hide_label="Hide"] Heather: Nile. Nile: Tell me you could hear me today. Heather: Yay. Nile: Good, good, good. Heather: I can. Very well actually. You sound great. Nile: Well, this is the way it should've sounded yesterday but for some reason it wasn’t so -- Heather: No worries. I had some other technical stuff that was just kind of going on then so it's okay. It happens. Nile: Great. Well, we are going to do a complete do over. Heather: Okay. No worries. Nile: We'll do the tease, I'll welcome you back and we will do your bio interactively as I talked about. One thing that I'm going to take -- I thought about this overnight that I want to do a little bit of a shift on is just what we did yesterday. You talked about hey, I made my first million and then I found it was easier to do it over again. And that's a big mind set thing and I don't know how much into mind set you are but I want to talk about. Heather: Oh, have to be. You fail that much. You go through your mind set. Yeah, absolutely. Nile: Not a problem. So, just so you know where I'm going to go. Heather: Okay. Nile: Super. So, you know everything now. We're rolling so the tease and then about five seconds of silence and then I'll come in and do the bio interactively. Heather: Okay. Hi, I'm Heather Havenwood and welcome. Hold on, I forgot the -- I just went blank. One second. You edit, right? Nile: Yeah, we do. Heather: I just went -- I've got to have your name right in front of me or I just go blank which I just did and I'm pre coffee so -- Nile: Oh, no. Heather: I'm like a quarter in so all right. Here we go. Let's do it again. Hi, I'm Heather Havenwood and welcome to social media business hour. In this hour you and I are going to explore together with Nile an amazing story of overcoming adversity and more importantly how you can make money in business today so stay tuned. Nile: I'm absolutely excited about our guest today for a number of reasons. One is I like not only her physical name but I like her company name. The way she's branded herself. I think it's cutting edge and I think you'll be excited about it as well so who am I talking about? I'm talking about Heather Anne Havenwood. She's a serial entrepreneur, sales and marketing coach, copywriter, small business activist. I love that Heather. And chief sexy boss. Welcome Heather. Heather: Thank you for having me Nile. This is going to be a lot of fun. Nile: Oh, it is going to be a lot of fun. Well, I want to tell everybody that's gathered here a little bit about you just so -- they've got the same background I do so you are the CEO of Havenwood World Wide LLC and as I'd mentioned earlier chief sexy boss. I love that. A serial entrepreneur and regarded as a top authority in internet marketing, business strategies and marketing in general. Since marketing your first online business in 1999, bringing clients and personal coaches together you've played an active role in the online marketing world since most of us even had a home computer. Heather: That sounds like I'm so old. Nile: That's one of the things I was commenting yesterday. If anybody goes and looks at your website at heatherhavenwood.com -- yeah, you're not old. Heather: I'm not old but _____03:31 that way. I did that in 1999. I was actually in college and I had an internet marketing course. It was the very first one and I was taking a marketing course from this particular professor and she got the university to let her into this one little internet marketing course. This is '98, '99. No kidding. And I took these courses. Like I want you to take it so I was like I'll take it, I'll take it. So, I took it and then we create this whole business plan. I mean, it was like 50 pages, 60 pages plus, plus. It was called best fit coach and I did this whole -- it was '99. How do you market? No idea that was going to be my future. It was just more like oh, this is fun. So, I just find that interesting little things along the way in life. All of a sudden you go oh, that's why that happened. So, yeah. 1999. Nile: Well, one of the things that I love about that is you said this was fun and of course that's what makes it easier. We're going to talk a little bit about mind set today, just a bit but that fun part's going to be a key portion of it. But let's fast forward just a little bit. In 2006 you started and developed and grew an online information marketing publishing company from ground zero to over a million dollars in sales in less than 12 months and you started it without a list, a product, a name, an offer, nothing. Heather: Correct, yeah. Nile: That's pretty phenomenal so I think if anybody could help us learn what to do to grow our businesses I think you're well qualified but you haven’t done that once, have you? You've done it multiple times? Heather: I've done it again, yeah. And I -- what's interesting about it is that that one business that I kind of bang my head on at the same time it's also my biggest failure. It's also the business that I went to bankruptcy over and lost everything over because I had a business partner that he was the face and I built everything around him and then there's this thing called contracts and lawyers and I forgot all that stuff so one day I came home and it was all gone but it was just like oh, aha, I've made this huge success but then my biggest failure and this other side of it, how did that happen? So, spent a few years trying to figure that out like how did that happen, who am I, kind of those things and I think it's through those kinds of times you really realize who you are as a person and what your really want because there is definitely a moment in time like screw this. I'm going to corporate America again which I did try. I lasted 90 days. Nile: Wow. And I bet that was pure torture. Heather: It was, it was, yeah. And so I went okay. I get it. It was just a -- you have to -- in business and entrepreneurship you have to fail. It's part of it. Now, we all sometimes hear stories of people like their first home run. That doesn't happen. Even home runs, even people on -- who literally do football and baseball and touchdowns. How many times are they going after that touchdown, how many times they actually try to hit the ball to get that -- at the park. It's over and over and over and over and over again so that's entrepreneurship is same thing. You have to play the game the same way where it's over and over and over again and you're going to hit one maybe out of park. You might be the next Facebook. I don't know. Maybe not. You might be striking out. But at the same time it's about getting up there on the bat and hitting over and over again. But once you -- I was _____06:50 long time ago after my failure. I was like if you can do that Heather you can do it again because it's just like a game. You get up there, you hit again where you hit but then some stuff happened afterwards and now you know where your hole is, legal stuff. Now guess what. I got a lawyer. Nile: I'm not going to make that mistake again. Heather: I do, yeah. And nowadays if anything comes across my desk in that world I'm like okay. I'll run it by my lawyer. And they get why are you doing that? I'm like because I learned my lesson. So, it's an interesting dynamic of what you learn over time. Especially in the entrepreneurship world. Nile: That's outstanding. I love the fact that you learned through those failures and I know that will be part of what you've talked about and everything else here. But then I know that you went on to help a ton of other people and some big name people and I'm not going to drop the names. The names will be shared in our show notes at social media business hour but I could tell you looking at the list I'm impressed. And some neat people too. Just besides being recognizable names I know a number of these folks as well. They're great and fun people. But you're currently the author of sexy boss. How the empowerment of women is changing the rulebook for sex, money and success and I suspect you probably tell a few of these stories in that book. Heather: Yeah, I do. Sexy boss, that book specifically, it was my -- it's kind of coming out of my life story. Up unto this point it's been more about niche marketing and doing business but sexy boss was kind of like this is who I am by the way behind the curtain and it was -- the name sexy boss came from _____08:38 and I are dear friends and I was visiting him in Vegas and he's like you're like a sexy boss. He's of course a wordsmith and so I was like oh, I like that. He's like yeah. So, all of a sudden we trademarked it. So, and then I was like I should write a book about over that. He's like well that's who you emulate so it was kind of this that's interesting. How do I emulate that and how do I become an entrepreneur and then how do I help other people to tap into their higher self. I call it a higher self and how to tap into their entrepreneurship because I think everyone is an entrepreneur. Everyone is. No matter if they're inside a big, large corporation. I call that an intra entrepreneur. You have to be constantly promoting yourself and constantly be marketing yourself, all the time. No matter what kind of business you're in you have to be _____09:29 to do that especially nowadays. So, if you're not learning that skill set then you're going to be falling behind and I think more for women than men necessarily is that women necessarily don't always know how to do that, they don't feel comfortable doing that. They're not taught that. We're taught to share our toys. Not to beat up and be strong. So, it's just a different mindset that once you learn it and understand it and then own it then you can be a great self promoter. I mean, look at Donald Trump right now. He's -- I would call one of the masters of self promotion and some people fault him for that. And I'm like he's actually brilliant for that because self-promotion is the way of the future and you have to continue it all the time or you're not going to be able to what I call succeed in whatever you want to do so that's my take and that's why I wrote that story. Nile: I knew that my cohost Jordan was going to be jumping up and down and wetting himself because he heard the name Joe Sugerman and Jordan likes to study copy write. He likes to practice copywriting and Joe's one of those big copywriter names. Heather: He is. He's a dear, dear friend of mine. _____10:37 time. We did an event together, we cohosted together called successmagnetseminar.com and the other speakers on the stage were John _____10:47 John Carlton, Joe Polish, Joe Sugerman, myself. And we actually had a hard time getting people there. It was like only 110 people there and then a few months later they did the Titans event, the big, huge Titans event and they got hundreds of people there at like triple the price and people -- the reason why we had a hard time is people didn't believe it. Like how are you getting all those names on one stage? And it was really because of Joe. So, Joe -- so, that was the reason but it's just kind of -- looking back now I -- now I sell the DVDs of it but it was a phenomenal event with some powerful, powerful copywriters and entrepreneurs on that stage. Nile: Yeah. It was funny. I knew most of them. And we're up against a break so let us take a break. Everybody stick around. Join us next segment. Hey, welcome back to social media business hour. We're here with Heather Havenwood. We're having a great time and I cut my poor cohost off last segment. He's jumping up and down, squiming sideways, just making all sorts of faces because he's got something that he just has to ask so Jordan what do you got for us? Jordan: Well, I just had to -- I actually had to interject is what I had to do because I thought Heather just dropped so many awesome golden nuggets on us. I mean, just to start with you've got to be promoting yourself even if you are in corporate American and I've got to tell you I laughed when I heard that. Nile: You didn't learn that lesson for a long time, did you? Jordan: I did not. No. and as a matter of fact there were people who I felt like this person is dumber than me. How could they possibly be making more money in a better position than I am? Well, the answer is they were better at self-promoting than I was. In fact, they understood self-promotion and I didn't even understand it. Nile: You just thought that was for the circus, right? Jordan: I thought that was just for the circus. Nile: Well, I know that Heather's going to talk with us a lot about mind set and some things like that as well and obviously that comes into that but I think that's great. I think we've got a good idea of your background but I have to ask you the question. You talked about sexy boss being your coming out book. What was the motivation behind that for you? Heather: Thanks for asking that. The motivation was -- how do I say this? It was a -- I call it the butterfly effect because I went through my bankruptcy and I went through this kind of dark time of trying to discover what am I going to do and I held the skill set of online marketing and copywriting but I feel like this kind of failure bla, bla, bla. And I lived on an island for about a year. I did nothing except stare at the ocean. It was kind of interesting. And for being an A type personality starting at the ocean for a year is actually challenging. It's like being in a yoga position or something for a year and it was hard. I didn't know what to do, wasn’t sure, questioned who I was so I went through this process and then I moved to Austin which I'm at now and that's when I started my dating business where I teach women how to communicate with women mainly because I knew the skills of information marketing, online marketing and someone said to me once you should do something where no one questions you for your background. No one questions you for your authority. No one can question me on that. And so -- because I didn't want to come out and start teaching people how to do online marketing when I “was a failure” at that point. I just don't like when people do that but that's all I do is teach internet marketing. They don't have any other businesses. So, I thought okay. I'll do that. And then after a few years of growing that business and being full time on that business and kind of coming back I thought it's time I told my story and I'm not really like that. I'm not a person that's going out there usually telling my story. I'm like this private and I don't want people to know that I failed and -- so, it was kind of for me my butterfly coming out and actually going oh, my god. I'm actually going to tell people that I went through this because not many people knew. It wasn’t public. I just kind of disappeared. The most powerful part of that was not really writing it. I did an audio book. It's actually on Audible and if anyone's ever done an audio book, audio book is very different than a communication like this because you have to read every single word of the book and you have to actually act like you're not dying doing it. And I'm having to sit here and read my story with emphasis, with like every word _____15:35 and it was hard and that's when I really got that this is my story and coming out there and telling people hey, I failed. I failed big time and I lost everything and I've come back. This is -- now I've come back. And now I want to help you. And so that's why I wrote the book. It was more of an inspirational motivation book for myself and for other people in telling my story. It's pretty powerful. Nile: In that story that you just told though I find something very fascinating and gosh, there's just so much I want to get to here today and I know our time together is limited but this is just fascinating to me because here you're talking about applying what you learned in your online marketing business. Granted, hey you failed at that at least first time out. Came back -- Heather: Legal side. Nile: Knocked it dead so that's not a failure. That's a learning experience. But the second part of that is you talked about applying what you learned to dating advice for men and how to better communicate to women. Heather: Yes. Nile: I find that so fascinating. Can you tell us just a little bit about that? Heather: Yeah. Oh, sure, yeah. That's my main business. That's what I do day in and day out and it's called datingtriggers.com and the niche is from a woman's perspective teaching men how to talk, communicate, attract, date, be with women. So, and that's a big market. That's a big challenge people have especially nowadays and the reason why it's a challenge mainly is not that women are weird or men are weird or something's wrong or anything. It's more about just communication has changed over time and so you see men who maybe got divorced and they're trying to get back in the dating world and it's like all confusing. It's just different or they're surrounded by women in the workplace, they're surrounded all the time and they're not taught necessarily how to communicate in a way that's effective that they get what they want. I teach a lot about how to get what you want in a relationship with a woman. I know that's kind of like counter intuitive but it is about how to attract and get what you want. So, yeah. That's what I do. It's kind of fun. Datingtriggers.com and onlydateyoungerwomen.com and I love that business. It's a lot of fun. I call my little guys, I talk to them all the time, I call them hey studs and they love it but they're a lot -- it's a lot of fun. I really enjoy it and that's kind of my bread and butter of my life. That's also where I do all my testing for my “marketing experience”. I do email marketing, I email them four to five times a day. I have all kinds of different segments with them. It's a pretty big business. Yeah. That's where I do a lot of my what I call testing and what I call marketing strategies and I do no social media with that business believe it or not. Nile: Oh, wow, wow. Well, you know -- Heather: Yeah, none. Nile: As we're sitting here chatting I'm thinking -- first of all, my wife and I, I think have a very good relationship and we communicate very well but I don't think that you could ever communicate at your peak all the time and I do believe -- hey, we're the same creatures but we communicate differently. I like the old 80s book whatever. Men are from Venus, Women from Mars. Whatever, vice versa. Women from Venus actually. But in any case -- Heather: I'll teach you one -- let me teach you one thing that I've sometimes I've had to teach this or communicate this or teach this really to someone I was just doing business with. We were having a kind of a challenge talking and I finally go let me explain something how women think if you're working with women. He just kind of had this like -- Nile: Rolling his eyes? Heather: Yeah, yeah. Well, it was on the phone so I'm sure he was. I said, women like choices. We like choices. That's why we shop. That's why we go shoe shopping because there are all these choices. We like menus. We love choices. He's like okay. I go when I come to you with this problem whatever it was you coming back with one solution -- no. give me my choices. I want to pick. He's like oh. So, the next time we talked he's like okay, here's all your options. Oh, great. I get to choose. You know what I mean? Nile: I love it. Heather: Yeah, yeah. It's really funny. I think he was like -- he's young. I could tell on the phone he's like young. He's like 25 and I'm thinking I hope he's really getting this. I hope he's really taking this to heart. Like this is a good lesson for him because I promise you you'll use it forever. It's not honey, you want to go to dinner, you want to go to this restaurant? It's like honey, do you want to go to dinner at seven? There's this, this or this. And she'll go oh, I want that. Nile: There you go. Heather: And then she's all happy. Nile: And she's happier. Well, my wife is a very patient and strong woman and so in that respect she's done a good job I think training me although I've got a long way to go I'm sure. Heather: Of course, that's -- Nile: But I like where you talked about your dating site being your bread and butter. Well, I want you to put some honey on top of that bread and butter because I think you've got a great program for us married men that really want an enhanced and powerful relationship with our wife and that's a great thing. And one of the things that we know sometimes as men we're not necessarily ready to put it out there with somebody that we treasure. Sometimes we are but hey. We'd rather have a chat with somebody that sort of got our back and has the best advice to get us the optimal results which is ultimately what you're doing. Heather: I agree, yeah. I have a good time with it. There's a lot of guys out there teaching other guys like pick up artists and things -- that's like the niche. That's not me. I'm coming from a woman's perspective. I call it be, be real, be the stud that you know you are because it's kind of this I've got your back, I'm your -- the woman in your side. I want to help you become the man you know you were meant to be. Whatever that is. Because I think in this society today men sometimes feel like -- not all of them. Like I'm not sure here. I feel like I need to like dumb down a little better. I'm not sure. So, they feel insecure. They're just not sure like where to -- so, I just kind of help them move to that process which I find funny by the way is when I have guys unsubscribe from me and they say thanks and unsubscribe from me. I've got a girlfriend. And I'm like it just got started buddy. Nile: The victory's done, right? Yeah. Heather: Yeah, well, it just got started. Why don't you stay on the list? Nile: You've got a long way to go there. Heather: You've got a long way to go, right. But I go okay. Nile: Well, you talked about your first business and what you did and how you did it and what you learned about -- hey, I missed the legal stuff and it caused the business to blow up. And in the scheme of things that was a minor thing that you overlooked that became major and relationships are sort of the same way so I could see where that would work and I have to say I've grown through my failures because I've had a lot of failed relationships as well so I'm just happy that I have a very loving and passionate wife today so it works out well. Heather: Good, that's awesome. Congratulations. Nile: We are just about at the end of this particular segment. Heather: Okay. Nile: I want to shift in the next segment and we've got limited time there but I want to talk about mind set and then you talk about some really interesting things. I mean, you compare email to the new TV. You talk about how the TV guide is really so important today and I really want to dig in and get some of that so I'd like everybody to stick around, follow us into the next segment on social media business hour with Heather Havenwood. We'll be right back. Okay, Heather. Heather: Yes. Nile: I'm going to go for about eight minutes and that will leave about four minutes left in this segment and what that will do then is it will give you time to really creatively pitch exactly what you'd like to achieve out of this, what you'd like people to get out of it but what -- where you'd like them to go, products, websites and stuff like that. Heather: Okay, thank you. You're going to let me know when that is so I can -- Nile: Yeah. I just want you to be prepared for it. I'll give you a queue. In fact the queue that I'll give you is Heather, you've got so much great advice and stuff here. How can you help people and so the helping people will be the transition for you to pitch. Heather: Okay. Nile: Okay, we'll be just about ready here. Hey, welcome back to the social media business hour. We're here with Heather Havenwood and as I'd mentioned in the last segment there's a couple of things that I wanted to talk about. One is you've had a number of multimillion dollar businesses now. You've learned a lot about mindset and we haven’t talked much about mind set on this show. We get into the social media elements of it. We're going to get into some of that in just a bit here but in the mindset portion I think it's so critical and I know that you've had to get your mind set right. Tell me a little bit about that process and what you've learned and maybe some of the mentors that you've had along the way. Heather: Well, I've had a lot of mentors along the way. It definitely wasn’t me in my head. That's the worst place to go. Just you and your head is the worst place. You've got to get out of your head. Especially if you're going to do something and I had a lot of different mentors along the way, coaches. And that's why I think -- that's why I'm a great coach now and do business because I've been through it. I'm a business coach. I would say more a marketing business coach now. But I do have a few things I stare at every day. Life lessons. I call them life lessons and they're written down on a piece of paper. I wrote down on that piece of paper. Oh, my god. Almost six years ago. Probably in the middle of my bankruptcy in Florida when I was literally broke. I mean, I was broke. I had -- I lost everything I had. My car, my dog and a cell phone. And I -- my car was paid off luckily so literally my only expense in life was a cell phone and gas in the car and food. And kind of did what I call hopping on people's couches for a little bit and a life lesson that I wrote down and I have now kept literally along the way. I'm staring at it right now. I'm looking at one. Okay, number three. I like this one. I'm the most important person in my life. Mature selfishness. Okay. That's a key one. That might not sound like -- what do you mean? It's like because if you're not taking care of yourself you can't help other people. If you're not taking care of yourself you can't build a business. If you're not taking care of yourself you can't be in a great relationship. It's called mature selfishness. I'm going to go back to Donald Trump just because he's in the news. He's what I call mature selfishness. People think he's narcissistic. He's not. He's just mature selfishness. He takes care of himself and takes care of this business and then takes care of people. His loved ones. Therefore he has a rock to stand on to go out and promote whatever he wants if you notice. So, that's what I call mature selfishness and I had to learn that versus constantly just taking care and building everybody else up. I had to take care of myself. That's a huge mind set because we're not taught that at a young age, we're not taught that in school, we're not taught to care of yourself first. Mature selfishness is more like don't be selfish. Share your toy. So you are constantly sharing. Especially as a female. You're sharing, sharing. Don't be selfish, don't be selfish, don't be selfish, be a good little girl. So, you have to shift that when you're an entrepreneur. You have to take care of yourself. You have to take care of the legal stuff. You've got to make sure that the Ts are crossed dotted Is so that's a big mind shift that I had to really focus on but the more I take care of my business and myself then I can help other people more. You can't help somebody when you're homeless. So, it's harder to do that. So, would say that that's a key lesson I had to take on. The other one was from Joe Sugerman actually and he taught me this. Everything happens for the best. Everything happens for the best. You probably heard everything happens for a reason and he said don't say that because then your mind will look for the reason. Well, what's the reason, why, why, why? You can't do that. It's like everything happens for the best and as long as you feel that no matter what the situation is. Bad, good, car wreck or someone giving you flowers everything happens for the best. It's about the process of where else you're going. It's on the journey. And he's gone through his own failures and so we talked a lot about that and for me that was a big one. It's that shift. Because I always thought everything happens for a reason. So, when the bankruptcy happened it was like there's a reason. I just went into that spiral. Like something's wrong with me. And you can't do that. It's like well, what was the lesson? Lesson was illegal. The lesson was you didn't look at this piece of the business. That's why this happened. It wasn’t that you didn't build something great. You did. In fact, today, that business is still alive doing very well. So, it's not that you didn't build that. You just forgot to look at this piece life lesson. Everything happens for the best. And actually it did happen for the best because if it wasn’t for that business partner taking everything then I probably would still be working for him or working with him. Not for him but with him and I would -- still would be in that business. I'd still be building that for him because it was like his face versus building something strictly just for me. So, I think that did happen for the best and I wouldn’t have been on the island for a year and stared at the ocean. I think that's the big piece is mind set as you have to shift that completely. Nile: I love that and I like how you talked about -- you keep those things in front of you like a vision board if you will. It's a part of where you're going and where you're heading. Well, the other thing that I wanted to get to is you talk about email is the new TV and you talk about how TV guide is so important. I want to work those things in because I know they relate a little bit to the social part _____30:21 part of what we're doing but we're just such -- limited time. We've got to get those in. Heather: Yeah, let’s get that in. so, I'll give you my mind set on email marketing. I would say my expertise is email marketing online perspective and copywriting. I do a lot of copy in email. So, email copywriting I guess and I mean, I'm doing between -- depending on the list, between four to six emails outbound a day. That's broadcasting. Sometimes more, sometimes less, depending on the day. So, I'm constantly doing email copy and email writing and people always say -- in some of the lists I send more than two or three times a day. People go why would you ever do that? Bla, bla, bla. And I always say well, let's analogy with TV. If I turn on the TV right now are they going to be advertising to me? Yes. Are they going to be advertising to me at eight o'clock at night? Yes. Are they going to stop advertising to me at all ever during the day just because they don't want to upset me? No, never. So that's the first key. Never stop advertising to your business meaning going to a click or going to an offer. Whatever that is. Number one. Number two, let’s look at the TV and I'll have you answer it. What's on usually in the morning? Nile: News. Heather: Great. What's on usually around noon? Nile: News. Heather: _____31:46 channel, right. Yeah, usually soap operas, stuff like that, okay, game shows, okay. What's on usually around four? Nile: I'm going to go back to news. Heather: News. Yeah. Throw them back. I watch FOX News all the time so I totally get that. So, around four it's usually like Ellen Show, different shows, talk shows, okay. And then what's on at night? Nile: Total entertainment. Heather: News. Total entertainment or news, right. So, I'm a big Kelly file -- like Megan Kelly I love you. I want to be like you. Okay. I do. I'm totally a Kelly freak and for like -- what's funny is I'll only watch her. I'm like I want to watch her. But I'll catch snippets of Bill O'Riley or catch snippets of _____32:28 right before and after her and they're saying the same story, okay. They're literally covering sometimes the same thing but I like how Megan Kelly says it. Nile: Absolutely. Heather: Right? Nile: If I go back to the tease that you did hey, I could say the same thing but I like the way you said it. Heather: Thank you. But that's email marketing. People -- FOX News is not going to go well Bill you already covered that. Kelly you can't cover that. They're not going to do that. Nile: Right. Heather: Because they know people like -- there's a demographic for Bill, there's a demographic for Hanna, there's a demographic for Kelly and people go tune in. they still want their advertising dollars and those eyes. So that's why they do that. They know that. Why are we not doing that with email marketing? You should. Same thing for social media I think. Social media unfortunately is a little more distraction but it's changing to have that entertainment and the timing value but with email specifically we're taught news in the morning, entertainment -- a little more relaxing in the afternoon, information around four o'clock and then news again. Wrap up of the day, right. We're taught that. Over and over. And 30 years of that on TV. 50 years, 60 years. So, why are we not doing that with our marketing? You should be. Nile: It makes perfect sense. Well, listen, in a minute or less though because I want to have people know how you might be able to help them but I want the TV guide story so can you give us that in like maybe even 30 seconds or less. Heather: Yeah, so TV guide story is _____33:58 the TV guide is -- you should be following the TV guide, old school TV guide in -- Nile: See, I missed that. I'm thinking the printed TV guide. Heather: Yeah, no, the TV guide -- the old. It is old school _____34:10 TV guide. I remember those days. You used to pick it up at the grocery store. But the old TV guide and how they structure it is what you should be doing with your marketing. You should be following up. Nile: Makes sense. It just took longer to communicate with the thickhead so I appreciate you clarifying that for me. Heather: Sure, no problem. Nile: So, hey how can you help people? Heather: So, I can help people in two ways. If you're a guy and you want to learn how to talk to women and communicate and attract a woman in your life you can go to datingtriggers.com. You're welcome to get on my list and communicate that way. But the thing I'm being focused on for 2015 is my coaching and my goal is to take 10 people and their business and focus with them on their marketing and double their business this year. So, I'm a marketing coach. I'm looking for people specifically that want to work with me and taking their business, doubling it. Now, it could be online or offline. Right now I'm working with a weight loss center. I'm working with a guy who's a producer, a guy who's in _____35:11 it doesn’t have to be “online” because there’s always an online perspective of every business. _____35:17 acupuncture. So, that's what I'm looking for and I want to help people do that so you can go to heatherhavenwood.com and then click on work with me and let's get on the phone and talk it out. I'm a one on one person so I want to work with specifically about 10 people this year. Nile: And I bet you want the people that really are the right fit, that you're highly confident that you could really help. Heather: Yes, yes, absolutely. Nile: Makes perfect sense and by the way, then it gets fun for everybody to -- Heather: Yeah, they make a lot more money and they have fun, they learn a new skill set, yeah. And it's not a done for you. I teach you how to fish. Not -- I'm going to -- I'm not a consultant or I do it for you. I'm not a service provider. I want you to learn the skillset of this so you have it forever and that's what I did. I had to learn it so now I have it forever and I get to do it over and over and over again and constantly make money. Joe Sugarman said to me once; he said -- he goes sometimes people ask me if I get nervous _____36:15 or whatever and I said no -- he said to me no. I never have that fear because I know in my heart that I have the power of the pin. I can write an ad to sell anything and there's a confidence there and I feel I'm gaining that confidence that I can really sell anything with the power of the pen. In my case it's the typewriter or a note book or MacBook Pro, right. But it's the power of the words and understanding wordsmith, understanding marketing and getting people to buy something for your business is key and that's what I help people do. Nile: Well, Heather I want to thank you so much for joining us and -- Heather: Oh, you're welcome. Hey Jordan. Nile: Jordan ran off a different direction already but hey, thanks of joining us and for all of you thanks for joining us on the social media business hour as well. Hopefully you learned a few new ideas or concepts. Maybe you were reminded of a few things that you already know but you haven’t been doing to improve or grow your business. In this case your business or your life. My desire is that you take just one of the things that you learned or were reminded of today and you apply it to your business or life this week. I know that a small change can make a big difference and I am committed to bringing you at least one new idea each week that you could implement so go back and listen if you didn't pick up anything. Identify just one small change that you could make to your business or life this week and see what a big difference it will make for you. So, until next week, this is Nile Nickel. Now, go make it happen. [/content_toggle]
Website: www.HeatherHavenwood.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/heatherhavenwood LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherannd Twitter: @hhavenwood
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Sales Funnel Basics Is where we start in this jam-packed interview, but we cover the gambit with sales psychology, sales copywriting and how to implement a sales funnel system using social media.
How Should A “Sales Funnel” Be Defined…Aaron defines the term “Sales Funnel” as a step by step process, for attracting the right people to your business, enables you to build a relationship with them and eventually, sell your products or services to them. The word funnel is used, because it is designed like a physical funnel: It has a wide top and narrows toward the bottom.
Ideally, when a sales funnel works, you can put a bunch of leads in the top, build a relationship with them in the middle and then turn them into customers. A good sales funnel does a number of things for your business. One of those things is prequalify your customers. To get through the funnel, these customers will have the ability to buy your products and services – otherwise, they wouldn’t have made it through your funnel.
“A great sales funnel should be intentional” – Aaron HoosHow To Create An “Intentional” Sales FunnelAs an entrepreneur, you realize, that every business has a sales funnel. According to Aaron, a great sales funnel should be intentional. The goal is to build it and watch it work on its own. Below are Aaron’s incredible tips on how you can create an intentional sales funnel…
Create an ad – Start by creating an ad (Facebook can be a good starting point) where your audience can click on it and the ad drives them to your landing page.Invest in a great video – Invest in putting together a great video for your landing page. This video will be so your audience can see you and your intentions.Email Capture Form – Have an email capture form where your prospects can give you their email address. You can email them periodically and even send them special offers from time to time.Increase Your Income by Building Relationships with Influencers, VIPs, and Top Performers, Even If You Hate NetworkingAaron’s Inspirational Story: How He Got So Interested In Sales FunnelsAfter his undergraduate degree, Aaron started a business with high hopes that it will be successful but sadly, it failed. After a couple of years, he started again with a second business and this time, he succeed in a big way. As a result, he became fascinated with this experience and wanted to figure out what happened. Why did he failed on his first business and succeed on the second?
This led him to pursuing a MBA. He wanted to research deeper into business and discover the different strategies that goes along with it.
While Aaron was writing his thesis and looking at all of the business strategies, he realized, it was all theoretical and academic, he couldn’t find a business strategy based on experience that was connected to the real world. He was looking for a specific, real, strategy where he could create actionable steps and build his own marketing systems.
Aaron ended up inventing his own sales funnel strategy. Many people he knew heard of sales funnels, but never exactly knew the power of them or how they worked.
His goal was that he want to take the sales funnel concept one step further.
He wanted to help people become aware of sales funnels and in turn, use them in their own businesses. Aaron knew it couldn’t be just a theory, but something that he would implement in real life and help other business owners grow their businesses.
The Greatest Myth About Sales FunnelsThe greatest myth or misunderstanding about sales funnels according to Aaron is…
“Throwing a whole bunch of marketing at the wall. Then, whatever sticks, that’s how you’re going to grow your business…”
This strategy is commonly called as the “Dump Truck” or “Shot Gun” approach. This is when business owners will try to market to as many people as possible. They don’t use just one sales approach – they try a whole bunch of stuff in the hopes that “something” will work.
It is the same mindset that many people have, “You have to spend money to make money”.
While that may be true, a well-constructed sales funnel will target only a few good, solid channels (or leads). By targeting your message, you can integrate your sales funnel effectively.
Aaron believes, this second approach will make your marketing much easier, more effective and less expensive.
How Is Copy-writing Involved In Creating A Sales Funnel?Copy-writing occurs in all sorts of areas within the sales funnel. You need it for the following:
Capturing your audiences attentionGenerating high quality leadsQualifying your leads as solid prospectsConverting your prospects to customersAnytime you use copy-writing, your focused goal should be: To use the power of copy-writing for moving people from one step in your funnel, to another until they’ve reached the last step…which is the sale.
How To Design Your Sales Funnel With Social MediaAaron likes social media because it plays on four different parts of his Sales Funnel
Why Does Social Media Play Such A Big Part In Aaron’s Sales Funnel?
Social Media helps capture the necessary attention that in turn, generates leads. It is so powerful that it can easily position you as the industry expert.It’s easy to create a system that turns your fans, followers or even friends into leads on any of the social media platforms.Social Media is a great place to build relationships with your followers by simply conversing with them. Once you’ve made them happy and through the love of your products and services, they can easily become your “evangelists”.Social media allows you to capture your friend’s followers, turning them into YOUR followers.Clink on the box below for more information:This Wizard Makes It Insanely Easy To Create Excellent Articles, Blog Posts, and Videos – FAST – And Use Them On Your Blog, Social Media, YouTube and More!Aaron’s Formula For Creating Great HeadlinesAfter years of study, Aaron shares his time-tested Headline formula…
Aaron is uses his own proprietary system, that he build from all the years of his experience, mentoring from others and his formal education. Most importantly, he reminds us that while writing headlines, you first, have to know your target market.
Below is Aaron’s 5 step process for writing terrific headlines…
The core, building blocks of your headline should include first, knowing what type of emotion you want to convey. After that, it’s easy to hook them and capture their attention.Have a character to portray – Every headline needs to have a voice, you always should position yourself as the speaker and at the same time the reader.Use The 1926 Sales Letter Of John Caples as a writing guide – He wrote the headline “They all laughed when I sat down at the piano but when I started to play …. “ Most of the frequently shared content right now in social media is built with this kind of model and it almost always works.Use the very powerful word of “FREE” – Anything free always catches attention.Make your headline is exciting – When something grabs your attention, it is hard to divert your attention elsewhere.Aside from his top 5 list, Aaron offers another piece of advice: We should always try to incorporate sales into our writing. We should always have a call of action that will led to that sale you are aiming for.
Want To Have A Solid Sales Funnel Strategy?
Grab Aaron’s Sales Funnel Bible Now!Aaron’s “Sales Funnel Bible” is a step by step guide meant for people who are starting a business or who are growing an existing business. This terrific, jam-packed book is divided into these four parts:
Sales Funnel IntroductionStep by step guide to figuring out what your sales funnel should looks likeBasic ways to optimize your new and existing sales funnelFinding more leads and more profit from your customersThe Advance levelWebsite: http://salesfunnelaccelerator.com
Facebook: facebook.com/aaronhoos.writer
Twitter: @AaronHoos -
Periscope Is The Hottest New, Most Trending Video App. Out There And Most Business Owners AndEntrepreneurs Don’t Know About It. Learn How To Prepare For And Deliver Your Very First Scope From Expert Natalie Cutler-Welsh And Nile Nickel.We Cover All The Basics, Talk About The Smallest Details To Make Sure You Have The Best Chance ToCreate A Spectacular First Set Of Periscope Broadcasts.Natalie Cutler-Welsh is an Author, Blogger, Podcaster and Mother of three. She is known as the ‘Go to Girl’ for women entrepreneurs who want to connect and get the word out about their business.Born and raised in Canada and now living in stunning New Zealand, Natalie is all about embracing change and making dreams a reality. She does this through connecting and coaching women in business in online communities and high level Mastermind groups.She’s all about making Social Media & Networking easy, fun & fabulous.Easily Point & Click Your Way To Profit Pulling Viral StoresRapid Mailer special offer $67 WHAT IS PERISCOPE AND WHY IS IT SO HOT?
Periscope is the new must-have app. It lets you broadcast live video to the world and allows you to explore the world through someone else’s eyes.
The great thing about Periscope is, when you go live, your viewers instantly get to see you and hear exactly what you have to say. They can even engage with you by adding real-time comments and send you “Hearts” – Periscope’s rating system. The more hearts you get, the higher your Periscope Broadcast is rated.
6 EMBARRASSING MISTAKES YOU DON’T WANT TO MAKE IT PERISCOPETip#6: Your Viewers Can Always Get A Replay.Natalie encourages you to not worry about the number of your viewers during your Periscope broadcast. If you only have 5 or 50 viewers in the beginning and then suddenly your viewer numbers drop down to 27 or lower, that’s fine.
Always remember, people come and go.
As a Periscope host, Natalie has had to realize that her viewers might be walking their kids to school or maybe even doing some shopping – whatever is going on in their lives.
Sometimes they just lose their internet connection. Worrying too much about the number of viewers will not help you create an awesome Periscope session.
Natalie also mentions, that you should primarily care about giving value to each and every viewer that you have. Be there for them, be yourself. Don’t be disheartened if something unexpected happens, your viewers have the Periscope “Replay” function available.
Tip# 6.1: When you go live with Periscope, you need to hold your phone vertically and not horizontally.
Tip# 6.2: When people start coming in, greet them enthusiastically!
Tip #6.3: Periscope will make your scope available for 24 hours via Twitter. Twitter will automatically tweet out a link for your Scope allowing you and your viewers to repost it all over social media. You can also upload your scope to YouTube.
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Tip #5: Have A Call To Action – But Don’t Be Pushy
And Use Them On Your Blog, Social Media, YouTube and More! Custom Content Wizard $197Natalie says, “When you’re using Periscope, don’t be super salesy“. Don’t be the type of person who makes their pitch straight away, constantly selling your products/services. The call to action can be as simple as inviting your viewers to follow you on Twitter or make another “No obligation, No Pressure” type of offer.
Tip# 5.1 – You have to realize that when you’re using periscope, it’s a matter of giving your viewers value as well as instructions to where to go and get your materials or the items that you’re selling.
Tip# 5.2 – Don’t physically type URL’s. What most people do, is hold out a piece of paper with their websites pre-written on it and present it to the camera. As the person hosting a Periscope broadcast, physically typing anything is simply not possible.
The Fastest & Easiest Way Online To Build High Converting, AMAZING Looking Landing Pages!.. Product: LPM – Landing Page Monkey $37 Tip #4: Do Not Engage With Comments Too MuchWhen Natalie started her first periscope, she was actually shaking. She had been a podcaster for three years and is comfortable recording video. But Periscope is not the same as recording a podcast, hosting a webinar or creating a video. It’s an entirely different thing altogether.
Tip 4.1 – When you want to host your own periscope, make sure of the following;
Download the appWatch at least 3-5 periscopes, this will give you the feel for what it is all aboutIt is easy to get distracted while using Periscope, especially with the thought that viewers are commenting in other scopes and not yours. Getting distracted by engaging in comments or totally ignoring them all together is not a good strategy. Find a good balance. Engage with your viewers but not too much.
Tip #3: Don’t Come Across As Too Polished Or “Salesy”.Periscope is real and raw, that is why people love it. It’s a genuine form of you extending yourself to your viewers.
“One of the most common mistakes that people make is to try to be that “perfect poster” type of person and even try to behave that way. This is not a website. You don’t want to be seen as the vanilla, website spokesperson. Everyone wants to see the person behind your business” – Natalie
Tip #2: Have An Enticing TopicTwitter will send the topic of your broadcast to your followers so it’s really important to have something that sounds enticing and engaging. Ideally, target your ideal audience on your Periscope broadcast and tell people, “What I’ll do is “this” or “this is a tip I got from an industry leader…”.
“Any time I have an idea, random or not, I write it down because I’m not going to remember them all.”
Tip 2.1 – Periscope drops the call sometimes and you have to start all over. Taking notes (maybe in your phone) will help you if this type of situation occurs. When a connection drops, all you have to do is copy and paste your enticing topic back into Periscope.
Tip 2.2 – Periscope will automatically capture first, whatever you have in front of your phone. Natalie’s suggestion: Create an image that basically says the title of your scope and have it as the primary display, so when it’s saved your viewers can replay it, they see the image you created. It will be will be the very first thing that your audience will see. Otherwise, just make your primary screen look professional.
Tip 2.3 – Be aware of what’s going to come first and give be aware of the impression it’s going to make.
Easily Point & Click Your Way To Profit Pulling Viral Affiliate StoreSelf Optimizing Word Press Affiliate Theme.Covert Store Builder $47 (Automatically have an affiliate store on your site) Tip #1: Be PreparedPeriscope gives Natalie’s business so much potential to showcase her expertise and share her wonderful knowledge with all of her viewers
Natalie’s Proven Advice;
Go for it but be prepared – If you have plans to host a content driven scope, make sure to write down the main points you want to highlight so that you can always go back to your notes when you feel like you’re off the topic.In terms of backdrop, lighting and sounds: Just make sure that you’re not pointing straight to the wind, your headphones must have a microphone when using them and if you’re planning not to use a desktop, make sure it has a microphone.Do a little recap and summary every once in a while. Maybe when you’re halfway through your periscope. This will benefit those viewers who came in late and those who come in and out of your scope.Research first before scoping. Spend quality time thinking of your headline, title and contents of your topic. Have fun!Click Here To Read The Full Transcript Of The ShowNatalie loves making social media networking easy, fun and fabulous. She understand that many people start their business because they have a passion for something. However, sometimes, situations don’t always pan out the way we want them to.If you need help or just want to be part of a group with people who have the same mindset, then join Natalie’s group and stay connected.Go to gotogirlsocialmedia.com/mm which stands for “mastermind” and join the community. This community will give you an amazing network of focused and fabulous women entrepreneur. Twice a month, they have an online community live session, where a guest expert will be invited and there will be group discussion, coaching and mentoring session. All of this you’ll get in an awesome price of $47 per month.Avail her 7 Secrets Social Media and Networking Course only for $197.00 Facebook: FB/GoToGirlSocialMediaTwitter Handle: @gotogirlnzWebsite: http://www.gotogirl.co.nz -
The eBook revolution has totally empowered entrepreneurs beyond their expectations.
The question is: How Can You Take Advantage Of It?
Writing a book traditionally, with all the printing and publishing costs, just doesn’t make sense anymore.It’s not an investment that has a profitable return for most authors and business owners.
Enter eBooks…If you sold just a hundred copies of your book, it could really boost your business as much as the next 12 months and beyond.
All you have to do is to keep up the momentum, once you get started.
Listen In As We Talk About…
Morgan Gist MacDonald is a writing coach and editor of nonfiction writing and the founder of Paper Raven Books. Morgan and her team help authors write, edit, and publish books that create impact.Her latest book, Start Writing Your Book Today: A Step- by-Step Plan to Write Your Nonfiction Book, from First Draft to Finished Manuscript, is available in the Amazon kindle store. Morgan blogs about writing techniques and motivation at paperravenbooks.com Morgan’s Middle Of The Night Inspiration No one wakes up at age 18 and says “I’m going to be an entrepreneur and this is going to be my target market” Morgan
- A Valuable Lesson From Some One Who’s Been There: How Morgan Started With A “Middle Of The Night” Inspiration
- How You Can Start Writing Your First Draft
- The Single Greatest Misconception About Writing A Book
- The Most Common Ways You Might Be Sabotaging Yourself
- The Incredible Benefits Of Writing A Book
- 3 Practical Strategies To Get You Started Effortlessly Writing
- How eBooks Have Changed The Publishing Industry
- Social Media Tips And Tricks For Publishing Your BookLike most of us, Morgan did not wake up on her 18th birthday with an established business. She was also unsure of what the future is going to be, until an inspiration came to her in the middle of the night…. Morgan was a good student and already a talented writer while in school, she actually went for a Phd in sociology at Vander Ville University. For a couple of years as Morgan was involved in academics, she reached a point in her life and asked herself if she really has the passion for writing, which led to huge self-doubt. During this time one fateful night, Morgan was sitting at the graduate student offices while one of her colleagues was up late working on a paper…and her friend was struggling. With a few hot cups of coffee and a dark room, they talked through the assignment. For three-research intensive hours, Morgan stayed with her friend and accomplished what seemed to be impossible: The huge essay was complete. At that very moment, a realization came to Morgan: She absolutely loved every minute. Morgan realized that she wants to help others with their writing. She knew her personal writing process could make it easy for everyone to write a book – if only they used it. She left her pursuit of a Master’s Degree to become an entrepreneur and immediately started her own Writing And Editing Business. As life goes on, it has a way of distracting even the best of us. Morgan started her business at an early age, but quickly found excuse after excuse as to why she can’t write her book and share her incredible writing process to the world. “Why” it wasn’t the right time, “Why” she couldn’t fit writing a book into her schedule. Being a mother with an infant, certainly didn’t lend itself to writing.
The 4 AM RevelationWe need to have starting point. We have to start with something that we don’t have our head wrapped around yet – MorganWhile feeding her 4 month old daughter at four o’clock in the morning, a revelation came into Morgan. “It is now or never. I will write my book”, she thought. At the time, she wasn’t even entirely sure of what kind of book to write. As she reflects in this terrific interview, Morgan said, “There is something about being up at four AM…in the middle of the night - your reasoning skills have not quite kicked in yet. I was willing to start with something that didn’t entirely makes sense.” She knew in her heart, starting is all she really needs- just a starting point. Sometimes we just have to start something even when we don’t have our head wrapped around it.
Building A Bigger, Stronger More Responsive List Of Subscribers Is The Fastest And Easiest Way To Add More Profits To Your Bottom Line.
The Journey Of Writing Her First DraftTime to quit playing, time to get real, time to start. - MorganMorgan was still not entirely sure what her book was going to look like and that kind of uncertainty kept her from really starting. She had one thing going for her that wouldn’t occur to most people: She was totally exhausted. Morgan turned it into an advantage. Being exhausted and up at four AM allowed her to give up her doubts and really start on something amazing. She didn’t know exactly what she is was going do to, but Morgan committed to herself that THIS time, big things are going to happen. Morgan started with free writing. She made it a habit that whenever an idea came to her, she would write it all out on paper. Morgan started writing for 30 minutes each day. After 2 months of 30 minute writing sessions, she had a good first draft. She quickly moved on to editing.
Morgan’s EdgeWhat separates Morgan from the pack? It is her crazy writing experiences. What has helped her communicate well to her clients and with coaching them, is her understanding of the writing process. Morgan said, “You might know you want to write a book, you just don’t know how”. She helps her clients understand the process first, then she’ll show them what awaits them: An incredible journey and amazing process of discovery.
The Great Misconception About Writing A BookWhen someone says “BOOK”, people are sometimes intimidated by the term. Why? Because most of us think of Barnes and Noble and that a book should have 200 or 300 pages with research involved, etc. Nowadays, we can write an eBook with 20,000-30,000 words and about 100 pages in length and you can quickly get your story and your message across to countless readers and better yet, prospects.
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Are You Sabotaging Yourself Out Of Starting Your Book?Morgan shares some insights about how people most commonly sabotage themselves:
Sitting in a room and thinking about your book all day – is not the same as writing your book.Waiting too long to start – If you’re waiting for life to get easier, it’s never going to happen! You might as well start today.Keeping your book a secret – If you tell absolutely no one that you are writing a book, then the book is never going to happen. Morgan said, we need to have accountability and others will provide that to us.What Are The Benefits Of Writing A Book?Morgan shares some incredible benefits of writing a book:
You can write a book about your business.You can be a coachIdeal clients can be reachedYou can be an expert in your chosen field which in turn, can land you lucrative speaking gigs3 Practical Strategies To Get Yourself Into WritingHere are Morgan’s Top 3 practical strategies to get yourself motivated for writing:
1. Write against a timer - Even if it’s a timer on your mobile device, set the timer for 25 minutes and start writing as soon as the timer starts…and stop as soon as the timer goes off. This strategy will give you a nice, intense focus while you’re writing. Track your progress - Every time you write, write down the date and the number of minutes that you wrote, along with your word count. The proof of your accomplishment will help keep you motivated. Schedule three to five hours per week, every week, for writing – Writing a book may not be super easy, but it also doesn’t have to be hard. Spend some quality, focused time on it.How To Create Attention-Grabbing Professional-Looking Marketing, Explainer & Training Videos in Just Minutes! Explaindio $57 annual
How eBooks Are Changing The Publishing IndustryThe eBook revolution has totally empowered entrepreneurs beyond their expectations. Are you taking advantage of it? As an entrepreneur, one of Morgan’s goals is to get clients. Writing a book traditionally, with all the printing and publishing costs, just doesn’t make sense. It’s not an investment that has a profitable return for most authors and business owners. However, with eBooks, if you sold a thousand copies it might boost your business for the next 12 months. All you have to do is to keep up your momentum. After your book is written, get it out there in eBook format and you’ll get a quicker turn around with much less invested. Once your eBook is ready, you can create a small, targeted campaign that gets you clients, speaking gigs and great connections with industry leaders. Doing this can really help to boost your business. Morgan also offers us that while writing your book, you really need to crystalize your mission. Really narrow in your goals for the book. Crystalizing what you mission is and what your purpose is will make everything involved in your business come together. Once again, just get your book out there and you will start seeing other benefits, the greatest of them for most entrepreneurs is, you’ll start bringing in new clients which will eventually become regular clients. You just can’t beat having a dependable revenue stream!
Social Media Tips And Tricks For Publishing Your BookSocial Media is a great platform to promote and launch your book. It allows you to be engaged and converse with your network even before the book comes out. Even better, you get to take charge of the conversation on any social media platform you desire. Here are Morgan’s Social Media Tips and Tricks:
Periscope - Morgan’s most recent favorite social media platform is Periscope. Through its live video streaming, (you’re just using your phone), you can start broadcasting and anyone in the world who is signed up on Periscope can see what you’re broadcasting, what you’re saying and can hop on and watch you live. They can even join the discussion.Amazon – Another favorite of Morgan’s is Amazon. When they like your book, Amazon offers you the functionality to make your customer’s online shopping experience simple. This means, if your prospect wants your book, Amazon makes it easy for them to buy it!Another great feature of Amazon is it allows you to give your book away for free every 90 days. Morgan says, this is a great way to promote your book. One of her favorite strategies is to put a Facebook ad with just the picture of the book and a little tag that says “Available For Free on Amazon”. Run the campaign for 5 to 7 days, encourage the people to get your book while it’s free and in return, it will boost your Amazon ranking.
Google Search – If you’re set on the traditional way to publish your book, you can search blogs and google for accumulated lists of literary agents. Just search “Literary Agents” and the “Genre” in google, and you’ll find blogs that list what you are looking for. Follow them on Twitter and start a conversation. Along way, these agents might just help you get traditionally published. Website: http://paperravenbooks.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaperRavenBooks Twitter: @morgangmac LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/morgan-gist-macdonald/27/79/704Have you ever thought about writing a book? You are in the right place!To all listeners of The Social Media Business Hour, Morgan is giving away a special free gift just for you. It is 12-step checklist on how to write your eBook. If you want to write an eBook that brings in clients, lands you speaking gigs and gets you known as an expert, then follow Morgan’s 12 step process. It is super easy to follow…and it’s FREE! Download Morgan's free quick start guide: "12 Steps to Write a Book That Boosts Your Business and Builds Your Platform" right ~ HERE ~!
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Creating a podcast can cost anywhere between $1500 and $4000 or even more.
You can't create a podcast without the proper gear.
Just Microphones and Mixers can cost several hundred dollars and that’s not even mentioning the sound editing software and the other expenses you don’t even know you have to make yet.
Fear not, our guest Ellory Wells has a solution we know you’ll like.
Join us and learn all about how you can start your own, professional sounding podcast for just $200 or less.
Spend a few minutes with us and you’ll also get:
- The insane benefits of creating a podcast and why you should cash in on this HUGE opportunity- Expert recommendations for what microphone you should have to start with
- How To Release And Easily Share Your Podcast With The Worldm/smbh
Twitter Handle: @ellorywells - Daha fazla göster
