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A pleasure to welcome my friend Justin Honaman to Intrepid Radio! Justin is an author, speaker, singer/songwriter, and sales and marketing executive with Coca-Cola. Justin joined me on the show to talk about his latest project, a book called Be Extraordinary: Crush Mediocrity, Spark Curiosity. On the show, we talked about what it means to be extraordinary and what that looks to each of us; why you need to pursue big change; how to deal with fear; that we know what to do (we just don't do it); find wins any way you can (and generate momentum from that); and what he means by sparking curiosity. Continuing on, what can an individual do within an organization to be extraordinary, and how can management empower this idea as well; the importance of personal branding, self-promotion, and momentum; and finally, what is Justin's best piece of advice on how to become a person of ACTION and DOING, and not a person of sitting around hoping and waiting...and truly knowing what fuels you (and how that's the secret to being extraordinary!). Learn everything you need to know about Justin Honaman here! You can purchase Justin's book here (affiliate link): ### If you enjoyed this conversation, and want to hear from other cool and hip folks like Justin Honaman, subscribe to my podcast on iTunes by clicking here. And, a review and customer rating would be much appreciated as well!

A pleasure to welcome Austin McGhie to Intrepid Radio. Austin is the president of the Strategy Group at Sterling Brands, and the author of Brand Is A Four Letter Word: Positioning and The Real Art of Marketing. In our interview, you will learn: 1. If you use branding as a verb, you are dead wrong. 2. Positioning is the true heart of marketing. 3. People confuse branding and positioning, thinking they are the same thing. 4. "Find what makes you unique, in a way that makes you better." 5. How to really build a brand. 6. Brand is a response...not a stimulus. 7. Why people are so afraid to really differentiate themselves. Is it because of our culture's emphasis on conforming? Or a desire to be liked by everybody? 8. "You have to bake the differences in when you start...You can't paint the marketing on later." 9. "Niche is NOT a four letter word." 10. Why Austin doesn't really want you to think outside the box. 11. The difference between strategy and tactics, and that most people don't really know what strategy is. 12. "Strategy is the art of forced choice." 13. Too many traditional sales reps struggle because they are branding, when they should be POSITIONING instead. The number one reason sales reps ultimately have to sell on price is because they've done a lousy job positioning their product or service. I will be giving away a copy of this book to my mailing list SOMETIME WEDNESDAY, so click here to join the list in time to be in the running! You can learn more about Austin here, and click below to purchase the book (affiliate link): If you enjoyed this conversation, and want to hear from other cool and hip folks like Austin McGhie, subscribe to my podcast on iTunes by clicking here. And, a review and customer rating would be much appreciated as well!

Twas cool to welcome Julien Smith back to the show. Julien is the New York Times best-selling author of Trust Agents and The Flinch. He joins me today to discuss his latest book, The Impact Equation, co-authored with Chris Brogan. SHOW NOTES + HIGHLIGHTS: 1. What is the impact equation (but first, Julien reminds us about the trust equation)? 2. "How strong is your idea? How powerful is your platform? And how important and good are your relationships?" 3. There is so much information out there, most people struggle to achieve clarity on the critical issues that can lead to having success/making an impact. Books like this still have to be written to help people gain the needed focus to learn what is essential to succeed. 4. But what does Julien say to the person who claims, "But I am on Twitter. And I am not having an impact. So clearly, this doesn't work..." 5. You don't need a large platform and tons of followers to have an impact. In fact, Julien argues the opposite is true. 6. One of the tenets of the impact equation is to have an idea that matters to an audience. Problem is, most content is boring drivel and garbage. How do people overcome this significant problem? 7. "We are talking about a positioned statement, specifically targeted, to create an emotional reaction, in people, so that they will spread it." 8. What lessons from Julien's The Flinch can be applied to help master the impact equation? As in, if you quit because it is too hard? Then good, you won't be my competitor! 9. Another way this manifests itself is that people aren't comfortable to really offer a stark contrast...and they settle for a meager differentiation that has little, if any, impact. 10. "Become the person you want to become, verses the person it is easy to become." 11. People cannot master the impact equation if they don't adapt and learn to accept and relish change. 12. Does this book only apply to building an online platform? No. "Marketing is fundamentally a study of understanding people..." 13. "It's about having an influence and reaching the humans that matter to you." 14. Learn more about Julien Smith by clicking here, and you can purchase the book here (affiliate link): THIS WEEK'S SHOW BROUGHT TO YOU BY Marketing RELEVANCE is a full-service marketing, communication and interactive company that understands that communication is different today. We know that the needs of companies vary drastically, which is why we cater to those that want a full-service marketing agency, but we also offer services a la carte. Whatever your marketing or communication need, we do it. And, the great thing is that we can show our results using your analytic tracking software and sales reports. After all, good marketing must produce qualified leads that can be converted into sales. For more information, please visit www.MarketingRELEVANCE.com. To hear from other cool and hip folks like Julien Smith, subscribe to my podcast on iTunes by clicking here. And, a review and customer rating would be much appreciated as well! Click here to listen to co-author Chris Brogan's interview with me on The Impact Equation. And, click here to watch to Julien's past interview with me on The Flinch.

Chris Brogan joins us on the show to discuss his latest book, The Impact Equation, co-authored with Julien Smith. Chris is a New York Times best-selling author of Trust Agents, and President/CEO of Human Business Works. SHOW NOTES + HIGHLIGHTS: 1. To start us off, Chris explains exactly what the impact equation is: {Impact = C X (R+E+A+T+E)} 2. The concepts of the book are clear: to make an impact, you need clarity, you need to make an emotional connection, you need to make a contrast, and you need to build a great platform. We all get this, but Chris and I discuss why people STILL are not making an impact. 3. The problems with the consumption nation: we consume a lot of content, but we don't ever execute on anything. 4. Chris responds as I mention that I am worried about people NOT taking action, because they believe they have to have a platform that reaches tens or hundreds of thousands of people on social media. As Chris says, you just need to have an impact with the people you need. 5. Does the impact equation only work for those building online businesses? 6. How can a traditional, bricks-and-mortar business, with a sales force of guys not even on LinkedIn, benefit from the impact equation? 7. Is it fair to boil down the entire book into the notion that we just need to become better communicators? Chris suggests that's a big piece of it, but there's more. 8. Chris talks about the importance of improving self as a critical element of making an impact: sleeping better, eating better, etc. Chris begins to debunk some long-held myths. 9. How is it, in this day and age, that fear of failure still stops too many people dead in their tracks? And what to do about it? It largely stems from dwelling on the past for far too long... 10. Visit chrisbrogan.com and HumanBusinessWorks.com to learn more! And you can purchase the book here (affiliate link): THIS WEEK'S SHOW BROUGHT TO YOU BY Marketing RELEVANCE is a full-service marketing, communication and interactive company that understands that communication is different today. We know that the needs of companies vary drastically, which is why we cater to those that want a full-service marketing agency, but we also offer services a la carte. Whatever your marketing or communication need, we do it. And, the great thing is that we can show our results using your analytic tracking software and sales reports. After all, good marketing must produce qualified leads that can be converted into sales. For more information, please visit www.MarketingRELEVANCE.com. To hear from other cool and hip folks like Chris Brogan, subscribe to my podcast on iTunes by clicking here. And, a review and customer rating would be much appreciated as well!

An honor to welcome John Jantsch back to the show! John is a marketing consultant, speaker, best-selling author, and the engine behind Duct Tape Marketing. John joined me to discuss his latest book, The Commitment Engine. On the show, we discuss the systematic path to discovering and generating genuine commitment, the three planks to build on (clarity path, culture patron, customer promise), "effortless" business, the risk in writing this book, using words like love and grace in a business context, and the central theme of purpose (and why too many businesses still don't do this). You can purchase John's book here (affiliate link): Learn more about the book here. To hear from other cool and hip folks like John Jantsch, subscribe to my podcast on iTunes by clicking here. And, a review and customer rating would be much appreciated as well!

A real pleasure to welcome entrepreneur, writer, and world traveler Chris Guillebeau to the show! So, Chris is a world renowned blogger, best-selling author of two books, organizer of the World Domination Summit, highly successful self-employed entrepreneur, marathoner, and best-known for traveling to every country on the planet by his 35th birthday (he has less than ten countries left). There are countless interviews with Chris on these subjects. So, the last thing I wanted to do was talk to Chris about being non-conformist. Or his two books. Or his quest to visit every country. We all know people, yourself included perhaps, that are living boring lives, that hate their work, have no meaning, or are NOT doing anything about achieving their goals and dreams. Instead, he and I have a very frank discussion on how an ordinary guy like himself can achieve all these amazing things. What's the secret? What does Chris Guillebeau know that we don't? Tune in and find out! You can purchase Chris' latest book here (affiliate link): To hear from other cool and hip folks like Chris Guillebeau, subscribe to my podcast on iTunes by clicking here. And, a review and customer rating would be much appreciated as well!

An honor to have Ken Segall join me for episode 68, where we discuss his recent book, Insanely Simple: The Obsession That Drive's Apple's Success. You should know about this book. It is the Steve Jobs/Apple book you really want to read. And yes, you probably know Ken Segall as an ad man behind the famous Think Different campaigns, and the iMac name, which lead to the iProduct naming to follow. But what you really want to do is understand the power of simplicity, the Apple way, and what that means for you and your business. And that's the focus of our conversation... SHOW NOTES + HIGHLIGHTS: 1. Yes, over the course of our conversation, Ken talks and shares great stories about the greatest commercial ever made. And below, I share the "Steve Jobs" narrated version, which Ken and I agree is now our favorite: 2. Apple may be known for great products, and great advertising, but there is a reason this happened. And that's a focus on simplicity. And that's why Ken had to write this book... 3. Think Different wasn't just an advertising theme in Apple's later years. The reason it worked was that was ALWAYS the way to describe Apple, especially when it was two guys starting Apple in a garage... 4. Why simplicity matters. To not only you, but your business... 5. Why do we complicate things? Is it our culture? Is it our insecurities? Is it our education? Why do we take purposeful steps to make business and life more complicated? 6. Market testing? Tweaking? Aren't you then just trying to please everyone? This is always doomed to fail. Believe in something, and tell people that. Far simpler, and an easier message to deliver... 7. "Apple doesn't care what you think." There's tremendous freedom in that... And simplicity... 8. The origin and concept behind "getting hit with the simple stick," and why we all need to wield one... 9. Can anyone just start to simplify things? It is a skill? Is it a commitment? Can you do it half-way? 10. Is simplicity an art form? Not designing an iPhone, necessarily, but the act of stripping away all that is not essential... 11. "Simple isn't dumbed down. It is advanced features made easier to use." 12. "It isn't easy being simple." 13. You can learn more about Ken Segall and his work here. And you can find Scoopertino here! 14. You can get Ken's book here: 15. To hear from other cool and hip folks like Ken Segall, subscribe to my podcast on iTunes by clicking here. And, a review and customer rating would be much appreciated as well!

Joined this week by Johnny B. Truant, author and blogger. On the show, we talked about his latest book, How To Be Legendary. If you are familiar with Johnny, you know this will be a no holds barred conversation...raw and unedited. You probably need your ass kicked. You aren't living the life you want. You aren't starting the business you want. You aren't writing the book you want. You aren't going after the sale you want. And on and on and on... [Click the book cover above to get the FREE download.] Johnny and I talk about why people get stuck in a life they hate. He confirms that you will most certainly die, and that you have no time to waste NOT doing things that matter. And we talk about the fact that "successful" people are just ordinary folks like you and me...they've just chosen to DO something big... Most importantly, Johnny shares the How To Be Legendary formula: Start, Do The Work, Ship, Repeat. As he says, simple, but not easy. Sadly, if you are like most people, you don't have the courage to start... So, if you needed a kick in the pants, and a slap in the face to start focusing on doing the work you are supposed to do, I hope this episode will provide some inspiration... Enjoy episode 67! ### To hear from other cool and hip folks like Johnny B. Truant, subscribe to my podcast on iTunes by clicking here. And, a review and customer rating would be much appreciated as well!

Lots of dialog out there about why you should build a community. But today's guest on Intrepid Radio should help you clear through the clutter as to WHY you NEED to do this... A joy to welcome author and business strategist Sarah Robinson to today's show. Sarah joined me to talk about her new book, Fierce Loyalty: Unlocking The DNA Of Wildly Successful Communities. You can learn more about Sarah and Fierce Loyalty here. SHOW NOTES + HIGHLIGHTS: 1. "Too much "community building" advice is theoretical. We needed a simple model, easy to implement..." 2. But can an organization simply buy into a process, and watch the community build itself? Doesn't building a community require blood, sweat, and tears? 3. Building your community never ends. It is a garden you have to tend to regularly. But the yield to your business and brand is almost immeasurable... 4. "If you are honest with yourself, you know you don't pay attention to a brand's advertising. You do pay attention to what your friends say..." 5. Can you outsource community building? Or entrust it to an intern? 6. Building community is a team effort, with buy-in needed from ALL departments... 7. Haven't we always built communities around our brands? Social and digital just makes it different... 8. With a fiercely loyal community, you have higher client retention, and less order fall off... 9. How does a traditional sales force tap into a community, and why should they care about their organization building a fiercely loyal community? 10. "But doesn't this idea only apply to B2C?" 11. Building community doesn't always apply to the end user...If you sell through distributors or retailers...you need to build loyal communities out of those ranks... 12. To get started building a community, what is the most important first step? 13. Visit the book site at FierceLoyaltyBook.com. You can get a copy of the book here: ### To hear from other cool people like today's guest, subscribe to my podcast on iTunes by clicking here. And, a review and customer rating would be much appreciated as well! A shout out to Jenny Schmitt for getting me connected to Sarah!

A fun pleasure to welcome DJ Waldow to Intrepid Radio! DJ is an author and the Founder/CEO of Waldow Social. Along with Jason Falls, he is the co-author of a new book called The Rebel's Guide to Email Marketing - Grow Your List, Break The Rules, And Win! As I suspected he would be, DJ graciously accepted my offer to do a complete show in lightning round format! So, here follows the fifteen questions I asked him on the show: 1. How often should you send email to your audience? 2. Should you only email unique content? Or is it ok to repurpose blog content? 3. Email sign-up Pop-up windows....Good or bad? [By the way, the popup tool recommended by Chris Penn is Pippity...] 4. Email autoresponders....Good or bad? 5. As a sales rep, should you use the (possibly boring) corporate email marketing campaign? Or create YOUR OWN list? 6. Does the size of your list really matter? 7. When you send an email, should you send the complete text of the content? Or include some teaser content with a link to the full article on your blog? And does that impact open rates? 8. How important is mobile to your email marketing? 9. HTML verses plain-text emails? 10. What email provider should you use? 11. What email format/template should you use? 12. When sending an email, does the time of day matter? 13. When sending an email, does the day of the week matter? 14. How important is it to be human in your email marketing? 15. Does humor and "imperfections" make a difference? You can buy the book here: ### To hear from other cool people like today's guest, subscribe to my podcast on iTunes by clicking here. And, a review and customer rating would be much appreciated as well! To get some other marketing hacks and ideas sent direct to your inbox, join our list here!

It has long been my view that most sales reps have made poor use of email strategy, not to mention blogging, as part of their sales process. So, I invited Ben Settle back to Intrepid Radio to discuss what can be done. Ben is an email specialist out of BenSettle.com, and you can join his great mailing list there as well. SHOW NOTES: First, we cover some email basics: 1. Why you should send marketing email every day. 2. How large your mailing list should be. 3. Content, and how to generate it. 4. The whole point of blogging is to build your mailing list. Now, for the traditional sales rep: 1. "Don't break the rules of email marketing. Make your OWN rules." 2. Create your own email campaign, build your own mailing list, publish your OWN blog...because? 3. People aren't buying from the company. They are buying from you. 4. The reason most consumers don't like to talk to sales people isn't that they don't like to be sold to, it's that most sales people aren't good at what they do. 5. We talk about two ways to get movement and traction when you are pressed for end-of-month(quarter) sales, or at least getting people to do your demo when your sales managers pushes arbitrary end-of-period numbers or goals. 6. Every sales rep sends weekly "touching base" emails to their prospects, emails that are clearly buy emails hoping the prospect is ready to buy today. Ben and I talk about a better way... 7. Ben suggests, and explains, why you should follow this three-step formula: 1. Be desireless. 2. Be excellent. 3. Be gone (people pursue that which retreats...). 8. Can (and should) sales reps incorporate an autoresponder program into their sales and marketing program too... 9. Why you should treat the names in your database like friends, and not, well, like names in a database... 10. And yes, we are suggesting you create YOUR OWN mailing list, and create YOUR OWN blog. Do not rely on the corporate stuff... ### To hear from other cool people like today's guest, subscribe to my podcast on iTunes by clicking here. And, a review and customer rating would be much appreciated as well! Purchase Ben's e-Book here (affiliate link):

A pleasure to welcome Jason Falls back to Intrepid Radio! Jason is an author, speaker, and CEO of Social Media Explorer. His last appearance on the show was to discuss his first book, No Bullshit Social Media. But today, he joined me to discuss his next book, The Rebel's Guide To Email Marketing, co-authored with DJ Waldow. SHOW NOTES: 1. Why the hell did we need another book on email marketing? 2. Does humor play a role in email marketing? 3. Does mobile impact your email strategy? 4. Is email dead? 5. Why you need to break email marketing rules... 6. Does social compliment email marketing? 7. OK, I am not some well known author with a large platform. How does everyman build a meaningful mailing list? 8. How large does my list have to be? Or, is list-size envy a real problem? And...the Jason Falls Email Tactics Lightning Round! 9. HTML? Or plain-text? 10. Autoresponders. Good? Or bad? 11. How often should you send email? 12. Content. Repurposed blog content? Or unique material? You can purchase Jason's books here (affiliate links): ### Join my list, and get some of the hard lessons (good and bad) I've learned running my own business... Photo from Social Media Explorer.

A sharp and disturbing look into the world of online reality. | Kirkus Reviews You are probably aware of, and been impacted by Ryan Holiday's work, and didn't even know it. Ryan is the author of Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator. He is also the marketing and PR mastermind behind American Apparel and some the best-selling authors and multi-platinum musicians of the last several years. You've seen him on Tim Ferriss' blog, Copyblogger, and on Chase Jarvis Live. It was a pleasure to welcome him to Intrepid Radio for episode 62. Show Notes: 1. Ryan explains why he wrote the book, which in so doing, exposes his secrets to becoming a VERY successful media and PR strategist... 2. There has been a lot of visceral reaction to the book, angering many in the PR space. Ryan talks about the reaction, why they are having that reaction, and what that means to the message he is trying to convey with the book. 3. In the book, Ryan says he's paid to deceive. And some argue that that's all marketing and PR is: spinning, manipulating, and telling stories to evoke an emotion and thus cause an action. For years, I was a political strategist, and I was spinning all the time. Is there any honor in this trade? 4. I don't watch reality TV, because, it seems so fake. We always talk about whether some action taken by a celebrity was merely a set-up to get coverage and exposure. We discuss whether people can trust what they see in modern media. 5. We talk Tucker Max. If you know Tucker, you either love him, or DESPISE him intensely. Ryan did the media strategy for the book launches. And while I don't care for Tucker personally, the books were an interesting read, and enormously popular. We talk about whether a guy like Tucker Max can succeed and become a New York Times bestseller WITHOUT a guy like Ryan Holiday doing what he does? 6. We talk about how Ryan will react if his book leads to a surge of copycats trying to deploy similar strategies and tactics, and whether or not this is already happening. 7. Despite a focus of confessions of media manipulation in the book, there are some critical lessons for PR here. We discuss several of those. And, seriously, a key strategy is to start getting coverage at smaller, lower level blogs and trade rags, and go from there [watch the book trailer below]. 8. We discuss the strategies for an organization trying to get heard above all the noise, to make an impact in an age when getting the right kind of media is more and more difficult. 9. We discuss what's next for Ryan Holiday... Presumably, he can't get away with these types of tactics again? Or... can he? Will he? 10. View the book's trailer: 11. You can purchase Ryan's book here (affiliate link): 12. You can learn more about Ryan at RyanHoliday.net. 13. If you had fun with this episode of Intrepid Radio, click here to subscribe to the show on iTunes [leave a customer rating please] and never miss another game-changing guest.

A pleasure to welcome Jacob Morgan, principal and co-founder of Chess Media Group. On today's show, episode #61, Jacob and I discussed his latest book, The Collaborative Organization: A Strategic Guide To Solving Your Internal Business Challenges Using Emerging Social and Collaborative Tools. Today's Show Notes: 1. Jacob talks about why collaboration is so important to an organization. It has impacts on employees, customers, partners, etc. And how business is like playing a game of chess. 2. Too many organizations are missing the boat on collaboration, while they understand its importance, they are not sure of the initial first steps to integrate collaboration into their organization. 3. What comes first? Universal adoption of the idea and belief in collaboration? Or the implementation of collaborative tools? 4. Jacob talks about the availability of numerous collaborative tools that exist on the market, and how to determine what is the right set of tools to use for your organization. 5. More and more organizations are working virtually, so we discuss the impacts that work shift has on collaboration. 6. Jacob summarizes the key organizational benefits to improved and functional collaboration. 7. What are some initial steps an organization can take to build up adoption from the entire team, including the vital element of having and building the right corporate business culture. 8. While most conversation around collaboration involves that amongst your own team, collaboration is CRITICAL with your customers as well, and Jacob shares some thoughts on this as well. 9. You can learn more about the book, The Collaborative Organization, here. 10. Jacob is principal and co-founder of Chess Media Group. You can find them here. You can purchase Jacob's book here (affiliate link): ### If you enjoyed this episode of Intrepid Radio, click here to subscribe on iTunes [and leave a customer rating if you please!] and never miss another exciting guest!

Thrilled to welcome back a previous guest and good friend Patty Azzarello to the show! She is the author of RISE: 3 Practical Steps for Advancing Your Career, Standing Out as a Leader, and Liking Your Life. She is a speaker and a business consultant out of The Azzarello Group. She joined us today to talk about her new book! SHOW NOTES: 1. Despite countless leadership and career development books, Patty explains why she wrote RISE. It is more answer guide than a standard business book. 2. Patty explains FOUR things that hold us back. And is it the fault of your business culture? Or do you have the power to do something about it? 3. Our goal is to achieve a breakthrough, and Patty gives us the one tip to do it. 4. We discuss the critical need for ALL of us to seek a mentor. 5. I ask Patty if FEAR holds people back, even big time executives. And what they do about it. 6. We've all been told to "DO it scared." Although a frightening prospect, Patty explains how to get through this fear. 6.5. Business lessons from Clint Eastwood and Bill Murray. 7. We learn about the importance of VISIBILITY, and why that is so important to your CREDIBILITY. 8. Patty explains how we know when we are ready for the next challenge, the bigger stage, the bigger job. 9. You can learn more about Patty's work at The Azzarello Group, and learn more about the book here. You can purchase the book here (affiliate link): ### Join my list to get a RISE in your marketing and sales!