Traffic and Leads Podcast show

Traffic and Leads Podcast

Summary: The Traffic and Leads Podcast is a weekly show dedicated to helping entrepreneurs and small business owner generate more online traffic and more profitable leads for their businesses.

Podcasts:

 Importance of Mindset in Digital Marketing | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

I have an incredible, enthusiastic guest here on the Traffic and Leads Podcast this week: Ryan Stewman! He has built an incredible piece of software called PhoneSites, which completely revolutionizes the way we can build and create funnels and landing pages. Not only that, but Ryan has some incredible perspectives on mindset and what it takes to attain success. Aside from PhoneSites and his insights around mindset, we also get to know a little bit more about who he is. Born in Dallas, Texas, Ryan still lives there even though he travels a lot. He is happily married with three sons under the age of ten, and he is a serial entrepreneur, owning eight different businesses ranging from technology and software to real estate and much more. IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN: All about PhoneSites. PhoneSites is an incredible piece of software that allows you to build sales funnels and landing pages using your phone. Ryan says in the simplest terms, it’s the fastest way you can go about creating a website! iOS, Android—if your flip phone has a screen, you can make something amazing with their software! Who PhoneSites is geared toward. Other websites like ClickFunnels and LeadPages have become more complicated over time. Once upon a time, they were much simpler, but now they’re geared more toward Internet marketers than the average person could use. Specifically, Ryan says their primary target audience is salespeople or small business owners who are looking to create successful funnels without having to spend hours and hours on training. What you can do with phone sites. PhoneSites connects with any CRM you have such as Aweber, MailChimp, and so on. Through any of their templates, you can create a funnel that will allow you to collect emails and generate leads. Not only that but if you are familiar with HTML, you can edit the HTML of your funnels and pages to be and do anything you want! Best of all? As of 11/1/2018, it’s only $47 a month—a fraction of the cost of other software like it! Some statistics to further show just how awesome PhoneSites can be! The average conversion rate for the top ten funnels created by customers ranged between 23% and 25%. In sixth months, PhoneSites has amassed 5,001 users with 1,421 of them have already built a funnel. Client funnels have been viewed an incredible 2.5 million times and generated 39,494 leads! Ryan’s “Force of Average” and how to attain success. He talks about an energy in the world called the “Force of Average”, which is this idea that being average is ingrained into our minds. It’s so easy for us to be distracted and settle for being average, and the best weapon against distraction is a focus. Ryan walks us through the four steps to maintaining focus: 1) Faith (in yourself); 2) Fitness; 3) Finance; and 4) Family. LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: PhoneSites HardcoreCloser.com Instagram Ryan Stewman on Facebook HardcoreCloser on Facebook * YouTube * LinkedIn * Twitter We cover a TON of ground in just a little bit of...

 How to Close The Lingo Gap | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

The most important part of the sales process is establishing an important connection with your audience. Certain tiers of markets require a certain understanding of how you should be communicating with the people you’re trying to sell to, and learning that process is imperative to finding success in not only your brand marketing but your sales as well. The lingo that people use when they communicate with each other is how we establish a personal connection, and that’s how we keep people coming back for more! My guest this week is Jeffrey Shaw, someone who knows all about the importance of lingo between you, the business owner, and your ideal customer. Jeffrey is a brand consultant and business coach, and together, he and I talk about the kind of work he does, how he helps entrepreneurs, and business owners to close that lingo gap between themselves and customers, and all about his new book, and how he can give you some advice on advancing in the luxury product field! Let’s get started! IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN: What Jeffrey does! As a brand consultant and a business coach, he works with entrepreneurs and small businesses to “close the lingo gap”. What that means is the message that people intend to put out versus how it’s received by the real deal customers. With years of being a business coach under his belt, people often come to him for solutions to their bigger problems, and this is the beginning of finding the answer! Jeffrey gives us an example of what he does, telling us about a high-end product that came through for coaching. While the product the client had was high end and was being offered for a price point that made sense, the aesthetic that surrounded the product was less than desired. Jeffrey is very well attuned to the high-end market, and working with this client to usher them in the right style direction to make sure that things lined up were important. Overall, it improved her brand message, and made a huge difference after all! Jeffrey talks to us about his book—Lingo: Discover Your Ideal Customers Secret Language and Make Your Business Irresistible. The high-end market has a different language than the low-end market, and when you have a luxury product, you need to work with those people. In order to reach the market you have, you need to understand their mindsets and their way of thinking, and their emotional triggers. What triggers them emotionally helps them to choose who they do business with, and that’s something you need to know as an entrepreneur. Jeffrey gives us a brief rundown of the 5 step process to develop the ideal language for your customers. When he wrote his book, he knew he was writing a linear book for nonlinear thinkers. Entrepreneurs are creative and innovative people, and learning the 5 emotional triggers that get an unspoken response from your customers is how you’ll climb the success ladder. Before any of that, you need to define who your ideal customer is! Jeffrey goes through the 5 steps in the sequential process for developing the ideal language, starting with perspective. You need to understand how the world operates, feels, and looks from the perspective of your ideal customer, Secondly is familiarity—it creates a sense of comfort, and people are drawn to what is comfortable for them. You need to understand what is familiar to your ideal customer. Thirdly is style, which is a more surface level thing to finagle. The style of what you have is the decision maker of the customer, and if they’ll go through with the purchase. You want to make sure that you’re catering to the style that your ideal customer prefers. Fourth is the pricing psychology, and when you master that, you can put yourself in any market you want. Lastly is the words—you need to tie together everything by communicating the right words, and the right lingo towards your customers.

 How to Start A Product Based Business | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

When you work in the business world, what you choose to specify your company and your brand is important! Though we all like to think of each other as strictly digital marketers, the truth of the matter is that a large percentage of us are also business owners, and businesses come in all shapes and sizes. This week, I’m joined by an experienced businessman, who’s here to share some of his best tips and tricks on how to grow your business, and how important it is to invest in your product, and your audience. Kevin Gianni is currently a founder at Annmarie Skincare, a company that sells organic and crafted products designed specifically for them! Together, Kevin and I talk about his journey into the business world, how his business has shifted over the years, and what it takes in order to get a product that you’re truly proud of, and a product that you know will find success. Let’s get started! IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN: How Kevin got started! He’s been a businessman for years, starting as a personal trainer. Over the years, Kevin turned towards the health blogging sphere, and ran a very successful YouTube channel called Renegade Health for a very long time—they have over 900 videos! Then, Kevin shifted towards traveling the country in an RV called The Kale Whale, where they sold health forward products to increase your quality of life. (Fun fact: Kevin was the first person to do an online summit!) Kevin talks to us about the biggest lesson he’s learned from his previous business experiences, stating that the most important thing he’s carried with him is knowing that, if you want something, it’ll happen. You’ll stumble upon the right people and places, and the thing you want can and will be done. Kevin explains how he shifted to skincare, stating that customers kept asking about what to use on their skin. At the time, Kevin wasn’t sure that what they had was the best product to tell to their audience base, with how strongly they support a fresh and healthy diet. So, they started making their own products to design things for their audience that would reflect their food ideas and their activism. As the skincare grew more popular, Kevin noticed that he was putting 30% of his time into Annmarie Skincare, but he was gaining 70% of his revenue from it. That’s when he knew what he needed to focus on. Kevin gives us some tips for people who’re on their way to generating a new fan base for a product! First and foremost, you need to make sure that the product you have is really, really good. Your friends and family might tell you to want you to want to hear, so don’t be afraid to look outside of your immediate circle for a second opinion. From there, you need to make sure that you’re investing in a paid advertisement from the beginning to ensure that the people who will use your product are the people seeing it. Lastly, you can try investing in relationship capital! By reaching out to influencers and affiliates, you can collaborate and pay them the commission on your product, making sure that it reaches the intended people through a familiar and popular face. Kevin admits that, when he launched his products, he didn’t rely upon the paid advertisement, and he learned out that you should be using it the hard way! He knows the baseline of a good product, and knows how to teach their customers well—however, he does encourage people to focus on paid ads from the beginning and ensures that they’ll find success. Lastly, Kevin leaves us with some tricks on making sure that you’ve got a product that’s worth it. You need to look at it, get outside opinions, and make sure that it solves a need for the individuals it’s targeted towards. How can you make that work? Additionally, Kevin speaks about the age-old saying,

 Using Instagram for Small Business Marketing | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

You know as well as I do that Instagram is on the rise of social media platforms you must be using for your social media marketing. It’s one of the best for generating quality traffic back to your website, as well as making confirmed sales to a wide audience of people who can actually see your product through Instagram’s photo-based medium! However, it’s rising in popularity raises questions on how we should be using Instagram for its effectiveness—are we making the right decisions when it comes to our Instagram account? How does a business Instagram account differ from a personal Instagram account? How do we find the right audience, and how do we get them to engage in the content we create? That’s where Tasha Meys and Viv Conway come in! They’re the co-founders and curator at Ace The Gram, an amazing agency that helps business owners and aspiring influencers grow and monetize their Instagram accounts for marketing related reasons. Today, I have them both on the show to talk to me about all things Instagram—the best tips on growing your follower list, how to get influencers to work with your brand, and what you should be doing in order to maximize your consistency, and your content. Let’s get started! IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN: How Tasha and Viv can help you build a bigger audience! Through things like their Facebook group centered in Instagram growth and engagement, one on one coaching, and their monthly subscription called “InstaCircle”, Tasha and Viv can help business owners of any kind to reach out towards the potential that is Instagram, and help you harness the power of social media for your business growth! Tasha and Viv talk about how to build a larger audience, stating that it starts with the intention. Whether it’s getting more sales or getting more traffic to the website, your intention is your starting point. That determines the key content that you should be posting, and from there, it’s all about optimizing your profile before you start using growth techniques to bring people to your page. Optimizing means making sure that your handle is easy to read and find, that your biography is clear of the things you want to be telling the audience, and the links in your biography go back to your website, or landing page. Tasha and Viv talk to us about the best techniques for getting more sales via Instagram, stating that the thing you have to remember is that your audience always wants to know what you’re going to do for them. Your content should then try to convey the emotional result that your product can bring your audience—what can you give them in terms of value that’s above what you’re already offering them? Figure out what you can do for your audience, and then you can start making those sales. Tasha and Viv explain how often we should be posting on Instagram, and what we should be posting about. You have to know your intentions about posting before you share any kind of content—if you have a low-cost digital product, then you’ll want to be driving traffic to that product by posting 3 times a day. If you have a higher expense item, then you might be posting 1 – 5 times a day, and the content will be more focused on high-quality imagery of the product. Additionally, you want to be prioritizing the Instagram story over posting directly to your page! Tasha and Viv explain the difference between an Instagram story and an Instagram post. A post is something that is on your page forever, in your grid of photos. An Instagram story, however, is something that sticks around for 24 hours after you post it. It’s a collection of pictures and videos that show you at any moment of the ...

 The Power of Online Business Reviews | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Business owners, we know the number one thing that can make or break our business isn’t in our hands, but the hands of our customers. That’s right—reviews. Reviews can define your business before you get a chance to, and making sure that you’re tapped into the conversation that happens around your services, your staff, and the experiences that people have working with you is important as you progress as a business owner, and marketer. However, running a business is a hard job already, leaving you minimal free time to keep yourself in the know in regards to things like this. How do we make sure that we’ve got our eyes on the prize, while also maintaining a business we know we can be proud of? That’s where Jennifer Crawford comes in! The founder of Social Media Rescue—an agency that handles social media management, social media strategies, and online customer services—Jennifer is all knowing in the ways of maintaining a strong presence online, and monitoring reviews for your business—good and bad—that’ll help keep your online reputation at a happy place for everyone! Today, Jennifer and I talk about how her agency came about, what she can do for small businesses, and how reviews can affect your business in the long run. Let’s get started! IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:     How this business came to be! Jennifer explains that previously, she gave advice to friends over cups of coffee who ran businesses on things like social media, and how to maintain an online presence. After doing it for so long, her friends encouraged her to start her own agency, stating that they’d pay her to handle their social media for their business instead of doing it themselves. From there, the agency was born, and now Jennifer helps small and medium-sized business owners with their social media management! Jennifer also explains where the name of her agency comes from, and why she chose the word “rescue”. She knows that small businesses need social media accounts to get the word out about their amazing products, but small business owners don’t work a normal schedule. They often have long days and long shifts, and their free time doesn’t accommodate learning how to control various social media accounts. Therefore, she feels like she’s “rescuing” people from their social media stress, and giving them the attention they cannot to things that still matter! Jennifer talks to us about what online customer service entails, explaining that it’s important to pay attention to what people are saying about your business online—not only on social media but on review sites as well. Being responsive to it helps you engage with your customer base, considering that reviews often lie on either side of the extreme—people will either praise your business for a job well done, or they’ll leave a negative review that’s intended for your eyes, as the business owner. They want to get your attention for you to realize something, and in the replies of a review, it’s rare that you see the business in question involved. According to Jennifer, that’s a missed opportunity to connect with your happy customers and to also remedy a situation that’s caused a customer to be unhappy, as well. Jennifer explains what good customer service can mean, explaining that even the most unhappy clients have the potential to become your biggest cheerleaders! If you’re quick to address and correct the problems that people might be having, you’re giving them a chance to do their experience over, and in the end, those people could end up being your most loyal customers based on how well they were treated, and the fact that their complaints were taken seriously and fixed quickly! Jennifer explains to us how she tracks all this information, explaining where the social media management part of he...

 How to Rank Your Website on Google | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

One of the most integral parts of the digital marketing game is SEO or search engine optimization. Making sure that you have what you need in order to rank among the best of the best when someone searches for your specialty is crucial for your long-term—and short-term—success. However, there’s a lot of noise in the digital marketing sphere on how to get SEO, how quickly it can be done, and how successful you can be with the amount of money you have to budget. It’s a never-ending conversation, but truthfully, there’s only a handful of answers that will get you to the right place, and this week, we have just the person to give you everything you need to go about getting started in SEO. Jeff Hall is the CEO of Overflow Cafe, an SEO agency that works with small businesses that are just getting their feet wet in the world of SEO! It’s great for beginners, Jeff says, and today, he and I talk about what sort of things you can expect when you work with their agency, as well as some amazing tips and tricks on what to do and what you should be looking for when you’re just starting out. Let’s get started! IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN: How Jeff got started! He founded this company in 1995 and aims it towards people who are working with small businesses, and entrepreneurs. Overall, they’ve invested a lot of time, effort, and money into automating as much of what they do as possible! For their services, they charge a low price of $29 a month to make it affordable for these small demographics they aim for, and Jeff states that it works well! Jeff tells us what his company doesn’t do, and what they do help businesses with, to give us an idea of what you can expect when you collaborate with his team. Firstly, they don’t build websites, and they won’t write content for you. That means no blog posts, or about pages—since that’s where 90% of your monthly fee comes from in terms of SEO payments, they make their extremely affordable by letting you write your own content, or allowing you to outsource content from other places. On the other side of the conversation, they provide you with unlimited audits! You can regularly check on how your business is doing, what you could be doing better, and what’s going exceedingly well! You also get unlimited keyword suggestions and various ways to track your rankings across search engines. Lastly, you’ll also get a supply of quality backlinks every month to build up traffic and high-quality leads! Jeff talks to us about what may hold people back from success, stating that an issue he’s seen before revolves around people who don’t want to write content with keywords. Their most successful clients are local businesses and small businesses, and for them, the formula is very straightforward since their passionate about what they want to do—ergo, producing content is easy! Some people aren’t good at writing, for example, but they can use other forms of media—like videos—and transcribe them for awesome pieces of content just the same. Overall, the goal of this practice is to take the guesswork out of anything you do in business—you want to know what you’re getting into, and what you can do with the things you produce. Jeff talks to us about long tell keywords, which are specific keywords that people can use to rank at high levels in small ponds in the digital marketing world. Jeff explains that he tells people within the first week of them signing up how important these keywords are, and yet, he’s faced with more than 50% of people who will try to go for something vague instead. You need to listen to the agency or company you hire about what you should do! Long tell keywords might not give you as much traffic, but they’ll give you a chance to make actual money, which is important when you’re running a business. Jeff also reminds us that SEO is a long game! Set your mind, heart,

 Advertise Your Business on Facebook | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Back in the day, advertising through Facebook seemed to be so much easier. You could boost posts, launch campaigns, and find success without much trouble. Nowadays, advertising through Facebook is just so much more complicated! There are so many things to learn; new prices, new tools, and new strategies. Thankfully, Facebook advertising expert Mojca Mars is here to give us some tips and pointers on this week’s podcast! Super Spicy Media: Founded by Facebook advertising expert Mojca Mars, Super Spicy Media specializes in helping large businesses to create multi-level strategies for generating quality leads through Facebook advertising. She also offers her services to small business owners in the form of educational seminars centered around successfully generating leads and sales. IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN: Who Mojca is and what she does. Mojca talks about her services and specialties when it comes to Facebook advertising, and the help and resources that she offers to businesses both big and small. Entry costs and what to expect when you want to launch facebook ads. Facebook is a powerful way to generate traffic and leads, and back in the day, it was easy. Now, there are so many new features and tools and new things to learn. It’s important to know how you’re going to collect those leads and gain momentum; you have to have a funnel! Tactics for collecting leads through Facebook ads. Lead magnets are so important for generating clicks and leads. Don’t have a landing page? That’s fine! You can use popular content or blog posts to draw people in and gather their information through pop-ups right there on Facebook. Mojca explains the best way to draw people in without ever leaving the website.   How to find the perfect audience. Mojca tells us about the great success she’s seen in both retargeting and finding look-alike audiences. Having trouble expanding your reach? Facebook will help you find the perfect match by analyzing your existing audience and creating a whole new one for you based on the one you already have! Mojca’s three-step funnel to avoid failure in Facebook advertising. Mojca gives us three of her most essential tips for successful advertising. She advises us to advertise to cold audiences for traffic, creates lead ads for lead magnets, and offer a product to our audiences. LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Super Spicy Media The Science of Facebook Ads Zapier Facebook * Instagram Twitter Mojca and I cover a lot of ground on how to generate quality leads through Facebook advertising, so you don’t want to miss out– especially if you’re ready to start expanding your reach through social media!

 Google Adwords Paid Search Marketing | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

When it comes to digital marketing, one of the most important pieces of the puzzle revolves around paid advertisements and pay-per-click campaigns. Being able to use something as powerful as Google Ads to bring people to your website for success and an influx of clients is a resource that requires a lot of fine tuning and understanding, and understanding the way that paid search works is a necessity when it comes to success with landing pages, conversions, and traffic. But, if you’ve never dabbled in the world of Google Ads, it might be hard to start and sort through what’s necessary, and what’s filler. That’s where Amy Hebdon comes in! Her amazing team at Paid Search Magic works hard to not only help their clients with Google Ads, paid searching, and audits of their accounts, but also teaches fellow digital marketers better ways to utilize paid search and Google Ads to get better results with their clients. Together, Amy and I talk about what her company does, how important audits are, and pitfalls to avoid in your paid search progress to ensure the best possible endgame results! Let’s get started! IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN: How Paid Search Magic can not only help their own clients but fellow marketers as well! Amy explains that, right now, they offer one on one coaching to help digital marketers build better offers, better management, and better client management in order to maximize the efficiency of their own process with clients! Amy explains that there needs to be thought and strategy when it comes to putting out ads and that the act and story of people putting out one advertisement that built the success of their business is very few and far between. You need to know what you’re doing to see success! Additionally, Amy also explains the learning curve to Google Ads, saying that there’s a lot of nuances to understand and master when it comes to using it successfully. Amy explains the process of auditing a PPC account, telling us how important it is to look at how your account is running (not just new things). When you have everything working appropriately, you can add more to your account and try new campaigns and strategies, and that’s how performance can improve. However, when things are mislabelled, they can give you wrong data, and it’s hard to right that wrong. Being able to listen to your account to see what’s actually happening helps to improve the overall performance. Amy states that it is possible to audit your own account! Plenty of people also offer free audits, but when you go into processes like this, you need to know what your objectives are and why. There has to be a sense of truth about what’s happening in your account, and having a good understanding of where your opportunities are and what you might want to change can help your business in the long run. Amy tells us how important is it to spend time auditing rather than worrying about the next big thing. In a metaphor, Amy details that the structure of your business is like the engine, and the things you can add on to make things seemingly better is just like adding gas to the car. However, if you never check the engine and instead keep filling the car with gas, the car will ultimately break down. You can try as many new strategies as you’d like, but if you’re missing huge factors of how your account is set up, you’re draining money in the end. In what she calls “the process of discovery”, Amy talks about how every situation for an audit is different. Some accounts have room for improvement and they’re doing well, while others have a labeling problem, which can lead them to a bad business place. The process of auditing is being able to shine a light on these issues is good, especially since a lot of things that aren’t working are due to t...

 The Power of Podcasting | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

It’s easy to see that, in the past couple of years, podcasts have become more and more prevalent in the world of business and digital marketing. With the shift from offline to technological, having a way to reach the masses that exist in your area of expertise and interest is a necessity, and podcasts are—very clearly—one of the best ways to do so. However, if you’ve never been on a podcast before and have a want and need to get into the game, finding a good place to start can be a little overwhelming. With so many podcasts floating around in the internet sphere, how do we know where to start, and which podcasts are the best fit for us? That’s where Andrew Allemann comes in. The founder of Podcast Guests—an online directory of people that are willing to be guests on podcasts that match their area of expertise and qualifications—Andrew has found a way to connect people with ease, and for free, too! This week, Andrew and I talk about the importance of podcasts, how his website works, and what you should do if you’re looking to get into making your own podcast, or trying to be a guest to others. Let’s get started! IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN: Where Andrew got the idea for his podcast! He was running his own podcast, and after 50 episodes, Andrew realized he was repeatedly searching through his Rolodex of contacts to get guests. He needed a broader look and to get different people for the show, and while there’s a lot of services out there that can help, they can be expensive. So, Andrew wanted to create something that was more a platform, and Podcast Guests was created! How it works when you sign up for Podcast Guests. Weekly, Andrew sends out a letter to over 6,000 people featuring podcasts that are looking for guests and what their qualifications are. If you need those qualifications, you simply click a link, full out a form, and the information is sent to the host! It’s really that easy! Andrew also tells us about the paid version of his website, explaining that it makes it easier for people to find you by uploading you into a directory of guests. That way, hosts can come to you, and not the other way around. Which is better if you’re just starting out, hosting or being a guest. Andrew definitely encourages people to be a guest first, because it’ll help you understand if podcasting is something you want to do in the long term. You’re making a commitment not only to yourself but to your listeners as well, so being a guest for a while lets you understand and create your style, what you think works and your niche. Then, if you find that you excel at it, you should look into starting a podcast of your own! How to host a podcast. Andrew explains that, honestly, it’s easier than most people think! You want to talk about your area of expertise, and a podcast is a lot easier to manage than a radio show, for example. It’s lower risk, it’s not live and audio can be edited to erase any mistakes or awkward moments, and there’s a smaller audience that hears you, making it less nerve-wracking than being in front of live people. Andrew also explains that podcasting is the perfect medium to get more comfortable with public speaking and interview styles. What you should do in order to get accepted onto a podcast! Andrew explains that you should make it as easy as possible to have the podcaster on the show and make the interview even easier. Additionally, you should be using what’s called a “one sheet”, which is basically a pitch about yourself. It explains what your expertise is, why you’re qualified, specific topics you can talk about, and example questions the host can ask you! Andrew also explains that you should talk about what you can do for them in terms of expanding their audience, and how you can make it grow larger with your pres...

 Benefits of A Business Plan | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

When you’re a business owner, the most important thing you can do before anything else is making sure that all of your metaphorical ducks are in a row. It requires a lot of planning, teamwork, and relationship building between you, the owner, and your staff to really make sure that everything is in place to run smoothly and successfully before things start to take off and gain traction. However, it’s surprising how hard that can be for some people—it’s about not knowing where to start with their business plan, and being unsure of the right way to get themselves settled before they’re spending money they don’t have. That’s where David Brown comes in. Better known as the Business Plan Answer Man, David Brown is a professional business planner who helps entrepreneurs and small business owners create business plans based on methods he’s used in the past. By side skirting around the trial and error process, David brings people success by helping them build a solid foundation, and today, he shares some of that amazing wisdom with us. Let’s get started! IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN: How David got started in this business! He’d been working for an insurance company for years, and an assignment that involved the employees to write up a business plan had a few people in a frenzy. Going to David for help, their issues were quickly resolved, and after telling him that he should do it professionally, he took their advice and took a leap! Now, David works as a business plan professional, walking people through the process and telling them how to make the best business plan. David explains the hardest part for most people when it comes to business plans, stating that they don’t know where they need to start when it comes to crafting one. David’s been in that position, so he knows how to steer people in the right direction, and understands that sometimes, doing a copious amount of research harms rather than helps. Since writing his first book—From the Bottom Up The Ultimate Guide for Business Planning to Profitability—David has learned more about the process, and is working on releasing the second edition very soon! David explains his process a bit, stating that a business plan starts with the key components—a mission, and a vision. You want to know what your values are, who’s on your team, who is your management, and who are your advisors. On the other side, you also want to look at your marketing to see if you have a viable product. In this process, you’re figuring out who your market is, and who your ideal customer is. David also explains that you need a plan to market your business (because the people helping you want to know how they’ll get paid back), and you need a 3-year projection of your financials to see how you can turn a profit and be successful. It’s about asking yourself what kind of money has to be spent at a minimum for you to do your business. David then goes onto explain that it’s important to share this information with his staff in order to get proper input and feedback and build something together. You need to know the number of the product you need to sell in order to put the key in the lock, so to speak, and you can’t throw money at Facebook and SEO until you have that number. So, you need to use this plan to guide you through the weeks, and you need to share this plan in order to have something to keep the business moving forward. David explains that he usually updates his business plan every year unless there’s a need for major changes. The more work they do, the more changes they make, and most of the time it’s minor adjustments (changing marketing base, changing directions, building up a referral base, etc.). David also explains the importance of looking at who your ideal ...

 Marketing and PR Strategy | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

A large part of digital and online marketing is having the right team to help you get your name out there. Building a powerful public relations strategy is imperative when you’re a small business and making sure that you stand out among the rest when attempting to start and ring in quality leads and traffic can be hard if you’re not entirely sure what you’re doing. Working in the world of PR can be tricky, and knowing who to trust to help you rise to the top of the list can be hard with credibility being a little scattered. How do we ensure that we’ve got the best PR strategy, and how do we rightfully implement it? That’s where Esther Kiss comes in. The founder of Born To Influence—a PR marketing company that specializes in working with experts and people who are building a personal brand (marketers, entrepreneurs, authors, speakers)—Esther gives us all of the best tips and tricks she’s learned over the years about perfecting your marketing strategy, and what makes the best PR marketing strategy work so well. Let’s get started! IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN: All about what Esther does with her company. By working closely with entrepreneurs, speakers, authors, consultants, marketers, and so much more, Esther helps them get more traffic and leads through publicity. With her connections, she gets them in with the media (blogs, television, podcasts, radio, newspaper, magazines, etc.), and leads them towards whatever makes sense for their business to build credibility and to build leads and sales. Esther explains why having a good PR strategy is important for more traffic and leads. Depending on where you’re at in your business, you might have different goals for your publicity campaign, and Esther gives us an amazing example of a client she worked with that booked 80 shows over the span of 11 months to promote his book! For every podcast interview he completed, he’d offer a free 50 book give away to audience listeners. Then, when people read the book, they wanted help with the implementation of the method, so they’d sign up for his paid membership! That’s where the revenue comes from. Esther also explains that PR is important to carry on through months, and not just a one-time thing. If you’re planning a slew of interviews, much like the previously mentioned the client, you want to make sure that you have 3 – 4 months to let leads come in successfully, especially with bigger shows. You need to make sure that you leave enough time for the marketing to start gathering those pre-orders and interactions before the service is available, and the same can be said for a product launch or a live event with a deadline. You need to be building momentum continually. Esther then explains what to do if you’re a small business owner that can’t afford a publicist. Can you do your own PR strategy? Yes, of course, you can! You can always benefit from publicity no matter where you are, even if you’re just getting started and you don’t have any clients yet. How are you going to get clients if you don’t have traction is the real question, and Esther encourages people to reach out—learn how to pitch, how to develop relationships with members of the media. Once you know these things, and once you feel like you have a story that would contribute to that audience, pitch yourself and recommend that you do an interview! Esther tells us what to do when people doubt the usefulness of media logos on your website, claiming it’s just for vanity. She gives us an example of a client who had media logos on their website, and because of them, they gained a client. It psychologically works on people even if you don’t realize it. Esther also explains that a lot of times, people tend to release a paid press release when they want a quick win...

 Facebook Ads for Ecommerce | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Growing and reaching out to your audiences can be a tricky feat for e-commerce business owners. There are so many difficult decisions! What platforms should you use? How much should you be spending on your ad campaigns? How do you scale your ads? If you’re scratching your head and asking these questions, Facebook ads expert Alexander Fedotoff has your answers! The AF Media Agency: Founded by Alex Fedotoff, the AF Media Agency is changing the game when it comes to Facebook advertisements. Unlike the other guys who focus on ever-changing tactics, Alex prides himself on his extensive knowledge of the Conversion process and drawing high-paying, repeat buyers to your ads! IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN: Who Alex is and what he does. Alex talks about his services, the clients that he aids, and his masterful knowledge of the advertising scene. Alex helps e-commerce businesses to expand both their profits and their audiences through Facebook advertisements! The foundation for building a good e-commerce business. “It all starts with a general, good understanding of your business and your business model,” Alex tells us. Knowing your margins, your budgets, and what model works for you is the key to your expansion. How to scale your Facebook advertisements. It’s not enough to acquire new customers; you have to know how to scale your ads, too! With so many different tools and models at your disposal, Alex explains, it’s important to take a look at your business and do some research on your potential audiences! How to budget for your ads. You have to know what you’re willing to spend and where when it comes to running ad campaigns. Alex provides insight on how to choose what ads to spend the big bucks on, and how to make sure that your money is being well-spent. LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE AF Media Agency Facebook Ads Rockstars LinkedIn Facebook Email Alexander and I cover a lot of ground on how to optimize your Facebook advertising experience, so you don’t want to miss out– especially if you’re ready to start expanding your e-commerce business!

 How to Develop a Growth Mindset | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Getting into the field of digital marketing is no joke—the number of things you need to be on top of every day while maintaining a sense of calm and sanity can be challenging for those who get overwhelmed easily. That’s where having the right business mindset comes in, and being able to look at those fears and worries without letting them control you is important, and it can be done! Being self-aware is just part of the process—reaching out and getting help with your expertise as a business owner will help you tenfold in the end, and I know just the person to do it. My longtime friend Jim Palmer joins me on the podcast this week! An operator of his own small business coaching company The Dream Business Coach, as well as hosting events under Dream Business Academy, Jim has been in the digital marketing game for 18 years! This week, he talks to us about the importance of your mindset, how you can go about overcoming the most difficult obstacles, and the best way to get yourself motivated for your big plans. Let’s get started! IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN: Jim tells us what he’s all about! With 18 years of digital marketing experience under his belt, Jim has made quite a successful name for himself. Among his successes is his Dream Business Coaching Program, the Dream Business Academy, and a team of 13 virtual assistants that run no hassle newsletters, concierge print and mail, a custom article generator, and success advantage publishing! Jim talks to us about the top issues that small business owners have with the mindset, stating that the most discussed issue lies with money. People often think that there’s a limited supply of money and that they shouldn’t be spending what they don’t have on things that will help them increase cash flow and overall success. Secondly, Jim explains, are people who think too much about what other people will think of them, and what they’ll say about them. Since digital marketing requires putting yourself out there, people worry about putting their stake in the ground and stating “this is who I am, this is why I’m awesome, and this is why I’m the best”. By making that statement, people often get worried about not living up to what they’ve said about themselves, and they don’t aim as high as they should be aiming with their digital marketing. You can’t build a dream business that way! Jim explains how you can get out of that mindset, explaining that the most important thing is to get help. You cannot diagnose yourself, or fix yourself in this area—you need someone to push and help you along. You can overcome your inner demons and do well, it’s just a decision that you have to make! To help your mind get past these mantras, you can and should choose to be judged on the value of the content and the information of the services that you’re providing, and not the imperfect way that you’re providing it. No one is perfect, of course, but you can do the best at what you specifically excel at! All things you have to do as a digital marketer require you to step out into the limelight and Jim explains a good saying that he was taught a few years back. The higher up the flagpole you go (the more success you have), the more your behind hangs out. And people will poke fun at you, but it’s okay because the view is much better up there. Most of the people who have time to poke fun, criticize, and call out your mistakes are the people who clearly don’t have anything going on in their own life. Don’t listen to them, anyways! Jim talks to me about how people can get over their aversion to adspend, and investing any money in outside affairs. Most people think that they don’t have the money to spend on something like that, but when you’re in the digital marketing space and you’re doing things like paid traf...

 Why Content is Important for SEO | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Digital marketing is, as always, changing and evolving with the way that Google adjusts their own algorithm. Because of those changing ways, SEO—or search engine optimization—is also in a loop of twists and turns, and learning all there is to know about SEO can be overwhelming for someone who’s just beginning to dip their toes into that side of marketing. How can we make it easier to understand the basics while also contemplating what will change in the future, and working around the new ways that Google is handling search results? That’s where Deepak Shukla comes in. An SEO expert and founder of Pearl Lemon, Deepak gives us all of his amazing tips and tricks on how to get started with SEO, where the future of SEO is headed, and what pitfalls to avoid when beginning your journey with ranking. He also tells us about the future of searching, telling us his best ways to prepare your business—and website—for mobile devices. Let’s get started! IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN: * How Deepak got his business, Pearl Lemon, started! They started as a full-service marketing agency and slowly begun to remove services in order to focus solely on SEO. It’s always been their background, and Deepak assures us that it’s better to specialize, so they made SEO their main focus! By that, it means that they don’t really offer help with things like Facebook ads, or LinkedIn—they focus and will provide help with SEO. * Deepak then tells us the fundamentals of ranking competitively and growing an audience. It starts with having excellent content! The issue people seem to have, however, is knowing the best ways to spread that content, and Deepak assures us that SEO is the best route that people should choose to go. Deepak also explains that his company doesn’t write content for people most of the time—if people truly can’t write their own content or find a provider to do it for you, then they’ll write a few pieces and build an outreach campaign around it. * In terms of writing shorter blog posts every week, or biweekly (or even once a month) blog posts that are longer and immersive, Deepak advises people to do what people think they’ll be more consistent with. If you can write good, quality content that’s shorter in length, but can be posted every week, it’s preferable over a longer form of content that isn’t as good, and won’t get posted on time. Work to your strengths! * Deepak also gives us some advice that 90% of businesses don’t even think about. When writing content, first look up your competitors. Then, make a spreadsheet, and look through the first 3 pages for their branded keyword terms. By doing this, you’re getting an edge up on what your competition is writing about. Additionally, make sure you have some level of syndication set up, so the content you write is being shared with relevant platforms. This leads to your blog getting indexed faster! * How important are social signals? Deepak explains that they’re definitely part of the puzzle, and the more competitive of a space you’re in, the more important every factor becomes. Locally, it’s not as much of a big deal, but as the curve of ability or competition goes up, the importance of social elements goes up as well. * Deepak discusses the recent shift of people searching for something on Google, and Google displaying a rich content piece instead of providing just a list of websites, which affects the clickthrough rate. In terms of the future of SEO, Deepak assures is that this method is still considered SEO. The content that’s displayed is chosen by Google’s decision to serve the best content to the users. We simply need to adapt in light of that—SEO is still what you know it as. * Deepak also assures us that this hasn’t diminished the value of SEO,

 Power of Facebook Messenger Marketing | File Type: audio/mpeg | Duration: Unknown

Facebook plays an integral part of our digital marketing experience, and being able to use what’s arguably the most powerful and most popular social media platform to gain an audience for our business is an incredible opportunity! For business owners who’ve used the power of Facebook before, there’s also a large chance you’ve heard of the popular Facebook messenger marketing software, ManyChat! With messenger marketing at the forefront, it’s important to think about where these programs will take us in the future, how we should be using them effectively, and the sort of things we can look forward to with our audiences, and the connections we make. Facebook Messenger Marketing: This week, we’re lucky enough to have the founder and CEO of ManyChat visit us this week, Mikael Yang! Since starting ManyChat, Mikael has found a lot of success and believes that messenger marketing is something we’ll need to keep an eye on over the next 5 – 7 years. He tells us about how ManyChat got started, the things that automated systems can help us with, and what to do when people start cheating the system. Let’s get started! IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN: * How ManyChat got started! Mikael started the company in 2015 with his co-founder, though previously they were focused on other projects and startups, mostly in eCommerce or in the consumer ad space. Their projects taught them how to assemble a team, and how to think about products—afterwards, Mikael says that he thinks they’ve made all the mistakes a technology company can make through previous trial and error. Though Mikael says they still can learn, they’re happy that ManyChat is in a good place right now. * For those who are unfamiliar, Mikael explains what ManyChat is! It’s a messenger marketing platform that helps you as a business grows by using Facebook messenger for marketing, sales, and support. With ManyChat, your engagement rate is 10 times higher on everything that you do—open rates are at 80%, compared to 22% with email marketing, and click-through rates are at 20 – 30%, compared to 1 – 2% from email marketing. * Mikael tells us the origin story of ManyChat, explaining what inspired him to create it. They started the company when Telegram Messenger first opened, which was a service that worked in the same way as the Facebook messenger, or Whatsapp. Telegram Messenger was one of the first western messengers to open up their API’s—meaning, they became an open platform for other developers to build on top of, and it allowed the automation of chat for businesses! With that, Mikael decided that, if they made it super easy for a marketer to get subscribers and connect with their audience, their target audience will be expansive. And right he was! * From there, Mikael explains that he created the notion of a broadcasting bot, which is meant to send messages through updates, sort of like a newsletter. That idea gained exponential growth very quickly, due to the fact that every bot was branded with ManyChat. From there, more and more people started using the platform, as well as subscribing to the service. They noticed they could do so much more with it, and that they could automate experiences and build things inside messenger. The engagements numbers were very high, like nothing they had experienced before, and that’s when they realized that messenger marketing was the future. * Mikael explains that they aren’t building bots, nor are they a live chat platform. He believes that those things are apart of the new discipline called messenger marketing and that it’ll be at the forefront of digital marketing over the next few years. After doing some research and investigating, they found that it’s important to mix automated experiences with human manual responses,

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